Darkness Rises

Page 20

Curling onto her side to face him, she raised one hand and drew delicate fingers down his cheek as her gaze roved his face. “Truce?”
“Truce.”
“Good night, Etienne.”
Heart racing, he clasped her fingers and brought them to his lips. “Good night, Krysta.”
She fell asleep holding his hand.
He wanted to stay awake and savor that. The sweetness of it. But the healing sleep swiftly claimed him.
Etienne dreamed vampires hunted him.
No. The vampires hunted Krysta. And the dream was hers. He could always tell when someone else’s dream became his because he first saw them from that person’s perspective. And he wasn’t a slender, significantly shorter woman.
Usually, he could separate himself from the dreamer and participate as he would in his own dreams. He had never been able to do that when Ami’s dreams had seized him. He had been as much a victim of the atrocities committed against her as she had in those dreams and often dreaded sleeping when he stayed the day at David’s.
As Krysta confronted the vampires and began to swing her shoto swords, Etienne left her form and joined in the fight as himself.
She grinned when she saw him. “About time!” she quipped.
Etienne laughed and engaged the vamps, who were much more organized and swung their weapons with greater control and accuracy in the dream.
A dozen vampires fell. Two dozen replaced them.
Then Sean arrived and was somehow thrust into the middle of everything.
Krysta’s brother had skills. But—without whatever edge Krysta’s ability to see auras gave her—he fared badly, accumulating wound after wound as Krysta fought to get to his side.
The more panicked she became, the more wounds she suffered and the weaker she grew.
Etienne couldn’t reach her. Every time he cut down one vampire a second took his place.
One vamp disarmed and captured Sean. Pulling him back against his chest, the vampire sent Krysta a cruel smile.
“Kill him!” the others cried.
“No!” Krysta screamed.
“Remember, the male is the one we’re after,” another voice said softly, strangely calm amidst the slaverings of the vampires. “We want the immortal alive. The human female is expendable.”
What?
“Don’t hurt him!” Krysta begged, her eyes still on her brother. “Please!”
“Rendezvous with target in one mile,” the same calm voice announced.
Etienne stopped fighting. Something was wrong.
The vampires converged upon Krysta, yelling and taunting. None spoke with the voice Etienne had heard.
The vampire holding Sean began to sing in a falsetto voice, “I feel pretty! Oh, so pretty! I feel pretty and witty and gaaaaaay!”
What the hell was with that song?
Krysta vanished.
Frowning, Etienne spun in a circle. “Krysta?”
“Etienne?”
“Where are you?” He resumed fighting, doing his damnedest to reach her brother while the vamp who held him continued to sing in that weird high voice.
“Etienne!”
He looked around, but still couldn’t find her. “Krysta?”
“Etienne! Wake up!”
He jerked awake.
Krysta knelt beside him on the bed, shaking the hell out of him. “Jeeze. It’s a good thing I didn’t want to stake you. You would have slept right through it!”
Groaning, he sat up. “I sleep deeper when I’m healing. What’s wrong?”
“Your cell phone has been ringing like crazy and that damned song is making me mental.”
When the singing started up again, he yanked his phone out of his pocket and answered.
“Yes?”
“We have a serious problem,” Chris Reordon said without preamble.
Damn it. “No, we don’t. I—”
“Richart told me you left quite a mess at Duke tonight.”
Etienne frowned. “Yes.”
“So we have a problem. I sent my cleaning crew over there ASAP and they didn’t find dick.”
Etienne stood, alarm striking. “What?”
“There was nothing. No bodies. No blood. No vampire clothing or bling. No dental fillings or caps. No humans freaking out. Nada.”
“That’s not possible. There should have been a couple dozen bodies—”
“There weren’t. There was, however, a large area of wet pavement where no sprinklers could reach. And the surveillance tapes for the security cameras in that area of the campus are all gone.”
Etienne swore.
“Exactly. Where are you? Are you still with the woman?”
“Yes, but—”
“Hang up, call Richart, and have him teleport you to safety.”
“That isn’t—”
“You aren’t getting it. The group that attacked you now has the surveillance tapes. They also have connections or they wouldn’t have been able to clean that mess up so quickly. They can use the tapes to trace the license plate on her car. They probably already know where you are. Get the hell out of there. Now.”
