The Lair

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Mel

I should be planning as I wait for the perfect moment to sneak out of the room and start my search for Roberto. But instead of strategizing, all I can do is wonder: Does vampire hair grow? I have no way of knowing. Sebastian’s hair is cut short. I haven’t known him long enough to notice it growing, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t.

If vampire hair doesn’t grow, I’m going to be really annoyed that I just chopped all of mine off. I could have cut off Lily’s. The state she’s in, she wouldn’t have even noticed. So after I knocked out the guard, swapped clothes with him, and stole his weapons, I pulled my own hair into a ponytail and sliced it off close to my head. Now my hair—my one feature that I’ve ever actually liked—is jagged and misshapen. Maybe it will grow out; maybe it will be like this for the rest of my life. However long that might be. I’ve had only a few moments of vanity ever, so I don’t feel too badly about not wanting to look like Fontaine for the rest of eternity. Still, if I do, I guess it was worth it. That one little ponytail gave the illusion that it was me sleeping on that bench. I may have fooled even Carter.

When the hall outside empties, I wait another sixty seconds, then use the passkey to open the door. I have two now: the guard’s and my father’s. I slip them into separate pockets to keep them straight and I stride out like this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. As I walk down the hall, my feet clomp in my oversized combat boots loudly enough to cover the pounding of my heart. I don’t know how long I’ll have. From here, any number of things could go wrong.

My father could realize his key is missing. My father could decide he needs to talk to me now, nap be damned. Someone could come and check on the guard. Those were all possibilities. Remote, but possible. The more likely scenario is that there is a security camera in that room and that someone saw or heard everything I did and is on his way to retrieve me right now. If that’s the case, more troops will be here any minute. My new disguise is the only thing keeping me from being identified. So I keep my glasses firmly in place, even though the mirrored lenses muck with my vampire vision. I wear the outfit like I own it. Like I was born to be a brainless, hired goon.

I move quickly down one hall and then another. I don’t sneak because there are probably security cameras here, too. Still, every springy vampire muscle in my body is twitching to run. I could be anywhere on this compound in under three minutes if I let loose. But that would really blow my cover. Not just my identity, but the whole kit and caboodle. I don’t want anyone knowing what I’m capable of until it’s too late to stop me.

It’s a strain to move like a human, but I manage it. At least, I think I do. When several minutes pass and there are no obvious signs that I’m being followed, I relax a little. I’m still sure there were security cameras in that room, but that doesn’t mean someone was monitoring them.

In my mind, I try to pull up the little map that Sebastian drew for me. I know from my ride through town that it hadn’t been completely accurate. He had underestimated the number of houses. Even the “Main Street” had more buildings than Sebastian’s drawing. I wasn’t sure where he’d gotten his intel. I assumed some sort of satellite from the Before. If the number of new buildings was any indication, El Corazon has done well in the After. Chaos rules outside these fences, but in this little swath of what is left of the United States, order reigns. Roberto’s order. And my father’s. The fact that he’s alive shocks me, but the mystery of their connection is a puzzle box I’m not willing to play with right now. There have to be three hundred people living here. Three hundred people and one vampire. Roberto must eat well.

I step out of the clinic through one of the side doors into the late-afternoon sunlight. The temperatures are starting to drop off and there is a slight chill in the air. Directly across the street is a building that looks like a classic Texas county courthouse: four stories of impressive limestone, late-nineteenth-century architecture sitting on a neat square of trimmed grass. That’s the building from which Roberto rules this little kingdom. But I’m equally sure that he isn’t there now. No, it’s dusk. He is definitely at home, wherever home might be for him.

I don’t know enough about normal vampires—other vampires, that is—to know where he might live. Lore says vampires must sleep in the dirt of their native land, but Sebastian has never done that. So I walk along Main Street looking as I go at the buildings in either direction. I’m surprised, but grateful, that no one has come racing after me yet. To the south, I see the open plain. Longhorn cattle dot the landscape as well as active pump jacks. This doesn’t surprise me. I saw the windmills on the way in. Roberto is the kind of man who would have planned this stuff out far in advance. It wouldn’t even surprise me if this compound of his wasn’t set for the next decade.

