Insatiable

finding out where we live means we have to move again. You know, because now you’re

going to try to kill us and all. And it’s my fault, because I’m the one who sent that—”

“Mary Lou.” Emil Antonescu locked an arm around his wife’s slim waist, then dragged

her to his side. “Please. Just stop talking. For once.”

That’s when Mary Lou’s gaze fell to the sword in Alaric’s hand. “Well,” she said, her

smile fading. “What was going on here with you two boys while I was gone?”

“Nothing,” Emil said. “Nothing was going on. Mr. Wulf was just leaving. Weren’t you,

Mr. Wulf?”

Alaric just stood there, holding Meena Harper’s squirming dog. For the first time in his

career, he wasn’t certain what to do.

He was sworn to kill all demons, no matter what their form.

And sometimes those forms could be very deceiving indeed. That’s what the dark side

did: worked to play tricks on the human mind, to rouse compassion and sympathy to keep a

man from doing what he’d been trained to do—plow a stake through the heart of whatever evil

creature was before him.

But for once, Alaric wasn’t certain what stood before him truly was evil.

Maybe all that chattering Meena Harper had been doing, about redemption and

rehabilitation and how Lucien Antonescu wasn’t like the other vampires, was getting to him.

But he actually believed these two vampires were just a couple of pathetic losers—with

very good taste in home furnishings and art—who deserved to have to spend all of eternity

with each other.

Could he actually feel sorry for them?

And the truth was…they had saved Jack Bauer from being blown up in the microwave

by the Dracul.

And Meena Harper liked them.

Good God. What was happening to him?

“If you tell anyone about this,” he said, pointing Señor Sticky at their necks, causing

them both to stagger back a few steps, “I’ll find you, wherever you are, and force one of you to

choke on the dust of the other.”

Mary Lou looked queasy. “Good heavens,” she said. “We won’t tell.”

Alaric turned and ran from the apartment. He didn’t bother with the elevator. He took the

stairs, two at a time, down all eleven flights, giving Jack Bauer quite a jogging in his arms. It

wasn’t until he reached the bottom that he paused to think about what he’d just done:

Let two vampires go free.

He was going to regret this. It was going to come back to haunt him.

On the other hand…

He could always hunt them down and kill them later. How hard would it be, considering

the woman’s obvious taste for designer clothes?

He sheathed his sword and put Jack Bauer down on his four paws. Then he hit the exit

door and walked out into the lobby.

His cell phone buzzed. He reached down to answer it.

“Alaric Wulf,” he said.

“Alaric?” Jon Harper’s anxious voice was on the other end of the line. “Where are you?

Are you still at the building? Because we have a problem. A big problem.”

Chapter Fifty-four

10:15 P.M . EST, Saturday, April 17

Uptown 6 train

New York, New York

T he subway. Of course it had to be the subway.

Well, how else was she supposed to get there? It was Saturday night, and she was

downtown. There weren’t any cabs.

And Meena had to get uptown as quickly as possible.

What else was she supposed to do, exactly? Sit quietly in a windowless room in the

convent, like they wanted her to, and let Sister Gertrude and “the men” go uptown with Stefan

Dominic and get themselves killed trying to save Leisha?

Sitting quietly in a windowless room might have been all right for Yalena, who was

traumatized physically and emotionally. But that wasn’t all right for Meena, who was the

reason all of these people, including Leisha, were in so much danger in the first place.

Meena sat on the 6 train, trying not to make eye contact with any of the other people in

her car. The last thing she needed right now was to get involved in someone else’s problems.

She had plenty of her own.

Scholarly Abraham Holtzman, listening to her and Jon frantically trying to explain what

they’d heard on the phone after they’d come running down from the roof to find him, had

nodded gravely and said, “Yes. Yes, of course. It all makes sense. St. George’s is under

construction, you say?”

Jon had nodded. “Yeah. It’s closed to the public while it undergoes renovation.”

“When I was walking by it the night I first met—” Meena had interrupted herself. “Well,

when the colony of bats attacked me, I thought one of the spires was falling down. It’s in pretty

bad shape.”

Father Bernard, Sister Gertrude, and Abraham Holtzman had all exchanged uneasy

glances when they’d heard this.

“What?” Meena had cried. “What difference does that make?” She’d already begun to

regret telling any of them anything. She should have just run straight from the rectory and for

the nearest train station….

“A church that has gone too long unused—or unrepaired—falls into danger of becoming

deconsecrated,” Abraham had explained slowly. “Perfect for demon rites.”

“Demon rites?” Just the words had caused the hairs on the back of Meena’s neck to

prickle. “Like…the coronation of a new prince of darkness?”

No one had answered her. They’d already begun running around, gathering weapons for

what they obviously thought was going to be some kind of apocalyptic showdown up at St.

George’s with the Dracul—who had all mysteriously vanished from outside of St. Clare’s.

None of them—not Abraham Holtzman, nor Father Bernard, nor Sister Gertrude, nor the friars

and other nuns…nor even the novices or her brother, Jon—showed the slightest flicker of fear

or even of hesitation. They were perfectly prepared, Meena saw, to fight.

And perhaps to die.

But what they didn’t know—and she did—was that they were going to die. All of them.

Every last one of them. The truth of what lay in store for them had hit her with perfect, almost

stunning clarity in those few moments as she’d stood there in the rectory hallway:

Dimitri was holding her best friend—her pregnant best friend—captive at St. George’s

Cathedral and wasn’t going to let her go unless Meena showed up to make the exchange.

Her own life for that of her friend.

Then when that happened, there’d be a second exchange: Meena’s life for Lucien’s.

After which Dimitri Antonescu, the demon half brother of Lucien Antonescu, son of

Dracula, the prince of darkness, would crown himself the new prince in the deconsecrated

cathedral…

…and a reign of vampiric terror and death would spread across Manhattan, if not the

world.

Meanwhile, Meena’s brother; Abraham; Sister Gertrude…all of these good people

dashing around her were going to die fighting to try to stop what Meena saw happening in her

mind’s eye. She envisioned exactly the same death for them, in fact, that she’d seen for Alaric

Wulf when she’d looked into his future while she’d been tying her scarf around his wrist:

Darkness. Fire. Lots and lots of fire. Then…

Nothing. Just…nothing.

It was what Meena had tried to explain to Lucien that first night she’d spent with him.

Читать дальше