Devoured By Darkness (5 page)

“I promise, Levet, you’re not the one I’ve been trying to avoid.” She deliberately glanced toward Tane as he landed beside her, his expression grim.

The gargoyle grimaced. “Ah well, that is perfectly understandable.”

Sublimely indifferent to the insults, Tane circled behind the demon, peering out the door as if expecting to discover Levet had brought along a horde of ravaging zombies.

“Why are you here?” he demanded.

“Your fearless leader is concerned that he has not heard from his pet Charon.”

Seemingly convinced Levet had come alone, Tane turned to study the gargoyle with a disbelieving scowl.

“Styx sent you?”

Levet gave an airy wave of his hand. “In a manner of speaking.”

The honey eyes narrowed. “Did he send you or not?”

Levet took a sudden interest in polishing the end of his tail. “Well, it is difficult to say precisely what he desired considering I was speaking through a portal and our connection was not exactly 3G. There was some yadda yadda about this and some yadda yadda about that …”

“Levet.”

Sensing death in the air, Laylah hurriedly searched for a distraction.

“What the hell is a Charon anyway?”

It was Levet who answered. “A vampire executioner.”

“Nice.” She turned to meet Tane’s guarded gaze, belatedly realizing why the vampires had been so anxious to kill him in the cave. She’d bet he was the least popular guy at the family reunions. “No wonder you’re so eager to hand me over to the lynch squad.”

His dark brows lifted. “Lynch squad?”

“Tell me, is there some sort of Executioner Code of Honor?” she demanded. “Do you share bounties?”

“I do my duty.”

“You deal in death.”

He stiffened, almost as if her harsh words had wounded him. Which was beyond ridiculous.

“Deal in death.” Levet chuckled, blithely unconcerned by the lethal vampire that hovered mere feet away. “Death Dealer … get it?” His gray eyes widened. “Helloooo, did no one watch
Underworld
?”

Tane shot him a furious glare. “Go away, gargoyle.”

“And leave poor Laylah alone with a cold-hearted Charon? Do not be absurd.”

With a slow deliberate motion, Tane removed the dagger from his waistband. “That wasn’t a request.”

“No.” Laylah stepped between the two bristling males. “I want him to stay.”

Levet peeked around her knee to spray a raspberry at the towering demon.

“What can I say? I am irresistible to women.”

Tane ran a finger along the sharpened blade. “I doubt she would find you so irresistible if she’d heard your earlier opinion of Jinns and their offspring. As I recall you were foaming at the mouth to have Laylah hauled to the Commission.”

“Non, non, ma cherie.
Never foaming,” the tiny gargoyle protested, moving to regard her with a pleading gaze. “It was merely that I had a most unpleasant encounter with a Jinn some years ago. Can you believe he mutilated one of my beautiful wings? It took me years to grow it back.”

Laylah shrugged aside the familiar sting of rejection. What did it matter? Levet was merely another to add to the very long list of those who judged her a monster without even knowing anything about her.

Instead she concentrated on his shocking revelation as she fell to her knees and grasped his shoulders.

“A Jinn?” she breathed. “Are you certain?”

“I assure you that it was an encounter that has been barbecued into my mind.”

“Barbecued?” She frowned before giving a dismissive shake of her head. “Never mind. Was the Jinn in this dimension?”

“Just barely.” Levet shuddered.

“Where?”

Another shudder. “London.”

“Gods.” Laylah struggled to breathe, her heart squeezed in a tight fist of disbelief. Since the day she’d been old enough to discover she was a mongrel she’d desperately sought to discover another with Jinn blood. She had finally accepted that she was completely alone in this world. “When?”

Levet blinked in surprise. “Really,
ma belle,
a gargoyle does not reveal his age.”

“Please, Levet. It’s important.”

“Two hundred years ago.” He shrugged. “Give or take a decade.”

Tane stepped forward, his expression suspicious as he easily sensed her trembling excitement. “Laylah, we need to talk …”

“I don’t think so.” She licked her dry lips. “Levet and I have business to attend to.”

“Ah, now that is the kind of business I am always eager to conduct.” He waggled his heavy brow. “I do hope it involves the removal of clothing and the rubbing of wings.”

“Actually it involves a trip to London.”

“London.” Levet shook his head.
“Non,
such a damp and gray place. I far prefer Paris. Now that is a city created for lovers.”

She slowly straightened, keeping her hand on Levet’s shoulder. She had never tried to carry someone into the mists, but now seemed like the perfect moment to give it a whirl.

“I need to find the Jinn.”

