Tina’s expression was steady even though she was still pale. “I want to. You can trust me.”
“I know I can, Tiny-T,” Kira said, calling her the nickname she’d used since they were kids. She went to her sister, feeling Tina tremble just a little as she put her arms around her. Then her sister relaxed when nothing more happened except a hug, never knowing that Kira chanted “eggshells” in her mind so she wouldn’t inadvertently squeeze too hard.
“I gotta go,” she said at last, releasing Tina. “I had to sneak away from Mencheres when he was out on business to come see you. He wouldn’t have let me do it any other way, so I have to get back soon. He’ll freak if he comes back, and I’m gone.”
Tina touched her arm. “He keeps you from going out?”
“He’s nothing like Pete,” Kira said softly, knowing where Tina’s worry stemmed from. “He’s just afraid something will happen to me because of that other vampire who’s after him. That’s why I couldn’t leave to see you until he was out. But once things are back to normal, I can go anywhere I want.”
“I hope so,” Tina said. “Don’t call or e-mail. I think the police have my phone and maybe even my e-mails bugged or something, but be careful.”
“I will.”
Kira went over to Rick, staring at her brother. If only she could help him with his disease as easily as Mencheres had helped Tina.
“You never saw me tonight,” she said at last, green flashing from her eyes. “You’ve been asleep. When you wake up in another few hours, you’ll know Tina and I love you and we always will. You’ll go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, and you’ll get a sponsor, because you realize there’s more to life than getting drunk or high. You’ll know there’s more to you than your addiction, Rick, and that you can beat this. Oh, and you won’t smoke in front of Tina again,” she finished.
Kira couldn’t make her brother get clean and stay clean, but maybe, just maybe, this subconscious directive would set him on the path toward recovery. Ultimately, only Rick could save his own life. All Kira could do was try to give him a boost.
Then she turned, gave Tina a final hug, and walked out of the apartment. She took the stairwell again to go down, counting off the floors and missing Mencheres even though it had only been hours since she’d seen him. The stairwell was silent except for the clatter of her boots against the steps, but after she’d descended about a half dozen floors, tingles in the air brushed like invisible spiderwebs across Kira’s skin.
She hesitated just a moment before resuming her pace. Six more floors to go until she reached street level. That spiderweb sensation increased, but Kira squared her shoulders and continued downward, ignoring the EXIT sign on her right that would lead her inside the building’s sixth floor.
The vampires smashed into Kira before she reached the fourth floor.
Chapter 30
Mencheres’s new mobile phone rang. He stared at the numbers showing that it was Bones calling for several seconds before answering. It took that long to compose himself so that his voice didn’t betray the emotions raging inside him.
“Yes?”
“I just hung up with Radjedef,” Bones began without preamble. “Told him I had no idea how to reach you and all that rot, but he gave me a number to repeat to you. Said you need to contact him ‘before it’s too late.’ What the bloody hell does he mean by that?”
His power surged inside him, seeking someone to kill, but the only person Mencheres wanted to unleash that lethal force on wasn’t here.
“More threats about the dead Enforcer, no doubt,” he replied coolly. “Give me the number—and then send a mass e-mail at once to all our people to forward to their property as well, repeating the number and message.”
“I’ll do it, but stop lying to me,” Bones said in a flat tone before repeating the number. “What has Radjedef done now? Let me help you.”
“When you alluded to the possibility that you’ve manifested more of my powers in the past year, was sensing a person’s location part of those powers?” Mencheres asked, ignoring the other question.
Bones was silent for a moment. “No,” he said finally.
“Then you can’t help me,” Mencheres sighed. “But you can help our people by not running afoul of the Guardian Council. Send that e-mail. Keep disavowing any knowledge of how to reach me. Renounce me if needed. That is what I require from you.”
An exasperated snort sounded on the other line. “Now I know how frustrated my wife feels when I try to keep her out of things for her own protection.”
