Suddenly, Laz wanted to laugh; all at once it struck him how imbecilic his thoughts had been. Fear was definitely not a part of that gaze. The Time King was absolutely not afraid of Lazarus. And besides, Laz hadn’t found his queen yet either. In fact… was that why it was suddenly so important to him, even subconsciously, to find one?
In any case, the look the Time King was giving him was more shrewd than anything else. It was a look that said Solan knew something about Laz that Lazarus didn’t know himself.
Does he think it’s me? That I’m the traitor? It wasn’t like he hadn’t given William plenty of reason to think such a thing. He had no queen and was new to the Table. He had nothing to lose; there would be no love lost between himself and the others if he were to go. And maybe that was exactly what William Solan was thinking.
Fuck, the detective thought. He was on edge. I need a drink or something.
His patience was wearing increasingly thin by the second. So this time, Laz was just about ready to stand up and ask the Time King what the fuck his problem was, when D’Angelo’s voice carrying over the Table saved him from the impulsive act like a graveyard bell.
“Thank you everyone,” he said, drawing the meeting to a close. It hadn’t really been a particularly beneficial drawing-together anyway. Everyone was afraid to divulge the truly important shit because there was a snitch in the midst of them. “Feel free to come see me with any news.”
Laz was one of the first men up from the Table and would probably have been the first one out of the room, but D’Angelo caught his gaze shortly after his closing announcement. The Vampire King gave a slight nod. Laz had been in charge of a group of men long enough to know what that nod meant. It meant the other king wanted to talk.
He nodded back. Fine. Then he turned just in time to see the Time King vanish from the room, once more using magic that no one had thought he possessed.
Chapter Two
“I really used to like coffee. Out of the three of us… I was the one who loved it most.”
Dahlia Kellen sat across from the one woman in the multiverse who might, maybe, just maybe, know how she felt right then. She was a woman who had been taken from her natural environment and thrust into the darkness amidst figures both powerful and dangerous. And now her life was forever changed. And she was expected to “go on.”
Evelynne D’Angelo hadn’t always been Evelynne D’Angelo. Once she’d been Evelynne Farrow. Evie Grace Farrow, in fact, and it was that grace that Dahlia needed most at that moment. There, but for the grace of a friend…
Not long ago a very mortal Evie’s existence was threatened by a force of evil. It hung in the vacuum between life and death, where there was nothing else but a decision to make. She’d chosen to live – in so far as life can be lived when it is forever and indelibly changed. She’d been turned into a vampire by the king of the vampires, Roman D’Angelo, and that night she’d become none other than his queen.
Now she lived in the wings of the world, in those spaces where whispers went to hide.
Just like Dahlia.
“And now you’ll never drink it again.” Evie said it with finality. But she also said it with immeasurable compassion. “I know.”
Dahlia took a sip of her Lifeblood. It wasn’t actually blood. But it was meant to give her life. Lalura Chantelle, the ancient witch who taught warlock magic to Dahlia’s coven triad created the “Lifeblood” as a substitute for the real thing so that Dahlia wouldn’t be forced to kill for her meals.
What Lalura didn’t know was that the Lifeblood wasn’t as obligatory these days as it had been at first. And it wasn’t because Dahlia needed less blood, either.
I wonder if she knows, she thought as she looked over the lip of the mug she drank from at the woman sitting across from her. But Evie’s expression wasn’t accusatory and it wasn’t judgmental. There was no harshness in Evie’s lovely face. She was simply a friend.
Dahlia lowered her mug as something around Evie’s neck caught her eye. “Is that…?” she asked, leaning forward. A silver pendant peeked out from beneath Evie’s scoop-neck sweater. It was large and shimmered, clearly studded with diamonds. But the most eye catching thing about it by far was the fact that it was a large spider.
“A spider, yes,” Evie smiled. She lifted the pendant out and held it aloft in her hand for Dahlia to get a closer look. It was blackened white gold or silver, and she’d been right about the diamond part. Its eyes, however, were red, and its body was a blue-green shimmering stone that caught the light like sheets of pressed rainbow. “A reader sent it to me. She told me that the spider had always reminded her of story tellers. They weave their webs, spin their yarns so to speak.” Evie grinned and shrugged. “Like I do.”
