My daughter was beautiful. And healthy.
And mortal.
I wasn't so overwhelmed that I didn't understand what it meant when the woman, Susan her name was, told me how good Amber Lily had been about sleeping the night through. And about her healthy appetite.
She'd been feeding my daughter the same formula she fed to her own. And she claimed Amber Lily had gained two pounds already, and that her hair was getting curlier all the time.
She was mortal. She was growing and changing like a mortal child would do. I didn't know what vampiric traits she might have inherited from me, if any. But I was so relieved to know she needn't feed the way her parents must, and that she would not be trapped for eternity inside the body of a newborn.
And those things alone gave me hope.
Things were going to be all right. Finally, at long last, everything was going to be fine. I couldn't wait for Jameson to come back so that I could tell him.
Susan, the woman I knew I'd never be able to repay, said she had to get her own child back home now, and gave me her good wishes.
"Thank you," I said to her. "It's not enough, but-"
"There's no need," she said, and she looked deeply into my eyes. "We're even now." I nodded, and I know my smile was bright as I held Amber Lily in my arms, and she squirmed and kicked.
I watched Susan and Alicia go. It was only as the door closed behind them that I felt the presence. And I whirled, to see several men coming into the tiny chapel, invading its sanctity, from a rear entrance.
"Don't move," one said, and he held a rifle. "Don't even wiggle. My sights are on the baby, and if you so much as twitch I'll blow her right in half. We're through playing games with you, lady." I didn't move. I couldn't, because I knew he wasn't lying. He'd kill my child without a second thought.
The pig!
The others closed in around me, and then one jabbed me with a needle and I felt myself weakening. It was only when a third took my daughter from my arms that I panicked. But I needn't. Jameson would come, he would come for us!
They half dragged, half carried me out the back door as the drug quickly did its work, turning my body into a disobedient mass of limp flesh. Hurry, Jameson, I thought. He would come, and he would know what had happened. He would know we'd been taken. He would know where to look for us.
They tossed me into the back seat of a car, and then one of them turned and glanced down at his watch.
He stood there, waiting, and I frowned.
And then the chapel exploded in a white-hot blast that shook the ground beneath the car. I cried out, horrified, wondering if Susan and little Alicia had gotten far enough away to be safe before it had happened. And then the man smiled and got behind the wheel, and I knew. I knew what they intended.
For Jameson to believe we were dead, killed in that chapel. So he'd never look any further for us. And as long as they kept me drugged, I thought, slipping closer and closer to that horrible black sleep this drug would induce, I'd be unable to tell him any differently. Two men were in the front of the car, and two others came around to get into the back, with me. One of them was holding my daughter.
Barely able to move, I nonetheless managed to push one of my shoes off my heel until it dangled on my toe. As the man bent to get into the car, I let the shoe fall to the ground. And then he shut the door, and the car pulled away. I kept my gaze on my baby's wide ebony eyes, until I couldn't do so any longer.
He sat there on the ground, and eventually the woman left. And other mortals showed up. A shiny red fire truck with local men manning hoses that soaked the blazing wreckage and turned it to a pile of smoldering blackened beams and charred ground and piles of ash. He sat there, never moving. And he wouldn't, he wouldn't move, not ever again. He'd sit there until the sun rose, and he'd greet it with gratitude.
He'd lost them. Lost them both. And dammit, he'd barely had a chance to know his child!
But he'd known Angelica. Known her laughter, the light in her violet eyes. He'd known her touch. He'd loved her. Dammit, he'd loved her with everything in him, and he'd never even told her.
How could she be gone so suddenly? Torn from him without warning. How?
And why for the love of Christ?
"Son, why don't you let the medics have a look at you?"
"His wife and baby were in that church," said another strange voice. "So someone said, anyway."
"Merciful heavens, no wonder he looks like that!"
"Think he can hear us?"
"No. I'm afraid the man's gone plumb out of his mind."
"Son, come on. Get up, now."
He didn't speak, but he did rise. He didn't want to be bothered by the well-meaning mortals. He wanted to go away and be alone and remember her while he awaited the dawn. His feet scuffed the ground as he wandered away from all of them, heading around the wreckage that used to be the chapel, circling it like a planet circling the sun. It was as if some force pulled at him, and kept him from leaving this orbit. His heart...his heart was in that mess of rubble. His soul. His child...
Or... was she?
DPI had called Amber their most valuable research subject ever. Would they really have destroyed her?
"No..."
