Amanda returned a few minutes after Katie left, her face purple with rage, hair even more frizzed than usual. She leaned down until our noses nearly touched. "Don't think I've forgotten about what you said." She pressed long, yellowed claws against my chest and raked them down the skin, just hard enough to draw blood.
I clenched my teeth and groaned, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of bursting into tears. The sound of approaching voices jerked her upright. Her eyes widened with worry and she dashed off, returning a moment later with a towel and wiped the blood from my chest. My supernatural healing made short work of the light wounds, but I didn't have much juice left for anything else. Hunger clawed again at my incubus stomach. I wished I could drain this spiteful bitch dry.
Surely, Maximus knew he had to feed me essence at some point. Otherwise, I'd descend into madness and probably die. I couldn't remember if anyone had actually told me I could starve to death if I didn't feed the demon inside, but considering how awful it felt to go hungry, common sense told me it would be a painful way to go.
As the voices grew closer, I knew why Amanda looked so worried. The voices belonged to Maximus and another male.
"Greetings Lord Maximus," Amanda said as the lead vampire's voice grew closer.
Maximus replied. "What was your name again?"
"Amanda, my Lord."
I imagined her curtseying and swooning like a lovesick puppy. Lord Maximus?
"Guard the door at the top of the stairs and make sure no one enters until I return."
"Yes, yes, Lord Maximus. And if I can do anything for you—I mean anything at all, please let me know."
"I believe I just did."
"I'm so sorry, sir!" Her feet scrambled away.
Maximus and another man chuckled.
"I daresay she would pluck her own eyes out and stew them for you, Maximus," said a man in the kind of British accent I associated with royalty.
"As would most of my followers." Maximus, as usual, had zero self-doubt in his voice, maintaining his perfect one-hundred percent douche bag average.
"That's the spawn?" said someone else, a third man.
Footsteps tread closer until I saw Maximus and a tall, thin man with an oiled mustache and monocle over his right eye look down at me. A chunky guy, young looking despite a head of unnaturally white hair, appeared at the end of the table. He alternatively studied me and scribbled with his stylus on the tablet computer in his hand—an arctablet, I figured, or maybe just an arcphone expanded to tablet size.
"Showing me off to your best buds?" I said to Maximus.
"I'll need some samples," the white-haired nerd said.
Maximus nodded. "Take what you need, Dash."
"Dash?" I said with a laugh. "What kind of name is that?"
Dash rolled his eyes and walked away. When he returned, he held something in his fleshy hands. Before I could make another smart remark, he jammed a ball gag in my mouth and strapped it around my head. I bit down, thinking I'd crush it with my preternatural strength, but it was apparently made of diamond fiber because I nearly broke a tooth.
"Don't be too rough on the poor chap," the man with the monocle said. "I wouldn't want to spoil him with too much stress. Cortisone levels and all that rubbish, you know."
"Would you like a taste, Master?" Maximus said.
The other man raised an eyebrow and looked at me. "He looks a bit unwashed."
Master? The word caught me off guard. I'd never heard Maximus defer to anyone. Could this be the mystery vampire helping him turn people?
Dash came around to my neck and squeezed hand sanitizer from a bottle. I felt the cold gel as he rubbed it against my neck. "There you go, sir. All clean."
The Master took off his monocle, leaned down and sniffed. "I daresay he's a tad ripe, Maximus, but his blood practically sings, doesn't it?"
"Exactly, sir. And that's why I think he's the solution to our supply problems."
The needle prick of fangs pressed into my skin. I jerked, but the Master gripped my head tight and held it. Either I'd already lost a great deal of strength, or he was much stronger than most vampires I'd fought. Probably both. I thrashed with my body to no avail. My breaths came in rapid pants through my nose. Despite my horror, a rush of pleasure flooded through me like a drug.
I'd never done hard drugs, but I imagined they would feel a lot like this. And it scared the hell out of me, because I never wanted the euphoria to end.
The Master pulled back and wiped daintily at his red lips with a handkerchief. "Marvelous. Magnificent." He looked with amazement at Maximus. "You didn't tell me he was so much better than other Daemos."The rogue leader gave a feral grin. "At first, I thought it was just me. But there's definitely something about this kid, isn't there?"
"Night and day, young man."
