Demon Lord 4: White Jade Reaper (18 page)

“What makes you think I won’t simply destroy you out of hand?”  I idly picked up my salad fork, running a thumb over the tines.

“The fact that you are avoiding my eyes proves your inferiority of mind.  Let us not play games.”

I lifted my eyes to his, making contact, and spoke very softly.  “I do not fear you.”

He met my gaze, a small smile twitching his lips.  “Ah, that is better.”  The darkness of his gaze brightened as a hell-red glow swelled in his eyes.  His irises became bloody stars pulling at my thoughts with considerable gravity.  The rest of his face was hazed by the infernal radiance.  He leaned toward me, his palms flat on the tablecloth.  He spoke deep and slow, in a hypnotic rhythm.  “That’s it; look deep into the flames of my will.  All that you are is as wax, melting into obedience.  Your will is mine.  You are mine.” 

My right hand was under the table, fingers curled to hold a sword hilt.  My thoughts raced out into the ether.  My demon sword came to me.  The materializing black-steel blade with its infernal red haze stabbed diagonally up through the table, the tip a few hairs away from the underside of Rasputin’s chin.  The psychic howl of hunger from the sword was a gale in my head.

Rasputin drew back, flattening against the back of the booth. 

My sword tip followed.  He could slide sideways, but not at full speed.  Hi knew it too.  His life was mine to take, if I wanted—unless he had some trick of his own to whip out. 

I smiled coldly.  “I thought you didn’t want to play games.”

He smiled with warmth this time, holding the expression—not that I was fooled.  He said, “I stand corrected.”

EIGHTEEN

“Naked vixen look good on a leash.  Hey, don’t judge me!”

                                   —Caine Deathwalker

“At last,” Rasputin said.  “I have drawn out your true strength, the power I sensed in you from the beginning.”

My inner dragon laughed at that idea, ready to burst out of my skin.

“No,” I said.  “If you were to see my true power, this place would be a shattered, bloody ruin, as would the entire block.  The people would all be dead, and I’d be frying your ass with lightning since I prefer to cook my meals.  Your ultimate destiny would be to become dragon dung fertilizing the daisies.  Now, are we going there, or are you going to behave?”

Sitting across the table, I continued to meet his eyes. 

His will rolled in like an ocean wave, crashing against the breakers of my resistance. 

I laughed at him.  “Give it up, already.  It’s not going to work.”

“You
are
a dragon.”

“
There’s
some truth for you.”

“Yes, indeed.  A little more than I expected.”

I nodded.  “Because I’m heir to a demon clan, people assume the non-human half of my nature must be demon of some kind, but my mother was a golden dragon.  If I can overcome the stigma of tainted blood, the dragons might one day accept me as more than the clan’s royal bastard.  My dragon blood that insulates me from vampire mesmerism, much to the irritation of vampires everywhere.”

The red light went out of his eyes, the returning darkness

more empty than before.  “Yes.  And you mention being royalty because you know I served Russian royalty in my day.  You are hoping I transfer my reverence for royalty to you.  However, my peasant days are long behind me.  I am quite the American these days.” 

You say that but old habits die hard—just like exes.

I willed my sword away. 

He reached out, picked up a glass of water, and took the smallest sip.  “Odd, I would not have thought I could still know fear.”  He set the glass down.  “The next question is yours.”

“Fine.  How did you survive what history calls your assassination?”

“Now that is a story!  But let it wait a moment.”

Our waiter returned with my drink.  I hadn’t looked at the menu.  I picked it up and handed it over.  Looking at Rasputin, I asked, “What’s good here?”

“The spicy lamb sausage, I hear.  It comes with rice pilaf and an apricot-shallot relish.  Try it with the citron vodka.”

I nodded at the waiter.  “You heard the man.”

Rasputin said, “I’ll have a bottle of the special stock you keep for me in the basement.”

“Yes, Sir, at once.”  The waiter left.

“Human blood?” I asked. 

“Lambs’ blood.   Symbolic that I have lost my soul, but not abandoned my faith in the Lamb of God.”

“You think a vampire can get into heaven with a few hail Marys?”

“I’ll never know if I don’t try.”  He lifted his head to stare into infinity.  “You asked about my death.  It happened as history says, for the most part.  Prime Minister Yusupov—may he rot in hell forever as devils eat his intestines—invited me to tea.  As I would find out later, he served me petit fours laced with a vast amount of cyanide. I refused the fool and his food.  Ever since an earlier assassination attempt put a knife in my stomach, I suffered from hyperacidity which meant I had to avoid sugar and wine. As time dragged on, and it was thought I’d eaten, but stubbornly wouldn’t die. 

