Read Ashes of the Day Online

Authors: P.G. Forte

Ashes of the Day (8 page)

BOOK: Ashes of the Day
7.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

If he’d met Julie before she’d been turned, when she was still human, things could have been so different. They could have had a life together, or at least they might have had a chance at having one, but even as he thought it, Brennan knew it was a lie.

What did he know about her, really? None of the vamps liked to talk about their ages and Julie was no exception. She looked to be about twenty, but what did that prove? For all he knew, she could be old enough to be his mother or, hell, maybe even his grandmother.

What would she look like now, if she hadn’t been turned? If she’d still been human when he met her three months ago, would he still have fallen for her? Or would he have passed her by, thinking her nothing more than a very attractive MILF—assuming he thought of her at all?

He stepped out of the shower, toweled off, held his breath and listened, but he heard nothing from the other side of the door. Maybe he’d gotten lucky. Maybe Julie had taken the hint and gone home, back to the mansion where the other vamps lurked. Back to where they both knew she belonged.

Just in case she hadn’t, he took his time shaving, took his time dressing, and tried hard to get back a little of the righteous anger he’d almost been feeling.
She should have waited for me. She should have known I’d come along someday.

Another lie. The truth was, he hadn’t waited for her either. Three and a half years ago, long before he’d had any idea what was at stake, he’d given a big chunk of his heart away and permanently taken himself out of the running for the live-forever crew.

You don’t outlive your children, not if you have any kind of choice in the matter. Some truths were so big and bold and obvious that even a blind man in a coma couldn’t help but trip over them. This was one of them. You don’t choose to stay young and vital and healthy and sit idly by watching as your children age, as they weaken and die. It had been hard enough watching that happen to his father. Watching it happen to Parker, to his own little boy, well, that would be a special kind of hell, now wouldn’t it?

So it really didn’t matter that Julie was beautiful, smart, funny, sexy, caring—or any of an easy dozen other qualities that, all combined, made her pretty much his ideal woman. It didn’t matter that he enjoyed spending every spare moment with her, or that the sight of her walking down the drive, coming to see him with a hungry gleam in her eyes and a smile on her lips, had always brightened his work night and made him feel happy. None of it mattered. There’d always be one thing missing from the equation.

She wasn’t human. That was kind of a deal breaker for him.

As he exited the bathroom, the smell of coffee and bacon made his heart sink. Julie hadn’t gone home after all. She’d stayed and made him breakfast once again, just like a real girl.

This world sure is a funny place,
Brennan thought as he gave in to the inevitable and headed into the kitchen. It was a place where your luck might run out just when you needed it most. Where you could wake from a dream to find yourself living a nightmare. Where something so close to perfect could still be all wrong.

Chapter Five

Marc gazed around him in amazement. This was his first look at his new quarters. Over the past few days, the ferals had been working like demons, practically ’round the clock. They’d taken over the two rooms next to his office, connected them all and turned the space into a sumptuous private suite.

He didn’t know how they’d done it, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn they had spies, or perhaps even helpers, in Conrad’s house. Almost everything—all the ornate, Victorian-Gothic furniture for certain—looked like it could have been pulled from the mansion’s attic. He couldn’t help feeling they’d made a concerted attempt to replicate everything he’d walked away from, as though to make sure he never felt any lack. Or had any reason to leave them and return to Conrad’s nest.

A huge fireplace surround—one with pillars and mirrors and intricately carved wood—had been dragged home from somewhere and secured against one wall. A fake electric fireplace with flames that flickered and moved had been shoved inside the opening in the face of the surround—giving the illusion that it was a working fireplace. Mismatched leather armchairs and a worn leather couch had been positioned in front of the faux hearth, while a massive armoire and four-poster canopy bed dominated the bedroom. Scattered on the floor in both rooms were several crimson-toned oriental carpets—threadbare, but still serviceable. It was eclectic, impressive, a little bit goth—and Marc was almost shocked by how much he liked it. “It’s freaking perfect.” Worried expressions dissolved into satisfied grins. His new family smiled back at him. Marc suspected he was grinning himself. “Good job, everyone. Thank you.”

