The Darkest Colors- Exsanguinations

by David M. Bachman

  “Like Mistress Monsoon?”

  “Yes, exactly,” she conceded with a visible hint of embarrassment.

  “I see.” Raina felt it a bit rude to ask, but she decided that it was necessary. “What does your son think of all this?”

  “My son?” Samantha echoed with slight surprise.

  Raina glanced at Serenity suspiciously. “You do have a son, don’t you? From a previous marriage?”

  “Oh … well … yes, I do,” she admitted with some reluctance. “Seth, ah … he hasn’t spoken with me for awhile … since he found out.” Samantha again appeared to be grappling with her emotions as she wrung her hands nervously. “All these years, I always told him that I worked as either a waitress or a secretary. I felt awful about lying to him, but … well … I was worried that he would think less of me, or that others would say that I was a poor mother to him…”

  “So, telling a few white lies to save face is kind of the norm in your family, apparently,” Raina said, only realizing how rude it sounded after she’d said it.

  Samantha’s face became very serious as she replied, “I’m sure that as Grand Duchess, you can appreciate the importance of keeping up appearances. We can’t always afford the luxury of being surrounded by people who won’t judge us unfairly, especially when it involves things which they do not fully understand.”

  Raina didn’t have to look around to sense the attention upon her in reaction to that. She suddenly felt very, very small.

  There was an awkward silence that lasted several seconds. The thumping of the music outside was tempered and muffled by the effective sound insulation within the office walls and the thick main door leading into it. Aside from that, the only sounds were really that of the several vampires standing behind Raina and Serenity, shuffling in place anxiously or impatiently, or sighing quietly. Samantha reached for a thin black box on her desk and opened it, withdrawing a familiar black cigarette. She held it up along with a fancy matte-black finished lighter.

  “If it’s okay with you…?” she asked politely.

  Raina shrugged. “Go ahead. It’s your office.”

  “Thank you.” She lit it up and held up the open cigarette case in offering. “Care for one?”

  Raina hesitated, but then shrugged again before leaning forward to pluck one out. “What the hell.”

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” Serenity mused softly.

  Samantha leaned forward as well to light Raina’s cigarette. Well, technically it was a cigar, since clove cigarettes had become illegal within the past few years, although these tobacco-wrapped variations looked the same and tasted quite similar to the paper-wrapped predecessors of the same brand name. She took a long, solid drag from the Djarum Black, inhaled, and held it as she sat back in her seat, blowing the acrid but sweet-smelling smoke toward the ceiling with a dry smile.

  “Tonight, I do.”

  “I’ve been trying to quit for some time now,” Samantha admitted, “but I’m fairly convinced it’s just a part of my genetics.”

  “Brenna smoked, too. Same brand, even.”

  “I know,” she said with a smirk. “She gave me my first cigarette when I was fourteen. After that, we worked out a deal. I helped do her homework if she would buy them for me.”

  Raina shook her head, but smiled a bit. “Bad influence, huh?”

  “Not really, no. Our mother was a lifelong smoker, so we more or less grew up with it,” she explained as she got up from her chair. She turned toward the fire exit door behind her desk, pushing it open and then grabbing what looked like a black cane next to the doorframe, propping the door open with it. She paused to take a drag of her thin little cigar, shaking her head sadly as she exhaled. “I’ve cut back quite a bit, but I have never been able to completely stop smoking. You might think that I would know better than to keep smoking after watching my mother die from emphysema and lung cancer, but … apparently not.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. How long ago did that happen?”

  “Almost three years ago. I’m not sure that Brenna even knew that she passed. I could never find her so that I could tell her,” she said. She shrugged, looking to the floor for a moment. “I wanted to reconcile with her. Before she died, Mother forgave Brenna for everything, even for becoming a vampire … something that I realize wasn’t Brenna’s fault, of course. I heard about how she was Made, and I explained this to Mother. She wanted me to find Brenna and to set things right. But I never managed to locate her in time. I’m not sure she would have listened to me anyhow, even if I had.” And then she again met Raina’s gaze with those entrancing green eyes of hers. “You know how she could be. Brenna was never above holding a grudge.”

