In the distance, an owl screamed, and when she looked in that direction, a tall pine tree shivered. No, it was more like shuddering. Her heart skipped a beat. She kept her eyes glued to the tree and the brush surrounding it. Darkness was falling, but the moon was throwing enough light for her to make out the way the needles on the pine suddenly went from green to brown. A bush a few feet from the tree shriveled, pulling in its foliage.
Lorraine stood up slowly and stretched. She had to get this right, place herself in the exact position so the vampire would take the spot she needed him to be in. She faced toward him, staying loose, breathing evenly. There was a pause in the shivering brush, and she knew the vampire had become aware of her.
Within seconds, she felt the first oily touch of his mind seeking to probe hers. She had worked part of the night on strengthening the shields in her mind. Andor could pick thoughts out of her mind, just as she could his, but neither could probe deeply without the other’s consent. She told herself the vampire wasn’t stronger than Andor. She could hold out against him.
Soft whispers touched her mind, brushing gently, insistently, looking for entry. The tone was almost tender, like that a lover might use, but she felt its foulness. She began to hum to drown out the voice. She didn’t want to hear his entreaty or his commands. He tried pushing a compulsion into her mind, but her shields held fast.
The vampire burst through the foliage, rushing her, red, pitiless eyes glaring at her as he came. She held her ground, her fingers around the bottle of whiskey she had brought to warm herself on cold nights. One small sip, maybe two. The bottle almost hadn’t made the cut when she was deciding what to bring with her. She had to carry everything while she was hiking through the mountains. Now, that bottle might save her life.
The vampire ran into an unseen force. Sparks danced through the sky. Red and white and yellow, the flames licked at the rotting flesh of the vampire. He leapt back and howled. His curses were barely intelligible. He snarled and paced along the edge of the campsite, occasionally testing the safeguards Andor had constructed from where he lay inside the tent, so badly wounded.
Lorraine deliberately held her ground, just turning to face the monster. She hoped if she stayed in position, he would eventually choose to stand in front of her to communicate with her. From what she’d seen in Andor’s mind, all vampires seemed very susceptible to flattery. They appeared to be vain, egotistical creatures.
The vampire eventually came back to stand directly in front of her, right on the little rise of soil she had prepared. Her heart gave another leap of joy, but she slowed her breathing and pulse so he wouldn’t be able to use the signs against her. When he stood still, his looks changed completely. He was no longer a rotting corpse, with flaming red eyes and a mouth that was no more than a slash with jagged, stained teeth. He was dressed in modern clothes and was young and quite good-looking.
He bowed to her. “Lady. I believe you are harboring a fugitive. He has committed terrible crimes against his country and I’ve been sent to bring him to justice.”
Deliberately, Lorraine stalled. The longer this played out, the more time Andor’s friends had to get there. If she didn’t have to try to kill this creature, she would be much happier. She glanced over her shoulder toward the tent, looking as nervous as possible. Since she truly was nervous, it wasn’t difficult.
“Do you mean Andor?”
The vampire nodded. “That is his name, yes. I have tracked him for a while. He’s a very dangerous criminal.”
“Is he?” Again, she looked over her shoulder, her uneasiness transmitting itself to the vampire. “He’s very … commanding.”
“Are there others in the camp with you?” he asked.
She shook her head. He would know that if he walked around the campsite. “What’s your name?”
“Dartmus.”
She wrung her hands together. “I don’t know what to do.” She tried to sound very scared and very young.
“There were three other men here.” It was an accusation, nothing less.
She nodded. “He ran them off, but he did something weird first.” She stopped there, making him ask. Each second was a second she’d gained so Andor’s brethren could get that much closer.
“What did he do?”
She felt the oily probe at her mind again. It was like thick fingers, scratching and clawing to find a way in. She had to work to repress a shudder of revulsion. Just the touch made her feel sick.
“The men were like statues, over there.” She indicated the spot where the three men had suddenly gone motionless, frozen in time, arms outstretched, knees bent as if they were caught in mid-motion taking a step. It had been the first time she’d realized the things she’d stumbled across were far deeper and worse than they’d seemed. She’d done what she always had, stayed as quiet as possible to learn as much as she could in a short period of time. She’d needed to make an assessment of the situation fast.
