A Cat's Chance in Hell (31 page)

“
We, uh, came to make sure that you hadn’t killed each other,” a male voice said, sounding more than a little amused. “Apparently, you have it all under control though. Glad to see you’re both alive.”

“
Yes, Kyle,” Julius ground out from between his teeth, “as you can see we are both fine. We will be downstairs as soon as Gabi is feeling more herself.” He moved slightly away from her to look at the new arrivals, but held her in place with one hand.

She could feel her cheeks turn a bright flaming red as she caught a glimpse of Marcello, Charlie and Fergus peering around the doorway, surveying the mess with appraising eyes and sending furtive glances at the two of them lying on the floor. They were all trying unsuccessfully to conceal grins. Gabi simply closed her eyes and prayed for the carpet to open up and swallow her.

“
I distinctly remember telling the rest of you to stay away from here,” Julius’s voice had become hard and unfriendly. “I’m sure I can find some work for you if you find yourselves at a loose end.”

The rest of the Vampires very quickly seemed to remember something pressing they had to do and vanished, though the sense of their merriment lingered in the air. Kyle gave them a quick amused salute and left too, sauntering back out the door, neatly avoiding a broken chair with an assortment of knives and short swords embedded in the head rest.

Gabi watched as Julius rolled off of her completely, rose lithely to his feet and adjusted his pants slightly, she assumed to accommodate his raging erection. By the heat of his glare at the now empty doorway, his guard were going to find themselves with the most gruelling training he could come up with over the next several days.

“
I just remembered why I was so annoyed,” Gabi muttered darkly.

Julius tensed immediately, as though he expected her to lunge for Nex, but she had no desire to even move, she just tracked him with her eyes.

“
So, I’m not going to apologise for your office,” she said defiantly, “but I am sorry for cutting you. I don’t know what came over me. I have a nasty temper at times, but I’ve never lost control like that before.”

Julius bent down to her. “Come on, let me help you up, I want to see what other damage you’ve done to yourself, there’s a lot of glass lying around. How about I send for someone to the coffee shop, and then I’ll try to explain what happened.” He deftly lifted her into his arms and began negotiating his way out of the room.

Gabi couldn’t even raise the energy to argue with him about carrying her. She felt exhausted, languid and more than mildly frustrated, but also strangely vital, as though she had just had a two week holiday at a health spa. And her shoulder and ribs felt like there was nothing wrong with them. Weird.

“
Are you talking about the temper tantrum, or what happened afterwards,” she asked.

Julius snorted wryly. “Both, I guess. It’s going to be a long night.”

Julius took her downstairs back to the large room with the bar and deposited her on one of the couches. She’d felt a brush of his power as they swooped down the staircase, and she assumed he was ‘ordering’ coffee.

“
Sit still,” he said as he went over to the bar counter and came back with a small glass bowl.

She looked at the empty bowl in confusion, but he just smiled a tiny lift of his lips, and told her to lean her head back towards him. She gave him a dubious look but shifted so her head was closer to him. Realisation dawned when she felt his deft fingers in her hair and heard the plink of glass shards falling into the bowl. He continued running his fingers through her hair long after the sound of glass dropping into the bowl had stopped. Gabi found the feel of his fingers running through the strands of her curls so calming, so mesmerising and so sensual that she just couldn’t bring herself to tell him to stop. It just felt too damn good. Now she knew exactly why cats loved to be stroked over and over again, and why they purred, she felt like purring herself.

They were interrupted by a timid knock at the door. Julius flinched slightly as though he too had been on another plane of existence and had been brought back to reality with a thump.

“
Come in, Claudia,” he said, his tone slightly husky, and got up to take the tray from her. “Is Kyle still here?” he asked her. When she nodded silently he asked her to send him to join them. As he turned to take the coffee to Gabi he found her sitting up flexing her shoulder experimentally. His eyebrows knitted into a small frown.

