Chasing Shadows

chapter Nineteen





“Your father?! Do you think he’s been behind this from the beginning?”

Lochlan’s reply was something along the lines of, “As much as I hate to say so, it is certainly possible. He seemed quite adamant about discovering the whereabouts of Vivian Drake, especially after Alana O’Mara told him she was a vampire. It’s not out of his realm to intimidate someone he thinks isn’t working hard enough or fast enough to get him what he wants.”

To which Juliette replied, “So much for his profound love for Saphrona. Isn’t he the one who said he loved her and would make sure Mark was protected from other vampires?”

“Aye. But again, he’s not above using somebody’s loved one as a pawn to motivate them into doing his bidding.”

Somehow I was hearing them, hearing Juliette and Lochlan talking about Diarmid’s involvement, but I wasn’t really paying attention. All I could think of in that moment was how much I hated Diarmid Mackenna. How the hell could he do this to me—again?! Did he really think that luring Mark out of the house and kidnapping him was going to motivate me to look harder for a woman who for all intents and purposes didn’t even exist?!

If he hurt Mark, I swore to myself, I am going to kill him.

I wouldn’t even hesitate, I knew. The moment I saw him, this man who proclaimed unconditional love for me, I would fly at him and I would tear his head off. Whether it would be due to the strength of Mark’s blood in my body or I’d simply be fueled by unadulterated rage, before the day was over he was going to die. And if Mark was hurt in any way…

I refused to let myself think of how I could have prevented all of this by coming clean to Diarmid when I had the chance. If I had only taken him aside and told him I was the one who had written the books I might not be in this situation right now. Or maybe I would. Obviously I had been right not to tell him, because look at what he had done—he’d apparently kidnapped Mark because I wasn’t working hard enough or fast enough to find Vivian, like Lochlan had suggested a moment ago. Or maybe he thought I had failed him, and his geniality the night before had been just a ruse. Had I confessed to being Vivian, I might already be dead myself, for there was no telling how outraged he would have been.

“Lochlan, drive faster!” I growled.

He complied with my order silently, and the Escalade moved forward at a faster clip. “Juliette, darling, keep your eyes peeled for the police, won’t you?” he asked the shapeshifter. “After all, we’re speeding through a school zone right now.”

“Who cares?!” I shouted. “Who gives a damn about the police or whether or not you’ll get a f*cking speeding ticket?! Just get me there… NOW!”

Lochlan threw me a look I didn’t bother trying to decipher. I just looked back out the passenger window and silently urged him to go faster.



*****



When we arrived at Diarmid’s multi-million dollar home in the lake district, on the opposite end of town than the rural district I lived in, I felt through the bond that we had indeed come to the right place. Mark was here.

Before Lochlan had even pulled the parking brake I had opened my door and thrown myself through it, dropping fang and flying up the steps to the front door, pulling it open without even bothering to turn the handle. It flew backward as I threw it behind me, narrowly missing Lochlan and Juliette as they hurried up the steps in my wake. As I was entering, Diarmid was casually descending what he liked to call his “grand staircase”—

—casually, that is, until his front door was ripped out of its frame and a banshee flew through it, tackling him and tumbling down to the floor with her hands around his throat.

“Where is he?!” I screamed. “Where is Mark, you lying bastard?!”

“Mida, I don’t…know…what you’re…talking about,” Diarmid gasped.

Two of his bodyguards came running in then, and I heard the ripping of fabric as Juliette transformed into the super-sized dog she’d told us she could become. I heard her snarling as she moved to stand between where I sat atop my father and one of the men who’d come to his aid.

Lochlan was already engaged in a fistfight with the other one.

“Mark, you liar!” I hollered, lifting his head and banging it forcefully into the granite floor. His hands around my wrists were trying futilely to pull my hands from his throat but I was not to be moved. “You just couldn’t wait for me to find Vivian Drake so you hired someone to burn down my barn and kill my animals!” Another lift and bang. “You hired two goons to follow Juliette, then kidnap and torture and rape her!” Another bang, and as I said those last words, Juliette snarled loudly.

“Mida, I —”

“And then this morning you lured Mark out of the house to use him against me, but I’m not going to let you do it! Where…is… he?!”

As Juliette and the second bodyguard gave up circling each other and launched into a fight, Lochlan came over and laid his hand on my shoulder. I looked up with a loud snarl of my own.

“Saphrona, he’s not going to be able to tell you anything if he can’t breathe,” my brother said quietly.

