Death Deceives Read online

  Gregor sat on the edge of the couch, keen black eyes focussed on me intently. “When were you planning to try this?”

  “There’s no time like the present,” I replied then stood. “It’ll be easier if I do it lying down.” Not being the object of their stares would also be far less of a distraction.

  Geordie bit his lips trying to suppress a laugh at my choice of words. “It usually is, chérie.”

  Rolling my eyes, I headed upstairs. Luc followed me and closed our bedroom door to give us at least a semblance of privacy. “I will watch over you,” he reassured me and sat on the edge of the bed. Being a man, it had to be difficult for him to stand around doing nothing while the woman did all the work.

  Putting the backpack on the floor beside the bed, I lay down and closed my eyes. Sending out my senses, I immediately picked up Luc and our three friends downstairs. Unsure of how to proceed, I hovered there, undecided. I’d never tried to sense multiple vamps at a distance before and they could be headed in any direction.

  In the end, I decided being methodical would be my best option. I swept my senses to the south, west, north then east. I immediately hit on several tiny groups of vampires plus occasional singles spread out across France. None of them were my quarry so I tried again, sending the probe out further. My method finally paid off and I distantly sensed a larger group of vampires. Homing in on the moving pack, I didn’t know exactly how many there were, just that there were a lot.

  Opening my eyes, I sat up. “I think I’ve found them.”

  Comfortable and at ease, Luc was stretched out on the bed beside me with his elbow bent and his head resting on his hand. He cocked an eyebrow in query. “Did you see where they were headed?”

  “No. It doesn’t work like that.” I couldn’t use my eyes when sensing other undead but I could at least tell the general direction they were heading in. “I can’t actually see them but I can sense their presence. They’re somewhere to the north-east.”

  “That’s a good start. We should begin following them when we rise for the night.” Luc avoided my gaze by taking my hand and raising it to his lips.

  “You think we’re going to lose, don’t you?” I said very softly, hoping the others couldn’t hear me. Morale was already low and I didn’t want it to peter out altogether.

  Luc struggled against the urge to lie then lifted sorrowful dark eyes to mine. “I do not see how we can possibly win against a creature that can call monsters forth from within us.” He spoke even more quietly than I had.

  “Kokoro thinks we’ll have an army to back us up,” I said in a decidedly lame attempt to cheer him up.

  Running his thumb across the back of my hand, Luc gave me an amused smile. “Then I hope this army shows up sooner rather than later. We could certainly use their assistance.”

  Chapter Seven

  Igor’s black car was large enough to carry all of us but we opted to take both cars rather than all of us cramming into one. I for one didn’t want to share an enclosed space with Geordie for several hours at a time. He was ok in small doses but had a habit of getting on my nerves fairly quickly. Luc was more tolerant than me but he’d known the kid a lot longer than I had.

  “Tell me about Igor and Geordie,” I said during a long stretch of silence. Luc was driving, as always, heading roughly north-east. We were keeping to the main highways in the hope that any imps sent after us might think twice before attacking. Some of them weren’t quite as stupid as they looked and were able to plan their attacks. Igor followed us, maintaining a distance of about four car lengths between our vehicles. “What are their stories?”

  “What do you mean?” The dashboard lights gave Luc’s pale skin a ghoulish, greenish cast.

  “Who are their masters and are they still alive?” I clarified.

  “Geordie is a strange case.” I politely bit back an automatic snigger at his choice of words. Luc shot me a look anyway, sensing my mirth. “He was not made by a Lord or Lady but by another servant. The girl was very young when she was made, only twelve or thirteen. Her master was extremely cruel and had a tendency to use up his servants quickly.” He frowned for a moment as the memory of the poor girl’s suffering. “Unwisely, she secretly turned Geordie, hoping he would kill her master and become her companion.”

  Boy did she choose poorly. I couldn’t imagine Geordie killing a much older and far more powerful vampire. “I guess her plan didn’t work out all that well for her.”

