“Sleep well, sweetheart?” he asked, that playful smirk of his causing my more violent desires to call out to be realized. He had been feeding Sean information all this time...what we knew, who was alive...everything he knew about us...
You, motherfucker, are gonna die painfully when I’m outta here. “I was out like a light.” I returned his smile but sent my coldest glare his way. “I kind of had to be after you beat me with a goddamn couch.”
“Aw, you figured out it was me.” He pretended to look defeated. “You’re just too clever, Zara. I’ve only been around you for what...four or five days now? You sure are a quick one. I really am quite hurt that just now you asked about Junior and not me, though.”
His face was going to look so pretty later splattered in blood. I just had to get out first. “So this was just about catching me?” I directed at Sean, unable to even look at Jamie any longer. “The other vampires thing was just a lie?”
“She is pretty full of herself, isn’t she?” Sean looked back at Jamie, who nodded.
“I told ya so.”
“No, Miss Lain, this isn’t about you,” Sean said. “And it is a vampire thing.” He raised his hand and then made a slight gesture. Three armed guards—carrying both semi-automatics and metal stakes—entered the room to stand behind him. “I had planned to just leave you here, but Jamie seems to think you’d like a look around the place.”
I would like a look around, but snark was my top priority. “Actually, it would be super if you just let me go.”
“I don’t think so. Now I’m going to remove the restraints keeping you pinned to the table. You can come for a little walk with us.”
“If you want me to walk, I suggest taking care of the manacles on my legs too,” I said as he unbuckled the straps.
“You can shuffle along—it’s all right, we’ll wait.”
“You’re such a gentleman.”
He unfastened the final strap, then moved several feet away so I could sit up on my own. From there I hopped off the table and moved into the huge corridor outside the room. Everyone stayed at least four feet from me at all times, which told me I still must be some sort of threat to them. A little pride swelled in me at that thought, quashed quickly by the fact I knew I was utterly fucked.
Both to my left and right there were at least another dozen rooms, making perhaps almost thirty in total on my side of the hallway, as well as another thirty on the other. The lights above were bright and white as they were in my cell, glaring down. In the huge area between the two halves were groupings of narrow tables topped with computers and monitors.
“Aw, did you make up a little experiment for the science fair?” I asked as they led me down the hall. “Bet you’ll get first place this year.”
Sean towered beside me, perhaps a few inches taller than his brother. “Not quite. One doesn’t need to experiment when one knows what one’s doing.”
As I glanced in the rooms, I recognized some of the faces that looked back. Vampires. All of them.
“So you think this is the way to get in with some Illuminati-wannabes? Abduct vampires?” I laughed. “That’s pretty lame, even for a half-rate warlock like you. If that’s all it takes to impress them, maybe I should try joining.”
“Impress...?” Now it was Sean’s turn to laugh, sinking a lead ball of worry in my gut. “Oh, them. Miss Lain, I’m already in. Decimating North America’s witch population did that. And these,” he gestured around him, “aren’t just vampires anymore. They’re recruits. Soldiers for my own elite army. Nearly invincible, strong, and ferocious.”
I could name a dozen demons much better than vampires. “With wills of their own.” I gave a huge yawn and ensured Sean saw me.
“Wills of their own,” he repeated with a smile. He seemed to be anticipating that response. “Your species is nothing but a slave to its desires.”
“So just because you got that idiot over there to join you by waving some money—and probably pussy—in his face, you think you’ve got a goddamn army?”
“Hey—” Jamie began to protest.
“He didn’t do it for the money,” Sean said. “I’m not paying him for this.”
“Nope,” Jamie said. “It’s a complete freebie on my part. He picked me up when I was returning to my employers after the little O’Connor shindig. I’m smart enough to go with the winning side, love.”
“You see, he realized he didn’t have any other choice,” Sean added.
“I realize that too,” I said. “Wanna unchain me?”
“You think me that gullible?” Sean asked.
