Silverthorn (18 page)

The group carried on with idle chitchat for the next half-hour until Darius pulled off the expressway.

I followed, trying not to give away that we were trailing him.

Everyone in the vehicle remained silent, unmoving, as though doing so would prevent Darius from looking through his rearview mirror to spot us. Approaching the red light, I slowed the car.

Although oncoming traffic zoomed by from left to right, Darius stomped on the accelerator, ignoring the red light, and swerved left, heading south.

Obviously, he suspected that we’d followed him. I moved up toward the light, watching his Ford Focus speed away. If I followed him, disregarding the traffic signal, I’d divulge that we followed him. Was it worth the risk?

“What’re you doing?” Alexis asked, irritated. “Go after him.”

I neglected her, keeping my eye on the Focus as it raced down the street, nearly out of sight.

“Go!” Alexis shouted.

The light had turned green. I jammed my foot on the gas, swerving a quick left, speeding past cars on my right, scanning the vicinity, doing my best to predict what driver’s might do on either side of me to prevent me from making a mistake and crashing into one of them.

“Jesus!” Alexis said, clapping her hands in frustration. “I don’t even see his car. It’s gone!”

“I see it.” The Focus was barely visible as it dipped down a slight hill before rising again and rushing past another red light. I kept my foot on the gas, scanning every direction, preparing for the unexpected, until I saw Darius’s car tear down the street, rushing up a slight slope in the road before disappearing behind it. The red light he’d run appeared before me. Cars, SUV s and commercial trucks streamed onto the road on either side of me, and just as the last vehicle on the left and right veered onto the street, I slowed down as the light hit yellow. When it turned red, I jammed my foot down on the accelerator, not giving the driver in the oncoming left-hand turn lane the chance to begin making his turn. As I breezed through the intersection, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw my backseat passengers pressing their hands against the front seats, their eyes awash in fright.

“That’s right,” said Alexis, wide-eyed and sitting up in her seat. “Go Vin Diesel on his ass!”

I didn’t plan on gunning it like a character in one of the Fast & Furious flicks, but I couldn’t let Darius get away now, not after we’d spent so much time following him. I planned to remain a good distance away, giving him no reason to expect that anyone tailed him. Nevertheless, he’d been paying attention, otherwise he’d have had no reason to rocket through a red light just past the tollway exit. I hoped that by not chasing him, I threw off his suspicion in hopes he hadn’t seen me trailing him.

At this time of night, on a main road for this area, most of the cars drove north and south, and the green lights that consistently greeted us confirmed my theory. Therefore, I kept following the Focus from a few car-lengths in distance.

“Where is he going?” Alexis asked, opening her mouth again to speak, but thinking better of it, she snapped it shut.

The Ford Focus swung a quick right, giving me no chance to follow without being detected, so I drove for another block. “Can you see his car?”

“Yeah,” said Kendall. “He’s slowing down. He’s going toward that huge building up ahead.”

Hearing that Darius planned to end his trip, I slowed down, did a U-turn, and took the road he’d traveled down. “Where is he?” I continued down the road. “I can’t see him.”

“He’s on the other side,” said Alexis. “Off to the right. He probably doesn’t even know we’re here.”

I slowed the vehicle, unwilling to give Darius the impression that those he suspected of following him might have completed their objective.

Alexis turned toward me. “Keep going forward, pass the next stop sign, and park in the lot up ahead.”

I did as she suggested and saw letters on the huge building that identified it as the Schaumburg Township District Library. Although I felt comfortable inside the confines of a library, having spent much of my time during the last four years at the DePaul University Library, I couldn’t help but wonder why Darius would want to visit this place. I parked, hoping that I didn’t see his vehicle swing around the corner and speed back toward Roselle Road in an attempt to lose anyone who followed him. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. We waited five seconds. Six seconds. Seven.

“What now?” asked Kendall.

“Yeah,” asked Alexis, irritation hitting her tone. “Let’s get out.” She grabbed the doorknob.

