King Takes Rook

by A. L. Kessler

  "Willingly giving me information on her? Typically I have to hunt it all down myself." Oliver chuckled. "What on earth could have changed your mind?"

  Levi shook his head. "She may be in more trouble than we're ready to handle, but I need you to lay low on the training and the magic mentoring right now."

  Oliver laughed. "If she's in danger, she needs those things more than any other time. Her abilities could help her in a situation where her particular flavor of magic won't."

  Oliver was being careful with his words because Mario didn't know that Abigail could control fire, and that was information best left on a need to know basis. "But it could also draw more unwanted attention to her." Levi opened the door to the library, and Mario and Oliver walked in before Levi.

  Oliver looked at Mario. "You're awfully quiet about the situation."

  "Levi made his choice. I'm just waiting for the aftermath to happen." Mario shrugged. "When it is time, the King's guard will do their job to make sure both Levi and Princess Abigail are safe."

  Oliver sneered at the title. "Abigail is no princess of vampires."

  "You'd rather her be a talentless weakling, and we get that," Mario shot back. "But eventually Abigail will have to embrace her title, especially since Levi has given her Ira's name to search."

  Oliver spun to face Levi. "You did what?" There was no missing the anger and hate in his voice. "Do you realize that you've signed her death warrant?"

  Levi glared at Mario and then faced Oliver. "Abigail will be fine. Most of the stuff about Ira is blocked in the system from her."

  "Ira probably has people in PIB watching that system." Oliver shook his head. "What have you done?"

  Levi sighed. "She's a strong witch, she'll be fine." But he didn't know who he was trying to convince. Doubt started to cloud his mind as both Oliver and Mario's words filled his head. "On to other matters, please. What is going on in Sol Ridge? Did you locate the boy?"

  Oliver shook his head. "I was able to confirm that he was taken, as were the others. I'm not sure who or what took them because it was completely blurry. A literal whirlwind blocked it."

  Levi's heart sank. There was a little boy out there taken by unknown creatures, and they didn't have a location on him, which meant little chance of finding him alive. "What are your thoughts?"

  Oliver sat down in one of the chairs and crossed his legs. He picked at the fabric of the chair as if he was bored. "I think we're dealing with a creature not of this world and not one who has chosen to make themselves known to humans."

  "Like what?" Mario asked. "There are many of those."

  Oliver glanced up at the two vampires. "Fae or Elves. Something of the elements for sure."

  Levi stared at him for a moment. "We haven't seen either of those in centuries."

  "I think they may be back for some fun."

  CHAPTER SIX

  Levi sat back in his chair and thought for a moment. "What on earth would they want with a warlock child?"

  Oliver shrugged. "The only thing they tend to take children for are changlings, but that's a bit harder to do when it comes to warlocks, the magic is different."

  Levi shook his head. "Okay, this is not my department at all."

  "She won't work with anyone but you. The woman, what was her name?" Oliver thought for a moment. "Ah yes, Laura. She doesn't want to work with anyone but you, Mario, and me. She's still convinced it has something to do with Ira who was apparently terrorizing her town?"

  Levi shrugged. "And then her husband decapitated someone, and no one has seen Ira since. It seems to be a complicated situation."

  Oliver stared at him for a moment, speechless for once in his life. "Do you still want that list of people?"

  Levi nodded. "Just to cover our bases. I'm not willing to admit the fae have come back to play yet."

  "Wouldn't that be fun?" Oliver mused. "They were such a wonderful people."

  Mario chuckled. "They were an overly sexual and violent group, but they were pretty to look at."

  "More sexual and violent than Hannah?" Oliver asked.

  "Yes, and they were better at it," Mario answered without missing a beat. "Now, I suppose there is a matter of payment."

  Oliver nodded and looked at Levi. "Off the property, please. I don't want you overhearing what I need from Mario."

  Levi raised a brow and looked at Mario.

