“So, have new Princeps been appointed yet?” Trish asked in a low voice.
“The nominees have been contacted and have accepted their nominations. Fortunately Julius managed to avoid that particular fate, though it seems inevitable that it’ll come up at some point in the future,” Gabi told her in an equally low tone. “They’ve passed some new laws even in the absence of a full Court.”
Trish raised her eyebrows, intrigued.
“The first was to outlaw the Turning of any person under the age of sixteen, with no exceptions. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one Turning is discouraged unless there is no other option; in other words, the person is dying. The penalty is death. All vampires have to ‘register’ any underage Vampires they already have in their Clans and Houses or any underage rogues that they know of. They’ve also passed a law preventing any Vampire trying to conceive a Dhampir. This one also carries an instant death sentence. All Masters have been informed of the existence of a Dhampir, without any details being given, as well as of the agreement to magically seal the secret away in case of future need of it. Experimentation is now strictly prohibited, and I am under the express protection of the Princep Council. By Vampire standards I am untouchable.” Gabi grimaced. They all knew she would be under constant threat for the foreseeable future.
“Has anything more come of the Oracles’ visions?” Trish asked, eyes wide.
“No, nothing more than that Mariska is in league with the Devil or the Devils’ Court,” Gabi replied. “Whoever she’s teamed up with this time is definitely some kind of threat to the Magi, and they’re very good at shielding. I think the Magi have more of an idea who it could be than they’re letting on, but they’re keeping mum at this stage. I guess when things get too hot for them to handle, they’ll come and demand help.”
“That woman sure is a trouble-stirrer,” Trish commented, shaking her head.
“Yeah,” Gabi agreed, “if it wasn’t for what she’d already done to the City and to me, I’d be tempted to leave the Magi to deal with her, but I have a personal score to settle with the bitch, and I intend to make her pay up.” Her eyes flashed in anger. Mariska needed to meet her maker sooner rather than later, and Gabi had every intention of hastening that appointment.
“Speaking of scores to settle.” Trish leaned forward across the table. “Have you heard anything about Caspian?” Her eyes were wide with curiosity. “I couldn’t believe it when Kyle told me he just vanished before you left the Princeps’ Court. Julius has had me trying to find him, but he’s never been one to leave an electronic trail.”
Gabi sighed. Caspian, the Spanish Vampire who’d sworn fealty to Julius just before their trip to the Princeps’ Court, was also technically her Sire. He was another headache she was trying to avoid aggravating. Between the story she’d heard at Court about Caspian’s history, her own suspicions about his grip on sanity, and his mysterious disappearance, she was almost hoping he’d managed to get himself killed off somehow and that it wouldn’t have to be her or Julius who had the dubious honour.
“I haven’t heard anything,” Gabi told her at last. “I’m not sure he’ll show his face around here again. Though his fealty to Julius should pull him back regardless of his intentions. I guess we’ll deal with him if he turns up, though what Julius intends to do about him, I’m not sure.”
An elderly couple shuffled up to the table nearest them and sat down with twin sighs of relief. They gave the two women polite smiles and took menus from the waitress. “You also have to tell me more about the Princep Court,” Trish pressed. “Kyle’s hardly told me anything. Was it really a proper castle, and did it really have secret passageways?” She broke off as she glanced over and realised the elderly couple at the next table were close enough to hear their conversation and were doing a bad job of pretending not to listen to them.
“Hey, there’s usually an ice-cream van down at the dock on sunny days.” Gabi quickly filled the silence. “Let’s go grab a gelato.”
Gabi was sorely tempted to spend the rest of the afternoon soaking up the sun and chatting with Trish, but a chime on her phone reminded her that her accountant had been begging for paperwork for weeks, and her tax deadline was looming. Sadly, even ferocious Vampire slayers had to jump when the tax man called. She had to make a trip into the City centre the following day to take everything her accountant had asked for, and she wasn’t even close to sorting it out yet. Her office was a maelstrom of paperwork that needed to be filed. So she reluctantly hugged Trish goodbye, promising to join her and Kyle for dinner over the weekend, and drove the borrowed Audi home.
