Unseen (6 page)

Doug pushed back his hood and watched the action taking place in the alley below where he perched on the roof. He hated to admit it, but he’d hoped Trina would pounce on the vampire he’d so easily led her to and finish him off on the spot—easy, clean, and efficient. No time to think, just react. After all, that’s the kind of rep she had. But, to his great disappointment, she hadn’t. It wasn’t, however, a complete waste of his time. At least she now knew what was going on right under her nose.

It made him wonder why she hadn’t stumbled on Luis
Gallego
before. Then again, Luis wasn’t stupid. He’d probably heard the same whispers Doug had about the vampire-slayer myth and had stayed out of her way.

Most might not know her by name, but Trina’s legend was something all vampires heard about at one time or another during their long existence. Few of them believed it, and the ones who were unlucky enough to find out the truth didn’t live to tell the story.

Well, none but me.

The other night, Doug managed to skirt her full attention. But how long could he keep that up? The fact he wasn’t a standard suck-on-the-humans-and-kill-them type of vampire kept him from making all of Trina’s alarm bells go off. However, ultimately, a vampire was a vampire, and he wouldn’t be able to resist her forever. Still, if he stayed focused and kept his control in check whenever he was near her, he might survive this.

Tonight, he planned to tell her about the vampire throwing everything off balance.

Doug had no doubt that she would’ve already sensed how old Luis was, and, actually, he was counting on it. After all, if the rumors about Trina were true, Luis was as old as she. He’d been turned during the Spanish Inquisition, just as legend claimed Trina had been created during that time to combat the threat of vampirism. But unlike Luis, Trina had never veered from her path.

Doug couldn’t help wondering what had driven Luis over the edge. Luis had always used his vampiric existence to his advantage and had become a well-respected vampire who’d travelled to every corner of the world. He’d achieved a lot in the dark, by teaching his fellow vampires how to easily blend and feed from humans without the need to massacre or accidentally turn them. This made the situation Luis was now in so much harder to understand. How did a vampire who encouraged others against violence for so long now become the instigator of so much?

Yet, during the last decade Luis had started changing his tune by doing crazy, careless, almost suicidal things, such as pushing the time he stayed outside until his skin burned, but stepping back into the safety of the shadows just in time to survive. He would heal and then do it all over again the next morning, as if he wanted to tempt fate.

Doug shook his head, feeling a sense of both satisfaction and loss. Alive, Luis had become a danger to the existence of vampires, but he was a man whom Doug had admired for centuries. No one knew what had happened to Luis along the way. Some suggested he was going senile because he was bored, which wasn’t as common as it might sound. Although Luis was the oldest vampire Doug knew, there were plenty of vampires who were a lot older, and they never found the need to act so stupidly or dangerously.

Someone had to put a stop to this madness. He’d heard other vampires had tried, but Luis was too cunning and had bested them all. When Doug heard the rumors about Luis, he’d decided to track his old friend down and see for himself what was going on. He’d found Luis in the suburbs of Sydney, and when they met, Luis had seemed so normal, just like the vamp Doug had known for so long. But Doug had sensed that something wasn’t right with Luis. Sure, the old vamp tried to act normal when they stopped by the local pub and caught up on the good
ol
’ days while pretending to drink beer, but there was something off kilter in Luis’s behavior. So after they left the pub and said their goodbyes, Doug followed Luis and saw the horrifying truth for himself. Luis attacked human after human, drinking a little of their blood before forcing some of his own on them.

Unable to hide behind denial any longer, Doug had followed Luis and eliminated a bunch of Luis’s newbies himself. They’d deserved mercy, because a vampire who was left to his own devices so early in his turning would be disastrous to all of them. But as Luis continued to create newbies night after night and Doug destroyed them, he’d decided to try something different by taking the new vamps under his wing. He’d hoped to teach them the ropes so they’d understand what being a vampire really entailed. He’d tried that with Cell, but the experiment had failed miserably.

That’s when he’d finally accepted the truth—Luis had to be destroyed. Unfortunately, he couldn’t kill him because he was so much younger than Luis. There was some kind of compulsion that stopped a vampire from killing another who was a lot older than himself. Then he’d stumbled upon Trina. While chasing after a newbie, she had jumped out of nowhere and stabbed the vampire with a wooden stake.

At first Doug hadn’t known what to think about the woman. Then he’d done some research and found vague references to a female slayer with roots firmly set in the Spanish inquisition era, where she was apparently made by some ambitious Inquisitors wanting to alleviate the threat of bloodsuckers from the world. The details were sketchy, but they matched the rumors within the vampire community about a woman who could wipe out vampires and then used the dead vampire’s strength against the rest of them. No one knew exactly how it was possible, but there was mention of Allure, strength, and an inherent need to demolish anything vampiric. It was also rumored that she still had ties to the Church.

Doug shook his head, trying to clear the thoughts from his mind so he could concentrate on watching Trina from the rooftop where he was perched. She was caught up in taking care of Luis’s latest creation and hadn’t even noticed she had an intrigued spectator.

He surveyed the ground below, searching for Luis, but he didn’t find him. Luis had scaled the wall like an insect, as most vamps could do, but he had paused for the briefest of time. Enough to confirm he also recognized who and what Trina was. Luis wasn’t here now, so it was safe for Doug to approach Trina without Luis either interfering or figuring out what Doug was up to.

He hesitated for a second, wondering if he
should
show himself to Trina. Would it be a good idea to let her know it had been him on the street leading the way? What were the possible outcomes of him meeting with her? The answer to that question was simple. Either she’d figure out what he was and take him out of the equation, or they could agree to work together and get rid of this one common enemy.

