“About as well as could be expected.” Matt snagged a grape left over from dinner on an abandoned table and popped it into his mouth. “She’s here to reclaim her spot at the top, and we’re in her way.”
“Did she say that?” Olivia lifted her eyebrows.
“Not in those words,” Rose said. “But she made it clear where we stand in her estimation.”
“Where’s that?”
“Under her $2,000 pumps,” Matt said.
“What’s the trouble you mentioned?” Rose asked. “Is it Piper?”
Olivia nodded. Her mother, not a natural mother, but the woman who had transformed Olivia from human to vampire, was named Piper Ross. Unlike most of her kind, Piper had little trouble creating offspring. In fact, she had spawned so many daughter vampires in the last two decades, others of their kind had, against their usual natures, prohibited her from leaving her home state of South Carolina. Had she fewer children, they might have attacked and killed her for her sheer fecundity, but they dared not. No one, not even Rose, knew exactly how many children Piper had created, but Rose had met twelve of them. While that number sounded small, compared to the average vampire who might create one full-blood child in a century, it made Piper the leader of a veritable army. Worse, at least for her enemies, Piper also commanded scores of wights, vampires who had failed to make the full change from their human form. Like drones in a beehive, the wights followed their mother’s every order for lack of personal internal drive. Less intelligent than a human, vampire, or succubus, wights were nevertheless formidable warriors that, once unleashed on a foe, would gladly walk into a meat grinder at their sire’s behest.
Rose drew discernment from her votaries, and her breath caught. She knew at once, Piper had broken her agreement to remain in South Carolina, at least until Rose and Matt could get a foothold within succubus Society. By the set of Olivia’s jaw, her controlled breathing, and the concern in her eyes, it was apparent her mother had gotten herself into some sort of trouble with vampires outside her domain. Equally obvious, she needed Rose’s help right away.
“This is not a convenient time, Liv.”
Olivia nodded, her lips pressed together, no doubt to hide the fangs extruding from her gums due to anxiety. “She’s in real danger, Rose. She needs us.”
“This was our chance to open talks with some of the Societies from other nations. We need allies right now, not more enemies.”
Olivia said nothing. Her eyes pled her case.
Rose heaved a sigh. “Where?”
2
At Odds
Rose sat in a darkened van, twisting a piece of rawhide in her hands. “How much longer?”
“Five minutes.” Matt swerved into the left lane to pass a sedan and floored it to make the next light. He didn’t. The wail of a siren and the flash of blue lights bouncing off encroaching apartments made him curse. Though traffic was light along North Washington Street in Alexandria, Virginia, none of them had spotted the hidden motorcycle cop.
“We don’t have time for this.” Rose twisted to face the team she and Matt had hastily gathered at the fundraiser. “Everyone draw charm. Make this guy forget he ever saw us.”
As one, the four turned to the rear window. A palpable, at least to a succubus, wave of charm rolled off them like heat from a blast furnace, all of it aimed at the cop. He immediately switched off his siren and lights. Slowing, he performed a tight U-turn and headed back the way he had come, his bike’s rear tire kicking up a fine spray of water from the wet asphalt.
“Damn, I need you guys with me on my next Disney trip,” Tanner Watts said, grinning in the light provided by passing cars. “Got a two-hundred-dollar ticket in Florida last year, and the wife won’t let me forget it.”
“Pay my way, and I’m there,” Myra Hanks said from the farthest rear seat. The former math teacher-turned-prognosticator had aged significantly in the year Rose had known her. Despite her relative youth for a succubus, just seventy-eight, new strands of gray decorated her otherwise auburn hair, far more so than when Rose first met her the year before. That, coupled with the worry lines etched along her eyes, created an odd sort of juxtaposition with the sensual, low cut evening gown she wore. Not that Myra wasn’t pulling it off. She was pulling it off in spades.
“Any updates from Piper?” Garrett Timmons asked, a rarity considering his usual quiet nature. The young guardsman had volunteered to serve on the security detail at Torres’ fundraiser. Most of his peers remained behind to protect their charge, but Rose insisted on bringing Garrett along. Quiet or not, the man was a hell of an operator in the field.
