A caressing and irresistably magnetic voice entered my head, compelling me to come to the door of the house. I obeyed, even though I knew who summoned me.
“Be strong,” Genevieve called after me.
They were easy words to say. Thoughts of my friends, the Brotherhood, steeled me. I did what I had to do. I opened the front door.
“Hello, Gideon,” said Corbeau casually.
I stood still, not reacting. I don’t know why I’d expected him to have changed in some way. He leaned confidently against the door jamb, his white teeth flashing at me and his blue eyes points of ice. His black hair, like raven’s feathers, ruffled slightly in the breeze. He was still beautiful. His voice scalded with derision.
“Well? Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
There was no need, as he could enter my home, or any vampire’s home, without an invitation. Only the houses of living mortals were barred to us. He’d proven that in England, when he had raped me.
“Come in,” I said.
He brushed past me with a smile, bringing the tang of the sea with him. Sea salt was encrusted on his leather clothes, and I wondered when he had started dressing in such garments. Knowing him, he’d likely been hunting in an establishment that catered to those with such tastes. He liked to go for easy prey before taking on a challenge, to whet his appetite.
“You’ve changed.” He sneered as he reached out to touch my temple. I stiffened in anticipation of his icy fingers on my face. “Grey hair? At nineteen?” He taunted the illusion I’d willed to age my appearance. Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed me by the neck and shook me. “Who else is in this house?”
Calm and dignified, Genevieve said, “I am.”
Corbeau flung me away from him, and I made a rapid acquaintance with the hall carpet.
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Regan blinked in surprise. “Why are you asking me about Hiram Clauson, Mr. Standish? We’re not working together anymore.”
“Yes, I know.” There was another long pause. “I hate to feel like I’ve been played for a sucker. But I’m wondering now if that’s been going on.”
Regan looked at Jonathan and cleared her throat. “What do you mean, Mr. Standish?”
“This Clauson. He called me up, right after the news came out about Veronica. Said he had some information that might relate to what happened, information about you, Mr. Vaughn. I’d just gotten that letter, and…” he sighed heavily. “I wasn’t thinking straight. Anyway, we met a couple of times, and…” Jerry Standish shook his head. “All kinds of nutcase crap. Vampires, he was talking about. He claimed he meant it in some kind of clinical sense, but I sure didn’t get that from the way he talked about it. All I cared about was finding out what happened to my daughter. I listened to him because I thought he had something that I could use to get to the bottom of that. But now, I think he was just taking me for a ride, hoping to get me to fund some kind of…vampire hunting team. I couldn’t finance a cup of coffee, or who knows what the hell he’d have dragged me into.”
“A vampire hunting team?” Regan stared at Jerry Standish, aghast. “He had other people involved?”
“He didn’t come right out and say it. But I got that idea, yes.” There was another pause, and then Jerry Standish shrugged. “That’s all. But I’d watch my step if I were you, Mr. Vaughn. This Clauson is a few sandwiches short, in my opinion.”
“I appreciate the heads-up.”
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And then she floated out the door, her hand held by a thin, almost mouseylooking man in dark paratrooper-style combat fatigues. Cadaverously thin, gray fleshed, her hair whipping and writhing independently of the wind in serpentine undulations, she drifted out into clear view. Her feet didn’t touch the wet ground, yet she carried a cane. And there were a discomfiting array of floating orbs, objects that looked a lot like human eyes, flying in orbit around her body. Haggard noticed that the paramilitary looking man with her had a very large automatic rifle slung across one shoulder and a pistol holstered on his hip. The man made a show of keeping his hands far away from either weapon.
“Gentlemen and lady, won’t you please come inside out of the rain?” the floating mummy-woman said in a clear and powerful, but definitely unhuman, voice.
Stepping forward, Mitch Haggard announced, “Please stop where you are! We are agents of a Department of Justice task force assigned for hazardous urban crisis management and we have designated this area a potential site for criminal terrorist activity. While we understand that you are on sovereign territorial soil appointed under treaty with the United States government, we are exercising our right to execute a search of your premises and property. We have presented you with court-signed documentation to that effect. In the meantime, you do not match the descriptions of any contactees or representatives we recognize. Identify yourselves!”
The mummy-woman’s wrinkled face beamed a friendly smile as she answered. “Come now, surely we can engage one another on more…human…terms than these.”
“Identify yourself!” Haggard repeated, simultaneously making a motion for his RR team to raise their weapons and take aim.
The aggressive stance did nothing to alter the floating woman’s demeanor.
“Why, kind sir, I am Madame Le Comtesse Cristina Wintyrr of the MacStanclef Gather, a family under the banner of Gen Nocturna, and I am a six hundred twenty-four year-old Apollyonu First Blood,” she said amicably. “You can consider me the family matriarch. The person next to me is the current captain of our house guard, Mr. Haigh. He is responsible for the safety of all who dwell within Crichton House. We are both what you would call ‘vampires.’ Now, considering how hysterically your people tend to react to that word, are you really sure you want to have this conversation outside where other ears can hear?”
