His eyes reddened. "It's the only way. The best way."
"Deep down in your heart, do you really believe that?" I ran a hand down my face. "Believe me, if I had a spell I could target Maximus with, I would do it. He needs to die. Anyone who'd risk a vampling plague to advance his own power isn't someone you want to keep sucking breath. Or blood, for that matter."
Adam leaned against the door and slid down it until he sat on the floor. "I don't know what to feel anymore. Or believe," he said in a whisper. "I used to think I'd be okay with Felicia ending up dead. After all the horrible things she'd done to her body, I figured I'd get a phone call in the middle of the night. Find out she was dead. Instead, she became a vampire."
"It's not your fault."
"No, no, no, Justin. That's where you're wrong." He gave a hollow laugh. "If I hadn't become so obsessed with finding my parents' murderer, I wouldn't have ignored her. She needed love and attention. I gave her nothing except the bare minimum." He sighed. "Everything else, every emotion, every hour of every day, I spent searching for the killer and training myself to end them." His eyes met mine. "I drove her to this. I might as well have thrown her in that room full of vamplings myself."
I walked over to him and held out my hand. "Take it."
He looked up, puzzled, and gripped my hand.
I pulled him to his feet. "What's done is done. The important thing is that we make the right decisions from here on out. Slaughtering vampires en masse is probably not one of them."
He sighed. Pulled the memory card from his phone. Handed it to me. I looked at the innocuous sliver of plastic for a moment before handing it back. "I trust you not to use it," I said. "But it may have other uses."
His eyebrow perked up. "Oh?"
"Can you modify it to knock out or disable vampires instead of kill them?"
He pursed his lips and stared into the distance. "The spell goes after the magical DNA vampires rely on to live. It strips it out one tiny part of the equation, and kills them. It's possible, with enough study, I could figure out how to alter the runes, make it nonlethal, but that might take months."
I shrugged. "Well, it might be useful in the future."
He held up the chip. "The spells on here are so advanced, I find it hard to believe even your mom could have written them. It took me and Shelton some serious computer time to decode even a couple of runes."
"If that's true, who's capable of such complex spells?"
"It's not just about writing them, Justin. It's also about powering them." He slid the phone into his front pocket. "Even if you hadn't talked me out of this, I'd have to find a heavy-duty arc generator and be able to focus the energy from it to pull off a spell of this magnitude. There are only a couple of individuals I know with that kind of power, and one of them has helped us before."
"Nightliss and Daelissa." I thought back to the display of power the dark angel had shown during my fight with Vadaemos. It also reminded me why I'd come to find Adam in the first place. "Nightliss is here."
His eyes went wide. "Here?" A look of wonder lit his face. "Can she help?"
I grimaced and explained the situation. "Meghan is helping her—or trying to. Nothing is certain yet."
His face fell. "Oh. Please let me know the instant you find out."
"Of course. Hopefully we'll know something soon." I had more to say, but pain spiked in my calf. I clenched my teeth. Dark smoky tendrils carved the air before me. A bright coppery scent filled my nostrils. I lost all sense of balance, and fell hard onto my back.
Maximus leers down at me. He extends a hand. A flare of anger energizes me. With a roar, I spring to my feet and ram a fist at the vampire's face. I miss and hit the wall behind him. Concrete dust billows from the hole my fist makes. Maximus yells. Fear shows in his face. I lunge. An invisible force stops me inches from his throat. A blinding flash of light seems to explode in my head and I fall back, staggering, and squeezing my temples.
"Justin, stop! It's me!"
I looked up to see Adam, staff glowing bright before him.
"Wh—what happened?" My head ached. Sharp pains raced up and down my leg.
"You yelled something about Maximus and nearly caved in my skull." He backed into the hallway, clearly not taking any chances. "Dude, you must be suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress. Have you talked to Meghan about it?"
A sinking feeling in my guts told me it had nothing to do with stress. The vampling curse was doing something to my mind. Bad enough it might kill me, but if it made me a danger to everyone around, that would be much worse. I nodded. "Yeah. Maybe I should see if she has something I can take."
"Probably a good idea." He lowered his staff. The glow winked out. "I'll study the runes some more and let you know if I figure anything out. Okay?"