“All right.” Nighthawk clapped his hands to get their attention. “C’mon, everybody, time to clear out. Let’s give the man some space so he can enjoy his new home. Let’s go,” he urged again, when no one seemed disposed to move. “We’ve got a party to get set up for, don’t we? I mean, unless y’all are content to starve for another night.”

That got everyone motivated at last. All but Heather, who turned her back on Nighthawk and the departing crowd and wandered away to examine a tapestry that had been nailed into place on one of the walls.

“You all get started,” Nighthawk called after the crowd. “I’ll be down to help out in a minute. Heather, that means you too, you know. C’mon, get outta here.”

Heather shrugged. “I’ll go when I’m ready. You’re not the boss of me.”

Marc hid a smile. “Something on your mind, Hawk?”

Nighthawk cast a meaningful glance in Heather’s direction. When it became obvious Marc had no intention of telling her to go, he nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, actually, there is.”

“Come on then.” Marc waved them both over to his new seating area. He seated himself on the couch, not at all surprised when Heather hurried over to cuddle beside him, slipping quickly past the larger feral to ensure he didn’t get there first. “Sit,” Marc urged, waving Nighthawk toward the armchair facing him. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I just wanted to ask if you’d thought at all about choosing lictors yet,” Nighthawk said.

Marc’s eyebrows rose. “Lictors?”

“Yeah. You know, like what they had back in Roman times? They’re kinda like—”

“I know what they are,” Marc assured him. Whatever arguments he might have with Conrad and Damian, he could certainly never accuse them of neglecting his education.

“I don’t,” Heather protested. “What are they?”

“‘Lictors were a class of…of bodyguards, I guess you’d say,” Marc explained. “Sort of like aides or personal assistants, only more prestigious. They attended high-ranking public officials and other people of importance, ran interference for them, carried out their orders, things like that.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“Yeah. Exactly.” Nighthawk gazed expectantly at him. “So, have you thought about it?”

Marc frowned. “What exactly am I supposed to be thinking about?”

“Who’re you gonna pick, of course.”

“You want me to pick…lictors? What, you mean like people to follow me around and stuff?”

Nighthawk nodded. “Yeah, like what you just said, to carry out orders and do things for you. Make sure you have what you need. Back you up in a fight. Whatever.”

Heather had perked up. “I want to be a lictor,” she said.

Marc sighed. Bodyguards, attendants, more people to trip over—yeah, that was just what he needed. And who the hell had said anything about fighting? “Look, guys, it’s a nice idea, but I don’t really think I…” His voice trailed away as he caught sight of their crestfallen expressions. He hated disappointing them. And what would it hurt? “I don’t really think I need more than two, wouldn’t you say? Like, perhaps, the two of you?”

Nighthawk shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. Two’s a’ight. It’ll do for a start, anyways.” The quick look he shot at Heather suggested he didn’t think much of her as a choice, but at least he was too smart to voice his objection.

“And maybe we can see if we can’t come up with a more modern term for it, all right? Like aide or adjutant or something along those lines.”

“Oh.” Nighthawk shrugged. “Well, that’s okay. We could do that.”

“Good. Now why don’t you two go someplace and talk about it, okay? No arguing though. Once you’ve come up with a list of titles and duties and stuff, we can discuss it more in-depth. But later, okay? ’Cause right now, I’ve got some work to do.”

After the others left, Marc crossed to the door that led to his office. He unlocked the bottom drawer of the old wooden file cabinet and took out the bag of scrolls Heather had found during her search of the warehouse. He really needed to find a better hiding place for them. If Georgia ever learned of their existence, he wouldn’t put it past her to try and talk Conrad into forcing Marc to turn them over. He wouldn’t put it past her to send someone in here to steal them from him either, if it came to that. But he wasn’t about to let that happen. Not until he’d had the chance to go over everything, figure out what he had and—at the very least—scan them into his computer.

