“Men who come in peace rarely leave that way,” Merneith said.
“Ekaterina’s rule would have ended sooner rather than later. She was ineffectual and…” Grigori tipped his head to the side. “Dangerous in her desires. Tell me, how did Henry die?” Grigori’s jovial demeanor did not waver as he watched Krieger.
“My brother died by my hand. I have recounted this to council. He threatened our existence.” Krieger responded as if he were bored of the subject. “His instability was dangerous to us all.”
Grigori tilted his head just a tick more. It reminded him of the Elder’s gestures.
“Are you sure it wasn’t your Sanguis Ancilla that delivered the death blow?” Grigori looked smug. “Of course, I must be mistaken. What would I know of such things? Her name, your Sanguis, is Lily Ayres, is it not?”
Krieger regarded him as a human would an ant. Grigori was obviously proud of his spies in Krieger’s kingdom. Would he be so self-satisfied once Krieger rooted them out and sent them home sans their head?
Pao spoke up. “Krieger’s human is not our interest.”
Krieger didn’t care for the way she referred to Lily, like she was talking about the plague, even if she was taking his side.
“Hmm.” Grigori rose, placing his hands on the table. “What do your spies say I am?”
Carlos coughed up sputum. He’d been made vampire seconds before he would have died of a stroke. He was a sickly, rotund, misshapen man whose ugliest feature was his face. Krieger had often thought that the vampire who sired Carlos was depraved. To force eternity upon someone who was miserable, grossly disfigured, abused, with little intelligence and a penchant for cruelty, was reprehensible.
“We prefer to hear the words from your mouth,” Beline said. He ruled the prestigious lands of Europe. The Elder used to say he was ‘the bridge which links east to west.’ As a human, Beline had fought and killed his own beloved brother to rule over Briton. Beline had warned him, told him to step down, explained what the consequences would be if he did not, and when it was clear Beline would have to follow through on his claim, he wasted no further time talking.
“Did you think the world would not change?” Grigori asked. “That the ones the Elders imprisoned would not one day rise up to escape their imprisonment?”
Merneith sighed. “We have no time for childish tales.”
“No.” Since his arrival Grigori had not taken the meeting or them seriously, until now. His tone took on an authoritative quality. “The Elder knew he was dying. It took the full strength of five Elders to lock the last gate. How long did you think Huthwiat alone could keep it closed?”
“You waste our time with legends.” Carlos wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, clearly dismissing Grigori’s words.
“You are a fool,” Grigori said with a smile.
Krieger couldn’t argue with that statement. “There is always a kernel of truth in legends. How long will the ninth gate remain closed?” Might as well see what Grigori had to say, even if he doubted there was much truth to the myth.
“It is no more.” Grigori looked directly at Krieger. “As my being here attests. And the presence…”
Krieger jaws clenched. Do not say Lily’s name.
“The presence of magic returns,” Grigori finished.
“Yes, yes, the magic,” Merneith said. “What were you to the Elder? What are you to us?” She looked dramatically around the room, as if to indicate she spoke for everyone. “Why do you, a non-vampire, presume to take the throne of Russia? I must have missed the explanation of your lineage.” She smiled a toothy grin at him.
Grigori walked around the room, clearly enjoying the drama. “You would all sit here and argue while the world burns.” He rolled a ring around his finger. “Father warned me of this, this pettiness of the children of humans.”
Carlos started to rise. “Sit the fuck down,” Beline yelled at him.
“Touchy, aren’t we?” Grigori mocked him by bowing like a court jester. “What I meant was you are born human but are made vampire. Huthwiat was not impervious to weakness. He was the last of his kind, alone in a world he’d seen formed and was destined to die in. I am not the enemy. The enemy is lying in wait. The enemy will not be reasoned with. The enemy grows stronger daily.”
Krieger had grown weary of Grigori’s cat and mouse games. “You have our attention; now tell us what we need to know so we can return to our kingdoms.”