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Justine saw the blade and knew she couldn’t stop it. A millisecond of anger. Two of regret. Three of NO, she had moves.
Then it didn’t matter.
Rubicon flew off her and slammed into the stone wall. She thought she heard his spine snap as his body hit the corner of a window.
“Never thought you would be una damisela en apuros.”
“That better not mean what I think it means.” She took Teresa’s hand. Justine tilted her head toward the twitching vampire. “I assume that means you have your magic back.”
“Can I get you out of here now?”
“One more thing.” Justine picked up her blade and turned to where Rubicon lay. He wasn’t there. “Where is he?” She spun around, searched the floor, checked the still intact window. “Damn it, where…?”
“No, Teresa, you may not get her out now.” The voice came from across the room by the entrance. Rubicon stood up, working his back and shoulders as he rose. Laughing, he said, “Unlike mortals Vampires heal quicker as they grow older.”
Teresa and Justine, stared, stunned, frozen except for Teresa’s lips and fingers.
“Something you two will not have to worry about.”
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The speedboat glided into view. Three men on board, one driving, one on each side, scanning, all armed. “There,” the driver said and stopped the boat. The two men pointed a .45 and a shotgun right at the boy and the witch. The driver held a different type of rifle. These were no vamp wannabe flunkies off the street. They were hunters and knew what they were about.
“We’re lost,” Teresa said. “How do we get back to Oscar’s?”
The driver, a fit, silver-haired, no-nonsense man, stood and aimed his weapon at Teresa. “Don’t worry, Teresa and Sammy, we’ll take you right back there.”
“Okay, we’ll follow you.”
“No, you ride with us.” One of them reached out with a boat hook and drew the vessels together. “But we were warned about you, ma’am.”
Teresa knew a tranquilizer gun when she saw it. Before he could shoot her she twisted up a few fireballs. That she was getting good at. She flung them quick—one, two, three. They hit the guns, instantly heating them up and showering the men with flame.
Teresa leaped into their boat. She punched the closest man hard in the nose, then punched the driver hard in the nose. The third man got it on the chin before she threw him overboard. Quickly, she handed all the guns to Sammy, except the .45 she tucked in the back of her jeans. Two were better than one. “I’ll be back. Keep that one covered.” She made some quick hand motions, grabbed the two swearing men, said a few words, and the three vanished.
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Justine knew nothing of depths and distances when the water closed over her. She sucked in a deep breath, a mortal reflex, and struggled with all her vampire strength against her bonds. To no avail. Rubicon had chosen well. How many times had he done this? How many vampires languished at the ocean bottom, alive, but trapped forever?
That’s when the real fear took over—fear of being trapped in the frigid water hundreds or thousands of feet down, never to see Teresa or Simone or Harry again. As the light from Night Watch faded, an instinctual fear of the dark gripped her. With the dark, fear of monsters. What might come out of the stygian darkness with teeth to rip her apart or tentacles to crush her?
Time passed. Justine worked through her panic, fear, loss, anger, and acceptance. This led her to determination. The determination that took her from a widow to a commercial real estate agent worth almost a million dollars when she talked Simone into changing her; that led her to Sinakov and the taking of his head; that took her to a small ledge on a big wall hundreds of feet underwater.
Inch by inch she squirmed or rolled or wiggled herself around on her tiny patch of sand. It seemed to be a long ten foot wide, slightly sloped shelf covered with fine sand that had drifted down through the years. It butted up to an irregular, sheer vertical wall. It was too deep for anything to grow there. She didn’t try to explore the outside edge. She had no doubt it only offered more down.
Using her feet, she scooped out a small hollow in the sand next to the wall. Her little undersea nest. She did not want to slip over the edge.
Then she started to explore her bonds. How was the chain wrapped around her body and legs? What could she do with the tie wraps and the line about her wrists? If they were free, she was free.
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In one fluid motion Simone left her chair and knelt in front of Justine. She placed her hand flat on Justine’s chest. “Even when the heart stops beating, the pain does not go away.” She sat back on her heels. “I will do as you request, but you have to consider for one day what you are going to do. What of your job? Money? What will you do if you survive your revenge?”
Simone rose up, went to a small built in bar and poured scotch in a glass. Eyes closed, she swirled it under her nose, then savored a sip.
“It is true that your senses become more acute.” She took another sip of scotch. “Taste, smell, hearing, sight…” She let her hand trail down her body. “…touch. It will be very strange to you.”
“I have thought about it.”
“But that was before you knew it would really be possible. It is different now. Think about it. If you wish to continue, say goodbye to those you will miss. Say goodbye to your life.”
