Taunt (15 page)

“
To do
what?” I asked, fascinated.

Esther bit her
lip, and my stomach filled with dread. “He works freelance, does
all sorts of things, but the Council hired him to be a hitman. He
gets away with it because he’s human and can’t be brought up before
the Council. But it’s dangerous; I only know because Koda warned us
to ignore Peter if we found him in the middle of something
dodgy.”

She pulled her
knees up toward her and waited for my reaction. I wasn’t sure what
to think. I could see why Peter would do that job. After all,
hadn’t I been Daimhín’s own personal hitwoman when it came to
ending Maximus’s life?

“
I
guess that makes sense,” I said after a minute.

“
It’s
one of those secrets everyone knows, but nobody talks about. But I
thought I should clue you in, seeing as you’re running around with
him. Watch your back, you know? It was Brogan who got him the job;
he came up with the idea in the first place.”

My own eyes
narrowed then. Of course he did. “Eddie’s supposed to care about
Peter, and he gets him a dangerous job like that?” I was fuming.
“Esther,” I said, remembering the reaction to Peter in Becca’s bar.
“Are vampires kind of edgy around Peter because of the hitman
deal?”

Her eyes widened.
“No, that’s just a rumour as far as most vampires know. People are
scared of him for a couple of reasons. One, he doesn’t care if he
lives or dies. A suicidal human is just as dangerous as a sorcerer
or demon. Two, he’s pretty bad-ass. He is just so bloody determined
and vengeful that he won’t fall until the fight is over. He put on
a damn scary display a few years back that made everything in this
country think twice before taking him on. Maybe you should ask him
about it sometime.”

“
What
about Eddie?”

She shuddered. “I
can’t bear him. He used to be on the Council.”

“
What?
Really?”

“
Yep.
Erossi has his place now.”

“
The
immortal?”

Esther nodded
fervently. “That’s him. Eddie used to speak for the immortals, but
there was a big incident before I was born, something major
involving Eddie. It was an embarrassment; he was shamed and forced
to leave the Council. They gave him a seat as a consultant to
pacify him, and nobody talks about it, just little whispers and
rumours.”

“
Any
idea what happened?”

“
None,
it’s all very hush-hush. Some people reckon he’ll get back on the
Council one day.”

I thought about
this. “Wait, who did you say he represented?”

“
The
immortals.” Her tone said, “
Duh
.”

“
Eddie? He’s immortal?” I asked, gobsmacked.

Her mouth widened
into an "o" shape. “You didn’t know?”

“
Eh,
no! What the hell is he?”

“
I’m
not totally sure, but it’s something to do with keepers and
knowledge and sleeping gods and some such crap. I don’t know. A lot
of these creatures have very longwinded histories; I can’t keep
up.”

“
What
about you?”

“
Me? I
was born this way. Respectable family, then Daddy married beneath
himself. We were pretty happy until Mama died when I was little.
Unexpectedly too, so she never warned him she could shift into
animal form. He got the fright of his life when Aiden started doing
it in his teens. It became this big family secret, but when I
started doing it too, he knew he had to do something about
it.”

“
What
did he do?” I was riveted.

“
He
found out what we were, then paid some other shifters a lot of
money to take care of us. Eventually, we settled in and learned
what we were doing. Turned out Aiden is this hard-core alpha
figure, which ruffled a few feathers. After lots and
lots
of
shit, he took over. First as head of the pack who took us on, then
he stepped up to keep all of the shifters in line. Some of them
were practically feral, yuck!” She made a face. “The Council saw
what he was doing and offered him a seat as a consultant. Daddy had
left us a bit of money to keep us quiet so he could wash his hands
of us completely, and here we are.”

“
How
old are you, Esther?”

“
Twenty-one.” She made a face.

“
That’s pretty young for all of that Guardian responsibility.
Are you happy?”

“
Pretty much. I mean, it’s kind of cool being the alpha’s
little sister. In this world, people look up to us. When I was
growing up, my dad pretty much thought of us as freaks.” She rolled
her eyes, but I sensed her hurt.

“
I can
relate. That sounds an awful lot like my grandmother, Nancy. She
kept trying to cure me when I was a kid.”

“
Do
you mind me saying? You don’t smell like a vampire. What exactly
are you? Everyone’s calling you a daywalker. You don’t smell much
like a vampire, and I always thought a daywalker was something
mythical, you know, a vampire that wasn’t affected by the
sun?”

I couldn’t help
smiling. “You probably know more about it than I do.” I remembered
she might know more than me about lots of things. “Hey, there was a
girl in the cell next to me, Leah. I think she escaped. Do you know
anything about her?”

Esther shook her
head and changed the subject. I had a feeling she knew something
about Leah but didn’t want to say anything. That piqued my interest
even more. Esther had given me a lot to think about, yet all my
mind concentrated on was Leah.

Esther crossed
her legs and stared at me. “So tell me more about this formula that
helps humans turn into vampires. I thought Peter was crazy, but
looking at you… well, anything’s possible.”

I leaned back and
thought for a second. Where to start? “I’m not sure how much you
know about what happened to me, but both Daimhín and Maximus were
after me. So I decided to step out of the way and let the two of
them deal with each other. Becca runs the Black Rose bar, and she
was a volunteer. We went to speak to her to find out about
Maximus.”

“
Okay…”

“
So
Peter and I get to her place, and she attacks him, bites his
shoulder. I fought her, but she was scary strong, so I bit her and
drank her blood.” I bowed my head in shame at the revelation and
hurried on with the story. “Her fridge was full of bagged blood,
and Peter left because he was freaked out. I asked Becca about the
blood, and she told me there are vampires in Spain who had
perfected a formula. They had tested it on humans until it worked,
and a human was turned.”

