The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set

by R. A. Steffan

  Rans saved me from having to answer. “Caspian originally tracked Zorah down in St. Louis using human shills from the Missouri State Auditor’s office.”

  “But don’t think we missed the part about the invisible house, either,” I added. “How could she even find this place and knock on the door when it’s warded?”

  “Ms. Lane is rather a mystery,” Nigellus said. “She turned up a few years ago in Atlantic City claiming to be an investigative reporter, and started asking awkward questions. Though she also has a habit of dropping odd tidbits of information into the conversation while doing so, like her mention just now of the out-of-state auditors.”

  “Interesting, but none of that really clarifies who she is,” Rans observed. “Much less what she is.”

  “You felt it, too?” I asked. “She’s not Fae, I can tell that much.”

  “Not a demon, either,” Rans added.

  Nigellus waved our words away as though they were buzzing flies. “Some humans are magically inclined. It seems likely that she’s one of those. A more important question is whether the Fae have become aware of your presence in this area. Ransley, have you sensed any evidence of such a thing since your arrival? I gather from both of your auras that you’ve been out feeding while I was gone.”

  “No,” Rans said.

  “Maybe,” I interrupted.

  Both men looked at me.

  “I felt a prickle of something the night we were in San Francisco,” I explained, irritated with myself for dismissing it. “I’d overdone it a bit with feeding, so I discounted it as a side effect of too much animus. It was faint, and it only lasted for a second... but it could have been Unseelie magic. It was that same sort of unpleasant skittering feeling along my nerves.”

  “You should have said something,” Rans murmured.

  “I know,” I agreed. “But I doubted my own perceptions. And to be fair, it may not have been Fae magic at all. It could have been animus indigestion paired with a healthy dose of paranoia.”

  “I’ll make some discreet inquiries,” Nigellus said. “It should be possible to—”

  The words cut off abruptly as the demon went rigid, one hand lifting to his chest in a movement that almost appeared convulsive.

  “Hey—what’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed.

  Nigellus’ eyes flared with molten hellfire. “Edward.”

  “Damn. That certainly didn’t take long. How bad is it?” Rans asked.

  “Bad,” Nigellus bit out.

  I looked between them, trying to decipher the conversation. “Wait. Something’s happened to Edward? But... he’s supposed to be with my father...”

  Nigellus met my eyes, and a chill trickled down the length of my spine.

  “I must leave immediately,” said the demon. “I will return as soon as I’m able to do so.”

  I didn’t even think. “Oh, hell, no,” I said, lunging forward to grab Nigellus by the arm before he could teleport away. “If Dad’s in trouble, I’m going with you!”

  Now Rans’ eyes flared, burning with blue flame every bit as intense as Nigellus’ fiery gaze. “Zorah—”

  His hand reached for me, but I twisted away—not letting go of my grip on Nigellus for fear the demon would pop out of existence without me. True, I could probably make my way to the gate at the bottom of the Moaning Caverns on my own, but I’d be far too slow to get there in time for whatever crisis was currently happening.

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry—I love you, Rans, but trust goes both ways. It’s my father, and I’m going. You can’t come with us, or you’d be trapped in Hell. I’ll come back as soon as I can, I promise.”

  I tried to convey with my eyes that Nigellus couldn’t afford to let anything happen to me. If it did, he’d lose his precious vampire blood source at the same time. The look on Rans’ face told me exactly how much he didn’t like this plan.

  “Time is of the essence,” Nigellus snapped, and our surroundings winked out before I could even consider second-guessing myself.

  What replaced them was... nothing. I almost panicked before realizing that Nigellus must have foregone the intermediate stop at the top of the Moaning Cavern in favor of transporting us directly into its lightless depths, where the gate itself was located. Even so, an undignified squeak escaped my throat as I tried to get my balance in the pitch darkness.

  An instant later, I realized that I was barefoot, dressed only in the shorts and tee I’d been wearing to lounge on the couch and watch movies. My experimental salt dagger was still sitting in the basement workroom back in Vallecito, and basically, I hadn’t thought this course of action through to even the smallest degree.

