by Alicia Ryan
The author of this little family tree had started with Luc’s mother and worked backward. Luc recognized the names of his seven aunts and one uncle. They were printed in block letters with rectangular boxes around them. Lines connected them to other boxes containing the names of their children. Luc’s name was there alongside those of his four brothers and four sisters. On it went until, at the bottom of the page, was written another name he knew.
“What is this, Keller?” he demanded, gesturing with his knife to the newly revealed genealogy project.
“My research,” Keller answered.
Luc gripped the knife more firmly. “My family is none of your business.”
“Quite the contrary,” Keller replied. “It is all of our business. The Verses speak of human women who can bare a vampire’s child. Until I saw you, of course, I had nothing to go on, but with enough time and access to the right records, I hope to be able to trace the Lilith gene backward from your mother and perhaps even predict who will be a carrier.”
“What Lilith gene?” Luc asked.
Keller shrugged. “That’s just what I’ve been calling it—whatever it is that allows some human women to mate with vampires. I think it must be a genetic mutation of sorts.”
Luc eyed Keller suspiciously. “Why are you trying to find breeders?” he asked. “I thought you wanted fewer vampires, not more.”
“I am a scholar, Luc,” Keller said. “I pursue truth for its own sake. Though, in this case,” his brow furrowed, “it was Memnon who asked me to trace the future generations.”
“Memnon has seen this?” Luc asked, his voice rising with alarm. He looked again at Ariana’s name on the bottom of the page. Her father, Thomas Dupree, was a descendant of one of Luc’s aunts.
“I don’t know,” Keller said.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I haven’t shown it to him, but he can see us all any time he wants to. If he concentrates, he can observe any vampire without them ever knowing.”
Luc thought about that for a moment and realized he could barely comprehend all the implications of such a power. “So he could have been spying on me for years, and I’d be none the wiser?” Luc asked.
Keller shook his head. “No, not you, actually. When I mentioned you, he was surprised. I think for some reason he can’t see you.”
“That’s a comfort,” Luc muttered.
“Maybe you are too human?” Keller offered. “He can’t see human beings either.”
CHAPTER 54
Nancy smiled for a brief moment, and then her look of alarm dropped firmly back into place.
“Nancy, what are you doing here?” Ash demanded.
“Sir, we don’t have much time. You have to stop Memnon. He’s planning something terrible. He gave me his word you weren’t to be harmed, but when you came back to New York so suddenly, and, well, just the fact that you’re here means...” Her speech ground to a halt in a mire of self-imposed anguish.
Ash didn’t know what to ask first. “Nancy, how... how do you even know Memnon?” he stammered, shock stealing his normal eloquence.
“I didn’t, sir, until recently, but he has known us for quite some time. All those years he was buried at Herculaneum, he was watching us. He knows everything we know.”
“Who exactly is ‘we’?” Ash asked, thoroughly confused.
“Anyone who has drunk the blood of Lilith,” Nancy answered.
“You mean vampires—plus you and Ben?”
Nancy shook her head. “No, sir, I don’t think the occasional drinks Ben and I take from you are enough. I don’t think he can see Ben. Only me.”
Ash’s visage grew stormy. He knew he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.
“Spit it out, Nancy,” he ordered.
“Long ago, sir, even before you, I drank the blood of the goddess Lilith. It gave me a very long life, long enough that it kept me alive until I came into your service. Getting some of your blood ever since has helped top off the tank, so to speak.”
“Nancy, there is no such thing as Lilith,” Ash intoned.
“No, sir, that’s where you’re wrong,” his maid said. “You never knew it, but you drank her blood that night, the night you were captured by the Philistines.”
Ash’s eyes grew wide, but Nancy continued on in a rush, eyes glued to the tops of her shoes.
“I know because I took it from Lilith’s dying hand and delivered it to Delilah. She put it into your wine as she promised, but something went wrong. You were captured too early and you lost too much blood. With no blood of your own, her blood, and her curse, took over.” She stopped for a breath and looked up at Ash. “Lilith’s blood saved your life, but it drove you into the dark and the hunger, places you were never meant to be.”
