by DB Nielsen
Yeah, that’ll be a cold, wet day in hell. She smiled at him sweetly.
“You heard the lady, Thirteen.” Styx snapped his fingers. “Negotiating? We’re always negotiating. Business is business.”
Thirteen inclined his head.
Aislinn desperately wanted to interrogate Thirteen, but she backed off from the urge. There was nothing she would have liked more than to pursue the dark mage and make him suffer, to open up his veins and bleed him dry. But even if this was one of the same Druids who had murdered her sister, she knew that it would be far easier to track him down with Stanislav’s contacts, particularly as Stanislav also wanted to gain revenge.
“So, Styx, are we good?” Aislinn asked, returning her attention to Benjamin and Cooper while Styx was preoccupied with business. The sooner she could get them out of here, the sooner she could pursue her quest.
“Are you certain we can’t do any business tonight, kitten? There’s something that Stanislav has that I wouldn’t mind collecting, and I’m willing to cut you in on the deal.”
She gave a snort of laughter. “I don’t think Stanislav has a soul because if he did, he’d be dealing with Baba Yaga himself,” Aislinn joked, pretending to misunderstand him. Then, more solemnly, she said, “Sorry, Styx, whatever you want from Stanislav, I can’t help you.”
At that, Styx grinned. It wasn’t pleasant. “Are you certain? Better the devil you know, as they say.”
Aislinn’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You’re absolutely right. But let me do you a favor before we leave. I’m going to allow an impromptu performance of Cole’s poetry, and you don’t even have to pay him for it.”
His eyes were the color of the gemstone set into his ring, and they dominated his smoothly weathered face. He stared at her for a silent moment. Then mercurial as ever, he threw back his head and bit off a raucous laugh. “That is indeed generous. Your firstborn is a true maestro of pain and torture.”
“Yes, I know.” Aislinn’s smile was almost evil. “All I’m asking for is front row seats for Benjamin and Caleb.”
Chapter 22
Aislinn escorted Benjamin and Caleb from the chamber where Cole’s recital was held. Caleb was so pale, she worried he’d lost the will to live.
“Varya, please get a pint of blood from the bar and hurry,” she instructed the other vampire, guiding Caleb over to a red velvet banquette seat near the corner. “His blood sugar levels are low.”
Varya disappeared into the smoky air. Thick tendrils drifted through the rooms, winding around the heavy curtains and marble pillars like pale, skeletal fingers.
“Is he going to be all right?” asked Cooper in concern at the catatonic state of the older vampire, leaning over the black lacquer table.
“He’s going to be just fine,” she reassured hastily, like a parent with a worried child. Caleb had survived his time off-grid in the JSOC ghost unit, and Afghanistan and Iraq. He could survive this. “Check Benjamin for me, will you?”
The light cast from the gold chandeliers highlighted the ghastly pallor of the Malum’s face.
“Is this normal?” the young vampire asked as Varya returned with several tall glasses of iron-enriched, pure ABO. He pressed one immediately into Benjamin’s hand and forced him to drink.
“Normal?” Aislinn answered with a shrug, doing the same for Caleb by forcing the glass between his lips. “Well, I guess it proves that Cole’s poetry is getting worse, or better, depending on whose perspective you share.”
“Oh, Cole’s poetry is simply brilliant!” Mia gushed, sipping her blood highball and looking around at the décor, from the bird’s-eye maple veneer walls, to the aluminum-leaf ceiling. Her eyes dropped from the shininess of the ceiling to the exotic crowd in their designer outfits.
“It’s an atrocity,” muttered Caleb with a shudder.
“Yass, that outfit is so last season,” Mia agreed, not realizing Caleb wasn’t looking at the shapeshifter trying to hook up at the bar. “Not many men would notice that. I don’t know why Cole thinks you’re so insensitive, Caleb.”
Caleb sputtered into his drink as his lips twitched in a scowl, and Aislinn smiled. Good, he was feeling better.
She looked across at Benjamin’s sharp, angular face which held an unearthly, cold beauty. Though naturally pale like all vampires, there was a little color returning to his cheeks. His striking and changeable hazel eyes held a playfulness that even Cole’s bad poetry failed to dull.
