Hunted (The Tinder Chronicles) (7 page)

My sympathy was
short-lived, though, canceled out by the fact that he grabbed one of my wrists
and quickly bound it to the slatted headboard with a strip of fabric. “Oh, hell
no,” I exclaimed, and began struggling like a man possessed. This made it only
slightly harder for Bane to tie me to the bed, spread-eagled and cussing at him
for all I was worth.

When he finished (that
had taken him all of about ninety seconds, even with me fighting him with all
my strength), he sat beside me for a few moments and watched me. I was sweaty
and panting, totally spent. He wasn’t even slightly affected. “I’ll be back in
a few hours to untie you,” he said, “though you’ll probably free yourself
before then. I didn’t bind you very tightly. Once you do get free, please try
not to hurt yourself in your futile attempt to break out of this apartment. It
was built by a drug lord, a man even more paranoid than I am. All the walls are
reinforced with concrete, and you already learned about the windows the hard
way.”

“Damn it, Bane, don’t
leave me like this. What if that vamp gang tracks me down here? I can’t even
defend myself.”

“It’s absolutely
impossible for them to find you here.”

“No it’s not. They
found me on top of a random building in the warehouse district, for Christ’s
sake.”

“I have so many wards
and spells surrounding this building that there’s not a chance in hell of them
tracking you here.” He tilted his head slightly as he reached out and brushed
my overgrown hair back from my face. His touch was oddly gentle, for a man that
had just forcibly tied me up.

“What if my nose
itches? Or what if I have to pee?”

“You probably should
have thought of that before trying to defy me and slip out the front door.”

“I love how you make
everything my fault,” I grumbled.

He smiled at me, then
stood up and headed for the door. “Everything
is
your fault, Tinder.
It’s your own stubbornness that gets you in all these situations.”

I yelled and swore at
him as he left the apartment, only stopping when I heard the front door click
shut behind him. Asshole. I turned my attention to my right wrist, and went to
work on my bindings.

Chapter
Seven

“I see you made good use of your time,” Bane said,
leaning against the kitchen doorway.

I was seated at the
table, scrolling through yet another document that he’d scanned into his
laptop. His collection of books on alchemy and witchcraft was truly
astonishing, better than any I’d ever seen. I’d found a pen and paper in a
drawer, and had been taking notes feverishly, filling two legal pads and
starting on a third. I’d learned more useful spells and wards in the past few
hours than I had in the last five years combined.

But before I’d resigned
myself to my imprisonment and sat down with the computer, I’d practically
destroyed the apartment. I’d ripped off drywall (there really was concrete
behind it), torn up floorboards, dismantled window frames and attempted to pry
open the plexiglass windows. Despite all that demolition, I’d obviously failed
to escape. But at least I found the surveillance system, which I’d torn out of
each room and heaped in a big pile on the kitchen counter, right where Bane
would be sure to see it.

“Can I leave yet?” I
muttered, not looking up from the PC.

“No.”

I knit my brows and
picked up a pen, quickly sketching an ancient Phoenician protection symbol. He
came up beside me and flipped through my notes. “You know,” he said, “you’re
going about this all wrong.”

“Go to hell.”

He ignored that and
told me, “Every tattoo on your body and all the wards protecting your home concentrate
on defense, not offense. Instead of merely making yourself immune to, say, being
compelled, or impossible to detect with a locator spell, why not employ some
spells and symbols that make you stronger? That way, you wouldn’t be totally
outgunned by your enemies.”

“I would if I could,
Captain Obvious,” I murmured, putting the finishing touches on the symbol I was
copying. “But I’ve never seen anything that can do that. I’m not even sure
symbols like that exist.”

He pivoted the computer
to face him. I protested and tried to take it back, but he caught my flailing
hand by the wrist as he clicked a few keys. “Oh, they exist. You just haven’t
had access to the right resources.” He swung the laptop in my direction as he
let go of me.

The symbol on the
screen made me catch my breath. It was totally unique and beyond intricate,
written in a language I’d never even seen before – and given how many ancient
texts I’d perused over the course of my life, that was pretty remarkable. The
closest thing I could compare it to was a Celtic knot, the lines of text interwoven
in elegant arcs and swirls, the whole thing coming together into a roughly oval
shape.

