by Ana Calin
But I can’t blame them for keeping quiet, and I can tell that neither does Vlad. They’re terrified.
“Listen,” Vlad says calmly, almost in a fatherly tone. “I understand. You heard terrible things about me. You heard that I impaled vampires on the stalactites in my cave, and now I ask for your trust. But I swear to you, I’m doing this for your own good.”
Some murmur in the back. I spot two clusters crouching behind the gathering, chewing and sucking at what must be the remains of the Red Diaz from the club. But then I notice one of them nibbling at the burst-out belly of a rat, making my skin crawl. I point at him.
“See? This is what Lord Dracula is talking about. If we don’t discover who the Devil’s Son is quickly enough, and deliver him to the guy who spread the rabies, you will starve.”
Murmur intensifies, many beginning to fidget.
“How long until you begin preying on each other?” Vlad adds, genuine concern in his red eyes with the lightning-like cracks under them. He’s one of them, which helps. I can see the vampires’ growing desire to be of assistance.
“You don’t owe the Devil’s Son anything,” he calls out into the gathering. “He doesn’t do anything for you, does he? Where is he now, when he should be trying to save you from the rabies and the starvation? Where was he when I went after your leaders at the clubs and pubs the Red Diaz ran? Why didn’t he fight to protect you?”
“The Devil’s Son has kept his identity hidden for centuries, come hell or high water,” one of the girls in the gathering speaks up. A mix of jealousy and dislike hits me when I recognize the redhead that slobbered after Vlad, but I swallow it down. “Hadn’t he kept to that habit no matter what, then his true identity would have been compromised. That is bigger than any of us.”
“And you’re all right with that?” Vlad says. “You’re all right with your life not being worth his lifting one finger? You deserve more than that, Lumi.”
By the way the woman looks at him I’d say she’s clinging to that soft tone, and she’s already thinking of his cock inside of her, but it could be just my paranoia. I need to find a way to deal with these issues, I can’t live an eternity by Vlad’s side fearing there’s a woman around every corner ready to straddle him.
“Please,” Vlad insists softly, and Lumi bites her lip. I clench my teeth and my jaw, struggling to keep from sending a sharp pain through her gut.
“Do it for your friend.” He motions to her blonde girlfriend, who’s scraping the ground on all fours by the sidewall, picking at insects to eat. Her entire face is greenish with rabies. She seems to have one of the more serious cases.
The redhead still seems uncertain, so Vlad pushes. “How long until it’s you in her place?”
She fidgets and scratches her head through the mop of red hair, thinking.
“I don’t know who the Devil’s Son is, nobody does,” she tells Vlad. “All I can tell you is that he runs one of the most powerful media trusts in the country. And he attends media events.”
The memory of the haggard guy from the Red Diaz club flashes through my head. ‘I’m a producer at Fox Ro Media Studios,’ he said to me, didn’t he? Red Diaz, connected to the Devil’s Son. The Sultan’s last words before he’s head burst were, ‘the media’.
“Fox Ro Media Studios,” I breathe. “He’s the owner.”
Lumi’s eyes dart to me, with jealousy but also respect. “He’s behind the owners. Don’t expect to find his name on papers,” she tells me.
“Then the owners must have frequent contact with him,” I draw the conclusion. “Can you give us names?”
She ponders, still uncertain, looking from Vlad to me. We both just wait for her to make a decision, but the seconds are long, full of tension.
“Geneva Daniel,” she eventually says, pursing her lips after the name as if she regrets saying it. “She owns most of Fox Ro. She has things particularly easy with the fiscal system, and she lives like a queen. She has handbags that cost more than my car.” She looks around herself at the vampires who stare back in silent agreement. It’s like they applaud her for having the guts to tell, supporting her decision, but would never have done so themselves.
I would ask where we can find her next, but Vlad jumps down from the pallets where he’d been standing before I can speak. He places a large hand on the rabid Lumi’s bony shoulder.
“You did the right thing,” he tells her in a fatherly tone that assures me he doesn’t see her any other way despite her sexy leather attire. “You’ve helped yourself and all the others and, in turn, I promise you that I’ll find the Devil’s Son, deliver him to the bastard who spread the rabies, and set you free from it.” He looks around at all the others with the promise in his hard warlord face. “And I’ll have him pay for what he did to us.”
Lumi looks up at him like he’s a god, and I could scratch her eyes out for it, but again, I swallow down the impulse. I realize we owe her, and I should probably be nice to her.
Vlad heads back to me, motioning toward the entrance to the sewers. Our vampires enter in white protection suits, which they’re wearing in order to get through the barrier of silver they created, but also to keep the irresistible scent of their blood from the rabid vampires. They’re carrying special medical boxes with bags upon bags of blood we purchased from the labs. It was a real struggle to get it at such a short notice, but we managed, thank God.
“All I ask of you is to try to stay alive for another six days,” Vlad calls as the suited vampires open the big white boxes. The rabid vampires gather around the boxes like starving beasts. “In six days you will be free, no matter what I have to do to make that happen.”
