Meg Cabot - Insatiable

“Oh,” she said, “it doesn’t matter.”

A part of her just wanted to keep hearing him tell her how much he loved and missed her. Which was wrong, because she knew he was still going to kill Jon and Alaric.

“It does matter.” He insisted. “Meena, you’ve got to listen to me. I think you’re in serious danger.”

“Really?” She tried to ignore the smell of smoke still drifting up from the rectory kitchen. Father Bernard had already called the fire department and assured them (in case any of St. Clare’s neighbors happened to dial 911, he didn’t want to worry about the NYFD being attacked by vampires) that the only trouble was the “broken water pipe” that had caused them to cancel evening mass in the first place. The smoke? Oh, the smoke was just from a batch of Sister Gertrude’s cookies that had been left in the oven too long.

“It’s funny,” Meena said over the phone, “because I think you’re in very grave danger.”

“I’m serious, Meena,” Lucien said. She could hear him moving on the other end of the line. It sounded, oddly enough, like he was pouring something. “I’d prefer to have this discussion in person, but with things the way they are right now…well, I’m just going to say it: let’s go away together.”

“What? You mean like…on a trip?”

“Yes,” he said with an odd hesitancy. “Exactly. Like on a trip. Well, maybe a bit longer than the average trip. And I know what you’re going to say about my killing your brother and the guard. But I won’t be able to do that if we’re nowhere near them, will I?”

“No.” Meena had to agree. “That’s true.”

“And I know how you feel about your job. But surely you have some vacation time coming to you.”

“Well,” Meena said. She chewed her lower lip, thinking about Stefan Dominic, still tied up in the basement. The Dracul had already managed to infiltrate where she worked and, according to Alaric, where she lived, as well. Taking a vacation until things died down a little wouldn’t be such a bad idea. “A couple weeks off might not hurt, now that I think about it…”

“Well,” he said, sounding surprised. And a lot more cheerful. “That was easy. I thought you’d be more resistant to the idea, to be honest. Can you leave now, tonight, Meena? I can be uptown in a few minutes. Do you think you can get away from the Palatine Guard? And meet me out on your little balcony? You needn’t be afraid. I’ll help you get across, onto Emil’s terrace. Then we can leave from there.”

He sounded so sure of himself. That was one of the things she loved about him. He always seemed to know exactly what he was doing, and on the few occasions when he didn’t, well, that vulnerability only made her love him all the more fiercely.

“Um,” she said, “meeting you on my balcony might be a bit of a problem, actually, Lucien.”

“Why?”

She hadn’t wanted to tell him this way. But now she had no choice. “Well, because right now I’m actually on the roof of the rectory of the Shrine of St. Clare on Sullivan Street in downtown Manhattan, just off Houston,” she said into the phone. “We’re not totally sure what’s going on, but it seems like your brother got Stefan Dominic-the guy we hired to play the vampire on Insatiable, only it turns out he really is a vampire-to kidnap me-”

“Did he hurt you?” Lucien demanded in a voice as hard as stone.

“What?” Meena asked. “No. Well, I mean, he tried. He had a gun. But Alaric stopped him. Now we’re keeping him hostage here and currently experiencing just a little bit of difficulty because a few dozen Dracul really seem to want to come inside and kill us or something-”

“What?”

She winced and had to hold the phone away from her face.

That’s how loudly he’d erupted into her ear.

“Lucien,” she said when the volume of what she supposed was his swearing-it was in Romanian, so she couldn’t understand a word of it-got back to a decibel level she could bear, “I knew you were going to freak out like this, which is why I didn’t-”

“Meena,” he thundered. She had to hold the phone away from her face again. “Stay exactly where you are. I’ll be right there to get you.”

“No,” she yelled into the phone before he could hang up. “Think about it, Lucien. It’s a trap. Alaric says they’ll be waiting for you at the apartment, too.” Which was why she wasn’t going to say a word to him about Jack Bauer. She didn’t need two men risking their lives over her dog. “It’s all just a trap to lure you out so your brother can kill you-”

“Oh, Alaric says that, does he?” Lucien roared. “Well, I don’t care what Alaric says. Do you know who Stefan Dominic is, Meena? He’s my nephew. He’s Dimitri’s son.”

“Oh,” Meena said, taken aback. “So…you’re saying you think we should let him go?”

“I’m saying I’m coming down there to get you, and you and I are leaving-”

“You mean running away,” she said quietly. “Don’t you?”

Lucien’s voice was like ice. “We’re not running away, Meena,” he said. “I’m going to keep you safe. That is my first-my only-priority.”

“Well,” she said, lifting a hand and running it raggedly through her hair. Her voice caught on a sob she hadn’t been expecting.

She thought she’d been doing a pretty good job of keeping it together. At least for the past half hour or so.

But now everything was starting to unravel again.

“What about Jon, Lucien?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Because he’s here, too. What if we leave, and then your brother captures him? Do you think I could live with myself if something happened to my brother? Are you going to protect Jon, Lucien, for the rest of his life, too? Because I don’t think you are. In fact,” she said, and now her voice rose a little hysterically, “I still think you’re going to kill him, and Alaric, too.”

“Meena.” Lucien sounded calm now. The storm was over. He seemed to be choosing his words with deliberate care, the way a jeweler would choose pearls to string a necklace. “I’m not going to kill anyone. Except my own brother. Not to mention my nephew. Then Jon will be safe. And so will you.”

She desperately wanted to believe him. “Do you really think so?” she asked.

“Of course I do, Meena,” he said. “All of this will be over very soon. Now, start thinking about where you want to go. I’ve always dreamed about having a place in Thailand, myself.”

“Thailand,” Meena said. She liked the sound of the word on his lips. “I’ve never been to Thailand.”

“Neither have I,” Lucien said. “We can discover it together.”

Even as she was dreaming of sharing a thatched hut on the beach with Lucien-on stilts, like she always saw in magazines-she heard a scuttling sound. Whirling around, she saw a bat landing on the rooftop just a few feet away from her and beginning to transmogrify into its vampire host.

“Oh, no,” she said with a groan, her heart booming in her chest. She raced toward it, giving the bat the most vicious kick she could, sending it shrieking off the roof…

…just as it changed into a young woman wearing jeans and a leather jacket. The girl screamed as she tumbled through the air, not changing back into a bat quickly enough to save her from falling onto the spikes of the churchyard fence below, which pierced her body in several places.

But since the spikes weren’t made of wood, she just lay there, impaled and twitching, while her friends tried to pull her off.

Meena, watching all this transpire over the side of the roof, made a horrified face and looked away.

“I really hope you’re right, Lucien,” she said, lifting the phone back to her ear. “About all of this being over soon. Because I’m not sure how much more I can take.”