Chasing Shadows

chapter Seventeen

We sat in silence for some time, our hands twined together on Mark’s leg, as we waited. Every so often Juliette would moan softly, and Mark’s face contorted sorrowfully.

“I wish there was something I could do for her,” he said softly.

I gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Mark, you are doing something for her, right now,” I told him. “You’re here, supporting her with your love.”

“But what if it’s not enough? What if she dies?”

Shaking my head, I glanced over at Juliette’s still form, her pretty face marred by a slight frown even though she still slept. “She’s not going to die. Her blood is free of the drugs and her heartbeat is strong. I am sure that Juliette will be fine.”

He looked at me. “Then why hasn’t she woken up?” he countered.

I smiled lightly. “I’m fairly certain it’s because her body needs time to heal, and all of us heal better when we’re asleep.”

Mark thought about that for a moment and then nodded. “I feel so helpless, just sitting here,” he said after a time. “I want to go out looking for the son of a bitch who did this to her, but I can’t because I haven’t the faintest clue where to begin.”

I sympathized with his desire for vengeance—I felt the same way. I was angry because Juliette had been hurt, and I was angry that she had been used to get to me.

“Do you remember earlier when we talked about how this was an indirect attack against me?” I asked, and Mark nodded. “Well, I was just thinking that as pretentious as it sounds, it must be true. I mean, whoever did this dumped her in my driveway. How would they have even known to bring her here unless this is about me?”

Then suddenly another idea hit me, and I looked at Mark with alarm. “What if it’s about you?” I breathed.

“What do you mean?” he said with a frown.

I squeezed his hand again. “Mark, think about it. Juliette was driving your truck. The person that did this might have been following it thinking it was you behind the wheel.”

He nodded. “Okay, maybe at first, but anyone with half a brain would have realized fairly quickly that it wasn’t me—Juliette’s almost a foot shorter than me,” he said. “And besides, it’s like you just said: they knew to bring her here. So either they were waiting out on the street for the truck, or they ambushed her somewhere else, and they either tortured the address out of her or they already knew where you lived.”

I sighed and nodded as I looked again upon Juliette’s sleeping form. “It scares me that the person or people behind this know where I live. It scares me that they were willing to burn down the barn and kill all the animals, that they were willing to kidnap and brutalize your sister, all just to mess with my head. If someone is mad at me, why not just come at me directly?”

“Probably like you said, to mess with your mind. And they know you’re a lot harder to kill than a helpless farm animal, or even a shapeshifter.”

“I’m easier to kill than you think, Mark.”

I felt his eyes on me, and so I turned to face him. His expression was slightly alarmed, and I could see in his eyes that he was both concerned and curious about what I had said. I realized then that with everything I had explained to him about vampires and hybrids, I’d never really talked to him about how we could be killed.

“How can you be killed?” he asked slowly.

I took a breath and glanced down at our joined hands. “Vampires and their hybrid offspring are similar in that things like bullets and stakes and stabbings won’t kill us—at least not permanently,” I began. “If the wound is a mortal one, we do die, but over a period of three days our bodies will regenerate, and then we wake again. Best not to have a human or an animal nearby unless you want them to die, as a vampire waking from regeneration is ravenously thirsty, and generally royally ticked off. Having a few pints of blood waiting and within reach is a pretty good idea because it will help slake the thirst and calm the vampire down.

“If anyone wants to kill us permanently, the easiest method would be to chop our heads off. Since no one can get away with carrying a sword under their coat, a bullet to the brain or a stake to the heart will immobilize a vampire long enough for beheading, or being set on fire. Now, if the vampire is not somehow immobilized, he or she can put out the flames, so if you want them dead, just setting a vamp on fire won’t do. Shoot or stake him somehow, then throw a lighter or a lit match, or if you want to be creative, take the body to a crematorium and put it in the incinerator.”

Mark shook his head. “Good grief,” he murmured.

