Fallen Stars (The Demon Accords) (18 page)

Deena, who was watching us eat with a slightly disgusted look, perked right up.  “She’s the only born vampire!”

“Born?  What do you mean born?” Malcolm asked her but sliced his eyes sideways at me.

“Born like from a mother, what else would I mean?” the vampire girl answered.

“She is the natural born daughter to Galina Demidova, granddaughter of Elder Senka,” Katrina supplied, appearing suddenly to refill water glasses.

“Vampires can’t be born!  Can they?” he asked, eyes wide with confusion.

“They can’t, but
she
was!” Deena said, excited about the topic.  Stacia, on the other hand, looked mildly ill.  I just kept chewing my filet.  Next to Deena, John looked uncomfortable, but he remained quiet.

“So what does that mean?” Coreena asked.

“It means that she is unlike any other Darkken, ever!  She is only about twenty five or so years old, but her speed and strength already rivals the oldest vampires!” Deena said.  “And
he’s
her Chosen!” she said, pointing at me.

“What’s a Chosen?” Malcolm asked.

Katrina leaned down between Stacia and me to slide another filet onto my plate.  “It was Gabe’s, and the chef didn’t want to see it get cold,” she said, turning back to Malcolm.

“Vampires Choose lifemates, kinda like wolves,” she said, nodding at 'Sos.  “Once they’ve Chosen, they
never
change their minds,” she said, picking up Stacia’s bread plate to remove it, despite the fact that the roll on it was untouched.

“So is she at least hot?” Malcolm asked, looking at Stacia as if questioning my choices.

“She is spectacularly beautiful, right, Chris?” Katrina asked.  It seemed someone was taking it on herself to deliver a message to Stacia.

“Yes, in all ways.  Listen, Malcolm, what will your uncle likely do about Jetta and her brother?” I asked, hoping for a topic shift.

“He’s pretty big on following Pack Law.  Since Masten basically confessed to killing their parents, I think he will most likely feel bad for them.  That’s why he let Gabe go with them.  I think Gabe feels the same way, and Uncle Ned listens to him.”

“It doesn’t really matter, does it?  The FBI has them,” Coreena asked, looking at me.

“I don’t think there’s much evidence, if any, against them.  The biggest piece, the gun, disappeared with Jep.  If the Pack is feeling sympathetic to them, then I would guess the gun will soon be on the bottom of a lake or garbage dump.”

“They might confess,” Deena pointed out. 

Beside her, John shook his head slightly. “I doubt it.  If I understand it right, those kids traveled here from Kentucky and got jobs, a place to live, and then hunted down their enemies.  Not your average teenagers.  Plus, Gabe won’t let them say anything.  What other evidence is there?”

“Almost none.  No witnesses, no fingerprints, nothing really forensic.  Even if they found a hair from Jetta on one of the bodies, it’s explainable.  She’s been serving them food for weeks,” Stacia said.

Beside me, Awasos crunched his bone loudly.  Correction, remnants of bone.  He had crushed the big cow bone into splinters and fragments, with just a grapefruit-sized chunk left.  It was a big mess.  I squatted down and started to pick up the pieces.

“What are you doing?” Deena asked.

“Cleaning up for messy here,” I said. 'Sos paused in his chewing to whuffle my hair.  “Yeah, thanks for the help.”

“Shouldn’t you leave that for the staff?” Deena asked, honestly puzzled.

“My mother would have killed me dead if I made a big mess in my host’s house and didn’t clean it up,” I said, piling the bigger shards of bone into my napkin.  Katrina appeared at my side with a dust pan and mini broom and started sweeping.

“The Chosen of the Young Queen sweeping the floor?” Deena said, aghast.

“Better than cleaning bathrooms, mucking a cow barn, or emptying a grease trap in a restaurant, all of which I’ve done.”

“
Some
of the higher-ranked Darkken don’t mind getting their hands dirty,” Katrina said, picking up the last of the debris and heading back to the kitchen.

“Who the hell is she anyway?” Deena asked.

