Dark Song

by Christine Feehan

  Ferro held himself very still at her innocent revelations. Sergey wasn’t the genius. Elisabeta was. Sergey’s brothers had laid out their plans and strategies far in advance and set things in motion. Those plans were most likely already in play, with or without Sergey, but Sergey wasn’t going to plan the meticulous battles that his brothers were able to, not without a general like Elisabeta.

  How is it that Sergey ended up with slivers of Xavier and his brother, Vadim, and yet he is nowhere near their intelligence? How did he become the last brother standing?

  Ferro was in the mountains now, flanked by Sandu and Gary. Benedek and Petru had come in from the east, careful not to move against the wind or disturb any of the owls or insects in the trees, all most likely servants and watchers for Sergey.

  He has slivers of all of his brothers, Elisabeta told him in a small voice. He can access them for their ability to plan battles or use technology. He can use the ones of Xavier to call upon mage spells if he needs them.

  Ferro had to revise his thinking. All of us believed that Sergey was the genius all along, that he devised the plan from the very beginning, but he was scared. He was more than scared, he was terrified. That was why he took you with him. You brought him not only peace but courage. You listened to the brothers, Elisabeta, their plans. You heard them, and you helped Sergey get through those centuries by coming up with ways for him to strike back at them.

  Yes, she admitted. They were horrible. He was, too, but not like them. I knew he did not have the ability, even if he had the slivers of his brothers in his mind, to fully access and understand what they were talking about, not without me to explain, and I often misled him. When things did not go right, I took my punishment and acted innocent, as if I had no clue what went wrong.

  Ferro turned the information over and over in his mind. Sívamet, were you going to tell this to me?

  I have only just begun to realize it. The vampire kept me in such a state of terror that I believed him to be completely invincible. In some ways, I still do. I can barely overcome that way of thinking. Sometimes I am very clear, and other times I feel like a child huddled in a ball of terror on the floor.

  Ferro could understand that. The more she grew in confidence and strength, the more her mind cleared. The infection and strange speck left behind in the brain to open the gates was most likely done by one of the others, and now Sergey just thinks it is one more thing he does not understand without you, is that safe to say?

  Yes. I have never heard or seen such a thing, though. Not even a whisper of it. If it was planned, it was never done around me. Sergey had to have known about it, but he did not share it with me, which was unusual.

  You gave him the idea to talk his brothers into sharing a tiny piece of themselves to aid him in understanding their plans? Ferro wanted to make certain he was very clear on that.

  Again, there was a hesitation. Yes. It was long ago, Ferro. Centuries earlier. Xavier and the Malinovs were so treacherous. I thought I could at least manipulate Sergey a little bit.

  This is good news, not bad news, hän sívamak. Sergey will be unraveling the longer he is away from you. I am coming up to the lake and woods and do not want to put too much energy into the air. Stay quiet until I have need.

  15

  I can’t heal your scars or take away the pain;

  But I can be your shelter, a refuge all the same.

  As Ferro dropped into the woods, he was surrounded by an oppressive feel of utter gloom. Airless, stifling, even suffocating, the farther he drifted into the interior, the heavier the oppressive force surrounded him. There was no doubt that Sergey as well as other vampires had invaded the forest to the point that nature could not fight back against such an abomination.

  The vampire was unclean. Anything it touched withered. Blackened. No vegetation could remain alive and thriving near it. Everything about the vampire went against nature. As Ferro drifted through the trees, he noted that many of the trunks and branches were twisted into macabre shapes and already blackened in places.

  Dark sap ran down the deadened bark, like rivers of blood, to pool at the exposed roots. Birds, tree frogs and lizards were caught, held and died slow, ugly deaths in the thick acid-filled sap. Ferro, like all Carpathians, was a keeper of woods, of nature. The sight of a once-beautiful forest with the animals and fowl reduced to such a state was difficult to witness.

  Sandu, Benedek and Petru moved through the depressing woods as well, sizing up the dark, twisted trees, noting every position of the crows and owls that prowled the twisted branches with beady, shiny eyes, searching for any movement that would trigger their instantaneous response, a warning to their masters.

  Ferro gave thought to what Elisabeta had revealed to him. The Malinovs wanted to take over leadership. Theirs had been a total power play. They were brilliant generals, ambitious and driven, and had the discipline and patience to carry out their schemes. Sergey did not have the genius of his brothers when it came to planning battles. The vampire knew if he was going to have a chance to defeat the prince of the Carpathians, he would need Elisabeta.

  What had Sergey developed to cope with his brothers and their arrogance, even as a child? Sergey would have to be cunning. He would be crueler, because his brothers had been cruel to him. Merciless because his brothers had been merciless to him. He would want to dominate. He had shown those traits in his dealings with Elisabeta, in the way he treated her, even though she was the one to get him through those long centuries, and he needed her.

  He had stolen her when she’d been a child and he had already been a fully grown male Carpathian hunter. He had known what he was doing. He had planned the abduction carefully. He couldn’t possibly have known what Elisabeta was capable of—the defeat of his brothers. Did he give her credit for that? Or over the centuries did he convince himself that he was really the one with the genius? Of course he thought himself the genius.