He tripped over something, and he glanced down at it, irritated. "Oh, Jesus," he whispered, because the pain that came then was almost more than he could bear. "Oh sweet Jesus, it's Angelica's shoe." He dropped to his knees, and scooped it up as carefully as if he were handling a fragile treasure, and then he hugged it to his chest, and let the tears come. His back bowed with them, and he choked on powerful sobs that nearly split him in half. Because he knew that while DPI might balk at murdering Amber Lily, they wouldn't have hesitated to kill her mother. Angelica. And he didn't think he could go on without her-and yet he had to find a way. For their baby.
When he grew too weak to remain sitting up, he fell, facedown on the dusty road, and his bitter tears wet the tire tracks in the dust, and he couldn't breathe, and he didn't care.
It came to him slowly. Very slowly. But when it did, it was enough to stir him out of the well of mindless agony. Enough to make him reach, one last time, for cognizance, and perhaps... perhaps hope. He pushed himself into a sitting position again with one hand, and stared at the shoe in his other. It wasn't burned. Wasn't even singed. Or torn or damaged.
He turned his head, and saw that there was a hell of a lot of distance between the wet, smoke-belching remains of the church and this spot. And as he examined the ground here, he saw no other debris.
Nothing else was thrown this far in the explosion. And the tire tracks...
This was the area in back of the chapel. And, yes, the small dirt driveway circled around behind the building, but all the townsfolk had stopped out front. None had driven back here.
Jameson got to his feet, and scanned the ground, walking slowly toward the church. And sure as all hell, he found footprints. Men's shoes. Several men. And the uneven marks between them that suggested something being dragged. Or someone.
"She's alive," he whispered. He held the shoe tight in one hand, and fell to his knees right where he stood. He bowed his head, closed his eyes. "She's alive...she has to be. Thank God," he whispered.
Jameson stood alone just outside the fenced-in perimeter of DPI headquarters in White Plains. Angelica was inside. He knew it as well as he knew his own name. And things were ready. He'd met with the others just north of the city, and explained all that had happened. Tamara had contacted Susan Jennings, and offered her more money than she'd ever seen in her life to come back with them, and care for Amber by day. No one had explained why it was necessary. She hadn't asked. Jameson trusted her.
He'd had his short, precious time with his sweet, wonderful daughter. And now it was over. He'd get no more time with her. But he'd save her from these bastards. And then he'd make sure she never had to worry about this damnable persecution from them again. He'd bring this place to ruin...tonight. He'd make the world safe for her. And he would very likely die in the process, but not until he'd accomplished what he'd come here to do. And it would be well worth the sacrifice. He'd see to it that Angel and Amber had the life they deserved. And to hell with the consequences. They were worth this, worth anything to him.
He leaped the fence, and started forward. He'd do this, because it needed doing. And he'd do it alone.
And then he stopped, because someone had hit the ground beside him. "Not alone!" a voice called, and Jameson turned in surprise. Eric stood at his side. He smiled and winked. "Not by a long shot, my friend."
And even before he finished speaking, others came forward, stepping out of the shadows one by one, to stand beside him. Tamara was there, and Roland and Rhiannon. Even Rhiannon's cat had joined them.
And there were others. One in particular. A man who seemed as though he must be a king.
He was taller than anyone there, and darker, too, with huge, haunting eyes and a voice like thunder. "I am Damien," he said extending a hand to Jameson. And Jameson blinked in shock as he took it. This was the oldest...the first, of all of them. "And I'm grateful to you for stirring us to action."
"But I didn't..." he began.
"No. No, your Angelica did. But on your behalf."
Jameson turned toward the building that held her, dumbfounded.
"Seems she finally mastered those psychic skills," Rhiannon said softly. "And though weakened and drugged, she managed to call out to us. She knew you would come, Jameson. And she begged us not to let you do this on your own. She said she'd rather die here than to know you'd given your life attempting to save her."
"She told us what you intended to do tonight, shamed us, really, for not being here to back you up," Damien added. "So here we are." He nodded to the people who surrounded him, vampires, all of them.
"My bride, Shannon. Former DPI agent Ramsey Bachman and his wife, Cuyler Jade. And every other vampire who was within range of Angelica's rousing mental wake-up call." He put a hand on Jameson's shoulder. "We're in this together," he said. "Your Amber Lily is not just your child, Jameson. She is our child, our miracle, the first of a new generation, be she mortal or otherwise. And she is going to be the most cherished being we've ever had the privilege to love."
