Laws of the Blood 4: Deceptions: Deceptions

by Sizemore, Susan

  “He knows where you are,” Gerry told her before she could ask him what was up. “I called him. Don’t worry. He’ll save you.”

  Gerry pointed toward Andrew when he spoke, but Sara didn’t think Gerry referred to her lover when he talked about salvation. She also noted the cellular phone Gerry held in one hand. “You called Bentencourt?”

  Gerry nodded.

  “What the devil does he have to do with me?”

  “He’s going to save you from Olympias. He’s going to save everyone from her. He’s the one who can do it,” he added. Gerry put a hand on Sara’s shoulder. His teeth glinted in the full moonlight as he gave her a confident smile. “He’s the one we should serve, not Olympias.”

  Sara was tempted to slap Gerry and tell him to snap out of it. “You claimed you never wanted to be an Uncle Igor,” she reminded him.

  As a companion herself now, she could pinpoint the reasons she’d always had misgivings about Bentencourt, see what sort of a user he really was. She loved Andrew and wanted to help him. Even as a slave she should have recognized that the love that burned through her was a faint, shallow thing in Bentencourt. Somehow he managed to love himself more than Rose, and he loved Rose for what she could do for him.

  “The man’s a demagogue, and a very gifted psychic.”

  “He’s a genius.”

  Frustration roared through her. She wanted to take her friend by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. But she felt the night growing darker and a chill coming over her. She needed Andrew desperately, but managed to hold her ground long enough to try one more effort. “Gerry, you’ve fallen under his spell, but he’s no savior of the strigoi.”

  Gerry didn’t argue with her. “He wants us to work for him,” he said. “He believes in slaves’ rights and gradually coming out to the mortal world. The old ways are dead.”

  “We’re all going to be dead in a minute if we don’t get out of here,” Andrew said, suddenly stepping between her and Gerry. Sara sighed with relief at having him by her side. Her relief was shattered in a moment. “Hunt,” Andrew said. “Heading this way.” He took her hand.

  She felt Andrew fighting to control the natural hunger that rose in him, the need communicated from the vampires prowling nearby. While she was wracked with terror that made her want to blindly run away, she knew that her lover’s inclination was to run blindly to join in the kill. “Run,” she said. “Run is the operative word.”

  “You’re right,” Andrew told her. “We aren’t part of this.”

  Sara was willing to bet otherwise, but didn’t want to waste breath or time to explain what she thought right now.

  “Run,” Andrew advised Gerry.

  Gerry tried to block their way. “You can’t go!”

  Andrew took Sara in his arms and stepped nimbly around the mortal, making for the trees. Sara looked back over Andrew’s shoulder when Gerry shouted. “He needs you!”

  Then she saw the Hunters pour into the moonlit clearing behind Gerry, who didn’t notice them. She would have shouted a warning, but Andrew suddenly pressed her face against his chest, stifling any noise from her. As muffled as her voice and sight suddenly became, it didn’t keep her from hearing Gerry’s quickly cutoff scream.

  “Damn,” Bentencourt muttered under his breath.

  Gavivi had recognized Olympias’s slave when they’d come across Gerry in the clearing. She’d set them on the man with the cry that Gerry was spying on them for his mistress. Furious as they were with the Enforcer, there had been no saving the man, not that Bentencourt bothered to try.

  “Damn,” he whispered again, even quieter than before.

  Rose heard him anyway, put her hand on his shoulder and said, “It’s all right. You’ll get used to it.”

  What he saw was Cassandra’s naked hips and thighs pumping hard as she raped the man on the ground beneath her. It was all dark blood and pale flesh mixed in the moonlight and shadows. Every few moments she bent down and ripped another bite out of the man’s profusely bleeding throat. The smell of hot blood filled the evening air. Her master had made the first deep bite for her, but she now had to use her inadequate mortal teeth to finish the job. She licked the blood and swallowed the flesh in a fit of ecstasy, eating up his suffering and the desire magic had forced on him. Magic kept the man alive for now, as Douglas crouched beside his companion, whispering the spell that brought about the final change. The victim of the sacrifice would come and die at the same time. Cassandra would absorb the dual burst of energy of sex and death, and it would fuel the magic that would turn her into a vampire.

