Part 25 (1/2)

Over the centuries, he had often lived in proximity to humans, more so than most of his kind, yet it never failed to astonish him that they had so few warning systems, or if they did, that they completely ignored them. The air was thick with the stench, the disturbance so great it had penetrated his chamber below the rich earth, intruding on his deep sleep. Yet Marie was singing in the living room as she dusted his jade collection, and Stefan was humming as he tinkered with an engine in the huge garage, one of his many hobbies. Aidan wanted to call to him, to warn him, but in his energy-consuming formlessness, he didn't dare try. He moved through the garage and back into the house, homing in on Joshua in the kitchen.

The child was the obvious target of the madness aimed at both Alexandria and Aidan. Aidan sped toward him, the bright sunlight sapping his energy. His mind rebelled, flinching from the brilliant rays, but he forced himself through the light to reach the boy.

Joshua was playing with the puppy, his eyes dancing, his blond curls bouncing, the picture of boyish joy. He had no idea he was in deadly peril.

Even as Aidan observed, the dog ran to the door, whining softly, and Joshua glanced about, looking for Stefan or Marie, who had told him in no uncertain terms not to go outside. Snapping a leash on the puppy, he opened the door and rushed into the garden.

The heat of the sun pierced Aidan's very soul. He felt as if he were on a skewer, roasting, burning.

He followed the boy anyway, putting aside the pain.

”Come on, Baron,” Joshua insisted. ”Hurry it up.” The little boy looked around again to make sure he was alone. ”Baron's a dopey name, but Stefan really wanted you to be called that. He says it will make you n.o.ble, whatever that is. I'll ask Alexandria. She knows everything. I wanted to call you Alex. That would have made her laugh.”

”Joshua!” Vinnie del Marco appeared, his large frame intimidating, his arms folded, his face stern.

”Weren't you given orders? Soldiers get court-martialed for less than this.”

The air was thick with the stench now. Aidan could see that Vinnie felt safe in the garden as he teased the boy, the high wall around them, the security system in full force. He had no perception of the danger lurking so close. Vinnie bent to scratch behind the puppy's ears.

A rush of wind, sound, and movement displaced Aidan, knocking him sideways as a blurred ma.s.s leapt the fence. A furred, powerfully muscled beast hit Vinnie squarely in the chest, its huge gaping jaws going for his throat.

”Run, kid! Get in the house!” Vinnie yelled just before the animal tore open flesh and sinew. Blood sprayed into the air, showering Joshua and the puppy as they stood frozen to the spot.

The boy said one word, whispered it softly like a prayer amid the ugliness. ”Alexandria.”

A second animal hurtled over the wall and rushed at Vinnie, and its dripping fangs closed over his leg. With a vicious twist of its ma.s.sive head, it audibly snapped bone, and Vinnie's screams filled the air. Rusty charged around the corner, gun in hand, but Joshua was in his line of fire. A third animal sprang from the wall onto his back, teeth clamping tightly around his shoulder.

Aidan could hear Stefan running, but he knew the vampire had laid his trap all too well. The beasts were sacrificial p.a.w.ns. Stefan would shoot them to save the two men from the crazed animals, but by then the human puppet moving over the wall had scooped up the terrified child and tugged him back over the wall. The air reverberated with gunfire, then with Stefan shouting to his wife.

”Call an ambulance, Marie, and get out here now! I need some help!” Stefan knelt beside Vinnie and tried to clamp the worst of the wounds pumping out the man's life onto the ground.

”Joshua! Where is Joshua?” Marie cried when she joined him.

”He's gone,” Stefan reported grimly. ”He was taken.” Marie's sobs faded behind him as Aidan followed the human and child. Joshua was thrown into the trunk of a car, and the puppet walked with the characteristic jerky motions of a vampire-induced trance to the driver's seat. Aidan streamed in through the open window and hovered, but the puppet could not detect his presence.

The vampire could not direct this a.s.sault while he lay beneath earth in the daylight hours, but he had implanted his orders into his minions' minds before he had sought the safety of his lair.

The car swerved along the winding road, the driver drooling and staring vacantly ahead with the gaze of the possessed.

Aidan moved away from the abomination and into the trunk. Joshua lay in a stupor, the left side of his face swelling, his eye already turning black. Tears rolled down to his chin, but his sobs were silent.

Aidan concentrated, calling on all of his strength to communicate silently with the boy. Joshua, I am here with you. I will have you sleep. You will stay asleep until I come for you. When I say to you, ”Alexandria needs to see your blue eyes,” you will know it is safe to awaken. Only then will you do so. The mind meld was draining, and he had so little energy during this terrible time of the day. He also needed to cast spells, the most intricate, dangerous ones Gregori had taught him. If the vampire was somehow able to rise before Aidan could return to the boy, it would take a time to unravel the spells, and Joshua would be safe from harm and further trauma in his sleep.

Aidan wove his spells as the car moved northward, toward the mountains. Toward Gregori's new home, came the unbidden thought.

It couldn't be Gregori. Aidan wouldn't believe it. The vampire simply had no idea Gregori was anywhere in the vicinity. It wasn't Gregori. Gregori was so powerful, he would not need the deceitful tricks, the beasts, the mindless puppet doing his bidding, or even the child. Gregori would need no help. This was not Gregori. Aidan held on to that certainty while he wove the spells.

Ancient, binding, dangerous to any who tried to harm the boy.

