Warrior Rising (25 page)

She would grieve for her parents for a very long time, she knew. For eternity, for whatever life she had been given, she would grieve. Eventually she might stop blaming herself, but that would take a while. A long while. Chloe stood and walked to Luca with an outward ease and calmness she did not feel deep inside. She took the baby from him, held her child close and shifted a small section of a blanket aside so she could see her daughter’s entire face. It was perfection.

“Her name is Amelia.”

After two days of wallowing in grief and anger, Indikaiya kept telling herself that she should not mourn a vampire. Should not, would not…

But Sorin was — had been — different. He’d fought for the humans. He’d gone into battle with Marie under the noon sun, knowing he would likely die, sacrificing himself for a small boy and a defenseless girl. No, not just for them, for the chance to take out Marie. For a chance to save far more than two humans.

He’d kissed her, before he died. She had denied him that small pleasure, insisting that mouth to mouth was for love, not for the simple sex they shared. Simple. Not so simple. She should have kissed him more often.

Two things had made the past days tolerable. Cupcake, who seemed to sense Indikaiya’s distress and did her best to offer comfort by licking and cuddling and sometimes whining, and music. Angry, passionate music, sung by strong women of this world and delivered via earphones attached to a small device Jimmy had given her. He called it an iPod.

Chloe was mourning, too. Her baby was two days old. As far as Indikaiya could determine, the child had come into the world during Sorin’s epic battle. There was nothing Chloe could have done to save her mother. Nothing. And yet she continued to blame herself.

Indikaiya walked into the interior room where the threesome — Chloe, Luca, and the child — huddled together in silence. Whatever words they’d had to say had been said. She envied them their little family.

A vampire family. Had the world been turned entirely upside down?

Indikaiya studied the baby carefully. But for the unusual eyes, she appeared to be normal. Human. How was that possible? On the afternoon of Sorin’s death, the child’s cry had brought every being in this building to a standstill. Little Amelia might appear to be human, but she was not.

Through experimentation they had discovered that the child needed infant formula, not blood. After forty-eight hours the baby appeared not to be growing any faster than any other newborn. Chloe watched her daughter like a hawk, waiting for that unusual growth spurt, watching for signs of abnormality. Looking for ways in which her child was different from all others.

They had not attempted to move the child into the sun to see how she might react. She was too small, and potentially too fragile. Everything about baby Amelia was unknown.

These two unusual females were Indikaiya’s blood descendants. Vampire or not, human or unknown species, they were her blood.

Chloe glanced up and caught Indikaiya’s eye. Indikaiya nodded, then said, with no emotion in her voice, “The bitch is ours now. We will end her.”

With that, she turned and walked away. No one would see her cry, not if she could help it.

Eyes closed, sun wonderfully warm on his face, he took a deep breath. Ah, that scent. No,
scents
. Fresh water, grass, a sweet shrub that bloomed in the spring and… his mother’s stew.

Sorin opened his eyes and was almost blinded by the sun. His instinct was to cover his face, to search for the nearest shade or shelter, but he quickly realized that was unnecessary. He felt well, not at all weakened by the sunlight. He lifted one hand and watched the play of sunlight on his skin. He moved his fingers, slowly. The light wasn’t at all painful. There was none of the nausea that sometimes accompanied his uncomfortable excursions into the daylight.

Memory came rushing back. He sat up, clapping a hand to his heart. Well, to the place where his heart would’ve been if Marie hadn’t ripped it from his chest.

His heart beat, strong and steady and a bit faster than it had for a very long time. There was no blood, not anywhere on his body. His flesh had been burned by the sun as he’d fought Marie, but there was no sign of that damage.

He was naked in the sun, lying upon a grassy field that reminded him of home. Not D.C. or any other place he’d called home during his years as a vampire, but…home. Where he had worked and played as a boy. Where he had fallen in love and married and had children.

Where he had been a man, not a monster.

