by Ilana Waters
“Tell me where Abigail—where my mother is,” I panted, “and I’ll let you go.”
“Let me go?” The vampire’s voice was deeper now, angrier. It sounded less human with every word. “You’re the one who’s about to die. And I’ll tell you about your mother when you replace my fucking eye!”
I shrugged. “Legend has it the god Odin gave up an eye for wisdom. Maybe you should have tried it before, you brainless twat.”
The vampire let out an animal scream that made the windows vibrate. He came at me in earnest now, fangs bared. Again and again he tried to strike, and I only just managed to block every blow. I had to admit, if it hadn’t been for all those training sessions with my father, I’d definitely be dead by now. I ducked one blow and his fist lodged in the wall. While he was busy extracting it, I moved to the opposite wall and—with a great deal of magical effort—placed an enormous piece of the broken fire escape in front of me. But that wasn’t going to stop him for long.
What the devil am I going to do? I was a mess of cuts and bruises; muscles I didn’t know I had were throbbing with pain. My chest was heaving, my lungs were burning. It hurt to breathe because of the pain in my throat where the vampire first struck me. Blood strummed in my ears, and just below that I could hear the distant hum of magic.
Come closer, come closer. I directed my thoughts to the energy, this force that had sustained witches for generations. Blood of my mother, blood of my father, come to me. I need you now. I felt it getting stronger, reserves of energy pooling inside me. But my supply wasn’t inexhaustible, and I hadn’t had much when I started. Tracking the vampire had been a long and arduous affair. My body felt so heavy, it was difficult to move.
As I predicted, the vampire took big, heavy footsteps towards the fire escape. His boots crunched on the debris and broken glass of the alley. With one hand, he pulled the huge hunk of metal away with such force that parts of it splintered off. He looked at me with murder in his eyes, grabbed my throat, and lifted me several feet off the ground. I grabbed his forearm and tried not to suffocate. I could feel his fingers tightening around my neck. Reaching down, I bent two of them back until they broke. Then I pulled the fingers off and flung them away.
The vampire dropped me and clutched his hand, screaming longer and louder than before. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a foot-long metal rod—a piece of the broken fire escape. I called the rod into my hand and held it before me like a wrought-iron wand. Maybe there was some metal magic in it I could use to—
Crunch. Again, the sound of the vampire’s boots. I looked up from the rod, but it was too late. The vampire’s one eye was bulging, his nose still a bit crooked from where I punched him. He was breathing heavily through slightly parted lips. I could practically feel the white-hot fury rising off him. His good hand grabbed the hair at the back of my head, exposing nearly all of my throat.
I gripped the metal rod in my left hand and squeezed it hard, summoning all the magic I could. My forearm ached from the force of the summoning. I felt magic burning in the metal, almost enough to scorch my skin. As the vampire leaned his head towards my throat for the second time that night, I raised the rod, praying it was enough to—
A few feet away, an enormous crash made the vampire turn around and let go of my hair, and I dropped the rod in surprise.
Dammit. I had hoped the other vampire wouldn’t get involved.
Nonetheless, he’d swooped down from the roof and knocked over the trio of garbage cans. Before my adversary had time to react, the second vampire punched him in the stomach and then in the face. Both blows landed much harder than any of mine. The last punch completely shattered his nose. But the second vampire didn’t stop there. He kept hitting the first one over and over, in the face, the stomach, the chest. He struck so sharp and hard, the first vampire could do little more than cover his body with his hands.
The second vampire was tall, with very short, light blond hair and blue eyes. He had long, muscular limbs, and appeared to be in his forties. The merciless look on his face told of a true hardness his tattooed foe could only hope to achieve. Finally, he swiped the first vampire’s leg, and the latter fell back onto a tall pile of reeking garbage. I picked up the rod from where I’d dropped it and ran over to them.
“Excuse me,” I said to the tall vampire, “but just what the hell do you think you’re doing, Father?”
