by Trisha Baker
"I noticed that I always awakened tired and drawn after a night with him but I blamed that on your father's demanding ways. Then one night he allowed me to see his blood teeth and explained he'd drunk from me for months but mesmerized me so I'd forget the experience. Now, though, he was willing to initiate me into his life ... make me the immortal hunter of mortals he was."
"Why?" Mikal asked, thinking he might have respected the man his father used to be before he ruined himself by falling in love with prim little Meghann who would ultimately be his ruination. Gabrielle's stories painted a picture of a warlord, a creature that grabbed every opportunity and used it to expand his power—Mikal wanted to know how he'd done that throughout the centuries. Once Mikal knew Father's secrets, he could use them for his own advantage.
Gabrielle gave him a wanton smile, her breast still exposed for his viewing . . . once a whore, always a whore, Mikal supposed. "Simon explained that he'd read my thoughts—knew I'd been quite helpful to the crown in disposing of several wealthy nobles, receiving a high fee for my services, as well as my discretion. Simon said he expected me to perform the same duties for him, only now my quarry would be vampires.
"He told me all about that sanctimonious fool, Alcuin, how he kept trying to destroy Simon because he enjoyed killing his prey," Gabrielle continued, telling her story with obvious relish. "The old bishop kept about him a company of men as celibate as he was ... at least before he made your mother and Charles Tar- leton his apprentices. Simon intended for me to seduce Alcuin's guards. He said once he taught me the arts of mesmerism, those wizened creatures would become helpless clay in my hands. How right your father was . .. without exception, every one of them fell into my bed, at least until Alcuin got wise to my plan and revealed my identity to the rest of his followers."
Mikal shook his head in admiration for Father .. . using a vampire whore to lure his enemies and then cut their heads off while they sported themselves with her was brilliant. The beauty of the plan was his father's decision to use a vampire as bait—a mortal woman could not deceive immortals and Gabrielle had the strength to help Father subdue their victims. "Why didn't Father use this trick on the great Alcuin instead of waiting until the close of the twentieth century to dispose of his nemesis?"
Gabrielle's smile thinned until it almost vanished entirely. 'The vampire priest had no interest in sex . . . Simon said it would be futile to even try to destroy Alcuin by using a woman."
"But Father did destroy Alcuin by using a woman," Mikal said, deliberately antagonizing Gabrielle. "Meghann."
"Meghann!" Gabrielle spat, her reaction to his mother's name all Mikal could have hoped for. Her delicate nostrils quivered with outrage and her angelic face took on a mottled red, jealous cast. "Do you know your father never asked one thing of that. . . that creature? Everyone else served him in some way ... I had to prostitute myself before all his foes to deserve immortality, others served Simon for decades before he transformed them, and still others had to give him all their earthly holdings. But Meghann .. . your father gave her his blood, his wealth, his protection . . . his love, all in exchange for her staying by his side."
In other words, Mikal thought as Gabrielle continued ranting, Father bestowed upon Meghann all the things he denied you.
"And he did not use Meghann to slaughter Alcuin ... he simply had to slay the priest to get his hands on Meghann. Though why he wanted her, I have no idea ... Simon should have killed the bitch when he killed Alcuin!" Gabrielle finished and Mikal noticed her long nails digging into the chair's expensive leather cushion.
"If Father killed Meghann, I would not have been born," Mikal reminded her. "And stop destroying my furniture .. . Father paid good money for it." Mikal grinned smugly, remembering how he'd raided one of Father's safety deposit boxes in London and absconded with more than five million dollars to start his new life.
"Simon could have used Meghann for his brood mare and then disposed of her after she gave birth," Gabrielle replied, looking sulky and petulant as she removed her offending claws from the leather seat. "Bearing children .. . that is all that plain, simpering bitch was good for. I never understood what Simon saw in her."
"Meghann is hardly plain," Mikal pointed out, enjoying Gabrielle's poisonous glare. "She may not be as beautiful as you, but. . . perhaps Father has a penchant for redheads." Yes, indeed, Father had a penchant for luscious redheads with voluptuous bodies and a simmering passion that lurked beneath that moralistic, goody-goody exterior. Having met Meghann, Mikal appreciated Father's taste. "I plan to sample her charms myself."
