The Strigoi Chronicles Box Set

by Nya

  I went back to the apparating bit, the touch of legerdemain Jeffy had used to transport us out of harm’s way.

  “Why can’t you just poof us?” I was ready to crawl onto his lap and suck my thumb if it would get us the hell away from the grease and imminent death.

  “We’re out of time. Just do it.”

  Grabbing my hand, he squeezed, crushing knuckles, then giving the wrist a twist until it snapped with an audible crack.

  I shouted, “Fu—” and blew my mind into a million shards of shattered razor edges as the pain radiated at the speed of demon. Vamp Dreu applauded the effort, then promptly passed out, leaving me and my ugly persona to wreak vengeance with an orgasmic thrill that was going to be difficult to top, even under the tender ministrations of Nurse Kinky.

  ****

  “Hey. Dreu. Wake up, son.”

  Dreu had no interest whatsoever in waking up. Not with a wrist and assorted knuckles in splinters. Not with a bare back scratched and lacerated to ribbons from whatever gyrations I’d pulled off during my dispensing of demon retribution. Not when Vampyr Dreu was still cowering in the furthest recesses of my mind, whimpering like a little girl.

  The Demon King was nothing if not persistent. He was doing something with the shattered bones, muttering, “Maybe I shouldn’t have…” and applying a hair too much pressure to my liking.

  I hissed, “What happened?” and managed to prop one eyelid open. The other was glued shut with blood, my own and probably some of his, judging from the scent.

  I told my sire, “You look like hell.” And not in a good way. My brain fart had had me imagining a mirror exploding outward, the knife edges flung in a cone of destruction, wave after wave after wave, with Pops’ face the primary recipient of my target practice.

  He ignored me and continued to administer first aid to my damaged limb.

  “Are we still in Kansas?” My speech slurred as he straightened the wrist and bound it with strips of his tee-shirt.

  “Unfortunately, yes.” His teeth shone with feral intensity through the blood and gore masking his features.

  With difficulty he stood and lugged me upright. We both did a bob and weave, unwilling to touch the dumpster just on principle.

  If we were still in Kansas, then the next question was, “Did it work?”

  “More or less.”

  “Uh, you want to tell me about the less?”

  “Most of them are dead.” He pulled me away from the protection of the dumpster and led me around the corner to where the bulk of the bodies were strewn across the nearly vacant parking lot.

  Worrying over only most, but not all, being out of action, I didn’t pay too much attention to where I was walking.

  That was unfortunate. My pulse had not only scrambled brains, it had popped eyeballs and other body parts best not stepped on.

  I knew I wasn’t successful when the old man informed me, “You aren’t wearing those boots in my vehicle.”

  “Speaking of… Where is it?”

  As usual he ignored me and reached down to scoop a largish handgun off a corpse, handing it to me and then sweeping the area for any other usable weapons. The humans had come to the party well-equipped. Dad strapped a crisscross leather device over his shoulders, the dual holsters nesting nicely under his bulging biceps. He added a shotgun and an ankle sheath with a wicked-looking black combat blade.

  With my right hand out of commission, he suited me up as a pack horse, adding a rifle with a mean laser scope to my left shoulder and a thigh holster with a man-sized Glock of the law enforcement variety on the right, just to balance things out. I was accessorized and weaponized, but for what I hadn’t a clue.

  That was a state of affairs that was going to have to change, soonest. My empty gut suggested the old man had pulled a fast one on me. He’d promised me an interlude in the field with my new squeeze, the delectable blond bombshell, Jefrumael. That was supposed to be a secluded walk on the wild side while I explored my inner-Rambo.

  Instead, the Demon King and me, his heir apparent, had ended up in a perverted shoot-out at the casino, with me forced into using my half-demon playlist on a playing field that seemed skewed in nobody’s favor.

  There was something rotten in Demon Central and it wasn’t me. I’d been had, manipulated, snookered, and maneuvered into testing whether or not my brand of mayhem was lethal to the human species. Apparently it was, judging from the body count around the building.

