***
Thalos met Luka at a tea shop in Chinatown that had free wi-fi. She put her laptop on the short laminate table.
“I was supposed to be flying to Thailand right now.”
“Can you still make it?” Luka plugged in a USB drive and moved the cursor around her screen with the touchpad.
“They’ll be watching every airport within driving distance.”
“You have a blood hotel in Thailand, right?”
Thalos fumed through his nostrils. So much for his grand plan of testing Vampire Poison’s tolerance. He made a mental note to call Chantasy after he finished with Luka.
“Here’s all Dusty’s emails for the last month. I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet.”
“What about Deborah?”
Luka fixed her heavily lined eyes on him. “That much I have figured out. She’s dead, Thalos.”
His brow rose.
“She led Operation Ice Storm in Mongolia and never made it back.”
Thalos rubbed his hand over his face. “Johann. He was in northern China last I knew.”
Luka scrolled through a list of email subjects. “Who’s Johann?”
“The last vampire I ever sired.” He leaned into the tea shop’s dense couch. “He was stunningly beautiful. His merchant father drank himself to death and left Johann’s family saddled with debt. He became my lover at a time when I was sinking into my worst depression. I lavished gifts onto him. I even bribed the court to title him as a noble. The next year the nobility was abolished and he was ostracized. He threatened to leave me if I didn’t transform him into a vampire. I caved to him, as I always did, and he left me anyway. He went to Russia to feast on the carnage caused by their civil war. I went after him when he wrote me a letter asking for money. He told me he was going to consume so much mortal essence he’d become the strongest vampire in the world. I had no interest in killing by then. I was on my way to redemption. He called me weak. Eventually he stole my jewels and tried to kill me while I slept. That’s when I finally left him. I know my mind wasn’t right back then, but still, he broke my heart.”
Luka shook head and made sympathetic clucks with her tongue. “You need to be stronger, Thalos.”
“Love is the only religion a vampire can have.”
“You’re hopeless. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without a lover?”
“Besides right now?”
Luka highlighted paragraphs in an email. “Johann’s not in China anymore. They lost track of him. They were trying to catch you to help them find him.”
Thalos leant forward to read. They went back a few months to read the messages in order. Several figures tried to seize command away from Dusty despite the group’s ancient tradition of hereditary succession. An older soldier named Dalton (possibly Dusty’s father according to Luka) squashed every attempted power grab with court marshals, discharges, demotions, promotions, or bribery.
“It’s absolute chaos,” Thalos said.
“You’ve got to hand it to Deb. She ran a tight ship.”
Dusty expressed more than once that if he destroyed Johann his status as leader would become solid. Dalton tried to dissuade him. Dusty responded:
“He killed my mom! Our fucking leader! Don’t we have any pride? How can Vampire Poison just let this son of a bitch do whatever the fuck he wants? He needs to die. Nothing else matters. Don’t try to tell me any different, Dalton. This was my fucking mother! Why doesn’t anyone give a damn about this besides me?”
“Poor, dear,” Thalos said.
“Deborah was bull-headed,” Luka said, “but she never did kill any of my faculty. I always appreciated that.”
She brought up a chat log between Dalton and Dusty.
DSTY890712: I want our next move to be getting Thalos. We can use him to find Johann.
DLTN541103: u no that he can control ur mind. if others figure this out no way i can keep u in command
DSTY890712: What other option do we have at this point? I need help.
DLTN541103: we r not ready to go after j right now
DSTY890712: That’s another reason we should capture Thalos. He can help us fight him.
DLTN541103: why u think he help us??
DSTY890712: He owes me.
DLTN541103: wut r u talking about?
DSTY890712: He fucked up my life and then abandoned me. He owes me. He’s supposed to be noble now? Well then he better make things up to me.
DLTN541103: i think u r delusional
DSTY890712: Trust me. I got the same intuition my mom had. I know Thalos will do what I tell him. He has to. Just get him.
DLTN541103: i will work on this when i get back. dont do anything w/o me.
Luka curled her lips back to display her top row of teeth. “Yick. This kid wants you for a vampire slave.”
Thalos touched his chin. “Did Dusty ever talk about me after the incident?”
“I told you, Deb pulled him out of the school after that. I have no idea.”
“Hmm.”
“Let’s say we get Thalos,” Dalton said in an email, “and he gives us Johann’s whereabouts. What do we do after that?”
“How did we handle vampires like this before in our history?”
Dalton’s response stung Thalos: “In Vampire Poison’s 1100 year history we have never dealt with a vampire as powerful or as violent as Johann.”
“I’m in over my head,” Dusty replied. “I need help. Get Thalos.”
That final email came two days ago, when the hackers in Luka’s Computer Science department had last broken into Vampire Poison’s network.
She sipped her fruit slush. “At least now you know why they wanted you.”
“Dusty’s right.”
Luka stared at him.
“I owe him.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going to surrender myself.”
She frowned. “Now don’t be rash.”
“It’s not just that. Johann’s been a bloody spot in the corner of my eye. Always there, marring my vision. I say I want peace between vampires and mortals, but he’s my creation. How can I just stand by while he murders people by the thousands? I’ve always known what I have to do. I’ve just been avoiding it. I’ve been worried about my own anguish while innocent people are dying.”
“If he’s been feasting for the last hundred years he might be stronger than you by now.”
“Luka, someone has to destroy him. If not me, then who?”
She gestured toward her screen.
“They tried. He decimated them.”
Luka wet her lips. “I guess if you join forces with Vampire Poison you’ll have a shot at bringing him down.”
“Exactly. And think about it, their leader is marked as my familiar. There’s never been a better time for me to work with them. My enchantment makes Dusty love me.”
Luka’s eyes flared. “Oh for Pete’s sake! This isn’t about saving people. You just want to claim your pretty little boyfriend!”
Thalos couldn’t even feign outrage. A goofy attempt to restrain a smile confirmed Luka’s suspicion.
She whacked him with a throw pillow. “You’re pathetic!”