by Wendy Nikel
“It has nothing to do with being belittled. What I enjoyed was watching the passion rise within you to the point it had no option but to pour out, despite the inherent danger. I’ve been waiting for someone like you to come along.” Carlos brought his blood to his lips, took a swig, and then set the glass down.
“You’ve been waiting for someone to lose their shit on the palace steps?”
Carlos laughed. “I guess I have.” He paused, as if choosing his next words carefully. “You see, Jules, I’m an utter imposter. Prince Fabian is a construct, something shiny to appease the masses. The character I’ve assumed does not represent my personal desires.”
Jules found herself hoping his personal desires included political progress and a blue-haired vamp between his sheets.
“What I truly want,” Carlos said, “is to dismantle those in power and return our people to darkness.”
Dear God, all those years in politics had made this man charming and eloquent. Jules leaned forward, watching his lips, waiting for further explanation and poetry.
“When humans caught on to our race and the Republic was established, I was like everyone else,” Carlos said. “I railed against the government. I protested. I was incarcerated a number of times for civil disobedience.”
Jules imagined Carlos swimming in a throng of protestors, shouting objections, sweaty-faced and impassioned. She squeezed her legs together.
“And then I had an epiphany. The only way to take down the Republic would be from within.” Carlos rolled a snifter between his large palms. “Keep your enemies close, and then destroy them mercilessly when they aren’t looking.”
A little thrill shivered down Jules’s back. She cleared her throat to clear her mind. “You assumed a new identity then?”
Carlos nodded. “As Fabian, I played the political game, and strangely enough, I won. Trust me, I was surprised as anybody. It’s amazing how far a little charisma and a lot of money will take you. But being heir to a king that may never perish is a truly frustrating burden.”
“Nothing but pomp and circumstance.”
“Exactly.”
Jules lowered her voice. “What are you planning to do about it?”
Carlos shrugged. “Kill the king and queen, of course.” He swallowed a large gulp of blood, finishing his drink. “And everyone in the royal court.”
A chill ran up her spine. Carlos hadn’t even lowered his voice. Jules looked around the bar to see if anyone was eavesdropping. They weren’t.
Carlos must have caught on to her apprehension. “We’re safe here. Oscar, the bartender, owns the place, and he’s an old friend.”
Jules leaned forward and whispered, “You want to murder everyone?”
“And then disappear into the night. Return to being Carlos. Let the Republic crumble and sink into memory. Go after all the humans who forced us into submission There’s no other way… and it would be a fitting punishment for the past eight years, don’t you think?”
Jules had to admit, Carlos’s deviant plan had appeal. Without an established monarchy, there would be chaos. And with chaos, opportunity.
“How do I fit into all this?”
Carlos popped his eyebrows conspiratorially. “Isn’t it obvious? I need you to help me.” He reached across the table and took Jules’s hand in his. Jules swallowed hard.
“I know it’s a lot to ask so soon after our re-acquaintance, but after last night’s performance, I had to proposition you. I thought perhaps you’d be open to…”
“…slaying the royal court?”
“To put it bluntly, yes. But it’s much bigger than that.” Carlos bit his bottom lip, and his eyes took on a dreamy quality. “Together, we could restore the vampire race to its previous glory.” He leaned forward. “Vampires could again travel to the far reaches of the earth, sink their teeth into unsuspecting humans, drink their fill, and embrace their innate wickedness. It’s within reach, Jules. We simply have to eliminate a few obstacles.”
Goddamn, he made it sound so simple. And sexy. But could Jules really go through with it? Could she kill her own kind? And even more importantly, did they stand a chance?
“Carlos, I—”
The sound of shattering glass interrupted Jules mid-sentence. She looked in the direction of the blast, and through the gaping hole where a window had once been, she immediately recognized the gray uniform, the precisely pointed stakes held tightly in their assailant’s able hands, the Cupid’s-bow lips pulled back into a snarl.
“Oh, shit!” Jules yelled as Maddox wound up and threw a stake toward their table. “Carlos, move!”
