by Irina Argo
Simone watched as the image of Arianna shrank, and Simone’s vision zoomed out to Arianna’s surroundings. She clearly saw the building where Arianna was being kept, then the street where the building was located, then the village, the country, the continent. Bolivia. The pictures imprinted in Simone’s mind; she could reinvoke them whenever she wanted.
Her first impulse was to rush after Antar and tell him that she knew where Arianna was. She’d already started toward him, but then stopped herself. If she did that now, what would happen next?
She didn’t even need to think about what would happen; she’d seen it herself, hadn’t she? Antar would save Arianna and fly her back to the Legacy in his powerful arms, and she’d kiss him, and he’d revel in the feeling it gave him—and they would live happily ever after. Arianna would share Antar’s bed while Simone would forever be alone, dismissed and abandoned. The thought was too much to bear.
Hadn’t she sacrificed enough for her sister, taken care of her enough? It wasn’t Simone’s fault that Arianna was Queen of the Amiti and that so many found her so desirable. And ... Arianna would be okay. She’d looked miserable, but not as though she was in immediate danger.
Simone could help Arianna later, in a couple of days, once she’d followed up with Antar, made Antar hers. And let a little time pass to help Arianna and Antar forget this little incident with the kissing, and the healing and love and whatever else they had between them. Just a couple of days. No big deal.
Simone searched her mind and found the thread of her blood-bond with Arianna. Don’t worry. I’m coming, she told her sister.
And then she closed the connection. It winked out like a television being turned off.
A couple more days; that’s all she needed.
Yes. Just a couple of days.
Chapter 29
State Sucre, Venezuela
Two months later
Troubled, Theores stared out at the magnificent view beyond the sliding glass doors. The Royal pride was currently staying at a vast estate located in the higher reaches of Sucre State in Venezuela. They’d been invited to use it by a good friend of the King’s when Tor had expressed a desire to visit Venezuela. It would have made fantastic vacation lodging—it was loaded with amenities, including a full-time household staff and personal chef, and within range of four national parks with miles of undisturbed cloud forest and coral reefs. But this trip was business, not pleasure.
No, definitely not pleasure.
Something had gone seriously wrong. Two days ago. Elora had contacted Theores with the location where Arianna was being held. But when Odji and Anock had gone there to assess the situation, they’d found that the girl as well as Khay’s entire pride had disappeared without a trace. And Theores hadn’t heard from Elora since then, either.
What had happened? Had Elora had a change of heart at the last minute or had she been found out? Theores hated it when her plans didn’t come together. This one had looked so good in theory, but there’d been huge problems from the beginning. Tor had been gracious about it all, taking responsibility for what had happened to Simone, but that just made Theores feel worse. It had been her idea, after all.
Anock had engaged several of his Guardians to track the girl. So far, all they’d found was a gift-wrapped box addressed to Theores. Any gift left by Khay was bad news; the only question was how bad.
She sprang to her feet when Odji appeared in the doorway holding a box wrapped in pink paper and tied with lush silk ribbon. “What is it? Show me what you found. Wait—any chance it’s a bomb? Should I take it outside?”
He just shook his head and brought the package to her nose.
She inhaled and felt the insides of her nostrils curdle, the blood drain from her face. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
She was all too familiar with this type of “gift”: there were body parts in the box. Dear Sekhmet, please, do not let this be Arianna’s head. “Open it.”
Odji set the box on the side table and, with surgical efficiency, removed the ribbon and paper, then used a small knife to cut the tape that sealed its edges. When he’d opened it, he stared silently at what was inside.
“What? What is it?”
“It’s a head, a female head.”
Theores’s heart stopped beating. “Whose head?”
“I can’t tell. It’s in a plastic bag, and what’s inside is pretty messy.”
“What color is the hair?” She could hear that her voice was calm, but inside she was shrieking please, not red, not red, not red ...
“Brown. Long and brown.”
Relief flooded through Theores. Now there was just the small matter of finding the hopefully-still-alive Amiti Queen. She pulled the plastic bag with the head out of the box.
“What’s that?” Tor’s voice came from the doorway.
Startled, Theores dropped the bag. It hit the floor with a sickening thud. Staring down at it in horror, Theores could see Elora’s rotting face through the semiopaque, smeared plastic. And—the bag must have split open, because the room was suddenly flooded with the reek of decomposing flesh.
That was it. Gagging, Theores rushed to the bathroom and vomited. Breathe, breathe, everything’s all right. Or at least it will be, at least Arianna’s still alive. Quickly, she wiped her face with the dampened corner of a hand towel, rinsed her mouth, then went back into the room.
“Apparently it’s Elora’s head,” she replied as she returned to the room. Tor and Odji were staring at her. What—a girl couldn’t puke once in a while over a severed head in a plastic bag?
“Shit. Do we have anything other than a head?”
“Nothing,” Odji replied grimly. “I was out there with Anock earlier. He’s still there with some Guardians, but so far we haven’t found anything. It’s like they vanished into thin air.”
