Secret of the Vampire

by L. E. Wilson

  I’d been stupid. And naive. And…stupid.

  “Vampire? Are you even listening?”

  I blinked rapidly, clearing my head and turning my attention back to the djinn. “What?”

  He exhaled loudly through his nose. “If you’re not going to pay attention, I’m not going to waste my time standing here talking to you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured. Then could’ve kicked myself. What the hell was I apologizing for? This thing had kidnapped me!

  But he seemed to take some measure of pity on me, for his expression softened a bit. “You won’t be harmed,” he told me. “As long as you do what I need you to do.”

  “And what is it you think you need from me?” I asked him. I was still standing in the corner of the kitchen, afraid to move. The djinn were nothing I ever wanted to mess with. And even if I could somehow sneak up on him and tear his head off, at this point in time I had no idea how Alex would react.

  “I need you to bring someone back from the dead.”

  I glanced at Alex, but he was staring at the floor and no help at all. “Like, make someone a vampire?” Did he want to create vampires? Why?

  “No, not a vampire. A witch. She died about forty years ago.”

  Confused, I looked between him and Alex. “You kidnapped me because you think I’m some sort of necromancer?”

  “Not think. I know.”

  I shook my head, holding my hands in front of me in supplication. “Look. I don’t know what you think you know, but you’ve got it all wrong. I’m nothing but a nerdy girl who was made into a less than extraordinary vampire that my maker decided to keep around anyway. Maybe to keep him and the rest of the guys from becoming complete Neanderthals, I don’t know, but anyway, he did. I don’t know anything about magic, or raising the dead, or…or…anything like that.”

  He tilted his head. “How little you know of yourself.”

  I dropped my arms back down to my sides. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  With a smirk, he glanced at Alex. I was glad to see he didn’t return it. Although it didn’t change anything about what was going on here. When the djinn looked back at me, the smirk was still there. “It means there is more to you than your family ever told you. Your human family,” he specified.

  “I never knew my human family,” I admitted. “I was given up for adoption right after I was born.”

  “And your adopted parents wouldn’t know where you’d come from, I gather.” Though he said the words aloud, I got the impression he was speaking more to himself than to me.

  I answered anyway. “I was never adopted. I just got bounced around foster homes until I was old enough to live on my own.”

  “Really?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “Did you know this?” he asked Alex.

  “I did,” he said, finally glancing in my direction. But he looked away again just as quickly.

  Affronted, the djinn asked, “Well, why didn’t you tell me?”

  A flash of anger tightened Alex’s expression, but it was there and gone before I could guess what it meant. “Because you only just told me what you wanted her for on the way here. And because you didn’t ask.”

  The djinn waved away his answer. “Technicalities.”

  “Look,” I interrupted. “I can’t help you. So there’s no reason for you to keep me here.” I honestly didn’t know what was going on between him and Alex, but I had to worry about myself. And right now, my happy ass wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there alive and in one piece. I was feeling more alert, and I could tell by the easing up of the prickles on my skin that the sun was setting.

  Which meant I could get the hell out of there.

  “Except you can’t,” the djinn answered my unspoken thoughts. “I’ve taken precautions against that very thing.”

  What precautions?

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Try to walk out the door if you need proof to believe me.”

  With the two males blocking the entry, and the djinn’s sorcery coiling around me since the moment he walked into the room, I wasn’t about to try to get past them. “I’ll take your word for it.” For now.

  “Good. Then let’s talk, shall we?” The djinn went over to the small table and took a seat, indicating that I should do the same.

  Not seeing that I had any other choice, I walked over to the table and sat down.

  “Thank you,” he told me. “There’s really no reason this needs to be hard on either of us. We can work together and get me what I want, and then you will be free of my service.”

  “And free to leave?” I asked. It was stupid to hope it would be that easy, I knew. Or even that he would be telling the truth. But still, I had to ask.

  “You will be free of my service,” he repeated.

  Which meant I would never be able to come back here to my family. “Wait,” I said as a horrible thought occurred to me. “By ‘free of your service’, does that mean I’ll still be alive? Or do you just plan to ‘free’ me by lopping off my head?”

  He seemed slightly surprised by my question. “I see no reason why we can’t part ways amicably.”

  Not really a straight answer to my question, but I guess that’s all I was getting for now. “Okay. I guess that’ll have to be good enough for now. But, can I ask, why did you try to kill me before if you need me so much now?”

  “That’s simple,” he told me. “That was an experiment that didn’t work out quite the way I’d hoped. However, it all worked out in the end because it wasn’t until after my nephew had healed you that I discovered who you truly are. And let me tell you, I’m so very happy I didn’t kill you as planned.”

  He spoke of my death so casually. Like it was nothing at all. “Yeah, me too.”

  “As you have no knowledge of your ancestry, I would think you’re dying to know.”

  Not really. Once I’d gotten old enough to realize what my so-called “mother” had done, I figured if they didn’t care enough to try to stop her, I didn’t care enough to know them. “Yes. Okay.”

