Chapter Twenty-Seven
The two people who stood before me were people I had never expected to see again, not in this lifetime, at least. Granted, they look a little roughed up and were being held between two extremely burly security personnel, one of whom I recognized as the guard named Leopold, but it was still great to see them. "Cassandra! Nick!" I cried, still partly in shock from their unexpected appearance.
Yes, it was they, two of those vampire slayers known as the Legion, the only body of professional vampire slayers in the state of California. Jumping up from my seat on the couch, I ran to them. "What are you doing?" I asked the guards. "Let them go." Leopold and his cohort looked to Stavros, whom I can only assume nodded, because they let go of my former friends and stepped back. "What are you guys doing here?" I asked, my voice a little breathy. You know people say they get their breath taken away? Yeah, this was one of those moments.
"He called us," Nick said. "To tell you the truth, we thought it was a trap."
"We couldn't believe you'd started working for vampires," Cassandra added, her nose wrinkling on the word "vampires," like it was a bad thing. Oh yeah--to her, it was.
Frowning, I looked to Stavros. "So you invited them here, only to have them beaten up and their weapons taken away?" I checked to make sure they were, indeed, weaponless. Neither of them had anything on them.
Stavros just shrugged. "I had to take precautions," he said. "You remember the first time you came to the lair."
"Oh, yeah," I said. "I was drugged and handcuffed. Good times."
I saw Cassandra and Nick exchange looks. As I turned back to them something dawned on me: there were only two of them. I know, you're thinking: well, duh, Kayla. But it just didn't register at first, you know? "Where're the others?" I asked, kind of afraid I already knew the answer.
The two of them were silent for a moment. "We're all that's left," Cassandra said finally. "The others...well, there was an incident in San Diego last year..."
I felt my eyes bug out of my head. "That was you?" I cried. I knew some slayers had gotten killed in San Diego--the master there was a real homicidal bitch--but I had thought they were amateurs. I had never thought to ask names. Needless to say, I felt horrible.
"Yeah," Nick said sadly. "I mean, the group kind of fell apart after you left, Kay. And then Vann went psycho and tried to kill Donovan..."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I interrupted him. "What?"
"It was her birthday and she...well, she snapped. Completely," Nick explained. "She tried to do him in with a steak knife."
"Oh," I said. "Wow."
As Nick started to say something else, a voice from across the room cut him off. "I hate to break up this charming reunion," Stavros said, "but I called the other slayers here for business. I suggest that is what we turn our attention to."
"Sorry, Boss," I said, and went to go sit back down by Chase. As I sat down, I noticed that Nick and Cassandra had stayed by the door, looking uncertainly at the others in the room. As slayers, they could tell that the three of us were the only humans around. As their friend, I could see plainly that they were nervous. Not that I blamed them. It was probably a bad thing that I had stopped being nervous around the monsters. "Can they have their weapons back?" I asked. "I mean, I'm pretty sure they aren't going to try anything stupid. It's kind of plain to see they're outnumbered." Nick gave me a look as though to tell me I wasn't helping. I shrugged.
"Their weapons are being held in the armory. They will be returned once this meeting is concluded," Stavros said. I could tell from his voice that he had given the final word on the matter.
"We had a present for you," Cassandra said to me. As she spoke, she took tentative steps into the room. "But they confiscated it."
"You might as well sit down," I told her, noticing her hesitation. "No one's going to bite. Right?" I gave the room a sweeping look. No one outright argued, but no one said anything in the affirmative, either.
Once again, Stavros outlined the plan. Who would be staying, and who would be going. We thought about lines of attack, but realized that since Claudiana was unpredictable, as well as mentally unstable, we had no way of knowing exactly what she would do. So the plan, unfortunately, was to just wing it. By the time the meeting was over with, it was late afternoon, and Cassandra and Nick were no longer as jumpy around the monsters as they had been when they first arrived. They got even better after I got their guns back for them.
Chase got the keys to the armory from someone--I don't know who; he didn't have them, and the next minute, he did--and he led the three of us there. I walked by his side, but Cassandra and Nick stayed a few paces behind. I couldn't really blame them. Chase gave off lycanthrope energy in waves, enough to burn the skin sometimes if you were standing too close. I guess I had gotten used to it. Seeing Cassandra and Nick treat everything like they were on a hunt made me realize just how much I had gotten used to. Then again, they could have been treating everything like a hunt because, essentially, that was how they were surviving. Now that I was batting for the other team--so to speak--they were the only two vampire slayers in the entire state. The thought was staggering. I'm not kidding, it actually made me miss a step, and I had to clutch Chase's arm to keep from falling on my face.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Yeah, I just tripped," I told him.