  "Don't worry, if it's too bad, you know I won't agree or hand over information." Mario nodded. "Why don't you go ahead to the containment building and take a look at the vampires that PIB caught."

  Levi nodded. "I'll be back in a bit then. Make sure Oliver doesn't put a spell on anything. I get tired of him stealing information from me."

  Mario nodded while Oliver just leaned back in his chair and gave Levi a thin smile that told Levi that Oliver was up to something. The question was what.

  Levi bowed his head. "I'll let you two talk then. Oliver, thank you for your help. We'll figure out how to move forward when you and Mario are done talking."

  "Of course." Oliver shooed him away with one hand. "Now, please."

  Levi resisted rolling his eyes and sent Mason a quick text saying to meet there. Levi stuck his phone in his pocket and disappeared. Oliver might have been a shady warlock, but Mario could take care of himself.

  Levi reappeared in the front of the containment building and waited outside for Mason. The detective would take a bit to get there, but it also gave Levi a moment of peace to just be. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of night air. For a moment he could pretend there was no council, no Mario or Oliver, and he could just be himself instead of the King.

  Abigail's look of anger when she realized he had lied to her crossed his mind. He felt stuck between being king and being a father and protecting her. He didn't want to hurt her anymore, but there was no choice in the matter. He rubbed his heart as it started to ache.

  "You look like you're thinking too hard." Mason's voice caught Levi off guard, and he opened his eyes.

  "I was expecting you to take a bit longer."

  Mason shrugged. "I was close, and I knew you were going to stop by tonight. I didn't want to go too far away. PIB is doing a good job taking care of the case, so I don't need to be at the scene right now."

  "Abby told me that there were fifteen bodies."

  "In the basement, yeah. The case just keeps taking strange turns." Mason motioned to the building. "This being one of them. Abby seems to think the maker wasn't far away and was probably watching us. That he or she was strong enough to be awake during daylight."

  Levi nodded. "It's a possibility." The other possibility was that they weren't changed in traditional methods and had no true maker, like all the other blood-starved that they'd encountered so far. He wasn't sure if Ira would keep close tabs on them or not. "Let's go see the vampires then, shall we?"

  Ira stepped up to the mess that had been Abigail's house before it imploded. He looked over the charred beams and collapsed walls that had once homed his niece. He knew she hadn't been inside because his informants had told him that she showed up to work. What he wanted to know was who was trying to take his glory away? He wanted her alive to offer her a chance to join him, and then he'd leave her broken for Levi if she refused.

  This was too messy for any of his people. Too rash and done without his permission. Now Abigail was living somewhere else, and he didn't know where. Most likely she was with Levi, which meant Ira wasn't going to be able to get a chance to talk to her.

  He crossed his arms. She'd stumbled upon his nest of blood-starved and had them all carted away. He had no doubt that would bring Levi onto the case. That's what Ira wanted, to catch his brother's attention and draw Abigail into the firefight.

  PIB put one big kink into his plans though. They assigned Abigail a partner, and the man was sticking to her like glue. It made him wonder if Nik
olas was planted there by Levi for extra security that Abigail wouldn't question. And then there was the wolf. His and Abigail's partial dating and flirting were annoying.

  Now the house was gone. And Ira had no idea where Abigail was. His phone rang, and he looked down at it. His informant. "Hello?"

  "Detective Mason is down visiting the vampires. I just thought I'd let you know. Also, Jerry has a plan to get rid of the issue with the partner."

  "Tell me, was it Jerry's idea to blow up the house?" He was taking a stab at the dark, but it was worth it.

  She remained silent for a moment. "No, that was my idea when I learned where she lived."

  "I'm going to make this very clear. Abigail is off limits to everyone but me. I cannot afford for you flunkies to screw everything up."

  "I'll keep that in mind. And the partner?"

  Ira thought for a moment. "If you can kill him and not have it trace back to me, good." He disconnected the phone and looked back at the house. How did Abigail escape this?

