The Vampire's Betrayal (28 page)

Indeed, Deylaud and Reyha were fearsome creatures in dog form, especially when provoked. They had killed at my bidding more than once, and they would not hesitate to do so again. They could rip the throat from a vampire almost as easily as Jack or I could.

“I’ll sneak back through the tunnels as soon as I get you home and safe in the vault,” Jack said. “I’ll make sure they all get home.”

“The tunnels may have caved in by then,” I said. “I want us all to stay together until the portal is closed.”

Renee stalked up to me, a stern look on her young face. “Uncle William, you must
go.
I can feel the portal in my blood. I’ll know when it’s closed. If me and Mama can make the ground shake one more time, it’ll be over.”

I began to protest, but Jack had already picked me up in his arms and was moving quickly in the direction of home. “Wait,” I said. “We should not travel through the tunnels in case of a cave-in when the next tremor starts. We have enough time to get home before sunup by the street level.”

Jack nodded and carried me up to the surface, which was no more difficult than walking up on the mound of debris to the sidewalk. Melaphia and the others were in little danger of being buried as the place where they stood was open to the sky.

We surfaced behind the hospital. It was relatively quiet, but we could see a hive of activity at the end of the block near the massive building’s main entrance. Police and emergency workers were evacuating patients on stretchers and in wheelchairs. Jack, with me still in his arms, had turned toward home when he literally ran into Connie Jones. She was cordoning off the gash in the earth with a makeshift barricade, winding yellow police tape around traffic cones so no one would fall into the open pit.

“How badly are you injured, William?” she asked.

“He’ll be okay as long as I get him home before daylight,” Jack answered for me. “But I’ve got to get going. I’ll talk to you later.”

She nodded and turned back to her task. But she pulled up short, as did Jack and I, as we all sensed the presence of more blood drinkers.

Reedrek, flanked by Damien and Eleanor, appeared out of the darkness. I saw Jack glance surreptitiously downward through the opening in the earth and back at me.
They can’t see Melaphia and them from here,
he projected. I only hoped they wouldn’t sense them.

“Nice try,” Damien said. “But the portal’s still open. Demons are jumping into the bodies of mortals even as we speak. Either that, or they’re slithering up from hell in their own bodies and dragging their individual curses with them.”

“I suspect your witch and her whelp must be around here somewhere. Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Reedrek sang. “Olly, olly oxen free!”

Jack set me on my feet gently. “The sun’s almost up, guys. Why don’t we all go to our corners and come back out fighting again tomorrow night.”

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s table our differences until we have more time to…chat.”

“What fun would that be?” Eleanor asked. “I don’t want to chat. I smell fresh blood right now.” She eyed my wound and licked her lips.

“I agree with Eleanor. Why wait? I believe we should press our advantage, don’t you agree, Reedrek?” Damien said with a smirk.

“By all means, my boy,” Reedrek said. “By all means.”

Something wasn’t right here. I could tell that the other vampires’ bravado was false. In fact, I could smell their fear. Then I looked at Connie and I realized why.

Jack

Connie appeared to be on the verge of panic. She was taking it all in, looking from one vampire to another, trying to make sense of what was going on and what she was feeling from us blood drinkers. She looked as if she couldn’t interpret the vampire vibes her newly hyped-up senses were absorbing. Brand-new instincts were kicking in, and she didn’t know what to do with them.

Sweat broke out on her brow despite the cold, and she shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet as if she was getting ready to pounce on somebody. I just hoped it wouldn’t be me or William.

“What—what’s happening to me?” she asked, and a visible shiver ran from her head down to her feet.

“I’m glad you asked me that, darling,” Eleanor said. Despite her snarky tone, I could tell that she was almost as nervous as Connie. “There was one little deal the Council had to make with Satan before he would let me and the other double-deads out of the underworld.”

“Unfortunately for all of us, we have to activate the Slayer,” Reedrek said, not taking his eyes off Connie.

“I wish it were not so, but there it is.”

“I said,
What’s happening to me?
” Connie repeated.

