by Isabel Wroth
Kerrigan took a deep breath, ready to place her call, eyes peeled for the pinkish-red flash of the tattered pieces of Cecilie’s spirit, when a dark, melodious voice spoke behind her and made her feel like someone had scraped icy fingers up her spine.
“I’ve been waiting for you, little witch.”
Truthfully, those were the last words any witch ever wanted to hear when visiting the realm of lost souls, and unfortunately for her, the voice was far too familiar. She spun around to face the demon of her own making.
It always struck her as a travesty that someone so evil and depraved could be as young and handsome as he was. Though, it was easier to lure one’s prey when they were too busy checking you out and thinking of sex.
After having met him for the first time, Kerrigan would forever think of Austmathr as the vampire equivalent of an angler fish.
His attractive features were the glowing light that drew in a victim, blinding them to the row of vicious teeth waiting to rip into their flesh.
In their previous discussion, Austmathr claimed to have been made a vampire sometime between 1200 and 1210 in Byzantium, which put him comfortably past the thousand-year-old, range.
He remembered his people were Macedonian and had been wealthy, but beyond that, the details of his life as a human were hazy.
Austmathr looked exactly the same as the last time she’d seen him, gaunt and dead, but still undeniably handsome. His face was too narrow to be called classically attractive, but there was an arresting quality to his sharp features.
He looked like someone who’d spent years in the sun, then been closeted away from the light. The faded kiss of sunlight made him seem more alive and less of a living marble statue, like Etienne.
Austmathr’s hair was thick and black, falling around his shoulders in gentle waves. He had what Kerrigan liked to think of as ‘villainous eyebrows.’ Thick and sharply arched over frigid blue eyes, which led Kerrigan to believe there was some Roman or Greek influence in Austmathr’s family tree.
The only soft things about his face were his thick, feminine lips.
He looked to be in his twenties, broad-shouldered, but lean as a whip. Wiry, even. Certainly not the physically imposing type one would think of when picturing a dangerous predator. Which just stood to make him that much more dangerous.
According to him, it was purely by chance one of his progeny managed to get the drop on him.
That was the trouble, Austmathr claimed, with choosing the finest warriors. Too often, they rose up to bite the hand that oppressed them.
Gee, what a shocker.
In their short time together, Kerrigan learned Austmathr was cruel beyond measure, with a taste for big, virile warriors, and as twisted as a fairy when it came to words of any kind coming out of his fanged mouth.
It gave her an unseemly amount of pleasure to mess with him.
“Piss off, Aussie. I don’t have time for you tonight.”
Austmathr slapped the pillar closest to her. “You will make time, foolish girl!”
Kerrigan wanted to rub it in Austmathr’s face that Maksim was waiting for her, but it never did any good to brag. He was too old and much better at playing games than she was.
“No, I won’t. I have a job to do.”
“A job finding the wench who stole a spellbook and a potion for Etienne Rodolpho?” Austmathr hissed with the unnerving expression of a snake about to strike.
Kerrigan let her eyebrows rise in response, neither confirming nor denying her purpose, which made Austmathr spew curses under his breath, pacing back and forth in the most distracting way.
“Do you have any idea what that stupid little imbecile will do with the power to walk in the sun? He already thinks of himself as some sort of king, sitting atop his golden throne—the one he stole from Loius the fourteenth! He will imagine himself king of the vampires when our people have always been governed by a body of elders.
“For certain, many of those decrepit windbags are corrupt, but none of them are so arrogant as to think they can horde the power for themselves and become a solitary ruler. It’s been attempted before and always results in a war so bloody vampire kind are slaughtered nearly into extinction.
“With Etienne at the helm, the destabilization will trickle down to every faction of supernatural creatures, the imbalance so great it will not be undone, and once that painted little prick has finished bringing the vampire nation to its knees, he will seek to take over the rest of you.”
Kerrigan sighed and threw up her hands. She couldn’t concentrate with Austmathr’s energy slapping at her like angry waves against the shore, which meant she was stuck listening to him rant.
“I took the guy’s money and gave him my word—”
“So now you are a whore for hire to anyone who offers you an outrageous amount of money? And don’t think I don’t know just how much you took him for.”
Austmathr shook his fist at her, but the gleam in his eye might have been something close to pride.
“Says the man who started a company of mercenaries and assassins and sold their services to the highest bidder.”
With no way to refute it, Austmathr clicked his tongue and gave a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Fine, fine. We are both whores, but tell me you see the danger in what you are doing?”
“Of course I do. I’m not an idiot.”
“But you still plan to keep secrets from your mate and deliver this spirit to Etienne, as promised?” Austmathr pressed, pacing around the folly like a lion circling his prey. The long, fur-trimmed brocade robe he wore flared dramatically in his wake.
Kerrigan wondered how long she’d been down here already. She’d set a timer on her phone, and Maksim had instructions to turn on the blaring bagpipe music she liked to use as a wake-up call.
“Am I boring you, wench? We’re only discussing the fate of the future. Your future.”
She pressed her fingers into the corner of her eyes, surprised to learn she could get a headache in limbo.
