Fortunately, I didn"t have to.
"Julian Hargraves knew about us, James," my dark boy said. He took one of the files from the hidden closet and brought it to the sheriff. "He had us watched, and followed, and photographed."
Yamah took the file, opening it and flipping through the pages. As he did, he began shaking his head. "You"re mistaken. Old Julian never left this ... " he stopped speaking as soon as he saw the first photograph of Jesse"s mother.
I took pity on him. "He noticed that the Ravens weren"t aging. Up here he could watch the island without anyone knowing about it. He hired men to follow Jesse and his parents and take pictures of them, and report on what they did whenever they left the island. He even knew about me. He was hiding in the boathouse on Halloween night."
Yamah closed the file and looked past us at the closet. "It"s all in there?"
"I believe so." Jesse gave him a pointed look. "We have not yet had time to look through everything."
"I"ll take care of it." Yamah sighed. "But this girl should never have been involved in this, Jesse. You should have come to me."
This girl. The words made anger simmer inside me. He spoke as if I were no one and nothing.
"Catlyn found Julian"s journals," Jesse told him. "If not for her, I would never have discovered what he had done to me and my family."
"Keeping your family safe is my business, son." Yamah regarded me. "I"ll take you home now, Miss. You can explain all this to your brother."
"No." All the emotions I"d been holding back roiled inside me, seething and dark red and ugly. "I"m not going anywhere with you. I haven"t done anything wrong."
He tilted his head back to look down his nose at me. "Breaking and entering is against the law."
"Is it legal to deliberately turn off a security system for a property you don"t own?" I countered. "How about helping to erase three months of someone"s life? Or covering up the fact that a high school boy was shot on Halloween night?" I heard a yowling sound, but I was too furious to stop. "I wonder, what would they charge you with, Sheriff, if they knew you helped a vampire hunter brainwash an entire town?"
Somewhere in the house gla.s.s shattered, and Yamah glanced briefly over his shoulder before he said, "Your brother said you would never remember anything about that night."
"My brother?" I smiled. "Was wrong."
Yamah yelped as a river of small, furry bodies poured into the room. "What in G.o.d"s name ... "
My whole body lit up from inside as I released more and more of the power inside me, drawing more of my cats to me. I could feel them leaping through the hole they"d smashed through one of the windows, first the wild things that lived on Julian"s land, and then the pets who had escaped from their owners" houses. Bobcats came from the woods, their spotted fur bristling as they rubbed shoulders with the alley cats from town. They flooded into the library, some coming to surround me but most forming a deadly circle around the sheriff. Their eyes, like glittering jewels, fixed on Yamah"s pale face, but not one made a single sound.
Their power reflected back to me, strengthening me, and for the first time I understood why my Van Helsing ability might be the deadliest of all. I didn"t dream the future or make others forget the past; I was a hunter, as wild and lethal as my small warriors. They knew this, and for me, they would do anything.
"Don"t move, James," I heard Jesse say, just before I felt his hand touch my hot face. "Catlyn, look at me."
I didn"t want to, not now that I"d finally let go. I loved Jesse, and we belonged to each other, and no one was going to take him away from me. The weight and pain of all the months I had pretended and kept silent fell away from me, freeing me from the fear that had trapped me. I wasn"t afraid of the sheriff anymore. My cats covered every inch of the floor, and they were ready.
All it would take was one thought from me, and they would silence James Yamah forever.
Jesse gently turned me toward him, but I saw no anger in his beautiful gray eyes. Instead there was something like sorrow and understanding, as if he knew exactly what I wanted to do, and how good it would feel if I did. "We chose life over death, Catlyn. We must always do that, or we will become monsters."
Of course he knows about the terrible urge inside me, I thought. He"s been fighting it every day since he was changed.
Slowly the heat inside me receded, taking with it the irrational hatred I felt for the sheriff. I looked down at the cats my emotions had summoned, and as their heads turned toward me I reached out to them. Leave us now.
As silently and quickly as they came, the cats dispersed. In a few seconds we were alone again with Yamah, who had gone very pale, and walked over to sit down heavily in one of the chairs.
I knew I should apologize for scaring him, but he"d done the same to me too many times now. In my eyes, we were even.
"What am I going to tell your parents?" Yamah finally asked Jesse.
"Nothing. Julian is dead, and this is over." My dark boy gestured toward the closet. "Take all the records out of here tonight and burn them."
"It"s not as simple as that, and you know it." The sheriff dragged a hand through his hair. "My family has served yours for generations, and I am as loyal as the rest of them. But I"m sworn to your father, Jesse, not you. It was your father who worked out this truce with Youngblood after Halloween night; I have to tell him that you broke it by refusing to honor your part of the agreement by staying away from Miss Youngblood."
A loud, startling sound came from the handheld radio mic clipped to the epaulet of the sheriff"s uniform, and he unclipped it to answer it. "Yamah."
"Sheriff, dispatch just received a call," a man said over the radio"s speaker. "Another girl"s been abducted. She was visiting her grandmother at the nursing home over on Center when a man came into the room. The nurses said she just walked out with him."