"You'll need help caring for her," the pixielike woman named Cuyler Jade said softly. "It will be difficult, sleeping by day. But there is a place, far to the north, where darkness lasts so very much longer than light for part of the year. And I want you to take your child there, so that she, and not the sun, can decide when you should sleep."
"Yes," the man beside her said. "And we should establish another home in the southern reaches, for the other part of the year."
"We'll all help you," the pixie said.
Eric nodded. "For now, we have a warm, safe haven waiting, and Susan, your mortal friend, is there, ready to care for Amber through the daylight hours."
Jameson nodded, seeing now that this thing was possible. That everything would be taken care of for Angel and the baby. "You might end up taking them there yourself, Eric. I have no intention of leaving this place until all that remains is rubble."
"That's understood," Eric told him, and he glanced sideways at Damien.
Damien nodded. "It needs doing. We all know it, and we're here to see that it's done." Jameson looked up and down the length of the mesh fence, blinking in wonder. There were hundreds, perhaps a thousand of them. And before his eyes, they began linking arms, all the way around the building. A chain of the living dead, moving slowly forward, intent on reclaiming their right to exist.
Jameson focused his mind on Angelica's as he began to move along with them. And a hand closed around his left one, and another around his right. As one living wall of justice, they closed in on the heart of their persecutors.
I did not know whether my pleas had been heard by any others. But I knew Jameson was coming. I sensed it with everything in me. My efforts at contacting others, begging them to help him tonight, combined with the effects of the drug, left me weak, and barely conscious. I'd hoped to have enough strength left to contact Jameson...to tell him the enormity of what I now realized I felt for him, just in case it was the last chance I had. But I had no power left in me. I was conscious, barely conscious. But I was alert enough to know that night was nearly over. Dawn would come within the hour. Jameson might well be overwhelmed by the sun before the DPI forces could murder him. The odds against his success were staggering. And yet I prayed, with everything in me, that God would protect him, and protect my daughter. For I loved them both with every cell in my body.
They hadn't had us here for very long at all. Amber and I had been sealed in a cell in one of the lower levels, while guards stood outside our impenetrable door, awaiting their leader's arrival, and his orders. I wondered what those orders would be. How they attempt to kill me this time, and what would become of my precious little girl?
They'd left me unchained, apparently confident that I was too groggy to cause them any trouble. I sat on the floor in the corner and hugged her close, and I sang to her as I had done in those lonely months before her birth. And she smiled. She smiled at me as I sang.
It was not pretty, but Jameson had known it wouldn't be. It was war, and needed to be treated as such.
These people were intent on murdering his own. As soon as they were sighted, guards emerged, armed guards firing weapons filled with conventional bullets for the most part, though a few managed to get their hands on the dreaded tranquilizer guns as well. But they really didn't stand a chance against so many.
They were immortal. They could move faster than the human eye could see, becoming blurs of shapeless color in motion. They could leap out of the paths of the bullets fired at them, and with a single swipe of a single preternatural hand, render the shooter unconscious. Or worse.
And Damien...
Jameson paused only once to witness in stunned awe the sheer power of the oldest of all immortals. The way he would focus those intent eyes on something until it burst into flames. The way he could whirl until he vanished in the night.
But even the wonder of seeing firsthand the legendary abilities of the man couldn't distract him for more than an instant. The first lines of defense were nearly broken, and Jameson was the first vampire to cross them, smashing a door from its hinges in his rage, and lunging inside.
Those who approached him found themselves sailing bodily through the air, crashing into walls and sliding to the floor, bloodied and immobile. Someone yelled from behind, and he whirled, only to see Pandora's sleek black form spring upon a guard who'd been about to shoot him in the back.
The guard's cry was chilling, but brief.
All around Jameson people were shouting, guns were going off, explosions were rocking the ground. He made his way to the back, fighting through the armed men who rushed forward to join the battle. And then through the others, the cowards, who knew what was happening-who had, perhaps, known all along that this day of reckoning would come-and whose only goal now was escape. Like rats fleeing a burning ship they raced for the rear exits. Jameson passed the research lab just as its barred windows were smashed to bits, and hordes of vampires surged inside, intent on destroying every trace of information these bastards had gathered. He heard the computers being hurled to the floor, smelled the smoke as the files were set aflame. But he didn't stop. He kept moving onward, finding the stairs, not trusting the elevators. And his instincts were good, because halfway down, the lights went out. Someone was using his head. Vampires could see perfectly in the dark. Humans, on the other hand...
He collared a white-coated fool who was whimpering for mercy, and slammed him against the wall.
