The Dominion Series Complete Collection
Page 99
As his swan song, Michel would have arranged it so that Soren killed him as he was killing Soren, the two of them dying together in some tragic farce of poetic justice—the monster and his creature killing each other.
That possible future exists. I know for I caught a glimpse, a brief glimpse, when I was in Michel's mind, and when he lost control for only a moment.
What other terrible futures is he hiding from me?
I kick myself mentally, because I don't believe in his visions. I don’t believe he's some kind of angelic being no matter how many times he extends his wings and performs miracle-like feats of mind reading, healing, and foretelling the future.
I don't.
Despite everything, despite my anger at Michel for lying to me, for deceiving me, for what he did to my father (however well-intentioned), tears fill my eyes that it has come to this between us and I have to bite my lip to stop from crying out loud.
I lie cold and alone despite Michel's proximity, silently wiping away my tears. Everything has gone to shit. Soren is alive, Blackstone is triumphant, the plague has sent the world back to the steam age, Dylan has betrayed the cause so he could protect his parents, and mine are missing, probably being held captive to be used as leverage by some other player who wants something from me. Michel is a bastard, and I may never see Julien again.
I don't sleep for the rest of the night.
* * *
Michel wakes and sits up in bed beside me, his hair messy, falling in his eyes in that deliciously sexy way that I try my best to ignore.
“How did you sleep?”
I yawn and stretch. “I didn’t,” I say.
He shakes his head at me. “I could have put you to sleep if you weren’t so determined to shut me out.”
“I needed to think,” I say, not willing to get into a discussion of our relationship.
He slides out of bed and pulls on his jeans. “And what did you think about?”
“How we’re going to defeat Soren. How we’re going to stop Blackstone.”
I watch as he zips up and fastens his belt. He’s regarding me thoughtfully. “You don’t have to worry about that part, Eve. You only have to do yours.”
I sigh. “Do you really think Soren won’t be expecting us to take another stab at using the serum?”
“He’ll be expecting it. That’s the only way to destroy him.”
“But if he’s expecting it—”
“It will be a distraction from the real attack.”
“Which is?”
Michel smiles guiltily. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
I frown, unable to comprehend why the Council would go ahead with a plan it knows Soren will expect.
“So while Soren focuses on the Council plot, there will be another unexpected attempt?” I ask.
“Something like that. Now don’t ask for any more details. You know I won’t put you at risk. Others may want you for your strategic purposes,” he says, running a hand through his hair, “but I want you for your other more endearing attributes.”
I’d slipped out of bed but stop in my tracks at that. “Michel, I told you that I won’t be with you again. Not as lovers.”
He comes to me, standing before me in all his bare-chested faded blue jeans beauty. He leans down to me, taking my chin in his hand. “You will be. When this is all over.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” I remind him, trying to step away.
He smiles briefly. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure it happens. I love you, Eve.”
He kisses me before I can escape, but his kiss is brief. He turns away when he’s finished and goes to the armoire, removing a sweater from a shelf. The muscles in his strong back flex as he raises the sweater over his head.
He’s so beautiful.
Part of me wants a future with him, the way we were when I met him again, in that brief moment before I found my online journal and discovered the truth. Those weeks and that evening are some of the only happy moments in my memory. I don’t have any memories like that with Julien. We have nothing completely free of stress or worry about everything—vampires, Dominion, Blackstone… I was blissfully unaware of reality for those weeks before I learned the truth. All I knew was that I had this gorgeous man following me, getting closer, and then becoming my lover. It ended far too soon and ever since, my life has been filled with too much reality.
It’s selfish of me to want to go back to the brief time before I knew vampires existed. Before I was one. When I thought Michel was just a very pale European man with a soft French accent who loved stars and walks on the beach.
* * *
I dress and a servant brings in a tray of food. Michel and I sit and eat our breakfast of eggs, bacon, juice, and coffee. There’s a carafe of blood, but despite my hunger for it, I cover my glass.
“No,” Michel says, frowning. “You must. You need your strength today. Deprive yourself tomorrow if it makes you feel morally better, but today you have to be strong.”
He catches my eye and nods as if to underscore the solemnity of what he says. I know he’s right. If I’m going to perform as Soren’s conduit, giving him power, I need to be satiated. I take a glass of blood from Michel and drink it down. Immediately, I feel better. The fog from lack of sleep clears. The blood heals me, revitalizing me after a night spent worrying about the future.
“What happens today?” I ask as I drink my coffee.
Michel wipes his mouth with a napkin and sits back. He takes his glass of blood and drinks from it. “A ceremony with a congregation in the cathedral. You’ll do your part and help Soren regain some power so he can heal the Twelve. The real fireworks, as he calls them, won’t be until he has recovered completely, but he needs to re-establish the Twelve as his disciples.”
“He’s really going to play up the whole religious angle.”
