CheckMate

by Kallysten

  Chapter 6

  Finding a place to call her lair took some time, but it wasn't as difficult as Lilia had feared. Haventown had been a high point of vampire activity for decades, and a market had developed for those who knew where to look. Lilia had been around for more than nine years and she had a vague idea of whom to talk to in order to find what she wanted.

  The first thing she had to procure was the same thing a human needed most. She had some money stashed away, but it was in the catacombs, too close to Nathanael's lair for her to risk retrieving it that night. Instead, she found a nicely busy nightclub and put to practice her pickpocket abilities. It would have been faster to kill a couple of the better dressed partygoers, but after Jordan's earlier warning, she preferred not to tempt fate. More than once, she looked around her, expecting to see him there, before realizing her imagination was playing tricks on her mind. He had not followed her, and instead had let her go as he had said he would. Fool. If she had been human and he vampire, she would have kept him chained in her closet until the end of her own natural life.

  By midnight, she had enough cash to approach the woman who had a reputation to be the vampire population's realtor agent, and one of the strongest unlicensed magic practitioners in town. Lilia supposed that being able to set a vamp on fire with a word helped to keep the customers in line. She was more uncomfortable than ever at being near anything magical at all, but she didn't regret it when the woman opened the door, took one look at her, and announced with the most determined tone that she had just what Lilia was looking for. She might have been a seer, because, Lilia was soon forced to admit it, she led her to the perfect lair.

  "The mausoleum is over two hundred years old,” the woman explained as she walked with Lilia through one of the town's largest graveyards. “Marble both inside and out, perfectly maintained. There are narrow windows for light, but they're angled in such a way that sunlight does not shine any farther than one yard inside, at the most. If that's still a problem for you, we could easily find a way to obstruct them. The inside would be darker however."

  Lilia made a noncommittal noise; she wanted to see more than the outside before she decided if the place was suitable. The woman didn't appear to notice her lack of answer and preceded her inside, pushing the door open with some difficulty.

  "It is the original door,” she commented. “Solid wood, four inches thick. And as you can see...” She demonstrated the use of the heavy lock, which bolted the door to the wall in three places. “...easy to close."

  One checkmark in the ‘pro’ column. If she was to live alone, Lilia definitely needed to feel safe.

  They stepped further in, and Lilia was surprised; judging from the outside, she had thought there would be more space than what she saw. It might have been due however to the thick stone caskets that lined the walls higher than she was tall, one above the other. The only other things in here were the unlit torches on three walls, and an altar of marble in the center of the room.

  "This part of the mausoleum comes unfurnished,” the woman said, businesslike, as she snapped her fingers and lit all three torches at once. “Please note however that all the sarcophagi are empty and devoid of religious symbols. One of the previous owners took it upon himself to ... clean things up."

  The note of amusement in her voice said that there was a story behind this casual remark, but Lilia didn't ask the obvious question. Instead, she gave the room, which had to be about seven feet by eight or nine feet, another, longer look, and failed to see what she expected.

  "You said that this part of the mausoleum is unfurnished. That would imply that there's another part that's furnished."

  The woman smiled. “I knew you'd pick up on that. Here.” She walked to the far wall, and, to Lilia's amazement, walked right through it in between two columns of caskets. “It's a simple glamour,” she called out, now invisible. “I created it myself. Why don't you come in and see the other room?"

  Still slightly baffled, Lilia walked to the wall, touching around until she knew how wide the opening was before she stepped through and discovered the rest of the mausoleum.

  "There you are. So what do you think?"

  There wasn't much light yet, but Lilia thought that it was simply quite amazing, although she didn't voice the sentiment. “Is this still part of the mausoleum?"

  "Indeed, it is,” the woman nodded, and lit two more pillar candles with a snap of her fingers. The room was smaller than the front one, and the walls were the same polished marble as the rest of the edifice. On the left side of the entrance, a large bed took up most of a wall. It was just a frame and mattress, but it looked in good condition and clean. The candles the woman had lit were set in niches carved into the walls, out of the way of anything flammable.

  "The plumbing, I am afraid, is rudimentary,” she said, leading Lilia to the other end of the room and pointing to an opening in the wall. Lilia peered in. The stones in there weren't as refined as the rest of the room; a pipe was sticking from high up on one wall, an on/off valve to the side, and the ground consisted in a lattice of metal slates with enough room between them to allow the water to fall through into the hole dug below.

  Rudimentary, as the woman had said, but even Nathanael's lair, which was home to four dozens vampires, didn't have anything as nice.

  "How much?” she asked as she walked back toward the bed side of the room again and noticed an electric plug there. If she was to live on bagged blood—because even that would be better than prostituting herself to humans with a kink for being bitten—a fridge might come in handy. Maybe a television, too.

