Twilight Fulfilled (Wings in the Night #18)

Twilight Fulfilled (Wings in the Night #18) Page 14

An hour later, after watching Utana down three full breakfasts and a handful of sides, Brigit returned with him to the parking lot. Much to her dismay, he went straight to the driver's door and started to get in. But he didn't get very far, because he was simply too big, given the way she had the seat adjusted.

"Guess you don't fit. Sorry about that," she said, not sounding sorry at all.

He sent her a knowing look. Too knowing. Then he crouched until he found the buttons for the electronic seat adjustments, and after a few false starts managed to get the seat moving in the direction he needed it to: backward. And then he slid behind the wheel, fitting just fine.

"I never should have let you read the manual," she muttered, but she got into the passenger seat and, reluctantly, handed him the keys. "Here you go. Now, go very slowly. This car cost me a small fortune, and I love it. A lot."

"I will...use care."

"You'd better."

She instructed him as, step by step, he depressed the clutch, started the engine, slid the shift into first gear, released the clutch while pressing the accelerator and promptly stalled. But only once. The second time he managed to take off quite smoothly, and the car only jerked a little as he shifted into second, then third. Soon he was driving in smooth circles around the empty far end of the parking lot.

It amazed Brigit how quickly he picked up the rhythm of shifting, of using the clutch and gas pedals in smooth synchronization. After about ten laps he nodded, smiling at her, and brought the car to a stop, remembering to use the clutch so that it didn't buck and stall.

As he shut off the engine and turned toward her, he was beaming like a kid on Christmas morning. "I like this...driving. I wish to do more."

"It takes most people at least a few days to learn to drive a stick," she told him. "You're some kind of a genius, aren't you?"

"I do not know...geneeus."

"Genius. It means a person who is far more intelligent than most."

"Ah." He shrugged. "Immortality bestows much...intelligence. Consider how a newly born one cannot easily direct his hands to do what he wishes."

She nodded. "Right, newborns have no hand-eye coordination."

"But as they grow older, it becomes natural." He shrugged. "Is it not reasonable, then, that the longer one lives, the more...graceful...one would become?"

"Without the bad parts of aging, I suppose that makes perfect sense." She got out, and he did, too, trading sides so Brigit was behind the wheel again.

"And I would guess," she went on, "that the ability to absorb knowledge and an understanding of how things work just by touching them must help, too."

"Yes."

"Did that come with the immortality?" she asked, as she restarted the car.

"No. I was that way from childness."

"Childhood," she corrected. "Ah."

"So you've always been able to read a book just by touching it?"

"We had not books. We had tablets. But yes."

"That's amazing." She looked at him sideways as she steered back into traffic, heading toward the on-ramp to take them to the highway again. "Will you tell me about your childhood, Utana?"

His brows rose as she glanced his way. He was surprised, she thought, by her interest. "I barely remember it. I lived some..." And there he paused, thinking. Brigit had no doubt he was translating his way of counting a lifetime into hers. "Nine hundred...years after the Great Flood. The earliest memories, they..."

"Fade," she said, as he searched for the right word.

"Yes."

"Do you remember your parents?"

"My father was more tribal chieftain than king. There were no palaces, no great city-states, yet. Not then. I remember our people moving, following the rains."

"Nomads."

"Yes. The...pictures in my mind are...thin. Dusty. Without color. So much time. So much time..."

"And what about your...adult life?" she asked softly. "You were a king. You must have had a...a queen?"

"I had...a harem. Slave girls to serve my needs. I treated them well. Had I not, the gods would not have chosen me."

"So...no queen? You know, one woman more special to you than all the rest? One who ruled by your side?"

"To share power-especially with a woman-it was not the way of my time," he said.

She sensed he was trying to explain something he knew she wouldn't necessarily approve of. "I understand that times were different then," she assured him.

"So different. So very different it is as if nothing remained the same."

She nodded slowly. He must feel alienated and foreign, even still. "And what about the flood? Did you really build an ark and put all of the animals of the world...?"

"I merely interpreted the signs and moved my household-my women, my sons and daughters, my servants and my herds-to the highest place I could find. There I built a ship, to enable us to sail forth in search of other lands that had escaped the flood, other survivors. But we never did sail far enough to find any. One of your years we remained on the mountaintop, while the waters raged below. Eventually they began to recede, and we returned to the valleys."

