The Last Vampire Box Set

by R. A. Steffan

  “What are you saying?” I rasped.

  The silence stretched for long moments.

  “I was a selfish fool,” he said, “and Nigellus was right. Hell is the safest place for you.”

  That startled me into opening my eyes. His loomed out of focus—too close, and so very, very blue. I pulled back until I could see his expression properly.

  “You want me to stay in Hell? Permanently?” I asked, unsure how I was supposed to feel about that idea.

  I’d argued for it, earlier. Or, rather, I’d argued that he should come, too, so we’d both be safe. And he’d immediately dismissed the idea. I almost opened my mouth to ask him again to come with me, but I caught myself just in time. If Rans went to Hell, he could never leave. At least, not without signing his soul over to a demon first.

  He crouched in front of me, his hand falling from my shoulder and coming to rest on my knee instead. “Want isn’t the right word. But I need you safe.”

  I tried to untangle my thoughts and organize them into something coherent.

  “What if…” I began, only to trail off. After a moment, I tried again. “Rans, what if you asked Nigellus to bind you? He wouldn’t just randomly decide to harvest your soul one day. He loves you like a son—anyone can see that. Then you could go in and out of Hell as you pleased. You could be safe there—” with me, I didn’t add, “—but if you needed to leave to investigate some lead about the war, or to help Guthrie or something, then you could still do that.”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment.

  “Zorah, my life for the past several hundred years has, for all intents and purposes, belonged to the demons. I’m not in a hurry to offer them my death as well. At least as it stands now, I can still call my soul my own.”

  He opened his eyes and I nodded, chewing the inside of my lower lip. It was the answer I’d expected, after all. And it wasn’t even an answer I could disagree with, on an intellectual level.

  “But there’s another thing,” he went on. “Though I don’t know if anyone has ever been crazy enough to test the theory, it seems likely that if I bound myself to a demon, the life-bond would bind you to them as well, by default. Even if I were willing to sign my own soul over to Nigellus… I’m not willing to sign over yours.”

  I didn’t even try to argue that I’d already intended to ask Nigellus to bind me—if that’s what it took to get out of Hell and back to Rans. Not only was it obvious that he and I had very different views about demon-bonds; it also appeared likely to be a moot point. If Rans wanted me to hide away in Hell, but he wasn’t interested in coming with me, what more was there to say, really?

  “Okay,” I replied. “I understand.”

  He stared at me intently, his brows drawing together. “I’m not at all certain you do.”

  Then he was on his feet with inhuman speed, whirling away to cross the room, facing away. He rummaged in his coat and came up with his cell.

  “Time to go back to… Guthrie’s place?” I asked. Jesus, I’d almost said home.

  He nodded, not looking at me directly. “I’ve still got enough battery left to call a cab. Unless you’re in a hurry to spend a night here in the Roach Motel.”

  I looked around the room and shuddered. “Yeah… no. Hard pass on that.”

  Rans flashed me a ghost of a smile over his shoulder, but I had the sense he was putting up a wall between us that hadn’t been there a few hours ago.

  “Good choice,” he said lightly. “When you have the option, always go for the accommodations with the Jacuzzi and the home gym.”

  Right, I thought. Awesome. Now I just need to figure out how to give up the crazy vampire I’ve fallen for, so I can go live in Hell with my father who hates me instead.

  FIFTEEN

  WHEN RANS SAID he’d call Nigellus the following morning so we could meet and discuss details, I hadn’t expected the demon to appear from thin air outside Guthrie’s door less than five seconds after Rans got off the phone with him.

  I stared at both of them in mild disbelief. “What would Guthrie say about this?”

  “He’d be bloody livid,” Rans replied. “And I can’t really blame him. Which is why I intend for this not to take very long.”

  Rans gestured for Nigellus to come in. He did, looking around the penthouse suite with mild interest.

