“It’s good to see you, Louis. As I told Miguel, the two of you will take care of the humans at the gate, while I deal with the vampire guards just inside the residence. And once we get into dining room, I want the humans out of there. I can hold off Victor.”
“My lord, all four of Victor’s guards will be inside the house with him.”
“I’m aware of that,” Duncan said. He held back a smile as he remembered all the times he’d been overly protective of Raphael—and how much it had irritated the Western Vampire Lord.
“It’s the house in the cul-de-sac, my lord,” Miguel said, his voice tight with anticipation as they drew closer to the estate.
Duncan turned to get his first in-person view of the residence. It didn’t look like a fortified embassy. With cherry trees peeking over the top of a too-short perimeter wall and two chimneys puffing white smoke into the cold air, it looked more like a place where Mom and Dad were raising their 2.5 children and letting the dogs run in the yard. Assuming Mom and Dad had a whole lot of money and enough paranoia to build a wall around their home, even a short one.
“Time to rock and roll,” Louis whispered, and Duncan smiled grimly.
They rolled up to the wrought-iron gate, and Miguel dropped his side window with a faint buzz of sound. Frosty air rushed in, and Duncan smelled the creek which ran behind the house, along with a faint hint of snow. All of that disappeared beneath the overwhelming scent of human as the guard bent into the window to check them out.
Miguel had been on the premises once before, ostensibly to offer his services when he’d first moved here from California and set up a security business in Virginia. “Miguel Martinez,” he told the guard. “Lord Victor is expecting us.”
The human opened his mouth to say something, probably to protest that he wasn’t aware of Lord Victor expecting anyone, but then his eyes glazed over and he blinked slowly. He smiled and nodded, waving them in.
“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” Louis murmured from the back seat.
Miguel nearly choked on a laugh as the guard stepped back into the shed and triggered the gate mechanism.
“Enough, gentlemen,” Duncan said quietly. He understood their excitement. His own blood was thundering with anticipation. But this was a dangerous thing they were about to do, and he didn’t want them to fool themselves into thinking otherwise.
“Forgive me, my lord,” Louis breathed.
Duncan nodded, but his attention was already on the big, white house, his power reaching out to lightly touch the vampires inside. All but Victor. The others wouldn’t notice his touch, but Victor might.
“Very lax security,” he commented mostly to himself. “Two vampires together inside, near the front door.” He frowned. There was a buzz of something, some underlying power that confused him. He wanted to explore it further, but there was no time, and it was too weak and unfocused to represent a danger to his plans for the evening. It would have to wait.
“Miguel,” he said, “you and Louis take out the remaining human guards gently. Check the barracks, as well. I don’t want anyone raising an alarm, but there’s no reason to hurt them either. Then join me inside. We’ll take the dining room together.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Duncan opened the car door while Miguel was still braking. He sped up the brick steps two at a time, sending a tight needle of power ahead of him to burn out the electronic lock on the front door. The security bolts released with a solid thunk and the door swung open. Duncan stepped inside, his eyes doing a fast sweep of the area while the two vampires on guard were still dragging their attention from the big screen TV to stare at him in surprise. He didn’t wait for them to recover their wits. He reached out with his power and seized their hearts, squeezing until they dropped to the floor. They weren’t dead. Victor was corrupt, but he wasn’t weak. As the Sire of these two vampires, and especially at such close proximity, he would certainly feel it if they died, and he’d know something was wrong. So Duncan let them live for now. But when Victor died, these two vampires would die right along with him, most likely drained dry by Victor himself in a bid to survive Duncan’s challenge.
Duncan had met Victor on more than one occasion when he’d accompanied Raphael to Vampire Council meetings, but he’d never matched strength with the vampire lord directly. The annual gatherings were carefully orchestrated affairs, bringing together the most powerful vampires in North America, vampires who were natural rivals at best and enemies at worst. Everyone was on their best behavior at those affairs, which meant there were no outright challenges and no blatant weighings of each other’s power.
