by Alyssa Day
He sighed. There they were, those four deadly words again.
“As you wish, Princess. As you wish.”
Chapter 24
As Ivy slept, wrapped in a sleeping bag on an air mattress on the cave floor, Nicholas watched her, reassuring himself that she was well; merely sleeping and not unconscious. Not that he cared about her. No, she was merely a tool, and as he’d said, he kept his tools in good working order.
He forced himself to walk away from her, although there wasn’t really anyplace to go. They were holed up in a cave, like animals. Not his first choice of accommodations, especially when he had a perfectly serviceable mansion in Sedona, but he’d been afraid that moving Ivy would harm her further. Overuse of her magic, combined with the shock from seeing him kill Smithson, had pushed her past the limit of what she could endure.
Her son, who had finally succumbed to his own exhaustion, slept in his own sleeping bag next to his mother. Ian had more courage than most adults Nicholas had encountered in his many years. The boy had demanded that Nicholas turn him into a vampire, so that he would be more fully capable of protecting his mother from “scum like you” in the future.
Brave, and a little foolish, like the best of all possible boys. Nicholas allowed himself a moment to mourn his long-dead son and, even more, to mourn the death of their relationship. Lingering on what might have been, though, was never productive. Nicholas lived in the present and dealt with the here and now. He’d always found it a more efficient and useful way to live his life.
He was practical. Pragmatic. Whatever benefited him the most was the course to take. Always.
His gaze involuntarily returned to Ivy, and he scowled. His feelings for this woman were an unwanted complication. A conundrum. She had no value to him beyond her use as a witch who could wield the gem. And yet he found himself wishing he could make her more comfortable.
Get to know her, perhaps. Make her see that he wasn’t entirely a murdering bastard.
And then what? Flowers and candlelight?
He pivoted and walked to the entrance of the cave and motioned to one of the vampires in his blood pride. “Find me someone to eat.”
“Do you have to do that a lot?” Ian walked up next to him, but not too near. “Eat people?”
“I thought you were asleep,” Nicholas snapped. “Go back to bed.”
“I can’t really sleep when my mom is in danger, and we’re hanging out with a bunch of bloodsuckers, no offense, dude.” Ian covered a huge yawn with his hand.
“None taken,” Nicholas said dryly. “Do you have any sense of self-preservation at all?”
“What, because you could kill me with your little finger or whatever?” Ian shrugged his thin shoulders. “Sure, I’m scared. I’m not stupid. But she’s my mom, dude. Wouldn’t you do anything—risk anything—for your mom?”
Nicholas glared down at the boy, but realized that, oddly enough, he was willing to continue the conversation. “Yes, I would have done anything for my mother. And don’t call me dude.”
“Sorry, but I don’t exactly know your name,” Ian pointed out.
“Nicholas.”
Ian stuck out his hand. “I’m Ian Khetta, Mr. Nicholas.”
For the first time in centuries, Nicholas found himself shaking hands with a teenage boy. “Just Nicholas. I know who you are, Ian Khetta, son of Ivy Khetta. Do you know your mother is a sorceress of the dark arts?”
Ian recoiled. “That’s not true. She’d never do that, not after what happened to her mom. I don’t know where you get your information, dude—ah, Mr. Nicholas—but it’s dead wrong.”
“I’m never wrong, boy,” Nicholas informed him, baring his fangs just because he could and because, in some bizarre manner, he felt like he was losing control of the conversation. “Go eat a sandwich or something. Aren’t human boys always hungry?”
“Aren’t vampires always eating people?”
Nicholas bared his fangs. “Just give me a minute.”
Ian’s face turned pale under his sunburn and freckles, but he didn’t back down, making Nicholas feel a twinge of admiration for the boy.
Which annoyed him.
“Yeah, I get it, you’re the big, bad guy here, but I have some information I’d like to trade,” Ian said.
“What kind of information?”
“Information that could make you rich,” Ian said.
“I’ m already rich.”
“Richer, then. Look, do you want to hear it or not?”
“In return for this information, which is likely to be useless, what do you want?” Nicholas leaned against the wall of the cave and folded his arms across his chest, waiting for the boy to make his unreasonable demands, so he could laugh in Ian’s face.
“I just want my mom to be safe,” Ian said, squaring his shoulders. “You can keep me, or drink my blood, or whatever, but you have to promise to let my mom go. She can’t channel this much magic, or she’s going to get a brain aneurysm and die. Also, like I told you earlier, I want to be a vampire like you, so nobody can ever threaten Mom again.”
Nicholas’s composure cracked, for just a moment. This child—this boy not even old enough to shave—was offering his own life for his mother’s. It had been a very, very long time since Nicholas had seen anything but selfishness from anyone, human or vampire, and his fixed-in-stone worldview took a major hit. It didn’t shatter—it didn’t even come close to shattering—but the foundations crumbled, just the tiniest bit.
“Ian, I will find a way to keep your mom safe,” he said rashly. Stupidly.
“Do you promise?”
He grabbed the boy by the front of his shirt and jerked him up in the air, holding him so high that his feet dangled a good twenty inches off the ground.
