Blessed (36 page)

I could tell Kieren had practiced that, and it broke my heart a little. Still holding the hanger in one hand and shoes in the other, I whispered, “I love you, too.”

But no promises.

At nearly midnight, I crept through the dense fog alongside the long, private gravel drive. I pointed at the second sign we’d seen that read
HIGHWAY TO HELL
over an arrow pointing the way. “What do y’all make of that?”

“Bait,” Harrison whispered. “A lure for impulse thrill-seekers, easy prey. He’s probably keeping a stable of human bleeding stock.”

Zachary, in the lead, said, “If that’s true, we’ll have to get them out.”

“I’ll do it,” Harrison offered. “Yes, I’ll free the prey. You fight the Carpathian.”

I couldn’t help thinking of the old saying about the werefox and the henhouse.

“I’ll help you,” Kieren put in, probably thinking the same thing.

I suspected that he would’ve rather stayed by my side, but our whole plan depended on the appearance of my approaching Brad-Dracula on my own.

Which didn’t mean Kieren wasn’t armed. He had brought the battle-axe that he’d used against the vice principal. Harrison wielded a far fancier, bejeweled axe that he’d brought down from Chicago (Miranda’s, he’d said), and Zachary had his holy sword, which at the moment was not on fire.

My only weapon? Mama’s wedding gown. Not that it mattered, but the hem needed to be let down. I hadn’t realized it before, but over the last few years, I’d grown taller than my mother.

Kieren cocked his head, listening. “Get back!”

We drew away from the road, crouching behind dry scrub along the drive.

A minute later, an unmarked white delivery truck passed by.

“That’s it!” I exclaimed. “The count hasn’t left yet.”

As the truck rounded the bend, a howl rose into the night, only to be joined by another, another, another . . . Bradley had made a lot of friends. Minions. Spawn.

“Sentries,” Harrison hissed. “I warned you.”

“Any chance that they’re real wolves or werewolves?” I asked.

Kieren slowly shook his head. “No, I can smell the difference.”

They could even be Carpathians, I realized, if they’d died not long after being infected. We didn’t have a fallback strategy for that.

Aimee and Freddy had agreed to wait in the Impaler, which was parked down the hill. They weren’t defenseless. In Chicago, Freddy had picked up a couple of motorized, double-barreled holy-water rifles. But especially after what had happened to Clyde, I fretted that if we didn’t return to the SUV soon, our human friends would come after us.

“There!” Kieren whispered, pointing through the trees.

At first, with the leaves, the fog, I couldn’t see. Then a breeze wafted by. The drive wrapped around the front of a two-story Victorian, pale yellow with dark trim. The porch light had been turned on, but I couldn’t see any lights in the windows.

From the online aerial view, we knew that the house stood at the front of a quad, its rear opposite what looked like a barn, with two rectangular buildings — barracks? — arranged parallel to either side. Sort of like the castle courtyard.

“Quincie,” Zachary cautioned, “don’t let Brad lure you in too close. Remember, if
any
vamp has even the slightest contact with my sword —”

“Got it,” Harrison and I replied at the same time.

“Don’t forget,” my GA added, “other vamps we run into may be typical neophytes like you two. Salvageable souls. We’re not on a killing spree. We go in. Destroy Drac. Get out.”

Harrison coughed. “You don’t suppose it will be that easy?”

Brad-Dracula had probably gone around back to meet the truck, so I left my angel, my true love, and Harrison behind as I started off to do the same.

“Quince, hang on,” Kieren called in a low voice, jogging to my side.

“We’ve been over this,” I whispered. “I have to go now.”

Ignoring me, he crouched to grab the hem of Mama’s wedding dress. Before I could wrench it away, Kieren purposefully turned his other hand palm up and extended the nail of his index finger — like a switchblade — into a curved Wolf claw.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Ivo showed me. That’s as far as I’ve been able to get and stay in total control.”

Still, it was a significant step forward.

Kieren used his claw to rip a slit up one skirt seam, stopping midthigh. “In case you need to run.” Then he gestured for me to turn, and when I did, he ripped open the seam on the other side. “Or kick.”

As Kieren jogged away, I squared my shoulders, raised my chin, and, despite everything, reminded myself that if I ever had a chance to wear Mama’s wedding dress again, to wear it for real, Miz Morales could set me up with the best seamstress in Austin.

As if I were an expected guest, I strolled around the back of the Victorian. The drive split into a V — one side leading into a spacious quad and the other along the far side of a barracks toward the woods beyond. A third
HIGHWAY TO HELL
sign with an arrow guided any would-be victims toward the back of the property, where the faux altar and real coffins from my nightmare awaited.

Eight-foot-tall torches lit the compound quad. The delivery truck had been parked alongside the barn. Lush green grass blanketed the courtyard. Apparently, evil things didn’t believe in drought watering restrictions.

