“Sabrina’s dog…talks?”
“Sabrina doesn’t have a dog.”
“Hey, I ain’t nobody’s pooch,” Joe said, his paw pointed at Cade and then Nicodemus.
“Sliz’?”
“Yes, it’s a slime.”
“Get back!” Nicodemus pushed Cade behind him. “Go, Sliz’! Go away from here!”
“Nico, it’s fine. He’s with me.”
Cade watched a perplexed look form on his childe’s face. He knew Nicodemus would understand once Cade had the time to explain, but first he needed to deal with the others.
“Please, listen. We need to gather everyone up and go to ground. All of us. We all need to sleep,” he said.
“All or more will awake.”
“Exactly, and the last thing we need is for the Bloke to wake up,” Cade said. “You know once he wakes, Dunyasha will not be far behind.”
“Hey, are you gonna tell him about Pollution? You think the big lug would even understand?” Joe asked from behind them. “I mean look at this guy. He’s a walking mountain.”
“Quiet, Joe,” Cade said over his shoulder. “Sit.”
“What? Hey, fuck you, buddy.”
Joe’s outburst only made Cade smirk. “Stay.”
To his surprise, the slime did stay, but first he actually transformed himself into the shape a rough-edged rock. Cade was glad he did. He had enough moving parts as it was.
What am I thinking? Why should I worry about him? Why should I care? I don’t. No, it’s Sabrina I care about, and if what the slime said and showed me is true, then she’s in real danger. I need to warn her, but if I’m wrong, if the slime’s tricking me and the wraiths have been sent to kill me, they’ll kill her too. Sleep. My only answer is to sleep. Wraiths can’t find slumbering vampires, and even if they could, they would never risk waking a whole clan to find just one…I hope.
“Gerd! Georg!” Cade called out to the twins who were still feeding.
Cade knew all vampires emaciated during a long slumber, but these German brothers were always skinny. Skin and bones, he thought as he gazed at them, just like the day they died. The day Nicodemus and I killed them.
“Cade.” Gerd stared at him intensely. “Look, Brother, the lost sheep has returned.”
Blood spilled from Georg’s chin as he looked up. “Ah yes, the sheep and shepherd, together again. Where did you run off to this time, American?”
“Why should we care, Brother? We should be thanking him, ja?” Gerd said. “He is the reason we are awake.”
“Ah yes, awake and eating again.”
“You both know where I was,” Cade grumbled. “You know why I awoke.”
“A dreamer, this one.”
“Ja, dreamer. Always dreaming.”
“You can go back to sleep now. We’ll stay awake. Our turn for fun, right, Brother?”
“Maybe we go find us a lovely blonde to bite.”
Cade lunged, intent on ripping Georg’s head off, but he was stopped by Nicodemus.
“Let go of me, Nico!” he shouted.
“Yeah, let him go.” Gerd stood.
Georg opened his arms, as if to welcome Cade. “Let him come.”
“I’ll kill you both…kill you both again. If you even think of Sabrina, I’ll know, and I swear, I’ll kill you both.”
“Always the, what is it you Americans say? Ah, always the bellyacher.”
“Ja, bellyacher.”
“Come, Brother, let us see if any other Americans are out there like little lost babes in the night.”
Nicodemus did not release Cade until Gerd and Georg were long gone. In a way, Cade was glad Nicodemus held him back. Although he knew Dunyasha favored him over the twins, being gone as long as he had been, he may have incurred her wrath had he hurt them.
“Next time,” Nico said as he faced the direction the twins wandered off.
Cade nodded.
“German swine…” Nicodemus sighed under his breath.
“Remind me to ask Dunyasha why she turned them again.”
Nicodemus spit and then nodded.
“Well, I guess we best move these bodies and cover the blood. Last thing we need is a crime scene on top of where we’re all sleeping.” Cade stared off into the distance. “Those sloppy bastards. It’s like they left a damn pirate’s map behind with a bright red X that marks were the hidden treasure is buried.”
