Damned if I Don't (The Harker Trilogy Book 2) (11 page)

“There’s that bit of fire you’ve been missing.” He chuckles on the phone, which sets my teeth on edge. “Tell me, is
Jude
there?”

I open my eyes and our gazes meet, Jude’s blue eyes against my hazel ones. He’s watching me to see my reaction. I take in a shuddering breath and when I speak, my voice is strangled. “Why do you ask?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Harker.” He chuckles again on the other line, and I hate, hate,
hate
that seed of doubt that he planted in my mind about where Jude’s loyalties lie. Our burgeoning relationship has already taken a beating from so many different sources, I don’t want that to be the nail in the coffin.

Yet at the same time, I should be able to believe in him one hundred percent. Right?

My silence must have stretched on long enough for Anthony to pick up the conversation again.

“They’re in Atlanta.”

And then the line goes dead.

I scream in anger as I take the phone away from my ear. My mind fumbles for a bit before I take out my phone and look up “Find My Friends” to see where Graeme’s phone is located. I told him a long time again to hide himself from curious eyes, and I’m so glad he did then. But now I want that little animated pin drop to tell me where his fucking phone is.

The time that it takes for my phone to ping a satellite that’s hundreds of miles in the atmosphere and for it load on my screen is agonizing. When the map displays the location, it’s confirmed.

The phone is in Atlanta.

No.
No, this can’t be. Aside from the fact that they somehow got to Atlanta so quickly, I have no idea how I’d be able to find them there. Atlanta is a huge city, one I don’t know very well. I may have some contacts there, but I can’t show up and ask if anyone’s seen a man in his mid-thirties with his three-year-old daughter, who may be a little too precocious for her own good.

Oh my God, what a nightmare.

“Atlanta,” I say hoarsely, as I screenshot the map location. I’m sure Anthony left that as bait and will turn off the phone so I can’t follow it, but it’s a start. “We’ve got to get to Atlanta.”

“Edie, it’s a trap,” Jude says.

“I don’t care.”

He grabs my hand before I turn to leave. “How do you even know that they’re with Anthony? He could just have their phone.”

I shook my head. “The phone that Graeme never lets out of his sight in case he gets called into work? Or needs to come pick me up because I fucked up on a hunt? He would
never
part with that phone, Jude.” I stifle a cry. “He has them. I don’t know how, but he has them.”

***

“Cats have always hated vampires,” Hannah says, “but this is ridiculous.”

Purl unhappily howls in her arms as I log into the V Boards in her office. Jude sits next to me on an office chair as I click in with my many passwords and security checks.

Typing is damned inconvenient with one hand.

I had to wake Carl up so that he could set up the connection from her computer. He grumbled the entire time, said that was a huge risk for us to be logging into a strange computer on a strange connection in the company of strangers. I know about risk.

Even though I agree with him, there are more important things on my mind right now. Like saving Graeme and Amelia.

“She has good reason to hate vampires,” I murmur, typing my credentials. “Anthony burned down our house a couple days ago.”

Hannah scratches the cat under her chin, but Purl mewls unhappily, like a protest. “Good reason, yes, but I’m just trying to hold her, not kill her.”

“Success,” I breathe as the forum pops up.

Carl gives me the side-eye, but I’ll take it. This is progress. He’ll even look at me now, which is an improvement on yesterday.

I click my way to the “desperately-seeking” section. Usually, a vigilante in any part of the world posts in this forum when there’s a vampire running loose in their city. It’s honestly how I’ve done most of my traveling in my life. Richer hunters will put up money for the Harker to travel to cities to vanquish the bad vampires in a city.

I haven’t been on in a few days, because Graeme’s house burned down, my laptop and everything along with it. They don’t know the hell that I’ve been through in the past few days. And I still won’t tell them.

But I’m going to beg for their help if I have to.

This is going to be interesting.

I need some help in Atlanta,
I clumsily type. I don’t know how long it’s going to be for a reply—usually they are pretty quick to respond, but I’ve never posted a plea here myself.

Almost immediately, the replies start coming in.

hey harker!

How’s it hanging?

Vampires in ATL. Again?

atlanta’s an interesting one

Doesnt Steve live there?

Allan does 2

I hold my breath as I keep refreshing the page, seeing the replies come through. When I met Zhi, he told me that the V Boards were a dangerous place, exposing myself too much to unwanted attention. That it makes my movements too easy to follow.

Yet as I watch the replies coming in, it only confirms that I have a good bunch of people who are looking out for me. They’re honestly worried about me. These are the people who, despite distance and anonymity behind computers, I can truly count on.

I may have to limit my exposure on the V Boards, but I’m never going to leave them entirely. There’s too much good happening on here.

Anthony’s there with two people who are special to me,
I type.
Any help is appreciated.

