Omega (2 page)

William was soft. It was unthinkable that he’d spurned the life of immortality and power and wealth Matthias had offered him, despite his mental limitations, and had thrown in his lot for an easy, uncomplicated life with that Irish peasant Aidan Murphy. Yet it had happened. And if he didn’t retrieve him soon, Matthias knew he’d never get his son back. If William hadn’t already been too brainwashed by Murphy and his peace-loving scathe members to be salvageable.

He still hoped to get the boy out of this situation alive, without the Tribunal accusing William of treason and himself of favoritism. His son would have to be punished, and severely, for supporting the rebels. And punished again for leaving Matthias’s household.

At the end of it, Matthias would take William home.

At the end of it, once William had been broken enough to accept his role, they’d be able to take over the Tribunal.

At the end of it, Matthias would be untouchable.

Using the makeshift stake covered in the blood of the unfortunate David Jackson, Matthias wedged the pointed end under the crack at the edge of the floor panel and hefted it up. It opened into a narrow vertical tunnel with a ladder attached to the wall, leading downward into a basement. Matthias descended slowly, testing his weight on every rung as he’d done on each prior trip into the bowels of underground Penton. In his suit coat pocket, he’d stuffed a folded sheaf of papers.

Murphy had come up with a clever living system, Matthias had to admit. Below the clinic was the building’s original basement, an empty shell that Matthias was surprised hadn’t been put to use. At the far end, under another elaborate locked hatch, was yet another stairwell into a deep subbasement. However the people of Penton had gotten out, it had likely been in some kind of underground passage, since they’d already proven adept at building them. He just had to find out where they had escaped
to.

In the subbasement, the concrete and rebar gave way to a carpeted hallway lined with lavishly furnished suites. The far end had collapsed in the explosion, so Matthias had no idea how many suites lay beyond the six on this side. It had been a brilliant setup, with lighttight guest suites. Although a couple of them locked from the outside to keep “visitors” in, he’d found the keys in the clinic desk drawer, and these plush, lockable rooms made the perfect place to stash his secret weapon.

He slid the key into the lock and swung the heavy wooden door inward. The room was dimly lit with a couple of fluorescent lanterns, but he could see the woman well enough. Her riot of strawberry blonde curls partially covered a drawn, pale face. And if looks really could kill, her silvery-green eyes would have shoved a stake right up his ass.

Matthias smiled. In his previous visits, she’d been too racked by the pain of her transition and physical healing to talk, but he’d brought one of his two humans down to feed her for a few minutes at a time, and now she was hungry but lucid.

Exactly the way he intended to keep her.

He’d expected the woman to scream or beg as soon as she recognized him—and she did recognize him, whether or not she knew his name. It would be hard to forget the man who’d been responsible for ending her human life.

“I’m Matthias Ludlam.” He closed the door behind him and walked into the suite, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. Silver-laced rope bound her ankles and secured her arms to the bedposts at an angle that would make it impossible for her to get comfortable. Not that a newly hatched vampire ever got truly comfortable—or posed much of a threat. “I’m head of the Vampire Tribunal Justice Council.”

“I know who you are, you bastard. What do you want with me?” Her transition hadn’t wiped out that horrendous Southern drawl, unfortunately, and she still had that wholesome country-girl look.

“Let’s start by telling me your name.”

She paused. “Lucy Sinclair.”

Matthias laughed. “I met Lucy Sinclair a number of years ago, and she’s dead. We found what was left of her in the ruins of the Penton municipal building. Besides, she was vampire, and until three days ago, you were quite human. Let’s try again, girl—it will go more easily if you cooperate. Your name?”

She clenched her jaw, but spat out two words: “Melissa Calvert.”

“Let’s see if we can confirm that.” Matthias extracted his sheaf of papers and unfolded them. He scanned the list of names printed in two columns on one of the last sheets and began laughing again. He’d been assembling this partial list of Penton residents for over a year from various sources, trying to find a way inside Murphy’s organization. It had finally paid off.

“You’re Aidan Murphy’s familiar?” A flush of pleasure sped up his heart rate. This was perfect. “No wonder he had such a reaction when we twisted that pretty little neck of yours. My instincts to quickly have you drained and turned were exactly the right move.” Murphy had looked ready to explode when
he’d seen the woman killed a few feet from where he stood, and only the intervention of one of his lieutenants had held him back from getting his own neck snapped.

The irony that he’d committed the same crime for which he planned to kill Aidan Murphy wasn’t lost on him. But the Tribunal had told him to take Murphy down by any means necessary. And turning Melissa Calvert vampire was just another means.

“If you think I’ll give you information on Aidan, forget it.” She struggled against the ropes. “All you accomplished was creating another pair of fangs to feed.”

“Perhaps. But you’ll have to give me some useful information before you’re allowed to feed again. You’ll be amazed at how long you can last without feeding, and how painful it is.” A lot of his kind were learning that hard lesson, and it would only grow worse as more time passed. All the more reason to break up a place like Penton, where the vampire citizens were bonding humans so they couldn’t be shared outside the scathe.

“Now that I know who you are, I imagine you could say a lot I’d be interested in hearing. When you get hungry enough, your devotion to your precious Aidan Murphy will pale beside your desire to survive.” Matthias stood and walked the length of the suite, hands in his pockets. Aidan Murphy’s human familiar. This was better than he could have hoped for. Matthias didn’t keep single fams—it was more intimacy than he was willing to grant a human. This one was important to Murphy. He’d seen agony in the man’s face when he thought he’d seen her die.

Familiars, or fams, were loyal, however, and she hadn’t been turned long enough to lose that loyalty. There was no point in trying to get her to tell him anything directly about Murphy, even under enthrallment, not until she was truly desperate.