  Raina nodded in agreement, taking another puff from her clove. She glanced to Serenity and silently offered to share; Serenity wrinkled her nose slightly, shook her head, and waved her hand dismissively as she silently mouthed the words, “No, thanks.”

  “Anyhow … obviously, it’s too late,” she sighed, pulling out her chair and gracefully seating herself in it once more, “but I suppose it does bring us to the matter at hand.”

  “Absolutely.” Raina leaned forward once more, resting an elbow upon her knee as she reached over to tap the ashes from her cigar into the black glass tray upon the desk. “I’m sure that you and Duchess Serenity have already discussed this well in advance…”

  “Ah, actually … your grace,” Serenity interrupted nervously, clasping her hands together tightly, “that was something I intended to tell you earlier.”

  Raina felt her own eyes grow very dark and angry as she turned toward the High Court with a very unpleasant look. As before, Serenity visibly shrank back in reaction to that look, in addition to the animosity she surely sensed from Raina. She didn’t exactly hate Serenity, but Raina had lost a great deal of respect for and admiration of her as a result of her manipulative dishonesty. The way that Serenity was phrasing her interjection was not shaping itself into anything that Raina would expect to find any more pleasing than her earlier confession.

  Serenity swallowed audibly before she could speak. “I, ah … I was going to tell you earlier … at the hotel…”

  “Let me guess,” Raina said, “this whole trip had absolutely nothing to do with the assassination plot against me in the first place. Did it?”

  “Well, it does … but…”

  Raina silenced her by raising a hand suddenly, causing Serenity to actually flinch. Had she really expected to be physically struck? Raina turned back to Samantha with a less menacing look, instead probably looking more disappointed than anything else.

  “Samantha…”

  “Sam,” she said gently with a smile. “Please … my friends call me Sam.”

  “Sam … if you know something, anything at all, about the men that tried to kill me,” she said, “then you need to tell me. People are dead because of this. I killed three men, three human beings, because someone sent them after me. Another man died, an innocent man, simply for being there at a bad time. Another one of my associates was killed. Two of my other friends were very seriously wounded … including this gentleman behind me.” She reached back slightly over her left shoulder and touched Thomas’s hand briefly. “If you know something about what happened, Sam, I need to know. The police need to know.”

  Samantha … um, Sam nodded understandingly, pausing as she inhaled another smoky breath that probably shortened her lifespan by a few minutes. Exhaling smoke, dragon-like, she replied, “I understand the urgency and the importance of my cooperation, your grace. However, you must understand that if I do…”

  “Spare me. Okay? I already know where you’re going with this,” Raina interrupted as she held up a hand. Abruptly, she snuffed out her cigarette … er, her cigar … having hardly consumed even a third of it. “Listen … an innocent man is dead. He had a name. He had a family and friends. He had dreams and hopes. And he’s dead now … because someone sent those men after me. There were more people involved than just the three
men I killed. There was a fourth person, the one driving that SUV, and they got away. And I’m sure the person driving wasn’t the one behind it all. Someone else sent them. I need to know who that person is. The police need to know. That innocent man’s family needs to know. Do you understand?”

  Samantha did appear to appreciate Raina’s need for her cooperation, nodding her head slowly and staring at the desk for a few moments. However, she also seemed steadfastly resolute in her position as she kept her posture quite straight and took one last drag before stubbing out her own half-smoked cigar in the tray. She calmly folded her hands atop one another upon the desk with a calm, graceful movement that actually looked quite regal – the kind of movement she would have expected from someone of nobility, like Serenity … or even Duvessa.

  “If I help you in any way at all,” Samantha told her, “my life will be over, and the lives of my family members will be in jeopardy. Make no mistake about it, your grace, as soon as they find out that I’ve cooperated with you, they will kill me and everyone that I know and love.”

