First Drop of Crimson

What were those?

Her stunned gaze diagnosed the shapes and she gagged. Pieces of a person were all around her. The glow of another vampire’s gaze reflected off something shiny on the small clump next to her leg. It was a hand, with a familiar gold and silver wedding band on it…

“You’re right,” Denise acknowledged, her voice husky with remembered grief. “I would have done anything to keep us together.”

Bones raised a brow. “So now you must ask yourself, do you feel the same way about Charles?”

Spade strode through the front doors of the mansion the same way he’d entered them yesterday—speaking to no one and heading straight to one place. This time, it wasn’t upstairs to the bedroom. It was downstairs, past the basement that was the living quarters of the half-dozen humans who were permanent residents here, to the guarded entrance of the cellar. The vampire standing at attention opened the door without a word, letting Spade into the narrow concrete reinforced hallway that had only two doors on opposite ends. The walls were so thick around those two rooms, Spade couldn’t hear a heartbeat to know which one Nathanial was in.

He was in the first one Spade checked, asleep on the narrow cot. The room was bare of most amenities, as it was a holding cell for brand-new vampires. A vampire took anywhere from a few days to a week to master the overwhelming hunger that would cause him or her to kill any human around. That was why these rooms were perfect to hold the shape-shifter. No matter what form Nathanial might take, he wouldn’t be able to breach the walls that had been built to withstand even a rampaging new vampire.

But Nathanial hadn’t changed from his normal form. Just in case, though, Spade closed the door behind him. It sealed with automatic locks. He’d need the intercom to inform the guard when to let him out.

“Wake up,” he said, giving the man a shake.

Nathanial lunged in a flurry of movement that had Spade pinning him against the wall with his fangs out, fury coursing through him at the attempted sneak attack. But once Nathanial’s eyes fully focused on Spade, the strength left his limbs.

“Oh, it’s you,” Nathanial said, slumping. “You startled me.”

Spade shoved Nathanial back on the cot. “Am I to believe that was an accident?” he asked with heavy sarcasm.

Those hazel eyes that were far too similar to Denise’s stared up at him. “You don’t know what normally happens when someone pounces on me while I’m asleep. I’ve learned to wake up fighting.”

Spade could imagine what. Package deals. He still couldn’t bring himself to pity the man. Not after what Nathanial had cost Denise—and now him—but it did make Spade enjoy the memory of slaughtering Web’s guards more. No one deserves to live after that.

“You couldn’t be more safe from me when it comes to that,” Spade responded. “I’m here to learn everything you know about killing demons.”

Nathanial smiled at that, making his face look even more boyish. He must have been quite young when he’d struck that deal with Raum. Twenty? Twenty-one?

“Now there’s a subject I like to talk about,” Nathanial said with obvious relish. “Just stab one in the eyes with that knife. Instant death.”

“What knife? A silver knife?”

The color drained from Nathanial’s face. “When you got me, you didn’t get the knife, too?”

“What. Knife,” Spade bit out, his temper already stretched to the breaking point.

Nathanial shot up with a moan, his movements far faster than a human’s should be. “How could you not know about the knife? You knew about me! You knew what I was, what the girl was, and how it happened. How could you not know about the fucking knife?”

Spade swatted him almost casually, sending Nathanial crashing back onto the cot. “Don’t waste your time railing at me when you should be answering my question.”

Nathanial’s lip was bleeding where Spade had hit him. He swiped at it immediately, wiping the blood on a blanket, eyeing Spade with tension reeking out of every pore. Then Nathanial let out a short, unamused laugh.

“You’re the first vampire in seventy years not to go after my blood. Even the guards, who were forbidden from tasting me, constantly snuck sips. I don’t even know how to react to you ignoring it.”

“React by telling me about the knife,” Spade replied in an icy tone.

“Only weapons made from their own bones can kill a corporeal demon. Because of that, demon bones are almost impossible to come by. If a demon kills another demon, they destroy the bones. But a demon will keep one weapon as defense against other demons. I stole the bone knife from the demon who branded me when I sent him back to the underworld. Just in case he ever returned.”

Spade considered this. His knowledge of demons mostly consisted of information about the noncorporeal ones who possessed humans, so what Nathanial said could be true. But then again, it could be utter shite.

One way to be sure.

Spade grabbed Nathanial, pinning him to the wall. The man struggled with considerable strength considering his heartbeat, but he couldn’t break Spade’s hold. What he did do was snap his eyes shut at Spade’s first move, however.

Clever sod. “I’m not going to hurt you. I only want to be sure what you’re telling me is the truth. Open your eyes.”

“No,” Nathanial gasped. “You could make me do anything.”

“For pity’s sake, you have nothing I want except your knowledge,” Spade replied curtly. “If that wasn’t true, why would I bother mesmerizing you? Anything else I’d want, I’m strong enough to take without using my gaze.”

Nathanial’s pulse thundered like hoofbeats from a stampede and he stank like fear, but slowly his lids fluttered opened. Spade let his power blaze forth, seeking to dominate the will behind those hazel eyes.

The lad was stronger here, too, than Spade would have imagined. Then again, Nathanial would need an iron mental fortitude to endure Web’s treatment the past several decades without going insane. Spade pushed that thought aside, because it led to a reluctant admiration that he couldn’t afford to feel.

“Open your mind,” Spade said, more power flowing from him.

He felt the snap of Nathanial’s will as if breaking it had made an audible sound. Then he pushed through the trailing cobwebs of consciousness until he was sure anything he asked Nathanial would be answered with the truth.

“How do you kill a demon?”

Nathanial repeated the same answer as before in a monotone Spade was used to hearing from someone enthralled. The lad hadn’t been lying. He must truly not know that revealing such information brought him closer to his own destruction.

“Why do you think I captured you?” Spade asked next, just to be sure.

“To save your girlfriend,” Nathanial mumbled. “So I could help her control the power from the marks.”

No, Nathanial had no idea what his fate was. Spade pushed back a flicker of remorse. He and Denise might not have a future together, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a future free from the demon’s essence. Spade would make sure Denise returned to being human just as she wanted, with her family safe. Through his own fault, Nathanial was the cost of that.

“Who has the knife?” Spade asked, though he had already guessed the answer.

“Web. Keeps it close to him always. Afraid of the demon killing him to get me back.”

No doubt Raum would indeed have tried to slaughter Web to regain Nathanial, if he’d known Web had him. But now Spade had him, and Web would know Nathanial would tell him about the knife.

Bloody hell, Web would be expecting Spade to try to take the knife. He’d know Spade needed it, just not for the same reasons Web had kept it.

Spade’s mouth twisted. Looked like Web would get another chance to kill him after all.

“You will never try to escape me,” Spade said, looking deeply into Nathanial’s eyes. “Say it.”

“I will never try to escape you,” Nathanial repeated dully.

Web had probably forced the same directive in Nathanial. The lad had fought with him as Spade dragged