Welcome to the Darkness (Darkness Trilogy) (7 page)

“Garlic?” he asked, eyeing
her.

“And a silver teapot,” she added.

That seemed to startle him and he tried to squirm away from the pot. There wasn’t much space for him to move and the ropes severely hampered him. Sarah grew more curious while she watched him wriggle a couple inches away from the pot. Interesting. He was afraid of the silver, even though nothing had happened when she’d touched him with it. She wondered why he wasn’t attempting to break free of the ropes. Was he not strong enough to do so? Or was he scoping out the situation before making another mad dash out of her place?

Sarah picked up the discarded newspaper and shoved the article in his face. “Is this you?” she asked, holding the paper so he could read it. She waited for him to get the gist of the article. “Well?”

He gave her a sad look. “Yeah, but . . . I didn’t kill them. I didn’t kill my own family!”

Truth.
She could read his mind again, now that he was awake, and he was telling her the truth, or at least he believed what he was saying. “Listen, Reed. It’s time for you to tell me what’s going on. I might be able to help you. That’s what I do. I help people who are in trouble. That’s what I’ve dedicated my life to. I’ll show you some trust, if you do the same for me, okay?” Sarah paused for a moment to let her words sink in. “If I remove this rope, are you going to try to run away again?”

His eyes searched hers as he weighed his options. Then he shook his head.

Truth. She leaned over him, and started to undo the knots she’d tied in the rope. Her fingers brushed against the back of his hand and he felt warm, not cold like an undead corpse. He watched her intently while she continued her work. When the rope was loose enough, he sat up and shrugged out of it.  Sarah pointed to her couch, motioning for him to take a seat, and he obliged, looking defeated.

“How’s
your . . . injury?” she asked. He hadn’t moved like someone in pain.

“I’m okay. I heal really fast,” he said.

What an understatement! Things were getting stranger by the minute. “All right,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Tell me what’s going on.” She leaned back, and listened while Reed told her his story.

He related a shocking series of events, from the brutal slaughter of his parents and sister and the destruction of his home, to his harsh introduction into the world of vampires. He mentioned Nathaniel, a stern yet oddly helpful vampire who was over two hundred years old, and the Queen who had commanded Reed to bug Sarah’s apartment, and then to kidnap her when he had failed.

When Reed finished, he stole a glance at the newspaper. “That article says there’s a funeral for my family in two days,” he said, his voice wavering with emotion. “That’s tomorrow! I can’t imagine not being there.” He turned away.

Sa
rah didn’t speak for a moment, her brain working to come up with a plan to help him.

“So what do we do now?” he asked. “I don’t understand what the vampires want with you. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Hmm . . . I have a theory about that,” she replied. Should she reveal her secret to him? She never talked about it to anyone, but she wanted to show him that he could trust her. He had taken the first move in trusting her. Now it was her turn. He looked at her, waiting for an explanation. “I’m telepathic,” she said quietly.

He blinked a couple times before responding. “You mean you can talk to people inside their heads?”

“Well, no, but I can read their minds,” she explained.

“That’s crazy,” he scoffed.

“Ha! That’s rich. You’re a . . . a vampire, aren’t you? And you’re telling me that being telepathic is crazy? At least I’m human.”

“Good point,” he muttered, looking at the ground. “Okay, so you can read my mind
.” Crap! What kind of stupid things have I been thinking around her?

She sup
pressed a grin and said, “It’s okay, really. I’m used to hearing all kinds of things better left unsaid.”

“Wait, did you just . . . ?” he stopped, pointing at his head. “Don’t do that!”

“Sorry. I try hard not to, but sometimes it’s impossible to control my ability. Maybe you know what that’s like,” she said, giving him a pointed look.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, looking sheepish. “Would it help if I said I was sorry again?”

Sarah waved her hand to dismiss his concern. “I’m upset, but I think I understand. We need to focus on a solution.”

“So . . . what the hell
is
the solution?” he asked again.

She looked him straight in the eye and said, “I only see one option.”

“What’s that?” he said and leaned closer.

“This Queen you told me about, the one who asked you to kidnap me. We’re going to pay her a visit.”

T
he buildings of San Jose’s downtown core moved past the car window and I slouched in the passenger seat of the powder blue Chevy Malibu. Sunlight glinted off the windows of the buildings, which became smaller and spaced farther apart as we drove to the city’s outskirts. The cop–Sarah, she’d said her name was–seemed one hundred percent focused on driving. She wanted to take us to some top-secret weapon facility to stock up on supplies before going to visit the Queen and I wondered why she was going out of her way to help me.

“You know you’re crazy, right?” I said, breaking the s
ilence between us at last.

“Have some faith, k
iddo,” she replied. “I have a feeling everything’s going to work out.”

I frowned. How could she
think things would work out?

“Can you predict the future?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “But I feel confident we can meet with these people like civilized adults.”

I snorted. “You were there for the part where I told you they cut my frigging finger off, right? Because they
thought I wasn’t
polite
enough. These ‘people’ are totally insane, and they’re gonna kill you. Don’t you get it?”

She signalled right, and pulled off to the side of the road.

“This isn’t it, is it?” I asked, peering out the window. I didn’t see any building that looked like it could house a weapons storage facility.

“No, I just want to talk to you for a sec. Listen,” she said, placing her hand on my shoulder. “They’re not going to kill me. Why would they go to all the trouble of bugging my apartment or getting you to bring me in if they wanted to kill me? Besides, I’m not walking into this blind. Thanks to you, I have a good idea of what to expect, and I’ll make sure I’m prepared for anything.”

