by Debra Dunbar
Not exactly pilgrims on the path, but did that still excuse their murder?
I couldn’t tell him my dogged questions were was because of the similar murder forty years ago of a family who had just been avenging the cruel death of their daughter. I needed to wrap up this business with the vampires, and have no further dealings with them that didn’t involve them being on the opposite side of my sword. These vampires were bad news, and Dario wasn’t who I’d thought, or maybe hoped, he was.
“So how do I present my findings to Leonora? I’ve gathered all the information she requested. Does she want it in writing? Or should I show up and personally discuss it with her?”
Dario blinked at the abrupt change of topic. “You have all the information? Because last night you didn’t and I know you had to work today. What did you find out?”
I stalled. “I’d rather relay it once, if you don’t mind. Would Leonora have time to see me right now?”
The vampire leaned in uncomfortably close to me and I struggle to maintain eye contact. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” The word came out as a squeak and I silently cursed my inability to remain calm when he was this near.
“No, there is something.” His voice was silky smooth and he took a step closer, putting him inches from me. “Suddenly you’re worried about the death of society’s worst and out of the blue you’ve acquired knowledge on this symbol that wasn’t available in your father’s extensive library. What’s going on?”
Did vampires have some kind of lie radar? I hoped not. “Nothing. I was up late last night researching, and at it again first thing this morning. I’d like to go ahead and wrap this up so I can get the first decent night’s sleep I’ve had in a week.”
He reached out and put his hands on my shoulders. I forced myself to relax. “You just seem…upset. And afraid. Are we okay from the other night? I’ve fed. I won’t lose control like that again.”
I was afraid and upset. I’d come to terms with the predatory nature of all sorts of beings—including humans. It was possible that the murders last night had been justified, but what had happened to the Robertsons was beyond killing in self-defense. It was cruel. It was a bunch of bullies with sharp teeth who thought they were beyond the law, slaying an innocent family. And Dario, the vampire I’d taken to my family home, the vampire I’d flirted with, the vampire I’d fantasized about—he was a member of this Balaj. He had to have known what happened, even if he didn’t participate in it. I could never look at him the same way. I just had to get through tonight, then make it clear I was done with them.
“Well, finishing this up with less than twenty-four hours to spare and a death threat over my head tends to make me upset. Let’s go and get this over with so I can go to bed.”
He stared at me for a moment then lowered his hands and stepped back. “Okay. Leonora will want you to discuss this in person. I’ll drive.”
“No, I’ll drive. Last time you drove I wound up walking halfway across the city.” Just in case, I grabbed my sword, slinging the scabbard over my shoulder and waiting for Dario to walk out so I could lock up.
Once in the parking lot I realized I had a problem. If I drove, then I’d be expected to bring Dario back for his car. If he drove, I’d be reliant on him to get me back home. I thought about having to make a quick escape from Leonora’s. Would it be better to have my car there, or would I evade them easier through the city on foot. I’d need to return for my car, and I wasn’t sure that would be a good idea if things went south, even during the day.
Was the place where I’d met Leonora before their home base? Did they rest the daylight hours somewhere else I didn’t know about? And they knew where I lived. If things went bad tonight, they could come get me at any time. My wards, my spells would only hold them back so long. One slip, and they’d have me. My mind whirled, paranoia reaching a fever pitch. If I was going to go head to head with these creatures, to hold them accountable for their actions, then I needed to be strong enough to face them. I needed to be secure in my apartment, protected from any retaliatory attack. That meant I’d need to put some long hours in on home security, get back to regular sparring practices, and seriously hit my magical studies. No more slacking off in pubs.
Not that I’d be hanging in pubs after tonight anyway. The nights of flirty Blood Marys were over. Forever.
“I changed my mind. Why don’t you drive? I’m so tired that I’m worried I’ll wreck.”
He gave me another odd look. “Why don’t you just wait until tomorrow? You’ve got one more day until your deadline. That way you can sleep tonight and meet with Leonora with a clear, refreshed mind.”
Snap out of it. “No, I’m good.” I forced myself to relax and smiled at the vampire.
He peered at me over the top of the car. “Are you sure? You’re tired and hungry. I can hear your stomach growling from here. I’ll buy you dinner. We can take some cannoli back to your house for a sugar-filled breakfast tomorrow, and we’ll crash.”
Netflix and chill? I don’t think so, although the idea did make everything below my waistband rather warm. The thought of dinner was appealing, too. My lunch with Janice seemed like it was a decade ago, and my stomach was making ominous grumbling sounds.
“No, I’m good,” I repeated woodenly, trying to ignore the protests from my empty digestive system.
We drove through the city, and I rehearsed what I would say to the vampire Mistress, what I’d do if things went bad. I also turned off my phone, worried that Russell might get the note I’d left for him and contact me at the absolute worst time. Dario called Leonora as soon as we got in the car to let her know we were on our way. It made me think—did she ever leave the safety of their house, or whatever dwellings they used? I couldn’t imagine her out in pubs picking up prey like Dario did. Was her dinner delivered to her?
