Mathias shrugged. “I ate one.”
Azazel’s eyes grew wide. “You aren’t supposed to be able to do that.”
Mathias shrugged again. It seemed like there were a lot of things he wasn’t supposed to be able to do. “Can I have some more jerky?”
Azazel handed him another piece. He peered at Mathias, almost as if he was looking for something.
“So, why do you work for the vampires if you are a Prince of Hell?” Mathias asked again. It was the one question that wouldn’t go away.
Azazel smiled mysteriously. “Who says I work for them?”
* * * * *
Later that night, Mathias lay beside the fire, his head facing toward the ceiling. The stalactites seemed to reach for him. His brain didn’t feel as foggy or heavy, but he still felt odd.
He never would have guessed things would be this strange. Was Azazel really that old? What the hell was he doing being the dungeon master? Mathias sort of remembered some comment about Azazel not being a real Prince of Hell and he couldn’t remember who said it. But, with what he’d seen in the fire, and by Azazel’s own admission, it was the rumor that was false. Azazel wasn’t a vampire at all. He just mimicked one. Of course, maybe Vlad and Stuart didn’t know.
In the long past, he could only remember the things that happened directly to him. That didn’t mean he knew all of God’s history. And, well, he didn’t want to know the history of the entire universe. He just wanted to know what he was up against.
Every time he thought he knew what his life meant, something else popped up in its place. Why was Azazel so interested that he ate Nic’s soul? Yeah, true Nic had been an evil bastard, but his death happened about four months ago. Nothing bad had happened to him as a result of it. Was there some weird unwritten rule that a vampire couldn’t be a soul eater?
“Thias…”
He sat up and looked around. Nothing. She wasn’t there. It was like her voice was stuck in a feedback loop in his brain. Every time he thought too hard about something, she showed up. Or at least her voice did. He needed it to stop. He pushed the thoughts about Azazel out of his mind. Plus, the pain wasn’t helping much.
He looked across the fire. Azazel was asleep as far as he could tell. The vampire’s? Demon’s? chest rose and fell evenly. Either he didn’t care about what was happening, or he really was asleep.
Mathias got up, put another log on the fire, and walked to the mouth of the cave and looked out into the night. Everything was peaceful. The horses were snoring. The stars overhead twinkled in the light of the huge moon.
Then, he caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and looked—into the face of a wolf. It was a silver-grey monstrous thing. It was monstrous because of its size. The head reached to Mathias’ waist. Or, it would have if the wolf had been standing in the mouth of the cave. Instead, the creature was standing on the hillside next to the opening and was able to stare him in the eye.
He kept himself very still. “Hello,” he said to the wolf.
The wolf snorted. Mathias felt the small bit of snort splatter across his face. Then, the animal trotted down the side of the mountain. Mathias wiped his face with his sleeve. This wasn’t a TV dog type thing where he needed to follow the dog to save Nossy or something. The wolf simply left as soon as Mathias spoke to it. Or rather, after it sneezed on him. Nothing like being woken up in the middle of the night to experience wolf snot.
So much for vampires having power over animals.
“I think you misunderstand,” Azazel said from behind him.
Mathias jumped. “Jesus Christ.” He turned around. Apparently, he had missed something. “What are you talking about?”
Azazel motioned with his hand in the direction the wolf went. “The wolf was warning you.”
Mathias blinked. The wolf snot was a warning? “Warning me about what?”
Azazel suddenly went back into the cave and started rolling up his blankets. “Pack your things. We need to move. Now.”
* * * * *
It was only moments before the cave was covered in an avalanche of snow. It had sounded like a freight train barreling through the forest. By the time it reached the area, Mathias and Azazel were well down the mountain, away from the path of the avalanche. He really needed to learn more about animals apparently.
“How did the wolf know?” Mathias asked.
Azazel pulled back on the reins of his horse slightly to get him to stop. “Just like us, they can sense things. Sometimes, even things we can’t sense quickly enough.”
