Darkness Before Dawn (24 page)

“What was his name?”

“I don’t even know that. My father refused to speak about him. The only things I gathered were from information I pieced together over time: He was born after me, but he had some sort of mutation. Father wouldn’t discuss it, but he blamed the boy’s mother. Shortly after the imperfection was discovered, she was killed, I suspect by Valentine himself. My brother, after he was banished, spent his life wandering, never staying in one place for too long.”

“So if you saw him, would you recognize him?”

“No. There aren’t any paintings or photos of him. I never even met him. I think my father wanted Faith and me to be kept separate from the ‘freak,’ as he called him.” As though unsettled by the direction of the conversation, Victor stands. “I’m going to take Dawn home.”

Richard walks us to the door. “How’s Faith?” he asks casually, as though it’s not important, and yet I sense it is.

“Fine. She’ll be on my side soon enough,” Victor says.

“Does she ever talk about me?”

I hear the hope in Richard’s voice. “That must’ve been a hundred years ago,” Victor says. “Ninety-eight. She broke my heart, you know.” “Sorry, Richard, she never mentions you.” “Pity. I look forward to seeing you again, Dawn,” Richard says. “You’re as … intriguing as Victor implied.”

I feel myself blush at his words. I follow Victor out, surprised to realize that I never felt at risk in that room, even though I was surrounded by four vampires.

Sometime later, we stop just shy of my building, and Victor cuts the engine on the motorcycle. We disembark and he rolls it behind some brush.

“I’m going up with you,” he says. “I want to make sure you get into your apartment safely.”

“I’ll be fine once I get into the building.”

“I’m not going to argue about this. I need to see that you’re safe. As a matter of fact … it might be time to talk with Rachel, to make sure she has someone watching you at all times.”

“What exactly are you thinking of telling her?” I ask.

“Everything. Maybe she’ll know something about the attack at the theater tonight. But whatever is going on, I’m sure my father is behind it.”

I know Victor’s right, but I also know that I’m the one who will be left to deal with Rachel’s anger and disappointment. And she
will
be mad when she learns that I’ve been hanging around not only with a vampire but with Valentine’s son.

“Are you sure that’s a smart move?” I ask as we walk up the steps to the front door.

“Guess we’ll find out.”

As we pass the guard, I ask after his family in an effort to distract him from studying Victor too closely. In the elevator, Victor and I are both staring at the numbers changing as we go up. It’s the first time we’ve had a moment to just
be
since we kissed.

“What happened at the movie theater,” he says quietly. “It won’t happen again.”

He’s not talking about the attack. He’s talking about the kiss.

“You’re right,” I say. “It—us—is a bad idea. I know that.”

“In the next few nights, everything will change, Dawn.”

“I know.”

The elevator dings and I nearly jump out of my skin.

“Wait,” Victor says, and he steps out and glances around the hallway. “Okay.”

“What were you going to do if someone was here? Send me back down?” I ask. “Like I’d leave you to fight alone.”

“You know, retreat is an honorable defensive maneuver,” he says. “Live to fight another day.”

“And how often have you retreated?”

He grins. “Never. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

Fumbling for my keys, I realize how nervous I am about introducing Victor to Rachel. My keys hit the floor. I bend down to pick them up and my head bumps against the door. It would be incredibly embarrassing, if the door didn’t creak open.

“What the hell? We always lock it....”

Before I can stand up, Victor kicks the door wide open with a thunderous noise. I can see straight through the open doors leading to the balcony, the moonlight streaming in, and someone perched on the rails, his hoodie pulled tight around his face. He gives us one look, then jumps.

Victor dashes through the apartment onto the balcony, stops at the railing, and peers down. I come in and flip the first light switch I can get my hand on. The apartment is destroyed. Nothing appears left undisturbed.

And then my gaze lands on a form crumpled beside the couch, blood pooling beneath her head.

“Oh my God! Rachel!”

Chapter 24

G
ingerly, Victor lifts her onto the couch while I call for an ambulance. In spite of the vehicle and gasoline shortage, the Agency does make sure that emergency vehicles are available.

Rachel is so still, the gash on the back of her head an obscene crimson in direct contrast to her pale face.

