The Strigoi Chronicles Box Set

by Nya

And she knew things about me an opponent really oughtn’t, like what buttons to push on the oh god do me, do me now scale of yowzer. Crap that put me at a disadvantage given my short attention span to anything not carnal in nature.

  All s/he needed to do was work a taloned finger near my ass and I’d be on my knees faster than s/he could bark, “Down Dreu.”

  We backed away from each other and bowed as I’d seen them do on the telly. Kinky did a thing with the middle talon and Jef coughed. Meantime the gallery exchanged what looked like chits. If I had to figure odds, my guess was Father Dreu at a hundred-to-one.

  As it turned out, that was overly optimistic.

  ****

  Nurse numero uno slipped a thinner gauge needle into a vein and I looked up questioningly to Doc Rafe who was overseeing the procedure.

  He said, “It’s just B-12.”

  Dammit, not morphine.

  Actually, I was hoping for some kind of growth hormone because being the runt of the litter was getting on my nerves. The Kinkster had quite simply kicked my butt, and not in that pleasant way from our first encounter. She’d done it using her size advantage, without breaking a sweat. I had no countermeasures against such an overpowering opponent and what really chapped my ass was that they had elected a nominally ‘weak’ B-teamer to do it.

  Nothing says parental love like humiliation of offspring in front of the ruling junta.

  Rafe checked me over and confirmed that the ribs were bruised, not busted, and that the various tears in my flesh needed only a soaking with betadine and a few butterfly bandages. The externals didn’t concern me as much as the state of my spleen and bladder. From past experience that feeling of fullness usually meant I’d be hitting the urinal soon to pee blood.

  But on the plus side I was ambulatory and ready to hit the books in search of graphs and illos to give me a clue about how to organize my defenses. When I’d asked Jef for an after school tutorial he’d declined, explaining that daddy dearest had specifically warned his assassin to keep his distance when we weren’t in the dojo.

  Pops entered the triage tent and inquired, “How’s he doing?” and listened as Doc Rafe gave him chapter and verse of my various boo-boos. They made me feel like a six year old. Which might have been the point.

  Pops waved his triage surgeon away and demanded, “Tell me what you learned today.”

  Ticking off the mental list of lessons learned, I relayed that the best outcome from this exercise was my realization of my own shortcomings. I thought I knew what they were, mostly because I had a relationship with pain that bordered on transgressive. To get past that, I needed to understand real pain and its consequences. To do so with a true warrior as my opponent would have quite literally killed me.

  Pops nodded in agreement, clearly impressed that the idiot savant showed promise on a cognition level.

  So, Dreu learned humilité: check. Dreu also learned that no matter what his skill level, the bigger, badder opponent was going to win if all I ever did was defend myself against his advance.

  It was time for a summation so I spit out, “It’s not ever going to be enough, is it?”

  “In what way, boy?”

  “I can learn the moves, maybe get a few licks in, but I’ll never match up in size or strength. Not hand-to-hand.” I was rather proud that I kept that from coming out as a whine. Maybe I was growing up after all. Michel du Velours waited for me to connect the dots.

  “I need to complete basic training. I get that. But after?”

  “Yes?”

  “After, I want into the graduate level.” His mouth did that uptick. I was on the right track, just not exactly clear on what it might be.

  Pops clarified, “If,” and he emphasized that word, “if you make it through your, um, basic training, then you will be sent into the field to further your education.”

  “Alone?”

  “No, I shall assign my best man to see to polishing your skills.”

  I had to ask, “Who?” and crossed the only two fingers still working.

  “Jefrumael will be your mentor, but,” and he held up a hand to keep me from doing a mental happy dance, “you first have to earn the right to be under him.”

  I swear he smirked before turning away and leaving the tent.

  Lying on the cot, I thought about graduating to Dirty Tricks 101 and that had nothing to do with martial arts training.

  Jef came in, winked and said, “Get some sleep, recuperate. We’ll start again tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve secured a donor. You need to feed and keep up your strength.” As he was leaving, he asked, “Do you mind virgins?”

