Bitten to Death

Chapter Nine

I’m not psychic, but sometimes I get these feelings. Like once the phone rang and I knew I’d be happier if I didn’t answer it. But I did anyway. It was my Granny May, calling to tell me my mother, her daughter, had just died of a massive heart attack. Granny May didn’t last long after that, proving once again that parents should never outlive their children.

Now I realized I should let the details of Disa’s arrival into the Trust remain in the Blissful Ignorance drawer of my life file. It would have no bearing on the mission. Might even make it tougher to pull off. But I had to ask. “Vayl was here before Disa?”

Niall avoided looking at me. But, oh, I could feel the eagerness radiating off him. Like an old lip-wagger who’s trying to figure out if spreading her juicy morsel during the church service will count against her in the afterlife. “Long before.”

“Why did he bring her in?”

Niall looked around the suite, went to the hall door to make sure it was locked, and came back to sit on the bed beside Trayton. I drew the chair up beside it.

“Has Vayl told you about his sons?” he asked after we’d settled in.

“Yeah.” Hanzi and Badu had been the only surviving children of his eighteenth-century marriage to his fellow Roma Liliana. The boys’ murders had sparked their parents’ turning, Vayl’s revenge on the farmer who did the killing, and his endless search for their reincarnated souls.

Niall said, “In 1857, right around this time of year in fact, Vayl heard of a Seer who had gained great renown among the literati of Athens. He wouldn’t rest until he’d met with her and asked if she could feel the presence of his sons’ souls, either in the netherworld or here, on earth.”

“I imagine he was pretty excited.”

Niall leaned forward, got rid of a small bubble of silver. They’d slowed to a dribble, leaving Trayton to rest easier, though he’d gone as pale as his vampire nurse. “He was practically babbling with glee. Some of us thought he’d taken some bad blood he was so changed from his usual quiet demeanor.” Which would have been worse in April, the anniversary of the deaths of his sons.

“So he went to Athens?” I asked.

“Often. Every week for half a year. And all the time his behavior became more and more erratic. Great highs when he would laugh and dance and demand huge parties. Intense lows when he’d hunt the streets alone, endangering himself and the entire Trust.”

“What was he hunting?” I asked through lips that had suddenly gone dry.

“We eat to live,” Niall said flatly. “But even then we preferred willing donors. It is better to coexist than merely survive, yes?”

I might have nodded, but I wasn’t feeling quite connected to my head anymore, so I couldn’t be absolutely sure. “So Vayl went hunting for unwilling donors?”

“Precisely. People who would not be missed. Those whom other humans would prefer to be rid of. He would take on entire gangs of street thugs, come back bloodied and beaten, but still be triumphant. Then he would return to Athens.”

“What happened in the end?”

“He began to suspect Disa had not the second Sight she claimed. He asked me to come along with him to help discover the truth.”

“Wait a second. So Disa was this famous Seer—and she was human at the time?”

“Yes.”

“Okay . . . so you two met her, where, at her shop?”

Niall shook his head. “She was the daughter of a wealthy merchant who kept her well provided for in a home near the center of town. That was where she gave her readings.”

“Did she ask for money for her services?”

“No. But people seemed to enjoy giving her expensive gifts. Even Vayl had given her a diamond necklace and a pair of matching earrings in gratitude for her efforts.” Wow, she sounds like some kind of slick talker. Maybe I underestimated her.

Niall went on. “At any rate, we went to visit her on a cool October evening. Vayl had just been through an episode of abject misery during which he had not left his apartments for perhaps three or four days. Now all he could talk about was seeing Disa, getting a good reading, finally uncovering some real details. He became so eager and excited to hear about Hanzi and Badu that he forgot why he had invited me along in the first place.”

“You will be polite?” he asked me as we tied our horses to the rail in front of Disa’s house that night.

“Only until she raises the shade of my dead grandfather, and then all bets are off,” I joked. He didn’t laugh.

