The Last Vampire Box Set

by R. A. Steffan

  Myrial had ruined my grandmother’s life.

  Myrial was the reason my father and I were in this mess in the first place.

  If a demon-bond really did turn out to be the only way to heal my father’s mind, then I’d find another demon to do it.

  “I don’t appreciate your implication,” I said, feeling the last vestiges of civility in the conversation start to slide away. “The answer is no. The answer has been no from the start, but you still keep coming back.”

  A calculating look came over the demon’s face, and I felt the back of my neck prickle.

  “Are you so certain you speak for your father’s soul?” she asked.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  Myrial smiled sweetly, disappearing and reappearing in front of my father’s chair in the next instant. She’d switched to her male form at the same time, becoming a face from old photo albums.

  “Darryl,” said my grandfather in a wheedling tone, “I can help you. I can undo what the Fae did to you… make it just like it never happened. I only need one tiny little thing from you in return.”

  I picked my jaw up from the floor and leapt forward, but Dad’s face twisted into lines of anger before I could get between them. He lunged from his chair with a snarl, pushing Myrial hard in the chest with both hands. The demon barely moved, but he did look taken aback.

  “No,” my father snarled. “You get out of here. We don’t want you here!”

  Myrial seemed almost as surprised as I was by the outburst. I pushed my way between the pair, separating them.

  “You heard him,” I snapped. “He’s not interested. Now leave, and this time, don’t come back.”

  My grandfather’s eyes glowed with red flames, and his features hardened. He grabbed the wrist of the hand I had pressed against his chest, and my surroundings dissipated. They returned a second later and I staggered, wrenching my arm free. We were outside, standing behind the hut amidst a scattering flock of squawking chickens.

  “Keep your hands off me,” I bit out, aware on some level that I had precisely zero methods for backing up my trash talk if Myrial had decided to come at me for real.

  “Don’t be dramatic,” the demon said. “You want me gone? Fine. But first, you need to know a few things. You think you understand this place, but you don’t. You think Nigellus is a nice guy—a friend—but you’re wrong.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, rubbing my wrist. “I know about changelings. I know about the Tithe, and I understand this place just fine. As far as Nigellus goes, we may not exactly be BFFs, but he’s done a damn sight more to help me and the people I care about than you have.”

  Myrial laughed, a short, ugly bark. “Oh, you foolish girl. You think that, do you? Then let me pose you a question. The Tithe has been ongoing for more than two hundred years. So ask yourself—why are there no elderly humans here? And once you’re done asking that, go enquire about the blood wine. When you’ve done that, we’ll talk again, whether you want to or not.”

  With that, Myrial disappeared, leaving me alone with the flustered poultry we’d disturbed. I stood there for quite a while, staring at the empty space where the demon had been.

  * * *

  Part of me wanted to discount what Myrial had said. But a larger part had already fixated on the question. Why weren’t there any old people in the titheling settlement? I’d wondered in passing when I first arrived why none of the so-called elders appeared to be much past their fortieth birthday, if that. Fatima was one of the oldest looking people I’d seen here, and if she was fifty, I’d be shocked.

  After a day’s deliberation, my curiosity won out and I cornered Sharalynn.

  “How come there are no old people here?” I asked bluntly.

  Sharalynn blinked, clearly confused. “Huh? I’m not sure what you mean, hon. There are lots of old people here.”

  But I shook my head. “I don’t mean middle-aged, like Li Wei or Fatima. I mean old, like, white hair and needing a cane to get around.”

  Sharalynn was still looking at me very oddly. “Zorah, Li Wei is something like a hundred and sixty. I’m pretty sure Fatima is about the same, though she doesn’t like to discuss her age. And, well, sometimes a person will get hurt and need to use a walking stick until they can be healed, but I’ve never seen anyone with… white hair.”

  My heart gave that little hiccupping stutter that sometimes came when you learned something that made reality shift around you, sliding into a new configuration.

