Chapter 5
It took me half an hour to walk to the club that catered for our kind. It was a little way off the city center, but on the other side of the place to where my feet had led me at first.
The bouncer on the door took one look at me and correctly figured out that I was one of them. He had done what he could to look like a human and hide his turned nature as well, but he couldn’t have done a particularly good job because it was obvious he was far too pale.
On top of that, there weren’t many humans waiting to come in, and the ones who were seemed to know exactly what we were. They were either adorned with crosses, or carrying concealed weapons to defend themselves. The few that belonged to a vampire were with those vampires.
For the most part, vampires didn’t have to queue up to get in, but vampires weren’t created equal. The longer the chain of a turned from the Brethren who created their line, the weaker they tended to be. It wasn’t perfectly true, but it definitely made a difference on average.
I stepped inside to find the club almost completely full, a loud beat blasting through the building and the smell of sweat, sex, blood and alcohol mingling in the air.
Somewhere in the building most drugs were also being consumed, but they were usually kept to the areas around the bar or the more private room upstairs.
Up there the music would be quieter and the real business would happen.
On my way up there I avoided making eye contact with anyone.
The last thing I needed was someone trying to sell me drugs or hit on me when I was in the mood I was in.
I didn’t want to draw attention and I certainly didn’t want to have to waste energy rebuffing someone determined to sell me a high of one kind or another.
Thankfully, everyone around me could read the situation well enough to know I wanted to be left alone and I was on my way to the upstairs area. I took the steps two at a time but slowed when I neared the top. I didn’t want to look entirely eager to be here.
As soon as I was in the more private area of the club, I made my way to one of the few empty booths. I didn’t know if I wanted to try to join someone else or sit alone, but I knew I couldn’t appear indecisive. I had to look as if I belonged here and I wasn’t intimidated.
There were a lot more vampires in here than I had expected. For this part of the world at this time of night, it should have been far less busy. Even if the club downstairs was heaving, the vampires with access up here should have been far fewer. But there being some outside made me wonder.
What if this club had turned into something more since I was last here? There were a lot of vampires I didn’t recognize and if the turned were getting braver, this wasn’t a bad city to start in. The Brethren really might be losing their grip on the vampire world.
Still, I needed to learn more, and the only way I was going to do that was to mingle, listen and pay attention to the vampires around me.
They might not know me, but they were clearly in a place they felt comfortable.
I didn’t have to sit in a booth for long before I noticed that the vampires in the booth behind me were talking loudly enough it was clear that they didn’t care if they were overheard.
“There’s three newbies just this week,” one of the nearest men declared. “They’re not wasting time.”
“That’s a lot of extra mouths to feed,” a female replied, her voice high-pitched and irritating.
I missed the next few lines as a waitress came over and took my drink order, but she was swift and didn’t waste my time.
“Does he really have the relic he says he does?” A third new person asked.
Although this was the part of the conversation I was most interested in, I looked around the private club area as if I was considering some of the human women in the room to see if I could enjoy their company in many ways tonight.
Not that I would choose one, but I was going to indicate that I wished to.
“He has what he needs,” the first man replied. “I’ve seen it. He took it from the dig before that other vampire from the US could send a minion to get it for him. And then neither of them ever showed. Something about some other minion taking him out. They were on some boat.”
I barely stifled the frown that threatened to appear on my face.
They were talking about us and I was the other minion.
Or what everyone thought was another minion.
All I could be grateful to learn was that they didn’t know very much.
No names and not that I was Brethren. Nor that I had used a vampire slayer to get the job done.
It wasn’t much comfort, but it was better than nothing.
“So, he really wants us to be his little army and take over?” the woman asked.
“Anyone who wants paying and to never have to worry about blood and being quiet about our kind again. That’s what he offered.” The man nearest me sounded as if he was excited, but I knew this was bad news.
“Don’t they all offer that?” a fourth voice added to the conversation. It was another man, but he had a different accent. I mentally thanked him for his skepticism. I didn’t want all these vampires to take him up on it.
There was a moment of silence and I had to fight the temptation to look around to see what they were all up to. This conversation was already concerning enough. If there were already a lot of turned talking about it in a place like this, then the turned everywhere in this city would know of it.
It didn’t matter if some of them were skeptical. It would mean an army was forming. And their leader had whatever this relic was. This situation had just gotten a lot worse.
Although I listened to more vampires talking while I nursed my drink, I didn’t get much more information. A lot of them were talking about it, but it was the same information again and again. No one knew what the relic was, or if they did, they weren’t willing to talk about it.
On top of that, no one knew how many turned had already offered to join this other vampire who had muscled in on the plan Ludis had come up with. I suspected it wasn’t a small number.
Given that my uncle had asked me to deal with Ludis and his men, I suspected that he would ask me to deal with this plot as well and put a stop to it. I was Brethren and this threatened my clan. In many ways, I had no choice.
My army currently consisted of only one other vampire. A turned who had done some of my research for me and just snuck me into the same archaeology dig a few hours, possibly a whole day, too late. And he wasn’t the strongest, or particularly close to a Brethren in his chain.
Even if I knew I could trust him for sure, it didn’t give me much of a fighting force. I was going to need some reinforcements and I was going to need them quickly.
