Bert started to bark furiously.
“Bert! Get down here!”
He obeyed me, skittering to a stop in front of me before wheeling around and engaging in another bark fest. The door swung inward and the shadowy form of a lycan hovered in the darkness of the house.
I’m Eva LeRoy. Where’s my daughter?
The creature growled menacingly. Its snout emerged from the doorway, followed by its big, furry face. The rest of its body remained in shadow.
My heart leapt into my chest as fear pumped through me. I had no experience with kicking ass. If that thing attacked, Bert and I were lycan chow.
“Now, now. There’s no reason to be rude.” A tall, thin man emerged from the doorway. His legs were so long he crossed the porch in two strides and leapt over the broken stairs. His eyes sparkled. His brown hair was pulled back into a queue. He wore white from head to toe—a short-sleeved shirt, white dress pants, and shiny white shoes. His face was gaunt, his chin pointy. He looked like a too tall elf. Gold hoops, two each, sparkled from both ears. His thin lips were pulled into a smile, but it wasn’t friendly. He looked at Bert for a second too long.
The Great Dane stopped barking and whined instead. He ducked his massive head and scurried behind me. His reaction freaked me out. Animals were very intuitive. If he felt scared of this man, I should probably be terrified.
“Where’s my daughter?” I demanded. My experiences with Faustus and Nefertiti had taught me that I had power. A lot of power. I knew I had barely tapped into it, but I was willing to risk that my intuition was correct if it meant saving my daughter.
“She is alive and well.” A Russian accent tinged his words. He looked at Nefertiti. “Though Nefertiti is an excellent prevaricator, she tries harder when she thinks she’s double-crossing someone.”
“She lied about the beasts kidnapping Tamara,” I accused. “She would’ve brought me here no matter what.”
Nefertiti sure was consistent in her evil. I wanted to make her go pet the nasty lycan staring at me from the busted doorway. I searched the house. The front windows were completely dark. Other than the lycan, there were no signs of life.
“I want to see Tamara.”
“In due time.” He studied me. “I didn’t account for your abilities. Your powers are very strong.” I half expected him to end the sentence with “young Jedi,” because he was seriously putting on an Obi-Wan Kenobi act. Instead, I muttered, “Hooray for me.”
His eyes flashed with humor. “It doesn’t matter how you got here, only that you did.” He looked at Nefertiti and shook his head. “She will not be happy to know that you are capable of controlling her.” He snapped his fingers and Nefertiti blinked.
“What’s going on?” she asked, plucking at the gold curtain. It didn’t take her long to figure it out. “You!” She rounded on me, her eyes going flat with cold anger. “Never glamour me again, you Turn-blood bitch.”
“Threaten me again,” I said softly, “and I’ll make sure you walk off a cliff.” A short one, so that the fall would only hurt her. I didn’t value her life all that much, but I liked Johnny and I didn’t want to endanger him.
She lunged, hands aimed at my throat. The man grabbed her shoulder. “Calm yourself, Nefertiti. You have been bested. Deal with it.”
Her hands flopped to her sides, but her fists clenched as if she might risk punching me. If looks could stake, I’d be one dead vampire.
“Return to your feline form and go to your post.”
Nefertiti dropped her makeshift toga, grasped her ankh, and said the spell that turned her into Lucifer. She sauntered by me, tail whipping, and raked my ankle with her claws.
“Ow!” I tried to kick her, but she took off at a full run. I bent down to look at the wound. Red dotted my skin, but it was already healing from the strike. “She’s meaner than Naomi Campbell.”
He chuckled. “It seems your dog has abandoned you.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw Bert loping away, toward the direction we’d walked from. I was glad he was getting out of danger, but I felt less brave without him.
“Shall we go inside?”
“I’d rather see my daughter.” Fear that I had kept at bay now skittered up my spine.
“Let’s have a chat first. You should probably know that I’ve launched a little attack on Broken Heart. Everyone will be quite busy for a while.” He extended his arm in the direction of the house, as if he were a host instead of a lying kidnapper.
