But she wasn’t. Thane had told the king of the vampires as much, but D’Angelo didn’t believe him. And it was clear from their limited interactions since then that he still didn’t believe him, even after all this time.
“Right,” said Thane, allowing the silence to stretch for a moment. He looked away again and knelt to examine his rear disc brakes. “I can’t imagine you’ve come all this way now because you want me to give you the woman who was just killed.”
There was a pulse of power behind him, and Thane closed his eyes against it, as the contact was just a little painful. He wasn’t certain whether D’Angelo had meant to do it, but either way, it wouldn’t be good to let on that it had affected him.
“No,” came the simple reply.
Thane digested that. “Then what is it you want from me?” he asked, turning to look up at the vampire king.
“Charles Ward is a warlock. He has taken my queen to the astral plane,” D’Angelo stated. “I want you to help me find him.”
Thane placed his hand against his bike’s frame to steady himself. He felt as if the ground beneath his feet tilted a little. The wind outside died down, the air thickened, and for the first time in eons, he felt stunned.
“Your queen.”
Roman D’Angelo’s gaze didn’t falter. His energy pulsed as if in time with his heart. Thane had never seen him in such a state. If he’d actually decided to take a queen, that would explain a lot, especially if someone had absconded with her.
But three thousand years ago, Roman implemented a law that forbade vampires from creating other vampires out of mortals. Was his queen also an Offspring? Or was he breaking his own law for this woman?
“She is not one of us,” D’Angelo stated, clearly having gleaned the surface thoughts from Thane’s mind.
The latter then, Thane thought, feeling more stunned by the moment. The implications were enormous. If Roman D’Angelo was willing to break his own law for a woman, then it meant he truly loved her. And if it was possible for a man as old as Roman to find someone he cared for that much, then maybe it was possible for others with blood just as ancient. Like Thane.
“We have much to discuss Thane, but not now,” said D’Angelo. “You know I will never find Ward in that realm, not in time.” Roman came forward, closing the distance between them. “But you and your Animes can.”
The spirits of those who had died wrongful deaths became Anime, animated energy that was sometimes angry, often desperate, and always forlorn. After a certain amount of time, the energy dispersed and was reabsorbed by the universe. But until this happened, they lingered, and every once in a while, this energy was so strong, it was tangible.
Strong or weak, the Anime were plentiful in Thane’s realm. And being that he was the Phantom King, he controlled them all.
Thane stood and turned to face D’Angelo. “It’ll cost you,” he said softly. Outside, the wind picked up again, growing so strong, it sent sand blasting against the building’s worn exterior. The wind chimes on the porch slammed into the roof from which they hung, clattering madly.
Inside the garage, all was still. And then Roman nodded. “Name it.”
“Oh, I will,” said Thane, flashing a bright white smile with fangs of his own. “When the time is right.” With that, he brushed past Roman and headed for the screen door that led from the garage into the small white wood and adobe house. The Vampire King didn’t follow him in because, while the myth about having to invite a vampire into a home was a load of crock in the mortal world, when it came to other realms and those who ruled them, the rule held fast.
Thane grabbed the things he needed and a moment later came back out into the garage, letting the screen door slam shut behind him.
“How far of a head start did he get?” Thane asked as he strapped on a double shoulder holster and slipped two Glock pistols into their places. Ward was a vampire, and that gave him some very nifty immunities to most weapons. However, according to D’Angelo, he was also a warlock and, unfortunately for him, in addition to the added magic, that saddled him with one very strong weakness: silver bullets.
“An hour, maybe two.”
“Ward is an astral master. He’ll have the place filled with boobie traps by now.”
“I’m aware,” Roman said, his tone dry. Thane glanced up. “Why else would I come to you?” The king’s pallor was a tad gaunt, his aura hungry.
“Just out of curiosity,” Thane postulated as he slipped a black leather jacket over his ensemble, “when was the last time you fed?”
“I want to be hungry when I find Ward,” Roman said. His expression changed then, and Thane went still. The Vampire King looked absolutely terrifying as he smiled the cruelest smile Thane had ever witnessed. “I want to be famished.”
It was a while before Thane said anything. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, then.”
*****
“Three little words, Evie,” he taunted, repeating the same thing he’d said what felt like ten thousand times since he’d brought her to this God-awful place. He walked away from her, his shoes sounding hollowly on the cement under his feet. Evie let her head drop back against the wall behind her and closed her eyes.
“Go to hell, Ward.”
“Hell?” Charles stopped mid-way across the cellar and she could hear him turn to face her. She opened her eyes. He had one brow raised. “You mean fire and brimstone?” As he spoke, the cellar changed, its gray stone walls morphing into waving, crackling walls of flame. Evie gasped and moved away from the wall she’d been sitting against. “Great chasms filled with weeping souls?” Beneath her feet, the stone rumbled and fissures opened up in the ground, emitting steam and smoke.
Evie scrambled back on her hands and knees, wincing in pain as she put weight on her injured wrist.
“You don’t know what Hell is,” Ward told her. She looked up at him through the curtain of her hair. “Losing someone you care about… someone you’ve trusted and depended on for seven hundred years. That’s Hell.”
