Lucifer (Vampires in America: The Vampire Wars Book 11)

by D. B. Reynolds

  “We can deal with that once you’re out of here,” Lucifer said roughly, coldly furious at what Yamanaka and his allies had done to a man who’d trusted them, who’d called them friends. A man who was mated to the now-dead Yamanaka’s rightful, fucking lord. So many layers of betrayal.

  “Yamanaka’s dead,” he growled out, figuring Murphy would want to know.

  “You?” he asked.

  Lucifer nodded. “Me. For what it’s worth, he suffered. Not nearly enough, but I was, you know, pressed for time.”

  Murphy snorted a laugh, then sobered. “Yamanaka’s a traitor and an asshole, but he’s not the one you have to worry about. It’s the German, Kasimir. Yamanaka was nothing compared to that guy.”

  “Shit,” Lucifer muttered. “Elle, we’re getting out of here. You help Murphy, and I’ll lead the way.”

  “I should—”

  “No arguments. We have to move fast, and I can’t risk being distracted. You heard Murphy, this isn’t all of them.”

  Eleanor gave a sharp nod of agreement, and as soon as Lucifer had snapped Murphy’s ankle restraints, she looped an arm around the man’s waist and supported him as he hobbled to the door. It might have looked ridiculous—tiny Eleanor bracing Murphy, who was well over six feet tall, and probably 250 pounds when he wasn’t recovering from imprisonment and torture. But Eleanor supported him easily, her vampire-enhanced strength more than enough to keep him upright and moving.

  “You ready, bella?”

  She nodded. “You think they’ll be waiting for us?”

  “I think I want to be ready for whatever happens.”

  “Okay. You ready, Colin?”

  “Shit. I’d crawl out of this place if that’s what it took.”

  “It won’t come to that,” she assured him. “Let’s go.”

  They started slowly, edging out of the dungeon cautiously, expecting danger at every turn. Nothing happened in the tunnel, but Lucifer could sense the doom hanging over their heads, and when they reached the supply closet, he took a moment to scan ahead before entering the code. He readied his shields before he opened the door, still expecting something. Or someone. He wasn’t sure what.

  But there was nothing there. Just the same messy shelves and a chemical smell that coated the back of his throat. He turned to check on Eleanor and Murphy once more before opening the door to the main corridor. Murphy looked exhausted. The rush of adrenaline that had boosted his initial reaction was gone, leaving him more worn than ever. Eleanor, however, was still fresh and strong, her face a study in resolve. She’d fight to the death before she’d let anything happen to her charge.

  “Stay close,” he reminded her, and then opened the hallway door.

  The empty tunnel was almost anticlimactic. It was brightly lit, compared to the darkness behind them, its walls smooth and finished, its floor an uninspired but functional gray concrete. It seemed they’d made it. If their enemies were going to pull anything, it would have been in the isolation of the secret tunnels, not here where any passing coed could witness.

  But some instinct of Lucifer’s was blaring a warning that didn’t agree. They weren’t out of this yet. He looked up and down the tunnel. Left was the fastest route, and would take them to the exit closest to their vehicle. But it was also the most predictable, so—

  “Lucifer,” Eleanor said quietly. He turned, and she gave him a meaningful look that slanted upward to Murphy’s wan countenance. He was giving it everything he had, but he was running on fumes, and Eleanor’s support.

  That decided it for Lucifer. He turned left and made straight for the stairs to their exit. They’d nearly reached their goal, and the stairs were in sight, when Lucifer suddenly stopped dead. His shields snapped up, spreading out to either side and forming a wall of protection between the three of them and whoever was coming down those stairs.

  He turned to Eleanor, who was two steps behind him with Colin Murphy leaning heavily on her shoulder. “If anything happens, you and Murphy head for the other exit, you understand? I’ll hold him off as long as I can.”

  Her gaze was fixed on him. He could read the defiance in her expression, the tension in her body, every muscle stiff, as her brain fought a war with her heart. He knew what she’d say, knew there was no way in hell she’d agree to leave him. He cut her off before she could say it.

