Page of Swords (The Demon's Apprentice Book 2) (17 page)

“Come,” it said with a voice that sounded like it was chewing rocks. “The Master awaits you.”

Our escort led us up the left hand side of the stairs, and the female vamp moved to stand to the right side of us as we came up. She eyed Steve up and down, then stepped up to him with a hungry look in her eyes.

“We like this one,” she said in a dry hiss. “It smells delicious. Fear and impotent anger. We think we’ll take it.” She lunged at him, and the big guy moved.

I saw his arm as a blur, and the sound of flesh hitting something solid resounded through the foyer. The vamp flew away from him and hit the wall with a thud, then bounced off and hit the ground. Cracks spider-webbed away from where she hit, with the largest one behind where her spine had impacted. She tried to get back to her feet, and I tried to stop Steve. Both of us were too slow. He was on her in a heartbeat and had her held up in the air with one hand around her throat by the time I got to his side. The woman’s smile was fading as his fingers dug into her throat.

“Choking her is of no use,” the blue-skinned demon said as he reached for Steve.

I jumped between them and raised my hands.

“Not trying to choke her,” Steve grunted as the vamp started to struggle against his grip. “Trying to break . . . her neck!”

Her struggles became more desperate at that.

“Steve, put her down!” I said over my shoulder to him.

“No!” he barked. I turned, came around on his offhand side, and grabbed his face to make him look at me. His whole face was red from the effort he was putting into the death grip he had on the vamp, and veins were starting to pop out on his forehead. His eyes were distant, as if he was seeing a completely different world than the one I was standing in.

“You’re going to get Crystal killed if you do this!” I said.

His eyes focused on me and his arm lowered. The vampire scuttled back, and I saw the blue demon come around to his side. I had a bad feeling that things were about to start sucking.

“You dare bring a Nazarite among us?” it grumbled.

“A what?” Steve and I asked at the same time.

It did a double take and stared at us for a second.

“You truly do not know what he is,” it said. We shook our heads, and it gave us a disdainful look. “Perhaps it is best that we allow this to even the balance of things a bit between you and this august house.”

I weighed that in my head against what I still had to do. I hated to give up even an ounce of the little bit of leverage I had, but if I didn’t, I’d end up with a pissed-off vampire lord and nothing to show for the trip out here.

“A bit,” I agreed.

“She was foolish to antagonize one whose first instinct is to kill. Especially an untrained boy.”

“I apologize for acting in ignorance,” I countered. “I should have known better.”

We bowed slightly to each other: an acknowledgement between equals for the moment. He turned and led us through the double doors, and into a broad hallway.

The doors at the end opened before us, and we found ourselves entering a grand ballroom. I sensed a mix of vamps and humans and other races. One cold presence on the edge of my senses seemed to belong to a woman with jet black skin and oversized fangs drinking something out of a skull. Her red eyes looked at me with the kind of hunger that I usually reserved for my mom’s cooking. She smiled around her fangs before she turned away, and I was relieved to see the flame-red ponytail that ran down her back to her tailbone. Rakshasas didn’t usually like to spend a lot of time in U.S., so I was guessing a temporary guest. I looked around and guessed at maybe a hundred people in the room, or to be more accurate, less than fifty ‘people’ and the rest people-ish.

Then my attention turned to the focal point of the room: the pale guy sitting on the raised platform on the far side of the room. Even though the platform was less than a foot high, it seemed like it was much higher. The man himself was bald, with ears that were pierced along the outside with multiple silver rings and a slightly elongated jaw. Sunken eyes were shadowed by heavy, dark eyebrows, and his fingers seemed too long, even without the claws on his fingertips. The plain, black jacket he wore looked Chinese, with a straight collar and buttons that were slightly off center.

People milled about below him, vying for his attention, trying to get a scrap of his time. The demonic major domo made that part easy for me.

“My Lord Thraxus,” he boomed.

The room went quiet.

“I present Chance Fortunato, apprentice mage, and advisor to Shade, alpha of the Diamond Lake Pack.”

The crowd moved away from Thraxus’ chair as he stood to face me with his arms spread slightly.

“Ah, the Red Count’s escaped apprentice. Welcome to my home, young man.” He gestured for me to come forward with a smile.

I stepped to the edge of the low dais, and he reached down to put one hand on my shoulder, then he turned to usher me onto it as he moved toward the back of it. A pair of French doors waited at the back.

“Furcas, please have the musicians strike up an air. Mr. Fortunato and I have a small bit of business to discuss,” he said over his shoulder as we headed for the doors. “Your friends will be seen to, never fear,” he said softly as I looked back over my shoulder. “So long as they have a modicum of good sense, they will leave here in the same shape they arrived.” His voice was a warm tenor, smooth and controlled. I gave Shade a nod, and she let Furcas usher them to one side.

“That’s reassuring,” I replied as the doors opened before us at a gesture from him.

“It’s meant to be,” he smiled as we stepped out onto the balcony. “Your lack of respect is hardly endearing.” Below us, I could see the lights of New Essex spread out in front of me like a net of sparkling jewels to the southeast. I put my hands on the stone balustrade.

“Looks like you have enough people trying to kiss your ass already,” I said. “And, I like to stand out.” To my surprise, he started laughing.

“It’s refreshing,” he said after a moment. “I don’t think there is enough room to attach another pair of lips at any pass. Pleasantries aside, let us address your claim of trespass. Your proof is a few drops of human blood you claim belongs to one of mine, on a handkerchief. Hardly convincing.” He said it with a smile, with a hint of menace under the light tone.

“There’s more where that came from. It’s spread pretty randomly around my mom’s kitchen. If a half-trained apprentice like me can follow it to Inferno, then imagine what a fully trained mage could do with a few drops. Or even a wizard like Trevor Corwyn. Besides, you opened your gates to me based on those few drops of blood, so you know they can be traced back to you.”