“Do not try my patience, boy, or question my word,” he hissed, allowing the full force of his power to show in his undoubtedly glowing red eyes. “Give me the information or do not. It matters not a bit to me. I have said I will find a way to keep Ivy Khetta safe, and I always do what I say. Now, go eat something or sleep, or whatever you want to do, but do it quietly, and do not bother me again.”
He dropped the boy, but Ian had good reflexes and landed on his feet, knees bent, and then straightened up. The boy’s face was glowing a hot red, but he didn’t storm off toward his mother, as Nicholas had expected.
“Fair is fair. You said you’d protect my mom, and I said I’d give you information,” the boy said. He walked to the center of the cave, directly underneath the hole in the ceiling from which the rubies had poured down, and pointed up.
“Nobody else but me bothered to look up at the ceiling, inside that hole. Everybody was too busy staring at the rubies, or then at what you did to that guy . . .” Ian faltered for a moment, but then he recovered and looked back up at the ceiling. “There’s another cave painting in there. Like the one the other guy said was so important to the story of what the deal is with that gem you’re making my mom use.”
“In the ceiling? Fascinating.” Nicholas leapt into the air and rose through the cave until his head was actually inside the hole in the ceiling, which put him close enough to see the painting but unfortunately blocked the light.
He snapped his fingers and pointed to one of his vampires. “Light.”
The minion rushed to bring him one of the lanterns and held it up as high as he could reach. Few could fly, as Nicholas could. The ones who could, he had on patrol.
Raising the lantern, Nicholas looked around again and blinked. He blew out a long, slow whistle.
“Boy, you have just earned yourself a reward. I believe this painting contains the secret of the amethyst.” He looked down at Ian, who was shifting from foot to foot nervously.
“I am going to be richer than Midas and quite possibly invulnerable. You, my boy, have just earned your ticket to that immortality you asked me for earlier. When you reach twenty-one, if you still desire it, I will turn you vampire.”
“Over my dead body,” Ivy said. She w
alked into the space directly below where Nicholas was still floating up by the ceiling and pointed a shaking hand, rimmed in purple fire, at him. “I will kill you now, vampire, before I will let you destroy my son’s future.”
Nicholas felt a very rare smile stretch its slow and unfamiliar way across his face. “Now, finally, things are going to get interesting.”
Chapter 25
Ven searched the canyons and riverbanks as he flew overhead, looking for any sign of a magic amethyst, murdering vampires, or an evil witch and wondering when things had gotten so freaking weird that a warrior from Atlantis felt like he was in the middle of a twisted faery tale.
Or a really bad joke.
So, a vampire, a witch, and an Atlantean walk into a bar . . .
Justice’s call broke into his mental meanderings with a bang, so powerful and furious that Ven nearly fell out of mist form and slammed into the tree he was soaring past.
COME NOW COME NOW COME NOW THE VAMPIRE ATTACKED HER AND WE ARE DOWN COME NOW COME NOW.
He arrowed for the ground, transforming back into his body as he went, and landed lightly next to a shining cloud of mist that instantly turned into his brother.
“What in the nine hells was that?”
Conlan shook his head. “I have no idea. Justice sounds like he could chew through that sword of his, but the vampire attacked her? What vampire? Surely not Daniel?”
Ven sent a mental message to Justice but only got a zap of weird static in response.
“He’s not answering. Either he’s down and out, or he’s gone so ballistic that the Nereid half of him took over.”
“Neither is good,” Conlan said grimly. He launched into the air, transforming back into mist mid-jump, and Ven followed his brother’s lead, heading up and out to find his other brother, and hoping they weren’t too late.
Minutes later, they found Justice, lying immobile on the grass a short distance from the creek bank.
Trap? Ven sent to Conlan.
Could be. Let’s go in carefully.
Justice wasn’t sending anything on their mental channel but waves of static and random words like kill, murder, disembowel.
Typical, in other words, but not really helpful.
Ven touched down close to Justice while Conlan landed a good twenty paces away. Both of them drew their daggers and scanned the area, but there was no sign of anyone else around.
“What happened to you, big guy?” Ven crouched down next to Justice and felt for a pulse, but it was only reflex. Obviously Justice was alive, if not exactly well. The fury glowing in his spring-green eyes was a bad sign for whoever had done this to him.
“You said vampire. Can you elaborate? Try to calm down enough to think it at me. We can’t fix this if we don’t know what’s going on.”
Conlan walked up, still scanning their surroundings but clearly having reached the same conclusion Ven had, that nobody was around.
“Are you getting anything? All I can hear is dire threats of a slow, torturous death for whoever did this to him,” Conlan said, grinning.
NOT FUNNY. WILL KILL HIM. KILL DANIEL.
The grin faded from Conlan’s face, and Ven felt as sucker punched as Conlan looked.
“Daniel? Are you sure? He did this to you? How is that even possible?” he asked Justice.
NIGHTWALKER MAGE POWERS. KILL HIM.
Ven rubbed his forehead, which was beginning to pound from the sheer volume of Justice’s anger. “Got it, you’re going to kill him, but in the meantime, could you hold it down? The only thing you’re killing right now is my head.”