“Oh, there’s more. You can always lure the vampire out during the day to make him or her fall asleep, which can also immobilize, or you can shoot the vamp up with dead blood or some other poison if you want to make him suffer a while before you kill him.”

I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts, then after taking another breath, I plowed forward. “Most injuries a vampire suffers heal almost instantly. Same is true for my kind and yours, as you well know. However, depending on the severity of the injury, we can scar. You know this, too, because that wound to your neck is proof. With vampires and hybrids, being shot only leaves a scar if the wound is devastating. A stake will scar, fire scars and so can burns, and silver will scar a full vampire.”

Mark’s eyebrows rose. “Silver? Why silver?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Some of the more religious-minded vampires think it’s because Judas Iscariot accepted thirty pieces of silver to betray Christ to the Romans. They think he was the First. But then that doesn’t jive with the theory some others have that Cain was the first vampire,” I said.

My bondmate shook his head. “Okay, Judas I get—they even used that theory in a movie ‘bout ten years ago. But Cain? As in the one who killed Abel?” I nodded. “Why him? What do they base that theory on?”

“Cain was a vain man who killed his own brother in a fit of jealous rage. The theory is that the punishment he received from God for the heinousness of that act was to forever walk the Earth thirsting for that which he had spilled.”

“Which would mean that all vampires would be his descendants, right?”

I nodded again. “The ones who follow that belief also think Judas was a vampire, just not the First. He was descended, so they say, from one of Cain’s children.”

“What about dhunphyr—my kind? Do you think what you wrote about them in your books holds true now that we know I really am immortal? I mean, all that stuff about regenerating when we die?”

I looked over. “I don’t see why not. I wrote that character and his history based on what I had been told about dhunphyr when I was growing up, and if the part about them being immortal is true maybe the rest of it is, too. Like you said, the stories had to come from somewhere, so I can only assume that at some point in the past, a vampire met and got to know an immortal human or two and passed on what he learned.”

At that moment I sensed a supernatural presence approaching, and I tensed. When one of the doors opened downstairs Mark and I both rose, but were soon set at ease when we heard Lochlan’s voice calling out to us. Seconds later he had raced up the stairs and joined us in Juliette’s room, where he gestured us out of the way and moved to Juliette’s side. He set his medical bag down on one of the chairs and opened it, pulling out two bags of fluid, one fuller than the other.

“Mark, be so kind as to fetch me two nails, please,” Lochlan asked as he next pulled tubing out of the bag, as well as some needles. Mark nodded and walked out of the room as Lochlan pulled back the blanket.

He turned to me. “You didn’t dress her?” he observed.

“I thought it best to move her as little as possible,” I replied. “I didn’t want to exacerbate her injuries.”

Loch nodded slowly. “A wise precaution, all things considered. The blanket is thick enough to keep her warm, not to mention her species’ own proclivity to high body temperature.”

He then turned back to Juliette and looked down at her, currently naked from the waist up. “’Tis a shame that someone damaged such exquisite beauty,” he said softly, taking hold of her left arm and lifting it gently, pulling the blanket back into place with his free hand. Loch then moved to the end of the bed and pulled the blanket back from that end.

“What are you doing?” I asked as he reached into his bag yet again for what looked very much like a puppy training pad.

“Let us not make her suffer from the indignity of wetting the bed,” he told me, then directed me to help by gently lifting her hips so he could place the pad underneath her. I then set her down carefully and fixed the blanket as he went back to work with his medical equipment.

He was inserting the I.V. needle into a vein in the back of her hand when Mark returned. After taping the tube into place, he took the nails from his outstretched hand, eyed a spot on the wall, and then pushed them into it with his thumbs. He hung the two bags on the nails and connected them to the tubing that led into Juliette’s hand, then adjusted the flow of the medication from the bags. Once he was sure that the medication was moving through the tube and through the I.V., he turned to us. “There now. That should settle her quite nicely for several hours.”