The pets were happy to see her as Rose had already finished up and left for the day. She continued to procrastinate over the paperwork and used Roman’s need for some exercise as an excuse to go for a mind-clearing run with the Rottweiler. The sun was already ducking behind the horizon and her stomach was growling when she finally traipsed to her office to do the inevitable.
She should’ve taken Rocky with her on the run, she reflected an hour later as she tried to arrange papers into folders, with the tiny furry speedster tearing up and over the desk, knocking stationery flying and scattering stacks of paperwork on the ground in disorderly heaps.
“You’re lucky you’re too cute to yell at,” she groused at the tiny terrorist, picking up yet another stack of papers from the floor. The sound of her phone beeping was actually welcome for once.
“I have food, and I’m on my way to fetch you,” purred Julius’s silky voice over the phone. A small shiver raced down her spine.
“Where are we going?” Gabi asked, grasping at any excuse to escape her current torture.
“We had an invitation to visit Savannah at her lab. I thought we’d take her up on it,” he replied.
“Oh,” Gabi said, surprise rendering her temporarily speechless. She remembered the invitation, but hadn’t thought they’d be taking it up quite so soon.
“Be ready to go in twenty,” Julius said, his tone mild, but Gabi could feel his amusement at her consternation. “And don’t forget that Savannah wanted to meet Razor. If you think he’d enjoy the outing, bring him along.”
CHAPTER 6
The ‘lab’ was nothing like Gabi was expecting. Perhaps the memory of Jason King’s macabre laboratory, set up to clone the Lycanthropy virus, was still too fresh in her mind. While the exterior of this one looked something along the lines of a rural barn, the interior was more like what she’d expect to find in a world-class medical research lab. All white tiles, glass and stainless steel. Meticulously clean and illuminated by bright, modern lighting. The large central area of the lab was big enough to accommodate half a dozen cars, and did at that moment have two, sans doors and some other body panels, standing off to one side.
Along one side were smaller, glass-walled cubicles. Gabi counted six in total, each one with an array of microscopes, computers, Petri dishes, glass tubes, various jars of what Gabi assumed were chemicals, and dozens of electronic instruments that Gabi couldn’t put names to. Two of the cubicles were occupied by women; one was a Vampire and the other was a Shifter if Gabi’s Vamp-sense was on target. One was jotting notes onto an electronic tablet, and the other was studying something under a microscope. To one side stairs led to a mezzanine level, which appeared to be storage of some kind. A bank of insulated and, in some cases, refrigerated shipping containers lined the upper floor. Gauges and blinking lights adorned most of them, and a mechanical hoist, big enough to move an entire car, stood motionless against the far wall.
“Wow,” was all Gabi could force out of her mouth as she tried to take it all in. Though she didn’t glance at him, she knew Julius had an amused smile on his face.
“Julius,” Savannah’s effusive voice came from their right, “and Gabi. May I call you Gabi, my dear?” The grey-haired woman was suddenly in front of them, moving with that unnerving speed that Vampires unaccustomed to being around humans often displayed.
“Yes, of course,” Gabi agreed quic
kly, still a little shell-shocked.
“Oh, and you brought the cat,” Savannah enthused, dropping to her haunches to study Razor.
Razor didn’t puff up and growl at her, which was unusual enough for Gabi to send out a questioning thread towards his mind. He had no fear of the bubbly woman, only curiosity, Gabi discovered, relieved she wouldn’t need to defuse the situation. Taking him out with her more regularly was certainly teaching him better social etiquette. He still didn’t take to Werewolves very well, but others he treated with indifference until they proved either friend or foe.
Savannah reached out to him. “Would he allow me to stroke him, do you think?” she asked, her gaze so intense on Razor that she could’ve been measuring him up with her eyes.
