When all of the bottles are either through the portal and in the castle or on the plain, besides for a few stray ones on the table, Landon picks up a bottle and tosses it to Aiden, then another to Mason, and so forth. I catch mine and screw off the lid like the others. We all send glances at each other.
“Let me be the test subject since I made the shit. If I die, don’t drink it,” Landon muses with a smirk. “Here’s to winning this goddamn war.” He raises his bottle in the air and then swallows it down. We all stare at him waiting for him to explode or do something cool, but nothing seems to happen. Landon nods. “I feel fine. Go ahead.”
We all raise our water bottles. “To winning this war,” Aiden agrees with Landon.
The water tastes like nothing. The mixture so diluted that I wonder how in the world it will work. Once I’ve swallowed down the entire bottle, I wait to feel something.
Aiden leaves the house, dragging me behind him and leaving Mason and Landon to do their thing. Crispen and Aria glance around at each of us wondering if it’s working. They’re on Terry duty for the next week. Lucky them.
“Would you slow down?” I ask Aiden as he pulls me so fast that I can hardly keep up.
He looks down at me smiling. “I’m excited.”
“You’re excited to poison all of your people with emotions.” I send him a mock look of horror.
He slows down finally. “Yeah, I’m not so sure how it’s going to over.” He kisses my forehead before slicing open his wrist and dripping blood over the portal marker. Then we’re crawling through the closet on the other side. Servants are currently carrying the bottles out of the room and out to I assume the courtyard.
“Aiden, sir, glad to see you’re well,” a changeling guard greets him. I recognize him as the guard who let me back into the castle earlier today.
Aiden acknowledges him with a nod.
By the end of the week we've managed to get down most of the list of demons in the registry. Aiden sends bounty hunters after the demons who don't show up to drink the elixir. To my complete and utter surprise, there isn't nearly as much backlash about the elixir as I assumed there would be. With the exception of a few stubborn pures, the demons all take the elixir Aiden offers. He tells them that it's our best chance at defeating the rebels and keeping loved ones safe.
I'm taken aback by how much of the demon population is completely loyal to Aiden as a leader. I don't know why but I figured that besides the rebels there must be many more who disagree with his title. Unlike politics in the human world, the demons don't get a choice in their leader but that doesn't mean they feel they should. I learn that the demons, even the pures, are followers and I believe that somehow they are all biologically linked to the most powerful demon like the changelings are though less intensely. Or maybe they're just scared to piss Aiden off. He is a very powerful demon that no one would dare piss off if they had any brains. He has the resources to do just about anything.
We stand on a balcony that looks over Tartarus as Aiden is scheduled to make a big announcement.
“Tomorrow our guards and I included will lead an attack on the rebels who have caused us so much lost these last weeks. We will get our vengeance.” Aiden speaks professionally. I step back into the shadows, not enjoying being in the spotlight.
Demons cheer outside. Two hands land on my shoulder and shake me lightly. “Well, sis, are you ready for tomorrow?” I turn to look at Landon.
“As ready as I'm going to be I guess.”
Mason chuckles from a chair a few feet away. “I'm excited to kick some ass.”
“Megan, you need to consume a soul tonight. It's been a week,” Landon reminds me. I keep putting it off. The remorse I haven't felt since becoming a demon has sunk in deeply because of the elixir, and I can't handle the souls I've already taken let alone future souls I will have to take. I’m starving but I just can’t bring myself to harm another human.
“Focus on control. You don't have to kill. Souls heal. Take a little from a few and they won't be harmed,” Mason assures me. “Landon and I can do it, so can you. Aiden's been practicing this immense control for centuries.”
“Landon, you've been around a while. You've taken so many human lives. How is it that you are not stricken with remorse and guilt now that you have human emotion again?” I ask him on the verge of a mental break down.