I was breathing heavy already, could feel my eyes were wide with fear and anger. I had to find Mark, I had to know, to see for myself that he was alright. Slowly, with one hand still on his throat, I moved off of my father, glancing to the side to see that Loch had staked his opponent with—

“Is that a pen?” I asked incredulously as I stood, dragging my father to his feet along with me.

He looked over at the fallen vampire and grinned. “Aye—may not leave a scar like a stake would have, but it made do in a pinch.”

A crashing sound had us all turning our heads to watch as Juliette fought with the second bodyguard. They’d knocked over a suit of armor and she now had him pinned to the floor, her forelegs planted firmly on his back. One of his arms was immobilized underneath him, and the other was futilely swinging upwards, trying to grab hold of the massive dog anywhere that he could.

“And we were worried she wouldn’t be able to fight,” I mused, then turned back to Diarmid. He stood with his hands held out to his sides, his gaze at me wide-eyed and cautious.

Lochlan looked between us, saying, “I’m going to go and give our canine companion a hand in dispatching her foe—don’t kill him yet, Saphrona, we need him to talk first.”

With that he started over to where Juliette had knocked her opponent down, but he stopped short when the other man grabbed hold of a foreleg and pulled, and a loud snap was clearly heard. She howled with rage, and even though her weight had shifted, her leg clearly broken, she didn’t let him up, holding him down with one giant paw long enough to clamp her jaw around his head—which she promptly tore off and threw across the room before her energy reserves gave out and she collapsed on top of his body in human form.

Juliette screamed as she grabbed her arm and held it to her chest. Lochlan rushed over, pulling his shirt off as he knelt next to her. “Come now, darling, let me see,” he directed her gently.

I tightened my grip on Diarmid’s neck as I turned and dragged him over so that I could see for myself how she was doing. Juliette’s jaw was clenched tightly, her teeth bared as she extended her arm for Lochlan to examine. She growled deep in her throat as he probed the ends of the bones of her left forearm, which thankfully had not broken the skin, but had been twisted so that it appeared she had a second elbow.

“Looks like a clean break—I don’t feel any splinters, thank goodness. Best I reset this now, though, so your healing factor doesn’t start setting it wrong,” he said to Juliette.

She nodded, taking several deep breaths to steady herself. “Do it,” she told him, and almost before I could blink Lochlan had grabbed the bones and set them back into place. Juliette screamed again but did not pass out. Loch felt her arm again, nodded, and then began to wrap the t-shirt he had yanked off around it.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, love, but do try not to move it,” he said with a small smile.

“Here,” Diarmid rasped, and I turned to him sharply.

He held his hands up, then slowly reached for the collar of the suit jacket he wore, shrugging it off his shoulders and handing it to Lochlan. The younger man took the jacket and draped it around Juliette’s shoulders, tugging it into place over the front of her as he next helped her to stand.

I looked at Diarmid. “Where is Mark?” I asked.

He held his hands up again. “I swear to you, I do not know what you are talking about. What’s happened to Mark?”

I tightened my grip on his heck and shook him. “That’s why we’re here! You’re behind everything, admit it! You hired someone to burn down the barn and kill the animals and you hired someone to kidnap and torture Juliette—”

“Mida, I swear to you,” he began again, “I do not know what you’re talking about. I love you, darling—why would I do any of that?”

“Maybe because you’re jealous—after all, you’ve been a vampire for more than seven hundred years and still you have not met your bondmate. Or perhaps the reason is more mundane, and you’re simply a little tired of the time it is taking me to track down Vivian Drake,” I said. I then looked over my shoulder at Lochlan and Juliette, both of whom nodded minutely.

I turned back to Diarmid. “Or maybe you somehow learned that your precious Mida is Vivian Drake, and you have done all of this as punishment.”

His eyes widened in shock that appeared to be genuine, but when it came to my father I never could take anything he said or did at face value. Not to mention that he’d become an Oscar-worthy actor in his centuries-long lifetime.

“Why on Earth…? Mida, how could you?”

I shrugged. “The psychic was close when she said the first was written from a place of frustration and anger. And truthfully, I didn’t see the harm. Humans don’t believe we’re real anyway, and what was one more twisted vampire mythology among the dozens already out there? I never expected the book to sell, let alone become a series that’s earned me millions. The humans don’t seem any more enamored of the partial truth than any other theory about vampires, so why should it bloody matter to anyone what I wrote? The Ancients don’t even seem to mind as far as I know—the only one who’s shown any concern about Vivian Drake is you.”

I stepped closer so that we were almost nose to nose. “Now where is Mark?”