“I’m glad you have Cat,” Mencheres said quietly. “You believe I acted as I did in the past merely to secure her powers for our line, but I saw that you would love her. That, more than any other reason, was why I intervened.”
“Why do I feel like you’re saying goodbye to me?” Bones asked, his words edged with tension.
Mencheres closed his eyes, needing another moment before he could speak again. “You’ve made me very proud,” he said at last.
Then he hung up even as Bones began to sputter out a demand to know where he was. When his mobile rang again with the same number flashing up, he didn’t answer it. He’d wait an hour, enough time for Bones’s e-mail to circulate—and Bones would send it, no matter how furious he was. Then Mencheres would call Radje and listen to the Law Guardian set terms for Kira’s release that Radje had no intention of fulfilling.
He knew without a doubt that Radjedef had her. If any other Law Guardians would have snatched Kira, they would have been the ones to contact Bones, not Radje. The only question was whether Radje was smart enough to keep Kira alive.
Bones called five more times in the next twenty minutes. Mencheres ignored each one. Exactly sixty minutes after he’d hung up with Bones, Mencheres rang the number Bones had given him for Radje.
“Yes,” Radje answered after several rings. He sounded angry.
“I am here,” Mencheres stated.
“Menkaure, I am disappointed in your co-ruler. It seems he lied to a Guardian when he said he had no way to reach you,” Radje purred, losing his hostile tone.
He almost smiled. “Bones was overzealous in attempting to deliver your message. He sent your number to all our people and their property, urging them to forward it to everyone they knew in an attempt to find someone who could reach me. You can spend your time searching through that list of thousands to see who was successful, or we can talk.”
Radje let out a short laugh. “Clever. That explains all the recent hang-ups and anonymous threats. Your people are very loyal to you. And now I need to change this number.”
“You have what I want,” Mencheres said, too concerned for Kira to indulge in Radje’s usual cutting banter. “I have what you want. Either we discuss a trade, or I end more than this call.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Radje said with feigned innocence.
“No need to pretend,” he replied sharply. “If I went to the council to accuse you of taking Kira, they would only imprison me on sight, and you’re too careful to admit to anything over the phone that I could record and play for them later. You have no audience except me, and I grow impatient.”
A low whistle sounded. “Why, Menkaure, you sound like you lost your newest vampire. I wish I could help, but I haven’t seen her since the night you changed her.”
Radje was still taking no chances that their conversation was monitored, in person or by electronic device. Mencheres’s power throbbed inside him with seething, lethal waves that were only matched by his fear for Kira. If Radje had killed her . . .
“You know I long to be quit of this world,” he said in tones of ice. “I can accomplish that in two ways. One is to go straight to the Guardian Council to claim responsibility for all charges levied again me. My sentence will be death, and their justice will be swift. Or, I can go to you and exchange myself for Kira’s safe release. I will do one of these things in the next twenty-four hours. Which will it be?”
Radje wa
s silent. Mencheres waited while his rising anger and fear made the walls tremble around him. Radje had claimed that he was irrationally in love with Kira for his own purposes, but he’d never really believed it. Radje might have guessed he cared for her, but would his ignorance of Mencheres’s true feelings mean the Law Guardian hadn’t thought to keep Kira alive as blackmail? What if he’d killed her to incite Mencheres to rashness in an attempt to further turn the council against him?
Mencheres knew they shouldn’t have returned to Chicago as she insisted. They could have acquired proof against Radje another way. If he hadn’t agreed to Kira’s plan, she would still be with him now . . .
“If you are to turn yourself in, as a Guardian and your only living family, I would urge you to come to me,” Radje said at last. “I would hate for you to die beleaguered when I could give you ease before your demise.”
Mencheres closed his fists while relief washed over him. Radje was still being cautious in his speech, but his meaning was clear. Kira was alive, and Radje was offering her in exchange for Mencheres’s power—and death. Radje wasn’t even pretending he would let Mencheres live afterward.
