The problem was, I’d already told Lev previously that nothing was happening between me and Lorelei, and now she was going to think I lied to her.
“I’m sure you’re right,” Lori said, pulling away from me at last. “Still, thanks for putting up with it.”
I gave her a soft kiss, and that seemed to calm her further.
“Well, it isn’t their business who I have feelings for,” I told her, stroking her cheek. “Like you, I don’t do casual relationships - I want to see this through.”
I kissed her again, a longer, deeper one this time, and she wrapped her arms around my neck as she gave in to me, kissing me passionately and pulling me closer.
It didn’t take long for us to shed our clothes and retire to bed, forgetting about the day as we got lost in each other once again.
I didn’t sleep well that night. A lot was weighing on my mind, and my concern kept me awake. I got up and got a small drink from the complimentary drinks chiller (and Lori said it wasn’t a hotel room!) and sat back down next to my sleeping girlfriend.
It didn’t take long for Lori to notice I’d moved and wake up herself, shuffling over to me.
“You’re moping again,” she told me firmly. “This isn’t more bullshit about feeling guilty, is it?”
“No, Eyathehn,” I answered with a soft smile. “Just got a lot on my mind, is all.”
I suddenly felt the soft flesh of Lorelei’s breasts pressing against my back, her arms curling around my chest as she rested her chin on my shoulder.
“Well, as your friend, girlfriend and aide, it’s my job to listen three times over,” she said, her lips perilously close to my neck. She took the opportunity before her and kissed my neck, sending small shocks of pleasure down my spine. “So, why not tell me what’s wrong?”
I sighed heavily, trying to ignore the very pleasurable feeling of Lorelei wrapped around me, her naked skin pressed against mine.
“What Kalin showed us today. It worried me. How can any creature’s blood be so...wrong, to look like that and have that effect on a person?”
“Well, vampirism can drive people crazy sometimes, as you’ve seen,” she offered, before nibbling affectionately at the base of my neck. I winced briefly as she broke the skin, and she gave a wicked giggle as she began tasting my blood.
That was really distracting.
“That’s...that’s true, but those sort of...afflictions, they don’t have that...mm, effect,” I told her, between attempts to focus on what I was saying.
She stopped her ministrations and kissed my neck again, allowing her hands to drift further down my body.
“Well, I see your concern,” she told me in her usual laconic drawl, “but unfortunately for you, as I said previously, I hate sharing my bed with a miserable bastard. And since I really don’t want to share my bed with anyone else...how can I cheer you up?”
“I can think of a few ways,” I told her, turning my head to give her my own wicked grin.
“You’re still a shameless pervert, you know.”
“You still aren’t complaining, you know.”
“Nor do I intend to,” she purred, pulling me backwards to lay on the bed before laying on me. “Now, let’s see if we can’t improve that mood of yours,” she added with a sultry grin, claiming my lips in a fierce, intense kiss.
CHAPTER 7
Meeting the vampire saint
We took an APC for the whole group early the next morning, charging down the English motorways as if speed limits were mere suggestions.
Since we were being driven in an eight-wheeled armoured vehicle, which sported a massive thirty-millimetre cannon on its turret, I don’t think most people were likely to argue with us.
The Order had picked up the MOWAG Pirhana V in 2010, shortly after it was announced, and for a variety of purposes it still served us well enough. Certainly for getting through traffic there was little better, short of a main battle tank.
It took a couple of hours, but eventually we got to the farm where the ‘Vampire Saint’ was rumoured to live. We dismounted from the APC, which still sat at the entrance to the farm grounds with its engine idling, and my Corvus Team guard spread out in a sweeping pattern.
I fixed my favoured blades in place - Black Terror, the blade Corvina and Lev had commissioned for me, rode at my left hip, while Corvi’s own Crimson Raven was slung across my back, the hilt peering ominously over my left shoulder. Lorelei had a pair of short swords, in scabbards that sat crossed at the base of her spine, and she also carried a single USP pistol, which she readied as we cleared the vehicle.
“Being a little paranoid, aren’t you sweetheart?” I asked, scanning the surrounding buildings for anything suspicious.
“Says the man who suggested we took a vehicle with the firepower to cut down an armoured-plated bear.”
“Touché.”
I extended my psychic perceptions, trying to find anything out of the ordinary, and apart from the lone occupant in the main building, the farm seemed clear. I pulled my perceptions back, feeling the sudden ache in my head that often followed after using my abilities in anything but the most casual sense, and Kelly walked up to us and saluted smartly.
“Everythin’ seems clear, My Lord,” she told us curtly. “If you want to move ahead, we’ll keep you covered.”
I offered her my thanks and beckoned for Lorelei to follow me, but a call from Kelly made us pause.
“Contessa?”
Lorelei turned slowly, her expression showing her diminishing patience.
“You be careful,” she said, her tone slightly more concerned than it had been previously. “Both of you. Watch each other’s backs.”
With that, she immediately went about ordering her team into the best covering positions, and I felt considerably safer with such a competent team around me.
“You know it’s Valentine’s Day soon,” I told Lorelei casually, as we walked through the well-tended farm grounds, and she laughed softly.