“And the snot?”
Azazel laughed. “The snot was an accident. I’m sure. But, animals are better at sensing danger.”
Okay. Wolf snot had nothing to do with information but whatever. Check. “Or, we aren’t paying attention.”
Azazel nodded. “That too. How’s the pain?”
Mathias concentrated on it for a minute. It still spiked with every beat of his heart. “Still pretty strong, but not as strong as it was in the cave.”
Azazel nodded again. “We’ll go up to the top of that ridge,” he pointed in the early light to a ridge that looked like it was miles away. “And see if the feeling is stronger there.”
Mathias nodded back. They might as well get going. They sure weren’t going back to sleep anytime soon.
Azazel led his horse up the mountain and Mathias followed.
* * * * *
“All right. Before we do this, don’t we need the Order’s permission?” Stuart asked. They were in Vlad’s office. He was standing in front of Vlad’s desk while Vlad was behind it, seated. Vlad had been acting like a mad demon ever since he’d come up with this testing idea. Stuart wasn’t sure if he should be scared or not.
“The Order is us at the moment,” Vlad said. “We need to imprison the rest of them. There is no way to know if they sided with Tallus or not.”
Stuart blinked. It all seemed like it was so out of hand. Suddenly, they were the only ones in charge, Mathias was off trying to find Nosferatu, and every time he turned around, there was someone else that needed to be interrogated. Or, at least that was the way it seemed every time Vlad came up with a new idea. “Is it ever going to end?”
Vlad looked up from the paper he was writing on. “Sadly, this is how it always is, Stuart. You have periods of time, usually short, when you feel you can relax. Then, the insanity breaks, and you spend the rest of your time putting the pieces back together.”
Stuart slumped. It wasn’t like he hadn’t lived when there was turmoil around the ruling monarch for crying out loud. Lilith had been his mother too. Vlad, however, was conveniently forgetting that small fact. “See, this is why I have no desire to rule.”
Vlad rolled his eyes. “What, exactly, is it that you plan to do for the rest of your life?”
Stuart smirked. “The usual.”
Vlad adjusted his suit coat across his stomach. “And just what is that?”
“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.” Stuart preferred to keep his talents to himself. Better that than for them to be used in a way he didn’t exactly agree with. Besides, Vlad wasn’t exactly sane himself. Stuart still remembered the whole “Let’s put my enemies on spikes” incident.
Vlad slammed his pen down. “I hardly think this is the time for jokes like that.”
Stuart watched as Vlad’s eyes grew red. He wasn’t exactly joking, but it was better to let Vlad think what he wanted to think. It was time to stop. No sense in starting a fight where there really wasn’t one. “So, we’ve got all the guard and the messengers to capture. Now, we have the Order. How in the world do you propose we do this?”
Vlad paused, and then looked into Stuart’s eyes. “We test them all.”
Stuart was getting ready to wash his hands of the whole thing. None of it made any sense. Vlad just kept adding more and more impossible ideas to something that wasn’t that great of an idea to begin with. He just hoped that it wasn’t going to turn into a full-fledged disaste
r. “Just how are we going to get them all there?”
A grin grew on Vlad’s face. “We do what I did many years ago. We send them all a formal invitation, inviting them to the Ring of Immortality for a show of appreciation. Once we have them all inside, we barricade the door and do what we need to be done.”
“I’m guessing I’ll be doing a lot of running,” Stuart said.
“We can’t very well have the messengers invite themselves, can we?”
* * * * *
His lips were so sore. The pain burned. Every time he moved his mouth, another place would crack. There wasn’t a lot of oozing now. Not a lot of blood left at all. It just seemed so pointless. If whoever wanted the throne this badly had just tried to negotiate with him, maybe they could have come to some sort of agreement. And if they had, it definitely wouldn’t have anything to do with him sitting in some dark stone place slowing starving to death.