But Raphael had known Victor a long time, and there were other ways to measure the depth of a vampire’s power. The upshot was that Duncan knew he could defeat Victor because Raphael wouldn’t have risked him otherwise. And, more importantly, because he knew the depths of his own power. Victor would be ousted from his rule over the territory tonight in the usual vampire way . . . by assassination.
Miguel and Louis rushed through the front door behind him, their power brimming and ready to defend him if necessary. Again, it felt odd to be the recipient of that sort of devotion rather than the other way around. Something he’d have to get used to.
“Any problems?” he asked as his vampires hid the limp bodies of Victor’s two guards behind the same couch they’d been sitting on when Duncan arrived.
Miguel let his burden drop, the comatose vampire’s head cracking loudly against the wooden floor. “None, my lord. The gate is secured, the barracks empty. And all of the human guards on the estate are sound asleep.”
“Excellent. This is it, then. Remember, once we’re in the dining room, I’ll put the humans under immediately. After that, we play it by ear. I don’t care which of us takes down the two remaining vamp guards, but Victor himself is mine alone.”
”Yes, my lord.” Miguel was fairly bouncing on his toes. Louis stood as still as a statue, his muscles coiled for action. He nodded sharply, his eyes fixed on Duncan like a dog on point, awaiting the go-ahead.
“Let’s go,” Duncan said.
Miguel walked ahead of him, Louis behind. They went past the staircase and turned left down a long hallway, their footsteps nearly silent despite the old, wood plank floor. Doors stood open left and right, revealing rooms filled with furniture—a formal dining room with a table that could have seated thirty people easily, and a den or game room with another huge flat screen TV, several different video game consoles, and a foosball table in the corner. There was a spacious kitchen with open containers littering the counter tops and still smelling of the food Victor had brought in for his human guests. Duncan’s research told him Victor typically had his parties catered, with his vampires serving as waiters where necessary. It wasn’t particularly elegant, but then Duncan doubted it was a zeal for good food that brought the humans here in the first place.
The dining room they wanted—the one Victor was using tonight—was at the very end of the hallway, behind a pair of white pocket doors. Miguel reached for the doors and paused, hands resting lightly on the bronze handles.
Duncan tilted his head, listening with both his ears and his power. The conversation from inside was loud and boisterous, the human voices evidencing clear signs of intoxication or drugs. It could be either. Victor was here, too, his mind lazy and at ease, not expecting any trouble. His remaining two vampire guards were far more alert than their Sire, but at the same time they took their cue from him, and their minds were wandering, not at all concerned about what was going on in the room or out of it. What little attention they were paying was focused on the human guests, seeing them more as prey than anything else, while trusting that their now comatose fellow guards at the front of the house would alert them to any outside threat.
Duncan pulled back his probe, drew a breath and gave Miguel a quick nod of assent.
Miguel slid the door back and Duncan stepped through.
Conversation stopped dead as every
one turned to stare at him. Duncan gestured, and the three humans went glassy-eyed, their heads slumping to their chests in unconsciousness, one sliding to the floor beneath the table, while the others merely fell forward into the remnants of their dinner.
Victor’s guards recovered before the first human’s head hit the table, one of them vaulting the table, crystal flying and dishes breaking as he raced to protect his Sire. Miguel caught him in midair, his fingers digging into the other vampire’s throat as he threw him to the floor and punched his chest hard enough to stop his heart in an instant. Victor’s vampire gasped, eyes bulging, as he struggled to gather his power back into himself, to force his heart to pump once more. Given only a moment longer, it might have worked, but Miguel didn’t grant him that moment. He grabbed an empty chair and smashed it against the floor until it produced what he needed. The piece of wood was jagged and raw, half varnished and half bare wood, but it was the perfect weapon. Miguel lifted the stake with a fang-baring grin of anticipation, and Victor’s guard keened a wordless plea, the only noise he could still manage. Miguel brought the stake down in a single clean stroke, granting the only mercy he would—a quick death.