I walk farther down the street and don’t see the house until I turn the corner and the land begins to slope gently up a hill. There it is, on the crest of the hill, overlooking the town. Actually, it’s less house and more sprawling Victorian mansion: three stories of ornate, pink granite with glossy, black slate on the roof and more wrought iron than the French Quarter in New Orleans. There is a pair of massive live oaks in the front yard, shading the house from the southern sun, their branches clumped with ball moss and dipping low to the ground. It reminds me of the Haunted Mansion from Disney World.

I walk right up. There is a single guard in front and another patrolling the sides and probably the back of the house, too. I take out the patrol guard first using the tranq rifle I’d stolen with the uniform. The second guy takes a little more planning, but it is still relatively easy. I pretend to be the guard from the side of the house and call him over. I hit him with the tranq rifle. I tie them up with zip ties, like I’d seen Carter do before—then eye the back of the house looking for a window that looks vulnerable.

I return to the front, find a tree branch that’s about an inch or two in diameter. I break off the branch and snap it in two and then use the knife I stole off the guard to whittle points on either end of both sticks. As stakes go, they’re primitive, but they’ll do.

I’m just starting to wonder why I’ve gotten this far without more interference, when I hear the howl of Ticks in the distance. My heart gives a little shudder of fear at the piercing yips. Even after all this time, even after I’ve killed so many of them, that sound still terrifies me. It’s like I’m back in that parking lot, dying all over again.

I push my terror aside. I have nothing to fear. Not from them. Besides, this was what I had planned. I wanted the Ticks here. This was why I cut the tracking chip out of the neck of that girl I’d killed. This was why I’d stashed it in my pocket and carried it with me during the long drive here, despite the annoying buzzing it caused in my head. The radio frequency of those chips irritated me, but it bugged the crap out of the Ticks.

Their arrival spurs me to get moving. I turn back to consider the house. Roberto wasn’t expecting an attack, certainly not from a vampire, so safety wouldn’t be his first concern. This was his empire. He would want to survey it. Which means his room would be on the third floor. So I decide to scale the outside of the building and go in through the window and then search the building from the top down.

Climbing the outside of the building is slower going than I expected, even with my new vampire strength and speed. Finding the minute crevices for footholds takes time. Enough time for me to wonder whether or not anyone else lives with Roberto in this house. It’s huge. There could easily be several people.

Will I have to kill them all, like that SEAL team that went after Osama Bin Laden? Or will I be able to find just him and destroy him alone?

Will I even recognize him? He’s old. Older than Sebastian. Which means he’ll be smart. Vicious. Heartless. Brutal. Yes, those are all the things I expect from him personally. Those are the qualities of a vampire. Sebastian’s taught me that much.

As for his body, that I’m not sure about. He goes by Roberto and has lived in this part of the world for close to two thousand years. I’m picturing dark hair and high, Mayan cheekbones. Old-world manners and oozing charm. Basically, I’m picturing Ricardo Montalban, that old actor from Fantasy Island and Spy Kids.

As soon as I’m in the window, I pull off the mirrored sunglasses and tuck them into my pocket. I may need them later, but for now I’m happy to have them off. Even without turning on lights, my vampire vision allows me to see just fine. Turns out I was wrong about his bedroom being on the third floor. The window was easy enough to open, but the four bedrooms were obviously unused, elegantly appointed guest bedrooms. Creeping down the stairs, I hear voices. One pitched too softly for me to understand, the other a deep, rumbling voice that’s faintly accented, like Sebastian’s. And, for that matter, the voice is similar to Ricardo Montalban’s.