Mikal complimented himself on managing to star- de as jaded a creature as this centuries old whore that looked at him askance. "She is your mother!"
"So?" Mikal raised his eyebrows. "You cannot tell me you would give a damn what I do with Meghann."
"You promised I could kill her!"
"Yes, yes," Mikal said impatiendy, sure Father would kill his double-dealing vampire mistress long before Meghann arrived at the estate. Mikal only kept her around because he hoped fighting another vampire would weaken Father before Mikal attacked him. Pity he'd only been able to recruit Gabrielle, that all those other sniveling, cowardly creatures were too frightened of Father to take him on. Well, Mikal had plans for all those that refused him—oh, did he have plans for them!—once Father was dead.
"Think about it, Gabrielle. First, I cripple Father when he sees that." Mikal pointed carelessly at Elizabeth, pale and bleeding behind him. 'Then Meghann arrives and sees Father about to die ... I want that bastard alive when she comes here. I want him to watch her beg me not to kill him. I want him to writhe on the floor, helpless to stop me when I order her to strip, when Meghann begs me to spare her husband and daughter. I want him to scream for mercy when she lets me mount her to keep them alive, when I take her, my precious mother, in front of Father..
Gabrielle came forward and dropped to her knees before the vast bulge in Mikal's jeans. She tore his pants off and brought him to a rapid climax. Normally, Miked preferred men for fellatio, enjoying their instinctive knowledge for pleasuring a cock, but Gabrielle's mouth and tongue was by far the most expert Mikal had ever encountered in a female. Perhaps some of her consummate skill was learned in Father's bed. If that was the case, Mikal could barely wait to have Meghann before him.
One thing Mikal was certain of... Meghann's chief charm for Father lay in her purity, a wholesomeness of spirit that even blood lust could not dim. What a pleasure it would be to turn Father's Madonna into his disowned son's whore before Father's dying eyes. With that gratifying thought, Mikal climaxed into Gabrielle's eager, waiting mouth.
"Raping Meghann when Simon is helpless to stop you ... how diabolical. You are indeed your father's boy," Gabrielle praised him, stepping behind him to gaze at the unconscious Elizabeth thoughtfully. "Why don't you find her soul and force her back here? I'm sure her cries would do a great deal to unnerve him if he loves this girl as much as you claim he does."
"Travel the astral plane so Father's devils can claim me?" Mikal said, hoping the withering scorn in his voice hid his uncertainty. He didn't want Gabrielle or any of his army knowing he could not travel the astral plane, that he was weaker than Father in some ways, despite his ability to walk in daylight.
Of course, Gabrielle couldn't read Mikal's superior mind but she too must have been thinking of his unique talent for she asked, "When do I drink your blood and defeat the sun?"
"Did you not say I am my father's son?" Mikal questioned. 'You must earn my blood, as you earned his.
First, you help me kill him and Meghann and then we greet the new day—together."
Gabrielle nodded and then cocked her head at the same moment Mikal looked toward the door with interest. A few minutes later, there was a deferential knock and Mikal called out, "Enter."
A young boy came into the room, fussily groomed and painted to resemble his conception of a vampire, all graveyard chic obviously influenced by the movies and comic books of the f
ifties and sixties; a style that was quite different from the silver-studded, leather- bedecked, black trench coat style of some of Mikal's other acolytes. As Mikal inspected the white pancake that smothered the mortal's natural skin tone, black stained lips, frilly lace cravat and sweeping red velvet cape, he praised himself once more for choosing these "Goth" mortals to carry out his plans.
At first, Mikal had wavered between the mentally unbalanced outcasts that yearned to be "children of the night" and the Aryans, those seething, vicious mortals of Caucasian descent that lived only to hate those they considered to be lesser races.
