The Den of Shadows Quartet (45 page)

He gazed at Shayla fondly, and Turquoise recognized longing there — longing to be so innocent. She wondered how Jaguar had survived so long. Sentimentality was a deadly flaw in a predator. Even Turquoise could recognize Jaguar’s weakness the way a wolf recognizes the stragglers in a herd.

“The more you describe the original Midnight to me, the less I can picture you as one of its fearsome trainers.” Before he could speak, she added, “You don’t seem like someone who would enjoy living there.”

Jaguar looked surprised for a moment. “You mean the type of person who would enjoy power, wealth, luxury, instant obedience, and virtually anything else I ask for?”

“I mean the type of person who would enjoy manipulating another living creature.”

“Why not?” Jaguar responded unnervingly. “We all do what we’re good at, and manipulation is a skill I learned very early.”

Turquoise shook her head. “You’re trying to scare me again.”

“Maybe,” he answered. “Maybe I don’t need to try. Maybe I just need to be honest. I refuse to work as a trainer anymore,” he stated, “but that doesn’t mean I never did, and that is not work any creature can ever forget. The instinct to analyze, manipulate, destroy, and dominate never goes away. Reason and … morals can overlap and control instincts, but they can never destroy them.”

He shook his head, his gaze distant. His voice was soft as he added, “I don’t want to have to break you.”

She didn’t like the way he phrased that.

“If Jeshickah takes over Midnight, she won’t let you stay here as freeblood. Either she’ll kill you, or she’ll have someone tame you.”

“Lord Daryl didn’t manage it,” Turquoise stated, bravado in her voice.

“Daryl is too soft,” Jaguar stated coldly, and this time Turquoise did recoil. Soft? The creature of her nightmares, soft?

Then Jaguar’s voice was in her mind.
Daryl decided to act as a trainer because it was profitable, and he liked power. He can’t read people very well, and he certainly has no idea how to control them
.

Turquoise would not look away, though she wanted to get as far from the vampire in her brain as possible.

A trainer who knew what he was doing …
For a split second images came to her, vivid and painful; her knees gave out and she fell to the ground, the phantom taste of blood in her mouth.
You’re strong, Audra. But you don’t know what you’re up against
.

He paused.

Would you like me to let you go?

Yes! Her mind was still reeling from the brief taste Jaguar had given her — a taste of what it was like to be in a trainer’s cell, one that would keep her awake at nights longing for the more gentle memories of a beating from Lord Daryl.

Think I have somewhere else to go?
she answered, as soon as she could gather her thoughts. She would love to go, to get as far away from Midnight as possible, but she had a job here and would not leave until it was finished. Besides, if she ran now she would need to run forever. One was either predator or prey; a person could not be a hunter if she hid from that which she hunted.

“As you wish.” She could feel Jaguar leave her mind, like a subtle pressure draining away. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I wanted to make sure you knew what there was for you to fear.”

“Thanks,” she answered hoarsely, not yet trusting her legs to hold her if she stood. She forced herself to focus on the job. Information was safe, safer than memories, anyway. “Why is Jeshickah so upset about how you’re running things here?”

Jaguar sat beside her. “She wants me to rule Midnight like she used to.”

“Don’t you?”

Jaguar’s expression was shocked. “You don’t know
much about the first Midnight, if you ask that question.”

“Then tell me.”

Jaguar’s expression was distant as he spoke. “The east wing was a row of cells, each of which usually housed a litter.” He hesitated with distaste, and then explained. “The humans were bred for beauty and obedience. Eight or nine children were usually born each year, but it was rare for more than four or five to live past the first culling.”

Turquoise choked back bile as Jaguar continued.

“The first-generation slaves, the ones brought into Midnight from the outside, were kept in the combined lower cells, or on occasion in individual trainer cells if they had caught someone’s attention.” He paused, and then gave an example. “Jeshickah’s idea of a well-trained slave would make most of Daryl’s dogs seem rowdy, and her methods make Daryl himself seem like a humanist.”

Audra nodded, remembering the silent slaves Lord Daryl had surrounded himself with. To her eyes, they had been perfectly obedient, eerily so.