I can almost sense the stunned pause from users at their computers from across the world. I brought up Anthony, the vampire I’ve been searching for the last five months, and I’ve asked for help now that he has my family.

I hope I don’t have to get into more detail than that.

“That was a showstopper,” Jude murmurs.

A whole minute passes before I get any responses. And when one finally does come in, it’s alone.

THE Anthony?

Yes,
I respond.
One and the same.

A collective breath across the world is released as people on the V Boards realize how big of a deal my request is.

Showstopper indeed. Seriously, Anthony’s such a fucking bastard.

i'm in ATL,
a reply finally comes in.
i can help

I look at the username. It’s Lorne McMillen, an older vampire hunter who lives in Atlanta. I’ve never met him, but Mom knew him personally when she was alive. At one point, there was a cabal of vampires that went loose across the city, sometime during the Atlanta Olympics. He helped her find them and stop the massacre before it got worse.

If I remember correctly, he even helped Meghan out a few times too.

“Do you trust him?” Jude asks, breaking into my thoughts. “What if he’s a part of Anthony’s trap?”

“I trust him,” I say. “He’s been good so far.”

And I feel that the lack of replies shows that other vampire hunters trust him as well. They’re not filling the page up with more responses, because they know I’m in good hands.

At least, that’s what I think is happening. I
hope
it’s what’s happening.

What’s your phone number?
I ask.

He types his reply. I grab my phone and immediately dial the number.

“Hello?” a gruff voice drawls.

“Lorne?” I ask. “This is Edie. The Harker.”

“Is it now?” He sounds suspicious, which makes me immediately like him. He’s not stupid, and we need to be smart about everything now. Especially since I plan on doing something severely stupid in the near future.

“You helped my mother about twenty years ago,” I say, by way of verifying my identity. “You met my sister when she had to take out some vamps in Savannah.”

There’s a pause and then Lorne’s voice comes back, warmer in that Southern accent. “Well hello there. I’m sorry to hear about the trouble Anthony’s been giving you.”

“Yes.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Yeah, if you’re up for it.” I meet Jude’s eyes and he nods in understanding. “We’re coming out your way.”

Jude

I hate flying.

Maybe it’s a relic of me being born before the invention of airplanes, but it seems like you put yourself into a tin coffin in order to hurtle through the atmosphere at hundreds of miles an hour. It’s unnatural. Just like me.

No thanks just the same.

Edie didn’t want to waste any time doing the eleven-hour drive from Houston—understandably. Luckily, some of her supporters on the V Boards offered up flights, frequent flyer miles, anything and everything, to get the Harker to her destination. Someone even had connections at Houston International to get us through TSA before everyone else, so that we could catch the first flight out of here. It was actually inspiring that so many people believe in Edie and the work she’s doing. She may not realize it, but she’s impacted so many lives in such a short time.

Including my own.

We’re in first class on a two-hour Delta flight, just after sundown. We’ll land sometime after nine o’clock, with plenty of time to start our search in Atlanta. I just hope this Lorne guy is trustworthy. We’re placing an awful lot of faith in him.

Edie’s on my left side so she can look out the window and Carl is across the aisle on my right. Thankfully, Hannah offered to watch the cat and keep her at the Marrow until we return and pick her up. I don’t know how good that will be for Purl, as she’ll hate everything around her for a while, but we couldn’t bring her on this journey.

I try not to think about what would happen if Edie’s scar overtakes her before we get the cat back. Would Carl have to go to Houston to pick it up? I couldn’t watch it. Fuck, I don’t even want to live without Edie.

I feel fingers entwine with mine. I hadn’t realized that I was gripping the armrest like I was holding on for dear life.

“Not a flier?” she asks.

“No.”

She smiles softly, a rare expression from her. I want to take this moment and snap a picture of it so I don’t forget what Edie looks like when she’s relaxed. “Don’t worry. Millions of people fly every day without falling to their deaths.”

I shake my head, both mystified and amused that her nerdy side is coming out. I want her to keep talking, mainly because it’s keeping her mind off her family’s kidnapping and it’s keeping my fear of flying at bay.

“Vampires,” she mutters, shaking her head.

That’s my girl.

“So we’re just landing, and then we’re going to check out all known hotspots?” Carl whispers to us. “Doesn’t that seem a little haphazard?”

“That’s all we have to go on,” Edie says.

“Yeah, but…” Carl frowns and his voice trails off.

No, I totally get what he’s saying. We’re walking into a big unknown and it makes me uneasy as hell.

Then again, that’s what I’m here for. To make sure that Edie doesn’t get into a shitstorm she can’t handle by herself. Then there’s the big question as to whether or not
I
can handle it.

Ugh. Fuck all this.

