Taste of Torment

CHAPTER FOUR

(Sam)

It took a while for Antonio to finish the teleconference. Once it was over, he asked Bran to remain on the line and then invited Jared and I to sit beside him in front of one of the TVs. Thankfully, Bran granted us some time with his Heir, and soon we were looking at the surprisingly attractive face of Harry Covington. I’d been expecting someone who looked much older. Harry couldn’t have been much more than twenty-five when he was Turned.

Clearly anxious for answers, Jared didn’t bother with pleasantries. “What can you tell us about viruses?”

Harry looked taken aback by the question but shrugged. “Put simply, they’re strands of DNA or RNA covered by a protein coating.”

Admittedly, that made no sense whatsoever to me. Science had never been my strong point.

When Jared waved his hand in a ‘carry on’ gesture, Harry squinted. “This is about The Call, isn’t it? You think it’s like a virus.”

“It seems to be similar.”

“That’s what I thought in the beginning. I was wrong.”

I arched a brow. “You’ve been in contact with people who were tainted?”

“No, but I’ve researched it. As you can imagine, it intrigued the medic in me. It’s in my nature to want to treat something, to cure it. I’ve done my best to understand The Call over the centuries. What I’ve learned isn’t good.”

Beside me, Antonio softly cursed.

Gritting his teeth, Jared urged, “Go on.”

“My opinion is that it’s entirely different from a virus. You see, viruses aren’t alive, but nor are they dead. They exist somewhere in between. In effect, they’re parasites. Without a host or a group of host cells, they can’t thrive or survive. The Call, however, is very much alive.”

That didn’t sound good. “What do you mean by ‘alive’?”

“Not alive as you or I know it. It isn’t a biological organism. In fact, it’s not at all tangible. The Call could be described as incorporeal venom. It travels into the blood, contaminating it, polluting it. It is nothing you could see, nothing you could fight, because it has no physical properties. It doesn’t attach itself to cells, doesn’t use us as a host – it simply ‘visits’ us, doing a circuit through our blood and tainting our system as it does so. That’s why it wouldn’t be possible to treat The Call in the same way that humans treat a virus.”

And there went Jared’s optimism. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “In other words, there’s no point in looking for a counteragent.”

“No.”

“So, we’re fucked.”

Harry’s eyes slid away. “Well…”

Jared straightened in his seat. “What?”

“There is someone who might be able to help your vampires. She wouldn’t be able to come up with some kind of counteragent, but it’s possible that she could help the tainted.”

“Who?” Jared and Antonio asked in unison.

“Her name is Paige West, and she’s a Keja vampire who is part of my line. Her gift…She can heal, but she’s not a healer.”

Frowning, I shook my head. “I’m not following.”

“Her gift is actually offensive. If you were to harm her, she could take her pain or her injury and give it to you, and it would be three times worse when revisited onto you. Her gift is more about inflicting pain and avenging herself than about healing.”

Well. Call me odd, but I found that gift kind of intriguing. It was pretty much a karma-like gift, and I was a big believer in tit for tat.

“And she can do that for others?” asked Jared.

“Yes, she can take their pain or injury, but she must have someone to give it to. Without that, the hurt will almost instantly return to the person it came from. I imagine it would work on tainted vampires. But I can’t be sure.”

“We’ll take our chances.” Jared shrugged. “At this point, we have nothing to lose anyway.”

And if there was even the slightest chance that she could help Evan, Max, and Stuart, then Paige West was now my new best friend. “Where do we find her?”

Harry gave us a grim smile. “That’s the tricky part. Nobody actually knows where Paige is.”

Well, crap.

“She doesn’t particularly enjoy this life and has cut herself off from all vampirekind?” asked Antonio. It wasn’t an uncommon thing.

“No. It was, in fact, her decision to Turn. Her Sire sent her on an assignment – I’m not sure exactly what it was – but instead of coming back with the information he wanted, she killed the vampire who had the information. After that, she disappeared, along with the information, and no one has been able to find her.”

Well great. Just great.

“Surely her Sire has a vague idea of her location,” insisted Jared.

“Possibly, but I’m not certain.”

Antonio tilted his head. “Who is her Sire?”

