The Vampire's Revenge (23 page)

Deylaud had given Mole a change of clothes from his own closet. The shape-shifting canine’s human form was not as tall or muscular as me, but Mole still had to roll up the khakis and the sleeves of the pullover.

When Mole had had a chance to wash up and change, I gave him a glass of blood spiked with some of William’s best brandy and got drinks for Connie and me as well. I urged him to get comfortable on the chaise and put his feet up. He swirled the drink in the snifter and sighed with contentment before taking a sip.

Diana would assume Mole would not go back to the bar they had attacked him in, which meant it was perfectly safe for him to do just that. I wouldn’t have been surprised, however, if the quartet who had escaped from underneath the table earlier found a new and less terrifying watering hole. I wasn’t too worried about them talking. By the look of them, anyone they might tell about being menaced by vampires would certainly chalk the adventure up to demon rum, not actual demons.

When Mole seemed cozy enough, I sat beside Connie on the couch. “What a night, huh?”

Mole rubbed his chest where he had been semi-staked with the pool cue. “They thought I had blown up the boat. They had no way of knowing that I’d lost my body to Eleanor, and naturally they wouldn’t believe me when I tried to tell them. Thanks to you both for coming to my rescue. One more moment and Sharona would be sweeping what was left of me up off the floor of the billiards room.”

“Connie deserves your thanks more than I do. She did the heavy lifting,” I said.

Mole held up his glass. “To the Slayer,” he said. “Congratulations on dispatching one of the most evil vampires that ever stalked the earth. You were magnificent, my dear.”

I raised my glass as well. “Hear, hear. I’m really glad you’re on our side.”

“Thanks,” Connie said.

“What you did was an extremely big deal,” I said. “William tried twice to kill Ulrich and failed both times. You did it easily.”

“Remarkable,” Mole added.

Connie said, “I can’t believe it was only a short time ago that I didn’t even know vampires, shape shifters, and faeries existed. Who knew there were creatures just beyond my understanding, and they are living all around me. And now I
am
a creature I don’t understand.”

“I think you understand plenty. In fact, you’re amazing,” I said. “And not because you’ve got superpowers, but because you’ve got the mental toughness to deal with them. I have to ask—what did it feel like? Killing him, I mean.”

Connie shook her head and smiled. “It was an unbelievable rush. I can’t really describe it.”

“You avenged a lot of good people who were slain by him. That is indeed something to be proud of,” Mole said.

“If I hadn’t let Reedrek get the drop on me, you might have been able to kill Diana, too,” I said. I’d always prided myself on my fighting ability. It was a weird feeling, getting out shined by a girl. I had been William’s right-hand man for so long that when he died I figured I’d take over as the baddest bad-vampire killer on earth. I guess I’d just have to get used to the idea of being someone else’s understudy again.

“What do you think Diana’s going to do now that she’s on her own? Do you think she’ll go back to Europe?”

“Definitely not,” Mole said, shaking his head vehemently. “You don’t want to go before the Council having failed to complete a promised task.”

“So what do you think she’ll do?” I asked.

“My guess is that she’ll come up with a new plan. Her other option is to go into hiding, and I think she’s much too ambitious for that. She’ll only go before the Council when she has something else to offer them. And, of course, she’ll blame the latest failures on Ulrich since he’s no longer around to defend himself. That’s my prediction.”

“What can she do on her own, without help?” Connie asked.

“Yeah,” I put in. “On this side of the pond there’s nobody for her to recruit. We’re the good guys over here. Even if she makes her own vampire, a fledgling is too hard to control. Look what happened to Eleanor. William thought he could keep her on the straight and narrow, and she went completely off the rails at the first sign of trouble.”

“Don’t underestimate Diana,” Mole warned. “She can cause plenty of mischief without help. She’s a very powerful vampire in her own right. My only advice is to stay alert.”

I sighed. My life had been on code red alert for months now. “We still need to discuss what happened to Olivia’s coven.”

“Such a tragedy,” Mole fretted. “When she and her remaining family are settled into a new home, I must talk to her and find out who among them lived and who died. I worked with several of her vampires, and I’m highly distressed about the attack.”

