Hazel sniffed pompously. “It is why Dracula hid his brides from us—he knows that if we harm them, we harm him. And the fact that you have chosen only two brides is direct evidence of your subservience to Dracula—who chose three brides. You are not permitted to one-up your boss, it seems. You help him escape us in Europe and bring him to a city where you have a vampire army waiting at the ready. You have deceived werewolves—natural enemies to vampires—to follow you. You surround Dracula’s fortress in impenetrable mist, and you take over the heart of New York City. So, yes, we are the only ones qualified to bring him to justice. Because you are working for him—whether you believe it or not. Your every action has served to strengthen his goals.”
I narrowed my eyes, debating how much information I wanted to share, but needing to get any answers I could from them. I understood her perspective, but I definitely didn’t trust her methods. Or her motives.
And I was more interested in her words about my trinity with Natalie and Victoria—our bond. I sure hadn’t intended to do any such thing. I hadn’t chosen the two of them. The bond had snapped into place all by itself during a fight with the Cauldron when I had been forced to bite Natalie for the power to save us from certain death. And with us each being different types on the magical spectrum, what kind of dangers did we face?
A rapidly growing commotion behind me snapped me out of my thoughts. I turned to see Nosh running around frantically, lifting dead bodies and shoving people out of his way as he desperately searched for something. He gripped a vampire by the shoulders. “Where is Izzy?” he demanded, jostling him violently. The vampire shook his head, lifting his claws.
My heart dropped into my stomach. No…
“Where is she?” he demanded of another vampire. Then another. All to no avail. I heard a cackling laugh from high overhead and I tensed up, ready to dodge in any direction. Instead, I saw a folded piece of paper fluttering down towards me as a flying silhouette zipped away.
The Sisters of Mercy began talking animatedly, huddling close.
I snatched the heavy paper from the air and unfolded it to find a letter.
To whom it may concern,
Hand over the skinwalker and his tomahawks by sunrise if you want the witch to live.
Yours,
A witchnapper
I carefully folded the note and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. “To whom it may concern,” I growled testily. “I have a fucking name.”
13
Victoria tried to snatch the note from my hands but I evaded her, shoving it in my pocket and shooting her a stern look. No one could know about this. Not with the Sisters of Mercy here. If they learned that Nosh was a skinwalker, they might turn him over themselves or find another reason to distrust me. The look on my face must have been convincing because Victoria nodded slowly. I discreetly motioned Nosh to stand down. He gritted his teeth and gave me a stiff nod.
“What did your minion need to tell you?” the Speaker asked, drawing my attention.
“If you can read it yourself, Sister Hazel, I’ll let you,” I said coldly. “But no cheating,” I added, indicating the other Sisters behind her.
She narrowed her eye sockets again, obviously not able to read without eyes. “You seek our trust yet you mock me. Repeatedly.”
I scoffed. “Don’t play the victim, Sister. Those who spend their life specializing in excuses rarely have time to accomplish anything else. Tearing down someone else’s castle does not make your castle any larger, because the loudest indignant shouts from self-proclaimed victims are always muted by the whispers of the quietest victors.”
She stiffened, looking startled and embarrassed that I had pointed out her cheap tactic.
I leaned towards her, speaking in a low but clear tone to truly emphasize my previous words. “And I seek nothing from victims,” I whispered.
Her face darkened. I nodded one time and then turned away from her, finally motioning Nosh closer. He hurried over, flexing his fists in idle frustration over Izzy’s disappearance. I handed him the folded paper and leaned close to whisper in his ear before he could read it. “Remain calm and do not touch your tomahawk,” I urged, gripping his arm tightly. “I need to get rid of the Sisters before we can go after Izzy. We can’t afford to give the Sisters any leverage.” He nodded stiffly. “We will get her back, and we will destroy everyone involved in her abduction,” I promised, squeezing his shoulder hard enough to make his eyes tighten.
He unfolded the letter, walking away with a quiet aura of menace surrounding him like a cloud. He displayed no reaction as he read the short message. Then he calmly tucked the note into his pocket and slowly turned to stare at the Sisters of Mercy with a bored expression. No. He was staring through them. And they seemed to sense it, judging by their sudden glares.
