All twelve flights to the very top. I momentarily considered forcing the security door open and high-tailing it onto the roof to avoid any Norms, but that would defeat the purpose of finding a sheltered environment in which to record our chat, so I dashed down the penthouse hallway, straining to hear any heartbeats on the other side of the closed doors. First penthouse, two heartbeats. Second, none.
The relief was astounding, and I prayed to Lucinda's Goddess, that the occupant was staying out all night, then slammed through his front door, throwing Sanguis Vitam out before me in order to silence any internal house alarms. It worked, but I didn't have time to feel pride in my skills.
I did a quick survey of the layout, but couldn't establish more than a vague idea that the bedrooms and utilities were to the back of the apartment and the huge lounge-come-open-plan-dining area took up most of the front wall.
The view was spectacular, but that was all I comprehended before my Sire walked in the room.
Chapter 35
Pride
I turned slowly to face him, my entire being on high alert. This was it. Him and me. He knew all my secrets now, he knew my Dark Shadow would come out to play if push came to shove. He knew what I was capable of, my weaknesses as well as my strengths. And yet he still followed me here. To kill me? Or to bring me to heel? I had no idea, but I did know this was it.
One of us would definitely die tonight, maybe both of us. But it would end here.
"Xavier," I said keeping my voice low.
"Daughter," he replied in that deep purr.
We stared at each other for several seconds, but I had no way of knowing from his look alone, what he was thinking. I inhaled softly and took in the scents on the air. Smooth and dry Merlot, laced with a floral bouquet.
Oh fuck. He was proud. Proud of me, his protégée. That was how this would go then, he wanted me to be a part of his line still. It made me feel sick, but I could use this. He was trying to hide his emotions behind a vampire mask, but maybe he didn't know everything there was to know about me, because if he did, he wouldn't have bothered to hide. I'd just sniff it out and detect it, exactly like I just had.
I cocked my head to the side and said, "You followed then?" He nodded, but didn't move from his spot across the huge room. Nods were not good, I needed him chatty.
"Why?" I knew, but he didn't know I knew, so for now I'd play the game.
"You are unique," he purred. "Your talents are useful."
"Useful to your grand plan?" I asked.
"Yes."
"And what plan was that again?"
"You already know," he replied, annoyingly coy.
I scrambled internally for an out, my Dark Shadow shifted inside. It wasn't angry, it wasn't in frustration as she was so oft to do, it was simply to get my attention.
"My Dark Shadow knows," I said immediately getting her meaning. "How about you repeat it for me?"
"Your Dark Shadow," Xavier said slowly. "You were not present when she was in charge?" he confirmed.
"No," I answered simply, thinking this was going to be some scenario for Mark to explain away when the tapes get played in court.
"Is she present now?" he asked.
"Yes, but in the background, I am in control." It didn't bother me that I was revealing secrets to this vampire, he - or I - would soon be dead. And as for Mark and the Police, what did any of it actually mean to them? Mark was going to have to find an explanation for all of it, he'd mentioned maybe blaming our terminology on an on-line group game site. Something that Xavier and I could have been part of. It was weak, but it also wasn't my problem. Right now I had enough on my hands.
"Can you command her at will to come out and play?" he asked casually, but the scents on the air told me how eager he was to know. This was a tool he could use and nothing else.
"Yes, she is mine to command." My Dark Shadow raked her nails down my spine for that one, but her heart wasn't in it.
"Good," he said simply, then nothing else.
"So," I started, "your plans?"
"Yes, my plans. As I explained to your Dark Shadow, I am in the process of accumulating enough wealth to support a take over of the Nosferatu World." Fuck-a-duck, how the hell was Mark going to explain this away?
"I bet you are," I said in an obvious fake calming tone. Hoping like hell that Mark could say he was delusional and I was just playing along to keep him happy. "And how are you achieving this goal?"
