Authors: Melanie Tomlin
“They’ll congregate in the underground tunnels. The network is very large and there are a number of chambers big enough to hold close to a thousand. I’ve been told that ten thousand years ago it did hold that many — the first and last of the great meetings the clan leaders hoped to have. Mind you, I have no way of knowing if that’s true. We only have Drake’s word to go on.”
“Drake is over ten thousand years old?” I asked incredulously.
Danny answered, “Much older than that.”
I turned to look at him. “How old
is
he?”
“He was one of the first to be bitten after Satan created vampires.”
I whistled. “Wow, that old, hey?”
“Yes, that old.”
I turned my attention back to the vampire who claimed she was my mother. “What about strengths and weaknesses?”
“That I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders. “The same as any other clan I expect.”
“What about their plan of attack?”
“I think they plan to have large numbers of vampires waiting in the various places you frequent. Big enough numbers to overwhelm you.”
I snorted. “You know we can get ourselves out of a situation if it comes to that.”
“All I know is that Drake believes he has found a way to keep you in the one place. I think he means to use me against you.”
“So Drake no longer wishes to convert me, to convince me to swap sides?”
She shook her head. “No. You’ve gone too far in his eyes. He sees you as a direct threat to his position.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us?” I asked.
“I
won’t
let him use me against you. I’d rather die first.”
Danny nodded his head in agreement. “If that’s all she can tell us, you know what has to be done, Helena.”
Michelle looked at him, her eyes grateful for his decision, and she mouthed the words
thank you
.
“No, we leave her,” I said. “Her time will come soon enough. Drake can’t use her against me.”
Danny did not agree, but he wouldn’t raise a hand against the woman who had given birth to me unless he was provoked, or I gave permission. I took his hand and we turned to leave the cave.
“Don’t go,” she cried out. “
I don’t want to live like this anymore.
”
I stopped and turned to look back at her. “You have no choice, just like the rest of us.”
Danny and I continued walking. Michelle rushed towards us with such speed — perhaps speed was a family trait — that she was upon me before we had time to look back and see what she was doing. My hand automatically reached behind me and made contact with skin before I realised who it was I’d be killing.
When her body fell to the ground, cold and empty, I noticed her face was stained with tears and I began to weep uncontrollably.
“It’s what she wanted,” Danny said.
He leaned down and touched her body, causing it to turn to ash. He didn’t want me to have to look at the tears that were crystallising, like salt, on her dead face. He didn’t want her body to remain in the cave to rot with the other vampires, where I might come and torture myself over what had happened. It was compassion that drove him to destroy all trace of the woman who had once been my mother, and I had once loved. He was giving me closure.
I continued to weep. Danny picked me up in his arms and carried me back to the cottage. He held me close to him, on the couch, as I wept on and off for a number of hours. Something within him told him now was not the time to try and console me with a passionate kiss, but to let the tears run their course. I was grateful he knew a little about mortal grief. Enough not to confuse being with me and comforting me, with a need for something else. His shirt was wet through from the tears and my eyes were red and raw.
When the tears subsided I gradually fell into a troubled sleep. Danny carried me to my bed and stayed with me throughout the night.
21.
Coordinated Attack
In the early hours of the morning a crow tapped on the bedroom window, startling me into alertness.
Danny went to the window and opened it. The bird hopped inside and cawed a few times, blinking its beady black eyes and staring straight at me. It gave me the heebie-jeebies. Little wonder many people feared crows and thought they were a bad omen.
Danny thanked the bird and it flew away.
“What did it say?” I asked.
“He is agreeable to a meeting.” A mischievous grin spread across his face and his eyes sparkled. “I’m to bring
your head
as proof I’ve killed you.”
“Well,” I said, unperturbed, “you can take my head, but you’ll just have to put up with the rest of me tagging along.”
“I don’t like that the eagle didn’t return,” Danny said, his expression changing into one of concern. “The crow said the message was given to him. That the angel refused to give it to the eagle.”
“Maybe it’s a trust issue.” If I were Amrael, and didn’t trust Danny, I wouldn’t have used his bird to deliver my message either. “He was probably more comfortable with one of his own
minions
carrying the message.”
“
Minions?
”
“Yeah, minions, as in one of his followers.”
“It’s a word more often than not associated with demons rather than angels,” Danny said.
I climbed out of bed and put on a robe.
“Well, you never know …” It was a real pain not being allowed to say names out loud. “That angel gives me the creeps. There’s something sleazy about him.”
Danny frowned. “Angels are
not
sleazy, Helena.”
Why was he defending someone he clearly disliked? Was it some strange angel loyalty thing?
“Okay, okay.” Talk about touchy. “Where are we to meet him and when?”
“
I
am to meet him today, at noon,” he said firmly. “There is no
we
.”
I poked my finger in his chest. “You’re not going without me. I want to be there to protect your back. Besides, you need my head.”
Danny sighed and rolled his eyes. “If you come you do as I say,” he warned. “If you can’t do that, stay behind.”
I saluted him. “Yes sir, I’ll follow orders sir.” I crossed my heart with a finger. “
Cross my heart and hope to die.
”
Danny was trying not to laugh and succeeded, until I attempted to tickle his sides. He pushed my hands away, laughing, not a clue what it was I was trying to do.
