Books by Maggie Shayne (190 page)

The door opened. Morgan watched with dying eyes as Lou Malone walked in, a bandage on his neck. He looked fine. Healthy. Pink.

"Lou!" Max jumped from her chair and flung herself into his arms. "Oh, God, are you all right? I can't believe he did that to you—and after you tried to help him! I can't believe… " She let the words trail off. "Where are David and Lydia?" she asked.

"I sent them back to the house to get some rest." Lou wasn't looking at her though. He was looking at Morgan. She held his eyes and prayed he could see the plea in hers. She parted her lips, tried to speak. "Dante" was the whisper that emerged.

"I thought he would have been here by now," Lou said. He clasped Max's shoulders, put her away from him, searched her face. "Have you seen him?"

"Seen who? Dante?"

Lou nodded. "I assumed he was coming for Morgan." He closed his eyes. "I was so afraid you would get in his way. He's damn dangerous when it comes to her. I don't think there's anything he wouldn't do—"

Max lowered her head. "He came," she admitted. "I knew he would. I had Stiles and his men here waiting."

Lou blinked. His gaze shot to Morgan's, to her cheeks, where hot tears rolled in slow motion, then back to Max again. "Did they kill him?"

"They shot him with some sort of dart. I don't think it killed him, but I don't know for sure. Then they took him out of here."

"Where?"

"How would I know? Jesus, Lou, don't look so concerned about the guy. He tried to kill you."

"No," Lou said sharply. "He didn't."

"What do you mean, he didn't? He… he
bit
you. Drained your blood."

"And told you where to find me. They gave me two pints. Two pints, Max. The doc in the E.R. said I'd have been fine even if they hadn't brought me in. Tired, dizzy, weak for a couple of days, but fine."

"He attacked you." Max lowered her eyes. "And he shot Stormy."

"He made sure I would be found. He made sure not to take enough to do me any harm. And let me tell you, I think he could have used a lot more, as weak as he was."

Shaking her head as she kept her eyes cast down, Max said, "He came here. He came after my sister."

"Even though he must have known there was a chance he would be ambushed. He knows you're not stupid, Max. Sure, he thought he might lure you away, but it was a shin chance. And he came anyway. Risked whatever hell he's in right now to get to her."

"To kill her," Max snapped.

"Or maybe to save her."

"No. You're wrong. You have to be wrong."

Morgan's heartbeat sped up, and her breath was coming faster. God, they were so close. So close to understanding. They had to save Dante. Please, God, let them save him from those men.

There was a tap on the door. A nurse poked her head inside. "Ms. Stuart? You had a message at the desk from, uh, Lydia. She said someone had been trying to reach you on your cell phone with no luck and finally left a message with her at the house. You're to call this number." She handed Max a slip of paper.

"I turned the cell phone off. There was a sign."

The nurse nodded. "They can mess with certain equipment in hospitals. But, um, between you and me you can use it in here if you want. Just stand near the window."

"Thank you." Max opened up the folded slip of paper, reading the number on it as the nurse walked out of the room. Her head came up slowly, eyes meeting Lou's. "It's the hospital in White Plains." Her eyes fell closed. "Oh, God, it must be Stormy. She must be gone, Lou. Oh, God, she's gone."

Lou wrapped Max up in his arms. Part of Morgan felt that her sister deserved to lose someone she loved, after what she had done to Dante. But most of her wept to see her sister in pain.

"You'd better call," Lou said. "Her mother will want to talk to you."

Nodding, Max straightened away from him and started fishing in her purse. Lou snatched a couple of tissues from a box on the bedside stand and caught her chin in his hand to hold her face still while he dabbed her tears away.

Sniffing, Max poked numbers into her cell phone, held it to her ear and waited. And then she said, "Hello? Mrs. Jones, it's Maxine."

There was a pause. Then she cupped the mouthpiece, spoke to Lou. "She can't bring herself to tell me. She's putting someone else on." And then suddenly her eyes shot wider, her hand moved, and she spoke into the mouthpiece again. "Oh my God.
OhmyGod
, Stormy? Is that you?"

