Текст книги "Legacy"

Автор книги: Jeanne Stein

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

CHAPTER 63

THE STAIRCASE IS WOODEN, AND THE PASSAGE plunges straight down. It is clammy inside, dark, steep, and, at first glance, without end. It is so narrow, Tamara must walk behind me. She crowds close. I don’t like having her behind me. My senses are on high alert, the vampire ready to spring forth if it detects anything but the strange emanation of fear she’s giving off.

Fear of what? The dark?

But we’re nearing the bottom, and the smell of dirt and decay chases the question out of my head. I’m plunged into the nightmare of finding David at the bottom of these stairs, bound and near death.

At last our feet touch soil. Ahead of us is a doorway and it yields to my touch. I find the light switch to the right of the door and stand aside for Tamara to experience what I did that first time six months ago.

The room is large, a storage area with wooden crates stacked along one wall, rugs rolled and stored on another, rows of shelving occupying the center. The overhead light catches and reflects off the hundreds of items displayed helter-skelter on the shelves like the chattel of a deranged collector: piles of gold and silver jewelry, vases of bronze and silver, bejeweled ceremonial daggers, gold-leaf dinnerware that might have served a king. Chinese porcelain, Egyptian antiquities, Mayan pottery. The source of Avery’s wealth.

Tamara picks up a small golden chariot and hefts it in her hand. “I know how Howard Carter must have felt when he found King Tut’s tomb,” she says in a hushed voice.

I point to what she holds. “For all we know, that could be from the tomb. Avery may have been there, too.”

She returns the chariot to the shelf and looks around. “Do you know what’s in the crates?”

I shake my head.

“You aren’t curious?”

“No. This place holds bad memories for me. Avery holds bad memories for me. When this is over, Sandra can have it all.”

I let my eyes sweep the contents of the shelves. “What does the talisman look like?” I ask. “The book said it was a belt of fur. Does that mean literally a belt of fur? Or is it something symbolic?”

Tamara joins me in the search, taking one side of a shelf while I, the other. “It’s both,” she says. “It’s a locket that contains a bit of fur. At one time, it actually was a belt fashioned from the fur of a totem animal. Wearing a belt of fur marked us, made us easy prey for human hunters. Now we wear something a bit more discreet. Like this.”

She pulls a small gold locket from inside the collar of her jersey top and lets the chain drop between her breasts. “We always keep it with us. It’s our lifeline. Our most prized possession.”

I’ve finished my side of the shelf, finding nothing that resembles what Tamara described. I wonder if I’ve made a mistake thinking it would be here. Yet, this is the repository for Avery’s treasure. Where else would he hide it?

Tamara finishes, too, and comes around to join me. She’s looking toward the far wall, the place where I found David. “What’s over there?” she asks.

From our vantage point, what we see are rugs, rolled up and piled against the wall.

“Should we check it out?” she asks.

I have no intention of reliving the horror. “Go ahead. I’ll keep looking here. Maybe we missed something.”

She moves off and I make another pass at the shelves. I’m aware that she’s now standing on the rug that once held David’s body. I think I can still smell his blood, and it sends a tremor of horror through me.

In a moment, she’s back beside me. “Nothing. You don’t think it’s in one of those crates, do you? Jesus. There are a hundred of them. We don’t have time to open them all to check.”

She starts toward the jumble of wooden crates stacked nearly ceiling high. I follow her, letting my eyes scan the pile. “The dust on these crates is undisturbed. I don’t think anyone has been down here—” I start to add since the last time I was. I don’t want to have to explain the circumstances of that visit, though, so I drop it.

Tamara frowns. “So what do we do now? Finding that locket is the only way to free Sandra and rid ourselves of Avery once and for all.”

There’s a flash of movement from the doorway. It catches my eye like the glint of sun on a mirror. Sandra appears at the bottom of the stairs as if conjured up by Tamara’s words.

Gone is the vague emptiness that blighted her face, the helpless look of a lost child. She looks at me with the calm detachment of a predator. The neckline of her nightgown has been pulled lower, the outline of her body glows as if light were shining through.

