Black Dawn

Freedom to rule unchallenged, again.

Whatever magic Myrnin had worked, there was no doubt that if he said such drab stuff as this powder would work against the draug, it would work; he was insane, and of doubtful loyalty to me, but on one front he had always been unshakable, and that was his commitment to destroying our enemies. Even when it had been advisable to run, perhaps necessary, he had been one to argue for the fight.

We had that in common, unlikely as it seemed.

His message over the radio had been simple: The powder in the drum in the lab will kill the draug. You will find them at the locations marked on the map. Dispatch your teams. Destroy them all. Myrnin was capable of surprising ruthlessness when pushed. We had that in common, too.

But it was the other part of the message that had startled me. Myrnin had, I realized, known all along how this would end. It was a measure of him that he had not given me any indication of that—or, as far as I understood it, anyone. Not even his pet, Claire.

No. Surprising did not, in fact, quite cover things, I found. Shocking might come close.

Before following his instructions, however, I had a problem to address. Amelie’s sister was a danger to her rule and a potential usurper, but by definition that made her a competent enough leader, and I needed all our resources now. I had the guards summon her as I put on my battle clothing; I missed armor, but it had never done us any good against the draug. It had only weighed us down, and that was never an advantage when fighting something that thrived in water. Leathers would do.

Naomi must have thought the same, because when she appeared in the anteroom of the Founder’s apartments, she, too, had donned thick leathers. The black made her stark as bone by contrast, a pale, sharp face and blond hair pulled back in a simple style for battle. She looked a great deal like Amelie—but there was no tug of connection between us at all. She eyed me coldly and said, “I will not be summoned like a servant by you, Oliver. This had best be important.”

“I have need of your skills,” I said. “You heard the call to battle, I assume.”

“Of course.”

“Then I need not tell you that this is the time to strike, hard and fast.” I smiled thinly, allowing my fangs to show. She responded with the same, measure for measure. “I shall entrust you with command of this mission.”

That set her back a step. “Me? You won’t be leading it?”

“No,” I said. “I have another duty to perform. A more difficult one.”

She understood, then, or thought she did, and bent her head to me, just a little. “You have my respect, Oliver. And my sympathy. It is a terrible thing to do.”

At that point Theo stepped out of the shadows near the door. “You seemed ready enough,” he observed. When she sent him a murdering look, he shrugged. “I told you I don’t play politics. I don’t. But you, my dear, stabbed me in the back. Quite literally.”

“I wanted to spare my sister the agony to come,” she said. “As you do now, Oliver. I think we understand each other well enough. Whatever this heretic liar has said …”

“We are all heretics together, now,” I said. “Theo’s beliefs are between him and God above.”

She laughed at that and crossed her arms. “Quite a change from you, the warrior of God.”

She was right. I had changed. Vampirism does that—carves away all the arrogance of your place in the world and forces you to accept new, starker realities. It builds a far different kind of arrogance, which both Naomi and I had in full, violent, dark portions.

“I task you with the attack, Naomi, but be certain you understand: you are not Amelie, nor will you ever be Amelie. You will not rule Morganville, now or ever, while I survive. I am her successor. Not you. We can dance around it until you try to stick your stake into my back, but I can promise you, I won’t be as forgiving or as just as Dr. Goldman. Are we clearly understood?”

That earned me a full, cool stare. Full of steel, this one, underneath all the fine manners and kind graces. I wondered if the humans who liked her really understood her depths. Likely not. Amelie had been the same, capable of things no one would have ever guessed, and she had possessed more of a human conscience than Naomi ever had. There were many bodies in this one’s past, and that was well before she’d taken the path of immortality.

Politics was a game of murder, and always had been.

That was why she believed me now. And why she bent her head, very slightly this time, to acknowledge my sovereignty. For now. She knew it was not the time to challenge me.

But the time would never come. Not for her.

I accompanied her out into the area where the vampires were gathering. Eve and Michael were there, parsing out bags from the ridiculous barrel that—so Myrnin said—held the final victory of the vampire nation; I supposed I should not feel so disappointed that the fight would not be won with steel and silver, but with something so … humanly mundane. It was not my affair any longer. Naomi quickly took charge, once I showed the flag and acknowledged that I made her commander; she tried to appropriate Michael and shut out Eve, a tactic I knew to be doomed from the start. I didn’t bother to enlighten her.

“But there is no place for a human in this fight!” Naomi said, trying for her usual innocent charm. “Michael, you must understand that I am only trying keep her from danger. There will be no mortals at risk in this fight.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Eve said. “You take him, you take me. Or you leave us both. We’re a package deal.”

“But—”

“No,” he said, and stared Naomi down. “We stay together. Eve’s told me about your little plots. You don’t get to have either of our backs.” He looked past Naomi to me. “You can punish me if you want, but I don’t trust her. Not with Eve.”

The boy was right. He had matured considerably, I thought, from the unsure, tragically trusting young man I had so nearly murdered on my first night in Morganville. I’d meant to turn him, make him one of my vassals, but instead the outcome had been … less ideal. He had not fully trusted me since, of course. I couldn’t blame him for that.

It was a little amusing that he trusted Naomi less.

“Remain here,” I told him. “You won’t be needed in this, in any case. Not if this chemical Myrnin so loves is truly effective.”

“Oh, it is,” Michael said. “I’ve seen it.”

“Then you won’t require his assistance,” I told Naomi.

“I thought you said I was to lead this attack.”

“You are,” I said. “Delegated to lead. Don’t confuse it with commanding.” I nodded to Michael and Eve, who nodded back and kept filling plastic bags with the chemical to hand to my … what were they to me, precisely? Vassals? No, they owed their allegiance, such as it was, to Amelie. Kinsmen? Some I might claim, but no.

They were my army, though. Mine. And a fierce and angry one that had finally seen the chance to strike back at an enemy that had haunted us since the earliest memories of vampires.

I did not see them off on their mission. There was no need; Naomi would not thank me for taking the focus from her moment of glory, and there was nothing I could add. Michael and Eve would stay or not, as they pleased; I had given them my blessing to do so. There was no sign of Shane, which was a very good thing. I did not need the complication of his involvement just now.

I returned to Amelie’s apartments, now unguarded; her loyal men and women had gone to fight the draug, of course. I opened the door to her bedroom and stopped there, because the sight was … grim.

Amelie was hardly recognizable now. Still fighting, because there was still a human form to be seen beneath that … growth, but she was losing, slowly and grimly. I pulled the soft silk comforter from beneath her to wrap around her body. I needed the full thickness to cover her. Once I had cocooned her so, I tied it off with ripped curtain cords, and took her slight weight over my shoulder. The smell of the draug settled around me, rotting fish and flesh, and I fought the urge to gag. She is not one of them. Not yet. I stopped breathing. A convenience of vampire physiology, but not always effective; our senses are too acute.

Smells pervade.