He went into a passage and through a room of maps, then down a flight of stairs to face a solid brick wall. When he passed his hands in front of it and said a few words, the bricks moved as if they were water, revealing a door of heavy wood.
I remembered with shame Anna’s words about magic bricks, and said a quick prayer that she forgive me for not believing her.
“In there,” he rumbled. “Joshua is in there.”
He forced the door open, and everything happened at once.
Titus appeared in the doorway, snarling, and moved to strike, stopping in shock when he saw he faced Shaker.
“Damn you!” he shouted, and then screamed as he disappeared.
“Get through the door!” Rene shouted. “Kill Joshua and it’s done!”
We ran in to face one man. He was huge, easily the size of Shaker, and he gripped an axe. Shaker intoned something. The man shivered, but he didn’t move.
“My brother gave you something,” Shaker said with horror.
“Yes,” Henry said, advancing with his axe. “Magic will not work on me. And no earthly weapon will kill me!”
Uther and his men attacked and covered him, bringing him down under their numbers. But he fought them off quickly.
Rene screamed “The amulet! Grab his amulet!”
Uther was fighting with Henry; he was the last on his feet. His men were already dead around them, cloven. Shaker was intoning something quickly, fire forming white hot in his hands.
Uther fell; the axe buried in his side, in his hands a necklace. Shaker threw some kind of blue fire at Henry. He dropped the handle of his axe and screamed, his body burning as if he were a torch. He fell to his knees, as I ran to Uther.
I saw he was done for, even as I pulled out the axe.
“Finish it,” he rasped. “Don’t let my death be for nothing.”
He sagged in my arms, just as someone screamed from behind me. I turned. Titus was back, fighting with Rene and Ravel, fighting hard, and they were faltering. Shaker was nowhere in sight.
“Go!” Rene screamed. “Kill Joshua!”
At the far side of the room was a casket. Before I could get to it, it exploded outwards. I was knocked off my feet, and when I looked up, Joshua was grinning up at me.
He decked me in the face, and then he was on me. A moment later, his fangs buried themselves in my throat. I bit into his neck, and he flinched, but he didn’t stop drinking from me.
I could feel myself getting weak. Then hate washed through me, enough hate to drown in. I had not lived so many decades and come across an ocean to end like this!
I bit deeper and twisted my jaws in his flesh, ripping his throat out. I dug in again, tearing deeper. This time, my teeth grated on his bones.
Joshua ripped his fangs out of me and let out a scream. Again I plunged in my fangs, twisting my head, ripping away a chunk of his neck. He tried for me again, but I wrenched back his head and sank my fangs into the spurting wound, tearing and shredding his muscle and skin near the spinal bone. Joshua began to twitch as his head flopped to the side, almost severed.
Once more. I reared back to strike, and felt a shock of energy run through me, burning me. With the last of my strength, I sank my fangs a final time, and ripped outwards.
Joshua’s head separated from his body. It began to fall in almost instantly, to decompose, even as vile, pus-colored liquids seeped out of his skull.
“Drink,” Rene called out softly. “Hurry, before he’s dust!”
I put my mouth over his stump of a neck and drank greedily, until his flesh rotted and his body fell to dust in my hands.
With the influx of his blood, I felt myself change. I can’t describe it, except to say I was more than I was, that I felt stronger than I ever had before. When I slammed my hand down on the stone floor, it gave beneath my palm, the rock cracking.
“Devlin!” Ravel called urgently. “Come quickly!”
I turned. He was cradling Rene, her chest blackened and bloody. Blood was widening in a pool beneath her. Titus was beside him, though he was now on one knee, his head bowed to me.
“She took most of that blast for you,” Ravel said softly.
I went to them and Ravel placed her gently in my arms. She was still breathing.
I turned to Titus. “Heal her.”
“I cannot,” he said regretfully. “She is too old, Vampire. The wound I gave her is too severe.”
“And I want her soul,” Shaker said, appearing beside us. “She gave it to me, as part of her deal with me.”
“You will leave it with her,” I said hatefully. “Or I will send your brother back to Hell with you, here and now.”
Shaker looked over at Titus, and then he nodded. “Agreed. Henry’s and Joshua’s souls are enough. But you will bind him to you, Vampire, as part of the deal with me.”
I offered Titus my wrist. Titus took it, nicked it with his dagger teeth, and put his lips to my skin.
“Master,” he rumbled. “What is your will?”
“Heal her,” I said with tears in my eyes. “Do not let her die.”
“He cannot,” Rene whispered softly. “He is right, I am old. I am as old as you are, Dev, even though I don’t look it. Even if I were healed, I would not live much longer.”
“Guard the door,” I said, not taking my eyes from hers.
Titus left. Ravel followed him, with one last kiss to Rene’s cheek.
I kissed her gently. “Tell me what to do,” I said hurriedly. “Tell me what to do, to make you vampire. I am strong enough now! I will be able to do it.”
“I am faerie,” she said, touching my face gently. “I cannot be vampire, Devlin.”
“Don’t you dare leave me here alone,” I said brokenly. “I did not become King of this country to be alone!”
