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David and Angelo awaited their cue to take flight, but Eoghan made them wait. A sudden, desperate need to separate from them had hit him. His heart hammered as if he was about to have a panic attack.
Is this what emotions are as the Balance? Urgency? A need to be somewhere as if my life was at stake? It was possible. His life depended on the two vampires nearby not knowing the truth about his identity. He closed his eyes and let the instinct of his power flood him.
Away. A phone. A conversation.
His body was a marionette, the strings pulled by an inside force.
“Excuse me, mates,” Eoghan said. “I need to make a call before we go.”
David nodded. Angelo, as usual, brooded in silent acquiescence. Eoghan stepped off the sidewalk a few paces and dug a phone from his rear pocket.
His carrier was a European one, but that was easy enough to correct. It wasn’t his phone he needed, anyway. Holding it extended in his palm, he manipulated energies until the Balance entered the circuitry and made the required changes, repeating the wiring of a similar phone lost under a sofa in Washington, DC. Soon, the icon showing the signal strength displayed all four bars.
If David believed his pre-call ritual was unusual, it didn’t show. Eoghan didn’t bother to acknowledge his peculiarity, but took several long steps away as he pretended to dial his phone. Meanwhile, the hand palming the phone was situated so his thumb turned the ring volume down to zero, then to vibrate. The incoming call made his phone buzz within a heartbeat of silencing the phone, and he answered it.
“Hello?”
The voice was female and beautiful, and Eoghan took the call, careful to speak in tones imperceptible to vampire ears.
––––––––
THEY WAITED IN THE food court almost as long as they could stand. After several minutes, Michael got the chirp on his phone giving them the word that it was time to meet with Vivian. She’d been hiding in a mall corridor as she contacted the Source.
“Any luck?” Crystal asked as Vivian dropped her hands to her side. She shifted her weight on the bags, and Michael resisted the inclination to take her into his arms. The struggles they faced were wearing on her, and it’d hardly started. He didn’t move, though. Her family stood in a semi-circle around her, waiting for an answer that he, too, was eager to hear.
Vivian waited to speak. The dreamy, yet resolute, expression on her face brought to mind another time when she’d worn a similar expression shortly before the last war.
“No,” Michael said. “I’ve already told you. You’re not going alone.” The words sounded more like a plea than an order.
“I’m not,” she replied, her voice assuring him she meant it. “But we need to meet with Blu, contact Doyle, and try to save our friends back home, all at practically the same time—now.”
“The ones in Savannah are OK?” Crystal breathed. Her eyes welled up with thankful tears, and Harmony set a hand on her sister’s arm. DB put an arm across each of their shoulders, and Crystal hugged him.
Vivian rubbed her eyes as if waking up. “They’re holed up in a warehouse and being tortured with sunlight. I guess Charles didn’t give the order to kill them yet, so the Tribe is having fun with them while they wait.”
No one spoke for a moment. Then Lukas said, “Damn.”
Megan’s hand met with Lukas’s, and their fingers twined.
Lukas opened the closet where their luggage was stored. He cocked his foot at the corner of a suitcase and played with a wheel using the toe of his running shoe. “Shouldn’t be hard to get to Blu. I was just telling Dad about a guy he’s been shacking up with in DC. Why? What’s up with Blu?”
“He’s in the same trouble as our friends in Savannah. The Blood Tribe is on a witch-hunt, with the unaffiliated vampires as their goal. Blu—he’s out there, but he’s scared, paranoid. I reached him on his cell, and he wants us to meet him in DC at a pub called Brickskeller. He’s on his way there now.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Michael said.
“You’ve heard of everything,” Megan joked.
“But he’s OK?” Michael asked.
“I think so,” Vivian said. “We should go find out. He sounded weird. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t reach him telepathically. He’s been injured.”
“How?” Michael asked.
“The Tribe found his family,” she said with a wince. “They tore his wing pretty badly, but he was lucky; Blu was the only survivor. He can’t fly, and he said with his wing retracted, he’s still got a hell of a backache. He’s limited to vehicle travel for the next few hours.”
“Or cleaving,” Crystal said. “Which isn’t a problem.”
“Burned hands,” DB said, carefully studying her palms. “You lay off holding them open for a while. Leave that to us. Please.” Crystal nodded.
Michael asked, “It makes the most sense to head to Savannah first, yes?”
Harmony frowned. “What about the Dark I felt coming?”
Vivian let out a mirthless laugh. “He’s there. Charles is there. But the Source is still pulling me back there.”
“We could be headed to our deaths. We don’t know what Charles has planned for us.”
“It’s possible,” Vivian conceded.
“Just tell me where we’re going,” Crystal offered, extending a finger in preparation.
“Next time,” Vivian said, undistracted from her objective. “Right now, DB needs to head back to Savannah on a separate mission. We’ll take him there, but then he’s going to have to stay with—”
DB shook his head, clutched Crystal’s hand, cautious of her burns, and winced in apology. “Leave y’all? But—”
“No,” Vivian said, “No argument. Michael, give him Bully’s business card.”
“Bully?” Michael asked, confused.
“He’s a genuine magician,” Vivian said, “not a party performer. DB, you and he need to meet, to join forces.” She shook her head as if shaking her thoughts together. “Along with any vampires that have escaped, and the others, the unusual ones.”
“You mean freaks,” Crystal said with a smile. “Like us.”
“Superpowered ones like you, yes.”
“Why?” DB asked. “I mean, I don’t mean to question the Divine, but I’d like to know, you know?”
“We’re about to be at war,” Vivian said, “and Charles is doing his best to erase our army.”
“Do you plan to recruit whoever you can, even if they’re not undead?” Crystal said. “I know Charles isn’t the nicest guy in the world, but that doesn’t seem fair to the rest of us. Harmony, DB, and I volunteered, but why bring those who aren’t involved into your battle?”
Vivian turned to Crystal, her face somber, more disturbing than Michael had ever seen. “Your blood tastes as good as anyone else’s,” she said. “Maybe more, since you have superhuman talents. Don’t for one second think you’re not in as much danger as we are. After he wipes the earth clean of any vampire not willing to join the Shévet ha Dam, he’ll come after you and your sister. Anyone with power he can use to his benefit. And like us, he’ll give you a choice; use it for the Blood Tribe, or die.”