“His name is Robert Langley. I can give you his contact details.” After consulting his smartphone, he rattled off an address and a cell number. Jared entered it all into his cell phone while Antonio scribbled it down onto a piece of paper. “Warning, Robert’s not the most pleasant of people.”

“That’s okay.” Jared smiled, looking a little evil, to be honest. “Neither am I.”

Antonio briefly bowed his head at Harry. “You have been a huge help, Covington. I appreciate it.”

Jared nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Even if you find Paige, it won’t be easy to convince her to help you because she clearly wishes to be left alone.”

Jared’s evil smile widened. “Don’t worry about us finding a way to make Paige cooperate. We can be very persuasive.”

Ending the call, Antonio swerved in his seat to fully face Jared and me. “I’ve never heard of Paige West. Perhaps that is because she has isolated herself from our kind. In any case, I will have Sebastian locate her. He is the best tracker there is.”

“He is,” agreed Jared. “And I appreciate having his help. But I won’t rely on him. Not with this. Finding her is too important. This woman might be our only chance of saving the guys. Sam and I should still go see Robert Langley, find out what he knows about her.”

Understanding that Jared needed to feel that he was actively helping, I clasped his hand and gave it a supportive squeeze. “Then we leave at dusk.”

“Yes, it is important for you both to rest first.” Antonio sighed. “I can only speculate on how exhausted you must both be – physically and emotionally – after this evening’s events.”

“I’d like to briefly speak with Evan before we head home.” Jared massaged the palm of my hand with his thumb. “He’ll be glad to hear Harry’s news.”

Antonio grimaced. “Would it be wise to give him false hope? For all we know, Paige West’s gift will not help with The Call.”

“It has to,” stated Jared. “There are only three people in this world I care about – Sam, Evan, and you. I absolutely refuse to lose any of you.”

My chest was literally aching with the echoes of his pain that were running through me. I leaned against him, wishing I could help and hating that I couldn’t. His arm closed around me, keeping me there. I wanted to assure him that he wouldn’t lose any of us, that we’d find some way to help Evan. But we’d never been up against anything like this before. Since meeting, Jared and I had had our fair share of trials and dealt with some really freaky scenarios, but nothing like this. How did you go about fighting something that you couldn’t see, that had no physical properties and no counteragent?

“I think it would also be best to delay the Coronation until after The Call is once again dormant.” Antonio’s expression begged us to understand. “For one thing, it is imperative that this matter is dealt with immediately. Also, most of vampirekind is now on lockdown, intent on staying out of The Call’s reach. We would therefore have no witnesses, no celebration. And I very much doubt a Prelate would risk travelling here to perform the ceremony. I haven’t yet announced my intention to step down, so there will be no one to disappoint.”

“I agree.” I frowned as something suddenly struck me. “One thing, though. Is it really possible to remain out of The Call’s reach by hiding? I mean, Quentin’s nest was underground and yet it struck them. Is it possible that it tainted someone before them? That the tainted vampire then took it to the nest with him?”

“Only Quentin can answer that question. None of the other High Masters know where he is. It’s possible that he did in fact die in the tunnels.”

I hoped not, or it meant that his answers had died with him. If there were more tainted vampires out there, it was important that we found and contained them.

There was a brief knock, and then Luther entered the room. “Please tell me you have good news.”

Sebastian followed Luther inside. “Yes, I need something to give me hope.”

Antonio filled them both in on our conversation with Harry Covington.

Luther looked slightly optimistic by the end of it. “Let us pray that this woman can help us.”

“We have to find her first.” And convince her to help. If I had to resort to Jared’s new solution to everything and kidnap her, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

“Leave that to me.” Sebastian’s voice was full of determination. “There is no place the Keja can hide where I will not find her.”

“Sam and I will be doing our own investigations too,” Jared informed him. “Between all of us, we should be able to find Paige West in time to help the guys.”

Luther gave him an encouraging smile. “I have faith in you all, and so will Evan, Max, and Stuart.” He lightly touched me on the shoulder. But then he stiffened and a gasp flew out of him as his eyes took on a faraway quality that meant one thing – he was having a vision. Oh, this was never good. When Luther finally snapped out of it, his gaze ran along everyone in the room, who were all now standing.

