Redemption (The Penton Vampire Legacy) (32 page)

B
y twos and threes, the people of Penton gathered in the small community center auditorium filled with rows of folding chairs. Aidan sat on the edge of the dais while one of the fams adjusted the microphones.

He watched as Will and Mirren and Hannah worked the room, chatting with the other vamps and their friends. Creating community. It’s why he and his scathe were there.

He nodded at Mark and Melissa as they entered the back door, then his eyes fixed on Krys. He hadn’t thought what letting her live among the townspeople would mean, that he could just run into her anywhere.

Their eyes met for a few moments before she smiled and gave a sheepish wave. He had to stop himself from grinning. Damned mating instincts had his normally sluggish heart thumping as if he were human again.
What an idiot.

“Got that mic ready?” He turned to Will, who handed him a live one. He took it and stood in the center of the dais, waiting a few seconds for the chatter to die down.

“Let’s go ahead and get started,” he said. “We have a few things the whole town needs to decide on, and this seemed the easiest way to get everybody together.”

“You shoulda offered us a midnight snack,” shouted a man in the back, and everyone laughed. Aidan squinted against the lights. It was Jerry Caden, the brother-in-law of a scathe member. He wore jeans that tucked under his substantial belly and a plaid flannel shirt that gapped to reveal a white undershirt. Jerry had been injured slightly in the mill village fire, and Aidan had been surprised he was participating. He’d never gotten involved in Penton society before, and Aidan had half expected him to leave town. Maybe he was finally settling in.

“Sorry about the snacks, but I don’t think you’re going to dry up and waste away anytime soon, Jerry,” he said, and a wave of laughter rolled through the crowd.

Jerry tipped his baseball cap at Aidan, who held up his hands for everyone to stop the chatter.

“I don’t have to tell you the situation with my brother’s scathe has escalated.” At his words, the whispers and fidgeting stilled. “Tim and his crew burned the mill village, as many of you know, but we came up empty. We got a few the night of the explosion at Clyde’s. They’re still out there, though, and we honestly don’t know how many there are or where they are.”

A young woman in the second row of chairs waved her arm—one of the scathe members. “Is it true Lucy went to their side, that they’re going to know all our daysleep places?” A rustle went through the crowd like a breeze over a wheat field.

Aidan grimaced. He should have known that the rumor mill would be hard at work.

“I’ll tell you what I know,” he said, and waited for the noise to die down again. “Lucy has been seen with them. But the day
before, she’d helped me fight them. I think she’s trying to help us and won’t give up our secrets, but we’re working on a backup plan in case we’re compromised. I can’t say any more about that plan yet but I will as soon as I have specifics.” If information about Omega got out too early, it would cause a panic, vampire and human alike.

He sat on the edge of the dais and went through the options. No one wanted to leave, and all the humans raised their hands and said they were willing to hunt.

He turned the mic over to Will, who began talking logistics—how many should hunt together, where they should go. Aidan scanned the room, gauging reactions. He saw creased brows, nervous foot-tapping, general restlessness—but no fear. Maybe this would work.

Then again, maybe not. His gaze came to rest on Hannah, who was sitting with her fam parents but staring into space, eyes wide and unseeing. She looked to be in a trance, which was when the visions came. Shit. He needed to get her out of there.

Aidan sent mental alerts to Mirren while Will continued to take questions.
Check out Hannah.

Mirren leaned back in his seat, looking casually around the room until his eyes came to rest on the girl.
Bloody hell. Something’s going down.

Get her out of here and take her to my house. I’ll break things up as soon as I can.

Mirren nodded, and then waited a few seconds before heading toward the back of the auditorium with his hands in his pockets. He skirted the room and reached Hannah, whose eyes were unfocused and wild. She jumped when he touched her on the shoulder. Then she nodded and took his hand. They exited the back door, arousing a few curious stares but nothing Aidan
had to handle. Most Pentonites thought Hannah was just a cute kid who’d had the misfortune to be turned vampire at an early age.

The questions from the crowd were fizzling out, so Will handed the mic back to Aidan. “It sounds pretty clear that most of you favor a few daytime hunts before members of the scathe go in for a fight. Right?”

Scattered applause and shouts of agreement met his question. “You’ll start tomorrow, then. Groups of three or more only. No solos. Stick together. See Tim to sign up on the schedule of places to look.” Aidan paused as Mirren stepped inside the back door and nodded. His face was grim.

“Everybody head home now and stay in for the night,” he said, keeping his expression neutral. “Don’t go anywhere at night if you don’t have to till this is over.”

He was beginning to wonder if it would ever
be
over.

Krys followed Mark and Melissa to their car as everyone filed out of the community center. Signs for quilting classes, art projects, and community gardens covered the cinder-block walls. Typical small-town stuff. Well, except for the vampires. The only differences were a lack of kids and probably a dearth of red blood cells.

Mark had cranked the engine before she and Melissa got their doors closed. “Something’s wrong,” he said, peeling out of the lot and attracting a few curious glances.

“I know, but slow down,” Melissa said, putting a hand on his arm. “Aidan won’t want anybody following us.”

Aidan’s expression had changed during the meeting, and Krys knew it had something to do with Hannah. She’d been
watching the girl during the meeting and she had looked one step short of a seizure.

“What do you think happened? Hannah got a vision or something?” she asked.

Melissa glanced back at her and nodded. “Aidan had Mirren take her out of there. They probably went to his house.”