“Then the death I already sought will now be spent in barter for one of my people. Tell me, if you hadn’t taken Kira, who else would you have leveraged against me for your purposes?”
“As a Guardian, I would never blackmail anyone, but if I were seeking leverage against you, Menkaure, it would not be difficult. You are never short on those you care for,” Radje replied with cruel satisfaction.
“And you have never let yourself care for anything but power. Even with all of my many regrets, I would not trade my life for yours, uncle, no matter if it gained me another four thousand years.”
“I weary of this exchange,” Radje snapped. “I will see you at midnight tomorrow on the top of the Bank of America plaza in Atlanta. Come unarmed and alone.”
“I require evidence that I will not be acting in vain,” he countered. “Your word is not sufficient.”
Radje chuckled. “If I had taken Kira, I would not bring her anywhere near you. You would simply kill me and any guards with that formidable power of yours. I take great risk meeting you alone to bring you before the council, but I console myself with the knowledge that should anything happen to me, actions will be taken later that ensure your punishment.”
Or, if you don’t check in with Kira’s guards at an appointed time, they will kill her, Mencheres filled in cynically. He’d suspected as much. Ruthless Radje might be, but foolish he was not. No, Kira would be far away from the place where Mencheres met Radje. The only reason the Law Guardian didn’t fear Mencheres’s finding her beforehand was because his power to locate people had vanished along with his visions.
I’m coming, the dark underworld of Duat seemed to whisper to him.
Not yet, Mencheres told it.
“I trust you’ll find another way to give me the proof I require. I will see you on the roof of the Tower at midnight tomorrow,” he stated, and hung up.
Vlad walked across the room, his hands behind his back, his gaze hard.
“You don’t really intend to go alone, do you?”
“To Radje?” Mencheres gave him a grim smile. “Oh yes.”
K ira could hear Radje talking to Mencheres in one of the other rooms of the ancient complex he had secured her in. Images of plumed serpents, war, and warriors were carved onto the pale stone walls around her in this partially collapsed temple, providing the perfect eerie backdrop for the Law Guardian’s twisted plans. Kira could almost imagine that she still heard the screams from unwilling sacrifices echoing through the ruins of the huge, formerly great Mayan city.
Iron manacles on her wrists and ankles were nailed to the wall behind Kira. The shackles left her skin to chafe and heal in a repeated pattern every time she moved, but the manacles weren’t responsible for the pain burning inside her. Her hunger was. She hadn’t fed since before she went to see her sister.
After the trio of vampires kidnapped her from Tina’s building and brought Kira here by plane to this huge site of ruins, Radje had systematically drained all the blood out of her with multiple slashes from a silver knife. Not because he was cruel, he’d explained with a cold smile, but this way, she’d be too weak to free herself. Radje even had the nerve to tell Kira she had no reason to fear that any of his guards would debase her while she was in her helpless position nailed to a wall. After all, he was a Law Guardian, and Guardians did not condone certain disrespectful activities.
Kira wondered if the pompous prick actually believed anything that came out of his mouth, or if he only thought she was stupid enough to believe him. She’d seen the looks thrown her way by some of the mercenaries Radje had inside this ancient structure, and none of them were respectful. Kira didn’t need her instincts to tell her that Radje’s guards were merely biding their time until their master gave them the okay. She knew Radje had no intention of letting her live, and he could care less if those callous men took a few moments of entertainment until they killed her as ordered.
“You have cause to rejoice,” Radje said, sweeping into the room where Kira was. “Mencheres has agreed to trade himself for you. He really must be weary of life. Or he intends to set a trap for me with the other Guardians tomorrow night, but all they would see is me, risking myself to bring a condemned criminal in.”
“You sure thought of everything,” Kira replied in a flat voice, hoping he’d leave so she wouldn’t have to hear more of his self-aggrandizing.