I pulled out of the parking spot, and in response, my sister swung her door shut. In case Darius pulled out of the parking lot on the other side of the building to head back toward Chicago, I wanted to make sure he didn’t leave without us.

“What the hell!” Alexis said. “What’re you doing?”

“Quiet.” I swung back toward the other side of the building and, sure enough, I spotted his empty Ford Focus. I let out a sigh of relief, and parked seven or eight spaces behind him and off to the right. “We’re going inside.”

An instant later, on opposite sides of me, Brandon and Kendall placed a hand on her shoulder…and locked gazes, stunned that they’d had the same protective instinct to calm my nerves. Brandon said, “We can look for it.” He turned his attention to Alexis. “Right? You guys probably have more important things to do.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s 9:50. They’re still open?”

All the lights were on. “Guess we’ll find out soon enough.” I hurried out of the car, but I didn’t wait as my passengers did the same. I headed toward the entrance and stepped through the automatic doors.

A security guard in a black uniform with a shiny tin star on the left side of his chest approached me. In his late sixties with close-cropped silver hair, he wore a black belt with a cell phone attached to it that emphasized his bulging belly. “Library’s closing in ten minutes.”

I nodded.

“What kind of library needs a security guard?” asked Alexis.

I released a sigh, annoyed by her ignorance. Obviously, with a two-story building this size and such a large community of patrons, management needed security for various reasons. I glanced at the guard, who merely frowned at my sister before looking elsewhere, spinning a flashlight in his palm.

“Where do you think Darius went?” asked Brandon.

“More importantly, why would he come here?” Kendall said.

“He’s probably not in the kidsZone,” I said, intrigued by the phrasing and spelling of the Youth Services Department. I swiveled away from the audio-visual area and the checkout stations. Based on a cursory glance in every direction, each of these areas either had very short stacks of books, which would make it difficult to remain incognito, or they didn’t leave any protective cover at all. If Darius suspected that we’d followed him, he probably wouldn’t enter either of those areas of the library.

But I couldn’t guarantee that, so I said to my sister, “Keep an eye on the children’s area. Brandon, monitor the parking lot. They might be using this place as a diversionary tactic.”

Alexis stared at me for a long moment, anger passing through her eyes. “You don’t know a
goddamn
thing about being a witch.” She shook her head. “There are ways to find someone…who doesn’t want to be found.”

I hadn’t thought of that. My sister probably knew a locator spell, but since she didn’t expound on that assertion, she seemed to make it clear that she didn’t have the knowledge or ability to perform that enchantment. Without a word, she headed toward the kidsZone.

I glanced at the carpeted stairs straight ahead and rushed in that direction. I cocked my head towards them to encourage Kendall and Brandon to follow me. Climbing the steps as quickly as possible, I reached the top and looked in every direction, expecting Darius to appear, only to knock me unconscious.

That didn’t happen. I couldn’t find him anywhere.

A few patrons milled about, returning books to the shelves, getting up from the comfortable seating, or holding books in their arms as they headed toward me, so they could walk down the stairs and check out before leaving the building.

I set my gaze on Brandon. “I need you to keep watch downstairs. Text me if you see him.”

When he went down the staircase, I said to Kendall. “Take this wing. I’ll head further out.” My nerves throttled me down an aisle in hopes of finding Darius.

A librarian spotted me and half-whispered, “We’ll be closing in less than ten minutes.”

I nodded to her and kept moving, heading toward the south-west corner of the floor. I cut through shelving units that were aligned like columns, each row filled to the max with books.

“Looking for me?”

I halted at the end of an aisle and spun around to find Darius at the opposite end, no more than thirty feet away, staring at me with an arrogant grin.

“I suspected you were following me. You might have a future in the FBI. If you survive this fight, that is.”

“So you plan to kill me here? In a library?”

Darius looked at the shelves on either side of him. “Why not? You’re an intellectual. I’m an intellectual.” He flicked a hand to the side, noting his indifference. “It would be an honor to end your life among that which you feel most comfortable.” He paused. “Do you disagree?”

I couldn’t refute that claim. Something about books, whether fiction or non-fiction, calmed me, made me feel at home. “Why are you here?”

