When Darkness Hungers: A Shadow Keepers Novel (Shadow Keepers 5) (2 page)

An unwelcome trill of pleasure shot up Serge’s spine, brought on by the inescapable truth of Derrick’s words. There was pleasure in pain. Pleasure in the release of blood. In letting the daemon rage free and surrendering to the power of its foul appetite. Pleasure, yes. But torment, too.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Derrick said.

“I’m savoring the feed.” The lie came smoothly to his lips, and he knew that Derrick would not doubt him.

Derrick laughed, low and hearty. “Ah, my friend. So am I. Look—one of the slaves making rounds.” Across the clearing, a dark figure moved. An elderly male carried a single candle, the flame protected by a bowl of glass. He walked swiftly, his head turning to and fro, and Serge couldn’t help but wonder if the slave had sensed their presence. But surely not. The inky night was impenetrable to human eyes. Undoubtedly he feared for the safety of the menfolk in the city, and was ill at ease
with his obligation to protect the women in the big house.

Beside him, Derrick stood as still as a statue. “You hesitate?” Serge asked. “That old man would have made a tasty appetizer.”

“Let him live and suffer from the knowledge that he had no way to protect the females.” He turned to Serge, eyes dancing with mirth. “Besides, I prefer the flavor of blood that’s not quite as aged. Come on.”

They strode boldly to the house, then rapped hard at the heavy front door. At first, there was no sound from within; then Serge heard the light tread of footsteps. A woman. He imagined her in a loose gown, breasts full and unbound by a corset, her lithe limbs naked beneath the thin material. Immediately, his body tightened and the daemon twisted within, ready to take and taste. And oh, by the gods, wasn’t that so very tempting …

The footsteps stopped on the other side of the door, and for a moment there was only the tremulous sound of a woman’s breath. Then the stern clearing of her throat, as if she was bolstering her courage. “It’s late. Who’s there?”

“We come to warn your men,” Derrick said, thickening his accent. “The Yankees approach, and they mean to occupy this property. Is your husband home?”

“Who are you? I don’t recognize your voice.”

“The brothers Wilcox, ma’am,” he lied smoothly. “We’ve ridden hard from Metairie Ridge to warn your pa. Please, this plantation can’t fall. Not with its proximity to the river, the train, and the main road. Let me speak to your menfolk.”

Serge caught the scent of her hesitation. The rumors of the Union’s impending arrival were as thick as the
famous New Orleans fog, so Derrick’s story was wickedly credible. More than that, he’d used the Wilcox name, referencing the two brothers who were known to be well-placed Confederate supporters. A risky proposition if the woman knew the men personally, but brilliant if she believed.

“Please, ma’am,” Serge said. He saw Derrick shift forward, as if losing patience. With one solid blow, Derrick could break down the door, and that was a result Serge didn’t want. The noise would draw the rest of the house’s occupants, and he needed to face his quarry alone. “We must speak to your father. Open the door and call him down. We realize the impropriety of the hour, but war ignores all social graces.”

For a moment, he feared that the woman would brush off his plea. But then he heard the
thunk
of the lock turning. A moment later the door swung inward, revealing a young woman of about twenty. Derrick and Serge bowed deep, removing their hats in a broad, gallant motion.

“My husband is gone this night,” the woman said. Behind her, a burly black man stood, his expression fierce. Clearly, he was there to make sure no harm came to the mistress of the house.

“Your father, then.”

“Dead these many years. Please, tell me what news, and I can inform my husband upon his return, or Sampson can ride to him now if it is urgent.”

“Oh, it’s most urgent,” Derrick said, hooking an arm around the woman’s waist and moving so fast to Sampson’s side that he surprised even Serge. In mere seconds the man was on the ground, his neck snapped neatly in two. For a moment the room was completely silent, as if
time hadn’t yet caught up with the horror. Then the dam broke and the woman’s scream filled the night, only to be cut off a second later when Derrick sank his fangs into her pretty, pretty neck.

He drank deep, then pulled away, his mouth bloody as he looked at Serge and shifted the woman as if in invitation. “Care for a nibble, my friend?”

