by Jeff Hale
I reached down to retrieve my blades and finish the job. He looked up at me and smiled weakly, blood flowing down the side of his mouth.
“Ah, brother. You’re just as good as I remember, but our storied rivalry doesn’t end here,” he said, chuckling and coughing. Then he vanished, leaving my blades to fall to the floor where he’d been.
I dismissed the blades and shook my head, pondering this turn of events. First the trouble with the shifters and now this. What next? Oh, yeah, there’s still agitated vampires in a room with humans. If they lost control they could potentially hurt the people without realizing what they were doing.
I headed back up to the Party Room. It was empty of everyone except the band and Dave when I got there. Dave gave me a hard pat on the back and I winced in pain, and he stepped back and gave me an apologetic look.
“Dude! That was fucking awesome!” he said enthusiastically, “But I thought you said you were the only one, you know, like you?”
“I thought so too,” I muttered.
“Is he gone?” Kyra asked.
“Yeah, he’s gone,” I assured her.
“I didn’t think anyone could fight him off. We weren’t sure you’d live up to your reputation. Boy, am I glad that you did. If there’s anything we can do to repay you let us know,” Kaycee offered.
“Look, you’re paying us pretty well as it is. I’m just doing my… ow… job.” Dave pulled a rather large sliver of glass from my right arm and ran over to get a first aid kit as it started to bleed more. “Besides, I don’t think he’ll be coming back for any of you anyway. You were just a means to an end. He was after me. Something’s going on, and I’m going to unravel it.” I winced again as Dave removed another sizable piece of glass from my shoulder. Somehow this Malachai had known that I was running a business to protect people from renegade Aetherics, and he had used that to lure me out, figuring that the Vixens would hire me over anyone else. But how?
“How did you guys get turned on to our agency anyway?” I asked suspiciously. They were vampires after all, maybe they were working with Baba Yaga like most of the others I had run across, though they didn’t sport any tattoos, and I had seen enough of them earlier to know that.
“We got an anonymous tip.” Kyra shrugged as she wetted a wash cloth.
“Not anonymous anymore. I somehow think that he gave you that tip,” I said.
“Hey, girls, that’s how we’ll repay him. We can talk to our people and see what they can find out,” Krysa suggested.
“That’s a good idea. I’m sure some of our family might know what’s going on. They tend to have the dirt on everyone.” Kyra nodded.
“That’s because they all read minds,” Raven said, “So, another Sentinel, huh?”
“Yeah, a Paragon like myself no less. He was focused on air and earth it seemed. Happened to be Mordred to boot. And by the way… where the hell were you while I was getting my ass kicked out there?”
“I was checking the perimeter of the building, and besides, you seemed to do fine. Well, looks like I’m staying in your room tonight,” she said pointedly.
“No need. He won’t be back tonight. I gave him a pretty good thrashing, though I have to admit to some circumstantial luck in that,” I said, grimacing as Dave pulled out yet another chunk of glass from my flesh.
“He can stay with us, Raven. No need to worry about him in that case,” Kyra said as she dabbed at a new wound.
“I don’t like it.” Raven’s eyes narrowed.
“I have no ulterior motives, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Kyra said matter of factly.
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Raven said in a low voice. I could feel the Aether beginning to gather.
“It’ll be fine. Rave. Stand down.” I turned and looked at Kyra and smiled.
I stayed with the La’Morte sisters for the duration of the job. Nothing much happened since I was still sore as hell from the fight. It had taken far more out of me than I thought it had. When I wasn’t working, I spent time meditating, trying to recall memories of Mordred, but to no avail.
Five days and four blessedly uneventful concerts later, I was told that I had done my job and to expect payment to be wired to our business accounts. I was also told that I had been invited to a vampire gather.
I’d never been to one, so this could prove interesting. Only kink in the works was that it was being held somewhere else entirely considering the local fae and their feelings towards vampires. Raven didn’t like it, but I needed the information this opportunity afforded me.
I was told to show up at a private airstrip just outside of town at eight at night a couple of days later. I used the time before the trip to finish filing a few older case files, and make sure that Chris Weaver of the local MAGE Council knew where I was heading so I didn’t have to deal with Aetheric Customs.
On the night of the trip, I headed down to Club Xtassy where Dave worked as a bouncer in order to hand him the rent for the next few months in person. I never took the chance of leaving it for him at home, wanting to make sure I handed it to him directly.
It was there that I had my third sighting of the mysterious Serena look alike. She was dancing with her boyfriend, who was getting awfully grabby, and she was constantly pushing his hands to less sensitive areas of her body. She was looking gorgeous in a clingy, silver, spaghetti-strapped shirt and a short pleated skirt.
I thought about going and helping the poor girl out, but I knew that the guy was probably drunk enough to want to start a fight with me for putting my nose where it wasn’t wanted. Then I’d have to kill him. Not something I wanted to do.
Well, maybe a little.
I got the rent money to Dave then looked for the girl on my way out. She was hanging out with her friends in a private booth and I could have sworn that one of the people in the booth was Kat. I didn’t have time just then to go over and confirm it as I was late for my plane as it was.
