Aiden’s resolve wavered. He needed a friend—needed an ally who would truly be on his side. He didn’t care if there would be consequences. He figured he was already dead enough as it was and he couldn’t imagine how things could get any worse.
At last, he went to him, arms outstretched, and was met with a genuine embrace. A hard thump on the back. He was real.
“I thought you’d surely perish. I’ve been clinging to every scrap of news I could get my hands on. Hoarding every rumor.” Ales released him, but kept his hand clamped on Aiden’s shoulder. “I’m so glad to see you’re alright.”
“Did you know where I was?”
“I received word from an underground partisan your unresponsive body had been taken to the Western Court in Romsdalen,” he admitted. But with a new thought, he added, “But knowing how rough Cinder is I didn’t think you’d make it out of there alive either.”
The two shared a quiet chuckle, Ales’ hand smacking down over Aiden’s shoulder.
“And you? Why have you holed up here? There’s nothing left, it seems.” Aiden grimaced as he scoured the hall again.
Ales saluted Aiden at once. “Once a warrior of the Regime, always a warrior of the Regime. I would never abandon my position. I’d rather go down with this ship then jump off.”
“Yes. You’ve always been steadfast, Ales,” Aiden agreed. “Foolish and stubborn, but those qualities will serve as attributes now. We might be on our own now, but there’s nothing we cannot fight through together.” His gaze dropped to his feet, before lifting slowly back to his friend’s face. “Even this. I need your help. Your loyalty. We need to rebuild. And I want you on my team as second in command.”
Ales’ eyes widened and he took a step back. “You’re… sure, my Lord?”
“Of course,” Aiden murmured. “No one has displayed loyalty as you have. Only Dalibor, but he is gone. You deserve the position. It would have been my plan after the coronation anyway.” Aiden held out his hand. “Do you accept?”
Ales’ face was severe, his eyes thoughtful. He nodded once.
“I will,” he announced, grasping onto Aiden’s hand, squeezing as tight as he could. “I accept. I will not let you down.”
“Thank you,” Aiden breathed. Relieved.
If he had no one else, at least there would always be Ales. Friends since childhood. Aiden knew Ales would sacrifice his life in the name of the Regime.
“That monster changed you.” His usually even tone sank into a seething growl.
“It’s better this way.” Aiden eyeballed Vladislov’s office again, sizing the place up and deciding what he’d leave and what he’d change. “This has made me stronger. I’ll be more of a match when the Dreaded Vampire and I come face to face again.” Aiden grinned with the idea of ripping Valek’s head from his shoulders. He planned to mount it like a trophy. He decided it would look nice surmounting his fireplace mantle.
“How do you propose we find him?”
“Oh, I have no doubt where to find him. His location isn’t my concern.” Aiden grinned and lifted his arms, circling wide as she gestured to the room around them. “All in good time. First, we have some other priorities. Thanks to Vladislov, we have before us a plethora of information still to be learned about the Light and what we can accomplish with it. I wish to be unstoppable, Ales.”
Aiden moved to sit in the same, enormous chair where Vladislov once sat, studying tomes, passing laws, engaging in embassy affairs, and everything else it took to run an occult district.
“Here sits the new lord,” he said quietly, sliding his still-bloody hand against the desk surface.
Slowly, Vladislov’s office began to brighten. Candelabras illuminated and a fire in the hearth breathed to life, unfurling a great, fiery tongue up into the flue. The cobwebs and dust dissipated into thin air, leaving the surfaces polished again. Just outside, Aiden could see bits of rubble pull themselves up from the ground and fit back into the holes in the walls.
“His legacy is ours now! The Regime. All the magic in the world. It is all ours! We just need to learn best how to use it.”
“Magnificent, sir,” Ales said, awestruck.
“We will take what is rightfully ours. The country. The world. I will rule without a woman at my side. I will take down those who have committed crimes against the Regime. We will destroy them all. Together, we will rebuild…and then we will take them down. One. By. One.”
