L A Banks - [Vampire Huntres Legend 12]

by The Thirteenth (pdf)

  His gaze hardened, even though his voice retained a seductive Dananu croon. "Do not forget that with power comes privilege ... I have been a vampire for so many years longer than you. And as desirous as I am of you at the moment, I own something right now that you don't—control." He took up his goblet and knocked the rest of it back, and then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Let's get back to politics."

  Lucrezia closed her eyes and released a wail of frustration. "Only Pope Alexander VI, your father and old lover, can bring back all of the Machiavellian politics and sexual corruption of the Renaissance papacy that is fitting for the end of days. With the new religious replacement in Asia, the Middle Eastern sects and religions at war, Christian televangelists and megachurch pastors falling from their pulpits, thus grace, like flies... all we need is a new pope in our hip pocket. That should please those I have to keep appeased in order for you to enjoy the finer things in death, my dear."

  "I hold no sway over reanimation, only blood in my veins from my father's old line. I told Lilith I would avail myself!" Lucrezia yelled, straining toward Nuit and trying to reach for him. "Darling, what do you want from me?"

  "Lilith is busy . . . the more I can bring her without disturbing her, before Vlad brings her something that will excite her, better."

  Tears rose in Lucrezia's crystal green eyes as a serpent struck her jugular. Her voice dropped low and husky as she arched. Please . . . make love to me before I lose my mind. Only Sebastian can reanimate!"

  "Exactly."

  Lucrezia stared at Fallon for a moment. "Nooo. . . don't you ' dare!"

  "The man has been relegated to a eunuch down here. The Harpies will barely give him any, and his only outlet has been fantasizing about you and Elizabeth and jerking off when he thinks no one is around. The bats tell all."

  "No!" she screamed as Nuit began to head toward the door. "I will never forgive you for this, Fallon! How can you do this to me?"

  "Because absolute power corrupts absolutely . . . you have heard the quote before, I'm sure." He stopped walking and stared at her for a moment. "In this state, do you really care who attends your needs?"

  She looked at him and didn't immediately answer.

  "When Lilith commends you on a job well done and bestows more power on you—"which is what I am supposed to do as a husband, to ensure your success and your protection—will you hate me still or love me more for positioning you well, c/zen'e?" He blew Lucrezia a kiss from across the room that made her close her eyes. "Non," she murmured. "Je t'aime. When put that way, how could I hate you?

  But . . . after—soon after—promise me you'll return and finish? Sebastian is so ... not you."

  "How could I resist such a lovely offer?" Nuit said, genuinely torn.

  "What will you do while you're gone?" Lucrezia's eyes rolled back in her head as her eyelids fluttered shut again.

  "Take a walkabout to retrace some of Rivera's old ground." Elizabeth's fingers dug into Vlad's shoulders to massage away the tension, but he shrugged her off and stood. "A granite cell in the caverns of Hell for me and my wife is sacrilege, after all I've delivered to the empire."

  "Only for now," she said, crossing the small, Spartan space to fill a goblet from a dead Harpy she'd cornered. "This is temporary."

  "This is unacceptable!" he bellowed, and flung the goblet against the granite wall when she handed it to him.

  Rage consumed him as he paced within the rock-hewn space. "Look around you, Elizabeth. This is a replica of a mausoleum chamber. A death slab of stone in the middle of a cavern ... no running blood facilities. This is what topside generals used to hide in below and regenerate briefly before going back to their more sumptuous lairs aboveground. And they expect me to waste illusion energy on outfitting my own chamber rather than use the dark core energy to save me the expense?"

  "We will bring the Dark Lord and our Chairwoman something they want and have favor restored. Until then, rest, and save your attack for our enemies in the Light."

  "Fallen is among my betrayers."

  Elizabeth stared at Vlad. "He has made minions of masters while Lucrezia and I were convalescing. He used the time well. . . when Alaska falls into perpetual night, they will emerge. The masters he made in L.A. are feeding now with rampant abandon each night. From one end of North America to the other, his loyalists would blot out the night, if we attempt a coup . . . and our forces have been depleted from the wars with the Neterus. It was our armies that were ravaged, not his."

  "And I need you to remind me of these failings?" Vlad said in a quiet, lethal tone, coming near her.

