Killian carried Charlie as he ran through the forest, around the perimeter to the other side of the compound. The mortal recruit ran behind him, his camo-cargo pants and olive drab tank a dead giveaway that he was one of the enemy. And yet, one of The Chosen. They all were.
“I hear Jeeps heading out of there. We’ve got to get where they can’t go if we’re gonna outrun them.”
“I agree,” the recruit said.
He’d spotted Pandora, pacing the outside edge of the fence, chuffing and growling low and deep, in search of her beloved Rhiannon. He’d called her, but she’d only sent him an irritated look and returned to stalking the grounds in search of Rhiannon.
“Why were you in the infirmary?” Killian asked.
“Heart.” He patted his chest as they ran. “It starts racing sometimes.” Killian’s brows went up. Was this the same as the problem Charlie had just experienced? He slowed his pace a little more. God, he could’ve been out of here by now, but he couldn’t leave the recruit and the cat behind. He beamed a thought to Roland. Can’t pick up your package. Being chased.
Rhiannon? was the only reply.
She went back for you, Roland. I’m sorry.
Roland said nothing more, either because he had no more to say just then, or because he couldn’t. There was no way to tell.
“What’s your name?” he asked the recruit.
“My name’s Christian,” he replied, rubbing his blond crew cut vigorously. “Christian Payne.”
“I’m Killian. So how’s your heart doing now?”
“It’s okay at the moment. I’m...glad to be out of there.”
“Yeah.” He looked at the woman in his arms. “I don’t think Charlie’s gonna share the sentiment when she wakes up.” Looking back, he called out mentally. Pandora, come. Hurry now, we need you.
Faintly, he heard another voice, Rhiannon’s, mentally shouting, Pandora, go with Killian! Now.
They came to a ravine too steep for any sane person to try to descend in a Jeep, and Killian looked down into it, then back at Christian. “I’ve got to jump down there and hide Charlie. I’ll come back for you.”
“I can make that jump.” Christian leaned forward, looked down into the ravine. “Yeah, I can make that easy.” He met Killian’s eyes, saw the confusion there.
“How?”
“The BDX.”
Killian started to ask more, but the growl of a motor pulled him back on track. “If you can make it, jump. If not, hide for Christ’s sakes.”
Christian grinned at him, swung his big arms backward and sprung off the spongy forest floor. It was at least 60 feet to the bottom. From his periphery, he saw a lean black form running through the forest and leaping over the edge as well. Pandora! Finally!
Killian jumped after the cat, hit the ground in an easy crouch and sprang up still cradling Charlie in his arms as he searched for Christian’s body. Then he saw it, alive and well and running at a speed Killian didn’t think was possible for a human, into the thickest part of the forest beyond. He probably had no idea there was a black panther running full tilt behind him.
“What the hell is this shit they’re pumping into people, Charlie? God, what did they do to you?”
Charlie didn’t answer. Her full lips moved a little bit, but no sound emerged. He wanted to kiss them. But he had to get her safe first. He took off running after Christian and Pandora, caught up, but not without a bit of effort. The kid wasn’t vampire-fast, but he was definitely beyond the speed of a normal human being. It had to be the drug. He looked at the satchel he carried. This mystery drug was inside. He had to go back, help save Roland and maybe Rhiannon, too. He had to help the others there, The Chosen, all of them brainwashed to hate and fear his kind and trained to kill them, but his responsibility, nonetheless. He was compelled to help them, like a goose is compelled to fly south in the fall. He didn’t know why he had to help them, he just had to. It wasn’t an option.
But he couldn’t go back for them until he got Charlie to safety. And he had to contact this Eric Marquand person, arrange to get the vial to him. And he had to find Roxy. He hadn’t felt her vibrant aura anywhere at that camp. Clearly, she hadn’t been there. He had to find her, save her. She’d saved his life, after all. He owed her.
That wasn’t why he wanted to save her, though.
He wanted to save her for one reason–to prove himself to Charlie.
Charlie came awake in someone’s living room. There was another recruit running around, looking in closets and out windows, and someone was moving around upstairs. And then that someone came down the stairs with a huge black panther beside him, and Olive, her grandmother’s snowy owl perched on his forearm.
Killian!
She sat upright, scrambling backwards into the sofa, like she could burrow inside it, then anger pushed back her fear. What the hell was Killian doing with her grandmother’s owl?
The recruit said, “I don’t think anyone’s been here. And I don’t think we were followed, either, so–” He saw Killian staring past him and turned Charlie’s way. “Hey. Hey, Charlie, you’re awake. Great. It’s me. Christian. Remember?”
