The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set

by R. A. Steffan

  She jerked backward, losing her grip on the silver knife buried in my side. I ripped the dagger free of my body with blood-slicked fingers and threw it aside, knowing that I would heal even if the wound did feel like it was literally on fire right now. Rising on shaky legs, I looked down at the succubus as she clawed at her face one-handed. Black ichor streamed from her ruined eye.

  Something that most certainly wasn’t a smile stretched my lips into an ugly shape that bared my fangs. Then, just as I was about to call for someone to bring me the chainsaw and a fucking bag of salt, Myrial disappeared—lying there in front of me one moment; teleported away the next.

  “No!” I howled. “Fuck!”

  I whirled toward Nigellus, but the demon was already wrenching his body upright, wings dragging heavily behind him. With a pained grunt, he lurched toward the place where Myrial had been, vanishing in mid-leap.

  Reeling, I looked around wildly. Rans was still lying motionless on the ground. Edward knelt over my father. Guthrie was rolling onto his side, weak and uncoordinated as he recovered from staking himself and then being magically revived. Glowing energy flared across the clearing where Caspian and Albigard still battled.

  My mind skittered in a dozen different directions. I’d lost my gun in the moment when Rans fell and I’d nearly followed him into death. Even if I could find it now, I didn’t think I could get a shot off at Caspian without risking the bullet hitting Albigard instead... especially with the way my hands were shaking. I stood midway between Rans and my dad, pulled helplessly in two directions.

  Edward glanced up, reading my dilemma. “Miss,” he said gently, “no on can do anything for Ransley until Nigellus returns. But you may be able to help your father.”

  My eyes flew to him. “What?” I asked, bewildered. “What can I possibly do for—”

  The obvious implication slammed me upside the head like a brick, and I was kneeling next to Dad in a flash.

  Idiot, I berated myself. Stupid, useless idiot!

  I was a vampire. Vampire blood ran in my veins. Vampire blood healed humans. I could’ve helped my father the instant after he was shot, and it hadn’t even occurred to me to do it because I was a useless fucking idiot.

  I ripped Dad’s shirt out of the way, revealing a filthy bullet wound that had obviously perforated his intestines. Not even stopping to think, I tore into my wrist with my fangs and let the blood drip down on the ragged hole. My father cried out weakly, his spine arching in Edward’s grip.

  There was no way to tell if the bullet was still inside him. If it was, I didn’t have either the know-how or the emotional fortitude to dig it out. And even if I tried, I wasn’t sure Dad could have survived the additional trauma. Where the hell was Nigellus?

  I bit my lip, not even wincing when my fang pierced the skin. The hole in my father’s gut was still pumping out blood. “Why isn’t it working?” I asked desperately.

  Edward only shook his head in confusion, his bushy white brows drawn together. My teeth raked across my wrist again, and this time I pressed the fast-healing wound to Dad’s mouth. He tried to turn his head away, but I followed the movement.

  “Stop it, you need to swallow this!” I ordered in a shaky voice. “Dad, please!”

  He made a pained noise, but some of my blood must have gone down his throat. Unfortunately, I only knew that because it came right back up again. He curled to the side, retching miserably—a stream of red dripping from his mouth.

  Guthrie had dragged himself over to join us at some point while I was distracted. I looked up at him, wide-eyed, as though he might have some kind of answer for why my blood wasn’t working. Was I... defective, somehow? Was there such thing as a defective vampire?

  Guthrie’s brow furrowed. “Zorah, that’s the same reaction you had when Rans tried to heal your wounds on the boat. He said it was because of—”

  “Because of the Fae animus I’d pulled,” I breathed. “Oh, god. Fae magic. My father absorbed Fae magic when he was in Dhuinne.”

  First as a baby, and again mere weeks ago.

  I shook my head slowly. “But... Rans’ blood still worked on me... sort of. My bullet wound closed up. Could it be me, though? Guthrie, you try. Please.”

  Guthrie frowned, but he did open up a vein and let his blood drip onto my father’s wound. Still, nothing happened except for my dad’s weak cry of pain as the vampire blood tried to work, and failed. Edward winced, cradling my father’s upper body and speaking soothingly to him.

