It was the first Annette had seen him without shadows hiding his face. The full light revealed that he might really have on a mask, one with bandages on it. Odd.
Pathos’s smile was deadly cold. The air even seemed to turn frosty. “I’ll give you power, my son, but if you ever try to take it from my hand again and betray me, what you suffered from Shashur will be a pleasure in comparison to what I will do to you.”
Cinatas didn’t respond. He only stared back at Pathos.
All was not rosy in hell, it would seem.
A door opened, and six women of different races and heights seemingly floated into the room. Each wore a black silk dress, simply cut to hug a perfect hourglass figure, and black slippers that made no noise upon the marbled floor. They didn’t speak and kept their gazes focused on the floor.
“You know what I want. Do not fail me,” Pathos said.
Annette was in the middle of rolling her eyes when the women converged on her.
“Forget it,” she said, backing up, holding them at bay with her raised hands.
“Then our lives would be forfeit,” said a woman from behind her.
Before Annette could swing around, a soft hand pressed against her neck and a sharp prick followed by a burning rush along her vein and a fuzzy feeling in her head told her she’d been drugged. She ran two steps, but within seconds her muscles lost their ability to hold her upright no matter how loudly her mind shouted at them to move. The women caught her before she hit the floor.
Irritation ate its way up Pathos’s spine as he walked into the Olympus Room, where Vasquez and Samir waited. With the exception of seeing his global plan evolve, he had few pleasures and rarely any anticipatory excitement. Centuries of indulgence had stolen any real enjoyment. At least, until he’d met this woman and her little makeshift blowtorch.
He ran his fingers through his short hair to remind himself how much she owed him. Now that he had his little bird in hand, watching what the women would do to her, seeing their hands all over her helpless, naked flesh, readying her for his enjoyment, would be an added pleasure he hadn’t known he would enjoy until he saw the look of total panic in her eyes as she succumbed to the drug. He so wanted her to know he was watching everything being done to her for him.
But the instant Pathos met Vasquez’s gaze across the room, he knew Shashur’s execution was going to be a bigger problem than anticipated.
Vasquez wore his full military regalia, and like the two Vladarians flanking him, the anger in his gaze bordered on mutiny. “Wellbourne, Samir, it is good to see you. What has you gentlemen unable to wait until the meeting tonight to speak to me?”
Vasquez reared his shoulders back, realizing that Pathos had deliberately refused to address him.
“What is this I hear?” Vasquez bellowed. “Shashur’s gone? One day he calls me and mi amigo is well, then he’s nada?”
Pathos smiled sadly, but his right hand balled into a fist. “I went to see him, found him ill, and sent him for help, but his existence ceased before anything could be done.”
“That is unfortunate,” Vasquez said, gravely.
“Yes, Shashur was a valued member of the Order. He will be missed.”
“No. You misunderstand me, Señor Pathos. What is unfortunate for us all is that I heard a different story about mi amigo. One that I would not have believed at one time. But there are other things happening, no?” He shot Cinatas a cutting glance. “First, you and El Doctor have been slowly commandeering more and more of Corazon for your experiments, expecting Vasquez to hide the many that die. The jungle covers secrets well, but I tire of this intrusion. Now there is this new trouble with El Doctor. And I say to myself, Vasquez, there is something not right here. Still, I have faith, no? But now the black demons come to Vasquez and tell a very disturbing story about Shashur. That my fearless leader has had mi amigo executed.”
Cinatas stepped forward, somehow managing to twist his masked face into a disapproving frown. “You dare to question Pathos? He has brought all of you from groveling beasts to contenders for world power. Have you no respect? No appreciation?”
“Si, El Doctor. That is why Vasquez is here for an explanation before taking action.”