Louis and the other vampire guard were still battling one another, blood flowing as they exchanged brutal blows that would have killed a human with the first strike. Louis slammed his opponent into the wall, cracking the wainscoting and leaving a vampire-sized dent in the upper wall as plaster dust filled the air. Victor’s vampire bellowed in anger. He tightened his grip, his fingers digging into Louis’s arms as he tried to reverse their positions, but Louis used the vampire’s momentum against him, spinning around completely and throwing him across the room. He crashed into one of the unconscious humans as he hit the table, eliciting an unwilling grunt of reaction.
Duncan felt more than saw Victor move, felt the vampire lord begin to gather his power. He glanced up, meeting Victor’s reptilian gaze. The two powerful vampires studied each other for a long breath, but a sharp cry of denial drew their eyes to Louis and the remaining guard in time to see Louis impale his opponent with a jagged spear of wood.
Victor sucked in a breath as his vampire died, and Duncan turned in time to see the vampire lord slump forward, his fist clenched to his chest. As if he felt Duncan’s gaze upon him, Victor relaxed his hand and raised his head with a defiant glare, showing no weakness to his enemy.
“This was unnecessary,” Duncan observed after a moment, stepping back from the two piles of vampire dust with exaggerated distaste. He looked up and met Victor’s angry gaze once more. “You should have taught them better, Victor.”
At the head of the table, Victor remained perfectly still, his stare burning with hatred as a haze of crimson power began to seep over his brown eyes.
“Miguel,” Duncan said, removing his overcoat and throwing it onto a nearby chair. “Get these humans out of here.”
“My lord,” Miguel murmured.
Louis reached under the table and yanked the fallen human out from under it, pulling him into a fireman’s carry and heading down the hallway. Miguel dragged another of the guests—a large, florid man whom Duncan recognized as a U.S. Senator—through the doors, then came back and hefted the last human over his shoulder, before following Louis.
Duncan pulled the pocket doors shut, selected a chair that wasn’t covered in broken dishes or food, and sat, crossing his legs at the knee. He scanned the room idly as he sat there, intentionally ignoring Victor’s growing outrage. It was a small room, too narrow and, like all the others, crowded with too much furniture. The air reeked of cigar smoke and spilled food.
“So, Victor,” Duncan said, finally turning his attention to the other vampire. “How are things in Washington?”
“Fuck you, Duncan,” Victor growled. “You can’t come in here and start killing my people.”
“Apparently, I can,” Duncan pointed out.
Victor snorted a dismissive laugh. “You? You’d never have dared this without Raphael.” He spat to one side. “Where is the great man anyway?” He lifted his head as if sniffing the air. “He’s not nearby; I’d sense him if he’d crossed into my territory.”
“You should have sensed me, Victor. You’ve grown complacent.”
“You’re nothing but Raphael’s lap dog. I don’t waste my time on mutts.”
Duncan merely smiled. “It’s like this, Victor. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. The choice is yours.”
A vicious grin split Victor’s broad face as he stood and kicked his chair against the wall. He leaned forward, fangs bared and hands resting on the table as his power began to build, his eyes now gleaming like two burning coals of fury.
“Give it your best shot, puppy.”
Duncan dipped his head in agreement. “The hard way it is then.” He stood, and for the first time since he’d left California, the first time in the presence of anyone but Raphael and the California lord’s most trusted vampires, Duncan loosed the full measure of his power. He let it build until it was a firestorm in his chest, the pressure both excruciating and exhilarating. Lights flickered as energy danced around the room.
Duncan blinked lazily and met Victor’s surprised stare with a quiet question. “You were saying?”
With a roar of defiance, Victor launched a preemptive volley, a tight ball of incredible energy that must have drawn heavily on his power. It was a bid to weaken Duncan before he was ready, before he could muster his own power into a shield around himself. But Duncan had trained with the best the vampire world had to offer. His shields snapped closed with a concussion of sound. Victor’s attack slammed into them with tremendous force. They flexed, but held, and Duncan flicked both hands forward, as if brushing away Victor’s assault, a move calculated to enrage the other vampire lord.
