Wulf's Redemption (Borne Vampires Book 3) (11 page)

Breber whispered, “Someone is inside. Do you see
their shadow?”

Alex grabbed the torch and stabbed it deep into
the snow, pitching them into darkness as they hid in the trees. He whispered
back, “Ready your gun. I will enter first. You keep eye behind us, in case
there is another who seeks to do us harm.”

“Another? You think there are two of those
creatures?”

Unable to locate Aldric, unable to dispel the
feeling his brother part of this nightmare, he could only prepare Breber. “We
are not only hunting the creature who killed Sonja, we are after its master,
too.” Switching his pistol to his left hand, he drew his sword and cautiously pressed
forward.

Nearing the lodge, the smell of Death was
overpowering, making him nauseous at the reeking smell of old and fresh blood,
added to decomposing flesh. Peering inside the opened door, bile rose in his
throat at the gruesome macabre he laid eyes on. Before he could stop him,
Breber stepped around him. The barrel of the man’s gun shook as he gapped in
horrified disbelief at what was inside the lodge.

“God be merciful!”

Chapter Seven

“Damn!”

Stunned at what she’d seen, Kai rubbed a hand
across her face, unable to banish the faces of the dead, the blood and gore.
Betrayed by his father, his brother possibly a child killer, and a wolf walking
on two legs, Alex’s world was unraveling, and she found she was as confused and
scared as he was back then.

“What the hell?” She hadn’t uncovered herself. Searching
around her, she found she was alone. Alex couldn’t have been gone long, because
the dream had only just ended.

Who was inside the cabin? Was the wolf a demon
vamp? In her experience, demon vamps usually reverted back to their human form
to kill. What of the wolf pack? She’d need never heard of Wolfen before, other
than movies and books. Dammit, she needed to see more!

Should she outright ask Alex what happened?

No. She couldn’t do that to him. From what she’d
seen, felt his emotions — his pain, anger, isolation, she couldn’t put him on
the spot. Alex had endured so much and it just wouldn’t be fair to treat him
like a perpetrator, especially when he was clearly a victim.

That brought about another row of questions.

Lisle, Ulrich, and Aldric had their agendas, but
why single out Alex to take the fall for the Wolf of Magdeburg? How were they
connected to the monster hunting the children?

Climbing out of the grave, she paused, feeling
woozy. Head aching, feeling like she had a hangover, she pushed open the cellar
door and walked up the steps to the kitchen. There, she found Mary waiting for
her.

“Miss Kai, I was so worried about you. Are you
feeling better?” the gypsy girl gushed, her youthful face pinched with concern.

Forcing the raw emotions of what Alex’s memories had
done to her, Kai pasted a smile she far from felt. “I am much better, thank you.”
The smell of fresh, percolated coffee made Kai’s mouth water. “May I have a cup
of coffee?”

“You
can drink coffee?”

“Beverages
I can digest. Its food I have a problem with.”

The
girl offered quickly, “I’ll get you a cup straight away.”

“Thank
you. Lots of sugar and cream, please.” As she waited for Mary to pour her a
cup, she examined the spacious, well-lit kitchen.

The
over-sized, cast iron stove-combination oven was a working remnant of a bygone
era. To fire the oven, a neatly stacked pile of quartered kindling sat placed
beside the split door that lead outside. In the center of the domed-shaped
chamber, a huge, round, oak table stood, well able to sit at least twenty
people. The surface, scarred and marked during years of use, was still
beautiful in its strength and warmth of being the center for a large family.
The hardwood floors were clean and had been waxed, leaving the scuffs and
grooves darkened against the deep walnut. The walls were whitewashed and plain,
no paintings decorated them.

Mary
took a towel and wrapped it around the handle of a stove top coffee pot and
poured the dark brew into a large, white coffee cup. Scooping several heaps of
sugar into the cup, she looked at her and added another at Kai’s urging. She
poured a good amount of cream into the cup and stirred it. The girl handed the cup
over to her and watched in rapt fascination as she took a cautious sip of the
steaming hot liquid. Strong with a rich, nutty flavor, tasting cinnamon infused
into the brew.

“
Mmm
, delicious! My compliments. Excellent coffee.”

Smiling
brightly, Mary responded, “I am in charge of keeping the coffee brewed. I get
bored making the same old same, so I add spices. Cinnamon makes it taste the
best.”

“I
love it. Uh, could I be shown a bathroom? I sorta need to clean up.” Kai waved
a hand at her torn and dirty clothes.