“Interesting.” Pathos turned his back on Vasquez and sauntered across the room to sink comfortably into an overstuffed black wing chair that put him at the head of the room with his back to the wall. Stretching his feet, he leisurely rolled his shoulders and gave Vasquez an affable smile. “I’ve always considered you to be highly intelligent, Vasquez. So you’ll have to forgive me if I’m finding it difficult to believe you’d take the word of beasts with no more intelligence than to sew rotting appendages to themselves and parade like grotesque gargoyles. Why Shashur went to them thinking they could treat his strange illness, I don’t know. The disease must have affected his mind. The truth is, Shashur was past the point of saving due to the black demons’ incompetence, but I sent him to the red demons anyway, hoping they could keep him alive long enough for Dr. Cinatas to discover what was wrong.”
Cinatas moved to stand beside Pathos’s chair. “What I fear, gentlemen, is that Logos may have tainted the blood of the Elan. Two of those who supplied Shashur’s transfusion last week were young women who hadn’t been donors before, but their foster parents have been with us for a long time.”
Pathos eased a smile across his face. The sheer brilliance of his son astounded him. The vampires were now on the defensive and threatened, but not by either him or Cinatas. In fact, they could eliminate any of the Vladarians they chose to with few repercussions. Genius!
Real fear struggled with Vasquez’s bullish antagonism, his expression twisting as if a noose had just tightened around his neck.
Wellbourne frowned. The Brit rarely showed emotion or involved himself in any of the oil-rich vampires’ drama. It’s why Pathos occasionally had him out to Zion. His appearance with Vasquez was a slap in the face.
Samir moved forward. The principal owner of SINCO Oil, the slick shark never had the spine to do anything but ride either Vasquez’s or Shashur’s wake. “What do you mean, ‘tainted the blood’?”
Cinatas sighed as if greatly troubled. “I’m still investigating, but my preliminary impression was that the proteins in the Elans’ blood have been altered to be lethal to a Vladarian’s system. A bit like E. coli poisoning for vampires.”
“You’re trying to tell me that after all this bloody time, Logos has changed the game on us?” Wellbourne demanded.
Cinatas shrugged. “Shashur’s demand for fresh blood, not frozen, left him open to something like this. As to why now…who can fathom Logos’s mind? Perhaps he’s threatened by our growing strength within the mortal realm.”
“Vasquez must see your proof! I have little trust at the moment,” Vasquez said.
“Unfortunately, any proof burned in the Manhattan fire. But rest assured I am investigating this and will notify all of the Vladarians of my findings. Until then, we’ll only be able to use frozen Elan blood from longtime donors.”
Wellbourne paced away. “The neurotic Euro vamps are in a panic over something as simple as the two fires. Couldn’t even wait until midnight for the answers. This is going to send them through the bloody roof. When were you going to tell us?”
Pathos smiled. This was going better than he could have imagined, and Cinatas had them all in the palm of his devious little hand. “Tonight—when I turned over leadership of you Vladarians to my son. I grow weary of your lack of appreciation for all that I do.”
All three of the vampires’ fangs flashed as they snarled in outrage and shock.
“Bloody hell,” yelled Wellbourne. “You must be joking.”
“Your son?” gasped Samir. “Who?”
“Gentlemen, you’re already very well acquainted with him. Dr. Anthony Cinatas. The man who has been a savior of sorts to you already.”
Vasquez let out a long string of Spanish curses. “El Doctor? You are very mistaken if you think to turn you
r leadership over to him. He has already proven himself to be most difficult. Corazon is mine, and he commandeers everything as if he has the right. The Vladarians vote for their jefe.”
“Well,” said Pathos, “then perhaps we’ll take a vote at the meeting tonight. And depending on the results, maybe Cinatas will be compelled to discover what killed Shashur.”
The dead silence that followed his words was like music to his ears. He’d never achieved that among the Vladarians. Never.
“Until tonight then, gentlemen.” And on that note, Pathos exited the room, Cinatas silently following behind him.
Chapter Sixteen
S AM GLARED AT the sky before nailing Emerald with an angry glare. Erin and Emerald were lucky they weren’t dead. He didn’t know about Annette, but he hoped to God they had some time before the werewolf tore into her. He was more than pissed that they hadn’t followed orders and stayed put. He felt as turbulent as the mother of all thunderstorms that seemed to be brewing overhead. It appeared out of nowhere, tearing through the sky, ready to demolish everything in its path. He could relate.