The vampire who’d been nibbling on the open rat throws the corpse away and squeezes himself among the others, fingers trembling on a bag of blood as he lifts it to his coarse lips.
My skin crawls, but I can tell that a plan has already crystalized in Vlad’s mind.
Lord Dracula
“GENEVA DANIEL,” I SAY under my breath, eyes on the screen in front of me back at the hotel. A woman in her early forties, well groomed—probably too much so—wearing white fur and stark red lipstick. Her hair is a dyed shiny black mop.
“Seems the Devil’s Son likes the brunette in more than just business,” Tristan says, scrolling down on his laptop. He’s dug up all kinds of material on Mrs Daniel. He’s found information from old documents archived and classified by the Securitate, to articles in tabloids. We’re using his room for this discussion, ensuring complete privacy just between Rux, Irina, Tristan and me.
“There’s a secret lover she meets once a week, always at night, the same building. When interviewed, Mrs Daniel argued it’s one of her own apartments, where she goes when she needs time alone—away from her husband’s special needs.” He shakes his head, electric blue eyes focused. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Why?” I say. “Rux has her moments, too, I guess it’s a thing of sophisticated women.” I smile at my own brunette, the woman’s who’s infiltrated my very blood and rendered me unable to even imagine existence without her anymore. She used to relish her time alone at Magda’s old bookstore in Bran, too, and I hated it every time she left me to go there. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to grant her even that small amount of freedom again. Now that I pledged my soul to this woman, I need her like air.
“Well, first of all because it’s not some penthouse in a luxurious building. It’s a rat hole in Sector 5,” Tristan says.
My eyes turn to slits.
“Sector 5. Where most of the Red Diaz clubs are.”
“Seems our boy controls the underground, as well as the high life of Bucharest,” Tristan concludes, his sharp features locked. “But he prefers to dwell in the dirty places.”
“We’ll discover his preferences when I get my hands on him,” I say, getting up from the armchair and walking over to Rux. “Until then, let’s stick to Mrs Daniel’s. We need to trail her. Have someone stick around the place where she supposedly
meets her lover.”
“We could do that, but know that many have already tried, they stalked her for years,” Tristan says. “Reporters, the police, even special forces, all because they expected she dealt with the most dangerous people of the underworld. It was all for nothing, they never found anything.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to actually do something to provoke the Devil’s Son,” Irina says from the other side of the room. “We can use this woman to do it. Do we have anything on her past, former lovers, anything about her husband back in her youth?” The question is directed to Tristan.
He clears his throat, his angular features locking in his typical forbidding expression. He even squares his shoulders in the particular way he does when he deals with ‘dirty stuff’, which he considers low and embarrassing to discuss.
“What is it?” Irina nudges, plopping down on the bed by his side and squinting at the screen of Tristan’s all-powerful computer. He scrolls, she reads, her cat-like eyes moving fast. I’m so proud of her, having turned into such a strong, versatile, quick, effective operative.
Irina giggles as if stifling a laugh.
“Amusing piece of information?” I encourage as Rux’s arm winds around my waist, mine coiling around her slim shoulders in response. I try not to look down at her, because it would mean peering into her cleavage, and I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself any better than at the graveyard. I realize that pledging myself to her modified our relationship in a number of ways, embarrassing, uncontrolled hard-ons threatening to become the norm.
Irina clears her throat, a bit embarrassed but playful about it, too. Tristan just looks down like an offended medieval monk.
“Seems our girl was into threesomes and orgies,” Irina says. “Met her husband during one, too. She was looking for kinks like that at secret underground events back in the day, since there was no internet and stuff.” She shrugs. “I guess getting into one of those fetish groups that practiced this stuff was like joining the mafia. You got in, pledged your allegiance to it, and never got out.”
“Her husband, you mean the one with special needs?” Rux inquires.
“Don’t be fooled by ‘special needs’ and the fact that she stayed with him,” Tristan says. “When Geneva met Mr Daniel, he was a highly influential member of Parliament. He was secretly into orgies.” He clears his throat again as if only pronouncing the words lowers his standing in some way. “Apparently he was so hooked on the pleasures she offered, that he quickly asked her to marry him. But she turned out to be a snake. There are reports at the Securitate that state she may to blame for his ‘special needs’.”
“She crippled him?” Rux breathes.
“So it would seem,” Irina replies, and takes Tristan’s laptop on her knees so she can read better, scanning documents and telling us the story as she goes. Among other things, it seems not only the woman’s husband, but whoever positioned themselves against her ended up in the hospital either with severe injury or inexplicable diseases. Many died.
“The husband must be still alive because she still needs him in some way,” I conclude.
“I would say the mysterious diseases mean she was connected to the Devil’s Son back then, too,” Irina puts in. “The name sure sounds like he’s someone with that kind of power.”
“Makes sense,” Rux breathes, her arm tightening around my waist, as if seeking protection. My muscles flex around her as I hold her tighter. “Sorry. That last part brings back dark memories.”
Of course. It’s pretty much what her own demon was doing years ago.
She looks up at me, those small but plump lips that drive me crazy parting invitingly. I swallow, trying to repress the need to kiss her with all the passion I feel. I have to maintain at least a coating of control in front of Irina and Tristan.