I looked at the woman I loved. Her eyes seemed to be changing shape. She blinked and put her fingertips to her lips. My God, she was growing fangs.

I wanted to go to her and get between her and the evil vamps, but something stopped me. An instinctive fear. A certainty that I was in the presence of a creature whose job it was to kill me.

“But she’ll want to kill all of us,” William said, trying to appeal to what might be left of his sire’s sanity, I figured. If so, he was wasting his time.

“It can’t be helped,” Reedrek said philosophically.

“A deal is a deal. Damien, will you do the honors?”

From somewhere within the folds of his long leather coat, Damien produced a sword. It was the exact twin of the sword I saw in the underworld.
Oh, shit.

“That’s my sword—” William began.

“Not anymore it’s not,” Eleanor said.

“You never knew the origin of this sword or its value,” Damien said. “Your old friend Lalee could have told you, if you’d only thought to ask her while you had the opportunity. If you had, she would have told you that this is the sword that sets the Slayer on her path. This is one of only two steel blades in the universe that can kill a vampire more quickly than a wooden stake to the heart.”

I wanted to know how William had come by the sword, but that question would have to wait until another time. I looked at my sire and saw that he was dumbfounded. William was almost never at a loss—or at least he never let it show if he was. But his usual command was slipping. He was weakening by the moment, and I didn’t like how this confrontation was going down. I needed to think of something fast.

“The sword came into my possession by chance,” William said.

“Nothing happens just by chance, William,” Damien said. “I would have thought you were old enough and smart enough to have figured that out by now.” Damien heaved the sword by the hilt, sending it flying end over end. I lunged, trying to grab it in flight, ready to lose a hand if I had to. I couldn’t let Connie touch that sword.

I felt the sword cut into my fingers, but I couldn’t catch it. I couldn’t even slow it down; the thing had a mind of its own, and it was sailing right to Connie. I changed direction and headed toward her, convinced the sword was going to cut her in two.

Impossibly, she caught it by the hilt. When she touched it, her body convulsed like she’d grabbed a live electrical wire. Behind her a transformer blew, backlighting Connie in an eerie blue-green glow and showering her with sparks. I could barely see the whites of her eyes now. They weren’t human eyes anymore, and I could see the tiny fangs when she opened her mouth.

To smile.

That was the worst part, that smile. She knew who and what she was now. She could feel it; hell, we could all feel it. She was the goddess destroyer of vampires. She was the Slayer.

I remembered what Travis had said about how Connie would be like an animal when she first turned, but I refused to believe it. My Connie was still in this creature somewhere, and if anyone could reach her and reason with her, I could.

“Connie,” I said, approaching her slowly. I reached out my hand to her. Unfortunately, it was the injured hand, the one dripping blood.

She put her delicate nose in the air and sniffed as an animal would have, and the gesture horrified me on a primal level. “I smell the blood of the blood drinker,” she said in someone else’s voice. She came at me with the sword and I dodged away.

“What are you doing?” William asked me, alarm in his voice. “Don’t go near her!”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Reedrek and Damien run away like the cowards they were. But Eleanor, she stayed and moved toward William, creeping up on him like a black widow spider.

“It’s me,” I told Connie. I hoped my voice was soothing despite the fact that I was terrified for all of us. I started toward her again.

“Jack!” William shouted. “Stop! You can’t reason with her. Remember what Travis said!”

She lowered the sword and cocked her head to one side. “Jack? Is it you?”

Hoping to heaven she wasn’t faking, I said, “Yes. Now give me the sword.” I inched closer.

She looked at the sword and then at me. “Okay.” She held the sword out to me and I reached for it.

She punched me in the face with her other hand, the blow coming so fast I didn’t see it until it connected with my jaw. I felt myself lifted off my feet and into the air. My body hit the wall of the hospital and slid to the pavement. For a moment or two, I couldn’t move or think.

And a moment or two was all it took.

Connie leaned over me and held the sword high, the maniacal smile back on her face. William started to run to me, but Eleanor caught him from behind. She jumped onto his back and threw one arm around him, clamping his neck in the crook of her arm.