Since the writing was
tiny, I tried to zoom in as much as I could, then ended up having to cursor
left and right, up and down, looking for patterns in the symbols. “Definitely
more than twenty six letters in this alphabet,” I murmured.

“There are thirty,”
Bane said.

“What language is
this?”

The guttural sound he made
was something like, “Varsrescht.”

I turned to him and
raised an eyebrow. “What the hell was that, Klingon?”

He grinned a little.
“Not exactly.”

I looked at the symbol
again, running my fingers over the screen, getting frustrated because it was so
hard to follow the twisting and turning lines of text. “Damn, I wish I could
get a better look at this,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

Bane considered that
for a moment, then said, “Well, you can if you want to.” He began to unbutton
his shirt.

 “What are you doing?”
I asked suspiciously.

“You’ll see.”

He stripped himself to
the waist, tossing his dark blue shirt onto the tabletop. Desire spiked in me
immediately at the sight of his muscular chest and huge shoulders and arms.
That earned me a smirk. “You forgot to tell your body that you never want to
sleep with me again,” he said. “I can smell it the moment you become aroused,
you know. Don’t think I failed to notice your arousal when I pinned you down
earlier, either.”

“You’re such an ass.”

“I’m merely pointing
out the obvious, love.”

“So am I.”

Bane grinned at me,
then said, “Bear with me for a moment, please.” He closed his eyes and began
speaking quietly, in what had to be that same rough language. It almost seemed
like he was praying, though most likely he was reciting some sort of
incantation. When he opened his eyes, he took both my hands in his and said
something else. It felt as though a mild electrical current passed between us.

I pulled my hands back
and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Giving you an
all-access pass.”

“Huh?”

“Taking down a few of
my wards,” he said, then spun around in his chair, turning his back to me. “Run
your hands over my skin and you’ll see what I mean.”

That request sounded
odd as hell, but I gave it a shot anyway. I swiped my palm quickly down his
back, and for just a moment, his skin lit up like a Christmas tree. Something
big and dark appeared and then disappeared in the wake of that light show. I
gasped in surprise as he said, “Slower, Tinder.”

I lined up both hands,
fingertip-to-fingertip, and ran them very slowly down the expanse of his skin
from shoulder to waist, light spilling out between my fingers. A huge tattoo
became visible in their path, the exact symbol I’d been studying on the
computer. “Oh wow,” I murmured, running my fingertips along the lines of text. “Where
does it start?”

“Try to find dead
center, and trace it to the left.”

I looked closely, then
touched my index finger to a spot on his spine. I traced the pattern a few
inches, then returned to the center and said, “Can you please tell me what it
says, so I can get a feel for the language?”

He began to speak,
slowly and distinctly, and I followed along for a few minutes, learning which
sounds to assign to the letters. After a while, I asked him to start over in
English, and began to get a sense of how the language translated. I sounded out
a few words under my breath, and he chuckled a little and said, “I feel like
the Rosetta Stone. And you really do have an amazing gift for language, I can’t
believe how quickly you’re assimilating it.”

“How can there be a
language I’ve never heard of?” I asked. “Well, unless it’s a dorky made-up one,
like Esperanto or something.”

He glanced over his
shoulder at me. “Oh, it isn’t made up. It’s part of a rich culture dating back
many, many centuries.”

“A rich, never-heard-of
culture. Why can you speak it?”

“Because it’s the
language of my people.”

“Your people? I wasn’t
aware that East-Enders had started speaking Klingon.”

He chuckled at that. “Not
the culture I was born into, the culture into which I was reborn.”

“The culture…wait a
minute, is this some kind of vampire language?”

“It is exactly that.”

“There’s no way,” I
said, leaning back in my chair. “If there was such a thing, I would have heard
of it before now.”

“No offense, dearest,
but all you really know about vampires is where to shove the stake. We were a
grand society, once upon a time. We not only had our own language, but also many
beautiful customs, traditions, and celebrations. They’re almost all forgotten
now.”

“A vampire society is
pretty hard to believe, given how solitary they are.”

“When my kind became hunted
and our numbers dwindled, we disappeared, scattered to the far corners of the
earth to avoid total extinction. That became the norm after a while, never
gathering in groups to avoid attracting attention, blending in with the human
population so we wouldn’t be slaughtered. We wiped out every written record of
our history, tried to be forgotten. To some extent, it worked. Most humans
don’t even think we exist these days. Only hunters remember, since their
history is woven with ours.”

