by Aja James
It was much more difficult to recruit Dark Ones voluntarily into the Mistress’s schemes, to say even less about Pure Ones. When one lived as long as their Kinds did, money became irrelevant. Individuals could still be had at a certain price, but the threshold was much higher, and the price was typically not monetary in nature.
It took more time and energy to find the right incentives to bribe, cajole or threaten these ageless immortals into taking a desired action. Mind control was not an option at scale.
For one, the Mistress could only control a certain number of minions at any given time, and with her Gift of telepathy gone, she was depending on human science to compensate. For another, the side effects were too obvious if one intended the Dark or Pure One to continue blending in seamlessly with their surroundings.
Though the subject retained their memories and instincts, their thought process was short-circuited, remotely controlled. Their interactions with others would not be “normal” per se, though not quite robotic either. They were not mindless, for they could still use logical reasoning and judgment. And they carried out their orders to the letter. It was more that they became…
Soul-less.
Rather like the gorgeous hunk of flesh currently awaiting instructions in the Creature’s private chambers.
It should have sent the newly inducted warrior to the weapons testing facility with the other soldiers, but it couldn’t resist seeing the Mistress’s latest acquisition for itself before trying him out in the field.
“Come closer,” it bid the magnificent male.
Who obeyed immediately, coming to stand before the Creature reclining on its gigantic bed.
“Look at me.”
The male shifted his eyes from somewhere beyond the Creature’s head to focus on its genderless face.
“Do you recognize me?”
“Yes,” the male answered perfunctorily.
“How do you know me?”
“I met you in the catacombs on the outskirts of Boston over two years ago. You were holding the Pure Queen prisoner. I wanted to kill you for what you did. I have been searching for you ever since.”
The violent words were said tonelessly without inflection, as if the memories had been emptied of passion and emotion.
“And now that I’m right here in front of you, what do you want to do?” the Creature asked, morbidly curious.
The male blinked, as if he didn’t understand the question.
“I do not want. I am here to do your bidding as the Mistress instructed.”
Hmm. It definitely couldn’t send the male back into his flock like this in a covert operation. He’d be discovered immediately. The Creature rather missed his rare flares of temper and deeply buried passions that he used to hide so well under a cool, calm veneer.
It decided to poke a bit more at the sleeping bear.
With a shimmer and a quiver, it transformed into the Pure Queen herself, lying back on the bed in its revealing robes, opening its thighs to show a hint of virginal pinkness.
“And now?” it asked in Sophia’s voice. “What do you want to do now?”
The male’s eyes flickered like a lightbulb on the verge of burning out, as if he was caught in an internal struggle and his mind was suffering the collateral damage.
The Creature watched in fascination as something hot and dangerous flared in the male’s eyes shortly before it was snuffed out by icy numbness, his irises blanking while his pupils remained enlarged.
And something else was also enlarged.
The Creature shifted its avaricious gaze to the warrior’s groin, where a stupendous erection was trying to punch its way out of his loose black trousers.
“I am here to do your bidding as the Mistress instructed,” the male intoned in the same flat voice, belying his intense physical reaction.
“If I told you that you can do what you want right now, that it will be my bidding to do what you want, what would you do?”
The male’s stare honed in on the shadowed V of Creature’s spread thighs, Sophia’s spread thighs.
“I would fuck you,” he growled low, baring the edges of his teeth. “I wouldn’t stop until I’ve marked every inch of you for my own.”
Interesting, the Creature thought, filing the results of this little experiment in the back of its mind.
So the mind could be controlled, the soul could be put on ice, but the body still burned with primitive, instinctive need.
“No fucking tonight, I’m afraid,” the Creature said coyly, closing its thighs. “But I am growing a bit peckish. Given that you’re still Pure, for all intents and purposes, I suppose you’ll meet my needs well enough.”
It patted a spot on the bed beside it.
“Come here, lie back, and let me take my fill of your wonderfully strong blood, gorgeous one.”
The male did as instructed, turning his neck away to expose the thick vein at his throat.
As the Creature struck its fangs into the male’s jugular, draping itself on the male’s body while retaining the Pure Queen’s form, a word formed silently on the warrior’s lips.
Sophia.
*** *** *** ***
“What happened after you found out that he’s your son?”
The shadow warrior had been talking for over an hour, the longest he’d ever spoken at one time—perhaps cumulatively over any given year, in fact. He’d kept to the bare bones of his long existence over four millennia. He was surprised it took this long to convey one simple message:
He was a trained killer. Perhaps the most ruthless and lethal warrior of his Kind. His kills were innumerable. He was the attack dog kept on Anunit’s leash, just as his sire had been for the Dark Queen Ashlu.
Why did she bother asking for more information? Hadn’t she heard enough? Why hadn’t she run screaming from the room yet?
Instead, Clara asked her questions softly and patiently, as if she regretted making him explain his past, as if she was afraid doing so would hurt him.
