They Come by Night (36 page)

Rául looked away. Okay, something else I’d have to talk to Adam about. I jotted that down as well.

“My dad told me sabors survived the Black Plague.” I suddenly wondered if being a sabor was why, aside from when we’d learned I was lactose intolerant, I’d never been out sick from school.

“Yes, although a number of them were slaughtered by the populace.”

“What? Why?”

“They thought those families were minions of Satan.”

“Freaking idiots.” I was running out of space on the page; I’d either need to write smaller or get a bigger notepad.

“Yes.”

And speaking of idiots…. “Rául, you were so bent out of shape when you thought Adam might have turned me. Which is really dumb, y’know. He’s too honorable for that, and since you’ve known him more than two hundred years, you shouldn’t have had to question him.”

He smiled at me. “No, I shouldn’t have.”

“So why did you?”

“It would be very easy for a vampyr to lose his or her head and turn you. You would be very easy to turn.” He wound his fingers through my hair.

“Oh, well, thank you. I think.” I looked at him thoughtfully. Once again I noted that I wasn’t bothered by his touch. Something else I’d have to ask Adam about.

“As many sabors as we have, we still can’t afford to lose even one.”

Okay, I guessed that made sense. “Do vampyrs often turn the saborese?”

“No.”

“Then why did Adam turn you?”

“It was the only way to save him, Tyrell,” Adam said.

I’d known when he entered the room, and while that wasn’t one of the questions on my list, I hoped he’d start answering some of them. No such luck. He turned his attention to Rául instead.

“Rául, the rege wishes to speak with you. Raymond will see you arrive safely at the citadel.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Rául took Adam’s hand and bowed over it, then turned to me. “Tyrell, I hope to see you again one day.”

“I’ll be here.”

“We must go,” Raymond said. “It will be dawn shortly.”

“No, it won’t. Sunrise isn’t until 6:05.”

“And how do you know that?” Raymond scowled at me. That was okay. I didn’t like him, either.

“You start hanging with vampyrs, you pay attention to stuff like that.”

He laughed, and suddenly he didn’t look like such a hardass. “Very well. I was simply endeavoring to be polite. We need to leave now because I must return here before sunrise.”

“You could have said that. And you don’t have to sleep in the garage. You’re welcome to stay on the love seat. It opens into a bed, y’know, and it will probably be a little short for you, but it has to beat the trunk of my car.”

“You’re too kind.”

“Damn straight.”

His eyes were light with amusement, and suddenly I found him likeable. Sort of.

“Go, Raymond.” Adam sounded miffed. “Rául, take care.”

And then they were gone, and I turned to Adam and tapped the paper against my palm.

“Okay, vampyr mine, I have some questions for you.”

He muttered something.

“What was that?”

“I said Raymond had better not try working his French wiles on you.”

“Huh?”

“He would do well to remember you’re mine!”

A light went on. “That’s why it doesn’t bother me when Rául touches me.”

“Excuse me? I’m not following you.”

“He’s yours too.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it. I leaned into him.

“Don’t worry about Raymond. He may be one of the good guys, but he doesn’t get to touch me.”

“Ty… I was very fortunate when the rege placed you in my arms.”

“What? When was that?”

“You were less than a day old.”

I huffed. “Why doesn’t anyone tell me stuff like that?”

“All in good time,
dragul meu
.” He kissed me, and I shivered. I figured for kisses like that I could wait forever to learn about being a sabor.

W
HEN
R
AYMOND returned from seeing Rául safely to the rege, he had enough bags of blood for Adam for a few days.

I’d need to set up a hazmat-type of container for the used bags under the sink, next to the trash and the recycling bins. There was a small hospital on the other side of Knoxville. Maybe I could slip the bags into their biowaste containers.

“What about you?”

Raymond stacked the blood on the second shelf of my fridge. “You won’t need me while Adam is here, and
mon seigneur
has requested I rejoin him at the citadel. I will return when it’s time for Adam to leave.”

“Okay.” I stared after him as he walked out the door. “Adam, what are the odds Jack Splat will send his… uh… minions back here?”