“You managed to regain control of your rebellion?” I asked. “Or there was no rebellion at all?”
“I have the same gifts you do, Eva. What do you think?”
The same gifts as me? I stared at the house. I did not want to go through that door. “I suppose I have no choice.”
“That’s not true. You can choose to walk with me into my humble abode or you can choose for me to carry you in there.”
“I’ll walk.” I fell into step next to him. I couldn’t begin to describe how nervous I felt. No, “nervous” wasn’t the right word. I was scaling the heights to terror-stricken. “Do you have a name or should I just call you panjandrum?”
“That’s very unkind,” he responded. Humor laced his tone. “I am neither pompous nor pretentious. However, better a panjandrum, my dear, than a gobemouche like yourself.”
“I am not gullible,” I protested weakly. I couldn’t help but be impressed with his knowledge of weird vocabulary. If he wasn’t a bad guy, we might’ve had a grand time out-wording each other. He helped me over the stairs and the porch, then led me past the guard at the door. Whew. The beast smelled like rotting cabbage.
After creaking down the hallway with its cracked linoleum and peeling wallpaper, we entered a sumptuous room with bright colors and comfy furniture. It was luxury at its finest.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said as we settled onto a fluffy blue couch. “Who are you?”
“Please forgive me,” he said, his eyes glowing red for a split second. “My name is Koschei.”
Chapter 25
“You’re an Ancient? You’re my—” Vampire father? Family chieftain? Evil leader? “Does the council know you’re a bad guy?”
“Bad guy?” He laughed heartily. “The council rules its children, not its members. We make the laws. You follow them. Ah, Eva. You really are a gobemouche. Good and evil are a matter of perspective.”
“I thought it more a matter of intent.”
“Hmm. What shapes the intention of the act? A thief who steals bread to feed his hungry son is a good man doing a bad thing. A thief who steals bread to make a profit for himself is a bad man doing a bad thing.” He waved his hand in dismissal and I saw the length of his fingernails. Who would keep their nails that shiny and sharp if not to use them as weapons?
I turned my attention back to the conversation. He hadn’t gone through all the trouble to get me here just so we could have a discussion about ethics.
“So you believe it is not the act but the intention that determines what is good and what is evil?” he asked.
“I think good and evil are straightforward. And usually the people who tout shades-of-gray moral philosophy are trying to justify their own actions. Their evil actions.”
“Or perhaps people who tout black-and-white moral philosophy have yet to commit an act that is considered evil but comes from good intent.”
I sank lower into the couch. My lab coat felt very thin. One wrong cross of the legs and I would reveal just how naked I was under it. I felt vulnerable and uncertain. I couldn’t quite believe I was sitting across from the creator of my Family. Had Koschei been a good man when Ruadan Turned him? Had he turned evil—or had he hidden it?
“What do you want from me?” I asked. My voice trembled. I cleared my throat.
“Not what you think, lycan whisperer.” He grinned at his joke. He tapped his long nail against his chin. “I find it fascinating that you experience telepathy with humans who can take animal forms, but my little e
xperiments haven’t rebelled. Another red herring, I’m afraid.”
Stan had said the Wraiths were cloning blood and mutating it even more. I was reminded of Damian’s story about rounding up his brethren to create a perfect army. Was Koschei trying to do the same thing with vampires?
“You’ve been cured of the taint, Eva—or haven’t you noticed?”
I had noticed that I felt normal. The lethargy and confusion that had plagued me ceaselessly two days ago had disappeared. “Cured? That’s impossible. There is no . . .” My voice trailed off. There was a cure. The one that had worked for Lorcan. Had I been transfused with royal lycan blood, too? You’d think that would be something I would remember—if not doing, at least agreeing to do.
Koschei’s amber eyes snared mine. I couldn’t look away. I felt as though I was falling into that gaze until I was surrounded by jade, floating in it as though it were an ocean. I felt buoyed and safe.
“I command you to remember,” said Koschei in a familiar voice that was so soothing, so compelling. “Remember all that you have done.”