On alert, Sorin looked around. He was dead, he knew that. Marie had killed him. He’d realized his death was likely — perhaps even fated — when he’d met her in battle, but he had not expected this. He shot up, stood tall as he studied the landscape that was both familiar and foreign. What had happened to Phillip? To Indikaiya? To Jimmy and Rurik and…

“They are well, for now.”

Sorin spun around to see a man in what appeared to be Roman dress walking toward him. “Who are you? Where the hell am I?”

“Not hell. Far from it, in fact. As for who I am, I believe you asked me to introduce myself when we met. I am the fucking lily-livered cowardly asshole you have been waiting to meet.”

“Phillip’s Warrior,” Sorin said.

“Yes. He never did find my name, so here I remain while others fight against that which you once were.”

Once were
.

“My name is Halirrhothius.”

“Seriously? No wonder the kid couldn’t find your name. I don’t suppose
Hal
would’ve done the trick.”

The Warrior who had welcomed him into this world did not seemed pleased by that observation. “Not for the purpose of being called from this world into another, no.”

Down to business. Sorin asked, “Why am I here?”

“You are here because you are a Warrior.”

Instinctively, he shook his head. “Impossible. I’m no hero.”

“With more than a touch of Warrior blood coursing through your veins, you died fighting for the human race. You sacrificed yourself for Phillip and Kate. If that is not a hero, I don’t know what is.” Hal shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, you can refuse to remain here, if you wish. There are other worlds beyond this one. The land of the dead is a vast and wondrous realm, for those who are worthy.”

Worthy
. Was he?

Sorin considered the offered option, for a split second. Apparently there was an afterlife for his kind — for the kind he had been. There was this world as well as others. How many others? If he left here would he be sent to a place of peace or of punishment?

“The word hero is not synonymous with perfection,” the Roman said wearily.

“Neither word has ever been used to describe me.”

There were worlds beyond worlds ahead of and behind him. Possibilities, wonder, redemption.

Indikaiya was of
this
world. That was a definite advantage to this strange place, but there was another. If he could find a conduit to call him back, he could finish what he’d started.

Another word that could not be used to describe him was quitter. As long as Marie lived, he had a purpose.

Sorin’s stomach growled. He was hungry! Not for blood, but for food. Real food.

“Here.” Hal tossed a pair of plain brown pants in Sorin’s direction. “We have much to discuss.”

It had been a long time since Nevada had cried. The world had been upside down, she’d been scared and furious and sad, but there had been no time for tears. Until now.

She’d been crying off and on for four days, since Rurik had delivered the news that Sorin was dead. Not vampire dead, but dead dead. Gone, forever.

“I am sorry,” Rurik said. He knew why she cried, even though days had passed since he’d delivered the news. They lay, side by side, on the floor of her room. He held her close; she rested her damp face against his chest. “If I could have saved him, I would have.”

Sorin was dead. When Rurik had told her, Nevada had felt as if the rug had been pulled out from under her, as if she could not find her footing. He wasn’t supposed to die; his death had been startling in a world which had become one startling moment after another. She was a bit better now, but still she felt at a loss.

Rurik, who was so straightforward in all aspects of his life, could not understand her distress. Sorin had been a vampire. He’d kidnapped Nevada and her family. There had been a time when Nevada would’ve cheered at the news that he was dead. Maybe she was upset because Sorin’s final death weakened the side of right in this damned war. Maybe she was upset because like it or not she had come to care for him.

“If I’d seen Sorin I could’ve cast a protection spell around him,” Nevada said, not for the first time.

“It is not your fault he would not join us here.”

“No, but I could’ve sent a message. I could have insisted that he come here so I could…”

Long before she finished the sentence, she grudgingly accepted the truth. That never would’ve worked. No one ordered Sorin to do anything. No wonder he had avoided headquarters all this time!

Rurik didn’t tell her to stop sniffling, though she was pretty sure he was glad the tears had stopped. His hand settled in her hair. That hand delivered death to rebellious vampires each and every night. It was large and warm and capable. It was also gentle and kind, when gentleness was called for. “Sorin died a hero,” he said, as if he thought that would soothe her, somehow. “He could not save Chloe’s mother, but he saved Jimmy’s Kate and the small boy, Phillip.”