“What else could Eleanor have told the Council when she tapped into your memories—besides ratting out Olivia’s cover?” I asked.

Mole thought for a minute. “Nothing comes to mind. I hadn’t been spying for Olivia that long, and for my own protection, I didn’t ask her for any of the coven’s information. The less I knew the safer I was.”

“So you weren’t spying for any other vampires?” Connie asked.

“Oh, no. Olivia’s group are the only nonevil blood drinkers in Europe that I’m aware of. There’s nothing else of a damaging nature that Eleanor could have told the Council that might have come from me.”

“That’s a relief, at least,” I said. “Do you have any special knowledge about the Slayer?”

“What kind of knowledge?” Mole asked.

I filled him in on Connie’s and my trip to the underworld and what I’d seen and heard. Connie still couldn’t remember a thing from her time there.

“Oh, my,” Mole said. “I had no idea you’d had such a difficult time of it. So you haven’t had much guidance in the way of the Slayer, then?”

“No. Do you know very much about the Slayer that we don’t?” Connie asked. “Uh, I mean about me, that is. I’d be grateful for anything you could tell me.”

“I know enough to be able to confirm that Reedrek was telling the truth about how the Slayer—that is you, uh, Connie—could be killed,” he said delicately. As if it pained him to put a sore subject into words, he drew a finger across his throat.

“I get it,” Connie said. “Do you know anything else about slayer lore and prophecy?”

“I’ve had very few opportunities to sneak looks at the archives of the Council. For decades I attempted to view the writings on a catch-as-catch-can basis. I was eventually caught and punished, so I stopped making a habit out of it. What I did see was so piece-meal that I’m afraid I couldn’t make much sense of it. I’m really sorry I can’t help you. I promise that if I remember anything that might be of use I’ll tell you immediately.”

“Thanks,” Connie said.

“May I have another drink, please? You’re ever so kind.” I mixed Mole another blood and brandy and handed it to him. “You know, Connie, your story is fascinating. Jack, have you ever been able to figure out what propelled Connie from the underworld and back here to earth?”

“Never have,” I said.

“From what you told me, if I had to guess I’d say the force of your own will accomplished that, Jack. At the risk of appearing romantic I might even say it was the force of your love.” The wizened little vampire smiled so warmly he looked almost human for a second or two.

So my feelings for Connie were that transparent. I looked at her, but she couldn’t meet my eyes. Would Seth have risked his life and soul to save her like I had? I guess that was an unfair question. Still, I couldn’t help but think it. It didn’t matter, though. Connie had made her choice, and it wasn’t me.

“Maybe I screwed up by going to get you back,” I muttered to Connie. “If I’d only left you there to be slayerized the way you were supposed to be, maybe things would have been different somehow.”

“Don’t second-guess yourself,” Connie said, shaking her head. “It’s over and done.”

“Quite right,” Mole chimed in, and took a long drink of his cocktail.

I sighed. Had my actions doomed William to everlasting death? How would things have played out if I had not been so headstrong? That thought was just too painful, so I banished it from my mind. I knew it would haunt my nightmares though, probably for the rest of my undead life.

There was no telling who else’s fate I’d changed without even knowing it by my bullheadedness. I just hoped I hadn’t gotten the ball rolling in the wrong direction in ways I couldn’t fathom yet.

Mole was getting a little tipsy. He’d had a tough day, what with being roughed up by Reedrek and Ulrich, and I could tell he was exhausted. Judging by the angle of his shiny little head, he was probably in greater danger of nodding off from fatigue than of passing out from alcohol. I suggested he hit the hay, and he let me help him into the spare coffin.

Connie was putting the glasses in the sink when I closed the lid on Mole. “I should go,” she said.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here tonight? Diana’s going to be extra pissed because you killed her man today. It wouldn’t be too hard for her to figure out where you live.”

“Maybe I should, since it’s so late,” she said. “I’ll have to call Seth and tell him.”

“Tell Seth?”

“He’s staying at my place now.”

“Oh,” I said numbly. “Sure.”

“Tomorrow morning he can pick me up and take me to get my car at Werm’s club. Where do you want me to sleep?”

I stifled the urge to say,
With me.
Instead I said, “The guest room is on the third floor. Second door on the left.”

