Strange Trouble Read online

  She looked at Jack, and parted her split lips in a smile. “Then let’s get to it. It’s time to make things right.”

  Past time.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “This room is safe,” she told Ellis.

  “Oh,” he whispered, his hand over his heart. “I can’t—”

  “Only for a little while. I won’t leave him alive, baby.”

  “You won’t be able to find him,” Ellis said. “And I’ll have to live in fear for the rest of my life.”

  “This will not last forever.”

  “Even if you get him, there are vampires everywhere. I might get bitten. Someday, I might get bitten.”

  She put her fingers over his lips. “Someday you could wreck your car or have a stroke.”

  They stared at each other, and finally, the calm sureness in her face must have soothed him. He nodded, catching her fingers with his as she moved them from his lips. “Something is different.”

  She smiled. “I am different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there is less doubt.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  She kissed his cheek, then nodded toward the door to the silver-laced holding room. In the last few hours she’d had it rigged so no one could use the keypad to get inside. Ellis could come out once it was daylight and she didn’t have to worry that Llodra’s vampires might force a RISC employee to drag Ellis out.

  She’d told Rice what she needed and why, and he’d had the room stocked with a cot, water, and a TV, among other things.

  “If you need me,” she said, “if you just need to hear my voice, you call me.”

  “And if…”

  She nodded. “When I have the twins and Lex, I’ll let you know.”

  “I’ll be out as soon as it’s dawn,” he told her.

  “And unless I call to tell you Llodra is dead, you get into this room at least half an hour before dark. Promise me.” She ushered him into the room.

  Somehow, somewhere, Llodra would know she was coming for him. He’d feel it. They were connected.

  And he’d come sneaking in.

  Ellie must be kept safe. No matter how long it took, she wasn’t letting Llodra get to her boy.

  She’d called Strad three hours earlier, as soon as she and Jack had left the graveyard, and told him to get a couple hours of sleep. He was going to need them. She told him to pass the request on to Owen, and hadn’t even thought to ask how their talk had gone.

  He hadn’t offered the information.

  It hadn’t really mattered.

  She needed to feed. That was what mattered.

  In her car, she headed to Strad’s apartment, ridding herself of silver blades as she drove. Five minutes from his place, she called his cell.

  He answered immediately, his voice as clear as if he hadn’t been asleep. “Yeah?”

  “Open your door for me.”

  He clicked off.

  She pulled into his driveway and jumped out of the car. She slammed her door shut and when she turned around he was there, barefoot and shirtless in the cold predawn, his hair flowing messily over his massive shoulders.

  They stared at each other across the few feet separating them, and her hunger, her need for not only his blood but for him, rose up and took over.

  “Don’t put a claim on me,” she said. “That will only get you hurt.”

  “Shut up, Rune,” he said, softly, tenderly, and in the next second, he lifted her into his arms and carried her into his house.

  Just like a fucking caveman.

  She lay against the solid smoothness of his chest, her fingers entwined in his long hair, staring up into his carved, wild face.

  He let her down once they reached his bedroom, but pulled her against his body and held her, for five long minutes, without saying a word. Without moving.

  Letting the hunger build.

  Finally, she lifted her hands to his back and held him to her. She ran her tongue over his chest, her body tightening when he shivered.

  “Strad,” she murmured. “Just for a minute.”

  But it would be longer than that.

  The world outside didn’t exist right then, didn’t exist as they took time to refuel, recharge.

  She pushed his jeans over his hips, impatient to feel him, all of him, against her.

  He stood quietly as she slid her hands over his taut stomach, and lower.

  She wrapped her fingers around his hardness, closing her eyes at his indrawn breath. Then she stepped back, leaned over, and took him into her mouth.

  He tasted like life.

  She pulled that life into herself eagerly, and felt his fingers in her short hair as she sucked him.

  His fingers tightened against her scalp when she moaned, tightened hard enough to hurt. That was all it took—she lost her patience.

  He was ready for her. He caught her when she tore her mouth from his cock and jumped into his arms, ready when she dropped her fangs and drove them into his throat.

  She sucked in his blood a different way than she’d sucked his dick—that she’d done with deep, slow strokes, enjoying the moment, savoring the feeling.

  His blood she took with eagerness and overpowering hunger.

  To him there might have been little difference.

  He lowered her to the bed while she clung to him, her fangs buried in the side of his neck, and with hurried desperation, he managed to push her pants to her ankles.

  Neither one of them cared that it was rough and barbaric, that the coupling was an animalistic, rushed act. He squeezed himself inside her, fucked her as she fed, and that was all they needed.

  For a while.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Llodra could have been anywhere, but she believed he’d gone to regroup in the destroyed, human-free Rock County.

  She knew him. She felt him. And Rock County would have been a perfect place for the vampires to start over, if not for one thing.

  Rune.

  Finding an empty city would have taken time. Even traveling through strange cities to find one that would accommodate him would have been risky. Nicolas Llodra was strong, but there were other masters as strong—even stronger—than he was.