“I’m guessing you’re here—oh, magnanimous one—to tell me what I should do with these pieces of a soul I haven’t finished collecting and a potion that might not even exist.”
“No, I’m here to command you not to keep secrets from Maksim and to make a deal with you.”
“I’m not giving you blood,” she told him flatly, giving another thought to the non-disclosure agreement.
Was there anything in there stating she couldn’t share the information of her business with her mate?
She’d have to review it, but it wasn’t as though she’d used a binding handshake spell… there really wasn’t anything keeping her from telling Maks, except her honor.
“More’s the pity.” Austmathr sighed, giving the collar of his robe a prissy tug. “But it’s not blood I’m after this time. I’m going to find all those pieces of Cecilie Ancel for you, and in return, you’re going to give the potion—if it exists—to Maksim.”
Her face must have given away her outright shock because the weasel actually smiled. It was toothy and anything but pretty, and he reached into his robe to pull out a shimmering clump of what looked like raw silk, glowing a faint pinkish-red.
The sigils on the backs of her hands lit up like halogens. Definitely, Cecilie’s.
Austmathr waved the piece of Cecilie’s soul at her, like he was offering a puppy a sweet treat.
“Do we have a deal?”
Kerrigan crossed her arms over her chest and cocked a hip. “No, we do not have a deal. No doubt you’re going to say something quippy, but you haven’t explained why Etienne can’t have the potion, but Maksim can.”
“Let’s not pretend as though you haven’t already considered giving it to him, and I shan’t be… quippy.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, wondering how Austmathr was able to move through the different realms of the underworld and capture other spirits.
“Alright. I won’t pretend, but I know my own motives. What I’m worried about
are your motives. Hand over that fragment, and I’ll listen to what you have to say.”
Austmathr glared at her for a few silent moments, as though that deathly stare alone could bend her to his will.
Kerrigan shook her head, wondering if all vampires learned that look. “Etienne tried that on me, and I’ll tell you what I told him: you clearly want something from me, and I need to know why. No explanation, no deal. I don’t have all night.”
Maksim’s vampire daddy cursed like the lowest born sailor but thrust the fragment at her with a baleful look.
She took it, careful not to let her hand touch his, and wrapped her fingers around the silken bundle with a murmur, sending it straight into the sapphire. Once she felt it settle inside the gem, she nodded.
“Alright, Aussie. I’m listening.”
“I detest it when you call me that!” he seethed, which only served to make her smile
“I have no plans on stopping anytime soon,” she told him with a cheerful grin and a tap to her wrist. “Why Maks and not Etienne?”
“Because of all my progeny, he is the most disappointing!” Austmathr punctuated his half-shout with a slam of his fist to her folly. The stone trembled—an echo that sounded like stone skittering across a frozen lake.
Kerrigan did not like it one tiny little bit that he had the power to physically affect what was essentially her mind. She was going to ask Astrid for another psychic astral scan as soon as the sun came up.
“Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a power no other vampire should possess…”
Austmathr resumed his pacing, folding his hands behind his back, the hem of his coat swishing in a rhythmic sway.
“As a human, my Maksim was a force to be reckoned with. I chose him because he was loyal and because there wasn’t a warrior in his regiment more respected or decorated by the king of his time. He is most certainly not like you and I, willing to service anyone with enough coin to buy us.
“Of all the others I have sired over the centuries, Maksim is the only one to have anything resembling a conscience. You should have seen how pathetic and remorseful he was each time he lost control of himself as a fledgling and slaughtered innocents to slake his thirst. Had he spent more time under my tutelage, perhaps he would have turned out differently.”
“Differently? You mean if you’d had more time to torture and burn him, he’d have done away with that whole pesky, inconvenient morality problem of his, huh?”
Austmathr pulled a face like he’d just been crop dusted by a troll. “He believes in right and wrong and sees very few shades of gray.”
“You say that like it’s a terrible thing.”
“For a vampire, it is,” Austmathr insisted, spreading his arms wide to sarcastically gesture at her. “Now he has you, and all he wants is your happiness.”
Again with the fart face. Aussie really had a thing against morals.
“If he were to possess the power to walk in the light, he would consolidate his territory and protect it with the ferocity of a dragon hoarding his gold. He was already creating such an empire when he ran away—like a fool—to rescue you, and look what happened.”
Austmathr threw his hands up dramatically; the sarcasm coloring his tone suggested it was her fault Maksim had come to harm in the first place.
“He has no desire to rule, but without him, my house has become extremely unstable, and it is a problem of his own making. He needs to return home to his brothers and resume control. Now. You must convince him.”
Kerrigan circled her finger in the air, trying to get him to spill a few more details. “To get back to ruling your evil empire or to take the potion?”
“Both! Christ, woman, did you hear nothing I’ve said?”
“Oh, I’ve heard plenty,” Kerrigan assured him, starting to feel a cold tingle in her fingers and toes that said she should wrap this fun day in the afterlife up ASAP.
“So here’s my counter deal: I’ll do what I can to find the potion and keep Etienne from getting his grubby little hands on it, and I’ll support Maksim in whatever decision he makes regarding Armistice.
