Twilight Fulfilled (12 page)

But before she left this place, she had to get into that office downstairs, because it seemed to her that was the most likely place to find out about this Dymphna Project—which seemed, from what she'd overheard, to be a trap the DPI was setting for the vampires.

What were they doing that was supposed to lure any remaining vampire out of hiding?

She had to know. She had to warn her family.

Knowing the ever-present stone-faced guard would be stationed right outside the bedroom door, Brigit went to the window, opened it and leaned on the sill to stare outside. A cool predawn breeze touched her face, and she inhaled deeply, appreciating the smells of the garden out back and the slightest bit of a chill in the night air. Below her and far to the right, around the corner of the house, was the garden where Utana had been injured last night. Its gate, in all likelihood, remained closed. She wasn't worried about that right now.

She wanted to get to the ground floor of the
palace without being seen, and she thought perhaps those side doors that led out into the garden might be her best bet. Locked or not, she could open them.

She just didn't want to set off any alarms.

She was on the far side of the bed from the spot where she suspected a hidden camera was mounted. With the bed curtains drawn, she had visual cover.

Satisfied no one would see her and moving so silently that no one would hear, Brigit slid her backside up onto the windowsill, then swung her legs around and dangled them over the edge. She took a fortifying breath and took one last look back at the sleeping god in the bed. He was spread out like a woman's dream centerfold, the blanket just barely clinging to his hips, so she could admire that chest, and she fought the urge to go back over there to slide her hands over it one more time.

What the hell is the matter with me? He wants to wipe out everyone I love.

Out of confusion. Out of the messed-up tangles of a mind trapped for thousands of years, buried alive.

She wanted him. And she was tearing herself apart trying to wrap her head around her feelings and their situation.

No time now. Hell, years might not be enough time to make sense of her feelings for him. She had to put them aside and just get on with this.

She pushed off from the windowsill, and for an instant there was the rushing of wind past her ears, through her hair, and then the ground caught her. Her feet hit, knees bent to absorb the impact as she squatted low, then bounced upright again, looking quickly around her and seeing no one. Good. Easy as pie.

So far.

She crept along the edge of the house and rounded the corner to where the rose garden began. Following its winding path to a set of double glass doors that led back into the palace, she gnawed her lip and searched for an alarm, a wire, a panel, anything that might give it away. Seeing none, she pressed a palm to the door's ornate pewter handle and closed her eyes, feeling.

There was an alarm on this door, but it was not engaged. The lock was, but that wasn't a problem. Edge, her father, was known as the most skilled mental locksmith among the Undead. And he'd taught her well.

She exerted her will on the door locks, and they turned. Smooth as butter.

Opening the door slowly, she tiptoed inside, down the long, vaulted corridor toward the atrium, the hub of the wheel-shaped palace. When she neared the atrium, she pressed her back to the wall and slowed down, silent, and watchful.

The atrium itself appeared empty. Desolate. And the energy of sleep permeated the place. She didn't
feel anyone awake or alert anywhere, though she knew well enough that there were guards outside the main doors. They didn't need a human guard outside the garden entrance—not with twenty thousand volts of electricity protecting the garden gate. There was one guard upstairs, standing outside Utana's room, she reminded herself. If he moved a few steps forward and looked out over the railing, he could see most of the atrium below. And if he heard a sound, he would do just that.

She would have to be careful, and utterly silent.

Emerging from the hall, she glanced up toward Utana's room, but the guard was not in sight. Quickly she scanned all the other portals leading out from the atrium. Hallways and doors lined the thing.

The one she sought was a door almost directly across from Utana's room. She figured out which one it was—situated between two hallways. Yes, that had to be the one.

Okay. This was it. Three, two, one… She tiptoed rapidly across the imposing atrium, knowing that any noise at all was going to echo as if made in the middle of an empty museum. Her socks, however, made no sound on the marble floor, and she kept far away from any furniture to avoid bumping into it.

It seemed to take minutes. It didn't. And then she was outside the office door, pressing her ear to the
wood and listening with every fiber of her mind, body and spirit. Listening, feeling, sensing.

