Simmer (21 page)

"Which means Diana found herself a conduit?"
Kira asked.

"I don't think so," Tristan said, "but
there's no other explanation is there?"

Kira thought back to the way Diana had been
acting. Before Bronson showed up, she had been nervous. When he got
there, she acted sort of like a lovesick girl and as soon as he
left, Diana had become calculating again. And what was it he had
slipped into her hand at the last moment?

"What if she doesn't have a conduit? What if
she's just made friends with the right people?" Both boys looked at
her, waiting for her to continue. "I think Bronson gave her a vial
of Punisher blood, to cheat the system so she could come to the
ball. I think maybe they've been dating."

"Isn't she, you know, a little too evil to
date?" Luke asked while pretending to act like the killer in a
slasher movie.

"It makes sense in a way," Tristan said. "She
must have gotten wind of the ball and come up here after everything
happened that day last year. We stopped John and Jerome, so she had
no one left to run to. Why not cozy up to a head vampire with
connections and means of protecting her?"

"And means of sneaking her into the ball,"
Kira added.

"But why? I mean, I get that this ball is
some huge macho vampire event," Luke chimed in. "But why go to so
much trouble for a party?"

Kira and Tristan shrugged.

"That's the exactly what we need to find
out," Tristan said.

"How?" Kira asked.

"I need to go to that ball," Tristan said
while looking over at Kira sadly. At first she didn't understand
why he looked so distraught, but after a moment Kira got it.

"My blood," Kira said softly. "My blood will
get you inside." This is not a big deal, Kira thought quietly to
herself, Tristan's a vampire and I'm his girlfriend and it's just a
little blood. But, sometimes Kira found herself forgetting Tristan
was a vampire. Well, not forgetting, but pushing it from her mind.
The super strength and reflexes, even his age and immortality never
bothered her. In fact, she found it sort of cool and definitely
sexy.

But the blood thing was a little too much to
think about, a little too disgusting sometimes. She would make
excuses, like he never ate around her because he wasn't hungry.
They had even turned the fact that he couldn't come over for a meal
with her parents into an inside joke. But now, with the thought of
him sucking her blood staring her in the face, Kira could help but
feel a little queasy. Or maybe, she thought hopefully, it was just
Luke invading her brain again.

Realizing she had been quiet for a little
while, Kira nodded an affirmation in Tristan's direction to let him
know he could of course have her blood. It was no big deal.
Everything would be completely fine, but she couldn't keep another
thought from creeping into her mind, a lingering doubt from months
before.

"Can I ask you one question first?" Kira said
hesitantly. Tristan nodded, telling her to continue. "Well, I
thought conduit blood was supposed to affect vampires and make them
lose control, you know go a little crazy, but you seem to be fine
with it..." She trailed off, not sure what question she was even
asking. All she could picture was the sight of him chained up,
swallowing her blood as Diana looked on with glee. Kira never
understood why he hadn't been affected that day, why he didn't go
crazy, and there had never seemed to be a good time to ask until
now.

"Oh that," Tristan said quietly, unable to
meet her eyes. "Conduit blood only affects vampires if they aren't
used to it. But, I've had it before."

"What?" Kira said in disbelief. She fought
the urge to jerk away from him.

"Not like that," he said quickly, "Aldrich
forced me to when I was newly turned — he wanted me to be strong
enough to help him capture new conduits when the time came. I left
before he could use me like that, but I've been exposed to enough
conduit blood that it will never affect me like that again."

Kira understood, she really did, but she
couldn't quite fight the sense of betrayal in the back of her mind.
He had drunk the blood of other conduits and enough of it to last a
lifetime? It just seemed wrong. But could she really be angry with
him for something that happened more than a century ago?

No, it wasn't fair to be mad at him, Kira
realized. The only reason any of them survived the eclipse was
because her blood hadn't turned him. I won't let it affect our
relationship, she promised silently, I won't think of him
differently. But still, Kira found herself purposefully looking
across the room to avoid meeting Luke's eyes — to avoid facing the
disgust she knew they held.