  Ferro circled back around, moving to the outer area of the woods, back toward the lake, keeping to a very slow, drifting pace. It took a great deal of patience to stay almost still when time was a factor and the vampire would be coming soon, but he had honed that trait in centuries of hunting and had it in abundance.

  He doubted very much if Sergey gave Elisabeta any credit for defeating his brothers. The vampire was vain. He would believe that he was the true genius in the family. He had slivers of all of his brothers and the high mage. No one could defeat him. He was desperate to get to Elisabeta only because she kept his body from decomposing so rapidly and kept his emotions intact when she was around. She’d been his constant companion and he was used to her company.

  Sergey would tell himself all kinds of things, but deep down, he would be panicking, because all the things he could access before, like those slivers of his brothers’ genius, or the high mage’s spells, he could no longer reach. He would know, on some level, that without Elisabeta, he would not have access to the things that would allow him to rule.

  Yet even without any of those assets, Sergey was a cunning, cruel master vampire in his own right. He would be a vicious fighter. He had defeated more than one Carpathian hunter in battle. That had nothing to do with Elisabeta. Having skill in battle didn’t necessarily take genius. Sergey was willing to fight when he believed he could win, or when he was fighting for his life. Simply because he wasn’t what he appeared didn’t mean he was going to be easy to defeat in a battle, and it would be foolhardy to dismiss him as so.

  There was little moon, just a sliver, and the black clouds moving across the sky hid even that most of the time, so the lake’s water mostly appeared dark and shiny. Out of the oppressive stillness of the woods, Ferro felt a breeze. The draft tugged at the surface of the lake, creating ripples across it so waves lapped at the shore. It looked and even sounded like an idyllic scene, until one felt that ominous decay creeping out of the forest and hovering so close.

 
The owls and crows made no sound, but continuously walked back and forth on the twisted limbs, peering toward the lake, their gazes suddenly focused in that direction, alerting Ferro and his brethren. Crows were day birds, but they were out in numbers, spies for their master. Shadows appeared darker, staining the surface, as several hideous creatures flew low just above the lake’s waters.

  Do not engage. Let us see where their lair is. They must have an entrance nearby, Ferro cautioned.

  Ferro doubted if this location had been chosen by Sergey originally. It was more likely one of his brothers who had scouted the area and realized it was perfect to provide them with the hikers and campers for a steady blood supply. They were far enough away from the Carpathian compound that few hunters would stumble across them.

  The four ancient hunters stayed a good distance apart, careful not to make any movement that would alert the watchers or the master vampires hurrying back to their lair. Ferro wanted to know how extensive Sergey’s army really was. How many could he count on to throw at the compound? How many would he be willing to sacrifice in order to get Elisabeta back? Would the hunters be able to wipe out the threat in one major attack, or would they have to hit hard in several smaller ones?

  More than anything, Ferro wanted to eliminate the threat to his lifemate, but first he needed to have answers to protect all of those in the compound. It was ingrained in him as a hunter that the protection of his people always came first, and no matter what it meant to him personally, the code of honor instilled in him had to be followed.

  Three vampires dropped out of the sky near the shore of the lake and strode purposefully toward the forest. They weren’t trying to impress anyone with their looks. They appeared in their real state of decay, rotting flesh stretched over bone, hair mostly gone or falling out in chunks, teeth pointed and stained. At the tree line they separated to about twelve feet apart and lifted their hands high into the air.

  Ferro and the brethren watched closely as they wove a complicated pattern, opening an unseen entrance so very well hidden that not one of the ancients had detected its presence. They noted the positioning of the three advance guards. Ferro vaguely recognized the three vampires. They were much younger than he was, but he had run across each of them on more than one occasion while they were still hunters.

  The one to his left was from a good lineage. He remembered the father. A great hunter, legendary even. He’d been killed by three master vampires. He’d taken one of them with him before he’d succumbed. His son went by Van Halen. Luther Van Halen.

  Sedrick Overtower was in the middle. Ferro didn’t know much about him or his family, but he seemed to be a decent enough hunter.

  The one on the right had been sloppy as a hunter, too loud at times, and Ferro was a little surprised that he had managed to survive and battle his way to become a master vampire. It didn’t seem likely given the fact that he should have been killed early on in his hunting career. He had called himself Edward Varga back then. Even now, when he was opening the gates of the lair inside the forest, Varga was a bit sloppy, his movements less precise than the others’. Ferro found it interesting that he had been chosen as one of Sergey’s advance guards. He couldn’t imagine any of the other Malinov brothers tolerating Varga’s ways.

  A veil appeared, like a thick spider’s web, a dank, dingy gray color. It hung like Spanish moss might from the twisted branches of the trees, a macabre shawl dripping in poisonous venom. Little beads of darker gray oozed from the web, ran down the strands to trickle onto the ground where they hissed and steamed as they hit the rotting vegetation. The pools spread out into a thin stream, connecting until they formed a moat, a semicircle—a barrier around the opening the vampires had disclosed.

