Grave Omen (Raina Kirkland Book 3) Read online

  “That’s my only fear. I don’t think Anna would take me to court for a breach in our contract, but Tristan may hate me and I don’t think I could bear that.”

  “He couldn’t hate you, Seth,” I said with my eyes on the phone. “You’ve given him so much. I didn’t see it all before, but now it seems so obvious. You got him his first car and every job he’s ever had. When mom kicked him out after he turned eighteen and he refused to go to college, you paid for everything until his first paycheck came. You’ve always been there when he needed you. How could he turn his back on you?”

  “He turned his back on you, Raina,” said Damon, and then there was silence as we all accepted the horrible truth. I was Tristan’s shadow growing up, his adoring kid sister since I could remember. We were inseparable because he was my hero. I loved him and he loved me, but the moment I wasn’t his innocent little sister anymore, I wasn’t his sister anymore… If he could drop me so easily, he could drop Seth just as easily. Damn it.

  “Why did you give Tristan to Mom?” I asked.

  Damon put the phone on speaker, set it on the desk and sat back in his chair. Holding a phone to your ear can get a tad uncomfortable as the phone heats up.

  “You know that I was attacked by a vampire, but there’s more to my story than that. I was sixteen and a sophomore in high school. I was a—punk. I ditched school, drank, smoked, and partied. I was a lot like Nicholas, actually. I hung with the wrong crowd and was flunking almost every class. But, there was this girl, Trish. She was everything I wasn’t: pure-blood elf, smart like you wouldn’t believe, and beautiful. I had to be the luckiest boy in the school, because she liked me; loved me actually. I could make her do anything. I coaxed her into skipping school with me—among other things. She became pregnant and I freaked out. I didn’t want a kid, I was a kid. I confided in my friends, complained really. I got drunk and became all belligerent about it, but eventually I came to terms with it. She and I made plans for our baby.” He laughed a little then, but Damon and I remained a silent audience. “Her parents kicked her out when she told them, but your grandparents were more forgiving. She moved in with us. Anna was all grown up and getting married, so we turned her room into the nursery. Everything was perfect. I was more dedicated in school, and with my parents’ help, we were both going to graduate on time. It wasn’t going to be easy, but we were determined to set a good example for our unborn son. We named him Tristan, after her. Those eight months were the best of my life. I had the girl, a solid goal and a supportive family with a son on the way—but in all of this I forgot about my friends. As I said, I hung with the wrong people and they blamed Trish for the distance that had grown between us. It was winter and five o’clock in the evening meant it was dark out by the time we got out of Lamaze class. My friends ambushed us at my car.” There was silence for a long time and the longer it went on the worse I imaged.

  “Are you okay?” Damon asked.

  “I am,” Seth said, but his voice was thick with tears. “They beat her to death. They held me down and forced me to watch and when they were done with her they turned on me. They just roughed me up a bit but ran when one of them realized she was dead. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was infected with the vampire virus by one of the guys, Jerome. He was one of those pathetic older men who hung with kids to put himself in a position of superiority. But he was a teen vampire, like me. He must have punched me a little too hard in the mouth and cut his skin on my teeth—I crawled to Trish on my hands and knees and held her body in my arms with our baby still inside of her. I could feel him kicking, as though he knew there was something wrong.”

  Damn my empathy. I was picturing the whole event all too vividly and I began to cry. I put my head in my hands just to feel the warmth of them against my face.

