The Necromancer's Seduction (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

I delivered the car and Adam, making my escape without encountering Ewan. The torn
up body and Adam’s reaction had left me in a depressed funk, and I just wanted to
recuperate at home. I could cope with the gore when it happened to us—the supernaturals.
We were equipped to deal with the nastiness, fight back, but when the violence touched
humans, the bloody nature of our lives became more real somehow.

At my stop, I hopped off the bus and walked the remaining block to my house. The sky
was tinged with a burned crimson, the colors of dusk that suspended time in the space
between night and day. I never liked the in between times. Cora told me they were
moments of transition, the time between sleep and wakefulness or life and death, an
uncertain time that seemed to unlock a door, inviting in the strange and unusual.

I glimpsed the sidewalk behind me, then hurried up the steps to my door. A gust of
wind blew, whipping strands of hair against my cheeks, pushing against my back, urging
me forward. After fumbling with the lock, I stepped into my house and bolted the door.
I squeezed my hands together.
This is silly
.

Then, without warning, cold hands clutched the back of my neck and shoved me against
the wall, lifting me until my feet dangled in the air. I sputtered and wheezed against
the vice around my neck. My heart pounded out a rhythm of hysteria.

My attacker turned me around. Frigid eyes stared into mine, alive but not alive.

A vampire.

“Don’t know why Dominic’s so worried about you. This is too easy.” He released my
neck. I had a split second to gulp air into my lungs before he captured my hands behind
my back, forcing my body against his. His pupils dilated as he fixed on my neck. He
bent his head, rasped his fangs along my skin, right above my throbbing jugular.

Well, this was supposed to feel good, right?

I screamed at the icy hot pain that sizzled my nerve endings when he pierced my skin
and sucked. Tears ran down my cheeks, matching the blood that dripped down my back
and chest. My stomach heaved. I hated the coppery smell of blood. My body weakened,
my muscles went limp. I’d survived demon portals, rotting zombies, and crazy necromancers
only to fall prey to a thirsty vampire. Not cool.

Suddenly, the vampire withdrew his fangs in a slick pinch and stepped back. The pain
fizzed out, leaving the feel of my power thrumming inside me. I slumped to my knees,
barely able to contain the tremors that racked my body. Blood dripped from my neck
to the floor. I touched the bite wound, my fingers quivering at the feel of sticky,
torn flesh. The vampire remained motionless, his eyes on me, waiting. Holy shit. I’d
just made my first zombie vampire.

“Fix my neck,” I told him.

He bent down and slurped my wound. The wet rasp of his tongue made my skin crawl.
When he finished, I ran my finger over the now smooth skin. The vamp returned to his
soldier’s ten-hut. He was mine to do with as I wanted. Could I get used to this? A
slippery slope for sure. I noticed a small sliver of fang poking through his lips.

No. I didn’t want to add vampires to my undead repertoire, but Dominic didn’t need
to know that.

* * * *

Lysander faced me in my front room. He looked more like a biker today, wearing blue
workman pants and heavy boots. I averted my eyes from the muscles molding his
Come to the Dark Side, We Have Cookies
T-shirt.

He slanted his brows. “Someone bit you.” Anger vibrated his voice, turning it deeper.
“What happened?”

I called the vampire who attacked me.

Realization set in when the other vampire entered the room, and all Lysander could
say was, “Oh.”

“My power engaged the exact moment he bit me. It provided the connection needed to
turn him into a zombie.”

He looked from me to the other vamp. “This is not good.” Worry creased his brow, and
then something else touched his eyes, raised his eyebrows: wariness.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn you into my zombie slave. You’d have to drink
my blood.”

He shook his head and walked over to the window. “Does Ewan know about this?”

“No. Ewan is visiting other demons.”

“The breach?”

I nodded. “I want to pay Dominic a visit. Can you take me? I can’t go in that club
alone.”

He hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his pants and leaned against the windowsill.
When he finally faced me, the indecision warred in his eyes.

“I know you have some kind of issue with Dominic,” I said. “I don’t think I can tell
the demons about this, not yet.”

Lysander approached me and touched my neck where the vampire had bit me. My skin tingled,
a sensation altogether different from the healing tingle of before. “I’m sorry he
hurt you.”

“Yeah, what’s that about? I thought your club was all the rage because of the pleasure.”
My hand trembled when I reached for my neck, finding Lysander’s hand. “Unless all
your patrons are sadomasochists.”

“He wanted it to hurt.” He lifted my chin with his fingers. “Let’s do this. Come to
the club just before it opens.”

* * * *

Lysander led me to the back of the club, past the hulking guard vamps, to a private
room. We found Dominic standing beside a pool table, scraping a chalk cube against
the tip of his cue, unimpressed with our presence. Another vamp stood at the other
end of the pool table.

Glowing orbs mounted on a black metal chandelier surrounded us in an eerie, tarnished
light. Another vamp stood next to a bar attended by the same blond woman I’d seen
on the roof the first time I met Dominic. Did she even know what the hell was up,
or did they glamour her into oblivion?

Lysander perched on a stool against the wall behind me. Dominic gave him a short nod,
then turned to me. “What brings you here alone, without your demon?”

“You know why I’m here.”

Dominic bent over the edge of the pool table to judge the angle of his target ball.
He shot the cue in a movement too fast to track. The balls cracked together, almost
as loud as lightning when it hits the ground too close. The air felt equally electrified.

“Maybe I’ll let one of your associates explain,” I said.

I sent out my mental summons. After a few moments, the zombie vamp entered the room.

I savored the tightening of Dominic’s knuckles on the cue. Vampires guarded their
emotions behind tightly composed bodies, but this time I could see Dominic’s fury
flow from his eyes and breath, tightening the air in the room. Lysander stayed perched
on his stool, but his stiff shoulders betrayed his casual demeanor. The other vamps
left the room in the face of Dominic’s anger, dragging the woman with them.

