2 Sean Hayden (10 page)

I leaned my head forward and then slammed it back against the face of the vampire who held me in the headlock. I heard a satisfying crunch of bone and the arm around my neck fell limply away. I let out a guttural scream that echoed off the walls as I bit into the shoulder of the vamp holding my right side. My fangs slid through his shoulder and I bit down until my incisors hit his collarbone. With a quick jerk of my neck, the bone tore free, causing the vampire to scream in agony. I spit out the bone, along with a chunk of flesh and looked around. The vampire holding my other side had let go and backed up a few feet.

I considered letting him go, but my body had other ideas. I spun and brought my right arm down in a sweeping arc. My talons ripped out three quarters of his throat in a spray of blood that splashed the wall and floor like a gruesome piece of artwork.

None of the other vampires were attacking, so I focused on Santiago. He let out a snake-like hiss and I returned it with a leonine roar. He charged, and I charged him right back. Our collision sounded like a train wreck. His fist connected with my face as I shoved my hand through his chest. From the strangled cry he let out, he felt the excruciating pain as I grabbed his heart, and held it as my fist passed through his back. Without a second thought, I crushed the organ to a pulp and dropped it to the ground with a sickening thud.

I held my arm straight as his very dead body slid backward and off with a wet plop. He hit the ground and the room stopped moving. I turned and looked at Victoria, expecting her to be a bloody mangled mess, but she stood whole between the two vampires who held her. She still had a good coating of blood on her, but her wounds had healed. She gave me a triumphant smile and I realized something. I could feel her in my mind. I closed my eyes and where she stood I could see a small crimson glow. Now I understood what Santiago had meant. Victoria belonged to me, and no matter where she went, I would see her and feel her.

I looked around the room, feeling the other sparks that belonged to Santiago's vampires. I'd killed him and released those tied to him as master of Sacramento. They stood there, free for the taking. It would be so easy to reach out and pluck those little sparks of power and make them my own, too. Unfortunately, I had no desire to be the master of any city. I gently pushed each one away with my mind, but the amount of them nearly overwhelmed me. I'd freed a lot of vampires with my actions. I briefly wondered what would happen to them, but at that moment I didn't care.

The quiet noise of Victoria's bare feet as they crossed the room broke me from my mental state. I reached up to push away the stray hair that had fallen around my face and rubbed my fingers across my once again smooth forehead. My horns had receded. Thanks be to the gods. I would have had a hard time explaining them if they'd stuck like that. A mental image of me shopping in the Home Depot for a grinder crossed my mind and made me laugh.

Remembering Marcel and Strozzini, I looked around for them, but they were nowhere in sight. I had a very bad feeling. As a matter of fact, there wasn't a human in sight either. None of the vampires made a move to go anywhere though.

"Did you see where Marcel and Strozzini went?"

"No, master, I didn't."

"Stay here, don't let anyone else leave," I told Victoria and took off as fast as I could back up the way we'd come.

I burst through the open hidden door and into the almost empty club above Santiago's lair. I found them on the dance floor, but they weren't dancing. Strozzini held two wicked curved silver blades and fought to hit Marcel with them. Marcel expertly blocked every strike with what looked like part of a stripper pole. "Fuck," I said quietly and attacked.

He'd been too engrossed with his fight with Marcel to notice me attacking from behind. I landed on his back and did the only thing I could do. Reaching around, I latched on to his chest with my talons and bit him in the neck. I felt his blood hit my tongue and I groaned. Immediately, he let his blades fall to the ground as the pleasure of my bite spread through his body. Marcel dropped his make shift weapon and stood watching me as I fed.

"You need to make a decision, little one. He no longer believes the story we concocted. He ran away to get word to The Council about you. You can either let him go and deal with The Council, turn him like you did the other, or kill him," Marcel said to me resignedly.

The vampire fell limp in my arms. I knew if I kept drinking I could take his spark, but I really didn't want another death on my conscience. What I did to Victoria, I would never do again. I had trouble enough taking care of myself. To be someone's master wasn't something I would ever want. I knew in my heart I'd have to deal with the Council sooner or later. Making my decision, I stopped drinking and let Strozzini fall from my grasp onto the dirty floor of the strip club.

