Death Deceives: Book Three (Mortis Vampire Series) (32 page)

“
Your Queen?” Surely I hadn’t heard him correctly. At best, I was a lady, not a monarch. “Who are you and why are you suddenly on my side?” I asked him suspiciously.

Sitting up
and tilting his head back, he stared at me with shining black eyes. “I was one of the guards who was ordered to dismember your body, my Queen.”

Sanderson started and his soldiers exchanged glances. “Thanks for that,” I said
dryly. “You have no idea how long it took me to put myself back together.”

“
When I saw that you did not die as a normal vampire should, I knew you were the one fated to rule us.” His teeth were blindingly white against his dirty face as he smiled. “I was the one who arranged for you to be buried in consecrated dirt,” he explained. “Once I saw that it did not burn your flesh, I knew it would keep you safe from our kin.”

“It did come in handy,” I said grudgingly.
He has no idea exactly how handy it was.
“I guess you were the one who passed the graveyard map to Igor.”

“Yes,” he said humbly and lowered his
gaze modestly. “I was aware that he and Lord Lucentio were allies.”
And Luc thought they’d managed to keep that a secret.
“It was my hope that Igor might also be your friend and that he might be able to break you free.”

In the end, I’d broken myself free but I appreciated his effort.
“What’s your name?”

“Nicholas
, my Queen.” Joy shone through him simply because I’d asked.

“It was a good plan
, Nicholas.” I was going to have to correct him about my title but I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of the humans.

“There is something I believe you should see, my
Liege,” he said and stood fluidly. Several of the soldiers guarding him started in fright and one came close to pulling his trigger. A headshake from the Colonel stopped him. He was clearly fascinated by our exchange.

“I discovered
another cave when I managed to sneak away from the Comtesse and her followers for a short time,” my number one fan said.

As the vamp took off at a fast walk, Sanderson leaned down close as he gestured for his men to follow
Nicholas. “Why does he keep calling you his Queen?”

“There’s
a prophecy that was written a couple of thousand years ago,” I explained quietly. “It predicted my coming and that I’d end up sort of wiping out most of vampirekind.” There was no ‘sort of’ about it. I’d accomplished that very thing but hadn’t done it alone. The Colonel and his men had assisted me by cutting them down with their weapons. “Some of my kin seem to think I’ll end up ruling the remnants of our race.”

Studying me as well as he could in between
stepping over body parts, Sanderson unconsciously hefted his gun as if contemplating gunning us both down. “Is that your plan?”

“Hell no!”
I snorted without any air escaping from my nostrils. “I can barely rule myself let alone a bunch of vampires who are hundreds, if not thousands of years older than me.” To rule, you needed to have the respect of your people. I barely respected myself so how could I expect any of my kin to have any kind of esteem for me?

At the back of the cavern,
some of the torches Sanderson’s soldiers had trained on Nicholas moved to the wall. A crack appeared like magic. “It is in there, your highness,” the vamp said and pointed at the opening.

Sanderson nodded at two of his men and th
ey ducked inside. “It’s clear, sir!” one of them yelled. At the Colonel’s polite gesture, I bent and entered the fissure first.

Primitiv
e markings covered the walls. The First had painted his history and his nightmares onto the walls of the small, lightless cavern. He’d drawn our father as a gigantic grey figure offering its wrist to him. Then he’d depicted his transformation from human to vampire and the blood and flesh hunger that had followed. If I hadn’t already known the history, the pictures would have been difficult to interpret.

Moving around the circular cave, I followed the story I knew well then stopped at a figure that
Nicholas pointed to. It had once been bright red but had faded over thousands of years. From the mask covering the face, I knew it had to be me. In several paintings, I hunted the fleeing First. He’d depicted himself as a normal vampire so must have painted this before he’d become a hulking eight foot monster. At his full size, he’d never have been able to squeeze inside the tiny cave. I’d been his personal nightmare long before he’d been transformed. After he’d changed completely, he’d all but forgotten about me. Only a dim flash of the red mask had remained in his memory.

“When I saw these paintings, I knew you would best the First and save our race from destruction,” Nicholas said.

“What do you think this means?” Sanderson asked me from across the room before I could think of a response to the courtier’s confident statement.

Crossing
the ground, I re-examined the painting I’d dismissed fairly quickly the first time I’d seen it. A bunch of stick figures had been scrawled on the wall. I couldn’t tell if they were humans or vampires. They’d been painted lying in neat horizontal lines. Above them was a brown line with a few green blobs. I had no idea what it meant and was ready to dismiss it again.

“It almost looks like bodies,” a soldier ventured. He pointed at the brown line. “This is meant to be the ground and these,” he pointed at the green blobs, “are plants.”

Once he pointed that out, I could see it for myself. A lone stick figure stood above the buried bodies and almost seemed to be laughing at them. Counting them, I came up with a total of ten. A sudden shiver went down my spine for no reason that I could put my finger on. I sincerely hoped it wasn’t a presentiment of further doom.

Dismissing the paintings as meaningless, Sanderson spoke into his radio. “Have the captives been evacuated?”

“Yes, s
ir,” came an instant response. “We’re ready to seal the cavern on your order.”

“I’d like to verify that the leader of these creatures has been destroyed
before we leave,” the American said to me.

“I’ll take you to
what’s left of him,” I offered. Sanderson nodded and we filed out of the smaller cave. Nicholas followed two steps behind me, forcing the soldiers to surround both of us when we entered the larger cavern again. Even in my head, I wasn’t shortening my number one fan’s name into a cute nickname. I was already disturbed enough by his level of devotion and didn’t want to endear me to him any more than necessary.