  “I don’t know how long I was yelling and crying for help before I heard sirens. The paramedics took us to the hospital, and they cut Tristan out of Trish. I took him home and held him and fed him and he was perfect. I told him about his beautiful mother and how she was up in heaven with the Goddess, watching over him. I wouldn’t let anyone else hold him. I hugged him to me and kissed his little head and hands and feet. He was so tiny. But by the morning I was having cravings for blood and the sunlight hurt my eyes. I wrote it off as fatigue. And then the next night I began vomiting blood and I was increasingly irritable. I kept making excuses for my symptoms, but when I found myself obsessed with the sound of blood coursing through Tristan’s veins it scared me. I went to the hospital and they found the vampire virus in me. They called Child Protective Services and they took Tristan away. I was a vampire and not fit to be a parent anymore. My parents couldn’t adopt him because I lived with them and vampires couldn’t live in the same residence as children back then. If they kicked me out to keep Tristan I’d be sent to a home for unwanted vampires, which was little more than a prison. Fauna was still in school at Mythos, so Anna was my only hope of keeping Tristan in the family and out of the system. She agreed to take him, but she made me sign a contract. I wasn’t allowed to see him unless she agreed to it, and I wasn’t allowed to tell him I was his father. She said that having an evil creature for a father would scar him for life. She said it would be better for him to grow up with two living parents and I signed that damn thing because even if I couldn’t see him or tell him he was my son, I would at least know he was being well taken care of.”

  My eyes were swollen and swimming by the end of his story. I couldn’t think of anything useful or supportive to say. Nothing would help; nothing would make it all better. If the same tragedy happened today he’d have been able to keep his son. Back then vampires were considered something little better than a rabid dog, a dangerous creature/thing/ person. They had little protection under the law. They couldn’t vote, but they could live without being killed on sight. They could own land and go to school. That was about it. Now, vampires are just people. They still don’t have much protection under the law, but they can vote and they can live anywhere they like, even among children with the parent’s permission.

  “Seth,” I said. “You have to tell him. Forget about all the probable consequences and stop worrying whether he will love you or accept you. Think about Trish. She gave her life for him. Her memory deserves to be honored and Tristan deserves to know the truth.”

  “I leave it to you, Raina. You’re a smart girl, like Trish. I trust you,” Seth said.

  And, suddenly there was a new weight on my shoulders. “I don’t think it’s my place to make that kind of choice. If you leave it to me, I’m going to tell him. But I think Tristan should hear it from you. It’s a personal tragedy, and you should be there when he hears it for the first time.”

  “I think she’s right,” said Damon. “No matter what his reaction will be, you need to be there, as you’ve always been there for him. He may need a shoulder to cry on, like our young Raina here.” He said the last part as he got up from his seat and embraced me where I sat, still crying a little. I clung to him and took in his scent.

  “I’m sorry I made you cry,” Seth said. “I’ll consider it. You two may be right. Thank you.”

  “I know you’ll do what’s best. You’re a wiser man than you give yourself credit for,” said Damon.

  “Thanks for saying so, and thanks for the talk. I’ll see you two later,” Seth said.

  “Good night,” said Damon.

  “Wow! That was a bomb shell. Right out of left field,” I said with a heavy sigh and a nervous chuckle when Damon ended the call.

  “Yes, it was. I’ve never known a family to hold so many secrets as yours,” Damon said as he leaned against his desk.

  I looked up at him, “What other secrets do you know?”

  “Too many,” he said. “But you came up here for a reason. What’s on your mind?”

  I’d forgotten about Detective Fillips and the girl whose mind I was supposed to be reading, and it took me a moment to switch gears from family tragedy to business. “I need to go to Childr
en’s Hospital in Seattle. Fillips wants me to help with our only witness. I just wanted to let you know that I may be out for a while.”

  “Is Katie staying home?”

  “Yes.” I said, and his shoulders seemed to relax a bit. “I know how you feel about her hunting and I feel exactly the same way. I’m not encouraging her; I’m simply supporting her…”

  “I know,” Damon interrupted me. “Katie told me about your agreement—no field work until she’s gone to school. We can’t stop her from living her life. She needs to find out who she is, but she doesn’t need to do it on her own.” He smiled down at me then. “Sometimes I wonder which one of us is smarter.”

  A man with so many degrees under his belt, including a few doctorates, saying that to me of all people, felt a little patronizing, but I smiled back at him anyway. “You, definitely you.”