He gave me a funny look. "Okay," he said.
We had reached the armory. Chase had to try three keys on the keyring--unlike some of the more high-tech rooms in this place, the armory was old and neglected, and didn't get its own keycard--before he found the right one to open the door. As he took us inside, I kind of wondered why Stavros had included an "armory" in his skyscraper. I mean...that's a little old-world, right? Maybe it was one of those habits that's hard to break. Smoking. Having an armory in your home. Yeah, I could see that.
Thankfully, the armory wasn't so old-world that it didn't have a service counter. A bored young man--who wasn't quite human--sat behind it, his skin yellowish in the flourescent light. "Excuse me," I said, slapping the counter to get his attention. "I'd like to have their weapons back, please."
"Sure, lady," he said, sliding down off his stool. He disappeared and a few moments later came back holding a large cardboard box. Sticking out of the box, among other things, was a rather large shotgun, and a sword.
"Pulled out all the stops, didn't you?" I asked, smiling as they dug through the box for their respective belongings. I was talking specifically about the sword.
"You know I don't go anywhere without my baby," Nick told me, securing the sheath for the awesome weapon around his waist.
"You used to be the same," Cassandra told me.
I just rolled my eyes. "I lost my bow the night of the massacre, guys," I said. "I didn't feel like calling my uncle and asking him to hand-make me another one."
Cassandra and Nick gave each other another look. "The surprise?" she asked.
"The surprise," he agreed. He reached back into the box and presented me with a long wooden case.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Just open it!" Cassandra said.
Nick held the case in his arms while I pulled open the clasps and raised the lid. When I saw what was in side, I gasped.
"It's an exact replica--" Cassandra started to say.
"Of the one I lost," I finished. Tentatively I took the bow out of its case. It was beautiful. The first one had been beautiful. It was sleek and silver and I could hear the gentle whine of its advanced computer system as I held it. "You didn't call my uncle," I said.
"No, we called your brother," Nick said.
"Kyle?" I asked, still smiling down at the bow.
"He's a good kid," Nick said.
"He sent us that bow. Your uncle made it for him because he liked yours so much. He told us to tell you you'd better not lose this one," Cassandra told me, beaming.
I imagine I looked a little like a kid on Christmas. "I don't know what to say, guys," I said. "Except, you know, for what I just said."
"You any good with that?" Chase asked, looking over my shoulder at the weapon in my hands.
"Only the best," I told him.
I could hear the smirk in his voice as he said, "Oh, yeah? I'd like to test that theory."
"Name your place, sir," I said.
He laughed. "How about the firing range?"
--
The firing range was in the basement. It took a too-long-for-comfort elevator ride to get there. I suggested the stairs, but no one had been with me on that one, so I was forced to admit defeat and ride on the damn elevators. Honestly, why were those things ever invented? A staircase never hurt anyone. Except Meryl Streep in Death Becomes Her, but she was a walking corpse anyway so it's not like it actually hurt her.
The firing range had two different rooms: a short range and a long range. I took my bow to the long range; Chase stayed with me, while Cassandra and Nick opted to take the short range. I really think it was because they didn't trust themselves around Chase now that they had all their weapons back. They probably didn't want to kill him in front of me. It would make things really awkward between us, and then I'd probably have to kill them. It would just become a big mess. So it was probably a good idea that they went to a different room.
"You don't have to worry about them," Chase told me as they shut themselves up inside the short range. "I called Izzy. She's watching the cameras for that room."
"Who's Izzy?" I asked as I prepared my bow.
"A fifteen-year-old computer genius," Chase answered. "She's also Stavros' last living relative."
"No shit," I said, momentarily pausing what I was doing to look at him.
"Yeah. A descendant of his brother."
"Huh," I said. "So that makes him her million-times great uncle, right?"
Chase laughed. "Something like that."
