Vampire Elite (23 page)

Through the blood-bond Istara discovered that Theores was a Nightwalker. Unlike Sekhmi, Nightwalkers could not tolerate sunlight—but that intolerance was suppressed if they were blood-bonded with an Amiti. No one had ever been able to tell that Theores was a Nightwalker, because for all her adult life she’d been protected by her blood-bonds, first with Oberon, and then with Istara.
 

But sunlight wasn’t the only issue. Because of the scarcity of Amiti to feed from, the two castes of vampires had become enemies, with the more powerful Sekhmi making it a capital crime for Nightwalkers to feed on Amiti. So if her status as a Nightwalker was discovered, so would her ongoing crime.

As long as Theores was blood-bonded with an Amiti, she’d be indistinguishable from a Sekhmi—she’d effectively
be
a Sekhmi. Istara turned out to be a loyal friend to Theores, keeping the secret of Theores’s origin for centuries and supporting her with her blood. Even now, over twenty years after Istara’s death, Theores retained most of her ability to walk in the sun; the Queen’s blood had been that strong.
 

But even the most powerful Amiti’s blood couldn’t last much longer than two decades, and Theores was reaching a critical point. With each passing day her ability to endure the sun deteriorated. That was terrible in and of itself, but the real threat was the growing risk that her Nightwalker status would be discovered. She faced the possibility of losing everything she’d worked for all her life. She’d be cast out of the pride and reduced to being a Nightwalker. She might even lose her life for violating Sekhmi law.
 

Theores urgently needed a new blood-bond, which was a virtually impossible task to accomplish. No Amiti in the world would offer her their vein, knowing her reputation. She’d projected her hatred for Oberon to other Amiti and become a vocal advocate of the practice of keeping bloodstock.
 

That made the young Amiti Queen her best—and maybe only—hope for establishing a new blood-bond. Arianna knew nothing about her and Theores would make sure to keep it that way. Theores had said that they’d make the Queen fall in love with Tor; she hadn’t said that she’d be embarking on a similar project, becoming Arianna’s best friend and manipulating her affections until Arianna finally offered Theores her vein.
 

The two-month wait for the plan to run its course had been bad enough; now everything was going straight to hell. But it could all be resolved—and soon—if only Simone would give up this childish, sullen refusal to disclose where Arianna was being kept.
 

Theores smiled as she took another sip of her Malbec. Simone might be stubborn, but so was Theores. She knew just what she needed to do. Very soon, Simone would be
begging
the pride to save Arianna.

Chapter 31

The Project research station, Lake Baikal, Russia
 

Sunrise on Lake Baikal was breathtaking, an array of purple, gold, and orange blending together, outlining the magnificent horizon of a dark forest. Pine trees covered with crystal white snow reflected the colors of the sunlight in brilliant contrast. It was early November, and the weather was perfect, just below freezing. The snow was heavy on the branches of the trees, and their boughs reaching to the earth recreated a vision from a fairytale.
 

Oberon loved this time of year. He thrived on the beauty and solitude of Baikal. There was no one to disturb him—unless you counted annoying researchers getting overexcited about their latest findings.
 

At the beginning of the twenty-first century the humans knew Oberon as Doctor of Biology and Medicine Vlad Orlov, and his sister, Desiree, as Doctor of Medicine Olga Pavlova. “Vlad” and “Olga” were colleagues who lived and conducted research on the small ecological research station on Lake Baikal. Adopting these human identities had been an enormous accomplishment. It made their situation as stable as Amitis’ lives could be, and it also enabled them to gather important scientific information about immortals.
 

When the vampires had begun hunting Amiti as bloodstock, Amiti had been forced to go underground, living dispersed across the world disguised as humans. Although it made for a lonely existence, it had been a workable solution to the problem of basic survival. It presented two major logistical problems, though.
 

