Kindred (Kindred, Book 1) (32 page)

“
Come to join the fun, have ya, mate?”

“
You can see me?” I know, it wasn't the best opening line I could have used, but I was floundering here.

“
Bloody oath, mate! Been expectin' ya too. Took ya time, but.”

Well this was weird. He could see me and none of the vamps could. He was clearly Max's kindred Nosferatin, one of my kind, so could I trust him? Only one way to find out.

“So, um, what happens now?”

“
Strewth, mate, you really are a bit of a blonde, aren't ya. Now, I kill ya and in the process, I kill ya pathetic excuse of a vamp.”

OK. Now I was getting mad. No one calls my vampire pathetic.

I shoved my stake into my left hand and grabbed my knife out of its sheath with my right. I could use the stake on the guy, but it's a bit of an overkill on a human, especially one that doesn't look like he had ever had any martial arts training at all, unlike me. We started circling each other, him with his nasty sneer, me with what I hoped was a
don't mess with me, buddy
expression. Just as I was wondering how many times we were going to go round in a circle looking at each other - because I admit, I was a tad reticent to make the first move on another human, vampires I have no problem with, but I'd never had a go at a human before - he flicked his wrist and a dozen vampires jumped down into the courtyard from the balconies above the arches. Crap.

I switched the stake and knife over. I can stake a vampire with my left hand, but my right is much more accurate and powerful. Now, I knew these guys couldn't see me, they had that blank look on their faces, staring vaguely in the direction of where I was, but looking right through me, but old Aussie Punk was giving them a stream of directions of where I was and how I was standing. Damn.

One vampire sprang out and I stepped quickly out of his way and watched him fly by, so Aussie Punk upped the ante and sent two in my direction. I managed to dodge out of the way by ducking down and rolling to the side, swiping out with my stake on the shin of one of them as he went passed. He howled in pain and outrage. Jeez, it was only a scratch.

Next Aussie Punk - I'm really going to have to give him another name, that one's beginning to grate - sent in six vampires at once. This was going to be more difficult. I tried to run to left and squeeze through a small gap, but the vamps closed in together, I spun around in a circle looking for a way out and felt myself well and truly alone for the first time in my life. I swallowed the fear, I was not going out without a fight. I ran directly at one of the vampires and staked him through his chest, turning to stake the next beside him and then spinning to do it again to the one after that.

I could hear the kid shouting orders, but the world was spinning around me so fast as I went on to one vampire after the other. Then reinforcements arrived, closing in in a rush, I tried to run at the nearest, raising my stake, but the vamps put their arms up at the same time, like washing lines, after a quick shout from twat features and one caught me in the throat and made me topple over backward landing hard on my tail bone and forcing an
oomph
from my mouth. All the vamps homed in on the sound and came at me. I scrambled to my feet, but it wasn't fast enough. A vampire had his arms around my body, crushing any air from my lungs in the next instant.

My heart rate tripled and panic exploded inside, sending spots of white dancing in my eyes. I fought not to scream, I'm not sure if I could have anyway, I couldn't get a breath in with the vice-like grip from the vamp at my back. I tried wriggling and struggling. I even tried to scratch his arms with my stake and knife, but couldn't get much purchase. I stomped on his foot, scraped my boots down his shin and tried to elbow him in the guts, but all of it was to no avail.

I suddenly felt very scared and that's when I saw Michel falter. His mini tornado blurred and stuttered, I could see him now in amongst the still swirling mass of energy and light and colour, and then, I saw Max go in for the kill.

Somehow I must have got some air in because I could suddenly hear myself yelling, “No!”

The Aussie was coming towards me, an evil grin on his face. “I'm gonna enjoy killing ya, Lucinda.” And then he started singing
Waltzing Matilda
but with my name instead.

From the corner of my eye I caught a flickering movement and then a man, about the same age as me, maybe slightly older, suddenly appeared. He was dressed in white linen pants with a flowing long sleeved white shirt rolled half way up his arms, showing muscular forearms underneath, his dark brown skin standing out in direct contrast to the whiteness of the material. He had short black hair and high cheekbones with a fine nose. Far from looking feminine, he had the sense of nobility, the austere look of a fine middle eastern warrior.

Where the hell had he come from?

He turned to look at me, making direct eye contact with his piercing brown eyes and then a stake appeared in his hand. In the next instant he was airborne, slicing at the vampires in the courtyard, staking one then flowing on to the next, then the next and then the next; twisting and turning, dancing in the wind, his feet hardly touching the ground. He was poetry in motion. He was as beautiful, as stunning, as the sun. He was extraordinary. I couldn't take my eyes off him. Who was this man?

It took him mere seconds to kill all the vampires around me, the one holding me stiffening as he watched his comrades simply puff out of existence and blow away in the invisible flurries created by the man. Finally he was standing behind us and I felt the vampire's grip on me weaken and then disappear altogether in a cloud of dust.

Throughout all of this Aussie had just stood there with his mouth hanging open and a look of utter incredulity on his face. A bit like me really. We all stood still looking at each other for a moment and then the man simply threw a knife at the Aussie kid. It landed with a sickening thud in his chest all the way up to the hilt. The kid stumbled and fell forward onto his knees, his hands up to the knife, clutching it, but not pulling it out, his eyes wide open in surprise and a trickle of blood slowly running from his mouth.

There was a flash in the distance, over by Michel and Max, and I looked up just in time to see Michel ripping Max's head cleanly off in one smooth twisting motion. It went flying across the rubble and landed with a splat, then burst into dust. His body followed shortly after.

