BloodPledge

by Tima Maria Lacoba

  ‘It’s none of your business, Matt. Let it go.’

  ‘A half-brother who paints a semi-nude portrait of his sister who just happens to be my ex-half-vampire girlfriend; a man whose eyes are the same strange shade of lavender? Oh yeah, I looked him up online. Now he’s suddenly disappeared after winning a major art prize. And you’re asking me to let it go?’

  ‘Yes.’ My mouth was a hard line.

  He shook his head. ‘You have no idea.’ His fists clenched as he spoke. ‘There’s a good chance it’ll land on the desk of someone in Missing Persons, who just might recognise your picture. It’ll get around the station. If this guy doesn’t show up soon, it could go to Homicide.’

  My mouth dried up, and I swallowed hard at that last word.

  ‘Where is he?’ Matt pursued.

  I looked up to where he stood, hands crunching the top of the settee opposite me. Was he pursuing this for his own reputation, or was it out of genuine concern for me.

  ‘Why are you doing this? For you, or me?’

  His brow creased, and tense lines around his mouth – a mouth I had often kissed – tightened. ‘If you have to ask me that question, then we don’t know each other, do we?’

  The silence stretched between us again.

  ‘I guess we weren’t together long enough.’

  ‘That wasn’t my choice.’ He gave me an accusing glare, hurt burning in his eyes.

  I stood and faced him. There was no way I was going to take the blame for our break up. ‘No? You were planning to murder my family, Matt. I know about the white-oak bullets. You had them the night we were attacked. How could I stay with a man capable of that?’

  He took a step back. ‘I won’t deny it, and won’t apologise for it. But let’s qualify the word, “murder.” That relates to humans, not the undead.’

  His words burned inside me. ‘Half of me is undead! Where does that place me in your limited category of who is and is not human? Killing me wouldn’t be murder?’

  His face paled.

  ‘It’s you who has no idea.’

  ‘I would never hurt you.’

  ‘You already have, by what you planned to do.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I see.’ A heavy silence settled between us. He turned and strode to the door. ‘If someone wants to pursue this missing person and Homicide gets hold of it, be prepared – it could land on my desk. From that point, address me as Detective Inspector. Our friendship is over.’

  Matt was relentless. Unless I told him the truth, he’d keep digging. I dreaded the thought of having to face his icy stare on the other side of an interrogation table. Who would’ve believed that our relationship would come to this.

  ‘Matt, wait.’

  He stopped mid stride, hand on the door handle and looked at me over his shoulder.

  ‘I’ll tell you.’ I blinked. ‘But you have to promise something first.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Then I can’t tell you.’

  He exhaled and turned to face me fully. ‘All right, what do you want?’

  Chapter 29 - Mesmerised

  ALEC

  I glanced at my watch – it was going on three. Six hours of daylight remained and I still had other experiments needing my attention. The vision of Laura in my arms last night filled my mind, and I had to force my thoughts to stay on task.

  The serum was still active in the blood samples I took from Luc and each of the men, including Dawson. I was placing the tubes back into the centrifuge when I heard Jake’s voice.

  ‘Alec, where are you?’

  He must be within a six-mile radius if he wanted an answer. The Ingenii blood had doubled the hearing range. ‘At the lab. Why?’

  ‘Four assassins are after you. Get back to the yacht.’

  I looked down at the serpent ring – its eyes were black. How long had they been like that? Why didn’t I notice sooner?

  I extended my senses and tried to locate any unusual emotional scents. Professional assassins would exude blank signals; a deadly intent to complete a task, while most humans exuded a variety of scents that mirrored their thoughts and emotions. But no success – too many people about. If these assassins were close, then my staff were in danger as well. I had to get out, into the open.

  I removed my lab coat and dropped it into the laundry chute on my way out. The long corridor that led to the hospital wing and reception was empty, so I sped down its length to the emergency exit. To my left was the Staff Only car park, to my right a small tree-covered copse; occasionally, staff members and visitors sat in the shade to eat their lunch. While deciding which way to go – my car or tree cover – something whizzed past my ear. I caught the whiff of white-oak.