  “You guess correctly.” Luc gave me a quick smile then grew serious again. “She was unable to control Geordie when his blood hunger rose. He killed several humans in a nearby village. Word of their deaths spread and the girl’s master came to investigate.”

  I shook my head at how stupid she’d been but couldn’t really blame her. It was hard enough being in my twenties and becoming a monster. Being turned into an undead teenager had to be a nightmare. Ishida, emperor of the Japanese vamps had been twelve when he’d been turned. He might be ten thousand years old but he still acted like a kid at times. “What happened to her?”

  “Her master killed her, of course.” Luc’s answer was chillingly matter-of-fact.

  “Jeez, one strike and you’re out,” I muttered.

  My most favourite companion nodded in agreement. “She broke the Court’s rules and had to be punished.” If the girl’s master hadn’t killed her, Luc probably would have been sent to do the job. Luc was noble, for a vampire, and I doubted he would have relished the task even if it was his job. Being the vampire equivalent of a cop, he was usually sent out to do the Council’s dirty work.

  “What happened to Geordie after she died?”

  “Igor took charge of him and eventually took him on as his apprentice.”

  I’d yet to see Geordie behind the wheel and wondered what kind of apprentice he actually was. “Is Igor’s master dead, too?” I was fascinated by their history. It was like a fairy story that had gone horribly wrong. I received another nod from my companion.

  “The Court offers jobs to the masterless, keeping them out of trouble and under the Council’s eyes. Igor is very adaptable and found a place within their ranks.”

  “Huh.” I mused about this for a while. “Why didn’t Gregor offer them a job?” Gregor disagreed with turning humans into vampires and only took on the masterless as employees. His guards were fiercely loyal to him because he treated them with dignity and respect. In stark contrast, the Comtesse’s servants were either treated like vermin or as sexual playthings.

  Casting a sardonic look in my direction, Luc winked. “He did.”

  Knowing how crafty the older vampires could be, I put two and two together. “Igor is your spy, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. We became acquainted shortly after I was turned and eventually became friends. Our friendship would have been frowned upon by the Council in the event that I ever became a Lord. It seemed prudent to pretend to be distant.”

  Since Luc had eventually become a lord, their sneakiness had been well planned. I wondered why the Councillors were against lords and ladies having friends in lower places. Because they’re a bunch of snobby arseholes who like to look down on everyone they consider to be beneath them, I decided. Luc continued his explanation. “Igor keeps me up to date on Court intrigue during the times that I am away.”

  Luc was sent went after anyone who broke the rules and brought them to justice. In most cases, justice meant a swift stake through the heart. Fate had brought us together when he’d been sent to Australia to kill my maker. Silvius had plotted against the Council, killing several members of the Court. In a gigantic twist of irony, he’d been on the side of Mortis, who had turned out to be me. I’d had a faction supporting me before I’d even been turned into the undead.

  Some of our kin believed that I would wipe out all vampires, keeping only a chosen few around to be my generals. They thought I would then create a new army of bloodsuckers and end up ruling the world. How wrong they all were. I was far too lazy for that. Besides, the Fi
rst was the one who was creating an unholy army with the intention of ruling the world. His plan was ridiculous considering how many humans there actually were. But he was going to take a stab at it anyway. I was worried that they might even have a chance of pulling it off since the imps could reproduce so quickly.

  “How old is Igor, do you know?” I was bored and curious, which could be a dangerous combination at times.

  “I am not sure. I suspect that he is far older than Gregor.”

  I had the sense that Gregor was somewhere over three thousand years old. That meant Igor must be truly ancient. “Wouldn’t that mean Igor is a Lord then?” I was still woefully ignorant about vampire culture and politics.

  Luc shook his head, keeping his eyes on the road. At the speed we were going, I was glad he didn’t allow his attention to be diverted. We’d heal if we crashed but the car wouldn’t be able to bounce back so well. “There were no Lords or Ladies until the Comtesse and her cronies founded the Council and the Court.”