  “Move!” Nigellus commanded, manhandling me around until my questing hands met the pile of tumbled stone leading up to the stretch of cave wall that hid the gate.

  On the other side of that unseen barrier of rock, my father was in danger. I felt my way forward, scrambling up the piled boulders and ignoring the scrape of sandstone against my bare skin. When I reached the top, I felt around and moved forward until the sense of the barrier slid over me. My ears popped as I crossed between the realms. Ironically, Hell’s side of the gate wasn’t quite so dark—here, a hint of gray shapes interrupted the blackness.

  I stepped aside so Nigellus wouldn’t plow into my back when he emerged. A second later, I sensed his presence at my side.

  “Come,” he said, taking my arm.

  A fresh round of disorientation swept over me, and this time when it passed, I found myself in the titheling village, standing next to Nigellus in front of a very familiar hut. It was night in Hell, but the realm’s three moons provided us with some illumination. Around us, people were emerging from nearby huts. A few carried torches. All looked upset.

  “What’s happening?” asked a man who looked vaguely familiar, but whose name I didn’t know. “We heard screaming—”

  “Stay back, all of you,” Nigellus ordered, his voice cracking like a whip. “Send someone for one of the elders.”

  “Li Wei,” I said quickly. “Get Li Wei. And Sharalynn!”

  Maybe it was irrational, but I was suddenly desperate to have someone present that I trusted. The people around us had heard screaming. If anything had happened to Dad...

  “You should stay back as well,” Nigellus said, moving toward the front door of the hut.

  I realized an instant later that he was speaking to me, and lunged after him. “The fuck I’m staying back!” I growled, reaching him just as he opened the door.

  The inside of the structure was dark, but I was met by a smell that made my stomach turn. Metallic and sickly sweet—the smell of the abattoir. Nigellus snapped his fingers sharply, and flames burst to life in the hearth, illuminating the scene.

  “Oh, god,” I breathed faintly, my mind desperate to reject the grisly tableau of rent flesh and bone in front of me.

  ELEVEN

  BODY PARTS LAY scattered around the hut’s main room. Panic seized me, and the resulting massive adrenaline dump was the only thing that kept me from fainting on the spot.

  My gaze skittered over a lump of... something... with tufts of blood-soaked white hair sticking up, only to seize a moment later on movement in the far corner of the room. A figure huddled at the base of the wall, in the gap between the unlit cookstove and the heavy butcher-block table used for food preparation.

  “Dad?” I croaked, frozen in the doorway.

  Nigellus skirted the carnage and dragged my father upright by the arm, pulling him around the edge of the room and shoving him toward me.

  “Get him out of here,” he snapped, “and keep everyone else away.”

  I steadied my father just in time for the door to swing shut in our faces. He was shaking... or maybe we both were. I couldn’t make out his features properly in the flickering dance of light and shadows from the torches. I wanted to run my hands over him... to fall into his arms and start crying hysterically. But I just stood there, my fingers digging into his shoulders.


  “Zorah?” a familiar and very welcome feminine voice called. “Is that you? What’s going on?”

  Sharalynn hurried up, her partner Finn a step or two behind her with a torch held aloft to light the way. One of her hands clasped my shoulder, and the other one clasped Dad’s.

  “Sharalynn,” I said in a wavering voice, “something awful happened...”

  “Are either of you hurt?” she asked practically.

  “Not me,” I managed. “Dad? Are you all right?”

  I wasn’t sure what I expected, but all I got in return was blank silence as my father blinked at me dazedly in the torchlight.

  “Come on, both of you,” Sharalynn said in a no-nonsense tone. “Let’s get you two somewhere quieter.”

  I looked from her to the closed door of the hut, where a sweet elderly man lay torn to pieces like grisly roadkill. “No, not me. I need to—”

  “You need to sit down before you fall down,” Sharalynn said firmly.

  But I shook my head. “I need to keep anyone else from going in there.”