As soon as I hang up with the paramedics, I call Jeff. He must have been nearby, because he beats the ambulance. He’s almost as pale as Rachel as he kneels beside her and takes her limp hand. “What happened?”

“Someone broke into the apartment,” I say.

“A vampire,” Victor clarifies.

I tried to get him to leave before Jeff got here, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t even go into my bedroom to wait in secret.

Jeff looks up at him. “And who are you?”

“Victor.”

“A Night Watchman,” I say hastily. “We were out together....” I don’t want to explain, not now, not until we figure out what’s going on. I don’t want to put Jeff or Victor in danger.

“Thought you were at a study group.” Jeff shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. All that matters is Rachel.”

The paramedics arrive then. While they’re tending to Rachel, Victor and Jeff flank me as I pore through the entire apartment. It’s a disaster, but nothing obvious is missing.

“He was looking for something very specific,” Victor says.

“I can’t think of what. Any important Agency files are kept at the office, not here,” I say.

“Maybe something personal, then,” Victor muses. “Some vampires like to know more about who they’re stalking before they strike.”

A shiver travels up me. No telling what that creep was doing before we got here.

“Stalking?” Jeff asks. “A vamp’s been stalking you and you didn’t say anything?”

“I didn’t know for sure. I saw this guy at school and later in the street. I figured it was just some idiot kid wanting to harass the delegate.”

“So that was the guy you saw at school?” Victor asks.

“Yeah.” The exact same hoodie with that snake design on the back.

The paramedics are placing Rachel on a stretcher. I leave both guys behind and rush over. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Looks like she took quite a blow to the head. We can’t get her to wake up,” a tall, red-haired guy says. “We’re taking her to the hospital so the doctors can run some tests. They’ll have a better idea of what’s going on then.”

“I’m going with you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jeff says. “There are too many people there—it’s too easy for a vampire to sneak in at this time of night. It might even be what your stalker wanted.”

“I’ll stay with Dawn here,” Victor offers, picking up a framed picture of my parents and placing it back on the mantel. “It isn’t safe for her to be alone with so much of the night left. You can go with Rachel.”

“While I appreciate that,” Jeff says, “I don’t know you.”

“I know him,” I say. “I trust him with my life. I
have
trusted him with my life.” I squeeze Jeff’s hand. “You need to be with Rachel. I’ll clean up here so that when she comes home, it’ll all be okay.”

Jeff nods, looks at Victor again. “A Night Watchman?”

I hear the doubt in his voice.

“Those four vampires killed around the trolley? My work,” Victor says.

“Impressive.” Jeff nods again and looks at me. “Okay. I’ll call you when I know something. Lock up behind me.”

He goes out the door. I close it, lock it, bolt it, and press my head to the wood.
Rachel, Rachel, Rachel, please be all right
.

Slowly I turn around. “What’s going on, Victor?”

“I wish I knew.”

With only two steps, he’s wrapped his arms around me, holding me near, comforting me.

“She’ll be all right,” he whispers into my ear.

“You can’t know that.”

“And you can’t know that she won’t.”

I lean my head back and look at him. I’m worried about another Valentine in Denver. “Do you think Lord Valentine sent Hoodie to tail me?”

“Possibly.”

“Do you think he could be … your brother?”

“Son of a bitch,” he whispers. He looks toward the balcony. “There was definitely something different about him. I can’t explain it.”

I can tell he’s going into hunter mode.

“If you want to go after him, I understand,” I tell him.

“No, I’m not leaving you. Not tonight. Tomorrow night, though, I’ll see what I can find out.” He touches the sleeve of my shirt. “You have some of Rachel’s blood on you.” He turns away. “You should probably get cleaned up. I’ll take care of the blood in here.”

I realize what immense control he has, not to have revealed his fangs while the scent of blood is on the air. For most vampires, it’s an automatic response—scent blood, fangs drop.

I don’t want to leave him, but I know he’s right. I need to change. Otherwise I’ll torment him.

When I walk into the bathroom, I immediately jump at my reflection. It’s shattered into a million pieces. The mirror was delivered a single strike to its center, the image forever distorted. My intruder wasn’t looking for anything at all, just trying to destroy whatever was in front of him. Including Rachel.

