Running From the Night (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

This was quickly getting out of hand. One of his initial targets had escaped again, and a new witness—and thus, a new target—had escaped with him. All of this happening while Yako struggled to remain alive against the most formidable foe he had ever fought.

He had moved on the target, expecting the tall vampire to move against him. It was the perfect trap, for when the tall one immobilized him, Nikko and Steja would intervene and draw his attention while Yako quickly dispatched the humans. What he hadn’t counted on was just how powerful the man was. Silent and efficient, Nikko and Steja had descended on the vampire in what should have been a lethal surprise attack. Instead, Yako found that he could not finish off the human in time to prevent the other Hunters from being overwhelmed. It had only taken seconds.

Yako had joined the fight while Mariska dropped from the building across the street. He’d counted on her to finish the humans and aid him. That was when yet another surprise had happened. To his utter disbelief, the half-breed female had not only joined in the fight, as he figured she might, but had proven to be more than a match for Mariska. Yako had been forced to send Steja to help her.

That was when things began to deteriorate, and Yako had not even a second to try to figure things out. He had to admit to himself that the towering vampire was too much for him. He and Nikko would soon be dead if he didn’t figure something out fast.

The target slashed at him with a clawed hand that barely missed his face, and Yako countered with a downward swipe of his sword. He hadn’t come close to hitting the mark, and barely avoided being kicked in the face. He spun under the leg and brought his sword up and under, cutting a deep gash in the other vampire’s leg.

If the wound had hurt this tall creature, he didn’t show it. Even an Elder would be hurt by the bite of silver. He retreated and Nikko attacked. He wore pure silver gloves with steel gauntlets that he used with ferocious efficiency. Yako had seen many a target be pounded to a smoking pulp by the brutal weapons. Now was not the case. Nikko attacked, and the other man easily fended him off, his long cloak whipping around him as he avoided every punch. Was he toying with him?

Yako glanced over his shoulder and saw that Steja had managed to escape the fight with the female, and went after the two humans. He should have no problem putting an end to them. Though Yako would have preferred to handle his own targets himself, this had to be done efficiently.

Yako bared his fangs and moved in behind the target. Seeing an opening, he stabbed straight in, and a hand slapped his sword aside. Yako ducked another slashing hand and brought his sword up, missing the arm, then brought his sword back down, then around, then stabbed out again, then spun his body and brought his sword around in a downward arc. Every attack missed the mark. Never had the Eldest Hunter encountered an adversary that was a match for him. He’d single-mindedly honed his skills over more than a century, Hunted the occasional rogue pureblood, and taught every Hunter in his coven. The only reason Yako had not been elevated to the rank of Reaper was because he preferred the Hunt over being a personal guard on the occasional mission.

Something was not right. Pureblood or not, this man shouldn’t have been able to evade Yako without so much as a parry. Behind him, he heard Mariska cry out. It was a sound Yako hadn’t heard before. How could a simple
skiek
defeat a pureblood Hunter?

He signaled for Nikko to help her, and brought all of his skill to bear against his enemy. After several minutes, Yako managed only to avoid being killed. Behind him, he heard the other two Hunters struggling against the woman.

“Retreat,” he growled. He had spoken barely louder than a whisper, but he knew they heard him. Despite his desperate situation, they would obey his command and leave while he held their retreat. After another clash, Yako and the tall vampire separated. They circled each other, the Hunter in a low stance, the bigger vampire moving casually sideways.

Yako felt a tremendous will grab hold of him, and he was immobilized. He pushed against the intrusion with all of his strength, but it was like pounding against a wall. “Coward!” he spat at the approaching man. Yako’s eyes rose to meet the other’s, now towering over him. His enemy looked down at him for a moment, his face expressionless. Then, to the Eldest Hunter’s disbelief, he turned and walked away. A few minutes passed, and when the other vampire disappeared around the corner, Yako expected to be released, but he wasn’t. Then he heard a feminine voice
tsk-tsking
at him.