Justice’s lips twitched, and after that his fingers moved slightly.
“It seems to be wearing off already,” Conlan said. “Hell of a spell, though. Immobilizing someone with Justice’s power takes a lot, and to sustain it from a distance is extremely difficult. If this is really Daniel’s work, he’s been hiding quite a bit of his capabilities from us.”
He attacked her and drank her blood. He has hypnotized her, too, and she believes he is protecting her. We heard this from her own lips.
“I can’t believe Daniel would compel Serai,” Ven said. “Did you see him with her? He had the same puppy-dog eyes you have with Riley.”
Conlan glared at him. “I don’t want to hear it from you, who acts like a lovesick youngling every time Erin is near.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. We need to get Justice back to Atlantis. Alaric or one of the priests will be able to fix this,” Ven said, and then he remembered. “If Alaric has returned. This week is turning into a damn clusterfuck, isn’t it?”
Conlan shot him a look of pure exasperation. “What time in our lives hasn’t been? Do high princes get vacations?”
Ven called for the portal, then waited until its shimmering oval began to form before he started laughing. “Sorry, Your Highness. Welcome to your life.”
Conlan just shook his head. “I’ll take Justice to the healers, and you keep looking for Daniel and Serai. We need to find out what happened, and if she’s safe, and I don’t trust myself to keep from just tearing his head off when I see him. At least you’ll give him a chance to tell his side of this.”
Ven suddenly wanted to hit something. “If we’re suddenly having to worry about sides—with such a trusted ally and friend as Daniel—then things are getting worse.”
Much worse, Justice sent. We are in dire straits, indeed.
“Dire straits, clusterfuck, apoca-damn-lyptic times. Welcome to the fun house,” Ven muttered, as Conlan carried Justice through the portal. “It just keeps getting better and better.”
After they’d vanished, he stood perfectly still and sent his senses out into the wind, calling out to the Atlantean princess who might possibly be in thrall to one of his best friends. Better and better.
When she didn’t respond, and not even a hint of her presence came to him, he tried to seek out a hint of her trail. The use of Atlantean magic had a unique signature, and he should be able to spot it easily enough.
Should be able to find it quickly.
Should be . . . but couldn’t.
Not a single trace.
“Nightwalker mage plus ancient Atlantean princess trumps my magic every time, I’m guessing,” he said out loud, to any of the local wildlife who might be interested. “I’m going to need help.”
No way could he search the caves and canyons and nooks and crannies of this area by himself in time to find Serai before, oh, next year or so. It was almost dawn, so Daniel would have to head for the darkness. He had time to go for reinforcements. He called the portal again.
“Daniel, I hope you know what you’re doing,” he told the cool night air, and then he stepped through the portal. Time to go back to Atlantis and regroup.
Chapter 26
Daniel and Serai hiked steadily, making better progress than they had thus far, until nearly dawn, when he called for a break.
“We’ll need to stop soon and find a place to rest.” He scanned the area for one of the many caves that would give him sufficient darkness to avoid the deadly rays of the sun.
Serai kept hiking, not even slowing down. “I’m not tired.”
“Nor am I, but unless you like your companions slightly flambéed, we need to get out of the sun.”
She instantly stopped walking and whirled around. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I wasn’t thinking. I just—we’re so close, and I can feel the Emperor in my brain, pounding and pounding its call, and—”
“I know. I’m sorry I can’t help you in the daylight. If you have changed your mind and want to call Conlan and Ven, you know I think it’s a good idea.”
“No,” she said, not even hesitating. “I still don’t trust them.”
“What about Reisen?”
She shook her head. “I’ve tried several times to contact him to see if they’re well. If Melody survived. But he won’t answer me.”
“Or he can’t answer you,” Daniel said grimly. “Neither option is good for us.”
She put her hands on his shoulders and looked up at him with nothing but trust in her eyes. “We can do this. We can. We’ll rest for the day and find the Emperor tonight.”
“If it’s still here to be found,” he said grimly. “We don’t know when they’re going to move it, Serai. We need to contact Ven and Conlan, now. Too much—too many lives—depend on us finding that stone for us to wait a single minute longer.”
She sighed and moved away from him, saying nothing, but she raised her face to the sky and closed her eyes. A long moment later, she inhaled sharply and opened her eyes.
“There’s no response. They’re gone.”
“That’s impossible. They wouldn’t have just left, not with the Emperor lost and your life and those other women’s lives on the line. Try again.”
She did, but then shook her head. This time she looked a little frightened. “They’re gone, Daniel. Either dead or gone back to Atlantis, or somewhere else that is far out of my range.”
“What is your range?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps a thousand miles, in current measurements? More or less.”
“That’s pretty impressive. And you’re sure? Absolutely sure?”
“Yes. There is nothing. It’s different from Reisen; I can feel his presence but he won’t answer or has his mental communication pathway shut to all messages, not just mine. But there is no trace of Conlan, Ven, or the Nereid at all.”
Daniel put his arms around her and pulled her close, unable to resist comforting her.
“I can call the portal, if you’re sure we need them,” she murmured, her breath warm against his neck.