  Once the moat was in place, the strands of the web drew back, hissing and moaning as if alive and reluctant to part, the threads reaching toward the vampires, down toward the ground, and up into the trees toward the sentries there. One tentacle managed to wrap itself around a crow and drag it back into the center of the web. The crow screamed horribly, beak opened wide, eyes rolling wildly as the hungry threads began to consume it alive.

  The vampires paused what they were doing to watch, clearly amused by the spectacle, enjoying the bird’s pain. Varga’s thin lips stretched wide and he made a squawking sound, imitating the bird’s distressed cry. The other two vampires laughed. Even as they did, the air around them suddenly grew so dense that they began to cough. Varga coughed up blood and spat maggots onto the ground. Some landed in the moat, where the acid fried them instantly.

  The three master vampires looked cowed in spite of the fact that they had gone centuries battling and defeating Carpathian hunters, earning the title of master vampire. The three shuddered and turned toward the five vampires striding toward them. Sergey was in the middle, two master vampires on either side of him. Clearly, he wasn’t taking any chances with his own safety. He had left with two master vampires, and somewhere another two had joined him. He had pawns at his disposal and no less than seven master vampires to fight for him. That was serious firepower.

  There was fury in every step Sergey took. He had been thwarted in his goal of retrieving Elisabeta. He had no idea why the infection wasn’t spreading or working. The healer wasn’t supposed to be able to stop it. Many of those inside had to have the command in their brain to open the gate, yet no one had done so. By now the ancients should have been turning on one another. Chaos should have been reigning inside the compound. He didn’t understand and he didn’t have Elisabeta.

  He had thought he could always contact Elisabeta, that she would be unable to resist coming to him, but she had. The few times they had connected he had felt her terror, but those times had been too few and hadn’t lasted long. He would find a way to get to her, and when he did, she would suffer as she never had before. He was just getting started, pinning humans to the gates. He would surround the compound with the dead and dying in her name. He would stick the heads of children on spikes and put them on the fence facing her, to stare at her with accusing eyes, so she would see them and know she had forced him to go to such lengths.

  Snarling, he looked for a target for his impotent rage. Any target. He wanted to kill and keep killing, but cruelly, mercilessly, painfully, the way he had as a boy when his brothers teased him and he felt powerless, just as he did now. He would go into the forest and spend hours ripping apart animals and watching them suffer, looking into their eyes, feeling such immense satisfaction while their blood spilled around him and they silently begged him for death. He wouldn’t give it to them.

  Later, he graduated to human children. That had been even more satisfying, especially when he had befriended them first, over time making them believe that he was their friend by bringing them little gifts and even doing chores occasionally. Knowing all the while that sooner or later his brothers would shove him around or make fun of him and he would come back and spend time enjoying torturing his victims. He welcomed the way they tormented him just so he could have the satisfaction of feeling omnipotent when he spent hours with his victims. It was one of the most delicious and powerful rushes in the world. Taking Elisabeta out from under the nose of her family and forcing her to his will each rising kept that feeling in him, especially knowing he hid her from his brothers.

  He strode straight up to Luther Van Halen. The master vampire had always thought far too much of himself. He strutted around, his followers loyal to him rather than to Sergey. It wasn’t to be tolerated. And laughing? At him? Because he couldn’t get to Elisabeta? Luther had most likely conspired against him. Luther wanted to lead the others. He was just like Vadim, one of Sergey’s older brothers. He’d been one of Vadim’s trusted lieutenants, although Sergey had no idea what Vadim had seen in the vampire.

  Luther stood there impassively as Sergey continued to come at him, no expression on his face. Sergey didn’t slow down, but the fact that Luther stood his ground infuriated him even
more. He should be cowering. The other two would have had the good sense to back away, but not Luther. He was always challenging for leadership. Sergey had every right to reprimand him. To let loose his fury on the conspirator.

  Without warning he slashed across Luther’s face with the talons of the harpy eagle, ripping through what flesh was left, tearing it from the bone and tossing it carelessly into that writhing, poisonous, starving web. The threads came alive, hissing and fighting for the morsel of flesh. The moment they had a taste, the web wanted more, sending out tentacles in every direction, greedy for even that rotting meat.

  Sergey kept slashing, not giving Luther a chance to recover, stepping into him, ripping into his chest, tearing at his belly to get at entrails, slitting the vampire open so that black blood poured onto the ground. The tentacles acted like tubes, dangling from the trees, dipping into the thick gel of shiny black in a frenzied feeding.

  The moment the vampire’s blood was spilled, from inside the hole the three master vampires had opened, lesser vampires stumbled out, clearly starved, desperate for blood, any blood, even the acid blood of another vampire. There were ten of them, newly made and fresh from the ground. All had been human males, presumably the psychic males Sergey was using as the pawns he would throw in front of the Carpathian hunters.

  The newly made vampires rushed for the pool of black blood the vampire had torn open, knocking into him and driving him into Sergey, who stumbled backward. Luther slammed his fist into Sergey’s chest as the momentum from the starving, eager vampires shoved him forward. His fist buried deep, the long extended claws at least four inches long, he dug for the withered, blackened heart of the master vampire.