Quite humorous, no?”

I nodded.  “Heaven protects fools and madmen.”

Rasputin laughed.  “Hah, we should know.  It was quite stimulating.  Yusupov played a few gypsy ballads on his guitar. We discussed spirituality, the occult, and politics through the night.  Morning approached and I still would not convenience them by falling over dead, so they panicked, these conspirators.  If I were die in the morning as the palace came awake, it would become hard to quietly dispose of my body.  The secret of the murder would be out.”

“So they shot you to hurry things along.”

“In the liver, stomach, and kidneys.  Left for dead, I did die, but only briefly.  I attribute this to the fire of hatred for those who had betrayed me.”

There is precedence.  
I thought of Dracula—who’d cursed himself to create his own line of vampires—was rare, gifted with a superhuman force of will that had been dragged his corpse back to a semblance of life.  Apparently, lightning had struck twice.

Rasputin continued, “Eventually, Yusupov came to check on me.  I remember his horror as I opened my eyes and lunged at him.  I was strangling the bastard when he clubbed me down with his gun, caving in half my face.  We broke apart.  Still hoping to live, I shambled up the basement stairs to the ground floor.  I found the door to the courtyard with Yusupov hot on my heels.  Having reloaded his gun, he shot at me four times, missing twice.  My head exploded with agony.  I fell into the snow.  And darkness rushed in.  I think I died a second time.”  The waiter came by to deposit a bottle and a glass.  He asked, “Would you like me to pour?”

Rasputin waved him away.  “Let it warm a bit.”

The waiter left.

“I know this part of the story,” I said.  “You were wrapped in a curtain, driven to the Bolshoy Petrovsky Bridge, and thrown in the
Malaya Nevka River
.”

“It was still dark.  I remember coming out of an inner darkness to find myself wearing my beaver coat, dangling over the railing.  I lost a rubber boot on the bridge, and so, with one stocking foot, I dropped into a hole in the ice that fishermen had cut.  That might have been the end of me, but the fools had forgotten their plan to weigh down my body with chains.  The twine tying my hands parted, and by the grace of God, I was able to surface long enough to make the sign of the cross.  Weak, with cold turning my limbs to lead, I sank into a kind of breathless sleep, currents dragging me along under the ice.”  He paused to scan my face, making sure I was enjoying the story as much as he was.

“You know, I can’t help but notice your eloquence.  History says you had little skill in speech, and in fact, were quite incomprehensible most of the time.”

“True.  I had neurological issues, tics, and such.  One of the benefits of being a vampire is that most of that has straightened itself out.”

The waiter returned with food and drink.  I sipped the flavored vodka with pleasure.  “Excellent.”

I sampled the food and found the quality high as well.  As I ate, Rasputin poured and drained his first glass of blood.  I scarcely looked at him as he continued speaking. 

“I remember thawing out in a dim-lit mortuary where the attendant probed my wounds and removed the bullets that hadn’t passed entirely through me.  My face was further damaged by the grapnels used to drag me out of the icy river.  Someone had also kicked in my genitals.  Odd, you’d think I’d remember coming by that injury.  Anyway, once some of my strength seeped back into me, it wasn’t that difficult to damage a similar corpse to myself and leave him in my place.  With my vampire strength, I used a fingertip to pierce the corpse’s forehead to leave a ‘bullet hole’ there.  You see, death had brought a new wisdom; I understood that I was no longer alive needed to go into hiding so I would not be hunted down as some unholy, accursed thing.”

I nodded, taking another sip of vodka.  “That certainly answers the question.”

“Then you can answer one for me.  What is your true purpose in coming to our city?”

“Money.”

Silent, he looked at me.  A tiny muscle jumped in his cheek.  “Don’t you think you owe me a few more words than that?”

“Lots of money,” I said.

He sighed.

I relented.  “Okay, I was hired to recover a stolen item that is coming up for sale in a local, private auction among the preternatural community.  Once said item is restored to the original owner, a person of European nobility, I will pocket a huge chunk of change.  After that, said owner will descend upon the thieves like a zombie apocalypse, but without the zombies.  There, happy?”

“So this has nothing to do with the vampire community here, or a territorial invasion of demon kind?”

