Laws of the Blood 1: The Hunt

by Susan Sizemore

  She waved Selim aside when she saw him. He followed her reluctantly to the corner where her desk sat. She pointed to Geoff. “The bloodburn is eating him up. We have to help him.”

  Selim cocked an eyebrow at her. “We?”

  She looked disgusted, distracted, and very, very unhappy. She sighed dramatically. “We. You can’t do this on your own.”

  “Can’t do what?” Selim demanded. “Listen, Valentine, I do not have time for Sterling’s problem right now. He’ll be fine for a few more days. Not fine,” he amended as Sterling fell to the floor with a hideous groan. The boy clutched his belly and rolled into a fetal ball. Selim couldn’t stop the wave of sympathy for the young vampire, but he did try to ignore it. He forced himself to face Valentine squarely. “I have to put out some fires you started, woman. That’s my first priority.”

  “As soon as your clothes are dry.” She took a step back to look him over in all his near-nakedness. “You aren’t going to save the world wearing only a pair of briefs.” She crossed her arms. “Even Superman wears a little bit more than that.”

  He mirrored her gesture. “Can I borrow a cape?”

  “No. You can eat breakfast, and we can make some plans while you wait for your pants. Half an hour,” she added before he could protest. “That’s all I’m asking for. Then you can rush off as heedlessly as you like—if you still want to rush off heedlessly, that is.”

  Selim couldn’t keep from looking back at Sterling. The bloodburn had hit the boy fast. He recalled his own stupid, angry gesture the night before. “Stupid,” he muttered.

  “Feeding him before he was ready?” Valentine nodded. “Yes, it was stupid. Now we have to deal with the consequences.”

  Once again, Selim said, “We?” And how was it she knew about the burn? The feeding?

  “It’s a family thing,” she said and led him to the kitchen counter.

  There was a heaping plate and a full mug of coffee already waiting for him there. He hadn’t realized he was hungry until he’d wolfed down most of the high-protein breakfast. The thinly sliced meat was smothered in grilled onions, garlic, and mushrooms. Selim stared at the plate. He poked his breakfast with his fork. After staring at the remains on his plate for a few moments, Selim asked, “Who is this?”

  “Oh, just some strig I had in the freezer. For years, actually. Why, is the flavor off?”

  Selim looked from the plate to Valentine, then from Valentine to the plate, then back to Valentine. She had sounded so innocent. So very smug. “You’re not a Hunter.”

  Behind them, Geoff Sterling groaned again. She looked over her shoulder, gave a sympathetic shake of her head, then turned back to Selim. “Aren’t I?”

  He couldn’t take his gaze off the gentle little storyteller. She smiled. And changed.

  Selim jumped off his chair. It fell over backward with a loud clatter. He pointed at the monster, with the fork still grasped tightly in his hand. “You’re—you’re—!”

  “The Mother of all Hunters,” she answered around a muzzle full of hideous fangs. “Retired.” She sighed, and her features settled back into human form. “Where the devil do you think you got it from?”

  “But—but—” He was not used to being incoherent and didn’t like it one bit.

  “Where do you think Olympias got it from? Amenarib? Patrician? Auliara?” she went on naming names, mostly of people he’d never heard of, as he tried to grasp hold of his fleeing sanity with both hands. She crossed her arms and looked at him sternly. “I know you never saw me as a Hunter. How often do you show Siri that face? Certainly not when you’re in bed with her.”

  “But—”

  “How?” She attempted to look coy and modest at the same time. “It’s a long story.”

  He sat down in the chair that hadn’t been turned over. He managed to pry the fork out of his hand and put it down carefully on the counter. His heart raced. His breath came in great, sobbing gulps, like he’d run a marathon. He wasn’t taking this in—not into a mind already stuffed to overflowing with too many problems. There was a part of him—a raging, territorial animal part of him—that was deeply furious, bloodthirsty in the most literal sense, at finding another Nighthawk on his territory. Another part of him was shocked and ashamed that another Hunter had been on his territory for decades without his knowing about it.