  “It’s a holy sacrament,” Rose went on. “We can’t turn away.”

  Bentencourt didn’t want to turn away. He was fascinated, and hungry. He longed to join in an orgy rather than be a spectator at the rite. Agony, terror, and the musk of sex filled him with delicious cravings. And his mouth watered to taste the blood reserved for Cassandra. All around the clearing vampires’ eyes glowed, their fangs shown in the moonlight, and they circled the site of the ritual, impatient, lusting for blood and rape. The other companions stayed in the background and stared, as caught up in the excitement as he was—but they didn’t have to think. He did.

  Bentencourt was impatient to be off. He had promised mortals for a Hunt, he needed to gather the victims together and herd them toward their killers. He hadn’t expected Gerry Hansell to be in the park. He hadn’t expected the slave to be the first victim. Gerry’s death was a minor inconvenience, but Bentencourt hated when something didn’t go as planned.

  Rose’s breath caught in her throat, and she moved closer to the action. Bentencourt had never seen her look more beautiful. He wanted to follow her, to make love to her on the corpse. But he remembered that he had more to offer her than his own worship. He was going to make her into a goddess. He was going to give the nests the Hunt of the decade and earn their gratitude and trust. His climb to power, his revenge against Olympias was at hand.

  And why was he standing here gloating when the time to act was now?

  While Rose’s attention was centered on Cassandra’s rite of passage, Bentencourt made his way through the pack of Hunters to start a search for the prey. He was able to think clearer once away from the concentration of hungry emotions. He remembered he was carrying his phone. He found his way to the nearest walking path, found a recognizable landmark, and made a call to Grace Avella. She and two of her friends joined him within a few minutes.

  “Are you sure this is safe?” was the young woman’s first question.

  “Are these members of the Walker Project team?” Bentencourt asked her.

  “You told him about the team?” the older of the two men angrily asked Grace. The younger man tapped her on the shoulder and spoke swiftly in sign language when Grace looked his way.

  She spoke, and used sign as she replied. “This is no time to argue over security protocols, guys. This is Jeremy and Donald,” she told Bentencourt. “He’s Roger,” she told her colleagues.

  “Fine,” Jeremy said. “Can we go see vampires now?”

  Jeremy was carrying a camcorder.

  Bentencourt pointed toward the woods. “This way.” He turned to go, Jeremy took a step after him, but the girl and the deaf man didn’t follow. Bentencourt looked back and watched their hands quickly gesturing in the light that came down from the streetlights on the busy bridge high overhead. He felt the hunger growing. Soon it would burst out of the woods and out of his control.

  “What?” he demanded impatiently of the hesitating pair.

  “Don’s right,” Grace said. “This is stupid. Walking is one thing, but looking for vampires in the middle of the night is insane. Let’s go home, Jeremy. We can go vampire hunting at high noon.”

  “Will they look like vampires then, or pale people sleeping?” Jeremy asked. He held up his camera. “I want evidence. Fangs, shape-shifting—whatever shit vampires do. Walking won’t give us physical evidence.”

  Donald’s fingers shaped words. He
pointed to the way out of the park.

  “Okay, they drink blood at night,” Jeremy said to Donald. “They aren’t invincible. Remember, one of the pair we saw was killed by the other one. And the other one is a woman.”

  “There could be a whole pack of them,” Grace pointed out. She looked at Bentencourt. “We shouldn’t be out here. I shouldn’t have talked my friends into this. I don’t know how you talked me into this.”

  Bentencourt almost told the stupid bitch that it was because he was able to control her weak-willed little brain. Instead, he summoned up all the earnestness he could manage and concentrated on Grace. “It’s not far.” He tried his best reassuring smile, but the girl backed away, shaking her head.

