by Alix Adale
Colin and George brought up the rear, preventing any foolish notion of escape.
Just then, Cherise’s phone started blasting electronic dance music. She glanced at the burner’s cheap screen. “Huh. Local number, caller unknown. Weird.” The dub-step cacophony continued. “Nobody should have this number. We just switched over yesterday.” The singers kicked in, sounding like valkyries shrieking in the wind. “Who has my number?”
Enough! Dez let sis have it. “Will you fucking answer it already!”
“Jeez, calm the fuck.” Cher flicked a button. “Hello? Uh-huh… Yeah, I know her… Hang on a sec. Hey, Armando?”
“What.”
“It’s some guy. He found Dez’s phone.”
“Give me that.” Armando stalked over and grabbed it.
Someone found the lost Nokia? That was good, wasn’t it? No. It was a security violation to lose a phone. Armando would be furious. Maybe he’d send her home to Port Selkie. Good, she wanted to go back. This vampire road-trip to Portland was the worse vacation in her life. Unlife. Whatever.
“Ah. Thank you for contacting us.” The anger leached out of Armando’s voice as he slid into his smooth, public persona, all charm and competence.
A sinking feeling came over Dez. She hissed at Cherise: “Who called?”
The other shrugged. “Eurotrash-sounding guy.”
Dammit, Stud Puppy! He must have found her phone. It made sense. She must have lost it falling off the building or chasing his puppies around.
Armando wrapped up the call. “If you could bring the phone to the gate of Eibon Manor, you’ll be rewarded. You know where that is? Wonderful. Thank you, good sir.” He clicked off and returned the phone to Cherise. His accusing eyes turned on Dez. “You lost your phone.”
“Yes! I lost my phone. What is the major deal? It’s not the same as murder!”
“Vampire hunters, Desiree, are all around us.” His teeth ground with frustration. “It’s a way to track us. You lost your phone at the site of an illegal kill. Do you know how incompetent that is?”
“Maybe if your goddamn pet didn’t push me off the goddamn roof I wouldn’t have lost my goddamn phone!”
“Temper,” Armando said, raising a warning finger, “is unbecoming of our kind.” He turned with a flourish of his cape and stalked off down the tunnels. After a moment, the rest followed.
The group reached a wine cellar, all dust, casks, columns, and arches. A bald vampire in a crisp suit met them. “I’m Mabon Conreal, the Queen’s Chancellor.”
Armando scowled. “Fancy title for a jumped-up errand boy from a dead bloodline.”
Mabon formed a tight smile. “As you say, Lord Braden. Everyone, this way please.”
“Not me, I’ve got other business,” George said. Everyone looked at him, curious. “And I hate to bend the knee to that—woman.”
Dez blinked. The strong, silent type—to a fault—George hadn’t spoken in days. In fact, he’d grown so mute he might have taken a vow of silence. Guess not.
Now without George, they boarded an archaic, steel-cage elevator that lifted them upward into the mansion proper. Exiting on an upper floor, they passed through several well-appointed corridors and luxurious chambers before entering the throne room of Queen Ursula, ruler of the Kingdom of Dagon.
Judging from its size and location, it once had been a ballroom, now dominated by a massive wooden chair, limned with gold and red cushions. Stained glass windows threw pale, fragmentary rainbows across lustrous carpets.
The Queen was centuries old according to rumor, old enough to remember the wicked ways of lords and masters, of kings and queens. And she was arrogant enough to adopt the royal style of a medieval potentate in Portland, of all places. The ridiculousness of sitting on an actual throne in the United States, let alone in a laidback state like Oregon, needed no comment.
Few courtiers attended the Queen this early in the evening. None looked familiar, but Dez hadn’t attended a gathering in years, preferring to lay low in Port Selkie. She preferred the solitude of her tomb to mingling in the Underworld. There, she worked on her web comic, read, watched anime. Sometimes she even painted and Colin was teaching her how to play the piano. It was not a bad life, in its way.
Rotting is what Armando called it. He might be right. But it was better than the bloody business of the Underworld and all its stolen finery.
Armando walked down the red carpet and dropped to one knee before the throne. Colin followed suit, kneeling a half-step behind. Cherise grabbed the spot to Armando’s left, made a curtsy, and knelt. All so proper.
