That was one thing about made vampires. Unlike the lamia, who could stop aging-or start again- whenever they wanted, made vampires were stuck. And since the process of turning a human body into a vampire body was incred ibly difficult, only a young human could survive it.
Try to turn somebody over twenty into a vampire and they would burn out. F ry. Die.
The result was that all made vampires were stuck as teenagers.
What Rashel was looking at could have been the cast for some new TV soap abo ut friends. Seven teenage guys, different sizes, different colors, but all H ollywood handsome, and all dressed to kill. They could have been talking and laughing about a fishing trip or a school dance . . . except for their eyes .That was what gave them away, Rashel thought. The eyes showed a depth no h igh school guy could ever have. An experience, an intelligence . . . and a coldness.
Some of these teenagers were undoubtedly hundreds of years old, maybe tho usands. All of them were absolutely deadly.
Or else they wouldn"t be here. They each expected to kill three innocent girls starting at midnight.
These thoughts flashed through Rashel"s mind in a matter of seconds. She h ad already decided on the best way to plunge into the room and start the attack. But one thing kept her from doing it.
There were only seven vampires. And the eighth was the one she wanted. The client. The one who"d hired Quinn and set up the feast.
Maybe it was one of these. Maybe that tall one with the dark skin and the look of authority. Or the silvery blond with the odd smile. . . .
No. n.o.body really looks like a host. I think it"s the one who"s still missing.
But maybe she couldn"t afford to wait. They might hear the powerboats leavi ng over the steady pounding of the music. Maybe she should just . . .
Something grabbed her from behind.
This time she had no warning. And she wasn"t surprised anymore. Her opini on of herself as a warrior had plummeted.
She intended to fight, though. She went limp to loosen the grip, then reache d between her own legs to grab her attacker"s ankle. A jerk up would throw h im off balance. . . .
Don"t do it. I don"t want to have to stun you, but I will.
Quinn.
She recognized the mental voice, and the hand clamped across her mouth. An d both the telepathy and the skin contact were having an effect on her.
It wasn"t like before; no lightning bolts, no explosions. But she was overw helmed with a sense of Quinn. She seemed to feel his mind-and the feeling w as one of drowning in dark chaos. A storm that seemed just as likely to kil l Quinn as anyone else.
He lifted her cleanly and backed out of the room with her, into the hall, then up a flight of stairs. Rashel didn"t fight. She tried to clear her head and wai t for an opportunity.
By the time he"d pulled her into an upstairs room and shut the door, she real ized that there wasn"t going to be an opportunity.
He was just too strong, and he could stun her telepathically the instant she moved to get away. The tables had turned. There was nothing to do now but h ope that she could face death as calmly as he had. At least, she thought, it would put a stop to her confusion.
He let go of her and she slowly turned to look at him.What she saw sent chills between her shoulder blades. His eyes were as dark and chaotic as the clouds she"d sensed in his mind. It was scarier than the cold hunger she"d seen in the eyes of the seven guys downstairs.
Then he smiled.
A smile that shed rainbows. Rashel pressed her back against the wall and trie d to brace herself.
"Give me the knife."
She simply looked at him. He pulled it out of her waistband and tossed it on the bed.
"I don"t like being knocked out," he said. "I don"t know why, but something a bout it really bothers me."
"Quinn, just get it over with."
"And it took me a while to get myself untied.
Every time I meet you, I seem to end up hog-tied and unconscious. It"s gett ing monotonous."
"Quinn . . . you"re a vampire. I"m a vampire hunter. Do what you have to."
"We"re also always threatening each other. Have you noticed that? Of course, everything we keep saying is true. It is kill or be killed. And you"ve killed a lot of my people, Rashel the Cat."
"And you"ve killed a lot of mine, John Quinn."
He glanced away, looking into a middle distance. His pupils were enormous. "
Less than you might think, actually. I don"t usually kill to feed. But, yes, I"ve done enough. I said before, I know what you think of me."
Rashel said nothing. She was frightened and confused and had been under str ain for quite a long time. She felt that at any moment she could snap.
"We belong to two different races, races that hate each other. There"s no way to get around that." He turned his dark eyes back on her and gave her a bril liant smile. "Unless, of course, we change it."
"What are you talking about?"
"I"m going to make you a vampire."
Something inside Rashel seemed to give way and fall. She felt as if her legs might collapse.