  Sharalynn turned to catch Finn’s eyes. “Stay here and stop anyone from going inside, okay? Oh, and if Li Wei or Fatima shows up, send them on to our hut.”

  Finn nodded, grim-faced.

  Sharalynn slung one of Dad’s arms over her shoulders. Fortunately, she was short enough to make a decent human crutch, and strong enough to take some of his weight. “Hope you can walk on your own, Zorah,” she said. “Now get those feet moving, all right?”

  I stumbled along on my father’s other side, still in a daze—my hand clamped around his upper arm as though I needed the constant reminder that he was alive... that it wasn’t his blood decorating the walls of the modest two-room hut we’d just left. I could feel hysteria pushing at the walls of my mind, threatening to swamp me.

  Sharalynn’s home was a welcome refuge. I’d been here a handful of times during my stay in the titheling village, and it was the same warm, welcoming space I remembered. The hut’s owner ushered us inside and deposited Dad on a comfortable chair before stirring up the hearthfire and lighting some candles.

  “You’re sure you’re all right, hon?” she asked, running a critical eye over me.

  I nodded, mute, already turning my father toward the light and running my hands over his shoulders and chest. Sharalynn urged him to lean forward in the chair and did the same to his back.

  “I don’t see anything wrong,” she said. “There are a few blood spatters on his clothing, but... I don’t think they’re his.”

  My gorge rose, and I had to swallow hard to keep my stomach contents from making an unwanted appearance. She was right, though—I couldn’t see any evidence of injuries either.

  “Zorah. C’mon, talk to me. What happened?” Sharalynn asked.

  “I don’t know, exactly.” My voice was a painful croak. “A demon I know agreed to send Edward here to help look after Dad...”

  “I met him, yeah,” Sharalynn said. “He seems like a total sweetheart. Though I’m guessing he’s the kind of person you were talking about when you tried to tell me about old people with white hair?”

  I nodded, numbness creeping over me. “Something... got in the hut and attacked him. He’s...”

  My throat closed up.

  Sharalynn frowned. “Zorah, is he demon-bound? Surely he wouldn’t have come here from Earth if he wasn’t, right?”

  “Yeah,” I rasped. “Yeah, he is. Was.”

  But she shook her head. “Then he’ll be all right, won’t he?”

  I blinked at her, bewildered. “All right? No... Sharalynn, you didn’t see—”

  My vision had gone blurry, and I realized that I was crying the instant before Sharalynn pulled me into her arms and squeezed tight. I clung to her, desperate for the comfort, even as my father sat inches away like a discarded marionette. After a few moments, I made myself pull away and dash the tears from my eyes. With a hard swallow, I turned back toward Dad and rested a hand on his shoulder.

  “Hey,” I said. “C’mon. Give me something, here? A nod, or a blink, or... something?”

  Darryl Bright’s face remained ghostly pale, his eyes empty and distant. God. I could only imagine what he’d just seen, up close and in brilliant, bloody Technicolor. Even if he hadn’t already been a mental basket case, it wasn’t surprising in the least that he was bordering on catatonia.

  “I think he’s in shock,” Sharalynn said.

  I was still staring at him, which was the only reason I noticed when the blood spatters on his shirt floated free from the fabric like dust motes and wafted toward the door. I stared at the rusty trail openmouthed for several moments before my brain cells started firing—reminding me of the other time I’d seen something similar.

  “Something’s happening,” I said, remembering how Myrial had smeared blood on Rans’ skin so she could track us. That blood had floated back to its owner once she’d appeared in the sleazy motel room where we were hiding out—demon magic. But this was Edward’s blood, not a demon’s.

  Could that mean—

  “I need to go see what’s happening,” I blurted, before my good sense caught up with my thoughts. “But... it might not be safe for you here. If Edward was attacked because someone’s after Dad—”

  “Go, but leave the door open,” Sharalynn said immediately. “Listen to the noise out there. Half the village is milling around outside. If anything happens, I’ll yell for help so fast your head will spin and have a mob here in seconds.”

  I swallowed convulsively, trying to moisten my throat. “Okay. I’ll send Finn back, too.” Then I turned to my father. “Dad...”

