Damned if I Don't (The Harker Trilogy Book 2) (13 page)

Cruel, I know, but so is holding a helpless three-year-old hostage, and my mercy meter is at an all-time low. I don’t care if I sell my soul to the Devil at this moment. They wronged us. I am the Harker and I won’t allow for it.

“Where are they?” I growl, leaning down towards her. The chaos around me blends together, and whether it’s the sea of people bashing each other, or my friends subduing this fucking group of twats, things are starting to get back under control.

She’s not even snapping her teeth anymore. Instead, her mouth works uselessly as she tries to sound out the words.

Should I let her speak? In any other circumstance, my level of anger would mean her death, but I need to know where Graeme and Amelia are. I have to keep reminding myself, so I don’t send a shot of fire her way to end her here and now.

Think of Amelia. You need to save them.

With a shuddering breath to steady my nerves, I release the pressure ever so slightly, and the vampire gasps.

“They’re…” she hisses through pained lips. “They’re…”

Suddenly a spray of blood catches me from below, and it takes me a second to realize that one of her own friends staked her. The guy grins up at me and takes the stake and turns it on himself, driving it into his chest.

“NO!” I shout. But I’m too late.

The bastard slumps over his friend, both of their lips forever sealed. My mind barely comprehends that the asshole may have just killed the only one of his friends who is able to talk. The words I hear next confirm it.

“This is it, Harker! For the natural order of things.” I don’t know the voice, but I look up to see Jude pressing a vampire up against the wall. His captive is smiling devilishly at me.

“We’re the chosen ones,” the vampire says. “We’ve proven ourselves to Anthony, and we will ascend when he is the Progenitor.”

“Not if you’re dead.”

“Oh, Harker. You should know better than any of us that death is only the beginning.”

Jude’s eyes flick to me, questioning. “Edie.” he says gently, his chest heaving from exertion.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“You’ll see. Not now. But soon.”

I’m about to press him for more information when he gets a burst of strength and flings out of Jude’s grip. Faster than I can keep up with, he takes his own hands and plunges them into his chest with a cry.

“Fuck!” I scream.

I’m too late as the vampire pulls out his own heart, the blood mass falling onto the floor. The vampire snickers once, then he collapses to his knees, dead.

“FUCK!” I scream again, tears pricking my eyes as I realize that we came up with nothing in this debacle. All I have are dead vampires and a string of unanswered questions.

As I look around to see Carl’s and Lorne’s situations, their own vampires have done the same thing. Committed suicide, ending their lives for some greater purpose that Anthony, or his religion, had convinced them was worth dying for.

Now all I have is the phone, and no way of calling Anthony back through it. I’ve failed everyone. Like I’ve been failing everyone my whole life.

I fall to my knees with a wail, crying at the dead end my life had become.

Jude

Nothing sucks worse than seeing the one you love in anguish and being able to do fucking nothing about it. Watching Edie fall to her knees with a cry physically hurts me.

Goddamn it. Goddamn these fuckers and goddamn Anthony—whoever he is to me now—for putting her through this. I don’t know how she doesn’t crack under this pressure.

I clench my jaw, feeling Edie’s blood course through me, like I have super-charged caffeine in my veins. It feels as if I have a three-hundred-horse-power engine running inside me, like nothing is impossible for me to achieve.

But I can’t do the one thing I want to do more than anything.

Help Edie.

The only thing I can do is keep moving to try to take the burden off her, although I suspect that it’s a burden only she can hold.

“What do we do?” Lorne asks. His bravado is no longer present. Instead, I get the feeling that I’m looking at the old man as he really is.

“We keep looking for Graeme and Amelia,” I rumble.

Carl looks at me. “But we have the phone now. And—”

I wipe my face, ridding myself of the blood that the vampire had spilled when he killed himself. What a fucking waste. I feel dirty from being drenched in it. “We’re going to find them. Even if we have to turn Atlanta upside down. Lorne, you said that there are plenty of other vampire hideouts here, right?”

There’s a moment of silence as Lorne considers what I’m saying and catches on. I swear there’s a sparkle in his eyes as he nods. “Yes.”

“Then we go to each one of them and find out if anyone has heard anything.”

“That could take days,” Carl says.

“Then we’d better get started.”

I push away from them and go to Edie, who is on her knees, sobbing silently. I don’t think she’s heard any of our conversation. What is she thinking right now? Does she feel like everything is outside of her control?

I want to help you.

“Edie,” I say, bending down in front of her. I move a strand of hair behind her ear, showing me her heartbreakingly beautiful face as tears stream down it. Her eyes meet mine, fuzzy at first, but they continue to clear as she focuses on me.

“Jude.” Her bottom lip trembles.

The Harker is a scared young woman who doesn’t know what to do next.

I’ll show her.

“We should get going,” I say.