  TRIVIA

  TRIVIA WAS THE only thing I heard when I peered into Bailey’s mind. It was on a loop, like a broken record, “trivia, trivia, trivia…” Very creepy. The whole scene was creepy. I was sitting alone in a dark hospital room with the young girl Mato saved last night, Bailey Henning. She had tubes and wires all around her and through her, trying to keep her alive. The room smelt like bleach, lemons and feces. There were EI officers outside in the hall, but Fillips wasn’t among them. She said shit hit the fan, and indeed it had. Another massacre was discovered. More people were burnt alive in Clinton on Whidbey Island. That’s where she was, along with the other bounty hunters. I was left behind because we needed answers, and the only one who could give them to us was young Bailey Henning. However, the only thing I could hear beyond the sound of all the machines working around us was a single word, Trivia. Her mind was calling out the word caked thick with fear and anger.

  I wrapped my warm hand around her cold one and said a silent prayer for her. I didn’t know what else I could do beyond forcing her to wake up from her drug induced coma, and I didn’t want to do that. Much of her body had been cooked. What skin couldn’t be saved was surgically removed and thin skin graphs were pulled tight across so much raw meat. She was bandaged and covered for modesty’s sake, but she looked near death to me.

  There was a loud knock on the door that made my head jerk up from my prayers.

  “Come in,” I said quietly, as if my normal voice would wake her. It wouldn’t, but we’re creatures of habit.

  Mato walked through the door with Melvern at his back. Mato was as beautiful as Melvern was handsome. Melvern was one of the two master vampires that ruled over the vampire town of Darkness. He hadn’t changed at all since I’d seen him last. His head was shaved bald, leaving his strong Native American features bare to the world and bold, as if chiseled from stone. He was too muscular and wore only leather pants; no shirt and no shoes.

  I blushed when they walked in. I blushed at Mato for obvious reasons, but I blushed at Melvern as well because he pretty much mind fucked me when we first met years ago, and some part of me still considered the sex we had only in my mind my first time with a man.

  “Raina?” Mato said. “Fillips did not say you would be here.”

  “She didn’t tell me that you would be here either,” I said with a practiced face of pleasant blankness, which would have been more effective if my cheeks weren’t glowing.

  He shook his head, maybe unsure what to say, but he didn’t get to say anything. Melvern was a vocal man, fond of playing with people. He didn’t have to say what he was about to say because I already knew why he was there. He could read minds too, but unlike me, his talent truly did come from vampirism, not from being a demigod. That meant his had a different flavor to it. For instance, he could hear vampires’ minds. I couldn’t. He could put images in peoples’ minds and link minds together. I couldn’t. I could only read their emotions and thoughts and tell them what to do, that was all.

  “Mrs. Fillips asked Mato to bring me here to delve into this young woman’s mind,” Melvern said.

  “Detective Fillips,” I corrected him. “And I’ve looked in there. All I can read is one word on a loop. But feel free to give it a shot.”

  Melvern smiled. “You have the talent?” he asked, referring to telepathy.

  “I have a talent, but it’s nowhere near as great as yours. Maybe you can hear something I can’t,” I said.

  He smiled again and approached the girl. Now Mato was behind him, but he was staring at me with mad intensity. I swallowed the sudden lump in the throat and did my best to ignore him.

  “You are quite right; one word, repeated over and over again. We may have to get creative. I can link your minds together, but you’ll have to find a way to get past her mantra. It might be easier once you’re sharing a mind.”

  I was nodding my head a little too fast. I would do it, but I didn’t like it. The room had a bad vibe. I didn’t like the way Mato was staring at me and Melvern always made me feel naked. I knew he was listening to my every thought even as I sat there trying not to think of anything sensitive. He was hearing everything, and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about everything that I shouldn’t have been thinking about. It was like someone telling you not to think of a green truck and all you can think of is a damn green truck. In a flash I thought about the dream I had of Damon and Mato, of Nick being alive and hiding in Canada and of me being a demigoddess. Less than a minute in a room with Melvern, and he knew all my secrets, everything. Well, shit.

