Chapter 35
CHAPTER 35
The only reason waiting around for Takashi didn’t suck was because Zack was truly in a slice of heaven. This library must have taken centuries to curate, and yet, as far as Zack could tell, there wasn’t any system to its organization. Had Anton put it together? Seamus? Grimsby? Knowing who might give him some inkling as to why books on the history of European witches sat beside volumes that questioned the nature of reality itself.
Were there books about his kind? Demons? Dragons? He couldn’t wait to find out.
He’d discovered a fascinating book from the late eighteen hundreds about the difference between cursed werewolves and spelled werewolves, which were entirely different from those who had been born with lycanthropy. The theories in the book weren’t unfamiliar to him, but this was like reading the seed of what his family taught. Of course, the Wrights taught that “spelled” meant cursed. That wasn’t what this author proposed at all.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t disturb you,” Takashi said quietly.
Zack jumped and spun to face him. An excited bubble of information was on his lips, but then he noticed the slight nervousness in Takashi’s eyes. Despite saying he was going to change, Takashi was wearing the same clothing.
Zack set aside the book and joined him at the end of the bookcase. “Are you okay?”
“The world will one day tremble at your power of observation,” Takashi teased.
“Don’t avoid the subject.”
“I had a conversation with Anton. Speaking with him is always challenging.”
“Because you’re not sure if he’s going to use shadows to rip your body apart or because he doesn’t seem to know that he’s another one of Seamus’s victims?” Zack asked.
“You’ve noticed?”
Zack leaned against the bookcase. “Hard not to. I can’t help thinking that we got to Roger in time, you know?”
“I’ve had those thoughts as well.”
“You know there’s no ‘saving’ him, right?” Zack whispered. The topic felt like a forbidden thing, even though they were alone. He hoped that Seamus was too preoccupied to listen to his thoughts. Maybe I should start singing in my head all the time .
When Seamus didn’t respond to that, Zack relaxed a little.
“Anton might?—”
“Don’t go for ‘not be so terrible without him,’” Zack said. “We have a very limited knowledge of what he’s done, and every bit of it is terrible. Roger’s been going through some of the same shit. He’s not a villain like him.”
“He’s not the hero of every story either,” Takashi replied.
“Yeah, but Roger didn’t just kidnap three girls and make you turn one of them into a vampire!” Zack snapped.
“Anton could be an asset.”
“Wait, are you developing feelings for Anton?” Zack demanded. “You know I’m a Gladwell, right? Do you have any idea what he did to my ancestors? For the fun of it? And that’s just one of his horrible deeds.”
“And who was at his side?” Takashi tched and pulled out two pairs of gloves. He handed one pair to Zack. “I don’t want to argue about this. It’s not like I’m professing love for him. He may be useful, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Right,” Zack said slowly.
“Observing and coming to the wrong conclusions is worse than not noticing something in the first place,” Takashi replied.
“You’re getting defensive. Should I be observing something about that ? Or will that be a wrong conclusion?”
“Do you want to waste time having a nonconsequential argument, or do you want to see if we can discover something of value?”
A smart answer was on Zack’s tongue, but rather than jump for it, he relied on his vampiric abilities and sought the touch of Takashi’s mental page. There were big letters attempting to disguise smaller emotions. Zack brushed his mind against them, seeking the shape of them without plunging into the depths. Takashi didn’t want to fight—and didn’t want to examine something he was feeling. He wanted to ignore a part of his mind.
But it wasn’t the same as wanting to hide something, and he wasn’t harboring a passion for Anton.
“I want to see what you’ve found,” Zack replied.
“Excellent. This way.”
Takashi led the way out into the hall and then into the maze that was the first floor. They cut through one of the galleries, and every painting in it was of Seamus or Anton where different artists had had their take on the two in a variety of styles. The love they professed to have for one another was on full display whenever they were in a portrait together. But the gallery was one big, massive edited selfie, curated to a specific story.
