The next name on the list was Felicity's, inside a hotel. Gavin set the GPS and started driving again. It was humorous to me that vampires were so gadget oriented; Gavin had a nice MacBook Pro. Honestly, I would have taken him for a PC guy. The hotel bar was nice. In Farscape, my feet had stuck to the floor a little. No vampire at the hotel bar either, Gavin knew it as soon as I did. We left. There were only two F bars left—The Fisherman's Bend and Foxy's. The Fisherman's Bend was south of Sun City and not all that big, either. I would have called it a hole in the wall but Gavin had a set look on his face so I didn't disturb him. He was in Assassin mode, I figured, and I sure didn't want to mess with that.
The scent was nearly overpowering when we walked inside the bar and it scared me. There were only two vampires that I knew of that were older than that scent and they were Wlodek and Merrill. If this was Nyles, he was older than Gavin. Not fully sure whether Gavin would get anything from me or not, I sent him mindspeech anyway. Gavin, he's older than you, I sent. Gavin never moved a muscle to let me know he'd heard.
Instead, Gavin leaned down and brushed his lips against my neck, making me shiver. "Go to the restroom and mist," he murmured against my skin. I headed toward the ladies' room to do just that. There was only one stall and I had to wait precious minutes for it. Hoping all hell wouldn't break loose while I waited, I tapped my foot until the girl finally came out.
"Leave the bar now," I hissed, placing compulsion. She nodded and hit the door at a trot. I locked myself inside the stall and concentrated on turning to mist. Merrill had timed me at a bit over four minutes and thirty seconds. I had to calm myself down to turn as fast as I could. I was almost changed completely when I heard the screams outside the restroom, along with the sounds of crashing furniture and running feet.
Misting under the door to get back to the bar, I found total chaos inside the place. The humans were shouting and screaming, all of them trying to get out the door at once. What drew my attention was Gavin. He stood off in a corner, glaring at something that wasn't that far away from me. Initially, it had been blocked by fleeing bar patrons. Now I could see it clearly and if my blood hadn't been cold already, it would have become so. He wasn't tall, perhaps five-nine or so, with thick blond hair and a stocky body. If he'd had black frame glasses and a pocket protector, he might have looked like any geek from Silicon Valley. He was dressed in an expensive suit instead, didn't need glasses and was pointing a flamethrower at Gavin.
Anybody holding a flamethrower would be somebody to get the hell away from, but a vampire holding a flamethrower? That had to be a hundred times worse. A man ran in front of the vampire and he fired a jet of flame, setting the poor soul on fire. Instead of dropping to the floor and trying to beat out the flames by rolling, the man ran through the door, his body blazing. His fiery exit caused even more havoc; I heard screams from the crowd outside and I didn't know if there was any saving him after that. All the patrons were now outside the bar. Only Gavin, Nyles Abernathy and I remained inside.
Nyles casually set a wooden table on fire that had been knocked over between him and Gavin. Gavin wouldn't have any way of knowing I was behind Nyles and in my present state that did me no good at all. All Nyles had to do was shoot the flamethrower at Gavin and he would be burned to a crisp. I didn't think vampires and fire mixed all that well.
Wlodek said that he was sending Radomir. I had no idea when Radomir was coming, where he was at the moment or how far I could send mindspeech. I sent it out anyway, because the way things were going, Gavin and I might not make it out of this alive. Radomir, we're at The Fisherman's Bend Bar in Tampa. Nyles has a Flamethrower. That was the best I could do before I concentrated on turning back to myself behind Nyles as he faced off with Gavin.
Nyles was laughing and shouting at Gavin as I turned, and for fun shot the flamethrower toward Gavin's left to keep him from inching toward the door. I also heard sirens in the distance and knew we didn't have much time. I concentrated harder while Nyles aimed another blast at Gavin. Gavin moved at the last millisecond, barely avoiding being fried. The table continued to burn, along with the wall to Gavin's left. The whole building was going to go up quickly once those flames found their way to the ceiling.
"You should have held your child in check," Gavin said, ducking another shot of flame.
"You think so? Who do you think taught him to play?" Nyles sounded crazed and I figured a crazed vampire couldn't be a good thing. I also didn't think Nyles planned on coming out of this alive. He intended to take Gavin down with him when he went, too. "I wondered how many people would die before you figured out my simple puzzle," Nyles laughed. I was nearly solid again. Only a few more seconds. Those seconds were too long.
"Stand still while I kill you," Nyles' compulsion rang out like a bell and Gavin went completely still. Nyles was firing his flamethrower directly at Gavin when I got back to normal and I didn't even have to force my claws out this time, I was so furious. I slashed out at Nyles' neck, causing him to shoot the flamethrower upward and catching the ceiling on fire.
Chapter 18
Nyles stood there, shooting fire into the ceiling for seconds and the entire bar was in flames before he began to flake away. His head never dropped from his body, though, until his knees buckled and he fell to the floor. The flamethrower stopped then but it was already too late; fire was roaring through the building.
Gavin's flesh was still burning when I threw myself on top of him, barely managing to suffocate the flames before the building began to cave in. Water was pouring in, too—the firefighters had arrived. I have no idea what those people thought when I kicked right through the wall of the building, hauling Gavin along with me. The scent of burning was in my nostrils and I couldn’t smell anything other than that. Someone came forward to help me and I was trying to fend him off, knowing if Gavin were taken to a hospital somewhere, it would be disastrous.
"Lissa! Lissa, it's me!" Radomir was trying to get through to me somehow, but it took precious time to do it. When I realized who it was and allowed him take Gavin, Radomir rushed us through the gathered crowd who parted to let us pass. Gavin was laid in the back seat of a rented SUV, Radomir tossed me into the passenger seat and in a blink, we were on our way out of there. I started crying. Gavin was dead and everything was awful.
"There's blood in the cooler in the back," Radomir said, doing his best to drive through the city as quickly as possible. "See if you can get him to swallow any." I was sniffling as I climbed through the speeding SUV, carefully wriggling over the back seat so I wouldn't injure Gavin's blackened flesh. Tossing six bags of blood into the floor in front of the back seat, I climbed back over and ripped the top off one of the bags. Gavin couldn't even moan as I did my best to pour blood down his throat. Most of it was coming right back out again, even as I was praying that some of it would make its way inside.