Kiss of the Vampire (The Vanderlind Realm Book 2) (22 page)

The sun was starting to rise. I turned my back to the golden rays, but I could feel my skin starting to smoke. I had been so hell bent to save Haley that I had completely forgotten about my own safety. There wasn’t time for me to fly to a safe house, even if I knew of a location. Pulling my jacket up over my head to protect my skin for a few moments longer, I started to run. There had to be somewhere I could conceal myself — a hearse in the parking lot, a groundskeeper’s closet, I would have even settled for a port-o-potty.

The sun was continuing its inevitable ascent, getting brighter every second. It began searing my flesh. The pain was unbearable. I knew it would be just a few more minutes before I was nothing but a pile of smoldering ash and rags. I had to stay calm and stay focused even through the blazing pain.

Something snagged my foot and I crash to the ground, getting a face full of fresh sod. There was a lightning bolt of pain through my leg. I twisted around to see that I had been tripped by a shovel that someone had carelessly left out overnight. The wooden handle had grated against my exposed leg where the pants had ridden up. I reached down to free myself and I could see my flesh bubbling and blistering on my hand.

I had been so foolish. I had been so stupid about everything. I’d let me pride get in the way of being with Haley. Instead of dying on a lawn, I could have been with her north of the Arctic Circle, floating on an iceberg and enjoying the long hours of night. But I had been stupid and prideful. And now I was going to meet the sun. Haley would never know what had happened to me. She might even think that I had abandoned her, instead of stupidly dying in my rush to save her.

“I’m sorry, Haley,” I said, hoping the wind would carry my last words to her. “Goodbye, my love.”

Chapter 25

Haley

There was a brief period where I lost myself to oblivion. I was able to stop thinking about Dorian and Ilona. I was able to close my eyes and not have thousands of ugly thoughts rushing through my brain. It was almost like sleep. Of all the things I missed about the mortal world, sleep topped the list.  That and popcorn. And cheese and ice cream. I tried to stop myself from thinking about mortal food, but it was too late. I spent a good ten minutes fantasizing about a grilled cheese sandwich.

“What are you thinking about?” Leonora asked from her bed. I must have done something to have signaled her that I was conscious.

“Food,” I said with a sigh. “Mortal food.”

“Don’t even get me started,” was her reply as she rolled onto her side.

“What were you thinking about?” I asked, just to be polite. I really hadn’t been focused on Leonora at all.

“I was thinking about the vampire underworld,” she told me.

Her words caught my attention. “You mean the undead have an underworld? Or do we just call our world the underworld?” I really needed to learn more about being a vampire.

“I mean the place where wicked vampires go to live,” Leonora said. “Every culture has an underbelly, even vampires.”

“What’s it like?” I asked, taken a bit by surprise. It seemed like being a vampire gave me enough opportunities to be wicked as it was.

“No rules,” Leonora said, a hint of glee in her voice. “No Bishops standing over you, ready to slap your hand if you do the least little thing wrong.”

Leonora had ripped her ex-boyfriend to pieces. That didn’t exactly sound like a little thing, even if the guy deserved it. “Sounds scary,” I told her.

This made Leonora laugh. “Not if you’re one of the vampires.”

She had a point. I still didn’t like the sound of it, but there was probably nothing there for someone like me to fear.

“So, do you want to go there?” Leonora asked.

Um… I’m kind of busy at the moment,” I explained. “You know, with being arrested.”

“Yeah, but what if we weren’t in here?” she continued. “What if there was a way for us to escape? Then would you want to go?”

“Sure,” I shrugged. I’d agree to do just about anything if we were only speaking hypothetically.

“You’re in?” Leonora asked, half sitting up in her bed.

“Yeah,” I told her. “Sure.” Maybe some tales of the undead underworld would be a good distraction from thinking about Dorian.

“Great,” Leonora said. “I’ve already got a plan.”

An internal alarm bell began ringing in my head. I thought we were just goofing around, talking about things in a make-believe sort of way. It sounded like my cellmate was actually planning a jailbreak.

“Uh, Leonora?” I said, propping myself up on my forearms to look at her. “Are you being serious?”

“Of course I’m being serious,” she hissed. “And you’re not pussying out on me.”

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I thought we were speaking hypothetically.”

“No.” She sounded pissed. “We’re speaking hypodermically.”

“Pardon?” I really had no idea what she meant.

“Either you do what I tell you or I’m going to stab you in the neck.”

I began to question more of Leonora’s life choices. Anyone can get sucked into having a bad boyfriend and a couple of poorly thought out tattoos, but she seemed to be a little more over the line than your average female.

“Leonora,” I began, “I’m sorry if you thought I was being serious, but I really don’t want to try to escape.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “Because you think you’re going to get a fair trial? You think the Bishops are just going to give you a slap on the wrist and let you out of here?”

“Yes, I do. Because I didn’t do anything wrong,” I insisted. “They’ll see that. And if I can’t convince them then my maker will.”

“Your maker?” Leonora said with a laugh that sounded like an explosion of gravel flying from her throat. “The one who is such a jerk to women that he has some vampiress terrorizing you just to get back at him?”

“He’s not like that,” I said in a tight voice.

Leonora laughed some more. “Oh, has he changed? Has he had some magical metamorphosis because of you and now he wants to be a better man? Is that what you’re telling yourself?”

“He has,” I insisted, but even I could hear how stupid I sounded. After all my reading about bad boys, I’d still been suckered in.

Leonora got to her feet and peered between the bars of our cell to look down the hall. “You’re not stupid enough to seriously believe that. Are you?”

