Ademordna harrumphed. “’Tis true, in a sense.” He linked his hands in front of him as if he were prepared to give a speech. “All beings, on all planes, have a soul at inception, and these souls are linked to their Source. It simply means that they have the potential to choose good or evil—even the most depraved among them can eventually seek redemption. You, however, are a son of Jaegar.” He shook his head and frowned. “And this means that your ancestors traded their souls for power. It is not the same as simply turning away from the light. When the Blood cursed Prince Jaegar’s house, it forever severed their souls from their Source. There can be no redemption for your kind.”
Salvatore took a moment to process the demon lord’s words. He thought he’d heard it all. He thought he understood it all, but this was something new. “And Prince Jadon’s house? Were they not equally guilty of spilling so much blood?” His heartless chest seethed with anger… and envy.
Ademordna cocked his head to the side. “Indeed. But salvation is not a question of guilt or innocence. It is a question of mercy, and Prince Jadon pleaded for the same. He wanted to retain his soul.” A wicked smile crossed the dark lord’s face. “Who do you think supplied the Blood with the power to wield the curse? The celestial gods?”
Salvatore’s mouth fell open as awareness slowly dawned… “No. The dark lords.”
“Indeed,” Lord Ademordna said. “We became the Source for the house of Jaegar’s missing souls—we provided your continued animation in exchange for an eternal claim on your lives.”
“And yet, you allowed the house of Jadon to retain their redemption, to remain connected to their Source, the celestial gods, to receive the four mercies… why?”
Lord Ademordna shrugged. “We had to barter with something. The depravity of your kind was so extreme, all the remaining souls were so lost, that you would’ve floundered in darkness for eons, just trying to recognize a hint of light. The road back to redemption would’ve been long and winding, indeed, and all but a few would have been lost. The celestial gods did not want to lose their offspring or their legacy. They did not want to see all they had created lost to eternal darkness. Vampirism, a firstborn child, and the continuation of the Curse were the lesser of two evils. They bought their precious sons some time.”
“And you—”
“We brought our precious sons home.”
Salvatore shrank back from the dark lord and shuddered. He had never known goodness or light, mercy or regret. He had never had a kind thought in his long, degenerate existence, yet something deep inside of him recoiled. Indeed, they had been doomed from the start. He shrugged it off. It was of no matter. He would rather spend a dozen lifetimes in the darkness than one weak, pathetic day in the light. Such was the reality for one with a severed soul.
He turned his attention to Veratchi, who was watching the entire exchange with great interest, and waited to see what would come next.
Veratchi held both paws up in supplication and smiled. “Well, milord? What do you think? Is it time to make a universal statement among all the various gods?”
Ademordna licked his lips and bent down to scratch the rat beneath the chin. “Perhaps it is time, my little rat. After all, what the hell.” He separated Veratchi’s gums with two fingers and peered inside his mouth. “Our Frankenstein will be needing teeth; I believe we will start with these.”
The rat jolted in surprise and tried to hop backward in retreat, but the demon lord moved too quickly. In the space of a heartbeat, he snatched the rat by the neck, popped his head off his shoulders, and held it at arm’s length as he slowly began retracting the teeth, one at a time, and tossing them on the ground.
Salvatore quivered in fear and anticipation as the demon lord stayed focused on his task.
“I do so deplore insolence and arrogance,” Ademordna drawled, in explanation of the murder. He laughed then, a rich, imperious sound. “Unless, of course, it’s my own.”
Salvatore Nistor wrapped his arms around his waist and tried to quiet his mind. He tried not to think of what was to come next, his reanimation as a demon-rat-vampire…
Frankenstein.
None of that mattered now.
He would remain centered on his temporary reentry to Dark Moon Vale.
After all, his time would be severely limited, whether Ademordna knew it or not.
He needed to make the best of it.
Quickly.
eighteen
Ramsey Olaru sat silently beside his brothers and Julien Lacusta on one of the long wooden pews inside the Ceremonial Hall of Justice, trying not to think about the body, laid so beautifully—so peacefully and respectfully—on the platform in front of them.
The body of his destiny.