Ash couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Delilah had made him a vampire?
“Nancy, I don’t understand. Are you saying Lilith was a real person?” Ash asked.
“Not a person, no,” Nancy’s voice sank to a whisper, “but a flesh-bound creature, yes. I was one of her acolytes at the time Delilah came seeking help. Lilith brought you to Sorek, and part of the price was for Delilah to feed you her blood.”
“No one brought me to Sorek,” he began. “Wait, do you know what happened to her—after?”
“Lilith?” Nancy asked, her face falling. “She died.”
“Not Lilith, what about Delilah?” Ash pleaded.
“Oh,” Nancy replied flatly “Well the answer is the same. Having failed to fulfill her promise to Lilith, Delilah could not be allowed to live. She died less than a year after your capture.”
Ash’s mind was reeling, but his attention was diverted when the din from downstairs turned to howling.
CHAPTER 55
Ariana opened the door on the first knock. “You’re back sooner than I—” Her gaze met Toria’s.
“Expecting someone else?” Toria asked, her voice a dose of saccharin-coated venom. She pushed her way inside and closed the door behind her, resting her weight on it for a moment.
Ariana backed up as Toria pushed farther into the room. She suddenly wished she’d asked Ash more questions about vampires, like how to kill them. She halted her backwards progress, deciding to put on a brave front. “What are you doing here, Toria?” she demanded. “Does Ash know you’re here?”
“Does Ash know you’re here?” Toria mocked her in a high-pitched echo. Her face twisted into a cruel smirk. “No one knows I’m here.”
“What do you want?”
Toria paused as if considering. Ariana noticed her eyes were slightly glassy.
“Oh, yes,” Toria said, taking another step toward Ariana. “I remember now. I want the last thing you see to be my hands rummaging through the bloody pool of your own guts.”
Ariana took a step back, and Toria followed.
Ariana’s mind raced through every horror movie she’d ever seen. There was precious little chance of being able to set Toria on fire or chop off her head.
The vampiress laughed. “You’ve got that right.” Her voice was loud in the tiny apartment.
“Why don’t we talk about this, Toria?” Ariana offered. “I’m not after Ash. I’m married to someone else.”
“Ha!” Toria barked. “You think it will make any difference to Ash? He’s been searching for you for 3,000 years. I’ve been his friend for almost a thousand, and tonight he suddenly doesn’t trust me anymore.” Toria drew closer still, rage lighting her eyes from within. “Do you think he’ll let a detail like your husband stand in his way?”
“It’s not just about what Ash wants,” Ariana pointed out.
Toria laughed again. “Don’t fool yourself, kitten. It’s always about what Ash wants.”
She smiled grimly at Ariana’s confused face. “Except for right now,” she said. “Right now it’s about what I want, and I want him to suffer.” Her face twisted into another cruel grimace. “I want him to be free of you. I don’t want to see a beautiful, powerful
vampire playing house with some wretched human. It’s bad enough he works with them. I hadn’t thought it was possible to domesticate such a wild beast, but you might actually succeed.” Toria took another step forward. “I won’t let that happen.”
Ariana saw the leather-clad arm begin its rapid advance toward her chest. She moved, but not in time. Toria’s white fingers plunged into her flesh just below her collar bone. Ariana screamed as the force of the blow sent them both skidding into the wall. The impact rammed Toria’s hand all the way through Ariana’s shoulder and lodged it in the plaster. For a moment they were anchored there, staring at each other. Toria looked surprised to have missed her mark.
“You crafty little bitch,” she sneered. A drop of white foam landed at the corner of her mouth.
Toria put a booted foot onto the wall to pry herself free. Blood gushed out of Ariana’s shoulder as she pushed off, staggering back into the middle of the living room. Ariana almost passed out from the pain and the sight of it. But fear of dying kept her eyes open and glued to Toria, who seemed to have trouble regaining her balance.