  She wasn't surprised when the woman gave a price that was almost exactly what Lilia had pocketed earlier that night. She turned the money over without batting an eyelash. The place was worth it, and they both knew it. The standard clauses applied—same amount to be paid quarterly, the place would be considered abandoned if Lilia missed a payment by more than a month—and they went over them quickly before the woman got ready to leave. Just as she was about to open the door, she offered to do a spell, free of charge, that would alert Lilia when someone came to her door, giving her time to hide if needed. After a brief hesitation, Lilia accepted. If Nathanael was as angry as she expected him to be about her failure and desertion, a few seconds warning might be the difference between dust and survival.

  Alone in what was now her home, Lilia felt a wave of cold wash over her. She had lived on her own in the past, when Nathanael and she had parted ways, but it had never been for more than a few years at a time, and she had always known she would go back to him, to her clan, to her family. Now, for the first time, solitude appeared as if it would be a long-term situation. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

  With a weary sigh, she went to the bedroom to pick up one of the candles before returning to the front room. Settling the candle on the altar, she pulled out the paper and pen from her pocket and started writing. It took her three hours and seven drafts before she had produced a somewhat satisfying letter. She still wasn't entirely happy with it, but sunrise was fast approaching, and she wanted to have the letter on its way to Nathanael before dawn.

  Sire,

  I failed you.

  Any apology I might give now would be utterly useless, and I know better than to anger you further with pleas for pardon.

  The fledgling you sent me fetch was dust before he even rose. Vincent Jordan saw to that. Not only that, but he put me under a spell of sorts, captured me, and used magic again to make me admit what I knew of your plans with the fledgling. He also knows where the clan's lair is, as well as how many vampires serve you, and I respectfully urge you, Sire, to find a safer place to call your own.

  I have disgraced myself by failing you in such a fashion, and for that I beg of you to grant me the right of exile. If it pleases you, I shall remain away from the clan, away from your eyes, until such time as I have taken revenge on Jordan. Please let me deal with him. His downfall shall be prepared with care and extremely painful s
o as to honor you.

  Forever your Childe,

  Lilia

  Using her last clean sheet of paper, she copied the words over as neatly as she could, as though her best penmanship might help convince the recipient of the truth of her words. She certainly needed all the help she could get. Once she was done, she read the letter again before signing it twice, first with her name, then with a few drops of her blood. Then, with gestures that had been born in another life, she folded the paper and sealed it with the dark red wax that had pooled around the wick of her candle as she was writing.

  All she needed now was to find a messenger; she knew exactly where to go for one. As she did, the words she had written echoed in her mind, along with the hope that Nathanael would accept them as true and grant her request. If he didn't ... well, she would think about that once she got to that point.

  It was only after she had given her letter to a minion she thought she could trust that Lilia allowed herself to think of Jordan. Was it possible that he might be out and hunting at this time? It would have been just like him to do something like that. She would need to keep an eye on him, and make sure that he didn't get himself killed—and her as well in the process.

  * * * *

  The night he let Lilia free, Vincent didn't patrol. It was an unusual occurrence for him; the few times over the years he hadn't gone out after sunset to perform his Special Enforcer duties he had simply been too ill to do so. He wasn't ill this time, but in his current state of mind, he might as well have shown up unarmed at Nathanael's doorstep. There were too many things going on in his head for him to be able to fight.

  The first thing he did, after Lilia had left, was to perform the ritual that revoked a vampire's invitation into a home. He had done it often as a part of his job, but it was the first time he had ever needed to do it for himself. He hoped it would be the last time too.

  After that, he sat down in his living room, inches from the spot where Lilia had been chained earlier, and smoked his way through a pack of cigarettes, trying to come to terms with what had happened to him. To them.

  It would have been easy to place the fault on Don, or on Jeanie, but the truth was that Vincent had requested a spell from Don that would make his opponent friendly. He could simply have knocked her out, chained her up, and thrown a truth-speaking spell at her like he had ended up doing. But no, he had wanted to try something new. He could only blame himself that it hadn't worked as he had hoped.

  It would have been even easier to hold Lilia responsible, but again the reality was that she had suggested marriage, a human ceremony and human vows, while Vincent had pushed things further and offered to become her Mate. He had given his neck to a vamp, he couldn't really guilt her for having taken it. On the contrary, he ought to consider himself lucky that she hadn't taken more than a mouthful of his blood. Lucky, also, that he hadn't tasted more than a few drops of her blood himself. Some accounts he had read implied that vampire blood was potent, and addictive. The last thing he needed, especially now, was to start craving another taste of vampire blood. Especially Lilia's.

  So, with no one else to blame but himself, Vincent considered what he knew of Matings, briefly standing to grab a book on the shelves and refreshing his memory by reading over the one and only chapter, among his extensive collection of books dealing with vampires, that talked about the subject. The good part was that there was no catch or detail he had forgotten, but that also meant that he knew very little about the bond he had created with Lilia other than the fact that it was unbreakable. He wished he had let her say everything she knew about it. It was a bit late for regrets now.