My gaze briefly flicked over Sister Hazel’s shoulder as I sensed movement in the trees of the park. I kept my face blank even though I wanted to burst out laughing.
Instead, I folded my arms. “Thanks to your incompetence, Isabella has been abducted by the Cauldron. Apparently, some of them escaped before I could kill them for you.” Sister Hazel didn’t react in the slightest. “She is one of the most honorable women I’ve met in this city. A few days ago, she suffered the displeasure of the Cauldron, withstanding their torture without giving in an inch. She deserves respect. More than you could ever hope to attain, Sister Hazel.”
“We do not grant respect to a monster’s whore.” Her attention shifted to Victoria and then Natalie, but only for a fraction of a second, almost too subtle to notice.
Yeah. Okay.
I waited, willing to let the devils respond in any manner they saw fit—even overwhelming violence. But they surprised me. Natalie laughed, and Victoria rolled her eyes, turning her back on Hazel. She began walking among my gathered vampires and werewolves, speaking in low tones, apparently finished with the Sisters of Mercy.
“You never had any intention of working with me,” I finally said. “You came here to pick a fight. You’ve made that perfectly clear. But I’m finished dealing with subordinates. Tell your High Priestess that she is welcome to visit me if she wants to discuss anything further.” I turned away just in time to hide my manic grin from Sister Hazel.
“How dare you turn your back on me?” she sputtered. I grinned, winking at Victoria. She showed no reaction, having already noticed what I had seen lurking behind the witches. It was why she had dismissed Sister Hazel’s crude indication that Izzy and the devils were nothing more than my whores. Instead of ripping the elderly Speaker’s face off with her bare hands, Victoria had instead chosen to mingle with my warriors—to reassure them about what was coming. Because the Sisters hadn’t noticed.
I turned just in time to see a giant living statue land on the ground between me and the Sisters. Adam, one of my two Nephilim vampires, crouched low, twirling a massive ruby scythe that was larger than me in one hand. He was at least fifteen-feet tall and built like a master blacksmith, layered with more slabs of muscle than I had ever seen on a man—relative to his size, of course.
His nude body was made of a pale white marble, but a root-like system of ruby striations shifted back and forth across his skin like a slow-motion lightning storm of blood, serving to further emphasize his already impressive musculature.
He slammed the tip of his ruby scythe a foot into the street’s pavement with as much resistance as a hot sword through a witch’s gullet. The scythe flared with crimson light and the witches collectively tripped and stumbled back, crying out in alarm. Since Adam was a giant, his crouched position facing the Sisters put his giant, crimson-veined ass about a foot away from my face.
I grimaced, stepping to the side as the Nephilim vampire growled at the Sisters of Mercy. “You will show him the proper respect or I will line the castle gates with your pretty little skulls,” he said, his voice rolling like distant thunder.
The frightened witches clutched at their chests or grasped spare vials in shaking hands as
they faced the colossal marble statue. His glowing, fiery eyes and the shifting, serpentine streaks of living crystal snaking over his body—much like Aphrodite’s ribbons, now that I thought about it—captivated their fearful attention.
Hazel looked pale but brave, holding out her arms to calm her fellow Sisters. She took a shaky breath, clearing her throat. “We are not afraid of a fallen Nephilim,” she said in a shaken tone. “We are merely saddened that the Devil stole his soul.”
“Then you are idiots,” I muttered. “Look at those muscles.” Adam actually flexed instinctively, threatening to embarrass me. Most of the Sisters were doing their best to ignore his obvious nudity—which was made difficult since it was bigger than their arms—but one Sister was staring hard enough that she could have carved her own replica for later repeated worship.
“One Nephilim is no match for all of us,” Hazel said with false confidence. “We are not scared of him.”
I smiled. “He isn’t the scary one,” I said softly.
