“Leaving us in relative safety, at least on that particular front,” Rans mused.
My cynicism reared its ugly head almost immediately. “Assuming, of course, that the Hell-bitch doesn’t just decide to sic someone else on us. Caspian, for instance.”
“Who’s Caspian?” my father asked, sounding completely lost.
“A Fae general who’s secretly allied with Myrial, because they both want to destabilize things and restart the war between Hell and Dhuinne,” I synopsized. After a brief pause, I continued with something that had been on my mind for several days now. “Look, you guys. I think we’re going about this all wrong. Maybe it’s time we—”
My observation was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a blazing oval ring in the center of my living room. I scrambled to place myself between the unexpected Fae portal and my father, half-convinced that Caspian himself was about to come through it with guns blazing.
The figure that did emerge from the tear in reality was a less threatening, but no less unexpected one. Rans—who’d been poised to lunge for the intruder—made a disgruntled noise and stepped back. Albigard closed the portal behind him with a snap. His penetrating gaze played over the room before landing firmly on me. He looked... disheveled, which wasn’t a state I associated with the elegant and haughty Fae.
“What the hell, Albigard?” I asked, figuring that diplomacy would be pretty much wasted at this point.
The look in the Fae’s forest green eyes was hunted, and it freaked me out more than it maybe should have. His lip curled in a frustrated snarl before he spoke, sounding about as pissed off as I felt after everything that had happened.
“Caspian’s allies have been magically tracing my movements,” he spat, as though the words tasted bad. “I only discovered and neutralized the tracking spell an hour ago—which means that you’re in danger, demonkin.”
SEVEN
AWKWARD SILENCE reigned for a beat before I broke it, not trying to hide my sarcasm. “Gee, Tinkerbell... d’you fuckin’ think?”
Silence fell again. Albigard’s expression registered surprise before turning grim. “They already reached you,” he said. “And I gather... they succeeded in killing you before your bloodsucker turned you into one of his kind? That complicates matters.”
“Yes, that’s what I said,” Edward agreed.
“Rans didn’t turn me,” I clarified. “Not that I suppose it really matters.”
Albigard nodded slowly. “Ah. Of course not. He couldn’t, could he?”
With the life-bond, Rans had died the moment I did. By necessity, Guthrie had been the one to turn me.
It occurred to me that Dad was being awfully quiet, given the sudden appearance of a magical portal in reality a few feet away from him. When I glanced over my shoulder to check on him, it was to find him staring fixedly at Albigard with a lost expression on his face. I whirled and sank to my knees in front of him, realizing with a jolt that the unexpected exposure to Fae magic could send him right back into the blank mental space where he’d been trapped for weeks after being kidnapped to Dhuinne.
“Dad! Snap out of it! Albigard’s a—” I stumbled a bit on the next word before recovering. “He’s a friend, all right? He’s the one who arranged to get you out of that horrible place the Fae took you. Come on—please don’t check out on me again...”
Edward rose, giving Albigard a wary berth as he crossed to my side and leaned over my father. His gnarled hand closed over Dad’s shoulder, giving him a little shake.
“Darryl, old chap. Stay with us, yes?”
Dad blinked rapidly, sucking in a breath as though he’d been drowning. This time, when his gaze wandered past us to settle on Albigard, it was with more awareness.
“What is that... creature doing here?” he asked hoarsely.
Albigard raised an offended eyebrow.
Rans let out a derisive snort. “Good question,” he said. “Now that you’ve delivered your totally useless warning, was there anything else, Tinkerbell?”
“Oh, for god’s sake, you two,” I groused. “Could we not?”
“In fact,” Albigard bit out, “there is something else, bloodsucker. Caspian is recruiting allies among the Unseelie, claiming that the demonkin physically assaulted him. He’s rattling sabers, and the implication is that he will soon move to destroy the peace treaty once and for all—with or without the sanction of the Court.”
“I assaulted him?” I echoed in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”
Albigard blinked at me. “Did you not shoot him?”
