Chapter Eleven

Matthias Aspen was sitting in class, barely listening to what the teacher was saying. He was bored out his mind, and every once in awhile, his eyes would slowly roll over to the empty seat beside the red head. Lacey What's-her-name. Where was her little friend Manny? She hadn't shown up for their date.

He hadn't minded much. When it became clear she was a no-show and not just running behind, he found a few new girls to flirt with. A smile caressed his lips when he thought of the fun he had had at the Wall.

The door shut from the top of the lecture hall, and Matt glanced back with the rest of the students. A low murmur went through the boys of the class. Matt could hear the whispers, and he agreed with them. It was Manouchka walking in, and she looked good.

There seemed to be a glow of vitality that lit her from within as she sat beside Lacey in her normal seat. Her skin was perfectly smoothed and moved subtly in the dim lights of the hall, reminding Matthias of panther fur. Her eyes, when she scanned the crowd and looked for him, turned gold for a moment when the lights hit them properly. The breath caught in Matt's throat when she spotted him and smiled. Then she tentatively raised her hand to give him a small wave.

Matt returned the wave and then leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbow on his knee. Wow… she'd disappeared for three days and come back stunning. He had to do something about this before someone else noticed and took advantage of it.


He found her after class by her lockers. She still smelled strongly of her shampoo. No wonder she had been late for class. She'd only recently showered.

Manouchka heard him approaching and lifted her head to see him coming down the hallway. She smiled and her teeth were brilliant against her dark skin. Her voice, too, was different. It sounded… older. And prettier. "Hello, Matt."

"Hi, Manny."

She shut her locker door, jacket in her arms. He noticed and jumped the gun. "I'm about to leave, too. Unless you were going to meet Lacey, did you want a ride?"

"You're not upset with me for missing our date?" She shifted her weight uncomfortably. "I was… That is… I'm sorry, Matt. I don't have an excuse for why I wasn't there. Something came up."

"I understand. I just wish that you would have called and told me that you weren't going to be able to make it." She mumbled something, and Matthias thought it sounded like 'If I had been able to call, I would have'. There was a hint of laughter in the tone. "Don't worry. I'm not really upset. I'm sure that you had a good reason for it. It isn't my first time being stood up."

It had been the first time he had ever been stood up, but the lie reassured Manny. She breathed out, exhaling and relaxing. Her smile widened for him, and she looked up at him softly, with a hint of hunger about her. She wasn't quite as sweet and innocent as he had first thought she was.

He ran his hand through his hair, feigning nervousness. He couldn't pull his eyes away from her, and he felt warmth spreading through her. Matt was attracted to her; there was no argument about that.

"What about that ride?" he inquired shyly, nudging her leg with a gentle foot.

Manny jumped out of her dreamy-eyed stare. Her smile was so wide it revealed even white teeth, some of which were a little too sharp to look like a friendly smile. "I'd love one."

Matthias offered her his arm, which she took eagerly, and they fell in stride with one another. She sighed quietly beside him. It was so soft, so faint—like the sound of a child falling asleep. He glanced down at her to find that her eyes were still open and her back was straight. She looked… she looked regal on his arm. Manny noticed him looking and smiled at him.

"I appreciate the ride home."

"Don't worry about it."

Matthias' car was sleek and new. Manny felt like everyone in the parking lot was watching when he opened the car door for her and she slid inside. She'd always wondered if it would make her feel nervous, but it didn't. Knowing that everyone was watching her, envious of the gorgeous man on her arm and her ride home in the cold November weather made her feel good. It wasn't Matthias that made her stand taller, it was pride.

The old Manny that wasn't gorgeous and powerful would have been overwhelmed. The new Manny, with her caramel eyes and sultry expressions, embraced it. She glanced out the window to the bus stop as Matthias climbed into the car. Her tongue licked her lips quickly. She could have any of them. She could have any of the little fawns waiting the bus, just by going up to them and luring them some place secluded. They were full of blood, and they wouldn't miss it when she bit into them…

Immediately, she squashed the thought flat and sternly slumped in her chair, facing forward. That was her new nature talking, she reminded herself, not her. Becoming a vampire would only alter who she was if she let it. She was not going to begin hunting people. She would feed off of donours, and that was it.

"Did you see everyone watching you?" Matt laughed. The key was in the ignition, but he wasn't starting it.

"Yes."

"Every one of them was jealous of us."

"I don't want them to be jealous of me," she admitted bitterly, thinking of the attack from the werewolves. What Manny had was a string of bad luck. She wouldn't curse that on anybody, even if she did have enough good luck to survive it too.

