Hunted (29 page)

She was not willing to live that way, no matter how many blood thirsty vampires were in town. 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

There was a brief silence in the kitchen, during which Lanie could tell that Kyle wanted to say something, but couldn’t seem to work up to it.  So, she decided to tell him what she’d spent all night waiting to tell him, the thing that had nearly gotten her killed.

“My aunt told me about your sister.  I’m sorry,” she said quietly and watched as Kyle went even more rigid than he already was, his face going a shade paler and his gaze dropping down to his untouched glass of tea.  Instantly, she was hit by a wave of guilt.  “I’m-I’m sorry.  I-I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said quickly, feeling like an idiot.

Maybe it was too painful for him to talk about.  She hadn’t been able to talk about her mom for months.  Kyle might not be ready to talk about his sister, and here she was, bringing it up!  Good grief, she was as bad as Gretchen!   

Kyle was quiet for a long minute before clearing his throat and bringing his eyes back up to her.  The stark, raw pain Lanie saw swimming in those sparkling green orbs took her breath away.

“I went to pick Allison up from work one night and…I heard something around the back of the restaurant.  I thought it was her taking the trash out, so I went back there to help her...and he was there.  He had her on the ground.  She wasn’t screaming or trying to get away.  She was just lying there.”  Kyle stopped speaking, staring at Lanie, but seeing something else.  He was seeing that night.  “I didn’t know what he was then.  Not that it would have mattered.  I would have tried to save my sister, no matter what he was.  And I did try.  I just…couldn’t.”

Of course he couldn’t.  No one would have been able to stop that monster.  She knew.  She’d seen…  But, it was obvious that he still blamed himself.

“I woke up later…I still don’t know how much later, maybe days…in the garbage dump across town.  It took a while for me to figure out that something had happened to me.  I guess he’d meant to kill me, but something…went wrong.  I-I didn’t die,” Kyle said, clearly replaying that ordeal in his mind.  “I tried to find Allison.  I searched everywhere, I searched for an entire day, but I couldn’t find her.  There was just too much filth to dig through, so I had to give up.”

Lanie tried to swallow the sudden lump in her throat.  The misery on Kyle’s face was agonizing.  She could actually picture him, confused and desperate, digging through a garbage dump searching for the body of his sister.  She tried to push that image away.

“It was a while before I understood just what he’d done to me.  It was a while before I realized I was actually…dead.  It took me even longer to figure out how it works with me and him.  And when I figured it out, I started hunting him,” Kyle told her, some of his misery giving way to cold, hard anger.  “I’ve hunted him all over the globe.  I’ve hunted him non-stop for four years.  I’ve hunted him until…I have nothing left to hunt him with.  I-I’ve missed both my parents’ funerals, I’ve sold their house and spent every cent I have chasing him.  And I’m no closer to killing him now than I was the night he killed my sister.”

“But, you are close,” Lanie told him, wanting to wipe away the sudden look of utter defeat on Kyle Vincent’s ruggedly handsome face.  “You’ve shot him twice now.”

Kyle pulled in a deep breath, steadying himself.  “I know.  It’s the closest I’ve gotten to him in a long time.  But, it’s not close enough.  I’m afraid I’ll
never
get close enough,” Kyle confessed, shaking his head.  “You’ve seen.  I mean, I know exactly how to end him.  I have all the right elements, I’m nearly as fast and as strong as he is, but I still haven’t been able to do it.” 

Lanie placed her glass of tea onto the counter top and walked around to take a seat next to Kyle.   “What do you mean elements?” she asked.  “Don’t you just have to…stake him?”  She flushed as she said it. 

How stupid did she sound!  She could not believe this was an actual conversation she was having now!

“It’s a little more complicated than just staking him,” Kyle told her, some of his anguish gone.  “It’s not like the movies.  Killing a vampire is more…involved and intricate than just putting a stake through him.”

“Well, tell me,” she said, thinking it might be a good idea to know how to do it, just in case. 

In case she ever had an opportunity to try and kill the vampire who was after her?  Yeah, that was probably never going to happen.

“Well, to start, you can’t just grab anything and put it through a vampire’s heart.  If you use the wrong weapon, it won’t do anything but piss him off and make him kill you harder,” Kyle said forthrightly.

“What do you have to use?” she asked, still not quite able to believe this sort of conversation was necessary.

“A stake made of petrified wood. 
Real
petrified wood that only comes from a few places on earth.”

“Is that what those are made of?” she asked, pointing to the pouch of gleaming shards strapped to his leg.

“Yes.  The wood to make these stakes came from a forest in Arizona.  It takes six hours to hone just one,” he told her.

“Why does it have to be petrified wood?” she wondered, actually curious.  She couldn’t see any good reason why a table leg wouldn’t do.

“True fossilized wood is the hardest substance on earth next to diamonds.  The organic material has been replaced with half a dozen elements, including quartz and iron.  The quartz makes the stakes hard enough to pierce through a vampire’s flesh and bone and reach his heart, which has been turned into something shriveled and petrified itself.”

“Really?” Lanie asked dubiously, though she had no reason not to believe what Kyle was telling her.  “But, I heard…well, I didn’t hear….you-you have no…heartbeat, right?  So, why…how…”

Kyle’s heart had been turned to stone?  That was why had had no heartbeat?

Kyle gave her a patient smile.  “A stake through the heart doesn’t kill the vampire.  The iron and the other elements in the fossilized wood poison the vampire, keeping him immobile until he can be relieved of his head.”