He grinned but didn’t respond.

That confident smile disturbed me. It intimated that he’d defeated tougher opponents than me. Correction: it implied that he’d
killed
tougher adversaries than me.

Had he journeyed all this way to have a showdown in a public place? Unlikely! Why else would he have traveled thirty miles to visit a library around the time it closed?

He made his way toward me, closing the distance between us. He had no intention of talking. It revealed that he had something to hide…or rather, he
hid
something here.

He couldn’t obscure something that wouldn’t fit in with its surroundings. Which meant, he’d…set a book among these shelves. I didn’t need more than a moment to realize that he’d stashed
The Book of Souls
onto one of these shelves. But which one? There were thousands of shelves in this building!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Adrenaline rushed through me, sending heat coursing through me. Fearing that flames might shoot from my fingers, I tramped down on the energy. What if I aimed at Darius but missed? The flares might hit one or more of the books, which would then carry across the room, starting a blaze. I didn’t intend to burn down the library. Then another thought occurred to me: what if I could send pulsing waves of energy at him…the same ones that had destroyed the frozen vampires? That notion sent my morale skyrocketing. A couple seconds later, I concentrated on relaxing and dialing back the heat.

Darius hadn’t noticed the change inside me. If anything, his grin broadened, making it known that he assumed he could end my life whenever he wanted. Which explained why he had taken his time while approaching me. He wanted to stretch out the anticipation, wanted to extend the amount of time I spent in a state of terror.

But if he’d relied on his heightened senses, he would have noticed that I was horrified. Despite that, I’d never before felt more empowered, perhaps because I’d reduced the heat inside me to a shimmer. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep myself from smiling, regardless of my fear.

At that exact moment, Darius had leaned forward, prepared to dart toward me. Upon seeing my grin, however, he corrected his movement and stopped. “You smile?” He scrutinized my expression. “Why?” He glanced behind him, but seeing no one approaching him from either direction, he returned my grin. “Surely, you don’t think you can defeat me.”

“Come on,” I said in a thick voice, filled with self-assurance. “Let’s finish this!”

Darius’s expression darkened. He could have launched himself at me with blazing speed, but instead, he strolled toward me as though without a care in the world.

If he stood beside me and attacked me, I might have stood a chance to defend myself; while still able to move with lightning quickness, he wouldn’t have built up enough speed, making it easier for me to keep pace with him. If he sped toward me with plenty of open space between us, he’d be able to harness enough velocity to make it impossible to deflect his assault, and any blow he might deliver would exacerbate any injuries I might ordinarily incur.

Unable to rely on my martial arts skills, I hoped I could call upon my magical ability. That left my newfound gift of sending energy blasts at Darius. Unlike when calling upon flames, I strained to attract energy from around me, perhaps because I was stuck between shelves of books, rather than in a wide-open area. Uncertain what to do, I glanced up at Darius.

Twenty feet away, he analyzed my expression. “Such deep concentration. Either that or…you are suffering from irritable bowel syndrome.” He cocked his head to the side. “Given your predicament, option number one is far more likely.”

I once again attempted to collect energy from around me. Nothing happened. Dammit! What had I done previously that I failed to consider now? I glanced up.

“Hmmm.” Darius stopped. “The library is closing. It would be quite selfish of me to take my time with you…if it meant the library staff needed to remain behind until after we finished things up here.” He lowered his gaze, giving careful deliberation to his predicament. “I would hate to inconvenience them. I should speed things up.” He leveled his gaze onto mine and raced toward me.

Darius’s speed left behind only a blur of motion, making it difficult to see his face, arms, legs, or any other body part. The quicker he went, the blurrier he looked. A second later, he said, “Hello, Ignorant One!” Standing mere inches away, he threw a right punch at my head.

Before I could react, his fist slammed against my left jaw, sending me to the carpet. My head began to ache and I grew dizzy.

“Ah, your true ability shines. Perhaps our standoff outside your home was pure luck.”

If I tried to rise, Darius would pummel me back to the ground, so I kicked out, aiming for his ankle.

