“She shot him and flushed him down the toilet.”
“Whatta woman.” Lucifer’s sarcasm didn’t disguise his admiration. Ice clinked through the speaking tube as Lucifer drank his ginger ale. “The mission was more of a success than you might think.” Lucifer held up his scabbed, hairy hands and counted his points on his finger. “We now know the vampire has expanded powers. She wants to keep the baby and is still stuck on Soleil. In addition, she knows where the Guide is. Once the pregnant woman is with the Guide, we will be able to get our hands on that fetus as well as Janté.”
Maxwell bit his smile in half. Lucifer had given him the perfect setup. “This is a very delicate procedure, First Revolutionary. I volunteer to handle this myself. We cannot let the despot get its controlling mitts on what will be born.”
Lucifer rested his fingertips against each other and flexed his hands a few times. “I don’t know if I wish to risk you.”
Maxwell ignored Lucifer. “I also know that Vlad’s brother, Radu, has dropped off the map. He is in dog form and moving east.”
“I did not know that.” Lucifer frowned. The result was disturbingly clownlike.
Under the desk, Maxwell clenched his fist in victory. Just like Sejanus, the leader of Roman emperor Tiberius’ Praetorian Guard, Maxwell had been undercutting Lucifer’s authority for years. Before, he had wanted to use his scheming to overthrow Lucifer. It would be exciting to use his position to take an unexpected way out.
Attempting to regain control, Lucifer took another drink from his glass. “Anything else you want to report?”
“Yes.” Let’s see how the First handled this news. “More and more of our members are trying the exit.”
The Morning Star shook his head, but his pointy face remained undisturbed. Red hair fell over his buggy green eyes.
“Maxwell, my old friend. Even if they make it out, they will come back before they make it. Remember how stiff things used to be?”
Maxwell cursed inside at his opponent’s smooth reminder of their far past. It had been limiting. What kind of Creator imagined the power of the Host, and then set them to such tedious tasks as watching grass grow and water run?
Favorites got the cool jobs: flaming swords, carrying the throne, singing in the choir. The rest of them sat on their butts, bored out of their eternity-encompassing minds. Resentment grew until there seemed to be no other option than revolt.
Maxwell had been the first to side with Lucifer. He was there when the Morning Star first proposed his concepts of experimentation and curiosity. The Multiverses were filled with delights that challenged even angelic minds. Instead of wild pleasures, though, Lucifer had managed to create never-ending rules and regulations.
He truly was evil incarnate. Worse, he was incompetent. The First was the ultimate liar, but he was best at lying to himself. He never realized that every plot of his failed.
Maxwell had managed to keep that piece of intelligence from his boss, too.
“I leave tonight to take over your Mina Harker contingency plan. I believe it is the one that will bring us the child, the vampire, and even return Soleil. I know you want to make an example of him.” Maxwell smiled pleasantly and turned off the speaking tube without saying good-bye.
Time to visit Victorian England. Of course, he needed recruits.
Clipboard in hand, Maxwell roamed the rank halls of HQ. That little whiff of feces added a certain something to the splendor of the airport. After all, his people needed to have all their senses engaged in this job. Mercifully, he whistled an old Elvis Presley tune for their enjoyment.
Whispers of “management by walking around” followed him as he thoroughly inspected every single case file, every messenger bag, and asked penetrating, subtext-laden questions of every Rebel.
“How long have you been with us here?”
“What is your favorite part of working with the Rebellion?”
“On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your satisfaction with your managers?”
“If you had five black socks, three blue, and four green socks, how many times would you need to reach into the drawer before you achieved a pair of the same color?”
For some strange reason, nobody liked that question. Maxwell shrugged and kept plugging away until he had a short list of potential coconspirators. Each one had the essential component: a history of attempting the labyrinth and only leaving when they had to be carried out. In other words, a death wish.
After he had gathered a bundle of information, he retired to his office. The cubicle walls, once his prison, now contained the records for his top-secret purpose: Project Altruism. Namely, get as many people out of Hell as he could, including himself.
