The Vampire's Betrayal (21 page)

“Don’t play coy. You know the ones—where you bite a girl’s neck and drink her blood.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Those.”

“I had hoped you’d want to play that game with me.” Ginger moved forward, sliding her pretty, manicured fingers down her neck from her ear to her shoulder. “Why do you think I wore this blouse?” She ran her fingers under the elastic, pushing it down to expose her flesh from neck to shoulder.

I reached out and stroked her perfect white throat with my fingertips. I could see the bluish vein that pulsed beneath her flawless skin. The blood flowing through it called out a siren song as old as time. “As you wish.” I pulled her to me and bit down. My sense of taste and smell sharpened as it always did with that first hit of the intoxicating life fluid.

Her blood had a familiar tang, as did her scent. She reminded me of…but no, it couldn’t be. My mind, my memory, my guilt were all playing tricks on me.

In the same way you see the face of a lost loved one in the crowd, imagine you hear the whisper of their voice on the breeze—so I imagined I tasted my Eleanor and smelled her signature scent. I harkened back to the night I made her for myself, the dark sanctity of the act almost like a black wedding, to have and to hold until death do us part.

If I’d only known that her final death would come so soon. And at my hands.

Ginger’s sigh brought me back to reality, and I reluctantly broke contact with her flesh.

“My turn,” she said, and stood on her tiptoes.

“What are you doing?” I asked, feeling strangely intoxicated.

“Now I want to drink your blood.”

“That’s not the way it works,” I said. “This is a one-way transaction.” I was a natural top, in sadomasochistic parlance, and did not submit to blood donation—not that it had ever been an issue. Of all the young women I had thrilled with my blood sucking, none had ever asked for blood in return. If I were mortal, I would not have objected. Fair was fair, after all. But even though no victim would be drained to the point of death, there was always the possibility of a two-way blood exchange activating the forces that birthed vampires to some bad end.

She pouted for a moment and then shrugged. “Oh, well, have it your way, selfish.” Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

I was left alone wondering exactly what had just happened, and if I was in as much control as I thought I was.

Jack

I knocked on Connie’s door empty-handed. No flowers this time.
She loves me; she loves me not.

Connie opened the door. “Hey, you,” she said. Except for the dark shadows under her eyes she didn’t look any the worse for wear after her ordeal at my hands.

“Hey.” I walked past her into the living room. “Are you all right?”

“I’m still a little weak, so I took today off,” she said. “I didn’t hear from you last night.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“What’s wrong, Jack? You don’t seem yourself.” She closed the door and came to stand in front of me. She reached out to me, but I backed away.

“There are some things I’ve got to tell you,” I said.

“Sounds serious.”

I had paced to the window. I turned around to her and said, “You should sit down.”

For once she didn’t argue with me, but sat down on the couch.

“Things are getting kind of intense between us,” I started out. I’d rehearsed what I was going to say, but my mind was a blank. I was going to have to wing it.

“I guess you could say that,” she said cautiously.

“Do you remember when we first started to think about…seeing each other, and you knew there was something I was keeping from you?”

“And you didn’t decide to tell me until I saw you go after Will the night he killed Sullivan,” she recalled.

“And I saw your…fangs.” I could see her work hard to suppress a shudder.

“You told me that I couldn’t ever lie to you again.”

Connie’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes. I remember what I said.”

“There’s some things I’ve got to come clean about—some stuff you’ve got to know.”

“About what?”

“About you. And me.” Even as I spoke to her about coming clean, I knew I’d be lying. I was thankful that, as close as we’d gotten recently, she hadn’t learned to read me like William could.

“Go ahead. Out with it. What do I need to know?” No-nonsense Connie was back. She reached for a sofa pillow and hugged it to her chest, bracing her-self, I figured, for something bad. She’d correctly surmised from my manner that what I had to say didn’t involve sunshine and daisies.

I jammed my hands in my pockets to keep from wringing them. “First, Melaphia has figured out what you are, and William’s people in Europe have confirmed it by looking at prophecies in some old Celtic records that they have.”

“What do the Celts know about Mayan goddesses?”

