I’m alive.
Suddenly, I’ve never felt better.
CHAPTER 29
T
HE WOMAN WHO DRAGGED ME OUT IS KNEELING beside me, her face level with mine. She has long hair, drawn back from her face, light brown dusted with gray. Her eyes are deep blue and sparkle with an inner radiance. She projects great kindness.
She’s a vampire.
I’ve never met a vampire before who wasn’t young—or at least young-looking.
Before I can block that thought, she laughs.
Not all of us are made at a young age. I was, as you see, in my fifties. In reality, not a bad age to become vampire. There’s a certain wisdom that comes with middle age.
Wisdom is not something Anna knows much about.
Williams’ voice interjects itself in our conversation. He walks up from behind and when I turn, I see several men helping the injured vampires. They’re covering them with blankets and leading them to vans parked in a semicircle in the back of the parking lot. They’re all human.
You were quick,
I say.
How did you arrange it?
There is a safe house nearby. I called, they mobilized.
Will the women be all right?
Williams nods.
The humans will see to their needs. We can’t remove the collars until they’re stronger.
I shake my head, shuddering.
What are those things? I’ve never seen anything like it.
Just the thought of how I found them makes me tremble.
She was
bleeding
them.
I’ve seen it before,
Williams replies.
In pictures. The collars were used by us, by ancient vampires, to bleed humans. Someone has a long memory and a great hate to use them now against us.
Not someone
.
Belinda Burke. The witch.
Williams is looking around.
You said Ortiz was here. Where is he?
His question unleashes a rush of alarm. He doesn’t know. I don’t know how to tell him.
I force myself to my feet, heart hammering, head swimming in anxiety.
Williams feels it. He takes a step closer. “Where is Ortiz?”
The woman with us senses my agitation. She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe you should go with the others. You need to rest.”
I push her gently away. “No. You go see to them. I have to speak with Williams.”
She looks reluctant to leave us.
“It’s all right,” I say. “We’ll be all right.”
She moves off, looking back once, then takes the elbow of a young female who is stumbling toward the van. I watch as they walk away.
“Ortiz is gone.”
I don’t know how else to say it.
Williams expression stills, freezes into blankness.
“Gone? You mean he’s left already?”
I shake my head. “He was inside.”
Awareness blooms in Williams’ eyes. A muscle quivers at the corner of his jaw. His thoughts draw inward, shutting me out.
Then I feel it. Feel the rage.
It hits with the intensity of a blast furnace.
I accept it. I understand it.
He and Ortiz were close. I expect Williams to lash out and since I’m the likely target, I brace myself.
Williams doesn’t look at me. He turns away, head bowed. I feel his conflicted emotions as powerfully as if they were my own. Misery, like physical pain—a knife twisting and turning inside. The first swell of anger giving way to raw grief, a sense of deep loss, a terrible bitterness.
I was prepared for him to strike out but he’s turned it inward. Somehow, that makes it worse. If he screamed or attacked me or slammed his fist into a wall, I’d know how to react. This way he’s unreachable. There’s nothing I can do or say. His desolation and despair wrap him in a cocoon of anguish.
I reach out a hand but stop short of touching him. “I’m sorry.”
He barks a short, desperate laugh. “Sorry? You could have saved him.”
“I couldn’t. The flames were everywhere. I didn’t know he was inside until it was too late.”
His expression shifts, turns his eyes cold, his mouth into a thin, hard line. “You are such an ignorant bitch. You don’t know your power. You could have saved him. If you had taken one minute from your precious, insignificant human life to
learn
, Ortiz would be alive.”
His anger hits me like a punch to the stomach. I take a step away from him. “What are you talking about?”
He flings his hand in the direction of the warehouse. “Flames can’t hurt you. Nothing can hurt you. You are immortal. Truly immortal. You are the one.”
The words lash at me. His face is contorted, twisted in anger. He comes closer. “You are a terrible disappointment to me, Anna Strong.” A whisper, deadly, intense. “It’s the last time you will fail me. I swear by Ortiz, I will make you pay.”
His eyes burn with hatred. I can’t move, can’t look away, don’t know how to respond. I don’t understand. Questions flood my mind, but Williams has shut me out. His last words hang in the air between us. He blames me for Ortiz’ death. I have no idea why.
“We have to leave.”
A female voice. I turn to see who is speaking, but even the effort of this simple physical movement engulfs me in tides of weariness and despair. I feel drained. Hollow. Lifeless.
When I look up, I see Williams watching. Smiling.
I realize he is doing it—somehow he is not only in my head, but controlling my physical responses. I feel weighted down, sluggish, incapable of forming a coherent thought or breaking the bond that holds me.
Why is he doing this?
Because I can.
Simple. Without pretense. Because he can.
The other voice comes again. “The fire trucks. We have to leave before they get here.”
I focus on that voice, center my thoughts on it, muster all my strength. I could not break Burke’s hold on me, I’ll be damned if I let Williams have that same kind of power.
Williams feels my resolve. He tries to fight it, but I won’t let him. I turn his anger back on him. The channel between us breaks with an almost physical release of energy. When it does, my head clears, my body is free.
Williams jerks back. He tries to reestablish his hold.
This time, I’m in control. I grab hold of
his
mind in a grip as tight as the one he used on me. I twist the psychic connection until I feel him surrender to my will.