“You laid a trap for my brother and me, didn’t you?” the woman said, circling him. “Now that wasn’t very nice. If I didn’t know any better, I would say you were trying to kill us.”

“I do not waste my words on
skiek
,” Yako spat. He dropped to one knee as the crushing will pressed down on him. How could the brother still hold him like this from so far away? Few Elders could do that.

“Now, now. We mustn’t be impolite to one another, Hunter. We’re above that.”

“You?” Yako replied, incredulous. “You are not much more than human. If not for your brother, I would kill you.”

“What does my brother have to do with this?” the woman asked in an innocent voice. “He has gone in search of your other friend. He isn’t paying any attention to us.”

A tiny flicker of doubt sparked in Yako’s mind and flared to life. This woman could not be capable of holding him. Not a simple half-vampire!

“I hear lies slithering through your dulled teeth,” he growled.

Her face appeared next to his, and he couldn’t deny her beauty, even if he did want to remove her head from her shoulders.

“I thought a Hunter was better able to judge their targets. You, I would have expected more from.” She pointed at the rooftop across the street, and a portion of the power holding him relaxed so that he could move his head.

“Your friends watch so that they can report your fate,” she said. “You have made a few dangerous mistakes, Hunter.” Her eyes slowly shifted from their former light brown to a glowing lavender. Yako looked at her in disbelief. No half-vampire possessed such physical traits. It was indeed this woman who held him.

“This is impossible.
Skiek
have no power.”

“You are correct that
skiek
have no power, and you are correct that I am half a vampire.” Her face came closer, and he could feel the tremendous power wafting off of her. It was like the heat of a furnace blowing in his face. Had she released her hold on him in that instant, he would have still been frozen to the spot.
Not a
skiek
? But that would mean—

Her voice interrupted his thoughts. “I am loath to kill such a skilled and capable man as yourself, Hunter, so I will release you. Again.” She glanced up at Nikko and Mariska, who remained crouched atop the building. “I respect your prowess, as does my brother. That is why you have not met your uncreation twice over.” A glimmer passed across her eyes.

“But if you move against me, the human males, or the woman again, I will crush you.” Yako felt her will closing on him. It felt as though his body was being slowly compressed. Just when the pain was unbearable, he was released.

He dropped to his knees, gasping. When he looked up, the woman was standing there, looking down at him. “I hope you will return to your coven. I do not wish to destroy you.” She turned her back on him and walked away, her silent footsteps taking her to the end of the street where she turned and disappeared around the nearby building.

Yako remained where he was for several minutes, considering all that happened. He could not have misjudged that woman, for she had admitted that she was half human. To his irritation, his thoughts were again interrupted when two police cars converged on him, the blue and red lights rotating and illuminating the street in their circling light. Four officers stepped out of their vehicles and trained their weapons on him.

“Stay where you are and place the weapon on the ground.” Yako stood and looked at them, deciding. “Now!” the officer demanded. Slowly, Yako placed his sword on the ground and stepped away from it. “Lay down face first on the ground!”

Yako had no intention of being taken into custody by humans, and he certainly had no intention of lying on the ground for these fragile animals. The only reason they were still alive was the presence of so many faces peeking out of the many windows of the surrounding apartments.

“I think you will all come to speak with me where I am standing,” he said. His voice was not loud, but the suggestion floated through each of the minds of the officers. They kept their weapons trained on him as they approached because he allowed them to. It was a strain to compel so many, but all four humans were completely under his control.

Once they had surrounded him, he lowered his hands and spoke softly, making eye contact with each of them. “You,” he said to the first officer, a large man of Middle Eastern descent, “and you,” he said to his partner, a Caucasian male, “will get back into your vehicles and report that there was no problem, just a handful of teenagers playing at sword fighting.”

He looked at the other two, an African American male and a Caucasian female. “You two will enter your vehicle and report the same. Teens, playing at sword fighting. The swords were not steel, but wood, so there was no need to arrest. Now go to your vehicles and drive away. You will not remember your encounter with me.”

