Twilight Prophecy

But before she could collapse entirely, he was there. He caught her beneath the shoulders, his arms powerful and strong, holding her upright, and then … And then he pulled her gently to her feet and closer to him. So close that her body rested against his warm, solid chest. So close that she could inhale him, feel him all around her.

“You’re freezing,” he muttered into her hair, and those iron arms tightened just a little to hold her against his warmth. Just enough. She absorbed his heat and his strength as if he were feeding her very soul. And maybe he was. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Lucy. I have you now. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you again, I promise.”

She shook her head against his chest. “Who are you, that you should even care?”

“What the hell did they do to you?” His voice wavered a little as he dodged her question. “How did you escape?”

“I di-di-didn’t,” she managed in between chest-wrenching sobs.

“I’ll ask you to explain that … but later. I think right now you need a warm, soft bed and a decent meal.”

“I need to go home.” She lifted her head and stared up into his eyes, ashamed that her own were probably pleading and needy. And yet, she couldn’t help it. “I just want to go home.”

“I know. I know you do.” He scooped her up, right off her feet, and he carried her across the sand, away from the sea, as gulls cried and swooped overhead. The sounds of the waves washing over the shore grew fainter, and soon they were approaching his car. A shiny car, pale blue with a white convertible top that was currently up, not down. Probably one of those new versions of an old classic. He set her on the white leather seat as carefully as if she were an injured dove, even leaned over to fasten her seat belt for her. And then he got behind the wheel and pulled away.

Yes, she thought, as she drifted to sleep in the comfort of his car, he was definitely a good guy. He was going to take her home. She rested her head against the big soft seat, closed her eyes and basked in the warm air that was blowing from the car’s heater. Thank God.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Soon she would be safe and sound in her own bed again. And then she would try to figure out what on earth all this was about. Not that she even cared. None of it had anything to do with her. And it was all fairly ludicrous, as far as she could see. Vampires and secret agents and tell-all books and public executions. Drugging and questioning and cloak-and-dagger nonsense. None of it concerned her, other than to make her think a letter to the president was in order, and maybe a change of party affiliation soon, if this was the way her side wanted to run the world. Assassinating senile old men with vivid imaginations in the name of “national security” seemed beyond the pale, frankly.

And yet, something very remarkable had happened to her. There was no doubt in her mind that she had been shot and lying in a pool of her own blood on that Manhattan sidewalk. And then that man … this man …

She opened her eyes slightly and looked at him, behind the wheel of the blue car. He was a beautiful man. He had skin that was so flawless he almost seemed like a figure in a wax museum—the kind that looked just like the real person except for being perfect. That was how he looked. Perfect. And not just his skin, but his hair, which was shiny and appeared to be made out of strands of silk, in shades of honey and caramel and gold, one color blending into the next. And his eyes were that way, too. Vivid, electric blue, with a very fine black outline around the irises, and some kind of mysterious backlighting thing going on behind them. Or there had been when he’d been leaning over her on the sidewalk with his hands on her chest. Not pressing, to stanch the flow of blood. No. Not pumping, as if he’d been attempting CPR. He hadn’t been pushing against her. It was more like he’d been pushing something into her. Out of him and into her.

And there had been that glow from his hands and from his eyes.

God, he was unearthly. And so very beautiful.

She remembered that there’d been a woman with him, a blonde who’d hustled him away. And she’d been gorgeous, too, in the fleeting glimpse Lucy had of her.

He looked her way, then looked again as he caught her perusal of him. She was too tired, her brain still too numb from all the chemicals swimming through it, to be embarrassed at being caught. Still, she thought she ought to say something.

“I don’t even know your name.” It was better than nothing.

“It’s James. James Poe. Although my sister refuses to call me anything but J.W.”

“Your sister?” Ridiculous that she felt such a silly spark of hope that maybe he wasn’t romantically involved with the gorgeous blonde after all. It wasn’t as if she herself would ever see him again once he dropped her off at the bus station or airport or wherever it was he had in mind to dump her.