  “If you will tell me who’s behind all of this, then I will guarantee your safety. You have my word that I will personally see to it that nothing happens to you or your family. And if it’s money you want, then name your price and I’ll cut you a check for it right here and now,” Raina promised her boldly.

  “I don’t want money, your grace.”

  “I can pay you in cash, instead, if that makes any difference.”

  “Your grace, please…”

  “Raina,” she countered with a slight smirk. “You can call me Raina.”

  “Please, Raina,” Sam replied, not even lightly amused, “I hope that you understand I am not attempting to blackmail you. I am not seeking to gain anything from this. I just don’t want to risk my family’s safety. In fact, I have already taken a tremendous risk simply by involving myself in this matter. I’m sure that you and your people were seen entering the club, and if word gets out that I helped you find an informant, then…”

  “Whoa, whoa, wait … find an informant?” Raina interrupted with wide eyes.

  “Yes.”

  Raina’s heart began to drop. “I thought you were the one that knew who was behind the attack…?”

  “Not exactly, no,” she admitted. “I had my suspicions as soon as I heard about what happened, but…”

  “You knew about this too, didn’t you?” Raina demanded as she turned toward Serenity with an angry glare.

  Serenity bowed her head sadly. “Yes, your grace.”

  “And you just conveniently forgot to share that little detail, huh? You were so busy thinking about when you were going to spring that Debt of Blood shit on me that this fact just happened to slip your mind, didn’t it?”

  The Duchess slid out of her chair and literally dropped to her knees beside Raina, placing her hands upon her right forearm in a beseeching, submissive gesture. “Your grace, please understand! I knew it was the only way that you would agree to come with me!”

  “Because you knew that I’d never agree to going halfway around the world to meet a ‘friend of a friend of a friend’ who might know something about what happened, right?” Raina countered. Serenity said nothing, merely staring up at her Grand Duchess with a pleading, desperate look once again. Raina stood up abruptly and jerked her arm out of Serenity’s grasp harshly. “That’s it. Fuck this bullshit. I’m out.”

  Raina slipped past Serenity, practically shoving her out of the way, and both Lord Redhorn and Lord Gerald moved away as she stormed in their direction. Lord Redhorn had just begun to open the door for her when Samantha finally spoke up.

  “Cham Tin Thuy!”

  Raina halted in her tracks immediately, already halfway out the door. Slowly, she turned around to look back to Samantha, who was now standing up behind her desk. Her eyes were wide with fear, looking even bigger by the stark contrast between the bright emerald color of her irises and the shocking black of her heavy eyeliner and dark gray eye shadow. Raina turned around fully and folded her arms under her breasts, frowning as she let out a heavy sigh. Her lungs burned slightly with that exhalation, as a result of the irritation that the cigar smoke had caused her, and the slight buzz she’d attained from what little she’d inhaled caused her to lean against the doorframe to steady herself.

  “Come again?” Raina asked with a testy sigh.

  “Her name is Cham Tin Thuy … but she goes by Jasmine,” Samantha said a bit less loudly. “She knows who was responsible. I know what she knows, but only because she told me. Any testimony I could offer in court would only be thrown out as hearsay, but she is a direct witness. She knows who ordered the attack upon you.”

  Raina stepped back inside and slammed the door shut behind herself with a firm shove. She moved around the desk and stood directly in front of Samantha. She wasn’t as tall as Sam, but her approach clearly had an effect upon her. Sam backed up half a step and held the top edge of her chair, looking as though she might sprint out the open door leading out into the alley outside at any moment. Raina stared directly into her eyes and tried very, very hard not to think about Brenna at all.

  “You’d better be fucking serious,” Raina told her.

  “Absolutely, your grace.”

  “Jasmine Thuy? Jazz?”

  “Do you know her?”

  “The name’s familiar,” she replied cautiously.

  Samantha was clearly afraid, but not entirely intimidated. “I’m sure that you saw her when you walked in. You even seemed to recognize her.”

