The four of them walked stealthily through the woods outside the former Marquand mansion, well beyond the guardian fence that surrounded the place. Eric moved some brush and, a moment later, lifted a hidden door camouflaged by branches and twigs. Stairs inside led downward into the dark.
"This is our way in," Eric said. "This tunnel leads directly into the basement lab. Or at least it-used to. If it hasn't caved in or been sealed off, we should still be able use it. The only problem is, Gregor is probably going to sense us coming. We can shield to some extent, of course, but he's sure to sense the mortal."
"I can shield, too," Dwyer said, sounding defensive. He lowered his head at Eric's quick look. "I've worked with vampires for a long time. It was an essential skill to master."
"He can't block entirely," Reaper said.
"I'm not picking up on Crisa." Briar sent Reaper a desperate look. "But I can sense others inside. Gregor is in there. So is the boy. And I feel that heavy energy the drones put out-a lot of it. But no Crisa."
"She might be unconscious, or maybe he's got her locked up in a room that he's sealed off," Reaper said.
"Or she's already dead," Dwyer added softly.
Briar swung her head toward him, her eyes blazing. "You had better hope to God that's not the case, because if she is, you'll be joining her soon, I promise you that."
Dwyer swallowed-hard.
"We still haven't solved the problem of him sensing our approach," Eric said.
"We'll have to leave Dwyer here. If he gets any closer, he'll be detected," Reaper said. "Eric, you and Briar go in through the tunnel. I'll go right up to the front door. With any luck, I can distract him, giving you time to locate Crisa and get her out."
"If she's there at all, she's probably under guard," Briar said. "And you can't go in alone, not against Gregor and his goons. You wouldn't stand a chance, Reaper."
"We can worry about that once Crisa's safe."
She searched his face. "He'll kill you on sight, Reaper."
"I'll negotiate with him."
"What the hell have you got to negotiate with?"
"Dwyer, for starters. And you. Don't forget how badly he wants to get you back, Briar. That's a lot of motivation for a man, believe me."
She averted her eyes and fought the warmth that suffused her at that adamant statement.
"It'll buy me some time," he went on. "Enough time for you to get Crisa safe. The boy, too, if you can locate him. Then you can bring the others back to mount a rescue, if necessary."
"It's too big a risk." She gripped his arm and dragged him a few steps from the others, though she was under no illusion that Eric couldn't listen in if he wanted to.
Staring up into Reaper's eyes, she asked him, "Why are you doing this? Why are you risking your life?"
"We need to get Cri-"
"Bullshit. You do this for a living, Reaper. You've been putting your life on the line over and over again since before you even became one of us. I think you've been doing it ever since your wife-"
"Don't. Don't go there, Briar. Please."
"You have a death wish? Or maybe it's not that cut and dried. Maybe you're not suicidal, you just don't particularly care if you live or die. There's part of you that thinks you deserve to die."
He closed his eyes. "If that's true, then it's what makes me good at what I do. If I've got nothing to lose, it gives me an edge."
"Maybe that used to be true," she told him. "But not anymore. You've got an entire freaking litter of vampy-pups who worship the ground you walk on. They'd traipse barefoot over hot coals for you, Reaper. And they need you. They'd be devastated if you died, and I think you know it."
He searched her eyes, waiting for her to say more. When she didn't, he asked what she'd been hoping he wouldn't. "What about you, Briar? Would you be devastated if I died?"
She licked her lips. "Look, I'm not... I don't..." Then she lowered her head. "I'm not capable of..."
"It's okay. I get it."
"I'd be really pissed if you died. I've known a lot of men in my life, Reaper, and you're not like any of them. You're different.
And I...I'd like to hang around a while, figure out just how different. You know?"
"You...you're not leaving when this is over?"
"I'm...having second thoughts about leaving when this is over," she admitted. "So?"
He lifted a hand and pushed her hair behind one ear. "So I guess I'd better not die. Now let's get on with this."
She closed her eyes, wishing there was a way to talk him out of his hare-brained plan and knowing there wasn't. Sighing, she leaned forward and kissed him hard on the mouth. "You're an idiot."
Then she stomped back to where the others were. "Dwyer, if you're not here when we get back, I'll hunt you down if it takes me the rest of my life," she said. "Let's get on with this, Eric." And with that she jumped into the opening in the ground and vanished from their sight.