"Then why were you rewarded with immortality?"

He shrugged. "Why was I sent the signs so that I could survive while others did not?"

"I don't know." She found herself fascinated by his story, but even so, she was trying to find loopholes without looking as though that was what she was doing. She wanted to convince this man that religion was not a good enough reason for genocide.

Then again, it was one of the main reasons why anyone had ever committed such an atrocity or gone to war in the history of mankind.

"What were these signs, Utana?"

He shrugged. "The sun was blotted by the moon. I had seen it before, and always it foretold disaster. Too, I noted the animals vanishing from the desert."

"And didn't anyone else see those things, too?"

"All who cared to look."

"Then the gods didn't send the signs just to you. They sent the signs to everyone, hoping someone would listen and move and survive. Yes?"

He blinked at her.

She could only look at him in brief glimpses, because she was driving. "I mean, anyone could have interpreted them as a warning. You just happened to be the only one who did." Then she frowned. "Or were you? Were there others who moved to higher ground before the floods came, Utana?"

"I do not know. How can I, when I was the first to go?"

"Well, when you returned to the valleys, were there others there?"

He nodded. "From other lands. None of my own tribe."

"So you're not the only flood survivor. Maybe you're just the only one who was also a priest king and therefore sort of famous."

"Then why was I the only one given the gift of immortality?"

Shrugging, she said, "Maybe the gods wanted you to start a new race. Or maybe it was just something you ate. Or maybe you were already immortal, even before the flood, and you just didn't know it yet."

His eyes widened, and she sensed his shock and thought that she had probably pushed him far enough for one day. But then his expression twisted into one of pain, and he bared his teeth, squeezing his eyes tight.

Alarmed, she veered to the right before jerking her attention back to the road and correcting their course. "What is it? What's wrong? Is it what I said, because I wasn't trying to-"

"Fear. I feel fear." He closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his head. "And it is not from the vahmpeers. It is...mortal." He lifted his head and speared her with a look. "It is the Chosens. They are near, and they are fearful."

"You're right," she said. "I can feel them, too."

Brigit looked at her GPS. "I got so caught up in your story that I wasn't paying attention. We're getting close to the place where they're being held, Utana. I'm sorry. I should have warned you."

"You have decided not to take me to your people first?" he asked.

Did she detect hopefulness in his tone? "No," she said. "I just thought we could take a look. It's sort of on the way."

It was not an ideal time for "reconnaissance," as Brigit called it, Utana thought, as they sat in her car outside a building as large as any temple. But it was not a temple. That much was clear. It was a beautiful structure made of small red bricks, with arches of gray stone surrounding the windows and doors. It sat within a large grassy field and was enclosed by a fence, with a gate that opened in the front. The gate was of a different material, however. Black iron, not silver like the rest. To the left, beyond the fence, was a small woodlot. To the right, a large area with a surface like the road on which they drove, where many cars were stored.

In front, a circular drive wrapped around a tall statue of a woman, perhaps some modern goddess, bearing an oil lamp that contained an actual flame. Sentries were posted at the front entrance, one man on either side of the door. They wore green suits of clothing, the pattern blotchy, and they held weapons in their hands. Rifles. Tiny caps adorned their heads.

"They are soldiers?" he asked, not needing Brigit's nod to confirm it.

"Yes. Probably have no more clue what's going on inside than we do. Maybe less."

"It is not a soldier's job to know, only to obey without question. So it was in my time, at least."

"That much hasn't changed," Brigit said softly.

She started up the car, began to pull away, but he put a hand over hers on the steering wheel.

"What?" she asked.

"We cannot leave. The Chosens are inside that building."

"I know. But we can't rescue them right now, and there's no point in us being discovered out here casing the place. They'll throw us inside with the others if they catch us. And then what good will we be to them?"

She continued driving.

"We should stay here. We should return to that place after darkfall and free the captive Chosens."

"We know where they are," she said. "And we know Nash isn't going to kill them right away. Not until after he uses them to lure every vampire left alive to their death, at least."

Her jaw was set in a familiar way, speaking to him of her stubbornness, as she drove. But she was going slowly, as if she, too, were reluctant to leave. "Our priority is to get to my people, to warn them that this is a trap and to convince them to let you help. Then we'll make a plan and rescue the Chosen. It's the only logical way to do this, Utana."

