Chapter Thirteen
Someone was shaking Anne's shoulder. She blinked and only then realized that her eyes had been shut.
Everything swam back slowly into focus. Ceiling. She was lying on her back on the floor, and a thin institutional carpet was underneath her, and she was looking up at the ceiling.
"Ms. Jamison?"
"Mm?" Ms. Jamison is my mother, she thought, but it was too much trouble to say that.
She turned her head instead and saw the principal bending over her.
That gave her a jolt. What was the principal doing there? For that matter, what was she doing on the floor? She automatically tried to sit up, and her head swam.
"Drink this." He handed her a glass of water. She drank automatically. The water tasted strange. Then her mind clicked back on fully, and she understood why the water was tasting strange.
After Samuel had bitten her, she'd felt him searching through her mind, hunting for her memories of Amaranth and Mary and Neil. She'd been angry, and he'd been careless enough to loosen his grip slightly on her chin. She'd bitten him. It was the coppery remnants of his blood in her mouth that she tasted now.
She gagged and stopped drinking the water. But it was too late. She'd probably already swallowed some of the blood. Almost certainly. She didn't actually remember swallowing any, but she'd bitten him, and the blood wasn't anywhere on her, was it?
She looked hastily down at her shirt. No, her clothes were clean.
So she must have swallowed his blood, even though she didn't remember having done so.
"Are you feeling all right?" That was the principal, again.
She felt sick at the thought of what she's swallowed, but she couldn't tell the principal that. In fact, Anne didn't know how she could explain why she'd been lying unconscious on the floor. "Yes," she said, and sipped again from the water glass while she tried to come up with a story that wouldn't involve Night World assassins or Daybreakers.
"You've missed your lunch period," the principal informed her. He sounded mildly irritated.
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"You'd better go to the third lunch period instead. With all the stress over your mother, you need to eat."
Anne felt a wash of relief. Apparently the principal thought that she was lying on the floor because she was upset over her mother. Crazy with grief, or something like that. She wouldn't have to come up with an explanation of her own.
"I am hungry," she agreed, even though she wasn't. "I'll go right now."
"You might want to stop at the restroom by the way and straighten yourself up a bit," the principal said. "Do you have a comb?"
"Um. In my purse."
"Good."
He stood still, waiting, and Anne realized that she was expected to leave for lunch right away. Wobbily, she stood and collected her books and purse. He ushered her out of the counselor's office and locked the door behind her. Anne wondered suddenly if she'd been violating some school rule by being alone in the office. She hadn't ever heard of such a rule for the counselor's office, but it was true that the students were hardly ever allowed to be out of sight.
In the restroom, she surveyed her face in the mirror. Her hair was a mess, and she fixed it as best she could. She also noticed a small smear of blood at the corner of her mouth, and she wiped it away hastily. She'd been lucky that the counselor's office had been dimly lit and that the principal hadn't noticed.
Details about what had just happened were coming back to her now. Samuel's mind probing within her own, touching and examining her memories in spite of everything she could do to keep him out. Even though she'd told him she hadn't wanted him there, something in her had welcomed him in. The soulmate connection, binding the two of them together in spite of the fact that neither of them wanted it. They were two halves of one person, even if they were as different as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
-Ah,- Samuel had said, sounding mildly pleased by what he'd discovered. Her heart had sunk. Who had she involuntarily betrayed now?
-Go away!- she'd shrieked at him. –Get out!-
-Soon. Not yet.-
-I hate you!-
-Of course. I am a monster, aren't I?-
She saw his bitter acceptance of what he'd become, his belief that he'd become one kind of monster in order to prevent himself from being an even worse monster, and it sickened her to realize that her soulmate, the other half of herself, had sold himself to the Night World council to be a passionless killer. Someone who obeyed orders, without consulting his own conscience.
If this was what he'd become, and they were alike enough to be soulmates, would she become the same?
She'd writhed against him. He was far stronger than she was, but he was using one hand to hold her chin. The other arm had been loosely around her shoulders. He hadn't expected her to fight him. Perhaps a vampire's prey didn't usually fight. But she was his soulmate, and she wasn't in any daze or hypnotic trance or whatever vampires used to keep people helpless. She pushed with all the strength in both her arms and tried to twist away.
