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50
Monsters Cannot Love
CassidytriedtoignoreFrancesca practicing with the light gun. Every time the awkward device whined to life, painting a neat circle of brilliance on the rug, the wall, the bed, the table, she shuddered a little. She could almost smell Dominique’s roasting skin again.
“You probably shouldn’t run down the battery on that thing.”
Francesca turned off the gun and placed it in her lap, covering it with her elegant hands, which looked like they had never held a weapon more dangerous than a paring knife. “So you do believe we might need this…this gun?”
“I don’t see how. But since we have it, we might as well keep it operational.” The monstrosity—a clunky early version of the full-spectrum torches the Strikers used now—had shown up in Francesca’s luggage along with several small canisters of silver dust spray. A gift from Garrett, Cassidy suspected, one she had been all for abandoning with their luggage back at Le Germain Hotel. As per the plan she and Dominique had hatched, no one, not even she, would know where she and Francesca would end up. Therefore, no weapons would be required.
Francesca disagreed. She had stuffed the lot into a satchel and slung this over her shoulder like a coat of armor. Cassidy sighed and nodded. There was no point in telling her that if a vampire came close enough for them to have to use these weapons, it would be too late.
Cassidy returned the remains of the turkey sandwich to its bag. She had picked it up this afternoon during their random travels on Calgary’s public transit systems, which had landed them here at a Best Western on the outskirts of the city. The hotel was far from the downtown Le Germain in both distance and luxury. With a little luck, this translated into being well off the radar of any vampires in the area.
When she turned to the side to take a peek past the drawn curtains, her belly twinged. Dominique’s blood had done all it could to put her guts back together in record time, but her middle still felt like a ragged hollow, especially during the day. Last night, with Dominique at her side, his sober acceptance of what they lost permeated her. But at daybreak, everything changed. The child, that tiny part of him that had been with her twenty-four seven, was no more and would never be again. If she weren’t running for her life, she would have curled up in a ball and howled.
Outside, the day had long melted into night. Dominique wasn’t close enough for her to hear his thoughts, but she sensed his continued presence in the world. For now, that would have to do. One more night on her own. Then she could afford to fall apart.
She dropped the curtain and handed Francesca one of the silver spray containers. “Here. Hold on to this.” Another one went into the back pocket of her jeans beneath the hem of a bulky sweatshirt.
Francesca studied the innocuous weapon before slipping it into the pocket of her designer slacks. “It is hard to believe that they should be so fragile, given what they are.”
“Sensitive,” Cassidy corrected. “What they are is sensitive. A little light and silver will cause them grief, but it won’t kill a vampire.” At least not one that wasn’t confined to a cage. What she knew of Garrett’s interrogation practices still screamed in the back of her mind. The urge to pull the silver from her pocket and hurl it across the room was almost overwhelming.
“Do you know how many he has killed?”
Cassidy gave a derisive snort. “I’m not sure even Garrett knows how many he’s turned to ash. Hundreds for sure. Maybe thousands.” Reading Francesca’s expression as shock at the revelation about her suitor, she added, “The hunt is his life’s purpose. He’s good at it.”
Francesca’s hands closed on the light gun. “I meant…Dominique. How many…people has he killed?”
Ice slid down Cassidy’s spine.
“He says he no longer kills when he…drinks.” Delicate fingers described a circle near her throat before returning to the weapon. “But that means he did kill at some point,non?”
“At some point,” Cassidy conceded faintly.
“Do you know? How many?”
Quite a few. Dominique’s early, out-of-control hunts had produced a great deal of carnage, details of which she often wished she didn’t know as well as she did. She pressed her hands together between her knees and tried to sound casual. “Why would you want to know such a thing?”
“Because he…he is my son.” She tucked her lock of silver hair behind one ear and moistened her lips. “I want to know what his life has been like. And I do not believe he has told me everything about what happened to him. Has he?”
No point denying that. Cassidy didn’t even try. Neither was she about to volunteer anything. She managed a tiny smile. “He has told you everything he can live with, Francesca. The rest—” She shook her head. “The rest are private demons that will haunt him for the rest of…well, time, I guess.”
“He feels remorse?”
Francesca’s doubtful tone grated on Cassidy’s nerves. “Yes. He does. To a degree incomprehensible by human minds. The same as he feels everything else. Your son bears the scars of what happened to him, but he is the same man. Only his body has changed.”
The older woman’s eyes crinkled with tension. “He was always such a loving and happy young man. Now…so much darkness.”
“He is reshaping the world of night to suit him. It’s why he’s out there right now teaching a thousand-year-old monster to love.”
She looked away, thoughtfully stroking the gun in her lap. Her words, when they came, were barely more than a breath. “Monsters cannot love.”
Cassidy stared at her, speechless. During the flight, when Francesca had skirted a full-blown panic attack, Dominique had pounded the last nail into the coffin containing his human life by compelling his mother. Around vampires she was to never know fear, he told her. Nor would any other compulsion ever influence her. But how she felt about the supernatural—about him—he had left untouched.
And here it was.