He had the feeling they were important. Why else would Audrey have hidden them here? He wasn’t sure how exactly, but it was possible they could be the key to finding her, or to finding Elise, to figuring out what was really going on. They could be the key to a lot of things. Most of all, they gave him an edge. He didn’t want to lose that.

So, while the ferals had been busy these last few days with setting his rooms up, Marc had not been idle either. He’d been holed up in his office, struggling with his rusty knowledge of Latin, studying the scrolls for hours at a time in an effort to puzzle out what Audrey had been up to. The scrolls had a lot to say about vampires—even his kind, the
Infragilis
. They had a lot to say about a whole lot of topics, including quite a few that neither Conrad nor Damian had ever thought to share with the twins. In the past few days, Marc had learned more about what it meant to be a vampire than he’d known his whole life.

Some of the scrolls talked about
Vesco Inedia,
the so-called blood plague—a deadly disease reputedly created by alchemists during the Middle Ages as part of an attempt to eliminate vampires. No cure for it had ever been discovered and, as far as he could tell, the plan had very nearly succeeded. In the section that explained how the epidemic was halted and the plague eradicated, Marc got his first glimpse of Conrad’s darker side. Unless there’d been another vampire of the same name, it was he, apparently, who’d come up with a way to end the plague—by ordering the deaths of everyone who’d become infected, and then carrying out those death sentences, mostly by himself. It had done the trick, but the cost had been high and Marc couldn’t help but shudder at the thought.

Another scroll seemingly described in detail how vampire venom could be used to create a powerful tranquilizing drug. After piecing together what Nighthawk had told him about Audrey’s activities, along with Conrad’s own admission that he’d been drugged by her, Marc had no doubt that was part of what she’d been doing here. It also eliminated the last shreds of doubt about who had left the scrolls behind. It had clearly been Audrey who had done so. That made the deciphering of them even more important.

Marc had thought briefly of giving that particular scroll to Conrad, just to ensure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. In the end, however, he decided it could wait. If he admitted the existence of one scroll, he could hardly claim ignorance of the rest. Not without looking Conrad square in the eye and lying to his face. Marc wasn’t ready to do that. He wasn’t sure he even could. He wasn’t sure he actually wanted to. He owed his grandfather so much. And he loved him so much. Once he started down the road of trying to deceive him…

No, it was best to say nothing yet.

Besides, he still didn’t know what Audrey was up to—not entirely. Conrad had claimed she’d been trying to create more
Invitus,
and he might even believe that was the case, but so far Marc hadn’t seen anything to support that supposition. As far as anyone knew, all she’d been trying to accomplish was to strengthen her own position after the fall of her sire’s House. Not that he approved of her methods but, in a way, it was the same thing he was trying to do. And not that Conrad’s House was in any danger of collapsing either, of course, but overall their situations were not that different.

All Marc wanted to do was establish his own House, protect his people and consolidate his position. If there was something hidden in these scrolls that might have helped Audrey do any of those things, maybe they could do the same for him.

Then again, Audrey was a maniac, violent and insane, so the odds were just as good the scrolls would be of no use to him at all. But until he knew for sure he was definitely holding onto them.

That left him with just one problem. He could decipher the scrolls easily enough, but he still needed to talk to someone who could help him put all this information into perspective, someone more knowledgeable than he about this stuff. Talking meant confiding in someone, however, and that carried a certain amount of risk. Unless he planned on following the time-honored practice of killing his informants after he’d wrung them dry of all useful information, something he had no intention of doing, he would have to be very careful who he picked. He would have to pick someone he could reasonably trust.

And just where did he think he could find someone like that?

BOOK: Ashes of the Day
7.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Building Blocks of Murder by Vanessa Gray Bartal
Stillness and Speed: My Story by Bergkamp, Dennis
Cowboy Town by Millstead, Kasey
Game by London Casey, Ana W. Fawkes
Kingmaker by Lindsay Smith
Queen's House by Edna Healey
2 Blood Trail by Tanya Huff
Curse Not the King by Evelyn Anthony