“What’s in those bags?” Mark asked.

“One is morphine, like I said I would bring. The other is a simple saline solution to prevent dehydration.”

Mark nodded. “Do you think she’ll regain consciousness soon?” he asked.

Lochlan glanced back down at Juliette. “I cannot say for certain, as she is the first of her kind I have treated in many years. But let us hope that she does, that we may learn something about what happened to her.”

“And then we can go after the son of a bitch,” Mark said.

My brother looked back at him. “Aye. That we will do.”



*****



After the three of us had relocated to the kitchen and had settled at the table with drinks, Lochlan looked at me and said, “Think, Saph, think really hard: do you know anyone who would have cause to do you harm?”

So he recognized that the situation had something to do with me, I mused. Well of course he did—Loch was no idiot. He hadn’t survived for the last three hundred years on his good looks alone.

I glanced at Mark for a brief moment. “We were just talking about that before you came back. I swear to you Lochlan, I honestly don’t know. I mean, for goodness’ sake, I gave up about ninety percent of our world when I left my Coming of Age! I set up this farm more than a hundred and sixty years ago so I could avoid having to use humans for blood, and I have done my damnedest to keep my head down and my nose clean so that the Ancients wouldn’t have any reason to be concerned with me.”

My brother contemplated my words with his hands clasped together against his chin. “Then it has to do with Vivian Drake,” he said at last. “Someone connected with her doesn’t want you to find out who she is. Hell, for all we know, she’s the one behind this.”

I wanted to burst into fits of hysterical laughter, I really did, because he was so damn far from the mark with that one. Like I would really set my barn on fire and kill all but five of my animals. Like I would really have my bondmate’s little sister kidnapped, beaten and tortured.

Something in my expression must have given away the tenor of my thoughts, because Loch narrowed his eyes at me. “What is it?” he asked. “You know something, don’t you?”

I stood and paced away from the table. “Lochlan, I… I can’t,” I said, turning to face the two men. “I can’t tell you.”

“Saphrona, you just told me you don’t know who’s behind this—now do you or don’t you?”

My eyes flickered toward Mark. He looked at me steadily, and in his eyes I saw that he was ready to stand with me should I decide to come clean. With everything that had happened—the barn, Juliette, my father, even me biting him—the fact that he was here supporting me made me feel a lot stronger that I had ever felt when I was alone.

Besides, Lochlan was my brother. Surely if he knew he would help me get out from under the mess I had created for myself.

And so, taking a deep breath, I said, “Lochlan, what I do know is that Vivian Drake isn’t behind this.”

“Oh really?” he scoffed. “And just how the bloody hell do you know that?”

I eyed him squarely. “Because I am Vivian Drake.”

Lochlan stared. He blinked once, twice, then shook his head and stared a little more. “You’re mad. You’ve gone completely, undeniably, irrevocably around the sodding bend.”

He stood then, and Mark followed suit, standing beside me but slightly in front. “Oh, a nice display of bravado, my friend, but I daresay that my sister is more a threat to me than you are,” he said snarkily.

“That would be true, Lochlan, if I didn’t know how to kill you,” Mark replied.

Lochlan harrumphed then smiled slightly, his sudden ire already deflated. “I’d welcome you to try, but I don’t want my sister to kill me before I’ve had a taste of my own pair-bond, thank you very much.” He then dropped back into the chair he had just vacated, rubbing his hands over his weary face as he looked back up at us. “Saphrona, what the devil were you thinking? I could see all that blather that the dragon lady said about why the books were written being true if you had written them when you first left, but you didn’t write them for more than a century and a half!”

Mark sat again and I shrugged as I returned to my own chair. “I don’t know, Loch. To be honest, the first book started out as more of a diary. I had just gotten another lavish gift from Diarmid, and I remember wondering when he was going to get it through his thick head that he couldn’t simply buy my affection. I was frustrated with the fact that even after all this time, he keeps trying. That he can’t seem to understand that what he did to my mother is unforgivable.”

