by L. A. Banks
“Yes!” the chairman yelled as he opened his arms and his voice fractured. “In Paradise, I crossed barriers that you cannot fathom, gained her trust against the one who shall remain nameless, took her from a male Neteru!” He was breathing hard as the recollection swept through him. He pointed at his chest. “It was I who began our race. Cain was mine. That is why I sit here as your chairman.” He took a heaving breath and swept away from Carlos’s unblinking gaze. “She was gorgeous, the first woman on the planet . . . flawless, innocent, a warrior, and I brought her pleasure that she couldn’t even comprehend.” He covered his face with his back to Carlos. “And they took her from me,” he added quietly. “She went back to her people. She made a choice that even I couldn’t control.”
Black tears stained the chairman’s face as he turned around and stared at Carlos. “Can you fathom that? She went right back into Adam’s arms, and carried his human seed right next to mine. Gave up every luxury I could have offered her, all for desert, hardship, and hope.” He slowly went to the abandoned table across the room and touched the burn hole in it. “It was a hollow victory when Cain slew Adam’s part of her womb fruit, Abel. She probably died human—I wouldn’t know. I got demoted from the left hand of my father, and was sent here to rule a lesser realm in the darkness.”
The elderly vampire glanced around the cavern. “That’s why our kind cannot bear the light, and we have been made death-sterile, except if we can be shrewd enough to beguile a Neteru—to right the earlier wrong.” He offered Carlos a sad smile. “My father’s wrath knows no bounds . . . but he did leave me a conundrum, a puzzle if you will . . . a challenge loophole, an opportunity that only presents itself every thousand years.” His voice dipped to a dangerously low whisper. “You had solved the puzzle, were so close . . . and then . . . she bent your will. A council-level master!”
Again, two pairs of eyes met. A terror filled Carlos like he’d yet to experience. Information was power, but his mind was not ready for this black box that he’d opened within the chairman’s. He now understood to whom he was speaking to, understood who he’d been playing games with . . . oh . . . shit . . . and the baby . . . Damali . . . this was who he was employed by . . .
“Uhhmmm-hmmmm,” the chairman said with a sly smile. “Rude awakening, isn’t it?” He sighed and studied his nails. “But you were excellent, Carlos. In thousands of years, I had never seen a man with such balls. Absolute defiance.” The chairman chuckled. “You delighted me so. Reminded me so much of myself. I had my night where I angered my father by doing the Paradise job while he was in heavy negotiations, and fucked up and lost.” The chairman laughed harder, amused at the wicked memory. “So like me. Here we are on the brink of the Armageddon, and you are cutting side deals left and right, light and dark, all because of a woman who is making you crazy . . . making you lose perspective, forgetting all about what we can really do to you down here. You even gave her the key.” He shrugged and sighed. “Not to worry. We’ve sent an escort to reclaim it. No matter. It’s your intent that pains me so, going against me, the one who made you.”
He waved his hand. “Ahhhh, youth. I did it, too. My father was stalling for time with his primary adversary when I breached Paradise; his demon legions were not built up, he hadn’t harvested enough dark souls . . . he was not prepared to do battle—but my ill-timed seduction almost made the Light eclipse the Dark and withdraw from sensitive negotiations. It almost began the final battle while our side’s forces were just forming.”
The chairman shook his head. “Just like you have done—while our vampire forces have sustained heavy losses, our empire is in shambles with the loss of all topside masters but one—with only a weak one left . . . two open thrones at a table that requires five, only lower realms filled, and lower-level vampires topside that cannot create more masters . . . and you fall in love.” His smile evaporated as he let out a frustrated breath and stared at Carlos hard. “My father was very displeased . . . much like I am now. Timing is everything. Son, you just screwed yourself by attempting to screw us.”
He pushed away from the table and licked the finger that had touched the burnt hole. “But the difference between you and me is this. All I could create, given the times and the bargain on the table my father had made, was an evil spirit within a man—Cain.” He pointed at Carlos now, his fury slowly building as he thought about what he was saying.