Once I arrived at the airport, I saw a black private jet sitting in the loading area of the airstrip. I was told that the gather would be held that night in Washington State. Ironically enough it was in the Tri-Cities, the cluster of towns that Kat used to live in.
I got on the plane and settled in for the flight. The plane was luxuriously appointed, every comfort available. I kept expecting the La’Morte sisters to show up as well, but they never did. A stewardess pushed opened a door near the front of the plane and approached me. At least, I assumed she was a stewardess; she was dressed more like a call girl, in a vest that barely covered rather largely augmented breasts and a skirt that was more like a belt. I got the idea that not only would she serve me food and drink, but she would take care of any other needs I might have as well. I motioned her over and she began to undo her vest.
“No, that’s not necessary,” I told her, waving a hand, and she rebuttoned the vest. “Where are the La’Morte sisters?”
“They have already left, and will be awaiting your arrival at the private airfield in Kennewick,” she said, her expression full of disappointment that her ‘services’ wouldn’t be required.
“Okay. Get me a screwdriver, please.” I turned my attention to the window and what lay beyond.
“Right away.” She promptly left to get my drink, then came back a few minutes later with it. She stayed at hand for the entire trip.
The plane ride went without incident. I thought constantly about the Serena look alike. So far, every time I had seen her I had never really had the chance to so much as say ‘hi’ to her. I ran all the different scenarios through my mind that could occur if I did get that chance. Some included her actually being Serena, others with her being someone completely different, and not all of them ended well. An hour and a half later I was interrupted from my thoughts by the plane landing. As I took the last step down to the ground, I glanced around me, the night lit up by the city lights. Kennewick, Washington.
Kaycee was waiting for me, leaning against the side of a black stretch
limo. She was dressed almost conservatively in a long dark velvet skirt and matching corset, her make-up more understated than what I had seen on her in the past. She met me halfway, then escorted me back to the limo, where the chauffeur opened the door for us. I followed her into the limo and she smiled at me as I got settled and began to fidget nervously.
“Not used to limos?” she asked, lifting a fine brow.
“Sorta. Only been in one before at my Senior Prom.”
“Hmm, I remember that night.” She rested her elbow on her knee and propped her chin in her open palm.
“You do?”
“Oh, yes. I remember seeing you walk into the room like you owned the place. You had no shortage of confidence. Now I know where that confidence stems from. You knew those humans were beneath you. Even the peasant trollop you were with that night.”
“She’s not… oh, who am I kidding. She is. Whatever.” I sighed in resignation. Kat was not even worth my contempt at this point. If what Dave said was true, and I had no reason to doubt him, then Kat had not only decided to not wait for me, she decided to have a threesome with some other shifters, and then decided to quit school so she could go be with Darien, her possessive stalker werewolf ‘friend’.
Not that I had wanted her to wait for me; that’s why I had broken it off with her when I left for Colorado. But she could have at least attempted to let the relationship get even slightly cold before going off and being a slut. Shown some semblance of self-respect. Something.
“Oh? And here I thought you were going to defend her honor. That is what you do. Or at least that’s what I’ve heard you do.”
“From who?”
“We La’Mortes have our little ways.” She gave me a sly smile.
“Fine. And no I’m not.”
“Why not? What happened that made you despise her so? Most men will defend their past loves even if they’ve had their hearts broken. What makes this so different?”
“She doesn’t have any respect for herself, so why should I hold any respect for her?”
“I see. You respect those that have an equal level of principle and confidence to yourself.”
“You seem to know a lot about me.” I gave her a glare that told her in no uncertain terms I was not happy with that situation.
“Yes. I do. For example, I know that you love a girl that you had thought dead, but now you seem to believe that you have seen her on a couple of occasions. I feel your love for her almost as though I loved her myself.”
“And how does that work exactly? I know that as a vampire you have literally no connection to the Aether. I know you steal your Aetheric energy from others by feeding off them, and on top of that, how are you feeling anything? I thought your kind didn’t feel emotions,” I said, recalling some of what MAGE had taught me about vampires.
“Not very many know how we really do things. The blood keeps us physically going. It keeps our bodies from falling to dust despite the fact that they should have already. It’s what allows us to heal quickly; it’s what gives us our speed, toughness, and strength. It’s what gives us our… allergy to sunlight.
“The real power however, lies in emotions. We feed on those just as readily as we feed on blood. Even more so. My telepathy wouldn’t work if I hadn’t fed on someone’s emotions first. When we feed on emotions, we feel them ourselves.” Kaycee put a hand on her chest, over her heart. “It’s still a shallow, hollow feeling in comparison to the way you mortal types feel them, but we feel them nonetheless.
“Just like feeding on human blood is deadly to the human, so too can feeding on their emotions destroy them,” she continued, reminding me somewhat of one of my high school teachers when they lectured. “When we feed on someone with a mortal life span, we… take some of their life from them. If a human is fed upon too many times within the single turning of the moon he will die and possibly rise again as a common vampire, something we refer to as a Spawn. We usually see that such victims die of a sudden heart attack or a broken neck before they die of blood loss unless the creation is our intent.” She frowned delicately, indicating her dislike of the idea.