"I was jealous of you."

His words lifted her head. He was staring at her softly. God, he was beautiful. Manny wondered how many art students asked him to model for them. She felt her face grow warm. "Why… why in the world would you be jealous of me?"

He smirked, revealing the dimple. Her heart thumped uncomfortably, and for a moment she remembered Joshua. He didn't have a dimple, and seeing him smile was still enough for that uncomfortable heart-thump. His smile was a rare treasure; Matt's was beautiful, but frequent.

"Well, I suppose I really mean to say that you made me jealous. You make me jealous right now, Manny, because I look over at you, and I know… I know that you missed our date because someone else was making you into a vampire."

Manny froze, half-inclined towards that delicious dimple as she was.

He reached over, and Manny tried to move, but she couldn't. She was too scared. Her fingertips tingled and she began inching her hand toward the handle of the door when she heard him press the lock. Click! His fingers cupped her cheek gently, lifting her head. Her eyes stared up into his, frightened and large.

"Did they tell you when they did it that it's against our laws? Did they tell you the penalty if we caught you trying to become one of us?" Manny searched his face, and then her eyes le[t travelling down the length of his body. Where was his flower? Why didn't he have a flower!? Then Matt smiled, and this time it went beyond his cultivated dimple to reveal fangs. Manny heard an 'eep' and realized belatedly that it was from her. "You should have listened."

Manny realized that she should have. Her family might not have known the difference, but the Night Worlders living silently around her would notice it. She thought of the pack of werewolves—god, she was a stubborn fool sometimes! Of course they would have known that she would have changed! Maybe she was lucky that it was Matt that had found her, but there was something about that smile…

"Who changed you, Manny?"

The question was so sweet for a moment she didn't register the pain that came with telepathy. She wanted to tell him, Matt of the pretty dimple, and she actually opened her mouth before she regained control. She jerked back from him, pressing her back against the door of the vehicle, hands over her mouth to keep from answering. She couldn't tell him! She had to protect Joshua!

Protect? She almost burst out laughing. It wasn't that long ago she was trying to put him in jail!

Heather, then. She had to protect Heather.

Matt frowned. He didn't look so handsome when he frowned. He leaned forward in the car. "Who changed you, Manouchka?"

The question was both telepathic and vocal. Manny's hand tightened around her mouth when the pain burst into her head and she threatened to whimper. Still, she managed to keep her mouth closed, and cursed the fact that she wasn't strong enough to get help.

"Fine," he snarled, his hands still gentle on her skin, even as his voice cut her. "Sleep, then."

Firey spokes stabbed into her skull, making her vision turn white for a second. It was worse than Joshua's telepathy; a thousand times worse. Joshua's voice was strong, but it approached like the tide. The pain came from resisting his wishes, from fighting against the physical pull to give in to what the voice said. Matthias' voice was strong, but it wasn't as old. He used the pain as a whip enforce his commands.

"You have a natural resistance," he said, surprised enough that his jaw fell slack. "It's no doubt stronger now that you're a vampire."

He tried again, and this time, it was the pain that made her pass out, not the order. Matthias was too young to know the difference, and didn't care much either way. Leaning over, he buckled her in, and then started the car.


Manny realized that she was tied into a chair. Her shoulders ached and her wrists felt chafed. The pain and cramping eased up a little when she sat upright in her chair, but she didn't open her eyes yet. She listened first, trying to prepare herself for what she might find.

There were voices above her, muffled. She was tied into a wooden chair. She pulled gingerly at the ropes that bound her arms behind the back of the chair, and found that even with her new vampire strength, she could not break the ropes. In fact, the ropes burned her as she pulled at them, sending the fibers scratching against her skin in painful welts. She seemed to be in a basement, judging from the cold damp—near freezing, actually, but the cold didn't seem to bother her as much now that she was a vampire—and the creaky noises above her. The room was pitch black, but she could make out small windows close to the ceiling that let in scant moonlight bounced into the room off of the layers of snow outside.

How long had she been missing?

"I have her downstairs, father." Manouchka could hear the voices now that she was concentrating on them. "Someone's changed her!"

"Are you sure, boy? She could have been one from the very beginning. I'm not going to stick my neck out if it turns out that she was one of them lost lamia that keeps turning up."

"Father, will you quit talking like some backwards yokel? Damnit. I know the difference between a human and vampire! Especially a made vampire!"

