by Sierra Dean
On cue, Calliope entered the room.
As entrances go, Calliope rarely did things subtly. She swished through the door in a flourish of red material. Her hair was done in tumbling black waves held back by ruby stickpins. She was barefoot, and trailing behind her was a snow-white tiger. Seriously.
“Secret!” Her voice sounded like a song, and she never seemed unhappy to see anyone, regardless of how they came to be in her presence. “You’ve brought me something. I was expecting you.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Of course you were.” She was the Oracle, after all.
Brigit turned her attention from the boy to the woman who had just walked in. To a vampire’s heightened senses, Calliope was a confusing jumble of fragrance. She smelled intoxicating and alluring, but there was a pungent edge of warning to her blood. Something in the fiber of her being warded off potential predators.
“Who is this you’ve brought me?”
The tiger smelled my legs and then the hem of Brigit’s dress. It bared its teeth at her, growling, and she knew enough to stop struggling against me.
“Brigit is new. Unsanctioned. Alexandre Peyton turned her to make a bit of an overly dramatic point.” My voice wavered as I spoke.
“You feel responsible for her?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t need to hear more. She came to us and put one arm around Brigit, releasing her from my hold.
“We’ll get her settled in no time, don’t you worry. Then you can get back to that handsome wolf of yours. No sense in leaving him there too long. Wolves and caffeine are a terrible combination.”
The tiger preceded us out of the room, and before exiting I remembered the pizza boy.
“Uh, Cal?”
“Yes, love?”
“Is the boy okay there? I mean…he just heard all that, and—”
“He didn’t hear a thing. He’s busy forgetting some things before he goes home alive and well-tipped.” She wore a devious little grin, which on her was far too beguiling.
I was often curious if one of her forms had been Helen of Troy, because it didn’t take much to imagine an entire war occurring for the right to love her.
We left the boy in the room alone and began our long walk down a very dark hall.
In the room where we settled Brigit, unnatural sunlight dappled behind the curtains. It made my chest constrict from panic and longing. The sun was an illusion, a kindness she provided to those who would never see it again in the real world.
Judging by the tan coloring Brigit’s features, she had been a bit of a sun worshiper in her human life. From my chair in the corner of the room, I wondered how many other parts of her life she wouldn’t be allowed to enjoy now because of me.
I felt as guilty for Brigit’s current situation as I would have if I’d turned her myself. It made me sick to know she would never see her family again. She could no longer enjoy whatever macrobiotic food lifestyle had kept her so thin. She couldn’t go to the beach in the Hamptons this summer or date a normal human boy.
Her life had ended, but in more ways than it would with a normal death. With human passing you lost everything, but you weren’t there afterward to know it. When you became a vampire, you had to mourn your own losses.
It was that awareness of the missing parts of one’s life which often drove new vampires mad, turning them into killing machines. Coupled with the strength and power inherited from their master’s blood, it was difficult to combat the initial reaction to vampirism.
I was genuinely grateful I had never had to experience it.
Calliope had chained Brigit to the bed with satin-covered silver. It wouldn’t burn her, but it held her in place. I was pretty sure it was fairy-wrought silver too, so the extra enchantment helped.
The Oracle was standing next to the bed, humming a strange song while she unpacked bags of blood from a small red cooler. My stomach growled.
Without batting an eyelash she threw one of the bags to me. I took it with thanks and bit into the bag, drinking its contents like a juice box. The blood was cold, but I wasn’t going to pick nits when I was being fed for the first time that night.
“So, tell me about this man of yours.”
“You’re the Oracle, Cal, I was hoping you’d tell me.”
She was holding one of the bags to Brigit’s mouth. The girl ripped it open with her teeth and shook it like a wild dog, spraying blood all over the bed and herself. Calliope sighed and threw the bag into a wastebasket, then took Brigit firmly by the chin and looked her right in the eyes.
“Secret and I are talking, little one. Do not think your youthful insolence will play here with the big girls. You will take this blood and live, or refuse it and die. That is the choice. Be a good vampire, behave and don’t make trouble, and you will live. Ignore what I am telling you, and the next time you see Miss Secret over there, it will be when she is delivering your death warrant. Do. You. Understand?”
Brigit’s eyes were wide, her face splattered with the discarded blood. She looked insane, like she couldn’t be reasoned with, but she nodded her understanding. It gave me a chill when Calliope got serious because it revealed something inside of her that was old, strong and very frightening.
She held another bag to Brigit’s mouth, and this time the girl took it, tearing it open with a dainty bite before glutting herself on the contents. The Oracle was looking at me, waiting for me to continue.
“Do you know about soul-bonding?”
“Ahh.” Her face collapsed and she let out a heavy sigh. “It’s that time now for you. I thought we had longer.”
“You knew?”
“You need to understand. There are certain things in your life that must happen to you. I cannot always warn you about them because you are so stubborn you will try to keep them from happening.”
“You knew I had a soul mate?”
“Common human understanding is that everyone does, is it not?”
