Burning (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #1) (5 page)

“
Formally? Interesting. Well, I have no explanation for her compassion and mercy, except that she wanted me on this bizarre mission of yours and made it so. But vampires killed my parents and my brother. That makes them fair game for my revenge. On my terms.”

“
Just think about our offer, Rand. But, for tonight, will you please help me?”

“
Yes. I’m going to take down this vampire the old-fashioned way, with silver to the heart. I’ve still got silver-tipped arrow bolts in my arsenal, but no bow. I can use them at close range, like a bullfighter sticks a bull.”

“
This bloodsucker travels with an entourage, too.”

“
He does?”

“
Oui
, but they are human, as far as I know. The palest of blood slaves, wasting away, serve him a drink at a time and then re-up to do it again, as he rotates between them.”

“
What a sick, selfish existence, dragging around a live smorgasbord. What’s this leech-on-society’s name?”

“
Vlad Tepes.”

Now I think I went pale. “Wait, wait
, wait
. Are you saying that
Vlad the Impaler
is one of Rudolph’s murderers, and is our mark tonight?”

“
Yes, Rand. The one-and-only Dracula.”

Chapter Six

             
I had another adrenaline surge that made me see stars before my eyes.

“
This is extremely dangerous, Gabby, and I’m gonna call you Gabby, so get used to it. Vlad is one of the oldest, most powerful vampires in the history of the world. This guy is one generation removed from Satan. He’s gotta be five hundred years old if he’s a day. I had no idea that Dracula 1.0 was even still kicking.”

“
He is indeed, still kicking. He vowed to kill me before the year is out. There’s a contract out on me.”

“
A blood oath? That’s serious. Why does he want to kill you so bad?”

“
Last year, I killed his vampire lover.”

“
You’ve got some balls, woman!”

“
Yes, I do. He took Rudolph from me. So—”

“
Whoa. An eye for an eye?”

“
I admit,
monsieur
, that I had biblical justice in mind when I killed her. She was a vampire who had never personally done a thing to me, but she killed more than six hundred people as a human being and many more as a vampire.”

I digested this. “Who was this vampire woman you killed?”

“Elizabeth Bathory.”

My mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

“
Why did you do that? I mean, why
her
?”

“
Elizabeth Bathory was a means to an end. I wanted to rid the world of her likes. But mostly, I wanted to hurt Vlad in the way that he had hurt me.”

I was appalled. “Do you have any idea how sick that sounds? How cold and calculating?”

“I do. But it’s not revenge on my agenda tonight.”

“
Then what
is
your agenda?”

“
Protecting other humans from this monster is our duty and goal. Vlad was with the ones who killed Rudolph—my lover, your brother.”

“
I’ve been searching for them for years. Who are the others who killed Rudolph?”

“
We think their names are Nero and Delilah.”

Admittedly, this is the first that I even knew their names. My heart raced appropriately. “How do you know this?”

“Intelligence gathering. We have a computer guru, Jade, and she mines the internet and we check out leads. We have paid informants, on occasion.”

I chewed on the names. “Nero and Delilah. Surely not the historical figures?”

“Of course they are.”

I was suddenly thunderstruck. I pulled out my wallet.

“What is it, Rand?”

“
I want to show you something I have carried in my wallet since the day Rudolph died. I found it next to his body. It never made sense until now.”

I reached into the secret compartment of my wallet and pulled out the item and showed it to her. She asked if she could examine it and I said sure. She turned it over in her hand. “It’s a bronze coin,” she said, then looked at me. “With Nero Caesar’s face on it.”

“You know your numismatology. Does he always leave his coin next to the dead? Like a serial killer’s calling card?”

“
Oui,
” she said, shuddering. “Put it away,
s’il vous plait
. I can’t look at his face.”

“
Now we know. Nero killed Rudolph. Or at least took partial credit for it.”

“
I wouldn’t put it past him to even be involved in your parents’ deaths, too.”

How and why they were connected, I didn’t know, but I know one thing: he needed to die. They all did. I said, “Maybe Vlad will leave us clues to where the others are.”

“We think so.”

I thought about this, pacing in the confined quarters of Gabby’s room. “How many people do you think have tried to kill Vlad over the centuries?”

“Hundreds. Including Rudolph. They all failed.” She shrugged. “You won’t even help me tonight, Rand?”

“
Of course I will! This one time, I’ll help. For
Rudolph.
But I want to let you know that we’re probably going to get killed tonight, so any long-term promises, like me joining your organization, would be moot.”

“
Call it a hunch.”

Chapter Seven

We grabbed a bite to eat and I tanked up on fluids.

For some reason, flying with Samantha left me dehydrated. As we set up for Gabrielle’s intimate nightclub show, I pondered Rudolph’s killers; Vlad appeared not to have been the actual murderer, but an accomplice. That was good enough for me. He deserved my silver arrow in his heart.

The wheels turned in my head. Nero had been Rudolph’s probable murderer—the coin left at the murder scene clinched it for me. Nero had been accompanied by Vlad the Impaler, who was on the cruise ship with us now—and was apparently pissed off at Gabby for offing his lover, Elizabeth Bathory. As I remembered from studying history, which was Dad’s passion after astronomy, Bathory had bathed in the blood of virgins and had been a psychopathic killer. I had not known she was a vampire, too. Of course, history books would not report that.