Matthias looked at her thoughtfully. Would Murphy be able to tell she was alive because of her bonds to him? If so, all the better—it would bring him out of hiding faster. He’d want to play the hero.

Matthias had spotted another person named Calvert on the Penton list. It wasn’t that common a name, so chances were good that Mark Calvert was related to this one somehow, which might give him leverage without resorting to torture. Torturing a newly made vampire was rarely effective. They had an annoying tendency to die.

He perched on the edge of the bed again and laid a hand on her ankle. She flinched. “Don’t you want to help Mark? Don’t you wonder what happened to him?”

Melissa stilled and clamped her lips shut, but Matthias saw the streak of fear cross her face. Good.

“Is Mark your brother?” His name was next to that of Krystal Harris, the woman who Murphy had turned vampire against Tribunal law and who was also his mate, so this Mark Calvert was strictly a feeder and not a lover. Mated vampires didn’t stray. “Ah, husband, perhaps.” Even better. How cozy for Murphy and his mate to have a human couple as their feeders. Almost like a foursome.

Melissa said nothing, but she dropped her gaze, which told him what he needed. They hadn’t captured Mark Calvert, but his wife couldn’t know that for sure.

Matthias sat on the edge of the bed again. “Mark wasn’t as stubborn as you’re being. He’s cooperating, and that’s how I know about Omega. Mark’s already told me they went into Omega.”

Her eyes widened. “Mark would never tell you where…” She pressed her lips together again.

But she’d given herself away. She knew plenty, and Aidan Murphy’s sentimental willingness to share information with his human familiar made her more valuable than Matthias ever could have hoped.

Yes, Melissa Calvert had much to tell him.

Beginning with how a whole town of humans and vampires had suddenly disappeared, and where they’d gone.

“Y
ou must be planning something big. Hope it’s gonna be fun.”

The building supply checkout clerk was dark haired, pretty, and pink cheeked. Not to mention a flirt.

Will Ludlam studied the woman’s name tag. “I always find a way to make work fun, Cindy.”

He lifted his gaze to her face, gave her a smile that showed off his dimples, and felt her heart rate jump a few notches in response. Oh yeah, he still had the touch. Too bad the scent from that same heartbeat told him she’d been vaccinated for the pandemic virus that had turned human blood poisonous to vampires three years ago.

Then, he’d have waited around until her shift ended and taken her somewhere private for a good feed. She’d have finished the night with a love bruise on her neck and a regrettably vague memory of the best orgasm of her life.

Those were the good old days. Now, in the bad new days, he paid for his supplies and pushed his oversized cart into the
dark edge of the megastore parking lot. Not that there would be members of his father’s Tribunal hit squad hanging around the Home Depot in Opelika, Alabama, but one couldn’t be too cautious, especially if one lived thirty miles away in Penton.

Correction: if one lived in the underground bunker outside Penton known as Omega, where what was left of Aidan Murphy’s vampire scathe and their bonded humans had been forced to flee after his father blew up half the town.

He did a quick inventory as he unloaded the flat cart and piled supplies in the back of the beat-up black pickup that belonged to one of the Penton humans. His own wheels, a sweet cream-colored vintage Corvette, was too conspicuous to drive around in these days, and most of the town’s vehicles had been blown to smithereens by one of Dear Old Dad’s minions three days ago when they’d torn through Penton like Sherman burning Atlanta.

Of course, to be fair, Will had done a fair share of the burning himself. He’d torched his own home and all those belonging to the Penton lieutenants. No point in leaving anything Matthias might find instructive or incriminating.

Their escape hadn’t exactly been well-timed and leisurely—thus, his shopping trip.

Plywood. Nails. Screws. Lots and lots of batteries. Two more generators. More filters for the air-cleaning system. Every fluorescent lantern in stock, in case the generators failed. Soundproofing panels for the generator room. Those noisy, noxious things were even causing the vampires to have headaches, so acoustical tiles on walls and ceilings would help.

Ninety-eight people had gone into Omega. Some of them were in for the long haul, but most of the newer scathe members and familiars were having second thoughts now that they’d
had a couple of days to realize what living underground really entailed.

Aidan had met with Will, Mirren, and the other lieutenants last night to plan an exit strategy for all but their core group.

Moods had been bleak, and everyone agreed they had to start wiping memories and getting people out of there a few at a time. They couldn’t go en masse. Most of the people in Penton had lost their vehicles, and retrieving the ones left in town was too risky. Besides, Matthias would have the roads out of Penton watched, as well as the streets of Atlanta, looking for an influx of new vampires and bonded humans. But they could take out a few at a time, put them in transitional safe houses owned by the Penton scathe, and make sure they didn’t remember anything that would play into Matthias’s hands.

The Penton scathe would be easy to identify, being pretty much the only well-fed vampires around these days. Aidan’s peaceful community of vampires and their willingly bonded human familiars had been perfect until their numbers grew large enough to threaten the Tribunal and their old ways of doing things.

Now, thanks to Will’s father and a bunch of trumped-up charges, they were all in a clusterfuck nobody knew how to escape. Some of the newer scathe members would leave, and he couldn’t blame them. They’d joined the Penton community to live peacefully, not end up in a war with the vampire ruling body. But the lieutenants like Will would stay with Aidan, no matter what. Penton was worth saving and rebuilding. They just had to figure out a way to survive.

Will had designed the Omega facility with three access points. The entrance from the community center basement had been destroyed by the first of Matthias’s bombs, killing a lot of
people who’d been gathered for a town hall meeting. The second, located in the sanctuary of the Baptist church downtown, was known to the townspeople but had been well camouflaged, unless one knew where to look. But how many people Matthias had looking was the big question. Will had sensed patrols around Penton as he went in and out for supplies. The old bastard himself might be in town.