“You don’t want to know more,” Jaguar stated bluntly, and of course he was right. She had not wanted to know as much as he had already told her. “I worked in the original Midnight for almost two hundred years, until it was destroyed.”

“Why did you rebuild it?” Turquoise asked quietly.

Jaguar looked surprised. “Someone was going to.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” he responded. “Wealth. Power. The vampire who was threatening to rebuild at the time was
generally disliked, and an old enemy of mine.” His gaze searched her face for a moment as if wondering whether to say something. He continued, “Daryl, to be exact. You know him well enough to understand that it would have been disaster if he had taken control. Jeshickah had disappeared after her Midnight burned, and Gabriel didn’t want to lead, so I was the only one with the power to challenge Daryl.” He shrugged, but there was pain in the movement.

“Is he really so strong?” Turquoise asked. Though there were crevices in her soul that held a particular horror of him, a panic that appeared when he was near, in her rational mind she knew he was not powerful.

“Physically no, but he has political power. He was called a trainer in the original Midnight, and even though his methods were often ineffective, that title gave him a following.” Jaguar shook his head. “Still, no one would back him against one of Jeshickah’s blood. I’m not quite the strongest in my line, but I’m close enough that the people who originally followed her will follow me.”

“How …” She broke off, unsure that she wanted to know the answer to the question she had been about to ask.

Jaguar looked at her questioningly. “What?”

“How were your methods different from Lord Daryl’s?”

He looked away from her, but still answered. “Daryl’s line is known for its ability to manipulate the minds of humans, and he depends on that talent. He uses a simple mixture of brute force, physical and mental, to twist his slave’s minds into what he wants them
to be.” There was contempt in his tone as he continued, “It works about half the time. Frequently, he ends up with products too damaged to be of use. Scarring, for instance,” he added, his tone apologetic, “is common on Daryl’s projects. I knew you were once his the instant I saw your arms.”

Turquoise swallowed the lump in her throat, and forced herself to say, “And how did you work?”

“Pain … is easy to give.” His voice was remote, and his gaze rested on some distant point. “Daryl doesn’t have the patience necessary to bide his time and observe. Every person has her own weaknesses, physical, emotional, spiritual. After a while, finding those weaknesses and pressing against them becomes a habit, almost a game.”

Turquoise remembered uneasily how Jaguar had done just that when she had woken that evening and pulled away from him. He had reacted to her fear almost angrily like a shark that had caught a blood scent but did not want to acknowledge his attraction to it.

When he spoke to her, was he sizing her up, testing her as a possible opponent? He said he did not want to break her. Did that mean he saw her, a human being, and was content with her actions and reactions? Or was she just a slave he happened to be fond of, and which he would wait to tame until she ceased to please him?

Her thoughts were cut off as Jaguar looked up abruptly. He muttered a curse under his breath and then jumped to his feet.

Stay here
.

Turquoise ignored the words and followed Jaguar.
She swore at a rock that nearly tripped her, and arrived in the southern wing just in time to hear the crack of Jaguar’s whip and a loud string of colorful expletives from Ravyn. Ducking, she narrowly avoided the knife that Jaguar’s whip had caught and tossed across the room.

I thought I told you to stay put
.

She did not respond to Jaguar, and he did not insist on an answer. They both had more pressing issues to deal with.

Ravyn had her back pressed to the wall; her hair was in disarray, and she stood stiffly, favoring her right leg. Her gaze flickered to Turquoise briefly, and then returned to the two vampires in the room with her.

Jeshickah was leaning against a table; despite a slit in the side of her shirt, which had probably been made by Ravyn’s knife, she looked unfazed. Her gaze was fixed on Jaguar.

Jaguar snapped the whip to disentangle it from Ravyn’s wrist; Ravyn hissed in pain, and from the doorway Turquoise could see blood on the burgundy hunter’s skin.

“Are you in the practice of letting dangerous pets run about like feral dogs?” Jeshickah asked acidly, causing Jaguar to stiffen. “Or are you completely out of control of your own property?”

Audra, out
. The command was forceful, inviting no disobedience.

