White Lies: (The Uruwashi Series #4) (27 page)

“Amunet.”

Tristan frowned a little. “Like the Egyptian Goddess?”

“One and the same,” she said smiling.

“Er… right.”

“Why did you come to me alone?”

“You said you’d spare him.” Tristan nodded at Wren.

She lifted her chin, narrowing her eyes at him. “Did you know that since the beginning of civilization man has sought to make sense of their world by putting their ideas, their faith into beings greater than them?”

“Yeah, gods.”

“No,” she said gleefully. “Well, yes, of a sort. But to be more accurate, vampires.”

Tristan frowned. “You can’t mean—”

“Of course, every. One. Vampire are greater than man.
I
am greater than man. Why shouldn’t we set ourselves in the position of Gods?”

He felt blindsided as the simplicity of it rang true.

“Every single god in the history of mankind has always been given face by a vampire. The gods are all undead. Humans, fae, even the noble elves, they all worship gods that are walking dead. But would you believe that of all the gods in creation, the pythia’s god is the only living being?”

She took a few steps away from Wren and the vampire looked startled, attention darting between Tristan and the woman. “I am older than the civilization of Egypt but I found a fascination with their way of life and ingratiated myself into their world. I am the one who taught them how to build their blessed pyramids and they gave me my favorite name of Amunet. I was worshiped for so long…” She stopped her slow pacing and stood, stone still unnerving and fascinating Tristan at the same time.

He’d never seen one give into their nature so easily. She didn’t bother to breathe or keep her movements slow. She didn’t bother to act human.

“If only Amun hadn’t…” She lowered her head. “All things must end, eventually.”

While she wasn’t looking Tristan motioned for Wren to beat it. The vampire’s eyes widened and that’s when Tristan realized he didn’t have his mask on. Night hid the details but what Tristan could make out turned his stomach.

Of course, the moment Tristan thought it, Wren fleeing, Amunet heard him. She looked up slowly and then smiled faintly. “Fine then, you may go.”

Wren startled, his attention jerking around to her. “Ma—Master?”

“Yes, go on. I never meant to actually hurt you, I just needed him to come to me.”

Wren’s attention went to Tristan. The vampire looked him up and down and then sighed, lowering his face to hide that smile, Tristan suspected. “This man doesn’t need bait to come to someone like you.” Amunet made a little noise and Wren looked up, moving his face precisely to keep his hair over it. “The curiosity of this one far outweighs his sense of danger.”

The old vampire took a moment to think on that and then laughed softly. “I suppose he is Uruwashi after all.” She nodded for Wren to take his leave and he gave her an appreciative nod in return.

The vanilla vampire moved slowly but with purpose as he angled his way towards Tristan. He stopped when they were shoulder to shoulder and looked up.  Tristan gasped when he got his first real look at the mess Desmond had bestowed the young man with. He was so distracted by tracing the lines of scar on Wren’s face that he barely heard the man speak to him.

“Er… What? Yeah. I know, be safe, I will. I mean, yeah. Thanks.”

Wren smiled and then wiggled a finger as if to say he had a secret to tell. Without argument, Tristan leaned down and when he did the vampire took his face into his hands and kissed him, licking his lips for good measure.

“Gah!” Tristan said angrily but was smiling as he straightened, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Vampires…”

“
Osaki ni shitsurei shimasu
,” the man whispered and then was on his way, slowly picking through the snow, away from the others.

Tristan snorted, not understanding the sentiment but having an idea—sorry for leaving you behind. He stood his ground, watching Amunet watching him until Wren’s presence faded away. Tristan let out a relieved sigh, relaxing slightly.

“His welfare concerns you.”

“You sound surprised.”

“You’re Uruwashi, you kill our kind. Friendship is a foreign word between us.”

“What about love?”

Amunet flinched as if he hit her. “You can’t mean to tell me you actually love that man.”

Tristan laughed. “Wren? No, he’s just a friend. But Ash of Earth, she’s my…” He stopped to sigh. It wasn’t like him to be so overly emotional verbally, especially to a stranger but he was going to put his feelings into honest, simple words. “Everything.”

