Midnight Curse

Theodore Hayne had spent his entire life training with vampires, and by that, I mean training to stop vampires. Moreover, he had always operated under the assumption that he would be outnumbered and overpowered. He kicked at Limpy’s good knee, sending the other man crashing to the ground. Limpy’s lieutenant ran forward, but Hayne was ready with an elbow that seemed magnetized to the other man’s face. It was the wrong angle for us to see the blow, but we could see the splash of bright red blood arcing in the air as the lieutenant’s nose shattered. Before he even had his hands all the way up to clutch at it, Hayne kicked him between the legs. The guy dropped next to Limpy, who was still rolling back and forth on the ground, holding one knee. And Hayne did all of that in the time it took me to take a breath.

If they had kept attacking in that stupid way, one at a time with their fists, I had no doubt that Hayne could have taken them down. But after Limpy and his buddy were down, the two remaining men stayed a good ten feet away from their prey, and the one on the left abruptly shot Hayne once in each thigh. I had to work to keep from cringing as the big man crashed to the ground, blood pooling from his lower body.

They stayed that way, with the fallen MC thugs eventually pulling themselves to their feet, until the gate began to open. Then the four thugs raised their guns and pointed them at the space in the wrought iron.

After a few additional seconds, a small woman with bare feet and a dirty dress stepped through the gap and into the light, her black hair hanging loose around her face. Molly. Her arms were raised above her head, and she was moving slowly even for a human, which she most certainly was not. Hayne had told me Molly’d been fed, and her eyes were glittering with life when she glanced at the camera. If I’d never met Molly before this, I would still have known she was a vampire.

There was some shouting back and forth, and it was obvious the MC guys had become unnerved by Hayne and Molly. They were waving guns about, though Molly’s responses to them were perfectly calm. There was a moment when a wide space opened up between the two thugs closest to Molly.

“She could have run,” I murmured to Jesse. I felt him nod.

Molly pointed at Hayne, who lay bleeding and unmoving on the ground. The thugs yelled something, but she responded calmly, pointing to Hayne again. Finally, Limpy nodded.

Keeping her hands up, Molly made her way to Hayne. She crouched down and checked his pulse at his neck, then turned to Limpy and said something else. Limpy reluctantly gave his guys an order, and two of them began pulling off their belts.

I took the tablet from Jesse and moved it so close that it was practically bumping my nose. On the screen, Molly tied the belts like tourniquets, using her strength to punch a new hole in the leather to hold them on. And then—this was the part I’d wanted to see—she moved her forearm over Hayne’s face.

Her other movements had been efficient and precise, but this seemed oddly clumsy. It almost looked like she was using the sensitive skin at her wrist to check for his breathing. I paused the video, tapped the player to back up a few seconds, and watched it again. And again, until I was sure.

Jesse glanced at me, but I just shook my head and let the video play out. On the screen, Molly reached down and gathered up Hayne, lifting him as if he were nothing. She carried him through the gap in the gates, with all four guns pointed at her. Then she slowly stepped back over to the thugs’ side of the fence, and Limpy nodded at the video monitor. The gate began to close.

I don’t know if Molly would have run, because that’s when the second vampire stepped out of the shadows. Frederic didn’t bother with a balaclava—his “cover” had already been blown. He had been hiding in the bushes to one side of the gate, though Abigail still didn’t know how he’d gotten there or when. She would need to go back through earlier footage, and there hadn’t been time. Molly must have heard him stand up, because she began to turn around—but it was too late. The vampire was already behind her. With a movement too fast for even Dashiell’s high-tech cameras, he reached up and brutally snapped her neck sideways. Molly crumpled.

“You’re sure?” Jesse murmured, for about the fourth time.

“Yes. As bad as it looks, they can survive that. She’ll wake up in a few hours needing blood, but she’ll be okay. Well, until . . .” I didn’t bother finishing the sentence. Jesse and I both knew why Molly had been taken “alive.” The vampire behind all this had never wanted Molly to die easily. She would be tortured to death, unless I could find her.

“What will you do now?” came a tired voice from across the room. I actually started in my seat. I hadn’t heard Abigail come back in. She’d wheeled to the far corner of the room, where she sat looking drawn and exhausted. I guessed she hadn’t really wanted to watch the video again.

Jesse and I exchanged a glance. “I—” I began, but just then we heard an alarm sound down the hall, a screaming beep-beep-beep that sent a number of nurses and doctors running toward the noise. Abigail turned her chair to look. “That’s Theo’s room!” she cried, starting forward.

Jesse and I were already on our feet. Abigail was wheeling herself down the hall, but moving slow. “Can I—” I began.

“Push me, goddammit!”

I pushed. A nurse stopped us in the hall just outside the room, her hands raised in a defensive position.

“That’s my brother!” Abigail snapped. “What’s happening?”

“Miss, I’m sorry, you need to go back—”

“Like hell,” she snarled. “Tell us what’s happening right fucking now!”

“The doctors are doing everything they can—”

It went on like that for a while. Security was called, and if Abigail wasn’t in a wheelchair I’m pretty sure she would have been bodily lifted and carried out of the building. As it was, she was given the choice of going back to the waiting room or being arrested. For a moment I honestly didn’t know which way she was going to go.

We sat at the edge of the waiting room, watching medical personnel run in and out of Hayne’s room. None of us spoke, and I had to keep glancing at Abigail’s chest to make sure she was even breathing. Her eyes were fixed on the door to the hospital room, as though she could will Hayne to live by sheer force of personality. If anyone could do it, Abigail could.

When the doctor finally came out to talk to her, my heart sank. He had a pretty good poker face, but I knew the signs.

Apparently, so did Abigail, because she started to cry. “No—”

“We did everything we could, Ms. Hayne,” the doctor began. “But I’m afraid your brother is gone.”

As soon as the doctor retreated, I crouched next to Abigail’s wheelchair. She was crying so hard I doubted she could see me through the tears. “Abigail,” I said, but she shook her head. “Abby!” I looked up at Jesse, but he had turned away, his eyes rimmed in red. I turned back to Abigail, who had covered her entire face in her two hands. There were people all around us, but it didn’t matter. Abigail was an island of grief, and she couldn’t hear me.

“He doesn’t get eaten by the eels at this time,” I said loudly.

Abigail pulled her hands down. Her face was red and swollen with the tears that were still running down her cheeks. “What?”

I lowered my voice, leaning toward Abigail’s ear. “Molly. She knew he wasn’t going to make it. She fed him vampire blood. You have to get control of the body, right away. Claim religious reasons, whatever.”

Abigail hiccupped, staring at me like I’d grown an extra head. “Are you hearing me?” I asked. “Do you get what I’m saying?”

“Teddy’s . . . going to be a vampire?”

“No. Well, yes, for now. You gotta step up, Abby. You need to get Hayne’s body, by any means necessary. I can’t go near it while the vampire magic is working, and Jesse needs to come with me, so this is on you. But—and I cannot emphasize how important this is—do not tell anyone in the Old World what really happened. If anybody asks, the hospital believes Hayne died, but you just moved him to a secret location for his own protection. Got it?”