What would the story be for Zack, Roger, and Takashi in a hundred years? Would they look fondly back at the beginning of the twenty-first century? Would the time Zack and Takashi were separated from Roger feel like a blip rather than a drawn-out nightmare? Would they tell everyone they were happy constantly, even if they were miserable with each other? Maybe forever is too long to be together .
I’ll deal with that if we live that long . Zack picked up his pace and fell back in step behind Takashi.
The room Takashi led him to was a boring office with a big desk. Takashi lifted a vase off a pedestal next to the door and nodded for Zack to move the other one. Removing the vases revealed buttons underneath. After Takashi set down his vase, he pressed the two buttons together.
A section of the far wall opened into a whole other room. Zack set his vase down and headed for the inner room. There were more bookcases in here, and along the back wall was a sleek, modern desk and a massive computer setup. “How did you even find this?”
“Seamus interrogated me in the outer office on my first night. When I had the chance, I did some investigating.” Takashi went straight for a bookshelf closer to the desk. “You spend enough time doing what I do, you learn how people hide things.”
“I thought you were an ambassador,” Zack said.
“Ambassador is another name for spy in our world.” Takashi knelt down and took a binder off the shelf. “You should see this.”
Zack took the binder and flipped it open. The first page had a picture he’d uploaded to social media when he was still in high school, and the summary section had details about his life stretching back years. Each sentence added a drop of anxiety until he had trouble keeping his hands still as he continued to read. “He stalked me. He’s been stalking me.”
“Not just you,” Takashi said solemnly.
As Zack began to ask who else, he realized that the rows of in front of him were full of black binders like the one in his hands. Each shelf held over a dozen, and each bookcase could easily hold a hundred on one side alone. And there were eight other bookcases on this side of the room alone.
“Are they all … ‘potentials’?” Zack asked.
“They seem to be.”
“There must be thousands of names in here.” Zack wandered over to the other row of shelves. “These are different.”
“Journals stretching back centuries.”
Zack handed his binder off to Takashi and yanked one of the journals from the end of the bookcase. The entries were dated in 2018. He put it back, went to the lowest shelf, and pulled the last journal out. It ended in June of 2021. Six months ago. Where is the current one? Shit, don’t think too hard . Hurriedly, he put the journal back and went to the desk.
“We have to be careful not to leave a trace,” Takashi said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Zack replied noncommittally. The desk had a center drawer, and he opened it. Inside was his own journal and a smooth onyx leather journal identical to the one he’d just been reading. He pulled it out of the drawer and flipped to the back.
“You may not want to read that.”
“Oh, I fucking do.” Zack danced out of Takashi’s attempt to grab the journal from him. The benefit of being quicker than him meant he could keep one step ahead of Takashi while reading the page.
December 26 th
As predicted, Zack is not thrilled that I am his sire, though I sense he may come around and realize what a blessing I have given him. He is strong-willed, stubborn in a way that I can’t help admiring when he’s not being contrary to me. Last night, he walked into the meeting and immediately pointed out the flaw in Penelope’s argument! Clearly when it comes to matters of himself, he is insecure, but when it comes to information or relying upon instinct, he is a marvel. I can feel his mind at this very minute, working to dismiss that self-doubt which must have ruined his mortal life. He is thriving. I don’t believe I could have made a better choice for the launch of my new generation. It seems my fear that mortals these days were incapable of taking the true essence of what I could offer them was unfounded .
Anton’s choice for a distraction has proved ineffectual in capturing his interest. At least the boy is appetizing to look at. His dark hair is not quite the shade of Roger’s, but if I wished a proxy to take out my current frustrations, he would do. I shall have to see if my beloved has decided another purpose for this seed or if I might make use of him until the time comes to steal more from Grandmother .
The entry went on to complain about the meeting’s tedium and Seamus’s excitement at the prospect of taking Zack out for a night of slaughtering “the worst of the descendants,” but Zack barely absorbed those words.
He couldn’t let himself think too hard. He couldn’t risk letting Seamus hear what he had learned.