Yamah"s knuckles bulged as he pressed the response b.u.t.ton. "Who was taken?"
"Ross Hamilton"s girl, Becca."
As the sheriff issued terse instructions to begin a search of the area for the girl, I turned to Jesse. "Why didn"t she try to run away from the man?"
"I"m not sure," he said. "Perhaps the kidnapper threatened to harm her grandmother if she didn"t go with him."
"Put out a description of Becca," Yamah was telling his deputy. "She"s five-nine, about a hundred twenty pounds, long dark hair, fair skin, dark blue eyes." As he said that, his eyes shifted to me. "Call in everyone off-duty, and ask the fire department if they can spare some men to help with the search. I"ll be at the station shortly."
"Do you have a description of the man who took her?" Jesse asked.
"That we do." The sheriff"s expression turned to disgust. "The nurse who saw him says he"s young, dark and handsome. Becca"s grandmother swears he"s a wrinkled, bald old man." He stood. "You"ll both have to come back to the station with me. I"ll call your father from there, Jesse, and see what he wants me to do about the two of you."
"If you do that, Catlyn and I will not be coming to the station," Jesse said. "We will leave Lost Lake tonight, and our families will never see us again."
"You think you can just leave town?" Yamah uttered a bitter sound. "Think about who her brothers are-they will come after you. So will your parents, for that matter. If that happens, someone is going to die."
"You"re sworn to protect the Ravens, Sheriff," I said. "That includes Jesse, doesn"t it?"
He didn"t say anything, but his expression wavered.
"James, please," Jesse said. "Nothing is more important to me than being with Catlyn. When the time is right, we will tell our families about us. I promise you this."
Yamah rubbed his eyes in a tired gesture. "You don"t give me much choice. I"ll keep quiet about this, but I want something in exchange."
"What is it?" Jesse asked.
"I think there"s a fully turned vampire in Lost Lake," the sheriff said. "He"s the one who is responsible for taking the kids."
Jesse went still. "A vampire took the missing girls?"
Yamah nodded. "It"s why none of the descriptions of him match, and why the girls go with him without a fight. He"s able to cloud and confuse human minds." He turned to me. "You"re the vampire hunter, Miss Youngblood. So in return for my silence, I want you to find him. Find him, and kill him."
While the sheriff began removing all of Julian Hargraves"s secret files from the library, Jesse and I left the mansion. Yamah"s belief that a vampire was abducting the girls was almost as outrageous as his demand that I hunt him down and kill him. I hadn"t agreed or disagreed; I"d been too shocked to speak. Jesse had hustled me out of there before I"d really had a chance to think about it.
By the time we reached Jesse"s car, my head cleared and I finally reacted. "He"s crazy. I can"t hunt a vampire. I certainly can"t kill one."
"You don"t have to," he said as he helped me into the car. "I will take care of it."
"What happened to choosing life over death?" I asked as he got in on the other side and started the engine.
"Vampires are not alive."
I had to think about that for a minute. "Okay, but if that"s true-"
"I am the same," he finished for me.
That I would never accept. "I don"t think so, Jesse."
"I died a human death, Catlyn." His mouth thinned. "Vampire blood reanimated me, but my body no longer functions as yours does. I do not age or scar. I cannot be harmed by disease or injury. The vampire blood that changed me allows me a semblance of life, and as long as I consume blood it will continue to do so, but I am not alive. It is why we are called the undead. A vampire is death undone."
"I don"t believe that. You"re not a vampire." A thought occurred to me. "If you were dead, you wouldn"t have a heartbeat."
"Like the rest of me, my heart is animated and sustained by vampire blood." He folded his hand around mine. "It is a mimicry of life, part of the vampire"s lure. My heart beats so that you are fooled into believing I am alive."
"How can vampire blood do that?" I demanded.
"I wish I knew. I only know what destroys it." He nodded toward the sky. "Exposure to the daylight causes the vampire"s blood to break down, which is why sun is so lethal to us. Without the vampire blood to sustain us, our bodies rapidly age and wither. It happens so rapidly that we literally catch on fire."
"Don"t remind me of that." I saw that we were halfway to the apartment complex where Kari lived with her mother. "Anyway, it doesn"t matter. I can"t kill anyone, dead or undead, and you"re not going to, either," I added before he said anything to the contrary. "But maybe I can find the missing girls. Wouldn"t that be good enough for the sheriff?"
"If James is correct, and a vampire is responsible for taking these girls," he said carefully, "you may not wish to find them."
"You think he"s killed them."
"He would have to feed on them, and eventually they would die of blood loss." He hesitated, and then said, "What I meant to say is that he cannot be alone. Vampires are clannish creatures, Catlyn. They are drawn to each other. When there are no others they can find, they are compelled to make more of their kind."
Now I understood. "If he"s by himself, he may have turned the girls into vampires, too."
"It is their way." He made a turn down an old road that led past some cottages and mobile homes before it wound around a large apartment building.
I saw Connor waiting on his dirt bike at the entrance to the lot, and returned his wave. "There"s my ride home."
