by K. M. Scott
“Interesting. Your kind has all manner of freaks, don’t you? Archons don’t sire and seem to have some kind of ridiculous affinity for the color white and all the sterility it conveys. These clytens get to enjoy the sunlight yet still get to be vampires. And born vampires aren’t made at all but are more like humans.”
His brief exposition on the various types of vampires didn’t seem to amuse or impress Consera. The man fidgeted the entire time, like he couldn’t wait for Hades to finish so he could say something.
“Yes, my lord. Interesting. Now, could we discuss bringing your daemons into the war? We’ve got vampires, including clytens, and dragons preparing for a battle in the east, and your daemons would help tremendously since all we have are our hunters we’ve impressed into service for this war. On top of that, we’ve got two of the Sons tearing through the other side of the Continent staking Archons like there’s no tomorrow. Your daemons would be a huge help there too.”
He hated having to send his minions into battle to help these corrupt vampires, but given that the only other choice was to stand back and let the Sons win this war, Hades knew he had to do as he’d promised. All the vampires—Archons, magistrates, and Sons, along with all those ordinary ones—would all end up the same anyway.
Eliminated from the Earth by him and imprisoned for the rest of time so no creature could ever deny him his right to have them in front of him when they died. Consera thought he and his ilk would be spared. They wouldn’t. None would. That had been Hades’ plan all along.
But to get to that point, he needed to pretend to back this jackass and his side.
“Fine. I’ll send daemons to battle the dragons and the Sons in the east, and I’ll send two of my best to kill those Sons who’ve been giving you such a hard time. No wonder I’ve seen a steady stream of Archons coming before me in the past few nights on top of all those dead werewolves and witches. I thought maybe the war had gone badly and they were all killing themselves.”
“Will two be enough, my lord? These two are unlike the others. One in particular should interest you since he’s the born vampire’s son who figures so prominently in the Prophecy of Idolas, and the other is her husband.”
Perhaps this meeting hadn’t been just one giant pain in the ass, after all.
“Really? Well, I still think two of my daemons will be able to handle the job, but I’ll make sure to instruct them to make their last moments particularly difficult. Sound good?” Hades asked with a smile, liking how this meeting had turned around.
“That sounds great. Thank you, my lord.”
Consera performed his best bow and acted in the way he suspected Hades wanted him to, supplicating himself all over the place. The god of the Underworld didn’t mind a little subservience. In fact, he rather enjoyed it. The problem with the magistrate’s willingness to show deference is it now bored Hades.
Time for a little excitement.
“I’ll be sending them tonight. I’ll tell them to check in with you first so you can tell them exactly where to go,” he said with a chuckle.
“Oh, okay. I’ll be sure to be here all night then,” Consera said in a trembling voice.
The idea of him shaking in his boots as daemons stood in front of him again delighted the god more than he thought it would. As much as he had grown weary of tormenting souls, ruining this one’s evening pleased Hades a great deal.
He didn’t bother to say goodbye before disappearing from Archon headquarters to head back to his throne room, and seconds later, he was met by the male servant who had so successfully impressed him earlier. Before he could run off to fetch Noele, Hades stopped him.
“Wait! I want the leader of the daemons before the born vampire. And tell him to make it quick,” he barked out as he sat back down and stretched his legs out in front of him.
Too much work and not enough play made the god of the Underworld feel like shit. He’d done enough for one day. Now it was time for some fun. Well, after he gave the daemon commander his orders.
The very being appeared before him a moment later and bowed. “You summoned me?”
“Yes. It’s time to join the vampire fight up above, so I want a legion of your best to go fight some dragons and the Sons of Navarus. Go see Consera at Archon headquarters to find out the exact location. I also want you to choose your best fighter to join you to find the two Sons who’ve been terrorizing the Archons throughout Western Europe. Talk to Consera about that too. And be sure to make their deaths extra painful. Feel free to torture them for as long as you want. Enjoy yourself.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
The daemon leader turned to leave, and Hades added, “Feel free to scare the hell out of him when you go see him. Better to have him always remember just what we’re capable of down here.”
With a simple nod and another bow, the daemon agreed and then disappeared, leaving the god of the Underworld to finally have some fun for the first time that day. Snapping his fingers, he summoned the male who’d pleased him earlier and ordered him to bring Noele to him immediately.
Then he sat back on his throne, but lurking in the corner of the room as she often did lately was Layla. Hades suspected she had been directed to spy on him for Nyx since she was one of her handmaidens, and he didn’t need her around seeing what he planned to do with Noele.
“Layla, come here. I have a job for you.”
She hurried over to stand in front of him, bowing her head so as not to look directly at him. Such deference. He appreciated that.
“Find the goddess of the night and tell her I’m sorry we disagreed. Tell her I will come to see her tomorrow morning as she ends her nightly duties around the world.”
“Yes, my lord,” Layla said quietly, and Hades thought he heard a hint of disbelief in her tone.
Not that what a minor daemon he’d given to Nyx to be her handmaiden thought meant anything to him.