Evelynne D’Angelo was a New York Times bestselling author. The crazy thing was, she wrote books about the very same kinds of things that she actually lived with in her every day life. Her readers would never have guessed. On her Facebook page, for instance, she appeared to lead a very regular life – with a husband, a house, even a dog. No one was the wiser.
They say you should write what you know.
“What is that stone?” Dahlia asked, pointing to the large stone that was the arachnid’s body.
“Labradorite. It’s said to inspire creativity, and back in the day, it was believed especially so for playwrights. I suppose we’re a modern equivalent of sorts.”
“It’s beautiful,” Dahlia said. She meant it. The piece was a true work of art and must have cost a small fortune. At least, a small fortune for a mortal, anyway. It would have been a pittance for a Tuathan fae such as herself. Especially for a Tuathan fae who was a warlock… and now a vampire, filled with all sorts of interesting magic.
She shook herself a bit. “Did the reader make it?”
Evie nodded. “She did. That’s why the eyes are rubies. Believe me, I know about rubies and fae magic. I wouldn’t have chosen them myself.”
Dahlia grinned, and barely remembered to tuck her fangs back away from sight. They were seated in a mortal inhabited area, after all. A coffee shop of all things. Had she done it just to torture herself? She pushed the thought aside and shook her head. “You know, not all rubies are rubies because they’ve absorbed fae magic the way the Unseelie King is so very fond of telling everyone. Some are natural rubies. Yes, some do start out as black diamonds, and yes, as they absorb fae magic they turn red and change their make-up. But some rubies are actually just natural. In fact, the larger pieces are precious and sought-after amongst the wealthiest and most influential of the fae. I dare say they flaunt them when they manage to get ahold of them.”
Evie’s eyes had widened while Dahlia spoke. She fingered the ruby eyes on the spider and asked, “Do you think these are natural?”
“Most likely. They’re quite small, and normally it’s the larger rubies that are used to steal fae power. That’s why my people are so proud when they manage to acquire a natural ruby of substantial size.”
Evie fell into quiet thought for a moment, and rubbed her fingers over the spider. “His name is Webster,” she said distractedly and with a winsome smile. “I thought it was a perfect name for a writer’s spider.”
Dahlia laughed. It was the first time she’d done so naturally for quite a while. “It is.”
“Would you like to leave?” Evie suddenly asked as she tucked Webster back under her shirt and looked around the coffee shop. This small coffee bar was owned by the Winter King’s sister, Neve. The fact that she also liked to waitress it was beside the point. Neve very much wanted to appear mortal, and she’d gone to great extents to make that illusion stick.
Neve wasn’t in the shop at the moment. She’d been remaining at the Winter Palace since her brother and the new Winter Queen got “hitched” so to speak. There was a lot to do, a lot to take in, and a lot to teach, and Neve was a perfect teacher and companion. Plus, she was very much a fan of the new queen. A lot of them were. The Winter Queen was, after all, Poppy Nix, Dahlia’s best
friend.
Or at least she used to be….
It isn’t that she’s not still my best friend, Dahlia reminded herself. It’s just that she can’t possibly understand-
“Come on,” said Evie as she stood, not waiting for Dahlia to answer. “I know the smell of this coffee must be driving you nuts.” She leaned forward over the table and lowered her voice. “And I also know you have no real need to down an entire mug full of Lifeblood. So let’s head someplace where you can be yourself, and you can tell me what’s really going on with you.”
She knows.
“Yeah,” said Evie. “The funny thing about Roman’s breed of vampire,” she whispered, “is that we can read minds. And yours happens to be wide open to me right now, despite all your supernatural badassness. Plus, I can smell them on you, sweetie. I’d be willing to bet a lot of the kinds of people you and I hang around with will be able to.”
Oh shit.