Most likely in response to the sheer fright on his Advisor’s face, Antonio tensed. “What is it, Luther?”

“Please don’t talk in riddles,” I begged him. He had a habit of being very vague with his warnings, and it drove me bloody mental.

Luther inhaled deeply. “They will come for her. Paige West, they will come for her.”

“Who? Who will come?” demanded Antonio.

“There were so many of them in the vision. So many. If you bring her here, they will do whatever it takes to get to her.” He looked at me then. Oh bloody wonderful. “And it could mean that you are forced to make a very difficult decision, Sam. A decision no one should have to make.”

Well fuck a duck. I massaged my temples. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what that decision is, are you?”

“I wish I could. But as you know, sometimes a vision can be just a feeling, a knowing. I could feel the weight of a painful, frightening decision bearing on you – a decision that affects so many, that your safety rests on.”

Jared, who was feeling kind of numb as if he didn’t really know how to feel about all this, spoke. “So what you’re saying is that if we bring Paige West here, there’s a distinct possibility that things will go tits up and Sam could be harmed?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian sighed. “The question is: are we willing to risk all that happening in order to save the lives of Evan, Max, and Stuart?”

Cursing a blue streak that had everybody’s eyes widening, Jared dropped back down into his seat and buried his face in his hands. So many emotions were flickering through him so quickly that I couldn’t even identify what they were.

“We will give you both some time alone.” With that, Antonio led the others out of the room.

I sat beside Jared, placing a supportive hand on his back. “We have to do this, Jared. We have to help Evan, Max, and Stuart.”

He lifted his head, gazing at me with eyes that were filled with so much turmoil that it hurt to maintain eye contact. “I can’t risk you. Do you understand that? I can’t risk you.” Then he was on his feet, pacing.

“But we can’t risk them, either. You know this.” But he wasn’t listening. He was deep in his own mind, lost in his own thoughts. I rose from my seat and grabbed his arm to halt him. “We can’t ignore this. They’ll die, Jared.”

“I know,” he gritted out. “And I hate being in a position where I actually have to fucking choose between you and my twin brother. But baby, nothing in this world could make me risk you. I just fucking can’t.” He locked a hand in my hair and roughly pulled me close.

I tucked my head into the crook of his neck and slipped my arms around him. “You’re not choosing. I’m choosing.”

“No.” The word was filled with agony yet resoluteness. His overprotectiveness often tended to piss me off, but this was so much more than overprotectiveness – this was a bone-deep, all-consuming fear of losing me. I could feel the echoes of it. An ache started to build in my temples from the pressure of it.

“Jared”

He pulled back to cradle my face. “You just don’t get it. You never have. You are essential to me. I told you the night of our Binding ceremony: I need you here with me, always, no matter fucking what.” His expression said, ‘And you’d agreed’. Yes, I had.

“But”

“Did you see the look on Luther’s face when he mentioned that decision you’ll have to make?”

Yes. He’d looked stricken, wrecked. And it had put the bloody shits up me.

“He said your safety rests on it.” I opened my mouth to speak, but Jared shook his head and stepped away. “You might be prepared to risk yourself, Sam, but I’m not. Not for you, not for anyone.” His eyes, expression, and tone were adamant – he wasn’t budging on this.

Anyone else might have accepted their fate and backed down, but that wasn’t who I was. “I don’t expect you to like my decision to help them. I don’t even expect you to respect it. But I’m asking you to understand it. Evan’s been a great friend to me, like a brother, and I adore him. Max and Stuart are part of our squad, I care for them, and it’s my responsibility to protect them.”

Jared simply shrugged, seemingly unmoved. “They’ll understand.” Annoyingly, they would. In fact, they would insist that we didn’t even try to find Paige West. They would put me before themselves, the plonkers. I couldn’t let them do that.

My words were quiet, pained. “I can’t let them die.”

“And I can’t let you be hurt.”

“I love you for caring as much as you do, Jared, I do. But this is Evan, Max, and Stuart we’re talking about.”