Chapter 2
“Why did you have to interfere?” I demanded. “Victory was a hair’s breadth away!”
My father wrapped his fingers around the vampire’s throat as he tried to get up from the garbage heap. Then he turned to me. “Your own death was a hair’s breadth away, you damnable fool!” he snapped. “I’m the only reason you’re alive right now!” I had the strong feeling I was the one he really wanted to be choking.
“I had him right where I wanted him!” I insisted.
“And where would that be exactly? Leaning over your dead body with a mouthful of your blood? Because that’s what was about to happen.”
“I was working on a spell.” I motioned to the rod as the vampire choked and tried to pull my father’s hand away.
“In All Fate’s name!” he spat. His deep, booming voice was no match for my softer one, and never failed to make me wince. “At the rate you were going, another Rome could have been built before you finished. Battle tactics should’ve been enough for you to defeat him without resorting to magic.” The vampire continued choking and flailing, his pale face turning red.
Resorting to magic. My father never had a problem with my using magic before. What he really meant was, he didn’t believe my magic was strong enough to do the job.
“You were favoring your left side—again,” he continued. “Your Tannick maneuver had no follow-through. And what the hell was that with the garbage can lid?”
I rubbed my forehead where the vampire had smashed it against the wall. You might think my father was being a bit hard on the son who practically fought an immortal to the death. And you’d be right. But when you’re the child of a two-thousand-year-old Roman general, it all becomes clear. Painfully clear. I rubbed my forehead again. I at least thought my father would be impressed I relieved the vampire of his eye and several fingers. But no; nothing matters except winning. That’s what it means to be Titus Aurelius’s son.
I could never tell if my father considered me a son, a magical tool, or just a nuisance. Had he saved me as a protective gesture? Or was it merely to manipulate my abilities for his own ends at some future date? Not that I needed saving, mind you.
“Let’s just see if our gentleman friend can tell us what we need to know, shall we?” I lowered the rod to my side. “We can discuss fighting strategies another time.” With that, my father released the vampire’s throat from his grasp, but did not back away. The vampire coughed and rubbed his Adam’s apple, around which I could see the bruised indentations of Titus’s thumb and fingers forming on his skin.
“That’s . . . that’s your father?” The vampire coughed again, then snorted, causing blood to gush from his broken nose.” He looked up at us. “That apple fell far, didn’t it?”
“Oh, shut up, you ass,” I snapped.
“Yes, I agree; do shut up,” said Titus, leaning over our prisoner. “You’ll tell us what we need to know . . . whether you want to or not.” The vampire swallowed hard and began to shake as my father peered into his eyes and smiled a little. Our victim knew what was happening. But my father’s smile faded when he realized it wasn’t going to work. He straightened up and glared at the vampire.
“I already tried reading his thoughts,” I said. “You didn’t think that was the first thing I tried?”
Now Titus was glaring at me. “Well, it never hurts to make a second attempt,” he said. By someone who’s better at it. I didn’t have to read his thoughts to sense that part.
As you probably guessed, most witches can read minds, including my father and me. Actually, so can many vampires; you’
ll have to be careful of that if you ever encounter us. But perhaps you’re one of those fortunate few whose minds are mysteriously impenetrable. Or perhaps you’re a magical creature, such as a vampire, who can put a block on their mind to prevent such things. Like the one in front of us now. Many of them are also telekinetic—like witches—and can move things with their minds. Fortunately, my opponent had relied too much on his brute strength when fighting. As I said, some vampires are utterly without class.
But neither that—nor the blocks on my father’s mind and my own—did me any good. Although my block prevented the vampire from anticipating my moves, he still kicked my ass. And his block was preventing Titus and me from getting the information we desperately needed. I was growing impatient, struggling like this. Impatient . . . and angry.
“I’ve had enough,” I said, taking the iron rod and holding it horizontally against my enemy’s throat. “Don’t try to hide it—you kidnapped my mother because Titus killed Celia. Never mind that she stole ten million dollars from him and tried to set him on fire. Now, I’ll ask you one more time, what have you done with my mother?”
