"You're going to stop them, aren't you?" Sereny asked.
"You and Mentor will find a way to put down the rebellion. That's why you haven't come before now; it's why you didn't interfere before. Why bring the war to the enemies' land and lose one advantage, was that it? And you want Charles. He's escaped you and you want him back. This way he's come to you—to play in your own backyard."
"What a clever woman you are. But can we do it? Are we at least as ingenious as your lover?"
She expected they were.
Now a smile played at her mouth. While staring at Ross, reading him the way she'd trained herself to read Balthazar, she had picked up one of the most important elements in Ross' life. He enjoyed women. He took human females several times a week, ravishing them sexually before murdering them and taking their blood. He saw himself only reflected in the eyes of a woman. His sleek muscular body. His thick hair and strange dark eyes. He was a hedonist who ceased to exist to himself if he couldn't be admired and loved by the opposite sex. He cared nothing for men or his Predator clan. It was women he needed for his mirror.
She stepped toward him this time and saw the flicker of surprise and interest kindling deep in his eyes. It was her wedge that she'd use to save her own life. She had no doubt Ross could tear her asunder with his bare hands. She had no weapon to stop him. Her strength, compared to his, was as a Lilliputian to a giant. All she had was her affections and vast knowledge of how to please a man. She would use all that she knew.
She moved into his arms like a cloud settling into a spot in an empty sky. She put her hands behind his neck, massaging the muscles just below his ears with her thumbs. She gazed into his eyes so he could read her and know she did not mean to harm him. She brought her face close to his, her lips closing over his mouth. He might let out a roar and bend her head to the side and sink his massive fangs into her throat. He might throw her all the way down the corridor, leaving her broken until he could sweep down and finish her.
Or he could respond on the physical plane as a man to a woman, and fall so profoundly in love with her that her death could be averted. She was not a housemaid now. She was not a mourning mother. Nor was she a devoted partner to Balthazar. She had transformed into the very being Ross believed he needed. The spell she cast was part supernatural, learned and perfected over many years and many liaisons, but on the whole it was a natural physical skill that came easily to her.
She loved the lean strong musculature of men, the rough violence lying latent below the surface of civility, the male member that could fill her with so much joy and sensation that the world and everything in it disappeared. Feeling such immense fascination coming from her, male vampires were able to lose themselves in her, believing they'd found a soul mate.
Ross kissed her back, grabbing hold of her by the waist and pressing her close.
She dared not smile into his kiss. Dared not let her mind rove an inch from the bodily sensations that caused her to tremble and give into him softly. Ross would know the instant she mentally stood back, watching rather than participating.
So she gave of herself wholly, fully, without reserve, melting against his hard body so that she was putty in his hands. Her tongue sought his, her soul turned on the spindle of his desire, and together they slipped to the swept floor, she raising her skirts while Ross unzipped his slacks. Their cool flesh met and warmed with the friction between them. It was the only time Sereny felt warm, the only time, except for her involvement in domesticity, when she felt human again.
They coupled there in the corridor, rolling from wall to wall, her soft sighs rising and falling, filling the cavern with echoes.
~*~
Balthazar stood watching Sereny and Ross going at one another like delirious animals in the long corridor.
He had time to slip away again and take the long polished stiletto from the imported monkeywood box in which he kept it. He came back to the corridor, his face set in stone. He had hated Ross and Mentor for years, but this latest betrayal with the one immortal he cared for was the limit.
He did not blame Sereny. She had done what was natural to her, something he understood from the beginning when they'd first met. She had been a lusty woman in a loving marriage when she'd become vampire, and sex was the one thing she'd never given up. She entered into mating with such abandon it could rattle the senses of any partner she chose.
With Ross, she was trying to save herself. It was much less of an emotional betrayal to him than when she had coupled with Upton in Australia.
He stood against the wall, shimmering in and out of existence, so agitated his corporeal body wouldn't obey him. When they finished, he would take Ross' head. He would send it home to America and have it delivered to Mentor's doorstep.
He did not really care that Ross had touched his woman. Sereny didn't belong to anyone but herself. If she ever left him, it would be because she found someone else more vital or alluring. She was a force of nature, like wind or rain, and just as uncontrollable.
He did care that Ross had come sneaking into his home intent on killing him. That. Would. Not. Do.
His impatience gnawed at his gut as he waited in the shadows for the act to be consummated. How dare Mentor believe he could send Ross alone to dispatch him. This was what the old Predator thought of him. That he was weak and vulnerable. That he could be taken without a full cadre of Predators willing to sever him from his life.
He shivered and shimmered and winked in and out of reality, his mind brimming with hate. He could hardly wait another moment. If they didn't hurry, he would have to fall on them in the throes of their desire, chancing harm to Sereny.
But, after all, what did it matter?
She had never loved him.
