Donna twisted to look at her, outwardly furious. And afraid. “Mia,” she tried.
Mia shook her head and forced a tiny smile. “I can handle it.”
Donna held her gaze a long moment, but finally nodded.
“I think I left Brando’s door open.”
“I’ll check,” Donna said, and grabbed Mia’s hand, giving it a brief, crushing squeeze before she headed down the barn aisle.
Inwardly quaking, Mia folded her arms, fixed the two strangers with her best unimpressed look, and said, “Follow me.”
The back of her neck prickled with awareness as she led them there. Without turning her head, she scanned the stalls and washracks they passed for any sign of Val, but he was gone. If astral projection sapped his energy, she had no idea how draining showing her his past had been. She had the sense that she’d only seen a part of what he wanted her to, that they were only getting started, and that, for some reason, his consciousness had been snatched away from her. With every step, her panic mounted. Where was he? Was he alright? Was he being punished?
But she had to keep her wits; had to stay calm if she wanted to help Val.
She still had her phone in her hand, and she opened up her video camera as discreetly as possible before she shoved it back in her pocket. Whatever they were about to say to her, she wanted it recorded.
By the time she reached the office and ushered Treadwell and Ramirez inside, she’d begun to formulate a plan, resolve settling like lead in her belly.
She heeled the door shut, and then leaned back against it, arms folded.
Ramirez went to peer out the window, gapping the blinds with her fingers, and then settled in a loose stance, one hand propped on her hip.
Treadwell, by contrast, perched on the edge of the leather sofa. Trying to look nonthreatening, Mia decided, like she was a horse liable to spook.
He started to speak, and Mia ran right over him.
“You think I’m fraternizing with a dangerous prisoner? Tell me about this person, then. Who is it?”
The question hit him like a slap. His mouth opened and his expression went comically blank.
Ramirez picked up the slack. “Don’t get cute. You know exactly who we’re talking about.”
Mia stared at her a moment. The other woman was medium height, lean, her fitted dark clothes showing off compact muscles and a fighter’s grace. With her dark hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, and her brows tucked low over her eyes, she looked a bit like one of the female henchmen in an action movie. But sharp. And very much real. And staring Mia down.
Mia took a breath. “You’re trying to get me to admit to something, right? I think it’s only fair you tell me what.”
He frowned at her, considering. “Alright.”
“What?” Ramirez hissed.
Treadwell ignored her. “You know exactly what – who – I’m talking about, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t be this defiant. If I walked up to any random civilian and accused them of fraternizing with the enemy, they’d be outraged and frightened. You just look angry. So you’re either” – he started listing things off on his fingers – “guilty, trying to throw us off the scent, or he’s filled your head with so much bullshit that you actually feel protective of him. Which I understand is his MO.”
Mia took a deep breath, and tried to think. There was a way to handle this if she insisted on denial.
And there was a way to handle this if she wanted to help Val.
An outsider might have blamed it on her terminal diagnosis, but that wasn’t why she chose Val. No, it went deeper and simpler than that: because she loved him, and she wasn’t sure anyone else did at the moment.
She exhaled, steady now. “I wasn’t sure I believed it – I guess I didn’t want to. Because how, in this day and age, does something like that go on, unnoticed, allowed by whatever higher authority is supposed to prevent that sort of thing.”
Ramirez’s scowl shifted a fraction, became uncertain.
Treadwell’s brows jumped.
“What sort of people keep a man locked up for over five-hundred years?”
Treadwell clenched his jaw, muscle jumping in his cheek, and winced, like the movement pained him. “The kind of people who know exactly what a monster he is.”
Her chest ached. But she kept her voice calm. “You’re admitting it, then: that you’re keeping him prisoner.”
“The Institute is,” Ramirez said. “We just follow orders.”
“The prisoner you’ve been talking to–” Treadwell started.
“He has a name. And a title.”