"Dwyer," Eric instructed. "Close this hatch after we leave. Cover it so it's invisible again, and then get yourself into hiding, but stay close."
"All right. Listen, Gregor has all my files in there. If you can get them, they'll be helpful later on."
Eric nodded. "I'll try."
Reaper was already walking away from them, circling back to the road, to approach the mansion's front gate.
Crisa was lying in the bed in the hidden room off the basement lab. Matt had located clean sheets in one of the closets upstairs.
It had taken him three tries to find a set that actually fit. By the time he did, his father had gone to bed for the day, locking himself up in his private bedrooms upstairs.
At their old place, in the very beginning, Matt used to spend the days at a private school not far from where they lived. His dad had arranged it and hired a limo driver to drive him both ways. When he wasn't in school, he was on his own, knocking around the house, except for the days when the housekeeper used to come. He'd liked the housekeeper. Her name was May, and she was cheerful, with silvery hair and a large round shape that shook when she laughed. And she laughed a lot.
Matt knew his dad had messed with her mind somehow. Vampires could do that sort of thing to humans, at least to the weak-willed ones. She knew, without being told, which rooms she was to stay clear of. She knew never to arrive before full light and to always be gone before nightfall. She knew not to mention anything that might seem unusual to her.
But more importantly to Matt, she knew how to make the best cookies, and how to make the day interesting for him.
He missed May and the old place. And even the private school, though none of that had lasted long. His father had decided it was too big a risk to have other people in his son's life. There was no one to keep him company in this new place, and they hadn't been there long enough for his dad to get anything set up, if he ever even intended to. So there was no housekeeper, no limo driver, no private school. Nothing for him to do during the day.
He guessed, or at least hoped, his dad would get onto all that in time. But for now it was boring as hell here. At least he would have Crisa now.
Matt stood beside the bed, watching her sleep, wondering if it really was just sleep, or if she would ever wake up. Before dawn, she had been shaking every once in a while. Moaning a little now and then. But once the sun came up, she went into that deep, deathlike sleep just like every other vampire did. And he wouldn't know if she was alive or dead until sundown.
He'd managed to change the sheets on the bed by himself. Then he'd located some pillows from other rooms in the house, put clean cases on them and brought them down. He'd stacked them on the bed and then gone back up in search of blankets, while the entire time she lay on the gurney in the lab, motionless.
Once he had the blankets ready, he plumped up the pillows, and then he wheeled the gurney into the room, right up beside the hospital bed. He locked the wheels so the thing wouldn't move, and then he carefully rolled Crisa's body from the gurney onto the bed. It wasn't too difficult. She didn't weigh much. And he wasn't worried about hurting her, because she couldn't feel anything in this state. More than that, he knew this was the time when vampires healed from any wounds they'd gotten during the previous night.
And that made him wonder if the day sleep was powerful enough to heal Crisa from the problems that chip in her brain was causing her. Or if it could at least reverse the damage a little bit, so she would be stronger when she woke up tonight than she had been when she'd fallen asleep this morning.
He took his time arranging her head on the pillows, and tucking the top sheet and the warm blankets around her, even though he knew vampires didn't tend to get cold. Especially not while they slept. But he didn't have anything else to do.
After that, he read to kill the time. He would have played videogames, but his system was up in his room, and he didn't dare get that far away from Crisa. He stayed right by her side. When he got hungry, he went up to the kitchen and made himself a sandwich, then brought it back down with him. When he got tired, he pushed the gurney over to one side of the room, climbed up on it and took a long nap.
When he'd gotten up from his nap, just a few minutes ago, he'd known it was dark outside. But he couldn't hear anything yet from his father, and Crisa didn't seem any different than she had been all day. Pale. Absolutely still. Cold to the touch.
He waited a few minutes, hoping his father would show up, so he could ask when they were going to try to fix her, and when his father didn't appear, Matt got antsy. He was just getting ready to go upstairs and search for his father when he heard a door opening in the lab.
Assuming it was his father, hopefully with a surgeon in tow, Matt jogged into the lab. But it wasn't the door swinging open, as he'd expected to see. It was a part of the wall, shelves and all.
