The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One) (24 page)

How interesting
, he thought. Dracon had lived a very long time. He had lost
more mates than any one man could stand. He had steered away from
choosing human females centuries ago.

He had always shown much disdain
for vamps of his own kind—and held no interest in turned vamps, as
he had always liked to call them.

But now, he was showing interest in
a fledgling vamp.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

Second Chances

When Justice arrived at Second
Chances,
Conrad was waiting for him. The
tavern was full tonight, and Conrad had called in help. He waved at
one of them now, signaling that he’d be right back. The man nodded
and went back to making drinks, which were quickly carried off by a
waitress.

Justice knew immediately she wasn’t
human, and his gaze narrowed on Conrad.

“
She’s who I want to talk to you
about,” Conrad said, seeing the direction of Justice’s attention.
“She’s the one we found trying to escape Constantine’s
thugs.”

“
Did you just call him Constantine
again? Don’t say that too loud.”

“
Why not? It’s the truth isn’t
it?” Conrad frowned at him. “Just because the old vamp lived clear
back since the Biblical days—doesn’t mean he’s God or
something.”

Justice gave him a hard look. “No.
Not God or something. But Dracon warned you the last time that he
seems to have spies everywhere. And how do you know that he didn’t
send the girl as a spy?”

Conrad pressed his lips together
for a long moment, then said, “You know full well that was the
first thing that occurred to me.”

Justice nodded. He did know as
much. But he still wanted to hear the answer. He wasn’t one for
taking chances.

“
I have set her up with a series
of false information,” Conrad said telepathically.

Justice nodded that he had received
that information. He sat down at one end of the bar. He observed
the humans carrying on, and he watched the girl Conrad had brought
in going back and forth between the customers and the bar,
efficiently taking them drinks. She seemed right at home dealing
with them, keeping them happy, and easily staying out of the reach
of their drunk, groping hands.

Justice had no idea how women did
it.

She laughed, and kept an upbeat
attitude, but easily kept the men well in-line. She was a natural.
And Justice knew that Conrad could use the help on certain nights.
There were a couple of nights during the week, as well as Friday
and Saturday nights, when Second Chances
was particularly packed.

There were rumors about this
place.

But it seemed to him that the
rumors had only caused people to pack in all the more—not
less.

Humans sure are prone to being
attracted to danger
, he thought with a
shake of his head.

As if to prove that true, Justice
watched as a vamp entered the dimly lit tavern. He would have
recognized a vamp even if his hackles hadn’t risen at his first
good whiff, even from across the bar.

He glanced over at Conrad, noting
that the vamp’s appearance hadn’t escaped his attention either. Nor
had it escaped the guards, who had become regulars the past few
weeks since they’d had to increase security. Conrad had simply
appeared to have hired a much-needed bouncer and a couple of
bartenders. Three more guards had become regular customers, just
old friends from his past.

These were people who loved to
party. The more the merrier. It didn’t seem to occur to any of them
to be suspicious. In fact, they seemed to like the extra men. If
anyone had become suspicious, it was the vamps. But there were
enough rumors out on the streets about this place to do that all on
its own.

The guards intercepted the vamp and
escorted him out the back door, where Justice quickly met
them.

“
Who are you? And why are you
here?” he snarled at the vamp.

The vampire looked at the guards.
He had quickly realized he was surrounded by men who really could
take him down. He snarled back at them, but otherwise refused to
speak.

“
Take him to Dracon,” Justice
hissed, not taking his eyes from the vamp’s hard gaze. The vamp’s
eyes went even darker at the name. So the idea of meeting Dracon
hadn’t set well with him. Justice found that
interesting.

Very interesting indeed.

Justice didn’t leave the tavern. He
knew that Dracon would catch up with him there—just as soon as he
had dealt with the vamp. He showed up within three hours after
Justice had sent the vamp to him. Justice knew that it would have
taken the guards at least an hour to transport the vamp to
him.

Either Dracon had made short work
of him, or he had used supernatural means to get back to the
tavern.

Dracon joined him at his booth as
soon as he came into the tavern. Several men turned to stare, but
quickly looked away.

“
You haven’t really lost
your—vampire form,” Justice noted. “You’re spooking the
customers.”

Dracon nearly snarled, but then
reined himself in. Slowly he took on a more—natural look—if that
was what you could call the human look.

“
Well?” Justice asked after a long
moment.

“
Why didn’t you come with him?”
Dracon nearly accused. “You could have saved me a trip.”

Justice’s gaze narrowed on Dracon.
What had gotten into him? “I thought it—more prudent that I watch
to make sure no one else showed up after him—since I sent the
guards with him.”

Dracon looked away. He seemed to
work to control his emotions—which was rare for Dracon.

Justice waited.

After several, long moments, Dracon
looked at him. “He tried to cut a deal.”

Justice felt an internal lurch in
the deepest part of his gut, but he didn’t move, just waited for
Dracon to elaborate.

“
That vamp brought him Dara. He’d
been ordered to hunt her down by our—ummm… friend. He said he
didn’t realize who she was, just did what he was
ordered.”

Justice gaze narrowed on him. “How
did he possibly do all that without knowing who she
was?”

Dracon nodded. “That’s what I said.
He said he was brought in after they had—incapacitated her,” he
hissed this last part, revealing the depth of his
emotions.

“
Something tells me you didn’t let
him live?”

“
Would you?” Dracon
snarled.

