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“Why?”
He gives me a look like, why do you think?
“Vampires aren’t supposed to kill without reason,” I go on. “Did Alice kill her for her blood?”
He rubs his lips together and looks back to the road. “I’m sure that was part of it.”
“You’re not telling me something,” I say. “Why did Alice kill Tabitha?”
He exhales, kneading the steering wheel. “It’s a long story, Lenore,” he says and then honks the horn, sticking his head out the window. “Come on, what’s the hold up?!”
I sigh, staring at the side mirror, watching the traffic line up behind us. I don’t know why the hell he’s being so cagey about my real vampire mother, but I have a feeling it isn’t good. Maybe he doesn’t want to tell me anything more without my mother around, since it was her sister after all.
“Oh, here comes someone, maybe they’ll tell us what’s happening,” my father says, but I pay him no attention, hoping that Alice was just an ordinary morally gray vampire and not someone horrible, because I’m not sure I could take it.
“Excuse me, sir, do you happen to know what’s happening up ahead?” my father says, and I turn my head to look at who he’s talking to.
A man lowers his head, peering in through my father’s window, staring straight at me. Grey hair, black brows, black eyes.
Brimstone fills my nose.
I open my mouth to scream but he’s fast.
Because he’s a vampire.
Yanik.
“Hello Lenore,” he says, smiling with fangs, which he then promptly places in my father’s neck, biting down with a splash of blood.
My scream finally comes through and I thrash, trying to free myself from the seatbelt, trying to fight him off, protect my father, whose only screams are drowning in his throat.
Then Yanik unhooks his jaw and rips open the door, dragging my father out of the car and dumping him in the middle of the street.
Yanik gets in the car in a flash, and then he’s driving up the street on the other side of the road, into incoming traffic, narrowly taking out pedestrians and the people who have come out to see what’s happened.
I’m still screaming, twisting in my seat to see my father lying in the road, people rushing to his side, and then I’m finally free of my seatbelt and putting my hands on the door, trying to escape.
“Sleep,” Yanik says in a deep voice, brushing his thumb over my forehead, and then suddenly the world goes black.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I’m dreaming again.
Except the dream has changed.
Instead of the frozen wasteland of rolling hills and snow, I’m in a barn surrounded by fog. It’s dusty, smells of old forgotten hay, and spider webs, and mice. It also smells like blood, if blood had been infused with tar and poison.
I’m sitting in a chair in the middle of this barn, a red circle of blood drawn around me. On the other side of the blood are members of the Dark Order. Wearing their cloaks, the strands of red hanging from their hoods like waterfalls of blood, right to the floor.
They stare at me and I can feel their teeth sharpening behind the veils. There must be a dozen of them, all of them in a prayer pose, palms pressed together, and yet I can tell they’re ready to pounce.
And it’s quiet.
Too quiet.
Not a single breath.
Then the scent of brimstone fills my nose, an awful, malevolent smell, and suddenly the fear flooding through my veins becomes real. Very real.
Because I’m starting to think that this isn’t a dream at all.
I’m starting to think this is real, just as everything comes crashing back to me.
Being in my father’s car, stuck in traffic in the city, a vampire at the window.
Biting my father’s neck.
The blood.
My screams.
And that’s when I see him.
Walking around the circle, behind the creatures in their cloaks, prowling like a predator, is Yanik. His face keeps disappearing as he paces behind their hoods, but I still feel his cold eyes on me, piercing through.
“Lenore Warwick,” Yanik says to me, continuing to pace, his hands behind his back. “I can’t begin to tell you how long I’ve waited for you. You’re so young that you don’t understand the concept of time yet, but let me tell you, it feels like eternity.”
I stiffen in my chair, adrenaline spiking through my system as I’m finally realizing that I’m here, really here, and this is happening. I’m not just sitting here politely, I’m tied to the chair, much like Solon had tied me so long ago. But even though I’ve changed since then, as I test my strength against the ropes, straining, I realize I’m just as helpless as before.
Back then, I didn’t know if Solon was going to kill me or not.
Now I know Yanik means to.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Yanik surmises, continuing to prowl. “You’re wondering, why you? What makes you so special? The thing is, darling, that’s something I aim to find out. You see, I was entrusted with testing you, to see how much of a threat you are.”