“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” Takashi said as he took the journal from his hands. Quickly, he put it back in the drawer and shut it. “What did he have to say?”
“There’s a lot to unpack.” Zack shoved his hand through his hair. His gaze fell on the bookshelves of binders. He was the beginning of a new generation? What was that supposed to mean? Who the fuck would Seamus call “Grandmother”? “You told Katie that Seamus and Nell were sired from the same demon . That was the word you used. Not vampire, demon .”
“That was what Nell referred to him as,” Takashi said.
“Makes sense,” Zack muttered. “Vampire is a relatively new word compared to Nell or Seamus. Hunters have a theory that the reason vampiric powers are so hard to predict is that the word is a shallow classification to lump creatures that only seem similar. It stands to reason that there might be one progenitor for vampires that had all their powers, but it’d be from beyond our reality. From a hell or maybe even something corrupted out of a heaven. Just, something not from here. Or maybe some force that is older than the Earth. Or maybe there are multiple vampire-like ancient beings that mixed with mortals and created the undead menaces we know. That we’re part of.”
“Zack, you’re speaking too quickly for me to understand most of those words,” Takashi said slowly.
No, he was saying them at his normal speed. Zack was panicking, and that was causing him to rely on his superior capability. Oh, fuck. How do I slow down ?
If he could sense Takashi’s desire for calm, or if Takashi had a better understanding of how intensely his fear was spiraling out of his control, maybe he could help. Zack peeled the glove from his right and touched Takashi’s cheek.
Warmth spread from Takashi and coasted into Zack. It rolled upward, through his arm, and across his chest.
Takashi took a step back and blinked at him. “What was that?”
“I … I was trying to feel your desire for calm,” Zack replied. He was steadier, but the fear was still clawing at the back of his throat. His thirst was returning with an eager need. “Sorry if I pushed into your head too much.”
“You didn’t.” Takashi touched his cheek where Zack had touched him. “I’m not sure what you did, though.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. You?”
“Except for being the pride and joy of a master manipulator—the answer’s still no.” Zack examined the shelves of journals. Moving a collection like this around the globe must have taken some effort. How much had Seamus committed to paper? “Fuck, the information lurking in just this room is astounding, but we can’t spend all night in here. I was reading Seamus’s entry from the other night. I think there’s another vampire in the mansion. Not a guard or anything. Someone Anton recently sired.”
Takashi stilled. “I haven’t seen anyone. It wouldn’t be hard to hide someone in this place, though I think I have an idea of where to start looking.”
They covered their tracks as they left the secret office and then the outer study. After going out into the hallway, Takashi led the way to an ordinary locked door with a silver handle in one of the plainer hallways on the first floor. It reeked of an acrid scent, and a shiver went down Zack’s spine.
Takashi pulled out two thin pieces of metal that looked like they’d belonged on a pair of sunglasses once upon a time and then set to work on the door’s lock. While he did, Zack took a moment to double-check that there were no magical runes on the doorframe and found none. In a moment, Takashi managed to open the door.
It led to a bland stone-and-concrete staircase and a basement, which was more of the aggressively simplistic same. Steel doors with plain silver handles dotted the hallway. Zack was glad for the gloves as he tried the first handle. The door swung open to reveal a ten-by-ten room with no windows and no hint of comfort. “A prison cell?”
“Some might call this a dungeon,” Takashi said quietly. He continued down the hall, lightly testing door handles. “Not uncommon. Nell has one.”
“She does?” Zack followed. Along the way, he spotted a shotgun shell on the floor. He picked it up. Panic threatened to swell again as he recognized the shade of green plastic. “This is Cal’s.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Silver shot’s a custom thing. This is what we use to make them. What the hell is this doing here?”
“While you were in your grave, Roger infiltrated the mansion to find us, remember?” Takashi said. “Cal must have been one of the people I saw him flee with.”
