“Sol? Who’s that?”
“Before he died, Ryder coughed up the name Sol.”
“Sol. The sun. Nate Burnham and the Brothers of the Sun set you up.”
Cade shook his head. “Maybe, maybe not. The BOS like to do their own dirty work. I can’t see them hiring a couple of vamps to steal all their fun. But put Burnham under a microscope. I want to know everything there is to know about him.”
“Maybe Ryder was just pulling your chain about the name Sol. Why would a pro give up information?”
“Because I was about to carve his heart out.”
“And he thought you’d spare him?” Cade was getting soft. In the old days, no one would ever expect mercy from Che Kincade.
“I don’t know. He was dying. Death can be a rather compelling fellow when he’s staring you in the face. Give me the house keys.”
Thor fished them out of his pocket and slapped them into Cade’s hand. Cade got out, retrieved his bag from the back seat, then poked his head back through the passenger door. “Oh, one more thing. Arrange for another car. You and I are going to each need our own set of wheels.”
Thor nodded. “Anything else?”
“No.”
Thor waited while Cade went inside, then made his phone calls. He’d need people to help him with the cars. The job of seeing to Red would be his alone.
CADE’S INSIDES FELT like they were being consumed in the fires of hell, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing. Thor’s sarcasm was coming through loud and clear. Thor smelled blood, very literally, and Cade knew it was nothing more than instinct to want to challenge a weakened leader, be he friend or foe. It was the reason Cade had sent Thor to clean out the safe house and dispose of the body. He needed time to rest and heal in private. It wouldn’t do for Thor to linger on thoughts and images of his doyen bested in battle and spilling out his guts.
Thor was a fighter by nature, and though they’d come from divergent mortal beginnings, Cade understood Thor’s mindset completely. You fought through pain. You never gave up. You never feared an opponent whose size and reputation were bigger than yours. And you took advantage of every weakness laid before your eyes. You feasted on it, as though it were sustenance for your body.
Perhaps it had been a mistake to call him for help and to allow Thor to see him like this, but he’d had no choice. He’d been too vulnerable in the alley, too weak to mount even a feeble defense if the Asian had returned yet another time. All he could do now was heal enough to project strength and only strength.
Thor had already taken the master bedroom, of course. Cade took Thor’s clothes and dumped them in the smaller bedroom down the hall. Thor would be pissed, but Cade didn’t care. He took a shower, washing away the dried blood and dirt, and as he closed his eyes on the king-sized bed, he focused his mind on the task of substituting the agony of regeneration with more pleasant sensations. With the anesthesia of memory, the pain numbed, and his final waking thought was not of his present problems, but the past.
Chapter Twenty-three
Chicago, Illinois
March, 1894
TWO WEEKS LATER the weather broke, and with the thaw came Charlet Malebisse to his front door.
His shock must not have showed, for neither it nor anything else derailed the deliverance of lines so perfectly spoken that she surely must have recited them in the mirror a dozen times over.
“Good evening, Mr. Kincade. Please forgive my impropriety in showing up at your door unannounced, but I should like to speak to you if I may. It’s a matter, I believe, of some importance.”
How very unlike his Charlet to hide behind such formality. She really shouldn’t have bothered, for it made her nervousness and fright so apparent.
“Please come in.” He forgave her stiffness. Wasn’t it the way of human and undead alike to hide their fears behind whatever mask was at hand? He showed her into the parlor. “Sit down.”
She did, but she kept her hat and gloves on, assuming nothing, refusing to take his hospitality for granted. “First, I’d like to apologize for my behavior at our last meeting. I’m sure it was difficult to tell me what you did, and I behaved very badly.”
“There’s no need to apologize. You were rightly shocked, as anyone would be.”
“Nevertheless . . .” She cleared her throat. “I’ve had two weeks to think about things. What you claim to be is abhorrent to me. Yet I give aid at the Hull House to many who are wretched, filthy, and godless. I don’t inquire into their backgrounds or beliefs. I render aid to all, regardless of their past or present situation. It occurs to me that in not affording you the same impartiality, I’m being uncharitable.”