The tattoo had almost
completely faded out by now, only faint traces of it remaining on his smooth,
pale skin. He started to reach for his shirt, but I put my hands on his back,
light immediately spilling out between my splayed fingers. “Wait. Please? Just
a little longer.”

“One more minute,” he
said, and I ran my hands over his back, again making the tattoo visible.
Starting at the beginning of the inscription, I repeated the incantation once
more, quietly, trying to commit some of the language to memory.

He actually let me do
this for another five minutes before grabbing his shirt and pulling it on,
saying, “Ok, enough of that.”

“So, what exactly does
this symbol do for you?” I asked.

“It amplifies my
strength and speed considerably. And I’m not suggesting this is the symbol for
you, by the way. It only works on vampires. I just wanted to show you that
symbols like this do in fact exist, and I know we can find you a human
equivalent.”

“Can you teach me more
Varsrescht?”

“Not now. We’re wasting
too much time on this.”

“It’s fascinating,
though. Can I please have just a few more minutes to study that symbol?” I asked,
lightly touching his chest. The skin beneath my fingers flared with white
light, and when I pulled my hand away, a portion of a tattoo appeared and then
began to disappear. “You have more,” I exclaimed. “Can I see them?”

“No.” He turned his
attention to the computer.

“Why are your tattoos
concealed from view?”

“Because if my enemies
can’t read my protections, they can’t counteract them. You should consider
doing the same with your tattoos.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure
that kind of spell is beyond my pay grade.”

“I can show you how to
do it sometime.”

I watched him for a few
moments, then asked, “What are you doing?”

He concentrated on the
laptop, then said, “I don’t know where exactly you’ll find the right thing to
make you stronger, but I have a few guesses and am pulling up some documents
for you. Promise me, though, that before you start randomly inking symbols all
over your body, you’ll check with me first. Half your existing tattoos are
either unnecessary or completely redundant.”

I sighed at that, then watched
Bane’s profile for a few moments before saying, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Just did.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Why are you so willing
to turn on your own kind?” I asked. “I mean, here you are, waving your vamp
pride flag and going on about your race’s rich history and culture. But then
you’re also helping me, aiding and abetting the vamps’ Public Enemy Number
One.”

“Number two, actually.”

“What?”

“Vampires are systematically
targeting everyone in California that they consider a threat. Since you’re one
of the few purebred hunters out there, and a bit of a legend, you’re near the
top of their hit list. But you’re not quite in the number one position.”

I raised an eyebrow at that.
“There’s literally a hit list?”       

“There is indeed. It’s
like the FBI’s ten most wanted, with photos, descriptions, various information.
They’ve been distributing it all over the state.” That explained why the vamp
in Santa Barbara seemed to recognize me, he must have seen my photo.

“Is Lee on that list?”

The question seemed to
annoy him. “Why yes. Your big, dumb playmate is number seventeen.”

“I need to see that
list, so I can warn the other hunters that are on it,” I said. “Can you get it
for me?” He clicked a few keys and pulled up a file, then turned the computer
toward me. “Really? Is that it?” I asked.

“It is.”

The document was
entitled ‘Seek and Destroy.’ Subtle. It began with a brief paragraph explaining
that the list included the biggest threats to the vampire race in California,
and made it clear that everyone it named should be exterminated with extreme
prejudice. I scrolled down, and revealed the photo of the person at the top of
the list. It was a picture of Bane.

“Oh my God,” I
muttered, reading the physical description and the few facts about his known
whereabouts that followed. When I scrolled a little further, a picture of me
came up, the number ‘two’ beside it. It was actually my old driver’s license
photo. It had been taken about four years ago, but I hadn’t changed much. Since
I’d used a fake name and address, I really wondered how the vamps had
identified that as me. I read what little information they had on me, then
said, “I’m five-eleven, not five-ten.” Bane grinned, and I asked, “When did
this list come out?”

“A couple weeks ago. I’m
not sure if it’s been very effective. Even with their photos and descriptions
out there, hunters tend to slip under the radar.”

“But we’re not used to
being hunted, it caught me off guard when those vamps came after me. I need to
figure out how to contact the people on this list and warn them.” I had no idea
how I was going to do that, though.