  He put his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand. “I’m going to be blunt, because we don’t have a lot of time, and I need you to be on board with this. You may actually be pleasantly surprised by what I’m about to tell you.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That you are not only a vampire, but you’re a vampire who has the blood of voodoo queens running through your veins.”

  I sat back in my chair. “No, I don’t.”

  “Ah, but you do. And it’s that blood, combined with your vampirism, that makes you able to do what I need you to do.”

  “Raise the dead,” I said.

  “Raise the dead,” he confirmed.

  Chapter 18

  Jesse

  Seattle, WA

  I looked around the living room of Luukas’s apartment. The vampires were all there: Luukas, Nikulas, Aiden, Christian, Dante—nervously standing closest to the door—and of course, my Shea.

  The witches were there, standing or seated near their vampire mates: Keira, Emma, Grace, Ryan, Laney…

  And myself.

  “The floor is yours, warlock,” Luukas announced, then pulled Keira from his favorite chair and settled her on his lap.

  I nodded my thanks. Ten sets of eyes settled on me, some nervous, others openly hostile. Shea squeezed my hand, then took a seat on the arm of the couch near where I stood.

  “Before we go on to anything else, there’s something you all need to know. And especially you, Ryan.” I turned to my sister. She sat before the fireplace in the furthest corner of the room, Christian beside her. But with her bright hair reflecting the multitude of colors of the rising sun, porcelain skin, and sapphire blue eyes, it would be impossible for her to go unnoticed, even if she wore boring clothes. However, her preference seemed to be skirts or pants that matched her bright colored tops.

  I blamed this horrendous sense of style on the fact that Christian had found her in Tijuana, stripping to support her dr
ug habit. The habit she’d acquired to try to silence the voices in her head, the same voices that whispered to me. But she wasn’t crazy as she once thought, she just had a natural connection to the world of spirits the others would never be able to achieve. It was our djinn blood that opened us to other world and dimensions.

  I also knew that now, instead of using drugs, she was using Christian’s blood as a way to silence the voices. They weren’t silenced, however, only controlled. The vampire blood strengthened her own powers without any effort on her part.

  Something we would have to remedy.

  Her bright eyes were wide as she stared up at me, as she didn’t like being the center of attention. At least not here, where she felt the other witches didn’t like her. But it wasn’t that they didn’t approve of her, they just knew she was different, like myself, and that made them nervous.

  Just wait until they saw how powerful she would become.

  I walked over and sat down on my heels before her. Not too close. I didn’t want to rile up her mate, fun as that would be. But we didn’t have time for it right now. “There’s something you need to know,” I told her. “Something that’s going to be hard for you to hear, and you probably won’t believe me, but everything I’m about to tell you is absolutely true.”

  “And what is it you need to tell me?” she asked, surprising me. Though I probably shouldn’t have been. My sister was stronger than a lot of people gave her credit for. The fact that she wasn’t nervous around me like the others were was proof of that.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Christian lean toward her. Offering her his support? His protection? Probably both. I allowed him this much, wishing I could touch her, take her hand, but knowing he would never allow it. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to come right out with it.”

  Her blue eyes travelled over my face. “Okay.”

  “Ryan…you’re my sister. My twin, as I just told Luukas earlier.”

  Her eyes flew to the master vampire seated behind me. I assume he confirmed my words somehow, for her attention then came back to me. “How is that possible?”

  “We were separated shortly after birth. You were taken away from me and adopted by a family who believed they couldn’t have children. Although, I think they did manage to have a child somewhere down the line.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  I studied her face, looking for a sign. “I wish there was more time to discuss this, but for right now, I just need to know: do you believe me?” I asked her.

  After a long pause, she said, “I do.”

  Good. This was good. “You get your hair from our mother, by the way. Same as your eyes. She was beautiful, much like you. And she was a very strong witch. Until our father killed her.” I paused, overcome with emotion I only now allowed myself to feel. “There’s so much I want to share with you. So much I want to teach you—”

  “I don’t think there’s anything she needs to learn from you,” Christian growled.

  Ryan laid her hand on his leg, and he reluctantly sheathed his fangs.

  Though I spoke to him, my eyes never left my sister. “I can show her how to control the voices. How to work with them. How to bring out her true magic, her power—”

  He interrupted me again. “So you can teach her to be like you? Absolutely fucking not.”

  I finally deigned to look at him. “I believe that should be up to Ryan, don’t you? She is a fully grown witch, after all.”

  The muscles clenched in his jaw, but he kept his mouth shut.

  When I looked back at Ryan, her blue eyes were shiny with tears. “Can you really show me how to control the voices?”

  I gave her a nod. “I can. They’re not so bad once you learn how to get them to work for you, and how to shut them out when you don’t want to be bothered.”

  “I’d like that,” she told me.

  “Good,” I said. “We’ll talk more later.”

  “Not alone,” Christian gritted out.

  Placing my hands on my thighs, I rose to my full height, rubbing my palms on my black pants. “Of course,” I agreed. “Until she gets tired of having you babysit her.”

  “Jesse,” Shea warned me.