“Right
this way.” Mary pushed the swinging door, and they left the kitchen, entering
the elegant dining room.

A long and narrow, dark wood table with matching, green-cushioned
chairs was set in the center of the spacious room. No paintings adorned the
whitewashed walls in there either. The table, chairs, and carpet were in
pristine shape. They showed no signs of being used, like a museum piece
cornered off from another time period.

Entering the foyer, she asked, “Mary, what
happened to the green marble flooring and gold-inlaid trim around the doors and
the walls? The paintings?”

“How do you know what the manor used to look
like?” Mary asked, a bit alarmed and intrigued.

“I saw it in one of my dreams.” Heck, why not be
honest and upfront.

“You did?”

“It’s not a usual thing for me. My ‘gifts’ are
usually mindreading, not dreams.”

“Oh. My father had to sell the marble and gold to
buy food for him and those who had escaped the concentration camps. Had to
trade away most of the furniture and paintings, too. Only those pertaining
directly to the Wulf family have been kept, for the Master’s return.”

“Concentration camps? Your family was held in
them, too?”

“Ja. The Rom clans were collected and forced to
the death camps along with the Jews. My father and mother were among those who
were sent to Auschwitz. The Master rescued them and hundreds of other gypsies,
helped them escape.”

“Alex disobeyed his orders, didn’t he?” Kai took a
sip, the coffee was easing her need for blood, but no way would it stay it for
long. She needed to search for a donor and soon.

“My father told us Master had left the Nazis the
same day he helped my people escape.”

 
Peeking
into the living room and the study, where Ulrich had made his decision to
choose one son over the other, she found the rooms vastly different. Under the
gypsies’ care, the manor exuded warmth and love, completely different from the
coldness it possessed in Alex’s memories.

Mary said with an apologetic grimace as they went
upstairs, “I hope you do not mind using the Master’s chambers. The other
apartments are used by my family.”

“Has no one used his room since Alex left?”

“We keep Master’s chamber clean and readied for
his return.”

“Only he never came back. Until now.”

“Not ‘till now.” At Alex’s room, Mary paused with
her hand on the brass doorknob. Her smooth, youthful brow drew into a worried
frown. “Miss Kai, something terrible happened last night. Murder,” she blurted
out.

“Where?”

“A farm, five miles east of Wulf Manor.”

“Who told you?” Kai questioned, expanding her
senses, hoping to read Mary’s mind. Skimming along the edges of the girl’s
conscious, she found she couldn’t enter the girl’s mind.

Winking at her, Mary said, “Omi taught us how to
keep people out of our heads. No offense.”

“None taken. Your omi is a smart woman to teach
you this trick, because there are people out there who will take advantage of
you. Now, back to what you were telling me.”

“After you and Master went to ground, I went to
bed … I dreamt it. Mama told me it was because you and the Master were here,
and it had triggered a nightmare. It wasn’t. The police came here after lunch
asking questions. They said our neighbor was found mutilated in his barn, his
family murdered in their beds. What the investigator told us done to the dead
can only be the work of the Depraved. Only they cause such foul injury to a fellow
man. There were other deaths. Two nights ago, the newspaper reported similar
slayings in Magdeburg, not far a dance club, in the old part of downtown.”

“Same injuries or do they suspect multiple
killers?”

“Different killers, Miss Kai.”

Her insides clenched hard at the news. The Damned
were in Magdeburg, too. Crap. The girl told her, “I believe both the Damned and
the vampire hunters are watching Wulf Manor. They are searching for something …
perhaps you and Master, but I have the oddest feeling they seek someone else. No,
something. They’re searching for something. I can’t quite lock onto what
they’re searching for. Whatever it is, they are desperate to find it.” She
shrugged, biting her lower lip. “Forgive me. I am not very good at focusing my
gift. Omi says I will get better, with practice.”

What were they searching for? Rather, who?

“Don’t stress on it, Mary. It took time for me to
learn to control my gift. Just keep practicing, like your Omi says.”

“Thank you, Miss Kai, for understanding. I will
let you know if I have a clear vision what they seek.” Mary opened the door and
led the way to the spacious bathroom. “There are towels set beside the tub for
your use. There is shampoo and soap to wash with.”

“Please, Mary, call me Kai. I’m not special to keep
addressing me so formally.”

Mary gushed, with something akin to hero-worship,
“But you are special, Miss Kai! You are a Slayer and a Borne, God’s guardian angel
in the flesh.”