“D’you know how we showed affection back in my day? We just fucking said it. Same as any other day. We didn’t need anyone to tell us there was only a specific day to do it, we just told someone how we felt.”
She laughed again, a sound I never grew tired of hearing. There was an energy to her laughter that was infectious.
“Valentine’s Day is a joke these days. Might have meant something once, but now? It’s pointless.”
“And Saint Patrick’s Day is not just an excuse for purveyors of alcohol to go wild?” a polite voice said nearby, and we both turned instantly, Lorelei raising her pistol and me raising my psychic barrier.
A dark-haired man with tanned skin was leaning nonchalantly against an apple tree, eating one of the fine-looking fruits it had produced. It was definitely the man we’d been looking for - even if I didn’t recognise him from Corvi’s memories, the crimson irises which matched my left one were a dead giveaway.
“Please, calm yourselves,” the man said, smiling disarmingly. “If I had wanted you dead, you would never have made it this far. Would you like to come in for some tea?”
He was certainly English. No-one loved their tea more than us.
I was the first to move from a combat stance, dropping my psychic barrier and offering a shallow bow to the man.
“Shovathahn kovenai, Edrysah,” I said to him, offering him the ancient greeting - ‘greetings in peace’, with the honourific for a vampire who was vastly older than oneself. He smiled and bowed low, clearly pleased by my use of a language he would be used to.
“My thanks, Mister Black,” he said, still smiling. “Not often one finds a former mortal with such a grasp of our language or customs. And yes, I know who you are. Hence the offer of tea.”
Lorelei holstered her pistol at last, and shrugged slightly.
“Would prefer a coffee myself, but sure, why not.”
“Tea sounds fine for me,” I told our host, and he clapped his hands together once.
“Wonderful! Shall we head t
o the farmhouse then?”
He led the way to the farm’s main building, leaving Lori and I guessing about who exactly he was.
“So you’re the one who calls himself the Vampire Saint?”
He smirked at me as he sipped his tea, and I sipped my own as I examined the room in which we sat.
The furniture we sat on was relatively plain, especially considering the vast painting in its gilded frame that hung over the fireplace. There were suits of medieval armour and sets of ancient weapons hung about the entire house, and the man had clearly been a warrior himself - he bore the muscle of a seasoned fighter, the scars of a man who never looked away from a fight.
Aside from those items, the house was sparsely furnished - there seemed to be only the essential furniture, and the only real ornamentation seemed to come from various items the man had picked up in his own travels.
Like Sharriana Grey, he seemed to have travelled widely, and collected a large variety of random objects...but he seemed to prize the weapons and armour above all else.
“I did not give myself that title, Mister Black, society gave it to me,” he said, his tone light and conversational. “You may call me George.”
Hardly the name I would have given a vampire, but I assumed it was the name he was best known by.
“And how do you know who I am?” I asked, and his expression turned melancholy.
“Corvina was...a dear friend of mine,” he told me, toying idly with his teacup. “As you are no doubt aware, it was I who turned her, after the horrifying situation with her family. I gave her my blood, and she in turn gave it to you - it is that I can smell on you, and that which gives you away. She kept in touch with me occasionally, and mentioned you several times.”
“It was an honour to have known her,” I told him, my own voice heavy with the sadness I still felt. “A greater one to have been loved by her.”
“Might I ask...how did she die?”
“That’s...a long story,” I told him, and his expression changed again. It became one of suppressed irritation, suspicion and anger.
“I am going to ask you again,” he said slowly, his tone laced with threat, “and this time I expect an answer. How,” he began, fixing me with a venomous glare, “did she die?”
I swallowed hard, looking away from him as I replied.
“By my hand.”
Instantly he was up, leaping at me with a razor-sharp dagger held ready to slice through my neck, but he never even got close.
Lorelei, sat at my right, leapt up to meet his attack, slapping his weapon hand aside and ramming one of her own blades through his throat and dropping him on the floor.
“Perhaps you should let the man explain, George,” she told him, wiping her blade clean and sheathing it again. I got up from my seat, offering Lorelei a brief affectionate touch as thanks, and crouched down beside the wounded man.
“Corvina Delacore was my lover, mentor and wife. None loved her more than I did. So when she was mortally wounded by hunters, using some chemical that inhibits our regeneration, she asked me - asked me, George - to end her life quickly, so that it wouldn’t be a lingering death.”
I paused, remembering the moment with agonising clarity.
“Believe me when I say I have never had to do anything more terrible in my life, and I hope I never to again.”
“I’ll take that as a hint, shall I?” Lorelei offered from behind me, and I gave her a smile.
“Yeah, I’d appreciate you not dying on me as well.”
“Gotcha. So, what have you got to say now, George?”
It took a moment for his ruined throat to heal enough for him to respond, and even then his voice was a cracked rasp.
“Your Pagan friend has the reflexes of a predator,” he said, causing me to chuckle.
“I’m Wiccan, there’s a difference,” Lorelei told him, “and I’m a predator alright - my prey is anyone who dares threaten my Lord.”