But of course she’d known there was that danger. Right? That was why she’d stayed away from all of those people – the werewolves, the other vampires, the shifters – the ones who could have scented this secret on her. Dahlia’s heart hammered; she could hear and feel it in the side of her neck. It banged against her rib cage like the beat at a rave. Amazing the damn thing was still working after all she’d put it through.
And then she’d just had to invite Evelynne D’Angelo for coffee. Coffee.
Of all things? And now?
“Admit it, Doll. You wanted me to know. You need to get this off your chest. Now, get your things and let’s get the hell out of here and go somewhere a lot more comfortable for us both.”
Chapter Three
The room was empty when D’Angelo left his place at the end of the Table, circled it a bit, and approached Lazarus. Laz waited for him like a lighthouse waiting for the wave.
D’Angelo stopped a few feet away and slipped his hands into his pockets. “I’ve never been one to beat around the bush, Lazarus, so I’ll come right to the point. You smell like a hell of a lot of blood.”
“Being a cop is sometimes a dirty job.”
“Not this dirty.” D’Angelo shook his head a little, and a touch of a smile hinted at the corners of his mouth. “Would you like to tell me about it?”
Laz wasn’t stupid. He knew good and well that what that meant was, “Do you want to tell me, or do you want me to find out another way and then we’ll have this conversation again at another time?” Not that he couldn’t put off a conversation with D’Angelo. It was just that there was no point to putting it off. They were in this together.
There was a pretty big evil something out there, and if the lot of them wanted to defeat that evil something, they needed to work as a team. As much as Laz might not like it, that meant sticking together and being honest with each other.
For twelve of them that’s what it meant, anyway. For one of them of course, that meant absolutely nothing, because he was the traitor.
Laz took a slow, even breath and turned away from D’Angelo to approach the window. He’d had two showers since the last time he’d apprehended someone on the streets of Boston. But he hadn’t so much apprehended him as slaughtered him, and of course the Vampire King could scent the blood on him anyway.
“You vampire types sorely try my patience,” Laz admitted, his voice barely more than a whisper. It was odd on two levels for him to say such a thing. For one, his patience didn’t normally feel so tried. And for another, this wasn’t the way he spoke, not usually. It felt like someone had suddenly injected his grammar with a dose of blue blood.
Maybe D’Angelo was getting to him. The Vampire King was older than dirt.
D’Angelo fell silent, as if letting that settle in, and Laz admittedly felt a little guilty for having said it. But the guilt passed very quickly. Which was also strange for Laz.
After a bit, he could hear D’Angelo take a few quiet steps toward another window. Beyond these floor-to-ceiling windows of the 52nd floor of the John Hancock Tower, technically known as the Clarendon or 200 Clarendon, was the city of Boston, the Charles River, and Cambridge beyond it. It was early morning in late spring, and fog rolled in off the water to disappear in the streets and alleys that wrapped around Boston’s metal architectural monuments.
The other buildings’ windows glittered like diamonds in reflected beams of rising sunlight. He had a clear view of the sci-fi architecture of 111 Huntington, and the Boston Public Library between it and the John Hancock. The Charles River below split Boston from Cambridge and its Harvard treasure and offered more glittering diamonds to the view above.
Laz could see now why the Vampire King had chosen this particular room, in this building, in this town, and at this time for their meeting. The windows faced west, and the room was blocked from the direct rays of the rising sun, while still allowing in daylight. Not that D’Angelo wasn’t plenty protected from the sun and its dangers at this point, being the seasoned warlock he was, but that didn’t mean he was fond of it.
“Is there something you aren’t telling me?” the vampire king finally asked.
This time, it was Laz who hesitated before answering. When he did, he turned to face the vampire and stared him hard in the eye. D’Angelo blinked. Laz felt a kind of victory, and had no idea why. “You know how it is, your majesty,” he said, still speaking softly though his words dripped with a new born acid. “Being a king is a full time job, and I had one already.” As if to reinforce what he was saying, he looked down at his watch. “In fact, I have it still,” he said, lowering his hand to lock eyes with the vampire again. “I’m late for a precinct meeting.”