  “Moving up in the world, Ransley?” he asked with mild irony. “I can’t say the place really suits you…”

  “I can’t say it does, either,” Rans agreed. “But it’s safe, at least for a given definition. Though you ought to know I’m on the hook for the repair bills if anything happens to it while the real owner is gone.”

  “You certainly got here quickly,” I said. “And here I’d assumed I’d be white-knuckling my way through another airplane flight to Atlantic City.”

  Nigellus gave me a thin smile. “I’d gathered time was of the essence.”

  It wasn’t accurate to say that I’d come to terms with Rans’ new insistence that I run away to safety. But I’d at least managed to cobble together some degree of emotional armor overnight. I flopped down on Guthrie’s comfortable sofa, while Nigellus lowered himself gingerly into a chair across from me, and Rans took up pacing again.

  I eyed our guest. “So, full-blooded demons can travel anywhere in the blink of an eye, then? No magic portals; no messy slogging from Point A to Point B?” I asked. “That’s handy, I guess.”

  Nigellus crossed one leg over the other, leaning back as he regarded me over laced fingers. “Within certain limitations,” he allowed. “We can transport ourselves to a specific location if the directions are detailed enough. We can find individuals or objects if they are bound to us, or marked in a way we can detect. However, we find travel across vast expanses of saltwater difficult, and we can’t travel instantly from a random point in one realm to a random point in another. We must stop at the gate between realms.”

  I nodded. “Good to know, even if none of it’s immediately useful for a part-blood.”

  His deep-set eyes raked over me. “Perhaps not, though it appears you are coming into some of your birthright. You’ve been feeding recently, Zorah—and not merely from our mutual friend, I gather.”

  Since I’d done nothing wrong, I absolutely refused to blush. “It’s better than starving.”

  Would my bravado about feeding from other people’s sex energy hold up when I was living in an entirely different world from Rans?

  “It can also be rather useful in a fight, as it turns out,” Rans said, with the air of someone who was trying not to let the conversation stray too far off topic. “Now, before we get much farther along, I’m certain you’ll be happy to hear me say that you were right and I was wrong, Nigellus. So, consider it said.”

  Nigellus raised a swept brow. “Goodness,” he said mildly. “This is a cause for marking the date.”

  Rans’ expression might have been carved from marble, and he didn’t rise to the small barb.

  I cleared my throat. “Look. As far as I’m concerned, nothing has changed.” I ignored the little internal voice that whispered liar, liar in singsong tones. “I’d already intended to visit my father in Hell, so that’s what I’m doing. What happens afterward is… still up for debate, I guess you could say. I gather Dad arrived safely with the last Tithe?”

  Nigellus tilted his head in acknowledgement. “He did. You’ve spoken with Myrial, then?”

  My expression must have soured, because Nigellus lifted a brow at me.

  “Yeah, we had a brief chat,” was all I said.

  When I didn’t add anything else, he consciously smoothed his expression. “I gather he did not endear himself during that brief chat. May I ask what was said?”

  But I frowned, confused. “He? Hang on, are we talking about the same person? This Myrial was a woman.”

  “Myrial is a succubus,” Rans corrected.

  “Or, depending on her mood, an incubus,” Nigellus put in. “As was the case when I spoke to him earlier
. It’s easy to forget how little you know of demons.”

  The puzzle pieces connected in my mind. Right. Rans had told me early in our acquaintance that succubi and incubi could change their physical sex at will.

  “Okay, gotcha,” I said. “Sorry—I’d forgotten. And frankly, for a human, that one’s a little bit difficult to wrap my brain around… but, whatever.”

  “I believe any friction arose from a succubus acting like a succubus,” Rans offered. “She was somewhat… forward.”

  “I think handsy bitch is the phrase you’re looking for,” I muttered under my breath. In a more normal voice, I continued, “She also seemed to assume an awful lot for someone who’s never met me before—acting like she already knew me, offering to take me to Hell five minutes after we started talking. So, is she on the up-and-up, or what?”

  Nigellus gave a small shrug. “She is one of us. Myrial and I are not close, but she did contact me to inform me of the arrival of an unusual human among the latest Tithe.”

