Simmer (13 page)

"They went to find her and here she is."

"They who? They went where?" Tristan
continued questioning him, trying to make sense of his almost
drunken ramblings.

"They left me behind. They said I couldn't
come. And I found her!"

Kira looked away, she couldn't take the stare
anymore. She had never seen eyes so empty of feeling. Even Diana's
had held emotion — anger, hatred and jealousy, but still
emotion.

The vampire continued rambling about people
leaving him behind. They had gone without him. They left. They
disappeared. They'd be sorry.

Maybe they had gone to Orlando and left him
behind, Kira thought, catching onto to what the vampire was getting
at. Or maybe they...

Kira reached for her phone and called Luke
immediately.

"Hello?" He picked up. By the honks in the
background, Kira knew he was walking the city streets.

"Have you seen anything?" She asked with a
sense of urgency. A thought was forming in the back of her mind —
one she desperately hoped wasn't true.

"Nothing yet. It's weird. All the spots we
usually search — the clubs, the blood banks, the abandoned
buildings — all of them are empty."

Her heart sank. The wheels in her head were
turning rapidly. Luke had said they would never even dream — that
it wasn't possible.

"I found her. I found her!" The shrills
continued to pierce her thoughts. Tristan looked at her in
confusion. He couldn't comprehend what the lunatic was screaming
about. But Kira knew. She understood.

"Luke, get back here immediately to pick us
up."

"But, we haven't—"

"Just do it and fast. Tristan and I will be
waiting."

Kira hung up and looked back into the wild
eyes of the vampire in front of her. This beast was too crazy to
let go: too dangerous to free.

"Tristan, on my count step out of the way.
One, two.... three!"

Tristan jumped to the side and Kira encased
the vampire in a blanket of her fire. Wave after wave rolled over
his soon-to-be-corpse. The cysts that had started to recede in the
past few minutes were bursting open like gysers. His skin cracked
dry in between them. Deep ravines broke through the surface showing
walls of cells and veins. But, there was no blood. That had
vaporized in the heat and boiled the vampire's body from the inside
out.

Kira almost dropped her power. She had never
seen what happened to her victims in such a slow-motion way. The
whole process was monstrous — both for the vampire and her. But
Kira held on, thinking of the humans she might be saving, until
finally, in a silent explosion, the entire vampire turned to
ash.

"Kira, what is going on?" Tristan asked from
a distance.

"The vampires," Kira said while turning and
running over to grab his hand, "they're headed for Sonnyville."

Chapter
Eight

The car ride back was tense. Tristan and Kira
had waited for what seemed like hours for Luke to pick them up.
When the jet-black car careened around the bend, they jumped in and
Kira blurted out her fear that the vampires were moving in on
Sonnyville. Almost immediately, Luke pushed the pedal down to speed
through the mostly deserted roads that led back home.

Luke tried to calm her. Vanessa and Casey did
too. Sonnyville was prepared. The town had incredible defenses. All
the inhabitants, even the children, knew how to fend for
themselves. But then why was Luke driving so fast and why was there
a slight shake to his voice? No one, not even vampires, was stupid
enough to attack an impenetrable town. They had to have something,
some tool or idea that the conduits didn't know about.

Kira looked out the window, but all she saw
was her grandmother's soft and caring eyes, crinkled on the side
from years of smiling. A blink and her grandfather appeared, hard
as rock and stoic but still her family. Another blink and Kayla,
the little girl who reminded her so much of her sister, was
laughing and shooting sparks of fire with the other children.

They had to be okay.

Thoughts of vampires running through people's
homes, stealing and killing children were hard to keep at bay. And
these were Protectors; they couldn't kill the vampires with their
powers. But maybe Kira was underestimating them. They had to have
lethal defenses for this exact reason.

Without warning, Luke slammed on the breaks,
which screeched in protest as the tires smoked against the
pavement.

