Chapter 16

Felice woke the next day with a gasp. She had been having a nightmare…a nightmare of being trapped in a room, this time without Halo. And she knew it was because he was dead. It was the only way he would let her be captured again. As she pounded at the walls of her cage she heard Roth laughing at her.

“Easy,” a deep, soothing voice said from beside her bed.

She looked at the stranger and gasped again. She pulled her blanket up protectively against her chest, as if it were some kind of magical barrier before realizing how ridiculous the reaction was.

“Easy,” the black man said again. “I’m Danton. Halo left me to watch over you.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

Danton smiled. “I suppose you don’t, unless you trust that Halo would not let anyone he thought might hurt you close to you.”

“I didn’t think Halo trusted anyone at all.”

“Believe me, it came as a surprise to me as well. He respects my ability to hunt and keep order.”

“So you’re a hunter?”

“I was during my earlier years. Now I am the head authoritarian.”

“Authoritarian. I’ve heard that term before.”

“We are what you would call the vampire police force. We see that the law is followed and punish transgressors.”

“And what kind of punishment do you dole out?”

“Sanctions sometimes. Perhaps warnings at first. But our laws are very strict and very straightforward. Those breaking them can expect capital punishment.”

“Y-you mean…death? For breaking a law?”

Felice was appalled and knew it came through in her voice.

“They are very serious laws. For instance, we are never to harm or kill a human. Don’t you agree that is a law that when broken deserves punishment?”

“Well…I suppose…but…”

“Believe me, we do not pass judgment lightly. Each case is held as unique.”

“And any hint of sycophanthropy is punished by death?”

“With very few exceptions.”

“Is Halo an exception?” she asked, her hand clenching tightly at the end of her good arm, worry and fear overwhelming her.

“You really must relax and rest,” he encouraged her warmly. “You need to heal.”

“How can I relax when you might kill the man who saved my life?” she asked bitterly.

“He has already been judged and excused. There is a sanction—he must not poison himself ever again. It will be looked on as a pattern leading to sycophanthropy. But I assure you, he is safe.”

She took little comfort in hearing it from a stranger. She wanted to hear and see Halo. She wanted to know he was all right. She didn’t trust anyone else. She realized she wouldn’t for a very long time.

“I can see I’ve upset you.” Danton pulled out a phone and, activating voice commands. he said, “Call Halo.”

He put the phone on speaker and she anxiously listened to it ring.

“What’s wrong?” Halo asked by way of greeting. She was so relieved to hear his voice that she sobbed out a breath. “Is she all right?” he demanded harshly.

“I…I’m fine.” Felice spoke up shakily. “Where are you?”

“I’m on my way to you now. You sound upset.”

“Danton was telling me about your sanctioning.”

“Damn it, Danton, I told you not to upset her with trivial bullshit!”

“It isn’t trivial!” she cried out, talking over Danton’s attempt to respond. “They could have killed you!”

“For fuck’s sake, Danton. Why’d you have to tell her that?”

“She asked—”

“Don’t you yell at him! I asked him. And you should have told me yourself.”

“I would have. Listen, I just don’t want you to worry. I have everything under control. All you need to worry about is getting better.”

“Halo…”

“Look, I’ll be there in ten minutes. You can yell at me then.”

“All right. Hurry.”

“I will.”

Danton hung up and she looked at him apologetically.

“I’m sorry if I got you in trouble.”

“Halo doesn’t frighten me. I wouldn’t want to be on the opposite end of one of his hunts, but he doesn’t frighten me otherwise.”

“Still, you were only trying to help.”

“I don’t believe in keeping people in the dark unless it serves the vampire nation. You will no longer be in the dark. You will know about vampires for the rest of your life. It is a tremendous burden for a human, keeping such a secret.”

“You mean…they’re going to let me keep my memories?” she asked breathlessly.