Olivia shook her head. Rose couldn’t feel the vampire’s emotions, not the way she could with humans or her fellow succubi, but she had no trouble reading the worry on her friend’s face. Her mother’s call for help had come more than thirty minutes ago. Rose knew from experience that thirty minutes could be an eternity in a fight, especially between vampires. Even unarmed, they were nearly unstoppable.
“What was she doing in Alexandria anyway?” Matt asked as he slewed the van into a tight left turn, following the directions broadcast by his phone. He had loosened his bow tie and unfastened the first two buttons on his white shirt but still wore his tuxedo jacket.
Olivia gazed out the side window, silent for a long moment, her pale skin white under passing streetlights. “Waging a turf war, I think.”
Rose felt her eyebrows shoot up. “She came here looking for a fight?”
“She came here looking to make allies. She wants more of our kind, especially the old-world vamps, to join her.”
“But if they don’t join, she goes after them?” Garret asked.
“Of course, she does. She’s forming her own coven kingdom.” Matt glanced at Olivia in the rearview mirror for confirmation.
“Yes. She is.”
“That wasn’t the agreement.” Rose turned to catch Olivia’s gaze. “She’s supposed to be back in South Carolina biding her time.”
“I know that.” Olivia couldn’t meet Rose’s eyes.
“So does Piper,” Matt said. “She’s showing an incredible lack of patience for a vampire.”
“She’s been locked up in one state for more than half a century,” Olivia said, but with little vigor.
“We promised we’d help her fix that, but only after we get a handle on our own affairs,” Rose said. “This sort of thing will piss off every succubus in the nation. We’re having a hard enough time convincing them to accept the fact we’ve allied with her. Now she goes and picks a fight? Who’s it with, anyway?”
“Felix Dietrich.”
“Shit.” Matt twisted around to glance at Olivia. “You’re not serious.”
“Who’s Felix Dietrich?” Rose asked.
“First off, he’s one of the oldest vampires in the States. Probably nine hundred, maybe a thousand years,” Matt said.
“More like seven, maybe eight.” Olivia sounded ill.
“Point is, he’s old and powerful.” Matt signaled another turn and gunned the van up to seventy miles an hour along a small, two-lane road lined with large brick homes, apartment buildings, and small shops.
“He’s also one of the top enforcers responsible for keeping my family locked away all these years.” Olivia sat forward against her seat belt. “Whenever Piper broke coven law, it was Felix who came south to deal with her. He once executed three of my sisters and seven wights because Mother took a trip to Bermuda.”
“So, they’re old enemies,” Rose said.
“Mother loathes him.”
Matt took a hard right to pass through an open gate in a fifteen-foot high cement wall. He brought the van to a hard stop, its wheels sliding on the wet drive. Though the storm that had earlier swept across the city and into DC had passed away, everything remained shiny under the city lights.
A large home, at least for this part of the greater DC metropolitan area, where housing prices would make a real estate tycoon blush, loomed ahead of them. Surrounded by majestic trees comp
letely out of place this deep in the city, it looked like an eighteenth-century manor house transplanted from its proper time to the present. Several ornate lampposts spilled light across its manicured front yard.
“Is this—” Rose began but was interrupted by a series of muted bangs accompanied by flashes in the bottom story windows.
“Yes.” Olivia flung open the van’s door and, moving with preternatural speed, headed for the manor house’s front entrance.
“Dammit, Liv,” Rose cursed as she and the others trailed after Olivia along a brick walkway. “Slow down.”
A shadow detached itself from behind one of the lampposts as Olivia climbed the front steps. Rose’s heart lurched at the figure’s sudden appearance, but just as quickly settled when she recognized the vampire hurrying Olivia’s way.
“Liv!” Grace, Olivia’s teenage sister—truly teenaged, since she had been turned only a scant two years before—threw her arms around the older vampire. Her light blond hair fairly glowed in the wan light.