  "Only so that we might develop a strategy for a bloodless coup, my love," Elizabeth whispered, backing up as his eyes glowed red and then went pure black. "If your wife was pregnant and you were being pursued, where would you go?" Elizabeth hurried away from Vlad and picked up the goblet with nervous hands. Vlad slowly outstretched an arm and leaned against the wall with a flat palm, staring out into space. "We have savaged every continent, and still they hide. Sebastian's Berserkers will soon awaken and will ride hard on the four corners of the earth."

  "I would go somewhere small, unchartered," she said quietly. "Away from dense populations that carry the contagion."

  Vlad spun on her. "But they are hunted by the human authorities. Somewhere small, like an island, would be insane. There'd be no cover, nowhere to run. In Budapest there are mountain ranges beyond ... in Russia, vast wilderness ... in the old Ottoman Empire, the lands of Genghis Khan, there are—"

  "Every place they know we'd look. But a small island in the Caribbean, or in the Pacific, or off the mainland of—"

  "Could be wiped away with one tsunami!" Vlad yelled, and punched a large chunk of rock out of the wall.

  "Let us work as a team, rather than allow our mutual frustrations to claim us," Elizabeth said calmly in Dananu. "You know how Sebastian feels about me . . . allow me to strike a deal with him to have the Berserkers search and destroy the lands looking for the sixth seal as he wishes, but give a small retinue of them to me to search the island clusters for the Neterus." When her husband simply stared at her, Elizabeth pressed on. "If I am wrong, Lilith will be none the wiser. You will be guiding the armies to trounce the land and find the Dark Lord's seal, as only you can do—Nuit is no military general, nor is Sebastian . . . what good is raising the Norse and Germanic tribes if there is no one to lead them?" She filled his arms as his gaze mellowed and then she took his mouth. Turning her throat to him, she closed her eyes. "I will bring you a prize that you can trade for more power, trust me."

  CHAPTER SIX

  Damali and Marlene lifted Monty Sinclair up as Marjorie dashed to find him some clean drinking water.

  "Sight of fangs will do it every time," Rider said, walking away shaking his head.

  "When are you guys gonna learn?"

  "Naw," Yonnie protested, pointing toward Shabazz with a toothy grin. "It was the shape-shift that put him on the stones, yo. Don't blame it all on me and my boy, Carlos."

  "Would you guys lighten up before you give this poor man a heart attack," Marlene warned, fanning Mr. Sinclair with a tourist brochure. "Sir, are you all right? These guys are weird but harmless."

  "I take offense," Shabazz said, rolling his shoulders.

  "He, he turned into a panther." Monty searched her face. "I must be hallucinating."

  "Jaguar . . . Shabazz is picky about his phyla, and for the record, I'm glad you got that passing-out thing out of your system before you were at the helm of a ship with us on board," Rider said. "Sheesh, for the love of Pete."

  "You still up for a Pirates of the Caribbean-style adventure?" Berkfield asked, examining the man for any injuries from his fall.

  "But, but they had . . ."

  "Fangs, yeah, we know," Jose said calmly, squatting down with an old jar of apple juice that Marjorie handed him. He looked up at her. "This'll kill the man for sure, sis ... that's all they got?"

  "Pantry is wiped out. Seems the clerics and staff s
tocked up and left." Marj chewed her bottom lip. "Sorry."

  "Well, get him a splash for his face from the font — if holy water's gone bad, then we're all in deep caca," Berkfield fussed, glancing up.

  "Knew we shoulda cleaned out the mini-bar," Rider muttered, walking by a pew and punching it. "Damn!"

  "Ahem." Marlene gave Rider the evil eye and then looked back to Mr. Sinclair. "Sir, if you'd rather not go with us, we can see you safely home. All right?" He shook his head and struggled to stand. "The two angels said it's all right and not to be afraid." Monty Sinclair looked around the team. "Something like this only happens once in a man's lifetime and only if he's blessed ... if I die in this, I will have lent myself to something so much bigger than me."

  Nuit folded himself into the cavern shadows and watched as Elizabeth frantically passed him. "A day late and a dollar short," he muttered with a chuckle as she left Sebastian's lair unfulfilled.

  Confidence claimed him, as did the dark swirling power of the victorious. Once he was sure that his rival's wife had gone, he mentally called for a retinue of barrel-chested, international couriers. Australia was beautiful this time of year. This had been a bad idea; he could feel it in his bones. Damali felt that taking Mr. Sinclair into an energy fold-away would be too much of a strain on the man's heart right after he'd seen the team unmasked. Now they had to walk!