“Yes, I can see why he gave Lily to you. A man of the new world is what he called you.” Grigori sat. “My father was Huthwiat.”
Pandemonium hit the room and everyone started to speak at once. “My mother was a dryad,” Grigori continued in a whispered tone.
The room was instantly quiet.
“Are you telling us that the Elder was a tree fucker?” Carlos’ thick-tongued words echoed around the room.
“Shut up before I separate you from your head,” Merneith hissed at Carlos.
“Huthwiat protected her for centuries.” Grigori cast his eyes downward.
“The banyan tree.” Krieger saw Grigori dip his head in acknowledgement. “How old are you?”
“I became corporeal when my mother’s tree was destroyed. Father knew what was to be. He told me what he could before he died.”
Krieger remembered the news footage they’d watched of Grigori looking down into the ruins of the Legacy Foundation.
“And what should be done?” Beline asked. He was a man of action, not for sitting around talking. His thick-set build was made to a hold a sword and fight, but many an opponent had made a grave error in judgment when they discounted his equally sharp intellect.
Pao stood. “No, I won’t accept this. What would that make you? A nymph?” She visibly shook with anger. “You are only an Other,” she said, and looked down her nose at Grigori. “I won’t listen to anything more he has to say. A vampire must rule Russia and its territory.” In less than a blink, she was gone, leaving the heavy wooden doors swinging in her wake.
“It couldn’t hurt to adjourn for the evening.” Merneith pushed away from the table and walked to the threshold. “To assimilate this new information.”
Krieger went to the far fireplace. He watched King Carlos slowly lumber out, his cane making a dull thud against the stone floor. Carlos was born of royal blood and had ruled Spain as a human. His greatest weakness was his false sense of grandeur and entitlement and not the disfigurements that he’d been born with. He wondered what Grigori thought of Carlos, of them all, as Grigori came to stand on the opposite side of the fireplace.
“They don’t believe me.” Grigori stoked the fire with a poker.
“Did you think they would?”
“No. I planned for this. I’ll take a vampire queen to rule by my side. That should appease them.” Embers danced around the space between them as he put another log on the fire.
Krieger thought Pao might not be appeased. She might use it as an excuse to encroach on his territory. It was no secret she wanted to expand her reach into Mongolia.
“Whether they accept me or not is of no importance.” The young man went to look out a small window. “No trees,” he said to himself. “The witches told me many things before they died.”
Krieger raised an eyebrow.
“What they did. Their motives… Well, let us just say they had misconceptions about what I am.”
“Did Huthwiat tell you to take the throne?”
“Do you have Mathers?” Grigori sat on the stone bench cut into the castle wall. “Yes, your silence tells me that you do. He left when the archives disappeared. I’d like to speak with him.”
You’d like to interrogate him.
“There was not a piece of root, or limb, or trunk left that was my mother.”
“Was she always able to take form?”
Grigori seemed lost to his thoughts. He had turned in his seat to once again look out the window. “Only recently did she inhabit a form. Before that her spirit filled the tree, and in that way
she was always with Huthwiat.”
“How many gates are left?”
“I’m not sure. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Huthwiat felt a strong force working against him.”
“What can we do?”
Grigori said nothing but turned to look back out over the ocean.
Krieger left him there. He needed to see Lily, to hold her, to know she was safe. The seconds it took to reach her room, to pull her body from the warm waters of her bath, to wrap his arms around her, not caring that she protested, not caring that she struggled, seemed an agonizing eternity.
“What the—”
He cut off her words with a kiss. When she relaxed into his embrace and her hands ran down his chest and encircled his back, then he released her and wrapped the towel around her body.
“Here.” He placed a robe over her shoulders. “Put this on and meet me in the other room.”
Isolated as it was, there was no cell coverage on the island and Krieger ordered his guard to bring him the satellite phone. It was Lucien who brought it to him. “You were to stay with her,” he said, through gritted teeth.
“Was I to bathe with her?” Lucien tossed the phone to him. “I was right outside the window. Even if it was false, I thought it best to give her some privacy.”
