Redeemer of Shadows

by Michelle M. Pillow

  “Halt. Release her!”

  Hathor barely heard the harsh command. Her breath came out in heavy pants. The vampire teeth slipped from her body, leaving her weak. Slowly, she was lowered to the ground. Her head lolled on her shoulders. Her body ached bitterly, throbbing sharply where they bit her. As her feet hit the solid earth, her tormentors released her. Her knees buckled. She collapsed into a heap.

  For a moment, all were silent as she tried to find her strength. Breathlessly, she stared at the cold pavement. A freezing wind thrashed about her shoulders, chilling her thinned blood to the core. Her limbs shook unsteadily. Then she felt something, a small tug at her body—a pull of the familiar.

  Servaes, she thought, whipping her head up. Her eyes darted around. The crowd of vampires was departing, fleeing into the night, disappearing as stealthily as they came. Ginger, Vincent and Lamar stood defiantly above her, blocking her view.

  “We want her dead,” Ginger demanded. “She is a risk to all of us.”

  “We didn’t seek her out, she came to us,” Vincent added defensively.

  Between a stiff pair of legs, she saw the one they tried to defy step forward. She couldn’t see his face, but as soon as he spoke, she knew the voice. It gave her chills with its deadliness.

  “You were ordered to leave her be,” Jirí stated in a dispassionate tone. He stopped walking. “I have spoken with the council. They are not happy. I’m ordered to bring her to them.”

  “Why should they get her?” Lamar voiced with mock bravado. “We found her.”

  “You lie,” Ginger interjected, pushing past Lamar to boldly face Jirí. “Everyone knows there is no council. You just want her for yourself. What are you up to? If you want her, you’ll tell us what your plan is.”

  Jirí’s laughter came soft and low as he finally stepped into Hathor’s view. His eyes glistened eerily, but his manner was unconcerned, dispassionate. He eyed Ginger impassively before glancing down at Hathor on the dirty ground.

  Hathor’s cheek fell weakly against the earth. She watched the dark intruder from in-between Ginger’s unmoving legs. Her breathing slowed. Her body weakened. Her head throbbed painfully, and her eyes stung with the violent need to cry.

  “Wouldst you like me to take you before the council so you can ask them?” Jirí questioned, obviously amused by the notion.

  “Come, Lamar. There are others about tonight. I can smell a family sitting down to dinner.” Vincent jumped up from the street, disappearing into the night sky. Lamar was soon after him. Hathor stared into the heavens, seeing the heels of their feet before they disappeared.

  Ginger leaned over, glaring at her. Bitterly, she muttered, “You’ll wish we finished what we started once the elders get hold of you.”

  Hathor would have spat at the vampiress if she could’ve managed it. Nothing Ginger said could be trusted. The woman lied too readily and threatened too easily. Ginger disappeared with a flash down the alleyway. Again the night was left silent.

  When Jirí didn’t move, she rolled her head to the side to look at him. His arms were crossed as he studied her intently. His eyes flashed green. She knew he was reading her, or at least trying. She wondered how much he saw.

  “Everything,” Jirí whispered. He was next to her within the span of a blink. “I see everything.”

  “But,” Hathor tried to speak. The word croaked. Jirí interrupted her by lifting her into his arms. He carried her like she was a feather pillow as he sped through the air. Lights began to blur as they passed over streets and buildings. She trembled, frightened by his emotionless face. “Are you going to kill me?”

  Jirí glanced at her wan expression, giving away nothing as he continued to race through the night. Her attackers had almost been successful and he had almost let them have their success. Unaffected by her tears, he whispered, “Mayhap.”

  “But—” Hathor said in protest.

  Jirí frowned in annoyance. Lifting his hand across her face, he said, “Sleep.”

  Hathor’s eyes closed with an immediate, all consuming darkness. Jirí lifted her over his shoulder, never slowing as he continued on through the night.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Servaes stepped over the paved streets. Lifting his nose to the air, he sniffed deeply. He could smell the faint traces of Hathor’s skin, her blood. A nerve twitched in his gut. The shriek of her echoing cry still lingered fearfully in his head.