Dammit, she should’ve worn a skirt. Ursula loved ceremony, or so the rumor went. Instead, Dez managed an awkward bow and dropped to a knee beside Colin.
Their Queen was beautiful, no surprise there. She hadn’t changed in the six years since Dez’s turning. Long, brown hair flowed off pale shoulders, unbound and uncrowned. She wore a lace dressing gown, suitable only for a boudoir. The gauzy wisps of fabric showed the pale expanse of her breasts. Long, naked legs crossed and uncrossed before her lap. Bare feet squirmed in the plush carpet. A single red rose twirled in her fingers. All in all, it looked as if she’d just climbed out of bed. Perhaps that was the case. Most Blooded slept all day, nanorian or no nanorian.
The Queen’s large blue eyes flickered with annoyance, narrowing further as she scanned Desiree’s blue jeans and denim jacket. At length, she twitched her rose. “Stand, gentlemen.”
Armando stood and Colin followed suit. Her sire spoke. “Your Majesty, thank you for this audience.”
“Where’s George?” Flick, the rose went to the left.
“He’s … indisposed.”
“A lie.” Flick, the rose went to the right. “What do you want, Armando?”
“My deepest apologies, Majesty, but there’s been an unlawful culling on your territory. This transgression was committed by two juniors in my clan.”
Dez scowled—Armando made them sound like partners in crime when it was Cher’s killing. But maybe Cherise had been right. Fessing up was stupid. She should have turned a blind eye. The Queen might be furious. Dez bent her head, tried not to picture the rumored dungeons even deeper beneath the mansion.
In brief, Armando sketched out the kill. “Cherise threw the knife, but Desiree commanded the hunt. They drained his blood and left the corpse for the police to find. Then they quarreled, broke ranks, and separated. To top it off, Desiree lost her phone.”
The rose flicked back and forth as Queen Ursula considered. She shifted on her throne, crossing her bare legs, adjusting the hem of her night-robe. “Lost her phone, you say?”
Jesus! What was with these people and their fucking phones! Desiree wanted to scream. She’d help murder an innocent man in cold blood, drank it warm from his body, and all the Queen of Dagon cared about was phone security!
Armando nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty, some mortal found it. He’s returning it.”
Still kneeling, Dez kept her head bent, trying to look penitent, even pitiful. What would the Queen do? This murder might bring down unwelcome scrutiny on the clans, drawing in the attention of vampire hunters or whatever boogeyman kept that stick jammed up everyone’s ass, all the time. The Queen had a right to punish violators of Dagon’s Law as she saw fit.
Ursula rose from her throne in a whisper of silk, unashamed of her near nudity. Her hand reached out and tucked a finger under Cherise’s chin, turning the fledgling’s head this way, that. In a flash, the Queen’s hand pulled back and she slapped the fledgling, hard—crack! The blow resounded through the throne room like a thunderclap. Bone struck bone as if flesh hadn’t intervened. It sent Cherise sprawling across the red carpet, moaning and clutching her face. Blood trickled from her mouth. Then the fledgling went still.
Oh god! Dez trembled. That was no ordinary slap. An ancient vampire could hit with the force of a freight train. Cher’s neck might be broken. Sis wasn’t moving.
The Queen nudged the girl with her foot. “I will
take this one’s service for a moon’s spell, Armando. She must be punished, so she shall perform dirty, dangerous tasks for this court. If she survives, you can have her back.” She sniffed with disapproval. “Potential in dire need of discipline. You are too lax a sire, my old heart.”
Armando agreed at once. “As you say, my Queen.”
Ursula stepped toward Desiree next. Dez kept her head bent. No show of defiance would help now. No plea, no begging—nothing would sway someone so ancient, so callous, so removed from the cares of the world as this vampire queen. Just stop trembling. Don’t show so much fear.
Ice cold fingers lifted Dez’s chin, forced her to look into those large, blue eyes. The woman’s expression looked thoughtful, almost concerned. Whoever had applied her makeup had done a fair job, but it wasn’t anything extraordinary. Mascara, eyeliner. Peach gloss and a touch too much blush. It looked all too normal, yet it couldn’t mask the inhumanity in those features.