"Where are they?" And when the man didn't answer he slammed him again, and his wire-rimmed glasses fell to the floor.
"D-d-d-down...th-that way...p-p-please-'"
Jameson released the man, and raced in the direction he'd pointed. And then he skidded to a stop in the dark, cold hall of the lower level. Because...he heard her.
She was singing. Her voice was wavering, weak...but she was singing, and it was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard in his life.
"Angel..." His knees nearly buckled in relief, but he forced them steady and ran to the door that was all that remained between them. And growling with the effort, he tore the thing away and hurled it back down the hall.
She sat there, on the floor, and she lifted her head, met his eyes. "You came," she whispered, and tears flooded her face.
"You knew I would," he said, and he ran forward, fell to his knees, his hands cupping her head, his eyes searching her face.
"Are you all right? Tell me you're all right, Angel, because I can't quite believe-"
"I'm all right. It's...the drug. That's all."
He closed his eyes in relief, then opened them again when a small hand smacked him in the chin, and looked down at his child, warm and safe in her mother's arms. "And you're all right, too, aren't you, my love?"
She cooed and chirped at him like a small bird just testing its voice.
"She's more than all right," Angelica whispered. "She's mortal, Jameson. She eats and sleeps and grows...just like any other child."
"Not like any other child," he told her. "No, not my Amber. She's far from normal. She's the daughter of an Angel."
He leaned forward, pressed his lips to Angelica's and saw her close her eyes and absorb his kiss. And when he straightened, he slipped his arms beneath her and scooped her up. "Hold Amber Lily tight, sweet Angel. I'm taking the two of you out of here."
She blinked up at him. "Yes...but Jameson, there are others. Other prisoners, suffering here, and I-"
"That, my dear, is being taken care of," said a regal, familiar voice from near the doorway. He turned with Angelica in his arms, to see Rhiannon, her cat at her side, and a barely conscious, reed-thin vampire in her arms. "Now come, I want that precious little one out of all this." Jameson hurried forward, and made his way to the stairs again. He carried Angelica up them, back through to the front entrance, dodging smoke and fires and debris, but very few bullets now. This battle was already waning. He raced outside, carried Angelica and Amber Lily to the mesh fence and lowered them to the ground in the shelter of some bushes near it.
He straightened, looking back toward the building.
Angelica grabbed his arm. "You're not going back."
"I have to."
"You could be killed," she cried.
And he stared down into her eyes. "It doesn't matter now. You and the baby are safe. It doesn't matter."
"No, Jameson. I'm not going to let you go back there. It does matter, don't you see? It matters more than ever."
He looked down at her, frowning, saw fresh tears brimming in her eyes. "But-"
"But nothing. Dammit, Vampire, if I've only survived all of this to lose you now..." Her voice trailed off and she bit her lip.
Jameson's heart leaped, but he didn't dare think...no, she was drugged and grateful and overwhelmed.
"Angelica," he said, kneeling beside her. "You and Amber Lily are safe now. And free. And I've got no more excuses to coerce you into staying with me, the way I've been doing for the past few days. You..." He sighed hard. "You can go, if you want to. But Angel, I don't...I don't think I want to live long enough to hear you say goodbye."
"You're immortal," she said softly. "And even with that, you'll never live that long." He looked down at her. "What are you saying, Angel?"
"I'm saying that I love you, Jameson." She stared up at him through her tears. "I love you." He blinked down at her, his jaw dropping, his heart squeezing into a knot. "Angelica..." He couldn't go on, couldn't speak.
She lowered her head. "I was hoping...you might feel something for me, too. Maybe...maybe I was wrong..."
Jameson gathered her into his arms, with their daughter between them, and lowered his head and kissed her deeply and passionately, as his heart swelled to bursting.
He lifted his head away. "I've loved you all along, Angel. Even that first night, I felt something...
something I couldn't explain. I told myself I hated you, but I didn't. I couldn't. You...you're everything to me, Angel. Everything."
She smiled weakly, and he kissed her again. He held her there, in his arms, and he caressed her face, and reveled in her closeness, her love. And as they embraced, the others surged out of the building, crowds of them, all that had gone inside and still more. Other captives, free now, some weak, some near death, but all rejoicing. And when everyone was safely outside, Damien stepped forward, focusing his gaze on the building before them for long, tense moments. And suddenly, it exploded in a blinding ball of energy. Every brick crumbled. The percussion rocked the ground, and the flames lit the night like a torch of hope. A deafening roar of triumph went up from the crowd of vampires.