Zack closed his hand around the empty shell. “What if he didn’t leave? What if he’s …”
“Then we will deal with that outcome.” Takashi put his hand on Zack’s shoulder and squeezed. “But we won’t know what’s down here unless we continue.”
Zack nodded. When Takashi turned to head down the hall toward the intersection, Zack tucked the shell into his pants pocket. The feel of it was as reassuring as it was nerve-racking. Roger had somehow convinced Cal , of all people, to come for him? Of course, Cal had believed he was still human at the time—no way would Cal rescue a vampire ever—but he’d come along. Had he been the only one? Had Zack’s mom or dad been part of the failed rescue?
And what the fuck was Roger planning? First, working with hunters, then ripping off Seamus? What was the endgame? He knows that his life’s been one big game for Seamus and Anton. He doesn’t know what’s happening to me or Takashi. Maybe he’s out for revenge .
At the intersection, they chose the left hallway. Several more of the same steel doors were on either side, and another one was at the end. The further they progressed, the greater a strange odor bothered Zack’s nose. It was heavily metallic and like blood, but not appetizing the way a freshly bit mortal was. “What is that?”
“The smell?”
“Yeah.”
Takashi tried the door handle at the end of the hall and discovered it was locked. He took his makeshift lockpicks and began to work on the lock. “That’s what it smells like when fear and desperation have soaked into a place.”
“It doesn’t smell like mortals’ fear. Or what I thought stale mortal fear would,” Zack replied.
“I’ve never run into it this pungently.”
With all the steel doors and silver handles, the dungeon wasn’t designed to hold mortals. “Maybe it’s vampiric fear?”
“Hadn’t thought of that.” Takashi twisted the lockpicks, and the door sprang open.
The smell worsened beyond the door, but the sight before Zack drove the ability to concentrate straight out of his mind.
In the center of the chamber was a wooden rack that had a dark stain underneath it. The rack had sigils running along the edges, especially around the cuffs that would bind a person to it. Sections of wall between the doors held a variety of torture instruments, most gleaming with silver in the dim light.
Unlike the rest of the dungeon, the doors in this large room were bars instead of solid steel. Each led to a tiny cell, no more than three feet across and six feet in depth. The occupant of the one nearest to the door leapt at Zack and shoved his hand out between the bars to attempt to grab him. He might have been more like a man at some point, but his skin was pale enough that his veins were plain to see. He snapped and growled at Zack. His teeth were nothing but fangs, and his fingers had long, curling nails. His eyes were black voids.
The prisoner in the next cell was sitting at the back of his chamber, curled up and rocking back and forth. At some point, he’d scratched a word into the wall. Cursed . The one in the cell after that was a corpse just standing and staring at the wall. Another cell contained a half-man, half-bat creature that was drawing on the floor with a long clawed finger.
“Don’t pay them any attention, sweethearts,” Roger said.
Stirring at his voice, Zack finally turned his attention toward a cell on the other side of the chamber. Roger stood behind one of the cell doors. His long black hair brushed his shoulders, and his smile was warm, though exhaustion was obvious in his brown eyes. He was as muscular as he’d ever been, but he leaned against the wall as if it took everything to stand. He had no shirt, and his pants were bordering on too torn to hold together.
Zack’s libido attempted to rally. Not the time . He rushed to the door, realized he didn’t have any tools to unlock it, and motioned to Takashi. “Quick, we have to get him out.”
Takashi crossed the room and knelt down to begin working on the lock. “I don’t understand. Anton said he let you go. I saw you run.”
“He caught me later on. Fuck, is it good to see you two.” Roger reached out between the bars, carefully not touching them.
Zack stepped forward to feel him. His touch was warmer than Takashi’s at first, but then suddenly, it wasn’t. “Wait, something’s not right.”
“Because he’s fucking with you,” a voice said, the clarity and pitch echoing off the stone walls.
Not him. Zack spun to his right.