“Just hoping,” I said with a shrug. “So this is your ‘army?’ Why exactly do you need one now that you’re part some evil secret society?”
“They’ll be handy in the Armageddon.”
“Oh, is that soon?”
“You have no idea,” Sean said with a smile.
I just laughed at him. “Right, because it’s going to be happening any day now...just like people have been saying for thousands of years. Honey, I’m a lot older than you—I’ve heard every prophecy, every Nostradamus wannabe, and I can assure you the end of the world is no more nigh these days than it’s ever been. And if the apocalypse happened tomorrow, do you think these guys are going to protect you?” I looked around at the other vampires and rolled my eyes. “Like I said: lame.”
“Tell me, Zara, do you know what happens when a vampire doesn’t feed?” As Sean stopped to face me, Jamie and the guards did as well.
“A couple of late night fast food places get robbed of their workers?” I guessed.
“Not quite.” His smile seemed to falter, and I suspected he was getting tired of my attitude. “Your body, being once human, has certain reactions to what it perceives as a possible famine. If a human has been starving, the next meal is immediately stored as fat. That is what—”
“God, will you please skip the ‘always eat breakfast’ speech and just get on with it already.”
“Now that you have a parasite in your brain that requires blood,” he continued, unbothered by my comment, “when you starve, the parasite starts to think there’s something wrong with its host. Like maybe the host isn’t fast enough. Isn’t strong enough. Food must be scarce. When that parasite isn’t getting enough blood...well...how about an example?”
He gestured to the room beside him, and cautiously I walked over.
Behind the Plexiglas, I saw what could only be described as a monster pacing the room.
Maybe it had been a person. Once. But now its spine was elongated and curved slightly, giving it a hunch. His skull was enlarged by a huge, protruding mass at the back of his head, which I assumed was the demonic parasite changing and growing. His wiry black hair was thin, and nonexistent around the bump. Veins, crying out to be filled with blood, bulged from his neck and along his arms. Immense muscles rippled across his arms and throughout his body. They’d given him baggy sweatpants to wander around in, but nothing else in terms of clothing.
“Charming,” I said dryly. “And this is supposed to explain what?”
“Have a good look at him, Miss Lain,” Sean urged me. So I did. I looked at the thing, studied it through the glass as it paced the room. Its nails were long and sharp. Nothing particularly striking there. He had a pair of fangs—at least three times the length of a normal vampire’s—that stuck out from his gums and caused little tears to form on his lip and chin. He looked over at me wildly, his dark eyes revealing only one thought: his hunger.
And then I knew him.
Icy dread chilled my skin, sent shivers over my arms. “Dragomir.”
“Right again, darling,” Jamie said, coming to lean against the Plexiglas. He crossed his arms at his chest and looked amused. “The very same one. Your maker. Only Petey was wrong, as you can see. He’s not dead. At least not in the traditional sense.”
“As one of the oldest known vampires, I caught him first, four years ago,” Sean said. “And it was because of the experiments with him
that I knew my plan could be realized.”
Dragomir. Fucking Dragomir. Made into...this? Not possible, not possible... But I blinked and the figure before me didn’t change.
“So this is what happens when vampires don’t feed.” I forced a bored tone back into my voice. “Blah blah—this is incredibly dull, you know. So we get a case of the fuglies. Sure, I’m a big fan of the hotness that is me, but I’m certainly not going to do your bidding because of this.” Certainly not because you took the strongest vampire I’ve ever known and turned him into...into I don’t know what. My heart thumped erratically in my chest and I could do nothing to calm it, even though I knew Jamie might hear. I was terrified.
“Because you still have your free will, correct?” Sean said, sounding quite amused.
“And because this is such a lame idea,” I repeated. “There are only so many vampires in the world, and it takes a goddamn decade to make new ones. Why don’t you just summon demons like a normal evil person?”
