Blood Oath (28 page)

There was Quinn, who chewed tobacco leaf constantly, until it flavored his whole body with a slight tang. There was Avery, who was already dying of the pox, but didn’t know it yet, didn’t feel the little animals munching on his brain, which stood out in the scent like a worm in an apple. Adams, the ship’s mate, a musk like salted jerky.

And then, closer, more familiar, William. He knew that name. And Jonas. Random images. Sitting with them, talking, wandering the streets of Boston, looking for women and drink, with a lust that seemed almost quaint by comparison. Scenes curiously dead of any emotional resonance.

A new, overpowering scent reached him. A rich, coppery tang in the air.

It smelled delicious.

All the memories vanished then, washed out in the pure, clean scent of their blood.

He leaped across the hold, his muscles pulsing with new power. Jonas and William were piled there, like they were packages waiting for him to open.

Jonas was dead—his blood was already slightly tainted, slightly old—beginning to turn rank. But the thing that had fed on him had left enough for another meal. And it was still warm enough.

His canines shoved their way out of his mouth, and he tore open the flesh of his prey.

He buried his face in the blood. It tasted wonderful.

He drank deep, and every cell in his body screamed with something too cold, too dark, to be called joy.

Jonas was empty too quickly. He tossed the corpse aside, turned to the other body.

Then he heard something. A flutter of a pulse, weak but still there.

He stooped down to William’s throat. Saw William’s eyes open, heard him say a name with his last ounce of strength: “Nathaniel ...”

He knew that name from somewhere. He just didn’t care anymore.

He drank the living blood, and this was even better. He felt his own wounds knitting, felt structures shift inside himself, and knew he was taking the last steps away from what he had been.

He knew. He just didn’t care.

There was a noise above him. He ignored that, too. He felt, rather than heard, the leather boots on the ladder of the hold. Intruders.

He wasn’t afraid. They were slow, and they were no real threat, his new senses told him.

They were men. They were prey.

He realized his mistake when he heard the gasp. They were already on top of him. Guns drawn. Frightened and ready to shoot.

He smelled their fear, along with the rankness of their sweat, under the gunpowder and oil of their rifles.

He dropped the body, now empty, to the floor of the hold. Already he had forgotten its name. He turned to face the men.

Perhaps if he had been just a few minutes older in his new life, he would have sprung on them quicker. Perhaps he would have gotten farther and torn them apart, and he would have started his new life free of any semblance of humanity.

But they were prepared, and he was too slow. They fired.

He felt the pressure in his chest—not pain, but pressure—as the hail of bullets knocked him back.

He saw his own blood, pumping out of the new holes in his skin. He struggled to stand and could not.

He looked up at the man in the lead of the intruders. Saw the hate and disgust in his eyes. Saw himself there.

Suddenly, he remembered who he was.

Mercifully, that was when the man clubbed him with the butt of the rifle, and everything went black.

 

 

“WHEN I WOKE UP AGAIN, I was in a cell. I met President Andrew Johnson. That’s where my second life began.”

Zach sat on the floor, with his back to the wall. Most of the time, he hadn’t even looked at Cade. Just listened.

“Cade,” he said, his voice quiet. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Cade said, angry now. “You were right. The point of the story isn’t that I am a good person underneath everything. I was a person. But now I’m not.”

“That’s not true. You’re fighting it. You’re trying-”

“Mr. Barrows,” Cade said patiently, “I killed my best friend to feed myself. And I felt nothing. I am a vampire and a murderer. Whatever else I do in this world, nothing will change that. I can fight on the side of the angels until doomsday, but I’m still damned.”

“Then why do it? Why bother?”

Cade’s face was entirely in shadow now, so Zach couldn’t see his expression when he spoke again.

“Because,” Cade said, “it’s worth fighting for. That’s all that matters.”

Zach thought about that for a long moment. But he had to admit: “I don’t get it.”