Levet cleared his throat. “Ummm, Laylah …”

Tane instinctively moved to block the door to the barn, his expression unreadable.

“I can’t let you leave, Laylah.”

Arrogant ass.

Her smile was taunting. “I don’t need your permission, vampire.”

His muscles coiled as he prepared to pounce, belatedly realizing that a Jinn had more than one means of travelling.

“Adios,
He-Man.”

Closing her eyes, Laylah called on the faint echoes that were forever whispering in the back of her mind. At the same time she ignored the infuriated Tane as he rushed toward her, his icy power filling the barn, as well as the gargoyle at her side who was frantically tugging at the frayed hem of her denim shorts.

“Laylah, there’s something I need to tell you …”

Did they not realize just how dangerous it was to distract her at this delicate point?

Conjuring the image of a shimmering curtain, she mentally squared her shoulders and stepped forward, dragging a reluctant Levet with her.

She unconsciously grimaced, as always unnerved by the sensation that she was stepping through a nasty shroud of cobwebs. It felt so tangible that it was always a shock when she tried to brush them away and found nothing.

And then there was the pain. Tiny pinpricks that bit into her as if trying to flay the flesh from her bones.

One thing was certain, she acknowledged grimly, shadow walking would never replace airplanes and cruise ships.

Hell, riding a donkey had to be preferable.

The inane thought barely crossed her mind when the pinpricks abruptly became a deluge of agony.

She grabbed Levet close, screaming as they were roughly jerked through the barrier. Gods, she felt as if someone was attempting to jerk her inside out.

After a hellacious journey that ended with a jarring landing that left her splayed across a hard ground hidden by the thick, silvery mist, Laylah took a much needed moment to catch her breath.

WTF?

Not even her first fumbling forage through the barrier that separated dimensions had been so harrowing. Or brutal. A good thing. She’d never have tried it again.

Grimacing as her body struggled to heal her crushed ribs and several internal injuries that she didn’t even want to think about, she battled to push herself into a sitting position, her eyes widening with furious disbelief at the sight of the vampire crouched at her feet.

The bastard.

No wonder she’d nearly been ripped into a thousand pieces.

It was bad enough she’d brought Levet through the barrier, but to add a huge, freaking vampire who had been clinging like a barnacle to her ass …

She shuddered.

Wasn’t that how black holes were created? As if sensing her feral glare, Tane struggled to lift his head, obviously as battered by the trip as she was. Good. He deserved to suffer.

“Damn you,” he rasped, his gaze darting about the silver mists that swirled around them. “What have you done?”

“Me?” Her mouth dropped in sheer disbelief. “You nearly killed me you oversized, troll-brained brute.” She slowly pushed herself to her feet, unwilling to remain in the corridor any longer than necessary. Not only did she fear that the doorways to other dimensions might open and suck her from the mist, but time tended to move oddly. When she emerged it could be a few minutes had passed, or it could be days. Once she’d even come out to discover that it was two days before she’d ever entered. Talk about screwing with the whole space/time continuum. She turned her attention to the tiny gray bundle that was nearly hidden in the fog. Her heart gave a tiny leap of alarm. “Is Levet hurt?”

With a loud hiss, Tane rose to his feet, absently brushing the dried blood from his chest as he moved to stand beside her.

“Just unconscious.”

“Thank God.” She lifted a hand to rub her aching neck as the relief poured through her.

He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“I feel like I was hit by a semi.”

He brushed aside her hand and replaced it with his own, his touch firm, but insanely talented as he worked the knots from her muscles.

Mmmm. Her muscles slowly uncoiled as he moved down her spine, a delectable warmth easing the persistent ache in her joints.

Whatever his faults, and they were numerous, this vampire did have talented hands.

Clever, wicked, powerful hands.

Hands that could send a woman to heaven or condemn her to hell,
a voice whispered in the back of her mind.

It was the whole hell part that had her spinning away from his mesmerizing massage before she could melt into a puddle at his feet.

“Don’t touch me.”

His lips twisted, revealing he was all too aware of her rampant awareness.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Don’t try to bully me, He-Man,” she muttered. “This is my domain.”

“Your domain?” He lifted a brow. “And that would make you Skeletor?” “Ha, ha. Hysterical.”

He stepped closer, his expression hardening with an unmistakable warning. “Tell me where we are.”

“I don’t know if it has a name or not.” She shrugged. “I stumbled into it by accident.”

He glanced around, an odd fire burning in the honey eyes. “It’s another dimension?”

