by E. M. Knight
He shifts back. Then his face becomes unreadable, as it so often is.
“We need to get you blood faster,” he hisses under his breath.
“You think I don’t know that?” I want to laugh. I push off from the wall and stagger forward with as much grace as I am capable of. “Don’t worry. We’re almost there.”
He bites his tongue, clearly worried.
“My Father trusts you,” he says.
I’m very surprised to hear him refer to the King that way.
“He’ll give you what you need. I know.”
“You barely speak to him,” I grumble. But instead of arguing more, I keep going.
We reach the door that will take us out of the secret passageway and into the common area of The Crypts.
“Wait,” I tell Riyu. “You need to stay here.”
“What?” he demands. “No! I won’t leave you.”
“If somebody sees you emerging with me, they’ll ask questions,” I say. “Questions that we do not need to entertain. Remember our purpose. This is a momentary diversion, nothing more.”
He shoots a worried look at me. “Are you sure?”
“I’m ordering it.”
He nods and steps aside. “Very well.”
I walk past him, open the lock. “You stay here and wait,” I say, and then I push through.
I’m not alone on the other side for more than a few seconds before a procession of vampires runs by.
I straighten immediately and try my best to look strong. To look as they’d expect.
They give me the appropriate salutation and continue on their way. I breathe a sigh of relief. Had Riyu been with me, that could have turned into quite a scene.
Supporting myself with one hand against the wall, I proceed toward the King’s chamber with as much dignity as I can muster.
Good thing we’d stopped by my apartment before and gotten me a new set of clothes, I think as I reach the end. If those vampires had seen me in the ruined clothes I was wearing before…
I stop in front of the massive, sealed door. I pray the King is inside. I cannot feel him, of course. His rooms are protected in the same way the secret passages are.
But at this time of night, he is usually most often there.
I make a fist and knock in the pattern known only to me and a few others.
I stand back and wait. The King won’t necessarily be happy to see me so soon.
The doors burst open with a gust of wind. There’s nobody standing on the other side.
In fact, the room is cloaked in a cloud of black.
Well, I know the sorts of powers my King is dabbling with.
Having little alternative, I walk into the darkness.
As soon as I’m in, a chill washes over me. It’s an unnerving feeling, very much akin to fear.
Or rather, what I remember of fear. I haven’t felt true fright for a very long time.
I cannot see through the black. My vision does not pierce the cloud.
“DAGAN,” the King’s voice booms through the air, coming from all sides. “You have returned.”
Abruptly, the blackness contracts and flows away as if having been sucked in by a vacuum. The King’s chambers are revealed to me in full.
And there he stands, shirtless, in the middle, those markings covering his flesh.
“What have you to report?” he asks me.
The doors slam shut behind my back.
“I discovered Riyu being held prisoner by Beatrice,” I say. “I freed him and relied on his abilities to destroy the horrible creatures she was growing.”
The King appears utterly disinterested. In his left hand he holds a jagged piece of amber glass, and all of his attention is on it.
He lifts it so that it is level with his eyes and directly between us. “Do you know what this is?” he asks.
“No,” I answer truthfully. “But I presume it’s a torrial.”
Logan’s lips curl up into a fleshless smile. “A good guess. But incorrect. Torrials are made by living hands. This is a natural element of the Earth.”
His gaze intensifies, dark sparks flare across his eyes, and suddenly the impenetrable cloud explodes out from the glass, covering everything in black once more.
I don’t outwardly react. Yet inside, my mind is racing.
What is he trying to show me?
After a few seconds, the cloud retracts, sucked into the void again.
Logan stares at the thing in his hands in absolute awe.
A minute of complete silence passes as I wait for him to speak. But he is held rapt by the uneven piece of glass.
I wonder how much of this is a reflection of the treacherous magic he’s wielding.
Then he stirs and looks at me. “You were saying?”
My eyes narrow. But I make absolutely certain to show him the same respect I always have.
“You asked me to watch Beatrice. I believe she has fled.”
Logan looks me up and down. “The woman? Yes, she’s gone.”
“You know?”
He shrugs. “She came asking for access to The Ancient’s blood. I refused. She took offense and stormed away. I made sure she knew she would not be welcomed back.”
My gut clenches. That revelation does not bode well for my purpose in being here.
“She wanted blood? Why?”
The King laughs. “To augment her strength, of course. Why else? You would have been informed next I saw you. Beatrice is no longer a priority.”
I almost falter. “No? You gave me orders less than a day ago.”
“And with the news you’ve returned with, it’s no longer valid,” he says. He looks at me, then, and those poisoned eyes fix me with a harsh glare. “I did not tell you to destroy Beatrice’s creations. Yet you did so anyway.” He pauses. “That could be considered insubordination.”
“She sabotaged and imprisoned a vampire of The Crypts.” I tell him. “Part of your bloodline. If I hadn’t found him, Riyu might have been killed.”
