by C. L. Quinn
A voice came out of the blackness. “Zach, turn on your headlamp.”
Oh. Of course. Now he remembered the headlamp that he’d worn for the past twenty minutes. “Thanks, Nik. Don’t think I didn’t notice the tone of voice, like you were talking to a three-year-old.”
Stepping off the ladder, the crunch of ice beneath his boot groaning loudly, Zach joined Nikolai, already some distance ahead of him. “I’ll have you know that I am five years old.”
Nikolai stopped and looked back at Zach. “Really? I always figured you guys were all centuries old. Olivia told me that it’s quite rare to make new vampires these days.”
“She’s right. Unless you happened to be dying, your guts shredded, and have a woman who feels guilty about it nearby who knows a bunch of vampires. Yeah, I’m a baby, I’ll admit it. It doesn’t mean that I’m weak, though, so please keep that in mind.”
“I would so love to have a chance to look at your blood. I don’t suppose that you would allow me to do so?”
“Can’t. Strict rules. Vampire code. I would have to eat you if I did, you see the problem.”
“I see the problem. But Olivia will vouch for me.”
“She has. Knowing we exist is one thing, but having incontrovertible proof and data about our biological make-up is another. You would be wiped. I don’t think you want that.”
“I don’t. Olivia and I have developed a close, symbiotic relationship and I wouldn’t want to lose it.”
“Does it bother you that she’s sleeping with Zip now?”
“No. We haven’t been lovers since the month we met ten years ago. I love Olivia, but we have become more family these days. And I am well aware of your insatiable sexual needs. Your friend seems to be keeping her happy and that is all that matters.”
“I agree.”
“I am glad, though, that you have come with me. I am not sure what to think of this discovery. That’s why I wanted Olivia to come. I need a vampire to tell me if what we’ve found is…well, vampire. It’s a good thing that I found this site before any of my associates.”
“I’m intrigued. But how much deeper do we go?”
“Another forty feet as this corridor descends. It won’t be long now.”
“How the hell did you find something this far underground?”
“We’ve used a combination of methods in our search for access to greater depths through existing ice caves and fissures, then we tunnel where we need to. This is the deepest we’ve gone. It has been worth it. You will see.”
Sliding on the ice-covered trail, they finally reached a place where the ice-cave broke off into two tunnels from a large chamber of pale blue ice.
“Over here, Zach. Be careful not to step on anything other than the area I have marked with those picks. The artifacts and bones lie all along this section.”
Bones? “Nikolai, are you saying that there are vampire bones here?”
Nikolai nodded. “I think so. Zach, I think this might be an ancient burial site for vampires.”
This was big. It was important. The first bloods would certainly want to know about this.
Slowly, Zach followed Nikolai on the narrow path defined by metal poles forced into the ice, leaving very little foot space. Once he passed through the narrow walkway, grateful that he hadn’t lost his balance or footing and fallen into the piles of chipped ice and hard frozen blocks of snow piled up around the side of the cave, he scanned the smooth ice.
God. Nikolai was right, this was obviously a burial chamber. Just within his line of sight, he could see what looked like the remains of at least six people lain side by side. It appeared that even after they had been recently excavated, water had continued to leak into the cave. Dull white bones nestled next to each other were covered with a layer of crystal clear ice.
“You think they are vampire?” Zach’s voice echoed against the curved roof of the chamber.
“This is why,” Nikolai answered as he painstakingly stepped past the barrier and carefully squatted down to point at something near one of the skulls with a long sleek pen.
Bending closer, Zach let his eyes focus on the area Nikolai indicated.
“Here. Do you see it?”
Zach did. He nodded and moved back. “Christ. It’s a fang.”
“I thought so. We haven’t brought anyone out yet, but it appears that all of the skulls have that unusual defect. But it’s not a defect at all. These are vampires laid to rest, aren’t they?”
