Blood Hunt (31 page)

“I told him I would do anything for him, would serve him in any way he asked, if only he would not abandon me. I had nothing else. My parents were dead, the young man I would have married had been killed fighting in Sweden two years earlier, even my home was in flames. There was
nothing
left … except Jakob.

“He took me with him. I was alone and had no one else to turn to, and Jakob took me in. He taught me to fight, showed me what I could be, and gave me my chance at immortality.”

Sasha looked over at Molly, who was listening intently.

“Your situation is not the same as mine, but I felt the echo of the past. I remembered Jakob’s kindness, and felt that I could do no less.”

Molly smiled, then laughed a bit.

“What is it?” Sasha asked.

“Nothing.”

Sasha looked over at Molly again, tilting her head. Molly grinned.

“You’re just not as much of a bitch as you try to be.”

Chapter 17
The Burilgi King

Sarah Thompson had been hearing the voices for some time now, although time would have been difficult enough to gauge even if she could see. At least then there might have been some hint – the progression of sunlight on a wall, perhaps. Sarah was trapped in a world of darkness, lying on a cold steel floor, unsure of anything except that she had been taken forcibly from her home, separated from her husband, and thrown into what must undoubtedly be a cell. Judging time was essentially impossible.

Though she could not see her surroundings, she had managed to struggle to a sitting position, leaning against the wall. She sat, wondering what fate held in store for her. She had finished crying, had finished screaming, and had spent the past – whatever – simply breathing, trying not to let her fear overwhelm her again, and listening to the voices.

“
Ki epile kom Aros fite? Na chole
,” said the hissing voice that Sarah had come to think of as The Rat.

“
Sa mokoste kel, vi tao chareson sata imrati jal
,” said the other, a slow and dopey voice that seemed to struggle with the foreign language it was speaking. Sarah had nicknamed this one The Dunce.

“
Na vose taravas a ker
,” The Rat replied.

“
Sa lur se. Na vateto kom tao majeto a Nikki. Tao paceto kel kuessa pha chesas essi morteto kel javin
.”

“
Fan? Ghaso?
”

“
Tao se fusto. Ghaso fusto. Nan loraden empas fam nan loraden fusto.
”

“
Na osame. Sa prise kel teo se progos?
”

“
Na vobreve.
Setra vort fiteto tao nifleto kel
… damn, how do you say ‘screaming’?” The Dunce asked.

“
Quovre.
”

“Right …
quovre vilmon, munta tao praveto ae karecomar.
”

“
Nan lur praven vi puosten cheo kel. Na nifle teo se enposto.
” The Rat made an ugly chuckling noise.

“
Nan lur ustalon omrinen rotan.
Na se lostro.
”

“That’s why I want to stop!” The Rat exclaimed. There was laughter, and then the voices trailed off a bit, other than an occasional curse in English or murmur that she couldn’t catch.

Sarah tried, as best she could, to determine what exactly had happened earlier in the evening. Jakob had told them that they were in danger, and almost immediately his words had been proven true. There had been a crash, and the sound of glass breaking, and then the rapid shuffling noise of a group of people entering the brownstone. Jake had started barking, and then he’d made a noise that Sarah had understood, instantly, was the last he would ever make. Thinking back on this now, she felt a wave of heart-wrenching sadness. Jake had been a constant companion for almost eight years of her life and had been responsible for her meeting Rhes. He’d deserved better.

During the commotion, Sarah had been grabbed by both of her arms, and a rough hand had slapped over her mouth after only a couple of screams. Rhes had barely had time to begin shouting before he’d made a strangled noise, and a young voice had said, “Make any more noise and we’ll kill blind-o over there. We only need one of you.”

“This one here is Ay’Araf,” another voice had said. “What’s your name, pig?”

Jakob hadn’t deigned to answer, and Sarah had heard the sound of blows landing.

“I asked you a question, you elitist piece of shit,” the voice had snarled. Jakob had laughed at it.

“By all means, keep hitting me,” he’d said.

Sarah had thought that Jakob was trying to stall their assailants, waiting for reinforcements of some kind. One of the Burilgi in the room must have had the same thought.