Didn’t she understand by now that he felt no pain? He was an unfeeling, cold-blooded killing machine.
But because she asked, he answered. She didn’t just ask about what happened, but why things happened. And every time he answered with a “because so and so,” she asked yet another why. Until he was explaining things he’d never consciously thought about himself.
Why did you kill those people?
Because the Princess ordered it.
Why did you do what the Princess ordered?
Because she was my Mistress.
Why was she your Mistress?
Because I tied my life force to hers.
Why did you do that?
Because she was afraid and helpless and heartbroken and I didn’t want her to die alone.
On and on, she dug into him with gentle yet stubbornly persistent probes. Until he felt as if he’d carved what was left of his heart out of his chest and handed the bloody thing to her on a platter.
But the shadow warrior would do more than that if she asked it of him. He’d do anything she asked of him. This brief moment in time with Clara was priceless, and he would stretch it out as long as he could.
He focused now on answering her question.
“I continued to train him like I promised, so that he would one day be strong enough to defeat me, so that he could take his vengeance for what I did.”
“Did you tell him that you are his father?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Again with the whys. This endless line of questioning was an acute form of torture for the shadow warrior.
He wasn’t trained to think beyond what he was ordered to do, and even less to have emotions about his actions. He had to peel, layer by excruciating layer, back from his wounded soul, like conquistadors flayed the skin off a prisoner of war.
But because Clara asked, he would answer only the truth, even if he had to drill holes into his psyche to mine it.
“Because he wouldn’t believe me if
I told him. He thought I’d turned him into a vampire. He hated me for it. For ending the life of the female who birthed him. He wanted to kill me for it, and that rage drove him to train even harder, with a focus he’d never achieved before. He might pull back again if he knew the truth. I didn’t want him to hold back.”
Since he’d already explained his plan for ending his existence and the rationale behind it, she didn’t ask another why.
Instead, she prompted, “And then?”
“One day, he left. Disappeared without a word. After months of waiting for his return, I realized that he didn’t intend to. I gathered information on his whereabouts and tracked him down. He’d joined another school of shadow arts, under the human master whom I’d trained a generation earlier. He even took the master’s name—Takamura.”
“How did that make you feel?”
His brows gathered in a frown. She always asked about feelings. He had to dig again to answer her.
“I was glad he found a place for himself. The human was…a good man, and he treated Ryu well. Like a son. Now, Ryu had his own name, and a father figure he chose for himself. I left him alone after that. He deserved to choose his own path in the world, and if one day he should return to challenge me, I would be waiting for him.”
“How long did you wait?”
“Over half a millennia.”
“What did you do in the meantime?”
“I continued training the soldiers per my bargain with the Princess, but I trained less and less at longer intervals, hoping to slow the induction of soldiers into her army. I started to pay more attention to what she was doing and the impact she had on the world around her.”
Before she could ask why, he added voluntarily, “Because I wanted to make sure she wasn’t doing anything that could harm Ryu.”
“You were protecting him,” Clara surmised.
The shadow warrior frowned again.
“I was making sure he lived long enough to defeat me.”
“Hmm,” was all she said, as if she didn’t quite believe him.
“What did you learn when you paid more attention?”
“Not much. She’d stopped sharing her plans with me millennia ago, when we were first together. But I was able to trace a few things through the shadow warriors she commanded. Though they ultimately obey her, some of them still recognized me as Master. I learned about a few of the missions she sent them on. Most of it was assassinations of her enemies. But a couple missions in recent years related to normal people. Humans. Fathers and mothers.”
“Oh no,” Clara murmured.
“One of the missions left a girl called Grace Darling an orphan. I convinced Anunit that I could help keep an eye on her because the skills she had even at that young age made her useful. Regardless of whether I watched over her or someone else did, Anunit would get what she wanted in the end.”
“Did you pick Grace in particular or did you watch over others too?”
He considered a while before he replied.
“It wasn’t just that Grace was an orphan. She had a condition called Asperger’s, though I later learned that it was more than that, perhaps a unique mental condition as yet undiscovered. Her disability made her even more alone. So easy for Anunit to use and manipulate. I obtained a psychiatry degree—”
“A real one?” Clara interrupted, amazed.
“Yes,” he answered simply. Memorizing a few texts to achieve high scores on examinations for a certification was not a challenge for a four-thousand-year-old vampire, even if he was trained as a fighter, not a philosopher.
“Please go on,” she said rather weakly, as if her mind was still boggling.
“I obtained a psychiatry degree to help Grace get in touch with her emotions, so she wouldn’t feel so isolated in the world, alone and disconnected. Since I didn’t know much about emotions myself, I had to acquire the skills to help her.”
“Because she reminded you of yourself?” she deduced quietly.
He was silent, considering for the first time the possibility.
All his existence, he’d never hesitated to do the Mistress’s bidding. At most, he’d feel a sense of frustration at the useless deaths, especially those of his own men, but he never felt remorse or regret.
