Masque of the Vampire (Amaranthine Book 8)

by Joleene Naylor

  Though Katelina didn’t comment, she wasn’t sure the stalker even existed.

  Once Sarah was back in her room, Katelina slipped into bed. Jorick opened his eyes and she felt the spark as he perused her most recent thoughts.

  “Let me see,” he barked and threw back the covers to catch up her arms. “You’ve been burned.”

  “It’s not bad. Sarah’s—”

  “The only reason it isn’t bad is because of the blood Samael gave you. It’s noon, Katelina, and you’re barely more than a month old. You could be dead.” His eyes blazed and his voice grew louder. “Enough is enough. I know you want to help her, but these paranoid delusions are getting dangerous.”

  “Would you be quiet,” Katelina whispered fiercely. “Sarah will hear you.”

  “I want her to. This is exactly the sort of thing I meant when I told you to be careful with her! If she chooses to chase her imagination through sunlight, she can do it alone.”

  “Don’t, Jorick,” Katelina warned. “You aren’t my father.”

  “Obviously. If I was you’d be better behaved. Now go to sleep and let this be an end to her nonsense.”

  Katelina was too tired to argue, but she prayed it didn’t come to a choice between them.

  Katelina was restored the next morning. Sarah’s lingering burns earned a few curious looks, but no questions were asked or answers given. Jamie didn’t comment, and Katelina suspected he got the story from Jorick’s silent messages.

  After three servings of breakfast, Sarah was fully healed. Though she didn’t mention Jorick’s tirade, her tense shoulders said she’d heard.

  When breakfast was over, they were thrust into the chaos of the entryway. Planes with human pilots had arrived during the day, and their immortal occupants all wanted inside at once. Fleur got a call from the airstrip in St. Anthony. She and Bishop escaped to bring back what they hoped was the last of the guests.

  Katelina stayed as close to Jorick as she could. Flashing eyes moved over her. More than once she felt the invasion of someone in her thoughts, though she was never sure who. Among the day’s arrivals were a pair she thought she recognized from Munich’s Höher Rat, or High Council. She was trying to decide for sure, when Fleur returned from her second trip of the evening. Behind her came a blonde vampiress pushing a wheelchair. Strapped in it was a bundle of coat and hat, with a pair of eyes.

  Katelina grabbed Jorick’s arm. “Anya.”

  He nodded. “Surprisingly they were on the guest list this year.”

  “Why? I thought you said it was for ancient, important vampires.”

  “Perhaps they plan to use Thomas as entertainment, like a freak show.”

  “That’s cruel.”

  Jorick scoffed. “No less than he deserves. I’m curious how Anya communicates with him, since he can’t talk and she’s not a mind reader.”

  Jamie leaned over. “If his miserable irritation is anything to go by, I don’t think she does.”

  Anya pushed past the guards to stop in front of Jorick. She sneered and gripped the chair until her knuckles turned white. “You’ve turned up again, like a bad penny.”

  “It’s you who’ve turned up,” Jorick said. “We were already here.”

  “Whatever. You know who we are, so let us pass.”

  Katelina’s attention strayed to Thomas. She felt the jolt of his anger. Though she didn’t hear thoughts or words, she knew he didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to be anywhere. There was no life for him like this. Better he had died.

  Jorick’s touch pulled her back to the room. Anya pushed past with a snarl, only to stop at the bottom of the grand stairs. When she stomped her foot, Cornelius rushed to help her. Anya went ahead to wait impatiently on the landing while the guard bumped the chair up the stairs. With each jolt, Thomas bounced, held in place by a race car-style harness.

  “I feel sorry for him,” Katelina muttered.

  Jorick scoffed. “I wouldn’t. Have you forgotten he betrayed us? Had things worked the way he and Kateesha planned, we’d be dead.”

  “Kateesha never would have killed you,” Jamie said.

  The dead vampiress’ obsession with Jorick wasn’t something Katelina wanted to talk about. “Isn’t it almost dinner time?”

