Page 105

With a start, Jackson realized the vampire was now focused on him. He sat up. “As far as that will be possible, yes. You have my word.”

“You can start by keeping her away from the cottage today.”

“I’m sure the staff here will want to keep her for another day of observation. If not”—he lifted one shoulder—“I’m even more sure I can convince them.”

The corner of Nick’s mouth tilted up. “Careful, hunter. I almost like you.”

Jackson’s face pulled into a grudging smile. “I might almost not hate you, vampire.”

“But when I bring Kambyses to you tonight, you will finish him, non?”

And here was the other thing. This bloodsucking menace was nothing if not blunt. When they discussed this before, it had somehow been too remote a possibility to be real, this destruction of Kambyses and all his monstrous spawn. Nor had Jackson ever envisioned it at such a leisurely pace, or with such cooperation from one of the casualties. Could he do this now, knowing he’d also destroy—no, kill—someone he had come to respect, however reluctantly? He didn’t know, but thinking of his uncle, he nodded anyway. “Someone will.”

“Then I will ask one more favor of you, mon ami. I will need to borrow your van.”

42

Forever Change

Dominique spent his last day on earth in Cassidy’s empty bed. The hunters wouldn’t come for him during the day. Or if they did, they wouldn’t destroy him. It was Kambyses they would want, and Kambyses they wouldn’t find. For that, they would need him. To make sure this was clear, he penned a note to that effect and taped it to the bedroom door.

Dying while oblivious had once been his wish, but no more. He wanted to know the exquisite delight of being fully alive when death found him. He wanted to welcome it with arms thrown wide. Above all, he wanted to feel the beast’s panic and laugh in its face.

All of this would be his. Tonight.

Tonight, five-thousand years of terror would end.

With only the shades drawn, the upstairs room was far from light-tight, but even this he was willing to risk. Wrapped in blankets saturated in his love’s fragrance and zipped head-to-foot into an old sleeping bag that still carried a touch of his father’s earthy aroma, he was content as he slipped into unconsciousness.

The feeling still suffused him when he woke and listened, as he always did, for her heartbeat. Silence. Jackson had kept his promise. She wasn’t here. Dominique would never see her again.

He stayed where he was, lying still, letting his mind wander over his life. Memories of sunshine and laughter were countless, but others of darkness and horror soon overwhelmed them, weighed them down, obliterated them.

Know me.

No one would. Not ever again. And that was all right. That was as it should be. What he had told Cassidy was true. He was done fighting.

A footfall approached the cottage. He recognized the quick, staccato cadence of a not-so-stealthy blood-drinker. The source came inside, hesitated in the living room before it moved up the stairs, and paused again in front of the bedroom door. The accompanying heartbeat thumped in his sensitive ears. Then the knob turned.

With a sweep of his arms, Dominique ripped the layers of his cocoon open and sat up. Serge stood at the foot of the bed, wringing his hands, trembling. “It is happening, blood-child. Do you feel it?”

The solemn whisper slipped around Dominique like an icy draft from a crypt. Suppressing a shiver, he got up and pulled on his gym pants. “What happened?”

“The prophecy is upon us.”

“Not yet. He still lives.” He raised the shade on the window that overlooked the front porch roof. Kambyses’s limbs had met the day out there. The sun should have reduced the arms and legs to a shimmering ash residue on the brittle tar shingles. Instead, they lay withered and gray, but solid.

Kambyses was the oldest of their kind. How different did that make him? Dominique had left him buried in a shallow grave, safely out of the sun’s reach. Since his limbs would have burned in the sun today, had he died anyway? Since part of him burned in the sun today, had he died anyway? If so, how long before his death pulled the rest of them under?

He scrubbed his face with both hands and turned to Serge, whose mouth wavered somewhere between a bare-toothed grin and white-lipped apprehension. “Is this what you meant when you said I would not keep my promise to Jackson? Is Kambyses already dead?”

Serge shook his head. The sandy curls sticking out all around his head quivered. “You won’t deliver him. That is not your future.”

The ire he typically felt toward his contrary friend sputtered out before it fully flared to life. He refused to spend his last hour on Earth debating nonsense.

Serge dropped onto the side of the bed as though his knees caved in. He stared at Dominique, the light in his eyes more mad than ever. In an awed tone, he pronounced, “You are about to become the lock, blood-child. She will be your key.”

Leave it to the madman to make it impossible to have any sort of meaningful farewell. Nonsense to the very last of his existence. So be it. He reached out and squeezed Serge’s shoulder in mute appreciation of their too-brief time together.