Mark arched a brow."Look, I am new to the area," Jonas went on. "I"ve been in New York City for a long time. No one there notices anyone else, there are blood banks up the kazoo...I came here to work the music scene. That"s all. Not to hurt anyone." He offered a rueful smile. "h.e.l.l, there are enough rats around, you know?"
"Make sure you stay out of my way," Mark warned him.
"I can help you. I want to help you. Look, I haven"t been...what I am now for very long, and I"m not very powerful, but I"d give my...existence to help Deanna. I"ll do anything. Anything."
"Just stay out of my way," Mark repeated.
He started walking away, his anxiety for Lauren rising to the surface again. He wasn"t going to kill Jonas-though letting him live might be a serious mistake. But he didn"t have the time right now to figure out the best way to handle the situiation. He had to find Lauren.
"How the h.e.l.l can I prove myself to you?" Jonas called after him.
Mark kept going without answering.
He moved with long strides, eager to quit Bourbon Street. It felt as if he were screaming on the inside.
He had to find her.
Now.
The figure at the end of the alley continued to stand there, staring.
She stood dead still and stared back.
She was almost out of holy water, and she was trying desperately to remember everything that Mark had said. This was Stephan, she was certain. Mark had said he was very strong. She could hit him with what remained of the holy water, and undoubtedly she would hurt him, but would it be enough? It might only serve to enrage him and make him all the more certain that the time to sink his teeth into her throat was now....
"I am not Katya!" she shouted.
"You are the one I will have," he said softly in return.
It seemed as if the entire world had gone still. As if time itself had stopped. She was alone in the alley with him, wrapped in darkness and shadows.
"No," she said softly. "You don"t know what it is to really have anyone. You will never have me. And in your brutality and your cruelty, you will find your own destruction."
He started walking toward her.
How far would her water pistol shoot?
"Put down that weapon. And take off your cross. Because I will have you. I will have you in the way I want to have you, and that"s all that will matter. When I tire of you, well...maybe you"ll be lucky and that won"t happen."
She took a step backwards.He seemed closer than he had been.
As if he had floated.
But now he was walking casually toward her, as if they were old acquaintances, just chatting after a chance meeting on the street.
She sensed, more than felt, a sudden fluttering.
A shadow in the air. Darkness...
Like wings.
Lauren realized that Stephan was frowning.
Then, suddenly, another man materialized in front of her, standing between her and Stephan.
It was Jonas, the young, dark-haired stranger who had so captivated Deanna.
"Leave her alone," Jonas said.
Stephan paused, then almost immediately started laughing. "And just what are you going to do about it?"
Jonas turned slightly toward Lauren. "Run!" he yelled to her.
She realized that Stephan probably had the power to tear the young man apart. Young man? He was a nothing but creature himself; she had just seen him create substance from shadow.
"Don"t fight him," she said vehemently.
"Go!" he urged.
Stephan was coming swiftly closer, floating....
He reached Jonas, lifted a hand. It was a casual movement, but his touch sent Jonas flying across the alley, slamming hard against the wall of the church.
Then Stephan was walking toward her again.
And she found she was having difficulty moving. She could see his eyes. They were dark, and they were light. They were blackness, a Stygian pit, and they gleamed with something like fire. She wanted to move, but...
She forced herself to blink, then she aimed the water pistol.
"You won"t shoot," he said.
But she did.
His hissed grew into a bellow of fury as the spray hit him, but he didn"t stop. Jonas recovered, straightening from where he had slumped to the ground. He raced back, leaping on the older vampire"s back.
"Go, Lauren! Don"t let him into your mind!"
She nodded, backing away. Stephan was already reaching around and plucking Jonas from his back as if he were no more than a pesky mosquito."Let him go!" she commanded, firing her water pistol again.
When the spray hit Stephan, he once again roared in fury.
She squeezed the plastic trigger again. Nothing happened.
The gun was empty.
"Go!" Jonas told her.
Stephan said something she couldn"t understand, but it felt as if she was. .h.i.t by a cold and paralyzing blast of air. Her feet seemed leaden. She opened her mouth to scream as Stephan pounded Jonas to the pavement. Then he kicked him aside like trash and started toward Lauren again with determined strides.
But justbefore he reached her, before his fetid breath could was over her, there was a whirlwind of energy in the street. Suddenly Stephan was. .h.i.t by an enormous streak of energy and power.
Lauren couldn"t begin to imagine the source, and then she saw that it was a man.
Mark.
He threw himself at Stephan in an attack so violent that he seemed to be the very wrath of G.o.d himself. His onslaught caught the vampire off balance. For a second Stephan teetered, and then the two of them became a melee of flying limbs and went down, rolling across the stone pavement of the alleyway together, a black ma.s.s of fury and rage.
