If anyone else had said this, Antoine would have laughed. He kept his composure.
But his mouth proved traitorous.
“Why do you hate the vampires so much?” he inquired.
Immediately, he hated that he’d asked.
The queen had resumed her pacing as they spoke, but now she halted, hesitated, and then whirled on him. A fire burned in her eyes, along with hatred and passionate anger.
“How can you dare to ask me such a thing?” she roared. “Vampires are a cancer. They are a disease. What do you do when someone is sick? You seek out the source of the problem, and you cut it out. The division suffers from this cancer, and the disease is the vampire race. They need to be routed out and killed.”
“All of them?” he murmured.
“It is impossible for a vampire to be decent. They need to feed on humans. They kill them daily! If all the humans are to die, what would become of us?”
Antoine winced inwardly. He should never have said anything.
Yet he found it telling that Pierrette did not care about the humans beyond viewing them as a source of psychic energy.
The vampires cannot survive without the humans. We both need them. Seraphine has proven that vampires can drink without killing. Witches need their energy, and that does not kill them either.
But, of course, he could not say a word of this to the queen. Just thinking it made him feel sorrowful and guilty.
“Forgive me,” he murmured. “I did not mean to imply anything else. Vampires are monsters. How many have I brought forth?”
“If you weren’t so good at killing them and immobilizing all of their strengths, I just might put you down for questioning me.”
She spoke the truth. After his encounters with Seraphine and his skirmishes with her that had been rather one-sided, he had learned a great deal. Vampires were fierce fighters. They tended to be driven by anger rather than a sense of fear or the need to protect themselves.
And that was why he’d been able to put down every vampire he had cause to since Seraphine.
“Forgive me,” he said again. “I never meant to question you.”
She stared at him, a skeptical downward curl on her lips. “It’s only…” she prompted.
“It’s only that it seems personal.”
The queen’s face froze into an indifferent mask. Stiffly, she walked a few paces away.
“It is not common knowledge,” she said after a few moments, “but a vampire killed my mother, the queen. I located and killed him myself. The vampires are wholly evil. They are abominations. They are corrupted and can never be anything else. Won’t you help me save the division from their evil ways?”
Once Antoine got over his shock, he nodded.
He would certainly save the division from evil.
But Seraphine’s words echoed in the back of his head. Some vampires are evil, yes, but so are some witches. Humans too.”
8
The frustration boiling within Seraphine was enough to make her see red.
“Baltasar, I’m not amused.”
“I am sorry, but the choice has been made. We are Day Drinkers. The day is our domain. We don’t care what happens at night.”
Seraphine drummed her fingers on her lap. Once again, she was sitting in the back corner. The Mean Gladiator was alive and crammed with vampires. Blood drinks were everywhere. Not one, but two vampires, had been executed earlier that day.
Antoine must enjoy swinging his axe.
The thought soured Seraphine’s mood even more.
Baltasar gulped his third blood goblet. Scarlet ribbons trickled down the corners of his lips.
“You’re here tonight. You’re awake now at night. What happens in the shadows does concern you,” she said, frustrated.
“It is out of my hands. Look, I understand you are furious. We are too. That’s why we’ve been drinking more and more. The thirst can never be quenched, but we’re nearly satisfied. Why haven’t you had any blood tonight? We need more blood over here!” he called.
“No, thank you,” she said out of spite.
He shrugged and accepted the two filled goblets from a leggy blonde who gave him a wide grin.
Baltasar smirked and winked at her before grimacing at Seraphine.
“Be reasonable, Seraphine,” he grumbled. “You killed one bull, and now vampires are being killed daily. What will happen if more of the beasts are killed? The vampires here are not happy. They’re pretending. No vampire wants to drink blood from a glass. We’re vampires. We want fresh blood, the freshest of fresh. No blood tastes better than that directly from the vein.”
Seraphine said nothing as she sat back and observed the crowd. The forced laughter, the darting glances, the shifting away from the rooftop door whenever it opened…
Yes, even here, in one of their most protected of places, the vampires were scared. They were terrified of the queen.
“I never took you or the Day Drinkers for cowards,” Seraphine said, spitting the bitter words.
If she could not convince them to aid her, the uprising was dead before it could even begin.
“Are you willing to be pawns of the queen for the rest of your lives?” Her barely contained anger echoed in her quiet words.
“We are not—”
“You’ll all die by the swing of the blade. Every vampire here will perish on the orders of the queen one day.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the leggy blonde said. She pulled over a chair and sipped from her cracked goblet.
“Who asked you?” Seraphine wanted to ask, but she refrained, eyeing the cheerful blonde skeptically.
“The time will come when we won’t have to worry about any of this. Vampires and humans and witches will all get along. Mark my words. It will happen sooner than you think.”
“Oh,” Seraphine said. “You’re one of those.”
Some delusional vampires refused to feel guilt for feeding on humans by believing that the humans wanted to help. They believed witches would one day apologize for cursing vampires. In short, they had absolutely no clue as to what was going on around them.