He stood there, too stunned to move, as a woman and a man-vampires, both of them-stepped through the wall and into the lab.
The woman looked around, her eyes nervous. He knew her. He'd glimpsed her before. She was Briar. She'd been part of his father's gang, and one of the mean ones, or so he'd always thought.
But Crisa said she had saved her life.
"You must be Matt," she said.
He nodded, taking a step backward. "You're Briar. I know you. You used to run with my father's gang. He told me you were one of the meanest vampires he ever met. He warned me to stay away from you. Said you were dangerous."
"You must have done a really good job, since I hardly ever set eyes on you," she said, not denying anything else he'd said. "But I did glimpse you once or twice, in passing."
"Father doesn't like me being around other vampires." As he said it, he looked at the strange man.
"This is Eric Marquand," Briar said. "This used to be his house-that's how we knew the way to get in. I brought him here to help me save Crisa."
Matt blinked when Briar said her name, trying to look puzzled. "Who?"
"Don't try to fool me, kid. I know she's here."
"No one's here but me. And my father, but he's upstairs." As he spoke, he moved himself slightly to one side, putting himself directly between Briar and Eric and the doorway that led to where Crisa lay.
"Yeah, I know. My friend Reaper went to the front door to try to keep him busy long enough for us to get Crisa out of here.
You, too, if you want to come."
"I told you, she's not here. And even if she was, I wouldn't let you take her. She's sick. My dad's gonna help her."
"He tell you that?" Briar asked. And when Matt nodded, she said, "And you believed him?"
Matt wasn't sure what he believed. He thought Briar was evil, but Crisa said she'd saved her life. Crisa was so sick. If he made the wrong choice, he knew she might die. He swallowed hard. "I'd be pretty stupid to take off with a couple of strange vampires."
"Except that the rest of our group is waiting in town. And that includes your mother, Matt. Ilyana. She's your mom, right?"
He nodded, but he didn't know if he believed her. He narrowed his eyes on her. "How do I know you're not just lying to me?"
"She's a beanpole. Platinum-blond hair she keeps cut kind of short and spiky, like the top-knot feathers of some exotic chicken.
Really unusual eyes, kind of violet, like Liz Taylor's-only I guess you wouldn't know who that is, would you? And she really doesn't like vampires at all, much less trust them. But she's starting to trust us."
Matt tipped his head to one side just as a sense of tension from above made Briar tilt her own head. Then she pushed the boy aside and moved past him, through the door and into the room where Crisa lay.
"Hey, there, my crazy little loon," she said. She leaned over Crisa, pushing her hair off her forehead with one hand. "Baby, hey.
Come on, wake up, it's your favorite hell-bitch."
Her brows drew together, and she shot a look toward Matt. "How long has she been like this?"
"Since yesterday," Matt said. "Is she-I can't tell, I'm not a vamp. Is she even alive?" He felt tears in his eyes and tried to blink them away.
"Oh, hell, yeah." Briar dropped down to one knee, putting herself at eye level with him. "Yeah, she's alive. She is. You poor kid. You've been sitting here not even sure of that much, haven't you?" He nodded. "For how long?" she asked.
He shrugged. "All day. And for a little while before that."
Eric lifted his head, glancing upward without any real focus. "We need to get her out of here before we're unable to. Matthias, you can come with us or stay behind. It's up to you. But I'd far prefer you come with us."
Briar glared at the man. What do you mean, it's up to him? She thought the words urgently, unaware, Matt knew, that he could hear them, too. We're not leaving it up to him whether or not he stays with a killer like Gregor. We show up without him and Ilyana will never forgive me. Neither would Roxy, and God knows I'd never hear the end of it from hen Besides, the kid could end up dead if we leave him here.
Eric shrugged and looked again at Matt. "What do you say, son?"
Matt looked from one of them to the other, and then he nodded. "I'll come with you." Then he looked toward the desk in the lab. "Those are the files Derry, uh, Mr. Dwyer had on her. You might need them."
"Good man," Eric said, clapping the boy on the shoulder. "Let's gather them up and go."
Raphael Rivera, Gregor said mentally. It 's about time.
It is long past time, Gregor. Reaper had allowed Gregor to sense him as he approached the front door. He hadn't made it too obvious, but not too challenging, either. And apparently it had worked.