Also according to Gabrielle, the other killer connected with Rudolph’s death was likely Delilah.
The
Delilah, slayer of Samson the mighty from the Bible. Now, things were getting damn weird.

I tried wrapping my head around these famous names. Jesus, Dracula? As in Count Dracula? Well, not quite. Dracula was conjured by the dark imagination of Bram Stoker.

But Vlad Tepes, of course, was real. As the one-time king of Romania, Vlad the Impaler was a real historical figure—and a real monster. Which is why Bram Stoker had chosen him as the model for his own vampire, Dracula.

Except, of course, now I wondered if Bram Stoker had known more than he had let on—or had stumbled upon the truth.

Or maybe I’m just crazy.

My head swam as I worked alongside Gabby. Famous or not, these old vampires would be extremely powerful as individuals. Yes, I’d faced down old vampires...and barely survived. Tonight was going to be a long night.

Perhaps most importantly, I was finally getting somewhere with the identities of the three vampires who had killed Rudolph. I was daunted by one of the killers’ names. Delilah. I mean...holy crap, she’d taken down Samson!

Yes, the very old Fullerton vampire—the one who had turned Samantha Moon into a vampire—had been hard to kill. I suspected the three who had murdered Rudolph were much older vampires than the Fullerton vampire—and therefore, even more powerful. It was my belief that the longer a vampire existed, the more powerful he or she grew, with each meal, with each life taken.

What would it take to defeat them? I hoped Vlad would go down easily, but I knew the likelihood of that was slim. Like I said...it was gonna be a long night.

“
Sound check,” Gabrielle said into the mic while the silver-haired guy adjusted his equipment. After he got the sound perfect, he came over to me.

“
Lucas,” he said, holding out his hand. The name registered with me. Ah, yes. The leader of their little vampire hunting club.

“
Rand,” I said, and we shook hands, measuring each other. Or, at least, I measured him.

“
Let’s talk strategy?” he said after a moment.

“
Vampire killing strategy?” I asked.

He gave me a half grin. “Of course.”

And we did just that, discussing our options, our roles, our places. It was a decent plan. But, with all vampire-killing plans, it was going to rely on a lot of luck.

As Lucas walked back to the sound equipment. He was alert, as was I. We glanced from each other to Gabrielle and his anxiety was palpable. My own heart rate increased.

Cruise guests lined up outside the nightclub’s doors, but they wouldn’t be unlocked until we got set up and I did a safety check. I quickly walked around the perimeter and checked the catwalks above us. I also checked the restrooms.

“
Security is clear,” I reported.

Gabby nodded.

Earlier, I’d showered and dressed in the clothes that she’d provided, and they fit me fairly well. I had glanced at Gabby and she only nodded, confirming my suspicions.

“
Yes, Rand. They were your brother’s clothes.”

“
Why did you give them to me?” I asked, aghast. A chill coursed through me.

“
We want you to pass for Rudolph. For your safety on the ship, we are using his ID for you. To a stranger, you would pass for him. Most of all, we want to freak out the vampires who think they killed Rudolph.”

“
You want them to think Rudolph is immortal?”

“
Exactly.”

“
Why?”

“
To give you perceived power. It’s the first time we have ever tried to trick them like this.”

“
I wonder what they’ll think. I gotta tell ya, Gabrielle, this is pretty amazing that you are a famous singer
and
a vampire hunter.”

“
Staying busy helps with the long-term grief over Rudolph.” Warming up her voice, she sang a few bars of Edith Piaf’s
La Vie En Rose
into the mic.

“
Nice. You have that whole throaty-girl-who-smokes-Gauloises voice going on.”

“
Very funny.”

“
Truth is, except for barbecues, I have a pet peeve: I hate anything that’s burning because it messes up my sharp sense of smell. If you quit smoking now, maybe you’ll soon be able to smell well enough to spot knock-off perfume in an airport duty-free shop. And maybe you’ll still be around to sing in your old age if I teach you how to sniff out the vamps.”

“
If Vlad gets to me tonight, before I get to him, the fat lady will have sung for the last time.”

“
You aren’t fat. You’re curvy. Rudolph liked the curvy types with that somethin’-somethin’ walk.”

“
You remind me so much of Rudolph. The cadence of speech. Your sense of humor.”

“
I aim to please,” I said lightly.

She tilted her face up at me and I saw the shine of tears run down her cheeks. Alarm bells went off in my head as the spotlight shone on the moist, red lips that trembled for Rudolph. The way she looked at me was the way that a woman looks at a lover. I could smell intimate physical desire on her—and it shocked me.

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m very married and we have a child. You were my brother’s woman. Therein lay my boundaries. Forever.”

“
Boundaries are good. I suppose,” she said, clearly a little disappointed.

“
You’re a nice woman who can’t let go of my brother—I look like him, so this must be painful for you. I’ve spent much of my life dogging Rudolph’s footsteps, both alive and dead. It wasn’t until recently that I began to stop trying to follow him and be my own man.”

“
But you still want to kill his killers?”

“
Of course. He was my brother. I loved him.”

She looked away, wiping her eyes.

“You’re gonna wreck your mascara,” I said softly.