They were casualties of wars. No matter who started them and for what purpose. And he was a soldier. Killing was all he knew.
The only times he’d actively disobeyed Anunit, there had been children involved. Complete innocents, helpless and all too trusting. He didn’t know that he did what he did because they reminded him of himself; he just knew he couldn’t do nothing.
“Working with Grace made me not only ask questions of her but of myself. I avoid it as a rule, thinking about myself. But I suppose the psychiatry training, however superficial, made me more philosophical.”
“And then? Did you only meet Ryu again tonight?”
He shook his head.
“No. A year and a half ago, I learned through the shadows that he was back in Japan. I found out why he was there and what Anunit was up to. I inserted myself into her schemes and prepared for his arrival. It wasn’t difficult to do, for she knew that he was my strongest warrior, and no one could defeat him but me. Perhaps she was planning to recruit me into this mission regardless of my volunteering.”
“Does she also know that he’s your son?”
“I don’t think she ever suspected, but I can never tell for certain. Sometimes I wonder whether everything happens according to her plans, even though she seems to suffer and lose ground. She is not one to focus on individual battles, but the broader, ongoing war. She knows that in order to move the world in the direction she wants, she might have to take losses along the way.”
Clara really hated this female. Anunit Salamu, the Dark Star. She wished she really did have some fierce, magical faerie blood in her, or some sort of awesome supernatural powers, so she could face off with the vampire bitch and pound her into the ground.
The shadow warrior went on to explain Anunit’s genetic engineering operations, Ava’s involvement and Ryu’s missions.
Clara listened closely all the while, nodding her head to show she was tracking, and in a bizarre way she was, though the world he revealed to her was so surreal it surpassed science fiction. Somehow, the more believable bits about genetic engineering and fight clubs made the whole situation even more phantasmagoric, the way fantasy and reality collided like the hastily stitched parts of Frankenstein’s monster.
“My orders were to kill them both, though Ava was to be taken alive if at all possible, for Anunit had further use of her brilliant mind. It had been a direct order from the Mistress through her blood in mine. Though the Bond between us was tenuous, she’d used enough strength and venom to enforce it. I could not fight the command no matter how I tried.”
“What did you do?” Clara whispered, scooting closer.
“I did what I was ordered to do. I dealt Ryu the killing blow after he’d dispatched all of the shadows.”
“But…he’s alive, as I saw very clearly for myself,” Clara said, confused.
“Ava took the serum, and it worked, making her blood strong enough to heal her Mate.”
“Did you know that would happen if she took the serum?”
“No. But I hoped it was true. I had no human science to support my deductions, but given how vampire physiology works, the Bond between Destined Mates cannot be broken. Not by time. Not by death. It is programmed into our biology and embedded into our souls. If she did indeed…love Ryu as she professed,” he said, hesitating on the word as if it felt strange coming out of his mouth, “and if he loved her in return, that love could have triggered the chemistry in her body to absorb the serum where all other experiments before her had failed. I have seen Pure and Dark Ones bend the very laws of nature for the ones they were destined to protect.”
“So it worked.”
“Yes. And I completed my mission, having dealt Ryu a mortal blow. Their comrades joined them
after that and took them home.”
He didn’t tell Clara about the prisoner Anunit had held for thousands of years, the same prisoner whose location he’d revealed to the Light Bringer, allowing her to liberate him at last.
It wasn’t particularly pertinent. And he didn’t want to do more digging into why he did it. It wasn’t revenge against Anunit. It wasn’t out of kindness. The prisoner had been weaker than a babe by that point. He’d suffered untold agony over millennia of merciless torture. There was no sense in it. The shadow warrior had never understood Anunit’s obsession with, and derivation of pleasure from, inflicting pain on others.
He also didn’t tell her about how he kept track of Tal-Telal’s Mate, Anunit’s younger twin sister, Ishtar. How, when she’d finally arrived in NYC, searching for her daughter, Inanna, he’d set up the funds to pay for her living.
“How did you lose your memory, Eli?” Clara asked at last, coming full circle.
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that that was not his name; he had no name. But he realized that it wasn’t true. He had suggested the name for himself and Clara had embraced it.
Now, because Clara called him by this name, he owned it.
“I stabbed my heart with a dagger to carve Anunit out.”
She gasped.
“It is the only way to break the Blooded Bond between Mated Dark Ones,” he explained logically, dismissing the violence of the act.
“To commit suicide?” she squeaked.
“The result is most often death, this is true,” he answered. “But sometimes it is madness, and in my case, I guess it was the loss of memory.”
He didn’t add that if he hadn’t met Clara when he did, on the verge of starvation of blood, he might have descended rapidly into madness, killing humans indiscriminately and taking their souls without any understanding of why he was driven to do so.
“But you didn’t know what the result might be when you stabbed yourself?”
“I was willing to accept any of these outcomes as long as I would be free of her. I could not risk having her command my blood again to harm…those I wish to protect.”