  With a shrug, Jorick took her arm and led her to the smaller dining room. Several pitchers of blood were arranged on a sideboard with trays of crystal glasses and bowls of spices. Katelina skipped them, but a vampire behind her liberally sprinkled cinnamon in his glass before he poured his blood in.

  “Vampires can’t have food,” Katelina commented as they moved to a spot near the wall. “But they don’t get sick from spices?”

  “If they ate the whole bowl they might, but that’s such a small amount.”

  “You’re sure about that?” She downed her glass in one go. Embarrassed, she moved the topic away. “I wonder where Sarah is. Maybe all of this imaginary stalker stuff is her way of going crazy?”

  “If anyone’s going to go crazy, it’s me,” Jorick teased. “And you’re going to drive me there. A suitable vampire mate abandons her family and friends to ride into the moonlight with her lover. But will you do that? No. In more than five hundred years, no woman has dragged me to their mother’s house for Easter dinner, until you. And now we have your best friend. I’m terrified your mother will be the next addition.”

  Katelina elbowed him in the ribs. “I’m not planning to make her a vampire.”

  He turned serious. “Not now. But when age takes its toll, as you watch her die, you might think differently.”

  “Did you?”

  She felt a stab of melancholy she knew wasn’t her own. “I didn’t see the decay of my parents, or my brother, or even my in-laws. After Malick gave me the gift we left the Netherlands.”

  “In-laws?” Katelina echoed. “Brother?”

  Jorick shrugged. “Yes. I had a brother who was younger, the baby of the family. Craen. I can’t remember much about him, only that he irritated me. He married, though I know even less about his wife or their children.”

  He’d answered half of her questions. “You said in-laws.”

  He startled back to the present. “My wife’s parents and her siblings. I don’t remember their names, though I know I didn’t like her sister.”

  Katelina blinked. “You left your wife for Malick?” Had his loyalty to the ancient monster been so great?

  “No. She and our son died of sickness three years earlier.” He squinted as if trying to see past too many years.

  “You had a son?” Katelina exploded, loud enough that other vampires turned to look. “How in the hell have you never mentioned this?”

  He drained his glass and set it on the nearby mantle. “Because it wasn’t important. I can’t even remember their names. It was a long, long time ago, before I was immortal.”

  “So what? Because it happened before you were a vampire it doesn’t count? Like your life resets with immortality?”

  “Yes. That’s what it’s supposed to be like, what it was always like before. After careful selection by a master, you prepared yourself, then became a vampire and immediately left everyone and everything for a new life.”

  “So you weren’t joking when you made a crack about me hanging on to my mother?”

  “I was joking. I only meant that was the way it used to be done. And I’m not going to argue about it. You’re just mad I haven’t mentioned Griete before.”

  She crossed her arms. “I thought you didn’t remember her name?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t, until it slipped out. Now can we be done with this, or would you rather be jealous of a woman who’s been dead more than half a millennium?”

  Katelina fell silent and followed Jorick out of the dining room, through the house, and finally outside. The wind whipped the naked trees, and she could smell the heavy scent of approaching rain.

  “A storm’s coming,” Jorick commented.

  “Maybe. Jamie predicted bad weather days ago an
d nothing happened.”

  “It just hasn’t arrived yet.”

  They walked in silence, and finally she asked, “Do you love her? I mean, did you? I always thought Velnya was your first true love, but was it this Grettle?”

  “Griete. I suppose I cared for her. Whether I’d use your description of true love, I don’t know. I honestly don’t remember. I mourned. I have a vague memory that my mother chided me for not remarrying, but perhaps it was only that I didn’t wish to be married in the first place. As I’ve already said, it was a long, long time ago.”

  Katelina bit her lip and stuffed her hands in her pockets. “So in four hundred years you won’t remember Velnya anymore?”

  “Maybe. Though I knew her after immortality, and those memories stay sharper longer. Why? Are you hoping I’ll forget?”

  “No. Just…what if I die? Will you forget about me?”

  Jorick stopped walking to take her hands in his. “No, Katelina. If something happened to you, I’d die with you.”

  He pulled her to him and tried to drown her worries in a kiss, but they hung in the back of her mind. Had he promised the same thing to the others?