I can’t look away. Instantly, my senses spin out of control. She dares me to resist and I know I can’t. I’m shivering. She is not close enough to touch me, not physically, and yet I feel her fingers trace a path over my skin, slide down my belly, skim between my thighs. Her fingertips brush against my sex, and I’m shuddering with excitement. She’s there, tormenting me with a butterfly’s touch. I want more. I want her to finish it. A moan escapes my lips, a plea for release.

A laugh, cold, bitter, breaks the spell.

“Ah, Anna.” Her voice. His voice. “You haven’t changed at all, have you?”

CHAPTER 64

FOR AN INSTANT, THE ROOM TILTS.

Tamara’s voice: “It took you long enough.”

I’m yanked back to the present as if from a dream, disoriented and confused. Then my head clears, and I remember.

Sandra’s eyes shine with a light that isn’t her own and she smiles at me with an expression that holds no warmth, no pleasure.

“What’s wrong, Anna? What did I do?” she asks. Her lips move, but it is Avery speaking. “Nothing but respond to your desire. It was the same before. I never forced you to do anything you didn’t want to do. You can’t dispute it. Your body betrays you.”

At once, warmth surges through me. A familiar spark of passion.

“Don’t.” I turn anger against the rising heat until arousal dissipates into ash. “I won’t let you manipulate me again.”

“You think you can stop me?”

“Sandra will stop you. We’ll find the talisman.”

“You mean that talisman? The one around Tamara’s neck?”

I’m given no time to respond. A blur of something comes at me with tremendous speed. I pivot toward it, hands instinctively outstretched to bat it away. It’s lupine, huge. My blow catches it at the shoulder and it falls back.

But how? Tamara’s clothes are in a heap on the floor. She must have made the change while Avery was toying with me.

The wolf leaps to its feet and comes at me again, but this time I’m ready.

We circle each other, the vampire and the wolf. She is as big as a mastiff, gold in color, black lips curled back in a snarl. Her eyes are yellow with slit pupils that reflect more than animal intelligence. She is aware. Acting not instinctively as a beast, but deliberately. Is she under Avery’s control? Until this moment, I wouldn’t have thought it. Tamara sought me out to help Sandra.

Didn’t she?

In the distance, Sandra begins to croon in a soft, low voice. The wolf pauses, listening.

“Sweet Tamara. I should have chosen you, but you and I will be one soon. We will be rid of this irksome body. Of Sandra.” She steps closer. “You need only to kill Anna. It’s the one thing I ask of you. The one thing Sandra denied me. She could not do it. You are stronger. You have the power. You know what you must do.”

The crooning stops, and the wolf gathers herself to attack. I remember the words of the book.

Silver.

Silver is lethal to wolves.

I remember Frey’s warning.

I must assume a werewolf bite is fatal. My back is against one of the shelves, and my hands grope behind me for something—anything—to use as a weapon. I can’t take my eyes off her long enough to search. I can only feel and there is nothing that passes under my fingertips to offer protection.

For the first time, I realize that vampire strength and cunning is not going to be enough. I can’t fight her because I can’t let her get close enough to bite me.

I’m afraid. It twists around my heart and knots my stomach.

It’s unfamiliar and disturbing.

Worse, Tamara senses it. She’s in no hurry to attack. She creeps toward me, slowly, fangs bared. Does she know she need only to bite me once? Death may not be instantaneous, but it will be certain.

The muscles along her shoulders tense. She gathers her hind legs under her and snarls her intention. When she leaps, I grab the first thing my fingers close around from the shelf behind me, hurl it, and jump away.

The ceramic vase catches her under her left eye. It shatters, a shard settling deep into the eye socket. She tumbles back, yelps, shakes her head furiously until the shard falls away. Blood spurts from the cut. When I breathe it in, I realize it’s human blood. It causes my own to quicken but I can’t give in to the bloodlust. It’s human blood, but it’s not a human I’m facing.

I have to keep distance between us.

She’s recovered. She looks for me, sniffing the air for my scent. I’ve moved to the middle of the room, between the rows of shelves. She catches my scent, howls in pain and anger, and comes after me.

The shelf facing me offers nothing I can use against her. She lowers her head and watches as I back up. Every instinct I have screams to meet her head on, snap her neck, drink her blood. Could I do it before she sank her teeth into my arm or hand?