The bodies belonged to a middle-aged man and woman. The twins had covered the pair in bite marks and bled them nearly dry. The weeping wounds made Cade hungry, and he could only imagine how badly it stirred Nicodemus’s stomach.
While he eyed the woman up and down, Cade noticed something fall from the man’s body as Nicodemus lifted it.
“Hello, Cade.”
The voice at his back startled him, but he knew who it was.
“So light on your feet,” he said as he turned. “I never hear you coming, Natalia.”
“I did,” Nicodemus said from the distance.
When Cade laid eyes on Natalia, he remembered another reason why he was glad to be back. Natalia was stunning, and in her classic Black Swan ballerina dress, with her golden blonde hair perfectly framing her face, she was a true sight.
“You better take that body a good mile or so out before you bury it, Nico.”
“Da,” he shouted back. “Plenty of time for you to take that body.”
“Ignore him.” Cade smiled and showed his teeth. “He’s just grumpy.”
“The twins again?” Natalia asked as she padded closer.
“The twins again.”
She leaned in and planted a brief peck on his lips. She smelled like lavender oil—no, that’s the black feathers in her hair. Cade loved that smell; it made him think of the many good times he and Natalia had shared after her performances long ago. Filled with nostalgia, he ran his hand down the boning in her corseted costume.
“I almost forgot how beautiful you looked in this dress, Natalia.”
“It is my favorite.” She took a step back and twirled around twice. “But you knew that.”
“I would’ve sworn you went to ground in the white one.”
“I did.” Natalia smiled. “When I woke up I changed.”
“Dunyasha always preferred you in the black.”
“And I follow her commands.” Natalia gripped the collar of Cade’s leather jacket and smiled. “Unlike some people.”
“I know she wants us all to slumber in the clothes we were saved in. I told you before; my uniform was damaged and my boots were stolen before she even found me. I was—”
“Mmm,” Natalia said as she tiptoed around him. “Dance with me, Cade.”
Cade checked if they were alone. When he passed over the spot he thought he’d seen something fall, he looked around vaguely. What was that? A wallet, maybe?
“Cade?”
“Not right now,” Cade answered, yet he found his eyes drifting down her body to the ruffles of her skirt. “Anyway, you remember what happened last time we danced.”
Natalia slid her hands down her chest and stomach to her hips, and left them where Cade’s eyes had settled. “Then let us skip the dancing and move right ahead to the fucking.”
Her words caught his full attention. Natalia was a good lover, and any invitation to join with her boundless energy was always welcomed. “I’d love to, but first—”
“First what?” Natalia scrunched her pointy nose. “Has all this time away playing with fairy princesses spoiled you?”
“No.”
“Have you lost your taste for women of substance and skill?”
“No.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Natalia unhooked the clasps of her dress as she spoke. “What needs to come first, Cade? Me or another one of your silly missions?”
Cade flashed his most charming grin. “You never cease to amaze me, Natalia. Listen to you. You sound more American than I do now.”
“More American than you?”
“Of the
whole family, you sound the least like yourself. I remember when you had as much trouble speaking English as Nicodemus and Petar.”
“Well, darling, you know I embraced nineties television.” She crossed her arms. “Friends, Seinfeld, Days of our Lives, General Hospital; even Baywatch.”
“Baywatch.” Cade chuckled. “I remember when you asked Dunyasha if you could turn that guy. I couldn’t believe she agreed.”
“Ah, yes. 1995.” Natalia waved her hand in the air with a flourish. “Someone had beat me to it anyway. Cursed him to that dreadful spin off, Baywatch Nights.”
“Pity he was destroyed in 2017.”
“A victim of his own rebellious youth. He should’ve stayed in torpor with his clan. Now look at him—gone. Gone too soon, but not before he taught me the run. I’ve perfected it, you know.” She looked down to her feet. “All this sand. Once I’m out of this dress, Cade, I’ll show you a perfectly executed Baywatch run.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Good, I thought you were going soft on me,” Natalia said as she pressed a hand against his bulge. “You know how the women of this clan all need you to be strong and—”
“Natalia,” Cade interrupted, finally seeing something in the sand. “Before we…what is that?”
