The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set

by R. A. Steffan

  The demon raised an eyebrow, and I wondered if I was about to get my ass smote on the spot. Did demons smite people? Or was that just angels? Whatever the case, now that Nigellus had Guthrie as a potential vampire blood source, he technically no longer needed Rans. That meant, by extension, he no longer needed me, either.

  It was an uncomfortable realization.

  “Why.” Rans flung the word down like a gauntlet rather than a question. He stood coiled like a predator ready to spring, eyes glowing and fangs bared. “Why would you use me like this for centuries—for centuries, Nigellus—and not tell me?”

  Nigellus gave him a thin smile that did not reach his eyes. “Believe it or not, I didn’t tell you because I made an oath not to.”

  “An oath?” Rans snarled.

  I shifted in place beside him. I could count the number of times I’d seen Rans lose his shit on... well... one finger, really. Maybe two, if you counted throwing an iron sword at Albigard’s head. Somehow, I doubted a full-on vampire meltdown was going to help this situation, but then again—what did I know?

  A small furrow appeared in Nigellus’ brow. “An... agreement, then, if you prefer. By holding my peace, I am keeping a confidence that takes precedence over your current emotional upset.” He regarded us with interest for a moment. “Though I must say, I’m somewhat impressed by the mercenary nature of your recent actions. You’ve clearly known of this for some time, yet you didn’t hesitate to use me for protection from Myrial, or the Fae.”

  “Are we supposed to feel bad about that?” I asked in disbelief.

  Dark eyes met mine, not even a hint of hellfire lurking in their depths. “No, not at all, Ms. Bright. On the contrary, it’s a lesson I’ve been attempting to drum into Ransley’s skull for centuries.”

  For a moment, I imagined I could actually hear Rans’ molars grinding together in barely controlled rage.

  “Fucking demons,” I muttered, not caring that Nigellus could hear me... or that I was essentially insulting myself as well as him.

  “So, what is it to be, Nigellus?” Rans asked, his tone hard as steel. “I won’t allow you to take Guthrie while I still live. Are we to battle right here? No doubt you’ll win if we do, whether you’re weakened or not. Do you truly wish for that to become the final chapter of our long and storied association?”

  Nigellus looked at him and sighed. “Hardly. Do take a moment and think, Ransley. If I desired to defy your ultimatum, I would simply bend your mind and alter your memories as I’ve done countless times before. Though admittedly, Ms. Bright’s demonic heritage gives her some slight resistance to my powers... as it does to your mesmeric influence, I would imagine. Nonetheless, a sufficient application of my will would still render her confused enough for me to leave with Mr. Leonides if I chose to do so.”

  “And why haven’t you done that?” I asked, caught between being seriously freaked out and genuinely curious about the answer.

  His eyebrow twitched upward again. “Because I do not, in fact, wish for that to be the final chapter of my long centuries of association with your paramour.”

  Rans’ bearing cooled by a degree or two, until I no longer felt like I was standing next to a nuclear reactor going critical.

  “Then start talking, damn you,” he said. “Why use my blood to stockpile the human tithelings in Hell by preventing them from aging? Why not simply force me to turn one of them, and get that one to turn the rest?”

  Nigellus flicked one hand in a brushing-off gesture. “It’s a simple matter of logistics. You’re not thinking strategically, Ransley. Those new vampires would need to feed. If hundreds of demon-bound vampires suddenly appeared on Earth and started drinking the humans’ blood, it would hardly remain a stealth operation as far as the Fae are concerned.”

  “But why hold back?” I couldn’t help asking. “Why make it a stealth operation in the first place? If your goal is to restart the war, what’s stopping you?”

  Nigellus looked at me as though I were a moderately promising student in a university course he was teaching, and I’d disappointed him.

  “My goal is not to restart the war. I’d have thought my actions to protect you from both Myrial and the Fae would make that rather obvious.” He frowned. “And I bided my time because I thought it might allow Ransley to come around to this course on his own. Think what you like of me, Ms. Bright, but it’s not as though I relish all of this cloak-and-dagger nonsense.”