  “I don’t get out much,” she said. “And I haven’t hunted in California in years. You were having Mexican for breakfast, dear.”

  She was so damned good, and she knew it. So confident of her power.

  “I have every right to be.”

  He snarled at her, but she only laughed. Selim calmed down, mostly because his curiosity won out over his instincts, his temper, and his chagrin. He leaned forward, resting his hands on the counter. He looked Valentine deep in the eyes. “If it’s a long story, tell me the abridged version.”

  She put her hands on the other side of the counter. “It was a gift from the Goddess. I do believe in the Goddess; it’s just the practice of her religion that I gave up.” She took a sharp breath, as if to catch herself from going off on a digression. “Once upon a time, which is the best way to start a story,” she went on. “There were great crimes committed by our kind against humanity. We were born of humankind and had no right to abuse those who did not deserve the life and the death we brought. We were powerful creatures; many forgot all morality. Those who wanted justice for our kind, and for the kind we were born from, begged the Goddess for a way to control the evil ones among us. This was long before the Strigoi Council was formed, by the way. That’s another story.”

  Another breath.

  “The Goddess sent dreams and signs to the most holy among us. The signs were interpreted to mean that one of us was to perform certain rituals and sacrifices and trials and the Goddess would grant our prayers. I got the short straw, hon.”

  Breath.

  “All right, I volunteered. I was young and fearless and strong and righteously indignant about all the evil goings-on. I performed the rituals, and . . . changed. It was one of those experiences you never forget but never quite remember. I believe I actually drank some of the Goddess’s blood, but it’s all very fuzzy. Transcendent, but fuzzy.”

  Selim listened to all this with a certain skepticism. A certain awe. A large grain of salt. But he didn’t disbelieve her. He’d seen her wearing the Hunter’s Mask, and it had nearly scared him out of his skin. Nearly given him a heart attack. He smiled faintly at the thought. That was what Hunters did, after all, gave heart attacks. He felt Valentine catch the thought. She laughed with him.

  “How much of a hold do you have on me right now?” he asked. “Was . . . that . . . change an illusion?” She stiffened with indignation and lifted her hands before her. Her claws came out . . . and out. “Good, God,” Selim murmured.

  “Goddess,” she answered. She leaned across the counter to rest her hands on his shoulders, pricking the bare skin of his back with needle-sharp claw tips. “Do you want a demonstration?”

  Selim shook his head.

  “Good.” She moved away. “Because we haven’t got all night.”

  Another groan from Sterling punctuated her words.

  Valentine padded across the room to kneel beside the suffering boy. She took his head in her lap and ran her hands through his sweat-damp hair. “You’re just hungry, sweetheart,” she told him softly. “Don’t worry, we’ll make it better soon. Won’t we, Selim?” she added with a significant look his way.

  Selim followed her into the living room. The bloodburn was so strong in Sterling that the air around him shimmered with heat. Selim stared at him helplessly; it was a sensation he was almost getting used to. It seemed like he’d been nothing but helpless since this whole thing started. Sterling’s back arched in a spasm of pain. Seeing the boy’s anguish drove the self-pity out of Selim. “Why is this happening so fast?”

  Valentine shrugged. “Trauma, maybe. Maybe he has some Rom in his genetics. Who was his bloodparent?” />
  “I have no idea.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Her fingers kept combing through Sterling’s hair. “He has to Hunt. Tonight.” She looked up at Selim. “You can’t do it.” Before Selim could protest, she added, “We both know why. Unless you’ve changed since I met you—and I don’t think you have.”

  For a moment, he didn’t understand what she meant. Then he sat down slowly, cross-legged on the floor. The thick carpet tickled his bare legs. He looked at Geoff Sterling. “Oh.”

  “You’ve never had sons,” Valentine elaborated. “Have you? Never made a male Nighthawk, either? You can’t, can you?”

