But then she heard Frank moving around, turning some late fifties music on at low volume, and her throat tightened.
Oldies but goodies. Their kind of tunes back when they’d both been human.
She found herself closing the distance to his door, knocking softly, then listening for his voice so it would wash over her, just like it used to, alone on the couch, snuggled together, them against the world.
He paused, then said, “Come in, Eva.”
He’d vampire-sensed her, she thought, laying her hand on the door.
But just before she pushed it open, “I Only Have Eyes for You” began to play, and a twisting sorrow made her dig her nails hard into the palm of her hand by her side.
Blood, whether she’d meant to draw it or not, barely started to creep out of the sting.
She wondered if she should leave, because the scent would get to Frank. It might scramble his mind and make him break the promise he’d made to Breisi to only drink Eva’s blood secondhand, not from her. It might ...
Eva hung her head, waited, almost rushed away.
Then, unable to help it, she pushed the door open.
As he looked up from one of the gizmos he was working on—all Eva could see were wires and metal—his green eyes lit with something so familiar that she smiled at him, hopeful.
Never losing the faith that he did still love her deep inside.
Then his gaze flicked to the side, to Breisi’s portrait, where the Latina with Louise Brooks-bobbed hair rested against the painted backdrop of the lab she’d kept in the L.A. house.
A weight, like a sharp rock with a death note attached, sank through Eva, dividing her.
But then a cajoling voice from the back of her mind—instincts that’d always looked out for her, instincts that had advised her to go Underground—whispered that she had what Breisi could never give Frank.
Blood.
So use it.
A second passed. Another.
Then Eva opened her palm.
It felt damp from the blood she’d drawn from her long, manicured nails.
She could see when the hint of her blood consumed Frank, because he pushed the bundle of wires and metal he was working on onto the table, where it moaned across the surface as he kept pushing, his head down.
“Frank?” she asked, afraid. Excited. Because she recalled what it was like to want blood, too. How irresistible the temptation could be.
His voice was like a thousand raw welts. “I already fed, Eva. From one of the bags in the fridge downstairs. Go away.”
But the sustenance hadn’t done much for him, she knew. It kept him functioning, those bags, yet it couldn’t be the same as drinking from Eva, whose blood stimulated him more than anyone else’s.
Use it.
Even as she raised her palm to him, offering so much more than just her blood, she told herself not to do it.
He reared back his head, and self-loathing was nicked all over his face.
His expression ripped through her, even when he lunged toward her hand, grabbed it, buried his face against her palm, her skin ...
She dropped to her knees as he cradled her arm, opening the small punctures on her palm with his fangs then sucking, hurting her with the force of his need.
But it felt good.
Bad.
No. So, so good—
A scream of echoing, otherworldly rage shook her just before she was knocked to the ground from behind.
She didn’t have to smell the jasmine to know it was Breisi.
The spirit kept barreling against her, pounding her toward the exit, and Eva rolled with every punch, not fighting back.
Taking it.
Deserving it.
When it was done, Eva sprawled on the hall floor, her pumps off her feet, her skin tender with oncoming bruises, as Breisi circled back into the room, not even bothering to curse at Eva or acknowledge her any more than she had to.
Then, just before the spirit hefted her essence behind the door to slam it, Eva saw Frank’s repulsed expression.
She ran from the horror, the shame of it, yanking a small towel out of a washroom on the way and wrapping her bloodied hand.
Down the stairs, through the foyer, fumbling with the locks on the door, then tripping barefoot outside, where a flood of UV lights revealed her for who she really was.
Then Eva ran and ran, never stopping until the shame finally caught up with her again.
ELEVEN
ONCE UPON A BLOOD BATH
In the main Underground, in a training room lined by wall bags, hitting boards, and dummies propped on stands, the atmosphere pulsed, murky and oppressive, as the two custodes paused an instructional DVD and proceeded to apply what they’d learned.
Since contact outside the Underground was shunned, the virtual training was necessary. But, all the same, it worked quite nicely as the new custode ducked under Nigel’s restraining arm then mimicked the flash-quick breaking of his bones from leg to head.
The entire attack—a flurry of hands, arms, and elbows—was over in the time it would take for any normal human to even register what was happening.
Energized, the new caretaker sprang away from Nigel, hands up, giddy from the action.
“Not bad,” Nigel said. “Not bad a‘tall. If you hadn’t merely been sparring, I’d be a pile of mush.”
The custode only smiled at the sport of this Keysi Fighting Method. In KFM, everything around you and of you could be a lethal weapon.
Proper fun.
Before being activated, the new custode had been drawn to other martial arts classes, such as karate and Krav Maga. But those had only been instinctive interests that hadn’t gone beyond amusement—not until the call to duty had arrived, revealing who the Meratoliage family had always been and always would be.
Sweat plastered Nigel’s hair to his head, his dark clothing damp. “Perhaps I need to put you outside on patrol again if you’re this keen.”
The custode tried not to seem too pleased. “Tonight?”