“The way I see it, there is little choice. Using hypno on you…by the time you’re healed enough and clear of Halo’s perceived danger, it would leave too massive a gap in your memory. It wouldn’t be fair to you to destroy what might be months of your life. Of course you’ll have to face the committee. They have the final say. They might be more callous in their estimation than I am.”

“This committee…when do I face them?”

“Probably when you are healed enough and out of danger. Only then can they make a judgment on how much time has passed versus using hypno on you.”

“How can I convince them not to take my memories?”

She had to know. She didn’t want to forget about Halo. True, he wouldn’t be in her life for very long, but she still didn’t want to forget him. She wanted to be able to savor memories of their time together, even if that did come with remembering the most harrowing times of her life.

“Just be honest and sincere. Give them a good reason to trust you. Offer them something of value about yourself.”

“But I don’t have anything of value to a vampire.”

“Don’t be so quick to say that. You can offer yourself up as a lure to get Roth. Roth is a dangerous man. A threat to all the vampires hold dear. If you can offer us a solution it would be deemed very valuable.”

“I still don’t know why he wanted me. It might be that that desire is at an end. It might have just been random.”

“Halo doesn’t believe that. And I trust his instincts.”

“Halo wouldn’t like me offering myself up as bait,” she said, gnawing on her bottom lip a moment.

“Halo isn’t in charge of your life.”

True, but he was her guide to all things vampire. If he thought there was something to worry about, if he deemed she was in too much danger, who was she to argue?

Then again he had become overbearingly protective of her. Part of her took comfort in knowing she was safe thanks to him, but part of her felt she needed the freedom to move and breathe. She could tell she was going to have to fight for every inch of personal freedom she desired. At least as far as being in the vampire world was concerned.

She wondered about Halo. She wondered why he was being so caring and considerate. She couldn’t figure him out. She had thought him shallow and one-dimensional at first; now she saw the true depths to him. She saw he cared about the world far more than he liked for others to see. She saw he was far more noble than he liked to present himself as. She saw a capacity to feel guilt and responsibility. Now she saw all of that, along with his ability to care. And more.

“You don’t have to stay,” she told Danton.

“You’re kidding, right?” he said with a chuckle. “He’ll kill me if I leave you before he gets here.”

“Do I really need protecting with all of the vampires in New York surrounding me?” she asked, indicating the floors above and below with a sweep of her good arm.

“After that bomb? I would say so.”

She bit at her lip a moment more.

“How does he know you are any more trustworthy than the next guy?” she asked him.

Danton chuckled again. “He doesn’t, I guess. But he should. I’ve never hurt a soul that didn’t deserve it.”

“You carry out the punishment as dictated by vampire law, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And that law is absolute even though there are sometimes exceptions and explanations.”

“We are not blind to exceptions. That’s why we have a committee. Halo faced that committee and was excused. Our system of laws works. As does our system of punishment.”

“Halo also thought he’d face censure for telling me about vampires in the first place even though it wasn’t his fault. Roth had done the damage first.”

“That was taken into consideration as well. We are hoping you will lead us to Roth. When you sit before the committee, remember that. Remember the value you have.”

“I have value outside of that,” she said with a proud lift of her chin.

“Not in a way that is appealing to the vampire world. But as I said, you have time in your favor. Using hypno on such a large block of time is nearly impossible. It is also unhealthy for you. It is also suspicious. For you to turn up without the memory of a month or more of time and with an injury that has been treated with surgery, that is unacceptable and unethical. You just have to convince them you know how to keep a secret of this magnitude. Don’t worry. I can sense that you can. They will as well.”

“I hope you are right.”

“I am.”

“Tell me more about this bomb. How are you going to figure out who is responsible when there are humans walking all over the place getting in the way?”

“We have our ways. We will know everything the humans know just as they learn it.”

“You mean you can spy on them?”

“Yes.”

“How do you do that?”

“It’s a simple act of using hypno on the lead investigators.”

“Oooh sneaky. And very handy. I wish I could use that. I’d hypno my ex into leaving me alone. I’d make him forget he ever knew me.”

