42nd & Lex (46 page)

From his reaction, I can tell this isn’t
something he expected. His face flickers between confusion and rage. I am
certain I can break free, maybe even overpower him, if I bide my time. He is
going to have to change positions to get a better lock on my jugular.

Clearly, he has no idea what I have become.
He probably doesn’t even know what a Sodalis is or what I am now capable of. I’m
not entirely sure either, but I plan to give it everything I have. A laugh begins
in my throat that I can’t control. 

“You think this is fucking funny?” he spits
at me. 

I want to nod but think better of it.

He is struggling to shove me towards the bed
and maintain his grip. When shoving doesn’t work, he changes directions and begins
to drag me. He’s concentrating so hard on his grip that he doesn’t notice me
work my legs in between his. Our feet become entangled and he trips over the low
glass coffee table. Serge can’t prevent the fall without losing his grip on me,
so he softens his landing with a midair twist that leaves me to bear the weight
of our landing.

I hear the glass crack and feel the giant
shards slice into my back as we hit the floor. I smell the blood even before it
begins to soak through my shirt. The stereo remote must be under me because the
system fires up at full volume across the room. Now is not the time for Rob
Zombie’s
Living Dead Girl
.   

“Oh fuck yes.” His eyes are red as fire, and
in spite of the seeming impossibility of it, his fangs grow even longer until
they are dragging below his lower lip. “I like your choice of music. It aids
the digestion, I think. You just served yourself up on a fucking platter,
bitch.” His fangs slur his words. A mist of spittle hits my face.

The smell of blood, my blood, pushes me over
the edge. Serge is sprawled across my chest and the metal frame of the coffee
table surrounds us, but it is a scenario I can work with. Instead of striking
at me again, Serge leans in and inhales. 

“I’ll bleed out eventually, moron. You’d
better hurry. It smells delicious.” The sound of my voice, calm and cold,
surprises him and he sits back on his haunches to look at me. He has
inadvertently freed my arms.

“You smell that?” The confusion flickers
across his face again.

I don’t answer. In his distraction, I reach
for a long sliver of glass near my thigh. I don’t take time to consider the
bite of the glass against my palm or the blood that it releases. I ignore the
hunger I feel as the smell of more blood invades my nose. Serge, however,
cannot.  

It is just a matter of time before he figures
out that while biting me won’t work, a good old-fashioned blow to the head or a
stab wound to the gut will do the trick just fine. I tighten my grip on the
giant shard.
Et tu, Brute
, I think. And so the same will serve to end
Serge as well. 

He rears back and roars in anticipation. In
the same instant, I drive the shard home into his gut. Not a fatal blow, but it
disables him long enough for me to shove him off and jump to my feet. The smell
of blood is heavy in the air now as the gaping wound across his middle spills
crimson onto the white rug. I’ve hit a major artery. My shirt is plastered wet
against my back.   

“You fucking whore,” he screams. “I was
going to turn you and make you mine. But not now. Now I’m going to kill you. Your
precious Lucan will come home to a drained and dry corpse.”

“Oh shut the fuck up.” It’s not much of a
comeback after a death threat, but it distracts him while I step over the metal
skeleton of the ruined table, putting it in between us. “You couldn’t turn me
if you tried. Not to mention that if you did, I wouldn’t exactly stick around
to become your vampire bride.”

He is seething. Blood is dripping down the
shard of glass wedged in my palm. It hits the rug with a little
plunkplunkplunk
.

“What are you?” he asks, genuinely curious.

“Sodali bonded. Completely immune to your
attacks.”

“Impossible…”

Serge lunges forward again, on his way to clearing
the smashed coffee table and closing the distance I have managed to put between
us. I strike when he is in mid air, slashing my glass blade across his neck,
completely severing everything in my path.

If the glass had been stronger I would have
been able to decapitate him. But the makeshift blade gives way as it hits his
vertebrae and cuts deeper into my palm instead.

Blood sprays from his wounds with an
incredible force, hitting me, the rug, and the floor beyond. He gurgles and spits
and grabs for his mangled throat. We both realize he’s holding his head upright
in his hands. There are no last words to be had since I’ve severed his vocal
cords.

