Ghost Soldiers (20 page)

She smiled and winked, despite the pistol he had aimed at her. Her silver braid slithered on its own, curling around her neck, down the curves of her breasts and along her shoulder, and he remembered how her hair had thrown needles when they'd battled in the mountains. She wore little over her lush curves—a fetishistic male-fantasy outfit that wouldn't protect her from weapons or magic. Strange, faint designs shifted across her smooth skin—like the shadows of leaves in a windy, sun-dappled grove, but more complex—changing, beautiful patterns painted in shades of deep blue and black. Her wings spread out behind her for one moment more, a massive span of darkness, roiling like smoke and seeming just as intangible. As he watched, her wings began to shred into pieces and flutter away, a murder of crows startled into flight.

“Greetings, vampires,” the succubus said. Her English had a strange accent that Karl couldn't place, almost French but not quite. “My name is Naoimy. I serve the exalted Sorin Cojocaru of the Invidi, and I seek a temporary truce. I come without malice to deliver a message.”

“Hey, look,” Bailey answered before he could reply. “It's the hooker brigade, escaped from her handcuffs and heart-shaped bed. Watch them make war and love.” She glanced around the train yard. “But I don't see a stripper pole anywhere.”

“I like you.” Naoimy cocked her head to the side, and the slit pupils in her violet eyes flashed with their own inner light. “Nice jacket.”

“Nice fishnets.”

Karl glanced at Bailey. She grinned, showing fangs, but subsided. He could feel the coldness of her fear, though she hid it well.

“Why shouldn't I simply shoot you down?” he asked, staring at her over the gunsights. He didn't need the gun to kill her, but it made things far easier. “Eliminate a problem constantly sniffing at my heels.”

Naoimy eyed him. “By all accounts you are a man of honor.”

“I'm a vampire. Honor has nothing to do with it.”

“Nonetheless. I beg for my life in order to fulfill my duty.”

He lowered the pistol. “I accept your truce. Tell me your message, Naoimy. I don't want to miss my train.”

She laughed. If a laugh had a taste, hers would've been warm butterscotch. “You are a delicious creature, Master Vampire.” She ran her gaze down the length of him and up again. “I'd love to
feel
you for a while if you're inclined…”

Bailey took a step toward her. “Cut the come-on act, sister.”

Naoimy smiled again. “We are not sisters, newborn. But you can play too. I don't mind.”

“I don't think so. I might catch some kind of disease. Paranormal crabs or something.”

The succubus quirked a pale eyebrow. “You're too tense, little newborn. How do they say it? Yes. You need to get laid more often.”

“Enough,” Karl said. “Your message. Now. Lest I forget what a man of
honor
I am.”

Naoimy bowed deeply. “Apologies.” One delicate hand touched the cat's-eye stone on her collar. “My master can see you through my eyes, but he would like to trade words with you directly. May I build a spell matrix in your presence?”

Bailey shifted and her eyes began to glow red. Karl sent her a thought across their connection.
“Stay calm.”

“You may, if you don't mind my gun aimed at your head.” He smiled without humor. “Insurance.”

Naoimy's braid writhed across her shoulders. She reached up to pet it. “Very well, Master Vampire, if you find it necessary.”

“I don't want to see him, Karl,” Bailey said quickly. “Let's just get out of here.”

Naoimy glanced at her. “Don't be afraid, newborn. The truce holds.”

He set his free hand on Bailey's shoulder. “Don't worry.” He lifted the pistol again and aimed at Naoimy. Truce or not, he'd kill her in an instant if she tried something with her magic. He didn't even need the silver bullets in the clip because a succubus couldn't heal wounds the way vampires and werewolves did. A headshot would do.

Naoimy frowned with her perfect lips as she stared at the pistol. She said nothing and stooped down with smooth feline grace and began to draw with her finger upon the ground. Where her fingertip touched, a ghostly white flame curled upward, and she left scorch marks in the dirt.

Karl kept his finger on the trigger as she sent arcing flares of power coursing through her design. The energy she wielded had a strange, hot feel, a
red
feel against his mind. It was nothing specific, just a sense of impatience and excitement, of heat and motion, where his power had always run cold and dark, more deep ocean trench than forest fire.