I didn’t know what I believed. All of my self-help book education crumbled when I thought about my maker. I knew the chances of Dorian actually changing were slim to none. He hadn’t come to see me last night. He probably wasn’t even going to try to save me. There was a strong chance he’d pull “a guy” and just disappear. I would never see him again.

I felt sick to my stomach. All I wanted to do was curl up on my bunk and die. How could I have been so stupid?

“So you’re with me?” Leonora asked.

I felt a sudden wave of anger toward my cellmate. I wanted to scream at her and call her a bunch of nasty names. But I quickly realized I was just suffering from a case of kill-the-messenger. Leonora hadn’t really done anything wrong. She’d just pointed out the obvious.

“No,” I said with a melancholy sigh. “I’m not with you.” Fleeing to underworld did not sound like that much fun to me. It was better to face whatever these Bishop people thought was fair punishment. I couldn’t have been the first vampiress to snack a little on an old boyfriend.

“I don’t believe you,” Leonora said. “You know I’m right and you’re just being a baby.” She slipped over to the window and fussed around with the curtain. “And let me tell you this, you are not going to enjoy being locked in a coffin for a century. I mean, think how bored you were yesterday, all day. Now think of that for a hundred years. You’d lose your mind.”

“You seriously think they’ll lock me in a coffin?”I asked, wrapping my arms around my knees.

“That’s their usual punishment for something minor.” She gave a sharp yank and detached the curtain cord. “Me they’ll probably lock in a cell with the windows open and wait for the sun to rise.”

“Oh, God,” I whispered to myself. I didn’t know what to do. Would Dorian try to help me? Or would he just disappear, leaving me to fend for myself like he had after Winter Formal? Breaking out of a vampire jail did not sound like it was going to be easy, but it did sound better than rotting in a coffin for a hundred years. Did I stay and face the Bishops or did I try to escape? My head was spinning. No matter how much I thought about it, I had no idea what to do. I guess it all came down to one thing. Did I believe in Dorian?

Chapter 26

Haley

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Leonora said, crouching next to my bunk. “The book lady will be here any minute. You engage her in a conversation about books. Get her to come as close to the bars as possible. Try talking in a really quiet voice so she kind of cocks her head to hear you. Then I’ll slip this around her neck,” she said, flashing me a glimpse of the curtain cord, “and pull her against the bars. You grab her keys and we’ll open the door. After that we’ve just got to make it to the roof and we’re out of here.”

“Leonora, I really don’t want to,” I told her. Plus, I wasn’t going to say anything, but it sounded like a pretty lame plan. “There has to be guards everywhere,” I pointed out. “And video cameras. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to just let us waltz free.” I shouldn’t have said the world waltz. It made me think of that wonderful night in the ballroom when Dorian had given me the flying lesson. There had been no word from Dorian since nightfall and I was starting to doubt that any was coming.

Leonora scowled at me. “Listen, I’ve been here for a month and I know this building inside and out. We can do this. You’ve just got to trust me.” She narrowed her eyes. “And stop counting on your maker to be a knight in shining armor. That’s never going to happen. Believe me.”

I shook my head. “I think it’s better if I just take my chances with the Bishops. I mean, I seriously didn’t do anything wrong. Or at least not that wrong.”

“You killed a couple of teenagers,” Leonora said. “Believe it or not, that’s something the Bishops aren’t going to be too pleased about.”

“But I didn’t,” I insisted. “I had nothing to do with it. I bit one guy on the neck one time. Once. I didn’t even kill him. And that was right before the cops, or whatever they are, grabbed me. So that couldn’t have been it. Plus the guy was a total jerk.”

Leonora scowled some more.

“Okay,” I relented, “not as big of a jerk as your old boyfriend, but he definitely had potential.”

There was some clanging, the sound of metal doors opening and closing. I knew that meant someone was headed down the hall. “Listen sweetie, I don’t care what you did,” Lenore said in a low hiss. “Just help me get the keys off the book lady so we can get the fuck out of here.”

We were the only prisoners in the hallway, as far as I could tell, so the woman didn’t have a lot of rounds to make. “Good morning, Leonora,” she said, stopping her cart outside the bars of our cell. She had caramel colored hair that she’d chopped short so it stood up in little waves. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Haley,” my cellmate said, jerking her chin in my direction. “She loves to read so she’s going to want to load up.” She shot me a significant look. “Don’t you, Haley?”

“I do love to read,” I admitted, getting to my feet and tentatively approaching the bars.

“That’s wonderful,” the book lady said. “I’d be happy to get you set up with as many books as you’d like.”

My chest felt tight and I swear to god I was sweating. I didn’t want to hurt this woman. She looked perfectly nice and the only thing she’d ever done to me was offer me a book.

“Go on,” Leonora said, walking up behind me. “Tell her what you want.”

“Uh.” My tongue felt like a block of wood in my mouth. “I…”

“What’s that, hon?” the woman asked, taking a step closer to the bars. “I don’t have a ton of titles with me, but just tell me what you like and we’ll see what we can figure out.”

She seemed so sweet. I just couldn’t go through with it. Even if it meant inciting my cellmate’s wrath. Even if it meant facing the Bishops on some trumped-up charges. “No,” I stammered, shaking my head rapidly. “I’m fine. I don’t need anything. I’m good.”

“What’s that?” The vamp librarian leaned even closer to the bars.

That’s when Leonora sprang. She thrust both hands through the bars, somehow suppressing a scream as the silver seared her flesh. In a flash she strung the rope between both her hands and wrapped it around the book maven’s neck. As she yanked her arms back into the cell, the woman started to shriek, her face pressed against the bars and skin sizzling.