  Even if he did, what does it matter now?

  At the strange thought she whirled around to see Sorino and Kai walking toward them. The vampire looked smoothly amused, but it was Kai who met her eyes and nodded, taking credit for the implanted idea. Though human, he’d ingested enough vampire blood to give him some of his master’s abilities.

  “Hello,” Sorino purred. “Enjoying the evening? It appears a storm is on the way.”

  Jorick grimaced. “What do you want?”

  Sorino cocked his head to one side, as if studying their reactions. “I’ve been invited into Andrei’s study tomorrow after lunch, and wondered if your pet would like to play with mine?” He gave Kai’s chain a playful tug.

  Though the boy showed no reaction, Katelina growled. “I’m no one’s pet, and neither is he.”

  “Always so concerned with human rights. Amusing, since you’re no longer one yourself. Should I take that as a no?”

  She’d have loved nothing more than to tell Sorino to shove it, but time alone with Kai was what the doctor ordered. The teen was the one who’d first helped her with mind reading. With an evening to practice, maybe she could figure out how to do it and finally be useful.

  Jorick opened his mouth, but Katelina cut him off. “Yes, Kai can hang out with me.”

  “Excellent. After all, who better to trust him with than the party’s security? Tomorrow then.” He tipped his hat and tugged Kai toward the house.

  Jorick waited until he’d disappeared to snap, “Starting tomorrow I’m on security duty from lunch until dinner. You know the assigned shifts. I don’t want to drag him around.”

  “I couldn’t say no and leave Kai at the mercy of God knows who. Besides, I thought we could find a quiet hole somewhere and watch movies on his laptop. He enjoys that.”

  “I don’t like it, Katelina.”

  She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “There are a lot of things I don’t like, but I have to live with them, just like you do.”

  Katelina headed to bed with the steady roll of thunder in the background. She chanced a quick peak past the drapes to see a sliver of light in the east. Raindrops, like silver glass, dotted the window. From the heavy clouds she knew there would be more.

  She snuggled next to Jorick and let the howl of the wind sing her to sleep. She woke the following evening, relieved Sarah hadn’t come for her in the middle of the day.

  The morning flew by. There was entertainment scheduled for every hour. Katelina watched half of the dancer’s act, and part of the magician’s show. The tricks made her wonder if the vampire was practicing magic or using an illusionist’s skill to make them think he was.

  Lunch was standing room only in the small dining room. Katelina downed her glass quickly and tried to ignore Jorick’s scowl. Sarah stood at her elbow, her empty glass clutched in her hand.

  The room fell silent as Sorino swept through the door. Kai followed, wearing a puffy blue coat and his chain. Though their fellow staff stared, none questioned the overdressed vampire. He stopped in front of Katelina and made a show of unfastening Kai’s leash. “I expect him to be returned in the same condition he’s in now.”

  “Watch him yourself,” Jorick bit back. “Katelina isn’t your babysitter.”

  “She’s already agreed.” He smiled. “It’s fortunate she doesn’t have your disagreeable disposition.”

  With a half wave, he left, and the low buzz of talk resumed.

  Jorick cleared his throat. “I know you think you can take care of yourself, but be careful. Some of these vampires are as powerful as Malick, and have no compunction about using you for their amusement, immortal or no, especially since you’ll be in the presence of a human.”

  “We’ll be fine. If anything happens, or we feel threatened, I’ll come for you.”

  “Assuming you’re able to.” He brushed a kiss across her forehead and, with a final reluctant look, followed Jamie out the door.

  When he was gone, Sarah’s shoulders relaxed. “Where are we going? The TV room?”

  “I thought we might take a walk.” Katelina eyed Kai’s coat. It was almost as if Sorino knew what she had in mind.

  They headed through the house and out a side door. Katelina led them past a stand of naked trees, toward a group of outbuildings. She stopped at a sheltered spot where two sheds nearly met. Sarah continued several paces before she looked back.

  “Are we taking a break?”

  Katelina shifted her weight uncomfortably. She felt silly admitting the truth to Sarah, who was already accomplished at it.