I sighed and began spinning the glass in my hands slowly as I stared down at it. “I just remember one day sitting down at the computer and just…writing. I put down everything I had learned, everything I had felt, my frustrations and angers and fears and hopes …everything. I read over it the next day and I remember thinking, ‘Now here’s some vampire lore that could make someone a hell of a lot of money.’ And I’ve always thought of being a writer, so I carefully crafted the Vivian Drake identity, then restructured the material I’d written and made a book out of it. Sent it off to a publisher thinking there was no way it would ever actually get published, and then it did and everything just exploded from there.”

“You know…given what I know about publishing, it’s no small wonder that no one’s ever seen Vivian’s face,” Lochlan said. “How on Earth did you get out of doing a press tour—book signings and all that?”

I had to smile. “Easy: I made Vivian agoraphobic. In my communications to my agent and publishers, I explained that the condition made me unable to leave my house, and the books were my way of reaching out, of being part of the world I inexplicably feared.”

He nodded. “As damn good a cover as any, I suppose. But if you’re Vivian, then either your secret’s been compromised or we’re completely back to square one as to who the hell is behind all this.”

“I don’t see how my security’s been compromised,” I said. “All the people that know I’m Vivian are in this house right now.”

“That you know of,” Loch pointed out. “Is it possible that your publisher or your agent have been approached? Would one of them have given your information out?”

I shook my head. “They can’t give out information they don’t have—not even they know where Vivian is from. All my books have been sent in by e-mail because of Vivian’s agoraphobia, so we’ve never met face-to-face. All they have is a social security number and a bank account to wire my royalty payments to.”

“My, my… Aren’t you a clever girl?” my brother said.

“Believe me, Loch, I made sure all my bases were loaded before I went through with this,” I told him. “So I just don’t see the barn fire or the attack on Juliette having anything to do with Vivian Drake.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Mark spoke up then. “Loch, vampires are supposed to have a super sense of smell. I remember how you and Evangeline reacted to me. Anyway, if that’s true, I’m wondering if you picked up anything when you first found Juliette?”

Lochlan shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid not. I was too distracted by the smell of her blood, and distraught by the condition in which I found her. I could think of nothing at that moment except getting her inside so that I could tend to her.”

“And she’s been bathed, so the scent will have been washed away,” I added.

Mark looked between us. “But what about outside? Wouldn’t there be what you guys call a scent trail?”

“Possibly. But there’s no way to tell precisely when she was left there, and there have been petrol vapor trails run across the spot that would obscure it in any case. We must also consider that they simply threw her out of whatever vehicle they brought her back in.”

“Actually,” I began, “We couldn’t have been gone from the house more than half an hour when you called me. Mark’s parents were obviously already back in town when I called them with the news, seeing as they got here before we did.”

My brother’s face fell for a moment. “And I must thank God that they didn’t arrive while I was having to re-break and set her broken bones,” he said. “She screamed horribly, poor child, but did not wake even then. Whatever that drug is they used on her, it was strong to keep her asleep through that pain.”

“She didn’t wake once?” Mark asked.

Lochlan shook his head, then looked at him squarely, saying, “I know that I have no right to ask, but I would like to have a part in finding whoever did this. I want to help you make that bastard pay.”

Mark returned his steady gaze. “You care about my sister, don’t you?”

Lochlan nodded. “Aye. More than I’ve any right to, given we’re both rather looking forward to being bonded. But I’ve always been fond of a woman with spirit, and she has it in spades. Juliette is a marvelous verbal sparring partner, and I would very much like to one day call her my friend.”

“She might not admit it anytime soon, but I think I know her well enough to know she feels the same,” Mark replied.

My brother nodded again, then sighed. “So, kids, how the bloody hell do we go about finding this git?”