Diarmid’s eyes searched mine for a moment before he spoke. “The Ancients are…concerned. But you are right in that they do not care as much as I put on. Still, I thought finding Vivian and her source—her, when it was revealed she was one of us—seemed to be the ideal way to curry favor with them, perhaps give me a little more room to breathe. Of course, that won’t do at all now. I certainly can’t turn you over to them. I would not kill your animals just because I thought your investigation was taking too long, nor would I have harmed Mark’s lovely sister for the same reason. And now that I know you are, in fact, the one whom I seek, I will simply have to find some other way of appeasing them.”

He sighed. “I promise you, my daughter, I do not know what has become of your beloved. Although I can understand why you would suspect me, I do not know why you would think he is here.”

I stared for a long moment, then warily I relaxed my grip on his neck and lowered my hand. Diarmid raised one of his own to rub his throat, which was no doubt very sore.

“I followed him here,” I said. “Even were it not for the blood bond I created by drinking from him, I’ve no doubt our pair-bond would have led me to him. He is here, I can feel him here.”

Diarmid’s eyes flickered when I mentioned having tasted Mark’s blood, but he didn’t remark on it. “I did not bring him here, nor do I know who could have. Certainly no one on my staff would have done this, and the only other person who lives here is Evangeline.”

I froze, feeling my blood run cold as the horrible truth suddenly dawned on me, and I recalled the words I had spoken to Lt. Parks hardly twenty-four hours ago:

“Evangeline can be a bitch, but she’s a cunning bitch. If she were going to try and get back at me for something, she’d be a lot more subtle than setting my barn on fire. Trust me, Lieutenant, you’re barking up the wrong tree on that one.”

A cunning bitch indeed, I thought with increased dread, for her to have orchestrated a scheme like this. Subtle hardly described it—not one of us had suspected her in the least, and yet suddenly I knew in my gut she was the one behind it all.

“Where is her room?” I called over my shoulder, already running up the stairs.

“Third floor,” my father called, dashing up the stairs behind me.

“Saphrona, Father—wait!” Lochlan called out.

By that time I was already on the second floor landing, though I did spare a moment to look back at him. “Lochlan, I have to go!”

He started up the steps, Juliette at his side. “Stop and think for a moment, sister. If Evangeline is truly behind all this, she’s not going to hide Mark in her room—I daresay she wouldn’t even bring him in the house, or Father and his staff would have smelled him by now.”

Diarmid looked at me. “I’m afraid he has a point, daughter,” he said slowly. “I have not enjoyed his scent since last evening when your sister and I visited you at your home.”

“Damn it!” I shouted, swinging at the vase full of flowers that sat on the decorative table on the landing. I briefly thought of the fact that it had probably been a very expensive vase, but I didn’t care, and Diarmid, for his part, didn’t even bat an eyelash. “I know he is here, I can feel him!”

“Does this castle have a basement?” Juliette wondered.

Diarmid nodded and began to descend the stairs again. “There is, and it does have an outside entrance,” he said, swinging past her and through the doorway into the formal dining room.

I was only a second behind him, but it was long enough that I was surprised when the unmistakable sound of a gunshot rang out and he fell backward into me. His full weight slammed into my chest and knocked me backward into Lochlan. My brother and Juliette both shouted in alarm as we all fell, and I was pushing Diarmid’s still form off of me when a male vampire—the guy from the theater again—appeared in the doorway, the gun in his hand pointed squarely at my chest.

His sneer was the last thing I saw before he pulled the trigger, and I had just enough time to curse the sudden failure of my supe-sense before I blacked out.



*****



I awoke to the feeling of a booted foot kicking me in the stomach. I coughed and blinked, and tried to breathe past the pain in my shoulder—which was far worse than the pain in my stomach. My right shoulder and side felt as if they were on fire, or at least like I had swallowed something hot without allowing it time to cool a little.

“So, Saphrona, you’re awake,” came my sister’s voice. “So glad you could join us.”

I looked up as one of her goons, whom my mind dubbed Movie Theater Vampire (as it was that jerk who had been kicking me) backed away with a snide smile. I noticed that I was restrained to the wall with one-inch thick silver chains, as were Lochlan and Diarmid—this must be the place they had brought Juliette to torture her. The silver wasn’t burning me as it was them due to my dual heritage, but it did chafe and it did bleed strength from me as it did any other vampire, making it near-impossible for me to break free—my brother and father had to be in agony right now.

I didn’t see Juliette anywhere, but across the room from me was Mark, who was chained to the wall as I was. His shirt had been removed and he’d clearly suffered a beating, but his healing factor seemed to be doing its job. When he smiled weakly at me, my heart swelled.