  “Stupid mortal!” Servaes fumed. His senses frantically searched for a palpable trace of her. He couldn’t find one. “I told you to leave it be. Why did you come back?”

  Sniffing, he fell to the ground. The scent of her blood was stronger on the pavement, though he saw none of it. Then, his eyes growing black, he wrinkled his nose in disgust. Flying to his feet, he growled, “Ginger.”

  With a fierce fire starting in his limbs, he shot out over the night. He flew over alleyways, by churches and graveyards. He flew by palaces and bridges, trying to regain the scent of Ginger. He couldn’t find her in the large city. Then, as dawn crept closer, he returned to the Vampire Club, knowing that the others would gather near there.

  Making his way through the passageway, he entered the club. It was free of humans, except for the bartender who mopped puddles of blood from the floor. Without Servaes to temper the young vampires’ ways, there had been a slaughter of human flesh. Blood was spattered everywhere in dotting trails across the walls and tables—even the bartender’s clothing.

  Seeing Vincent sitting on the edge of the stage, Servaes felt his eyes fill with loathing. His fangs grew longer, deadlier in his anger. He was ready for battle.

  Vincent lifted his head, smiling as he motioned for Ginger and Lamar. They came from behind the stage. Vincent floated to his feet to be at the same level as his friends. Ginger and Lamar came beside him.

  “What have you done with her?” Servaes growled, his voice carrying the dark trace of a demon. It boomed over the empty room. The bartender glanced up at the sound, dropped his mop, and hurried out the front passageway.

  “Who?” Ginger shot with a cocky smirk. The three vampires dropped down from the stage to the main floor. They were still injured at having their fun stopped by Jirí. Smiling, they decided playing with Servaes would be just as entertaining.

  “I can smell her on your foul breath,” Servaes bellowed. His fingers tightened into fists as he charged forward. He grabbed Ginger about the throat and pushed her into the air, flying up into a stone wall. “Where is she?”

  Ginger laughed, despite the pain in her throat. She didn’t fight back, knowing she never had a chance against his strength. “We all had a taste of her, Servaes. Her blood was sweet, her body even sweeter. It wasn’t fair of you to keep her all to yourself like that.”

  “What have you done with her?” he yelled, hiding his desperation behind his mask of hatred. He knew the games these vampires played. He knew about the impalements, the stakings, the torture devices. A howl, horrifying and deadly, escaped his lips as he leaned forward. His nose pressed into Ginger. His eyes flashed as his fingernails bit into her skin. As Ginger’s blood trailed down her neck, Servaes smelled Hathor in it.

  “Where are you going?” Ginger yelled. “Cowards!”

  Servaes dropped the vampiress to the ground, whirling in outrage to see Lamar’s blurred body fleeing into the tunnels below. The old vampire’s red eyes and snarling lips focused on Vincent. His head twitched as he caught the scent of her on him also.

  “Tell me,” Servaes commanded with a yell.

  “You have nothing to worry about. The council decided they want her. Jirí has taken her away to them and there she will be killed.” Vincent sensed the oncoming threat of dawn. He too disappeared into the tunnels to seek his bed. His mocking laughter could be heard ringing behind him.

  “You had better find your grave too,” Ginger growled. She wanted to attack him, kill him. Her eyes glared with jealousy as she looked at him. But she was no fool. Servaes was too old, too powerful. Al
one, she couldn’t win against him.

  “Where did Jirí take her?” he bullied, with a threatening step.

  “I don’t know.” Then, with a flash, she too fled from the rising sun.

  Servaes wanted to go find Hathor. Every fiber in his being begged him to look for her. He felt his heart breaking into a million pieces, as hers had that night in her bedroom. If she was dead, then so, too, was the last sliver of his humanity. If the council truly ordered Hathor killed or brought to them, Jirí would do as ordered. Honor and a sense of duty were traces of Jirí’s human life that Servaes’ sire couldn’t be rid of.

  Servaes made his way to the club door. Seeing the bartender’s pale face, he stopped.

