Blood Oath (16 page)

In the meantime, Cade retrieved the only man who could repair the damage—who could bring dead tissue back to life.

Konrad was imprisoned in Jonesville. If he’d been in any other facility, there would have been no hope. No way to get him to the hospital in time.

Jonesville was no better and no worse than any other high-security federal prison. Rape, drugs, murder. Cade honestly had not thought about it when they deposited Konrad there.

But when he got to the cell, he saw Konrad had sampled every one of the facility’s offerings.

His face was scarred. There was a fresh bruise on his temple. Kept from his equipment and his potions, Konrad had even aged—his flawless skin beginning to pucker and warp.

Still, he stood with as much dignity as he could manage; his dirty hair combed with water from the toilet and swept back. He looked down at Cade, a baron in his mind if nowhere else.

A day later, the president was back on TV Smiling. Joking. The Devastator rounds failed to explode, the press was told. Collapsed lung, nothing more. An inch from the heart. The president was a lucky man.

His mind never really recovered from the long period of clinical death, even though his body went on for years after. Toward the end of his second term, he would sit in his bedroom all day, still in his pajamas.

Cade remembered the look of triumph on Konrad’s face when he arrived at the door of the doctor’s cell. He smiled, revealing several missing teeth. But he looked no less happy.

“I told you, Cade,” he said. “There will always be someone willing to pay for my services.”

—Letter to President Theodore Roosevelt, dated 1903, signed only “HH”
(Classified)

 

 

 

 

K
onrad waited a full five minutes after Cade left, taking the time to get his breathing back under control. Over sixty years, and the hate was still there, rushing back to the surface.

There were times Konrad simply wanted to talk to Cade. He remembered an absurd burst of joy when he first learned of Cade’s existence. He’d known about vampires before that, of course—he had been acquainted with the Other Side for a long time, because of his studies.

But with Cade, he thought he might have finally found someone who could understand. Other vampires abandoned the human world almost immediately, except to feed. Cade insisted on dressing and acting and talking like a person. He was still tethered to humanity, as much as Konrad was, but like Konrad, was above it.

Of course, Cade was much younger. And disappointingly moralistic, even priggish. Konrad had to abandon his fantasy of the two of them sitting down like civilized beings, perhaps over cards or chess, and discussing what they had learned in their long lives.

Cade hated him. Had from the moment he first saw Konrad. Konrad knew why, of course. He spent enough time with Sigmund, back in Vienna, to make a simple diagnosis. (Sigmund found him distasteful—probably for reasons even the analyst could not explain, or would ever care to plumb. But he was bound by the rules of polite society, of gentility, to converse with a man of Konrad’s wealth and stature.) In Konrad, Cade saw a parasite feeding off the life of others. He despised that.

It was only a reflection. Konrad was just the surface on which Cade projected his own self-loathing.

Konrad was forced to conclude that Cade was too sentimental. He did not recognize what he was, how he was greater than the common mass of humanity.

It also kept him from recognizing Konrad’s position, as far above Cade as Cade was from the common herd. That was why Cade would always fail. He did not know his place, Konrad decided. He was incapable of recognizing his superiors.

At last, it was time to remedy that.

He picked up his phone and dialed. It took a moment to connect; the encryption was always a bit slow.

“It’s me,” he said to the voice that picked up. “The president’s pet bloodhound was just here.”

A slight pause. “What did he want?”

“That’s not the right answer,” Konrad said.

Another pause, longer this time. “We’ll handle it,” the voice replied.

“Yes. I thought that was what you meant.”

“There’s no need to be snide, Doctor.” Even through the electronic masking, Konrad could hear the wounded pride. “I simply wondered what you’d done to attract the president’s attention.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes,” Konrad said. “It doesn’t impact our agreement. You don’t need to know.”

“You sound frightened, Doctor.” Now there was a slightly mocking tone.

Konrad took another moment to compose himself. “Do you really think you’re in a position to push me?”

Another pause. “I understand.”

“No, you don’t,” Konrad said. “But you will.”

—BRIEFING BOOK: CODENAME: NIGHTMARE PET

 

 

 

 

Z
ach followed Cade to the parking garage attached to the clinic, headed for the sedan.

“What did you think of him?” Cade asked.

“Give me some credit,” Zach said. “Guy’s more full of shit than a duck pond.”

Cade’s mouth twitched at the corner before settling into its usual stony calm.

Cade opened the trunk, and retrieved a black nylon case. He unzipped it, and revealed an array of electronic gizmos held by Velcro straps.

Zach grinned. “Sweet. Finally some superspy tech.”

Cade resisted the urge to sigh. He turned on the small, battery-powered GPS tracker. A signal lit up on his sat-phone.

Then he found Konrad’s parking space, Zach trailing along behind.

The doctor’s Ferrari was parked under his RESERVED sign. Cade looked around for cameras and then ducked under the rear wheel. The rare-earth magnet on the tracer stuck to the axle like glue.

Zach watched, still grinning. “So what do we do now?”

“Now, you wait here. Konrad has several cars. Tomorrow morning, you do the same thing I just did if he comes to work in a different one.”

