The Vampyre Legal Chronicles - Daniel: Book: 3 (14 page)

Today, she'd made a new friend.

"So," she said with a heartfelt sigh. "How
much of my blood do you want this time?"

"Three vials."

She held out her arm.

"Do your worst."

Later, Anais and Charlotte walked arm-in-arm down the corridor
to their respective apartments.

"I think that went well," said Anais. "I like
Gia. She's a pistol. And anyone who can get under Saira's skin like that is a
force to be reckoned with."

Charlotte laughed. "She's certainly making Daniel work
hard to woo her."

"He's wooed her already. They're crazy about each
other. Neither of them know it yet."

Then Charlotte's eyes clouded. "I'm worried. Things are
very bad out there. Here I am unable to help. I'm a nurse. It goes against
everything I am, that I can't get out in the world and help people."

Anais understood her friend’s feelings, but she also
understood that the Gillespie vampyres would never ever let Charlotte and her
baby be placed in danger.

"All you need to worry about is the miracle you're
carrying. The world will sort itself out, it always does."

Charlotte nodded, but her eyes were still unsure.

"I hope and pray you're right."

So did Anais.

***

Resting in bed an hour later, Charlotte placed her eReader on
the bedside table and slid down to lie on her side.

Saira had told her that a vampyre pregnancy could be tricky.
A downside was the way exhaustion seemed to overtake her at certain times of
day. When that happened, she was to listen to her body and rest. She listened
to her body now and decided to close her eyes. Just for a minute.

She heard nothing.

She sensed nothing until it was too late.

Her eyes sprang open, her vampyre ready to leap.

All she saw was a pale face under a black hood with eyes the
color of blood.

A male vampyre.

In his hand was a hypodermic syringe he plunged into her
neck at super-human speed.

Her last thought was for James and her baby.

"Just walked in on them getting
ready to claw each other's eyes out. You could have cut the atmosphere with a
knife," said Daniel. Then he turned to Marcus. "I want you to ask
Saira why she's so annoyed with Gia."

Marcus gave him big eyes, pointed to himself.

"Me? Seriously?"

James, who was pouring three coffees, burst out laughing.

Daniel's cheeks heated as he jerked a shoulder, feeling like
a fool.

Maybe he was a fool.

"Yeah. You've gotta good relationship with Saira.
She'll talk to you."

"Why the hell would
I
ask her? Why would
I
stir up girlie stuff? You need another girl, bro."

"Listen to the voice of reason," advised James,
shaking his head and handing him a cup.

Daniel nodded his thanks, but he wasn't deterred, not by a
long shot.

"Okay. You're married to a girl. Ask Charlotte to ask
Saira why she's pissed at Gia."

James blinked, then grinned.

"Trust me, if something's going on, like a girl fight, we
don't wanna know."

Daniel turned to his eldest brother. Marcus looked as if
he'd stepped out of the pages of GQ. The suit was so sharp he was lucky it
didn't cut him.

"I need help here."

His big brother shook his head.

"Not a chance in hell. You wanna know,
you
ask
Saira."

Daniel knew he couldn't do that, because to do it himself
would be
interfering
and
controlling
.

Again the words Gia had tossed at him stung.

Fuck it.

"Cowards," he said to his brothers.

Marcus laid a bolstering hand on his brother's shoulder,
gave it a friendly pat.

"Absofuckinglutely, and proud of it, son."

Daniel's eyes met his. "So I'm just supposed to leave
it be?"

Marcus nodded, gave him a hearty slap on the back.

"Always said you were bright," piped up James. Then
his eyes went wide as he went utterly still. His cup dropped from his hands before
he raced from the room.

***

"We'll find her. Calm the hell
down," Marcus was checking the French windows in James and Charlotte's
bedroom.

They were locked from the inside.

According to their Centuri no one had entered or left the building
in the last two hours.

James was pacing in front of his big bed, his hands dragging
through his hair, his steps agitated.

"I'm telling you I felt her sort of blink out in my
mind. Something's happened to her."