Carlos dove from his chair as the stake whizzed by and impaled the molding on the wall behind them. Jules dropped to the ground, taking the high top with her, turning the tabletop toward Maddox so it served as a half-assed shield. Though Jules and Carlos curled into themselves behind the tabletop, they didn’t fit. It was temporary sanctuary at best.
“I thought we’d be safe here,” Carlos muttered in disbelief.
“No one is safe with that asshole roaming the streets,” Jules said. “We need a plan.”
As they registered the sound of the door to Oscar’s creaking open and then Maddox’s military boots plodding forward, Carlos whispered, “No time.”
“Fuck,” Jules whispered, fear pounding through her. “I hope his aim sucks for moving targets.”
Carlos’s eyes met hers. Jules was hoping to gain encouragement from his gaze, a promise that everything would be alright, but she registered fright in those ponds of blue, which wasn’t comforting at all. Panic made her jump when Carlos suddenly yelled, “Now!”
When Jules rose, she refused to look at Maddox, the man who’d gladly rip her limb from limb. Instead, she focused on the cloak of darkness that was just within her grasp. If she could just make it outside…
Jules pumped her legs, dodging wooden stools and tables in her path, then took a leap like a hurdler on a track team—except she had never run track. Her foot caught on the ledge of the window and she tumbled forward, catching her forearm on a shard of glass and hitting the pavement like a stone. She rolled, feeling little pinpricks across her body as her dead skin collected glass fragments. When inertia subsided, Jules wanted to lie on the sidewalk and moan, but she didn’t have the luxury. She couldn’t procrastinate, not with Maddox bent on murdering them.
Jules rose, assessing her injuries as she did. She was cut to hell, and pain coursed through her, but she’d live—as much as an undead could.
Jules’s eyes flicked to the interior of Oscar’s, and her heart tightened. Carlos and Maddox were tangled together, throwing punches, overturning tables, both desperately reaching for the sharpened stakes that had missed their mark but still lay nearby.
He’s in trouble. I have to…
She had to what? Jules barely knew Carlos. And if she went back in there, she risked losing her life—in a really violent way—at the hands of a terrible man. Yet Jules felt a tug in her cold, dead heart, a thrum of energy linking her to Carlos.
Jules strode through the front door of Oscar’s, hopped the bar, grabbed the closest bottle of synthetic blood, and charged toward the fighting men. With a war cry, Jules struck the back of Maddox’s head with the bottle. The guard let out a strangled gasp and collapsed forward on top of Carlos, who promptly kicked and pushed the dead weight off of him.
Jules offered Carlos a hand. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before he wakes up.”
Ten blocks from Oscar’s, Jules and Carlos ducked into a small, dark alley and stopped running. Jules leaned against brick and ordered her brain to calm down.
Maddox is probably still passed out at Oscar’s. You escaped—this time.
God, what was she doing? What the hell had she gotten herself into? She pressed the heels of her hands to her temple and growled.
“Are you all right?” The concern in Carlos’s voice almost broke her.
Jules reached for sarcasm but, in her state, couldn’t muster a snapp
y response. So she told Carlos the truth. “I’m covered in glass and scared to death.”
Carlos moved to her and slowly, gently began to pluck shards of glass from her skin. Jules grimaced while he removed the larger pieces, but strangely, the sensation wasn’t all bad. The feeling of Carlos’s hands roving her body, albeit in concern rather than passion, was soothing and maybe a little sensual.
“Thank you,” he said, as he brushed a sliver from her forearm. “You saved my life.”
“Something came over me. It was nothing really. I— “
“Don’t minimize it, Jules. You saved me.”
Jules peered down at Carlos as he stooped to care for her legs. “I guess we’re good at that, saving each other.”
He smiled up at her, and the night lit up like a carousel at a carnival, at least for Jules. He rose. “I think I removed most of the glass, but you’ll want to double-check my work when you get home.”
