Zen and the Art of Vampires

'We are all Dark Ones, yes,' the one named Christian answered. He made a little bow to me, although I noted he shot Alec a questioning glance.

Alec answered by putting his arm around me and hauling me up to his side. 'Pia is not Zorya by choice. She is not responsible for what is happening here.'

'You know, I really can speak for myself,' I said, a tiny bit irritated with Alec's protective gesture. I twisted my way out of his hold and gave Christian, who clearly held some sort of a position of authority with the others, a level look. 'I did not choose to become Zorya, that's true, but I have accepted the job now, and I am, in fact, responsible for my own actions. But…' I stopped, puzzled. 'I thought you were in Vienna. Isn't that where you were trying to take me?'

Kristoff, to whom I had addressed the last question, quirked his lips. 'Yes.'

'We took a portal,' Christian answered as the blond vampire walked around me, obviously examining me.

'A what, now?' I asked.

'A portal allows one to move from one area to another quickly, via a tear in the fabric of time and space,' Christian answered.

My mouth hung open for a minute before I turned to Kristoff. 'You guys can teleport like in Star Trek?'

'Not quite,' Alec answered for him. Kristoff shot his friend an unreadable look. 'But it's a similar principle. We don't use them often, since they can be tricky at best, but they are sometimes used in a time of emergency.'

'Which this clearly is.' Sebastian finished his examination of me and resumed his spot next to Christian. 'An unmade Zorya, a sacristan, and a reaper elder—not a bad day's work.'

Kristoff hauled Mattias to his feet and shoved him into the chair. At the sight of the latter's angry face, it struck me that Frederic wasn't anywhere in the room. 'Did you hurt Frederic?'

'Unfortunately, no. He escaped,' Kristoff's cousin Rowan said as he entered the room from the kitchen. He had a nasty burn on the side of his face, which, to my amazement, started fading even as I watched. 'He had a car. The last I saw of him, he was headed out of town.'

'You won't catch him,' Mattias said sulkily. 'Not before the Zenith gets here.'

Christian spun around and stared at him in surprise. 'Your leader is coming here?'

'To welcome Pia as a daughter of the moon.' Mattias shot me an angry glance. 'I am beginning to believe Kristjana when she says that you do not deserve to be Zorya.'

'I think it's safe to say that Kristjana is not the most mentally stable person in town,' I said dryly. 'And I only know four of the six vampires here, and out of those four, three of them hate me, so you really needn't be so quick to judge.'

'The Zenith is coming,' Christian said softly, sharing a look with his friends. 'How very interesting.'

The one named Sebastian smiled. It made me shiver.

'Why do I have a horrible idea that I'm going to be used as bait to capture yet another member of the Brotherhood?' I asked Alec.

He brushed a strand of hair from my face. 'It must be, Pia. The Zenith is the leader of the reapers—to have him is to deal a great blow to them.'

'And if I say I won't cooperate?'

'You will not have a choice,' Christian answered. He strolled over to gaze down into my eyes, holding my gaze with one that seemed to strip away everything and leave me bare and exposed. 'You are a Zorya, a potential means of horrible death to my people. We cannot allow you to gain the power to do that. Do you understand?'

'Oh, I understand.'

'Good.' Christian nodded and released me from his hold.

'I understand that you're just as blind as the Brotherhood people are.'

All six vampires froze, and I realized just how stupid a thing it was to challenge them when they were en masse. But I have never been known for having an overabundance of common sense, so I raised my chin and added, 'It obviously doesn't occur to you that perhaps I can be a Zorya who doesn't destroy your people. And yet, that is exactly what I intend to do. Assuming, I can, that is.'

I shot a quick look at Alec and Kristoff. Alec was looking puzzled, while Kristoff avoided my eye all together.

'And how do you propose to do that?' Christian asked in a velvety soft voice. He had an odd sort of an accent, part English, part something slightly Germanic, but as nice as his voice was, it was nothing like the silky tones that Kristoff could utter when he so chose.

I dragged my mind from that subject to the one at hand. 'A lot of that depends on your answer to a question.'

Christian's eyebrows rose. 'What is the question?'

'Did you kill Anniki?'

He frowned.

'The other Zorya.'

His brow cleared. 'Ah. The one Kristoff said was discovered in your hotel room.' He was silent for a moment. 'Her death, while unlamented by my people, was not caused by any of them.'

I stared hard at him, trying to read his body language. I had a pretty good sense of when someone was lying to me, and his words rang true. Of course, it could be that one of the vampires had killed her, and just not told his buddies, but that didn't seem very likely. 'You may not have mourned her death, but I did. She was innocent of any wrongdoing. She hadn't been formally recognized as a Zorya, so she couldn't have hurt any of you.'

'The point is moot,' Sebastian said with a note of finality. 'Sooner or later, she would have destroyed us, just as you would have done if Kristoff had not taken steps to stop you.'

'You mean the marriage?' I asked him.

He nodded.

'Marriage?' Mattias's face turned red. 'You married a Dark One?'

'Yes, but not legally,' I said, trying to calm him down before he burst.

'It was a legal marriage,' Kristoff said stubbornly.

I raised an eyebrow at him, crossing my arms. 'Possibly, but you know, I've been thinking about this, and everything I've seen and heard the last few days has left me with the idea that a group like the Brotherhood is more likely to accept as valid a marriage ceremony that I agreed to and participated in willingly over one where the groom had to bribe people to make it happen, forge the bride's signature, and bring in false witnesses.'

Silence filled the room.

'That is a good point,' Christian said thoughtfully, his gaze on Mattias.

The latter's face suddenly broke into a grin. 'Then you are my wife.'

'Don't get too excited—that's only a supposition,' I said, suddenly worried that Mattias might demand marital rights. 'I don't know for sure which marriage is real.'

'It is a reasonable point, nonetheless,' Alec said, glancing at Kristoff.

'And one which means that the reaper here could still pose a danger if Kristoff's marriage won't stand,' Sebastian added, nodding at me.

I sent him a quick glare. 'Even if it's true, it doesn't mean I'm any such thing. I am not going to hurt anyone.'

The silence that followed that statement was filled with disbelief.

I turned to Alec as the most reasonable of the men present. 'Before Anniki died, she begged me to make things right. 'Let justice roll down like waters,' she said, and I have done my best to do just that. I will find her murderer, and see that he or she receives justice for that act. But I will not persecute the innocent. I didn't want the job, but now I have it, and assuming that I am given the power to back it up, by god, I'm going to do the best I can with it. I have ghosts I'm responsible for,' I said, waving my hand around the room.

My little gang had been oddly absent, but I saw now that they had just been hiding. They stepped forward now, all of them, out of the walls, from behind the furniture, and from the doorways. All of them solidified for a moment, until the room was filled with them.

Mattias's eyes bugged out of his head as he took them all in.

Ulfur strode forward until he stood in the center of the room, addressing Christian. 'We will not let harm