by Ilana Waters
Titus’s expression didn’t change, nor did his eyes leave the other vampire’s. “There was the note he sent, for one thing. Which I’m presuming you know of, since either you or one of your degenerate friends was responsible for its safe delivery.” Abigail and I looked at each other again, our eyes more fearful this time. Insulting enemies was unlikely to be of help in this situation. My hands were growing heavy with all the magic I was holding. I knew Abigail’s must feel the same.
The vampire gave a broader smile, then a sigh. He glanced behind at his companions and took a step back from Titus. “Yeah, yeah.” He rolled his eyes. “We know, degenerates that we are. But I don’t remember Ferox inviting three people.” He glanced at Abigail and me. “And what if he doesn’t want to see you at this particular moment, eh? What are you going to do then?”
Titus narrowed his eyes, and I saw his chest rise and fall with the deep breath he was taking. I knew this meant that either a violent, irrefutable demand to see Ferox was forthcoming, or simply a swift removal of the vampire’s head. Not wanting to see any more violence than was necessary, and mostly just wanting to get out of there alive, I quickly stepped between them.
“We’d appreciate hearing that from Ferox himself.” I really meant the opposite; I’d be happy never to lay eyes on the man. But that was what we came here for, and what had to be done before we could leave. If we could leave.
The vampire burst out laughing. “I don’t think he’s eager to hold a conversation with Aurelius’s . . . accountant, or whatever it is you are.” He looked me up and down again. The other vampires laughed as well, the unearthly sound like breaking glass as it echoed off the stone walls.
All right, I know my appearance isn’t particularly threatening, but that was hardly the point. Besides . . .
I gave the vampire a tight smile. “Fine, then. We’d still like to speak to someone whose idea of getting dressed doesn’t begin and end with falling into a costume trunk. Really, what are you supposed to be? A Wild West hipster lieutenant?” My mouth, ignoring the fact that I wanted to get out of there alive, had inconveniently bypassed my brain. Titus’s head turned towards me, and I heard Abigail inhale sharply.
Crap. I’d let the little bugger’s insult get to me.
The vampire stopped laughing, and the smile fell from his face. “I’m gonna be your worst fucking nightmare if you don’t apologize, that’s what.” Titus shoved me aside, grabbed the vampire’s collar, and balled it up in his fist. As he lifted his victim several inches off the ground, the other vampires rushed forward, their cries of outrage a combination of words and snarls.
Abigail moved in front of them, holding a crackling ball of magic between her palms, making sure the vampires could see it. I raised my arm and pulled it back, ready to throw my own magic at a moment’s notice. Every muscle in my body seized. I wondered which of us, if any, would survive this melee.
Suddenly, a deep voice called out. “Children, children. Can’t we all play nicely together?”
The vampire Titus was holding grinned confidently again, and the others turned from us to bow in the direction of the voice. Abigail and I made no attempt to disperse our magic as our gazes moved to the chair in front of the pillar.
In that chair, I assumed, sat Callix Ferox.
Chapter 5
He must have come through the same door as the other vampires and seated himself when we weren’t looking. His legs were crossed, and his elbow rested against one arm of the chair, almost as if he were bored. He wore an expensive suit of light tan. His hair was short, like that of most ancient Romans. It was darker than Titus’s but not as dark as mine. Everything about his appearance surprised me. He seemed like a cultured gentleman, not the screaming monster we’d run from.
I judged that when he stood up, he’d be a few inches shorter than me. However, this made him no less intimidating. You’ll find that when it comes to vampires, human qualities have little to do with the destruction they’re capable of. I put him around the same age as Titus was when he was turned: somewhere in his forties. But his face was rounder, his eyes larger. He would have looked almost kind, except I recognized the same steely gaze my father had.
The kind that wanted power above all else.
“Well, well, well,” he said slowly, in Latin. “If it isn’t the great Titus Aurelius.”
“And the indefatigable Callix Ferox,” my father replied in the same tongue.
“I really must thank you for accepting my invitation tonight,” Ferox said.
