But disastrous repercussions? What was—no. I stopped that train of thought, took a deep breath, and met his eyes, refusing to be led astray. I wasn’t going to bite the bait.
“I want to talk about Roland Haviar,” I said sternly.
A deep, razor-sharp smile. “And who do you think we have been talking about?”
Chapter 19
I felt my stomach flutter, replaying our conversation so far. I licked my lips, choosing my words very carefully. “Why would me chasing after Roland have disastrous repercussions?”
He shook his head sadly. “I don’t believe you are blindly chasing after him, are you? You do not follow meekly in his footsteps. You stand against him, correct?”
I nodded my head slowly, poking my brain with a figurative stick. It seemed to do the trick, making me think about his words in slightly different ways. But I soon realized everything he was saying had double and triple entendre—maybe even more.
I finally let out a sigh, realizing I could flounder for hours. I waved a hand back towards the ninjas. A different tactic might help. “You live here, now. Thanks to Roland’s barrier, we’re all stuck here. You send your men out into the streets to either protect innocents—”
“In a sense,” he agreed, smirking playfully.
“Heh. Get it?” Cain whispered, nudging Claire. She elbowed him sharply, cutting him off.
I narrowed my eyes at the tortoise before continuing my train of thought. “Or to protect your own interests. You send them to spy, if nothing else. Everyone wants to protect their home. So help me help you,” I pleaded, letting a little exasperation enter my tone.
He nodded his agreement. “I am very concerned about my home.” He flicked a claw past our shoulders, indicating the house we had passed through. “I have hidden numerous little treasures inside my humble temple, after all,” he whispered mischievously, about as loud as a bumblebee directly in your ear canal.
Cain frowned. “Dude. I counted one vase and a shrub…I think your stuff is safe.”
Claire hit him in the shoulder, shooting him a withering glare.
Xuanwu smiled at the pair. “Even so. They are mine, and so they are special to me.”
He turned back to find me frowning at his choice of words. Temple…treasures.
He shifted slightly on the ground, his shell creaking and cracking with ice as he tried to find a more comfortable position. “Kansas City’s plight is not unlike your Biblical War of the Angels—except with mankind. Two men of God—once brothers—having a difference of opinion on how strictly they must follow His commandments. Or perhaps whether those commandments should be followed at all…”
“Forefathers,” I whispered, reconsidering his earlier comment in a new light.
He waved a hand in a there you go gesture. “Precisely. Words, like objects, can serve multiple purposes—have multiple interpretations—depending on how you look at them,” he explained.
He was alluding to the difference between four fathers and forefathers. I nodded. He was talking about riddles, puns, and other word games, which I hated. But he was right.
“Roland’s barrier,” Xuanwu continued, “also serves more than one purpose. It keeps people out as well as in.”
I beamed proudly, glad that I’d already considered this. I take the wins when I can, folks. Even the tiny ones. “The Shepherds, obviously,” I said, perhaps a bit arrogantly. He nodded dismissively, waggling a claw for me to continue—and my confidence ebbed slightly, wondering if he was about to learn me something after all. “The Sanguine Council?”
He leaned forward suddenly. “What an interesting theory. Do you know, by chance, who leads the Sanguine Council?”
I frowned. “A council doesn’t have a single leader, or it wouldn’t be called a council…”
Xuanwu smiled. “It would seem so. But as we just learned, names can be vitally important—open to any number of misinterpretations. As a wizard, you well know that what one chooses to call a thing, and what that name might imply or infer, is given very careful consideration. It is the very purpose of naming—to find the best single word or phrase that achieves a desired result.”
I nodded slowly in understanding, but I didn’t see any potential wordplay in council.
“And vampires are well-known as schemers, perhaps even choosing to call a thing something that it is not.” His eyes glittered suggestively. “That would be extremely clever, wouldn’t it, Callie? Hidden in plain sight, as it were…”
I shivered at the idea. “If they aren’t really a council…then who is in charge?”