"Give me time and I'll quantify and qualify the differences," Dash said, holding a slim wand to my wrist. He twirled it once, and drew it away. Blood squeezed from a pore in my skin until a globule the size of a quarter hovered in the air. Another spin from the wand caused the sphere to rotate faster and faster until the plasma separated from the red blood cells. A separate layer of glowing blue liquid formed. Dash held out a vial and pointed into it with his wand. The blue liquid drained from the sphere. He filled two more vials with the remaining fluids.
"What is that?" Maximus asked, looking at the glowing blue.
A slow grin spread across the Arcane's face. "If I'm right—and I usually am—this is the answer to our problems."
The Master cleared his throat. "Meaning what, exactly?"
"I can advance Maximus's blood potency and increase the amount of blood serum we're producing. Soon we'll have enough to turn thousands of mortals into vampires."
Chapter 14
Elyssa
Elyssa hated short deadlines.
It meant she had to hurry, and hurrying usually led to mistakes. In this case, she had no room for error. She watched through the window as Underborn and his hulking companion headed toward a tool shed behind the guest bunkhouses where a very small man waited on them.
Phissilinth.
She'd met him the first time Justin had sought out Underborn to make him call off a hit on his father. While the small man seemed harmless enough, she knew without a doubt he was every bit as deadly as Underborn.
Phissilinth pulled out a key, inserted it into the tool shed door lock, and opened it. Through the opening, Elyssa saw a hanging chandelier and a rich red rug running down a long hall lined with portraits. She didn't need to ask where it led because she'd been there before. It was Underborn's lair. As to where the lair actually was, she had no idea. The key Phissilinth used could apparently be used to open doors and take them almost anywhere.
Her mouth dropped open as a thought occurred to her. She blurred outside before the three men crossed the threshold, and jumped in front of Phissilinth.
"Good day, Madame." He bowed with a flourish.
"Hello, Phissilinth."
"I'm pleased you remember my name, Miss Borathen."
She smiled. "It's a hard one to forget."
"What do you need?" Underborn said, gazing warily at the lightly wooded surroundings. Elyssa noticed few Templars came to this part of the compound, because it was so far removed from the main barracks and the central buildings. "We shouldn't tarry, and you have a job to do."
"I want the key," Elyssa said, pointing to the simple brass skeleton key in Phissilinth's child-like hand.
"What do you propose to do with it?" Underborn said. "Rescue Justin? Open a doorway straight into the lion's den and snatch him from their grasp?"
"Couldn't have put it better myself." She narrowed her eyes. "Why risk everyone when I could just use that?" Anger flared at Underborn's cavalier attitude, but she held it at bay with some effort. For all she knew, this was another of his tests.
The assassin put on an oily smile. "If it were so simple, I would have done it myself." He took the key from Phissilinth and held it up. "This key is one of the seven Relics of Juranthemon. It is priceless, of course, and very powerful. As a price for such power, it can be very difficult to control."
Elyssa huffed out a breath. "First of all, Juranthemon sounds like a word you just made up. Second, I don't give a damn how hard it is to control. Tell me how to use it and I swear I'll return it to you."
"You don't understand, Miss Borathen." Underborn's smile went from oily to downright condescending. "The key can open virtually any location, so long as another door opens at the other end. But to go to an unexplored place means you must first show the key where you want to go on the Map of Juranthemon."
"Then get the map and show it."
"I do not possess it. I do, however, have a very extensive list of places the key goes to. Maximus's compound, unfortunately, is not one of them."
"And a tool shed is?" She waved at the old stone structure.
"This tool shed was formerly a small chapel used by a small, forgotten sect of Indians who inhabited this area." He indicated some of the other ancient structures in the area. "These building were preserved by Arcanes and repurposed by the Templars. The original door has been replaced many times over the years, but that doesn't matter to the key. Unless you can steal the map from whoever owns it, I can't create a new path into Maximus's compound."
Elyssa didn't believe him for a second. A last-ditch, desperate plan formed in her head. Underborn would probably kill her for trying it, but he left her no choice.
"In fact," Underborn continued, "the key was not originally a key at all. It tends to present itself as a different object, depending on the user's expectations." He held it in his palm and reverently traced a finger along the metal.
"Really? That's amazing." Elyssa leaned closer. "It looks like a skeleton key."