“She’s one of Tanya’s oldest friends.  She’s mostly outside of the political structure, does stuff directly for Tanya,” I answered.

“She was turned a bit young, don’t you think?” Deena asked John.

“Yes, age twelve.  We’ve managed to
age
her a bit,” I answered before he could respond.

A waiter who I had seen serving Granger at dinner approached us before any more comments were made.

“Mr. Gordon, Ms. Reynolds?  The Alpha has asked if you would join him and his guests in the library for brandy.”

“Ah, okay,” I answered after a glance at Stacia.

The library was floor-to-ceiling built-in shelves of dark wood, maybe mahogany, with the requisite fireplace and high-backed chairs.  Ned, Jep, Kral, Janek, Sandy Tillman the accountant, and three other men were milling about the small dry bar, sipping either brandy or scotch, from the smell of it.  They all looked up when we came in, then looked behind us as the local Coven representative, John, followed.

“I apologize for the seating arrangements at dinner.  I think it would have suited us all to have you closer to the rest of us, but it was too difficult to change at the last moment,” Ned said.

I waved it off.  “It let me keep an eye on Awasos,” I said.  “Or maybe it let him keep an eye on me.”  They all laughed, but 'Sos’s body language looked smug.

“Did he really crap on the warlock’s car?” Jep asked in a deep rumble.

“Yes.  He’s been learning to get back at people who insult him.  Or maybe I should say he’s learned nonverbal comebacks.”

Again they laughed.  Kral shifted stance slightly.  “Mr. Gordon, I wanted to speak some more with you and Ms. Reynolds before the night was over.  Our next stop in our journey is New York.  I’ve known the Malleks for a long, long time, and they’ve also agreed to host my children as part of our little werewolf exchange program.”

“They’ll learn a lot.  The Malleks are pretty sharp people,” I said.

“Yes, and I understand that their oldest son has formed a successful new Pack in upstate New York.  That’s the kind of thing I want Janek and Darina to observe and learn from.”

Stacia laughed, causing Kral to look at her sharply.  She waved one slender hand at his frown.

“I’m laughing because Chris owns the land the new Pack lives on.  He’s their landlord and helped them get set up.”

Vrana’s frown turned to surprise as he looked at me for confirmation.

“I grew up by the Canadian border, where my family owns a good bit of farm and woodland.  It made sense to offer it to Brett and Kelly for their Pack.  They make good tenants.”

Stacia started to look around herself in a sudden flurry.  “Excuse me, gentlemen. I left my purse in the other room.  I’ll be right back.”

Kral turned back to me after we all watched her graceful exit.  “I understand you also have connections to the Coven?”  He glanced at John for confirmation.

“That, Mr. Vrana, is something of an understatement.  He is the Chosen of Elder Senka’s granddaughter,” the vampire said, still looking a bit uncomfortable.

“You know Senka herself?”

“Ah, yeah.  She takes a big interest in anything and everything in Tanya’s life.”

“My father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather all dealt with Senka during their times as Alpha, as did the Alphas before them.  My Pack occupies the land of her ancestral home,” he said formally.  His demeanor changed when he spoke of her, like she was a very respected opponent or something.

I was trying to figure out what to say next.  Senka wasn’t on my good side at the moment, but I wasn’t going to air out Coven family laundry with strangers.  Stacia chose that moment to come rushing back into the room.

“Chris, the box is gone!  It was in my purse and now it’s gone!” she said, holding up the too-large handbag she had brought with her.  It took me a second to remember the carven wooden box that had once held the Book of Darkest Sorrow.

“What box?  Maybe it fell out?” Ned asked.

“It held the grimoire, the one that the two witches were so interested in,” I explained, holding up one hand as Ned and Jep’s expressions turned to alarm. “But the book is safe. We booby trapped the box, so whoever took it is in for a real big surprise.”

“Let’s see if they’re outside!” Ned said, leading the group out of the library, down the central hallway, and out the front door.  Several couples looked up, in the process of leaving, as we came rushing through the door.  Ahead, on the long, winding driveway, taillights glowed as a sports car rushed out to the main road.  The brakelights flashed as the driver paused the car out on the main road.  A second later, every window in the car exploded outward in a blinding flash of white light.  A split second after that, the reverberating blast reached our ears.