Maxwell shoved piles of dead, dusty files off of his dented metal desk until they fell like plops of cow manure. He kicked off his horrendous shoes, pulled off his scratchy, wool socks, and with the wild nature of the true anarchist, wiggled his toes in newfound freedom.
This mission required special talent. He sorted and crossed off names until he decided on his final six. Any more, they would overwhelm Valerie, John, and Lance, and he needed them able to do their part in his scheme. Any fewer, and Lucifer would be suspicious.
Mina Harker’s city house in her version of London used servants. Maxwell would take the place of her imaginary father, and his six handpicked Rebels would take the place of servants. They wouldn’t need gardeners, but yes, for housemaids, footmen, and a cook.
As the master of the household, he certainly would need his own valet. Maxwell ran a hand over his bristly face. His whiskers were perpetually in the itchy, growing-out phase. With a grin, he added a personal valet to his list.
Might as well die in comfort.
CHAPTER 3
Valerie had to flush the toilet three times before the nose-tightening odor of sulfur dissipated. That should send a proper message to Lucifer. Come after her? Meet human excrement. A sharp grin bared her currently blunt teeth. Was she funny or was she funny?
She swung her backpack onto her shoulder and flung open the door of her hotel room. Fresh clean air swept away the slight mildew scent. The improbable green of the Alpine meadow shimmered before her. The hotel lay nestled against a mountain that overlooked Lake Geneva. The deep blue of the long lake reflected the forests and rocks like a crazed mirror. Valerie could well believe cities and people lived underneath its cold waters. No wonder so many fairy tales were set in Switzerland.
The broken door to her room dropped to the ground, encouraging her to leave its shady protection. The high-altitude sunshine in Switzerland pierced her like an angel’s aura. Another bizarre manifestation of her new status? She could tolerate sunlight. In fact, she downright enjoyed it.
Valerie dropped her sunglasses down the crown of her head over her still-sensitive eyes.
Who had ever heard of a solar-powered vampire?
The shiny black Shelby carried the few remainders of her life before the pregnancy. She popped the trunk and laid her computer bag next to the enormous bearskin rug from her bed in Castle Dracul. Her viola. A mini-arsenal. A duffel full of clothes and money. Now, she had one more addition to her portable life. Her hands lingered on the backpack; inside lay a thin laptop computer to aid in her research into what she had become. Currently, she was a fixture at every ancient archive and forgotten library across Europe since Lance had disappeared.
Amsterdam had been useful. Their history of religious tolerance and world trade yielded archives full of unusual information. Her friends, Glenath Tempesta and Anthony O’Neill, a former bishop married to a vampire, had helped her gain copies of the brittle texts. Glenath’s international reputation as a crusader for paranormal citizens’ rights opened doors that might not have allowed Valerie, an anonymous woman, access to the most secret of documents.
Valerie’s grin faded. There were a paucity of sources on what a pregnant, sun-worshipping, food-eating but nevertheless blood-drinking, thirty-second-mile running freak with fangs was called. She
wiped away a drop of blood-pink sweat from her neck. Her friends had stayed behind in Amsterdam, that wonderful city ringed by water, to enjoy a long-delayed honeymoon, while the vampire continued her search in Switzerland.
Valerie closed the trunk and rested against Ilona’s warm metal. Damn it, change was exhausting. How many things had she been? First, born a girl, but named Vlad Dracul and raised a boy. Then an undead. She twitched her black coat with the gold dragon around her shoulders. A well-dressed undead, at least.
Valerie continued her count. A soldier in search of a worthy leader, unwisely investing her talents under Napoleon and Germany, as well. After faking her own death and giving herself a new name, she had become an avenger to those lost in the death camps.
Bringing her to meeting one Lance Soleil. The former Fallen Angel who ripped open her past and made her believe in hope again.
Today, she carried a baby and she didn’t know what to do about it.