For a moment they all just looked at each other, then at the head that was still lying on the floor. Their plan had failed miserably, and the Queen was out of their grasp, held captive by Khay, who was revealing himself to be quite the sick maniac. Their chances of getting Arianna back alive were diminishing with every passing hour. And ... Theores wasn’t exactly known for her compassion, but even she felt bad that they’d thrown Simone’s half-sister to the wolves without anything good coming from it.
“Call Simone,” Tor suddenly said to Odji. “She’s blood-bonded with Arianna; she’ll be able to find her.”
Odji was back with Simone a few minutes later. She seemed distracted and depressed.
Tor noticed it, too. “Are you OK?” he asked, concern in his voice.
She nodded. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
“You look sad,” Theores said. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, really. I just didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all.”
It was obvious that something was bothering her, but she didn’t want to talk about it.
“I need you to use your blood-bond to locate Arianna.” Well, wasn’t Tor cutting straight to the point.
“I’ve tried. It doesn’t work.”
“The only reason Sekhmi are ever unable to locate their blood-bonds is if they block us.” The King was watching Simone intently. “But Arianna would be extremely interested in you finding her. Where is she?”
“Listen to me, Simone,” Theores added. “We understand that you are protecting your blood-bond. But we swear that Arianna will not be harmed. She’ll be safe with us.”
“I told you already, I have no idea where she is. There’s some kind of shield blocking our connection. I’ve been trying to find her since the moment she disappeared. Don’t you think I would have told you if I knew where my sister was? If I do locate her, I’ll tell you right away. Can I go now?”
Theores was almost certain Simone was hiding something, but she knew that stubborn look Simone had on her face. They wouldn’t be getting anything more from her.
Tor sighed and nodded his permission for her t
o leave, then tracked her with his eyes as she disappeared behind the door. Then he turned back to Theores and Odji.
“I leave it to you to make her talk. Odji, tell Anock to let his people know and also post on the web that I am offering a very generous reward for Arianna’s safe return. Make it ten million US dollars.”
After Tor and Odji left the room, Theores opened the bottle of Argentine Malbec waiting for her on the side table and poured herself a glass. She took the bottle and the glass out to the balcony, where she sank into the deep cushions of a reclining chair set up in the shade of the overhanging roof. The wine was one of her favorites, and she savored it carefully, indulging in its spicy blackberry-chocolate flavor. She’d heard that Malbec grapes thrive in sun and heat, and when she drank it, she always imagined that she was drinking the sunlight itself.
The sun ... damn, nobody but her half-brother Leon knew how important the sun was in Theores’s life. She really needed to fix this situation with Arianna, and it had to happen fast. Her life now depended entirely upon this girl.
Chapter 30
Constantinople, Byzantine Empire—
Hedeby, Danish-German border, 980-1001
Over a thousand years ago, Theores lived in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire and Europe’s wealthiest and largest trading city. Constantinople boasted the easily accessible and spacious Golden Horn harbor, which teemed with all manner of tradesmen, merchants, and dealers. Theores’s grandfather had been one of them, a wealthy silk merchant.
Unfortunately, neither Theores nor her mother, Anna, had the opportunity to share in that wealth. Anna had been cast out of the family when she was seventeen and pregnant, one of many young girls who had lost their hearts and virginity to the warriors of the Varangian Guards.
The guards, numbering six thousand fearless, honorable and loyal warriors, had been a gift to the Emperor Basil II from Prince Vladimir of Kiev, and had quickly become favorites of the Emperor.
The Emperor was far from alone in his affection for his ferocious warriors, though. The women of Constantinople also fell under their spell and were happy to provide them with the warmth of both their hearths and their hearts. Anna’s parents housed one of the guards, and innocent Anna was besotted with the handsome warrior. She became his companion and they spent many cold evenings in her warm bed. Not being aware that vampires existed, Anna of course did not know that her beloved was a Sekhmi, and it would never have occurred to her that their offspring would be considered a half-blood low-caste vampire, a Nightwalker. Anna was simply content, looking forward to getting married and having a child.
All too soon, Anna’s fiancé was called back to service, and left her with some money and his promise to return. Anna’s pregnancy became obvious to her family and they disowned her, turning her out into the streets. Her older sister offered her a place to stay, where Anna gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.
Despite being allowed to live under her sister’s roof, the whole family shunned Anna, blaming her for disgracing her family’s good name. Her life was miserable: she worked from early morning until late in the evening while enduring constant mistreatment and humiliation from her family. After eight years of abuse, Anna could bear it no longer and ran away with a sailor she met at the city market, leaving her young daughter behind.
By this time Theores was already being hired out to do gardening and housecleaning. The family had always mistreated her, beating her regularly for even the smallest indiscretion, and once her mother was gone, she bore the full brunt of their shame. When Anna abandoned her, Theores’s heart was broken; her mother had been the only joy in her life. Every night, Theores prayed for her mother’s return as she cried herself to sleep. One day, surprisingly, her prayers were answered—except that it was not her mother who came for her but her father. He had retired from the Emperor’s service, and had finally come to take Anna and their child to live with him. Devastated by Anna’s desertion of her child, he took Theores in his arms and carried her away, ignoring her aunt’s screams.
