Duncan (2 page)

An accident had snarled traffic on the Beltway, and Miguel zipped across several lanes, utilizing the lightning fast reflexes granted by his vampire blood. Duncan grinned. “Still a terrible driver, I see.”

“Not true, my lord. The accident was already there.”

Duncan laughed, but sobered immediately. “What about Victor’s guests?”

“It’s a small dinner party, just Victor and three humans—a couple of legislators and a K Street scumbag with lots of money to hand out. All males, which is par for the course with Victor. As far as I know, he has no plans to bring in any women tonight, but even if he did, it wouldn’t be until much later.”

“Prostitutes?”

“I don’t think so. Not most of them, anyway. There’s no shortage of women in this city who will party with a man if he’s got enough power. And power is what matters here. Money goes hand in hand, but power means access, and that’s everyone’s number one prize.”

 “Very well. You and Louis handle the human gate guards. I’ll take care of Victor’s two vampires at the front door. That needs to be done quickly and carefully so he doesn’t sense anything amiss too soon. Once we reach the dining room, I’ll deal with the human dinner guests. I want them out of the way. After that, Victor has to be mine, but we can play it by ear when it comes to taking down his remaining two vampires. You need to be ready to deal with them.”

“My lord, we can wash the human gate guards’ memories after Victor is taken care of. Let Louis and me deal with the vamp guards at the door, while you—”

Duncan turned to look at Miguel, keeping his voice even, but frosting it with the slightest touch of his power. “I want the humans secured first, Miguel. I can handle Victor
and
his guards, if necessary.”

“Yes, my lord.”

They turned off the Beltway, zipping down streets one after the other, all of them nearly empty late on a Tuesday night. Duncan had studied maps of the neighborhood, but it wasn’t the same as being here. He’d also memorized floor plans of the vampires’ official residence in the city. Some humans referred to the house as the vampire embassy, which was a good enough, if inaccurate, description.

The residence itself was a big 19th century colonial that in pictures reminded Duncan of the great mansions of his youth in the Deep South. He could only hope this particular house had enjoyed significant renovation since its construction a hundred years ago. If not, it would soon. He had no intention of living with cranky plumbing or nonexistent air conditioning.

Fortunately, the residence sat on an unusually large parcel of land adjacent to the embassy district. With two full acres backed by Rock Creek, a wall surrounding the entire property and only a single gate, the estate should have been nearly impregnable. But it wasn’t. There were holes in the house’s security that one could literally drive a truck through. And that, too, would change once Duncan took over.

Because the vampire embassy was about to get a new ambassador. They just didn’t know it yet.

Chapter Three

Miguel called Louis on his cell to let him know they were coming in. When they made the final turn, Louis was waiting in the middle of the street, his pale eyes gleaming nearly white in the headlights. He grinned when he saw them and stepped to the side so that Miguel could pull up next to him.

“Sire,” Louis said as he climbed into the back seat. “Thank you for letting me be a part of this.”

Duncan turned around enough to hold out his hand. Louis took it carefully at first, then gripped it tightly when Duncan did the same. Duncan could feel the calluses on Louis’s palm and fingers from the weights he’d lifted most of his life, even before Duncan had turned him.

“It’s good to see you, Louis. As I told Miguel, the two of you will take care of the humans at the gate, while I deal with the vampire guards just inside the residence. And once we get into dining room, I want the humans out of there. I can hold off Victor.”

“My lord, all
four
of Victor’s guards will be inside the house with him.”

“I’m aware of that,” Duncan said. He held back a smile as he remembered all the times he’d been overly protective of Raphael—and how much it had irritated the Western Vampire Lord.

“It’s the house in the cul-de-sac, my lord,” Miguel said, his voice tight with anticipation as they drew closer to the estate.

Duncan turned to get his first in-person view of the residence. It didn’t
look
like a fortified embassy. With cherry trees peeking over the top of a too-short perimeter wall and two chimneys puffing white smoke into the cold air, it looked more like a place where Mom and Dad were raising their 2.5 children and letting the dogs run in the yard. Assuming Mom and Dad had a whole lot of money and enough paranoia to build a wall around their home, even a short one.