“Thank you, sir, for your cooperation,” the first officer said. “If we see the kids, we will issue a warning. Have a good night.”

They holstered their guns and returned to their vehicles. Yako turned and walked away, confident that the four humans would obey his instructions. The thought of how he had dominated them soured his mood further, as it was a reminder that he had been just as easily dominated by that woman. He crossed the street and continued in the direction of the woods of Stanley Park. After a few minutes, Mariska and Nikko joined him.

“I do not understand,” his Second said, cutting straight to the point. “I can smell the human blood in her, but she is too powerful to be a half-breed.”

“Perhaps you are mistaken,” Nikko offered.

“She is correct,” Yako answered evenly as they reached the dark woods of the park.

“Then maybe an Elder sired her,” Nikko concluded. “It is the only explanation.”

“The Elders are strong, but a half-breed, even of their making, would not possess the power she has been born to.”

“I do not see any other explanation.”

Yako glanced to his left and right, then at the rooftops. Steja should have returned by now. “There is one explanation,” he finally said. “She is a
dampeal
.”

***

Chapter Twenty-Three

“
Dampeal
,” Mariska breathed. Like Yako, she was well versed in the histories.

“I don’t understand,” Nikko said. “This name sounds familiar to me.”

“She is the half-blood spawn of a human and an Ancestor,” Yako clarified.

Nikko made a disdainful sound. “How could this be true? There are no counts or countesses in the world. The Ancestors exist in our history. She would have to be many thousands of years old.”

Yako didn’t argue the point, for it did seem absurd. Few vampires had ever stood in the presence of an Ancestor. Not even the Elders spoke of them. Yako had an interest in the histories and one of the Elders had entrusted him with the knowledge. The Ancestors were the oldest and most powerful of all vampires. The things they were said to be capable of bordered on unbelievable. Supposedly, the Ancestors suffered practically no vampiric weaknesses except for fire, and they could heal so quickly that they would have to burn constantly if they were to be killed.

Yako had been told that the talents of a count far eclipsed any Elder. There was talk that one male count was capable of mind compulsion so strong, he could influence the mind of another from great distances. There was also talk of a countess that could move nearly any object regardless of size with her mind. These were two of the many accounts Yako had been told over the years. Though he would not be so foolish as to question an Elder’s word, he discreetly had filed the stories away as just that; stories.

Now, he wasn’t so sure. The fact that that girl had human blood in her veins was undeniable. He could smell it. It was also undeniable that she was possessed of abilities that were beyond his own. He reflected on the encounter in Richmond. He had assumed it was the older brother who had stopped him from killing the humans. Now he was positive it was that girl who had stopped him. The brother had simply been standing there.

The thought of the brother darkened Yako’s mood further. If the girl was, in fact, a
dampeal
, that would make her brother the pureblooded son of an Ancestor. The implications were more than Yako wanted to consider, just now.

“Steja has not yet returned,” Mariska said, breaking into his thoughts.

“The tall one might have found him?” Nikko offered.

“Go and find out,” Yako said to him.

“Very well.” Nikko separated from them and turned down an alley.

“Steja is likely dead,” Mariska said, voicing Yako’s own thoughts.

“And with his death comes the completion of my failure.”

There was a brief pause. “You could not have known the woman was a
dampeal
and the man a descendant of an Ancestor.”

“Whether I knew or not is irrelevant. Few know of the Ancestors. If I were to return to Romania with such a tale it would likely create a worse reaction than simply accepting my failure.”

“You will return to Romania?” Mariska asked, a bit of surprise in her otherwise passive voice.

“I must. I cannot continue with this mission without returning to explain the death of a Hunter under my command.”

“Perhaps your punishment would be lessened if you were to return successful.”

“Possible, but if another of our number should fall, my punishment would be multiplied.”

“We know our enemy now,” Mariska pressed. “We have a better chance of success.”