The air was still and silent. Enrique and Alessandra having chased the last of Max's vampires from the courtyard out on to the streets and probably all the way to the coast. I turned to look at the man next to me, mesmerized by his smile and the shades of copper and brown in his eyes.

“It is always a pleasure to meet a fellow Dream Walker, Kiwi.”

He had a middle eastern accent I recognised immediately.

“Nero?”

“
The one and only.” He bowed a graceful movement, bending in the middle with his arm across his chest.

I just looked at him. I couldn't stop. He was gorgeous. Then I heard Michel groan. Suddenly nothing mattered except getting to Michel. I took a step towards him, then remembered Nero and turned back.

“We shall meet again, Kiwi. Soon.” He nodded his head and flickered slightly and then he was gone.

Michel was on his side on the ground, panting, holding his stomach where his shirt had been torn right away. I raced over and skidded to a halt beside him, falling onto my knees in the rubble, not even registering the sharp shards of brick and rock piercing my skin through my tights. I reached out and touched his arm. “Michel?”

“
Ma douce
, you should not have come.” His voice was ragged, his breath laboured. Naturally he'd tell me off, couldn't just be glad to hear my voice.

I started crying, slow tears streaming down my face, falling onto the ground, onto his arm. He reached up and brushed a tear away, his touch so soft, so perfect. Then it dawned on me, he shouldn't be able to see me at all.

“Can you see me?”

“
No. I can sense you. I can feel you. It's almost as though I can see you.” He sounded better, his voice stronger.

I reached down and moved his arm. The gash which had been so large moments before, was now just an ugly red mark, sealed and slowly fading.

“You're healing.”

“
It would seem your proximity, even as a phantom, brings me good health.”

“
So, it was just as well I came then, wasn't it.”

I didn't wait for him to answer, I just leaned down and kissed him with brutal need. He had almost died, I had watched Max go in for the kill. I couldn't bear the thought of losing him, of this world losing him. He must have felt the same, because he gripped me in a tight embrace and began devouring me with his mouth, his tongue, his voice. Words in French and English, tumbling over each other, so fast and furious I couldn't make them out, but I knew what he meant.

I drew back, only because I needed to breathe, and then felt the beginnings of the blur before reaching into nothingness. Before I left completely to return to my body, I whispered, “Come home. Come back to me.”

“
Always,” was his reply.

I came to on my bed in the familiar surroundings of my apartment. I just lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling and a particularly interesting mark just next the the light fixture. For some reason I felt a little queasy, maybe the distance I travelled when I shifted, no what had Nero called it? -
Dream Walked -
in my sleep had an effect. That was the furthest I had been outside my body. Previously, I'd just made it across town and in different rooms of the same building I was resting in.

Nero. Well, that was certainly a turn up for the books. How had he known I needed help? Because that was why he was there, wasn't it? He just appeared when all my hope had fled and got straight down to it. Puzzling. And man, couldn't he move?

And Michel, all that power, that tornado of colours: blues, reds, yellows, indigos; how beautiful he had seemed as he spun and fought Max. Frightening, yet beautiful.

My body ached slightly in every joint, through every muscle, but not too bad, more like I'd just had a hard and fast workout with Rick at the Gym. Like I'd really been put through the paces. I decided, as the nausea had now subsided, that it was time to get up and see if Bruno was still doing his lobotomised sentry impersonation.

I gingerly sat up on the edge of the bed and when the world didn't tilt or begin to fade or anything, I stood and walked into the lounge. God, my body was sore, stiff and sore and tired. I hated hurting.

Bruno looked up as I entered, he'd been quietly flicking through a magazine.

“You're awake? How'd it go?”

“
Michel's OK. Max is dead.”

“
Yeah, I figured as much, the Master's on his way.”

OK. Vampires being in tune with their own and all that.

Suddenly, he sniffed the air and then he was immediately in front of my face, not a foot away, looking intently, running his hands over the back of my head, my neck, my arms. I tried batting him away.

“
Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

“
You are hurt. I can smell blood.”

He actually looked panicked, like me being injured was going to result in something bad for him. It probably would, Michel had probably left specific instructions to keep me safe, this no doubt would not have met that criteria.

He had my jacket off before I could even protest and had started lifting my top up to peer underneath, but by then I had gathered myself enough to struggle with his too strong arms.

“
Leave off, Bruno! You are not stripping me!”

“
I must inspect the injury. You are hurt.” He sounded a little like a demented robot with the last sentence. He stilled then and looked up at me. “Why are you hurt? You shouldn't be hurt.”

I took the opportunity his distraction at why I was hurt had caused, to feel my side. Sure enough there was definitely a tender spot, bruising and when my hand came away, a small smattering of blood, not much, but it would have been enough for Bruno to smell. I stared at my hand. How had I got hurt? In the struggle with the vampire that had held me, perhaps my stake had sliced my side, but I couldn't remember it. All I remembered was the hopelessness descending on me like a shroud.

“I...I don't know.” And then more surely, “It's nothing though OK, so you can drop the personal inspection. I get hurt like this all the time, Bruno, it's nothing.”

Although part of me was a little shocked that I had been hurt at all and not even realised it. Or that I had been hurt while Dream Walking, I hadn't known that was possible and now I was a little less enamoured with the whole thing. Still, it was pretty cool though, wasn't it?

Just then Bruno turned into a statue, that good old familiar vampire calm and swung his head towards the door in such a quick movement it blurred. His right hand hadn't moved from my t-shirt, still lifting it slightly, his other holding my arm. He was standing so close I could feel the warmth of him radiating off his chest like an electric heater. The front door to the apartment sprung open and standing on the threshold was Michel.