A Kiss of Blood (Vamp City #2)(84)

No, not unconscious. Cristoff stepped back and Arturo watched, stunned, as the limp forms of the guards disintegrated, one after the other. Dead. He’d killed them, two of his own.

The fear of those watching surged a hundredfold.

Cristoff strode to the other two. “Tell me where she is!” But though they professed not to know, Cristoff palmed their heads as he had the first pair, and moments later, they, too, were gone.

The room turned silent as a tomb, terror pulsing beneath the hush. Slowly, Cristoff turned back to Arturo. “Where is she?”

Arturo met his master’s gaze with a façade of calm certainty. “She’s gone back to the real world. I nearly caught her this morning, then lost her when the sunbeams broke through, and she escaped through one of them.”

“You saw it with your own eyes. Her escape from thin air.” As Cristoff stared at him, the hot fury slowly left his eyes to be replaced with something far more disturbing. The gleam of fanaticism. Madness.

“I did.”

“And did you see her disappear?”

“No. She was in the room, a small windowless bedchamber. There was no escape. And yet when I turned around, she was gone.”

Inexplicably, Cristoff grinned, then motioned Arturo to follow as he strode toward the back hallway.

His pulse pounding unsteadily, Arturo complied. With his mind blast, Cristoff had always been one of the most deadly vampires alive. But he’d been calm, fair, and intensely loyal to his own. Today, he’d proved himself none of those things. Deadly, unpredictable, dangerous, now, in the extreme. And Arturo knew he’d been sliding toward this for a long time. Arturo had simply been unable to see it.

Cristoff led him to his own private bathing room, a room Arturo had once enjoyed the comforts of on a regular basis. The room was furnished in bright blue tile with fixtures of gold, the bath more pool than tub, a good ten foot by ten foot square. Steam rose from the citrus-scented water, and around the tub stood four scantily clad female Slavas, their jeweled ni**les peeking out from beneath sheer sleeveless gowns.

Cristoff stripped off his robe and sank into the water. As he leaned back against the side with a sigh, he motioned to Arturo.

“Join me, mio figlio leale.” My loyal son.

His heart heavy from what he’d just witnessed, Arturo sat on a nearby stool to pull off his boots.

“Tell me about the sorceress,” Cristoff said, resting his arms along the sides of the tub, his tone warm. “Tell me everything.”

Arturo undressed slowly as he took a moment to collect his thoughts, to decide what Cristoff really wanted to know, and to plan his lies. Then he slid into the heated pool across from his master until their legs were parallel, though not touching. One of the Slavas knelt at Arturo’s side and began soaping his chest with soft, slender hands. Slender hands through which he felt no sunshine; hands that left him cold.

Slowly, he spun a tale, part truth, part fantasy. He told Cristoff about how he’d followed Quinn’s trail to Fabian’s, how Fabian had seemed genuinely surprised at her appearance, how he’d captured her and been shocked when she’d disappeared. He’d hunted her, of course, cleverly and untiringly. And again he’d found her, only to be forced back as the sunbeams broke through, sunbeams she’d taken quick advantage of to escape back into her world. No creature, not even a vampire, could leave Vamp City on a sunbeam. None but the sorceress.

Excitement and speculation lit Cristoff’s eyes. “If she escaped Ivan, why would she return to Vamp City?” He answered his own question. “She was searching for her brother.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Find him.”

Arturo nodded. “Kassius is already hunting him. We’ll find him.”

Cristoff began to grin. “She’s powerful.”

“So it would seem. Where she came into that power, I do not know.”

“It doesn’t matter. Only that she has it. With that kind of power, she’ll renew the magic on a null day. It matters not that we catch her today. Only that we catch her soon.”

Arturo hoped she was half as strong as he’d portrayed in his fiction. She had power, yes. Power enough to throw furniture, but enough to save a magical world? That was yet to be seen.

Leaning back against the side of the tub, Cristoff closed his eyes. “You’re the only one of all my vampires whose loyalty I have never questioned, my snake.”

The words no longer warmed Arturo as they used to.

The vampire master waved his hand lazily. “Whiskey for me and my loyal son.”

One of the Slavas immediately poured two tumblers, settling one in each vampire’s hand.

Cristoff took a sip of his and opened his eyes, spearing Arturo. “You and Micah will find the sorceress in the real world, and you’ll bring her to me. Quickly, Arturo, for we’ve not much time before this world crumbles around us. She will renew the magic. And then . . .” A satisfied smile bloomed slowly across his face. “And then she is mine.”

Arturo swallowed. “What have you planned for her?” He tensed for the litany of tortures Cristoff had in mind.

But all his master said was, “You’ll see, my loyal one. You’ll see. And you shall rejoice.”

Finally, Cristoff rose, taking the towel offered him. Arturo did the same, drying off and quickly dressing as one of the Slavas helped Cristoff back into his robe.