Legacy (Anna Strong Chronicles #4)

DAVID LEAVES AT EIGHT, AFTER COFFEE, TO GO home and change. The body shop opens at nine, which gives him enough time to take me to Charmer's for the loaner and be at the hospital to speak to Gloria's doctors at ten.

His day will be far less complicated than mine, though I see how uneasy he is with the prospect of being alone again with Gloria. Magnanimously, I offer to stay with her tonight when he's on his date with Tamara. He immediately thanks me for the offer and accepts. Considering I don't intend to let that date happen, I should feel guilty about the deception.

I should feel guilty.

I don't.

When he's gone, I debate trying to reach Tamara again, but decide instead to call Frey. He gave me the book. Maybe there's more he can tell me about devamping a werewolf. I go upstairs to make the call.

Layla, his girlfriend, picks up. "Hello, Anna," she says with a decided lack of enthusiasm.

"Has Frey left for school yet? I need to speak with him."

She sighs into the phone. "Today is a teacher workday. He doesn't have to be on campus until ten."

"May I speak to him please?"

She slams the phone down on some hard surface with enough force to make me wince. Nice talking to you, too, Layla.

In a moment, Frey is on the line. "Anna?" He sounds relieved. "Are you all right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Why? You were meeting a werewolf. Did you read the book?"

"That's why I'm calling. I need more information about vampires and werewolves. The book says a powerful vampire can psychically control a were. What about physically?"

"Physically?"

"Is it possible for a vampire to-I don't know how to put this-teleport his spirit or soul to a were? So that the vampire is actually in control of the werewolf both mentally and physically?"

There's a long minute of silence. "What vampire? What werewolf?"

"Can you answer the damned question? Is such a thing possible?"

"Are you speaking of Avery?"

Frey is a member of the Watchers, a group of supernatural beings whose purpose is to protect mortals against creatures who would prey on them. I used to be a member, too. He knows my history. What I didn't tell him myself, Williams did, so it doesn't surprise me that he'd assume I might be talking about Avery. Because of that, I answer simply, "Yes."

I fidget impatiently through another protracted silence, finally breaking it myself to say, "I don't know why you're taking so long to answer the question. Either it's possible or it's not."

"Anna, you were the instrument of Avery's second death," Frey replies. "Why would you ask such a question?"

Another evasion. I swallow my impatience and tell him. All of it. Who Sandra is. How her eyes and voice became different when she repeated words Avery had spoken to me that last evening. How she was wearing the same dress I had on that night, a dress Avery had given me. How my body's sexual response to her is the same as it was with Avery. How the fear I felt before I ran away was exactly the mind-numbing fear I felt when fighting him for my life.

All of it.

When I'm finished, Frey's hushed tone frightens me as much as his words when he says, "You must be careful, Anna. If Avery is powerful enough to do as you suggest, you are in grave danger."

"If? You don't know if it's possible?"

"It's never been recorded. There have been rumors. I know of two that speak of vampires inhabiting a werewolf's body at the moment of second death. Neither ended well. If Avery accomplished such a thing, he could live on in Sandra's body indefinitely as long as he allows her to make the change. If he does not, she will die and he may jump to another host."

I take a moment to process what he's telling me. "The book says the vampire can be exorcised. How?"

"That magic has been lost. Probably just as well. It would be powerful and black and not easily invoked. There would be violent repercussions to the one casting the spell, perhaps lethal repercussions. Exorcism is not an option."

Which leaves only one. Find the talisman. Free Sandra. "Finding the talisman is the only way to stop him."

Frey's silence confirms it.

"Then I know what I have to do, don't I?"

Frey lets a heartbeat go by before he says, "There is something else you should know. Something not in the book."

"I don't like the way you say that. What is it?"

"Through the centuries, vampire physiology hasn't changed. Adaptation allows you to walk in daylight, but most things are the same as they were in the beginning. Your system absorbs nutrients from ingested blood without benefit of a digestive tract, you have superhuman strength and agility and heightened senses, and you are invulnerable to mortal disease. But there is one thing, a toxin, that the vampire is vulnerable to and once infected, there is no cure."

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because it's something you need to know before you face the were again. There is one way the toxin is introduced and one way only. Through the bite of a werewolf."

I'd moved to the deck outside my bedroom, watching a cold December morning break over the water. Frey's words echo in my head, triggering two different emotions as the implication of what he's telling me becomes clear. The first is anger. Much of my adjustment to life as a vampire has been forged on the anvil of anger. Its burn is familiar, almost reassuring. I've grown used to it.

But the second emotion, disappointment, is far more devastating. That Frey would withhold something this important is incomprehensible. When I try to speak, the sense of betrayal rises in my throat and words won't come.

"Anna?" Frey's voice is gentle, prodding.

My impulse is to hang up. Instead, I swallow hard and manage to say, "Why didn't you tell me this before? When you gave me the book, for instance?"

A pause. "You told me you had business with a were. I thought if you read the book, you'd rethink doing any kind of business with a were. You didn't say it was personal. You didn't say it was a were with a vendetta. I should have told you. I'm sorry."

A comforting tide of rising anger swamps betrayal. "You should have told me? A werewolf bite is deadly to a vampire. Why the fuck isn't that in your books?"

"It's a rather new development," he says, retreating into a professorial tone from the guilt laden. "The pathology only showed up in the last hundred years or so. The book was written in the fifteen hundreds."

"Does Williams know about this toxin?"

A hesitation. "I don't know."

The hesitation gives it away. "A vampire as old as Williams? What are the odds he doesn't know?"

Frey doesn't let himself get drawn in. He must sense where I'm going with this because he adds, "I can't believe Williams would ever deliberately put you in danger. Anything he's done, he's done with your best interest at heart."

Best interest? As a human or a vampire? I can think of several things he's done that were definitely not in the human Anna's best interest. Because of it, and because of his arrogance, I'm not convinced Williams has a heart.

I'm not convinced Frey is telling the truth, either.

I hear Frye's quiet breathing on the other end of the line. I've made him uncomfortable, questioning Williams' motives in keeping me in the dark. Not that it matters. My path is clear.

"Are all weres infected?"

"I don't know for sure," Frey answers. He sounds relieved that I've changed the subject. "It's best to assume they are. The only accounts we have are of deaths that have occurred. There are none of vampires surviving a bite."

Great. "Is there anything else you've neglected to tell me?"

"Just be careful, Anna. I wish you could walk away from the were but if what you suspect is true, if Avery has taken over Sandra's body and mind, I know that's not possible. He would have killed David to sever the bond between you. He is as powerful and vengeful now as he was then. Who knows who he will target this time to get back at you."