We used a massive boar’s head knocker to signal our presence at the entrance of a three-story town house that rose straight from the street with no architecture or garden to relieve its simple, white plainness. Its brown-painted windowsills were recessed, and without benefit of a light closer than the one halfway down the block, they seemed even to my vision like hollow eye sockets staring from the pale face of a dying man.

Disa came to the door after a prolonged bout of knocking. She had thrown a thin, white robe over her chemise. I didn’t think this boded well for my companion. How could the Seer not have foretold his visit? But this detail escaped him. He grasped both of her hands in his. “Tell me about my sons,” he demanded. “I cannot wait another moment. When will I meet them and where?”

I expected her eyes to go blank, her mouth to slacken as the truly Gifted’s will when the Sight is upon them. Disa just snatched her hands back and drawled, “Vayl, if it were that easy, don’t you think you’d have found them long before now?”

He looked at me then, and I could tell he remembered why I was there. “May we come in?” I asked.

She clearly wanted to refuse us. But then Vayl would know for certain. So she said, “Of course.”

She gestured for us to enter, and we followed her into a small room dominated by a round table covered with a floor-length black cloth and surrounded by ladder-backed chairs. Five black candles formed the table’s centerpiece. She lit these and then asked us to sit, one on either side of her.

I had a moment to register the long black curtains drawn across the two windows, the fireplace—its mantel empty, its hearth bare though it had been an extremely cool fall—and the white, floor-to-ceiling shelves containing all manner of mismatched bric-a-brac, from china teacups to pottery urns to a vase full of wilted flowers. And then I turned my attentions to Disa. She had made a new plan for her client.

She leaned toward Vayl, her robe gaping open to reveal a distracting view of her neckline. “Since I, and in fact all of your Seers, have had such a difficult time deciphering the whereabouts of your sons, may I suggest a different tack?”

Such was Vayl’s obsession that his eyes never wavered from her face. “What is it?” he asked.

“Let me try to contact your father. I believe he could tell us what we need to know.”

Vayl sat back. “My . . . father?”

“His name was”—she closed her eyes and rested her hand atop Vayl’s—“Nelu, was it not?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“I can feel him,” she said without opening her eyes. “Let me reach out, Vayl. Let me see if he has spoken to Hanzi and Badu.”

“Yes,” he said again, tears springing to the corners of his eyes.

I was not so taken in. Charlatans aren’t stupid. They’re simply not smart enough to follow the law. So I watched closely as Disa “fell” into her trance. As she “contacted” Nelu, who had, miraculously, just spoken to Hanzi and Badu that very morning. They had not been reincarnated as Vayl’s last Seer had intimated, but still wandered in the Spirit World, waiting for their time to return. Which meant Vayl could talk to them anytime he wished. Through Disa.

“Now,” Vayl croaked, his voice so cloaked in tears he sounded like an entirely different man. “Please, let me speak to them now.”

Suddenly, though no logs stood to receive it, a fire lit in the hearth. A teacup flew across the room and smashed against the wall. And Disa spoke in a voice not her own. A young man’s that said, “Papa?”

Vayl cried, “Hanzi?” as both windows flew open. The curtains billowed. Another item flew off the shelf and rolled to the floor. When I looked, I realized it was the vase, and the flowers had somehow revived to their former splendor. I glanced back at Disa and thought, My, but you have talented feet. And is that an accomplice whose excitement I sense just beyond the boundaries of this room?

I rose as the candles guttered out. I upended the table, allowing Vayl to see the pedals at Disa’s feet and the levers on the table legs at her hands’ level, all of which had been hidden by the tablecloth. I yanked a lever and one of the windows closed. Another caused the fire to go out and the room descended into darkness. I could feel the fury and fear of the accomplice. His indecision would not last long.

“We must leave, Vayl,” I said. “Someone else knows what we have discovered, and they will not suffer the knowledge to spread.”

For a moment I was not sure Vayl heard me. He stood as still as a man who has just prophesied his own doom.

“This will not stand,” he whispered, so softly even I barely heard him.