  “One hundred and sixty?” I echoed faintly. “As in, years? Okay, hold up a minute. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine,” she said without hesitation. “Like I said, I’ve been thinking it’s about time for me to settle down. I like how I feel now, so I’m considering starting the wine soon.”

  I tried to parse that statement, but there were too many things whirling in my head. Enquire about the blood wine, Myrial had said. A horrible suspicion was starting to form in the back of my mind, but it seemed so far-fetched as to be almost unbelievable.

  “I don’t understand what that means,” I said cautiously. “What does wine have to do with anything?”

  Sharalynn opened her mouth, closed it, and seemed to consider her words. “Zorah, I feel like we’re not having the same conversation. I think things must be really different on Earth.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I think you may be right. Could you just… explain what happens here in Hell? Pretend I’m five years old.”

  She laughed, a bit nervously. “Right. Okay, so those of us who weren’t born here come here as tithelings from the Enemy—usually at a very young age. You know that part already.”

  I nodded.

  “So, either way, we grow up with our caretakers—or with our parents, in cases like mine. At some point—and the timing is left up to the individual, though the elders are always available to give us guidance—we decide that we’ve reached our physical and mental peak.”

  I nodded again, more slowly this time. “Okay…?”

  “When we feel like we’re at a good age, we start drinking the blood wine provided by the demons.” She shrugged. “That’s pretty much it.”

  I rubbed a hand down my face and tried to bang enough synapses together to make her words make sense. “And… once you start drinking this blood wine, then what happens? You just… stop aging?”

  “Well, I mean, our bodies stop changing. Or at least, any changes are really, really slow after that.” Sharalynn’s brow furrowed in consternation as she tried to put something into words that was clearly self-evident as far as she was concerned. “Obviously, time still passes. We still get older.”

  “What else can you tell me about this wine?” I pressed.

  She thought for a moment. “Uh… well, like I said, we get it from the demons. I guess it contains a rare ingredient, because I’ve heard that they use magic to make enough of it that everyone can have what they need. But supposedly, they can only increase the amount so much with magic before it loses its effectiveness. That’s why it’s carefully rationed—you can’t just take a whole bottle all for yourself. The elders dole it out in small cups every couple of weeks.”

  My heart started to pound harder. Blood wine… containing an ingredient that was incredibly rare. An ingredient that somehow increased the health and vitality of the human body. Dear god—I wanted so badly to be wrong about this.

  “I need to see this wine,” I said, barely recognizing my own voice. “Where do they keep it?”

  Sharalynn was looking at me oddly. “Whoa there, girl. You need to slow down and take a breath. Come on, let’s go talk to one of the elders about this.”

  I nodded. “Li Wei. I want to talk to Li Wei.”

  Of all the elders I’d met, I felt most comfortable with Li Wei after spending time with him as he attempted to get through to my father over the past weeks. He greeted us with a pleasant smile, which morphed into a curious frown at seeing whatever expression w
as currently on my face.

  “Hello, Zorah… Sharalynn. Is everything all right?” he asked.

  “I need to see a sample of the blood wine,” I blurted without preamble. “It’s important.”

  He blinked. “I’m afraid we have none at the moment. The next batch won’t arrive for two days.”

  Frustration welled, but I pressed it back. “What can you tell me about it?”

  He gestured us inside his dwelling. “Come in, both of you. We might as well be comfortable.” When we were seated, he met my eyes. “I fear I cannot give you many details as to the blood wine’s magical composition. The demons provide it, and they have never been forthcoming. I can only tell you its effects.”

  “It stops human aging?” I asked.

  “Well, it slows aging to nearly undetectable levels, certainly,” Li Wei said. “It also heals wounds and diseases.”

  It heals wounds.

  I covered my mouth with one hand. It was shaking. After a moment, I pulled it away and spoke. “I need to see it, as soon as the new batch arrives.”

  Li Wei looked taken aback, but he nodded. “You understand that we cannot spare much, but you are welcome to examine a small cupful.” He continued to watch me carefully. “You are clearly agitated about this, Zorah. So I ask again, is everything all right?”