Nigel nodded. “Tonight.”
The pair retreated to the side of the rock-faced domain, where iced water and towels awaited them. After replenishing themselves, then cleaning up, they would engage in Relaquory—a ritual that could never, ever be missed. Afterward, they’d eat a protein-rich meal in the monitor room while they reviewed any outside activity that the alert system had picked up during their training.
Then, finally, it would be patrol time.
However, unlike earlier, there was no present urgency since Claudia had informed the keepers of Violet the vampire’s death.
Yet, the new custode thought while gulping the water, there were many other pressing matters to see to. Many, many opportunities to clean up the Underground.
This morning, when the custode had watched Della on the hotel camera, it had seemed prudent to simultaneously follow the odd progress of those ravens on the other screens while accessing the camera footage from around the hotel in order to track Violet. Then the malfunction of Mrs. Jones’s cameras at Queenshill had interrupted this process, but after the keeper had reported the fogged lenses to Nigel and he had directed his efforts to the housematron’s room earlier than expected, the new custode had gone back to what had by then become previously recorded footage of those ravens.
And it had only been a matter of following the cloud of them until the birds descended on the borough of Southwark, below the Thames River.
Although the custode hadn’t seen precisely where the ravens had gone or even witnessed Violet’s death on camera, there had been a brilliant discovery all the same.
A fogged lens near the Cross Bones Graveyard.
Filing the location away for a time after Nigel would return, the new custode had decided that Southwark would be the first place to visit on the next patrol. The location wasn’t near the main Underground, so the fogged lens didn’t equate to an alarming security threat, yet a malfunction such as this had to be just as significant as the ones o
n Billiter and Queenshill.
By the time the custode had decided this, Claudia, who had rarely ever contacted the keepers before recent events, had called off the search for Violet, informing the caretakers of the young vampire’s fate and Della’s part in it.
Well then, the new custode had thought. Rest in peace to that little twat Violet, but the schoolgirl’s passing had thankfully allowed the caretakers to concentrate on that fogged camera in Mrs. Jones’s room all the more.
By using a handheld unit that had been programmed to sort out scents, much like the vampires themselves could, Nigel had registered confusing smells in the area, including a lingering whiff of jasmine. Certainly, the aromas could have been the result of random human schoolgirl visitors to Mrs. Jones’s room before Claudia had locked it tight last night.
Yet Nigel had also plucked a long, wavy hair from the floor.
Subsequent processing had identified it as synthetic, a hair from a wig, and the custodes had wondered why it might be in the room.
Was it a remnant from Halloween in the girls’ quarters?
A stray, floating piece of hair from a doll collection that one of the girls displayed in her room?
Nigel hadn’t the opportunity to find out.
After he’d checked Claudia’s personal wardrobe entrance to the sub-Underground-no obvious signs of forced entry there—the vampire herself had summoned him to escort her and her girls to the main Underground.
He’d never made it past the entrance, to the tunnel or the sub-Underground.
Since it wasn’t often that the vampires interacted with the custodes or even made requests, an escort had become first priority. Hence, in an effort to see that the creatures safely arrived at an earthbound entrance on the heath, Nigel had rushed there to guard it; concurrently, from the monitor room, the new custode had provided a type of escort, as well, by slowing the feeds to belatedly track the vampires’ progress as far as the cameras would allow.
After watching to see that the creatures were inside, Nigel had gone Underground also, but he’d taken a different tunnel, heading toward the custode section to program the alert system, which would track any more fogged camera malfunctions so they would be aware the exact moment another one happened.
Ideally, he’d explained to his partner, the clouded lenses would lead them to the troublemaking group who had appeared on campus last night.
The new custode had only smiled, saving the news of Southwark in the hopes of a personal patrol tonight.
In general, the keepers rarely handled agitators outside of the Underground—their main focus was set on the possibility of the appearance of any fabled blood brothers who had begun to attack others’ communities over the last century. Supposedly, these brothers worked to forcibly take over or, perhaps, even peacefully join forces with the existing Undergrounds.
But this Underground wasn’t open to any joinings.
Never.
That was the main reason the custodes had then gone into their database to pull up the last-known profiles of all the blood brothers before the vampire masters had gone underground. The intention had been to match them to the attackers from last night.
However, since the brothers had isolated themselves and lost touch with one another after the dragon had commanded them all to form secret communities, their profiles were hardly updated, and the project had yielded nothing.
But the new custode was thinking that it might not be such a terrible scenario if the attackers had been in the housematron’s room. Should they be interested in Claudia, it might bode ill for the vampire. Besides, there was little danger of the attackers stumbling upon Highgate from Queenshill.
And the scenario could work for the custode’s plan to oust old Claudia, too....
The caretakers finished in the training room and exited, the door whishing shut behind them as Nigel swiped a towel over his face, which bore all the aristocratic angles and identifying quirks of the Meratoliage family: the wide lime green eyes with a burst of thick lashes, the slim nose upturned at the end in such a way as to portray a modicum of dignity, the lush lower lip balancing a slight overbite, the pointed chin.