"I won't kill him. Hell, I didn't want to have to kill Santiago," I said more to myself than to Marcel. He nodded and drew me into a hug. I wrapped my arms around him as far as I could and he kissed the top of my head.

"You have so much to learn, and I'm running out of time to teach you. You keep fumbling through a world which has rules older than I, and you don't know the basest of laws. I will teach you, or find someone who can. It would have been much simpler if the FBI hadn't been so eager to use their new weapon." He sighed into my hair. I just tried not to cry.

"I'm sorry, Marcel. I promise to learn as fast as I can," I said earnestly.

"I know you will,
mon enfant
," he said and stepped away from me. "Go collect your new second. Take my hotel key and wait for me there. I will find my own way. Should you talk to James, don't mention anything about what happened here. Tonight didn't happen. We came, we talked, and we left,
bon
?" I nodded and ran back to where I'd left Victoria. As soon as she saw me she moved to my side.

"Stay here," I said to Santiago's vamps, or the ones left standing anyway. "Marcel will be back down shortly and take care of you. I'm sorry," I added almost as an afterthought.

I didn't look back as we got into the suburban and made our way back to the hotel.
Why should I look back, Marcel would fix it. Marcel fixed everything
.

* * *

I woke not remembering going to bed. I was completely under the comforter and enjoyed the feel of soft skin covering most of my body. I opened my eyes and Victoria's head rested in the crook of my shoulder. She hadn't stirred yet, so I kept my movement to a minimum. Laying there holding her felt quite relaxing and after the night we'd had, I deserved to relax a little. I moved my fingers to her hair and began to stroke its silky smoothness.

"Good Evening, master," Victoria said without looking at me. She tightened her arm around me and her cheek shifted as she smiled against my shoulder.

"Good morning," I said and stretched. You never see vampires stretching and I liked to think it set me apart just a little more. The more I learned about the vampire world, the more I looked for little differences to use as insulation between us. Victoria untwined her legs from mine and rolled over on her back, giving me the freedom to either stay where I lay, or get up and start my night. As much as I wanted to stay, I needed to talk to Marcel. He either hadn't made his way back to the hotel or came back after I had drifted off to sleep.

I pulled back the covers and rolled out of bed, giving a little gasp as I realized I stood there very, very naked. I looked over at Victoria and saw she lay there exposed completely as well. I ignored the blood rushing to my face and tried not to stare while I walked to the bathroom to take a shower. I didn't close the door behind me as I wanted to, but reached in the shower starting the water while I brushed my teeth. Water temperature meant absolutely nothing to me, but I wanted the water as hot as possible to wash away the remains of the previous night.

I shut off the sink and stepped under the spray, immediately letting it flow over my hair and face. I grabbed the little bottle of hotel shampoo and poured it directly into my hair. I stepped forward to give my head a quick spray so I could work it through my hair. Victoria's hands reached up and started massaging the soap into my scalp. I closed my eyes and concentrated on Victoria and felt her spark just behind me. I tilted my head and let her work her magic on my scalp. She pressed against my back as she worked and I reached behind her and pulled her tighter against me.

The suds from the shampoo trapped themselves between us and made the sensation of her naked body sliding against mine quite pleasurable. I lay my head back against her shoulder and her face pressed against mine as she worked the lather over my skin. She cleaned every inch of me and I shuddered under her touch. When she finished, I did the same for her. She looked at me, surprised when I started, but I enjoyed bringing her pleasure.

We shut off the water still giggling and dried each other off completely before slipping back into the bedroom to get dressed. I couldn't in good conscious let Victoria slip back into her see through dress, so I loaned her a pair of jeans and a T-shirt I'd brought with me to wear when I wasn't wearing my FBI suit or skirt.

"Do you live around here?"

"I have a room back at Santiago's. Most of the dancers live there," she said solemnly. I realized I didn't want her going back there for any reason.