  “The sun, my lord,” the man said, pointing behind him. “Don’t go out there. It’s worse when you’re not around to watch them.”

  Servaes had no intention of killing himself in the sun, but the bartender didn’t know that. He growled viciously at him, helpless against the dawn. His fingers slashed though the air like brandished claws. His rage welled up in his chest, released with an excruciating yell. The bartender trembled, pulling away from the angry creature.

  Servaes felt the approaching sun and was forced to turn around. He viciously tore through the underground tunnels to his coffin. As the sun barely poked the horizon, he angrily shut himself inside his dreary tomb.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Hathor’s eyes shot open in a panic. She felt the walls of a coffin closing in on her. The cold fingers wrapping over her body felt oddly familiar to her blood, but she knew it wasn’t Servaes that held her. She struggled violently against the hands, sensing more than seeing Jirí’s closed eyes in repose.

  Jirí’s eyes flashed open in annoyance to glare at her from their green-flecked depths. A low growl came from his lips. He grasped at her tightly.

  “Why have you put me here?” she said, trying to sound brave and failing.

  “What better prison, m’lady?” he asked easily, as if nothing at all mattered to him. The glittering lessened in his gaze, but his grip held tight. “What better shackles than these dead hands?”

  “Let me go!”

  Jirí chuckled. The shaking movement of his laughter vibrated all the way down his body. His flesh held the cold of the grave and it soaked into her skin. Had Servaes’ touch been so unfeeling, so deadly chilled?

  “I admire your bravery. You will need it,” he said. His eyes began to close. “Now sleep. The day is young, and we have no place to be but here.”

  “Where are you taking me? What will you do with me?” Her voice wavered.

  Jirí let loose an audible sigh, his eyes opening to stare at her. For a long moment he studied her, seeing her face clearly in the darkness. He smelled Servaes’ possession of her, just like the others. And with no little amazement he read what they had done together in her bedchamber, saw every detail.

  “I know who you are, Jirí,” she said at last. “I know what you did to him. I saw.”

  “You mean he told you,” Jirí mused.

  “No. I mean I saw it, you heartless bastard,” she spat. “I saw you kill him. I saw everything.”

  “Oh, in that you are mistaken, m’lady,” Jirí said quietly. His words became soft, as he leaned forward to whisper into her ear. “The heart is the one thing I have that works.”

  He took her hand and placed it on his chest, over the steady beat of his heart. Hathor stiffened at the intimate gesture. She tried to pull away. With a dark chuckle, he wouldn’t let her.

  “I saw you kill him,” she repeated boldly. Again, she tried to jerk her hand away. Again, he wouldn’t let her go. “You made him what he is, Jirí. I want you to turn him back. I want you to make him human.”

  At that declaration, Jirí laughed harder. His icy-cold fingers soaked in some of her mortal warmth. The alluring scent of her blood, sweet and almost pure, filled his nose. He’d read her near innocence that first night he kissed her, just as now knew she’d finally slept with Servaes.

  “I gave him a new life,” Jirí stated, unashamed. “I cannot give the old one back to him. Are you so sure he wouldst want his mortality back? Do you think to know him better than I, his father? I made him. He is my son, my benighted child. After everything he has seen, after how long he has lived, do you think he wouldst give it up for you? Are you sure what you seek is not purely done in selfishness?”

  “Then make me like him,” she ordered. She angled her neck to his mouth, pressing it forward to his whispering lips. She hated his words. She hated him for making her hear them. “Make me like you. Change me as you did him. Do it!”

  “Nay, m’lady,” Jirí’s voice was cold with finality. “I will not wrong him again. Your changing will not be my doing.”

  Hathor drew back. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see his face in the darkness. She couldn’t. Angrily, she pulled her fist away from his heart to strike him. He grabbed her back easily. She struggled once more to no avail, trying to shake free as she screamed, “I saw you. You plotted against him, putting him on the boat to die. I saw you on the docks, cocky and sure of yourself. You took him without giving him a choice. And now you will turn me. I demand that you do so!”

  Suddenly, a cold whisper from the past echoed around them, “Hathor, Hathor, don’t leave me.”