“Of course,” Michel says. “It’s what he knows. I realize you don’t accept any of this for what it is, but regardless, Soren will try to establish himself as an avenging angel come down to Earth in a time of need. He’ll paint himself as a savior from the ravages of the plague. He’ll call for order and cooperation so that the population complies with Blackstone’s curfews and martial law.”
“That makes me sick,” I say, making a face. “How can you go along with this?”
Michel shakes his head. “You haven’t seen the streets, Eve. They’ve been overtaken over by roving bandits. Men are searching for food and weapons and killing each other over them. They’re capturing women and using them as sex slaves and servants. Raping them. Killing the ones who fight back. It’s chaos. We need something to reestablish order.”
“Why not a human police force? Why does it have to be portrayed religiously?”
“Because,” Michel says and stands up, finishing the last of his coffee, “people need to feel secure in the power over them or else they’ll rebel. When they see Soren perform miracles, they’ll feel comforted to think that an angelic being that powerful will protect them and intercede on their behalf.”
“But he won’t. He’s enabling Blackstone’s vision of Dominion. All Soren will do is ensure that the herd is led quietly to its slaughter. They won’t be protected from vampires.”
“Eve,” he cautions and scowls. He leans down to me, his arms on the armrests so that his face is just inches from mine. “What would you prefer? That the people are hunted like wild animals and killed, their throats ripped out? Because that’s what will happen if there’s no law and order and if vampires revert to our hunter nature without any restriction.”
“You mean it would be all-out war? Maybe that’s more humane, because then humans will at least have a chance.”
“They won’t have a chance. Without technology, they’re weak. They can’t fight us.”
“But this? They’re like cows in dairies, being milked of their blood or slaughtered and hung, their blood drained.”
“It’s either that or the hunt.”
“Eve, there were factions in the Council working for the extinction of vampires. Your mother felt that way at first and there’s still a group working to that end. Were vampires supposed to just let them continue their work? Eventually succeed? Or should they have tried to find another way?”
I sigh and play with my spoon, stirring my coffee slowly. Of course he’s right. Some members of the Council were planning on finding a magic bullet to destroy all vampires. That was what my mother initially desired and what she worked for until she met Julien and Michel. I assumed that vampires would be in favor of the goal of curing vampirism, that they’d want to be free from this constant hunger. I want it.
I say nothing more, so Michel rises and leaves me sitting at the small table, my cup of coffee in my hand. I’m so conflicted. Will I be able to live with myself if I go through with this and help Soren?
Can Soren truly prevent chaos? Is being a forced blood donor preferable to being hunted?
Michel selects some clothing from the armoire and lays the ensemble out on the bed. Finally, he turns to me. “Time to get ready for the performance of your life, Eve.”
I grip the armrests and grit my teeth. “And if I don’t do it?”
“Your father will be tortured. Not killed right away, which would be a mercy.”
“Can’t someone rescue him?”
Michel holds up a long white gown, inspecting the neckline. “You saw security there. Do you really think we can just waltz up and capture him?”
“Julien could.”
He shakes his head. “Not even he could.”
“He escaped custody before.”
Michel waves me over. I rise and go to his side, taking the gown in my hands. It’s made of a white diaphanous material and looks like something a Greek goddess would wear.
“He had modern technology to help him. None of it works any longer. Besides, Blackstone is an expert in security and tactics. I doubt anyone could break into his compound and extract a hostage. Not even Julien,” Michel says, emphasizing his twin’s name as if he’s amused. Or jealous.
“I hate this charade.” I take the dress into the bathroom to change, not wanting Michel to watch me. I pull off my clothes and slip on the gown, but I can’t reach the zipper.
I go out to the bedroom and turn my back to Michel. “Can you help me with this?”
He says nothing and comes up behind me, zipping up the dress. I adjust the single strap that goes over one shoulder, leaving the other bare.
“If you expect me to wear a laurel leaf crown, I’ll rebel,” I say when I go to the mirror and check myself out.
Michel comes up behind me and looks at me in the mirror. I can see a sense of possession in his eyes as they move over my image. “Put your hair up to expose your neck.”
“Don’t tell me Soren’s going to bite me or something.”
“No, but we all like to see the marks we leave on those we’ve turned.”
“It’s Julien’s mark,” I say. I touch it, remembering the journal entry that described how I got it.
“Only by default. It should’ve been mine, would’ve been mine, if Julien hadn’t gotten himself staked.”
I leave the mirror and go back into the bathroom, twisting my hair up into a bun as I go. I secure it with a few pins while Michel stands in the doorway and watches me.
Finally, I turn to him and smooth the gown. “Do I look the part?”
“Completely,” he says, his arms folded. “Soren will be pleased.”
I follow him, my stomach in knots about what will happen at the ceremony and if I can go through with it.
Chapter 97
“Who, being loved, is poor?”