“
I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I wasn’t particularly careful of your other injuries earlier. The surprise of seeing you in the Rage drove everything else from my mind.”

“
Apparently you don’t have too much to apologise for,” she said, continuing to rotate her arm. “My collarbone feels like there’s nothing wrong with it, and the ache is even gone from my ribs.” There was a look of wonder and confusion on her face now. “Look,” she gasped, showing him her wrists and hands. “The bruising is gone and my knuckles are almost healed.”

It was true; there were only faint greenish yellow remnants of bruising where the vivid red and blue imprints of his hands had been and only pale pink marks where her knuckles had been split, grazed and bleeding. She looked up at him in amazement.

He put a steaming coffee cup and a donut into her outstretched hands and smiled at her astonishment.

“
I told you that Vampire blood heals,” he said wryly, careful to keep any condescension out of his tone. They didn’t need a repeat of the Rage, best to keep her calm and not push any of her buttons right now.

“
Hmmmm,” she snorted, burying her nose in the warm steam rising from the coffee. “Maybe I should have listened. Then you and my traitor of a best friend wouldn’t have felt that you needed to leave me behind tonight,” she said grouchily as Kyle loped into the room. He was carrying Nex and her leather jacket which, miraculously, seemed to have survived unscathed.

“
Whoa,” Kyle said in mock astonishment. “Did she just say she should have listened to somebody?” When Gabi just glared balefully at him he turned dramatically overacted awestruck eyes on Julius. “Man, I never thought I would hear those words come out of that mouth.”

Julius saw the irritation flash across her face. “Gabrielle, keep calm, he’s just teasing. Kyle,” Julius said in a warning tone, “getting her angry right now is not a good idea. Grab yourself a beer and I’ll explain why.”

Gabi and Kyle devoured the box of donuts while they listened to Julius.

“
What you just experienced is known in the Vampire community as Red Rage. It is fairly common in recently turned Vampires. It is usually triggered by anger or irritation, occasionally even by fear or a shock, but the root cause is usually a lack of blood. It sometimes takes a young one a few months to figure out exactly how often they need to feed, those who have been underfeeding are more susceptible. The Rage initially builds slowly until the physical need to release the rage is so great that they have to act on the impulse or feel they will explode. Unfortunately, the physical release does little to calm the rage, and far more to incite it. In this state, nothing and no one near them is safe. The only way to halt the progress of the Rage is to physically restrain them until they’ve calmed down enough for the Red Rage to dissipate. Feeding helps, but that usually isn’t a good idea for the donor. It sometimes requires at least three or four Vampires to restrain one in this state, depending on the strength and skill of the young Vampire. The term Red Rage originated from the fact that when a Vampire is in the grip of this rage their eyes turn blood red.”

Gabi caught Kyle glancing surreptitiously at her eyes which were now only slightly blood-shot. Both of them were so utterly engrossed in the explanation that they didn’t even notice Alexander enter the room until he spoke from his position leaning against the door frame.

“
So she was in full blown Red Rage?” he asked, sounding surprised.

Gabi actually jumped.

“
Shit,” she swore almost spilling her coffee. “Damn freaky Vampire. Breath next time so we know you’re there,” she scowled at Alexander.

He walked forward to join them, amusement twinkling evilly in his cornflower blue eyes.

“
Alexander,” Julius said warningly.

“
Yes, yes, I know,” he said, “no pissing her off if we don’t want another demonstration of her destructive capabilities.” He folded himself into the couch next to Julius, looking thoughtful. “What do you think this means?” “I’m not sure,” Julius said slowly, but it was clear that he had some idea.

“
Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Alexander asked him with barely disguised excitement.

“
Will you two stop talking like telepathic twins and just spit it out?” Gabi ground out tiredly.

The two Vampires looked at each other and with a kind of awed reverence and said, “Dhampir,” at the same time.

Chapter 16

“
What?” Gabi and Kyle asked in synchronic confusion.

“
A Dhampir,” Julius repeated slowly.