“Brigit. She was there, too, when … everything happened.”

“Oh.”

“We’re twins, you know.”

That made her smile a little. “Twins. That must be amazing. To have someone that close to you, who knows you that well.”

“It’s wonderful. And it’s horrible. Depends on the day.”

She breathed and relaxed. “I think you saved my life on that sidewalk, James.”

His face seemed to tense a little, and she thought he was trying to decide how to answer her. Finally he just said, “You should really get some sleep. We’ve got a bit of a drive.”

“But … you realize I need to know, right? I don’t give a damn about any of the rest of this. But what happened there on that sidewalk—when you put your hands on me—that I need to know.”

When he still didn’t say anything, she went on. “I felt the shot hit me—it was like being pounded by a sledgehammer. And then it burned straight through my body. Like how I would imagine a white-hot blade would feel.” As she spoke, she straightened up in the seat and pressed her palm to her chest. “And then I was on the ground in a pool of blood. So much blood. And all of it mine. I’m sure it was mine.” She lowered her eyes. “Or else I’m hallucinating, maybe losing my mind. Because it was that vivid. That real.”

He glanced her way briefly, and when she met his eyes, he gave her the validation she sought with a single nod. “You didn’t imagine it. It was real.”

She wondered if she could accept that.

“And then you came,” she said softly. “And you put your hands on me. I thought I felt heat, and I thought I saw … a light. It came from you, from your hands on me. Was that real, too?”

He didn’t answer.

“Are you an angel? Are you some kind of … guardian angel, James?”

He licked his lips as if he were nervous, and then nodded once, as if having made a decision. “You’re going to have to know sooner or later anyway, I suppose.”

She wanted to ask why he would say that, since she would probably never see him again after he took her wherever he was taking her and dropped her off. Right? She wanted to ask but couldn’t bring herself to interrupt just when she thought she was about to get some answers.

“I was born with a … a gift,” he told her.

“A gift?”

“An … ability that most people don’t have.”

She tipped her head to one side, watching him. “The ability to … heal gunshot wounds?”

“Yes. Or just about anything else.”

Her brain told her that the man was clearly delusional, and she thought what a shame it was that such a gorgeous specimen was mentally warped. But she couldn’t really brush off his claim that easily when she’d been on the receiving end of his healing touch. Could she?

“You don’t really believe me.”

“I … I don’t how I can doubt you. And yet, it just doesn’t seem … plausible.”

He shrugged, drove for a while in silence.

She rested, waiting, wondering if she’d offended him somehow, regretted it if she had. He’d saved her life. And then found her on the beach.

How had he done that?

“Here we are,” he said, and he pulled the car carefully over onto the shoulder of the road and brought it to a stop.

“Here we are where?” There was nothing around them.

“Proof.” He opened the car door and got out, and to her surprise, he moved toward a black bit of road-kill just ahead. A crow, its feathers all askew, its body limp.

She frowned, intent on James as he crouched down beside the bird. A car sped past, its back draft blasting his hair and clothes briefly, but he didn’t even seem to notice. He was holding his hands over the bird. “Good,” he said. “It’s still warm.”

Compelled beyond resisting, she opened the car door and got out, moving closer to him without even planning to do so. She squinted, leaning forward. Was there light coming from his hands? There was. A soft yellow glow that seemed to emanate from his palms.

Shifting her focus to his eyes, she thought she glimpsed a similar light there, but then he closed them. She kept moving nearer, then knelt right beside him.

There was a sudden flapping, and then he was holding the crow between his hands, wings contained. The bird’s black-currant eyes were open, and it parted its large dark bill to release a series of loud squawks that did not sound like gratitude.

Then James rose, lifted his arms, parted his hands, and the crow flapped its big wings and took flight.

Lucy stood there for a long moment, watching until the gleaming black corvid was out of sight. “That bird wasn’t injured,” she said quietly. “That bird was dead.”

