Hell's Warrior

by Jaye Roycraft

  She knew nothing of his plans to strike at his enemies, of course. He carefully controlled her forays into the two worlds that were foreign to her, shielding the truth under the convenient umbrella of “business.” She’d accepted his explanations of where he went and what he did when he wasn’t with her, perhaps knowing it was best not to exercise too much of the curiosity with which she was so well endowed.

  He had but one last stop before heading home. A brothel on Clark Street was rumored to be for sale, and he wanted to look over the goods before making an offer. The Jade Palace had a reputation for class, which in the business meant the girls were older than twelve and were fed more than absinthe for breakfast. Snow Leopard, the white-haired madam who ran the Palace, paid her bribes to the cops without complaining and kept the robbery of her clients to a minimum.

  A young Chinese girl greeted him at the front door, dressed only in white stockings and a chemise fashioned from sparkly white material no more substantial than a mosquito net. Her small breasts were, as were all her assets, plainly visible through the whisper of cloth. Dark nipples beckoned like buttons to be played with.

  He introduced himself. “Che Kincade. I have an appointment with Snow.”

  The girl smiled as coyly as if he were a client. “Would you use the rear entrance, please?”

  He let out a long breath, but didn’t argue with the girl, tipping his hat to her instead and returning the sly little cat smile that all Snow’s girls were reputed to have been taught, along with other more tantalizing tricks. He strode to the rear entrance, his feet betraying his haste, but it was eagerness more to see Charlet than to close the deal. He stopped short of the door. Maybe he should just go home now. What the hell did he want with another whore house? But no, he needed this. It wasn’t the profit the Palace would bring, but protection of his territory. His purchase of the house meant someone else couldn’t move into the neighborhood. He opened the door, stepped into a rear foyer, and followed a young girl to a room halfway down the hall. The girl smiled, bowed, and closed the door behind him.

  Cade felt himself slammed against the wall. He blinked and saw the shaft of a metal lance protruding from the right side of his abdomen. He yanked on the cold steel, but it didn’t budge, and in his shock, he realized the tip was buried in the wall behind him. His body jerked again, and a second lance pierced his left side. The shafts pinned him in an X formation, preventing him from sliding his body forward off the shafts.

  The pain hit him at the same time as the voice from the rear of the room did, and Cade ignored the former to concentrate on the latter.

  “Don’t look so surprised, Kincade. You didn’t think you could send five of my men to the true death without suffering the consequences, did you?” Hammer stepped forward, the center of a semi-circle of vampires.

  Pain tore through Cade like a beast set loose to ravage his body, and it robbed him of his peripheral vision so that he saw only Hammer, dressed in his evening attire of black and white. He was tall and slender, and his slicked-back blond hair was as sleek as his guttural voice was rough.

  “Six,” grunted Cade, and he forced himself to ignore the pain long enough to draw back his lips in a fang-bearing smile.

  “Six,” repeated Hammer. “And this is how you rule the city? By killing your own kind?”

  “When they betray me, yes. When they work for me yet swear their allegiance to another.”

  Hammer spread his hands. “They’re entitled to their own beliefs, as we all are. Would you deny the undead that which humans are granted?”

  The lances had missed both his heart and spine, and there seemed to be no intent on Hammer’s part to kill him, but something in Hammer’s gray eyes promised more to come. The torn flesh that embraced the metal shafts quivered with the cold realization that Hammer’s “consequences” most certainly involved more than mere torture and humiliation. “When traitorous thoughts lead to traitorous actions, yes.”

  Hammer curled his lip, displaying one fang, and lifted a white-gloved hand. A vampire pulled a woman into the room from the corridor. She was dressed like the Chinese girl, in white stockings and a chemise of white netting, but the tangle of golden hair was unmistakable.

  “Charlet!”

  His cry was lost in her scream, and in his agony he understood completely the reason for his being pinned like a butterfly in a box. He threw his body forward, trying to pull the lance points from the wood paneling, but Hammer’s mocking cheer was his only reward. Cade stared as Hammer pulled Charlet to his bosom and smoothed her hair from her face with one hand and fondled a breast with the other.

