Bloodline (23 page)

And now it was too late.

“I assume you're James,” I said softly. “Ethan's brother?”

“Does it matter who I am?”

“It does to me,” I told him. “I'm still going to kill you, you understand. I just might do it a little more humanely.”

As I spoke, he forced me to walk ahead of him, keeping his blade pressed so tight to my throat that I could feel it scraping bits of my skin away with every step I took.

“Where is he?” I asked, barely moving my jaw as I spoke, fearing that any movement, no matter how slight, might result in the blade's pressure increasing. And it hurt. It hurt a lot. I shifted my eyes to the left and then to the right. I scented the air and felt the vibrations all around me. But I detected no sign of Ethan. “I thought he was with you.”

“He sent me on a mission, a false one, just to get rid of me so he could come to you alone.”

He spoke near my ear. I had yet to get a good look at the man, but I could tell that he was solidly built and several inches taller than I was, and his arm around my waist was like a band of steel.

“Fortunately for me,” he went on, “my little brother has never been able to lie worth a damn. I saw right through it, hid myself and watched him, blocking my essence, then followed him. Once I knew that your path—and his—would end here, I cut through the woods to intercept you.”

My blood was thrumming with the new knowledge that Ethan was coming for me. It made me hold my breath, wary and hopeful. But all I said was, “You must be good at blocking. I didn't sense you here.”

“It's a gift.” He shrugged and continued propelling me along in front of him, into the woods that lined the shore, into darkness and the unknown. I waited for him to grow careless but held out little hope he would do so. The man was as sharp as the blade at my throat.

“So Ethan didn't know you were after me the whole time?”

He didn't even slow his pace, answering without even a pause, unshaken by my question. “I think he had an inkling, there at the end. Why else would he have tried to give me the slip?”

“He might just have tired of your company.”

“No. He wanted to protect you.” I felt his disapproval. “But I can forgive him that. He wouldn't be the first good man to be ruined by falling in love with a woman.”

Falling in love…
Those words echoed in my ears, but I didn't question them, even though I wanted to. Was it possible that Ethan…truly
loved
me? I tried to quell the
surge of hope within my heart and to keep the conversation going. “And what ruined you, James?”

He did stumble then. Just one foot over a loose stone, knocking him off balance. I felt him shift to one side to regain his balance and took advantage of what might be my only opportunity, jamming both hands against his forearm and pushing it hard, away from my neck, even as I ducked low, somersaulting away from him. I sprang to my feet in a crouch, facing him now, ready.

He waved the knife in gentle arcs meant to draw my attention. He reached for me, and I ducked. He sliced at me, and I dodged. He lunged, and I leapt away, only to trip on a tree root and land on my back on the ground.

He was on me instantly, jabbing something into my breast. My first thought was that I was being stabbed with that huge blade, and I panicked and screamed. But almost instantly I realized the pain was far too small, and, glancing down, I saw him depressing the hypodermic's plunger. I felt the sleep rising in me in direct proportion to the plunger's descent.

I blinked up at him. “James, please don't take me back there,” I whispered. “Please.”

“It's my duty. And why do you beg? It's where you were going anyway.”

“Not as a captive.”

“It would have ended up the same. You never stood a chance, Lilith. At least this way, I redeem myself in their eyes. At least this way,
I
do my duty and get to go on living.”

“No. It's not your duty, James,” I said, though my words were beginning to slur. “They've warped your mind. How can you possibly believe that you owe your
loyalty to the mortals who once held you captive, rather than to one of your own kind?”

“You are
not
my kind. You're nothing like me,” he muttered, as if in disgust.

“I'm your sister as surely as Ethan is your brother.” I blinked slowly, fighting the damned drug as hard as I could.

I felt him scooping me up into his arms and marching through the woods, and I had time to marshal my strength just once, just enough to cry out mentally,
Ethan! James ambushed me. He's taking me back to The Farm. He's betrayed us both!