“Ruler,” she corrected gently. “And you must be, Devlin. You are going to be a legend, lover. You will be the most respected and feared Vampire Ruler the world has ever known.”
“I don’t want to be,” I said, trying not to cry. I wanted to look in her eyes and see her there in them looking back at me for as long as I could. “I just want to be loved.”
“You will be loved,” she said. “Remember my words.”
She began to twitch. I clutched her to me carefully, remembering the stone floor. “Don’t die!”
“Do something for me,” she whispered.
“Anything,” I sniffled. “Say the words, Love, and I’ll do it.”
“Bite me,” she whispered. “Send me off with the pleasure of your kiss. I’m in so much pain, Dev...”
I kissed her gently, and then bit down into her throat. She sighed, and clasped me tight to her. As I slid my fangs deeper, she let out a soft moan. I drank from her, and a moment later, her heart stopped.
A few minutes later I withdrew, and sank my fangs into the other side of her throat. I drank a little, and then removed them.
Rene’s body was already cooling. I picked it up, and went to the door. Titus opened it. Ravel stood beside him.
“What are your commands, Master?” Titus rumbled.
“What guards are left?” I said.
“Forty bears, give or take a few wounded.” Titus replied. “And myself.”
“Do you know where Joshua’s money is?”
“Yes,” Titus said, nodding once. “I can take you to it. There are rooms filled with treasure, a good deal of it stolen—”
“Do not bother. Take it all, and teleport it back to my home. Ravel will show you the way. Take the bears, too, use them to carry the bodies of my men, so that they may be given to their families for burial. Then return here, and raze this building to the ground. I want it destroyed utterly, especially this dungeon.”
“It will be done,” Titus said. “And after?”
“Make my home secure. It is an estate called Hayden, in New York. Shaker can show you the way. Use whatever money is necessary to do that. After that is done, wait there for me.”
“Where will you be?�
� he rumbled quickly. “You should not be unguarded.”
“Ravel will be with me,” I said emptily. “We are going home.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
After showing Titus where my home was located, Ravel teleported us to his cottage. It hurt just saying that, that it was his alone now.
He and I walked in the lightening night. Dawn was not far off.
With his magic, he helped me dig a grave beside Anna’s. Together, we lay Rene in it, and covered her with stones. Afterwards we sat there a while in silence, as the night lightened around us. Then he got up, and told me it was time to get indoors.
I looked up at him and didn’t move.
He looked down at me, and then hit me. Before Joshua, it would have knocked me flat. Now, I just took it without flinching.
“Damn you,” he said. “Do not let her have done everything she did for you for nothing. Now get up and get inside.”
I followed him back to his home. Across the hill at Hayden, my new bearmen were already moving around, Titus’s burly form directing them. I looked away, and followed Ravel back to his house.
We got inside just as dawn broke. He built a fire, and then sat down before it.
I saw belatedly that Rene’s blankets were still there on the floor from our lovemaking a day ago. I went and sat by them, putting them to my face that I might commit her scent to memory.
“She took an oath to you, didn’t she? That’s why you marked her.”
“Yes,” I said in a cracked voice. “Should I get a choker, to place in her tomb? Would she have liked that?”
“Yes, she would,” Ravel said after a moment. “She loved you very much.”
I didn’t reply.
“Do you want me to stay on as your guard?” Ravel said after a pause. “She didn’t tell me what she saw for me, after this fight. She didn’t tell me much about that either, except that she was going to die making you King.”
“Ruler,” I corrected gently. “I’m Vampire Ruler.”
“Ruler, Lord, Master, what difference will it make?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But it is what I will be, just the same.”
* * * *
The months passed as expected. Samuel and the other rulers of countries around the world sent letters, formally congratulating me. I hired another bodyguard, at Titus’s request, a highly ranked one. I was very rich now, and could well afford it.
There was much to do, in those first ten years. The Chief and Lord Vampires in all the existing states all had to be replaced, i.e. killed, and better managers found. Treaties had to be brokered with the various native were populations, of which there were far, far more than there had been in Europe. There were many who tested me, both vampire and non-vampire, and they had to be disciplined. The states were little more than colonies then. The bulk of what is modern day America hadn’t yet come into being. There was much that was wild that had to be bent to my will.
The next ten years were easier, mostly because I corrected a long-standing dilemma. A large part of the problem with enforcing vampire law was that it had never before been written down in entirety. Most of the commandments and legislation was in oral form, what vampires remembered of it. The only available accounts of reference were scattered in various books, mostly of them obscure. So I spent two years meeting with Samuel, Perseus, Ebediah, and a few other interested Vampire Rulers of Countries, hammering out a rule book of sorts that defined the vampire laws as we knew them. Though I offended Perseus and he never forgave me, I made sure I was the one who wrote most of the edicts on Oathed Ones, in case I ever did find that woman Rene had spoken of, so I could protect her.
Not that there weren’t women in my life, even then. There were many, so many Ravel grew sickened, and left me for a time. Some of them came to me as gifts, and some came on their own because of my wild reputation, from tales of my handsomeness or my power. Some I sought out, as they pleased me, at least for a night. But none interested me for longer than that. I did not take oaths from any of them, though many offered. A few even betrayed me, and I punished them as men, making my reputation for brutality and cruelty even more infamous.
