The Lair (46 page)

Roberto spins away before Sebastian can skewer him, and I think he’s going for the katana. But he doesn’t. He jumps, flipping in midair and lands beside me. I’m not fast enough. Not vampire enough, I guess. My reflexes aren’t as quick as either of theirs, because before my eyes can even process what has happened, Roberto has yanked out my dagger and has pressed it to the underside of my jaw.

His voice is hot and cloying in my ear. “Better drop the sword, love.”

I toss it aside, toward Sebastian. He still has his dagger, obviously, but I figure another sword won’t hurt his chances.

“I bet you’re wondering”—Roberto reaches up to tuck a strand of my hair back to bare my neck—“how I’m so much faster and smarter than you. Aren’t you?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. Which is just as well, since I’m not sure I could talk past the bile in my mouth. “You’ve been living off Ticks and wild animals because Sebastian lives like some sort of cave person. Me, I’ve been dining on the smartest, most content humans in the country. My dear, you really should have higher standards when it comes to picking your boyfriends.”

“It’s not a question of standards,” I growl. “If one of you is repulsive.”

The tip of the dagger bites into the tender skin of my neck and I twitch away from it. I think I’ve pissed him off, but then he chuckles. “Too late now, anyway. If you’d come to me earlier, I could have shown you a good time. Of course I’d still kill you right about now anyway, so I don’t suppose it matters much.”

Sebastian just stands there, eyeing Roberto and me. He’s moved the dagger from palm to palm a couple of times. He’s trying to think it through, figure out how to get me out of this.

Roberto sees it, too, and presses the blade a little deeper. “Do you want her back?” he asks. “Drop the dagger or I’ll kill her. Let me end this now and I’ll let her walk.”

Sebastian eyes both of us, then he gives a little shrug and says, “I never intended for her to walk out of here, anyway. Go ahead and get her out of the way and you and I can keep at it. This time you won’t have the advantage of the longer blade. Good luck with that.”

I suck in a breath at Sebastian’s words. I try to meet his gaze, but he’s not even glancing at me. It’s like I’m not even here.

Like I don’t exist. I feel a wash of cold fury. I’ve spent too much of my life with people not seeing me as I really am. That’s not how I’m going to die.

Roberto pulls the dagger away from my neck long enough to glance down at the handle. “Hmm . . . You picked Bagnoli’s,” he says in an offhand voice. “Interesting choice. I would have gone with one of the Spanish blades myself.”

Before he can press the blade back to my throat, I drop down, spinning out of his grasp. I pull two wooden stakes out of my pockets as I kick out his legs. He goes down. I pounce before he even hits the ground. The stake goes all the way through his chest and sinks into the ground beneath him.

I leap back before he can move. Even staked through the heart, I know he’s still dangerous. I move quickly, using the other stakes to pin his hands to the ground as well. Only then do I stand. I grab the katana and stalk over to his body.

“You may be smarter and faster than I am. But I talk less.”

I raise the sword. I’m already swinging it down in a wide arc toward his neck when Sebastian grabs my arm.

There’s fury and battle rage in his eyes. Emotion like I’ve never seen from him before. Guess he got a dose of that vampire berserker rage, too.

He just shakes his head. “He’s mine.”

I snarl at Sebastian, driving my elbow back into his chest. The air goes out of his lungs in a whoosh, but he doesn’t release my arm. In fact, his grip tightens to the point that he’s crushing the bones of my wrist.

“I’ve hunted him for two thousand years. You don’t really think I’m going to let you kill him, do you?”

His fingertips dig the tendons in my wrist against the bone and the katana falls out of my hand. Again, I do the drop-and-kick maneuver, but Sebastian trained me and he’s ready for the move. He follows me to the ground and wrestles me beneath him. We’ve fought enough that I can tell he’s not really trying to bring me down. His heart isn’t in it—either that, or the fight with Roberto has worn him down. Even I can feel the strain of being so deep in Roberto’s territory. He braces one arm on the ground beside my head. His other forearm is pressed against my chest.

I look up into his eyes, trying to see past his bloodlust, but all I see is his need for revenge. There is nothing of the man I thought I knew. Nothing of the man I wanted him to be.

