"Be careful," Oliver cautioned. "Undead might not have the same powers as the true-born, but they can still f.u.c.k you up."
Sergei walked across the street, heading for the Bentley. As he drew closer to the car, Tanith"s chauffeur turned to face him.
"Dixon, it"s me," Sergei said, raising his hand in greeting. "You know me, don"t you? My friends and I just need to get inside the car, that"s all. . . ."
With a deep growl like a guard dog warning off a prowler, the driver bared his fangs at Sergei. His eyes were .ashing ruby red as he positioned himself between the intruder and the car.
"Whoa! No need to get upset!" Sergei immediately stepped back. He looked over his shoulder at the others and shook his head. "It"s no use. Dixon"s not going to let anyone in that car unless they"re of the Graves bloodline. The same goes for Jules"s driver. We"ll have to risk .ying, gargoyles or no gargoyles."
"Maybe not!" Melinda said excitedly. "Here comes Jules!"
Sergei and the girls turned to see their friend limping toward them, an arrow sticking out of his upper-right thigh. Jules paused long enough to yank it free, snapping it in two like kindling, as his friends surged around him.
"Praise the Founders!" Carmen exclaimed, throw-ing her arms around his neck. "We were afraid you were dead!"
Jules gave her a squeeze.
"I knew those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds couldn"t catch you," Sergei said with a relieved chuckle.
"Where are Lilith and Tanith?" Melinda asked anxiously.
"You didn"t see?" Jules replied, a surprised look on his face.
"Afraid not," Oliver admitted. "When you yelled, "Van Helsings," we got out of there as fast as we could."
"Jules-what happened?" Melinda whispered.
"Tanith"s dead."
"Oh, no!" Carmen gasped, covering her mouth.
"What?" Sergei blinked in surprise. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I"m afraid so," Jules replied sadly. "She"s gone, dude-I"m sorry."
"What about Lilith?" Carmen whimpered. "Is she okay?"
"I don"t know," Jules said grimly. "I was hoping she was here with you."
"So what do we do now?" Melinda asked.
"I won"t leave without Lilith," Jules said . rmly. "We already lost Tanith; I won"t lose her too."
Suddenly a large animal the size of an Irish wolf-hound, its fur dripping wet, came loping up the middle of the street from the direction of the park. Blue eyes blazing, the tailless beast suddenly stood up on its hind legs and nuzzled Jules"s face.
"Lili!" Jules threw his arms around her. "You made it!"
Suddenly standing there in Jules"s arms-stark naked, her wet hair cascading down her back like a waterfall-Lilith hungrily searched for his lips.
"Oh, my!" Oliver"s gaze said it all.
Jules quickly shed his jacket and handed it to Lilith.
"Sorry about that," she said sheepishly. "When will D&G make dresses shapeshifter proof?"
"I"m just glad you escaped unhurt," Jules said, pulling her close.
"We"ve got to get out of here quick," Lilith said. "I heard the Van Helsings talking. Their reinforce-ments will be here soon."
"It"ll be a bit of a tight .t, but I think we can all squeeze into my limo," Jules said, motioning to his driver. "Marcel! We"re leaving now!"
Marcel put away his polishing rag and nodded. "Oui, Monsieur Jules," he said as he opened the rear door for his master. Melinda, Oliver, Carmen, Jules, and Lilith packed into the backseat while Sergei rode with the driver.
"What about Tanith"s driver?" Melinda asked. "Shouldn"t we tell him to go home?"
Jules shook his head. "It can"t be helped. He"s undead. He won"t obey anyone who doesn"t have Graves blood in their veins."
As the car pulled away from the curb, Lilith wriggled her naked body around on Jules"s lap so she could look out the rear window one last time at the chauffeur. Dixon leaned against the Bentley, arms folded, patiently awaiting his mistress"s return. He would continue to do so until the rising sun turned him to ash.
The night doorman at the Balmoral didn"t raise so much as an eyebrow as Lilith crossed the lobby bare-foot, dressed in nothing but her boyfriend"s jacket. After all, he was merely a servant. It wasn"t his place to approve or disapprove of how a member of the family dressed.
