Dark Song

by Feehan, Christine

  He is heading south, but do not go in that direction. He will circle to the west and head for the mountains. You can get ahead of him if you make for the . . . She broke off, trying to form an image in her mind and send it to him.

  Gary shared the image with the other hunters of the mountain peaks of Cuyapaipe Mountain. He referenced the exact location he saw in Elisabeta’s mind.

  Do you know this place, Ferro? I do not. I see it in his mind. He has a lair there. I cannot yet see the exact location. Now there was frustration in her voice and mind, as if she were failing him.

  This is more information than I counted on, Elisabeta, Ferro assured.

  On the private path between brethren, Dragomir asked what all of the hunters were considering. Are you certain we should do as she believes and go west rather than follow his trail to the south, Ferro? You are merged with her and yet you cannot read Sergey’s thoughts. Not one of us, not even Gary, can do so. How is it she can?

  I will go west, Ferro declared. He believed Elisabeta could tap into the vampire’s mind. He had no idea how, but he was certain she was actually able to. He didn’t want to miss this opportunity to at least make a try for him. If he didn’t succeed, he would at least disrupt him, make him all the more vulnerable so the vampire was even more likely to make mistakes.

  I believe her as well, Gary said. I will go with Ferro.

  I will go with Ferro, Sandu said.

  Petru and I will join with Ferro, Benedek added. Sergey will have more waiting to guard his lair.

  The rest of us will engage with those here in the woods and destroy as many of his army as possible, Isai decided after a brief discussion. Then return to the compound. The more we take from Sergey, the better for all of us. Good hunting.

  Do you recognize the image of the mountain peaks? Ferro asked Gary.

  The healer had spent the most time in the region in comparison to the other ancients. All of them had been in the mountain range when they had rescued Andor, but most of that time had been spent fighting off vampires while trying to heal his mortal wounds enough to get their fallen brethren back to the compound.

  It is very near the same area the human family camped and Sergey used them as bait to draw us in. All of us thought he wanted to use Lorraine as a substitute for Elisabeta.

  Ferro turned that over in his mind, sharing the information with Elisabeta and his memories of Andor’s injuries and the fight to keep him alive.

  This was when we bound our souls together. The healer could not find Andor when he went to the tree of life to retrieve him. Lorraine wanted to go. She was human, not yet tied to him. It was the only way we could think of to give the necessary strength and yet keep her safe as she traveled in that world.

  Ferro and the others streaked toward their destination, determined to get ahead of Sergey and the other master vampires traveling with him. He wanted to keep his lifemate calm and reassured that the other hunters and he were safe and not worried in the slightest about the coming battle. There was no reason to be. He had already slipped into that place where he could shed emotions quickly again when need be, which meant he would have to disconnect from Elisabeta when the battle started.

  She is very brave, Elisabeta conceded.

  You were in the healing grounds, sleeping, Elisabeta, when Sergey baited this trap for us. We had no idea that Lorraine was never going to be enough for him. His ultimate goal was always you. Did you have knowledge of this place by the lake where he set his trap or that he planned to use another woman to barter for you? Again, Ferro was casual about it.

  There was a very long hesitation. Ferro stayed very quiet as he streaked across the night sky, hoping he wouldn’t have to prompt his lifemate to answer him when she was so clearly reluctant.

  I know of this place by the lake. He favors it. Many humans like to camp there. I have not seen the way to it, but I know of it.

  There was guilt in her voice. Too much guilt. Ferro didn’t like that, nor did it make sense to him. He broke the connection between Elisabeta and the others so that only he maintained a merge with her. Whatever was said was private between his lifemate and himself.

  Did you know that he planned to use another woman to barter for you? A lifemate of a Carpathian, he added.

  She stayed silent, retreating from him. That wasn’t a good sign.

  Elisabeta. I am asking you gently, and I do not wish to make this a command to answer, but it is important to me. We have trust between us. I want us to maintain that trust.