“Who?”

“De Vivar.”

“He’s not to be taken lightly.”

“Yes, master.”

He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “This is not a game, Tyrell.”

“I know. I’m sorry. So will he send his minions here?”

“You’re safe with me.”

“I didn’t ask that.”

“No, you didn’t.” He sighed. “I can’t begin to imagine what de Vivar plans to do at this point, but know this, Tyrell.” His palm was cool where it cupped my cheek. “I will never permit him to harm you.”

In spite of his words, Adam was tense.

Okay, that clinched it. After class on Monday, I was definitely going to pay a visit to Father Ian and get that holy water.

A
DAM STAYED with me for the next few nights. We slept away the daylight hours, and I’d wake up about six thirty or seven, walk Mina, and then make myself some breakfast. A bag of blood would be nuked and ready for Adam when he woke up.

Afterward we went to the nearest home improvement store, since the nursery closed too early, and restocked the Easter plants. I’d have to go shopping for the decorations, but that could wait until after Adam left and my schedule returned to normal.

And while he helped me replant the azaleas, hyacinths, hydrangeas, daffodils, and tulips, he answered all the questions I’d amassed, telling me more of what I needed to know about being a sabor.

He finished by saying, “But of course we can’t be sure with you.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Because of your bloodlines.”

“I’m still not following you.”

“Let me put it like this: in your veins runs the blood of the two most powerful sabor lines in our history.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Wow!” For a while I gave this some thought, but then I shrugged it off: it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t be passing that on to my children, since I wouldn’t be having any. I patted down the soil around the last of the daffodils and sat back on my heels. “I love you, Adam.”

He looked startled. “I don’t need to feed!”

“And I don’t need to be fed from.” Although if he wanted to, I wouldn’t have said no. “That’s okay. I just wanted you to know.”

His expression darkened. I’d never seen it that hard, and I wondered what was bothering him. “I won’t allow you to become de Vivar’s toy!”

“I know that.” I wasn’t going to let that happen, either. I’d cut my throat and let myself bleed out first.

“Tyrell?”

I knee-walked to where he was planting some lilies of the valley beneath the bay window—they would be in the shade when the sun came up—and kissed his mouth. “I’m just saying I love you,” I murmured against his lips.

“
Dragul meu
!” He fisted his hands in my hair and drew me deeper into the kiss.

I didn’t know how much time had passed when a car with a bad muffler drove by. The driver leaned on the horn and yelled out the window, “There’s a house right behind you! Use it!”

“Asshole,” I groused. “What the heck is he doing out at this time?”

“He’s probably thinking the same thing about us.” Adam tipped my chin up. “And I’d like nothing better, but—”

“I know.” I leaned in for a final kiss. “Let’s get this done. There’s a vampyr marathon on. We can watch it and make fun of everything they get wrong.”

I
JERKED awake. “Adam?”

The bed dipped and he knelt on it, pulling me into his arms. “I must go, Ty. I’ve stayed longer than I should have.”

“I’m having everyone here for Easter dinner. Please come!”

“I’d enjoy nothing more, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to. The rege has work for me to do.”

Well, shoot. “When will I see you again?” I wrapped my arms around him.

“Perhaps for your—”

“No! Don’t say my birthday!” I leaned back and clutched at the front of his shirt. I knew if I protested any more I’d come across as a whiny brat, so I shut up.

“Mina has been walked. I don’t want you to go out after sundown unless Raymond is with you.”

“Yes, Adam. But….” I had a sudden thought, and I went cold. “What about my dad and my friends? Are they safe?”

“Someone will be guarding them.” He ran a hand through my hair. “Remember, you have the cell phone with my number on it. I’ve also logged the rege’s number. However, you will call
me
if you ever have need.”

“Yes, Adam,” I repeated.

He smiled. A final kiss, and he was gone.

I looked at the clock. He must have let me sleep through the day and most of the night. Had he held me in his arms, keeping me near for as long as he could?

I liked that idea.

I got up and made myself some breakfast. I had homework I needed to finish, and then I’d have to go to class.

