by Debra Dunbar
I smiled, thinking of how Dad would laugh to see me in my plastic armor. “Absolutely.”
Obviously there was no time to be digging up graves tonight, so I concentrated on writing down sixty names while memorizing the chant. That done, I ransacked my apartment to find enough of the specific mixture of resin and herbs that made up what I was now calling ghost-smoke. Shadows lengthened across my floor as I put the finishing touches on the runes acid-etched into the butter knife that had been converted into a weapon. I was ready. And I had just enough time to load all of this into the car and drive north to Leonora’s house.
There was a knock on my door and I watched it, expecting it to just swing open when I realized that Dario wouldn’t be visiting while the sun still shined above the horizon. Was it one of the LARP people, here to go over armor or battle plans for this weekend? If so, I’d need to get rid of them fast.
I didn’t recognize the guy at my door. He was big and burly, like a club bouncer, with tribal tattoos down his arms. In spite of his size and the obvious intimidation factor, he was the one shifting nervously from side to side as he eyed the sword I’d grabbed on my way to the door.
“What are you cooking?” He sniffed.
I stood aside to let him in. “Magic.” Actually it was the incense. I’d burned a bit to make sure I had the mixture correct. God love Campbell; he was one of the few authors thorough enough to detail exactly what the incense should smell like when lit, as well as the changes in fragrance when it encountered a spirit.
He hesitated at the “m” word before taking a tentative step over my threshold. “I’m Sarge. Dario sent me to bring you.”
It was then that I noticed the puncture marks on his neck. Vampires had a clotting and healing enzyme in their saliva that left their victims with nothing more noticeable than bug bites. Repeated or particularly enthusiastic bites didn’t heal as fast, and I’d heard that a quick wipe with a soapy cloth after being bitten would ensure the kind of marks this man had on his neck. They were a deliberate sign of ownership, worn as proudly as any engagement ring. And they usually meant the victim was a blood slave who could count his remaining life in months at the best.
“You’re Leonora’s?” I asked while gathering my equipment together for tonight’s activities. Probably not. I remembered Opal said the Mistress liked her blood slaves blond and soft. Sarge was bald and as far from soft as a brick from a feather pillow.
He flushed. “I’d be honored if I was. No, I belong to Geraldo.”
It was none of my business, but I had to know. “How often does he take you?”
Sarge smirked. “Not nearly as often as I’d like him to.”
Oh my. I could have gone the rest of my life without the visual now running rampant through my head.
“He sips daily, just to keep my mark fresh, but he actually feeds from me once every six to eight weeks.”
That surprised me right out of imagining this man naked and sweaty with a vampire. This Geraldo had enough control to hold back his hunger. Six weeks was a long time for a vampire to restrain himself from a beloved blood slave. “How long have you been together?”
This time Sarge’s smile was downright sappy. “Six months.”
Wow. He looked pretty good for six months. Huh. Whoever Geraldo was, I tipped my hat to him. If he could keep it under control, Sarge was liable to live another few years. If he could keep it under control.
“I assume you’re here to escort me? I know where Lenora’s is, but I appreciate this. I’m still kinda new to the city and I don’t want to get lost.”
Yeah. It would really suck to arrive late to this particular party. Sarge nodded and eyeing my sword once more, gingerly picked up the bag holding my spell supplies.
“Okay, let’s go.” I grabbed the rest of my stuff, locked the door behind me and led the way downstairs to my car. It bit my lip when I saw it, hesitating.
“Is this it?” Sarge waved a hand at my Corolla, clearly perplexed as to why we weren’t getting in.
“Did you bring your car?” I walked around my vehicle, eyeing the fenders. It wasn’t as I’d left it hours ago. Someone had been messing with my car. And given that I’d put a protection spell on it, I had a good idea who the vandal was.
“Yeah, it’s down the block. Dario said you’d want to drive yourself.”
I did want to drive myself, but not with a magical tracking device on my car. “Got a napkin? A tissue, or something?”