His hunger at seeing her on his doorstep vanished when he choked on her words. “Uncharitable? For God’s Sake, Charlet, I’m your lover, not some beggar looking for a handout. I don’t want your charity or your pity, and I’m far beyond reform.”
She bowed her head and fiddled with her hands, folding and unfolding them. “You’re right, of course.”
“Speak your true mind, as you always have. What did you come here to tell me?”
She looked up, and moisture broke through her mask and filled her eyes. “I don’t want to be without you. When I said I was in love with you, it was the truth. It still is. Perhaps your kind doesn’t love. Perhaps I’m making a fool of myself.”
She rose, as if to leave, but he was faster, at her side in an eyeblink. “No, don’t. Stay with me.” He put his arms around her and pulled her into a loose embrace. Her words were fine, but useless if she couldn’t bear his touch. He made it easy for her, brushing her cheek with his lips and bringing his mouth within an inch of hers. The rest was up to her. She had to want this—want him—enough to make a move on her own. She wavered, her body trembling, and he held his breath, truly afraid for one of the few times in his life. It was like being poised on one of the tight ropes he’d seen in an act at the exposition—with one step he could either move forward or tumble into an abyss blacker than that in which he already existed.
Cade waited, already feeling himself falling, when the feel of her lips against his steadied him. He felt the heat of her entire body behind the tentative touch, and he forced himself to wait a little longer. It was against his nature to relinquish control, but she could still back away, and he had to know she was his on her own terms. Her mouth pressed harder, and when he parted his lips, she was more insistent still. She was shaking now, and he had the feeling it wasn’t so much in either fear or desire, but as though she were waging some great battle within herself.
Her white gloved fingers plowed through his hair and held the back of his head, pulling him to her.
“God help me,” she whispered when she broke the kiss at last.
He knew she was his.
CADE WOKE FROM his daytime sleep, not stirred by the dusk, but by the warm flesh covering his. He was already hard, his cock reacting quicker in his semi-conscious state than the rest of his faculties. But his sight soon caught up, reveling in the vision of his Charlet, straddling him in nothing more than a chemise. Her flaxen hair fell over his torso like golden rain by the glow of the lamp she’d lit, and both her hair and hot breath tickled his chest. Sometimes he feigned continued sleep so that he could voyeuristically enjoy the delight she took from playing with his body, but tonight his squinted eyes gave him away.
“Chausch,” he mouthed silently. She was his now, his Chausch, not Charlet, the widow of Hugo Malebisse. The pet name was a confirmation that she was now his in body, soul, and name. They’d married quietly on the first day of spring in a private ceremony attended only by witnesses the judge had arranged for. He hadn’t wanted any of his brethren to know about the marriage, not even his most loyal masters, for marriage was not the way of the undead, and Cade feared the perception of weakness that would be seen by all if the truth were known. B
ut he’d wanted the ceremony, for he’d wanted her. He’d known his Chausch, in spite of her feelings, would never consent to live in his house without the name of Kincade as her own. She hadn’t insisted on a church wedding, however, apparently feeling that to do so would be the epitome of hypocrisy, given what he was.
He could feel the smile in lips pressed against his. She fully woke him as she typically did every evening, kissing his face and mouth, tasting every inch of him with her tongue and fingertips, and rubbing her breasts against him. If his eyes hadn’t betrayed his wakefulness, his voice soon would have, for he groaned when she impaled herself on his cock.
He’d never had a woman want him so badly as to make love to him before the heavy sleep of daylight released him, but it delighted him no end. It wasn’t as though he ignored her during his waking hours or ever left her wanting—it was merely another manifestation of the uncontrollable desire she seemed to have for him.