By the gods, yes …

The scent of her blood enveloped him and her soft moans teased his daemon, urging it to come out. To play and to feast. He could practically taste the coppery warmth of her blood flowing over his lips, could feel the softness of her skin beneath his fingers and the feather-light beat of her fluttering, fading pulse at his lips. The pleasures of blood rivaled even the pleasures of the flesh, and right then the daemon wanted both. Wanted to get lost in the hedonism of sweetly spilled blood.

No
.

No, goddammit, no
.

His body tightened as he dredged up the remnants of his own will to force the daemon back down.
He
was in charge. Serge. Not the daemon. Not here, goddammit. Not now, when he’d come so far and with such an urgent mission. “Only a nibble?” Serge said in reply, forcing amusement into his voice. “I’m looking for a feast. Not a wench with the honeyed taste of fear already drained from her.”

Derrick chuckled. “The first bite is indeed the sweetest, though the struggle that follows adds spice.” He gave the woman a shake and she writhed in his arms, the pungent scent of her fear reaching out to Serge and making his hunger rise. He took a step toward her, then halted.

“Enjoy,” he said. “I crave the hunt as much as the kill.” He didn’t wait for Derrick to answer, afraid that if he stayed he would succumb. Instead he turned and moved swiftly away from the woman’s moans and the seductive scent of her pain.

The kitchen was only a few yards from the big house, and he found the witch there. She stood behind a large wooden cutting block, a hatchet that had undoubtedly beheaded many chickens lodged in the wood in front of her. A single candle illuminated the room, and the flickering orange reflected in the woman’s dark eyes. In her hand, she held a stake, and the absence of any scent of fear told Serge that she knew how to use it.

“You are a fool to come here, vampire,” she said.

“Help me, and you will survive the night.”

A single brow arched, making her beautiful face even more exquisite. Her
café au lait
skin glowed in the candlelight, her striking cheekbones and aquiline jaw giving her the appearance of the lady of the manor rather than a slave. “You’re a cocky beast. I assure you, I’ll survive. You will not be so lucky.” She twisted her hand, just enough to bring the stake into the light, making the wood glow warm.

For an instant the lure of sweet oblivion washed over him, and Serge lost himself in the temptation to draw her wrath and accept the stake. To allow death, that most elusive of companions, to finally take him. He couldn’t do it, though. There was no fear—he’d lost himself too many times to the unknown darkness that was the daemon to ever fear the relative calm of death. But there was stubbornness. And, yes, there was the passion of his will. The small pleasures of the flesh and of the earth. He had once craved immortality with all his
soul—so much so that he had compromised that very soul. He had made himself what he was, and he would remedy that error. Somehow, someway, he would make himself whole. And then, once he had lived life without the pain and horror of the daemon’s madness, perhaps he would welcome death. But that day had not yet arrived.

“I can make him stop. The vampire I came with. He’s in the main house right now, and I doubt that your mistresses will survive the night without my intervention.”

Her thin smile was as cold as any he’d ever seen. “You’re a fool if you think they matter to me. I’m nothing but chattel to them.”

“And your own life? Do you value it so little? You put on a pretty show of bravery, but you know what I am. You know what I can do. And I’m not alone. Are you truly so foolish as to believe that whatever claim you have over the dark arts will protect you from one who has lived within that darkness for centuries? That you can protect your child? Your lover?”

He watched her face carefully as he spoke, noted the way her eyes flattened and the line of her mouth thinned. She meant to give nothing away, and yet she’d failed. His words had hit the mark, and he knew that the information for which he’d paid such a steep price had been true. Evangeline truly was the daughter of voodoo queen Marie Laveau. She had taken a lover—a Dumont house slave named Tomas. Most important of all, she had a child, a five-year-old girl who lived on the Dumont estate and was the product of a liaison between Evangeline and Carlton Dumont, the master of the house.

Serge didn’t want to kill the child, but if that was what it took to get what he came for, then the little girl would
die. Not because he would will it so, but because the daemon was pushing too hard. He could feel its cold edges pressing against his mind, against his will. Sharp, like a knife-edge, and so very demanding. He’d come here to turn that knife back on the daemon itself, to lock it deep inside and give him that control. She could give him his life. And by doing so, she would save her own.