I understand your grief. You were close to Ortiz.
Close? You have no idea.
His fury blazes forth.
But you will understand. I will make you understand.
My arm is throbbing, the wounds on my hands burn from being clutched into fists. Too much has happened today and in the past. I don’t want to be a part of this anymore. I lean toward Williams.
You have manipulated me for the last time. We will see this through. I need your resources to help Culebra. But then, you will answer my questions and it will be done between us.
He looks at me with dispassionate indifference.
You’ve said the same thing a dozen times. It will be done when I say it is done.
I don’t fight. I release him. I have said it before. This time is different. I’m sick of the game. Culebra comes first. When he’s safe, when Burke is dead, when I get from Williams what I need to understand what I am, then it will be done.
In the distance, sirens blare. The vans are pulling out of the parking lot. Only one remains. The woman takes Williams’ arm and pulls him over to it.
I’m left alone. I run up the hill to my car. The sirens are louder, and when I look back, I see the flashing lights approach. The last van pulls away seconds before screaming fire trucks make the turn into the warehouse parking lot. Smoke and flame pour out of ruined windows and doors. The roof collapses with a tremendous roar. Flames leap to the sky like a bird from a cage.
What will the firemen find in the ruined building? Ortiz’ badge? His gun? Will anything survive?
I hope so. He deserves to be remembered as a cop.
More cars appear on the frontage road. Curiosity seekers, I imagine, attracted by the smoke and sirens. For the first time, I give a thought to what I must look like. Wearily, I glance down at torn jeans, bloody hands and smoke-stained skin. I’d better get out of here before someone notices.
CHAPTER 30
I
’M BONE WEARY.
Scalding hot water cascades over me, soap and shampoo wash away the smell and soot of the fire. But the image remains.
Ortiz.
His face before he was consumed. His face as we spoke in my kitchen last night.
Barely twelve hours ago. Now he’s gone.
I get out of the shower and slip into clean clothes. The cuts on my hands have already closed, the pain in my left arm has receded to a dull ache. My body hums with healing energy.
I wish my mind were so easily healed.
Could
I have saved Ortiz?
I refuse to believe it. Williams is playing games with me. If I had the abilities he says I do, I’d know it.
Wouldn’t I?
Everything I had on this morning I bag for the trash. Even if I could get rid of the bloodstains the smell would remain. And the memories.
In the bedroom, my glance falls on the bed. It’s still stripped, I haven’t had a chance to remake it after the cops took the bedclothes. I want nothing more than to lie down on the bare mattress, close my eyes. It’s been two days since I’ve had any sleep.
Another image chases the thought of sleep out of my head.
Culebra—near death.
When I call Frey, he picks up. Nothing has changed. Culebra’s spirit is being kept alive by Frey’s efforts, his body by an intravenous feeding tube. He has not regained consciousness.
What has changed is the sound of Frey’s voice. It betrays the burden of working such potent magic. He sounds like a palsied old man, his voice slow in cadence, tremulous.
He asks only that I find Burke, finish it.
I ring off with a promise. I hope I’ve succeeded at hiding what I’m feeling—a sense of futility.
So far, nothing I’ve done to save Culebra has worked.
Before I do anything else, though, I need to see Brooke—give her Ortiz’ last message. Maybe if I’d told Williams’ that his last thoughts had been with him, it would have eased the situation at the warehouse.
It’s too late now for what-if.
Besides, what happened between Williams and me was a long time coming.
WILLIAMS’ CAR IS PARKED IN FRONT OF ORTIZ’ HOUSE when I pull up.
I should have known he’d be here.
Still, it doesn’t shake my resolve to see Brooke. I have a message for her and it needs to be delivered in person.
When I ring the doorbell, Williams answers it.
I prepare myself for a psychic attack. He does nothing but hold open the door and stand aside, an invitation to come in. No challenge. No threat. When I probe, he is not questioning my presence. His mind reflects only sadness.
Brooke looks up when I enter the dining room. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her cheeks flushed. If Williams told her it was my fault Ortiz was dead, her expression doesn’t suggest it. All I see on her young face is regret.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Her lower lip quivers. “I was mad at him,” she says. “I let him leave without telling him that I loved him. Now, he won’t know.”
“He knew. He gave me a message for you.”
She looks up. Tears well again, but there’s also a spark of anticipation and hope. “A message?”
I touch her arm, wishing I had more to offer. “He said to tell you that he loved you. He wanted you to know. He wanted you to be all right.”
Brooke starts to cry. A woman comes out of the kitchen, a glass of water in her hand. She looks like Brooke, same general build, same brunette coloring, same heart-shaped face.
Williams takes the glass from her hand and takes it to Brooke. “This is Catherine,” he says to me. “Brooke’s sister.”
Catherine acknowledges the introduction with a nod. “Were you a friend of Mario’s?”
“Yes.”
“I heard what you told Brooke. Were you there when—”
For the first time since I came in, I feel antagonism stir in Williams’ thoughts. “Yes,” I reply simply. I look over her head to Williams.
How much do they know?
He answers with an arm around Brooke’s shoulders. He speaks aloud for their benefit. “They know Mario was there at that warehouse because he received a call about a fire. He went in to make sure the building was empty. He died a hero.”