Part 3 (1/2)
”I don't get it,” Michael said. He was still trying to learn the rules of this strange new world he was now a part of. ”I thought lycans went back to their human form when they die.”
”They do,” she replied. ”This one's been given a serum to stop the regression so that it can be studied in its wolfen form.”
Michael remembered the drug Lucian's flunkies had injected him with, to delay his own transformation into a werewolf. He wondered if the serums were related. ”How can you tell?”
She flipped the beast's toe tag toward Michael. A notation read, Subject injected with 850 ml Thasarine to arrest regression.
”Oh,” he said. What the h.e.l.l was Thasarine? Michael had never heard of the drug before. ”Not exactly your department, I guess.”
”I just killed them,” she said bluntly. ”I didn't worry too much about their anatomy.”
Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light, Michael was able to take a better look around. What had once been an empty mine shaft had been converted into a well-stocked bunker and safe house. Weapons lockers, packed with automatic rifles and handguns, lined gray concrete walls, along with file cabinets, workbenches, and numerous crates of ammo. One entire corner of the bunker had been taken over by what looked like a high-tech operations center, complete with computer consoles and plasma screens. A refrigerator hummed against another wall.
The whole place reminded him of that safe house in Pest. Stepping away from the werewolf's cage, he made a mental note not to let Selene handcuff him to a chair the way she had the last time. We're sticking together this time around, whether she likes it or not.
He toyed with the scalpels and forceps on the tray. The familiar tools comforted him in a way, providing him with a poignant reminder of his old life. Do vampires ever need doctors? he wondered. He remembered treating Selene's injuries after that car crash three nights ago. For all he knew, he might actually have saved her life. Perhaps I can still have a career of sorts, if and when people stop trying to murder us!
”How long can we stay here?” he asked.
”Not long,” Selene said grimly. She led him over to the control center he had noticed before. Video screens mounted on the wall above the main console offered views of the grounds outside the mine. The night-vision photography glowed an eerie shade of green. A computer monitor resting atop a metal counter ran through a series of maps and status reports. ”These safe houses are all linked together on one mainframe, with motion sensors revealing which ones are active. Someone could have picked us up already.”
Someone being Selene's fellow vampires, Michael realized. Thanks to him, she was now a fugitive from her own people.
Turning away from the computer station, she started looking over the guns in the nearest weapons rack. She shrugged off her damp leather coat, revealing a lithe figure encased in skintight black leather. Dropping the coat on top of a waist-high metal filing cabinet, she cracked open a crate of ammo and began to reload her guns. Twin holsters were strapped to her thighs. A hunting knife was sheathed on her ankle.
”Now that Viktor is dead,” she continued, ”the hunt will be on for his killer. It's only a matter of time before I'm found.”
”But none of this is your fault,” he protested. ”We have proof that Viktor lied. Kraven, too.” Kraven was a double-crossing vampire slimeball who had plotted to take control of the coven. Michael had only met him once, but was not likely to forget him, considering that Kraven had shot him in the chest with bullets filled with deadly silver nitrate. If not for Selene, Michael would have died there and then. ”I have Lucian's genetic memories.”
Those memories, transferred to Michael when the lycan commander had bit him, had revealed the true origins of the war between the vampires and the werewolves. It was Viktor who had started the war-by executing his own daughter after she'd fallen in love with a lycan. As far as Michael was concerned, Viktor had fully deserved to have his head sliced in half by Selene.
Surely the other vampires would take that into account?
Selene didn't seem to think so. ”All that will be beyond useless if Kraven reaches Marcus first and kills the last remaining Elder.” According to Selene, one more vampire Elder was still residing in a tomb underneath the vampires' mansion; she had done her best to fill Michael in on the intricacies of vampire politics on their way to the mine. ”Kraven's a coward. He'll want to strike while Marcus is still vulnerable. He knows he's no match for him awake.”
Michael had experienced Viktor's awesome power firsthand. He didn't want to think about how strong this ”Marcus” might be. Selene and I barely beat Viktor on our own, he recalled. I'm in no hurry to go up against another Elder.