Two hours later and Gia and Anais were keeping James company.

A James who was sitting on the edge of his bed and slowly
losing his mind.

He pressed his fingertips into his eyes and tried to
think
.

The whole building was in an uproar, but Charlotte Gillespie
seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

"The Order have got her," he whispered as an icy
fist clutched his heart, his gut.

Anais held his hand and squeezed. "We don't know that?"

"When was the last time you saw her?" James asked
her for what felt like the tenth time.

Patiently Anais went over the minutes when she'd left
Charlotte at the door to their apartment. "We visited Gia. Watched her and
Saira bond. Then we talked for about half-an-hour and I walked her right to the
door. I saw her unlock it and go in. There was no one around. She said she was
going to read for a while and then have a nap. I didn't hear a sound or see
anything suspicious. Nothing."

James reached out to slide his hand down Anais's dark hair,
he pulled her close and kissed her cheek.

"Thank you." He stood. "I can't sit around
here doing nothing. I need to talk to my father, to Ezekiel and my brothers. We
need a plan."

He left.

Gia sank to the spot James had left, and felt an icy hand
cover hers.

"I just don't understand it," she said as she
turned to a desperately pale Anais. "How could she just vanish? Her eReader
is still on the bed. You can see the imprint of her body on the comforter where
she lay."

She rose and began to slowly step around the perimeter of
the spacious room. Her fingers lingered on a large couch of ruby velvet and a
side table resting against the wall, which held a big clear glass vase of fresh
flowers. Charlotte loved flowers. She came to the enormous mirror at rest
against the wall. She stared at her reflection and read the worry and confusion
in her own eyes. There must be some sort of logical explanation. Then the hair
on the back of her neck rose, as did gooseflesh on her arms.

Her vampyre growled a warning in her mind.

The sensation that washed over her skin reminded her of her
reaction when Ezekiel had come too close.

She edged nearer and her antenna that something was...
off
,
intensified.

Without taking her eyes from her reflection and with her
heart beating too fast, she spoke softly, "Anais, come here."

Anais moved to stand beside her and their eyes met in the looking
glass.

"What do you feel?" whispered Gia, almost
terrified of the answer.

Anais reached out a hand to touch the glass, but Gia beat her
to it and her hand seemed to sink into the glass.

She snatched it back.

"Jesus," she breathed the word.

Then she reached for the mirror, or whatever the hell it
was, again.

Now her vampyre rose.

Later, much later, she'd wonder how the hell she could have
done something so idiotic, but she turned her head, eyes wide, to stare at an
Anais whose eyes were like saucers.

Before she could string two words together, her body was
literally sucked into another place.

"Gia!" screamed an Anais who couldn't believe what
her eyes were seeing.

"I'm here!" Gia called out sounding very far away.

God, Gia could
hear
her?

"Can you get back?"

Silence.

"Nope. Seems to be one way."

"Omigod, Gia."

"Stop panicking. I'm fine. It's freezing cold and I
seem to be in some sort of ancient castle. Think the pit and the pendulum.
Creeeeepy. You'll need to go for help. Listen, this must be how they took
Charlotte. I'm going to do a little reconnaissance and see if I can find out
not only who the hell took her, but where we are. I'll be back in a
minute."

Stop panicking?

Was the woman
insane
?

"NO! No, stay exactly where you are."

Silence.

"GIA?"

Silence.

And just at that moment Saira entered the bedroom and Anais
had never been so glad to see anyone in her entire life.

Her voice shook as she pointed a trembling hand to the
mirror.

"Gia has just disappeared into...
that
."

Saira's dark eyes went huge.

"For fuck's sake," she muttered then raced out of
the room.

Anais stayed right where she was in case Gia came back.

All of a sudden the air chilled as if a cold wind emanated
from the mirror and she wrapped her arms around herself.

When she heard the sound of people coming at a run, she
closed her eyes in heady relief.

Daniel, she just knew it, was going to go ballistic.