He couldn"t mean it, he couldn"t be serious. But he was. She could tell. Ther e was a kind of surface serenity pasted over the dark roiling clouds in his e yes.
So this was how he"d solved an unsolvable problem. He had snapped.
Rashel whispered, "You know you can"t do that."
"I know I can do that. It"s very simple, actually- all we have to do is exc hange blood. And it"s the only way." He took hold of her arms just above th e elbow. "Don"t you understand? As long as you"re human, Night World law sa ys you have to die if I love you."
Rashel stood stricken.Quinn had stopped short, as if he were startled himself by what he"d said. T hen he gave an odd laugh and shook his head. "If I love you," he repeated. "
And that"s the problem, of course. I do love you."
Rashel leaned against the wall for support. She couldn"t think anymore. She couldn"t even breathe properly. And somewhere deep inside her there was a trembling that wouldn"t stop.
"I"ve loved you from that first night, Rashel the Cat. I didn"t want to admit it , but it was true." He was still gripping her tightly by the arms, leaning close to her, but his eyes were distant, lost in the past.
"I"d never met a human like you," he said softly, as if remembering. "You w ere strong, you weren"t weak and pathetic. You weren"t looking for your own destruction. But you were going to let me go. Strength and compa.s.sion. And . . . honor. Of course I loved you." His dark eyes focused again. He looke d at her sharply. "I"d have been crazy not to."
Falling into darkness . . . Rashel had a terrifying desire to simply collapse in his arms. Give in. He was so strangely beautiful, and the power of his pe rsonality was overwhelming.
And of course she loved him, too.
That was suddenly excruciatingly clear. Undeniable. From the beginning he h ad struck a chord in her that no one else had ever touched. He was so much like her-a hunter, a fighter. But he had honor, too. However he might try t o deny it or get around it, deep inside him there was still honor.
And like her, he knew the dark side of life, the pain, the violence. They ha d both seen-and done-things that normal people wouldn"t understand.
She was supposed to hate him . . . but from the beginning she"d seen herself in him. She had felt the bond, the connection between them. . . .
Rashel shook her head. "No!" She had to stop thinking these things. She wou ld not surrender to the darkness.
"You can"t stop me, you know," Quinn said softly. "That ought to make thing s easier for you. You don"t even have to make a decision. It"s all my fault . I"m very, very bad, and I"m going to make you a vampire."
Somehow that gave Rashel her voice back. "How can you do that-to someone you love?" she spat.
"Because I don"t want you dead! Because as long as you"re human, you"re going to get yourself killed!" He put his face close to hers, their foreheads almo st touching. "I will not let you kill yourself," he said through his teeth.
"If you make me a vampire, I will kill myself," Rashel said.
Her mind had cleared. However much she wanted to give in, however enticin g the darkness might be, it all disappeared when she thought of how it wo uld end. She would be a vampire. She"d be driven by bloodl.u.s.t to do thing s that would horrify her right now. And she"d undoubtedly find excuses fo r doing them. She would become a monster.Quinn was looking shaken. She"d scared him, she could see it in his eyes.
"You"ll feel differently once it"s done," he said.
"No. Listen to me, Quinn." She kept her eyes on his, looking deep, trying to let him see the truth of what she was saying. "If you make me a vampire , the moment I wake up I"ll stab myself with my own knife. Do you think I"
m not brave enough?"
"You"re too brave; that"s your problem." He was faltering. The surface seren ity was breaking up. But that wasn"t really helpful, Rashel realized, becaus e underneath it was an agony of desperate confusion. Quinn really couldn"t s ee any other solution. Rashel couldn"t see any herself-except that she didn"
t really expect to survive tonight.
Quinn"s face hardened, and she could see him pushing away doubts. "You"ll get used to it," he said harshly, his voice grating. "You"ll see. Let"s start no w," he added.
And then he bit her.
He was so fast. Unbelievably fast. He caught her jaw and tilted her head bac k and to the side-not roughly but with an irresistible control and precision. Then before Rashel ha d time to scream, she felt a hot sting. She felt teeth, vampire teeth, extend ed to an impossible delicacy and sharpness, pierce her flesh.
This is it. This is death.
Panic flooded her. But it wasn"t death, of course-not yet. She wouldn"t even b e changed into a vampire by a single exchange of blood. No, instead it would b e slow torture . . . days of agony . . . pain. . . .
She kept waiting for the pain.