Baltasar’s interest in the blonde vanished. He shooed her away.
The woman shrugged and flounced over to the bar, too eager and excited that her delusion would become a reality to be discouraged.
“Seraphine, listen to me,” he said. “There are worse things than dying by beheading. I would hate for you to learn that firsthand. Keep up this crusade and you will.”
“Your concern is touching,” she said in her most sarcastic tone. “What happened, Baltasar? I thought for sure you would want to slay a few bulls.”
“Like I said, the queen has been vengeful with only one dead bull. More and the consequences will be worse.” He shrugged. “We do what we can to survive. What you are proposing isn’t courting death. It’s inviting it into your immediate future. Your life can go on forever if you keep your head in the sand. Or it can end violently. Which do you choose?”
“A head in the sand is no way to live,” she said, growing more frustrated and angry with each heaving breath. “We are vampires. We’re powerful too. We should not be relegated to hiding away. We should—”
Baltasar slammed his hand against the wall. The structure cracked, and plaster rained down on them.
“You should accept what you are,” he said, his tone threatening. “Don’t think it’s gone unnoticed that you hardly drink blood. You act as if you’re better than everyone.”
“I do not,” she protested.
“You come across as if you’re the queen of the vampires. There’s only room for one queen in this division. Queen Pierrette will make an example of you as soon as she catches wind of your actions.”
Seraphine gaped at him in shock. “If wanting the vampires to be accepted and not treated like monsters makes me worthy of your contempt, so be it. I would rather die trying to better our status than to cower in the shadows like all of you. It’s terrible enough that we�
�re relegated underground during an entire season. Soon enough, if nothing changes, we won’t ever be able to come up to the surface except when we need to feed.”
Baltasar’s critical stare froze her in place for a moment.
Seraphine swallowed hard. The pub had gone completely quiet. All eyes were on the two of them. Not a single vampire spoke up to agree with Seraphine.
She jumped to her feet and raised her arms in the air. “So this is what you want out of life? To pretend to have a good time? To pretend you aren’t cowering away in fear for your lives? To pretend you aren’t miserable? Aren’t you tired of being hunted?”
“Those vampires were asking to be killed,” the blonde piped up from her new perch a few feet away.
Those sitting near her nodded.
“They were cruel and angry and vicious. They acted out and had to be stopped.” The blonde shrugged. “They got what they deserved.”
“Maybe. Maybe you’re right.” Seraphine wasn’t about to let this go. “But as bloodthirsty as the witches and humans are becoming, they’re going to expect an execution soon. What happens when they run out of the terrible vampires?”
She didn’t hesitate or wait for others to chime in.
“I’ll tell you what will happen. They’ll find vampires. It won’t matter if they’ve committed a crime or not. It’s only a matter of time before the queen admits the truth. The biggest crime of all is to be a vampire.”
Seraphine glanced around, desperately trying to find an ally. While they seemed to be listening, none showed any appreciation for her concern.
Ingrates.
“They will round us all up and annihilate the breed as a whole. And what do you think we should do? Allow them to take away every last right we have until they take away our lives too? Ignoring them won’t get rid of the problem. This won’t go away. If we don’t do something, we’re all going—”
“Fighting will only get us killed that much faster,” a vampire called out.
“Fighting is the only way to survive,” Seraphine argued.
“Fighting will lead to war and death and devastation,” another said. “In the end, we will lose. The witches are too powerful.”
“You may as well dig your own graves,” Seraphine said in spite.
The vampires parted to clear a path for her, and she stalked out of the bar.
They wouldn’t need to dig their graves, though. The witches incinerated the bodies after the beheading. The Inferno Fires.
No wonder Seraphine and most other vampires feared fire.
Swiftly, she bypassed the ladder and leaped through the opening to the roof. With their great speed, they could cover the entire division in a matter of minutes. Seraphine could be anywhere she wished right now.
Her dwelling.
Above another slain bull.
Pierrette’s castle was heavily fortified.
The guillotine, however, might not be. Maybe she could try to tamper with it.
To what end? The blade might slip and hit someone else, kill a witch or a human. The vampire about to be sentenced would still end up killed. It would change nothing.
If she destroyed the entire guillotine, it would not devastate the queen, but it might give the vampires a few days of respite.
Seraphine didn’t often approach the castle or the large clearing where the executions commenced. Other than Hernando’s, she had not seen one before. It sickened her heart to think of the whoosh of the axe and the snip of the rope. Her stomach churned as she recalled the rush of the blade as it cut through the air before slicing off Hernando’s head.
I wonder how many witches would appreciate having their heads rudely chopped off their bodies.
With ease, she soared from one roof to another. The closer she neared the clearing, the worse her anxiety and apprehension grew.
The number of bulls patrolling the streets in that location was so high that she could hardly see the cobblestones. And when she reached the building closest to the clearing, she hesitated.
Her plan was foolish.
Bulls crowded the entire clearing. She hadn’t realized the queen maintained so many under her sway.
