by Ann Gimpel
“Excellent,” Juan said. “Would Sire mind if I retrieved some of the jaguar meat?”
Raphael crinkled his nose in distaste. “I fail to appreciate your attraction to dead food, but go.” He waved both hands and shot a meaningful look at Viktor. “I suppose you want him to bring enough for you too.”
“That would be appreciated, but I figured I’d go with him.”
“Figure again.” Madness played about the edges of Raphael’s aura, changing its black tint to one shot with reds and sickly yellows.
“You have an immediate need for my presence, Sire?” Viktor raised an eyebrow and forced himself to hold the other Vamp’s gaze.
“No. But I’m not certain I can trust either of you.” Before Viktor could lodge a protest, Raphael went on, “Or any of the rest, either. For all I know, you’ve been fucking the Shifters for years, and they’ve ensorcelled the lot of you.”
Juan sidled out the door, mumbling, “Back soon.”
Viktor exhaled wearily and spread his hands in front of him. “Use your truth ability,” he suggested. “I haven’t had sex—with anyone, including myself—since before the Cataclysm.”
The blundering fumbles of Raphael’s spell seared him, and Viktor waited for what his sire would come up with next. He didn’t have to wait long.
Raphael shrugged. “So you haven’t actually had sex. It doesn’t mean you’re not doing something else you shouldn’t be.”
“Like what?” Viktor asked, keeping his tone mild.
Raphael pounded a fist into the wall, reddening his knuckles. “Who the hell knows? I’m not a mind reader.” He bent closer. “Not when someone wants to keep something hidden.”
Thank Christ for that.
Viktor eyed chairs dotting the room. “Permission to sit, Sire. As you know, I don’t have your strength. Even though you’re disappointed by my lack of results, I have been hunting the Shifter since the crack of dawn this morning.” He sent a sidelong glance skittering across the room. Would Raphael buy his story about being weak and tired?
“Go ahead. Sit.” Raphael drew his lips back from his fangs. “You nailed it. You second-string Vamps are a huge disappointment. On every front.”
“Sorry, Sire.” Viktor dropped into the chair farthest from the open window to maximize comfort in the ice-cold room. Why had Raphael opened the window, anyway? Dank, chill air formed ice crystals on the glass and adjacent walls.
“You are such a wimp.” Raphael stomped across the room and slammed the window shut so hard one of the panes cracked. “Spare me further apologies.”
Viktor folded his hands in his lap. Holding silence would be easy since remaining cordial curdled his stomach into a burning mass of knots.
Juan trotted back into the room and dropped several strips of raw, semi-frozen meat into Viktor’s lap. That done, he dragged a second chair close, but before he could sit, Raphael closed a hand over his arm.
Juan twisted in Raphael’s grip before he remembered himself and quit struggling.
Raphael bared his fangs. “I did not give you permission to sit.”
Juan’s fair skin flushed with anger, and he choked out, “Sorry, Sire. I forgot myself. May I sit?”
“No. You can eat standing.”
Viktor seethed with fury. He should’ve ended his sire long since. Raphael had no redeeming qualities. None. He was arrogant. Narcissistic. Petty. Spoiled. Conceited. Viktor recoiled but kept the emotion inside himself and his features bland. He’d described almost all Vampires. Certainly the old ones, but the majority of new ones as well.
Being annoyed and disgusted with Raphael for being what he was made as much sense as calling out a scorpion for its proclivity to kill things. The only problem with hating Vampires was he happened to be one.
Footsteps sounded right before a heavy fist fell on the outer door.
“Come,” Raphael called, making no move to open the door.
Four Vamps filtered in. Glenn, Mario, and the two who’d dragged Ketha in front of Raphael a couple of days back. Like the rest of their kind, a motley collection of leather and rags hung off their muscled bodies. Viktor hunted for names for the ones who’d delivered Ketha and came up with Daide and Recco. Both men had short dark hair and dark eyes. Their Native heritage was apparent in high cheekbones, square chins, and high foreheads. According to Ketha, they’d be part of the incantation to dismantle the Cataclysm. Viktor didn’t know them from Adam. Convincing them to come to the mesa might prove to be a neat trick.
