by Misty Evans
I withdrew the dagger hidden in a shoulder holster and flashed it to get their attention. “Because I’ve got news for all of you. The first one of you that lays a hand on me is going to bleed silver.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Where have you been?” Di shoved the dagger aside and hugged me tight. “We’ve been so worried. You just disappeared with no word. Are you all right?”
“I was with Rad and Maddy. I’m fine.”
She looked me over, keeping one arm around my shoulders. Turning to face Rad and Maddy, she shook a motherly finger at them. “Shame on you for kidnapping her at a time like this. You all could have been killed.”
I glanced at Damon and Dru, my intuition running amok. Magic zigzagged in the air, its energy spiking and falling with their emotions. “At a time like this? What this? Did something happen?”
Dumb question. Obviously the get together wasn’t a simple welcome home party or the intervention I’d suspected.
Dru leaned against the fireplace mantel, his eyes tired and resigned. “Toel escaped Carpathia.”
Che cavolo. “How the hell did that happen?” I held up a hand before he answered. “Wait. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear it.”
I started toward my stairs. Damon’s voice stopped me as I reached the bottom tread. “Maria has escaped as well. We believe she’s the one who released Toel from his cell.”
Hand on the newel, I hung my head. A weird vibe was coming off Damon and I knew why. He couldn’t quite look me in the eye, remembering his earlier behavior. “Your quarantine cell doesn’t work on ghosts, I take it?”
“I believed it would, but I have never had the opportunity to experiment with a ghost of Maria’s caliber.”
I almost laughed. Not because it was funny. Funny was the last thing I’d say about this goatfuck. No, I almost laughed because I was so stupid. Stupid to believe I could defeat Maria so easily. Stupid to have not sunk my cherry wood stake deep in Toel’s heart.
Stupid to have bought into the dream Rad and Maddy gave me a peek at that morning. The one suggesting I could ever live a normal life. A happy life.
“Is Salmad all right?”
“After some healing, the priest is fine.” Damon finally looked me in the eye. “We discussed what Maria did to both of you. We believe in both instances, she was trying to take over your bodies.”
Again, I held back a frustrated laugh. The seven deadly sins had once coexisted nicely inside a human before Jesus ripped us out and separated us, placing his son-of-God magic spell on us and casting us as entities with flesh and blood into the world. Maria seemed to be planning to bring us back together as one. How insane and weirdly cool.
Dru caught my eye. “Intel suggests Toel is once again raising his army and plans to attack soon.”
“That’s swell. Good luck with that.”
I took a couple of steps, feeling every one of my three hundred years.
“Kali,” Dru’s voice sounded the way I felt. “Humans will die by the hundreds if not thousands if you don’t help us stop him.”
Whirling around, I set my death glare on him. Dark energy sparked between us. Dark and sexual. Damn. “Don’t you dare put this at my feet. If you’d allowed me to do my job and take out Toel to begin with, instead of tying my hands with your petty Undead politics, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
He stepped forward, all heat and anger and lust. “Petty? He killed my father. My liege. The creator of the entire Undead Nation. Toel must be made an example of what happens to a vampire, any vampire, royal or not, who stages such a coup. Who breaks our laws and flaunts our traditions. There will be complete anarchy if we don’t.”
I stomped down the steps, got in his face. “Anarchy? That’s what you’re afraid of? A bunch of vampires killing each other? Well, guess what? That’s exactly what Toel’s going to do now. Create anarchy. And while he’s killing you and your brothers, he’s also going to wipe out Chicago’s human population. How’s that for anarchy?”
The energy between us swirled and my lower parts tingled. My nipples puckered.
Damn it! I do not want Dru, I told myself in no uncertain terms.
Too bad my lower parts, as well as those much higher, weren’t listening. His blood—the blood he’d shared with me—was heating up.
He raised a roguish brow and challenged me. “As queen of the Central United States, you will assist me in stopping this war.”