Memories flashed. Lorcan loves me, begs for death. The images flip forward. Lorcan and I make love. I tear out his throat, drink his blood.
Oh, my God.
“It’s not true,” I whispered. “I would never do that.” But I knew that I had. No wonder Lorcan had imprisoned me. I had tried to kill him.
“Those who suffer from the taint lose their ability to differentiate between reality and fantasy. I found it easy to get inside your mind and make you see what I wanted.” He grinned. “You’ve done an evil act, Eva. Oh, don’t be so horrified. Think about how you have a comparison for our opposing viewpoints.”
“I was coerced.”
“Interesting, that. You coerced Nefertiti to get what you wanted.”
I resisted the urge to defend myself. I wasn’t a bad person. I did what I had to do. He was confusing the issue, trying to make me think I was like him.
“Why would you want me to hurt Lorcan?”
“I didn’t want you to hurt him. I wanted you to rip out his throat.” He leaned back and crossed his legs. “But something interesting happened. His blood cured you of the taint.”
Hope wound through me. Did Lorcan hold the key to a real cure? Koschei could say whatever he liked. I wouldn’t believe I was healthy until Stan himself gave me the news. Just like I wouldn’t believe Tamara was okay until I saw her with my own two eyes.
“Lorcan’s holding the key for the taint would’ve been a problem if not for you. Now I can kill him and keep you.”
Koschei was not just evil—he was insane.
“You can’t be sure my blood will cure the taint. Lorcan may be the direct source.”
“We can do tests on him while we torture him to death. Two birds with one stone.”
My terror was overwhelming. I didn’t trust that my thoughts were my own. Koschei was powerful; he might be able to monitor my attempts to connect to Damian. I wouldn’t call Lorcan—he would try to rescue me and be killed for his efforts.
“Of course, we will do the necessary tests on you first.” He rose suddenly and held out his hand to me. “Come, Eva.”
I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want to obey him. But I found myself rising and taking his hand. My entire body tingled, then pop! We were standing in a dimly lit and dank basement. I could sense that there were things in the room— boxes stacked against walls, tables just outside the rim of light from the single bulb. We walked through this part to another section, which was brightly lit.
A man was chained to the wall. He looked like roadkill and smelled worse. His hair was stringy and oily, and he wore nothing but a pair of black boxers. The moment he saw Koschei, his eyes went red and his fangs emerged. He screamed and struggled, but his words were incomprehensible.
“Let me introduce you to Ron. He was the leader of the Wraiths. Now he’s just a pathetic vampire dying from the taint.” Koschei waved at Ron as if he was merely the busboy and the basement was a country club. “By the way, he’s the one who infected you.”
My stomach jumped in revulsion. Oh, God. This poor soul had bitten me? For the first time, anger flared, burning away some of my fear. “Why did you give me the taint?”
“Haven’t we established I want to kill Lorcan? And I couldn’t get to him, so I figured I’d kill some of his happiness first.”
“Two birds, one stone,” I muttered. “I get it.” Giving me the taint was a backup. If I failed to murder Lorcan, I would still reinfect him. Instead, Lorcan’s blood had healed me.
We continued walking, but I was reluctant to delve farther into the dank space. It smelled terrible and felt oppressive. I prayed that my daughter was not being kept in this place. Where was she? She must be so scared.
“Master?”
“Oh, look,” said Koschei. “It’s my newest walking refreshment stand.”
We turned to face the man who’d called to Koschei. I nearly retched. “Charlie?”
My former donor looked awful. His clothes were stained and torn, his hair was dirty, and one lens of his glasses was cracked. But his color worried me the most. His skin was grayish white; he looked like a walking corpse. Even though he was the reason I had been drugged and given the taint, he had been my friend. I didn’t want him to suffer.
“What did you do to him?”
“I would think that after his terrible betrayal, you’d be grateful I’d punished him.”
