Night Hungers (9 page)

Mayhem ensued after that. Each of the other thirteen beings on the floor annihilated the bodies until Zane took control. They would kill one another if they didn’t remain calm.

When the elevator opened everyone was killed instantly. Zane tried to control their blood lust, but it was soon becoming apparent that she couldn’t. Letting them go was her only option. She was too weak to fight them.

Everyone in the building that had worked there was dead or dying by the time the queen and her guard showed up. All but a few of the occupants had already escaped.

Zane was feeding again, this time from a bag, when she first felt the power, not knowing nor understanding where it came from. When the queen walked into the main lobby Zane was waiting for her.

“Who are you and what happened here? What is going on? I demand to know why I didn’t know about this place.”

“I’m Zulu Alpha Nine, and I haven’t the slightest clue why you weren’t informed.

Frankly, I don’t give a shit either. I just... I used to live here.”

“What sort of name is that? I can feel your weakness and your powerbase. You are extremely strong and you have a lot of magic, both dark and white. Who is in charge here? I demand that you tell me who they are.”

Zane thought she looked regal and queenlike and didn’t know at the time how true that assessment was. She could also feel her anger and her power. Zane didn’t need someone else ordering her around and resented the woman immediately.

“And just who do you think you are to demand anything? I gave you my name, now who the hell are you? And what are
you
doing here?”

“I’m your queen, Melody, Mistress of Light, Keeper of Magic. And you will keep a civil tongue in your head. I felt the magic, a great deal of magic, being destroyed or used.

Is this how you use a gift from me, to destroy humans? The penalty for such abuse is death.”

Zane looked around the room. No one here or throughout the building had gotten any more than they had deserved. Even the cleaning crew had been horrible to them all, hitting them with their brooms or mops. Some had even sprayed them with their chemicals, blinding some and just burning others. But to have the others hunted down and killed, that seemed to her to be worse than what had been done to them. Zane felt that justice had been served here.

“You aren’t my queen and they’re all dead. I take full responsibly for what happened. The others...they didn’t know what I was going to do when I did this.”

The scent of death hung heavy in the air. The queen looked around her at the carnage and then back at Zane. There were two dead bodies within two feet of them and several more in different stages of ripped apart just a few more feet away. The once pristine carpet was covered in blood and gore. All of the bodies that Zane had found were in similar or worse condition. Most of them had been ripped to shreds. Body parts strewn all over the place. The entire place looked like a blood bath. She did not look like she believed Zane. Her next words confirmed it.

“You expect me to believe that you’re responsible for this...this mess? You alone killed all of these humans? Magic cannot be used to kill others. You should have learned that the first time you used it. Tell me why these people were killed and why you lied to me and I’ll go easy on your punishment.”

In actuality Zane didn’t have a clue what had happened. She knew that the inmates had let everyone out of their cages and that people, all the humans, had been killed, but as to who did what, she didn’t know. Soon after she took out Timothy, or had him do it, she blacked out from blood loss and the gunshot wounds. She was just as in the dark as the queen, but she wouldn’t tell her that.

“You’ve already given me my trial and my sentences, haven’t you? Are you always so quick to judge?” Zane could feel the others as they ran and hid. She would not give anyone up to this woman no matter what she had to suffer. “I did this. All of it. I ran the facility and I killed the humans. I’m the only one here. And for the record, if you don’t kill me, then I will.”

~CHAPTER 10~

“Uncle Aiden, what's the matter? Are you mad at me? I’m sorry if I made you mad, please smile for me.”

Aiden looked down at his niece. Emma had been playing at his feet when he’d drifted off into thinking about Zane.

“No, sweetcakes, I’m not mad at you. I just have something on my mind. I’m the one who should be sorry for neglecting you for so long.”

Aiden pulled her up onto his lap and ran his hand through her thick blond curls. She was so beautiful, this little girl. Her parents had been killed when she was a baby. They had been staked to the ground to meet the sunlight. Emma had been left in her car seat in the sun as well. Whoever had killed her parents must have assumed that she would die the way her parents had, boiling from the inside out and exploding when their insides got too hot.

