Blood Domination (Blood Destiny #4)

by Connie Suttle

  Journalists were hinting that the official eviction for Solar Red could be coming from the government any day, and I worried that it was all going to happen simultaneously, with disastrous results. I was cleaning the dojo while Dragon finished with his last class. "Are you going to the ritual?" One of the female students asked me as she wandered into the dressing room. I was busy straightening up and cleaning out showers.

  "Is there something of interest there?" I asked. Of course, I would be going, but it was to lop priests' heads off, starting with the ones that were turning to demon.

  "Everyone got a flyer," she said. "They're giving out gifts."

  "You're kidding?" I couldn't believe this—why did people always turn out in droves if something was being given away? "Stay away from there," I placed compulsion. She nodded blankly just as three more women came in to shower and dress.

  "Dragon, one of those women said she got a flyer of some kind, saying that Solar Red was going to hand out gifts," I said after the last of his students left and we'd locked up for the night. "If a ton of people show up, that's just fodder for those demon fuckers. And if the vampires come out, it'll make it more difficult to fight."

  "They've thought this through," Dragon rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not sure what we can do about this, though, without calling their attention to us." We walked home, both of us silent, worrying over the ritual and what might happen.

  Karzac was there waiting; he had roasted fowl for his and Dragon's dinner, and they ate while I cleaned up a little. I didn't want to go out again, honestly, but Gabron would be expecting me. My visits broke up his self-imposed confinement. I carried the news of the flyers and the people who'd likely attend the ritual as a result and he wasn't pleased with the information.

  "This will make things so much worse," Gabron paced a little. "I must warn the others and we will have to take care if we attack the priests."

  "Dragon says the ones that are demon won't bite a vampire—they don't like the taste. They'll just try to kill us instead. They move fast, Gabron. Be sure and tell the others so they'll be ready for that."

  * * *

  Xenides sat in a corner of the royal suite at a luxurious hotel in Paris. He'd chosen a Louis XIV style chair so he'd be in shadow. He watched, feeling bored as Rahim instructed his subordinates. Their target on the full moon was another hotel nearby. Xenides smiled slightly—Anthony Hancock had become a thorn in his side and if Rahim saw things the same way, so much the better. Word had it as well that Hancock and the little princess were close, so he would be killing two birds with one stone. Destroying Hancock would likely bring the little female to Paris to investigate. Xenides listened as Rahim carefully explained his objectives.

  Xenides spoke some modern Arabic, but had never bothered to learn the language completely. Rahim spoke fluent English, along with French and Italian, so they were able to communicate quite well. Rahim instructed the two suicide bombers regarding their target the following evening. His goal was to produce an explosion that would generate the greatest amount of damage. Rahim ended his spiel with the usual "Death to the infidels." The two subordinates repeated the phrase and stole away from the room, one at a time.

  Neither was dressed in anything other than western-style clothing, appearing to be tourists on a holiday. Rahim had seen to that. He was very good at what he did—Xenides was happy to have him under his thumb. "Soon our glory will be multiplied," Rahim smiled at Xenides after his second subordinate left the suite.

  "Of course it will," Xenides agreed. "Just make sure your sheep do as they're told." Compulsion was thick in Xenides' voice.

  * * *

  "Bro, you need to stick close to Paul; at least he can howl in French," Tony teased Deryn as Paul and his brother made ready to leave the hotel in order to run with a Pack outside the city.

  "Bro, you need to stick to human shit; you couldn't give a good howl if it would save your life," Deryn teased back. Tony shook his head at Deryn's words as Paul and his brother walked out the door. Deryn and Paul's dinner would most likely consist of rabbit and other small prey. Tony was on his way downstairs to treat himself to a nice, thick steak.

