Will returned to the apartment. The vampire, Jameson Bryant, was there waiting.
"I thought you said tomorrow night," Will asked, unsurprised when he walked in to see the creature there at his table. He helped himself to a beer, then turned, holding the bottle up in question.
The vampire shook his head no. "I never drink... beer."
"So why are you still here?"
"I couldn't wait." Bryant said, then frowned. "You looked more dead than I am, earlier tonight. Now there's color in your cheeks. If you were one of us, I would say you'd just fed."
"That's disgusting." Will took a long pull of his beer, then sat down.
"I used to agree." Bryant shrugged. "You spoke with Sarafina?"
"Yeah." He sighed. "Yeah."
"And?"
Will met the man's eyes slowly. "You kept your end of the bargain. I'll keep mine."
"I already surmised as much. But what happened between you and the vampiress?"
Will looked him dead in the eye, making every effort to let the vampire read his thoughts this time, if such a thing were possible. He let his expression tell the vampire that he was treading on sacred ground, and then he changed the subject. "Tell me about your daughter."
Bryant smiled slowly, and Will knew he'd received the message loud and clear. "She's eighteen," he said. "And she's not a vampire."
Will was surprised by that statement. ' 'How is that possible?"
"It's a long story, and one I'll tell you some day. I was mortal when she was conceived. My wife was not. Amber Lily is the only child of her kind, and those who hunt us would give anything to get their hands on her."
He nodded slowly. "So she's...normal?"
Bryant shook his head left, then right. "Not exactly. She isn't a vampire. She ages normally, so far. She can go out in the sunlight. She doesn't need to drink blood. She can eat normal food, though she seems to require excessive amounts of protein- which is an extreme challenge now that she's declared herself a vegetarian."
Will laughed out loud. He clamped his jaw to stop it at an impatient look from Bryant, but then the vampire grinned, as well. "It is rather ironic, isn't it?"
"Slightly," Will said.
"Amber has the same antigen in her blood that all vampires had as humans-the Belladonna Antigen.
Though from the tests we've run so far, it appears to be mutated in her."
"What does this...antigen do? In those who have it, I mean?" Will asked. He was deeply interested in this now.
"Only humans who have the antigen can become vampires. If we attempted to change anyone else, they would simply die. It's very rare, and mortals who have it rarely live past the age of thirty." His voice quieted when he said that last sentence.
Will thought of Sarafina, those first few times he'd seen her. How easily she had tired, and how she worried that she was becoming ill. It made sense to him now. Then he reminded himself that this man was speaking about his own child and jerked himself back to the present.
"You say the antigen is mutated in your daughter. So that may not be the case, right? And even if it were, couldn't you just make her a vampire like you and she'd be okay?"
"We have no way of knowing whether the antigen will cause Amber Lily to die young or not. Just as we have no way of knowing whether she would survive the transformation. As I said, she's one-of-a-kind."
Will saw the ache in the other man's eyes. It was the same ache he would expect to see in the eyes of any man who was forced to consider the mortality of his own child. "I'm sorry."
Jameson cleared his throat, busied himself removing a billfold from his pocket and opening it to a photograph of a teenage girl. He held it out to Will.
Will took it, looked, then looked again. "She's... stunning."
"The photo doesn't do her justice. We thought her hair was going to be raven, like her mother's. But it's not. It's this rich, dark auburn-like fire when the light hits it at a certain angle. She has eyes of such a deep shade of blue that they appear ebony most of the time." Bryant took the folder back. "She's stronger than ordinary girls. Faster. She's good at reading thoughts that are not guarded. And she seems to have some telekinetic ability, though it's far from under control at this point."
"Telekinetic...you mean she can move things?"
"Mmm," Bryant replied with a nod.
"Anything else?"
"Yes. She's stubborn as a mule. She's spoiled rather rotten. She's a hopeless romantic, and she is far too adventurous for her own good. Like us, she has a condition similar to hemophilia, though milder. If cut, she bleeds excessively, though eventually clotting takes place. Unlike us, she doesn't heal while she sleeps-but she does heal far more quickly than an ordinary mortal would. Other than that, I'm not sure what her vulnerabilities are. I hope to God I never have to find out. She's never been ill. She's never broken a bone. But then again, we've spent every moment protecting her. Watching over her."