"You already know," he said, a note of annoyance, and something else, entering into his voice. I inhaled and quelled my resulting anger at my mistake. Bold grapefruit and lime. He was alarmed at my behaviour, I was thinking because he was beginning to suspect something was wrong.
I scrambled, again. "Yeah, the Vive La Vodka drinks. Great idea, how did you make them so addictive?"
"Humans are so easy to control, it doesn't require our power, simply drug them and they are yours to command."
"You drugged the mixer?" I asked surprised. I had thought some form of magic would have been used, but a drug, hell any Norm could have accomplished that.
"The drink is a drug. With the portals open to Álfheimr access to a plethora of substances is easy to obtain. The drink was fabricated to my formula." The fairies were involved in this, Aliath was going to be mad. "It took time to perfect it, but my contact at the brewery made the task... pleasurable."
Arsehole. "You mean Alison Danvers at SubZero?"
He looked at me for a long moment. I held my breath expecting him to deny it, or simply offer a movement to answer the question, or maybe even pounce on me and rip off my head yelling, you cannot trap me, bitch!
But finally, he spoke. "She was delicious. She tasted divine."
"You used her," I pushed my luck further. "Then killed her."
He smiled. "She was an excellent fuck and an even better meal, but the test subjects rebelled. The earlier formulas too addictive, they forced her to approach me. They wished to bypass the system, go right to the source."
"And you didn't like that," I guessed.
"She was weak, she wouldn't have confronted me unless they pushed."
"Why didn't you just glaze her?" I was forgetting about the need to keep this Norm-tolerant, too wrapped up in the events and curious myself to know why. "Why kill her?"
"She had served her purpose. The drink was a success and secured in the market place, I no longer needed access to the company through her. She had to die."
"Why a knife? Why not drain her dry yourself." I knew the answer, he was trying to lay a false trail, so the Master of the City couldn't conclude it was a vamp, but I still asked the question, getting a little carried away with our chat.
"Tell me," he said not answering. "Do you not remember me saying you would not ask questions of me?"
Oh shit, he had said that to me, before my Dark Shadow came out to play. I frantically tried to think of an excuse for my prying, one that wouldn't lead to a separation of my head from my shoulders.
Offence is the best defence, they say.
"Change of plans, Xavier. You now know I am more than I appeared. I don't want to simply be a follower in your endeavours. I want to stand at your side. To do that, I need to know all of your plans, your reasons for what has happened and what else you intend to do. Take it or leave it. I will not kowtow to you."
I thought it had worked, I was assertive, not too aggressive. And if there is anything a vampire admires, it's strength. I would be a useful tool in his arsenal, he knew this, I was counting on him accepting it. But I had forgotten my Sire was capable of acting like a Rogue. And Rogues have neither rhyme nor reason for what they do. They feed when hungry. They kill because they cannot stop feeding when they start. They don't wash or maintain their health; physical or mental. They work alone, thinking any other vampire is a threat that needs to be put down.
Their entire existence is reactionary. Survival at all costs gone haywire. To the extreme.
I had thought Xavier used the act of Rogue as
a cover. Merely a tool to fly under the radar, to distract, to confuse.
I had been wrong.
He had switch inside him, one that could get flicked at the drop of a hat. I don't know what I said or did to flick that switch. My excuse for demanding answers was sound. It made sense. But when that switch is flicked nothing makes sense to a Rogue.
I watched as my Sire, who had been standing before me well dressed - New dark brown chino trousers and a cream long sleeved t-shirt. Polished tan boots, matching leather belt at his slim waist. His hair loose and long, but brushed to a lustrous shine. Purely master vampire. - turned into a Rogue. Before my very eyes.
His fangs came out and down, his eyes bled to red, his hands effected claw-like positions in front of him and, frighteningly, he began to drool. Actually drool. Slavering, lunatic. Rogue vampire about to strike.
"Oh shit," I muttered reaching for a stake.
But I was way too slow. He flew through the air towards me and then blinked out of sight.