  Selim rested his hands on his knees and took a deep breath. He probably looked like he was meditating. Inside, he was panicking at images of what was necessary in the making of any type of vampire: blood and death and . . . sex. He shook his head, looking bleakly at the other male. Revulsion twisted his stomach. “I can’t do that.” His gaze went to Valentine. “If I could—” He shook his head as bile burned the back of his mouth. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “I can’t. I thought there’d be time to get him to Olympias, or one of the others. But—”

  “No time,” Valentine cut in. “You fed him, Selim.” The words were harsh accusation.

  “I know he’s my responsibility!” Selim snarled back.

  “Then why aren’t you helping him now?”

  He watched the woman cradling the young vampire, comforting his suffering with her touch. He shook his head again. “I can’t.” It shouldn’t matter. He was too straight for his own good; he knew that. Too much so for Geoff Sterling’s good, that was certain. He focused on Valentine and realized that her concern for Sterling was real, but there were also streaks of triumph and cunning coloring her emotional landscape. There was a bright, considering glint in her deep brown eyes. “What?” Selim demanded. He reached forward and snagged her by the wrist. “What is it you want from me? What are you offering?”

  “Yevgeny,” she answered, meeting his look levelly. “I want Yevgeny. I want his safety.” She sighed. Her words rushed on. “It’s time he moved on from me, whether I like it or not. I screwed up with him from the beginning. I took a happily married man from his wife and children without his permission. Took him from a culture and career he loved because of my own needs. Do you know how we met? At a party at the Disney studio. He was part of a Russian delegation doing a goodwill tour. He was the official translator, and a spy, of course. It was the middle of the Cold War, after all. I took one look at him and jumped. It was assumed he’d defected, when a lust-crazed vampire had abducted him. He never asked for what he became.” Her face took on a dreamy, bittersweet expression for a moment. “He was so full of unfocused power, so beautiful and virile. I screwed him over. I thought better of it, eventually. Tried to make up for what I’d done, but my solution didn’t work. But I’m trying to help him as much as I can.”

  It was a touching story. Her sentiments were admirable. “Yevgeny,” Selim said slowly, “is dead.”

  “He’s not. I would have felt him die. He’s hurt, wounded, in pain . . . but he is not dead.”

  Selim would have felt it as well, having been so closely entangled with Valentine during their daydreaming. “Yevgeny,” he repeated, words and intent as hard as titanium, “is dead.”

  “No.” She was just as firm.

  “He threatened Siri. He threatened the child. Whatever condition he’s presently in, I will be putting him out of his misery soon.”

  Valentine jerked her arm from Selim’s grasp. “You most certainly will not!”

  “He’s insane, Valentine! That makes him a threat to everyone in my territory. I won’t have it.”

  “He needs help,” she replied, just as adamant as he was. “You’re going to find it for him.” She pointed at Sterling. “A bargain. I assume your responsibility for Geoff, you assume mine for Yevgeny.”

  Selim sprang up, fury seething through him. “No! Do you hear me, Valentia? No.”

  She rose majestically to her feet, exuding force and power. “It’s the only solution, and you know it.”

  Selim stood his ground despite the impulse to back away from this little goddess. “You can’t have everything your own way. You—” If Sterling hadn’t started screaming at that moment, Selim would have gone on at great length about her being spoiled, selfish, imperious, and impossible. As it was, the sound and piteous sight of the young man writhing on the floor did all Valentine’s work for her. The fight went out of Selim. All he could say as his shoulders slumped in capitulation was, “Shit.”

  Valentine patted him on the shoulder. “I knew you had some compassion left in your heart.” She turned and walked out of the room.

  Sterling fought for control while she was gone and managed to meet Selim’s gaze as Selim stared at him. The awareness fighting through the pain in those eyes was even more startling, and it stabbed deep into Selim’s conscience. Sterling managed to mouth a silent Thank you. He fought hard for control and even managed to twist up onto his knees by the time Valentine returned. She tossed Selim his pants and shirt, then knelt and put an arm around Sterling’s shoulders.

  The clothes were warm from the dryer, scented with fabric softener. He went back into the bedroom to dress and put on his shoes. When Selim came back, Valentine had coaxed Sterling to his feet. “What are you going to do?” Selim asked her.