"No wonder she's so eager to get out of the nest."
Jameson shot Will a look that should have incinerated him. He tried a smile in return. "Sorry. I was kidding."
"Too accurately, I'm afraid." He got to his feet. "She's booked at the Marriott Marquis on Saturday. Here's the flight information." He slid a scrap of paper across the table. "Her best friend Alicia will be with her. She's a petite blonde. They'll be traveling as sisters under the name Howe. All right?''
"Got it."
Bryant reached into his jacket again, this time pulling out a thick stack of bills, wrapped in a paper seal. "One hundred thousand dollars," he said, slapping the money onto the table. "I know you said you didn't need it, but I can hardly expect you to work for free, now can I? My daughter's life is worth a thousand times this, and more. There will be another payment of the same size sent to you when she returns safely home."
Will glanced at the money. "And she's in town for...?"
"One week."
"One week." Will pursed his lips, reached out and took the cash. "Two hundred grand for a week babysitting Super Girl. Hell, I'm robbing you, Bryant."
"You may well demand more by the time we finish. I wouldn't quibble if you did."
Will yawned, doubting he would have any trouble with the child.
"The most important thing is that she not know
I've hired you. She must think she's on her own, otherwise this trip will be wasted and she'll be looking for some other way to try her wings."
Will crooked a brow. "You are talking metaphorically, right? I mean, she doesn't actually have wings."
The vampire sent him a look, but he only shrugged. Shit, if there could be vampires and teenagers with superpowers, why couldn't there be wings?
"I'm trusting you with my daughter's life, Willem. Don't let me down."
"Don't worry," Will told him. "This is the easiest assignment I've ever had."
Amber and Alicia were on their feet, screeching at the tops of their lungs along with several thousand other teens while a shirtless young man whined and cussed about his terrible childhood with the help of massive speakers. His three companions hopped up and down, abusing their guitars and drums.
Will was exhausted. He'd barely been able to keep up with the two girls, and it was only their first day in town. He didn't know what he'd expected. Some whispy, ethereal, mystical creature or something, he supposed. Instead the vampire's daughter was far more frightening than that. She was a typical teenage girl.
The two girls had laughed and talked and danced their way through the airport, barely paying attention to anything around them. But drawing plenty of attention. They hadn't checked baggage. Their luggage consisted of a pair of backpacks stuffed to bursting, slung over their shoulders. They'd hopped a taxi to the hotel, spent approximately five minutes in their suite-yes, suite; Daddy vamp had deep pockets- and then they'd taken off again.
Apparently Amber had scored the concert tickets well in advance of her trip. It was a sold-out show, so the only way Will managed to get in was to slip into the security area and lift a T-shirt and ID tag. The face on the tag didn't resemble his, but that hardly mattered in the dark auditorium.
The bashing and banging and shouting on the stage-he refused to think of it as music-was deafening. It jarred his teeth and his foot. It had gone on for nearly two hours now, almost making him homesick for his former torturers, who'd inflicted far less pain.
The girls were having a ball, though. On their feet, arms over their heads, hair flying back and forth as they growled out the lyrics along with the singer, cuss words included.
Finally the band stopped playing, flipped off the crowd and headed off the stage. This only resulted in the loudest screeching, squealing round of applause yet. Then Amber was tugging Alicia out into the aisle.
He managed to hear her say, ' 'Nah, Men in Chains never do encores. They're probably in their bus by now."
Sighing, he headed out after them, equally glad to beat the crowd, most of whom were shouting for an encore, not being as in-the-know about such things as Amber Lily Bryant. Thank God. He would have lost them in the crowd for sure.
He was more likely to be questioned now, limping along with his cane, than he would have been inside, where he'd been mostly standing still, so he ducked behind a pillar and peeled off the yellow security shirt and name tag. He'd worn his own black T-shirt underneath. He dropped the stolen items into a garbage can and kept going, never losing sight of the two girls.
