“Sleep,” Old Rossi said quietly in my mind.
At least I hoped it was Old Rossi. I’d had my fill of strange vampires touching me.
Before I could panic about that, I slipped back into oblivion.
~~~
Morning sunlight streamed in through my window. It was warm on my bare arm, warm on the side of my hip.
It wasn’t burning me to a crisp, so I apparently hadn’t turned into a vampire.
Go, me.
“Your sisters are in the other room, waiting for you to wake up.”
I opened my eyes. Was surprised that I didn’t feel too bad, all things considered.
The memory of healing washed through me again. I wondered who they’d ask to fix me.
Old Rossi sat in the chair at the foot of my bed, his elbows resting on his soft, worn-out blue jeans, his fingers linked, the first two pressed against his lips.
His ice blue eyes watched me. I didn’t know why I’d ever thought they were cold or inhuman before. I’d stared straight into the devil’s eyes, and Rossi was no devil.
Apparently he was related to one though, a brother, if what that devil said was true.
“He looked like you.” I pushed up, so I was sitting. I pulled the blankets close, glad that someone had changed me into a dry T-shirt. “He was slicker, sort of smoother and had short silver hair, but he was old like you.”
“Old?” Offended, he cocked one eyebrow.
“Very.”
The eyebrow fell again. “I know.”
“You can tell from the b-bite who did this right?”
“Yes.”
“He told me to give you a message.”
“Which is?”
“He wants you to give him the Raueskinna or everyone dies, he burns Ordinary down, yada, yada, psycho-egomaniac, yada.”
“He did not yada.”
“He threatened. Death to all, make you scream, and all that jazz. There was probably some yada I didn’t catch. I didn’t have a chance to write down every word.”
Old Rossi was silent. I waited. When he still hadn’t spoken after a minute or so, I breached the quiet.
“He says he has Ben. Said he was your...toy. That he’s...broken.”
Flash of black in those eyes, glimmer of red. Still less evil than the vampire on the beach. “Did he?”
“Broken doesn’t mean dead,” I said, holding on to hope, no matter how faint it might seem to be.
“Broken means it would be better if he were.” Old Rossi leaned back, the tension easing away just long enough for me to see he was tired. Very tired. Still, he made no move to leave the room.
“What is the Raueskinna?”
For a minute, well, more like three, I didn’t think he was going to answer me.
“It is a book. A book of dark magic.”
Dark magic. Just like Odin had said.
“Do you have it?”
“Yes.”
“Why do I have a feeling it’s not the only dangerous thing you have hidden in town? No, don’t answer that. I can’t multi-task before coffee. Are you going to give it to him?”
Rossi didn’t say anything. I changed tactics. “What happens if he gets his hands on it?”
“All the bad things you can imagine and twice as many you can’t.”
“So we don’t give it to him.”
Silence again. I was surprised Myra and Jean weren’t in here by now, but we weren’t really talking all that loudly. I wondered if either of them had gotten any sleep last night.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“That, you do not need to know.”
“Like hell. He bit me. Bit me, Travail. I deserve to know which vampire permanently tagged me for his chew toy.”
Black and red eyes again. Fury, barely contained. “I will break that tie to you. Erase his mark. Make him suffer.”
“Tell me his name.”
“Lavius.”
Great. I’d been holding out hope he was dead, like Rossi had told me before. I didn’t want to have Rossi’s ex-brother-in-arms declaring war on my town by killing people I cared for, people I’d sworn to protect.
“You told me he was dead. You lied to me.”
“I had hoped. Foolishly hoped.”
“He has Ben.”
“Yes. But now we can find him.”
“How?”
“Through the mark he branded into you.”
I wasn’t sure what I thought about that. Good? Maybe I was glad something positive could come out of me getting fanged on the beach.
The door to my room opened, and Myra walked in. “No we will not use that mark, or Delaney to do anything,” she said. “You’re going to erase his tie to her. I’ve waited until she was awake. You’ve had your chance to talk to her. Break his claim on her. Now.”
Old Rossi’s body tightened. “We have no other way to find him. Or Ben.”
“We’ve only started looking,” she said.
“All the vampires. All the werewolves, and not a scent of him in the wind. We will not find him before he’s dead.”
“And putting Delaney in danger would make anything better? Do you need more deaths on your hands, Rossi?”
“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand, tired of the argument even though it had just gotten started. “Just. Wait. Both of you. Let me think.”
They both shut up, though there was some glaring going on. The discussion had drawn Jean into the room, and like an angel from caffeine heaven, she handed me a mug of coffee.
“Hey,” she said. She dropped a quick kiss on the top of my head, then sat down on the bed next to me, facing my angry sister and my angry vampire.
The coffee was warm between my palms and the fragrance made my shoulders drop and my pulse settle. It was just so...normal. With everything else going sideways, the scent of coffee felt normal, average, safe. I took a sip.
All right. I could do this.
“How would you use the mark to find him?” I finally asked.
“He left within you a trace of his life force.”
Great. Now I wanted to vomit.
“You can track that?”
“Yes.”
“Is he the one who bit Jame?”
“Yes.”
Myra’s voice was almost a yell. “Then why didn’t we use that bite to track him before he found Delaney?”
“Werewolf.” Rossi didn’t look like he was going to add anything to that.
“And?” I asked.
“It is...harder to trace. A werewolf physiology fights such intrusion, such claim. But humans are more...pliable. Our natural prey. The link between you and him shines like silver.”
Okay, I was starting to vote for team Myra. Just the idea of carrying anything that connected me to that creep was making my skin crawl.
Jean spoke up. “Didn’t Ben bite Jame? They’re living together, mated, right? Chose each other? I thought Ben would claim him like that. Couldn’t we follow that link?”
“Lavius broke that link when he bit Jame.”
“Is that the asshole’s name?” Jean asked. “Creepy. How can he break a mated link?”
“He is very old, and very strong.”
Well, hell. No wonder Jame was out of his mind in pain for Ben. Another question occurred to me. “Is...is one bite enough? Strong enough to track him? Will it fade?”
“Jesus, Delaney,” Myra said. “You are not suggesting you put yourself out there to get bitten again.”
Jean reached over and took my hand, squeezing it. “You aren’t doing that,” she said with absolute confidence.
“One bite is strong enough,” Rossi said. “Because he is strong enough. And so are you, Delaney Reed.”