“No, it’s more a corridor that runs between them. I use it when I need to travel in a hurry.” She flicked a deliberate glance down his half naked body. “Or when I’m trying to escape from a demented vampire.”

He turned a complete circle, his hand clutching his dagger as he studied the seemingly solid mist that surrounded them.

“How do we get out?”

Laylah frowned. Tane was acting … peculiar. Which in itself was peculiar.

Vamps were nothing if not predictable.

Arrogant, dangerous, and sickeningly aware of their superiority.

Could it be that the mighty Tane was actually anxious to find himself in the mists?

Swift to take advantage, Laylah headed toward the unconscious gargoyle.

“The same way we got in,” she said.

“Then do it.”

“No.”

“Laylah.”

She scooped Levet into her arms, swallowing a groan. Gods. What did the creature eat? Lead?

“I’m taking the gargoyle to London and you can’t stop me,” she grunted, headed through the mists.

Swearing, Tane followed in her wake. “Why is it so important that you go to London?”

“I have to find the Jinn.”

“Is it a relative of yours?” he snapped.

“That’s what I intend to discover. I never …” she bit off her revealing words.

Naturally he couldn’t let well enough alone.

“What?”

She flashed him an annoyed frown. “I thought I was the only one. Okay?”

He abruptly stiffened, as if bothered by her stark honesty. Then with a curse, he glanced toward the fog, his expression shuttered.

“Get us out of here and I will see that you get to London.”

Did she have stupid tattooed on her forehead?

“Liar.”

“What did you call me?” he snapped.

“I called you a liar.” She turned her head to meet the smoldering honey gaze. “We both know if I was idiotic enough to return us to the barn there’s no way in hell you would let me go to London.”

The eighteenth century terrace house near Green Park in London was considered a fine example of Robert Adam’s architecture. It was, in fact, a great pride of the historical society, although the neighbors weren’t nearly so enthused.

Certainly there was a classical beauty in the aging bricks and simple portico. The windows were tall with carved stone swags set above them. And it was rumored the interior was even more stunning. Carved marble staircases and grand rooms with painted ceilings, Chippendale furniture, and priceless works of art.

But the museum-quality perfection couldn’t erase the chill of evil that shrouded the building or make the beautiful Lady Havassy any less unnerving when she made her rare appearance.

It was said that the exquisitely beautiful woman with long dark curls and flashing black eyes that contrasted so sharply with her pale, pale skin was some sort of Hungarian nobility. The locals didn’t care where she came from, only that there had been a rash of disappearances since her arrival some ten years before.

More amused than concerned by the suspicions of the humans, Marika ran a hand through her glossy curls as she absently descended into the cellars deep beneath the city streets. She was wearing a thin, gauzy gown that emphasized her lush curves, but did nothing to battle the damp chill in the air. Not that it mattered. A vampire was as impervious to the weather as she was to nosy neighbors.

As she reached the cement floor, the torches flared to life and a tall man with silver hair that spilled halfway down his back approached from the shadows.

Most women would consider Sergei Krakov handsome. He had a narrow face with high Slavic cheekbones and icy blue eyes that held a cunning intelligence. His body was lean and muscular and at the moment covered in a fine Gucci suit in a pale shade of gray.

Marika, however, didn’t keep the mage around for his male beauty or for his taste in expensive clothing.

Allowing him to take her hand and lead her across the open room, she glanced through the window at the attached cell. She grimaced at the pretty young blonde who was chained to the wall.

The female’s head was slumped forward, her long curtain of hair covering her face. Her naked body was boneless, straining against the manacles that held her upright.

“Is she to your taste?” Sergei urged.

Marika tapped a crimson nail against the window, not particularly surprised when the woman remained in her comatose state. The bruises blooming on her pale skin revealed that Sergei had already taken his own pleasure.

“Did you break her?”

Sergei chuckled, no hint of apology on his lean face. “She might be a trifle damaged around the edges, but she still has some fight left in her.”

With a sound of disgust, Marika turned away, a hand pressed to her aching forehead.

“Perhaps later.”

Sergei hurried to her side, his arm wrapping around her shoulders.

“You must eat, Marika. You are too important to allow yourself to become weakened.” He made a shallow effort at concern. “Do you prefer a fey? Or maybe you’re in the mood for a harpy? They always scream so sweetly.”

“Enough, Sergei.” With a casual twist of her hand she had Sergei by the neck and was slamming him against the wall. “I’m not a child. If you want to fuss over someone return to your plaything.”

Sergei passively dangled from the fingers wrapped around his throat. He hadn’t survived several centuries as her favorite pet by being stupid.