“You didn’t do anything to save her?” Sam shouted above the thunder at Emerald. She sat on the front porch of the Rankins’ house, looking as sick as he felt and clutching a dragon-covered laptop to her breast. Pieces of Celeste Rankin were all over the kitchen. He’d known a lot of hard shit in his life, but nobody could face that kitchen and stay detached.
“No, I dinna,” Emerald said, her voice no more than a whisper. She didn’t look at him, but kept staring out at the whipping trees and down the darkening driveway, as if she was still watching the limo Annette had supposedly climbed into of her free will.
“Why?” he demanded again. He sucked in several deep breaths and clamped down on the rising lump in his throat. His deputies would be here at any moment, and he prayed to God the storm would hold off long enough for them to search the perimeter of the cabin for evidence before the storm destroyed it all.
He knew he wasn’t just shouting to be heard over the storm, too. He was shouting because he was just so damn mad that the women hadn’t done what he and Jared had asked.
He really was glad Emerald hadn’t tried any foolhardy heroics. Really, what could one woman do to stop a werewolf and an insane doctor? It was just that her mystical mumbo-jumbo ticked him off so much that he had to shout at her about something. Either that or pull his own hair out.
“I already told you. Meggie had a vision. If I had done anything other than bleedin’ hide, they would have fooking taken me with them, and then it would have been vera, vera bad.”
A vision! A freaking vision ruled her actions. Not reason, not intelligence, but a vision relayed to her by a young girl who apparently had never had a vision before. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, thankful to hear the approaching sirens.
“Well, I hope to hell Nick doesn’t lose sight of the truck we ‘let’ past the roadblock, or Annette will be seeing her sister sooner than any of us thought. They’ll both be pushing up daises. That truck is our only link to Pathos, and hopefully Annette will still be alive by the time it reaches him, provided that’s where it is headed.”
“Don’t you dare say that!” Emerald erupted from her seat and swung around. The fire in her eyes seared right through him, making him feel more of a worthless bastard than he already was. He knew she had to be feeling worse than hell that Annette had been taken, and he shouldn’t be adding to it. But damn it, at some point they had to understand that an order to stay put was just that. The whole freaking U.S. military would implode if soldiers didn’t obey orders.
“Stefanie is alive!” Emerald shouted.
“Stefanie!” Sam was sure the pounding in his head and the blood roaring in his ears meant that he was in the midst of a stroke. How could she be arguing over Stefanie’s demise right now? How could she even be thinking about Stefanie at a moment like this? Annette had just been taken—he was still puzzling out the went-without-force scenario.
The woman was whacked, and he looked with fervent relief at one of his deputies tearing up the drive. “Rankin just hacked his wife up. Are you telling me he didn’t touch a hair on Stefanie’s head? She’s probably buried in the backyard in as many pieces as his wife. Go get in Rand’s squad car,” he told her when the deputy skidded to a halt in the gravel. “I’ll drive you over to Annette’s as soon as I talk to him about what needs to go down here. That computer you’re choking is evidence, but I’m going to ignore that for a few minutes until we get a copy of what’s on there. We don’t have time for red tape if any of the data can lead us to Annette.”
“I’ll walk,” she said.
Lightning cracked across the sky, trying to split the world open. Sam got in Emerald’s face. “You’ll ride either in the car or over my shoulder, but there is no way in hell you are walking down the damn road.”
She looked up at him, and the tears swimming in her fierce green eyes nearly sent him to his knees. “We canna stay in our homes anymore, Sam. And I canna protect Meggie anymore without more power, not even in our home. I canna let anythin’ more happen to Meggie.”
Sam reached out to pull her into his arms, but at the last second only set his hand on her shoulder. “Nothing is going to happen to Meggie. Do you hear me? Nothing.”
She shook her head and stepped away from his touch. “It already has. Her vision was vera bad. And I’m afraid we canna stop what’s coming next.”