At that moment the sky came to life again, wings appearing from the darkness, then fading back into it again.
Something swept down toward Lauren, and she heard a shout. Mark"s voice. He was talking to Jonas.
"Get her out of here! Get her the h.e.l.l out of here!"
Jonas moved like a flash of lightning. She felt his arms around her. "Run! Help me, Lauren, d.a.m.n it. Run!"
They ran.
Shadows took form in their wake, as if wings and darkness combined to become tremendous hands, reaching out....
They ran....
And ran.
And burst out onto the Square and joined the sea of humanity once again. People were strolling around, talking, laughing. A guitarist played a country song, a respectable imitation of Johnny Cash.
In the light, in the throng, in the music and chatter and life of the square, Lauren stopped running at last. Jonas was still holding her as she turned back and looked down the alley.
All she saw was...
Nothing.
No wings, no shadows. No sign of Stephan.
And no sign, either, of Mark.11 "W e shouldn"t have left him," Lauren argued.
They were standing on the edge of the Square. A nearby sign advertised the Pontalbo Museum. A Civil War cannon stood behind a fence, just to her right. If she looked across the green, she could see the statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback.
If she looked around, she could see a world that was normal in every way.
Jonas turned to her, shaking his head sadly. "We had to leave him. Don"t you see? He would have been more vulnerable if you had stayed. He would have had to defend you."
She looked at him. He looked like a regular guy. And yet she knew he was anything but.
She had just seen him materialize from shadow.
He was a vampire.
She inadvertently took a step back.
He groaned. "I was ready to give my life for you back there," he said softly. "Why are you afraid of me? You can trust me, you know."
She frowned, shook her head, and then spoke ruefully. "You do realize I still think I"m insane for believing that vampires exist, don"t you? Trusting a vampire may take a bit of effort."
"If people only knew how many totally decent vampires actually walk among them," he began.
"Vampires aren"t exactly known for their good works," she pointed out, then looked toward the alley again, her concern growing.
"Where did they go? How did they disappear so quickly?"
He shook his head. "I don"t know. All I do know is that I have to watch out for you until Mark reappears," he said firmly.
She couldn"t help but look anxiously toward the alley again. "What should we do?" she asked.
"We should go to the hospital," he said.
She frowned. "You want me to let you into Deanna"s room?"
"I swear to you, I"m not the one who hurt her and I never would. I give you my word."
"Forgive me, but I"m not sure about trusting the word of a vampire."
"I was ready to die for you," he reminded her again, sounding genuinely hurt.
"Maybe that was just a ploy," she said. "Maybe you"re on Stephan"s side, and you"re just stringing us all along."
"Look. What he wants is you. That"s pretty evident. And he might have had you, right then and there. I"m pretty sure the only reason he didn"t just swoop right in and take you is that he thrives on the chase."
"Why not chase us right into the Square? What could these people have done against a host of vampires?"
He shook his head. "If everyone believed-no, knew-that vampires are real, that they exist right here alongside you in what you think of as your safe little world, they"d try exterminat them. Us.. The good and the bad. The good would die first, because they try not to hurt other people. Then you"d be left with the bad. And the bad could turn the tide enough to kill everything. You have to realize that there is an entire underworld out there. Some people sense it. Some even know that it exists. Some people, like Sean Canady, know it and know they need our help in the fight for human safety. If Stephan had carried his battle into the Square, if enough people had seen him and been attacked, the truth would have been revealed and a real war would be on. A blood bath.
Creatures like Stephan exist because they prey on what human beings consider to be real fears. If he tires of his victims and decides not to accept them as members of his flock, he decapitates them and discards their bodies. When he came here, he began throwing them in the Mississippi." He hesitated for a moment. "Once there was an entire hierarchy system, a code of vampire law.
A vampire could only create three more of his own kind each century. There was-is-even a...a king if you will. Of course, there were always monsters who broke the law, and their behavior threatened exposure for everyone. They were dealt with by their own, or occasionally by a vampire hunter or a guardian. This king, actually resides here, in New Orleans."
"Then where the h.e.l.l is he?" Lauren demanded.
"Out of the country, apparently." He shook his head. "Look, I came here because of Lucian, the king. He leads an alliance of those who work against evil and believe that they can find redemption and be part of a better world. I swear to you, what I"m saying is the truth."
It couldn"t be.
It could. Either that, or she was suffering from the most real and ridiculous delusion that had ever plagued a person.
"Please. Let"s go to the hospital and wait there for Mark. I"m sure he"ll come find you. I ran into him earlier, when he was looking for you here in the Quarter."
"Was he with Heidi? My...our other friend."