  It wasn't that it was so far, truthfully he and the team could have jogged to the docks. The part that he hated was the eerie quiet. Every now and again a dog barked in the distance, but it still had the normal tone of just a frightened pet. The wildlife here hadn't begun dropping from the trees or going mad. Graves didn't appear disturbed, and wholesale looting for goods hadn't happened yet. But it was all just a matter of time.

  "You know we're gonna have to stock the boat with supplies, C," J.L. said, hanging back with a couple of the Guardians that were covering the rear.

  "I know," Carlos said quietly so that Damali didn't hear. "Problem is this. If I take it from the church missions here, then when supplies on the island run out, local civilians will be ass out. Major institutions, like schools, hospitals, hotels, and whatever, are going to need whatever they have, too, for the population here." Rider nodded toward the cruise ships. "They look awfully quiet to me, hombre. They came in from the mainland, ya know. They've got plenty of supplies in bottles and cans that weren't open to the contagion. What say a small group of us do a fold-away with you while the ladies get situated on Sinclair's boat ... if there's innocents on there, we can bring 'em back alive. If everybody on the vessel is a goner, then it ain't technically stealing."

  "This man used to be one of us for a few, right, C? 'Cause he sure sounds like a brother who used to have fangs," Yonnie said, laughing, pounding Rider's fist. "I'm down with the plan."

  "Yeah, me, too," Carlos said, keening his line of vision on all the cruise ships that appeared to be dead in the water. He looked around the group as everyone came to a stop. "Yo, 'Bazz,

  Mike, Berkfield ... I want you guys to do a first pass on 'that boat before anybody gets on it. Could be some stray undead types infesting it—we need a sweep."

  "Got you, C," Mike said, drawing out a handheld Uzi from the back of his fatigue pants waistband.

  "Cool," Carlos said with a curt nod. "Then Bobby, J.L., Jose, and Dan, I want you brothers on security and communications to be sure we don't get accidentally blown out of the water by a nervous coast guard or military vessel . . . and I want a man with artillery at the cardinal points, top deck, to be sure we don't get pirate boarded by anybody else out there who's hungry and looking for fuel and supplies."

  "Roger that, C," Bobby said, extracting a 9mm from his waistband.

  "I'll see what else I can MacGyver up," J.L. said, "to protect the ship."

  "Good man, good man," Carlos replied absently, walking up to Damali. He touched her face briefly and then allowed his hand to fall away. "I want you to check the galley with Marlene and 'Nez, and make sure there's nothing in there that can poison anybody."

  She smiled. So now I'm on kitchen detail—-just barefoot and preg-gers, huh?

  He kissed her and then pulled away, his expression sober. The last time I was on a yacht with you, we didn't have a good experience. Allow me this. She remembered all too well. The huge pleasure ship owned by the Australian master vampire with three more master predators and their vampire wives, all vying for a night alone with her and Carlos . . . trapped aboard with her Guardian team and nowhere to run. That's when Dante had found out that she was pregnant the first time. That's when Carlos had'put himself between her and a tornado of Dante's Harpies. That's when Carlos had been unmercifully tortured and ultimately died in the sun. That's when she'd thought that she'd lost him forever. How could she forget? Worse yet, how could she have overlooked how bad a flashback all this had to be for Carlos? Damali briefly shut her eyes, nodded, and touched his cheek. "I'm sorry."

  Turning to the team, she kept her memories to herself, her emotions in check, and her voice firm. "Monty, I want you to give us a brief spiel on how to steer this thing—in case . . . everybody needs to know how to crew this boat. Then I want a seer and stoneworker on the cardinal points with a gunner. Cool?" Murmurs of agreement filtered through the group.

  "Good," Damali said with a curt nod. "Once I get coordinates from Pearl, seers, we'll lock in on the sunken pyramid as our touchstone to keep us out of the dangerous Triangle fluctuations." She turned to Mr. Sinclair. "But the basic navigation and all the protocols of entering a foreign harbor with the right lingo is gonna be on you."

  "Not a problem," Monty Sinclair said.

  "Aw'ight, cool. We got a plan." Carlos began walking away from the group with Yonnie and Rider.

