Phantom Shadows Part 38

They all looked at each other as though none of them wanted to be the one to break the bad news.

How bad could it be? Melanie had just been drained almost to the point of death and infused with the virus in ma.s.sive amounts by a vampire. Surely they couldn't tell him anything that could even come close to that.

"What is it?"

Again Lisette spoke. "We believe they have Cliff."

Bastien shook his head. "Joe panicked when he saw Melanie and took off. Cliff went to bring him back. They probably sought shelter when the sun rose and will return tonight."

etienne shook his head. "I saw Cliff felled by a dart. I was busy dropping a grenade I confiscated down into one of the armored personnel carriers and had to look away. When I looked back, he was gone."

Alarm shook Bastien. "Are you sure?" What if he had only ducked into the trees. If Cliff was still up there, he could die when the angle of the sun changed.

"I searched the trees," etienne said. "He was nowhere to be found."

"Are any of the vehicles missing?" David asked. "The mercenaries would not have gone on foot."

They all shrugged.

"I was the first one on the ground," Richart said, "but couldn't say how many there were to begin with because they were already bombing the building."

David sheathed his weapons. "I'll see if I can find them."

etienne shook his head. "The sun is up."

"I know. I can withstand a few hours of daylight."

That long? Really?

As David strode past, Bastien grabbed his arm. "Why didn't you tell me you could shape-s.h.i.+ft?"

"Because you didn't ask."

The others shared a look.

"You can shape-s.h.i.+ft?" Lisette asked.

"Yes. And no, I won't show you. It isn't a parlor trick."

Bastien tightened his grip when David would have moved on. "There was no need to bring Ami here. With your shape-s.h.i.+fting ability, we didn't need her."

"I didn't bring Ami here," David replied, expression darkening. "I would never have put her in such danger and you shouldn't have either."

"Because I didn't know!"

etienne gripped Bastien's arm and slowly pulled him backward.

Bastien released David. "All you have to do is change into a bird and follow the soldiers home. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have told Marcus we needed her."

David stepped up close, eyes flas.h.i.+ng amber. "Whether you needed her or not, you should not have brought her here. You risked her life by doing so. Was my hanging up on you not indication enough that it was a phenomenally bad idea? Was there any doubt in your mind as to my disapproval of such a plan?"

"If you had-"

"Do not mistake my friendly complaisance for weakness, Sebastien. Nor for ignorance. I have walked this earth for thousands of years. I am more powerful than every immortal in this room combined. And I hold a wisdom and patience you may never acquire. The only immortal who holds more authority than I do is Seth. The next time you do something I have forbidden, you will not like the consequences. If, that is, Seth lets you live. You may very well have forfeited your life tonight when you risked Ami's. Seth will be furious."

David stalked from the room. A moment later, the sound of wings flapping carried to them from the elevator shaft.

Bastien met the somber gazes of the others.

"d.a.m.n," Ethan said. "You really know how to push people's b.u.t.tons."

Yes. The question was: How far had he pushed Seth's?

Chapter 13.

Seth stared at the slender figure on the bed. Straight, shoulder-length raven hair, as s.h.i.+ny as it was soft, formed a fan on the pillow beneath her head. Her nose was small, her chin impertinent. He didn't doubt she had thrust that chin out often in her lifetime.

Dark, sightless eyes stared back at him, as though even in death she beseeched him to help her. Free her. Save her.

But he had arrived too late.

The dread that had been burning his stomach like acid for days began to recede, replaced by numbness. Regret.

Bending, Seth picked a s.h.i.+rt up off the floor-all that remained of the vampire who had worn it-and wiped his weapons clean. He sheathed them, forced his feet to carry him forward. With a wave of his hand, he sent the ropes that bound her wrists and ankles racing to untie themselves. They fell to the covers. One slithered off and hit the floor with a thump.

Her slender arms were purple with bruises and polka dotted with bites and dried specks and trails of blood. Her legs, bare save for the small skirt she wore, bore the same. Her delicate hands were bloodstained and curled into claws that continued to grip the sheets beneath her though no breath filled her body.

Seth left to perform a quick search of her small rural home. He found what he sought in the bathroom and returned to the bedroom.

Lifting the slight form, he supported her with one arm while he ripped the b.l.o.o.d.y sheets from the bed and shook a clean white one over it. He laid the young woman down and closed those long-lashed, sightless, accusing eyes.

He had searched for her every chance he could, narrowing her location down a little more each day. It was a big d.a.m.ned planet. And so much was going on in North Carolina right now.

Excuses. For the inexcusable.

He turned to the crib a few feet away. Anguish pierced him as he approached it.

The body within was so tiny. He lifted the babe and placed him in his mother's arms, then tucked the sheet around them like a coc.o.o.n.

Two gifted ones lost.