Krieger punched in the number. “Merlin. Find out everything you can about the banyan tree that was inside the Legacy Foundation. Mathers is not to leave the compound.” He slammed the phone down on the table.
“What does a tree have to do with anything?” Lucien asked.
“It’s complicated.”
Lucien poured a glass of blood. It was cold and gelled, and he frowned down at it. “I’m tempted to borrow one of Pao’s contributors.”
Krieger didn’t argue. “Council meetings are three nights. We can hold out that long.” He didn’t say that he meant to feed from Lily, who walked in with her hair wrapped in a towel and a robe covering her from throat to ankle.
“You saw him?” Lily kept her distance, choosing to stand in front of the fire.
“I did,” Krieger confirmed. “Grigori is not your father.”
Lily’s shoulders slumped and she dissolved into the chair next to the fire.
“He is vampire?” Lucien asked.
“No,” Krieger answered. “Not vampire. He says he is the son of Huthwiat.”
Lucien gulped down the cold blood.
“It went over well with the council,” Krieger said sarcastically.
“I didn’t think the Elder had it in him. Who’s the lucky woman?” Lucien lifted his glass.
Krieger watched Lily dry her hair by the fire’s heat. Inside the castle it was easy to believe they’d somehow moved back in time. He didn’t take his eyes off her as he answered Lucien’s question. “He thinks his mother was a dryad whose spirit lived inside the tree.”
Lily stilled, her eyes flashing up to meet his. “It was destroyed, wasn’t it?” she asked. Krieger didn’t reply or move. “Hunter told me about a giant tree inside the Legacy Foundation. How its roots were interwoven within the walls, as if it had always been there. My visions ended when—”
“The Legacy Foundation exploded and the tree was no more. Grigori became corporeal then and no longer a spirit,” Krieger said.
“What the hell would that make him?” Lucien asked.
“A hybrid of some sort.” Krieger had no other answer, not yet.
Lily’s eyes closed. “The magic that made my son has made Lily, and is now spreading to all the Others.” She said the words as if reciting them. “I need you to see something.” She took the leather book off the table. “Here.” She opened it and held the page out for Krieger. “Look at that.”
It was a drawing of the tree with its limbs outstretched like arms. Its trunk held the face of a beautiful woman, her hair melding into and becoming the bark of the tree.
Lucien peered over his shoulder. “Unbelievable.”
“It fell while I was in the archive. I didn’t understand why it wanted me to read it, but now I think I know. See there?” Lily came to stand next to Krieger and pointed at specks on the page. “This must be the Elder’s journal. He wrote the words there.”
Krieger had to strain to see them and was amazed that Lily could.
“This belongs with Grigori.” She went back to the comfort of the fire. “I’d like to give this to him when we meet.”
Krieger could see the determination in her eyes, not that she needed it. All guests must be made known to the royals at council meetings. It was an old rule, one made when magic was prevalent, when leaders might fear what a secreted party was doing in their towers. He heard footsteps approaching outside the door and handed the journal back to Lily.
“Sire,” the guard said through the door. “King Beline asked that he might have a word with you.”
“The blood sport begins,” Lucien said.
“Blood sport?” Lily’s eyes flared wide.
“Politics, my sweet,” Krieger said, hoping his words would ease the panic he saw in her eyes.
“Oh.” She released the towel from her damp hair and used her fingers to separate the long curls, drying them by the heat of the fire.
Would she give him her scarf to carry into battle? “Politics are said to be the bloodiest blood sport of all.” He jerked his head slightly, indicating to Lucien to follow him to the door, waiting until they got there to speak. “Keep her within arm’s length. I don’t think Grigori means her any harm, but…”
“I understand,” Lucien said.
Krieger gave her one last glance. She was sitting cross legged on the floor reading the journal, as if she’d already forgotten them.
Merlin
Nina rested her head against Merlin’s chest. “Who was it?” she asked.
“The king,” he said and stroked the soft flesh of her inner thigh.
