All of the familiars were safely home with their owners. Barney was back to his normal self, after the veterinarian did a spell to purge the magic from his system. His leg was still in a cast, and he was taking full advantage, constantly pestering whoever was in earshot to bring him more food and scratch behind his ears.

  My powers were still weak, and it felt as if it would take forever for them to come back. I’d woken up at 6 p.m. and spent the last few hours levitating things and then dropping them, and struggling to set scraps of paper on fire with my mind. I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired to head out into the swampy night.

  “How about a short trip to the bedroom?” I suggested. “Or…” I patted the couch cushion. “Right here.” I’d have done it, too, the heck with whoever walked in on us. Nicholas brought out the brazen hussy in me.

  He grinned at me. “Oh, you’re a dirty, dirty, girl. When we come back, we will make a very long trip to the bedroom. Simon called, he wants me to run an errand for him, and I want you by my side at all times, so off we go.”

  “An errand here in town?”

  “Yes. He said it would be quick.”

  With a sigh, I let Nicholas pull me off the couch.

  A short time later, we were pulling up in front of the Gilded Peacock hotel. It was Azure Shores’ resort hotel, on the outskirts of town, with a magnificent view of the beach.

  As we walked in to the lobby, I had the oddest feeling that I knew one of the bellhops. It was a woman with blonde hair and green eyes. I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I knew her from.

  I chalked it up to an odd sense of déjà vu, and followed Nicholas into the elevator.

  I saw that we were heading up to the penthouse suite

  “What are we doing here?” I asked Nicholas.

  He scowled. “Some errand we have to run for Andreas,” he said.

  My blood ran cold. Andreas was here in town? He’d come back to the United States early, and of all places in the country, he’d come here? That could not be a coincidence.

  “What errand?” I asked. “You should have told me Andreas would be here.”

  “I don’t know, he’ll tell us when we get there. I was afraid if I told you, you would refuse to come with me. I know you don’t like Andreas, and I don’t blame you, but I can’t leave you alone until we know which witch is after you.” He looked apologetic. “Andreas called Simon wanting me to come meet him, Simon called me…you know how it is.”

  I did indeed. The three original vampires were looked on as near Gods by all of the vampires that they’d created. No vampire would even think of disobeying an order from Simon, Andreas or Joseph.

  Of course, only those within Andreas’ inner circle knew what kinds of orders he was giving these days.

  Did Andreas know what I’d been planning? He could read minds, but up until recently, I’d been strong enough to block him – and I also would have known if he’d tried.

  Now, if he tried to read my mind, I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep him out.

  The elevator opened to a hallway, and at the end of the hallway were big double doors. Andreas had the whole floor to himself.

  I was so unprepared, I thought, as we walked down the hallway. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I was supposed to sneak up on him. Now we’d be in a room full of people. Even if I had enough of my power left to make his heart stop, there would be witnesses.

  The room that we entered was huge, the size of several normal living rooms put together. There was a grand piano with a vase of fresh flowers on top, groupings of couches and chairs, book cases, abstract art statues that looked like ribbons of marble, and doorways leading off God knows where. All the thick white curtains were drawn, even though it was night time.

  A Thrall led us to the back of the room, where Andreas sat on a big sectional couch. He wore a red silk shirt, with the top few buttons open, and black pants and black leather boots. He was so beautiful, it was hard to believe how sickeningly evil he was.

  One of his thralls next to him, a handsome young man, wearing only boxer shorts. He had a huge erection tenting those shorts, and he was passionately kissing Andreas’ neck.

  “Leave,” Andreas said to him. The young man immediately got up and left the room.

  Glancing around the room, I saw a dozen vampire Wardens, well trained and deadly, and three big, burly male Thralls. Andreas was traveling with a lot of security these days. More than he used to.

  Slowly, languorously, Andreas rose to greet us. Nicholas nodded to him and made a courtly half bow, which was not surprising, considering Nicholas had been born in the 1700s. I stood my ground and struggled to keep the hatred that I felt from curdling my face. It was all that I could do to stand there in the same room with him, knowing everything that he’d done.

