White Lies: (The Uruwashi Series #4) (18 page)

Tristan reached out and grabbed Desmond’s thick bicep as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do. The vampire was too dazed to even notice and allowed himself to be guided back to the stool. Thinking they were going to be awhile, Tristan ordered them both another round of drinks.

“Do you remember being in Greece?”

Desmond flinched, looking at him. “Aye, that we do. Was there tae deliver Master’s message to your lot and then we all… came back home.”

Tristan frowned. “You… um, you don’t remember Mamoru or the cave with the mermaids were I nearly drowned… Fighting with umibozu on Crete to defeat Genoveva. Chrysanthe and Silas?”

“What are yew on aboot?” Desmond nearly shouted in his panic.

Tristan motioned for Desmond to calm down. “After you gave me Yuki’s message to come home, you say we—that Ash and I came back with you?”

“Yes!” The vampire was in a collected panic now. “I bloody well remember us three flying back together on Yuki’s plane after I found yew in yur room—who in the hell is Mamoru, Chrysanthe and Silas? And how in the name of God do you know about Genoveva and her Master?”

“Damn,” Tristan hissed under his breath, turning to put his back to the room, mindlessly reaching the drink that was being handed to him.

This was bad. Because if he believed everything Mamoru had told him, and he did, then what had happened to Desmond had nothing to do with vampire power. Wren had said as much too. So, the fact that Desmond’s memories were not merely locked away but altered with falsities pointed to a pythia. Someone spelled him to forget. Someone spelled him with a fake memory.

“Don’t freak out, but you’ve been spelled.”

The vampire looked at him a moment and then shouted, “What the fook do you mean, I’ve been sodding spelled?”

Tristan hissed, grabbing Desmond’s arm. The vampire jerked from his hold, but Tristan leaned in to talk to the man in a low voice. “Look, a lot of shit went down in Greece. Ash was taken, I met another Uruwashi and an elf and pythia who were doing what they were told by this unseen person, the Professor who… The point is, I think, you saw something you weren’t supposed to. Maybe it happened before you arrived on Crete, but after Ash took care of Genoveva, you made a hasty retreat, so I don’t know what was up your ass, only that we didn’t see you again until the night after when we burned and buried Mamoru. You left, we assumed, for home right after that.”

Desmond blinked at him a minute in shock before whispering, “There was another like you?”

Tristan relaxed, dropping his shoulders now that Desmond wasn’t freaking out on him. “No, not like me—not like me, at all. A real Uruwashi, no halfsies bullshit. Full Uruwashi.”

Desmond’s white brow knotted. “You’re not a full Uruwashi?”

Silently cringing to himself, Tristan shook his head. He wondered how much Desmond even knew before he’d been spelled and what was telling him too much. “Ash figured it out in France.”

“How?”

“My blood. She said it tasted wrong.”

Desmond only frowned at him.

Tristan sighed, looking away. He really didn’t want to have this conversation with Desmond. How could he explain what he was when he didn’t know himself. “We need to get going.”

The vampire snorted but was smiling. “Damn that woman for teaching yew to block yur mind.”

A slow smile curled his lips. “Come on.”

The vampire only grunted in answer and shoved his hands into his pockets as he led the way to the car. Pedestrian traffic was light due to the snow, and despite their appearance, the two men went nearly unnoticed. But that didn’t mean Desmond didn’t notice them, the residents of this place, the humans. It put Tristan on edge.

“Desmond?” Tristan questioned uneasily. He was noticing the same kid as the vampire at his side. He could practically feel Desmond salivating over the young man.

“Just a quick bite tae sup. Need some juice, aye.”

He couldn’t remember making a conscious decision to touch the vampire, but when he took a moment to stop and think, he realized he was holding the man’s arm, keeping him in place. The fingers of his free hand tingled to pull his gun, but he knew better than to turn up the violence just yet.

“Just a minute.”