Over the last twenty-four hours, Tiffany had been bathed, dressed in a beautiful ceremonial robe of lavender and ivory, and laid in repose on a soft, raised pallet at the front of the circular hall, on the formal dais, while Napolean and Brooke attended to the final details of her funeral and tried to devise a plan to notify her loved ones.
As of that day—twenty-four hours beyond her passing—no one had contacted her family, and the procrastination was causing more than just a little bit of angst: On one hand, they wanted to inter Tiffany’s body in the house of Jadon’s burial grounds, in the traditional manner of the celestial race. They were confident that she would spend her eternal life in the Valley of Spirit and Light; after all, she had been chosen by the gods for Ramsey, and she did contain distinct traces of celestial blood. The celestial pantheon would claim her immortal soul. Yet, on the other hand, she had not been converted—she had passed away as a human—and her parents would want to perform their own burial rites in the human, Catholic tradition.
Thus far, Nachari Silivasi’s suggestion had been the best: to use a small amount of DNA to create a holographic replica of Tiffany’s body, then to ship the counterfeit remains back to the family with a fabricated story about how she had died. Was it duplicitous and beneath them? Did it feel raunchy and unforgivable on every level? Sure it did. Just the same, the Matthews didn’t need to know about vampires and Dark Ones. They didn’t need to know the truth of Dark Moon Vale or of Tiffany’s vampiric affiliations, namely Ramsey Olaru.
They didn’t need to know about the warrior’s epic failure as her mate.
Ramsey had never had the opportunity to meet Joe and Rita Matthews, and that’s the way it would stay. As far as the warrior was concerned, if they followed Nachari’s suggestion, the family would at least have closure. They would have a headstone and a regular place to visit.
They would have a chance to say good-bye.
And he wouldn’t have to face them with his guilt and shame.
Ramsey shifted anxiously in his seat, staring straight ahead in the dim lantern light. He could no longer meet any of his brothers’ eyes, anyway. And Julien? Well, he just looked terminally pissed off and ready to blow, when he wasn’t outright morose.
The fearsome tracker leaned back in the pew, stretched out his legs, and crossed his feet at the ankles in front of him, staring up at the high-domed ceiling. “I can score twenty-six days’ worth of H if you want it. Got enough 151-proof cocktail to go with it,” he bit out, sounding disturbingly indifferent.
Ramsey furrowed his brow and tried to do the math. Just how much heroin and alcohol-cured blood would that be? He shook his head, not knowing what to say.
“We might,” Santos chimed in.
“What the hell,” Saxson added.
Ramsey was too overwhelmed to speak. If the awkward silence could have grown any more deafening than it already was, it just did. Never before had Julien Lacusta spoken about his unnatural habit out loud. Never before had he offered to share it with his comrades. It was simply understood that the dark, brooding vampire was different, that he handled his pain in an unconventional way. No one approved, but no one questioned him either, just so long as it didn’t interfere with his job. Gods knew; it couldn’t cause any long-term physical damag
e. And as for psychological? Well, the male was already interminably messed up.
Julien Lacusta had been dealt an ugly, reprehensible hand of cards from birth.
As a firstborn son, he had spent nine months in his mother’s womb with a dark twin, and shortly after the two were born, it had become clear that neither parent was capable of making the required sacrifice, of adhering to the Curse.
Things were different back then, in 1044 AD.
Napolean had his laws, but there was no clear reinforcement—it was just expected that each vampire would comply, understood that they had no choice.
Not the case with Julien’s parents.
The grief-stricken vampires had fled from the valley, trying to elude the Curse. They had taken both Julien and his dark twin to what was now present-day New Orleans in an effort to outrun the Blood and start a new life. Needless to say, it hadn’t gone as planned. Not even a little bit.
On the last day of their father’s Blood Moon, the Blood had come calling for Julien’s sire. Not only had Micah Lacusta died a brutal death at the hands of the Curse, but his soul was forever barred from the Valley of Spirit and Light for the betrayal, for his failure to heed the Curse. And still believing that she could get away with the unthinkable, his mother, Harietta, had tried to raise the twins on her own.