“And I would gladly thank you for issuing it, if indeed I were happy to be here,” said Titus.
Ferox gave a short laugh. “Why don’t you put Rattler down for a moment?” he said in modern Italian. “I judge he is getting quite heavy.”
Titus continued to hold the vampire, Rattler, aloft as his feet dangled above the ground. “I could do this all night,” he replied in English.
“I’m sure you could,” Ferox said, also in English, “but don’t we both have better things to do?” He raised his eyebrows at Rattler, who wrenched himself from my father’s grasp and went to stand on Ferox’s right side, smirking.
How did he learn Italian and English so fast? I asked, but Titus just waved me off. Slowly, Abigail and I condensed our magic until it glowed softly around our hands, but was still ready if we needed it. She went to stand by Titus’s side, and I did the same.
“You certainly seem in a better mood than when I last saw you,” Titus said. “Or heard you.” He glanced around the stone walls, and my ears ached with the memory of Ferox’s enraged screams.
“Oh yes, that,” Ferox said. “I do apologize. I sensed your presence down here, of course, but I’m afraid I was unfit for company at the time. After not feeding for two thousand years, one does tend to get horribly peckish.” He stared at me and Abigail hungrily, and I was glad we hadn’t brought Arthur.
Ferox looked again at Titus, and his smile grew even wider. “But then, I’m sure you can understand how that feels. After all, I see you’ve become one of us.” He glanced at the other vampires. “Doubtless it was how you were able to sense me down here as well, which is why I imagine you were visiting in the first place. Such perception is one of the advantages of our kind, no? How on earth did you procure your transformation?”
“Not voluntarily,” Titus said sharply.
“And to think,” Ferox said, shaking his head. “The last time I saw you, you were merely a witch.”
“Merely?” Abigail echoed.
“Never mind what I am, Ferox.” Titus folded his arms. “Tell me how you managed to find me and arrange all this so quickly.” He indicated the splendor around us. Impressive, though I hate to admit it, he said to Abigail and me.
“Oh, it was no trouble, really.” Ferox put his hands out to either side. “It wasn’t hard for my children to locate you. After all, I knew you’d only be at the finest accommodations. And when one has loyal servants the way I do,” he gazed fondly at his brood, “nothing is impossible. They know far more about the modern world than I do at the moment, so they simply made a few inquiries.”
Children . . . loyal servants . . . Ferox’s power over those he made could not be underestimated. He’d been asleep for twenty centuries and already had lackeys willing to follow him with slavish devotion. In fact, he’d found them—and us—in only a matter of days. There truly was no place we could hide. Not that Titus would hide, or that I was even thinking about it. At all.
“But enough about me, Titus, my good friend.” Ferox uncrossed his legs, leaned forward, and rubbed his hands together. “What have you been up to since I’ve been asleep?”
“Oh, nothing much,” Titus replied, unfolding his arms and putting his hands in his pockets. “Rome fell, I was turned into a vampire, mucked about in the cesspool that was the Dark Ages, then puttered around for a few hundred years after that.”
“Yes, I was sorry to hear about Rome,” Ferox said. I thought I saw a flicker of sadness pass over his face.
“Still, your schedule since then seems awfully lackadaisical. I assumed you’d be supreme ruler of . . . something or other by now, what with your previous ambitions.”
Titus gave a tight smile. “Yes, well, several things got in the way. Like humanity.”
“Isn’t that always the way?” Ferox sighed with a nonchalance I knew irritated the hell out of Titus. “However, I don’t remember issuing two additional invitations.” He looked at Abigail and me again, but his gaze lingered longer than before. His eyes roamed appreciatively over my mother, then looked for several moments at me.
“Though I must admit,” he said, “I’m not entirely displeased with the guests you’ve brought.” The magic Abigail and I held glowed red and crackled around the edges . . . just in case. “I did sense something supernatural here before that wasn’t you, Titus old boy, but I didn’t know till just now it came from your fascinating companions. Won’t you introduce us?”