  I was caught out for a moment, unsure how to answer him. Whatever was in the blood wine, humans here had apparently been using it for well over a century. For them, it was a boon, not a problem. I needed time to think about the implications of what I’d learned, before I could sort out the tangle of different threads that seemed to be converging around me.

  “I don’t know,” I said after a short pause. “I think… maybe my understanding of what’s going on here was… lacking.”

  Li Wei tilted his head at me, a frown marring his high forehead. “All that’s going on here is life, Zorah. Just… people. Living.”

  But right now, it wasn’t these people I was worried about. Maybe it should have been, but that wasn’t the thing setting alarm bells off in my head. I tried to tell myself not to jump to unwarranted conclusions. Wait two days, I thought. Wait until you can see the stuff firsthand.

  “I get that,” I told him. “I’ll… uh… I’ll just come back in a couple of days when I can get a sample. It may be nothing.”

  * * *

  Two days later, I held a clay cup containing a few ounces of red liquid that was, in fact, the precise shade of freshly spilled blood. Other people were coming and going from the meeting hall, claiming identical cups and downing them in a gulp or two. Meanwhile, I was examining the drink like a wine connoisseur, waving it back and forth under my nose.

  It smelled like wine, anyway. Fruity, with a hint of toasted oak and truffles, I thought irreverently. Or something else equally ridiculous sounding.

  Swallowing against the dryness of my mouth, I took a small sip and rolled it around. The minerally, vaguely metallic aftertaste was far from overpowering… but it was definitely there. Blood wine, indeed.

  Still, it could be argued that the demons’ truth-in-labeling practices proved nothing. Yes, the blood wine appeared to have actual blood in it. But there was one more thing I needed to try before I reached the conclusion I desperately didn’t want to reach. Moving to a shadowed corner, I pulled out the little paring knife I used to prepare our food. With a deep breath, I sliced the blade across the meat of my forearm, forcing myself to make the cut deep enough that it would take some time to heal even though my inner succubus was topped up on sex energy.

  And son of a bitch, it hurt. Biting my lip hard—because if I thought that hurt, this was going to hurt way more—I poured the remains of the cup’s contents over the gaping slice. A hiss of pain escaped my control, and my eyes watered as I stared fixedly at the wound.

  I’d experienced what followed on only a handful of occasions before, but they’d all been memorable. The wound began to close from the inside out, flesh knitting together like a time-lapse video on high speed. The burn of alcohol gave way to a deep tingling, then itching… and then, nothing. The wound was gone as though it had never existed.

  It was vampire blood.

  The demons were feeding the humans in Hell vampire blood. And there was only one possible place they could have obtained it.

  The cup fell from my nerveless fingers to the floor. I ignored Li Wei calling my name as I more or less fled the hall, my hurried walk turning into a jog, and then a run. I didn’t stop until I was back at Dad’s hut, slamming the door behind me and collapsing to lean against it as my chest rose and fell rapidly.

  My father gave a small start at the noise, actually going so far as to turn his head in my direction as I slid down to sit on the flagstone floor. I barely noticed, because my brain was too caught up in replaying a scene from several weeks ago, like a movie inside my head.

  Rans had brought me to Nigellus’ home in Atlantic City to escape the Fae. I was resting in one of the guest bedrooms when the sound of the door opening woke me. The light slanting through the window was at a lower angle than it had been, but it wasn’t evening yet. It hadn’t occurred to me to lock the bedroom door—I’d felt safe enough there.

  I blinked rapidly and rolled into a sitting position, just in time to see Rans catch himself against the doorframe with one hand. Blue eyes fell on me, but there was a dazed look behind them that I hadn’t seen before. He froze, as though he hadn’t expected me to be there.

  “What are you doing in my room?” he asked in confusion

  “Rans?” I asked, groggy. “This is my room. Yours is across the hall.”