The vampire glanced in the direction she pointed but his eyes were narrowed and his brow furrowed. She thought she saw a bug crawling up his face, but it had grown a little darker now and it was impossible to be sure. She knew he was wondering why he couldn’t get into her head.
“He told them to leave after he took their blood, and they ran away.”
“Let me inside.”
“How? I don’t know how. He’s still in the ground. I think he might be dead, but I don’t know and I don’t want to find out.”
“Invite me inside.”
She shook her head. “He said I can’t do that. He said if I invited anyone inside the camp, the moment they touched that barrier, they would burn.” She gave another shudder. She told herself it was for effect, but the truth was, he creeped her out.
His eyes were glowing in the dark, a fiery red he couldn’t seem to control. He had managed to put himself together, to make himself look human, but his skin cracked, and now she was very certain bugs slipped out. His teeth one moment seemed normal, the next they looked spiked and stained. His lips were thin, and they looked stained, too. Once his tongue came out, a long purplish-red thing that scooped up one of the bugs near his mouth.
“You will invite me in now.” His voice was shrill.
It hurt her ears. She resisted covering them, forcing her body to stay relaxed. He was getting angry, just the way the other vampires had in the images in Andor’s head. If they were thwarted in what they wanted for too long, they threw tantrums. She knew they became lethal at that point.
“I’m sorry, but no. I think you’d better go now.” In contrast to him, she kept her voice very low and soft. Almost gentle, the way one lover might speak to another.
That threw him for a minute. He hesitated and then howled his rage and raced to the barrier again. His chest hit and a thousand tiny embers lit the air all around him. Sparks raced up his shirt and snapped against his chin. He screamed and hit at his face and clothes to keep any flames from burning out of control. Several licked at his chest, but he stamped them out with the heel of his hand. He glared at her, pacing back and forth like a wild animal, but he stayed right in front of her, just as she’d hoped. Now he was much closer, right along the invisible barrier Andor had created.
He stopped abruptly and tried staring into her eyes. She immediately dropped her gaze to his chest. Low enough not to meet his gaze, but high enough to still see his face and any signs he inadvertently gave before he tried his next attack. He was studying her, and she tried to keep her mind as blank as possible. From being with Andor, she knew she could hold a barrier between the vampire and her deepest thoughts. He couldn’t command her. But he could most likely catch any random thought that moved in and out of the front of her brain.
“You were expecting me.” His hand began to tap a rhythm against his thigh.
“Of course. He told me that a little toad might show up and I was to keep that toad out at all costs. He said a human woman as puny and defenseless as I am could keep the likes of something as slow and insignificant as you out. He told me to expect you to be as inept as the bumbling vampire hunters sent to kill him.”
She saw the fury her words unleashed in the way the skin of his face cracked and peeled off, leaving rotting flesh below the mask. He looked hideous with his face partially gone and his eyes receding deeper into the pits in his skull. He didn’t seem to notice that his mask of civility was slowly peeling away.
“He said that?”
“Yes, he did.”
She felt the ground move slightly. Waves appeared in the dirt all around him and then under the barrier right into the campsite, coming straight at her. Her heart accelerated but she didn’t move. She forced air in and out of her lungs, one slow, controlled breath at a time.
“I saw this one. Bugs crawling out of the dirt, but they aren’t real. They can’t be. The bugs couldn’t make it past Andor’s safeguards. He’s in the ground and he would never fail to safeguard his resting place. This is an illusion. You’re going to have to do better.”
That rhythm he was tapping on his thigh was now sounding out in the forest, in the trees where she couldn’t see. Branches creaking to that same beat. He was up to something, but she didn’t know what. She just had to stay alert.
“Let me in! Invite me in!” He screamed the words at her and hurled himself at her mind, this time slamming into her shield over and over, battering at her hard enough that she felt bruised. Her head hurt so bad it felt as if it might explode.
She refused to let him see he had succeeded in hurting her. This was a tantrum, but it was also for show. He stepped back and raised his hands. He began to murmur words and moved his hands around. She knew immediately he was trying to figure out what the safeguards were. That scared her.
Andor had explained that a mage had taught the ancients spells to guard their resting places and that all safeguards were based on those earlier spells. That meant vampires knew what Carpathians used, because at some point in their lives they had used them as well.