Naoimy finished and stood, unfolding from her crouch. She whispered a strange word that writhed in his ear like a lamprey, and the pattern of diamonds and triangles and strange runes on the ground burst into ghostly white flames. Bailey flinched, but Karl's pistol never wavered.

“Vampires,” Naoimy said, “I present my exalted lord, the Invidi sorcerer, Sorin Cojocaru.”

The flames flared up toward the sky, bathing the entire area in flashbulb white before they fell back to a roiling border around the spell sculpture lines. Sorin Cojocaru still wore the Soviet-era Romanian military uniform and stood in the center of the design as the flames danced around his boots. High cheekbones, eyes so dark they appeared black, a thin slice of smile on his lips. No smell, though, and the image of Cojocaru appeared slightly translucent, like a hologram. Cojocaru lifted his hands toward Karl, palms up, and spread them to the edges of the design but no further.

Bailey half hid behind Karl as her terror ripped across their link. Memories of Cojocaru raged in a windstorm through her mind—images of Cojocaru on the cliff side, casting the spell that had led to her death. Karl dialed down the intensity of her emotions flooding across their link to keep from having his own thoughts overwhelmed, but her fear hummed in the back of his mind like a refrigerator motor.

“Well met, vampires.” Cojocaru dipped his head in a slight nod. “Perhaps we might enjoy a civilized discussion at last.”

Bailey clutched at Karl's arm, her fear twisting even tighter. Dark energy swirled around her—vampire power, chaotic and random in her unlearned hands. The fear pulled at her face and made her seem gaunt and corpse-like, mouth frozen in a rictus of terror. Dark energy began to merge between them and the image of Sorin Cojocaru. Naoimy raised her eyebrows, but Cojocaru sneered at the coalescing power.

A shadow wolf built itself out of the empty air. Churning black smoke formed huge flanks and a tail, and the head and muzzle were roiling curls of black clouds. The wolf had eyes cut from the center of shadows, and they seemed to burn while casting neither heat nor light. The dark wolf lowered its head and bared its black teeth at the image of the sorcerer.

Karl glanced at Bailey. He'd certainly never taught her how to summon spirit wolves.

“A smoke wolf,” Cojocaru said. “Yet I prefer felines.” He gestured, and the strange burning cat which had saved him from the .50 caliber bullets jumped into his arms, appearing from nowhere. “This is my Incendiu Pisica. You've met, I believe.”

Its black and green flames licked against his uniform and hands as he cradled it, stroking its head, but he remained unburned. The fire cat squinted its brilliant yellow cat's eyes at Karl. Something very sly languished in those eyes, something far too intelligent and cunning for his liking.

Bailey's spirit wolf growled with a low bass frequency that rumbled more in Karl's mind than in his ears. His friend John Avalon had been able to create spirit wolves, and he'd fought a vampire loyal to Delgado who could summon one, but it wasn't a skill most vampires possessed. A useful skill, and quite honestly one he wished he had.

“The wolf cub has teeth.” Cojocaru laughed, and his image blurred and trembled, as if fading out of focus. The sorcerer let the cat go. It jumped from his arms and vanished from the spell drawing.

The wolf turned its black gaze to the succubus, and its growl deepened. She stepped backward, and her braid writhed on her shoulder. Smoke or cold vapor or sand and dust, still the power behind a spirit wolf's teeth and claws could rend flesh easily enough, and she seemed to know it. “We have a truce, vampires. Remember.”

“Bailey, control your wolf,” Karl said.

“How the hell do I do that?”

“It obeys your will. Call it off and bring it to heel.”

Bailey stared at the smoke wolf in wonder, all her terror of Cojocaru forgotten for the moment. The wolf's ears flattened, and it hurried to Bailey's side and sat on its haunches. Yet its eyes still stared at Cojocaru and its shadow teeth remained bared, though it made no more sound.

“I know who you are, vampire,” Cojocaru said to him. His voice was deep, a distant thunder rumble, and his words held a slight Romanian accent. “Karl Vance. Assassin for hire.”

He kept his face neutral. “They only told me your name when they sent me to kill you.”

“Were you surprised when I did not die so easily? Did you feel your corrupt masters had betrayed you? Sent you to slay the dragon with a plastic sword, perhaps?”