He could tell by the way her voice trembled as she spoke that she was feeling the same pull he was. She, too, wanted to spring into action at once, to rescue the prisoners immediately. Leaving them behind was painful and difficult for her, as it was for him.

"Go that way," he said, pointing to a road just past the property that turned left. "Drive around to the rear, that we might observe the portals and sentries there."

"All right," she said, nodding. "No harm in that." And she turned left, driving slowly, watchful, lest they be discovered.

There were no entrances to the building along the right side. Just that large strip of pavement and the numerous vehicles parked there. He saw that the fence encircled the entire building.

"I wonder if that fence is electrified," Brigit said as they drove on.

Utana knew about electricity. He'd felt its jolting power when he'd touched the gate at the mansion. He felt for the prisoners within, and the fear and unease he could still sense made him feel uneasy too. Nervous and restless.

They turned left again, now driving along the back side of the building. The lawn stretched out far behind it. At the building's base, panels of glass angled outward. They began at a man's height above ground level and then angled outward, slanting all the way down to the ground itself. Above, there was a fire escape.

"Odd, the windows there," Utana said, pointing.

"They look like skylights-they must be there to let sunlight filter down into the basement."

He understood. A basement-the subterranean level of a building-would naturally be devoid of light. These rooflike windows would solve that problem. They also revealed that the basement must be slightly larger than the above-ground part of the building.

And yet still he saw no entrance to the building.

They turned left again, but this road, leading them to the one where they had started, ran alongside the woodlot, blocking their view of the building.

Soon enough they were driving past the front again, resuming their journey toward her beloved vahmpeers.

"If we tell your people about this place," he said, choosing his words with care, "will they not feel compelled to come here? To try to help? And would that not be exactly what Nashmun wishes for them to do?"

He saw her brow crinkle in the center as she considered his words. The tiny lines that formed on the bridge of her nose distracted him from his train of thought, but only briefly.

"They'll know anyway. If Nash does something to hurt or traumatize the Chosen, my people will feel it. Already, you can feel it, and so can I. No matter how far away the vampires are, they'll know. If it gets any worse... Maybe they're already sensing the Chosen's unrest. And they'll come, no matter what." She sighed, then nodded firmly. "No. It's better if I tell them it's a trap. At least that way they'll be forewarned."

"But still, they will come. Yes?"

She shot him a brief look. "Yes."

"Would you not wish to prevent them coming here at all, if you could?"

"Well, yes, but I don't see how-"

"I will tell you how. We get the Chosens out. We do this before their distress becomes any...louder," he said, for lack of a better word. He knew she would understand his meaning. "Alone?"

"I believe we are two of the most powerful people in your world today, Brigit. I believe there is no force in existence that we two, together, cannot overcome."

She blinked and lowered her head, as if his words had elicited some strong emotion within her. "Well, we were. Now...you are. And I..."

"You are far more than you know, Brigit Poe." As he said it, he reached out with one hand to push her blond locks behind one ear, the better to see her face.

Her cheeks warmed, pinkened, at his touch.

"Will you give me back my power, then?" she asked.

He considered his answer for a long moment. The building they had been examining was far behind them now. The countryside rolled out before them as they continued to drive northward. Hills of lush green rose higher toward bluish mountain peaks that stabbed into the sky.

Would she return to her original plan to kill him if he told her the truth?

He looked around him, accustomed to finding a means of escape before entering any dangerous situation. It was the soldier in him, he supposed. A king must lead armies, and he had learned to lead them well.

As he weighed his chances, he felt a smile tugging at his lips. She would not blast him to bits-at least not while he resided inside her precious car. He was safe-for the moment.

"I asked you a question, Utana. Will you give me back my power?"

"I already-"

Brigit halted the car so dramatically that he stopped in midsentence. She pressed her temples, closed her eyes tight.

"Brigit?" They were in the center of the road, and not entirely within the boundaries of the correct lane. "Brigit, are you all right? What is it?"

She blinked her eyes open and stared directly forward. "It's J.W.," she whispered.