Nossy stared out into the darkness before him. That was all there was. He’d crawled around the room numerous times, but found nothing. The only thing in the room was him. Well, and the hood he once had on his head. And, some small piles of waste from back when he actually had enough bodily function to go to the bathroom. Right now, his back was pressed up against the wall.
The room didn’t spin so much as it did when he sat up. The pulses of pain he felt with each heartbeat were almost like a friend. An abusive friend, but at least it was something familiar. Through pain, he knew he was still alive. Even so, he knew he didn’t have a lot of time left.
He ran his dry tongue around in his mouth. It felt rough, almost like sandpaper. Every taste bud was a small hard nub. He missed being able to make spit.
He had even more respect for Mathias now than he ever did before. Mathias had once chosen to die like this; starving to death, wasting away until all that was left were the bones. To do that as a choice took a heck of a lot of determination and guts.
How he could force himself to live through that, Nossy didn’t know. If someone handed a glass of water out to him, he’d be downing it as soon as possible, but not Mathias. Perhaps that was his misguided way of getting back at Lilith. Too bad she hadn’t cared. The only thing his mother had ever cared about had been herself.
Nossy leaned his head against the cool stone of the wall. The air was getting mustier by the day and the stench of his own unwashed body didn’t help. If someone would just give him a little fresh air, he’d be happy. But, no. He was stuck inside a tomb.
The rushes of pain weren’t coming as frequently. His heart was slowing down.
Chapter Nine
The air was making Mathias’ lungs burn. The frigidness of the wind seemed to cut through him like knife. Being this high up, the temperature seemed fucking cold no matter what he tried to stifle the wind, nothing helped. He didn’t bother asking how much further. He had eyes. He could see they were roughly three quarters the way up the mountain. Still a long way to go.
Mathias watched where Azazel guided his horse up the mountain. Azazel rode with his head slightly forward. He seemed to have the ability to peer out of the top of his head, or at least that’s how it looked to Mathias. He did his best to guide Stormy into the same footprints. Less snow that way.
Mathias had tried holding his head like Azazel did, and while it did help block the wind some, he could barely see in front of him. He’d stopped blinking himself warm a while ago. It was getting too hard to concentrate. Better to be cold than to kill himself or the horse accidentally.
Suddenly, Azazel stopped. Stormy almost bumped into the back side of the horse in front of him. Mathias hadn’t been paying attention.
“What’s up?” Mathias asked.
Azazel looked around. He seemed to be checking for something. “It’s too quiet.”
Mathias leaned back in the saddle, listened, and realized Azazel was right. Even the sounds of the wind had stopped. In every horror film he could remember, if stuff went quiet, the bad shit was about to go down.
Mathias looked around the trail. There was nothing to see, just some snow. He almost expected some monster to storm out of the bushes, but none did. “What do we do now?”
Azazel grunted. “We go on, but keep alert. I don’t like this.”
He waited until Azazel was a few feet ahead before he tapped Stormy’s flanks with his heels. The horse moved forward slowly, almost as if the horse sensed something too.
Mathias was starting to get that creepy crawly feeling that traveled up and down his spine. That wrong reaction that happened when he knew something bad was going to happen. The whole place didn’t feel right. That, along with the pain, made him want to jump off the horse and bury his back in the snow for a while, but he didn’t. Hypothermia wasn’t going to help his chances any. He could just imagine himself frozen solid amongst the snow. Not a pretty picture.
So, he followed Azazel. The closer the peak loomed, the more Mathias didn’t feel right. The pain was moving from a sharp pierce with each heartbeat to a bass drum radiating through his body almost like he was standing behind a huge gong. It rattled his bones and his body. This was the hardest his heart had ever pounded in his entire life. It sucked.
His vision started to fade. The clap-clap-clap of the horse’s hooves on the rocks seemed to be matching the beat of his heart. As the horse’s body swayed back and forth, it made Mathias’ body sway in the saddle. Finally, the world tilted and he landed on his back in the snow—hard.
