Midnight Predator Part 9

"Answer for an answer?" she translated. At Jaguar's nod, she explained as succinctly as possible, "My father took me to New York for my eighteenth birthday, to see a musical. We got in late, and my father went to bed, but I stayed in the hotel lobby to people-watch. I was a nave idiot; when Daryl came up to me, I didn't think past the fact that he was handsome and seemed to be flirting. We were in an open area, surrounded by people. No danger. I never recognized what he was-never even knew vampires existed-until he bit me."

"Daryl's line is weak physically," Jaguar commented, "but if you let one of them in your mind you won't ever think to fight them.

Against an unprotected human mind, he wouldn't need to be strong."

Turquoise raised one brow. "Apparently he did need to be." She finished the story quickly. "Or maybe he was just careless. Either way, he didn't manage to catch my mind. I started to fight him, smashed my soda gla.s.s against his temple, kicked . . ." She remembered fondly that memory, less fondly the one after. "I caused enough of a scene that he couldn't keep people from noticing, and had to let me go . . . for the moment, anyway."

Jaguar nodded, knowing the gist of the rest, if not the details. Daryl did not kill most of his prey, but he did not like losing one. If Catherine had not fought him, her interaction with the world of vampires might have ended on that night. But thwarted once, Daryl had been twice as determined to claim her.

"Daryl hates you too much to have let you go willingly," Jaguar observed, "and even with his temper, he wouldn't have scarred you unless he planned to kill you. Yet you somehow managed to get out and become a hunter. How?"

"I fought him. I got out. I joined Bruja, " Turquoise answered vaguely, her tone adding the words end of subject. One of Nathaniel's conditions for his help had been her silence about his part in her escape. "What about my question?"

"Jes.h.i.+ckah picks her trainers for physical beauty, mental acuity, moral void, and what she calls a trainer instinct-the instinct to watch a person, determine her weaknesses, and destroy her." He paused, and then added, "I had shown a knack for such. It also didn't hurt that Jes.h.i.+ckah had a fondness for shape-s.h.i.+fter blood." He said the words dispa.s.sionately, the same way Ravyn had referred to her master's taste for "exotics." Turquoise wondered if she would ever be able to look at her own experience as a slave so unemotionally.

Turquoise had seen how deeply Jes.h.i.+ckah's claws of owners.h.i.+p went. Unless she counted the years before his father had sold him-a very small portion of his long life-Jaguar had never been free.

Physical beauty and mental acuity-Turquoise could still see those descriptions applying to Jaguar. Moral void, she could not.

"What changed?" she asked.

"A hundred years without Jes.h.i.+ckah," Jaguar answered. He spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. "There was a slave of mine who survived when Midnight burned. I had owned her since she was four, when I had bought her in one of my many attempts to annoy Jes.h.i.+ckah-she had been born blind, and Jes.h.i.+ckah had been planning to kill her." He smiled a bit at the memory. "She was faultlessly obedient. That was unsurprising; she had been raised a slave in Midnight. Only after Midnight burned did I realize that I had never once struck her. I had never needed to."

He sighed, his expression distant. "Over the years I realized I didn't want to own her; I wanted to know her. I enjoyed her company, especially once she grew brave enough to speak freely with me. She trusted me implicitly, and I was wary of betraying that trust.

"I'd had people fear me, hate me, envy me. . . ." He shook his head. "Trust was new, and it was precious. It took me a long time to figure out how I had managed to earn it."

"And when you did?" Turquoise asked, caught up in the story.

"I realized I didn't think of her as a slave, and that I hadn't treated her like one since Midnight's walls fell. You can't earn a slave's trust, or loyalty-only her obedience. But blind obedience doesn't make for interesting conversation or companions.h.i.+p; I prefer spending time with a defiant equal more than an obsequious slave." Jaguar shrugged. "I'd be lying if I said I always enjoy the challenge. The relations.h.i.+p between master and slave is clear-cut, easy, and sometimes it's tempting to slip into the familiar role and demand submission from someone who is refusing to give me what I want."