  “Sophia needs him, bella,” he said softly, cutting a look at Murphy. “The whole territory could go.”

  Her expression transformed from defiance to agony. “Not fair,” she whispered.

  “I know.”

  Tears filled her big, blue eyes and spilled over, but she nodded.

  “I love you,” he murmured. “Now go.”

  She gave him a final anguished look and then turned and started in the opposite direction with Murphy. Lucifer watched their first few steps. The human was trying to carry his own weight, but his energy was visibly flagging. Lucifer only hoped they reached the SUV first. Eleanor was strong and could probably dead lift twice Murphy’s weight. But Murphy had more than a foot of height on her, and that made it about more than simple weight; it was the distribution. She could drag an unconscious Murphy, but she couldn’t carry him.

  The soft sound of a footstep, nearly undetectable even to his sensitive ears, had him spinning back around to face his enemy.

  The vampire was of modest size, no more than five feet, eight inches or so, and slender. But a vampire’s power wasn’t in his size. It was that indefinable something, a gift from the vampire symbiote that made one vampire ordinary and another extraordinary. Lucifer himself had been blessed by the symbiote’s unpredictable selection process, but until now, he’d never truly been tested. Yamanaka had been strong, but from the first moment they’d clashed, Lucifer had known he could defeat him.

  But the vampire in front of him—Kasimir, he assumed—was far stronger than Yamanaka. Lucifer knew it, even though he couldn’t get any sense from the vamp at all. Or maybe because of that. Kasimir was shielding so strongly that he was giving off nothing, and that took power. It also wasn’t a complete surprise. But it did make it a lot more difficult to know if he was likely to survive the next few minutes.

  Kasimir gave a slight bow and said with a heavy German accent, “Lucifer Scuderi, I presume?”

  Lucifer nodded. “And you’re Kasimir,” he said flatly.

  The vampire smiled. “The very same.” He glanced around the long hallway, his gaze going beyond Lucifer, to where Eleanor and Murphy were probably still visible. “And Mr. Murphy, too. That is unfortunate.” He took a step to the side, as if to gain a better sightline, but Lucifer mirrored his movement.

  “Not going to happen,” Lucifer growled.

  Kasimir’s eyes cut back to him. “I’m sorry we have to meet like this,” he said conversationally, as if they weren’t two enemies about to try to kill each other. “Your reputation precedes you, you know. My Sire was hoping to recruit you to our side. The offer still stands . . . if you’re interested?” He brushed hair back from his forehead in an almost delicate move . . . and immediately launched a blistering volley of power against Lucifer.

  Lucifer bared his teeth as the volley bounced harmlessly off his shields. He hadn’t been fooled by the fingers-through-the-hair distraction. Really, who would be? No one with the strength or the guts to defeat Kasimir, that was certain.

  “Does that usually work for you?” he asked, curious and taunting both.

  Kasimir gave a graceful shrug. “It weeds out the competition. I meant what I said about my Sire. Berkhard would welcome you among the ranks of his supporters.”

  “And all I’d have to do is betray my lord, my friends, and everyone I love,” Lucifer responded dryly. But privately he made a note to warn Aden. If they’d been tallying Aden’s strongest people, then his Midwestern territory might well be the n
ext target of the Europeans.

  “Ah, love,” Kasimir mocked. “The little blonde, I assume. Cute, but not a power. It’s too bad we didn’t get to you before you met her.”

  That would have been impossible, but they didn’t know that. It was somehow encouraging to know that Berkhard and his flunkies didn’t know everything, after all.

  “Are we going to fight? Or is this just a midnight chat?”

  The German shrugged again. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” His light-colored eyes flashed nearly white as a bolt of tremendous power slammed into Lucifer’s shields, and Kasimir spun to the other side of the hallway, in a blur of movement too fast for human eyes to detect.

