Twilight Prophecy (Wings in the Night #17)

Twilight Prophecy (Wings in the Night #17) Page 19

An hour later they were nearing the spot where they'd left the dinghy. Lucy had said nothing about the scar-faced man up to that point, although she'd been stunned when she'd seen him. She'd been waiting for a moment when she could get James alone.

And it finally came.

She was walking beside him, Brigit leading the way, a canvas-wrapped vampire over her shoulder. It was surreal to watch her carrying a vampire that was taller, broader and no doubt far heavier than Brigit herself. She was a small woman, petite, and those blond curls were a total contrast to her personality, much less her power. It was like watching a toddler pick up an adult. It just made no sense.

Brigit was several yards ahead of them now, moving fast, maybe running on adrenaline.

Behind then, Utanapishtim walked more slowly, apparently in deference to the struggling, scar-faced mortal just ahead of him, who was suffering under his own vampiric burden.

Finally there was enough distance between Lucy and James, and the others, that she felt she could speak freely. "I know that man," she whispered.

He shot her a curious look.

"He was in the room where I woke up-after the shooting. After you healed me. The room where I was held. He was there with a woman, and while she did most of the questioning, I got the feeling he was the one in charge."

James nodded. "I saw him, too, outside the studio in all that chaos. He was one of the men in black. He's government. DPI."

She felt a rush of relief that her own suspicion had just been confirmed. "Then that means DPI is behind this vigilante nonsense, doesn't it, James?"

"I wouldn't be surprised. Probably pretending to be a regular guy, egging them on. Hell, look at his clothes."

She glanced behind them. The scar-faced man was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a flannel shirt over it, buttoned all the way up. As if he knew what rednecks wore, but not how they wore it. His mouth was moving, but she couldn't hear his words.

"He's running his mouth, James. What's he saying?"

"Nothing good." James turned, looking back at them. "Shit. I didn't realize Utanapishtim had dropped back. He was behind me a minute ago."

"We're almost there," she said.

"Let's drop back a little, all the same. I don't like this."

"Not me," she said. "I've kept my head down since you guys brought him up from the basement. I don't think he's recognized me yet. And I'd just as soon he didn't."

"Don't kid yourself, Lucy," James told her. "He knows exactly who you are. These guys aren't that easily fooled."

The two of them slowed down. Utanapishtim and Scarface slowed down, too. Lucy didn't think that boded very well. Clearly, whatever Scarface had to say, he didn't want to say it in front of James and Lucy, and just as clearly, Utanapishtim wanted to hear the man out.

James stopped in place, waiting, facing the other two, making it impossible for them to lag behind without being obvious about it.

"Where are you taking me?" Scarface demanded when they caught up. "I've been asking this guy, but he refuses to say a word."

"I can't tell you that," James said softly. "But you'll be safe, I promise."

"Safe? Are you crazy? I'm being held prisoner by vampires, for God's sake."

"Obviously we're not vampires," James said, with a nod at the sky above. "Sunshine, remember?"

"You're not human. I know that much. That blonde...the things she can do. Are you two...related?"

James tipped his head to one side. "You know we are. And why don't you stop playing games? Just as you know I'm not human, I know you're not some yahoo with an ax to grind."

"I resent that."

"You would if you were one of them. But you're not. You're government. DPI."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You do, and you'll talk, pal. Believe me. You're going to tell us everything we want to know."

The man seemed to go a shade paler, and he sent a look toward Utanapishtim. "I told you so."

"James!" Brigit called from up ahead.

Looking forward, James saw that she had stopped, and lowered her undead passenger to the ground. She ducked behind a boulder, then peered out around it.

"I need to go see what's up. Watch him," he told Lucy.

She nodded, and James jogged up ahead, still carrying his unconscious vampire refugee over his shoulder, until he reached Brigit, where he set his burden down beside the other canvas-wrapped vampire.

Lucy kept on walking, but being more or less alone with the scar-faced man made her nervous.

"You're not one of them," he said to her. He was moving slowly, clearly struggling to bear the weight of the bundle over his shoulder.

She looked at him, then at Utanapishtim, who was still listening to every word, following behind, soaking it all up and not making a single comment. He carried his own burden as if it were a twig.

"They're my friends," Lucy said to Scarface. "You, on the other hand, are not."

"You're so wrong about that." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "We were trying to save you from them when we took you in. Still are. All this stuff we've leaked to the press about you being wanted-it's bull. We're just trying to get you to come in...so we can protect you. They're going to kill you, Lucy. You know too much."

"And you know far too little," she said.

"Listen, listen, I'll...I'll make you a trade. You help me get away, and I'll make you a trade, okay?"

He was back to a normal tone of voice again. The others were too far away to hear-or maybe not. Utanapishtim was closer and, she thought, trying to listen in.

"You have nothing I could possibly want," she said.

Scarface looked quickly ahead at the others, then spoke. "I have the book," he whispered, and he patted his breast pocket. "The one that tells all their secrets, the one no one is supposed to have."

"You get the tiny version?" she asked, with a derisive look at his shirt pocket.

He tugged on something, revealing just the edge. "Electronic version, right here on my phone." As he moved, the canvas bundle shifted on his shoulder and a pale, slender hand fell free.

