'How did you get in here?' I said, my voice shaky. This could go very badly. 'What are you doing?' I'd been told that the prohibition against vampires entering without invitation didn't apply to public, commercial property. Apparently, the hospital room was public space.
His gaze shifted to me almost lazily, unconcerned. He struck such an incongruous picture: he sprawled in the plastic chair like it was a throne, one leg stretched before him, both elbows resting on the thin arms. He wore tailored slacks, a white shirt buttoned at the collar, and a suit jacket. On him, the ensemble looked formal, elegant. He was a Victorian gentleman landed in the modern age.
Hardin joined me, blocking light as she stood in the doorway. She held her gun aimed at the vampire. No, it wasn't a gun. It was a hand-sized crossbow, with a wooden shaft loaded.
'Don't move. I'll shoot,' Hardin said, authoritative and coplike. Arturo appeared unconcerned.
'Detective Hardin, I'd like you to rest for a moment,' Arturo said. He spoke slowly, with an almost musical tone. He'd caught her gaze. The two were looking into each other's eyes like they were the only people in the world.
I knew she wouldn't be able to handle the vampires.
'Lower your weapon, please,' he said. And she did. She looked relaxed, but her face held a quizzical expression, her brow slightly furrowed, like some part of her wondered why she was obeying him. Some part of her still held on to herself. Nonetheless, she'd fallen under his spell.
'Arturo, stop it,' I said.
'Detective Hardin, step into the hallway for a moment. Lean against the wall and rest. Thank you.'
Hardin slipped out the door, slumping against the wall as if she really had decided to rest there a moment.
I was all alone with him. My ill mother and him. Quickly I wiped a tear away. It was all over. All of it was for nothing.
'What do you want?' I whispered.
'I only want to talk,' he said. 'We're both safe here. We can't do battle here.'
'You—you won't hurt her?' I was crying anxious, silent tears, and I hated that I was doing it. I felt so weak and helpless.
Slowly, absently almost, he shook his head. 'I could save her, if you like.'
He could drain her, turn her, and in three days she'd become like him. Invincible, immortal, cured.
'So could I. I offered. She refused.'
'She's a wise woman.'
'Yes, she is.'
'Carl has to go. I see that. I told him not to strike at you. I told him that stunt last night was a ploy to draw us out. That if we stayed calm, you couldn't touch us. I'm not surprised he didn't listen to me.'
'He's predictable,' I said.
'Are you ready to replace him?'
'Yes.'
'I could help you.'
He could. In a word, a gesture, he could destroy Carl and Meg. All I'd have to do was step into the vacancy. That, and sell my soul to Arturo.
'I can't owe you anything, Arturo. I don't want to be in your debt for this.'
'I thought so. I had to try, though. Carl didn't have your scruples when he took me up on that offer.'
I hadn't heard that story. I hadn't ever thought about the alpha male Carl must have had to fight to replace. When I'd been attacked, infected, when I'd joined the pack, Carl had seemed like a god, enduring and eternal.
Arturo stood in a fluid movement, incomprehensibly graceful. He was sitting, then he was standing, his hands curled behind his back. He neared my mother's bed and leaned over it.
'They didn't remove it all,' he said, scrutinizing her, studying her with a narrowed gaze. 'She'll have months of chemotherapy ahead of her. Even after that it could come back anytime, anyplace. Her bones. Her blood. Her brain.'
'How do you know that? You don't know that.'
'I feel it in her blood. I feel it traveling.' He held a hand, spread flat, a few inches over her chest, like he really could feel tiny cells of cancer wreaking havoc. 'Her blood is sick.'
I choked on a sob. My voice scraped like sandpaper. 'Please, Arturo. Leave her alone.'
When he touched Mom's face, a light brush of fingers along her chin, I almost screamed.
'What would you do to keep her safe, Katherine?'
Arturo had never been able to bring himself to call me Kitty. The name was beneath his dignity. Now when he said my full name, it felt like fingers curling around my throat, squeezing.
'Anything,' I whispered.
His hand rested on my mother's throat, where he could squeeze and strangle her. 'You'll take Carl's place. You'll answer to me.'
'You can't do this.' An empty, unconvincing denial.
'But I have done ever so much worse to get where I am.'
I flashed on the memory of him dropping Carl with a twist of his arm. He'd incapacitated Hardin with a word. He was too strong, I couldn't stop him.