Poor Phillip, he kept asking when his friend Sorin was coming back. No one wanted to tell him that Sorin wasn’t coming back, not ever. They talked around it, they told him Sorin was in a better place, but the child had a problem grasping the truth of it. He asked for his mother more often than he asked about Sorin, and they had no idea where she was. They didn’t know if Marie had killed the woman or was holding her somewhere. The kid was surprisingly unflustered by the lack of concrete answers to his questions.

Nevada and Kate had been taking care of Phillip. It did help, to throw herself into whatever she could do to help, instead of looking back at those things she should’ve done. When Indie was around, her little dog Cupcake divided her time between the Warrior and the child, as if she were torn between them. Phillip did love that dog. Cupcake could ease Phillip’s mind like nothing else, when he started asking about his mother. And Sorin.

Rurik cupped Nevada’s cheek and made her look up at him.

She could not bring herself to tell him that she’d dreamed about Sorin last night. He was worried enough about her extreme response to Sorin’s death, had even asked once if she’d been in love with the vampire. Love, no, but there had been a connection she could not explain. She had no desire to try to explain now.

The dream had been weird, but she’d been glad to see Sorin’s face, even if it wasn’t real. Eventually she’d forget the details of that face. The sound of his voice would be forgotten, too. It really had been a great voice.

Yes, one day her memories would fade, but she wouldn’t forget anything today. She wouldn’t forget tomorrow, either.

She looked hard at Rurik’s face and did her best to memorize every line, the sparkle in his eye, the way his dark hair fell. One day he would be gone, too. Another man to remember. Another man who would just be gone from her life.

The world was so uncertain, she could not hold back. This was not a time to be shy or cautious.

“I love you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Rural Virginia

Emily Sheldon busied herself scrambling eggs on the stove. The bacon was done, and there was toast in progress. Her parents should be back any minute. They’d gone out searching for neighbors and more food. And weapons, she knew, even though they hadn’t specifically said so.

It had been years since she’d prepared a meal, but breakfast for dinner was easy enough. She and her family had just been here, in this deserted cabin, for a couple of weeks. She couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the owners. There was a small lake nearby, so it was possible this was a vacation cabin, simply not in use at this time.

But after all she’d seen, she had to wonder…

After moving from one place to another daily since leaving D.C., this was a place they should be able to stay for a while. It was off the beaten path, isolated and defendable. Her parents were worried that Nevada wouldn’t find them here. Emily didn’t know how to explain it, but she didn’t share that worry. Her big sister would find them, when the time was right. Justin was just kind of lost, walking around in a daze and sleeping too much. Emily was more worried about him than she was about her parents.

Justin slept on the couch, as darkness approached. None of them slept very well at night. Emily wasn’t sure there would ever be a day when she wasn’t afraid of the dark and the things that hid within it.

Her brother cried out, sharp and loud. Emily grabbed the skillet of eggs and ran into the room where he’d been sleeping.

There was no visible threat, no vampire, no monster who’d dared to come out before the sun set. There was just Justin, sitting up on the couch with his long hair in a tangle and his face flushed.

“What’s wrong?” Emily asked.

Justin looked up at her with haunted eyes. “Dream,” he said. “Bad dream.”

She’d had her own share of bad dreams, especially since coming here, to this cabin. She didn’t want to talk about them.

Justin, on the other hand… “I dreamed about
him
,” he said as he sat up. “That bastard who kidnapped us. The big blond vampire.”

A chill walked up Emily’s spine. She’d been dreaming about Sorin the past couple of days. She hadn’t dared to say anything to anyone. “What was the dream like?”

Justin caught her eye. “It was too damn real, like he was standing right in front of me.”

Emily turned around and placed the skillet of cooling eggs on the small oak table where they’d been eating their meals. “Did he try to hurt you in this dream?”

Justin shook his head.

“Did he ask you for… anything?”

Again, that shake of a mussed head. “No. He was trying to speak but I couldn’t hear him. Then he got mad and I woke up.”