  “Did you send her after us?” I asked. “Because the Fae have watchdogs all over this city, and when she showed up where we were, things turned ugly real fast.”

  “I did not,” Nigellus said. “However, it hasn’t taken long for news of your existence—and of the company you’ve been keeping—to spread among our kind. Demons tend to be well connected. I daresay finding you would have been no great feat for her.”

  Wonderful. So my fake identity and all of my attempts to stay off the radar were basically useless, then. Had the murderous bikers shot up the fetish club last night because I was there, or because Myrial was there? I’d probably never know for certain.

  “How did news about my existence spread, exactly?” I wondered. “You’re the only demon I’d ever had any contact with, before her.”

  Nigellus gave me a thin smile. “Your presence in Dhuinne was hardly what one would call low-key, Zorah. Even during such a ceasefire as we now enjoy, both sides still have spies in place.”

  “Bloody cloak and dagger nonsense,” Rans said under his breath.

  “Information wins wars far more effectively than weapons,” Nigellus retorted in a mild tone.

  Rans met his gaze sharply. “Try telling that to the rest of my race. Weapons worked pretty damned well on them.”

  Ouch.

  “You’re not at war now, Nigellus,” I pointed out. “The war’s over.”

  “It’s more accurate to say that there is a lull in the conflict,” said the demon. “It’s easy to forget, sometimes, how young both of you are. Our races have enjoyed a few years of peace, it is true. It’s also true that both sides have been using that time in an attempt to strengthen their positions, since we all know the peace won’t last forever. It never does.”

  I tried to get my head around the idea of Nigellus calling a seven-hundred-year-old vampire young… or calling a span of more than two centuries a few years.

  “All right,” I said. “Fine. So the demon gossip mill knows all about me, and everyone and their dog can track me down while I’m on Earth. I’ll try not to hold Myrial’s tendency to paw at someone first and ask permission never against her, but I’d still rather not rely on her as my ticket to Hell.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Nigellus assured me. “I will escort you and see that you are safely settled, though I must return to Earth afterward.” His speculative gaze flicked over Rans before returning to me. “I don’t suppose you’ve managed to talk our mutual friend into making the trip, as well?”

  And that question shouldn’t have hurt so much. It shouldn’t. I had no claim over Rans; no reason to expect him to pull up the roots he’d set down over the course of centuries on Earth. It was unfair to ask him to follow me into a trap from which he could never escape—at least, not without selling his soul first.

  “I think I’m the only one crazy enough to walk into a place I might not be able to walk out of again,” I said with forced lightness.

  “We’ve had this argument many times, Nigellus,” Rans said, and there was steel in his tone. “Don’t try to drag her into it.”

  Nigellus waved the words away. “Forget I even brought it up, Ransley. I should know your stubbornness by now, I suppose. Though, as I said before, I see no reason why Zorah should be trapped within the barriers of Hell. Second-generation she may be, but she is still demonkin.”

  I hoped he was right.

  “Just to be clear—I realize that staying in Hell is the best way to avoid situations like what happened at the club,” I said, “but I don’t intend to be stuck there forever with no way to get out.”

  And that much was true, though I was still struggling with everything else. It was hard to see this as anything other than Rans sending me away. Intellectually, I might be able to convince myself that it was an altruistic gesture on his part to keep me safe. But a lifetime of being tossed away by men because I unknowingly took too much from them meant I had an ugly little voice living inside my head. That voice was quick to offer an alternate perspective.

  You suck him dry, draining his energy over and over. You drag him into danger at every turn. One day, you’re going to kill him when you die. Is it any surprise that he’d rather spend whatever time he has left as far away from you as possible?

  Rans looked at me, and then at Nigellus. “Give us a moment, please,” he said.

  Nigellus dipped his chin. “As you wish. I’ll be in the lobby when you’re ready, Zorah. And Ransley? You might want to have a word with Mr. Leonides whenever he returns. I can sense that another demon has been in this suite of rooms recently.”

