Eleventh Grade Burns(28)



There was no question in Vikas’s tone, no possibility that Vlad might not want to know these things. He had to know them, and Vikas was determined to teach him. Just in case. Vlad nodded slowly, and dropped his backpack to the floor.

Vikas pointed to the chair across from him. “Sit.”

Vlad sat, feeling all the while like he was in trouble, like he was being punished. When he spoke, his voice was gruff. “What if I don’t need today’s lesson, Vikas? What if Joss changes his mind?”

Vikas’s brow furrowed, as if what he was about to say was enormously difficult for him. “I have seen his thoughts, Vladimir. He thinks of nothing but taking your life. You must learn how to defend yourself against your enemy. You must know how to kill Joss when the time comes.”

When. Not if.

Vlad stood, his heart racing. “No matter what he did in the past, Joss is my friend. I’m not going to—”

Then suddenly, he felt Vikas in his mind. As Vikas spoke, he nudged Vlad, forcing him to follow his simple, firm instruction. “Sit.”

Vlad sat, but not of his own free will.

“This is vital knowledge that you must have if you are to survive another encounter with this slayer. I have promised your uncle that I would ensure your safety and I shall. Though it would bring me great pleasure to dispatch this slayer myself, I have been told that I cannot unless he first breaks the peace between us. Therefore, that task falls to the first of us to be attacked. Should that be you, Mahlyenki Dyavol, you will need what I will teach you today. I will teach you and you will learn, even if I have to hold you here with my mind the entire time.”

Vlad swallowed hard, vowing never to mention to Vikas or his uncle that Joss had already made the first move. Or that he was determined to find a way to free Joss from the Society’s clutches.

Vikas released his hold on Vlad’s mind and began his lesson, despite Vlad’s protests. “The Slayer Society is a relatively small group of humans—all but a few male, all but a few middle-aged—who are bent on the destruction of vampirekind. We have no one to blame but ourselves, of course, as it was a vampire who created the slayers.”

Vlad raised his eyebrows in surprise, but remained silent, very much irritated at Vikas’s use of mind control.

“As you know, there are laws. The highest law being that no vampire should dare take the life of a fellow vampire. However, that is not to say that there are not certain vampires that deserve death, or that there are not those who would use the death of another to increase their own standing in Elysia.” A puzzled look crossed Vlad’s face. Vikas answered the question that Vlad had not yet asked, “Politics are the same in all cultures, it matters not what type of government they follow. To work around this law, which brings with it the absolute punishment of death—”

Vlad’s heart all but stopped. Otis had killed Ignatius last year. He could only imagine what that meant for his uncle.

“—a vengeful vampire by the name of Terryn took it upon himself to inform a small group of humans that vampires existed, with the explicit purpose of training them how to take down his vampire enemies. Revealing the truth of Elysia is a high crime, yes, but with his new group of assassins behind him, no one on the council dared to defy him. So Terryn lived several happy years after organizing his group of slayers, until they killed him.”

Vlad, intrigued by the history lesson, finally found his voice. “But why wouldn’t Terryn have just turned the slayers into his drudges and command them to obey him?”

“You’re quite astute, Mahlyenki Dyavol, for that is exactly what he did, and he blinded them to the fact that he was a vampire.” Vikas smiled to see that Vlad had decided to turn this into a discussion rather than a lecture. Vlad could feel Vikas’s control release. He trusted Vlad to stay put. “However, that too is a violation of Elysian law. You see, a vampire is only allowed to bind himself to two humans. Any more than that and our connection with them becomes too diminished to maintain control over all of them at once. Terryn’s original group consisted of thirty-four. And he trained them so well to recognize a vampire’s characteristics that they eventually saw through his control and realized his true nature. He became a victim of his own creation.”

Vikas had barely moved since he started talking. He was still sitting at the kitchen table with his hands clasped in front of him. Vlad noticed that the expression on his face had softened, but only just. “You knew him, didn’t you?”

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