  ‘One’s already here,’ I said.

  ‘We’re close,’ Marcus’s voice sounded in my ear. ‘Contain them till we come.’

  ‘Will do.’ I raced to the nearest tree and, hoping no human was around to witness, shimmied up to the highest branch that would support my weight. From my vantage point, I scanned for my attacker.

  He was behind a van, his gaze darting about trying to find where I’d gone. To his human senses, I’d simply disappeared. The gun trembled in his hand. This was no professional killer. I inhaled his scent, and it surprised me. This human’s partner was a friend of the Principate. When did she become turncoat? No, that didn’t make sense. There has to be something... Rasputin! There could be no other explanation. If he could mesmerise Sam, then he could do the same to fellow Brethren, and use their donsangs. These so-called assassins were mesmerised donsangs.

  Typical of Rasputin to choose innocent victims. If he can succeed in controlling the will of every Principate supporter in the city.... Suddenly I feared I might be witnessing the ending of the Principate in a manner unforeseen by either Marcus or Luc. The scenario I envisaged horrified me.

  As I watched, I sensed another arrival. The newcomer gestured to the man behind the van, before crouching down behind the low hedge between the Staff Only car park and the public parking. He, too, had a gun aimed at the copse of trees where I hid.

  How long before someone walks out, sees them and calls the police? I had to end this. There was no sign of the other two assassins. Jake had mentioned four.

  The man behind the hedge was nearer to my hiding place. I moved fast – faster then their slow human senses could perceive – and grabbed him by the throat. The man’s eyes bulged and he clawed at my hand, as I took his gun and shoved it in my pocket. No smell of white-oak. As I decided what to do with him, I recalled Laura saying how her ring had enabled her to overcome Rasputin’s mesmerisation. It was worth a try.

  I relaxed my grip on his throat, raised the serpent ring until the man’s eyes focused on it. A faint light streamed through my fingers. The man blinked and his eyes flared. He looked about him in confusion.

  After releasing his throat, I placed my finger on his lips and whispered in his ear, ‘Stay here. Don’t speak or move till I say so.’

  He nodded vigorously.

  Good. Now for the next one.

  An extra heartbeat drummed in my ears, this one from the other end of the car park. The emotional blankness I sensed identified him as another assassin. One down, two to go. How did they know I’d be here today? Crouching low, I found a break in the hedge that brought me to the van. The man had his back to me. I dashed beneath the vehicle, grabbed his legs and dragged him under.

  The gun dropped from his hand and clacked on the concrete, alerting the other assassin. Footsteps drew close. The man lay unconscious – he’d hit his head on the pavement. I pocketed his gun, and as I dragged his prone body from beneath the van, he stirred and opened his eyes. They widened as they focused on me crouching next to him.

  I held my ringed finger in his line of vision. ‘Look at its eyes.’ As before, the eyes of the serpent flared then dimmed.

  The man blinked, refocused on me, paled and swore.

  Behind me, I sensed Jake, his Range Rover screeching to a ha
lt only yards away. ‘Get the others. Don’t kill them, they’re mesmerised,’ I said as he, Cal and Marcus sprang out.

  To the human I said, ‘Who ordered you to kill me?’

  ‘Snake eyes.’ He sat up and dropped his head into his hands. ‘My head.’

  ‘My fault. Only way to stop you.’ Marcus approached, dragging a man by the arm. Behind him, Jake held another who struggled in his grip. ‘I left one sitting beneath the hedge.’ I indicated his position with a flick of my head.

  ‘I’ll get him.’ Cal jogged over.

  ‘Can you stand?’ I returned my attention to my would-be assassin. We couldn’t stay out here, in the open, yet I didn’t want to take them to my office either.

  The staff would be shocked to see us striding through the hospital. Where to interrogate them? Snake eyes, he said. Had to have been Rasputin.

  He looked up at me, panic in his eyes. ‘Annalise! I need to know if she’s okay.’

  ‘We’ll check later. Can you get up?’

  He rose tentatively, palm pressed to his forehead. ‘Brethren, they came to our house.’