Thankfully, she left before the servant returned with Noele in tow. Guiding her to where he sat, the young male kept his gaze to the ground while the born vampire brazenly looked directly at the god. If he didn’t enjoy her so much, he’d crush her under his heel for that.
“My lord, the one you desired to see.”
“Thank you, boy. Stay close. I’ll want to see you again tonight.”
The servant backed away, leaving Noele standing in front of Hades. Still not dropping her gaze, she smiled at him like she enjoyed all of this.
“I have interesting news for you. Come, sit on my lap and let me tell you,” he said, patting his black leather clad thigh.
She obeyed and perched herself across his legs. “I can’t wait to hear this news, my lord.”
The way she said that had a faint echo of disrespect he recognized from Layla’s answer to him a minute earlier. Women. What a fucking hassle they were.
Hades ran his fingertip along her jaw before leaning forward to kiss her soft lips. She didn’t flinch as she had when he first began playing with her, and when he leaned back and opened his eyes, he saw her smiling at him again. Perhaps she did enjoy their games as much as he did.
Not that it mattered. She was his plaything, his whore. What she enjoyed or didn’t enjoy mattered none to him.
“You’ll soon be joined by your family, Noele. But I don’t expect it to be a happy reunion. Imagine what your husband and son will think of what you’ve become here in my kingdom. I’m sure they didn’t expect you’d so willingly take on the role of concubine to the god of the Underworld, now did they?”
He watched her expression for any sign of unhappiness because of his news and his taunting her, but he saw none. Not even the tiniest flinch at what he’d called her, even though he knew she’d never grown accustomed to that name.
“They are from my previous life, my lord. What they think of who I am now doesn’t matter. I am, as you said, yours.”
As she spoke, Noele ran her hand down over his stomach and let her palm come to rest over his quickly stiffening cock. He hadn’t ex
pected her to succumb to her fate in the Underworld so easily and in such a short time, but no matter.
He had better things to do than wonder about how she really felt. All he wanted now was to feel far more carnal pleasures and leave the stress of his day behind, and what better to do that with than his own person born vampire whore?
Chapter Eleven
Theron took a deep breath and relaxed, the first time he’d been able to do that in what felt like weeks. Not that he didn’t enjoy killing every Archon in Europe, but it was exhausting moving around to find the bastards night after night. He looked over at his father as he slept for the final minutes before the sun disappeared behind the horizon and night came upon them again.
He could have gone ahead and cleared out the last few Archons while the sun was still up, but doing it with the one soul he admired most in the world was better. Plus, he knew killing Archons was therapeutic for him. Not a night passed when he didn’t mention how much he hated those fucks for what they did to Theron’s mother, so why take that small bit of happiness away from him?
They only had one more left in Berlin, so tonight the first phase of their own personal war would end. After that, Theron planned to gather the rest of the Sons and have them all descend on the Archons’ headquarters in Corsica with one blunt attack. He didn’t know if the dragons would be necessary, but maybe they could join them just in case those daemons showed up to make things interesting.
What did daemons do, he wondered as he felt the last of the sun’s rays fade away. Nobody seemed to have a firm grasp on exactly what they even were. Hades was a god, so did that make them like his followers? Or were they more like his army?
If that were the case, Theron had a feeling he would have heard about some war or at least a battle they’d fought. But he hadn’t. Even the elders who spent all their time researching everything under the sun didn’t seem to know exactly what powers daemons had.
It wouldn’t matter. He and his father had handled dozens of Archons and even more vampires, so he had a hard time imagining they couldn’t take care of whatever Hades minions were.
Chuckling, Theron imagined maybe they were like that heat miser guy from that Christmas show he’d watched with his mother that one time. If so, then no one had to worry about them as long as they didn’t shoot fire from their fingers like that guy. Well, unless they carried pitchforks or something like that. Getting stabbed by those might hurt a whole hell of a lot.
“Something funny?”
Theron looked over at his father as he pushed himself up to sitting position against the cave wall where they’d spent the day away from the sun’s rays. Ramiel scrubbed the sleep from his face and stretched before looking out to check it was night.
“Nothing much. I was just thinking about what a daemon looks like and wondered if they’re like that little guy in that Christmas cartoon Mom watched with me. The heat miser? You know, the one with the spikey red hair who shoots flames from his fingers?”
His father screwed his face into a confused expression and shook his head. “The what?” Then suddenly, he seemed to understand the description and smiled. “Oh, yeah. She loved that cartoon. Your mother loved sitting with you and your sister and watching them. I guess I never saw the appeal, but she could watch them for hours.”
The gentle tone that crept into his voice when he talked about her made Theron smile. Ramiel seemed to get a faraway look in his eyes whenever they said anything about that life they used to have. They were happy. He didn’t know everything his father had gone through in his life, but at least for the time he got to spend with his parents, they looked happy.
And then everything good about their lives was ripped away by the bastards who took his mother. In that one horrible night, he’d lost so much. Now that he had his father back, part of that life had returned, but neither one of them could replace what she brought to their lives.
