get you out of here.”
“That’s why you’re keeping your … condition … secret?”
Roxy nodded as she hustled them into the elevator. “You want the zoo cages left unlocked, best have a monkey posing as a zookeeper, don’t you think? Now come on. You blow my cover, we’re all done for. And for heaven’s sake, smile. You’ve gotta look like you’re glad to be here. All right?”
“All right.”
They stepped inside, all three of them, and the elevator doors slid closed. As they rode upward, Roxy added, in a very soft whisper, “Don’t let them know she’s different. That would be … bad.”
The mother shifted her blue eyes to the little girl, who stood between the two adults, her knapsack on her back, a teddy bear peeking from the top. Tears shimmered in Jane’s eyes, but she blinked them away and tightened her grip on her daughter’s tiny hand.
3
Bangor, Maine
Brigit smelled death in the air. Death, grief, violence. And something more. She was standing above a demolished street in downtown Bangor, Maine. There was a taste to the night, a scent and a feeling. It smelled this way after lightning struck. After an electrical transformer had blown up, or after a breaker box had short-circuited.
And after she had used her power to blow something to bits.
She would have known what had happened here simply by that smell, even if she hadn’t seen the news reports with her own eyes.
The streets were blocked off. Cops wearing black armbands in honor of their dead stood sentry at every possible access point. But they hadn’t covered the rooftops. Local law enforcement agencies had a lot to learn about the Undead—and their mongrel kin.
Brigit stood on the roof of a hardware store, looking down at the mayhem. Burned-out vehicles, scattered debris. There were still body parts here and there, missed by the EMTs and the crews from the coroner’s office, no matter how thorough they thought they had been. She could smell them. Charred meat had a distinctive aroma, and charred human meat had one all its own. It wasn’t pleasant.
Her nose wrinkled, and she averted her face, closing her eyes against the onslaught of remembered images. But she couldn’t stop the nightmarish scene from playing out in her mind just as it had so recently played out for real on the streets below her. She was too close, her mind too open. She saw the entire encounter play out in her mind’s eye. Utana big and so powerful, but more utterly alone than any man had ever been, cold, wet and shivering in the delivery truck, devouring the stolen food with relish. She felt his awareness of being surrounded, his confusion as to why the humans would want to harm him when his goal was the same as theirs. To exterminate the vampires.
She felt his anger, and she felt, too, his reluctance to do what he had to do—followed slowly by his bitter acceptance of it. He believed the humans had left him no other choice. He believed it completely.
She pressed a hand to her forehead, willing the images away, but they played out all the same. The beam blasting forth from Utana’s eyes. The men—innocent men—being blown literally to pieces. And despite the horror of it, Brigit found herself compelled to examine the images more closely. How had he widened out the beam that way? She couldn’t do that. She had to blow up one thing at a time. How had he managed to broaden its scope to include a wide range of targets all at once? She’d never been able to achieve such a thing.
Hell, if he was more powerful than she was …
No, she wouldn’t think that way. He might be stronger, but she was smarter, faster, more at home in the here and now. Not to mention that she was sane. Oh, she supposed there were some who would debate that, given her hair-trigger temper. But she was at least saner than he was, this man who’d been buried alive for more than fifty centuries.
It wasn’t his fault he was out of his freaking mind, she thought. But that thought, too, she shoved aside.
She started to turn, intending to track him down by following the essence he left in his wake, but then she paused, brought to halt by the vision still unfolding in her head.
Utana himself, his wet bedsheet toga dragging the ground, his long black hair clinging to his powerful shoulders and rain-damp chest, climbing down from the truck and walking slowly among the dead. She felt the waves of regret washing over him with so much force that they left him weak. She felt the tears burning in his eyes. And there were, inexplicably, answering tears welling up in her own.
And then, from directly behind her, he said, “Do you see? The humans—they gave me no choice.”
Her head came up fast, chills racing up her spine at his presence. How? How had he snuck up on her like that? Why hadn’t she felt his approach as she would feel the approach of anyone—mortal or vampire? Had he learned to block his vibrations from others? And at such close range? Impossible.
She turned to face him, trying to erase any hint of fear from her expression. Her eyes were level with his massive chest, and she had to tip her head back to focus on his face.
He met her eyes, and his flashed with recognition. “Brigit. The sister of James.”
“Yes.”
He lowered his head, perhaps unable to hold her gaze, and she sensed he might be ashamed of what he had done. “You are sent for to kill me?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me of your brother and his Lucy. Are they …?”
“They’re fine.”
Unmistakable and unspeakable regret flashed in the depths of his gleaming jet-black eyes. “I wish not to harm you, sister of James.”
“Don’t worry, Utana. You won’t.”
He blinked twice, a frown appearing between his brows. But as he lifted his head and met her eyes again, she saw something more there. A hint of a spark. Perhaps he was rising to the challenge.
“I wish there were another way,” she said. “I hate having to do this to you.”
He almost smiled as he repeated her own words back to her. “Don’t worry, Brigit. You won’t.” And then his teeth bared in a full-on grin. He was very pleased with himself, no doubt at his flawless repetition, right down to the inflection and tone.
She lifted a hand, palm up, fingers loosely resting against her thumb, as he spun and raced across the rooftop, putting some distance between them. She focused on him, flicked her fingers open and released the powerful, deadly beam from her eyes.
As if he felt it coming, Utana tucked and rolled, dodging the flash of laser like light. The chimney behind him exploded. Bricks flew like enormous pieces of shrapnel, but he blocked them with one arm, even as he turned and fired a beam from his own eyes in her general direction.
Brigit dove out of the way, and Utana’s blast of energy blew past her and kept going until it hit a window across the street, shattering it.
Below, the workers cleaning up after the massacre scrambled for cover. People shouted from their crouched positions, looking up and pointing.
From behind a vent fan, Brigit launched another bolt of destructive energy, then raced to the rear of the building. Even as he shot a beam back at her, she jumped, plummeting downward and landing hard in a low crouch that did little to absorb the teeth-jarring impact.
Springing upright again, she ran. Her feet pounded the pavement as she poured on every ounce of human speed she possessed, eager to lead Utana away from anyone who might be harmed in the cross fire. Not that there was any love lost between her and humankind. But her vampire family would frown on unnecessary bloodshed.
Except for Aunt Rhiannon, of course. She would love it.
Brigit dashed down an alley, trying hard to tune out the stench coming from