  “Take him Hunting right now, of course,” she answered. “It was your idea, remember?” He didn’t, but she went on before he could point this out. “When you were Hunting Jager, you had a notion about taking out all the other strigs in town for their Hunt. That’s what we’re going to do, Geoff and I. Go strig hunting.”

  Selim wasn’t even tempted to argue with her. The night was racing past, and there was so much to do. He wanted to be with Siri more than anything else. He needed her, and she needed him. He closed his eyes for a moment, forced himself to keep his priorities in order. Siri would have to wait, damn it! This devil’s bargain over Yevgeny would have to come first. He opened his eyes.

  “Fine,” he told Valentine. “Do what you have to. I’ll check back tomorrow night.”

  Valentine gave a firm nod, then left Sterling to walk Selim to the door. “Go.” She opened it for him. “We’ll both do what we have to, and that’s that.” Selim might have said something else, but she pushed him out and closed the door firmly behind him.

  She collapsed weakly against the door and breathed a thankful sigh once she’d felt Selim’s presence moving swiftly away. “Elvis,” she murmured, “has left the building.”

  She waited a while longer before she moved. Geoff needed her, but she had to gather her courage first. That had been quite a performance she’d put on for Selim. Now, for the sake of the poor, suffering boy she’d talked Selim into leaving in her keeping, she had to turn in an even stronger performance. She had to find the strength to live up to her end of the bargain.

  She walked past the couch and out onto the balcony. She looked up at the stars, down at the walled garden of her Bunker Hill building, out at the skyline of the skyscrapers in the center of the city not too far away. This was her world. A few rooms and a view. A computer modem, a television, a fax machine, and a telephone fitted nicely into this small world, made it as large as she wanted. She wrapped her arms tightly over her stomach, protectively. It couldn’t be about what she wanted right now. Couldn’t be about her fears and phobias. Geoff needed her. Yevgeny needed her to keep her bargain. Selim, in deadly peril, needed her most of all.

  Then again, she faltered, maybe the vision wouldn’t come true.

  Her head spun dizzily at the very thought of leaving her safe retreat. The sky tilted down, and the steel and glass buildings in the distance rose up higher and higher. She knew they were going to fall on her, flatten her, crush her. She threw her hands up to cover her face, took a frantic step backward. If she could just get inside, close the door, draw the heavy drapes across the view of the outside, then she’d b
e—

  A hand grasped her shoulder. She backed into a solid wall of muscle. A reek of sweat filled her nostrils, and a shock of pain transferred from soul to soul at the point where Geoff touched her. Valentine gasped and spun to look into Geoff’s tortured face. He was beyond words, but his thought came to her clearly, acid-tinged with agony. How long since you’ve been outside?

  “Three years,” she answered honestly. “Give or take a month or six.”

  He gave a brief, curt nod. His eyes were full of pleading. Help me. I’ll help you.

  His hunger burned into her. Hunger for revenge as much as the bloodburn that desperately needed to be released. That he was on his feet and lucid amazed her. Pleased her. Gave her hope, as well. He was a tough one. He reminded her of herself when she was young.

  Why not? I’m your grandson, aren’t I, Lady of Snakes?

  Her eyes went wide at his presumption, at the blasphemy. Then she smiled. “So you are.” She patted his cheek, though he winced from the gentle touch. “And a smart little owlet, too.” At least his thoughts gave her a certain amount of courage—or at least helped return her focus. She could do this. Would. Must.

  She told him, “Wait here while I get my dagger.”

  Chapter 25

  SELIM HAD TWO choices after racing up the steps and crossing the wide, fountained plaza at the top of the hill a few blocks away from Valentine’s neighborhood. He could take the steep concrete steps that led down the sharp descent of the hill on this side of the plaza, or he could take a car of the old-fashioned funicular railway known as Angel’s Flight down to the street far below. He paused at the rail for a few moments, considering options, gazing down through the night at the old, beaten up backside of the city, sharply divided from the flashy new skyscrapers and prosperous housing just the height of the hill away. It was a long way down. Union Station wasn’t far from where he stood, the hour wasn’t that late. He could probably grab a seat on a commuter train out to Claremont.