The Aryans attracted Mikal because many of them already belonged to militias where they'd already been trained in warfare, thus providing Mikal with a well-trained, psychotic army when he revealed himself and made his demands on the mortal world. Too, the white supremacists were so well-versed in hatred, so abused and despised for most of their lives that Mikal knew they would rush to embrace a creature such as himself that promised them the chance to make all those they considered inferior bow down in fear of them. Also, it did not hurt that Mikal, thanks to his British father, was the embodiment of their Aryan ideal with his Anglo-Saxon heritage. He would feed their hate, inveigle them to his side through transformation. As vampires, they could conduct tortures they'd never dreamed of on the "mongrel" mortals that currently treated them with withering contempt.
Unfortunately, the Aryans (American ones at any rate) proved disappointing when Mikal finally encountered them. Much of his approval stemmed from the venomous rhetoric posted on the Internet, that miraculous tool that kept Mikal from complete boredom during his isolated upbringing on the Scots island where Father imprisoned him.
Finally escaping Father's rigid control, Mikal headed to the States with the highest expectations and infiltrated a small white-power militia in the Midwest, but he only needed a few days in the commune to see these slow-wits wouldn't serve his purpose at all. The Aryans, like loyal but not overly intelligent bulldogs, committed great acts of violence only at the behest of their firmly established superiors and Mikal could see it would be an uphill struggle to redirect their slavish devotion toward him.
Too, he soon discovered the neo-Nazi (why anyone would choose to revere a government that lost face before the entire world was beyond Mikal) values the white supremacists embraced clashed with his own debauched path. The mortals that beat their women regularly and overwhelmingly preferred the company of their racist male friends reacted to Mikal's propositions as though he'd suggested they drink rat poison! In many ways, their furrowed brows, hoarsely croaked obscenities and swinging fists reminded Mikal of the appalled disgust Father displayed when he discovered his son's bisexuality.
Of course, Father had been able to bully Mikal into abandoning the diverting pastime but his Aryan victims lacked Father's strength and were unable to repel him. Then again, by the end none of his strapping companions seemed to want to repel him ... in an amazingly short time, their squeals of outrage turned into grunts of desire as Mikal forced himself on them. He probably could have kept them as lovers for an indefinite period but preferred to drain them of their blood while they squirmed beneath him.
But most shocking of all, Mikal couldn't use the Aryans because his very existence was an affront to their simple, Christian ideology . . . they actually thought him some monster like the amusing creatures on their televisions and movie screens! It was nothing short of amazing that in this day and age humans actually thought to defeat a vampire by thrusting into his face that annoying stick of wood with the suffering Christ on it. The whole experience only proved mortals were as stupid as Father always claimed they were. Piqued beyond measure, Mikal slaughtered the entire camp of Aryans and set fire to their miserable compound before setting off to find mortals eager to carry out his bidding.
He soon encountered the Goths, young mortals that for the most part longed to escape their monotonous lives by becoming vampires—or their concept of a vampire. Granted, the vast majority of Goths were simply indulging in a harmless fantasy but others were obsessed to the point of madness . . . these were the mortals Mikal revealed himself to. How they rejoiced when he displayed his blood teeth and fed before them, making a special production of snarling and growling while he tore into his prey with theatrical savagery. All Mikal had to do was let these special mortals witness his feedings, perform a few simple telekinetic tricks, tell them the story of his batde for supremacy with Father that sounded just like one of their beloved role-playing games, and they fell at his feet, devoting their entire lives to Mikal in exchange for the blood that would make them vampires.
Mikal was not making empty promises to his mortal coterie; he fully intended to transform them and all the other chosen that would be drawn into his club. He'd patiently weed through the thrill seekers and merely curious, selecting those that wanted the power behind the makeup and extravagant clothing, mortals that recognized the great strength that came with the ability to defy death and knew how to wield it against the rest of the world.