  I licked my lips and mumbled, “No, not at all,” but the only thing on my mind was how to get good enough to take on demon kind’s best warrior in that circle of attrition.

  Pops had offered me his assassin as a very attractive carrot.

  Wouldn’t he be surprised to learn that what I lusted after was the stick.

  Chapter Four

  “You aren’t ready.”

  “I am.” Surly morphed to petulant and I was back to being the six year old demanding the glass instead of the sippy cup.

  Jeffy was right, of course he was. As in Dreu the wannabe was nowhere near ready. And not even OD’ing on steroids had done much more than land me in Pop’s version of anger management classes, and no… it had definitely not been a bundle of laughs.

  But try as I would, there was no getting past my longing for a spin in the arena of manhood. Those intersecting circles of diamond brilliance had surpassed my quest for flexibility and an unholy fascination with the act of auto-fellatio, landing me squarely in light-lust-land.

  “Do you know how many warriors have merited a match in the jugé par décès?”

  My Sir Snit growled, “I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.” He didn’t.

  Jef pointed to my pimply-faced opponent and said, “Again.”

  The Kinkster had been replaced with a smallish demon, probably a pubescent teen version of the angry young man. S/he had actually gotten on her knees, promising to suck Jef’s phallus into kingdom come if only he would relieve her of the boredom of bludgeoning me into road kill day after day after day.

  Jef’s fair complexion had morphed to an unhealthy shade of oh hell no and he’d been quick to find a substitute. Considering what the beeyotch had done for me, that was an offer I’d at least have considered; but then again, no one had ever gotten around to explaining who the s/he’s were.

  Or what.

  “Does that,” pointing to the gangly youth slouching in a corner, “have a name?”

  My sensei said, “Call him Petr,” and sighed with frustration. Clearly my delaying tactics were not a well-kept secret. I had no idea what young master Petr could do in the rain destruction on Dreu version of Demon Survivor.

  As it was, I’d been thrown off the island so often, I should have been accorded hazard pay. I watched a lot of satellite TV while ensconced in a hospital bed. Traction was a hoot.

  Today’s audience consisted of a half dozen of Petr’s cohorts, all similarly attired in slouchy pants hanging off narrow hips and tee-shirts with sayings; the least offensive was ‘Suck This’ with a downward pointing arrow to a permanent erection.

  Cute didn’t touch it.

  Of course, we who grew up in cloisters with pedophiles should know better than to cast stones.

  Jef was correct, I was delaying. The last thing I needed was to be humiliated by a kid looking to earn his merit badge in Easy Pickings.

  I said a quick Hail Mary, bowed and assumed the juchoom sohgi stance which earned me a snort of approval from Jef. Young Petr did not get the in-joke so I wriggled out of the horseback riding position into gyuttari sohgi and awaited my fate.

  It wasn’t long in coming.

  The kid was fast, no surprise there, but he had yet to grow into his imposing size, a skeletal six-two and change, so he came at me like a bag of loose, uncoordinated bones. Pops had done me a wee service by explaining a bit of my de
mon heritage and how I could slow time to my advantage. We’d practiced on the balcony in full out glaring sunlight, something half of me could tolerate, the other half turning crispy in no time flat. By adjusting my exposure, demon-me built up immunity to the UV.

  As with all my so-called skills, it was catch-as-catch-can. Still, practice made perfect. I used that leverage to wait.

  It’s never going to be enough kept echoing in my head. My size, my weight, my poor genetically encoded reflexes were never going to be sufficient as a defense mechanism. I’d lose every time.

  What I needed was a whole new set of smarts. If I couldn’t kick butt with muscle and sinew, maybe I could out-think an opponent. That meant having patience when the freight train was centimeters away.

  The teen went for a roundhouse kick but pulled it, going for the gusto and the sure-to-please-the-gallery second, unexpected parry. The tease kick first, shatter the eardrum second.

  I watched.

  His left leg was bent at the knee, giving him balance and power, the hip angled correctly, arms in tight, hands fisted.

