Chapter Nine
The doors to Stavros' office swept open without being touched. Vampire magic, or automated opening system? I was hoping for the latter, but in a place like this, you just can never tell. Stavros' grip on my arm was a lot harder than Chase's had been, and I just knew that my entire forearm was going to be purple in the morning. He dragged me into his office, and shoved me towards the center of the room, so hard that I fell to my knees. Chase and Morgana came in behind us, going straight to stand on either side of his desk. Morgana smirked down at me as she passed, and Chase avoided meeting my eyes completely. Stavros sat in an expensive-looking desk chair, smirking out at me from behind his big mahogany desk. The entire wall behind him was nothing but glass, and the sun was shining straight through, illuminating the room. I wondered briefly why Stavros wasn't bursting into flame, and then I realized: tinted windows. Fuck.
I tried looking defiantly at Stavros--I do defiant quite well--but the sun was so damn bright through that stupid glass wall that I couldn't even look his way. I kept my gaze to the floor, looking like like some subservient mouse. It made me damn uncomfortable, and really pissed me off. The day just kept getting worse and worse. Aside from being really uncomfortable--bright sun, plus handcuffs, and no shower, bleh--and pissed off, I was finding it hard to keep focus on certain thoughts for long. I blamed the three of them. Their energies--the powerful vamp energy, plus two alpha lycanthropes--were like a weight pressing against my skull, just daring it to implode. Were they trying to use their combined powers on me , or were they just so powerful that they exuded harmful amounts of energy like that?
"Are you going to kill me now?" I asked. I tried to be mocking, but it's hard to mock someone when you're practically bowing down to them. My red hair, which hadn't started to become greasy yet but would if I didn't shower soon, fell in a thick curtain over my face. Did I look as pathetic as I felt? Probably.
"My dear Kayla," Stavros' silky voice sounded, "I didn't bring you here to kill you. I brought you here to thank you." My head snapped up, my hair falling away, but because of the sun I had to look right back down again. My hands stretched as far apart as I could make them, the handcuffs cutting into the skin of my wrists.
"Funny way of showing it," I said.
"You're a dangerous woman," Stavros said, and I'll be damned if he didn't sound amused. "I couldn't just have you running amock around my lair, could I?"
I shrugged, studying the strange pattern of the Persian rug beneath me. I hadn't really gotten a good look at his office, but I assumed Stavros like old-world things, things that reminded him of home. "I wouldn't have hurt anyone," I replied. "Too badly."
Stavros just laughed, and then there was silence. Uncomfortable silence. He was waiting for me to say something. Shit. He must have really enjoyed making me squirm. I held out for as long as I could, trying not to fidget under the weight of their gazes. They could have stood there, impassive as hell, all day long without breaking a sweat. I, on the other hand, couldn't even sit through a church sermon without talking or moving. Finally, my shoulders slumping a little in defeat, I sighed. "Why are you thanking me?" I asked, my throat feeling very dry.
I couldn't actually see him, since my head was bowed, but I had a strong mental image in my mind of him leaning back in his chair, smirking arrogantly. I had just met him, and already I hated him. "You killed Vera Donna," he said simply, as if that explained everything. "For that, I thank you."
I raised an eyebrow, not like he could see it. "You're welcome?"
Morgana snickered. Am I the only one who thinks she was making fun of me? Again, I got a mental picture of Stavros--this time he was pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Can vampires get migraines? "Vera was...a plague upon my city," he said. "For three years she wanted nothing more than to overthrow me. Three years is a long time to gather a following, Kayla."
My shoulders slumped just a little bit more. "So by killing Vera," I said, "I inadvertantly did you a favor."
"You helped keep my place as Master of Los Angeles secure." I could practically hear the smug smile in his voice, damn him.
"All right, great," I said, and I didn't even attempt to keep the biting sarcasm out of my voice. "Do I get a prize now?"
Stavros either wasn't bothered by the sarcasm, or if he was, he didn't show it. "Not a prize, no," he said. "But I have a proposition for you, Kayla Atrelic."
My head snapped up, and despite the glaring sun I searched his face. What I was looking for, I didn't know. "What did you say?" I asked.
"I have a proposition for you," he repeated. "Should you be interested in hearing it."