Maybe I just hoped that a person could still exist inside a bloodthirsty vampire.

I can’t imagine why I’d want to believe that.

“Tell me something, Sebastian. Would you really have let him kill me so you could have your revenge?”

Something flickers in his eyes. “You’re fully vampire now, Kit. Haven’t you figured that out? You’re not my responsibility anymore.”

“But you would have let him kill me?”

“I would do anything to stop him. Yes.”

“And Genexome? Is it really your company? Are you really responsible for the Tick virus?”

This time there’s not even a flicker of emotion in his gaze. “Yes. I’m responsible.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” he gasps.

It isn’t a hard question. Why has he done anything? Because he thought it would help him kill Roberto.

It’s all I need to hear.

I buck against him, rolling him under me. It’s a move that would never work if he was at his full strength. If he wasn’t already exhausted. It’s a low blow. But no lower than what he’s dealt me.

Once he’s under me, I pull my arm up over my head and plunge the stake into his heart.

I do it without thinking about it. Without looking at him. Because it’s the only way I can manage to do what needs to be done.

I hear him gasp in surprise, but I ignore it.

I hop up, adrenaline, vampire berserker rage, whatever it is, I’m shaking so badly I can barely hold the sword in my hand as I stalk over to where Roberto still lays, pinned to the ground. He stares up at me, shock writ clearly on his face. I swing the sword up, but I’m shaking too badly.

Tears are pouring down my cheeks and when I feel a hand on mine, I cry out in alarm and whirl around sword at the ready. But it’s Carter.

I drop the sword and scramble away. Because I almost just killed my friend. And because I just killed a man I thought was my friend.

“Let me,” Carter says. He’s holding out his hands, palm out in a gesture of surrender. I nod mutely and back away.

I don’t look as he slices Roberto’s head off. I’ve had enough of death for now.

Instead I move over to Sebastian, who is still alive. Barely. And gasping for breath. Suddenly, my fury, my rage, is gone. Not vanished, but fading. I look down at Sebastian, at the stake that I’ve driven through his heart, and something inside of me clenches.

I lean over him. “Is there really a cure?”

He’s looking back at me, his expression strangely soft in a way it never has been. Death has softened him. He nods. “At Genexome. The underground storage. If Sabrina hasn’t taken it yet.”

“Sabrina?” I gasp. So, that’s what he traded my freedom for. In exchange for letting me go, he told Sabrina that there was a cure and where it was hidden. It was a risky move on his part. Why bring me to Sabrina in the first place? Why trade his most valuable asset for my freedom? Had he really wanted me to have a choice? Or had he been setting us both up?

Whatever his intentions might have been, he came on this suicide mission knowing that at least one person on the outside knew the location of the cure.

He reaches one trembling hand up to my face and brushes back a lock of my newly short hair. He holds onto the lock and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger, looking at it like he’s confused. “I liked it better long,” he says. A trickle of blood seeps past his lips, making them appear bright red in the dusk. Then he meets my gaze and smiles. “I always knew you had the killer instinct, Kitten.”

I choke on a sudden burst of grief that I don’t even understand. Why? Why would I be sorry that I’ve stabbed him? Why regret killing the man who has risked everyone and everything I care about to satisfy his own lust for revenge? The man who has lied to me, tricked me, and made me a killer? The man who stole the music from me? Why would I mourn him?

But he’s also the man who has given me more choices than anyone else. The man who has always respected my wishes. And who in the end, tried to do the right thing to save humanity.

My hand hovers above the stake. If I pull it out, will he survive? Will his heart start beating again, pumping out the healing powers of vampire blood?

Then Sebastian’s eyes flicker closed, and a wail of grief is torn from my chest. It’s not even out of my mouth when Carter grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me away.

“We gotta go!”

I look around, almost surprised to find myself in the town square. It’s chaos. People are running everywhere. Ticks howl and yip, but the sound is too close. They’ve breached the fence. Carter is dragging me toward a car. A way out. We have to take it now because if we don’t, someone else will. The Ticks are here. En masse. I could see three, four. Maybe as many as six. But there are far more than that. When I listen for them, I count more than twenty distinct sounds. Far more than I could handle.

