The Vampire's Revenge (20 page)

I patted his shoulder and nearly missed. The alcohol and the fight had taken their toll. “No. You’ve made up for your . . . physical limitations with your smarts.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. We can use more smart vampires. We can’t ever match the evil vampires in numbers. If we’re going to beat them, we’ve got to outsmart them to outfight them.”

I had to admit he had a point. For decades William had drummed into my head the importance of not creating more creatures of the night, but he hadn’t had to face a direct attack by the Council until recently. And the last attack had killed him. His philosophy was noble, but in the final analysis it hadn’t served him very well. The bottom line was this:
not
making vampires had been William’s value system, but as I again painfully reminded myself, he was gone. It might just be time for a change. And we might not have any choice in the matter.

“I’ll think about it,” I told Werm.

He smiled. “Thanks, Jack.”

The phone behind the bar rang and Werm answered. “He lost his cell. Put her through, Deylaud.” He handed the phone to me. “It’s Olivia.”

Even before I could get the phone to my ear I could sense that something was badly wrong. “What’s happening?” I demanded when Olivia came on the line.

“Jack, we’ve been attacked!”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, physically. But several of my family members were slaughtered.”

I considered what William had told me about the vampires in Olivia’s coven. He said they were smart, quick, good fighters. They were a tight group who had been together for a long time. “How many have you lost?”

“Five.” Olivia choked on the word. “Almost half of our group.”

“William said you moved to a safe location after the fire. How did they find you?”

“We don’t know.”

Olivia’s voice was shaking. I could tell it was all she could do to hold it together. “Liv, tell me what happened from the beginning.”

“An attack force of the Council’s operatives stormed in at sunset. They swarmed up from the sewers where they’d been waiting for darkness. There were about twenty of them. Some went after my blood drinkers. Others went straight for our archives—the ancient writings that Alger had gathered over his lifetime.”

“Did they carry away the scrolls and tablets you were hiding?”

“Some of them. Luckily they were the ones that had already been transcribed, translated, and archived onto our computers, so we didn’t totally lose that information, only the originals.”

“Did they take anything else?”

“No. I think they were just after the scrolls. The ones they took were only under light security since they’d already been captured on disc. I’m hoping they think they’ve got them all. Maybe they won’t come back for the rest.”

“How did they know you had that stuff?” I asked. “And how did they know where to find you in the first place?”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Olivia said. “But I simply can’t believe there’s a traitor in our midst.”

“Do you have any new coven members?”

“No. They’re all my trusted . . .” Here Olivia broke down. Her group really was like a family. William told me once that some of her vampires had been with her since she was turned.

“What about that Donovan guy? Isn’t he a newbie?”

“Yes, but he wasn’t involved. In fact, he was badly injured fighting off the attackers, but he’ll recover. Poor dear was only just recovered from having been burned in the fire. Now this.”

As I thought about this, my thoughts turned to Eleanor. “Wait! Liv, I think I may know what happened.” I explained how Eleanor had overtaken Mole’s body. I also told her that Connie had come over to our side to help us.

“Thank goodness Connie’s come back to her senses,” Olivia said. “When I couldn’t reach you on your cell phone, I was so afraid that—that—” Liv broke down into sobs.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m fine. That part’s over.” When she had gotten a grip on herself, I said, “Eleanor told me that when she switched into Mole’s body, she gained access to all his memories and knowledge.”

Olivia picked up on my line of reasoning at once. “That means she could have used that information to tell Diana, Reedrek, and Ulrich about where we live and what we were up to.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. The timing works out, too.”

“But how could she have done that while still masquerading as Mole? Mole only knew that information because he was working for me. Eleanor couldn’t have divulged what she knew without putting herself—in Mole’s body, that is—in even more danger from Ulrich, Diana, and Reedrek.”

“Maybe there’s some other way she could have given them the information. She could have told
them
she was spying on
you,
for example.”