“Maybe you will,” Cade said. “Someday.”

N
either Cade nor Zach spoke for a long time. Cade checked his watch again. The light from outside was gone.

“Sunset,” he said. “Let’s find Konrad.”

Zach hesitated when they reached the car. Cade was in the driver’s seat, but Zach wouldn’t get inside.

Cade got out again and looked at Zach over the roof. “What?” he asked.

Zach looked troubled. “Why are we going after Konrad?”

“Nothing has changed. He’s still the priority.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes,” Cade said simply.

Zach scowled. “Ask a stupid question ...” He stepped away from the car door.

Cade wanted to get back on the trail. Get back to the hunt. But he bit back his impatience. “I know you’re not used to speaking directly. But you need to start.”

“I think maybe we should get back to D.C. Regroup. Consult with the president.”

“There’s no time,” Cade said.

“Someone tried to blow us up, Cade,” Zach said. “You don’t think maybe we should pause and reconsider strategy?”

“No.”

“So that’s it? You’re just right and I’m just wrong? You ever think that this vendetta you have against Konrad is clouding your judgment?”

“He has the answers we need. It’s that simple.”

“He didn’t plant that bomb, Cade. Holt did. You told me that. So why is the CIA trying to kill us?”

While one part of his brain talked to Zach, Cade was forced to pause and reconsider. Not his course of action—Zach was wrong there—but he had been too focused on his prey. He hadn’t considered another threat.

“You’re right,” Cade said, interrupting whatever snide remark Zach was making. “Get in the car.”

Zach looked confused. “I am? Wait, what?”

Cade started the engine. Zach got in the passenger side.

They drove to the site of the safe house. Now it was abandoned, cordoned off by police tape. Nothing but rubble.

Cade got out of the car and walked around.

Zach followed. “What are we looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Cade admitted.

How had Holt had managed to plant the bomb? There was no way anyone could have followed them to the safe house. He would have noticed. Vampires had been returning to their lairs for centuries—not one would have survived if it were possible for humans to track them unnoticed.

The only answer: a traitor. And not just any traitor. Someone with access to the highest levels of the White House. Someone who knew the location of the safe house, of all Cade’s safe houses, who knew all his secrets.

He hated to admit it, even to himself, but Zach was right. The hunt was far more complex—and dangerous—than he’d allowed himself to think.

Worse, Cade couldn’t protect the boy. Not until he knew what he was facing.

There was only one thing to do.

“I don’t need you here,” he said to Zach. “Go home.”

“Excuse me?”

He reached into his pocket and took out the rest of the money. He tossed the wad of bills to Zach.

“Take this. Go to the airport. Go home.”

Zach caught the cash one-handed. But he still looked baffled. “Wait, what are you going to do?”

“I’ve still got work here.”

“Then I do too.”

“No soap,” Cade said.

Zach looked at him. “ ‘No soap’? What does that even mean?”

“Sorry. It’s an old expression, meaning—”

“I don’t give a shit. Talk to me, Cade. You can’t just send me away like I’m the errand boy. I’m supposed to help you—”

“You can’t,” Cade said simply. “You were right. You are not ready for this. Go back to Griff. Give him the report. Tell him I will be in contact as soon as possible.”

Zach looked hurt. “I wasn’t trying to ... I mean, I didn’t mean I wanted to quit ...”

Cade turned away.

“Go home, Zach,” he said.

He was already working out his strategy. It was a new kind of prey. A new hunt.

Cade ran across the street, leaving Zach standing by the car. He was gone in seconds.

He needed information. He was sure he knew where he could get it.

S
he was kept in an atrium at the center of the building—high ceiling, skylight with retractable cover and a decorative indoor fountain. He called it his Zen garden, a place for meditation.

She could have made the skylight with one easy leap, but the collar’s range extended to the roof as well. She would be dead before she touched open air.

Most of the time, she sat. She could be very, very quiet and still. But she was starting to get hungry. She was used to regular meals.