He shrugged, saying nothing.

“Are you telling me you can raise the dead?”

“Sometimes.”

He had avoided her eyes until then. But he looked into them now. “But besides that—I’m really just an ordinary man, Lucy.”

“There’s nothing ordinary about you.”

He shrugged, lowered his gaze. “I just … I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

“Afraid of you?” She continued to stare at him, her mind lost in wonder. “You’re some kind of an angel, or … or a superhero. I’m not afraid of you.”

“Good.” He met her eyes again, and for the first time she saw his smile. “Good.” Then he took her arm, and they started back toward the car.

“How did you find me?”

“All too easily, I’m afraid,” he said, opening her door for her.

She got in, and he rounded the front of the car and got in, as well.

“What do you mean?” she asked when he was seated.

“I need to know how you escaped,” he told her.

She shook her head. “As I said before, I didn’t. I was there—”

“Where?”

She frowned, thinking back. “I don’t know. I was unconscious for most of the ambulance ride—they drugged me. I woke in a hospital-like room, but it wasn’t a hospital. Or at least, not an ordinary one. I was interrogated as if I were a terrorist or something.”

“About what?” he asked. “The shooting?”

“A little. But mostly about you, and then they started asking me about my blood type, which is rare. And I have no idea how they knew that.” She shook her head, more confused than ever. “Much less why they would even care. Eventually they fed me, and then I was out again. I suspect they drugged the food.”

“Probably.”

“I woke up on the beach.” She met his eyes. “And you were there.”

He had been about to put the car into gear and pull away, but he stopped in midmotion and looked at her. “They just let you go? Just dumped you on that beach for me to find?”

“I don’t know that they could have expected you to be the one to find me there, but yes.”

“Oh, they expected it.” He drew a deep breath. “Do you trust me, Lucy?”

She tilted her head to one side, searching his eyes. “I think so, yes.”

“Good, because I have to ask you to do something for me.”

She nodded. “I guess I owe you a favor, given that you’ve saved my life—maybe twice now. What is it?”

“Take off your clothes.”

5

James tried not to notice the things he couldn’t help but notice as the frightened, introverted professor stood behind a conveniently located grove of trees in her bra and white cotton panties, with her arms up over her head.

He tried not to notice, but he noticed anyway. Her skin, smooth and tight. Her lean body. She wasn’t curvy. She didn’t have mounds of cleavage busting out of a lacy push-up bra. She was lean and toned. Her skin didn’t sport a dark coppery tan but was almost as pale as his undead relatives’.

And warm, as he ran his hands over it. From her shoulders to her wrists. Underneath her arms and down to her lithe waist and then to the barely flaring hips. From her soft belly over her rib cage and all around her breasts, all the while trying not to touch the breasts themselves. Then he turned her and examined her nape, her shoulder blades, her lower back. He stopped where the underpants began, crouching down to begin checking those long, lean legs of hers.

He found the telltale bump, no bigger than a mosquito bite, in the delicate crease where buttocks met thigh, and she jumped when he ran his finger over it.

“Hey!”

Her voice was raspy, a little bit breathless. She was either humiliated or as turned on as he was, and then he wondered if it might be a little bit of both.

“Sorry. It’s right here.”

“What’s right here?”

“I’ll show you in a sec. Grab hold of the tree, this might pinch a little.”

She did as he told her, and he squeezed the tiny bump like a blackhead. It popped like one, too, except that the object that came out of it was tiny and metal.

To her credit, she didn’t squeal. She flinched hard and sucked in a sharp breath, but that was all.

He said, “All done,” and held the thing on the tip of his forefinger as she turned.

She frowned at it, wishing for her glasses. “What is it?”

“A tracking device. It sends out an electronic signal so that someone on the other end knows where you are at all times.”

Lifting her eyes to his, she said, “They put that in me?”