“In exchange, you’ll do the dirty work and gather up the fragments of Cecilie Ancel’s spirit to give to me without any further deals. Tax-free, no hidden service charges, or fine print. You’ll also answer all my questions—now and in the future—no bullshit, no answers wrapped in riddles wrapped in stupid vampire political crap.”
He went off on a quick rant in what she assumed was Macedonian, and from his tone, he was probably cussin’ up a storm.
When she just stood there, unresponsive to his violent outburst, he raked his hands through his hair and flung an arm her way.
“Yes, fine, I agree to your terms.”
“When I asked you before if you knew where Maksim was, did you know?”
Austmathr rocked back on his heels with a gusty sigh. “I knew he was alive, but not his exact location. I did not divulge because… well, because I didn’t want to.”
From the smirk on Austmathr’s thin, expectant weasel face, he wanted to see her fall apart. If there was one thing Kerrigan had learned from watching Ivy verbally spank her father, it was to not feed the beast.
Nothing frustrated a tyrant more than being denied the meal he was so hungry for.
So Kerrigan changed the subject. “I’ve been down here collecting fragments three times. Why are you here now?”
Austmathr gave a shrug and spread his arms wide with a smile. “The bond between you and Maksim is formed. He is mine, and now you’re his. Also, you’re still carrying my spirit anchor with you wherever you go, infusing it with your relentless determination, using the diamond as a worry stone to practically create an attachment between us.”
“Well, that’s not disturbing,” Kerrigan drawled facetiously, pissed off that she hadn’t ever considered the consequences of having not expelled Austmathr’s spirit sooner.
“If you don’t hold up your end of the deal, I’ll transfer your spirit into the lowest quality diamond I can find and fuse it to the inside of a sub-woofer at a night-club that plays only death metal.”
She delivered her threat calmly and coldly, thrilled to see Aussie’s eyes round, and his lashes flutter with surprise.
“You have a nice night.”
*****
It was amazing to watch Kerrigan work her magic. She sat perfectly still, her head tipped back toward the sky. Bathed in moonlight, she looked like a dark goddess waiting to be worshiped.
Not long ago, the gem in her hand gave a pulse of light, and he expected her to return to herself, but it had been nearly an hour since then.
She warned him the process of finding a shattered spirit could take a fair amount of time, and according to her phone, she’d been at it for just under four hours.
He wasn’t in a hurry, and sitting outside in the free air under the full moon felt wonderful. The quiet gave him time to think about how their time apart and Kerrigan’s fixation on summoning his spirit led her to pursue disciplines she might not have otherwise.
She was strong, clearly powerful, and had built a beautiful life for herself.
Had he not been captured, Kerrigan would not have become this magnificent being in front of him. He would have swept her off her feet, brought her to his penthouse in Manhattan, brought tutors for her in any subject she wanted to study, traveled the world with her, and continued to run Armistice.
She had her own business, her coven, a new house. She seemed content with this simplistic life.
Would it be fair to uproot her and ask her to join him in the city?
Did he even want to go back?
There was no denying his curiosity. He’d been deeply invested in changing the way Armistice did business, and everything he’d done had been with the goal to streamline things, allowing the company to do more than just hire out soldiers and assassins.
It had taken a herculean effort to bring his brothers around, but once they saw the profits to be made in offering pro
tection and security to both humans and supernatural creatures, they grudgingly agreed their former business model was old and outdated.
In only a few short years, their profits had tripled, their reputation for being the best unrivaled. He’d even managed to hire more than just vampires and landed three consecutive contracts with the human government to provide support in war-torn countries to the east.
Quickly, the soldiers of Armistice became known for things like hostage retrieval, rescue missions deemed impossible by the human factions, and specialized warfare.
It was a good reputation, one all of his brothers could be proud of.
Then, with the hiring of witches like Quentin Van Horn, the security jobs had come rolling in. Quentin offered all sorts of innovative ideas for protecting banks, museums, jewelry exchanges, and all manner of high-value items.
Quentin’s death, of course, had been a blow to that branch of Armistice, but it went on with rising success.
Before Maksim’s foolhardy rush to save his Bride, there had been talk among his peers that he was being considered for a position on the vampire council. Not something he had ever aspired to, but still, to be considered was a great honor, and it meant he was succeeding where Bronagh and Austmathr before him had failed.
The council would never before have considered one of Austmathr’s progeny for a seat at the table. In the dungeon torturing vampires who broke the laws of their people, certainly, but otherwise, his clan were treated as rabid dogs on an unreliable leash. To be feared and used by the council but never trusted.
Some nights, Maksim imagined Austmathr would be proud of his achievements, and Maksim hoped the company stayed true to the course he’d set them on, but as ruthless and hungry to swim in rivers of blood and violence as his brothers were, he couldn’t be sure they hadn’t reverted to the old ways.
Staring at her, Maksim wondered if Kerrigan would be proud of what he’d tried to do or if she would think him foolish.
Kerrigan suddenly sucked in a loud, gasping breath and hissed from between clenched teeth.
“Sonofabitch!”