Krys saw Aidan as soon as Mark stopped the car in their driveway at Mill Trace. He was on his porch talking to Mirren, while Hannah sat on the front steps with her head on her knees. She and the Calverts walked over, with Mark charging ahead.

“You guys might not want to see this,” Aidan said, not looking up.

They approached the porch anyway, until Melissa saw something that made her cry out and turn back to Mark. He took one step closer, and then he turned away, too, cursing.

Her doctor’s instincts kicking in, Krys pushed past them, touching Hannah’s bent head gently as she climbed the steps. A woman lay on the porch, and Krys fought an urge to avert her own gaze. Instead, she tried to absorb it from a clinical point of view.

The woman had been bound in a silver chain. A crazy road map of bloody cuts stretched across her face and chest, and a splintered femur burst through the black fabric of one pant leg. Definitely vampire—delicate fangs showed below her lips, which had been peeled back in obvious pain.

“Is she still alive?” Krys knelt next to the woman.

Aidan’s face was grim. “Depends on what you consider alive. Technically. She’d eventually heal from all the physical damage but the mental...” He shook his head, jaw clenched.

The cuts looked odd, and Krys leaned over for a better look. Something granular glistened on the ribbons of red crisscrossing
the woman’s face. Krys stuck out a finger to pinch a bit in her fingers, but Mirren grabbed her arm.

“Some kind of acid,” he said. “To make sure her face is scarred. We can’t heal that.”

Krys felt a chill run through her. What kind of monster would do this? In her head she heard the soft voice and Irish brogue of Owen Murphy. That’s who’d do this.

“Her name is Lucy, isn’t it?” She looked up at Aidan, and he nodded. The woman had been beautiful. Krys reached out and touched her face, avoiding the acid-laced cuts. “How do you know she’s mentally damaged?”

“She was talking crazy when I got here,” Mirren said. “Wild. Aidan did his trance number on her when he got here, till we decide what to do.”

“There’s no deciding. We know what we have to do.” Aidan planted his back against the door facing and stared into the night. Krys wished she could comfort him.

“Well, shit.” Boots thumped up the stairs and everyone moved back a step to make way for Will. “That’s what Hannah saw tonight? I knew something was up.” He knelt next to Lucy, looking at her with a detachment that the rest of them couldn’t manage. Krys wondered at his background.

Aidan walked to the edge of the porch, looking out at the night, seemingly unaffected by the cold that had Krys shivering and Mark and Melissa huddled together. Krys moved to sit on the steps next to Hannah, instinctively putting an arm around the girl’s thin shoulders. Hannah leaned into her, and Krys rested her chin on the girl’s head, stroking her hair.

“Hannah, did you touch her to see if you could tell anything?” Aidan asked. “Is there any way you can find out if she told Owen about our safe spaces? Do you know if her mind will heal?”

The girl shook her head. “I’ll try it now.”

Krys frowned and tightened her arm around Hannah. Every instinct left over from her childhood screamed at her to protect the girl. “She’s been through enough. Don’t make her do this.”

“She’s a vampire, Krys, not a child,” Aidan said, his voice soft. “Don’t ever forget that. In some ways she’s the most powerful of all of us.”

Hannah pulled herself away from Krys and turned to look up the steps. Moving slowly, she climbed onto the porch and knelt next to Lucy, then took the woman’s hand in hers and closed her eyes. She whimpered once and went still. Krys could see her eyes moving behind her closed lids.

They waited in silence. After a while Hannah removed her hand. “There’s guilt inside her, but I can’t tell why. Her mind is hard for me to read.”

“Has her mind been broken?” Aidan looked at Hannah.

“I don’t know.”

Aidan closed his eyes and leaned against one of the porch columns. “If she’s been mentally broken, she’ll never come out of it. It’ll never be safe for her to live here again. Plus, she’s already been cut from the scathe. If we let her loose in another city, she could kill aimlessly or even lead problems back to Penton.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Mirren said. He lifted Lucy, chains and all, and left the porch.

“Wait.” Krys jumped up. “What do you mean you’ll take care of it? You’re not going to kill her before we know for sure she’s not going to recover.”

Mirren paused and looked at Aidan.

Krys appealed to him. “Please. Let me try to treat her. You can keep her in the chains until you know for sure.” Krys saw his resolve waiver, and pressed. “Please.”

She couldn’t stand to see them put Lucy down like a rabid dog. Not without trying everything.

Hannah slipped one of her slender hands into Aidan’s and leaned against him. He looked down at her and she nodded. “Fine. We’ll try it for a couple of days. But not in one of our regular rooms and not at her house—she’s too dangerous. Put her in one of the secure rooms beneath city hall. A scathe member needs to be with her all the time at night, and a human during daylight hours.”

Will followed Mirren toward the cars, and then turned back to Aidan. “You realize they knew where to leave the body. Be careful.”

Aidan nodded, and then looked at Krys. “Where are you living? Did Mark find you a place?”

She pointed to the house across the street. He blinked, gave Mark and Melissa a pointed look, and broke into a weary smile.

“Welcome to the neighborhood.”

H
ome
. Well, house, anyway. Krys sat in the middle of the living room floor of the house on Mill Trace and stared at the sunlight streaming through the plantation shutters. When she’d come in three hours ago, all her stuff from the room beneath the clinic had been packed in cardboard boxes and delivered, along with boxes of books and personal items from her apartment in Americus. Her two lives had merged, at least physically.