"Just one problem," Luke said from his chair,
speaking into the silence and smoothly changing the subject. "We
have no idea when the ball is."

"I think I do," Tristan spoke up. "Bronson
has been lying to me for the past two days, not really unheard of
in my world, but he mentioned he would be gone this weekend. I
think it was to keep me from unexpectedly dropping in. Saturday at
sundown — that'll be when it starts."

"I need to go," Luke blurted out while
jumping up from his seat, like a slingshot finally being released.
"I'm calling an emergency convention. If Tristan's crashing the
party, we can too."

"What do you mean?" Kira asked.

"Protectors, we need to go in. We need to
find out where all of these trapped Punishers are and rescue
them."

"You'll need every conduit in the area to
trap these guys, Luke," Tristan warned. "They're some of the most
powerful vampires in the world. I'm not sure you know what you're
up against."

"Don't worry about me," Luke said while
grabbing his cell phone, "I'll be back later." He disappeared out
the door with a determined expression. Kira could almost see the
wheels spinning in his head. Luke had three days to amass an army
and it definitely wouldn't be easy.

Kira leaned into Tristan's chest. He
responded by hugging her closer and absently rubbing her arm with
his fingers. Kira held his free hand, letting her fingers dance
along his palm, but her mind was elsewhere.

At best, her mother was being held captive by
some vampire and at worst she was dead. Or maybe it was the other
way around. Should she be hoping to find out her mother was really
dead — that she had been spared that sort of slavery? Kira couldn't
help but wonder if her own mother had been the ticket to get
someone in to a white rose ball, some sort of meal and display of
power.

But, she didn't want to go down that path of
thought. The endless wondering would get her nowhere.

Instead, Kira focused on Diana — the vampire
completely determined to destroy her life. From the moment Diana
had laid eyes on Kira, she had hated her. The feeling was
definitely mutual, but Kira would've never acted on it had Diana
not made the first move so long ago, all the way back in their high
school auditorium.

In the time she had known her, Diana had
attacked Kira, almost killed Luke, nearly turned Tristan bad and
risked the lives of all of her friends. Like it or not, Kira knew
there was no other option than to kill her at the ball. This time,
Kira couldn't hesitate.

But, it all came down to one thing: what did
Diana want? They had to figure that out first, because if Kira was
right, Diana was concocting a plan that would haunt Kira long after
Diana herself had died.

"Tristan?" Kira asked. He murmured in her ear
to let her know he was listening. "What do you think she's up to?
Is this really just about telling powerful vampires who and what I
am?"

"I was thinking that too," he said, "but I
can't imagine that is the only reason she went to so much trouble.
If that were the case, all she would need to do is visit the homes
of head vampires and spread the word."

"There's something we're not seeing, like
with the eclipse last year. I'm worried we won't realize what it is
until it's too late."

"Whatever it is, we'll make it through
together. I'm sure of it."

Tristan gripped her hand and she smiled up at
him. They would make it through, they always did, but at what
cost?

Kira still vividly remembered the first time
Diana had attacked her. The feel of Diana's teeth grazing her neck
still sent shivers down her spine. She could still remember the
moment her powers burst forth for the first time. She would never
forget how her blood boiled, how her powers felt like lava melting
her skin apart when it rained from her palms. That moment was also
when Kira first found out what Tristan was. The sight of his eyes
flashing in pleasure at the slight taste of her blood still haunted
her thoughts. Now she understood it was involuntary, but back then
it had almost torn them apart.

And what about the eclipse? Before that day,
Kira had never killed anything. She had never known what it felt
like to drain a vampire of its very life force, burning it to ash.
Before that day, she had also never really seen the darker side of
Tristan, the past he tried to keep hidden from her. She loved the
man he was now, loved how he understood her and how he saw her. She
loved the way they laughed and the way they could tell each other
anything. She loved that he never judged her and always let her
make her own decisions. But for a minute on that afternoon so long
ago Kira had seen something else, something only Diana could bring
out in him, and she never wanted to see that side of Tristan
again.