“Oh,” she said.  “So, beheading a vampire is what kills him?” 

“Yes, but there are a couple more steps to ensure that he stays dead,” came the answer. 

Stays dead?  That statement gave Lanie the creeps.

“First, you can’t behead a vampire unless you have a blade honed of the same material as the stake, because nothing else is strong enough.  Once the head has been severed, both the head and the body have to be burned until they become as petrified as the stake that ran the vampire through.  And then the pieces have to be buried separately in the earth, with the stake left in the heart.” 

Well.  That sounded like a lot more work than necessary.  Shouldn’t it have been stake the vampire, the vampire bursts into flame, end of…movie? 

“What happened if one of the steps aren’t followed?” Lanie questioned, feeling her stomach wobble with trepidation.

“I have no idea, but I don’t think I want to find out,” Kyle told her.

She would not argue that point. 

Kyle suddenly gave her a serious look, something dark wafting through his green eyes.  “I’m not letting him take you, Lanie.  I lost my sister to him.  And I’ve never been able to save anyone else because I’m always too late.  Until now.  I won’t let him take you, too.”

Kyle Vincent felt responsible for her.  And even though she didn’t know him from Pete, she didn’t want him to blame himself if…something happened to her.  It was obvious that he was carrying enough weight on his shoulders.

“Why does he want me?  Why…me?” she asked him, wishing she did not need to utter that question.

“That’s the way it is.  A vampire choses a mate on sight.  They see someone they like and they…take them,” Kyle said, looking pained.

Lanie felt a jolt go through her.  “He wants to make me his mate?” she asked weakly. 

When he’d been trying to call her outside, she hadn’t thought about him making her his mate.  Mating with her, yes, but not taking her as his vampire wife!

“Lanie, please, try not to think about it.  I’m not going to let him take you.  I promise,” Kyle assured her, his handsome features set tight.

She knew he was trying to make her feel better, but it was not working.  She was feeling
the opposite
of better.  “H-How do they…make a mate?” she didn’t exactly want to know, but just in case, she wanted to hear what would happen to her.

“It only takes a bite.  That’s it,” Kyle said simply.  “Their bite will turn you.  That is, if they don’t drain you first.”

“So, if you don’t die…you get turned?  Even…even if he doesn’t want to turn you?” she wondered, feeling sick.

“Yes.  But, that doesn’t happen often.  At least not with Frederik.  He’s greedy.  He leaves them without a drop in them.”

“So, he’s never…left someone?” she went on, wishing she could stop herself. 

“He has.”

“And what happened to them?” she asked hoarsely.

“I killed them,” Kyle stated.  “They’re easier to kill when they’re first turned.  It takes time and ingesting human blood before a vampire can become as strong as Frederik.”

Kyle Vincent had killed people.  Could they be called
people
?  Should she be upset by that fact? 

“Well, is there anything I can do to…stop him?  Or slow him down?  Wearing a crucifix or…or…” she let her voice trail off.

Or what?  Throwing a garlic clove at him?  She’d seen him.  She somehow doubted that a tasty little clove of garlic tossed at him would faze him in the least.

“Removing his head is the only thing that will kill him.  Blessed water will burn him.  Iron will poison him.  A stake to the heart will stun him.  All else will gall him,” Kyle answered, sounding as if he was quoting instructions from a manual.  “But, you aren’t fast enough to use either against Frederik.”

Well, neither was Kyle Vincent, when it came right down to it.  “How do you know this stuff?  I mean…is it because you…you…”

“I wasn’t made knowing this stuff.  I had no one to teach me because the person who sired me left me in a dump.  But, I did find a man who helped me,” Kyle stated, his voice softening.

“A man?  How would a man know—“

“He’s a vampire.  Father Cristos taught me everything I needed to know about living like this and about killing Frederik and his kind.”

Father?  There was a vampire priest someplace out there who was an expert in killing other vampires?  Somehow, that didn’t surprise her as much as it should have.

A sudden thought struck Lanie and she felt her chest swell with excitement.  “Where does Frederik go when he’s not…killing people?” she asked.  “He must go someplace.  He can’t just roam the streets all the time.”  

“He doesn’t.  He has to rest.  Unless he’s changed his habits since coming here, he rests during the afternoon and evening and then goes out hunting just before sunset,” Kyle answered.

That was when she’d left Stacy.  Just before sunset.  “Where does he usually stay?  I mean, does he just check into a hotel?”  If that was the case, then couldn’t they just find him, barge in, and stake him?

“I wish that was an option,” Kyle said, obviously knowing what she was thinking.  “But, he doesn’t stay at a hotel.  He just picks a house and makes that his home base.”

“So, we can find what houses are empty in town.  It shouldn’t be too hard.  There aren’t—“

“No, Lanie.  He doesn’t stay in empty houses.  He chooses a house he likes and he moves into it.  He’s not an animal.  He may be a vampire, but he likes to have comforts.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her stomach tightening.  “He has to be invited inside, right?  Who would invite him inside?  Especially
here
?  No one knows him, no one would just ask him to come inside!” 

“He kills the people in the house, Lanie,” Kyle said to her.  “If someone’s in enough pain, they’ll invite anyone inside.  And once he’s in and the people are dead, he can come and go as he pleases.”

Lanie felt ill.  Frederik had killed someone in Fells Pointe and was using their house as his nest?  That was…twisted!