He put himself right in front of her, taking up all her vision, forcing her to look at him instead of Killian. “I remember you,” she said slowly. “I beat you on the rope course.”
“By a few seconds.”
“I was holding back.”
“Bullshit.”
Her stress level dipped a little. Christian was good people. She wasn’t alone with Killian, and since she still didn’t know whose side the vampire was on, that was a good thing. “So Christian, what are you doing with a vampire?”
“Helping him,” he said. “You should, too. They’re not what you think, Charlie. Not what LT’s been telling us, either.”
Killian’s hand, unmistakable to her hungry eyes, clapped down onto Christian’s shoulder from behind, and Christian stepped aside, saying, “Just listen to him, Charlie. Just hear him out.”
And then it was Killian standing there, looking down at her on the sofa. And for some reason, she didn’t jump up and grab him around the throat. If she jumped up and grabbed him at all, it would’ve been to bury herself in his strong arms and taste his kiss again.
She couldn’t think straight when he was near.
She sat up a little straighter, pushed her hair back off her face, and said, “What are you doing with my grandmother’s owl, Killian?”
He sighed and lifted his arm so that Olive took flight. She swooped around the room, but came right back and landed on the arm of the sofa beside Charlie. Then hopped into her thigh.
Charlie forgot her questions for a moment, long enough to pet the owl, and just as before, Olive pushed against her hand. Her big eyes stared into Charlie’s, and she could’ve sworn she was trying to ask her where Roxy was, why she wasn’t here, and when she would come back.
She said, “I don’t know, girl. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll stand in for her until she does, okay?”
Blinking twice, she ruffled up her feathers, gave them a shake, then settled down again.
“This is your grandmother’s place,” Killian said. “One of them, I mean. She says she has several. We were supposed to meet her here, but when we arrived, she’d been taken.”
“And you expect me to believe that?” But she wanted to believe it. God, she wanted it so much.
He pressed his lips, shook his head. “Her truck’s a mile or so down the road with its nose wrapped around a tree, riddled with bullet holes from all sides. Vampires don’t use machine guns, Charlie. We don’t need them.”
Everything he said was like a fist to the gut, but he kept right on going, until she felt like throwing up.
“She was still alive when they took her. Olive was with her, but she must have got out of the truck and got away. She came here. I told you Roxy left a message. A voice memo on a phone she threw under her seat. She said it was DPI. She told me they would keep her alive. She told me to get you first and
worry about her later. So that’s what I did.”
She frowned at him. “So let me hear the recording. That’s simple enough.”
He lowered his head. “I deleted it and left the phone with the truck. I thought they might be tracking it.”
“Maybe it’s still there.”
“Maybe it is. And maybe I can find the deleted file in the trash or something and prove what I’m telling you is the truth. But it’s not safe to go down there right now, and we don’t have time anyway.”
“We don’t have time? What pressing engagement do we have?”
“I have to go back to that camp,” he said. “I have to help them.”
Her brows pressed against each other. “Help who?”
“My friends. And The Chosen. The rest of the recruits. They’re in turmoil. I can feel them the way all vampires always feel it when one of The Chosen is in pain or in fear.”
“BDs, you mean.”
“I mean The Chosen. Your grandmother. You.”
“Me,” Christian said from across the room, where he was leaning down, looking out a window. “Everyone at camp. Almost everyone, anyway. Even LT. The vampires call us The Chosen.”
She turned on the sofa, putting her feet onto the floor. “And what is it we’re chosen for?”
“I’m glad you asked that,” Christian said softly. “I was wondering about that myself.”
Killian nodded. “I don’t have time to be gentle with you. I’ve already waited hours for you to wake up. We’re short on time. So this’ll be short and to the point. Every vampire was once a human who had the Belladonna Antigen. We were all what you call BDs. The only humans who can become...what I am...are humans who possess it. Humans like you.”
The sentence hit Charlie like a tidal wave, sweeping away the ability to comprehend. She shook her head, struggled to the surface, took a breath. It felt true. It felt shockingly true.
“Vampires protect The Chosen,” Killian went on. “We watch over them. We’re like Midnight Creeper Guardian Angels. We don’t have a choice, it’s programmed into our DNA. We can’t hurt you, which is why Roland and Rhiannon, two of the oldest vampires in existence, just risked their lives to help me get you out of that camp. That’s why they’re back there, right now, captured by a pack of trained killers who think it’s us or them, and that’s why they’re unable to fight back even to save their own lives. And I don’t know if I can go get them, much less the poor freaking recruit we left tied up near the fence. Not even now, because I’m afraid if I leave you here alone you’ll run right back to them.” He put his hands to either side of his head, looked at the floor and turned in a slow circle. “Jesus, I need more help.”