“You punish those who do your bidding?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t glamour him. I told him that if he did as I asked, I would give him . . . you. And the fool believed me.” His grin flashed. “In his greed to possess you, he put aside his principles. Isn’t that evil?”
“Only if desperation is evil.”
“You are so droll.” Koschei grabbed Charlie by the shoulder and sank his fangs into Charlie’s neck. My friend’s eyes glazed over, his hands pushing ineffectively at the vampire. After he was done drinking, Koschei grinned at me again, his teeth red with Charlie’s blood. “Would you like some?”
My gorge rose. “Leave him alone. Please.”
“How prettily you beg. No. No. I have claimed Charlie. He is my donor, drone, and doormat. Aren’t you, my boy?”
“Yes, Master.”
His dull gaze swept over me without a flicker of recognition. Is this how his life had been for the last few weeks? I pressed my hand to my roiling stomach.
“The more blood you consume, the stronger you are,” said Koschei. “The Consortium doesn’t reveal that tidbit to its Turn-bloods. No, they are all about humane eating habits and keeping their humans alive. I don’t understand all the fuss. There are more than enough humans to feast on whenever we choose.”
“You’re despicable.”
Koschei pulled a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and dabbed at his bloodied mouth. “I tire of your hypocrisy, Eva.”
My body was incapable of showing physical signs of fear, but terror and horror bloomed fully. I wasn’t an ass-kicker or a smart aleck. I wasn’t pretty enough to enamor Koschei and I wasn’t brave enough to run away. And even if I’d had the nerve, I would never leave Tamara.
Feeling sorry for all of us standing in Koschei’s torture chamber, I watched Charlie shuffle away. My heart broke for him. Then my gaze drifted to Ron. He had expended his energy. He sagged against the wall, his eyes closed. Drool dripped off his chin.
“I was abandoned in a prison cell,” I said. “Nobody knows I’m gone. And if they did, nobody cares.”
“Pity Town ahead,” droned Koschei. “Population: You.”
Lord-a-mercy, he was nuts. He grasped my elbow and led me to a shiny metal table.
He patted the table and I shook my head.
“Sit down, Eva.”
His tone was beautiful, persuasive. I hopped onto the table because I couldn’t resist his command.
Another man came from the shadows. He was short and stooped, with balding gray hair and beady black ey
es. Dressed in a coat similar to mine, he studied me as though I were cream and he the cat. Though he was old, he was a vampire; his fangs glinted as he smiled.
A square metal table filled with mundane supplies such as cotton swabs and surgical instruments such as scalpels sat on the right. He plucked four gloves from the box and put them on.
“Otto, this is Eva. It appears that her failure to murder Lorcan was not a complete loss. In her veins we will find the cure for the taint.”
“Excellent,” said Otto, his German accent thick. “I look forward to . . . examining her.”
Chapter 26
Eva! Where the bloody hell are you?
I didn’t answer Lorcan’s sudden, urgent plea when it popped into my mind. Instead, I let Otto take the scalpel to my wrist. The blood welled and he swabbed it, then put the long cotton swab into a plastic vial. The cut stung, but it healed quickly.
He cut again, three quick strokes up my arm.
I cried out. The slicing of my skin hurt. I wasn’t brave, not at all. I hated to be in pain. But I wouldn’t betray Lorcan again. Not after what I’d done to him. How could he ever trust me again? How could I trust myself, knowing that I was that vulnerable? If I could be glamoured into hurting Lorcan once, then I could be again.
What’s wrong? I can feel your pain.
I didn’t respond. I wished he would go away.
My heart is within your heart. I will not give up on you. Do not give up on me, a stóirín.
Oh, no. Not the poet. I resisted his mental pleas. I wanted more than anything to be rescued. I refused to trade my life for his. But I would trade Lorcan for Tamara. Nothing was more important than my child, not even the man I loved.
Otto seemed to enjoy taking the scalpel to me, especially when doing so elicited a pained response. Yet I could see no purpose in his efforts. Finally, Koschei put a hand on the old man’s arm. “You can play later, Otto. Once she serves her purpose, she’s all yours.”
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