“By finding it. ” He looked at Nikki, her pretty face dancing in the flickering light of the campfire. “I’m not trying to be obtuse or annoying. But that’s the way fate works, it seems. Claire said I’m supposed to find the codex. If we need the VWC to find the codex, then we’ll find the VWC. That’s the ‘how’ of the matter.”
“So it’s fate?” she said.
“The way Claire explained it, it doesn’t sound like we’re bound from the outside. It’s not that things are forced to happen, per se. It’s that there is really only one main logical way, once you know enough of the available information, for things to work out.”
“What’s the difference?”
“It’s more like Claire predicted exactly what will happen than somehow cosmically requiring that we do certain things. Or saying that the angels required we do certain things.”
“But the angels or whoever set it all in motion… so that certain things would occur.”
He shrugged.
“So it’s fate. So it has to happen.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s splitting hairs.”
Nikki shivered. “I don’t like the idea that everything has been planned out for me.”
“But maybe nothing has really, really been planned out,” said Reginald. “Maybe someone just knows exactly what you’re going to do.”
“Because I don’t really have a choice. Because, despite appearances to the contrary, there’s only one thing I can do in any given scenario.”
Reginald shrugged.
She moved closer, put her thin hand on his large one. “If that’s true,” she said, “does that mean was I fated to meet you?”
“Seems that way.”
She smiled, then hugged herself against his arm. “Well, then I guess it’s not all bad.”
But something was bothering Reginald. He’d had a sense of unfolding from the very beginning, since the day he’d masterminded their escape from the American Vampire Council — the day Maurice had assassinated Deacon Logan. Back then, Nikki had pretended to be a vampire and Reginald had pretended to be a helpless victim. Both Nikki and Maurice had doubted that first plan, but Reginald never had. He’d known, without question, how the vampires would behave. The longer Reginald lived with his expanded vampire mind, the more things he began to see as inevitable — or, to put it another way, the more things he couldn’t help but think of as fated. But even that sense of logical predestination had become easier and more transparent lately, because he’d realized he had an edge. He no longer had just his own perspective from which to collect data to feed the grand equation. It was another new ability that he alone seemed to have, and its implications were troubling.
“Nikki?” he said.
She looked up.
“Can you feel me?”
She felt him.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I can sense your mood,” she said. “When you’re away from me, I can feel you calling to me. Like when I went out to investigate back at Maurice’s, I could feel your worry.”
“But you can’t read my thoughts.”
He was looking directly down her shirt. He couldn’t help it. She was wearing a tank top, and it hadn’t been designed for running at the speeds Nikki had been running. Before dawn, she’d said she was going to break into a store somewhere and pick up five sports bras, which she’d wear all at once.
“I can read them now, yes,” she said, looking up and following his gaze.
“Normally, I mean.”
She shook her head, still nuzzling his arm. “No.”
“What about your hunger pains? When you couldn’t stop feeding, and were draining dozens of humans a month? Maurice said it was due to blood ties, and that you were sensing the hunger of other vampires in his line.”
“That’s not reading thoughts. It’s certainly not reading your thoughts.” She paused, then held up a finger. “Wait. One time I couldn’t stop thinking about a meat lover’s
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