Instead she felt a strange warmth and languor. Was he actually drinking her blood? All she could sense was Quinn"s mouth nuzzling at her neck, his arms around her tightly. And . . .
His mind.
It happened all at once. In a sudden silent explosion, white light engulfed h er. It burst around her. She was floating in it. Quinn was floating in it. It was shining around them and through them, and she could feel a connection wi th Quinn that made their last connection seem like a faulty telephone line.
She knew him. She could see him, his soul, whatever you wanted to call it, whatever it was that made him John Quinn. They seemed to be floating togeth er in some other s.p.a.ce, in a naked white light that revealed everything and mercilessly lit up all the most secret places.
And if anyone had asked her, Rashel would have said that would be horrible, and she would have run for her life to get away from it.
But it wasn"t horrible. She could see dreadful dark bits in Quinn"s mind, a nd dreadful dark bits in hers. Tangled, th.o.r.n.y, scary parts, full of anger and hate. But there were so many other parts-some of them almost unused-that were beautiful and strong and whole. There was so much potential. Rainbow places that were aching to grow. Other parts that seemed to quiver with li ght, desperate to be awakened.
We ask so little of ourselves, Rashel thought in wonder. If everybody"s like this-we stunt ourselves so badly. We could be so much more. . . .
I don"t want you to be more. You "re amazing enough the way you are.
It was Quinn. Not even his voice, just-Quinn. His thoughts. And Rashel kne w her thoughts flowed to him without her even making an effort.
You know what I mean. Isn"t this strange? Does this always happen with va mpires?
Nothing like this has ever happened to me in my life, Quinn said.
What he felt was even more, and Rashel could sense it directly, in a dizz ying sweet wave. There was an understanding between them that ran deeper than any words could convey.
Whatever was happening to them, however they had gotten to this place, one t hing was obvious. Under the white light that revealed their inner selves, it was clear that small differences like being vampire or human didn"t matter. They were both just people. John Quinn and Rashel Jordan. People who were stumbling through life trying to deal with the hurt.
Because there was hurt. There was pain in the landscape of Quinn"s mind. Ra shel sensed it without words or even images; she could feel the feelings th at had scarred Quinn.
Your father did something-he killed Dove? Oh, John. Oh, John, I"m so sorry.
I didn"t know.
Rainbow lights shimmered when she called him John. It was the part of him t hat he had repressed the most ruthlessly. The part that she could almost fe el growing in her presence.
No wonder you hated humans. After everything you"d ken through, to have y our own father want you dead...
And no wonder you hated vampires. They killed someone dose to you-your mot her? And you were so young. I"m . . . sorry. He wasn"t as easy with words as she was, but here they didn"t need words. She could sense his sorrow, h is shame, and his fierce protectiveness. And she could sense the emotion b ehind his next question. Who did it?
I don"t know. I"ll probably never know. Rashel didn"t want to pursue it. She didn"t want to feed the dark side of Quinn; she wanted to see more of the s himmering light. She wanted to make the light grow until the dark disappeare d.
Rashel, that may not be possible. Quinn"s thought wasn"t bitter; it was serio us and gentle. Tinged with infinite regret. I may not be able to become anything better-Of course you can. We all can. Rashel cut him off with absolute determinati on. She could feel the bone-deep cold that had set into him years ago, that he"d allowed to set in. I won"t let you be cold, she told him, and she wen t for a romp in his mind, kissing things and blowing warmth into them, thin king sunlight and comfort everywhere.
Please stop; I think you"re killing me. Quinn"s thought was shaky-half seriou s and half hysterical, like the helpless gasp of somebody being tickled to de ath.
Rashel"s whole being was singing with elation. She was young-how strange that she had never really felt young until now-and she was in love and st ronger than she had ever been before. She had John Quinn the vampire squi rming and semi-hysterical. She was unstoppable. Anything was possible.
I"ll make everything be right, she told Quinn, and she was happy to see that she"d driven his doubt and his sadness away, at least for the moment. Do yo u really want me to stop?
No. Quinn sounded dazed now-and bemused. I"ve decided I"ll enjoy dying thi s way. But. . .
Rashel couldn"t follow the rest of his thought, but she felt a new coldness, something like a wind from outside.
Outside.
She"d forgotten there was an outside. In here, in the private coc.o.o.n of their minds, there was nothing but her and Quinn. It was almost as if nothing else existed.
But ...