I wished I had telekinesis, to throw him across the room. I wished to bring down lightning bolts from the sky. I wished for a bag of garlic and a bottle of holy water. I wished I was religious and wore a cross around my neck.
I considered. I took a step back, into the doorway, where I could see Detective Hardin leaning just outside. Her cross would hurt him, but it had to touch him.
'Katherine,' Arturo said. 'You shouldn't have to think about this. I can feel her pulse under my hand. I can stop it.'
I needed another few seconds.
'Ben, too,' I said, stalling. I turned my back to him, feigning despair, to hide what I was doing when I shifted aside the collar of Hardin's shirt. 'Don't hurt him. Ben and I for Carl and Meg.'
'Of course. I assumed as much.'
Hardin didn't move, didn't so much as blink. Her eyes were half-lidded, staring at nothing. I touched the chain, and my fingers started to itch. It was silver. Damn.
Oh, well. I'd just have to cope. Gritting my teeth against the sting, I gripped the silver cross and chain and yanked. The latch broke, the necklace fell into my hand. The itch of the silver against my skin turned into a burn.
'What are you doing?'
'Making sure Hardin's all right. You'll let her go, too? She doesn't know what she's dealing with.'
'She won't even remember what happened.'
'I don't want to be your lackey.'
'I don't want a lackey, I want a partner I can trust.'
Hands at my sides, clenched into fists, gritting my teeth against the searing pain of the silver, I moved toward the bed, my gaze downcast. I would not look into his eyes.
My mother still slept. Arturo's touch was so light, he didn't wake her. I stared at that hand. I put my own on the edge of the bed, like I was preparing to surrender, to hand myself over to him. This had to work.
'I think,' I said slowly. 'I think you should leave my mother alone.'
I put the cross on his hand.
Like a snake had bitten him, he flinched away, jerking his hand back and cradling it to his chest. The cross spilled onto the sheet covering Mom's chest. I picked it up and let it dangle, so he could see what it was, ignoring the pain it caused.
'Get out,' I said, still not looking at his face, those eyes. I had to assume he was glaring at me. When he didn't move, a rage bubbled within me. Weeks of frustration, fear, and pain boiled. Damn the ones who had made me live in fear.
'Get out! Get out of here!' This came out as a growl, and Wolf stared out of my eyes, flexed inside my hands, my fingers curling like claws. I would Change right now and leap on him. Maybe he'd be able to stop me. And maybe he wouldn't.
He moved toward the doorway, and I followed. I watched his shoulder, not his face. A rumbling in my chest felt like the start of a growl. I wanted to rip his throat out. My mouth hurt from wanting to grow fangs.
His lips turned in a careful smile. Lowering his gaze, he gave a small bow, his hand still clenched to his chest. The gesture was courtly.
Then he fled before me, like anyone would before a ravening wolf.
Actually, as much as I would have liked to see him run from me, he merely turned to the doorway and vanished with a breath. I shook my head, convinced I'd seen it wrong. He'd managed a vampire's exit, the moment of shadow and the disappearance.
I clutched my stomach and felt like the luckiest girl in the world. He'd left me and Mom alone.
And my hand felt like it was going to fall off.
'Gah!' I dropped the cross and chain onto Mom's bed. That was where I wanted to leave it, with her, in case he came back. I stretched my hand—a rash severe enough to show raised welts covered my palm. 'Shit,' I muttered.
'Kitty? Hm…what time is it? It's dark.' Mom turned her head and mumbled, sounding very small and lost.
'Sh, Mom. It's okay. Everything's okay. Go back to sleep.' I touched her hand, her forehead, brushing aside strands of ash-colored hair. I tried to sound soothing and not rattled. 'Just go back to sleep. I'll come see you later.'
'All right.'
'I love you.'
She smiled briefly as she drifted back to sleep. Still drugged out on painkillers, she'd never really woken up.
Relieved, I sighed. She was safe. She'd be safe. Could I collapse yet?
'Where is he? Where'd he go?' Hardin appeared in the doorway again, crossbow in hand, her gaze wild.
'He's gone. You still want to arrest Denver's Master vampire?'
'Jesus Christ,' she hissed. She rubbed the back of her neck, where the chain had broken off.
'Detective, could you do something for me?'
She joined me by the bed. 'Is she all right?'
'Yeah. Could you tie this chain around her somehow? I don't want to touch it if I don't have to.' I showed her my injured palm.
'That's my cross,' she said.