“That is an excellent question,” Sean said. “Demons, you see, cause a disturbance in the walls between dimensions. When someone summons one forth, it’s as if there’s a huge beacon leading straight to the summoner. Hunters are becoming more and more sophisticated now, gaining better ways of tracking demons and the warlocks bringing them to this world, which poses great restrictions on how often one can use them.”
“My heart is breaking for you.”
“But vampires—”
“But big, scary, pissed off vamps don’t, and anyone can be made into one. I get it. It’s still stupid because as soon as you let one out of its cage, it’s going to get a human, feed, and the freaky-ass monster look will be over.”
“You should probably gag her,” Jamie told Sean. “Or else she’ll just keep interrupting you.”
“Not necessarily,” Sean continued as if Jamie hadn’t spoken. “During the past year, we’ve been fine tuning the experiment. The changing time varies from vampire to vampire, based loosely on age and the particular bloodline it originated from. The process can be reversible up to a certain point. Take Dragomir, for example. We’ve taken him to the brink, then fed him and brought him back again and again. As of only a week ago, this change was completely reversible. Now it’s not. Had he been only a century or so old, it might also be reversed. But not anymore. No matter how much he eats, this is what he will be until his death. It’s all very fascinating.”
“You were one of those stereotypical nerds in high school that everyone always make fun of, weren’t you?” I said, as if I hadn’t been listening. “Like The Trio on that TV show.”
“She’s still not impressed,” Jamie said.
“On to room nine, then,” Sean said. He motioned for me to take a look in the cell next to Dragomir’s.
Ilona, Dragomir’s only lover for at least half a millennia, was in number nine. Unlike her husband, she appeared just as I had seen her last, three centuries earlier. Her dark brown hair was swept back from her delicate face, her arms hugged her body as if she was cold, and she sat upon the only piece of furniture in the room: the single table that every cell had. They’d given her a pair of dark yoga pants as well, along with a tank top. She still looked frail—as she always had—but I knew that within those waif-like arms and slender body was enough power to snap a man in two. Ilona was as vicious a killer as any of us could be.
I stepped closer to the door, and Sean punched in something at the panel beside it, presumably switching off the one-way glass, for she suddenly looked up at me. She sprang from her seat and ran to the door, pressing her fingers to the pane.
“Ana?” Eyes searched mine, darting back and forth.
Part of me loathed them. They changed me, left me stuck in the mausoleum, locked me away after I murdered Pavel’s children...I deemed them the reason for so much of the hell in my unlife. If Dragomir just let me die when he killed me, maybe I would’ve had peace. I never would’ve known the man I loved paid to have me killed. Never would’ve lived three centuries still having nightmares of the dark place.
But my eyes burned with tears. Ilona was in so many ways my family, and the whole fucking situation was just wrong.
“So you have free will?” Sean stepped closer to me, but not so near that I could grab him in any way. “I suppose you know how much these two love each other. Jamie tells me he heard from Mr. Fields that they were together for a very long time.”
“Do you really have to preface whatever your point is with a five minute speech?” I snapped.
“Very well.” Sean stepped to the control panel once more. He pressed a button, and suddenly the wall between Dragomir and Ilona’s cells shot up into the ceiling, making their two prisons one.
“Dragomir,” Sean said into the intercom.
Dragomir looked around wildly, searching for the source of the voice.
“He still understands a bit of language,” Jamie whispered to me.
“Dragomir, you want to feed?”
The monstrosity that was once my maker flew to the door, pounding his fists so violently I swore even the floor shook.
“Kill her,” Sean commanded.
Ilona’s eyes got wide as Dragomir spotted her. She backed up as he stalked toward her.
“What the fuck did you do?” I shouted at Sean. “What did you do to him? He would never—”
“Why wouldn’t he attack her?” Sean returned. “Because he ‘chooses’ not to? Because he loves her? He hasn’t fed in months. He knows nothing but the hunger now.”
I watched in horror as Dragomir leaped at his beloved.
She tried. She tried so hard. Ilona shrieked, clawed, fought, tried to throw him off of her. But she was pale and starved, and in that state, he was too strong.
