Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) (31 page)

“
Open
it.”

I hesitated before
taking the box from him. It had, after all, been the last thing that
I touched before the pain hit. I tended to blame my episodes on
events and objects instead of on the fact that I felt like I was
dying. The box sat on my lap for a few seconds before I inhaled and
flipped the lock. The lid gave a low squeak as the seldom used hinges
turned over. Inside the box, lying on a bed of bright red velvet was
the most beautiful knife I had ever seen. A dagger.

I grabbed the dagger by
the handle and lifted it from the box. It must have weighed more than
3 pounds. It was crafted out of one solid piece of metal with onyx
inlays on the handle. It was not a jewel encrusted ceremonial knife
like Efia had used, this was a well balanced weapon.

In the bottom of the
box were two black leather holsters. I lifted them out and discovered
that one was for the thigh and the other for the bicep. They looked
just like the holsters that Jordan used and tears welled up in my
eyes. Jordan and Zander had not wanted me to be involved in this
mission; feeling that I was too vulnerable to capture and that Efia
should insist that I be Embraced or stay home. Neither one of them
was shy about voicing their opinions, so I was surprised by Jordan’s
gift.

“
What
do we have here?” Violeta waltzed over to the vehicle with a
small Gucci bag slung over her shoulder. Where she thought we were
going, I didn’t know. I was still in awe of her. She was a
machine. All muscle with the brains to match. If not for her brutal
nature, my training would have taken much longer. She was the best
sparring partner anyone could ever have, because she might
accidentally kill you if you weren't careful.

“
I
see Jordan got you a gift.” Zander said, from behind Violeta.
“It’s nice.”

“
Nice?”
Jordan said, as he held his hand to his heart in mock insult. “I’ll
have you know that knife was made specifically for the St. Clair’s
by an Elder in the late…”

“
The
late 2000s!” Zander interrupted. “You know you
commissioned it the day we found Cheyenne in New Mexico.”

The two brothers smiled
and started throwing punches at each other in the way that boys do
when they play around. I would never, for the life of me, understand
how getting punched is considered fun. I saw the other girls weren’t
as confused as I was. They almost seemed to appreciate the manliness
that was on display. It reminded me of those giant mountain goats on
Animal Planet. They would lock horns over and over until one of them
won the female goat. If this was some form of Vampiric mating ritual
I was going to be sick.

“
Boys.”
Efia had entered the cargo hull with several other members of the
family. Her tone was not one of chastisement, but rather of pride.
These were her warrior grandsons displaying their strength. To me,
they were my idiot brothers trying to impress the girls. I sighed and
slid out of the SUV.

Solomon was walking
around the vehicle, checking tires for air and the engine for fluids.
I knew that he had already performed this inspection ahead of time
and was just using it as an excuse to keep moving. I walked over to
him and grabbed his hand in mine. He had started to become like a
father to me and I hated the look in his eyes. He squeezed my hand
tightly before returning to his pretend inspection.

Zeus and the twins had
come behind Efia and where now sitting at attention waiting for the
good-byes to be said. Efia walked toward me and placed her hands on
my shoulders. She looked into my eyes for a very long time before
leaning forward and placing her forehead on mine.

“
I
pray, my sweet Cheyenne, that you are able to do what I could not.
Come back to us.” Efia kissed my forehead and turned away.

With our good-byes said
and our weapons packed, the five of us jumped into the SUV and drove
off. The engine was so quiet that I could hear every rock under the
tires. The tension was rolling off of us in waves and I nearly passed
out. It could possibly be because I was driving to my death or life
of indentured servitude, but I suddenly felt like I was making a
mistake. Although it had been stressed to me the importance of
keeping my elemental powers a secret from Grigor until I needed to
use them, I was no longer sure I had control. I had been practicing
over the last few weeks to control my emotions. Not getting upset
when Chloe burns my toast is a far cry from not getting anxious when
an insane Vampire tries to rip my throat out.