"Such as?" Turquoise pried, thinking of how easily he had ordered Daryl away, and wondering whether that was an example of his giving into temptation, or simply a good decision.

Jaguar laughed a little, shaking off the question. "You don't want to know the answer to that one."

She frowned, wondering if he was laughing at her or at himself.

"We should go outside," Jaguar said. "I need to find Jes.h.i.+ckah before she starts hurting my people, and the courtyard is the only area in this building that's free from Daryl."

He escorted her to the courtyard, his mood contemplative. Heavy clouds hid stars and moon from sight, and Turquoise welcomed the darkness that matched her mood.

She jumped as Jaguar caught her shoulders, pulling her forward in an impulsive embrace. He kissed the top of her head.

"I know," he said, holding her loosely enough that she knew she could pull away if she tried, "that you are going to disappear as soon as I turn my back."

Turquoise did not argue; there was no point to it.

"That being so, I have one favor to ask. " He nodded toward the alcove where he usually napped during the day, and Turquoise's eyes reluctantly made out Eric's form there. The boy was watching them warily, as if thinking he should leave but not wanting to. "Take him with you?"

"What?"

Eric would be a liability. If Turquoise had to protect him, that would make facing anyone she encountered on the way out more difficult. Eric would slow her down. Unless Jaguar was willing to help . . . no. Jaguar would give her the opportunity to leave, but he couldn't afford to help her.

Jaguar all but echoed her thoughts. "In a couple weeks, Jes.h.i.+ckah will be . . . out of the way. Until then, she's going to cause trouble. I doubt she'll kill me." Isn't that rea.s.suring? Turquoise thought, as Jaguar continued, "But she won't hesitate to hurt me, or to go through my possessions to do so. She knows I'm fond of you, but you can handle yourself against Jes.h.i.+ckah. Eric . . ." He shook his head. "He's tough, but he's a kid. I can protect him against almost anyone else, but Jes.h.i.+ckah could destroy him, and she will, because she knows I would keep him safe."

What on Earth would Turquoise do with a kid once she got out? Eric had no place in Bruja-he was a victim, not a fighter-but Bruja was all Turquoise knew. Bringing this boy along would play h.e.l.l with her plans.

But leaving him behind would be leaving him to die.

She nodded sharply.

"After you get out, I recommend laying low until Jes.h.i.+ckah's gone. She'll be raising merry h.e.l.l."

Turquoise smiled wryly.

He hesitated, and Turquoise could read fear, desire, longing, and an oversized portion of regret on his face. "I doubt you'll want to come back to my world, even after Jes.h.i.+ckah is gone. Would you mind if I came to visit yours?"

Turquoise swallowed, trying to shove down the lump of nervousness in her throat. Jaguar had disrupted her life enough as it was.

Eric was going to mess it up even more. Continuing her a.s.sociation with the vampire any longer than necessary was a bad idea.

"I'm planning to disappear for a while," she answered. "If I don't want you to find me, you won't." That was honest, and it would give her a chance to think.

He accepted the answer. "Best of luck, Audra."

And then the world s.h.i.+fted, and he was gone.

CHAPTER 16

THE AIR BARELY CLOSED on the s.p.a.ce Jaguar had occupied when Turquoise turned to examine the wall. The natural stones would be perfect for climbing, with plenty of handholds; scaling it would be easy.

Reluctantly, she turned toward Eric. He was fourteen, still a kid no matter what he had seen. He needed a family; instead, he had Midnight. He needed a father; instead, he had Jaguar, who was so tangled in webs of dominance he could hardly help himself.

She was getting sentimental, and that was dangerous. Time to get out of Midnight while she still could.

"Do you want to come with me?" she offered, while the sane part of her mind berated her with every possible insult it could consider.

Eric nodded.

"It's going to be rough," she warned. "I'm no good at taking care of other people." A vision of Tommy a.s.saulted her suddenly, a vision of Daryl striking him down. She tried to shake it off, but it wouldn't disappear.

