B00528UTDS EBOK (21 page)

Sarah stared at the vapor-like image that peered at her from a dark corner of the tomb. The woman’s black hair was in contrast to her extremely pale face. The white-translucent color of her skin was unusual, even for a ghost. The dark eyes that stared back at Sarah were like orbs of night. But unlike the emptiness or anger that Sarah usually encountered with earth bound spirits, the woman’s eyes were curious. There was something else in the girl’s eyes that Sarah found unsettling - fear.

Though she had been dealing with spirits her entire life, it always startled her when one showed up next to her while she was sleeping.

“I am Nicole … your sister.”

Lex’s words suddenly came back to her. She had sisters - two of them. They had to fight some conspiracy her uncle was perpetrating.

How could they do that if one of them was dead?

“This is important,” the woman told her. “You must do something for me … and do it quickly.”

“What?” Sarah asked, worried about what she would be asked to do. Most often the dead wanted her to make contact with the living, but Sarah knew she was in no position to do so right now. Not with Omar’s vamps hunting her.

“Call my phone.” Nicole’s voice was hollow, but still the urgency of the request was clear. “Give a message to the person that answers the phone.”

Sarah’s thoughts went to the phone in her purse. Darrien had asked her to turn it off. He worried that they would be tracked through the GPS system built into her mobile. If they had found a way to track her through her mobile, it could be very risky to turn it on.

“Please!” The ghostly voice begged. “You are the only person that can help me.”

Sarah shrugged and reached for her purse. Somehow she doubted that Omar had turned to technology to find her. From everything she had heard, this vampire seemed to be someone stuck in the past - refusing to accept anything that is new or different.

Pulling the phone from her purse, she held down the on button. A moment later the screen came to life, but there was no reception.

“I’m not getting any service,” she told her sister’s ghost.

“Go outside.”

Sarah got to her feet and walked quickly to the entrance of the tomb. Pushing the door open, she stepped out into the night. All around her were monuments to the dead, stark white tombs against a black sky.

From the corner of her eye she saw the movement of shadow. She jumped and was ready to flee when Darrien stepped out from behind a nearby crypt.

* * * *

At the sound of Nicole’s name, Dash sprinted forward, barely noticing when he was forced to step over Julia’s decapitated body. Now he stood behind the priest while the man broke through the locked door. Beyond the door, they could still hear the cries of agony that had led them to the hidden tomb. As they stepped inside, Dash felt his stomach twist into knots at the spectacle that greeted them.

Alec still cradled Nicole’s body in his arms, his features marred by the pain and torment that ripped at his soul.

“You fed on her!” Dash yelled as he flew toward Alec in full attack mode. But he was still bound with rope, and the priest’s slayers managed to take him to the ground.

Alec’s voice shook with a depth of emotion rarely shown by an immortal. “I beg of you … destroy me, but please take her back to New Orleans. She must be laid to rest with her little brother. She should be near those that loved her in life.”

“You bloodsucker!” Again Dash tried to break away so that he could get at Alec.

Father Rovati turned to glare at Dash. “Be still!”

Kneeling beside Nicole, the priest placed a finger at her neck to check for a pulse. “We are too late … she is gone,” he announced.

An eerie silence descended on them as all eyes rested on Nicole’s pale form. The stillness of the moment was shattered when the mobile phone in Nicole’s pocket began to ring.

The sound of the phone seemed to spur the priest into action and he turned to the two slayers. “In the chapel is my emergency bag. Get it quickly!”

“It is important that we get what blood she has left, circulating.” Father Rovati told them as he was pushing down on Nicole’s chest in an effort to get her heart to work.

The phone kept ringing, but it was ignored. Dash and Alec were engrossed in watching the priest. A moment later, the two men returned with a large black bag.

The phone had become silent.

“Take over!” the priest told Alec.

Alec did as he was told without a second thought. He did not believe it would help, but he was ready to grasp at any chance of saving her, no matter how small that chance was.

Father Rovati pulled a small cooler from the bag and opened it quickly. Inside were several IV bags of blood. He hooked the bags to an IV tube with a flow chamber and a needle. The priest then inserted the needle and started the blood flowing while Alec continued to perform chest compressions.

“What if it is the wrong blood type?” Dash asked.