The woman flinched again, hissing a whisper in a language Tristan’d never heard before. “You’re mad.”

“No, just an honest fool.” And too tired to give a shit anymore.

“At the height of my reign as the goddess Amunet, I had a great, powerful and wise consort, Amun. He was my Master, maker and… well, as you put it, my everything.”

She paused as if to give him a chance to say something but then she sighed, continuing.

“The people revolted, quite suddenly, and burnt Master during his daytime sleep. But he woke up, he survived. He killed them all but he was badly burnt, unrecognizable. In his madness, the malady of a near sun death, he rampaged and many lives were lost but Master went on. That was nearly three thousand years ago. He gained his senses to rule in the south for a little longer but eventually the pain of it all was too much for him. He wasn’t healing from his wounds like he should have and stop rising.”

Tristan huffed. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“He woke up.”

“Uh… okay?”

“After more than two thousand years of sleeping, Master has awoken. He said… he said he felt a call. Tell me, Tristan Uruwashi, what exactly were you doing on the night of December 25?”

Tristan’s entire body went cold. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think. “I, I was… I,” he yammered on until he looked up and met her eyes and the words found solidity. “I killed a vampire.”

She harrumphed as if she’d already known that but didn’t expect him to say it so honestly. “You’ve awoken Master and now he wishes to see you. I don’t want you to see him, but he wishes it and that’s that.”

“See me?” Tristan snapped as he started to feel the sizzle of her wind seikonō. “You mean rip my fucking throat out.”

Her expression darkened and she took a step towards him, stopping to smirk when she saw the look on Tristan’s face. “No.
I
want to rip your fucking throat out. Master just wishes to meet you. But, if you’re smart, you will stay away from him.”

“Why?”

“As the oldest vampire, he’s developed his idiosyncrasies. Then again, I suppose being the First Vampire makes him unique all on his own.”

Tristan flinched. “You can’t mean… Apos?”

“Yes,” Amunet hissed as she let more energy slip out and Tristan tasted the earth in her power. “That is one of his names… the one that little monster calls him.”

They both looked up when there was a scream from across the field. It wasn’t a war cry or a cry of pain, but a frustrated cry that they both knew meant defeat.

“She’s lost some of her edge, letting so few take her down. Perhaps Master was right and she just wanted to die. Anyway, I never liked her nor understood what Master saw in her.”

Tristan’s attention snapped around and he jumped back, almost tripping on his feet caught up in snow when the vampire moved for him. She was just a small lunge away now and he didn’t like that one bit.

“Of course, I could have subdued her all on my own, I am older and the more powerful of the two of us.” She smiled broadly, showing off fang as she let another of her powers lick at Tristan’s psyche. He gasped, stumbling back and lost his balance. He fell onto his ass in the snow, gaping up at the vampire now standing over him. Earth and wind tingled through him, but more frightening was the overwhelming burn of fire.

“But I was told to secure your attention and deliver the message.”

“You’re…,” Tristan whispered as he tried to come to terms with all he was feeling. The crowd across the field was getting loud again as the group started to chant. Tristan’s body shuddered as whatever compulsion they put into their words washed over him. It wasn’t for him, this feeling of surrender but he felt it nonetheless. He was trapped between instinct and minds greater than his. “Impossible.”

Amunet crouched down in front of him, putting herself in his personal space, face inches away. “Go to Master.” She took his chin into her hot, hot hand. “See what The First Vampire has to say and maybe he’ll take pity on you.” She paused, looking down at his lips and then up again. “And your lover.”

At the confusion on his eyes, she smiled. “Don’t you know? The others, they will conspire now to kill your beloved. And anyone who aligns themselves with you. They will all die as traitors.”

“Ash!” he yelled, completely dismissing the vampire before him.

Amunet grabbed him before he could move and he flung his head forward, smashing her in the face and breaking her nose. The ancient being didn’t even flinch. The blood stopped almost as fast as it had burst from her nose and then moments later every last drop was already gone, dissolved and nothing but microscopic dust in the air.