  For some reason, that didn’t satisfy him of the suave, sophisticated killing machine persona. As we approached the turnstile door to the lobby, Pops went into a crouch and withdrew one of the honking big pistols, chambered a round and did the quick peek ’n seek like they do on TV.

  My snit had shattered the glass so we needn’t have worried about trapping ourselves in the carousel device. Once he was satisfied, Michel oozed around the jagged edges of the side panel and slithered quickly across the open space with me in hot pursuit.

  I held the Glock in my left hand. It shook only a little. I needed drugs for the pain because the Vamp medic was still sitting on the crapper, his intestines turned to jelly. The demon half was a slower healer, something I was going to bring up with the Council in the way of a complaint.

  Instead of heading toward the bank of elevators, Pops dove left through a maintenance door and trotted down a short hall to a stairwell that disappeared into the bowels of the building. Keeping up was not a problem. Whatever I’d done to him had significantly slowed him down to a pace that was just to the left of reasonable.

  Not for the first time, I wondered why my demon self wasn’t affected by that blast of energy. What made me special and immune to my own charms? If Vamp Dreu was taking an active role in protecting our mutual interests, he wasn’t being obvious about it.

  The basement was like every other basement in every other dimension: stacks of boxes, plumbing conduits, and maintenance tools littered the open space. It was nowhere near big enough to reflect the footprint of the building above so I assumed we’d descended into an alcove below one of the wings.

  Whispering, “What are we looking for?” brought Michel up short. He pointed to a set of doors to the right and left of a short corridor. One had the telltale keypad.

  Mouthing ‘the vault’ he ordered me to take the right side while he angled in from the left.

  The word itself, ‘vault’, had a solid feel to it, in an impregnable, metallic way that bode ill for us breaching whatever defenses the casino owners had thrown up.

  Since Pops clearly did not need spending money, he was here for another reason. My best guess was that whoever had offed his buddy, Constantin, might have holed up in the casino receipts fortress to wait out the ire of the Demon King. And since humans were surprisingly good with technology, the assassin most likely was aware than Plan A had gone south.

  “It’s a seven digit code. Vinnie’s not the brightest bulb. He had trouble remembering the day of the week. He’ll have wanted something easy to remember.” Pops spoke in a normal tone of voice, low enough not to scare the shit out of me, but it carried and echoed eerily in the underground space.

  “I assume they know we’re here?” He nodded yes. “Okay, so am I right that he’d have used the same sequence as for the suite, but with a couple extra digits thrown in?”

  “Try it with a one, front and back.”

  I did. It didn’t work. Flexing my fingers I tapped out a sequence, moving sequentially through the possibilities.

  Multi-tasking, I asked, “So who’s this Vinnie?”

  “He was Constantin’s head enforcer. Mostly the muscle. Not exactly management material. Constantin figured that Vinnie wasn’t ambitious enough to be a threat so long as he got paid well and had a few perks.”

  I wasn’t going anywhere near the concept of perks. That the casino had a Bambi on call for their Demon King revealed enough about their cash flow options to satisfy even my insatiable curiosity.

  “This isn’t working. Are you sure a
bout the sequence from upstairs?” I warned him again that it might take a while.

  “I’m in no hurry.”

  Bully for him. Me, on the other hand? I was feeling peckish, thanks to the vamp saying howdy-do and inquiring after sustenance.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Then shut up and work faster.” He looked like he needed a smoke, bad. Demon nicotine withdrawal was not pretty. I was in the process of flipping him off when the final sequence went Bingo!

  We both flattened against the wall, out of the line of fire, as the door inched open under Pops’ size fourteen’s urging. I had no doubt that something lethal with armor-piercing rounds was cocked and ready to go. All Vinnie needed was a little more daylight and then it would be Romania all over again.

  If I could go back in time, back to the Abbey and the fat slob of a prelate, I’d happily spend the rest of my life sucking his dick into kingdom come. Anything to avoid another hail of bullets.

