Death Devours Read online

  Geordie scrunched his face as well but I believed it was at the thought of drinking animal blood more than anything. It had tasted the same as human blood to me in the dream. I’d been too hungry to care about what I was putting in my mouth at the time.

  Igor shifted uneasily. “Are you saying that its hunger took control of you and forced you to feed?”

  I shrugged then nodded reluctantly. “I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t happen in real life, though.” I actually had no idea if this was true or not but I doubted it. The disciples, if that was who I’d been dreaming about, were only the second generation of our kind. Since they hadn’t made us they wouldn’t have any control over us. Only the First had had that capability and he was about as dead as you could get. The holy marks on my palms had seen to that.

  Gregor fisted a hand and rested his chin on it, musing silently for a few moments. “This is an auspicious event that Emperor Ishida has agreed to join forces with us against this new enemy. We have you to thank for making it possible, Natalie.”

  The European and Japanese vampire nations had been at war for tens of thousands of years. They didn’t agree with each other’s cultures and both thought they should have ultimate control over our kind. I’d spent four months on the Japanese vamp’s island learning how to fight in their style. During that time, I had softened their attitude towards the Europeans to some extent. I found this to be pretty ironic considering I’d been born and raised in Australia. My distant ancestors were English but that was about as close to being European as I could claim.

  “Does anyone have any idea where we could meet that could be classed as neutral territory?” I asked the small group.

  “Kazakhstan would be my suggestion,” Igor put forward.

  Gregor agreed. “It is fairly neutral ground.”

  Luc increased the pressure on my shoulder to draw my attention. “You should call Kokoro and advise her of our decision.” His mobile phone came into view over my shoulder. For someone so old, he was comfortable enough using modern technology.

  Dialling the last number on record, it was swiftly answered by the Japanese seer. “We will be pleased to meet with you and your friends in Kazakhstan,” Kokoro said before I could even open my mouth. “We will meet you there in three nights from now.”

  “Ok. Good.” It was disconcerting to have someone rummaging around in your brain from thousands of kilometres away. “Just pick a spot and I’ll find you when we get there.” We said our goodbyes and hung up. Luc tucked his phone back inside his jacket. As usual, he wore all black. I had to admit, the darkness of his clothing made a striking contrast to the paleness of his skin.

  Being in central Russia at the moment, we weren’t all that far from Kazakhstan. We could probably drive there in the allotted time, if we hurried. Flying would be far quicker but also far less secure. We were restricted by only being able to move at night however we chose to travel to our destination.

  Nicholas shifted away, breaking our contact to look down at me. “How will you be able to find the Japanese scum, my…Natalie?” he asked me curiously. He managed not to call me his queen but only just.

  Rubbing temples that should have been throbbing with annoyance, I bit back a nasty response. The courtiers had long been conditioned to hate their Japanese rivals. I couldn’t expect them all to get along immediately just because I thought their feud was petty and ridiculous. “I can sense other vampires,” I said instead of the acidic comment about racism that I wanted to voice. It probably wasn’t a good indication of Nicholas’ compatibility to our group if he was already managing to bring out the worst in me.

  “How is this possible?” The ex-courtier’s astonishment was unfeigned.

  “Natalie gained this ability after you helped hack her to pieces,” Geordie said curtly. His voice was a couple of pitches higher than usual and his gaze was accusing. “It happened after you and your friends stuffed her into eleven tiny little boxes and left her to starve to death.” Overcome with sorrow for the predicament that I’d suffered, he stifled a sob then turned his back and crossed his arms.

  “Natalie has many talents the rest of us do not possess,” Luc said coolly to Nicholas.

  Shifting so that he was pressed up against my arm again, Nicholas spoke softly. “I would very much like to hear about your many talents, my…Natalie.”

  His tone was suggestive and almost baiting. I suddenly couldn’t stand to have him near me so stood and wrapped my arm around Geordie’s shoulder. The teen turned and hugged me, shooting a triumphant glare at our newest team member.

