Chapter Twelve
Mikhail was there. His fangs were digging into my flesh, he was draining me of my life's blood, trying to turn me into one of them. I struggled, but it was to no avail. His grip was vice-like as he drained me. I could just see Cassie's body out of the corner of my eye. Elizabeth and Greghor were lifting Cassie's body, trying to get it out of the warehouse before the others could come and kill them. Mikhail dropped me on the floor. I cracked my skull on the rough stone.
I shook the suppressed memory away, grounding myself back in the here and now. Chase, Morgana, and Vaughn were all looking at me. Vaughn's expression was one of thoughtfulness. It kind of looked like he found me amusing. It was him I looked at as I said, "Let her go."
"Are you insane?" Morgana screeched. "She'll try and run if we let her go."
I turned back to Elizabeth. Her deformed eyes were wide, almost with fright. I knew that somewhere, deep down inside, she recognized me. Maybe she didn't know who I was or how she knew me, but she recognized the fact that I was a danger to her. I was someone she didn't want to mess with. "No," I said. "She won't run--will you, Elizabeth?" My three companions seemed shocked that I knew the vampire's name. Looking back at Vaughn, I repeated, "Let her go."
Vaughn looked to Morgana and nodded, and they both dropped her arms. Elizabeth hugged herself, but she did not try to run. She was watching me warily. "You want to stand here and die with dignity, don't you?" I asked her, not giving a fuck whether or not she could understand what I was saying. "There is no dignity for cowards, Elizabeth."
I am not a coward. The words were whispered on the wind. It was Elizabeth's voice, but Elizabeth's lips never moved. I didn't dare take my eyes off her to see if the others had heard it. I raised my gun, intending to put a bullet between her eyes, but she lashed out too quick for me to see, and knocked the gun from my hand. It slid across the pavement, too out of reach for me to retrieve it in the midst of combat. Chase, who had backed up along with Morgana and Vaughn, made to move towards me, but Vaughn stopped him. "It's Kayla's fight," I heard him say, just before Elizabeth pounced on me.
She knocked me to the pavement and straddled my hips, leaning over me. She screamed in my face, that strange, inhuman sound she had made before. Spittle flew from her mouth to land on my face. I backhanded her hard enough that had she been a human, it would have broken her jaw. I managed to get the knife out of the left wrist sheath. I gutted her with it. Blood and other unspeakable things fell on me as she scuttled backwards, clutching her stomach. My lower abdomen was coated in blood--there wasn't as much of it as there should have been, and it was cold. She hadn't fed tonight.
As soon as I was on my feet she came at me again. I braced myself so that she hit my shoulder when we collided, and, using her momentary pause to my advantage, shoved the knife up under her rib cage. She stopped trying to claw me, and just stood there. If I shoved the knife up any more, I'd pierce her heart. She wouldn't ash, but she would pretty much be dead. Just in case, I'd cut off her head.
I managed to lower her to the pavement without piercing her heart. She was still alive, my knife poking out of her chest, as I stood over her. She looked terrified. She saw death. Glad to know I still had that affect on someone. I straddled her waist and put both hands on the hilt of the knife. This won't bring the girl back, the wind whispered. I ignored it, and shoved the knife home. Elizabeth's eyes rolled backwards, and finally closed. She was dead.
Morgana, Chase, and Vaughn stood over us, silently watching. I readjusted my grip on the knife, and then proceeded to carve out her heart. When I was done I threw the muscle on the ground beside the body. I didn't want to see their reactions, so instead I focused on the dead vampire beneath me. Speaking to Vaughn but still not looking up, I asked, "Can I borrow your machete?"
He handed me the weapon that was hanging from his waist. I took it from him and without wasting any time, sliced through Elizabeth's neck. When I stood back up and handed Vaughn his machete back, I saw Chase looking at me like I was some sort of monster. Maybe I was. "Do we just leave her here?" he asked. I sighed.
"If we just leave her here, a really powerful necromancer could come along and put her back together again," I explained. "I highly doubt that will happen, but you never know. Better to take her with us and burn her body so she truly can't come back."
Chase nodded. Vaughn carried Elizabeth's body back to the Jeep. I took the head and the heart. We put all of Elizabeth's body parts in the trunk, and then we all piled in the vehicle and drove away. We were sitting in the same setup as before, me and Vaughn in the back and Chase and Morgana up front. A few minutes away from the park, Morgana turned in her seat to look at me. "How did you know that vampire?" she asked.