“Oomph.”
The extra pain made his head swim.
Thud. Crunch, Crunch. Crunch. “Mathias, are you okay?” Azazel asked. He was peering down at Mathias.
Mathias blinked his eyes so he could focus. The world was still spinning. “I think we’re going in the right direction.”
Azazel snorted. “Do you think you can ride?”
Mathias tried to shake his head, but the dizziness kept him pinned to the ground. He wasn’t even sure if he could sit up. “I don’t know yet.”
Azazel let out a long deep breath. “Decide soon. We need to get you out of the snow.”
* * * * *
Vlad dipped his quill into the jar of ink on his blotter. The quill felt right in his hands. Powerful. He hated the feel of modern pens. So impersonal. Ink was meant to flow, not be rolled.
He looked at the piece of ivory parchment in front of him. It was time.
17 December, 2013
You are cordially invited to attend a reception in honor of the great deeds you have performed for our world. Refreshments will be provided.
Time: 12:00 P.M.
Place: The Ring of Immortality.
Signed,
Vlad Tepes
He wiped off the quill with a piece of linen and laid it on his desk. Then, he blinked the finished letter into enough copies for his needs. True, there was always the chance that some would not attend, but a list of names would be at the door. Anyone who didn’t show would be put to death. It was a very simple solution to a difficult problem.
It was a shame to have to rely on what he’d learned about rule during the medieval times, but it couldn’t be helped. There were times that barbarity was warranted. Too bad there were too many these days that didn’t see the value of monstrosity.
He blinked the envelopes and watched as the letters folded themselves, stuffed themselves neatly into the envelopes, and then laid themselves neatly into a pile on the desk.
Once the last one hit the desk, he picked up his phone. Stuart needed to do his part now.
* * * * *
Stuart rubbed his shin. Damn Vlad for making him do this. It wasn’t like he didn’t have other things to do. He leaned over and peeked at the queer little marble statue on the floor. Damn demonic garden gnome. Why people collected stupid things like this was a wonder to him. He would have preferred a topiary or at least something not so hard on his shins.
“You,” he pointed his finger at it. “One more time and I’ll turn you into dust.”
Of course the statue made no
response. Stuart glared at it once more and shoved the envelope underneath the door. He needed to cool it. The last thing he needed was for someone to see him talking to inanimate objects.
He snarled at the statue, almost daring it to move. He just couldn’t help himself. It was too ridiculous. It looked kind of like a cross between a gargoyle and one of those troll dolls with the fly-away hair. Except this thing was as bald as a cue ball. He didn’t even want to think about where Vlad got it.
He stood up. Did he think this was going to work? No. Not really. It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith or anything. He just expected for it all to go very wrong. Vlad losing his grasp on sanity wasn’t helping. What was their hold on the world going to be if Vlad killed most of the members of the kingdom?
Still though, Stuart didn’t have any better ideas. It wasn’t like they had a magical lie detector or something. Maybe they would be lucky and it would all work out. Maybe only a few guards had sided with Tallus. Stuart sure hoped so. If all that ended up being left of the Order was Vlad, Mathias, and himself, they would never get anything done.
Plus, he’d have to inform his contacts that his business would be closed for now. And if business was closed, the rage would bubble out of control. It was amazing to think what killing a person did for your stress level. There were bad men in the world that human laws had no way of dealing with—sometimes because of corruption, sometimes because the country’s laws protected them. Either way, Stuart was one of the ones who could make things right. And if that was taken away, well, he didn’t want to think about it.
If the Order was basically dissolved, the human world would have to learn to deal for themselves for a while. He walked down the hall and shoved another envelope under the door. He needed a stiff drink.
* * * * *
The heat of Azazel’s body against his back helped to keep him awake. The warmth felt so good, relaxing. The buzz of the pain now seemed to be endless, not even stopping when his heart wasn’t beating. He felt almost sea sick from the noise and its internal vibration, not to mention the sway of the horse.
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