Turning, she started back to Jude’s office, reaching for whatever power she had used yesterday to keep that elemental away.
For a little while it pulled back. But then she felt it move in again, and the sensation was so strong that she quickened her step.
God, it was getting dark fast. What had she been thinking?
The urge to run was growing in her, but she forced it down. Whatever this force was that was coming after her, some instinct told her that fear would only feed it.
Instead she clung to that willpower she had found only yesterday, concentrating her thoughts on forcing the thing back. It gave a little, allowing her to breathe more easily.
Just another block, but night was almost here. She judged by the light that the sun must have nearly finished setting. Soon the shadows between the buildings would become inky.
Almost as soon as she had the thought, they did just that. At the same time, the watcher returned and her skin began to crawl. It was there—it was close. She willed it away, but this time it failed to yield.
Half a block to go. She gathered everything inside herself and envisioned herself sending out a blast of light against the elemental. This time it barely hesitated before it was on her again.
Her chest began to hurt. She felt cold all the way to her bones where only moments ago she had been warm enough. Panic fluttered in her, demanding she flee, but how could she flee this thing?
She could see no one else on the street. Where had everyone gone? She hurried her pace even more, while imagining her body growing warmer, her chest easing. A few moments of success...
Then she felt as if the wind had been knocked from her. She couldn’t catch her breath at all. Weakness poured through her, causing her legs to give way. Her diaphragm seemed to have frozen, and no matter how hard she tried to draw air into her lungs, it wouldn’t come.
She was going to die right here and now, and her mind fought back darkness, seeking something, anything, to push that elemental away before it was too late.
The night dimmed even more and she realized she was blacking out. It was over. She made one more monumental effort of will to drive that thing away, to gather one more breath.
She failed. Darkness moved in, claiming her and she had one last conscious thought: I’ve been such an idiot.
Just as the last of the world seemed to fade, she heard Damien shout, “Caro!”
An instant later, steel arms surrounded her and lifted her. Like a newborn baby, she gasped for her breath. This time her lungs filled.
Safe now, she let go, let darkness claim her, a darkness that wasn’t supernatural at all.
Damien, torn between fury and fear, put the unconscious Caro on the couch. Terri immediately knelt beside her to check her out.
“What the hell were you thinking, Chloe?” he heard Jude demand.
“She was asleep. How was I supposed to know she’d leave because I spent ten minutes in the shower. I thought she knew better than that.”
Damien didn’t care about Chloe’s failure, didn’t care about anything except seeing Caro’s eyes open again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been beside himself with fear, but he was now.
“Get a blanket,” Terri said. “She’s too cold, but she’s breathing all right.”
Chloe raced away and returned with a heavy comforter. Damien insisted on covering Caro himself and tucking it around her. For the first time, he wished he had some excess body heat to offer, but he knew he didn’t. Not one iota. Awake, his body was just above room temperature, not enough to act like a heater.
He was not accustomed to cursing the fact that he was a vampire, but he cursed it now. He seldom had cause to think about the ways it made him useless or helpless, but Caro was constantly reminding him.
Yet he had to face the fact a mortal man could do little more at this point. If she was going to go out on her own, she’d do it, and so what if he couldn’t wrap himself in that comforter with her right now and warm her?
At least she was still alive. He wondered if he would ever tell her what he’d sensed when he’d seen her on the pavement, how he could feel that elemental surrounding her and consuming her. How he had sensed her very life force draining away. How he had nearly panicked about losing her.
No, probably not good to tell her all that, and certainly not before he sorted out his own feelings. Vampires had strong emotions, but panic usually wasn’t one of them.
Jude touched his arm. “She’ll be all right. You said you had something to do tonight?”
Damien had to shake himself back to the present from the moments just passed on the street.
“Yes. Caro and I were going to try to enhance our powers.”
Jude lifted a brow. “Yours are coming back? I thought you feared you’d lost them.”
“I had, but believe me, they’re coming back. Maybe it’s the proximity to this elemental stirring up things that have slept for so long. I don’t know. I just know that I’m finding some of them again, and to meet this bokor I need every bit possible at my disposal. I don’t even want to attempt to find him until I’m ready.”
“Which puts Caro in danger longer.”
“Not much longer. Although we’re going to have a serious talk about this tendency of hers to go walkabout.”
A quiet chuckle escaped Jude. “Good luck. How often do you think Terri listens to me?”
Terri, still perched beside Caro, looked up. “I listen to you all the time!”
“When it pleases you, madam.”
Her blue eyes twinkled a moment, then she returned her attention to Caro. “She’s going to be fine. She’s warming already. And I need to get to work.”
She rose and went to kiss Jude. “You stay here. You might have to do some hunting tonight.”
“Me? For what?”
“Maybe you can locate that bokor for Damien. Just be careful.”
“I am always careful,” he drawled.
“Sure. I’ve seen it. Turning yourself into a torch is very careful.” She cupped his cheek. “Behave for my sake.”
Then she grabbed her coat and left.
Damien squatted and touched Caro’s cheek. He could feel warmth there now, just a little. “Why isn’t she waking? She’s breathing, she’s warming.”
“I don’t know, but Terri didn’t seem to be worried.”
Damien almost said that Terri didn’t have as much reason to be concerned as he did, then he stopped himself. Such a thought was unfair. He knew Terri well enough to recognize how caring a doctor and a human being she was.
He was just frantic with concern for Caro, a very strange place for a vampire to be.
He didn’t want to think about what that might mean, couldn’t afford to now. He had to focus on the threat, focus on enhancing his powers, not on the strange places his heart might wander.
There was no time for distractions now. Now he had to concentrate on saving Caro and perhaps other humans from whoever had summoned that elemental. And there must be others at risk. That shopkeeper had been right: organizations lived on after the men who founded them. Right now, somewhere, there was probably a board making plans to continue what Pritchett had started.
The thought made him turn briefly to Chloe. “Is there a board of directors for Pritchett’s company? People who might continue with the development plans? Or did all that die with him?”
“I’ll check,” Chloe said. “That should be easy enough to find out.”
“I don’t know the law,” Jude remarked, “but it seems to me if there isn’t a board for his company, all his death does is make the properties available for sale, and along with them all the demolition permits. There’ll be an heir somewhere, I should think, and if he or she doesn’t want to take over, the buildings will be sold.”