“Don’t get yurself in a tissy now. Won’t kill the wee bairn, just a taste. Best to be at me top if we run into the wee bairn, don’t yew think?”

Tristan considered him a moment before letting him go and taking a step back. “Fine, but I’m watching you.”

This sent Desmond into a fit of laughter so that the boy he’d been watching flinched and looked back over his shoulder. “Give me a bleedin’ break.”

The vampire was still laughing as he walked away. Tristan hovered close behind, not really making it a conscious decision. He realized that this was the first time he’d ever watched a vampire feed on a victim that wasn’t another vampire or meant to die.

Desmond’s arrogant strut turned into a stumbled jig. It was almost too low to be heard, but the vampire was humming, something familiar, and Tristan was captivated with how quickly the agile vampire turned into a drunk, just like that. And the boy, he was falling for the farce as he turned now to grab the larger man when he faked a trip.

The vampire’s arm went smoothly around the boy’s shoulders and Desmond lowered his face to the boy’s ear. Whatever he was whispering reached Tristan in a tendril of luscious emotion, made him shiver and bite his lip to hold back a sigh.

He was backing up when suddenly he felt the sting of Desmond’s teeth as if it were on his own neck and he moaned aloud, hand going to his neck. He stumbled when the teeth withdrew and collapsed back against the side of a building, unable to stand on his own.

“Oh god,” he whispered and shut his eyes as he felt the tug on his middle. Everything inside him was warm and tingling, reaching for his groin. He hated it as much as he wanted to give in to it.

He managed to rally and righted himself, moving towards the vampire. But before he could grab Desmond and pull him away from the boy, the vampire willingly withdrew, cutting off all sensation with a shocking abruptness. He arranged the boy in the doorway of a home, adjusting his jacket closed over him and withdrew with a cheesy smile.

Tristan glared for a moment, taking in Desmond’s ruddy appearance before following after him. The vampire had let him, no,
made
him feel that experience. He was rubbing it in Tristan’s face, what it was like to be bitten.

“You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that?”

Desmond’s laugh was warm and touched Tristan. “Aye.”

The ride back to the shrine started off nice enough. The entire trip Desmond managed to not speak a single word. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean he couldn’t still bother Tristan. The more agitated the vampire grew with his own inner tumult, the more Tristan could feel his presence and being confined in the small car with him, well, it wasn’t ideal, especially after the feeding incident.

“What are you going to do about Wren?” Tristan asked in a gravelly voice as Desmond pulled in through the first torii. The tracks they made last night were smoothed over with fresh snow that had fallen earlier in the day, but it didn’t add more than an inch to the total.

“What do yew mean, what am I going to do ‘boot him?”

“I mean,” Tristan said, turning in the seat to face the vampire. “If he’s here, are you going to try and kill him?”

Desmond was silent for a long time. He glanced at Tristan, his expression masked. “Why do yew care?”

Tristan took a moment to poke at his mental barrier, to make sure it was still in place. Solid. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Desmond snorted. “So your job is now to
protect
vampires? What a fooking farce.”

“No, but I don’t believe in murder.”

This sent the vampire into a fit of uncontrollable laughter so bad he had to stop the car just to keep from crashing.

“Bloody right yew don’t.”

Tristan furrowed his brow. “I—I don’t have to explain myself to you. Just don’t kill Wren.  You got it?”

“Bloody hypocrites,” the vampire muttered under his breath as he started the car moving again. “Can’t stand bloody hypocrites.”

“I really don’t care what you think. I know who I am.” The Tristan from just a month ago would have engaged in a pissing battle with the jerk just to prove to himself he knew who he was. Maybe he was growing tired of defending his actions or maybe he was finally growing up. As if losing his parents hadn’t already done that, never mind everything that came after.

“Right,” Desmond said in a tone that said the opposite. “and say I were to have a go at
my
scion, yew think yur lot could stop us?”

“Yes,” Tristan answered plainly.