  Michel du Velours put on his I’m your sovereign voice and announced, “It’s over, Vinnie. Come out and make it easy on yourself.”

  Vinnie chose to ignore the invitation, rightly assuming that his liege-lord was lying through his fangs.

  Michel touched his forehead and waggled his eyebrows, then angled his head toward the interior. I mouthed ‘no’ and ‘metal’. Whatever wavelengths hit that fortress they’d be bounced back into us so my skill was useless in this situation.

  That got me agitated and gnarly.

  My old man wasn’t the only one going into withdrawal. Reality backed off, like it sometimes does, taking me one remove from the here and now and lacing my perception with hypersensitive hearing. The human was to the right of the door, taking shallow, nervous breaths, right behind me in relation to the wall.

  I held the gun unsteadily in my left hand. If I pivoted just so, I could reach around and fire off a shot toward where I had a seventy percent chance of hitting the target. Even if I missed, Pops could play back-up.

  Dad yelled, “I want him alive,” and dove for my arm as I squeezed the trigger.

  The last thing I remember was cursing a blue streak as my other wrist snapped and then it was lights out.

  Chapter Nine

  Rafe muttered, “He might need pins,” and consulted a clip board.

  Pins? Pins for what?

  “Idiot doesn’t know his own strength…”

  “Doctor, the IV drip…”

  “Thank you. Best add morphine…”

  Morphine, yes. Yes, thank you, thankyouverymuch.

  My throat felt like I’d swallowed fresh glass shards. I concentrated on that because it was the more pleasant of all the assaults on my senses. Senses that were ripped, shredded, beaten to a pulp, ravaged, savaged…

  I hurt. I hurt like hell. Every damnable second birthed a new insult and no amount of meditation or praying or whining turned back the clock to when I just ached with the agony of loss, of seeing my Fane tumble end over end into an abyss of my own making.

  That bit of mischief now seemed like nothing compared with the withdrawal of normalcy and the promise of an eternity forever chained to a body gone insane.

  Slipping into acceptance, mind, heart, and soul rejected offers of solace and well-meaning assurances. It was never going to be all right or better, and time had no meaning when all of time wrapped itself into such turmoil that the anticipation of pain overshadowed its surcease.

  The ravens circled, picking at the carcass, taking snippets of flesh, a run of sinew, a twist of tendon, a filet of muscle and yet still I existed, replenished at every turn.

  My Vampyr had deserted me, receding into an inner space, allowing an endless reduction of self. Into what wasn’t clear. Not even the demon had a clue and he was the recipient of the largesse as I morphed with becoming.

  All I knew, all I believed, all I’d hoped for with prayers and wheedling and self-indulgence paled against my need to end it, once and for all. I was ready to forsake my quest, my vows of revenge and retribution, to meet my lover in shame, knowing he would turn away and all that was me, all that had been us, would vanish.

  There is no such thing as nothing. There’s no such thing as nothing at all…

  The song got it wrong. I was the nothing that was something. Murmuring Hail Marys, I fingered an imaginary sacramental and prepared to simply cease, the veneration a portal to salvation.

  Not of the soul.

  Mine had lost its way.

  I cried.

  Then I slept.

  ****

  Jefrumael led me down a long hallway toward my suite of rooms. Mine Père had finally taken my recovery into his own hands and decreed that his only son be cosseted at his Black Sea dacha.

  Expecting a hospital room with a view, I was pleasantly surprised to find my quarters untouched since my last visit. The king-sized bed with four posters and filmy drapes was thick with pillows and a startling white duvet. The patio doors opened to cliff-side, away from the precipitous drop to the sea, yet the soft susurration from the endless slap of wavelets onto the shore had the desired effect, filling in with a soothing, distracting, background homage to solitude.

  “Are you tired, Sire?” My attendant was ever solicitous. He annoyed me on one level as I had no wish to listen to more conciliatory efforts to coddle and rape my reason with false assurances and pledges for my approaching wellbeing.

