Undone By Blood (The Vampire Flynn Book 5)

by Peter Dawes

  My eyes welled with tears. While I glared at him, I released my hold on Angela, not sparing even a glance at her when she dropped to the ground. I had done nothing to soften the landing and after spilling out in an unflattering manner, she struggled to her feet. Martin and I remained in a stalemate. “Tell me you would’ve been able to protect us,” Martin said. “Make me believe it.”

  ‘We should kill him on principle alone,’ Flynn chimed and as I felt the inclination to listen, the sight of Julian moving directed everyone’s attention toward him. He reached to his side, unlatching his crossbow and aimed it at Martin’s head. Ophelia tensed and even I struggled to believe I might be watching what I thought I saw. A bolt remained loaded. All that remained was for Julian to pull the trigger.

  “You helped an enemy of the natural order,” he said. “Regardless of why, I have grounds to kill you if you don’t cooperate.”

  Martin frowned and while Angela remained perfectly still, he chanced lifting his other hand. “I don’t know where they took her,” he said. “I don’t know what their plans with her are. I only know what they asked me to do.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Get her alone.” He nodded in my direction. “Away from him.”

  “You son of a bitch,” I muttered. Closing the distance between us, I reached for him and pressed my hand against his forehead. He only had a brief chance to recoil, and though I could not remember using my telekinetic abilities to lock him into place, he seemed unable to move. My other hand clasped hold of the back of his head. As I entered his thoughts and memories, I was anything but gentle, invading with little finesse. In the background, he screamed from shock and not a small amount of pain.

  I ignored him.

  Instead, I focused on the litany of images which transferred from his brain to mine. While what replayed only confirmed what he was saying – he had been confronted by Sabrina and told to lure Monica alone – something my maker spoke to him stood out, unclear at first until I forced the scene to slow; the cadence of her speech to resonate clearer. As it all took form, I heard all of her words, every damning one.

  “You were useful to us before,” she said. “If you want to continue living, you’ll be useful again.”

  The statement had me confused. While the background suggested they had conversed in one of the human establishments nearby – a café of some sort – when I delved deeper for an explanation, I followed the natural connection of memories to a much different place. This time, they stood outside, Martin wearing lighter clothing and Sabrina accompanied by the sorceress I had killed weeks ago in Ireland. Her presence almost broke my concentration, causing me to realize this had taken place before Monica had been turned. Still, I forced myself to watch their discussion.

  Martin hardly felt distressed in this instance. Their conversation, while formal, lapsed from one participant to the next, Martin smoking a cigarette and laughing at whatever Sabrina had said to him. Without pushing the memory back any further, I allowed it to continue playing out from this point forward. “Yeah, he’s to himself, but at the same time he doesn’t seem to hurt anybody,” Martin said. “You mean to tell me he used to be some badass assassin?”

  Sabrina smirked. “The Legend of Flynn never made it this far north?” she asked. “The vampire I sired would be offended.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, only that he’s lost that spark that made him an actual vampire. You know the humans who attempt piety while atoning for their past sins?” When Martin nodded, her smile broadened. “That was Peter. He shacked up with some human witch who tried to bring him back to the straight and narrow. Somewhere hidden deep inside his bones, he’s the perfect monster.”

  “That sounds dangerous, in the body of a seer.” Martin drew from his cigarette and flicked ash from the end. Smoke billowed past his lips as he exhaled. “What do you want me to do exactly? You said keep an eye on him, but what am I watching for? Him to snap and kill someone?”

  “Darling, if he did that, I’d come in and scoop him up myself.” She seemed to linger on that thought before continuing. “No, I want you to tell me if he goes somewhere. If he leaves on a trip or you hear anyone say something about where he might have someone hidden.”

  “I could get into trouble doing that,” Martin said, raising an eyebrow at Sabrina.

  Her expression took on devious undertones. “Or you could be one of the few people we spare when what’s been happening in Europe finally makes its way here,” she said. “You might not have heard of Flynn, but I’m assuming you know the name Napoleon.”

