Moon Child (Vampire for Hire #4) (15 page)

His words were oddly hypnotic, captivating me
in ways that I hadn’t experience before. I suspected this creature
before me had mastered various levels of hypnotism or persuasion,
or whatever the hell he was doing with his haunting voice.

I shook my head, cleared my thoughts, and
imagined a sort of psychic barrier between me and this
son-of-a-bitch. Except I didn’t need a barrier. I needed ear
plugs.

“I choose a French accent because I have
lived most often in Paris, and this accent suits me. I enjoy
hearing it. But I could just as easily switch to Baroque or German
or ancient languages of which you would have no comprehension. This
will be you someday, Miss Moon. When all those you love are long
gone, when you find yourself alone yet again, speaking dead
languages, and seeking new lands, new faces, new loves, new hunting
grounds. And when even these places have been used up, you will set
out again. And again. Forever seeking. But never finding.”

“Are you quite done, Shithead?”

He paused and smiled. “You are a rare treat.
I do not want to kill you, but I will. Please give me the
medallion, then take the boy and be gone.”

“Maybe,” I said.

He cocked his head, and was about to speak
when we both heard it. The squeak of a door being opened, perhaps
for the first time in decades.

Bow Tie looked back just in time to see a
brightly energetic being appear in the doorway.

Leland, and he had fully manifested. He was
reaching for Eddy, having solidified enough to take the boy’s
hand.

Bow Tie growled furiously and lunged
backwards.

I didn’t growl, but I lunged, too.

Chapter Forty-five

I had a small advantage since I was already
facing forward.

I quickly covered the ground between us, and
before Bow Tie could pick up any real speed, I hurled myself onto
his back.

I had a brief glimpse of Leland, now fully
manifested, gripping Eddy’s hand, before the vampire and I toppled
over the railing and fell briefly through space...

Unfortunately, the gangly bastard landed on
me. I slammed my head hard, stars bursting behind my eyelids. The
pain was severe but only fleeting. Already, my head was clearing,
and as I looked up, past the vampire on top of me, I could see the
ghost teen slipping back through the side door, gently pulling the
little boy with him.

With any luck, the boy would never know that
an honest-to-God ghost was leading him through the dark
hallway.

Bow Tie looked wildly up, too, just as Leland
and the boy spirited away through the narrow door. He made a move
to get up, but I moved, too. I bucked my legs hard and sent the
asshole flying over me, where he crashed hard, knocking over all
sorts of shit that I couldn’t see from my present position.

I stood and turned.

“Leave him alone,” I said. “It’s between you
and me now.”

The vampire, who had briefly disappeared
behind some toppled night tables and desks, now stood, easily
rising to his feet. His arm, I saw, was badly dislocated at the
elbow. He winced slightly as he held it out, and what he did next
didn’t surprise me, although it caused the bile to rise up in the
back of my mouth.

He gripped his forearm below the elbow and
twisted and wrenched until his arm was back in place. All of this
was accompanied by horrific sounds of bone grating against bone, of
tendons grinding. He briefly made a face, but was soon opening and
closing his hand. He next flexed his arm and seemed pleased with
the results.

He looked at me.

“You are strong, little one. Stronger than
most. You are a very unusual creature. Who made you?”

“Made me?”

“Who ended your mortal life, dear? And gave
you immortality?”

“Let’s not worry about that.”

He stepped over the desk in one big stride,
his long legs making the move seemingly effortless. As he did so,
something else fell and settled behind him, kicking up even more
dust, all of which plumed around like a personal thunderstorm. He
stepped out of the dust and faced me.

“Yes, Kingsley said you would be a feisty
one, but he never told me just how powerful you were.”

My jaw dropped. “Kingsley?”

“Oh? You didn’t realize that he’s a good
friend of mine? Or, rather, a client of mine.” He cocked his head,
clearly enjoying the obvious shock on my face. “Why, who do you
think told me about the medallion, my dear?”

Now my jaw dropped open, and I felt as if
someone had sucker punched me. Bow Tie began circling me, not
approaching me directly, but in a circuitous route, as if sizing me
up. There wasn’t much to size up, trust me.