The following year was the happiest in Theores’s childhood. She finally had a family who cared about her; in addition to her father, she met her half-brother, Leon, who was three years younger and, as they later discovered, a full-blooded Sekhmi vampire. It wasn’t long before Theores and Leon became best friends.
But Theores’s happiness came to an abrupt end when her father did not return home one evening. She ran to the market, a place teeming with gossip, in hopes of finding news about him. There she overheard a conversation about three male bodies that had been found on a nearby beach.
She bolted to the shore and forced her way through the crowd that surrounded the corpses. The three bodies were totally burned and crumbling to ashes, but she recognized her father’s ring on a bony finger of the largest corpse. It was him.
Onlookers were whispering that it was witchery. What other force could destroy bodies like that? The man who had found the bodies was showing everyone a piece of paper that had been pinned to one of the corpses. It depicted three winged females with hair that looked like nests of writhing snakes.
Many years later Theores learned about the Avengers, the society of Amiti assassins whose trademark was an image of the Erinyes, the Greek goddesses of vengeance. It was common practice at that time for the Avengers to leave that image as a calling card on the bodies of their victims, a warning to all vampires. But Theores didn’t know any of that. She had not even the slightest idea of what she was; her father had died before telling her.
His death turned Theores’s and Leon’s lives upside down. Penniless, unable to pay for their lodging, they were evicted, forced to join the rag-tag groups of orphans who lived by begging and stealing what they could from the outdoor markets.
Every day for the next six years, they struggled to survive, sleeping in doorways and behind piles of garbage, often going for days with nothing to eat. Then Theores turned fifteen, and everything miraculously changed.
One day, while begging in front of one of the run-down inns that housed merchants and sailors from the neighboring piers, she was approached by one of the merchants. He offered to pay her a considerable fee to have “sex” with him. She’d heard from her peers that “sex” was fun, and the amount offered by the merchant was enough to house her and Leon for several days, so Theores agreed.
“Sex,” she discovered, was disgusting—but as far as she was concerned, a job was a job, and disgusting or not, the pay was impressive. The merchant must have enjoyed it, because he began hiring her regularly and recommending her to others. It wasn’t long before her services were in high demand.
Theores appreciated the steady income, but she hated prostituting herself. After each client, she would return to the inn and take a long bath, scrubbing herself raw. This was not the life she and Leon were destined to live.
They were so different than their peers. They were stronger, faster and smarter; their senses were sharper, and they were physically healthier. No matter how hard they tried to blend in, they always felt like outsiders. Theores often dreamed that out there somewhere was a tribe of powerful, confident, courageous people, and that she and Leon were their lost children. One day they would find them and become part of their tribe, their family. They would live as equals among them, with dignity and honor, happily ever after.
Theores’s dream came true—except for the happily ever after part.
Her new life began when she was twenty, on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood. If her profession hadn’t already made her a creature of the night, she might have noticed that she was becoming intolerant of the sun. Her other Nightwalker characteristics—accelerated motion, superhuman speed and senses, and retracting fangs—were emerging more gradually, and she hadn’t had a need for them yet. It started out as an ordinary day: she slept late into the afternoon, fixed herself something to eat, and prepared to meet her client for the evening, the captain of a merchant ship.
Unf
ortunately, this client had decided that Theores would fetch a goodly sum if sold at the Turkish slave market. He drugged her somehow, and Theores woke up to find herself chained up below deck. Horrified, she pulled desperately on the chains—and to her astonishment, they broke apart easily. She shot up the ladder, intending to throw her body against the locked door, and it smashed into smithereens. When she reached the deck, she smashed her fist into the face of the deckhand who rushed her—and watched it explode like a ripe pumpkin.
But then out of nowhere blades sliced across her chest and legs, and she collapsed to the deck. So this was it; this was how her life would end. She knew she was dying, but the pain was so excruciating that she only hoped death would come for her more quickly.
The captain kicked her in the ribs. “What a goddamned waste.” He turned to a nearby deckhand and commanded, “Drop this piece of trash overboard. Get it off my ship.”
The deckhand grabbed her ankles and started dragging her to the ship’s railing. She felt her back sliding across the slick trail of her own blood.
Then, through a thick haze, Theores heard a male voice: “Captain, I wish to buy this girl. I’ll give you three solidi for her.”
Theores still remembered the question in her fading mind: Why would anyone want to pay so much for me? Three solidi were what the average worker made in a month.
“Why do you want her, warrior? She’ll die before you can make any profit from her.”
“Just take the money, Captain, and I’ll take the girl.”
Looming over her was a huge Viking warrior, wild and intimidating. He wore a brown tunic with a wide belt supporting a long scabbard. Leather straps adorned with brass buckles crossed his chest. His knee-high leather boots were fringed and bound with thin leather strapping.
The warrior lifted her into his arms and carried her to a comfortable cabin on the upper deck, a cabin that only the wealthiest of passengers could afford. She lay on the bed, bleeding out, barely alive.