  One by one the details of Charlet’s appearance struck him like blows, each more painful than the metal plundering his flesh. The tracks of tears marking her face. The stains on her thighs and stockings. Her red and swollen lips. The horror that pushed against the back of her eyes, widening them to drowning pools.

  “You didn’t think to keep your lovely bride a secret from us, did you? Well, she’s neither a secret nor yours any longer. Each of my brethren here tonight has taken her, and now it’s my turn.”

  His mind screamed at the words Hammer spoke so casually, but Cade forced his own words to a similar tone. “Hammer, let her go. This is between you and me.”

  Hammer laughed. “Of course it is.” Hammer grabbed the neckline of the chemise and tore it open. Charlet didn’t beg him for help or Hammer for mercy, and Cade would do no less. He wouldn’t give Hammer the satisfaction of hearing him grovel. So he watched as Hammer bent his head to her breast and tasted her with his tongue. Charlet’s pale nipples hardened, and Hammer suckled her long and hard.

  Cade strained against the metal embedded in his flesh and felt the strength leave his legs. He hung from the lances now, like meat on a spit, and helplessness unlike any he’d ever known washed over him.

  Hammer undid his trousers and rammed his prick against Charlet. She cried out, but with another thrust he was inside her, driving her back against the wall with every stroke. Her legs gave out, and Hammer held her by her hips to keep her from falling.

  Cade wanted to close his eyes, as if that would erase the image, but that would be a coward’s path, and Charlet deserved his strength. It was all he could give her. That, and a silent vow to avenge everything she suffered.

  Hammer loosed his dead seed into her with a final grunt, and his semen ran down her thighs to add fresh stains to her stockings. When he released her, she slumped to the floor. Hammer knelt beside her, pulling her hair behind her head and running his fingertips up and down her neck. “No marks. I’m surprised. You keep a sweet pet like this, and you don’t taste her? I thank you for saving her for me.”

  Cade exerted himself against the lances again, trying to pull them free of the wall, but all he accomplished was to bloody both the metal and his gloves. “Let her go. You’ve done enough.”

  “Enough?” Hammer rested the pad of one finger against a pulse point in Charlet’s neck and closed his eyes. “Enough? I think not. Six vampires, Cade. Six! Where’s the justice in our world? Where’s the law?”

  “I’m the law! I’m the doyen!”

  Hammer shook his head, opened his eyes, and gave Cade a look that was first soft with pity and then hard with defiance. “You don’t understand at all, do you? Well, tonight you’re not the law.” With that he dipped his head to feed at Charlet’s neck, and she fought him as hard as she could, pummeling him with her fists, but when his fangs pierced her, a strangled cry rattled from her throat and her arms fell to her sides. She was quiet as Hammer fed, her only means of communication her eyes. She stared at Cade, and pain and horror and sadness swam in their blue depths. When her eyes rolled up, he knew she was gone.

  Hammer flashed him a bloody smile. “Happy April Fool’s Day, Cade”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  THE NIGHTMARE WOKE Cade, as it always did. He gla
nced at the clock on the dresser and saw that only an hour had passed since he was last up. Thor would be back soon. He got up and tried to relax, but his mind churned on, mixing the tragedies of the past and present into a montage so dark he thought his head would burst from the power of the images.

  Charlet gone. Deborah assassinated. Red murdered. Vampires dying again at the hands of mortals. His own existence nearly snuffed out. His hard-fought peace crumbling. But most of all—his greatness was gone. He’d felt it in the words of the news reporters. He’d felt it in the assassins. And he felt it in his own tyro. They all thought he was weak. Finished.

  He took a deep breath and flexed his arms, testing his healed sinews. He felt strong. They’re wrong. He was the oldest vampire in the city. He was here when this land was a swamp that stunk to the heavens. He was here when Fort Dearborn was burned to the ground. He was here when the white man evicted all his red brothers and when man and nature conspired to burn the heart of the city. He was here through Hell, and he was still here. And he wasn’t leaving.