“What’s happening?” Olivia endured her sister’s hug for a moment before pulling back to look Grace in the eyes. “How long’s Mother been inside?”
Grace shrugged. “Thirty seconds? She made Stephanie and me stay out to charm the neighborhood.”
Like their cousin succubi, vampires could innately control their charm, the ability to manipulate the thoughts and emotions of other people, especially humans. Piper wouldn’t want any nosy neighbors or, God forbid, police showing up to ask bothersome questions, so she had left two of her youngest daughters to quell curiosity about the sounds emanating from the house.
“I thought you said she was in trouble and needed our help?” Matt gestured toward Olivia.
A long screech originating somewhere inside split the night in two, followed by several shotgun blasts and what sounded like splintering furniture.
“She is, and she does.”
“But she didn’t less than a minute ago. She waited for us to show up before she attacked this Felix character.” Rose mounted the house’s front steps to peer inside. The storm door had been shattered. The steel door behind it lay on the entranceway floor.
Olivia bit her lip, no small feat for a vampire with her fangs out, and let go a heavy sigh. “I can’t argue, except to say I didn’t know. She made it sound like she was in the middle of a fight when she called.”
“So we’d come running,” Rose said.
More sounds of battle shook the old house, and a vampire, female by the sound, screamed inside.
“I guess you can refuse to help if you want, but I’m going in.” Olivia didn’t wait for an answer from her succubus escort; she charged inside.
Matt glanced Rose’s way, and she nodded. They had made a covenant with Piper and her brood. The vampires kept up the first part of that agreement when they aided Rose and her cohorts in destroying Jason Kraft’s fear factory. And while Piper might be blowing the second part by extending her coven before the agreed-upon time, she was their only ally.
“I knew we should have brought guns to the fundraiser,” Rose said as she stepped inside, drawing speed, strength, and discernment.
“That’s not what you said when we were packing yesterday.” Matt crouched to come in behind her, his gaze roaming the interior.
“What have I said about listening to me?”
Overturned tables and broken chairs lay strewn across the foyer and a large living area. Olivia stood in the midst of them, hands splayed at her sides, scanning the room. Though the lights were out—Matt tried a switch the instant he entered the room—ample illumination came through the windows for the succubi. Rose drew vision from her votaries, which, while it couldn’t make the room appear as bright as noonday, at least pushed back shadows and sharpened colors.
“Everyone grab something to fight with.” Matt stooped to pick up a heavy table leg, and the others followed his lead.
The sounds of battle emanated from deeper within the house. Rose stomped a foot, drawing hearing while simultaneously amplifying the sensitivity in her feet and legs. “There’s a basement level.”
“Bet that wasn’t part of the original house,” Tanner said as he strode across the room to a darkened hallway. He played the beam of a small, powerful flashlight along the wood paneling. He banged the wall a few times before grunting in satisfaction. “Got it.”
A concealed door swung open before Tanner, and the sounds of fighting intensified. He shone his flashlight down a long set of dark wooded stairs.
“Tell me that’s not creepy,” Myra said. “Stairs leading down into perfect darkness inside a vampire’s lair.”
“Lair? Really?”
Rose twisted in surprise to find Grace trailing after their group. “Aren’t you supposed to be shielding the house?”
“Stephanie’s got it. She’s our best charmer. I was just there because Mom thinks I’m too young to fight.”
“She’s right,” Olivia said.
“Yeah, well, we can argue about that later. Right now, it sounds like Mother needs help.” Grace pointed toward the secret door. “Besides, you think I’m going to pass up the chance to fight next to Rose Carver?”
Olivia grumbled something under her breath but said aloud, “Fine, stay behind us, and if things get out of hand, run.”
“You got it. Now let’s go. We’re wasting time.” Grace headed for the door as she deftly tied her long hair in a bun.
Stealthily as they could manage, the two vampires and four succubi negotiated the darkened stairwell, Tanner in the lead. A stone room opened at the bottom of the stairs, incongruent with the rest of the house and its wood paneling. The air here was cooler than above and laden with the scent of dust, neglect, and spent gunpowder.