The noise of the water in the fountain was enough to baffle her hearing much of the time. (Honestly, how could anyone think with that racket? It didn’t seem very meditative.) But she caught some conversations here and there. Konrad on the phone, making dinner reservations. Konrad with a patient, reassuring her that her breasts had never looked better. Konrad ordering a nurse to inject Botox.

Tania heard all this and filed it away in her perfect memory without really listening to it. She was bored out of her mind.

She was sitting like a statue when the door to the atrium clicked open.

A voice echoed from speakers set in the ceiling.

“I’ve opened a pathway from the garden to the first operating room,” Konrad said over the intercom. “Please join me there.”

A click, then his voice was back again. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what happens if you stray from the path.” Another click, then silence.

Tania thought about disobeying, but that would only bring a shock from the collar. There was no way Konrad would try to retrieve her himself.

She had underestimated him. That was obvious from the new jewelry she was sporting. Her mistake was treating him as if he were human. She should have known better.

So she got up and walked down the hall, directly to the first operating room.

The operating room was lit up like a Vegas casino. All the overheads were at full intensity, and several more surgical lamps had been dragged into the room. There wasn’t so much as a single shadow in a corner.

Tania winced, still sensitive from the UV burn he’d given her the previous night. “Does it have to be so goddamn bright in here?”

Konrad sat on a stool by the operating table. He gave her a distracted smile. “Yes.”

There were parts on the table. Some looked organic. Others looked metallic. And several looked like a horrible fusion of both.

“I’ve been thinking about you. And Cade. Well, your entire species, actually.”

“I’m sure we’re all honored.”

“There’s something very infantile about the vampire,” Konrad said. “The liquid diet. The suckling. Just like a baby. And the childlike belief that death will never come. It makes you arrogant. Rather careless. Immortality came to you as a fluke. You have no idea how precious a gift it is, and so you waste it.”

“You didn’t just want an audience tonight, did you? Because if that’s the case, I might want you to press that button.”

He put down his scalpel and probe, then picked up the remote. “I’m going to assume you’re being sarcastic, rather than suicidal.”

“You’re going to kill me eventually.”

“True. But later is better than sooner, isn’t it? No reason to rush it.”

Tania looked down. “No. There isn’t.”

“Exactly,” Konrad said. “As a matter of fact, I do have an errand for you. I need you to get some human bones for me. From consecrated ground. A complete skeleton, if possible. I’d go myself, but you know how that ends up. You rob one grave, then before you know it, mobs are lined up outside your home with torches ...”

Tania’s expression indicated she didn’t find Konrad as amusing as he did. She waited for him to clear a path to the exit, but Konrad wasn’t done with his lecture.

“This actually brings me back to my point. You don’t need anything but blood and yet you acquire money. Lots of it. I find that curious. Why would something like you bother with all the trappings of being human? You don’t need to move in the daylight world at all. Do you know what I think?”

“I think you’re going to tell me.”

He gave her the distracted smile again. “I think you still cling to the human world. Because Cade moves in that world. You stay attached to it, and you stay attached to him. It’s fascinating, really,” he said. “I’ve never seen one of you capable of this level of self-delusion. Not even Cade.”

“What do you mean by that?” Tania was suddenly interested.

“I’ve lived a long time,” Konrad said. “Everything always comes down to three things. Love and money are the first two. You wouldn’t take my money, but you’re not actually capable of love. So that only leaves the third.”

“And what’s that?”

“Fear,” Konrad said. “You’re scared of him. You’re trying to appease him with your pretend affection. But part of you hopes I do manage to kill him. Because someday, he’s going to come for you, Tania. Just like all the rest of your kind.”

Tania’s face betrayed no emotion at all. “Maybe that’s true,” she said. “Maybe Cade will kill me. But you won’t live to see it.”

“Another threat? I should think you would have realized by now, you’re not going to win.”