  With a hint of a smile, I acknowledged her warning. “Whatever makes you more comfortable,” I told him.

  I understood where he was coming from, I did. I was equally protective of my Shea, although I knew full-well she could easily protect herself.

  Joining my vampire, I ran my hand over her dark hair. I took an unhealthy amount of satisfaction in the fact that I was the only male able to touch her thus. If any other took such liberties she would be screaming in pain, the remnants of a curse we had yet to figure out how to lift. One that, for my own selfish reasons, I wasn’t sure I wanted to remove.

  She smiled at me, and my heart raced within my chest.

  It was with great effort I tore my eyes from her stunning face to give my attention to the rest of the group. “As you all know, I gave up my army of demons—the army I was going to use to kill my father—for the love of this female and you, her family. In return, I was promised that you all would help me figure out a way to remove him from the throne of the Moss witch coven, where he currently reigns as the High Priest, and take his life.”

  “What makes you fucking think we’re going to keep that promise?” Dante asked.

  Before I could answer, Luukas spoke up. “We will keep it. I gave my word.”

  “To a fucking warlock who tortured you for seven years?” Dante shook his head, his dark eyes locked onto me. “I don’t fucking think so.”

  “I gave my word,” Luukas told him. “And I intend to keep it. If not for him, then for Shea.”

  At the mention of her name, Dante’s dark eyes dropped to her where she sat on the arm of the couch beside me.

  “Dante, please,” she said. “This is not just for me or for Jesse, it’s also for Laney and all of the other witches here whose families ran from their own coven in fear.”

  “Laney will stay here with me.”

  “Yes,” Shea agreed. “But what of her family who are still there?”

  “Why not just send him back to his own world?” Nikulas asked.

  “Because he has the book that contains the spell to do that, and because even if we did, he keeps finding a way to come back,” I told him. “His own brother took him back in 1947. Forty years later, he returned and killed his brother and the witch they both loved, taking over the coven. Then, years later, our mother”—I glanced over at Ryan—“sent him back again. With the help of a young witch he’d enthralled, he returned when I was a still a very young man, and he killed her.” He paused. “He again took over the position of High Priest, sucking the magic from the coven until the witches were too weak to oppose him. Only the ones who’d managed to escape, like myself, were able to hang onto their magic. With a little help from my spirit friends and a witch or two who are still within the coven, I’ve been watching him, hoping for a chance to get my hands on that book, with no luck.”

  Linking my hands behind my back, I began to pace as I thought out loud. “So, I’ve decided to kill him. It’s the only way to keep him from coming back.”

  Shea stood and grabbed my arm. “Jesse, you didn’t tell me this.”

  I stopped, removing her hand from my arm and twining her fingers in mine. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  She stared up at me, her green eyes darkened with concern.

  “Do you think you can do it?” Keira asked.

  Glancing over at her, I said, “I am the only thing in this world that is a threat to him.”

  Luukas spoke up. “Then why has he allowed you to live?”

  “That’s the question I’ve been asking myself,” I told him.

  “Wait,” Keira held up her hand. “If you can kill your father—a djinn—then why wait until now? Why did you need to create the demon army?”

  “Because, until now, he’s kept himself hi
dden away on the mountain of your ancestors, surrounded by witches whose magic he could reinstate at the slightest sign of a threat.”

  “But aren’t you the great Oz, all mighty and powerful?” Aiden asked. He waved his hand in the air. “I can feel that power scurrying about the room from here.”

  “I am,” I said. “But even sorcery such as mine could be hampered if fifty witches all attacked me at once. Long enough for my father to get away. The demons were to keep the witches busy, so I could get to my father with no resistance.” Even I could hear the bitterness in my voice. I’d done the right thing, helping Shea send the demons back. And I don’t know that she ever would’ve forgiven me if I hadn’t. But still, it irked me.

  “So, what’s changed?” Luukas asked. “Other than the fact we have five very capable witches here to help you?”

  “What’s changed is that just last night I was informed my father is no longer hiding on his mountain but is alone and exposed. However, I have no idea how long he’ll be this way.”

  “Which is where the sudden urgency comes from,” Luukas surmised.

  “That’s correct.”

  The master vampire shared a look with his mate, then turned back to me. “What do you need us to do?”

  “I need you to keep Shea here.”

  She pulled her hand from mine and stomped around to confront me, her lovely face animated in her anger. “Yeah, that’s not happening, Jesse. And you damn well know it.”

  I smiled down at her and brushed a stray strand of hair away from her eyes. “I know. But it was worth a try.” Pulling her against me, I whispered for her ears only, “I would die if anything happened to you, love.”

  “As would I,” she responded. “Quite literally.” Pulling away enough that she could look at me, she added, “But that’s not the only reason I need to go with you to make sure you stay safe.”

  “I know.”

  Dropping a kiss on her dark hair, I looked up and met Luukas’s eyes over the top of her head. “Originally, I wanted you to agree to allow everyone to come to the mountain with me. Between the vampires and the power of the witches here, I was hoping it would be enough to distract the others long enough for me to get to my father.”