  “Come around to—” Rans echoed in disbelief. “My people were slaughtered, Nigellus—fighting in your bloody war! I’ve been alone for centuries! Yet you somehow believe that I would voluntarily place more innocents in the line of fire, based on your theory about the tithelings and their resistance to Fae magic?”

  Nigellus looked rather pointedly past our shoulders, at Guthrie lying insensate on the bed. A chill went through me at the reminder that should he wish it, Nigellus now had access to a newly turned vampire who was not only too weakened by shock to resist him, but also already bound to a demon and therefore technically able to travel in and out of Hell... unlike Rans.

  Of course, the demon who’d bound Guthrie’s soul wasn’t exactly what you’d call well disposed toward Nigellus at the moment, seeing as how Nigellus had been instrumental in her recent—and rather humiliating—defeat. How much that fact weighed in our favor was something of an open question.

  Nigellus suddenly looked tired, and very, very old. “Eternity is an exceptionally long time, you two. All things are possible with enough patience. Until recently, there was little reason to press the issue.”

  “And now?” I asked.

  Those ageless eyes pinned mine. “And now, Hell and Dhuinne are conspiring across the battle lines, in an effort to destabilize all three realms to an even greater extent than they already are.”

  I thought of Myrial and Caspian scheming to gain power in their respective worlds, and suppressed a shudder.

  Rans moved to close the distance between us until his upper arm brushed mine. “Enough of this. Either overpower us and be done with it, or leave. You’re no longer welcome in my presence, Nigellus, and I will fight you with every iota of power I possess if you attempt to take Guthrie to Hell. Beyond that, I have nothing more to say to you.”

  I tensed, bracing for the worst, but Nigellus only nodded thoughtfully to himself. His eyes held Rans’ with the weight of eternity behind him, and I couldn’t stop a small shiver of reaction to his power.

  “My need for vampire blood does not vanish merely because you are now aware of it,” he said in grim tones. “However, I regret that my actions caused you pain, Ransley. Guard your loved ones well. Likewise, the threat to them has not vanished simply because you no longer care to accept my protection.”

  With that, the demon squared his shoulders and vanished out of existence, leaving nothing behind but a faint change in the room’s air pressure. I spun around, checking that he hadn’t somehow spirited Guthrie away behind our backs. He was still there, thankfully—looking wan and exhausted, with a tinge of unhealthy gray beneath his dark complexion.

  “Well, shit,” I said in a faint voice.

  Next to me, Rans sat rather abruptly on the edge of the mattress, only to slide off its edge a moment later, settling onto the floor next to the bed in a barely controlled heap. He buried his face in one hand, and that hand was shaking.

  I let my knees fold beneath the stress of the last few minutes and sat beside him, our shoulders pressed together as we rested our backs against the side of the bed frame. Rans scrubbed his hand over his eyes with a rough stroke up and down before looking up. His blue gaze fixed on the middle distance.

  “I suppose I should apologize in advance, in the event that my outburst of pique ends up getting us all killed.” His tone was distracted, and he still wasn’t meeting my eyes.

  I brushed fingers over the sharp jut of his jaw, using the touch to guide his attention to me. “Hey. It needed to be said,” I told him. My chest rose and fell on a sharp br
eath. “Though I have to admit, I didn’t really expect him to just... bail on us like that, afterward.”

  Rans frowned. “No. Nor did I. I wasn’t lying... he would have prevailed in whatever form of battle we engaged in—physical or mental. So why abandon his new prize in such a way?”

  His eyes flicked over his shoulder to Guthrie, and mine followed. We were silent for a long moment as I mulled the question.

  “After the fight with Myrial, he told her to go back to Hell, and that he’d be along shortly to dispute whatever lies she attempted to sell to the demon council,” I said slowly. “Maybe he’s doing exactly that? He knows Myrial is the most immediate danger to us. If she’s tied up with him in Hell, he can ensure she doesn’t make another move against us right away.”

  “I suppose so,” Rans allowed, his gaze returning to mine. “Though Myrial isn’t exactly the only threat we’re facing.”