“What’s what?”
“That thing there.” He pointed again.
“It’s nonsense, dear heart.” Natalia stepped in front of him and grasped his shoulders. “Look at me. I’m going to store my dress, can’t risk you damaging it.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be waiting for you inside.”
“Fine.”
Natalia shrugged as she moved away. Cade didn’t mean to be rude, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the object that had fallen. Bending down, he searched it out. He fully expected to find a wallet or flask—what he discovered was much worse.
“GoPro live…” He read the words out loud; his stomach flopped. It may have looked like a headlamp, but he was sure it was much more. “Natalia, I think this is one of those sports cameras. The kind worn on an athletes’ head.”
“Whatever.”
Cade picked it from the sand carefully. Its lens was directed up at the dark sky. When he touched it a little red light at the top slowly faded to black; it was on.
“Oh hell… This thing was on!” Cade shouted. “GoPro Live… what does that means?”
Natalia did not respond.
“Joe!” He called out as he backtracked to where the slime had turned himself into a jagged rock. “Where are you. Joe?” But no familiar stone remained. “Joe? I need your help.”
“You need my help now do ya, boy-o?”
The slime’s voice sounded like it was all around him. Cade turned in a circle, looking for him. “Where are you?”
“I’m here.” The voice came from the side.
“Where?”
“Here.” The voice came from below.
“Joe, damn it. There’s no time for jokes. This camera… What does GoPro Live mean?”
“It says that? It says GoPro Live on it?”
Cade nodded. “Yes.”
“And it was on?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re royally fucked there, pally,” Joe said. “That’s what it means.”
Cade felt the world crumble in on him. For the first time in a long while, he was truly scared, gripped by the same fear he’d felt when he’d died on the battlefield. I don’t want to die. Not…again.
“I have to wake them, Joe. I have to wake them all.”
* * *
2 Childe - In vampire lore, the Sire creates a childe.
3 Russian - We burn them to ash.
The Whole Clan
Cade had awoken everyone except the Bloke and Dunyasha. He didn’t want to disturb them; he really didn’t want to face any further repercussions for his absence. Regardless, Cade was comfortable in his current decision—until he was absolutely sure there was a problem, he wasn’t going to create one.
With the exception of the Bloke, all of his sire’s children were present. Seated silently atop a pile of rocks was the old man, Petar Bojović, a Russian field marshal who’d survived the Balkan Wars. He was in his retirement years when partisans from his city came to kill him. They had beaten him nearly to death, but Dunyasha saved him. She hadn’t told Cade exactly why, but Dunyasha had often kept a close watch on Belgrade, and she was there when the assault on Petar had happened.
Petar often recounted the story of how she had turned him only moments before he would have died, and how she later switched his body with another when it was to be transported to cemetery. Cade and Nico had always assumed Petar was a distant relative of hers; they knew full well that Dunyasha was born during the age of the Rurik Dynasty. As Cade looked at Petar, he could almost see the resemblance.
He could be her great-great-great-great…great… Cade paused to think. Great-grandson…
Cade looked at Natalia next. She had changed into her white gown. But that was not what caught his attention; it was the annoyed look on her face he could not evade. She was mad at him now; he had not come to her as she’d asked. He knew the fire of her desires well, and if he did not join in with them, he would be burned by them.
Long before Natalia was turned, in the early 1900s, Dunyasha had sired a pair of Imperial Russian dancers: Lydia and Alexander. When they were killed, she sought out new dancers, and told many tales of the long nights spent in the ballet, fully ensnared in misery. It was her melancholy that had prevented her from fully replacing her precious dancers. Instead of a pair, Dunyasha only turned one—her eternal Black Swan. Natalia would exist as a constant reminder of loss; a burden she was cursed to spend her afterlife having to shoulder.