“It appears so. But it doesn’t make sense. The heads are still attached to the bodies. Beheading is the major thing that kills vampires. That and fire or sun exposure. Neither should account for all of these vampire deaths.”
“I don’t know any details yet, we’ve only just cordoned off the graves. But when I saw their skulls, Olivia was the first thing I thought about.”
“I understand why. Nikolai, how long do you think these bodies have been here?”
“I haven’t done any dating yet, but I would assume approximately ten thousand years.”
The comment blew the air out of the room for Zach.
Ten thousand years? If that was true, and these were vampires, then all of the first blood vampires that he knew, those who called themselves the “parents” of all vampires, the first generation of original blood, were nothing of the kind. They were not the first vampires at all.
Later that night, holding down a table made of heavy local wood, the two vampires and two humans enjoyed bottles of Scotch and vodka that they had brought from Nikolai’s cabin to a club that was popular with both locals and visitors to Olkhon Island. Although alcohol wasn’t served there, the owners of the club had no problem with those who brought it in to indulge. Music played softly as Olivia danced too close to Zip, who did not seem to mind at all.
Nikolai’s home was located halfway between the north side of the island where he worked on the recent project and where he’d taken Zach today, and the village of Khuzhir, located on the west side of the island. The main village on this largest of islands, Khuzhir was where everyone gathered for socializing and commerce.
After downing a full bottle of good Scotch, Zach leaned in to Nikolai, who had a fine buzz going too.
“Say, you happy here in this freaking icebox? This has to be one of the coldest places on Earth.”
“Da, for now. What I do here, I cannot do anywhere else in the world. I believe that, because of my education and interests, and because of my relationship with Olivia, I am uniquely qualified to investigate the mystery beneath this island.”
“You don’t get lonely?”
“I have moments. But there are a few lovely Buryat women who have warmed me on some of the cold nights.”
“Buryat?”
“The aboriginal people who have been here for all of time and who still live simply, much like they did centuries ago. We’re spoiling them now and that is a shame. They believe that this area is one of five global poles of shamanic energy. This is a place of magic.”
“I have a great deal of respect for the beliefs of individual communities. I would like to learn more about their religion.”
“Stay, then, my friend. Help me learn more about my buried vampires and I will help you find your own earth energy.”
“Maybe. What you have discovered here will be of great interest to the vampires I know in France, one of whom is the genetic scientist that I told you about earlier. It seems that you might get to meet her after all.”
“I’ll drink to that!” Nikolai held up his glass, clinked it against Zach’s bottle, and downed it in one long gulp.
Using the back of his hand, Nikolai wiped his mouth and slammed the glass against the tabletop.
“Kruto!”
Olivia and Zip finally parted. Fingers intertwined with Zip’s, a look of schoolgirl infatuation on her face, Olivia led him back from the dance floor they had created by moving three tables.
“God, that’s a sickly smile,” Zach commented, smiling just as widely.
She pitched a beer can at him, pushed Zip into a chair, and crawled onto his lap. “You’re just jealous. Michael has an amazing touch, for a human. The smile is genuine. I bet you could learn something.”
“Maybe, but please, no details. I’d like to keep this fine Scotch down.”
In the midst of all the kidding about Olivia and Zip’s overt sexual attraction, Zach noticed something that both pleased him and saddened him. Zip hadn’t taken his eyes off Olivia all night. Zach recognized the symptoms…his flying buddy was falling in love.
Taking another long sip from the textured green bottle, he remembered how wonderful it was to fall in love. There was nothing like it. But as good as it felt, heart and soul deep, to fall in love, the pain when it ended was just as terrible. With the stunning Olivia, an older vampire who’d kissed the world for centuries, who loved her life and lived it on the edge, Zach doubted she had the same feelings for Zip. It would break his heart to watch Olivia break Zip’s.
But it wasn’t his job to protect Zip’s heart. If nothing else, with a vampire as sexy and tempestuous as Olivia, he’d have incredible memories. Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, Zach would make sure that he was left feeling happy and thrilled with his time here in Siberia.