I creep closer, back pressed against the wall, trying to catch the conversation. There’s something about a security breach. No big surprise there.

The ceilings here are high and there are transom windows over the doors. This is the only room in this hall with a light on in it. From where I’m standing I can see a tiny sliver of the room. I can see a huge, four-poster bed, with a red, velvet coverlet and another piece of furniture on the opposite wall. A desk, maybe. None of that is particularly helpful. Then I catch a glimpse of a man as he walks past. He’s tall with distinguished salt-and-pepper hair. And I see a phone in his hand. Not pressed to his ear, but held out in front of him like he’s got the other person on speaker.

So he’s alone after all.

Suddenly, my heart is racing and my throat is dry. I shift the two stakes to one hand so I can wipe my palm on my pants. Faced with the reality of killing Roberto, I’m unexpectedly nervous. Then, I hear a door open somewhere on the first floor. Reinforcements are on their way. And whether it’s nervousness or excitement or what, I don’t know, but I am suddenly on fire to kill him. Some primal drive inside me has kicked in and I itch with the need to destroy him. I’m alive with it. I don’t question it or wonder about it. I’m out of time.

I charge through the door, stakes raised.

The man on the other side is exactly how I pictured him. Tall, stately. Dressed in a pristine suit and glossy, black shoes. He is the very picture of the debonair gentleman vampire. I expect more of a fight. I expect the kind of crazy acrobatic martial arts that Sebastian pulled. Instead, he just stands there, an expression of absolute shock on his face as I race toward him. He screams as I bring him to the ground, and I plunge the stake into his heart.

His arms flail for a second, and I jump away, passing my second stake into my right hand, just in case. I stand over him, desperately sucking air into my lungs as I watch him die. As his eyes go blank and his mouth foams with blood.

I don’t know what I expect. Elation? Happiness? Joy? At the very least, I expect a release from this angry rush of adrenaline. Instead, as I stare down at his body, I feel . . .

The need to destroy. Not just him, but everything.

There are footsteps on the stairs. Someone is coming. Fast. I whirl to face the door and broaden my stance, ready to fight off the guards I expect to pour into the room.

But instead of guards, a boy runs into the room.

He’s about my age, maybe younger. He’s shorter than I am by at least a few inches and his build is lean. There’s something delicate about him. Something youthful and unfinished. Like he hasn’t quite reached his full height or grown into the man he’ll become. He has hair so blond that it almost gleams in the pink light of the setting sun shining through the window. He pulses like the tinkling of a Mozart concerto. He is, quite simply, the most beautiful, most angelic boy I’ve ever seen.

Surprise flickers over his expression as he looks from me to Roberto’s dead body on the ground. He stumbles back a step, like he might turn to flee.

Automatically, I drop the stake. Instinctively, I don’t want to hurt this boy. I don’t even want him to fear me. I hold up my hands in a gesture of surrender and speak slowly, calmly.

“I mean you no harm,” I say. “I came here to kill Roberto. I’m not here for you.”

The surprise on his face morphs into confusion as he looks from me to the body on the floor. “You’re here to kill Roberto?” he asks.

I nod, trying to look non-threatening, but it’s difficult because my pulse is still pounding and hate-fueled adrenaline is pumping through my veins.

He straightens, bracing his stance, as a smile creeps across his lovely face. “You came here to kill—” Then he gestures toward the man on the floor. “Roberto?”

“Yes.”

The blond boy tips back his head and laughs.

It’s a high-pitched, musical laugh. It’s like one of Mozart’s concertos: light and airy, and though the sound itself is lovely, I hate it. I hate him for making it. That furious flood of adrenaline from stabbing Roberto has not let up. My body is almost shaking with it now. With the need to kill and destroy. And somehow this boy, this boy’s laughter, is making it worse. It’s like the adrenaline is a fire in my blood and his laughter is a chemical accelerant. It is painful to listen to him. It’s excruciating. Deep inside. Like my blood is actually boiling.

