A Cold Day in Hell (The Hellcat Series) (11 page)

Surprise flickered briefly across his face, and for a moment he seemed off balance. 

"Yes, answer the fucking question, Caspian."  Julius repeated her demand, a note of amusement covering the anger seething through him. 

Caspian put his hand over the head of the cane lying on the table, running his thumb over the sculpted wolf's head in a slightly agitated manner.  "I have no true loyalty to the Princeps.  I could see no good reason to tell them," he said finally. 

"So you're here to blackmail us?" Alexander asked.  "You want to see who will offer more for your information?"

Caspian looked insulted, truly insulted.  "I may be a
Clanless nomad, but I do have some integrity," he bit out.  "I simply hoped to be able to meet her, perhaps become some kind of friend or mentor."  His whole demeanour suddenly changed.  The arrogance and hauteur fell away, and a true smile lifted his mouth, lighting his eyes.  "What a discovery," he whispered almost reverently.  "How amazing, after all these centuries, that I should be the one to provide the key to unlocking the oldest of the forgotten secrets." 

Gabi found herself off balance again, trying to process the Spaniard's abrupt change of attitude. 

Alexander didn't have the same problem.  "You came here to see if you could pry her away from Julius and the rest of the Clan," he accused.  Caspian glared at the younger Vampire in outrage, but Alexander wasn’t finished.  "We've all heard the Dhampir rumours.  You think if you can get your bloodstained claws into her, you'll finally have the power you need to become a Master." Gabi had never heard Alexander sound so glacial.  "Fergus isn't the only one stories are whispered about behind closed doors." 

"No," Caspian almost shouted, semi-rising from his seat.  "That is not the truth."  He looked at Gabi, desperation suddenly creasing his features.  "Yes, all Vampires with a certain level of power want to reach the level of Master, and I am no exception, but that is not what this is about."  His expression pleaded with her to believe him.  There was a core of honesty in his statement, but Gabi couldn't bring herself to fully trust what he said.  "Please."  He looked to Julius now.  "Please just allow me to stay for a few days.  You must understand the awe I feel just being in her presence.  I just want to be able to speak to her, find out how she has developed her skills and talents.  How she is similar to me, how she is dissimilar.  I feel like a father just finding out he has a daughter he knew nothing about.  Please, Julius.  I will tell you everything I know from Court.  I have much insider information; there are bigger plots than you know of.  You have made powerful enemies." 

The whole room went still, waiting for Julius to respond.  The Caspian from ten minutes ago would have been easy to say no to, but this slightly desperate creature begging for scraps was a different story. 

"That would be a decision for Gabi to make," Julius said after a long pause. 

Her immediate reaction was to tell the Spaniard to leave this very second and never come back, but then she thought about what he'd said about insider knowledge from the Court.  Exhaustion suddenly rolled over her.  She felt the telltale symptoms of shock beginning to take hold of her muscles.

"I simply can't make this decision right now," she said, shaking her head.  "Either send him away now, Julius, or allow him to spend the night and day while we think this through." 

Julius nodded.  His hand came down over hers under the table, helping to still the tremors. 

"Fergus, Nathan," he said, "settle Caspian in one of the free cottages, and see to any of his needs.  A guard is to be set outside, not a Werewolf."  Then he addressed the Spaniard as he rose, pulling Gabi with him.  "
Hospitium
only extends to you as long as you respect the rules.  You will be restricted to staying inside the cottage until Gabi has made her decision.  Please do not try anything stupid." 

Caspian agreed with a slight nod, but as they stood and began to make their way to the door, he spoke again.  "You will be receiving a missive soon, Julius," he said quietly.  "They expect you to bring her to them.  If you don't cooperate, they will take matters into their own hands." 

The warning was clear, but it didn't make much sense to Gabi.  Julius nodded curtly; the news didn't seem like a surprise to him.  Somehow she made her legs work long enough to follow Julius from the boardroom.  As soon as Alexander closed the door on the others, she sagged, stopping to prop herself up with one hand on the wall.  Julius was beside her in a second, brushing her hair from her face and searching her expression before wordlessly lifting her into his arms.  She turned her face into the side of his neck, succumbing to the need to let his strength cocoon her against the shocks of the evening. 

********************

She stood before the long table, defiantly meeting the gaze of each of the twelve Vampires ensconced in their obscenely ornate chairs behind the outrageously ostentatious marble table.  Six male and six female, to a human eye ranging in age from teens to late fifties, but in truth all counted their ages in centuries.  Some dressed in modern attire, while others wore clothing more suited to the time and place of their birth.  Two of the women were strikingly beautiful, and one of the men would send most women into orgasm by simply looking in their direction.  Another looked no more than a teenager, and there was something off about that one, though she couldn't pinpoint exactly what was wrong.

Their physical traits meant little to her.  She knew that, to the uninformed, she appeared to be a dull, scholarly woman in her early twenties.  Looks could be deceiving. 
Very deceiving.  Dressed in pale, nondescript clothing—browns, beiges and creams—nothing about her stood out as noteworthy.  Blessed with plain features, several steps from beautiful but also not noticeably unattractive, she was the sort of person who could commit a murder in front of witnesses and not one of them would be able to tell the police anything useful about her appearance.  Her eyes were her only downfall.  One close look into her eyes and people recoiled.  Perhaps that silly sentiment about eyes and the soul were true after all.  Regardless, she tended to keep her eyes on the floor if she didn't want to be noticed.  Not today, though, right now she didn't care who knew what darkness was imprinted on her soul. 

She was peripherally aware of the other twenty-four Vampires in the large chamber, two bodyguards for each of the twelve seated Vampires, but they were not her concern. 

