So why did you send her here? Why did you let her indulge her sick game?
He looks surprised at the question.
To get your attention, of course. I knew of your history with your own whoremonger, the mortal, Max. I knew he would come to you when it became obvious a vampire was committing the killings. I knew you’d kill her in turn.
An elaborate charade. What if Max hadn’t called me or I had refused to help?
Then the killings would have gone on until you had no choice but to get involved. You and that highly developed sense of responsibility toward mortals. It isn’t in you to let bodies pile up in your own backyard.
So I met her and killed her. What was the point?
A miscalculation. I thought you’d at least hear her out before you killed her. I know you did not.
Shit. He was there. Why didn’t I pick up on that?
For some reason, Chael doesn’t unleash the beast in me. I sense he’s evil, but I don’t get the gut reaction to his presence that I have with others—both human and supernaturals. I don’t understand it. I wish it wasn’t so. I should have known that he was waiting inside for me before I opened the door. I should have known that he was out in the desert last night.
I didn’t.
Chael is silent, calm, waiting for me to process what he suspects but cannot read because he has no access to my thoughts. I study him the way he is studying me. He is not inclined to comment or offer an explanation. Perhaps he doesn’t understand, either, but he must know he has the advantage. Which is very likely why he took the chance of coming into my home.
My jaw clenches in frustration.
What do you want?
Chael has placed the newspaper back on the coffee table, folding it neatly, squaring the corners so that it lies against the table’s edge. He looks up at me, a real smile lighting his face and softening the hard glint in black eyes. For the first time, I glimpse the human twenty-year-old he must have been when he was turned.
I am here to solve your problems, Anna Strong. I am here to grant your heart’s desire.
A snort of bitter amusement greets his proposal.
Oh? And you presume to know my heart’s desire?
I knew it the moment I first learned of you. And everything you have done since the beginning confirms my belief. I know how you can achieve your dream. I know how you can unburden yourself of all the problems in your life.
He gets to his feet, begins pacing as he talks.
That incident with your business partner? I can make it so his memory is truly wiped clean. You and he can once again become the friends you were, sharing more than the shallow relationship you have now. Detective Harris will find you much less interesting when he realizes there is nothing special about you. He will move on to more important cases; Williams will finally be put to rest. You may even wish to pursue a relationship with Max. He still cares for you in spite of his bravado. All will be as it was before the gift was thrust upon you. The gift you yourself have said you neither sought nor wanted.
How do you propose to work this miracle?
There is a way. I can show you.
And if I refuse your offer?
Chael lifts his shoulders in a gesture of resignation.
Then your life becomes a nightmare. All who know you will turn their backs on you. You will be hounded by Harris, who already suspects you are not what you seem. The Revengers will target you. Even your family in France will—
Before he completes the sentence, I attack. He has no time to react; in an eyeblink I have him on the ground, my teeth at his neck.
Never threaten my family.
He shudders under the ferocity of my attack. He is wise enough to grow very still, to resist the urge to fight. His hands are limp at his side, his eyes closed, his mind closes in on itself like petals of a flower fold with the departing sun. He becomes as motionless and devoid of all discernable life as a rock.
I want to make the illusion a reality. What would happen if I were to kill the head of one of the Thirteen Tribes? I run my tongue along the base of his jaw. How would his blood taste? What power does his blood possess? Would I be held accountable even though he broke into my home and threatened my family?
His pulse throbs, his blood sings under a millimeter of skin so delicate, so easily broken. I need only close my jaws, right here, grind my teeth to loose the flow. So easy …
Chael opens his mind.
If you kill me, you’ll never be able to go back. I am the only one who knows the secret.
I draw back, a hairbreadth, my mouth still in reach of the prize.
If you have something to say, say it.
Chael releases a breath.
I know the way. You think it not possible. You are wrong. I can show you.
You speak in riddles.
Then I’ll speak plainly. There is a way for you to become mortal again.
CHAPTER 11
C
HAEL FEELS THE INVOLUNTARY SPIKE OF INTEREST that seeps through my thoughts at his words. He smiles.
Ah, I have your attention. Will you let me up now? Please.
I don’t trust Chael. It goes against every instinct to allow him to get back on his feet.
Still, it’s what I do. Roughly, jerking him up by the collar of his shirt, teeth and fists ready, body poised to pounce again if I detect any aggression.
Why am I doing this? The little voice in the back of my head says it’s stupid. It has to be a trick. There is no way to go back. No way to become human again.
Is there?
It’s that tiny crumb of doubt that allows Chael a reprieve.
I step away from him. He straightens his shirt, brushes invisible dirt from his slacks. My clothes are grubby but the jacket conceals the worst of the dirt and blood. This affectation is merely for show. As is his comment,
I hope your sartorial taste was better as a mortal than it is now. You are filthy.
Sarcasm? You try my patience, Chael.
A snort.
Is that irony? I imagine you try the patience of most who know you.
My fists clench, my jaw and shoulders tighten. Every nerve in my body cries out to bring this arrogant bastard to his knees.
My inner voice comes again. Patience, Anna. There will be time. After he spins his fairy tale. Consequences be damned.
