by Amy Corwin
Everyone glanced at them as they entered. Most of the gazes were tinged an inhuman red and set under frowning brows. Even Father Donatello appeared ill-at-ease. He slumped slightly in his chair, the lines on his thin face deep and the skin as thin as parchment.
“Good evening.” Kethan motioned for her to sit in the chair opposite him.
She smiled and complied, feeling benevolent and warm, almost hot. Her skin prickled.
The table was large but round, making it difficult for the participants to take opposite sides. Despite that disadvantage, the undead managed to keep their two groups separated by strategic placement of the three humans between them.
Quicksilver studied her parents from under her lashes. They looked cool and oblivious to her interest, although tension crackled in quick pulses of electricity around the pair. Her mother’s fine hair, so much like Quicksilver’s, seemed to have a life of its own. Strands floated around her head, moving restlessly as warm air from the overhead vents brushed her shoulders.
Her father clasped his long-fingered hands in front of him. Then he stared down at them, his heavy-lidded eyes nearly shut, as if asleep. Despite his bored, sleepy appearance, the muscles in his neck and shoulders appeared rigid, betraying his tension.
Martyn Sutton sat across the table from them, the pudgy fingers of his right hand flicking open and shut his ever-present knife. The affectation had become a nervous habit, and he seemed incapable of controlling it.
“We all know why we’re here,” Kethan announced, his voice warm and easy. “We’re going to discuss the terms of an arrangement to allow all of us to coexist.”
“Perhaps. If the terms meet our approval,” her father stated in a bored voice. “The vampires here have no leader. They’ll merge with our clan. Naturally, I must assume the role of master. There can be no other choice.”
“I be master here!” Sutton’s eyes turned solid red, with tiny pinpoints of black for pupils. He leaned forward and focused on her father. “I’ve four hundred years to your few.”
“To our few?” her mother replied, covering her husband’s clasped hands with her own. “It’s never been a matter of years that makes a master vampire. It’s power, sheer power.”
Sutton surged to his feet. He pressed his knuckles against the table and thrust his jaw toward the pair. “I’ve power enough.”
“Sit down,” Kethan said sharply. “Please. Mr. Bankes—”
“Hector,” her father said. “Hector and Sylvia. Please.” His gracious tone underlined the crudeness of Sutton’s reaction, making his hostility seem childish in comparison to Hector’s generous rationality.
However, Quicksilver felt the malevolence burning beneath her parents’ glossy, attractive exteriors. She fought back a sudden, desperate spurt of anger. Her eyes shifted to stare at the door. She longed to escape. Even Martyn Sutton, coarse as he was, seemed preferable to the calculating, dispassionate evil of her mother and father.
Had they ever been human, loving parents?
Kethan nodded. “Hector.” Then he glanced at Sutton.
“Mr. Sutton,” Sutton snarled before gesturing to the two vampires sitting next to him. “Mr. Newton and Mr. Topan.”
“As you wish,” Kethan said, his voice still mild. If he were disappointed that Sutton preferred more formal names, he didn’t show it.
“Only blood relatives use Christian names. You’re no blood of ours.” Sutton’s gaze traveled around the room, daring the others to protest.
“Thank goodness,” Hector murmured.
Sutton’s face darkened ominously, but he kept his seat.
“Why don’t we all use our formal names, then?” Kethan suggested. “That might be easiest. It certainly underscores the importance of this meeting.”
“Agreed.” Sutton chipped the word off with the impact of an axe felling a tree.
Hector waved a languid hand as if brushing away an annoying fly. “Fine. Now may we continue?”
“Of course.” Kethan paused, collecting his thoughts. “You’re all aware of our purpose. The Lost Colonists have held the East Coast territory for over four hundred years—"
“Long enough,” her father interrupted, “and their master is dead.”
Sutton’s eyes flared. “What do you know of matters here? Go back to your heathen master the Cloud Serpent, Teotihuacan,” he spat the name like a curse.