  Either she was better at sensing magic than anyone thought, or she had help. Ira looked up as he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A cat. A naked one at that. Abigail's familiar? The cat sniffed around and then turned to stare at Ira before it ran into the dark.

  Interesting. He shook his head and disappeared. There was no need to stay around the house if Abigail wasn't there. There were only a couple places she could be, and he would find her soon enough. He reappeared in his own home and lounged in an overstuffed chair in the living room.

  He needed to feed and then pay a visit to the small town where he'd sent his blood-starved. The inhabitants there had made quick work of them, and then the little bartender had gone and told Levi about it after she had made a deal with Ira for her safety. Had her town not killed her, he would have.

  He traced his tongue over his fangs. She would have made a wonderful meal. He needed witch blood tonight to help ease the pain starting to form in his stomach. Ira reached for his phone and shot a text to one of his minions.

  "Bring me a meal, witch."

  He set the phone down and ran his fingers of over the fabric of the chair. He rarely spent time in his own home anymore. Always worried about staying in one spot for too long, lest Levi find him. His brother had done a good job hunting down the labs and destroying what he could.

  Now Abigail had stumbled upon an old one because someone had screwed up and hung the thumbs in the window. Jerry. The man was lucky to be alive still.

  Ira grinned as he felt another vampire arrive at the house, followed by the sounds of a struggling woman. Her cries of anger echoed through the house as Troy dragged the woman into the room.

  "Ah, a witch from the small town. How lovely. She'll make a great example." Ira rushed to her and grabbed her chin. Her scared blue eyes met his gaze, and he smiled. "Don't worry dear; it only hurts if you struggle." He leaned forward and kissed her neck.

  She froze under his touch. "You are a disgusting monster." Her voice shook, and her pulse sped up.

  He chuckled. "You have no idea. I could make this pleasurable for you or I could make it haunt you for the rest of your short life. I think I'll choose the second option." He sank his fangs into her neck, shoving his power into her, creating an unbreakable link between the two of them. His body hummed with the taste of her magic and the pain in his stomach eased as he swallowed.

  The perfect meal.

  Levi paced in front of the containment room with Detective Mason as they watched the blood-starved vampires. He never liked being here, too much of the environment made him anxious. Nothing had changed in the short few months since the last time he was here. Except for the vampires in front of him seemed to be a bit more placated than the last ones. They moved more like zombies, shambling around in the small room, not caring if they ran into each other or the wall. They looked up with dead eyes, glazed over with no real life in them.

  These creatures were different than the rampaging ones they had seen before. These were lifeless shells of vampires with their heads held down and bodies sagging. Levi tapped on the window, and they didn't startle or seemed worried that they were confined. Some eyes rolled up to look at him, but the others just kept moseying around.

  Mason raised a brow. "Interesting, aren't they?"

  "They are. The most recent ones we've seen and observed have had much more life to them, granted they were violent, but they still held some emotions." Levi crossed his arms and watched as one vampire ran into the corner of the room, only to step a foot back and try again. "These are more zombies than anything."

  "So what do we do with them?"

  Levi pressed his lips together. "Can we isolate one and see if it will talk to us?"

  Mason shrugged. "With how calm they are, I'm sure we can try."

  "Okay, let's move…" Levi took a moment to study all the faces and all the vampires in the room. He spotted one further away from the rest, the vampire's eyes were a little less glazed over, and he wasn't moving restlessly. Levi pointed. "That one, in the red shirt."

  Mason nodded. "I'll get someone on it. Wait for me in the lobby, and then I'll lead you back to the interrogation room."

  Levi nodded and walked out of the observation hallway and made his way back to the lobby. Sitting in one of the gray chairs, he thought back to the vampires. Had Ira's experiment gone wrong and these were his true failures? It seemed to Levi that if they were worth anything to his brother, Ira would come after them. Of course, maybe Ira didn't want to be that near PIB.

