Blood Possession (18 page)

Napolean dropped his head in his hands and massaged his temples. “My father is here,” he whispered, lowering his hands and scanning the deck. “Somewhere…”

“No,” Brooke insisted. “It’s just me...and you. Napolean?”

He stared blankly ahead.

“Look at me,” she said.

He turned his head in her direction, but his eyes remained decidedly vacant—as if fixed on something that wasn’t there.

Brooke swallowed hard and mustered her courage. She might regret this decision for the rest of her life, but she was still going to make it. God help her; she just couldn’t let him suffer. She stood up, rose to her full height, and crossed her arms over her chest in a firm, unyielding stance. And then, in an authoritative, no-nonsense voice, she shouted his name: “Napolean!”

He jolted.

“
That is enough!
”

He lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes finally making lucid contact.

“Get up! Now!” she insisted. Her heart was beating a mile a minute as she whispered, “Please
…
come back to me,
milord.
I need you
.”

twelve

Salvatore Nistor picked up the heavy—expensive—crystalline vase from the center of the council chamber table and threw it across the room, hissing as the heavy object exploded into a thousand little pieces. And then he slammed his fist through the table.

“Are you done yet?” Oskar Vadovsky inquired, staring at his nails as if he were bored.

“Done?” Salvatore spat. “
Done
? No, I’m not done! I’m hardly getting started.” He picked up his chair and smashed it to smithereens on the concrete floor, and then he grabbed a metal leg and snapped it in half just to punctuate his sentence.

“Very well—then you will stand for the remainder of our meeting.”

Salvatore clenched his fists at his sides, threw back his head, and roared like a lion, shaking the light fixtures not only in the room but all the way down the hall. “How many women have we sacrificed?” He began pacing. “How many bodies have we drained? How much blood have we offered to the dark lord, Ademordna, in exchange for his malevolent blessings?” He spun around quickly, causing Demitri Zeclos to jump back in his seat, startled.

“I understand, Salvatore,” Oskar murmured.

“No,” Salvatore argued, feeling like steam was about to rise from his ears. “I honestly don’t think you do. Magick spells are not like…McDonald’s hamburgers,” he ranted. “You can’t just get another one around the corner!”

“
McDonald’s hamburgers?
” Milano Marandici echoed. “Dude: You really need to chill!”

Salvatore met Milano’s eyes with an icy glare. He appreciated his dark brother’s presence on the council—after all, he, Demitri, and Milano had orchestrated a masterful coup to overturn the previous council chief not all that long ago—but now was not the time to screw with him.

He wasn’t in the mood.

“Napolean Mondragon was
this
close”—he held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart—“to killing himself!”

No one spoke.

“And that…
bitch
! What in Hades was she thinking? She had her freedom! All she had to do was walk away.”

Oskar slammed his gavel down on the uneven part of the table that was still standing. He had clearly had enough. “Are we going to replay the events all night, or are we going to hatch another plan?”

“Sure,” Salvatore snarled. “Would you like that plain or with cheese? Perhaps I should hold the pickles!”

Milano shook his head and rubbed his temples. “Do you eat food or something now?” he asked, perplexed.

Salvatore folded his hands in front of him. “Sure I do—right after I consume a pound of flesh!” He dove across the table, snatched Milano up by the collar, and lunged at his neck. His fangs gnashed together as Milano flew back, barely causing him to miss.

“What the hell, man?” Milano shouted. “Damn, Salvatore!” He levitated backward and rose upward, his back brushing the wide expanse of the wall until he was at last hovering safely near the ceiling. “Pick another whipping post!”

Oskar sighed. “The next male who acts up in this room will have
me
to answer to.” His eyes met Salvatore’s squarely, and Salvatore quickly looked away. Everyone knew that Oskar Vadovsky was not one to toy with. He had been so incensed the day they had orchestrated their coup—at the audacity of a male in the house of Jaegar to actually attack another male for political purposes, to commit high treason—that he had punished each of them severely. Milano still had the scars where his missing eye had once been—Oskar had refused to let him regenerate—and Demitri, well, what he was missing kept him from comfortably riding horseback…or women.

And Salvatore…

He swallowed hard.

