First Drop of Crimson

Oliver drove at speeds that would have normally frightened Denise, but she said nothing. Master vampires could run better than sixty miles an hour. Some could fly that fast—or faster. Oliver had reason for hammering the pedal down on the accelerator.

“I think he killed him,” Nathanial murmured. A smile lit his face, making him look heartbreakingly young, even though Denise knew he had to be decades older than she. “I think the fucker’s finally dead!”

“I’m sure he did kill Web,” she said, remembering the expression on Spade’s face as he’d approached the other vampire. Denise repressed a shiver. If she ever saw that look on someone’s face, she’d know death would soon follow.

“I’ve hated vampires for more than seventy years, but I love a few of them tonight,” Nathanial said. His voice held such a savage satisfaction that it vibrated. “I hope he kills them all. Every last fucking one of them.”

Denise didn’t say anything stupid like, Was it really that bad when Web had you? Of course it was. If nothing else, at least Nathanial could feel avenged tonight.

But she couldn’t help but ask one thing. “Why did you do it? Why did you make that deal with Raum?”

Oliver gave her a censuring glare in the rearview mirror. “You shouldn’t talk to him,” he muttered. “Spade said he didn’t want you to.”

Nathanial stared at her, his face paling. “What did you say?”

“Why did you make that deal?” Denise repeated, ignoring what Oliver said about not talking to him.

Nathanial still stared at her like she’d somehow sprouted horns and a tail. His mouth opened and closed several times before he managed to speak.

“You know his name. I never told anyone the demon’s name. How do you know his name? ”

“Don’t talk to her,” Oliver all but growled from the front seat.

Denise drew in a deep breath, meeting Nathanial’s shocked hazel gaze. As she stared, she could almost see the knowledge forming in his eyes. Could almost feel the horror emanating from him as he pieced together the answer to his question.

“He sent you after me,” Nathanial whispered. “That’s why your boyfriend stole me from Web’s. Not to help you control the power in your brands, but to return me to him.”

Chapter Thirty-four

The sound that came out of Nathanial’s throat would haunt her. It was a cross between a sob and the most despairing laugh Denise had ever heard.

“I should have known,” Nathanial said, still making that awful, keening cackle. “They never let me around you, which I thought was odd since I was supposed to be there to help you. Then they never asked me to tell you about the tricks I’d learned to stop the change, in addition to keeping the baser urges under control. There are meditations, certain herbs you steep together to drink…but none of that matters now, does it?”

Oliver slowed down enough to laser a glare on Nathanial. “Do not speak to her again,” he said.

“Stop it!” Denise cried out. “Let him speak.”

“Spade doesn’t—”

“I know Spade doesn’t want me talking to him,” Denise interrupted. “But even condemned prisoners get to have their last words.”

Then she gave Nathanial a steady look. “You never answered my question. Why did you do it? Do you have any idea what your decision ended up costing me? Raum murdered I don’t know how many members of my family looking for you. He threatened to kill the few that were left and branded me to force me to find you. You deserve to talk, but I deserve to know why.”

“I don’t have a good reason. I was a dirt-poor farmer in the eighteen sixties who stumbled onto the occult after a feverish priest stayed at my home. While he was raving, he talked about demons. It didn’t scare me; it fascinated me. I’d always dreamed of being more than I was, and the priest unwittingly gave me the tools to do that. When he got better, I tricked him into believing I wanted to aid his work, but I really sought to learn how to summon and trap a demon instead.”

Nathanial paused and sighed. “I was nineteen. Young, stupid, and arrogant. After I summoned Raum and bargained for long life and power, I sent him back to where he came from. I thought no one would be hurt. But then I found out I couldn’t control the effects of his brands. I’d wanted to be powerful, but I didn’t want to change into monsters from my nightmares. I found the priest I’d deceived and begged him for help. Together we learned how to curb the triggers to transformation and how to control what I changed into, when that still wasn’t enough. When he died, he left instructions for other priests to help me. It was one of them who told me about vampires, and how a vampire demonologist might be able to mute my brands in case Raum ever returned. I got the tattoos and I thought…I might be able to live a semi-normal life then. But the vampire who took me to the demonologists knew my blood was different. And after I got the tattoos, he sold me to Web.”

“You bargained your soul to a demon,” Oliver said without pity. “You deserve what you have coming to you.”

“I know I deserve it!” Nathanial shouted. “You don’t know how many times I’ve wished I could turn back the clock so I never made that bargain, but I did. All through the past seventy years with Web, through every awful, degrading thing that they did to me, the only thing that kept me sane was knowing it could always be worse.” His voice broke with pain. “And now it will be, and I know it’s no more than I deserve, but that doesn’t make me any less afraid.”

Denise thought of her murdered cousins and aunts, her parents, and Raum’s howling threats that he’d kill the rest of her family if she didn’t return the man sitting across the seat from her. Then she thought of Randy’s brave smile before he went out that basement door, and the guilt and cowardice that had filled her ever since.

“If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?” she asked Nathanial quietly.

“That’s easy.” His voice was a rasp. “I want to live without being afraid or used or ashamed. I want a second chance.”

Denise closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, she knew what she had to do.

“Oliver, pull over for a second,” she said.

He gave her a measured glare. “I’m not letting him go, no matter what you say.”

“I know,” Denise replied. “I just want you to stop for a moment. I promise, I won’t ask you to let him go.”

Oliver gave her a wary look, but pulled over to the side. Nathanial let out a weary grunt.

“Don’t worry. I couldn’t make a run for it even if I wanted to—and believe me, I want to. But Spade must’ve done something to me when he tranced me. I can’t make myself even grab the door handle to open it.”

“Good,” Oliver said shortly, glancing around before putting the car in park. He met Denise’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “It looks safe enough here for the moment, what do you want?”

Denise took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

And then she whipped up the gun Spade had left for her in the backseat and smashed the butt of it against Oliver’s head.

Spade prowled the docks, looking for any more of Web’s people. The scent of death hung in the air, sharpened with the harsher aroma of undead blood. Spade savored it. It was the scent of Denise’s safety.

The fighting had been brutal, but now most of Web’s people were dead. A few had managed to run off completely. Cat and Crispin were busy stacking the bodies into one of the larger boats, where an explosion would give them a modern version of a Viking funeral. In Spade’s opinion, it was more dignified than they deserved, but they couldn’t leave them out in the open as they were for humans to find. Flames would burn off any paranormal