In the smoky fog, it took me a moment to make him out. Bradley’s fair hair had gone totally white. He’d grown a beard to go along with the mustache. A glass of blood or maybe blood wine rested between his long fingers. He wore the elegant dark gray suit, the one he’d used for toasting at Sanguini’s, the one that made him look like Fred Astaire.

Glancing from his wristwatches to me, he said, “Good evening, baby.”

“Howdy, Brad.” My voice had wavered. Wearing Mama’s dress had been a mistake. It took him back to his fantasy, but it took me back to that night, too. I remembered shredding the white nightgown, butchering the iron twin bed frame. Now, here I was, like this, taking another step toward him. Freely and of my own will.

On one hand, I was relieved not to be dealing with the count.

On the other, I couldn’t help remembering Freddy’s warning about Sabine. The devil you know is still a devil.

“It was Uncle Davidson, wasn’t it?” Let Brad think I’d come, at least in part, for answers. “He gave you Quincey Morris’s bowie knife.”

“It went first to your father,” Brad replied, taking the bait. “After he died, your uncle stumbled onto the family history. I contacted him, pretending to be an antiques dealer. But he realized what I was. He delivered the knife in exchange for immortality.”

I remembered Uncle D, facedown in his bed with a stake through his heart. How was that immortality? “And then he delivered me to you.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Brad assured me. “I saw you one day, laughing with Vaggio at Fat Lorenzo’s. I began watching you at home . . . school . . . the restaurant.” He smiled, wistful, and took a sip. “You had such zest, passion, sensuality. You gobbled up life.”

A fitting expression from the former vampire chef. I’d once thought of him as the eternal who missed humanity so much that he fed it.

Moving closer, I began again, “At the Wolf pack, you asked for my help —”

“Did I?” He looked confused. “I lost myself for a while there.”

Didn’t he understand what was happening? “You’re losing yourself now.”

His head turned as warning howls rose into the night air.

Damn, the wolf-form sentries had found Zachary.

“What’s this?” Bradley asked, slamming his wineglass to the driveway, shattering it. “Friends of yours? Well, baby, I have friends of my own.”

A vacant-looking crowd of young people flowed out of the barn, shuffling our way. It was hard to count through the fog, but I put the number at roughly fifty.

“My personal blood supply,” he added, “but they’re more than that. I’ve blessed them. They’re my children now, and they — like you — will obey me.”

So this was thrall from the outside, looking in. “They’re still human.”

“Not for long,” Brad reminded me.

I couldn’t help thinking of Aimee, still waiting with Freddy in the SUV.

The zombie-like prisoners parted to reveal Kieren — kicking, yelling, trying to wrench free from two female vampires. I recognized them from my nightmare. They’d been the ones who had killed that little boy.

Behind them, another female, carrying Kieren’s axe, marched in step with Harrison, who still had possession of his own bejeweled weapon.

Harrison, who’d followed the power and changed sides.

“The dog-faced boy!” Bradley exclaimed, sounding equally betrayed. “I thought I’d killed him in Michigan. I thought . . . Did I see him there?” He paused. “Didn’t I?”

I could feel Brad’s rising anger and confusion. Once again, I felt what he felt. He hadn’t trusted my apparent surrender, but Kieren’s appearance had turned the ruse into an insult. I felt Brad’s obsessive desire, the way he wanted it to be between us — at times raunchy and rutting, at times romantic and refined.

I saw myself as he viewed me: a trophy, a temptation, a distraction that he’d cursed again and again, even as he’d committed himself to winning my love.

Worse, underneath it all lurked an unexpected sincerity, an appreciation of the kitchen banter we’d shared, a respect for my work ethic, an understanding of the losses I’d endured. An understanding of what loss meant.

If only it weren’t for his rival — a mere boy, less than even human. A lowly beast. After the glory that Brad had offered, why else would I continue to refuse him — if not for another man? How could I make such a foolish mistake? Before I had a chance to fight it, I sympathized.

“This time,” he promised, “I’ll cut out his mongrel heart and squeeze its last drop of blood into my own jaws.”

Like he had in the castle courtyard, Bradley reached for me, only this time, he forced my lips to his, his tongue into my mouth, and his desire deeper into my mind. Then Brad’s hands cupped my hips as he lifted my body, and I instinctively wrapped my legs around his waist, not caring that we had an audience. Not caring that Kieren could see.

Yanking aside a red ribbon strap, Brad briefly tore his lips from mine, only to slice his fangs into my bare shoulder. I felt twin streams of blood trickling and his tongue lapping and his teeth kneading the wounds. The punctures radiated pleasure, and pressing a hand to the back of his neck, I urged him on. It hadn’t been anything like this in the basement or the queen’s courtyard, and I knew he owned me now.

After I wasn’t sure how long, through the bloody velvet bliss, I heard a distant rumbling growl, and then a woman’s frantic voice called, “Master!”

We didn’t care. No one else mattered. I was beyond wanting anything but more.

Then, without warning, Bradley raised his bloodstained face. “Who are you?” he demanded in an accented voice — Romanian? Hungarian? — that didn’t belong to him.