He turned his back to her before he said the words clamoring to escape from his screaming tension. He’d turned away before he told her to wake up and deal with the real world, to unbury her head from the mystical sand, before the world ate her ass up—words he wouldn’t have hesitated to say before last week and his realization that werewolves and vampires were real. Before he gave in to the even stronger need to kiss her.
Through the pain scorching his spirit, Aragon began to despair. Instead of growing stronger and regaining consciousness, Navarre became more delirious, weaker. And Aragon didn’t know if it was because he was losing his own power, becoming more and more a faded warrior, or if Navarre’s soul was being damaged, and thus he was losing his spirit to live and fight. He knew he’d already missed his opportunity to follow the mortal vehicle to where Pathos might be. But all might not be for naught; the dark cloud hovering over the mountain told him that something more was there.
A heavy hand fell on Aragon’s shoulder. “You must go.”
York’s voice seemed to be coming from a long tunnel. Aragon shook his head. “I can’t leave Navarre. Not like this.”
“You must! You must finish helping the mortals you pledged to aid and then return. Sven has gone to the council, requesting you be absolved and that your execution punishment be placed upon him.”
“What?” Aragon reared back, shocked to the center of his being. “Why? He can’t do that!”
“Sven saw it as his only honorable path. The fight with the Pyrathians convinced him that only atonement will bring peace amongst the brotherhood. He sees all of this as his fault and hopes to convince the council of it. He went in peace with the Pyrathians so that they could all face the council with their actions. You know the council will wait the sacred three sun cycles before deciding upon a matter of such import, but we’ve no time to waste. You must go, now.”
Navarre began to shudder again.
“How? Navarre isn’t surviving the pain.” Aragon grabbed York’s hand and pressed it to Navarre’s wound and then set both his hands over Navarre’s heart. “Together we might save him.”
York groaned, his arm shaking from the searing pain. Then he thrust his other hand over Navarre’s heart, and the energy exploding from him shocked Aragon. York’s nature had always been fervent, but Aragon hadn’t realized how passionate or how strong. “I can do this alone. And if necessary, I can take him to the Pyrathians. They can help heal those they’ve burned if they choose to,” he said. “Now go.”
Aragon hesitated, but when he felt Navarre respon
ding more to York’s energy than he had to his in all the time he’d been with him, Aragon stepped aside. He started to tell York that he was already becoming a faded warrior and might not be able to return to the spirit realm, and that Sven’s sacrifice would be in vain. But he didn’t. York needed to think of no one other than Navarre. Aragon set his hand on York’s shoulder. “I will save Sven.”
He left the cave then, walking into the fading afternoon light. A storm brewed above, dark, angry, and fierce. The Guardian Forces had gathered to fight the growing concentration of Heldon’s Fallen Army. A battle in the spirit realm was about to explode and rain down upon the mortal ground. Their blood would fall from the heavens and pour upon the earth in iridescent droplets so powerful that all of life survived upon it.
Aragon stood for a long moment amidst the thunder and the lightning, torn between seeking out Annette or following through with his plan to find Pathos. The difficulty he had with his spirit form and traveling through the spirit realm gave him no choice. He had no doubt he was fading. There was only one thing he could do, and he ran hard in that direction, gasping in the high mountain air as his body strained for substance in the whipping wind that cut at him. He couldn’t seem to breathe in enough air, and the earth beneath his feet didn’t feel as solid. The scents of the forest—pine, fresh green, and fecund soil—though still there, weren’t as strong as they had been yesterday. He could smell the blood of the creatures, though, telling him that some of his abilities were strong yet. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, raging against the fate that he feared was ripping away his last chance to be a measure of the warrior he’d thought he’d be. Crossing the spirit barrier seemed to have drained more of him away, and his heart cried out for Annette, for a chance to know once more the pleasure and the fire of her embrace. He prayed to Logos for just a little more time.
He needed her, and his spirit called out for hers, seeking the connection they shared. But he found no answering cry, and wondered if he’d even make it to her side before he faded completely.
The Lure of the Wolf Page 21