“Vayl, really, we have to go now. Later. Later we can—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No!” he bellowed. He strode to Disa, who had backed almost to the fireplace. He grabbed her hand just as she raised it to the mantel, pulling her away from the spot even as the fireplace—mantel, wall, and all—began to pivot. It revealed a hidden doorway and, stepping from it, a broad-shouldered, bearded man with wide, fear-filled eyes. He was armed with a large crossbow.

With barely even a glance in his direction Vayl backhanded the man, sending him and the crossbow flying into the back of the fireplace so violently that I suspected he was dead. Disa gave a little scream, which eroded to a whimper when Vayl slapped her across the face and snarled, “No more from you, woman. Not a word. Not a sound.”

I followed him out of the house, feeling like a stranger in my own skin having seen such behavior from him. He’d never even been rude to a woman before this night. And yet now I’d seen him hit one even as the bloody tears from his supposed reunion with his beloved sons still stood upon his face.

He hitched Disa’s carriage to her team, threw her into the back, and ordered me to drive. Though I didn’t see what happened next, I heard it. Vayl said, “You heartless bitch. Six months you played me. And meant to for how long? Another six or eight before you disappeared? With as much of my fortune as you could get your hands on, I suppose. And I, pitiful wretch that I am, fell right into your grasping hands. We both deserve this.”

“And then,” Niall said, “he ripped her.”

I grabbed the arms of my chair. Felt my nails dig through the tattered material to the cushioning underneath. “Did you say . . . ripped?”

“Yes.”

Huge sigh of relief. I think. “What is that?”

Niall had finished pulling the silver from Trayton’s body. He set the towel he’d been using aside and rubbed both hands across his eyes, as if he didn’t want to visualize what he’d witnessed that night. “Humans believe you must choose to become a vampire. Most of the time that is the case. However, very occasionally, a person is ripped, or forced, into vampirism. The risk of permanent death for both parties involved in such a turning is so extreme it’s almost never attempted. However, sometimes, as in this case, the vampire feels justified in the attempt.”

“I don’t . . . Are you saying he tore away her chance at eternity in heaven by forcing her to spend forever here on earth?”

“I suppose you could see it that way. But that was never his intent. Because he didn’t plan for her to live beyond the next dawn. Already maddened by the desire to see his sons again, he allowed the pain and humiliation Disa caused to destroy the remainder of his self-control. He did in five minutes what a purposeful vampire would have taken a year to accomplish. He took her to the brink of death. Then he brought her back. After which he left her tied to a tree to watch the sun rise.”

Here it was. The thing I knew I’d have to face about Vayl. He’d hinted at his shadowed past. Had even told me I wouldn’t have wanted to know him back when. So how did it feel to be romantically involved with a reformed ripper?

No clue.

My insides were so jumbled I couldn’t have made sense of them if I’d been a professional code breaker. “So.” I cleared my throat of whatever had suddenly become lodged there. “She’s obviously still kicking. Did you go back for her?”

Niall laughed without a trace of humor. “And invite Vayl’s wrath? Do I look suicidal? No, indeed, Vayl himself returned. He heard her weeping, even from miles away. That is how strongly the turning connects you. In the end he couldn’t leave her to die. So he brought her into the Trust.” Niall’s eyebrows arched. “An enormous risk in itself, since turning was, and still is, forbidden. But, as you may have noticed, Vayl is a survivor. A skill he passed on to Disa. It is amazing to me, the Gifts that are transmitted between Maker and mate. But then, that still was not enough to make him forgive her, not even when she begged him to on the day he left.”

“Excuse me,” I said, Lucille’s polite smile frozen on my face. “Just now. Did you say Maker and mate?”

“Yes.”

I laughed. Because I was getting real stressed, real fast, and that’s my funky way of showing it. “Ha, ha-ha-ha. My understanding was that Makers kind of guide their, um, makees. Like teachers. Maker and student,” I said, loud enough that Trayton opened his eyes.

“I understand that is the case in North American nests and many of those found in New Zealand and Australia. But Trusts view the relationship much more seriously. They grant those who are turned the power to bind their Makers to them for a specific length of time, which is why we call them mates. When Hamon decided to allow Disa to stay, he did as much for her.”