“I’ll help you, Killian,” Christian said.
Charlie stood up slowly, shot a look at the black panther that was stretched out on the floor like it owned the place, wearing what looked like a diamond studded collar. Olive flapped her giant wings, jumped from the sofa to Charlie’s shoulder, almost as if she was afraid to let Charlie out of her sight.
“I’ll believe all this when Roxy tells me herself.” She tried not to look Killian in the eyes, and wound up looking there anyway. They drew her like a magnet. There was no way not to look. “But in the meantime, I’ll help you get your friends back. If you’ll help me get my grandmother back. Okay?”
He gave her a half smile. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”
She nodded hard. “I’m as up for it as you are, vampire.”
Then he checked the phone he’d pulled out of his pocket. “I’ve sent the message Rhiannon and Roland asked me to send, with the formula for the BDX, which we found in that mad doctor’s notes. And on the way here, we overnighted him a sealed sample with a small packet of dry ice. Thank God for 24-hour shipping centers. Those things were vital, Rhiannon said, and so they’re done. We have three hours till daylight. We have to get them out first, because we know where they are, and because they can help us find and rescue Roxy.”
“I was out longer than I realized,” Charlie said, looking down at her clothes.
“It seemed like forever,” he told her. The fear he’d been feeling all that time was clear in his voice.
“You’re sure your friends will help us save Roxy?” she asked.
“They’re her friends. I only just met them. She says she’s known them for twenty years.” His fear for her grandmother was clear in his voice.
Charlie heard it, even felt it, but pretended she hadn’t. “I wish I had my jacket.”
“Roxy brought some of your things from the cabin. I brought a few of them up from the pickup in case we found you. They’re in that bag over there,” Killian nodded toward a green trash bag he’d reclaimed from the wrecked truck.
She crossed the room, opened the bag, pawed its contents and pulled out a short black jacket. Fake leather.
He looked at her for a long moment. “Don’t go back to them, Charlie. I’m telling you the truth about everything, I swear.”
She didn’t even blink but held his gaze. “I didn’t plan to stay with them anyway. I’m not going back. I got what I wanted from them.”
“And what was that?”
“To be strong enough to kill whoever murdered my mother,” she said. She zipped up the jacket and walked to the door. And though she was talking as tough as she could manage, her heart was breaking inside and yearning for him so much it brought tears to her eyes.
Surrounded by weapons and recruits he could not harm, Roland lowered his hands, having just learned from Killian that Rhiannon was still somewhere in this camp. “On second thought,” he said, “I don’t surrender.”
He poured on the speed, zipping from one of them to the next, yanking their weapons from their hands as he went, then springing upward, he landed on a rooftop, and flung the weapons over the fence, as the naïve, false soldiers pulled their side arms and fired at him, and not with tranquilizer darts, either.
He leaped over the peak and crouched low on the slope facing away from the gunfire, scanning the area below for any sign of Rhiannon. She was here. Somewhere, she was here.
And then he saw her. A man held a gun to her head and marched her into the center of the camp. She was shuffling her feet, hanging her head, drugged, no doubt. The lieutenant he’d seen earlier, one of the Chosen like nearly everyone here, spoke to Roland, his voice ringing through the camp. “Give yourself up, or I’ll kill her. I’ll shoot her and let her bleed out before the sunrise.”
“What will you do with us then, Lieutenant?” Rhiannon asked, her voice weak, soft.
“Turn you over to my superiors. It’ll be up to them.”
She looked up at Roland, her eyes finding him unerringly, and the twinkle in them told him she wasn’t as disabled as he’d thought. “You’ll forgive me, Lieutenant, but I’ve been in the care of your superiors before. And you’ve already missed your opportunity to kill me.”
She moved so fast he never had a chance, spinning away from him and kicking him in the head at the same time, though clearly holding back her full power. He flew into the side of the nearest building, hit it hard, and then hit the ground.
A hail of gunfire criss-crossed the entire center of the camp, and to Roland’s horror, the recruits were shooting toward each other as they fired at Rhiannon.
“Leap, Rhiannon! Jump!” he cried.
Several recruits rushed her where she’d paused near the flag pole, but she dodged them with ease. The pain of the fallen, the pain of the others, and then Rhiannon’s pain, hit him at once, as a bullet ripped through her. She was hit!