“We know our enemy better,” Yako corrected. “The blood of the Ancestors cannot be taken lightly. The
dampeal
is very powerful. I assume the brother is more so. We have been baited and toyed with.”

“The reason she let you go?” Mariska surmised. The irritation at the reminder of his defeat showed on his face. “My apologies, Eldest Hunter,” she said. “I meant no offense.”

“Upon Nikko’s return,” he said, letting the matter drop, “we return to Romania. If I am not sentenced to uncreation, I may be allowed to return.”

“I would come with you when you do.”

“If the High Council approves, so shall it be.”

O O O

“Okay, what the hell was that?” Alisha demanded in a quiet voice. Two steaming mugs of untouched tea sat on the little round table between them. They’d gone to the closest twenty-four hour coffee shop, Blendz.

Jelani glanced around. Other patrons were too busy socializing, reading, or surfing the Internet on their computers while listening to music to pay them any mind.

“Vampires,” he answered quietly.

“Vampires?” She leaned back in her chair and ran a hand through her hair, then looked back at him. “Are you really trying to tell me that those people were vampires?”

Jelani spread his hands helplessly. “You saw the same thing I did back there. You saw how fast they moved and how strong they are. You saw that guy jump from the top of a building down to the street, and you saw him rapidly decay to nothing right in front of us. And I’m sure you remember stabbing him in the side just before he bit me in the neck.”

“Don’t remind me of that,” she whispered, putting her face in her hands.

“It was him or us, Alisha.”

“That doesn’t make killing a person any easier to deal with.” They spoke so softly, they were practically laying on the table to hear each other.

“Technically, I killed him, if that makes you feel a little better.”

“It doesn’t.” She dropped her hands and looked at him. “I have to admit that despite what I’ve just seen, I’m still finding it hard to accept that we were just attacked by vampires. And why did they come after us? I have a hard time imagining four of those things wanting to feed on two people.”

Jelani sighed. This was the part he was not looking forward to.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Will you promise to at least let me finish the story before you walk out of my life forever?” he asked.

“What are you talking about? Why would I do that?”

“Save that question till I’m done.” And he told her everything that had happened leading up to the moment they were attacked.

“So you traveled to Whistler with us, spent time with me and our friends, knowing that those things were out to kill you? How could you do that, Jelani?”

“There was only one of them before,” he answered, looking down. “They are very discreet about not involving humans in their business. They wouldn’t chance attacking Daniel and me unless we were alone. Whistler was the perfect getaway. Lots of people.”

“Yeah, well tonight just punched a few holes in your theory.” She began forcibly shoving her arm in her coat.

Jelani looked up in alarm. “You can’t!” he said in a low, but frantic voice.

“You think I want to spend any more time with you after you’ve endangered everyone close to you?”

“I’m sorry, Alisha,” Jelani said. “I know you might not believe anything I say at this point, but will you please just sit down and let me finish? This is important.” Alisha grudgingly sat down and stared at him. It made Jelani’s heart ache to see those beautiful eyes looking at him so contemptuously, but he didn’t blame her for how she felt.

“Look. You might not believe this, but it’s the truth. I would never have gone with you or spent any time with you if I’d thought you were in danger. That said, you can’t just go off alone, now. You know about them, and that makes you a target.”

Her face tightened. “Is that how Daniel got mixed up in this mess?”

“Not exactly. I had no idea they could find me, but they did. Showed up at our apartment and nearly killed us both. After we escaped, Daniel became a target simply because he survived the attack. We’ve spent the last couple weeks running, and I don’t know how much longer we can keep it up. It’s been about a week since the last encounter, but Saaya didn’t believe the silence would last.”

“Saaya?”

“The girl that helped us out back there. She and her brother are pretty much the only reason Daniel and I are still alive.”

“So what is she? A good vampire?”

“I can’t really say if there is such a thing, but she’s not out to kill us, or she could have done it a million times over by now. She’s actually half vampire.”

Alisha rolled her eyes. “How can someone be half dead, Jelani. Vampires are walking dead, which is why I’m still having a hard time swallowing all this.”