Waiting until she’d regained control of her swift, gypsy temper and at last released him, Sergei smoothed his black satin tie and summoned an expression of concern that was almost convincing.

“Please, tell me what’s troubling you.”

With a hiss, she paced to the center of the floor, her hand again pressed to her temple.

“It’s her. She’s restless.”

Sergei didn’t need any further explanation.

There was only one
her.

His brows snapped together. “Impossible.”

She narrowed her dark eyes. “Be careful how you speak to me. In my current mood I might just manage to forget I have need of you.”

He raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “I only meant that she is wrapped in layers of protective spells. A nuclear explosion couldn’t disturb her.”

“Maybe your spells are losing their …” She deliberately paused, her gaze lowering to his impressive pack age tucked into the Gucci slacks. “Potency. Do they have Viagra for magic? You’re growing old, after all.”

His lips curled with a pure male confidence. “There’s nothing wrong with my potency.”

“Then why is she whispering in my head?”

His cockiness faded as Marika allowed her power to sear into his skin with a brief, icy warning. It was ironic really. Her gift had once been to heal others. Since being turned, that same gift allowed her to torture with exquisite precision.

He nervously cleared his throat. “What is she saying?”

Marika’s pleasure in causing another pain was forgotten as she clenched her hands. She wasn’t sure when the provoking whispers had started. At first they had been so faint that she’d dismissed them. It wasn’t that unusual for her to sense Kata despite the numerous barriers that separated them.

Their connection was too intimate to be completely muted.

But over the past nights the distant buzz had become a desperate chant that refused to leave her in peace.

“Laylah,” she revealed. “Over and over again.”

“Laylah. A name?”

“How would I know?” she snapped.

“The two of you have always been close,” Sergei attempted to soothe. “You’re certain it has no meaning for you?”

She sank onto the divan, the heavy gold bangles that encircled her wrists shimmering in the torchlight.

“The bitch is obviously trying to drive me insane.”

Sergei paced the room, his brow furrowed. “Or offer a warning.”

Marika reached for the goblet of fresh blood that had been left on the lacquer table beside the divan. She preferred her dinner straight from the source, but at the moment she was too distracted to make the effort.

“Bloody twit,” she growled. “In case you’ve forgotten the last few times we roused Kata she tried to curse me. Why the hell would she try to warn me now?”

“I didn’t mean she was trying to warn you on purpose,” Sergei protested, grimacing at the reminder of Kata’s insane fury when they’d attempted to question her. “Obviously something is disturbing her enough that she’s managed to battle through the spells I laid on her. I doubt she’s even aware you’re picking up her thoughts.”

“What the hell could be bothering her? She’s buried beneath six feet of earth, surrounded by rune stones and guarded by the Sylvermyst.” She took another deep drink of the blood, pausing to deliberately lick the thick sweetness from her lips, enjoying the sight of Sergei’s twitch of unease. He should be nervous, she thought with savage pleasure. She was in the mood to hurt someone. Of course, she was always in the mood to hurt someone. “Unless there’s something you need to tell me?” she continued in icy tones. “You surely couldn’t be stupid enough to try and speak with Kata without me, would you?”

His throat convulsed as he struggled to swallow. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Are you certain?” she purred. “I could give you a small reminder of what happens to those creatures who attempt to betray me.”

The handsome face paled. As well it should. Although it had been nearly fifty years ago, a man did not forget being slowly skinned alive during the long hours of the night, only to be healed the next morning so the torture could begin again. Especially when the punishment lasted for several years.

A cruel smile twisted her lips. He should have known the minute he’d managed to trick Kata into revealing the location of her half-breed daughter he should have come to her. No, he should have run like a bat out of hell to her to reveal what he’d discovered.

Instead he’d turned traitor and nearly ruined everything.

Stupid bastard.

“I did it for us.”

Her laugh sliced through the cellar. “Oh Sergei, you’re a vain, grasping son of a bitch who would happily put his own mother on the sacrificial altar to gain the power you so desperately crave.”

He flinched, but a mage didn’t remain in the employ of a temperamental vampire without a set of titanium balls. He pasted a smile on his lips as he smoothly moved to kneel in front of her, his hands running an intimate path from her knees to her upper thighs.

“I may have my faults, but you need me.”

She polished off the last of the blood and set aside the goblet.

“Unfortunately,” she conceded in disgust. She deeply resented having to rely on the treacherous rat. But while Kata had some magical talents she was a mere human and Marika had no powers to keep her alive. Not unless she made her into a vampire. A tempting thought, but one she couldn’t afford to indulge. Not when she’d lose her one last connection to the missing child. “It would be so much easier if she were immortal.”