Gerd and Georg, the twins, whispered back and forth. This is their fault, Cade thought. But he also knew if he was to voice it, they would turn the blame on him. Those beanpole German bastards. Cade hated seeing them in their uniforms; it filled him with thoughts of World War II, bad memories—ugly memories. Cade focused on a bloodstained tear where a button should have held Gerd’s jacket over his stomach. He clearly remembered the moment he’d buried his trench knife so deep in the wretched man’s stomach that his hand had gone wet with gore. Perhaps not all bad memories.
Leanne smiled back at Cade when he made eye contact with her. Leanne… Cade thought her name over and over as he gazed at her pale blue ball gown.
Always the Southern belle, you are. Sweet and simple, Leanne. You have my sympathy. I know you were turned for me; Dunyasha thought I’d want a companion from my birth time. She’d seen the effects on her other children—lost in time, missing their families. You were an experiment, Leanne. Do you know this? When you look at me, what do you see? What do you really see? Has anyone ever told you the truth?
Dunyasha told me to pick a woman of value to the clan; I chose you because you were a nurse—the most kind and caring nurse I’d ever known. Rubbing his shoulder, Cade thought of the many times she had patched him up. He couldn’t look at her without feeling regret. The notion had never been lost on him; she had saved his life once and as payment, he took hers, albeit indirectly.
Leanne, the way you bashfully set your eyes upon me—Dunyasha was only half-right. You do remind me of my time and my family. But I don’t long for my time, not like I do others.
He nodded to Nicodemus as he looked past him. He was one of the two surviving children of Dunyasha’s offspring; the ones who represented the next generation. The others were gone—mostly destroyed by werewolves before Cade was born, the exception being the Bloke’s childe, who had gone missing long ago.
Cade had met the Bloke’s childe once before World War I. All he remembered of the man was his name, his dark skin, and how he’d acted crazier than his sire. It was assumed the man died during the Great War, but no one was sure, or if they were, they weren’t sharing what they knew with the others.
Finally, Cade laid eyes on Dolby. The man was t
inkering with the camera; he knew technology better than the rest of them combined. Oddly enough, his inherent skill with gadgets was not the reason he had been turned. Dunyasha had brought him into her clan for the sake of amusement only. Dolby was a musician, one who had a small taste of fame in the early eighties. Dunyasha had turned him right before the slumber was decreed. His time being a vampire was the shortest of them all. He was, by all standards, a fledgling, and he needed the most guidance and supervision.
Cade remembered his own first few months. There were plenty of times he’d forgotten just what he was, but looking at his clan now, it was easy to accept. He was a monster and this was his ungodly kin.
“Well, Cade?” Gerd prompted.
“I’m waiting on Dolby.”
“He’s waiting on Dolby, brother. Just great.”
“He looks to the scientist for help. We all know the scientist—” Gerd began with a huge smile
“Oh, bloody hell…” Dolby whined.
“Was blinded by science,” Gerd and his brother sung out together.
“Must we craft the same joke. Over and over again?” Dolby sneered. “I had other hits and other jobs.”
“Did you?”
“I did.” Dolby looked at Cade. “Tell them, Cade.”
Cade shrugged. He only knew the one song.
Dunyasha should’ve let me turn Phil Anselmo. No one would’ve noticed if he vanished after the first DOWN album.
“I do enjoy when you play the electronic piano for us, Dolby.”
“The keyboard, Leanne. How many times do I have to tell you? It’s called a keyboard. How long have you been alive? You and Cade, you both should know these things.” Dolby waved the camera at them both. “You should know technology better.”
“I have a cell phone, Dolby,” Cade said. “I know how to text and everything.”
“Wonderful.”
“So what do you think? What have we got there? Why does it say ‘live’ on the side?”
“Damned if I know,” Dolby grumbled as he pitched the camera into the sand. “Maybe had your she-mother-monster not ripped me from my life when she did, and then forced me right to bed like a child—maybe then, had I been able to keep up with the growing technology and its trends, maybe I would’ve been able to give you all the specs.”
Two Polluted Black-Heart Romances Page 9