“It’s O Rh negative. It won’t hurt her … anymore than she already is in any case.” Rovati told him while motioning for Alec to stop.

“No … wait! Don’t hang up,” she said just as Alec was ready to end the call. “She said to tell you that your blood can reanimate her, without turning her.”

In a flurry of movement, the priest quickly inserted the transfusion line into one of Alec’s veins, so that Nicole would begin getting his blood.

Within seconds Nicole was gasping for air, and the color slowly started coming back to her face. When Nicole’s breathing was steady, Rovati stopped giving her Alec’s blood and returned to giving her the blood from the IV bags.

Alec caressed Nicole’s face softly. “Is she okay?” he asked, worried that she would turn despite the girl’s words.

Father Rovati shrugged his shoulders. “As far as I can tell she will live, and there are no signs that she will turn, but
why
?” The priest eyed Alec curiously.

Alec shrugged. “I don’t have all the answers. That is why I came here … to seek answers. The only explanation I can offer is that she is the daughter of an immortal.”

“Call the number back,” Dash suggested. “And do you think you can see fit to untie me yet? That is unless you still plan to kill me.”

Alec’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why did you bother to save her? And why didn’t you kill us?” he asked the priest.

Rovati frowned. “She is human, it was my duty to do what I could for her … and she was with you. I suspect that you are different, and maybe even important in preventing a vampire infestation.”

For the first time, Alec took notice of the men. To most, the slayers would have appeared to be the average everyday people. Maybe even someone you might meet while having coffee in a café, but Alec knew better. These men were professional vampire hunters. He’d met their kind many times.

Father Rovati was no longer paying attention to the others in the room. He was checking Nicole’s vital signs. “I think she is comatose,” he told them.

“Shouldn’t we like … get her to a hospital or something?” Dash asked, kneeling down beside her.

Just then the phone rang again and Alec flipped it open to answer it. Suspecting that it was the same caller, he put it on speakerphone so that everyone in the room could hear the conversation.

At first Alec was too shocked to say anything, but he quickly recovered as a torrent of questions stormed through his mind. “What do you mean she is still with you? We brought her back.”

“But she is in a coma … right?”

“Yes,” Alec told her.

“Then she is still separated from her body. I can communicate with those who are between worlds … or on the other side,” she explained.

“Well what can we do for her?” Alec didn’t care how, or why the girl knew what she knew. All that mattered to him was Nicole’s recovery.

Again there was a short silence before Sarah answered. “Nicole is telling me that you should take her to Donavan. I will meet you there.”

The line went dead and Alec looked to the priest. “How can we get her back there?”

“I can use a private jet to take her back. Of course it would be too risky for the two of you to travel. It will be light soon.”

Alec was disturbed by the idea of these vampire hunters taking Nicole and leaving him behind, but he did not see where there was much choice. He and Dash could take the first flight out of Rome when night returned.

* * * *

Sarah ended the call and turned to Darrien. “We have to get to New Orleans as soon as possible.”

Darrien stared at her. “Who was that on the phone and what’s going on?”

“Something’s happened to my sister, and I need to get to her,” Sarah explained, stepping closer to Darrien so she could wrap her arms around his neck.

“I’m still confused,” he said, shaking his head.

“She died for a short time, and during that time she came to me and asked for my help.” Sarah got on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the lips “One of my talents is that I can communicate with the dead.”

“She is, but when someone is in a coma, a part of their soul can still separate from their body.” Sarah was already walking away. “We should get some sleep so that we can get as far as possible tonight. I think we can make it all the way to New Orleans before sunrise.”

Darrien smiled. “For someone who has never traveled until recently, you sure have become quite the expert.”

Entering the tomb, Sarah grabbed the ragged blanket that they’d brought with them, and curled up in a ball on the ground. Within moments she was asleep.

Disappointed that they would not be making love that night, Darrien lay beside her. Though he sought sleep, the memory of the night’s hunt still haunted him.

He had not been feeding as much as he should be, and he was growing weak. Tonight he’d been unable to resist his urges, and he’d fed on a human for the first time in weeks.

He was not troubled because he’d killed his victim. The lady would live, as long as she did not have a reaction to the vampire’s venom. He’d been careful not to take too much from her, but he could not banish the memory of her face or the horror in her eyes when she’d realized what he was.