Then she heard Gia call her name and she stepped close
enough to place her fingertip on what appeared to be glass.

And that was her fatal mistake.

The sensation was one of her whole body being sucked into a
void.

She only had time to let out a little yip when she found
herself in a circular room with a wide-eyed Gia.

"Shitty, shit, shit," yelled Gia. "You idiot!
Marcus is going to kill you."

She was an idiot all right.

Heart booming against her ribs, Anais tipped back her head
to check out the height of the ceiling, about thirty feet.

Bloody hell.

"Hang on, hang on. Are you telling
me Gia disappeared into the
mirror
?" yelled a very pale Daniel with
an even paler James at his heels.

"Yes!" said Saira.

Daniel skidded to a stop in front of the mirror or device or
whatever it was and found himself rubbing the place where his heart was
thundering against his ribs.

"Gia?" he yelled at the top of his voice.

He had a very bad feeling about this.

Very bad.

Silence.

"Wanna bet she's in there investigating what's happened
to Charlotte?" muttered Saira.

James went to dive through what was obviously some sort of
Gateway, but to where?

As one his brothers sprang to grab him and hold him back.

"Wait. Wait," yelled a Marcus who sounded as if he
was hanging on to his sanity by his fingernails. "Think about it. We don't
know where the fuck it ends up? It might be a portal."

Saira shook her head, as she placed an emergency call on her
cell to Ezekiel.

"Nope. Don't think so. We didn't have an earth tremor
or the usual rumbling noise. I don't smell spent fireworks, do you?" she
said to Marcus.

He shook his head.

Then his brow creased as he turned in a very slow circle.

"Wait a minute. Where the hell is Anais?"

"Oh, hell's bells," whispered Saira.

"ANAIS!" roared Marcus at the top of his voice.

"We're here," called an Anais whose voice wobbled,
just a little. "And we're fine. Except that it's bitterly cold."

Marcus pointed to the mirror and Saira pulled his jacket to
tug him back.

"Don't you dare fucking move. Do you hear me?" he
yelled.

"I bet they can hear you in Australia. Stop yelling at
me."

Stop yelling at her?

Why, he'd...

His mind went blank.

He'd what?

He'd no idea.

What a complete and utter cluster-fuck.

James slumped on the edge of his bed, his face grey with
worry.

"What
is
that thing? And where did it come
from?"

Marcus held up a hand for silence, he was placing a call to
his father.

It was time to bring in the big guns.

"We don't know, but we'll find out."

Daniel Gillespie was an anomaly and a puzzle to his family
at times, he knew that.

It was because he was an easy going and pretty laid back
vampyre.

He didn't lose it as a rule.

Although when he did, his brothers ducked because it took a
helluva lot of pushy shovey before lift-off.

But right this minute, his hand was itching,
itching
,
to paddle the ass of one Gia Del Russo, soon to be Gia Gillespie whether she
liked it or not. Had a nice ring to it, Gia Gillespie. And talking about
rings... he shoved his hand into his pocket, his fingers lingering on the little
velvet box. Like a warrior he battled back the fear he might never see her
again that had seeped into his bones. No point in having a melt-down before
they had the facts.

James was just standing there, before the mirror, or
whatever the hell it was, and studying it as if he was chewing tack nails.

Marcus was standing right next to him with the same
expression on his face.

Whomever or whatever had their women had better start
praying.

Because their days were fucking numbered.

God, it was freeeeezing.

Gia was trembling from head to toe, probably because she was
wearing skinny jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt with running shoes, plus her
heart was going crazy in her chest. Anais wasn't faring any better in her jeans
and light wool sweater.

She looked terribly pale.

"It's like something out of a horror movie set,"
she whispered.

Gia could only nod in agreement.