  “We’ll talk later, Raina,” Melvern said in a voice that was too deep, even more so than Damon’s. “I’m sending you in now. It will be easier if you don’t fight it.”

  I didn’t know what my face looked like in that moment, but I felt like a child sitting in front of them. I closed my eyes and took deep calming breaths. Bailey’s hand was still cold in mine, but I began to feel a little nauseous. The word, trivia, became louder, as if someone was actually saying it out loud, over and over again. I opened my eyes and the men were still standing there, staring down at me. I looked at the girl and all the wires and tubes were gone. Bailey’s eyes were open. She was staring at the ceiling and chanting the word, trivia.

  “Did she just wake up?” I asked and no one answered me. “Mato, can you hear me?” He said nothing. He just stood there, staring at me with his intense golden eyes.

  “He can’t hear you because you’re not talking,” I heard Melvern say, but his lips never moved. He bent down to my level and looked me in the eyes. His lips never moved as he said, “You are linked with her. Try to get some answers.”

  “Why couldn’t you link your own mind to hers?” I asked a little too late.

  “Because there is a danger involved. I could lose my mind.”

  “And, I can’t?”

  He shrugged; a gesture that made Mato look at him with a curious tilt of his head. “I’m here. If I think you are in danger, I can pull you out, but I may not recognize my own peril until it’s too late.”

  “Ah, psychic inception,” I said with a smile.

  “What?”

  “A psychic within a psychic” He didn’t get it. “Like a dream within a dream.” Still nothing. “It was a movie reference.” He gave me a seriously unmoved face. “Oh, never mind.”

  Mato was back to looking down at me, but as I stood up his eyes never left the chair. I stood over Bailey and moved my hand over her face to try to get a reaction, but she did nothing. It was as if I wasn’t even there.

  “Bailey!” I yelled and snapped my fingers and clapped my hands loudly. Nothing. I looked back at Melvern but he was whispering something to Mato and then they left the room together. “Where are you going?” I screamed after them.

  Melvern’s voice came to me, just as clear as it would have been if he were standing next to me. “We are distracting you. You are still thinking in terms of the waking world, but you are in someone’s mind, Raina. Physics need not apply.”

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath before I reached for Bailey. I shook her shoulders. “Wake up honey, wake up—or you’ll be late
for school,” I said, imagining that I was her mother. I didn’t really understand my own game plan. There was no plan, really. But she stopped staring straight up at the ceiling and chanting, thank Goddess. She looked at me. “You’re home,” I told her.

  She looked out at the dark hospital room and I followed her gaze to find us in a brightly decorated bedroom. The walls were blue and covered in band posters. A white desk sat in the far corner with an open laptop sitting on it and a teddy bear leaning against the laptop. I looked back down at Bailey, and she was perfectly healed and snuggled up warm in a bright blue duvet. Her straight brown hair had a healthy shine and her large eyes looked almost amused. She smiled and wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tightly. I looked down at myself and my body didn’t look like mine. I was overweight and dressed in a nightgown and robe. I could see soft black hair draped over my shoulders and fluffy white slippers on my little feet. This wasn’t my body. I would guess this was her mother, maybe. I looked down at her.

  “What does trivia mean?” I asked her with a soft hand on her shoulder. She released me from her hug, and pointed to her laptop. I shuffled over to the desk and took a seat in her white swivel chair. I moved a turquoise teddy bear out of my way and adjusted the monitor for my height. An internet window was open. It was scrolled to the bottom of a page. I read the last paragraph only because everything before that wasn’t in a recognizable language, but the last bit was in English.

  Clean your browser history. Write letters to your loved ones. Tell them you will be back shortly. Come alone. Tell no one. For Trivia!