  "Where're you guys going?" Damali's hands went to her hips out of reflex. Carlos gave her a look over his shoulder. "To go get bottled water, uncontaminated food, and a coupla gas cans of fuel. We don't know how long -we'll be at sea, so—"

  "From where?" Damali folded her arms over her chest. "Why do you always do stuff like this, Carlos?"

  "Might as well tell her, dude," Rider said under his breath. "You know how they are—this could take all day."

  Carlos rubbed his jaw in frustration and then motioned to the cruise ships that were adrift just beyond the reef.

  "You don't know what's on those ships!" Tara snapped, walking forward.

  "Yolando, I said to be valiant and victorious, not foolish!" Val said, frowning. "It could be a death trap."

  "Glad I ain't the only one who's being given the blues." Carlos let out a hard breath as he glanced at his two Guardian brothers.

  Marlene folded her arms over her chest. "What about mangoes and pineapples, and fresh—"

  "Anything not in a bottle or can could have been contaminated from the rain, the wind ... we don't know exactly how they're spreading this shit, Mar. Might be airborne for all we know. Maybe not, but are you willing to gamble?" Carlos waited a beat, vindicated when no other concerns got raised.

  Yonnie opened his arms wide as he spoke, looking among Val, Tara, and Damali.

  "We can't steal, because that sets up a negative energy trail right to us. We can't use up valuable supplies on the island that innocent civilians will need. They won't go on the cruise ships until they're really desperate, because, frankly, how will they board 'em? If we find people alive on the cruise liners, us going on board will be their salvation, because we can drop them on dry land. But, if we find anything else, us taking supplies off ain't stealing from the living—okay? Besides, any good supplies left on those five ships out there could be jettisoned back here to the cathedral we just left... a safe haven for it and for folks who, ultimately, could starve to death on this island."

  "I think that about says it all. It's a screwed up job, but somebody's gotta do it." Rider hocked and spat, and then checked the magazine on his weapon before glancing at Yonnie and Car-S. "Gentlemen, shall we?" Nuit stood in the courtyard of the abandoned Australian castle in
d drank in the night. This was what Dante had exiled himself from—feeling the raw power of the living planet. If his former Chairman had only left Vampire Council Chambers, he would have been able to track Rivera more closely, would have learned from his duplicitous style. But the old man was from the predawn era of vampires that hid in the caverns of Hell, soaking up power from the depths for power's sake alone and never enjoying their immortality to the very fullest—and that had been what had initiated his failed coup and alliance with the Amanthra demons. Yet, he was still here . . . and the Devil's firstborn son, Dante, was not. The irony of that made Nuit smile as he gazed at another ruined vampire stronghold. He'd never envisioned the Chairman dead at the hands of the Neterus. Cain had even succumbed, and through it all he was still standing!

  The awareness almost made him laugh out loud. Nuit waved off the thick-bodied, hooded messengers that had scythes at the ready to guard him. There was no threat here. Just feeding rats and meandering serpents. What had once been an opulent display of raw master vampire power had been reduced to dust at the hands of Rivera. That wealthy bastard, McGuire, had lost it all. Pity. For a moment Nuit stood still, allowing the very night itself to soak into his bones. The majesty of the stars awash in a midnight-blue velvet sky made him open his arms wide and close his eyes. There had been so much waste ... so much loss at the hands of the Neterus.

  But rather than dwell on the outrage of it all, he squared his shoulders and walked up the steps, waving his security forces off. He wanted to feel the old trail of Carlos Rivera alone. He wanted to savor his archenemy's last steps as a vampire ... to feel the burn of Rivera's passion for the Neteru female while he was still trapped as an entity of the night. That was true majesty. Passion and lust, dare he call it love, that transcended the grave and challenged the realms of Hell. How Rivera convinced the female Neteru to love him like that was still worthy of envy. Nuit glanced up at the full moon, wishing he could have been an eyewitness. Now all he could do was shake his head as he entered what had once been a grand foyer. Cobwebs, rubble, and fallen plaster greeted him. Nuit closed his eyes, sensing, seeing the castle come alive in his mind ... a place that once held elaborate blood-gorging fetes. Delicately veined walls pulsing richly with fresh blood were now cracked and dried. Massive, sweeping staircases in shambles. The rare, leaded, beveled glass windows that still remained hung in piteous disrepair. Elizabethan-era knights, Louis XVI furnishings, Victorian treasures all rusted, stolen, dry-rotted, wasted . . . it was a travesty.