“Feeding on emotions will eventually turn a person into a willing slave. When we take their emotions, we make them feel those emotions tenfold, just so we can have an inkling as to what they are feeling, and they become addicted to such sensations.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” I asked. She’d offered up, willingly, way more about vampires than I had ever known before, and I was a bit surprised.
“Because. We La’Mortes don’t feed that way anymore. We’re… different now. Also, so you’ll know what we are. So that when my sister Kyra tries to seduce you, you will know what you are getting yourself into.”
“Not happening.”
“Oh. And what reasons do you have to dismiss a Pure Blood vampire without a second thought?” she asked, haughtiness creeping into her voice.
“Um, she’s dead? And I’m not? I just can’t get past the idea that your kind are still nothing more than mobile corpses. I’ve never been into necrophilia. Never will be.” I shivered at the idea, then had another thought. “Besides I know my best friend has a thing for her, despite his better judgment. Or lack thereof. I just won’t do that to him regardless.”
“She was human once,” Kaycee said, giving me a new appraising look.
“Still not happening. A corpse is a corpse,” I said. “Where are we going?”
We had been traveling the whole time she talked, and I had just now noticed that we were no longer in the city itself, but in an area that was slightly removed, but not quite suburban, that still had residences.
“My family’s manor in Finley.”
“Will I be staying there? Or at a hotel?”
“Don’t be silly. Of course you’ll stay at the manor.” A few more minutes passed in silence before Kaycee pointed out the window and said, “We are here.”
The car slowed and came to a step, then the limo driver got out and opened the door for me. I stepped out, and into another world. The manor was huge. It looked like one of those old, wealthy, southern plantation houses. The right and left wings of the house had rounded fronts, and on the second and third stories I could see that there were balconies. The center was indented between the two rounded parts of the wings.
The driveway was marbled cobblestone, leading up to a huge garage with four doors. The yard was immense, well-manicured, and well-lit with those solar LED lights planted everywhere. Flowerbeds lined the base of the house and were filled with a variety of flowers that I couldn’t even begin to recognize.
Kaycee put her arm through mine and we approached the front of the house. The double doors were made of glass and it dawned on me that there were windows everywhere, each separated by a Greek-style column. It was odd to see so many windows in a house that was used to shelter vampires.
“It’s all treated glass,” Kaycee said, almost as if she had read my mind. “It blocks the sunlight’s effects on us while providing its useful light. A sorcerer was well paid to make those modifications.” She opened the front door and gestured that I should precede her. “Quickly now. The gather has already begun.”
Kyra met us at the door. She was dressed a little more provocatively than Kaycee, wearing a black velvet mini-skirt, strapped high heels, and a half-top that tied between her breasts. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
There was a large front room beyond the entry doors. A fire roared in a huge, mantled fireplace on the far left side. Plush, white, expensive looking couches, love seats, and chairs furnished the room, all angled towards the fireplace. Many of the seats were filled with people, some cozy with each other, some standing or sitting by themselves, close to a couple dozen in all. Small glass tables with white metal legs sat near each grouping of seats.
Paintings and tapestries in various shades of white, black, and grey graced the walls. To the right was an immense unlit dining area shrouded in shadows. On the far opposite side from us,
a stairway led towards the second floor, the wall beside it hung with a huge, sectioned mirror. Several more people stood along the stairs, visiting, and as I moved further into the room I could see even more looking out over the second and third floor railings. Everyone was dressed in a variety of clothing styles, from formal evening wear to street clothes, and I didn’t feel out of place in what I had worn for security detail. As they all noticed me and Kaycee, the conversations in the room died down to a quiet murmur; all eyes were on us. Including those of a man standing near the fireplace who gave off an air of importance and authority.
“You’re late, Kaycee. What excuse do you have for this delay?” the man in front of the fireplace asked. He was tall, possibly an inch or two taller than myself, and wore a business suit that I would bet heavily came from an expensive Italian designer.
“It was not my fault, Father. His plane was late in leaving Las Vegas. I believe that it is Aerick that is ultimately responsible for our tardiness,” she defended, gesturing to me.
“Gee, thanks,” I muttered to her. To the man I said, “I apologize. I know that you are doing me a favor by providing me with information on who wants to kill me.”
“Yes. A very powerful… individual wishes you dead, Aerick Kerensky,” he said, his voice even.
“Who hired Malachai to kill me?” I asked, a bit impatiently. “He says he is working with Baba Yaga, but he has every reason to lie about that.”
“And what would you give for such information?” the man asked, clasping his hands in front of him and giving me a calculating look.
“I’ve already saved your daughters’ lives from the very person that was sent to kill me. Perhaps I could just slaughter them, and every vamp in this fucking room,” I threatened, my patience wearing thin and anger rising to the fore. Probably not smart, considering I had no idea how powerful some of the vampires in the room might be.
The man gave me a small, cold smile before answering. “Someone very dangerous wants you dead. Dangerous in every sense of the word. He has agents everywhere, even in my own house, though those individuals have been… dealt with. Human servants are useful, but can be easily compromised.
