Allegiance (Causal Enchantment #3)(17)
I slowed to a stop, forcing Mortimer to do the same. “Allegiance? What do you mean? Like … a promise?”
Mortimer’s dark chuckle echoed through the foyer. “No, you twit … When you say it like that, it sounds like the stuff of little girls.” The amusement vanished and he frowned. “But of course, you wouldn’t understand. In this day and age …” He paused. “There was a time when pledging your allegiance meant something. Your honor, your soul, everything you stood for. Humans pledged to kings and queens, to those who reigned, to the mighty. They would die for them. There were some respectable humans in those days. Now …” Mortimer snorted with disgust. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me, Evangeline. I’m glad you don’t. That means you’ve learned something in all of this.” Dark eyes glinted as they appraised me. “But I’m going to tell you a secret. Something important.”
He had my full attention. Not only was I amazed that Mortimer had spoken to me for this length of time, but now he was about to divulge secrets?
“Though you may not believe it, vampires are a species of great principle. If you can get one of us to grant you our loyalty, it is unequivocal. You can harness their power. You. Will. Reign.” His free hand balled up into a fist and pressed against his chest. “It’s as if something inside binds us to that loyalty. It becomes ingrained in all that we are, in everything that we do. Get a vampire to pledge their allegiance to you and you will never have to worry about them harming you. They are yours. For life.”
I frowned. “For life? Just because you swore?” I tried to wrap my mind around the concept. For life. Wow. Mortimer had basically sworn fealty to Sofie for eternity? If he was telling the truth, he was no longer a threat to her. In a roundabout way, I guess that meant he wouldn’t be a threat to me, either …
“But Viggo … do you trust him to keep his word?” I asked.
Mortimer smiled wryly. “Believe me, I wondered. I still wonder sometimes, but I witnessed it. I know the uncontrollable pull that I feel inside me is the same one inside of him. Sofie offered him sole custody of Veronique’s pendant in exchange for him staying out of her hair. He seemed happy with that.” I didn’t doubt it, given I hadn’t once seen him without it proudly displayed on his person.
“But … why do it in the first place? You’re now at Sofie’s mercy, aren’t you?” I pressed, bewildered by this whole concept.
“Well, to be frank, we didn’t have much choice,” Mortimer explained. He tugged at my arm, forcing me to move up the stairs once again. “After the way the two of us have behaved, Sofie was ready to set us both on fire and peg it on the sorceresses when Veronique awoke. I can’t believe she didn’t. But she didn’t. She gave us a choice. Pledge our allegiance to her, or die. That she gave us an option … well, Sofie finally has earned my full respect.” His head shook reproachfully. “If Mage has taught us anything—if that disastrous attack back in Manhattan has taught us anything—it’s that we must work together. We can’t be going off with our own agendas, with our own plans. We end up sabotaging ourselves. We need a united front against our enemies and to free Veronique.”
Veronique. Again, like the prick of a needle in my flesh, that name. A flash of a menacing witch looming over me, a whip gripped firmly in her hand, posed to strike, turned my blood to ice. With a quick jerk of my head, I tried to dislodge the name and the image. It was a dream … it was a dream … it was a dream … but … what if it wasn’t a dream? No … Max said I hadn’t left. But … what if Veronique was being tortured and Sofie were to find out that I knew? If Mortimer and Viggo discovered that I knew and I kept it from them?
I eyed Mortimer warily. What would he do? Would this so-called fealty to Sofie be enough to protect me by association? I doubted it. But what if …
“How do I do that?” I asked in a whisper, almost afraid to voice the words, that he’d somehow read my intentions in them.
He frowned. “Do what?”
“Get a vampire to swear their allegiance to me.”
Mortimer’s snort echoed through the foyer. “Simple. You don’t.” We reached the top of the stairs. “None of us in our right minds would ever give you that much power over us. But I’ve felt your mousy stares on me for the last day, as if I’m about to stab you in the back, so I thought I’d give you some peace of mind.” Mortimer sighed as we walked down the dimly lit hall toward my room. “No … Sofie is not our enemy. She is honorable and she’ll hold up her end of the bargain. It would do us good to remember that.” I wasn’t sure if he was stating a fact or saying it aloud to convince himself. Either way, I remained silent, content to see if Mortimer would share anything else.
“Those other witches and the People’s Sentinel. They are the enemy. They must be stopped.” Pure hatred cast its shadow on Mortimer’s handsome face. Plain as day, even in the darkness of the dimly lit corridor. “Every last one of them will die, I promise you that. That’s what I should’ve been doing all these years, instead of hiding. I should have been gathering information, planning for the attack. I won’t make that mistake again. Mark my words, every last one of those spineless cowards will die.”
I blanched, my eyes flickering to Julian’s closed door. The Sentinel’s closer than you think, Mortimer …