Working my way over to the bone throne, I pointed at the pile of dust
at its base. Even squinting hard, it was impossible to tell that it had ever been a body. “There he is.”

“What did you do to him? He almost looks like he’s been burned
to ash,” a soldier said in awe.

“
My Queen unleashed the power of her holy marks on the despised one,” Nicholas said reverently.

“Don’t worry, it can’t hurt humans,” I told the men before they became even more frightened of me.

Satisfied that the monsters wouldn’t rise up again and attempt another round of world domination, the Colonel spoke into his radio. “All right, people, we’re done here. Team four, ready the explosives.”

I kept pace with
Sanderson easily as he hurried across the vast cavern towards the tunnel leading to the surface. My unwanted sidekick stayed two steps behind me. He was acting as if he was a servant of my making and I was his true master. I had the uncanny feeling that he was staring at my butt. The loincloth was short enough that I was barely decently covered. When I glanced back, he gave me an innocent stare. I almost wished my shadow was still sentient so it could keep an eye on him. Then I remembered that it had watched me having sex with Luc numerous times and was glad it had reverted back to its natural state. My cheeks tried to burn with embarrassment but my blood wasn’t capable of rushing to my face anymore.

Colonel Sanderson’s
men had been busy checking the bodies of the fallen to make sure none had been faking death. Gunshots had been ringing out in a steady stream but finally petered out. All of the imps had finally been put to rest.

The lights began to come down as we entered the tunnel. Men carried equipment out, rushing past us wearing night vision goggles
or carrying torches. Only Nicholas and I didn’t need visual assistance during the journey to the surface. I scooped up my backpack from the mouth of the tunnel, glad to see it had survived the carnage.

Baking hot and stealing the breath
that I didn’t have, the sun cast stark shadows on the ground when we reached the entrance. My eyes stung when briefly I glanced outside. “How did the vampires manage to escape without bursting into flames?” I asked the Colonel. Spying a soldier walking in a dazed circle, I rolled my eyes. “Never mind. Hey, you!” I shouted. “Get over here.”

The soldier
was so completely under a vampire’s spell that he responded to me simply because I was another vampire. Jerking at the sound of my voice, he turned and shambled over to me. His face was completely devoid of anything resembling comprehension. Drool ran down his chin.

“
It appears that the Comtesse herself took control of this human,” Nicholas said sadly. “I am afraid his mind has been destroyed.”

“We can do that?” I was appalled at the idea of being able to wipe our food’s minds clean. “There’s no hope for him
then?”

My new minion shook his head.
“I have never heard of mind repair being possible.”

Yeah? Well there’s never been anyone like me before.
I was reluctant to give up on the human without trying to help him. “Hey, buddy,” I said to the hypnotized human. “Where did the vampires go? How did they get away?”

Shambling in a half circle, he lifted a hand and pointed at the row of armoured trucks. He moaned a series of words and my freaky brain even managed to interpret his gibberish. “He says they forced another pair of humans to be their driv
ers and stole two of the trucks,” I translated.

“You could understand his ramblings, my
Queen?”

Despite knowing
that I was the weird and freaky Mortis, Nicholas was still doubtful of my powers.
Oh yea of little faith,
I thought dolefully. This was one of the reasons I couldn’t see myself ruling anyone. How could I when they all thought I was an idiot?

“Yes,
” I said in answer to his question. Maybe there was some hope for the poor human after all if he could still communicate. Drawing him back into the tunnel, I stared deep into his vacant eyes. At first he simply stared back at me blankly. Then his pupils contracted and I sensed that some intelligence had surfaced. “What’s your name?” I asked him.

“S-S-Sergei,” he said in thickly accented English.

“How do you feel, Sergei?”

Rubbing his cheek with a hand, he shook his head. “I was stuck in a well that was a thousand feet deep. I could see the light far above me but I could not reach it.” Blinking, he came out of his daze and stared at me in wonder. “Then you
r angelic face appeared and suddenly I was in the light again.” Grasping me by the shoulders, he yanked me forward and planted a wet kiss on both of my cheeks.

I had no idea how I’d done it but I’d broken him from the
Comtesse’s hypnotism without putting him under my own spell. This was one of the times I was glad I had no idea what I was doing.

Nicholas
uttered something close to a growl at the human mauling me but I waved him back. The soldiers who were supposed to be guarding him were staring at me in slack mouthed wonder.

“Do you remember helping the vampires to escape?” Sanderson asked the Russian.

Getting his gratitude under control, the soldier released me. “Yes. The white haired one appeared and captured me and two others with her soulless black eyes. She ordered my colleagues to back two of the trucks up to the cave entrance. I was ordered to advise anyone who asked that they were badly injured and needed immediate medical attention. When she was gone, a haze descended and I lost the ability to think.” Traumatized, the man was shaking at the memory of being bamboozled. I was pretty sure he would be ok now but he’d probably never be completely the same.

Now that the battle was over and the monsters were d
ead, I wondered what Sanderson had planned for me. He was about to blow the entrance to the cavern of doom so I couldn’t retreat back inside if things took an ugly turn. Since it was full daylight at the moment, it would be very bad for my health if I tried to run. Nicholas and I were at his mercy and we all knew it.

“Have one of the trucks backed up,”
the Colonel ordered one of his men. “I’ll have the truck driven to an underground parking area then you and your…friend can stay safely indoors until nightfall.” Sanderson eyed Nicholas dubiously, trusting the vamp about as much as I did.

“Thanks,” I said and meant it. Call me cynical but I’d kind of expected him to order his men to cut
us both down. He didn’t trust me and how could I blame him? I was a blood sucking monster that preyed on humans for food. It was his duty to murder me and I wasn’t about to turn my back on him.