"Tristan, jump out now!" He screamed while
the car swerved uncontrollably towards the front gate of
Sonnyville. Knowing from the tone of Luke's voice not to question
him, Tristan opened the door and leapt from the car in less than
second. Kira was about to yell at Luke for kicking him out when the
car careened through the open gate.

An overwhelming sense of heat and calm passed
through her body, making her nerves tingle in the same way as when
she absorbed another conduit's power. She filled to the brim with
sunlight, letting it warm her senses and heal any wounds she may
have. A brilliant smile lit up her features and she looked over at
Vanessa to see the same reaction. Her hair stood on its tips,
static from the sudden rush of energy.

As quick as it had come, the heat evaporated
and the car jolted to a halt, leaving Kira confused more than
anything else.

"What was that?" She asked to no one in
particular.

"That was what kills any vampires who try to
enter Sonnyville. It wasn't on the last time you came through the
front gate, but hopefully this means the town got wind of an
attack," Luke told her. His hands gripped the wheel tightly and
Kira saw his eyes were wide and shell-shocked, probably from the
almost car crash.

"But, what is it?" Kira asked. It had felt
like the sun but one hundred times closer and more wonderful.

"It's a UV wall," Casey said. Kira was happy
to hear her speak up, even if it was only for business talk. "We've
managed to trap sunlight and release it on command to create an
invisible wall made of potent UV rays. It's one of the reasons our
town is usually ten degrees warmer than everywhere else. But more
importantly for us, any vampire who tries to walk through will get
incinerated."

"Hence," Luke shrugged in the general
direction of where Tristan stood just beyond the open wrought iron
doors. Kira raced out of the car and back to the gate. She reached
out a hand, feeling for the heat. The instant her fingertips
touched scorching air, she jumped forward, passing through the wall
and again feeling the boost of energy fill her senses.

Tristan caught her when she landed and
stumbled forward on the other side.

"As much as I love jumping from moving
vehicles..." Tristan grinned and Kira flashed back to the night on
the pick-up truck when he saved her by leaping off the truck and
onto a vampire. "What just happened?"

"There's a wall made of UV radiation around
the entire town."

"Ah, well that complicates things just a
bit." Kira smiled at his smirk. "Any way I can jump over it with a
running leap?"

Kira shook her head. "I don't think so."

"So you guys get to have all the fun battling
it out inside, and I have to wait out here for you to come get me
and tell me I can come inside. I feel like I'm in time out."
Frustration clouded his features. Tristan wasn't used to being left
out of her plans.

Kira sighed, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he said reaching for her cheek.
"We've always known our relationship would be complicated. This is
just one of those times. Besides," he said and Kira finally saw a
bright gleam enter his eye, "I might want to test this wall thing
out. I'm sure there are still a ton of vampires in the woods I can
fight and chuck against it."

"Is there absolutely no chance you'll just
lay low and stay out of sight until we can come get you?" Kira knew
the answer as soon as the words left her mouth. If there was
anything Tristan loved, it was making a little bit of trouble.
Whether it was in the classroom last year, on the beach with their
friends, or fighting a hoard of vampires, nothing quite got him
excited like pissing other people off. Well, everyone besides
Kira.

"Come on, would the man you love just chill
on the sidelines?" Tristan grinned, circling her with his arms.

"No. Go on, have fun and I'll call you when
everything is settled inside," Kira said and quickly kissed him.
When they parted, he ran off with a mischievous grin, looking for
some vampires to wreak havoc on.

Kira shook her head with a small smile,
laughing silently to herself. How someone could be over a century
old and still act like a little boy always amazed her. Letting her
worries for his safety drop, she crossed through the threshold and
sat back down in the car.

As soon as she shut the door, Luke took off
towards the town square.

"What other defenses are there?" Kira asked
while she looked out the window. "Is there anything else I need to
be prepared for?"

"Unfortunately, no," Luke said. "That is our
best defense. If that wall was turned on, then it means vampires
are probably here and a few made it inside first. Everyone should
be in the town square."

