Dreaming Of A Blood Red Christmas (Kindred, Book 8.1) (6 page)

No such luck.

Temper, temper, Michel,
she mentally replies.
You'll scare the babies.

That is it. I slam against the metal door, knowing my efforts will be futile. Alain joins me, equally aware this is just for my ego, to appease the dragon-within. This door is made to handle a vampyre stampede; titanium re-enforced with silver, as thick as any decent bank vault.

We don't even make a dent.

Panic is beyond me now. I am hyperventilating, a useless show of emotional upheaval for a vampyre who does not need to breathe. She is alone inside the cell block with my blood-sister, a vampyre who has done me more harm than shown me familial compassion.

A sound I don't even recognise as coming from me reverberates around the thick walls. All those vampyres present, including mine, cringe.

And suddenly I am in her mind, her walls down, her shields lowered. Just enough to allow me access, to show me what she sees, what she hears. What is transpiring no more than a half dozen feet away on the other side of this impossibly impregnable door.

"Why have you come here?"
she is asking Petra, who on closer inspection is still firmly secured behind silver bars.

Glazed.

Oh, well done, my little hunter. My dragon-within, while not appeased, stops pacing inside long enough to pay attention instead.

"To get what is my due,"
Petra replies in a sing-song voice.

Glazing requires effort and concentration, in addition any answer sought must first be gained through pertinent wording of the question. I cannot see how Lucinda looks, the vision she gives me is through her own eyes. But I can feel her health through the Bond; still stable, still well. Not yet tired.

I take a step back from the door and wait this scene out. For now my kindred has the upper hand.

"And what do you believe is your due?"
Lucinda is asking.

Petra smiles, it's cruel and calculating. I've seen it many times before. Lucinda pulls back, just fractionally. Not a show of fear, but one of disgust.

"I was first born,"
Petra purrs.
"I was Amicus' favourite. It is I who should be the Champion, not him."

I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. What the hell has she ever done to ingratiate herself within the
Iunctio?

"You are a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic, aren't you?"
Lucinda says conversationally. The smile spreads my lips before I can stop it.
"Well, whatever,"
she adds.
"You can't just barge on in here and demand the vampires respect you. Are you planning on killing Michel?"

My wife still does not understand.

"Of course not,"
Petra simpers.
"I plan on making him mine."

I see the Light flare in the cell block, coating the vampyre behind the bars in a white glow. Petra is so far under the glaze she does not realise the Nosferatin before her has just become enraged.

"You truly believe you can steal him from me?"
my beautiful, fiery kindred demands.

"Steal him? You are not suitable, and the pact will ensure he does what I suggest in this regard."

I make a plaintive sound, Alain flicks concerned eyes at me. I do not divulge how close to being burned I actually am right now. My kindred has just given me the mental equivalent of a stake to the ribs in a Lucinda what-the-fuck? manner.

"This pact,"
Lucinda says, and to hear her you would not know she is seething.
"How exactly does it work?"

"Blood is the Bond. Words are the Law. He has agreed to accept my support and guidance in all his political and private needs."

A choked sound emits from Lucinda's lips. Equal to an inarticulate you've-gotta-be-fucking-kidding-me.

"And you believe he can do better than me? And he is obligated through this blood pact, this accord, to follow your directives?"

"Yes,"
Petra responds with enthusiasm, pleased her audience understands her goal.

"Why on earth would Michel agree to that?"
Lucinda asks, but the question is rhetorical. However under a glaze, Petra does not comprehend the nuance.

"He had no choice."

My eyes close briefly at the reminder. I do not want Lucinda to know. Not because I am ashamed as such, but because she will feel my pain with me. She always does.

Don't do this.
I send the thought into her head.
Open the door and we will deal with Petra.

Did you think I would let you face this alone, Michel?
she queries.
When it obviously hurts you so.

My hand reaches up and presses palm flat against the cool metal door. My kindred is on the other side, delving into my ancient past, because she wants to protect me.

I don't know what to say to make this go away, to stop history invading the peace of my present life. We've been through so much, and yet there always seems to be more to contend with. And now we have the children to think of.

Trust me
, Lucinda says quietly in my mind.
Let me do this one thing for you.

For a moment I freeze, already conscious of where Lucinda is taking this, and momentarily stunned immobile by the consequences this could bring.

"Why did he have no choice?"
Lucinda is asking, her voice soft and lyrical, trying to avoid causing me more pain. But the words bring my mind back to the present, and conversely hurtle it into the past as well.

Petra pauses, fighting the glaze. Aware that what she is about to divulge is detrimental to her argument. The argument that she would make a better mate than Lucinda.

I feel Lucinda tiring, increasing the force of the glaze, drawing on the Bond for more power, Light blazing in the cell room, coating the silver in bright diamanté sparkles. My
Sanguis Vitam
surges, in an effort to offer her more, but the cell block is surrounded in silver, making vampyre talents null and void.

My fist pounds on the door, a thick, dull metallic sound echoing in the corridor we are in.

Stop this! Let me in!
I shout, but Lucinda, ever capable of walking her own path, ignores my demands.

"Tell me
,
"
she's saying to Petra.
"What did you do?"
My kindred has worked it out. Or at least she has a fair idea. I feel her agony, her heartache, but also her determination to get the woman to say the words aloud.

Oh, my wife is clever. She knows this admission will make Petra's claim hard to prove.