As soon as my drink was gone I made my way back out of the club. I had heard enough and there was nothing more I could learn here.
Once I was a few blocks away, I pulled out my phone and messaged my uncle. I didn’t tell him every detail. Just enough for him to understand that there was another threat and they had this unknown relic.
I hesitated over sending it, knowing that he wasn’t going to be happy. He would feel as if I had failed my first mission simply because I hadn’t recovered the relic and made it secure. It wasn’t ideal, that much I knew, but I had acted as quickly as a single person could on their own.
After reminding myself that I had done my best and always would, I hit send and waited.
Again, I walked the streets of the city as I waited.
The center was more quiet now, fewer people walking about and fewer cars on the road.
Now, no matter where I went, I would stand out a little simply for being alone at this time of night.
Still, I didn’t want to go back to my hotel and rest. Or feed.
All I wanted was Anais. When I had last been with her this mission had seemed far easier.
She had made me feel like I wasn’t alone and had someone competent and skilled at my side.
Training her and seeing her pick up the new techniques so quickly had given me even more confidence in her.
I wanted to reach out to her. She had given me a way to contact her, and one of my friends was keeping an eye on her, even if he didn’t know why or that I had met the vampire slayer. My friend simply thought he was making sure she didn’t kill anyone important to me.
Because of that, I knew she had a new team. People who appeared to care about her and want to work with her more than the last group. I just hoped that she wasn’t drawing too much attention to herself.
When I had first started following Ludis, someone had taken a shot at him and I had found a picture of Ludis and Anais in the room the shot had been fired from less than an hour later. There was another player in this situation and they had somehow known Anais would be involved as well.
None of us had figured out why anyone would have both their photos. The academy had sent her to kill Ludis but not until Ludis had started creating trouble in Vegas, where she lived and usually hunted. Yet someone else had known she would be there that night.
In many ways, I didn’t expect to get answers now. No one had made an attempt on her life, and I suspected that no one would now. We had dealt with Ludis and whatever plan he was up to was now being carried out by an entirely different vampire.
After considering asking my friend to bring Anais here, whether she wanted to come or not, I realized I had been walking for several more blocks than I had intended and not only gone way past the hotel I was staying at, but I was out in the middle of nowhere and an area of the city I didn’t want to be in.
As I turned around to head back to the hotel and finally get some rest, my phone buzzed to let me know that my uncle had replied. I pulled out my phone and read the message while I walked.
If this vampire is making an army to come after our clan, then I expect you to stop him. Take the relic and bring it to me.
I frowned and let out another exasperated growl.
He had ignored my request for help and instead focused on the problem and what he wanted me to do.
On top of that, I had already anticipated that part of the request. I knew he would need me to stop it and retrieve the relic.
Once again, I carefully worded a response.
I’m already working on finding the relic. The vampire turned here are in greater numbers than we thought. I will need assistance to achieve the goals and protect our family.
Once more, I found myself hesitating to reply given the wording of my response, but I read it back in my head in as many different ways as I could think of to check if it could come across in a way I didn’t intend. My uncle could be temperamental at the best of times.
This task would need more than I could provide on my own, which gave me the courage to send it.
I was right to ask for help with a task I knew I couldn’t achieve on my own.
It made sense. The next reply came through so swiftly, however, that I knew my uncle wasn’t inclined to be charitable before I even opened the message.
You are a vampire. And Brethren. If this traitor is making an army, make yourself one as well. You have all you need.
I stopped walking, reading the words on my phone screen multiple times before I truly took in what it was saying.
When so many turned were threatening to try to take the world away from the Brethren and then feed on humans without restraint, I couldn’t believe my uncle was being so short-sighted as to suggest I make a lot more turned.
While he wasn’t wrong, and I could have turned enough humans into vampires to make a good fight of any situation, especially given I was Brethren and the vampires I created would be strong, I would also be making that many potential traitors to come after me, my uncle, or the entire clan at a later point in time.
There was no way I was going to turn all the people I could get and then have to explain the rules to them and train them to fight and use their new skills. It wasn’t fast enough and it was a huge risk.
After reading the message again, I paused. My uncle had said I should make myself a team, but he hadn’t specified exactly how. Nor that they had to be vampire. I could form my team however I wished. My uncle had no doubt that I would succeed and clearly didn’t care how I went about it.
Given the information I had—that there was a relic that could be very bad for humans, and that Anais had a team together to fight the turned that posed a threat—I knew that Anais could easily be the right person for this mission. Her team could be the right people.
Once more, I entertained the idea that she could be the perfect ally in all this. Was it just my desire to see her again and do unspeakable things to her body in the name of pleasure for us both, or was she the smart choice?
I wished I could have said with confidence that she was the logical partner and her team would be a valuable asset I could trust to help me get the job done, but I knew I couldn’t.
The truth was that I would do anything to have Anais by my side and in my bed and my uncle had just given me the perfect reason to not only ask her, but insist she should come to hunt vampires with me again.
All I had to do was figure out how to make it worth her while if she wasn’t as eager as I hoped she would be.
Instead of going to get some rest, I hurried into the hotel to gather my belongings and used my phone to book myself onto a flight to Vegas. I was going to go to her and try to win her over for a second time.