"She was one of the ones who escaped the Massacre in San Francisco," I said, not looking at Morgana but instead focusing on the nighttime scenery we were driving past. "Her, and three others."
"That's why you came to Los Angeles, to kill the ones who escaped," Chase said, and he didn't make it a question.
"That's why I came to Los Angeles," I said. "But I only thought Vera was here. I didn't know about Elizabeth. I assumed she was with her master, but Vera assured me he wasn't here." Before anyone could ask me anything else, Morgana's phone rang. We all fell silent. Common courtesy. No. Stavros was on the phone.
"Hello, Master," Morgana answered, her voice already slipping into humble servant mode. Sweet Jesus. "Well, no, Master, not exactly. You see, Kayla--yes, I know, Master--she carved out the heart and decapitated it. Yes. No, well, she was hoping that we could burn it. Yes, I'll tell her." She snapped the phone shut and turned to look back at me again. "He says that there's a place at the lair where we can burn the body," she told me. "Also, he said he wants to speak with you as soon as we arrive."
I raised an eyebrow in question. Stavros wanted to talk to me? Perhaps he was going to reprimand me for cutting Elizabeth up into pieces. Well, I really didn't care. She had been there the night Cassie had been killed. She was on my list of vampires to not let live.
Twenty-five down, three to go.
xXxXxXxXxXx
Floor Six, known fondly by all of Stavros' employees as the Torture Floor, contained a room called the Cremation Room. It all seemed so practical--having a cremation room right there on the floor dedicated to torturing people. Antonio was waiting for us when we got off the elevator, along with two people--humans--who stood beside a gurney. Vaughn laid the red-spotted sheet that held Elizabeth (the lady at the desk in the lobby hadn't wanted us trailing blood or "bodily entrails" on the white carpet) on the gurney. Antonio surveyed the carnage with a smile, and then looked back at me with his brown eyes twinkling. "We must talk shop sometime," he said.
I couldn't tell if he was less creepy because his white tunic and draw-string pants weren't covered in blood, or if he was more creepy because they weren't covered in blood. In any case, I didn't want to "talk shop" with Antonio about anything. Fortunately I didn't have to respond, because Chase chose that time to press the elevator button. The doors closed, blocking Antonio from sight. We were heading up, to the penthouse.
As the elevator started to move I drew a sharp breath, not caring if everyone there knew that elevators frighten me immensely. I felt a warm hand clasp around mine. I looked up at Chase, confused. He also looked puzzled. Neither of us pulled away.
Stavros was waiting for us when the elevator doors opened. As soon as they did, I could breathe easier. Chase pulled his hand away; I guess he didn't want the boss to see us holding hands. We stepped off the elevator into Stavros' private home. Before I had just been in his office, but this was where he lived. Where his coffin was located. I couldn't believe he was willingly letting me inside. What I could see of the penthouse was decorated in an entirely Middle Eastern theme. I felt like I was in Egypt, Moracco, or possibly even Greece.
Stavros wore absolutely nothing except a white robe that gaped open over his tan chest. It's not often you see a tan vampire, so I stared. I couldn't help it. He saw me watching him, but he did nothing. No smirk, no snide remark. Something must have been wrong. "I need to speak with Kayla," he said quietly. The "alone" went unsaid, but everyone heard it nonetheless. Morgana and Vaughn turned to leave, but Chase lingered.
"Leave, Chase," Stavros commanded, and the werewolf left without an argument. I think he hadn't wanted to leave me alone with Stavros. Truth was, I didn't want him to leave me alone with Stavros.
"There are many things we need to discuss," Stavros said. He held out his hand to me, like Gerard Butler from Dracula 2000. I would have laughed, but something in his eyes stopped me. That look that said plainly, I won't hurt you. I just want you to take my hand. Maybe it would end in disaster. Maybe it wouldn't. Only one way to find out.
There was no disaster. Just Stavros taking me by the hand and walking with me further into the penthouse. He opened a door and ushered me into a room. It was a library, done in the same Middle Eastern theme as the rest of the place. Only it was more subtle here. It was, after all, a library. Books lined all the walls. Had Stavros actually read all these books, or did he just think it looked impressive? Nah, I was betting he had read them all. It wasn't like he didn't have the time.
In the middle of the room were two couches and two armchairs, all old-fashioned and done in black leather. They formed a square, with a dark mahogany coffee table in the center. The table actually had a potted plant on it, along with two black candles on either side of the plant. Stavros let go of my hand and went to go sit on one of the couches. He lounged gracefully against the arm of the couch, legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed. His robe gaped open more, so that now I could see from his belly button up. I won't lie and say it wasn't a nice view.