Gabi didn’t know whether to be alarmed by her scrutiny. Julius’s mind brushed hers softly, a gentle touch of reassurance; he trusted Savannah implicitly. It also served as a reminder to Gabi that Savannah was a mind reader; she quickly bolstered her mental defences.
“Uh, just put your hand out. Let him come to you,” Gabi suggested, sending Razor a mild ‘be nice’ thought.
He glanced up at her, blinking slowly; then he moved forward a few steps and butted his head against Savannah’s steady, outstretched hand. He moved closer and rubbed against her white lab coat.
“You can pet him now if you like,” Gabi offered, a little surprised by Razor’s easy acceptance of the Vampire. Savannah did, at first stroking his head and then progressing around his shoulders and down his back.
“Hmm,” Savannah said with a thoughtful air. “I shall have to make some adjustments for his size. He’s bigger than I would’ve thought possible. The odds of exactly the right combination of DNA…” She trailed off, giving Razor a final pat before rising. “Come along. I have so much to show you.” It was clear she was in her element and delighted to have them in her domain. She was almost bouncing as she led the way to one of the cubicles near the rear of the building. Both the lab technicians glanced their way as they passed, but neither seemed overly surprised to see two strangers and an overly large cat in their workplace.
The cubicle Savannah led them to was a lot less tidy than the others Gabi had peeked into; bits of what looked like scrap leather lay in heaps on the floor while precise cut-outs adorned the pristine, white countertops. Knives, daggers and swords lay piled and crisscrossing the large central counter alongside baths of chemicals and pages of handwritten notes on large sheets of thick paper. A whiteboard dominated the wall on one side of the room, and there was barely space to put a finger amongst the chemical symbols and complex equations scrawled across it.
Savannah swept to the far counter, the one with all the leather cut-outs, and then turned back to them. “Does he have a name, your cat?”
“Yes, of course,” Gabi replied. “His name is Razor, but I usually call him Raz.”
Savannah smiled brightly. “Razor, of course. That suits him perfectly. Would Razor mind getting on this counter and letting me fit something to him?”
Gabi quirked an eyebrow. The inventor Vampire had designed something for Razor?
“Oh, don’t worry,” Savannah said quickly, misinterpreting Gabi’s look. “I won’t harm him. I heard that he was injured once before when fighting off demons, and I thought I could make him something that would protect him in the future.”
Gabi was finding it hard to merge this animated, almost hyperactive person with the composed, elegant woman she’d met just a few days ago at the Consort ceremony.
“Something to protect him?” Gabi asked as she patted the counter and gave Razor a tiny mental nudge. “You mean like armour?”
Razor obliged by jumping lithely up on the counter and sniffing the bits of leather inquisitively.
“Yes, exactly like armour,” Savannah agreed approvingly. “I’ve been working on treating tanned hide with the same compound I used on your car. I’ve had to make some tweaks to get it to adhere to the surface without making the leather as stiff as metal, but I think I’ve almost got it.” As she spoke, she lifted what looked like a pile of small leather patches, but once she picked it up, Gabi could see that the patches were actually attached to a piece of woven fabric, each patch slightly overlapping the next, like the scales on a fish. “As I said, I’ll have to make some adjustments for size, but I’d like to see how it moves on him if you think he would let me put it on.”
Gabi nodded, reassuring Razor as a sudden warmth for this slightly eccentric Vampire suffused her. This vampire that she barely knew had spent hours, possibly days or weeks, designing something to keep Razor safe. Julius, busy inspecting the pile of weapons, tried to keep a smile from his face. Gabi shot him a surreptitious ‘don’t push it’ glare.
Razor allowed Savannah to carefully shift him into a sitting position facing the wall. Then she lifted a section of the armour and placed it carefully over his shoulders. It draped over him, instantly conforming to his shape, but only covering about two thirds of him. Savannah flitted to a desk in one corner, grabbing a clipboard and pen and returning to Razor, poking, lifting and adjusting the armour, taking measurements and making indecipherable, to Gabi at least, notes on the clipboard. After several minutes Savannah seemed to realise Gabi and Julius were still there.