“So, what did you two get up to at Styx for twelve hours?” Aislinn casually asked of him and her newborn offspring.
Mia gave a high-pitched squeal, and the question was instantly forgotten. “Look, there’s that redhead biatch again! And OMV! Is that Marcellus? It is! Can you believe—”
Varya’s head shot up, and she hissed low in her throat as she took in the sight of the vicious Sanguis lounging near the bar. “Bastard! I’m going to kill him!”
“You have my full permission but not here. You know the rules.” Aislinn’s tone could have frozen wine or blood. It was all the warning she was going to give. “Come with me, but get your game face on. The rest of you stay here.”
The reassuring weight of the skean at her thigh was a false comfort. Like Varya and her daggers, Aislinn couldn’t use her blade in here. But then again, neither could Marcellus.
It was difficult for Aislinn to believe that during his mortality, Marcellus had once been a Praetorian Guard. Well, perhaps not so difficult, since he had a blind and unquestioning obedience to Julius, but his temper coupled with the inability to reason had led to his dismissal. And now he was a fugitive from the coven’s laws. He would be furious when he learned that Varya now held his position as Julius’s right-hand.
“Well, well, well,” Varya said, just as Marcellus looked up. She placed her hands on her hips as she came to stand in front of his table, looming over the other vampire. “Marcellus. Didn’t expect to find you here. If anything, I would have thought you’d be on another continent by now. You scuttled away like the vermin you are, too afraid to face Julius. No wonder he placed me in charge.”
In that split second, Aislinn saw his malice and his blood rage.
Then Marcellus’s lips curved up in a sneer. “Well, he must be desperate then. It’s a pity I won’t be there to see his boot stomp on your face for all eternity.”
The daughter of Kayne snorted and shook her head. “Marcellus, you surprise me. I didn’t think you were this imaginative. I guess you’re not interested in getting your old job back.”
“An immortal can stay at Styx’s forever and never get bored or have to leave,” he taunted.
“Until your money or your favors run out, asswipe.” Varya’s pale eyes had turned wintery cold. “How much kiss-ass and sucking,” she stressed the word, pausing on a deliberate taunt as she pursed her lips, “up have you done so far?”
Marcellus gave her a provocative, strange smile. “Well, here’s the thing, bitch. As Julius’s right-hand, you don’t get vacays. There’s no long-service leave or personal leave or annual leave. You’re in the vampire army for life. It’s not a career. It’s a lifestyle choice. If you paid any attention instead of worrying about breaking a nail, you’d know that, but I guess you don’t listen well. So, cheers to you, bloodsucker.” He took a long, slow sip of the blood ale in front of him, deliberately ignoring them. Sniggering, he stared into his tankard. “Since I never got to spend my earnings, I’ve got more than enough to stay here for a long time. A very long time. Enough time to watch the fall of an empire.”
It was the most Aislinn had ever heard the Sanguis talk. Not that Marcellus was a stimulating conversationalist, but he needed a dose of personality, and Julius had given him the opportunity to find one. Of course, the problem was that he was simply headed down the path of stereotypical vengeful villain with all the associated traits, and for a vampire, letting blood rage and regret consume them was as corrosive as acid.
Something he proved when he next opened his mouth. “Did y
ou enjoy my gift? Was it to your taste, bitch?”
Marcellus’s spiteful envy of Aislinn was showing. As a common Sanguis, despite his strength and superior martial prowess to many others in the coven, he had always loathed the idea that she was one of Kayne’s Twelve elect. His misogyny had nothing to do with vampirism—he’d been an asshole as a human too—but now he got to be an asshole forever, which Aislinn felt was the downside of immortality. Douchebags never changed. They were forever douchebags. And they inflicted their douchebaggery on others for the rest of their immortal lives.
“I’m used to your toxicity, Marcellus. Can’t hurt me there.” Her tone was flat and emotionless. “Next time, try harder.”
He grimaced. “That was just a warning. I can get to you or any of your friends. Next time, you won’t see it coming.”