“That would be impossible if he has known you any length of time. It would leave an enormous gap in his life.”

“He deserves it. Trust me.”

“What has he done to earn such malice from you?”

“Just trust me when I say he’s gone out of his way to earn that malice.” She shivered wildly, and Danton’s attention grew sharp.

“It is really that bad?” he asked.

“Well, not lately. I moved without telling him where I was going and none of my friends and family would ever tell him. I put down new roots a thousand miles away from him—opening my store upstate, Felice’s Antiques. I haven’t seen or heard from him since. For the first time in ages I feel free of him.” She frowned then. “Only to be harassed by a new violence.” She suddenly felt so tired and worn out. The entire situation was taking a toll on her.

She chatted with Danton about things of far less consequence after that, unwilling to dwell in the heaviness of her situation a moment longer. Danton proved to be good company, very different from Halo. He was a serious sort, quite unlike Halo’s irreverence, and seemingly incapable of flying in the face of convention like Halo did. But Danton was also relaxed. Comfortable in his own skin. Assured that his path was a righteous path. She envied him his clarity. She also envied his strength, just as she envied Halo’s. She would never have had the wherewithal to escape from Roth on her own. She could easily see Danton coming out on top just as Halo had.

Halo arrived a short time later. To her surprise he ignored Danton’s presence and came up to the head of the bed. He ringed a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her into a deep, passionate kiss. The intimacy of it was inescapable. The fact that he was dallying with a human right before the eyes of another vampire made her flush with awkwardness. She didn’t want him to get in any more trouble than he had already faced. He wouldn’t be censured for making love to a human, but it was clear that the vampires were heavily prejudiced against humans.

She put a hand on his chest and pushed him away from her, although quite reluctantly. She so loved the heat and passion of his mouth. Part of her also loved that he had come straight to her with affection. That she was more to him than a passing fuck made her feel special in his eyes. Felice tried not to feel that way, knowing such attachments could be dangerous, but she couldn’t help herself. It seemed that when it came to her he had begun acting out of character. She tried not to read too much into it, but it was hard.

“How are you feeling?” he asked solicitously.

“I’m fine. What have you been doing?”

“Research. A little hunting.”

She frowned. She wanted to curb him, to tell him not to go in search of Roth on his own. Roth was obviously a formidable opponent. How could Halo face a man who was clearly insulated by a wall of other sycophants? However, she knew there was no curbing Halo. To try would be an exercise in futility. She had to let him be who he was, no matter how harrowing it was for her.

“Any luck?” she asked.

“Some.” Halo moved to the DVD player and popped in a disc. He turned on the TV and the familiar footage from the front-entrance cameras came up. “Now, assuming the bomb was planted after our escape from Roth, that puts the time index from 1400 hours to the detonation at 1545 or thereabouts. During that time only seven people enter the building through the front entrance. This woman enters at 1430,” he said, indicating the blond woman passing security. “She isn’t carrying anything and is wearing a light coat that fits too snuggly to her body to account for her smuggling something in. Now, I’m working under the assumption that the bomb isn’t already in the building. So we can dismiss her. Then a couple enters at 1446. I know the woman personally but don’t recognize the male. So, I followed them both for a while today and yesterday. No one exhibited any strange behavior and, unless he was smuggling something under his coat, neither appears to have brought anything into the building. You and I enter at 1505. Obviously neither of us brings the bomb. But then this male enters at 1515 carrying a backpack. Plenty of room for a bomb and he does seem to be taking care with it, holding it in his arms as opposed to on his back or slinging it over a shoulder. I find that to be suspicious behavior.”

“So you followed him too?”

“For a little while. Enough to know he bears watching. He looks over his shoulder a lot. He is rather a nervous sort for a vampire. I’ll find out more about him from the records in vampire central. Where he lives and whatnot.”

“And the last person to enter?”

“That would be me,” Danton said as the video showed him entering the building at 1527.

