Minion (34 page)

“But if all you want is some chick, then another master vampire could have—”

“No,” the attorney spat. “Not possible.”

“You haven't told me her—”

The chairman smiled. “We know.” He took papers from the attorney and slid them across the table toward Carlos. “We have a time-frame issue. Our council gave you all the powers of a master so you could combat a master—an immediate turn without the wait.”

“He has to do it before the vessel ripens with ova,” an ancient council member whispered from a far point on the table. “We only have a few eves. Her twenty-first birthday approaches.”

“If he does not comply, all five of us, if we count in Rivera, will not be able to collectively fill the vessel—offering us a share of equal power. Nuit will have her to himself.” Another member of the council made a tent with his hands before him and stared at the counselor.

The attorney pointed to the papers. “Sign.”

Carlos looked up. “Why?”

The council members leaned in toward each other and conferred, then assessed him. It was also becoming apparent, and quite intriguing that, since he'd sat in the chair and some time had elapsed during the tense meeting, they now seemed to only have the ability to pick up part of his thoughts, not all of them. Maybe it was the only thing that Nuit's double-cross had afforded him. A modest advantage. It was in that moment that Carlos became clear that while they had
almost
infinite power, he still had a few aces in his hand. The problem was, he didn't exactly know what the sum total of his leverage entailed.

“You drive a hard bargain, Rivera,” the attorney finally said through his teeth.

“Tell him,” the chairman ordered. “We are losing precious moonlight.”

Carlos cocked his head to the side in confusion. Again, the mention of a woman. He remembered Nuit's unnamed request.

“Bring us Damali Richards,” the attorney whispered.

A part of Carlos froze, but he kept his exterior cool. As the vampires bickered among themselves, he could feel their claw-hold on his mind recede. Damali? A Neteru? A freakin' vampire huntress? In the midst of all of this? The only woman that had ever made him feel? Panic aligned itself with anger and remorse. No. They couldn't have another one of the people he loved. But there was only one way to play this. He had to be strategic and stay business-cold.

“Let me ask you gentlemen a simple question,” Carlos said, now pacing slowly in front of the table with his hands behind his back, watching their faces. “Why couldn't you send a messenger for her, or why couldn't Nuit—who is formidable topside? Anyone with power could go get her, correct? In fact, when Nuit told me to bring him a woman, he didn't name her.”

The chairman let out a long, death-stench breath. “None of us, not even the topside clerics, ever know when a female Neteru will be born. But, Nuit was the protégé of a true legendary member of our legions, Dracula. Nuit's mentor uncovered a partial scent years back—he had only followed the trail to uncover a carrier of the recessive gene, not the actual vessel. The Neteru wasn't even born, yet. But Dracula was on the trail of the human line that might produce her. His quest also became his demise—but he was from the era prior to the Vampire Council's formation. This madness was passed on to Nuit, the master that was made from Dracula's line . . . we just never suspected Dracula's madness would have been passed. Our error in judgment, indeed.”

The counselor cut in upon the chairman's glance. “For years since Dracula's termination, Nuit had secretly hunted for the Neteru his mentor had foretold—we all believed it to be legend. We did not see evidence of a Neteru having been made in the millennium in which Dracula searched . . . until the stars aligned in May.”

Carlos smiled. “Mr. Chairman, Mr. Counselor, Council, forgive me, but you still have not answered my question. Why not send in your forces to bring her in, since you've now identified her? Why me?”

The chairman hissed and leaned forward in an open threat. “After the planets aligned we sent out topside sniffers—third and fourth generations too weak to fulfill the prophecy alone!” He banged his fist on the table again, making it quake and bleed onto the floor with his rage.

“Don't you understand by now how valuable a Neteru is to our realm?” The attorney walked around the table to stand before Carlos with the papers in his hand as he continued his snarling argument.