Maybe I won’t have to. Perhaps the magic powering this has its own way of ensuring all the participants end up in the right place at the right time.
He hoped to hell he was right and shifted his focus to the conversation playing itself out. Raphael was done rebuking the men for their failure, and they were wise enough not to contradict him or offer excuses.
“What are you waiting for?” Raphael prodded in his quiet voice, the one that promised destruction was about to rain down on everyone’s head.
“Sire?” Glenn looked mystified.
“Get back out there. No one is done until you find that Shifter.”
“But Juan and Viktor are—” Daide began.
Viktor bit off a chunk of the jaguar, knowing what would come next.
“You dare oppose my orders?” Raphael’s voice edged up a decibel or two.
“No. Of course not.” Daide turned and fled out the still open door with the other three hard on his heels.
Viktor chewed and swallowed. He had to find a way out of this room, but he needed strength, so he polished off the meat before breaking the silence that had fallen among them.
“We could hunt for her,” he suggested smoothly. “All of us. It might be better than simmering in our own adrenaline.” Before Raphael could react, he continued, “If you want something done right, sometimes the best thing is to take care of it yourself.” Viktor spread his hands, bloody from the jaguar meat, in front of him. “You’ve told us over and over how inadequate we are. Why not give us a field lesson in how things should be done?”
The corners of Juan’s mouth twitched, but the other Vamp clamped down on his expression before anything could leak out. He recognized Viktor’s strategy. The question was if Raphael would. Viktor kept breathing, nice and even, to make certain not to give anything away. If he could get his sire outside this room, he’d have a chance to take him by surprise and end him.
Breath hissed through Raphael’s clamped teeth. His fangs lent an odd, acoustical resonance to the sound. “I thought I could do more good coordinating the hunt from here, but the four who left are the only ones who’ve reported in—except for you two.” He shook his head until long, dusky hair cascaded down his shoulders, but at least he sounded more desolate than angry. Finally. His next sentence clinched Viktor’s impressions. “I don’t get it. I told everyone I wanted to hear from them at least every few hours.”
“They probably didn’t want to face you unless they had good news,” Juan cut in smoothly.
“It’s not as if any of us are trained in military operations,” Viktor added. Since Raphael didn’t contradict him, he kept talking. “Look at the disparity in who we were before the Cataclysm trapped us here. Everyone from businessmen to tramps and thieves. Heavy on the latter.” Viktor stopped shy of mentioning that Raphael’s uncanny fascination with the world’s lowlifes was responsible for how their ranks were skewed toward con artists and sketchy vagabonds.
Raphael chuckled coldly. “You may be onto something, Gaelen.” He pushed away from the wall. “What the hell? We may as well join the hunt. I’m not doing shit here.”
Viktor tamped down elation spilling through him. He may have accomplished the initial step, but it was a long way from here to where Raphael’s head left his shoulders. He unclenched hands that had formed fists of their own accord and got to his feet, ready to put part two of his plan into action.
“Good call, Sire.”
Raphael shot an unreadable look his way. “You can q
uit laying it on so thick. This was your idea. If it doesn’t pan out, I’ll hold you personally responsible.”
Nice to know.
“The reason I was late getting here...” Viktor hesitated and ginned up what he hoped was a combination of embarrassment and determination. He also prayed to every saint in the universe Raphael hadn’t spent much time absorbing information from the books in his collection.
“What? Spit it out. What were you doing that I wouldn’t have approved of?”
Vampire magic burned like liquid fire as Raphael probed his mind without much care what he destroyed on his way through.
Viktor rubbed his temples. “Stop that. It hurts. I looked through your assortment of books and scrolls to see if I could figure out something to use for Shifter bait.”
Raphael drew his perfect brows together in a cross between confusion and thought. “You mean all those shelves in that area in the basement where I lived before the Cataclysm?”
Viktor nodded. “You haven’t visited there much lately. The dust was thick, and I disturbed generations of spiders.”