He had a lot to lose, mostly his life, but if he was going to stop Luis it was a risk he had to take. Before he could change his mind, Doug jumped off the roof and landed with a thump behind her.

Trina flinched, as if startled, but she didn’t turn away from the vampire already decomposing at her feet. She kept her back to Doug but he’d seen the weapon in her hand and wasn’t about to risk getting stabbed through the heart with a wooden stake. If he got killed now he wouldn’t get the chance to stop more innocent people from dying.

“Hey, it’s Trina, right?” he said slowly, keeping his distance. “I read your name tag the other night.”

She twirled around to face him so fast that he took a step back, but it wasn’t in time to stop her from pressing the end of her wooden stake against the side of his neck.

Trina glared at him through narrowed eyes, pinning him against the wall.

Doug leaned his head back, trying to keep the sharp, wooden point from piercing his skin, and said, “Whoa, calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.” No matter how he’d chosen to live his life, her choice of weapon would send him to the vampiric afterlife.

Trina’s dark eyes glistened in the dark as recognition washed over her.
“You!
I remember you.” She tightened her grip on his shoulder, pressing the stake a little closer to his throat. “You’re the guy from the store who’s into pink earphones. What’re you doing here?” The suspicion on her face was hard to miss.

“Mostly, I’m here for the entertainment,” he said, trying to keep his breathing shallow so he wouldn’t inhale a dangerous amount of her scent. She smelled so sweet and alluring. It would be so easy to give in to her, to follow her wherever she went like a lost puppy.

No, stop it!
He tried to shake the intoxicating thoughts from his head. If he didn’t get a grip, she’d use that stake on him.

“So you saw what just happened?” she asked, suspiciously.

“I watched you let an old vampire get away.”

Trina dropped her grip on him and stepped back, but she didn’t pocket the stake. “So
you’re
the vigilante who’s running around trying to keep a lid on the vampire population.”

“To be honest, I thought that was you.” He had to play it safe. He wanted to gain her trust without coming across as a manipulator. He wasn’t entirely using her, just needed her to clean out the trash while he kept an eye on her. He had to admit that watching Trina was rather entertaining.

“Very funny,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m not blind. I saw you across the street. You led me here. You wanted me to find that ancient vamp dude, didn’t you?”

Doug shrugged. “I wanted you to understand the situation a little better. This is serious, and it’s getting out of control. I might need your help.”

“Is this a test?”

He shrugged and stepped away from the wall. “Why aren’t you doing your job properly?”

She rolled her shoulders, still gripping the length of wood so tightly that it turned her knuckles white. “Who says this is my job? I work at a stationery store.”

“Yes, and that’s a nice cover, by the way.”

“It’s not a cover.”

“Sure it is. Every superhero’s got one. And yours is to blend into society and pretend to live a boring life, while you secretly battle the evil on the streets. I have to admit the cover’s effective, even if it is a little bland.”

Trina rolled her eyes. “That’s not even funny.”

“I wasn’t joking.” She sure was a hard egg to crack. He couldn’t help smiling. After what he’d seen and heard about her, he wouldn’t have expected differently from her.

“You better not be following me around. I don’t react well to stalkers.”

Doug sensed the acceleration of her heartbeat. It seemed to be drumming a little louder than it had a minute ago. Was it because he’d seen her kill a vampire and exposed her biggest secret? Or was he as attractive to her as she was to him? Of course, the latter was just wishful thinking on his part, but that didn’t stop him from staring at her pink lips as she pressed them together. He fought the urge to grab her in his arms and kiss her, and then he’d . . .

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Trina thumped him on the side of the head with the rounded end of the wooden stake as she jerked out of his grip. “You do that again, and I’ll shove this stake into you. And I won’t care that you’re not even a bloody vamp. Do you hear me?”

When the hell had he moved? Doug shook his head, positive he heard something rattle inside. How had she managed to loosen his control like this? He’d only been thinking about kissing her, right? Yet, by the murderous look on her face, it was obvious that he’d
actually
tried to kiss her.

That’s a big mistake.

“Are you shaking your head because you don’t hear me?” Trina raised the stake a little higher, pointing it at his chest.

He cleared his throat. “Listen, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” He knew exactly what had come over him:
The Allure.
Standing so close was playing havoc with his control. He needed to get away from her, because no matter how many centuries he’d lived without killing a single human, none of that would matter if he succumbed to the Allure. He couldn’t forget that at the end of the day, he was what she obviously despised the most: a vampire. If he didn’t, she’d kill him.

“Just keep your hands off me, okay?” She finally tucked the stake into her waistband at the small of her back and took another step back. “Now, what it is you want from me?
Normal
people don’t appear out of nowhere in the middle of an alley unless they want something.”

“Normal people don’t willingly approach dark alleys in the middle of the night, either.”

“I didn’t say I was normal.” She tensed but didn’t take her eyes off him. “Now, what is it you want?”

“I don’t want anything from you—”

“Look, we can spend all night playing this stupid game,” she interrupted, “or you could be a man and just get it out in the open.” She crossed her arms over her chest and waited, daring him to reply.

“Okay, okay, I’ll be honest with you. Maybe I am a bit of a vigilante. I’ve spotted that vampire dude several times already, but have no way of stopping him.” Some lying mixed in with some truth seemed like the best approach. “And when I saw what you just did . . . well, I’m pretty sure you can stop him.”