“For centuries we had been locked in feudal struggles within the vampire nation. Each territory battling for control of the other, and adding to their domains with unregistered turns. The Vampire Council was formed to bring order—lest our own anarchy propel humans to hunt us to extinction. Fear of demons and vampires and ghosts, what they term monsters, draws the humans to hallowed ground in panic, strengthens the houses of worship.”

Another council member was on his feet. “We needed the humans to go into a false malaise of spiritual apathy. If our empires did not form an alliance and cease battling, the humans would have redoubled their faiths—giving over too many souls to the light. One redeemed sinner is worth the soul-weight of one hundred holy men, and one compromised holy man is worth the soul-weight of one hundred sinners. This has been the equation of the struggle between darkness and the light since the dawn of time, when our Master fell from Grace. Each time their side garners one of ours, we must replace it with one of theirs, or more. Our Dark Lord was very, very displeased that our regional activities were sending people into the arms of faith
in droves—it was come together or perish. Thus, the only logical alternative.”

Now both beasts were circling him, and Carlos remained very, very still. Even the chairman and the fourth council member had stood slowly and leaned forward from behind the giant marble pentagram. Carlos eyed them as they moved, their robes wafting behind them as they walked. The swishing sounds from their black velvet robes had a hypnotic effect, and he understood how close he was to the edge of this delicate negotiation.

“If any one master vampire were to know where to track the scent of a ripening Neteru, and find her to use her as his vessel, then he would become a singular empire ruler. The new emperor could shift the balance of council power,” the attorney pressed on. “Power would concentrate, and not be diffused. That is dangerous to order.”

The second council member hissed, his eyes going to slits. “That ruler would have sanction over us. Only his territories would prosper, and all others would become second-class citizens—Nuit would never state her name in front of his second generation, as they might attempt a coup, like he is attempting now. He violated the council oath. We were to all simultaneously mount her through temporary incorporation in one virile body, and send our collective seed to produce one heir from many; we would all be the new heir's master, thus assuring the equal distribution of power amongst all territories.”

Carlos studied his fingernails and began cleaning flesh, dirt, and tree bark from under them in a nonchalant gesture, then sighed. “Interesting history. But, I will ask again. Why didn't you send one of your own to claim her?”

The two entities walked away from him in frustration and returned to their seats. The chairman sat down with the fourth
council member, as the attorney cast the papers on the table as he passed.

“We couldn't get to her,” the chairman muttered, seething. “She's a Neteru, and protected by prayers and a team of guardians. She is at the core of a trinity of formidable forces. A ring of guardians, the Templars, the warrior angels.” The chairman's eyes had narrowed at the mention of angels and he'd growled, shaking his head.

Carlos looked up and held the red glowing eyes in a lethal stare. “And Nuit?”

The members at the council table shook their heads.

“The only one who can get to her in thought projection, or close enough for an abduction, is someone she wants . . . someone she trusts, someone that can make her drop her guard and come to him,” the attorney retorted, drawing a series of threatening hisses from the table.

“But even with an abduction,” the chairman warned, “when she gives herself, it must be of her own free will, or the vampire seed might not take root in her womb. That is the only way Neteru souls are kidnapped. Her will must be in alignment with the ritual. This is what Nuit never knew. We discovered his plan before he fully dredged our knowledge chambers. Unless she is seduced, the vampire seed within her won't harvest. The Neteru physiology, combined with an iron will and a strong spiritual nature, fights off an unwanted inhabitant or possession like a virus. This is why they are impervious to a bite, once fully mature. We must get to her before she crosses over.”

The attorney's eyes searched Carlos's with desperation. “We need someone to get to her whom she will freely surrender to—someone who can corrupt her so that she will subject herself to the ritual. If she refuses . . . we'll need someone to kill her. We
cannot allow a Neteru, young enough to cross both millennia, to begin to produce more Neterus. It's a chance we get only once every thousand years, but the realms of Heaven haven't made females in a very long time. And there's
never
been any huntress to bridge a millennium like this . . . so dangerous with the Armageddon so near.”