  The old man looked up at me. “Nigellus still holds the power to save him, Miss.”

  Dad moaned something that sounded like ‘No,’ his head moving back and forth restlessly.

  “So where the fuck is he, then?” I snapped.

  A cry of anger wrenched my attention to the Fae duel that I probably should have been following all along. I stumbled to my feet, my left hand scrabbling for the iron dagger that still hung in its sheath at my waist. Guthrie scanned the ground and located my lost Makarov with its iron bullets, scooping it up and holding it pointed skyward. We ranged out, placing ourselves between the two Fae and our injured.

  At first, I couldn’t make out who was who. One of the blond-haired figures staggered back, weapon lost. It was only when he flung out a hand, light sparking from the gesture, that I realized it must be Albigard. Unnatural wind swirled up through the clearing, dragging at my blood-spattered clothing. It staggered me a half-step backward, but it wasn’t strong enough to stop Caspian.

  I started forward, dagger raised, ready to fling it at the Fae’s heart. Sword raised, Caspian lunged for his disarmed enemy. Guthrie fired at the same instant. Just as when I’d shot at him earlier, Caspian jerked under the impact but didn’t go down.

  The fucker was wearing a Kevlar vest underneath his clothing, I realized—his Fae strength allowing him to stay upright beneath the bruising impact of our bullets. That same vest would also protect him from a thrown dagger. Guthrie cursed as he tried to fire again and the gun jammed. I readied my shaky legs for a last-ditch lunge at him, but I was going to be too late.

  Albigard flung his other hand out, toward the ground this time. Light flared beneath Caspian’s feet, and he staggered, going down to his knees. I stumbled to a halt, watching in amazement as vines tangled around Caspian’s legs, binding him in place. He growled and wrenched at the twining stems, reaching down to try and saw at them with his blade.

  With my jaw hanging open, I stared as more vines tangled around his wrists, pinning him in place. As though in a trance, I walked toward the bound Fae, shifting the hilt of my iron dagger into a more secure grip as Caspian snarled up at me. I was still a couple of steps away when a quiet voice behind me said, “No,” in a tone of steel.

  I looked over my shoulder at Albigard, kneeling on the ground with an ugly slice running across his cheekbone and his pale, meticulously braided hair in disarray.

  “He’s mine,” the Fae said, with a degree of loathing I wouldn’t have thought him capable of.

  Albigard climbed unsteadily to his feet and retrieved his weapon, stalking toward Caspian like a hunting panther.

  “Sympathizer,” Caspian spat, as the sword tip lifted to rest over his heart.

  “I’m not the one consorting with demons, murderer,” Albigard grated... and ran him through. The sword, perhaps magically enhanced, pierced the Kevlar vest before disappearing into Caspian’s chest to the hilt.

  Caspian made a truly terrible sound, his body curling around the blade impaling him. Albigard yanked it free with an awful rasp of iron scraping across bone. He stared down at the crumpled figure for a long moment, breathing heavily.

  “Albigard...” I began, having no idea how I intended that sentence to continue.

  The Fae turned burning green eyes on me. “You can have the other one.”

  I frowned, not sure what he meant at first. Then, I recognized the prickle of Fae magic still coming from the other edge of the clearing, near the place where the portal had opened. I turned t
o look in that direction.

  Reefe was pinned against the bole of an ancient tree by coils of magic... just as he’d done to me in my cell on Dhuinne, right before he’d tortured me for the first time. The rest of my surroundings faded away, and I walked over to him, not even feeling my feet against the ground. Reefe’s lip curled into a sneer, but there was fear lurking in his eyes. In another time—another place—I might have asked him why. Why follow Caspian? Why torture an innocent person? Why come here to help a demon, when Fae and demons were enemies?

  In another time and place, I might have tried to understand. Here and now, in the world where my father and my lover lay on the ground at death’s door, I tightened my grip on my iron dagger and plunged it into the Fae’s bastard heart. He grunted and jerked against the magical bonds holding him, until I twisted the knife viciously a couple of times. When I pulled it out, blood gushed over my hand and Reefe slumped, lifeless. I jabbed the iron blade angrily into the tree trunk near his bowed head, before turning my back on him and walking away.