No one inside.

Palm to the doorknob. Mind open, listening to her senses.

Locked. She squinted at the door, squeezing her flat palm into a fist and twisting it counterclockwise. She heard the lock obey her motions and her commands by clicking open. The noise startled her, and she snapped her eyes toward the upper railing, even as she opened the door and ducked inside. She was pushing it closed when the guard appeared, staring down into the atrium.

And then she paused there on the other side, forehead to the wood, wondering if he'd seen her, or glimpsed the door closing, even briefly.

Hell, she didn't know.

She'd better hurry the hell up, then. Turning, she scanned the darkened room, glad of her vampiric night vision. Books lined three walls, file cabinets completely covering the fourth. A computer stood on a large desk in a corner.

There wasn't time to go through everything, nor to start trying to guess passwords or scroll through files.

No. Instead she moved to the desk and put Nash Gravenham-Bail foremost in her mind. She saw his face, the scar that ran from the outer corner of one eye down to the center of his chin. The gray irises,
cold and emotionless. The stone-brown hair. The powerfully square jaw.

And then she sharpened and deepened her inner vision, until she could see his aura. Orange with ambition, red with violence and black with hatred. Blotchy, but all of it backed in a sickly yellow, not a bright, sunny color, but more like the yellow of phlegm or infected mucous.

And it was an infection that drove the man. She knew that for certain then. An infection of the soul. Of hatred.

Yes, it was the yellow she should follow. The most powerful part of him was his sickness. She was curious as to its source but short on time to explore. And so she opened her eyes but kept them unfocused, blurred, and shifted her head until she picked up the yellow in her peripheral vision.

Everywhere he'd been in this room, he'd left his essence behind. And she followed it now from the doorway to the desk chair, and from there to the filing cabinets—one file cabinet in particular. The drawer he'd opened held his snotty essence, and he'd touched a lot of the tabs on the file folders, flipping through them. But one had a bigger residue than the rest, and that was the one she pulled out.

At first the pages inside made no sense to her. It appeared to be a mailing list—but no, not just names and addresses, but descriptions, ages, names of employers.

Who were all these people?

Not vampires. She would have heard of at least some of them if they were.

Interestingly, some were typed in black ink, some in blue and some in purple. Most had one of several boldface symbols beside their names.

She fanned through the pages. There were at least a dozen of them, with roughly ten entries per page, in two columns. A hundred and twenty names, give or take. And it wasn't until she got to the end of the document that she found a small notation.

This was a list of human beings with the rare Belladonna Antigen in their blood. A list of the Chosen. And most had check marks beside their names, a few had stars and only a bare handful had the circle that marked them as whereabouts unknown or the X for deceased.

They were rounding up humans with the antigen. Yes, there had been discussion among the Undead that something like that seemed to be happening, because humans with the antigen had been disappearing ever since the existence of the vampiric race had become public knowledge.

Now there was no doubt why. The government had been detaining them and taking them…where? Clearly this was part of whatever trap Scarface was laying for the Undead. He knew the connection, the bond, between vampires and the Chosen, the way the Undead would watch over and protect those human beings who possessed the antigen that made them potential vampires.

It wasn't a choice the vampires made. It was a reflex, a need. There was no free will involved.

She shoved the file back into the cabinet and scanned the room. Where could she learn the rest? Where were the innocent humans being held? The desk called to her, and she went to it, opening drawers even as she hit the power button on the computer. She rifled the desk as the PC powered up, and then she quickly scanned the keyboard for traces
of his snotty essence, finding it on the G, B and N keys. His password was NGB—his own initials. Figured, given his arrogance. Finally she clicked the internet icon and checked the history.

Her eyes skimmed down the column of recently visited sites, pausing on a familiar one—a mapping page. She clicked on “begin private browsing” so the computer wouldn't keep track of her movements, then opened a new tab and rode it to a popular networking site. Leaving that up, she returned to the original tab and skimmed the most recently requested driving directions.