  But Lucifer wasn’t human, and he wasn’t a fool. He’d never relaxed his shields, not from the moment Kasimir had appeared around the corner. But they were stretched thin by the need to protect Eleanor and Murphy’s retreat. Sacrificing a fraction of his attention, he sent his awareness down the hallway, their blood link speeding him unerringly to Eleanor.

  “How far to safety?” he asked, using the telepathic link made possible by his unique gift and the blood they’d exchanged.

  “Don’t worry about us,” she sent back urgently. “We’re on the stairs, out of sight.”

  Something about the way she said that, combined with his knowledge of Eleanor, made him suspicious. “Keep going, Elle. Don’t stop. And don’t come back.”

  Silence. God damn it.

  But then he didn’t have the time or energy to worry about anything but surviving. Taking Eleanor at her word, he tightened his shields, collapsing them inward around his body, instead of stretched out like a curtain across the hallway. They were as unique as his telepathic talent, a swirling torrent of power that fed on its own dynamic energy, defending him while freeing up a significant amount of his power for offensive maneuvers. He used some of that power now, spinning to one side much the way Kasimir had earlier, but his motion fueled the force behind his attack, adding raw kinetic power to the grenade sized ball of magical energy he sent flying at Kasimir’s chest.

  It bounced off the other vampire’s shields, but not before getting close enough to blacken a hole in the German’s white shirt, and maybe singeing his equally white skin. Kasimir touched his chest, his eyes wide with surprise when he looked up.

  Maybe they didn’t know everything about Lucifer after all.

  The surprise didn’t last, however. It was replaced by pure, undiluted rage, as if the German vampire wasn’t accustomed to being injured. As if no one had dared touch him with violence in a very long time.

  His arm shot out, straight and stiff, surrounded by energy, a silver-white radiance that was so thick, it appeared solid, as if Kasimir had fashioned armor from raw energy alone. It solidified even further and then seemed to slide off, from shoulder to hand, a cylinder of energy headed straight for Lucifer. Building speed as it went, it struck his shields with the sound of clashing metal.

  Lucifer had seen it coming and stiffened his shields in defense, but he didn’t stop and wait for it. Taking the offensive, hoping to catch Kasimir off balance, he fashioned his own blade of power, a heavy broadsword of pure energy that even in its intangible form had weight enough to require two hands to wield it. With the sound of Kasimir’s weapon still filling the air, Lucifer gripped his blade tightly and swung, slicing through Kasimir’s shields and striking him in the side of his torso with an explosion of blood and bone, and a shower of magical sparks.

  Kasimir howled and fired back, launching a wave of small knife-like projectiles, each one a burning point of energy that sliced a new wound into Lucifer’s shields. Some of them fizzled on the surface of his power, while others penetrated but ended up snagged like bugs in amber. But a few made it all the way through, enough of them that blood began to flow, from his arms, his chest, even one high enough on his neck that he had a moment’s concern. If it had been even half an inch higher it could have done serious arterial damage, and he might have lost this damn fight.

  But he couldn’t lose. He simply couldn’t. It wasn’t only his life on the line, it was Eleanor’s. And in that moment, he redefined victory. Even if it cost him his life, she wouldn’t die here tonight. And that was victory enough.

  Pulling his shields ever tighter around himself, determined to end this fight while he still had the strength to do so, he advanced the few feet that separated him from Kasimir, until he could feel the heat of the other vampire’s shield throbbing against his own, like the beating heart of a great beast. They were both injured, blood pouring from open wounds and running down their faces in sweaty trails. Kasimir’s teeth were bared in a dogged grimace, his expression betraying the effort it was costing him to keep fighting. His thick hands were fisted in front of his chest, power building around them, concentrating into a single tightly-packed globe of awful vampiric energy. Lucifer could predict the force of that blow, and knew it could well take him down if he didn’t strike first.