Icicle fingertips pawed Desiree’s jaw, pushing against her lips. “Open.”
Dez opened her mouth, fighting down the urge to gag as a freezing hand slid into her mouth. God, would the Queen strangle her? Choke her? Please don’t let it be one of those. Not that. What a terrible way to go.
The Queen addressed the others. “When the human arrives with the phone, bring him to me. I shall enthrall him. He shall go to the police, confess to the murder. Problem solved, yes?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Armando echoed. The court assented.
Dez shook, horror pooling within. No! They can’t pin the murder on Puppy Guy! That was cold. He was an innocent fireman, young and full of life. She tried to protest, but only choked on the intruding fingers.
The Queen stared down with pitiless black pupils. “You, child, do not deserve the gift of Undeath bestowed upon you. Oh yes, I hear reports of your works and deeds. I am like the Lord God, counting the sparrows from my throne. I number all the birds and bees in my realm. Six years you’ve spent in Dagon’s service, and for what? You’re as weak as a newborn, as frightened as a lycan pup. You do not fight our enemies, nor contribute to our cause, nor enrich our coffers. You do not deserve a nanorian. I shall pry it from your heart until you learn to live among us, as one of us. We, who are abominable to the light of the sun.”
The fingers iced deeper into Dez’s throat, making her gag. It was impossible to talk now. Her throat coughed, contracted. Her eyes bugged out, staring. No! Not her nanorian stone. To never see the sun…
Ursula’s voice took on the aspect of thunder. “Ia’c, nanor.”
Fire burned through Dez’s chest. Her pulse hammered, her eyes grew dizzy. The nanorian gemstone lodged inside her squirmed on its own, wriggling and slithering through the cold, dead flesh.
“Ansba’llets-pe’c, Nogad!” The Queen’s shout filled the room.
Breathing proved impossible now. The Undead did not need air, but the reflex remained. The creeping stone felt like a fist of jagged glass crawling through her tissue, burrowing toward her throat. It didn’t hurt this much when they’d put it in. Oh God. The pain. The pain alone could kill her dead.
“Iad, nanor.”
The nanorian entered her windpipe, obedient to its master’s occult call. The gem’s facets burned like fire, alive with demonism. It choked her air passage, turned her blue.
The gem crawled up her throat then shot out of her mouth with an audible pop. Ursula caught it on her outstretched, white palm. For a second it glittered, a warm champagne-toned topaz pulsing with unholy life. It glowed, despite a veneer of blood and indistinct ichor from its former resting place. Waves of palpable evil, life essence of the sun-demon, emanated from the oval cut.
“Hail Inanna,” said the Queen. Her fingers clenched the nanorian, held it aloft for all to admire.
“Hail Inanna,” echoed every voice in the room.
Every voice but hers. Desiree sprawled across the carpet, clutching her burning throat, flailing beside her unconscious clan mate. Blood ran from her eyes, clouding her vision. But she fumbled in sis’s pocket, taking the phone and hiding it. That accomplished, she fought for air, crawling toward her elders.
There would be one more indignity. Ursula reached down and grabbed Dez by the throat, flung her up toward the ceiling without relaxing her iron grip, then—with one swift, effortless motion—hurled her through a stained glass window.
With a scream, Desiree pinwheeled through the sky amid a rainbow explosion of colored glass. Arms flailing helplessly, she hit the ground hard then bounced across the lawns of Eibon Manor, ending face up. Without her nanorian, the sun burned her, beating against her face and limbs like a fist of fire, like the wrath of Heaven. She screamed and screamed, trying to burrow into the ground with the ancient, unerring instinct of the damned. Nails clawed at the turf. Yet she lived—and somewhere in the back of her mind, she had something vital to do.
A moment later, a heavy black cloak settled over her. Armando and Colin lifted her and hurried her off to their Visitation Tomb. Once inside, safe beneath the packed and dense earth, they laid her on a marble slab and gave her blood to drink, blood laced with sedatives, warm and soothing. But she had the phone. She had to make that call. Had to.
Armando stared at her, silent, for a long minute. Then he turned and left without a word.
