Moon River (19 page)

Of course, the only thing that mattered was who—or what—was using the caverns now.

And that would be vampires, and according to Allison, there were at least three of them.

Under the glow of Allison’s cell phone app, I closed my eyes a final time and cast my thoughts out, down through the narrow tunnel, sweeping around a procession of ghosts—a host of lost spirits haunting the tunnels themselves...and into the caverns beyond, which were well within my range.

Once in the caverns, I noted the many torches flickering along the rock walls. No, vampires didn’t need light, but light wasn’t a bad thing, either. Perhaps these vamps wanted some additional light, perhaps the light was even for their human guests. I didn’t know, and I didn’t really care.

Next, I saw the first chamber. The room was decorated with a ragtag collection of furniture: old lounge chairs, garish couches and stools. Actually, the furniture looked like something from an old nightclub, which it very well might have been. How, exactly, the furniture had made it down here, I hadn’t a clue, although I suspected there might be another entrance somewhere. I didn’t know.

Anyway, on a purple camelback couch with an exaggerated hump sat a very old man who wasn’t a man at all. He was a vampire, in fact, and I recognized him from Allison’s own scan of the cavern. Of course, I recognized him from elsewhere, too. He was a vampire with a death wish. A vampire who, quite frankly, didn’t want to be a vampire anymore, and had been willing to kidnap a boy—a boy he’d thought was my son—to force me to give him the ruby medallion, which would have reversed his vampirism, thus rendering him mortal. His plan hadn’t worked, and now here he was, sitting casually on the couch, looking like an old creep at a nightclub, wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt, legs crossed. He appeared to be waiting for someone. Who that someone was, I could only guess.

I expanded my awareness out and into the next room, where I saw my ex-husband still secured to the desk. But this time, he wasn’t alone. This time, Detective Hanner of the Fullerton Police Department was standing next to him, her hand on his head...and there was my sister, sitting in a straight-back chair, guarded by, of all people, Fang, who stood next to her.

Her arms were tied behind her back, her head was covered by a burlap sack. Her chest shuddered with each sob. Bile rose in my throat at her terror.
My sister!

Hanner was holding a long blade away from her body, a blade that Danny kept his widened eyes on closely. My ex-husband, who had once been a loving and caring father, who had actually once even been a good husband before life—and the afterlife—had become too much for him, was scared shitless. I knew Danny and I knew that look. It was a look he’d given me many times after my turning.

Hanner’s head was bowed slightly as she held the knife in one hand, the other still resting on Danny’s head. And then, it occurred to me what she was doing.

She was scouting ahead, too. Or, rather, she was performing a sort of reverse surveillance. As Danny continued watching her, as blood dripped from his right hand, and as my sister continued weeping nearby, Hanner slowly raised her head and looked up...

And seemingly, directly at me.

She lifted her hand from Danny’s head and waggled her finger at me slowly. She was admonishing me, and I suspected I knew why. If she could see me as I could see her, she had seen Kingsley and Allison with me, as well. I hadn’t come alone, as I had been instructed.

And then she did the unthinkable.

She gave me a soulless smile—and plunged the knife deep into Danny’s chest.

Chapter Forty-two

I screamed and shot back into my body.

I was about to hurl myself down the hallway, as fast as I could, and into the caverns. In fact, it was only the hulking Kingsley in front of me who literally blocked my path that kept me from doing so.

“What happened?” Kingsley said, as I fought to get past him.

Allison answered for me, as all I could see was white-hot fury.

“Hanner stabbed Danny,” I heard her say. “I saw it, too.”

I was beyond thought or control. “I have to get to him. I have to get to him
now!
”

“
We will, Sam.”

“
Kingsley, it’s a trap,” said Allison. “There are others waiting for her. I saw them. In particular, the old vampire.”

“
I’ll take care of him,” said Kingsley. “We do, after all, have some unfinished business.” He was, of course, referring of their epic battle last year under the dome, when the old vampire had bested him and escaped. Kingsley looked grimly from me to Allison. “You remember the plan?” he asked her.

“
I’ll take care of the hunters,” said my friend, who suddenly didn’t seem very confident. She swallowed and I would have admired her bravery
if I hadn’t known the clock was ticking
on my ex-husband.

This wasn’t happening. I hadn’t just seen my ex-husband get stabbed in the chest. I hadn’t seen my sister with a bag over her head.

This wasn’t happening, this wasn’t happening.

No, no, no.

Kingsley gave me a final look, his handsome face full of determination and pity, and what happened next should have surprised me. Hell, it should have fascinated me. But it didn’t.

Before our very eyes, Kingsley transformed.

Back in the minivan, he had told us he would do this. This had been, in fact, his plan. The old vampire was too strong for him in his human form. But the fight would be even in his changeling form. His werewolf form. I had spoken against this, reminding him that he lost all control of himself during transformation, and what Kingsley said next surprised and thrilled me at the time. “No, Sam. I lose control when the moon is full. Not so much when I
choose
to transform.”

This had, of course, been news to me.

And now his transformation couldn’t happen fast enough. Kingsley tore off his shirt and hunched forward, away from us. I had a sense that he didn’t want us to see his face. He jerked and contorted and howled in what I assumed was agony. Allison slipped behind me, and I didn’t blame her. The man she had a crush on was metamorphosing before our eyes.

The change took only seconds, perhaps twenty seconds in all. All the while, I thought of Danny with a knife in his chest.