“And who do you think supplies him with his
blood for his many...guests.”

“Many guests?”

“Oh, I assume he has many guests. After all,
I keep the red stuff coming fairly regularly.”

I thought of the blood I had drank just a few
weeks ago. It had come from him. This bastard. And where had Bow
Tie gotten it? No doubt a most unwilling donor.

I felt sick. I felt betrayed. I felt
pissed.

“Oh, don’t be too hard on the big oaf,” said
Bow Tie. “I can be very persuasive when I want to be. You see, not
everyone can resist me as you did. Not even Kingsley. Unfortunately
for him, and you, he let it slip that something of great importance
had turned up. And all it took were a few suggestions, a few tonal
changes in my voice, and soon he was telling me everything I needed
to know. I doubted the big bad wolf had any clue just how
desperately I’ve been looking for your medallion. I knew it was in
the area, and I had even narrowed down the city. Clues, rumors,
whispers. All of which I paid attention to.”

Some of my anger toward Kingsley had abated.
But still. Why had Kingsley even mentioned the medallion, or even
hinted at it? Big oaf indeed. And how could Kingsley befriend such
a fucking piece of shit like Bow Tie?

And what most pissed me off was this: who was
Kingsley sharing the blood with, if not me? At last count, I had
only had two glasses of the “red stuff.”

Big picture, Sam, I thought. Deal with
Kingsley later.

As we circled, I reached down and felt for
the medallion...only to discover my jeans had torn during the fall
from the catwalk.

Oh, shit!

Panic ripped through me until I felt the
familiar bulge of the disc. Not risking my torn pocket, I extracted
the medallion, and as I did so, Bow Tie nearly dove at me. But he
kept his composure. Instead, a strange light flared in his eyes. I
certainly had his entire attention. The exhaustion I had seen
earlier was gone, replaced now with desperation.

I did the only thing I could think of to keep
the medallion safe.

I slipped the leather strap over my head,
dropping the medallion down inside my blouse—and that’s when it
happened.

Boy, did it happen.

Chapter Forty-six

“No!” shouted the vampire, his voice echoing
everywhere.

To my utter shock, the medallion began
burning my chest, so much so that I yelped. Steam was coming off my
flesh, rising up from my blouse.

“You stupid girl!” he spat angrily. “You
stupid, stupid girl. Do you realize what you’ve done?”

I looked up, confused as hell and wincing.
The burning was not pleasant.

Bow Tie stepped closer. “You’ve sealed the
medallion to yourself forever.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Of course not, because you’re a stupid
girl.”

Pain or not, the guy was pissing me off. “Say
that again, asshole, and see what happens.”

But he was right. I reached down and
immediately winced. My skin was tender, but already it was healing,
and forming over the medallion. Amazingly, horrifyingly, the golden
disk was now embedded into my chest.

Oh, no. No, no, no!

Bow Tie was shaking his head. “You and the
medallion are one, forever, mademoiselle. Perhaps good for you, but
not for me. And certainly not for your little one, whom you had
hoped to save from an eternity of...this. There’s no way to remove
it.” He paused and cocked his head. “Well, there is one way.”

He pulled out a small pistol from inside his
coat pocket. He pointed it at me haphazardly. “It’s true. I cannot
die from silver. Not anymore. Not ever.” He leveled the weapon at
me. “But you are not so fortunate, my dear. Five silver bullets.
Only one needs to find your heart.”

Not everyone is a great shot, even vampire
assholes. The agency teaches you to be a moving target, which is
always harder to hit than a stationary one.

I dove right, rolling just as the first shot
was fired. The sound was so damn loud and echoing that it appeared
he fired dozens of time.

I rolled again and had a brief glimpse of the
vampire calmly taking aim. It’s a surreal experience having someone
take aim at you with a gun. To want to hurt you, to kill you.

All the talk of immortality was out the
window. With a simple silver bullet, my six-year immortal run would
be over.

They say your life flashes before your eyes,
but mine didn’t. Not then. I only thought of Tammy and Anthony.
That’s it. No more. I didn’t think of Fang or my sister or even
Kingsley. I thought only of my children and what would happen to
them without their freaky mother.