“I’ll never let anything like that demon get anywhere close to you again.” I smile down at her pretty heart-shaped, white face, trying to convey all the reassurance in the world.
She smiles back and winds both her sweet arms around me, gazing up at me with those black eyes that hide so much power behind this expression of soft tenderness. And what comes out of her mouth confirms it.
“Lord Dracula, I’m rarely afraid these days. Don’t think that because I’m all silly and in love with you, I’ll be anything like that when we’re out there....”
I knit my eyebrows. “When we are out there?”
But I’ve gotten her point before she replies. She wants to be actively involved in the search for the Devil’s Son. I shake my head.
“No way—”
“Oh, look at this,” Irina squeals, drawing our attention. “An announcement in Events of Your Week, the web brochure. Representatives of Fox Ro Media Studios are going to be present at a music event in Sector 5, three debuting bands, and they’re going to choose a winner that will record a single with Fox Ro. If the single is successful, they’ll extend the contract to a whole album.”
Tristan, who’s now standing by the bed where Irina sits, glances at the screen and punches something on the big screen of his smartphone. Then his face lights up.
“Bingo! The club unofficially belongs to the Red Diaz, and it’s situated very close to the place where Mrs Daniel supposedly meets her lover. So close, actually, that it’s in the underground of the same building.”
A plan begins to form in my mind. “When is the event?”
Tristan looks up from the device. “Tomorrow night.”
He, Irina and Rux smile, convinced this is the solution to our problem, but I’m not so sure. I let go of Rux, walking to the floor to ceiling window, staring out at the lit House of Parliament in the night.
“I don’t like having to wait until tomorrow. We only have six days left to deliver the Devil’s Son, today included, and I shouldn’t waste one minute. By tomorrow night we’ll have only four full days left.”
“We could always grab the murderous bitch and torture information about her lover out of her,” Irina says, and I hear the willingness to do it herself in her voice. In a few hundred years I’ve come to know her well enough. People who harm non-supernaturals by means of dark powers are triggers for her, there are few things she hates more. In the end, she was a victim of one, that’s how I found her.
“I don’t think torturing her would do much,” I tell her in a soft tone. “The Devil’s Son wouldn’t let her live long enough to tell you anything worthwhile. Lumi the vampiress was right—if the Devil’s Son managed to keep his identity secret until now, it sure won’t be easy to discover it by any obvious means.”
“But if Geneva Daniel is into orgies,” Irina says, her catlike eyes narrowing in on the idea, “then maybe I can try to get her attention at the club tomorrow. If she meets the Devil’s Son after the event, or during it, then what if....” She doesn’t have to finish, we all understand.
“It could work,” Tristan says. “The boys and I will be close, enough to protect you if things get ugly.”
“I’ll be there, too,” I put in.
“I know I can rely on both of you,” she says with a smile.
Looking at them like this, Tristan and Irina, I surprise myself wishing there was more between them than a friendship that borders on sibling-like affection. After Rux and I were first married we had Radek and Juliet to share our bliss with, but those were three short months. Some of the best of my life. Sharing the fulfilment and happiness of love with my little brother Radek felt really good. But then they had to leave, and Rux and I had to accept it.
“I’m coming, too,” Rux says enthusiastically, walking over to Irina and taking her hand. “Together we stand an even better chance of drawing attention. We’ll make a great team.”
My stomach jumps.
“No way,” I growl, startling all three of them. “You’re staying out of this, Rux.”
“But why?” Rux looks at me puzzled, then outraged. “I can help her, together we have a better chance to—”
“To be taken for hook
ers, yes,” I finish in her place.
Rux looks to Tristan and Irina, then squares her shoulders and fixes me with black eyes where her dark power begins to swirl. She heads to the door, glaring at me over her shoulder.
“I’d like a word with you, Vlad, alone.”
Lord Dracula
“OH, IT’S TOO DANGEROUS for me, yes?” Rux cries. “But not for Irina.”
“Irina has been an operative for a long time, Rux, she has ages of experience, while you—”
“While I what? You forget what I am?”
In moments like this it strikes me how young she actually is, looks, thinks. It makes me feel like an old devil who’s fallen hopelessly in love a young and naïve beauty.
“You were born merely twenty-five years ago, Rux,” I tell her, trying to keep my calm.
“And yet I’ve lived at least double that. I’ve had a demon in my blood since the day I was born. I can do this, Vlad.”
I turn to the window, my back to her and our king size bed near which she stands. I can’t look into her eyes as I tell her this, and bear her disappointment.
“Rux, you are very young. Despite your power, there are many things you don’t understand. There are powerful supernaturals that could defeat you simply because they’re older, wiser and more cunning.” I look at her over my shoulder, the combination of purity and dark power coming from her making my heart twist. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. Just imagining living on without you—Eternity would become a life sentence.”
The dark power is rising inside of her, I can tell by the scent that travels to me through the air, by the consistency of her blood. It becomes thicker and changes colour when she’s activating the demonic quality, and I yearn for her blood like crazy. My nostrils flare.