“As I suspected, your kind cannot be trusted,” Tyrian bit out in reply. He loudly shucked the lapels of his leather duster, and sheathed his hook swords in their holsters at his hips with an audible metallic ring.
“El informed us that our brother is the father of your Medium.” Vor’on never turned his cold, orange eyes from the vengeful Hunter. Tyrian faced the Vampire with his chin lowered, his brow drawn, and his entire frame tensed in expectation of a fight.
“If you’re going to ask me to spare his life, save your breath. Deq’on is no more a father to Kaelyn now than he ever was. I hold no obligation towards him.”
“And your Medium?” Vor’on countered. “Would she share your views?”
Tyrian growled softly, “It doesn’t matter.”
He clenched his hands at his sides. Fate had trapped him between the mothers of all rocks and hard places. On the one hand, he placed no blame on Deq’on for the truth of Kaelyn’s birthright. On the other, he knew that a Vampire he’d grudgingly learned to respect and befriend had betrayed him. He didn’t want to admit that El’on knowing about Kaelyn’s existence and keeping it secret had actually been of great service to her. He especially didn’t want to admit that he felt more anger at himself than anyone else. He never should have accepted the elder Vampire’s hand in assistance. He’d come to do a job, not make friends, and it was far past time for him to remember that.
Vor’on twisted his pale lips in a smirk. “You have not been at this very long, so let me enlighten you. It always matters. If she finds out that you knowingly killed her father, it will haunt your relationship forever.”
The words rang with startling clarity to the Hunter, who swallowed heavily in response. “You speak as though I have already killed him.”
Tyrian didn’t necessarily intend to kill the father of his mate. If Deq’on forced his hand, however, he would not hesitate. Hunting the ne’er-do-wells of the Vampire race for over seven hundred years had honed his instincts to deadly precision. He’d been trained to kill, not to wound, and he did so instinctively, with no reservations. If it came down to it, he had no doubt that Deq’on, father to Kaelyn or not, would meet the same fate.
“Haven’t you?” Vor’on grimly asked. “Deq’on is more than just my brother; he is my twin. Forgive me if I attempt to do whatever is within my power to protect him.”
The Vampire turned abruptly, and exited the room.
Tyrian could not deny the truth in the Vampire’s words. But he also knew the cold, hard truth that none of it mattered in the bigger picture. He’d grown complacent in the Vampire realm, relying on others to solve his problems. He had mistakenly resolved to assist the Vampires in ridding their realm of the Druid menace that haunted their mines. He had a duty, not to assist Vampires, but to protect humans from them. Somehow, since arriving in that realm, he’d forgotten that.
No more.
He’d come to find Caleb and bring him back home. Any other purpose would only distract him, and he would no longer permit that. The Vampires’ problems were exactly that: Vampire problems. He might just as well let the Druid bastard lay waste to the lot of them. He steeled his resolve, hitched his rucksack over his shoulder, and took a step toward the door.
All of a sudden, he couldn’t move.
He clenched his muscles and urged his limbs forward, to no avail. Something seemed to have anchored his feet to the floor. He breathed out an exasperated sigh, then caustically addressed the lurking presence at the back of his mind.
“Drake?” he inquired, exasperated.
It took a moment for the rumbling voice to respond. When it did, Tyrian nearly shivered at the menace that accompanied it. “Do you truly believe that you can return to your previous belief system after everything that has happened? You will no longer ignore reality in favor of convenience.”
“Release me,” Tyrian growled darkly.
“Release yourself,” the gravelly voice in his head shot back.
Stubbornly, Tyrian struggled to move his frozen limbs. When his efforts failed, he screamed inside his head in frustration. “Let me go!” he shouted to the beast. The sound reverberated off his mental walls, and echoed inside his head.
For a moment, the Sleeper responded only with a low, menacing growl.
“You are a liar and a coward. I am shamed to call you host. It was foolish of me to believe your predecessor that you would be any different from himself,” it finally replied, rife with indignation.
