What it would be like, after he discovered how she’d influenced his life. She hadn’t been playing him, but he’d surely see it that way. And after the demons were slain and his revenge complete, he wouldn’t have any reason to stay.
She took her time catching up to him—long enough that her tears had dried and she’d been able to tuck her despair beneath her emotional shields.
As soon as she fell into step beside him, he said, “When we arrive, how should I explain you?”
“I’ll be Anna Vanek’s sister, Eliska.” She named one of his community members in Prague. If anyone had a reason to help Deacon take his revenge, it would be one of the vampire’s relations. “My general description matches Eliska’s records.”
“Anna didn’t have a sister.”
Not anymore. Rosalia wouldn’t paint a target on a living human. “Eliska had childhood leukemia. Anna was twelve when she passed.”
He glanced at her in surprise, his face tightening with emotion. “Anna was one of our youngest.”
“Well. She began seeking immortality a little earlier than most people do.”
“And thanks to Belial’s demons, only got five years of it.” The grief in his voice hardened, his mouth flattening. “So, your plan: The demons are all together, knocking off the nephilim one at a time. What happens to the demons when they’re done?”
“They die.” Just as she’d promised him.
“Goddammit, Rosie. How?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’ll figure out a way.” Hopefully a way that didn’t kill anyone but the demons.
Deacon’s jaw clenched, as if he barely held back his response. When he finally spoke, it was only, “Fuck.”
Rosalia would have preferred to remain outside in the dark when they arrived at the vampire’s house. The front walk led through a walled garden, designed with both day- and night-dwellers in mind. Palms and eucalyptus trees sheltered camellias and rhododendrons. Beside the verandah, water bubbled over Moorish tiles and splashed into a small pond stocked with fat gold and white koi.
Deacon rang the bell and announced his name through the speaker. A few seconds later, she caught his fleeting surprise when they heard the locks disengage. He hadn’t expected that the vampire would open the door to him.
Tall and dark, José Carvalho wore buff trousers and a loose white linen shirt. Gray peppered his hair, and faint lines fanned around his eyes and bracketed his mouth. Behind him waited his wife, Maria, her blond hair loosely gathered at her nape, looking cool and elegant in a vintage sleeveless dress.
They’d been middle-aged when they’d transformed, with two grown children. One had become a vampire. The other was now a grandparent.
She didn’t want to be here. In this house, she couldn’t escape what it meant to be an immortal with children who weren’t—and it hurt her heart.
José smiled. “Come in, my friends, before the heat does.”
The couple led them to a comfortable room, lined with books and a large- screen television. Games were tucked away in a shelf. A small stuffed animal was caught between the cushions of a sofa. Not just a room—a family room. Too easily, Rosalia could imagine gatherings in this room, of humans and vampires.
Focusing on Deacon instead, she watched him set the bag on a low table and open it. José took a look. Satisfaction flashed over his expression. He didn’t show his fear, but Rosalia sensed it.
“The demons won’t retaliate? The other communities are worried.”
Deacon shook his head. “They won’t stoop to retaliation. Any demon who admits that a vampire could do this would seem weak.”
Nodding, José looked to Rosalia, and she felt his gentle probe against her psychic shields, followed by Maria’s. Rosalia pretended not to notice.
After a moment, Maria smiled at her. “Would you like coffee?”
Rosalia glanced at Deacon, her brows lifting. The less she participated in the conversation, the better. It would be simpler all around if she just didn’t speak, but knowing that neither José nor Maria understood Czech was the next best thing. “Nerozumím.”
“Dáš jsi káva?”
Rosalia turned to Maria, shaking her head. “Neděkuji.”
“No, thank you. We won’t be here long,” Deacon explained, and when their curiosity didn’t lessen, he added, “Her sister, Anna, was a young member of my community.”
“I see.” Nodding, José returned his attention to Deacon. “We’d heard that a human was with you, though no one knew who she was. But yes, that makes perfect sense. Do you plan to turn her?”
Deacon laughed. “No. She’s far too good for the likes of me.”
José smiled before turning serious again. “What are you intending to do? Kill them all?”
“What do you think my chances of that are?” Deacon smiled faintly when José didn’t answer. “I’ll find some other way of making certain we’re safe from them.”
With an elegant wave, Maria gestured toward the bag. “We’re already safer than we were.”
“It’s never enough,” Deacon said, then looked to Rosalia. “And we have more to do. We should go.”
José extended his hand. “Thank you. If you need a community, Deacon, you will always have a place here.”
Deacon stared at the other vampire for a moment before slowly taking his hand. His voice had roughened. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
At the door, Rosalia managed to butcher a simple adeus and left, satisfied. Almost satisfied.
She frowned at him as soon as they reached the street. “I’m too good for you? What were Eva and Petra—dog meat?”
“I sure as hell didn’t mean that.” Deacon’s mouth flattened. “They were too good for me, too. They deserved a lot better than they got.”
Better than a man who destroyed himself trying to save them? But no argument would matter, she knew. This was his burden.