A thought occurred to him and he glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. Like the clothes on his back, the watch had been salvaged from a dead lycan on their way out of the underworld.
”There's only about an hour until daylight,” he said. ”Can you make it back to the mansion before the sun comes up?”
Sunlight was fatal to vampires, just as silver was to werewolves. Something the movies got right for once.
”Just,” she said grimly.
Michael didn't like the sound of that. Joining Selene by the weapons cabinet, he picked out a couple of pistols more or less randomly. He wasn't about to admit to her that he had never pulled a gun on anyone in his life, let alone shot somebody. He didn't know the first thing about firearms. Then again, he thought, I've never been a hybrid monster before either.
”Okay,” he said. ”Let's get what we need and go.”
Selene laid a restraining hand upon his arm. ”No,” she said softly.
Huh? Michael looked at her in confusion. What did she mean by that?
Her eyes avoided his. She hesitated, obviously uncomfortable.
”I'm going alone,” she insisted.
Chapter Five.
The mansion was known as Ordoghaz in the local tongue, or ”Devil's House.” Located about an hour north of downtown Budapest, near the sleepy town of Szentendre, the imposing Gothic estate deserved its evil reputation, having served as the vampires' lair since the days when Viktor had ruled over feudal Hungary with an iron hand. Freshly fallen snow blanketed the jagged spires and battlements rising above its looming stone walls. Majestic columns and pointed arches adorned its brooding facade. A cast-iron fence, equipped with spikes and mounted security cameras, guarded the coven's privacy.
To Kraven, Ordoghaz offered sanctuary of a sort, but only if he moved swiftly enough. He limped through the snow toward the forbidding stone gates, drawn by the lights s.h.i.+ning from the mansion's narrow lancet windows. I must reach the crypt before Selene, he thought desperately. She cannot be allowed to rouse Marcus and plead her case. Kraven knew his punishment would be severe if the dreaded Elder ever learned of his alliance with Lucian.
Kraven had seen better nights. Every inch of his fine silk garments and elegant jewelry was coated with blood, muck, and snow. The dark fabric was soaked completely through; had he been human, he would have succ.u.mbed to hypothermia by now. His shoulder-length black locks were plastered to his skull. His aristocratic face was taut and drawn. A burning pain in his right leg reminded him of Lucian's dying blow, when the lycan commander had stabbed him with that d.a.m.ned spring-loaded blade of his!
At least that b.a.s.t.a.r.d is dead for good, Kraven thought, although that came as scant comfort at the moment. I should have killed him ages ago.
Just like I always claimed to have done.
After centuries of plotting and scheming, everything had gone wrong. By now, Kraven had hoped to be the undisputed leader of the coven, having conspired with Lucian to overthrow the Elders and bring an end to the eternal war between their two species. Kraven had expected to be hailed as a hero and peacemaker; instead he had found himself on the run after Selene had exposed his treachery to Viktor. Forced to seek refuge with Lucian in the lycan's squalid underground warren, he had barely survived the final battle between Viktor's Death Dealers and Lucian's lycan army. Only by scurrying away like a rat through the sewers had he been able to escape the underworld in one piece-but not before watching from the shadows as Selene executed Viktor with his own sword!
Bile rose in his throat as he thought of Selene. This was all her fault, she and that freakish hybrid lover of hers! Hidden from sight, he had witnessed the obscene abomination Michael Corvin had become, making Selene's obvious affection for him all the more appalling. Kraven had long l.u.s.ted after Selene's svelte body, but now he craved only her complete and total annihilation. She will pay for rejecting me, he vowed, and bringing all my plans to ruin!
To his relief, the limestone gates opened automatically at his approach. Viktor, one hundred years out-of-date at the time of his premature Awakening, had clearly neglected to revoke Kraven's electronic security clearance. Thank the dark G.o.ds for small favors, he thought. He was in no condition to climb over the spiked fence.
