With a thought, I condensed the mist towards a spot on the ground behind the refrigerators and reformed myself into a man. A solid metal door with a security lock was set into the wall behind the refrigerators, but I assumed it was just additional storage rather than another access point for more potential attackers to flank me. I reached out with my senses just to be sure, but I felt no signs of life beyond it.
I noticed thick cords connecting the refrigerators to the wall and I smirked. I quickly ripped them from the walls, one by one. The white lights glowing from the front of the refrigerators extinguished, plunging the room into complete darkness. My cloak whipped about my shoulders, this time in utter silence. It was almost identical in design to my favorite old cloak. It even had my emblem on the back—a large drop of blood with a vertical, elegant silver bow nocked with two feathers for arrows.
I hadn’t seen my back, of course, but I had willed it into existence. I simply knew it was there in the same way I knew how to flex my fist. No matter how much the cloak snapped and whipped about of its own accord, that emblem remained static, centered on my lower spine, gleaming in silver as a constant reminder…
Of the price I had paid to become the Devil.
Of Selene.
The five vampires snarled, murmuring to each other—likely through their earbuds—but I could hear them clearly. We were all vampires, after all.
“Where is he?”
“Who is he?”
“What is he?”
I laughed, strolling into view from behind the refrigerators. I hadn’t even had to focus on my vision for it to adapt to the darkness, painting the room and my assailants in shades of gray. “The Devil has come to collect his due, my wayward children. None of you will live to see another moon because the moon belongs to me!”
I could have simply crushed their hearts with a single thought. I could have enthralled them into my service—mindless slaves eager to appease my every whim. I could have coughed and decapitated them. The number of new ways that I could end their existence was actually startling—thanks to Victoria’s blood cursing through my veins.
I could kill them with an eternity of blinding pain, or a feather-stroke of sexual ecstasy.
Or both. Simultaneously.
My new powers beckoned to me, begging to be tested. Pleading for me to abuse these vampires, to degrade them, to set an example that Dracula would fear from halfway across the world.
But it wasn’t necessarily their fault that they worked for Dracula.
And I wanted to get my claws dirty.
I dove towards them as fast as a hurled spear. No. Faster.
Four of the vampires leapt out of the way just in time. The fifth vampire simply exploded into pieces no larger than coins as I tore through his chest like a blade through dry cloth. I made sure to keep his head intact, knowing I would need it later for my collection. But the rest of him was simply gone. One of the other vampires gagged at the shower of gore and immediately pissed himself, but the other three tried to attack me from behind.
I spun, grabbing two of them by the throat and hoisting them up into the air. I kicked the third vampire in the chest hard enough to cave in his entire rib cage and send him flying into one of the refrigerators.
I locked eyes with the still-gagging vampire and snapped the necks of the vampires I held in either hand. I let their bodies drop to the ground and I began to walk towards the lone survivor. His eyes danced wildly, and he made as if to run towards the door Victoria had used.
My cape whipped out before him, slicing a line of fire across his outstretched arm. He tried to spin and run the other way, but my cloak shot out to impale his thigh. He began to sob in horror, stumbling backwards, away from me, as he clutched his leg, slipping in his own blood.
My cloak snapped out again, grabbing his foot and yanking it towards me, sending him crashing into the card table. His flesh burned where my cloak had touched his ankle.
He rolled to his knees and clasped his hands together before me, weeping. “Please! My name is Paul. I have a family!”
I bared my fangs, hissing at him as blood pounded in my ears.
“SO. DID. I!!!!!!” I roared, loud enough to make my own ears pop.
My cloak shot forward and stabbed him in the heart, incinerating it upon contact and leaving only a smoking hole in its wake. Through that hole, I saw a single playing card on the table.
The Ace of Hearts.
A single outline of a heart to replace the one I had just incinerated inside the vampire’s chest.
I roared with laughter, slapping at my knees as my cloak whipped and snapped around me, seeming to purr and stretch like a sleepy cat before a fire.
My laughter soon faded, and I realized I was panting as I slowly assessed the room, inhaling the scent of fresh blood. I wasn’t panting from exhaustion but from disappointment. That I had no more foes to face.
I heard a sound behind me and spun.
35
A lone vampire stood before me, blinking slowly—as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. But he wasn’t looking at the blood, the gore, or the bodies of his fellow vampires. He was looking at—
“It’s you…” he breathed, sounding shaken to his very core. “You’re alive.”
I stared at him, momentarily confused and wary of trickery. He was lean but muscular, and had a short, neatly styled head of thick hair that was slicked to the side. He had a strong, chiseled, clean-shaven jaw and deep brown eyes. And he wore an elegant suit and thin black tie, unlike the other vampires I’d encountered. He looked like he was heading to an auction. Even his shoes were polished. He also had no weapons in his long, pale hands.
I’d never seen him before—of that, I was certain.
He fell to his knees with a relieved, emotional smile on his cheeks. “I can finally pay for my crime that night so long ago,” he whispered.
I closed the distance in the blink of an eye and gripped him by the knot in his tie, hoisting him to his feet. “What are you talking about?” I snarled, inches away from his face.