“Human understanding and romanticizing really don’t apply to my life.”
“I suppose not. Although the love triangle transcends human romance. There were plenty of them with the old gods. But I digress. In your situation you should know things, romantically, are not going to be easy for you.”
“Duh.”
“I don’t only mean the wolf king and his lieutenant.”
“That’s the only love triangle I’m currently a part of.”
She smiled, but there was a little sadness to it. “The wolf is one half of who you are. There is another half. A whole other arena for trouble.”
My face must have gone white because she raised another bag of blood to give me, but I waved it away. “You’re saying—”
“I’m saying what I’ve said. Your love life will be complicated, to say the least.”
I barked a laugh, shrill and short. “If it gets any more complicated than it already is, I think I’d rather do without.”
“We shall see.”
Brigit mumbled something into her now-empty bag, and Calliope freed it from her mouth. The girl licked blood from her teeth and lips, then looked at me before speaking. “You are a vampire.”
“I am.”
“But you smell like a wolf?”
Calliope regarded me carefully, wondering if she would need to help Brigit forget more than usual.
“I’ve been told that.”
“Are you like him, then?”
“Him who, Brigit?”
“The one who made me?”
“Peyton?” I asked, and she nodded. “We are both vampires, if that’s what you mean.”
She shook her head and scrunched up her eyes the way an annoyed little girl would, obviously frustrated. “No. The wolves. Do you have wolves like he does?”
My stomach was suddenly in my shoes. Calliope gave me a mournful look and brushed some of Brigit’s blonde hair off her face.
“Pet wolves?”
Brigit shook her head again. “Werewolves.”
I stared
at Calliope, but her face told me nothing. If she understood more about this than she was telling me, she wasn’t showing it. I rose from my chair and went to stand next to Brigit.
“Peyton has werewolves? How do you know that?”
“Three of them grabbed me off the street in the middle of the day and took me to this old building. I guess it was a theater, it had a big screen…” Her eyes began to tear again. “I tried to run, but one of them held me and made me watch as one of the others changed. They told me if I tried to escape, they’d feed me to the wolf.”
“What theater?” I asked.
“The vampires woke up when the sun went down,” she continued, not hearing my question. “Peyton came. He asked if the wolves had taken good care of me. Until I met you, I didn’t believe in vampires. Or werewolves. I didn’t think any of this was real.” Brigit turned her face away, a bloody tear rolling down her cheek.
I knelt on the opposite side of the bed so I could see her face, and waited for her to look at me.
“Brigit…”
“After he killed me he told me everything would be better if I found you. He said once you were dead I’d be free. Free from what?” Red tears streamed down her face. “Can I be alive again?”
I shook my head. “No. But if you can tell me where he is, I’ll make sure he pays for what he’s done to you.”
She sniffled and wiped her face against the pillow. When she saw the bloodstained smear on the case she began to cry again. Incoherent mumblings crossed her lips, but nothing that helped me.
“Where is he?” I asked again.
Calliope placed a hand on my shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze.
“Maybe we should give her a break. It’s been a difficult night. She can answer more questions later,” Calliope whispered.
Admittedly, Brigit wasn’t in any condition to give the responses I needed, but it pained me to let up now when I was this close to getting the information I needed. I stood, prepared to leave, when I heard Brigit murmur a word that sounded like Orpheus. That got Calliope’s attention, her body going rigid and eyes widening.
It also told me where I would find Peyton.
If Brigit was correct and Peyton had werewolves working with him, then there was no time to waste. A rogue vampire with plans to overthrow a city was bad enough. But I knew of one werewolf who would be foolish enough to join forces with him, and it made everything that much worse.
This ended tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“It’s Marcus.”
I was back outside on 52nd, and Desmond was trying to keep up with me as I barreled down the street, wanting very badly to be back in my apartment.
“Marcus?” He was confused and had every right to be. “Is this about the other night?”
“No. Yes? No, I don’t know. But—” I stopped mid-stride and turned to face him. He nearly collided with me due to the abruptness of my stop. “I hunt vampires.”
“I know. You’re working with the vampire council. You mentioned it.”
“Okay. Well, they sent me to hunt a really bad one who seems to have it in his mind he can take over New York if he infiltrates our population from the bottom up.” He looked puzzled but didn’t ask for explanations. “We, Holden and I, couldn’t figure out how it could be possible since this vampire isn’t powerful enough to have a daytime servant.”
“A what?” He unlocked the passenger door, opening it for me before going around and letting himself in the driver’s side.
“Someone to do his bidding in the daytime.”
Desmond’s face looked a little ashy. “They can do that?”
I nodded and continued. “This vampire, Peyton, he and I go way back, and it’s because of him that girl attacked me.”
“Did you kill her?” He wasn’t accusing me, just asking.
“No, I took her to the Oracle. Calliope can help her come to terms with what’s happened to her.”
“Calliope? You’re on a first-name basis with the Oracle? And why did she let you in? I thought she hated weres.”