“It’s a little more complicated than you being a goddess.” I had decided to shield Melaphia from blame. I didn’t want Connie to figure out that Mel had helped her get to the underworld in hopes that she would never return.

“What are you talking about?”

“You are a goddess, as far as that goes,” I said.

“But what makes you a deity are your specific powers.”

“Which are?”

“You’re a vampire slayer.
The
Slayer.”

Connie chuckled, but her eyes didn’t smile. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“I wish.”

“You’re talking nonsense. Vampire slayers are only in the movies and on television.”

I raised my arms and let them fall to my sides. “That’s what you said about vampires, remember? And yet, here I am, fangs and all. Remember how you nearly burned me to death with a touch before you found that spell that let us get physical without frying me? That was no mistake, no accident. It’s who you
are.
”

Connie took a deep breath and considered this. “I see what you’re saying,” she finally said. “I mean, I guess it would explain what happened between us. But what does being the Slayer mean
exactly
?”

“It means that one of these days real soon you’re going to have some kind of superpowers that are going to make you really, really good at killing blood drinkers. And it’s going to be your solemn duty to kill as many of us as possible. And you’re going to
want
to.”

Connie looked at the carpet for a moment, her eyes wide. “Are you sure about all this? Maybe there’s been some kind of mistake.”

I reminded her about the birthmark and told her about the prophecies Melaphia and Olivia had found. “But what removed all doubt was something that happened in the underworld—something I didn’t tell you about.”

“What did you hold back? What happened?” she demanded, angry now, and I didn’t blame her.

“It was right after you were with your son—I didn’t lie about that part, I swear. When he went running off and you knew you couldn’t follow him, some angels came down to you and showed you a sword.”

“My god. Angels? With a sword?”

“They said that you…” I stopped, realizing I was about to literally put a weapon in her hands she could use against us. I decided to keep to myself the angel’s instruction to find the twin of the shiny sword. “They said you’d be given special powers and weapons to fight the vampires.” I stopped, to give both of us time to take a breather. Connie looked as ill as she had been when I revived her the other night, and I expected I looked just as sick as she did. Sometimes it was good not to be able to see your own reflection.

Connie rubbed her temples like she’d just developed a headache. “I think I’d remember if a band of angels showed me a sword and told me to kill my boyfriend.”

“Just because you don’t remember any of it now doesn’t mean that you won’t someday.”

“Answer me this,” she said. “How did I get to be this—this slayer? I mean, why me?”

“Evidently, your natural father was a vampire and your mother was a human woman.”

She looked at me as if I’d just slapped her. “
Natural?
What the hell is natural about having a vampire for a father?”

Damned if she didn’t have a point there. “I know how you must—”

“No, you don’t! You chose to be a bloodsucker! I don’t want this. I don’t want any part of this!”

“Believe me. I don’t want it for you.” I changed my mind about telling Connie the rest of what happened in heaven—that she didn’t get to beat up her ex-husband. She’d have enough to absorb tonight. I felt a fresh wave of guilt wash over me for having started out my talk by saying I was going to tell the whole truth, all the while knowing I would pick and choose what to reveal.

“What if I just said ‘no thanks’?”

“I don’t think you can say ‘no thanks’ to a band of angels, considering who they work for.”

“But I don’t feel like a vampire slayer.”

“You may not feel like one now,” I said. “But according to the lore, there’s going to come a day when your powers will activate, and then it’ll be open season on the likes of me. And I don’t think you can turn this assignment down like it was a normal job offer.”

She stood up from the couch, came to me, and put her arms around my waist, laying her head against my chest. “I’d never hurt you. You believe me, don’t you?” she said, looking up at me with her trusting dark eyes.

I wished with everything in me that her powers could be activated at this very moment and that I wouldn’t have to tell her the rest of it, even if it meant she got to kill me now.
Especially
if it meant she got to kill me now.

I wanted to hug her back, to lay my cheek against the silkiness of her hair and tell her everything was going to be all right as long as we had each other. Instead, I kept my arms at my sides and steeled myself.

“You will,” I said. “You’ll try to kill me and William, and Iban, and all the other vampires you know. And then you’ll go after the rest of them. Only by then us good vampires will be dead and you’ll have to take on the really vicious ones by yourself.”

