The Lair (42 page)

Their arrival spurs me to get moving. I turn back to consider the house. Roberto wasn’t expecting an attack, certainly not from a vampire, so safety wouldn’t be his first concern. This was his empire. He would want to survey it. Which means his room would be on the third floor. So I decide to scale the outside of the building and go in through the window and then search the building from the top down.

Climbing the outside of the building is slower going than I expected, even with my new vampire strength and speed. Finding the minute crevices for footholds takes time. Enough time for me to wonder whether or not anyone else lives with Roberto in this house. It’s huge. There could easily be several people.

Will I have to kill them all, like that SEAL team that went after Osama Bin Laden? Or will I be able to find just him and destroy him alone?

Will I even recognize him? He’s old. Older than Sebastian. Which means he’ll be smart. Vicious. Heartless. Brutal. Yes, those are all the things I expect from him personally. Those are the qualities of a vampire. Sebastian’s taught me that much.

As for his body, that I’m not sure about. He goes by Roberto and has lived in this part of the world for close to two thousand years. I’m picturing dark hair and high, Mayan cheekbones. Old-world manners and oozing charm. Basically, I’m picturing Ricardo Montalban, that old actor from
Fantasy Island
and
Spy Kids
.

As soon as I’m in the window, I pull off the mirrored sunglasses and tuck them into my pocket. I may need them later, but for now I’m happy to have them off. Even without turning on lights, my vampire vision allows me to see just fine. Turns out I was wrong about his bedroom being on the third floor. The window was easy enough to open, but the four bedrooms were obviously unused, elegantly appointed guest bedrooms. Creeping down the stairs, I hear voices. One pitched too softly for me to understand, the other a deep, rumbling voice that’s faintly accented, like Sebastian’s. And, for that matter, the voice is similar to Ricardo Montalban’s.

I creep closer, back pressed against the wall, trying to catch the conversation. There’s something about a security breach. No big surprise there.

The ceilings here are high and there are transom windows over the doors. This is the only room in this hall with a light on in it. From where I’m standing I can see a tiny sliver of the room. I can see a huge, four-poster bed, with a red, velvet coverlet and another piece of furniture on the opposite wall. A desk, maybe. None of that is particularly helpful. Then I catch a glimpse of a man as he walks past. He’s tall with distinguished salt-and-pepper hair. And I see a phone in his hand. Not pressed to his ear, but held out in front of him like he’s got the other person on speaker.

So he’s alone after all.

Suddenly, my heart is racing and my throat is dry. I shift the two stakes to one hand so I can wipe my palm on my pants. Faced with the reality of killing Roberto, I’m unexpectedly nervous. Then, I hear a door open somewhere on the first floor. Reinforcements are on their way. And whether it’s nervousness or excitement or what, I don’t know, but I am suddenly on fire to kill him. Some primal drive inside me has kicked in and I itch with the need to destroy him. I’m alive with it. I don’t question it or wonder about it. I’m out of time.

I charge through the door, stakes raised.

The man on the other side is exactly how I pictured him. Tall, stately. Dressed in a pristine suit and glossy, black shoes. He is the very picture of the debonair gentleman vampire. I expect more of a fight. I expect the kind of crazy acrobatic martial arts that Sebastian pulled. Instead, he just stands there, an expression of absolute shock on his face as I race toward him. He screams as I bring him to the ground, and I plunge the stake into his heart.

His arms flail for a second, and I jump away, passing my second stake into my right hand, just in case. I stand over him, desperately sucking air into my lungs as I watch him die. As his eyes go blank and his mouth foams with blood.

I don’t know what I expect. Elation? Happiness? Joy? At the very least, I expect a release from this angry rush of adrenaline. Instead, as I stare down at his body, I feel . . .

The need to destroy. Not just him, but everything.

There are footsteps on the stairs. Someone is coming. Fast. I whirl to face the door and broaden my stance, ready to fight off the guards I expect to pour into the room.

But instead of guards, a boy runs into the room.

He’s about my age, maybe younger. He’s shorter than I am by at least a few inches and his build is lean. There’s something delicate about him. Something youthful and unfinished. Like he hasn’t quite reached his full height or grown into the man he’ll become. He has hair so blond that it almost gleams in the pink light of the setting sun shining through the window. He pulses like the tinkling of a Mozart concerto. He is, quite simply, the most beautiful, most angelic boy I’ve ever seen.

