Much Ado About Vampires: A Dark Ones Novel

  Kristoff ripped off a strip of his shirt and bound it around the remains of Alec’s neck. It would do no good, I knew. Alec couldn’t possibly survive such devastating damage. He was dead, and with him had died my heart.

  “Vengeance, you know, can be either a satisfying thing or one that lacks satisfaction,” Sally said absently, polishing one of the rings she wore.

  I stopped as Eleanor, who had been watching Kristoff look up and shake his head at Pia, smiled.

  “Diamond,” I said softly.

  She glanced at me, her face ashen as she watched Kristoff bow his head over his friend. Pia dropped to her knees, sobbing. The two other vampires moved over to examine Alec’s body.

  Rage filled me, consumed me, gave me strength when I wanted to do nothing more than scream the agony that I knew was just on the edge of my awareness, waiting to suffocate me.

  Alec was dead, and I would destroy Eleanor if it was the last thing I did.

  “Go to Sally,” I said, my gaze on Eleanor.

  Diamond moved quickly, sliding out of Eleanor’s reach to stand on Ulfur’s far side.

  “Um . . .” Jane backed up a couple of steps. “I think maybe we should go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Eleanor said, a brittle smile on her lips as she eyed Sally. “I have five hundred years of revenge to dole out, and I intend to enjoy every moment of it. I don’t know who you are, missy, but I do know that you have annoyed me, and I don’t intend to put up with anyone annoying me ever again. First you’ll go, then I’ll use that blond strumpet to take down the one who stole my soul, and then I may just clean up the room before I head out to bring order to the chaos that is the world. You, Jane, you may live, but you’re no longer in charge—I am.”

  Sally, oddly enough, wasn’t paying Eleanor any attention. Her gaze was on me, speculation evident in her eyes, and just the merest hint of a smile softening her mouth. “Do I take it you’ve had a change of heart?”

  I met her gaze, allowing her to see the full measure of my fury. “I have no heart left.”

  “Very well.” Sally inclined her head in acknowledgment, turning to face Eleanor as I moved over the few yards to Sally’s side.

  This would be my last act, I knew. I would go out in a blaze of righteousness, though, claiming vengeance for Alec’s death.... A sob caught in my throat, threatening to choke me. I swallowed it down, fighting to focus on the woman before me. There was no time to grieve for Alec, to mourn the loss of our future; there was only time for me to do what needed to be done, and then I would allow Bael’s power to consume me.

  “Just what do you think you’re going to do? ” Eleanor asked suspiciously, shooting a nervous glance at Jane as the lichmaster began to back up toward the door. “You don’t . . . no, you couldn’t. Jane, she doesn’t have the power to use the woman, does she?”

  Sally’s smile grew.

  “She’s a demon lord,” Jane almost stammered—the words tumbled out so fast. “She can do anything she wants. I think I hear some members calling. I’d better go see what they want—”

  She was out of the door before Eleanor could do so much as blink.

  “Such a smart woman, Jane. I’ve always liked her. Caring, too. And so good with the liches,” Sally told me. “She has endless patience with their fussy ways.”

  “A demon lord? Oh . . .” Eleanor’s demeanor changed from aggressive to subservient. “I . . . uh . . . I didn’t mean any offense, if you took it. It’s just that she took both my soul and my Dark One.” Eleanor pointed at me.

  Sally considered me with newfound interest. “Mercy. I had no idea you had all that in you. Did you threaten her with untold torments, as well?”

  I stared at Eleanor, my throat tight with pain. I couldn’t speak, so great was the agony that threatened to claim me. Tears burned in my eyes, but I blinked them away, wanting to see Eleanor’s face when she realized that I would give up my life to ensure she was utterly and completely destroyed.

  Sally touched my shoulder. “I can see we’d better begin before emotions run too high. If you three would join hands, please.”

  Eleanor’s eyes widened as she, too, started to back up. “I’m sure Jane needs me. I promised to help her.... What the devil?”