Home. To her motel. Which likely wouldn’t be a safe haven much longer, even if bored teenagers continued to work the front desk. Jules had a target on her back, one she’d never be able to remove. Maddox had made that very clear. “In case we get separated, here’s where I’m staying.” She pulled out the card she’d shoved in her back pocket, wincing from her cuts. “Room 311.”
He took it without a word, nodding gravely.
“Carlos, what the fuck are we doing? Maddox almost killed us back there. And he was alone. What you want to do is a suicide mission. We won’t even make it inside the castle.”
Carlos’s blue eyes burned in the darkness. He studied her for a moment, then spoke quiet and low. “Aren’t you already dying, Jules? Aren’t we all dying this very minute because those tyrannical, fear-mongering, sad excuses for vampires are playing God? Or are you all talk?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did you mean what you said last night on the steps of the palace?”
Jules pushed herself off the brick wall and leaned closer to Carlos. “Of course I did.”
“Then we have to do something about it, don’t we?”
When Jules didn’t respond, Carlos posed a new question. “Do you remember your first feed? Not your very first—that’s never a good experience for anyone—but the first time you truly enjoyed it.”
“What does this have to do with anything, Carlos?”
Carlos reached forward and caressed Jules’s cheek. His touch caught her off guard; its sincerity, its sweetness cut right through their looming argument. “Trust me.”
Jules did remember her first time. She often dreamed of it. Her first independent feed had been a surfer with a dark tan and Southern California brogue. She’d lured him into a cove beneath the craggy cliffs of the La Jolla coastline wearing a skimpy bikini and a smile. He pressed her against the rough façade, his fingers exploring her skin, his mouth roving her neck, her shoulders, her lips. He was so full of young lust he didn’t notice the chill of her skin or her lack of heartbeat. Jules knew she had him, and the anticipation inside her sparked and snapped like raw electricity.
Jules had waited until just the right moment, when her nose naturally found the crook of his freckled neck, and then she’d opened her mouth and bit down. The surfer’s blood was warm against her lips, so warm, and he’d tasted like the sea: salty and wild.
As Jules had suckled and slurped, she felt the boy’s blood bathe her insides with strength and power. When she was spent, she discarded the surfer’s body in the sand and strolled along the ocean, watching the waves break. She recalled feeling high and indestructible and alive—quite a feat for the undead.
That high, the feeling of overwhelming power and freedom, was the one thing Jules had never been able to replicate with her synthetic infusions.
Relishing the memory, Jules ran her tongue over her elongated canines. Her stomach growled, despite being full of fake blood.
“I have something for you.” Carlos reached into his trench coat pocket and presented a small tube, similar to the one Jules had used to contain Lavinia’s blood samples. Ruby liquid danced within it.
“What is this?” Jules asked.
“Open it.”
Jules took the vial and worked the cap off. As soon as she loosed the stopper and caught a whiff, she replaced it. “Where did you get this?”
“You’d be surprised how many humans wander right up to our border when they’re sick or dying,” Carlos said. “It’s sad, really. Most of them aren’t interested in immortality; they simply want an end to their suffering. We acquiesce—and then drain and filter their blood of sickness and impurities. Discreetly, of course. That’s from the private reserve.”
Jules already knew the answer to her question, yet she asked, “Whose private reserve?”
“Officials of the Republic,” Carlos said.
Jules shook her blue hair, mimicking the wild rattling of anger within her. “You’re saying the government has access to human blood—”
“That they only share with nobility—and those of status with a particular bloodline,” Carlos explained. “It’s one of the best-kept secrets of the Republic.”
“You mean one of the best-kept secrets by the rich and privileged,” Jules spouted. “You’re telling me we common vamps are drinking fake blood while the nobility are getting high as kites up in Vlad’s castle?”
Carlos nodded.
“Those selfish assholes.”
New anger, cold and malevolent, brewed in Jules’s gut. How dare the rulers of the Republic outlaw human blood and then cultivate their own private collection? The gall King Yanis and Queen Belinda had to create a fine division between those “deserving” of their natural way of life and peasants like her who had to grin and bear human assimilation!