He smiled a little. “Trying to put me on a guilt trip, baby? It’s not going to work. I know how you think.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s look at it this way: Luther said the whole ‘me being faced with a decision’ thing could happen, not that it definitely would.”

He shot me an ‘oh for God’s sake’ look. Of course he did. I was clutching at straws, and we both knew it.

“His vision means we’ve got a heads-up. It means we know we need to be even more vigilant and careful than usual. That puts us a step ahead.”

He shook his head, incredulous. In fact, he looked like he was considering throttling me. “You’re just not getting it. Maybe that’s my fault. Maybe it’s because I don’t tell you I love you often enough. Baby, you’re the only ‘good’ thing that I’ve ever had. There’s simply no fucking way I’m letting anything at all happen to you. No. Way.”

“Jared, please just”

“Put yourself in my position, Sam.”

Oh the bastard just had to say that, didn’t he?

“If Luther had been talking about me just then, would you have been so eager to go track down Paige West?” When I didn’t answer, he gave a soft, humourless laugh. “Didn’t think so.”

But there was another way to look at it. “If Luther had been talking about you, would you have wanted to sit back and let Evan, Max, and Stuart die just because I was worried and scared of losing you?” He wouldn’t even meet my eyes, let alone respond. “Didn’t think so.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. “You won’t talk me in circles, Sam. You won’t get your own way this time.”

“You think I want to risk myself? Now that we’re Bound, we’re interconnected so tightly that if I die, you die. Even the thought of you dying makes me feel ill.”

“Then you know exactly how I’m feeling. To risk ourselves is to risk each other – neither of us wants to do that. This conversation is pointless.”

I counted to five in my head, seeking patience. It didn’t work. “You’re twisting what I’m saying. My point is that you can count on me being on high alert and having a distinct sense of self-preservation simply in order to keep you alive.”

His smile was rueful. “Touching, but I will not risk you.”

“And I will not risk them.”

There was still no hint of compromise in his expression at all. “Stalemate, baby.”

“What if we get other people to track Paige down for us?” Maybe if I agreed to sit in the background a little, it would settle his nerves.

He snorted. “Nice try, but it won’t make any difference, and you know it. Luther said that Paige West coming here would be the catalyst. It’s not going to matter who brings her.”

“So we’re just going to sit back and watch Evan, Max, and Stuart die?”

“Hell, no. I’m not giving up on them. But I’m not bringing Paige West to The Hollow, and that’s final.”

We couldn’t even take Evan, Max, and Stuart to see her instead. They needed to remain contained. “How about a compromise?” I held up a hand to halt any attempts he might make to object. “Just hear me out. We spend the next few weeks trying to find some way of helping them. We’ll track Quentin Foy down as well; ask him how The Call suddenly struck his nest. During that time, we’ll have Sebastian locate Paige West. If we don’t find a counteragent or some other solution in those few weeks, we approach Paige then. That’s a reasonable deal, Jared.”

He sighed tiredly, shaking his head. “You never give up, do you?”

“You like that I never give up.”

“In other circumstances, yes, I do.”

I closed the distance that he’d created between us and fisted a hand in his t-shirt. I kept my tone gentle, sensitive, cajoling. “At least agree to Sebastian tracking her down. What harm could that do?”

It was a long moment before he answered. “Fine. But I won’t agree to her coming here.”

So bloody stubborn. I wanted to argue that further, but I knew he wasn’t going to budge on this. Not now. Maybe if in a few weeks’ time we hadn’t found another possible way of helping Evan, Max, and Stuart, then maybe Jared would relent. I just had to hope that we did find an alternative to involving Paige West. If not, it was quite possible that we were all fucked.

(Jared)

When I set off with Sam to see the guys in the containment cell, I hadn’t expected to find them playing poker – acting like nothing was wrong. But maybe that was how they were coping with the situation. Spotting Sam and I standing on the other side of the glass, they all paused in their game and approached us. They looked completely normal, healthy. I might have wondered if they had been immune to The Call if it wasn’t for the fact that their bite marks were oozing rather than healing. Soon enough, their symptoms would begin and I’d be looking at three skeleton-like vampires if I didn’t find some answers fast.

“I don’t suppose you have anything good to tell us.” Max didn’t appear optimistic. Neither did Evan or Stuart.