He was calling up his royal dick and showing me how big it was. Pushing it in my face. As his slave, the blood in my veins responded, wanting me to kowtow to him, but I held my ground, physically, mentally and magically. It was time he learned that if he shoved his royal self in my face, I might bite something off. “As queen of the Central United States, I’ll be changing a few of your fucking rules and traditions. If you survive the coming holocaust. Quite honestly, at this point, I’m thinking Toel’s the smartest, most powerful vamp on this planet, and I’d be smart to switch sides.”
That did it. Dru’s magic hit me full force. I was ready for it, and threw mine at him as well. The air crackled as if lightning danced between us. My stupid parts throbbed, nearly in pain from the swell of desire sweeping through me, and I sucked in a breath. His pupils were huge and he was breathing hard. The smell of sex met my nose and I flinched. We weren’t even touching each other, and yet, here we were, magically locked in a tug of war that somehow mimicked sex.
Too weird.
“You overstep your boundaries, demon,” Dru snarled. His fangs descended.
Unable to restrain myself, I pointed a finger at his chest and gave a shove. “I haven’t even begun to overstep my boundaries with you, you blood sucking piece of…”
Suddenly I was lifted off the ground and swung around to face the stairs again. Briny ocean scent replaced Dru’s sex smell as Rad kept an arm around my waist. “Back off, Dru.”
“Or what?” he challenged.
The muscles in Rad’s body tightened and he stepped toward the vamp Master. The table lamps vibrated on their bases. A stack of his music swirled into the air. I struggled against him, but he held tight, keeping my feet off the ground. “Or I’ll hang you up by your toes and cut your cold, dead heart out.”
There was scuffling and Cole intervened. “All right, children. Enough.”
Rad backed up, me still in tow. The stuff in the room settled down even though his emotions continued to be erratic and chaotic. It was cute that he was standing up for me, but I could handle Dru, tingly parts notwithstanding. “Put me down.”
He did reluctantly, but I was in control again. I stayed several feet back from Dru, locked eyes with him. “No more contracts, no more of you calling the shots with regards to Toel. If I go after him, I do it to save humans, and I answer to no one.”
I switched my focus to Damon. “Not even the Bridge Council. If you two hadn’t stopped me from killing the testa de cazzo in the first place, none of this would be happening. And if any humans get hurt because of Toel Chase? The blame lies with both of you.”
Damon’s lips thinned. “May I have a word with you in private?”
I knew what he wanted…to discuss his earlier actions, although I doubted I’d ever hear an apology from his mouth. I didn’t need one and I was too emotionally strung out to get into with him. We didn’t have time, nor did I have the inclination, to analyze what had happened. “No you may not. What happened between us was because of Maria’s magic, nothing more. So drop the guilt and don’t buy into the idea that there was more to it than that.”
Curious stares assaulted us. Damon’s jaw tightened, released. “You are impertinent, demon.”
“I work at it. Guess I’m just a cross you have to bear, boss.” I turned to JR, who’d spent the entire time playing a game on a new tablet computer I was sure I’d paid for. “What are you doing here?”
Flustered out of his gaming stupor, he stood abruptly, glanced at my chin and then around the room. “I’m tracking Toel.”
; “Tracking him how?”
He touched a couple of places on the tablet’s screen, held it up. A map of the Chicago area appeared with a blipping red dot.
Brianna stepped forward. “I inserted a tracking device on Toel while he was in custody. Under the skin on the back of his neck. He was unconscious when I did it. JR’s been able to keep tabs on him since.”
Well, what do you know? Apparently, Cole’s training lessons were actually working. “Nice job. Why haven’t you picked him up?”
Dru circled us, keeping his distance from me while looking at the tablet and the blipping dot. His face was full of loathing and the energy rolling off of him was tight with anger. “We tried twice, and both times, he disappeared like smoke.”
“Like a ghost,” Cole amended. “We think Maria’s putting up some kind of smoke screen around him.”
In my mind, she was the real threat. I needed to take care of her before I could corner Toel and stake his sorry Undead ass.