“Time to rock and roll,” Louis whispered, and Duncan smiled grimly.

They rolled up to the wrought-iron gate, and Miguel dropped his side window with a faint buzz of sound. Frosty air rushed in, and Duncan smelled the creek which ran behind the house, along with a faint hint of snow. All of that disappeared beneath the overwhelming scent of human as the guard bent into the window to check them out.

Miguel had been on the premises once before, ostensibly to offer his services when he’d first moved here from California and set up a security business in Virginia. “Miguel Martinez,” he told the guard. “Lord Victor is expecting us.”

The human opened his mouth to say something, probably to protest that he wasn’t aware of Lord Victor expecting
anyone
, but then his eyes glazed over and he blinked slowly. He smiled and nodded, waving them in.

“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” Louis murmured from the back seat.

Miguel nearly choked on a laugh as the guard stepped back into the shed and triggered the gate mechanism.

“Enough, gentlemen,” Duncan said quietly. He understood their excitement. His own blood was thundering with anticipation. But this was a dangerous thing they were about to do, and he didn’t want them to fool themselves into thinking otherwise.

“Forgive me, my lord,” Louis breathed.

Duncan nodded, but his attention was already on the big, white house, his power reaching out to lightly touch the vampires inside. All but Victor. The others wouldn’t notice his touch, but Victor might.

“Very lax security,” he commented mostly to himself. “Two vampires together inside, near the front door.” He frowned. There was a buzz of something, some underlying power that confused him. He wanted to explore it further, but there was no time, and it was too weak and unfocused to represent a danger to his plans for the evening. It would have to wait.

“Miguel,” he said, “you and Louis take out the remaining human guards gently. Check the barracks, as well. I don’t want anyone raising an alarm, but there’s no reason to hurt them either. Then join me inside. We’ll take the dining room together.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Duncan opened the car door while Miguel was still braking. He sped up the brick steps two at a time, sending a tight needle of power ahead of him to burn out the electronic lock on the front door. The security bolts released with a solid thunk and the door swung open. Duncan stepped inside, his eyes doing a fast sweep of the area while the two vampires on guard were still dragging their attention from the big screen TV to stare at him in surprise. He didn’t wait for them to recover their wits. He reached out with his power and seized their hearts, squeezing until they dropped to the floor. They weren’t dead. Victor was corrupt, but he wasn’t weak. As the Sire of these two vampires, and especially at such close proximity, he would certainly feel it if they died, and he’d know something was wrong. So Duncan let them live for now. But when Victor died, these two vampires would die right along with him, most likely drained dry by Victor himself in a bid to survive Duncan’s challenge.

Duncan had met Victor on more than one occasion when he’d accompanied Raphael to Vampire Council meetings, but he’d never matched strength with the vampire lord directly. The annual gatherings were carefully orchestrated affairs, bringing together the most powerful vampires in North America, vampires who were natural rivals at best and enemies at worst. Everyone was on their best behavior at those affairs, which meant there were no outright challenges and no blatant weighings of each other’s power.

But Raphael had known Victor a long time, and there were other ways to measure the depth of a vampire’s power. The upshot was that Duncan knew he could defeat Victor because Raphael wouldn’t have risked him otherwise. And, more importantly, because he knew the depths of his own power. Victor would be ousted from his rule over the territory tonight in the usual vampire way . . . by assassination.

Miguel and Louis rushed through the front door behind him, their power brimming and ready to defend him if necessary. Again, it felt odd to be the recipient of that sort of devotion rather than the other way around. Something he’d have to get used to.

“Any problems?” he asked as his vampires hid the limp bodies of Victor’s two guards behind the same couch they’d been sitting on when Duncan arrived.

Miguel let his burden drop, the comatose vampire’s head cracking loudly against the wooden floor. “None, my lord. The gate is secured, the barracks empty. And all of the human guards on the estate are sound asleep.”

“Excellent. This is it, then. Remember, once we’re in the dining room, I’ll put the humans under immediately. After that, we play it by ear. I don’t care which of us takes down the two remaining vamp guards, but Victor himself is mine alone.”