~*~
Though the woman made him wild with passion until his place in the world was blotted from mind, Ross had come back to himself moments before Balthazar crept near with a long knife. Never had a woman, Predator or human, bewildered him so thoroughly. Sereny was simply a goddess. She smelled of soil warmed by the sun, a familiar scent that was at once soothing and intoxicating. She might have built this aura around herself deliberately—that of the earth mother—and, if so, it worked. Her skin wasn't brittle and hard like the flesh of most female vampires. It was as soft as a mortal's and covered with silky fuzz like that found on ripe peaches. Her hair was long and slipped through his fingers like sheer chiffon.
Everything about her appealed to his old human senses. To touch her, to taste her, to breathe in her scent, and to plunge headlong into the wild wet of her made him insatiable. If he had not trained himself to monitor his surroundings at all times, even during the most heated of sexual congress, Balthazar might have caught him unaware.
Ross did nothing to change his actions as that would have alerted the other Predator. Instead, Ross continued the motions involved in making love to Sereny yet all the while readying to leap to self-defense as soon as Balthazar closed in.
He did not have long to wait. When the shadow at the turn in the corridor shifted, Ross knew the Predator was at his back and close enough to strike. At that exact second Ross disengaged from Sereny, pushing her with a powerful thrust of his arms against the wall. He heard her wail as he rolled over and away from his position, came to his feet in a flash, and reached into the inner cloth pocket of his large cape to withdraw his own knife. It was not as impressive as the one Balthazar wielded, but it would do the job.
He laughed aloud at Balthazar's utter surprise. It had all happened in the twinkling of an eye so that now they stood facing one another, knives in hand, the woman cringing against the wall. They were equal opponents. Balthazar would have no advantage.
The other Predator read his thoughts. "I do not need an advantage to slit you from throat to bowels," Balthazar said.
"Fatal assessment," Ross said. "You needed every advantage in the world."
Ross flew toward Balthazar as the last word left his mouth. Engaged, they fought with the fierceness of gods.
Knives flashed and drew blood, limbs were slashed and bled, fangs were sunk and flesh bitten away in great chunks.
As they fought, they screamed, the sounds filling the caverns. At some point Ross realized his opponent was not going to be killed in this manner, he was too strong to submit. Mentor had told him to be careful, but it appeared he had really underestimated Balthazar. He would have to defeat him in another way.
Immediately Ross pulled away and flew down the corridor in retreat. On the way he dispersed his molecules, his being disintegrating even as his footsteps sped him away. He cloaked his mind and prowled through new passageways. He noted the many lanterns set into niches all along the paths and in some of the cryptlike rooms. Finally he came to the large chamber that served as Balthazar's home. Taking a burning lantern from a shelf, Ross tossed it onto the cushioned sofa. He took a skull with a candle inside and threw it at the lush fabric covering the bed. Fire spread quickly, taking flame from the spilled oil and wax. Gray smoke changed to black and filled the chamber.
Ross was just as afraid of fire as any other vampire. Just the sight of flame made him so jittery that it took all his willpower not to turn and run from the caves before he knew the fire was taking. But to linger was suicide. He raced away and down a path, knocking lanterns to the ground as he went. He found the passage leading up to an opening in the top of the volcano and flew quickly there. Once in the fresh night air, he looked for boulders and, lifting them without any trouble, moved them over to the entrance to block it.
As he worked, he came from cloaking long enough to check the interior caves for Balthazar and Sereny. He saw in his mind's eye Balthazar trapped between one corridor and the next by fire. He was howling and flinging his arms about. If he were not to panic, he could probably disperse into the air and find some tiny crack in the walls through which he could escape.
Where was Sereny? He hadn't sensed her down in the earth below. Maybe she had fled during the battle. He could still taste her on his tongue and it made him hope she'd got out.
"Is that true?" Sereny asked.
Ross twirled and saw her poised in the air, the wind from the Azores blowing her long skirt so that it was pressed against the outline of her legs. Her fangs had descended so that her red lips were slightly parted.
"I was just hoping you'd got free," he said.
She waited, watching him as he finished piling stone upon stone over the other exists leading out from the caves below. She made no move to help or hinder, as if she had turned to stone herself and none of this had anything to do with her.
Ross knew she could have left and been miles away by now if she'd wanted, yet she'd stayed. He felt no threat from her and decided letting her live was the right thing to do. It was Balthazar the Predator army followed, not this woman. It was Balthazar who had wanted Malachi dead.
Ross finished and sat down on one of the stones while he monitored the vampire trapped below him in the dark smoky caves.
"He'll kill himself," Sereny said, having never moved from where she hovered in the air over the main exit from the caves.
"The fire will kill him."
"Only because he'll let it."
"Why do you say that?"
"You've destroyed his lair. He's lived four miles below ground nearly all his immortal days. You've burned the bones of his victims, scorched the jewels he kept in wooden boxes, and blocked every exit. If he tries to come out now, he knows you'll be waiting. He knows there's no real escape now."
"Doesn't it bother you?" Ross asked. "That he'll die?"
Sereny shrugged, but Ross detected her sorrow. "We all die. Sooner or later." The wind had blown long strands of hair back from her face and she looked like a ghost in the moonlight. Her eyes shone from the sockets like silver nickels.