  Kai did it for her. “She wants a private place to practice mind reading.”

  Sarah narrowed her eyes. “You said you can’t do it.”

  “I can’t really, but Kai thinks with practice I might be able to.”

  “Why can’t we do it indoors?”

  Katelina absently rolled the hem of her shirt. “I prefer the privacy. My pathetic efforts are embarrassing.”

  “You shouldn’t be embarrassed,” Kai said. “Even Master had to learn.”

  Katelina cleared her throat noisily. “He didn’t learn in front of an audience. Anyway, do you want to help me or not?”

  Kai shrugged and sat down cross legged on the cold ground. Sarah glanced down at her skirt and bare legs. “I’ll stand.”

  Katelina shrugged and sat opposite him, for once glad to be underdressed in jeans.

  Kai brushed his hair back to reveal a set of emerald eyes and the face of a renaissance angel, marred only by a large scar on his forehead.

  She wondered where he’d gotten it, but pushed the question away and held his gaze. He’d told her last time to “listen” with her mind. It was easier said than done. As she strained, she heard things around them: the lap of the lake, the naked tree branches rubbing in the winter breeze. Somewhere a door opened and closed. Soft voices murmured. Kai’s heartbeat echoed like a kettledrum. His breaths rasped, and Sarah’s pulse thudded evenly. Nowhere were Kai’s thoughts. With each minute that passed, Katelina got more and more irritated.

  “This is stupid.”

  Katelina broke eye contact to glare at Sarah. “If you don’t want to be here, you’re welcome to go inside. I felt bad for leaving you by yourself yesterday, but if you prefer that…”

  Sarah jolted. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Right. I’m a lousy mind reader, not deaf.”

  Kai dropped his bangs and shook his head. “She didn’t speak.”

  “I heard her…it sounded like her.” Or had it? Katelina’d heard distant voices a moment ago. “I’m sorry. I guess it was probably whoever is over there.” She motioned toward the house.

  “It’s okay.” Sarah’s eyes dropped and she slumped back against the building, arms crossed.

  Katelina tried to concentrate again, but there was only the sound of laughter and the
splash of oars on the lake. Someone was boating.

  “Why is this so difficult?”

  “You’re trying too hard,” Kai answered silently.

  Maybe he was right. An hour more yielded no results. Though Kai had ingested a lot of vampire blood, he was still human, and his nose and ears turned pink in the cold. Katelina suspected that even if she could get to his thoughts she’d never hear them over his chattering teeth.

  She swung to her feet, and started to tell Kai to do the same, when approaching footsteps veered in their direction. Sarah pushed away from the building, her boredom replaced with wary anticipation. As the steps grew closer, her brow furrowed.

  The vampires came around the corner; a male and a female. She wore a glittering dress and heavy jewels, and he wore a tuxedo that hugged his frame. Their hard eyes and regal bearing looked as out of place as their formal attire.

  The male spoke with a thick accent. “I knew I smelled a human, Callise.”

  “You win.” The cadence of her words matched his, and made Katelina think of oil lamps and historical dramas. “You get the prize, Saul.”

  Saul snapped his fingers and a younger vampire hurried around the corner. Shaggy red hair and a stubbly beard made him look unkempt despite his expensive clothing. He bowed to the pair. “Master. Mistress.”

  “Who are you?” Sarah demanded.

  Katelina dragged her back. “They’re guests. We aren’t supposed to engage them.”

  Callise looked down her nose at them, then turned to the redhead. “Trevor, be a dear and get Saul his prize, will you?”

  Sarah jerked away and leapt at the guests. Before Katelina could reach her, Trevor had already thrown her back into one of the buildings.

  Katelina looked from her fallen friend to the redhead and snarled. “You didn’t need to do that. She’s not a real threat to you.”

  Callise made a noise of disgust, and Saul waved Trevor on. The redhead lunged toward Katelina. With a grunt of annoyance, she dropped into a defensive stance, arms up, and mind already running through Micah’s training.

  “If some bitch wants to start trouble, you gotta show them who’s boss.” Right. She was damn well going to.