  She was standing close enough to Samantha now to smell the sweet smokiness of her breath and feel the subtle warmth of her physical presence. She was close enough that Raina should have sensed something from her, some kind of emotion, but she could feel nothing with any sort of clarity – at least nothing that stood out apart from what she felt, herself. Was Raina really afraid? Why was she scared? Raina had no reason to be unsettled by this … did she?

  “I guess I did see her … but I wasn’t sure.” Raina narrowed her eyes slightly. “You do realize that you just gave up your only bargaining chip.”

  “I don’t want to cut a deal. I’m not trying to negotiate for anything,” she insisted.

  “Nothing’s for free.”

  “I know the rules. I have no right to demand anything from you. I won’t ask for anything in return.”

  “The Code doesn’t apply to humans, Sam,” she informed her. “I’m only talking about human nature. Nobody gives without expecting to receive. Everyone always wants something for nothing, but nobody’s willing to be on the giving side.”

  Samantha stared at her in silence for a few moments before replying, “I don’t want to die.”

  “I’ve already promised you my protection in exchange for your cooperation. I haven’t retracted that offer … yet.”

  “That’s … that’s not quite what I mean,” she replied hesitantly. Samantha appeared to gather her courage, glancing aside with just her eyes toward Serenity for a brief instant before meeting Raina’s gaze once more. “I have cancer.”

  Raina blinked, suddenly forgetting all about Jazz. “Already?”

  “No, not lung cancer … ovarian,” Samantha said. “I was diagnosed with it a month ago.”

  She cringed. “How bad?”

  “Stage four. If I took chemotherapy, I could last another year, maybe two,” Sam replied with a shrug. “Otherwise … maybe six months. Probably not even that long.”

  “I’m sorry.” She realized how futile that sounded, but she was suddenly feeling numbed from head to toe, too shocked to fully react. “I’m not sure I can do anything to really help. I mean, I could cover your medical expenses and…”

  “Make me yours,” Sam said abruptly. “Make me your bloodspawn, Raina. Please.”

  The request dizzied Raina as much as a heavy drag from a clove cigar, actually sending her reeling back a step or two. Samantha … as her bloodspawn? The little sister of her own Maker wanted her, in turn, t
o be her Maker? The very concept made her almost nauseous with confusion and emotion.

  Why was she surprised? Wasn’t this what she had come here to do? She had come here to acquire a new bloodspawn, to become someone else’s Maker, in exchange for a simple bit of information. Okay, so this was Brenna’s little sister, and the visual similarities between the two of them were uncanny. So what? It changed nothing. And, okay, so what if Sam wasn’t really the star witness that she needed to locate and protect? Did she not deserve some sort of compensation in order for helping find that person? Wouldn’t it seem wrong to turn her away when her motivations weren’t greedy?

  No, it wasn’t that simple. She knew better.

  “Why?” Raina asked. “Why would you want to be a vampire?”

  “Not just any vampire,” she replied, “but your vampire. I want to be your bloodspawn.”

  “You don’t realize what you’re asking,” Raina told her. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters to me is having the chance to make up for letting my sister down and failing to be there for her when she needed me the most,” Samantha pleaded gently, slowly closing the distance between them again. “I know how much she loved you. And I know how much you loved her. I feel that it’s only right that I do something to honor that, to help you in any way that I possibly can by being your bloodspawn.”

  Raina shook her head lightly. “I’m telling you, Sam, you don’t understand. The Change isn’t a miracle cure for everything. It could kill you.”

  “I know that. But it’s a risk that I am willing to accept,” she replied calmly. “I’m already terminally ill. So, if the Change kills me, then so be it. I’ll only be losing a few months. But if I survive the Change … I swear to you, Raina, I will be the most loyal and dedicated member of your entire House. I will do anything you ask, anything at all. I would just as readily kill for you as I would die for you. And with God as my witness, I will never, ever betray you or disobey your word. I will lay down my life for you because I will owe my very existence to you.”