Titus waited a moment, then sighed. “Callix,” he said reluctantly, “please meet my wife, Abigail.” He put his hand out to indicate my mother, who took a step forward and gave a curt nod. “Abigail, this is Callix Ferox, obviously.”
“You took a wife?” Ferox raised his eyebrows.
“It’s a long story,” Titus replied.
Ferox chuckled and shook his head. “The last time I saw you, you were having slave girls dragged to your bedchamber by the dozen.” Abigail shot Titus daggers with her eyes. He didn’t dare look back at her.
“In fact,” Ferox continued, “one story I heard about the matter involved—”
“That was a long time ago, Callix,” Titus said quickly. “And what a boring story it is.”
“Yes,” I added, desperate not to hear any more. “I’m sure we don’t all need to rehash the toga-and-chariot days.” Now it was Titus’s turn to shoot me daggers with his eyes, but I ignored him.
“Actually,” I continued, stepping forward and glaring at Ferox, “you may not recognize Abigail, but you ought to. After all, your descendants did kidnap her and have her put under a sleep spell for twenty years.”
“Oh, yes. Terribly sorry for all that trouble.” Ferox nodded at Abigail. “Of course, being fast asleep myself, I had no idea. I could only put the pieces together after I woke up. My children did leave me a few messages before their apparent . . . departure.” He glanced back at the column that imprisoned his previous followers. Then he looked back at me, and I had a feeling he knew who’d done it.
“In one message, they mentioned they were looking for a crystal that was very important to me. Sweet of them, really. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” His gaze grew even more intense, and I could feel him searching around the edges of my mind. Not reading my thoughts exactly; the block prevented that. This was more like fingertips tapping to find any weak spots. I strengthened the block, and the “fingertips” withdrew.
“Can’t say I do,” I lied.
Ferox bent his head down and laughed silently. “Forgive me. Here I am, barraging you with questions, and we haven’t even been properly introduced. Precisely who might you be, young man? Titus, is this someone you’re considering bringing into the fold?” He motioned to the other vampires, who grinned and elbowed each other.
Me, become one of them? Over all your dead bodies, I thought to myself. No offense to my father, of course.
“Ferox, allow me to introduce Joshua, a mage,” Titus said. “He’s also my son.”
Ferox furrowed his brow. “I don’t remember you having a son.”
“Yes,” said Titus dryly. “He’s a rather recent acquisition.”
Ferox looked at me for several long moments. “That is not possible,” he said quietly. The other vampires looked at me and began whispering among themselves.
“Tell me,” Ferox said slowly, “how was it you were able to father a child when none of our kind has ever been able to do so?”
Uh-oh. We needed to come up with an excuse that didn’t involve mentioning a magic crystal we weren’t supposed to know about, and that Ferox could never get his hands on. Titus, Abigail, and I didn’t dare risk looking at each other, but I could tell the same frantic thoughts were racing around in our minds.
Think, dammit! Titus’s voice rang in our heads, loud and clear.
“Witchcraft,” I blurted out. “Ah, obviously. Since it seems you’re not a fan—”
“Oh, I never said that.” Ferox stared at me intently and smiled.
“Ah, well, yes . . . since you didn’t seem too keen on it before, I mean, we figured it wouldn’t interest you. A very old Wiccan spell, the kind of thing that comes along only once in a millennium. No chance of it being repeated for hundreds of years, I’m afraid.”
“I see,” Ferox said darkly, his smile fading. He looked to me, then to Titus and Abigail before speaking again. “Yes, well, I really must hear that story someday. I am delighted to meet you, nevertheless.” He smiled again and folded his hands in his lap. “A mage . . . from what I recall, that’s somewhere between a mortal and a witch, yes?”
“More or less,” Titus replied at the same time I said, “It’s complicated.” We glanced at each other, then turned back to Ferox.
“Indeed. Though I admit,” he said, stroking his chin and looking back and forth between us, “I do see a family resemblance.” Ferox seemed to be addressing me.