At the simple mention of Tyrian’s mentor, he abruptly ceased his struggles and focused his attention sharply on the Vampire’s words. “You mentioned Caine before. How were you able to speak with him?” he demanded. He’d let the previous slip-up, when Drake had first mentioned his mentor, go in favor of proceeding with his mission. However, now that the beast had literally stopped him in his tracks, he considered it high time for a little clarity.
The mental voice of the Vampire Sleeper scoffed. “He came to realize, as you have,” it responded in a low, controlled tone, “that we are not your enemy.”
Tyrian balked heavily at the creature’s insinuations. “What a crock of shit!”
The beast implied the impossible. Everyone touted Caine as the most domineering Vampire Hunter in the history of their kind. Tyrian had personally seen his mentor lay waste to any Vampire who crossed his path, with no hesitation and no remorse. Even in his mere eleven years as the man’s Page, Tyrian had learned the depths of Caine Hennessy’s fearsomeness, and of his hatred for the Vampires who’d destroyed his life.
Caine was the only one who had ever been chosen as a Hunter without serving as a Page. Vampires had killed his wife and two young daughters while he’d been away at war. When he finally came home and learned of his family’s fate, he spent the next five years hunting down and decapitating every Vampire he could find. In this way, he eventually discovered the broken form of the previous Vampire Hunter, and Starla deemed him worthy to become the Sleeper’s next host.
Tyrian’s knowledge of his mentor’s grim origins led him to vehemently deny Drake’s implication. He refused to believe that Caine had somehow come to develop any feelings other than bitter hatred for the Vampire race.
“See for yourself...” came Drake’s rumbling baritone.
A vivid memory suddenly besieged Tyrian. He found himself staring at straw-covered earth and worn leather boots. A sense of wrongness overcame him, as though he occupied a space not fit for him. Only when he heard a voice did he realize that he was now experiencing one of Drake’s memories of Caine.
“Drake, are you there?” Hearing the resonating tone of the man he’d considered his closest friend triggered a feeling of overwhelming grief. He’d buried his mentor over seven hundred years earlier, yet he still felt the loss like a hole in his soul.
The voice of the Vampire Sleeper responded, groggier and more gravelly than usual, as though Caine had awakened it from a deep slumber. “What do you want, human?”
“I am conflicted,” Caine responded after a long pause. Though Tyrian seemed to occupy the space of the Hunter within Drake’s memory, he still felt like himself. Only the inflections in Caine’s voice indicated the old Hunter’s feelings.
“How?” Drake suddenly asked, disinterest lacing the deep baritone of the beast.
If Caine noticed, it didn’t faze him. In a softer-than-normal voice, he responded, “I met a young Vampire today, and I couldn’t kill him. He had to be no older than Tyrian. He looked so scared.”
Caine’s admission carried little emotion. He seemed confused by his actions, which Tyrian understood; it shocked him to even hear the words straight from the man’s own mouth. Then he remembered this event in his own memory. It had happened three years after Caine had picked him up from amidst the slaughter of his own family at the tender age of twelve. He remembered because he also recognized his likeness in the face of the young Vampire they’d found. But while Caine had apparently hesitated, Tyrian had not. He had made his first kill, his first step
away from his former self and toward becoming the Hunter of the Vampire race.
In Caine’s memory, Drake let out a long-suffering yawn. “Your presence strikes terror in the very eldest of my race. You should expect that by now, Hunter.”
Caine raised his eyes to the ceiling of the old barn they had holed up in for shelter. If memory served, this had occurred in Scotland, during one of the worst storms in history.
“I’ve never considered your kind as people,” Caine admitted. “From the beginning, I only ever saw you as things to be destroyed. But when I looked into the eyes of that child today, I hesitated. I felt compassion for the very beings I had resolved to kill without remorse. Is it because of you? Have you done this to me?”
Caine had asked the question more as a curiosity than an accusation. He seemed almost resigned, as though it were somehow an expected outcome. Though of what, Tyrian did not yet know.