“Dude! He was trying to kill me!”
“Indeed,” he said, looking down his patrician nose at us. “In case this is not already clear to you, Fae do not lie... but they frequently engage in creative omission and reframing of the truth.”
Rans stepped up to him—just close enough to be mildly provocative. “Yes,” he said. “About that. Answer me this, and don’t try to dodge the question. Did you knowingly lead us into danger when you transported us to the Caribbean?”
Albigard glared at him. “No, bloodsucker. I did not knowingly lead you into danger. My intention was to fulfill my end of the two bargains I made with Zorah, and give you passage to a place where you might be comparatively safe for a while.”
They stared each other down for a long moment, before Rans gave a small, sharp nod and backed off. The Fae eyed him with affected distaste.
I sighed. “Okay, cool. So, if you two are done kissing and making up, maybe we could get back to the problem at hand? First, though—does the fact that Caspian apparently has his eye on you mean that you’re in danger as well now, Albigard?”
The Fae’s dark brows twitched as though my words had surprised him.
“Perhaps,” he said. “It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’ve fallen on the wrong side of Court politics. I daresay it won’t be the last, either. Why should you care about such things, demonkin?”
It occurred to me that sighing had been a lot more satisfying back when I still needed to breathe. I did it anyway.
“Why wouldn’t I care, Tinkerbell?” I shot back. “You’ve helped me out on multiple occasions now. Plus, you and Rans were friends... or something... for way longer than I’ve even been alive, I’m guessing. Those two things mean I’m supposed to give a shit if you’re in trouble.” I gestured back and forth between us with a finger. “You see how this works?”
“Not really,” Albigard said, studying me like I was some unknown species of insect that might turn out to be poisonous.
I shook my head. “Okay, you know what? Never mind. Here’s the deal. Myrial is going to come after us, and it looks like Caspian may be involved as well when that happens. My dad bound himself to Nigellus so he could get out of Hell and warn me, but by doing so he may have been playing into a trap. Do you want to stay and help us try not to get killed?”
“With a sales pitch like that,” my father grumbled, “how could he refuse?” He gave Albigard a wary visual sweep. “Are you really the one who got me out of that god-awful place?”
Albigard returned the look measure for measure. “If you refer to Dhuinne, then yes, I am.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. After a moment, he gave a short, sharp nod of acknowledgement.
“So,” I prompted. “Are you going to stick around, then? Because, as I was just about to say when you showed up, I think we’ve been going about this all wrong since pretty much the beginning.”
“Wrong? How so?” Rans asked warily.
It occurred to me that by criticizing ‘our’ strategy, I was mostly criticizing Rans’ attempts to keep me alive in the weeks since I’d met him. Which, since he’d been mostly successful in that monumental undertaking, was kind of a shitty thing for me to do. And yet... I was pretty sure I was right about how we needed to change our strategy going forward.
For the hundredth time since Rans and I had acknowledged the depth of the feelings between us, I took a leap of faith that this relationship was different tha
n all the other so-called relationships I’d had in my short life. Ignoring the presence of the others in the room, I turned to him and gathered his hands in mine, looking up at him earnestly.
“We’ve been so focused on surviving that it never occurred to us to think about winning,” I told him. “The way I see it, if we continue on our present path, we’ll never be free of this constant race to stay one step ahead of our enemies. And eventually, we’ll lose that race. It’s inevitable.”
Rans’ brows drew together, and he twisted his hands until mine were held in his, rather than the other way around. “Some of our enemies are immortal, Zorah.”
My father cleared his throat. Reluctantly, I dragged my gaze away from Rans, only to find him looking at me with something like consternation—as if I were a teenager caught making out on the front porch after a date. The ridiculousness of it made me raise my eyebrows in clear challenge.
Go ahead, I thought. Come after me for being in love, after you spent most of my life neglecting my emotional needs. Try it, and see what happens.