Toria shook her head as if to clear it and then ripped her jacket off. “Hot,” she hissed, clawing at her thin tank top. Her sharp nails ripped the slight material to shreds and then started on the white skin underneath. “God, it’s burning!” she cried, her fingers never ceasing their horrid movement. She stared wide-eyed at her chest as her fingers pulled the flesh apart, revealing a gleaming sliver of her breast bone. “Something’s inside me!” she cried. “It burns! God, help, it burns!” She looked up at Ariana as she screamed the words. Her eyes had turned to saucers; her whole mouth was covered in bloody foam.
Then she stumbled and fell to her knees.
Ariana pushed herself off the wall, leaving a huge dark stain. Each step shot a lightning bolt of pain from her shoulder into her frantic brain. She blocked it out and forced her wrecked body across the small space of Luc’s living room. She kicked Toria as she passed, knocking the vampire face-forward onto the floor.
On the opposite wall, an autographed Johnny Cash album hung in a wooden frame. Ariana grabbed the frame off the wall and threw the album aside with one hand. Then she slammed her foot down hard on one corner of the square.
The effort split the frame open at the joist. One more kick and she had a side of the frame completely loose. As soon as she could breathe again, she wiped the tears from her eyes and turned back to Toria.
The vampire had rolled over and was staring blindly at the ceiling. Her body writhed and contorted on the floor, but she no longer said anything. She might have been trying to scream, but her teeth were clamped shut.
Ariana didn’t know if this vampire was dying or why, but she knew she couldn’t take any chances. She put her right foot down over Toria’s naked bicep and raised her makeshift wooden stake up as high as she could.
Hoping her aim was true, she used both hands to slam the wooden point into the vampire’s heart. Toria contorted for another few moments before her body dissolved into a foul-smelling greenish-brown slime.
Tears streamed down Ariana’s face as blood soaked the whole left side of her shirt.
CHAPTER 56
At the sudden commotion, Ash left Nancy calling after him and vaulted over the wooden rail of the staircase. He landed softly 30 feet below on the floor of the main hall.
Vampires had already begun spilling out of the dining room, their faces hideous masks of pain. They clutched their sides and tore at their hair and flesh.
One of the Elders burst through a set of the dining room doors. He spied Ash from across the room and ran toward him.
“You!” the large vampire screamed, his fingers digging into the wall of his chest, seemingly out of his control. Huge bloody gashes showed through his white shirt, matching his red robe. “How could you?” he cried. “We are your children.” He seemed to want to say more, but his words devolved into a plaintive mewling as his hard body fell writhing onto the floor.
Ash stood rooted in shock.
“We are your children!” the vampire screamed, before blood-speckled foam gurgled up into his throat and choked off any further cries.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Luc shouted from the top of the stairs. He started down, taking them two at the time.
“I have no idea,” Ash said when Luc reached the main floor. “They’re just—”
As Ash spoke, the writhing Elder turned into a steaming glop of green sludge. Luc’s jaw dropped.
Ash closed his eyes for a moment, remembering Keller’s talk of a cure. “Shit,” he muttered. This was no cure. It was mass murder.
He looked up. Luc was backing toward the door. Ash grabbed him by the arm. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said. “We have to see if we can find Toria.” He looked at the bodies falling all around them. “Or anyone who looks like they can be saved. Then I need to get some straight answers from Keller.”
Clawing, spitting vampires now poured out of all the dining room doors. Ash and Luc batted them aside and stepped gingerly over what remained of the others.
Inside the dining room, blood still poured from the chandeliers, but no one drank. It slopped out onto white table linens. The whole room was cloaked in its warm, metallic scent, but now the slimy vampire remains were giving off their own competing odor.
There was almost no one left in the dining room. A few vampires lingered, writhing in their chairs, but most of them appeared to have perished here or as they tried to make it outside. There was no sign of Toria.
“Maybe she wasn’t here,” Luc offered hopefully.