Silence was neither
friend nor foe as we made our way towards the highway. We would
arrive in Las Vegas in a few hours and plan our midnight mission. The
hope was to extract our mother from Grigor’s compound and kill
him, but that was easier said than done. Efia had been trying to kill
him for centuries and only succeeded in losing members of her clan.
For her to send her un-Embraced granddaughter meant that she was
desperate and out of options.

It seemed like the sun
grew brighter the closer we came to Vegas. All of the barren
mountains and desert plains seemed to go on forever. I watched the
scenery zip by as Zander drove well over the speed limit, eager to
get us to our destination. We had rooms at the Tne Venetian, but we
wouldn't be spending too much time by the pool. Our plan was to check
in, inspect our weapons, grab a muffin and some coffee and go kill a
power and insane Vampire who was being guarded by several hundred
loyal and devoted soldiers. Piece of cake!

Traffic started to slow
down as we approached what appeared to be road construction of some
sort. I looked over the front head rest to see that people were
coming car to car and looking at the occupants. At first I thought
nothing of it until I glimpsed white hair in the distance. Raphael.
He was orchestrating a search of each vehicle.

“
It’s
Raphael.” Zander said in a panicked voice. “He’s
going to see us any minute now.”

“
Chey,”
I turned to see Tabitha staring me in the eyes. I knew what she
wanted and I started to shake. I had never done it under pressure,
and this was pressure. We were in imminent danger and I was going to
choke.

“
Chey!”

“
You
do something. You're a Cereb. Can't you just make him see something
else?”

“
No,
not on this scale. He would alert the others before I could get
enough illusion together to fool anyone.”

Tabitha had grabbed a
hold of my face with both hands. Her breath smelled like peppermints
and ice. Such a strange but familiar combination. I tried to
concentrate but was unable to think of anything but Raphael and his
crew headed straight towards us. We were trapped in this SUV like
caged animals and we would die if I didn’t do something.

Tabitha slapped me
across the face, hard. Tears came to my eyes and I started to shout
at her when I realized that my mind was momentarily free of fear. I
had one chance at this. I tried to concentrate on the wind but there
was none. The desert air was not only dry but it was still as well. I
leaned forward and turned the AC on max and put my face in front of a
vent. The cold air went straight up my nose and threatened to make me
sneeze when I grabbed it. I grabbed it like I was grabbing a cat by
the tail and I swung it around the SUV as if my life depended on it.
Which it did.

By manipulating the
air, the SUV started to blur. I just had to hold it until the danger
had passed and hoped that no one would lean against the vehicle.
Raphael was three cars ahead of us but his flunkies were just about
to our front bumper. I wasn’t worried about them. They didn’t
seem to have the same abilities as Raphael had and they passed our
vehicle like it wasn’t there. I watched as they went to the car
behind us and looked at the people inside. There were four girls in
the convertible and they began to flirt with the men as they walked
by.

The car in front of us
moved up and we needed to move before the convertible noticed such a
big empty gap in traffic. I was grateful for Zander’s
insistence on the hybrid because I was sure Raphael would have heard
anything else. We inched by him, getting as close to the other
vehicle as we could. Everything was going well until the AC kicked up
a notch and gave me the urge to sneeze. I waved my hand in front of
my nose to hold it off and Tabitha handed me a tissue, but it was
going to happen one way or another. Just as I was going to let it go,
the girls in the convertible sped up and came to a screeching halt in
front of Raphael. They were screaming and making a menace of
themselves over him looking like some sort of movie star.

My sneeze was epic. It
felt like I blew out all of the air that the car was holding, because
the heat from outside of the car quickly replaced the air conditioned
air in the interior. We were visible again and very, very hot, but we
were far enough from Raphael and about to hit 80 mph. After blowing
my nose, I discovered little chunks of ice in the tissue. I guess it
was better than the sand that would have been there had the windows
been down.