Her face crumpled, and her voice became a series of laughs punctuated by sobs, with a few words in between as she spoke to the friend she had thought was dead. When she finally got herself under control, she said, "I want you to know that we got the man who did this to you. He's not going to hurt anyone else, not ever." Slight pause. "Yes, yes, we're sure." Then her eyes shot to Lou's. "Just to be safe, though, can you describe him?" And then, very slowly, the color left Maxine's face. Her jaw went lax, and she turned slowly to Morgan. "Oh my God. No. No, Stormy, everything is fine. Listen, you just rest, get strong again. I have to go, but I'll speak to you soon, okay?"

Finally she hit the kill button. "The man who was waiting in your apartment that night to shoot Stormy had a horribly scarred face."

"Stiles," Lou growled. "And if he lied about that, I'm betting he lied about everything else, as well."

Max turned to Morgan, her eyes wide, wet. "Oh, God, what have I done? Morgan, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Morgan held her eyes, begging her. "Please… " she managed.

"I know. I know." Max turned to Lou. "We have to rescue Dante."

"No shit. But how the hell are we going to find him? Stiles could have taken him anywhere."

For the second time that night Morgan's window slid slowly open. Again a form climbed inside. But this time it wasn't Dante. It was the woman Morgan recognized as Sarafina. She was stunning, with masses of jet hair and ebony eyes, lips of blood red, and skin as pale as snow. She stared at them, her gaze potent enough to send chills up Morgan's spine. She wore red velvet, and she said, "I may have a suggestion."

"Who the hell are you?" Max asked, stepping between Morgan's bed and the woman standing near the window.

"Brave, for a mortal. My name is Sarafina. I am Dante's sister. And his aunt, and his mother."

"You're a vampire," Max said, and it sounded like an accusation.

"Your powers of observation are astounding," the woman said, sarcasm dripping from every word. "Yes. I am a vampire. Not the tooth fairy, not the sandman, a vampire. And you will either help me get Dante back or pay for his life with your own. Are we clear on that?"

Max stood her ground. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Her brows rose. "Well, the fact that I'm going to offer myself as bait for the vampire hunter ought to be sufficient for that, don't you think?"

Max and Lou stared at her, stunned.

"Come now, it's the only way. Dante's not sending signals strong enough for me to pick up mentally. I can't find him on my own. But I know he's alive. I can feel it."

"Alive," Morgan whispered, fresh tears welling in her eyes.

"Yes. Which is more than I can say for you, mortal."

Morgan smiled at her, weakly, unsteadily. She didn't care that she was hovering on the brink of death. She didn't care—so long as Dante would be all right.

"Come, we've little time. You," Sarafina said to Max. "Contact the scarred man, tell him you have another vampire. That I've been injured, can barely function, and that you've bound me and will hold me for him. Tell him to meet you at the house, near the cliffs, if he wants me. Then gather up your sister and bring her along as quickly as you can."

She turned then to Lou. "While she does all that… " She held out her arms, wrists pressed together. "Bind me and take me to the cliffs to await the vampire hunter."

"Lou, I don't think you should go with her. Not alone."

"Afraid I'll kill him, are you?" Sarafina asked. She rolled her eyes. "Mortals. Fine, if you want me weak enough that I pose no threat, we can arrange that, too." She drew a dagger from her pocket. "Just see to it I don't faint and bleed out entirely." Lifting her arm, she brought the blade to her wrist.

Lou caught her hand, stopped her from slicing herself. "No." He looked at Max. "We have to trust her, Max. We need her at full strength or we risk losing the fight. Stiles has at least three other men working with him, and maybe more, all of them armed."

"Not to mention trained," Max said. Then she paused, turning to Sarafina. "Can you help my sister? Dante says he can save her. Does that mean you can, too?"

The woman looked at Morgan, licked her lips. "Frankly, I fear she may be too far gone to survive the transformation at all at this point. Add to that the fact that if I were to try, it would leave me too weak to fight for several hours, and by then, Dante might well be dead." She looked away.

"But there's a chance."

"There's a chance. But I won't do it."

"And you expect me to trust you?" Max asked.

Lou clasped her arm. "Be reasonable, Maxie. If she tries and it fails, we lose them both. If she tries and it works, we save Morgan and lose Dante. Do you think that's what Morgan wants?"

Morgan tried to say no, but it emerged as a groan instead.

"Her way, we have a shot at saving them both."