  * * *

  I sat on the roof of the apartment building and watched as a quarter moon rose over the horizon. Worried couldn't begin to describe how I felt and Kifirin's absence the past few days only added to that. Dragon was also tense, although he hid it well most of the time. Karzac had gone to work at the hospital, telling us that he would be available if needed. I felt we were about to go to war in two hours; the ritual would begin at that time and I could hear people on the streets below, already walking toward the temple. I'd finally gotten my hands on one of the flyers. It promised a huge sum of money, to be given away by a lottery of sorts. The flyer encouraged the population to come early so they could receive their tickets.

  Tickets. Monsters were handing out tickets. That was a terrible joke and made me wonder for perhaps the hundredth time what their real intentions were. No doubt, I'd know before the night was over. Dragon didn't want to go until the last minute, in case the Ra'Ak was there and looking for us. Probably a good idea. I had plans to mist us both there anyway, so they wouldn't see us walking past guards that would undoubtedly be posted.

  Little Queen, we are leaving our underground prison, Gabron sent. He'd informed me the evening before that the vampires would scatter and come at the temple from all directions in small groups. I hoped that things went well for us; my skin had been itching for the past two hours. I was afraid to mention it to Dragon—he and I could both go down, along with Gabron and his vampires. My knees were up to my chin and I was only waiting on Dragon now. I watched as vans containing news crews drove past on the streets below; they were one of the few independent businesses that actually possessed their own transportation. Whatever happened was going to be recorded. If it was my death, along with Dragon's and the others, I hoped somebody would let Gavin and Merrill know.

  Wlodek had allowed my participation in this—had he known how dangerous it might be? Ever since Dragon let me know that the Ra'Ak was more than likely shielded against us, we had no way of telling if or when he'd appear. My nose was no longer a help in the matter. I was flying blind just as everyone else was and it frightened me. I hate surprises. Especially lengthy, toothy, snaky ones.

  "I have a harder time than you do, scaling the sides of the building without using any power," Dragon hopped onto the roof and gracefully navigated the narrow surface to sit beside me. He was as lithe and sure as any jungle cat walking a high limb.

  "Merrill and Gavin can just float around," I said, lifting my chin off my knees. "I had no idea Gavin could do it; of course I didn't know he was vampire when I first met him either," I added.

  "You didn't know?" Dragon wore a confused expression as he blinked at me.

  "I hadn't been vampire very long; the one who turned me never intended me to live and I managed to get away before he could kill me," I said with a shrug. "I had no idea what I was doing and nobody to teach me the rules. The Council sent Gavin—he's an Assassin—to get rid of me. He sort of got sidetracked, though, and stayed to watch the werewolf I was working for. I couldn't ever figure out how he got onto roofs and over walls without making any sound. I didn't find out he was vampire until he placed compulsion and hauled me off to the Council."

  "You're susceptible to compulsion?" Dragon sounded surprised.

  "Not anymore. I haven't been since the end of my first year as a vampire. I haven't figured out why, yet, but it's the truth. The other vampires back on Earth still think compulsion works. It doesn't." I snorted a little over that fact. "And they'll most likely kill me if they find out."

  "Surely not," Dragon scoffed.

  "You don't know them," I said, leaning my chin on my knees again. "They don't know half the stuff I can do. Some of it, they're just too blind to see."

  "What else can you do that they don't know about?" Dragon was looking off in the distance, toward the temple. He
and I were only killing time, now.

  "I can tell who sired whom, as far as vampires, humans and just about any other race goes," I replied.

  "Do you know who made Merrill, then? Kiarra has wondered but she won't go Looking, she thinks it would be an invasion of privacy. She likes Merrill a lot." That statement made me laugh humorlessly.

  "That's nothing to how Merrill feels about her," I said without thinking. I slapped a hand over my mouth afterward, but it was already too late. Dragon put his head back and laughed. I mean out loud. He then placed an arm around me and squeezed.

  "I'll keep that to myself. Do you know who made him?" Dragon asked his question again.

  "Wlodek did, only he has no hold over his vampire child. Do you know what a King Vampire is?"

  "I have heard that term before. They hold the strongest compulsion and no other vampire can force them to their will. They are generally strong; stronger than most others, even from the start, and the only vampire they cannot control is a Queen."