  What the hell, Bentencourt decided. He’d bring the Hunt to her and her silent friend. At least he had one appetizer to present to the Hunters. He took Jeremy by the arm. “Come on. I’ll show you where they are.”

  Olympias paused to sniff the air halfway up the ravine. She looked into the distance, as if she could see through the dense patch of woods in front of them. The dark didn’t bother her, and her senses were not human. She said, “They’ve got another one.”

  He hadn’t heard or seen anything, but he didn’t doubt that another human had died. Was it someone he cared for? Was his father involved? “You’re sniffing blood, aren’t you?” Falconer hated to ask, but he needed to know.

  A few minutes before she’d come to a sudden halt and reeled against him. He caught and steadied her and heard her whisper, “Blood of my blood.” It had sounded very vampiry. He hadn’t asked what she meant. She had sighed and said, “Not Sara.”

  “Sara?” he asked now, when she didn’t answer his first question.

  She shook her head. “Mortal.”

  “Sara’s not a mortal?”

  “Sara is—never mind. The one they killed is gifted. I could feel that.”

  Fear tightened in his throat and gut, fear mixed with a deep fury. “Vampires are killing my people? One of your kind drew them into an ambush?”

  “They’re killing mortals without permission, without safeguards,” she answered, voice cold as ice. “They’ll pay for it.”

  “Are you so angry because they’re killing people, or because they’re defying you?”

  “Let’s stop the killing and then discuss it.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough.” He started to climb up the ravine again, but she put a hand on his shoulder after only a few steps. Her tension was communicated in that touch. At another time he might have offered a hug. Instead, he spun around, alert to danger.

  “They’ve changed direction,” she said, and pointed. “That way.”

  She and the dog disappeared downhill, moving at a steep angle. He hurried after as quickly as he could.

  “This isn’t right,” Andrew said, kneeling to examine the second dead body in the clearing.

  Sara knew it wasn’t right, but all she wanted to do was run. They’d circled back to the clearing after the Hunters abandoned the corpses to seek out new prey. She hadn’t wanted to come here, she sure as hell didn’t want to examine the carnage, but she was Andrew’s companion. She went where he went. Of course she knew what vampires did—it was just that—

  “We have to stop them.” Andrew rose to his feet and put his arm comfortingly around her. “Mortals have to die, Sara, for us to exist, and remain sane. It’s a fact of our world. I’ve always been against those who believe it’s all right to lose morality when we give up mortality. We’re monsters—but there is absolutely no reason in the world for us to attack innocents. I want to be with the pack right now. I yearn to Hunt, but not—” He laughed. “Here I am making speeches.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. She’d rather he do anything than what he had in mind. “Don’t go,” she begged. “It’s dangerous.”

  He stroked her hair. “Of course it is, sweetheart. We’re vampires.”

  That was it—and it wasn’t. “There’s more going on,” she told her lover. “I feel it. I never trusted my intuition until I met you, but this time . . . Andrew, this is a trap.”

  “I realize that. But for who? Olympias?” He nudged the stranger’s mutilated body with his foot. “Him? Set by who? We have to find the Hunters before we can stop them and find out what’s going on.”

  Sara banged her head against his shoulder. Andrew was turning into a hero. While part of her found this utterly romantic, the saner side of her wondered how a vampire who’d been depressed enough to want to die a few days before could suddenly want to go off and save the world.

  “Love of a good woman,” he replied to her thoughts. He tilted her face up to his and kissed her. “Perks a man right up,” he told her when his lips drew away from hers. “Let’s go, shall we?”

  She could feel darkness moving through the park. Even she could sense the hunger all around. Evil was all around, about to burst out of control. He was right, the violence needed to be leashed. Someone had to make the effort to stop it. “You’re going to get us both killed.”

  “Not by this lot,” he reassured her. “Olympias—that’s another matter. Let’s deal with one crisis at a time.”

  Sara reminded herself that she was used to crises, to putting out fires that could engulf mortals and immortals alike. Because the fangs, claws, and killings were no longer at a distance didn’t mean she couldn’t deal with them—somehow. She forced down the urge to panic, and offered Andrew a wan smile. “What do we do?”

