Johan's eyes narrowed and glinted a yellow glow. “It's more complicated than that. If I were to take you from your homeland before you turned, you could die.” He threw his hands up. “Look. It's an ancient law. I do not make the rules.”
“Honor among vampires,” Aric said with a sneer. “And you want me alive to be your…uh…partner?” The very idea turned his stomach.
“More precisely, lover.”
Johan smiled, showing his even white teeth—a smile Aric couldn't trust. “I could not take the chance that the serum might work. It's becoming unsafe with the Kresniks constantly following me. It would have been difficult to take you again.”
“If I become a vampire, I might just try to kill you instead.” Aric refused to accept such a fate, being at this creature's side for eternity.
Johan's brow tilted into a half-raised arch. “I will take my chances.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Then Aric asked, “Is Johan your real name?”
Quickly that cheeky smile faded. Johan's voice dropped to a whisper, and his body seemingly curled into itself as he sank to the floor. He crossed his ankles, bent his knees, and shook his head. “It's been forever since anyone has cared to ask my name.”
Aric wasn't sure if he cared or not, but something about Johan's melancholy voice, cloaking him like a shroud of sorrow, piqued his sympathy. In a twisted way, he understood Johan's sadness, for he would soon be the same, wishing for a past long gone.
“I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know.”
“It's getting more difficult to remember my past, but yes, it's my birth name. Johan Maier the Third.”
Aric took in the Johan's hands, now agitated and restless. If he could somehow get into Johan's psyche, discover a part of his human self buried within, maybe, just maybe, he could convince Johan to let him go.
“Your name sounds German.”
“Austrian.”
A dreamy smile softened the harsh lines around the vampire's eyes and mouth. His eyelashes fluttered as he began to reminisce.
“It's the most beautiful country on earth. In the spring the landscape bursts with color, and oh the scents. Edelweiss, roses, heather…mingled with earthy beech and oak.” He released a sorrowful gasp. “I have not been home for a very long time.”
“Is it because the place reminds you of your boyfriend?”
Johan's eyes blazed with a fiery passion, and his fingers flexed on his knees. A hiss soared from deep within his chest. Aric flinched and covered his neck with his hand. Johan's anger was a solid reminder that he indeed was a vampire to be reckoned with—a swift killer.
“Edward was cursed by the same vampire who cursed me. He begged to be killed, and that evil bastard just laughed in his face.” Johan lifted his hands, and his eyes lost focus as he stared at them. “So much blood. Blood on my hands. I killed him. I pushed the stake through my lover's heart to end his misery.”
Aric shook at the horror of Johan's confession. Living with that kind of guilt would drive anyone insane. “I'm sorry.” So inadequate, but he had no better words of comfort.
Johan's shoulders slumped forward. Defeat clouded his eyes, and he clenched his hands together before speaking. “No more! Do not speak his name again.”
“But I remind you of Edward. That's why you want me as your mate.”
Johan's knuckles strained to bone white, and his voice became hollow and frightened. “I do not want to forget him, but I am losing so many of my memories. What if I
do
forget?”
Aric was not sure of his feelings toward his enemy, but the hurt and pain in Johan's voice were real. He gentled his voice. “How long has it been?”
“Two hundred and thirty years.”
Aric laughed, despite the situation. “You're an ol' man.”
“Yes, I am immortal, dear one. And you will be as well. I will never lose you to death.”
“I'm interested in another man.” The confession broke his heart wide open for the disappointment and guilt over losing Stu.
Johan reached over and grasped Aric's hands. He held them, stroking gently. “You will learn to care for me.”
Aric yanked them free. “Take a good look at me. I'm not Edward.”
Johan forehead furrowed.
“You can't substitute one love for another. It doesn't work that way.” And as he spoke the words, he realized how true they were. Stu was no substitute for Devon. He actually liked and admired Stu. If anything, his relationship with Devon made him realize how much of good thing he and Stu had. It went beyond sex and into the realm of the heart.
Tears streaked the whitish cheeks and highlighted the spots of color tinting the ridge of Johan's cheekbones.
Yes, quite a beautiful man, but no
—Aric blinked and chided himself for such foolish thoughts. Not a man, but a vampire. But were he and Johan so different? This could be him in the future, crying over Stu. He wished somehow he could wipe away the deep, piercing sorrow in the strix's heart.
“I do not want to be alone anymore.” Johan's voice broke.
The anguish of Johan's plea tugged at Aric's compassion, his sentiments echoing close to home. No, they were not so different. At one time, Johan had been a human man with hopes and dreams and a love he'd cherished.
Aric leaned back and wiggled his legs to ease the numbness. He didn't bother to ask for his feet to be untied. Instead he ignored the muscle aches as an idea suddenly struck him. “If you could, would you go back to being human?”
Johan tilted his head to one side and frowned. “What you ask is impossible.”