"I'm okay at taking care of myself," Eric a.s.sured her.

Please, don't let me let him get hurt, Turquoise pleaded of whatever powers existed.

"We're going over the back wall. Stay low at the top. Can you climb?" she asked belatedly.

Eric nodded.

Turquoise boosted the boy up, making sure he could find handholds in the rough stone before she followed. They stayed low on the roof to avoid making themselves into silhouettes, and crossed quickly to the back.

The wall here was smooth, and offered no purchase for climbing down. The guard was nowhere to be seen as Turquoise turned and gripped the edge, lowering herself as far as possible before letting go and falling. The impact was jarring, but she knew how to take a fall. She reached up to catch Eric, who mimicked her strategy.

Turquoise's peripheral vision caught movement the instant Eric dropped, a faint blur of color-a cougar. She saw its muscles bunch to pounce.

She twisted awkwardly, pus.h.i.+ng Eric behind herself and out of the cougar 's way. Off balance, she took the brunt of the creature's initial rush; stars spattered her vision as her back struck the gravel, and she felt claws bite into her skin.

The guard's hesitation was her salvation. Turquoise belonged to Midnight, and the cougar was reluctant to permanently damage her. Turquoise took the moment to get a knee between herself and the cat and shoved full force, sending the guard stumbling a couple feet.

Turquoise was now at a disadvantage. She wasn't sure what the best way to fight a large feline was, but run and hide sounded like her best option. She thought she could make it over the gate before the cougar could follow, if she could delay it long enough for Eric to get out of the way first.

"Eric, over the fence," she ordered. The cougar moved to intercept the boy, and Turquoise pounced, throwing her entire weight against the cat 's side. It snarled, turning on her.

Luckily, the shape-s.h.i.+fter was just trying to contain Turquoise as it waited for its master to appear. Turquoise was grateful for the guard's unwillingness to harm its employer's property, and tumbled at the large cat recklessly, keeping it occupied as Eric scaled the fence.

The hair on the back of Turquoise's neck rose as a familiar aura brushed her senses.

Daryl. She turned and struck in one movement. It's just Daryl. Not Lord, not Master. Just Daryl.

This creature was only another leech, no matter what else he had been to her in the past. He was vulnerable, and she had spent the last two years of her life learning how to make use of that fact. Unfortunately, without a weapon, she still stood about as much chance as a Hawaiian snowman. Still, she would fight rather than submit to this beast.

Her first blow caught Daryl in the solar plexus; it was not as incapacitating a blow on a vampire as it would have been to a human, but it did hurt, and interrupted any attack he had been making. At the same time she knocked out his knee with a side kick, striking just below the joint in a move banned from martial arts compet.i.tions because it was crippling to a human.

Crippling for a vampire meant he stumbled. The joint dislocated, and Daryl tumbled with a curse. A dislocated knee, which on a human might never completely heal, would take a vampire two or three minutes to recover from.

Daryl had a low pain tolerance for one of his kind; as she fought, she saw that weakness come into play. He had been startled by her initial attack, and now pain was making him take too long to defend himself.

A fight between a vampire and a human almost always goes one of two ways: either it ends instantly, or the human dies. A vampire is stronger, faster, and can heal more than any human. If a fight lingers, the human will always tire first. Once prepared for a fight, all a vampire needs to do is wait, providing minimal exertion to defend himself.

She had a chance for one more attack while Daryl was bent over, a side kick to his temple. It was a risky move; he could catch her foot and tear it off if he recovered enough to react. However, a broken neck would get him out of her hair long enough for her to get away.

Daryl did not manage to turn her attempt against her, but he did get out of the way to turn her paralyzing attack into a minimal nuisance.

Nursing his injured knee, the vampire did not bother to stand. He swiped Turquoise's back leg out from under her before she had recovered her balance from the miss, and the only thing she could do was control the fall.