  “Find them first,” Andrew answered. He glanced in the direction of the creek. “That won’t be hard.”

  Falconer might have lost sight of Olympias, but he had no trouble tracking where she was headed. He accepted the psychic link without question, at least for now. Maybe they’d have time to talk about it later. He made his way down the hill to one of the walking paths, moving swiftly through patches of moonlight and shadows, distracted by the thought that he wasn’t sure following her was a good idea. He needed to find his loons and get them out of danger. He didn’t want Olympias to find them without his being present. There was no telling what would happen if she found them before the Hunting vampires did.

  He considered trying to use the cell phone to contact Grace, but worried that its ringing might alert the hunting pack to her whereabouts. Besides, even with her number on speed dial, it would take precious seconds of fumbling with the phone that could be used catching up with Olympias.

  When the pair of people came hurtling around the curve of the asphalt path, Falconer couldn’t do anything but jump out of the way. He didn’t move into the shadows under the trees fast enough to avoid a confrontation. One of the runners saw him and turned a frightened glance his way.

  “Mike! Is that you? Oh, my God, it is!” Grace’s words came out on a sob, and she lunged toward him.

  “Shh . . . Ow!” Falconer couldn’t stop the cry of pain as Grace’s arms came around him in a fierce hug. He could barely breathe from the agony by the time she backed away.

  “Sorry! What are you doing out of the hospital? Do you know where we are?” Grace asked as Donald came panting up beside her. Donald signed, while Grace talked. “What are you doing here? I’m sure Roger’s working with the vampires. I think we’re somewhere between the zoo and Connecticut Avenue, but I keep getting turned around. It’s like this darkness comes washing over me, and I sort of hear voices in my head calling to me, and I run away from the voices. When the dark recedes I’m all turned around again.” She leaned close to Falconer and whispered. “I think they’re playing with my head. I’m pretty sure Jeremy’s dead,” she added, and started to cry. “And I don’t know why Donald and I haven’t been separated. What are you doing here?” Grace asked again.

  This time, she paused long enough to let him answer. “Let’s go.”

  Grace looked like she was going to hug him again. She refrained and said, “Can you find a way out? Aren’t they messing with your head too?”

  “No one messes with his head but me,” Olympias said, ap
pearing suddenly behind Grace and Donald. Grace opened her mouth to scream, but Olympias’s hand covered her face before the girl could make any more noise. “Talkative little thing, isn’t she?” Olympias asked Falconer. “Don’t stare at me like you think I’m about to snap her neck, Mike.” Donald spun around as she spoke, and Olympias smiled at him.

  Falconer could make out the young man’s profile, and was surprised when Donald smiled at the tall vampire woman. Olympias nodded to Donald. “Telepathy has its uses,” she said to Falconer and slowly eased her hand away from Grace’s mouth. “I’m not going to hurt anyone for the next few minutes.”

  “She can talk to Donald,” was the first thing Grace said to Falconer.

  “I figured that out,” Falconer replied. He kept his wary attention on Olympias. “These are my people,” he told her. “I’m here to protect them.”

  “Where are the other vampires?” Grace wanted to know. “I can’t feel them in my head right now. Does that mean we can get away? Please!”

  “Where are they?” Falconer asked Olympias. He looked around. “Where’s Bitch?”

  “Tracking the pack. I think they’ve spotted more important prey than mortals.”

  Realization jolted through Falconer. “My father? They’re after my father.”

  Olympias nodded. “Don’t know what’s up, but I can feel magic starting to build like a thunderstorm growing in my mind.”

  Falconer rubbed his forehead. “Feels like something trying to pull the power out of me.”

  “We were lured into a trap,” Grace spoke up.

  “I think we all were,” Olympias answered. “I’m doing the best I can to keep other mortals that were in the park out of it.”

  “Is that why the place seems dark and forbidding when I look around?” Falconer asked Olympias. “You’re sending out psychic vibes to keep people away, aren’t you?”