Closing her eyes, lowering her head, Max finally nodded. Then she gripped Lou's arms. "Be careful, dammit."

"I will."

Max turned to Sarafina. "I don't give a damn what you are. If you hurt him, I'll find you and I'll kill you."

The woman looked surprised, and perhaps a little amused. "I do believe you'd try." Then she turned to Lou. "Come," she said. She flung him over her shoulder as if he were a rag doll, turned and leapt out the window.

Max cried out and lunged to the window, hands braced on the sill, looking down. Then she sighed in relief.

"Call," Morgan whispered. "Call."

"Yeah. I'm on it." Max took out her cell phone again.

"Stiles. Thank God you're still there. Listen, I don't know what the hell to do. We've… we've got another one."

"What?"

"Another one. Of
them
." Max swallowed hard, her eyes locked with her sister's ever-weakening gaze as she spoke on the phone. "I think
he
sent her. She tried for Morgan. Lou was here, they struggled, and she wound up going out the window. He didn't mean to push her, it just happened. She damn near took Lou with her."

"She was injured?"

"Yeah. Pretty badly, by the looks of it. I don't know, she was unconscious. We tied her up, but I'm not sure how long we can hold her. If she comes around… "

"Where is she now?"

"Lou took her to the house. He figured he couldn't very well hold her here, where someone might see. He's going to lock her up there or something. Told me to tell you he'd wait for you by the cliffs."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes." Stiles rang off.

Nodding her head slowly, Max pocketed the phone and sat down beside her sister, stroking her hair. Morgan's eyes were mere slits. "Just a little longer, babe. Hang on, okay?"

A nod so slight her head barely moved. Then the door opened, and Dr. Hilman walked in. "Maxine, you wanted to see me?"

"Yes," she said. She got to her feet to face him, lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. "I want to take Morgan home."

"Impossible." He said it quickly, without even thinking about it first.

"Let's just drop the bull from the beginning. We both know it's
possible
. Maybe not advisable, but possible."

Shaking his head slowly, the doctor said, "She may not survive the trip, Maxine."

"C'mon, Doc. Do you even expect her to survive
the night
?"

Licking his lips, he lowered his head. "Frankly… no."

"Then what's the difference? She wants to die at home. In her own bed, in the house she loves. There's nothing you can do for her here except maybe prolong her life a few extra hours. But you
can
do something for her. You can grant her last wish. I'll take full responsibility."

He lowered his head, pressing his lips together.

"If you say no, I'll take her anyway," Max added.

With a sigh, the doctor moved past her, bent close to Morgan, touched her face. "Is this what you want, Morgan? You want to go home, even though you might last a little bit longer here?"

She managed to nod, even pulled her lips into a ghost of a smile.

The doctor straightened, inhaling deeply. "All right. I'll get the paperwork."

"Time is a factor here."

"I'll be quick."

He was—amazingly so. Ten minutes later Max was signing beside the X and wheeling her blanket-wrapped sister out to the waiting taxi. A short while later they were pulling into the driveway, and Morgan sighed her relief audibly at the sight of the old house again. God, it really did mean the world to her.

Max studied Morgan's face for a long moment. She didn't look the way she had looked only days earlier. Her face was sunken, deep purple wells had appeared beneath her eyes, and her cheeks were concave. Her lips were pinched and chapped. She looked like an old woman.

Max paid the driver, got out of the cab, went around it to open her sister's door and hugged her gently. David came out of the house, and when Max moved aside, he scooped Morgan up and carried her easily into the house, up the stairs, and, moments later, was tucking her into her bed. Max stopped off in the study to take one of the smaller charcoal drawings of Dante from the wall. She carried it upstairs with her. When she got to the bedroom, she placed it in her sister's hands and saw just a hint of the former light flash in the dying woman's eyes.

"Hold on, Morgan. If you feel yourself slipping, look at Dante's face and know he's coming for you. I'm going to bring him to you myself. I promise."

A slight nod. A breath of relief. A single whispered word. "Hurry."

Max glanced at Lydia, at David. "Stay with her."

"You know we will. Be careful, Max," Lydia said, and gave her a quick hug.

Max hugged her back and whispered in her ear, "Tell her. It might be your last chance."

