Nightbred(51)

She saw the shelter manager hovering a few feet away with a plump, white-haired lady in a blue wool coat. “Can I go, too?”

“No, but there’s a safe place downtown where you can stay until she’s better,” he assured her. He beckoned to the woman in the wool coat. “This is a friend of mine named Miss Audrey. She’s going to give you a ride there.”

Miss Audrey came over and bent down, putting her face too close. “What’s your name, young lady?” When she didn’t reply, her smile became a tight line. “Answer me.”

“Christi.”

Miss Audrey straightened. “Very good.” She marched Chris over to another police car, but when she shoved her into the back of it, the seat vanished and four marble walls shot up around her, closing her into an airless tomb.

Chris scrambled to her feet and beat her fists against the cold stone. “This isn’t real. This didn’t happen to me. Let me out of here.”

Her shadow doubled, and Chris spun around to see the towering figure of a man in a monk’s robe. For a moment she thought it was Lucan, until he extended the torch he held, and she saw the network of scars covering his fingers and hand.

“Who are you?”

I was the maker of the scroll, and the keeper of the cross. It was I who washed it in my blood. You and your mortal family were my army, my guardians, each sworn to protect the secrets of eternity. Now you number but two. You will not fail me as your sister did.

The smell of burning metal was making her stomach clench. “This is just a dream, and I don’t have any sisters, you asshole.”

You have the loyalty to protect the mortal world from eternal damnation. But do you have the conviction to do what needs be done?

He talked like one of the Kyn, Chris thought, but he was dressed like a Brethren. “Are you Hollander? The guy who stole the emeralds?”

The monk began to laugh, a deep and frightening sound that bounced around the inside of the tomb, each echo growing louder until Chris pressed her hands over her ears and called out for the only hope she had left.

“Jamys.”

* * *

The sky had softened from black to deepest blue by the time Jamys guided the sailboat into Biscayne Bay. Other vessels of various sizes sat anchored in a vast web of light and shadow cast by the brightly lit condominiums and hotels crowding the shoreline. One mortal who had risen early glanced up from the bobber on his fishing line and raised a hand in silent greeting as Jamys passed.

He returned the wave and then studied the assortment of piers, boathouses, and landings jutting out from the bay’s edge. Chris had said they might make use of one of the public docks, but he would need to consult a more detailed map to locate them. He turned the boat back into the wind, dropped the headsail, and backwinded the mainsail. As the boat slowed to a near stop, he secured the rigging and dropped anchor.

Chris still slept below, and it took all his resolve not to go down to join her. After sharing a kiss with her, however, all he could think about was stealing another, and another. He suspected he could kiss her for days and never grow weary of it.

His present dilemma was that he wanted more than kisses from her. Much more.

Jamys checked the horizon again, where the coming dawn had pinked the edges of the clouds. They would have to secure a vehicle to use whenever they were on land, he decided, or perhaps hire—

Jamys.

Chris’s voice called to him with such power and terror that for an instant he stood frozen. Only when he had pulled the door belowdecks from its hinges and jumped down into the cabin did he feel the echo of it through his thoughts. She had not called to him, as he could plainly see her in the cabin’s only bunk, her body still. The only sound he heard came from the soft rhythm of her breathing.

Why had he imagined her shouting his name when she was sleeping so peacefully? It had not been a memory or some fancy of his imagination; he’d heard her as clearly as if she had screamed his name in his ear.

Jamys went to the bunk, where her scent bathed the air and told him that she had been asleep for hours. He saw that she had been so tired, in fact, she had simply dropped on top of the covers. He reached for a blanket that had been left folded atop a chest, shaking it out before bending down to drape it over her. He hated the thought of waking her, and decided against it as he reached to brush a lock of hair from her cheek. He could give her—

Jamys please Jamys help me Jamys find me—

Jamys fell to his knees, blinded and deaf to everything but the bellowing storm that came roaring into his mind. It was as if he had been swept into the heart of a tornado, and as he fought to hold on to consciousness, he heard inside the terrible winds her voice and his name, distant and ragged, as if Christian were calling to him as she fought for her life.