“I trust Danton wouldn’t blow up a building while he was standing mere floors away. This little bastard…” He sped up the tape to 1536. “He leaves right before the explosion and he isn’t carrying his backpack anymore,” Halo said, stopping the tape and showing the same young man who had entered the building at 1515.

“I have to admit that’s very suspicious,” Felice said. “But if you’re going to plant a bomb, why do it by coming through the front entrance? Why not any of the others? And why not exit through any of the others?”

“The tapes cover both entrances to the building. East and west. There are no other ways in or out of the building except two fire exits and both of those have alarms on the doors. There were no alarms reported during our implantation time. It takes keycards to come up from the garage and into the building, and no one scanned in from the garage during this time.”

“Are these alarms in working order?” she asked him.

“They are. I checked. Both alarms went off minutes after the bomb had gone off and vampires were evacuating the building.”

“So you think it’s this fellow,” she said, indicating the frozen visage of the young vampire male. He did seem very young, although how she could tell any vampire’s age was beyond her. The seemingly young male could be hundreds of years old and she would never know it.

“What’s his name?” she asked absently as she studied his face. There was something oddly familiar about him, she realized. Although, how she would ever know a vampire was beyond her. At least, before meeting Halo. Now she had met a whole building full of them. Still, it was possible she had crossed a vampire’s path before. It wasn’t as if they wore neon signs that proclaimed, I’M A VAMPIRE! They blended in seamlessly with the world around them. She would never have known the difference.

“There’s something familiar about him,” she said, her tone thoughtful. Halo’s head snapped around and he narrowed keen eyes on her.

“Familiar how?”

“I don’t know. He’s just…familiar.”

“Felice, it’s important you try to figure out why,” Halo said, his entire presence having changed into something aggressive and demanding.

“I’m trying! I can’t think of why!”

“Perhaps there is a better way of handling this,” Danton said smoothly, earning a glare from the impatient Halo.

“How?”

“Hypno. We can search her memory that way, possibly shake loose why she feels this way.”

Halo immediately looked abashed. He ran a hand through his hair and gave her a warm, sheepish look. “I’m sorry. I should have thought of that instead of bullying you.”

The apology touched her. She knew he did not ask for forgiveness very often. She knew he never asked for forgiveness for being who he was. It touched her that he was making an exception for her in consideration for her feelings. Again she was overwhelmed by the desire to consider herself special to him. She knew she had to fight such feelings of familiarity, but she couldn’t seem to shake them free one hundred percent.

She firmly decided to ignore the sensation and focused instead on what they were proposing.

“It won’t hurt me, right? You’re not suddenly going to decide to wipe my memory?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Halo said with a frown. “No one’s going to wipe your memory without you knowing about it first. This will just be a probe for information.”

“You’re not going to ask me what color underwear I have on or at what age I finally stopped sucking my thumb, are you?”

Halo rolled his eyes in exasperation. He huffed out a breath. Then he cocked his head and arched a brow. “What age did you finally stop sucking your thumb?” he asked her with a low-voiced curiosity.

“Never you mind that,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Who would you rather…?” Halo asked. He was hesitant, something she wasn’t used to seeing on him.

“You. Of course I want you,” she said as if he were silly for asking. His expression eased and a smiled lifted one corner of his mouth.

“Just sit back and relax,” he said, moving around until he was sitting beside her on the edge of the bed, facing her. Danton sat back in the chair next to the bed and watched with focused attention. His attention wasn’t conducive to her relaxation. It made her nervous. She was going to be exposed to them. She didn’t mind being exposed to Halo, but Danton…she hardly knew him.

Halo touched a finger under her chin and turned her stare away from Danton. He made her look into his eyes, and she gladly focused on the beautiful blue of them.

“That’s a good girl,” he said as he praised her softly. “Just look into my eyes and let your mind drift.”

Before she could even draw her next breath she felt herself tumbling into his hypnotic embrace.