“I’d kill you here, right now under my hands… plant my fangs into your neck while you gasped for air, but Master wishes to see you and I will do whatever he asks of me.” She smirked. “After that…”

Tristan took in a deep breath to give her his explicative laced opinion but she was already gone. He lay breathless for a moment in the snow, staring up at the dark sky and listening to the sounds of Xuejiao protesting her defeat. There were no thoughts, he couldn’t possibly think right now and on instinct he moved. He got up and trudged through the snow back the way he came.

ONLY five remained. Everyone else was dead or fled. Xuejiao was on her knees, chained to spikes that looked like they were meant to hold a dinosaur. Audric stood off to the side with a very obvious broken arm but with his subordinates nowhere in sight, dead or alive, he wasn’t asking the other Masters for help in putting it back the way it was supposed to be.

Yuki was frowning down at the child vampire, looking like she wanted to say something but had too much pride to. Innokentiy comforted Tegwen as she cried softly over one of the bodies. The Viking met eyes with Tristan and motioned with a nod.

Not that Tristan’s attention needed to be steered away because she stood out like a light in the dark, a human amongst alabaster and stone. “Ash?” Tristan warbled.

She flinched from her place overlooking Xuejiao and looked up, dropping her arms and the scowl. Her cape was gone and her clothes were torn but otherwise she looked okay. She made a little noise and then was standing before Tristan.

“Are you okay?” she asked, pawing desperately at him.

He grabbed her wrists pulling them to his chest to keep her focused. He looked at Xuejiao then back to Ash. “This is it then, isn’t it?”

Ash’s concern for him shifted into a regretful frown and she nodded. “It is done,” she said softly, turning to look at the child vampire.

Xuejiao had stopped wailing and was simply watching now, her attention focused sharply on Tristan. Did she know, had she felt her sister here?

He dropped to his knees before Ash with a grunt. “You haven’t killed her.”

Ash exchanged a look with Audric. The other vampire huffed and turned his back on them, walking away. “I refuse to witness any further than this, make the Uruwashi do it.”

“Witness wha—” Tristan tried to ask.

“I agree,” Tegwen said as she stood, wiping the blood tears from her face. “As the eldest here, I appoint the Uruwashi to bear witness. Asta of Earth, you are bound to him, do with that as you wish.”

“You’re all cowards,” Ash hissed as the two walked away.

Audric left with some parting words in French, but Tristan couldn’t discern in anyway what they meant with the empty tone they were delivered. Tegwen laughed and then both Masters were gone, having used their enhanced speed to disappear. They were alone now in the field. Tristan knew that others had died here tonight, felt the memory of their empty presences, but didn’t know who they were or where their bodies might be.

“I will stand with you, friends,” Innokentiy said as he came over to them. “My family.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Tristan snapped. “What am I supposed to witness?”

Ash looked down at him for a long moment with her lips twisted and then moved aside so that he could see the vampire behind her. “Her death.”

“Her death? But the others just lef—oh no. No, no, no, no, no.” He leaned back, shaking his head, but damned if he could get to his feet again and move away. “No. That’s not right.”

Tristan learned a lot about vampires in Greece from his Uruwashi brother, but even long before and plenty afterwards, there was one thing he understood very clearly about the race. That a sun death was the worst death they could endure. And now, now he was supposed to stand watch? Watch a child burn alive? Fuck that noise.

“It is our only recourse,” Ash answered in a soft tone as she lowered to her knees before him. “We barely trapped her.”

Tristan met eyes with the child vampire and frowned. She was chained like an animal and would die in the worst possible way. “No,” he said adamantly. He wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t let them kill her like this.

“She’s right,” Xuejiao called out to him. “There’s only one true way to kill someone like me and that’s to burn me alive. I’m just too old. Sure, you can take off my head, and maybe you should, because I will fight when the pain comes on. But I’ll still be alive, inside my head, trapped, smoldering and in pain.” She let out a curt laugh. “Even a pythia couldn’t kill me now. I can’t even leave myself out in the sun because my instincts will always save me, regardless of my will.”