“They’re not dead,” he said, shaking his head. “They’re not like you think. They are alive in a sense, but they kind of sidestep the natural laws that we are bound to. There’s not enough time to explain it.”

“So use the time we do have wisely and tell me why I’m still sitting here.”

“I’d like nothing more than to put you on a plane out of here, but I don’t know if they would just send another Hunter to track you down. At least if you’re near me there is a chance that you will be safer—”

“Because of your guardian angel,” Alisha interrupted.

“More or less, yes. Look, I know you think I was being inconsiderate, but try to understand that I tried to keep you safe. These past two weeks, I’ve only spent time with you in the day, and tried to make sure I wasn’t anywhere near you at night.”

“So what happened tonight, then?”

“I tried to get you home,” Jelani said emphatically. “I tried to get you away from me before night, but you kept stalling.” The look on her face told him he should have worded that last statement differently.

“And don’t I feel the fool, wanting to spend more time with you.”

“I loved every minute of it, Alisha. But what could I tell you? What would I have said? ‘Hey, we need to get you home before night because vampires are after me?’”

“You could have told me you were in danger.”

“And what? Tried to figure out how to keep you from calling the police for me? I tried to keep you as safe as I could, and I realize I should have just distanced myself from you regardless of how you would have taken it. I was weak for that, and I was wrong.”

She softened, a bit. “So I can’t be by myself because they might come and find me. So, what? I have to come live with you, now? Will I find our other friends there, too?”

Jelani shook his head. “Wen knows nothing about this and neither do our other friends. As long as they’re not involved, they’re safe. I know the circumstances aren’t exactly desirable, but I think it’s for the best. You can have my room. It’s the least I can do.”

“I don’t want to move in with you.” Her tone was like a dagger that pierced his chest and impaled any words that came next. He sat there, silent, looking down into his now cold mug of tea. They sat in silence for a while, Jelani staring into his mug and Alisha looking at everything except him.

His quiet voice broke the silence between them. “I’m not trying to be your boyfriend, Alisha. I know any chances of that are as dead as that thing we left dissolving in the street. I’m just trying to do what’s right. Please let me help you survive this. I put it on my own life that I will do whatever it takes to protect you, and when it’s done, if I’m still alive, I will never bother you again, I promise.”

He drew further and further into himself with every word he spoke, and Alisha seemed to soften a little more.

“I’m not going to let you treat me like your little damsel in distress, walled up in your tower while you fight the monster.” She reached across the table and gave his forehead head a little shove.

He looked up at her and after a moment it seemed like she was trying not to giggle at him. “Oh, knock it off with the doe eyes, okay? I’m still mad at you.”

“A doe is female!”

“Well the look on your face fits. Just … Let’s just try to get through this. Do you have a way of reaching your little slinky friend?”

“It’s not slinking dear girl, it’s just walking softly.”

Jelani looked up and Alisha turned in her seat. There Saaya casually stood beside the back of Alisha’s chair. The woman could be impossibly quiet when she chose!

“I think we should find a more discreet place to speak of this.”

The color drained from Alisha’s face, but to her credit, she held her composure. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable around you. I’m grateful for your help, but—”

“You fear I may become thirsty in the middle of the night?” Saaya blinked slowly, smiling. “Child, I am the last person you need worry about attempting to empty your veins. Come. This is not an ideal place to talk.” She turned and strode toward the door, the tiny paayal bells around her ankles tinkling with every step.

“She just expects us to do as she says?” Alisha whispered to Jelani as they stood and pushed in their chairs.

“Well,” Jelani replied tiredly. “First, you may as well speak normally, because she can hear very well. And second, if she’d wanted to, she could have forced us to follow her without lifting a finger, so I’d say she’s being rather polite.”

Alisha went even paler. “How is it that she snuck up on us like that? I didn’t hear those bells when she came in here, and they’re loud enough that I certainly would have heard them.”

Jelani shrugged. “Been wondering about that for a while, myself.”

***