Gregor flung the front door open wide even as Reaper jogged along the walkway toward it. Reaper had a tranquilizer gun loaded, drawn and clutched in his hand, ready to fire. So, he noted, did Gregor. "I've been expecting you," Gregor called.
"Oh, I have no doubt. But I'm not here for you, Gregor. Not this time. This is about Crisa. She's an innocent in all this. Let me take her out of here, and then you and I will settle what's between us."
"Who's Crisa?" Gregor asked, feigning innocence.
Reaper poured on vampiric speed, staring into Gregor's face in an instant, gripping his shirt front in a fist. "Don't play games with me? Gregor. She's dying. She needs help immediately." He held his gun to Gregor's head, but Gregor did the same. If Reaper fired, Gregor would, too. Stalemate.
"I know." Gregor jerked himself free of the other man's grip, then smoothed his shirt front down, still holding the gun steady.
"That's why I've sent the drones to bring me a surgeon."
Reaper's brows drew together. The man's words didn't make any sense to him. "Why would you do that?"
"Because Crisa needs that chip removed from her brain or she'll die. And because I have decided to keep her alive if I can.
And if I can keep her alive, then I've decided to keep her."
" What!" Reaper asked, his eyes narrowing.
Gregor shrugged. "I don't have to explain myself to you. However, you should know that I'm not going to let you leave, even though I'm not going to be able to deal with you until after I do what needs to be done for Crisa."
"It's because of your son, isn't it? It's because of the boy."
Gregor's eyes narrowed. "What the hell do you know about my son?"
"I had a conversation with Dwyer," Reaper said, debating how much to give away and still unsure Whether Gregor knew that Ilyana was with Reaper and his gang. "He told me he had the boy. He told me about the chip, the mind control power it provides, the fact that you had taken those controls from him and had them here. It wasn't much of a leap from there to guessing that you would have forced Crisa to bring Matthias back here to you. So where are they, Gregor? Where are you keeping them?"
"You're good. Very good. But I wouldn't tell you where they were even if you shot me." Gregor walked over to the fireplace, where a fire was burning, though the flame was extremely low.
"Interesting that you put it that way, since those are your precisely your options," Reaper said, following him, not wanting to let him get too far away. He was constantly sensing for drones, constantly monitoring for a signal from Briar that she and Eric and Crisa had made it clear.
But he heard nothing.
And then he did.
He heard the grating of metal hinges beneath him, and he felt the floor giving away. Before he could react, he was plummeting downward, a long way downward. Finally he landed hard on what felt like a cold concrete floor in a room of utter darkness.
The single square of light from above quickly vanished, as Gregor swung the trapdoor closed again.
"Enjoy your stay, Reaper," Gregor called just before he extinguished the last bit of light. "As soon as I've granted my son's request to save your friend Crisa, I'll be coming down to drain you of every ounce of blood-and of power-you possess."
"Damn you, Gregor!"
Reaper whirled in a circle, arms reaching outward, eyes adjusting rapidly. And soon he could see and feel the situation. He was in a small room. Windowless concrete walls on all four sides of him, and the chute through which he had plummeted above.
Nothing else.
Gregor trekked down into the basement. The cell where he'd sealed Reaper was in a sublevel below this one. The chute through which he'd fallen was wide and completely enclosed. From here, it looked like an oversized chimney, a square pillar that reached from floor to ceiling. No one would guess that it opened into the living room floor above and ended in a tomblike pit below.
He'd expected to hear Reaper shouting at him, cursing him, demanding to be released. But he heard nothing. The man had gone silent. Probably plotting his escape. Gregor wondered how long it would take him to figure out that there was none.
But that was for later contemplation. And enjoyment. For now, he needed to shift his focus to Matthias and his pathetic newfound companion. He hoped the drones could find a surgeon and bring him here before this night was through. Even then, there was still no guarantee the woman would survive. But he had promised to try, and he intended to.
Gregor's thoughts ground to a halt as he realized that there was no sense of Matthias anywhere nearby. He frowned and sharpened his focus, but he felt the emptiness of the room even before he reached it. He opened the door to the basement lab, then moved through it and into the room beyond.