Etienne looked to Krysta, who watched him with concern. “We have to go.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Where? Why?”
Someone shouted something in the background on Chris’s end of the conversation as engine noise flowed over the line. “Where are you?” Etienne asked.
“At the network, getting into a Black Hawk with reinforcements. More will follow on the ground in a Humvee.”
A twig snapped outside. Then another.
Etienne looked toward the window. “Too late. They’re here.”
“Call Richart!”
Chapter 7
Krysta stared at Etienne with wide eyes. Something was wrong. Really, really wrong.
He grabbed her arm and, practically lifting her off the bed, urged her into the den.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Richart,” he spoke into his phone. “I need you . . . Yes.” He pocketed the phone. “Does this place have a basement?”
“No. I mean, not really. There’s a crawl space under the house that you can access from outside, but—”
Etienne stopped short and looked toward the bedroom, then the kitchen, his head tilted as though he were listening to something.
Krysta remained quiet, but heard nothing save her heart slamming against her ribs.
Kneeling, Etienne dragged her down with him. While she fought for balance, he drew back his arm and punched through the floor as though it were cardboard. Half a dozen times. Knuckles splitting. Bones cracking.
Krysta gaped at the hole he created, an absurd thought rearing its head: No way were she and Sean going to get their security deposit back.
Without warning, Etienne picked her up and dropped her through the jagged hole.
She grunted as she hit the hard-packed dirt floor. It was only a four or five foot drop, but she didn’t have time to twist around and use her hands to break the fall.
Then, as though they were in a Warner Brothers cartoon, Etienne landed on top of her, flattening her and stealing her breath.
Holy crap, he was heavy!
“Sorry,” he murmured in her ear as he rolled off her and sat up.
“What—?”
Bullets tore through the house overhead. Large bullets, judging by the debris flying around the den and the narrow rays of sunshine beginning to brighten the room.
Her mouth fell open.
Etienne rose into a crouch, eyes staring intently through the hole.
Richart appeared above them. His body jerked as bullets slammed into him.
Etienne lunged up and yanked his brother down into the crawl space with them.
Richart landed hard, too.
Etienne spoke urgently to him in French.
“No,” Krysta protested shrilly. “No way! You can’t do that! You can’t talk in French while I’m sitting here freaking out because I don’t know what the hell is going on!”
Richart rolled onto his stomach and managed to get to his hands and knees.
She swallowed.
His head hung low. Blood dribbled from between parted lips as ragged breath wheezed in and out through them. The front of his shirt bore several holes, as did the back, and began to glisten as blood saturated it.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He nodded, but didn’t raise his head.
Etienne rested a hand on his brother’s back. “What took you so long?”
“I was . . . making love to my wife . . . not that it’s . . . any of your . . . business. Did you . . . want me to show up here naked?”
Etienne’s gaze went to Krysta. “No.”
She had a feeling he would have said Hell, yes if she weren’t there.
“Take my wrist,” Etienne ordered.
Richart grabbed Etienne’s wrist and sank his teeth into it.
A muscle leapt in Etienne’s jaw.
Krysta knew from experience that being bitten didn’t produce the ecstatic pleasure in real life that it did in movies that romanticized vampires. Rather, it hurt like hell, feeling as though someone had just stuck you with a couple of large needles.
Richart retracted his fangs and released his brother’s wrist.
Bullets continued to fly back and forth overhead like psychotic bees, tearing her rented home apart.
She glanced again at Richart. A couple of misshapen lumps of metal fell out of his shirt and hit the ground as his wounds began to heal.
“Can you teleport?” Etienne asked.
Richart nodded and sat back on his heels.
“Get her out of here,” Etienne said.
“What?” Krysta looked to Etienne as Richart reached out and gripped her shoulder.
The world darkened. Dizziness assailed her. She grabbed Richart’s shirt.
Light burst into being, illuminating a lovely living room with modern furniture.
Krysta gasped. “Did you just teleport me?”
“Oui.”
A pretty, petite woman with red hair and dark brown roots appeared before them, a white and purple aura swirling around her. Her face clouded with concern when her gaze landed on Richart. “Honey . . .” She took a step toward him.