  The way Martin froze, paired with the small flashes of connecting thoughts which channeled toward me told me everything I needed to know. Wisps of anecdotes all spoke the name I’d only learned minutes beforehand, heightening the level of anxiety which raced through Martin. “I left Spain to get away from that nonsense,” he said.

  “Wouldn’t it be a shame for you to have come all that way for nothing?”

  ‘Not for nothing,’ he mused. The image of Angela fleeting, it lasted only long enough for Martin to tilt his chin and eye Sabrina uncertainly. I tensed as I heard his thoughts calculating how much he could trust her, wondering if her threat was as viable as she claimed.

  “They’re traveling to Costa Rica,” he said. “Not sure when, but they made it sound like it could be any day now. I heard the Irish elder talking to Mistress Ophelia about it last night.”

  While Sabrina smiled, her expression pleased, I recoiled away from the memory and stumbled backward from Martin. He had told Sabrina when I went to Costa Rica. He had been the one to lead Patrick’s minions to my wife and children. Whatever fury I held before paled in comparison to the amount of vitriol I experienced, my alter personality only fanning the flames. Before I could stop myself, I reached for his head again, directing the full force of my hatred into his skull.

  Both internally and externally, Martin screamed again, this time in desperation. “It was you,” I distantly heard myself yelling, intent to shatter his skull with mere telekinetic force. “You were the one who told them when I left to see Monica. You led them to my wife. She is lost now because of you.”

  “I only told them what they wanted to hear. You don’t understand,” Martin said, sounding like a mess of tears and agony. “That man has a reputation. He would have killed me.”

  “Allow me to do him the favor.”

  “No, Peter!” Ophelia screamed. I felt her tug at me again, straining against the effort of disengaging us. Another set of hands – and then another – pulled at me until I stumbled away from the other vampire, opening my eyes in time to see him slump to the floor and Angela race to his side. Bucking once against the hold the others had on me, they held on despite the desperate way I lunged at the couple.

  I froze to a stop when Julian appeared out of nowhere, his crossbow holstered again. He held out his hand and as a wave of telekinetic energy impacted me, it kept me in place long enough for me to snap out of my psychotic break. He plead with his eyes, perhaps knowing I could easily break loose of the lock. Ophelia raced to the forefront as well, standing close to Julian. Red stained her eyes and cheek, as if she had already shed a few tears. “Don’t do this, Peter,” she said. “Do you want to be the monster others have claimed you are?”

  Motioning with my arm, I confirmed Julian’s suspicion when it broke loose of his restraints. “I will be that monster right now, if it means subjecting him to half of what he’s inflicted upon us. Upon her.” My gaze shifted to Martin as he looked up at me, his eyes still swimming from the pain I had inflicted. “You are the reason I had to turn her. They found her there, in Costa Rica. They took her and then they killed her. What I brought here was all that was left of her.”

  When I stepped forward again, Julian rushed up on me, grabbing me by the lapels of my jacket. “Mein Freund,” he said. When I continued to stare at Martin, Julian raised his voice. “Peter!” He continued only when he had my attention. “
As little as I care about this man, if he knows anything about my mission, I need him alive. You need him alive, too.” He freed one hand only to point back at him. “Let me take him into custody.”

  “And do what with him?” I finally asked.

  “Question him and his girl.” He held me fast in his gaze, as if knowing that losing my focus could result in catastrophe. “We have a lot to talk about and I can spare a night without London wondering. Let me restrain them first and make sure they’re not going anywhere.”

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Ophelia said, bringing our attention back to her. As she wiped her eyes clean and worked on rebuilding her composure, she walked to make up the scant amount of space she had placed between us. I realized belatedly I had barely noticed her at all. “Master Julian, you and Peter both can meet me in my private quarters and tell me what has happened. You are not taking my child and her lover anywhere, though, without speaking to me first.”

