by Debra Dunbar
“We need to feed, because the alternative is starvation and that’s no fun at all, is it?” His voice was cold, sarcastic. “Have you ever stopped to think how it is for us? That we get more than just sustenance from human blood? We get the same rush of pleasure and excitement as the human, and trust me a favored human turns a vampire into an addict too. That’s why blood-slaves don’t live long. We’re addicted. We want more and more of the pleasure, the emotion, the way it feels to have someone fall apart in your arms as you drink from them. It’s a rush, and it’s just as addicting as whatever is in our venom.”
His words triggered an unwanted memory. My heart skipped, my breath hitched, and I trembled, warm between my legs at the thought. Dario must have known, because there was a spark of sympathy mixed in all the anger on his face—and something fleeting that looked a lot like grief.
He wanted to be the one who’d stirred this response in me. He wasn’t the only one. I reached a shaky hand up to touch my neck. “Thankfully it’s a brand that only lasts a couple of months. Right? I’m not always going to smell like Simon to you.”
This time I couldn’t read the emotion that flickered across his face. “It will fade and eventually be gone. That’s why we re-mark blood-slaves each night, just a small bite to ensure there are no misunderstandings.”
Was I forever spoiled goods? The blood virgin no more? Would I always smell like Simon to him? Did he even want me anymore? Tears stung my eyes at the thought, then my anger returned. I’d been attacked. I’d heal. And if he couldn’t get past that, then I didn’t need him.
But instead of asking questions I didn’t want to know the answer to, I pushed the conversation in a safer, more antagonistic, direction.
“I don’t like the term blood-slave. In fact, I don’t like the concept at all. Humans are not your slaves. If they choose to enter into a relationship with a vampire, fine, but they’re not slaves.”
Incredulity. Yep, that emotion was very, very clear on his face.
“You want to discuss semantics? A Master of an invading Balaj bit you, savagely bit you, and marked you as his. I’m in the middle of a war. Our family’s Mistress is quite possibly infected and unable to function in her role. We’ve got infected vampires and infected humans. There’s a plague demon in the city, and did I mention you were bitten? Brainstorming ideas for a more PC term to call our blood-slaves isn’t high on my priority list right now.”
“Fine. You take care of the war and the infected vampires. I’ll deal with the plague demon and skewering Simon with my sword. Got it? Now get out.”
I pointed dramatically at the door, half expecting it to open and Dario to be sucked through to the other side. Instead he stood there, glaring at me. Then the anger faded and he reached up a hand to touch my cheek. “I’m not leaving. Not now, not ever. Got it?”
The words were almost a whisper. Tears again stung my eyes. “I smell like him. He’s branded me like a cow. You could tell from across the room. You could tell before you even saw my neck.”
His hand cupped my jaw then slid around to the back of my head, his other arm encircling my waist to pull me closer. “Yes, I could tell. I’m furious that he hurt you. He could have killed you and dumped your body on my doorstep—that’s the thought that went through my mind when I walked through your door and realized what he’d done. I could have lost you, and I can’t lose you—not now, not ever.”
I ignored the obvious, that he’d eventually lose me, if not last night, then sometime in the future. “He didn’t, though. And next time it will be me who wins.”
His hand caressed my scalp. I leaned into him, resting my head on his shoulder and inhaling deep of that cinnamon and myrrh scent that said vampire, and the spicy note that was all Dario.
“You sure we can’t compromise on this? Can’t we both kill him? We’ll bring Russell with us. That way you can kill him, we’ll have the necromancer resurrect him, then I’ll kill him. Maybe we’ll do it a few times just for kicks. Then we’ll go see a movie.”
I smiled. This was better. This was the Dario I needed right now. “Russell isn’t that good. I’m afraid you’ll just have to let me win this time. Next bad guy that comes along, it’ll be your turn. Deal?”
He laughed, his chest rumbling against my cheek. “Deal. Even though I’m not happy about it. Simon comes within two miles of me and the deal’s off. I’m not holding back and letting him slip away just so you can have your revenge.”
I nodded, wincing as the motion pulled at bruised neck muscles. “Deal.”
We stood for what seemed like forever, him caressing my head, his other hand snaking under the hem of my shirt to explore the skin of my waist and back. I shivered at the sensation. His hand was cool and dry with callouses that he must have gotten as a human. I wondered if they were from when he’d worked the fields hundreds of years ago, or if he’d gotten them when he was in the mountains with the rebels. I knew so little of his past, but that would need to wait. I wasn’t in the mood to stir up the past when his fingers were lighting me up on the inside. Still, there was a specter that just wouldn’t go away.
“I smell like Simon. According to you it’s like I’ve got his name stamped all over me, lit up in neon lights you can see from across the room. I’m sure…I mean, it’s okay if you’re not attracted to me right now.”
We could just cuddle. Honestly, I probably needed that far more than sex, but I needed to know he still wanted me, that last night hadn’t changed things between us.
He pulled my hips tight against his own. “What do you think?”
Well, that put some of my fears to rest. He still wanted me. At least parts of him did.