“My friend, this is Odgerel. She wanted me to introduce her to you. She is lovely, yes?”
Distracted by the intense affair between his traveling companions, Zach glanced up as he processed what Nikolai had just said. Introduce? Lovely?
Looking to Nikolai’s left, he was enchanted immediately by a local woman with long, sleek hair and slanted eyes. Lovely? Yes, she was. He was already overdue for his blood meal this week, and this pretty local girl would do nicely.
“Hello, Odgerel. I’m Zach.”
Tilting her head down, Odgerel lifted her eyes to Zach’s. “Pleased to meet you, sir. My friends and I noticed you from this night when you left the city with Niko. I would be honored if you would do dinner with me.”
“Absolutely.”
Now that she was this near, Dez’s senses had kicked in. She could feel his lifeforce.
Zach was in there, in the dismal, small, and crowded shack with music wafting out the door whenever someone came or went. The bitter cold nipped her fingertips, her gloves lost on the train ride into this icy ghost town. It was odd that he’d ended up on a strip of land floating in a shiny lake in one of the coldest places on earth. The man liked his comfort.
The love of her life was maybe fifty feet away inside that crude hut. Dez wanted to see him more than anything on this earth, and yet she couldn’t move. Having always prided herself on her lack of insipid emotion, nonetheless, tears threatened as she imagined him holding her and telling her that he still loved her. Or if he smiled coldly, said hello, and told her that he was over her.
“Move your freakin’ feet, bitch,” she whispered to herself. Turning away, she started back down the uneven dirt road, the conversation with herself far from over.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen. You are one mean-ass mother, and you still don’t have enough courage to go in there and tell that man you love him. What are you afraid of? Get your ass in there right now, throw him on the ground, and show him who owns him.”
There. That was exactly what she was going to do. If it turned out that he didn’t want her anymore, then another train was heading out of this frozen wasteland too.
Turning on her heel, she slowed her pace so that she wouldn’t split the air and have to wipe the memories of two men standing near the door, nodded to them as she reached it, and went inside.
Unlike her own nightclubs that she ran in South America, this little club was more like someone’s comfy living room. Only a few tables sat around the edge of the room, all filled, and a couple was dancing closely on a makeshift dance floor.
Dez sensed two vampires in the room. A dark-haired woman looked up lazily from where she hugged a big human male. Her eyes moved to the large blonde man on the dance floor holding a pretty human woman tight against a bulge in his pants. The man was Zach.
Zach wasn’t alone. He’d just wrapped a hand around the woman’s neck and started to nuzzle into it when he stopped abruptly and looked up.
His eyes moved immediately to the silhouetted woman who had entered the building but stopped just inside the door. He knew instantly who it was, his vampire sense reading her, his body alert. Her presence filled the room, and not just for him. Everyone in the room had paused in their movements, the strikingly beautiful woman standing there, legs spread, arms at each side as if she was ready to strike, wrapped in black and red leather, commanded attention. She was like nothing they had ever seen before.
The silence extended, the music forgotten, until Dez threw back her head and smiled. “What’s a girl got to do to get a drink around here?”
Slowly, Dez scanned the faces glued to her. Several people, obviously local, full faces, beautiful eyes, Mongolian and Asian descent apparent, but when her eyes moved to the vampire woman, she was surprised to see a humorous expression on her face. Why? Did she know something about Zach and Dez? Likely. It irked her and she wondered if they’d fucked. Suddenly, Dez didn’t like the bitch at all, even though she had her body wrapped securely around the handsome human.
The moment came when she let her gaze wander back to Zach, hungry to see every inch of him, starved to linger on those enormous eyes that really saw her like no one else had ever done. Hungry and starved for him, in every way. He hadn’t moved except to push his dance partner back a few inches from him. In a black tee shirt with leather pants, he looked rough. He’d let his hair grow again and had a trimmed beard.