The first—which had been a problem from the beginning—was literally one of maintaining appearances. Amiti could shield their presence from vampires, so they could theoretically live among humans in their natural form. But they could only live in one place for at most fifteen years before the humans began to wonder why they never seemed to age. It also turned out to be impractical because the dazzling beauty Hathor had endowed them with, hoping that they’d attract vampires, earned them too much human attention—and it made them more visible to bloodstock hunters, who could target exceptionally attractive individuals first and figure out if they were Amiti later.

The alternative was to use their shapeshifting ability to take on a more ordinary human form. This worked well for those who could pull it off, and it enabled them to stay in one place for a more extended period of time—up to a regular human lifespan—because they could create the illusion of aging. But shapeshifting was impossible for Amiti youth who hadn’t come into their powers yet, and sustaining another form was exhausting for younger Amiti over the longer term.
 

The second logistical problem was that over time, fabricating human identities had grown more and more difficult. No longer could an Amiti individual or family simply show up in a new town and assimilate into the population without arousing suspicion. More and more, they needed legitimate identity documents just to get by, and it was growing harder to get away with using forged documents. As a result, the problem of Amiti being “outed” because of legal issues was becoming disturbingly common. Between that problem and the Hunters’ tracking skills, Amiti had to stay on the run constantly.

Like all Amiti elders, Oberon and Desiree had overcome the first of these logistical difficulties. They had developed remarkable masking skills and could easily shift into and maintain human forms. But the second problem wouldn’t go away.
 

Taking a cue from human con artists, Amiti had also begun looking for existing human identities to assume. If a human disappeared or died and the body was not identified, they could assume that person’s identity. The Amiti leadership had even started targeting certain professions—in medicine, research, and other fields that could provide benefits for their people—and tracking the humans in those fields, looking for “unoccupied” human identities. Of course, this approach presented a whole new set of logistical difficulties related to infiltrating a real person’s existence, particularly faking shared history with loved ones and coworkers, but it was sometimes worth the risk, especially given the alternatives.

That was how Oberon and Desiree had gotten their current positions. Vlad and Olga had been colleagues, returning to the research station at Lake Baikal after a research conference, when they’d been killed in a train accident. They’d been ideal candidates for Amiti to impersonate—fairly young and living in relative isolation—but the real benefit was what they researched. It was always a bonus when Amiti found situations where they could have fulfilling professional lives, but the Project was truly the best setup Oberon had ever had.
 

Vlad and Olga had both held degrees from top-rated universities. Vlad was the grandson of Nicolai Orlov, a millionaire geneticist descended from Russian immigrants. Nicolai Orlov had returned to Russia to fund and establish the Project’s research station on Lake Baikal. He’d done an amazing job of setting up the Project, hiding it deep within the Siberian forest and giving it a name so complicated yet unremarkable that no one could remember it and it had become known simply as the Project.
 

Ostensibly engaged in DNA research on human longevity, the Projects’ researchers actually studied immortal species. Initially, the Projects’ researchers had studied children with enhanced psychic and other paranormal abilities, obtaining research subjects from a nearby school for “gifted” children. By the time Oberon and Desiree had become Vlad and Olga, those children, called Shadows, had grown up and were working for the Project, abducting young immortals as research subjects. The Project had grown to include thirteen research stations tucked into isolated, ordinary-looking buildings throughout the world, each with a modest single-story decoy lab above ground and vast, secure underground facilities.

“Vlad, what are you doing up so early? Come inside; you’ll freeze to death. I’m making pancakes!” Desiree’s voice filtered into Oberon’s musings from where she stood on the doorstep of her modest cottage.
 

He turned to look at her, a petite blonde with eyes hidden by unflattering tinted glasses. Desiree in Olga’s form would have been considered attractive, but nothing special. Not that Vlad was beefcake calendar material, either. But it was better this way, a relief to look ordinary among the humans.
 

Oberon smiled at her and gestured toward the horizon. “Look how sensational the sunrise is!”
 