  They both recognized it as the long ago cry of a sick man in the belly of a sea-going ship. Jirí’s self-assurance wavered at the sound. Hathor defiantly looked at him.

  “It was you he called for,” Jirí stated in wonderment. “But how? In another life mayhap?”

  “No, in this one.” Hathor relaxed, no longer fighting against him. It was a battle she couldn’t win. “Don’t ask me how. I was there less than a week ago. I fell in love with the human he was. I was there the night you tricked him into the king’s mistress’s quarters. I was there on the boat and at the American docks. I saw everything, Jirí.”

  Jirí closed his eyes, thinking back with the help of the fresh memories in her head. Opening them, he stated, “I saw you in the king’s garden. I looked right at you. I never suspected. Methought you were a foolishly smitten noblewoman.”

  “So will you bring me to him?” she asked, cautiously. “Please.”

  “No,” he answered. “I will not bring you to him. But you just might see him again. I have a feeling he will come for you.”

  “Are you going to hurt him?”

  Jirí studied her for a long moment, feeling her heart beat frantically in her chest. He saw the tears lining her eyes. Not tears for herself, but selfless tears for the vampire she loved. He felt the sweetness of the emotion flowing through every drop of her being. The emotion called to Servaes in anguish, its true purity a rare thing in humans.

  Lifting his hand, Jirí passed his fingers slowly over her eyes. Murmuring softly, he ordered, “Sleep.”

  Hathor’s head fell limp. Her lips parted in even breath, her mind dark with dreamless slumber. Jirí watched her for a moment, wondering at the emotion inside his blood. It was respect for her, of that he was sure. But beyond his admiration, there was more—jealousy, longing, despair. Jirí closed his eyes, not finding his rest as easily as she.

  The renewed image of the docks, seen through her eyes, haunted him. He had wronged Servaes all those centuries ago. He’d been different then, a lord used to taking what he wanted. This woman before him truly loved his benighted son. Could he help them? Could he risk defying the council for them? Could he deny every loyalty he had? Mournfully, Jirí shook his head and closed his eyes. No matter how much he wished it, no matter his regrets, he knew he could not. The council’s bidding would be done.

  Chapter Forty

  Jirí woke Hathor at dusk. He leaned over her face, stroking her cheek lightly as he stared at her. Then, as her eyes fluttered open, he pulled her roughly by the arm. She flew up into the air from the coffin to her feet in surprise. Her head swam dizzily as she glanced around a fancy hotel suite. She buckled at the knees, only to be caught up by J
irí’s persistence. She hardly had time to notice the lavish furniture or the full-sized, stocked bar as the old vampire whisked her around to face him. His hand stayed possessively firm on her arm.

  “Glad to see you awake, m’lady,” he smirked. He studied her intently, his cold gaze traveling over her slender form, from her wide, sleepy eyes to the trembling of her legs barely able to support her weight. His hunger gnawed at his stomach, demanding he eat. He ignored it for the moment.

  “I can do it myself.” She tried to snatch her arm away. He let her go. She stumbled before righting herself. Jirí chuckled.

  “Did you rest?” he asked at length.

  “You know I did. You keep making me pass out.” Hathor realized he was toying with her. She saw the amusement in his expression as he watched her.

  Jirí’s dark laughter grew louder. It strung across the room, filling it. He raised his hand. She grimaced.

  “Do I have to tell you to stay here, m’lady? Or do you wish to be bound?” he inquired smoothly. He lowered his hand to the side before walking away from her. “I should hate to leave you tied to the bed whilst I am away.”

  “Where are you going?” she questioned nervously. When his eyebrow rose slightly in amusement, she hastened, “I’ll be fine here.”

  “I could force you back to sleep,” he offered. When he smiled at her, his face lit with a heartrending handsomeness. Its charm was lost on Hathor. She thought only of Servaes. “If you think you might be tempted to run—”

  “No, I’ll stay here,” Hathor broke in. She knew it would be pointless for her to try to hide. Her only hope was that Servaes would sense her first and come rescue her.