My head throbs and my knees start to buckle. I press my palms to my ears, trying to block out the sound of his laughter, but it doesn’t help.

And then, the boy is walking closer to me. His laughter has mellowed to a chuckle now.

“Sebastian,” he says, shaking his head as if in sympathy. He rolls his eyes. “Will you never stop trying to kill me? How many innocent young pups will you send?”

He stops in front of me, studying my face. Even though I’m taller than him, I feel smaller. Tiny. Helpless.

He reaches up, grabs me by the throat and lifts slowly until my feet dangle. I grab his wrist but his arm isn’t like flesh and blood. It’s like iron.

His smile broadens as he looks at me. I kick at him, but my lungs are already screaming for air and my knees feel weak.

“You came here to kill Roberto and instead you killed my valet.” He glances at the body, and a frown mars his perfect beauty. “Such a shame. I liked Rodrigo. He was with me for fifty years. I was beginning to get rather attached to him. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good servant like that? One who’s willing to dispose of bodies and overlook habits that many humans find unpalatable? You know, the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am.”

The boy tosses me onto the ground. I land hard enough to rattle my bones. The impact is much less shocking than the realization that I didn’t kill Roberto at all. That this boy—this beautiful, angelic boy—is Roberto.

Which explains why I heard no music from Rodrigo. He was as silent as his corpse is now. How stupid am I that I only now realized this.

I suck a deep breath, extinguishing the fire in my lungs. It doesn’t ease my trembling or alleviate the burning need for violence.

Of course it doesn’t. Because this isn’t mere adrenaline. This need to launch myself at him, to destroy him, this is my vampire spidey sense kicking in. I don’t know why now or why here, but this must be it.

But I feel completely unprepared for it. I thought it would make me stronger. Instead, I am crippled by it.

But of course, as I attempt to stand and Roberto looms over me practically cackling with delight, another thought slams me: Sebastian knows Roberto. He must know what he looks like. The angelic, blond beauty. The youth. Roberto made Sebastian, even if it was two thousand years ago. That isn’t the kind of thing you’re likely to forget. Two thousand years from now, I’ll still remember what Sebastian looks like.

And Sebastian must have known how far off my expectations were. After all, how often had he told me that Roberto was older even than he? That Roberto had been in this part of the world since the early days of the Aztec empire. Surely, he must have known what I thought. He must have. I couldn’t believe that after all the careful planning, after all he did to prep me for this, that he would forget to mention that Roberto was sixteen and as blond as a Nordic snowboarder. When you’re talking about Aztec god-vampires, surely that’s the kind of thing that would come up.

So Sebastian deliberately misled me. He didn’t send me in here to kill Roberto. He sent me in to fail. I am not an assassin. I’m a distraction.

After all these months, I thought I knew him. I thought I understood him. I knew I couldn’t trust him, precisely, but I thought I knew his endgame. And I thought he respected me and what I could do. I was wrong. About everything.

I am flummoxed. And when Roberto pounces on me, I am floored. I go down hard and together, we slide a couple of feet across the gleaming polished wood. I swing my arms up to hit him, but he neatly captures both my hands in his. No matter how I buck, I can’t force him off. He chuckles. Despite being whippet thin, he’s wickedly strong and he manages to hold me down with one hand. His other hand fumbles for the stake I dropped. I see what’s coming and my terror picks up. I’d thought I was ready. I’d thought I was willing to die to accomplish this. To avenge not just my sister but all of humanity. But now, in this instant, with my enemy reaching for a stake, panic claws through me. I don’t want to die. Not now. Not like this.

I buck and flail. My heels find purchase and I twist around, but he’s seated too firmly on top of me. And then the stake is in his hands. There’s a maniacal gleam in his gaze as he slams the stake down to my heart.

The impact is crushing. I feel ribs crack and break and a horrible, searing pain in my lungs that makes it impossible to catch my breath. But the stake doesn’t go through.