“I can’t do this,” Tristan muttered through trembling lips and dropped his chin to his chest. The first tear slipped down his cheek and into his mouth, the saltiness of it surprising him. Was he really crying? Fucking, again?

He touched his face and came away with wet fingers. As he was looking numbly at his hand, another came into view to take it. He looked past their joined hands into Ash’s face. She wore a smile for him but it was sad and full of pain. She hurt for him and he felt the tears swell again.

“I am so sorry,” she said gently, pulling him to her. He went to her stiffly but then relaxed when her cool hand smoothed the hair from his face. Despite the chill of her flesh, he still found comfort in her touch, in the love he felt from such small contact.

“I cannot stay with you for this. I want to. I
need
to be here for you but it’s…” She licked her lips carefully and looked back. “But it appears you will not be alone.”

As he was contemplating her words, he felt someone move up next to him and when he looked and saw the woman at his side he let out a bit of a yelp, flinching away. The question in his wide eyes as they met Ash’s made the vampire sigh. She said nothing and helped him to his feet. He wobbled but managed to stay upright.

“Li—
Liith
?!” he stuttered.

This was no child though. The woman, obviously blind, turned her head towards him and nodded once. She was tall, at least four inches taller than Ash, and thin, her hair thick waves of chocolate brown down to her waist. Her facial features were so much like Ash’s that it was uncanny, only Lilith’s face was a bit longer and her jaw was cut a big squarer.

Her lips were nearly the same shape as Ash’s, pouty with that little corner turn down that Tristan found so sexy and she wore a deep red lipstick. Instead of her normal scrap of black cotton over her missing eyes, she wore an elegant ribbon of deep blue lace that coordinated with her heavy gothic dress of lace and satin.

When he’d last saw her, from his place in Ash’s mind, she was rather pregnant in her child form. In this taller, adult form, there was a nearly indiscernible bump.
God
, he thought as he met Ash’s unsurprised gaze, he had so much to talk to her about. How was she so composed when his world seemed to falling apart around him.

Whether Lilith sensed his shock or just expected it, she smiled ever so slightly, a sly sort of smile, and slipped off the cape that she was wearing. The color was a deep turquoise, rich and luxurious velvet with satin lining.

“Thank you,” Ash said softly and took the cape.

“Ash,” Tristan whispered. She forced a smile and came to him. She slipped cool fingers behind his neck and pulled him down for a kiss, soft and gentle.

She licked her own lips and looked confused for a moment as if tasting something she didn’t expect but then squeezed his hand. “I shall see you soon.”

“How are you so calm right now?”

She only smiled and answered him with a soft but honest, “I love you and I’m proud of you.”

He caught Innokentiy’s eye around Ash as she put her back to him and the vampire nodded, a stern look on his face that said, “I know you can do it.”

Tristan stood dumbfounded, watching the vampires quickly march across the field cowering from the first rays of sunlight. As they disappeared down the snowy slope a sense of deep apathy settled in. There was no cold, no anger, no hope, no fear, no nothing. He was here and nothing could change that now.

Lilith took his hand and somehow, it felt right. A comfort, actually. But she knew, didn’t she? She knew everything.

“She’s right,” Xuejiao suddenly said, startling Tristan.

“What?” he called back across the vast space separating them.

“Lilith, she says this is how it has to be. She’s right.”

He frowned at Xuejiao. “Did you know?”

The little vampire didn’t even try to hide her meaningful smile.

Lilith let his hand go before he could pull away and he marched out across the field. Tristan came to a stop close to Xuejiao and dropped to his knees in the snow before her, bowing his head. “I know I don’t have any right to ask because I’m—I have to know… Do you know, is it really Jason that’s pulling my strings?”

Because, let’s face it, he had no control of his own life anymore.

Chains rattled and then Xuejiao’s tiny, cold hand was pressed on the top of Tristan’s bowed head.

