Allegiance

by K. A. Tucker

  I hopped onto my feet and leaned over to grab a fistful of Merth strands, wincing with their sting. “I’m sorry, Bishop,” I apologized, looking down at his charming young face. I froze. There! In his left eye, a shift under his lid. And another, in his right eye, stayed my hand. “Bishop?”

  Lids popped open suddenly, dazzling charcoal irises wide with shock. They rolled, they skittered, they walked over the surfaces around me until they landed on my face. Please be fixed.

  A giant grin spread across his lips.

  9. Strange Allegiances—Evangeline

  The city highways traded off for rolling snow-covered hills and quiet country houses. Lilly never slowed once, clearly heading to a specific location, one she didn’t divulge to me. When we turned into a driveway with an arched entranceway and a low stone wall a half hour later, I had chewed off every last one of my nails—even with a throbbing jaw. By the bronzed crosses on stone pillars comprising the entrance gates, I could see we were entering a cemetery. Suddenly, I was sitting stiffer, my eyes wider, my senses keener, thoughts of my pained jaw falling to the background.

  “Why are we here?” I hazarded to ask.

  A tiny, almost shy smile. “We have something in common, human. Let me show you.”

  Something in common. In a cemetery. I inhaled and exhaled slowly. Repeat: In. Out. In. Out. I focused on the pretty trees, the blue sky. Anything to keep my imagination from sending me into a frenzy. As long as she had something to show me, she wouldn’t be killing me.

  The sports car rebelled as Lilly forced it through the fresh snow, sliding this way and that and spinning its wheels as it struggled to climb a small slope. By the acres of rolling hills and mature trees, I could tell this was both an ancient and large cemetery. Full of thousands of bodies … possibly one more after today.

  Lilly continued edging the car along in silence, winding along the narrow path, moving deeper and deeper into the land where the trees became larger and older, and crypts began cropping up like hay bales in a farmer’s field. Then, she stopped and got out. I watched as she circled the car and I briefly toyed with the idea of jumping into the driver’s side of the car and speeding off. No … there was no point. She stopped in front of my door and waved her hand forward, as if inviting me in from the cold.

  Warily, I pushed open the door and climbed out. The air seemed chillier here than it had in the city. Perhaps it was the open fields and lack of buildings or anything else for miles. Nothing but the dead. I checked the area for witnesses, someone to call to. I almost expected to see Max tearing down the path, ready to save the day.

  But there was no one. Not a soul, supernatural or otherwise. I was here at Lilly’s mercy. There was no point in trying to escape, I realized, remembering the gash she had given me the day before, in a room full of prepared vampires.

  “This way,” she prompted, trudging toward a weathered stone crypt set back amongst a grove of oversized spruce trees.

  Taking a deep breath and layering on a brave face, I followed Lilly up four steps to a steel door secured with heavy chains and a stately padlock. Lilly fished out an antique-looking key from a chain around her neck and inserted it. With a click, the chain unraveled and clanked to the ground. She pushed open the door and beckoned me in with a wave of her dainty hand.

  It was dank and dark inside, exactly as expected. Four small windows around the top of the crypt allowed enough daylight in to display the odd-looking steely gray coffin sitting on a concrete block in the center of the little room.

  “Cast iron,” Lilly explained, as if that meant something. “It’s heavy.” Taking hold of two sides of the lid, she braced her feet against the gritty floor and pushed. With a loud scraping sound, the lid slid. I held my breath, half of me wondering what was in there, the other half terrified of what might come out. With a casual movement, Lilly threw her legs over the edge and hopped into the coffin. She disappeared. “Coming?” her voice called out from somewhere below.

  I turned back one last time—at the entrance to the crypt, at the car, its keys hanging in the ignition, ready to speed away. Curiosity took over for fear. Gingerly, I stepped closer and peered down to see an opening, leading into darkness far below. Grabbing hold of the sides of the coffin, I hoisted myself up, not nearly as easily as Lilly had. Swinging my legs in, I carefully took one step, and then another.

  “I can’t see,” I said.