It doesn’t go through!

The wood splinters against the bulletproof vest I have under the guard’s uniform. I look from the shards of wood up to Roberto’s face. I don’t know who’s more surprised, him or me. He growls in frustration at the same time I let out a crazed laugh.

I’m harder to kill than I used to be.

“Wow. Guess you shouldn’t have bought that body armor for your guards.”

He snarls, his hand ripping at the collar of the vest. The tightly woven fabric of the vest bites into the flesh on the back of my neck and arms. He gives it a hard yank and I feel the fabric slice my skin before the fabric gives and the seams rip open. The buttons on the camo shirt pop as he rips the front of the vest clean off, leaving my chest bare.

He stands, pulling me up along with him. I stumble a few steps behind while I struggle to get my feet under me. He drags me over to the body of his valet. He bends down to grab the stake from Rodrigo’s heart.

I won’t get another chance to break free, so I duck my head and plow into him. I knock him over, and he lets go of my hands.

But he’s as experienced a fighter as Sebastian and he recovers quickly, rolling with the action and popping back up onto his feet. I stumble, but before I can straighten, he swings his leg out in a roundhouse kick. I grab his ankle, but he twists in midair, forcing me off balance. He recovers before I can and he kicks me in the chest. I go down again. I roll out from under him before he can slam the stake through my heart. I scramble across the floor toward a chair by the wall. He’s almost on top of me, when I grab it and swing it at him. It smashes to pieces on his head, but he’s barely dazed. That’s okay. I didn’t expect to knock him out or anything. All I wanted was one of those spindly legs. And I’m betting the hard, polished wood of furniture will be more effective than a quickly whittled branch anyway. I grab the chair leg in both hands and bring it up between me and him just as he slams the stake in my direction. The chair leg collides with his chest, stopping his momentum, but his reach is longer than mine and I can feel the tip of the wood digging into my skin. For a second, we lay there, him poised over my body, me fighting to keep that stake out of my heart.

Roberto knows my strength is failing and that gleam is back in his gaze. He’s enjoying this. Like this is the most fun he’s had all day. Hell, probably all century.

I’m not going to make it. I am struggling with everything I’ve got, and it’s not enough. This crazy damn vampire is going to kill me. Any second now.

Except it doesn’t happen.

He tenses above me. Freezes completely. He’s no longer looking at me, and his gaze has shifted up to the left, like he can hear something in the distance that I can’t.

And then I can hear it: a piercing howl. Not the howl of a Tick, but a mechanical howl of a jet coming in too fast. It roars overhead before whining away with a Doppler effect. An instant later, there’s the stupefying boom of something huge crashing to the ground.

The whole house shakes. The chandelier above me trembles and dust filters down through the air. Then the lights flicker and go out.

Roberto looks back down at me. The haze of vampire crazy-berserker clears from his eyes. He flashes me another demonic smile. “Well, now. Isn’t this interesting?” He hops to his feet, pulling me with him. Again, he has my wrists in one of his hands. He plucks the chair leg neatly out of my hands. “I’ll just take that, if you don’t mind.”

He opens the top drawer in the desk. Inside is a creepy array of instruments, the purpose for which I don’t even want to consider. There are knives and picks and saws. It’s like a full surgical supply cart. Along with a bundle of zip ties. He has my hands cuffed in front of me before I can even think past my horror at what I’ve seen in the drawer.

Then, he’s dragging me out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

“Let’s just go see what your friend is up to, shall we?”

I stumble after him, down the grand, curving staircase, my footsteps clattering across the marble of the entrance hall. He doesn’t stop until we’re out on the sweeping, wide front porch. We both look out over the town. Guards are scrambling in front of the courthouse. A pair of Hummers rumble by from the direction of the barracks. Other people, civilians, are pouring out onto the street to see what has happened. And then I see it.

