“Then they might take offense to the fact that I’ve tried to destroy the local vampire settlement,” Roger said.
“They would have taken more offense before your change. Now, you can appeal to them as a new type of vampire. Tell them the vampire leadership in the local settlement is trying to destroy you, rather than allowing you to live in peace. Make it sound like you’re only defending yourself.”
“Yes,” Roger said thoughtfully. “I’ll make sure I have answers for everything this council might accuse us of. Those answers will make the blood whores seem like the aggressors. If we can gain protection from the vampires at the top, we can build our power without worrying about an attack.”
“Exactly!” Arawn said as Roger finally grasped the brilliance of his plan. “Of course, you’ll need vampires such as yourself speaking to the council.”
Roger frowned. “You’re right. I’ll need to use some of my more intelligent followers to pull this off.”
“Make sure one is a woman,” Arawn said.
Roger frowned, and Arawn knew he didn’t like the idea. From what he could tell, Roger didn’t believe women should be in positions of authority, which was an antiquated idea.
“Listen, the vampires are following the trend of treating women as equals. If you only send men, it will make you look like the barbarian the local vampires have painted you to be.”
Roger sighed. “I suppose you’re right. There are a few female fighters, and one of them must have at least an ounce of intelligence.”
Arawn nearly laughed at how skeptical Roger sounded. The man really didn’t seem to respect anyone, but women obviously ranked lower than any of the men. “I recommend you find someone passionate about their hatred of the local vampires. They need to have been wronged by them.”
“Or believe they’ve been wronged by them,” Roger said with a smirk.
Arawn hated to admit it, but Roger made a good point. “Yes, it would be easier to control the situation if you’ve created the scenario leading to that hatred. As long as they believe the local vampires are responsible, and you fan the hatred, it will work out perfectly. While this is all happening, you’ll need to strengthen your army. Get more humans turned and under your control. Keep some of them alive, because you may need them to prove your claim to be a harmless new vampire species.”
Roger nodded. “I’d planned to do that, but the vampires are closely guarding the nearby human settlements right now. It’s harder to find humans to infect with the new virus.”
“So, go further out to round them up,” Arawn said dismissively. “Steal a transport bus if you have to.”
“You make it sound so easy, but we don’t really have the advantage of knowing where all the human settlements are. Are you suggesting I send people out to wander aimlessly in search of settlements?”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to get the information you need,” Arawn said. “The local vampires know, so you could torture one until they tell you.”
Roger snorted. “That is a lot easier said than done. They’re all on high alert right now.”
“Things are going to work out,” Arawn said with a smile. “As to our conversation, you never saw me, and this plan was your own idea.” With that, Arawn faded away until he was no longer visible to Roger.
Roger blinked twice.
“Why the hell have I been moping around so long?” Roger muttered to himself. “Well, no more of that. It’s time for action. Time to make the blood whores pay. First order of business is to put together a reliable group to go to the vampire capital.” His brow furrowed in thought, like he was trying to grab hold of some elusive memory.
Arawn chuckled from his unseen place in the room. He always enjoyed the confusion when people almost recalled meeting him after he altered their memories. He could prevent that, but it was too much fun watching them struggle with memories that were just out of reach.
A knock at the door interrupted both of their thoughts. “What?” Roger called out irritably.
“There are two humans who just showed up at the gates asking to see you,” the guard said.
“Send them in,” Roger said, but then seemed to think better of meeting with strangers alone, “and send guards in with them.”
A tall man with a beard and thinning brown hair walked in holding the hand of a petite blonde woman. The proof of their hard lives was etched on the couple’s faces, not so much in the lines that came with age as with the tension, which probably never completely faded. Humans lived incredibly short lives, and any allure they had usually faded quickly. Arawn noticed that the process took much less time with the humans in the vampire territories.
Roger obviously recognized the two humans right away and wasn’t happy with them. Arawn decided to stick around a little longer since the situation might take a delightfully violent turn.
“Well,” Roger said irritably, “to what do I owe this belated visit? As I understand it, you should have been bringing me information all along.”
The man shrugged, trying to look calm, but the sweat on his brow made his fear all too obvious. “There was nothing to report, and it’s not exactly easy to get out of the settlement,” the man said, nearly shaking from nervousness. “We figured we’d wait until we had something to give you.”
“How do I know the information you’re bringing me isn’t part of some elaborate trap devised by the blood whores?” Roger demanded.
Arawn respected his paranoia. A smart man never trusted anyone.
The woman’s chin jutted forward stubbornly. “If we’d wanted to betray you, we could have told the vampires where to find you months ago. We’ve been loyal to you from the beginning and even lived with those creatures to help our cause.”
Roger nodded. “So, what excuse did you give the vampires for coming out here alone?”
“We told them we’re sick and tired of having our children schooled with vampires, and wanted to visit the Treasure Island settlement to see if they would let us move there,” she said with a bitterness that proved it wasn’t a complete lie.
“After we meet with you, we’ll go there so our story is more believable,” the man explained, pulling his hand away from his wife’s and rubbing it against the leg of his pants. “We already know Treasure Island isn’t accepting any new residents, so they’ll turn us away.”