There was a guttural 'harrumph'. "Well, you certainly do sleep with enough of each. If I go down there and find out that she's not a newly made vampire, I'll tan your hide, boy."

Footsteps drew close, passed over head, and then headed away. There was the sound of a door unlocking and then bright light suddenly rushed in from upstairs. It blinded Manny, and she nearly gasped in pain when the lights flicked on in the basement. She ducked her head down as low as she could to keep the light away until her eyes could adjust.

Fingers grabbed her short cropped hair and pulled her head up before she could adjust. The light blinded her, and someone swore. His breath stank of blood and ale—a little bit more heavily on the blood.

"I'll be damned. She's fresh all right. Do you have any idea who made her?"

Matt's voice answered the man. "I would have thought her roommate. They were always so chummy, you know? But her roommate's just a witch. She couldn't do this, and I don't think that they have a vampire friend willing to change her."

Matt's father, she realized, as the basement came into focus. It was strange being held prisoner in such a normal looking basement. A washer and dryer sat in the corner, old and avocado green, with a load of laundry sitting atop, waiting to be put inside the washer. Another corner held tools, hanging from the wall, and a hand-made work bench. Stacks of Rubbermaid and boxes filled the other corners, labelled 'decorations' and 'old toys'.

The vampire standing in front of her, despite his breath, was just as handsome as his son. Bright blue eyes contrasted darkly against the pitch black eyelashes, the dark blonde eyebrows perfectly framed on his face by hair just a few shades lighter. Healthy, all-American vampire. That was Matt's father.

And Manny was terrified of him.

She couldn't defend herself against him, tied in her chair. He was strong and furious. Manny could feel his anger radiating off of him. Night World law had been broken, and he was honestly angered at it. She supposed that he was allowed to be angry, but it hadn't been her choice to break it, so Manny felt that he had no right being angry at her.

"Who did this to you?" he growled.

She wanted to tell him. Manny was scared and sick and tired of this new world, where cute boys tied her into chairs and their father interrogated her, and where the victim of a crime is tortured into revealing who sired them. Except that she couldn't turn him in. Joshua had committed a crime, she was the victim, and she could not turn him in. She hated being a vampire, but he had saved her life

"Who did this to you?" The growl was louder this time, more insistent, and when she remained silent he grabbed her chin and forced her to look up at him. Matt's father had the same healthy blue eyes, but his were as cold as ice. Even when he turned to look at his son, they didn't warm. "Matthias, is she dumb?"

Matthias. The name sounded foreign to Manny. She'd always assumed that Matt had stood for Matthew—but apparently that was too human for a lamia boy.

"No, Father, just stubborn. Manny's actually really quite smart." Matt was looking at her, and from the corner of her eye she could see his expression change, becoming insistent and pleading. He had wanted to bring her in, wanted to see justice being levied out, but he hadn't expected him to come home and have his father bind her into a chair and begin interrogating her. "I would have thought that she'd be smart enough to give him in so that we don't have to hurt her."

Manny felt a chill settle through her body at his words. If she didn't give up Joshua, they'd hurt her to get the information. Judging from the blasé way Matthias had let the information slip, hurting her to get what they wanted wasn't going to be a big concern for them.

Mr. Aspen's fingertips were pressing so hard into her skin she could feel her skin beginning to bruise. He repeated the question for a third time, this time using the slightest hint of telepathic suggestion to try and coax her into telling him. Manny knew that if she wasn't a vampire, if she wasn't resistant to it, she'd be squirming to tell the handsome, older man in front of her. Instead, she felt hot embers dig into her mind and slice and pull, trying to drag the name out of her deepest thoughts.

She squirmed uncomfortably in the chair, her wrists chafing, and she spat at Mr. Aspen. Her saliva landed on his shirt collar. His lip curled up in disgust.

"She's resistant, Dad. I had to use up a lot of energy just getting her to fall asleep in the car."

"You're younger than I am, son. I expect it would take more energy from you. I can get the information out of her." He sounded fanatic, and Manny screamed when he stopped using verbal commands and switched to telepathy entirely.

She collapsed in the chair, sweating and breathing heavily. God, that had sucked. And it had hurt too. Joshua had unintentionally hurt her with telepathy, but Mr. Aspen was using it like a weapon, purposely seeking out weaker spots in her mental armor and driving his own thoughts into her mind like a wedge, trying to pry her mind open with each fiery jab of his mental crowbar.

She really didn't want him to do that again.

"Give us a name," he crooned.

