I Am Forever (What Kills Me) (31 page)

“Transporter,” a female voice said. “I thought we made it clear that you are banned from this place.”

“I’m here to see the den master. And I’ve brought him a treat.”

I heard Ryka’s sharp intake of breath.

“I can see that, Transporter. But we are at capacity, and you’ve brought friends.”

The hum of a surveillance camera in the corner of the stairwell drew my attention.

“They’re foreigners and I wanted to show them some hospitality.”

“Sorry, Transporter.”

“Viuda, let us in and I’ll deliver you an extra month’s worth of blood.”

There was a pause. “Two months,” she said.

“Two months will attract attention from the Monarchy. I’ll have to steal it from other shipments.”

“Two months, otherwise you and your friends will have to find somewhere else to—”

“Fine, two months!”

“Remember, “she said, “all weapons have to be checked in at the entrance.”

She slid the panel shut and the door vibrated with the click of several locks opening.

The door creaked open and Cormac and Lucas stepped inside. I took one look at Ryka. In the blue light she looked unearthly.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said.

“Be safe,” she said. And San leaped up the stairs with her.

I walked inside. Lucas had knocked Viuda out and put her behind a counter at the entrance.

I froze.
Den is not the appropriate word.
The place was a massive open warehouse. It was like being inside a meat locker. And vampires were everywhere.

The white strobe lighting made them look ghoulish. Especially the ones that were dancing, the flash capturing them mid-motion. The vampires licked their lips and reached out to touch a sweaty young man while he jumped to the music, a blank look in his eyes. His body odor coated the back of my throat; it was pungent, like insect repellent. To my left a girl was sitting on a vampire’s lap. She couldn’t have been older than me. She looked liked a groupie with a rock band. Her blond hair was slicked back into a tight ponytail, and her small body was wrapped in a blue dress.
I remembered Lucas telling me about the few humans who knew about vampires; they hung out with vampires and served them in hopes of becoming immortal.

As I walked by the blond girl I leaned over.

“Hey, does your mother know where you are?” I asked her.

“Excuse me?” she said, her fingers splayed on her chest.

Lucas pulled me away. “Don’t get distracted,” he scolded.

We threaded through the revelers. Various brown stains marred the polished concrete floors. Dancers rubbed up against us, their heads thrown back, their eyes closed.

“He’s there,” Cormac said, pointing to a vampire leaning against the bar.

I tugged on my hood and we pushed through the bodies to get to him.

“Den Master,” Cormac called.

The den master glared at us as we approached. He had dark eyes, a flat face, and a slight underbite, like a piranha. He picked up the black braid that hung over the lapel of his leather jacket and tossed it over his shoulder.

“Transporter,” he said, “I thought I told you that you were not to return.”

“I brought you a human,” Cormac said.

“Where is it?”

“She’s waiting by the door with Viuda.”

“Really? How else did you bribe your way in?”

“Two months of blood.”

The den master smiled and two dents formed in his full cheeks. “That was desperate of you.” He became serious again. “Why the generosity? Who are your guests?”

“Out-of-towners. They’re looking for some information. I thought you might be able to help.”

“Some rebels kidnapped a human family last night,” Lucas said.

The den master waved a hand dismissively. “That is hardly worth anyone’s concern.”

“This is a very important family,” Lucas said.

The bartender handed the den master a bottle of blood. The smell triggered a painful thirst. The den master pushed himself away from the marble top and started to walk away.

“I know nothing about any human family,” he said.

A growl rumbled in my throat. As he lifted the bottle to his lips, I nudged past Lucas and grabbed the den master’s wrist.

You will tell me what you know. Who took my family?

The bottle slipped from his hand. As it fell, I saw a figure in his memory. She was closing a door, and over her shoulder I saw my sister in her pajamas, a burlap sack over her head.

The bottle exploded at my feet, splashing blood up my bare legs.

Oh my God. Her. Not her.

I saw the kidnapper’s face. And her purple hair.

Samira.

I tensed my hand, and the bones in the den master’s wrist splintered off. He cried out and fell onto one knee.

“Zee,” Lucas said.

“Where did she take them?” I bent over so my face was inches from his. “Tell me where she took them or I will rip your arm off.”

I ground his wrist in my fingers like it was a sock filled with cornflakes. He screamed.

“Tell me now!” I yelled. I didn’t recognize the room in his memory. It was too dark.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“You’re lying.”

“She brought the humans here last night, but she came today and moved them.”

I released him. Fury set my face ablaze. Nothing in my life had ever been as incendiary as this shocking betrayal. Samira had been our friend. She had protected us from the Monarchy.

“Samira took them,” I told Lucas.

“No.”

“Samira took my family.”

“She wouldn’t—”

“I SAW HER!”