A long, paved driveway led to the mansion's front entrance, beyond a sculpted marble fountain. With the temperature well below freezing, the fountain's water display had been shut off. Plumes of churning white water no longer reached toward the sky.
Kraven staggered up the marble steps in front of the mansion. He pounded loudly on the heavy oaken doors barring his way. ”Open up!” he shouted to whoever might be on the other side of the door. With luck, most of the Death Dealers had joined Selene and Viktor on their ill-fated sorties into the underworld. Hopefully, that left his own private security force in control of the mansion. ”Let me in, G.o.ddammit!”
The huge double doors swung open. A large, stocky vampire peered out at him. Kraven recognized the face of Miklos, one of Soren's thuggish underlings. He stared at Kraven as though he barely recognized his leader through all the blood and gunk. ”Regent?”
Kraven was in no mood to explain his filthy appearance. He shoved his way past Miklos into the mansion's sumptuous foyer. Antique tapestries and oil paintings decorated the polished oak-paneled walls. Marble tiles stretched across the floor to where a majestic grand stairway ascended toward the upper stories of Ordoghaz. A spectacular crystal chandelier hung above the foyer. Compared to the lycans' fetid ratholes, the mansion's richly appointed interior struck Kraven as more palatial than ever. He brushed the snow from his head and shoulders, glad to be out of the blizzard at last.
Although it was nearly dawn, the entire mansion was still wide-awake. Undead gentlemen and ladies, stylishly attired in shades of red and black, came pouring out of the adjacent parlor in response to his arrival. More of the mansion's residents rushed down the stairs, having not yet retired for the morning. No Death Dealers these, the milling vampires were instead sophisticates and dilettantes, much like Kraven himself, who preferred to spend their immortality in various hedonistic pursuits, as opposed to never-ending battles against the lycan hordes. Many of them still clutched crystal goblets filled with spiced blood c.o.c.ktails. Tonight, however, the vampires' habitually jaded faces bore expressions of fear and concern. Desperate for news from the front, they pelted Kraven with anxious questions: Was Lucian still alive? Had the lycans been destroyed? Where were Viktor and the others? Was it true that Amelia had been a.s.sa.s.sinated by the lycans? What had become of Kahn, and Soren, and Selene...?
As far as Kraven knew, he was the only vampire to emerge from the underworld alive. Not counting Selene, of course. But he had better things to do than waste time answering the questions of these worthless parasites. Glancing over the throng in the foyer, he was grateful to spy no trace of that amorous servant girl Erika. Was she sulking in her room, or had she fled the mansion altogether after he had slammed the car door in her face during his last escape? No matter, he thought, just so long as she is gone. The last thing he needed right now was that lovesick blond trollop clinging to him.
His mind raced frantically, considering his options. With Viktor and Amelia both deceased, there was still a chance to turn matters to his advantage. All I need to do is destroy Marcus, he reasoned, while the Elder is still asleep and vulnerable. Then the coven will be mine to command.
That still left Selene to deal with, alas. No doubt she would try to expose his perfidy to the rest of the coven, but it would be her word against his. And who would the other vampires believe, Viktor's chosen regent-or a coldhearted b.i.t.c.h who had willingly chosen to consort with a lycan? Kraven felt certain that he could turn the coven against Selene. Politics was not exactly the female Death Dealer's forte.
Ignoring the sycophants and sybarites flocking around him pleading for rea.s.surance, he nodded at Miklos. ”Gather the men,” he ordered him curtly. Now that he was back in familiar surroundings, some of his former self-confidence rea.s.serted itself. Not for the first time, he congratulated himself for having had the foresight to a.s.semble his own security team, independent of Selene and the other Death Dealers. ”Tell them to meet me outside the crypt at once!”
”Yes, regent!” Miklos replied. He hastened to carry out Kraven's instructions. ”As you command!”
Kraven was pleased by the vampire's obedience. Perhaps this Miklos would make a serviceable replacement for Soren, whom Kraven a.s.sumed to have perished in the underworld. I will need a new enforcer, he thought, once I have regained control of the coven.