An impossibly loud scraping sound behind them made them spin around. They froze in silent alarm, both transfixed and petrified to see Eve slowly sauntering towards them from the park, rolling her hips back and forth in a seductive swaying motion. She held a scythe in either hand, dragging their tips across the surface of the street at her sides so that she left twin trenches of destroyed pavement in her wake. She was smiling hungrily, her eyes blazing with ruby fire.
“She is the scary one,” I said, chuckling.
The Sisters began to twitch and whimper as she neared, torn between turning to face Adam and keeping their eyes on Eve—who was now looming over them with a dark smile. Hazel licked her lips anxiously, struggling to maintain control of her Sisters.
“What about two Nephilim?” I asked her. “Because I can play this game all day. Please call my bluff. I’ve got a few other surprises that you obviously failed to notice or you would have left ten minutes ago.”
Silence answered me, but I let it draw on until many of the Sisters were shifting uneasily, their attention darting left and right as if fearing to see more Nephilim pop up out of the darkness. I was bluffing, but they didn’t know that. In their eyes, I’d raised a castle in the middle of Central Park, and turned Nephilim into vampires. What wasn’t I capable of?
“I thought so,” I said dismissively. “Now, Hazel, it is time to atone for your cruelty.” She scoffed incredulously, but I had already turned to Adam. “Grab her,” I said, pointing at Hazel.
Adam didn’t even hesitate, snatching her in one hand around her waist. The Sisters screamed, but Eve drew her blades across each other, showering them with sparks. They quieted almost immediately, their eyes darting about wildly.
Adam brought Hazel over to me. I stepped close, leaning towards her eyeless face as I unsheathed my claws. “You crossed a line when you called Izzy a monster’s whore. But you really fucked up when you implied the same about Natalie and Victoria. I want to make sure you and your fellow Sisters remember these three mistakes. Forever.”
And I used a claw to slice a line down her right cheek, licking my lips at the sight of her blood. She hissed and squawked in terror, unable to escape Adam’s grip. “For Natalie,” I whispered once I was finished. Then I did the same to the other cheek, ignoring her struggle and her cries of pain. “For Victoria.” I placed the tip of my claw on her forehead and then dragged it down her nose, stopping just below her eye sockets. “For Izzy.” She hung limply, shaking with fear and shame. I assessed my work critically, nodding at the three lines. “I have killed for less offense, Sister Hazel. Consider yourself extremely lucky.” Then I motioned for Adam to set her back among her Sisters.
Even my own army was eerily silent. I wasn’t sure how they felt about my actions, but I’d learned long ago that shocking displays of violence were often the only way to make a point.
And I could not tolerate such blatant disrespect. Rumors about tonight would have spread either way—whether it was how Sister Hazel had openly mocked my allies or how she had suffered for doing so. I preferred the latter. It established a precedent.
Sister Hazel stood before her witches, trembling and sobbing. The Sisters were utterly silent, not daring to risk my anger after what I had just done to their Speaker. She finally turned to face me, her cheeks a curtain of blood and tears.
“The only Sister I’m willing to speak with is your High Priestess.”
“No one speaks with our High Priestess, especially not a vampire,” Hazel whispered softly, but defiantly. “It is out of my hands.”
“Then we are finished here. You are fools if you think I’m willing to hand over Dracula to you after your failures today.” I turned my back on her again, making my way over to Nosh. He looked on the verge of doing something reckless.
“You have two hours to deliver Dracula to Trinity Church,” Hazel snapped. Before I could turn around, I heard a loud whooshing sound behind me. I spun to see the witches disappearing one-by-one, using magic of some kind to transport their bodies away from my presence. I stared at the spot where they had been standing, grimacing.
I had hoped only Nero knew how to do such a thing. What kind of limitations did they have? Could they appear anywhere they wanted? They would be deadly assassins if they could appear anywhere out of thin air. Nero had needed a totem or a solid awareness of his destination.
The Cauldron witches had also seemed to appear out of thin air, according to the Sisters of Mercy. Was that how they had taken Izzy?
The witch with the note had been flying overhead, so I also had that to consider.
Nero needed to get better at using his magic.
14
I surveyed the scene in silence for a few moments, no one daring to approach me.