The Vampire King continued to hold that gaze, and Laz could almost see his wheels spinning. “You still haven’t found your queen.”
Now it was Lazarus’s turn to blink. The change in subject took him starkly by surprise. He honestly hadn’t been thinking about his “queen” in any capacity. Not even a little bit, and not in any way, shape, or form.
Had he?
His gaze narrowed. “Come again?” he demanded.
“It doesn’t frustrate you in the least that she hasn’t yet made an appearance while they seem to be pouring from the woodwork around you and making other kings’ dreams come true?” D’Angelo smiled slowly at that and though it was a hard smile, filled with knowledge and challenge, it was also self-deprecatory because he, himself was one of those men whose dreams had come true. “Nor does it bother you that the other men and women who sit at this table might be having second thoughts about you because of it?”
Laz felt something nasty move through him, like a disease he’d been trying to ignore that had finally moved in to his blood. There was no other way to describe it. The Vampire King had all but just admitted that everyone who’d been in that room earlier thought of Lazarus as the traitor.
He thought he’d known why the meeting was held in Boston this time. But now he realized he’d been wrong. It wasn’t because of the location or the sun or anything like that. It was because of Laz.
Since he’d been both unconsciously and consciously wondering if the others were doubting him, this wasn’t really so much a surprise as a highly unwelcome confirmation. But it was uncomfortable, nonetheless.
Normally, he would have dealt with it using reason and a calm demeanor so hard, nothing could crack it. But now that hard, calm demeanor was a still shell over something a little less reasonable and a lot more angry.
He smiled, tamping down the turmoil inside as if he’d had centuries of practice. The smile was slow and mean, and he knew it didn’t belong on his face by the way D’Angelo focused on it. “Frankly, no,” Laz said in a manner just as slow and careful as his smile. “You have to understand, D’Angelo, my years are measured by human standards.” He raised his hands. “I’m in my thirties.” His fake smile broadened. “Not exactly feeling the weight of lonely centuries on my shoulders the way some of you are... or were.”
He let that sink in, just to be mean.
?
??So the fact that I haven’t ‘found my queen,’ as you say,” he continued, “is not as high on my shit list as you and the others might assume it would be.”
The Vampire King seemed to take this in stride. At least, he showed no outward reaction to Lazarus’s statements. Instead, he cocked his head to one side and asked, “Then what is?”
More silence filled the room.
The truth was, Laz didn’t have an answer to that. He was definitely under some kind of pressure these days. It was why he’d been getting more violent than strictly necessary with the bad guys lately. There was a kind of anger burgeoning inside him. For lack of a better description, it seemed the world was tainting itself red. He’d heard the term, “fire in the blood” before. Now he was fairly sure he knew what that meant. There was definitely something crackling away inside him, and every day stoked it in some new way.
Like now.
“You’d best be heading back to your hole in the ground, Roman,” he said, referring to the Vampire King by his first name despite the fact that the two had never really been close enough for a first name basis. He left the king at the windows and moved to the opposite end of the room, calling up his magic as he went. “And get the hell out of my town.”
Lazarus’s words echoed behind him like the warning they were as he used his dark magic to transport from one location in Boston, Massachusetts to another.
Chapter Four
It might have been a natural nick-name, being the shortened version of “Dahlia,” but nevertheless the Vampire Queen was perhaps the only person alive Dahlia would have allowed to call her “Doll.” She’d been doing it since they’d met, and that helped a little. The respect they had for one another helped too.
Evelynne D’Angelo had come from a poor family, so she knew what it meant to struggle. She was responsible, level-headed, and kind. As a mortal, she’d rescued animals, volunteered at charities, and supported her family with every paycheck she’d earned. Those paychecks came from the sales of eBooks that she’d begun posting after trying to become a print published author for no less than ten hard years. The rumors were that Evie kept more than three hundred rejection letters somewhere in the back of her closet. She saved them so she would never forget all she’d gone through, and so she’d be reminded of how important it was to never give up.