The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (10 page)

Half the vampires in the room snarled in protest now.

“Can you work together, or do we all die?”

“We can take them, boss,” Raoul growled.

Riley scowled at him. “Not if you can’t control yourself! Not if you can’t cooperate with every single person in this room.
Anyone you take out”—his toe nudged the ashes again—“might be the one who could have kept you alive. Every one of your coven
that you kill is like handing our enemies a gift.
Here
, you’re saying,
take me down!
”

Kristie and Raoul exchanged a glance as if they were seeing each other for the first time. Others did the same. The word
coven
was not unfamiliar, but none of us had applied it to our group before. We were a coven.

“Let me tell you about our enemies,” Riley said, and all eyes locked on his face. “They are a much older coven than we are.
They’ve been around for hundreds of years, and they’ve survived that long for a reason. They are crafty and they are skilled
and they are coming to retake Seattle with confidence—because they’ve heard the only ones they’ll have to fight for it are
a bunch of disorganized children who will do half their work for them!”

More growls, but some were less angry than they were wary. A few of the quieter vampires, the ones Riley would have called
tamer
, looked skittish.

Riley noticed that, too. “This is how they see us, but that’s because they can’t see us
together.
Together, we can
crush
them. If they could see all of us, side by side, fighting together, they would be terrified. And that’s how they’re going
to see us. Because we’re not going to wait for them to show up here and start picking us off. We’re going to ambush them.
In four days.”

Four days? I guessed our creator didn’t want to cut it too close to the deadline. I looked at the closed door again. Where
was Diego?

Others reacted to the deadline with surprise, some with fear.

“It’s the last thing they’ll expect,” Riley assured us. “All of us—
together
—waiting for them. And I’ve saved the best part for last. There are only
seven
of them.”

There was an instant of incredulous silence.

Then Raoul said,
“What?”

Kristie stared at Riley with the same disbelieving expression, and I heard muttered whispers around the room.

“Seven?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Hey,” Riley snapped. “I wasn’t joking when I said this coven is dangerous. They are wise and… devious. Underhanded. We will
have power on our side; they will have deception. If we play it their way, they
will
win. But if we take it to them on our terms…” Riley didn’t finish, he just smiled.

“Let’s go now,” Raoul urged. “Let’s get ’em out of the picture fast.” Kevin growled enthusiastically.

“Slow down, moron. Rushing into things blind isn’t going to help us win,” Riley chided him.

“Tell us everything we need to know about them,”
Kristie encouraged, shooting Raoul a superior look.

Riley hesitated, as if deciding how to word something. “All right, where to begin? I guess the first thing you need to know
is… that you don’t know everything there is to know about vampires yet. I didn’t want to overwhelm you in the beginning.”
Another pause while everyone looked confused. “You have a little bit of experience with what we call ‘talents.’ We have Fred.”

Everyone looked at Fred—or rather they tried to. I could tell from Riley’s expression that Fred did not like being singled
out. It looked like Fred had really turned up the volume on his “talent,” as Riley called it. Riley cringed and looked away
quickly. I still didn’t feel anything.

“Yes, well, there are some vampires who have gifts beyond the usual super strength and super senses. You’ve seen one aspect
in… our coven.” He was careful not to say Fred’s name again. “Gifts are rare—one in fifty, maybe—but every one is different.
There’s a huge range of gifts out there, and some of them are more powerful than others.”

I could hear a lot of murmurs now as people wondered if they might be talented. Raoul was preening like he’d already decided
he was gifted. As far as I could tell, the only one around here that was in any way special was standing next to me.

“Pay attention!” Riley commanded. “I’m not telling you this for entertainment.”

“This enemy coven,” Kristie interjected. “They’re talented. Right?”

Riley gave her an approving nod. “Exactly. I’m glad someone here can connect the dots.”

Raoul’s upper lip twitched back over his teeth.