“Another excellent question. It would have to be a very powerful vampire for our conspiracy theory to hold water. A true Master of all Master Vampires,” he mused, scratching at his beak pensively.
My face paled and my stomach quivered strangely. “Dracula? Are you talking about mothersucking Vlad Dracul?” I demanded. “No one has heard from him in forever!”
Cain and Claire both cursed in disbelief.
“Let us suppose our hypothetical Master wanted it that way,” he suggested. “I hear Dracula is a collector of all manner of things—both living and non—and we already discussed how important it is to protect our home, our treasures…” I felt like I was about to have a panic attack, but Xuanwu went right on without slowing. “A true Master of his beasts—if he could convince the world that he no longer existed, yet still manage to hold the reins that control all the vampires in the world. One should tread very carefully around a man as clever as that. Or a man daring enough to try following in his footsteps.”
Forefathers. He’d said chasing your forefathers could have disastrous repercussions. “You think Roland is, what, after something Dracula owns? One of his treasures?” I hissed.
Xuanwu shrugged, as if we were just having a friendly, hypothetical debate over tea. “Or to kill him and take all his treasures. I have no answer to that question. Either would make more sense than believing he is only after the Shepherds. He could have ended them months ago. The only reason the Shepherds still stand is because he allows them to.”
I swallowed audibly. Well. I hadn’t anticipated him being that powerful, or the Shepherds that outclassed. Claire had made it sound like a stalemate, but Xuanwu sounded utterly sure. Which meant that even if I could have gotten their help, it wouldn’t have been enough.
“No vampire has ever been foolish enough to try such a thing. It is said that Dracula can tune in to hear his vampires’ thoughts—even across great distances. They are his offspring, after all, bound by cursed blood originating from his own still-flowing veins.” He leaned forward. “But those trapped within Roland’s barrier are shielded—not just physically but mentally—from outside observation, eliminating the risk of him learning about it.” He shrugged. “This barrier would be the only way to pull off such a bold feat. Along with an environmental event that spans continents. Much like the Blood Moon tomorrow evening,” he added, as if it was of no import.
“Of course,” Claire cursed. “Why wouldn’t it be during the blood moon.”
I felt like jumping to my feet and screaming. What the hell was Roland thinking? If even a sliver of this was true…I locked eyes with Xuanwu, my mind running with possibilities. “You’re talking about a ritual…making one place similar to that of another in order to bridge the two together.” Xuanwu nodded very slowly.
And more similarities between the two vampires began clicking together in my mind. Roland shared blood with Dracula. He had made a castle out of his church. He had an army of crimson-eyed vampires specifically bound to him.
I licked my lips nervously. “Dracula has a barrier like this around his castle, doesn’t he?” I whispered, gesturing up at the sky, even though I hadn’t noticed the red haze here.
Xuanwu cocked his head thoughtfully. “I have not visited Dracula’s castle, so I could not say for certain. But I have such a barrier here,” he said, gesturing up at the sky, “to protect my…one vase and shrub.” He gave Cain a teasing sm
ile, quoting him from earlier. Xuanwu turned back to me. “Only my most trusted men know about it. Hypothetically, I would also imagine only Dracula’s most trusted followers would know such a thing. Those on the Sanguine Council, perhaps. One must know one’s boss, correct?”
I leaned forward very, very slowly, my hands shaking as I met his eyes. “Someone like the Master of Paris, for example, might know such things, right?”
Xuanwu nodded just as slowly. “Paris is a large, heavily populated city. He must know all manner of things—be entrusted with all manner of secrets.”
Motherfucker. Henri Bellerose had snitched on Dracula. No wonder Roland had made him a lieutenant rather than killing him. Roland had needed the inside man to devise his plan. To either rob Dracula or take down the granddaddy of all vampires to steal his throne and take over the Sanguine Council itself. Talk about a long con. And it would both serve his old instincts as a Shepherd—to hurt the Sanguine Council—while absolutely establishing a reputation as the most badass vampire ever.