  Igor rolled his eyes at the theatrics and I badly wanted to emulate him. We didn’t have time to bicker amongst ourselves. I’d only just put down one threat to our survival and now we had another one to face. Once it became known that a pack of newly risen vampires was on the loose, we would all be in danger. It was unlikely humans would differentiate between us and any of the new fledglings that would shortly be unleashed on them. We would all become their enemies and would be put to the death if recognized.

  “We should get a move on if we want to get to Kazakhstan in time,” I suggested. “Gregor, Igor and Geordie can fill you in on all of my talents during the trip, Nicholas.” I kept my tone dry to indicate I didn’t appreciate his behaviour.

  Lowering his head submissively, Nicholas sent me a heated glance. Great, now I have three men lusting after me. Once upon a time I would have been ecstatic at the idea of having so many guys wanting to jump my bones. Heck, even one man wanting to get into my pants would have been nice. Unfortunately, one of these ‘men’ was a teenager and the other was still almost a complete stranger. Luc was the only one out of the trio that I wanted to get naked with. Come to think of it, he was the only vampire I’d met so far that I’d been attracted to. While I was drawn to Nicholas’ body, I wasn’t particularly enamoured of his personality. He was far more impressed with himself than I would ever be.

  Standing briskly, Gregor launched us all into action. “We will meet you in the parking area shortly,” he said then lightly shoved Geordie towards what must have been his bedroom.

  Taking the stairs back up to our own room, Luc and I silently gathered our belongings. My backpack contained one intact black leather suit, my twin swords and various other articles of clothing when I was done. The red suit I’d worn to kill the First had been in roughly the same condition as him after the fight, destroyed beyond recognition or any possibility of being repaired. I was used to my clothing being torn, stabbed and sliced apart but I usually squeezed more than one wear out of them. I’d been sad to see the suit ruined but it had served its purpose as both protection and a distraction.

  Luc and I beat the others to the underground parking area but only by a couple of minutes. Geordie was sulking, shooting glares at Nicholas as they emerged from the stairwell. The overly muscled vamp sent smug, condescending smiles at the kid. His ego seemed to have swollen with his lofty new position as a courtier.

  I decided it was high time to question Nicholas about his sudden change of status. My curiosity wouldn’t let me wait for dawn when we would have to stop to find shelter for the day. “How did you manage to get upgraded from being a guard to a courtier?” I asked him bluntly. I rarely wasted time in getting to the point. Patience was a virtue that I only had a passing acquaintance with.

  Nicholas almost stumbled a step in surprise. Wow, you can see the wheels cranking in his head, my subconscious roused itself to say. It seemed that my subconscious thought Nicholas was searching for a suitable lie. I was glad its sarcasm was directed at someone else for a change. Being on the receiving end of its criticisms could be ego crushing at times.

  “When the courtiers began to mysteriously disappear some months ago, the Comtesse decided to increase their numbers. She rewarded some of the more faithful guards by allowing us to become her courtiers.”

  I’d learned to read Luc’s controlled expressions to some extent. He was doubtful but hid his scepticism well. He’d been a priso
ner of the Comtesse during this time and had mostly been kept in her bedroom. He’d noticed the diminishing numbers but apparently hadn’t been advised of the elevation of the guards to positions within the Court. “Did no one care that the courtiers were disappearing?” he asked. Nicholas just shrugged. “What did the other Councillors think of this decision?”

  Nicholas looked uncomfortable as he answered, which gave my subconscious' scepticism some weight. “They thought the courtiers had defected and agreed that increasing our numbers was the wisest thing to do.”

  Gregor looked openly disbelieving at that. Although he was a lord, he had distanced himself from the Court hundreds of years ago. He understood their politics far better than I ever would.