“Why?” I clenched my fists, realizing if Niall didn’t answer I’d willingly resort to violence for the information I needed.

He must’ve sensed my intent, because he answered quickly. “It assures the survival of our young, as some Makers have been known to abandon their—?Excuse me. Are you going to be sick?” He reached out.

Don’t. Touch me. “Are they . . . were Vayl and Disa bonded? Bound?”

Oddly, Niall glanced at his watch. “Actually, yes. About thirty minutes ago.”

“WHAT?”

He shrugged. “It makes no sense to me either. She sent the news to us through one of her guards. That was why we were trying to put the dining room to rights so quickly. She wants to have another feast tomorrow to celebrate her invocation of the binding.”

“Invocation. Binding.” The words seemed to sear themselves into the air as I released them. “What exactly does that mean?”

“Vayl has no choice. Despite the fact that he left the Trust, he is still her Maker. And so, for the length of time she requires, they are tied to one another. Like a married couple.”

“Like a married couple,” I parroted. My lips had gone numb.

Niall nodded. “Except without the option of divorce.”

I felt like I was speaking from behind my eyeballs and seeing from the top of my head. I recognized the tactic. Had used it before almost every hit of my career. “And how long . . . ”

“Fifty years.”

I looked down to make sure I hadn’t floated out of the chair. Nope, still sitting there, still breathing, even though I felt like I’d just been stabbed to death. Why is it that the deepest wounds never show?

“Oh.” I stood. Glanced at my knees, slightly surprised they were holding me up. “Oh,” I said again. I looked at Niall. “Will you excuse me, please?”

I went out the hallway door. Checked my bearings. Raised Cirilai to eye level. Since the ruby and diamond ring Vayl had given me connected us in all kinds of ways, one of which would bring him running if he sensed I was in danger, I blasted that message now as I strode away from our quarters. Soon I could sense them coming. Not just him. The whole bunch of them, just as I’d expected. Because if you were smart, you didn’t give the Tolic free rein of his old stomping grounds.

Rounding a corner I found them, Vayl in the lead, eyes narrowed, lips tight, the way they get when he’s worried. Dave followed close behind. And at their heels, Disa, Sibley, Marcon, and the sumo guards, unhappily stuck in the back because they were too big, the hallway too narrow for them to flank anyone. Brushing past Vayl, I walked up to Disa, raised the crossbow I held in my right hand, pressed it against her chest, and . . .

In that split second, when everything slows down before a killing, I saw and heard everything.

The fancy wallpaper, yellowed and peeling.

Dave, his bloodshot eyes bulging with shock, yelling, “What the hell are you doing?”

Vayl reaching out to grab me, bellowing, “Stop!”

Marcon’s eyes widening as he saw the advantages of a dead Disa in his Trust.

Sibley’s screech of dismay as her hands flew to cover her own chest.

The sumos’ desperate efforts to plow through the unmoving vamps in front of them.

Disa’s moment of paralysis, stemming from the conviction that, of all people, Vayl’s wimpy little avhar would never attempt such a thing.

I pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. I hadn’t released the safety after I’d left the bedroom. Never thought to do it in the hallway, because I’d assumed it was already done. And that mistake saved my life.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Disa demanded, her voice so close to high C my eardrums shivered. Part of me noticed something strange going on at her throat that even repeated swallowing couldn’t explain. But that observation got filed away with the rest under Who gives a shit?

“Vayl is my sverhamin,” I said, standing my ground despite the fact that the guards had made excellent headway and could almost reach me now. “He’s also my boss, my partner, and my . . .” I let that one drop. Too hard to speak from that point. “If I’d been there when the Wizard enslaved my brother I’d have shot the bastard right between the eyes. I wasn’t. But I’m here now. Nobody traps anybody who belongs to me. Not now. Not ever.”

When your gun fails, words can make for powerful mojo. But not as bad as a Vampere bond. I turned my back before Disa could see I knew that.