A young man a few years older than Zack was in the near corner cell. He was fairly tall, just shy of six feet in height, with dark brown hair that always got redder in the summer sun. His skin was the gray of a tombstone, and his once dark brown eyes were a faint shade of red. He had broad shoulders and a strong jawline with a dimple in the center of his chin. And Zack had never noticed that he had such long eyelashes before, but they were there.
“ Dennis ,” Zack snarled. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Great to see you, too, coz,” Denny drawled. He pushed himself up to his feet. He touched the bars as he did and hissed as they burned him. “That over there is an incubus.”
“Succubus, technically.” The fake Roger smiled wickedly. “Since I prefer to be on the receiving side.”
“Shit,” Takashi muttered. He slid back from the lock and shoved his makeshift picks into his pocket as he stood.
Denny grumbled, “Point is, that isn’t who you think it is, Zack. It’s a demon.”
“I know what succubae are, thanks,” Zack snapped.
“This is little Zacky?” the fake Roger asked delightedly. He shimmered with a red light. Between one blink and the next, he changed into a skinny boy with light brown hair and steel-gray eyes. His appearance was identical to Zack’s younger self. With glee, he pointed at his face. “You’re him?”
Hearing his own younger voice speaking to him pushed Zack further to numbness. “Wait, hold on, succubae are sex demons. I knew you were a prick, Denny, but seriously? A pedophile?”
“Gross. No,” Denny said.
“A sex demon knows what I look like!” Zack gestured at the succubus.
“To be fair to our poor Denny, this isn’t about sex. I would love to feed on nothing but that desire, but pickings are a little scarce down here, so I’ll take as much regret as possible. And this? Mmmmmmmmm.” The now-fake-Zack licked his fingers. “Delicious!”
“Regret?” Zack asked.
Denny crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the floor of his cell. “Don’t overthink it. He’s starving, and I’m the only semi-sane thing left in here.”
“I don’t need to ‘overthink it,’” Zack growled and clenched his fists. “I was a child that you helped tie up, and then when we were alone, you beat me. I was defenseless .”
“All I wanted was to play with you guys,” young-fake-Zack said, pitching his voice high and tight like he was about to cry. “What did I do wrong, Denny? Why did you call me those names? Why do you hate them so much? Why do you hate me?”
Big, wet tears started to roll down fake-Zack’s cheeks, and he sniffled.
Denny was crying, too. His tears were drops of blood that made tracks down his cheeks.
“Zack,” Takashi whispered. “Perhaps we should leave.”
That would be the smart move. Zack could forget about this horror show and whatever was happening in this torture chamber. Out of all the people in his life, Denny was certainly one of the prime candidate assholes for abandoning to actual Hell, not just hell on Earth.
But he could sense the deep chasm of regret in Denny. He refused to dive into it, didn’t want to know whether the source was some desire that he wished he’d done more or not. But villains didn’t cry about the pain they caused.
Once he touched Denny’s regret, he could taste it on the air. And it was zipping across the chamber to the demon in the cell.
I am so not ready to forgive him. I don’t care how bad he feels . But he also wasn’t about to give up on his and Takashi’s exploratory mission. They’d come to learn secrets the mansion held. We were always going to find something fucked-up like this .
Time to be the badass vampire I’m supposed to be . Zack squared his shoulders and unclenched his fists. “Not just yet. Denny, what happens in here?”
“Oo, I know the answer to that one!” fake-Zack said, raising his hand and jumping a little.
“Would you fucking stop ?” Denny screamed.
Fake-Zack cackled with laughter. “So fucking good!”
Denny launched himself at the bars, shoving his arm through. Smoke drifted up from his skin, but he continued attempting to scramble through the metal that was hurting him.
He’d called himself semi-sane.
How long had he been down here? A realization burst across Zack’s consciousness. He couldn’t free Denny because then it would be obvious that someone had been down in this room. Though Seamus might read his thoughts and discover it, there was a difference between curiosity and screwing with Anton’s things.
But he couldn’t stand still and have the two of them waste his time. Takashi was right; they needed more assets. Their cell was less literal, but Zack and Takashi were just as trapped in the mansion. They needed more people on their side.