He was fortunate, he supposed, that they were such a striking pair. Alicia was platinum blond, and Amber's auburn hair was so dark it was more like black hair with maroon highlights. Tough to lose sight of those two heads weaving through the thickening crowd toward the exits.
They got outside. He did, too, trying to keep a safe distance. Amber was sharp. Twice she'd paused to glance behind her-almost as if she sensed someone's interest. She hadn't pegged him yet. She would if he wasn't very careful.
"So what now?" Alicia asked. "Back to the hotel to crash?"
"Are you kidding? We only have one week, girl. Let's go to a club and dance till they close it."
Will moaned inwardly. Obviously he was going to have to resort to alternative means with these two. A week of this would kill him.
Frank Stiles eyed the men who had been tracking Jameson and Angelica Bryant and their freak offspring for the past several years. Every time they traced the couple to one area, the monsters would pack up and leave without a trace. This time, though, he had them.
"They put two teenage girls on a flight to New York under the name of Howe. We had operatives waiting. They trailed them to the Marriott Marquis."
"And one of them is the girl we want."
"Yes, but we aren't sure which one."
"And why not?" Stiles asked, his good eye raking the men. "It shouldn't be that difficult to ascertain, if you've been watching them."
"Sir, there's very little difference. They both go out in daylight, they both have been observed eating regular food, and so far neither of them has shown any signs of being anything other than a, well, a typical teenage girl."
Stiles ran one hand over his face, a subconscious gesture. His palm moved from the smooth skin of the right side to the puckered, scarred flesh of the left, reminding him that vampires were nothing more than animals-rabid ones in need of putting down. His research was getting close to adding another weapon to the arsenal to be used against them. The most powerful weapon yet.
"She's not a typical teenage girl, gentlemen. She's the bitch pup of a pair of killer dogs. She may look human, but she's not. Keep it in mind. If you don't have the stomach for what needs to be done, then we have ways of dealing with that."
The men exchanged glances. They were not stupid. Stiles didn't recruit stupid men. They knew no one left his group alive. He wasn't about to risk having former operatives running around telling tales.
"We'll take them both," Stiles said, when he sensed his message had been delivered. "And then I'll find a way to determine which is the human traitor and which is the mutant half-breed."
Willem was exhausted by the time the girls called it a night, which was far closer to his wake-up time than his usual bedtime. Still, Will knew he couldn't rest. Not yet. While the girls lay safely locked in their suite, sound asleep by all appearances, he had to move and move quickly. He had not expected them to be this much of a challenge.
By noon, he had booked himself a suite near theirs and made a fast trip to a "hard to find" weapons and equipment merchant by the name of Mike Mulcahey, who'd been a fellow Special Forces soldier years ago. He was one of the good guys. Not exactly legal, but he only dealt with relatively legit private operatives- nothing shady or un-American. He prided himself on his patriotism, in fact.
Will picked several cleverly designed surveillance devices that would make his job one hell of a lot easier. Mike talked him into taking a few other items from his "clearance" rack. Hell, Will didn't know what the hell he would ever need plastic explosive and timing devices for, but Mike needed them gone for some reason, so Will figured the least he could do was help an old buddy out. He put that carefully bundled package in his trunk, underneath the spare tire. It was illegal as hell. But he took the bag of surveillance equipment into the front seat with him.
He was just heading back into his newly acquired suite with his sackful of goodies when the two adventurers emerged from their room next door, smiling and talking. He glanced sideways at them while pretending to search for his key, taking mental notes. They were dressed similarly, in tight-fitting, low-rise jeans, and blouses that showed off their tiny waists. Amber's jeans were slightly darker blue, her top a robin's-egg-colored tank top with the words 'Boys Lie' on the front. Alicia's top was a pale lilac skintight T-shirt that made him wonder if it were designed to be that small, or if she'd bought it in a child's size. He hadn't paid much attention to what young girls were wearing since he'd been their age. The shirt had a kitten on the front, and her belly button had a silver ring poked through it. Amber didn't have a ring in her belly. He wondered briefly if that was a style choice, or one based on her tendency to bleed a lot, which made him look up to her earlobes. No holes in them, either.