It is gory and disgusting but I do not look
away as he drops to the floor. His eyes, the color of molten lava, cloud over
to black as the immortal life drains from his face. His body withers before me
until he is a shriveled hull on the now crimson rug.

I let out a scream of victory and pain, the
blood is flowing from the wounds on my back and hands at a steady pace. Remembering
Zaid’s word about salt’s ability to prevent vampires from regenerating, I run
to the kitchen. There is a Costco-sized box of salt in the pantry.

Serge looks dead but I’m not taking any
chances. I open the little metal spout and pour the entire contents of the box
over his body. The little umbrella girl on the front has her eyes downcast in
disapproval of my actions.   

Even though adrenaline is still pumping
through my veins, keeping me upright, the gravity of my actions is sinking in. I
killed a man.

There is no way this can be termed
self-defense since I lured my attacker into a formerly secured area with the
express intention of doing him bodily harm. I seriously doubt vampire laws
differ from human laws on this. I need Lucan. 

My knees buckle and send me crashing to the
blood soaked rug. At least we have contained the battle to one spot instead of
drenching our entire apartment, I muse. The phone I found in the couch cushions
rings again. I pick it up from among the shards of glass and answer it without
conscious effort.

“Hello?” My voice sounds weak and far away.

“Abri?” It is Sarah. “Abri, you found Mark’s
phone. Are you okay? You sound sick.”

“I killed him. There’s so much blood...”

“Killed him? Killed who?” She is screaming.
That is, of course, the proper reaction to have isn’t it? I can hear her
relaying my words to Mark in the background. I can hear him telling her to keep
me on the line and that he is coming.

“Get Lucan,” is all I manage to say before I
black out.

The astringent smell of antiseptic pulls me
out of rather soothing dream starring Lucan and me on a remote island paradise.
It smells better than blood, which is the last thing I remember smelling.
Blood. Oh shit. The memories of what I did come back to me and my eyes fly
open.

I’m not in our apartment anymore. I am in
the Enclave clinic. In the same room where I learned of my hybrid lineage a few
weeks before. Only there is a hospital bed in place of the metal examination
table. Why do vampires need a doctor… Maybe it’s for the Patrons not the
vampires. My thoughts are scrambled like eggs. I hate eggs.

“Love, it’s okay.” Lucan’s voice is calm. His
hand rests in mine on the bed. “You’re okay.”

“Lucan.” I turn my head towards his face.
Tears well up in my eyes and spill over. The sobs are deep and uncontrollable.
I can’t talk so Lucan fills the void.

“I’m here. Mark and Sarah, too. They haven’t
left even for a minute. I got here as soon as I could. I’m so sorry. I should
never have left you with that animal on the loose. He overrode the alarms, but
Zaid is installing a new system as we speak.”

Zaid is supposed to be in California. “How
long have I been out?”

“Just over a day. Dr. Steinman had to stitch
you up. He tried giving you some vampire blood to speed up the healing process,
but you wouldn’t hear of taking any except mine so he had to sedate you.”

The cuts must have been bad then. I struggle
to sit up. Lucan reaches for my shoulder but I wince. He frowns and settles for
propping the pillow up behind me. “Serge didn’t override the alarms. I disabled
them.”

“You disabled them! Why?” Lucan is searching
my face and my brain for an answer.

“Mark left his phone at the apartment and I
answered it. It was Serge. He knew it was me and it was the only way we were
going to get to him, so I invited him over.”

I acknowledge the insanity of my plan even
as the words leave my lips. My mental chatter is still dim from the sedation so
I can hear Lucan’s thoughts loud and clear. He is trying to find words to
comfort and not admonish me. Although he really wants to chew me out. And he
probably should.  

Before Lucan can find the words, the door
opens. It’s Dr. Steinman. “Ms. Cole, I see you’re awake. Those were some nasty
gashes. Mark tells me you fell over a glass table?”

Mark must have left out the part about the
nearly headless, salt-cured vampire that had been lying next to said glass
table and was ultimately the cause of my injuries.

“Ah, yeah.” I don’t feel like giving him
anymore of the story and since no one else has apparently felt like it either I
don’t worry.