She let herself fall away from Daryl, so that when she landed she was the perfect distance for another kick to his already broken knee.

She turned quickly, but Daryl was quicker. Still fighting from the ground, he dragged her to him and hit her squarely across the jaw. He did not need to bother striking sensitive areas or waiting for opportunity; his strength made any blow strong enough to daze.

Turquoise turned her face away from the blow, moving with it to absorb the brunt of the force and retaliating at the same time.

Sparks crossed her vision even as her attack snapped the weak floating rib off Daryl's rib cage, driving it back and causing him to release her.

He rolled away, and shoved himself up. She did the same, both of them momentarily too hurt to press an advantage.

She got to her feet first; Daryl was still struggling with his knee. He wasn 't in too much of a hurry. Most vampires instinctively discounted humans as a threat, no matter how many kills a hunter had on her record or how the fight was going. Vampires were called "immortal," after all. No human could kill them. Daryl was pus.h.i.+ng up from his knees when Turquoise repeated her earlier attempted attack, striking his head hard and fast. She felt the impact all the way up her leg as the kick made contact, the resistance of bone that gave way with a crunch.

His neck snapped, and the vampire tumbled back to the ground. A broken neck is paralyzing to any creature, even one that can survive and heal the injury.

Turquoise hated running, but short of tearing Daryl's head off, she knew no way to kill a vampire without a weapon. Like most humans, she wasn't strong enough for bare-handed decapitation.

But retreat chafed on her nerves. One thing Crimson always taught: eliminate your enemies. Leaving prey alive gave it a chance to recover and win the advantage next time. A second fight rarely went as well as the first.

The cougar had fled somewhere during her fight with Daryl, probably distressed to see the vampire losing. Eric was waiting for her on the other side of the iron fence.

She barely remembered scaling the fence. She remembered Eric asking if she was okay, and nodding sharply before leading the way into the forest behind Midnight. She had no idea how far away the town was, but she would not stop until they were out of Jaguar's land.

Later, she could examine the painful swelling of her jaw. Later, she could wash and bandage the wounds from the cougar 's claws. Later, she could pause to wonder what on earth she was going to do with a fourteen-year-old boy. Now, she just wanted to go to ground and disappear.

They reached town at a slow limp at about noon. Eric obviously wasn 't used to so much walking, but he never complained.

Turquoise's adrenaline carried her through the many miles, leaving her with the focused energy and feeling of immortality that always followed a fight. More than anything, she wanted to go back and pound the cougar, which must have called to Daryl when Jaguar did not respond to its summons.

Instead, she found a pay phone in some hole-in-the-wall town a couple miles down from the end of Jaguar's territory. The street signs declared this to be Main Street, in some town called Logging.

"Yes?" Nathaniel's faint voice over the static-filled telephone wires was the sweetest sound she had ever heard.

"It's Turquoise," she said quickly. "I need a place to stay for a couple days where I can't be tracked."

"Until the waters cool?" Nathaniel responded. "I've got a place you can borrow. I'll lend you some cash so you don't get traced pulling out your funds. Tell me where you are and I'll pick you up."

She told him, wondering how much this was going to cost her. It didn't really matter though. She had made enough in Crimson- vampire hunting could be a lucrative business-that she could comfortably retire for the next seventy years if she wanted. Whatever price Nathaniel charged, it would be worth it.

"Wait fifteen minutes so I can make a reservation for you, and then check into the inn down the street. I'm a few hours away, so you'll have a chance to patch up and get some sleep."

Blissful advice.

"I'll see you soon," he bid her. She responded in kind, and then found the phone dead in her hand.

No barter, no price. Nathaniel was as proper a mercenary as there came, and when he made a deal, he kept it. He never forgot to include a price, but he had agreed to give his help without stating one, and couldn't change the terms later.

She would puzzle it out later. For now, she turned back to Eric. "Just a block more, and we can get some sleep." The kid smiled. Smiled, after all he had been through, and despite the exhaustion that was clearly written on his features.

Miracles do still happen after all.