I was just happy to see that he was alive.

“I’m sorry, Saphrona,” he said.

“Oh, lover boy speaks!” Evangeline said, clapping her hands and giggling like a little girl. “First words he’s said since he got here—how very rude to not even greet your hostess. Martin, do please remind him of his manners.”

Movie Theater Vampire was apparently named Martin, and after offering me another sneering smile, he walked across the room and swung his fist into Mark’s stomach.

“Stop it!” I screamed. “Leave him alone!”

Vangie walked over to me and slapped me hard. Her smile was toothy, her fangs extended, the look in her eyes wild as I turned my head to face her again. “Martin obeys only me, sister,” she said, spitting the last word in my face as if it tasted bitter. “Hit him again.”

She stood watching me as Martin punched Mark twice more. I strained against the chains binding my arms over my head, all pain forgotten as I watched Mark suffering.

“Evangeline, stop it. Stop this insanity,” I said.

She giggled madly again. “My dear sister, you think this is insanity? You think what I’ve done is madness?” she queried rhetorically, stepping back from me and gesturing around her. “No, no this is not madness. What is madness is someone who defies her creator, who spurns the love of her father even when he offers her the simplest of gifts. You were a fool to turn away from this life, Saphrona, for it could have made you richer than your wildest dreams—all you had to do was accept what you are and embrace it!”

“I think I’ve done quite well enough on my own, thank you very much,” I spat harshly, my own fangs dropping as my anger increased.

She laughed. “What, you mean your silly little farm? Breeding livestock? Selling the sperm of your stallion and your bull? Selling pigs?” Vangie wrinkled her nose in disgust. “That is no life for a vampire, a goddess among men. For the life of me I cannot fathom how you could live the same lifestyle as your food.”

“Funny, I don’t recall living in the barn and shitting where I sleep.”

She came over and slapped me again. “Humans, you idiot! Humans are your natural food source!” For good measure, or just because she could, she slapped me a third time.

Then she turned her attention to Lochlan and our father, who were chained to the wall beside me. “Now, while it was foolishness for you to debase yourself to living like humans, my sister, true insanity lies with these two.”

“Lochlan and Father? How are they crazy?” I asked.

Evangeline grabbed a handful of Lochlan’s hair and jerked his head back, slapping him twice—I noticed then that he had also been shot, but like me his wound was not mortal. He was wide awake and staring at our nutjob of a sister with a hateful look in his eyes. Diarmid, I saw now, had been shot in the heart, and was hanging limply from his chains. I found that I was deeply concerned for him, even though I knew he was not truly dead. He would recover in three days’ time.

That is, if we made it out of this dungeon of Evangeline’s alive.

“How are they crazy, Vangie?” I asked again.

She spun to face me. “Because they loved you!” she screamed. “You looked down your nose at them, like you were so much greater than they were for your ability to give up human blood. You rejected our father, refused to see him or speak to him—you told him you hated him over and over again—and still he loved you! That is not sanity, it is madness!”

“Madness, my dear Evangeline, is being jealous of someone because they are loved,” Lochlan said.

This time when she struck him, it was with a back-handed swing that left his nose bleeding. Lochlan looked back at her with narrowed eyes.

“You did all of this—the attack on Mark at the movie theater, the barn, the animals, Juliette being tortured—you did all of that because Lochlan and Father love me?” I asked incredulously. “You’re a f*cking lunatic!”

She ignored me, to my surprise, smiling as she said, “Truthfully, the movie theater incident was all Martin here. He was only supposed to follow you and report back, but I guess he just couldn’t resist trying for a taste of this beautiful man of yours.”

Evangeline sauntered over to Mark and stood close to him, rubbing her body intimately against his as she nuzzled his neck and fondled his crotch. I growled, straining again to break free as I screamed at her.

“Get away from him, you bitch!”

She cast me a sideways glance and smiled wickedly, licking his earlobe before she disengaged herself. “Yes, your Mark does taste very good,” she purred, drawing her finger across the blood under his nose and sticking it in her mouth to suck. “Anyway, Martin here has a bit of a score to settle with Mark and our dear brother, which is the only reason this hunk of man-meat hasn’t been drained dry as of yet. Of course he will be in due time, but not for a while.”

“Where is Juliette?” I demanded, ignoring the spike of fear that shot through me at the thought of Mark being drained of his blood.

“Oh, the bitch?” Vangie said with mock innocence, before she gave me yet another evil smile. “I imagine that Peter is enjoying having his way with her, since he was denied the privilege yesterday.”