“How can you say that?” she shouted, and held herself apart from me. “I couldn’t kill any of you. How can you think that I could?”

“You’re not going to be able to help yourself after you’re activated. But even before that, you’re going to want to slay us all after I tell you what I came here to do the other night. What the rest of them sent me to do.”

She backed away from me slowly. “What are you talking about?”

I could tell she was figuring it out. The horror on her face left no doubt. I could turn and run now and she’d know without my suffering the pain of telling her. But I couldn’t take the coward’s way out. I had to finish what I’d started. “You didn’t pass out because of the flu. You passed out because I drained most of your blood.” I heard myself say these words as if I was somewhere far away, like my brain didn’t want to take the meaning in. Connie’s eyes went wide with shock and hurt.

“Connie,” I said. “Two nights ago I tried to kill you.”

Thirteen

William

When I arrived home from the Portal, Tobey and Iban were on their way out. Their charter pilot had been on standby, ready to go at a moment’s notice. We wished one another well and they departed. Travis had already left by whatever mysterious means he traveled.

Deylaud was waiting by the telephone in my office. “Any word from Olivia or her people?” I asked him. He shook his head and said nothing. I could tell he was troubled. “What is the matter, old friend?”

“I don’t know.” He stared straight ahead of him.

“Are you ill?”

He looked at me then. “There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s that woman I saw at the Portal.”

“I saw your reaction to her. What the devil is there between you?” I asked.

“The devil!” he repeated, standing up from my desk chair. “Devil possession! That is the only thing that can reconcile what I took in with my senses this evening to what you told me is true.”

“Explain,” I said.

“The woman I saw tonight at the nightclub—I don’t know who you believe her to be. But mark me, that is Eleanor!”

“What? That woman’s name is Ginger. I’ve known her for—” Before I could finish, the accuracy of Deylaud’s assertion hit home. Her scent, the taste of her blood, her style of sexuality, the change in her personality. It all suggested that Deylaud was right.

“How could it be?” he asked.

I began to pace the room. “When Jack came back from the underworld, he was accompanied by a ball of fire that flew up the chimney. It could have been Eleanor’s life force escaping from the underworld.”

“How did Eleanor’s spirit get into this Ginger woman?”

“Ginger worked for Eleanor. Perhaps Eleanor’s spirit went to the site of her old home and found Ginger there. It was her home, too.”

“If that is what happened, then what became of this poor Ginger’s spirit?”

“Poor Ginger is right,” I said. “I am loath to think of it. I must go confront Eleanor.”

“Confront her?” Deylaud asked, puzzled. “I feel sorry for the other woman as well, but William, surely this is joyous news. Even though she doesn’t look the same, we have Eleanor back with us!”

I hated to burden this sensitive creature, but the time had come for me to tell him the truth. “Deylaud, you don’t know everything about Eleanor and her death.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before she…died, Eleanor betrayed me. She betrayed all of us. It was she who put Hugo and Diana up to kidnapping Renee. It was she who told them the value Renee could be to them through her magic blood. When I found Renee, she was within a hairbreadth of being sacrificed to the Council of old lords. And it was all Eleanor’s doing.”

Deylaud issued a choking sound and tears spilled from his eyes. “It can’t be. She wouldn’t have—”

“But she did.”

A look of horror crossed Deylaud’s face. “You—you killed her, didn’t you? You killed her yourself!”

I nodded, unable to bring myself to say the words. I decided to spare Deylaud the most painful part of my tale—the way in which Eleanor had been disfigured and tortured in the underworld.

Deylaud bared his teeth and issued a deep, rumbling growl as if he wished to rip me to shreds. It was a disconcerting thing to see, as he was in human form.

“Deylaud, no!” I showed him my fangs and he whimpered, giving me my due as his de facto pack leader. “Remember your love for Renee, and ask yourself how you would have felt if I’d brought Eleanor back here alive after what she had done. Could any of us ever have trusted her again? Or, even worse, ask yourself how you would have felt if Renee had been murdered in the most cruel way imaginable.