chapter 37
As soon as Blake had stopped drinking from Rose and he had left them in the nearest room, Quinn rushed upstairs again, bumping into Eddie who came running up the stairs, followed by Cain.
“Did we miss the fight?” Eddie asked.
Quinn listened for any sounds from upstairs. It had gone quieter, but some fighting was still going on.
“Almost. Cain, stay with Rose and Blake.” He motioned to the room he’d just left. “Eddie, come with me.”
It was time to finish this. Quinn only hoped it wasn’t too late for Thomas. He and Rose had left Thomas only three minutes earlier, but in a battle of mind control, three minutes could be an eternity.
He hoped the others had defeated their opponents and were somehow able to help Thomas. But deep down he knew that he hoped for the impossible. Nobody could interfere in a fight of mind control without risking his own sanity and life.
Quinn burst through the door into the room just as Zane dealt a deadly blow with his knife, severing the head of his opponent, covering himself in a cloud of dust as the vampire disintegrated.
“Oh God no!” Eddie cried out when he entered the room, his eyes instantly falling on Thomas and the battle he was still locked into.
He rushed toward him, but Quinn was faster and pulled him back.
“We have to help him!”
“You can’t get between them. If you do, the energy that’s traveling between them will incinerate your mind,” Quinn warned.
“Then shoot the guy!” Eddie ordered, looking around the room for who had a gun.
Quinn looked at Thomas and Keegan, but they weren’t stationary anymore. They moved back and forth at varying speeds, circling each other like prize fighters in a ring.
“And risk killing Thomas?” Quinn shook his head.
“Then what are we gonna do? Don’t you see, he’s in pain.”
Eddie was right, Thomas’s face was contorted in pain, yet his body still held up. But for how long?
“I’ve got it,” Wesley’s voice suddenly came from behind them.
Quinn turned to him, but before he could inquire what Wesley meant, he ran past them, lifting his arm, swinging it, then throwing something. A small item, a bottle or something, flew through the air, then landed on the floor between the two fighters, where it smashed into pieces.
Blue smoke rose from the spilled liquid, making the air sizzle as if acid were burning through metal. Thomas instantly tumbled back, freed from the invisible hold Keegan had had on him.
Keegan too stumbled, but seemed less affected. His eyes instantly roamed the room. Realizing that only one of his associates was still alive and would soon be dead, he jumped to the bed where one of the human women had taken refuge.
He grabbed her amidst her high-pitched shrieks, dragged her against his body like a shield and made for the secondary door that led out of the room.
“One move, and she dies!” Keegan warned.
Thomas, lying on the floor, unable to lift himself, issued his own warning. “Next time you die, Kasper.”
“There will be no next time,” Keegan predicted instead, shaking his head.
“You’ve got that right,” Quinn murmured under his breath and pulled a knife from Eddie’s belt, having lost his own earlier in the fight.
He flicked his wrist. The weapon lodged in Keegan’s throat a split-second later. A surprised gurgle was Keegan’s response before he lost his hold on the panicked human. As the woman scrambled from him, stumbling to the floor in the process, Quinn pulled his stake from his pocket and lunged for him.
A gunshot stopped him. For a split-second he was in shock, but then he saw Keegan as he combusted, then disintegrated into dust. Quinn whirled his head around, trying to locate the shooter, when he found Rose standing in the door, still holding the handgun that had fired the deadly shot.
She smiled. “You were right. Small caliber works best.” She shrugged. “I borrowed it from Cain.”
Quinn returned her smile then let his eyes sweep over the room, confirming that all enemies were dead. Eddie was kneeling next to Thomas on the floor, helping him to a sitting position. Quinn rushed to him, crouching down.
“Thank God you’re all right.”
Thomas gave a tired nod. “I almost had him. Just a little longer, and I would have had him.” He dropped his head.
Quinn exchanged a silent look with Eddie, who shook his head, confirming that he too doubted Thomas’s statement.
“I’ve never seen anything like it . . .” He knew what he wanted to ask, but the condition Thomas was in, Quinn wasn’t sure he had the right to question him. It appeared he didn’t have to.