“Simone, my life is already—”
“No, it is not,” Simone dropped onto the edge of her chair. “You are about to die and be reborn immortal. A gift as well as a curse. You may exist for a thousand years, Justine. Take advantage of this most rare opportunity to say your farewells and prepare.” The passion drained from her, replaced by melancholy. “I still dearly wish I had had that chance.”
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From ALL THE SHADOWS OF THE RAINBOW by Inanna Arthen:
She was startled to hear Harry’s voice so close behind her, as she hadn’t been aware of him approaching. She turned, extending her hand, and Harry reached out, grasped her hand, and very rapidly pressed the object he was holding into the base of her thumb. It wasn’t a pencil; it was some kind of sticker device, like the ones used to draw blood samples. There was a little pop and a sharp pain. Diana reeled back, utterly shocked. She felt a rush of sensation up her arm. Harry’s face was absolutely impassive, as if he was simply watching to see what happened next. Then Diana dematerialized.
She didn’t know why she did it, aside from momentary blind panic. Her hand hurt and whatever the drug was made a tingling sensation but this was nowhere near threatening enough to trigger an involuntary dematerialization. She was trapped between the wall, Harry, the desk and an armchair, she was startled and confused, and she just did it. Now, watching Harry’s face turn more fish-like than ever with gulping open mouth and wide eyes, she knew she had to take another action she hadn’t planned on. She solidified, dropping an inch to the floor as Harry jumped back with a hoarse shout.
“What was that? What was on that needle? What did you give me?”
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“I think you should. Because one thing’s for sure, it’s still hitting you like a ton of bricks. You can either talk about it, or you can drink yourself to death, but it’s going to be one or the other, the way you’re going.” Her voice softened. “Come on, hon. Don’t you know yet you can trust me? Whatever you tell me, goes with me to my grave. And you’ve already told me plenty.” Moira watched as Diana’s hands slowly fell to her lap, but her head remained bowed. “Don’t make me read it in a note.”
Diana looked up sharply. “I’m not suicidal, Moira.”
“Yeah? You couldn’t prove it by me. Sure, maybe you haven’t slit your wrists or anything, but I wouldn’t leave you alone with a bottle of pills. There’s more than one kind of suicide. How do you think my uncle went?”
“The Freemason?” Moira nodded solemnly, and Diana’s shoulders sagged.
“The death certificate said cirrhosis, but we all knew.”
Diana looked away, both chilled and frustrated that Moira didn’t understand. “That’s not the way it is, Moira, it’s—I just feel…horrible. All…wrong inside. Like a skein of wool that’s been played with by a cat, it feels like a mass of tangles, all snarled and knotted, nothing where it should be. Nothing feels right, nothing tastes right…”
“Should you see a doctor?”
“It’s not medical, Moira, it’s something else entirely. Gods…I want to tell you, I swear. I want to tell someone, so much. But I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Moira pursed her lips thoughtfully and reached for the pack of cigarettes on the table. “Well, I can think of one place,” she said, almost idly, as she struck a wooden match and braced her elbows on the tabletop to light the cigarette. When she finally succeeded, she blew out a gust of smoke and leaned back in her chair. “Why don’t you start by telling me about the vampires.”
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Evan then examined everyone’s wounds. We vampires, of course, needed nothing more than blood to restore us. I could already feel my injuries healing under the influence of the blood I had drunk. So Jean, Alexander and I disposed of the bodies by tossing them into the inferno that was now the White Lion, while Evan tended the others. He stitched whatever needed stitching, and soon the Druids joined us in watching the inn burn to the ground.
“This should not be the end of it,” Michael said. We all looked at him. “We worked well together. Perhaps everyone was so afraid of vampires joining with magic users simply because it had never been tried. Our powers and abilities complement each other. There is much evil in this world. We’ve proven that by working together, we can defeat it.”
“I agree, this shouldn’t end here,” I said. “What do you suggest?”
“A covenant,” the Archdruid said. He leaned on the stick that Evan had cut for him. “That we set darkness against darkness—vampire and Nameless and Druid against whatever is out there that abuses power and makes the night a thing to fear.”
“A brotherhood, of darkness,” I said.
“That’s it, exactly. The Brotherhood of Darkness. We should remain together, or at least in communication, so that whenever the need arises, we can join once more to fight.”
I could see nods of agreement, although Alexander looked dubious. Even Jean was rubbing his chin, which I knew meant he was at least considering the idea.
A Brotherhood of Darkness, banded together to save the world from those like my own bloodmaster. I silently savoured the irony. This could be a new purpose for me, something that would take me out of my grief and let me go forward, as my friends urged me to do. Between this covenant and my responsibility to see that Alexander became a decent vampire who obeyed the simple rules that made our lives bearable, I could move on. “I think it’s a splendid idea.” I clasped Michael’s hand.
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