Karl didn't answer. Cojocaru glanced at Bailey, and his eyes narrowed.

“I see you Turned this little human to save her. Will she thank you for it, I wonder?”

Bailey raised her chin and stared back, a sneer on her lips. “I'm grateful enough, monster.”

“Such a word,” Cojocaru said. “One that my fellow creatures on this planet use far too often for my taste.”

“What do you want?” Karl asked. “I'm busy.”

“Busy fleeing back to America, are you? I can't imagine your employers are pleased with your failure. They seem such harsh taskmasters.”

“Why chase us then? Leave it to my former employers to express their displeasure.”

Cojocaru waved a dismissive hand. “I can give you several reasons, and you may choose your favorite. Vengeance. The blood of my people sings to me.
You
spilled that blood. Another reason is need. I require another vampire. There's also the matter of redemption.” The thin slice of smile returned. “For you and not for me.”

“Find someone else.”

“I could find another vampire, true, but I find myself fascinated with you.
You're
in need of deliverance, Karl Vance.”

“Not interested.”

“So quick to dismiss and you haven't even heard my terms,” Cojocaru chided. “Leave your human masters. They hate you. Serve alongside me and repay your blood debts instead. I, at least, will appreciate you.”

Bailey snorted. “Why must you megalomaniac types always try and bring people over to your side? Why can't you just try and kill us so we all know where we stand?”

“Bailey,” Karl said. “You're not helping.”

Cojocaru laughed—a surprisingly warm sound. “I keep no secrets. I have plans to shake the world to its core.”

“Every two-bit Dark Lord says that shit.” Bailey's wolf started to pace around her. “I'm not impressed.”

“You wrong me. I don't intend to rule the human world. I only want a place where the
monsters
can be left alone instead of hunted down like foxes and slaughtered. I want the world to acknowledge the rivers of magic that run beneath its streets of science,
because
those rivers are worthy of praise, not silence. I want our own land, a nation where we can find solace, live by our own laws, no longer hiding terrified in the shadows. I want pride.”

“That sounds completely sane,” she mocked. “What'll you do for the main show?”

Karl held up a hand to her but didn't take his eyes off Cojocaru. “You'll rule this nation you carve out?”

“I may lead. For a time. At least until we've erected a nation worthy of the word.”

“Convenient,” Bailey said. Her spirit wolf growled again.

More than a trace of indulgence tainted Cojocaru's smile. “Every army needs a general. Every evolved organism needs a head. I'll relinquish the role when things are stable. It's not my wish to replace one kind of tyranny with another.”

“And the slave collars?” Karl asked.

“I do not call them that.”

Bailey snorted. “Fine. Shall we call them decorative neck torcs that
just so happen
to let you control others against their will?”

Cojocaru turned to look at Naoimy. If Karl hadn't known better, he'd have sworn pride shone in that gaze. “What do you see when you look at her?”

“Just another slave,” Bailey answered.

“No. You see a whore. I can see the judgment blazing in your eyes, your own damning scarlet letter. She has the soul of a poet, weaves magic out of the most primal bliss of physical creatures, but what does that matter to you? You, who were once so perfect and righteous and human.”

“Maybe if she didn't act the slut.” Bailey crossed her arms. “That's a start.”

“Maybe if you didn't kill people to drink their blood,” Cojocaru replied, “your friends wouldn't hate what you've become. You condemn us all, and now yourself, with the term
monster
.” He gestured at his clothes. “This uniform fits what you wish to see, doesn't it? But you misunderstand it as you misunderstand her. It's a symbol of my past, when the scales covered my eyes. It reminds me that all may find redemption, even those who murder.”

“Your words would mean more to me,” Karl said, “if she were speaking them and not you. I never believe the words of the creature holding the choke chain.”

“Not all who wear a collar are slaves.” Cojocaru turned to Naoimy and nodded. Naoimy knelt and touched the cat's-eye stone. The collar came off with a soft click, and she set it on the ground and stood again, waiting.

“You see?” he continued. “These collars which fuel your outrage serve more purposes than just control. They allow us a kind of telepathy, allow us to share power in ways that make us stronger than we'd be individually. They bind us together into something greater. In truth, I should like to see them gone, for they send a message easily misunderstood.”