Victor growled, his teeth grinding together as he smashed one thick fist into the table, amplifying the blow with his power and shattering the whole thing into kindling. He looked up and grinned at Duncan, then raised both hands flat in the air, palms up, lifting the bits of splintered table as if it were still whole. With another power-filled gesture, he flung all of the shards at Duncan, a flying wave of deadly sharp wooden stakes.
It was a clever move. Duncan admired it even as he defended against it, twisting the power of his shields into a whirlwind of energy that sent most of the table shards whipping out in all directions while others exploded upon impact into harmless matchsticks.
Victor was sweating blood and shaking with fury, his shields weakening perceptibly. Duncan suspected the other vampire had concentrated too much of his reserve power into that first preemptive strike, but Victor wasn’t done yet. His shields might be weaker, but they held against Duncan’s discreet probes. Duncan frowned as Victor’s power suddenly surged, as if he was drawing energy from somewhere outside the room. But the most likely source of that sort of power would be Victor’s vampire children, and two of them were already piles of dust, with the other two near death. Even if Victor had drained them dry, they couldn’t have given him this much of a power boost. Did Victor have minions they hadn’t uncovered? Someone beyond the four that had been with him for centuries? Impossible, unless . . .
Duncan concentrated, remembering that odd buzz of power he’d felt as they approached the house. He spared a bit of power, a fraction of his awareness, and searched the house, looking for the source of that buzz. It had to be here somewhere, and it had to be what Victor was feeding from. There! In the basement, there were . . . Duncan’s eyes widened first in shock, then in revulsion as he looked up and met the old vampire lord’s confident glare.
“Abomination!”Duncan hissed.
Victor laughed. “What a self-righteous little prick you are. I created them, and they live to serve me like any other.”
Duncan’s stomach turned. Victor had made vampires for the sole purpose of feeding his own power. There were at least twenty of them down there, trapped in the basement, half-starved, mindless, little better than feral animals, existing only
to provide Victor with enough strength to hold onto his territory. It was a practice forbidden by the very Council Victor was a member of, and it was precisely what Duncan had called it—abomination.
Victor grinned maliciously. “Still think you can take me, puppy?”
Duncan felt his purpose harden into granite, his anger turn to cold intent. With a quick warning, he drew power from his own children, from Miguel and Louis. They sensed his need and gave it willingly, the two of them together far stronger than all of Victor’s half-mad slaves, no matter how many there were.
Victor’s victorious grin wilted, and Duncan saw awareness of his impending doom in the other vampire lord’s eyes.
“Yield,” Duncan offered, “and I’ll make the end painless. For you and for those poor wretches downstairs.”
“Go to hell,” Victor snarled. He drew himself up, sucking up every last ounce of power remaining in the slaves in the basement, finally draining the two guards Duncan had left alive. Combining that with what was left of his own power, he fed it all into a wall before him as he advanced physically on Duncan. He held a long, jagged piece of wood in one hand, his fingers gripping it so tightly that it sliced his skin, blood dripping between his fingers and running down his arm.
With a howl of rage, he rushed the last few feet, the rudimentary pike up and ready, his power a battering ram before him.
Duncan waited until the other vampire was nearly upon him, and then he clenched his right fist and punched it straight out before him as though slamming it into Victor’s chest. A thunderbolt of power hit the other vampire’s shields. Duncan felt them crack under the impact of his strike, heard the shattering of crystal as Victor’s shields broke under the strain.
And he heard the mindless shrieking of those poor souls in the basement as their world collapsed.
Victor staggered, his face gray with shock, the red haze of power in his eyes already beginning to drain away, leaving them a dull brown. The stake he’d been gripping fell from limp fingers as he crumpled to the floor, first to his knees and then lower as he fell back to sit on his heels, hands hanging limply by his sides.
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