“This coven is dangerously talented,” Riley went on, his voice dropping to a hushed whisper. “They have a mind reader.” He
examined our faces, looking to see if we got the importance of this revelation. He didn’t seem satisfied with his assessment.
“
Think
, guys! He’ll know everything in your head. If you attack, he’ll know what move you’re going to make before
you
know it. You go left, he’ll be waiting.”

There was a nervous stillness as everyone imagined this.

“This is why we’ve been so careful—me, and the one who created you.”

Kristie flinched away from Riley when he mentioned
her.
Raoul looked angrier. Nerves strained universally.

“You don’t know her name, and you don’t know what she looks like. This protects us all. If they’d stumbled across one of you
alone, they wouldn’t realize that you were connected to her, and they might have let you be. If they knew you were part of
her
coven, there would be no delay in your execution.”

That didn’t make sense to me. Didn’t the secrecy protect
her
more than it protected any of us? Riley hurried on before we had too long to examine his statement.

“Of course, it doesn’t matter now that they’ve decided to move on Seattle. We will surprise them on their way in, and we will
annihilate them.” He whistled a single low note through his teeth. “Done. And then not only is the city all ours, other covens
will know not to mess with us. We won’t have to be so careful to cover our tracks anymore. As much blood as you want, for
everyone. Hunting every night. We’ll move right into the city, and
we will rule it
.”

The growls and snarls were like applause. Everyone was with him. Except for me. I didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. Neither
did Fred, but who knows why that was?

I was not with Riley because his promises sounded like lies. Or else my whole line of logic had been wrong. Riley said it
was only these enemies that kept us from hunting without caution or restraint. But that didn’t go along with the fact that
all other vampires must have been discreet, or humans would have known about them long ago.

I couldn’t concentrate to work it out, because
the door at the top of the stairs had not moved. Diego…

“We have to do this together, though. Today I’m going to lead you through some techniques. Fighting techniques. There’s more
to this than just scuffling around on the floor like toddlers. When it gets dark, we’ll go outside and practice. I want you
to practice hard, but keep your focus. I am not losing another member of this coven! We all need each other—every one of us.
I will not tolerate any more stupidity. If you think you don’t have to listen to me, you are wrong.” He paused for a short
second, the muscles in his face shifting into a new arrangement. “And you will learn how wrong you are when I take you to
her
”—I shuddered and felt the tremor through the room as everyone else did, too—“and hold you while she tears off your legs and
then slowly,
slowly
burns off your fingers, ears, lips, tongue, and every other superfluous appendage
one by one
.”

We’d all lost a limb, at least, and we’d all burned when we became vampires, so we could easily imagine how that would feel,
but it wasn’t the threat itself that was so terrifying. The truly scary thing was Riley’s face as he said it. His face was
not twisted in rage, the way it usually was when he was angry; it was calm and cold, smooth and beautiful, his mouth curled
at the edges into a small smile. I suddenly had
the impression that this was a new Riley. Something had changed him, hardened him, but I couldn’t imagine what could have
happened in one night to create that cruel, perfect smile.

I looked away, shivering a little, and saw as Raoul’s smile shifted to echo Riley’s. I could almost see the gears turning
in Raoul’s head. He wouldn’t kill his victims so quickly in the future.

“Now, let’s get some teams figured out so that we can work in groups,” Riley said, his face normal again. “Kristie, Raoul,
get your kids together and then divvy up the rest evenly. No fighting! Show me you can do this rationally. Prove yourselves.”

He walked away from those two, ignoring the fact that they fell almost immediately into bickering, and made an arc around
the outside edge of the room. He touched a few vampires on the shoulder as he passed, nudging them toward one of the new leaders
or the other. I didn’t realize at first that he was heading in my direction, because he took such a wide way around.

“Bree,” he said, squinting toward where I stood. It looked like this took some effort.

I felt like a block of ice. He must have smelled my trail. I was dead.

“Bree?” he said, softer now. His voice reminded me of the first time he’d talked to me. When he was
nice to me. And then even lower, “I promised Diego I’d give you a message. He said to tell you it was a ninja thing. Does
that make any sense to you?”

He still couldn’t look at me, but he was edging closer.