“It seems you’ve come in to the family destiny just as matters have become far more exciting,” Nigel said.
Had he construed the new custode’s verve in training to be “excitement” ?
“Charles dying is not ‘exciting.’ ”
“Oh, sod off with the judgment, would you?” His tone had a defensive bite now. “Our family was built for this job over a century ago, and upon activation, every one of us becomes aware of the danger. Charles accepted it, too.”
It was true that, long ago, the dragon, along with his allied practitioners of the black arts, had crossbred the Meratoliage ancestors, using the best soldiers and the most wily women available. They had experimented on them until they were all but mutants, and the family had bred accordingly thereafter.
At times, their efforts were blocked by what seemed to be weak hearts in many offspring, and this presented its challenges in populating their kind. But, otherwise, they were perfect for the calling: agile, servile, useful, and loyal minions to this Underground.
Yet the new custode wondered if anyone had questioned whether the family was more than that—if they could be just as valuable as a master himself.
Lethal thinking. Yet it was a query worth some thought.
Jaw tight, Nigel accessed the door to their quarters. “Why do I get the feeling,” he said, “that your arrogance is going to be a troubling sideshow?”
Arrogance? The new custode thought of the implanted vision/ tales in Della, the plan to expunge Claudia.
“Arrogance” might not be quite the word. Perhaps “foresight” would be more appropriate.
They went through the door, closing it behind them, and Nigel headed for the washroom. But he seemed to have a bit more to impart, as he halted in his tracks, lifted a finger to the new custode, and pointed it.
“When Charles died,” he said, “I took his passing on my shoulders. I could have done more, I thought. I could have prevented it, perhaps, though I cannot really say how. Yet I do know this.”
He took a step toward his sibling, and the new custode didn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting.
“Charles was meant to last a long time in this calling. Long enough so that more acceptable family members would be of age to replace him when required. Yet he died much too young, and your presence here is nothing but an aberration. You were activated only because there was no one else in our generation to draw upon.” He lowered his finger. “So any arrogance you’re carrying is unfounded. Recall that in your more self-satisfied moments.”
On the whipping tail of his pronouncement, Nigel turned back around and shut himself in the washroom while the newest custode tried not to take this evidence of Nigel’s resentment personally.
He’s going to see, the caretaker thought, wondering perhaps if this private plan to stamp out Claudia was about more than strengthening the Underground.
If it was more about proof of self-worth.
They’re all going to see.
Chin up, the custode went to the icebox on the other side of the cavelike room with its soldier-simple beds and wiry furniture.
No matter what this personal plan was about, it was going to uphold the vow the Meratoliages had made ages ago.
The caretaker only hoped that Della, who was pivotal to making a change Underground, would soon recall all of the implanted tales, that the cleanup could soon begin....
ONCE over four hundred years ago, long before the vampire found himself bloodied and beaten in that cottage in the woods, he took a mistress whom he brought with him to a land not so distant from Wallachia.
A land where a castle lounged on a hill under a veil of night.
In this castle was a countess, and she had invited the vampire and his mistress, who had already disguised themselves as humans, to be her guests. The countess had a shrewd sense of darkn
ess and collected as company those who shared her adoration of the black arts.
Incredibly, the vampires were the tamest of these guests—sorcerers and witches, lovers of pain and torture—yet for a while they found a home among them.
On this night, the vampire’s mistress had decided to indulge in a bath. A special type of bath particular to this vampiress, a bath that was infrequently—but most definitely—required to restore the beauty one inevitably lost after the first blush of youth.
A bath that would do more than merely feed the body, as more regular blood meals did.
Falling against the high back of the tub, the mistress reveled under the stream of blood pouring from the human girl whose throat the vampiress had just torn asunder. The prey dangled upside down from a beam, eyes sightless, and the creature drank of her.
But not only via the mouth.
Skin—such aging skin—also opened its pores to gulp and savor and replenish.
The mistress was so enthralled with the blood that the sound of a door opening barely registered. Even so, all pores sucked closed, and the vampiress sat straight in the tub.
Around a sheer curtain, the countess herself, with her breathtaking dark hair and pale skin, appeared. She held up a hand as she smiled, her eyes as wide as a child who had discovered an unexpected gift.
“One of my maids saw you bring the girl to your rooms,” she said. “I only wished to watch whatever you had in mind for her, as I have done with our amusements on other nights.”
“And I welcome you to it,” the mistress answered, knowing of the countess’s unfathomable curiosity and hunger for new entertainments. She would not think this bath odd.
Not unless she had seen the skin mouths.
The countess’s gaze lingered on her guest’s breasts, where, under the glow of blood, skin was already softening, smoothing.
“What manner of art is this?” the countess asked, reaching out to touch a breast, to cup it and explore the rounded, slick texture.
The mistress shivered at the contact.
Meanwhile, blood continued to trickle from the girl above them.
The Path of Razors Page 12