Crisa's hospital bed lay empty. Clean sheets, and mounds of blankets and pillows, were rumpled, as if they had been used. But no one was using them now. One small blanket and a pillow lay on the gurney on the far side of the room, and he guessed that must have been where his son had napped today. Close to Crisa's side. Watching over her as if he were a man grown, and her protector, rather than a young boy. Gregor's chest swelled with a feeling of pride in his son, even as his stomach lurched in worry.
Someone else had been here.
Briar!
He could smell her, almost taste her on the air. She'd been here, and so had someone else. Another vampire, a male, and one Gregor did not know. Gone now. Though how the two could have come and gone unseen was beyond him.
He followed his sense of them, knowing they had taken his son and Crisa away. As he moved back through the lab, he noted that the stack of files was also missing. The ones he'd taken from Dwyer, the ones that had all the information on Crisa.
And then he searched the main part of the basement lab, again following his senses. One wall had a freestanding rack of shelves against it, only he realized now that it wasn't freestanding at all. The bricks behind it were actually attached to it. The marks on the dusty floor showed him the truth. It was a secret door. He ran his hands over the books, touching only where they had touched, until the shelf sprang free. He pulled it open.
Whirling back toward the room, he howled in rage.
What's the matter, Gregor? Reaper's mind reached out to his, adding to his fury. Your kid run away again?
I'll kill you for this, Reaper. Make no mistake. I'll get them back. All of them- Briar included. But you, my friend, you are not going to be around to see it.
Gregor started for the hidden entrance to that subterranean cell, then stopped himself.
He called out to his drones, most of whom were patrolling the woods or standing on guard duty. There are intruders on or around the grounds. They have taken my prisoner and my son. Find them. Kill the man, and bring the others to me.
And do not hurt the boy.
That done, he hauled open a trapdoor in the basement floor, climbed down the ladder to the bottom and stood in the small open area, facing the solid door to Reaper's cell. He was going to kill the bastard, and he was going to do it now. No more waiting.
He reached for the door, unfastened the bolt, gripped the large handle and shoved it inward.
But the door didn't budge.
He shoved again, but still there was no movement.
From the other side, Reaper laughed softly. "Did you expect that I'd make it easy for you? I suppose you can always come in the way I did. Though I'll be waiting to tear you apart when you land, so you'd have a hell of a time getting out again."
The bastard was blocking the door with no more than the force of his mind! Telekinesis, of a sort, fueled by the power of his bloodline, perhaps. Gregor tried to battle it with the force of his own powers, but he knew already that he was no match for the vampiric powers of someone descended from Rhiannon, and from Vlad the Impaler before her.
Gregor gave up trying after a moment, knowing he couldn't open the door that way. "I don't have to resort to coming in that way," he said. "You will die, Reaper. Even if I can never get inside that cell, you'll die. Either slowly, of starvation, or more quickly."
"Either way, you don't get to drain me. My power dies with me."
Gregor narrowed his eyes. "Honestly, as long as you're dead, I no longer care."
"Bull."
Gregor shrugged, never admitting that he really did care, that he craved Reaper's power. The man would be just as dead, either way. He climbed the ladder and crossed the basement, then headed back up the stairs to the main part of the house. In the living room, he went to the mantel and picked up the remote control he'd left there. He'd been preparing this place for months before he'd actually taken up residence, and this particular feature was his greatest innovation. With a thumb to a button, the trapdoor dropped open again. Then he thumbed another button and watched the floor as a solid, impenetrable, glasslike panel slid silently across in its place.
Do me a favor, Reaper. Look up.
He knew full well what his nemesis would see when he did. He would see the long chute through which he had plummeted. He would see that the trapdoor in the living room floor was open, a window in its place, and directly above that, in the towering ceiling above Gregor, he would see the skylight, as its electronic shades drew back.
Right now that skylight would show Reaper only a distant glimpse of the night sky, the twinkling stars, perhaps even a corner of the crescent moon. A tantalizing, teasing bit of the freedom he would never again know...and the slowly dawning realization that in the morning, that window onto the world would reveal a far different view. A view of the daylight-and of the sun. As it rose, its rays would flow down into the chute, and by the time the sun reached its zenith, Reaper's tiny cell would be flooded in light.
And he would go up in flames.