As much as he loved spending this time with Ramiel, it wasn’t the same as when his mother was with them. Now his father was hard and full of hate, not the vampire who had smiled down at him when he put caterpillars on the top of his feet or secretly patted him on the back when he learned something new his mother disapproved of. Theron missed that part of him, but he knew why it could never come back. He felt the same way. When she left the world, so did a kindness he’d only felt because of her, and it would never return again.
“Only one more left,” Ramiel said in a voice full of satisfaction. “One more and then all we have left is Archon headquarters.”
“We’ll join up with the rest of the Sons for that. Once we wipe out all of them there, it’ll just be a matter of wrangling the magistrates, but I don’t see them being a problem. They’ve always been followers anyway, so they’ll just have to follow us,” Theron said as he stood to leave.
His father let out a disgusted sigh. “Magistrates. Archons. That’s the problem with our world. Too many in charge who have no reason to care about the millions of vampires out there.”
“Then things are about to get a lot better for all of them once we get rid of the problem.”
Ramiel groaned and stood up, stretching the sleep from his limbs one more time. “That’s the plan. Any news on how the other Sons are doing?”
“Saint and Solenne were joined by Dante and his clyten regiment in Rome, but the weres got pretty much wiped out by those witches the Archons have fighting for them. Dante says the clytens crushed the witches, though.”
“Always bragging,” his father said with a smile. “That Dante is a piece of work. I’ll have to make sure to ask him about how the clytens did so he can tell me everything blow by blow.”
“You better make sure you have something to eat and drink before you ask him because it’s going to be an all-night thing. He has every reason to be proud, though. The clytens did a great job down there. From what Saint said, things would have turned out much worse if they weren’t there. Oh, but he did say to tell you the leader of the weres didn’t make it.”
Shaking his head, Ramiel blew the air out of his lungs. “Hadrian. I’m sorry to hear that. He turned out to be one of the good ones.”
Curious what he meant by that, Theron asked, “What do you mean turned out to be good? Was he bad at some time?”
His father let out a hearty laugh. “No, but I thought he was. I was all ready to rip his throat out one night because I thought he was hitting on your mother. This was before you were born and before we’d gotten together. I guess I was a little jealous.”
“Mom with a were. Now I’ve heard everything.”
Ramiel smiled and shook his head. “It was nothing. I was just being stupid. He was a good guy.”
The two of them stopped talking, but in the silence, Theron wished he had been able to meet Hadrian, if only to know someone else who had cared about his mother. The Archons had taken yet something else good from the world, giving him another reason to annihilate those fuckers.
“Ready to go? We have one final Archon to get,” his father said with a smile. “And then we get to go home.”
Theron nodded as the idea of home filtered through his brain. Home. Until recently, it had meant where his family surrounded him with love and security. Now home simply meant a different location than the one he stood in. All the warmth he’d associated with that word had vanished.
Gone when they took his mother from him.
“Let’s go,” he said as the rage that never went away bubbled up inside him.
The Berlin Archon’s office looked almost identical to every other Archon’s office they’d attacked. White walls gave the place its sterile look that seemed so important to them and had begun to give Theron another reason to hate those bastards. Vampires weren’t meant to be so boring. It wasn’t in their nature. Perhaps that’s what happened to Archons.
These thoughts ambled through his mind as the two of them silently walked from room to room searching for the Archon and his staff. Like in every other instance, they’d be hiding behind
some piece of furniture somewhere, cowering and begging for their lives as all the others had.
It wouldn’t matter. The same stakes that had turned everyone else like them to dust would do the same to them.
Ramiel silently pointed toward a room with two white doors to give the signal that they’d check that one next. Theron nodded and waited as he slowly turned the handle and opened one of them, his blood racing at what they’d encounter next.
But unlike in the other Archons’ offices, no pleas came from anyone. This was the last room to check, so they had to be in there, yet the room remained eerily silent.
He looked over at his father and mouthed the words, “Where are they?”
His answer was a shrug, and the two slowly walked into the room with their stakes in their hands, ready to send each and every one of them on their way to the Underworld. Seconds later, they finished searching the room and found no one.
“There are no more offices in this building. Any chance they all fled to their headquarters?” Theron asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s not like we’ve been trying to keep what we’ve been up to for the past few nights a secret. It just seems strange that this is the only one where no one is left.”
Looking around the room, Theron saw a closet and pointed at it. “Maybe they all decided to hide in there. Seems a little small, but you never know.”
Ramiel shrugged. “Might as well check it before we go.”
He opened the door and stepped back, clearly surprised at what he found. Inside, the bodies of the Archon and his four assistants lay stacked up like wood on the floor. Looking back at Theron, he shook his head before reaching down to touch the body on the top of the pile.
“They’re dead, but they obviously weren’t staked. What the hell happened here?”
Theron walked over to where he stood and looked down at the bodies. Each vampire’s expression showed a look of shock at whatever had been done to them, and their skin was a terrible pale grey color.
