The Reluctant Goddess (The Montgomery Chronicles Book 2) (33 page)

Some time later the door opened.

I wanted it to be Dr. Stallings, explaining why she’d locked me in her office. But those were the thoughts of a hopeful woman.
 

I was no longer Marcie Montgomery, the Pollyanna version.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-T
HREE

The best laid plans of vampires…
 

When Maddock walked through the door, I sat down on the chair I'd vacated, looked up at him and smiled.

Why the hell had I taken off the charm Nonnie had given me? Right at the moment I could use a few dozen witches, thanks very much.
 

He wasn't foaming at the mouth yet. What a pity. And if his eyes glittered in a way that made the hair at the back of my neck stand up, that might just be victory, not rabies induced madness.

"Are you trying to sire a child, Maddock? I mean, using someone else other than me?"

He entered the room and closed the door softly behind him. He didn't bother with the lock.

I think my question surprised him, but if he was discomfited by it, he hid it well. No, Maddock was as urbane and suave as always, wearing a half smile as though being undead amused him. Why shouldn't it? He was wealthy. He was powerful. He got most of what he wanted, whenever he decided he wanted it.

He wore a dark blue suit, probably from an Italian designer since he, too was Italian. I didn't know how expensive bespoke suits could get, but I'll bet his were top-of-the-line. The jacket framed his shoulders, showed off his trim waist. He'd left it unbuttoned to reveal a snowy white shirt. No tie for Niccolo. Instead, the collar was open at the neck.

"You're looking well, Marcie," he said. "I do hope you've had a chance to rest from your recent travail."

"You didn't answer me. Are you trying to become a father?"

His smile didn't dim, but it altered in character, almost as if he were humoring me.

"I know you didn't like my father,” I continued. “You were jealous of him. I'd be willing to bet that if he could have sired a child, you think yourself equally capable. How many women have you attempted to impregnate? Or has Dr. Stallings automated the process?“

I'd be willing to bet that Dr. Stallings had some vampire sperm on hand. I couldn't help but think of little wiggling spermatozoa with tiny little fangs. No self-respecting egg would stand a chance.

"I was not jealous of your father. And is
father
the correct word? Perhaps sire would be better. Other than your creation, he had nothing to do with you and had little interest.”

Perhaps that might've hurt someone else's feelings, but my mother, human that she was, had acted the same way. I had calluses on that part of my heart. Nothing Maddock could say could affect me.

I held my phone in my right hand in my pocket and I was hitting redial repeatedly. The mind meld technique wasn't working and neither was AT&T at this moment. I was on my own.

"Why be so dismissive of him?" I asked. "Isn't that exactly how you intend to treat your own offspring?"

"Any child of mine would be treated like a prince or princess."

"Oh, you mean when you weren't using him like a sippy cup?"

"No harm will come to him."

I put my finger on my chin, tilted my head a little, and smiled at him inanely.
 

"Oh, gee, why shouldn't I take the word of a master vampire? Oh, perhaps because you
are
a master vampire?" I let the smile melt off my face, still staring up at him. "Do you seriously think I'm going to believe anything you say? Have you forgotten what happened at your house?"

I wondered, later, if I said what I did simply to get his response.
 

"That interlude? I will treasure it among my fondest memories," he said.

I was transforming in front of him and the fool couldn't see it. I was dropping any resemblance to a humanoid and morphing into a geological phenomenon: Volcano Marcie.
 

All the fear I'd felt since that night puddled in the deepest part of me. Added to it was the rage at being powerless. Layered on top of that was the humiliation and shame of being used with no more care than if I were a tissue. I let it burn, using unshed tears and unfulfilled wishes as the fuel.

My hands warmed, my palms becoming so heated I wondered if they would catch on fire. I let go of the phone, placed both hands on the arms of the chair to cool them off as I watched him come closer.
 

On his order I’d been changed. By his word, my life had been altered. I would never again be human, but because of who I’d been before becoming a vampire, I would never be only a vampire, either. I was special, unique, wanted for what I could be, hated for that same reason.
 

In his arrogance, Niccolo Maddock thought himself my equal. In terms of age, I was an embryo to him, but in terms of power I was the superior being.

He sat in the chair beside me, only inches separating us. I stood, circled the chair, and walked to the door.

"I am not allowing you to leave, Marcie," he said, his smile still firmly fixed.

I had no intention of leaving, at least not yet. I just wanted to get as far away from him as I could. To do what I was going to do I needed space and room to maneuver.

I slung my purse over my shoulder and neck, pushing it to my back. My arms felt on fire, but I still wasn't ready.

"What do you want from me?" I asked. I probably surprised him with my answering smile. What startled me was the unworldly calm I felt.

I wasn't afraid.
 

I was looking into my own destruction, the same way I’d faced it in the chapel at the VRC. I'd been given a choice by a very naïve priest: choose an unknown eternity on faith or live forever as a creature of the undead. He hadn’t known, poor man, that that wasn't the true choice for me. No, my choice was to choose nothingness or an immortality as someone I couldn't imagine being.

Whatever happened from this moment on, it would be of my choosing, just like that moment in the chapel. But this one wasn't influenced by fear.
 

Whoever I was, whatever I was to become, I was still Marcie Montgomery. I deserved the chance to live and flourish without being scared out of my mind every minute of the day.
 

