Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan (12 page)

I bit my lip. His soothing concern was not helping my attempt to stiffen my spine a little.

“But you’re not
a mooch
,” he continued. “The other reason Damian wanted you over here was to see whether your gifts had any reaction to the plans he’s making. Trust me, you’ll earn your keep,” he said, smiling, though his words had the opposite effect on me. Attempting to harness a force I didn’t understand and still only half-believed wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I said I was used to pulling my own weight.

As if responding to my doubts, I felt a warmth flow across my shoulders. “I think Damian’s almost home,” I said.

“Okay, then you really
need
to finish a few more packs of blood now, because he’ll want to get started as soon as he gets here.”

I stiffened.

“Please
Aly
? You need them as much as any person who’d show up for a transfusion. I promise you Damian would never leave a bank or hospital running dangerously low. You’re putting all of us at risk by not drinking enough.”

“How?”

Tom scrunched his face up, rubbing his palm over it. “I’ll explain while you drink, okay?”

I nodded, as much giving in to my still-very-present hunger as his negotiating skills. I grabbed a pack and popped it, then gestured for him to continue.

“Okay, the vamp that attacked you initially—he’s one of Cesar’s.”

I quirked an eyebrow at him.
I knew this already.

“Anyway, the vamp in the alley had been told simply to capture you and bring you to Cesar. But I found him trailing you and we fought. He lost a lot of his blood reserve in that fight, making him half-starved, so when he saw you his hunger overrode Cesar’s orders. Usually vamps can’t disobey direct orders from their maker, but if the hunger is strong enough it overrides everything else.”

I’d finished my pack and was about to pop another, but I paused.

“I can resist you, though,” I said.

Tom stiffened, and looked away. “I appear to have only the barest sway over you, and only if you aren’t resisting. Damian thinks it’s because I never drank any of your blood since you were already drained by Cesar’s underling; he suspects your gifts may play a part in it too. That’s why it’s especially important you not be even slightly hungry—I can’t exercise any control over you to hold you back.”

I hurriedly drank the rest of the second pack.

“Is that enough, do you think?” I asked.

Tom nodded, opening his mouth to speak, and then we heard Damian’s car pull up the driveway. Within seconds Valerie and Sam were back in the kitchen, and a moment after that Damian walked in, Luis a step or two behind him. I winced when I saw Luis.

“Hey, um, sorry about last night” I said, giving him an apologetic look. “I hope your hangover wasn’t too bad when you woke up.”

Luis shrugged. “Better than a stake, I guess.” He grinned. “I should have known Tom would set you up with the liquid silver. No hard feelings.”

“Thanks.”

While we were speaking, Damian had been spreading out some papers across the expansive marble countertops. I glanced at them now, noting a few exterior photos of what looked like a decent-sized suburban home, and a few floor plans with various markings sketched onto them in pencil.

“Alright, Cesar is currently based out of Nashville, so the drive to get there shouldn’t take too long. I got Amelia to bring me these photos” he tapped the pile on one end of the counter “and the floor plans are provided courtesy of an old friend.” He smiled.

Damian then explained that the Duchess would prefer we keep our counter-attack as quiet as possible. She agreed Cesar had far overstepped his boundaries in sending servants into Damian and Valerie's home, but she’d also heard rumors that he was putting together a petition to legally claim me as part of his organization since it was his vassal who drained me. If the formal petition was filed it would require a hearing that could drag on for weeks, maybe longer.

“And I think we all have better things to do with our time,” Damian finished, smiling, “yes?”

“Wait,” I interjected, “you’re saying some jerk who’s been trying to kill me might be able to make some kind of formal vampire claim on me that could force me to be part of his organization? What kind of screwed up legal system do you all have?”

“Don’t worry, we won’t let it come to that,” Damian said, reaching over to pat my hand.

I huffed. “That’s not the point. This is the U. S.
freakin
’ A. here, and people aren’t supposed to be able to be just ordered around like that, like, like, slaves or something!” 

“I don’t think anyone is under the mistaken impression that you can be ordered around,” Valerie said, and all of them chuckled.

“Glad I amuse you,” I mumbled, scuffing my foot against the floor and briefly hoping I left an ugly mark on the perfect tile.

“Amelia mentioned that most of Cesar’s vassals spend their mornings at their respective homes," Damian said, ignoring me. "By sunrise he’s generally down to just the three or four that stay with him at all times, and usually two of these are sleeping while the others keep watch.”

“Won’t he be expecting a counter-attack, though, given his failure last night?” Samuel asked.

“Yes, but he should be unfamiliar with my talents,” Damian grinned, “so he won’t realize Amelia is helping us—he’ll simply assume she was captured and given to Temora like the rest,”

“I still think we need to be prepared for him to have more reinforcements than we expect,” Samuel countered.

“And how do you suggest we prepare, Samuel?” Valerie asked. Her tone seemed light, but I noticed Samuel cringed slightly.

“Well, couldn’t the Duchess loan us a few extra teeth? She’s backing us on this one, right?” Luis said.

“Only unofficially,” Damian said. “Officially she knows nothing about any of this, just as officially we are not doing this to keep Alyson from him but as just recompense for his attack last night.”