Zack pulled off his leather glove and grabbed Denny’s bare wrist. He wasn’t so much a journal page but a stone tablet with engraved lettering that went miles deep.
Magic was about working with metaphors. He’d learned that from the same person Denny had. So he imagined taking a large marker and writing Peace across the tablet of Denny’s mind.
It wasn’t changing anything.
The times where he and Takashi had created a feedback loop, he’d felt the desire in Takashi link with his own lust. If he wanted Denny to feel calm, then he had to figure out calm. Cuddled between Roger and Takashi, laughing with them on the couch as we watched an old movie. Being with Kit and Blake and watching the pillow sail over the edge. Joy. Peace .
Denny gasped and tumbled back into his cell. He sank to the floor, holding the hand Zack had touched as if he’d come in contact with snow for the first time.
“That was mine!” fake-Zack wailed as he shimmered with a red glow. When the light faded, he was roughly Zack’s height. His skin was a vibrant maroon, and his eyes were solid black. He had jet-black hair with hints of burgundy and a long tail that ended in a spade shape. Short horns on either side of his forehead jutted up like elegant spikes, sloping slightly backward. They came to sharp tips.
Though they weren’t as sharp as the glare in his eyes. His voice wasn’t much deeper than it’d been as fake-Zack, and he whined, “Not fair! I’m hungry!”
Doing his best master vampire impression, Zack said, “You can get back to torturing my cousin in a minute?—”
“Wait, you’re not going to let me out?” Denny asked, crestfallen.
For a second, the hurt in Denny’s voice made Zack itch to help him. But if he did that, he’d be putting Takashi and himself at risk, and he couldn’t help anybody if they were all in cells. “I can’t. Yet. I’ll work on it, okay? What is Anton doing in here? This isn’t just some fucked-up way for him to pass the time, is it?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been here long,” Denny replied.
“How did you even get here?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Denny pulled his knees up to his chest.
“I know the answers to both,” the demon said sweetly.
“Well?” Zack asked as he turned toward him.
The demon leaned against the wall of his cell and examined his pointed nails as if they were far more interesting than anything in the whole wide existence. “Well, what? Oh . You want me to just tell you? After you cut off the meal I’ve been cooking up for a week?”
“We should go,” Takashi murmured.
“Ah, yes, go without learning anything valuable at all so you can sit and fester upstairs like we do down here,” the demon replied. “You’ll probably join us once I tell Anton you were in here, scheming to let Dennis go.”
Shit . Zack ran his hand through his hair, then internally kicked himself for his nervous habit. Badass vampires were supposed to be cold as statues. He lifted his chin and approached the demon’s cell door. “My soul’s not any good to you.”
“Aw, precious boy, you think a vampire’s soul is worthless to my kind? You’re so very wrong,” the demon replied. “However, the delivery takes far too much investment. Besides, souls are good for currency, but they’re not the only thing worth gaining in the world.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to visit your dreams.” The demon gazed at Zack with half-closed eyes. “You are all kinds of my favorite things.”
“This is a bad deal,” Takashi said and began to offer his hand out to Zack.
Zack held up a hand to stop Takashi from reaching for him. “That’s too open-ended. How about you can visit while you’re trapped in this cell?”
“How about while I’m in this cell and a year to the night after I’m out?” the demon replied.
“And what I want is information. You answer anything I ask, and you reveal none of my conversations to Anton, Seamus, or anyone working for them,” Zack replied. “This visit counts as one of those conversations, so you don’t mention that we came down here. And that year is an Earthen calendar year. No bullshit on using some other realm or another planet’s cycle.”
The demon laughed and spun a quick circle. “Shrewd! Demanding! I love it! You are fucking hot, did you know that? Unf, tell me to bend over already, daddy.”
“Don’t call me that,” Zack said.