Jesse put the car in park before he turned to me. "I will do some hunting and see what I can discover. Can you meet me at Kari"s taco party on Christmas Eve?"
"I"ll try." Suddenly we were too far apart, and I flung myself at him. "I don"t care about vampire blood or reanimation. You"re not dead. You"re alive."
He folded his arms around me, and rested his cheek against the top of my head. "You make me feel as if I am."
"We"ll find a cure for this, and when we do, you"re going to be human again," I promised him. "We"ll finish growing up together. You have no idea how much fun it"s going to be while we get crow"s feet and gray hair, and kids start calling us "sir" and "ma"am." We"re going to have kids, and grandkids, and spend the last years of our lives in rocking chairs on a front porch. I"ll have too many cats, and you"ll complain about taxes, and ... " my throat hurt too much for me to finish.
"We will be together. Always." Jesse lifted my chin, and kissed away a tear from my cheek. "I love you, Catlyn."
I pulled away and got out of the car before I sobbed all over him, and made myself walk over to Connor. "Thanks for waiting." I used my sleeve to mop up my tears, and felt a wrenching sensation as I heard Jesse drive away. "I was having a girl moment."
"You"re allowed." He handed me a spare helmet. "Everything okay?"
"Ask me that in another life." I put on the helmet, clipped the chin strap together, and then climbed onto the back of his bike.
I"d ridden on the back of Trick"s Harley more times than I could count, so I wasn"t worried about riding with Connor. His bike, while smaller, seemed a lot faster and much more maneuverable, and probably was a blast through these hills.
Instead of using the road that pa.s.sed the farm, Connor drove into the woods in front of Kari"s apartment building.
"It"s almost midnight," he called back to me over his shoulder. "This is faster."
I gave him a thumbs-up, and then looked ahead at the old trail he was taking. Jesse and I had never ridden out this far, but I knew it crossed his property. Connor would be able to drop me off practically at my front door.
Something big and fast-moving darted in front of the bike, making Connor swerve to avoid it, and I grabbed his waist as we wobbled and almost toppled over. He righted the bike just at the last minute and stopped an inch away from the ma.s.sive trunk of an old oak, and flipped up his visor.
"Did you see that?" he asked me.
Before I could answer a horse came barreling out of the brush, its eyes wild and its legs churning as it reared. I realized it was Rika the minute I saw her swollen belly, and jumped off the bike, tearing off the helmet as I got between her and Connor.
"Turn the bike off," I told him as I held out my hands. "Rika, it"s me. It"s okay."
The Arabian dropped down, her ears p.r.i.c.king at the sound of my voice, and then she glared at Connor.
I approached her slowly, still talking to her in a soothing voice. "You"re okay now, it"s all right. This is my friend, Connor. He"s not going to hurt you."
Once I got hold of her halter, I stroked her neck and rubbed her shoulder, bringing her head down to mine. "Connor, I"m going to have to walk her back to the farm. Wait for a few minutes before you start up the bike; the sound probably spooked her."
He dropped the kickstand and took off his helmet. "I"ll walk with you." As I started to tell him no, he said, "I promised Kari I"d make sure you got home okay. I am not going back there and telling her I left you alone in the woods with a runaway horse. I value my life too much."
"Okay, but stay where she can see you," I warned him.
Together with Connor I led Rika across Jesse"s property, stopping at the old Ravenov manor house to let her rest and have a little water. While she drank, I checked her over, but found no injuries to indicate she"d broken out of her stall.
"I don"t understand how she got loose," I said to Connor as I retrieved a lead rope from one of the posts and tied it to her halter. "She"s kept in the barn all night. They must have forgotten to bring her in." As soon as I got home I was going to give both my brothers a piece of my mind.
"There have been a lot of strange things happening with horses around here," Connor told me. "You"ve heard about the ones that were killed, right?"
I nodded. "Our vet told us about Mr. Palmer"s stallions. He was the guy who sold Rika to us before he left town."
"It"s not just Palmer"s horses," Connor said. "I"ve been getting all kind of weird reports for the Ledger. From what I"ve pieced together, these two guys have been going around the farms, sneaking into barns. Sometimes they attack the horses with knives. Other times they turn them loose and run them off. No one knows why."
I thought of the descriptions Sheriff Yamah had gotten of the man who had abducted Becca Hamilton. "Is one young, and the other one old?"
He looked astonished. "Yeah, how did you know?"
"Whoever has been hurting the horses may be the same guys who are taking these girls." I told him about the call the sheriff had gotten earlier, and the descriptions of the two men. "Has anyone recognized the guys hurting the horses? I mean, are they local, or maybe a couple of pickers?"
"No, but there is one thing. Mr. Palmer went to Ringers" Tavern the night before he left town," Connor said. "He was pretty upset, and started knocking back shots like they were going to be outlawed tomorrow. He told some guys there that he saw who attacked his horses. He said it was a ghost."
"There"s no such thing as ghosts," I a.s.sured him.
"Well, if there is," he said, "Palmer said this one looked just like Old Man Hargraves."