I smiled, and turned back to my work. The bow was a work of technological art. My uncle wasn't a slayer by birth, but he did have all sorts of cool gadgets to make the job easier. He designed the technology for the bow himself. That's mostly how my family had gotten our income during the rocky times after my mom had left--my uncle, who had moved in with us to help out, had sold his slaying technology. Along with the bow, my brother had sent along a quiver of silver-tipped arrows. When pierced through the brain or the heart with one of those, a vampire had no chance. Of course, they worked just fine on humans, too. Which is good, considering it was a human I was most anxious to kill.
Excitedly I pulled the arrow back, ready to let it take flight at one of the targets Chase had set up for me. I took a deep breath, let it out, and let the arrow go. It sailed through the air and sank into the target. Beside me, Chase looked through a pair of binoculars. "Barely a hair off the center," he said, the binoculars combined with his already exceptional eyesight letting him see exactly how off I was.
I shrugged. "Give me a break," I said. "I haven't shot one of these in five years."
"You'd better practice if you want to have any hope for tomorrow."
I rolled my eyes at him and prepared to take another shot. I pulled the arrow back, took a deep breath, let it out...and then I felt Chase staring at me, and it kind of threw me off. "What are you staring at?" I asked without looking at him.
"Nothing." Out of my peripheral vision, I saw him shrug. He slid off the table he had been sitting on and walked the few steps over to me. I didn't move; I don't think I could have even if I had wanted to. When he was right behind me he lowered his face to my neck, where he nuzzled my skin. "It's just..."
"It's just what?" I asked.
I felt him smirk against my skin. "It's just...you wouldn't believe how much of a turn-on this is." He nipped my neck and then kissed the spot where his teeth had just been.
"Really?" I chuckled. "Right here on the firing range?"
"I can call Izzy again," he offered, trailing kisses up my neck until he had reached my ear. "Tell her to turn off the cameras."
I dropped the bow--don't panic, it was strapped to my waist, which caused it to hang limply and harmlessly at my side--and turned to face him. "Let Izzy look," I said, and reached up to kiss him on the lips.
A low growl started in the back of his throat as his tongue slid into my mouth. It made for an interesting sensation, to say the least. I was kind of hoping he wouldn't wolf out on me this time, but then again, I was kind of hoping he would. Was I turning into a danger junkie? Maybe. He slid his hands under my ass and I jumped up, wrapping my legs around his waist. He carried me like that over to the table, where he sat me down gently, so as not to bang up the bow. At least he was still considerate.
As he continued to kiss me I slipped my hands underneath his shirt. His skin was scalding. I traced the muscles of his stomach and chest. True, I had already seen him shirtless and/or naked on a number of occasions, but I still marveled at how...perfect he was. He might not have been perfect to anyone else, but personally, I was having one of those where-have-you-been-all-my-life moments.
"You know...how you said...you thought...you were starting to love me?" Chase asked me, kissing me after every few words.
"Uh-huh," I sighed, not really certain what we were talking about. I leaned up and kissed him again, capturing his bottom lip between my teeth. His growl said that the gesture did not go unappreciated. He tried saying something, but I kept planting kisses on him, interrupting him. He finally pushed me away so he could speak in peace.
"The thing is, Kayla," he said, staring straight into my eyes so that I couldn't look away even if I wanted to, "I think...no, I know that I love you."
I sort of just paused, my libido dying right on the spot. I shook my head. "You don't love me," I told him.
"I don't?" he asked sarcastically.
"No, you don't!" I said. "I'm a slayer, Chase. I'm forbidden. That's what you love."
Snarling, he pushed away from me hard enough that the table--with me still on it--moved back too. "Is that the way you feel about me?" he asked. "I'm a werewolf, I'm forbidden?"
"No...Yes? I don't know. I was confused, Chase. I mean, I'm attracted to you on more levels than just one, yes. But did I know what I was saying the other day? I had just been practically gang-raped by two very powerful vampires. I was feeling a little fucked up. No pun intended."
Chase let out a bitter laugh. As he did, I could see that his teeth were all elongated. His eyes were that amber wolf-yellow. If I wasn't careful, he would change, and I would really hate to have to kill him. "That's what you do, isn't it?" he asked me. The question confused me.
"What do you mean?"
"It's not hard to see that you're the sort of person who likes to destroy their problems rather than solve them," he told me, a frigid note in his voice. "But I'm a problem you can't kill, so you're pushing me away."