And how had Dario “fed” tonight when he’d been at my house right after sunset? There hadn’t been time for him to go pick up some tipsy woman. Did he just grab someone off the street, or did they have communal blood slaves at their house? How long did those slaves live before the constant anemia did them in?
“Who did you feed from tonight?” I should have shut up, should have just kept silent, delivered my report, and left it at that, but I had to know. Something inside me ached at the thought that this vampire I’d come to regard as a friend wasn’t what I’d thought he was.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel, his eyes remaining fixed on the road ahead. “Why?”
“Because you didn’t have a lot of time between waking and showing up at my house to woo prey. Do you have a regular donor? I thought you said that your Balaj tries not to target the same person more than once?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “When I have time I prefer to be more selective and choose someone new, but we do have groups of individuals that we can rely upon if we need to feed quickly.”
“Blood prostitutes? Like drug addicts? You take their blood, they get a hit and money? Was that the nature of the business that you had with that gang?”
I could practically hear his teeth grind. “Yes, it was. Some people are willing for the right price. And unlike you, many find what we offer to be pleasant.”
I found the idea more than pleasant, except for the addiction and eventual death part.
“What do you do with the bodies?”
Shit. Was I suicidal? I just couldn’t stop my damned mouth.
“What the hell is wrong with you tonight, Aria?” Dario swerved over to the curb and slammed the car into park. “Are you jealous? Because I‘ve told you I’m more than willing to take you to bed, share your blood, and more.”
And part of me really wanted to. I got the feeling that Dario wouldn’t drain me and kill me, that he’d restrain himself as much as he could, and turn me if things went too far. But this wasn’t about me. This was about Shay, about the Robertson family, about all the other men and women who had been murdered, treated like throwaway toys, about a
supernatural group of thugs who thought it was fine to treat humans like disposable objects.
“How many have you killed, Dario? Since you became a vampire, how many have died either a victim of your blood lust or for other reasons?”
His eyes darkened. “More than I want to admit. I’ve lived nearly three hundred and fifty years compared to your twenty-three. Let’s see how many terrible things you’ve done in the next three hundred years then we’ll talk.”
I winced. It was easy to condemn him when I’d never feared for my life, been at the edge of starvation, wandered homeless with my family. But just as I began to feel sorry for him, the remembrance of that picture in the abandoned house came to mind. Shay…so young, those deaths…so brutal.
So I sat, silent, and refused to look at him again.
“There are many times I’ve gone hungry, struggled to control my needs and won so that I could live with myself the next day. I try…but why bother telling this to you, a Templar whose ancestors slaughtered vampires without a care. How many died a victim of your people’s misguided ethics? Or died because of their greed for money and magical items?”
He made a low noise, something between a growl and a snarl, then put the car in gear and squealed the tires. I flattened against the seatback with the g-force, feeling sick. I wanted him to be a friend. Had my desperate need for companionship, for a friend who actually got me, made me blind to who he really was?
Chapter 17
WE PULLED UP outside the same house as before, only this time I felt tension in all the eyes that watched us as we climbed out of the SUV. The vampire that walked down to meet us visibly recoiled as I pulled my sword from the car and strapped it to my back.
“Leave that here,” Dario commanded.
I don’t think so. “I’m a Templar. I need to have my sword by my side.”
“Since when?” Dario walked around the SUV to stand beside me. “You can’t carry a weapon into an audience with the Mistress. You’ve got to leave it in the car.”
There was no way I was going to leave my sword in his car, not after what I’d discovered today. “I’m not going to remove it from the scabbard or anything. Think of it as part of my attire, sort of a Templar uniform. It’s not like you all have anything to fear from a sword.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Thousands of dead vampires would beg to differ. It’s a blessed sword, a holy weapon. It needs to stay in the car.”
I wavered. I had an amulet, a butter knife, and a can of mace. Still, the thought of leaving my sword behind nearly sent me into a panic attack. “I will disarm while in audience with your Mistress, but I’m not leaving my sword in the car.”
There was silence while the vampires eyed the weapon in question.
“I’m not holding it for her,” the guy who came to meet us protested.
“How about you leave it on the table in the foyer?” Dario proposed. “Trust me, none of us want to touch it. It will be safe there, and you won’t be delivering an aggressive slap in the face to the Mistress of our Balaj.”
I wasn’t thrilled, but I knew I couldn’t very well present my findings to Leonora with Trusty on my back. “Fine. I’ll leave it on the table.”
Dario didn’t take my arm, instead motioning for me to precede him into the house. A different set of leather-clad vampires served as our escorts this time, every one of them baring fangs and sending hostile glances at the sword on my back. Once inside, I slid the weapon from my back and carefully laid it on the side table in the foyer. The last six inches hung over the edge of the table, the hilt crowding a decorative lamp. The vampires glared at it, giving the sword a respectful distance as we continued down the hall to the throne room. Once inside there was the same wait as well as the same silence as before. The vampires on either side of me were far from relaxed, and I got the feeling their agitation wasn’t only due to my sword in the hallway.
