“You have a ballroom?”
“It’s an old house. There’s a big pantry between it and the kitchen. No windows. One door into the hall.”
“Which will surely be guarded. How will you get in?”
He looked back at her and smiled encouragingly. “I told you this house was built before the Civil War, the slave era. It has service tunnels running all through it. One of them leads right to the pantry close to the ballroom.”
“And if they aren’t there?”
“Then we’ll try somewhere else.”
They found a ground-floor window open at the back of the house, the gingham curtains barely fluttering on the still air. Inside, they heard voices. Raucous shouts and pleas for mercy. A few screams. Daniel’s jaw ticked and his hand tightened around hers, but he said nothing. Just led her deeper into the mansion. Into trouble.
They entered a narrow passage behind a stairwell and followed it as it twisted and turned around the house. At one point, they were so close to the assembly that she could make out the individual voices: Maximillian and Tomása, Gretchen and Alexi, and Garth’s mad screech.
Her breath stuttered and quit. Spiderwebs caught in her hair, and she had to flick something big and black off her forearm twice, but Daniel seemed unaffected, so she stumbled along after him as quietly as she could.
They went down a few stairs, into a cellar. There were racks on the walls. What looked like wine racks, only…
Daniel stopped and stared at the bottles, finally lifted one from its cradle, shook it, squinted at the label and smelled the cork.
“It’s blood, isn’t it? Your synthetic blood.”
He nodded.
“So all this time Garth has been making it and hoarding it. Making the rest of us go thirsty. Punishing us for taking mortal blood while he gorged himself.”
Daniel put the bottle back in the rack, gave her a hard stare. “Looks like it.”
She exhaled noisily. “Let’s get the bastard.”
“That’s my girl.”
They walked on through the musty cellar, finally stopping under an old-fashioned service lift. Daniel pushed the box meant to wench goods up into the pantry from the cellar out of the way and dragged over an old crate to stand on. Stretching up, he wrapped lightly on the ceiling above him.
“Shh,” he warned in a harsh whisper. “I’ve come to help you. Keep quiet.”
Then he slid the hatch aside and leaped straight up into the pantry with no more than a mild fluttering of air to mark his travel. Déadre followed close behind.
She pulled the hoods off the young couple curled together in the corner while Daniel untied their hands.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
The young man’s finger flew to his lips. He made the symbol for two and then pointed at the door.
Guards.
Daniel nodded and helped them slide down into the cellar without a sound.
“What now?” Déadre asked when the hatch was back in place above them.
“Take them to the truck,” he answered. “Get them out of here.”
“What about you?”
His gaze slid up and back to right about where the assembly would be. “I have unfinished business.”
“You can’t do it alone.”
“I can’t do it with them in harm’s way.” He looked from the frightened mortals to her and brushed her jaw with his knuckles. “Or you.”
WITH only a few false turns and backtracked steps, Déadre retraced her path back to the truck with the two mortals in tow, shoved the keys into their hands and told them, “Go!”
Damn Daniel Hart to hell and back. He deserved to live the rest of eternity as a vampire for this. But he didn’t deserve to die, which was what was going to happen if he faced Garth alone.
Probably what would happen if they faced him together, too, but there was nothing she could do about that. Or about the fact that even if they did survive, by some miracle, he would have his precious Sue Ellen back, and wouldn’t need Déadre anymore.
She was head over dead stupid heart in love with the man, so what’s a girl gonna do?
Probably get herself killed, too, that’s what. But then, it wouldn’t be the first time.
As the pickup’s taillights disappeared in the distance, she crept back into the shadows, back toward the house.
Back toward Daniel.
If she’d only smelled a little sooner the smoke the guard taking a break by the side entrance puffed out, or stepped a little lighter, so that her foot hadn’t snapped that twig, she might even have made it.
DANIEL put the hood the man had been wearing over his head and looped the rope that had bound him loosely around his wrists, then waited. The goings-on in the other room seemed to drag on forever, and he willed the vampires to hurry. With every minute that passed, the advantage he’d gained from the synthetic blood waned, and his chances of success lessened.
Finally, the pantry door opened. He heard footsteps shuffling in, was jerked to his feet.
“Where’s the girl?” a man’s voice asked. “Where’d she get to?”
Someone else growled. “Take him out. We’ll find her.” Daniel found himself stumbling along in the grasps of two strong men-vampires.
He felt the press of bodies around him when he entered the assembly, the excited surge of static electricity through the air as he was pulled onto a raised platform at the front of the room. He could almost hear them licking their chops.
The vampires were hungry, and he was the main course.
A hand yanked off his hood and he found himself staring into Garth’s insane eyes. “Surprise,” he said.
Shock flashed across Garth’s face, then amusement. “Well, Dr. Hart. How nice to see you again.”
“Good to see you, too. So I can send you to Hell, where you belong.” The room was dim, lit only by candles in the four corners. He scanned the crowd for Sue Ellen, didn’t find her.
“Been there, done that. Got the blood-stained T-shirt,” he said and laughed. “But I’ll take great pleasure in passing the favor on to you, instead.”
Daniel’s heart thumped like he was alive again. He threw the ropes off his wrists and pulled out the sickle jammed under his coat between his shoulder blades. The crowd of vampires gasped, took a step back as a unit.
“Sorry,” Daniel said, flashing the razor-sharp blade in the candlelight and circling Garth. “Not interested.”
“Well, well, Daniel. You do surprise me.”
“I’m going to do a lot more than that to you.” He spoke over his shoulder, keeping one eye on the crowd and one on Garth as he moved. A still target was a dead target.
Garth’s hand lashed out at supersonic speed. Daniel dodged left, swiped the blade down hard. It was only a glancing blow, and still it sliced his wrist to the bone. He lifted the bloody limb and gaped at it.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Daniel said. “I’m as fast as you. I’m one of you. It’s a fair fight, now.”
Garth screamed out at the assembly, “Take him!”
Daniel wheeled, swung the sickle at neck level, the threat of decapitation—one of the few sure ways to end a vampire’s existence—obvious. No one moved.
“He’s been holding you hostage with blood and his punishments,” Daniel said, his gaze roaming from face to haggard face in the crowd. There wasn’t one among them without sallow bags under their bloodshot eyes, hollow cheeks. They were thin to the point of emaciation. “For how long now? How long have you let him torture you, starve you while he has all the blood he needs stored right here in the house?”
“Kill him!” Garth yelled, holding his injured wrist.
No one moved.
“I know where he keeps the blood,” Daniel told them. “There’s enough for everyone. You don’t have to take it from mortals. You don’t have to ask his permission.”
A ripple of murmurs spread round the room.
“Don’t listen to him. He lies.” Garth took a step forward.
Just then the double doors to the ballroom banged open and two burly vampires dragged Déadre in.
She lifted her head and looked up at him with ravaged eyes through the hair that had fallen over her face. “I’m sorry.”
He jerked his head sharply once. “You have nothing to apologize for.”