“You’re welcome to have a look around,” she said with a wave of her hand. “There are offcuts of the treated hide over there if you’d like to try to damage it. In fact, I’d be grateful if you took some pieces and, when you next encounter a demon, see what demon blood and saliva does to it.” She was talking as she worked over Razor, removing and altering the armour before re-fitting it and making further notes. “The info back from your first car was excellent, by the way. I am most grateful for the testing.”
Gabi gave Julius another sidelong glare, but smiled politely at Savannah.
“You can even have a look at your new cars,” Savannah continued, absentmindedly nodding towards the vehicles out in the main part of the lab. “They should be ready before you leave.” Then she went back to tinkering over a surprisingly patient Razor.
Seeing that Razor was happy being fussed over, Gabi grabbed Julius by the arm and dragged him out of the cubicle.
“Cars?” she demanded, emphasising the ‘s’ indignantly.
Julius’s face was impassive, but a twinkle lit his eyes. “Well, that way when you wreck one, you still have a spare to fall back on,” he said, teasing clear in his voice.
“Very funny,” she grumbled.
“Besides, I thought you might prefer driving a pure performance car again, so I’ve arranged a sports car for when you’re in a hurry and not concerned about being conspicuous, and an SUV for when you’re working or trying to fly under the radar. Makes sense to me.”
It made sense to her too, but that didn’t mean she was going to take his presumption lying down. She muttered under her breath, swearing revenge.
As they approached the nearest of the vehicles, two male Vampires appeared like magic from a side door, each one carrying several car body panels. With a quick, respectful nod of their heads in Julius’s direction, they immediately set to work reassembling the less low slung of the two vehicles.
Gabi was relieved to see that the first car was a BMW, probably top of the line, but at least not as expensive as the Lamborghini SUV she’d totalled a few weeks ago when a sniper had pumped more than a dozen bullets into it. The only reason she was still here to argue with Julius was because he’d had the entire car treated with Savannah’s special coating, which made the car virtually bulletproof. Gabi shouldn’t be anything besides grateful, but the fact that he hadn’t told her about the bulletproofing stuck in her craw.
She reminded herself that sniping at him was unjustified. They’d both done things without telling the other one in order to protect them; she shouldn’t be throwing rocks from her little glass house. Walking around the BMW as the Vampires deftly fitted the black panels back into place, she came to a much smaller, lower slung car, until now mostly hidd
en behind its larger, more imposing companion. Julius followed more slowly, as though purposefully keeping some distance between them. She glanced from the sports car to her Consort and shook her head with a sigh.
“You didn’t really buy me a McLaren, did you?”
********************
“And so we are one step closer.” Deimos’s eyes gleamed as he turned to his companion. Not even the dim lighting in the library could hide the excitement radiating from the elderly man.
“Yes, my friend,” said Phobos. “But Gemini have failed twice to uncover the exact location. There has to be a way around the Casti shields.”
“Can you think of another spell to try, or shall we consult the book?” Deimos asked.
“I think we need to summon a Seeker,” Phobos said slowly. The other man stilled, his expression going pensive, but his companion continued. “She can call one over,” he reminded his companion. “She’s done it before; she just didn’t know what she’d managed to summon. She was extremely lucky the Vampire could help her control it or she wouldn’t be in our care right now.”
“You’re right, of course.” Deimos relaxed a little. “Our last summoning of a Seeker took so much…I’m not sure we could accomplish it again, not even with all the blood in the world at our disposal. But the girl…” He let the sentence hang.
“We will still need to prepare,” Phobos said. “Do you think Gemini are strong enough to help her control a Seeker?”
“With the right…nourishment…” Deimos nodded, a cruel smile playing around the corners of his thin mouth.
Phobos returned the smile. “I’ll prepare the child. You arrange her travel to the City.”
To Hell and Back (Hellcat Series Book 4) Page 6