I told them about the teleconference with Harry Covington, but neatly avoided the subject of Paige West. When I sensed Sam’s discomfort, I quickly spoke in her mind. Don’t mention Luther’s vision. Antonio was right – it would only give them false hope, and they won’t support your case to bring her here anyway.

Her almost imperceptible nod was begrudging.

Satisfied, I continued. “We’re going to search for Quentin Foy, ask how his nest became tainted. Maybe he has answers as to when The Call first struck. If it didn’t surface inside those tunnels, it means others outside the nest might be tainted. If that’s the situation, we need to know before it has any chance of spreading.”

Evan nodded. “But we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can fight The Call, Jared.”

My expression hardened. “You don’t know that for sure.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Evan’s right,” said Stuart. “This thing has been around for centuries. No one was able to get rid of it, and – as far as I know – no one was ever immune to it.”

Sam scowled at them. “If you expect us to just sit back on our arses and let this drop, you can think again.”

Evan smiled sadly. “I just don’t want you both exhausting yourselves, searching for something that doesn’t exist. I know how you are, Jared. You’ll start feeling guilty that your efforts are fruitless. I’ll bet you’re already blaming yourself for what happened down there.”

He’d always been able to see right through me. “I shouldn’t have let you come with us. I knew your head wasn’t in a good place, I knew you’d be reckless, but I let you go anyway.”

“You couldn’t possibly have known what lay in wait for us down there. If it’s anyone’s fault that I’m tainted, it’s mine. I didn’t listen to you in those tunnels. I threw myself into a dangerous situation, and I even put myself in the lead. You told me to back away from that vampire, you warned me that he’d attack, but I ignored you.”

“You’re not responsible for what happened to Stuart and me either,” Max adamantly stated to Jared. Stuart nodded his agreement. “You trained us well, and you kept us behind you in those tunnels because you thought we’d be safer that way. Even when you heard the first horde of vampires coming, you tried to get us to leave instead of asking us to face them with you.”

“Shit like this happens,” said Stuart, shrugging. “I knew when I joined the legion that my immortality would be fragile. Every time I left for an assignment, I was conscious that it could be my last. It’s no one’s fault that we got hurt. If you can find a way to help us fight The Call, great. But if you can’t, it doesn’t make you responsible for what will happen to us.” He smiled widely. “Just know that my replacement in the squad will have big shoes to fill.”

I couldn’t imagine replacing any of them. Sensing Sam’s anguish, I took her hand in mine and squeezed it lightly. “We’ll do what we can.” Evan’s expression was begging me to let it go. “If it was me in there, if the situation was reversed, what would you do?”

Evan answered without missing a beat. “Search high and low for a way to fix this fucking mess.”

“Then don’t expect me to do anything different.”

“Do you want us to contact Alora about what’s happening?” Sam asked carefully.

Grinding his jaw, Evan replied, “No.”

“She cares about you, Evan.” Sensing Evan’s scepticism, she quickly added, “It was written all over her face at the Binding ceremony. I don’t know why she resisted staying here with you, and I’m not asking – that’s your business. But if it was Alora who was tainted, wouldn’t you want to know about it?”

“Yes, I would. But I don’t want her to see me like this.”

“It’s possible that she’ll find out from Bran,” I pointed out.

“If she turns up at The Hollow, you don’t let her down here.” Evan’s voice was harsh. “Not for any reason.”

I understood why he was so set on this: if he was going to slowly wither until he eventually died, Evan wanted Alora to remember him as he was before. In his position, I would have wanted the same thing. But…“You’re not going to die.”

Evan ignored that. “Promise me you won’t let her down here.”

I nodded. “I promise.”

Evan looked at Sam then, brow arched expectantly.

After a brief hesitation, she spoke. “I promise.”

Satisfied, Evan gave a slight smile. “Now get out of here. We’ve got a poker game to play, and I was winning until you both showed up.”

Max snorted at Evan. “You think you’re winning – there’s a difference.”

Bantering, the guys returned to the table at the centre of the room and went back to their game. And I hated the thought that that could have been the last rational conversation I’d ever again have with my twin brother.