“Hmm,” she purred. “I need you.”
“Go back to sleep,” he urged, and slipped out of bed, resisting her outstretched arms.
Merlin didn’t need much sleep, but he’d had fewer than four hours over the last five days and Nina had kept him awake testing out the newfound skills she’d learned from Cherie. He wasn’t complaining, but even a sorcerer needed rest.
Before Nina had worked her own feminine magic on him, he’d woven a spell to allow her to speak without impediment. Nina’s tongue had been taken from her by the Brotherhood, they presumed, and he’d tried numerous times before to restore her speech. Last night, he’d only had to think his wish and it was done. Now with the harsh light of a new day he knew it was the dark magic’s doing.
Without turning on the light he slipped into his clothes and softly shut the bedroom doors behind him.
If only he could restore Nina’s memories as easily as her voice. He’d tried everything, but it was as if she’d not existed before her arrival at Krieger’s royal court.
“Good morning,” the guard greeted him as he walked into the elevator.
Merlin acknowledged him and punched the button for the ground floor. He couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that Nina was too perfect. She was an attractive young woman, just the type of woman he’d envisioned for himself. Everyone liked her. That, in and of itself, was enough to raise suspicion in a royal court. To Lily, Nina was a trusted friend. To Cherie, she was an adept pupil. To the servants and guards, she was a carefree girl who made them laugh with her antics. Even the Ancient was not immune to her charms.
“Bah,” he chided himself. “Count yourself lucky and be happy.”
“Excuse me?” the guard asked.
Merlin hadn’t realized he’d said the words aloud. “Nothing.” Merlin scowled and exited the elevator on his way to the archives. I’m tired, he thought, and I can’t risk getting outwitted.
“Is Mathers inside?” Merlin asked the two guards standing outside the archive doors. They nodded in unison, and the taller of the two opened the door for him to walk through. The room was dark, and it took a couple secon
ds for the light sensors to detect him and turn on.
“Mathers,” Merlin called out. “I need to speak with you.”
He heard rustling; something slammed shut, followed by the sound of keys.
He’s up to something, Bleheris whispered. Merlin wasn’t sure if Bleheris was actually speaking to him or if it was his subconscious. He wouldn’t let his thoughts veer into the realm of the possibility that Bleheris’ voice was that of the dark magic.
“Do you now,” Mathers replied. “And do you need to be having those lights on?”
Merlin used his magic to shut off the lights and sat down at a table to wait for Mathers. He heard him moving between the bookcases long before he saw him. The first time they’d met Mathers had been a child. The Elder, for reasons only he knew, had saved him from the executioner’s sword. His whole family had been slain that day, brought before the town square and had their heads placed on the chopping block. The village people didn’t know they were the last of their kind or that the woods they inhabited was their only home. The woods that were being razed to make way for London to expand and become the city it is today. Back then the woods were called Waltham Forest. Wild woods they’d been only centuries before with all manner of Others living amongst the old growth trees. Mathers’ brother had killed a man who’d chopped down a tree. He’d only meant to scare the human away, but the man had fallen and bashed his head against a rock. The humans wouldn’t listen when he said it was an accident. They had no time for anyone getting in the way of their progress.
“What you wanting with me this time of the morning?” Mathers asked.
Merlin had just made out the outline of Mathers’ body when the smell of alcohol assaulted his senses. “You’ve been drinking.”
“I have, more than most and less than some. I’ll not be having you shame me for it neither. A man I am, and I’ll drink when I want.” Mathers slammed the bottle down on the seat of a chair.
In this state Merlin wasn’t going to get much information out of him. “The dew’s on the grass and a breeze moving through the trees. Why don’t we take a walk outside?” Nature was the key to Mathers’ happiness. If he could get him outside walking in the forest, it would help him procure the information he needed, perhaps. Woodfolk weren’t known for being cooperative under the best of circumstances.
The Last Guardian Rises (The Last Keeper's Daughter) Page 7