As if he read her thoughts, he said quietly, “It doesn’t matter how hard I tried, Rosie. I failed.”
Yes. She understood that, too well. It wouldn’t matter how hard she worked to destroy the nephilim and Belial’s demons, or how well parts of her plan succeeded. If she failed . . . all of the good intentions in the world would not make up for it.
And as many reasons as she had for doing this, she had just as many ways to fail.
A chartered flight waited to take them from Lisbon to Paris. If the demons had begun to track Deacon’s movements, Rosalia didn’t want to point them to Rome. At the Paris hotel, she checked on her surveillance equipment before taking a train to the edge of the city. From there, Rosalia formed her wings and carried him.
She flew too fast to talk. They were vulnerable in this position—and they’d lost an hour returning east. If she didn’t reach home before dawn, Deacon would be making the end of this trip covered by a body bag.
When they arrived, the abbey was empty. Rosalia wanted nothing more than to fly straight to her bedchamber with Deacon, but the ringing of a telephone in the War Room called her there instead. She landed on the second-level walkway, vanishing her wings.
“St. Croix?” Deacon asked.
Rosalia shook her head. The number she’d given St. Croix had a different ring. This was the number she’d given only the vampires within her community.
For a brief moment, she let herself hope that it was someone she hadn’t accounted for—a vampire who’d managed to escape the nephilim. But even before she looked at the display, she knew who it must be: Camille, and with Deacon standing by to hear every word.
Her heart thundering, she answered. “Camille.”
A brief silence was followed by the sound of someone rushing across the room. She must have been letting it ring over speakerphone for some time. Yes, Camille was tenacious.
“Bonjour, Eliska. Yves sends his love.”
Rosalia had never officially met Yves, and so Camille was simply telling her that Yves was in the same room—which meant that Camille would be careful how she spoke, as well.
And she’d promised not to manage him, anyway.
She kept her voice cool. “Deacon might want to pass on such sentiments to Yves, but I won’t. I thought your hospitality was lacking when you last met with him.”
“At the hotel restaurant? I didn’t see you.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
There was a smile in Camille’s reply. “But I recognized your touch in recent events.”
“I haven’t touched anything. Deacon has. He’s much stronger than a human, after all.”
“I see.” Camille digested that quickly. Rosalia wouldn’t need to make it any clearer: She didn’t want anyone to know that a Guardian was involved. “But tell me, Eliska, what have you planned? He’s taken Budapest, Athens, Monaco . . . and now José Carvalho is ready to lay down his life for him. You must appreciate that we need to know whether Paris is next.”
Rosalia sighed as she heard a burst of French from Yves in the background. Camille was trying to understand what Rosalia’s endgame was. Yves just wondered if his position was being threatened. “No. But I do expect you to welcome him with the respect he deserves.”
“If I’d known—”
“You’re too clever for that, Camille.” Complimenting the other woman always helped smooth over bad news. Rosalia didn’t intend to involve her yet—not until all of the other community elders were involved, too. “You don’t start moving a queen around the board on the opening gambit. We’ll need you, in time. But for now, Deacon has the maneuverability and the strength to set up the game.”
Camille made a noncommittal noise—then sighed as, in the background, Yves asked about London and the nephilim.
At his bidding, Camille asked, “Will you take care of that community, as well?”
Not Rosalia. Another queen.
Rosalia sat up straight, her mind racing.
Anaria. Michael was gone. But Anaria had just as much power. Possibly more—and if the demons slaughtered the nephilim, no one would have more reason to kill them than the nephilim’s mother.
But Rosalia would have to bring in Taylor, too. Oh, Lord. It would be so dangerous for them all.
Failure would be worse.
“Mother? Have you a solution for London?”
“Let us pray so.” She heard Camille’s delicate snort of laughter, and then another sigh when Yves launched into an invective against the nephilim, opining that the British vampires deserved it, and expressing his anger that the nephilim had only targeted Europe and America. “Good night, Camille.”
She hung up, and braced herself before looking up into Deacon’s face. His expression was rigid with controlled anger.
“Camille is the vampire who left before the others were slaughtered?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago did she work with you?”
“The three decades preceding the First World War.”
That was earlier than he’d expected, but the surprise didn’t abate his anger. He stalked to the wall, and back. “Let me guess: She learned everything from you.”
Not everything. Camille had a natural ability with men that Rosalia could never claim. Camille could be funny and lighthearted, with a quick smile and a quicker comeback—talents which had won Deacon over, those many years ago. Talents that Rosalia did not possess.
“She learned many things here, yes. But not everything.”
“And there’s no question how you knew so much about me. She fed you—”
“No,” Rosalia cut him off, and rose to her feet. “She didn’t want to work for the Church. But there were other things that needed to be done in those years.” And Camille needed her own purpose. In truth, Rosalia had manipulated Camille’s life as much as she had Deacon’s. Ninety years ago, his need and Camille’s had dovetailed, and Rosalia had used that knowledge to bring them together—though doing so had killed her. “But she did not feed me information on you. Everything I know, I saw myself.”
