“I’m not lying.” The man’s unswollen eye flicked to hers and then away. “Doing what Helene wanted me to was just following orders from higher up. She was never my employer.” He spoke as though the facts should be obvious.
A large hand crept around the man’s neck and tightened just enough that his eyes bulged. The look on Fergus’s face was feral.
“Watch ye tone, human,” the Scotsman growled, the promise of pain dripping from every word. As much as Gabi loved and trusted Fergus, when he got that look in his eye, even she wouldn’t dare to cross him. He was a far more powerful Vampire than he ever let on, and, more than once in the last few months, she’d glimpsed a much darker beast beneath his unflappable facade.
“The Dhampir’s mother is safe,” the man rasped, his face turning an unpleasant puce. Julius cleared his throat and Fergus gave the man a slight shake before releasing him. He fell forward, his forehead touching the carpet as he coughed raggedly.
“The clock is ticking,” Gabi told him, without an iota of pity or compassion. “None of the Vampires in this room have fed tonight; you are getting more tempting by the second.”
The man pulled himself upright again, his face was almost back to normal colour, but a dark red mark encircled his throat. “She will be kept safe and healthy as long as I am kept the same way.”
“Don’t lie to us,” Benedict warned mildly.
“Fine. As long as I am kept alive. They don’t really care about my health and safety.” The man sounded resigned to his fate. “I am the go-between; if you kill me, there is no one to convey messages. They have no one else they consider as expendable as me at this point in time. Negotiations will break down; your mother will no longer be a useful bargaining chip.” He broke down coughing once more.
“Someone give him some water,” Gabi growled, jamming her hands on her hips so that she didn’t give in to her need to pummel him. “And no more choking him.” She glared at Fergus, who nodded once, but the jagged scar across his face twitched in the way it did when he was suppressing amusement. The Scotsman was already envisioning other types of persuasion.
Mac approached the man with an open bottle of water. He held it steady while the man took several longs swallows, but looked like he’d rather be yanking out the man’s entrails with his bare hands.
“Why did they take her?” Gabi demanded as soon as Mac recapped the bottle and resumed his vigilant stance a few feet away.
“They wanted to get your attention.” He shrugged awkwardly. “In such a way that you couldn’t ignore them again.”
“Where is she?” Gabi enunciated each word clearly.
“I can’t tell you that,” he said dismissively before realising his mistake. He swayed back, turning his face away as Gabi stalked forward, the red mist just beginning to swirl in at the edges of her vision. “I swear. I don’t know. You could torture me to within an inch of death, and I still wouldn’t be able to tell you. Do you really think they’d send me in here if I had that kind of information?” The words rushed out desperately, but they rang with truth, and Gabi knew one of the others would’ve called him on it if they had scented a lie. No one said a word, but Julius’s strong presence washed away the red. She rolled her head across her shoulders, trying to ease the tension cramping her muscles.
“Who is your employer?” Julius asked, still a pace behind her. “And why do they want our attention so badly?”
“My employer is not a they but a he,” the man answered. “He is known by many names, but the one I know is Eka.”
“Eka?” Benedict echoed. “As in ‘One’?”
“As far as I know, I don’t personally speak Sanskrit though.” The man’s sass was returning.
“So he is Number One? Decuria’s top dog?” Benedict ignored his disrespectful tone.
“I only know him as Master Eka. He is many things to many people,” the man told him.
“Enough with the cryptic crap,” Gabi interjected. “Is he or isn’t he one of the Decuria? No lies.” Her annoyance had Razor stalking forward, puffing out his substantial fur coat as he neared the man and allowed a low growl to rumble up from deep in his chest.
“Yes, he’s one of the Ten,” the man said with less sass this time. A muscle twitched in his bruised jaw as his eyes fastened on the cat.
“What does he want?” Julius growled. “I think we’ve made it clear where our loyalty lies.”
“He would like to speak with you and the Dhampir.” All hint of subterfuge was now gone; he seemed serious. “He believes he has information you are looking for. He believes you may be able to exchange…favours.”