He didn’t even flinch. His arms hung at his sides; his body entirely slack, like a wet towel. “I was there the night you died.”
I hissed, dropping him and leaping back a step, scanning the building for any other assailants. But it was just us. He faced me openly, clasping his hands behind his back.
I glared at him, shaking my head in confusion. “Impossible. That would make you five hundred years old. Powerful enough to hold a position of significant authority.”
He grimaced. “No. This wasn’t a promotion,” he said, tapping his teeth with a fingernail before clasping his hands together behind his back again. His fangs weren’t extended, even though I could now sense the truth to his words. He was a very old vampire. One I hadn’t sensed when I’d first scanned the building. He hadn’t been with his fellows when they planned their assault on me. “This was my punishment for failing Dracula,” the man said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Get to the point,” I growled, wondering what his angle was, what I wanted to do with such a potential resource, and why he was stalling with such an outlandish claim.
“Dracula bought my debts. Sent me and two-dozen others on a ship to the New World to attack a small tribe of Native Americans. I was just a human back then. Dracula threatened to murder my wife and daughter if I didn’t obey. It wasn’t until right before the attack that I was commanded to kidnap a child—a young boy—and bring him back for Dracula. I didn’t know who you were, why we were there, or who the tribe was. But…” he took a shaking breath, struggling to continue, “as I looked into that young boy’s eyes, I saw my daughter staring back at me, asking me a question. Why would you do such a thing, Papa? How could you do this to me?” he whispered, tears falling from his eyes.
My hands began to shake, and I realized I was panting. “My…my son?” I rasped.
He nodded regretfully, his shoulders slumping. “I grabbed him and took him into the woods, running as fast as I c
ould. I ran until I came upon another tribe. I begged them to take the boy in and to never tell anyone the truth. That his very life depended on it.”
I shook my head. “No. That’s impossible,” I whispered, my pulse thundering in my ears. “He died. Everyone died,” I lied. Because Deganawida had told me he never found their bodies…
The man slowly shook his head. “So did you.” He took a deep breath. “I knew Dracula would kill me for my failure, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I didn’t even have the courage to kill him instead of turning him over to Dracula, knowing that it would be a kindness. I rejoined the group and told them the boy had died in the fire, even knowing that my family would suffer for it. Dracula killed everyone who returned from our slaughter, even the werewolves and vampires. But he chose a far worse punishment for my failure. He turned me into a vampire the moment I returned without his prize, telling me that I would get to watch my family grow old and die without me. Every year on my daughter’s birthday, Dracula would have me drive a carriage to my home so that he—and only he—could deliver a gift to my daughter and tell her how brave her father was.”
I shook my head, still reeling from thoughts of my son surviving.
“I sat in that carriage, staring through the window from outside,” the man continued. “Dracula forbid me from ever getting within thirty paces of my own flesh and blood. I watched my wife die from thirty paces. I watched my daughter get married to a man I never met from thirty paces. I watched my grandchildren grow up from thirty paces. I watched my daughter’s funeral from thirty paces.”
He locked eyes with me, and I saw the torn soul of a man who wanted only one thing—salvation. An end to his eternal punishment. And he would accept that salvation from only one man in the world, or he wouldn’t accept it at all, preferring an immortality plagued with righteous regret over the easy death of a fraudulent forgiveness by anyone other than…
Me.
I swallowed audibly, not knowing what to do with my hands. My cloak hung entirely still.
The man cleared his throat, sounding as if he had walked a thousand miles without a sip of water. “I watched my life from thirty paces because I saved your son’s life, Sorin Ambrogio,” he whispered. “I might be the only vampire other than Dracula who knows your name. The only vampire who knows what your name means.”
I nodded numbly. I was Dracula’s dirty secret. Proof of his lies—that he was not the First.
“Dracula never permitted me to rise up through the ranks, always giving me jobs below the lowest of servants. I was a warning to all his other vampires to never betray their master. That even a five-hundred-year old vampire could be nothing more than a servant. A carriage driver.”
I stared at him, gathering my resolve. “You want my forgiveness,” I said in a low tone.
“No!” He shook his head adamantly. “Never. I want to die. If you don’t kill me, I will attack you until you get annoyed enough to finish the job. You are the only man I will allow to kill me.”
I grunted. Without Victoria’s blood running through my body, a vampire as old as him would have been quite the challenge. But…he might have answers. Long-dead answers, but answers nonetheless. If he worked for Dracula, he might know my foe’s vulnerabilities. Weaknesses that he couldn’t elaborate on unless I broke his bond to his master.
He might know what happened to my wife and son.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Renfield. Henry Renfield,” the man said in a humble—yet somehow proud—tone.
I considered the situation in its entirety. “Renfield…which do you want more? To avenge your family or to die as a sniveling coward?” I sensed a flash of fire in his eyes—not at me, but an instinctive reaction to the term. He had fire inside him, after all.
“I am unable to raise a hand against Master Dracula,” he said slowly.
“Unless a stronger, older vampire breaks that bond,” I suggested, staring into his eyes.
His eyes slowly widened, not having considered the possibility. “You…would do that?” he whispered hoarsely.