Suddenly I was off my feet. Someone had grabbed my hood and was flinging me in the air. I tore my jacket open and flew free of it. I did a backward somersault, and I landed on the bar in a crouched position, smashing glasses and bottles. I bared my fangs. The bartender staggered back against a shelf of bottles. Lucas drew his swords.

A huge vampire dropped the tattered jacket. I assumed that he was a bouncer. He had long arms with bulgy muscles; they looked like boa constrictors that had just swallowed large animals. His black T-shirt was stretched over his massive shoulders.

With a roar he charged me with his gorilla arms and I kicked him in the chest. He fell back, clutching his broken ribs. Then he reached over the bar and grabbed an aluminum keg. He swung it at me and I leaped up to avoid it.

He spun around to hit me again. This time I met the keg with my fist. It burst. Blood splattered everywhere. Through the metal and the liquid I hit the bouncer square in the face, shattering his nose. He collapsed against the bar and slipped to the ground.

I stood and looked over the crowd. Everyone was staring back at me. I must have looked horrifying, all red and wet.

The den master gasped. “The—the Divine,” he stammered. “It’s the Divine!’

People looked confused; everyone froze. Then I saw a group of vampires pushing through the crowd toward us. A woman screamed and there was a mass exodus for the door, as if someone had pulled the plug on a drain.

I hopped off the bar next to Lucas, my feet slapping the wet floor.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“We have to find Samira,” I said.

“We will.”

A vampire shoved several others out of the way. I recognized him as the one who’d had the girl in his lap. He raised his hand and pointed a gun at me.

Crap.

I grabbed the den master and dragged him in front of me just as the gun went off. Two spikes attached to wire shot out of the barrel like venom from a snake’s fangs. One stuck in the den master’s forehead, the other in his chest, electrocuting him. I sprang back. The vampire dropped the gun and pulled out a baton with sparking prods at the end. He waved it as if it was a giant sparkler.

Rebel.

Lucas rushed at two vampires and cut through their batons with his swords. He slid onto his knees to slice a vampire across his abdomen. When the vampire doubled over, Lucas shot straight up and severed his head. Spinning, he kicked the legs out from another and before the vampire hit the ground, Lucas drove a sword in his gut.

I vaulted over the fallen den master and slammed into the vampire who had tried to shoot me, my knees against his chest, my fists pulverizing his skull. His ribs cracked under my weight. Another rebel came at me, swinging two batons as if she was turning skipping ropes. I stood up, leaned back, and kicked out. She ran straight into my foot and cracked her forehead against my heel.

“Lucas, we have to get out of here. We need to go find Samira!” I looked around for Cormac but he was gone. I hoped he had escaped.

I heard Lucas cry out and I whipped around to see him fall, two electrodes stuck in his chest. He tipped back like a felled tree, arms at his side, and his swords clattered to the ground. “Lucas!”

Before I could make a move, a pang hit me like a kick in the back. I screamed, the pain crippling me.

Oh no. We’re both done.

As I toppled backward, someone caught me. It was San. A headless vampire sprawled at his feet, still clutching a flashing baton.

“Where’s Ryka?” I asked as he righted me. My feet slipped in a widening pool of blood and San had to support me.

“I put her in her car and sent her home. Where’s the swordsmith?”

“There—” I started.

“—getting fried,” San finished.

“Please help him.”

“Meet us at the door.”

With my wobbly legs I moved like the Scarecrow in the
Wizard of Oz
. Anyone who wasn’t fighting had already left the den. I hobbled to the exit, rested against the steel door, and checked over my shoulder to see San stabbing the last rebel while wearing a limp Lucas like a backpack.

“Let’s go, my lady,” San said.

We climbed the stairs and emerged into the night. I could hear vampires scurrying through the trees, kicking up snow as they sprinted away. Some humans were headed for the main road, sniffling and huffing.

A familiar scent, flowers and smoke, drifted to me, and I turned to the entrance of the monastery.

You.

Samira was standing in the vacant rectangle where the door used to be. She was in tight leather pants and a short motorcycle jacket. Her curly violet hair blew across her olive-skinned face as she stepped out of the entranceway, her boots scratching the snow and gravel. Her lips moved, I think to say my name, but I don’t know because I was roaring and charging her.

Her eyes widened and she tensed, her hands uncoiling a wire.

I knew that wire. It was the weapon that she used to behead other vampires. The weapon that she wanted to use to fight me.

I crashed into her. With all the weight of my wrath. I pushed her hands down on either side of her head, pressing her own wire against her throat. A fountain of red spilled down her neck. We rocketed into the stone wall of the monastery, and the structure cracked and coughed, blowing a cloud of grit and rock around us. The face of the bell tower groaned. We both looked up to see it crumble and fall, as if someone was closing a lid on us. It rained rocks until everything turned to black.