“Skip the lecture on my slipshod housekeeping. Did you find anything? I quit reading hundreds of years ago, but even when I did research, I was never interested in Shifters.” Raphael strode to Viktor’s side and gripped his upper arm hard enough to hurt.
Viktor cut to the heart of his scheme. “We should take the iron saber with us.”
“Why? It’s a weapon that can be turned against us.” Suspicion rode beneath Raphael’s question.
“Because iron is the only tool that can separate a Shifter from her magic. Otherwise, their power lingers even after we kill them. They can join that disembodied magic with living Shifters and make them infinitely strong. Iron will prevent that from happening—if we behead them.” Viktor continued to breathe nice and slow to conceal his true motives. If Raphael chose to test his words, Viktor would end up splattered against the nearest wall with his guts hanging out.
“What else did you find?” Juan walked closer. “I had no idea our sire kept a magical library. You’ll have to show me where it is.”
“Oh, shut up.” Raphael bared his fangs in Juan’s direction. “What? The two of you have suddenly turned into Rhodes scholars?”
“When you’ve spent as much time on ships as we have,” Viktor replied, “you want to know how things work—and how to fix them when they don’t. Those answers are generally found by reading.”
Something about his answer seemed to appease Raphael. He moved into the inner room that held the saber so fast, his body blurred. When he returned, the sword was secured in a scabbard belted around his waist.
“There,” he announced. “We have the damned thing. Let’s go.” He crossed the room and trotted through the door no one had bothered to close. Viktor and Juan followed him.
“Where to first?” Viktor asked conversationally. His throat was dry, but at least his voice came out somewhere close to normal. The saber was coming with them. He’d have to figure out how to take possession of it, but one problem at a time. He’d managed to tell a bold-faced lie to his sire and not get caught.
“First stop is the jaguar pride,” Raphael called over one shoulder. “I think better when I’m freshly fed.”
“Do we get the meat?” Juan asked.
“Possibly,” Raphael replied. “So long as you do exactly as you’re told.”
Anger flared, and Viktor reached for Raphael’s neck, pulling his hands back before the Vamp could notice anything amiss. Squeezing the life out of Raphael before finishing him off with the saber would be one of the most satisfying things he’d ever done. Watching the fucker squirm and suffer would make up for a lot, but revenge wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Even if Raphael were dead, Viktor would still be stuck in a lifeless town with toxic water, a dwindling food supply, and a beached ship. Never mind a phalanx of untrustworthy Vampires. God only knew what they’d do once Raphael wasn’t around to control them.
He loped after his sire with Juan pounding along next to him. He itched to strategize with Juan, but it wasn’t possible. The two men had worked together long enough, they’d have to wing whatever happened. They left the building and cold enveloped Viktor, hurting his lungs with every breath. He drew his coat tighter around himself, but it didn’t help much. Wind howled and chittered, driving chilly air through every chink in his clothing.
Raphael led the way to where the jaguars roamed in what was left of a national park north of town. Running at Vampire speed, they were there in under a quarter hour. Viktor scented the air to locate the jaguar pride and found other Vampires.
He smothered a grin. Raphael wouldn’t appreciate anyone poaching in territory he’d announced belonged to him.
Juan poked Viktor in the side. When Viktor looked his way, he circled one fist around the other, clearly expecting some kind of shit to hit the fan. Viktor flashed a thumbs-up sign. Chaos might provide precisely the opportunity he’d been waiting for.
Raphael skidded to a stop and drew himself up tall. “Show yourselves,” he bellowed in a voice ripe with command and compulsion.
Two Vamps melted out of deep shadows cast by trees and shrubbery. Blood smeared their lips and dripped down their chins. No denying what they’d been up to. One fell to his knees in front of Raphael, his face shrouded by long, dark hair. “I’m sorry, Sire. We were hungry.”
“Yes,” the other Vamp seconded. “So hungry. There’s half the cat’s blood left still. It’s yours.”
“What you don’t get”—Raphael’s voice was cold, disinterested—“is they’re all mine.”
The saber left its scabbard so fast, Viktor couldn’t follow its trajectory. The second Vamp, the one still standing, crumpled to the ground minus his head. Blood geysered everywhere. Saliva flooded Viktor’s mouth as the hot, rich, coppery stench invaded his nostrils.