Speak.
He finishes his symbolic tidying by running both hands through jet-black hair, smoothing it behind his ears.
You’re ready to listen?
I’m ready to rip your head off your scrawny neck if you don’t get on with it.
He clucks his tongue.
No wonder you are bereft of friends.
He resumes his place on the couch. He starts to put his feet back on the coffee table, but the snarl that erupts from my throat stops him. He shakes his head and settles back against the cushions instead.
There is a shaman. He lives here in your American Southwest. He has the power to restore life. He can bring the dead back from the grave. He can restore mortality to the undead.
Impossible.
He stares at me, bemused.
That is your reply? Impossible ? You have no questions for me? You are not curious why I would come here risking my well-being with a fabricated tale? What would I accomplish with such a foolish act?
Chael, I have no idea why you do what you do. I do know that you hate me. I can only guess you have prepared a trap. One you think I’ll be foolish enough to fall into. One you think will rid you of me once and for all. You are wrong on both counts.
He doesn’t react the way I expect—with vehement denial and heated recrimination. Rather he lifts his elegant shoulders.
You are right. It would benefit me greatly if you no longer held the position of Chosen One. A position you neither deserve nor understand. But if I wished only to remove you, it could be done in a much more direct way. I could have you killed.
This is the Chael I recognize. The smile that I force to my lips is cold and menacing.
You could try.
And I would succeed. You are strong. But you have not faced an army of determined vampires. We would lose some, maybe many, but eventually we would prevail. You are not invincible. If the Chosen One were invincible, there would have been only one down through the ages, would there not?
His bluntness strikes a chord. No one has yet been able to answer the questions I’ve asked myself since learning of my dubious distinction as the head of the Thirteen Vampire Tribes.
How and why was I chosen? What became of those before me?
My hesitation gives Chael the opportunity to push on.
You have wondered about that yourself, haven’t you? Many of us have.
His tone is bitter.
If we could figure out the mystery, discover the source who predetermines our path, the master who makes us slaves to such as you, the fate of the world would be far different.
You mean you would move against this master and take over yourself?
I would not be averse to such a situation.
But you can’t do it alone, can you? That is what stops you. You don’t have the backing of the others.
Chael snaps his fingers, dismissing my question with a derisive laugh.
Too many are bound up in the superstition. Like mortals cling to their archaic religions, they cling to a ritual that is illogical and irrational and has no relevance today. But in the right circumstance—
The circumstance of my unseating, for instance?
His eyes flash. He actually allows the thought
or your death
to come through, but it is tempered by a smile.
A smile I don’t return.
So that is why you come to me with this story? You dare not kill me, but if I become mortal, the thorn from your paw is removed in a way that cannot reflect ill on you. You will have done me no harm. You cannot be held responsible for the deposing of a Chosen One who returns to human life.
His self-satisfied smile widens. This time I return the smile with a cold one of my own. Crossing the distance between us, I bend so close, he has to cringe back to look up at me.
Your hypothesis has one severe flaw, Chael. You can’t be sure you will be chosen to take my place. I’m assuming that is your goal if you wish to see the world remade in your twisted image.
My goal is of no concern to you. I am only here to offer you a gift. Not to debate what might happen if you choose to accept it.
I can’t believe Chael doesn’t see the irony in that statement. If I accepted this “gift,” and a new Chosen One is swayed by Chael’s vision, or even worse, Chael assumes the title himself, life as we know it for mortals is over. They become as cattle, relegated to gulags, existing only to serve their vampire masters.
Except for one small detail.
I
know the plan. Even as a human, I might be able to fight it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. What he proposes is not possible; planning countermeasures, ridiculous.
Chael cannot read these thoughts. He watches my face, suspicious of a mind suddenly as impenetrable as the steel in my gaze.
I turn away from him, moving to the other side of the room, putting distance between us as if that will help me sort conflicted emotions. To be human again. To be with my family. To love anyone I wish. To stop hiding what I am. To be free of the hunger.
It isn’t possible? Is it?
Feelings I’ve relegated to the past well up, swamping my senses, radiating though the barrier between us and giving Chael the opening he seeks.
You are tempted. I feel it. You can’t hide the passion. You want what once was. I will tell you what I know. Then it is up to you.
I face him. Shutting down the fierce longing that betrayed me takes such effort, my body shakes. But my thoughts are cold, clinical when I open my mind.
Tell me.
Chael now finds it difficult to control his own eagerness—excitement that I am asking, anticipation of all that he hopes to come burns from his eyes. He can’t suppress his passion any more than I could.
He lives among the Navajo. A shaman.
And how do I find him?
Ah. That is easy. You ask your shape-shifter friend, Daniel Frey.
How would he know of this miracle worker?
He does not know him. But he knows where to find him. With his son.
I remember well the first time I learned that Daniel Frey had a son. Frey was preparing me for what I would face at the assembly of the Thirteen Tribes. He dropped the nugget that he had a son as casually as one would shake a pebble from a shoe. After recovering from the shock of such a startling revelation, it took some wheedling to get any information at all about this unexpected and stunning news. The little I got was sketchy at best.