“Your truck,” I said to Mark. “Call the police and report it stolen—surely wherever they find it will give us a lead.”

“True,” Mark said. “But we don’t know if Juliette actually made it anywhere or if they ambushed her on the side of the road somewhere. It would help if she was awake to tell us that much.”

Lochlan cocked his head to the side as if thinking of something, then looked at us and said, “Well given the steady rhythm of her heartbeat and her breathing, she’ll be asleep a while yet. But that’s a good thing in that it will help her recover faster. Now, you could certainly call the police now and report the truck stolen, and just get Juliette to support whatever story you tell.”

I shook my head. “No. Mark’s right. I think we should wait for Juliette to wake up and tell us what happened to her. I mean, what if we report it stolen from the driveway, but they find it in some mall parking lot, and the security cameras show Juliette getting out of it?”

Lochlan growled. “Damn, I hate it when you are right, sister.”

I grinned tiredly. “I know you do.”

I noticed then that Mark was trying vainly to stifle a yawn. I put my hand on his shoulder and rubbed it comfortingly, saying, “I think it’s time I get Mark here into bed.”

“No need to be subtle, my dear sister,” Loch said with a wide grin. “You want to go and have your way with him—I understand that. But if you wouldn’t mind, keep the noise down to a minimum. I’d very much appreciate you not disturbing me or my patient.”

I rolled my eyes as Mark chuckled. “We’ll be going to bed to go to sleep, nothing more—not that it’s any of your business, nosy. And I had a feeling you’d want to stay and keep an eye on Juliette, but do me a favor and behave yourself.”

Loch pretended to be shocked. “I am insulted by that insinuation, Saphrona! I am a doctor and a gentleman, thank you very much.”

“Better be a gentleman,” Mark muttered as he stood.

I grinned at Lochlan as I pushed Mark toward the living room. I followed at first then suddenly stopped, a hand flying to my mouth as I gasped. “Moe and Cissy! Where are the dogs? I can’t believe I forgot about them!”

“They’re in the basement,” Lochlan said rising and walking over to the basement door to open it. The two Chihuahuas came tearing up the stairs and through the door, barking loudly and nipping at Lochlan’s ankles. I could tell they were not happy about having been locked in the basement, which was something I never did with them.

“Looks like Moe and Cissy are mad at you, Loch,” I said with amusement as he shut the door behind them.

He snickered and squatted down to pet the dogs. “Nah,” he said mildly. “Moe and Cissy love me.”

Moe proved just how much by latching onto his hand in that tender space between his thumb and forefinger, growling as menacingly as a three-pound dog could growl. I had to force myself to hold in a laugh as I scolded the dog and commanded him to let go.

“Yeah, they really love you,” I said to my brother as Moe released his hand, barked loudly one more time, and then promptly turned and led Cissy away into the living room. Mark shook his head as the two marched by him and headed up the stairs.

Lochlan inspected his hand. Moe had bitten down just hard enough to leave a mark, one that was already fading to nothing—he hadn’t even broken the skin. “See?” he said, holding it up. “He loves me. If he didn’t, he’d have been more forceful and actually tried to do some damage. That was just a ‘Don’t ever put me in the basement again’ bite.”

I did laugh this time, and after bidding my brother goodnight, led Mark up the stairs. We quickly peeked in on Juliette, who seemed to be resting comfortably, and then headed to our room, where we undressed and climbed into the bed in our birthday suits. I turned so that my back was to Mark’s chest and he wrapped his arms around me, kissing me on the top of my head. I sighed contentedly, said a quick and silent prayer that Juliette was going to be alright, and then fell softly into sleep.



*****



The next morning when I woke, I found Mark’s side of the bed empty and cold. A little disappointed that he wasn’t there to kiss me when I woke, I rose and dressed quickly, crossing the hall to rinse my mouth and use the facilities before going in to check on Juliette. I found Lochlan in her room sitting in one of the chairs. His chin was resting on his chest and he was snoring lightly, her hand with the I.V. clasped lightly in his.