Sarafina lay on her side on the cool, damp ground above the cliffs. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, her ankles bound together with duct tape. She lay still, motionless, eyes closed, hair in disarray. She'd rubbed clumps of soil over her dress and her arms, smudged a bit on her face, hoping to look more convincing in the darkness.

Lou banked a hint of admiration for the woman. Brave. Then again, she had reason to be. She was stronger than ten ordinary men. Still, this was a risk. She must care a great deal about Dante.

"So I'm still not clear on your relationship with Dante," Lou said softly. He stood beside her prone form on the cliffs, watching the night, listening for Stiles to arrive. "You said you were his mother, sister and aunt. Just how the hell does
that
work?"

She opened her eyes, looking up at him without moving her head. "Sister, because all vampires are siblings. We come from a common source, we share the same blood. The same antigen that makes us unique. Mother, because I am the one who changed him from dying mortal man to powerful immortal creature. I birthed him into this life."

Lou nodded slow. "And aunt?"

"The usual way. Great-great-aunt if you want to get technical. I was his great-grandmother's sister."

He nodded again. "So you changed him because—"

"Hush! They're coming." She closed her eyes again. "He'll know the cuffs alone won't hold me, mortal. He'll try to drug me, as he did Dante. We can't let him."

Lou strained his eyes and ears but didn't see or hear a thing. Then again, her senses were supposedly working at some elevated level. Just how elevated, he could only guess. He didn't question their accuracy. Hell, after that jump from the third-story hospital window, he figured there wasn't much she couldn't do.

Eventually the sounds of footfalls in the grass reached his substandard ears, and he focused in that direction. Stiles's shape emerged from the darkness. He was wary, looking closely, moving slowly. He approached the fallen Sarafina the way Lou figured he would approach a sleeping tiger.

"She's unconscious," Lou reassured him. "She was hurt pretty badly in the fall."

"That's what the redhead told me on the phone," Stiles said. He drew a syringe from his pocket, held it upright and checked its contents, then took another halting step forward. And another. He started to reach for her, then drew back.

"Oh, for Pete's sake, will you do it already?" Lou asked.

Stiles finally moved closer, dropped down on one knee, brought the syringe toward Sarafina's arm. She flung her head up suddenly, slamming Stiles in the chest, knocking him off her and the syringe to the ground. Lou threw himself at her, and they struggled for a moment as Lou picked up the syringe and quickly squeezed its contents onto the ground, hiding his actions from the other man.

"There, goddammit," Lou growled.

Sarafina went limp, let her head fall to the ground, closed her eyes. Lou got up, disentangling his limbs from hers, brushing himself off. He handed Stiles the empty syringe. Stiles eyed it, then him. "Thanks," he said.

"Bitch tried to kill me," Lou said. "That's twice in one night. You were right about them, Stiles."

Stiles nodded. "She won't try again." He dropped the syringe to the ground, bent and scooped Sarafina up into his arms. "Remember," Stiles said as he turned to trudge back toward the house. "You tell no one. This is over. You and' everyone else involved just need to forget all about it. Understood?"

"I won't forget," Lou said. "But I will keep it to myself." He forced a smile. "Hell, who'd believe me, anyway?"

"Exactly."

Lou walked with Stiles around the house to where the man's car waited. He winced when the bastard tossed the woman into the trunk. She landed hard, and then he slammed it closed. Stiles said, "You won't be seeing me again."

"No offense, Stiles, but I sure hope you're right." Lou waved him off as Stiles got behind the wheel and drove away.

As soon as the taillights vanished around a curve in the road, Max pulled up in Lou's car, flung open the passenger door, and Lou jumped in.

"It's been so long," Lydia said, pacing the bedroom an hour later. "Why haven't they come back by now? God, it will be dawn soon."

David put a hand on her shoulder. "Try to have faith, Lyd. It's going to be okay. It has to be."

She smiled at him in a way that told Morgan there was something between them. Something they'd kept from her.

"Max was right," David said softly. "You should tell her."

Lydia held his eyes for a long moment before turning to Morgan. Sniffling, she came to sit on the edge of the bed, clasped Morgan's hand. Lydia's felt strong and warm around it. Looking Morgan in the eyes, she said, "Morgan, I am the woman who gave birth to you and Max. I'm… I'm your mother."