“That’s possible. She certainly could have ingratiated herself with the evil ones that way.”

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “I’ll talk to Mole and ask him what he thinks about that theory.”

“That sounds worthwhile,” Olivia agreed. “Let me know what you find out.”

Olivia sounded knackered, as she would put it. I really felt bad for her and the losses she’d suffered. “I guess it’s selfish, but I’m just glad you were over here with me when the attack happened.”

Olivia said on a sob, “I’m not. I wish I’d been at home. I should have been here fighting at their side.”

I felt kind of guilty myself, and I’d thought I had enough guilt for one day. While Olivia and I were bumping uglies on the trunk of my convertible, her enemies were busy plotting the demise of her and her family.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” I said. “But at least you know that there’s an explanation besides one of your own turning on you.”

“You’re right, Jack. Thanks.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“We’ll find a more secure location and move again,” she said wearily. “Perhaps more toward the country this time. Donovan’s even trying to persuade us to go to Ireland.”

“Why Ireland?”

“A number of reasons. For one, the Council would never expect us to move out of the country, but there’s a practical reason as well. That’s where our translators are. Ireland is a center for translation and what they call localization, mostly for computer programs that are sold in many different languages.”

I thought about the possibility of Olivia being closer to Melaphia and Renee and wondered if that was a good or bad thing. On the one hand, if Olivia’s coven was tracked there, it might bring that part of the world to the attention of the Council. On the other hand, maybe Olivia could look out for Melaphia and Renee and vice versa. I had been hoping that Mel and Renee could put the world of vampires behind them, but I had no right to object to Olivia’s moving her coven to a safer locale.

“Liv, if you do decide to move there, I’d like you to touch base with Mel—discreetly, that is.”

“Of course,” she agreed.

“Is there anything I can do for you? I feel pretty helpless with an ocean between us.”

“Take care of yourself, Jack.”

“Don’t worry about me. Just keep me posted,” I said. As I was about to hang up, I thought of something important that had almost slipped my mind among all the other bad news. “Wait, Liv. There’s something I might be missing here. I had the impression that you and William thought the Council had their own information, stuff on vampire history and prophecies and what it all meant. If that is true, why would they have bothered to steal your records?”

There was a pause while Olivia considered. “We always assumed they had their own archives, their own historians, even. After all, they are the most ancient vampires in existence. But maybe they don’t. Or maybe they felt their own records were incomplete.”

I was struck by a wave of nausea as I pondered the meaning of the raid’s timing. “We both know why they picked this moment to go looking for information after all these . . . millennia.”

“The Slayer. They know she’s been activated. Reedrek would have told them—he was there when it happened.”

“So now they’re looking for pointers on how to deal with her. Do you know what was in those scrolls the Council’s goons took? I mean, was there any information there that might give them something to use against Connie or provide any kind of leverage over us?”

“I haven’t had a chance to review the information yet,” Olivia said. “It came back from the translation service right after I left for Savannah. A couple of the others were reviewing it, but—they were among those we lost. Now that I think of it, though, Donovan might have read the material.”

“Could you call him to the phone?”

“He’s much too badly injured, Jack. I let him feed on me to strengthen him and then put him back in his coffin to recover. He was barely conscious. It could be days before he’s lucid enough to remember what he read, if he got the opportunity to read it at all.”

“Liv, I know you’re dealing with a lot right now, what with the murders and having to relocate before any more of the bad guys show up—”

“Not to mention trying to get the injured ones healed enough to move,” Olivia added.

“But as soon as you can,” I said, “I really need to know what was in those documents.”

“I understand how important that is, but I don’t know when I can get to it. We’re five hours ahead of you here, so we have to get secured before nightfall. I haven’t slept since I’ve been back.”

“I know,” I said. “Your safety comes first. Just do the best you can. And good luck.”

