Nicola stood up and wrapped her arms around her waist as she surveyed the open caches. “I know Europeans like big families, but would his tresora really have this many kids running around this place?”
He felt as puzzled as his sygkenis. “It would seem so.”
Nicola turned and eyed the first rack of weapons. “He didn’t touch any of these.” She took down one of the daggers, frowned, and peered into a hole where the blade had been hanging. She tugged on the rack, which swung out on a hinge, revealing video equipment and a television screen. “Here we go. He handled this.”
Gabriel studied the equipment. “He was secretly filming something.”
“This looks like the first VCR ever made.” She touched the front panel of the boxy recorder, jumping back as the television screen illuminated. “Didn’t they cut the power to this place?”
“There is the power source.” He pointed to the rows of batteries and wires sitting on the lowest rack.
“Good, we can see what he was recording. Maybe he got the guys who did this.” Nicola pressed the rewind button, and then played the tape.
The images that appeared on the screen were slightly blurred, and they both stepped back. Twelve children who were dressed in the black sparring uniforms sat in a large circle on the stone floor. Behind them, four men wearing gray versions of their uniforms stood against the wall. All of them watched in silence as a teenager and a man circled each other in the center. Without warning the teen lunged forward, swiping at the man, who easily avoided the blow.
What followed was like an intricate dance, like nothing Gabriel had ever witnessed. Both fighters moved faster than seemed possible, weaving in and out and around each other as their arms and legs landed dozens of blows.
“Wait a minute.” Nicola peered at the screen. “Are they using—” She fell silent as a blade flashed and the man struck the teen in the face.
The boy darted backward, holding one hand to his bleeding brow. Almost at once he attacked the man, and a moment later was sent sprawling onto the floor. His blade skittered out of his hand and landed at the feet of one of the watching children, who didn’t touch it or react at all.
The man stood over the teenager, but didn’t try to help him up. In a colorless voice he said, “You did not protect your head. Scalp and facial wounds bleed heavily. Blood in your eyes will blind you, and then you are dead. Quatorze.”
One of the smaller children rose and walked into the center of the circle. A foot shorter than the teenage boy, and very thin, the smaller boy had light hair cut so short he looked almost bald.
“Now,” the man said, handing his blade to the wounded teenager, “kill her.”
“That’s a girl?” Nicola murmured.
Gabriel felt more shock over the man’s order. No one, not even the most ruthless of Kyn lords, trained children to kill other children.
Nicola pressed a hand over her mouth as the teenager went after the smaller child. Just as he was about to stab her in the neck, she spun out of the way, clasping her hands together and striking the older boy in the small of his back. He went down hard and lay on the stone as if stunned.
The little girl walked up to the boy, kicking the blade from his hand before standing back. The boy rolled over and crawled toward the man in black.
“Please, master,” the boy begged, trying to grab the man’s leg. “I will practice more. I will—”
One of the men in the gray uniforms came forward, grabbed the boy by the hair, and dragged him out of the circle and then out of view of the camera. Gabriel heard his shrieks grow louder, and then stop suddenly.
The little girl went and picked up the blade she had kicked away, taking it to an open panel and replacing it on the rack before she rejoined the circle.
The screen turned to static.
Chapter 8
N
icola stood in silence for a moment before she reached down and shut off the recorder. “This is how you train tresoran kids? By forcing them to fight to the death?” “Never.” He went to her. “The children of human servants are taught many things, but not this. Never anything like this. It is…” He had no words for it.
“Fucking disgusting?” she suggested.
Nicola had been only sixteen years old when the high lord’s former wife had attacked her and her family. A sadist who enjoyed inflicting mental torture on her victims, Elizabeth Tremayne had forced the terrified girl to dig graves for herself and her dead parents before she had drained Nicola and buried her body.
Thanks to a twist of fate, Nicola had not perished, but instead made the transition from mortal to Darkyn. Left alone, without any of the Kyn realizing she had been changed, Nicola had roamed Europe searching for Elizabeth. It took ten years before she had finally found her and obtained justice for what the evil woman had done. However, the mortal life that had been stolen from her, like her parents, could never be replaced.
He would not have her suffer this place and those memories, not even for Richard Tremayne’s sake. “We will go.”