  "Yeah," I said glumly. "Merrill is a King Vampire and even he can't place compulsion on me. The minute they learn they can't control me like they think they can, they'll get Gavin or one of the others to sharpen their claws and I'll be headless and ash in less than a blink. They sort of forced me into an engagement to Gavin and I always worry that Wlodek will just tell him to kill me while I sleep, since he wakes before I do and I fall asleep before he does. One of the drawbacks of being a young vampire."

  "You're terrified your own fiancé will kill you while he's in your bed?"

  "He was all set to kill me when he dragged me in front of the Council, although he swears he loved me then. Now tell me how that works," I huffed.

  "I can't explain that," Dragon sighed. "Have you talked to him about this?"

  "Most of the time we don't talk. He yells and I listen. And the yelling is mostly in foreign languages I don't understand. He's insanely jealous, so I don't know what to do or say about Kifirin. Kifirin keeps telling me it won't be a problem, but he's never met Gavin before. Honestly, I don't know what happened with Kifirin—normally I'm able to resist. This, though, I can't explain it."

  "The M'fiyah," Dragon said softly.

  "Karzac said that word too. What does it mean?" I looked up at Dragon, who was still staring off in the distance.

  "It means mate recognition, as nearly as I can translate it from the original Neaborian. Some of the immortal races are predisposed. That means the moment you see your intended mate, or mates, you recognize them somehow. It's nearly impossible to resist them, most of the time. What did Karzac say to you, when he used the word?"

  I would have flushed, if I could have. "He, uh, said if he could ask for that, he would consider it."

  Dragon smiled at my words. "That is a real compliment, coming from Karzac," he said. His arm was still draped around me and he hugged me closer.

  "So, no M'fiyah for you or Karzac, yet?" I asked.

  "Sadly, no. But Griffin, who sees farther and better than anyone I have ever met, says it won't be long now. So I am waiting." Dragon smiled down at me.

  "Is that what Adam Chessman had with Kiarra?"

  "Yes. And it was something to see, little vampire. She was the last person I would have believed to be caught in that net and yet she was landed and gasping like a fish when she saw him the first time."

  "So, you think that Kifirin and I?" I didn't finish my question.

  "I think so," he nodded. "I can't imagine that one such as he would have been interested otherwise, and as you say, you have fended off others in the past. The M'fiyah is the only explanation I can think of."

  I blew out a sigh. Was that it? Kifirin and I were destined to be together? That still didn't help at all with Gavin and what his feelings would be over the whole thing. Honestly, I didn't know what to do about either one of them. I wanted to go to bed with Kifirin, no doubt about that, but I was still waiting to love him, I think. And Gavin? I still cared about him, for the most part. I just needed to stop being afraid all the time. Of him, of Wlodek and the Council, of Merrill, even, to a lesser degree. I knew where that fear came from; it was from my past and I thought I'd beaten it. Becoming vampire had brought it back with a vengeance and I was struggling against it again in my second existence.

  "Let's go, little Queen," Dragon said softly, lifting me to my feet. I stood beside him, dusting off my loose pants with a hand before turning Dragon to mist with me.

  The crowd was enormous outside the temple; I estimated at least a hundred thousand or more. Karzac told me the total population of the capital city was around three million, but a hundred thousand was a huge number of people. Some of the football stadiums, and that was in the European sense of the word, might be able to hold that many. They were all milling around outside; I saw a few red robes around, passing out slips of paper. I assumed those were the tickets. I misted Dragon and myself next to the temple wall on the back side, in an empty spot where we wouldn't be seen as we materialized. Most of the crowd activity was toward the front. I smelled vampire, too, but didn't go looking for them. Their actions were out of my hands—Gabron was giving those instructions and I was content with that.