“Hmmm. . . .” Carlos nodded. “I have seen her in my dreams recently.” He watched the seated council erupt in excitement, communicating in the foreign language that he was starting to understand. He knew he had to get them to a point of trust, frenzy for the product, in order to buy him leverage, room to maneuver.

“Her scent is intoxicating,” Carlos murmured, teasing them with the description—and using their own wiles against them. He closed his eyes and brought Damali to his mind, and deeply inhaled and shivered, sending a collective shiver through the group.

“We haven't had a female Neteru grace the blue planet in the gray zone of choice in more than three thousand years,” the chairman breathed out. “Not since Kemetian times in what is now referred to as Egypt. Prior to that, we located one in the Nubian empire. These female Neterus were so strong we had to literally destroy human empires to eradicate their lines, which still flourish! The recessive gene is so strong that it floats amongst the human population, hiding in human bloodlines, waiting for an anointment above to be released. None of us ever know exactly when a Neteru might be created by
them
.”

Carlos opened his eyes and snatched the vision from them. “Talk to me,
hombre
. What's in it for me, and what assurances do I have that if I deliver her, I won't get whacked?”

The group fell silent.

“It's in your contract,” the attorney said coolly, and then collected
the papers and pushed them forward again, laying a quill pen dipped in blood from his goblet beside it.

Carlos shook his head. “It's written in a language I can't yet understand—and it's got a lot of fine print.”

“You have three days to bring her to us, or we take away your immediate turn!” Again, the chairman was on his feet. “Let him feel our withdrawal of protection, since he apparently doesn't appreciate our offering!”

Instantly, hunger tore through Carlos's abdomen, and the pain of Nuit's bite began to sizzle and burn. The agony made him cry out and drop to his knees.

“Let him hear his master's call—which we have cloaked from him!”

An earsplitting decibel sounded inside Carlos's head that made him yell and hold the sides of his head. He could see Nuit's eyes behind his lids, and the urge to go to him was so great that it made him stand. Then, just as quickly, it was gone.

“Do you see what we have spared you from?” the attorney murmured in an even tone. “In three moonlights, or less I believe, your brother, your cousin, and your best friends will be under Nuit's siren call. They will go home, first, to feed—to their mothers, dear Juanita . . . an old lover of yours . . . and to your mother, your grandmother, and all your friends.”

Satisfied that Carlos had been duly reprimanded, the chairman sighed, his tone weary. “This feeding will fan out to consume all in your immediate family until it is exhausted, and then it will continue in concentric rings. While the dilution of the fourth-generation bite will not produce more vampires, it will produce madness, and human family members that are predators, cannibals, serial killers, and the like. This is the nature of the fourth and weaker vampire generations, which will beget a fifth, and then a sixth, and so on—we populate with an exponential
fury, unless we self-contain. Think about it. This is what Nuit has visited upon your human family, as well as upon your new vampire family. All we ask for is one human girl to stop this carnage.”

Breathing hard, Carlos held on to the edge of the council table for support and then wiped his brow. “I want to cut a deal.”

“We have already given you extreme latitude before this council table,” the chairman said in a bored voice, the threat fully disclosed in it.

“You want this Neteru, you talk to me. I can get you in, or you can let another thousand years pass. I could go to Nuit, kill off my family to save their souls before he does them, and suffer the consequences until he's pissed off enough to stake me himself—or we can cut a deal.”

The group exchanged nervous glances with each other and then the chairman spoke. “Your proposal?”

“Number one,” Carlos huffed, slowly regaining his composure as the pain abated. “I need to be able to move between Nuit's camp and this one undetected. Keep his monitoring blind to my activities. Let me project only those images I want him to see, undetected.”

The chairman nodded. “This makes sense, and is of value to our council.”

“Okay,” Carlos said, his voice gaining strength. “I want to put my brother and my boys down. And I want the rest of my undead family marked as off-limits.”