  You will not like the answer.

  There will be times you will not like my answers, but I will answer you when you ask me questions and I will do so truthfully. He wrapped her up in his arms from the distance, letting her know that whatever her answer, good or bad, he was her lifemate, her partner, and they would work through the answer.

  There was great reluctance in her mind as she reached for him. Before you slept in the healing grounds with me, protecting me from him, when they insisted I had to wake to feed, I would hear him. Now, I am aware, I summoned him. I swear, Ferro, I did not realize I called to him.

  I am well aware you did not, piŋe sarnanak, he assured gently. No one blames you, least of all me.

  I see into his mind sometimes, especially when he is calling to me. He had planned to take this woman—Lorraine, as it turns out. He bragged about it. He told me how he had harassed all of you, wore down the ancient hunters until they were low on blood and one among them was so far gone he would most likely die. I saw every move he planned and I told him it would not work. He was very angry with me.

  Ferro found her assessment of Sergey’s battle plan interesting. She had been proven correct, but how had she known? She didn’t know any of the ancients, and Sergey had shown her that most of the hunters were wounded or had given large amounts of blood in order to keep Andor alive. She was belowground most of the time, sleeping, kept that way in an attempt to heal her body and mind after her centuries-long ordeal.

  Sergey’s brothers were considered very intelligent by all accounts. I did not know them, but I had heard of them from Zacarias De La Cruz. Of all of them, the younger brother, Sergey, was not put in that same category of genius. He was considered of average intelligence by everyone, and his brothers, even while growing up, sometimes were cruel to him. At least, that was what Zacarias conveyed to the other hunters. Would you say that is a fair assessment?

  There was a long silence as Elisabeta considered what Ferro had asked her. The longer the silence played out, the more he could almost feel her squirming. She didn’t like the conclusions she was coming to at all. She wanted to withdraw totally from him and yet, at the same time, she didn’t want to let go of the merge, afraid of losing him in the upcoming battle with the master vampire.

  Below him, city lights were so bright it seemed impossible to see the stars as he circled around the tip of the city, making his way toward the mountain range and the lake to get in front of Sergey. He didn’t understand the need for so many artificial lights. All the technology that humans relied on so much—it just seemed to him that they tied themselves to it, and now, Tariq and the prince were asking all Carpathian people to do the same. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? He thought there should be more of a balance. Clearly, the Malinovs had learned to use technology while the Carpathian people hadn’t done so as quickly, and that had allowed the vampires to pull forward in the war between them.

  Elisabeta. I require an answer.

  He felt her sigh. Sergey’s brothers were very cruel to him, as often as possible. Throughout the centuries, from the first of my captivity, they would say ugly, demeaning things to him. He was pushed aside and treated as less than the others always. He had a place in their planning, but was not allowed to speak. If they did ask his opinion, they laughed at him when he gave it.

  He knew she had deliberately skewed what he’d asked her. She’d jumped on Zacarias’s assessment that Sergey’s brothers were cruel to him, confirming that they had been.
She knew that wasn’t what he was asking.

  Ferro remained patient. Minan hän sívamak, is Sergey every bit as intelligent as his brothers? More so? Or far less so?

  If the Malinov brothers were as smart as everyone said they were, how could they be so deceived by Sergey? The De La Cruz brothers were considered geniuses, and yet none of them had considered Sergey anywhere near the threat of his older brothers.

  Elisabeta’s tears were unexpected, drowning him in sorrow. Please do not ask me these things, Ferro. What does it matter?

  He stroked his hand down her hair the way he did to comfort her. Sang his song for her in their merged mind. You know it matters. I need this information. You know him better than anyone. I think you know him better than he knows himself. He has a vision of who he is. He has made that illusion in his mind his reality, but it is falling apart because you are not there to keep it real for him. I need your honest assessment of him, sívamet.