After I clean up and change, I check my phone for messages from Jeff. Nothing. I’ll assume no news is good news.

I go into the kitchen to survey the damage done there. If it was glass, he smashed it. He even tore off all the photos I had on the refrigerator hanging by little magnets. The childish drawing of my family is gone. It probably flew under the oven and will take forever to get out, which makes me angrier than any of the other destruction.

“I’m sorry,” Victor says, righting a vase that had tipped over but miraculously didn’t shatter. “I know this place won’t feel the same.”

“Why did he do all this?”

Before Victor can answer, my phone rings. It’s Jeff.

“Hey,” I say. “Give me some good news.”

“She’s in a coma.” I hear the sorrow in his voice. “They don’t know when she’ll wake up. I’m going to stay with her tonight.”

“I’m coming down there.”

“No, I don’t want you on the street at night.
Rachel
wouldn’t want you on the street right now.”

As though the apartment is any safer.

“Clive’s here,” he continues. “He’s sending guards to stand watch at your door and around the apartment building. So just stay there.”

I nod, realize he can’t see me, and say, “Okay.”

I hang up and tell Victor what’s going on. “So you don’t have to stay. I’ll have protection.”

“I’m not leaving,” he insists.

In spite of the circumstances, I experience a fleeting moment of happiness before I turn to tackle the destruction that surrounds us. Victor and I spend the next hour straightening everything up. The entire time, he asks me questions about the things in the apartment, what they mean to me, why I have them. There’s an intimacy to what we’re doing, an unveiling. It’s strange, yet comforting. Almost like we’re a normal couple.

When we’re finished, it’s long after midnight and I’m exhausted.

“You should try to get some sleep,” Victor says.

I’m almost too weary to nod. I start walking toward my bedroom, stop, and glance back at him. “I shouldn’t ask, but will you hold me while I sleep?”

“For a while.”

I’m too tired to even change clothes. I simply slip beneath the covers. Victor lies on top of them, but with his arms around me, it’s enough.

The lights are out, but a little moonlight is coming in through the balcony doors. It creates a safe haven for the sharing of secrets.

“Tell me a story. It’ll help me go to sleep,” I say.

“Once upon a time—”

“No,” I interject. “A real story. About you.”

“Once upon a time—don’t interrupt—there was a vampire who wanted to touch the sun.” He combs his fingers through my hair. “One night he was walking through an alley when he thought he caught a glimpse of the sun wrapped in shadow … only to discover it was a girl in need of rescuing. The first time he gazed into her blue eyes, he knew she had the power to destroy him. But he ignored the warnings, because she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.”

My breath is uneven. “But he must have seen a lot of girls in four hundred years.”

“He had. But none of them appealed to him like she did.”

“This vampire and this girl … do they get a happily ever after?”

“I don’t know. I told you that vampires lack imagination. So I don’t know how it ends.”

Or maybe he’s just too kind to tell me. Because he also told me that things between vampires and humans never end well.

Chapter 25

A
n hour before sunrise, Victor leaves. The theater wouldn’t be safe, so I’m sure he sought refuge with Richard. He said that as soon as the sun set, he would be out trying to discover exactly what was going on, and how his father might be involved.

Surrounded by guards, I head to the hospital. I don’t even know if Victor will be able to return to me tonight. I’m being watched as though I’m a precious jewel that the Agency is expecting some thief to snatch away.

Now I’m holding Rachel’s hand, listening to the constant beeping of the monitors, a strange symphony of noise. Jeff is out meeting with Night Watchmen and other Agency personnel to see if they can figure out who this guy is. They sent a sketch artist over to work on a composite for the TV stations and newspaper, but all I could really provide was a description of the hoodie. I never saw the vamp’s face.

The door swings open and Tegan rushes in, followed by Sin and Michael. Michael’s gaze locks with mine, and quite honestly, I’m not sure whether I’m glad to see him. The harsh words we exchanged echo through my mind. So much has happened with Victor since then. I feel guilty, even though Michael was the one who pushed us apart.