Quarantine
“Ambassadors from every Occult sect in Central Europe will be in attendance during Lady Cinder’s conference this coming Sunday. Meanwhile, the Dreaded Vampire Ruzik, the very same Vampire who made an attempt on the late Lord Vladislov’s life nearly two decades ago, is still at large. Speculation surrounding the assassination attempt has plagued the Regime for twenty years. Unfortunately, some answers come too late—” an announcer on the old, analog radio reported until Dusana dialed it off.
“More bad news,” Jorge said in an undertone.
“It was only a matter of time before somebody would come to claim whatever’s left of the Regime,” Dusana answered. “We knew that.”
Lusian snorted and pushed away from the wall.
Charlotte’s thick scent permeated the entire study. It created this infernal hunger in his depths—a starvation that would never cease as long as he lived in that house. An unquenchable thirst which felt very much like hell on Earth.
Yule and the grand opening—both disasters. Even an idiot could see Charlotte’s disease was progressing. Valek would be better off killing her.
The girl only slowed them down. The sounds she’d make; hisses and screeches… she sounded more like one of them every night—beyond saving.
Her aroma flooded every surface in that house; the upholstery, the floorboards, even pages of books. It was maddening after Lusian tasted her on so many occasions during their time in hiding. Sure, he could live under the same roof as the girl. He could even pass her in the narrow hallways, but the impulse was still there. He still wanted her. He and Valek argued about it in secret for weeks:
“Let me feed on her. Just once,” Lusian begged. “It’ll make her feel better.”
“Over my dead body,” Valek replied each time.
“I didn’t hurt her the first time.”
“You didn’t hurt her?” Valek rushed at Lusian with his fangs bared and in his face. “How dare you? You’ll never measure the amount of hurt you caused—we all caused,” he amended. “Did you know every time her skin brushes against a sharp edge, she flinches. No. Of course not, because you are too selfish to see anything past your own hideous needs.”
Charlotte was sick. Very sick. So, what good did it do to keep tiptoeing around the fading little flower? Best strike while the blood was hot. Couldn’t Valek see how expendable she was? Couldn’t he see the time being wasted on something so temporary?
Thanks to their run-in with Salazar Quipp, he’d now and forever be heralded as the Dreaded Vampire Ruzik, a mongrel and a scoundrel. Someone to be venerated by all. He’d made a name for himself in the presses and in hushed conversation as one of the most feared members of the Dark in the Eastern Hemisphere.
But little did everyone know what a total drip Valek really was.
They wrote about him like he headed the world’s most dangerous mafia. It was laughable.
To the rest of magickind, Valek was a total badass. The idiot could hand-select any piece of ass he wanted, and instead he chose to linger over the sniveling, little, mortal insect. The whole thing made Lusian’s stomach roll.
“I’m thirsty!” Lusian slammed his fist against a bookshelf, wheeling around to find the others watching him.
“The Light magic in our blood is running out,” whimpered Dusana. “I’ve become weaker and weaker these past sunrises.” She slid her claws down her cheeks in anguish, drawing blood from her snowy skin. Her wounds healed next second. “There’s not been an Elf around this city for weeks.”
“She’s right,” continued S
asha. “Once the blood’s been absorbed, the magic will be gone. We will die at daylight again.”
“Sunrise, sunset,” sang the twins.
“You heard Valek’s warning,” Jorge piped up. “We need to lay low. Especially now that we’re circulating all over occult news, the lower our profile, the better. If that means sacrificing our daylight hours, so be it.”
“Shut up!” Lusian snapped. “I don’t want to hear it from you! You’re just like him.”
Valek was a coward. Now he demanded they run—go into hiding again. He and Jorge were making plans to leave. What should they be hiding from? They were stronger and faster than any other occult denizen. Everyone feared them. The coven of rogues had nothing to hide from. They never did. And if they didn’t hunt soon, they’d be reduced to their pathetic old selves—corpses at sunrise—ghouls at sunset. Bones coated with century-old dust magic.
Lusian missed the city. The air filled with the perfume of a million warm-blooded women, rushing, clumped together, filled with adrenaline. He licked his chops. Out there in the middle of the sticks, there was only Charlotte. Of course he was going mad.