“She doesn’t hate weres!” I was vexed and wanted to defend Calliope because she wasn’t here to do it herself. “Things just work differently in her world than they do here.”
“Her world? But if that’s the case, why would she see you?”
“I sort of have…special privileges?”
“Why?”
I couldn’t blame him for questioning me on this. Everyone who knew about the Oracle was aware her hospitality didn’t extend to the lycanthrope community. Of course they would assume she hated weres, it was the easiest explanation. To suddenly discover she allowed exceptions? Well, it wouldn’t make sense to me either if I wasn’t the exception in question.
“Because of the vampire…council.” I’d almost said blood. What I wanted most in that moment was to tell him everything. To have someone who genuinely cared about me and wanted to be with me know everything about who I was. But I’d kept my secret very secret for such a long time. In twenty-two years only my mother, grandmother, a vampire, a bounty hunter and an immortal oracle knew what I really was. Of those, one had abandoned me, one I’d run away from, two used me to kill my own, and the last had seen my future but wouldn’t tell it to me.
How could I tell my sort-of boyfriend about it when we had enough complications to deal with from my being soul-bonded to him and my other sort-of boyfriend? Telling them both I was also half-vampire wouldn’t help our existing situation. Or maybe it would help things a lot by removing them both from my life posthaste.
“What does this have to do with Marcus?”
I took his hand, and he placed his other one on my cheek. Being with Desmond lacked the complications of being with Lucas. Desmond wasn’t a king. He was just a man who wanted to be with me instead of a man who wanted me to be his queen. How did this get so difficult so fast? And could Calliope have been right when she said it would only get worse?
“When Marcus attacked the club he was vying for the throne.”
“Yes.”
“And if he’d gotten it, he would have killed those loyal to Lucas and the Rains.”
“Most likely.”
“With the pack of his choice, Marcus would be outside of question. Those willing to leave Lucas would have been morally ambiguous to say the least. What if Marcus told them to follow a vampire? To embrace their urge to hunt and take their rightful place outside of the shadows, in a position of power greater than humans. They would do it.” Our short drive from the Starbucks had brought us back to a parking space near my apartment building.
Desmond let out a huge breath, and my mouth tingled with the limey taste. “Marcus wants to help Peyton turn the human race into slaves.”
“Starting with one of the biggest cities in the world. Can you imagine if the rogues of other cities saw this? Even if they didn’t succeed, think of how many innocent lives would be lost in the attempt. Peyton has already killed or turned some of the prostitutes. He’s starting with the people who don’t matter, but by doing that he can infect so many more before people begin to notice.”
“The girl who attacked you?”
“She was somebody someone will miss. She was someone who mattered. He killed her because I saved her life. He wanted me to know I wasn’t capable of protecting anyone. I killed one of his children that night and in return he took a life I’d saved.”
“He has something against you personally?”
I nodded with renewed weariness. We were out of the car and making the half-block trip back to my front door. He draped his arm around me, and I leaned my face into his chest, breathing him in. He had given me his jacket after I’d left Calliope’s, which protected me from prying eyes, and I was grateful for the illusion of modesty.
Desmond would need a little more of my personal history if he was going to understand why Peyton hated me so much.
“When I came to New York I was sixteen, and saying the city was overwhelming is an understatement. I had it
in my mind that because a vampire attack had caused my mother to abandon me…” shit was that too close to the truth? I continued in a hurry, “…I would kill every vampire I met.”
“You were sixteen?”
“I was an idiot.”
He smirked at this.
“I did pretty well for myself at first, actually. But that was because the vampires I was finding were new, stupid and reckless. I’d been here a few months and was feeling pretty big in my britches, and then I found Alexandre Peyton. Or I guess he found me. I didn’t have the same reputation with vampires that I have now, but he still knew about me. He must have heard about some little girl trying to kill vampires and decided to have fun with me. He found me while I was hunting, and before I knew what was happening he was on me, feeding from me. Killing me.”
Desmond’s grip on my shoulder tightened. Having arrived back at the apartment, neither of us had sensed any dangers lurking within and had locked the door behind us. We faced each other in my living room.
“What happened next?” he asked, standing in front of me. He slipped his hands under the lapels of the jacket, his bare palms rubbing over my shoulders, pushing the garment off me and onto the floor.
I let out a shaky, uneven breath as his hands continued their path down my arms.
“He was cocky. He was so sure he had me beaten he stopped feeding. He started to tease me, make me feel foolish for believing a little girl could kill the monsters under her bed. That’s what he called me, little girl. It’s what he still calls me, though he knows better now. He went in to take the last of my blood, and that’s when I hit him. Did you know vampires can heal almost anything, but they can’t regrow teeth?”
He arched his eyebrow.
“It’s part of the reason vampires have retractable fangs like cats’ claws. Because it’s their weapon and their only way to feed, it must be protected whenever it’s not being used. Fangs are only exposed when a vampire is taken by the bloodlust or when they are provoked in anger. Or when they’re aroused.”