“Good morning, Tyrell.”

“Jesus Christ!” I dropped the frying pan, and the eggs splattered all over the floor. Mina started licking at the broken yolks.

“No, it’s Raymond.” He was stretched out on the love seat, his legs hanging over an arm since it couldn’t accommodate his height. Had he just arrived, and was that why he hadn’t opened it out?

“Asshole. I knew that. You scared me spitless!”

“You did give me permission to enter.” And of course that was why Mina hadn’t barked at him. “Both the rege and
le duc
wished me to guard you.”

“Yeah, but—” I shook my head. “Never mind. Do you need breakfast?”

“I can’t feed from you!”

“I wasn’t offering.” I scowled at him. “There’s some blood in the fridge, and I can nuke it for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” I picked up the frying pan, put it in the sink, and went to the fridge to remove a bag of blood. I put it into the microwave and set it to warm, then took some paper towels from the roll and cleaned up what Mina had left behind on the floor. “By the way, any word on de Vivar’s plans?”

“He was badly injured when he attempted to get into your home.”

“Serves the son of a bitch right. Are his minions still out to get me?”

“At this point, no.”

“Because they know you’re here.”

“Yes. Although some of them—the women—have taken the opportunity to seek asylum with
mon seigneur
.”

“How long will this be going on?”

“Until
mon seigneur
discovers his new whereabouts.”

“New?” This didn’t sound good.

“When we came across his mausoleum, we found it abandoned.”

“So he could be anywhere.”

“Unfortunately… yes.”

Shit. Something about his expression told me more was wrong than Jack Splat splitting. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He scowled. What was up with that? Was it a favorite facial expression of his? Then he sighed. “You may as well be informed. The Mifflin police are investigating the cemetery where de Vivar had his mausoleum.”

“Why? Oh, crap.” Mifflin was about fifty miles west of Clewiston. The cemetery was huge and dated back before the American Revolution, although a newer one had been commissioned about a hundred years ago. When my Social Studies class at Horatio Gates High studied that time period, our teacher had arranged an overnight trip to visit the town and the cemetery. “Did he bury bodies of normals there?”

Raymond stared at me. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

“It makes sense. And he sounds like a big enough sicko to do that. Do you know how many bodies were found?”

“More than ten, less than twenty-five. Of course that’s not including the skeletal remains, which brings the total to almost one hundred.”

I felt myself turn cold. “Won’t a forensic pathologist be able to determine the age of the bones?”

Raymond gave me another look, this one baffled. “How do you know these things?”

“I watch reruns of
Crossing Jordan
and the
CSI
s. How could all these people go missing and no one reported them?”

“Some were homeless. Some were prostitutes or drug addicts. Some were simply discarded by their families.”

“Those poor people.” None of them deserved that.

“The police aren’t happy this has happened in their township.”

“I can imagine. How much trouble is this going to cause the rege?”

“We’ll have to wait and see.
Mon seigneur
has someone on the force who will keep him appraised.”

This wasn’t good. Oh, not about the cop who was helping out. I wondered if he… or she… knew who they were helping. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Just stay out of de Vivar’s grasp.”

“Not a problem.” The microwave dinged, and I opened the door and handed him the blood. “Here. Knock yourself out.”

He took it and held it to his mouth. His fangs elongated, and he punctured the bag and began feeding.

I looked at the window. It wasn’t light yet, but it would be soon.

“You can’t sleep on the love seat. Even if I open it up, it wouldn’t be big enough for you. I’ll make up the bed for you.”

“I can sleep in the trunk of your car. In fact, that might be best.”

“No, it wouldn’t. It would be even more uncomfortable. And besides, I have classes today. It’s a pretty secure campus, but what would happen if my car got stolen?”

“Someone would get a very rude awakening when they opened the trunk.”

“You don’t have to sound so happy about it.” I hurried into the bedroom and changed the sheets, then took out a set of clean clothes, hung them up in the bathroom, and returned to the living room.

“You’ll be home before sundown?” His words were becoming lethargic.