  ‘How many?’ Marcus asked. He and Jake joined me, pushing their captives beside the one I held. The mesmerised donsangs stared at me blankly. ‘Three, no, four. There were four.’

  I glanced around after sensing several humans enter the car park. ‘Get them into the car – question them there,’ I said to Marcus.

  Cal climbed in first and sat cross-legged in the space between the back door and the extra back seats, blocking any escape. The donsangs went in next, and I took the seat by the door. Jake got behind the driver’s wheel and Marcus slammed the door shut before joining Jake in the front.

  I turned and faced the remaining two. ‘You and you. Eyes here.’ I raised the ring. Though still mesmerised, it drew their gazes. The light flared and I saw understanding, then fear, replace their dull, expressionless stares.

  ‘Deus! I’ve never seen it do that before.’ Marcus removed the headrest and folded his arms along the top of the seat.

  ‘Tell me what you remember?’ I asked them.

  They all babbled at once, and one thing became clear – Rasputin had visited each one in their own homes – he’d been the one who had mesmerised them.

  ‘I don’t know what happened after that snake-eyed devil did this to me,’ one of them said. ‘All I remember is an urge to kill you.’

  The others nodded.

  ‘I woke up on the floor, a gun beside me,’ another said and shivered.

  ‘What about our procters?’ The first man asked me. ‘I need to know if Annalise is safe. I need to check on her.’ He tried to rise from the seat, but Jake pushed him back.

  ‘If she’s safe, then she’s resting. If not, well, it’s too late for you to do anything.’

  The procters, the corrupted form for the French term for protector, was what the donsangs called their Brethren lovers. Most unions formed strong, almost lifetime bonds, but rarely did it result in the transformation of the human partner, for it would signal the end of their blood-sharing relationship. Brethren cannot feed from each other, as our blood’s too thick.

  The man looked back at him with panic in his eyes.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked him.

  ‘Grayson.’

  ‘The more you tell us, Grayson, the sooner we’ll be able to catch them and prevent this from happening again. Now take a deep breath and tell us anything else you can recall.’

  ‘Annalise, they held her down – two women and one man. Never saw them before.’ He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. ‘Can’t remember, damn it! Just snake eyes.’ His desperate gaze slid to me. ‘I need to know if she’s okay; if they haven’t....’ He swallowed, and I could smell the sweat trickling down the inside of his shirt.

  ‘Describe them,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, the man was bald; had some kind of tattoo on his neck. The women, both dark haired, wore black leather.’

  I had no doubt who they were – Stockton and his two females accomplices.

  ‘The guy’s tattoo said, “Bite Me”,’ the other man added. ‘I saw it.’

  Double confirmation.

  I looked at Marcus. He nodded and said to the donsangs, ‘You’re free to go. See if your procters are alive, and if they are, leave them word to go to the nearest safe house when they rise. You do the same, and stay there till this situation is resolved.’

  ‘If they’re dead?’ Grayson looked ashen.

  ‘We’ll avenge them.’ Cal replied.

  I turned to Jake. ‘Where are Terens and Sam?’

  ‘Searching the waterways in case Rasputin is holed up in an underwater wreck.’

  ‘Anything yet?’

  He shook his head. I saw the worry in his eyes. They didn’t have much time – three days only, and today was nearly over. After that, the Ingenii blood would start to wane together with their daylight tolerance, and their advantage.

  I slid open the door and the men clambered out, still dazed and shocked.

  Cal unfurled himself from his cramped position and stood beside the car, watching as the donsangs sprinted down the driveway. ‘Their procters are probably dead,’ he said.

  ‘We don’t know for sure,’ Jake replied. ‘Rasputin may have mesmerised them, too.’

  ‘Into following him? No, I don’t think so. I reckon what he’s got in mind is the less competition the better,’ he said, his tone grim.

  ‘Are those Timur’s orders, or is he acting on his own? That’s what I’d like to know.’ Marcus’s gaze roamed between the four of us. ‘Could he mesmerise his own sire?’ He stepped out of the car and paced a few steps, before turning to face us. ‘We’re going about this the wrong way.’