“Fuck it,” a female voice had said. “Take him with us. Let’s go.”

There had been pain then, a sharp jab in her arm, just below the edge of her sleeve, and the last thing Sarah had heard before waking up in this cell was the woman’s voice saying, “Cooperate with us or we’ll pick one of them to kill, got it?”

After that there was not blackness, but rather a startling loss of time. She did not remember passing out, did not remember dreaming. It had seemed merely seconds between those words and waking up on the floor of her cell, disoriented and nauseated from the drugs. She had sat up, leaned sideways and vomited, and then had begun calling for help. When that hadn’t worked, the tears had started, prompted by fear, anger, and an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

Sarah had been without her sight for twenty years and still so often felt crippled. In her present situation, abducted and imprisoned, she felt completely useless. Rhes was not here, and there was nothing left to do but sit, and listen to the voices, and wait.

* * *

Rhes Thompson could see, but when he woke from his own drug-induced sleep, he found himself in no better a position to do anything than Sarah had. The cell he was in measured perhaps twenty-five square feet, small enough that he could only have lain flat by spreading out on the diagonal. The walls and door were metal, and there was a small vent near the top of one wall. The ceiling, some sixteen feet above him, was made of concrete. The floor was some kind of industrial linoleum, a minty green color, scraped and scuffed. A single bare light bulb hung high above him, and there was a small plexiglass window in the door.

Rhes had gone there first, once the drugs had worn off enough that he was able to stand, and looked through the window. It had offered little in the way of a view. It appeared that his cell was positioned at the end of a long cinderblock hallway. Across from him was another door with a window looking in on what appeared to be another cell. To the left, the hall ended in a bare wall. To the right, it disappeared out of view.

Rhes tried banging on the door. He tried shouting. Neither accomplished anything. In the end, Rhes sat down on the floor, his back to the wall, and waited. If the creatures that had abducted him had meant to kill him, surely they would have already done so. He was here for a purpose: to lure Two to someone named Aros for some unknown reason that, Rhes thought, even if explained to him would make no sense.

“What it is that motivates these motherfuckers, other than making my life difficult, I have no idea,” he muttered to himself.

He checked his watch, noting that it was three in the morning. He wondered if Molly was all right, and how Sarah might be handling her imprisonment if she was awake. Time passed. Rhes sat and thought, dozing occasionally, and eventually came to the conclusion that if he ever saw Two again, his best course of action would be to run screaming in the opposite direction.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. Rhes resisted the urge to leap to his feet and press his face against the window like a kid. Instead, he tried to remain as calm and casual as possible. When the door opened, he glanced up and said, “If you wanted an autograph, you could’ve just asked.”

The man standing in the door was blonde and strikingly handsome. To Rhes, he looked like James Dean, in a way, sensitive and almost delicate. He gave Rhes a polite smile and said, “This is not how I would have preferred to meet you. I did not think you’d be receptive to my people if they simply knocked on your door.”

“Jakob would probably have started slashing them up. That’s what he did with the last three that bothered us.”

“Yes. A regrettable situation, that. I am not a … vindictive man – or perhaps it’s just that those fools were of no real value. Regardless, I’ve allowed him to live for now.”

“You’re Aros?”

“That is my name, yes. Aros Kreskas, at your service.”

“‘At my service’ … right. Where’s my wife, Mr. Kreskas?”

“Here and safe. You’ll see her shortly.”

“And my daughter?”

Aros tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Daughter?”

Rhes rolled his eyes. “That’s a hell of a research team you’ve got there, Kreskas.”

“You seem a bit hostile, Mr. Thompson.”

“Your people fucked up my house, killed my dog, threatened to kill my wife, then drugged us both and locked us up. I’d say, under the circumstances, that it’s a small miracle I’m just sitting here and not trying to punch your teeth in.”

Aros considered this, and he nodded. “I was unaware of the dog. My apologies.”

“So, apologies for the dog, but nothing else …”

“I’m not accustomed to apologizing for much of anything, so you’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

Rhes said nothing – just sat there, arms crossed, looking up at Aros.