“
Hmmm, your fangs are showing,”
Justice noted quietly.

Dracon growled beneath his breath,
but reined himself in once more.

Justice waited. After several
moments, he went on. “We could have used the information we got out
of him,” he stated in undertones.

Dracon nodded, “And that is the
only reason he lives.”

Justice had to work not to let out
the breath of relief he felt.

Chapter
Twenty-Five

War

The second town held a group of
vamps
who came to join the talks. They
were not so inclined to make anything easier on the humans. They
felt the humans had brought it upon themselves. But they were in no
hurry to put the Earth in any further jeopardy, either, by warring
amongst themselves—or the other races living on Earth. They said
they would be with Justice and Dracon—should they be needed—to put
the rebellious factions of vamps on guard—that they would indeed
have a war with their own people—if they didn’t stop this
separation from the Alliance.

The Alliance had worked—as far as
all were concerned—even though the humans had forgotten everything.
It had worked—because the Greys had not been able to take over the
Earth—they still had their home—and they weren’t about to allow
groups of rebels to jeopardize all of their hard work.

So it went with the next dozen
towns—out of the hundreds they still needed to visit. It was a
daunting task—and they were all already tired—as they set off
toward the next one.

Not knowing how fast the word was
spreading—of their coming, and what they were doing—to these
rebellious factions of vamps, who had a rally of their own prepared
to meet them.

They didn’t go so far as to attack
the peace-seeking groups. But they had a right to speak—and they
were there to be heard. This set the Fae groups on edge—since they
had been looking forward to being heard themselves, and didn’t
appreciate the intrusion by the vamps—who were not even from their
town.

If they had thought the previous
debate had become heated, it was nothing compared to this one. The
rebel factions of vamps particularly didn’t appreciate the
not-so-subtle innuendos that their own people were prepared to go
to war with them—if they did not come in and unite themselves with
the Alliance.

Jes noticed that Dracon was
suspiciously absent at the one debate where they needed him the
most.

They had a lot to say about the
childlike ways of the Alliance—some not-so-nice things were said
about how the Alliance pandered to the equally childlike humans—who
were not even aware that they put themselves and their home at risk
every single day with their continued, ignorant beliefs that they
were alone. On top of which—they continued to war with themselves,
when they needed to get with the program of protecting their home
from a much bigger threat than any human.

This last was said with some
disdain—but it gave Justice a perfect opening.

Jes wanted to get into this one
with them herself—but Justice dealt with them nicely—giving them a
great speech of duty and honor—and playing into their need to
preserve their home themselves. Then he pointed out to them that
the humans were not the only ones who kept endangering their
people—by going to war with their own kind.

This created
quite
the uproar—with the Fae
congratulating the coup—and the vamps not appreciating the
reference whatsoever.

That was when Dracon had finally
entered the room. Everyone went silent. Dracon was a powerful
force, for any enemy—and would make a formidable enemy amongst his
own people.

It was then that she realized that
Justice and Dracon had saved his entrance—for effect—to sway the
people, to give them an edge while emotions were high.

It wasn’t that this rogue faction
didn’t realize that he was there—they did.

But seeing him—when they were right
on the edge of making a decision—pushed them over the edge—in their
favor.

It was around noon the next day
when Justice had come to see her. She felt alone without her
sisters, and was glad to see him. She didn’t understand why they
did not bring Mira and Dara along for these talks. Wouldn’t their
input be beneficial? But she had been told they would not be
coming, and that had been that. Dracon had gone to wherever it was
he went during the day: to rest, she guessed. She really didn’t
know if a vamp—half spirit, half human—ever really needed to rest,
but she’d heard that they did.

Justice was cloaked in Fae glamour
again. The switching back and forth was what threw her off the
most. He seemed quiet, more so than usual. She sat on the sofa of
the room they’d rented, and just watched him—until he finally
decided to speak.

“
We are to visit the Queen of
Darkness,” he announced without preamble.

Whatever she’d been expecting—that
was not it. She couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d said the
Queen of England.

“
Why? And—how? You don’t just go
waltzing into the Land of the Fae—even when you’re a member of the
Jaguar Clan.”

He grinned. “Well—I have a
surprise.” He went to the door, opened it, and spoke to someone on
the other side. Then he opened the door all the way.

For the second time in so many
minutes, Jes was thrown.

There, standing at the door was
Lucius—and Mira was with him. Jes jumped up and ran to hug the
Jaguar witch. Mira had also brought Micah, of course.

Micah always attracted a lot of
attention wherever he went, with his dark hair and eyes and skin
the sinful color of cinnamon. He was beautiful.

Justice dropped his glamour as soon
as Lucius was through the door. He told her that Mira would show
them the way to the Queen of Darkness, and the three men went into
the other room to plan, leaving Mira and Jes to talk.

It wasn’t an easy thing—to just go
to see the Queen of Darkness. But it had been requested that they
appear—they had been sent an invitation.

And one just didn’t turn down an
invitation from the Queen of Darkness—as Mira well knew. They would
have gone through one of Roman’s doorways—one of the doorways he
could open that allowed people to go between times or places.
Unfortunately, Roman could not open a doorway for so many
people.

Roman, as one of Mira’s lovers—one
of the four who waited through each lifetime for her to come to
them once more—was proficient at the doorways between the worlds.
This had come in handy for Mira, when she’d fought Xavier Dubioux.
He had been quick to offer the use of them to Justice now as
well.