Astonished at being called an angel since most of
the world deemed her as evil as the ones they hunted, she stared at the teenager
with her mouth slack. Collecting herself, she shrugged, “Mary, I don’t know
what to say?”

Mary patted her shoulder in a motherly fashion.
“After you shower and have changed, I will take you to Master and we will have blood
ready for you.”

“Thank you, Mary, for everything you have done. I
appreciate it.” Opening the door, she paused. “Oh, Mary, make sure you tell
your family to wear silver crosses, rings, anything silver for protection
against the Damned. If you have silver knives, it’s a good time to start
carrying them, and I mean at all times. The demons hate anything associated with
God and silver. Can the men make silver bullets?”

The girl stared at her with her jaw dropped. She
slowly nodded. “I-I will tell my father and mother what you instructed.” She
gulped in a deep breath and asked in a little voice, “The Damned is worse than
the legends, aren’t they?”

Placing her hand on the girl’s narrow shoulder,
she told her the truth. “Worse. They take and rip and murder everything good
and innocent in the world, leaving a bloody path of destruction in their wake.
The ones I’m hunting have declared war on the Borne and the mortals are the
prize. If we, the Slayers, fail, the world as we know it will die and the
Damned will rule. Do you understand? We must not let them win.”

“Yes, I do. I will tell my father right away your
instructions.”

“Holy water will be needed, too. Lots of it. It
burns the Damned, giving a person enough time to cut off their heads. Only way
to successfully kill the Damned is to cut off their heads.”

Mary gapped at her.

Realizing she had overloaded the poor girl, she
urged, “Hurry up. The Damned won’t wait for us to be prepared if they should attack
us here.” The girl nodded and rushed down the hall, her hand clasping the
silver cross that hung around her neck.

Closing the bedroom door, Kai saw the chamber was
exactly the same as it was the night Alex had slipped away to search for the
monster hunting Magdeburg’s innocent. Opening the black lacquered wardrobe, she
found dress coats, breeches of different materials and colors, crisp white
shirts, garments Alex had worn back in 1819.
 

Shutting the wardrobe door, she went into the
bathroom and set the cup on the white marble counter. Putting her backpack
beside it, she pulled out her cell phone and checked calls. Forty missed calls
from Mom!

Speed dialing her, it took one ring for her mom to
answer. “Kai, where are you? Are you hurt? Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

It was so good to hear her mom’s voice! “I’m fine
now. Our plane went down in the forest near Magdeburg, Germany and we had to
walk out.”

“Thank God you are alright. Wait, why did you have
to walk out? Why didn’t you and Alex fly out?”

“A rocket hit our plane, Mom. During daylight.
Alex jumped out with him and … and we were burned. He took the brunt of it. I
was still recovering from the dead man’s blood and I was shot.”

“Who shot you?” Mariah demanded, making Kai smile,
picturing her mom
fanging
out and ready to tear apart
the person who hurt her daughter.

“Alex got him. Vampire hunters. And they’re
looking for us. Someone tipped them off and I think its Alex they’re after this
time.”

“A-are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom. I’ve got a full donation in me and
the wounds are completely healed. Mom, he’s having flashbacks and somehow I’m
seeing dreams … events I believe led to his thinking he had lost his soul.”

“Does Alex know?”

“No, I haven’t told him. You know how private he
is and it’s been hard being….” She couldn’t finish.

She didn’t have to. Her mom supplied, “Because of
how you feel about him.”

Tears blinded her. “Mom, I’m lost on how to act
around him.”

“Kai, I love you, and the best advice I can give
where Alexander Walker is concerned is to give him his space, especially if he
is reliving the events that led to his belief he was Damned. Are you coming
home?”

“Not yet. There are sightings of the Damned and
vampire hunters are everywhere here. Besides, we need to get to Berlin, to
speak to Faeroes about Sin. Have you heard from Mina yet?”

Humor filled her mom’s voice as she replied,
“Since she disobeyed her brother and ran off with Dracula? Nope, but Anya and I
are pretty sure she is in good hands.”

“Is Rathe pretty pissed?”

“Not as mad as I thought he’d be. Since Sin gave
us info about Angel and her plans, he is more inclined to listen than stake
him. Honey, we’re going to the meeting in Berlin, please be there. I miss you
and I just want to make sure you are okay.”

“I will, Mom. Just need to clean up here and then
we’ll be on our way.”

“I love you and keep me in the loop since … since
we can’t communicate like—” her mom choked on the soft sob and she knew she was
scared for her, too.