  “True. But you’ve been tangling with the Fae for centuries, haven’t you? I think Nigellus trusts you to deal with them on your own.”

  He lifted a hand and hooked a wayward spiral of my hair over my ear with gentle affection, though exhaustion still hung over him like a shroud. “Perhaps so,” he said. “Though I feel I should point out that I’m not the one who disabled Caspian and eliminated most of his human henchmen in California yesterday.”

  I squirmed a bit, not ready to think about the carnage I’d left behind me. “Yeah, well. We’re both guarding Guthrie now, so that should make him extra safe, right?”

  Rans let his head fall back against the edge of the bed for a moment, his eyes slipping closed. When he opened them, the fiery glow behind them had faded to its usual pellucid blue. “Let’s hope so,” he agreed.

  “I guess all we need now is a plan,” I said, feeling my own exhaustion tugging at me.

  “Right,” he murmured. “Yes. A plan. We’re holed up in the single most obvious place that anyone who knows Guthrie would think to look for him, and in order to move, we’d need to transport an unconscious vampire who might awaken at any time with a crazed desire for human blood.”

  I tried to kick my battered brain cells into gear. Rans’ motorcycle was probably still parked in the underground garage, but that was no real help to us under these circumstances.

  “Does Guthrie have a car?” I asked. “He must have one, right?”

  “He does, but it’s a convertible with no back seat, and a boot that’s barely large enough to accommodate a set of golf clubs.”

  I blinked. “We are not stuffing him in the trunk of a car,” I said, before adding as an afterthought, “Wait. Guthrie plays golf? Seriously?”

  “Only with great reluctance, I gather,” Rans replied, presumably in response to the question about golf. “It’s expected in his sort of social circles.” He sighed and straightened his spine, vertebrae popping audibly. “So, who do we know in St. Louis that we trust enough to call?”

  “Len,” I replied without thought, and immediately felt guilty over the prospect of dragging the poor guy back into the middle of our shit-storm.

  “Fair enough,” Rans said.

  He rummaged in a pocket and came up with his phone, which he handed to me. I stared at it, trying to call up Len’s number from memory and drawing a complete blank.

  “Erm...” I began.

  “You copied the important numbers from my phone in Chicago,” Rans told me. “I took the liberty of doing the same with yours.”

  I relaxed. “Gotcha. Good plan, that.” Not that there had been many important numbers on my phone to copy. Len’s and my father’s, basically—and Dad’s wouldn’t do much good to anyone now that he was stuck in Hell.

  I scrolled through the contacts and pulled up Len’s number, then hit ‘call.’ The phone rang. After the sixth ring, it picked up.

  “Yeah? Who’s this?”

  “Len? It’s Zorah.” I swallowed, wetting my lips. “I’m sorry to call out of the blue like this, but we’re kind of in a bind...”

  A pause. “Zorah? Yeah, I’m... uh...” Another pause—longer this time. “Look I... I’m sorry, Z. I can’t... do this right now.”

  The line went dead as Len hung up. I called the number again, but it went straight to voicemail. It didn’t seem like there was much point in leaving a message.

  “I did try to tell the bloke that he should let me erase his memories,” Rans muttered, having been eavesdropping with the benefit of supernatural hearing.

  I winced. Okay. So apparently we’d succeeded in breaking Len’s brain last time.

  Awesome.

  “Any other local contacts on your end?” he asked.

  I wracked my brain for anyone who was relatively well disposed toward me, and hadn’t been corrupted by the Fae when Caspian had come after me the first time. Sad as it was, there was really only one name on the list.

  “Maybe,” I said, just hoping that I could remember her number.

  TWO

  VONNIE MORGAN HAD been at the Missouri Mental Health Alliance office on the day Caspian had shown up and turned my boss and the company board of directors against me. But she hadn’t been in the actual room when it happened, and she’d acted normal enough when I ran past her in tears—asking if I was all right, and appearing upset.

  I hadn’t spoken to her since, and I’d ditched my phone for a burner shortly thereafter. Unlike Len, however, I’d had a casual friendship with Vonnie for quite some time before my entire life blew up in my face. I wasn’t entirely sure what a single mom, barely scraping by with two jobs, might be able to do to help us, but it wasn’t as though our options were all that thick on the ground right now.