Whether Dad saw something of this in my expression, or whether he thought better of it on his own, I had no idea. But all he said was, “Are they really immortal, though?”
His tone was gruff, but the question was a reasonable one.
“Yes,” Rans replied flatly. “There is no method for killing a demon. They are immortal and eternal.”
Edward had returned to his comfortable chair, but now he leaned forward, his fingers laced, forearms resting on his bony knees. “That is true, sir, as far as it goes.” His eyes flicked to Albigard. “However, just because a demon cannot be killed, doesn’t mean that one may not be, shall we say... neutralized. For a time, at least.”
I followed the elderly butler’s gaze to the Fae. Albigard raised a skeptical brow.
“You speak of the Fae attempts to remove key demons from the field of battle during the war, I assume?” he asked. “Attempts, I might add, that cost the lives of countless warriors.”
“And that met with only minimal success,” Rans added dryly.
I leaned forward, intrigued. “Whoa. Still, that’s the first I’ve heard about this. What kind of... neutralization... are we talking about, here?”
“Hacking the demon’s body into manageable pieces and encasing each one in a large volume of salt,” Edward said tartly. “After which, the salt-encased pieces are scattered over as wide an area as possible.”
I blinked, tilting my head to one side as I considered the grisly pronouncement. “Okay... wow. That’s... extreme. Does it work, though?”
“After a fashion,” Albigard said, his tone grim. “Demons regenerate by recalling all of their constituent parts magically from wherever they happen to be.”
“But the salt interferes with that...” I mused, thinking about Myrial’s reaction when Rans had managed to snap off the blade of my salt-laced dagger in her chest.
“It slows the process,” Albigard said. “Perhaps not in a way particularly troublesome to a creature that inhabits eternity, but significant on the mortal scale, nonetheless.”
“Years?” I asked, feeling the first stirring of hope.
“Decades,” Albigard replied. “Perhaps centuries.”
“In theory,” Rans added sharply. “Since the handful of Fae attempts that made it beyond the ‘hacking into pieces’ stage were quickly undone when other demons tracked down the scattered pieces and retrieved them.”
“The demon Orobas was removed from the theater of conflict for more than seventeen years,” Albigard said, with a touch of defensiveness.
“That’s because no one can stand Orobas,” Edward said. “The fool never shuts up.”
“And can the other demons stand Myrial?” I asked pointedly.
“Myrial has allies,” Edward replied. “How many and how loyal will depend largely on Nigellus’ success with the Council.”
I’d held out longer than I expected without resorting to anxious pacing, but I gave in and started prowling around the room as I thought hard about this new revelation. “What if the pieces were hidden in, like, salt mines? Or if some of them were hidden in Dhuinne?”
“If the goal is not to allow the war to restart, it would probably be best not to bring dismembered demon parts to the Fae realm,” Albigard said with an edge to his voice.
“But the salt mines?” I prompted.
Rans hadn’t moved, but his eyes followed me closely. “It might slow them down. Though they could simply send a demon-bound human in to retrieve the body part, once it was located.”
I stopped, focusing my attention on him. “You really hate this idea. Why is that?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “Because entire flights of battle-trained Fae broke themselves against these particular jagged rocks. How do you intend to dismember a creature who can teleport at will? One who can influence minds, and who is barely fazed by non-magical weapons?”
I drew the salt dagger from the sheath at my thigh. “Myrial was pretty fazed by this,” I pointed out.
Rans scoffed. “Myrial could have popped out of existence at any time during that little skirmish.”
“Those doomed flights of battle-hardened Fae in the war didn’t have a demon of the first rank fighting alongside them,” Edward said quietly.
“I beg your pardon?” Albigard said, as though the words were insulting. “I should certainly think not!”
Rans turned on Edward, his blue eyes boring into the elderly man’s. “And what makes you think we want your master anywhere near this situation, Edward?”
The words were sharp, but Edward only lifted his eyebrows. “Forgive my bluntness, Ransley—but you’d do well not to turn away the prospect of assistance at this point,” he said.