Joshua's face floated to the surface of her memories. She remembered the way he smelled, the way he held her so gently when he was going to bite her, the way his accent thickened when she pressed his buttons until she had him infuriated and he switched entirely to Gaelic. Gaelic made her think of Heather, and she wondered: if something happened to Joshua, what would they do to Professor McGugan? It wasn't just Joshua she had to protect, but his allies as well, who would surely be found out if an investigation looked into Joshua and his unorthodox way of finding reliable sources of blood.

She drew up all the pride she could muster in her little body. Manouchka didn't even know if her plan would work, but she had to think of something, and this response came naturally. Using her pride, she buried all her memories of Joshua and the Professor behind the thick wall of pride, solidified the wall with memories of her family and friends the love they had for her, hid the core of herself behind it, and then faced Mr. Aspen, knowing that bits of her were about to be shredded apart under his telepathy.

She would give him memories she could afford to let him see—dodgeball games in elementary school and boring high school presentations and movies—while the precious memories and the names and faces of the people she needed to protect would remain behind the shield.

Mr. Aspen turned to look at his son. "She's trying to protect him. Someone must have seen her the last night she was human. Alert them that someone's changing humans. That will draw out the Night Worlders who are loyal to us, and they will help use weave a net through the city. Soon we'll know which ones are loyal to the Council, and which ones are Daybreak sympathizers. North Bay needs to be cleansed so that our secret can be kept."

"I'll get right on it, Dad."

Matt's footsteps retreated on the stairs, going back upstairs, leaving Manny alone with the blue-eyed vampire. He sighed and released her face.

"Allow me to explain something to you about telepathy. There are lots of factors to determine how strong a vampire is: how often do you drink? Is it human blood, or do you live off of pigs and other wildlife? How old of a vampire are you? How strong is your body to deal with the power inside of it? I drink only human blood, and I am very well fed. You're new, so even if you had had human blood, you've only had a day of it, while I've lived for years on it. No amount of shielding can hold me back—getting the information out of you will only be a matter of time, and how badly damaged I injure you before you give it up. Save me the time and effort and save yourself the pain."

"Go to hell. In fact, go to hell in a handbasket."

He smiled. "The fun answer, I see. Either you're brave, or quite foolish. I think the latter, unfortunately," he said, straightening and fixing his tie.

From out of his back pocket, he withdrew a book of matches. There was a sharp his and the smell of burning wood that reminded Manny of birthday parties. He held up the match, close to the end of his bulbous nose—that seemed to make him look like a harmless teddy bear until his smile revealed sharp canines—and watched the flame fizzle and hiss.

"Did you know," Matt's father asked in the voice of a man used to giving lectures, "that fire is the one thing that can hurt everybody? Human, witch, shapeshifter, and vampire alike, when flame hits your skin, it hurts like a bitch." Then he placed the match gently on her arm, and stood back to watch her writhe as the fire continued to burn away, ripping out another match for when the first expired.


Matt had to move through the university cautiously. He passed by groups and smiled the dimple-revealing smile, made polite conversation and even managed to score a few phone numbers, but working through the Night World circles was a slow process. He knew that Manny's roommates had friends on campus, who would gather their attention once they found out that he was asking about Manny. So Matt began working on his own circle of friends first, and then they spread out.

Getting a picture of Manny was easy. Then it was just a matter of asking people when they had last seen the girl. Most students had heard that a girl had gone missing, few had known she had showed up for her one class that day, and fewer knew that she had been changed into a vampire in the three days she had been missing.

Showing her picture to a gang of wolves, he mentioned this fact, and the lead alpha of the pack arched an eyebrow in surprise. He smelled heavily of tobacco, and Matthias wondered how someone with their senses could stand to smoke something so heavy. He took the picture from her.

"No kidding? She was human when we saw her."

"When did you last see her?" The question was old. Everyone else had just shrugged, handed back the picture and said, "around" or "here or there" or had her confused with some other human girl waiting at the bus stop.

"The night she disappeared. She knew what we were, man." Matt lifted his head in interest, blue eyes shining. "We were in the hallway, and she came around the corner and saw us… Man, we couldn't have helped it. There was the sudden scent of fear in the air, and we knew that she was going to bolt. We couldn't help but give in to the chase. She was ours, man." The lead wolf lifted his fist, indicating that she had fallen right into their hands, and it was true. If she had known, it was their duty to make sure she would remain silent about it.

"We chased her and she ran. We herded her outside, into the woods, where she wouldn't be able to found. But someone did find her. We weren't even through with her yet, and someone showed up and rescued her!"

"They showed up, just like that?"