He hopped over my leg and jammed a foot into my right knee.

I cried out, cringing in pain.

“I had at least hoped for a contest.” Disappointed, he let out a quiet sigh. “Truly pathetic.” He shook his head. “Oh, well, it’s best we get on with it.” He rushed me.

I swung my left leg toward him, and because of the speed with which he’d attacked, my maneuver intensified the impact ten-fold. His head snapped back, and he flew twenty feet down the aisle and then collapsed to the ground.

I suspected there was another reason why I’d gotten lucky. Unlike those he sired, Darius didn’t need to feed in order to maintain his strength. In fact, Darius had told me that he hadn’t fed on a human in decades. The longer he went without consuming blood, the stronger he became. But once he fed, his tainted blood lessened his vampiric abilities. He’d drank from Kendall not long ago, which surely slowed him down and decreased his strength.

With that ray of hope in mind, I needed to capitalize on this advantage, so I got to my feet, and while my jaw ached when I moved it. I suspected that Darius had merely clipped me, especially since the haze in my mind began to clear. Putting too much pressure on my knee while shifting it, however, sent a streak of pain through it. That said, I could stand without pain. That meant it wasn’t broken. I walked forward and put most of my weight on my left leg. That helped lessen the discomfort.

I reached the end of the aisle as Darius began to stir. He’d soon be upon me…if I didn’t find some way to stop him.

Having only used my energy blast twice before, I felt far from confident in using it. I concentrated on the instant this unique gift had sprung forth from my hands, and it entered my mind a fraction of a second later: I hadn’t pushed the energy from within me. Rather than pull energy from the vacant space around me, I consolidated the mass from the books and shelving units (after all, they were constructed of matter) and a flush of vitality pumped inside me.

Darius lay only ten feet from me. He finally got to his feet and walked toward me.

So much pressure rushed in my direction that the shelves around me rattled, and the books bobbed up and down like boiling water. That response startled me, triggering my heart to pound quicker.

Upon seeing the reaction around us or sensing a difference in the air, Darius slowed to a stop …and stared at me with narrowed eyes. “How did—”

Now that I’d caught him off balance, I needed to capitalize on it. Any moment of hesitation or indecision would allow him the opportunity to continue his assault. My body felt tight, as though I’d sucked in a heap of air into my lungs and held it in. I extracted my hands, aimed them towards Darius, and thrust it towards him.

A vortex of energy erupted from my palms in rhythmic pulses that I couldn’t see but definitely felt. The force blasted into Darius, bashing him in the chest, knocking him off his feet, and flinging him back fifteen feet before he skidded across the carpet, past the aisle and into an unobstructed area.

Stunned, I stared at him, trying not to relay my surprise. If I acted unaware of how to utilize my gift, he might attack. I left the aisle, but since Darius was outside of the area of influence upon which I could practice magic, I needed to get closer to him. Given that energy flowed outward with decreasing power, it made sense that Darius stood so close to me; he’d incurred a heavier brunt of the impact.

I continued toward him, unwilling to attack him again, lest he give me what I wanted,
The Book of Souls
. However, I didn’t like my chances with that outcome. “Where is the book?” My knee was still tender, but didn’t seem to be in as much pain as when I first stood on it.

“In a safe place.” He picked up a book, got to his feet, and hurled it at me.

I stopped and lifted my right hand, commanding the energy around me to prevent it from hitting me, and then pushed it toward him.

The book flew toward him on a straight line until it passed my area of influence, whereupon it arched downwards, continued sailing for a few more feet, and then dropped to the floor.

Darius nodded, impressed. “Well done! My congratulations upon finding your final ability.” He rose to his feet.

“Tell me where you put it.”

“In what world would I willingly give up that information?”

“Take your pick. Then I’ll knock you into it.” I shrugged. “I’m helpful like that.” I heard feet rustling behind me.

“We’ll be closing in a couple…” said a female voice, letting her incomplete sentence hang in the air. “All those books on the ground…what happened?”

“You should leave,” I said.