Nothing you can do about it, if you’re dead,
I thought, which might have been my only rational thought during these moments. Yes, I knew we were walking into a trap. But they weren’t expecting a full-fledged werewolf to make an appearance, a werewolf who would take on their oldest and strongest vampire.

Now Kingsley dropped to his knees and arched his back and what I saw there surprised even me. Hair had sprouted almost instantly. Short, silver-brown, thick hair.

No,
fur.

Yes, I had seen what Kingsley turned into each full moon. A true wolfman, hulking, bipedal, frightening. What was emerging now was something different. It was, in fact, an actual wolf.

Within moments, a massive, four-legged wolf was now standing before us in the tunnel, looking haggard and pissed off, his mane hair erect, his tail held high in aggressive position. It turned once, looked back at us with Kingsley’s same amber eyes, then it was off and running, faster than even I could run, which was pretty damn fast.

I was torn between running behind it and keeping Allison safe. Yes, I knew my friend had recently come into some powerful new skills—and could quite possibly take care of herself—but I couldn’t take that chance. Ultimately, I held back with Allison, not wanting to leave my friend behind in the tunnels. The wolf that was Kingsley charged ahead and was soon out of sight.

Chapter Forty-three

I paused just outside the cavern entrance.

While I waited for Allison to catch up, I listened to the horrific sounds echoing from within the big, underground room. I was tempted to dash into the cavern, but I didn’t. That was what they wanted. I was sure of it. For me to act recklessly, dangerously.

For me to die.

I held back, despite my natural instinct to rush forward and help. Kingsley had his hands full—or teeth full—in there. But he was a big boy. Or a big doggie. Instead, I closed my eyes and cast my thoughts forward a final time, into the cavern, and saw two people waiting not too far away. Whether they were vampires or not, I didn’t know—but one thing was for certain.

Each was holding a crossbow notched with a silver-tipped arrow.

Allison, breathing hard next to me, communicated with me silently:
I see them, Sam
.
Let me take care of them. Go get Danny and your sister.

What do you mean?

Allison took point, stepping around me and into the cavern, holding her hands up before her.

* * *

She continued into the cavern in full witch mode, hands raised, palms out, like a battle was about to go down.

Her back was to me. I nearly ran to her, but waited, knowing what she was doing. She was clearing the way for me. I was expecting the worst. I was expecting a silver-tipped arrow to blossom in her chest.

But that didn’t happen.

Instead, as the vicious fighting sounds of the werewolf and the vampire grew even louder and fiercer, Allison stood at the cavern entrance, unscathed, hands still up. Her hands, I saw, were shaking.

“Now, Sam!” she said, turning her head slightly toward me. Her arms were shaking even harder.

I was instantly in the cavern—and saw the two men guards now pinned against the rock walls, their crossbows crushed at their feet, their faces and hands physically forced into the stone wall behind them. They couldn’t fight or struggle, or perhaps even breathe. They stood there, immobile, frozen, while Allison slowly walked forward, her hands still up and shaking even harder.

“Hurry, Sam!”

I was about to dash forward, into the adjoining cavern, when I saw a sight I wouldn’t soon forget: Kingsley, in wolf form, was engaged in mortal combat with the vampire, the very old and very powerful vampire. As I watched, Kingsley went for the vampire’s throat, hurling his long, muscular body through the air, only to absorb a devastating blow by the vampire that sent the wolf reeling, flipping head over tail, to crash into a nearby wall. The vampire, I saw, was covered with deep wounds, skin flapping at his scalp and neck. Yes, Kingsley had done some damage.

In the next room, I heard my sister scream.

I moved faster than I ever had in my entire existence.

Chapter Forty-four

I knew Hanner was waiting for me.

In fact, she might have organized the others—the old vampire presently ensnared with Kingsley, and the two hunters waiting just inside the entrance—just to occupy my friends.

Yes, Hanner wanted me.

And only me.

Well, she was going to get me.

I doubted she would be waiting on the other side with a crossbow, nor would Fang. That didn’t seem like her style. So, I took my chances and plunged through the opening, and into the second cavern.

* * *

Yes, there was my sister.

Fang stood next to her, too, holding a long knife...a knife that was presently pressed against her fabric-covered throat, no doubt the reason why my sister had screamed in the first place.

Detective Rachel Hanner bent down next to my seated ex-husband, Danny, her ear pressed to his bloody lips, making a show of listening to him.

Hanner leaned in a little closer, and almost lovingly caressed the handle of the dagger that protruded from the center of his chest. I was too dumbfounded by the scene to act. I just stood there, absorbing the craziness, absorbing the fact that my life had so radically spun out of control that my jerk of an ex-husband was sitting with a dagger in his chest, and that my sister had a bag over her head, with another dagger pressed against her throat, held there by my one-time best friend, Fang.

I took another step into the room, and my sister screamed again, as Fang pressed the blade harder against her throat. I stopped. Hanner straightened and gave me a small smile, although her eyes did anything but smile.

“He keeps calling for you, Sam. I wonder why?” She moved around him as I saw Danny’s body jerk a little. His eyelids fluttered. Blood bubbled up around the blade handle, which meant she had punctured a lung, but not his heart. At least, I didn’t think she had. “Now, why would he be calling your name when he, in fact, called me?”

“
Why would he call you?” I asked, and took another step into the room.

“
Sam?” screamed Mary Lou, “Oh, my God, Sam, what’s happening?”

“
It’s going to be okay, Mary Lou,” I said. “I’m going to get you out of here.”