“
Ah, come on!
Aren’t you ticklish, not even in the slightest?”
“Is
that
what you were doing?” he guffawed — actually guffawed! There was no other word to describe it. Although he’d had a few good laughs at my expense before, he really, really enjoyed it this time. Then he said sheepishly, “I thought maybe you were trying to
distract
me …”
I raised my eyebrows when I saw he was serious.
Man, what sort of a monster have I unleashed here?
I cleared my throat. “So where do we go?”
“There’s a natural avenue of trees about a kilometre long, called the corridor. We’re to meet halfway along it. That’s where our territories meet. It’s about eighty kilometres south-west of the fall.”
“It sounds like an easy place to set a trap,” I mused out loud.
“That it is,” Danny agreed, “but he is there to listen, and he
shall
hear me out.”
“Danny, I’m not happy about this meeting. Nothing I say will make you change your mind, will it?”
“No. We have
nothing
to hide and
nothing
to fear.”
I slipped my arms around his waist. “I have a bad feeling about this … I’d hate to let what could be our last opportunity to be together slip by without one final happy moment.”
I reached up and tickled his sides —
if you want to think my tickling is a form of foreplay, who am I to argue?
— and nibbled his ear.
He was struggling to keep his focus. “Why do you doubt so much?”
“It’s in my nature,” I replied.
I kissed his neck. Danny wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. Our lips met and the room began to glow. The colour was changing. It was no longer a pale red. Rather, it was a warm orange. I idly wondered what had changed.
Danny picked me up and tossed me onto the bed, my robe and his clothes disappearing as I landed on the bed. He crawled alongside me and kissed me with a longing that held the promise of things to come.
I traced the line and shape of the muscles along his back and arms, committing every detail to memory. I tasted his lips, his neck, his shoulders … My hand pressed against his chest and the hard muscles within. It wandered to his stomach, my fingers lightly dancing around his belly button —
why would an angel need one?
— then reached out to feel his hip.
Below his hip my fingers found a raised area of skin, about three centimetres long and half a centimetre wide. I traced it gently with each finger. Was it a scar? If it was, what sort of wound could be inflicted upon an angel that they could not heal?
My sense of dread had not eased. I
needed
his touch — I needed to feel that he was warm and real, flesh and blood. Somehow I felt that something as simple as touching him allowed me to lay a claim to him — that I would never lose him — that he could never be apart from me. My heart raced. Thoughts of life and love, desire and loss, filled my mind.
As my hand continued its journey down his side he pulled me closer to him. The dance — sometimes slow and sensual, other times fast and wild — began.
“Helena,” Danny whispered, kissing the top of my head, “it’s time.”
I wanted to stay here forever — safe and hidden — and I wanted Danny to stay with me.
“Let’s stay,
please,
” I begged him.
“He’ll think I have something to hide — that I am guilty of harbouring you — if I don’t turn up.”
“You
are
guilty of harbouring me,” I whispered in his ear.
He chuckled. “You’re impossible, Helena.”
I gave him my best pout. “No, I’m just selfish. I want you all to myself.”
“And you have me,” he replied, “but I also have a duty to Him.”
“I know.” I climbed out of bed to get dressed. “Let’s get this over and done with.”
Once I’d dressed, I picked up the knife that had become my constant companion when leaving the cottage.
“You won’t be needing the knife, Helena. We go in peace.”
I grumbled to myself about how one minute I was to always take the knife with me and the next I was to leave it behind. As I put on my shoes, still grumbling, Danny stood up and came over. He kissed the top of my head before walking to the window. I took the opportunity to shove the knife, sheath and all, in the waistband of my jeans. The loose top I’d elected to wear disguised it nicely. I went to Danny, pulling my lucky charm — the feather — onto my arm. At least he hadn’t complained about me wearing that!
I saw him glance at both arms. He smiled. He knew nothing of my deception. I felt a twinge of guilt that he might feel I was betraying him by taking the knife.
We arrived in the corridor, on Danny’s side of the border, a few minutes prior to noon. Hand in hand, with nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of, we walked the few hundred metres to the designated meeting place.
When Amrael did not appear at noon I became suspicious and immediately thought it was a trap. As I was debating whether to take Danny and run, Amrael appeared. He stayed on his side of the border, at least twenty metres away from us.
“Danizriel,” he inclined his head, “and the abomination.”
“Her name is Helena, Amrael.”
“I didn’t think my message had made it through. The poor bird was killed.”
“The crow made it all right, and let me know of your demand for
a head
.”
“A crow, did you say?” Amrael sounded surprised and shook his head. “I sent no crow, but I did demand a head.” He sniffed the air in disgust. “I just didn’t expect it would still be
attached.
”
“Then who did?” I asked.
The dread that had knotted in the pit of my stomach spread throughout my body in waves, threatening to consume me.
“Who did what?” Amrael sneered.
For an angel he sure was thick. “Who sent the crow?”
“What trick are you playing at, Amrael?” Danny asked, questioning what was really going on.
Amrael held up his hands in a placating gesture. “None.” He glanced at me and sneered again. “I think perhaps
another
is to blame.”
Danny knew whom Amrael was referring to. I saw a brief flash of fire in his eyes. “Helena has not been out of my sight since I sent my message to you.”