She alighted on a rooftop, and he went to her, dodging gunfire all the way. Pausing, furious, he watched her sink to her knees, bending and clinging to the roof as bullets flew over and around and–God, through her! Rage burned, and Roland let out a growling shout that shattered the overhead lights. When one exploded near him as he crossed rooftops to get to his love, he saw the pole was within reach between one building and the next. Never breaking stride
, he leaped on it, toppling it like a felled oak and riding it to the next roof as it fell. Sparks exploded like fireworks and he landed, finally, beside Rhiannon, picked her up in his arms, prepared to keep on going, two more roofs, then over the fence, where he’d left that poor dark-haired soldier-girl, bound and gagged and under orders not to wake until he told her to.
He started to do just that, but there was a bloodcurdling scream, and a mushy, popping sound. And then a lot more screaming.
“What’s happening?” Rhiannon cried. “I feel their pain!” She was pressing one hand to each of two gunshot wounds, one in her waist, another in her thigh. “Roland, I must know.”
He stopped running with only one roof between them and freedom, and turned to look down at the men and women who’d been trying to kill them. They were running around, screaming. Some were lying on the ground in pools of blood, their chests torn open.
Roland stared. “What in the–” And then he saw it happen. One of the young people stopped mid-lunge, grabbed his chest, screamed in pain, and then his chest exploded.
“I warned you, Lieutenant,” someone shouted. “They were not pre-medicated for battle! I warned you–”
He located the source of the words, a man in a blood spattered white coat, the doctor, yelling at the lieutenant.
Roland lowered his head. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“We have to, Roland, we have to.”
He gathered her up and jumped to the next roof. “Send your will, then. I’ll send mine. Calm them. Sedate them. It might be of some help. But whatever you do, Rhiannon, live until sunrise. Live, my love.”
“Do not think...for one moment, that the death of Rhianikki...daughter of pharaoh, goddess among women, will come at the hand of a clueless, misled child, playing soldier.” Then her eyes fell closed and her body went lax.
Roland carried Rhiannon rapidly through the forest. He’d expected to have to dodge recruits, but for some reason, he didn’t. A hundred yards from the facility, he paused to lay her on the ground and examine the wounds that were pulsing blood at an alarming rate. Bleeding out was one of the few ways their kind could die. If he could stanch the flow until daylight, her body would heal itself with the day sleep. But if she died before then, it would be a death from which there was no return.
And that was unacceptable to him. So he searched all around him for items he could use and wished he’d thought to take a first aid kit from the infirmary. Settling for what he could find, he scraped the moss from a rotting log with his fingers, and squeezed and shaped it into a patch, then pressed it to one of the wounds in Rhiannon’s flesh. The one in her waist was bleeding the most, so that was the one he attacked first. He took off his cloak, then his shirt, tearing strips of it with his teeth and knotting them together until he had a long enough piece to wrap around her twice. He bound it tight. She didn’t even flinch from the pain. God, she was fading fast. Quickly, he repeated the process with the other wound, the one in her thigh. It took less time. Then with a nip of his teeth, he opened a small vein in his own forearm and held it to her lips. For a moment, there was no response.
Drink, Rhiannon. Drink or you’ll die. Come back to me, my love.
Her lips moved ever so slightly against his skin. “That’s it. That’s it, my darling. Drink, so you can live.”
She latched on then, drinking from him until he pulled his arm free. “Any more and I won’t be able to carry you out of here, Rhiannon.” He quickly wrapped his forearm with another strip torn from his shirt, knotted it tight, then enfolded her within his cloak and scooped her up again. She was starting to wake up, but he could not afford to linger there any longer.
Three darts stabbed into his back on the third step. He tried to pick up the pace, knowing they’d been caught, but it was no use.
As he fell to his knees, he held Rhiannon close. “If you can run, my love, then run.”
“Never would I leave you.” She twisted her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. “Besides,” she whispered, plucking a dart from her thigh, “They got me, too.”
He looked behind them and saw a circle of The Chosen, all pointing weapons. “He wants them alive,” said one.
In his head, Roland heard Killian calling out to him.
We’re on our way. What’s your situation?
He struggled to form a mental reply strong enough to reach the younger man. We’re caught, my friend. Drugged by those damnable darts. Rhiannon has two gunshot wounds, as well. They’re taking us...I don’t know where. I can’t...stay awake....
We’ll come back for you at nightfall, Roland.
Get those samples to Eric.
I’ve already–
Get Roxanne. It’s more important. I heard them say they want us alive. We’ll be all right here a bit longer.
But Roland–
Roxanne. And the samples. Do it, Killian, for the good of our kind. You must.
The lad sent more, but Roland was beyond hearing.
Chapter Sixteen