die! They burning! I feel they pain!” Utanapishtim shouted.
“It’s the vampires!” James shouted. “The ones being burned in their homes. They’re his offspring, and he’s connected mentally.”
Utanapishtim had fallen to his knees by then, and James fell beside him, put his hands on the man’s shoulders—in spite of the risk, Lucy thought in awe—and closed his eyes. “Focus on me, Utanapishtim. Maybe I can help you.”
As Utanapishtim opened his eyes and met James’s steady gaze, Lucy saw James’s expression change from worry and concern to extreme pain. Whatever Utanapishtim was feeling, James was feeling it, too.
James grimaced in pain, but, grating his teeth, he managed to whisper, “Hundreds of them are dying by fire. Some…burning alive. Others running from the buildings into the killing rays of the rising sun. And Brigit—”
“Brigit?” Lucy slid a hand over the nape of James’s neck. “Where is Brigit? What’s happening to her?”
But James only grunted in pain, and then his hands began to glow. He looked down at them, where they were pressed to Utanapishtim’s shoulders, and he seemed surprised. He moved to pull them away, but Utanapishtim closed his own hands over them, holding them there.
The glow brightened, and then it died as James broke free, stumbling away from the big man and falling to the deck.
“What just happened, James?” Lucy asked.
Breathless, he said, “I don’t know.”
The sun rose higher, Utanapishtim’s face easing as his tense muscles uncoiled. He sank to the deck beside James, his back against the railing. Lucy crouched in front of him.
“It’s over,” James said. “It’s over. The voices have stopped.”
He addressed Utanapishtim. “Those were the voices of your offspring, Utanapishtim. Your people. My people. But now it’s day. They must sleep by day, and their voices go silent until nightfall. By then, I will have taught you how to block out the voices you do not wish to hear.”
Utanapishtim nodded, still holding his head as if it ached. “But they…burning.”
“Yes.”
“Explain,” Utanapishtim commanded.
Nodding, James said, “Humans, ordinary men, have learned of the existence of the vampires—your children, Utanapishtim—for the first time. Some want to wipe your people from existence, and so they wait for sunrise, when your children are helpless, and then they set fire to their homes. Even by day, a vampire will wake when being burned alive. He will feel the pain until he has burned to dust and nothing remains. It is…it is quick. But it is a horrible death, all the same.”
Utanapishtim lowered his head and held up a fore finger. “One voice calls for help, still.”
“Yes, I hear it, too. It’s my sister’s voice. It’s Brigit.”
Lucy went rigid. “Where is she, James?”
“That way,” he said, lifting an arm and pointing away from the sunrise, toward the hazy coastline visible in the distance. “The mainland.”
Lucy raced up the steps onto the bridge, right up to the helm, and hoped she’d picked up enough from watching James and Willem to pilot the yacht herself.
She pushed the throttle forward.
As the wind blew her hair behind her, she wondered who this woman was, coming to life inside her?
Because she was angry, whoever she was. Angry and ready to fight to protect Brigit, a woman she barely knew, and to avenge the innocent dead.
Something new and exciting was happening inside her. Something far removed from the cowering, frightened woman she had been before. The one who hid from trouble, avoided confrontation and protected herself above all else.
As she looked below and met James’s eyes as he stared up at her from the deck, she thought he had a lot to do with the changes going on inside her. He was a hero in his own time. The kind of man who would become a legend, the kind they would write stories and songs about in the future. He was the salvation of his kind, even though his kind were a kind she’d never known existed.
He was amazing. And he made her want to be amazing, too. More than that, he was looking at her as if he thought she already was. But she knew she wasn’t. She wanted to be, though. She wanted to be worthy of the look in his eyes. She didn’t think she ever had been, never in her life. And she wondered if she was kidding herself to think she could ever be worthy of standing beside a man like him.
And that was sad beyond measure. Because even though he was different, not quite human, she was pretty sure she was in love with him.