St. Dymphna Psychiatric Hospital. Mount Bliss, VA.

She cut and pasted it into the search bar, and clicked return.

Then she drummed her fingers, waiting. Results popped up about the same time the office door swung open.

Scarface stood there, two armed men behind him, both pointing guns at her.

“W
hat'cha doin' there, Brigit?” Gravenham-Bail smiled softly.

She was caught, and she knew it. But even that knowledge didn't stop her from noticing the way he was dressed. Black pants, a black turtleneck, black leather gloves, black tennis shoes. Black socks, even. What the hell?

“You're spying for the vamps? Aren't you?” he went on.

“Spying? Hell no. I'm just your loyal, belly dancing secret agent. I just was looking for a computer to…check my FaceSpace messages.”

Her eyes darted to the screen, fingers inching forward. She jabbed the mouse button, closing out the mapmaker and search tabs, leaving only the FaceSpace page up, then quickly lifting her hands palms up, and stepping back from the computer. “See for yourself.”

She wasn't feeling the least bit confident as she met his eyes, but she tried to look as if she were telling the truth.

He shook his head. “What are you really doing here, Brigit?”

She took an involuntary step backward but stopped herself, knowing it was a sign of weakness he would not be likely to miss. “You know that's not my name, Nash. You hired me personally.” She echoed her words with her thoughts, pumping them into his brain with all the force she could muster.

“Honey, that wasn't even working at the beginning. Did you really think they'd put me in charge of eliminating the Undead if I was that easy to manipulate? Besides, we've butted heads once before, you and I.”

She nodded, giving up the lies. “Okay, okay. So you know I'm not who I say I am. I was working for the resistance. I'm a human being, as you well know, having seen me in daylight, who happens to believe vampires ought to have civil rights just like everyone else, and—”

“Enough with the lies.” Nash nodded to his cohorts. “She's one of the most sought-after research subjects in the history of the DPI. It's like we got ourselves a free bonus. Take her.”

The other men surged into the room, flanking her. Brigit flipped up her hand, as if to blast them
with her power, fingers lightly resting on her thumb. She even imagined she could feel it rising up in her, but then she stopped herself. Her power was gone, and she was defenseless.

They gripped her upper arms and tugged her through the open door, into the atrium. She resisted enough to give them a hard time, but not enough to give away the only powers she had left. Might as well save that knowledge and take them by surprise with it when the time was right. They were making her furious, though, and it was hard to control the urge to vamp up and rip their throats out.

But that would get her executed for certain. These men wanted to wipe out her kind. To use Utana to—
Utana
. Could he help her? Would he even bother to try?

She closed her eyes.
I'm caught, Utana. I'm caught. They know who I am. They're taking me—somewhere
—
I don't know where and I can't—

There was a crash from above, which she recognized as his bedroom door flying open, and the men went still, all eyes turning upward to see Utana standing at the railing, naked and magnificent. He was holding his door guard by the neck in one outstretched arm, dangling him slightly above floor level.

“You dare put your hands on my woman?”

“Not now, Utana. The woman isn't who she
claims to be. She's a spy.” Then Scarface tilted his head to one side. “But you already knew that, didn't you?”

Utana's eyebrows went up. “A spy, a slave, a dancer. It makes no difference. She is my property while she is here, and therefore she poses no threat. Release her.”

“Take her out of here,” Nash muttered to his men. Then he looked up at Utana. “I'm afraid this isn't up for discussion, my king. She is a criminal my government has been seeking for years, and you are far too weak to be—”

Utana shifted his eyes, and in a flash of laser beam light, the palace's front door was blasted to smithereens. He dropped the man he'd been holding. The guard released one brief shout as he plummeted to the floor, where he landed hard, and fell silent.

The other men released Brigit instantly, turning their guns on Utana, taking aim, firing at him over the sound of her screaming “No!” while she lunged at her nearest captor. His shot blasted the hardwood railing, sending splinters flying in all directions, and then she was shoving his barrel toward the floor and simultaneously kicking the other man squarely in the cojones.

