Chapter Seventeen
Stavros sent all of us away, saying that he and Winter had “things to discuss.” After we had been kicked out, Chase thought it was a good idea to show me where I’d be living, at least until all my problems blew over. It turns out that all of Stavros’ favorites–Chase’s words, not mine–had a home at the lair if ever they should need one. I wanted to ask how exactly you got to be one of Stavros’ favorites, but I didn’t. I thought it might be rude.
“Here we are,” Chase said as we reached a door on the fifth floor. I tried not to think about the fact that there could very well be people being tortured just above our heads. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. Chase’s apartment was small–one bed, one bath, kitchen combined with living room–but it actually looked like someone lived there, as opposed to my barren apartment. He opened the door and stood aside so that I could walk in. After I was inside, I turned to watch him come in and close the door. As Chase closed the door I realized it was missing one vital component–the door had no lock. When he faced me, he must have caught the look on my face, because he said, “What’s up?”
“Your door has no lock.” Even to me, my voice sounded incredulous. Did a simple lock really mean that much to me? Yes, yes it did–five years ago, if I had just locked my door when I left, maybe Cassie would have had enough warning to get out.
He looked at the door, and then back to me. “No, no it doesn’t,” he said.
“Why?” Yeah, why was I having so much trouble wrapping my head around the simple concept of no lock?
He shrugged. “We don’t need locks here.” I suppose that made sense, considering we were inside the fortress of a powerful master vampire. Still, I didn’t like it.
Putting the lock–or lack thereof–out of my mind, I looked around the room I found myself in. It was the living room/kitchen. The corner to the right, if you were walking in, was the kitchen–cabinets, stove, fridge, island with bar-stools, no actual dining table. Set off from the kitchen by a wall of counter was the living room. Couch, television, bookshelf, comfortable-looking lounge chair. I was guessing the other two doors led to the bedroom and bathroom.
“All of your things have been put in the bedroom, second door,” Chase said. I jumped–he had been right behind me, talking quietly in my ear. Why hadn’t I heard him move? I nodded to show that I had gotten what he said, and went to the second door. There was no closet in Chase’s bedroom, just this big armoire that I assumed held all of his clothing. My boxes of junk were against the opposite wall. I started going through them, trying to find something suitable to wear to sleep in. Suitable hadn’t mattered when I had lived by myself. Damn it. I was down to a tank-top and my underwear–my usual sleeping attire--when the door opened.
“I hope you’re de...” Chase started to say, and then faltered when he saw that I was in my underwear. “–cent,” he finished lamely. I fought the urge to cover myself. I didn’t even look down. That should have earned me points. I just stood there and looked at him, and after a few minutes of awkwardness, I managed to even say something.
“Did you want something?”
He looked at me for a few more seconds, an odd look on his face, and then he cleared his throat. Yeah, he had been ogling. Not that I minded. “I just wanted to let you know Antonio just called, and if you’re up to it, we have a staking at dawn.”
I raised a questioning eyebrow, something I do quite often but just never realize it. “I didn’t hear a phone ring.”
“It didn’t.”
All right, so I wouldn’t ask about the freaky vampire shit. I’d had enough of it for one night. Possibly enough to last all week. And suddenly I found myself in silence again. Why did I always feel so awkward around Chase? I’m usually not an awkward person, at least, not when it comes to members of the opposite gender. Finally, Chase said, “Well, if we’re going to go out at dawn, we’d better get some sleep.” With that, he turned to leave.
“Wait, Chase,” I said. He turned and looked at me in question.
Why had I told him to wait? I wasn’t sure, so I frantically thought of something to say. Before I could think of anything, he smiled. “Goodnight, Kayla.”
“I hate kicking you out of your own room,” I blurted as he opened the door. Again, he turned back to me, still smiling. I realized that really was part of the problem–I didn’t like taking his bedroom and making him sleep on the couch, and I really didn’t want to be alone, in case Mikhail found some way to invade my dreams. He must have known what I was thinking, or maybe he didn’t, but in any case he walked over to the large armoire and pulled something out of one of the drawers. When he turned to me, I could see it was a small white bundle of cloth.
“Take this,” he said. I just stared, I was almost hesitant to reach for it.
“What is it?”
“It was my mother’s,” he said. “It’s pure silver, so even if Stavros’ shields don’t work, and Mikhail manages to invade your dreams, the silver against your skin will drive him out.”
Was his mother’s, as in, past tense? I didn’t ask. “Please take it,” he said. “It’s pure silver, Kayla, I can feel it burning through the cloth.”
“Oh, sorry.” I suddenly felt stupid. I took the little bundle from him and opened it up. Inside was a huge ring, which almost didn’t look like it would have belonged to a woman. It was bulky, shining silver, with a large stone of black garnet. I slipped it on, it fit my middle finger perfectly.