He shook his head. It wasn’t hard to find a used one balled up in the weeds beside the building doorway. Trying not to think about what kind of germs and old food were on the paper, I unfolded it and carefully removed the tiny cloth bag from just inside my wheel well. It had been attached with a magnet. Pretty clever, although a few days of driving probably would have dislodged it. Not that Russell needed it to work forever—just long enough for me to lead him to where the vampires rested during the day.
The joke was that I really didn’t know. The not funny part was that Russell no longer saw me as impartial, but in league with the enemy. I’d need to tread carefully.
I attached the magical tracker to the VW Bug parked next to me. “Let’s take your car, just in case I missed something.” If I hadn’t thrown together the spell now attached to the little dolphin charm around my neck, I would never have noticed the tracker. Who knows what other items Russell had put on my car. I’d need to check it thoroughly tomorrow, just in case it was rigged to explode or something, but right now I had a Balaj to protect.
Sarge was driving one of the big, black SUVs the vampires seemed to have bought in bulk. I was actually glad he was driving, because in this neighborhood he’d be lucky if he only found the side dented in when he returned. Twelve hours tucked away in a little side alley pretty much guaranteed the car would be without wheels and an airbag by morning.
“Dario wants me to take you somewhere to meet someone before we go to Leonora’s.”
Okay. I wasn’t uneasy about climbing into a big SUV with a bouncer-sized guy partially because of all the magical gear I was toting, but also because he’d clearly shown himself to be afraid of said magical gear. I was uneasy about him taking me to some unknown place to meet an unknown person. After what had happened with Federico, I was more than a bit wary of these vampires.
Trusty was comforting in my lap, and the charged runes sparked along my skin as I stroked the sheathed blade. Even if there were hundreds of them, I knew I could kill enough vampires to clear a path. Besides, the sun hadn’t quite set. I should be okay.
The sun had set by the time we pulled up to a battered row house only three blocks from the ruin of the Robertson’s family home. An elderly lady rocked on the porch, the handle of a pistol visible at the edge of her denim skirt.
“Elaine.” Sarge nodded at the woman, and she lifted her nose in reply, dark eyes dissecting me as she jerked her head toward the doorway. I gripped Trusty tight, wondering how much of a faux pas it would be for me to remove the sword from its scabbard.
Inside the house was like a time capsule from the sixties. Rose upholstered chairs were decorated with lace doilies on the arms and headrests. Mauve shag carpeting matched the paisley drapes. Glass candy dishes filled with mints accented the side tables. Sarge led me through the avocado and burnt orange kitchen and down a set of basement stairs to a room with a sofa, a television, and a stereo console. And a woman.
She was sitting on the carpet, drawing in a notebook. Her long hair hung in a snarl of tight black curls.
“Has she fed?” At Sarge’s question, a pale woman stepped from the shadows. She had a comb in one hand and what looked to be a bottle of olive oil in the other.
“Yes. First thing upon waking. It’s not a good day for her.”
The woman on the carpet looked up, her pencil pausing. Dark eyes shined in a golden-brown face whose soft roundness hinted at childhood. She was beautiful in an otherworldly way, a girl caught between youth and womanhood. Even with the tangled hair and sharp fa
ngs, I recognized Shay.
“But, they killed her,” I sputtered. “Right in front of her father, they killed her.”
The woman looked over to Shay with obvious affection. “Yes, they did. Tore her throat out and left her dead on the cold ground.”
Sarge growled. “Shitty way to treat your blood slave. I’m glad I wasn’t alive back then.”
Wait. I was so confused. “Someone turned her? Did Jean Marc come back later and turn her? Or Aubin, your former Master?”
The woman clenched her teeth, taking a moment before answering me. “No. That scum Jean-Marc left her for dead and Aubin didn’t care. That wasn’t uncommon for a blood slave back then, but Jean-Marc took particular pleasure in making her death as painful as possible—for the girl as well as for her family.”
I walked slowly toward Shay. The girl watched me with intent eyes. Something was wrong with her. “Does she speak?”
“Not more than a few words here and there. She understands quite a lot, but hasn’t spoken much since her rebirth. We call her Bella.”