“Okay,” she said. “See you . . .”

“Tomorrow night,” I said. “I’m thinking of having a meeting with the people on our side. Eleanor’s house—geez, I’m going to have to stop calling it that—anyway, it’s finished now. We can meet there. We need to discuss the idea that Werm came up with, and we can get everybody up to speed about what happened tonight. Be there at sundown, and bring Seth.”

“All right,” she said. “See you then.” She turned to go but looked back at me.

“What?” I asked.

She took my chin in her hand and inspected the wounds in my jaw and brow, running her fingers over the small dents Seth had put in my flesh. They were already almost healed. “You’ll be okay,” she said.

I listened to her footsteps as she climbed the steps and closed the door to the vault behind her. I went to William’s desk and sat down in his chair.
No, I won’t be okay. I’ll never be okay again.

Nineteen

So much had happened in the last couple of days. I realized I needed to set up a conference call to fill in Iban and Tobey, and I would have to do so before I turned in, while everything was fresh in my mind. They were relieved to hear that Connie had come back to her senses and that the double-dead threat was gone. When we first learned Connie was the Slayer, I had reason to worry that even the good vampires would try to kill her before she had a chance to kill us. That danger was over. I could tell that Iban and Tobey were sincere when they said they wished Connie well.

I told them what happened with Mole and the others aboard William’s boats, and I described how Connie had killed Ulrich.

“She killed him with one blow?” Iban asked. “That must have been impressive.”

“You got that right,” I said.

“Ulrich was legendary,” Tobey exclaimed. “He was said to be immensely powerful.”

“That’s right,” Iban agreed. “He struck fear into the hearts of even the most ancient vampires. I wonder how the Council will react when they find out he’s dead.”

I shared with them Mole’s speculations on that score. They urged me to proceed with caution and assume that Diana was capable of anything.

“She hasn’t survived to be hundreds of years old—especially as a female—without being extremely clever,” Iban pointed out.

“Yeah,” Tobey said. “She’s bound to have some tricks up her sleeve. You and your people have to be hyper-vigilant. There’s no telling what she might be planning.”

“I hear you,” I said. “I’m not satisfied to sit back and wait, though. I want you guys to have a powwow with your people. Try to generate some ideas as to what the old lords might be planning next based on what they’ve done in the past. We need to start being proactive.”

They said they would do what I asked. Then I remembered my conversation with Connie on the way out to Tybee. “Have either of you guys heard anything from Travis? Now that Connie’s back in her right mind, she has a lot of questions for him.”

“I can understand that,” Iban said. “But I haven’t seen or heard from him since the last night we were all in Savannah.”

“Me neither,” Tobey said. “And we’ve been asking around. We’re kind of curious about the situation with Connie’s mother, too. We’ll let you know immediately if we hear something.”

“Thanks,” I said. Now I needed to broach the really tough subject—the one I’d saved for last. “There’s one more thing. We need to talk about how to get more help here.”

“I don’t know, Jack,” Iban said. “As you know, my entire clan was wiped out by the plague. Since I’ve joined Tobey’s people, we lost another vampire when Damien murdered Freddie Blackstone so he could masquerade as him.”

“I knew there would be problems sending any of your people out here,” I said. “I’m talking about making more vampires. Very carefully, of course.”

There were a few moments of silence on the other end of the line before Iban said, “That’s against everything we stand for, Jack. You know that.”

“Yes, I do. But desperate times call for desperate measures.” I told them Werm’s idea about recruiting people with useful skills and no family.

“I think it’s wrong,” Iban said flatly. “I’d rather come out and help you myself.”

“You’re welcome to do so, but with all due respect, you’re not enough. We need to build a team that can be ready for anything at any time.”

“Jack, no,” Iban insisted.

“Listen!” I exploded. “I know your people are spooked. But this is going to be the hot spot when the Council strikes again.”

“We may have more people, but you have the Slayer at your side,” Tobey pointed out hotly. “We’re not immune to trouble out here ourselves. An entire colony was wiped out.”

“Look, the bottom line is this,” I said. “I’d love to have your blessing to do whatever I need to do in order to fight off the old lords. But I don’t
need
your blessing. This is fair warning.”