  “How long ago was this?” I was fascinated by the history instead of being bored by it for once.

  “The Council came into existence when the Prophet had his visions of you. Before that, we were ruled by an English King.”

  Remembering my interaction with the London sewer vamps, I couldn’t see them mustering up any kind of challenge to the Council. “What happened to him?”

  “The Comtesse had gathered quite a following of disillusioned European vampires. She convinced them to go to war with their King and won.”

  That would have been a battle of the ages. For a moment I almost wished I’d been around back then to see it. “So, who are the other Councillors?” I’d seen them a couple of times but only briefly. They’d seemed to be pompous, powerless and to be little more than mere figureheads to me.

  “They were the main supporters of the Comtesse,” Luc said. “She was smart enough not to fall into the same trap as the King. Instead of having absolute rule, she came up with the idea of a Council of nine. They promised they would come up with a plan on how to deal with you once you rose. By the time the Court was established and they realized the Comtesse was the one with true power, it was too late to change things. She had secured her position and no one was brave enough to challenge her. They found that they had simply swapped one tyrant for another.”

  “Why hasn’t someone just staked her through the heart?” It seemed like an obvious solution to me.

  “She has too many guards and too many servants for anyone to get close enough to her to kill her. What most don’t realize is that she made them herself so they can’t be bribed to turn against her.”

  “Yet the Japanese imposter pretending to be me almost got to her,” I pointed out. “I nearly got to her, too.”

  Luc took my hand briefly and planted a kiss on my knuckles. “I am grateful to you for relieving her of one of her hands.”

  “It was the least I could do,” I replied with a smirk and meant it quite sincerely.

  “The Comtesse’s plan for you did not work as well as she’d hoped.” We both briefly thought of how I’d been chopped up and stuffed into multiple boxes. It was a pity for her I’d managed to piece myself back together again. “Despite the prophecy,” Luc continued, “she did not truly believe Mortis would be un-killable.”

  I love it when he talks about me in the third person, I thought sardonically. “Yeah, that’s a bonus for me.”

  “I am very glad you were able to make yourself whole again, Natalie.”

  The look Luc sent me made me feel almost warm inside for a second. “Me, too.” I swallowed down the lump that wanted to form in my throat. I didn’t have time to get all mushy. Not when we had a bunch of vampires to track down.

  By the time we stopped to search for a place to hide for the day, we had closed the distance between us and the courtiers only a little. I’d tried to sense them earlier but it was difficult to concentrate while we were on the move. All I could tell was that we were heading in the right direction.

  Luc chose a hotel and hired a room several floors up from our friends. I wasn’t the least bit embarrassed to have loud, satisfying sex with him this time. A human fist banged on the wall and a muffled voice shouted for us to keep it down but I just ignored them. Then Luc’s phone rang and I heard Geordie’s irate voice asking us to be less noisy next time. Luc took one look at my mortified face and laughed so hard he had to sit down.

  “Frigging vampire hearing,” I muttered and headed for the shower.

  It was Luc’s turn to keep watch so I went to bed alone. My dreams were dark and threatening. I felt the First watching me, waiting for an opening so he could pounce. I sensed his confusion over why I hadn’t already been drawn to his cavern of doom after he’d ordered my shadow to rise. Like most vampires, he’d heard of the legend of Mortis. He knew I was the doom of our kind but no one really knew what that meant. I wasn’t like the other undead and therefore was unpredictable.

  Waking just as the sun slipped over the horizon, I took a few minutes to focus and check on the group we were tailing. We were at a safe enough distance that they’d never know we were following them. As before, they were heading north-east.

  I also picked up on a growing number of small groups of vampires, all heading in roughly the same direction. The courtiers weren’t the only ones being called to the cavern of doom. It seemed like every possessed vampire in Europe was on their way to join the First’s army.