I rolled again when he fired. This time I
felt an impact in my right shoulder. I cried out, clutching my
shoulder, incapable of rolling or even really moving.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” said the vampire. “We
are elemental creatures, finely attuned to the days and nights. We
crave the metals in blood: zinc, iron, copper, magnesium. Is it no
surprise, then, that another metal, silver, can destroy us? Well,
some of us.”

He seemed to smile, but it was hard to tell.
Tears had burst from my eyes. The pain was intense. Too intense. I
could barely focus or function.

He leveled the gun again, and I could not
imagine more pain. I could not imagine another impact. I couldn’t
handle it. It would be too much. Way too much.

I turned away, my reflexes still amazingly
sharp.

The bullet went through my neck. The shock
sent me into a spasm. I went from clutching my shoulder to
clutching my neck. The bullet had exited the side of my neck,
exploding out, leaving a massive crater behind. Blood pumped over
my hands, down over my shirt, down into my windpipe and lungs. I
choked and gagged and flopped on the ground, drowning in my own
blood.

Except I didn’t need air to breathe, and so I
wasn’t really drowning.

I backed away, clutching my throat, blood
gushing everywhere. The wounds were capable of closing. I tried to
cough but couldn’t. I felt like I was drowning, but I wasn’t.

Bow Tie stepped closer and took careful
aim.

Somewhere inside me, I had kept count of the
bullets. Three shots. Two left. So far I was alive. So far he had
missed my heart.

He stepped closer and took dead aim.

“Missed again,” he said. “But not this time.
I hope to see you in the next life.”

I tried to move, but I slipped on my own
blood, I fell to my back, still clutching my bleeding throat. All
thoughts of my kids were gone. I only saw darkness. I only saw the
bastard standing over me, taking careful aim at my chest.

And that’s when I saw something else.
Something else moving rapidly, leaping down from the catwalk above
and covering the space between us in a blink of an eye. Something
impossibly big, impossibly powerful.

Impossibly, it was Kingsley.

Chapter Forty-seven

A shot was fired, but it went wild.

It went wild because the great dark creature
who had bounded over the railing and landed on the floor twenty
feet below had slammed hard into the vampire. The force of the
collision was enough to send the tall vampire hurtling off to one
side, crashing beyond my field of blurred vision.

The gunshot had surely been as loud and
echoing as the others had been, but to me it sounded distant and
faint. I was seriously losing it and losing it fast.

I had a ground’s-eye view of what happened
next, although the images were sometimes too fast for even me to
fully grasp.

The dark shadow was indeed Kingsley. He was
in human form, which was no surprise since this was not a night of
a full moon. But there was something about him. Something that was
hard for my fading mind to grasp. But he seemed bigger, impossibly
fast, and so damn...inhuman.

I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t. Instead, I
rolled my head toward the action, and as I did so, I felt the
gristle and bone in my neck crunch. More blood pumped free and I
choked all over again. And as I choked, a presence hovered over me.
A handsome, smiling, angelic face. A face with a bloody lower
jaw.

Leland was here and he was kneeling next to
me, trying his best to hold my head in his transparent arms that
faded in and out of solidity.

From this position, I watched with horrific
fascination as a battle waged. The vampire was fast. Perhaps too
fast for Kingsley. But every now and then the big guy would catch
the fast-moving blood sucker with a powerful blow. To my horror, I
saw that Kingsley’s face was bloodied already. The faster-moving
vampire had already landed blow after blow.

Leland crouched next to me, still clutching
my bleeding face, watching the scene as well. I briefly wondered
where Eddy was but knew he had to be safe somewhere.

Kingsley hadn’t transformed, but he had taken
on the mannerisms of a cornered wolf. He often crouched, his back
hunched. Deep-throated growls reverberated continuously, some
louder than others, all ferocious-sounding.

As the action moved across the floor of the
dome, I turned my head to follow it, or tried to. Mostly I moved my
eyes, all too aware that a deep darkness was encroaching from my
peripheral vision. Two silver bullets had hit me. One of them, I
was certain, was still lodged in my shoulder. The other, I was
equally certain, had gone straight through my neck, exploding out
its side.