“I will not. You should. We’re closing!”

“I don’t care,” I said, unwilling to turn my back on Darius to address the library staffer. “Leave us!” Despite that command, I heard her approaching, making me stiffen my muscles in the event that I had to turn around and deal with her.

Darius cocked his head to the side in order to see the woman. He notched an eyebrow at her. “This one’s not the friendliest of women, is she?”

“Definitely not,” she responded, stopping a foot behind me. “And quite rude!”

“I’d be happy to settle this,” he said. “If you’d allow me such latitude.”

“By all means,” she said, every trace of her irritation gone. “Also feel free to stop by the desk downstairs if you’d like to say hi on your way out.”

I heard her jeans rustle as she left us alone once more. Had Darius just compelled her…from over twenty feet away? I assumed that he had unmatched vampire skills, but to compel someone at such lengths sent a streak of terror down my back. Why hadn’t he attempted to compel me? I suspected he did so to play fairly. Unlike nowadays, where people fought dirty, I suspected that Darius always preferred to fight fairly…until he’d lost the upper hand, after which he’d do whatever was necessary to win.

Forty feet behind Darius, I spotted Kendall. She turned her head in our direction, stopped, and stared.

“It seems we’re at a standstill.” Darius smiled at me, looking more like a gentleman than a killer. “I won’t disclose the location of the
The Book of Souls
, and you won’t settle for anything less. How shall we break this standoff?”

No longer shocked to have found us, Kendall rushed toward us.

His smile widened. “Excuse me.” He spun around at the exact moment Kendall came upon him and punched her in the face, sending her flying fifteen feet backwards.

I hadn’t expected him to hear her approaching, much less to catch her at the precise second she came upon him. Seeing him react so quickly stunned me, but it also permitted the briefest moment to attack. I sprinted toward him and ignored the pain in my knee.

Still with his back to me, no doubt admiring the quick work he made of Kendall, Darius spun my way.

With only five feet between us by the time he swung around, he caught sight of me and staggered backwards, shocked that I’d used the moments he took to pummel Kendall in order to charge him.

Just as I came upon him, ready to grab onto his suit jacket and push flames across it, Darius extended his hands, knocking mine to either side before kicking me in the gut.

The air in my abdomen whooshed out, and my feet flew out from under me as I shot backwards seven or eight feet. I suspected that Darius hadn’t put so much effort into the blow because I’d caught him by surprise. Thankfully, I landed on my side, so the fall hadn’t induced any pain.

Hearing movement behind him, he whirled at the same instant that Kendall attacked for a second time. “This again?”

She leapt into the air on a collision course with him.

Darius extracted his left hand…and caught Kendall by the neck, holding her over his head with the utmost ease.

She dangled in the air, arms and legs swinging in every direction as grunts erupted from her mouth.

“How inconsiderate!” said Darius. “Do you
not
see me conversing with Serena? You’re like a spoiled child eager for attention.” He shook his head with displeasure. “This is the second time you’ve resorted to rudeness.” He wagged the index finger on his free hand in her face. “If you’re bent on extracting vengeance for my having turned you into a vampire, you must wait your turn!”

Squinting, gasping, Kendall’s legs wriggled left and right as she punched his arms, trying to unlock his grasp.

“Now leave us!” Darius flung her twenty feet through the air. She crashed to the ground, banged into a desk, and rolled into the wall.

I finally snatched my first full breath since getting kicked in the gut. An ache throbbed in my rib cage, but I disregarded the pain, pushed off the ground, and darted toward Darius, determined to get to him before he turned around.

He veered toward me again, but this time, rather than continuing onward, I pulled up short, since I’d failed in my endeavor. Instead of rushing forward foolishly in hopes that I’d catch Darius off guard, I cut my losses. Instead, I pulled in all the energy around me that I could muster.

Then, just as Darius fired off a left punch, I shoved my right hand in his direction.

Before his fist connected with my face, the force I sent his way bashed into his chest, sending him ten feet backwards until he crashed into a rectangular table. He tilted over the chair, and bones crackled as he hit the ground.