She removed the tape from the VCR and tucked it inside her jacket. “There’s nothing else in here. Did you pick up anything on Korvel?”
Their bond made Gabriel sensitive to Nicola’s moods and emotions; now he felt nothing from her, as if she were completely indifferent to what they had watched. “His scent is outside, near the body of the old man.”
She walked out of the room.
Gabriel retrieved two more of the tapes stacked on top of the recording unit before leaving the château. Outside he found Nicola examining the old man’s corpse and the ground around it. When he joined her she moved out of his reach.
“Two sets of footprints here.” She pointed to the ground. “They went around to the back of the house.”
“I know you are very angry,” he said to her. “So am I. Hurting mortal children is a violation of our laws as well as our beliefs. Helada will be made to answer for what he’s done. I promise you.”
“Yeah. Whatever you say.” She followed the trail of the footprints into the brush.
The police chief and the fire inspector appeared, flanking Gabriel as they both began firing questions at him. He took a moment to reestablish his control over them, commanding them to ignore him and Nicola while they attended to their duties.
His sygkenis he found inside a greenhouse that had been extensively vandalized. She was sitting on the ground next to a large shattered pot; in her hands she clutched an empty green velvet sack. She didn’t look at him or the sack, but stared blindly at the black soil strewn about the remains of the planter.
Before he could speak, she said, “The scroll’s gone. Korvel’s injured or dead; he left behind a lot of blood tainted with copper. A human woman was here with him, too. From the direction of the scent trails I’d say she took him out of here on horse, up into the hills.” She moved away from the hand he held down to her and got to her feet. “You want to track them from here, or call the vampire king and see what he wants us to do?”
She sounded like a machine. “I want you to talk to me.”
“We don’t have time for chitchat.” She tried to go around him, freezing as he caught her around the waist. “I’m fine.”
“No,” he said softly. “You are not.”
“If you’re waiting for me to have another tantrum, that’s not going to happen,” she said flatly. “When we find Helada, we’ll take him to Richard, show him the tapes, and he’ll chop off his head, or wall him up in a room and starve him to death, and everything will be just peachy again.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Laws have been broken, like you said. Richard will take care of it, Helada will pay, and we’ll go on like always. Until we find the next vampire who likes torturing humans, or considers them nothing but…What do the really snotty Kyn call mortals?” She pretended to think. “Oh, right. Fodder.”
She wasn’t shouting, but then, she didn’t have to. Her words scalded him. “Nicola.”
“It’ll never end, and I’m part of it now. You’d think karma would kick in, and as a vamp I’d be tuned into humans being tortured the way I was by Elizabeth, but no. I can’t save any of them. I get to rescue the fucking monsters who eat them.” She saw his face, and regret instantly replaced her rage. “Oh, no, baby, I don’t mean you. You could never be that.” She dragged her hands through her white curls, yanking at them before she dropped her arms. “I’m sorry. I’m just…tired. I need to do something that doesn’t make me feel like this.”
Gabriel pulled her against him, holding her until she stopped struggling. “Never apologize to me for how you feel. When everyone had forgotten me, you found me. After all my kind took from you, you saved me. You brought me out of darkness, Nicola. How can you expect me to do nothing when you are lost in it?”
“I’m not lost.” She looked up at him. “I know exactly where I am, and what I am. Every time I see something like this, I know that could be me. I mean, come on; I’m really not that different from Helada, am I? What if someday I decide little kids are nothing but toys for me to play with?”
“You would never do anything like this,” he told her. “Not in a thousand lifetimes.”
She moved her shoulders. “Maybe you won’t be around to find out.”
He kissed her forehead. “I will always be with you.”
“Really? Do you honestly think we’re going to be together forever? That this thing we have now will keep us going that long?” She drew back from him. “Unless we’re stupid, we’re never going to die. You’ve already been here for seven hundred years. I know you’ve had women who make me look like a dog by comparison. How can you not get bored with me?”
He glanced down at the scars on his arms. “I could ask you the same.”
“That’s easy.” She ran her palms over his shoulders. “You’re beautiful and kind and intelligent, and just looking at you makes me hot. That and I love you.”