“
What is a Dhampir?” she asked, carefully enunciating the unfamiliar word.

“
It’s a creature from Vampire legend. A bit like the Vampire equivalent of the Yeti.” Julius suddenly broke off when he saw the disbelieving outrage on Gabi’s face and rushed on to explain. “Er, that came out wrong, I don’t mean in appearance or behaviour. I mean that there are stories of them in Vampire folklore throughout the ages; theories on exactly what they are and how they came to be, descriptions in old books, but no one has ever been able to definitively prove their existence. The young ones dismiss the reports as pure fantasy, but many of the old ones believe there is a thread of truth to the stories.”

“
What exactly are they supposed to be, and why would you link the word to Gabi?” Kyle asked with a large dose of suspicion in his tone.

“
Legend says they are the offspring of a Vampire and human union.” Julius could see Gabi’s indignation rising again. He held up a placating hand. “Just let me finish, let me explain the myths and legends and then I’ll go on to the few facts that we know and the theories Alexander and I have worked on for the past few decades.”

“
Fine, go on,” Gabi subsided with a slightly disgruntled snort and set to devouring a chocolate covered donut.

“
This half-breed was assumed to come from the mating of a male Vampire to a human female, as it is physically impossible for a female Vampire to become pregnant or bear a child. Her body is in stasis once she is turned, unable to make the changes necessary to sustain a new life inside it. The theory is that a recently turned male Vampire still has viable er, sperm in, er… well…. you know.”

Gabi bit back amusement at Julius’s reluctance to speak of things like testicles in front of her.

“
His nutsack,” Alexander finished dryly for him, obviously having no aversion to using coarse language in front of a woman.

“
Thank you, Lex. I think I had the picture already,” she told him quellingly.

Alexander smiled with feigned innocence.

Julius cleared his throat and continued. “A bit like when a human male goes for a vasectomy and there is still a chance he could get a partner pregnant for a few weeks after the operation. Thus it was considered possible for a ‘young’ male Vampire to impregnate a human woman, and the child of that conception would be born with a combination of human and Vampire traits and abilities. Legend calls this child a Dhampir. They were reputed to grow quicker than normal, and be almost as fast and as strong as a Vampire, have better hearing, smell and eyesight as well as faster healing than a human, and would often have the same special ability of their sire, if their sire had one, though the power would be somewhat diluted.”

“
You’re talking about an ability like yours to control Vampires, or Danté’s to control Demons, right?” Gabi asked.

“
Yes,” Julius affirmed. “There are some other powers as well; such as the ability to completely bend a human to their will, not just the ‘stock-standard’ ability of ours to wipe or alter human memories or make them look the other way, a skilled Vampire like that can make a human commit suicide or murder their own child. Then there is telepathy, telekinesis and the ability to control animals.”

Gabi bit her lip to stop herself butting in again.

“
A Dhampir was supposed to be able to subsist on a diet of either human food or blood but did best on a combination of the two. They aged much slower than humans, but did age, and were resistant to sickness and disease that affected humans. They were not limited by the day and could walk in sunlight like a human without sustaining the damage that full Vampires do. They were also reported to be susceptible to the Red Rage throughout their lives, not just in their young days.”

Gabi now found herself under the intense scrutiny of all three men and glared back at them each in turn, then she brusquely indicated to Julius to carry on.

“
Many Vampires have tried to create Dhampirs in the belief that they could produce an army to protect them during the day, or loyal staff to run their businesses without drawing undue attention from humans and Magi. In fact, there are still those who are trying to find a way to create them. As far as any of us know, no one has every done it successfully. There have been a number of reported pregnancies from these attempts, but most of the children have been born perfectly normal indicating a human sperm donor rather than a Vampire one. A few have been stillborn, and some have had horrible physical birth defects and mental deficiencies and have not survived long. These latter ones seem more likely to have been progeny of a Vampire donor. It seems that the change does somehow affect the pre-existing sperm, but not in a good way.”