  Despite my lack of knowledge about Court intrigue, even I could tell that this was a hard story to swallow. As far as we’d known, the courtiers hadn’t been defecting anywhere. They’d in fact been sacrificed to the First by the Comtesse. She’d sent them to the cavern of doom to be turned into imps.

  When the First had sent out his mental call to draw the rest of the possessed vamps to him, the Comtesse had scooped up everyone from the Court and had made her way to Russia along with hundreds or even thousands of our kindred.

  With the First’s death, the possessed vampire’s shadows had become normal again. No doubt they would have been confused at suddenly finding themselves inside a cave surrounded by gun wielding soldiers and an army of grey skinned imps.

  Elevating the low vamps on the food chain into new positions within the Court hierarchy had been a clever distraction, if Nicholas’ story was true. The praying mantis had managed to keep her part in the fate her people had very nearly suffered a secret. She was a devious old hag and I’d hate to have to match wits with her because I had a feeling that I would lose.

  Chapter Three

  Igor took the lead in his large black car and Luc and I followed at a safe distance behind him. Nicholas and Geordie sat in the back of the midnight coloured sedan. They took turns in glancing back at us with monotonous regularity. Our headlights were too bright for them to make out my face clearly but it didn’t stop them from checking to make sure I was still there.

  Luc dropped his speed enough to draw back from our friends a little more. “Do you trust your hulking new admirer?” he asked softly. Our hearing tended to be exceptional and he wanted to make sure our conversation remained private. As if sensing we were talking about him, Nicholas turned to peer backwards once more.

  “Nope,” I responded immediately, smirking at my beloved’s apt description of Nicholas. “I can’t shake the feeling that he’s lying to us.”

  Nodding, Luc’s expression remained serene. “I share your unease. It is doubtful that the Council would agree to elevate lowly guards to a position within the Court for such a paltry reason as he described.”

  I wasn’t so sure that bolstering their ranks after their numbers had begun to dwindle was a paltry reason to promote the guards into higher positions. I hated to agree with the praying mantis about anything but I did in this instance. My curiosity about the new addition to our ranks was now raging. “What do you know about Nicholas?”

  Luc sent me a quick look but something in my expression reassured him that I wasn’t interested in the newbie on a personal level. “I know very little about him. Courtiers have minimal interaction with the lesser servants. He was a guard long before I was made and that is the extent of my knowledge. He has never drawn any particular attention to himself and I do not know of his origins.”

  Luc had been turned by the Comtesse seven hundred years ago so that meant Nicholas also had to be pretty old. Not knowing of his origins meant Luc had no idea who had turned Nicholas into one of us.

  “Maybe Igor will know more about him.” Igor was at least several thousand years old, even older than Gregor. If anyone would know more about the ex-guard, it would probably be him.

  “Lord Aventius might also have some information about Nicholas,” Luc said thoughtfully. “We need to speak to him anyway. We should warn him that the Comtesse is most likely on her way back to the mansion. Perhaps you could mention our new friend and see what Aventius knows about him.” He fished his phone out of his pocket and handed it to me.

  Sorting through the list, I found the number for the Court. It rang half a dozen times before it was answered. “What?” a young male voice barked with an audible sneer.

  “Who am I speaking to?” I asked.

  “Jacob,” the young male vampire answered in an even surlier tone. I remembered him well although I’d only met him once and our contact had been brief. He’d tried to get his master to kill me, which had understandably left a lasting impression on me. That had only been a few short days ago but felt like an entire lifetime had passed since then.

  “Put Aventius on.”

  “Why should I?”

  I could picture Joshua standing there pouting sullenly. No doubt his green eyes would be glaring angrily. Joshua was still very new and hadn’t gotten a handle on his hungers yet. Being constantly hungry was enough to make anyone cranky. “Because you are speaking to Mortis,” I told him bluntly, “and I’ll hunt you down and rip your tongue out of your head if you don’t put him on in the next sixty seconds.” I hated having to resort to pulling the Mortis card. I’d learned that my status as being death to our kind was the quickest way to deal with my fellow vamps. Nearly everyone feared me. Only my friends didn’t cringe every time they heard my title being mentioned.

