I sink my fangs deep into his neck and pull a draught. It makes me sick to my stomach, but I need his memories, and this is the quickest way to get them from a thrall.
Which is when I see them. The vampires sacrificing themselves for Damek. Walking in the day, even if it means death.
They follow her, hang back as she enters the market hall, then surge in. Splitting up in order to surround her, they move through the crowds as if there is nothing there at all.
“Where is she?” I demand of the thrall. “Do they have her?”
“No, no, my king, they do not,” he gibbers. “I lost her. And they did too.”
I fling him to one side, blood still streaming from the wounds I made. I grab the decanter on the side and take a long swig of the liquid within.
“My brother is not going to give up,” I growl at Attila. “And he doesn’t get to touch my property.”
“Do you require the other guards, my Lord?” Attila asks.
“This one, I’m going to deal with on my own. Take some thralls and bring her belongings back to the nest. Lucy Cushing will not be staying at the hotel tonight or any night.” I glare out at the day through the tinted windows. “She is mine and no deranged relative is going to threaten her.”
With a snarl, I descend to the bowels of the building and change my form to the easiest one to control to move quickly thorough the sewers and basements of Budapest.
As a mist, I can slip through gaps and enter anywhere, but even as a daywalker, it’s difficult to hold this form in the daylight, so instead I keep it to the shadows until I reach the area near the market, where I ascend onto Vaci Ucta and reconstitute.
I pull my cuffs down and straighten my tie as I make my way through the many tourists who flock to the city to visit the markets this time of year. If my appearance surprises them, most don’t take a second glance. Even the humans who do know what a vampire is, and most of them don’t, know when not to challenge a creature like me.
The heavy clouds above the city decide to disgorge their load of snow, and it falls thickly, causing the place to empty out of those who do not wish to get cold, and it should make finding my Lucy a little easier.
Providing I find the vampires who are stalking her first.
Then I will find Damek, and I will deal with him once and for all.
Lucy
Great.It’s started snowing. I doubt this is going to help me evade the vamps who are still on my tail, despite my hope I’d given them the slip back at the market.
There are at least two who are pretty determined. I continue to walk along Vaci until I reach the square. While it’s not deserted, the increased snowfall has thinned out shoppers for the market, and I’m feeling more exposed than ever as I take a swift turn up another street. Perhaps I should have descended to the metro system, but there, the dark is the vampire’s natural environment and unlikely to be a sensible choice.
I can see the overhead lines of the trams in the distance, and I increase my pace. If I can get to them, there’s little the vamps can do, not in close proximity to other humans.
Vamps are still trying to prove to everyone they’re benign and only take blood from animals as a byproduct…like humans drink milk.
Becauseof coursethey’d break the habit of a lifetime—several lifetimes—in order to be accepted. Any human which believes it deserves to have their neck nibbled.
Although there are plenty who actually want to be bitten. I wonder how many of the thralls in Dominik’s nest started out as vampire groupies.
And I’ve seen the online forums, humans willingly offering themselves to vampires for all manner of things, some of which make even my open mind boggle.
But then there’s been that niggling doubt at the back of my mind for years, attempting to crystallize when my friend Grace met her monster mate…
What if the Van Helsings were wrong?
My sixth sense, honed over many years of training, is sending every hair on the back of my neck on end as the street I’m on ends and there is a large open interchange of pedestrians, bus stops, and tram tracks, along with all the bustling traffic of a busy city, seemingly unconcerned by the rapidly falling snow which seems set to become a blizzard.
I do my level best not to hop from foot to foot in agitation and in an attempt to keep warm as I wait for the next tram. Every hair on my body seems to be on end at the threats which surround me.
So, when my phone rings, my heart nearly stops. I pull out the offending device, ready to decline the call when I see who it is. If I don’t answer, he won’t stop calling.
“Lucy. You haven’t killed him,”my uncle rasps down the crackling line.
“There was a complication,” I respond, feeling like a little girl all over again.