Her face crumples into a mask of absolute despair and she leans forward, breaking eye contact. “I don’t…I can’t…”

“We’ll find them, Edie. Don’t give up.”

She hiccups once, something between a laugh and a sob. “I don’t know where they’d be…”

I gently take her by the upper arms, like one does with a child. I’m careful with the bandages around her stump, but I coax her to a standing position. She’s unsteady on her feet and collapses into my chest, burying her face in it.

I wish we were alone so I could say some private things to her, assure her that everything is going to be all right.

Instead, I gulp back the lump in my throat and brush away a tear that slides down her cheek. “We’ll get them back,” I whisper into her hair.

“Will we?” she says, her voice breaking.

“I promise you. If it’s the last thing I do.”

I hope it’s not. But I know that I’d die to make sure that she has a happy ending. And as she looks at me, as vulnerable as a baby bird, I know she’s worried for me as I am for her.

It’s too late to change that, Edie.

My life has been hers for five months now. It will be hers for an eternity.

Edie

The only thing that could make me smile tonight is the fact that Lorne lives above a strip club, one of the most famous ones in Atlanta, apparently. While being led to the back of the club, I even see a stripper crush a can between her tits to the cheer of the crowd.

So you can understand that despite everything, I giggle. It feels good, although it hurts like hell to know there’s a huge void in my life that I can’t fix. I shouldn’t be smiling like this. Not when there’s so much for me to do. Not when Amelia is at the mercy of Anthony.

I’m exhausted though. There’s no other way to describe it. When we left the bar, I wanted to keep searching, looking for Graeme and Amelia. Instead, my hand is in my hoodie pocket clenching a phone for dear life. As if by holding it, I will be able to find out where they are. If only it were that easy.

“We’ll find them,” Jude whispers in my ear.

Will we? It almost seems absurd at this point to hope. I almost want to laugh at that, then the sudden flare of emotions turns into near tears. I mentally kick myself, because all I seem to be doing these days is crying.

“Edie,” Jude says, anchoring me with his piercing blue eyes. “We
will
find them.” He repeats it like a mantra and more than anything I want to believe him.

I bite my lip in response. The Harker is supposed to be strong, a beacon for all humanity. And here I am, one-armed, tired as hell, and on the verge of tears. I doubt any other Harker has been as big a basket case as me.

Carl is more like himself at this point, which is good, because he’s just about the only thing that feels normal at this point.

“This is an interesting place you’ve got here, Lorne,” he says.

Lorne motions to the bartender, and an unspoken conversation passes between them. The bartender takes out three glasses and starts to mix drinks for us. They don’t even card us, which is good, because neither Carl nor I are of drinking age. Who knows what Jude’s license says. Although that wouldn’t stop the police from busting me.

Yes, officer, if you average our ages, we’re each 110 years old.

Wouldn’t that be funny to say.

“This is where I work,” Lorne explains in that Southern voice. He pushes drinks at Carl and me. “Been here for fifty years. Sorry vampy,” he adds, tipping his drink towards Jude, “no blood here for you.”

Jude flashes him a smile, halfway baring his fangs, it seems, on purpose. “No worries.”

The bartender raises a quizzical eyebrow, but doesn’t ask for any more information. Maybe he thinks Jude is a lawyer.

Carl throws back his drink, his only hint for a while now that he’s been spooked by everything.

“My first time at a strip club,” he says longingly, “and it’s the wrong kind of club.”

I think the booze has hit his bloodstream. His cheeks are flushed already as he sets down the drink. To my further surprise, the bartender fills it up again.

Man, we must really look the worse for wear.

“It’s the wrong kind of club for anyone,” Lorne agrees. He points to the stage where another stripper in her fifties is trying to light a match on her breasts. The crowd is loving it though. “But it’s a haven where outcasts are celebrated.”

Outcasts.

I guess that’s how you’d describe us. I scratch at the bandage around my left arm. I’m okay with that, I guess. So long as there is room for us in this world.

I raise an eyebrow as the bartender sets down another glass.

He shrugs and pushes the glass towards me.

A quick sniff tells me that it’s straight vodka. Not my choice of drink, but it’ll take the edge off everything from tonight. I keep replaying the events at the club in my mind and thinking of things that I could have done to change it. I’m angry at myself and my predicament.

So, vodka it is. I throw it back with one gulp and grimace as it burns all the way down. At least I can still feel that. The rest of me feels numb.

I’ve failed Graeme and Amelia. I have no idea where they are in this huge city. I can’t protect them. I can’t do anything right.

“Another,” I croak to the bartender. Like magic, he sets another glass in front of me.

I think I like this guy.

“Well, it’s time for this old man to retire to bed,” Lorne sighs, getting up. “These old bones ain’t what they used to be. Especially if we’re back at it tomorrow night.”

“You think it’s really going to matter?” I ask.