  Dragon and I made our slow way around the octagonal temple toward the front but it was difficult at times; the multitude was pushing against us as more and more people joined the crowd, anxious to find a priest and receive a ticket for the drawing. I'm thinking about using compulsion like a shotgun, and just yelling for everybody to get the hell out of our way, I told Dragon in mindspeech. He smiled slightly as we were squeezed by yet another knot of people. The noise as we went through the crowd was nearly unbearable, too. All of them were talking; I even heard a little shouting, here and there. I did my best to ignore all of it, concentrating on arriving at the four main entrances into the temple and getting there before everything was scheduled to start. What truly frightened me, however, was the number of parents I saw who'd brought their children. That almost stopped me in my tracks.

  Lissa, focus, Dragon sent. We can only do as much as we can do. My mouth was dry, even though I'd had my blood—as much as I could drink, anyway. I think I was praying silently by that time that somehow the children would be spared if their parents fell. I nodded at Dragon's mental message and we moved on. Eventually I ended up behind him; his shoulders were so much wider and he was so much taller than I was that it was easier for him to make a path for us. I was tired already, I think, just pushing our way through the throng toward the front gates. I took a few deep breaths, preparing for whatever came, when three priests slipped through the front doors. One of them had an amplifier and microphone with him.

  He's not demon; young demons do not have speech capabilities, Dragon sent to me. That was good information to have. If I'd been close enough, I could have smelled whether he was demon or not but I wasn't that close and my nose was filled with the scent of too many Refizani bodies crowding around me.

  "Good evening, citizens of Refizan," the priest with the microphone began to speak. "We will allow you into the temple in moments, but as you might imagine, we can only take so many. Do not fear; we will bring you all through eventually. Everyone will have an opportunity at the prize."

  He and the two other priests stepped back inside the doors and only a few minutes later the doors were swung inward. The priests stationed at all four wide doors began to allow the crowd to push inside. There were thug guards there, too, just to make sure none of the people got out of hand as Dragon and I were shoved forward, passing priests that had the stink of demon on them.

  I know. Dragon sent to me as we were pushed farther inside the temple.

  Gabron, I sent out the mental shout, the priests at the doors are demon.

  We are placing compulsion at the edges of the crowd, telling them to go home, he replied. I sent up a mental thanks.

  Get as many of the children out of here as you can, Gabron, I begged, before cutting off communication. The huge, heavy doors were closing behind us. We'd b
een forced into the center of the temple floor; it was bare, I noticed. They had allowed perhaps two thousand of the waiting people in on the first round and there was a semi-circle of priests at the front, before an altar. Five more men, not dressed as priests, stood behind the altar. That semi-circle of priests? All demons; I recognized some of them as the ones receiving the Ra'Ak's kiss earlier. They were completely silent and had no expressions on their faces. In fact, they were gazing at the crowd as if—as if they were hungry.

  I looked around me swiftly. Men, women and children surrounded me, all hoping to win the lottery, I suppose. It might be a lottery, but the priests were about to be the winners, I had no doubt about that. I ducked down, hoping that the attention wouldn't be on me when I turned to mist, watching in horror as more priests by the hundreds came through side doors and stood behind the ones already lined up at the altar. It made me think of cockroaches escaping the walls, there were so many. Most of these were demon; their scent overwhelmed me as they crowded the front of the temple. Obviously, the Ra'Ak had been busy; more than Dragon or I had imagined. It made me wonder just how many Solar Red priests were still humanoid.

  I'm mist, I mindspoke Dragon and rose high above the crowd in the temple. Several priests stepped forward. People were about to be eaten or turned to demon and I was at a loss as to what to do about it.

  I am safe from them, Dragon sent. I had no idea how that was possible. As the first screams of the people came as demon priests fell on them, ripping and tearing their flesh with teeth that didn't belong in any human mouth, I became desperate and did what I might not have done otherwise.

  * * *

  "I am on my way," René informed Tony via cell phone as Tony sat in the hotel restaurant, waiting for his order to be taken. René had spent the night in a safe house not far away; he preferred not to stay in hotels if he could avoid it.