“Go ahead.” Raphael motioned to Juan and Viktor. “I can’t drink it since I made him, but don’t waste it.”
Driven by hunger and not wanting Raphael to suspect how deeply Vampirism disgusted him, Viktor sank to his knees, closed his mouth over a streaming carotid, and drank deep. Juan knelt over the other side of the corpse. Meantime, the Vamp on his knees breathed in noisy, choking sobs, begging Raphael to spare him.
Ignoring the tableau, Raphael disappeared into thick timber, probably in search of the half-drained jaguar while its blood was still warm.
Juan raised his mouth from the corpse and jerked his chin at the iron saber discarded in the dirt.
Drunk and disoriented from gorging on Vampire blood, Viktor urged himself to get up, hoist the saber, and go after Raphael. Interrupting him while he pigged out on jaguar blood would make this a slam-dunk. Maybe. Viktor got as far as ripping his mouth from the still-pulsing vessel. His reactions were slow and sluggish. He couldn’t shake the lethargy that came from feeding on overly rich blood. Animal blood was far easier to absorb. Human blood somewhere in between.
The Vamp who’d been on his knees, shaking and crying, lurched upright, grabbing the saber in one fluid motion. For a moment, Viktor feared the man might use it on him and Juan, but he leaned close to them and whispered, “I got this.” Hatred flared from his fog-colored eyes. Before his words registered, he’d shrouded himself in stealth and bolted after Raphael.
Juan got to his feet and pulled Viktor upright, hissing, “Come on. He needs our help.”
When Viktor was slow to respond, Juan slapped him hard across the face. Pain brought him around. “Thanks.”
“De nada, mi amigo. Andale.”
Stealth wasn’t needed. Not now. They ran hard, following the scent track left by Raph and the Vamp with the saber. A clearing opened before them, rife with jaguar stench, but the remainder of the pride was nowhere around. Raphael knelt in the center of the clearing, intent on his meal. A big cat was draped over his lap, his mouth glued to its carotid. His eyes snapped open at their approach, but he closed them once he saw who was there.
The Vamp wit
h the sword closed from behind Raphael. He’d obviously circled around, cloaking himself in Vampire stealth and speed. Viktor maintained a neutral expression, a minion waiting on his sire to finish feeding. Juan adopted an even more deferential pose.
The other Vamp timed it well. Raphael wasn’t aware of the saber until even his supernatural speed couldn’t save him. The other Vamp uttered a wild whoop of triumph and sliced through bone, flesh, and sinew. Raphael’s head rolled off his shoulders and came to a stop near Viktor’s feet.
Defying every natural law, his blue-gray gaze landed right on Viktor’s face. “You knew,” Raphael said right before his mouth went slack.
“Damn straight I did,” Viktor growled. He hauled a foot back and booted Raphael’s head as hard as he could kick. Spewing blood, it flew high and disappeared from sight.
The Vampire with the saber continued to whoop and holler, dancing a jig as he buried his face in what was left of Raphael’s neck.
Juan hooked an arm beneath Viktor’s elbow and yanked hard. Viktor followed him away from the grisly specter of Raphael’s killer feeding from him.
Juan, who’d been muttering in Spanish, switched to English. “Hurry, man,” he implored.
“Why?” Viktor asked. “That Vamp will be busy for at least an hour.”
Juan stopped his headlong flight long enough to face Viktor. “Yeah, but once he’s fed, he’ll be Raphael. You can’t feed from your sire without becoming him.”
A sick, sinking feeling engulfed Viktor. “Crap. So we’ll be bound to him the same way we were bound to Raphael? You know this how?”
“Because I paid attention to that initial set of lessons Raphael pounded into me after I was turned. You were too deep in denial about everything to care about the finer points of our new affiliation.”
“Probably true.” Viktor snorted. “Affiliation is one word for it. The one I’d have chosen is curse. Goddamn it all to hell. Trading one Raphael for another wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”
“Look at the bright side.” Juan took off running again. “This gives us the window we need to get to the mesa.”