"Yeah." I pinched the bridge of my nose to fight back a throbbing headache and left the room. "Sorry about, uh, you know." I waved at the hole in the wall.
Rather than return to the cabin, I took a long walk around the Templar compound, breathing the night air, giving my head time to clear, and the headache time to fade. My guts twisted inside me as I considered the inevitable conclusion to the vampling infection. An occasional wave of hope took the sting of fear away as I meandered the complex, but uncertainty kept dealing it a deathblow before it could stick.
I walked past the edge of the central buildings toward a grassy area where a few trees grew. An old stone shed sat in the center, the wear and tear on it giving it the appearance of being much older than most of the other buildings in the area. Cinder sat at the base of the outbuilding with a glazed expression on his impassive features. Even though the moon gave off some light, I probably wouldn't have seen him without my night vision.
He looked at me. "I think I have 'gotten a handle', as you say, on being bored. At first I found the new environment to be most stimulating, but after achieving a great deal of familiarity with it by sitting here for over an hour, I sensed an uncomfortable lack of newness which urged me to seek out new stimuli. But I deemed it best to stay here away from the other Templars lest they decide I am a threat."
"I don't think I've ever heard boredom described quite that way, but you've nailed it on the head." I studied him for a moment. "I should send you to a speech therapist."
"Are my vocal communications garbled?"
"No, but you hardly use any inflections so I can't tell if you're happy, sad, bored, or what. Maybe I should sit you down in front of some soap operas for a while. You'll hear all sorts of inflections then."
"I would be grateful, Justin."
Something about his calm manner brought a sense of peace to me. I took a seat on the grass across from him, questions about this strange being bubbling in my mind. My phone chimed with a text message from Elyssa before I had a chance to ask him anything.
Nightliss is awake.
I sprang to my feet.
"Have I offended you in some way?" Cinder asked.
I shook my head. "Nightliss is conscious."
"May I speak with her?" The faintest hint of hope registered in his voice.
"I don't know if she has her strength back yet. Let's see what's going on before we assault her with a ton of questions, okay?"
He stood. Gave a stiff nod. "This is acceptable."
When we reached the cabin, Elyssa waited outside. She spared Cinder a cursory glance and stopped me. "She's still weak, Justin. Meghan didn't want her seeing anyone yet, but she keeps asking for you." Her lip trembled. "I hope she can help."
The fear reawakened in me, burning through my stomach and inciting a cold sweat on my forehead. "Me too, babe."
Cinder walked a short distance to a bench. "I will sit and await your return."
Inside, Meghan spoke with Nightliss in low tones. The angel, reclining on pillows in the bed, looked up at me. Her lips curved up. She squeezed Meghan's hand.
"I must speak with him alone."
Meghan nodded. "Take it easy. You've been through a lot." She looked at me. "Did you talk to Adam?"
"Yeah. Told him I'd talk to Nightliss."
Meghan nodded and left.
Nightliss patted the chair next to the bed. "Come sit."
I dropped into the seat and took the angel's petite hands in mind. "What in the hell happened to you?"
A tear sparkled down her cheek. "I tried to reverse the irreversible."
"I don't understand."
"I tried to convince Daelissa her course of action is rash and dangerous." Her green eyes looked sad. "She took the chance to ambush me. I am still no match for her."
My hands trembled as I considered my next question. "Look, I know you've been through a lot, but I have to know something. How did you get here?"
Her eyes looked up, as though accessing memories. "I only remember bits and pieces."
"Anything you can remember will be helpful."
Her eyes widened. "Justin, you look worried."
"We really needed to find you, and then poof you appeared right outside the door."
She shook her head. "And you think I may be part of some trap."
"I'm sorry—"
"Justin, I would never hurt you." She touched my hand, and the shaking in it stopped.
"I'm sorry." I looked down, unable to meet her eyes. "I don't want to believe it. But it's too convenient."
"I will tell you what I can." She touched a finger to her chin. "I fought Daelissa. Just when I thought I would die, there was a loud boom. A scream." Her eyes flared with fear. "Someone grabbed me, but the world was dark. I clawed at them. Tried to free myself. And then I must have fainted." She gasped and looked at me. "Perhaps Daelissa brought me here. She may have done something terrible to me, Justin."