He'd caught her, but not before she'd managed to shift herself a few inches. She'd felt the fingers of the hand that had been holding her chin against her lips, and she'd taken the opportunity to bite him. Hard. She'd tasted blood and felt a savage pleasure in the thought that she might be hurting him. She wanted to hurt him, as he was hurting her. Weren't they soulmates? They ought to suffer equally.
He might have hissed again, but his mouth was still locked to her throat. Instead, she'd felt a harsh burn of pain and anger flash from his mind. And another wave of that deep, deep dislike, a repulsion he felt for all things that came from vermin.
She tried to see his memory of his drawing a bead on her mother, pulling the trigger, but she couldn't find it. She'd been overwhelmed by his pain and anger and hatred, and she hadn't been able to maintain control. She'd flung her own pain and anger and hatred back at him as she fell into blackness.
That was all she could remember. She must have fainted. Maybe he'd taken too much blood from her, and she'd fainted from blood loss? But no, she felt more or less all right now. He'd probably just hit her with some kind of telepathic blow. Amaranth had warned her that strong vampires were able to knock humans unconscious. Whatever else Samuel Gregory was, he was strong.
So strong, in fact, that she had no idea how she was going to beat him.
He lay on his back on his hotel bed, staring up at the ceiling again. He might have drifted asleep—it was afternoon—but he'd drunk fresh blood too recently to sleep. The energy buzzed through his veins and kept him restless.
Someone knocked at the door. He ignored the noise, and the second knock which came afterward.
A few seconds later, the phone rang. He ignored that too.
When he felt an irritated mind reach out to touch his own, though, he frowned. Standing up, he crossed the room to the door and opened it.
The blond boy standing there looked slightly older than Samuel. He wasn't.
But he was much older than he looked.
"Come in, Farro," Samuel sighed. He stepped aside to let the other enter.
Farro stepped gracefully into the room. He dropped a black leather bag on the dresser, looked around to find a chair, and sighed as he sprawled comfortably into the nearest one. Running one hand through his streaked hair, he glanced sideways at Samuel through pale blue eyes.
"Was this the best place you can find?"
"I'm on an ordinary expense account. Not an extraordinary one."
"You could have made some excuse. My God, look at that picture over the bed. You ought to burn it."
Samuel did not turn to look at the still life of pastel flowers in a pastel vase. "The hotel serves my purposes. The point is to be inconspicuous."
"Yes, I know. What a good little Night World servant you are. You never break any of the rules, do you?"
"I kill other people when they break the rules."
"As you should, because there's a rule about what to do with people who break rules." Farro did not change his sprawling position, but his tone seemed to alter slightly with his next words. "Have you broken any rules recently, by the way?"
Samuel, who had been fingering the leather strap of Farro's bag as if to judge its quality, looked up at this.
"Why do you ask?"
"Well," Farro said lightly, "there is the fact that I've been dispatched by the Night World council to come investigate the situation."
After a long minute, Samuel turned away to examine the strap again. "Are you here to investigate the situation? Or me?"
"There is the fact that you still haven't finished what the council thought would be an easy assignment. Or have you just finished it? I notice you've eaten."
"No."
"Well, then. The council was concerned. Especially after your phone call, when you asked permission to change your target into one of us. Whatever possessed you, by the way?"
"It isn't your problem."
"I'm afraid it is my problem now. The Night World council's sent me to look into things and settle them myself. If you feel yourself incapable of doing so."
Samuel let the strap to drop from his fingers. There was no place to sit, but he leaned against the wall and allowed himself to stare at Farro from under half-closed eyelids.
"I can handle things."
"Then why haven't you?"
No answer.
"Samuel—that's what you're calling yourself now, right?—talk to me! We've been friends for a couple of hundred years. I don't know what's going on with you and the council. The council isn't happy with you, and I don't know why, because the council's always respected your work up to now. They've sent me here to wrap things up and, if necessary, wrap you up too."
He paused, but Samuel only lifted his dark eyebrows and waited.
"I don't know what's going on. I'm willing to do what I can to help you get yourself out of this mess, whatever it is, because you've done me a couple of favors in the past. But I need to know what's going on. Why haven't you killed the girl, and why did you call the council and ask for permission to change her?"