  “I am restraining them,” Julian said, his gaze settling severely on the coven mistress. “And I will explain why I’m taking them. Consider yourself fortunate we’re having any discussion on the matter at all.”

  He marched away from us, walking toward Martin and Angela. When both objected, he freed his crossbow again and I watched, in some dream-like state, as he lined them up and kept them subservient. Flicking a glance at Ophelia, he said, “Either you tell me which room you’d prefer them being kept in, or I keep them tied up outside and see how many drinks it takes me to forget about them.”

  “I thought you said you needed them,” she countered.

  With a shrug, Julian started to direct the couple toward the back. “Dawn is uncomfortable. It’s direct sunlight that kills.”

  “Please don’t do this,” Angela chimed. She hobbled forward, leaning on Martin for support.

  Ophelia decided Julian was either serious, or should not be provoked further. She called out before the trio could leave the room, “There’s a storage closet,” but Julian continued walking. Glancing back at me, she sighed and said, “In my private quarters right this minute,” before racing after them. I heard what sounded like the lot of them marching ahead, as if Julian had no intention of listening to Ophelia.

  I found it difficult to blame him for wanting to assert control over the situation. Hatred still coursed through my veins and I spent my walk toward Ophelia’s private quarters wishing I could watch the rays of sunlight lick across their skin. While I was not certain if I should continue to feed my pain with such imagery, it seemed preferable to descending into tears. In the space of time during which I was left alone, I lit another cigarette and poured a drink, guzzling the alcohol down like a man parched for water. The events of the evening circled on endless loop, conspiring with what I could recall of the days preceding to form a cacophonous symphony. Standing near one of the bookshelves, I stared at the spines of each volume without reading any.

  It was in this posture that Julian and Ophelia found me.

  Neither spoke as they entered. I heard the seer’s pulse and felt the weight of the coven mistress’s eyes set upon me, but refused to engage either at first. Ash dropped from my cigarette, and as the hand holding onto it pressed against the sturdy mahogany, I lifted the glass and drank what little remnant remained in there. My gaze lowered down to the floor, vision shifting from tomes without titles to the blurred sight of the rug beneath my feet.

  “Tell me about Napoleon,” I finally said. “And I will tell you about Patrick Flynn.”

  Chapter Nine

  Both waited until I peered up at them, and distantly I wondered what sort of sight they beheld while looking at me. For Julian, I assumed he saw a battered and tired man, the vampire he had once hunted and the seer with whom he had become friends. Though the time I had spent in hiding separated us, I sensed no judgment coming from him as he nodded in response to my statement.

  Ophelia, on the other hand, settled onto the corner of her desk, folding her arms across her chest. Her posture guarded, she looked from me back to Julian and I could only imagine how tainted I had become in her eyes. Someday, I assumed, she would forgive me. And maybe, she might even come to recognize how justified my anger had been. For now, however, I had wounded her immortal child and shown her another side of myself; an uglier one.

  In time, I reckoned, I would give a damn about that.

  Julian freed himself the encumbrance of his crossbow and quiver, settling them beside one of the couches in Ophelia’s parlor. Glancing at my glass, he raised an eyebrow and I nodded in the direction of the liquor cabinet, knowing exactly what was being asked. On his way toward it, he collected the tumbler I held, refreshing my drink while pouring one for himself. I finished off my cigarette and extinguished it in an ashtray, pacing past the table on which it had been placed while still refusing to sit.

  My human compatriot, however, sat once he had delivered my glass back to me. “If I’m understanding it correctly, Patrick Flynn is his real name, yes?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, and that bears explaining, but for now, tell me what you know.” I paused walking once I reached the opposite wall and leaned against it. “I admit, I have only brushed across the edges of this conflict. I know what my Irish brother and a small coven in Bucharest have told me. That is all.”