Salvatore had been the most insolent and defiant of the band, so proud of their treachery, in fact, that he had refused to show any remorse, not even a hint of repentance. He had taunted Oskar—flaunted his arrogance—until Oskar had eventually snapped…

And then the crazed, ancient Dark One had broken him.

Right there on the table.

In front of all the men.

Committing the ultimate act of violation and degradation … upon Salvatore.

Salvatore shook his head. It had been horrendous … unthinkable. An act so shocking and vile that no one ever mentioned it. He prayed no one ever thought of it. Such a thing had never happened in the house of Jaegar before, and it would never happen again.

They were all straight: heterosexual.

In fact, they had made a regular Olympic sport out of brutalizing human women—complete with organizing teams and keeping score—and he could only hope that everyone still held him in the highest regard…as a male. After all, he was still the most advanced sorcerer in the house of Jaegar—or at least that was his opinion—and his violence against human females was legendary.

Oskar narrowed his eyes and Salvatore looked away.

“Now then,” Oskar said, “what do you have in mind to correct the situation, Salvatore?”

Salvatore snorted and ran his tongue over his teeth: Dark lords, what he wouldn’t give for payback. “He’s never going to kill himself now—not since he’s found the woman…his
destiny
…bitch!” He closed his eyes and allowed himself to imagine. “Do you know what I would give for five minutes with Napolean Mondragon’s woman…in a dark alley?”

The other males laughed.

Salvatore shivered. “I would probably be too worked up to perform. I don’t even know if a method of murder has been invented that is graphic enough for what I would do to that whore.”

Milano nodded. “There’s got to be a way to break Napolean.”

Oskar raised his eyebrows. “Yeah…you and whose army? We tried that, and how many did he leave dead?”

He was referring to the day the warriors had come to rescue Ciopori from Salvatore’s lair. Napolean had faced off with them in the hall, leaving eighty-seven soldiers—all strong Dark Ones, all once-powerful warriors—dead in his wake. Salvatore had to give credit where credit was due: The male was fearsome.

“It would take a dark lord himself to do it,” Milano said.

Demitri nodded. “And even then, Napolean would have to cooperate.”

Salvatore held up his hand. “Wait a minute.”

Oskar sat forward. “Yes?”

“What would it take…” He started pacing as he considered the new dilemma, mentally consulting the Blood Canon in his head—now that Nachari Silivasi had stolen it, he could no longer open its dark pages. Thank the dark lords he had memorized it word for word.

A new idea began to unfold.

Smiling, he spun around and quit pacing. “Possession,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“Excuse me?” Milano asked.

“Possession,” Salvatore repeated, practically purring the word. “We call upon the Dark Lord Ademordna to enter, say, a human host in the form of a snake or a worm—and then we somehow get the human close enough to Napolean’s body to transfer the worm. Ademordna takes over Napolean and kills his
destiny
—a far easier task than killing the whore ourselves.”

“Then Ademordna relinquishes Napolean’s body, and the king dies a very slow, painful death as a result of the Blood Curse.” Oskar smiled. “I love the idea—the ancient king of the house of Jadon is taken out by the Curse for failing to make the required sacrifice: Of all the males to screw that up, it’s poetic.”

“It worked on Shelby Silivasi,” Salvatore offered, remembering his late brother Valentine’s successful plan to destroy the youngest Silivasi male by destroying his mate Dahlia—but not before he had used her well to produce a son of his own. “There you have it—since no one has a chance in hell of actually getting anywhere near Napolean’s
destiny
to kill her,
we simply let the love-struck king do it himself.”

Everyone nodded except for Demitri. “Yeah, okay. It all sounds great in theory, but how the hell do we get this human—who is now possessed by a worm—anywhere near Napolean Mondragon? And even if we do, how the hell do we get Napolean to kill the human and swallow the worm? Doesn’t the transfer have to take place at the exact moment of the host’s death? Assuming we can beseech Lord Ademordna to grant such a thing—when was the last time any sorcerer in the house of Jaegar conjured a spell powerful enough to invoke Blood Possession?”

Oskar nodded and leaned forward, indicating that he was taking over the floor. “That is true, Salvatore. Assuming we could get close enough to Napolean to plant the worm—and assuming Napolean would actually cooperate by killing the human—how would you gain Lord Ademordna’s assistance?”

