Mirage (19 page)

Trevors rose, leading us out toward the foyer. “I’m sure he’ll contact you as soon as he’s able,” he assured me. “But yes, of course.” He gestured toward a pad of paper and pen on the console opposite the front door.

“Thanks,” I said, scribbling my name and number.

Trevors turned toward Cece and extended one hand. “It was very good to make your acquaintance, Miss Bradford. I hope we’ll meet again soon.”

Cece beamed at him as she shook his hand. “I hope so too.”

It was only when he reached out to take my hand that I remembered he was supposed to be the enemy—at least, the
Sâbbat
part of me thought he was, if the way my body recoiled was any indication. My urges had calmed while we had sat talking, but now they were back in full force.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, forcing myself to suppress the shudder that snaked down my spine as I gripped his cold hand in mine.

“It’s entirely understandable,” he answered with a smile. “I appreciate your restraint.”

Restraint.
I supposed that was the right word. Because at present, every cell in my body was screaming in alarm. My fingers were itching for my stake, desperate to use it.

Instead, I was shaking the vampire’s hand and leaving him my number.

Trevors’s gaze met mine, questioning. “It’s fascinating, really. I’ve never before met one of your kind.
Sâbbat
.”

“Yeah, me either,” I answered with a shrug. I didn’t know how, but someday—somewhere—I would find those other girls like me.

And when I did … well, I had no idea what I’d do once I found them. I only knew that I somehow must.

For now, that would have to be enough.

17 ~ Under Where?

A
idan reached for my hand, bringing it up to his lips. “I’m sorry, Vi. I just didn’t want—”

“Me to worry. Yeah, I know. It’s still no excuse.” I snatched my hand away as I slid into a seat at our usual lunch table. “You should have at least called and told me you were going away.”

He ducked his head, looking somewhat sheepish as he slid into the seat beside me. “But then I would’ve had to tell you where I was going. You would have worried yourself sick, when you had the tournament—”

“That you were supposed to come to. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

“Okay, okay.” He held up his hands in surrender. “So I’m an idiot. A complete moron.”

“Keep going,” I prodded, waving one hand in a circular motion.

“A … jerk? Help me out here, I’m running out of appropriate insults.” His jaw was set, but his eyes were smiling.

“Hey,” a voice called out, and I looked up to find Tyler standing across the table from us as the lunch crowd shuffled in around him. “I think I might have left a pair of boxers over at Patsy’s this weekend. Let me know if she finds ’em, okay? I liked that pair. Worn and comfy, you know?”

I winced, feeling Aidan tense beside me. “What?” was all he said. Rather restrained, actually. I had to give him credit.

Tyler was grinning now. “Yeah, when you were a no-show on Friday, Violet asked me over for the weekend. Didn’t she tell you?”

I let out a sigh. “Cece and Sophie were there too. Oops, you left that part out, didn’t you, Ty?”

“Hmm, I guess I did. Sorry ’bout that.” He nodded in Aidan’s direction. “Guess I should be grateful that you’re just a mind reader and not something more dangerous, huh?”

There was something in his tone that made my heart skip a beat. Had he somehow figured it out? Or was I just paranoid?

Don’t react,
Aidan said inside my head.
Just ignore it.

“I should go get some food,” I muttered, rising on shaky legs.

When I returned to the table five minutes later, everyone was there. Well, everyone except Joshua, who still sat with the other shifters at meals, and Jack, who had always eaten with the football team anyway.

Max had joined our little group. He and Marissa sat at the end of the table, in shouting distance to Max’s bandmates, who now occupied the next table over.

Kate and Cece were there, sitting as far away from each other as the rectangular-shaped table allowed, with poor Sophie stuck somewhere in the middle, playing the role of neutral party.

“So, what’d you guys do this weekend?” Kate was asking Sophie as I slipped back into my seat beside Aidan.

Sophie shrugged. “You know, just hung out. It mostly rained.”

Which was true. We’d stayed in, watching movies for the most part. I assumed that she didn’t know that Tyler had ended up spending the weekend with us. I had no idea how well that would go over. Didn’t want to find out, really.