  Julian sighed, muttering something first in German before taking a healthy swallow of alcohol. “Bucharest was a mess,” he said. “Untrained people and itchy fingers. But that was right after what happened in Berlin, so not too many of us could blame them.” As he paused to gather his thoughts, he glanced at the ashtray and looked at me. Gesturing for me to come closer, when I relented, he kept his hand held out, palm facing upward, until I realized what he was asking for. I produced a cigarette for him, and used the opportunity to light another one for me.

  He continued after drawing from his. “It didn’t start with Napoleon, though” he said, looking at the lit end of the cigarette and sighing. Reaching forward, he set his half-full glass beside the ashtray and leaned back after giving the cigarette a good flick. His gaze settled on me. “It started with the vampires who came back to life in Rome. We were sent throughout Europe to gather them, and at first, it seemed easy enough. The older ones couldn’t conceal themselves as well. Many of the dark magicians made the same mistakes they had when we killed them the first time. That first year or two, nothing bad happened.”

  Shrugging, Julian drew from his cigarette again and leaned forward to flick the ash from the end. “After that, with the lesser ones all dead,” he continued, “everyone learned how to hide and run. The well dried up and this was the...” Pausing to think, he resumed speaking when he seemed to settle on the words he had been searching for. “... the calm before the storm.”

  “It got quiet,” I verified, “Before the world fell apart.”

  “And it fell apart,” he said, blurting out a harsh laugh. His gaze settled on mine, despite the discomfort his words brought both of us. “Our sorcerers found dark magicians and this time, they were waiting for us. They ambushed our younger seers and killed their watchers after doing horrible things to them. The few people who survived told us some of the things they saw and it gave me nightmares even imagining it.”

  The longer we regarded each other, the more the pictures came to life in my head, either offered by Julian or plucked by me without his resistance. While I knew he had not witnessed the actual scenes, if his mental images represented anything he had been told, they served their purpose well. Bodies lay strewn about in back alleys and on cobblestone streets. Walls had been painted red with the blood of the victims and in one particularly gristly scene, I saw the writing and winced.

  ‘Your end awaits. Your time is finished.’

  “They sought to tear apart the Order,” I said.

  My eyes focused on Julian again, in time to see him frown and reach forward to rest his cigarette on the ashtray. Lazy tendrils of smoke streamed upward, partially obstructing my view of him while he sat back once more, t
his time with the glass of liquor in hand. “To massacre and confuse us,” he said. “Both. After a while we realized our younger, less experienced people weren’t fit for field assignments in Europe and we sent them to our headquarters in Seattle instead. The tide shifted again and we lost fewer people. We discovered some friendlier vampires who pledged to help us locate the troublemakers and it worked.” The look in his eyes turned haunted. “For a time, that is.”

  I brought my cigarette to my mouth, drawing from the filter and studying the way Julian struggled with whatever he needed to say next. A word drifted from his thoughts. “You mentioned Berlin,” I said. “After what happened there, you could not blame the others in Bucharest. Those were your words.”

  “Yes, they were.” He sighed. “This was four or five years ago, at this point. We had received information from a coven in Munich, implicating another in Berlin, and assigned one of our elders to keep a close watch over them, making sure that there wasn’t anything troubling happening. He would take meetings with the coven master, and report back to us that everything was well, but even when the Berlin master agreed to help, the reports from Munich continued. The elder was pulled from negotiations under suspicion that he had gotten too close to the coven master. Later, we found out he had warned them they were under suspicion.”

  Julian glanced up at Ophelia, as if only now being reminded of her presence through the weight of her stare. Her expression remained impassive, and after a moment’s pause, he decided to divert his attention back to me instead. “The forewarning wasn’t the issue,” he said. “The coven in Berlin were not the ones responsible for what happened. We entered with the intention of arresting the master, but when we entered, we discovered the whole estate had been abandoned days earlier. The elder didn’t tell us he’d given them any sort of information and we accepted the last piece of bait offered to us by Munich in blind ignorance. None of us suspected what was going to happen.”