Maggie Shayne – Twilight Fulfilled (страница 7)
And then, when the war was over and humans were victorious, he would destroy the so-called immortal last of all, and end the age of the vampires for all time.
He was going to save mankind from the scourge of the Undead. And no junior senator from Nebraska was going to get into his way. No matter how good she looked in a skirt.
Roxanne was the nurse on check-in duty on the day the odd little girl and her mother arrived at St. Dymphna.
And as it turned out, that was a damned good thing. Then again, she’d never believed in coincidence.
Roxy had been a friend to the vampires all her life. And her life was a long one. Longer than most of the folks who carried the Belladonna Antigen in their blood. They were known as the Chosen, and word was, they didn’t live to see forty.
She’d seen a hell of a lot more than forty, but she wouldn’t admit how much more. Not under torture. Besides, age was just a number.
Roxy had no desire to become a vampire. But she damn well wasn’t going to stand by and watch them get wiped out of existence, either. Her vamp friends had been good to her. Saved her wrinkle-free hide more than once.
So when she got notification from Uncle Sam that she was to report to some out-of-commission loony bin with all the other Chosen, to be protected from vampire attack, she knew it was time to take action.
Vampires didn’t prey on the Chosen. They were like spooky-ass guardian angels to them. Couldn’t help themselves. One of her kind got into trouble, one of their kind showed up to bail them out. Usually did a little oogly-boogly mind shit on the way out, just to erase the memory and keep their cover intact.
Vamps weren’t the only ones who could play oogly-boogly mind games.
Roxy had made herself disappear. As far as the government knew, she was on the run, avoiding compliance with their summons, while in truth she was right under their noses, with a false ID and a freshly minted nursing license, working as an R.N. at St. Dymphna’s. Forged paperwork, a little witchcraft—yeah, she was a card-carrying spell-caster—and bam, she was hired.
And she was damned glad to be in the place, too, that day when she greeted the newest guests, Jane and Melinda Hubbard, at the front door.
The mom and daughter looked like two photos of the same person taken twenty years apart. And they looked scared, too.
“Hey, now. There’s no call to look like that,” Roxy said. “Know why?”
Melinda stared at her, huge blue eyes seeing right through her, she thought. “Why?” the little girl asked.
Hell, the kid’s gaze was so intense it sent a little shiver up Roxy’s spine. But she shook it off and smiled. “Because
Jane smiled a little, hugging her daughter closer.
“She’s like me, Mommy,” Melinda said softly.
Roxy felt her smile die as Jane shot her a look. Quickly Roxy glanced around to make sure no one else had heard, and then she knelt down to put herself at eye level with the little girl. “I
“Why?”
Roxy swallowed hard. She had not intended to tell these people—nor any of the other captives—who or what she was. It was too dangerous. Now she had a seven-year-old apparent psychic to contend with.
Roxy bent closer. “I might get into trouble if you tell. Okay, honey? You know how to keep a secret, don’t you?”
“Uh-huh.” Melinda eyed Roxy up and down. “Okay,” she said. “I won’t tell.” Then looking up at her mother, she said, “She’s good.”
Roxy’s brows went up. There was definitely more to this little girl than the antigen they shared. Speaking at a more normal volume, she said, “I’m gonna find you guys the nicest room in this place. Come on with me now. We’re all up on the fourth floor.”
As they headed for the elevators, Jane leaned in close. “What’s going on around here, Roxy?”
Roxy glanced up and to the right, where the wall met the ceiling, meaning in her eyes. And she knew when Jane followed her gaze and spotted the camera mounted there. “Eyes and ears, hon,” she whispered, a big, fake smile on her face. “Everywhere.”
Jane nodded and lowered her head, face averted from the camera. “I’m just trying to find out if it’s safe here for my daughter.”
“Should have done that before you brought her here,” Roxy said.
“Then we’re leaving.” Jane started to turn away toward the big entry door.
Roxy clasped her arm, and squeezed hard enough to get her attention and stop her in her tracks. “They won’t let you leave. You didn’t notice the armed guards walking the perimeter? The electric fence around this entire place? You’re here now. And you’ll have to stay here.”
“But—”
“No buts. No choice.” The elevator doors slid open as Roxy released the woman’s arm but continued to hold her eyes. Her false smile had vanished, and she realized it and pasted it back on again. “I’ll do everything I can to protect you both. And when the time is right, I’ll get you out of here.”
“That’s why you’re keeping your … condition … secret?”
Roxy nodded as she hustled them into the elevator. “You want the zoo cages left unlocked, best have a monkey posing as a zookeeper, don’t you think? Now come on. You blow my cover, we’re all done for. And for heaven’s sake, smile. You’ve gotta look like you’re glad to be here. All right?”
“All right.”
They stepped inside, all three of them, and the elevator doors slid closed. As they rode upward, Roxy added, in a very soft whisper, “Don’t let them know she’s different. That would be … bad.”
The mother shifted her blue eyes to the little girl, who stood between the two adults, her knapsack on her back, a teddy bear peeking from the top. Tears shimmered in Jane’s eyes, but she blinked them away and tightened her grip on her daughter’s tiny hand.
Brigit smelled death in the air. Death, grief, violence. And something more. She was standing above a demolished street in downtown Bangor, Maine. There was a taste to the night, a scent and a feeling. It smelled this way after lightning struck. After an electrical transformer had blown up, or after a breaker box had short-circuited.
And after she had used her power to blow something to bits.
She would have known what had happened here simply by that smell, even if she hadn’t seen the news reports with her own eyes.
The streets were blocked off. Cops wearing black armbands in honor of their dead stood sentry at every possible access point. But they hadn’t covered the rooftops. Local law enforcement agencies had a lot to learn about the Undead—and their mongrel kin.
Brigit stood on the roof of a hardware store, looking down at the mayhem. Burned-out vehicles, scattered debris. There were still body parts here and there, missed by the EMTs and the crews from the coroner’s office, no matter how thorough they thought they had been. She could smell them. Charred meat had a distinctive aroma, and charred human meat had one all its own. It wasn’t pleasant.
Her nose wrinkled, and she averted her face, closing her eyes against the onslaught of remembered images. But she couldn’t stop the nightmarish scene from playing out in her mind just as it had so recently played out for real on the streets below her. She was too close, her mind too open. She saw the entire encounter play out in her mind’s eye. Utana big and so powerful, but more utterly alone than any man had ever been, cold, wet and shivering in the delivery truck, devouring the stolen food with relish. She felt his awareness of being surrounded, his confusion as to why the humans would want to harm him when his goal was the same as theirs. To exterminate the vampires.
She felt his anger, and she felt, too, his reluctance to do what he had to do—followed slowly by his bitter acceptance of it. He believed the humans had left him no other choice. He believed it completely.
She pressed a hand to her forehead, willing the images away, but they played out all the same. The beam blasting forth from Utana’s eyes. The men—innocent men—being blown literally to pieces. And despite the horror of it, Brigit found herself compelled to examine the images more closely. How had he widened out the beam that way? She couldn’t do that. She had to blow up one thing at a time. How had he managed to broaden its scope to include a wide range of targets all at once? She’d never been able to achieve such a thing.
Hell, if he was more powerful than she was …
No, she wouldn’t think that way. He might be stronger, but she was smarter, faster, more at home in the here and now. Not to mention that she was sane. Oh, she supposed there were some who would debate that, given her hair-trigger temper. But she was at least saner than he was, this man who’d been buried alive for more than fifty centuries.