  “Right … humans.” A moment later, a flashlight beam illuminated the narrow, dark staircase for me. Holding onto the sides tightly, I began the descent.

  Lilly was waiting for me at the bottom. The stairs led to a tunnel, musty with moisture and cold, reeking of earth and age. I said nothing as we walked along the low-ceilinged path, my arms wrapped around my body, feeling the walls closing in on me. The small space didn’t seem to bother Lilly, though. In fact, she seemed at home here. For all I knew, this was her home.

  About a hundred yards in, we reached a gated door. It protested with a loud creak as Lilly pulled it open. Beyond it, the ground sloped downward at an awkward angle. I had to take my time, taking sideway steps and using the dirt walls for support. We rounded a corner. The light from Lilly’s flashlight caught something up ahead. Without a word, she disappeared and I heard the flick of a lighter. In moments, several lanterns were lit, illuminating a chamber of maybe twenty-by-thirty feet and average height. It was empty except for six coffins in a circle around one in the center. Seven coffins, buried in a secret crypt beneath the crypt.

  I swallowed hard as I watched Lilly walk past the coffins, her child’s hand running along their surfaces. Whoever was in these coffins was important to Lilly.

  “I lied earlier,” Lilly said calmly. “About killing you.”

  My heart and stomach raced to see who could make it to the cold, hard ground first. She’s going to kill me and bury me here in one of these coffins and no one will ever find my body.

  The terror must have been splayed across my face because she spoke again quickly. “I have no intention of killing you, Evangeline. I never did.” She smiled. “Well, maybe not never but … not since I realized Viggo has no interest in you.”

  As if on yo-yo strings, my organs snapped back to their rightful places. My lungs felt like they would collapse as the air released out of them. “Why did you bring me here, then?”

  Lilly circled the coffin in front of her and weaved through the space in between to make her way to the coffin in the center. It reached almost up to her chest, sitting high a pedestal. It was more elaborate than the others and darker in color. She brushed a hand across the top affectionately.

  “I can’t read you,” she began, “because of this magic that Sofie speaks about. This poison that runs through your blood. Yet, I could sense your hatred for Viggo that night we met.”

  My snort escaped before I could stop it. “I don’t hide that well, do I?”

  She gave a little shake of her head, a tiny smile creeping across her lips. “And then, when Sofie showed me those visions, she showed me what Viggo did to you … to your mother.” Burning fingers of agony trailed along my spine with the reminder. “Is it true?”

  I nodded silently.

  Lilly’s head turned to land on the center coffin once again. “I’m sure you’ve noticed my … dislike …,” her face twisted into something far beyond dislike, “for Viggo?”

  Curiosity got the better of me. “I was told you hated his guts and wouldn’t help us because of him.”

  “Yes. That is an apt assessment. But …,” she peered up at me sheepishly, her next words coming out in a raspy whisper, as if she were afraid to speak them, “I’m terrified of him. I know what he’s capable of.”

  We did have a lot in common. “You’re smart to be. He’s a scary vampire and he’s capable of vile things.”

  “Yes, he is,” she agreed. We shared a silent look. Her gaze screamed heartache, rank with turmoil, begging for love and attention. In that moment, there was no millennia-old vampire standing in front o
f me. There was a young, broken girl. There was a child I wanted to wrap my arms around, to tell her it would be okay. She would survive.

  “This is my mother’s coffin,” she explained, her hand sliding along the top. “Up until yesterday, it was empty. Now, I have my mother back.” The urn … the one Viggo begrudgingly parted with. “Do you know who put her there to begin with?”

  I nodded. “Viggo.”

  “Viggo,” she echoed, his name ricocheting off the wall like a stray bullet, looking for someone to maim. Walking slowly around the coffin, her hand never leaving its surface, she began confiding. “My mother was the original vampire. She was thirty-five hundred years old when he killed her. Not as old as Mage, from what Sofie showed me. They were a couple. Soul mates, Mama used to say.” Lilly stopped to fumble with a brass handle at the end. “Mama wasn’t my real mama, of course. I grew up in England. My real parents were poor. We lived in the back of a barn. My dad used to hit us … and other stuff.” Her eyes drifted to the floor with shame.