He waved his hand and the illusion disappeared, leaving them once more in the dank, dismal space of the astral basement.
“I find it exceedingly hard to believe that you could actually care for anyone but yourself,” Evie told him, her growing discomfort egging her on. Her arm was throbbing, her head hurt, she was weak with blood loss and mounting hunger, and she was cold. For the first time since she’d regained consciousness to find herself kidnapped, she was beginning to wonder whether she would be able to hold out until Roman found her.
She knew he was looking for her. She could feel it, for lack of a better term. It was like there was this fire in her blood, but it wasn’t her own. It was his fire, and something about their relationship meant that it burned through her as well. She could sense him out there, drawing nearer, clawing through the fabrics of space and time to get to her.
If she could just hold out a little longer, they might have a hope of defeating Ward. But… she’d never felt so miserable in her life. It was like suffering an anxiety attack while having the flu and knowing that this time, you really were going to die. There was a hopelessness about her now that hadn’t been there before.
Maybe that was Ward’s reason for creating and sticking her in the basement; it was such a hopeless place. Maybe the warlock really knew what he was doing. Maybe he knew good and well how to break a person. Because Evie had to admit she felt pretty close to breaking.
“I’m actually quite sorry that you feel that way, Evie. Because you have two choices. You can either say the words I’ve instructed you to say and live the rest of your eternal life at my side, or you can die. I know you don’t want to die,” he said, coming toward her once again.
Evie braced herself on the inside; she knew what was coming. Slowly, she backed up and got to her feet. Ward kept coming.
“Your spirit is incredibly strong. You’ve suffered a lot of human pain in your life, but you would rather suffer this pain than die, even if it means you must suffer it over an
d over again.”
Evie took a step back and he took a step forward. She could feel the wall creeping up behind her. She was running out of space.
“That means something, Evie. You’re a survivor.”
Evie’s back hit the wall and she closed her eyes. Ward’s next words were spoken less than an inch away; she could feel his breath on her cheek, on her neck, and her lungs ceased drawing in air.
“So why don’t you just make this easier on yourself right now and say the words, Evie. Addo Nox Noctis.”
She remained quiet.
“Say it!” he bellowed, slamming his palm into the wall beside her head.
“No!” she yelled back. “Never!” That wasn’t strictly true, and she knew it. But her ire was up, her fear fueling her anger, and she could no longer be held accountable for what she did or said.
“Never is a very long time, Evie,” Ward told her. “You shouldn’t make promises you know you can’t keep.”
Evie cried out, unable to stop the piercing sound when Ward once more blurred into action, slamming her entire body into the wall behind her with brute force. With dizzying speed, he tore the sleeve of her uninjured wrist up her arm and drove his fangs into her flesh.
Chapter Twenty-One
Roman ran a fierce hand through his thick hair and scanned the horizon with a careful, burning gaze. In every direction as far as the eye could see stretched nothing but cracked earth and lightning-split skies. It was something out of a Lovecraft novel. There was no sign of life, no sign of movement other than the arcs of electricity that cracked the air into pieces.
Beside him stood Thanatos, the Phantom King. Roman cut him a glance, taking in his appearance. Thane was a rugged man, tall and strong as all of the Kings were, but rougher around the edges. It might have been the kind of soul he had to deal with day in and day out, but something caused his storm gray eyes to glint like cold steel in a handsome, unshaven face. He wore black leather, his skin bore tattoos that were ever-changing, and his jeans were smeared with the oil and grime evidence of a hobby that made Thane the proud owner of more than two hundred re-built motorcycles. He kept them in his realm and rode them across Purgatory, a solitary figure against a harsh, unforgiving landscape.
Two hundred years ago, the first time Roman had been to Thanatos’ realm, it had been horses he’d kept. With Thane, it was always something fast, powerful, and beautiful. It was just the way he was drawn.
When the Thirteen met, Thane dressed in a suit and bothered to shave. Seeing him again as he truly was had a strange effect on Roman. It made him realize for what was possibly the billionth time in his long life that looks could be deceiving.
“Wow,” said Thane, shaking his head. “You think Ward might be sending a message that we’re not wanted?”
“What have they found?” Roman asked, impatience scraping at him like fingernails across a chalk board.
“Give them some time,” Thane responded, his own silver gaze searching. His Animes had spanned out, disappearing into the plane like wisps of smoke or fog.
“We don’t have time,” Roman growled, unable to keep his fury completely in check any longer. He could feel that Evie was suffering. He couldn’t read her mind, so communicating with her was impossible. But she was there – somewhere – and Charles Ward was hurting her. He could almost smell the blood he had spilled. It was everything Roman could do not to spontaneously combust.
And then Thane straightened; he cocked his head slightly to one side and his metal gaze became distant, as if he were listening. “They found him.”
“Where.” The question was growled in such a way that it really wasn’t a question.
“I’ll take you,” Thane said, “but it’s not that simple.” He turned to face Roman, his expression grim. “He brought help. According to the Anime, there are no fewer than half a dozen Akyri trapped here with him. They’re marked,” Thane said, gesturing to the side of his neck, and Roman knew exactly what he was talking about. Ward had bound the Akyri. “And they’ll do whatever they have to do to stop us.”