He motioned for me to have a seat, and so I took one, in the armchair farthest from him. I wanted to be able to see everything he did. Can you tell I still didn't trust him completely? At least I had weapons with me this time. A fair advantage over the last time I had paid him a visit.
"This may be crazy," I said, not waiting for him to initiate the conversation, "but I was under the impression that Vera Donna was the only vampire from Mikhail's line in Los Angeles."
He just stared at me. "Then you were under the wrong impression," he said.
"Apparently," I muttered, then asked, "Did you know Elizabeth was the rogue vampire?"
"Not at first," he answered. "I just knew she wasn't one of my vampires, and that she was killing people in my city. By the time I was told who she was, I had already issued the order for her extermination."
"So you weren't extending your protection to her?" I asked.
"No. She was in the city without my permission."
I felt a little better, but not by much. I didn't think Stavros was lying to me. Call me crazy, but it just felt like he was telling the truth. Of course, I could have been wrong, and he could have been playing me for a fool. Let's hope not. "Oh," was all I could think to say. Then, when my brain kicked back into gear, I asked, "Who told you the rogue was Elizabeth?"
He looked contemplative, like he was debating whether to tell me or not. Finally he said, "When Mikhail escaped the Massacre, he gathered those of his children who still survived, and made his way to Los Angeles." My eyes widened here as he paused. Mikhail had been here? Stavros continued, "He wanted my help, my protection. I denied him both. His children then dispersed. Most of them left and moved to other cities, pledging themselves to other masters. Mikhail left, taking only two vampires with him out of the several that he had come with. Three of them, apparently, stayed in Los Angeles."
"What do you mean, apparently?" I asked, my mind reeling.
"I was only aware of two who had stayed," he said. "One pledged themselves to me, one tried to overthrow me, and one--Elizabeth--managed to keep herself hidden, until she went rogue."
I could taste bile in the back of my throat. This explained a whole lot. The reason I was wanted by all the masters in the state of California. The vampires of Mikhail's line that I had killed had become a part of different lines, had pledged themselves to different masters, severing their ties with Mikhail. They had left them, and I had killed them all for not being able to tell me where he hid. I could almost choke on the remorse I felt--this proved I wasn't a complete monster, after all.
"Vera was the vampire who tried to overthrow you," I said, "so that just leaves one. Who is the vampire that pledged themselves to you, Stavros?" Instead of answering my question, Stavros closed his eyes. I felt a ripple of power in the air, causing the fine hairs on my arms and the back of my neck to stand at attention. I rubbed my arms to ward off the unnatural chill.
A few moments after Stavros opened his eyes, there was a knock at the door. "Come," Stavros called, and the door opened. The vampire who walked in was tall, with curly black hair that reached to his shoulders. He wore black breeches and a lacy white shirt, half-way open to expose a pale, hairless chest. He was barefoot. He looked like he had just stepped out of the 1700's. "You called, Master?" he asked, sweeping into a light bow.
Stavros nodded. "This is Kayla Atrelic," Stavros said, waving his hand in my direction gracefully.
"The monster slayer," the vampire said, a slight smirk tugging at his lips. "I thought you'd be--"
"If you say bigger, I'll shoot you," I said. The vampire just smiled.
"Kayla," Stavros said, "this is my second-in-command." All Masters of the City have a second-in-command, a powerful vamp who is only less in power than the master himself. I looked at him and tried to sense his power. I didn't have to try very hard. He practically radiated it. Even if he had looked the part, someone with even a hint of psychic or magical ability would have been able to tell he wasn't human.
Stavros was now sitting up, and the vampire went to sit beside him on the couch. Sitting beside each other, they were as different as night and day, but somehow they seemed to...fit. Like a couple who has been married for fifty years. It was quite creepy.
"All right," I said. "I've met your second-in-command. How does this answer my question?"
"You wanted to know which vampire of Mikhail's line had pledged them self to me," Stavros said.
I looked from him, to the vampire, and back again. "No master in their right mind would have a second-in-command from someone else's line," I said.
"That's what I told him," the vampire said. For the first time I noticed that he had a slight, almost non-existent accent. It was so faint I couldn't place it.
There was something oddly familiar about him, about his face, about his voice. So I asked, "What is your name?"
The smile he was still wearing faded. "Winter," he told me. That was all it took.