"So breakfast in the hotel and then shopping on Fifth Avenue," Amber said.
"Then the MTV studio to see if we can spot any stars, and then..." Alicia frowned. "Then what, Amber?"
Amber shrugged. "We'll play it by ear. Definitely clubbing tonight."
"Definitely."
The two headed down the hall toward the elevators, but Amber stopped walking, just stopped. Then she turned slowly and looked directly at him.
Will made sure his full attention appeared to be focused on unlocking his door. But he felt those eyes on him like a physical touch. Had she caught a glimpse of him last night? Was the girl on to him already? Damn, she was good.
He slipped inside but didn't close the door all the way, so he could listen.
"What's wrong, Amber?"
There was a pause. Then a sigh. "Nothing. Except that I'm starting to get as paranoid as my parents."
"No way. No one is as paranoid as your parents- except maybe my mom. Come to think of it, we'd better call my mother over breakfast or she'll send out the National Guard."
"Worse yet, Aunt Rhiannon once the sun goes down. She's closer. If she's home."
"God help us if she is!" They both laughed; then he heard the bell of the elevator ping, the doors closed, and their voices faded.
Perfect. He would have time to work while the girls had their breakfast, and hopefully he would still be able to catch them before they left the hotel.
He used the magnetic key card his pal Mike had provided to open the girls' suite. It was easy enough that it made him nervous-because it would be just as easy for anyone else. He didn't think Jameson Bryant was the paranoid type, contrary to his daughter's opinion. He came off as intelligent and genuinely concerned for his child's safety. Will had to assume the man had reason to be.
Will was quick, and he was thorough. Within ten minutes he'd planted a listening device in the girls' suite, so he would be able to hear if they got into trouble, and he'd lined the door with a sensor wire so thin it was almost invisible. The magnetic strip on the door frame was no more noticeable than a strip of transparent tape would have been.
He closed the door and took the indicator-a box with an on-off switch and two lights-from his bag of tricks. When he flipped the switch on, the green light lit up. Will opened the door. The green light went out, and the red light came on as a soft "chirp" emanated from the box.
Perfect. He would know any time their hotel door was opened.
He dropped the box back into his bag and left the girls' room, returning to his own. It only took a few more minutes to complete the work there. He left the indicator box on his bedside stand, set up the receiver and headphones for the listening devices right beside it, and he was done.
Checking his watch, congratulating himself on his time, he took the two remaining items from the bag- two calculator-size tracking devices and an ordinary-looking ballpoint pen. He tucked the "pen" and one of the trackers into his pockets, putting the other one into a drawer for safekeeping. Always have backup- especially when it came to electronics-that was part of his training. Finally he headed down to the hotel dining room.
He didn't have time to eat. The girls were already signing their check, heading for the nearest exit. God help him. He managed to grab a Danish from the continental breakfast buffet. No time for coffee. They were going to kill him before the week was out. He hadn't even slept.
He gave them a few paces, then went through the revolving doors behind them.
Sarafina rose at sundown, and her devoted servants were awaiting her. Misty had been an addict of a different kind before Fina had found her. She'd been about to sell her infant daughter to a dealer in exchange for a bit of the crystal-like substance she called "rock."
The dealer's mind was easily pierced, easily read, and his intentions toward the girl child had been so ugly that Sarafina had only taken the briefest glimpse before retreating in revulsion.
When she had finished her work that night, the dealer had been lying dead in an alley. She hadn't had the stomach to drain him, so she'd broken his neck instead.
She'd fed, instead, from the mother, who hadn't had any of her drugs in several days, so the blood was fairly uncontaminated, though weak and lacking in body. When Misty had hovered on the brink of death, Sarafina had given the woman a few precious drops of her own blood. Not enough to transform her. One couldn't transform an ordinary mortal, anyway. But one could addict them and thereby enslave them. Especially one with the will of a gnat.
She had tossed the limp, barely conscious woman into the back of her limo that night, gotten into the back with the infant and told Edward to proceed.
The baby didn't cry. Nor did it laugh. It had very little expression whatsoever. It was filthy, emaciated and bruised. She would be surprised if the child survived at all.