  She and I had called and texted each other enough that I was fairly confident of her number, even though I hadn’t transferred it to my new phone. At least, I was fairly confident right up until I got the message informing me in cool tones that the number was no longer in service.

  “Damn it.” I set the phone on the floor next to me and thought hard. “I could try sending her an email, I guess.”

  Rans nodded absently. “You can borrow Guthrie’s laptop. It’s probably in the office. Just make certain to use an offshore VPN, and register a fresh throwaway email account to send it. Yours could conceivably be under surveillance.”

  I examined his face, taking in his haggard appearance and the way the lines around his eyes had deepened. Outside, the sun had risen to a mid-morning slant through the windows.

  “That’s all I’ve got as far as trustworthy local contacts, I’m afraid,” I confessed. “How long has it been since you slept? You look worse than I feel, and that’s saying something.”

  He shrugged off the words and clambered to his feet. “Even if I could remember the answer to your question, I suspect it would only upset you.”

  I handed him his phone and accepted his hand up. Once I was on my feet, I used the light grip to pull him into an embrace—gratified when he melted into the contact after only the barest hesitation. Though I was taking comfort as much as giving it, I made myself ease back from him after a minute.

  “Are you still reasonably confident that Guthrie will be out cold for a while?” I asked.

  “With the sun up and him just starting to recover from the blood craze, he should be,” Rans said tiredly. “There’s a fair amount of variation between individuals, though.”

  “Then you should rest for a bit. I’ll keep watch.” He drew breath to protest, but I cut him off. “Look. Here’s the deal. Myrial has a blood tie with me, and a soul-bond with Guthrie. The simple truth is that if she puts her mind to it, she can find us whether we’re here in the penthouse or halfway across the world.”

  The lines in Rans’ face etched a little deeper. “An accurate assessment, unfortunately.”

  I nodded. “So if Nigellus isn’t keeping Myrial tied up in Hell right now, we’re basically screwed either way. You taking a nap—or not—isn’t going to make much difference. The Fae, on the other hand, have no way of tracking us here that I can see. We telepo
rted in with Nigellus. Even if they have surveillance on the building or something, they wouldn’t know we’re here. The only time you left was to go raid the hospital for blood, and you traveled as mist.”

  Some of the tension in Rans’ shoulders eased, and he leaned closer to kiss my forehead. “You’re quite right, love. Very well, then. We’ll take the day to regroup, and come at it with fresh eyes once Guthrie wakes up so we see can what state he’s in.”

  Looking up at him, I gave a small nod. “Sounds good. What’s killing me right now is the idea that Nigellus might be trying to talk Myrial around to his side somehow, now that Guthrie’s a vampire. I mean... it was pretty obvious there’s no love lost between the two of them, but with Myrial pulling Guthrie’s strings, it seems like Nigellus might be pretty motivated to cut some kind of a deal with her. She’s got a ton of leverage over Guthrie, and she can also get him in and out of Hell anytime she wants, since he’s bound to her.”

  “All true.” Rans straightened away from me, turning to look down at the man on the bed. “In fact, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the soul-bond aspect, as it pertains to getting Nigellus’ hypothetical vampire army out of Hell so they can actually fight the enemy.”

  A connection clicked in place inside my mind. “Oh. So that’s why you looked surprised when Nigellus said that none of the tithelings were demon-bound. They’d have to be at some point, or they’d be fairly useless as a fighting force.”

  “Just so,” Rans agreed.

  A shiver ran through me as I realized for the first time that Nigellus intended for people I knew personally to end up as undead cannon fodder in his race’s endless conflict with the Fae.

  Sharalynn. Li Wei. Fatima. Finn.

  Hard on the heels of that thought came another.

  “You know, I lived with the tithelings for weeks,” I mused. “And the more I think about it, the more unsuited they seem to becoming an army. They’re basically a bunch of friggin’ eco-hippies, for god’s sake. I couldn’t even find anyone willing to spar with me when I was there.”