“Your lord and lover, correct?” he croaked, and Lorelei’s smile fell again. “Oh don’t worry, I’ve known enough loss myself-”
He broke off to have a brief coughing fit, a side effect of his throat regenerating.
“I’ve known enough loss myself,” he said, sounding much more like himself again, “to know that often, only the love of another can heal the pain. Corvina would be glad that you were moving on.”
Lorelei took the opportunity to slap the back of my head.
“Told you, you idiot.”
After that incident, George opened up considerably. Asking why we wanted to see him, I explained everything I knew so far: the vampires being hunted and killed, the method of death, the power I wielded and the fact that he was the only one I knew who could possibly have anything similar.
“I wish I could help, Mister Black,” he told me sadly. “Unfortunately, while your telekinetic ability almost certainly came from me, the ability to immolate others is...far beyond my capacity.” he shook his head. “In fact, in all my life I have never heard of anyone wielding that sort of power, except perhaps one or two of the earliest vampires.”
“How old are you, anyway?” I asked, and he chuckled.
“Older than the myths suggest.”
My brow furrowed.
“What myths?”
“The myths that society concocted to hide my true nature. When I was younger, before the advent of Christianity, I was...well, I was a deeply unpleasant individual. Mad with power, I pillaged, murdered and raped my way across Europe, until your order caught up with me. I was locked away in a cell for...I don’t know how long, centuries at least. Meanwhile, The Order and mortal society worked together to create a different identity for me, one which served The Order’s ideal of trying to be at peace with humanity.”
My eyes went wide as I suddenly pieced it all together. I’d seen the artwork and thought nothing of it, just a little bit of English patriotism. The same with the crosses of bright red, marking various items and bits of furniture around the house. It couldn’t be. It was impossible.
“Eska’viyadas,” I breathed, ignoring Lori’s sudden “language, sweetheart.” I stared at the man in shock.
“You’re...Saint George?”
“And I am a vampire. Hence, the Vampire Saint.” He beamed at me, and I continued to stare at him incredulously.
Lorelei swatted me around the back of the head again.
“Stop gawking at our host, you idiot.”
“It’s just...he’s-”
“The patron saint of England, yes I know. Seriously Deimos, even at my age you soon learn that most famous people from history were vampires, or some myths were started by vampires, or some crap like that, so just...don’t be an idiot. Seriously, it’s embarrassing.”
Evidently George - Saint George, no less - found the whole display immensely amusing, as he sat in front of us and simply chuckled at us.
“You two are truly charming people, and I really do wish I could help you more,” he said, sipping his tea again. “However, I do have a rather extensive library, and some of my tomes may not be in your own libraries. Might it aid you if I do some research into the matter for you? I do so like to be useful.”
“That would be extremely helpful, thank you, er...George. Sir.”
Lorelei swatted my head a third time. Seriously, that woman has a mean swing.
“Thanks George, that would help a lot,” she said for me, and he laughed at us again.
“Oh, one other thing before you go. Deimos?”
“Yes George?” I’d learned my lesson - I didn’t want to get hit again.
“You may count me as kin from this moment on. If you ever need anything from me, it is yours to ask. Just...do drop in some time?”
I smiled. I think secretly, the ancient vampire was a little lonely.
“Of course George. And thank you.”
At that we bid him farewell, making our way back down the path to our waiting honour guard.
“Anything to report, Kelly?”
“Nah, nothin’ at all, boss,” she sighed.
“What’s wrong, not happy unless you’ve got something to headbutt?”
“I would remind you I am holding a shotgun, My Lord,” she replied with a grin, and Lorelei moved between us.
“And I’d remind you that you’d be eating it before you got a shot off.”
There was a brief, tense moment of silence, before Kelly laughed.
“Holy shit, you really fuckin’ care for ‘im, don’t you?” she said, punching Lorelei’s shoulder lightly. “Sorry I gave you a hard time then Milady, but I had to be sure.”
“It’s fine,” Lori answered, slightly bemused by what had just happened. “Let’s mount up and get the hell out of here. I want to get back to our nice cushy fortress, the outside concerns me.”
It was during the journey back that this account begins to get...a little weird. I know, you thought Saint George being a vampire was weird enough - but believe me, think about it for a few minutes and it makes perfect sense.
We were heading down the motorway again, Corvus Team quietly talking amongst themselves, Lorelei lost in her music again while still holding my hand, and me with my head against the side of the passenger compartment, wishing APCs had better shock absorbers.
When suddenly, someone spoke to me.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
I looked up instantly, to see a woman wearing a simple, pure black dress crouched in front of me. Her sleeves had those very wide cuffs you often see on gothic dresses, and there was a panel of lace around the neckline that exposed a little bit of cleavage, but otherwise it was a very demure and tasteful dress.
The woman herself had shoulder-length, tightly curled black hair, and a slender face that bore a small mouth with full, blood-red lips. I couldn’t see her eyes; a blindfold of black satin covered them completely, and yet I was certain she looked directly at me.
Of Angel's Blood (Chronicles of The Order Book 2) Page 10