I know Carter’s right. Mindlessly, I fall into step beside him. Even though my body is aching and bruised. Even though I feel as though I’ve been hit by a truck. Even though I feel as though I’m leaving a chunk of myself behind.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Mel

I am alone. In a way I never have been before. Lily is lost to us. My mother is likely dead. My father has betrayed us all.

Yes, I have Carter. He’s a friend. He will be my companion in the search for a cure for Lily. He is hers in a way that he could never be mine. Not that I ever wanted him that way. I’m not jealous of that. Not jealous of him, but maybe just a little bit of what they have between them. He will search for the cure, he will fight for her, no matter what. He loves her deeply in a way I will never be loved. Could never be loved.

In the Before—when I was just Mel—I was forever apart from that kind of thing. I was okay with that. I didn’t yearn for it. But now, now I know what I am missing. That kind of love is something I can never have. Not with another vampire. I know that berserker vampire rage too well now. It is not something to be toyed with. But I certainly cannot have that love with a human, either. It is a strain even to be with Carter.

I am very much back where I was when I first became a vampire. Only more alone. I have no one now. Not even Sebastian.

He was never a friend, but he was a companion. I briefly consider going back to Sabrina. Throwing myself and Carter on her mercy. Perhaps she would take us in. But I am still not ready to create my own empire and to herd humans like kine. I am not ready for that. Going to her will be my last resort.

So instead, I must truly learn to be alone.

**

For a long time, we don’t say anything. Carter is concentrating on driving and I’m still shaking from my final encounter with Sebastian.

At some point, I look into the backseat. And see a dog sitting there. It’s huge and fluffy and takes up most of the backseat, but it’s sitting calmly with its head resting on his paws.

“We have a dog now?” I ask, hysterical laughter threatening to bubble up in my throat.

“Yeah,” Carter says. “It belonged to Ely.”

“Who?”

Carter is silent for a second, then he says, solemnly, “Ely was a friend. I couldn’t just leave him. And I thought . . . I don’t know, maybe a dog would come in handy.”

I don’t question his use of the past tense. I know too much about past tense friends. I nod, and let it go. “Do you think Roberto was right?” I ask.

“About what?”

“About Genexome Corporation. Do you think Sebastian really started the company? Do you think he’s the one behind the Tick virus?”

Carter is silent for long enough that I think he’s not going to answer me. Then he says, “I don’t know. Everything that I personally know about Genexome, I heard from Sebastian. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

My mind is racing. If Roberto was telling the truth, then Sebastian had knowingly and willingly murdered millions. I have spent the last couple of months living with and being trained by the most evil man in history. But that is if Roberto has told me the truth. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that vampires aren’t the most trustworthy sources of information. So how do I know which Sebastian I should believe in?

Under his tutelage, I’d been capable of things I’d never thought possible. Good things, yes, because I am physically stronger and emotionally more independent than I’d ever been before, but horrible things as well.

Was this how it began? The long, horrible slide into being a true vampire. Into being a creature so selfish and self-indulgent that I was willing to kill half the world to get what I wanted?

I felt Carter’s hand on my leg. He looked at me, concerned, almost as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “I don’t know what’s true,” he said, “but I can tell you this. If there is a cure out there, we’ll find it. Whether Sebastian had it or Roberto had it, we’ll find it. We’ll find it ourselves. As for who made the virus in the first place, who knows? If I’ve learned anything from this, it’s that you can’t ever trust a vampire to tell you the truth.” A bitter laugh escapes from his lips. “You can’t trust vampires at all.”

His words pierce something deep inside of me. Yeah, he doesn’t mean them. Not like that. I guess he doesn’t really think of me as a vampire yet. But then, he doesn’t know the things I’ve done.

For a while, neither of us speaks. Carter just drives through the seemingly endless night. After a while, I’m afraid that he does realize what he’s said. That he knows how much he’s hurt me and is trying to think of how to apologize. I couldn’t stand that. I can’t hear him say that he knows I’ll be different. That he believes I’ll be able to control myself. After all, vampires aren’t the only ones who can lie.