“I said hold your fire!” Scarface barked, and paused to eye his henchmen. One was doubled over in pain, while the other one's weapon lay on
the floor neatly pinned there by the woman's foot. Brigit quickly flipped the gun up into the air with her toes, then neatly caught it, worked the action and aimed it at Nash.

He narrowed his eyes on her. “You just revealed more about yourself, half-breed.”

“Quarter-breed, actually.” She dared a quick look up at the second-floor railing. “Utana!”

He wasn't there.

“Dammit, if you assholes killed him, I'll—”

“I am here.”

He was halfway down the stairs, wearing only a burgundy satin kimono, knotted at the waist, and carrying a bulging pillowcase by its neck. “I thank you for your assistance, Nashmun. But I believe my time here has come to an end.”

There were others now, a half dozen or so, coming from everywhere all at once, all in suits, all bearing handguns, all closing in warily around them.

“If they try to stop me leaving with my woman, you, Nashmun, will find yourself in more pieces than your front door. We go now. Goodbye.”

Nash bowed his head, backing away slowly. “If I could just have a word with you, before you go, my king. If you would just allow me to tell you how very close we are to achieving our mutual goal—”

“I do not require your assistance to do that which is demanded of me by the gods.” He paused, frown
ing. “I did survive the Great Flood without your help, after all.”

Nash lowered his head. “All right. Go, then.”

Too easy.
Brigit sent the words to Utana.
Watch our backs on the way out.

Then, together, they walked to the front door, picking their way through the splinters of wood and stepping out into the covered walkway.

The men followed, muttering to themselves. With her back to them, Brigit called up her vampire side, lowering her head to hide her face—the glowing eyes, the pale, tight skin and the fangs—but she opened her senses to hear the words they spoke in whispers and feel their mortal thoughts.

“Should we follow them, boss?”

“No.”
There's no need.
“Back inside, everyone. Beckwith, get a contractor on the phone to see about this door.”

“Yes, sir.”

She felt them retreating, felt no further blasts of thought from them and let her fangs retract, her eyes go dull and mortal, losing their vampiric glow. They'd reached the end of the sidewalk, and she crossed the street, instinctively wanting to put as much distance as possible between herself and that houseful of gun-wielding DPI men. Then she turned right, following the shoulder of the road and wondering if her car would still be where she'd left it, two miles up.

A hand on her shoulder was a physical reminder of the hulk walking along at her side, not that she'd forgotten his presence for even a single second.

“You are…uninjured?” he asked.

“They didn't hurt me.” She lifted her eyes to his. “I wasn't sure you'd help me. Thank you.”

“You are my—”

He stopped himself there, but she knew exactly where he'd been going with the thought. He finished lamely with the word
friend
. But he'd been about to say “woman.” No doubt about it.

She could not hold his gaze. “I'm not your friend, Utana. You need to stop thinking that way. I'm not your friend. I'm going to have to kill you, sooner or later.”

“You are not going to kill me.”

She shrugged. “Well, I'm sure as hell going to try.”

“I do not believe you will.”

She rolled her eyes, then glanced behind her.

“They will follow us?” he asked.

“No, I don't think so. I heard Nash thinking it wasn't necessary. I just wish I knew why the hell he thinks that.”

“I do not know.”

They walked on in silence for a time, and then, because she was curious, she asked, “Why are you so sure I won't try to kill you?”

He looked at her. His eyes were so dark and deep,
that melted dark chocolate-bar color, with black velvet lashes that made him look almost like a little boy—unless you widened your scope to see the rest of him. The wide jaw, the muscular body. God, that body. But his eyes were the essence of innocence, and even love.

So deceiving, those eyes.

“You stopped them from killing me just now,” he said. “You knocked their weapons down and kicked them, and screamed at them like a woman gone wild. You risked your very life to save mine. Why would you do such a thing?”

She lowered her head, watching her sock-covered feet move, one in front of the other, over the dusty gravel along the road's shoulder. The hems of the too-big jeans dragged in the dust.