The vampire laughed, or at least laughed as well as he could with a piece of metal pressing against his windpipe. His insouciance made me furious all over again. His fingers pulled fruitlessly at the rod, but he made no other attempts to escape.
“You think Celia mattered to me?” the vampire scoffed. His missing eye was still hard to look at, as was his crushed nose. But I was determined not to turn away until I had answers. “She was an amusement, I’ll grant you—and a pretty one at that. But she has nothing to do with your mother.”
I narrowed my eyes, mentally weighing the possibility he was bluffing. But who laughed like that when their life was on the line? And why falsify the reason for the fight?
“It doesn’t? Then what the hell have we been trying to kill each other for?” I demanded.
“It has to do with a certain piece of quartz—about the width and breadth of a large thumb,” the vampire taunted. My father stared at the vampire and cocked his head. “Completely clear from one end to the other. In other words . . . a crystal.”
A chill ran through me. I knew the exact stone he was referring to, and I was fairly certain my father did too. It was a crystal owned by my mother. Nothing fancy to look at; not a diamond worn by starlets or royalty. More like a rough-hewn thing that seemed as if it had just been pulled from the ground. Some say the crystal once belonged to a powerful witch-queen—one from another dimension, if you believe such things.
“What about this crystal?” my father asked. His penetrating eyes were still on the vampire, as if he were trying to remove the block on his mind through sheer force of will.
“It’s reputed to possess enormous power, of course! And the rumor was she kept it.” The vampire continued struggling against the iron rod, but he was weakened from his injuries. I leaned in closer, using every ounce of physical and magical strength to keep him pinned down. My shoulders ached from the effort—even more so where my back had slammed into the wall. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!” the vampire sneered.
I actually didn’t know. Everything I heard about the crystal from my mother was a fairy tale to me. I wasn’t even sure whether she knew what it did, if anything. She rarely talked about it.
My father’s eyes flickered over to me, but he wouldn’t let me see what he was thinking. Although he’d certainly heard of the crystal, it was unlikely he knew it was in my mother’s possession.
“Why now?” he asked. “Why is the crystal so important to you all of a sudden?”
The vampire all but ignored my father’s question. “When word got out that such a powerful item was still in circulation, as it were,” he said, “we wasted no time trying to acquire it.” He was breathing heavily, his voice growing weary.
“ ‘We?’ ” I looked at Titus, who shook his head. Neither of us had any idea what the vampire meant.
“Anyway,” he continued, “if Mommy dearest had the crystal, she wouldn’t tell us where it was.” He looked directly at me and grinned. “Then things began to get very interesting . . .”
I took the rod off his throat and punched the creature in the jaw. I could feel bile rising in my throat, and it wasn’t the result of the fight. I didn’t even want to think of what they’d done to my mother. The vampire managed to turn his head and spit out a tooth. Fury made blood pound in my forehead, worsening the pain already there.
“What do you want with the crystal?” I asked. None of the other vampires my father and I came across had said anything about it. What the hell was going on? I held one jagged end of the iron rod over the vampire’s bloody face, just above his good eye. “TELL ME OR YOU LOSE THE OTHER ONE!”
“There is an ancient vampire who lies in wait beneath Rome,” he rattled. “We alone can feel him in our midst, struggling toward consciousness. We, the chosen ones, the descendants of those he made.”
My mind rapidly calculated the possibility of this. It was true that Rome possessed an underground world unknown to most. As the city had grown over the centuries, certain parts were sealed off or buried to make way for new structures. Intrepid explorers might find temples, villas, forums, and other ancient monuments if they dug far enough. It was theoretically possible than an ancient vampire could lie buried there. Vampires can survive for centuries without blood if they go into a deep slumber—not their normal daytime sleep, but more like an immortal’s hibernation.
“Are you referring to . . . Callix Ferox?” My father put one elbow in his palm, and scratched his chin with his free hand.