Colin, however, lingered, bathing her forehead with cold water and bat’s blood. “There, lass. It’s over. Naught more than a sunburn.”
A little later, even George looked in on her, grunting, “That bitch.” It was his only remark. Whether he meant Ursula or someone else wasn’t clear.
At that point, it didn’t matter. She didn’t care. It was all over and it could have been a lot worse. At least the Queen hadn’t knocked her unconscious, only taken her nanorian. That was hardly a punishment. No nanorian meant even more sitting in her tomb, working on her web comic.
Colin laid a wet cloth on her forehead and departed. A short while after, all three of the elders trooped off for pre-solstice gatherings, leaving her alone.
Only then did she slip Cherise’s phone out of her jacket pocket. Fortunately, her bloody-minded sister didn’t bother with a password. Way to violate security, sis. The last caller’s number waited at the top of the list. Dez hit redial.
“Hello?” Puppy Guy’s strong, warm voice filled her ears. Thank god he was still alive—and free.
Her own voice shok. “You—you’re the guy with the puppies, right?”
“Yes. Are you—hey, you’re the Amazing Woman! I recognize your voice. Are you all right? Did you have a relapse?”
Amazing Woman—what in the world? “I don’t get it. Relapse?”
“The head injury.”
“No. I’m fine. Listen, whatever you do, don’t return that phone. To Eibon Manor.”
“I’m on my way now.”
“No! Go back. Look, I’ll meet you somewhere and pick it up. In person. Okay?”
“Are you sure? It’s no problem.”
“Please! I—I want to see you again. Downtown.”
He hesitated. Then a warm laugh. “All right. It’s a date.”
That was funny. Almost funny enough to laugh at if her neck wasn’t raw and bruised, her skin inflamed and itching like mad. “Somewhere public, okay? Any ideas? I’m from out of town, remember?”
“Pioneer Square.”
“Where’s that?”
“Big square in the heart of town. The tourists love it, great for pictures. Your hotel should have maps.”
“Great. Nine o’clock, right after dark.”
“Okay. Goodbye.”
Goodbye, Stud Puppy. She arranged a cab, dressed, and grabbed a wallet. It had come to this, open rebellion against her sire.
Laughter cut across Pioneer Square as the crowds joked, talked, and laughed, heading off to eat, to shop, to catch the new Star Wars. To live life as it should be lived.
Armando pushed through the throng, relentless with his broad shoulders and cape billowing behind him. People
stepped out of his way, snickering at the dramatic outfit. They must figure him for a street performer or an eccentric, perhaps a cosplayer. But his face never changed expression, locked into a snarl. His pace increased, crossing the broad red flagstones with his long, loping stride.
Damn, damn, damn. Dez turned and ran, ducking behind a bus-stop shelter. The sprint sent her careening into a leather jacket. Oomph. Her hands landed on a man’s solid, muscled chest. He smelled like aftershave and roast beef. Her eyes went up.
Puppy Guy! Stepping off a bus!
“Come on!” She grabbed his hand and jerked him down the street toward the nearest light rail car. One was loading passengers at that moment.
Reluctant at first, he resisted her pull. God, he was strong—for a human. “What’s the rush?”
“It’s an emergency!” The train doors were already closing.
His fireman instincts kicked in at the magic word—that, or he trusted her. He stopped resisting and ran at her side. They jumped into the back of the rail car just as the doors hissed shut.
Armando rushed up too late. The glass portal stayed sealed, the train already in motion. For a second, his fist pounded with impotent fury against the train. He shouted, his words lost in the roar of the train’s clattering exit. Armando possessed the strength to pull the door apart if he wanted to, but he didn’t, not wanting to cause a scene. The Underworld meant keeping up appearances, keeping the peace. Dagon’s Law forbade public displays of power and leaving drained corpses behind. Her sire stepped back onto the curb, watching the train roar away into the night.
“Thank god.” She flopped back into the rear seat. Her chest heaved, her breath coming in ragged spurts. She still held Puppy Guy’s hand. Awkward. She let it go.
He sat beside her, wary but bemused. Who could blame him? At least he wasn’t frightened. A buffed guy like him had nothing to fear from an average-sized woman—or so he would assume. How little he knew.