  He stared at me with an oddly blank expression on his face. That expression woke me up fast, and I slid off the bed to cross to him. That was when I noticed his extreme paleness. True, Rans was never going to be winning any awards for ‘Best Tan Lines.’ But this was the same sort of paleness he’d exhibited when I first found him with a shotgun blast through the chest in my back yard.

  It was the sort of paleness that belonged to a corpse, not a man.

  “You don’t look so good,” I whispered in the understatement of the week. “What happened, what’s wrong?”

  Without even thinking about it, I took him by the arm and pulled him inside, closing the door behind us for privacy. He shook his head as if trying to dislodge something rattling around in his brain.

  “I…” he said. “I don’t…”

  His voice trailed off and he lifted a hand to his forehead.

  “Okay, you’re scaring me now,” I told him.

  Herding him backwards toward the bed, I pushed at his shoulders until he sat on the edge of it, his thighs bracketing mine as I stood in front of him. He glanced up at me through dark eyelashes from the slight disadvantage of height.

  “Rans,” I begged. “Talk to me, please. Did something happen with Nigellus?”

  A deep furrow formed between his brows. “No, I…” he trailed off. “That wasn’t…” He shook his head sharply again. “Sorry. I seem to have… a bit of a hole in my memory. A new one, I mean.”

  Misgivings flooded me, but I tried to focus on the practical. He was pale and disoriented. He was a vampire. Those two facts could be related, right?

  “Do you need blood?” I asked slowly.

  His absent blue gaze turned inward, like he was taking stock.

  There was a long pause. “Maybe so,” he said. “I don’t… feel right.”

  Looking back, it was all so painfully obvious. Rans had gone off alone with Nigellus, and come back an hour later… drained of blood, and with a fresh hole in his memory.

  Fuck.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I WAS PRACTICALLY trembling with rage as I sat on the floor, hugging my knees to my chest. I couldn’t even bring myself to care that Dad was looking at me, frowning as though he understood that I wasn’t okay. I wanted to throw things just so I could watch them shatter, and the worst part was, most of my anger was self-directed.

  I’d marched down t
o the dining room that evening once Rans was resting quietly, all ready to get my inner bitch on and confront Nigellus about whatever had happened when the two were alone. It had taken five minutes flat for the demon bastard to talk me around until I was once more convinced that he was nothing more than a concerned friend, not a blood-stealing, memory-altering, back-stabbing pile of shit. My skull thunked rhythmically against the door of the hut as I castigated myself for being a gullible idiot.

  This was huge. If I was right—and at the moment I couldn’t see any other conceivable explanation that fit all the facts—then the person I was relying on for Dad’s safety and my freedom was a turncoat. God help me, I’d been days from binding my soul to Nigellus. And even now, he was on Earth with Rans, who had no idea that his beloved mentor was using him… and probably had been for centuries, now.

  Jesus Christ—Rans.

  I had to get to him. And I had to do it without binding myself to a demon. Any demon. My fingers tangled in my hair, tugging at the wayward spirals as I tried to get my brain to slow down. It was as though, after so long spent being a Grade A moron, all the puzzle pieces were falling into place at once.

  Remove the assumption that the demons were on Rans’ side—not to mention, my side—and suddenly the entire landscape changed. Why had the goons at the fetish club been firing silver bullets? Even the wild-eyed nutjob who’d killed my mother had known to use salt for demons. Silver was only uniquely lethal to one kind of creature—a vampire.

  What if our attackers hadn’t been in the Fae’s employ, but Myrial’s? Sure, she’d been in the line of fire, but she was in no danger. She was immortal. Knives and silver bullets meant nothing to her. And if she’d heard about the life-bond I shared with Rans, she would know that killing either of us would be the same as killing both.

  But why would she want to kill Rans, when his life was protected as part of the treaty? I scoffed at myself. The treaty clearly didn’t mean much to her, since she’d already broken it by getting my grandmother pregnant all those years ago. What if she wanted the treaty to fall apart? What if she wanted war with the Fae again?