“Diego?” I murmured. I couldn’t help myself.

Riley smiled a tiny bit. “Can we talk?” He jerked his head toward the door. “I double-checked all the windows. The first floor
is totally dark and safe.”

I knew I wouldn’t be as safe once I walked away from Fred, but I had to hear what Diego had wanted to tell me. What had happened?
I should have stayed with him to meet Riley.

I followed Riley through the room, keeping my head down. He gave Raoul a few instructions, nodded to Kristie, and then went
up the stairs. From the corners of my eyes I saw a few people curiously watch the direction he was going.

Riley passed through the door first, and the kitchen of the home was, as he’d promised, totally black. He motioned for me
to keep following and led me through a dark hall past a few open bedroom doors, then through another door with a dead bolt.
We ended up in the garage.

“You’re brave,” he commented in a very low voice. “Or really trusting. I thought it would be more work to get you upstairs
with the sun up.”

Whoops. I should have been more skittish. Too late now. I shrugged.

“So you and Diego are pretty tight, right?” he asked, just breathing the words. Probably, if everyone were silent in the basement,
they would still be able to hear him, but it was pretty noisy down there right now.

I shrugged again. “He saved my life,” I whispered.

Riley lifted his chin, almost but not quite a nod, and appraised. Did he believe me? Did he think I still feared the day?

“He’s the best,” Riley said. “The smartest kid I’ve got.”

I nodded once.

“We had a little meeting about the situation. We agreed that we need some surveillance. Going in blind is too dangerous. He’s
the only one I trust to scout ahead.” He exhaled, almost angrily. “Wish I had two of him! Raoul’s got too short a fuse and
Kristie is too self-absorbed to get the big picture, but they’re the best I’ve got, and I’ll have to make do. Diego said you
were smart, too.”

I waited, not sure how much of our story Riley knew.

“I need your help with Fred. Wow, that kid is strong! I couldn’t even look at him tonight.”

I nodded cautiously again.

“Imagine if our enemies can’t even look at us. It will be so
easy
!”

I didn’t think Fred would like that idea, but maybe I was wrong. He didn’t seem like he cared anything for this coven of ours.
Would he want to save us? I didn’t respond to Riley.

“You spend a lot of time with him.”

I shrugged. “Nobody bothers me there. It’s not easy.”

Riley pursed his lips and nodded. “Smart, like Diego said.”

“Where is Diego?”

I shouldn’t have asked. The words just ripped out of their own accord. I waited anxiously, trying to look indifferent and
most likely failing.

“We don’t have time to waste. I sent him south the second I found out what was coming. If our enemies decide to attack early,
we need the advance warning. Diego will meet up with us when we move against them.”

I tried to imagine where Diego was now. I wished I were there with him. Maybe I could talk him out of doing Riley’s bidding
and putting himself in the line of fire in the process. But maybe not. It seemed like Diego was thick with Riley, just like
I’d worried.

“Diego wanted me to tell you something.”

My eyes snapped to his face. Too fast, too eager. Blew it again.

“Sounded like nonsense to me. He said, ‘Tell Bree I’ve got the handshake figured out. I’ll show her in four days, when we
meet up.’ I have no idea what that means. Do you?”

I tried to force a poker face. “Maybe. He did say something about needing a secret handshake. For his underwater cave. Some
kind of password. He was just kidding around, though. I’m not sure what he means now.”

Riley chuckled. “Poor Diego.”

“What?”

“I think that kid likes you a lot more than you like him.”

“Oh.” I looked away, confused. Was Diego giving me this message as a way to let me know I could trust Riley? But he hadn’t
told Riley I knew about the sun. Still, he must have trusted Riley to tell him so much, to show Riley that he cared about
me. I thought it would be wiser to keep my mouth shut, though. Too much had changed.

“Don’t write him off yet, Bree. He’s the best, like I said. Give him a chance.”

Riley was giving me romantic advice? This could not get weirder. I bobbed my head once and muttered, “Sure.”

“See if you can talk to Fred. Make sure he’s on board.”