  “But one day, Mama saw me while at the market. My real dad was selling some stolen grain. I guess Mama wanted a child of her own.” Her fingertip traced a symbol near one of the hinges. “She told me that when she saw the bruises on my arms and legs, she got so angry, she sent Viggo to rescue me. So he came and snatched me out of there.” Lilly’s back was to me now. “He made me. I was his gift to Mama. I guess you could say he was my new father.”

  I shuddered involuntarily, the idea of Viggo as a father figure equal parts repulsive and horrifying.

  “We were happy for hundreds of years—the three of us and Mama’s advisors,” her arm swept over the other six coffins. “They were all nice to Mama and me. Very loyal. We were like one big family, protecting each other. They were all older than Viggo. He was the youngest of them all, aside from me.” Lilly paused to swallow. She moved to draw her finger along the top of another coffin. Even under the dim light, I could see the floral pattern she was drawing in the thick layer of dust.

  “What happened?”

  Her mouth curved into a frown. “I don’t think Viggo was ever in love with my mother. Well, maybe he was for a short time. But when he found out that Mama used to be a witch and she could compel vampires, things changed. He was jealous of her power.” Lilly walked back around. “That, or he was afraid she had compelled him in the past. Or perhaps he was simply crazy. Whatever the reason, he kept up the pretense for a while. Mama didn’t notice the change like I did. It must have been my child’s intuition that saw the way he looked at Mama after that.”

  A momentary smile flashed across her dainty face as if she remembered something fond, but it promptly fell off with more morbid memories. “One night, he ambushed my mother and the other members, killing every last one of them. He came after me but … I escaped.” Lilly left the coffin’s side to walk over to me. “He stole Mama’s body, thinking I’d come for it, but I hid. For a few hundred years, I made sure I was nowhere he would dare be. I created a new group of advisors, a new family for myself. Kait and Gavin, they’re my family. They’ve been by my side for almost a thousand years. They take care of me. I take care of them. They’re all I have, especially now that we have this venom issue. Not that it would matter.” She held her hands out to her sides, palms up. “Look at me! I’m a child forever. I have no interest in a mate. I don’t even know what that means, other than what I’ve seen and heard. I want venom back so I can create friends and family. The family I have now … I won’t risk Viggo taking that away from me. I want to stay as far away from him as possible.”

  I nodded sadly. “So that means you won’t help us?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  I stifled a groan as I looked down at her. Vampires and their cryptic answers. “Sofie wants you to pledge allegiance. Will you do it?”

  She gave the slightest shake of her head, crushing the spark of hope within.

  “But Lilly … she won’t trust you otherwise.”

  “I know.” A shy, childlike grin slid onto Lilly’s face. “But she would if I pledged my allegiance to you.”

  Dead silence filled the underground cavern. “I’m sorry … I heard you wrong.” I blinked repeatedly, wincing from the pain radiating from my swollen jaw. It had to be affecting my hearing.

  “I said that I will pledge my allegiance to you and then Sofie will trust me.”

  Now I stared blankly at her, looking for a sign that this was a joke. But only innocence stared back, waiting. “You can’t do that!”

  “Of course I can! I can do whatever I want!”

  “But … but …,” I sputtered.

  “But what?”

  “But … why?” Why would this ancient vampire want to bind herself to me? A vampire would need to be crazy to commit themselves to a human, Mortimer had said. Was a crazy vampire asking to bind herself to me?

  “Because I won’t bind myself to Sofie and yet she needs to trust me. I’m not stupid, Evangeline. I know this is serious. If Sofie’s asking me for help, then I know it’s got to be serious … Besides,” Lilly shifted a rock with her feet, “I like you. You’re … nice and … honest. I can tell.” Definitely crazy and clueless. Lilly walked back over to her mother’s coffin. “And you’re not that much older than me in human years. I always wanted a sister. Mama and I found the perfect one just before Viggo killed her.” She turned back. “The girl—her name was Rebecca—she was tall and blond like you.”