“You sent this vampire to kill me, but your plan backfired, didn’t it?”

The first time I’d met Dominic, he’d warped my perception of him with his thrall.
Now, no amount of thrall could disguise the cruel twist of his lips or the depravity
tainting his eyes like dirty oil. Zombies killed out of instinct and mindless need.
It wasn’t personal. With Dominic, draining someone to death was about pride and passion
and pain.

Dominic glared at Lysander. “What’s your stake in this?”

Lysander cocked an eyebrow, not failing to notice Dominic’s choice of words. “She
showed up, and I just happened to be here. She knows me.”

The two vampires exchanged another long look. Dominic returned his attention to me.
“What do you intend to do with him?”

“Let him die—for real.” In the only act of faith I’d ever planned to give Dominic,
I released the zombie vampire and watched him slump to the ground. Dead. “Stay away
from me and our investigation. No vampires have been affected.”

His laughter held no humor. “Vampires have been very affected since you entered the
picture.”

“I want nothing to do with vampires or vampire zombies.”

“You don’t know your supernatural history well. The demons will be very interested
in this new development. I have no assurance you won’t use it against us in the future,
as the demons have tried in the past.”

Before coming, I’d decided to hand Dominic a chip, even if it meant adding to the
debris left behind by the limo wreck of this whole situation. “I won’t tell the demons
about the attack or how I turned him into my vampire bitch.”

I braced for a moment, waiting for the attack I saw in his eyes. His jaws tensed to
a biting position, his fangs forming an imprint against his lips. Lysander straightened
from his stool.

Dominic’s breath flared with the desire to kill me. I’m sure he thought my power would
fail to best him, the master vamp. I almost—
almost
—willed him to test his arrogance. He gave Lysander a look full of savage intensity,
but the response in Lysander’s eyes was cool, unaffected. Dominic allowed the tip
of a white fang to lengthen and protrude from his lips. He licked the fang with his
tongue.

“They don’t need to know you attacked me, which would normally demand a response,”
I said.

He waved his hand. “He was a rogue vampire acting on his own. I would have punished
him.”

Right. I’d be dead, and bubba here would be sucking on someone else’s vein tonight.
“The demons won’t care if he was a rogue or not—they’ll hold you responsible.”

He drove the cue shaft along the crook of his hand and knocked the black ball down
the side pocket. He straightened and spoke to me in a voice cold enough to make me
shiver. “I’ll make sure no other vampire decides to take matters into his own hands
and allow you to settle the supernatural deaths on the condition that the demons remain
ignorant of this ugly attack.”

I ground my teeth. Lying bastard. He probably had another vampire waiting for his
command to kill me.

“Anything else?” he asked in a dismissive tone.

Lysander stepped behind me and cupped my elbow, urging me past the burly vamp guarding
the entrance and out the club through a side exit that opened to a one way street,
away from the throng lined up to enter the club. I breathed deeply, glad to escape
the cigarette smoke, pumping bass, and angry vampires.

“Why do I feel like he gained the upper hand when I was the one attacked?” I asked,
exasperated.

“Because you don’t survive hundreds of years of vampire politics without developing
mad manipulation skills.”

“How did you survive?”

“By staying out of the politics. Speaking of, you think keeping this from Malthus
and Ewan is the best thing to do?”

“No. I don’t know much about anything anymore.” I rubbed my fingers over my eyelids.
After all the secrets kept from me, the idea of keeping my own secret had me nauseous.
Secrets are nasty tumors, hard to expel. The extraction leaves a painful scar that
never fades.

“Whatever all this crap is between the vampires and other supes, the power plays,
the history, I want no part of it. I did this to keep Dominic out of my shit,” I said.

“Dominic will never stay out of your shit. He may back off for a while, but he won’t
let this go. Remember that.”

“Why is all this happening now?” I grimaced at my own pity-seeking pout.

He gave me a crooked smile and rubbed my cheek with his thumb. “You upset the balance,
sweetheart. Congrats.”

I eased into his arms, his hard chest settling my overwrought nerves. We locked eyes.
Desire? Sorrow? Regret? I couldn’t tell which emotion dominated the blue of his eyes.
He continued to rub his thumb along my cheek, then my chin. Something sizzled in the
air between us. Sparks landed on my skin in tiny jolts.

“Well, this looks cozy.”

I flinched in Lysander’s embrace. He pulled away from me, and I turned to face Ewan.
His words had sliced the charged air around us, equally as sharp as the sword he’d
wielded against the Frerac. I shut my eyes to block out his look, full of brilliant
hurt.

“Ewan, this is not what you think,” Lysander said.

I groaned. How cliché was that?

“Then explain it to me, because I’m seeing you with your hands all over her, so there’s
only one conclusion I can come up with, especially since I have no idea why Ruby’s
here to begin with. Let’s start there. Why are you here, Ruby?” His eyes glittered,
his body barely able to contain the menace rolling off him.

All this time I’d included Ewan in Malthus’s deceptions, and now I was the deceiver.
I wanted to jump into the gutter and roll around in the slime.

When I didn’t respond to his question, he said, “See, this is where you provide the
reasonable explanation so I don’t think I interrupted a sordid rendezvous.”

“I was trying to find out more information on Cael,” I said. I was never a good liar,
and the disappointment registering in his eyes proved that hadn’t changed. He needed
something logical to grasp, and I’d given him crap.

“Jesus, Ruby.” His eyes implored me. “What the fuck? I thought we’d moved beyond this.”

“Ewan, don’t blame Ruby for what you saw. It was my fault,” Lysander said.