  FIFTEEN

  WHEN I RETURNED to the others, it was to find Guthrie and Edward arguing. Guthrie had retrieved the silver dagger from where I’d tossed it. Unease trickled down my spine at the sight of him holding it with a determined gleam in his eye. I checked on Rans—still more dead than alive unless Nigellus returned to fix what Myrial had done to him. Meanwhile, my father was clinging to life, his human heartbeat fast and thready to my vampire hearing.

  “If you would just wait a little longer, Mr. Leonides—” Edward was saying.

  “Wait how long?” Guthrie shot back angrily. “Do you want me to wait until her father’s dead? Until Myrial overpowers Nigellus and leaves Rans dead, too?”

  “Guys,” I said, managing through sheer will to channel something into my voice that wasn’t screaming hysteria. “What’s going on?”

  Edward frowned. “Your grandfather is considering something rash, Miss. Perhaps you’d care to convince him not to proceed?”

  “Not to proceed with... what, exactly?” I prompted.

  Guthrie glared at the elderly man, and Edward’s mouth thinned to a flat, unhappy line.

  “With staking himself again in a foolish attempt to further weaken Myrial, wherever she is,” Edward said.

  My gaze flew to Guthrie, burning with vampiric light. “Oh, fuck no,” I told him, stalking up to him until I was practically in his face.

  Even though I had to crane upward to glare at him, thanks to his taller frame, looking at the stubborn tilt to his jaw was uncomfortably like looking in a mirror. Distantly, I wondered how I’d managed to miss the family resemblance for so long.

  “Zorah,” he said, “if I can do something to hurt that fucking demon, I’m damned well going to do it.”

  I eyed him up and down. Guthrie wasn’t bad in a brawl, especially one relying on fists and boots. He was not, however, a fighter in the classical sense of the word. Not that I was a real fighter, either... at least, not yet. I had, however, been trained by someone who was.

  And that was what allowed me to dart a hand out and capture Guthrie’s wrist as he held the dagger loosely at his side. Taken by surprise, he didn’t counter as I twisted the weapon out of his grip and into mine before taking a step back, out of his reach.

  “Which part of ‘fuck, no’ was unclear, exactly?” I snapped. “I swear to god, Guthrie, if you somehow manage to get hold of this again and use it on yourself, I’ll yank it out of your goddamned chest and stab myself through the heart before your body has time to hit the ground. I’ll negate any advantage you think you’re gaining us, so help me.”

  A tendon worked in Guthrie’s jaw. “Zorah... goddamn it, you stubborn woman—are you just going to stand here waiting for your father to bleed out? And what about Rans? He may drive me up the damned wall, but he loves you. And you love him. Not to mention the fact that we have no way of knowing whether or not you’ll keel over dead as well, if Myrial manages to take Nigellus out while we’re sitting here on our asses.”

  I wasn’t in a position to emotionally deal with the fact that Rans lay motionless at our feet, dependent on a demon I didn’t trust to keep his soul attached to his body. If I let the idea sink in too far, I was afraid I’d just... shut down. So I pretended I hadn’t heard that last part, and focused on the first part instead.

  “We can save my father by turning him into a vampire,” I said. “You’ve done it before, and I’ve watched it being done. It worked on me to save me, even when Rans’ blood couldn’t. Between us, I’m sure we can manage it.”

  Guthrie looked at me, flummoxed.

  “S-stop talking about me... like I’m... not here,” came a weak rasp from ground level.

  I whirled, looking down at my father. “Dad—”

  “An’ stop trying to... fix what... can’t be fixed,” he said weakly, grimacing in pain. “Don’t want to... be a vampire. I refuse. D’you hear me?”

  “Dad—” I repeated more forcefully, unable to believe we were seriously going to have a fight while he was dying of a fucking bullet wound.

  Edward was still supporting my father’s upper body in his lap. “I’ve called for an ambulance, Miss—though even with the barrier down, it’s going to take some time for them to find us back here in the woods. I suspect one of you will also have to mesmerize the EMTs into ignoring the other bodies.”