  A woman walked into the lobby, and Levi watched her as she flashed something at the receptionist and then walked down the hall. The new visitor looked just like the receptionist he'd seen at PIB the other night.

  How curious. Levi shook his head. He doubted it was the same woman. A few minutes later Detective Mason came out. "Okay, I was able to get the team to wrangle that one into a room. He isn't very responsive, but you can try to talk to him."

  Levi nodded. "Let's do this, dawn is close, and I'd like to be home for the day. Not here."

  "I don't blame you. I'd like not to see the sunrise either. We have a lot of work to do at the scene." Mason rubbed his eyes and led Levi down the hall, turning to another one that led to windowless rooms.

  A PIB officer stood outside one of the rooms and opened the door for Mason and Levi so they could walk in. The door shut behind them and the vampire's eyes snapped up.

  Levi smiled at him. "So you're aware of your surroundings."

  The vampire said nothing, but his eyes followed Levi's movements.

  "You know I'm one of you, a vampire that is. Not blood-starved, not lost, and not insane, but I am a vampire." Levi watched for any reaction, but there wasn't one. He sat in front of the vampire. "Who is your maker?"

  Nothing.

  "Do you know the king?"

  The vampire's mouth moved and gargled words came out. Levi leaned forward to try and make them out, even with his vampire hearing, it was hard to make out the words.

  "In…life…or…death…we…serve…no…king."

  He was one of Ira's alright. Levi locked his jaw. "The king can spare you."

  More gargled words. He tried to lunge at Levi, but the chains kept him in place.

  Levi shook his head and stood.

  "Once there was a boy, so weak and afraid," the vampire started, "hungry and cold he stole from a god. In punishment his life was stolen…" the words faded and the vampire's body went slack. His eyes glazing over completely.

  Levi looked at him and then to Mason. "Tell PIB to execute them all. They are far too gone."

  Mason sighed. "Okay."

  "Something wrong with that order?"

  "Yes, we're killing a group of vampires. Don't you see something wrong with that?"

  "There's nothing left in their mind. They aren't human, and they aren't sane vampires." Levi m
et Mason's gaze. "I wouldn't put innocent creatures to death, Detective."

  Mason turned away. "I'll call PIB."

  "Was there anything else you needed?"

  "Not tonight. Good night, Levi."

  "Good night, Mason." Levi watched as Mason stepped into another room, presumably to make the call. Levi walked down the hall and back out to the lobby. He handed over his plastic visitor badge and left the building.

  Levi reappeared in the mansion and waited a moment to see if Mario or Oliver would greet him, but the hall remained silent and empty. He sighed and went to his office where he found Oliver lounging in his chair.

  "What are you still doing here?"

  "I promised you a list, remember?" He held up a folded piece of paper. "All the warlocks and witches that I know who are capable of a spell like that. After the trace spell, I also added a list of creatures who might carry those abilities as well." He laid it on the desk. "It's nearly dawn, so I'll let you be for the night. But I thought I'd let you know that Ira has been sneaking around Abigail's old house."

  "How do you know that? Weren't all of your bugs destroyed with the house?" Levi raised a brow. "Or are you using people to spy on her again?"

  "I have a camera up on the street light. Just in case she found all the bugs in the house." Oliver shrugged. "I'm glad I did. He's known where she lived. Hopefully, she doesn't move back there, and he doesn't realize that you've set her up in the old house."

  "She's safer there than she was at her old house." Levi sighed. "She refused to come to the mansion because of Mario."

  "Rightfully so. She doesn't trust him because he's new to her. Suddenly here's this vampire that's glued to your side, that she's never seen, and has no real reason for being here." Oliver stood. "Eventually you are going to have to tell her that he's your second in command and here to stay."

  Levi nodded. "I know. Thank you for the list and the trace spell. I'll go talk to Laura tomorrow and see what she knows about these whirlwinds."