"What the fuck?" I exclaimed loudly and then followed it up with an, "oomph!" as he barrelled into my chest.
We rolled head over heels through the settee, a lamp crashed to the ground, the glass table top shattered, cushions went flying and lastly plasterboard crumbling at the back of my head. Not once or twice, but half a dozen times as he bashed my head repeatedly against the wall.
I scraped the stake down the side of his face, not able to reach his chest as he was pressed firmly against my own, and received a howl of anger and frustration for my efforts.
"You gonna kill me too, Xavier?" I panted. "Alison and all the research group not enough?"
He didn't answer. Rogue. Not many can carry a conversation and drool at the same time.
Instead I went flying through the air and slammed through another wall, this time the plasterboard didn't so much as crumble, but explode, as my entire body went through it and then proceeded through the glass ranch slider in that room. I came to rest on the exposed balcony.
I felt glass embed into my skin, a slice down my forearm, shards impale in my back. I managed to brush off some of the more noticeable fragments from my front and then he was on me again, this time his fangs finding purchase at my neck.
My Dark Shadow rose, preparing to come to the fore, I moaned out a "No!" and followed that up with a whimpered, "Light" and felt her hesitate for a second. I took advantage of her pause and blasted Xavier with my Light.
For some reason my Dark Shadow had allowed me to do that, which made me fleetingly wonder if it was a tool she couldn't use herself. I couldn't think further on it, before my head was twisted in a vice-like grasp and the tendons on the side of my neck began to snap. Next would be muscle, then the bone, followed by my spinal cord. And last, but by no means least, the separation of my head from my shoulders.
I'd used my Light, I was fighting with all of my Sanguis Vitam, my stake was slamming repeatedly into his back but somehow missing his heart. The wind was howling around us, glass stabbing not only into my side, but I was sure into him as well. I couldn't hear a thing, other than the humming of my Sanguis Vitam, the accompaniment of his, and the howl of the wind as it rushed around us twelve stories up in the sky.
He would drain me, kill me and escape. He would continue to murder the research group. Go on to his next project and kill innocents again. Stu would remain behind bars. Kara would be distraught for the rest of her life, having to get body-searched every time she visited her cousin in prison. The indignity for both unacceptable, but if luck was on their side, the taped confession I had recorded tonight would set Stu free.
I had done my best, and I prayed it was enough. For Stu and Kara. But the innocents still remained.
I am Nothus. Half of me is Nosferatin. Half of me is of the Light. This Rogue on top of me now, draining me dry while he rips off my head, may not have killed all those victims with his fangs as a normal Rogue does - he'd found a loophole to the Nosferatin talent - but that didn't mean my Nosferatin side wasn't going to hunt him and kill him just the same. Wasn't going to do, right now, what was right.
And right now was my last chance.
So I took it.
I surged to my feet, staggered under his weight and my loss of blood, and then rolled us over the balcony railing. Together.
His fangs came out of my neck, he pushed back reflexively against the grip on my upper arms, enough space to strike. I thrust my stake into his chest as I felt a tug on my jacket at my neck. Xavier continued to fall, my stake embedded above his heart. But my trajectory stopped.
I slammed back against the building, heard my jacket start to tear and then firm hands grasped me under my armpits and began to haul me up. But I couldn't take my eyes off my Sire, as he plummeted towards the concrete so far below. The stake would get embedded further on impact. The force of landing finishing what I had started. I watched and waited with bated breath.
It happened so fast. Xavier's eyes holding mine. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, I couldn't inhale a scent in the wind that buffeted my face. But a split fraction of a second before he hit the pavement, I think he blinked out of sight.
There was so much dust and debris, swirling around on street level, flying up in circular flurries, blowing away on the breeze. And to top it off, the night time street cleaners were out in force. Their twirling brushes catching any evidence of his demise in the gutter below as their yellow rotating light illuminated the side of the street.