The room they'd arrived in was lit by a single torch placed
in a black metal sconce, just like something out of a Vincent Price horror
movie. Dank stone walls, curved and windowless with large grey stone slabs on a
floor that looked ancient. The icy wind screeched through tall, narrow gaps
open to the elements. In movies Gia had seen similar gaps used to shoot arrows.
It was night. The room was empty except for a bare wooden table and single
chair. She took a careful inhale. She smelled wood smoke, damp and mold and stale
human sweat. Very slowly she turned in a circle and found a large mirror that
matched the one in Charlotte and James's bedroom.

"Maybe it's a two-way mirror and it will it take us
home?" she whispered.

Anais stepped forward and placed her hand on the surface.

"It's glass. Maybe it's only one-way?" she
whispered back.

Gia shook her head. "There must be a way, we just need
to find it. Or find someone who can help us." Then she closed her eyes,
when she heard her man scream her name. "God, Daniel is going to kill me
for this."

Anais just shook her head. "Marcus, too. I think we
might have been a little bit hasty."

Gia nodded. "Yeah, well. Nothing we can do about it
now. We need to work out where the hell we are. And we need to find
Charlotte."

Anais started a search of the room and found nothing of use
except a small piece of chalk.

She moved to the arched wooden door, lifted the black metal
ring, lifted the latch.

If it squeaked, they were in deep shit.

Gia held her breath.

The door opened without a sound.

They both checked the narrow hallway lit with what appeared
to be gas torches.

She counted six arched doorways just like the one behind
them.

"Mark the door with the chalk," she whispered to
Anais.

"Like X marks the spot?"

"No, that might be too obvious."

Anais stood before the door, chewed her bottom lip, then she
drew a single fine line on one door frame and then the other and a small white
circle on the stone floor next to the door hinge.

By this time they were both really feeling the cold.

"Where to?" asked Gia.

To the left were stone stairs.

To the right the hallway curved.

"We'll go right. We need to try the doors and find
clothes before we freeze to death."

"Okay."

Holding hands they crept along the hall, keeping their backs
to the wall.

All the while listening for any signs of life.

When she came to the next door, Gia pressed her ear to the
wood to listen. Anais did the same to the door opposite. Their vampyre hearing
strained, but they heard nothing. On her nod, both girls tried the doors. They
opened into what appeared to be cells designed for a single occupant. From the
hallway's stingy light she saw the only furnishing was a single bed with two
folded blankets and a single pillow. She wrinkled her nose at a commode. A
wooden stool with a small desk which held an inkwell and nib. There was a
single hook made of black metal on the back of the door. That was it.

"It looks like a priest's cell or something out of a
nunnery," whispered Gia.

She grabbed a blanket and wound it around her head and
shoulders.

Anais did the same.

Then Anais stopped dead and grabbed Gia's hand.

"Omigod," she whispered. "I think we're in
Dyunik Monastery."

"Where?"

"It's the headquarters of The Order."

"The what?"

Anais blinked.

"Oh God, didn't Daniel tell you about The Order?"
When Gia just gave her a wide-eyed shake of the head, Anais closed her eyes
tight. "Shit. Okay. They're religious zealots who hate magic."

Blink.

Blink.

Anais continued, "Charlotte's a witch. A white witch.
And The Order want to test her magic. Prince Duncan Gillespie said no way. And
it caused a fracture in the vampyre council."

Gia wasn't sure she believed in magic. Not only that, she
wasn't sure she wanted to know.

However, if it was indeed true that they were in Dyunik
Monastery and that The Order had Charlotte, she made a vow right there and then
to free her friend and kick-ass.

Anais was staring at her as if she could read her mind. "Have
you had any self-defence or weapons training?" she whispered.

"No. But that doesn't mean I can't fight."

"Aren't you afraid?"

Gia thought about it. On one level she was terrified for
Charlotte and her baby. On another she was afraid Daniel was going to be
seriously pissed with her, if she got out of this in one piece. But on another
level, she felt somehow empowered and strong and, deep down, deadly. Why she
knew she was deadly and could defend herself, she'd no idea. But something deep
down in her bones told her that she could take on the most powerful vampyre and
fight to the death.

"I'm not afraid for myself," was all she said.