Which was why Kira couldn't help but feel
dread as she thought of the coming Saturday. A face-off with Diana
had been a long time coming and it was inevitable, but what would
she, Luke and Tristan walk away with? What scars would they carry
this time?

Chapter
Thirteen

Seriously, Kira thought, why are we always in
the woods! In the movies, spies were always in glamorous dresses
attending society affairs while sipping cocktails and scoping out
the scene. They had professionally applied makeup, super high tech
gadgets and of course airbrushing. In reality, Kira was ankle deep
in the mud for what felt like the millionth time in her life. The
head vampire of course lived in another old plantation estate on
the outskirts of Baltimore. And the ball was of course happening in
his home rather than some glitzy downtown bar. Kira was beginning
to wonder how the North even won the Civil War when so many
vampires seemed stuck in the plantation era.

As a waft of skunk, or maybe animal feces,
filled Kira's nose, she couldn't help but sigh in frustration. It
was safe to say the wonderful smell of twenty-dollar-a-bar soap had
worn off. She just hoped she had time to shower before life threw
her another curve ball.

"Kira, come on," Luke whispered and waved her
over to his tree. Kira walked over, trying not to let her sneakers
squelch in the mud. Yesterday, as she gazed out of the hotel window
to watch the rain fall into the harbor, Kira had thought it looked
beautiful. Rain, she reminded herself now, was never beautiful — at
least not the next day when you were, for all intents and purposes,
off-trail hiking.

"Do you remember the plan?" Luke asked when
she got closer. Kira rolled her eyes — they had only gone over it
one hundred times.

In the woods all around them, but nowhere
Kira could spot, were Protectors. Somehow Luke had done it. He
pulled together an army, well more like a gang of loyal followers,
but enough conduits to trap some of these vampires and make them
talk.

Now Kira and Luke were scouting ahead and
waiting to give notice for the conduits to charge. But, that
wouldn't be for a while. First, the two of them had to watch the
guests enter and count how many there were. They had to wait for
Tristan to go into the party and give them the signal. They had to
find a way to jump through the window into the first floor study
where Tristan was planning to lure Diana. They had to get the
information about Kira's mother out of Diana. Then they had to find
a way to kill her even though she was immune to Kira's Punisher
powers. Oh, then finally the conduits could charge in, save the day
and get the rest of the vampires. Simple, right? Kira almost wanted
to laugh. Simple just wasn't in her vocabulary anymore.

Luke motioned to her again and she followed
him to another tree a few feet closer to the house. Tristan had
assured them both that these vampires were too full of themselves
to set out patrols. Absolute power often came with absolute
arrogance and absolute idiocy, Kira thought.

When a liquid-black Rolls Royce pulled up in
front of the house, Kira stilled her inner monologue. A pale white
leg with hot pink five-inch heels appeared first, followed by a
long black sequined dress that must have cost a fortune. Finally,
the bright blonde head of a vampire appeared. From this distance,
Kira couldn't make out any of the vampire's features, only enough
to know that it wasn't Diana and she was slightly jealous of those
shoes.

The woman strolled forward and the car pulled
away, disappearing around the bend. She mounted the steps, halting
right before she reached the wrap around porch and Bronson greeted
her. He gently cupped her fingers and lifted them to his lips. They
exchanged pleasantries and Bronson stepped aside to let her
continue. Finally, the vampire let her foot crest the top step.

Immediately a wave of flames shot out of the
door, encircling her. But rather than fly backwards with the force,
the vampire stepped slowly across the porch and through the door,
smiling the entire time. When she disappeared from sight, so did
the flames.

They may not have been able to see the
captive Punisher, but Luke and Kira knew what the source of that
fire had been. Next to her, Luke let out a frustrated sigh. Kira
was sure that until that moment Luke had been hoping that Tristan
was wrong and that there were no captives. It was hard to have such
a hope when the reality was staring them in the face.