Radje lasered his gaze into her, his dark eyes turning green. His long black hair was braided in a style that somehow still managed to look masculine, and those braids swung when he came closer to her.
“You are too pitifully young to understand how long I have waited, yet now at last it is time for me to claim my power.”
“Don’t you mean steal Mencheres’s power?” she corrected.
He spread out his arms out in an annoyed manner. “That power was meant to be mine. Even the gods agree. Why else would Mencheres suddenly long for death? Why else would his visions and ability to trace people fail? Had not all these things come to pass, I couldn’t act against him in this way. You see? Fate has intervened for my success!”
You narcissistic bastard, Kira thought, but she didn’t push Radje’s already-unstable temper by saying it aloud.
She knew why all those things had happened to Mencheres, and they had nothing to do with fate lending a helping hand in Radje’s lust for power. It was centuries’ worth of suppressed guilt, regret, and grief catching up with Mencheres, all coalescing into a wall of darkness that he couldn’t see past and didn’t think he had the strength to tear down. If Radje had a conscience, he’d be familiar with how strong inner demons could be. But, of course, the crooked Law Guardian was too empty inside to know anything about that.
“And you’ll let me go after you get what you want from Mencheres?” she asked, only managing to contain the majority of her derision from the question.
Nothing altered in Radje’s expression. “Of course. No one would believe any tales you would tell, and even if some did, there would be no proof.”
Except for your new power, Kira mentally added. Only an idiot would believe Radje wouldn’t kill her to protect that secret from being told. Hell, she bet the mercenaries who guarded this place had their days numbered, too. She could guess that the only reason Radje was pretending he’d let her go was so Kira didn’t scream any warning to Mencheres when he demanded to speak to her before giving Radje his power. Mencheres wouldn’t give Radje anything until he knew she was alive. The Law Guardian would know that.
“So Menkaure took you as his lover,” Radje said musingly, his gaze sliding over her in a way that made her long for a shower even more than blood. “I can smell him on you.”
“Give me some soap and water, and I can fix that,” she replied shortly. She didn’t like the calculating gleam starting to appear in Radje’s eyes, or the obviously explicit reference
to Mencheres’s scent on her. The sooner Radje left her alone, the better.
He came closer instead, stopping only inches from Kira. “When I first put a watch on your sister’s residence, I wondered if it was futile. I sensed Menkaure had an affinity for you, so I did not expect him to let you return out of fear of a trap. If he didn’t care where you went, then perhaps capturing you would benefit me nothing. Yet my guards heard you tell your sister that you had to sneak away from Menkaure to see her. That is why I knew you would be of use to me alive.”
Kira suppressed a shudder as that disturbing gleam grew brighter in Radje’s eyes.
“Tell me,” he almost murmured, “how much did Menkaure claim to care for you?”
The last thing she’d do was tell Radje that Mencheres loved her. He’d only do even more terrible things to her to spite Mencheres, but she couldn’t pretend that she meant nothing to Mencheres, either. That would be too obvious a lie. Even though Radje believed Mencheres had a death wish, he’d still agreed to trade himself for her.
“We didn’t have a lot of time together, but the time we spent was promising,” Kira said in as much of a noncommittal tone as she could manage. Anger and hunger competed in her. She wanted to smash the smirk off Radje’s face . . . and she’d give every cent she had for a bag of blood right now.
“Do you know what the Greeks used to call Menkaure?” Radje asked with feigned casualness. “Eros, after the god of lust. As Pharaohs, we were both considered gods by our people. I have been a Law Guardian for almost three thousand years, but before then, when I spent my time seeking my own pleasure, as Menkaure did . . . my nights were spent in such a sea of flesh that I would never be able to number all the women I had.”
That anger burned hotter inside Kira, but she sought to keep it down and her emotional shields up. It wasn’t enough for Radje to frame Mencheres and ruin his life. Now he had to try and destroy his relationship with her, too, even though he fully intended to kill Mencheres as soon as he saw him.
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