Surprise flickers over his expression as he looks from me to Roberto’s dead body on the ground. He stumbles back a step, like he might turn to flee.

Automatically, I drop the stake. Instinctively, I don’t want to hurt this boy. I don’t even want him to fear me. I hold up my hands in a gesture of surrender and speak slowly, calmly.

“I mean you no harm,” I say. “I came here to kill Roberto. I’m not here for you.”

The surprise on his face morphs into confusion as he looks from me to the body on the floor. “You’re here to kill Roberto?” he asks.

I nod, trying to look non-threatening, but it’s difficult because my pulse is still pounding and hate-fueled adrenaline is pumping through my veins.

He straightens, bracing his stance, as a smile creeps across his lovely face. “You came here to kill—” Then he gestures toward the man on the floor. “Roberto?”

“Yes.”

The blond boy tips back his head and laughs.

It’s a high-pitched, musical laugh. It’s like one of Mozart’s concertos: light and airy, and though the sound itself is lovely, I hate it. I hate him for making it. That furious flood of adrenaline from stabbing Roberto has not let up. My body is almost shaking with it now. With the need to kill and destroy. And somehow this boy, this boy’s laughter, is making it worse. It’s like the adrenaline is a fire in my blood and his laughter is a chemical accelerant. It is painful to listen to him. It’s excruciating. Deep inside. Like my blood is actually boiling.

My head throbs and my knees start to buckle. I press my palms to my ears, trying to block out the sound of his laughter, but it doesn’t help.

And then, the boy is walking closer to me. His laughter has mellowed to a chuckle now.

“Sebastian,” he says, shaking his head as if in sympathy. He rolls his eyes. “Will you never stop trying to kill me? How many innocent young pups will you send?”

He stops in front of me, studying my face. Even though I’m taller than him, I feel smaller. Tiny. Helpless.

He reaches up, grabs me by the throat and lifts slowly until my feet dangle. I grab his wrist but his arm isn’t like flesh and blood. It’s like iron.

His smile broadens as he looks at me. I kick at him, but my lungs are already screaming for air and my knees feel weak.

“You came here to kill Roberto and instead you killed my valet.” He glances at the body, and a frown mars his perfect beauty. “Such a shame. I liked Rodrigo. He was with me for fifty years. I was beginning to get rather attached to him. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good servant like that? One who’s willing to dispose of bodies and overlook habits that many humans find unpalatable? You know, the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am.”

The boy tosses me onto the ground. I land hard enough to rattle my bones. The impact is much less shocking than the realization that I didn’t kill Roberto at all. That this boy—this beautiful, angelic boy—
is
Roberto.

Which explains why I heard no music from Rodrigo. He was as silent as his corpse is now. How stupid am I that I only now realized this.

I suck a deep breath, extinguishing the fire in my lungs. It doesn’t ease my trembling or alleviate the burning need for violence.

Of course it doesn’t. Because this isn’t mere adrenaline. This need to launch myself at him, to destroy him, this is my vampire spidey sense kicking in. I don’t know why now or why here, but this must be it.

But I feel completely unprepared for it. I thought it would make me stronger. Instead, I am crippled by it.

But of course, as I attempt to stand and Roberto looms over me practically cackling with delight, another thought slams me: Sebastian knows Roberto. He must know what he looks like. The angelic, blond beauty. The youth. Roberto made Sebastian, even if it was two thousand years ago. That isn’t the kind of thing you’re likely to forget. Two thousand years from now, I’ll still remember what Sebastian looks like.

And Sebastian must have known how far off my expectations were. After all, how often had he told me that Roberto was older even than he? That Roberto had been in this part of the world since the early days of the Aztec empire. Surely, he must have
known
what I thought. He must have. I couldn’t believe that after all the careful planning, after all he did to prep me for this, that he would forget to mention that Roberto was sixteen and as blond as a Nordic snowboarder. When you’re talking about Aztec god-vampires, surely that’s the kind of thing that would come up.

So Sebastian deliberately misled me. He didn’t send me in here to kill Roberto. He sent me in to fail. I am not an assassin. I’m a distraction.