“Good thinking,” Roger said, looking as surprised as Arawn felt. Both humans looked like simple idiots but obviously had devious streaks. “So, what do you have for me?” Roger asked.
After a moment of fumbling around, the man pulled out a roll of papers from a pocket inside his jacket. “We have maps with locations of the human settlements within one hundred miles of here. We figured you could use them to recruit more people for the cause.”
Roger took the papers and studied them carefully before looking up at the couple. “How did you get your hands on these?”
“I clean at the training center after hours,” the woman explained. “There are rooms with computers that have all sorts of information on them. Once I learned how to use those computers, I found out how to locate the maps. It’s not a secret, so there are no passwords.”
“She’s been working on this for two months,” the man said. “She had to copy the maps by hand, and paper’s not easy to come by.”
Roger nodded. “You’ve done very well.”
The man preened like some ridiculous peacock under Roger’s praise. “Can we move our family here now?” the man asked hopefully. “You have no idea how hard it is to see our children fraternizing with vampires.”
“We got them all vaccinated against the Moon virus, but I’m still terrified one of them will end up being turned into one of those filthy vampires,” the woman added with a shudder.
“Soon,” Roger assured her. “For now, it’s essential that you continue to gather information for me. This settlement isn’t safe yet, but I’m working to remedy that.”
The man nodded, clearly disappointed. “We’ll brin
g you anything we can,” he said.
Roger made inane small talk with the couple, which nearly bored Arawn to tears. All the while, Roger seemed to work hard to keep his fangs concealed. Arawn only stuck around to see if he’d slip. The human couple would not be happy discovering that their respected leader was a vampire, and Arawn almost wished they’d find out so Roger would have an excuse to kill them. Sadly, there was no drama before the couple left.
His plan was progressing even better than Arawn had anticipated. Now Roger had the information he needed to begin building his army. While things were moving forward nicely, Arawn decided it would be best to stay in the shadows to make sure Roger didn’t screw this up.
Chapter Six
Danny was beginning to hate his days off rotation. Those days, he only had about an hour of training, and the rest of the day was his own to do as he pleased. When he’d first arrived at the vampire settlement, free time had seemed like a good thing. The discovery of computers gave him something to do and opened up a whole new world to him. Some of the things he’d learned using computers shocked him. The technology and history had been enough to keep him glued to the screen for hours.
Growing up, he’d been pretty sheltered, with only limited information about the world available to him. He’d rarely spoken to humans from other settlements, and had considered all vampires enemies. After about a month, Danny’s zest for research subsided some, and he discovered online games and movies. Well, he’d also discovered naked pictures and dirty movies, and those had definitely kept his interest for a little while too. It’s not like he was a virgin, but some of the stuff they’d done in those movies had never even occurred to him.
All of those things were still relatively new but not nearly as exciting as they’d been in the beginning. A lot of it had to do with the funk he’d gotten into lately. Part of that was his inability to accept Ian’s death. It was ironic that he was having so much trouble with it, considering all the deaths he’d dealt with in his twenty-seven years of life. Six months ago, Danny had believed all vampires were evil. Then again, Ian hadn’t thought very highly of humans, not that Danny had blamed him.
Ian’s wife and daughter had been brutally murdered by humans, and his daughter’s broken body had been returned to the vampire settlement to make a point. Of course, Ian had taken things to an extreme and been banned from feeding on humans because he’d become too vicious. Ian was also a moody motherfucker on a good day. Danny decided from the beginning that he was going to be Ian’s friend. Why? He still didn’t know the answer to that. Maybe his friend Layla was right about him thriving on being a pain in the ass. His determination to win Ian over had really pissed the vampire off at first.
The knock at his front door was a welcome interruption from his brooding. It was a surprise to find Mitchell at the door with a vaguely familiar girl. The girl had probably lived at the settlement where he’d grown up, but she was at least ten years younger than him, so they’d likely never interacted.
“What’s up, Mitchell?” he asked and put out a hand.
Mitchell took it, hesitant as always. Mitchell was a turned vampire, like none they’d ever run into before. While most turned vampires died before they changed, Mitchell’s heart continued to beat as long as he got enough blood. This was due to a new version of the Moon virus that had been created to destroy the born vampires. People infected with it seemed to live for a short time after the virus turned them into vampires, making the transformation more like what happened with the born vampires. Most weren’t given very much blood, so their hearts stopped beating within a week and they became undead tools.
No one could figure out why Mitchell’s heart had continued to beat so long on so little blood, but they didn’t want to risk having it stop, so Mitchell had to be careful not to skip any meals. A lot of people were afraid Mitchell would end up becoming a mindless killing machine. In truth, Danny had felt that way at first too, but he’d spent a lot of time with Mitchell in the last several months and really liked him. Mitchell had been basically adopted by Ian and now lived with Danny’s friend Layla and her vampire mate, Simon.
“I need help with something,” Mitchell said a little nervously.