I knew that name. He had been a contemporary of my father’s—and an enemy. Although not a senator, he was a patrician who wielded a lot of power in the Senate. There were years of hostility between Titus and him over the best way to expand Rome’s empire and influence. Each wanted to accomplish this in a way that gained them the most power.
Some say Ferox was so brutal and bloodthirsty that even the most merciless vampires feared him. But then one day he disappeared, much like my mother. It was assumed he was assassinated by one of his many enemies (my father’s name was bandied about, though he denies responsibility). There was also a darker rumor, one that involved the witches of old. The rumor held that these witches weren’t strong enough to kill Ferox outright, so they used a sleeping spell on him because he was getting out of control.
An enormous grin spread across the vampire’s face when he heard Ferox’s name. It was the biggest, ugliest smile I’d seen him give so far. I grimaced and tried to keep the iron rod poised over his face.
“The very same,” he replied softly, and I had to lean in even closer to hear him. “My companions thought they needed the crystal to bring back this magnificent ancient.” The vampire’s voice grew stronger. “But they were wrong.” Before I could blink, he grabbed the rod, hit me in the eye with it, and leaped up.
Bugger all! He’d pretended his injuries were worse than they really were. My hand flew to my face, but the vampire’s aim had been off. Surely he’d meant to take out my eye as I’d taken his. But he’d hit me with the blunt end of the rod, not the jagged one, and only across my cheekbone. Still, I imagined that only losing an eye could hurt more than this.
Cursing and clutching my face, I saw the iron rod start to fall. But before it hit the ground, my father’s hand shot out and caught it. The vampire only got a few feet away before Titus collared him, pushed him back onto the pile of garbage, and stabbed him in the jugular.
It will come as no surprise to you that vampires can die for lack of blood. As I held one hand over my throbbing cheek, I saw Titus grab this vampire by the hair and hold the rod in place, preventing the wound from closing. Blood was pouring from his throat like water from a broken faucet, and he grew paler and paler. The vampire’s breathing got shallower—in earnest this time, for I could also see the skin tightening over his face.
“It’s too
late. Too late, do you hear me?” he said. “I alone know the truth!” The vampire laughed like a lunatic, then started coughing blood. The lids on his now-sunken eyes began to close. “I am privy to knowledge the others did not have. He has already begun to rise. I only wanted the crystal because it would show him the depths of my devotion, my loyalty. I knew it would simplify his mission, allow him to . . . to . . .”
“To what?” I grabbed the vampire by his blood-soaked collar, pulling him partway up. I shook him so violently that my father stepped back. “SPEAK, damn you!”
But it was too late. His head lolled to the side, and he stopped breathing. He was gone.
I dropped the body back on the garbage heap and threw up my hands. It sent splatters of blood everywhere, but I didn’t care. All that trouble and pain for nothing. I looked over to where my father stood. I tried to form words around the anger in my mind.
“Wonderful,” Titus said. “Just wonderful. Now do you see what you’ve done?”
My jaw dropped—which hurt like hell, since it had been on the receiving end of several healthy punches. “What I’ve done? None of this would have happened if you hadn’t stuck your damn nose in! And stabbed our friend there in the neck.” My chin jutted towards the lifeless vampire. “What the hell were you doing here anyway? I thought we agreed you would follow up on leads in San Francisco, and I would track down this . . . thing. Don’t you trust me?”
“Yes, but then I discovered my trust was misplaced.” My father wiped his hands over one another, as if brushing away imaginary gore from the fight.
“I told you, I had him right where I wanted him.”
“Oh, absolutely. With his fangs inches from your throat. A fine fighting stance, my son.” Titus heaved a deep sigh and I rolled my eyes. “Besides,” he continued, looking down, “San Francisco was a dead end.”
“That’s what I figured.” I rubbed my upper cheek and winced. “Ow! Eee.”
“Real men do not say ‘owie.’ ”