Dario’s hand gripped my hair gently and pulled my head back to look me in the eyes. “Aria, I’ve wanted you from the moment you started sending me those napkin drawings and stalking me in downtown pubs every evening. I want you now—all of you, your heart, your body, your blood. No vampire’s mark is going to change that.”
He reached down and placed his lips against mine, cool and soft then more insistent and hungry. His kiss was like the underscore to all his words, and when his lips finally left mine I knew I was lost. I’d loved him before, but now I’d taken the plunge. I was all in, and I was never getting out.
“You can’t have my blood,” I teased.
He smiled. “For now,” he teased back. Then his expression once more became serious. “As long as I can have the other two, I’ll forgo the blood.”
Then he kissed me again, and all the worries and doubts faded, passion soothing the emotional wounds from the night before. I pulled him into my room, and we fell to the bed, hands and mouths frantic and hungry. And when I came, I embraced it eagerly, wantonly throwing myself into the pleasure of having Dario pressed against me, inside me, and lodged deep in my heart.
Sarge was wrong. Venom-induced orgasm had nothing on this. Nothing.
Chapter 34
I shivered, partly from the chill of the October evening and partly because I had the soul trap in my pocket. I’d driven back out to Randallstown, to a Big Burger. Cerveza was to meet me here at eight, about forty minutes past sunrise. I’d needed to drive right past the house where Simon had bitten me. I hoped that Overalls had taken his egg sandwich and run for the border once he realized I’d escaped. It would really suck to run into him here.
It would really suck if this was another trap and the mage took the soul trap only to bring Simon down on my head tonight. He’d set me free so I could get the soul trap, and from what I could see he had no love lost for the vampire, but there was nothing to stop him tipping Simon off as to my whereabouts after we had our exchange. It was one of the reasons I had my sword at the ready and I’d taken some extra precautions in the supplies I was carrying on my person. Ready for anything, like a Girl Scout with a sword.
The door chimed and I saw Cerveza make his way over to me, weaving between the bright red and yellow metal tables. He sat down opposite me.
“Weird place
to be banishing a demon,” I commented.
The mage shrugged. “It’s not really banishment. I call him. He comes. I tell him our deal is done and he can return to hell. Game over. Do you have the box?”
Straight to the point. No messing around with this guy. I pulled the soul trap from my pocket and slid it across the table to him. I might not completely trust the guy, but I got the feeling he was a man of his word, and lived by a sort of mage-code. He’d lodged a complaint through the Conclave when the trap had been stolen rather than curse Dark Iron, or come up here to confront him in person. I got the feeling if the Conclave hadn’t dragged their feet on it, he would have been happy to let mage justice take its course. A guy like that wouldn’t take the box and run without keeping his end of the bargain. He had a reputation to keep.
Cerveza picked up the box, his jeweled and spelled rings glittering in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the burger joint. His fingers ran over every seam and symbol, tracing the brass fittings along the corners. Then he opened it up and peered inside.
“Segredio Reve.”
I held my breath, not knowing exactly what he’d cast, but betting it had something to do with detecting fraud or examining the magical aura of the item. He stared at it a moment, then nodded, closing the lid and sliding the box into a pocket.
“Guziel, enter!”
I heard the chime of the door and looked around. Sure enough, the demon was here, flies and all. He approached our table and slid into a seat. “Mage. Templar. I’m assuming my fun here is at an end.”
Cerveza nodded. “I’m afraid so. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”
“Completely,” Guziel grinned, his black teeth sporting a tinge of green slime. “I appreciate you allowing me the latitude to expand my activities beyond the targets you specified. It’s the only reason I’m not going to kill you.”
Demons hated being summoned, but if they got to do what they do best, they were fairly tolerant about it. And if they managed to kill the mage that brought them over it was a total bonus. There was always a lot of bluster and posturing, but most of them enjoyed the challenge.
“Did you bring the package?” Cerveza asked.
What package? I gripped my sword and eyed the mage uneasily.
“It’s outside.”
“Service having been performed and contract fulfilled, I command you Guziel to leave forthwith and return to hell, not to cross the veil again unless specifically summoned by name.”
There was a puff of white smoke and the demon was gone, in his place crawled several hundred maggots.
“It was good doing business with you,” I told Cerveza as I got up from the table. It was a good thing I hadn’t bought breakfast or it would have come right back up about now. I felt terribly sorry for the minimum wage staff that would need to clean this up.
“Likewise. I’ve got a gift for you. My thank-you for such quick action on your part.”
The gift Guziel had mentioned? I tensed, ready for a spell to drop me to the floor. Instead the mage got up from the table and walked out the door. I followed, because as nervous as I was, I was also curious about what this gift might be. Plus, it would be cowardly to cut and run when he’d just announced he was giving me a present.
We rounded the side of a bright red Dodge pickup truck and there on the ground sat a construction-sized garbage bag. Cerveza waved a hand at it. “Go on. Open it up.”
I debated putting my sword away so I could untie the knot in the bag versus the potential rudeness of opening it with my sword and opted for the latter. Trusty easily slid through the plastic, slicing the bag open at the top. Sword at the ready, I leaned forward and took the edge of the bag with one hand easing it open.