  Sally made a gesture at Eleanor, evidently one of those binding things that she’d mentioned earlier. “Ward,” I think, was the word. I started to reach out to Alec’s mind to ask him if that was the correct term, my inner devil collapsing in anguish when I realized that I would never again feel the brush of his mind against mine.

  Never is such a very long time, came the softest of whispers.

  “Look, I know I said a few things that probably were unwise, but really, I think they’re perfectly understandable given the situation,” Eleanor said, struggling to make her feet move. “What on earth did you do to me?”

  Diamond took my hand as I half turned to the side to look at Alec’s body.

  “Oh, dear, and you looked like you had so much potential, too,” Sally said, tsking at Eleanor. “But you don’t even know about a common, ordinary binding ward.... Such a shame. You could have gone places.”

  I ignored Sally, peering intently at the scene on the other side of the ballroom. Kristoff was holding a weeping Pia to his chest, his head bent to hers. Beyond them, the two vampires stood in consultation. Alec’s body remained where it had slumped, his head at an unnatural angle, blood everywhere, soaking his shirt and jacket, seeping out to form a thick pool around him.

  Alec? I asked, half-convinced I had conjured up his voice out of desperation.

  “All right, I’m willing to admit I made some mistakes, just a couple of tiny ones, and assuming you were all show was one of them,” Eleanor told Sally. “But that doesn’t mean you have to do anything rash. Why don’t you unbind me, and we can talk about this like civilized people.”

  Silence answered my mental plea.

  “Ah, but who ever told you I was civilized? ” Sally asked with one of her toothy smiles. She placed two fingers on my shoulder, and two on Ulfur’s, standing behind the three of us now locked together by Diamond’s firm grip. “Besides, I think you’ll want to stay for this. It should be very exciting.”

  Hope, which had lifted up its head, curled up into a ball and withered away again. There was no hope. Without Alec, there could be nothing.

  You’ve come a long way from wanting to stake me every chance that presented itself.

  Alec, you are alive ! My heart, formerly shattered into a million pieces, miraculously re-formed itself, my skin tingling with electricity as Sally started chanting.

  Barely. What happened?

  Eleanor used Diamond against you. Oh my god, Alec, you’re alive! I thought you were dead. I was going to destroy Eleanor for killing you, then die, myself.

  The tingling ramped up to that familiar sense of power flowing through me, but my heart and mind were concerned with one thing only—Alec.

  As flattering as it is to know you’d kill yourself because I was dead, such a thing doesn’t please me at all. You could survive me, Beloved. I would want you to continue to live, to find happiness should I be destroyed.

  Alec?

  Yes?

  Shut up and heal yourself. . . . Jesus wept! The power flowing through and around me suddenly turned back on itself, moving from an explosion of power to an inversion . . . straight through me to Sally.

  Her chanting stopped abruptly as she said in a loud, clear voice, “Bael, lord of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions, by that which makes thee, I summon thee to my hand.”

  What is it?

  Sally!

  I tried to stop the flow of power going straight to her, but it was no use and I knew it—I was merely a Tool, a channel through which the power moved.

  What about her?

  She’s gone rogue! “What the hell, Sally? You’re supposed to be destroying Eleanor, not summoning Bael!”

  “I thought that was the plan?” Diamond asked, her voice breathy a
s she, too, obviously felt the effects of the power now pouring into Sally. “Aren’t we supposed to destroy Bael?”

  That makes no sense, love. She’s here to help us.

  You poor, deluded man. You just don’t understand—she’s not one of us, she’s a bad guy. Very bad!

  “That’s what Corazon said she wanted,” Sally said, and began the summoning again. “Bael, lord of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions—”

  “Yes, but she won’t do it!” I told Diamond. “We can’t trust her to actually do away with him. She’ll just bring him here and wipe us all out! Don’t you see? They’re buddies!”

  Diamond shot me an astonished look. Beyond her, Ulfur looked confused, and distressed. His horse bore a similar expression. “Sally is what?” Diamond asked.

  “Bael’s friend, and I use that word with air quotes around it.”

  “His friend?”

  “Air-quotes friend,” I corrected. “More like she was rubbing herself all over him in the hotel room, and sold us out to him.”