But if Evangeline refused him, he knew that he couldn’t hold it in. The daemon would explode … and no one near him would be safe.

“Tomas is not here,” she said with an arrogant lift of her chin. “Nor is my sweet Lorena.”

He could smell the lie upon her. “Do you doubt that I would do it?” he snarled, taking a step toward her. He needed her scared. Needed her willing to do what he asked. “Do you doubt that I would leave your child drained upon this very floor? That I would sink my teeth into your lover’s neck?”

Her jaw tightened. “Why should I help the likes of you? A vile creature that kills for gain and pleasure?”

A surge of anger rushed up within him, and he wanted to attack. To lash out and cut the insult out of her. But he battled it down, forcing the daemon into submission, drawing on what little strength he had in order to keep his fingers clenched tight around the fraying strands of his control. “I do not wish to be that creature.”

She snorted. “Liar.”

He took a step toward her, and her eyes went wide with victory. As if she knew that he was weak and undeserving.

“Do not condemn me to remain this way.” The words felt ripped from his throat, and he clutched the side of
the butcher block, his nails cutting gouges into the hard wood.

“Condemn you? You’re already condemned. Killer,” she spat. “Destroyer.”

His fingers sought the blade that was sunk deeply into the block. They curled around the handle, and he pulled it free. She didn’t flinch, but her eyes never left him.

“A killer I am,” he admitted. “But so are you. Do you think I have not heard the stories? That all the people in Jefferson Parish are ignorant of your methods and those of your mother? You draw blood for power. You kill to satisfy your own whims and plans. You may not have fangs, Evangeline, but you do have claws, and you are not so different from me.”

“Persuasion is an art, vampire. And one in which you lack skill. You should woo me, not insult me.”

“With false niceties? We both know what we are. But beyond that, I know what I want to be.”

“I am not interested in your desires.” But he could see in her eyes that she was lying. He’d piqued her curiosity, and he pushed forward, taking advantage of that small victory.

“Hear me now, witch,” he said, then hurled the hatchet across the room. It sailed past her ear, then landed with a
thunk
in the wall, the blade buried to the hilt. “I want the daemon cut out of me. I want it gone.”

Her expression never changed, but he thought he saw respect in her eyes. “That is not possible. Even for one of my skill, I cannot remove that which is a part of you.”

“Yet you
are
skilled—if the rumors are true, you’re even more skilled than your mother.” He glanced at her face and saw that the flattery was working. “Surely you could do something.” He took another step forward.
“There is blood on my hands, Evangeline. Blood that I did not wish to shed. I will take responsibility for my own actions, but these deaths are not mine to claim, and yet they haunt me. They torment me.”

“And you wish me to believe that even with the daemon locked up deep inside, you would not kill? The hunger would not drive you to drink of the vein? My master has killed many vampires, sir. I know well that not all of those kills were made when the daemon was high. Some of your kind simply enjoy the hunt and feed on the pain.”

She was right, of course. Derrick was just such a vampire.

“How do I know that you do not count yourself among them?”

“You don’t,” he said simply. “But I don’t know, either. I crave the chance to find out.”

“And if you also crave the blood?”

“I will,” he said, because to lie to this woman would get him nowhere. “What matters is whether I can control it.”

She remained still, her eyes piercing him, and he knew that he had surprised her. The question was, had he intrigued her, too? He waited with the kind of patience he’d not displayed for many a year. But for this moment, he would humble himself. He needed her help, his self-respect be damned.

“There is no guarantee. And you must trust me fully. There may be pain. There will most surely be blood. And if you attack—if I fear for my life—I will not hesitate to stake you.”

“Can you do it tonight?”

“Keep your word, and it will be done.”

Derrick
. He turned to go. To find and stop his friend from killing the humans in the big house.

“Tomas,” she said. “Find him first. Protect him.”

“And your daughter?”

“She is my worry, not yours.”

He nodded, then continued toward the door, but he hadn’t gone two steps when it burst open wide. Derrick stood there, his linen shirt stained red. He held a man in his arms, the scent of death already clinging to him. With aplomb, he tossed the body onto the floor of the kitchen, then turned a grinning visage to Serge. “So. You found her.”