Her scent—now that he couldn’t have her—made him want to peel the flesh away from his face. Valek wasn’t fit to lead a coven of mercenaries. He couldn’t even control his own emotions. He was a disgusting excuse for a Vampire, doting over Charlotte while keeping everyone else starving under his stupid rules.
Lusian needed the streets back. Needed the night. Needed the pulses of five whores at once. His insides felt dry. He wanted to swallow a living person’s heart whole—to feel their life exploding over his tongue. He smacked his lips together, feverishly wiping at them with the back of his hand. He made a finite decision:
No mopey Valek was going to boss him around any longer.
“I can’t take this. I’m going out. Not just beyond the borders. I mean really hunting. Humans. Elves. Wolves. Pigeons. I don’t care. Fuck Valek. We took down the entire Regime. Why fear anything? Who’s with me?”
Ana and Aneta looked at each other and grinned simultaneously.
“Where do you expect to find Elven blood?” Jorge argued. “Prague is far too dangerous a territory right now.”
“I’m dangerous if I don’t fix this!” Lusian jabbed his talon at the center of his throat and clutched his chest with his other hand.
Jorge pressed, “But Cinder Price—”
“—should go back to Norway to churn butter.”
Dusana shot a dark look toward Sasha, frowning, the pewter piercings on either side of her lips pulling down. What do you think?
The ebony Vampire slid his eyes over to Lusian. “Where you go, I go.”
They clasped each other’s claw, arms touching at the elbow in solidarity. His eyes were already awash in black, only a shade richer than his skin.
“It is not wise. Who knows where there might be empathizers waiting for us to slip up—get careless?” Jorge argued again. “Every time we go hunting, the risk becomes greater,” Jorge argued.
He was edging on Lusian’s last nerve.
“We need Elf blood anyway, don’t we?” Dusana threw her arms up. “We are more powerful than them. We’ve proven it time and again.”
Jorge continued, “You don’t know what they’re devising. They already know what to expect, so believe me, they’ll be prepared.”
“Then what’s the point of calling ourselves liberated? We are free, aren’t we? Wasn’t that the point of killing the old man—finally finishing what Valek started twenty years ago?”
“Valek insists we remain in hiding now more than ever.” Jorge insisted. “You saw the papers today. You heard the radio report. Everyone knows who we are. Prominent and big. Everyone knows what we look like. That scoundrel’s done this on purpose—he wanted to put a face to the group of beasts who brought down the Regime. Salazar Quipp isn’t a reporter, he’s a fraternizer. He wants us dead, just like the rest of them!”
“I’m sick of hunting these tiny villages only to find rats and dogs. I want real blood. Come on…” Lusian stepped closer to Jorge, his leather boots thumping loudly. “One night isn’t going to hurt. We’ll keep to the shadows.” He smacked his hands down on Jorge’s bony shoulders.
“I agree,” wheezed Dusana. “The thirst is becoming unbearable now.”
Lusian continued to reason with Jorge. “Remember that young woman you had…the student from Austria.” He stepped close enough to see his face reflected at him in Jorge’s wide, pale eyes. “You took her in broad daylight, at that train station, about two weeks ago.”
Jorge’s eyes shifted instantly to black with the memory. Lusian knew he had him then.
“See now? That’s what I thought. Amazing, wasn’t she? Her gushing pulse. You were high for four straight days. That’s all I want.” He fell back, spreading his arms wide, grinnig largely. “A good night. Good blood. A fulfilling catch. What do you say?”
Jorge clenched his jaw tight. He didn’t answer, but Lusian heard the lust swell guiltily under the surface of his prudence. Jorge was technically older than Lusian—more capable of controlling his urges. Lusian almost thought his restraint was a commendable thing. Almost.
Arid thirst crawled up Lusian’s throat and burned in the bridge of his nose, then behind his eyes. The sloshy, thick sound of Charlotte’s heart throbbing just upstairs drove him deeper and deeper into a wild hunger. He closed his eyes, imagining his claws ripping through her chest—tasting it—how warm and wonderful it would be as it filled his frozen veins.
Arguing about it any longer would only make him thirstier.