Utana tore his concerned eyes from hers and looked instead to where she was focused. Brigit's twin brother, James of the Vahmpeers-the very man who had raised Utana from ashes-stood far ahead in front of the car. And as Utana looked on, he strode closer, down the center of their lane, and stopped there, placing one hand on the vehicle's hood. His broad shoulders blocked out the afternoon sun, and the gathering winds tossed his golden hair like ocean waves. But it was his eyes that held Utana's attention. His eyes carried the message of his fury. Could he have blasted Utana with a beam from them, he surely would have done so.

And now that he was here, perhaps his sister would feel the same. It was a very good thing, Utana thought, that he had not had time to complete the words he had begun to speak to her.

A horn blasted behind them, and Brigit jumped, then shook herself free of her momentary shock and began easing the car forward. J.W. backed out of the way, walking to the shoulder, where his own vehicle, an old pickup truck, was parked. Brigit drove past it, then pulled onto the shoulder a solid fifty yards ahead. She wanted there to be some distance between J.W. and Utana. For J.W.'s sake.

As she reached for her door handle, she felt Utana's hand on her upper arm. Warm. Strong but gentle. When she looked at him, there was a question in his ebony eyes.

"I don't know what he wants. Probably he was on his way to check out St. Dymphna's, like we were just doing ourselves. Or maybe they sent him to find out why I haven't done what I was sent to do."

Utana held her eyes. "To destroy my body, and return my soul to a dark and timeless prison."

"Yeah. That." She had to avert her eyes when she said it. "Don't worry. I'll talk to him, okay? Just wait here. I'll be right back."

His eyes asked her not to go, but it wasn't as if she had a choice here. He was her brother. She opened her mouth to say something more, but then closed it again, not even sure what words were so eager to escape. She gave Utana a reassuring smile instead. "I'll be right back. Promise."

He said nothing, just held her eyes, making it very hard for her to turn away, to open her door and exit the vehicle. She did it, though, and then walked back toward her brother's truck. Two-tone, red on top, cream on the bottom. It was an older model, late seventies, but rather than a restored classic, it bore the look of a tired-out ride. A little attention, though, and it could be something special.

She patted its hood as she approached her brother, who was standing in front of the bumper. "She needs tires, J.W. And there's some rust starting up around the gas cap. You don't get on that soon, it'll be too deep, and you'll have to-"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked, firmly cutting her off in mid chatter.

Brigit lowered her eyes, nodding slowly. "Not even going to say hi? Just straight to the condemnation?"

"What are you doing, Brigit? Why is that monster still alive? And why the hell-"

"He's not a monster. He's a man, J.W. And I think he-"

"Not a monster?" J.W. gaped at her, seemed to have to fight for the ability to speak again. "Are you forgetting how many of our people he murdered?"

"Not for a minute," she whispered. "And neither is he. It's eating him up inside. But the man was half out of his mind when he did what he did. He'd been trapped in a living death for thousands of years, resurrected into a world he didn't understand, shown a race he created and told by others that he would be returned to the eternal prison you pulled him out of, unless he destroyed it. He believed he was told these things by the gods themselves. He believed it, J.W."

"I don't give a damn what he believed."

"He'd been lied to, both by Folsom's piece of shit book full of propaganda and by that DPI bastard, Nash Gravenham-Bail."

"Who the hell is-"

"Scarface," she snapped. "Remember? I had him prisoner, thinking he was one of the vigilantes? As we made our way to the yacht, he managed to get Utana's attention. He fed him a pile of bull, and Utana let him go. Remember, J.W.?"

"It's James," he said.

You would think by now he would have given up on that constant refrain, she thought.

"And yes, I remember," he added.

"He was DPI, J.W. He was laying the groundwork to use Utana against us. And it almost worked."

"It did work, sis. He blew away dozens of us. And you were supposed to kill him, Brigit. You were supposed to kill him before he could kill any more of us."

"Well, I haven't, so deal."

They stood there, face-to-face in a stare-down that Brigit eventually lost when J.W. said, "He took my power. And he hurt my Lucy."

"That was an accident, and you know it."

"Yeah, I do. He was trying to kill me, and she got in the way. That doesn't exactly make it all right, Bridge."

She had to look away. "The first thing he asked me when I found him was whether Lucy was all right. He was mortified for having hurt her. He likes her."

"I don't fucking care if he likes her!" He tipped his head back, shoved both hands through his hair in frustration, then looked her in the eye again. "Brigit, what's going on with you? Has he brainwashed you, put some kind of mind control vibe on your brain, or what?"