“A pity,” he says, “that you came to his defense so quickly.”
I squint. “What?”
“We do not require more than one vampire here using magic,” he says. “In fact, having two can cause enormous problems.”
“What are you saying?” I ask.
Logan smiles. “I’m saying, Dagan… that I need you to kill my bastard son.”
Chapter Sixteen
Dagan
The King’s private chamber in The Crypts
I stare at the King, not sure I properly heard the words.
“You need me to do what?”
“I command you to kill Riyu,” he says lightly. “Not so hard a task for a warrior as accomplished as you.”
“Riyu is one of my First Guard,” I say. “You want me to kill a vampire who has sworn allegiance to me, to you, to all of your coven? You want me to destroy a vampire… who is your own flesh and blood?”
“You appear hesitant,” Logan observes. “Have I been too lax with you?”
I stiffen. “No,” I say. “I am yours to command. As it has always been, from the founding of our coven.”
His mouth turns up in that uncouth smile. “You know what I want you to do.”
“So Beatrice—she’s forgotten? Riyu is the target now?”
“As I said, and I will not repeat myself. Riyu is the bigger threat. Two users of magic cannot coexist in a single coven. Especially not when they are male. By killing Riyu, you eliminate the problem. Beatrice is not to cross your mind again.”
My gaze hardens as I take the King in. Has he fallen to madness already?
Given all that I’ve heard, I think it entirely unwise to ask for The Ancient’s blood.
“I will do as you say,” I tell him stoically. I turn for the door.
“Dagan,” he stops me just as I reach the end. “What happened to your back?”
I tense. “Nothing that need concern you.”
I feel the King smile. “Good. That is a very, v
ery good answer.”
I grunt and glance back. “By your leave?”
He nods, and I go.
Chapter Seventeen
Riyu
A secret tunnel in The Crypts
The minutes seem to stretch for hours as I wait on Dagan’s return.
I have never been more concerned for him than I am now. Not when Beatrice’s poison was numbing his nerves. Not when he risked everything during our mission to The Haven.
Because even though magic does not heal, using it gave me enough of an awareness about the state of his body that I know he is in dreadful shape.
In the time it took us to return from that circular chamber that contained the demon, he should have had enough time to recover. Or, at least, start to heal. The vampire essence does not simply let bodies fall to weakness or disease. Even if the demon venom was extremely powerful—which it was—with time, the essence should have made a dent against it.
But it has not.
The concern, of course, is what if it can’t? What if it can’t, at all?
What if it can’t, ever?
When Dagan gets The Ancient’s blood, it should strengthen him. It will make the essence in him more powerful.
But it will do nothing to change the underlying nature of it. No matter how strong the essence is, if it cannot counter the venom…?
Then there is nothing The Ancient’s blood can do.
I hear a scraping noise and jump back out of the way of the secret door.
Dagan comes barreling in. I open my mouth to speak, but he throws his hand over it for silence.
The door closes. Once it’s merged back with the rock, Dagan releases me.
“What happened?” I ask. “Did you get—”
“No,” he says harshly. “But it doesn’t matter. Everything’s changed.”
“What do you mean, everything’s changed? Did you get the blood, or not?”
He ignores the question. “The King says Beatrice is no longer a concern.”
“Then what is? Dagan, you have to tell me!”
He looks behind him. “He wants me to kill someone else.”
A feeling of raw apprehension takes me. “Who?”
“I’ll tell you later. For now, we have to get away. As soon as possible. We need to get somewhere neither of us can be reached.”
I eye him up and down, searching for the meaning behind his words. “Why?”
“Because the assassination will take time to plan,” he tells me. “And we must be absolutely certain not to be disturbed.”
“What about your back?” I exclaim.
“I don’t need to prove anything to you!” He lashes out. He strikes me across the face with the back of his hand in a sudden burst of anger.
I fall back and bring a hand to my cheek.
“What’s happened to you?” I wonder. “You’ve lost all control.”
“The hell I have,” Dagan growls. “What do you think it’s like for me to have to depend on a weak, groveling, perverted little being like you?”
The words sting. They hurt more than the slap, more than any other reprimand I’ve ever had.
“I… didn’t know you thought that way,” I mumble under my breath.
“Wake up, Riyu!” he almost shouts. “It’s what everybody thinks of you! You’d have to be both stupid and blind not to see it.”
I wince.
And then I remember the source of the strength I’ve always used to persevere.
Indifference.
Indifference and apathy.
So I put on the mask I always use in situations like these.
Not that any have ever cut so close to the bone before.
But that’s because I was stupid, foolish, vain, weak. I was all those things and more for thinking that somehow, someway, things between Dagan and me have changed.
They haven’t. And they never will.
So I turn into the consummate soldier once more, dedicated entirely to him as general and nothing else.