Nothing jumped out at me. It smelled odd, musty with a coppery odor like old blood. I had a bad feeling that I might not like this “gift” since whoever was in the sack was obviously dead.
I opened the bag further, ripping at the plastic slightly so I could get a better look at the contents.
“Be careful. Don’t let the sunlight hit it or you’ll have a pile of smoldering ash and not a body.”
Cerveza was right, because the body inside the industrial-strength bag was a vampire. Well, it was a vampire head and a twisted heap of limbs connected to a shredded torso. I held my breath, was it Simon? Had the mage delivered my enemy unto me? Oh, I hoped so.
It wasn’t Simon. It was Lawrence. “Umm, thank you?”
Cerveza smiled benignly. “You’re quite welcome. If you’re ever down south near Mar del Plata, please look me up.”
I made a mental note to never go to Mar del Plata. I wasn’t sure how often Cerveza found himself doing soul magic, but the first time he went to use that box, he was going to flip out. Hopefully he’d think Dark Iron did something to it and not come gunning for me. After all, I was just the muscle, just a silly Templar who barely knew enough magic to perform an unlock spell.
I watched him climb into the big truck and pull away, then hauled the garbage bag of dead vampire over to my car. It took several attempts to get it into my trunk. I wished I’d asked the mage to give me a hand before he left.
That done, I climbed into my car and headed toward Baltimore. Sadly I wouldn’t be able to deliver the vampire remains to Dario until sundown, to let him know that two of our major problems had been taken care of. The plague demon was gone. Lawrence was dead, which meant Wolfram might be able to heal the infected vampires. And hopefully Simon would be in a weaker position without a mage to back him up. If so, we’d be one step closer to winning this war and hopefully returning things in Baltimore to normal.
Chapter 35
“Yep, it’s Lawrence,” Dario confirmed. Balen, Jasmine, Madeline, and Opal all leaned over the bag to get a look. I was irrationally glad to see Opal here and still alive. The young vampire cracked me up with her snark and her poof of dark hair.
“That’s some kinda messed up,” she announced wrinkling her nose as she stepped back.
The others looked equally horrified, their gaze sliding to me with awed respect before inevitably returning to the remains stuffed in the bag.
“It wasn’t me.” I was reluctant to shatter this ego-inducing admiration, but I wasn’t this powerful. Yes, I could have killed him with my sword, but this was the sort of damage that either another vampire, or a demon, could only do. “The plague demon killed him.”
“A plague demon, one who seems to only kill through pestilence, suddenly decided to disembowel a vampire and rip his head off?” Dario eyed me skeptically.
I squirmed, not really wanting to get into this here. “The mage that summoned him commanded him to do so.”
“The mage, as in the mage that works for Simon? Why would he do that?”
The other vampires were jerking their heads back and forth between the two of us, looking as though they were at a particularly confusing tennis match.
“Because I did something for him, and I did it in a timely fashion. Our deal was that he banish the plague demon. This was kind of a bonus.”
Dario drew a sharp breath. “What did you do for him?”
I glanced over at the other vampires. “Later, okay?”
“Is this something that’s going to come back to bite me in the near future? Or come back to bite you?”
“Maybe me,” I admitted. “Although probably not for a while, and maybe not ever.”
That answer seemed to satisfy Dario, although from the look on his face, I knew he’d quiz me later in private. To fend off any future inquisition, I took out my phone and called Wolfram.
It was ten at night, and from the background noise, the Hospitaller was still making the rounds. I’d called him earlier today to let him know that the demon was gone, as was the vampire who’d spread the infection. Hopefully Lawrence was the right vampire. Hopefully Wolfram was now able to heal the infected at the hospital.
“The humans are responding to treatment,” he told me. “Nice work. You helped me save hundreds of human lives.”
“And now I need you to help me save some vampire ones.”
The doctor sighed. “I’ll meet you tomorrow night and see what I can do. I’m not promising anything, though.”
“I need you to come here right now. They don’t have time to wait until tomorrow. We don’t have time to wait until tomorrow. If Simon takes the city, then it’s all over and a whole lot more than hundreds of humans will die.”
There was silence on the line and I knew he was trying to determine if there really would be a human cost to any delay. “Give me an address. Have the infected vampires ready because I’m not staying long.”
I rattled off Dario’s address, then disconnected with Wolfram’s assurances that he was on his way. All the vampires were staring at me. Dario had doubt written all over his face, but the others were hopeful.
“Who should he heal first?” I asked.
“Leonora!” Jasmine said.
I started. “She’s infected? You confirmed it?”
Dario nodded. “She started showing signs last night. It was all I could do to keep her from tearing me apart tonight.”
I winced, knowing how much that must have hurt Dario. They had their differences, but I knew he’d been with Leonora since he’d been turned, and that he respected her. What did this mean for the morale of the Balaj? And what did this mean for Dario? “Yes, let’s heal Leonora first.”
Dario shook his head. “Is there any guarantee it will work? What if it fails? She’s incredibly strong. I’m not certain the four of us can hold her, especially with two humans in the room.”
“We have to heal her,” Jasmine countered. “Maybe another one first, but we need to have her ready. If she’s healed, then I know we can win this war against Simon tonight.”