DeVante's Coven (33 page)

When they were in the air high above the land, away from any and all mortal eyes, DeVante reached his thoughts to Daniel. He was relieved when Daniel responded immediately, and the boy’s thoughts were calm.
I don’t know where we are, but we’re okay.

Is he looking at you?
DeVante asked
. Can he tell that you hear me?

I don’t think so.

DeVante could hear the sound of Lily’s wail riding on Daniel’s thoughts. He tried to get into her head but her mind was a mess of jumbled terror and she could not, or would not, let him in.

Daniel, try to calm Lily, and as long as HE doesn’t seem to be aware, describe to me whatever you can see and hear. Remember how I pulled you to the house in town when you were lost? You must guide me in the same way now.

Where’s Reed?
Reed, always Daniel had to know about Reed.

With me. I tried to leave him behind but he refused.

Shit, DeVante, this guy is a freaking nut case. Can’t you put Reed somewhere, put him to sleep or something? He’s only mortal.

DeVante wanted to laugh, but refrained
. You gave your daytime sleep to him, you call him “Master”—that makes you as much his responsibility as mine. Let me repeat: I tried to leave him behind and he refused. You asked him to go all the way, not half way.

Daniel’s mental voice was a homing device, leading the way. He said out loud to Reed, “Daniel and Lily are unhurt.”

“What about the blood?”

DeVante had already forgotten the blood on his living room wall. It was of no consequence now he knew Daniel and Lily were not harmed.
Reed is concerned about the blood.

We’re okay. Tell him we’re fine. I’m fine. Tony is bound and hanging from the ceiling. Roderick is raging inside a cage beneath him—I don’t quite understand how the cage can hold him, but it does.

None of your mortals have been taken?

No.

Good. Quiet now. I know where you are. I can see your presence like a beacon.

Be careful, DeVante. This guy is barely holding control. He’s waiting for you. He wants you to find us.

I am quite aware, young one.

“There,” DeVante said to Reed, “that building, the warehouse that looks about to fall down.”

***

Tony woke up to pain. His arms were bound behind his back and a blindfold covered his eyes. Some kind of materiel was stuffed into his mouth, effectively gagging him. He was hanging in the air suspended by a tight band under his arms and around his chest, and the pressure was unbelievable. His legs hung free, which that made the pressure worse.

“I find that hard to believe,” the evil voice said with a hiss of air. “Each of those who surround you is extraordinary in some way. Look! Hanging from the ceiling is a creature that for centuries has been merely a myth.”

“Of course they are extraordinary—I would not keep them—and certainly would not change them—if it were not so, but they are hardly unique among mortals.”

Callum laughed, an ugly rattling sound. “Bullshit, DeVante, and you know it’s bullshit. You have a ragged little group of outcasts, a personal band of X-Men, each with individual talent, but collectively… well, collectively and with some organization, we could rule the world!”

“I have no aspiration to rule the world.” DeVante’s voice was clear and hard. “But I am curious what talents you think you see here. I never set out to ‘collect’ them, as you suggest, and there is no purpose to their gathering around me other than their need to learn how to protect themselves.”

“You don’t see yourself as their leader, then?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then this might be easier than I imagined.” He laughed again, and the sound sent chills up Tony’s spine. He wondered who else was hanging here, that the stranger would say was a mythical creature. Roderick?

Tony tried to visualize Roderick hanging beside him, but imagined instead Roderick below him, in a large cage, pacing and spitting and nearly out of his mind with rage. And as soon as he had the vision he could, in fact, hear snarling beneath his legs.

To the right of the cage, almost behind where Tony hung, he envisioned DeVante standing tall and straight and utterly still, and next to him a mortal with jaw and fists clenched as he stared across the room at Daniel. Daniel was crouched awkwardly on his knees on the floor, a length of chain wrapped around his throat, streaming down his spine to coil his wrists behind his back, and from there around his ankles. He was essentially hog-tied, but positioned on his knees in a way that forced his forehead to the floor.

Lily huddled beside him, unbound, knees pulled up to her chest, arms around them, as if she were making herself as small a target as possible. She stared up at Tony.

Tony had an eerie feeling that what he was seeing wasn’t his imagination at all. He realized with a shock that tonight at the club Callum looked exactly how Tony had pictured him while blindfolded the night of the fateful sex party that hurtled his destiny to this moment.

He could see beyond the blindfold, beyond his eyes, as if his imagination were a third eye with vision as accurate as the two that were rendered blind.

This new vision, however, did not show anyone else hanging from the ceiling.

DeVante asked again, “What talents do you imagine you see in those that are mine?”

“Some are obvious, some are not. I can’t believe you haven’t recognized what’s in the boy. You know. You have to know. I thought I killed him weeks ago, but he’s more powerful now then he was even then. Is he vampire, or is he vampire-slayer? Or something else altogether?”

Tony imagined DeVante’s impassive stare and wished he knew himself what they seemed to know about him. Callum went on, “The girl—I’m not sure of the girl. Or rather, I’m not sure what value an empath has to offer. But I am, of course, always willing to be surprised. She appears to be a liability, really, curled in on herself afraid to even open her eyes for fear of what she might see—secluding herself from the world—I see no strength in that, only weakness.”

Her eyes weren’t closed, Tony thought, she was looking at him. And the significance of him hanging here hit him like a physical blow, and he knew he was suspended and bound in her view so this asshole could use him against her, because he thought she was weak.

But Lily was far from weak—she secluded herself because she was strong. If she didn’t, she’d have to right every wrong she discovered in the world, regardless of any consequence to her own well-being.