Lucy lunged, tucking the hand back in even as smoke began to spiral from it. "Be careful!" she snapped.

"For God's sake, will you focus here?" Scarface demanded. "You've chosen the wrong side in this, and you'll know that if you just read the book. I'll give it to you. Just let me go and it's yours."

"I'm not letting you go." And besides, she thought snidely, she already had the very same material on her own phone. In fact, she had Lester Folsom's own "eyes only" version.

She caught herself, realizing that she'd processed that thought very loudly. She wondered if anyone else had picked up on it and glanced ahead, knowing she probably ought to tell James she was in possession of the book.

Would he be angry that she'd kept it from him? Would he insist she destroy it, or hand it over to Rhiannon or one of the other vampire elders? She didn't want to give it up. She wanted to read it first-find out everything that James might not have told her already. And even knowing parts of it would no doubt be biased and untrue, books were sacred to her. Knowledge was everything.

She would finish reading it, and then she would tell him and let him do whatever he wanted with the thing.

"Come on, Lucy. You're a scientist. Don't you want to know the truth about them?"

Utanapishtim stepped up behind the man, gripped his shoulder. "Silence, prisoner. Wish you to die now?"

"I'm going to die anyway, if you don't let me go. You don't know what they're capable of. They'll drink my fucking blood, for God's sake."

"Loo-see, go there." Utanapishtim pointed ahead, to where James was speaking to Brigit. "You belong...beside...you man. Go."

"But James asked me to watch him."

"I king! You go!"

He growled the words, jabbing his forefinger in James's direction, and Lucy jumped into motion, but first she snatched the phone from Scarface's pocket.

He glared at her.

"Sorry, pal. You've got nothing left to bargain with now."

She took the phone with her to where James and Brigit were crouched behind a boulder. Utanapishtim had spoken with so much authority that it had seemed far beyond her ability to argue with him. By the time she was catching up with James, it was a done deal, and just as well. She'd been shaken by the scar-faced man. But she had at least taken the precaution of confiscating his bargaining chip. God forbid he give it to Utanapishtim, with his ability to absorb every bit of information it contained just by holding the device in his hands.

What would he believe of his offspring if he were fed all the lies about them contained in that book? True, she hadn't finished it, but what she had read so far had depicted the vampire race as animals. As soulless, murderous savages without feelings.

She made it to the boulder and came to a stop.

"What is it?" she asked the twins. To her surprise, the sea was just a stone's throw away below them.

"Just a passing group of humans," James said. "We think they were just hikers, but given the circumstances..." He looked at Lucy. "What have you got there?"

She handed it to him. "The electronic version of Folsom's book. Scarface offered to trade it to me in exchange for letting him go. I took it from him so he wouldn't try to tempt Utanapishtim with the same offer."

James took it, looked at it and then flung it as hard as he could. The device sailed through the sky, arcing overhead, then plummeting downward again and falling into the sea with a "plip." "That takes care of that problem," he said.

Lucy licked her lips, realizing he would do the same to her personal edition of the book if she told him she had it.

"That information might have been useful, James," she pointed out.

"Information? It's propaganda. Our secrets are ours, Lucy. To keep or to share, our call. Not some retired DPI goon's."

"But there might have been things on there about them, things we don't know."

"Once DPI, always DPI. Believe me, he didn't give away a thing that could help us. They never do."

"Knowledge is power, James."

"I have all the power I need, thanks. Or at least, I did."

What was that supposed to mean, she wondered, lowering her head. "Books are sacred to me."

"That wasn't a book. It was a phone." He hooked a finger under her chin and smiled, as if trying to tempt her out of her displeasure.

"It was a book, and you know it."

His face turned serious then. "It was a weapon meant to be wielded against my people. And I destroyed it. It was the right call, Lucy."

"Destroying knowledge in any form is never the right call."

"Will you two go get a freaking room or something?" Brigit turned, irritated, and then her eyes widened as she looked beyond them. "Utanapishtim! Heads up! Scarface is getting away!"

James and Lucy whirled to see the mortal darting around a sand dune and heading into the woods. The vampire he'd been carrying lay bundled on the ground.

Brigit ran like a flash to where Utanapishtim was and lifted her hand, palm up, fingers touching her thumb, toward the fleeing prisoner, but Utanapishtim reached out, closed his hand around hers and pushed it down.

"No need...to keep him."

"Who the fuck are you to make that decision?" Brigit shouted.

Utanapishtim backed up a step, as if stunned by her words, not to mention her tone. "I am king. You...are...of me, woman. Remember it."

Brigit stared at him, her eyes blazing mad, and he stared right back at her.

"Let it go, Brigit," James said softly. "There wouldn't have been room in the dinghy for him anyway.

"I needed him." She jerked her hand free of Utanapishtim's and used her finger to poke him in the chest. "You'd best watch your step, King Shit. Because you don't know fuck about what's going on here."

Lucy stared at the pair of them, her eyes rounding with fear, until Brigit turned and marched back toward the boulder, where she reclaimed her undead passenger and began striding onward, picking her way down the steep slope toward the beach below.