Aislinn rolled her bright blue eyes and gave an exaggerated sigh. “Seriously. That doesn’t make any sense. Why do bad guys say that? If you want to kill someone, just do it. Don’t send them a warning and then say, ‘next time you won’t see it coming’. Forewarned is forearmed. Of course, I’m going to see it coming. You’ve just told me it’s coming. That’s so lame.”
“She’s got a point.” Varya nodded.
“Great, I’ll keep that in mind,” Marcellus stated sarcastically. His eyes flashed jet black in warning as he raised his tankard to his lips. “Now fuck off.”
But Varya could have told the former personal guard that Aislinn was an expert at pissing people off. She pulled out the red velvet armchair and sat down opposite Marcellus, causing Varya to laugh.
“You know, you’re absolutely right. You can stay here forever and never get bored, especially when you’re hanging with old friends and foes.” Aislinn hailed a cocktail waitress from across the room. “In fact, I think we’ll join you. Varya, why don’t you call the others over to come and say hello to Marcellus?”
Marcellus caught Varya’s wrist before she could leave. She met his stare with a flash of fangs and a hiss. “Do you need a safe word, Marcellus?”
Instantly, he dropped her wrist as if burned by a holy object. His expression was a mix of repulsion and loathing. “Get out of my face, Varya!”
Varya leaned against the table. “No.”
“I said fuck off!”
“Make me!”
But that was the trouble. At Styx, he couldn’t make her do anything by using force. And the moment he did, there would be hell to pay. That was the beauty of neutral ground.
The cocktail waitress sidled up to their table and smiled winsomely. “Hey there. What can I get you?”
Aislinn glanced over at Marcellus. “What’s your poison? Oh wait, I already know that. He’ll have a Corpse Reviver with a spritz of arsenic. And we’ll have a bottle of your finest New Zealander ABO 2018—”
Marcellus grimaced. “Make hers a hemlock. Straight up.”
Varya stepped on Marcellus’s foot. Aislinn didn’t see this, but she could hear it. Even with his steel-toed boots, she could hear the bones being crushed and crunched. Marcellus briefly winced, snarled, and then shot Varya an ugly smile promising retribution.
The shimmering sequined, doe-eyed cocktail waitress looked at them uncertainly. “Maybe I should come back later when you’ve made up your mind?”
Aislinn could feel Marcellus’s burning bitterness swelling, the chaotic blood rage he couldn’t quite contain. Everything was enhanced by the blood beverage Styx had given her, which meant that she would not need to feed again for three days. Marcellus’s hands began to shake as if he were itching for a cypress stake to use on her. Not that he could touch one, but it was obvious he would have been willing to risk it to appease his rage.
This was fun.
She shrugged. “Just bring the bottle and three glasses.”
The cocktail waitress smiled brightly. “One bottle of our finest New Zealander ABO 2018 coming right up,” she said and sauntered sensually away.
“Fuck that.” Marcellus’s deep voice held immense anger. She had ignored him, and his fragile ego did not like that one bit. “I’m not drinking with you, Prima bitch.”
Aislinn, however, smiled sweetly at the angry Sanguis. “Please Marcellus, no formality here amongst friends and, well, whatever you are.”
Infuriated, Marcellus’s control was ready to snap. He looked around desperately, hoping to move to another table, but the club was starting to fill up, and there was now standing room only. He didn’t think it right he had to leave his table for his enemies. It would look like he’d conceded this round to them. He was reaching a fever pitch as he squinted at Aislinn, viewing her as if she were an obscene breed of immortal.
“You want us to leave? Fine.” Varya’s eyes went wide at Aislinn’s words, surprise written across her face. “We’ll leave after you best me in a drinking game. One thousand blood shots in one thousand seconds.”
“You want to join the Millennia Club?” Marcellus scoffed.
Aislinn raised an eyebrow. “Are you afraid of being bested by a girl?”
He thought for a moment, looking her straight in the eye. “Marquess of Queensberry rules?”
“No leaving the designated Millennia Club, no puking, no passing out, no pausing, no resting, no dying? Does that cover it?” Aislinn was poker faced.
He remained silent for a moment. “Then you’ll fuck off?”
She nodded and held out her hand to shake on it. Marcellus looked down at her outstretched hand but didn’t extend his.