Finally, the vampire said, “They’ve taught you already not to respect my kind.”

“No,” Rhes said. “It has nothing to do with that. I don’t know anything about you, or your people, and I don’t care. I just want this shit to be done. I want you to do whatever it is you need to do and let my wife and I go home and try, once again, to return to our lives.”

“A reasonable desire. I have a simple question for you, Mr. Thompson.”

“Go for it.”

“Can I trust you not to make a pointless, foolish attempt at escape if I provide you and your wife with some freedom during your stay here?”

“You mean like waiting for daylight and then just walking out?”

“The human guard I employ might have something to say about that.”

“Right. Look, I’m not interested in putting Sarah’s life in danger – or my own, for that matter. So, whatever. It’s your dungeon, do what you want. Long as I can see my wife. When Two shows up, are you going to let us go?”

“That is my current plan, yes.”

“Fine, then.”

“And you’re not concerned about
why
I might want your friend?”

“Buddy, I don’t even give a shit. Two can take care of herself. The last time a vampire fucked with her, she chopped his head off and burned him to ashes.”

“Yes, I know. That’s part of the problem. She has something I want.”

“What’s that?”

Aros paused, and then gave Rhes a grin that seemed ill-fit for his handsome face. He no longer looked sensitive to Rhes, nor delicate. He no longer looked human. Rhes understood in that moment that despite the civility Aros was displaying, there was something very dangerous about this man.

“What I want,” Aros told him, “is her blood.”

* * *

“Hon?”

Sarah sat bolt upright. She had been leaning against the wall and had fallen into a doze, but that was
his
voice, and she knew it even half asleep.

“Rhes?”

“I’m here, Sarah.” She felt him touch her face and then take her hand. Sarah wrapped her arms around him, clutching at him. Rhes hugged her back.

“You OK?” Rhes asked her, and she nodded, not letting him go.

“Yes. I just … you know.”

“I know.”

Sarah heard the rustle of fabric as Aros came through the door and said, “Who else is here?”

“This is Aros Kreskas. He’s … in charge. Mr. Kreskas, this is my wife, Sarah.”

“It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Thompson,” Aros said. “My guards say you were shouting earlier. Are you all right?”

“I was scared. And sick … sorry about that.”

“Not a problem. It was not my intention to scare either of you.”

Sarah paused, apparently consider a response to this. At last she said, “OK …”

Rhes spoke up. “Aros is going to move us to some nicer rooms while we wait for Two to show up. As long as we don’t try to escape, he says we don’t need to be locked up.”

“That would be fine,” Sarah said. “As … as long as we’re together.”

Rhes took her hand. “That’s the plan.”

“Think of it as … an extended vacation,” Aros said. “You will have a suite, your needs will be taken care of, and you won’t even have to cook if you don’t want to.”

Sarah bit back a sarcastic comment and instead asked, “Where
are
we, anyway?”

“You’re in a decommissioned military base two hours outside of New York, on sub-level B, approximately forty feet below the surface. I house many of my fellow Burilgi, not to mention a handful of humans and rebel Ay’Araf.”

“What about the other kinds?” Rhes asked.

“We don’t have any of the ‘other kinds’ here,” Aros said, his distaste evident in his voice. “The aristocracy has no reason to want change. Even most of the Ay’Araf are quite comfortable feeding off of their table scraps.”

“The ones we’ve met seem all right,” Rhes said, and immediately regretted it as he saw Aros’s expression darken.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the vampire told him.

“I’m sure you’re right. We’ve only met a few of them,” Sarah said, and Rhes could tell by her tone that she understood his mistake. Something about Aros had clearly spooked her.

Don’t blame ya, hon,
he thought.
Guy makes me nervous, too.

“What should we do now?” he asked aloud.

“I have things to do,” Aros said, his voice still brusque. “I will take you to more comfortable quarters, and then I will leave you in the care of my associates.”

Sarah, who had not long ago been listening to the ugly laughter of some of Aros’s associates, shuddered, but said nothing. She had not yet released her grip on Rhes’s hand and didn’t intend to for the foreseeable future.