"Well, we'll go shopping later. I'll buy you some new clothes. I have money so don't worry about it."

"Thank you, master," she said and bowed low.

"Hey, Vic," I said to her. "Do me a favor, don't call me that."

"If it's just you and I, I will call you whatever you command me to, master, but in front of others it is my duty," she said and bowed again. I had a lot of work to do.

"Call me Ash or Ashlyn, whatever you prefer."

She bowed for the third time and I refrained from saying anything about it. I made my way to the bedroom door and she reached out and opened it for me without me asking. Maybe she had more work to do on me than I did on her. I'd never get used to being waited on hand and foot.

Thompson sat dressed on the couch and had his feet up on the hotel coffee table with the television remote in his hand. When Vic and I walked out of the bedroom he hit the power button and crossed his arms without getting up. I did however get one raised eyebrow.

"What?"

"What the fuck happened last night, kid? Do you know how many phone calls I've ignored from Sanders? He's the fucking Deputy Director of the FBI. I wanted to talk to you before I called him back, so you better have something good to explain it." I had never heard him yell before, and I didn't like it directed at me.

"What are you talking about?" I was truly confused.
Hadn't he talked to Marcel at all?
"Where's Marcel?"

"Not here, but that's not the point. I'm talking to you right now. What happened last night?"

"We met with the master of Sacramento and questioned him. He didn't have anything to do with the attacks on the governor so we left. Why? What's going on?"

Thompson gave me another dirty look before he stood and walked over to the desk. He picked up a newspaper that looked like it had been read, reread, crumpled up, and read again. He spun it as he tossed it to me and the front page landed in my hands face up. A picture of a large fire stared back at me and I recognized it at once. "Bare Fangs" had been reduced to a cinder. I read the caption underneath the picture and then read the article twice before dropping it onto the table Thompson had been using as a footstool.

"What happened last night, Ashlyn? You were the last one to see those twenty-seven vampires alive

"I told you, Jim, we talked to him and that's it. By the way, I wasn't the last one to see them alive. Whoever killed them saw them for the last time." I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"I spent the entire night with my master, she didn't kill anyone." Vic chimed in next to me with the worst imaginable timing ever. I needed a story to explain her to Thompson, and I hadn't come up with one yet.

"I'm sorry, who the fuck are you?"

"Thompson," I snapped angrily. "She's mine." I clenched my teeth.

"Excuse me?"

Fuck, I need more time. Why couldn't you have stayed in San Diego for another day?

"It's a long story," I started as the door to the room beeped merrily and Marcel entered the room. Thank the gods.

"Welcome back, James," he said and sat down on the couch where we were having our discussion. "What's going on?" He spoke as if he didn't have a clue. As far as I knew, he didn't, but the nagging feeling in my stomach begged to differ.

"This is," Thompson said and picked up the front page of the newspaper and handed it to Marcel. "Care to tell me what happened last night?"

"
Oui
," Marcel said and glanced through the paper. He tossed it back down on the table and looked up at Thompson. "Where should I start?" He looked up at the ceiling dramatically. "Oh yes, I know. Your stupid FBI found themselves a new kind of vampire. You trained her how to be an agent, but she has no fucking clue how to be a vampire. She needs to be trained and she needs it now. Last night she broke one of our oldest laws, and she didn't even know she had done anything wrong! She accidentally ended up not only binding one of the master of Sacramento's vampires to her, but she also turned her into whatever she is! To top it all off, we had concocted a story for Strozzini so he wouldn't run off and tell the Council that somehow, there is a new type of vampire running around more powerful than a master vampire! Do you think they would let her stay alive?"

I could hear the disbelief in his voice. So much for his plan that last night never happened. He must be really pissed off.

"Marcel, what did you do?" By the look on his face, he had the same sinking feeling in the pit of
his
stomach.

Marcel sighed and continued, "The only thing I could, my friend. I ended Strozzini's life and the lives of all the other vampires who witnessed what happened. When I finished, I burned their bodies and set the blaze to destroy any evidence we had been there. Now the North American Council needs to find another master of Sacramento," he finished nonchalantly.