I gave him a rather cold smile that complemented my dead, killer’s stare, the kind that show how much I enjoy killing.  “If the thieves are vampires, they will be destroyed.  If vampires get in my way, they will be destroyed.  If a vampire so much as breathes on me…”

“He will be destroyed.  I am sensing a theme here.”

“Vamps can keep what they have,” I said.  “This territory is too far from L.A. for me to care about who runs it.”

I’d heard approaching feet, but hadn’t anticipated that anyone was coming to see me.  Madison stopped by the table.  Tall, blond, and Nordic, she was everything you’d want in a Valkyrie.  She carried a young fox in her arms.  I looked at the fox, all rusty orange and white fluff with black legs.  The fox looked back—and grinned, which was as freaking
weird as the little antennae bobbing from her forehead, and the baby moth wings folded flat to her back.

Grace
. 
She’s shape-shifted.

Madison ignored me, her focus set on Rasputin, careful though not to look him in the eye.  I felt killing rage roll off her, an aura of impending violence totally at odds with her sweet tone of voice,

“Can I join you?”

“No,” I said. 

“But of course,” Rasputin answered.  “Such a pretty young

girl.  And a fox!”  He winked, “Both of you.”

As pick-up lines go, I thought it was pretty sad.  “Rasputin,” I said, “don’t embarrass yourself.  She’s a vampire slayer in training with not enough sense to back off a target she has no hope of staking.  She’s going to force you to kill her.”

His smile widened.  “Really?  That sounds like fun.”

“Not so much,” I said.  “If you hurt her, you’ll have to deal with Grace, the fox, and she will kick your ass six ways to Sunday.”

Rasputin stared at the fox.

The fox stared back, tongue lolling out of her mouth.  Feathery antennae rippling in the air.

Rasputin looked back at me.  “This fox does not seem as formidable as you suggest.”

“She’s not really a fox, or rather, not just a fox.”  I finished my drink and slid the glass away.  “Tell him, Madison.”

Her voice resonated with deep pride.  “Grace is the legendary Shadow Fox, a creature of extra-dimensional prophecy, and my best friend, next to Fran who didn’t make it for this trip.”

Rasputin raised an eyebrow at me.  “You certainly travel with interesting people.”

“You haven’t heard the best part yet,” I told him.  “Grace’s mother is an insane kitsune assassin who does wet work for a Preternatural Response Team out of Texas.  Potentially, that means federal heat on your operations.”

Rasputin smiled.  “Then I suppose I had best behave.”

Madison said, “Did I mention her father’s High King of the shadow men?”

Rasputin shot me a shred glare.  “So, the young man who was with you, he’s not security for you, but for…”

“The fox, why would I have security weaker then myself,” I said.

Grace yipped and whined, nudging Madison with a black-button nose.  The girls exchanged glances.  Madison looked at me.  “Grace wants to know where Onyx is.”

I gave Madison my best don’t-cross-me stare.  “He’s fine. 

Don’t start trouble that will complicate my business.”

The fox whined.

Madison said, “You didn’t answer the question.”

Rasputin smiled widely.  Delight danced in his eyes.  “Deathwalker, are you not able to control your people?”

The waiter came up to Madison.  His smile was strained.  “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but we don’t allow animals in this establishment.”

She glared at him and lied.  “She’s a service animal.”

The waiter looked unconvinced.  “A fox?”

Madison pointed at Rasputin.  “You let walking corpses in here.  What’s the big deal?”

“Mr. Rasputin owns this establishment.  You should show him respect.”

“What I should do is stake his heart, cut off his head, and burn him to ashes.”  Her glance slid from the waiter to the vampire.  “Vampire scum!”

The waiter had grown red-faced.  “Leave at once, or I will call the police and have you arrested.”

I shook my head sadly.  “Can’t we all just get along?”  And summoned one of my semi-automatics with a thought.  The Berretta PX4 appeared in my fist, pointed at Madison.  “Stand down,” I told her.

A new, male voice insinuated itself into the conversation, drawing the waiter’s eyes to someone past Madison that was still out of sight to me.  I knew that voice, speaking English but with a slight Romanian accent. 

Shit, not him, not now.

Forgetting to breathe, Rasputin studied the newcomer with intensity.  The Russian’s lips moved, but no sound emerged.  Having trained myself to read lips, I knew what he said:
Vlad Drăculea, Prince of Wallachia. 
Rasputin hurried to rise and formally bow.  His voice shook with deep emotion, “I am honored, my Prince.”