Sarafina was far from soft. But children were, unfortunately, a weakness of hers. She'd never borne one of her own. It was her one regret. Had she had a child, born of her own flesh, surely it would be the one being in the universe she could trust not to turn on her. To walk away.
Then again, there was no guarantee of that, was there?
She had Edward drive the limo up to the main entrance of the closest hospital. There she spotted a group of people in green scrubs, standing outdoors having a cigarette break. She lowered her window. "You there. Come quickly!"
They looked up, frowning, but they came closer to the car. When they were close enough, she thrust the baby out the open window, into the arms of one of them. She had only a glimpse of the man's wide, stunned eyes before Edward bit the gas and the limo sped away.
And now she had Misty. No longer a crack whore but an efficient and utterly devoted drone who would give her life for her mistress and a few precious drops of her new drug of choice.
Misty came the moment Sarafina opened her eyes, sensing her mistress's wakening. She stood now beside the bed, holding a robe of black satin. "Did you rest well, my lady?"
"Quite well, thank you." Sarafina slid her arms into the whisper-soft sleeves and pulled the robe around her.
"There's a bath freshly run and waiting."
"Very good."
Misty pushed back her sleeve, thrust her arm forward, wrist turned up.
Sarafina glanced at it, at the many tiny wounds dotting the skin. Then she shook her head only once. "I'm not hungry this morning, Misty. I have a lot on my mind." She turned and headed into the bathroom. "Bring the emerald silk. And choose my jewelry. I'm feeling...big and bangly tonight."
Misty nodded and scurried away toward the dressing room with the walk-in closet. Sarafina went to the bathroom, shed the robe and stepped into the sunken tub, descending into the hot water and letting it ease some of the tension from her body.
She had to find another place. The bar she had come to love so much was no longer an option. She didn't really know why she had developed this habit of going out at night to sit in crowded places. She didn't like associating with people, especially mortals. But she enjoyed observing them as they associated with each other. She enjoyed the noise and constant interaction around her while she sat alone, penning her thoughts and memories into a journal, wondering why she bothered.
Still, she'd become fond of the bar in the Village. It was a shame that man had found her there.
That man.
Sarafina closed her eyes and called his image to mind. He was so achingly familiar to her. From the moment he'd approached her, she had known him. He was that voice she'd heard in her mind any number of times throughout her mortal life. The day of her cousin's death, the day she'd learned of her lover's betrayal. The day she'd been transformed into one of the mighty ones. She had believed him to be a familiar ghost or a spirit guide, or perhaps a guardian angel of some kind.
Any of those things would have been preferable to what he claimed-and she had to believe-he was. An ordinary mortal.
God, he didn't even possess the Belladonna Antigen! He was not one of The Chosen. There was no earthly reason why she should feel this...this powerful bond with him. No reason why he should have been able to journey, somehow, through time and across continents, to be with her during the most pivotal moments of her life.
But it was even more impossible to believe that he was making it up, lying to her. No. She had told no one of the strong, gentle, loving voice in her head. No one. She hadn't even written of it in her journals. And yet he knew, he knew details, and he gave the same name.
And he was in New York, where he had told her he would be, during the time he had told her he would be there. But more than any of that, she knew he was the same-she knew. She felt him. Sensed him.
Loved him.
No! Not that. Never that.
Her spirit lover had abandoned her. And while she had vowed never to care about anyone again so much that she would miss them in their absence, she had come to New York all the same. Perhaps just to find out for sure if her spirit lover had ever been real.
Now that she knew, she wished she didn't. She would rather have gone on believing him a god or a ghost than to know him for an ordinary man. A mortal, at that.
No. She, mustn't return to the bar. He knew where to find her, and she did not want to see him again.
It was a lie. She did want to see him again. She was longing to see him again. But she couldn't. It was a matter of self-preservation.
When she emerged from the tub, Sarafina found her clothes waiting on her bed and Misty hovering nearby, a hairbrush in her hand.
Sarafina took it from her. "I'll brush my own hair tonight, love. Go and tell Edward to get the car ready. We're going exploring tonight."
"Right away, my lady."