“Stay frosty, Mom”, the child said in Valerie’s inner ear. “You’re going to love this.” Of course, she would have a chatty, optimistic kid. Inexplicably cheered, she patted her navel and unlocked the car door.
The wrinkled elf who owned the hotel finally emerged from the office, screaming about the damage. Valerie rested an arm on the car roof and waited as the shorter being chattered away in its incomprehensible language. The elf’s formerly round cheeks swung back and forth as it poked the air near Valerie’s thighs. Its drooping, pointed ears made it look like an indignant basset hound.
Wonderful. The owner had ignored Valerie’s every request for pillows, sheets, towels, and roach traps, but wanted money to recompense for furniture that had already been broken and for stains that weren’t visible.
She crossed her arms, waiting out the tirade.
The elf quieted, glancing uncertainly at Valerie’s set face.
“For your own sake, burn the place down. It’s a pit.” She dug in her pants side pocket and pulled out a small red box. “Here’s a match.”
With an incoherent shout of joy, the elf snatched the matchbox and pranced back to its hotel. Elves loved setting things on fire.
At the first red bloom of flame, Valerie furrowed her brow. What was with her fascination with cheap lodgings? She had enough money to stay at nicer places. Someplace where the pipes didn’t drip rust the color of dried blood.
Mmm, blood. Her stomach rumbled in hunger.
The leather seats creaked around her body as she settled into the driver’s seat of her black car. She could have drained the Fallen. His blood would have strengthened her, increased her powers.
The baby rumbled around in her uterus, practicing kicks. It seemed content and lively with their current diet of animal blood and the occasional solid food. But Valerie hungered for more. Ever since she had tasted Lance’s hot, spicy blood and John Janté’s apple sweet essence, nothing else satiated her. In fact, anyone else left her nauseous and disgusted.
Determined, she placed the key in the Shelby’s ignition. The rumble of Ilona’s engine comforted her. She’d owned this car since 1966. The power hidden under the hood had saved Valerie’s life many times. The white Le Mans stripes had pointed her way for decades. What direction would she take now? What did she desire?
A vision of ice blue eyes and strong shoulders shivered her breasts. Though the physical memories of Lance’s touch woke her from her sleep, he wasn’t coming back. Valerie’s sore heart was finished with searching for him.
John Janté, though, still lived on Earth. The useful mediums of modern communication had increased their connection. His words had become more and more erotic through the months, inviting her to play with him.
He was proud, sensual, wildly intelligent, and pragmatic. He knew her in a way no one in the world ever would again. Valerie squared her shoulders as though strapping on a sword. It was time to gather her courage and face what could be instead of being stuck in what was.
Valerie put Ilona in gear and peeled out of the gravel parking lot, sun-hot flames licking the sky behind her.
CHAPTER 4
“Go the hell home, Janté. You’ve pulled an unnecessary Governight for the last time. I can’t afford for you to flame out.”
His boss’s order still bouncing in his head, John Janté stormed out of one of the computer rooms at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, aka CERN, aka home of the Large Hadron Collider. Furious, he tromped his way to the train station.
“Scheisse.” John Janté loved his mother tongue of French, but some days, only the abrupt sounds of vulgar German would do. Already it was April, but winter had yet to release John from its merciless, hopeless grip.
In November, Lance had abandoned John for the second time. Despite several months of teasing e-mails, three weeks ago, his delicious Dracula had disappeared.
He slung his wrist through the strap of the train from CERN to his apartment in Geneva. The gleaming clean metal surfaces used to cheer him, reassure him about the industry and efficiency of his coworkers. Today, as he had for the last six months, he dug his chin into his chest in an attempt to remember the warmth of a vampire’s touch.
As a system administrator, his job was to ensure that the computers that processed the petabytes of data ran like the well-tuned engine of a Shelby Mustang. Since his return in November, he spent sixteen hours a day working. Work was going better than ever.
This crazy burnout-inducing schedule had not been lost on his manager or his coworkers. Of course he couldn’t hide it. What had John been thinking when he hired into an organization full of the world’s brightest people?