However, one does not leave one’s allies to get slaughtered, even if those allies are the likes of Ravyn Aniketos.

Audra
. The second voice rolled through her mind like
honeyed blades, a combination of sweetness and threat.
Aren’t you going to obey your master?

The words loosed a vivid memory, intentionally Turquoise knew.

Catherine, aren’t you going to obey your master?
The vampiress’s voice slipped into Cathy’s mind at the same time that Jeshickah said aloud, “Your pet is rather poorly behaved, Daryl
.”

Lord Daryl wrapped an arm around the human’s waist, and attempted to pull her back against himself saying, “She’s a work in progress
.”

Cathy slammed a heel down onto the bridge of Lord Daryl’s foot and wrenched herself out of his grip, asserting, “I am
not
your pet
.”

Lord Daryl was trying to impress this Jeshickah, whoever she was. Cathy refused to be a good little slave so he could flaunt his power
.

She saw amusement in Jeshickah’s expression, and then fierce rage in Lord Daryl’s, and belatedly realized that making him look like a fool in front of this particular member of his kind had been a really bad idea
.

The first blow brought the taste of blood to her mouth. The second was a slug to her gut, and it sent her to the ground, gagging. The third was a kick to her rib cage. Normally, he would stop hurting her once she was down, but normally he wasn’t nearly this furious
.

The memory was enough to kick the hunter into action.

Turquoise dove, trusting the vampires to be unprepared; she rolled, grabbing the knife Ravyn had lost,
and was almost to her feet by the time Jeshickah reacted.

Jaguar shouted, but Turquoise did not turn her attention to him; instead, she tried to keep Jeshickah’s backhand from striking her across the side of the face. The blow would have been crippling, had it connected.

Every fighter has an instinctual tendency to defend first, then attack; that tendency has ended many a hunter’s life. Only one ineffective defense means death, but only one effective attack means victory. If that attack is fast and hard enough, there is no chance of losing because an opponent has no chance to fight back.

Her left shoulder contacted with the vampiress’s gut, knocking her off balance. In the instant before Jeshickah could recover, Turquoise raised the knife in her right hand.

The crack of a whip echoed dimly in the back of her mind.

Then blackness.

L
ORD
D
ARYL SHOVED HER AWAY
, toward Nathaniel. She couldn’t get up again. Everything was bleeding, bruised, throbbing. She barely heard her master’s voice, shaking with pain and fury, order Nathaniel, “Get her out of here
.”

“And where should I take her?” Nathaniel responded, barely glancing at the human who had collapsed at his feet
.

Lord Daryl spat another curse, and then disappeared, leaving Turquoise alone with the other vampire. Nathaniel hooked an arm around her waist to help her stand, and wrapped a cloth around her bleeding wrist as he told her, “You have no idea how many people have wanted to do what you just tried. For that alone I’m willing to help you. Can you walk?”

He set her on her feet, and his answer came immediately; her legs buckled, and the world slid into gray oblivion
.

Turquoise forced her eyes open, dragging herself out of an unwanted sleep. Despite the agony of the memory there was a faint smile on her lips as she
remembered the feel of the knife slicing open her master’s skin. If only that first, painful attempt had worked.

The smile disappeared as she sat up and became aware of the chain connecting her left wrist to the wall. The back of her head pounded where Jaguar’s whip had hit her. She was chained on one side of a large cell; Ravyn was similarly bound a few feet away.

Arguing voices made her headache worse.

“Hunters,” Jeshickah spat, pacing angrily, and Turquoise winced at the sharp sound the vampire’s boots made as their heels contacted with the cold stone floor. “How could you be so stupid?”

Jaguar did not rise to the bait. “If memory serves, you used to collect hunters. And incidentally you were the one who bought them.”

Jeshickah tossed her mane of black hair in a dismissive gesture. “There is a difference between keeping a well-caged rattlesnake on the shelf to display and letting it slither between your bedcovers,” she pointed out acidly.

“I doubt the hunter ever posed any great threat to you.”

“Of course not,” Jeshickah answered haughtily “but it’s the principle of the thing. You can’t allow your pets to go around attacking the guests.”