“Brigit?” he asked.

“I needed your help to get out of there.”

He shook his head. “It was more than that, and you know it. Do not lie to me, Brigit. Tell me—why did you help me?”

“I've been asking myself the same question, Utana. And the only answer I can come up with is that…I acted on instinct. On pure instinct. I mean, for crying out loud, we had sex last night. It's normal that I would feel…something.”

“I also feel…something.”

“I didn't mean it like that. Like—like you're saying it. It's not that I feel something for you, it's
that I felt compelled to protect you. And I suppose that's natural, too, given that I…took a little sip from your…” She made the mistake of looking at his shoulder and then his neck as she spoke to him. “Your great big, corded, hard, salty neck.”

He shot her a look.

She averted her eyes, cleared her throat. “I imagine it's a lot like the way the vampires feel about the Chosen—you know, humans with the Belladonna Antigen? I've explained to you about the connection between them, the bond?”

“Yes. And how the vahmpeers are compelled to protect and watch over such humans. I understand.”

She nodded, and then she paused. “That's
it
. That's
exactly
it.”

“It?”

She stopped walking, gripping his forearm. “Utana, I heard Lillian and Nash talking outside your room earlier. Nash said they were setting a trap for the vahmpeers—er, vampires.” God, she was spending way too much time in his kingness's company. “I went into that office off the atrium to see what I could find out. And I found a list, names and addresses—”

“Wait. You are speaking too fastly. I do not know ‘addresses.'”

“An address is…the place where you live. Each street has a name, each house has a number.”

“I see. All right. Go on.”

“These names were all the names of humans who possess the Belladonna Antigen. They were the names of the Chosen. And beside each one was a symbol to tell whether or not that person was ‘in custody.'”

Utana blinked, his magnificent intelligence processing her words rapidly. “Nashmun is taking all of these Chosens captive. Just as he thought to keep me captive. And you, as well.”

“Yes. That has to be the way they're baiting this trap of theirs. They're going to use the Chosen to lure the vampires out of hiding.”

He frowned at her. “If they are afraid, the Chosen humans, they can call out to the vahmpeers?”

“No. Most of them don't even know of their connection to the Undead.”

“Then how will the vahmpeers know they are in danger?”

“Just as you would know, if I were in danger. Or in pain. You would feel it, wouldn't you, Utana?”

He nodded slowly. “Even before I had met you, when I was with your brother, James, on the boat and you were crying out for his help, I felt you—even then.” He stared into her eyes. “I would feel your call even if I were across the sea, Brigit. Your soul and mine—”

“Stop it. Just stop it right now.”

He stopped talking. She was tingling, all warm and gooey inside, and hating herself for it.

“The vahmpeers,” he said, returning to the safer topic, “will feel the call of the Chosens if they are in fear or in pain.”

“Yes,” she said. She sought his eyes, found them, locked on. “Utana, I have a very bad feeling that Nash and his men are going to do something terrible to those innocent people. Something so bad that their cries of fear and pain will be powerful enough to summon every vampire still alive.”

“And then the vahmpeers will all arrive to attend to them. At the same place, at the same time.”

“And Nash can wipe them out.”

“Or order me to do so for him.” Utana said it slowly, thoughtfully.

“I'm sure that was his plan. Now he'll have to do it on his own.”

Utana nodded slowly. “Do you know where is this place, where the Chosens have been takened?”

She had to lower her head to keep from smiling at his childlike use of modern English. “Yes, I do. But I cannot tell you where it is.”

“You must tell me, Brigit. Otherwise, how will I help you to set free them?”

“You want to help me free the Chosen?”

He nodded, holding her gaze. “I am not a king who ever allowed innocents to suffer, nor to be used as pawns in kingly games of war. Such a practice is disgraceful, and worthy of beheading.”

“And if all the vampires arrive at the same place,
at the same time? Will you use the opportunity to finish what you've set out to do, Utana? Will you kill them all?”

He lowered his head. “I promise I will not kill any of the vahmpeers until all of the Chosens are safe.”