Staring at the dot, which appeared parked on a side street west of Lake Forest’s downtown area, I ran various scenarios through my head. Know your enemy. Know his weakness. “He’s not moving. He’s ditched the tracking device.”
“He’s sleeping,” Dru said, nodding toward the tall windows across the room where weak sunlight filtered through. “Daylight finds most of us asleep, and his time in captivity was, shall we say, strenuous. He needs to recoup his strength before he can attack.”
“How soon will his army be ready?”
JR messed with the touchscreen and the view of Lake Forest zoomed out to include the entire Chicago metro area. “Intel suggests he has three groups of vampires stationed here, here and here.” He pointed to three random places with a stubby finger.
Except they weren’t random. I mentally watched as Chicago became a 3D game board with Toel’s minions lined up like Battleship pieces in the three distinct zones JR had pointed out.
It was startling, like I was seeing inside Toel’s mind. “Do you see that?” I asked Dru.
He glanced at the map again. “What?”
So he didn’t see the Battleship scenario. Interesting. “Last night, when you and I spoke on the phone, I could literally see you in my mind. I thought I was imagining it, but now I’m not so sure.” I pointed at the tablet. “When I look at this, I see Toel’s strategy. Or at least his initial strategy.”
Everyone stared at me like I’d suddenly turned into a Klingon. Maybe I had. The energy in the room spiked again, but this time it was full of more than simple curiosity. Surprise, yes, but it was laced with fear.
“I’m picking up…vibes, I guess is the best way to describe it.” The realization that I could now detect what Vlad’s sons were thinking and doing sent my stomach to my knees. Mix a high-powered demon, who might be one of the original sins, with royal vamp blood, and you get…
Me.
A freak of colossal proportions.
“I need a moment,” I said, grabbing the tablet and heading toward my home office. The link to Toel was extremely weak, but maybe if I could get away from everyone’s judgmental energy and rollercoaster magic, I could coax it into a full-blown psychic connection. Talk about knowing your enemy.
Rad followed me and I didn’t try to stop him. There was no judgment in his energy, no fear. Only concern.
But as I walked into my office, I heard him say, “She wants to be alone.”
Damon’s commanding voice responded. “Get out of the way, Chaos demon.”
Rad was blocking the door. I expected him to tell Damon off. Respond with some kind of snarky comment. Instead, he lowered his voice, said something cajoling and pulled the door closed, leaving me alone.
Drawing a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I rubbed my temples and sat down. Concentrating on Toel, I stared at the blipping light. Even though Brianna was sure he hadn’t known about the tracking chip, I had my doubts. He’d outsmarted me on more than one occasion, and I was gun shy about taking anything for granted.
Staring unblinking at the red dot, my vision fuzzed out and I opened all my preternatural senses. My physical body melted away and I felt like I was flying. This was new.
I didn’t fight it, whatever it was. Astral projection, maybe? The sensation of being ungrounded induced a small amount of anxiety, but I squelched it and opened myself up farther. After a couple of seconds, the last of my inhibitions disappeared and I found myself riding a different plane of consciousness.
I’d like to say it was all wowie new age fun. You know, wind in my hair, a taste of heaven or whatever. For me, it was none of those things. It was scary as hell. Like riding the world’s most intense roller coaster. Heart-stopping plunges, cobra rolls that made me want to vomit, spinning unceremoniously around in the air with no metal bar to hang on to.
My demon freaked. I freaked. For several moments, I thought I might be plunging to purgatory, but then, what do you know, I leveled out. Took control again. My heart was still in my throat, but I sensed Toel’s magic, guiding me in like a beacon. Or maybe it was his blood. Either way, I locked onto it and let it pull me in.
The second my magic rubbed up against Toel’s, it recoiled, my hate for him running deep. But my magic also shifted slightly in a new direction. I had royal vamp blood in my system, the same blood running in his veins. My magic, my body and my mind all identified with that, and just like the way Dru had appeared in my mind when we spoke on the phone, I sensed Toel’s physical presence. Saw him in my mind’s eye.
Dru had been right. The vamp king was sleeping.