“Bullshit. She has your direct number.”
“To reach me if she ever needs help. Or if she knows someone else who does.”
He didn’t believe her. She could feel his distrust, see it in the rigid stance of his body, as if he expected her to drop something else on him. First Malkvial, now Camille.
And perhaps she deserved that distrust. She should have told him how well she knew Camille, but revealing their connection had felt too close to losing him altogether. The timing had just always been so wrong.
It still was. Sighing, she glanced at the clock. “It’s almost dawn. You don’t want to be locked in here all day.”
The tightening of his jaw said it best. Not in here with her. Not now.
And she had to live with the decisions she made—even when it hurt. “Come on, then.”
The garage had been built onto the back of the abbey about forty or fifty years ago, Deacon guessed. The only access was from the outside, though the eastern door. The place hadn’t been used often. Some oil scent still lingered, but not much. A man could have eaten off the concrete floors. The glass in the big bay door had recently been painted over to block the light. The tools laid out on the worktable sparkled, unmarred by even a fingerprint. She’d even set up a computer and phone so that he could research parts and order them. The whole setup was like a cleaner, sparser version of what he’d had in Prague.
Rosalia watched him look around, the sadness in her eyes fading and taking on life. She was excited about this.
He was wary. She’d put a hell of a lot of effort and money into this. And he couldn’t fault her choice of car currently sitting in the bay. He’d wanted to get his hands on a Ferrari 250 GTL for years—but then, Rosalia knew a lot about what he’d like. Knew that he’d used to do restore and resell cars like this for a living. And he’d made money from it, but he’d loved it, too. His garage and vehicles had been the last things he’d sold before leaving Prague.
But it felt too much like how Camille used to give him gifts to help soften the blow of something she’d done, or something she wanted. She’d hand the gift over, talking about how much she’d appreciated him . . . and then drop a bomb on him a few days later.
He slid his palm over the dull red fender. Solid. Not rusted out, just banged up a little. Tires rotted, upholstery a mess. Overall, not bad shape, but it’d take a lot of work. He lifted the hood and grimaced. She’d been stripped for parts, and what was left had corroded. He’d have to rebuild the engine.
He was already itching to get in there.
“It’s the best I could get on short notice.” Rosalia came up next to him, her hands tucked in her elbows. “If you’d prefer another vehicle, I can find it for you.”
On short notice, because she and Taylor had thrown this together yesterday afternoon . . . just after Taylor had shown up and put a halt to Rosalia telling him about Malkvial. But she must have known that revelation was coming. The timing of this whole damn thing couldn’t have been better, could it?
When he didn’t answer, she sighed and pointed to the back wall of the garage. “The sparring chamber is on the other side. After I sunproof that room, I can open this wall up. The War Room is right above it. It shouldn’t be difficult to construct an access stair through the floor—and then you could move around between here and the second-level chambers during the day.”
Wasn’t that convenient? “That seems like a lot of work, when your plan should be all finished up within a week and a half. I’ll be out of here then.”
The excitement in her eyes dimmed. He watched her back-pedal as if she realized the big prize she’d dangled wasn’t as tempting as she’d hoped. “Well. It’s best that you’re comfortable while you’re here.”
“Comfortable will win you points, sure. But if you want to give me something to do and keep me comfortable while I�
��m at it, just put me in your bed and fuck me.”
He’d discovered how calculating she could be—but she didn’t run cold. Never cold. Her eyes began to glow, a fierce yellow light.
“Yes, you’re right. This isn’t about giving you something to keep you occupied for the day. It’s not about knowing how you enjoy restoring vehicles, and that you sold yours to pay for revenge. It’s not about any of that. It’s about scoring points, and managing you.”
Her anger burned against his shields. The hurt that sounded beneath made him want to reach out.
But maybe that was what she wanted. Maybe she counted on him taking that step toward her. Now she stared at him, as if waiting—for what? An apology? Fuck that. It wasn’t like Camille had been a passing acquaintance. He’d lived with her for twenty-five years. Longer than many human marriages. That wasn’t something a person failed to mention unless there was a reason to hide it. And the only reason for Rosalia to conceal her history with Camille was that she’d gotten something out of it, and didn’t want him to know.
Had Camille told her every string in him to pull? God knew, Rosalia’s fingers were right in there, right around his heart. He couldn’t take a fucking breath without feeling her and the hold she had on him.
Rosalia decided not to wait anymore. Throwing up her hands, she spun away from him. “All right. You think fucking earns points? Then go fuck yourself, Deacon. You’re guaranteed to win.”
Faint sunlight stung his eyes as she slammed through the door and into the dawn. Deacon turned, resting his palms on the hood, resisting the urge to pound his fist through steel.
Twenty-four hours ago, she’d come into his bed. In less than a day, it’d all fallen apart—and he couldn’t even dredge up surprise. He’d never deserved anything she’d offered. And even though he was good and fucked now, he hadn’t won.
He’d lost something, instead.
CHAPTER 18
Demon Blood Page 31