“There are other territories—” Kethan interrupted, directing his comment toward her parents.
Sylvia cut him off. In a voice sharp with acid, she said, “There are no other territories. The Red Dragon controls the west, Teotihuacan the south. No one controls the east.”
“Lying whore!” Sutton’s fisted hands slammed against the table.
Slapping an open hand on the polished, wooden surface, Kethan stood. “Quiet! We will not tolerate interruptions. Each side will have the opportunity to express their view.”
“Perhaps we should each talk about what we hope to gain? What we must have to reach an agreement?” Father Donatello suggested, his voice so tired it was almost a whisper, yet his soft words immediately caught everyone’s attention.
“Mr. Sutton,” Kethan said, sitting down. “What do you require to guarantee peace?”
“They be the ones who pushed their way in.” He pointed to Hector. “The Appalachians to the Atlantic ‘tis our land. We need nothing more.”
“You mean you can’t keep anything more.” Sylvia’s words snaked through the room. “You can’t keep what you’ve got, now.”
“Oh, mother, shut up,” Quicksilver said without thinking.
Her parents stared at her, blue eyes and gray, as if they couldn’t believe she had the temerity to hold any opinion other than their own. Her father’s gray eyes hardened. A flame of red stirred in the depths as his hand dropped beneath the edge of the table.
She felt a twist of fury tighten in her stomach, but remembering Kethan’s request, she smiled blandly and fastened her gaze on him.
Let her father stare. Let him press all the buttons he wanted.
Nonetheless, the thought ate away at her. She shifted in her seat, her back stiff. She felt years older than Martyn Sutton. Studying her parent’s cold faces, she realized one thing: they’d never been her family.
Her grandmother had raised her, loved her, and worried over her when she was sick. She’d been her family. These two were strangers and not very nice ones at that, and they no longer had the power to rouse the ferocious beast from the depths of her mind. They couldn’t control her. She couldn’t feel the anger clawing away inside her anymore. Maybe the beast was gone for good, or maybe it was just the drugs, but for the first time, she felt free.
All her parents could do now was to make her feel sad and tired. She rubbed her forehead with cool fingertips. And maybe give her a raging headache.
“The Red Dragon’s territory ends at the Rockies,” Kethan said. “Traditionally, the prairie states are neutral territory for those without a clan, a buffer zone between the Red Dragon and Sutton’s clan.”
“No one can claim the prairie,” Hector stated, “or they’ll have enemies on three sides. They’ll be crushed in the middle. The neutral territory must remain.”
Kethan nodded. “And you don’t wish to return to Teotihuacan?”
“We won’t return,” Sylvia said. “That’s impossible.”
Sutton smiled, showing his fangs. Even Quicksilver recognized the fear behind her parents’ bravura. After her own experiences with Carlos and Carol, members of the Toltec clan, she could almost sympathize with them. Almost.
“You freed Teotihuacan from his tomb. You be his children, his blood, now.” Sutton sat back, enjoying their discomfort. “Go back to your master. I’m sure he’ll take you back.”
“This is our home—”
“Your home was in New Mexico,” Quicksilver said. Her stomach cramped at her boldness, but she wasn’t a child anymore, when talking back was punishable. She straightened. “It’s probably still avai
lable, too, if you pay the back taxes.”
Her father’s arm twitched, the muscles bunching as his hand clenched something beneath the table. His face turned the color of ash as his eyes bored into hers.
She smiled.
“Mr. Sutton,” Kethan said. “May we consider their concerns? The Bankes feel they’re caught in the middle—”
“That were too bad.” He flicked his knife open and shut, emphasizing each word with a metallic click. “Mayhap the Red Dragon‘ll take pity on them, though.”
Identical blank expressions on her father’s and mother’s faces told Quicksilver more about their reaction than any sharp retort. A chill spiraled through her. She fought back the urge to run from the room or cower in the corner, sure of punishment.