Vampires took new names when turned, another way to shed their old lives and embrace the new. Still, it was hard for me to look at this girl as anything but Shay Robertson.
“Who does she feed from?” I couldn’t see her trolling the pubs and nightclubs like Dario did. Beautiful as she was, there was something eerily off about the intensity of her stare.
“Donors. She’s not gentle, so we assist her and give the donor a little something to help with the pain.”
I winced. “Hi Bella.” The girl tilted her head as I spoke, her tongue darting out to touch the tip of a fang. It was disturbingly erotic. “What are you drawing?”
She turned the notepad so I could see. Lots of scribbles. Something that looked like a stick figure with a hat.
“Who is that?” I pointed to the stick figure.
She stared at me, her eyes blank.
“Time to do your hair, Bella.” The woman walked forward, extending the comb. “Let’s make you pretty, then we’ll put on some records and dance.”
I watched as the woman smoothed the snarled curls, humming under her breath. Bella tilted her head and continued to draw.
“What happened to her? Is this sort of thing common when humans are turned?”
Sarge shook his head. “They figured she was dead about an hour beforehand. The process is supposed to start immediately—drained then given new life with the sire’s blood.”
I knew so little about it and was surprised that Sarge, a blood slave, knew. “How do they drink their sire’s blood if they are drained?”
He hesitated a moment. “They don’t drink it, they bathe in it. It’s ceremonial, and I’m not privy to the details, but the sire needs to come close to exsanguination to bring on a rebirth. It takes a lot out of him and leaves him vulnerable, which is why the support and approval of the Balaj is needed. A rebirth means there are two vampires that require care or they’ll both die.”
It was clear from the longing on his face that Sarge hoped he’d be offered the opportunity. But wouldn’t that change the nature of his relationship with Geraldo? I assumed vampires had meaningful relationships with each other, but I couldn’t imagine they’d have the same all-encompassing passion as what was between a vampire and a blood slave.
“We need to get going.” Sarge checked his phone. “It’s long enough past sundown that everyone should be awake and fed sufficiently. We’re to all meet at Leonora’s.”
I remembered Dario saying there were donors that came by the house. So it sounded like tonight they’d all had an appetizer, so to speak. It would be enough to hold the vampires off until they could find a fresh victim to drink deeply from—and do other things.
All these revelations made me wonder if feeding always involved sex, or if there was some personal preference in the combination of the two activities. Dario had indicated that sex usually wasn’t a stand-alone practice, but surely feeding didn’t always include intimacy. Well, intimacy beyond biting someone’s neck and drinking from their circulatory system.
I wasn’t sure that this was something I felt comfortable asking Sarge about. He’d made clear his feelings for Geraldo, and the fact that he didn’t give any significant amount of blood more than once every six weeks. His vampire obviously was getting his needs met elsewhere in between those times, and I didn’t want to rub it in Sarge’s face if those encounters included sex. I could ask Dario later, but the thought of discussing sexual practices with him made my breath quicken. Besides, I wasn’t sure I’d be discussing anything with him after last night.
I followed the man back out of the house to the SUV and climbed in, placing my sword on my lap. Sarge had been very forthcoming to me, a complete stranger. It was obvious he’d been given permission to share these things with me, which seemed unusual for such a secretive race of beings.
“Why are you telling me all this? Why did you take me to see Shay, I mean Bella?” I turned to watch the blood slave as he pulled the car away from the curb.
“Dario said you were to know. He said to answer every question of yours that I could and not hold anything back.” Sarge shot a quick glance at me as he stopped for a light. He had that smirk on his face once again. “Think you’ve got an admirer, Templar.”
Admirer? Not anymore. Although maybe Dario was as eager to make things right between us as I was? Maybe he wanted to give me a reason to trust him as much as I wanted to regain his trust in me. Because he had trusted me—enough to sleep in my bathroom, enough to tell me, a Templar, so much of his history.