  Again, there was a long silence. He had the impression of extreme anxiety. Of her chewing on her lower lip. Her fingernail. He heard Julija whispering softly to her. Elisabeta assuring her she was fine. He waited her out, knowing she was working up her courage.

  Sergey’s brothers were very good at thinking far into the future. They planned every battle in minute detail. He reacted to everything they said and did, and they knew it. The only memories I have from my childhood were memories of our friendship. I did not know if he planted them, but I doubt that he did. They followed too closely to the way his brothers treated him. He would come to the house and sit on the porch. I would talk to him and soothe him after they were particularly ugly to him. He was already approaching a point where he was losing his emotions, but their barbs still struck. I was very young, not more than sixteen. A child, but I could bring peace to him. I felt bad for him.

  Ferro understood why Sergey had made his plan to take Elisabeta with him once he realized his brothers were going to voluntarily turn vampire. They would expect him to choose their way. If he didn’t, they would kill him. In his mind, he had no choice, so he plotted to take the one person he knew could make him feel better and subject her to the life he was terrified to lead with the brothers he feared.

  I had forgotten that Sergey did not always understand what they were doing. I was very afraid at first. He kept me away from them. One day, they came unexpectedly and he had to hide me. He was almost euphoric that they had no idea I was there. They talked openly in front of him—and me. He made me repeat everything they had said. I caught all of their inflections and hand movements, every nuance. Every detail. I could tell when any of them was misleading him or one of the others.

  Ferro held himself very still at her innocent revelations. Sergey wasn’t the genius. Elisabeta was. Sergey’s brothers had laid out their plans and strategies far in advance and set things in motion. Those plans were most likely already in play, with or without Sergey, but Sergey wasn’t going to plan the meticulous battles that his brothers were able to, not without a general like Elisabeta.

  How is it that Sergey ended up with slivers of Xavier and his brother, Vadim, and yet he is nowhere near their intelligence? How did he become the last brother standing?

  Ferro was in the mountains now, flanked by Sandu and Gary. Benedek and Petru had come in from the east, careful not to move against the wind or disturb any of the owls or insects in the trees, all most likely servants and watchers for Sergey.

  He has slivers of all of his brothers, Elisabeta told him in a small voice. He can access them for their ability to plan battles or use technology. He can use the ones of Xavier to call upon mage spells if he needs them.

  Ferro had to revise his thinking. All of us believed that Sergey was the genius all along, that he devised the plan from the very beginning, but he was scared. He was more than scared, he was terrified. That was why he took you with him. You brought him not only peace but courage. You listened to the brothers, Elisabeta, their plans. You heard them, and you helped Sergey get through those centuries by coming up with ways for him to strike back at them.

  Yes, she admitted. They were horrible. He was, too, but not like them. I knew he did not have the ability, even if he had the slivers of his brothers in his mind, to fully access and understand what they were talking about, not without me to explain, and I often misled him. When things did not go right, I took my punishment and acted innocent, as if I had no clue what went wrong.

  Ferro turned the information over and over in his mind. Sívamet, were you going to tell this to me?

  I have only just begun to realize it. The vampire kept me in such a state of terror that I believed him to be completely invincible. In some ways, I still do. I can barely overcome that way of thinking. Sometimes I am very clear, and other times I feel like a child huddled in a ball of terror on the floor.

  Ferro could understand that. The more she grew in confidence and strength, the more her mind cleared. The infection and strange speck left behind in the brain to open the gates was most likely done by one of the others, and now Sergey just thinks it is one more thing he does not understand without you, is that safe to say?

  Yes. I have never heard or seen such a thing, though. Not even a whisper of it. If it was planned, it was never done around me. Sergey had to have known about it, but he did not share it with me, which was unusual.

  You gave him the idea to talk his brothers into sharing a tiny piece of themselves to aid him in understanding their plans? Ferro wanted to make certain he was very clear on that.

  Again, there was a hesitation. Yes. It was long ago, Ferro. Centuries earlier. Xavier and the Malinovs were so treacherous. I thought I could at least manipulate Sergey a little bit.