When he was finished, he rested, exhausted. He had done all he could. Once he knew the child's exact destination, he would have to make his way home. He dreaded the journey in the bright sun; there was no pain quite like it, nothing more sickening to one of his kind.

The puppet stopped the car at the entrance to an old, rundown hunting lodge with rotting timbers and overgrown with vines and bushes. Aidan knew at once that the vampire was close, most likely beneath the decaying planks of the floor. Rats scurried visibly, the sentinels for the undead. The walking marionette, the minion of the undead, already drained of his mind and free will, opened the trunk and reached in to pull the child out by his s.h.i.+rtfront.

The protective spell instantly sent fire racing up the puppet's arm to his shoulders and enveloped his head. The thing, no longer really alive, programmed to do one thing only, continued to try to clutch the boy even as his flesh burned.

Aidan was thankful Joshua was asleep. The putrefying stench was incredible, even to one without a nose. The blackened carca.s.s fell to the ground, bits of charred flesh dropping away. The puppet issued a low, keening vibration, his death slow and difficult, the macabre caricature still trying over and over to drag the boy to the vampire. Aidan hated the torment resulting from the vampire's twisted schemes. But then, the undead liked his minions to suffer as much as possible.

When the thing was finally still, the last breath dragged from its lungs, Aidan inspected the remains to ensure it was truly dead and to leave no smoldering ember that might accidentally ignite any vegetation. Satisfied that he had done as much as he was able, Aidan had to leave, to travel through that terrible sunlight, back to his home.

His strength completely drained, the journey took the better part of the afternoon, and he feared that when he did reach home he might not have energy enough to rise with the setting sun and return to the vampire's lair. He was growing ever weaker, his being becoming even more insubstantial, a feather blown about in the elements. Only the thought of Alexandria sustained him. And a welcome dense, blanketing white fog eased his pa.s.sage home.

Once there, with his last ounce of energy, he made his way unerringly to his resting place beside Alexandria. The wrench of reuniting with his body contorted his very bones, his muscles contracting and locking in hard, swollen ma.s.ses. Vulnerable and without strength, his great power drained completely, he lay as one dead, the cool earth closing over him. A soft hiss escaped, the last breath from his lungs.

Upstairs, above Aidan and Alexandria, Stefan could only try to comfort his wife as they huddled together awaiting the setting sun, awaiting the moment Aidan would arise. The sun seemed as if it wanted to stay up for all time, but unexpectedly a slow, thick fog began to roll in just before six o'clock. Stefan felt some of the terrible tension leave his body, though the guilt remained as he waited.

Deep below the earth, Aidan arose, voraciously hungry to replenish starving cells and sinews depleted from his earlier task. Yet his first thought was of Gregori. There could be only one answer. The Carpathian had intervened. He was great enough, powerful enough to feel the disturbances in the land even from beneath the earth itself. He had sent the fog to aid Aidan when he knew Aidan was far too drained to build it himself. And the fog remained, here before the sun set, giving him a head start on what he must do.

Aidan had studied for centuries, believing, as Gregori did, that knowledge was power, yet he could not do all the things Gregori was able to do. He would not have detected a bodiless being while sleeping in the ground, and Aidan was certain Gregori had not only done so but had also sent the fog to aid him. Aidan found himself smiling. The vampire was not Gregori.

Glancing down at Alexandria's face, he brushed his fingers tenderly through her hair before floating them upward to the underground chamber. Alexandria always went to sleep on a bed and awoke on one, but as long as a vampire preyed in their city, Aidan always brought her beneath the healing soil, where she was impossible to detect.

Wake, piccola. Wake and look at your lifemate. He whispered the words softly, dreading her coming pain, a lump forming in his throat.

When she took her first breath, a soft sigh, it went straight to his heart. Her blue eyes opened, her gaze locked on his. At once her warmth surrounded him, seeping into the cold pores of his body.

She smiled, a loving, sweet smile that was an arrow piercing his soul.

”What is it?” she asked. Very gently, tenderly, she lifted a hand and traced his mouth with a fingertip. ”What have you been doing to yourself? You're gray, Aidan. You need to feed.” Her voice was a soft invitation.

”Alexandria.” He said her name, nothing else.

She surprised him as she always did, her eyes darkening to a deep blue, her voice a mere thread of sound, her body very still. ”Is he alive?” There was no hint of condemnation, no anger that he had not kept the child safe.

He closed his eyes, unable to meet her gaze. He simply nodded.

Alexandria took a deep breath and caressed his jaw with her palm. ”Look at me, Aidan.”

”I cannot, Alexandria. I will face you when I have returned Joshua safely to our home, to your arms.”

”I said look at me.” Her fingertips were on his chin, raising it.

He could do no other than her bidding. She was tearing him up inside with her acceptance, her understanding, her gentleness. His golden eyes blazed at her. Then he felt her, merging, instantly with him, so swiftly and completely that he had no chance to hide any of it-the beasts attacking those guarding her brother, Stefan and Marie's anguish, Joshua's terror, his own efforts and pain in the sun, the charring of the human puppet. It was all laid out in front of her in stark, ugly detail. When she heard the soft whisper of her name on Joshua's lips, she made a single sound.

Her pain went so deep, Aidan felt the demon rise and rush through his body, taking control. A slow, murderous hiss escaped from deep within his throat. His golden eyes glowed with deadly intent. ”How dare he try this?” His voice was as lethal as his expression. ”How dare he use the boy as a challenge to bring me out into the open?”

”Shh, Aidan.” She put a finger over his mouth. ”You have no need to blame yourself. Come to me.