She used her legs and the weight of her body to work her way up and down the length of him until all of him was inside her. He closed his eyes, and for the first time in two hundred years, he believed in the Black Robe’s promise of heaven, for he was there. He believed in the Manitou’s promise of love, for he was there. What other vampire, or any man for that matter, was ever so privileged to awaken night after night to such carnal delights? And for the first time in his life, satisfaction of his sexual hunger wasn’t mind-numbing, but freeing, allowing him to see the mind and soul beyond the flesh of his partner.
He’d known from the first night he’d seen her that she was rare, but he hadn’t guessed how rare. She’d been able to accept him for what he was, a mighty feat considering her religious upbringing. He’d told her of his birth and childhood, of his teaching at the hands of both the priests and his elders at La Vantum. He told her of his vision quest and of his love for and loss of Niano, and he told her of his death and birth as one of the undead. He told her of his people, the Illinois, and how he’d watched them slowly die over decades of disease and warfare. He told her of the lies and the treaties and the banishment, until the day came when there were no more men in Illinois who could claim to be Inoca, of “the people,” but himself.
She’d lain with her head in his lap and cried at every story. It had somehow become important to him that she know these things about his people. They’d been generous and peace-loving, roused to a thirst for blood and war only when he’d prodded them. The Illinois Indians had faded away without fanfare, without a page in the history books, and without anyone to keep their memories and stories alive. No one knew or cared but Cade, and he had kept his silence for years. It was paramount to him now that someone, even if it was only this one mortal female, could validate the existence of his long-extinct and forgotten people.
He groaned again, as he did every night when he reached the point at which he needed more than this submissive posturing gave him. He rolled over, reversing their positions, and drove into her with ever-increasing speed and force. Of course, there was much in his past he hadn’t told her, and never would. He hadn’t lied to her, but neither would he tell her of the blood he had shed, both for hunger’s sake and for vengeance and hatred.
Charlet writhed beneath him, crying out with every thrust. There were other things he’d meant to tell her, but hadn’t—how he’d loved his people, but always with the knowledge that he was different. He’d never been as meek or subservient as many of the Illinois, had never hesitated when facing a foe, had never felt remorse in killing. Surely, she sensed, as now, his power, but she accepted it without question, taking all that he gave her, both the spoken and the unspoken.
He felt a worm of regret for all the unspoken truths of the warrior that hid behind the heart-wrenching stories and the top hat and cape, but it was necessary to keep her and protect her, and even now he controlled his passions so as not to injure her. If she were any other, he’d drain her dry after the stimulus of such sex, but he stopped short of even tasting her. He dared not so much as sample the tiniest drop of her blood, for such temptation would overcome even his control.
He held her and shuddered as he loosed his cold seed into her. She cried out beneath him, and as he called all the defenses of his will and strength against the ravages of his hunger for her blood, he wondered if he was indeed in heaven or hell.
Chapter Twenty-four
CADE AWOKE WITH a jolt, covered with sweat and chilled to the bone. He’d wanted a place for his mind to hide from his physical pain, and he’d found it. Charlet. Always Charlet. It had been over a hundred years ago, but his dreams always went to those brief weeks in 1893 and ’94, as if that time was etched in his mind with the word home. And yet as satisfying as that time had been, it had also been his greatest nightmare. He’d been trying for more than a century to eradicate the memories, bedding every female that crossed his path, but none had ever ousted Charlet from her place. A few like Red had come close, but Charlet defended her territory with a viciousness that would make any vampire proud.
He rose, flipped on the overhead light, and examined his chest and abdomen, running his fingers over the sculpture of muscle that hours before had been a ruin. The cuts had healed over, but the new skin was still pale and pink. It would be another day or two before the skin would darken to its natural bronze color.
He pulled on fresh jeans and a long sleeved shirt and waited for Thor. First, though, he had to know what was going on in the city. It had been a busy night. He turned on the TV and as usual, the 24/7 news channels had no lack of either hard news or hot air.