He nodded at her clothes where they were hanging over a nearby limb. “Better get dressed. Now that we’re rid of this, we can be on our way.”

“But why?” she asked, grabbing the jeans and stepping into them. “I mean, if they wanted me, why let me go? And if they didn’t want me, why implant that … that thing in me?”

“So you could lead them to me,” he told her.

She stopped with the shirt in her hand and studied him for a long moment, then resumed dressing. “Why are they looking for you?”

“Because I’m different. And with the DPI, that’s pretty much all the reason they need.”

“What’s the DPI?”

“A government agency,” he said, and didn’t elaborate. Instead, he refocused on the device, already thinking up ways to get rid of the little unit. “You ready?”

“Yes. Ready.” She looked at his hand. “Are you going to crush it under your shoe, or bury it, maybe throw it into a stream or something?”

“Or something,” he told her. And then he started walking back toward the car. As they reached the winding road, he waited. Two other cars went by, followed by a pickup, all headed in the direction she and James had come from. When the truck passed, he tossed the tiny unit and it landed right where he intended it to: in the bed.

“Now they’ll be looking for us in the opposite direction.”

“You’re brilliant.”

He smiled at her and opened her door. “You can barely keep your eyes open, can you?”

“No.” She got in, leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

“Maybe you can relax enough to sleep for the rest of the ride. They can’t follow us now, and I think you’re finally convinced that I’m one of the good guys.” It was a real shame he was going to have to prove otherwise to her when they reached their destination, he thought grimly. But in this case, the ends justified the means. And he couldn’t be sure she would refuse to help his cause, once they got there, so maybe she could go on thinking he wore a white hat.

But if she did balk, then he would have to force her cooperation.

For a moment he went still, stunned by his own train of thought. That was not the kind of thing James Poe ever did. Force someone to do something they didn’t want to do. Much less someone like her. Innocent, frightened, delicate.

Beautiful.

He wondered what was happening to the moral code he’d lived by for his entire life. But he didn’t really have a choice in the matter. The existence of his entire race was at stake.

Brigit paced and worried. She had taken Aunt Rhi’s advice and headed into her bedroom for a nap, but she had awakened the moment she sensed that J.W. was gone. She felt him more acutely than she felt anyone else. Upon rising, she’d made the unfortunate choice to turn on one of the twenty-four-hour news channels to hear what was being said about the events of the night before.

Veteran newsman Matthew Christopher was in the middle of interviewing a suit-wearing politician who spoke as if from memory. “Lester Folsom’s book was pulled for reasons of national security, Matt,” he said, as if speaking to a slow student who didn’t quite get the point. “As demented as poor Mr. Folsom was, we can’t ignore the fact that he did indeed work as a covert agent, and in that capacity, he was privy to massive amounts of sensitive information.”

“Apparently enough to get him shot,” the newsman replied.

“No one has proven that the murder had anything to do with—”

“Don’t give me that,” Matthew interrupted. “A guy’s about to release a tell-all, an exposé, about his work as a covert op, and he gets blown away, execution-style, on the eve of that. Do I look like I was born yesterday?”

“Matt, you’re not giving me a chance to explain—”

“There are sources, Mr. Jenner, who say Folsom’s work involved the paranormal. The unknown. Some of the blogs are claiming he was about to reveal the actual existence of a race of vampires. How do you respond to that?”

The guest made a face. “Anyone can post anything on the internet. You know that. No right-minded person would believe—”

“We might know what to believe if the storm troopers hadn’t raided every book distribution center in the country, destroying every copy in existence so none of us could read for ourselves …”

“You’d be reading fiction. With just enough real information thrown in to cause serious problems.”

“Are you concerned at all about rumors that there were a handful of advance copies floating around? That WikiLeaks has published what they claim are actual excerpts from the Folsom manuscript on their website?”

The bureaucrat measured his words. “As far as we know, we’ve managed to find every copy.”