Then I was gone, sinking into darkness, my pain and my fear fading far behind me.

* * *

Ethan heard her scream, felt her terror, and then received her mental message as she cried out for him, mind to mind, the way he'd taught her. But he couldn't believe—didn't want to believe—what she'd said. James had taken her?
James?
His own brother?

But he knew then that she had been right about his brother all along, and that his own skewed judgment had, just as he'd begun to fear, cost her—

No. He wasn't going to think it had cost her her life, not while she still lived. He beached his boat and set off through the forest, weaving around tree trunks, ducking limbs and jumping roots. He moved fast, and as soundlessly as he could manage, blocking his thoughts as he ran. And yet, he never caught sight of them. Not until he finally emerged from the forest to see a chain-link fence with a gate looming large in front of him.

A sentry stood in a boxlike structure inside the gate, and Ethan ducked behind a tree as he saw James stride
right up to it, Lilith slung limply over his shoulder. Her long coppery curls hung to the ground, trailing in the dust. Her arms dangled, and her essence had gone silent. Ethan couldn't see her face, and could not, for the life of him, sense whether she was dead or alive.

The sentry pushed a button, spoke to someone, then hit another button that opened the gate. It slid sideways on some sort of track, and James stepped through. The gate remained open behind him, but Ethan thought it would be easy enough to clear the thing and follow, should it close before he could gain entry. He would be seen that way, however, which meant it had to be his last resort.

He was itching to go right then, to race through the gate, with fists flying. He hadn't even taken time to bring the weapons from the boat, he'd been in such a hurry to get to Lilith. He hadn't been thinking clearly.

But he had to think clearly now, he told himself. Getting himself captured would only take away Lilith's only chance. So he remained hidden amongst the trees, and was glad of it a moment later, when two armed guards stepped calmly up to James, aimed their weapons and told him not to move.

James's head snapped up, and Ethan felt his brother's sudden tension as the shock of the moment caused him to briefly lower the blocks on his mind. None of it came through in his voice, though, when he spoke with seeming confidence. “I work for you, so you can put those down,” he said. “I've brought the captive I was sent for.”

“We can see that, Bloodliner. Drop her.”

“Drop her, my ass,” James countered.

“Drop her, James.” The command came in a voice used to being obeyed, and a moment later Ethan could see its owner, the commandant. White hair looking wind-blown, face like an aged baseball mitt. Ethan remembered that face. Seeing it never meant anything good for those in his care.

James had gone still, and Ethan felt the cockiness leaving his brother, saw some of the steel leaving his spine. He bent forward and let Lilith's body flip off his shoulders. She hit the ground hard, faceup, and Ethan winced at the sight of it.

“I've done nothing wrong, Commandant, sir,” James told him.

“Perhaps you have. Perhaps not. Tell me, then, James, where is your brother?”

“Ethan?” James asked dumbly.

“Do you have any other brothers I should know about, James? I'd assumed there was just the one.”

“No, sir. No other brothers. That I know of, I mean.” He was nervous, stammering. “I just—I'm surprised by the question. I haven't seen my brother in more than two years.”

“According to those we've had watching you, that may not be true. Until recently, this…” He tapped Lilith's rib cage with the toe of his boot. Ethan lunged, but caught himself and pulled back, biding his time. “This…sorry excuse for a Bloodliner was reportedly traveling with Ethan. So how is it you found her and not him?”

“She was alone when I found her.” James stood there, at the ready, and Ethan feared for his brother in spite of himself.

“We'll see.” The commandant snapped his fingers, and the guards stepped up, rifles pointed at James's head, while two more came out of nowhere to grip him by the arms.

He began to struggle, but the working of a rifle lever stilled him without a word. Lowering his head, he said, “You're making the biggest mistake of your entire life, Commandant.”

“I think you lost the right to argue with me when you chose loyalty to your brother over loyalty to me, James. I'm extremely disappointed in you, but I can't honestly say I'm surprised.”

