Chapter 6
Loren
Cleanup took some time.
Leaving a body behind was considered disrespectful. The animal that gave its life for the vampire needed to be treated with respect, the remains buried or burned.
In the Chicago winter, either was a problem. After listening to his men bicker for several minutes Loren solved the problem by throwing lighter fluid and a match into the house itself and burning it to the ground.
Let it be a shrine for the one Sav had taken.
Sav himself stood nearby, sated and slightly stupid looking, as if he'd either eaten something that affected his brain, the way drugs or alcohol could, or had eaten too much. Either way, it made it easier for Loren to lock down the scene.
The couple was still in the van. When he started toward it, Sav was there in a heartbeat, between Loren and the locked trailer.
"What do you intend to do?" His eyes glowed red. His breath was clotted with the stink of the adrenaline the boy had released.
"My job," Loren snapped. "I suggest you do yours."
But his brother didn't move away. "If you're questioning them, I'm going to be there."
Loren mouthed the next line along with him: I have that right.
"Come, then. But if you attack them – " You'll answer to the council, he would have said, but Sav brushed past him.
"Yeah, I know. You're not going to be responsible for me. I understand. When is the last time I needed you to be responsible for me, brother?"
Acknowledged? Or otherwise? Loren thought, and followed his brother to the van.
The couple was nearly catatonic with terror.
They shook and all but shoved each other at him.
Usually Loren didn't try to frighten a human already marked for death.
What was the point? He didn't torture animals, didn't play with things that were going to be his food.
He had no delight in mere cruelty for the sake of it.
When it served him, he'd heard it said he was more vicious than the majority of Vampyren serving today.
It served him now.
He chose the woman first. Her arrogance was astounding. The hunting party had watched before approaching the humans in the house, using superior hearing to listen in on conversations and observing to be certain they weren't walking into another trap.
The woman's arrogance had astounded him even knowing she'd killed more than one Vampyren guard and soldier with her homemade bomb and expected if nothing else, her own kind would laud her for it.
Some would, of course. Humans were split into many factions in their response to the alien invaders, though nearly every response was based in fear.
In that case, fear worked.
In this case, he thought it would also, though he started with it intending to use them against each other by playing the fear one mate had for another's wellbeing.
Almost immediately, he realized that wouldn't work. When he grabbed Diane and demanded Stu talk, the clownish man turned away, trembling, screaming in a high-pitched voice that should have shamed him, "Not me! Don't take me!"
And his mate, instead of cowering or putting herself out for him, screamed the same – Take him! Not me! It was his idea! He's the one who made the bomb!
They disgusted him. Vampyren honor wasn't easily understood by humans but they understood human honor and this? Wasn't it.
"Names of the ones who worked with you! Names, now!" He slammed Diane back against the wall of the transport van, making sure not to bang her head. Humans were fragile and she needed to be aware when her head was taken from her.
At the same time Sav took hold of her husband and bent his arm back behind him, grabbed the tufts of hair still growing around the perimeter of the man's head, and shoved him toward Diane. "Do you see? Talk! Talk or we'll gut you both!"
If Stu had any integrity he'd have fought back, pointed out they were both going to be executed anyway, refused to take other humans down with them.
Diane and Stu were made of different stuff.
They fell all over each other, fighting to be the one to release each next name, just in case it bought them a few extra seconds in their worthless lives.
Loren had never before wanted to deny protocol more. Take them now. They didn't deserve to live when honorable Vampyren were dead.
But executing them would send the message. And he'd already told Sav no. To kill them now would put the girl in danger and put Sav even more at his throat.
He finished collecting the names and slammed Diane back against the wall hard enough to leave her gasping for air. Beside him, Sav raised dark eyebrows and Loren nodded. His brother sank a fist into the soft, unresisting gut of the man and left him gasping for air beside his mate.
They exited the van, shut and locked it, slammed fists against it to signal the lower ranks could drive it back to the high-rise hotel the council had taken as command center.
Most of the time, they'd laugh now, congratulating each other for the beginnings of vengeance for their people. But looking at Sav, he saw for a change that he and his brother felt the same about a situation.
The human couple nauseated them.
They were silent as they both turned to watch the building finish burning down.
By the time they were back to the command headquarters, Sav was raging again and Loren felt as if he would be also soon.
Whatever it was that made him different from his men, it was a thin line.
There were times he wanted to indulge in pointless violence.
When it came to the hunt, running down humans for sport, he was indomitable and the one to beat.
The council had half assembled. There'd been little word they were returning with prisoners.
It had been expected they'd hunt for food and come back with maybe a lead on the missing killer couple.
When they sent word to the Council members they had bagged the prize, they rousted the older Vampyren from a number of different pastimes.
Council member Shek Ridda came wearing a uniform that didn't fit his station.
There were stains on it from whatever human repast he had indulged in.
The invaders could eat human food. They just didn't usually bother.
Council member Shek Ridda had embraced human foods and his corpulence and unhealthy complexion showed it.
Tanner Grim came with the woman he'd been abusing.
The human female, in her late thirties, was out of her mind in fear and pain, and the councilman kept her on his lap, naked and bleeding and attracting the stares of junior members of the council.
Loren noted more than one of them staring in a way that suggested they were putting this vileness away for the day they, too, could lead and therefore lead by poor example, doing precisely what they wanted.
Council master Mahn appeared spotless, his white robes snowy and clean. Cleaner than the Chicago snow.
"Bring them forward." It was the first thing he'd said since entering the chamber, a conference room humans called it.
Floor to ceiling windows looked out over the city but the Council had ordered them sealed off.
Looking out at the dark had led to one too many nearly fatal disagreements among the council itself.
It should have been Loren and Jericho, his second, who brought Diane and Stuart to stand for their sentencing, but he wouldn't deprive Jericho of the attention and he needed Sav to show himself as responsible and get some praise. Anything to keep him off Loren's back for a time.
And he had something of his own to present.
"These are the humans that killed our people?"
Mahn knew they were. It was tradition, like telling the condemned what awaited them.
Jericho and Sav stood and Jericho nodded at Sav to tell the tale of finding their scent and following them through the neighborhoods until they found them and the others in the house.
He detailed letting the others go and the reasoning behind it, though he failed to mention the blood illness the girl's father suffered from.
He also didn't mention the girl, for which Loren was grateful.
He also didn't mention killing the one the girl had called Dave. Which meant Loren had a bargaining chip if he needed it.
When he finished, his account covering the things they had heard as they approached and surrounded the house and the behavior of the two in the van, Mahn was shaking with fury.
He stood, his nine feet of height impressive even for a Vampyren. He was ancient, well into his second century and nowhere near frail as humans became before they even had one century. He was vital and beautiful and shaking with rage.
"You killed our people."
There had been one other incident like this that Loren had witnessed. In that one, when accused, the male who had killed the Vampyren stood brazen and unrepentant and shot back, "You're killing mine!"
These two quivered and cowered, unaware they were making everything so much worse for themselves.
"For the next week you will serve at the whim of the council and when that week is over, you will be drained near to death and beheaded," Mahn said, drawing out each word with obvious anticipation.
The female began to whimper. She was a writer, a poet! She could immortalize the vampires, tell the world how clearly good they were, admit her mistakes a million times over if only –
She had nothing the Vampyren wanted. They could smell it on her, the child she'd had and abandoned for fear of being caught. That, and the cowardliness, the way she turned on her mate. The way he turned on her.
"Get them out of here," Mahn said, and then, "Loren? I believe there was something you needed to address the council about."
Two things, actually. There was Kiera. And there was her father.