  My voice broke.

  “I’ve got him, girl,” Sharalynn said in a reassuring tone. “We’ll be okay here. Go on, find out what’s happening.”

  I stumbled out of the hut, still feeling like I might keel over in a dead faint at any moment. Sharalynn hadn’t been kidding—there were dozens of people gathered in the street, talking and gesturing toward Dad’s hut. I pushed past them, trying not to get my hopes up based on a vanishing bloodstain and a few snippets of conversation with Guthrie about demon-bonds.

  Finn was still standing in front of the door, a stalwart presence with his torch held in front of him. I hurried up to him, breathless.

  “Thanks for doing this,” I said. “Could you grab someone else to take your place, and go make sure no one bothers Sharalynn or my father? I think it’s safe enough for them with so many people around, but—”

  He nodded immediately. “Yeah, will do. I think I see Li Wei over there. I’ll get him to come to our hut as well.”

  I tried to smile at him in thanks, but the expression felt like it came out twisted and grotesque. Leaving him to it, I slipped past and opened the door, bracing for what I might find inside.

  “Close that behind you,” Nigellus snapped.

  Relief nearly buckled my knees, but I managed to fumble the door closed behind me. Edward sat slumped forward in Dad’s chair, his white-haired head resting in his hands and a tatty bathrobe belted around his bony frame.

  “Oh thank god,” I breathed, catching myself against the wall—now thankfully free of blood splatters and gore. Fresh tears tried to slip free, but I managed to blink them back. “Edward?”

  The butler looked up with rheumy eyes. “Oh... hello, Miss. My apologies—I suspect the state of this room a few minutes ago was the sort of thing no one should have to see.”

  “Are you all right?” I croaked, aware on some level what an utterly ridiculous question it was.

  Edward passed a shaky hand over his face and appeared to rally himself. “Yes, yes.” He straightened in his chair with an effort, and frowned. “Dear me, that was rather a bad one, wasn’t it? I fear it may have surpassed the howitzer incident in Luxembourg, which is saying something.”

  My eyes moved to Nigellus for the first time since entering the hut. The demon’s face was a hard mask. Something about the cold lack of expression made a chill run through me. I wasn
’t certain if that look was aimed at me, or at whatever had torn Edward to bloody pieces. I sincerely hoped it was the latter.

  “What happened?” I asked, not sure which one of them I was addressing the question to.

  “Was young Darryl injured?” Edward asked, rather than answering the question directly.

  I swallowed. “No. Well, I mean, not... physically.”

  The butler looked pained. “Damn and blast,” he said, so quietly I barely heard. It was the first time I’d ever heard him curse. Hell, it was the first time I’d heard him say anything that wasn’t the picture of sweet-tempered kindness and endless patience.

  “Dad’s in shock,” I clarified. “Not that I can really blame him. I’m in shock, and you should be in shock...” I trailed off, aware I was babbling. “Edward, I’m so sorry about this. I should have insisted that someone else guard him—”

  Edward snorted softly. “On the contrary, Miss, it’s just as well I was here. Unless you know any other magical practitioners with extensive demonic experience.”

  Only Fae ones, I thought. Aloud, I said, “Please, Edward, tell me what happened. Who—or what—attacked you?”

  “I would be interested in the answer to that question as well,” Nigellus said, still looking cold enough to flash-freeze lava. There was a brittle edge to his voice that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  Edward sighed and gave his face a final scrub before rising on creaky joints and carefully stretching his back. “Yes, all right. Let me change into something more appropriate while I talk, though. I should go speak to your father and try to calm him down, but no one wants to see knobby old-man knees.”

  He disappeared into the back room, his voice emerging through the open door. “Your father seemed to have opened up a bit since I first arrived, Miss. He’s forged some emotional connections with a few of the people here, and he was growing more talkative with me, as well. He speaks of you sometimes...”

  My throat tightened, but apparently Nigellus was more interested in cutting to the chase than getting a blow-by-blow account of the days leading up to the attack.