“Standing here bickering with you morons is useless. Whoever is afraid can stay here. I am hunting tonight.”
“But—”
Shoving past Jorge, Lusian gunned to the foyer, out the front door, and into the early evening.
The winter wind barely stung his skin as he raced down the narrow cobblestone pathway and into the town square. Festivities from the store opening had been cleaned up, save for a few leftover strands of garland and burlap-covered cups rolling around in gusts of wind circling with snow flurries.
The night wasn’t cold to him at all. There was just a small shift in the way the air smelled when winter came, the way the frost prickled against his face when he ran.
Snow, powdery and fresh, kicked up around him, parting in waves as he sped through it inhumanly fast. He sensed Sasha coming up behind him, and soon, he was at his side. Ana and Aneta were quick to follow, matching each other’s pace—as though their minds were fused.
Their story was an interesting one. He recalled their first night after Francis brought them in from the streets. The coven had tuned into their memories—instantly enraptured by the strangeness of them….
They’d once been Siamese twins, having been raised for a few years in a rundown orphanage before being plucked by some toothless carnie to join the traveling freak show. Their poor biological parents probably didn’t know what to do with them. It explained their odd sameness. Or their same oddness.
One night, after a performance, they were stolen—swept away by a man they referred to as the scientist. In truth, he was a Vampire gone mad—curious about what it would be like to transform two mortals conjoined. Lusian shuddered. The odd biology worked through their system, and when they woke again, they’d found they’d been separated, though forever mentally linked. Weird, but kind of hot.
“Where are we going?” Sasha’s voice was like a sonic boom over the impossible rush of speed.
“Kojakovice is the next mortal township north. Small enough not to create too much disturbance if people go missing, but large enough for us to get our fix.” Lusian grinned.
The jumbled sounds of more familiar minds ebbed at him then and he glanced over his shoulder to find the rest of the coven resolved to join them as well. Even Jorge was counted among them. Sort of surprising, but not really. A good hunt was impossible for anyone to resist, even a self-righteous little prick like him.
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Lusian raced even faster beyond abandoned Elven homes and through the tunnel of trees. At last, he felt like the coven leader. It was the way things should have been after Francis left. Before Valek came along, Francis named Lusian second in command. And Valek was clearly too preoccupied with his stupid Lottie to give much of a shit about anything else.
It was a moonless night, the sky blanketed by thick clouds holding the promise of more snow. Despite the darkness, Lusian could see every indigo and navy detail of the forest around him, the lengthy trunks of the elms, and the bristly foliage. Sasha let out a roar, warning any other rogue monsters in the area that they claimed this hunting territory for their own. The guttural sound sent a jolt of excitement up Lusian’s spine. He hadn’t heard it in a while. It aroused him, setting the tone for the havoc they were about to wreak.
Their collective hive mind melded together, listening as his thoughts laid out the map for the rest of them—the picture of what Kojakovice looked like and how the homes and taverns were set about the narrow streets and modest gardens. Lusian knew, because he’d been there before. It had been his town, when he was still mortal.
It was an old Bohemian settlement. No large buildings to scale. Not many people. Just small houses and barns sitting on the same dusty hills for hundreds of years. Once death had reclaimed him, he was able to escape his mundane life of hat-making. Lusian realized his real potential when he found other like him, joining their ranks to slaughter aristocrats of Prague, Moscow, Berlin, Paris. The more he took, the more he wanted. Politicians, opera singers, ballerinas, and billionaires. He thirsted for the fast lane once again. Now that the borders were reopened, nothing could stop him. Not even Valek.
The group shoved through his head, claiming homes, one by one, for themselves.
“This will be fun.” The twins smiled at one another.
“This is how we’ll hunt from now on,” Lusian continued. “We’ll choose the small towns—places that will capture the least amount of human attention. We should be fast and leave absolutely no one behind,” he concluded just as the edge of the village appeared over the hill. “It’s time we reclaim what we really are. Children of the darkness. Monsters. Demons. Blood-feeders. I’m tired of this humanity crap. If Valek hates what he is, that’s his problem. Not mine. This is what I was designed for.”
Of Blood and Magic Page 15