“Beautiful,” he said. He took my hand, pulled me close, and kissed me on the lips. It was a light, friendly kiss, so why did it leave me breathless? Before I could say anything else, he was gone, the door clicking shut softly behind him. Sighing, I crawled into bed. His bed. The pillow smelled like him, and I didn’t dream.
xXxXxXxXxXx
Chase and I left just a little after dawn the next morning.
We were both laden down with guns, stakes, knives, and other various weaponry essential to vampire slaying. On this somewhat cold morning we were on the hunt for a deserter–I had laughed, and joked that I didn’t know vampires were like the army. No one had found it funny. A deserter was someone who betrayed their master and who attempted to leave them for another master. I wanted to know what the difference between a deserter and oh, say, all of Mikhail’s former vampires was, but no one would tell me. Interesting.
We found ourselves in an area of small, family-owned restaurants. Chase parked in front of an Italian restaurant–Rigotoni’s. I had eaten there once or twice, it was all right. I hadn’t known it was run by vampires. Sal Rigotoni had been the restaurant’s owner since its birth, in 1933. He had been in his mid-fifties then. He hadn’t aged a bit, wonder why. Sal hadn’t been turned by Stavros, but he had been one of Stavros’ vampires since the forties. As we sat in the deserted parking lot Chase gave me the low-down on Sal. Most of his profits went to Stavros, but he was able to keep a healthy portion to himself. He wasn’t one of Los Angeles’ most important or influential vamps. He had met with a powerful master vamp on three separate occasions in the last month, and they–who “they” was, I wasn’t sure, but I’d bet anything it included Stavros–were afraid that Sal might be sharing information about Stavros’ power base with another master. That qualified poor Sal Rigotoni as a deserter, and the penalty for desertion in the vampire world was execution.
This was going to be a fun day.
Luckily, we didn’t have to break into the restaurant, which probably had an alarm and would have gotten us into trouble. Near the back of the restaurant there were steps that led down to a basement-like area accessed from outside. Since the Rigotoni family had always lived “above”–who were they kidding, really?–the restaurant, we figured that was the best place to look for Sal Rigotoni’s coffin.
Chase busted down the door, and we went in, guns drawn, ready for battle. Only, nothing stirred. It was deadly silent in the basement of Rigotoni’s. And right there in the open was Sal’s coffin. It almost seemed too...easy. I had never seen a vampire that just left its coffin in the open like that. They were usually at least some-what hidden. Maybe Sal had just thought no one would ever want to come kill him while he slept. Well, I guess he shouldn’t have sold out Stavros to another master. Now, in retrospect, it didn’t seemed the smartest thing to do.
“Is something wrong?” Chase whispered, worried because I was hesitating so long.
“No,” I said, pulling out a stake and hammer. I would have just used a gun, but I didn’t want to be too noisy and alert any humans who might be lurking about. “Let’s do this.” I went to Sal Rigotoni’s coffin and lifted the lid...and immediately saw the problem.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
“What?” Chase asked, coming to stand beside me.
“Someone’s already beat me to it,” I told him. I was staring down at Sal Rigotoni, his face pale even for a vampire, a gaping hole in his chest, and a silver stake in his forehead, pushed down so far it was probably out the other side of his head and poking through the satiny lining of his coffin. I turned away from Sal and swept the room, drawing my gun as I did so. Too late. The door slammed shut and the light was turned off, leaving us in complete darkness.
“Kayla!” Chase cried. I tried to reach for him, and my hands brushed someone, but it didn’t feel like Chase. He let out a cry of pain.
“Chase!” I screamed, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do. How do you fight an enemy you can’t see? A foot connected with my face, and I saw stars in the darkness. The blow was delivered with such force that I was actually lifted backwards, off my feet. I slammed into the coffin of Sal Rigotoni, and both the restaurant owner and I went crashing to the floor, the coffin splintering around us. I could hear the sounds of struggling, and knew that Chase was trying to fight whomever had lured us down here–it didn’t sound like he was winning.
I heard the sound of someone hitting the floor. The door opened, and a person ran out into the sunlight. Suddenly the light was back on, and Chase was standing above me, offering me a hand up. “You all right?” he asked.
“I think so.” I did a quick check-over. Yep, all good, except for the pounding in my jaw and a few scrapes were I had hit coffin and floor.
“Who do you think that was?” Chase asked, and from the tone of his voice I could tell he already had an answer.
“I’ll give you three guesses,” I said in the same tone.
His gaze flicked from me to the far wall behind me. “I don’t think I’ll need them,” he said. “Look.” I turned to look at the wall, and let out a breath like a hiss. Chase and I exchanged glances, both of us looking grim.
On the wall, in what could very well have been Sal Rigotoni’s blood, were sprawled the words: “Six days.”
When we got back, Stavros was so pissed off that he put his hand through a door. One minute, his hand was scratched up pretty badly and bleeding. I blinked, and his hand was perfectly healed, not a mark or anything. Now that was a fancy vampire trick. If he could have only healed the door in the same way, it would have been quite a show.