“Hester Phryne, owner of the popular and controversial club Vamphasia, was shot and killed tonight by Chicago Police during what police are calling a ‘tavern check.’ Police are not commenting further, saying only that the investigation is ongoing, but WNN has obtained this eye witness account.”
A female started talking, and Cade had to concentrate to hear her thin, tinny voice over the sound of the chaos in the background. “ . . . was out of control from the minute the police arrived. She ignored their orders and lunged toward one of the officers.”
Bullshit. Phryne had been loud and obnoxious, but not physically aggressive. He wondered what mist the reporter had conjured this witness from.
The newscaster’s voice returned. “Representatives from the night person community are protesting the shooting, calling it unjustified and demanding an immediate inquest. However, Chicago’s doyen, Che Kincade, has not publicly weighed in on tonight’s events. Kincade is a suspect in the killing of Chicago’s mayor, Deborah Dayton, and is still wanted by Chicago Police at this hour. Police have issued a warning to the night person community that no retaliation for tonight’s killing of Hester Phryne will be tolerated.”
He thumbed the off button on the remote and chucked it across the room.
Fucking media. The city was a powder keg, and all they wanted to do was ignite it. Those undead not particularly bothered by the murder of Deborah Dayton were sure to be outraged at the killing of Phryne and even more so by the media’s obvious anti-vamp bias. And all of them would see the deaths as a failing on his part, a collapse of his leadership.
But the big question remained unanswered. Who wanted this chaos? Someone who would profit from it, obviously. But who? The mortal shrewd enough to win Deborah’s vacant seat? One of his own brethren, a vamp with an eye to the title of doyen before his name? Or was the BOS, as it had twenty years ago—taking delight in the creation of a hell on earth and not caring who burned in it?
He circled the room in frustration and stepped to the front window to pull aside the drapes and look out. The street was quiet, but the peace failed to relax him. The coming day was sure to bring more unrest from mortals upset over Deborah’s death, and the following night would bring an equal amount of turmoil from the undead who were disturbed by Phryne’s death, his actions, and the change in the air evident to all.
He dropped th
e drape back into place and returned to bed. He needed more time to rest and heal, and now was the time to do it, before he had to confront Thor again. He summoned sleep, and she came, as she always did, as faithful in death as in life.
Chapter Twenty-five
Chicago, Illinois
April, 1894
IT WAS APRIL FOOL’S Day. The honeymoon was over, and she was his, for as long as she should live. He could move on now to other matters—less pleasant, but ultimately just as gratifying—the elimination of those who would supplant him.
The first step was to clear the First Ward of the vermin infesting it. Oh, not the pimps, prostitutes, pickpockets, or dope addicts, but the followers of Otto Hammer. The First Ward was Cade’s territory, and he wasn’t about to relinquish either a penny to Hammer’s pocket or a whore to Hammer’s prick.
Cade’s spies had done well, and thanks to them, he knew the name of every Hammer-sucking vamp in the ward. Starting on April Fool’s Day, he sent all of them packing with a one-way ticket to hell. It felt good, not only the cleansing of his ward, but the actual killing. After months of restraint with his Chausch, he indulged himself now to the fullest in the ultimate act of taking. Tonight there was no going just so far, no toeing the line, no holding back, and when the mere wringing of necks didn’t satisfy his lust, he bloodied his hands in the carving of hearts from their hosts.
The humans who ruled the First Ward did so by boodling—taking money—but for him there was nothing so gratifying as to hold in his hand the beating heart of another. It was the ultimate surrender of one creature to another, the transfer of the victim’s strength and power to the victor. The practice of cutting out hearts was a part of his Indian heritage, as natural to him as worshipping the land he walked on. The paths of his three worlds intersected all the time, but sometimes the paths through the Indian and vampire worlds were indistinguishable. Only when his yearning for Chausch demanded attention, as it did now that his work was done, was he reminded that he belonged to the white world as well.
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