  This is good news, not bad news, hän sívamak. Sergey will be unraveling the longer he is away from you. I am coming up to the lake and woods and do not want to put too much energy into the air. Stay quiet until I have need.

  15

  I can’t heal your scars or take away the pain;

  But I can be your shelter, a refuge all the same.

  As Ferro dropped into the woods, he was surrounded by an oppressive feel of utter gloom. Airless, stifling, even suffocating, the farther he drifted into the interior, the heavier the oppressive force surrounded him. There was no doubt that Sergey as well as other vampires had invaded the forest to the point that nature could not fight back against such an abomination.

  The vampire was unclean. Anything it touched withered. Blackened. No vegetation could remain alive and thriving near it. Everything about the vampire went against nature. As Ferro drifted through the trees, he noted that many of the trunks and branches were twisted into macabre shapes and already blackened in places.

  Dark sap ran down the deadened bark, like rivers of blood, to pool at the exposed roots. Birds, tree frogs and lizards were caught, held and died slow, ugly deaths in the thick acid-filled sap. Ferro, like all Carpathians, was a keeper of woods, of nature. The sight of a once-beautiful forest with the animals and fowl reduced to such a state was difficult to witness.

  Sandu, Benedek and Petru moved through the depressing woods as well, sizing up the dark, twisted trees, noting every position of the crows and owls that prowled the twisted branches with beady, shiny eyes, searching for any movement that would trigger their instantaneous response, a warning to their masters.

  Ferro gave thought to what Elisabeta had revealed to him. The Malinovs wanted to take over leadership. Theirs had been a total power play. They were brilliant generals, ambitious and driven, and had the discipline and patience to carry out their schemes. Sergey did not have the genius of his brothers when it came to planning battles. The vampire knew if he was going to have a chance to defeat the prince of the Carpathians, he would need Elisabeta.

  What had Sergey developed to cope with his brothers and their arrogance, even as a child? Sergey would have to be cunning. He would be crueler, because his brothers had been cruel to him. Merciless because his brothers had been merciless to him. He would wa
nt to dominate. He had shown those traits in his dealings with Elisabeta, in the way he treated her, even though she was the one to get him through those long centuries, and he needed her.

  He had stolen her when she’d been a child and he had already been a fully grown male Carpathian hunter. He had known what he was doing. He had planned the abduction carefully. He couldn’t possibly have known what Elisabeta was capable of—the defeat of his brothers. Did he give her credit for that? Or over the centuries did he convince himself that he was really the one with the genius? Of course he thought himself the genius.

  Ferro circled back around, moving to the outer area of the woods, back toward the lake, keeping to a very slow, drifting pace. It took a great deal of patience to stay almost still when time was a factor and the vampire would be coming soon, but he had honed that trait in centuries of hunting and had it in abundance.

  He doubted very much if Sergey gave Elisabeta any credit for defeating his brothers. The vampire was vain. He would believe that he was the true genius in the family. He had slivers of all of his brothers and the high mage. No one could defeat him. He was desperate to get to Elisabeta only because she kept his body from decomposing so rapidly and kept his emotions intact when she was around. She’d been his constant companion and he was used to her company.

  Sergey would tell himself all kinds of things, but deep down, he would be panicking, because all the things he could access before, like those slivers of his brothers’ genius, or the high mage’s spells, he could no longer reach. He would know, on some level, that without Elisabeta, he would not have access to the things that would allow him to rule.

  Yet even without any of those assets, Sergey was a cunning, cruel master vampire in his own right. He would be a vicious fighter. He had defeated more than one Carpathian hunter in battle. That had nothing to do with Elisabeta. Having skill in battle didn’t necessarily take genius. Sergey was willing to fight when he believed he could win, or when he was fighting for his life. Simply because he wasn’t what he appeared didn’t mean he was going to be easy to defeat in a battle, and it would be foolhardy to dismiss him as so.