Prisoner of Night (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #16.5)(40)

Duran put his hand on the right side of the door. On the profile of his father’s face. “I was so close to getting her out, too. It was a fulcrum of events coming together. The bunker was ready, our escape route planned, my supplies set at Nexi’s. I had helped Nexi get out of the compound as a test the week before, and it had worked. I’d needed to make sure it would work, you see . . . I had to be certain my mahmen would be safe.”

When Ahmare put her hand on his shoulder, he jumped and focused on her. In a low voice, he said, “I was so close. I was so fucking close.”

As he spoke, he wasn’t sure whether he was talking about getting his mother free.

Or what he had come to do here on this night.

Duran pushed the door and stepped into the arena.





23




THE SKELETONS WERE EVERYWHERE. Hundreds of them, maybe more.

As Ahmare followed Duran into a theater area that had rows upon rows of seats descending to a central stage, she couldn’t count the bones.

And they had died horribly. These people . . . these poor people had suffered.

She lowered her gun and went over to the topmost section of seats. “Dear . . . God.”

Duran walked down the carpeted stairs that were covered with brown stains. Blood, she realized. They must have bled out, but from what?

Duran bent down and picked up a syringe. “Hemlock.”

Her brain struggled to process it all. “I saw those trees in the woods?”

“My father grew them for this purpose.” Duran put the syringe back precisely where he had found it. “Deadly to humans. Worse to vampires if injected. You bleed out of every orifice.”

Which explained that thick brown staining, which had dried . . . some time ago . . . into the runners on the stairs, and in the aisles, and all over the seats and backs of the chairs.

She could only imagine the carnage when it had first happened.

“He always said he would do it.” Duran walked downward to the stage, stepping over arms and legs. Rib cages. Skulls. “He talked about end of days, and I always thought he must have gotten the idea from the human media or something because we don’t go by the term ‘days.’ And you were right, TV and newspapers and radios were all barred to us, but he kept track of the outside world with them. Sometimes he would bring clippings in to my mahmen and read them to her, especially before I went through my transition.”

“How old are you?” Ahmare blurted.

“A year out of the change.” He shook his head. “I mean, I was a year out of it when she died and I ended up at Chalen’s. Nexi was the one who helped me through my transition, and I in turn helped her get out.”

Duran bent over and gingerly moved an arm bone back into place. “He told them every night at sunset they were with sin. He told them he was the salvation. They believed him. This”—he motioned around the arena—“was supposed to be the cleansing. I imagine when they first injected themselves they were in a flush of obedience, so sure they were doing the right thing and this would take them to the next level of consciousness with their leader. They didn’t want to go to the Fade. It was a mental and emotional elevation they were seeking and that he promised to deliver.”

He picked up a thigh bone and looked at the length. “But then the pain set in. I saw him inject a male once. He did it in front of me as a threat. The male was so prepared for it, offering his vein readily, no one restraining him. My father made the male kneel before him, and he kissed the male on the forehead, cupping his face, smiling down at him with warmth and compassion. Then he told the male to close his eyes and accept the gift.”

Duran replaced the femur and walked farther down. When he got to the bottom of the seating bowl, he went around and mounted five steps up onto the dais. “My father looked at me as he injected the cult member, and then he embraced the male, as if all I had to do was submit to the rules and all my problems would go away. Except”—he laughed harshly—“the asshole would of course still be beating and abusing my mahmen. I watched as the male leaned into my father. The male was smiling—until he wasn’t. His eyes popped open. The whites of them turned red. And then the blood came. Out of his mouth as he coughed. Out of his nose. Out of his ears as he fell to the side. His breathing turned into gurgles, and he contorted, first stretching back on his spine, then curling in tight. He bled . . . from everywhere.

“And the most fucked-up thing?” Duran looked up at her. “My father stepped back and seemed shocked by it all. Like what the fuck did he think was going to happen? Did he actually believe his own bullshit about transcendence? I never thought he did, but maybe he expected a bolt of light to come through the ceiling and bathe that male in enlightenment.” There was a pause. “That’s when I knew he was going to have to get rid of me. Even without the issue of my mahmen, I had witnessed his confusion and knew that he was just making it all up. I saw behind the curtain that night, and in a world built on the illusion of his superiority, that could not abide.”

Ahmare started down the stairs, imagining all of the suffering. The people had been sitting in the chairs at first, but that hadn’t lasted. The bones were in the aisles, in the spaces between the seats, on the steps. It was difficult to tell for sure which ribs went with what arms or whether a skull was with the right spine as the bodies had intertwined, perhaps seeking comfort from each other as they realized, too late, that the promise was not coming. Only the pain.