It was only a few hours later, late in the afternoon, when the dense bank of misty fog that surrounded the island came into view. James stared at it so intently that Lucy knew he was trying to feel for his relatives' energies, because navigating by sight was absolutely impossible.

Standing beside him at the helm, Lucy asked, "Isn't there some sort of sonar system you could use to pick your way to shore?"

"The yacht isn't equipped with sonar." He met her eyes, and his were warm with approval. "But that was a good idea."

"And it gave me another," she said. "Can the vampires' power block military sonar from detecting the island?"

"I don't know. I doubt it. But then, I don't know every vampire or what each one is capable of, so it's impossible to say." He stared through the heavy fog, eyes straining. "There's just no way to dock until the vampires awaken and Rhiannon is able to part the mists long enough to let me find my way in by sight."

He shrugged. "It's only a slight delay."

"It is. And this is a good day, for you." She smiled at the light in his eyes. "You're returning to your people with your mission accomplished. Like a conquering hero. Like Gilgamesh himself, so long ago.

You're saving them, James. And I owe you a huge apology."

His smile faded as he blinked at her. "For what?

Helping me pull off the impossible?"

"For doubting you. For questioning your judgment in balancing what means were justified to get to this end."

He lowered his head briefly. "You were right about some of it. Raising the dead didn't work out so well."

"The mortal dead, yes. But your sister obligingly returned them to the grave where they belonged, except for that mother you reunited with her husband and children. It all worked out fine in the end. You were right all along. And I'm sorry for doubting you."

"Just don't let it happen again, woman." He delivered the dictate with a hint of Utanapishtim's exotically unidentifiable accent, and she laughed with him, even while giving a quick glance behind them.

But there was no one in sight. Utanapishtim was asleep, exhausted, in one of the cabins below. Brigit was in another, also napping, equally exhausted after a night of battling mortal vigilantes and rescuing vampires from the flames. The four surviving members of her resistance team were divided up between the two remaining cabins, unconscious until sundown.

Leaving just the two of them alone at the helm, Lucy thought.

James dropped anchor where they were and shut off the yacht's engines. He led Lucy down to the deck-level wet bar, just behind the bridge, and poured them each a glass of wine. Then he held up his glass. "To victory."

"To victory." She clinked her glass against his, then took a deep drink.

He did the same, then said, "I'm sorry about destroying that phone."

"But you still think it was for the best."

"Yes. I know you disagree, but that's okay with me."

She nodded, feeling a little guilty that she still had her own version of the book. And yet also feeling entirely justified in keeping that information from him. For now. Her phone was tucked away in her bag, in one of the cabins down below. She told herself that she would finish her reading and then delete the thing, though she didn't think in the end she would have the willpower to do it.

"What's on your mind? You look pensive," James said.

She shook free of her thoughts and tried to refocus on what they'd been discussing last. "I...I was wondering why Utanapishtim didn't return from the grave the way those others did, mindless and out of control."

"I think it's because they'd really died. Not only physically but spiritually-the part of them that was them, the soul, for want of a better name, had moved on. I guess with the first woman, it was so soon after her death that I was able to pull her soul back into her body. But with those others, the soul didn't return. I restored the body, but it was just animated meat and bone. No soul."

"And with Utanapishtim?"

He nodded, sipping, thinking. "He never really died. I mean, his physical form was gone, but his spirit remained...trapped with his ashes, where it would have stayed forever."

Lucy frowned. "I wonder...if there's any way to set him free. I mean, eventually he's going to die. He can't live forever."

"Why not?" James asked. "Seems to me it's either that or return to his living death. God, can you imagine how awful it must have been? All those centuries, conscious yet imprisoned? Buried alive, basically."

"It's a miracle he's not completely insane." She shivered. "He's not quite right though, even now. Sometimes, there's something in his eyes that just...it scares me, James."

Something scraped the side of the anchored vessel, and James swore under his breath, rushing to the side to look over it. Lucy could see the island now-just glimpses amid the mist every now and again. "Should I wake the others, let them know we're here?"

"Let them sleep awhile, Lucy," James said. "We have three hours until sundown, after all. And this island will be bustling by then. I think maybe you and I ought to sleep, too."

She dipped her head a little, wondering if that was all he wanted them to do and hoping not. "I wish we could debark and find a cozy spot on the island for our...nap," she said softly. "I'm craving solid ground beneath my body."

"I'm craving you beneath mine," he said. He pulled her into his arms then, holding her close to him and smiling down into her eyes. "I haven't stopped thinking about it since we-"

"Neither have I, James," she whispered.

He bent his head and kissed her mouth. He took his time, his tongue moving deep, tasting her thoroughly.

"All the cabins..." she said between kisses, "are...occupied."

"You taste like wine. Better." His hands moved over her body, sliding down to cup her backside, squeezing her closer. "We don't need a cabin."

"You're right, we don't," she whispered. "The sitting room. We can shut the door."

"What's wrong with right here?" he asked, but he didn't make her answer. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her, kissing her all the way, down the stairs, past all four closed cabin doors and into the sitting room. Then he kicked that door closed behind him and lowered her onto the pristine white carpet.