Выбрать главу

“It brings us, my dark faithful, to the topic of slayers. These days, it seems as if any cheerleader with a stake can get into the game, but I’m not talking about the wannabes or even those oh-so-scary mercenaries who accept a bounty on our lives. I’m talking about the crazies, the ones who kill from a sense of devotion.

“There are human tribes from Eastern Europe called the Hunters. They don’t kill for sport or for money. It’s a family tradition handed down from parent to child since the dawn of written history. To them, killing us is the purest act of love for their own kind.

“They’re the ones I worry about when I turn out the light.”

Tuesday, December 28, 11:45 p.m.

Lore’s condo

When she heard Lore leave the condo, Talia curled up on her side, cradling her cuffed wrist in her free hand. Relief drained the last strength from her limbs. He hadn’t hurt her, but she wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t. No one handcuffed a woman—a stranger—without the possibility of harm. That last look he’d given her was the pure, remorseless gaze of a predator.

But at least he was gone for the moment. She’d needed an interval of privacy to gather her wits. Too much had happened since she’d . . . had she really been shopping a few hours ago?

Now that she was alone, her emotions began to unfold from the clenched ball of pain lodged in her gut. Fear. Guilt. Loss. Loneliness.

Talia pressed her face into the coverlet, her feelings too crowded to cry just yet. She’d lost her mother, then her fiancé, and then the rest of her family. It was like a recurring nightmare where pieces of her flesh were torn away, leaving nothing recognizable. After Talia had lost her humanity, she’d thought there was nothing left to take—but the horror had come back again. She’d still had something to lose. Still more pain to endure. One more time.

Perhaps the last time. Michelle was all she had left. Now there was no one. Pink tears began to stain the pillowcase. Grief was finally finding release.

Michelle had been the one to anchor Talia, to patiently remind her that not everything was obliterated because she’d been Turned. She’d helped Talia pick the threads of her true self from the tangled, damaged mess she’d become. If it hadn’t been for her cousin, Talia would never have gone back to teaching.

And she was only one of the many, many people who had loved Michelle. Tonight, a light had gone out of the world. And it was my fault. Talia sobbed in earnest. There was no way to bring her cousin back. Not even an ancient vampire could save someone after their body had been so badly broken.

Talia’s tears slowed, the last thought pushing her from sadness to fear. It should have been me who died. A vampire would have known the difference between a human and one of their own. That meant the murder was either a huge mistake or a warning.

Who wants me dead?

Talia’s stomach cramped as cold terror washed through her. There was her sire, who had reason to hate her. She’d escaped from his clutches and also swiped a small fortune on her way out the door. But would he really risk Queen Omara’s wrath by coming to Fairview and beheading the locals? She had counted on the fact that he would not.

And then there was Talia’s family. Dad.

In his eyes, she was no better than a rabid dog. The Talia he’d raised from a baby had died the moment the vampires took her for their own. If he caught her now, he’d butcher her without mercy.

Strike the monsters before they kill or corrupt an innocent human. That was what her whole neighborhood— the tribe—had believed. When you saw the crossed-blade symbol of the Hunters, you knew you were dealing with monster-killing machines, bred for the job and trained from birth.

Talia pulled up the right sleeve of her sweater. Twin Hunter sabers, crossed at the hilt, were inked on the inside of her forearm. Against pale vampire skin, the fine detailing would never fade or blur. Nor could she ever get the damned thing off. Everything she wore, however fashionable, would be long-sleeved. Forever.

She made a fist, the design shifting along her skin. She’d never been big, but she’d always been good with firearms. She’d also been a risk-taker to the point of stupidity. She’d wanted her father’s approval and at sixteen, she’d made her first kill. A ghoul. He’d given Talia the tattoo as a reward.

It was hardly a reward now. Everyone knew the Hunters’ symbol. If the nonhumans ever saw the tattoo, she would be torn to shreds. Of course, now that she was one of the monsters, the Hunters only saw her as something fit to kill. Undeath was filled with interesting ironies.

Talia pulled the sleeve down again. What was she? Hunter? Monster? Teacher?

Prisoner.

Talia blinked, tears of frustration and sadness misting the lights into a blurry wash. The pillow felt cool against her cheek. She’d been in that room, on that bed, almost long enough that it was starting to smell more like her than the hellhound.

It smelled like grief.

Then grow a spine, will ya? She took a long, shaky breath, fumbling for enough anger to push her into action. Half her instincts screamed to hop the first night bus heading out of town. The other half was crying out for vengeance.

Either way, she had to get out of Lore’s bedroom. What would happen if he found out I was a Hunter? Ground vampire patties with extra ketchup, probably.

No one was going to save her but herself. Heroes on white horses were a myth. I am not a victim. She rolled onto her back, scanning the room for escape possibilities.

First, she needed a tool to get out of the cuffs. She wiggled toward the bedside table, stretching as far as the handcuffs would allow. There was just enough play to let her slide the drawer open and feel inside. Not much there—just a library book on how to fix kitchen appliances and a pack of spearmint gum. She pushed the drawer shut.

On top of the nightstand were a bedside light, an alarm clock, and some tattered paperback books. She turned the spines of the books toward her. Lore’s reading tastes leaned toward Westerns of the lone-gunmansaves-the-town variety. It suited him.

Despite her fear, she’d noticed a few choice details about her captor. The broad spread of his chest, the slim hips, the skin shades darker than her own, as if he’d labored outdoors in the hot sun. A working man.

But not just a muscled body. Those dark eyes held an entire universe of sorrow. Lore was the sort of puzzle a woman could get lost in solving. She knew the type of guy. Just one more piece, and the picture—or his soul—would reveal itself.

Yeah, right. The guy had chained her up. She was so out of there. She would not waste time dissecting his psyche.

Instead, she was going to dismantle his alarm clock. Talia’s hand closed over it, feeling the vibration of its ticks. It was one of the old wind-up ones, the kind with a round face and twin bells on top. There should be something inside she could use to pick the lock of the handcuffs. She’d learned the whole Houdini skill set as a kid, along with every kind of combat drill going. Who needed summer camp when you had Dad and Uncle Yuri?

She dragged the clock onto the bed and turned it over. It seemed a shame to break it, but oh well. She popped the brass case off its back and watched the gears tick for a moment. There was a pin at the top that connected the hammer that rang the alarm to a spring. It looked almost like a hairpin. It would do, as long as the metal was neither too soft nor too brittle.

Holding the clock down as best she could with her cuffed hand, she dismantled the gears with the other. Once she had the pin out, she spent some time bending it so that it had a slight curve at the end, almost a hook. Holding it parallel to the cuff, she slid it just inside the lock, where there was a tiny notch in the keyhole. Applying even pressure to the pin, she levered it away from her. The lock gave a satisfying snick. She twisted her cuffed wrist at the same time, grinning with satisfaction as the mechanism gave way. She rubbed her wrists, glad to finally be free of the silver. The cuffs had scraped her skin raw.