by Rob Cornell
Mortimer’s stare turned blanker than usual, which signaled to me that Toft was looking through the troll right then. But the moment quickly passed, and Mortimer blinked his way back to his own self. He stepped aside wordlessly.
I took the hint and went inside.
Mortimer followed me in, then took the lead on the way toward the back of the club.
The breeze through the broken window ruffled the linen tablecloths on the nearby round tables. A stray cocktail napkin flipped and tumbled off one of them, the jazz club equivalent of tumbleweed through a ghost town. The air inside smelled like ice.
I expected Mortimer to take me back to Toft’s office, but we passed the door and continued down the hall into a storage room. Shelves full of napkins, candles, and folded tablecloths lined two walls. An industrial-sized stainless steel sink had a neat stack of clean glasses next to it, and a rubber mat on the tiled floor in front of it.
The room had two more doors besides the one we came in through—a brown metal one in the back wall with a glowing EXIT sign above it, and a cherry wood one with a gold plaque on it that read PRIVATE.
Mortimer drew a set of keys from the pocket of his massive dress slacks and unlocked the PRIVATE door. He pulled the door open. The hinges made a well-oiled sigh. Inside, all I saw were a couple steps heading down into darkness.
I knew right away what I was looking at—the entrance to Toft’s…home? Crypt, maybe? Lair?
My skin prickled with cold sweat. To paraphrase Boromir from one of the Lord of the Rings movies, one did not simply walk into a vampire’s lair.
Mortimer reached in and hit a switch on the wall inside the stairwell. A light on the well's ceiling came to life and illuminated a set of stairs with red velvet carpeting all the way down. The walls were covered with an ornate gold leaf wallpaper. The smell of cinnamon wafted out from somewhere down below, like a scented candle.
I cocked an eyebrow and gave Mortimer a look.
He stared back, face impassive.
I sighed. "All right."
I went down the stairs, my footsteps muffled by the carpeting. When I reached the bottom, I found myself in a large room, what looked like a living room. The carpet matched the stuff on the stairs. Despite being below the club, the room had a brick fire place. The chimney must have gone all the way up above ground.
The smell of cinnamon was much stronger. I couldn't fathom Toft burning scented candles like some old grandma. I couldn't picture him burning incense for that matter. Unless for some kind of spell. But Toft didn't have any magical skills.
He sat on a couch with wooden claw feet and red plush upholstery. It looked like something out of the Victorian era. The rest of the furniture matched. Even the cabinet that held the TV on top. And the TV could have fit a small movie theater in a pinch.
The TV was off, but I heard faint music coming from a massive stereo system, speakers arranged throughout the room so it permeated every corner.
"Nice digs," I said.
He scowled and adjusted the collar of the red silk robe he wore. His eyes looked bleary as if from sleep deprivation. Which made sense, I guess, since he should have been snoozing in his coffin at this hour.
"I'm not in the mood for pointless banter."
Like I said before, Toft was a four-hundred year-old vampire. But he was turned at the unripe age of thirteen. He normally kept his blonde hair neatly parted, but many of the locks had lost their oiled shine and hung loose. He looked kind of like a playboy in a little boy's body. Or a little boy pretending to be a playboy. I couldn't help feeling a little ill at the idea.
"It's Mister Crabby Toft, huh? You need to get yourself to bed. Or coffin. Or whatever you sleep in."
He straightened, planted his hands on the couch on either side of him like he meant to push himself to his feet—or launch himself at my throat.
But he stayed seated. His eyes flashed red. And when he opened his mouth, I saw he had extended his fangs.
"I said—"
I waved him off. "Yeah, yeah. No banter. You should know by now I can't resist." Then I hooked a thumb toward the stairs. "What's up with the broken window?"
Toft curled his lip. "Unwanted attention," he said. "Thanks to you."
I looked around for a place to sit. None of his furniture looked all that comfortable. A wing chair to one side of the couch was the best prospect, though the seat looked awfully thin in the padding department, and it was situated closer to Toft than I would have liked at the moment. I stuck my hands in my pockets and stayed on my feet.
“Did you ask me here just to bitch?”
He ran his hand through his hair, mussing it up even more. One lock stuck out on the side of his head—bed head before he'd even made it to bed.
"The former gentleman you saw outside was one of several annoyances I've had to deal with of late. Ever since your...disagreement with the elder."
"Disagreement? The blood guzzler kidnapped my mom and nearly turned me vamp. Besides, what does that have to do with you?”
The red glow in his eyes faded. His fangs shrank away, and he bowed his head.
He didn’t say another word, but after a few seconds of silence, a thought struck me.
"Are you the new elder?”
He sighed and strode away toward the mini wet bar in one corner. He took his time fixing a drink from a crystal decanter. I was glad he had his back to me, because I cracked a smile, unable to fight back my schadenfreude.
“I can smell your disdain," he said.
"It's not disdain, Toft. It's amusement."
His shoulders visibly tensed. Slowly, he set the decanter down and turned toward me, a matching crystal highball glass in his hand holding amber liquid.