"That's not true," I said, but I didn't even sound convincing to myself.
"Isn't it?"
"All right, maybe it is," I conceded. "But what the hell do you want me to say, Chase? I don't want to get involved with you because there's a very good chance that I'm going to die tomorrow night. Do you get that? They're going to kill me. And I've already gotten a very weird visit from your sister, who gave me a history lesson about your parents. I don't need you going whacko if I die!"
I knew I had hit a really big nerve. Slowly I watched the wolf drain away, leaving just the human behind. If the situation hadn't been so dire, I could have admitted that the sight was cooler than any movie special effects. But I was too concerned with the look in his eyes. I had gone too far in mentioning his parents, but--and I tried to justify myself--it had been necessary. I mean, if he wanted to be a friend with benefits, that was fine, but I couldn't go around having people fall in love with me. I had learned my lesson the first time--our world, the world of the paranormal, didn't mix well with love.
He stared at me, and I stared back at him, and even though it was probably a few minutes at the most, it seemed like an eternity had gone by before the intercom system buzzed on and an unfamiliar voice said, "All right, kids, enough play-time on the firing range."
Chase let out a breath. "And that would be Izzy," he said. He tried to sound normal. He didn't quite make it.
"Chase, I--" I don't know what I would have said. Maybe I would have apologized. We'll never know, because he held up a hand to silence me.
"Just...don't, Kayla, okay?" he said. Without looking at me, without saying another word, he left. Sighing, I scooted back on the table so I could draw my legs up and rest my head on my knees. My eyes stung, and I was fighting really hard to keep the tears at bay. Who was it that had told me vampire slayers don't cry? I wondered if that rule still applied now.
Chase hadn't been gone very long before the door opened again. I looked up, hoping maybe he had come back, but was disappointed to see that it was Winter. He was the last person...vampire...thing...that I wanted to see.
"What do you want?" I snapped.
He walked over and leaned against the table. His side was against my leg. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of moving and letting him know that I was uncomfortable. "I saw what happened," he said.
"What, are you spying on me now?" I asked, ready to be infuriated if that was the case.
"Don't be absurd," he said. "Stavros went to talk to Isabelle. I went, too. While we were there, the cameras switched and one of the ones that came on was the firing range camera. We saw everything."
I grimaced. "So you saw the--?"
"Passionate display between you and the wolf?" He finished. "Yes, yes we did."
"You know, you're really not helping," I said. "And I'm really not in the mood to deal with your crazy vampire shit right now, so will you please leave?"
He just looked at me. Short of killing him and subsequently signing my own death certificate, I wasn't going to get him to leave the room. Shit. "Stavros sent me to make sure you would be capable of going tomorrow."
It was my turn to give him a look. "Are you saying he thinks this is going to affect my ability to...what? To kill?" He nodded. "Tell Stavros I'm fine. No, scratch that. I'll go tell him myself." I slid off the table. "In fact," I continued as I unstrapped the bow and put it sort of haphazardly back into its case, "I think killing someone might do me some good. Relieve some stress, and all that."
"You are, by far, one of the strangest humans I've ever met," Winter told me as the two of us left the firing range.
"You know, that's the funny thing," I said. "Someone told me one time that vampire slayers are hypocrites because we ourselves are not human. I'm starting to believe that."
--
After grabbing Cassandra and Nick, we all reported back up to the penthouse. Stavros wanted to prepare everyone who would be going to San Francisco--or in the other two slayers' case, back to San Francisco--for what would be waiting for us there. Claudiana's lair by the sea had magic in and of itself. It had the ability to take a person's fear and turn it against them. Stavros had Helenda the witch throw mind tricks at us to see what our reactions would be. We did that until it was almost dawn. You've probably already guessed that I didn't go back to Chase's place that night. Instead, I slept in Stavros' penthouse--on the couch, alone, thank you. Cassandra and Nick stayed with me. I asked them to partly because I needed friends with me, and partly because I didn't trust them to be running around by themselves. Yeah, I was a little afraid that they'd off someone and then I'd have to kill them. I was really trying to avoid hurting anyone else that I cared about.
It took me a while to get to sleep, and it was already dawn by the time I did. Can you really blame me, though? The day had arrived. This was it. Halloween.
It was time for the Carnival.