I can’t take the chance.

Think.

There were hundreds of silver objects scattered here among Avery’s possessions. I know there has to be something I can use as a weapon. My eyes sweep the shelves.

Jewelry.

Goblets.

Bowls.

The wolf’s ears flatten. Blood drips from a ruined eye socket.

There. On one of the top shelves. A dagger.

We move at the same time.

The wolf springs.

I leap straight up, grab the dagger.

The wolf touches down first, landing where I’d been standing, landing on nothing. She skids on the dirt. Clouds of dust rise under her scrabbling feet.

She whirls to face me, howling her frustration. Blood and spit spew out with her rage.

The dagger’s blade is ten inches long. The hilt is heavy in my hand. Could I throw it at her? No, I couldn’t be sure of a kill shot. The only chance I have is to get behind her, seize her behind the neck and plunge it into her before she can sink fangs into my hand.

How to do it?

The muscles under her pelt bunch; her hind legs draw into each other like a spring being tightened. She is taking her time, gauging the distance, waiting for me to make the first move.

I feint to the left. She hurls herself at me. I wait until I feel her breath on my face before stepping back and around. I dig my fingers into her mane and straddle her. She bucks against me, snapping at air and howling. I work an arm around her neck, yank her backward against me. Her smell, lupine, musk, human.

I plunge the dagger into what I can most easily reach, her exposed belly. She screams in anger and pain, but the wound is not fatal. Blood, hot, fragrant, flows over my hand. She’s pawing at the air, trying to shake me loose. I hold on, fighting her, fighting the vampire lust that thirsts for the blood. If I loosened my grip, a tiny bit, I could turn her to face me, reach her neck, drink.

Her jaws open wide, fangs seeking a target. Seeking skin to ravage, bone to crush. Mine.

I tighten my arm around her neck. Tighten my grip on the dagger. This time, when I plunge the dagger, I find the mark.

Find the heart of the beast.

For a moment the earth stills. Only the wolf moves. She thrashes, whimpers. I jump back and away. She does not come after me. She twists into herself, shuddering, jaws working in a desperate attempt to reach the dagger. Her clumsy, frantic efforts succeed only in driving it deeper.

Another heartbeat and the thrashing stops. The wolf’s head falls to the floor. Then there’s only the blood. It pumps still, seeping around the dagger, turning the fur crimson. The blood of the wolf/human calling to me. I command myself not to respond, not to move. My nails dig into the palms of my hands until it’s the smell of my own blood that fills my head. My eyes remain riveted on the wolf. As if in slow motion, the transformation from beast to human begins.

I feel Sandra watching, too.

The fur retracts into the skin, the head reshapes, followed by the limbs. The vertebrae realign with a crack like the withered branches of a dead tree. The knife in the naked human chest looks much more deadly than in the wolf’s. Tamara’s face is contorted in death, her mouth open, teeth bared. Around her neck, two gold chains.

She had Sandra’s locket all along.

CHAPTER 65

SANDRA HASN’T MOVED. WHEN I TURN TO HER, there is a spark of relief in her eyes. In the next instant it’s replaced by fear and pain. She falls to her knees, doubled over, and a cry escapes her lips.

“What is it, Avery?” I say. “Your plans disrupted? You were clever, though; I never suspected Tamara.”

I kneel beside Tamara’s body and pull both chains over her head. The lockets are almost identical. “Which is yours, Sandra? Tell me and we can end this.”

All she can do is clutch at her chest and throat. Avery prevents her from answering. He’s exerting some kind of internal pressure that’s choking her.

“Okay. We’ll do it another way.”

I approach Sandra, help her straighten enough to slip the chains over her head and let both lockets fall between her breasts.

There is an immediate howl of rage as Avery feels the talisman’s power begin to usurp his own.

Sandra’s strength is returning. She grabs my arm. “Go now. I’m going to make the change. Lock us down here when you go. Don’t come back. If I survive, I’ll contact you.”

“I can’t leave you. Avery is my enemy, too. There must be something I can do.”

She shakes her head. “This is my battle. Once I change, Avery will try to make me attack you. I may not be able to prevent it.”