“There's always a solution to every problem,” Aric stated, refusing to believe anything was impossible. After all, he'd developed a serum that could save him from turning into a vampire. If only he'd been able to inject it. The scientist in him wondered what would happen if he injected Johan with it as well. Was there some part of Johan worth saving?
“You experience sorrow for your actions. You shed tears. There's still a bit of humanity within you.”
“I have killed and hunted and converted humans to my side of midnight. I do not have a human soul left to redeem.” Johan licked his lips, his fangs now mere incisors. “Do not taunt me with such foolishness.”
Aric shrugged. “When it comes to scientific study, I'm never foolish. What do you have to lose?”
A loud noise broke their conversation. It sounded like metal scraping against metal. Johan stiffened, and his nose twitched as he sniffed the air. He muttered a curse in a foreign language as he began to transform into a terrifying, birdlike creature. Before Aric could react, two fingers poked the space between his brows, and blackness crashed over him.
The abandoned flour mill was a desolate mass of white concrete. Two massive buildings stood, one a grain elevator with its seven round silos soaring upward. A square tower with four windows set a mile high anchored the south end of the elevator building. Set apart from the mill itself, the silos were connected by a single thick wire hanging from the roofline. It swept across the grounds several feet high and connected with the mill. Stu glanced up, thinking of a high-wire circus act he'd seen years ago.
He shivered as he glanced at his brother. They had dressed in black, the color of stealth. Corbin looked severe in his tight black jeans and T-shirt, his hair braided, his eyes glittering with the thrill of the hunt. Stu had never seen his brother in action but trusted him completely. A hip pack held loose salt, a dart gun loaded with tiny arrows that had been dipped in enough venom to render a berserk vampire unconscious, and a wooden stake that, when struck through the heart, would kill the creature once and for all.
Stu touched his own pack, assuring himself that he carried the same tools plus one more item: the serum. He'd gone back to the lab for it. Luckily Corbin
was
good at cracking locks, for time was running out. In less than a few hours, it'd be too late, and they'd be killing not one but two vampires.
The dawn slowly turned the skyline a wash of pastel colors. They hid in a shadowed corner by the entrance and waited a moment longer. During sunrise, the strix would be at his weakest. If their luck held, they'd find Johan asleep, stun him with the venom, and end his life with a stake through his heart. It sounded easy enough, but Stu knew better. Nothing about the undead was ever easy. Even their father, a wise yet cautious slayer, had died at the hands of his enemy.
It was agony—the waiting, the wondering, the wishing for action. Stu's impatience ate at his gut. He rubbed the hilt of his dagger, which was sheathed in a leather scabbard around his waist. He'd gladly kill in exchange for Aric's life.
Stu stole a side-glance at Corbin. He returned the gaze, and his mouth softened into a gentle smile. His brother would die for him. No questions, no excuses, no hesitation.
Stu's chest seized with guilt. “Cor, I'm sorry.”
“For what?”
“For thinking you had slept with Aric. I should have known better. You'd never hurt me. Not on purpose, anyway. Not in that way.”
“Don't be too upset with him. I'm sure he told you that stupid lie because he had no other way to push you away.” Corbin took his brother into a hug, then brushed back Stu's hair. “I won't let anything happen to you. Remember our agreement.” He patted Stu on the back before letting him go.
Before Corbin had given him the implements a slayer would need, he'd made Stu take an oath. If the going got tough, Stu was to get Aric away from here and keep him safe. Corbin would take care of the strix. Stu agreed, but oaths were meant to be renegotiated. Sometimes he worried that his brother had a death wish, as if his dying would atone for their father's death and redeem him in their mother's eyes.
“Are we ready?” Corbin whispered, not waiting for an answer as he slipped through the door to the grain elevator. Stu let him take the lead since Corbin had already scouted the buildings and knew his way around.
The odors of decaying rust, rodent droppings, and rotting garbage assaulted Stu's nose, and he held in a sneeze. The inside took on an ethereal quality of gray light and dust. Corbin turned on his flashlight and swept the light around the room. Massive round columns made of concrete rose eerily like sentries. Scattered stone rubble, fallen metal beams, and strange iron outcroppings reminded Stu of an apocalyptic landscape.
Corbin stopped and flashed his light down a pit. “Watch the holes. If you fall in, that's several feet below. I'd hate for you to be eaten by cat-size rats.”
Stu heeded Corbin's advice and carefully sidestepped the dark pits as he wove around concrete columns, negotiating the junk strewn across the floor. Near the left side of the room they came upon a rusted, upward-winding spiral staircase. Rubble covered the first few steps, but it didn't prevent Corbin from hopping gracefully onto the stairs.
Stu frowned as he looked upward. “Are you sure that's where they are?”
Corbin grinned. “Yep. Care to stay in the car?”
“Fuck you.” His brother certainly enjoyed getting a rise out of him. Warily, Stu eyed the broken steps.
“We'll have to go single file. I'll lead. Let's hope ol' Johan is asleep, or he'll smell us a mile away.”