“Come on in,” Danny said, ushering both teens into the small house he now had to himself. He’d shared a home with Mark until about a week ago, when Mark had decided he needed his own space to pursue a female vampire. Since he had no interest in listening to Mark have sex at night, Danny was grateful for his friend’s decision to move.
“This is Faith,” Mitchell said, pointing to the awkward looking brunette beside him. The girl’s short hair had been common among the women in the human settlement. Her round face and doe-like brown eyes made her look young, but with her curvy build, Danny guessed she was at least sixteen.
“It’s nice to meet you, Faith,” Danny said gently. He avoided reaching out to shake her hand because the girl looked like she was about to faint. “I’m sure I saw you at the island settlement before.”
Faith nodded, giving him a shy smile. “I remember you. You’re friends with the wood nymph.”
“Raven,” Danny corrected, because it bothered him when people labeled Raven like she was an outsider. “Her name is Raven.”
The girl ducked her head. “Yeah, I knew that. We never talked.”
“I need you to help us with something,” Mitchell said, looking Danny directly in the eyes. Danny was impressed with Mitchell’s determined expression. While Mitchell might be nervous, he wasn’t going to cower. “Faith is pregnant.”
“Your baby?” Danny asked. Most turned vampires couldn’t procreate, but that was because they were technically dead. He figured that, since Mitchell was alive, maybe he could also father children.
“No!” Faith said quickly. “Mitchell is just my friend.”
Mitchell’s cheeks flushed slightly. “Yeah, I didn’t even know Faith when it happened. I just started going to school recently, so we only met a couple weeks ago.”
“Alright,” Danny said, slightly amused by how embarrassed Mitchell was. “I’m not really sure what I can do to help you with a pregnancy. Is it a problem with the father?”
“Sort of,” Faith admitted without looking up from her lap.
“He’s a vampire,” Mitchell said. “Before you get the wrong idea, he’s not a jerk or anything like that. He was one of the first people who tried to make me feel welcome at school. It’s just that his parents hate humans, and Faith’s parents hate vampires.”
“So, you want to end the pregnancy?” Danny asked. At the settlement where he’d grown up, there hadn’t been a lot of options for dealing with unwanted pregnancies, but as he understood things, she could end the pregnancy with an easily obtained pill. “Are you asking me to drive you to the business district?”
Faith shook her head vigorously. “We both want to have the baby, but our parents are really mad. My parents are trying to force me to end the pregnancy, and his are trying to keep us apart. I’m afraid my parents will get desperate and find a way to trick me into taking the pill.”
Danny ran his fingers through his messy, dark red hair and sighed. This was going to be a major pain in the ass, and he didn’t really have the authority to do much for Faith. “You should really talk to Connor about this, since he’s in charge. I don’t think there’s anything I can do for you.”
“Please, Danny,” Mitchell begged. “Connor and Raven went out to the nymph settlement to deal with the backlash from what happened with Narissa.”
Danny had completely forgotten about Connor leaving that day. A wood nymph by the name of Narissa had helped capture and torture Simon. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d also tried to kidnap Raven. Connor had agreed to let the nymphs handle her punishment but still wanted to follow up on the details with the nymphs.
“Why me?” Danny asked. “Not that I’m trying to say you can’t come to me, but I just don’t get why you’d pick me for this sort of thing.”
“I’
d go to Simon, but then Layla would get involved,” Mitchell explained.
Danny laughed and put up a hand. “Okay, you don’t need to go any further with that explanation. Layla can get kind of pissy about stuff like this, and she’s been even more aggressive since her first change. You’re looking for someone who won’t go over and confront both sets of parents, right?”
“I know it has to be done eventually,” Faith admitted, “but for now, I just want to think about the baby. Please don’t tell me I’m too young to be a mother. I know that already, but it is what it is, and we’ll figure out a way to make it work.”
Danny hadn’t been considering saying that at all, and was a little surprised she’d even think of that. People her age had kids all the time where he’d grown up. When you didn’t have birth control, pregnancy happened more frequently in teens. It was just the way things were. “Why isn’t the father here?” Danny asked. That didn’t sit right with him. Even if his parents didn’t want them together, the kid should have been there dealing with this too, not letting Faith handle it on her own.
“His parents won’t let him out of the house,” Mitchell explained, with just a hint of disgust in his voice. “He hasn’t shown up for school in a few days.”
Danny suspected Mitchell was working hard to keep from sounding angry for Faith’s sake.
“Are you sure he’s okay?” Danny asked, wondering if he was going to end up needing to go check on the kid. If his parents hated humans, they might hurt the kid for getting one pregnant.
Mitchell nodded. “I heard from one of his friends that he’s fine, other than missing Faith and worrying about her.”
Danny really did not want to be involved in this mess, but he couldn’t very well turn his back on Faith.
“Fine, I’ll think about this and see what I can do,” Danny said, still having no idea what exactly he was supposed to do.
“There’s a drug that can counteract the one to end a pregnancy,” Mitchell said.
That made Danny wonder why they’d need something to counteract a voluntary drug. Then he realized that he probably didn’t want to know. “I’ll see what I can do,” Danny assured them.
Seducing Death Page 5