“Ooo, got enough daddy issues going on already? Okay,” the demon purred. He came up to the bars and wiggled excitedly, his tail swaying. “Deal suits me fine. Kiss makes it real!” He puckered up, carefully sliding his face as far forward through the bars as he could.
“You don’t have to do this,” Takashi said.
Zack glanced over his shoulder to him. “You said I’m capable of making tough calls. This is one of them. Could be good to have a succubus on our side.”
Just as Zack started to slide forward to kiss the demon, Takashi caught his arm and tugged him back. “Letting him into your dreams is a powerful thing, Zack. This creature relishes in torture.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t care where our assets come from,” Zack whispered fiercely. He yanked his arm free of Takashi and pressed his lips to the demon’s.
A cool jolt went through his lips down to his toes. When he backed away from the demon, the tingle remained until it dulled into a buzz throughout him.
“To keep our deal, I need you to invite me into your dreams, Zackery,” the demon said smoothly. “Call me Phyrull.”
“You’re welcome in my dreams, Phyrull,” Zack said. The words had a deep echo in him, and he could feel a hook in his heart tugging him toward the demon. It wasn’t as strong as the magnetic draw pulling him toward Seamus or his dagger but present within him. Probably what Takashi was worried about .
“Ah,” Phyrull sighed. He put his fingertips against his bottom lip and twirled until he rested his backside against a wall in his cell. “Fucking hell, I think you’re my new favorite drug.”
That sentiment unnerved Zack in a way that he did his best to suppress. His previous research into demons had been on the basics—different ways to identify them and rituals to exorcise them—and there hadn’t been much on succubae in the family’s lore. At least there was a massive occult library upstairs that might have more answers for him.
“Deal was for answers,” Zack said sternly. “What is Anton’s purpose for this room?”
The fishhook feeling in his heart wriggled as he made his demand.
Phyrull trembled, a brief, slight movement that would have slipped the notice of Zack’s eyes when he was mortal. His voice came out like silk. “He continues his experiments into true immortality, your excellency.”
“He’s a vampire. Why is he exploring that?” Zack demanded.
A shiver again. Phyrull gasped softly. He turned his head to look at Zack, his black hair falling over one eye.
Imagining Phyrull on his knees and opening his pretty mouth to suck Zack’s cock wasn’t hard. And there were a million other things that Phyrull could do on his knees. He didn’t even need to suck on Zack. If he just opened his mouth while Zack jerked off, Zack could shoot his load and decorate Phyrull’s forked tongue …
“I invited you into my dreams, not my waking thoughts,” Zack growled.
“Forgive the impertinence, your excellency. I couldn’t resist,” Phyrull murmured. His words slurred together.
“Answer my question.”
“Even the undead can be forced to leave this world,” Phyrull said. “You should know that with your knowledge, your excellency.”
True immortality’s got to be impossible, right? Zack backed away from the cell. Legend said there were mages who had figured out a magical way to expand their lifespans, but the ones that could pull off that sort of spell were extremely rare. Zack’s family didn’t know of any, and the Hunters’ Information Network had only speculated. Vampires were as close as a mortal being could get to living forever.
But of course, Phyrull was right. Vampires were still extremely killable. True immortality for a vampire would have to come with invincibility.
His magnetic connection to Seamus was strengthening bit by bit. “Shit, Seamus is on his way home.”
“Then we need to go.” Takashi headed for the door.
Zack took two steps after him.
Denny called out, “You’re really going to leave me here, with him? You have no idea what I’ve been through in here! Come on! We’re family!”
His tone was too much like Cal’s, too much like his family’s constant needling that resulted in nothing but getting disowned. A part of Zack had been shattered, something that hadn’t begun to heal until he was fully dead.
Now, the bastard who had caused the first of Zack’s worst nightmares, who had pitted his peers against him, who had kicked off the slide into the bad graces while remaining in everyone’s fucking favor, was making a demand of him .
Seamus had chosen him. Had given him more power than he’d given anyone else in possibly ever . Believed him to be the start of a new generation and a potential dragon slayer. He was not a child begging for his family’s approval anymore.