L’Amour died in 1836, and I laid her to rest with Anna. Though I searched, I could not locate any of the families to whom I’d given her kittens. But other stray cats did show up at Hayden over the years. Most moved on due to Titus’s ever-present blackness, as I called it, yet once in a while, one elected to stay.
Ravel and Titus were good guardsmen. When Ravel died in 1863 in my service, I laid him to rest beside his sister.
Finally, about 1878 or so, news came to me of Danial, from a state ruler. He was living out west, in some small town. I summoned him at once, knowing he had to come, or face being executed for treason.
It was a cold winter night when he finally arrived, his head and shoulders covered with snow.
Danial shook it off and came inside. He complimented me on my home, though he was careful to say nothing of Anna, despite the fact that the many pictures of the woman who graced my walls were clearly pictures of her that he had drawn or painted.
“This is how you found me,” he said after a while. “Through my art gallery.”
“Why did you draw them?” I said to him.
“I felt bad, for what I had done to her,” Danial said without emotion. “I did care for her. I should not have hurt her just to hurt you.”
“So you are sorry then?”
“I am sorry for hurting her,” he said flatly. “I am not sorry for hurting you.”
Sixty years ago, I’d have stood there and taken that kind of talk because he was my brother. I’d gotten a lot harder since then. I belted him in the face, and the force of the blow knocked him to the floor. He looked up at me with a trace of real fear.
“If you want to kill me, go ahead,” he spat. “Why not?You’ve led everyone else around you to their deaths.”
“I don’t want to kill you,” I said, giving him an evil grin that was probably a twin of the departed Louis’s. “I want to keep an eye out for my brother, as I always have. And I intend to do just that.”
He got to his feet. “I will leave your country,” he said. “I will depart in a month, Devlin. Give me enough time to travel home and close up my shop, please.”
“No, you will not leave,” I said with a grin. “You are staying in America. I have told the Rulers of all neighboring countries your name and that I have plans for you, not to interfere. They have agreed.”
He looked at me with horror. “What are you saying?”
“That you cannot leave. And should you, you will be returned here at the earliest convenience, no matter where you go.”
“Why? What could you possibly want with me?”
“I know you,” I said, baring my fangs. “I knew you cared for Anna, or she would never have believed you enough to be seduced. She was no fool—she would have seen through false words. There will come another time, brother dear, when you will love another woman, even if it takes decades or centuries. And I will be there waiting, to take her from you, when that happens. Every time it happens, forever.”
Danial’s eyes went completely red, and he went for me. A couple of my werebears grabbed hold of him, stopping him easily.
“Titus, take him back to his home via teleportation,” I said, turning away. “I am done with him, for now.”
* * * *
I learned later that Danial had closed his art gallery. Truth was he burned it, though he did it in a way that he was thought to be a victim, and not the arsonist. He used the money to get started in a sort of detective line of trade, helping people with problems, though it was mostly businesses he helped. I thought it ridiculous, but just about his speed. Since it kept him confined to the West where I could watch him, it was acceptable.
Hayden was burned utterly and rebuilt a few times after various attacks on me. Sadly, the elegant wooden room I had shared with Anna was utterly destroyed in one such conflagration shortly after my
rise to power, and I did not rebuild it. After ten times of raising the house from ashes, in 1901, when Hayden partially burned once more, I switched to stone, that it might not be ever be utterly destroyed again.
You might wonder why I was not killed by the flames, especially after so many attempts. The reason was that for the rest of the nineteenth century, I often did not stay in my elegant beautiful mansion. My memories of Anna there were too strong. In my loneliness, I often sought solace elsewhere.
After Rene died, Ravel moved out of their house and into Hayden, saying it was too lonely to be there without his sister. I told him I understood that, even as I was grateful to him, because I knew that wasn’t the reason. His real reason was he was surrendering the house to me.
I went back there many times in those first few decades, sat before a fire of my making, and slept in the bed Rene and I had shared, even when the scent of her was long faded, and the dust was thick on the mantle. Finally, around 1900, the house fell down and collapsed in a storm, and I left it that way. But I still went back sometimes to the ruin, and sat where the fire had been, the fireplace still mostly intact, while the rest moldered and rusted and rotted away.
Sometimes I went instead to Rene’s grave. By 1850, a huge monument housed both the remains of her and Anna in elaborate stone crypts. A few times, I thought I felt a presence there, though I was not sure in those first years. But not knowing which woman it was, I was hard-pressed to know what to say. And it always faded away, before I could come up with any words.
I did make Rene a choker, one of gold that contained my blood, though I gave the bear on it some green-blue sapphire eyes in memory of hers. I had placed it around her neck gently, even though I closed my eyes as I did it, as I had wanted to remember her the way she had looked, not as her body was then, a week after her death. It was hard to fasten, and a bit, well, wet, for lack of a better word. But I did it, as I knew she would want me to. After all she had done for me, I would be damned if I could not bring myself to do this for her, to honor her as she deserved.
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