Ramsey focused on a smooth, oblong stone embedded in the ancient ceremonial wall, and tried to blend his mind with the gray, to keep from feeling the depth of the macabre story. On Julien’s tenth birthday, his dark twin had murdered their mother in cold blood. He would have murdered Julien too, but the boy had fought like a banshee to survive. Just the same, Ian, his dark twin, had stolen away into the night, never to be seen again. A few weeks later, Julien had shown up on Napolean Mondragon’s doorstop, still disheveled and dressed in bloody, ragged clothes, and according to the king, there had been such a gnawing, empty hunger in his eyes that the child had seemed all but dead. He had asked Napolean to welcome him into the house of Jadon, to let him be raised as a warrior, and to teach him to be the best tracker the vampires had ever seen so that one day he could hunt and kill his brother.
That one day had never come, despite how hard Julien had tried.
There just wasn’t enough to go on.
And somehow, over the endless centuries, the pain of it all—the anger, hurt, and wounded pride—had taken a toll on his soul. A part of Julien was missing; another part lived for revenge; and yet another fragment was steeped in self-loathing and guilt. As far as Julien was concerned, his father and mother had been weak and pathetic. They had betrayed the house of Jadon, and they had betrayed what should have been an unconditional love for their firstborn son. Ultimately, they had chosen the dark twin’s missing soul over everyone else’s lives, and they had been torn to pieces because of it.
Julien was ashamed of his pedigree.
He was incensed at the wretched brother who had somehow escaped him.
And he was haunted by the knowledge that he couldn’t save his mother, his father was “burning in hell,” and all of it—all of it—was due to the fact that his parents hadn’t loved him like they should have, and his sire hadn’t been man enough to step up to the plate when it counted.
The sentinel buried all that emotion in battles.
He tracked like a son of a bitch when it was needed, and he self-medicated with anything he could get his hands on in order to stay fifty paces ahead of the pain. Unfortunately, Julien was a vampire, and his body was lethally efficient in metabolizing drugs and foreign substances. He couldn’t stay drunk, and he couldn’t stay high. Over the years, he had found a way to mix liquid heroin into a stiff drink of 151-proof alcohol, followed by a fresh drag of blood. Apparently, the buzz lasted about thirty minutes, before the body kicked it off, but Julien was more than willing to do whatever it took in order to grab that half hour of peace whenever he could. Now, he was offering the same to Ramsey and his brothers, to get through the unimaginable period of time leading up to Ramsey’s death at the hands of the Curse. At a half hour a pop, that would be about 1,248 ounces of H and 4,992 ounces of cocktail… per male.
Ramsey cleared his throat. “Shit, J. I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
Julien shrugged, seemingly unfazed. “Don’t judge,” he said, “just let me know if you need it.”
Ramsey nodded slowly. Yeah, need it, indeed.
He rose from his seat and made his way toward the ominous dais for the umpteenth time. He didn’t know why he bothered—it wouldn’t change a thing. Tiffany was gone, and there was no going back. Nevertheless, he felt like he owed his destiny at least that much, and he couldn’t stand to sit there with his brothers, watching them as they watched him, waiting for him to die. They had tried to talk. They had tried to reminisce. But hell’s fire, what was there to say? Each one of them, to a male, was simply surviving, one brutal, intolerable second at a time.
The whole scene was masochistic to say the least.
Ramsey slowed his pace as he approached the platform, bowing his head out of respect, and then he reached out to take Tiffany’s elegant hand in his and simply held it. I’m sorry, Blondie, he whispered in his mind. I’m so, so sorry. He kissed the back of her fingers, wishing he could hear her laugh. Soon, I’ll be with you in the Valley of Spirit and Light, and I’ll spend all of eternity making it up to you.
The words should have ripped a hole in his heart, but as it stood, he simply felt numb, unable to feel, unable to be in this reality a moment longer.
And perhaps that was as it should be.
He was just about to lay her hand back down at her side when the ancient domed ceiling began to shake; the ground rumbled beneath his feet; and the dim lanterns swayed on their mantels.
What the hell?
And then, descending from the ceiling like some sort of low-lying cloud, was a hideous, massive being—a vampire? A demon? A ghost?—with familiar sapphire eyes.
Salvatore Nistor.