Well, there goes that plan. A single bull she could handle. Not roughly five hundred.
She sighed and plopped down on the roof.
A heartbeat sounded nearby, prickling her ear.
“Antoine?” she asked, confused. Why would he seek her out?
No. The man climbing onto the roof was definitely not Antoine. He stood very tall, large boned and broad shouldered. His jaw was full, and his nose was long. His skin was pale, although not nearly as much as Franz who had not seen the sun in nearly two years. The man’s hair was a picture of light and dark. He was old, his face wrinkled and worn.
And man was right. He was certainly human.
She jerked back, startled. Why would he seek her out? Was this a trap of some kind? Her eyes narrowed with suspicion, and her fangs begged to be freed.
“I am sorry. I did not mean to frighten you.” The man held out his hands to show he was defenseless. He even turned around to show her he concealed no weapon. “You do not need to fear me.”
She could easily spit out a sarcastic response, but she rejected the idea as out of hand.
“I did not mean to intrude. Do you live here?” she asked. “I was just leaving.”
“Wait.”
Seraphine hesitated. “What do you want?”
“I know this won’t be easy, but… I need to find a certain vampire.”
“Why?” she asked, back to being suspicious.
“I found something that once belonged to her. I moved. I…”
He paused to wipe the moisture from his face. The storm had not abated and was still growing in power. It would be another week before it reached its terrible potential.
“When I went through all of my belongings, I found a box. It was a young girl’s. I tried to… I wanted to…”
The man hung his head. Sorrow draped over him like a cloak.
“The girl was an orphan. She needed a family. I’ve adopted several kids over the years and thought I could help her too.”
Seraphine’s limited blood ran like ice through her veins. “Tell me more about her.”
“She died many years ago. She had a… strange friend—”
“A vampire friend?” Seraphine interrupted.
The man nodded.
“What was the girl’s name?”
Seraphine rejected hope. To hope meant to have faith. And in this wicked, vicious world, there could be no faith, no salvation.
“Liliane,” he said softly. “The vampire’s name was Seraphine. I… I found the girl’s body in an alley. I should’ve tried harder. I should’ve done something, anything to make her feel more at ease. She was so wild and independent. She didn’t want to be anything but free.”
“What did you do to her?” Seraphine asked.
Her heart ached. She pressed a fist to her chest and closed her eyes for a few seconds. The hurt lingered, as did the sorrow, the guilt, the disgust, the self-loathing.
All of it.
Her penance for having failed Liliane.
“I buried her. It’s unmarked, but I know where it is. Every year, I try to visit her, but it’s not always easy. I can’t go during the day, and at night…”
“The bulls leave you alone, but they remain in your way.”
“Yes.” The man hesitated. “Is Seraphine alive, do you know? Liliane did not live with me, but she came by every now and then for a change of clothes or a hot meal. I had no idea she left some of her belongings in my house. I only found it by happenstance when I moved. I used to live farther south.”
“Now, you have a prime view of the executions.”
He winced. “I did not move here for that.”
“What is your job?” she asked.
The man winced, embarrassed. “I would rather not say.”
“Humor me if you would.”
He rubbed th
e back of his neck. “You aren’t that intimidating for a vampire. N-Not that that is a bad thing,” he rushed to add.
“Believe me,” she said dryly. “If I wanted to intimidate you, I could quite easily.”
The man nodded vigorously. “I can imagine. I believe it. You’re intimidating me now!” He cleared his throat. “I’m on…”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your mumbling. What was that?”
He sighed. “I’m on feces detail. Every morning, I have certain streets and now the entire clearing to clean the bulls' feces.”
She blinked a few times. “That’s a terrible job.”
“Someone has to do it,” he said, hanging his head.
“Please tell me you have a token to ward off the smell.”
“I wish.” He shook his head.
“That’s horrific, not to mention cruel.” She was appalled.
And ashamed. Here she was, concerned about the vampires and rightfully so, but the humans were victims of another sort.
A rush of compassion seized her.
“Would you give me the items to pass along?” she asked.
The man hesitated and shook his head. “I want to give them to Seraphine myself. She… Liliane told me about her. Said they were friends. I warned her against that. I-I want to apologize. I think I was wrong. I was afraid for Liliane. I just wanted her to be safe. That’s all. I don’t know why she was killed. I don’t know if it could have been prevented, but—”
“A witch killed her.”
“Yes.” He nodded and then stilled. “How did you know that?” The man backed up a pace. Visibly, he relaxed a moment later. “You’re Seraphine? But…”
“I am. Liliane was my first human friend.” Seraphine held out her hand. “I think I just met my second.”
The man clasped hers in both of his.
“Come in,” he said. “Come in! We can get out of the rain, dry off, talk. I… What is it?”
Seraphine grinned, her tears mixing with the rain pouring from the heavens. “You didn’t hesitate to invite me into your dwelling.”
“Why would I? Houses are meant to be open to friends.”
Dark Hunt: Division 4: The Berkano Vampire Collection Page 6