The whole process would take time; Mikal recognized that he'd have to be patient. Contrary to Father's belief that Mikal had no more thought behind his plans than the poor lunatic mortals that waved imaginary swords in asylums and called themselves Napoleon, Mikal had planned his strategy meticulously. He knew he could not take over the world in the course of one mortal lifetime. True dominance would not be achieved for centuries—it would be a slow, gradual elevation of power. Mikal would start with his club, select and train his army. Then, when there were vampires enough that shared Mikal's resistance to sunlight, they would make their first bid for power . . . take over New York City, perhaps. If Mikal had wealth, the weapons arsenal he planned to obtain from poverty stricken nations, and an immortal force with superhuman strength, mortal governments would have no choice but to give in to his demands. Mikal would start small, taking only a minor territory and expanding his empire over centuries until finally, he and only he, ruled this world he'd been born into.
"Master," the boy said and his slightly raised tone informed Mikal the mortal must have been trying to gain his attention for long moments now. Shaking away the last remnants of his pleasant daydream, Mikal turned to the kneeling mortal.
"You may reward yourself," Mikal said with the grand loftiness of a medieval liege lord and gestured to Elizabeth. The ghoulishly costumed mortal arose from his knees and hurried over to Elizabeth, sucking with great gusto at the still bleeding wound on her torso. Idly, Mikal wondered what possible pleasure mortals drew from drinking blood but what did he care as long as it kept his minions docile?
Finally, the mortal boy (Mikal never bothered to remember their names) raised his bloodstained mouth from Elizabeth and turned to Mikal, kneeling as all mortals were bade to do when they spoke to him. "I have done your bidding, my lord."
How these vampiric mortals loved to use arcane language! They'd be so disappointed to encounter a being like Father, who far preferred the language of high finance to the Renaissance English he'd spoken in his mortal youth or Meghann, with her distincdy New York accent discussing pennant races and psychology instead of clans and coffins. "My mother received the invitation?"
"Your mother did not pick it up, Master," the boy said. "There was another vampire there ... at least, I think he was a vampire."
"Another vampire?" Mikal frowned. Who could this immortal be—Mikal had killed her best friend, Charles. Could Meghann have transformed Lee, Elizabeth's surrogate parent?
"What did he look like?" Gabrielle questioned and the sharp light flashing in her eyes told Mikal she knew exacdy who this friend of Meghann's was.
"He had brown hair and blue eyes," the mortal reported and Mikal saw the pulse in his throat quicken when he stared at Gabrielle's half-naked form. "I think he was in his early thirties and he was . . . loud."
"Loud mouthed?" Gabrielle said with amusement. "Crude, perhaps?"
"Yes," the boy nodded, eager to please.
"It i
s Jimmy Delacroix," Gabrielle informed Mikal.
"Who is Jimmy Delacroix?"
Gabrielle's turquoise eyes widened with astonishment. "Simon never told you of Meghann's lover?"
"Meghann had a lover?" Mikal echoed disbelievingly. Adelaide had told him of some separation between Meghann and Father but she'd never said anything about Meghann taking other men while she was away from Father. Frankly, Mikal was surprised that Father still desired her after she allowed others to despoil her.
"A mortal she trained to kill off your father's allies during the day," Gabrielle clarified and Mikal gave her his full, fascinated attention—perhaps Meghann wasn't his father's simpering plaything after all. "Simon allowed her ... and the rest of us ... to think he was dead for forty years. You know Meghann escaped your father by putting a stake in his heart—no? Well, that is a tale for another time. Suffice it to say the ungrateful bitch attacked your father thirteen years after he transformed her and sought sanctuary with his great enemy, Alcuin. When Simon challenged Alcuin to regain Meghann and his power, he took care of Jimmy at the same time."
"Tried to kill him?"
"That would have been too merciful," Gabrielle smirked. "No, Simon transformed the fool... turned him into a mindless, bloodthirsty savage. Obviously, Simon meant to present Meghann with the ruined creature and have her kill her own lover out of pity. But she healed the man instead and made him a true immortal... no one knows how."
Meghann had talents Mikal had never guessed at . . . and a nerve to defy Father he found electrifying. It was a shame he had to kill her. Before he did though, he'd have to ask her why she went from being Father's enemy to his willing consort once more and subsequent mother to his children.
"Is this Delacroix still her lover?" If he was, Mikal's plans were ruined ... Father wouldn't run to save an unfaithful whore or the daughter she bore him.