Landon smiles sympathetically. “I've been around a while. Even if the kindest human were alive as long as I, seen the things I have, they wouldn't feel the same about death, Megan. As a halfling did you feel guilty about eating a hamburger?”
I don't answer and he guesses my answer.
“But you still wished to protect their species, right? You didn't want them going extinct or anything. That's the closest I can come to describe how I feel about humans.”
Although it doesn't seem the same to me, I sort of understand what he's saying. I feel a touch of relief but not enough.
“Plus, although I have human emotion, Megan, I am far from human. I am still a demon with the tendency to darkness.”
He's right about that much. None of us are suddenly saints since drinking the elixir. We are still demons. Then again, humans are not all warm and fluffy either. Some of them are darker than I'd consider myself. And it's those humans’ souls that the demons in the soul sector of hell sort out from the rest.
“We are still monsters, but we now have consciences,” Mason adds while flipping through a money management magazine. I have to wonder why he's reading such a thing. “Take it from me, I was a hunter once for many years. I know I'm a monster now, but I also know that I'm just part of the food chain and all in all we are helping humans, Megan. Some must be sacrificed for the continued existence of the race. That's just how it is and you must come to accept that much.”
Aiden returns from outside and wraps me in a hug before quickly pinning me against a stone wall. His lips land on mine harshly.
“Uh, can you a top groping my sister in front of me?” Landon asks as if in agony. He cringes. “Let's go, Mason.”
Mason rises and I hear the door close. The changeling guards that were supervising Aiden on the balcony, close the doors and leave the room. We are alone.
“Now what?” I ask, a pang of hunger causing discomfort. Aiden has no idea that I haven't had a soul in over a week.
He picks me up and tosses me down onto the bed in the room before laying down beside me and propping himself up on his elbow. “One more day of this and things will start looking up instead of down. Then we can focus on us.”
“Promise?” I ask. My excitement nearly intangible.
He answers me with a kiss to my forehead. “I got you something.”
He pulls a box from his pocket and presents it to me. I pull the red ribbon from the black box to find a set of keys.
“I've made arrangements for us to live in the human realm where I know we’ll both be more comfortable. Of course, this will still be our secondary home, but…”
I don't let him finish because excitement takes over and I find myself kissing him this time. After a moment he pulls away.
“Isn't this a little soon? I mean we have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow.” What if I don't make it or something goes terribly wrong?
“Terry hasn't been wrong yet. He says that as long as no full-blooded alchemists—which he can't see—show up, then we’ll be okay. We're going to win this. No full blooded alchemists exist, Megan.”
For some reason, I can't let myself get my hopes up.
“Are you sure you're okay working with Crispen and Aria tomorrow? You said you want to help and I won't tell you that you can't, but I need you doing something with minimal risk. I can't lose you.”
“I'm untrained. I'll just get in everyone's way if I try to fight hands on or I'll gets someone killed. I'm good with my role. At least it's doing something.”
A gunshot and then another has Aiden jumping up and running for the window. “Shit.” He closes the heavy blinds and
tells me to get down. I do as he says. He races out into the hallway and shouts something I miss down the hall. I'm too shocked by the gunshots.
“Megan, were under attack again,” Aiden mutters with impossible speed. How in the hell are we under attack? There are guards surrounding the place. Tons and tons of them. Terry never predicted this.
“They're here?” I ask stupidly.
Aiden shakes his head. “It's not the rebels. It's an army of vampires.”
The memory of my time in the woods with Forrest returns. The cloaked vampires. A chill runs down my spine just thinking about the creatures. And Forrest.
“Stay here, lock the door. I need to find out where they've come in from.” Aiden kisses my forehead before rushing from the room. Feeling absolutely helpless and useless, I hide behind the bed like a child. As soon as this war is over, I'll be putting an end to my uselessness. I need to be trained. This is ridiculous.
