Damned if I Do (22 page)

"That answer isn't good enough, Harker," Zhi grates. He holds up a piece of prayer paper, muttering an incantation in Mandarin before throwing it, and the paper turns red, catching a vampire unaware. It screams as it goes up in flame. "We need to know."

Maria shrieks, becoming a blur as she battles the enemies around us. Any doubts I had about her allegiance are gone now.

"Right now, what we need is to get out of here," Carl announces.

"Not without Jude," I say.

Zhi kicks another vampire to the floor. "You better hurry then."

I look to the Progenitor, who is still despondent. His mouth hangs slightly agape as he stares into nothingness. We have to protect him at all costs.

I grab Carl's hand and put it on the elderly vampire's arm. "Get him out of here."

"Edie—" Carl starts, but I don't hear the end of the sentence because I run back into the fray. For now, there's only one thought that permeates my mind.

I need to save Jude.

I suck in a deep breath, coordinating my movements so I'm not wasting any effort or any time. I spin, the dance that I'd been doing now turning into a full-on tarantella. I have no partner, only Death at my side. I stop even considering every movement, every parry and attack. I'm killing everything around me, blasting energy here, jabbing with Glimmer there. It isn't until I come up to the circle that I finally find Jude, who is in a full on battle with Anthony. To his credit, he's holding up fairly well, despite the fact that the older, more powerful vampire is getting an edge, though he’s clearly bewildered about his assailant.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Anthony yells. "You're on my side!"

Jude roars beyond answering in any intelligible language. His response is all I need to know. Maybe they were once on the same team, but now they’re not.

He attacks Anthony with a voracity that I haven’t seen before from him.

I close my eyes, and mutter the incantation to pull my power forth to help him out. I find my center and call it, putting it into the palms of my right hand.

I can feel the raw power surging through me like electricity. I am strong. I can do this. For me, pain and power are two sides of the same coin. It’s true for my sword, and it’s true for the stunning transformation I’ve had as the Harker. It’s true for most things in my life.

“Edie…”

Meghan!

In an instant, my body seizes, and I scream as an attack hits me.
Not now!
Glimmer retracts back into my left hand, my fingers twitching of their own accord. I collapse to my knees, clutching my arm to my chest. It hurts so damn bad. Someone’s screaming and I realize that it’s me. My throat is torn raw.

My damn scar. My damn curse. If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t be able to fight like this. Yet I’m dying because of it. There is no way out.

Damned if I do…

Through my dim haze, I feel the feathery touch of hands on my shoulders.
Jude.
I look up at him, the words stuck in my throat.

“Edie! Edie, hang on!”

He’s pulled away from me then Anthony towers over me. Another foot steps into my line of sight and I weakly hold up my hand, meaning to blast him away with a burst of fire. He grabs my arm and twists it painfully. I scream, buckling under the pressure.

The melted vampire’s face is amused as he peers at me.

“Interesting,” he says. “Little Harker, not only were you able to evade me last night, you were able to turn my progeny against me. And not just that—he’s in
love
with you.”

Pieces of the puzzle clicked into place for me. So that was how Victoria recognized him, and that’s why Anthony knows who Jude is. Anthony
sired
him.

The pain is so intense, I can’t speak. I can only grit my teeth through my pain and raise my hand to summon my sword again. The seizure still has me in its grasp, but I’m fighting it. I
have
to
fight it.

“
Edie. Don’t…
”

I ignore Meghan’s warning and hold my hand up, pushing past the remains of the seizure to summon up the sword again, this time along with a burst of fire so I can skewer his ass. I’m going to kill this bastard if it’s the last thing I do.

I feel the power surge, then there’s a horrible sound, a cross between someone tearing flesh apart and the sound of a blade on bone. Blood sprays me like a sprinkler. It coats me, Jude, and Anthony in its red splashes.

My blood.

Anthony is grinning. He’s holding my left hand in his grasp. Impossibly far from me, since I’m still on the floor, holding up my arm to blast him to eternity.

No
.

“We can’t have you doing that, Little Harker.”