Cain let out a slow whistle, shaking his head. Claire was clutching her knees to her chest, a stricken look on her face, letting me know she’d had absolutely no idea problems in Kansas City were this bad.
I sat in a daze as well, thinking to myself. What in the hell did Dracula have that Roland wanted, and what can I possibly do to stop it?
“You know,” Cain began, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “since we’re talking hypotheticals, I wonder how this conversation would have gone if you had led with that juicy bit of information. Hypothetically, we might not have wasted an hour on pointless gossip.”
Xuanwu looked over at Cain—not in anger—but with a suddenly haunted look in the depths of those obsidian eyes. His deep voice was shallow and strained, like a dead body being dragged across gravel. “Your hypothetical scenario has been the birthplace of my nightmares for the past—” he glanced at me, eyeing me up and down appraisingly, “twenty-something years.”
In the ensuing silence, a feather falling on silk would have sounded as loud as a crystal chandelier shattering to the ground from a twenty-foot fall, and the hair on my arms was either standing vertical or had picked up its own follicle before fleeing from its host, like a snail picking up his shell and deciding to relocate his home.
“Perhaps, man-child,” Xuanwu continued, his tone growing sharper and harsher, almost aggressive enough for his words to draw blood as swiftly and quickly as his sword could, “every single one of those sleepless nights was filled with me very carefully considering the events and ramifications of this meeting. And that I came to the ultimate conclusion that an hour of pointless gossip, as you called it, just might be enough to save all of existence.” He was panting loudly, clouds of arctic vapor puffing out of the nostrils on his beak, the scaled skin around his eyes compressed, and the rings piercing his ear holes were vibrating fast enough to look blurred. The claw clutching the hilt of his sword was brimming with growing hoarfrost, crunching as it clenched and unclenched. Clenched and unclenched.
If Xuanwu had whooped our asses when he was feeling calm and collected…
I never ever wanted to see him on a battlefield—even if he was on my side.
Cain gulped, his face as white as a sheet, and sat perfectly still. A look I’d only seen on him one other time—when we’d first crossed paths with Last Breath, before we learned who he truly was. Other than that time, I’d never seen Cain actually scared.
Xuanwu took a seemingly forced, calming breath, closing his eyes for about ten whole seconds. The features of his face slowly returned to normal before he opened his eyes and looked at Cain. “My apologies, Cain. What I meant to say was that I have given this conversation much thought.”
Cain nodded ever so slightly, letting out a breath of his own. “No apology necessary. I was just frustrated with how many gods flirt with open, honest answers.” He glanced at me sheepishly. “My sister’s time is very valuable. I may be a tad overprotective…” he admitted, squirming on the ground. Claire burst out laughing, Cain’s discomfort obviously breaking the dangerous direction the conversation had almost taken. He narrowed his eyes at her. “And my ass was not made for sitting on rocks for so long. It requires plushiness.”
Claire choked, laughing even harder, and they began to argue quietly, slapping and poking at each other teasingly.
Xuanwu smiled sadly, his shoulders slumped down and inward, as he watched them banter back and forth. So I was the only one who noticed the now haunted look in his eyes. Like a man sitting in a wobbly wooden chair in an empty, drafty, dilapidated house, watching—for the thousandth time—an old home video of his children playing in the front yard, laughing wildly and shrieking with joy as they chased each other around and around before falling into breathless tickling matches on the soft green grass.
And the lonely man looked on with a lone, happy tear trailing down his dirty, scruffy face, because his children had died in a horrible, preventable accident many, many years ago—and the only way this sad shell of a man knew to banish the screaming emptiness echoing within his broken heart was to watch this video again and again and again.
As a reminder.
As repentance.
As his only salvation from the despair threatening to slip through the numerous cracks in the crumbling walls of his will to live.
Their laughter was the only thing keeping him alive. Giving him purpose.