“Not anymore he doesn’t. Valerian is a violent, dangerous, manipulative liar. Whatever he’s been showing you, that’s not the real him.”
She thought of the golden-haired boy who loved his brothers. Who picked rosemary sprigs for his mother. Who needed his brother’s help to hold a bow steady, but who could race a horse bareback across uneven terrain at age six. She thought of his pain, and confusion, and fear at Gallipoli. Of the way he’d cried out for his father, and wished for his mother, the day the sultan took him.
She was so unspeakably angry she didn’t trust her voice. Pushed the words out through her teeth. “My father wants me to come to Virginia so bad? Fine. When do we leave?”
14
KNIFE FOR KNIFE
The Ingraham Institute
Virginia
There was a stark difference, Vlad had come to realize in the past few months, between knowing that you were immortal, and understanding that you were.
He’d been born a vampire, and he’d been brought up to know exactly what that meant. Had sipped blood first from his mother’s wrist, and then from a golden cup – rich wolf blood that filled him with strength and stamina – and then from humans. Some willing, some not. No matter.
He wielded a sword with the strength of ten mortals. Could survive grievous wounds. Had survived them, the worst of which was the last, the one dealt him by his brother.
He’d known that vampires could come back from almost anything. If the heart was intact, still beating, however faintly, a vampire could go to sleep in a close, dark place and take all the time they needed to heal. When they were whole, a wolf could wake them. Sometimes hours passed, sometimes days. Sometimes years. Sometimes centuries. Father had done that. And clearly, so had Romulus.
So he knew what immortality meant.
But not with this kind of firsthand certainty until he was sitting upright on a slab of metal, blinking against bright lights, assaulted by a tangle of unfamiliar smells and a rapid back-and-forth in a language he didn’t fully understand.
English, some part of his still-sluggish brain had supplied. The language of Britain.
Learning the language, as it turned out, had been the least difficult adjustment in this new century.
He’d been surrounded by a terrible abundance. There had been plenty of blood, human and wolf, offered to him in tall cups, and plenty of rich, belly-filling food. Plenty of water, and wine, and fruit juices, and something the humans called Gatorade.
Plenty of clothes, though they were thin, and tight, contouring to the shape of his body in a way that would have scandalized the people of his own time.
Plenty of incomprehensible devices that mortals used to communicate, and tabulate data, and treat one another medically. A nervous, sputtering young man in a long white coat and spectacles had attempted to show Vlad how to use a little glowing rectangle that he called an iPhone, squeaking in surprise when Vlad plucked it from his hand. He could use it, but he didn’t like it.
He didn’t like anything about this time.
Except having the chance to spar.
“You’re slow,” he said, stepping back and lowering his sword a fraction when it became apparent that the Baron Strange would collapse if Vlad carried through with his next strike. “Out of practice, or out of shape?”
“Both,” le Strange panted, letting his sword arm drop and reaching with the other to wipe the sweat from
his forehead. He’d tied his long hair back – scratch that, his wife had doubtless braided it for him – but the fight had loosened it, and long strands clung to his sweaty neck. He plucked at them with a grimace. His white sleeveless shirt was translucent, clinging to him. He looked ready to fall over, his arms shaking.
Pathetic, Vlad thought.
Fulk le Strange was a wolf with a reputation, one that Vlad had heard murmurings of as a boy. When Fenrir would sit them down by the fire and tell tall tales of other immortals. Heartless, unflinching, vicious – le Strange was a legend among wolf kind. As old as he was, as strong as he was, he should have been backing Vlad across the packed sawdust of the training ring, giving as good as he got.
When the wolf leant forward and braced his free hand on one knee, gulping air, Vlad turned away, sneering, disgust sour on the back of his tongue. He went to the wall and the table there, where cloths, whetstones, his scabbard, and an assortment of other blades waited.
“I expected better from you,” Vlad said over his shoulder, reaching for his whetstone. “Either the stories I heard of you as a boy were never true, or you’ve gone soft.”