But Emma hadn’t reached her maturity yet. Even though she was a pure blood, she wouldn’t actually become a vampire until she reached twenty-five. She would have had training on how to keep herself alive and how to hide and care for herself if she ever found herself in a situation where she couldn’t get to shelter. Tristan and Bailey had adopted Emma when she’d first come to Becca’s House, a home for abused and neglected children.

“Will you marry me, Uncle Aiden? I love you already and I don’t mind when you kiss me. You have a nice smile too, but not when you look all scrunched up like this.”

Emma screwed up her face in a way that had Aiden burst out laughing.

“My, I should work on my scrunched up face, huh? Why I bet that face would scare off your grandma if she saw it. Wouldn’t it, Mommy?”

“If only,” was Bailey’s low comment. But Aiden heard and so apparently had Tristan. He walked over to the two of them on the large sofa and scooped his daughter up into his arm.

“Your mommy needs her bottom paddled. Tell your Uncle Aiden goodnight, sweetheart, and I’ll be up later and check on you.” Aiden watched as his brother kissed his daughter and Bailey took her away. Sitting down on the couch next to him Aiden waited for it to begin. He didn’t have long to wait. “You want to tell me what has you in such a funk?”

“Not particularly. I’ve got a lot on my mind is all and I’d appreciate it if you mind your own business. You can’t help me with it anyway.”

“Is it your mate? I can smell that woman on you. I know you have no choice in who she turns out to be, and it doesn’t help to fight it. I know. But in the end it all works out. I love Bailey with my life and am gladder daily that she came into it. Whatever you think she’s done isn’t—”

“She refused me, not me her. She just wants to have sex and not long term. I wait six hundred years for someone to share my life with and she just wants it to be casual. How fucked up is that?” Aiden got up to pace. He really hadn’t meant to tell Tristan anything, but now that the door was open he didn’t want to stop. Besides, Aiden was pretty sure that he had gone too far in the bonding process to feed from anyone else.

As a mated couple they could no longer feed from anyone else. Zane would either be his mate in all ways, or he’d have to hunt her down every time he wanted to feed. It wasn’t anything he wanted to have to do.

“What did she say? I mean, maybe she’s just frightened about the whole bonding/mating thing and she will come around when she understands. I know it can be a lot of changes for someone that isn’t already a vampire.” Aiden looked at his brother as he spoke.

“She knows. She is part vamp. Zane made it perfectly clear that all she wants from me is sex. Oh yeah, and she’s a virgin. Nearly killed me to walk away from her too. I told her that I’d taken her blood and if she wanted me or needed me, I would be there. But I wanted it all, not a sex partner whenever she gets the itch.”

“Well gee, with a wonderful line like that it’s small wonder she didn’t stake you,”

Bailey said as she reentered the room. “You St. James boys sure have a lot to learn about women. I don’t suppose you asked her
why
she didn’t want to bond with you, did you? I mean, I know what she is and what she came from. You think maybe she
might
have a good reason to not want to be with you?”

Aiden felt his face heat. No. Not only had he not asked her, but when she had told him she wasn’t a nice person he didn’t even ask her what she meant. Then he’d walked away from her without letting her explain anything.

“I don’t want to discuss this with you guys. I told her what I wanted and the rest is up to her. She should know that as my mate I would forgive her anything—”

“Are you listening to yourself, Aiden? You’ll forgive her? What right do you have to forgive her of anything? I’m betting you walked away and didn’t tell her that you didn’t care what she might have done...no, I can see by your face that you didn’t. If Zane does decide to contact you, which I highly doubt she will, then it will be because she has no other choice.”