Briar followed Eric into the tunnel, then turned to pull the section of wall closed behind them, as the boy stood trembling beside her. With the door closed, the passageway was black as pitch, and the child's fear was palpable. She could see as well in the darkness as by full light, but she knew he couldn't, so when he groped blindly, his eyes wide, his lips trembling, Briar caught his hand and closed hers around it. "It's okay, Matt," she said.
Ahead of her, Eric was carrying Crisa, who hung limp in his arms. She was so still that Briar wondered if she had any chance of survival.
"Is Crisa going to be all right?" Matt asked. He shuffled his feet when he walked, unsure of his footing, slowing Briar's pace.
She held on to his hand even more tightly, pulling him along.
"Honestly, I don't know," she told him. "I want her to be."
"My father is going to know I'm gone. He's going to try to stop us, and he's going to be really mad."
She nodded, though he couldn't see her. "Does he know about this passageway?"
"I don't think so. If he did, he never said anything."
"Then we should be fine. We're almost to the end. Hang in there, Matt, okay?"
"I'm trying." His hand tightened on her fingers. "You must have changed, I guess."
She frowned down at him. "Just keep moving."
"You used to be one of the bad guys. But now you're not."
"I'm no different than I ever was," she told him. God, the kid was as bad as Reaper, searching for noble motives for everything she did. There were none. She hadn't changed.
"Yes, you are. You're different. You care now."
"You're nuts, Matt. I don't care about anyone."
"You do. You care about Crisa...a lot. And even about me a little. And your friend-Reaper? You're worrying about him even more than you're worrying about whether we're gonna get out of here or not."
She stopped walking. "What are you, some kind of mind reader or something?"
He clamped his lips tight and picked up his pace a little. She'd hit on something there, she thought. For a mortal, the boy was sharp, insightful. More than that, maybe, but he didn't want anyone to know.
She watched his face as he battled his fears and marched onward. "I don't want to see anything bad happen to Crisa," she admitted. "Or to Reaper. Or to you, either. Doesn't mean I care."
"What does it mean, then?"
Hell, she was damned if she knew. And she didn't have time to analyze it, then explain it to a kid, right now, anyway. "We're at the end. There's a trapdoor in the top. We need to climb up to it. It comes out in the woods, a few hundred yards away from the house. We're going to have to be very quiet now."
"I know. The drones are probably out there."
Eric stopped, and, bending down, he laid Crisa gently on the packed earth floor. Then he climbed upward, pausing to listen and sense. Eventually he whispered, "Dwyer? Are you there?"
"Here," a hoarse voice whispered. And then the trapdoor in the forest floor opened and Dwyer peered in from above. "God, what took you so long? There've been drones passing by on all sides every little while. It's a miracle they haven't found me."
"We'll be out of their reach soon," Eric assured him, then climbed back down.
"I don't think anyone's near. We move fast from here, all right? You'll need to carry the boy, Briar, or he'll never keep up."
Carry the boy? Hell.
"All right?" Eric asked.
"Yeah, whatever, though how you expect Dwyer to keep up with us is beyond me."
"I've got that covered."
She didn't even ask how, just sighed. "Let's get on with this, then. I don't have all night. And I'm not getting any younger."
To her surprise, the kid laughed, just a little. She shot him a look, and he said, "That's funny. Not getting any younger. Not getting any older, either."
"Kid's a freakin' comedian," she muttered.
Eric Marquand picked Crisa up again, and, anchoring her over his shoulder, he climbed up the steps and emerged into the forest. Briar crouched down in front of Matt. "Wrap your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist."
"Like piggyback?" the kid asked, even as he complied.
"Yeah, just like piggyback." She rose, with the child clinging and rising with her and then she climbed upward quickly.
As soon as they were out, Eric bent to lower the trapdoor. "This way," he said. And as he spoke, he clapped an arm around the cowering mortal's waist, and yanked the man up and over his other shoulder.
Briar felt something-someone approaching. Many of them. "The drones are closing in. Go!"
Eric burst into a run, though his speed was hampered by the need to carry two others as he went. Briar didn't hesitate to do the same. But the drones could move at preternatural speeds, too, and there was no way to be sure they wouldn't be cut off or ambushed, or simply caught, before they got clear.