I slid back a step, uncomfortable with the fact that they were planning this for my sake when I hardly knew, or trusted, any of them. Given Sam and Luis's objections, I was betting it wasn't altruism that motivated them but simple allegiance and perhaps a touch of vengeance. The official reason was right up their alley. Tom, Damian, and Valerie were a bit harder to read, though, and I dropped my eyes when Tom gave me a quizzical glance. Before I could move further away from their meeting, however, Damian reached over and clasped my wrist without looking, tugging me closer to the pictures and maps on the counter.

“I’d like your read on these,” he said.

So much for hoping Tom was wrong about just how I was going to pull my weight around here. I had no clue how to get a “read” on anything on purpose—I was used to knowledge or feelings (
and ghosts
, I thought wryly, remembering Dorothy’s little visit) dropping in seemingly at random. Stalling, I picked up one of the floor plans, studying the arrows and numbers Damian had penciled in around it. It looked like he had everyone coming in through a forested area in the back, fanning out slightly, and then entering through two separate windows on opposite sides of the house.

Curious, I looked closer, and noticed that he only had five numbers moving around the plan. What were they planning on doing, just leaving me here to hang out with Beckett? I was not wild about that idea. I picked up another floor plan, this one appearing to be of the second floor. Only numbers one and two appeared up here, and I was betting they stood for Damian and Valerie.

The third floor plan appeared to be for the basement, and three, four, and five all appeared down here. I figured they were planning to enter on the first floor already split up, and then filter up- and downstairs simultaneously. I spread all three maps before me, waiting for a feeling or sliver of knowledge to strike me.
Nothing.
I tried poking around in my mental corners, looking for Dorothy. Heck, I would have settled for Casper the Friendly Ghost. But my mind held only its usual clutter.

Sighing, I moved on to the photos. The first few were taken at night with some kind of special camera that rendered everything in shades of green and black, and depicted the front, back, and side yards with corresponding views of the house. There was an odd shadow in the corner of the shot of the back, and I picked it up to study it more closely. An electric tingle shot up my arm and lodged in my lips, startling me.

“Amelia,” I gasped, “she was a plant.” I took a breath to try to force my words to normalcy. “Cesar found out about you, and he sent her on purpose, knowing what would happen.” I paused and closed my eyes, the electric current zipping through me making it very hard to focus. “He’s expecting us. He’s expecting you’ll leave me behind, making it easier for him to grab me once you’re all gone.”

Then the current left me, replaced with sudden fatigue. I slumped against the kitchen counter, grateful when someone tucked a stool behind me. I pushed the papers and photos away with my clothed elbow, afraid to touch them again, and dropped my head onto my arms. I felt a hand brush lightly against my shoulder, and I murmured “Just give me a second, I’m fine, I’ll be fine” into my sleeve, and then dropped into a hazy half-sleep.

I was aware of all of them moving away, their voices dropped to a low murmur. When I was able, I lifted my head to watch them. They were gathered at the dining room table, the maps and photos relocated with them. Tom and Sam appeared to be arguing over something, and Luis was standing slightly behind Tom with his arms crossed while Damian and Valerie stood at either end of the table, watching.

“It would be idiotic to
go down there at this point, knowing
he’s expecting us,” Sam said, fists clenched.

“Not if we use that knowledge to our advantage, and take
Aly
with us. He’ll be splitting up his forces to have at least one trusted servant here to grab her, which could give us the advantage over him,” Tom replied.

“How do we know he’ll even be there at all? They could all just be waiting for us to leave to steal in here for her, while we waste our time going down to attack an empty house,” Sam replied.

Tom paused, appearing to consider this possibility.

“I think he’ll be in Nashville,” I said, and five pairs of eyes swung to meet mine.

“You think, or you know?” Sam asked coolly. I stared at him, and his gaze flickered and held mine.

“I think, but it’s based on what I know. When I held that picture I got a strong sense that he is protecting something there, that he won't leave unless he's forced. That’s probably why he’s only sent his servants after me,” I said, becoming more certain of what I was saying as I spoke it. “Besides, I also got a strong sense of arrogance—I think he’ll want to be able to gloat over tricking you in person, Damian. I think that’s part of the thrill for him.”

Damian nodded. “That would certainly be in keeping with what I've heard about him. He’s relatively young, insanely power hungry, and cocky from the height he’s managed to climb in just a few decades by draining humans with metaphysical abilities.”

“But if he’s expecting us, how can we take him by surprise?” Sam asked.

“Without the element of surprise,” Luis added, “without reliable information—we have no way of knowing what to expect, whereas he has everything he needs to know about us.”

“Not everything,” Damian said. He pointed at me.

“Are we there yet?” I asked in my best annoyed-eight-year-old imitation.

Valerie laughed. “And here I thought I’d missed out on all the joys of motherhood.”

Several hours had passed since Damian had decided I was their secret super-weapon, placing far more confidence in my nascent abilities than I felt they deserved. At my insistence, Beckett had been picked up by a pet-sitter so he wouldn’t be alone when Cesar’s people came looking, though Damian and Valerie had both sworn that no-one would be able to get past the traps they had rigged before we left. I, meanwhile, had been lying across the backseat of Damian and Valerie’s Mercedes for the last couple hours so that none of Cesar’s people would know I was with them, and I’d been relieved to discover that vampirism was apparently a cure for the carsickness that had plagued me since childhood.