Dizziness hits me and I look to where my hand is. Where my hand
used
to be. My left hand, the hand that holds the sword, the hand that was where Anthony bit me and infected me, my hand that has been my curse for five months is no longer attached to me. It’s in Anthony’s grasp, the fingers twitching one last death knell.

My left hand is gone, severed from my body at the elbow. Glimmer disappears into the palm, maybe for the last time.

A different kind of pain spreads through me and I scream. Whereas before, my seizure set my senses on fire, this is an all-consuming kind of pain. It still feels like my hand is there, only it’s not.

The world around me spins and I crumple to my right side. As the world dims, I see a fist slam into Anthony’s face.

“Jude…” I whisper.

“Edie!” He hefts me up and shakes me awake, his handsome, pierced face frantic as he tries to resuscitate me. “Edie!”

“Fucking asshole…took my hand…”

Then I pass out to a nightmare-infested oblivion.

Jude

Someone is yelling as Edie—my whole world—crumples.

It’s me. Action spurs me to act, and faster than I’ve ever moved in my memory, I pummel Anthony’s face, the power behind my punch propelling him backwards. He flies backwards, crashing through the brick basement walls.

I could go after him, but there’s one person I’m concerned for at the moment. If she’s dead—fuck, if she’s dead…

I grab for Edie hoping to catch her before she hits the floor. I’ve moved so fast, she hasn’t even had time to fall, thank God.

The stench of her infected blood is all over me, all over her, the floor, and who the fuck knows what else. She is bleeding out with her precious, unique blood that could give any of my kind a special boost.

My Edie.

She’s hurt, badly, on the verge of unconsciousness, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Somehow, she’s in two places. She’s in my arms, while her
arm
is somewhere else. Where, I have no idea. I’m only concerned with keeping her alive.

“Jude…” Her eyes are fluttering, shock from pain and massive blood loss ravaging her body.

She’s fading. Fast.

“Edie!” I roar, my voice raw. I rub her face, shake her. Anything to keep her awake. “EDIE!”

Her eyes focus on me for just a moment before they go soft and her eyes flutter closed. “Fucking asshole…took my hand…”

Then she goes limp in my arms. I shake her, call out her name, but nothing brings her back from unconsciousness. If I don’t hurry, nothing will bring her back from death.

“NO!”

Something barbaric and animalistic eclipses my mind, and I lose myself to it. Blind rage. There’s only one purpose for me now, and that’s to protect Edie. I pick her up and cradle her to my chest, trying not to notice that she does indeed feel lighter now that she’s missing her arm.

All around me, vampires are injured and dying. Some of them are from Anthony’s group, though most are the Progenitor’s entourage. I see William lying on the floor, his sightless gaze peering upward. Someone has ripped out his spinal column and he must have died moments ago. I see the bellhop, some bodyguards. All are dead.

Edie will end up that way if I don’t do something.

A few of the still-living vampires, those that are with Anthony, watch me with glittering eyes. Candles have been toppled over, catching bodies on fire. More horrors are around me, yet luckily my vision has tunneled with one goal in mind.

Move
.

I move. I don’t know what I do or who I cut through to make my way to the stairs, but I strike down anything that gets in my way.

“ZHI!” I shout. “MARIA!” My voice echoes off the walls and ceiling, somehow above the screams of the dying.

I reach the stairs, bounding up them four at a time. When I reach the ground floor, I see that the entire building is in flames, like an eerie reflection of last night.

“CARL!”

Edie’s cousin skids to a halt in front of me. At first, he flinches at my blood-covered appearance, then his eyes fall on Edie.

“Holy shit, Edie!” he breathes, running to her.

I snarl at him, not wanting anyone to touch her. My reaction frightens him and he backpedals. “Easy, Jude,” he says nervously. He turns his head and yells, “ZHI! Bring the car around.”

The white Honda Accord pulls up, Zhi in the driver’s seat, Maria next to him, and the Progenitor in the back seat. The old vampire’s face is impassive, unresponsive to the horrors we have just witnessed. I want to yell at him, scream at him for being a useless fuckwit when his people are dying, but now that I see salvation in my grasp, the anger leaves me. I want Edie to be safe, she’s all the matters now.