“What do you mean?” Suspicion etched Julius’s words.
“I don’t know the details.” He shrugged again. “I don’t get entrusted with such information. I am purely here to open the lines of communication. To assure you of the Dhampir’s mother’s safety. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“But you are the current Sicarius?” Benedict asked, his expression unreadable.
The man nodded.
Gabi raised an eyebrow at the Princep.
“The Decuria have a resident assassin at all times,” he explained. “Several apprentices are trained and brainwashed to do exactly as they’re told without hesitation or question. When the position opens up, the top-performing apprentice takes up the mantle of Sicarius. As long as he is in the position, he no longer has his own name, he is only referred to as Sicarius.”
The man didn’t make any sign of disagreement.
“And they’re always human?” Gabi was surprised.
“No, not always,” Benedict said. “It seems to depend on their need at the time. I have known of one Werewolf and a couple of Vampires over the years, but they are a secretive lot. You rarely get one in this position; they must have another strong apprentice in training to be risking this one’s life so blatantly.”
“Why does it feel like we’ve met more than once before?” Gabi asked, turning back to the human as another wave of déjà vu rolled through her, this time not so much in relation to his physical appearance, but to something else entirely.
The tiniest hint of a smile curled the unbloodied side of his mouth.
“You’ve been in my crosshairs more than once,” he admitted. “I’ve been tasked with watching you. In between my other…assignments…”
“What?” Gabi was appalled. And then several things clicked into place. “Hang on.” The picture those things revealed shocked her. “It’s been you for months, hasn’t it? I can feel you, sense you, but I can’t get a read on you. I’ve been thinking it was the Dark Magus, but it’s been you all along.”
The man’s slight smile grew wider, cracking a fresh scab on the bloodied side of his face. “They figured you’d be able to sense a supernatural, so we were experimenting. Actually your ESP, or whatever you call it, is extremely well-tuned. If I simply watch you from afar through my scope, you continue life as normal. But the moment I put my finger on the trigger, you invariably look around, put your hand to the back of your neck, as though something had prickled up your spine.” His voice had lost the arrogant edge; he actually sounded impressed.
“I still don’t understand why the Decuria use humans?” Kyle interrupted their powwow.
“It’s easier for me to travel, go places, do things,” he replied simply. “I don’t have the Vampire problem with sunlight and feeding, I don’t have the Werewolf issue at full moon, I don’t have the Magi or Shape-shifter moral code, and I’m expendable.”
“Why do you do it?” Gabi was intrigued and more than a little suspicious. It was one thing to understand a human accepted into the Decurian fold; she could understand them bending the rules to their own ends, but what made that human want to become a part of that dark, dangerous world?
“He wants to be Turned,” Benedict guessed. “That explains his skillset and questionable ethics. They would’ve studied his background and personality before approaching him. Once they were sure they had the right man for
the job, they offered him immortality in exchange for fixed-length servitude.”
“Not to mention a great salary package and retirement annuity,” the man quipped. “The health insurance sucks though.”
“Dead is dead; the risk is all yours, ey?” Benedict’s eyes were narrowed shrewdly. Benedict seemed to know an awful lot about the Decuria.
“But the rewards…” The man trailed off. Gabi wasn’t sure what fabulous rewards he’d been promised, but she didn’t like the look in his eye. She might not be able to eliminate him right now, but soon, before he achieved his Vampire status, they would face off on an even playing field, she vowed to herself.
“Was it you who tried to kill her in the car?” Alexander asked. It was only yesterday afternoon that Gabi had been reminded of the attempt on her life. At the time, they’d concluded that it had been ordered by Helene, as she’d been so intent on eliminating the person she thought stood between herself and Julius, but they’d never been able to confirm it.
“Yes,” the man said simply. “I was under orders to keep Helene happy.”
“You almost killed me,” Gabi hissed. “And one of my best friends.”
“I had to make it look good,” he shrugged, “or she would’ve suspected I wasn’t her loyal lapdog. You were never in any true danger. If I’d meant to kill you, you wouldn’t be here.” His previous air of egotism had vanished; he was simply stating fact.