“You lost a lot of blood, but we gave you a
transfusion from our human Patron stock and Lucan followed it up with a little
of his own so you should be as good as new in a few days.”

“Days? Wow. Can I go home then, Doc?” The
stitches on my back are already starting to itch and I want out of this
hospital gown and into my pajamas.

“I don’t see why not. Luke, you’ll need to
change the dressings tomorrow and keep an eye out for infection. And keep the
wounds dry. No showering, just a sponge bath if you can’t wait. I think we will
be able to take the stitches out day after next. There might be a little
scarring on your hand given your hybrid nature. There were traces of salt in
the wounds. Won’t hurt a human, but with you I can’t know for certain.”

“Yes, sir,” Lucan acknowledges. “I brought
you some fresh clothes. Do you want to get dressed?”

“Yes, please,” I murmur. Dr. Steinman takes
his cue to leave. Getting dressed with a bandaged hand and a shredded back is
difficult, but we manage. Steadying myself to get off the bed and across the
room is another story. I concede to Lucan carrying me. 

Out in the hallway, Mark and Sarah are
waiting. Sarah bursts into tears when she sees me. Sarah wants to follow us home
and make sure I am all right but Mark convinces her Lucan can take care of me
now. They promise to visit when I am up to it. It makes me cry again. In fact,
I am rather sniffley the entire ride back to the Chrysler.

It turns out Zaid had only missed the battle
royale by a few hours. He had finished with his mission earlier than expect and
was on his way back to New York to babysit me in Lucan’s absence—a fact Lucan
had conveniently kept to himself, figuring the lockdown would upset me. He had
figured right, but in hindsight, having Zaid there would have saved me from
injury and near death. Lucan pushes his thoughts of agreement into my brain. I
push my apology back.

I lean on Lucan during the elevator rides up
to the apartment. It seems a lifetime ago that I was afraid to ride in an
elevator. I am so over my fear that I planned to use one as an escape pod. I
glance down at our feet to see the first aid kit and my cell phone still
stashed in the corner along with the knife. Lucan leans me against his hip and
bends down to pick them up.

Elevators now rank below blood-crazed
vampires on my list of fears and I’m not so sure I am even afraid of those.

“There’s my warrior princess!” Zaid exclaims
as we come off the lift. “Nice touch with the Morton’s. I have to say I am
impressed, Mitra.”

“I figured you would be.” Leave it to Zaid
to be excited over my kill. “Thanks for cleaning it up.”

“Anytime,” he replies, touching my shoulder
lightly. “All that salt soaked up most of the blood. I just scooped it up into
a Hefty and, well… Say, Lucan, that jackass didn’t disable the alarm. It was
powered off with the security code.”

“Yeah, I did that.”

“Nice,” Zaid laughs. “Stupid, but
effective.”

I shrug and it hurts. Lucan fills Zaid in on
my battle plan while I make my way over to the bed to lay face down. I avoid
looking at the negative space left by the missing coffee table and rug. We’ll
get another one, not glass this time. Definitely not a white rug either.

I drift off to sleep to the sound of Zaid
and Lucan discussing my battle prowess. I have no plans to fight rabid vampires
ever again.

The sound of my cell going off wakes me from
a deep slumber and I shake off the feelings of déjà vu. Lucan has the shades
down so I have no idea what time it is. He is splayed out next to me in the
bed, sleeping literally like the dead since his chest not rising. Every time I
see it, my own heart skips a beat before I remember it’s completely normal. I will
remember to offer him a little blood later, if I feel up to it.

“Hello?”

“Abri, it’s Dr. Steinman. How are you
feeling?”

“Better. I think the blood helped a lot. What
time is it?”

“It’s noon. I’m sorry to wake you, but I
have some news. When you were brought in my staff drew blood and ran the
customary labs.”

He pauses like doctors do before they
deliver bad news. 

“My labs were fine a few weeks ago, how
could something be wrong now?” I ask.

“Abri, you’re pregnant.”

I choke back a gasp. “Pregnant?”

Lucan comes online next to me and bolts
upright in the bed. “Pregnant?”

“Good morning, Lucan.” Dr. Steinman raises his
voice a little. “Yes, pregnant. If you remember, I told you this was possible. You
are living proof of it after all, dear.”