He was right. Even from where we stood near the entrance, the familiar carnival sounds and smells were strong and brought me back to a simpler time. There was no admittance fee to the park, so the entrance was wide and we could see almost everything at a glance.
To our right, I watched a mother lift her little boy up so he could throw a baseball toward a carnival game. The boy missed, but the mom celebrated the throw anyway. The carny gave the kid a small plush toy for his efforts.
A flash of red hair caught my eye as a woman moved past them. She turned a little so I could see her face.
I gasped.
“Ouch. What are you doing?” Noah asked. I realized my fingernails were digging into his arm. I loosened my hold a little.
“Noah, that’s her.”
“Her who?”
“Jade. The woman with the red hair. I—I’m sure it’s her.”
He frowned. “I thought she’s being kept prisoner underground.”
Jade held the hand of a little blond girl eating an ice-cream cone. I watched as they waited briefly in a short line up to get on the Ferris wheel. I moved toward them as the ride began to move and Jade and the girl rose high into the air.
“I’ll call Declan and tell him we found her.” Noah fished into his pocket for his cell phone and pecked in the numbers, then held it to his ear. After a few moments. “Voice mail. He’s not picking up. I’ll text him.”
I didn’t want her to get away from me so I followed after the ride let off a few minutes later and they entered the crowd again.
“Jade,” I called out.
She stopped walking and turned slowly to look at me with a quizzical expression on her face.
It was her. I was sure of it. That hair was unusual and vibrant. Her face was older, but still beautiful. Her gray eyes scanned me. I felt a mix of apprehension and elation churning in my gut. Matthias and Declan were looking in the wrong place. She wasn’t hidden somewhere underground. She was right here, right in front of me. And if I hadn’t been asked to wait by the cars, I never would have seen her.
She looked normal, totally normal and completely in control. Hope swelled inside me as I walked right up to her.
“I’m sorry.” She frowned at me. “Do I know you?”
This wasn’t remotely how I’d pictured our meeting, but I could work with it. In fact, this was way better than a smash and grab rescue mission.
“I’m Jill. Uh, this is Noah.” I wasn’t prepared, so I felt a bit uncertain about exactly what to say to her. I still held tightly onto Noah’s arm, but he wasn’t complaining anymore. “We really need to talk to you.”
“I’m sorry, Jill, but my daughter and I were just leaving.” She turned away.
“Wait! I know what you are.”
She froze and glanced over her shoulder at me. “Who are you?”
My heart pounded hard and fast. “I’m a friend.”
She hesitated, then crouched down next to the little girl and put her hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to talk to this nice lady for a minute, okay? Go find your father.”
“Yes, mommy.” The girl licked her ice-cream cone, glanced up at me curiously, and then walked off into the crowd.
I watched her wander away. “Is that a good idea? She’s so young.”
“It’s fine. This is our home. We live here with some people who take care of us.”
I glanced at Noah. He was staying quiet, but his presence next to me was reassuring.
“Listen, Jade—”
“What is it you know about me?”
I held my breath a moment, before letting it out. “You’re a dhampyr.”
I braced myself for her reaction, but after a moment of silence a slight smile flickered at her lips. “Yes, I am. But I still don’t know who you are or why you’re here.”
The confirmation made me light-headed. “I’m someone who really wants to help you.”
“I don’t need help.” There was a barely noticeable tightness to her cheeks and her gaze moved away from me to scan the crowd.
I wasn’t crazy. She
was
a prisoner. She seemed so gathered and in control wandering around the park with her daughter, but this woman was being held here against her will. I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. Maybe the vampires were threatening her daughter if she tried to escape. It made sense and would be a big enough threat to get her to behave.
“There’s someone I need you to meet,” I said. “He’s a dhampyr, too.”
Her eyes widened. “Another like me?”
I nodded.
“I’ve never met another one. Is he here?”
I nodded. “He’s close. Will you come with me? Will you talk to him?”
Her gaze darted around. “It’s not safe out here. Come with me. Right now. They could be listening to us and they wouldn’t like that.”
At the far left of the park was a large building with an iron door. When we reached it, Jade pulled a key she wore on a long gold chain from beneath her blouse and unlocked it.
If she had a key, if she had the means to escape, then this situation had to be because of her daughter. Those bastards were threatening to hurt her daughter if she tried to escape. The thought made cold anger rise inside of me and I swore I’d do anything I could to get her and her little girl out of here tonight.
She pushed open the heavy door. “Come with me quickly.”
We followed her into the large room and the heavy door closed behind us.
I looked at Noah. “Have you reached Declan yet?”
He looked down at the screen of his phone. “He hasn’t replied yet. And there doesn’t seem to be any service in here for me to try again.”
The moment Noah was able to contact Declan, we were out of here. I just wish the little girl hadn’t wandered away. Declan said we could leave without him. Noah had the keys to the car he’d arrived in. That was probably the best bet.
“Where’s your daughter?” I asked, moving farther into the large room, which was a storage area for old and broken amusement-park rides. There were a couple of rusty detached cars from a Tilt-A-Whirl over to my left. “Did you say that she went to her father? Is he in here or out there?”
Jade ran a hand through her red hair. “Oh, no. Her father died a long time ago.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry? Did you say he’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“Then how can she—”
“Her name is Patricia.”
“How can Patricia see her father if he’s not alive?” Seemed like a reasonable question to me.
Jade had a serene look on her face as she pressed her hand against her chest. “Because he’s in her heart. And our hearts are always with us, aren’t they?”
“Oookay,” Noah said, glancing at me.