There were three phenomena Seth always felt internally, no matter how far away they took place: the birth of a gifted one, the death of either a gifted one or an immortal, and the transformation of a gifted one into an immortal. The first triggered a sort of breathless tingle in his chest, as this babe's birth had three months earlier. It had been a single bright moment among a host of dark ones.

The second sp.a.w.ned a feeling of emptiness. Seth had thought the emptiness created by the babe's death an extension of the loneliness that had besieged him ever since he had a.s.signed Ami to be Marcus's Second. Had he realized it was the result of a gifted one dying, perhaps he could have found these two sooner. Soon enough, perhaps, to save the mother.

The third, the transformation of a gifted one into an immortal, sp.a.w.ned a sick feeling of dread within him. So heavy he could follow it like a scent in the wind. But such took time. Time this woman, the victim of the half-dozen vampires whose blood now painted the walls, had lacked.

The vampires had tried to turn her. But, as often happened, their bloodl.u.s.t had thwarted their desire, driving them to drain her before the transformation could conclude. It was the only reason there were two bodies to enshroud and bury instead of one.

He lifted the bundle into his arms. They were so light. Somehow that made it all the worse.

Outside, a brisk wind bearing the scent of snow lashed him. He almost wished it carried with it the punis.h.i.+ng sting of sleet.

The beautiful countryside outside Gyeongju, South Korea, bore a white blanket that seemed to dampen sound like cotton b.a.l.l.s. Thunder rumbled overhead, sp.a.w.ned not by any meteorological disturbance, but by Seth's grief.

He would have to find a shovel.

"Here."

Seth spun around.

As always, the figure that stepped from the shadows the house cast in the moonlight reminded him of a buff Jim Morrison. His dark, wavy hair lifted and fell with the breeze, tumbling past his shoulders. His chest was bare, hairless. Soft leather pants hung low on his hips.

Seth hadn't heard his arrival and wondered if the noise the vampires had made as he had slaughtered them had drowned it out, or if he had simply been so distracted he had missed it.

The leather pants rustled slightly as the other strolled forward. Snow and ice crunched beneath his boots. One large hand clasped the handle of a shovel he held out to Seth.

Seth glanced down at the burden in his arms. He didn't want to lay them on the ground even long enough to dig the grave. Yet he didn't want to return them inside to the blood-spattered room in which both had died.

"Never mind," his visitor said. "I'll do it."

Seth would have been unable to suppress his shock if he hadn't been so numb.

"Did you know them?" the other asked as he stuck the shovel deep into the frozen earth and removed a hunk of soil.

"Not really. I knew they were gifted ones. I looked in on her over the years as I do to all of the gifted ones. But . . ."

"They didn't know you."

Seth nodded.

The sound of the metal blade stabbing the ground seemed obscenely loud.

Neither spoke as the grave took shape.

When it was long and deep enough, Seth lowered the bodies into it with care.

His companion abandoned the shovel and joined Seth in singing a prayer for mother and son in an ancient language none currently living had ever heard spoken.

When silence reigned once more, Seth picked up the shovel and started returning the soil to its home. "Could we maybe do this another time?" he asked without looking up at the other, who was taller than himself by a couple of inches.

"Do what?"

"Whatever it is you're here to do. Or say. I really have no interest in your threats tonight. If you and the others did more than sit on your precious a.s.ses and observe, perhaps I wouldn't be doing this right now."

"I'll issue no threats tonight, cousin."

"Well, whoop-dee-f.u.c.king-doo. Are you going to tell me you're here because you missed me?"

"No," he said simply.

From the corner of his eye, Seth watched him pace away a few yards, pause, pace back. Cross his arms. Uncross them. Pace away again.

He seemed . . . off.

Unsettled.

Something.

"What's with you tonight?"

"Nothing."

Finished filling the grave, Seth set the shovel aside and turned to the house. He closed his eyes, pictured the kitchen. The gas pipe behind the stove sprang a leak. A small spark and it ignited. He would visit her family and plant the memory of an explosion, of mother and child being killed instantly, then given a lovely funeral.

No one would see the bodies. No eyebrows would be raised by the bites. No inquiries would be made. No sensational headlines would proclaim their deaths vampire kills. No one would know the truth. Only Seth and . . .

"Are you going to tell me why you're here?"

Tense silence.

"Zach-"

"Your phone is broken."

Seth frowned. "What?"

"Your phone is broken," Zach repeated. Seth pulled his cell from a back pocket and gave it a look. No wonder things had been so quiet. The device had been shattered by a vampire strike.

Seth looked at Zach. Why would he care if Seth's phone . . .

Alarm struck him. "What's happened?" It must be bad for this one to risk the wrath of the others to interfere and bring it to Seth's attention. "Who's been trying to reach me?"

Zach's jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth.

Seth knew what this would cost him and wondered if he would- "Your people in North Carolina."

"Which ones?"

"All of them."

Seth swore and prepared to teleport to David's place.