There was no laughter this time as Desmond pulled up in front of the shrine and parked. “Let me tell yew something, Uruwashi, and don’t bloody forget it because I won’t say it again. Yew may know who yew are, but I know who Wren is. He’s
my
scion and if I want tae bloody end him, I will and no one, not even me own Master, will stop it from being so.”

Tristan wanted to ask just who Wren was. Was he a bad person? Was he the complete opposite? Why did he deserve to find a violent end at Desmond’s hand? But he didn’t. He was too angry to put his thoughts into lucid words. All he could do was glare and hope his feelings got through to the vampire. Then again, with his mental block up, there was only good ole body language to rely on. After a moment of glaring, Tristan got out of the car in a fury of pent up rage.

“Let’s do this real quick, we’re wasting night.”

“Aye, and what? What if they really are here? The girls are still an hour away, how do you propose a Master, a vanilla and a wee Jessie bas killing an ancient with two seikonō? Didn’t think it through, did yew then?”

Tristan shrugged. What could he say, Desmond was pretty much right. “I guess… hope we can run faster.”

Desmond grunted. “I’ll search around the shrine, yew check inside.”

“Fine.”

Tristan crunched his way through the snow and up the stairs. Desmond had disappeared in an instant, taking his heavy Master vampire presence with him. It was a relief actually, the cessation of energy that welled in Tristan. He hated that someone he loathed that thoroughly could make him feel that way. Sure, it was all metaphysical and he had no control over it, but it still bothered him.

The moment he got to the top step, Tristan stopped and looked back to see where Desmond had gone, realizing why the man had sent him into the temple instead of out into the woods as a new presence became known him.

“And I’m a hypocrite?” he muttered under his breath and then louder said, “You can come out.”

Wren emerged from within the shrine, expression as grim as death and looking a little shell shocked if the glassiness of his one visible eye was any indication. “She isn’t here.”

“What happened? Where did she go?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. We were in Akita. It thought we were going to the airport, but then—”

“What happened, Wren?”

The other man shook his head, looking down at his feet. That’s when Tristan noticed the man wasn’t wearing any shoes. “She said she was to feed, but wanted to do it alone. When I grew tired of waiting on her and went to retrieve her from the home she’d gone in I, I found her drowning her victim.”

Tristan frowned.

“But it was more than just drowning. She’d drained him just enough that he hadn’t the strength to fight, but still had will enough to want to struggle to free himself of the water and just when the man would get a gulp of fresh air, maybe even the hope that he’d get out, she’s crush that hope and dunk him again. Over and over. It was… horrifying. I’m ashamed to admit I watched for too long in my frozen horror.”

He hated being right sometimes. “Dammit. I guess I really am going to have to kill her to stop her.”

“We vampire are compulsive creatures, ruled by our lust. Habits are hard to break for us as we have longer to be consumed by them. We are the worst of addicts.”

Yeah, he knew that and yet, he wanted to believe in Xuejiao. Maybe it was naiveté or pure hopefulness. Whatever it was, it was stupid. He knew better and wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“So then, why’d she let you go?”

His one eye widened. “A man came. I feel—no, I know I’ve seen him before, but I can’t place when or where. He was a pythia.”

Tristan balked. “Did he go by Professor?”

“Ah… No. Jason, I think. He barely acknowledged me. Strangely calm young man, tall, blond hair, blue eyes—he had an ancient Greek sort of mien to him, actually but no accent. He told her it was time and then they just… left. I didn’t know where they went and I didn’t want to remain with her, so I fled. I didn’t know where else to go, so I returned here. To be honest, I’m glad I didn’t have go to Yukihime’s to find you.”

“Damn,” Tristan hissed. At least he knew this “Jason” wasn’t the same man in Greece that he’d run into. Maybe Jason was the powerful pythia mastermind behind the tragedy that played out in Greece—Or, Jesus, maybe he’s even Lilith’s father… One thing at a time.