”Yes, my lord.” Miguel was fairly bouncing on his toes. Louis stood as still as a statue, his muscles coiled for action. He nodded sharply, his eyes fixed on Duncan like a dog on point, awaiting the go-ahead.

“Let’s go,” Duncan said.

Miguel walked ahead of him, Louis behind. They went past the staircase and turned left down a long hallway, their footsteps nearly silent despite the old, wood plank floor. Doors stood open left and right, revealing rooms filled with furniture—a formal dining room with a table that could have seated thirty people easily, and a den or game room with another huge flat screen TV, several different video game consoles, and a foosball table in the corner. There was a spacious kitchen with open containers littering the counter tops and still smelling of the food Victor had brought in for his human guests. Duncan’s research told him Victor typically had his parties catered, with his vampires serving as waiters where necessary. It wasn’t particularly elegant, but then Duncan doubted it was a zeal for good food that brought the humans here in the first place.

The dining room they wanted—the one Victor was using tonight—was at the very end of the hallway, behind a pair of white pocket doors. Miguel reached for the doors and paused, hands resting lightly on the bronze handles.

Duncan tilted his head, listening with both his ears and his power. The conversation from inside was loud and boisterous, the human voices evidencing clear signs of intoxication or drugs. It could be either. Victor was here, too, his mind lazy and at ease, not expecting any trouble. His remaining two vampire guards were far more alert than their Sire, but at the same time they took their cue from him, and their minds were wandering, not at all concerned about what was going on in the room or out of it. What little attention they were paying was focused on the human guests, seeing them more as prey than anything else, while trusting that their now comatose fellow guards at the front of the house would alert them to any outside threat.

Duncan pulled back his probe, drew a breath and gave Miguel a quick nod of assent.

Miguel slid the door back and Duncan stepped through.

Conversation stopped dead as everyone turned to stare at him. Duncan gestured, and the three humans went glassy-eyed, their heads slumping to their chests in unconsciousness, one sliding to the floor beneath the table, while the others merely fell forward into the remnants of their dinner.

Victor’s guards recovered before the first human’s head hit the table, one of them vaulting the table, crystal flying and dishes breaking as he raced to protect his Sire. Miguel caught him in midair, his fingers digging into the other vampire’s throat as he threw him to the floor and punched his chest hard enough to stop his heart in an instant. Victor’s vampire gasped, eyes bulging, as he struggled to gather his power back into himself, to force his heart to pump once more. Given only a moment longer, it might have worked, but Miguel didn’t grant him that moment. He grabbed an empty chair and smashed it against the floor until it produced what he needed. The piece of wood was jagged and raw, half varnished and half bare wood, but it was the perfect weapon. Miguel lifted the stake with a fang-baring grin of anticipation, and Victor’s guard keened a wordless plea, the only noise he could still manage. Miguel brought the stake down in a single clean stroke, granting the only mercy he would—a quick death.

Louis and the other vampire guard were still battling one another, blood flowing as they exchanged brutal blows that would have killed a human with the first strike. Louis slammed his opponent into the wall, cracking the wainscoting and leaving a vampire-sized dent in the upper wall as plaster dust filled the air. Victor’s vampire bellowed in anger. He tightened his grip, his fingers digging into Louis’s arms as he tried to reverse their positions, but Louis used the vampire’s momentum against him, spinning around completely and throwing him across the room. He crashed into one of the unconscious humans as he hit the table, eliciting an unwilling grunt of reaction.

Duncan felt more than saw Victor move, felt the vampire lord begin to gather his power. He glanced up, meeting Victor’s reptilian gaze. The two powerful vampires studied each other for a long breath, but a sharp cry of denial drew their eyes to Louis and the remaining guard in time to see Louis impale his opponent with a jagged spear of wood.

Victor sucked in a breath as his vampire died, and Duncan turned in time to see the vampire lord slump forward, his fist clenched to his chest. As if he felt Duncan’s gaze upon him, Victor relaxed his hand and raised his head with a defiant glare, showing no weakness to his enemy.