Oscar Wilde
When I walk down the staircase to the main entry, Soren is waiting, dressed all in white, bent over a cane. He’s so weak, but his eyes – his eyes are steely and filled with intelligence. His robe resembles something from Biblical times and emphasizes his pale hair, skin and ice blue eyes. He raises his eyebrows when he sees me and stands a little taller. I feel self-conscious under his gaze, for I remember wearing something similar to this dress, and of us together, in that brief glimpse of the alternate past Michel showed me. Soren will have seen it as well. It makes me shiver with disgust.
Was Vasquez sending me to Montana to tempt Soren into taking me as his concubine?
“Eve, lovely lovely Eve,” he says, his voice cracking. He takes my hand, kissing it with a flourish, his eyes never leaving mine. “How hard it must be for Michel to lose you…”
I clench my teeth and try not to offer up a saucy retort but it takes up every ounce of energy. So Soren knows I won’t be with Michel again. At least I don’t have to worry about keeping up that ruse any longer.
We take a hydrogen-powered vehicle to the cathedral, a line of trucks with armed men standing on the sides flanking us. The streets are empty, but now and then I see a face in a window or a shadowy figure in a doorway. The people are in hiding as their vampire-angel overlord drives down the street, so I’m surprised when we arrive and see people streaming into the cathedral. I see armed guards with guns standing along the street, as if protecting those attending, but nowhere do I see a single vampire. The guards are all mortal. Still, the people are cowering as they walk down the street, in fear of the threat of violence. Like me, they’re hapless pawns in this whole business.
We enter by a rear door. Soren walks slowly, using a cane, his body bent forward as if every step is an enormous effort. The guards form a human wall around Soren, shielding him from the eyes of the public. Is he afraid that they will see him like this, frail and weak and so very unlike an avenging angel?
We return to the small room off the side of the main altar where, once before, we waited for a ceremony to give Soren power. He sits on a chair, catching his breath. Is he even now still fighting off the virus?
Soren waves to Michel and me to come closer.
“Let me tell you how this is going to go. Eve,” he instructs, breathless. “You’re going to become my high priestess and restore me. Michel, you’re going to get your wish. Both of you will illustrate my power to these mortals.” Then, he points to Michel. “Go ahead. Fulfill your side of the bargain. Give it to her.”
“What bargain?” I say and turn to Michel, but he doesn’t meet my eye.
He nods to Soren and takes a small box out of his jacket pocket. I recognize it immediately as the box he tried to give me back at the safe house. Inside is a vial of clear liquid, the waters of life—the drug or compound that makes vampires ascend. Into what they ascend I still don’t know, but I know one thing—I won’t cooperate.
“If you think I’m going to take that, you’re wrong,” I say, stepping away from Michel. “I don’t need it now. I’ve taken the daywalking drug.”
“Blackstone’s drug is temporary,” Soren says, pointing to the vial in Michel’s hand. “That is permanent.”
I hold my hand out, palm facing Michel. “No.”
“Make her take it,” Soren says, waving at Michel. “Then let’s get on with this.”
I shake my head. “No, Michel,” I plead when he steps forward, his brow furrowed, a determined set to his mouth. “Don’t even think about it.”
Soren makes a clucking sound with his tongue. “Force it between her lips and make her swallow if you have to. I told you I need her to be ascended for this to work. If you want to be mortal again, this is what you have to do.”
“What?” I cry and turn to Soren. “Mortal again? Michel?” I turn back to Michel but he avoids my eyes.
“Just a little bargain Michel and I made,” Soren says, his voice filled with gloating. He turns to Michel and smiles conspiratorially. “Go ahead. Fulfill your end of the bargain and I’ll fulfill mine. I need something really spectacular to solidify my stature in my flock’s ey
es. A death and resurrection should do the trick.”
“Michel!” I turn to him. “What does he mean, a death and resurrection?”
Michel steps closer to me. “Without hesitation, Eve.”
“No, no,” I beg, unwilling to cooperate now that I know the terms. “I am not drinking that.”
I recall an entry in my journal about the way Soren resurrected a dead man after the bombing in the Middle East. Can he truly bring someone back to life? I remember Michel touching the dead bird we found on the beach, its lifeless body springing back to life, fully healed…
“Eve, I need to show them I can eradicate vampirism,” Soren says. “Michel will be the test subject. I’m going to kill him as a vampire. I’ll resurrect him as a mortal. He’ll regain his immortal soul and will become a true priest, my high priest. That’s my promise to him.”
“Why?”
“This is my pledge to the mortals gathered here. If they cooperate with me, follow me, recognize me as God’s appointed angel on Earth, I’ll rescue them from the evils of Dominion. Your ascension will give me all the power I need to do this, for, as an ascended vampire, your ability to channel their worship will be magnified ten-fold.”
“You’re going to destroy vampirism?”
Soren shrugs. “Eventually. It will take time, but Blackstone’s research is now going to be put to good use. First, I need you to help me. You must drink the waters of life.”
“No. I won’t,” I say again, anger making my voice waver. “I will not drink that. Not unless I have some assurance you won’t just use it as a means to encourage Dominion by you and your Twelve.”