“Slayer! Over here!” Eleanor screamed.

Connie whirled. I tried to raise myself up but was thrown back to the ground. My head throbbed so viciously it took a couple of seconds for me to realize that another earthquake had begun to shake the earth beneath us. I rolled on my side facing William, trying to get to my knees.

Connie seemed unaffected. She forgot me entirely and stalked toward William and Eleanor, drawing back the sword as she went.

William shook Eleanor off, and she fell to the ground hard. He squared himself as Connie charged. He blocked the blow, connecting with her forearm. Connie lost her footing, but managed to hang on to the sword. Meanwhile, Eleanor was scrambling up and away into the darkness, and I had only managed to get to my knees, although the quaking had stopped as quickly as it had begun.

Suddenly, four people came scrambling into sight from the tunnels through the opening in the street. “The portal is closed! We did it!” Melaphia yelled, but her smile of victory turned to terror as she and the others saw what was taking place on the surface.

I knew something was wrong with this picture. The timing was off. This couldn’t be happening. “No, not now!” I yelled.

I was on my feet, staggering toward William, aiming to get between him and the Slayer. It wasn’t Connie anymore.

The sword was on the backswing again, and this time the Slayer was pissed. I lunged, the horrified screams of Melaphia, Renee, Deylaud, and Reyha ringing in my ears.

The Slayer was too fast for me, and for William.

In a move mercifully too quick for any of us to see, she drove the sword into William’s heart.

I would wonder later if time really did slow down right then, or if some primitive protective mechanism kicked in to keep my mind from shattering.

I kept on moving toward William as if in slow motion, vaguely aware that Connie had run away, disappearing into the park after Eleanor.

I reached out my hand to him and heard myself shout, “Father! No!”

He reached for me as well, and I could swear our fingertips touched just for an instant.

I yelled again, “Wait!”

But William’s body was already turning to dust. I had just enough time to question why the body of my friend and father seemed to go out of focus before his form broke apart and splintered into millions of twinkling shards that scattered into the winter wind.

Twenty-one

I don’t remember how we got back to William’s house before sunrise. I couldn’t seem to figure out a lot of things. People were sobbing, and I didn’t want to think about why.

Worse than that, somewhere deep inside my mind a nagging guilt told me the reason we were all sitting here grieving was because I had done something wrong, something stupid. Whatever had happened was all my fault, and I was very, very sorry.

I was holding the pocket watch William had given me, the one he used along with the shells to get me back from the underworld. That was a favor I wouldn’t be able to return.

Someone must have called Werm to come join us through what was left of the tunnels, because I heard him say, “I can’t believe he’s gone.” Someone had been talking. I seemed to remember that Melaphia had filled Werm in on what all had happened. I had covered my ears for that part. I didn’t want to hear it.

Something nudged my hand. It was Reyha’s nose. It had to be daylight because she and Deylaud were in four-footed form now. She sprawled listlessly across my lap and I stroked her head mechanically.

Deylaud, whimpering, was snuggled up to Werm, who had a comforting arm around his slender shoulders. Melaphia held Renee, who had fallen into a fitful sleep.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Melaphia said.

“Me neither,” I murmured. Oh, gods. It was coming back to me. My body quaked, remembering the sword’s blow as if I’d absorbed it myself.

“I can’t accept it. I won’t.”

“We have to.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked, her voice breaking.

How many times had William told me that if anything ever happened to him, it was my responsibility to take care of the family? Had I ever, on any of those occasions, entertained the possibility that we could be left without him? No. Not even once. What had I been thinking?

It was time for me to step up.

I eased Reyha off my lap and knelt in front of where Mel sat on the sofa. I took her hand and kissed it gently. Renee stirred and opened her eyes, so I took her little hand in mine as well. “I’ll protect you,” I said.

“And what if—when—the Slayer comes for you?” Melaphia asked. “What then?”

“I’ll do whatever I can to stay alive until she…calms down. Travis said that she might reach a point where we could reason with her.”