  He’d been born a warrior, and in death reborn a killer. He was still Hell’s warrior, but this time there would be no compromises, no negotiations. He made a vow now, just as he had done twenty years ago, but this vow was different.

  To hell with peace. If his enemies wanted war, they’d get war.

  SWEET SISTER, BUT it had been a long night. And it wasn’t over yet. Still, Thor was glad that Cade had assigned him the duty of taking care of Red and the safe house. It had given him a chance to say good-bye to her in his own way before turning her body over to one of Cade’s caretakers—those in his employ who took care of making sure property and bodies appeared and disappeared as needed. At Cade’s safe house he’d cleaned out the kitchen, thrown all the food out, and disposed of Red’s belongings, all but a few of the jewelry items he kept as a reminder of what he owed Cade.

  He pulled up in front of his own safe house and drew a long breath. Cade would be healed by now, and while there was a chance Cade was sleeping, Thor somehow doubted it. He opened the front door and was greeted by the sight of Cade perched like a king on a throne awaiting his subjects. He was cleaned up and as coldly perfect as always, his bronze skin flawless and his black hair as smooth and shiny as a raven’s wing. But something in Cade’s dark eyes was different, an energy that made them glitter and burn in a way Thor’d hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

  “Is it all done?” asked Cade.

  “It is. Your new car’s out front. It’s the silver Vector.” He flipped the keys to Cade.

  Cade snagged them effortlessly. “I saw.” He rose from the chair, his moves as smooth as oil and showing none of the weight of pain. “We need to talk, brother.”

  Thor watched Cade’s eyes, searching for a clue, and it was there. Cade’s voice had been calm, but the storm in his eyes belied the composure. “Sure.” Thor would show no fear, regardless what was to come.

  “My enemies think me weak, Thor.” He took a step in Thor’s direction. “Do you?”

  “No, of course not.” Before the final word left his lips, his back slammed against the wall, and he felt himself strangled and bound by a force that held him in thrall. He blinked and tried to speak, but Cade’s hands gripped his throat, and his gaze held him like a third fist.

  “You listen! You listen and you feel this. I am not weak, and I am not soft. My enemies will learn this, and you’ll learn it. I will no longer tolerate your sarcasm, your disdain, or your criticisms. You will obey me utterly, and if you cannot do these things, I’ll find someone else who can. Do I make myself understood?” Cade drove the words like spikes into his mind.

  The power took him and made him feel mortal. Like a disease, it invaded every part of his body and mind, rendering him blind and dumb, as new and open to the world as a child. And as helpless. The pain magnified his other senses so that he heard and felt all in exquisite detail. Every hair on his head felt as sharp and hard as a thorn, and the pressure of the wall against the back of his head rammed them into his scalp. The air he tried to breathe scorched his nose and throat. The skin on his face burned with Cade’s breath, and the words hurled at him were so loud he could feel the blood in his ears. He bore the humiliation of it all, for he could do nothing else, and it ravished him, laying him as bare and naked as a dissected corpse.

  Suddenly the pain was gone, and when his eyesight cleared, he saw Cade’s knees. He tried to form a thought, and the first was that his mind was his own again. The second was awe. He concentrated next on standing, for at the moment, nothing else seemed important. He pushed with his legs and walked his hands up the wall until he was eye to eye with Cade. He’d known him for more than a hundred years, and he hadn’t seen Cade like this since he’d first met him. And he’d never felt power like this before.

  “Do you understand me?” Cade spoke the words slowly, as if Thor was still the child of a moment ago.

  He nodded, not trusting that he had a voice to speak with.

  “What’s it to be, brother? Do I get myself a new tyro?”

  He comprehended the words. And he knew the answer. No. The word rang in his mind. He would not be deposed now. “No, I’m yours.” His voice sounded thin, as though it had been stretched, but it was steady.

  “Good.” Cade’s voice was light, as if they’d just discussed something inconsequential. “Now we rest. Tomorrow night you and I are going to pay another visit to Nate Burnham. He’s going to get double what I just gave you. If he’s been lying to me, I’ll kill him on the spot. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

  As if he’d argue any point with Cade right now. “No, of course not.”