“It’s for sure you got all of Folsom’s. And his notes, and everything else he had in his house in the Caribbean. Relatives claim soldiers gutted the place.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“They say you stripped it to the bare walls. Even rolled up the carpets.”

“Well, I wasn’t a part of that team, and I’m sure the family’s feeling very violated, and perhaps, in their grief, might just be blowing things a tiny bit out of pro—”

“Tell me this, Mr. Jenner. Is there, or has there ever been, a secret division of the CIA devoted to investigating cases involving the paranormal?”

Jenner looked Matthew Christopher right in the eye, leaning slightly forward in his seat. “Absolutely not.”

“Who shot Lester Folsom, Mr. Jenner?”

“We don’t know. But believe me, the murder of a CIA operative, even a retired one like Folsom, is something we take very seriously. We’ve put every resource we have on this, and we will not rest until Lester Folsom’s murderer is—”

Brigit clicked the remote control, accidentally hitting the channel selector rather than the off button. The riot taking place on the TV screen held her riveted. Flames were licking at the early morning sky, devouring what looked like a brownstone. The tagline on the bottom read Riots Break Out in Brooklyn. The reporter was saying that a gang of self-proclaimed vigilantes apparently believed the residents of the two-family building were vampires, and so they’d set the place on fire and burned them alive.

She hit the remote again, turning the TV off, and closed her eyes. Where are you, big brother? The world is going insane, and it’s not safe out there for you.

He spoke to her mentally. I’ve got the professor.

You rescued her alone?

They let her go. Planted a chip, but I tossed it. We’re on our way.

Not here, Brigit replied, her lips moving as if to give more emphasis to her words. It’s not safe. Word’s out. Vigilante vampire hunters just murdered two families in Brooklyn. As soon as the sun sets, I’m taking Aunt Rhi and getting out of here.

Go to the Byram house, her brother told her. They think we abandoned it long ago.

Good idea.

Be careful, Bridge.

I will, bro. You, too. See you in Byram. Wait till after dark.

See you there, he assured her.

Brigit closed the channels of her mind, just in case there might be anyone around trying to pick up on mental transmissions. God, if the mortal world truly knew they existed … then they’d be lucky if any of them managed to survive.

She must have slept all day, Lucy thought as she came slowly awake. The sun was gone, having set beyond the distant horizon sometime before she lifted her head to stare through the car’s windshield.

They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, driving along a narrow, twisting, dark road without a painted line or a streetlight in sight. The pavement was cracked and littered with potholes, and the edges were disintegrating chunks of broken asphalt. Forests stood clothed in a misty purple haze in the distance, and just as she was about to ask where in the name of creation they were, they rounded a hairpin curve and she saw a mansion straight out of an old Saturday afternoon creature feature.

It rose, gothic and dark, with countless sharp spires stabbing into the deepening twilight sky. A few of its arched windows were lit, but most remained black, like sad, vacant eyes. And the wrought-iron fence that rose tall around the outside leaned lazily this way and that, as if its spearlike points were tired of standing guard.

To Lucy’s horror, James turned into the twisting dirt path that passed for a driveway, passing in through the open gate and driving nearer the house she was sure must have been the setting for a plethora of Vincent Price films.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Don’t panic, okay? I know it’s scary looking, but it’s just a house, and it’s one of the few where they won’t be looking for us.”

“They aren’t looking for us. They’re looking for you. They let me go, remember?”

“This is just a stop along the way.”

“Where the hell are we? Why did I sleep so long?”

“We’re in Connecticut.” He stopped the car, shut off the engine. “And you slept so long because you were drugged last night, and … and because I told you to.”

“You told me to.” She looked at him as if he were insane.

“The power of suggestion is … it’s another of my …”

“Finally!” The driver’s door was yanked open, and a pair of female arms wrapped themselves around James before he could get out. The newcomer’s blond hair was barely visible from within the car, but her swimsuit-model bosom was level with Lucy’s line of sight as the woman released James to kiss his face, then squeezed him again. Lucy relaxed as she realized that it was just his sister, Brigit. Not that she cared. She was angry, she reminded herself. Which, by the way, was unlike her. She didn’t get angry. She negotiated; she talked things out with reason and with logic. She avoided conflict.