Still, I can’t bring myself to go.

Sandra’s eyes become hard. “You are not helping. Every moment you remain, Avery exerts himself more. You must go. One of us must survive in case . . .”

She doesn’t finish it. She doesn’t have to. If Avery survives, if he comes after me again in her body, I’ll know what to do.

“What about the rest of the pack? Can they help you?”

She shakes her head again. “I sent them back to Mexico. Only Tamara remained. I now know why. She and Avery had plans of their own.”

“But why? What did she hope to gain?”

Sandra sweeps a hand in a wide arc. “This. Now go.”

CHAPTER 66

THE DOOR AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRWAY HAS no lock. Before I leave the cellar, I heave one of the crates against the wall. A cascade of gold and silver coins tumbles out. It’s not the contents of the crate I’m interested in, though, but the heavy wood that held it. I choose two boards.

The last image I see of Sandra is a half-wolf, half-human form curled in a fetal position on the floor. Her face is distorted by pain; she is whimpering in anguish. Avery is fighting her.

She clutches the talisman in a hand that’s more beast than human. Her eyes are clear. Her resolve strong.

She’ll win.

I pull the door shut and jam the boards against the handle. A physically strong, determined human might be able to break out. I doubt a wolf could.

It’s not until I’m back upstairs, in Avery’s bedroom, that my own rage takes over. I rip the bedclothes off the bed and throw them into the fire. I use my hands to tear apart the mattress and feed it piece by piece into the fire. If I could, I’d dismantle the bed. It’s too heavy, too well constructed to yield to bare-handed vampire strength. I have to content myself with destroying anything that my skin comes in contact with, anything that touched Avery’s body. When I’m finished, the only smell left is ash and smoke.

I sink into a chair, watch the smoldering remains of the dying fire. Wonder what is happening in the secret room deep beneath my feet.

Tamara wanted what?

Wealth?

A life in this mausoleum of a house?

All she had to do was kill me, and let Sandra die. Avery would jump to her body and the union would be complete. One beast inhabiting the body of another. Was immortality part of the bargain?

With me gone, there would be no obstacle to claiming Avery’s estate. What she, what no one, seems to understand is that I would have gladly given it away. I will give it away. To Sandra when Avery is dead. Theirs may not have been a civil marriage, but the hellish union they experienced makes her more an heir than I will ever be.

The vineyard. What about the vineyard? Images of my parents and Trish, excited, exuberant, thrilled beyond words by the unexpected gift of a new life. How can I tell them the truth?

And Williams. What do I do about him?

I have no answers. Not yet.

The fire’s last sputtering gasp is my signal to leave. A bedside clock reads 3:00 p.m. I look once more around a room I hope never to see again.

As I turn to leave, a muffled sound drifts up from the bowels of the earth.

The howl of a wolf.

CHAPTER 67

DAVID GREETS ME AT THE DOOR OF HIS CONDO, an impatient frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. He’s wearing jeans and a polo shirt, and he has a leather jacket slung over one arm. “I thought you’d never get here. I’m going to be late. Tammy expects me at four.”

Tammy isn’t expecting anyone.

Ever again.

I furrow my brow in a puzzled expression of surprise. “She didn’t call you?”

He crosses his arms over his chest, and the frown deepens. “What do you mean?”

“I mean she told me she would call you before leaving town. She didn’t?”

“No. She didn’t call me. What do you mean leaving town?”

I push past him and move from the door into the living room. Gloria reclines against sofa cushions on the couch. She’s dressed in a silk sweat suit, her hair swept back from her face in a ponytail. Her face, though pale and devoid of makeup, brightens as she catches our conversation.

I want to warn her not to get her hopes up, that this does not change our bargain, but first, I continue the farce with David. “She had a family emergency. Back in Pennsylvania. I can’t believe she didn’t call.”

David pulls his cell phone out of a pocket and lets his jacket fall to the back of the couch. He finds her number, punches the “send” button and puts the phone to his ear.

I have an image of the phone ringing in some inner circle of hell. I don’t expect it to be picked up. It isn’t. David leaves a message, a rather snarky message, and snaps the phone closed.