“I saved your life,” Drake responded in his low voice, flat and to the point.
Tyrian mentally widened his eyes in response to the revelation. He’d never heard Caine mention anything of the sort, but it suddenly made sense. He’d recently learned of the restorative capacities Vampires possessed, and the consequences of their sharing those abilities. It stood to reason that if Drake had restored Caine’s life, some of the Sleeper’s own essence would have transferred in the process, making the most formidable Vampire Hunter in history susceptible to Drake’s influence.
“Did you? I believe you may have destroyed it. What is to happen to me the next time I hesitate? It will be my head to roll instead of theirs.” The bitterness Tyrian remembered had crept into the Hunter’s tone.
Drake sighed again in disinterest. “If you are finished complaining, I am going back to sleep.”
“Why did you save me?” Caine abruptly asked, almost desperately seeking an answer. “I’ve always wondered, but I never asked. My death would have been of no consequence to you. Why did you do it?”
Tyrian felt the Sleeper mentally shrug. “You had no Page, and I detest the catacombs.”
The levity of Drake’s response tempered the old Hunter’s despondency. His soft chuckle broke the stern atmosphere that had settled between them.
“Is that the reason I am able to hear you now?” Caine asked, curiosity lacing his tone. “You fused part of yourself in me when you brought me back to life?”
“It was a sacrifice I deemed necessary for the sake of my comfort,” Drake replied indifferently.
Caine snorted. “You’re an arse.”
Drake chuckled.
A sudden seriousness enveloped the man then. He drew his brow down in a frown, and turned to stare out the small window of the barn at the storm raging just beyond the wooden walls.
“If I die now, what will happen to you?” Caine inquired softly.
“What do you care?” Drake retorted. “You’re supposed to detest my kind. Is that not what you have taught your new Page?”
Caine abruptly shot his gaze to the form of a teenage boy asleep in the hay to his left. “Tyrian? He is still young.”
Tyrian almost didn’t recognize the scrawny human as himself, and he immediately thought of Caleb. Pain radiated up from his chest as the visage of his own Page replaced that of himself. He’d had many Pages over the years, each one passing on too quickly in the vast litany of his life. He’d never grown attached to them for that very reason, until Caleb. Perhaps now he knew why: he literally saw himself in the boy.
The words of Tyrian’s former mentor abruptly interrupted his own musings.
“Too young. He will be different. I don’t know how I know it, but I can feel it. His legacy will bring about change. I just can’t tell what form this change will take.”
Tyrian had no idea that the Hunter had ever thought of him in such a way. Caine had never treated him any differently than he’d seen the other Hunters treat their Pages, nor than he did himself. With the present circumstances staring him in the face, though, he could not deny the truth in the man’s words.
“Trying your hand at prophecy now?” Drake inquired condescendingly. “I am beginning to suspect the catacombs would have been preferable to the continual drawl of conversation you persist in subjecting me to.”
Tyrian felt Caine smirk. “Liar,” he shot back. “You’ve been asleep for nearly twelve thousand years. It must feel good to stretch your legs, figuratively speaking.”
Despite the Hunter’s teasing tone, Drake’s reply dripped with inherent bitterness. “Your Page will be no different when he is Hunter than you.”
Caine heaved a haggard sigh. “I suppose only you shall see.”
The scene before him faded out slowly before Tyrian’s mental gaze. In its place returned the dark glass walls of the room in which the beastly Vampire Sleeper had sequestered him. It served as a sharp wakeup call for Tyrian, as a cold swath of belligerence snaked down his spine. He had firmly landed back in the reality where the abhorrent beast wrapped around his soul still held his limbs hostage.
“Lies.” He spat with rampant contempt. Even faced with the clear truth of his mentor’s inner battle with his convictions, Tyrian stubbornly refused to accept his current situation.
“You are the one who lies, Hunter. The worst of it is that you lie to yourself. Will you continue to allow yourself to live as others dictate? Or will you open your eyes to the truth?”