Lilith entered the elevator and punched the b.u.t.ton for the penthouse .oor, waiting until the doors shut securely behind her before allowing her hands to tremble.
During the whole ride back, she had worked hard to keep from appearing weak in front of the others. But the truth was, what happened in the park had shaken her badly. She had never seen anyone die before-and never suspected that the .rst death she would witness would be not just another vampire, but one of her best friends.
Tonight was a brutal reminder of how dangerous it was out there, especially for .edglings just learning to master the skills that would allow them to survive and prosper in a ruthless world.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Tanith lying sprawled on the ground like a broken toy. If she hadn"t gotten out of the way at the very last second, she would have been the one lying there, not her friend. She frowned and shook her head, trying to dislodge what that meant from her mind.
It was all that d.a.m.ned New Blood"s fault, she told herself. If she hadn"t attracted the Van Helsings" atten-tion by summoning a storm, none of this would have happened.
Lilith decided that the worst thing about the Van Helsings showing up and killing Tanith was that it broke up the .ght between her and that New Blood trash. Sure, the girl caught her off guard with that whirl-wind, but Lilith was certain she would have won the .ght in the end. It galled her that the newbie managed to escape unharmed. No doubt the little s.k.a.n.k was telling all her lowlife friends about how she got one over on an Old Blood.
She could still hear the b.i.t.c.h"s taunts ringing in her ears. Stormgatherer or not, there wasn"t a newbie born .t to lick her shoes. Lilith promised herself that if she ever saw that hipster fashion victim again, she would tear her tongue out by the roots for even daring to speak to her!
Lilith stepped out of the elevator into the private lobby that served as the foyer for her apartment, only to .nd the family butler waiting for her.
"Greetings, Miss Lilith," he said in a cultured British accent, not reacting at all to her state of undress. "The master wishes to see you."
"Do I have to, Curtis?" Lilith groaned. "I"ve had a really s.h.i.tty night, as you can no doubt see, and I"m really tired. . . ."
"Your father was most insistent that he see you as soon as you arrived. I have been standing here awaiting your return for"-the butler pulled a pocket watch from his waistcoat-"seven hours, twenty-six minutes, and . fty-eight seconds."
"Very well." Lilith sighed. Although the undead who served her family normally obeyed her every word, her father"s wishes overrode hers every time.
"Come with me, Miss Lilith," Curtis said as he held open the front door. "The master is in his study."
Whatever her father"s reason for wanting to speak to her, the fact that he was waiting for her in the study did not bode well. Although she"d lived in the penthouse all her life, Lilith could count on one hand the times she"d been inside his private sanctum.
Developer and CEO of HemoGlobe, the largest and most successful company in the blood bank industry, Victor Todd had single-handedly revolutionized vampire culture for true-born and undead alike.
Thanks to his processed blood supply program, paid for by monthly subscriptions, it was no longer necessary to spend every waking hour stalking and hunting that next meal. Now all but the most wretched had the time to focus on other needs and interests, using their free time to better their existence.
Yes, as far as the families of Lilith"s friends and school-mates were concerned, Victor Todd was Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Bill Gates all rolled into one. But to Lilith, he was the man who controlled every aspect of her life, at least until she was . nally old enough to marry Jules and begin her new life as the Countess de Laval.
As Curtis escorted her to her father, Lilith found herself glancing at the portraits that lined the long hallway. Her attention was momentarily caught by a painting of her grandparents, Adolphus Todesking and Marcilla Karnstein. Having died decades before she was born, they had never been anything more to her than daubs of paint on stretched canvas. The only thing Lilith really knew about them was that Adolphus was responsible for slaying Pieter Van Helsing after the legendary vampire hunter killed his beloved wife.
Lilith could almost swear Marcilla"s head turned to watch her pa.s.s by.
Curtis hesitated before rapping lightly on the door to the study. "Miss Lilith has arrived home, sire."
"Send her in."
Lilith swallowed hard and tugged the lapels of her borrowed jacket even closer together. As much as she hated to admit it, deep down, at the very core of her being, she was afraid of Daddy.