  The one thing he forcefully refused to think about was the promise he had made over Peter's dead body. He had no intention of committing suicide by proxy by killing Lilia now. At the very least, she would die when he would, be it by foul play in one of his hunts or of natural causes in a few decades.

  In the early morning, he went to bed as confused as he had been hours earlier, but with the resolve that he would put that misadventure behind him. He wouldn't be able to erase the two marks on his throat, nor would he ever forget that sword hanging over Lilia and him, that whichever of them died first would leave the other in a world of agony, but he had to keep on living, had to keep doing his job. He had made a vow on his mother's tomb, repeated it on Peter's, and that vow, at least, he intended to keep. He would fight vampires all his life.

  Therefore, the next night, he prepared as he usually did and went out just as the sun was sinking below the horizon. His usual route took him first through the main streets of the town and a few random dark alleys, and then to a couple of different graveyards each night. It wasn't easy to catch vampires in the act of feeding on unwilling humans, but years of experience and the instinct he had developed told him where to look. If he managed to dust at least two vampires in a night, he could go home satisfied.

  After a few days, he could almost have believed that the whole Mating thing had never happened. He didn't feel any different. Nothing had changed, and he had fallen back into his routine. And if he thought of Lilia, sometimes, when his scar itched or tingled, it was only to wonder if she had left town as he had suggested. As for the dreams ... well, he was young and didn't have a girlfriend. It wasn't completely unexpected that his mind would replay the best sexual experience of his life every night or so.

  * * * *

  Night after night, Lilia followed Jordan. Sometimes, she preceded him to get rid of a vamp she had noticed before him, but most of the time, she had his back. More than once, she had to restrain herself not to yell at him to stop being so irresponsible and start paying attention to what was going on around him. The simple fact that he still hadn't noticed her after a month was a testament to how careless he was, and it made Lilia wonder how he had managed to survive so long.

  Day after day, Lilia dreamed of Vincent. And if at first she saw herself fighting him, killing him, turning him, taking out her frustrations at having been Mated without her consent, the dreams soon returned to what they had been that first day after the spell. Sexual dreams that left her panting and craving for what she couldn't have, what the idea of another man in her bed couldn't replace.

  Chapter 7

  It had been two and half years since Emma had left him, and Vincent had been single ever since. And lonely. He wished he could have found someone to share his life, like Don and Jeanie had, but somehow he seemed doomed to remain alone. There had been a couple of one-night mistakes during that time, with women who were only interested in him because he was a Special Enforcer, and he had been aware of it when falling into bed with them. There had also been Lilia—magically induced love, gone as soon as it had started, unlike the Mating marks he still wore and the persistent memories that still plagued him three months after the incident. And, perhaps because of this glimpse of what could have been, he was lonely, terribly so, night after night.

  He missed more than the physical side of a relationship though. It was also the companionship and support. He wished he had someone to talk to when days seemed to have no end and he had nothing else to do than wait for night, someone to come with him when he scoured the town in search of vampires to catch red fanged, someone to help him, even.

  After Peter, Vincent had never looked for a partner, finding that the magic support Don provided had been more than enough; his friend was good at what he did, and Vincent would not let two accidents in seven years fool him into thinking otherwise. Emma had fought by his side for a while; fresh out of the academy, she had sought him out and asked to shadow him for a few weeks. It had turned into more than a few weeks, and more than a learning experience. She had been a good Special Enforcer, but fangs too close to her neck had put an end to both their professional and personal relationship. So most nights, Vincent was alone. And wishing for someone to talk to. Someone to spar with, when nights were slow. Someone to simply be with.

  And all he had was Lilia.

  She had started showing up dur
ing his patrols a few weeks back, although he now suspected that she had been following him even before that. At first he had believed her claim that it was a coincidence she had come across him, but when it had happened repeatedly, he had realized it wasn't. She was stalking him. Every single night. He had tried to ignore her as well as he could, but it had become harder and harder as time passed and she joined his fights without hesitating. Worse; at first he had threatened to stake her to make her leave him alone, and now it had come to the point where they had saved each other's life a couple of times already.

  And she was there again tonight, joining him even though he had not told her he planned to scout an area in the factory district.

  "Not your usual hunting grounds,” she observed without preamble as she caught up with him from a side alley.

  He glanced at her, wondering how she had found him but unwilling to ask. Wondering where she found the money to buy silk shirts like the one she was wearing with her usual leather pants and boots; it was of a red so dark it seemed black until it caught the light at the right angle.

  Wondering, also, when he had started noticing what she wore.

  "A cop I know had reported suspicious activity around here,” he explained, focusing again on the hunt rather than on the vampire at his side. “There used to be some harmless vamps in the neighborhood working as security guards at night around the factories, but it seems they've all disappeared over the past week or so."

  The only hint he had that Lilia had been listening was the small snort she gave at hearing that vampires had been working here; from what he had pieced together from a couple of semi-discussions they had had, she had little more than contempt for vampires who worked for humans.