  But that wasn’t fair to him, to the blond giant looking wan and drawn and nervous, the tension etching fine lines about his lips and eyes, aging him to maturity but not in a good way.

  I was too selfish to share such suffering. I wanted it for my very own, leaving good cheer and the residuals of hope to others. If anyone could lay claim to total alienation, that person was me and my others. My Vampyr huddled just out of reach. The demon had yet to decide which direction to proceed.

  We, the demon-me and the id, had killed and maimed without mercy and without so much as a thought to consequences. That staggering loss of life was no harbinger of a trip down the lane of guilt and remorse, rather it was simply a way station on the track of endless possibilities in service to a liege-lord who’d played me false at every turn.

  Stripped of everything I thought I knew of me, what remained was a hollow shell, a tool. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  And deep inside, where a flicker of hate might once have sparked, lay such an expanse of emptiness that it assumed the proportions of sanctity and rightness.

  I was Michel du Velours’ son in every way possible.

  I was well and truly fucked.

  Jef said, “Let me take your robe.”

  “Tunic.” It seemed important to be precise. I wore my old habit, the rough woolen garment that had seen me through endless flagellations of the flesh and spirit, ever the first step toward atonement.

  Not that Jef would care, but it seemed important to note, “I’m surprised he kept it,” when in truth I had no idea how Michel had even found the garment. I had no memory of switching to modern dress and eschewing the comforts of tradition.

  “I should burn this.”

  “No.” No, I needed that badge of courage, that last reminder of who and what I had been: a simple cleric with a gift for self-delusion and self-indulgence.

  Jef carefully folded the garment and set it aside. I stood by the bed, naked to his eyes.

  “Lie down.”

  He carefully turned the duvet down, giving me room to ease between cool silken sheets, the slip-slide over the scar on my hip oddly reassuring. The bits of metal in my wrists and the hip socket vibrated in tune to the rush of sensation as flesh feathered delicate strands of shuddering relief along the entire length of my body.

  The stab of pain took its time, delaying gratification. Rehab had been a bitch but it had also taught me the essence of control, anticipating the advent of the sensation, choosing its direction and impact depending on my mood and level of despair.

  That I refused to heal to my body’s and others’ expectations had been a sourc
e of irritation and frustration to everyone except me. The Church had imbued me with many lifetimes of indoctrination in the art of denial and I had cherry-picked amongst all the offerings, turning repudiation into affirmation.

  The assassin sat on the edge of the bed and brushed my long hair back, cleaving my scalp with talons and concern. He ran a forefinger along my jaw, tracing its outline, now nearly buried in rough stubble.

  He asked, “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No.”

  My friend, my father’s henchman, stood and slowly stripped, his eyes locked to mine. There was hope there. Not right at the surface, definitely not reflected in the turbid haze of instant lust, but it shimmered in that portal to the soul, barely within reach. Transparent. Transient.

  He bid me remain in that spot, to not move lest I trigger the thing I wished most fervently for, the final stab that would cleave my heart in two.

  There was something elegant about the way he moved, almost dancer-like, with a grace that belied his power and his urgency. The space of a thousand denials lay between us, him on his side, gently stroking my shoulder. Me, cocooned in his desire, face to a heaven I never believed in, accepting of the touch but no longer submissive.

  I would sleep in that neutral zone but he broke the unspoken agreement and whispered, “What do you want?”

  “Fuck me.”

  “No.”

  No was good, no was better, for it added to the weight of denial, giving deprivation a physicality rarely achieved in that inner space I’d carved out of the two halves of a Dreu who was a genetic freak and undeserving of solace.

  He spread the duvet down and away, whisking cool air over my skin: chilled and recycled and filtered until it resembled nothing so much as a pre-packaged, plastic sensation. Not even his nimble tongue, teasing and tickling and trailing with damp warmth, could convince deadened flesh into believing that arousal lay within reach, my phallus limp and disinterested.