I give Dagan a formal salute. “Then tell me what to do.”
“We go to the Paths,” he says. “You will open a portal to get there. And once inside… we can plan.”
Chapter Eighteen
James
Location unknown
I look at Liana at my side and say, “Did you think we’d be back so soon?”
She shakes her head with a little smile. “No. But I cannot say I’m against it.”
She and I are standing on the other side of the gated entrance to her college campus.
It’s night out and raining hard. There’s not a soul in sight.
But I can feel the warm, living bodies, flush with blood, within the campus dorms.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Of course.”
I point to a building at random. “There. Sixth window. Third floor.”
She grins, then looks around to decide upon my challenge.
“The Georgian building,” she says. “Ninth window. Eleventh floor.”
“First one back and fully fed?”
“Gets the prize,” she answers. “Go!”
I take off at splintering speed, my legs pumping, the wind pushing against my face. I leap onto the side of the building and scale the facade, racing to my target’s window. I reach it, look in, and then—
A blinding flash of light explodes from inside. I lose my grip and fall back. I hit the ground hard, and somehow, the light curves to follow me. It seals into my skin, burning everything, unfathomably hot, and I open my mouth to scream with pain when I—
I come to with a hideous gasp and jolt upright. My head hits the top of the coffin. In a blaze of anger I tear it off the hinges and hurl it away.
I’m breathing hard. My body is lined with sweat. I look at my arms, disgusted at the red.
Blood sweat.
I wipe it away with revulsion. Then, I look at the other coffins in the room.
All are still. The nine members of the pack are in their respective coffins. The members of my coven, April and Liana and hell, even Victoria and Sylvia are sleeping outside.
Was that a dream?
I bring a hand to my head. I try to make sense of what I saw. It would not be so concerning…
Were it not for the fact that vampires don’t dream.
And this one was so absolutely vivid. I felt like I was there. I felt the pain and the terror of being caught under that light, like a bug under a magnifying glass…
I shudder and try to cast the memory away. I step out from the coffin and make a vow never to sleep in it again.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so eager to take the one that belonged to Chandler. But the pack vampires insisted on it being the only proper resting place for their Alpha.
I snort. Never again.
I pick my way out of the room. On the other side I see my vampires all sleeping. They are still as statues, still as stone.
I wonder how much time left until sundown.
I walk through the underground hideout, stopping momentarily by that magical door. I can’t see it now. There is no fire.
Still, I trace my finger over where I remember the outline was. Then I walk away.
When I reach the exit, I’m surprised to see that there is still plenty of light in the sky. At least two hours, maybe three, to full nightfall.
That is curious. Never before have I awoken so early. I didn’t think vampires could wake up when the sun was still shining. Not if they laid down to rest. The stronger ones can always resist the drowsiness that takes them when the sun comes. But after they lie down?
They’re unconscious until the sun is gone.
Except, not now. Not for me.
I ponder for a moment the significance of that dream. The significance of dreaming. I was the one who made such a fuss about vampires being unable to dream before.
I can’t believe this is all coincidental.
In the end, I decide not to make anything of it. It was a one-off, random event.
A part of me wants to go outside and explore the woods while there’s light. The heavy forest canopy will protect me from the worst of the sun’s effects. My own strength will make whatever gets through bearable.
But what will the others think if they wake up and find me gone?
Does it really matter?
No. No, not really. I am their leader, I am the one in charge. I don’t have to answer to any of them.
But I do have responsibility to each and every one.
I stand on the edge of the entrance, one shoulder against the rock, and watch the waterfall from within.
I feel more powerful than I ever have before.
What happened with me and Victoria is a moment I will never forget. She made me truly angry—and I lashed out.
But I did it not with physical force but with magic.
That’s still astounding to me.
I look at my hands. Who would have ever thought these hands could control such power? Who would have thought I could command such strength?
I certainly never did. The funny thing is, not once have I ever felt envy for what Mother or Eleira could do. I recognized the gifts of their magic, but that was it.
A grin creeps onto my face. Hell, now that I am like them, it gives me an even better shot at seducing Eleira and stealing her from Raul.
Just something interesting to do.
I shake my head gruffly. I can’t get distracted by such childish diversions now.
What matters now is getting to the Crusaders and seeing what the man Smithson spoke of can tell me.
It’s ironic, in a sense: a vampire going to learn from a man. I am under no illusion that it will go smoothly. Those humans hate the creatures of the night and are powerful enough that Smithson fears them.
As much distaste as I have for that vampire, I still have to respect what he’s accomplished. I’ll never admit it to his face, of course. That would make me look weak. But on my own, in my own thoughts, I have no problem giving him credit.
The only thing that confounds me about what happened with Smithson is how he so completely gave up on the Order after Cierra did her damage. If it were me, seeing my facility destroyed would have only given more motivation to fight.