"Can I go with you?" she asked finally, when he was silent too long.
"I'm sure you can. I don't know if you may."
She smiled a little. "May I, Master, go with you?"
"Let me ask you something," he said. "Has anyone ever trusted you? Should I trust you to be at my side when I've just separated you from an enemy?"
"I didn't help you stab him or start the fire. I couldn't prevent any of that, could I? You can't betray someone if you never had a chance to save him in the first place."
Ross thought it over. He tested her emotions again and found her sorrow real, and her will to live stronger than any sorrow. How many trustworthy vampires had he ever known anyway? One. Mentor. No one else. There was no point in asking it of Sereny.
"You may go with me," he said, savoring the memory of their brief coupling in the caves.
A long piercing cry rose from deep in the bowels of the volcano. It made Ross' ears prickle, and he hunched his shoulders against it. He imagined the flesh singeing and curling, finally falling from the skeleton. He could almost feel the terrible heat and the cleansing flame that devoured everything in its path, even bone. There was not one ounce of remorse for what he'd done to Balthazar, but he had hoped not to resort to using fire.
"He's dying," Sereny said.
Ross thought regret had crept into her voice. She didn't bother to deceive him now.
"Yes," Ross said. "It's over, isn't it?"
Sereny nodded and floated down, her feet settling gently on the volcanic stone near him. Ross looked into the sky over the vast flat sea, imagining how far he was from his ranch house in Texas. "Let's go," he said. "Let's get out of this godforsaken place."
As Sereny sailed alongside her new mate toward a distant, foreign shore, she let the grief over Balthazar's death enfold her. He had been good to her, and loyal, and understanding. She had not helped him because she could not. If she'd been able, she would have helped him defeat Ross, but it all happened too fast. They were beyond her down the corridor before she ever raised herself to her feet and straightened her skirts. Making love with Ross should have given Balthazar a chance to take his enemy unaware, but he'd waited too long and Ross had been vigilant, even in coitus.
She thought maybe she kept taking male vampires as her own because she was trying to recapture the love she'd had for her husband. She took male vampires and served them as she'd served her husband. In servitude she really wielded the power in the relationship, something she'd known since she was just a girl. In giving of herself, she controlled the man who received her.
No matter what the buried reasons for her behavior, she held no regrets. Ross was just as strong and sexually attractive as her other lovers. She was only drawn to powerful men, powerful vampires. Her lost husband had been just a brick mason, but he had been strong in both body and mind. He studied books in his free time, learning how to manage a business and just before her death, he had taken their small savings and started a little shop of his own. He never bowed his head to another man. He never mistreated his wife and children. He had ambition and loyalty and he had loved her as if she were a goddess. . . .
Now she was speeding across the face of the globe to a new situation. A new world, with a new master over her. She had never been outside of Europe and the Canary Islands. She'd never even visited the African cities though they were so near Lanzarote. She had picked up English and could speak it only because she had been a tourist so long, traveling with vulgar Americans who thought everything in the world was there for their singular amusement. She did not know if Ross really wanted her along or if he'd tire of her and slit her throat.
All she knew was that she was again homeless, without family, and cast out to fend for herself. She'd only survived so far because of her magnetic sexuality and her ability to adjust to change.
She hoped it would be enough this time.
She did not want to die, though Balthazar had always suspected she was suicidal. He had been so wrong.
She really did not want to die.
3
Charles Upton walked openly down the night-shrouded streets of Dallas, recalling landmarks from when he'd moved his headquarters from Houston to Dallas after turning vampire.
He marveled at the new skyscrapers raised during his years in prison, the great flowing fountains, and the increased population that meant more freeways and snarled traffic.
He drank in the cardinal scent of humanity all around him. He glanced through windows at the silhouettes of people in their homes, thinking themselves safe behind locked door. They drove past in cars and trucks, going about their lives as if nothing evil might ever befall them. They stood behind store counters, shopped for groceries, drank and danced in bars, and walked hand in hand down sidewalks, oblivious to how precarious their existence was.
Charles reveled in the thought he could take any one of them at any second, ending life so quickly the victim wouldn't even know he was dying. Already this night he'd fed on two men, leaving their bodies exposed so they'd be found, their torn throats as clean and bloodless as his careful licking could leave them.
He wanted to strike fear into men. He would no longer hide the corpses or heal the puncture wounds before he left them. Let humanity discover they were not alone. They'd been yearning to meet an alien creature for years, discussing the Roswell incident endlessly, looking to the skies for spaceships, devising abduction scenarios and alien encounters. There was a whole cottage industry publishing books and making movies about man's desire, his hidden desire, to bump into something much stronger and more intelligent than he. Charles would oblige, happily. If they wanted monsters, he would show them monsters. His Predators, the most powerful beings in the world, had come from hiding. Nothing would be kept secret any longer.
Ahead of him, Charles saw a small group spilling onto the sidewalk from a downtown dance club. They were young and high on life. They smelled of liquor and tobacco and sex, of acrid sweat and sweet, fruity perfume. They were laughing and talking, unaware of the danger approaching.
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