"Mother… " Morgan whispered the word. She wasn't entirely shocked by the news. She'd wondered why Lydia seemed so connected to Max, why she seemed to care so much about her, when they'd only just met. She'd caught the woman crying over her in the hospital, and, knowing she was adopted, it hadn't been such a wide leap.

"I gave you both up for adoption because I thought you would be better off. I wanted you to have a good life. But I was told you were both going to the same family. It was a decade before I knew you'd been separated."

Sighing, Morgan nodded with her eyes. She was too weak to move her head. Then she slid her gaze to David. "Father?" she asked, despite the effort it cost.

"No," David said. "Though we thought for a time I might have been." He came closer, too, sat down on the bed. "I was one of Lydia's… clients. Young, wealthy. I always liked her. When she told me she was pregnant, I agreed to be tested. And when I learned you weren't my children I… I walked away. It was a mistake, Morgan. It haunted me. I looked Lydia up again a year later, and she told me you'd been adopted, though she didn't know the details, except that you were happy. So I hired an investigator to find you. Maxine was fine, in a loving, healthy family. But you… " He shook his head. "I didn't like the people who'd adopted you. And I didn't know how the hell to undo what had already been done. So I moved to the West Coast, and became your adoptive father's best friend. It was the only way I could stay close to you, watch over you. And I was compelled to do that. I didn't contact Lydia again to tell her, because—well, because I knew it would kill her if she realized she'd handed you over to people like that."

He leaned down to kiss her cheek. "I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry I never told you the truth."

She closed her eyes. "Love you."

When he sat up, he had tears in his eyes.

Morgan wanted to tell them both that it was okay. That she didn't hold anything against either of them. But she couldn't. This damned weakness was robbing her of the ability to do much of anything. She was existing from one breath to the next, more uncertain with each one she drew whether she would have the strength to draw another. But she tried to tell them with her eyes. And that was the best she could do.

"What's taking them so long?" David asked.

Max stopped the car when she saw that Stiles had slowed down. She'd been driving without headlights, in pitch darkness, guided only by the distant red glow of his taillights. It was risky at best. Stupid at worst, but it was for her sister. She couldn't believe how badly she had managed to screw up. She had to make it right.

She put the car in reverse, saw no traffic behind her and backed up with nothing more than her own reverse lights to guide her. When she was out of sight of Stiles' car, she put the headlights on and found a place off the roadside to park. Then she shut the car off and turned to Lou. "This is it."

"Not for you, it's not. You take the car and go. Get some backup out here. I don't care what you have to say, just get some cops to head this way. I'm going in alone."

"The hell you are." She whipped out her cell phone, dialed 9-1-1. Then she frowned at the thing when nothing happened. "Dammit, we're out of range."

"Like I said, you go for help."

"Even if I did and help came running, they wouldn't get here in time. We have to do this now, Lou. You and me. With maybe a little help from the Mostly-Dead-Duo in there, if we're lucky and they're in a good mood." She left the keys in the ignition, got out of the car, not even waiting for Lou to reply, and started trudging forward.

He caught up to her in short order. "You could get hurt, Max. I couldn't live with that."

"My sister's dying, Lou. I caused it. I have to do this. If I don't, and she doesn't make it, how the hell do you think
I'm
gonna live with myself?"

He swallowed hard, staring at her in the darkness. "Dammit, you're so fucking stubborn."

"Yeah, and you love it."

"Here." He slapped a gun into her hands. Small. His handgun.

"What about you?"

He lifted his opposite arm, and she saw for the first time the dark outline of the shotgun he carried. "I figured it was time to break out the big guns."

"Good thinking."

They strode side by side along the road until they could make out the shape of Stiles car in the overgrown driveway of a falling-down house. It looked abandoned. But there was light coming from inside,

"Do you think Sarafina is still in the trunk?" Max whispered.

"He'd be an idiot to leave her there."

They moved in closer to the house, leaving the car for now. If Sarafina were in the trunk, she could probably get out, Max thought, and there was no sense wasting time or tipping off the enemy by rattling around trying to open a locked trunk. She assumed Lou agreed when he passed by the car without stopping.

They were approaching the rotten-looking front steps when Max felt a gun barrel in her spine. "Move and she dies," a man said.

She jerked her gaze sideways and saw Lou looking at her, a horrified expression on his face. "Okay, okay, easy," he said. "We're friends."