  Andreas inclined his head to us in return.

  “Nicholas and Frankie. Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Andreas said, and I felt him pushing at my mind. I gathered all of my strength and blocked him.

  “Why do you want to read my mind, Andreas?” I said. I felt Nicholas tense up. Andreas didn’t like being questioned or challenged in any way.

  “Such disrespect.” Andreas’ face turned dark and angry, and his lip curled in contempt. “I should be used to it by now, from you.”

  “I belong to the House of Simon. I do not owe allegiance to you,” I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. My head was starting to throb with the effort of keeping him out. I could feel the veins pulsing in my temples.

  “Andreas, Simon said you needed me here. What can I do for you?” Nicholas asked quickly. I knew he wanted to get out of here and get away from Andreas as badly as I did.

  “What can you do for me? You can die,” Andreas said, and one of his guards shot Nicholas with what looked like a tranquilizer dart. Nicholas fell to the ground in a boneless heap. I screamed in shock, and then something stung me, and I staggered back. My knees turned to jelly and I started to crumple and fall. Two of his Wardens moved to catch me, and they held me up.

  I struggled to stop Andreas’ heart, but I was far too weak, between my drained powers and whatever Andreas’ men had just shot me with.

  His Wardens moved quickly, securing Nicholas with silver cuffs on his wrists and ankles, and a silver collar on his neck.

  “What the hell? Simon will never let you get away with this!” I yelled. “You can’t attack us, we’re under his protection!”

  “That depends on what version he hears,” Andreas said. “You’ll both be dead, so it’ll be my version that he hears, which will, of course, favor me considerably.”

  He slammed his mind into my head so hard that I screamed. Then he broke through my defenses with a crash. He was inside my mind.

  At the same time, since I was no longer using my strength to keep him out, I forced my way into his mind.

  He’d been planning this all along – he’d planned to kill me because he knew how powerful I was. He wanted to take out his brothers, and was afraid that I might stand in his way.

  As soon as he heard that I had left Nicholas and gone to Florida by myself, he decided to make his move. He figured I’d be alone and vulnerable, no longer under Nicholas’ protection. He’d sent his men to Florida to do some recon, and quickly found out about my association with the local witch community. He’d discovered the situation at Bay Breeze, and what was going on with Leona. Andreas had blackmailed her to help him with his plans, offering her huge rewards if she helped him take me down, and threatening to tell Mirabelle what she was up to if she didn’t help.

  Leona had brought in Peyton and the other warlock, who was Peyton’s cousin, from a coven that she’d met while she was traveling in Colorado. Leona had also disguised herself and hired that gang of bikers to attack me in my parking lot.

  To help Simon defeat me, she’d bewitched Peyton so that her blood would drain my strength.

  “You had Leona send those gangs of men to attack me, to test how strong I was,” I said.

  “Yes. I wanted to wait for you to feed more and get even weaker, but when I heard that Peyton was dead, I had to adjust my timeline and come here early before you regained too much strength,” Andreas said.

  “You compelled Leona to kill herself if we caught on to her.” I glared at him. Sick, sick bastard.

  “And you,” Andreas said, his eyes boring into me, lips quirking with amusement. “You planned to kill me all along. How delightfully ironic. And my dear brother arranged it. That traitorous bastard. I’ll make sure that he dies very slowly.”

  I could see into his mind, the things he planned for Nicholas and me and Simon. Things that made me want to vomit – heated tongs and skinning knives and rawhide whips. I swayed where I stood, and his guards held me up, their fingers digging into my flesh.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Andreas sneered. “Enjoy this moment. This is the least amount of pain that you’ll be in for the rest of your life.”

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” I hissed with fury.

  “I take what I want, when and how I want it,” he said, his upper lip curling with contempt.