“His real name was Kasper. He was my sire.”
Shock spread on the faces of his colleagues as Thomas confirmed what Quinn had suspected from the heated exchange between the two, and the fact that Keegan had called him son.
“I’m sorry,” Quinn murmured.
Thomas lifted his head, an effort which seemed to cost him all his strength. Quinn watched how Eddie supported the weight of his torso to keep him sitting upright, allowing him to lean against him.
“I left him decades ago. I wanted nothing to do with him. He was evil to the core. And his mind control abilities were unparalleled . . . I carry his blood.”
Quinn guessed what Thomas was insinuating: he had inherited the same skill. And Quinn had seen it in action.
“He was your sire, yet you were prepared to kill him,” Quinn said, then his gaze involuntarily drifted to Rose who stood watching them just as his friends and colleagues did.
“Because he threatened my family. You all, you’re my family. He meant nothing to me.” Pure hatred colored Thomas’s voice. “And if I hadn’t been stopped, I would have killed him myself. It was my duty, not yours.”
As Thomas’s gaze fell on Wesley, Quinn put a calming hand on Thomas’s arm. “I’ll have a serious word with Wes about that.”
Thomas nodded.
Quinn rose. “We need to do damage control.” He looked at his colleagues. “Guests and employees will have heard the fighting. Let’s get to work.”
Then he turned to Eddie. “I trust you’ll get Thomas home?”
“Leave it to me.”
“I’ll take care of Vera,” Rose interjected, looking at him.
Quinn walked to where Rose was helping Vera, assisting her to sit on the sofa. Her arm hung limply from her shoulder.
“I’m Quinn. Thank you for helping Rose,” he offered.
She gave a quick smile then winced when she tried to lean back in the cushions. “We all owe her. When I got her message, I knew what I had to do.”
Quinn felt a stab in his chest. She had trusted her friend, but she hadn’t trusted him. Could he even blame her for it?
“You showed up just in time,” Vera added. “Lucky coincidence?”
“Not exactly.” He cast a glance at Rose. This wasn’t the time to talk to her about Keegan’s text message. He would have to wait for a private moment. “I’m assuming Keegan got mad when you didn’t give him the flash drive.”
“Oh, I gave him a flash drive, but an empty one.” Rose motioned to Vera. “Vera was so kind as to make sure there was one that looked identical to the real one. While Keegan was checking it, we had just enough time to get Blake out of the room and—”
“But not enough time to save yourselves,” Quinn interrupted.
“No.” Rose hesitated. “How did you find me?”
“We’ll talk about that later. First, I’ve got to take care of this mess here.”
Quinn turned, then looked at Wesley who was standing near the door. “A word.”
As soon as they reached the corridor, he turned to Wesley, who appeared apprehensive and immediately went on the defensive. “Hey, I only wanted to help.”
“I wanted to thank you,” Quinn interrupted.
Wesley looked at him, stunned.
“No matter what Thomas says, if you hadn’t broken their concentration, Thomas would have died. You saved his life.”
“I did?” He paused, then smiled. “I did.”
Quinn gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Now, what was that stuff?”
“Just something I’ve been working on. I found the recipe in Francine’s books. It’s supposed to paralyze a vampire.” He grinned sheepishly. “Guess it didn’t quite work that way, but hey, it worked out fine anyway, right?”
Quinn rolled his eyes. “No more using any untried potions, are we clear on that?”
A hopeful look spread over Wesley’s face. “You mean I can try them out on you guys first?”
“I didn’t say that! And no, you can’t.”
“Oh. But, if you want me to help you guys, you should support my research.”
Quinn exhaled. “Research?”
“Yeah. I mean, next time we get attacked by evil vampires, we should be prepared.”
“I think you should leave that up to us. And not a word of this to Thomas. He’s going to be pissed at you for a while anyway. No need to stir more shit up by telling anybody that you’re working on your witchcraft.”
“Fine.”
As he looked at Wesley, Quinn guessed that the last word had not yet been spoken on that subject.