Jules plucked the cap off the vial and tossed back its contents. The blood coated her tongue, delightfully warm and wet. It tasted of packed dirt, wide open skies, leather, and grit. The human had been a ranch hand, a hardworking one.
The blood glazed Jules’s stomach, and she was suddenly back on the beach with her surfer boy dead at her feet, the night sky glittering with promise, innate power vibrating through her bones.
Carlos pinned her with his eyes. “There she is, the girl that threw the shoe at me because she hated everything I represented. I wish you could see yourself right now, Jules. You are magnificent in your rebellion.” He cocked his head to the side. “Shall we take over the world together?”
Jules knew in that moment what she needed to do. She needed to take down the Republic and all the hypocrisy for which it stood—or die trying. At least she’d had one last delectable meal, one that would strengthen her for battle and reconnect her to her primal self.
Jules leveled her gaze at Carlos and smiled, letting her canines unsheathe to slide down and kiss her bottom lip. “I’m in. And I’m sure you have a plan, but I have a dealer.”
“Stay with me tonight.” The words leapt from Jules’s mouth before she could consider what she was saying. “I mean, since you don’t have anywhere to go.”
Carlos smirked, and it made Jules want to thread her fingers through his hair. “While a tempting offer, I think it best we part ways for now,” he said. “It’s much more difficult to kill two targets in separate locations than both in one. There’s an abandoned cathedral not far from here where I can take refuge.”
As Jules opened her mouth in protest, Carlos pressed his lips to hers, perhaps to shut her up. Whatever the reason, Jules didn’t mind and sank into the kiss like an anchor into the sea, tasting Carlos’s lips and feeling the night air slither about her. Carlos pulled away suddenly and darted down the alley so quickly, Jules barely saw him depart.
“Tease,” Jules muttered, then called Martin, her dealer, to negotiate a drop-off.
On her way to the pick-up location, Jules’s skin thrilled with exhilaration. As she flew through the night at breakneck speed—cruising through back roads to remain as inconspicuous as possible—she thought of how Carlos’s eyes had sparkled with delight
as she’d pitched her murderous plan. The idea poured from her lips with the ease of a waterfall after a torrential storm, quick and turbulent and spontaneous.
Carlos had unleashed something within her, first with his stupid green cravat and princely manifestation and now with the revelation of his true identity and a taste of what could be.
She no longer worried about her lab, her synthetic blood business, her lowly bloodline. None of that would matter in twenty-four hours.
Martin was waiting for her in the darkened parking lot. He fit the textbook stereotype of a dealer—thin, slightly hunched over, prone to lurking in shadows, and highly motivated by cash.
Jules tiptoed through the shadows over to Martin, who was loitering by an oversized truck. She pulled a thick wad of cash Carlos had given her out of her jacket and tossed it to him. “This covers it, with a little extra for coming so quick.”
Martin looked down at the tightly rolled bills and sucked in a breath. He held a black briefcase out to her, but when Jules tried to take it, Martin held fast. “I got a policy, Jules. I don’t ask.” His beady eyes dropped to the briefcase and then found Jules’s gaze again. “But you’ve been making a name for yourself lately. You seen the news?”
“I haven’t, but I know I’m a mark.”
“Coming here was a risk, one I was willing to take because you’ve always been a good customer. But in this case, I wanna make sure I’m alive to enjoy the money you just gave me.” Martin inclined his head. “There’s a lot of shit in there, more than you’ve ever asked for before.”
Jules smiled. “You will be fine, Martin. Better than fine. I promise.”
Martin shrugged his slim shoulders and released the briefcase. “Good enough for me. Don’t burn yourself alive, yeah?”
As Martin retreated into the moonlight, Jules brought the briefcase up to her nostrils and sniffed. She smelled nothing more than plastic casing. Perfect.
Back at her motel room, Jules set down the briefcase, peeled her shredded clothing from her body, and inspected her skin, which would’ve been markedly easier if she had a reflection. Twisting and torqueing, Jules painstakingly removed little splinters of glass from her pale skin.