“Shit!” Zhi yells when he sees us.

“Carl!” Maria yells, flinging open the door. “Get in the front!”

The boy obeys, while Maria presses a hand to Edie’s forehead. I see the grim resignation in her face as her eyes flick up to meet mine.

“You don’t know where her arm is?” she hisses.

“No! I just—”

She spits out a string of curses in Spanish. “Get in the back!” she yells. “GET IN THE FUCKING BACK!”

She doesn’t need to tell me twice. I slide into the middle, holding Edie in my lap.

Maria gets in and slams the door. “Go, Zhi!”

The hunter peels out of the parking lot. Where are the fucking cops? Why hasn’t the alarm alerted the fire department? The army?

“Edie!” Carl cries from the front seat, looking back on his cousin. He’s terrified. I can see it in his eyes.

Maria, meanwhile, is pissed. She’s taking off what remains of Edie’s hoodie to create a tourniquet and stem the blood loss.

Oh my god, the infection has spread so far over her body.

“I know you think that you have the most precious cargo here,” Maria lectures me, roughly tying a strip of cloth around the stump, “but don’t you fucking get it?
All
of the Harker is precious now. You’re covered in her blood, yes. But
he
has a supply of her that he can use at any time.”

“I just want to keep Edie safe.”

“Safe,” Maria snorts. “Nowhere’s safe now, not with Anthony possessing a piece of her body.”

“Why’s that?” Carl asks.

“Because he has Edie’s blood now,” Zhi says. “At any point, he can come after the Progenitor.”

I see his eyes flash in the rearview mirror, trying to look at the old man, although I know it’s merely habit that makes him look—there’s no way that he’d see a vampire in the mirror.

“So we need to keep him safe then,” Carl says. “We need t—”

“I know,” Zhi says. He has one hand on the steering wheel while he navigates traffic and one hand on a cell phone in his lap. “We’re going to keep him at a safe place.”

He presses the phone to his ear, and with my better hearing, I hear Li, the old woman from last night. I don’t know the language they’re speaking, but they’re practically shouting at each other, trying to decide what to do with the Progenitor.

The old man in question hasn’t responded or had any reaction since I got into the car. He stares forward with a thousand-yard stare. Has the shock from the events shaken him that badly? Is he that weak that he’s despondent?

Anger threatens to boil to the surface. He’s a broken man while my Edie is lying broken in my arms. She’d been trying to protect him, and this is the thanks she gets?

“You need to lick her wounds so they’ll close,” Maria commands, her voice breaking through my thoughts.

“What?”

“Your saliva will close her wound.” Maria lifts the stump with a shudder. “I don’t think I can handle her blood at the moment, even if it’s an energy drink. I don’t want it.”

I bring up what remains of Edie’s arm. The flesh is shredded, blood oozing out, and I can see white bone underneath. I lick the raw, open wound, fighting against every urge I have to continue drinking. Her blood may smell infected, different from any other human’s, but it tastes divine. When I’ve covered her entire arm, I force myself to stop. With how much blood she’s lost, I don’t want to take any more than I have to.

Maria’s eyes flicked curiously to mine, then she takes the rest of the hoodie and wraps the end of Edie’s arm into something resembling a dressing.

“Is she—”

“I don’t know,” Maria says grimly. “I don’t know how she’s going to be after this.”

Zhi and Li are still yelling at each other on the phone, Carl is still white-faced, and the Progenitor is still useless.

“We could take her to my mother,” Carl offers. “She knows how to heal stuff like this.”

“Can she grow back an arm?” Maria asks.

His face falls. “I don’t know.”

The comment hangs in the air between us. I can’t imagine Edie without her arm, though maybe,
maybe
, since it’s the arm that has the infection, she’ll be free of her sickness. I doubt it though. It couldn’t be that easy. After all, nothing else is going right.

“I’m going to fucking kill Anthony,” I vow. “I’m going to kill that bastard.”

“He recognized you,” Carl says.

“I know.”

“Do you know him?”

“No.”

I hug Edie to me. I truly didn’t recognize Anthony, and I don’t want to. Because if he is a part of who I was, I desperately want to remain unaware of my past.