Until she’d been shot down in a Manhattan street and dragged into some kind of intrigue that had nothing to do with her.

“You said you would take me home,” Lucy accused James’s back.

“You said I would take you home. I just didn’t correct you.” His voice was muffled by the hug, until his twin finally released him and straightened away.

“Aunt Rhi and I have been worried sick. You took much longer than we expected. You should have checked in.” She peeked around him, smiled and bent down a little to wave her fingers at Lucy. “How are you doing, Professor?”

“I just want to go home.”

“Yeah, you look good and pissed off.” Brigit grinned. “Glad to see you have it in you, to be honest.”

Then Lucy’s door was pulled open, and she turned and lifted her head, startled, to find herself staring up into the powerful eyes of a woman who was frightening in her beauty, regal in her bearing and intimidating in her glare.

“One would expect a woman plucked from the very jaws of death itself to show a little gratitude. Wouldn’t one?”

She didn’t speak so much as purr her words, her voice deep and resonant and menacing.

“Of course I’m grateful. I just … none of this has anything to do with me. I’ve been through hell, and I want to go home.”

“Oh, well, that’s different then,” the woman said. She looked up, over the hood of the car, to the two on the other side. “She wants to go home, poor little thing. That changes everything, doesn’t it? Including the fact that our entire race is facing annihilation?” She snapped her eyes back to Lucy’s, and before Lucy could blink, she was pulled from the car, and lifted off her feet and into the air.

The regal one, her endless raven locks waving in the breeze as if with a life of their own, glared up at her, baring her teeth to reveal fangs that gleamed. She was holding Lucy up with one hand, clutching the bunched-up front of her borrowed shirt. And by her side, a black panther—a black freaking panther—crouched and snarled, baring its fangs, as well.

Lucy couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream. She was silent and shaking, and her heart pounded at a rate that had to be dangerous to her health.

“Put her down, Aunt Rhi.” James’s voice was firm as he came around the car and put one hand on the woman’s shoulder. “She’s here to help us, after all.”

“Pitiful that the salvation of our race lies in the hands of this puling, weak little mortal.” But the woman did lower Lucy to the ground.

Lucy looked back toward the gate at the entrance to this horror film set, her entire being itching to run. But there were others standing there now. And she thought they might be vampires, like this dark-haired one, who surely must be their queen. One of them even wore a cloak that floated and snapped in the wind.

Lucy shot an accusing look toward James, who’d saved her, only to pitch her into a pit of vipers more dangerous than the one he’d pulled her from. He was no hero, no angel. He was one of them.

And why did that realization bring such a crushing sense of disappointment with it?

“Only partly,” he said aloud. “I’m part human, too.”

She blinked in shock. “Did you … did you just …?”

“Hear your thoughts? Yes, I did. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude, but you were sort of shouting them at me.”

“At us all,” the one he’d called Aunt Rhi muttered, stroking the panther’s head. The cat pressed up against her hand like a devoted pet.

“Brigit and I are the two who are like no other,” James went on. “Part vampire, part human. The Light and the Darkness. Opposite, and yet the same.”

“One the destroyer, the other the salvation,” Lucy whispered, and in her memory she heard again Lester Folsom’s shocked words as he’d read the prophecy.

This is about the mongrel twins.

“Exactly,” James said. “We need your help, Lucy. We need your help to figure out how it is that we can avert the disaster predicted in that prophecy. The vampire Armageddon.”

“And you’re going to give it to us,” Rhiannon informed her. “Eagerly, willingly and completely. Anything less, and you’ll become … kitty treats.”

Her pet growled as if on cue, and Lucy tried to hide the chill that tiptoed up her spine.