  “Simon told me that you want to try to take over the government. To start compelling politicians. It will backfire, you idiot. You will expose all vampires to humans. You’ll bring about their destruction,” I snapped.

  “No, we will bring about their destruction.” His eyes glowed with madness.

  “No, you won’t. There aren’t enough vampires! It doesn’t matter if we’re stronger! Humans will win because of sheer numbers, you madman!” I yelled.

  “Oh, save your breath, Frankie. There will be plenty of time for screaming soon enough.” His lips twisted in a cruel smile. “You’re a strong one. I’m glad. You and Nicholas will take so, so long to die. You’ll watch each other. I’ll take turns. I’m still debating which of you lovebirds will die first. My guards and I will take bets on it.”

  He started talking about the things that he would do to us, and I felt faint and sick and terrified. He’d use our vampire healing powers against us. He’d bring us to the point of death, then let us heal. We could last for months, he told us, maybe years – although odds were good we’d go mad long before we died.

  “I’m going to let you think about the fun that you’re going to have, while I make sure that our travel arrangements are set,” he said. He turned to go.

  Nicholas was starting to regain consciousness. He groaned and rolled over, mumbling incoherently. My heart clenched in my chest. Nicholas would die while I watched, and there would be nothing that I could do to save him. I could feel a little bit of my strength coming back, though; whatever Andreas had shot me with, it was wearing off.

  Unfortunately, Andreas could read my mind. He glanced at his men. “Throw some silver on the bitch, before she regains her strength,” he said.

  Before they could make a move, there was a loud explosion in the hallway. It sounded as if a small bomb had gone off; the walls actually shook, and alarms started ringing. At the same time, the lights in the room went out.

  Three of his vampire wardens ran to check what was happening, along with the human Thralls. The Thralls couldn’t see in the dark, and they stumbled and bumped into each other. A minute later, from the hallway, we heard the rat a tat of automatic weapons fire, and thuds. Then silence.

  If the vampires had been taken out too, that meant the people in the hall had silver bullets.

  Four of Andreas’ wardens quickly closed in on him and hustled him away, rushing him towards one of the doors in the back.

  “Hold on to her!” Andreas screamed at the men who had me pinned, and then the door slammed behind him.

  Coward, I thought, my lip curling scornfully; Simon would have been leading the charge towards danger.

  At the same time, the bellhop from downstairs ran through another doorway, in the back of the room, along with a maid. They’d come in through a service entrance, I realized. They both had machine guns, and they were firing at the vampires who were rushing towards them.

  The vampires who held me let go and ran towards them, right into the hail of bullets. They were cut down and howled in pain and fell to the ground in their death throes, heels drumming on the floor. Silver bullets, for sure. I could smell the silver in the air.

  Reading the bellhop’s mind, I realized who it was: Therese, the sister of Blaylock. The woman who Andreas had planned to kill in France. She was in one hell of a disguise, wearing a wig, contacts, skin darkened with makeup.

  A few of the surviving vampires dived behind furniture to avoid the hail of bullets. All the Thralls now lay dead on the floor.

  I crawled over to Nicholas, who struggled to a sitting position. “Run,” he husked, as bullets whizzed over our heads.

  “Screw you. I’d rather die than leave you,” I said.

  “You’re stupid, and I don’t love you. I never loved you. Run!” He was a lousy liar. His voice was frantic, he was desperate for me to save myself.

  “Nice try. I’d do the same thing,” I said. I quickly fished in the cuff of his pants, pulled out his hidden lock pick, and began picking the locks. I heard a shot, and then screams, and then the woman in the maid uniform dropped to the floor. Over by the doorway, I saw the bodies of two more humans.

  The room stank of blood and gunpowder and the rank odor of perforated intestine.

  There was more gunfire. I got Nicholas’ hands free, but his ankles were still bound and the collar was on his neck. As long as the silver was on him, he couldn’t Compel anyone.

  Before I could free him, I heard Therese shriek in pain. I looked up; she’d been shot, and was clutching her bleeding shoulder. Her machine gun lay on the ground.