His fingers had just closed over the stone when something else caught his eye, the gleam of unremarkable steel. He dropped the stone, laid his sword out on a towel, and instead picked up the knife he’d knocked out of the Russian vampire’s hands weeks ago.
It was one of a matched pair, both of them laid out beside one another. Black handles; sharp, straight, functional blades perfect for stabbing. Combat knives, Fulk had explained to him before. They dated back to the nineteen-forties, apparently. Soviet made – whatever that meant.
“Well,” le Strange said behind him, getting some of his breath back. He sounded wry. “When one loses a bloodthirsty master, one tends to become less bloodthirsty by default.”
“It’s your wife that’s the problem,” Vlad said, mostly to himself. He didn’t really care, fixated on the knife in his hands as he turned around and leaned back to brace his hip against the table. “She’s your softness.” He lifted his gaze in time to see that le Strange had bared his teeth, tendons standing out in his neck as he strained with sudden, barely-checked aggression. He smoothed his face over when Vlad’s eyes touched him, though. “The Russian,” Vlad said, showing him the knife. “What do you know about him?”
Fulk shook his head. He went to lay his own sword down, and picked up a bottle of water. When he’d drained half of it in one gulp, he said, breathless, “I know what you know. I read the files, same as you. Former Captain of the Soviet secret police put in charge of a top-secret military weapon. Turned by Rasputin’s blood.” He shrugged and turned the cap of the water bottle over in his hand a few times. “I know he was willing to die on your sword to save his wolf.”
At this he looked up, a guarded glance through his lashes, weighing.
Vlad snorted, dismissive. “That wasn’t his wolf. He wasn’t bound.”
Le Strange smiled, small and unhappy. “Even worse, then. The wolf is his softness.”
Vlad extended a single finger and rested the knife on it. Perfectly balanced. “He comes from an age of gunpowder, and not of blades?”
Le Strange sighed. “Yes.”
“I could tell he was inexperienced. Still. He fought well, considering.”
“Yes, and I’m sure he’d hold such a compliment dear. Coming from you, especially.”
Vlad flicked his fingers toward the wolf. Let him snark and snap if he wanted to. “I’m thinking of his potential as a soldier. I can fight this war alone, but the odds would be better if I didn’t have to.”
A soft sound as the wolf set the bottle down. He lifted his head, gaze direct now. “If you need generals, maybe you should start by freeing your brother and asking him.” His look was openly challenging.
Vlad shrugged and pushed off from the table, curling his hand around the hilt of the knife. “Maybe I will.”
Le Strange made a soft, shocked sound as Vlad turned his back on him.
“Wipe my sword down and put it away, wolf.”
“I’m not your Familiar,” he shot back.
“No,” Vlad agreed as he slipped through the door. “Not yet.”
~*~
“Your grace!” a familiar, obnoxious voice called out as Vlad crossed the main floor of the basement, headed for the staircase. Le Strange had informed him that there was no such thing as royalty here in America, but that hadn’t stopped Dr. Talbot from calling him by his honorific.
He paused and turned a flat look on the man. “What?”
Dr. Talbot quailed a little, but that was normal. “Your grace,” he repeated, visibly drawing himself up to his full, unimpressive height. “I’ve had word from the mage. He’s coming to–”
“What mage?”
“The – the one I’ve told you about. The father of the girl we had here, for a time.” He frowned, no doubt remembering the failure to retain the little redheaded witch. “The Necromancer, they call him.”
“They?”
“Other immortals. Some of them.”
“Hmm,” Vlad hummed, but felt a small inward twinge of unease. He’d heard of the Necromancer, same as he had the Baron Strange. At one time, they’d been the left and right hands of the same vampire.
Their hatred for one another was legendary.
“Why would he come here?” Vlad asked.