The alpha nodded. "Out of the blue, just like that. I don't know how he got here so fast. He must have been on campus already, but I don't know how he knew she was in trouble." The lead werewolf lifted his upper lip in a snarl and huffed. "Unless you believe all this 'soulmate' crap. I hear they can tell when people are in trouble even across great distances."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know, I'd never seen him before."

One of the other weres timidly lifted her hand in the air. "I'd seen him before. Sometimes he sits in on Professor McGugan's lectures, but I don't think he's a student. He's not there all the time, and he never hands anything in. And I don't know his name."

The leader of the pack lifted his head to regard the vampire with a firm expression. "She's our kill first. He chased us away before we could finish the job, apparently. She should have bled out. The girl must either have incredible luck or…"

"Or have already had started the transformation to survive a werewolf attack and then to survive becoming one of us on top of that."

The wolf smiled. "Pity that her luck ended there, since you caught her."

"Could you track this vampire down?"

The plucky wolf girl that recognized the vampire before grinned and bounced excitedly on her feet at the prospect of a hunt, but the snarl in her voice juxtaposed the childlike excitement in her body language. "Of course we can! Don't insult us! We could never forget the way you vampires stink, especially when they interrupt us in the middle of our kill!"

Covering her mouth with his large hand, the male alpha quieted her. A low snarl rumbled out from him until she meekly settled down. Matthias waited until order had been established in the pack and the alpha spoke again. "We can track him down for you, but the real question is will we track him down for you? There's something we want in return for doing your leg work."

"And what's that?"

"To finish the kill that was taken from us. We want the girl when we're done."

Matt frowned. That was beyond his power to give. She should be handed over to the proper Council authorities, to be dealt with according to their rules. "I can't promise you the girl, but I can promise you a hunt. We need to hand the girl over to the Council for trial and execution, but I can get my father to try to swing the Council into letting you have her, and if not her, then a prize for helping to uphold our laws."

"And who the hell is your father that he can get us that when you can't?"

"No, I can't promise you the girl, but I can try to give her to you. There's a difference. And my father is a lawyer. He knows the legal system and can surely get you a deal."

The were didn't look like he wanted to accept it, so Matt leaned forward. "If you don't help, I can always let my father know that it was your pack who gave the girl her human death, botched it, and then stood in the way during the investigation."

"Can you now? Well, so long as my pack has a hunt, I think that we don't care if it's the girl or not, but make damn sure that your father knows we'd prefer to be able to finish the hunt we started. We'll cut class and begin looking for the rogue vampire immediately."


It was several days old, but the werewolf nose didn't care. It could still smell where Manny's blood had pooled into the rotting leaves, snow, and frozen ground. It could still smell where they themselves had lain in the undergrowth, chewing dying flesh and enjoying the hunt, and it could still smell where the vampire had stood, and where he had leaned over to find the girl barely hanging on to life.

Their scents were musky and wild, the scent of evergreens and cedar, of blood and wet fur. Manouchka's scent was coppery from the blood, enticing with fear, and the alluring promise of death. It sent a howl through the pack, knowing that the kill had been taken from them. They got to hunt prey like Manny, human prey, so rarely, that it had been a prize to find a human they could hunt to the death on the excuse of knowing the Night World existed. The vampire's scent was old, smelling of musty old blood and the scent of old paper and ink.

They traced it through the woods, both the scent of the vampire and the human. Sometimes the scents pooled, where he had stopped to juggle her frail, dying body into a more comfortable position as he traversed the woods. Small pools of blood were hidden among the trees and cedars from her wounds when he stopped. Judging from the soft indentations of his feet, he'd been running. Running had made him sweat, made his scent stronger, and when his scent began to smell of fear, their joy in the hunt increased.

Still, the small wolf trailing at the back of the pack wondered why he was scared. Had he worried they had followed him? Had he worried that she was dying? When had the thought to change her entered into his thoughts? Was it when he had first held her bleeding, dying body to him, or later on?

The scent and the footsteps approached a house. The wolves hid amongst the trees at the back, watching and waiting. A light flicked on in the kitchen. A woman entered and began rummaging in the fridge. She had a rabbit tucked under her arm and tried to offer it some cucumber and salad greens, but the rabbit appeared too frighten to take the food from her. There was no sign of the vampire, but his scent was all over the back yard, and led up to the sliding glass door into the kitchen. Without a doubt, it was his house, so where was he?

The lead wolf swung his head around. Someone call the vampire, he ordered, and tell him that we have another human to bring him in for questioning.


To be continued...