“Edward’s right.” The words came from my father, and I looked at him in consternation. “If you’re looking to take out that demon bastard for good, and his boss can help, then you need him.”
“You don’t know what Nigellus has done, though,” I said, caught between the knowledge that they were both talking sense, and my feelings of betrayal and anger on Rans’ behalf.
Dad scowled. “He’s a demon, Zorah. I imagine he’s done all sorts of things. What’s your point?”
My jaw clenched. “You know that blood wine the tithelings are so fond of?” I gestured at Rans. “Nigellus has been stealing his blood to make it. He’s been doing it in secret, and he’s been doing it for centuries.”
Dad stared at us. “And?” he asked.
I stared back. “What the hell do you mean, ‘and’?”
My father continued to look at me like he couldn’t believe he’d contributed genetic material to such a lack-wit. “He’s a vampire, you said. Do you mean to tell me he hasn’t been stealing other people’s blood in secret for... what was it? Seven hundred years?”
I gaped at him. Behind me, Albigard let out a bark of honest-to-god laughter.
“Besides, it doesn’t look like having it taken has hurt him any,” Dad continued inexorably. “And that blood wine is what keeps the tithelings healthy and young, right? So it was for a good cause.”
“Oh, Darryl Bright,” Albigard said, still clearly amused. “Consider any debt you owe me for arranging your transport from the Fae realm paid in full. This exchange may well be the best entertainment I’ve had in years.”
My eyes flew to Rans. He looked pale in a way that I’d only seen on a handful of occasions before—most of them involving some combination of knives, bullets, and complete exhaustion. Edward was watching him, too, with compassion showing in his deeply lined face.
“Ransley, you must know that his intention was never to hurt you,” Edward said, as though choosing his words with great care. “Surely you can believe that, after all this time.”
The words echoed what Nigellus himself had told Rans, before he’d left us alone with Guthrie and returned to Hell.
I regret that my actions caused you pain, Ransley.
My chest felt tight with t
hings I didn’t want to examine too closely. Rans appeared to be faring a little bit better, but only marginally.
“When it comes to Nigellus, Edward—I don’t know what to believe these days,” he said. “After one’s mind has been repeatedly bent by a creature too powerful to resist, it does tend to complicate matters of trust.”
“As your countless victims over the centuries can no doubt attest, bloodsucker,” Albigard added, with way too much relish.
I glared daggers at him. “So can yours.”
The Fae only waved the words away. “Ah, but I’ve never claimed otherwise, now have I, demonkin?”
Silence fell over the room for a long moment.
“If you believe Nigellus will consent to fight again on our behalf,” Rans told Edward, “then return to Hell and have him wrap up his political battle against Myrial in three days. Bring him back here, and we’ll have the final confrontation on our own terms.”
Edward nodded.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked Rans, holding his gaze and trying to see beyond the mask he was wearing for the others.
“I don’t see that we have a choice, if winning is the goal,” he said evenly.
Trust me, his blue eyes conveyed.
“All right,” I said eventually. Then, I turned back to Albigard. “What about you? Will you stay and help us?”
He narrowed his eyes. “You believe Caspian will be involved when this attack comes?”
“No guarantees,” I said, “but it seems likely, yes. You’re the one who said he’s threatening to trash the treaty with or without the Court’s go-ahead.”
Albigard’s gaze went distant, and an expression that could only be described as hatred flashed across the Fae’s regal features—almost too fast for me to register it.
“Then I will stay.” He visibly recalled himself to his surroundings, and looked around my family home with disdain. “But not here. Perhaps I will renew my acquaintance with Leonides. At least his taste in residences is better.”
“Ooh, ouch. Another vicious burn, Tinkerbell,” I told him. “At this rate, I’m going to need therapy for my damaged self-esteem. Have fun, but try not to fry any of Guthrie’s electronics, all right? We might need to call or email him.”
The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set Page 91