I had only ever seen Toft drink Martinis. This stuff looked harder. Stuff he probably saved for when he really needed a bigger buzz. He wouldn't get much more. As a vampire, it would have taken several decanters of whatever he had in the glass to get him close to actually drunk. Poor bastard.
"Fine," he said. "I'm glad to amuse you. But you might want to show a little more respect to Detroit's new..." His face soured.
My smile widened. "You can’t even say it."
He tossed back the contents of his glass in one gulp, then threw the glass aside, shattering it against the wall.
"This isn't funny. My newfound situation puts me in great stress. I am not a leader. I'm not a mainstream vampire. It took me a great deal of time to build my place in this city. I prefer to be left alone."
Wow. He was taking this pretty hard. But I thought I understood his position. Toft was what a lot of us called, with a hint of derision, a "tame" vampire. These vamps followed Ministry law, blended in with society at large, and mainly kept to themselves, staying in the shadows instead of lurking out at night to feed on the poor, unsuspecting mortals.
A tame vamp didn't mean a friendly vamp. But they didn't outright flaunt their undead selves, making them slightly less dangerous in the conventional sense.
But achieving a place, especially one as lucrative as Toft's, took time, work, and patience. And these traits didn't come easy to a vampire.
Maintaining all that he had built would prove a pain in the ass if the non-tame crowd starting hanging around.
But Toft was the elder now, a position vampires instinctively praised. They would expect him to fulfill the role much as Logan Goulet had. For all I knew, whoever had been behind the mess Goulet and his lackeys were involved with would want to recruit Toft to take his place.
I shuddered at the thought.
Toft tilted his head to one side as he watched me. "You look a little green, Sebastian. Do you finally realize the uncomfortable truth behind my situation?"
My smile faltered. Leave it to a vampire to suck all the fun out of things.
"I didn't call you over here to complain," he said. He strolled back to his couch and eased down with a tired groan. "I need a barrier between me and this unwanted attention. Mortimer can only throw so many insipid syco
phants out the window and into the sunlight. The cost of replacing windows the least of my concerns."
My smile died. I had a sick feeling I knew where his train of thought was headed.
"I need more robust protection," he said.
"He isn't ready."
Toft frowned. "How long will it take to make him ready?"
"Jesus, I've barely had a chance to work with him. And I've had a few other things on my plate."
"You've nearly had two weeks since Goulet's demise. And you've spent every night with him."
I threw my hand up, exasperated. "You know, it typically takes a lifetime for a sorcerer to master the full extent of his powers."
"I'm not worried about the full extent. I simply need him powerful enough to dissuade others from bothering me."
"Odi is plenty powerful," I said, picturing our last meeting and how utterly wrong it had gone. "Power isn't his issue. It's control."
Toft slammed his fist on the couch beside him and punched a hole through the seat. He wrenched his hand free and shook it off as if it were wet.
"You need to work harder," he grinded through his clenched teeth. But he managed to keep his fangs in.
"You really have no clue," I said. "Odi is a teenager. He's only been a vampire for less than a year, but he's still a kid, and he's lived eighteen years not even knowing he's a sorcerer."
"What's your point?"
"You start training a sorcerer at birth. It's like..." I scrambled for an analogy that would make sense. The one I went with...well, it could have been better.
"It's like potty training," I said and grimaced as soon as it was out of my mouth. "It's something you learn as part of growing up. It's not like learning to drive or speak a second language. It’s not something you can study later in life. I mean, if you don't know how to use a toilet by the time you're in high school, you're in pretty damn terrible shape."
Toft wrinkled his nose. "That's..." I thought he would say "disgusting" or "sickening.”
"Unacceptable," he said. I guess the analogy didn't bother him so much. Then again, this was a creature whose regular meal plan included bodily fluids. I guess he had a stronger stomach.
"Unacceptable or not," I said. "It's the damn truth. And let me give you an example."
I stepped toward him and gave him as serious a look as I could muster. "Night before last, I decided to give elemental control a try. After all, that's my specialty. I thought I could teach him a few easy tricks. So I set up a candle and taught him how to light it with a hint of magical flame."
Toft looked bored. He crossed his arms. If he'd been standing, he probably would have tapped his foot.
"Thing is," I said, "he missed the candle. No, I take that back. He hit the candle. Melted it in a couple seconds. He also set the whole table on fire, and scorched the floor, and nearly burned the whole room down. I should have worked with him outside, but I didn't really have a good place to take him."
"Where did you take him?"
"Sly's house. And I'll tell ya, he's not too pleased about having his downstairs man cave extra crispy."
Toft closed his eyes, dragged a hand down his face. "I need him, Sebastian."
"Yeah, well, what you need and what we've got isn't going to work out. Maybe not ever."
He opened his eyes and looked up at me. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I think training him to use his power is a mistake. It's too late. He's too old. And if I keep this up, he's liable to do more harm than good."
Toft rose to his feet. A red glow flared in his eyes for a moment like a pair of coals. But the light quickly faded.
"You will not stop his training."
"Toft, you need to listen to reason—"
"You will not stop his training. You'll work twice as hard. You will do everything you can to bring him up to speed."
"Toft—"
"No," he said. "This isn't up for debate. You swore a blood oath. You will honor that oath."