  With Rune’s promise not to hunt him, he might have settled into the newly emptied city. It was, after all, closest to the curtain behind which his maker had disappeared, and if she came again, he’d be ready for her. He had her magic, her power, inside him.

  At least, that’s what Rune believed.

  It would take everything she had to fight COS and rescue Lex and the twins. She couldn’t have Llodra hanging over her head. She couldn’t worry about Ellis while she fought the church.

  “One day,” she told what was left of her crew. “Let’s find him in one day, because that’s all the time we can spare. Then we’ll take on COS.”

  Was it the right thing to do?

  It felt right to her and the crew didn’t argue, so that was the plan.

  And she was not going to second guess herself.

  She called Ellis. “If I don’t contact you with news of Llodra’s death by dusk, don’t delay. Get back into the room.”

  “I will.” He was subdued, but that wasn’t surprising. The man he loved was in the hands of a sadistic enemy. He was forced to hide from the dark to be sure the mad master wouldn’t take revenge and turn him.

  He was going through shit. Being subdued was understandable.

  It didn’t stop her from trying to coax him out of it, though. “It’ll be okay, Ellie. We’ll find Llodra, and we’ll find Levi.”

  “Just please don’t die on me, Rune,” he said. “Don’t leave me here alone.”

  “Oh, baby. No. I would never.”

  “Promise me,” he said, insistently. “Give me your word right now. It’ll mean more if you ever…when you’re in the dark place and want to go.”

  “I swear. I will never leave you. God, Ellie. Especially not on purpose.” She was a little ashamed s
he had the balls for such a boldfaced lie. Because she had wanted to die. Had wanted it badly.

  “You mean it until you’re there,” he murmured. Then he hung up.

  And there’d been absolutely no belief in his voice.

  She sighed and looked at her crew. “Ready?”

  They all nodded, except for Owen. His gaze lingered on the scratch that marred the berserker’s face, and on the puncture marks revealed when Strad clubbed his hair back in a careless ponytail.

  The berserker didn’t care that the marks were visible.

  “Then let’s go. We need to find him today.”

  “If he’s in Rock County,” Raze said, “we’ll find him.” Raze wanted to find Llodra as badly and as quickly as Rune did. Little else was as important to him as saving Lex.

  But of them all, Ellis was the innocent. He was the one who’d been forced into a dark, silver wrapped cave while his tormentor walked free.

  Without the crew killing Llodra, he hadn’t a chance. Lex and the twins, they had a chance.

  She opened her car door, but as she started to climb in, her cell rang. “This is Rune.”

  “I’m a friend of Gunnar’s,” a soft voice said. “He said to tell you it is of the utmost importance that you come to see him immediately.”

  “Tell him I’ll see him as soon as I get a free minute. I can’t right now.”

  Before she could hang up, Gunnar’s friend spoke again. And this time, she sounded furtive. Afraid. “He said to tell you he knows where the mad master is, and that you are to come to him. Now.” Then there was only silence.

  “Shit,” Rune said. “Gunnar says he knows where Llodra is. Let’s head to Wormwood and check it out.” Gunnar had never let her down before.

  She pressed a hand to her stomach, then got into her car. Please. Please.

  Still, a sinister voice inside her mind asked quietly, “Can you kill him? Can you kill your own father?”

  “Shut up,” she muttered, and drove too fast through town. There were no zombies, at least not that she could see, but she could feel them. They were there, somewhere.

  People who were out dashed from cars into buildings as fast as they could, throwing fearful glances over their shoulders as they went.

  River County was not safe for the humans.

  It wasn’t safe for the Others, either.

  “Not yet,” she whispered. But it would be, once she killed Llodra and ran COS the fuck out of town.

  And she would do both those things. She would.

  But just in case she faltered…

  “Make sure he’s dead,” she told the crew, once they gathered at the gates of Wormwood. “If I can’t end the bastard, one of you do it. No matter what I say.”

  Strad frowned. “He slaughtered RISC and threatened Ellis. We will end him. Why would you say otherwise?”

  Because he’s my father.

  When he’d given her the excuse not to kill him, when he’d blatantly forced her to make the choice between his death and Ellie’s life, hadn’t there been a spark of relief? If she was being honest, hadn’t there?

  She shook her head and looked away. “I don’t know.”

  But no one believed her. They understood she was keeping something from them. None of them would have guessed what that secret was, though. Hell, they might not have believed her had she told them.

  Uncomfortable beneath Owen’s considering regard, she pushed through the gates of the graveyard, behind which Gunnar the Ghoul waited.

  “Your Horror,” he said, bowing slightly.

  “The mad master,” she said, fingers lightly touching her shivs. “Where is he?”

  He motioned her closer. “He is here. I discovered he cannot leave Wormwood once he stole his maker’s power from you.”

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  “Yes,” he said, nodding solemnly. “The master did not foresee every possibility.” He leaned over her, his fuzzy hair drifting in a wind she couldn’t feel. “He cannot be permitted to take over Wormwood. We wish him out.”