After all these months, I thought I knew him. I thought I understood him. I knew I couldn’t trust him, precisely, but I thought I knew his endgame. And I thought he respected me and what I could do. I was wrong. About everything.

I am flummoxed. And when Roberto pounces on me, I am floored. I go down hard and together, we slide a couple of feet across the gleaming polished wood. I swing my arms up to hit him, but he neatly captures both my hands in his. No matter how I buck, I can’t force him off. He chuckles. Despite being whippet thin, he’s wickedly strong and he manages to hold me down with one hand. His other hand fumbles for the stake I dropped. I see what’s coming and my terror picks up. I’d thought I was ready. I’d thought I was willing to die to accomplish this. To avenge not just my sister but all of humanity. But now, in this instant, with my enemy reaching for a stake, panic claws through me. I don’t want to die. Not now. Not like this.

I buck and flail. My heels find purchase and I twist around, but he’s seated too firmly on top of me. And then the stake is in his hands. There’s a maniacal gleam in his gaze as he slams the stake down to my heart.

The impact is crushing. I feel ribs crack and break and a horrible, searing pain in my lungs that makes it impossible to catch my breath. But the stake doesn’t go through.

It doesn’t go through!

The wood splinters against the bulletproof vest I have under the guard’s uniform. I look from the shards of wood up to Roberto’s face. I don’t know who’s more surprised, him or me. He growls in frustration at the same time I let out a crazed laugh.

I’m harder to kill than I used to be.

“Wow. Guess you shouldn’t have bought that body armor for your guards.”

He snarls, his hand ripping at the collar of the vest. The tightly woven fabric of the vest bites into the flesh on the back of my neck and arms. He gives it a hard yank and I feel the fabric slice my skin before the fabric gives and the seams rip open. The buttons on the camo shirt pop as he rips the front of the vest clean off, leaving my chest bare.

He stands, pulling me up along with him. I stumble a few steps behind while I struggle to get my feet under me. He drags me over to the body of his valet. He bends down to grab the stake from Rodrigo’s heart.

I won’t get another chance to break free, so I duck my head and plow into him. I knock him over, and he lets go of my hands.

But he’s as experienced a fighter as Sebastian and he recovers quickly, rolling with the action and popping back up onto his feet. I stumble, but before I can straighten, he swings his leg out in a roundhouse kick. I grab his ankle, but he twists in midair, forcing me off balance. He recovers before I can and he kicks me in the chest. I go down again. I roll out from under him before he can slam the stake through my heart. I scramble across the floor toward a chair by the wall. He’s almost on top of me, when I grab it and swing it at him. It smashes to pieces on his head, but he’s barely dazed. That’s okay. I didn’t expect to knock him out or anything. All I wanted was one of those spindly legs. And I’m betting the hard, polished wood of furniture will be more effective than a quickly whittled branch anyway. I grab the chair leg in both hands and bring it up between me and him just as he slams the stake in my direction. The chair leg collides with his chest, stopping his momentum, but his reach is longer than mine and I can feel the tip of the wood digging into my skin. For a second, we lay there, him poised over my body, me fighting to keep that stake out of my heart.

Roberto knows my strength is failing and that gleam is back in his gaze. He’s enjoying this. Like this is the most fun he’s had all day. Hell, probably all century.

I’m not going to make it. I am struggling with everything I’ve got, and it’s not enough. This crazy damn vampire is going to kill me. Any second now.

Except it doesn’t happen.

He tenses above me. Freezes completely. He’s no longer looking at me, and his gaze has shifted up to the left, like he can hear something in the distance that I can’t.

And then I can hear it: a piercing howl. Not the howl of a Tick, but a mechanical howl of a jet coming in too fast. It roars overhead before whining away with a Doppler effect. An instant later, there’s the stupefying boom of something huge crashing to the ground.

The whole house shakes. The chandelier above me trembles and dust filters down through the air. Then the lights flicker and go out.

Roberto looks back down at me. The haze of vampire crazy-berserker clears from his eyes. He flashes me another demonic smile. “Well, now. Isn’t this interesting?” He hops to his feet, pulling me with him. Again, he has my wrists in one of his hands. He plucks the chair leg neatly out of my hands. “I’ll just take that, if you don’t mind.”