I tried to listen, but my focus was on her hand resting on my shoulder. Her warmth seeped into my skin and she smelled like flowers and clean laundry. She pulled her hand away, and rubbed absently at her neck, right over the spot where I’d bitten her. I turned toward the window, my face heating with shame.

Sarah pulled the car back onto the road and continued driving. I tried to keep my mind blank, knowing that she could be “listening in,” but I found it impossible not to think about anything. I kept replaying the events from the last two days
over and over again. She didn’t comment though, and we drove another few minutes in silence.

We turned off the main road and onto a long driveway. A gray building without windows loomed at the end of the narrow road. We passed through a gateway in the chain-link fence that surrounded the large property and neared our destination. Sarah parked the car, got out and told me to hang tight for a few minutes.

She entered the building and I sat back, trying to relax. I tapped my finger on the door armrest and scoped out the car’s interior. Bored, I popped open the glove compartment. I found a car registration with her name on it, Sarah Perkins, and her birthdate. So . . . she was only twenty-one. Not
that
much older than me. I continued rifling through the contents of the glove compartment, but there wasn’t much else besides a couple of maps and the car owner’s manual.

The building door opened
, and I shoved everything back inside the glove compartment and slammed it shut. Sarah walked over to the car, opened the door, and tossed a giant handbag onto the back seat.

“Find anything interesting?” she said, glancing at the glove compartment.

“No,” I replied. I was surprised to see that she looked exactly the same as when she’d gone in. “Um, where’s all the weaponry you went in there to get? I thought you were going to come out looking like that chick from Tomb Raider. You know, armed to the teeth, ready to face a horde of vampires single-handedly.”

“The vampires aren’t about to let me waltz into their place with ammo and weapons strapped onto every inch of my body. We need to be subtle.”

I reached behind me to grab the handbag off the back seat. “And we’re going to do this using the world’s biggest purse?” I pried it open and pulled out a can of hairspray.

“Hey, careful!
That’s dangerous,” she said, grabbing the can out of my hand.

“What, is it full of mace or something?”

“No, it’s an incendiary device. It’s disguised to look like hairspray.”

I resisted the u
rge to laugh, although a silly grin tugged at the corners of my mouth. “You’re kidding right? You mean like in James Bond?” I fished around the handbag and pulled out a lipstick. “Let me guess, this shoots out some kind of laser?”

Sarah grabbed the lipstick from my grasp as well, and shoved it and the hairspray back into the bag. “You’re not taking this very seriously,” she
snapped. She tossed the bag onto the back seat again.

“Come on. T
his stuff is a joke! None of those gadgets will protect you from the Queen or her psycho minions.”

“It’s only for an emergency,” she said, starting the car and backing out of the parking spot.
“Just in case. It’s good to be prepared.”

I wasn’t sure which of the two of us she was trying to convince.

The sunlight was strong for late fall, and I appreciated the feel of it warming my skin
when I stepped out of the car onto the curb in front of the vampire’s lair.

Sarah grabbed the ginormous handbag from the back seat. It drooped heavily and she snagged it on the car mi
rror. There was a slight tearing sound as she yanked the bag to her side, but it didn’t fall apart.

“So, this is it,” she said, joining me on the sidewalk.

“This is it.”

“Well, we might as well get this over with.” She marched up the front walk toward the door.

I caught her by the arm, stopping her in her tracks. She turned to look at me.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “It’s not too late to back out. You could run away. It’s broad daylight, so you’d have a good head start because they can’t come out during the day.”

Her beautiful green and hazel eyes searched my own. “I’m going in there, with or without you, and I’m going to resolve this once and for all. Of course, I’d prefer to have you with me.”

I let out a sigh.
“All right. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I stepped ahead of her to unlock the door and ushered her inside. The main floor
was abandoned, as per usual during daylight hours, so we went directly to the stairwell leading downstairs. As we entered the lower hallway, a door opened and Dominic stepped out.

He sniffed and his gaze moved to Sarah before coming back to rest on me. “You brought the human female.
Very good. The Queen awaits you. This way please,” he said, indicating the door at the end of the hall that led into the Queen’s chamber. I wondered if the Queen normally sat around on her throne all day, or if they somehow knew we were coming.

W
e stepped into the large chamber and Sarah took in our surroundings with a look of awe. “Wow,” she breathed.

The Queen regarded us as we approached. Her usual entourage
stood on the stage behind her throne. Sarah and I stopped at the same time, as though we’d choreographed our movements.

“Greetings,” the Queen said, bowing her head.

“Hello,” Sarah replied, bowing her head to mirror the Queen’s motion. “I don’t think there’s any reason to beat around the bush, so let’s get right to it. I believe that you’re interested in my ability to read minds, and I thought that maybe we could come to an arrangement that would be mutually beneficial. I don’t see why we can’t discuss things openly, so I’m here, of my free will, to share whatever information I can. I hope that you’ll be willing to do the same.”

I remained quiet
, hoping that the Queen would appreciate Sarah getting right down to business.

The Queen’s cool gaze rested on Sarah. “Indeed. That would be most desirable. I am certain that we have much to offer one another.” She smiled, which seemed more creepy than reassuring.

Suddenly, there was a tearing sound and I spun to look at Sarah. She grabbed her handbag, clutching at it to hold it together, but with another loud rip the entire contents crashed to the floor, scattering around us. I sucked in a breath as I watched the can of hairspray roll across the floor, coming to rest against the stage at the Queen’s feet. “Oh, crap,” Sarah said, looking sheepish rather than alarmed like I felt. “They sure don’t make things like they used to,” she muttered, kneeling to gather everything up.