“You’re the weaker leader. We are strong, so strong that even some of Teotihuacan’s clan accepted us as their leader. Our daughter knows, she killed one of the elder ones. So you will accept our rule! Or die!” Sylvia demanded, obviously covering her fear of the Red Dragon with white-faced rage.
“The devil take you!” Sutton lunged out of his chair and sprawled over the table, trying to catch her wrist.
The two vampires flanking him circled the table so quickly they converged on Sylvia before she could stand.
“Stop!” Kethan bellowed as he raced to drag Thomas Topan away from Sylvia.
She lashed back at the three of them with sharp-clawed hands, baring her teeth, her eyes glowing red. Instead of backing his wife, Hector rose and stared at Quicksilver.
God help me, I’m dead! I’ve got nothing! Nothing to defend myself! Kethan had made her leave her whips at home. Hands fluttering over the tabletop, she pushed away the pad of paper. Useless. Her twitching fingers grabbed the pencil.
This couldn’t be happening. She wouldn’t let it happen.
She nearly dropped the slender yellow pencil when her father lunged at her. A black box clattered to the floor. The heel of his boot crushed it as he circled the table.
“Come here.” He reached for her.
She stumbled backward against her chair, the chair’s wheels rolling it across the floor. “No.” Her legs felt as rubbery as a doll’s.
Why did I take that pill?
The chair skidded behind her and rebounded against the wall before bumping into her as she tried to retreat. She nearly lost her balance. She gripped the backrest only to have the chair slither away again, dragging her off balance.
“What did you say?” Her father’s voice dripped with “you’re about to be punished” iciness.
“Stay away!” She stumbled back another step.
“I’d never hurt you, kiddo. You’re my child. Just come here.”
“Kethan!” she called, hating the panic that compressed her voice. Her eyes locked on her father’s face.
He was barely recognizable, his features distorted and elongated as vampiric blood-lust twisted him into a stranger.
She clutched the chair’s back. “Stay away! I don’t want to hurt you!”
“You won’t. You’d never hurt us.”
“Because you’ll blow my head off if I try?”
He paused for one second before gliding a foot closer. “We’d never harm you. You know that.”
“Yeah. I’ll never feel a thing, right?” As she edged backward to stay out of his reach, she tripped over the starfish-shaped wheeled base of her chair. With a grunt, she fell into the seat. The chair rolled back and hit the wall.
Pain shot through her neck as her head snapped back, reminding her of the soft, vulnerable spot at the base of her skull. It had barely healed from surgery. Her heart fluttered with a sense of her own vulnerability.
Seeing her trapped against the wall, her father smiled. She blinked, and he was there, leaning over her. One large hand grabbed the crown of her head as he pushed her head sideways.
The sharp tips of his teeth dimpled her neck.
“No!” She shoved her fist into his chest.
His breath, foul with the stench of decayed blood and earth, brushed her face. Icy lips brushed the old scar below her jaw.
He froze.
Digging her heels into the waxy floor tiles, she frantically tried to scoot the chair away. Her shoes squeaked and slipped. The chair wouldn’t budge. She was trapped against the wall.
Her father stared at her with dead shark eyes. The end of a yellow pencil quivered in his chest. A single drop of blood rolled down the bright yellow wood and dripped from the eraser onto her hand.
It burned.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, numb with horror. She frantically rubbed the searing drop of blood off her hand.
He stood there for an eternity staring at her, the flaming red light slowly fading from the depths of his gray eyes. For one second, she thought she saw a final glimmer of the man she remembered, the father she had once known. Then his features dissolved in an explosion of hot ash.
Holding her arm in front of her face, she huddled in her chair. Smoky trails of sparks and dust singed her forearms and settled around her, burning her hair and skin.
When she finally lowered her arms and opened her eyes, she whimpered and brushed the burning cinders off her lap. Sick at heart, she sat against the wall, too stunned to move.
Did I—she couldn’t think about it. The agony threatened to crush her. It was unendurable.
Her gaze instinctively sought Kethan.
