Page 19 of Kept 4
I’d only been hiding in the alley for a few minutes, catching my breath after my dash from the church and the vampire assassins who pursued me, but he had managed within that short space of time to take out my would-be murderers and find me.
I close my eyes tight, but can’t stop the replay of events. The blood, the screams, the sheer violence of the assault. It was one thing to see the aftermath of a vampire attack, like when I had found James’ body. It was another thing entirely to witness it unfold before my eyes.
“Tell me,” he whispers, “say it once and then let it go.”
I nod.
“There were three of them. They burst into the church, they took off Monsieur Levac’s head almost instantly, but Benjamin and Prudence, they, they fought hard. Benjamin was outclassed and outnumbered. They were too strong, and so fast, so very fast. We left him. He told us to run.”
I sob and begin to shake all over, but I keep talking, I want it all out now, nothing left inside my head to plague me with nightmares. “Prudence helped me escape, she went back, to give me time to run further, hide. The vampires wanted to kill us all, me included.”
“Prudence? You mean the huntress?”
“Yes.”
“She escaped.”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
Before she and I had parted company, we had run until I could run no more and then hidden in an alley just like this one. She had pressed upon me her phone number and made me repeat after her several times where I needed to take the weapon, when I recovered it, before she ran back to the church. Knowing that at least one of the Hunters had survived somehow made me feel like all had not been lost, like I still had a chance to help, to redeem myself, to do as I had promised Monsieur Levac.
“And Benjamin?” I ask, “the Hunter left in the church?”
“He is finished.”
“Dead?”
He nods, and I clutch him closer, suddenly aware of a lump between us – the bracelet, hidden in my pocket where I had shoved it just as the attack began.
“Why, Josephine?” he groans, his head buried in my neck, “why are you still here? I told you to leave, told you it wasn’t safe.”
“I…” I pause, it sounds ridiculous now to admit I stayed to find information I could easily have found on the world-wide-web. “I had something important I needed to do.”
“More important than your life?”
“No,” I push him away, anger beginning to replace my fear and shock, “but I stayed. I’m leaving now though; you can bet on it. Why areyouhere? You said you would hunt Elsbeth.”
“I followed her trail here,” he frowns at me, “thinking I might entrap her, but then I felt your distress.”
“Obviously she sent them to kill me,” I roll my eyes.
“No,” he shakes his head, frowning, “you are Kept. Whoever sent them was aiming for the Hunters – it had nothing to do with you.”
“Bullshit,” I mutter, “I saw their eyes, they planned to kill me too.”
“No,” he shakes his head, considering my words carefully. “I don’t for a moment think she would send vampires to do her bidding. Sending hunters loyal to her is more her style.”
“Well,” I sag against him once more, “maybe she upped the game. Or maybe some other vampire who would just as dearly like me out of the picture sent them, maybe Gerald.”
“Where are you staying?” he murmurs, ignoring my last comment, his eyes locking on mine, “I will escort you home.”
“No, Nicholas. I mean, yes, you can escort me, but you can’t come in.”
His eyes are hurt; they roam my face, looking for answers.
“It’s too hard. You must know that. It’s too hard.” I don’t add that I still feel queasy having just spent several hours perusing his list of victims. I had yet to fully process my feelings on this.
“I know,” he groans, “come then,” he offers me his hand, and I take it as he pulls me out into the quiet early morning street. The sun has not yet risen, but it won’t be long. “So, tell me,” he says as we walk, glancing down at me out of the corner of his eye, “why were you with these hunters when you were attacked? Had they kidnapped you once more? Was it the same ones who drowned you?”