  He pressed even closer to Kasimir, until the energy of their shields physically touched, each draining the other as the contact between them sparked and burned. Lucifer gritted his teeth, intentionally weakening his shield so that it merged with his enemy’s. Kasimir saw what he was doing and roared furiously over this perversion of his power. But it was too late. Taking the greatest risk of his vampire life, Lucifer dropped all but his most basic, innermost shield, sacrificing defense in favor of an all-out attack. Concentrating all of his energy into the muscles of his back and shoulder, and channeling all of that power into his right fist, he drove it forward, smashing through Kasimir’s compromised shield and into his chest. Ribs shattered under a cracked sternum, and Lucifer opened his fist, digging through blood and gore until he found the German vampire’s beating heart. He closed his fingers around that fragile organ, watching as Kasimir’s eyes grew wide with understanding and that first touch of fear. Lucifer could feel the other vampire working frantically to re-channel the power he’d been building, power he’d intended to use as a weapon, but that he now needed as a desperate defense. But even in the midst of battle, with his enemy’s beating heart literally in his hand, there was something . . . off. Something about the vampire’s desperation made Lucifer pause for the space of a heartbeat, and study Kasimir’s thoughts in that moment. He wasn’t fighting back. He was rebuilding the shields around his mind. It was as if he was accepting his inevitable death, and spending his last reserves of power to hide his thoughts instead.

  Lucifer knew himself to be one of the most powerful telepaths in the world, but no matter how hard he pounded against the other vampire’s mind, he was able to pick up only hints of whatever Kasimir was hiding.

  He cursed viciously, but knew he had to accept what victory he could and end this battle. Time was short, and his energy was not unlimited. With an enraged snarl, he closed his fist around Kasimir’s heart and crushed the life out of it, frying it to nothing but black char with an extra bolt of energy that was suddenly just there, filling his veins with fire and his muscles with fresh power. Power that tasted of Eleanor.

  And then Kasimir, and his fucking secrets, were no more.

  KASIMIR WAS DUST. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Concealed in the stairwell, unwilling to abandon Lucifer no matter how much he insisted, she and Colin had observed the battle between Lucifer and the German vampire. As they watched, Colin had told her some things about Kasimir. He’d been the vampire who’d done most of the torturing, and he’d had a good time with it, too. He hadn’t really cared about getting answers or information. He’d simply enjoyed hurting people, especially the ones who couldn’t fight back.

  Now the fucker was dead and dusted, and Eleanor was happy to have played even a small part in his demise. She’d known how close to the edge Lucifer was—yet another benefit of their blood bond, she supposed. She’d heard about such things between a vampire and his human lover, but she
hadn’t realized it would work just as well between two vampires. Vampire romances weren’t common enough for there to be much information about them floating around.

  But she’d definitely sensed Lucifer’s flagging energy, and knowing him, had intuited how much he would sacrifice to destroy Kasimir. Lucifer would die before he’d let anything happen to her. The romantic idiot.

  So, she’d taken matters into her own hands, and, making use of their blood-based connection, had sent him a rush of fresh energy when he could use it the most. And he had. He hadn’t wasted time wondering where the power was coming from, he’d simply used what he needed, delivered the final crippling blow, and crushed the life out of that bastard Kasimir.

  Exchanging a victorious grin with Colin, she stood to call out to Lucifer, only to see him crumple in on himself, falling to one knee and seeming unable to rise up. Eleanor raced down the hallway, heart pounding with fear. She’d heard of vampires winning a fight only to die of their injuries. Challenges like the one Lucifer had just survived took a terrible toll on the victor, and winning didn’t give them any relief. It wasn’t as if by winning, Lucifer had sucked up all of Kasimir’s power. It didn’t work that way.

  She slid the last few feet to his side, the floor slick with blood that she realized was Lucifer’s.

  “Luc,” she said urgently, grabbing his arm as much to stop her gruesome slide as to get his attention. “Are you all right?”

  Lucifer lifted his head slowly, as if it was an effort to do so. His eyes, when he finally looked at her, were glittering with power, and with something else, too. Eleanor stared. She couldn’t believe it, but he was pissed! At her!