The guards began leading James away, even as two others stepped forward and lifted Lilith off the ground. One held her beneath the arms, the other just beneath her knees, as they carried her away, but Ethan heard her groan and rejoiced to know she was still alive. As they moved farther into the compound, the sentry turned to watch them go, even as he hit the button that would close the gate.

Ethan saw his chance and sped from his hidden vantage point, running at full vampiric speed, which would render him no more than a blur to mortal eyes. And yet it was a blur these mortals were trained to notice.

The gate was nearly closed when he skidded through the gap sideways, came to a stop at the bottom of the sentry house and sat there, silent, willing the dust to settle as he pressed his back to the wood. The gate banged shut.

Ethan closed his eyes. He'd done it. He'd come back, willingly, to the one place where he'd sworn he would
never set foot again. And he hadn't done it for his brother, who'd betrayed him, he'd done it for Lilith.

It was his fault she was back here in captivity and likely condemned to die in short order. He had to save her.

Or die by her side.

M
oving slowly, keeping to a crouch, his body close to the ground, Ethan moved behind the sentry house to get a clearer view of what lay beyond it. Not that he didn't already know. This place was as familiar to him as his own ranch—no, more familiar. He'd spent his entire life imprisoned within the boundaries clearly marked by the electrified fence.

He'd once seen one of his fellow captives, in a fit of desperation—or perhaps it had been madness—rush at the fence, as if he would climb it or burst straight through somehow. But as soon as he'd touched it, there had been a terrible shower of sparks and spiraling smoke—and then he'd been launched like a man shot from a cannon. Airborne, he'd sailed in an arc that ended only when his back slammed into the ground some fifty yards from where he'd begun.

His hands had been burned black. His eyes had been wide, and his hair singed and smoldering at the ends. He was dead, of course, his life burned from him in one burst of electricity.

Ethan had never known his name. But he
did
know not to touch that fence.

There were areas that had been deemed forbidden, places he and the other captives had never been allowed to go and would have been punished for even daring to look at for too long.

But now Ethan needed to know everything about this place. He had to learn more than just
what
was there. He needed to know
who
was there, and where they had taken Lilith, and how many keepers and guards stood between him and Lilith now, and whether they were armed.

And so he crouched in the shadows and looked ahead to the first building on the grounds, the motor pool. Rows of prefab metal buildings, olive-green with white doors standing open, ran along both sides of the blacktopped roadway. Jeeps, minivans and high-performance sedans filled every spot available.

The compound was huge—three miles from end to end. A vehicle would be an added bonus. Ethan glanced up at the guard in the sentry house. The man stood still, his head bowed over a book. Silently willing him to stay that way, Ethan darted across the compound to the motor pool. As soon as he reached the first vehicle he ducked behind it, then peered back at the sentry.

He was still involved in his book. He hadn't noticed a thing. Good.

Ethan crept from one car to the next in search of one with its keys still in the ignition, but there was none to be found. He suspected the keys were kept inside one of the buildings, but he had no time now to search there for them.

He had to find Lilith. His reaction to seeing that she
was still alive had been enough to fuel him for the battle to come. His bitter disappointment at seeing proof, beyond any doubt, that his brother had betrayed them could easily have crippled him, but he wouldn't allow that. Lilith's life was in his hands.

He sped from one point of cover to the next, moving faster than human eyes could detect. The entire time, he was searching with his mind for Lilith, hunting for that sense of her that had become so much a part of him that he was lost without it.

He wove and dodged from one building to the next, skirting the barracks where most of the captives lived out their lives of indentured service and indoctrination, and heading for the educational area, the part of the camp reserved for brainwashing, mind-altering and torture.

Torture.

God, the thought of them hurting Lilith—

No. He forced the thought away, because it would do nothing to help him find her. And it made him ill, made him weak, to dwell too long on the nightmarish fears of what might, even now, be happening to her.