“I’m afraid.” Edie’s voice is soft as she admits that, and I can see the anguish in her face.

“We’ll figure this out.”

Our eyes meet, and I see how helpless she feels. After all, Graeme and Amelia were meant to be safe. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to find a solution, not go on a rescue mission.

“I just keep thinking about how scared Amelia must be,” she whispers. “Surrounded by monsters that want her dead. And Graeme…”

“Anthony won’t kill them.”

Her gaze turns suspicious and I realize how that could be interpreted. “Not that I remember anything about Anthony.” I comb my hand through my hair in frustration. Fuck, everything is so messed up. I’m Jude, dammit, not some monster from the past. “I mean, he won’t kill them, because you’re what he wants.”

“But why? He already has a part of me. He just needs the Progenitor.”

“I know.” Before we boarded the plane, I’d called Zhi and Maria again to tell them what happened. They seemed to be certain that they were safe where they were, but Zhi was considering changing locations. I don’t know where he might decide to go and I didn’t ask.

I want everyone kept in their separate compartments so we can deal with one thing at a time.

One step at a time.

“I’m going to kill him.” Edie sounds so sure when she says that. “I’m going to rip his fucking heart out. Like he did to Esther. And then…”

I pull her towards me and kiss her forehead, unprepared for the heat that arises deep within me at the simple, innocent kiss. “It’s going to be all right,” I whisper against her skin. I fucking hope so.

She yields to me and leans against my shoulder. I bury my nose in her hair, inhaling deeply, committing it to memory.

Who knows how much time we have left together? But I’m going to make every single second count.

***

Oh, thank fuck we’re off that airplane.

We walk down the jetway to the gate, and when my feet finally hit solid ground, I breathe out my first sigh of relief since we left the ground in Houston. So loudly, that Carl chuckles and shakes his head.

He slept a bit on the plane, so he’s doing better than I am, which has put him in a good mood.

Then again, the three of us are in varying degrees of cleanliness and exhaustion, and I still wonder how much of an impact Edie’s injury is going to cause. I’m not going to assume that it’s fully healed. Even if it is, she’s not even remotely close to being healed emotionally.

I sense vampires all around us in the airport; they’re not malicious, but it keeps me uneasy. At least we’re moving and getting out of here as soon as possible.

We emerge from the terminal to the baggage area where a large group of people wait to pick up passengers. I scan the crowd, trying to guess who this Lorne guy could be. The man I pegged for Lorne is someone totally different, because Edie approaches another person, an African American man who appears to be in his sixties. He’s only about five feet tall with a salt-and-pepper beard, and his keen eyes search us before he gives an approving nod. The guy oozes wry personality, giving me a basis for “Southern Hospitality”.

“Can I bum a cigarette?” Edie asks in a casual tone.

The man raises an eyebrow, appraising her. “I only roll my cigarettes,” he says in a strong Southern drawl.

Edie shrugs. This is all a part of their password exchange that they worked out over the phone to verify each other’s identities. “So long as it has bite.”

The man’s jaw moves slowly as he looks between her and Carl and me. “Harker. You look like your mother,” the old man, who I now know for certain is Lorne, says. “Who’re these two?” His eyes stay on my face long enough to tell me that he knows exactly what I am. I quirk my pierced eyebrow at him, daring him to say something.

“This is my cousin Carl. And this is…” Edie hesitates as she looks up at me. I wonder what’s going through her head, whether she’s debating on telling him that I’m Alejandro, or that I’m a vampire, or that I’m her boyfriend.

Shit, am I her boyfriend? I can’t deny the flutter of hope that rises in my chest, but a few kisses and proclamations does not a boyfriend make. I am someone special to her, though.

I just hope there’s enough time to explore whatever this is between us.

“…This is Jude,” Edie finally says.

“Interesting bringing one of those here,” Lorne says. He shakes his head with a chuckle and starts walking towards the exit. “I thought you flew out here to find a vampire, not bring one with you.”

Edie clears her throat, and glances at me. “He’s Anthony’s brother.”

Even Carl flinches, so I know that it’s not just me recoiling from it.

Lorne whirls on us and gives me another, more cautious, onceover. “His brother you say?”

I clear my throat. “Yeah.” Shit, that seems so weird to say out loud.

“You seem too nice for that, kid.”

Does that mean the old man likes me?

My sigh of relief is even more pronounced when we walk out into the night air to Lorne’s pickup in the parking lot. The truck is a 1971 F1 Ford in a minty toothpaste color, although it’s rusted in several places and the paint shows white in others. The thing looks like it won’t run, but as soon as Lorne turns the key and pumps the ignition, the pickup roars to life.

The man gives us a gap toothed grin as he reverses out of the space. “Welcome to Atlanta.”