Lorne crosses his arms and gives me an unimpressed look. “You’re the Harker. You should know better than anyone else that what you do always matters. Don’t give up hope just yet. We’ll find your family.”

“Yeah, sure.” I smile sadly and down the second glass of vodka, wincing again. Already the world spins around me, and I relish the cotton fuzz of inebriation as it descends upon me.

“I’ll be seeing you tomorrow,” he warns. “So don’t get too drunk.”

I think it’s already too late for that, but I wave him goodnight anyways.

“There are a few guestrooms available for you three.” He nods to the bartender. “Gene’ll take care of you.”

“Oh trust me, he’s already taking care of us.”

Gene the bartender chuckles soundlessly. I’m starting to wonder if he’s some sort of mute, and a horrible thought occurs to me that it may have been from a vampire hunting accident. I study the man’s face and decide that he’s related to Lorne somehow, as a son or a nephew.

I make a note to leave a great tip for him.

Lorne heads up the stairs to his quarters, as I turn back to Carl and Jude. “Know any good drinking games?”

Jude

While Edie and Carl are playing a drinking game, I sneak out to the breakroom to call up Zhi. I don’t want to leave them too long, but I want to let them have a moment of respite.

Zhi’s taking Amelia’s kidnapping pretty hard. I guess we all are. Bringing a three-year-old into this war is terrible. Even for an ancient vampire. 

“We should come meet you,” he says urgently. “I can leave the Progenitor with Năinai, and Maria, and I will help you wade through all of the fuckers to get to Anthony.”

“No,” I tell him firmly. “You have to stay with him. You’re our last line of defense if all of this goes to hell.”

Zhi pauses on the other end. “You’re right,” he says. “You’re right, but I don’t have to like it. I hate waiting around like sitting ducks.”

“I’m not asking you to like it.”

“Good.”

We both laugh, and it feels good to share something akin to a joke, even though nothing feels funny anymore.

“Atlanta’s crawling with vampires, you know,” Zhi says softly.

I rub my eyes, feeling tired. “I know.”

“It’s like finding a needle in a haystack. You’re never going to find Anthony there.”

I frown. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I’m just saying, it’s going to be hard,” Zhi says apologetically.

And time is running short for Edie.
I remember what she looked like back in the bathroom at the gym when I saw her naked body. Her scar had covered almost half of her body. And it’s only going to spread faster and farther until it consumes her.

“It is,” I say, “but that’s why she has me.”

There’s a scuffle on the other end, then Zhi’s voice comes back on, “Hey, man, Maria wants to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“Jude,” Maria says. “How the Harker? Can I talk to her?”

“She’s busy at the moment.” I’m not going to tell them that she’s drinking herself to oblivion. It seems like a private ordeal, one that she wouldn’t want to share.

“Oh.”

We both stay there in silence for a few moments, and I’m beginning to wonder why she wanted to speak to me when she asks, “Tell me, Jude, do you love her?”

“Yes,” I reply without hesitation.

“Good. I think she needs it.” I can almost hear her smile through the phone. “You should know that it’s okay for a vampire to love a human.”

“I know,” I say half-heartedly.

“No, I’m serious,” she says. “Even if that human is the Harker. We can’t control who we fall in love with. But we can control how we love them. And I’m telling you, from experience, that it’s something you don’t need to be ashamed about.”

“I’m not—”

“Really?” she deadpans. “You’re going to deny that you’re keeping your distance? Based on what I’ve heard and what Zhi tells me,
she doesn’t have much time left
.” I flinch at the phrase, but she keeps going with her interrogation. “We don’t know when any of us are going to go, but that’s something you shouldn’t regret following through with. I’ve
missed
out on a few loves in my time.”

“And that’s why you’re with Zhi?” I point out.

“Zhi’s with me,” she says. “We wasted a long time by not being together. His grandmother didn’t approve of us. But that didn’t stop us. And I wouldn’t change anything about it.”

“No,” I agree.

“You may be a vampire, Jude. But you also have a human heart, one that needs to love.”

I look towards the door, where about twenty yards away, the woman I love is playing a drinking game to get her mind off the kidnapping of her family. I met her at her sister’s funeral and have been hiding in the wings ever since.

And I denied her back in Houston when there’s not a lot of time left. When we may never know what could have been between us.

Regrets pulls at me and I turn back to the phone.

“Okay,” I say. “Thank you for the advice.”

“You’re not taking it, are you?” she groans.

“That’s my own business.”

Maria laughs. “I guess I’ll have to take that then,” she mutters.

“I’ve gotta run,” I say. “But thank you again.”

“Call back tomorrow,” Maria says. “Keep us posted if you find that
puto
.”

“Will do.”

I hang up, and feel something akin to nerves flutter in my stomach. Maybe, for the first time in five months, I truly believe that I’m free to love the Harker.

My Edie.