“Narcise,” said Cale quietly, curling his fingers around the refilled glass. “I believe her name is Narcise.”
“Yes. She’ll be included in my plans as well,” Woodmore said. He knew from experience that some of the most vicious and bloodthirstyvampirswere the female ones. “Two for the price of one, Corvindale. She’s rather accomplished with the epée, I hear.”
“The saber, if I recall correctly. And rather than be your target,” Cale said, setting down an empty glass again, “you’d be better off utilizing her as an accomplice. There is no love lost between her and her brother, and she’d like nothing better than to see him skewered on a stake.” His mouth twitched in a humorless smile as he added, “Unless things have changed in the last decade.”
“I can’t imagine they have,” Corvindale replied flatly, confirming for Chas that he was definitely missing some underlayer of conversation. “He is the worst sort of dog.”
“What of the Astheniae? Do you know what theirs are?” he said, looking at Cale.
“But of course, no, or I would have employed it myself. No one knows Moldavi’s weakness. But because he keeps himself so cloistered, the assumption is that it’s something very common.”
“And the sister? Narcise? Do you know her Asthenia?”
“No…I do not.”
“Poor bastard Sabbanti died fifteen years ago,” Brickbank commented. “His was pine needles. Didn’t last more than five years before he got staked.”
Chas glanced at him with a wry smile. “He was one of my first slayings, in fact. I was sixteen.”
“Thought it was an unfortunate accident,” Brickbank replied, clearly stunned. “By Luce’s bollocks!”
“That’s how I make most of them look. I don’t need the damned Bow Street Runners sniffing around, complicating things. They get in my way often enough as it is.”
“It wasn’t long after that when you attempted to stake me,” Corvindale said. “Naturally, you didn’t have a chance at succeeding.”
Eddersley, whose eyelids were always half-closed, suddenly looked interested. “You tried to slay Corvindale? And you’re still alive?”
Chas nodded. “He took the opportunity to educate me on the precise angle with which to employ my stake—I was slightly off, and therefore not nearly as accurate as I am now. And then the lesson deteriorated into a philosophical conversation about how, just as with mortals, there are goodvampirsand evil ones, and then on to covenants with the Devil and how to break them when they are, indeed, unbreakable.”
“I merely convinced Woodmore that he should exploit his quite exemplary skills toward ridding the earth of those Dracule who have a different perspective of how to live as immortals, among mortals, than we do. Rather than hunting us.”
“You mean, those who choose not to do business with you, Dimitri, or who otherwise compete with you,” Cale said. “You’re a ruthless bastard in your own way.” His glass had been filled and then emptied a third time, and the congeniality that was normally in his expression had completely disappeared.
“Aren’t we all?” Corvindale replied evenly, but, yet, there was no dangerous glow in his eyes. Instead, his gaze was somber. “And isn’t that precisely why we’re sitting here—Woodmore excepted, of course? Because we’re all ruthless bastards, selfish and violent and lustful? That’s why Lucifer came to us with the offer in the first place. And not a one of us has changed since then.”
“Change?” Brickbank echoed, sloshing his drink. “Why the bloody Fates would we change? Live forever. Women—or men,” he added, glancing at Eddersley, who didn’t look particularly sleepy at that moment, “—all we want. Power. Money. All of it. No one can touch us.” His eyes gleamed with pleasure.
“But therein lies the flaw,” Corvindale said, crooking a finger to have his own glass refilled. “We do not live forever. At least, here, on earth.” He gestured to Chas, “And some of us leave this place sooner than others, thanks to our friend here. At some point, we are beholden to Lucifer. We belong to him.”
Corvindale’s deep bitterness effectively flattened the congenial mood, and they lapsed into silence.
Chas was fascinated and horrified in turn by the depths of this conversation. They were saying the very things he’d struggled with ever since he came to know Corvindale—and realized it was possible that allvampirsweren’t deserving of being hunted and killed in cold blood.
In fact, he suspected that Cale knew full well that his accusation wasn’t quite accurate—Corvindale didn’t employ Chas to simply assassinate his competition, or even those with whom he disagreed.
Chas certainly made threats to those who interfered or otherwise attempted to sabotage the earl’s business ventures, but his slayings were confined to those who were more like Cezar Moldavi, thosevampirswho fed greedily and left their victims to die, or who otherwise used their strength and constitution to violate and terrorize mortals simply for the pleasure of doing so.
Because they had given away their conscience with their soul.
Thus, his occupation as avampirhunter was one that brought Chas both revulsion and satisfaction. He associated socially with the very race he hunted, while picking and choosing among the servants of Lucifer to slay some and protect others.
It made for many dark, empty nights, lying in bed or in some form of transport, wondering if he truly had the right to be judge, jury and executioner of these men and women.
But he, of all men, was particularly suited to the task. And it was a cross he must bear.
11
Two months later