Curtis held the door open but did not follow Lilith into the room. "Will there be anything else, Master Victor?" he asked.
"No. You"re free to withdraw, Curtis."
"Thank you, master," the butler said, with more than a hint of relief in his voice as he closed the door, leaving Lilith alone with her father.
Victor Todd turned from the . at-panel computer monitor on his desk to face his daughter. With his money and brooding good looks, he was easily one of the most desirable men in the jet set.
"I trust you did not leave the house dressed like that, young lady?" He scowled.
"No, sir," Lilith replied, her voice suddenly very small. "If you"re busy, I can come back later after I"ve changed clothes-"
"There"s no need for that. I was simply checking on some investments I made in the foreign exchange market. The euro is doing very well right now," he said, self-satisfaction creeping into his voice despite his displeasure with his daughter. "Right now you and I need to talk. First I want to hear what you thought you were doing at the club last night; then you can explain how you ended up wearing that."
"You know about what happened at the Belfry?" Lilith asked, stalling for time.
"Of course I know!" he replied wearily. "I"m a co-owner of the club. You should know I have an interest in every vampire-friendly business in this city!"
"We were just having fun, that"s all." Lilith dropped her eyes to the carpet. "It wasn"t just me-Tanith and Carmen bit him too."
"I don"t care what the others did or didn"t do," Todd replied sternly. "They"re not my daughters-you are."
"Yes, Father," Lilith said glumly.
"What possessed you to do something so reckless as to tap a human at the club in the .rst place? Never mind the security issues-did you even bother to consider whether you"re ready to take responsibility for bringing unlife into this world?"
"That couldn"t possibly have happened," Lilith said with a dismissive shrug. "I"m too young to create undead."
"Mercifully, that is still the case. But it won"t be for much longer, Lilith. In the blink of an eye-another four years, .ve at the most-you"ll . nish maturing into an adult. You"ll lose your ability to re. ect, your aging process will slow to one tenth of a human"s, and your bite will transform those you feed on into undead. . . ."
"Daddy, do we have to go through the "bats and the bees" talk right now?" Lilith groaned, rolling her eyes in embarra.s.sment.
"Better we discuss the matter now, before it"s too late. I certainly can"t trust your mother to handle the situation, can I?"
"No, sir," Lilith agreed.
Lilith couldn"t remember the last time she had any-thing resembling a conversation with her mother. After spending over one hundred years trying desperately to conceive an heir for her husband, the former Irina Viesczy now spent as little time with her offspring and spouse as possible.
"Bringing undead into the world is serious business, Lili. They"ll serve you without qualm or complaint for centuries. Odds are they"ll even "outlive" you and end up being pa.s.sed down to your own heirs when the time comes, like Bruno and Esmeralda and Curtis. All of them will gladly kill and die for you. After all, if you"re destroyed before you can pa.s.s along your bloodright-even to a usurper-they die as well. The undead are the true foundation on which power is based in our society.
"Remember, it is better to have crypts full of undead than vaults full of gold. Why? Because the vampire with the biggest bloodright gets the gold. It"s that simple. But no matter how powerful I am, if you draw attention to us, you"ll have to answer to the Synod. The man you attacked at the club is newsworthy, Lilith. What with satellite uplinks, podcasts, and CNN, it"s more important than ever for our kind to keep our secret.
"If the Lord Chancellor .nds you guilty of placing us in the spotlight, you"ll be defanged."
"How barbaric!" Lilith gasped, instinctively covering her mouth.
"Indeed," her father replied. "In the old days it amounted to a death sentence, since the offender slowly starved to death. Now do you understand why it is wise to keep from doing things that would result in being brought before the Synod?"
"Yes, sir," she said sullenly.
"Not only that, but we also don"t want to do anything that would make Count de Laval reconsider the wisdom of marrying into our family, am I right? So, do I have your promise that you will never tap a human in the club again?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very good," Todd said with a relieved sigh. "Now, perhaps you can tell me why you"re standing in front of me dressed in nothing but a man"s jacket. What hap-pened to your dress?"
"It got shredded when I shapeshifted."
"You shapeshifted?" Todd scowled. "How did that happen?"