“You just tried to commit suicide to confess your sins, Renfield. To confess your sins against the victim of your crime. If you simply wanted to die, all you had to do was attack me without saying a word. You wouldn’t have stood a chance,” I said, holding out my arms as my cloak suddenly whipped and snapped back to life. “And you had to know that. Why did you speak?”
He thought about my question in silence. For about ten long seconds. “To be honest, I was ready to attack on principle until I saw your hair. The way you stood tall. Like you owned the world. It was exactly what I saw that fateful night when both our lives were destroyed. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, but no one even knows about you. Only Dracula and I would still know you on sight,” he said, shaking his head. “The words just came out of me once I realized who you were. I didn’t want to die as a nameless minion. Before you killed me, I wanted you to know that my death would give you a small taste of vengeance, so you could know that you earned at least some justice tonight. That maybe such a small realization would give you exactly what you needed to finish the job against Dracula, once and for all.”
I stared at him, wondering if this was some sort of trap. But somehow, I knew it wasn’t. Men like Renfield were few and far between. Even in my day, such honor was the thing of legend. As I pondered his story, I realized that he truly had been put into a situation where he had been given no good option to take. Slaughter a nameless tribe to save his family. To be honest, I would have done the same in his shoes. But…he’d let my son go instead. Putting my son before his own family.
I walked closer. “Kneel.”
He didn’t even hesitate. He sunk down to his knees before me, his eyes tear-filled.
“Give me your wrist, Renfield,” I commanded, closing the distance to stand over him as he lifted his wrist, staring up at me in wonder and gratitude.
I grabbed his wrist and bit into it, taking a deep drink as I stared him in the eyes.
Then I pulled away and bit into my own wrist. “Open your mouth, Renfield,” I said calmly.
He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and opened his mouth. I extended my wrist and let my blood drip onto his tongue and down his throat. He swallowed, instantly stiffening as the magic took hold without mercy—no doubt a result of Victoria’s blood powering me, because it didn’t typically happen as fast as this.
I continued to rain my blood down upon his mouth. “Drink, Renfield. Drink from your new Master, Sorin Ambrogio.”
And he did. He drank deeply.
Typically, breaking a Master’s bond was done gradually, over months or years, giving the vampire time to accept his decision and come to terms with it.
But Renfield had been doing that for five hundred years, and I was currently overpowered. I waited a few moments and then used my mind to reach into him, searching out my blood now coursing through his body. I found it and latched onto it, bonding it with the blood I had drank from his wrist that was now inside of me—now a part of me—before my body could choose to store it for power or anything else I needed for sustenance.
“Swear your undying fealty to me, Renfield. That you will faithfully and loyally serve me, and only me, until death do us part.”
Renfield did, his voice sounding even more fervent than before—as if he’d found a purpose he’d lost five-hundred-years ago. “I swear my undying fealty to you, Sorin Ambrogio. I will faithfully serve you, and only you, until death do us part.”
I felt the magic take hold, a sudden flash of ice and fire that thrummed like a struck chord on a harp, vibrating in sync with the vampire kneeling before me.
“Rise, my son. Rise, Henry Renfield. Welcome to House Ambrogio.”
He opened his eyes and stared up at me, a soul-deep smile in those bottomless brown eyes.
Then he climbed to his feet, letting out a nervous breath. He shot me an uncertain smile. “This is much better than death, Master. You
gave me a harder path to absolution, but I think it might be the only road to absolution. Death is too easy.”
I nodded. “There will be plenty of death in the days to come, Renfield. Rivers of blood will flow through the streets. Dracula must die, and you’re going to help me do it.”
“Yes, Master.”
36
Renfield glanced around the room, studying the dead bodies. He pointed at the vampire who had pissed himself. Paul, I thought he had said. The one with a hole in his chest who had tried to lie about having a family. “Paul was in charge tonight. He called in reinforcements, but he didn’t put any urgency in his request. Told them he would handle it but that we would need a clean-up crew for the next shift.”
I grinned at the thought of the leader pissing himself upon seeing me—Paul the Pisser.
“Could you buy us some time?” I asked. “Call them back and say the situation was resolved?”
Renfield nodded. “Of course. They always believe me,” he said with a bitter smile. “They know I wouldn’t dare disappoint Dracula again.”
I smiled. “Do it.”
“Might I ask why?” I arched a stern eyebrow at him. He lowered his eyes subserviently. “In case they suggest an alternative course of action. If I know what you intend, I can be sure to guide the conversation in the direction that best suits your needs. Renfield doesn’t give commands,” he explained. “They would instantly be suspicious if I tried.”
I nodded, seeing the sense in his suggestion. “I’m taking all of their blood. Every last bag.”
His eyes widened but he nodded, pulling a phone from his pocket. I listened in as he made the call. He watched me as he spoke, making sure I didn’t have any suggestions before hanging up with a proud nod. “They’ll wait until morning like usual, but they want a report from Paul as soon as he disposes of the homeless man who jumped one of the guards.” He glanced down at the dead Paul. “Don’t forget to call, you hairy goat’s dick,” he muttered.
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