  Cade nodded. “You’re sure you weren’t tailed from the house?”

  Thor kept his gaze on Cade’s eyes, as disturbing as they were to look at. He wouldn’t look down or away, not even after what Cade had just done to him. “I’m sure.” Cade’s mind-rape had been a test as well as a lesson. He understood that, and he wouldn’t fail now.

  Cade’s eyes shifted imperceptibly, and Thor’s skin crawled with the memory of the invasion into his mind. Still, he held his ground. He knew Cade had always admired strength.

  “Good,” repeated Cade, and Thor wondered if that meant he’d just passed muster. “Your room is the one down the hall. Tomorrow, then.” Cade turned his back on him and ascended the staircase, his steps as soundless and light as those of a cat.

  So Cade had taken the master suite. Well, it was to be expected. He followed him upstairs, put away the clothes that had been dumped on the bed, and took a shower. Thor stood motionless under the pelting water, hoping it would heal him and make him feel whole again. He tried not to think or feel, for his mind still felt as if it had been emptied and scraped raw, and the pondering of even a single thought made him want to cry.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chicago, Illinois

  April, 1894

  NO NIGHT HAD ever been blacker than this one. Death had been a constant companion, as much a part of Cade’s reality as everlasting life, but this one death sucked every glimmer of light from the universe. It plunged him into darkness, striking him as blind as the beggars that haunted the shadows of the Levee, for he saw neither the face of his city nor its inhabitants as he made his way home from the Jade Palace.

  Oh, but he was far from sightless. Visions of what had happened this night filled his mind, and they were more vivid and indelible than anything his physical eyes had ever seen. And eyes were what he saw. He saw Hammer’s as he took Charlet, orbs as raw with lust as skinned meat. He saw Charlet’s as she silently begged for her life—blue eyes so deep with pain they’d made him feel mortal.

  His guts had liquefied with the vulnerability he’d felt, as if his torn flesh, like a human’s, would take an eon to heal. His heart had shuddered, as if it were a mortal’s to be broken. When she died, he’d died
all over again. But there was no rest for him, no Elysian fields, only the purgatory of the damned. When they’d released him, his body had mended, and his heart had turned to stone, but his mind festered with the agonizing memories immortality would forever keep open and raw, like a wound that would never heal. Blue eyes. Golden hair. Hammer’s red mouth, glistening with Charlet’s blood. Cade’s eyes were open as he made his way back to his mansion, but he saw only these things, and he knew without a doubt he’d see them every night hereafter.

  He wasn’t sure how he got home, for he remembered nothing of the journey. Instinct, perhaps. Habit. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He was home, but it was no longer home. There was no life in it—no soft voice, no sweet scent—only things, meaningless and cold.

  Emotions that were foreign to him assailed him as the images of Charlet burned brighter. It was as though they were seared on the backs of his eyelids, there to be seen every time he closed his eyes. He stretched out his arm and touched the back of his favorite chair, and his mind reached into the past. Niano. The loss of his first love had sickened him. She’d been lured away by the French, and he’d been powerless to stop her. But he’d been a mortal then, a mere child. He was immortal now—a warrior unlike any this land had ever seen. And yet . . .

  He tightened his hold on the chair and flung it across the room. An oil painting, struck by the missile, shuddered against the wall and clattered to the floor. Vases and urns followed, pocking the walls as though prisoners stood before them to be executed . . . I’m impotent. Tonight he’d been unable to stop anything that had happened.

  Waves of red replaced the images in his mind’s eye, as if the inside of his eyelids were bleeding, and he saw nothing else that night.

  CADE AWOKE THE following evening among the ruins of his worldly wares. Furniture, artwork, crystal and china lay in mounds of shattered fragments like victims of a massacre. The sight shamed him. It wasn’t that he mourned the loss of his pricey possessions, but that his loss of control was unbecoming to someone of his power. He was no child, as when he’d lost Niano. He was no victim to nature’s wrath, as when fire had consumed much of his city in the Great Chicago Fire scant years before.