"We threatened his family's lives."

Lucinda stills, trying to work the time-line out from what I have already told her. My immediate family were murdered by Amicus, in an effort to lure me to him in order to assassinate me. He changed his mind once we met, and turned me instead. Lucinda knows this, so how could he and Petra have held my family's lives over my head
after
I was turned?

"What family?"
Lucinda asks, and I swear she is holding her breath. I will Petra to answer quickly. Rather a band-aid removal than slow torturous blade to the stomach. Lucinda needs air to breathe, I do not. So I hold my breath for both of us.

"His cousins, aunts and uncles. His village, all considered family back then."

"And he agreed?"
Lucinda asks.

"No,"
Petra replies, opening the wound in my heart fully.

"No?"
I cannot stand to hear the surprise and shock in Lucinda's words. I turn my back from the door to the cells and come face to face with Gregor and Amisi.

Amisi looks concerned. Gregor looks pained. He has heard Lucinda's thoughts. I hold his gaze, magenta softly infusing the space between us. Silver and platinum flash back in answer to my unsaid plea.
Please, do not tell a soul.

I thought I was no longer ashamed, but I am. I chose my freedom over my extended family. I had lost so much already, but I planned to seek my revenge. The turning had been difficult, making me into something I am not, in more ways than one. I had regrets left over from my human years and more accumulating within hours of being turned. Only amplifying as the hideous first few days passed.

I was not myself. But that is not an adequate excuse.

"Then what happened?"
Lucinda presses, and I feel a delicate hand rest on my arm.

I glance down and Amisi is offering comfort, having felt my emotions, no doubt. I smile, but I am sure it does not reach my eyes.

"I'm going to try something," she says in that lilting Egyptian accent. At this stage I will let anyone, who is willing try anything they so care, have free reign. I nod my head once and she steps around me, placing her hand above the keypad, letting her Light accumulate.

The scene in the cells has become more desperate. Petra fights the glaze actively now, Lucinda has had to resort to sitting on a stool. Her legs no longer able to support her.

I am a volatile cocktail of differing emotions. Anger that she is pushing herself this far. Desperation that I cannot reach her. Shame that she knows my most humbling secret. And lastly, fear that she will come to harm.

Lucinda wins the battle of wills for now, Petra finally answers.

"I killed a dozen of his family members while Amicus held him down to watch."

Silence. In the cells. Out here in the corridor. Not that everyone on this side of the door can hear what is transpiring within the prison block, but as I have fallen to my knees, blood red tears streaking down my cheeks, they do not need to hear to know my heart bleeds.

Lucinda finds the strength to ask one more question.

"Under orders from Amicus or of your own volition?"

"It was my suggestion, my plan. My undertaking. That is why Amicus loved me so."

I feel Lucinda sag on her stool, my eyes dart to Amisi to see if progress has been made. Gregor sees the outright distress on my face.

"How much longer,
ma ange
?" he asks Amisi.

"Almost there." Almost. Will it be soon enough, though?

"Well,"
Lucinda is saying,
"You really are a chip off the old block. Couldn't stand Amicus, really don't much like you either. But here’s the thing, in case you haven't quite worked it out, the Blood-Kin Pact is a sacred Bond, one based on the strength of its ties."

How does she know this?

"If the ties that hold the blood-family together are forced, then the pact is considered contrived, unnatural. Prone to cracks and fissures in its make-up. Such a Blood-Kin Pact is weak and easily destroyed. You, my dear blood-sister-in-law, have just cut a great big fucking hole down the centre of yours. So, congratulations. The Pact is void."

"How so?"
Petra demands, making me realise Lucinda has released the glaze, allowing Petra her last moments of defence under her own cognitive abilities. "
Who are you to rule in such a way? You aren't even vampyre!"

Nosferatin Light blazes bright and clear for a split second. A warning. A show of prowess.

"I am the Prophesied of the Iunctio, vampyre!"
Lucinda says in a cold, hard, level voice. All the more striking in its total lack of volume and emotion.
"And this ruling has been seconded by two of my fellow Councillors, and as such, cannot be reversed."

Who?

"Who are these other Councillors who come between me and my blood-brother?"
Petra demands.

I feel Lucinda's smile, her wicked sense of elation at having beaten an opponent in the political arena. She has come such a long way, how can I not be proud?

"The Ambrosia,
" she says, and I must admit that makes complete sense.

Of course the ancient and extremely knowledgeable vampyre would seek out my kindred and set things in motion behind my back. But who is the second?

"And just a little advice, woman to woman,"
Lucinda adds, and that damn smile is spreading my lips again.
"If you're looking for a spy within the Iunctio, don't chose one I have washed in
my
Light."

"The Diviner,"
Petra says with utter incredulity, and I am as incredulous as she. The Diviner? He despises me, and has continually tried to undermine Lucinda.

Well, he did before she washed him in her Light. Has my wife been establishing a friendly relationship with the over opinionated vampyre on the sly?

Everything I know I have learnt from you
, she says in my mind, and this time I burst out laughing.

"So, what now?"
Petra spits.

"Now you leave New Zealand, your welcome is outstayed."

"This is the Iunctio, it is available to all vampyre."

"Unless they break an Iunctio rule,"
Lucinda casually replies.
"Or,"
she adds, looking down at her nails absently, as though bored with the whole affair,
"they piss a Councillor off so much she calls in her marks and has your name blacklisted on the network."