A bullet flies through the wooden door and lands beside me. Anger fills me and before I can stop myself I'm ripping apart the wardrobe door and hustling out into the hallway with a makeshift wooden stake. I sure hope human legend is correct in that it can kill a vampire. I'm thrown to the ground nearly immediately.
I jab my stake each way I can, hoping to hit something. The cloaked figure on top of me is not one of the vampires from the woods. A little relief washes over me as I assume that this is a different coven which means it's unlikely that I'll run into a vampirism infected Forrest. Wrong. I'm picked up and thrown into a wall by another vampire. The stone crumbles and a paled Forrest stands over top of me. He hisses at the other vampire and she backs away. Then he grabs me by the ankle and begins dragging me down the hall.
“Let me go, Forrest!” I cry, hoping I'll touch some remaining part of the Forrest I know. He smiles at me, showing off his elongated incisors, and then he tosses me down a flight of stairs easily. I hear my arm snap and I scream. I black out momentarily as my skull whams into the stone wall. When I awaken again, Forrest is tossing me like a rag doll down the hole in the floor we've used so often. This must be where they came in. Forrest snuck them in. No one else would know this was here.
I catch a rung of the ladder before I hit stone again but Forrest’s foot clamps down on my fingers and I'm sent falling again. Thanks to my demon reflexes, I catch myself at the bottom. Standing by the entrance to the tunnel is an old long-haired changeling.
“Bet you didn't know that Terry can't only not see alchemists. He can't see vampires either,” Forrest says in a voice that's not his but sounds like a monsters. “Never thought I'd see the day where rebels and vamps worked together, but… It was in our best interest. Don't worry. Your precious lover is fine. We only wanted you. For leverage you see.”
The changeling laughs. “We didn't need that soul of yours to kidnap you and use you as a hostage. Anyway, we’ve given up on actually taking Aiden, himself. We’ve decided to influence his decisions instead with a little help from you, our motivator. Do you think us holding a brass stake to your heart will make him do whatever we please? Because we sure as hell do.”
“Aiden will do whatever he needs to get you back alive,” Forrest continues darkly.
“No he won't. His kingdom comes first!” I assure them both.
They both laugh. Forrest grabs me by the collar of the shirt, stopping me. “Oh, yes he will. Don't kid yourself.” Then to the changeling he demands, “The vampires have held up their end of the deal, now where is Damus? Return him to us.”
The changeling disappears into the tunnel before pulling out a body tied at the hands and feet with ropes. Forrest pushes me towards the changeling who grabs me harshly. I feel hot blood drip down my leg and arm.
Forrest cuts the ropes binding Damus with his long, inhuman finger nails. Damus stands, brushing himself off. The changeling doesn't hesitate he pushes me into the tunnel.
“By the way, Megan, you smell better without a soul than you did with one,” Forrest sneers with a chuckle.
Chapter 20
Aiden's POV
I race out into the hallway, expecting a bloodbath. With the way things have been going lately it's not a far stretch, but I'm surprised to find that most of the violence is occurring on lower levels of the building, mainly in the servant and guard’s quarters. Something is weird about this. Vampires are rash and stupid but are they really this rash and stupid?
I run into Landon and Mason as they also head towards the action. Mason tosses me two of his blades when he notices I have none on me. I just came from a speech in front of my people. No one seemed to notice a hoard of vampires approaching. I struggle to put the pieces together as I twirl one of my borrowed blades in my hand.
“The trick is to get them in the heart with whatever the hell you can…or the brain.” I give Mason this tip because he's never fought a vampire. He's probably never even seen one. They don't leave hell.
Mason nods promptly. “So they really are vampires then? Landon you were right.”
Landon nods. “You should listen to me more often.”
We descend a flight of stairs and I approach a vampire drinking the blood of one of my servants. I take it out by slicing off its head which also kills the beasts. I then lean down and send my knife through the eye socket of the little girl he was drinking from, putting her out of her misery. A vampire’s venom is incapacitating and anyways she's better off dead than a beast.