Callum talked on, picking them apart, almost mocking their gifts, and Tony thought perhaps he wanted to goad them into showing their shortcomings.

“The blond—beautiful. I have seen the way mortals flock to him—in fact I think he’s more the draw than you are, DeVante. He would make an amazing spokesperson for our little organization, a pretty boy with a pretty face and a pretty smile to deliver propaganda. I’m not sure I’d call him a leader—maybe a poster child. Cute, but harmless.”

Tony could imagine how Daniel must be seething at this, spine stiffening, trying to raise his head to glare at the man. Tony thought Daniel’s gift was far more likely his brain than his looks. Roderick said the kid could split his attention eight different ways without breaking a sweat or taking a deep breath. His mind was quick, and he was intelligent far beyond his eighteen years. Genius, even, if Roderick were to be believed.

“And you, DeVante, coming to me with a mortal at your side. I must say you always astound me. It doesn’t make any sense. He is like a twig waiting to get stepped on and snapped. All he’s good for is a midnight snack.”

“So be it,” DeVante said. “That may be why I brought him, should I need his strength. You never know.”

“True,” Callum said. “I always underestimate you.” Then he moved faster than even Tony’s inner eye could follow and seemed to appear behind the mortal, arms wrapped around his neck. “Shall I have my snack now?” he asked, looking sideways at DeVante, who stood immobile, cool as can be.

“I care not,” DeVante said. “What to do with him has been plaguing my mind all night. If you make that decision, the burden is lifted from me.”

Reed,
Tony thought,
the mortal was
Daniel’s Reed
.

Callum leaned into Reed and sank fangs into neck.

Daniel struggled in his bonds, crying, and Roderick went wild, flinging himself against the bars of his cage. Lily, who had been rocking back and forth, back and forth, went still.

Callum drew back, having taken almost nothing from Reed, and eyed DeVante again. “They all get excited about that. But you don’t, DeVante. You are as cool and disciplined as ever. Nothing goads you to make a move out of turn; it’s as if you see all things clearly.”

DeVante dipped his head in acknowledgement. “That may be.”

Callum still gripped Reed, and looked into his face. “What is it that you, a mortal, mean so much to so many? I’ll warn you—whatever it is, you may lose it. We never know what qualities stay or go until we bring a mortal over. But what is it now that makes them crazy when I drink from you?”

Tony almost laughed at Callum’s misconception. For a person with a diabolical plan to rule the world, he had no insight. They all got excited about him drinking from Reed? No.

Daniel got excited about it—hell, Daniel went into a panic, which caused Roderick to go into a frenzy. Reed’s own fear screamed to Lily’s empathic nature, which raised Tony’s blood pressure. They were entwined, yes, but not because Reed himself was important—Reed was just a link.

DeVante said, “You see very little of the whole picture, Callum.”

So DeVante could see they were links of one chain.

Callum turned his back on Reed and DeVante, and approached Roderick’s cage. “This one,” he said, “he has a beast, doesn’t he? Is he part werewolf, perhaps? He’s awfully emotional for a cold-hearted vampire.” He ran a hand along the bars of the cage and Roderick quieted, watching him. Then with a growl he leapt and caught one of Callum’s fingers in his teeth. He shook it like a dog. Callum stared him down, allowing Roderick to shred his finger, not flinching, even when droplets of blood spattered his sleeve.

DeVante’s voice came sharp and clear. “Roderick—control your beast.”

Roderick quieted instantly, stilled his shaking head to suck at the blood, then allowed Callum to pull back from the cage. He examined the mess of his finger and laughed. “He’s certainly an angry one, isn’t he?”

“He is what he is,” DeVante responded.

“Weren’t you told to kill him?”

DeVante ignored the taunt. “What do you want, Old Companion, that you come here and steal away these who are under my protection?”

“An alliance, yours and mine. Roderick killed two of my minions earlier tonight, and I’d like them replaced. And as you deny these talented creatures are beholden to you, I would like them to come to me willingly.”

DeVante raised his arms in a gesture to include the whole room. “Ask them. I have no hold over any one of them. They are free to do as they wish.”

“Fine. First I will ask the Changeling,” Callum said, and Tony felt something brush his foot. His instinct was to twist away. “You’re awake. You can’t fool me. I hope you’ve been listening long enough to answer my question. Would you come to me for protection? Oh, that’s right, you’re gagged. Well, just kick your legs to agree.”

Tony held as still as he could. His chest and underarms burned from the chain that held his weight, and he could feel the links marking his skin.

“You’re not kicking your legs, boy. Well, let me tell you something. You think you can hide among the vampires? You can’t hide. What you are is going to eat you from the inside out. How ever can you hope to hide from that?”


Eat him from the inside out? Tony hoped DeVante would explain, and soon. He trembled, but otherwise stayed still, swaying from the ceiling, the muscles beneath the chains shrieking pain.

“Listen to this and see if you change your mind,” Callum said, and his tone held something Tony wasn’t sure of. His inner sight saw Callum holding a stick or wand of some kind... it was pointed towards Roderick’s cage, and Tony couldn’t imagine what the man planned to do. He shivered, waiting, hanging there in anticipation.

The wand touched the metal scrolls that made up the sides of the cage. Sparks flew, and Roderick screamed.

And kept screaming. He jumped inside the cage from wall to wall like a kernel of popping corn. If Tony could yell, agree, anything, to stop it, he would, oh he would.

It went on for what felt like minutes, long enough that Roderick gave up trying to escape and curled into a corner, still screaming, screaming.