“You don’t think I’m a monster anymore?”

“No, you’re a monster, but this? This is wrong.”

The chains clanked softly. “Why?”

He shook his head, the weight of her tiny hand as heavy as the weight on his chest. “It just is.”

“You’re a good man, Tristan. But you can’t let the burden of death bring you to your knees, you’re stronger than this.”

A sob burst out of him and he shook his head again. “I’m really not.”

“This was your lesson.”

He looked up and met her cold gaze. “What?”

“If I couldn’t break you, if my death
doesn’t
break you then you’ll know…”

Numb, he only stared. Then it hit him and his eyes widened. “N—no. It’s—” He felt the heat of anger giving him new life, a reason to rally. “It’s not even the same thing!
Jesus
.”

“Of course it is.”

At a loss he only shook his head. How was it even close to the same thing? That him sitting here like a fucking coward and letting the others of her kind put her out to sun was somehow the same as Tristan purposefully hunting down and killing pregnant shinwa and heikō.

He lowered his head and let a sob out. He was crying heavy tears now, unashamed and broken inside.

“What did my sister say to you?”

Tristan’s head jerked up so fast the tears flicked off his face. “How did—Amunet told me that your Master wants to meet me.”

Xuejiao’s eyes widened. “Apos is awake?”

He nodded, his face slack in shock. “I woke him.” And still he didn’t have a clue what he’d done to Lucien. Was his fear of the unknown greater than his fear of the truth?

The little vampire wiggled under a shiver that echoed in her chains as she whispered under her breath in what could only be Chinese.

“Xuejiao?”

“You should go to him.” The look on her face said she was surprised at her own words. “He might—He can help you.” She nodded as if she was trying to convince herself.

“Or kill me,” he snorted, laughing a little. He wasn’t sure why it was funny. Maybe it was the idea that the first of vampire kind actually wouldn’t kill him on sight. Was he really that interesting, that special? Was he
kin?
“Amunet warned me to stay away from him.”

“Did she?” the little girl chirped in surprise. “Then you
must
go see him.”

The vampire’s entire body shuddered hard. Her eyes shut in pain and bowed her head. “It’s nearly time,” Xuejiao whispered. Distantly, Tristan was aware of the sun but not the way the vampire was as she uncontrollably fidgeted, clanking her chains.

“Xuejiao! You have to tell me, everything. You know what’s happening, don’t you? You must!”

“You really are a good boy, for an Uruwashi, but I must keep my promises, even in the face of death.”

He nodded, lowering his head. He sat quite for a moment, hoping for it all to magically make sense. “I’m sorry you’re going to die like this… I can, will you let me put you out of your misery now?”

“What are you saying?” she asked but the look on her face said she understood clearly. Not that Tristan was hiding anything from her, he’d long ago lost his ability to hold onto his mental block. His mind had been an open book to her for days. And the print was large enough that even the most ailing of eyes could see it.

“I—shit.” Shaking his head, he bowed again. “I don’t even have a weapon.” He’d lost his kitchen knife somewhere along the way and who knew where Xuejiao had left that back-up katana.

A hand suddenly landed on his shoulder and he gasped, jerking straight. “Lilith?” He hadn’t heard or felt her approach.

In the pythia’s hand was Murasaki Kaeru, Ash’s prized sword. He couldn’t believe Ash would have willingly parted with it and didn’t remember her passing it off before she left.

Tristan sniffled and swiped at his tears, standing. Determined to get his shit together he pulled the katana from its saya. Knowing how precious the sword and sheath was to Ash, he handed the hand-painted saya to Lilith.

“Please, Xuejiao, let me do this. I know it won’t be a full death for you but it has to lessen some of the pain.” He hoped.

She looked up, her complexion a sickly shade of white now. Under her eyes were dark with circles and the veins in her face were starting to show in bright blue ribbons. “And after I tortured you?”

Tristan shook his head. “I get it now. I know what you were trying to show me—
teach
me. But I don’t…” He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Oh Christ, he was going to cry again.