The suits will get her if we don’t. Come on, she’d be backstage somewhere.”
“But, Brigit—”
“We need her, J.W. We need her to save our entire race, and maybe hers, too, if you need some added enticement. Come on.”
They ducked out the door, and he found it much easier to move with the flow of panicked audience members than against them. Sirens were wailing already as they emerged into the night and hurried up the sidewalk. James looked and looked for the woman whose photo had appeared in the magazine his sister had shown him. The translator. Professor Lanfair. But the crowds and now the cops—who were rushing up and pulling people aside, trying to contain their witnesses—were making it harder.
“That’s her, J.W. Just came out of the alley, and she’s flying! In heels, too!”
James looked in the direction his sister was pointing, but there were dozens of panicked individuals on the sidewalk. And then he heard a voice shout, “Hold it right there, lady.”
He saw one of the men in black leveling a gun at the back of a slender woman in a tweed skirt. He could only see the back of her head, but he felt her.
Turning wide eyes on his sister, he said, “Why didn’t you tell me she’s one of the Chosen?”
“I didn’t know. What the—”
Just then the professor jerked forward, even as James held up a hand, an unthinking reaction. He shouted “No!” but it was too late. The man in black’s gun went off, and the bullet tore through the professor’s body. James saw, as if in slow motion, the blood explode from the exit wound like a mist in front of her, even as her back arched and she slammed facedown onto the sidewalk.
And then there was no stopping him. He launched into motion, passing by the killer, falling to his knees beside her. Her brown hair was coming loose from its tightly wound bun, and it was glittering, too, with the rainy mist now falling on the city street. He rolled her onto her back, very gently, and his gut-level, genetically encoded need to aid anyone of her kind compelled him to help her. To save her.
She was one of the Chosen. One of the rare mortals who possessed the Belladonna Antigen and, with it, the potential to become a vampire. Vampires sensed her kind, smelled them, and could not fight the instinct to protect them. He’d inherited that, too. But in the professor’s case, it felt like something more.
He had rolled the professor onto her back, so the misty rain fell on her cheeks now. Vaguely, he heard his sister trying to hold off the man in black, who was trying to get past her. She was exerting her will, but he was fighting it as if he knew how. Further support of her theory that he was DPI, which would have given him training in dealing with preternatural mind control. Luckily a huge crowd was closing in, too, giving James a heartbeat more time.
“I said stay back!” Brigit shouted. Her voice in that moment was something beyond human. The power it carried could not be resisted. Even James looked up at her, then from her fierce expression to the dazed faces of the people around them. They’d inexplicably stopped in their tracks and were unable to convince themselves to move forward again. The government man included.
“Stay back,” Brigit kept saying, holding her hands up, palms out. She was really straining. Her eyes were beginning to emit a soft glow.
“Easy, Brigit,” he warned. “Don’t go too far.”
“You handle your gift and I’ll handle mine. Get on with it, J.W.”
He nodded, looking down at the woman again. Her eyeglasses were crooked and her eyes were closed, thick sable lashes lying on her smooth skin. Upturned nose, full lips, Audrey Hepburn cheekbones. Her life was fading. James turned his palms up and stared down at them, and then he felt them begin to warm. Turning them downward again, he laid them over the exit wound in her chest, ignoring the blood and gore.
Her blood was flowing as his hands grew warmer, and he sensed very strongly the extremely rare Belladonna Antigen every vampire had possessed as a human. She was almost family.
The part of his family he had rejected. And yet, he could not turn away from her. Wouldn’t have, even if he could.
As his hands grew hot, he pressed them between the woman’s breasts. His palms immediately began to emit that familiar, yellow-gold