Zach’s face fell. “That’s it?”

“For the time being, yes.”

Zach stewed all the way back to the sedan. Cade figured the tantrum would come before they exited the garage. Zach didn’t even make it inside the car.

“You know, I’m getting a little bit sick of this,” he said. He stared at Cade over the roof of the sedan. “You’re supposed to take orders from me, remember?”

It suddenly occurred to Cade why Zach annoyed him. He was completely convinced that he knew the shape of the world, and resisted every attempt to knock him out of that certainty. Cade had not dealt with anyone like that for decades.

In short, he was young, and he made Cade feel
old
. That was a human feeling—one he hadn’t had before. Not ever.

He wasn’t sure what to make of it.

He knew Zach was frustrated and acting out, trying to assert control over an arguably insane situation.

It didn’t make him any less irritating, however.

Cade buried the feelings. “It doesn’t quite work like that.”

Zach wasn’t going to be put off. “So how does it work? Tell me. What happens if I give an order and you don’t follow it?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Zach rolled his eyes, then reached inside his jacket and came out with a small silver flask.

“Actually, I do.”

Cade couldn’t sniff the contents of the flask—it was sealed tight. “What is that?”

Zach looked inordinately pleased with himself. “About twelve ounces of type O negative, I think.”

“What? Where did you get that?”

“I swiped it from the doctor’s fridge, when I told you I was looking for the restroom.”

Cade stepped back from the car. His hands were shaking, and despite his best efforts, they would not stop.

“Why would you—why?”

“Because I want to know, Cade. What kind of vampire doesn’t drink human blood?”

“I won’t do it.”

“Sure you will. I’m following the rules. I just gave you a lawful order. And I’m the president’s representative. As far as you’re concerned, that’s the same as coming straight from him.” Zach’s smug look was just about unbearable now. “So drink up.”

Cade felt his right foot move, as if on its own, back toward the car. The first step to taking the flask and downing it, all in one long, easy gulp ...

His mouth was full of saliva. He found it difficult to talk. “Please,” he said. “I’m begging you.”

Zach laughed. “Begging me? I thought you were the guy in charge, Cade—”

He didn’t say anything else, or Cade didn’t hear it, because that’s when the seizures started.

His right hand reached out for the flask, so he drove it into the door of the car instead. The panel crumpled under the impact. The force under all his thoughts shoved its way to the front of his mind, telling him to just pick up the flask and follow the order. He stood in front of it like a man before a tidal wave on the beach, trying desperately to keep his footing in the sand.

His body thrashed away from him. Pain, overriding his nervous system. Punishment. His legs kicked out, and vaguely, he noticed a fender torn off the driver’s side of the car.

Mme. Laveau’s voice came back to him, bigger than anything, softer than silk.
“By this blood, you are bound,”it told him, “... to the orders of the officers appointed by him
...”

He screamed, to drown it out. Because even if it left him in ruins, he swore,
never again,
not one drop, no matter what.

He thought back to a ship, the last night he had been human. He remembered how he had failed to stand against the darkness. And how easy it would be to just give in to it again.

No. Never again. No matter what.

Then he heard another scream, a different voice. The sound of sheer panic. It took him a moment to recognize the voice. To connect it with a name.

Zach. “—Jesus Christ, Cade, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I take it back, I take the order back—”

A lawful order, from an officer of the president.

The pain vanished. The certainty moved back to its normal place, in the back of his mind.

The gray cleared from his vision, and he noticed he was on the floor. His fingers had carved small furrows in the concrete.

Zach was next to him, worry and fear on his face.

Cade had bitten through his lip. He pulled his fangs back in, and shifted to a sitting position. He leaned against the door of the sedan. He didn’t think he could manage standing just yet.

Zach had never stopped talking. Of course.

“—I didn’t know, I swear, I mean, holy shit, holy shit, Cade, I’m sorry, I really didn’t know, I just—”

“You just wanted to find out how far you could push,” Cade said. His voice was a croak, strangely distant in his own ears.

Zach kneeled down closer to him. The flask was in his hand.

“Please,” Cade said. “Get that away from me.”

“What? Oh, this?” Zach opened the flask, and the smell touched Cade like a burn.

Zach took a quick swig.

“Whiskey,” he said. “Graduation gift from my dad. I carry it around everywhere. I figured by the time I actually opened it, it would be twelve-year-old Scotch, instead of the cheap crap he put in there.”

Cade stared at him for a long moment.

Zach finally looked away. If he wasn’t ashamed, he was doing a good job imitating it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wanted to know.”

“Now you do,” Cade said.

Slowly, he got to his feet. He looked at the car. The rear driver’s-side door was wrecked. The window had cracked, but not shattered. The right front fender had been sent across the garage. There were scratches in the paint Cade didn’t remember making, and a fist-shaped dent in the roof

Zach tried to help him up. With more force than he intended—maybe—Cade shook him off.

“Cade. Seriously, man. I’m sorry.”

“Stay here,” Cade said. “Wait for Konrad to leave, then call me. If I don’t answer, call Griff. He’ll tell you how to activate the tracker on my phone.”