I didn't hear the last part. I was still focusing on the first thing he had said. I have a proposition for you. The last time a vampire had said that to me, I had almost died. I suddenly became so dizzy, I had to fight just to keep from falling to the floor, which shouldn't have been hard, since I was only standing on my knees. I wasn't in Stavros' ridiculously sunny office anymore. I was in a dimly lit room in a warehouse in San Francisco. I lay on the cold concrete floor, the right side of my face pressed so hard against the floor it was starting to go numb. I stared at a pair of black leather boots, trying to focus on anything except the searing pain coming from my lower back. Cold hands dug their way beneath my skin, tearing aside muscle, the fingers resting around my spinal chord. I screamed, a high, raspy sound. Someone lay on the ground beside me, staring into my eyes, their own eyes shining with amusement. Mikhail's fingers touched my face, touched where tears had make red trails on my pale skin. "Poor Kayla," he said, a little of his Slavic accent coming through. "It hurts so, doesn't it?" I nodded, rubbing my cheek against the cold concrete. Then I whimpered, because the cold hands were still digging beneath my skin, running fingers over my muscle and bone. "Shh," Mikhail said, putting a finger against my lips. "This could all be over," he continued, "if only you'd quit being so stubborn, and just say yes."
I shook the memory away just in time to hear Stavros send Chase and Morgana outside. He wanted to talk to me in private. Great, just great. I was tempted to tell him that I couldn't help him. All those years ago Mikhail had wanted to turn me into a half-vampire, someone who was his servant, tied to him in every way. I would still be human, but barely. We all know how that one turned out. I was not about to repeat an incident like that again. But something in his gaze made me stop before I said anything. I didn't think Stavros wanted me to become a human servant or anything like that. As long as I wasn't going to end up undead, I suppose I could hear him out.
"I'd say, I'm listening," I said. I felt so uncomfortable negotiating with a vampire without my weapons.
"Come to work for me," he said, catching me completely off guard. Come work for him? Become a guard like Leopold? No, I'm not conceited, but I know I'm too valuable for guard work. Maybe he wanted me for a personal assassin or something. A mercenary.
"Why should I?" I asked. Nothing like questioning a master vampire to make him angry at you. Only problem was, Stavros didn't seem angry at all. He seemed very confident that the answer to my question would make me listen. He had been right.
"Come to work for me," he said, "and I'll help you find the one you're looking for."
That got me. "You know where Mikhail is." I didn't make it a question.
"I have an idea," Stavros said. "Finding him will not be easy, as I suspect he is being hidden by his master."
That confused me. "Mikhail is a master vampire," I said. "He doesn't need a master."
Stavros shook his head, chuckling. "Everyone has a master, Kayla. I have a master. You have a master. We all answer to someone else, whether we know it or not."
"What's in this for you?" I asked. "If you help me find Mikhail and I still refuse to work for you. What then?"
He looked contemplative for a moment. When he finally answered, there was a smile on his face and confidence in his voice. "Then I will mark you as a criminal in my territory, and I will send my wolves after you," he said, looking towards the door, and I knew that he could sense Chase and Morgana on the other side.
"They're your assassins," I said, and I wasn't quite as surprised as I should have been.
"Chase and Morgana are my wolves," he said. "My protectors, my children, my friends. I did not coerce them into this; I took them in when they escaped that...place."
I had no idea what place he was talking about. I looked at him, still squinting against the sun, and could tell he wasn't going to elaborate. Stavros did not look like a man--read vampire--who would entrust his life to many people. Yet the tone with which he spoke suggested just that: he trusted Chase and Morgana with his unnaturally long life.
I sighed, and didn't care whether he knew I was conflicted or not. I didn't particularly want to go to work for a vampire, since I was a vampire slayer and all, but really, what choice did I have? If I started working for Stavros, he could lead me to Mikhail. The only thing I had wanted these past five years was revenge. He had murdered Cassie, my friend and my surrogate daughter.
It was then that I made a potentially disastrous decision. I decided to take Stavros up on his offer. Not because I wanted to work for a vampire, but because I was so close to having my revenge, I could practically taste it. I would do anything at this point to avenge Cassie's death and kill Mikhail, even if that meant teaming up with another master vampire to do it. And in the end, once Mikhail was dead, I could skip town like I usually did.
I would just have one more master vampire out to kill me, that's all.
"Do I sense a decision, Kayla?" Stavros asked, and smiled, baring fang.
"I'll work for you," I said a bit sullenly. Hey, just because I had decided to work for the guy--read vampire again--didn't mean I had to like it. "But only if you help me find Mikhail."
"We have an accord," Stavros nodded his head to me, like I was supposed to feel honored. Maybe I was. "I will help you track down Mikhail. I will even look the other way when you exterminate him." He said exterminate like Mikhail was a bug, a pest to be squashed. I agreed with him.
