Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(139)

“Not until you tell me where to find him.”

“Are you ordering me?” The question was calm and a little amused, but Michael wasn’t fooled. There was steel underneath it. Steel with a sharp, sharp edge.

“Yes,” he said, and slapped his palms on the desk to lean into Oliver’s space. “I am.” He felt that warm tingle in his eyes, and knew they were flushing bright, threatening red.

“Better,” Oliver said, unperturbed. “Save your aggression for the one who needs it. You may find him at his shop in Founder’s Square.”

“He has a store?”

“Did you think he simply haunted graveyards? He owns a shop that sells flavored teas. He won’t be at the counter; he is not as . . . hands-on as I. But he will be in the rooms above.” Oliver flipped a hand at him. “Go.”

Michael did, pushing his anxiety and fury back until his eyes were blue and normal, and he could force a smile for the people outside in the coffee shop.

Then he went to find Rozhkov.

? ? ?

The tea shop was something he’d never paid any attention to before. It was closet-sized, just big enough to serve two or three at a time. Shelves of dusty jars of product, and a very bored woman behind the counter who barely looked up from her copy of Romantic Times when he came in. The clean, flowery scent of the teas was overwhelming. Then she came back for a second look, folded the magazine, and brightened up. “Oh, hello,” she said. “How can I help you? We have a special on Earl Grey and some of the Tazo flavors. I can brew you up samples, too.”

He didn’t have the heart to go full vampire on her; she seemed so happy to see a customer. “How about”—he picked one at random—“Blueberry Bliss Rooibos?” He had no idea what it was, but it sounded like something Eve would like.

“Sure!” she said brightly, and grabbed one of the dustier glass jars. “I’ll just make you up a cup to taste. Wait right here.”

She went through a beaded curtain to the back, and Michael quickly scanned the shop again. The rooms upstairs, Oliver had said.

He took hold of the shelves on the right, and pulled. They swung out. Behind them was a door—locked, but he snapped it easily enough and pushed it open. There was a handle on the shelf from the other side, and he pulled it to behind him as he entered.

Stairs. It was utterly dark, but he could make out silvery outlines, enough to find his way. Michael took them quickly, knowing that Rozhkov would have heard the lock breaking, and was at the top in only a second.

It was still long enough for Rozhkov to be ready.

Michael ducked the swing of a sword that would have easily decapitated him, and lunged forward, connecting hard with the bony, sinewy body of the other vampire. It would have overwhelmed a human, broken bones, but it hardly rocked Rozhkov back a few steps, and he kept his balance to drive a fist hard into Michael’s chest. It pushed Michael back, and he swayed back to avoid the next slash of steel.

Rozhkov looked strong, and cocky, and he gave Michael a broad, fanged grin. “Boy,” he said. “How long have you been in our life? You’re hardly more than an infant to me. Give up. I don’t need your life.”

“You don’t need Eve’s.”

“Ah, but I do. It’s destiny. She was drawn to me.”

“You came to us.”

Rozhkov shrugged. Logic didn’t matter, of course. “Her blood is true, and when she dies, I will take her energy. It is how I live. How I grow greater.”

“You’re insane,” Michael said. “Last chance. If you let Eve go, we can end this peacefully.”

“Why in the world would I desire such a thing?” Rozhkov put the tip of the sword against Michael’s throat. “Peacefully. You threaten me? You’re nothing. Nothing but a whisper in the dark.”

“No,” Michael said. “I’m the dark.”

He let go.

The thing he hadn’t said to Oliver, the thing he hadn’t said to anyone, was that the reason he fought his vampire nature so hard, the reason he loathed it so much, was that it was so incredibly easy. As easy as relaxing, and falling, and being . . . something else.

He grabbed the sword’s edge, ignoring the pain of the cut, and twisted the weapon out of Rozhkov’s hand, snapping the man’s wrist with the crisp sound of breaking twigs. Part of him—the small, trapped human part—screamed for it to stop, but the vampire didn’t listen. Rozhkov was prey. Rozhkov was enemy.

Michael tossed the sword into the air, grabbed it with two hands as it fell, and swung with all his might, aiming cleanly for the vulnerable, narrow throat.

It hardly gave any resistance at all.

Rozhkov was saying something, or trying to, when he died. Michael didn’t bother to listen. He stared down at the man’s face as it went still, then slack, and the malice in the eyes faded into nothing.

There wasn’t that much blood, and what there was trickled out dark and thick.

Michael reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a silver-coated stake that he’d swiped from Shane’s stash, and buried it in Rozhkov’s heart, just to be sure. Then he put the sword down and closed his eyes.

The dark was a storm inside him, a force like a whirlwind, stirred and excited by the violence. Yes, it said. Yes, this is you. This is how you are. How it will be.