“But you could have released our kind to dwell in sunlight as well as live forever. It would have sealed the rift between level six and level seven—there would be no boundary between those realms! Even the other councilmen have no concept of how close you were to that, what power you held in your arms as you loved her—only one who has been there could ever fathom that . . . no other, but you and I, Carlos, has had a Neteru willingly give herself by choice.”
The old vampire became very still, his voice dropping to a murmur of madness as though addressing himself. “The fair exchange would have been made—the Eve fiasco possibly forgiven. If I had delivered night eternal by opening the sixth seal and swayed the Armageddon, my debt to my unholy father would have been paid in full. We would have broken the backs of all Guardian teams worldwide, as well as the Covenant; hope would have finally been banished from the face of the earth . . . and my father’s army would have spoiled it, unchallenged—harvested souls in numbers that are frightening. The power you walked away from . . . power that I would have never given up. That’s the critical difference between you and me. You’ve ruined everything!”
Suddenly becoming quiet, the chairman stopped walking, shook his head, his voice a mere whisper as his weary eyes searched Carlos’s. “Carlos, why? Why would you give them both the Neteru and the key . . . what did they offer you that was so great? Salvation? What is that anyway? Why?”
“I didn’t know . . .” Carlos said quietly, the truth in his words no ploy, no game. “I didn’t—”
“You didn’t think as you released!” the chairman yelled, his mercurial emotions now thundering his voice through the chamber. He swept in to Carlos fast, grabbing his tattered lapels. He gazed at Carlos, his eyes filled with hurt. “You loved her like a man.” He dropped his hands away. “You filled her with hope, love, faith, trust, everything that keeps the human choice whole and the spirit unbroken.” Near sobbing with regret, he touched Carlos’s face. “You let her turn you. And you prayed for her . . . and prayed that if she ever conceived by you, the baby would be like her, human. You let her give you the virus of humanity—a conscience . . . compassion. And you disgraced everything I’ve ever known.”
The chairman walked away from Carlos. “Even now, down here, so crystalline a plea is in your heart . . . a prayer to end this, take you, but spare her. You brought a prayer into my chambers, staked to my wall, bleeding, broken, defeated—the absolute gall of it, and you come in here with hope?” Incredulous, the chairman’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Your last wish, the only thing on your mind is not survival, but to see her one last time . . . not power?”
He placed his hand over his heart and closed his eyes. “She has polluted my protégé and has driven a stake through my heart.” Then he chuckled and shook his head. “And, I can’t kill her. She’s still the only vessel we have, unless I can extract the key. But even then, I must still find the seal—which could take centuries!” His withering gaze held Carlos. “You played our entire realm into a winner-takes-all position where she’s temporarily won. Unbelievable.”
He began walking again with his eyes closed and his hands behind his back. “What to do, what to do with you, my wayward, wayward son? The sins of the father shall be visited upon the son—that’s the law of all realms, a point not negotiated . . . and I’m sure my father had to ask himself this same question. Irony.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Carlos said, sheer panic in his voice as a million different horrific options entered his mind.
“Oh, yes . . . there was total, clear intent in her desire to save your damnable soul . . . to
snatch it from our clutches, to convert you to her side—Dark Guardian. She wanted to bring you into the Light.” The chairman tilted his head and nodded. “So be it. Grant the lady her wish, and let her see what the Light does to our kind.” He walked away from Carlos. “I hope she likes her decision.”
Carlos could feel his body relax. It would be painful, but it would be an end, and be over quickly. She’d survive, so would the baby. Maybe, under the right circumstances, Marlene could help guide it, anoint it, keep it from being evil.
The chairman put one finger to his lips before speaking. “Over quickly? No . . .” He made a little tsking sound as he slowly shook his head. “And, we do intend to be sure that she sees your death in the Light—just where she wanted you to be, to place a scar on her heart where she left one on mine.”
Carlos closed his eyes.
“And, the baby . . . the Neteru is our vessel, and it has to be cleaned out. I’m not going to risk—”
“No!” Carlos yelled, straining against the rock stakes in his arms.