Both Lochlan and Mark roared at this news, and Evangeline laughed as she looked at our brother. “Oh, this is marvelous!” she cried, clapping her hands together again. “A vampire in love with a lowly, disgusting, shapeshifting dog woman? Oh, this is too much!”

She threw back her head and laughed heartily, joined by Martin, who sobered long enough to say, “Perhaps I should join him. After all, the dog is rather lovely for a shifter, and I am a man who has always appreciated a fine pair of breasts…”

“Go, my darling,” Evangeline purred. “Have fun.”

Lochlan strained against his chains, lunging after Martin as far as they would allow him to move. “I’ll kill you! I swear to God I will kill you!”

Martin laughed again and headed through a door on the wall to my right, shutting it closed behind him.

Vangie stared after him a moment, her expression amused. “I was a little disappointed when I heard the horses had survived,” she said, her tone indicating she had been only mildly so. “After all, I told him to make sure all those filthy animals burned. But my Martin still recalls his younger sister’s fondness for those ugly beasts, even if the little brat has been dead a hundred years. He released them in her memory before setting that barn of yours on fire. Oh, how I wish I could have been there—I would have enjoyed hearing the screams of panic from those wretched creatures!”

“And Juliette?” Mark spoke up. “Why did you have her kidnapped and tortured, hmm? What purpose did that serve?”

She turned to him. “It’s simple really, my good man: I wanted to rattle your cages a little more. She was a means to an end, and my boys had a great deal of fun with her, trying to teach that dog to obey her masters. I imagine, though, that the lesson plan has changed for today’s session.”

“You really are psychotic,” I said. “A complete and utter lunatic. What makes you think you’re going to get away with any of this?”

“Oh, but don’t you see, dear sister? I already have!” Vangie cried happily. “You all are here, chained in my secret little room in Father’s basement, and you are completely at my mercy—not that you’ll get any, of course.”

“And just what do you propose to do with us, hmm? Starve us to death? You know that won’t work,” I sneered.

“Perhaps not Lochlan or Father—maybe not even you, what with you being part vampire and all. But I can leave you down here indefinitely, wasting away into nothing if I choose.”

My eyes flicked across the room to the man I loved. “And what about Mark? What do you plan to do with him?”

“Yes, what indeed?” she said, tapping her chin with a manicured nail as she turned and looked him over. “I could drain him—his blood is undeniably powerful and alluring. I had the most difficult time not killing him instantly, let alone keeping my boys off of him.

“Oh, but that would be such a waste,” she went on with a sigh. “No, I think what I will do with this delectable man is to keep him here, taking a little bit of his blood every day. It will make me invincible!”

“Still doesn’t explain how you plan to get away with it,” I taunted her. “Father and Lochlan will be missed at work. Mark and Juliette’s parents will miss them. I have friends who will miss me—people will come looking for us, Evangeline. Eventually they will come here. Our trail will lead them straight to us.”

She tapped her chin with her nail again. “May I choke on the next pint of blood I drink for saying this, but you have a point,” Vangie said after a moment. “No doubt some of you will eventually be missed out there in the human world, and people will question your absence. Guess that means I will have to rethink my plan.”

She paced for a minute or two, her eyes roaming over her four captives as she walked back and forth, still tapping her finger against her chin as she appeared to think things over. Meanwhile, I was twisting my hands in their chains, hoping to find some sliver of room to slip them out. Whoever had wrapped the chains around me had done so quite well—they were tight against my wrists, and twisting them against the silver still chafed something awful. It looked like the only way I would have even a remote chance of getting out of them would be dislocating my thumbs.

A small price to pay if it meant freedom.

“I know what I will do!” Evangeline said suddenly, raising her finger in the air as she stopped to look at me.

“Oh, do tell,” I said mockingly. “Enquiring minds are desperate to know your dastardly plan.”

She giggled that irritatingly mad laugh of hers again. “Oh, I just bet you are, my dear sister! Well, since there’s nothing you can really do about it, I shall tell you: I’m going to leave Lochlan and Father down here to rot. I’m going to go upstairs and watch as Peter and Martin rape and beat that mongrel shapeshifter friend of yours over and over again, until such time as they are tired of her and decide to kill her, which I will then gladly help them do.”

Then her smile grew wider, and her expression, though I could not have imagined it possible, grew even more twisted and evil.

“But first, my dear Saphrona, I am going to make you watch as I molest your boyfriend and then kill him, which means that in the end…you will also be dead.”