  Using deuluh oll ryu mahki my left arm scooped under his knee and twisted up and away, hurling him to the floor, off the mat. His skull made a very pleasant cracking sound, like an egg splatting on concrete. He oofed “Fu—” and then it was lights out.

  I bowed and sauntered to the changing room leaving my sensei and Nurse numero uno to deal with the casualty.

  Pops joined me in my quarters a few hours later. I’d been feeling pensive rather than elated. So I’d tricked a too-dumb-to-live demon kid, big whoop. Elliot and Samuels and the rest of the merry wolves weren’t young and they most certainly weren’t stupid. After weeks of failure, the old man had engineered a little victory. Yay me.

  So instead of the wiggly puppy routine, I glared at my Sire and spat, “That wasn’t necessary.”

  As usual he lifted an elegant eyebrow and oiled his way to the settee, parking his well-coiffed self onto the cushions and extracting a narrow Cuban cigar. The steps had become familiar, repeated almost daily as we shared the obligatory father-son bonding moment.

  Since I couldn’t take back my childish spite, I asked what the purpose was to the ritual. I smoked on occasion. You extracted a coffin nail, lit it up, took a drag, choked and repeated. His obsession with the forms of his hobby bespoke a level of aficionado I didn’t quite grasp.

  He explained how to make a proper cut, preferring the piercing method to the American fondness for guillotining above the cap. “It creates an aperture for a smooth draw without damaging the structure.”

  Oh, well then…

  Looking highly pleased with himself, he fingered the punch cutter, a handsome device with an inlaid bone handle. Extracting a cedar match from a small wooden box, he lit the cigar and puckered his full lips, cheeks bowing in and out as he puffed down on the jumping flame. Long tapered fingers rotated the Habano until it warmed sufficiently. Then and only then did he suckle the end and pull on the fragrant smoke.

  I liked the scent, and I rather enjoyed watching him OCD-ing over such minor details. It made him more … accessible.

  That was a double-edged sword. When he kept me at a remove from his concerns, I had nothing more than healing and repeating my humiliations on my to-do list. Single-focused on digging a ditch for my frustrations, my warrior persona never quite managed to fill it up. My cup was forever half-empty when it came to Dreu’s progress toward self-sufficiency and bad-assery.

  We never ever spoke of his concerns, his responsibilities, the disloyalties and festering discontent amongst his legions. Instead he talked of the minutiae of his world, sharing small homilies and wry observations on the state of our differences. And I grew to resent Maman’s decision to sequester me away from my lineage, to deny me the rights of heritage and the advantages of having a father, a real one, to guide me on the path to manhood.

  Perhaps that was his intent, like a divorced parent will stack the deck against the errant spouse, assigning blame and tipping the scales of allegiance in his favor. After nine hundred years, that seemed superfluous. My allegiance was with myself alone.

  Yet the melody of sympathy and fidelity formed a compelling backdrop the longer I spent time with the man in Armani.

  I’d flirted with love, with committing to a life-long partner, that one special being—a soul-mate. The jury was still out on whether or not I’d been successful, leaving me to ponder if I could possibly learn how to be a son.

  Papa-san intoned, “You did well today, boy,” and stayed my snide response with, “and you have taken the first step toward awareness. This is not an insignificant lesson.”

  “It took long enough.”

  “It takes as long as it must, son. Everyone is different and there is no standard but your own to meet or overcome.”

  Michel du Velours puffed contently while I mulled over his words. When he stood, I rose also, feeling marginally taller, marginally more worthy.

  It wasn’t much but it would have to do.

  He opened the door and motioned for someone to enter. That someone was one of the s/he’s.

  I stuttered, “N-nurse K-kin—”

  The old man smiled at that, then informed me that I was expected to join him and his guests for dinner at nine.

  As he left, I could have sworn he muttered, “Bed him well, Mi’lady, bed him well.”

  Dumbfounded I watched her disrobe down to a few strips of supple black leather and tall, shiny boots with impossibly high heels. S/he’d towered over me before, now s/he simply overwhelmed my senses.