  In a flash, Lilly stood inches from me. “I can trust you, right?” Those blue irises begged for the right answer. So like a young child, unsure of herself but willing to trade pride and risk of hurt for a glimpse of what she wanted.

  “Of course you can trust me. I’m the one who shouldn’t trust you, remember?” I yanked up my sleeves to reveal my injured arm.

  Her eyes shot to my stitches. “She hasn’t healed it.” As with most things, this wasn’t a question.

  “No … She told you she couldn’t.”

  Lilly’s top lip curved into a sarcastic smile. “And you know as well as I that Sofie would make a champion poker player … I had to be sure.”

  “Couldn’t you have done something a little less dramatic and painful?”

  “It had to be something dramatic enough that Sofie would heal if she could … Sorry. Sometimes I forget what it’s like not to heal instantly.”

  “That makes one of us,” I said, cupping my hand against my sore face.

  Lilly stood silently then. She was pledging her allegiance to me. I still couldn’t grasp the meaning of this whole “allegiance” concept except to understand that it was huge—monumental—to have her support and protection. I would have an ancient vampire—no, more, I would have a posse of ancient vampires—protecting me, listening to me. Because I didn’t have enough protection … I have a stronger guard than any queen with her army.

  I fought to hide the cautious excitement unfolding inside me. This would be unprecedented according to Mortimer. Man! Would his jaw hit the ground when he learned about this! But what would I need to do? What did this require of me? Did I need to give her orders? I didn’t know how to scheme and plot like these shifty vampires.

  “Would you do whatever I asked?”

  Lilly shrugged and I caught a glint of wariness in her eyes. “Yes, I suppose so … But it doesn’t mean I’m your slave.”

  I was already shaking my head. “No, no … of course no.” But I could ask her to do things that I couldn’t do, like gather information secretly … that, I could ask her to do. “Okay,” I nodded after a moment.

  Lilly’s giggle carried down the hall. “You’re granting me permission to give you my allegiance? You think that’s how it works?”

  “I don’t know how any of this works. And I’m tired of all the bullshit.”

  “Fair enough.” Lilly stood straight and faced me. She was a full head shorter, her brow reaching my neck. Again, another shy smile and tilt of her head. “I’m not exactly sure how to do this, either. It’s not somet
hing most of us are willing to do. You’re my first.” I watched as her smile disappeared and her expression turned solemn. Bending down on one knee, like she was proposing to me, she reached up to take my hand in hers. Her skin was silky soft. I felt uncomfortable, checking the shadows around us, wondering if anyone could be watching. But Lilly wasn’t nervous or awkward. Her head angled back until I could see her face, candlelight casting a dim shadow across it.

  “I, Lilly Hamlin, pledge my allegiance to you. Trust me with your life. Trust my descendants with your life. I will protect and serve you as you wish. I am yours until death.”

  A pause and then she was on her feet, her face beaming proudly. “There!”

  I frowned. “Really? Nothing feels different to me.” Nothing at all.

  “It worked!” Lilly’s eyes were wide with genuine seriousness. “I can feel it.” She grinned. “So … now what?” Did I believe her? Was I supposed to feel anything?

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” Lilly’s grin plummeted.

  “It’s not that I don’t believe you …” No, I don’t believe you. I sighed. Was what she did enough? “Sofie always says I’m too trusting and that I need to be a bit more guarded,” I explained.

  “Sofie’s probably right,” Lilly conceded. “But either way, you have my allegiance. Tell me what you need me to do to prove it to you.”

  Here we go. I wasn’t any good at telling people what to do. I sure as hell didn’t have any idea what to tell her to do about this war. Sofie was the one who knew what she should do, not me! And that gave me an idea.

  “You need to listen to Sofie.” Lilly’s face twisted with displeasure. She opened her mouth, ready to protest, but I quickly interrupted her. “You wanted to know how to prove it to me. Well, that’s how. Listen, Lilly. I don’t know the first thing about wars and battle. My manipulation skills suck. Sofie, though, she knows these things. I trust her completely. You need to trust her too. You need to do as she asks. Listen to her, Lilly.”