“So the Decuria have never wanted Gabi dead?” Julius asked. He sounded composed, but Gabi could sense the seething anger coiling through him. It was seeping through the wall he’d erected between them.
“Of course not.” The man seemed surprised by the question. “She is too valuable to simply eliminate. But she is a key player, one who has the power to swing the balance too far.” He cocked his head to the side to look at Benedict. “You didn’t really think a play like this would be disregarded by your opposition?” Gabi was surprised that this man seemed aware that Benedict was one of the Lucis.
“You’ve got our attention. Now what does your employer want?” Julius overrode the sideline conversation.
“How about untying me and letting me get off the floor?” the man asked. “You know I’m not going anywhere, and I’m hardly a threat without a weapon in my hands. We could all pretend to be civilised. And I’m starving; that food looks like it’s going to waste.” He shifted his weight, his knees obviously beginning to ache. Razor growled again. “Okaaaay, I won’t have the food, geesh,” he muttered.
Gabi realised they weren’t accomplishing anything by keeping him on the floor. He wasn’t cowed by the presence of the Vampires, and he would tell them what he would tell them and nothing more. She gave Fergus a brief nod and backed away from the man, putting some space between them and calling Razor after her. He could always have some fun with the man once they were done with him. Mac ghosted closer, inserting himself between Gabi and the assassin as Fergus pulled a large dagger with a curved blade and fine point to slice through whatever Benedict had bound the man’s hands with. He was none too gentle about his task by the way the man flinched.
“Search him,” Gabi told the Scotsman as Benedict tossed him a key to unlock the chain. “Thoroughly.”
“Take away his boots,” Kyle said before taking a seat at the table and digging into the box of pastries.
Murphy joined him, an unreadable expression on his face. It wasn’t often that SID dealt with other humans; Gabi wondered how he felt trying to absorb all of this. He simply watched without comment as Sicarius got stiffly to his feet and toed off his dark boots, without untying the laces.
“No sudden moves, assassin,” Mac warned. “Murphy here doesn’t like blood all over his computers.”
Sicarius was divested of his jacket and belt, and Mac thoroughly patted him down before kicking the removed boots and clothing out the door and shutting it firmly to stand with his back to it and his arms folded. Neither he nor Fergus took their eyes off the man. Gabi couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it was that had the two men so on edge. She should’ve been the one on edge. She was the one the man had been following, she was the one he’d taken a shot at, it was her mother the man had helped to kidnap, yet she suddenly felt clear-headed. Perhaps it was that her ESP, which had been for months trying to warn her of his presence, had finally gone quiet. Perhaps it was that she knew her mother was safe, for now at least. Of course, it was possible this man was a consummate liar, but something deep inside her trusted what he said. If he’d been the one following her for months, and her gut told her he was, he’d had hundreds of opportunities to kill her.
Fergus shoved him towards the table and pushed him down into a chair opposite her. Gabi pushed one of the boxes of food over in his direction. He wasted no time, devouring the food like a half-starved dog.
“You get doses of Vampire blood,” Julius noted. He hadn’t taken a seat and was standing just behind Gabi’s left shoulder. From the corner of her eye she saw Murphy’s hand twitch and he sat back in his chair, pulling his hands from sight. Frequent consumption of Vampire blood could lead to an addiction, one that haunted its captives as badly as heroin or crack cocaine. One that she didn’t yet know if she was susceptible to.
“Of course,” Sicarius acknowledged, around a mouthful of chocolate croissant. “It makes a person strong and fast, but it chews through calories. I keep telling Eka he should market it as a weight-loss drug. He’d make billions.” He was eating the food so fast that even Kyle’s eyebrows rose. Gabi had met a few humans hyped on Vamp blood, Murphy and Sasha were two of them, and none of them ever seemed as self-controlled as this man.
“You’ve been taking it a long time, not like the two goons at Court?” Gabi guessed. The brief flashback of him stabbing the second man gave her a shiver, reminding her that this man wasn’t anything close to trustworthy. A timely warning perhaps.
