Chapter Eighteen
“No! No more!” I yelled, my entire body quaking with involuntary giggles. “I hate you!”
“You asked for this.” Stark ran the enormous feather along the bottom of my foot again.
I jerked and struggled against my restraints, but there was no getting free from these tickles. “Please. Stop. Just bite me! Kill me.” I laughed and snarled at the same time.
“You will have no such mercy!” He feathered my other foot. “Now, tell me what you are hiding.”
“Nothing!” I lied, doing my best to conceal the truth, because Stark had clearly failed my trust test. What if I could still make moonshine? What if Charlie’s people could pull off the plan? The chances were razor thin, but I had to hope.
“I see that the soft approach is not going to work. I must get out the big guns.” Stark dropped the feather and held up his right hand, wiggling his fingers.
“What? Are you going to torture me with a bad magic trick now?” I snapped.
“Not quite.” He took hold of my knee with his large hand.
“No. Not that.” I could take the feather, but the knee tickle? It was game over.
Stark squeezed, zeroing in on the exact spot above the kneecap where the nerves went bananas when prodded. “I’m going to pee! Stop it.” I laughed and growled, squirming on the bed like an angry worm.
“Tell me what I want to know!”
“Fine. Fine!” I yelled.
Stark stopped tickling, and I took my first real breath.
“Charlie asked me to make moonshine,” I panted. “He was planning to use it on Congress so they’d vote against the bill.”
“Really?”
Still panting, I lifted my head with a nod. “Yes. Really.”
“But then what? Vampires would still go to war.”
“His people were rounding up all of your leaders, the ones who want to go to war once the bill is shot down.”
Stark toggled his head. “Not a terrible idea, but lacking the insights of someone like myself.”
I threw back my head on the bed, catching my breath. “What insights? Also, I think I peed a little.”
“Vampires are notorious double-crossers. The ones who say they are with you are generally against you and vice versa. Also, I do not mind a little pee. As long as it is fresh.”
“Ew. Stark.”
“Humans pee. It is natural. The scent only becomes an issue when they allow it to dry and fill the alleys where we hunt. Old urine is quite the repellent.”
As a woman who’d used a few gas station bathrooms, I’d agree. “Stark, this is serious. Charlie had a real plan to save us, and you killed him. That means you killed me, my family, and Leiper’s Fork. You killed the human race.”
Stark sat in his leather armchair. “He really asked you to make moonshine?”
“Yes.”
“And the ingredients?” Stark asked. “Where did he find them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe from the vampires they’ve captured—your missing leaders.”
Stark nodded. “Very powerful hooch.”
“Stark, untie me now!” I yelled.
“Just a moment.” He grabbed his cell from his pocket.
He was already stabbing me in the back and ratting out the plan?
“It is I. Yes. Uh-huh,” he said to whomever he’d just called. “Oh. I see…” Pause. “Yes. You were correct about your assumptions. Kill them all. No mercy.”
“Who are you killing?”
Stark blew out a breath, his cheeks inflating for a few seconds. “The vampires traveling with Charlie last night. But you should know, your plan was already blown. Charlie would have died anyway.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because, as I already stated, vampires always play the other side. He had more moles than our ninth green. Tell me who else was helping him.”
“I don’t—”
“I must be sure we flush out the swine. Who else knew of Charlie’s plan?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Think.” Stark pushed.
I still didn’t know if I could trust Stark, but those big hands were on standby. “Charlie wanted to test his moonshine recipe on me. That’s why we kissed.” I held back the fact that Charlie had also hoped to trap Stark.
“I knew it. And?”
“And Charlie called a vampire. He gave me a command to obey Charlie.”
Stark toggled his sensual lips, which I completely ignored. Almost.
“How did he sound?” Stark asked.
“Mean. Deep voice. Old and crusty like you.”
“Very funny.” He narrowed his ice-blue eyes.
“Calling it like it is,” I said. “Please untie me. I’ve told you everything I know. Please.”
Stark scooted forward in the chair. “Not yet.”
“What more do you want?”
“Who gave you that moonshine on my island?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why?”
Because I never drank all those bottles. And the poor woman who helped me fake it would die. “Please, Stark, just leave it.”