But there had been dust and I was sure more than before. But with the wind so strong and me being so far up and him using shadows at the last instant to hide himself from sight and the street cleaners coming along at exactly that second, I couldn't exactly be sure. Had he burst into dust upon final death? It certainly looked like it.
And I wanted to believe it. I wanted him to be dead-dead.
And I didn't. He was my Sire. Even if he killed me. And others. There was no denying the fact, that my life had changed because of him. He brought me to this place, where I have accepted what I am. Nothus.
It wasn't a thought I was proud of, but I pushed it aside, hid it beneath the aches assailing my body and then the welcomed feeling of Samson wrapping his arms around me the second my body made it back over the balcony railing. His face nestled into my neck, inhaling deeply, his chest crushed to mine. I smelled his pine needles and musk, felt his Sanguis Vitam wrap around me. My own automatically entwining with his.
It felt good. It felt right. My Dark Shadow purred contentedly inside.
Mine, she whispered to me. Ours, she encouraged further.
His lips trailed across my collar bone, a growl of sorts coming from the back of his throat. I arched my head back, allowing him further access - a natural movement that required no thought to perfect - opening myself up to his desire.
I'm not sure if it was the adrenaline of the moment, the fight and near fall making me reckless and blocking all logical thought, but my body responded to his touch as though it was meant to, the Dark Shadow inside urging me on. When his lips found mine, I kissed him back with as much conviction as he kissed me. Our bodies moulded together, the wind still howling around us as we stood wrapped up in each other on that balcony high in the Auckland sky, his lips on mine, his hands securely holding me exactly where he wanted me to be, his tongue meeting and matching the eager movements of mine.
It was bliss. It was heaven. It brought back so many delicious memories I thought I might just cry. The taste of him, the feel of him, the scent of him - so consuming, so beautiful. So right.
He deepened the kiss, he pressed more firmly into my chest, his hands roaming hungrily, his tongue tasting everything I had to offer.
And I let him.
For maybe as long as ten minutes, I'm not sure. I savoured it for that too short time.
And then I forced myself to wake up, my Dark Shadow howling in frustration inside, my heart near to breaking knowing what I was doing, regretting it already, as I pushed him away with both hands. Getti
ng a scowl for my efforts, but I had to remain strong.
He needed a reminder. If he hadn't already comprehended where I come from, from that near-final-death fight I'd just shared with my Sire.
I am Nothus.
And always will be.
I am not who he loved anymore.
Epilogue
It took a while, lots of meetings and interviews and statements, but thankfully by Sunday evening Stu was let out. So, not as long as I had thought, but too long considering the hours I had spent at Central Police Station, including a whole day because the interviews went over and there was no way I was chancing the sun. But, despite the hours of harassment, the inference that I was some gaming geek with a fragile mind that made me "live out" scenarios alongside a controlling and murderous "father figure come sugar daddy" - the daughter tag Xavier had landed me with on tape having to be explained away somehow - it had been all worthwhile.
Stu was free. The powers that be let him out on the evidence I had provided. I wondered why they had been so staunch before and suspected it had something to with Jett. Again he appeared at the police department whilst I was being interviewed. He came in, he left. Stu was released not fifteen minutes later. And now, Xavier was considered the felon, responsible for no less than nine murders. Unfortunately the last victim's flatmates had all been at home and died at his side. But now Stu was free and the Police Department was on the look-out for a miraculously twelve-floor-drop survivor to arrest for the crimes, as there was no body at the scene. But Samson knew better; Xavier died in that fall. The height alone wouldn't have killed him, but my stake had been in his chest and the impact from the fall would have finished him off in the end. Besides, there was only dust at the scene. Copious amounts of it.
My stake though, hadn't been found on the street afterwards, but Samson thought the sweepers had swept it up at the time and was in the process of trying to track it down for me with the council's street working department. It had to have gone somewhere, and that made as much sense as anything, according to Samson.
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