Anais gave her vampyre free reign and immediately Gia's
rose, too.

"We'll get her back."

As one they hugged the wall, keeping to the shadows as they
crept, step by step, down the hall until they came to a wide stairwell.

They stopped to listen.

Abruptly, Gia raised her head to sniff.

Anais did the same.

"Fire," she whispered.

Wood smoke.

Meat cooking.

The low murmur of voices far below.

Men.

Women.

Plus, her enhanced senses realized they were a mix of
species.

Human.

Vampyre.

Anais turned to mark the wall with a tiny arrow denoting the
way they'd come.

"Good thinking, Batman," said Gia softly.

Anais grinned, stuffed the chalk in her pocket and found...
she took it out of her pocket... her cell phone.

Gia's eyes went like saucers as she slid her own out of her
back pocket.

"
Hot damn
!"

Anais grabbed her hand and they moved back the way they came
until they found an empty room.

They both flicked on their phones to find... no signal.

Gia's heart fell.

Then she stood on the bed, moved to the narrow gap in the
wall and nearly danced a jig on the spot when a faint signal appeared.

"Turn off the volume," Anais hissed. "We
don't want them going off at the wrong time."

"We should have our own TV adventure series,"
whispered a delighted Gia who was as high as a kite since her vampyre was
ruling her.

Anais frowned as she studied her face carefully.

"Keep calm. Your eyes are blood red. Control your
vampyre. Breathe."

Gia did as she was told and felt marginally better, calmer.

"We need to go higher to receive a signal."

"What's your battery life?"

"Nearly full."

"Mine is half," muttered Anais.

She switched off her phone, tucked it in her bra for
safe-keeping.

Gia did the same.

Again they listened hard at the door before they opened it
and crept out.

This time they turned left heading for the narrow stairs.
Gia went first and using all her vampyre senses, she floated up the stairs
making no sound. Up, up, up they went and the air became bitter as at last they
came to a locked narrow door. They pressed their ear against it. All they heard
was the howl and wail of the wind.

"Place gives me the creeps." Gia slid her cell
phone from her pocket and discovered she had a weak signal.

She phoned Daniel.

It rang twice, three times.

Then... "Where are you? Is Anais with you? Is Charlotte
with you?"

"Anais is here. She thinks we're in Dyunik Monastery.
It's ancient, built of stone and it's freezing here. We need to find
Charlotte..."

At his yelled expletive she held the phone away from her ear
and made a horrible face at Anais.

Anais snatched her phone.

"Shut up, Daniel. We're fine. The mirror in Charlotte
and James's bedroom seems to be some sort of Gateway. But it might be a one way
system, we don't know. And that means we're in the Caucuses with no way to get
home."

Silence.

Then she heard Marcus's voice.

"What the fuck were you thinking? As soon as you
discovered the mirror was not a mirror the pair of you should have come to
us!"

Of course he was correct.

Both her and Gia had been beyond stupid.

But what was done was done.

No point in crying over something that couldn't be changed.

"We're going to find Charlotte and bring her home. Try
not to worry. Talk later."

And so endeth the call.

"Oh man, they're so going to murder us," whispered
a Gia, who didn't sound at all concerned.

If anything, she sounded juiced.

Anais had a weird kind of electricity running through her
veins, too.

"Our men need to learn that we're more than able to
look after ourselves."

They bumped knuckles.

"Right on, Sista."

"You're so bad," said Anais.

"Better believe it."

"Right, let's find Charlotte and get the hell out of
here," whispered Anais. "Although to be honest, I've no idea how
we're going to manage it or even where to start."

Gia wiggled her fingers. "Worry not. We'll go with our
vampy instincts. And since Charlotte's a witch. When we find her, we'll let her
use a little magic."

"Er... her magic's pretty new."

Gia stopped dead. "How new?"

"A few weeks."

At the dropped jaw of disbelief, Anais merely shrugged.

Gia gave her a gentle nudge.

"Lead on, MacDuff."