“It was pretty quiet here,” Kate said. “Luckily these two let me hang with them.” She hooked her thumb toward Marissa and Max, who were deep in conversation—about the merits of Linkin Park’s newest album, it would seem.

Since when did Marissa like Linkin Park?

I turned toward Aidan, who was sitting quietly beside me. “You’re not hungry?”

“Not really.” He shook his head. “I think I might head over to the lab.”

Weird, because the new serum had increased his appetite for actual food, along with other more humanlike traits. Maybe it was starting to wear off or something.

“Sure, whatever,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
You’ve still got a heck of a lot of explaining to do,
I added silently.

He smiled. “We’ll talk after sixth period, okay?”

As soon as Aidan vacated his seat, Tyler was there, holding a tray cluttered with food. “You leaving?” he called out to Aidan’s back. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said when Aidan continued on without looking back. With a clatter, he set his tray down and slipped into the seat beside me.

He was seemingly oblivious to the tension that crackled around him now. Cece was visibly ruffling; Kate lowered her gaze, her cheeks flushing pink.

“Uh, Marissa,” I muttered, looking at her entreatingly. “Could you maybe help us out here?”

Mercifully, she did.

Aidan and I were walking over to the chapel after sixth period when I stumbled, my vision tunneling as everything went dark.

Patsy was standing on a golf course. Everything was green, which meant it wasn’t late fall in New York. But then I noticed the palm trees swaying in the breeze behind her. She was somewhere tropical. It could be any season, I reasoned. She stepped up to a tee, bending down to place her pink ball atop it. As she straightened, her body jerked. I heard her gasp as she swatted at her right arm.

“Hey, you okay?” an unfamiliar man called out. He had an accent—Australian, maybe? I’d never seen him before. He was tall, with short brown hair and blue eyes. Good-looking, I guess, in an unremarkable way.

“I need my EpiPen,” Patsy replied, hurrying over to the golf cart. There was a tone of urgency in her voice. She was deathly allergic to bees—she never went anywhere without an EpiPen. I saw her digging around in her bag, saw her movements become more and more frantic. “Damn it, where is it? Oh God, no. I switched bags last night. …” Her eyes grew wide with panic. Her lips had already begun to swell; red rings circled her eyes. “Call 911,” she choked out, reaching for one of the cart’s roof supports to steady herself.

And then it was over. I was sitting on the curb, cradled in Aidan’s arms. “Hey, you okay?” he crooned.

I shook my head. “This one was bad. Patsy. A bee sting,” was all I managed.

“She’s allergic?”

“Yep, goes into anaphylactic shock. Carries an EpiPen. She was on a golf course somewhere, on a trip, I think. But she didn’t have it with her.” I closed my eyes, taking a deep, calming breath. “The EpiPen, I mean.”

Aidan kissed my temple. “It’s okay. You can work with this.”

I swallowed hard. “I guess. She’s never going to listen—never going to believe me.”

“Just make sure she’s got an EpiPen,” he offered.

“It’s not like I can follow her around twenty-four seven. What am I supposed to do? She doesn’t always tell me when she’s going away. God, she could be in Hawaii or somewhere like that right now, for all I know.” My head was spinning.

What if … what if the bee sting
killed
her? What if I’d just witnessed her death, just like I’d seen my dad’s? Panic made my heart race, my palms dampen.

“Look, Vi, you just saw her this weekend,” Aidan reasoned. “She probably would have mentioned a trip, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I conceded. “I’m going to have to work on replaying this one. I have to see what’s going to happen. To make sure … you know, that she’s going to be okay. With no EpiPen, if she doesn’t get to a hospital right away, it’ll be too late.”

Aidan nodded, apparently understanding the gravity of the situation. “Do you want me to call Dr. Byrne now?”

“No, you’re right—she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It can wait till Saturday. I hope,” I added. “Here, help me up.”

He stood, reaching for my arm and pulling me to my feet. “Want me to walk you back to the dorms?”

“No, I’m good. What, did you think you were going to get off that easy?”

“You’re cold.” He took my hands, rubbing them between his own. “Let’s get to chapel, and then I’ll talk.”

“You bet you will,” I shot back.