Salvatore rubbed his chin, where a distinct three-o’clock shadow was beginning to grow. He had been too busy concentrating on destroying Napolean to shave lately. “I’ll admit,” he said cautiously, “the price for such a thing would be extremely high. Blood. Sacrifice. More blood than we’ve ever offered before. But with Oskar’s recent directive to kill humans in Dark Moon Vale”—he nodded his regard to their council chief—“and to leave them in plain sight for the humans to find, we have collected more vials of sacrificial blood than ever before. Our storehouses are full.”

“Which, if we’re lucky, will be just enough to garner an audience with the Dark Lord—to get his attention: What will he require for the possession?” Oskar asked.

Salvatore took a deep breath and faced all the males at the table from the opposite end of Oskar. “How badly do you really want Napolean?”

Oskar cleared his throat. “What will it take, Salvatore?”

Salvatore frowned. “A firstborn son from a prominent family within the house of Jaegar…one for every day of possession we require.”

Oskar scooted back in his chair, stood, and walked to the far wall, briefly turning his back to the table. When he turned around, his face was ghostly pale. “Sacrifice a firstborn son from our own colony? One every day just for the mere…possibility…of getting to Napolean Mondragon?”

Salvatore nodded. There was no way to sugar-coat it. “Yes.”

Oskar blew out a long breath and shook his head. “Do we even have the power to make such a decree?”

“No,” Demitri and Milano answered in unison.

“But,” Salvatore added, “we do have the ability to put it to a colony-wide vote, to have the house of Jaegar pass the decree as a democracy. Do not underestimate the anger of our males toward the house of Jadon or their thirst to avenge the death of our warriors—not to mention our infants. I believe the males would vote for such an extreme measure and be willing to draw straws to see which families would…offer…a son, and in what order.”

“Do the deaths have to be painful?” Oskar asked, outwardly cringing.

“No,” Salvatore reassured him. “Dispatch the hearts while still beating, remove the head, and incinerate the body. We would immortalize them all as martyrs, build statuaries in their likenesses. Their families would be…compensated.”

“How?” Oskar asked.

Salvatore shrugged. “I don’t know…we’ll think of something.”

Oskar walked back to the table, placed both palms on the surface, and stared at Salvatore. His mouth turned up in a foul, wicked grin. “Are you sure you want to go forward with this, Salvatore?” Before he could answer, Oskar added, “Think long and hard, Sorcerer: You are a firstborn son, remember?”

This time Milano whistled low beneath his breath.

“Would you die, Salvatore, to take out Napolean?” Oskar asked pointedly.

Salvatore closed his eyes.

It was true—he preferred to stick around for a long, long time. And if they all left well enough alone, and were careful to avoid the new hunting parties being organized by the warriors in the house of Jadon, they all had a good chance of achieving that goal. But then he thought of Valentine dying alone in the Dark Moon Vale lodge at the hands of Marquis and Nachari Silivasi, and his blood boiled. There could be no greater blow to any male in the house of Jadon—save perhaps the loss of his own mate—than the loss of their leader, Napolean. Napolean had no son. There was no one in the line of succession. The ripples would be astronomical…generational. Perhaps the sons of Jaegar and the sons of Jadon could at last go to war.

“Yes,” Salvatore answered, “if it came to that.” He shrugged then, already thinking of another angle. “But then the house of Jaegar would be without its most gifted sorcerer. Maybe an exemption is in order…for council members.”

Oskar shook his head with disgust. “You never cease to amaze me, Salvatore.”

The sorcerer smiled. “Then do we take it to a colony-wide vote?”

Oskar grunted. “Gather up all of the sacrificial vials and go consult Lord Ademordna. See if this thing is even possible before we approach our colony.”

Salvatore nodded, but he already knew the answer.

Selling the need to sacrifice their own to the colony at large would not be an easy task; however, selling the image of Napolean Mondragon possessed by the evil spirit of the Dark Lord Ademordna would be another matter altogether. The possibility that he would then take the life of his own bitch…and leave the house of Jadon leaderless and vulnerable? It was simply too delicious to pass up.