The Vampire's Seduction (22 page)

My computer said I had mail.

Frederica is out of Amsterdam—safe although damaged. She is in Lillith’s care.

So my words to Reedrek were only partly untrue. Good. Vampires did not take captivity well. There was no imagining the horrors Frederica had faced alone and at the whim of Reedrek’s imagination. Best to leave her to the females. Lillith would know what had to be done. If she couldn’t save poor, tortured Frederica, she would kill her and end the suffering.

As I queued up a box to answer, I considered whether to inform my network of New World friends that Reedrek was in Savannah. They would want to know, want to help. It could mean all-out war. I wasn’t ready to bring my web of contacts out in the open just yet. Their representatives would be in town soon enough—at our All Hallows soiré. Better to see what I could do to throw a hitch in Reedrek’s plans before they arrived.

To accomplish that, I needed to find him.

“Go find Miss Olivia’s bag and bring me something she has worn,” I instructed Deylaud. He returned with a lace camisole that looked as fragile as blue ice crystals.

The bone box seemed warmer than usual, as though it had anticipated my touch. The shells had led me to Reedrek before; I trusted that they would do so again if I asked the proper question. But first I would find Olivia. I sat down and rubbed my eyes to clear the dust motes of fatigue. It was three hours past sunrise and I hoped my lack of sleep wouldn’t interfere with my connection to Lalee’s gifts.

I held Olivia’s undergarment to my face and breathed in her scent. Then I shook the box and tossed the shells out on the polished wood at my feet.

Olivia? Where are you, Olivia?
They tumbled and then righted themselves into their own magical code.

Immediately the view of my office shifted sideways, and I found myself back in the tunnels of the city below. Flying. Whispers like the flutter of bats hurtled by me in the dark. Damp cobwebs of displaced time brushed my face and hands. A right turn, then a left. Dead faces watching me from the gray air.

Olivia . . .

I found them in the deepest tunnel. One that even I rarely visited. Too much like visiting a grave. A coffin was comforting, but being buried in the damp, wormy loam reeked of a smothering-hell kind of eternity. Deep scratches marred the stone wall of the tunnel, and dirt had been flung out to make a space inside. A shifting morass of hibernating snakes filled the corners. I hesitated on the threshold. The place even smelled like death—old bodies and decay. I wondered what had prompted fiery Olivia to visit a place so devoid of warmth.

Then I saw her, the bright patch of her silver hair glowing through the gloom like a beacon. She was curled up, sleeping like a babe, in the arms of my immortal enemy—Reedrek.

Olivia . . .

She shuddered in her slumber, then raised her head. Her gaze searched the dimness for a moment but the weight of day in the world above pressed her down into the safe darkness. She snuggled closer to Reedrek’s side, giving in to slumber once more. I watched as his fingers closed gently around one of her wrists. I felt more than heard his voice.

Stay.

Then I realized his eyes were open. He was staring at the empty air, waiting. He must have been expecting . . . something. Could it be possible that my monster of a sire was actually a little afraid of me, his rebellious kin? The prospect gave me a surge of pleasure.

A pity I couldn’t find a way to strike him dead using my invisible essence. Could my shattered molecules float into his lungs with the musty air and strangle him from the inside? I might have smiled at the thought but Reedrek’s warning hiss brought me out of my pride. Any of the real snakes couldn’t have been more clear about their intentions. Yet he didn’t move. He wasn’t sure. One thing seemed certain: We’d lost Olivia. If he hadn’t killed her by now, he surely meant to keep her, to use her. The idea struck like the slice of a sword.

I am stronger than that,
her mind whispered.

Foolish, foolish, Olivia. By my life you are not. I have failed Alger and you under my protection. But, in any case, I am coming for you.

I took one step forward, intending what, I couldn’t say. In midair above them I reached for Reedrek but ended up with a fistful of empty air. It was a familiar feeling. In one form or another I’d been striking at him most of my vampiric life and had yet to land a serious blow. With that dismal thought a
whoosh
ing sound filled my ears and without warning the tunnels around me were moving, flashing by like the march of trees outside a speeding train.