  With that, he vanished from his chair. Rans cursed sharply.

  I looked around as though I expected a demon to pop out from behind the sofa and yell ‘boo’ at us.

  “What does he mean, another demon was here? Guthrie hates demons!” I said.

  Rans closed his eyes, schooling his expression back to neutrality. “I don’t know, and it’s not something you need to worry about, regardless. But before you leave, you do need to understand why I can’t come with you.”

  I hurried to cut him off, not wanting to hear him say the words aloud.

  “No—Rans. I get it. I really do. You’ve been amazing, and I can never thank you enough for everything you’ve done.” I was babbling. I could hear the words tumbling over one another, but I couldn’t seem to stop them no matter how much I wanted to. “Look, I know I can’t do anything about the life-bond, but I was serious about not intending to be stuck in Hell forever. So if there’s ever something I can do for you—”

  He was in front of me before I even registered the movement. One finger pressed lightly against my lips, stemming the flow of words. I watched, wide-eyed, as he crouched in front of me.

  “There’s only one thing I need you to do for me, luv,” he said, letting his finger fall away. “And that’s to be safe. Don’t become another casualty of this war. Stay in one piece, and be true to your own nature. Promise me, now.”

  Be true to your own nature.

  Good god.

  Did he mean my succubus nature? He was telling me in so many words to stop fixating on him, wasn’t he? He’d spent the time since he’d dragged me back from Dhuinne training me to get the energy I needed from other people—not from him.

  He’d been… weaning me off him.

  My throat tried to close up, and I swallowed the obstruction down. I could feel my heart shriveling in my chest like an old piece of jerky.

  “Sure,” I said lightly, as though I weren’t dying a little inside. “I promise.”

  He looked at me as though he wanted to peer right through my skull to the thoughts hidden beneath. But his expression remained carved from stone, every inch the marble statue I’d mentally compared him to the very first time I’d seen him.

  A dark angel.

  Right now, that darkness was threatening to swallow me whole.

  “I should go grab my stuff,” I said, trying to ignore the thickness in my voice. “Wouldn
’t want to keep Nigellus waiting.”

  Rans was still in front of me, more or less preventing me from rising. He continued to stare at me for an endless moment. I couldn’t hold that steady gaze, though. My eyes slid away from his, fixating on my hands in my lap. They lay curled there like a pair of dead things.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t stand another second of the stifling silence, he rose in a single smooth movement and turned away. I wasn’t sure my muscles would work when I called on them, but they did. My legs lifted me from the sofa and carried me to the guest bedroom, where my pitiful collection of belongings lay.

  Most of my things were still in the carryon bag I’d been living out of for the past weeks. I packed the rest and added a couple of keepsakes I’d rescued from my house during the cleanup. Rans was no longer in the living room when I returned. Perhaps he’d gone out to the rooftop patio. Or perhaps he’d turned into mist and flown away.

  Whatever the case, silence blanketed the penthouse as I hefted my tiny suitcase and left the apartment, taking the elevator down to the ground floor. Nigellus was waiting in the lobby as promised, looking like some rich CEO waiting on a business meeting. His dark eyes assessed me in a single look. To my relief, whatever he saw convinced him that idle chitchat wouldn’t be welcome.

  I followed him down to a quiet corner in the parking garage, trying my best not to notice the sleek Triumph motorcycle parked a few dozen yards away. Nigellus took my arm in a firm grip, and reality melted around me.

  When my vision returned, I was staring into the mouth of Hell.

  SIXTEEN

  I TOOK AN instinctive step back from the gaping stone maw in front of me, and my ass hit a sturdy metal railing. Traveling via demon teleportation didn’t jumble my senses as badly as traveling by Fae portal or ley line—presumably because of my succubus blood. Still, it was disorienting.

  “Where are we?” I asked, trying to take in everything around me as I clutched my pitiful suitcase of belongings and balanced against the railing behind me.