She paced away from him, pretending to examine the truck but actually searching for words instead. She ran her hands down the side panels. The paint was still good under all the dirt. Just a little touch up, a little sanding and body putty, fresh paint and maybe a layer of clear coat, and it could be a classic.

Traffic flew past, sending mini-blasts of air at her over and over.

When she circled back around to the nose of the truck, J.W. met her eyes again. "What are you going to do?" he asked her softly.

"I think he deserves another chance, J.W."

He lowered his head, shaking it slowly. "That's not your call. You were sent to take him out, Brigit. If you won't do it, the elders are just going to send someone else. You know that."

She released a puff of air that could have been a laugh, had she let it mature. "They won't succeed. He's too strong. I've been looking for a vulnerability, a weakness, all this time, and I haven't found one yet."

Her brother's brows rose, a spark of hope coming to life in his eyes. "Is that why you're with him? Looking for a weakness?"

"That was why. In the beginning."

"And now?"

She nodded toward the stretch of road behind them, the direction from whence she and Utana had come. "You knew the Chosen have been vanishing for a while now. We've all suspected the government was rounding them up. Utana and I have learned where they're being held."

"We already know," James told her. "They're at St. Dymphna."

"Well, aren't you all just way ahead of us, then? I suppose you also know they're nothing more than bait for a great big DPI vampire trap?"

Her brother blinked, his eyes telling her that he hadn't known that at all.

"They're going to do something to them, J.W. They're going to hurt them, scare them, something to put them into a state of anguish or pain or fear."

"So the vampires will feel their need and come to their aid," he said, putting the pieces together at last.

"Now you're getting it. They figure they'll lure out every vampire left alive, so they must be planning to really put the screws to the captives. And then they intend to kill you all."

"How?" J.W. asked.

"They intended to use Utana to do it." She put her hands on J.W.'s shoulders and stared forcibly into his eyes. "But he refused. He came with me instead."

"Yeah. To do what? Blast us all on his own time-line?"

Throwing her hands in the air, Brigit turned away in exasperation. "I wanted to come to you all, to warn you. He didn't want to do that. He wanted to rescue the Chosen on our own, to keep everyone else far from danger."

"Oh, so he's looking out for us now." J.W. threw his own hands in the air and walked in a small circle. "Am I supposed to believe he's decided to thumb his nose at the supposed dictates of his gods and not kill us after all?"

She shrugged. "Not yet."

Her brother's eyes widened, brows arching high. "Are you kidding me? He hasn't decided yet, and you're still taking his side?"

"Believe me, the second he seems inclined to harm a hair on any of your heads, I'll take him out." She didn't tell her brother that she no longer had any idea just how she would manage to do that, now that her powers were gone. She wasn't going to give him any more reason to hate Utana than he already had. He didn't know the man-not like she did.

"Great. That's just great."

"Now that you're here, we have a far better chance, though," she said. "The three of us can free the Chosen before the DPI does whatever horrible thing they have planned for them."

Her brother looked at her, searching her eyes as if for some explanation that would make him understand the change in her. But she knew he wouldn't find one. She didn't even know what had changed in her, so how could he? All she knew was that returning Utana to an endless existence of being buried alive was beyond her. She couldn't do it, couldn't kill him, knowing that would be the result. Nor could she allow him to harm her people. She was being torn to pieces by the conflict that would only be resolved if Utana chose to betray his gods for her, and her people chose to forgive the man who had decimated them.

Odds didn't look very good for either event.

With a frustrated, furious sigh, J.W. shook his head. "No. I don't want any help from that murderer. And if you're with him, Brigit, then I don't want any help from you, either. And you can trust me when I tell you, our family will feel the same way."

"No." Brigit felt hot tears burning in her eyes. "Don't say shit like that, J.W., not to me."

"You need to choose-right now. You either come with me now, or you take off with him and let us handle our own problems. Make your choice, Brigit. Us or him?"

"I want you to talk to him," she said. "Just talk to him. Please, James."

"No." As he said it, he looked past her toward her car. And then his eyes narrowed, and he went on, "Looks like he's made the choice for you. Though it pisses me off to think he had to."

"What the hell are you talking abou-" She turned as she spoke, then stopped when she saw her car speeding away without her.