I thought about Shay. Bella, now. She seemed to have a peaceful life, surrounded by those who protected her. The vampire woman combing her hair clearly loved her. I wondered if it would make any difference to Russell to know his eldest sister was alive. Probably not. It would probably do more harm to the situation if he knew the vampires had turned Shay into one of them. Which made me wonder.
“Who turned her?”
“Dario.”
I blinked in surprise. “Dario?”
“Yes, Dario. Geraldo told me that it started the war that nearly destroyed our Balaj. Jean Marc was furious. Aubin threw Dario out of the family, cast him into the unclaimed suburbs to roam alone. For nearly a decade Dario was an exile.”
An exile. Him and a newly turned, clearly disabled, vampire. How had he survived? Clearly others in the Balaj had helped him against the Master’s orders.
And how had Leonora wound up on top in all of this? Dario’s exile was the spark that fanned an already fractious Balaj into a flame of rebellion, and somehow in the end Lenora wound up Mistress?
“Do you know why Lenora became Mistress? I mean, I know she’s older, but I would have thought Dario would have taken over after Aubin was killed.”
Sarge shrugged. “Geraldo said that Dario didn’t want the job. Lenora did. She’s a good leader, but many vampires turn to Dario for guidance before her. I’m no expert, but I think they’re one disagreement away from another rebellion.”
Vampires didn’t co-rule, and Dario’s loyal followers had to threaten Leonora’s sense of security in her leadership status. One disagreement away from a war. I only hoped this issue with Russell wouldn’t be the straw that broke this camel’s back.
Chapter 25
THERE WAS A tenseness at Leonora’s house. Both humans and vampires came and went with deceptive casualness, but their eyes darted at each shadow. Every vampire showed a hint of fangs, betraying their readiness to defend. Sarge led me into what I was now calling the throne room where Leonora waited—alone and pacing.
“Can we cut the formality, just for tonight? I’ve got a lot to do.” Russell had probably begun summoning right at sundown, which meant I had about a half hour to get all my stuff set up and ready to go.
“Watch your tone,” she snarled, reminding me an awful lot of Dario when he’d snapped at me at Sesarios last week. Unlike that incident, I didn’t curse the vampire Mistress and storm out. Instead I t
ook a calming breath and waited, hoping that she’d hurry up and say her piece so I could get to work.
“You have tonight.” She pointed a red-nailed finger at me. “If you can’t resolve this by dawn, we will hunt down this magic user and kill him. We have his name. We know who he is. One night, and that’s it.”
I nodded, well aware that this wouldn’t end well for Russell if I failed. The vampires would find him. They had enough manpower for day and night searches, and the necromancer had to sleep sometime.
The woman stalked toward me, her leather bustier creaking as she moved. “And if you fail, you’re mine. And I mean mine. I don’t care if you’re a Templar. I don’t care if Dario has put a claim on you. If there’s so much as a scratch on any of my family tonight, I’m going to chain you in the basement and make you breakfast.”
Opal had called Dario “boss”. He’d beat the snot out of Federico for what he’d done to me. He’d been the vampire to step up to the plate and turn Shay, to face exile rather than see a young girl die. He was the one with a Templar in his pocket, the one who fought last night while Leonora had run to safety. I remembered what Sarge had said, that they were one disagreement away from rebellion.
This wasn’t about me. And it really wasn’t about Russell either.
“Don’t you forget that I am the Mistress here.” She towered over me, her boobs practically in my face. “You are to do as I say, or you’ll find yourself back in that basement cell before you can so much as light a candle.”
I shivered, then remembered something Dario had said to me. “I don’t give a shit about your internal politics. The deal was that I had one night to resolve this peacefully. You presented Dario as someone with the authority to speak on your behalf, and thus my deal with him is binding on the entire Balaj. You got a problem with that, take it up with him.”
Leonora sucked in a breath, but I continued. “You might not personally care about me being a Templar, but know that if you lock me in a cell and feed from me, and you’ll find yourself with a war on your hands. This necromancer thing may have divided your Balaj and put your fitness to rule in question, but imagine how you’ll fare once everyone knows that you brought down the wrath of an entire family of Templars on their heads.”