Ramsey couldn’t say how he knew. Between the rat-like mouth, full of sharply pointed teeth, the elongated snout, with one too many nostrils, and the mismatched arms, one considerably longer than the other, there was still something in those eyes. The widow’s peak was familiar, and the pupils were dilated with hate. It was definitely… somehow… Salvatore Nistor, only the vampire had been changed.
“Greetings, my spoiled-rotten cousins!” His voice rang out like thunder as he descended toward the ground and stopped just short of touching the ancient floor. He hovered like some sort of warlock, his entire aura ablaze.
Ramsey reached for his dagger, even as Saxson, Santos, and Julien appeared, in an instant, at his side.
The aberration simply held out his hand; flicked his wrist, as if chasing away a fly; and all the sentinels weapons went clambering across the room.
“Oh, it won’t be that easy now,” Salvatore droned. “You have finally met your match.” Floating above the floor, he drifted toward Tiffany’s body, and Ramsey thought he might just come unglued.
The vampire was a dead thing walking. Ramsey had absolutely nothing left to lose. And if Salvatore thought he was going to defile his destiny’s body, then he had another think coming: Ramsey would meet him in hell before that happened. He dove at the apparition, hurling all 240 pounds of his rock-hard body through the air, and slammed straight into an impenetrable barrier, stunned at how easily the vampire tossed him aside.
“Oh, do calm down, my little pet. There is little I can do to her now.” He cocked his head to the side and shrugged. “Besides, I would say we could call it even. After all, you murdered my bride, and I murdered yours. Tit for tat. Slut for skank. Oh well.” He threw back his head and laughed. “Not to mention, I have bigger fish to fry.” And then his eyes became like two glowing irons, sizzling in their sockets, and he roared his fury like a lion. “Napolean! Napolean! Face me if you dare, you cowardly maggot!”
*
Ramsey watched in morbid fascination as the floor buckled beneath
him, the ceiling began to cave in, and the stones began to shake loose from the walls. As irrational as it was, his first and only instinct was to cover Tiffany’s body—he just couldn’t watch her corpse being desecrated.
And then the ancient king of the house of Jadon appeared in all his power and splendor. Like a warring angel descending from the heavens, he swooped into the room with glorious wings unfurled and his dark onyx eyes ablaze with fury. His voice was a harsh, unyielding command. “What is the meaning of this?” He stopped, took one good look at Salvatore, and took a cautious step back. “Salvatore?”
The wicked reincarnated sorcerer cackled like a fiend. “Milord.” He tittered like a joker. “That is such a stupid title.”
Napolean’s expression turned to stone, and the sentinels all stepped back. They knew that look in his eyes—it was rare, it was menacing, and it was final. He was going to destroy the evil vampire once and for all, and perhaps everyone else within fifty miles.
Salvatore shrank down into a crouch, holding both clawed hands in front of him, and gestured the ancient king forward with his fingers. “Oh, yes… yes… yes. Come. This is positively orgasmic. Come to me, my king.”
Napolean stopped dead in his tracks and surveyed his enemy a second time. Undoubtedly, the fearsome monarch was taking more than Salvatore’s measure—he was trying to discern just what he was now, how he had returned from the dead, and what it would take to destroy him.
Salvatore laughed like a hyena. “Perplexing, isn’t it?”
Napolean didn’t wait for further banter. The powerful king sprang into motion, moving so fast that even Ramsey couldn’t track his movements. His body was like a neon light, swirling in incandescent pulses, spinning around the Dark One in tight, circular passes, as one by one, vicious wounds appeared on Salvatore’s body; blood spurted out, as if from a faulty hydrant; and the cocky interloper began to stagger.
Salvatore called on some unholy power—he must have—because he grew several feet taller; a dark, inky halo began to churn around his head; and his voice grew so deep and demonic that it no longer sounded like the familiar sorcerer’s. “You dare to attack me now!” he bellowed. “The undefeatable king of the Vampyr, the legendary patriarch of the house of Jadon. Well, welcome to the gates of hell. You fight the entire forces of darkness!” He threw his gnarled hands into the air, and the very ether began to dance a fiery tango at his command.