“We put a flashbang in the box,” I said.

Everyone’s attention was on the distant vehicle.  Jep ran to his truck, followed by two of his packmates.  The rest of us watched as he headed down the driveway to intercept the stunned thief.

Suddenly, I felt Grim surge forward, seizing control of my body and starting to move me sideways.  Something slapped my forehead and then the ground was rushing up to meet my face.  Blackness crashed into me as a second, sharper bang reached my ears, after that… nothing.

Chapter 19

Forest, dark, still, silent.  Pine needles were cushioning my feet as the world spun around me.  Off balance and dizzy, my mind struggling to get through cobwebs and confusion. 

Where the hell was I?  What was I doing?  How did I get here?

The edge of the forest was twenty feet ahead.  Beyond that was open lawn for two hundred yards, then a house.  Big house of stone, long, straight driveway filled with cars, pools of electric light, people shouting and shocked.

The forest was quiet, not naturally quiet, but the no-insect noises, small-animal-frozen quiet that follows a disturbance.   Although I could barely keep my balance, my foggy senses still registered something or somethings approaching at great speed.

Rushing feet pounding the grass, two four-footed forms flying over the lawn.  I tried to clear my thoughts, to order the chaos that is my brain.  I should have been doing something, planning something before the rushers got here, but it was too late.  They arrived—two huge wolves, one dark, one white.  The dark one was giant, larger than any wolf I’ve ever heard of, making the white wolf look almost normal, if two hundred pounds is normal.  Heck, the white one could harness the brown one and ride it like a horse.

They slid to a stop and stared.  Then they moved forward and I stumbled back, hands up.  I remembered dogs… I’m good with dogs, but I don’t know shit about wolves.  They stopped—puzzled.  The white one fell on the ground and began to writhe and twist, growling and whimpering.  She—somehow I knew it’s a she—pops and snaps, her limbs changing and shifting.  White fur disappears, replaced with tanned skin and blonde hair.  All the while, the big, brown one watched me, whining softly.

The girl stands up, one hand on the broad back of the dark wolf for balance.  She’s watching me, worried and cautious.  She’s also very, very naked and beautiful. Platinum blonde hair and eyes that capture all the green of Ireland.

“What’s the matter?  Why are you backing away from us?” she asked, her voice clear and light.  A blur distracted me.  Another girl is just suddenly standing there, a couple of yards behind the dark wolf.  She’s only a teenage kid, maybe a pretty coed, but her brown eyes looked old and her skin was almost alabaster white.  She’s holding a dark cloth which she handed to the naked blonde.

“What’s the matter with him?  Why is he looking at us like that?” the new one asked.

“Well, Katrina, he just took a high powered rifle round to the head, so the fact that he’s standing at all is probably a good thing,” the blonde said as she shimmied into the black dress the other had given her.  The teen glared at the blonde.  I was unsure of almost everything going on, but I was pretty sure of one thing—these two didn’t like each other.

The big wolf was closer than he’d been a second ago.  I had been distracted by the girls talking, not to mention the shimmying thing with the dress.  He whined at me, his face expressing something plaintive.

I’m not usually afraid of canines.  Even the meanest junkyard dog won’t bite me.  A gift from God, perhaps.  I held out my hand, and he slunk forward till his giant head was under my palm.

“Chris?  How are you doing?” the blonde asked.  I had to think about that for a moment, but then it was clear… Chris was
my
name.  Christian, actually.  Christian Anthony Gordon.  It popped into my head and I felt suddenly a bit better.

“What do you mean he got shot?  I was in the kitchen when the yelling started,” the teen asked.

“That guy shot him in the head.  He dropped for a second, then he was gone so fast I couldn’t follow the motion.  I saw blood spray and his head is bloody, but I don’t see a wound, so it must have healed already,” the blonde said. “Two more shots, but they missed.  He was too fast.”