The shells guided me, and my destination turned out to be darkness. The silence stuffed my ears very like wads of cotton.

I knew my eyes were open but the total absence of light confounded even the superior quality of my vampiric night vision. Effectively blind and most certainly alone, I waited. This then was the borderless, barren realm of the dark ones. A place for damned souls and lost entities. A ferocious rustling sound followed the realization, then a rolling wave of whispers and curses. I had no wish to explore. I needed to believe Lalee would not draw me into the perilous darkness without cause.

A tiny flash of light blinked in front of my eyes, then another off to the left. Soon a sparkling array danced before me, swirling and coalescing into a bright ball of light. The light took the form of an image. I squinted into the sudden radiance.

It was Jack. But not the familiar, friendly, bent-for-hell-raising Jack I knew. This Jack was a master wear-ing my blue coat, king of all he surveyed, and in that particular moment I stood as his servant. He held my life in his hands. He even had the nerve to smile as he betrayed me by giving the vial of Lalee’s blessed blood to Reedrek. I struggled against the cruel invisible bonds pinning me down and knew we were, each of us—Jack, Reedrek, and me—for his own reasons, waiting for the sun.

Jack

“Goda’mighty!” I yelled in alarm and jumped away from the coffin like it had caught fire.

The horrible screech seemed to go on forever—keening, beseeching, wailing. The moans I’d heard from gutshot soldiers on the battlefield had nothing on this girl. I put my palms flat to my ears, but it didn’t help. Had I done something horribly wrong? Taken too much blood? Not taken enough? I guess William had said it would be like this. Sort of. I checked the latch on the coffin. Coffins aren’t normally made to lock—I mean, think about it—but this box was a custom job, as were all our coffins.

What had William said exactly? Panicked, for a moment I couldn’t remember. Right. He’d warned that she would freak out somehow and that I was not, under any circumstances, to let her out of the coffin no matter how much she might scream and beg.

The screech ended only long enough for her to get another lungful of air and then she set up a sustained howl that made my fangs vibrate. I staggered over to the wet bar and mixed myself a drink. Half blood and half Dewar’s.
Here’s blood in your eye.
I downed it, took the rest of the bottle back beside the coffin, and drew up a chair. It was going to be a long night. Or day. Or what the hell ever. It was easy to lose track in William’s underground lair.

A string of vicious curses followed by another loud wail cut through the still air of the chamber. I took a swill straight from the bottle. I was startled again when the coffin started to shake and vibrate. Damn. I’d be a monkey’s uncle if she wasn’t actually turning over and over in that coffin. Talk about spinning in your grave.

At this rate, what kind of shape was she going to be in by sundown? What kind of wild woman was I going to be expected to get it on with? I’d heard of guys—sumo wrestlers—who could draw their own genitals up into their body cavities. Damned if it didn’t feel like that was happening on its own right about now. I pictured the most scary, hysterical female I could think of and came up with a mental picture somewhere between the Bride of Frankenstein and Courtney Love. Pucker up, buttercup.

I kid you not, the gyrations she was going through were enough to put you in mind of the caterwauling, spinning, levitating, and head rotating that Linda Blair did in
The Exorcist.
Only worse. I had a clear picture in my mind of how much she was suffering. I wondered how I could actually know, what with her being on the inside of that box and me on the outside. Maybe it was that connection with the dead I had, the way I can communicate with spirits. Then it hit me.

I had been through it myself.

That realization sent another chill through me and I took one more pull on the bottle. I closed my eyes tightly as Shari continued to scream. Yes, I was starting to remember. It was so long ago. I could recall the smell of the earth, loamy and rich with the blood of all those dead soldiers. There was no coffin for me, since I was made right there on the battlefield. I earned my fangs the old-fashioned way. In the earth.

I remembered. Oh sweet Lord, I remembered. When the agony started I tried to claw my way out of the ground so I could run from whatever demon had ahold of me. But I couldn’t. Something kept me down. It was him. It had to be him. That toothy, red-eyed devil who’d asked me if I wanted to live. Who’d said he’d save me. What had he said—that I’d never be hungry again?