Of course I would. I didn't have a choice. A blood oath was more than a strong promise. It was a magical leash. I physically could not disobey his order on this.
"I seriously regret that oath."
"Regret it all you want," he said. He moved in close. He had to look up at me when he did, but the difference in our height didn't seem to phase him. And it didn't make him look any less intimidating, even in his little boy body. "You will work harder. You will train him well enough so that he can protect me. The vampire community will take my rejection of their fawning for only so long before some of them grow resentful."
"I don't know what the hell you expect from me."
"I just told you what I expect. And I expect you to do it quickly. Get his fire control figured out. That would go a long way for me."
"And the truth finally comes out," I said. "You don't give a damn about Odi. You just want a glorified bodyguard."
"For now," he said with a hungry creak in his voice. "But I want him to be so much more. And you will make that happen."
I shook, my hands in fists. I would have liked to punch him in the mouth, but he'd probably bite off my hand if I tried.
"Fine," I said. "Anything else, my lord?"
He laughed. "That has a nice ring." Then he scowled and waved me away. "I need my rest, or I'm going to have to feed early. And my breakfast isn't here yet."
My stomach turned. I knew he drank blood. I knew he took it from supposed “willing” donors. But I did not need to hear about it. I didn’t show my disgust, though. I recognized bait when I saw it.
"I'll see myself out."
I turned and headed up the stairs without glancing back. I couldn't stand another second looking at the little bastard's arrogant face.
Chapter Eleven
I parked in the lot behind the hotel, eyes corroded with sleepiness, my body aching as if I'd become an old man overnight. I planned on checking in on Mom, then I’d pull the curtains and hit the bed for a good, long nap.
But when I tried to open my car door to get out, it wouldn't budge. I checked the lock. It was definitely open. I tapped the unlock button a half dozen times to be sure, but the door wouldn't budge.
Great. Just what I needed. A broken door.
With a sigh, I slid over to the passenger side and pulled the handle. The handle moved freely enough, but that door wouldn't open either. I leaned against it with my shoulder and planted my feet on the floor, but I might as well have tried pushing through a brick wall.
Then I felt it. The familiar buzz of magical energy that made the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end.
A moment later, a man stepped into view through the passenger-side window. He just stood there, so I couldn't see his face. But I could see his tan trench coat and the thick hands hanging beyond the cuffs. He wore a monster of a ring on his right ring finger with a blue, shimmering stone. Clearly a magical talisman of some kind.
My heartbeat quickened. I did not like this at all.
I shimmied back to the driver's seat, only to find another person standing there like a sentry, arms relaxed, hands held in a loose fists, casual as can be. The stance kind of reminded me of a secret service agent guarding the president during a speech.
I craned my neck to look up at my second captor. She stared down at me, making me feel like a specimen trapped in Petri dish. She had a narrow chin and crisp, blue eyes. Her blonde hair was cut short and firmed by gel.
"What?” I snapped.
The dude on the other side of the car rapped on the window with his ring.
I spun toward the sound in time to see him crouch to peer in at me. He gestured as if rolling down a window. I almost made a smart remark that I had power windows, but held back. I had a weird feeling I knew who these two were, just based on the way they carried themselves and the feel of the magic they exuded.
And I really hoped I was wrong, because I did not want anything to do with Ministry Guardians.
I buzzed down the window on his side.
&
nbsp; "Can I help you officer?" I asked, unable to hold back an itch of snark.
His impassive face didn't seem to register it.
"You're to come with us," he said.
I raised my eyebrows. "And you are...?"
One corner of his mouth curled up barely more than a centimeter. "You know who we are."
I sighed. Sometimes I hated being right. "Okay," I said. "Is there a charge I should know about?"
"Why?" he asked. "Should there be?"
I barked a derisive laugh. "I didn't know guardians were allowed to have a sense of humor."
"Did I sound like I was joking? I apologize."
I gritted my teeth. He was enjoying keeping me dangling on a hook like a squirming worm. "I haven't done anything wrong," I said. I didn't like the guilty defensiveness clear in my voice. But I really hadn’t done anything against Ministry law. I couldn't think of a single reason they would come to collect me.
Not knowing, of course, made it worse, and the guy in the tan trench coat loved every worried second of it.
"Come with us," he said.
"How? I can't even get out of my car."
The tremble of magic I felt in the air ceased. A second later the woman on my side pulled open the door like a valet. She stepped aside, clearing the way for me to climb out.
I stayed seated.
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what this is about.”
October's biting air blew in through the open door and seemed to suck all the heat out of the car in a single gust.
"I'll be honest," the man said. "I wasn't informed of the reason for picking you up, only that it was the Ministry's wish to do so."
Okay, that was weird. Guardians weren't gofers. They were the law enforcement branch of the Ministry. They were deployed only when Ministry law had been broken. At least, that's how I understood it.
"Well, we wouldn't want to deny the Ministry its wishes."
"No," he said flatly. "We would not."
I looked back at the woman. She remained off to the side, one hand still on the door handle.
I did not want to go with them. Wherever they took me couldn't be good. None of it made any sense.