Aiden watched as Bailey left the room. He hadn’t meant to make her mad and, in turn, make Tristan mad too. He’d told them he didn’t want to talk about her and look what happened. Damn it, he should have stayed in France. Stalking to the door Aiden stepped out into the darkness. He heard his brother call his name, but ignored him. He wanted to get away before he said anything that he might regret.

~~~

It was nearing dawn when Zane met up with the vamp. It had taken her nearly two hours to hunt down the master in the area and ask for permission to hunt him. The stupid man, David Cane, was “entertaining” and couldn’t be pulled away when she showed up at his house. Even with an appointment Zane had waited an extra hour before she went to his bedroom and threw open the door.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Get out unless you wish to play. I have things to do that—”

Zane slammed him up against the headboard of his bed so hard she drew blood. With the backing of the Vampire Council she had more rights than she might have as a bounty hunter. She had only notified this master as a courtesy. She didn’t need his permission to hunt. She did, however, wait until the men in his bed left before she spoke.

“Listen you dumb fuck-tard, I have an order to terminate. I came to let you know that I was in your area to execute it. If you don’t have the common decency to come and speak to me then you tell me. You don’t leave me sitting in your fucking parlor while you fuck three men. From now on, if I come into your area you’d better fucking hope I don’t accidently kill you while I’m here.”

“You can’t talk to me like that. I’m the master of this—” His head hit the headboard three more times.

“I just did. Here is your copy of the order.” She slammed the paper at his chest.

“Stay the fuck out of my way or so help me, I’ll come back and I’ll be angry then.”

Leaving him crumpled on the bed Zane left the room. She hated his type of vamp.

The sort that felt that they were owed whatever their subjects gave them whether pleasure or money. Zane had noticed that Master MacManus seemed to have it right. He was well respected and he seemed to be very generous. As yet she had not had to hunt in his realm, which she found something curious about.

The vampire Zane was hunting was a female. She had been hunting humans and using them as cattle. There was more of her kind than not it seemed. Going out into the world and feeding from humans then leaving them with not only their memory of the feeding, but most times not sealing the wounds. The human would die of massive blood loss and wake the authorities to their kind. The Council tried very hard to keep vampire lure from the humans, and that is where Zane came in.

It was still an hour until dawn when Zane came upon her lair in the cemetery. The vamp was just warding the crypt when Zane stepped into the chamber above her.

She was old, this vamp, and had spent her first years beneath the earth or in such crypts as the one she now occupied. The information Zane had on her said that she also slept during the day in a coffin and not simply in the ground. Once Zane was in the chamber and the wards set she wouldn’t be able to leave. If she didn’t kill her she would be stuck inside when the vamp woke.

The wall to the lower levels moved easily enough once Zane found it. The small slide behind one of the bricks had been used so much that there was a small indentation that curved like a finger had been pressed into it. The crypt itself was huge. It held a family for several generations starting in the late seventeen hundreds. The lower level and the mechanism that opened it indicated that there may have been a vampire in the family sometime around the time it had been built. Zane waited until the sun crested the top of the hillside, hit the decorative stain glass just over the door, and painted the floor with brilliant colors.

Opening the door made enough noise to wake the dead Zane thought as the door slid to the side. Once she was on the other side of it she had to rely on her other senses as her sight was gone in the blackness. Closing her eyes, she was able to feel where the walls were and when the floor dipped or raised. With her hands full of the silver blade Zane was glad that she didn’t have to worry about tripping as she moved lower underground.

Perhaps one hundred feet from the door, she felt the vamp move out of her sleep.

Another ten feet and Zane knew that she was coming toward her as a small rodent. Zane shifted as well, taking the form of a bat, and waited.

“I know that you are there, little one. Come out and play with me. I have a need for fresh blood. You may as well feed me.” Zane shuddered at the sound of her voice, low pitched and full of compulsion.

When the rat was just underneath her Zane shifted into her human form and dropped to the body of the rat. She moved before Zane could capture her. Moving with the speed of a vampire herself Zane leapt to the opposite wall when the vamp revealed herself.

“Alexandria DePaul, you are hereby ordered to death by the Vampire Council for crimes against humanity. I am hereby ordered to terminate your life by removing your head. Do you have anything to say?”

Zane only knew the names of the people she killed for the queen and the Council when the laws of humanity were involved. She hated it; knowing the person’s name made her feel connected and she didn’t need any more connections to the people who died by her hand than necessary.