“Not good enough. How about we up the ante?” He was as malicious and cruel as ever. “An hour in Styx’s basement. No holds barred and no restraints. Spoils go to the winner.”
Aislinn nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. She got a hint of a smug smile as Marcellus shook her hand.
“Game on, Prima bitch.”
Chapter 23
There was no mercy. No quarter given.
Two thousand filled shot glasses took longer to pour than to consume. And Aislinn finally realized what Styx’s opulent, three-story barrel-vaulted antechamber was good for—lining up rows of shots for a drinking competition which snaked down its enormous length. By the time they began, they’d attracted a crowd and closed the bar. Bets were taken and placed in the official club betting book, where blood-marked columns had been ratified by the owner of the establishment for centuries; from bets taken on silly and death-defying stunts and magic wielding, to the dead pool, and even celebrity rebirths and sightings.
The terms of their competition were drawn up by Styx himself, who agreed to the use of one of the many levels of his basement at an undisclosed time to be agreed upon, and both Marcellus and Aislinn marked the book with their bloody fingerprint, as was the norm. The odds were only slightly in Marcellus’s favor since Aislinn was of diminutive stature compared to the former Praetorian Guard, and it seemed as if she was a lightweight. But those who knew her didn’t doubt her abilities.
“I have a lot riding on this, Aislinn,” Caleb whispered as he slung his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the corner of the room for a tactical talk.
Her eyes narrowed as she gave him the death stare. “You didn’t gamble away your half of the Nocturne, I hope? If you did, you’ll be begging for an hour in the lowest level of Styx’s basement, which will seem like child’s play when I’m through with you.”
The beefy Malum ran his hand over his perspiring, bald head and refused to answer directly. “Just annihilate Marcellus and win this thing.”
Next, it was Benjamin with his conspiratorial, sexy smile, working his charm. “I’m counting on you, Aislinn. This is a blood sport. Take no prisoners. I’ve got a lot riding on this.”
By the time Varya cornered her, she was ready to scream in frustration. “Oh, for Vlad’s sake, not you too!”
Varya laughed and gave a shrug. “Well, you know me. Gambling was a religion in my family. So just get in there.” She gave Aislinn an encouraging pat on her booty. “Muscle up, buttercup.”
Ro
ughly sixteen minutes and forty seconds, or forty-four liters of blood, or nine humans later, it was all over. They’d competed like it was an immortal Olympic sport or literal hunger games, performed beneath the Ionic columns of the antechamber and in front of a cheering crowd. It was blood, sweat, and tears—the tears mainly supplied by the raucous horde of immortals, backing their favorite.
As Aislinn briefly looked across at Marcellus, she saw the deadly gleam of rivalry in his eyes. Not adrenaline. Not blood rage. But an intent that was far more insidious. She recognized it for what it was, since it ran through her veins at the thought of the Druids who killed her sister—it was revenge. And it was pure, and it was simple. He wanted to slaughter her, to eviscerate her, to vivisect her. She understood exactly what he would do to her in Styx’s lower level chamber of horrors if he won.
And so, Aislinn stopped toying with him and crushed her opponent as Caleb had instructed.
She was a pale streak, moving with ghostly intent and precision. The shot glasses emptied and landed upturned in parallel rows like dominoes, one after another, until there were none left. She finally straightened and wiped the blood drops from her lips with the back of her hand, feeling slightly bloated. She wondered if it would be unladylike to belch but managed to hold it back. And waited.
Mia suddenly squealed, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. “Yass! Totes amazeballs! Aislinn is the GOAT!” She threw herself into Cole’s arms and hugged him joyously. Like the triggering of a gun, the antechamber erupted with sound and fury.
The two-hundred-year-old vampire looked both embarrassed and confused as he awkwardly held the ditzy, effervescent girl close. Over Mia’s shoulder, he mouthed to his blood brother, “What’s she saying?”
Cooper grinned at the generation gap, leading to something being lost in translation in Mia’s use of urban slang. He wondered what would happen if they ever hooked up, though it would be a linguistic nightmare for the rest of them. Mouthing silently back at Cole, he communicated, “Greatest of all time!”