He was blessed to have his sister. With her at his side, he never felt lonely. Eternal loneliness was hard on immortals—but other immortals had their prides, tribes, and packs to fend off the loneliness. Only Amiti were doomed to live scattered around the world, being hunted and hiding like mice from cats, afraid of being discovered.
 

Oberon was soon going to put an end to that situation.
 

The death of the Amiti Queen, Istara, and the ascendancy of a new one, Marcus’s daughter Arianna, had made a millennia-long dream of the Keepers of the Key possible. Finally they would be able to come together and turn the Key to wipe the damn vampires from the surface of the earth once and for all. The war would end, and Amiti would be free from the vampires’ persecution—free to live in peace instead of constant terror.
 

Right now, the main obstacle in their way was the half-blood vampire princess. But Oberon had his radar engaged, and as soon as she registered so much as a blip on it, he’d find her and kill her. Problem solved.

Meanwhile, things were good. He was so grateful for this setup and the chance to be with his sister. Desiree was always so down to earth. Oberon could think about how to free the Amiti because he could count on Desiree to think about how to feed him breakfast.
 

Yes, Oberon was really blessed.

* * *

Desiree was at the counter refilling their coffee mugs when it happened. He made a sound so small she wouldn’t have been able to identify it—a hitch in his breath, maybe—and whatever it was made her wheel around, coffee sloshing in the mugs.
 

Oberon was completely still, frozen with his fork halfway to his mouth. It only lasted a second, and then his head cocked abruptly at her like a bird’s.

“It’s Simone. I found her,” he whispered.

And then she felt him throw up a portal and he was gone, his fork clattering to the plate.

Chapter 32

State Sucre, Venezuela
Two hours earlier

Simone lazily rolled over and watched Odji sleeping beside her, his body warming her beneath the soft down comforter. Lately, she’d been asking him to stay with her after they’d had sex. Odji was like a big teddy bear, something to hold on to, to help fill the void that was growing in Simone’s heart like a metastasizing cancer, threatening eventually to swallow her. She’d been living in a daze, just taking life one day at a time. The nights were the worst. So Odji had practically moved in with her.
 

Odji slept as peacefully as a child, his hands beneath his cheek, palms together as though he was praying, with a whisper of a smile on his soft lips. He looked so sweet like that, the softness a striking contrast to his strikingly masculine features and salt-and-pepper hair. She brushed his cheek lightly with her fingertips.
 

Odji, like Simone, was among the pride’s younger generation even though he was several centuries older. Simone knew his story well. The King had found him in Finland in the seventeenth century. Odji didn’t know who his parents were or how he ended up in Finland; all he could remember was that he’d been a homeless beggar all his life. Once, during a particularly severe winter when Odji was seven or eight, food had been so scarce that Odji had resorted to eating tree bark and scavenging from carcasses of dead animals. By the time Tor found him, he was starving to death, no more than skin and bones, and his hands and feet were frostbitten.
 

Tor had an uncanny ability to identify immortal youngsters—to virtually everyone else, they were indistinguishable from human children—and he immediately recognized Odji as an immortal.
 

Tor also had a soft spot for distressed and orphaned children. The King picked up the dying boy and tucked him beneath his rich fur coat, warming him against his chest. Odji still remembered the heat of love emanating from Tor and the sense of belonging he immediately felt in the arms of this powerful and strong male. He hugged Tor around his neck and prayed:
please, God, let him be my father. Please, help me.
 

Odji didn’t know which god heard him, but a miracle happened: he found a father. In the blink of an eye, Odji was transformed from pitiful orphan to son of the Vampire King. For many years after, Odji couldn’t believe his good fortune. He would wake up in the middle of the night covered with cold sweat, afraid that Tor and his pride were just a dream.

When Odji came of age, he chose to become the King’s personal bodyguard, standing behind him during endless meetings and negotiations—and thwarting many assassination attempts. He’d taken countless blows and suffered serious injuries defending Tor; each only seemed to intensify his devotion to the King.