Ash frowned, saying nothing. He pulled a thin black phone from his coat pocket and dialed her number. No answer. He flipped the phone closed and headed back through the double doors. Luc followed, almost running into him when he stopped short.
“Hey,” Luc exclaimed. Then he saw what had captured Ash’s attention and frozen him in place.
A robed figure floated in mid-air. Luc could see the outlines of a face beneath the hood, but little more.
“Revenge has always been your specialty, Samson,” the figure said, “but I think I’m doing pretty well for my first time out, don’t you?”
“Memnon,” Ash said flatly. He looked at the carnage all around them. “Is that all this has been about, getting revenge on me?”
Memnon threw back his hood and laughed. “As usual, my friend, you flatter yourself.”
He looked the same, of course, all golden planes of muscle under a warrior’s rough features, but Ash couldn’t hide his surprise. He wouldn’t have thought a vampire could go without feeding for as long as Memnon had and then be completely restored.
“There are many things you don’t know, Samson, even with all your power—power you just squander, masquerading as a human.”
Ash’s eyes narrowed. “I would have thought you would have approved, Memnon. You were always a big fan of the straight and narrow. No drink, no women, just ever the soldier.”
Memnon glared down at him. “Because we were helping Alexander make over the known world,” he said. “We served a great leader, but your service was only half-hearted, Samson. Mine was total. That’s why I was the best.” He pointed at Ash. “You had no discipline.”
He was probably right, Ash thought. “So you’ve come back from the dead to try to kill all of us?”
Memnon smiled. “No, not all, Ash. Just the ones you care about and any who might be loyal to you. And you, of course.”
“Did you kill James?” Luc asked, pushing his way in front of Ash.
“Luc,” Ash whispered, “get out of here.”
Luc stood his ground as Memnon floated to the floor and walked closer to him. Finally, when he was close enough to reach Luc, he stopped.
“The born vampire,” Memnon declared, examining him as if he were considering an important purchase. “I have wanted to meet you,” he said, sniffing the air. “You certainly smell human. Tell me, do you have any other human traits or... abilities?” Speculation glow
ed in warm brown eyes.
Luc shrugged. “I asked you first,” he retorted.
Memnon’s mouth extended into a hint of a smile. “Ah, yes,” he said, looking back at Ash. “James, your newest spawn. I’m afraid he got too close. Ironic, though, that out of all of you, he was the only one who found me out. The others,” Memnon continued, “as you’ve probably already guessed, were test subjects for tonight’s little surprise.” He looked around the entrails-spattered entryway. “They turned to sludge long ago.”
“You’re a monster, Memnon,” Ash declared. “I don’t know what happened to you, but the soldier I knew wouldn’t have stooped to such tactics.”
“You happened to me,” Memnon responded darkly. Then his features cleared, and he laughed. “Really, you have no one but yourself to blame,” he said. “You made me, and then you started researching blood diseases.”
His maniacal smile widened as he saw realization dawn in Ash’s eyes. “That’s right,” he confirmed. “As soon as you turned that first researcher, I was able to start working right alongside. After hundreds of years of looking over shoulders, you’d be amazed what I’ve learned.”
“You’ve really been able to watch any vampire all this time?” Ash asked.
“That’s right,” Memnon affirmed. “Not immediately, of course, but eventually, I did figure out how it could be done. Something ties us all together.” He smiled at Ash. “If your maid is to be believed, it’s the blood of Lilith.”
“Is that what you think?” Ash asked.
“I don’t know,” Memnon replied, “but we couldn’t get into Hemogen without her help, so I played along. She had pieced together that the breeders were probably Delilah’s descendants, but she had no way to find them. I handed over the names Keller plucked out of Luc’s family tree, and Nancy gave me your keycard. I can guess which one caught her eye, of course,” Memnon continued. “I was surprised to see Ariana’s name on the list myself, but not to worry,” he mocked Ash, “she won’t be giving birth to any more of your demons anytime soon.”