“Give us your message. You’re wasting our time.” Benedict sounded bored, but the intensity in his eyes as Gabi shot him a look gave him away.
“Fine,” the man muttered around another mouthful. He produced a slightly rumpled envelope from somewhere inside his shirt and held it out to Julius. Gabi could feel nothing of her Consort’s emotions during the three seconds it took him to reach for the missive.
CHAPTER 7
“It’s madness. You can’t be considering this, Julius,” Benedict thundered.
Gabi and Alexander kept their distance from the two Magus Vampires having a stand-off just a few feet apart. The four of them had retreated to the comfort of the entertainment room, with its gas fire, deep sofas and well-stocked bar, while Mac and Fergus escorted the Decurian assassin known as Sicarius to his new place of residence: the cell block set aside for newly Turned Vampires. A reported weak spot in the Veil had called Kyle back to CenOps, and Murphy had been left to work his magic on the micro USB card that had accompanied the handwritten letter. It had contained a single digital photograph of her mother at a small table in an opulently furnished dining room. She was looking directly at the photographer and she looked pissed, but alive and healthy.
“What other choice do I have?” Julius’s voice had dropped an octave; others might have mistaken his pain for rage. “Do you prefer the option of all-out war between the Lucis and the Decuria? Is that the way you’d rather go?” They were all on edge, waiting for the set of travel instructions the letter had said would arrive at midnight tomorrow.
“We can take time to discuss this; I’ll call a meeting of the Higher Order,” Benedict insisted.
“Twenty-four hours is not enough time to put this to debate,” Julius growled. “Put your efforts into getting us more information on Eka; we need to know what we’re walking into.” It was a rare thing to see Julius so close to the edge; Gabi needed to pull him back from it.
She strode forward with her hands on her hips. “What did the letter mean about the Vodun priest? Who is the Vodun priest?”
Julius’s glare stayed locked on Benedict for another second befor
e he turned to her, rubbing the back of his neck as though he had a headache. She didn’t think Vampires actually got headaches. His expression was unreadable. She’d raised the question in order to defuse the confrontation between him and Benedict, but it was a pertinent question, one she wanted answered. This Vodun priest, whoever he was, was integral to the negotiations that would see her mother freed, and she’d never even heard of him.
Julius turned to study a large abstract of a stormy ocean, but she knew he wasn’t ignoring her, simply gathering his thoughts.
“The Vodun priest he is referring to is Tabari,” he told her at last, his attention still fixed on the painting. “You know that Tabari is from Africa, but specifically, he is from Southern Ghana. In his village his mother was the Vodun priestess; she was considered very powerful.”
Gabi frowned. She knew a little about West African Vodun, mostly that it was similar but not identical to the Haitian and South American Voodoo belief systems. She’d grown to like and trust the tall, dark-skinned Vampire who was fiercely loyal to Julius, but he’d made her distinctly uneasy the first few times she’d met him. She’d never been able to pinpoint the reason his presence disturbed her, and Julius’s revelation stunned her a little. She took several seconds to digest the news.
“If his mother was a Vodun priestess, she would’ve been a Dark Magus, wouldn’t she?” she asked at last, sifting through the snippets Byron had told her of the more arcane religions. “Which means Tabari has Magi blood. Is he like you and Benedict?”
Julius spun around at that, and Benedict’s head snapped up. By the looks on their faces neither of them had considered that possibility.
“He never came into his powers,” Julius said, his expression dark as his eyes met Benedict’s. “He always told me that his mother’s power had skipped him. He was an only child, so it was expected he would ascend to her position when she died, but he swore he never displayed any signs of having the gift. Though she taught him the rituals and the essence of her religion, he was never able to manifest the powers.” Julius broke off and Gabi had the sense that there was more to the story, but that it was not Julius’s place to reveal those details. She trusted him to tell her what she needed to know.
There'll be Hell to Pay (Hellcat Series Book 6) Page 9