Minutes later, we settled ourselves into a pew near the altar. Aidan had lit the sconces along the walls—telekinetically, of course—and a warm, soft light filled the chapel.

“You want my scarf?” He unwound it from his neck and held it out to me.

I took it, not because I was cold but because I loved that striped scarf. It held his scent, and I loved to snuggle into it.

“Thanks,” I said, draping it around my neck. “Okay, now tell me why you went to the Tribunal.”

“I didn’t have much choice. Luc insisted, as did Mrs. Girard. I guess you could say I was ordered there. They just wanted to see me, to check on my condition. It’s not something they’ve seen before.”

“And?”

“And that’s it. I wasn’t in any trouble or anything like that. It was just a … well, an informational visit. With Luc as my escort.”

I didn’t like the sound of that but decided to keep my opinion to myself. “How did you get to Paris?” I asked instead.

“We flew.”

My eyes grew wide with surprise.
Flew?

He reached for one end of the scarf and wound it around my neck. “Yeah, commercial airliner. Nighttime flight,” he added, seeing my confusion. “How did you think we traveled across the ocean?”

“I have
no
idea.” An image of Aidan flying like a bat flooded my consciousness. I had to admit, it was kind of funny.

“Well, we can move faster than the human eye can see, but we can’t walk on water,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Yeah, whatever. Okay, so you flew. Commercial. And they just talked to you, that’s all?”

“They examined me, asked about the serum. That’s about it. They’re supportive of my work, you know. They’re not opposed to a cure, to offering a choice to those who may not have had one when they were turned.”

“I’m glad to hear they’re sensible.”
Yeah, right.

“Well, I’m not sure I’d call them sensible,” he said, obviously missing my sarcasm. “I have a feeling that Isa would be happy to cure vampires she deems unworthy
without
their consent. Anyway, the trip wasn’t a total waste of time. Luc found this.” He dug into his bag and produced a book—a very old book, by the look of it.

“What is it?” I asked, running my fingers across the ragged, split leather cover. There were words etched in gold—in a strange-looking alphabet that I didn’t recognize.

“It’s Serbian,” he said, lifting the cover and flipping to a spot near the back where a folded piece of paper was tucked inside. “But Luc translated this section for me.”

He unfolded the page, which was filled with a precise, slanted script. The word
Sâbbat
immediately jumped out at me.

“He found something about
Sâbbats
?” My heart was pounding now, my hands shaking as I reached for the page.

Aidan nodded. “He did, indeed.
Sâbbats
, and their male counterparts, the
Megvédio
, or Protectorate.”

“The what?”

He tapped the page. “Read it.”

There exists an ancient legend of the
Sâbbat
, a name that is rarely spoken aloud, for it is feared that doing so establishes a connection between the minds of the two—vampire and slayer. The
Sâbbat
is a hunter of vampires, a slayer—a female, born on a Saturday. Only three exist at any given time, a child of the order born to replace the deceased. It is a blood legacy, passed from mother to firstborn daughter, lying dormant for generations until triggered by necessity.

As she approaches her eighteenth year, the
Sâbbat
discovers her purpose, becoming possessed of a hatred for the vampire and a burning desire to hunt and destroy. She is brave, fierce, and dauntless. Her weapon is a stake made from the wood of the hawthorn tree, trimmed in size and sharpened to a deadly point. She takes the mark of the
Sâbbat
on the wrist of her dominant hand.

At the time of self-discovery, her male counterpart, the
Megvéd
, reveals himself to her and offers his protection. He is strong, fearless, and cunning. He possesses no powers equal to the
Sâbbat
’s—he offers only assistance and companionship. Unlike the rare
Sâbbat
, the
Megvédio
are more plentiful in number, aware of their status at a young age. Their status, too, is a blood legacy, conferred from second-born son to second-born son. Like the
Sâbbat
, the
Megvéd
bears an identifying mark.

Only the rare
Megvéd
finds his
Sâbbat
, on account of her scarcity at any given time. Thus, it is considered a great honor. Their bond is strong, psychologically and psychically. He becomes her mate in every sense, their mission singular—to rid the earth of vampires.