  Silence reigned for a few seconds then the phone thumped down and rapid footsteps hurried away. More footsteps sounded within the specified time. The Councillor who had fled from the Court several months ago answered. If he’d been human, he would have been gasping for air after rushing to the phone so quickly. “This is Aventius,” the elderly vampire said with quiet dignity.

  “The Comtesse is on her way back to the mansion,” I warned him without preamble. “You’d better get everyone out of there.” The praying mantis would have them all killed the instant she saw them. Aventius would have a target on his back because he’d defected to my side. His way of showing his support for me had been to sacrifice humans in my name. I hadn’t appreciated the gesture nearly as much as he and his small band had assumed that I would.

  “You did not kill her?” He was almost as disappointed as I was that she was still unalive and well.

  My answer was almost curt with self-annoyance. “Unfortunately, no. She and her lackeys escaped after I killed the First.” I ignored the small sound of wonder he made at that revelation. “We have bigger problems than her.” As hard as that was to believe, it was indeed true. “I need you to muster up every vampire you can find and head to Africa asap.”

  “Africa?” he replied after a baffled silence. “Why on earth do you need us there?”

  “After the First turned to dust, ten followers he banished forty thousand years ago were freed from their forced burial. They’re about to rise and create a new race of rabid vamps. They’ll quickly grow in numbers and begin spreading like a virus.”

  “I see.” This time, the ex-Councillor’s short silence was thoughtful. “I will gather as many of our kin as I can find and we will join you in Africa as soon as possible.”

  I liked the fact that he didn’t waste time bombarding me with questions or arguing with me. I’d been ready to dismiss Aventius as being beyond redemption due to his origins. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as I’d presumed. I hadn’t heard particularly flattering things about the Council so my expectations of their leaders were low.

  “News reports of vampire attacks will probably help us narrow down exactly where they are quickly enough,” I advised him. “By the way, do you know a Court guard called Nicholas?” It wasn’t exactly a smooth attempt to work the muscle bound one into the conversation. Luc sent an amused smile my way before returning his gaze to the road.

  Thrown by the switch in topics, Aventius fumbled for a reply. “Er, Nicholas did you say? Can you describe him?
”

  “He has dark brown hair, a pretty face and way too many muscles.”

  “I’m sorry, but he doesn’t sound familiar,” was his not unexpected reply. “I’m afraid I take little notice of the guards.”

  Well, that was a bust. “Never mind. We’ll see you in Africa in a few days.” I handed Luc back his phone, glad we’d have at least some help trying to contain the rabid vamps that were about to be created.

  As dawn drew closer, we discovered our chances of finding somewhere to sleep were going to be limited. The towns we passed through were too tiny to support hotels or inns. Then civilization disappeared altogether, taking the highway with it, as Igor veered onto a smaller road. Luc seemed unconcerned with our change of direction. If he trusted the taciturn Russian, then so would I.

  We bumped over an increasingly decrepit road. Our jeep handled the rough terrain better than the large black car we followed. We passed several driveways that led to distant houses and farms. The earth was beginning to warm with the advent of dawn when Igor finally chose a driveway and nosed his vehicle onto it.

  Luc’s grip tightened on the wheel at how close we were cutting it to certain incineration. He flicked a glance at his watch and narrowed the distance between our vehicles as if silently urging Igor to hurry.

  Cresting a short rise, we spotted a large farmhouse and exchanged relieved glances. The dwelling was rundown but the roof and walls were intact. Smoke curled from the single chimney, indicating that someone was home. Whoever they were, they were about to be confronted with six desperate vampires.

  With only moments to spare before the sun arrived to chargrill us to death, we scrambled from our cars and approached the house. It was in dire need of a new paintjob and the stairs were splintered with age and wear. Gregor, the most presentable and charming member of our group, knocked on the door.