“Shit. I bought all this food.” He gestures vaguely toward a couple of grocery bags sitting in a corner near the front door.

“Well, I’m sure Gloria is getting hungry. Aren’t you, Gloria?”

She nods and David heaves a disgruntled sigh, but he gathers up the bags and takes a step toward the kitchen. “I can’t imagine why she’d call you instead of me,” he grumbles.

“I told you she was a flake.”

He stops and turns around. “No. You told me you didn’t know her very well. That she mightbe a flake. Thanks for nothing, Anna.”

So once again, I’m the bad guy. First with Gloria, now with Tamara. I can’t win.

David bangs things around in the kitchen while Gloria and I cool our heels in the living room. The silence between us is uneasy. I have nothing to say to her.

The sun is low over the water, casting an orange red glow that bathes the room. In a few minutes, the moon will rise. I wonder if Sandra can feel it. If Avery realizes that he is doomed.

I hope he does.

I’m restless and anxious to get out of here. I’d be gone already if I didn’t think David would kill me. I have a feeling one of the reasons he made the date with Tamara was to avoid spending this first night alone with Gloria. I need to stay at least until she’s in bed—her own bed—and asleep.

“Anna?”

Gloria’s breathy whisper pulls me back.

“I want to thank you for what you’ve done. Jamie was here this afternoon. She told me Jason spoke to the police. DNA tests came back, too. They found something on Rory’s clothes. It’s not my DNA. Now they’ll have to widen the investigation. They’re issuing search warrants for the homes of Benton’s board of directors. And Rory’s corporate offices. He has to have a copy of the contract with the French company somewhere. Laura had to retract most of her story. She had to admit that Jason was telling the truth about what Rory said that morning.”

That, at least, is good news. “Did Jamie find out why O’Sullivan would sell the formula instead of going ahead with its production on his own?”

She shrugs. “Your father offered one possible reason. He told Jamie pharmaceutical companies operate like any private industry—for profit. Foreign countries often don’t require the same kind of expensive, time-consuming clinical trials our FDA does to approve a new drug. They may have offered to buy the formula and proceed on their own. Rory saw a way to make a lot of money right away. Cash in now and not have to wait. Or share. He took it.”

O’Sullivan got greedy and impatient. Look what it cost him.

Gloria adds, “Jamie thinks it won’t be too long before charges against me are dropped.”

“Unless, of course, they nail you for that stupid fake suicide.”

Without missing a beat, she says, “It was stupid, I know. I got so sick. I thought I’d get woozy, maybe, since I didn’t really take that much. Flushed most of the pills down the john. I really didn’t expect—”

She’s telling the story like the worst part was getting caught with puke all over her nightgown. “God, Gloria. You are truly the most self-centered bitch I’ve ever met. Do you know the trouble Jason could get into if his part in your asinine scheme comes to light? He’s a kid. Do you care?”

My voice shakes with the effort to keep from screaming at her. “Protecting him is the only reason I don’t turn you in myself. You are a menace and should be locked up.”

She looks so shocked at my tirade that if I weren’t so angry, I’d laugh. The bitch really thinks she did nothing wrong.

David walks in then, and although he didn’t catch the words that passed between Gloria and me, he does catch the tension.

“Jesus Christ. I can’t leave you alone for five minutes. If you think I want to sit through dinner with the two of you, you’re crazy. Anna, why don’t you leave? I think you’ve done enough damage for one day.”

“Damage? What damage? What did I do?”

He glares down at me, hands on hips. He’s snorting like a bull ready to charge.

He works his jaw a few times and says, “You really expect me to believe Tamara called you to break our date? Just like that. A woman you claim not to know very well. I think you were the one who broke the date. I don’t know why. Yet. I’ll find out. She can’t avoid my calls forever. I’ll get to the bottom of this. Trust me.”

He starts back into the kitchen, pausing once at the door to add, “Did you hear me? You can leave, Anna. Now would be good.”

Gloria remains wisely silent, doesn’t so much as raise her head to watch me leave. So much for making sure those two don’t revert to the old ways. If they end up fucking, David has no one to blame but himself.

I close the door quietly behind me.

Well, I got my wish, I’m going home.

Thrown out of two houses in two hours. A new record.