“Yeessss . . .” the chairman said. “Just like you showed her. The blood separation—yours to one side, hers to the other . . . we can’t harm her, we can’t infect her blood, but we can take back that which is rightfully ours—your blood and your DNA . . . and we will drain it out of her womb until the fetus detaches from—”
“Oh, God, no! Compasion,” Carlos cried out, sobs now choking the mucous-trapped words, “Dios, por favor, compasion—don’t let them do that to her! Take me, do whatever, don’t hurt her—not like that!”
Horrified, the chairman stepped back as the black marble floor split between them, sending a hiss of thick, black sulfuric smoke up from the widening gully. Tears, smoke, blood, burned Carlos’s eyes. Hysteria made him tear at his own flesh to free himself from the wall, nearly severing his arm.
“Never in my chambers—that name!”
Screeching, howling, spitting creatures climbed over the edge of the dark pit in the council floor. Squatting, gargoyle-faced entities appeared, their gray-green skins mangled and fused into contorted features as though keloid scars from burns. Their long, scaled hands had gleaming yellowed hooks on the ends of six appendages that mocked fingers. Their tails swished back and forth like a cat’s, a razor barb at the end. They had no eyes, just bloody black sockets, and from behind jagged yellow teeth, they flicked a long, black serpent’s tongue. Gray wings with razor edges and spikes spread out to help them balance in a slow scamper forward. The creatures huddled around Carlos’s feet, touching his legs with one finger, poking him, tilting their heads, their short black horns catching the torch fire as they conferred with each other.
“I might have been moved to some dark level of mercy,” the chairman said calmly, backing further away as the entities turned to him and screeched. “May have struck a deal,” he added, which returned their focus to Carlos when the chairman gave the only acceptable answer in Hell. “But you cried out down here.” He shook his head, his voice filled with strange compassion and yet respect. “I can’t help you now that the harpies have come to investigate. You will have to tolerate an Inquisition.”
She couldn’t see as she stumbled up the dock, half running, half jogging with her team. The tears wouldn’t stop flowing, then she heard it. A piercing wail that ran through her soul. She turned to the others and covered her face. Brutal images flashed in strobe in her mind, made her vomit, and drop to her knees. “They’re torturing him!”
A sharp tug on her shoulder, arms lifting her, reinforcing her grip on Madame Isis, and making her stand. The sea was spewing a dark, whirling funnel cloud, electricity sparking within it to reveal the razor-toothed flying creatures within it. Instantly they all knew it had come for the living key, Berkfield.
The Guardians temporarily halted their retreat, holding a line at the edge of the dock to slow down the hellish cloud. Weapons drawn, the clerics began to half drag, half carry the semiconscious Berkfield to a Jeep. Then the team froze. The clerics surrounded Berkfield.
“Damali, come to me!”
She wiped her face fast and focused on the deeply pained male voice, and gasped.
“Steady aim,” Rider whispered. “We got us an amped master.”
“Stand down,” Damali ordered, her back to her team. She spun on them when they wouldn’t lower weapons. “Me and Tetrosky had a deal! Stand down if it’s the last thing you do. Now!”
“He’s in her head,” Shabazz said, his voice steady. “Take aim—”
“No,” Damali said fast, backing away from her team to stand between them and Tetrosky. She ignored their stricken confusion and blocked their aim.
“Neteru,” Tetrosky said. “Your team stood with me against Amin. I saw them try to take him out to assist me. They’re confused, they’re human—but we need them to clear away the hallowed earth over close-by lairs. Don’t harm them. It’s near dawn. Send the chairman his key and we shall find favor, still, in the empire. It’s not too late. All my primary forces are gone. After the battles, and the transports, I need to feed just to have you in my arms and protect you.” He wheezed but stood tall, passion and yearning glittering in his eyes. “We’ll rebuild the empire, you and I, one turn at a time. All the chairman wants is the living key, but it will take him eons to find the seal to open it. None of us know where it is. That leaves us as his only future. Tell them to lower the weapons that can hurt our kind.”