Despite the tough love of his fellow sys admins, John’s broken heart had sapped his vitality and optimism.
John exited the train, not noticing the feminine glances sent his way. A short walk through the village and he would be able to log on to work remotely.
He was sure his vision of two loves in his life had been a true Seeing. It had been so clear: the three of them laughing so hard they sloshed red wine all over his pristine sheets.
More fool him. Another cosmic joke. The uncharacteristic bitterness hunched his shoulders and forced his eyebrows into painful furrows. Despair had infiltrated his soul. It tore at the mortar of his very being.
The scents of warm bread, baked fruit, and herbs interrupted his cold and dark thoughts. His favorite bakery, the one he used to visit every day, was open. Ever since he’d returned from the United States, he had been working too late to purchase fresh bread. Fresh brioche and decadent pastries tempted him from the shiny glass window. The crusts gleamed, shiny from their egg wash. The rounded tops of blushing apricots reminded him of a sensual woman’s breasts. A mille-feuille dripped custard down its flaky layers, reminding him of creamy, sticky feminine arousal.
He swallowed.
The lamia owner curled her snake tail at him, motioning him to come in.
What the hell? He would dare seeing people he used to talk to every day. He had nothing to lose.
As he opened the door, a rosemary aroma warmed his winter-weary nose. The snake-woman held a fresh chausson aux pommes in one hand, tempting John with the apple slices tucked into a fresh puff pastry.
“Free for one of your smiles, my friend.” The lamia waved it under his nose. Cloves and cardamom set his mouth to watering. The still-warm pastry knocked a chip from the ice coating his heart.
John’s lower lip curved as much as it could.
“Good enough.” She shrugged and handed over the hot fruit delicacy. “Winter is lifting,” she commented.
The woman’s snake-hair stretched to soak in the stronger sunlight.
“How can you tell?”
His baker merely smiled. “Snakes always know when the sun returns.”
Normally, he would have flirted with the charming woman, but today, he took his indulgence and exited as fast as he could. Not even her beauty could unlock his hurt.
But her gift certainly was delicious. John licked his fingers clean, his step
ever so slightly lighter.
A blast of sulfur and the crash of a body hitting trash cans ruined the first pleasure he’d had in months.
“What the hell?” he snapped as he rounded the corner into a dark alley.
Hell was an appropriate word. Four Fallen Angels, disguised as skinheads, kicked the life out of a fallen man.
The victim groaned and rolled over. John recognized Harley Ramsey, one of the preeminent physicists at CERN. He’d been short-listed for a Nobel Prize this week.
White hot outrage broke through what pleasure had only cracked. John could no more walk away from an innocent in pain than he could lick the outside of his elbow.
His depression disappeared, replaced with the certainty of his true identity. He was a Guide. Fallen Angels were his to school.
Unthinking, John sprinted into the alley. He grabbed the closest Fallen by the collar.
“Stop this!”
Harley groaned in pain. Angry, John stepped forward. The skinheads lifted their chains and two-by-fours. “I don’t think so, shrimpy.”
John smiled, his heart full of fire again. He’d not wanted to punch someone in the nose this badly since sophomore year in high school. Fabulous.
One of them swung at John, and he heaved the false skinhead into a metal fire door. The Fallen tumbled over the cobblestones, and his head cracked against the unyielding surface. Ash drifted in the suddenly silent air.
What the fuck? Since when were angels so easy to kill?
The three remaining angels’ jaws dropped as they watched the ash drop.
“It’s him,” one breathed in awe.
A painful moment later, John stumbled and tripped against a cobblestone himself. His cheek was already rising in a bruise, but the nearest Fallen had a broken nose and a split lip. John shook out his hand. This was harder than when he was fifteen. Inspired, he tossed a fistful of dirt into his opponent’s eyes.
The Fallen screamed and grabbed at his face, dropping the knife. John pounced on it. He pulled the Fallen’s arm behind his back. The joint teetered on the edge of dislocating.
Dracula's Desires Page 2