  “And we wish to take him out,” she said. He was there. Right there.

  “Then make haste,” he said, and pointed to his left. “The vampires are sleeping in the ground behind the old caretaker’s cottage.”

  “In the ground? How can we find—”

  “I have placed a marker. The master lies with the black blade at his head. Find his heart with it.”

  She shivered, remembering the black blade he’d staked her with. Gunnar had found that same knife. The daughter would now return the favor and stake the father.

  She hoped.

  “Take us there.”

  But he stepped farther back, shaking his head. “I cannot.”

  “Why can’t you?” She frowned. Gunnar wasn’t one to shrink from danger. He’d fought Llodra to protect her.

  “When he is dead, the power might release. I do not want it to find a home inside me.”

  “Gunnar, you offered to take it when I held it.”

  “For you, Your Loveliness. For you, I would absorb the power.”

  That was too fucking sweet. She pursed her lips, unsure of what to say. Finally, she nodded. “Stay away, then, baby.”

  And with the crew at her side, she ran toward the cottage, where the mad master, the vampire, the father, lay sleeping.

  The time of Nicolas Llodra would soon be over.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  They found Llodra’s resting place—his hiding place—with no trouble.

  She knelt beside the black obsidian blade and closed her eyes. She could feel them there, the vampires. She felt them much the same way she felt the zombies. With empathy, and familiarity and fucking tenderness.

  No.

  Opening her eyes, she stared up at her men. They’d gathered around her in a semicircle of concern.

  She grasped the blade and pulled, and it came out of the earth with a sucking sound, as though the ground were hesitant to let it go.

  Because it knew what she would do with it, perhaps. Maybe the ground did not want Nicolas Llodra, either.

  She swallowed past the tight thickness in her throat, willing herself not to cry. It was just…

  She’d killed too many parents.

  “Rune,” Raze urged, gently. “Do it.”

  The blade lay in her palm, innocuous and plain, patient and deadly. Once she shoved that blade into his heart, it was over.

  Maybe he would have told her the story of her past. But she couldn’t have trusted his words. Nicolas Llodra was created from lies and madness.

  As was she.

  But maybe he had loved her, as much as a vampire could love. He might have taken her into his coven and make her his favorite. She could have ruled by his side, once the zombies—

  “Fuck,” she said, then groaned. “Fuck.”

  She put her palm on the ground and traced it slowly toward where his chest would be. His heart.

  How deep in the ground was he? It didn’t matter. The blade would find him.

  She would find him.

  The end of Llodra.

  God, how fucking sad that was.

  The end.

  She felt him there. A line connected them, like a bloody, black umbilical cord. She followed that cord, raised the blade high, and plunged it into the ground.

  Into his heart.

  He screamed, screamed as the power of Damascus made him more, made him stronger.

  She lifted her face to the sun and screamed with him.

  He thrashed and the ground churned in response, opening enough to show her his face, his eyes.

  The pain they held was almost too much for her.

  He caught her stare with his and she couldn’t look away. Didn’t really want to. She was killing her father, and it didn’t matter that he was an almost unmatched evil.

  He was hers.

  The least she could do was watch him as he died. She’d give him that small comforting touch.

  He would not die
alone.

  She pressed harder on the blade, willing him to die, to just die.

  To die before she gave in to the useless need to ask him who she was. What she was. How she was.

  The sun burned away his skin, searing and blackening his flesh as she shoved the blade more deeply into his heart, begging him silently to stop struggling and find peace.

  And finally, after an eternity, he stopped screaming.

  Blood leaked from the corners of his ruined mouth. It covered her hands as she held the knife in his heart.

  “Not yet,” he begged. “Not yet, my sweet child.”

  “Find your peace.” Then, she whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  She was always sorry.

  She was never sure.

  “God,” she cried. “I’m sorry.”

  But she did not remove the blade.

  At last, Strad pulled her from the ground, pried her frozen, bloody fingers one by one from the handle, and forced her to let the blade go.

  She might have held it forever.

  “Why, Rune?” Owen asked, peering into her face. “Why was it so hard?”

  Did she not owe them that much?

  Did she not, maybe, owe herself that much?

  “He was my father,” she murmured.

  And then, it was real.

  She sobbed, staring at them beseechingly, as though somehow, they could make it okay.

  They didn’t move for a long moment, disbelief in their eyes.

  Then, finally, Strad groaned, and lifted her into his arms. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, sweetheart.”

  But there was more work to be done. She would leave none of the vampires alive.

  Ellie couldn’t be protected from all vampires for all time, but she could protect him from these.

  And after killing Llodra, the others would not be so hard.

  She squeezed the berserker’s neck, then nodded for him to let her down. “Don’t tell Ellie,” she said.

  “Never,” someone promised. She wasn’t sure who.

  She wiped her eyes, smearing blood across her face, then took a deep breath. Whatever the fuck she was, wherever the fuck she’d come from, that information had died with Llodra.

  And she would go on.

  “Let’s put the rest of them down,” she said, her spine stiff. “So we can do the same to COS.”