“You hear that?” Damali said, pointing her sword toward her team, sheer force in her eyes as she held each gaze closely, trying to transmit information, then she looked at Marlene and nodded slowly. “He is the last master vampire topside,” she said carefully. “All the second-levels, including wives, went down with the ship. Winner takes all. I made this man a deal in the castle parlor . . . I actually made him more than that—I made a promise that I would honor with my Isis—now stand down—and do not be confused. Trust me.”
Her team cautiously followed her lead and lowered their weapons, but their muscles twitched with readiness. She watched Tetrosky visibly relax, his breathing labored as though he’d just been through Hell.
“Where’s Carlos? I have to know before I honor our pact. I have to know if you’ve truly won the blood match.”
Tetrosky took a step forward, but she lowered her blade, making him stop, and keeping him twenty feet away from her.
“He is down in council chambers, Damali,” Tetrosky said, his voice becoming a plea. “He’s staked to the chairman’s wall and is getting his innards ripped out. I am the last master vampire standing.” He opened his arms. “Don’t make it a hollow victory for me.”
Damali slowly brought her hand to her mouth, her Isis lowered a bit, and she fought the chill that ran through her. She refused to allow tears to build in her eyes and found an old inner rage to cling to in order to anchor herself. Without looking back at her team, she held her hand up to them, knowing they were ready to unload what was left of their ammo. Timing was everything. Not yet. He was still a master, and still dangerous. Especially now if he panicked.
“Gustav,” she said, allowing her voice to become soft, and using his first name on purpose. “The victory will not be hollow.”
She could see tears of relief, pent-up desire, self-doubt, tension—so many things all at once glittering in his eyes. She knew where he was, could sense it with everything Neteru and female in her. He was male. And he had led her man to the worst nightmare imaginable.
“I remember what you asked me to do just before the master’s hunt,” she said, slowly approaching him as her grip on her blade tightened. “You wanted me more than all the others, and you played your hand so very, very well.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “For you, McGuire. For you, a visit to council to survive the chaos on the boat. Now come to me. We still have time before dawn, you and I.”
She nodded, walking forward. “Skill, shrewd strategy, deception . . . let the best man win.”
He nodded, approaching her slowly, still cautio
us about her nervous team and unwilling to make a sudden move that could spook them. “Winner takes all, and you still smell so good.”
“I’ll come to you, just as you wanted. With Isis in hand,” she murmured, allowing her gaze to rake his body until he briefly closed his eyes.
A sob stole his breath for a moment. “Do you have any idea what I went through to acquire you?”
She nodded, her steps moving forward steadily, her eyes locked with his, gaze unwavering, stalking, hunting. Then her voice dropped to a breathless whisper. “Just ask me once again like you did in the parlor, just so my memory can fuse with the new image as I give you my throat now that my husband is being extinguished. Just let me see it raw. I need that now.” Tears filled her eyes as she referred to Carlos, and that devastated Tetrosky, sent insane fury through her system like a rocket.
Tetrosky opened his arms wide, trembling, dropped to his knees, leaned his head back, and another sob of sheer relief entwined with blatant longing caught in his throat. “With all that I have, take everything—and my throat. You extinguish me.”
Damali swung so hard that it felt like her shoulders were coming out of their sockets. Each vertebra in her back expanded, twisted, and snapped as the blade connected with Tetrosky’s throat, slicing in a ringing wind chime through skin, and muscle, and tissue, and cartilage and bone. She kept spinning in a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle and almost fell from her own momentum. She heard the head thud and bounce, rolling away from the body, the eyes in it stunned open, before the body fell back and made a loud thud—then burst into flames.
“Gladly, you bastard! As promised!” she screamed, going to the ashes and kicking them, hysteria bubbling in her. “The last man standing is staked to a wall in Hell! They’re torturing him because of you!” Screaming sobs made her vision blur, her ears ring, and her hands grasp at the air as her team drew her away from the site.