Sergei chuckled, sliding his hands between her thighs to caress her with a skill that took centuries to perfect.

“Perhaps easier, but you would miss me if I were gone,” he husked.

“So sure of yourself?”

The pale eyes shimmered with ready heat. “I fulfill more than one purpose.”

With a blur of motion she planted her foot in the center of his chest and sent him flying into the far wall.

“Later,” she growled, rising from the divan. “I want to know what is bothering Kata. Let me see her.”

“See her?”

Marika narrowed her gaze. “Are you deaf as well as stupid? I said let me see her.” “Yes. Of course.”

Straightening, Sergei dusted off his expensive suit and stiffly moved to the heavy wooden door across the room. Marika followed behind, waiting as the mage fumbled with the lock and at last led her into the barren room carved from stone.

She curled her lips at the stench of mold and nasty things rotting beneath the stone. Unlike her innate powers that called upon nature, Sergei was forced to use blood and death to create his spells.

Magical hack.

Bypassing the stone altar stained with blood that was set in the center of the floor, he halted beside a small depression filled with stagnant water. Then squatting at the edge, he waved his hands over the surface, muttering words beneath his breath.

Marika impatiently waited at his side, alert to any hint that Sergei was attempting to deceive her. The fool would learn that a nightly skinning was nothing compared to what would come next.

The water began to swirl, as if being stirred from beneath, and Sergei’s chants deepened, echoing eerily through the cavern.

At last he reached beneath his jacket to withdraw a slender stiletto and sliced a small wound at the tip of his finger. One, then two drops of blood hit the water, spreading over the surface with a strange shimmer.

Marika bent downward as an image began to form, slowly revealing a woman who was stretched on a narrow cot in a dark, iron-lined cell.

A woman who bore a striking resemblance to Marika.

The same black curls and pale, perfect features. And if her eyes had not been shut they would have flashed as dark as midnight.

Even her lush curves were the same beneath the shroud that covered them.

Perfect twins.

Or at least they had been before Marika had been turned.

Once she’d awoken as a vampire her ties to her previous life, including her family, had been severed. Or at least they should have been.

Any memories of her past life were forgotten, but there had been a persistent voice whispering in her head that refused to be ignored. For weeks she’d struggled to rid herself of the annoying buzz. Then she’d spent the next weeks hunting down the source of the aggravation.

It’d been a nasty surprise to discover an exact replica of herself living among a caravan of gypsies.

Her first impulse had been to kill the bitch.

That would put an end to her intrusion into Marika’s mind, not to mention the creepy knowledge there was an identical copy of herself walking around.

But some mysterious impulse had halted her bloodlust.

Almost as if she’d glimpsed into the future to sense she would have need of her dear, sweet sister.

“You see,” Sergei said. “Sleeping Beauty safely tucked in her bed.”

Marika frowned, infuriated by the stab of fear that pierced her heart. Kata might be a mere human, but she had gypsy blood flowing through her veins. Which meant she possessed a unique ability to injure a vampire. Something her tender heart had been reluctant to do in the early days. Back then she still thought of Marika as her beloved sister. Stupid female.

But over the last decades each time Sergei had released her from his spells Kata had been crazed, striking out so swiftly that it had been a miracle that Marika hadn’t been harmed.

She wasn’t about to put herself at risk again. “She’s stirring,” she hissed.

Sergei frowned as the woman in the watery vision turned her head, almost as if aware she was being watched. “Yes.” He shook his head. “That shouldn’t be possible.” “It shouldn’t be, but obviously it is. Find out why.” “I could wake her and …”

His words were squeezed to a halt as Marika grabbed him by the throat and shoved him against the roughly hewed wall.

“No.”

He smiled through his pain. “You’re still worried about the curse?”

Her fingers tightened. She was not pleased that Kata had outmaneuvered her. Again.

She dare not allow the little bitch to awaken, and yet she could not simply allow her to die.

Not when there was still the possibility that Marika could rule the world.

“Careful, Sergei, you’re not the only mage in London,” she said in a frigid warning.

“You can’t mean Lord Hawthorne?” Sergei’s expression twisted with a jealous hatred of the rival mage. “The man’s a third rate magician who hasn’t been worth a damn since he lost his imp apprentice.”

“He would serve my purpose.”

The pale eyes flashed with annoyance at her mocking taunt.

“Yes, but could he serve you?” he hit back, his insolent gaze running a path down her curves exposed by the thin material of her gown. “You’re a demanding mistress, Marika.”