  “I did no such thing,” Sally interrupted a third repetition of her summons to protest. “I never sell out. I may opt to do things that perhaps are open to differing interpretations than that of which I’d prefer, but sell out? Pfft. There’s no material object I desire enough to do that.”

  “I notice you didn’t dispute the rubbing-yourself-allover-him statement,” I snapped.

  She smiled demurely. “Well, some of his mortal forms are really quite handsome, and you know, I’ve always had a passion for bad boys. You don’t get badder than Bael. There were times when it was just too delicious an opportunity to let pass by.”

  “See?” I told Diamond. “She’s turned on by Satan. Only someone extremely evil would get the hots around Bael.”

  “Cora, my dear, you’re wrong. You don’t understand about Sally—”

  Sally giggled and cut her off with another summons. “Bael, lord of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions, by that which makes thee, I summon thee to my hand.”

  I heard Pia cry out Alec’s name, and glanced toward them to see Alec attempting—but failing—to pull himself up into a sitting position. You try to move before I get there to see how badly you’re hurt, and you’ll be one hurtin’ cowpoke. Er . . . more hurtin’ than you are.

  “Bael, lord of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions, by that which makes thee, I summon thee to my hand.”

  I love you too, Corazon.

  Happiness filled me at the gentle brush of his mind against mine. Even if Sally didn’t sell us down the river, I knew the future wasn’t going to be easy, but somehow, none of that mattered anymore. Stay still, Alec. I’ll be right there, and then we’ll find you a doctor.

  A doctor wouldn’t know what to make of me. Kristoff will find a healer, I’m sure, but it’s you I really need.

  “Cora!” Pia called, gesturing to me. “Alec’s alive! He’s alive!”

  “I’ll be there in a second,” I yelled back, then turned to pin back Sally with a look that should have scared her witless.

  She was watching me, which startled me right out of my antagonism. “Well?” she said.

  “Well? ”

  “Shall we do this, or not?”

  “Do which—take out Bael, or grind Eleanor into lich dust?”

  “I beg your pardon!” Eleanor said in an outraged tone.

  We ignored her.

  Sally’s eyebrows rose. “Which would you prefer?”

  I glanced at Eleanor. She was my past self, a previous version of me. It wasn’t her fault that she’d been killed, or brought back after our soul was in use by me.

  But she almost killed Alec. Willfully, deliberately, and with more malice than I could understand. “Will you do what I want?” I asked Sally, hesitating to commit myself.

  She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. I will agree to abide by your desires.”

  “You’ve been summoning Bael. He doesn’t seem to be here,” I pointed out.

  “Hey!” Eleanor said, waving her hands to get Sally’s attention. “She’s got a chip on her shoulder about me. She also has my soul and my man, although I don’t quite understand how he survived when he should have been blown to kingdom come. I think if there is any grinding into dust to be done, it should be her and not me who’s destroyed.”

  “The summons hasn’t worked because you have not allowed it to do so,” Sally told me.

  “I can do that?”

  Sally nodded.

  “How come I couldn’t stop the power when Brother Ailwin used me?” I asked, exasperated.

  She gave a little shrug. “He does not have the ability to truly master the Tools. In the hands of amateurs, your control will lessen just as theirs will. But I am different.”

  “Yes,” I said slowly, eyeing her before turning my attention to Alec. Kristoff was wrapping torn bits of his shirt around Alec’s neck while Pia was doing likewise to what remained of his shoulder. Once again I was overcome by the sight of so much blood, and the destruction that Eleanor had wrought. Are you going to be all right? I asked.

  He smiled into my brain. Yes. The damage is too extensive for me to fully repair by myself, but I am not dead. That is something.

  It’s not something; it’s everything to me. We’ll get you a healer to fix you up.

  Kristoff has already called for one. Finish with Sally, Beloved. Only then will you truly be safe.

  He was talking about Bael, I knew, but the same thing could be said of Eleanor. I eyed her. Will you rest now? You sound tired.

  I will rest, he agreed, and just the fact that he did so told me how much it was costing him to remain in contact with me.