He stood in the midst of broken furniture, a wooden table leg clutched in his hand. A fine, white powder covered his hair and face. The drift extended down his shoulders and arms as if someone had sprinkled baby powder all over him.
“Mom?” She scanned the room with increasing desperation. “Mom?”
Her mother was gone.
Sutton and his two companions stood a few feet away, staring at Kethan. Their faces wore a tense mixture of surprise, respect, and fear.
“Quicksilver!” Kethan tossed the piece of wood to the floor. “Are you all right?”
“I—” Her voice broke. She nodded, a sharp pain constricting her throat.
He crossed the room and pulled her out of the chair to cradle her in his arms. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into her hair, hugging her.
“Is she dead?” Her voice shook.
“Yes. I’m sorry—I failed. I didn’t realize how desperate they were, how violent. I should have met with them separately.”
“To do what? Get killed?”
“No. But if I’d talked to them—”
She couldn’t let him take the blame. This was her mess. “It wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“The lady were right,” Sutton said, watching them cautiously. “There were nothing you could have done. They tried and failed.”
“I should’ve protected you.” Kethan stroked her hair and pressed his lips to her forehead. “I should never have let you come.”
“No—no. I’m okay.” Finding the energy to speak exhausted her. Her head throbbed dully as frantic thoughts of blame and guilt spun in circles.
Over and over again, she tried to tell herself she hadn’t really killed her father. He’d died years ago. His death wasn’t her fault.
But in that split second before he died, she’d seen her real father, the one she’d known as a child. Her heart ached with longing, wishing she’d been able to feel his arms around her one last time.
He’d been human for a second, and he’d loved her.
“I just want to go home,” she whispered. “Your home.”
“Our home,” Kethan answered before draping an arm around her shoulder and turning toward the door.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“We had no part in this.” Sutton followed them into the hallway. “We want no battle with you and yours.”
Kethan eyed him, feeling as if he’d aged another century or so. He rested a hand on Quicksilver’s slender shoulder when she wavered, clearly exhausted.
“The talks—”
“They’ll continue?” Sutton interrupted.
“Why do you care?” Quicksilver’s voice sounded low and tired, as if she couldn’t conceive of anyone wanting to continue the talks.
“I be master here, but I never wanted it, and I don’t fancy his church making me pay for something I never asked for.”
Suddenly, Kethan didn’t want to leave without something settled, without accomplishing something amidst so much loss. “Sit. We’ll talk for a few minutes.”
Sutton studied him. “A few minutes? That were enough time?”
“I no longer represent the Church, you know that, Mr. Sutton. I can’t promise anything on its behalf, but if I were to present them with an advantageous arrangement, they might listen.”
“And what be to our advantage?” Sutton asked, although he sat in the chair Kethan indicated.
Steering Quicksilver to the chair on his right, Kethan waited until the remaining vampires sat before he took his chair again. “An arrangement to everyone’s advantage. That was the original goal. It’s still our goal.”
“Undisturbed sleep were to our interest.” Sutton grinned at his two clan members. “No hunters. Nor slayers, neither.” His measuring gaze rested on Quicksilver. “And there’s her.”
“No, not anymore. Not unless you force her to defend herself.” He pressed her cold hand. It quivered beneath his palm before she caught his gaze and nodded.
“Or the children. If you touch any children….” She let her threat drift off as if too exhausted to finish, but her eyes burned with the intensity of her promise.
Sutton gave one sharp nod.
“So what do you offer us?” Kethan asked.
He shrugged. “What can we offer you? We must feed.”
“Then focus your attention on consenting adults. Only those willing and no conversions.”
“Our clan were small, too small for that!” Sutton’s clenched fist hit the tabletop. “No! To that we can’t agree! The Red Dragon—”
“The prairie separates you. The buffer zone remains as it always did.”
“And we must be strong enough to enforce it! And what of the Toltecs from the south? ‘Tis trouble there, of a certainty, and what of the remnants of the clan those two vampires brought with them? We’ve enemies on all fronts still, though we’ve destroyed two of them.”