Page 64 of The Vampire Always Rises
He reached back and wrapped an arm around me, pulling me against his side.
“The solution is easy,” Han said, still pacing. Ciaran was tapping on his phone, no doubt tattling to the fourth Horseman. He came to a stop in front of us.
“No,” Merrick said before Han could continue.
“Tempest lures Victor into a rendezvous.”
“No,” Merrick repeated, this time shaking his head.
“That’s not a bad idea, if it would work,” Ciaran said, at last looking up from his phone. “But will Victor be drawn out for her?”
“No!” Merrick said louder. “Christos, how many times do I need to say no? She is not bait. You are not using her to do anything, let alone risk her life.”
“She’s your Beloved,” Han said, nodding toward me. “He’d have to really try hard if he wanted to kill her.”
“That’s right,” Ciaran said, nodding. “He’d have to take off her head.”
“Drawing and quartering would work, too,” Han said helpfully. “Or cremating her alive.”
“And then there’s disemboweling—”
“Hey!” I said, my amusement at watching Merrick in full protective mode fading. “Do we have to get specific? I have a blood aversion.”
Both men burst into laughter. Merrick gave me an odd look.Is that true?
I don’t lie unless it’s a matter of life and death, and even then, I don’t know if I could pull it off very well.
“But you like Christian’s books,” he said with a little mental shake of his head.
I shrugged. “They aren’t gory, and when he mentions blood, he makes it sound like spiced wine.”
“It is like spiced wine. To us, at least,” Merrick said, then turned back to his friends. “I know what you’re going to suggest, and the answer is no. We will find some other way.”
“You know, maybe they have a point—” I stopped when Merrick’s phone sang a few bars of “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”
He glanced at it. “It’s the thief taker. He might have some news.”
“About Ellis? Oh, thank goodness. I have been so worried, and so frustrated that there’s nothing I can do to help find him. Where is he? I can take a train out to get him wherever he is.”
“This is the second thief taker, not Savian. I’ve heard nothing from him other than he’s rounding up more sprites.”
Disappointment caused my shoulders to sag.
“Who is Ellis?” Ciaran asked when Merrick moved off to take his call.
I explained about our connection, wanting to complain about Savian not doing a good job, but knowing that it wasn’t easy to find someone who was kidnapped. It wasn’t Savian’s fault if it took more than a few hours. “Our plan is definitely going to work,” Ciaran said, nodding to his buddy.
“What exactlyisthis sure-thing plan?” I asked.
“We just told you. You tell your cousin to pick you up, and we’ll grab him,” Han said, eyeing me as if I were a particularly choice pigeon, and he a hungry wolf. “It will be easy.”
“Not as easy as you think,” I said, mulling the idea over. “I don’t see why Carlo would fall for it. I mean, he knows I’m with Merrick, and he’s sure to suspect a trap. That’s assuming he’d go to any trouble to capture me again, which I don’t know that he would. I got away from him awful easily, after all.”
Merrick returned, his eyes lit from within. I could feel the excitement in him, the tensed muscles that reminded me of a lion about to spring. “The second thief taker has found Carlo. He’s at an airport booked to fly to Rome.”
“Rome?” I asked, surprised. “But he lives in the north of Italy. Was Ellis with him?”
“That’s where he’s flying to regardless. The thief taker says there are only two men, and that neither matches the description of your friend,” Merrick said, tapping on his phone. “The flight will leave in an hour. If we take a portal, we can be in Rome before him.”