My sight was limited, but it appeared he was sleeping on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. It was dark and grimy and Toel’s dead seaweed scent drifted past my nose, the faint whiff of old motor oil and decaying wood mixed with it.
If only I could make like a ghost and transport myself to his location with a stake in my hand.
There was nothing directly drawn on the floor where he slept, but I saw the traces of magic all around him. Golden lines floating above the floor but connected to it as well. They formed an inverted hexagon around his body. Various protection runes, a few squiggles I didn’t understand but recognized as very old, very dark magic, added punch to the spell.
Maria. She was protecting him like Cole and Dru hypothesized. Or was it Vicky? I compared what I saw around Toel with the alarm spell I’d encountered at Dalinda’s house. There were similarities, but the magical prints were different. Like human fingerprints, magic was unique to each supernatural.
I spent a few minutes trying to infiltrate Toel’s mind, but it didn’t work. Because he was sleeping? Or because I didn’t have that kind of power yet? Maybe it was simply Maria’s spell. The only thing I could get from him was the 3-D game board image I’d seen earlier with the initial plan of attack.
A new level of exhaustion crept into my system. The sensation resembled holding back a dam of water and made my mind and my magic tremble. I shifted my focus to returning to my body inside my office and rode another roller coaster, albeit weaker, home.
The red dot was still flashing rhythmically on the tablet’s screen. I blinked several times, my heartbeat jumping around like I’d just run a marathon.
Rad sat across the desk watching me with a concerned look on his face. His hair was mussed to perfection, but his eyes were too tired, the skin over his cheekbones, too drawn. He’d been hiding his blood lust well earlier. Now, it was taking a toll. “Must have been some trip. What exactly were you doing?”
My brain felt as weak as the dim daylight outside. My limbs were lifeless. I knew Rad needed to eat, but I couldn’t feed him. Not yet. “Is everyone still here?”
“Yeah. Why?”
I didn’t answer him, rising from the chair and heading for the living room. It was time to prepare for war.
Chapter Twenty-nine
In times of war, correct positioning of troops is crucial military strategy, whether those troops are human or supernatural. The problem with positioning is that once t
he battle begins, troops must respond to changing plans, initiatives and counterstrikes. The environment shifts, the enemy goes a different direction, a system or plan fails.
I was no War demon, and the strategy stewing in my brain was outside my comfort zone, but as a vengeance demon, I understood how to use an enemy’s Achilles’ heel against him. Or her, in this case.
The various entities in my house were gathered into groups: Dru and Damon, Cole and Brianna, JR, Maddy and Di. I motioned them all into the sunken living room and gave them the info I’d obtained from the 3-D model Toel had provided. “Toel and Maria are definitely working together. They have three main initial strikes planned.” I zoomed out on the tablet to show the group the map of Chicago proper and pointed to the corresponding positions. “Carpathia is one. Obviously, Toel wants this because it’s the center of power for this region. Control Carpathia, control the Central U.S. and power is Toel’s greatest desire. Next, is the Bridge Institute.” At this, Damon and Cole both straightened. “Destroy the Bridge Council, anarchy will erupt between the supernatural population and humans. Maria wants this, and so does Toel.”
The last position was in between the other two. “Lastly, Toel needs Chloe’s blood bank, and that’s where he’ll strike first, tonight. Then he’ll go after the other two targets tomorrow night.”
“Why the blood bank?” Dru’s lust and magic were more contained now, although his body language and cold gaze suggested he was still pissed at me. “His minions will need more blood than Chloe has, so won’t he be looking for a large human event? Like a Bulls game or a concert to sic them on?”
“Yes, he will, and Damon will send scouts to the various public events taking place tonight who can be on the lookout for any unusual activity.” I looked at Damon for confirmation and he gave me a reluctant nod. “But remember, this is Toel. It’s all about him and his power. Chloe has between fifteen-hundred and two thousand bottles of high-quality supernatural blood at any time. Blood from many different species. He wants that blood for himself. Once he’s secured what he wants, he’ll worry about his minions.”