Though she fought to contain any outward signs of her anger, her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared.  If they thought facing the twelve of them would cow her, they were severely misguided in their assessment of her character, and her abilities. 

"I was under the impression we had reached an agreement the last time we met," she said in acid tones.  "Am I to understand that the Court of Princeps doesn't uphold its agreements?" 

"Now, now, my dear," one of the female Princeps said, "it is a little more complicated than that."

"Yes," agreed the oldest looking male of the group, "you weren't terribly forthcoming with information when you brought this matter to our attention."

"Our investigations have revealed that the situation is very delicate, and the players in this game are far more powerful than you realise," stated another male Vampire, with a heavy German accent.

"You have put yourself in the middle of a very dangerous situation, and did not openly declare the most relevant facts when we last negotiated," the older one continued.

Her irritation was quickly turning to anger.  "We negotiated a deal," she declared flatly.  "I gave you the information and showed you the proof."

"Well, we are about to renegotiate the deal, based on your withholding of certain facts." The older male seemed to speak for them all.  "We understand that you feel the death of your 'partner' warrants a death in return, but by our own laws we cannot condone the execution of a Master who was protecting his Clan and his City from an outside attack."

"Don't treat me like a child," she hissed.  "I know you can make it seem like an accident or a misunderstanding.  There are ways to accomplish this if you want to.  Why will you not just kill them as per our agreement?"

"There are forces at work you simply do not understand."  The female spoke up again.  "You cannot grasp the importance of the existence of the girl, and, at this time, the Master is our only way to control her.  We cannot risk losing the information she represents."

She dropped her voice an octave as she spoke this time. "There are those who will find it interesting to know that the Court of Princeps does not honour their word.  I will have my revenge, with or without your assistance."  They were obviously going to renege on their agreement, and they would pay for it.  She turned and strode towards the double doors that graced the entrance to the cavernous chamber.  Before she could reach them, two people stepped from the deepest shadows of the room and moved to block her exit.

"I'm afraid we cannot allow you to leave our Court quite yet, Dark Magus," an Arabic voice from the table called out. 

She swung back to them.  She knew the incredulity was clear on her face.  "You think you can keep me here?"  She allowed the amusement to drip from her voice.  Then the air around her began humming with power: a dank, musty feeling that crawled over the skin.  She knew the feeling well; it was the sensation one felt in the presence of dark magic.  The physical manifestation of being close to evil.

"Not
us, perhaps," mused the grey-haired Vampire, "but we think they can."  He smiled mildly at the newcomers to the chamber. 

She knew what they were immediately and attacked without hesitation, drawing from her reserves of power to lash at the pair of Dark Magi.  The blast of her power, created using the death magic from the sacrifice of several small mammals, should have knocked them unconscious to the ground, but instead the men smiled and seemed to draw in the force of her attack like a drowning man draws in his first breath of air.  She barely noticed that they were both male, dressed all in black, with pale ginger hair and black eyes.  She did notice that their features were identical.  The shock hit her almost like a physical blow. 
Gemini.  She knew the stories; every Magus child did.  The bogeymen of the Magus world.  The ones who came to get you when you were naughty.  They were a legend, a fairytale, make-believe.  Or so she'd thought.  Until now. 

She desperately tried to use her magical blast again.  She still had some power reserves, but her attempts only made their grins widen as they neared her, step by inexorable step.  In unison they lifted their right hands, palms towards her, and chanted a few indecipherable words.  Hard, invisible bands fastened around her, robbing her of breath, binding her limbs, and crushing her throat so that
no sound could escape.  Panic sent her heart racing, trying to crash through her ribcage.  She frantically tried to draw the last of her power to protect herself, but her reserves were empty.  Utterly, inexplicably empty.  For the first time in many years she knew true terror.

Gemini flicked their hands in precise unison, and she was suddenly lying on the hard, tiled floor, immobile and screaming inside.

"You see, Marisol, you are not the only Dark Magus in the world and also not the most powerful," said the German Princep as all twelve of them stood in a circle, looking down at her.  "Take her to the protected holding cell."

********************

Gabi could hear the men talking in low voices and smell the delicious scent of hot food before she opened the door to Julius's office.  The scalding shower had been hard to step out of, and she'd taken a little longer than she'd meant to.  Julius had assured her that they wouldn't discuss anything important while she was gone, but she knew that 'important' was subjective.  She didn't want to miss anything, especially after being kept in the dark for so long.  She and Julius were going to have words over that.  Still, being clean of the ash and blood, and wearing fresh clothing, had restored some of her composure.

The room was more crowded than she'd expected.  Kyle had arrived and was tucking into a large hamburger.  Several other burgers, containers of fries and bottles of Coke festooned a low-slung coffee table to one side of the room.  The smell sent her stomach into a growling frenzy.  A few chuckles escaped the Vampires dotted around the room.  She mock snarled at them as she made a beeline for the food.  Fergus made way for her near the table.  Liam, Nathan and Patrick had all fallen silent at her arrival, melting back against walls and bookshelves, allowing her a clear view of Julius, who'd been pacing the breadth of the room behind his desk.  He'd stopped when she entered, and stood behind his leather office chair, his arms folded, his eyes guarded, looking her over
assessingly.  Alex was half-sitting on the front corner of the desk and looked as sombre as she'd ever seen him.

"Carry on," Gabi told them as she pulled a chair over to the food and sat before opening the nearest burger box.  Cheese, bacon and onion rings—she was practically drooling like Pavlov's dog.  The silence continued as she attacked the food, and then Kyle, in his typical break-the-ice style, spoke around a mouthful of burger.

"Julius and Alex were just explaining your visitor's power over Werewolves," he told her, chasing the burger with half a bottle of Coke and burping loudly.