“I cannot have my island, my command center, infiltrated by traitors.”
“Command center?”
“Yes, Masie. My island is our Alamo. The last stand. Our place to retreat and move to plan B if all else should fail. Why else would I bring you there?”
My mind attempted to piece it all together. I couldn’t. “You have to tell me what’s really going on.”
He walked over, uncuffed my wrists, and then untied my ankles.
I sat up, rubbing the inflamed skin. “Well?”
“I am secretly leading the anti-coexistence movement, but our mission is to send all vampires back into the shadows. Of course, I could not tell you this until after your transformation. Humans are susceptible to vampire torture.” He glanced at the feather on the floor.
“Fair ’nuff.”
“But it all went sideways when you fled. I lost allies. Then another leader, Roman Momackian, began plotting to hijack the VCP for another movement far more sinister than anything we have ever seen.”
The VCP, or Vampire Coexistence Party, was the party Charlie had once belonged to.
Stark continued, “Roman is really the leader of the VCEP, the Vampire Communal Existence Party. One small group to rule us all, humans included.”
How many dang parties did these vampires have? “So this Roman guy, he doesn’t even like the idea of a good old-fashioned vampire war?”
“No. War always redistributes power. The covens on the winning side acquire a majority, their votes counting for eighty percent. The losing covens are given the remaining votes to split amongst themselves. In the past, once a war was over, everyone moved on. Roman wishes to change this. No more covens, no more voting or debates. All wealth, land, and sustenance will be controlled by Roman’s self-appointed council.
Humans will be banned from breeding without permission nor be permitted to own anything.
Same for us. Think communism, but without the fancy propaganda, the appallingly hideous apartments, or the underwhelming bureaucratic healthcare system. It will simply be…hell. For us all.”
Oh, so now Stark cares? Before, he had a plan B that left him as a powerful coven leader. Humans be damned. Now that he was facing losing his precious power and assets, he cared.
Funny how even vampires didn’t learn from history. Never trust someone in power who tells you the solution to everyone’s problems is giving them more power. The moment vampires began considering a human takeover, Stark should’ve known those leaders wouldn’t stop there. Vampires would be next.
“We have to stop him,” I said.
“You don’t say?” he replied bitterly. “Perhaps you should have considered that before you fled my island. You were our rallying cry.”
He meant Anna. The one vampire who could unite them all.
I threw back, “And perhaps you should’ve considered telling me what the hell was going on to begin with.
” But like with everything else, he just couldn’t be up front.
He misdirected, lied, gave pieces of the truth.
He was probably doing the same right now.
“Is there anything we can do? A plan C or D or whatever letter we’re on? ”
“The vote on the bill will happen in three days. Once it passes, money will begin flowing in from thousands of vampires to Roman’s coven.
Communications will go gray. Not black, but gray—heavily censored—and the subjugation of humans will begin.
Roman is already offering his allies positions on his council.
They are being enticed with promises of land, humans for food, and other luxurious perks such as unlimited spa treatments. ”
“Spa treatments?”
“We are suckers for pampering,” Stark said dryly.
“Of course, these council members are na?ve and new to vampirism, some as young as a century. Can you believe that? It will be like having kindergarteners ruling the world. They will binge and feast in the lap of luxury while the rest of us are given scraps and gardening sheds to sleep in.”
Oh, the humanity. “But Charlie said there were vampires on our side. Can’t we go to them and push back?”
“Charlie was human. He did not understand that he was being manipulated by Roman’s followers. All of those leaders they gathered up were on my side.”
I hung my head. So the brains for the moonshine were coming from the good guys—if there was such a thing in vampire world.
“This can’t be happening.” I’d thought the situation was bad before, but this was way worse.
I had to do something. No more sitting on the sidelines.
No more wishing and hoping things would magically work out.
I was ready to fight. For real this time.
“I’ll do whatever it takes, but that bill can’t pass, and Roman can’t take over. ”
Stark zipped up from his chair and took my hand, startling me. “I am glad you said that, Masie, because we only have one move left.”
I hated to ask. (A) I didn’t trust him, and (B) if the move was legit, it couldn’t be easy. Nothing up until now had been.
“Which is?” I asked.
Stark grinned.