So he watched. And watched. And watched.
I felt a tear fall down my own cheek, and a faint sob bubbled out from between my lips as Cain and Claire continued teasing each other, entirely unaware. Just like those children in the home video…
Xuanwu started, sensing my attention, and swiftly masked his features.
He pointedly refused to meet my eyes, clearing his throat to interrupt the two children. I wiped at my face quickly, turning to look out at the woods and regain my composure before I alarmed Cain or Claire.
What darkness had Xuanwu seen to make him look upon them in such a way?
Xuanwu spoke, keeping their attention from me for a few more moments. “I needed to understand who you three were. Why you are. Where you’ve been. Otherwise, I might have been consigning you—and many others—to your deaths. Like handing a child a loaded shotgun because he looked scared—when all that really happened was that he had a nightmare.”
I turned to face him, frowning. “It’s pretty obvious this isn’t a simple nightmare…”
He sighed. “Trying to find the right metaphor is like casting stones at a black kettle,” he replied, smirking at the obviously butchered metaphor.
I rolled my eyes, groaning. I appreciated the attempt at levity but my mind was racing with the memory of a petite, white-haired little girl, running through a twisted version of a carnival, her parents nowhere to be found, as a walking, talking, ten-foot-tall octopus with knife tentacles pursued her with a maniacal cackle.
Because I’d just learned it wasn’t a nightmare…that the octopus was just as real as the petite, white-haired little girl.
Roland.
Me.
Chapter 20
I took a deep breath, imagining Terry Penrose stepping into my nightmare to point a firehose—connected to a tank of acid—at the octopus. The resulting screams calmed the little white-haired girl. She may have watched the octopus’ demise longer than a child should have. Perhaps she even took notes. But she wouldn’t have admitted to either.
Xuanwu placed a claw on my knee, the frigid tips cold enough to instantly make me shudder. “You have time,” he said in a reassuring tone. “Some. Roland has everything he needs already, but he can do nothing before tomorrow night. He hides in his fortress for a reason. He will only emerge for the ritual. That is your only chance to act.”
I stared down at my boots in silence, considering and discarding ideas to no avail. I looked back up at him, deciding that no matter what, I had to do something. Roland might be pursuing Dracula for personal reasons, but I had been the cataly
st to start his descent into madness.
“I need to find a way to break into his church. To get past his wards. Claire says they prevent anyone who doesn’t have Roland’s express permission.”
Xuanwu nodded pensively. “He used strong blood magic to establish his wards. With the Shepherds as his enemies, I would anticipate that his barrier also has secondary protections to block anyone with ties to Heaven. He knows how the Shepherds think—that they have spent hundreds of years fighting the forces of what they see as darkness—and that they have access to powerful magics and artifacts that could perhaps overpower his blood wards.” I nodded, knowing Roland well enough to confirm that he likely would have considered such a concern. “And you have ties to Heaven.”
I grunted. He wasn’t wrong. My blood was a mixed drink of Heavenly liquors.
“Well, I’m not going to add any demonic blood to my body, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” I said.
“I do not believe even demonic blood could enter,” he admitted. Which made sense. Roland wanted no one interfering with his heist, and a demon definitely would have been interested in hijacking the chance to rob Dracula—if he really did have such a fine collection of treasures.
Thinking of heavenly blood, a new thought hit me, and I wondered why it hadn’t crossed my mind earlier. “Have your ninjas sensed any demons in town?” I asked guardedly, unsure whether mentioning that Samael had been hunting me would make the tortoise uncomfortable—or unwilling to let his ninjas get involved.
Xuanwu shook his head adamantly. “My men say Samael left the city around the same time you disappeared, leading Roland and others to believe him successful in murdering you. Or if not, that he had no further reason to be here with you gone. My men have sensed no demonic presence since. And the barrier around Kansas City is just as effective on demons as it is angels. No one in, no one out,” he assured me, decisively.
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