“Solaria Angelique Ainsworth, I hear you have news for me.” Leonora spoke before she’d even taken her seat. There was something off about the way she crossed the room, the way her eyes sought out Dario’s. Had she been injured in the fight last night? Had her authority somehow been weakened from the attack?
I straightened my spine, very aware that I was surrounded by vampires with my sword out of reach. “Yes. I have the information you requested which will satisfy the contract between us.”
The vampire mistress sat and motioned for me to get on with it. This whole meeting lacked the pomp and circumstance of the last. The vampires were in a hurry, although I wasn’t sure if it was for my information, or for me to get the heck out of here so they could take care of some other pressing matter.
They’d killed the people they thought responsible for the attack, but there could still be unfinished business that they needed to handle tonight. I bit my lip, trying to process my mixed feelings over the gang murders. According to Dario, the gang had attacked them unprovoked, killing three and wounding many more. They were defending themselves. As a Templar I should be okay with that.
But maybe… I again wondered if Russell was involved in last night’s attack, working with the gang. If so there might be a repeat performance either tonight or in the near future. How often could he raise spirits from the grave, how much energy could he amass in a twenty-four hour period?
If Russell was involved, how long before the vampires traced it to him? And if not, the vampires still might want to silence him, to keep him from airing the dirty laundry of those murders forty years ago.
I shook the thoughts out of my mind and took a steading breath to focus. “The symbol is necromantic in nature and combines foundational as well as European, voodoo and possibly Native American elements. It takes considerable energy to activate and would require either a high level mage, or the extra power of a full moon or weather event to successfully work the spell. The intent is to call back the soul into either a raised physical form or as a specter with control over the physical plane. A focus is required specific to the soul being summoned.”
Leonora nodded, her hands restless on the arms of the chair. “Does the spellcaster control the specter? You mentioned voodoo—is the raised spirit in thrall to the one who brings them back?”
Hell if I knew. Based on what I’d seen in the cemetery, I had a good hunch, though. “No. Friendly spirits can be questioned or become helpful to the summoner if they so choose. Control of the undead would require something beyond this symbol.”
“Such as?”
That was way beyond what I’d been paid to research, but I wasn’t about to point that fact out. “There are some artifacts that allow the holder to control the undead. I can assume that there might be a very high level necromantic spell that does so too, although I have no knowledge of one.”
“What are these artifacts and where are they? Are there any mages alive today with the skill to perform such a level of spell?”
Leonora was leaning so far forward in her chair that I expected her boobs to pop free of the corset at any moment. Her dark eyes were wild with anger…anger and fear.
Fear. Russell had already summoned his dead family, presumably to question them about their murders. It was possible that he was instrumental in the specter attack Saturday night. Were they afraid he’d spread the news of their misdeeds, afraid of the specters returning for another attack, or something else entirely?
“I must ask, is there someone in particular that you worry might be summoned? An old enemy perhaps?”
Her eyes flickered with anger. The atmosphere in the room grew decidedly chilly.
“That is none of your business. Answer my question.”
There was more to their worry than random attacking specters. Who didn’t they want the necromancer to summon—and most especially control? Could it be Shay, the long dead blood slave? I couldn’t see how the spirit of a dead girl could be any kind of threat to a powerful Balaj. Why were they so worried about the ability of a necromancer to bring a spirit from the dead and possibly control it?
Russell already had the information he needed from the spirits of his family. What would he do next that had Lenora so very afraid?
“There are two artifacts within the Temple that deal with undead. I am unaware of any mage with the power to perform that level of spell without their assistance.”
There. Done. Contract with the vampires satisfied. I could leave and have no further business dealings with them. At this point I didn’t even want the rest of my money. I just wanted to get the heck out of there and back to my apartment where I would continue to research the vampires’ activity without their deadline looming over me. What was Russell planning to do? And who was Leonora so worried that he’d raise from the dead?
The vampire mistress relaxed. I felt the need to tell her there were tons of unknown artifacts still outside the Temple, that magic users were a secretive bunch. There could have been an adept level Necromancer right in my apartment building, and I wouldn’t know unless he started casting spells in the parking lot or in his living room.
“Do you know who crafted this symbol?”
Here’s where I hoped vampires didn’t have any special lie-detection skills. “No, I don’t.”
She exchanged another silent glance with Dario. This wordless communication between the pair of them was making me uneasy. I held my breath, but before Leonora could give my continued existence the royal thumbs up or down there was a deafening crash and a scream from the hallway.
I jumped, my heart nearly exiting my chest. The two vampires beside Leonora dove in front of her, shielding her. Spinning around I saw the other vampires, including Dario, had already raced out into the front hallway. My Templar training kicked in and I ran after them.
I should have hid behind a chair instead. There was another crash, this time followed by a series of shouts as well as screams. I hesitated at the doorway, yanking my butter knife out of one pocket and my gold crucifix from the other. Then I quickly looked into the hallway.