"Why would they all gather in one place?"
Kira asked. In a terrible way it reminded her of a special she had
seen on
Animal Planet
. Whenever dolphins tried to catch
fish, they would surround a giant school and corral them into one
center circle so they were easy pickings. She shuddered at the
idea.

"We have drills," Vanessa chimed in,
thankfully interrupting Kira's thoughts. "It's not like we've never
planned for this sort of situation. Everyone gathers in the town
square to form a protective circle around the children and the
parents take turns keeping vampires at bay with their powers."

But, it can't last very long, Kira thought
remembering her trainings with Luke. He was one of the best in the
town, the youngest to ever get a solo mission, but still when they
trained he tired out before her. His power supply was nowhere near
hers and if he was one of the strongest, the Protectors couldn't
last more than a few hours the way they were going. Vampires
however had endless reserves.

"It's going to be fine," Luke said and
grabbed Casey's hand in the front seat. Kira saw that the girl was
silently crying through the rearview mirror. "There are ancient
swords and things we're taught to use in case of emergency, so we
can weaken a vampire with our powers and then behead them the old
fashioned way or at least drain them of blood so they can't
move."

"Even though we're Protectors, there are
sometimes no other options than to kill something," Vanessa added
sadly. Despite her words in the car about Tristan and Kira, she
believed what she had been taught: she believed vampires could be
saved somehow, that there was something inside them worth
saving.

Kira met Luke's eyes and wondered what he
thought. After the past year, Kira knew without a doubt that he
didn't believe vampires could be saved. Did he think being a
Protector was a curse? To know this sort of evil exists and to only
be able to temporarily protect humans from it and not to kill it.
For the first time, Kira wondered if Luke ever looked at her powers
with envy. Sure, every vampire along the eastern seaboard was out
to get her, but she could fight them one by one. They feared her
more than she feared them and that wasn't something a Protector
could really say.

Before Kira could continue the thought,
something banged into the side of the car, indenting the metal door
and sending all four of them flying. Suspended in the air, Kira had
the undeniable sense she was about to die. The seatbelt pulled taut
across her shoulder as her butt lifted off the cushion and they
flipped over. Her hair fell over her features, shrouding her in
darkness. A scream caught in her throat. The scene was playing in
slow motion. The sky window darkened as the image of clouds was
replaced with that of grass and Kira heard shrieks distantly in her
ear.

Without registering her movement, Kira
circled all four of them in her powers. Her connection to Luke's
body was instant, as if it were her own, but the other two girls
took a moment longer to register.

Crunching metal thundered in her ears as they
landed and continued flipping along the ground. Her neck whipped
back and forth with the jerking movements, but her mind was
somewhere else. Bones snapped and she rushed to fix them. Muscles
tore, skin broke open from shards of glass and blood flowed freely,
but Kira used every ounce of energy she had to restore the lethal
wounds. If it were her own body or someone else's, Kira didn't know
but she acted on instinct alone.

Finally, the car came to a stand still,
thankfully on its wheels. Kira opened her eyes to mangled steel,
torn seats and broken windows, but amazingly every conduit in the
car was okay.

"What in the world?" Vanessa said as she
arched her head up and twisted her neck around to find her muscles
weren't even sore. But, Kira peered past her at the charging
vampire, the same one who had probably slammed into the car. Now
energized, Kira easily sent a flame in its direction, turning the
vampire to ash in a matter of seconds. When she was angry and
warmed up, no vampire would stand a chance against her power.

"Get out of the car now!" Luke yelled and
pulled himself through his window. Kira tested her door, which
thankfully opened, and slid out. All four of them ran a few yards
away to regroup when the car burst into flames: a fire none of them
would have survived, not even with Kira's help.

"How are we alive?" Casey asked into the
wind. All four of them stared at the burning car. It was only a
matter of time before more vampires would come, drawn in by the
smell of blood.