That didn’t sound all that rational to me. The burst of adrenaline and hope I’d had minutes ago faded a little bit. Dread was already waiting in the wings to take its place.
“Will Patricia be okay wherever she went? Shouldn’t we try to find her?”
Jade smiled. “Patricia can take care of herself very nicely, don’t you worry about that. It was so sweet of you to want to meet me. I can’t wait to meet your dhampyr friend. I’m sure he’s lovely.”
“
Lovely
’s one word I probably wouldn’t use to describe Dec,” Noah mumbled.
I pushed away my frustration. “We’re not just here to meet you, Jade. We’re here because we want to help you.”
“Help me.” She cocked her head to the side. “How do you plan on doing that?”
I finally let go of Noah and we exchanged a glance. “I know they’re keeping you here, whether it’s by force or by threat. We came here because we want to rescue you.”
Jade sniffed the musty air. “You smell very strangely to me. There’s something unusual about you, isn’t there?”
I hadn’t seen it outside, but I did now. Jade wasn’t quite all there. Then again, being held against your will by a group of vampires had to be taxing on one’s mental health.
At the other end of the dim storage room there was a flight of stairs leading downward. She stood at the top and gazed at me as I approached her cautiously.
“I didn’t want to go to the fair for too long, just long enough for Patricia to have an ice cream.” She closed her eyes and inhaled. “Yes, that’s what you smell like. Ice cream. Sweet, thick, delicious. It’s your blood, isn’t it? They’ll like you, I think.”
A cold line of sweat trailed down my back. “Who’ll like me?”
“My family.” She glanced at the stairs. “They’re waiting for me in the parlor. I’m a bit tardy, but it can’t be helped. Patricia had to have her ice cream. She’s very insistent, you see. Sweet child, but with a mind of her own.”
She was crazy. The sudden realization made tears burn in my eyes. Matthias said dhampyrs became violent or insane as they aged. She wasn’t the exception like I thought she might be and she couldn’t help us. She was just more proof that everything Declan had learned and everything Carson had preached was the truth.
I’d wanted her to be different.
I felt sorry for Jade. This wasn’t her fault. She needed to be in a hospital with people who could help her, not the prisoner of a clan of bottom-feeding vampires.
However, despite my sympathy toward her, my back was now up. Way up.
“I don’t want to meet your family,” I said slowly and firmly. “We need to leave right now. I promise that you’ll be okay, but we need to find Patricia and take her with us, too.”
Jade turned her face toward the door. “We don’t have to find her. She’s already back. She likes to stay close to me.”
The iron door behind me creaked open, and the little girl entered the empty room. She also wore a key on a chain around her neck. “Mommy, there you are.”
“Yes, darling. I’m here. Come, let’s introduce our guests to the family.”
Noah cleared his throat nervously. “Uh, Jill? I’m thinking maybe we should go now. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” Damn it. I didn’t want it to end this way, but it would have to. We had to find Declan and Matthias and tell them about this. The last thing I wanted was for Jade to ignorantly announce our presence to the vampires downstairs.
“He looks like a nice man, Mommy.”
I watched warily as the little girl approached Noah and looked up at him.
“Who me?” Noah pointed at himself. “I don’t know. I try to be a good guy. Don’t always succeed. Kids like me, though. It’s a gift.”
Jade nodded. “He does seem like a nice man, Patricia.”
Patricia held a hand out to him. “Will you be my new daddy?”
“Uh . . .” He glanced at me as if looking for guidance. “Not so sure that’s a good idea, kid. I’m really more of a dog person.”
When the little girl giggled I finally saw her fangs.
“Oh shit,” I said under my breath as my heart slammed against my rib cage. I instinctively moved backward toward the stairs so she wouldn’t be able to smell me from where she stood. I didn’t have the smells of the amusement park to help mask me in here. “Jade, what is this? I said that we’re here to help you.”
She nodded. “You’re too kind. Really, you must stay for dinner. Meet the others.”
“Noah, get away from her! She’s a vam—”
Jade shoved me hard, showing her dhampyr strength for the very first time.
I fell backward down the stairs and just before my head hit the railing, I heard Noah scream.
8
WHEN I WOKE, MY BODY WAS SORE FROM HEAD TO foot. I stayed still for a moment and concentrated, trying to determine if anything was broken. I didn’t think so. I was lying on my back in a cold, dark room. The air felt thick and smelled stale.
“Noah?” My voice creaked out. “Are you there?”
I shrieked as someone grabbed me by my hair, dragging me up to my feet. I stumbled along on weak legs as whoever it was didn’t slow their pace to let me catch up. Finally, I was thrown forward and I landed hard on my knees on a stone floor.
The first thing I saw when I pulled my hair back out of my eyes was Noah. He sat ten feet away from me, his back against the wall in the corner of the room. His throat was torn open and bloody and he stared at me through glossy, half-shut eyes. His chest moved with rapid, shallow breath, but that was all the movement I could see. He looked like an animal had attacked him and left him behind to die.
“What have you done to him?” I choked out.
“I just nibbled on him a little,” a small voice said. “I’ll finish him later.”
I struggled to breathe and slowly looked to my left. The blond girl stood there holding hands with a tall, dark-haired man with pale gray eyes. Another man with very short blond hair stood alongside them. They watched me carefully as I got to my feet.
They were vampires. The same vampires Matthias said we should avoid coming face-to-face with.
There was no time to let myself fall apart, but fear ate at my insides. Noah was dying, and we were trapped in the basement of an amusement park with a clan of bloodthirsty monsters.