With a hiss, Zack moved with liquid speed. He reached between the bars, took hold of Denny’s shirt, and yanked Denny up against the bars, all without touching them himself. Denny screamed, but his attempts to push away meant putting his hands on the silver and hurting himself more.
“Aw, have you been suffering?” Zack said with every ounce of biting sarcasm he’d been holding on to since he’d risen. “How terrible! Must fucking suck to be the damsel caught in the dungeon.”
“We were kids!” Denny shouted.
But Zack sensed how badly he wanted to hide from the truth. “I trusted you, and you beat me. Not just with your fists, but your fucking words. So I don’t owe you anything.”
“Zack, please, you don’t understand!” Denny wailed.
“ I don’t want to !” Zack roared. He shoved Denny hard enough that he sent him into the other wall. A resounding crack of bone echoed.
“I was fucked-up,” Denny sobbed. Instead of trying to get up, he curled into a ball on the floor. “I … I’m still fucked-up. I’m a vampire. The family’s going to kill me. The only one … I don’t have anyone … and Anton. He’s … he’s done stuff to me. He puts me on that rack and … and cuts me open. Does spells.”
“How long has he been here?” Zack demanded of Phyrull.
“Time is hard to gauge in here, your excellency, but I think a couple weeks,” Phyrull replied.
He hasn’t suffered long enough, a slick, angry, masterful voice inside of Zack decided. But he couldn’t leave him without any hope or leave him to Anton’s tortures forever.
“I will do what I can when I can to get you out of this cell.” Zack turned his back on Denny and started heading for the exit. “If you’re lucky, I’ll get around to it before you spend a decade cutting yourself to pieces on the inside.”
He tried not to let Denny’s sobs soothe a part of him. A good guy wasn’t supposed to like anyone in pain. Guess I’m only decent .
The doors locked behind them as he and Takashi made their way up to the first floor of the mansion. As cold as it had seemed, the stillness was welcoming after the blunt stone and horrific torture chamber. Zack rolled his shoulders, but the tension in them was more psychological than physical. Weird vampire physiology at work again.
Cautiously, he ran his gaze over Takashi and checked in on his mental page. Though he could feel the shape of words, he couldn’t grasp their meaning. “Did you, um, hear? What happened at the end?”
“I did,” Takashi said softly.
“You thinking about breaking up with me?”
“What?” Lightly, Takashi put his hand on Zack’s shoulder and turned so they faced each other. “Why would you think that?”
“Because I just left someone to rot in a dungeon, and I don’t feel guilty about it,” Zack replied. “Plus, I made a deal with a demon that you didn’t agree with.”
Takashi linked his hand with Zack’s and then kissed his knuckles. “You had a point in making that deal. I worried about what you would think of yourself after the fact and that you were making a steep bargain.”
“Trust me, I’m going to spend all my free time in that massive library trying to figure out the intricacies of succubae deals, dragon lore, and how to jump-start disconnecting myself from Seamus,” Zack said. “Not exactly in a great position on the board, are we?”
“We’re not.”
Zack stepped closer to Takashi so that they were chest to chest. “But we’ve got this, right?”
“Right,” Takashi replied.
Zack kissed him, quick and gentle. Then he squeezed his hand and headed down the hall. “Seamus left three guys. I only need to drink one more, which means there’s one more for you to eat.”
“And you’re all right with that?” Takashi asked lightly.
The fear that Zack was masking his pain was there, written in big, bold letters that Takashi was quickly covering up with hope that he’d be okay. A few nights ago, killing would have bothered him. It should have, still, but they needed the blood to survive. Zack couldn’t control his hunger, and Takashi hadn’t been allowed to properly feed in over a week.
He wasn’t going to drag his feet through however long he had to live. Would the people he fed on have done any different? Probably not. Why should I feel guilt for what I am ?
“I’ll manage,” Zack replied. “They’re this way. Come on.”