Samuel just looked at him.
With a sigh, Farro added, "Whatever you tell me will be between the two of us. I'll keep your secret, whatever it is."
"Will you swear to it?"
Another sigh. "Yes."
A pause. Samuel smiled faintly.
"You haven't actually sworn yet, you know," he murmured. "Do you swear to it now?"
Farro's pale face flushed, but if he was angry, he restrained himself. "Yes."
"Say it."
"I so swear."
"And that you swear in good faith, hiding no second meanings behind your words, and that you are making your oath of your own free will, because a forced oath is not valid."
"You're really being cautious," Farro observed coolly. "I swear in good faith and of my own free will. Now are you satisfied?"
"Moderately." As Farro's blue eyes rolled and lifted toward the ceiling, Samuel added, "I did you a service once by killing your target when you wouldn't."
"That was a long time ago," Farro said cautiously. "And I've already admitted that I owe you a favor."
Samuel ignored this. "You thought the girl might be your soulmate, and that's why you didn't want to kill her yourself. Do you remember?"
Farro shifted slightly in the hotel chair. "Vaguely." His tone was suddenly very casual. "It was at least a hundred years ago. Or was it two hundred?"
"I think you remember."
Farro said nothing.
"You asked me to take care of the matter instead, so I did. And I told the Night World council that you hadn't killed her because you'd been wounded in an accident and were temporarily disabled."
"You neglected to mention that the accident had happened at weapons practice when you deliberately stabbed me after we'd stopped our workout."
"I thought you'd be skilled enough to stop me even if I attacked you without warning," Samuel said tranquilly. "So I tried, and you didn't. It was an accident."
"And there wasn't any need to give the Night World council all the facts, was there?"
"The council has always given me some discretion. I exercised it then."
"Right," Farro sighed. "So you killed the girl for me, and, um--shall we say misled? That's a nice word—you misled the council when you reported on the incident."
Samuel shrugged. "You seemed grateful at the time. And equally disinclined to give the council a fuller version of the facts."
Farro's smile was thin. "How could I tell them the truth, when you'd told them otherwise, and I was in your debt?"
"I didn't lie to them."
"No. You just gave them a limited version of the truth." Farro tilted his head slightly. "I don't know why you bother to make such fine distinctions. Do you think the Night World council would forgive you if it found that you hadn't actually lied, just misled them a little?"
"I swore an oath to obey the Night World council's orders, and that involves telling them the truth. I've kept my oath."
"Your famous oath." Farro sighed again. "No other assassin takes that oath quite as seriously as you do. Did you know that?"
"Does it matter?" Samuel countered.
"Get to the point. You killed my soulmate for me, so I'm in your debt. I know that. What does any of this have to do with your problem with your current target?"
Samuel sighed and began to explain.
"Here," Neil said, handing Anne the pistol. Anne took it gingerly.
It was much heavier than she'd thought, and much more frightening. Somehow, even though she'd said before that she was willing to shoot Samuel Gregory to protect herself, she hadn't quite understand what that would mean.
There's nothing that this was meant to do except kill someone, she thought, looking at it.
Knives were tools that you could use in a kitchen, as well as to defend yourself. You could fight with sticks, or you could use them as canes or staffs to help you walk. But there was nothing you could do with a gun except use it to hurt someone.
Shooting someone is evil, Anne thought.
She looked at Neil, who looked back at her more soberly than she'd have expected.
"Are you still sure you want this?" Neil asked.
Anne wondered if he was having second thoughts himself, or if he'd seen uncertainty cross her face.
"Yes," she said, after a second. "Samuel Gregory shot my mother. And he's killed other people, horribly. Amaranth found that out from the Daybreakers in Rome."
"Your mother said she didn't see who shot her," Neil reminded her. "The police think that maybe it's a drive-by shooting."
"A drive-by shooting," Anne scoffed. "Circle Daybreak knows better."
Neil hesitated. "We don't have any proof, though."
"We don't need it," Anne said firmly. "He talked about how easy it was to kill people. He tried to kill me. Then my mother gets shot. Who else could it have been? If she didn't see who shot her, that just makes it even more likely that Samuel Gregory did it. He's good enough that he could shoot her from hiding and get away before anyone tried to go after him."