“Thank you, dearest Jack. And just know how glad I am that the real Connie’s back. For all of our sakes, but especially for yours.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That means a lot to me.” I hung up, closed my eyes, and tried to rub the ache out of my temples. And here I’d always thought vampires couldn’t get headaches, aside from an occasional hangover. Now I had a bad feeling my headaches were just beginning.

Sixteen

The news from Olivia sobered me right up. I headed to the Escalade. I was intending to take the short drive to Tybee to see Mole when Connie appeared out of the darkness. “Hey,” I said. Lately, it seemed like every time I saw her I had to figure out a different way of relating to her. After a brief moment of thinking she was mine again, it was a painful adjustment to realize she was really and truly Seth’s woman.

“I just talked to Seth, so I had to come and see how you were.”

The SUV was parked under a streetlight. When she could see me better, she gasped. “Oh my God, Jack. Your face.”

She reached out to touch me and I flinched away from her, not so much from her physical touch but from the emotional pain that touch would cause me. “It’s nothing. It’ll heal.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have to talk to Mole and find out what Eleanor may have passed on to the bad vamps.”

“I’m going with you,” she said.

“Help yourself.”

We climbed into the Escalade and she buckled up. I didn’t bother with such safety precautions. Why should I? I’ve been through more than one windshield and lived to tell about it. Once we were headed toward the island, I gunned the engine.

“You do know I’m still a cop, right?” Connie asked. “So much has been going on, I called my supervisor and arranged for an extended leave of absence, but I’m still a cop.”

“Sure. Why?”

She pointed to the speedometer. “I should arrest you right here and now.”

“Not that again. How many tickets do you reckon you’ve given me?”

“Probably enough to fund a new station house,” she said.

“Maybe you could let it slide just this once.”

“I’ll think about it,” Connie said.

Our lighthearted banter was strained. We both knew we were thinking about the same thing. “I guess you know now why things with Seth and me are . . . complicated,” she said, staring out the passenger-side window.

“Yeah. He explained everything.” I wanted to ask her whether, if things were different, she would have stayed with me after last night. I wanted to ask her who she loved more—me or him. But I was afraid of what her answers would be. She’d made her choice, and I had to live with it.

“Probably the best thing to do is to never speak of it again. I guess we should just be friends. Can we do that?” she asked, her voice a monotone.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s be friends.” I didn’t want to hurt Seth more than I already had. But I didn’t trust myself to be close to Connie if she gave me any encouragement whatsoever. I just wasn’t that strong.

“Good. Because, I mean, we’ll have to work together against the bad vamps from now on, right? I’d hate to think that things would be . . . awkward between us.”

“Right, right,” I said. “We’re coworkers now. We’re on the same team, huh?”

“All for one, and one for all,” Connie agreed.

I hoped our conversation didn’t sound as phony to her as it did to me. In the interest of changing the subject, I decided to run Werm’s idea past her. “Listen, speaking of teamwork, Werm thinks we should make a few more vampires to help us.”

“What? I thought all you good guys were against that.”

I recounted my conversation with Werm, highlighting the pros and cons. “So, what do you think?”

“Jack, I’m the Slayer. Am I really the person to ask?”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

“Have you told Iban, Tobey, and Olivia what you’re thinking?”

“Oh, geez, Olivia. I nearly forgot to tell you what she found when she got back to England.”

“What?”

I filled her in on everything Liv had told me. “So that’s why I need to talk to Mole,” I explained.

Connie groaned. “Poor Olivia,” she said. She was silent for a moment.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

“I still can’t get over . . . how do I say it? Getting myself back, I guess you could say. I don’t feel like a wild animal anymore. I’m actually sad that Olivia’s vampires were murdered. Before last night I would have been cheering their deaths.”

“I saw it in your eyes the second you came back. Just in time to let me live.”

“I can’t believe how close I came to killing you.” Connie shuddered. “Now that I’m in my right mind, I’ve been thinking about things more clearly.”

I nodded warily. “Like what?”

“Well, I was wondering if you’d heard anything from Travis, my father.”