He crept around to the side of one building, his sense of her failing miserably—probably because she was still unconscious. He had to peer through each window, and he stopped short when he heard the unmistakable sound of electricity zapping into something.

Or someone.

Lilith?

“Leave off, Griz,” a voice said. “There's no point while she's drugged.”

“There's a point, all right.” The man sounded irrationally eager.

Ethan was itching to put his hands around the bastard's throat, but he had to wait. He couldn't even tell for sure which room they were in. The building's acoustics—designed to keep the screams of the tortured contained—made it impossible.

“We're under orders to keep our hands off her until further notice. Sorry, but you won't be having any fun with this one.”

“Humph. When's the next dose due?”

There was a pause, then, “Three hours.”

“I'll be the one giving it, then. Alone, this time.”

The other one said, “Griz,” in a tone that made the word a warning.

“Hell, it's not like I can hurt her any.”

Damn right he wasn't going to hurt her, Ethan thought, and he eased himself farther, closer to the door.

As the two keepers left the building, Ethan watched. And more than that, he
felt.
He could feel others nearby and could probe their thoughts, could probably even communicate with others of his own kind, just as he could on the outside. He was relieved to learn that the barrier blocking communication between this place and the outside world had no effect within the compound itself. He'd left this place immediately after his transformation, so he'd never had the chance to test it before.

He waited until the two keepers were out of sight, then edged nearer the door. He felt inside for others, guards, keepers, mortals, prisoners—
anyone.

He felt no one. If anyone else was inside, they must be as unconscious as Lilith was, and therefore they were harmless to him.

He looked in every direction, grateful for the mortals'
inability to see as well in the dark as he could, then quickly gripped the doorknob, twisted it until the lock gave and pushed it open. Ducking inside, he closed it behind him and kept moving. The building consisted of two rows of rooms, separated by a narrow hallway. Each steel door was locked, and he had no way of knowing what lay on the other side of any of them. Or which one might hide Lilith.

Glancing behind only once, he realized there were no guards here. The captives kept in this building must not be considered much of a threat. As he moved along the hall, his feet tapping over the institutional-gray tiles of the floor, he stopped at the first door. It was a rectangle of pale slate-blue, breaking up, just barely, the otherwise unbroken gray of the walls and floor. Even the ceiling was gray, though it looked like it had been white once. But now it was coated in layers of grime in between the lighted panels.

He stopped outside the first door, licked his lips nervously, dreading what he would find beyond it. Lifting his palm, he pressed it to the steel. With his mind, he called out to her.
Lilith?

But he heard no reply.

There was no time for finesse, he decided. He had to find her. He was
desperate
to find her. He drew his hand back, then drove it forward again, palm hitting the door just above the knob.

It smashed open and crashed against the wall behind it, making more noise than was probably wise. Ethan ducked inside, his gaze sweeping the room in search of Lilith.

But there was only one person in the room, and it
wasn't her. A young man, maybe in his late teens, lay bound to a set of bedsprings, with no mattress between his flesh and the metal. His jeans were torn, his feet bare, no shirt in sight. He was one of the Chosen, of course—everyone here was either one of the Chosen and a captive, or an employee of the damned DPI. This kid's essence was weak, too weak to be felt beyond that steel door, even by a vampire. But Ethan felt it now, compelling him closer.

The electrical wires attached to the bedsprings told Ethan of the way in which the boy had been tortured. His stomach convulsed at the thought of it, and he had to close his eyes briefly. “Good God,” he muttered.

When he dared to look again, the young man's eyes had opened, huge and brown, unfocused and swollen, a plea in their depths. “Please…” he whispered, his voice as dry as a wind over straw.

Vampires, Ethan had been told, were compelled to protect the Chosen. And now he felt it. He couldn't turn away, even though he wanted to. Even his drive to find and save Lilith couldn't prevent him doing what every cell in him was demanding that he do. He had no choice.

Quickly, he moved forward, ripped apart the bonds that held the boy, hauled him off the bed and over his shoulder and quickly turned and strode out of the room.