Eventually, Nosh stepped up beside me, staring at the empty street as well. “You did the right thing, calling them out like that and rubbing their noses in their failures.”
I glanced over at him, assuming he was being sarcastic.
He shook his head. “I’m serious. They never intended to work with you, they intended to walk over you. This gave them a reason to reconsider.”
“My thoughts as well. Of course, it could always backfire and give them a reason to double down on their efforts to kill me. Appearing weak would have carried the same risks, though, so I chose to make an example out of her.”
He nodded absently, focusing on Adam and Eve. It still surprised me that Nosh could be so calm and collected when confronted with stressful situations. Maybe he’d gotten it from me. Or his difficult childhood, growing up as an orphan. That was how I’d learned it.
“Thank you for standing up for Izzy. It would have made her smile.”
I chuckled. “We do crazy things for our family, eh?”
A ghost of a smile crossed his face and he reached into his pocket to pull out the letter from the Cauldron. He stared at it for a few moments. I gritted my teeth, ready to argue that there was no way in hell I was handing him over to the Cauldron to save Izzy.
“My aunt once told me how important it was to stay in contact with distant family. How it was food for the soul, no matter how inconvenient it might be at the time,” he said carefully.
I grew still, reading between the lines—Aphrodite’s warning about how important it was for me to go get my soul back from the Underworld. To visit my distant family member, Hades. And…Nosh was already giving me an out, admitting that the timing was inconvenient but that it was more important than me helping him get Izzy back.
“I’m not trading you, Nosh. Even if I’m busy elsewhere, I will see to it that you can’t sacrifice yourself. I swear it.”
He smirked. “I wasn’t suggesting it. I intend to kill them all.”
“Oh.” I let out a breath, appraising him thoughtfully. “As much as I hate to admit it, I think you are right about distant family. Things will get much worse if Dracula breaks out and tries to sell his knowledge to the highest bidder. The Sisters will obviously take his freedom as an i
ntentional act on my part, and then we will have them to worry about as well.”
Nosh nodded grimly. “I will save Izzy. The werewolves should be able to help me find the Cauldron, if anyone can. Their note just said sunrise, not where to deliver the goods. Fucking idiots,” he muttered. “Can’t even get a ransom note right.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, I laughed. It was just so goddamned ridiculous. I hadn’t even noticed it. “Criminals these days,” I agreed, still chuckling.
Renfield walked into view, and his once-white shirt was now liberally splattered with blood, making it look polka-dotted. Except the forearms were solid red. I hadn’t seen him in the fight, but there had been a lot going on. He was directing a group of reborn vampires to assist with the clean-up. So far, the reborn vampires had all seemed remarkably unflappable over their second shot at life, and almost fanatical in their worship of me. Like they saw me as a living god.
Dr. Stein and Nero had created dossiers on each of them, interviewing them extensively so as to understand their past allegiances—whether they had been affiliated with Dracula or not.
I hadn’t read over the files yet, but all of the vampires had been approved to leave Liberty Island and assimilate with the other members of my Kiss living here in the museum. I was confident that my veteran vampires—Renfield, Hugo, Aristos, and Valentine—had them firmly in hand. They were even hosting a vampire ball tomorrow night—a social mixer, as they’d explained it—to assimilate them into the modern era since many of them came from entirely different cultures and time periods.
The thing that concerned me the most about the reborn vampires was the fact that they had various shades of red irises.
All of them.
And I had no idea what that meant. Yet. I shrugged off the grim thoughts.
They glanced at me with fiercely loyal nods before setting about their work with haunting efficiency and zero empathy. Renfield shot me an equally serious look, but his was empathetic for my plight. His gaze fixated on Nosh and his sorrow only seemed to deepen. Renfield had a deep guilt when it came to Nosh because he had been the one to kidnap him so long ago. In reality, Renfield was the only reason Nosh was still alive and free right now, so I didn’t hold it against him. Still, to see Nosh in pain as a result of Izzy’s capture brought out the monster in Renfield.
Devil’s Blood: Shade of Devil Book 3 Page 9