“Ouch!” He grabbed at his ankle, and I backed up a few steps. “What is this?”
“You’re under arrest under statute three point seven of the International Paranormal Containment Agreement, Vampire Protocol. You are required to report to the nearest processing facility in Bucharest. If you fail to report within the next twelve hours, you will be—”
He lunged for me. Sidestepping, I let him trip over a low gravestone. “I’ll kill you!” he hissed, trying to pick himself up off the ground.
“Yeah, you really don’t want to do that. That shiny new piece of jewelry I gave you? It’s got two little sensors—think of them as needles—jammed into your ankle. And if your body temperature were to suddenly rise, say by the addition of human blood, the sensors would inject you with holy water.”
His eyes widened in horror as he tried to pull the bracelet off, scraping against its sides.
“Don’t do that, either. If the seal is broken, holy water, poof. Got it? And I activated the timer and beacon. So not only do they know exactly where you are, they also know your time limit to get to Bucharest. Miss it, and—do I really need to tell you?”
His shoulders slumped. “I could just snap your neck,” he said, but I could tell it was halfhearted.
“You could try. And I could tase you again so hard you wouldn’t wake up for six hours, giving you even less time to make it to Romania. So, can I keep reading you your rights?” He didn’t say anything, and I picked up where I left off. “If you fail to report within the next twelve hours, you will be terminated. If you attack any humans, you will be terminated. If you attempt to remove the tracking device, you will be terminated. We look forward to working with you.”
I always thought that last line was a nice touch.
The vamp looked dejected, sitting there on the ground and facing the end of his freedom. I held out a hand. “Need help up?” I asked. After a moment he reached out and took it. I pulled him up; vamps are surprisingly light. Having no internal fluids’ll do that to you. “I’m Evie.”
“Steve.” Thank heavens he wasn’t another Vlad. He looked uncomfortable. “Um, so, Bucharest? You wouldn’t happen to have money for a train ticket?”
Paranormals, honestly. I reached into my bag and handed him a bunch of euros. Getting from Italy to Romania wouldn’t be easy, and he needed to book it. “You’ll want a map and directions,” I called as he started to slink off through the graves. Poor guy. He was really embarrassed. I handed him the sheet of directions to the Bucharest Processing and Assignment building. “It’s okay to use mind-control tricks to get through borders.” I smiled encouragingly.
He nodded, still morose, and left.
Finding Steve hadn’t taken as long as I had worried it would. Excellent. It was dark, I was freezing, and my vampluring outfit of a wide-necked white blouse wasn’t exactly helping. Plus I stuck out like a sore thumb in Latin countries, with my platinum blond hair in a braid trailing halfway down my back. I wanted out of here. I punched in the number of the Center on my communicator. (Think cell phone, without a camera. And they only come in white. Lame.) “Done. I need a ride home.”
“Processing your request,” a monotone voice said on the other end. I waited, sitting on the nearest gravestone. The communicator flashed five minutes later. “Sending transport now.”
The trunk of a large, gnarled tree about fifteen feet in front of me shimmered, and the outline of a door appeared. A tall, slender man walked out. Well, not man, really. His figure was distinctly male, although it seemed stretched—a little too narrow. With delicate features and almond-shaped eyes straight out of an anime cartoon, his face was, simply put, beautiful. It made your heart ache with the desire to do nothing but stare at him for the rest of your life. He smiled at me.
“Shut up,” I said, shaking my head. Did they have to send Reth? Sure, the Faerie Paths were the fastest way from here to there, but that meant going from here to there with him. And unlike the happy fantasy of faeries as delicate, tiny winged things who love nature—yeah, not so much.Faeries are a lot more complicated than that. Complicated and dangerous. Walking briskly up, I held out my hand and clenched my jaw.
“Evelyn,” he purred. “It’s been too long.”
“I said shut up, didn’t I? Let’s go.”
He laughed, a silvery sound like bells, and traced one long, slender finger along my wrist before taking my hand in his. I tried not to shiver. He laughed again and we stepped through the oaken doorway.
I closed my eyes; this part always freaked me out. I knew what I would see if I looked—nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing under my feet, nothing above me, nothing around me. I put one foot in front of the other and held onto Reth’s hand as if my life depended on it. Since it did. No human could walk the Faerie Paths alone without being lost forever.
And then it was over. We stepped out into one of the cool, fluorescent-lit hallways of the Center. I yanked my hand away from Reth’s; his special brand of warmth had already spread through my arm and was creeping even farther.
“Not even a thanks?” he called after me as I stalked down the hall toward my unit. I didn’t look back. Suddenly he was right next to me. “We haven’t danced in so long.” His melodic voice was low and intimate. He reached for my hand again and I jumped back, pulling out Tasey.
“Back off,” I hissed. “And if you come out without your glamour on again, I’ll report you.” His glamour wasn’t much less good-looking than his real face, but it was regulation for faeries.
“What is the use? I could never hide anything from your eyes.” He moved closer.
I shoved down the feelings bursting through me. Not again. Not ever again. Luckily we were interrupted by a shrieking alarm. Something was loose. A hairy little gremlin, mouth open wide and acidic saliva dripping from sharp teeth, was booking it on all fours toward us.
I watched it as if in slow motion. The gremlin made straight for me, a rabid gleam in its eyes. It leaped into the air and I kicked out hard, sending it sailing down the hall, right into the arms of the containment worker chasing it. “Goal!” I shouted. Dang, I was good.
“Thanks,” the worker said, voice muffled through the mask.
“You betcha.” Reth’s hand had found the small of my back. I wanted to lean into him, let his arms wrap around me, let him take me away…. Then I remembered the time. “Oh, crap!” I ran down the hall past the worker and still-snarling gremlin. After a couple of turns, I put my palm on my door pad, bouncing impatiently until the door slid open. Reth hadn’t followed me. I was glad. Okay, maybe a little disappointed. And then mad at myself for being disappointed.
I dashed inside, grateful that my settings kept the unit at eighty-five degrees, and flopped onto the purple couch. Turning on the flat-screen TV that took up nearly the entire pink wall, I sighed in relief. My favorite high school drama, Easton Heights, was just starting. Tonight’s episode promised to be spectacular—a masquerade ball in which tiny masks somehow hid identities enough for everyone to make out with the wrong person. Where did they come up with this stuff?
The vid screen next to my couch buzzed again. It had been doing that off and on for the last thirty minutes. Finally, my show over, I hit the connect button. I was staring into a pair of green eyes, right in the middle of a green-tinged face. The image wavered, like always, since Alisha was underwater.
“Why haven’t you checked in yet?” a monotone voice asked. I always wondered what her real voice was like. All we got was the computer program translating what she said into something we could hear.
“Got