No time now to mess around. No more time for pondering or wondering or searching with his mind. He set the kid on the floor, leaning him back against the wall, and moved to the next door. One kick and the door banged open.

This room was empty. So he moved to the next, and then the next, kicking open each door in turn. All were empty, except the final one, where he found a young
woman. He couldn't begin to guess her age. She was on the thin side of healthy, and had platinum-blond hair that was as straight and smooth as satin. It hung to her shoulders and was cut in bangs over her forehead. She was strapped to a chair, her eyes were taped wide open and duct tape covered her mouth—screaming captives, Ethan thought furiously, were probably bad for morale. In front of her, a huge television screen flashed images at strobe speed. She wore headphones, and Ethan knew they were blasting DPI propaganda into her ears and her mind, and probably drugs into her bloodstream. This was how they “programmed” their future killers.

He moved into the room, and her huge, blue, drug-veiled eyes darted in his direction, fear in them, though she couldn't turn her head. He felt her stiffen in terror, and he felt awful for it. He tried to send calming thoughts to her mind, but he had no idea if she could hear him, and there wasn't time to spend finding out. Instead, he walked right up to her, blocking the television screen with his body, and gently removed the headphones, then dropped them onto the floor. Carefully, he peeled the tape from her eyelids, and then he removed the straps that held her wrists and her head to the chair.

She let her head fall forward but didn't try to get up. He bent closer, gathering her up in his arms, and whispered close to her ear. “I'm not one of them,” he told her. “I'm going to take you out of this place. You can take that tape off your mouth, but please, be very quiet.”

She was peeling the tape from her face as he carried her into the hallway and bent to reach for the boy.

“Ellie?” the boy muttered, his gaze on the girl in Ethan's arms.

“She's going to be okay,” Ethan said. “Can you walk?”

The kid nodded and got to his feet. “Who are you, anyway?” the boy asked, and then, with eyes narrowed, “
What
are you?”

“There's no time,” he began, but then he heard a siren in the distance and swore. His entire raid on the building had taken no more than three minutes, but already an alarm was sounding. He shifted the girl to one side, slinging her over his shoulder, then scooped up the boy and tossed him over the other one. There was no time to let him walk. He wasn't a vampire and couldn't hope to move like one.

Ethan took off running as fast as he could go while carrying two humans, knowing it was far faster than any mortal would ever be able to match, though slower than he could have gone without the added baggage.

He sensed keepers rushing toward the building he'd just left, but he was already long gone. He reached the fence and then pushed off for all he was worth.

He cleared the fence, barely managing to keep the kids from making contact on the way over, and then he landed hard on the other side. He hit the ground feetfirst, then fell forward. His passengers tumbled every which way, but he pulled them to their feet again.

“Come with me, and hurry,” Ethan said.

“Where are we going?” the young man asked.

“Not far, I'll bet,” the girl said. “I can barely walk. And besides, he hasn't got what he came for yet.”

He glanced at her only briefly, wondering how she knew. Even now, keepers were swarming through the building where the two captives had been held. They would search the compound next and, he hoped, would
have no reason to believe they could have escaped. He scanned the area. “There,” he said, pointing. “Quickly!”

He dragged them toward the shelter of a fallen tree, diving behind it. The tree's root plate was thirteen feet in diameter, at the very least, and it was packed with earth and brush. It leaned at an angle over the depression it had left in the ground, and formed a shield between him and the compound.

“We have to hurry,” Ethan told them. “In minutes they'll be on us. Turn around,” he said to the boy, who, being already shirtless, was the easiest one to approach first.

The boy turned, and Ethan looked at his lower back, saw the barcode tattooed there and touched it with his fingertips. “Dammit,” he said, when he felt the telltale lump just beneath the skin.

“What?”

“You've got a tracking device implanted here. I've got to cut it out. It's going to hurt, but it's your only hope. Bear with me, kid.”