  Cal’s brow creased in a frown. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Remember what we did with the barbarian tribes? Pay one to attack the other, or start a rumour; spread a seed of distrust; turn them against each other. Deus! We should approach this the old Roman way – divide and conquer – and set those two worms against each other.’

  ‘Worth a try,’ I said. It was about time we went on the offensive.

  Jake stroked his beard. ‘From my dealings with him, Timur’s a paranoid enough bastard to believe someone’s plotting against him. And after the way Karl fooled him, he’ll be even more suspicious.’

  ‘It has to come from someone Timur trusts, to give it more credibility,’ I said, as an idea began to form.

  Marcus braced one arm against the side of the car and regarded me. ‘Who’ve you got in mind?’

  ‘Stockton.’

  A moment of silence ensued. ‘I hate to point out the obvious, but how will you persuade him to do that, when we haven’t caught him?’ Cal asked.

  ‘No need. Sam can hack into Stockton’s computer and send Timur a message, saying,’ I thought a moment, ‘ “Rasputin’s got his own army and is planning to overthrow you.” And for good measure, let’s send Rasputin an anonymous tip-off saying something like; “Don’t trust Stockton. He’ll turn you in.” ’

  Cal looked doubtful. ‘Think they’ll fall for it?’

  ‘They’ve been proscribed. Hell yeah, they’ll fall for it,’ Jake said.

  ‘It’s worth a try.’ Marcus’s gaze slid from me to Cal.

  ‘Okay, I’ll run with it. But if they end up killing each other, Terens and Sam aren’t going to be happy. They got plans.’ Cal raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll find a way for those two to be satisfied,’ Marcus replied with a grim smile.

  Another thought occurred to me. ‘Contact all donsangs and tell them to go to the nearest safe house while it’s still daylight and wait for their procters there. Messages also need to be left with all Brethren to make their way there as soon as they rise, without delay. I have a feeling Rasputin and his mob will be doing the rounds tonight.’

  ‘And we’ll be able to track ‘em,’ Cal said.

  ‘If I were him,’ Marcus began slowly, his eyes a study in concentration,
‘I’d head to the houses of the most loyal Principate supporters and either mesmerise or kill them.’

  ‘Makes sense. Which is why we need to be there to prevent it happening. And since they won’t sense me, I can pick up their scent and catch them before they get close.’ The serpent ring would block my presence to their senses, giving me that much-needed edge, while the men had the advantage of the Ingenii blood. I doubted Luc and I could have contained the rebellion on our own. In some way, it could not have come at a better time.

  ‘That’s assuming you’re at one of the houses they decide to visit,’ Marcus pointed out.

  ‘Whoever senses them first, can get word to me and I’ll be there is seconds.’ I mentally ran through a list of the most loyal friends of the Principate and narrowed it down to nine clans. We couldn’t protect all of them. Which ones would Rasputin choose?

  Then it came to me – Rasputin wouldn’t know, but Stockton was local. ‘There are four clans, I reckon he’d try for, the McMillans in Edgecliffe, Chus in Rose Bay, Norssons in Potts Point and the Beckmanns in Bondi. Each of us will stake one out.’

  ‘What if he attempts to mesmerise us, as he did with Sam?’ Jake had a point.

  I glanced at the serpent ring. It was worth a try. If it could restore a mind, could it prevent it from being captured in the first place? I glanced at Jake. Should I try? No. Better test it on myself first.

  ‘Let me try something.’ I raised my hand in front of my eyes and gazed at the serpent’s eyes.

  Jake lunged forward and grabbed my wrist. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Experiment. I need to see if the ring can protect my mind from Rasputin’s power. If it works, I’ll do the same for all of us.’

  ‘How will you know?’ He looked at me with concern. ‘What if it does something to your mind instead?’

  ‘I doubt it will harm the one it’s meant to protect,’ Marcus said. ‘We saw what it did to the donsangs.’

  The slight shake of his head indicated Jake wasn’t convinced, but he released my wrist and sat angled on his seat as if ready to intervene.