Resemblance? True, I was almost as tall as Titus, but my coloring was nothing like his. I had light green eyes and fine black hair that trailed down the back of my neck. Well, I supposed I did share some of his paleness, but beyond that, where did Ferox see a resemblance? It worried me to think I shared a facial structure with my father.
“What’s wrong?” Ferox asked when I didn’t respond. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“I’m sure he’s oscillating between pleased and horrified,” Abigail said on my behalf. Titus gave her a frown.
Ferox laughed and kissed the hand of a female vampire who’d laid her fingers on his shoulder. “Well, they aren’t entirely alike. You do have an unusual way of speaking,” he said to me, turning his head to one side. “American?”
“Sort of.” I’d grown up in so many places, I wasn’t sure what I considered myself. Still, I did have American citizenship, so it was as good a nationality to claim as any other. “Though I spent a good deal of time in England as a child,” I added.
“Ah, that would explain the accent.” Ferox nodded.
“Glad you like it,” I said with a tight smile. “Most people just think it sounds affected.”
“Not at all,” he replied. “I find it charming. Is that where you got those bruises? England?”
He must have been referring to the scrapes and things on my face that were still healing. The ones I’d gotten fighting his previous brood.
“Ah, no,” I said. “These I acquired a little closer to home.”
Careful, Joshua, I heard my parents say in unison.
“Really?” said one of the female vampires. She was wearing a dress so tight I could practically read her blood pressure. “I thought maybe the beat-to-shit look was all the rage in America,” she guffawed, and the other vampires joined in. Even Ferox wore an amused smile.
I gave a smile of my own. “Oh no. They much prefer the let’s-see-how-little-material-I-can-make-a-dress-out-of trend. How did you squeeze into that? By removing an organ?”
Joshua, don’t antagonize them! Abigail said.
“Got it off last night’s dinner, I did,” the vampire replied proudly.
I masked my revulsion by nodding. “Good idea. Police are much less likely to investigate prostitute disappearances.” She responded with a glare. “I mean, that’s what allowed that Jack the Ripper bloke to enjoy his spree for so long.”
“Yeah, I admire his work, but it’s not for me.” She put a hand on her hip, and a male vampire slid one arm around her waist. “A bit too messy.”
“That’s probably why society has rules against murdering people,” I said.
Enough! Titus shouted, and I winced from the force of his thoughts. Are you trying to get us all killed?
No more than you were a few minutes ago by calling this lot “degenerate,” I said.
“Well, I for one am fascinated by all the changes society has made—including the garments,” Ferox said, smiling at the slutty vampire, who smiled back. “Clothing is so much more comfortable! In ancient Rome, even the wealthiest citizens would never have been able to afford fabrics like these. What’s the name of this, again?” he asked a minion, holding out one lapel.
“Armani, Your Grace,” a male vampire replied.
“Ah, yes. Ar-man-i,” Ferox purred, stroking his jacket. “But enough chatter. Let’s get down to brass tacks, as they say.” He leaned forward in his chair.
“Quite. This is what I was waiting for,” Titus said. He squared his shoulders and looked Ferox in the eye, while Abigail and I started warming up our magic again.
“First off, you wouldn’t happen to know who put that sleep spell on me, would you? Because I would dearly like to pay them a visit.” Ferox’s voice took on a hardened quality that I recognized in my father when he was considering murder.
“Afraid not,” Titus replied. “It was the witches of old, and as far as I know, they’re all dead now.”
“Are you quite certain?” Ferox asked, his eyes boring into Titus. “Because my lovely little ones here can easily verify that.”
Titus shrugged. “They’re welcome to do so. They won’t find anything different than what I’ve told you.”
“Oh.” Ferox looked away. He sounded disappointed, likely because he knew Titus was telling the truth. “Descendants?” he asked, raising his head and lifting his eyebrows.
“I’m afraid I’m not privy to their family tree,” Titus said.
“Mmmm. Pity.” Ferox slumped back in his chair. “I was so looking forward to mauling someone who bore even the vaguest responsibility for what happened to me. You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would you, Titus?” He addressed my father slowly, propping his chin up in one palm, his elbow on the arm of the chair.