I didn’t turn away from the city as I spoke, but I glanced his way to see his eyebrows twitch and the corners of his mouth tighten.

“Inferno . . .” he said softly. “If you followed him to Inferno, then he is one of Etienne’s creatures. Etienne is one of my eldest children, thus one of my most trusted. I give him a great deal of leeway, apprentice Fortunato. Your accusation is serious, and you have given me no reason why I should think Etienne sent his servants to you without provocation. Guilty or no, if I go to him, he will have some explanation prepared. The burden falls upon you, whom I have known for less than the span of an hour, to give me cause to mistrust the childe I sired almost three centuries ago.”

His stare hit me like a brick. There was no mistaking the threat in his tone this time. This wasn’t a hint or an implication; it was a promise of a messy, painful death if I screwed this up. So I took a moment to think it through.

“Dulka said once that you had five of the G’Honn fragments. The cops are investigating a bunch of disappearances . . . kids, mostly fringers, Goths, Emos, outsiders. Some runaways, a few just loners. The kind of kid most people outside of family wouldn’t miss. And guess what they found near where each kid was last seen?” I pulled the pictures Collins had given me out of my pocket and laid them down on the stone railing.

“It’s Lemurian,” Thraxus commented flatly. “But very few would know it was from the G’Honn. You might, but the connection between this case and you, apprentice, is still far from clear.”

“The girlfriend of one of the missing kids came to me, asking me to break a spell on her girlfriend. She’s a sensitive; she could feel the enchantment. I tracked it back to a guy named Julian. He ended up dead the next night, right under one of these,” I tapped the photos. “Guess who their prime suspect was? So, I cooperated with the cops, because I’m too pretty for juvie. The next morning, two guys showed up at my house, telling me to stop interfering in their master’s business. My guess? I got closer in one night than the cops have in five months. These guys work for Etienne, and the only thing he’d know about that I’ve been up to lately is this. And from what you just told me, if anyone would have a shot at the only collection of the fragments in the area, it’d be your boy Etienne. How’s that for a connection?” Thraxus looked at the photos for a few moments before he replied.

“Disturbing,” he said. “What does the Conclave know of this?”

“Squat. Corwyn is focusing on something else right now. I should be, too, but . . . well, I’m not.”

“Yes, there are larger concerns on the minds of many right now. And what do you expect me to do, little mageling? Confront Etienne and risk an internal conflict now, when the drums of war are sounding on the horizon? Promise you the big, bad vampire will leave your mother and sister alone? Maybe I should slap him on the back of a hand with a ruler and chastise him for making me so vulnerable to exposure, based on the words of a half-trained mage and disgraced demon’s apprentice!”

He stalked toward me as he spat the words out, and his eyes started to glow red. He ended on a fang-baring snarl, and I took a step back. Sometimes, you just have to flinch to keep the game from escalating, and I did it without a moment’s pause. Besides, he was
really
scary right then. The trick to flinching is in your recovery. Dr. Corwyn had taught me a few months ago that in social situations, you could take your opponent’s attack further than they wanted it to go.

“I know your hands are kinda tied in all this, Lord Thraxus,” I said softly, using a little verbal judo. If he wanted to play up how he wasn’t going to do anything, then it was time to make it look like he
couldn’t
do anything. “And I’m not really asking you to do anything, because I know you can’t, not as things stand. Hell, I’ll even let this first attack slide for now. What I want is consent to confront him if he does it again.” His eyes faded back to their normal lifeless gray, and he cocked his head to one side.

“Why should I grant you sanction against him if you fail to heed his warning?” he asked with a smile.

“Because I’m not getting the Conclave involved,” I countered. He gave me a slow smile.

“Because you dare not,” he mocked. “Your so-called evidence linking me to this is thin, at best.”

“Not if you keep protecting him. I let this slide once and it just looks a little fishy. But if you cover for him twice . . . even the dumbest Conclave mage is going to believe me if I lay this down in front of them.” His eyes narrowed to slits and his upper lip curled away to reveal razor sharp fangs.

“What you ask cannot be easily granted to one outside of the clan. All I can promise is that I will look into it.” He turned away from me.

In the distance, I saw lighting flash, and tall, fluffy clouds lit up from the inside like an explosion in freezeframe.

“So, I’m just supposed to take your word for it, and hope he doesn’t do it again?” I asked.

His dry chuckle reminded me of leaves burning.

“That is the best you humans can ever hope for from the
vampyri
,” he said.

“Then here is the best you can hope for from me. If he tries to attack me again, I
will
go after him. And I won’t stop until he’s dead. I told his boys this, and I’ll tell you: You do not fuck with my family.”

I never saw him move.

One moment, I was laying down a threat, and the next, I was on the ground, looking up into his eyes. His hand was around my throat, holding me down, and all I was aware of was fear. Cold, bone-chilling fear. I was paralyzed by it, with no thought but to cower before his terrible will. There was no escape, no thought; there was just the certainty that horrible things were about to happen to me and there was nothing I could do about it.

On the heels of that fear came something else, something colder. If I couldn’t stop him from ripping the flesh from my bones, then I could still hurt him. Maybe I could drag him with me to whichever Hell was waiting for me. I reached into the icy well of hate that followed fear and touched one of the few spells I could do on my own.

“Ingus Infernum,”
I croaked past the band of steel that was wrapped around my throat.

Hellfire ripped through me and blossomed into bluish black flames around my hands. Thraxus was gone before I felt the power surge through me, and I sat up to see him across the patio. I wanted nothing more than to wipe the smile off his face.

“Stay your wrath, mageling,” he said calmly. “I guaranteed your safety. I merely needed to be sure you could make good on your promise.”