I turned to leave but stopped when I heard Juliette speak lightly. “Don’t go.”

I turned back and smiled at her as I crossed the room. She had dark circles around her eyes, but they were otherwise bright and clear as she looked up at me.

“Hey there,” I whispered softly. “I’m so glad to see that you’re awake.”

She glanced over at the hand that Lochlan held. “I woke to find him like this. I’m kinda afraid to take my hand back because I don’t want to wake him,” she said. “I assume he’s been here all night?”

I studied my brother’s face for a moment and then nodded. “He’s been here all night, yeah, but I don’t think he’s been asleep long. It’s still pretty early, judging by the amount of light outside.”

Juliette turned her head to look out the window for a moment, then looked back at me. “How’s Mark taking this? Has…has he said anything to my mother?”

I took a deep breath and told her what I had seen the night before. She was shocked and somewhat dismayed by her father’s reaction, but agreed that beguiling him so that he would forget was for the best. “I’m glad he won’t remember seeing me like that. It couldn’t have been easy for any of you.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t. I won’t lie, Juliette: you looked like hell. If you weren’t a shapeshifter, you might have been dead or comatose. They really did a number on you.”

She shuddered mildly. “No kidding,” she muttered.

I tilted my head to the side. “What happened to you? Do you remember anything?”

She nodded, and I noticed her eyes tearing up. Juliette drew a breath in slowly to calm herself, then told me how she had just gotten out of the truck at Easton when she’d smelled the scent of vampire nearby.

“More than one, in fact,” she said. “I started looking around, trying to find them, and then I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I had just enough time to recognize the smell of the guy from the movie theater as I turned around and got decked. He hit me hard enough to knock me out, ‘cause the next thing I remember is waking up in what I assume is a basement.”

Juliette continued her tale, her tone growing more animated and angry as she recalled waking up naked and chained to a wall, her arms over her head. She wasn’t alone in the room—the vampire from the movie theater was there, as was another male vampire, the second man from the parking garage at the mall. They both leered at her in the dim light of the single bulb she could see, smiling lasciviously and flickering their tongues at her. She’d growled and demanded to know who the hell they were, why she was there, and what they planned to do to her. She tried breaking the chains holding her arms up but they were too thick even for her extra strength. She tried to change her form, and when she couldn’t she realized that they’d given her some kind of drug that inhibited her ability to transform. It was then that she knew she was in real trouble.

Then in a flash, the vampires came at her. They took turns alternately feeling her up and hitting her, ignoring her howls of protest and laughing at her attempts to fight back. The vamp from the theater had a cigar in his mouth, and decided that it would be fun to put it to her skin. Every time he ground the lit end into her skin he would snuff the fire, and so he would relight it and do it all over again. When the cigar was gone, he took the lighter itself to her skin. I was glad then that Lochlan was asleep so he didn’t have to hear the sordid details, as I had no doubt he’d shatter the windows yelling with rage.

A thought occurred to me then, and I gasped in horror. “Juliette, please don’t tell me…don’t tell me they raped you?”

Tears she’d until now held in check spilled from the corners of her eyes. “The second guy, the one whose scent I didn’t recognize, he wanted to,” she said softly. “Make a crack about wondering what shapeshifter p-ssy would feel like on his cock, and would it taste as sweet as the virgins he preferred to f*ck. Movie theater guy wouldn’t let him, said they were under orders just to give me a good beating. Didn’t stop the bastard from shoving his fingers inside me more than once.”

“Then he as much as raped you, that son of a bitch,” I whispered. I was crying by the time she finished telling me all she had endured. I wanted so much to take her into my arms then, to hold her and comfort her. And I wanted to break the necks of those two men with my bare hands for hurting her. I didn’t give a damn if that made me a monster—because in my mind they deserved to die.