“He’s been traveling. But when I told him about losing the girl…” He twisted his hands together a moment, distraught. He took a breath and regathered his composure. “Anyway, it’s just as well. Your punishment” – his gaze flicked up, carefully constructed behind the lenses of his spectacles – “seems to have damaged the tracking spell the Necromancer placed on your brother. Even if he were to dream-walk again, we’d no longer be able to tell where he goes, and who he visits. While he’s here, he can cast it again. Perhaps next time,” he said, delicately, “it would be prudent to not use quite so much electricity.”
“Yes,” Vlad agreed. “When will he arrive? This Necromancer?”
“In a few days’ time.”
Vlad nodded. “Fine.” He turned and resumed course for the stairs. A few days would give him enough time to figure out what to do with a man purportedly able to raise the dead.
~*~
Pain can only be tolerated for a finite spell. Eventually, the body and the mind part ways; the brain’s way of sparing the physical form the sensation. Mortal or immortal, the only difference was a matter of duration. Just because vampires could survive terrible injury, mortals tended to think they didn’t feel pain the same way.
But they did.
Being a vampire, Vlad knew this. And he’d attached the cuffs, and collar, and electrical leads anyway.
It could have been hours, or days. For a stretch, Val’s world was pain, and only pain. The incandescent, blinding pain of electrocution.
At some point, it stopped, because all things stopped eventually.
When he woke next, he was a charred, trembling wreck in the corner of his cell, too weak to even push the hair from his eyes or check the nature of the wound where Vlad’s sword had bit through muscle and bone.
Instead, he tilted his head back against the stone wall, shut his eyes, and put every ounce of pathetic strength into dream-walking. He went to see Mia, so that he could explain. It might be the last chance he had to see her, and he had to make her see that he was real, that he could be honest, no matter what anyone thought. And, selfishly, he wanted someone to know the real story.
And he wanted to see her face again.
But he wasn’t strong enough. He showed her his abduction, that horrible moment in Gallipoli when his life went sideways, and then the blackness swallowed him. Exhaustion, pure and simple.
The next time he woke it was to the sound of a disapproving voice saying, “Sir, I’m sorry, but you don’t have clearance to–” The speaker cut off with an oomph. Val, even behind crusty, closed eyelids, swimming in drowsiness, recognized t
he sound of someone’s back hitting the wall.
And then: “Let me through.” Vlad. Low and commanding.
Vlad. No, no, no, no. Val curled in on himself; a whimper got caught in the back of his throat, too tired to even voice it properly. He was so tired, and he hurt so much, and no, no, no, no.
Flight instincts kicked in as he heard the key turn in the lock. Of course the guards were letting Vlad through; he didn’t have the power to compel; there were no mind tricks. It was simply his presence. His implacable stare, the reputation that still, alarmingly, dogged his heels in the twenty-first century.
Get up, get up, he thought, desperate, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. He managed to crack his eyes open a slit, just in time to get a blurry glimpse of Vlad’s boots as he came to stand over him. He opened his mouth to croak out some pitiful insult, but his throat was too dry, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Vlad’s clothes rustled softly as he crouched down. And then…
Then.
A touch on his head. The gentle weight and warmth of a palm; he could feel it even through his tangled hair. And he squeezed his eyes shut, ashamed, because even after all that had happened, he could scent his brother, recognize his touch, and his muscles unclenched. Family. Safety. But it had never been safe, and Vlad didn’t want them to be family.
Vlad’s hand withdrew, and here it came: more pain. Val braced himself as much as he could, muscles feebly tightening in anticipation.
But there was no pain. Only Vlad’s hands, turning him over onto his back, and then his strong arms sliding under Val’s knees and behind his shoulders, and he was being lifted. His soreness spiked when he was moved, and he hissed, awash with pain – but it wasn’t intentional, was it? It was…it was…
Tears pushed at his eyelids, and he kept them shut tight as Vlad walked out of the cell, carrying him, Val’s head tucked into his chest. He smelled like modern human laundry, and sweat, and steel…and like his brother. Like Wallachia. Like home.
Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3) Page 14