  “What if I want both?” I asked Sally. “What if I want both Bael and Eleanor pounded into pulp? Would you do that?”

  “Of course,” she said promptly, taking me by surprise for some reason. I guess it was because I was expecting her to hinder me every step of the way. Heaven knew she’d done a good job of doing that ever since she popped onto the scene.

  “I protest this wanton abuse of power,” Eleanor shouted. “She has an agenda concerning me.”

  “Oh, please.” I may have snorted a little as I curled a lip at her. The two vampires from the vamp council headed toward me with a look in their eyes that did not bode well.

  “I don’t think I like you,” Diamond told Eleanor, who just looked shocked in response.

  “How about them?” I asked, pointing at the two approaching men. “Can I wipe out them, too?”

  “I just love someone who thinks like I do!” Sally said, clapping her hands with pleasure. “Is there anyone else you’d like destroyed?”

  The two vamps froze, their eyes big as they looked from me to Sally.

  Beloved . . .

  I know, I know. It’s no answer to our problems. But awfully darned tempting, you have to admit. Go back to sleep, or whatever it is you’re doing to fix the fact that half of your neck is missing.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t,” I said with a sigh, giving the two vampires a meaningful look.

  Sally shook her head. “You just have no followthrough. You’d never make a demon lord if you can’t follow through with such interesting ideas.”

  “I don’t want to be a demon lord,” I protested as the vampires started toward me again, and added in a rush, “But I don’t want them here, either. Can you zap them away? ”

  “Of course,” Sally said, and with a blinding smile at them called for Sable again.

  “Now, wait—” one of the vamps started to say as Sable appeared and bowed to Sally, obviously waiting for her orders. “We have no quarrel with you, Beloved. Our business is with the Dark One.”

  “Cora?” Sally asked, nodding toward the vampires. “Death or just a little relocation, and please don’t say the latter because that always makes Sable pout.”

  I hesitated for just a second. “Just get them out of here.”

  “You do not know who we are—” the first one said, strangling to
a stop when the demon grabbed him by the throat. The second vampire squawked as Sable hauled them both through the opening torn into the fabric of space, presumably out of Abaddon itself.

  “Nicely done, although it’s not you who will have to put up with a petulant wrath demon,” Sally said. “I’ve always said that having the least amount of witnesses possible when you are conducting heinous acts is the best policy. Now, as to your former self . . .” She inclined her head in question toward Eleanor. “Kill, dismiss, or banish? ”

  “That’s it!” Eleanor snapped, struggling to free herself from the binding ward. “I’m done being nice! Release me this instant so that I can go back to the caves and Jane!”

  “Can she get back to the Underworld? ” I asked Sally.

  “Of course. Mind you, it would mean having a Summoner, and we don’t have one, so the only other way will be to kill her, and I, naturally, couldn’t do such a thing. I’m a very hands-on sort of person, and it would completely ruin my manicure were I to do so, but you could.”

  “What?” Eleanor screamed. “Don’t encourage her!”

  Alec?

  No, mi corazón. You do not wish to stain your soul with her death.

  I sighed again. “Then I guess it’s back to the cave with her. Jane can deal with her.”

  “I protest this high-handed . . . wait, you’re sending me back to Jane?”

  “Do you agree to be bound to her union? ” Sally asked.

  “Yes!” Eleanor said quickly, blinking a couple of times as Sally snapped out a command, Sable appearing out of nothing for the third time. “You’re not going to punish me for killing Alec?”

  “Oh, I haven’t forgotten what you did, or the intention behind it,” I told her, and hoped she accurately read the depth of my fury visible in my eyes. “But we’ll settle our differences later, once we’ve taken care of more pressing issues.”

  Eleanor started to smile, but was yanked through the tear before she could do more than say, “I can’t believe you’re so—”

  “I just hope the word that follows that is ‘generous’ and not ‘gullible,’ but I get a feeling it isn’t,” I said softly.

  “Possibly not,” Diamond agreed, then looked over her shoulder at Sally. “Are we going to continue? I really should get back to my husband, and my great-grandma is sure to be demanding I see her to explain everything that’s been going on.”