  Sitting on a rickety chair at the tiny two-seater table, Luc ventured a question. “Are we still heading in the right direction?”

  “I think so.” Rubbing my face, I tried to rid myself of the unclean feeling from having the First prying at my mind. “They don’t seem to be deviating from their path.”

  Driving down a scarcely populated highway later that night, we had our first inkling of where the First might have his lair. Mind numbingly boring classical music, the only kind Luc would listen to, was playing quietly on the radio when a reporter suddenly broke in. She spoke in a foreign language that my freaky brain interpreted automatically. “Reports have just come in of an invasion in the Russian Federation.” Luc and I exchanged alarmed glances and goose bumps erupted on my arms.

  “The army was called in after reports of,” the reporter hesitated as she re-read her notes before continuing, “strange beings attacking villagers and dragging them away. It is unknown who or what these beings are. What is known is that many people are now missing or dead.”

  If I’d had any live blood in my head, it would have drained away. “Oh my G-G-G. Argh!” Would I ever remember I was restricted from saying the lord’s name out loud? Don’t count on it, my subconscious said nastily.

  “It would seem the First is making his move for world domination.” Luc’s tone was calm enough but his hands were white on the steering wheel. Whiter than usual, that was. His phone rang and he fished it out of his pocket and handed it to me.

  “Hi, Gregor,” I said without checking the screen. Who else could it be? As renegades, we were on our own against the rest of the European vampire nation. It was doubtful any of the courtiers would be calling Luc for a friendly chat.

  “Did you both hear?” Gregor was a lot less calm than Luc was pretending to be. We’d known this was coming but it was still hard to believe the time had finally come.

  “Yeah, we heard.”

  “Well, your senses have been leading us in the correct direction if we’re heading for Russia,” he said in a falsely hearty tone. “The humans will now be aware that they aren’t the only intelligent race on this planet. They might even become aware of our existence.” His last sentence came out sounding a trifle hysterical.

  One of the oldest vampire rules was that we were forbidden to allow humans to become aware of our existence. To do so would mean our instant death. I could understand Gregor’s nervousness. He’d spent the past few thousand years pretending that he didn’t exist.

  “The imps don’t look even remotely human anym
ore let alone like us,” I reminded him. “Plus, they’re living, breathing, breeding things now. Unless one of us is stupid enough to get caught, no one will ever know that vampires exist at all.”

  Gregor calmed a bit at my soothing reminder that our grey skinned brethren couldn’t be traced back to us. Unless someone stumbles across a sample of imp and vampire blood and compares the two. Then they would figure it out pretty quickly. I decided to keep that thought to myself.

  “Yes, you are right, of course,” Gregor said with relief. “We can only hope that no one from the Court falls into the army’s clutches.”

  It was unthinkable that humans might become aware of us. I shuddered to think what the results might be if they did. Instinct and common sense told me it wouldn’t end well for our kind.

  Chapter Eight

  Dawn was closing in and we needed to find somewhere safe to hide for the day. We were on a highway again and there were very few cars at this late hour. Igor flashed his lights and Luc allowed him to overtake us. The grizzled Russian had a plan in mind so we followed him when he took an exit.

  Our exit took us through a small cluster of houses that could hardly be described as a town. The dwellings huddled beneath a low sky that promised rain sometime in the next few hours. I wasn’t sure which country we were currently in but the houses seemed very rustic with overlapping shingles on their roofs and uneven stones for walls. It looks like we’ve stepped back to medieval times. All we needed was a bunch of peasants toiling in the fields and the scene would have been complete.

  Igor pulled up in front of the largest building. A sign proclaimed that it was an inn. Peering up through the windscreen at the second and third floors, I wasn’t happy with the state of the windows. There were no shutters and the curtains looked flimsy to me. Luc seemed to share my misgivings but climbed out anyway. Unless we squished into the trunk of the car for the day, the inn was our only choice of shelter.