Three figures, two male and one female, stood opposite the stairway, their backs to Rose and her people. They wore mismatched, dated clothing, frayed and threadbare in the flashlight beam. The female, who stood eight inches taller than the men, turned to reveal a pair of eyes glowing red in the reflected light. She bared her teeth, an impressive double row of fangs, the envy of any shark, and hissed.
Wights. The bastard children of the vampire world. Nearly mindless but as powerful as any full-blood vampire, the creatures relied on their progenitor’s commands to make decisions. These three must have been told to protect the door and kill anyone who tried to enter. Like predators on the hunt, they spun to face the succubi, pale hands spread out at their sides, nails like claws splayed for battle.
“I take it these don’t belong to your coven.” Tanner stepped forward to shine his flashlight in the monsters’ faces. They cringed and squinted but didn’t falter.
“Felix’s pets,” Olivia said.
The wights hissed in unison, the female leaning forward, her chasm of a mouth open wide.
Charm like a bucket of frozen water hit Rose. Though the wights lacked sophisticated control over their own powers, this one came as naturally to them as flying came to a sparrow. Sleepiness threatened to shut Rose’s eyes. She stumbled back a step, as did Tanner, Garret, and Myra. Gritting her teeth, Rose drew charm to match her foes and spread its enveloping bubble to everyone around her.
Just in time, it turned out. The female wight launched herself at Tanner, clawed hands aimed for his throat. Drawing speed, he sidestepped her attack, and she barreled into Rose with the force of a small car.
Rose struggled to maintain her balance, drawing strength, speed, and dexterity to match the attack. The wight growled, producing a sound like a whistling teapot mixed with a coffee grinder. She swiped at Rose and even managed to tear a chunk from her dress before Rose could dance away.
“This cost seven hundred dollars!” Rose kicked the female wight in the face, the blow so powerful it snapped her head back with a sound of cracking bones and tearing ligaments. The creature stumbled to the cement floor and sat there, facing the ceiling, seemingly unable to bring her head down for the damage to her upper spine.
Not to be outdone, Olivia plung
ed the sharp end of a splintered table leg through the wight’s chest. The wight howled in pain as she writhed on her back, leaving a bloody smear in her wake. In seconds, her screaming ground to a warbling groan and finally nothing as her pale eyes lost their spark of life. Popular fiction and movies had gotten one thing right about vampires: a stake through the heart killed them. Of course, a stake through anything’s heart killed it.
Tanner and Garret dispatched the male wights in the same manner and withdrew their weapons once satisfied the creatures were dead.
Rose felt little sympathy for the wights. They were rabid animals, hardly capable of human-level thought. They would have killed her people given the chance. If she had any remorse for them, it was for the humans—or possibly succubi—they had been before some vampire attempted to change them. Had that been a decision on their part, or a choice forced upon them? Many humans romanticized the idea of becoming a vampire. Of those who got the chance, most died. The majority of the rest became these hapless, thoughtless killer minions chained to their master’s will. Rose could think of little else to better define pure hell.
An open hallway led off the main basement room. Garrett entered it, flashlight held steady before him. The others followed in a staggered V formation, their makeshift weapons at the ready. Sounds of struggle mixed with god-awful screams and warbling hisses grew louder as they traversed the shadowed hallway. A set of double doors, the rightmost askew, its wooden face split nearly in half, opened into what Rose took for a spacious meeting room illuminated by soft overhead lamps. Somewhere nearby came the incessant chug of a generator. The room reminded Rose of an audience chamber in a movie castle. Tanner kicked the damaged door off its hinges and marched inside, obliging the others to follow or get left behind.
A dozen vampires and wights engaged in a fierce battle occupied the far end of the stone room. Some fought on the floor, others on a raised platform where a throne stood under a burgundy velvet awning. The sweet yet fetid reek of vampires filled the air.
Sketched Page 2