  My new dominatrix said, “You may call me Mistress Kinky, Sire,” and handed me a plain brown shopping bag with handles.

  I peered in and nearly swooned.

  Giddily I asked, “Is eight hours going to be enough time?”

  Shrugging, s/he said, “Probably not, so shall we get started?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Excuse me?” A sharpened talon stroked my balls through the cotton sweats, the feeling somewhere between a tickle and emasculation.

  “Um, yes please?” I was starting to sweat. The talon pierced the fabric and drew blood, a feeble stream tangling with the short and curlies. Any deeper and I’d have a gusher flowing down my thigh.

  Reluctant to rush the pain portion of the festivities, I let good sense prevail. Lowering my eyes, I said, “Yes, Mistress. I am ready.”

  And I was. That lesson that Père deemed significant? That was only the preamble. I knew what this s/he could do. I’d been the recipient of her very special brand of sadomasochism for weeks. S/he’d been close to breaking me, taking me right up to the rim of surrender, but always falling short.

  Because of Fane, always Fane. He was my rock, my center, the last and most compelling reason for my existence in this or any other realm.

  Bringing the acrid sting of copper and saliva and furtive doses of panic to the back of my throat, I let my lips stretch and settle around the gag, the bite of leather sharply comforting as I concentrated on not swallowing my tongue.

  I had resolve. I had a plan. All positives.

  What I lacked was in the execution. No one would ever accuse me of being competent.

  Before the blindfold, I glimpsed her choices, laid out with military precision and thought that swallowing my tongue might be the least of my problems.

  Suddenly, eight hours seemed like forever and a day…

  ****

  Michel du Velours stood and welcomed me to the banquet hall, an immense room decked out in medieval splendor with exquisite tapestries and ancient Anatolian knotted carpets, the Seljuke patterns still vibrant, the colors a subtle palette of natural dyes. Thick rushes coated the ceramic tile instead of the priceless floor coverings, rendering background noise muted. It would also absorb any blood and other bodily fluids easily, making cleanup for the minions a snap.

  Our Sire sat in the center of a U-shaped mahogany table, the guests arrayed about the outer edges, allowing the servers direct access
to each place setting. The seat to his right was empty. He waved for me to join him, a declaration to the group, and I had a pretty good idea about his motivations for indulging in this tableau.

  The Council all knew of me and a few had seen my ignominious defeats in the dojo. In exchange, I knew each of them intimately, my knowledge filtered through my father’s eyes and Rafe’s razor-sharp assessments of each liege-lord’s strengths and weaknesses.

  I’d been a scribe by avocation, with an almost eidetic memory. That gave me a miniscule advantage. Knowing when to keep my mouth shut and listen was even better.

  This was my coming out party on the political stage: it was an acclamation of right-of-succession, an expression of trust and a threat. Today I had scored big on the test of competency and that made me eligible to eat with the adults.

  That mine Papa had opted to step on Rafe’s toes by elevating my status so soon might explain the Demon Doc’s surly attitude and growing antipathy toward me. He needn’t have worried. I was no more interested in servicing my father’s political ambitions than Rafe was in sharing power. On this our interests converged.

  The problem was, no one but myself could be privy to my end game. I needed to engage in tit-for-tat for as long as it took to gain some modicum of skills that lowered the odds for when I went against Elliot and Samuels. I fully expected not to survive that encounter.

  But survival wasn’t the point. Making the weres who stole my Fane from me pay and pay and pay was my raison d'être.

  So I sat, nodded to each Council member in turn and made a mental note to check the silverware.

  A mirror on the far wall reflected us, father and son: Michel and mini-Michel, like two peas in a pod. I’d not realized how much we looked alike. The same dark features, olive-complexioned, with a strong jaw and lips in a perpetual sneer. He wore his dark gray silk sport jacket with the collar turned up, the underside criss-crossed with darker threads in a pattern directing the eye upwards, along the jawline to well-shaped ears. He’d eschewed the starched white shirt for a loose-fitting cotton variety, pinstriped in cobalt blue. No tie. He looked haughty and regal and casual.