  I swallowed hard. One of those unmoving bodies belonged to Rans. And... nope. Still not going there. Instead, I drew breath to tell Dad to stop wasting his strength by talking—only to break off and whirl around defensively as a huge crack of noise and displaced air echoed around the clearing. Two winged forms slammed into the earth about twenty feet away, with an impact so intense that Guthrie and I staggered back a couple of steps.

  “Shit!” I cried, casting around for any remaining useful weapons. But my salt dagger was already buried in Myrial’s skull, while Rans’ and Guthrie’s daggers were both lost in the tall grass somewhere. The shotgun with its rock salt shells lay in two broken pieces, the Makarov was jammed, and the silver dagger I was holding might as well have been a knitting needle where demons were concerned.

  Albigard had been hanging back in silence since killing Caspian earlier, but he did step between the two demons and the rest of us with his iron sword raised, bless him. I peered around him, standing shoulder to shoulder with Guthrie, whose posture was drawn tense as a bowstring.

  The two demonic figures shoved away from each other, separating from the ugly tangle of limbs and wings. Nigellus reached a hand outward. His sword materialized in it, the flames sputtering like a spent candle.

  Myrial flopped back weakly and caught herself on her hands, sharp talons digging into the loam. “Your sentimentality is a fatal weakness, Nigellus,” she spat. “You will live to regret your actions today.”

  Nigellus pushed himself to his feet, swaying unsteadily. “I regret many things, Myrial. Time will tell whether this becomes one of them.”

  His sword flashed, and Myrial’s head fell from her shoulders with a wet thud. Her body followed, dropping to the ground in a heap. A second, overhand blow from the heavy weapon split her skull in two. Dizziness assailed me at the gruesome sight, only Guthrie’s hand on my arm keeping me upright.

  Nigellus didn’t fare quite so well in the ‘staying upright’ department. As though the blow had taken the last of his strength, he staggered and fell, his chest rising and falling like a bellows. “Pack the skull pieces in separate bags,” he said hoarsely. “Make sure they’re well covered with salt, and then dismember the rest as quickly as you can.”

  I could hear sirens in the distance—the ambulance, or maybe police drawn to the disturbance in the park now that Edward’s protective barrier had fallen. Guthrie and Albigard moved to deal with Myrial’s body, hurrying toward the van to get the salt. I ignored them, stalking forward to loom over Nigellus—my feet planted wide and my hands on my hips.

  “Fix them,” I demanded, pointing behind me at my fathe
r and Rans.

  “Miss,” Edward said, sounding pained, “he may not have the power, after—”

  “Shut up,” I interrupted, something dangerous and unhinged rising up inside me. “Nigellus, fix them!”

  Before my eyes, the monstrous demonic form shimmered back to its illusion of humanity. Dark eyes narrowed, staring up at me unblinkingly.

  “I will ensure that your paramour survives, Miss Bright.” The normal dark velvet of Nigellus’ voice was pared down to a weak rasp. His shirt hung in tatters.

  A chainsaw fired up behind me. I didn’t turn to look. A horrible, tight band was squeezing around my lungs. The thready human heartbeat that had been racing in my ears like a countdown skipped and stuttered as my father’s grip on life weakened. An ambulance wasn’t going to be in time to save him.

  “My father, Nigellus,” I said, losing the battle to keep my voice steady. “You have to save him. Please.” It broke on the final word.

  A weak cough jerked my attention back to the injured man.

  “Don’... wanna be saved,” Dad whispered, the words slurring. “Want to... be with Sasha. Jus’... let me die, demon. Give my life... to someone... more deserving.”

  I was on my knees beside him in a heartbeat, clutching at his hand. “No!” I cried. “Dad—goddamn it, no!”

  He blinked up at me, light brown eyes growing distant. Edward looked distraught; his kind old face drawn and pale.

  “Sir,” he said. “You promised me a death in the time and manner of my choosing. Perhaps this—”

  Nigellus cut across him. “He’s already offered, Edward. Darryl Bright, are you certain this is the decision you wish to make?”

  “You can’t!” I looked frantically from my father to the demon, and back. “Dad...” The word was half a sob.

  His fingers twitched weakly in my hold. “’M sure.” My father’s eyes stared half at me, half through me. “Love you, Zorah. Sorry about... everything. Wanted to... do better...”