We were looking behind
us for the inevitable emergence of snow white hair and blazing green
eyes but saw nothing. It couldn’t have been that easy for us to
get by them. Raphael was a very gifted Elemental Vampire and he would
have surely sensed something was wrong. I was wondering why they let
us through when the overwhelming scent of iron filled the car. It
smelled like St. Clair, so I wondered if Zander or Jordan were hurt.
I tried to see which one of my brothers had gotten cut and nearly
head-butted Violeta when she climbed into the back seat. Her pupils
were dilated and the human being in me wanted desperately to run.
Slamming myself back against the seat, I started to climb into the
third row when she grabbed me around the throat; stopping my retreat.
It all happened so quickly that all I could do was look at her.

“
Cheyenne,
you’re bleeding all over the place,” Violeta’s
voice was so calm it was eerie. She turned my head from side to side
before releasing me. Reaching over me, she grabbed a bag from the
third row and pulled out a first aid kit.

My Elemental skills had
indeed been powerful enough to fool Raphael and were now pushing
blood from my nose, eyes and ears. It was strange to have Violeta
tend to me. She was, however, very adept at the task and was even
making sure that I felt as little discomfort as possible. Violeta was
chosen for this mission, not only because she and Zander were to be
married, but also because she had very good control over her thirst.
Most other Vampires of her age would have had to be restrained around
this much spilled blood. But Violeta was all but immune to it. The
only outward sign of any reaction were her eyes. The other three were
not affected because we all shared Efia’s blood and mine was
not desirable to them.

It took almost thirty
minutes for Violeta to clean me up and make sure that I hadn’t
lost too much blood. We stopped for a roadside vendor selling oranges
and she practically forced them down my throat. She had helped me
change my clothes and set them on fire in an old trash can and we
were back on the road. I wanted to tell her thank you but I couldn’t
make the words fall out of my mouth. It was like I was afraid of
rejection if I showed any type of weakness. Instead, I sat there as
if the entire episode hadn’t just scared me to death.

Las Vegas was a hot
mess. There were so many cars and so many pedestrians that it was
hard to get anywhere. We had pulled onto Las Vegas Blvd 25 minutes
before and it seemed like we had only moved 25 feet. We passed resort
after resort and casino after casino until we reached our
destination. A bellhop grabbed our luggage while Violeta handled the
valet. I walked toward the front desk to stand in line for our keys
when I felt the shimmer. Certain that another El Vampire was around,
I began to glance at the other people in the lobby.

I knelt down,
pretending to tie my shoes, and saw a girl sitting just a few feet
from the registration desk. She had her back to us and must have been
using her powers to keep people away from her because there was a
family of five crowded onto a love seat while she sat alone on a six
foot couch.

As nonchalantly as I
could, I pointed her out to Tabitha. She stiffened and looked around
to see where the rest of our party was. We saw them coming through
the front entrance and Tabitha held a finger in front of her mouth.
It wasn’t like the other Vampire couldn’t sense that we
were there, we just didn’t want her to know that we knew she
was there. We continued on as if nothing was out of the ordinary and
received our keys. Acting as if we were in a hurry, which we were, we
headed towards the bank of elevators with a steady pace.

As we walked, I used a
small amount of my powers to move people slightly out of our way to
prevent Zander from mowing them down. Behind us, the EV girl was
doing the same thing, being careful that her powers didn’t
reach all of the way to us. If Grigor had sent her then he knew
nothing about my powers or that they were strong enough to sense
hers. We made it all of the way to the elevators without missing a
stride and stopped in front of the one closest to the wall.

The EV came around the
corner with a group of tourists and pretended not to notice us. Her
face was a blur as she hid her identity from anyone who was trying to
get a closer look. I was tempted to throw some energy her way and
force her to drop her shield but Jordan put an arm around my shoulder
in a mock hug to prevent me from giving our identity away. Our
elevator arrived first and the five of us piled in. Using my
attributes to repel regular humans, I caught the Vampire's movement.
She had started forward, unaffected by the energy, before she noticed
that the other hotel guests remained in place. To play it off, she
causally walked to the trash can and knelt to tie her shoe.