But there was a price to be paid. I of all people, who’d never gotten a break in my life, should have known that nothing ever comes free. I’d felt like I was turning inside out. My guts were on fire. My skin was burning. My nerves and sinew were turning to concrete. My bones were turning to stone. The pain was unbelievable. I begged for someone to take it away. I flopped this way and that but could only move an inch at a time in any direction. Finally, I managed to free two fingers on my left hand. I felt the air on them—the warmth of the sun. Warmer and warmer until . . .

They caught fire.

I remember withdrawing them, extinguishing the fire in the soil. What was happening? What was I becoming?

Then there was thirst, unbearable. But thirst for what? I needed—no,
craved
something. But I didn’t know what it was. The longing seemed to go on for days, years. My body was converting into something else, something strange and foreign. I didn’t recognize the feel of my own flesh.

Then the night came. I felt it, knew it inside me—inside my new, thirsting self. The weight lifted and I literally sprang from the earth like some evil planted thing that was ready to be harvested. Or maybe ready to do the harvesting. I was a vampire.

William stood facing me in a clean captain’s uniform, looking so different from the way he’d last appeared in my human existence that I didn’t so much recognize him by sight as by smell. The blood had been wiped away. His boots were shined. He was the very picture of the gentleman officer.

“Private McShane, are you ready for your new life?”

I looked around me. It was night but I could see right well. And it wasn’t just the moonlight illuminating the ghostly landscape. It was a new
kind
of sight. Unfamiliar smells wafted to me on the breeze, and new noises from the woods and the earth cut through what should have been silence. I peered back at William, who continued standing tall, watching and waiting to see what manner of creature he had wrought upon the world.

“Yes, Captain. I’m ready,” I heard myself say.

A particularly plaintive wail brought me back to the present. I was getting more than a little drunk now, but it hadn’t dulled my horror at the long-suppressed memories brought on by Shari’s suffering. I knew exactly what she was going through.

“Heeeeelp meeee,” she shrieked.

Now she was using actual, understandable English. That had to be good. I patted the top of the coffin and crooned, “It’s all right, darlin’. I’m right here and I ain’t going anywhere. You’re not alone, okay?”

“Let me ooouuut!”

“Can’t do that,” I slurred. “That would not be good. Trust Uncle Jack. There’s nothing worse than a half-baked bloodsucker. Or so I’ve been told.” I belched for emphasis.

She broke into an unladylike braying sob and cursed a little more. She cursed me and my lineage back to the Stone Age. The womenfolk in my family came out very badly indeed in Shari’s estimation.

“Now, now,” I cooed. “In a little while, you’ll be as good as new.”

“Nooo! I want out nooooow! It huuurts!”

“Tough it out, sweetheart. In just a few hours, it’ll be all over and you won’t remember a thing. You’ll be extra strong and you’ll live forever, and you’ll have great . . . teeth. So sit tight.” It’s funny. When pressed—or maybe when drunk—it was hard to think of the benefits of being a vampire. Now what did that say about me?

There was another long shriek from inside the box. Then she said, “Let me out or I’ll kill you!” Her voice had changed considerably. She was grunting and pounding on the coffin like a professional wrestler.

“Now, now. You know that’s not possible,” I told her. “Besides, I’m dead already. Tough it out, sweetheart.”

“It hurts, and you’re a bastard asshole son of a bitch!” she said.

“Well, that about covers it,” I said, and contemplated the empty Scotch bottle. I neglected to tell her that she and me would be bumping uglies in a few hours. She’d find that out soon enough. This wasn’t shaping up to be what you’d call a romantic encounter.

If there was anything I was terrible at, it was comforting hysterical females. But this was different from all the other times. And not just because she was in a box and couldn’t throw things. I sensed that I was in touch with the girl’s spirit as she teetered on the edge of two worlds, one darkness and one light. I hoped for her sake that she’d make the right choice, and I cursed William for not taking her to the hospital and facing a different set of consequences.

I didn’t think like a vampire, he’d told me a number of times. Truth be told I didn’t really feel like one either. Not before this, at least. I’d wanted to know what it felt like to be a real vampire.

Be careful what you wish for.

“Jack? Isn’t that what you said your name was?” Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, like she was workin’ to control the pain.