The force holding Tyrian’s limbs in place suddenly released him. He pitched forward, and barely caught himself on the raised footboard of the hard glass slab of a bed next to him.
“Whatever path you walk from here on out will be your own. Choose wisely,” the Sleeper warned. Then it retreated from Tyrian’s consciousness. He still felt Drake there: watching, judging. Every decision he made going forward would dictate the future role his Sleeper played in the outcome of this war. Indecision floundered within him at a time when he needed to be resolute.
Somewhere in those mines, Caleb languished in captivity. No doubt some mad Druid subjected him to sordid experiments. And here he could not find the conviction within himself needed to brave all peril to rescue the boy. He slid to his knees, eyes wide and unfocused. For the first time since the age of twelve, when he had stared at the massacre that befell his family, he felt fear. And it crippled him.
Two hands firmly gripped Tyrian’s biceps, and he jumped in alarm. Then the arms lifted him to his feet. He recognized sympathetic violet eyes; he now stared into the face of El’on.
The old Vampire set his lips in a firm line, before parting them to speak.
“I believe you may sometimes forget that although you are a Hunter, you are also a human. Admittedly, I do not know very much about your race. But I believe that you also carry very strong feelings, as Vampires do. You keep them bottled inside of you in order to do the job fate decided for you to do. I understand that. But you need to understand, also, that you cannot face this enemy while you battle with yourself. Decide now what is more important: your past, or your future.”
Chapter 15
Deq’on stared in from the darkness of the hallway beyond the room. Inside, his child sat with the human boy the Devil had brought. He’d watched her for a little over an hour now, as she spoke familiarly with the boy. It had surprised him to learn of their previous acquaintance. The humans numbered so many, and occupied such wide expanses in their realm, that it seemed unlikely for the two of them to have known each other.
The monster had told him nothing of the boy when he arrived, and Deq’on had dared not ask. The Devil would not have expected Deq’on to need to know any of his personal information, and asking would have created suspicion. Likewise with the Medium. No matter how badly he wanted to know, he refused to endanger her by revealing his past association with her mother. Not until he could assure her safety.
Deq’on had noticed a few times when the Devil would disappear within himself and show no awareness to the happenings around him. On more than one of these occasions, he had considered ending th
e creature in his vulnerable state. He lacked confidence, though, that he could deal a death blow, and anything less would mean the end of his own life instead. Deq’on waited for one of those times now, to reveal himself to the Medium and her companion, and get them to safety. The action would very likely cost him his life, but he considered it worth it. And then he would finally have peace.
“Deq’on,” came a voice to his left.
He tempered himself, as he often did in the Devil’s presence, from showing any emotion. He truly believed that the monster considered the Vampire’s countenance as cold and emotionless as his own. How far from the truth that was. He felt emotions, perhaps more deeply than any other of his race. He would never know, as he could not feel the emotions of others, but he possessed a keen awareness of his own. And right now, he bit back disgust with a vengeance.
“You have been standing here for quite some time. Are you perhaps thirsting for human blood?” the Devil inquired, his cold, black eyes calculating.
Although the Devils’ words formed a question, Deq’on could hardly ever discern any intent in the monster’s tone. That, perhaps, unnerved the Vampire the most about the beast. Even after having witnessed the many atrocities he committed in the name of “science,” the apparent fact that he felt not a single shred of emotion in regard to his misdeeds boggled the Vampire’s mind. Deq’on himself had performed his share of deplorable acts in his time, but he had felt every single one of them chip away at his fractured soul. Perhaps the Devil had indulged in his sordid experiments for so long that he no longer had a soul.
The monster still waited for Deq’on to answer. Any slipup could seal his fate, so Deq’on chose his words very carefully.
“I admit, the scent of it is alluring,” he finally said, his tone low and sheltered.
The Devil immediately responded, “Should I be concerned?”
Sliding his gaze down with deliberate slowness to meet the blacked pits of the Devil’s own, Deq’on schooled his features into practiced indifference.
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