On the other side of town, opposite from the gatehouse, a plume of inky smoke spirals into the sky. Only then do I realize that all the lights in town are out. There are streetlights all down Main Street. It was dusk when I went into Roberto’s house and the lights were just starting to come on. Now the sun has fully set and all of the lights are dark.

Whatever crashed must have gone right into the fence and knocked out the entire electrical grid. In the distance, far beyond the edge of town, I can hear the Ticks howling at the fence. Ticks that I led here. How long will it take for them to figure out that the fences are down? How long before the innocent people of this town are overrun by monsters that I let in? But I have no time to think about that.

Roberto hooks his fingers through the zip tie and drags me along behind him down the stairs and out into the street. His presence doesn’t go unnoticed. The people milling about stop to watch him with equal parts fear and awe. In this crowd, no one will come to my rescue. I am on my own.

He moves quickly down the street but I can’t keep up. I stumble and hit the ground hard on one knee. I cry out, but even that doesn’t stop him. He just drags me along behind him, my knees scraping the concrete. Finally he stops in the middle of the road and turns in place.

“Come out, come out wherever you are!”

He turns full circle. He’s waiting. For Sebastian.

He’s figured out Sebastian’s plan before I did. Of course Sebastian never intended for me to kill Roberto. How was I ever stupid enough to believe that he’d be content to let me kill his nemesis? He had hunted him for hundreds of years. He’s probably planned this for decades. He wasn’t going to just hand this over to me. As badly as I want Roberto dead, as badly as I want this all to end, it’s nothing compared to how Sebastian feels.

So of course I was nothing more than a decoy. A distraction. All this talk about how I was the only one who could do this, how I was the only one who could kill Roberto; that had all been lies. He even misled me about the vampire spidey sense, because clearly that is what I felt inside the house. That gut-deep need to kill Roberto. Or if I cannot kill him to flee his territory. That wasn’t at all what I’d expected. Certainly not so soon or so powerfully. Why had it come on so suddenly?

Then it hits me. Until yesterday I hadn’t been a real vampire. I had eaten, but not human blood. I had fed, but not killed. Somehow the act of taking a human life had made my transformation complete.

Sebastian had lied to and manipulated me at every turn. Was there any truth to anything he’d ever said?

And now, he’s out there, watching, waiting for the right moment to come and kill my enemy. I certainly hate Roberto. I hate what he’s done to the country, possibly to the world. I hate what he’s done to Lily and to me. My hatred is broad, but not deep. As many reasons as I have to hate Roberto, none of them feel personal. But Sebastian? I have a lot of reasons to hate him, too. Deeply personal reasons.

Roberto marches up and down the street, dragging me behind him. “I know you’re out there!”

Thankfully, he’s walking more slowly now and I can keep up.

“How many times are you going to send one of your little pets in to try to kill me?” he calls out.

Wait . . . Sebastian has done this before?

“When are you going to figure out that I will always—always!—win?” He whirls in another direction. “You can’t beat me! You just can’t.”

Across the street, I see Carter and my father dash out of the clinic only to stop on the steps when they see Roberto and me.

“For the first century or so, your pathetic assassination attempts were amusing. But I am not amused anymore. Come get your little pet”—Roberto jerks me forward and pulls me in front of him. He brings the wooden chair leg up to my neck—“before I take care of this problem myself.”

The jagged edge of the splintered wood bites into my flesh, but I feel strangely disconnected from my fear. Of course it doesn’t hurt that he’s ripped my shirt and it’s hanging open in tatters. I’m mostly covered, but I feel strangely vulnerable this way, partially naked and unable to hide myself. It’s the embarrassment that stings the most. The shame of failure.

This was supposed to be my big gesture on behalf of all humanity. My great act of defiance. Some assassin I turned out to be. I murdered an unarmed valet and got myself captured.

Maybe this is how it was meant to be. I wanted to play a part in bringing Roberto down. Maybe this is simply the part I get to play. The dupe. The fool. The victim.