"Yeah. It's just—." Neil shifted his weight. "I got you the gun, so I'd feel bad if you shot the wrong person."
"I'm not going to shoot the wrong person. I'm going to protect myself from the guy who's already kidnapped me and told me he'll kill me and shot my mother. Do you have any bullets?"
"Here." Neil gave her a box of cartridges.
"Are they wooden?"
"Where would I get wooden bullets? No, they're just regular cartridges."
Anne looked at him, dismayed.
Neil shrugged. "If you shoot him enough times in the head, I don't think it matters. That's what Mary says about shifters, anyway. It may take more than one bullet, but even a Nightworlder can't survive if you blow enough of him away."
Anne looked at the gun and the cartridges. She stifled another wave of doubt.
She wasn't weak. She was a modern twenty-first century young woman. She could defend herself. She could fight back.
"Do you know how to use a gun?" Neil asked. "Can you load it? Clean it?"
"Does it have to be cleaned?"
Neil sighed. "My father owns a couple of rifles. He's showed me how to load them and clean them after they've been shot. Here. I'll show you what I know."
Anne took a deep breath. Let it out.
"If you can show me what you know," she said quietly, "I'll do the rest."
She pushed away the feeling that she was out of her depth, that maybe she was doing the wrong thing. She could fight back. She was not going to be weak. Whatever it took, she'd fight back.
Even if it meant shooting her soulmate.
"Well," Farro said. "That was a touching story."
Samuel shrugged.
"Soulmates. Who could have invented such a curse? Someone who hangs on you like a leech. . . ."
"I think we're supposed to be the leeches, actually."
"Don't interrupt. And was that a joke?" Farro peered at the other vampire's face suspiciously. "You never joke."
"I never had a soulmate before, either."
"See." Farro pointed a mildly accusatory finger. "She's changing you. An assassin can't ever let himself be influenced by his target. By anything. We've been honed for our task."
"There's very little honing involved, you know. That's just propaganda. One bullet is all it takes. Nine times out of ten, killing a person is completely uncomplicated."
"One bullet, and a lot of training in how to place it," Farro objected. "No. I like to think of myself as well-trained and an expert at a difficult task."
"You can think of it however you want to."
"And what I think is that you're a valuable tool of the Night World council. Too valuable to lose because some vermin-- the daughter of a slayer, even worse!—happens to have been born in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Samuel shrugged again.
"Kill her."
Samuel looked at Farro.
"Did you get the information you wanted when you drank from her today?"
"I got some of it. Whether I got all of it . . . who knows?"
"Get the rest of it fast. Somehow. And then kill her."
Samuel continued to look at him.
Farro moved a hand restlessly. "I didn't tell you everything. The council isn't just wondering what's wrong with you. They want you dead. Both you and the vermin. They think you're planning to betray them, or that you already have done so, like John Quinn did."
"Quinn wasn't an assassin. He hadn't taken an oath."
"Enough of your damned oath! It doesn't matter how much you stick to it! All that matters is whether the council thinks you're going to stick to it, and right now, the council thinks that you're a liability, not an asset. They sent me here to kill you if I had the slightest doubt about what you might be planning. You're just lucky that they sent me." He paused. "Do you want me to kill her for you? You once did me the same favor, after all."
"No."
Farro studied him. "You'll do it yourself, then?"
"Yes." There was no emotion in Samuel Gregory's voice. "I swore to obey the council's orders. They ordered me to kill her. I'll kill her."
"Do it soon," Farro said. There was no more friendliness in his voice. "Or I'll have to carry out my orders and kill you both. I owe you a favor, but it's not a big enough favor for me to risk being slated for termination by the council. And I really doubt Circle Daybreak would take me in. Even if they overlooked the little fact that I've been killing Daybreakers for years, I once asked you to kill my soulmate. They wouldn't like that."
"No. I don't suppose they would."
Farro got to his feet. "I've got the room next to yours. We'll be in touch. Call me if you change your mind and want me to take care of her for you." He left.
Without turning, Samuel Gregory listened to the snick of the door closing behind his friend and fellow assassin. It was a very final sound.
Tomorrow, he thought.