“
Spain?” gasped Esther, horrified. “It actually
worked?”

I nodded.
“Apparently so. Anyway, there were vampires outside my home every
night after Maximus died. Then once, during the day, I saw Becca
again. She told me the vampires were sent by Gideon, and he was
after me. I asked her why she looked like shit, and she said Gideon
had taken over Maximus’s job and was experimenting on her, just
like Maximus had. She pretty much told me he’s getting the formula
from Spain.”

Esther whistled.
“That’s screwed up stuff. If that’s true, there will be war.
Literally. Not many species would be happy with the vampires
increasing in numbers. It took long enough to squash them in the
first place.” She shook her head in disbelief.

“
Yeah,
well, I reckon that Gideon’s on the exact same path as Maximus. I
think he wants more numbers so he can defeat Daimhín and earn
himself the largest blood quota. Or get rid of the quota
altogether. Except he’s planning on changing humans using that
expensive formula rather than waiting for me to dish the dirt on
how I was made.”

She shook her
head slowly. “That kind of makes sense, Ava. Pity you’ve no proof.
That blood quota is a huge bone of contention for the vamps over
here. What about you? You’re not part of the quota yet. How
come?”

I frowned at her.
“I don’t drink blood. At least not if I can help it. I don’t bite
people.”

“
You
bit Becca.”

I glared, trying
to contain my anger. “That was different; I had no choice. She was
about to kill me.”

She held her
hands up. “Hey, I’m not judging. The rules are different around
here, you know. If you have a problem with biting, maybe you could
ask the Council about the bagged blood. If you work for Daimhín,
they may end up associating you with her coven and giving you a
quota, too. She would just acquire the blood from the vampire’s
blood bank, so it’s no big deal, not really.”

“
Vampire’s blood bank?” Okay, now I had heard
everything.

“
Yes,”
she said, smiling brightly. “Daimhín makes sure her coven
supplements their diet with non-fresh blood. They don’t like it,
but it keeps them going when they run out of their share of the
fresh stuff.”

“
Then
why are some vampires starving while the coven leaders grow
fat?”

She looked taken
aback. “Ava, we can’t control the ins and outs of each coven. They
keep to themselves, particularly when it comes to dividing up the
blood quota. There’s nothing we can do.”

I remembered
Arthur and became annoyed. “If you can arrest me for defending
myself, then you can ensure vampires don’t get so crazy with hunger
that they’ll attack anything and not be able to stop. I had to do a
job for Daimhín, escort some vampire who had been starved for
months along to his first meal. He was shit-faced crazy, Esther, he
couldn’t control himself at all. Tell me how that’s okay. Something
has to be done about this stuff,” I persisted.

“
Wow,
and that’s all it took for you to start campaigning for vampire
rights,” Esther said, covering her giggles with one hand to her
mouth.

I paused,
open-mouthed with shock, as her words sank in. Why
was
I so
hard-headed about vampires like Arthur?

“
I’m
not… I mean, I’m not going to be a vampire cheerleader or anything,
but some of this stuff doesn’t seem fair. Then there’s that kid
vamp, the young girl with Daimhín, she doesn’t seem like a vampire
at all.”

“
Daimhín’s kid
is
different,” Esther said.

“
How
so?” I asked, instantly curious.

“
As
far as I know, she’s their seer. They turned her because she was
psychic. There are some supernaturals who hunt down special
children specifically to turn them or use them.” She didn’t sound
sad about it. Was that why Gabe wanted Eloise, to hear the
future?

“
Wait,
Daimhín hunted down a psychic kid specifically?” I couldn’t stop my
body from tensing.

“
Not
Daimhín personally. Trackers, probably demons. People pay good
money for that sort of thing. They probably told the vampires about
the child, and the vampires obviously waited until the girl turned
thirteen before turning her into a vampire,” Esther
said.

“
Why
thirteen? I mean, not that it’s the most screwed up thing in the
whole story or anything.”

“
Yeah,
I know,” she said, nodding. “Apparently, thirteen is the year a
psychic is at their most powerful. It’s the year a shifter first
changes, too. Something about that age draws in otherworldly power,
so Daimhín must have wanted to make sure she stayed thirteen
forever. I’m not sure how long she’s been with Daimhín, but she’s
definitely not like the other vampires. She rarely leaves Daimhín’s
side, for one thing.”

“
And
her eyes aren’t as red as the others, so she must not drink as much
blood, yet she doesn’t look like she’s starving.”

“
Yeah,
well, Daimhín would hardly starve her little pet. I can see why you
would feel sorry for that vampire,” Esther said.

“
It’s
not like any of us have chosen this life.”

“
Well,
some vampires did, back when it was possible to choose. At least,
that’s what Reuben told Aiden.”

“
Who’s
Reuben?” I was beginning to feel confused by all of the information
she threw at me. Esther was the chattiest non-human I’d met so
far.

“
He’s
another consultant to the Council. He’s a vampire, but he’s
incredibly old, so needs very little blood. Plus, he’s learned to
control the savageness of his nature. It comes with time, or so he
says.”

“
If
he’s learned it, then surely he can help them control it. If they
can come up with a formula to turn humans again, then they can
figure out how to ease the thirst.”

“
Are
you asking for them or for you?” she asked gently.

I blushed. I
supposed it was a big concern because it affected me, too. “How
long do you think we’ll have to stay in here?”

“
Ooh,
nice subject change.” She patted my shoulder and opened the door to
look outside. “Almost empty. Peter’s chewing the ear off my brother
right now. He’s going to spend the night in the cells if he isn’t
careful. So, any more questions while we’re hanging
around?”

I thought about
it. “Do all countries have their own Council?”

“
Not
all. Most of the war-torn countries have no ruling committee, which
is why they run rampant.”