This made things so much worse. Akyri were dangerous enemies when they had to be, and even if Roman got the upper hand, he wouldn’t be able to kill them. They were there under duress and didn’t deserve to die.
At that moment, the Vampire King had the disconcerting urge to rip through an entire army with his bare hands.
“Take me to him.”
Thane was silent for a moment, his mercury eyes reflecting the lightning that decorated the skies. Finally, he nodded. “Prepare yourself.” With that, he reached out, pressed his hand to Roman’s chest, and the world warped into light speed. It was always like that when traveling great distances on the astral plane. The world broke into strings of light and movement that ended at a tunneled focal point.
Roman’s body felt insubstantial as the dream-like realm whizzed past. But despite the lack of solid sensation, he could feel Evie drawing closer. The impression of suffering grew stronger until, at last, he could almost feel her heartbeat.
Thane removed his hand and he and Roman both turned. A two-story Victorian styled mansion stood before them, ominous, gray and solitary on the vast, broken landscape. The curtains in the windows were drawn, and no sound came from within. However, on the front porch stood three men in black, their dark eyes ringed in red. On the stairs stood two more. A sixth waited on the ground between the house and the newcomers.
All six Akyri watched Thane and Roman in silence. In the short distance, wispy white figures twisted and dissolved and rematerialized – the Anime who had located the mansion.
“Your call, Vampire King,” Thane muttered, not taking his eyes from the figures ahead.
“I just need an in,” said Roman.
“I can give you twenty seconds,” Thane said, his gaze cutting to him.
“I’ll take it.”
With that, Thane pulled the guns from his holsters and began firing. Granted, though the bullets were silver, these were Akyri and not warlocks, and hence they wouldn’t die from the wounds. But they had enough warlock energy within them from whatever symbiotic relationship they’d last taken part in that the bullets would trip them up for a few seconds.
And that’s exactly what they did. Thane was an incredible shot, striking each demon square in the chest. Roman waited several intolerable moments as the Akyri went down one after another, and then his immortal, pissed-off body was blurring into action.
*****
It hurts, she thought. God, it really hurts. Gingerly, Evie cradled her wrapped wrists against her chest and closed her eyes. Her heart was doing tricks behind her ribcage now, the beat uneven and faint. Her head hurt and her legs felt numb. When she took the time to think about what it all meant, despair threatened, and she choked down a sob.
“I can take the pain away from you,” Charles said as he watched her curl in on herself against the cold basement wall. “Why do you continue to defy me?”
Evie felt tears on her cheeks and marveled at her ability to form them after all the blood he’d taken. But these were the same tears that had been threatening to escape since he’d brought her here. She’d been strong enough… she could allow herself this.
Evie dropped her head onto her bent knees. I’m not really here, she tried to tell herself, though the pain fought her attempt. She wasn’t supposed to be there in that dark basement under a house in the middle of an impossible nowhere. Two days ago, she’d lived in another world. Two days ago, she’d been an author with a normal life and at least another thirty or forty years ahead of her.
But now….
Now, as she hugged her small body against the damp gloom of the horrible space that had become her waking nightmare, she felt a wretched anguish poke at her outer casing. That casing had become fragile and thin, like the shell of an egg. Any second now, any god-awful minute now, one of those tap-tap-taps would break through, and she would crack. Just like that.
It was what he wanted, the man who had ripped he
r from her happiness and thrust her into this hellish darkness. It was what he was waiting for. What he apparently would do anything to acquire. Anything….
Charles Ward was a vampire, and that meant that there was no way out. A human was fallible. A human could be tricked or overtaken. But a vampire was insurmountable. There was no way out. None that she knew of, anyway.
Roman, Evie thought. She couldn’t help it. Where was he now? The tall, dark, intense man who had changed her life forever. It was pointless to yearn for him. Vampire or not – vampire king or not – he could do nothing to help her now. Her captor had seen to that. At least, that was what he told her. And she believed him. She had no choice, because Roman wasn’t here… and she was dying.
“Just say the words, Evie. For the love of God,” her captor said as he knelt in front of her and took her chin once more in his hand. She kept her eyes closed, unable or unwilling to meet his gaze even one more time. “You can make all of this stop,” he told her. “You can make it so that you never have to feel pain or fear again.”
Evie moaned softly in response. She knew he was lying. Even if she said the words and became like him, he would find a way to hurt her. Her body already hurt so much. She didn't underestimate Ward’s potential for cruelty.
Her captor released her chin and Evie’s head fell back against the wall. She felt colder than she had ever felt before.
“He isn’t coming, Evie,” he told her. “He can’t find you, and you don’t have long to go. I know you want to see your parents again. Your brothers. Speak the words, Evie, and you’ll live to do so.”
She almost said the words then. She almost surrendered and gave him what he wanted. She just wanted the torture to stop. But instead she shook her head, dizzy as it made her, and pushed the thoughts from her mind. No, she told herself. Just hang on a little while longer.