“Did you call ahead?” he finally said, his voice exactly as she remembered it. Tears sprung in her eyes again.
“I was hoping that there might still be room for me.”
He stepped forward slowly, his arms at his side, his hands flexing. “There always has been. I never cancelled your reservation.”
“Then I would like to take advantage of the opening.”
“You’re sure?”
Pausing two feet from Dez, his eyes glittering, his jaw set, Zach took the last step and lifted her into his arms. He buried his face in her hair, his eyes closing, his breath cinched as he felt her hands in his hair pulling on the blonde strands, her lips against his throat.
For seconds, minutes, they didn’t know, the two just held each other, Zach unable to believe she was finally in his arms again, Dez terrified to believe that he still wanted her. Even while he held her in his arms…what if he didn’t?
“Good God, you two, kiss already!”
Disentangling herself from Zip’s grip, Olivia slid off his lap and moved towards the two so tightly wound together, no air could slip between them.
“Dez, I presume. This man has been waiting for you.”
As Olivia neared, Dez’s sense of her vampire lifeforce drew her eyes from Zach. She watched the gorgeous vampire woman approach, her heart pounding, as she wondered if she was here with Zach. Memory flooded back how sexually intense and needy Zach was, and it only made sense that the young vampire was here with him. Sex for vampires was usually open, so the fact that she had been in the human’s lap meant nothing.
“Yeah, I’m Dez. You have an interest here, I assume.”
Olivia smiled, her eyes going to Zach. “I do. He’s quite a man.”
Jealousy struck hard, and Dez shoved off Zach, breathing raggedly now, her face flame.
“What, you want him now?”
Instantly, Zach placed himself in front of Olivia before Dez could launch herself at her.
“Dez, no! You have no quarrel with Olivia.”
Olivia…
“Now I know the name of the woman whose ass I have to tear up.”
Olivia laughed and leaned past Zach, once again capturing Dez’s attention completely. “Sweetheart, you have it wrong. I was just making sure that you passionately want this man. He isn’t mine and never was. So, cool down and show him why
you’ve come all the way here from your corner of the world. God knows there’s little else that would bring you to Siberia.”
Stilled, unsure of what had really happened here, Dez let her gaze bounce back to Zach.
“Fuck this,” he said, and blew from the building, Dez wrapped in his arms. He leaned her against a frost-covered car.
“Stay,” he commanded, and disappeared with vampire speed.
Her emotions raging, her body revved, her head splitting, Dez dropped her weight against the car of non-descript color and unrecognizable make.
Seconds later, Zach returned and opened the door on the passenger side.
“In,” he commanded again. It was clear he expected her full compliance and for once, she did exactly as he told her to do.
“Good. Smart.”
“Are you taking me to your room?”
“No. Too many ears and eyes there. Somewhere we can be alone.”
Dez fell silent, and just watched Zach maneuver the car on bad roads with ice and snow everywhere she could see in the blue-white of a waning moon.
He hadn’t changed. That face that had haunted her for years was as handsome as she remembered. She was pleased that he was still her Zach. Sometimes when someone needed to change their lives, they changed so much more. Not Zach, he was solid, reliable, sexy, perfect. And she was a ridiculous female who allowed a man to get under her skin and into her heart. Now, sitting beside him, she could sense his anger. Yes, she’d let him get to her, but she was still deeply under his skin too.
“Where?”
Zach turned his head to stare at her, his blue eyes lost in hers, and it took him a moment to answer. “You’ll see.”
Those eyes had laughed into hers while he was inside her so many times years ago before she’d fucked it all up. Beneath that gaze tonight, though, she could feel intense emotions, pain, relief, joy, anger. Truly, she did not know what to expect here tonight.
The car spun into an ice-bound shelf on the edge of the pristine lake that extended as far as the eye could see. A three-quarters full moon glistened on the mirror-bright surface of the lake, the glow infused with the shamanic magic of this Siberian countryside.