I wanted to love. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to explore who I was without my existence being constantly challenged and confronted.
 

This was my moment of independence. Not standing in the chapel. Not walking away from the VRC, but now.

The pain in my fingers was growing. I was filled with the most incredible euphoria. I felt radioactive and joyful at the same time.

"I'm not going to let you get me pregnant. It's not going to happen."

“I will raise you above all women," he said.
 

His fangs had descended to the halfway point. What was he going to do, drain me dry? Take me into an examination room, place me on the table and put my feet in the stirrups before he had his way with me?

Like that was going to happen.

“Did you consult the good doctor?" I asked. "Did she tell you that I've had two miscarriages? I'm not a good breeder, Maddock."

How much of that was natural and how much of it had been because of Nonnie’s interference?
 

My fingertips were burning.
 

I smiled, lifted my arms, and pointed my hands at him. He didn’t look worried. Didn’t he remember when he’d come to my window? Great. I was all for him feeling mellow at the moment. Or like a crispy critter.
 

I felt my mind open and clear, as if a giant viaduct ran through my corpus callosum. This was getting easier. Practice made perfect.
 

Emotions churned and boiled and festered and steamed, everything rising to the top. A fierce joy filled me as I released everything.
 

Maddock slammed into the wall, chair and all.
 

He struck so hard there was an H shaped indentation in the drywall where he hung for a moment before crashing to the floor.
 

Fierce yellow light blinded me. The only thing I could see was the blackness around Maddock and his neck hanging at an odd angle.
 

My ears popped. The sensation of power was overwhelming, sucking out the air in the room. I was glowing, my core a great hollow cave. I couldn’t think, could only feel. Vindication. Good over evil. Right against wrong.

In those seconds I was an angel of retribution, wings aflame with the might of creation. I could have killed him and a small part of me urged his destruction. I wanted to feel the release from the pain and fear. I wanted the fierce surge of satisfaction of seeing him disintegrate before my eyes.
 

Wind came from all four corners of the room, swirling around me. Papers and books became dust, clogging the air.
 

I was fire and air, a mixture of nature and the passion of man.
 

Maddock moved slowly, turning his head, his eyes glowing in the gray dust separating us. I felt his power push against mine and it made me smile.
 

A voice, soft and calm in the midst of the maelstrom spoke to me, cautioned constraint, before I became simply another version of Maddock. I took a breath, the first since I’d released my anger, and closed my eyes, blocking out the sight of the destruction I’d created.
 

Marcie.
 

I heard him with my mind, not my ears. I blocked him in the next instant, turned, and reached for the door behind me, escaping from the evidence of my own power.

I ran, racing through the serpentine hallways like a leaf in a gale. Propelled by fear, maybe magic, and certainly desperation, I headed for the reception area and Mike.
 

No one was in the waiting room but Mike, standing like a totem with his back to the wall, arms folded over a massive chest.

I’d never been so glad to see anyone in my life.
 

“Run!”
 

Never assume that Hollywood or even the publishing industry was right about vampires. Somebody had listed a bunch of things about vampires and everybody else just jumped on the bandwagon, when none of that crap is true. The one thing they’d gotten right was a vampire’s amazing powers of recuperation.
 

Maddock was right behind me, looking spooky with the bone sticking out of his neck.
 

He spread his arms wide, a gesture that should have looked ridiculous in his expensive Italian suit, but managed to look malevolent. He flew toward me, but he wasn’t aiming for me.
 

Instead, he struck Mike.
 

Maddock wasn’t wearing a cape, but I could swear I saw one. The air blurred as he folded himself over my bodyguard, a terrific feat since Mike was a big, burly guy.
 

I screamed, a high pitched wail that sounded like a siren.
 

Mike crumpled to the ground with Maddock still on him. The wall was suddenly sprayed with crimson streaks as Mike became a vampire’s early meal. I screamed again as I rushed Maddock, pounding on his back with my fists.

I had no reserves left, so I couldn’t zap him, but I wasn’t just going to stand there and let him eat Mike.
 

I’d never seen so much blood.
 

In the next instant, the door opened. Charlie flew past me, a blur of beige fur and lips pulled back to reveal a mouthful of scary looking teeth. I thought he was surrounded by a blue cloud, an impression lasting only a second before it vanished.
 

Maddock moved to backhand him, but Charlie had opened his mouth, latched onto Maddock’s forearm seconds before the vampire shook him free.
 

The room was suddenly flooded with men dressed in black tactical armor. At least I thought that was what it was called. They didn't have SWAT emblazoned on their backs in white, but everything else was just like you might see in a riot, down to the helmets strapped to their chins and clear plastic shields over their faces.
 

They weren’t carrying guns. Instead, each of them wore an emblem on their chest, one that reminded me of Nonnie’s pendant. Something else jogged my memory as they moved toward Maddock, sprinkling sparkling dust into a circle.
 

I slid to the floor, not because I thought it was safer there, but because my knees would suddenly not support me.

Charlie was suddenly at my side, his tongue bathing my cheek. I weakly wrapped my arm around his neck, gathering him close. I didn’t know who was protecting whom at this point.
 

Maddock took two steps back from Mike, throwing his hands up in a gesture of surrender. The effect was marred by the blood dripping from his lips.
 

I really wanted to zap him again, but I didn’t have the energy.