Almost as fast as the vampires are upon us, they're completely gone. And I don't mean we've managed to take them all out. No. They're just gone. They've backed down. This sends off alert bells in my mind. Something is so wrong about this all.
Landon and Mason sense this too. Some of the changelings begin checking rooms and others pulling out bodies to dispose of them in the hellfire once they're identified. The vampire bodies will turn to ash in their own in a matter of minutes so they don't have to worry about them. The servants can sweep them up later.
I notice that a door at the end of the long hallway is ajar. The door that is always locked to keep people from discovering the secret passage inside of it that leads below to hellfire, the place souls are sorted, and a tunnel that leads out to a portal a few miles out of Tartarus in a neighboring town.
Only a select few people know this passage exists. Me, Landon, Maxwell, Megan, Terry, Mason, and Forrest. My mind makes the connection immediately. Vampires. Forrest. But why?
Mason and Landon see me staring through the doorway trying to make sense of this.
Why in heavens would vampires attack us? They have no reason to put themselves on my bad side. Forrest, even as a vampire, is smarter than this.
“Terry can't see vampires, but I honestly never saw that as being much of a problem,” Landon states calmly. It's not like the vamps did much damage, but that makes it all more confusing.
“It's almost like they were trying to make a distraction,” I observe. But a distraction for what?
Mason groans. “Shit. Where's Megan?”
Landon and I exchange a look with Mason. “Upstairs,” I tell him.
“Wanna place bets on that? Remember when we were talking about how Maxwell planned on taking you captive in exchange for giving her her soul? Well, they didn't have that leverage anymore.” Mason, the brains of my family rambles quickly. “So why not just take Megan? They know you'll do anything to get her back. It makes more sense for them to take her rather than you anyway really, if they want change. They can lure you there and capture you later if needed. It's near impossible for them to take you from your own castle where you're guarded, but Megan…Aiden, they have more control over you by taking Megan than if they took you. Forrest knew that. He also knew that Terry can't see vampires.”
“The vampires don't just do things for demons and risk their own safety for nothing in return. They must've been promised something they wanted,” Landon adds.
Every cell in my entire body lights up like a live wire. Megan. No. Before I can stop myself, I'm running through the cast
le at full speed to the room I left her in. If she is gone… I can't even think it. I'll chop the head off of every vampire and rebel alive. For the first time since I was human, my heart feels like it might leap out of my chest. The worst part is, that even though I tell myself that my kingdom comes first, that the demons always come first, Mason is right. Megan always comes first. Call me selfish, but I can't live nor rule without her.
I kick open the bedroom door, sending splinters flying. Megan is gone. They've taken my heart. I furiously clutch the wardrobe that's been smashed in and throw it across the room. It hits the windowed doors leading to the balcony and smashed through them.
“She's gone,” Mason growls from behind me.
“Go! Someone go after the vampires! Give them whatever they want in exchange for Forrest’s aid in retrieving her. He took her, that sneaky little prick, and he's going to get her back!” I shout before thinking. Mason and Landon scramble off in the opposite direction. “I will not fucking cooperate with the rebels if I don't have to!”
I follow Landon and Mason, stopping them both. “Take twenty guards with you. There were a lot of vampires. If you must, kill all of the beasts to prove a point if they don't cooperate.”
Mason and Landon continue in the direction they're headed. “We’ll get her back, Aiden,” Mason assures me.
I know we will. We have to. What's one more fucking disaster to add to my plate? I will myself to calm down enough to concentrate on contacting Megan through our minds. When she finally answers me she sounds scared out her wits.
“Aiden, I'm...I’m okay. I…”
The shakiness to her tone tells me she's far from alright.
“Are you bitten? Hurt?” I ask first and foremost.
She denies any injury.
“Where are you? Do the rebels have you?”
She replies with what I already assumed. Mason was completely correct in his thoughts.
Changeling (Black Petals Book 2) Page 25