I slammed my shoulder into the door, shouting my frustration. “Get him off her!” I screamed, ramming my arm into the door again and again, no matter how it ached.
“You can give it a try,” Sean said, sliding a key into the lock beside the panel and turning it to the right. The door abruptly opened, sending me flying into the room, then it shut behind me.
There I was, hands and legs bound, and on the floor in front of a very pissed off looking vampire-monster.
Shit.
Chapter Thirty
Free Will
Dragomir was crouched over Ilona’s unmoving body. He looked up at me, blood dripping from his mouth and streaking down his chin.
He snarled.
Oh boy. I slowly pulled myself into a crouch, then eased to a stand. “Dragomir...”
He growled in response.
“It’s me, Ana.” I swore I heard laughter in the hallway outside the cell, and really, I couldn’t blame them. Dragomir had no idea who I was. If he did, he didn’t care.
“Okay, so you don’t know me,” I said. “I don’t give a fuck—get the hell away from her.”
He started to stand, then stopped. Keeping in a half-crouch, a low growl rumbled from his throat, seeming to thrum the air around us.
My body tensed in preparation for the attack. Though I was certain his speed had increased, I was quite a bit smaller in comparison, which just might mean I had agility on my side. Of course the shackles on my arms and legs impeded me more than a little.
I jumped up—keeping my body still but bending my legs so my knees came to my chest—and swung my bound wrists in an arc under me just before my feet returned to the ground. A very Jet Li move. I wasn’t sure if that would really help the situation, but I preferred my arms to be at my front rather than my back.
Dragomir must have perceived the movement as a threat, for he let out a deep bellow of anger and charged at me.
I dove out of the way; he anticipated me. With one swat, the back of his hand connected with my shoulder and flung me across the room. My legs tied, I could do little to correct myself midair. I landed on my side on the cold tile.
My legs were rubbery beneath me, head still pounded with the after effects of the sedative. He snatched me up by my
shoulder and lifted me high off the ground. Long nails dug deep into my flesh, drawing blood.
I grabbed the arm that held me and swung my legs to hit him square in the chest as hard as I could.
Not only didn’t he release me, but he barely even staggered. And my muscles ached after the movement.
Not an encouraging development.
He swiped at me with his free hand, claws slashing across my cheek. Blood ran, snaking down my face, stinking of copper and salty on my lips.
His eyes widened, focused on the blood. He didn’t care if I was human or not: he just wanted to feed. My throat was as good as any.
I let my fangs grow, then I bit down on his hand, twisting and tearing through the flesh. I tasted no blood—his body had been emptied of it. Instead, the tissue was dry and flavourless, like ash in my mouth. A strong reminder of what I didn’t want to become.
Enraged, Dragomir threw me against the table and let out a roar. I landed hard, bruises blooming, ribs cracking. I rolled onto the floor, seized the table leg, and flung the whole thing against the wall with enough force to break it back into its original pieces. Screws and bolts scattered across the floor.
Dragomir bolted in my direction.
I threw the table leg.
The makeshift stake struck his heart; he slumped to the ground.
Well, at least I know a standard stake will slow them down. Maybe wood wouldn’t, but metal. Metal I could find, in case I had to fight more. He still lived, though. His head would have to be taken off to kill him, but the stake would keep him from rising.
I turned to Ilona, who hadn’t moved from the spot on the floor where her former lover had left her. Her throat was torn right open, the wound so deep that the stark white bone of her spine peeked through the gore.
A sad, human-like breath left me in a defeated sigh.
“Ana,” she whispered.
I knelt next to her. Cold blood seeped into the knees of my jeans.
“Miss Lain,” Sean said as the door slid open. “You did a very fine job dispatching of Dragomir, though you should know that of course I would not allow you, nor his missus, to be permanently harmed. You’re all far more useful to me alive.”
Bloodlines (Demons of Oblivion) Page 22