  There were two surviving vampire Wardens left and they were both pointing guns at us. The vampires could easily have killed Therese, but I suspected he knew that Andreas would want to deal with her personally.

  “Get over next to them,” one of the vampires barked, gesturing with his gun. She stumbled over and sank down to the ground next to me, pressing her hand on her bleeding shoulder. Her face was white with pain.

  “I’ve heard of you. You’re the one with the power,” Therese said to me, her French accent strong. “You must kill Andreas! Why haven’t you killed him yet?”

  I looked up at the two guards. “Stop! Put down your guns” I shouted, but I knew it wouldn’t work. They started to, but I could feel them fighting me, and they raised their guns again, arms wavering.

  “Come back! It’s safe!” one of them yelled. “They’re contained!”

  “What the hell is wrong?” she hissed at me. “Make them kill themselves! You can do it!”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. Andreas drained my powers,” I said to her, and I saw shock and despair in her gaze.

  “You were my last hope,” she said quietly. “My friends…we came here to kill him. We thought that once you knew Andreas planned your death, you would help us. They died for nothing.”

  Oh, God. Way to make me feel even worse than I already did.

  Andreas and his men came back in the room.

  “Well, well,” Andreas said to Therese. “There you are. You always were a clever little thing. “ He turned to me with a grin. “Such a tender heart, this one. I had my eye on a sweet little twelve year old, just some stupid little human, but Therese smuggled her out of my castle. Why would she do that? The girl wasn’t even from her family.”

  He shook his head in wonder at the thought of anyone showing human compassion. “Of course, Therese needed to take her place. Now that I’ve got Therese back, I’ll find the little girl too.”

  Therese bit her lip, and struggled not to cry, but I could see the tears shimmering in her eyes.

  Wow. There was literally no depth to which he wouldn’t sink. I desperately struggled to stop his heart, straining with all my might, but I was too weak.

  “So what do you think, Frankie? Should I Turn Therese? Then I could make her death last months instead of days.” He smiled coaxingly. “Come on, Frankie, share your thoughts. I value your opinion.”

  I glared at him. Nicholas sat next to me, legs still in cuffs, fully conscious now.

  “Simon will not let you get away with this. He’ll compel you to speak the truth,” he rasped.

  “He won’t live long enough,” Andreas laughed, his eyes glowing with a satanic glee.

  “No, you won’t live long enough.” Mirabelle’s voice cracked through the air.

  I looked up in shock. While we’d all been distracted, Mirabelle had swept through the double doors, with several dozen warlocks behind her. All of a sudden, the air crackled with magic.

  “Kill her!” Andreas screamed. His guards didn’t move an inch. Their eyes bulged, but that was it. They stood there like statues, guns gripped in their hands, but apparently they couldn’t fire them.

  It was if they were frozen, and so, I realized, was Andreas. He struggled to move, but couldn’t budge. I could hear the warlocks and witches chanting together.

  Quickly, I handed the lock pick to Nicholas, and he freed himself from the collar and cuffs. Nicholas and I helped Therese stand up.

  “Who are they?” Her eyes were huge.

  “Friends of mine. Witches,” I said.

  Andreas couldn’t move, but he could speak. He let out a stream of curses, ordering us to let him go and threatening us with horrible torture and murder. Watching him rage, helpless, felt like Christmas morning.

  Mirabelle rushed over to us and threw her arms around me.

  “Are you all right? We were afraid we wouldn’t make it in time,” she cried.

  “Oh, my God.” Tears of relief ran down my face. “Thank you. How did you know where we were?”

  “Barney told Landon, and Landon called us,” she said. “Barney is psychically linked to you now.”

  “How long will that magic hold Andreas?” I asked her.

  “Only another hour or so.”

  Nicholas grabbed the cuffs that had been on him, and the collar, and moved quickly to secure Andreas. Andreas screeched with rage at the indignity, and continued to howl out dire threats.

 

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