Vanquished (3 page)

If anyone was going to kill that bastard, she should have been the one to do it. Not that she was planning to before Antonio de la Cruz had stolen her choice from her.

I hate him. I hate Antonio more than I have ever hated anyone.

She cast a contemptuous gaze at the minion cowering before her, a vampire who had fought the hunters at Salamanca and lived to tell the tale. He was terrified of her, which was good. His knees shook.

He’s too weak to be an effective lieutenant. Actually, too weak to be allowed to live.

She reached out with both hands, grabbed his head, and twisted it from his neck. For one second the lieutenant’s eyes blinked at her in shock, and then all of him, head and body, transmuted into dust.

That made her feel a little better.

As she wiped her hands on a nearby chaise, she just wished she could do the same to Antonio. And to Estefan. The Dark Witch had gotten his prize, the girl Skye, and fled the battle without a word.

He would pay for deserting her.

But first Aurora would leave Madrid. In a few hours she would be with her sire. When Lucifer called, none dared ignore it. Love and fear mingled within her at the thought of
seeing him again. She would have to tell him about Sergio’s death, though Lucifer probably already knew. Her dark lord knew everything.

He probably even knows that I captured Antonio and then lost him.

She shuddered at what he might do to her for that blunder. There was nowhere in this world or the next that she could hide from Lucifer, and she would go to him with her head held high.

But first she had once last thing to attend to.

“Come,” she commanded.

One of her fledglings entered the room silently. The young girl’s arms were full of white satin. She inclined her head to Aurora, who felt her throat actually constrict with unspent emotion.

It was time.

Aurora beckoned the girl forward, and the little thing held out the white gown. It was reminiscent of the style of the Spanish royal court when Aurora had been alive. Aurora had died in 1490, becoming a vampire to escape the Spanish Inquisition.

With a sense of ceremony, Aurora disrobed, and the fledgling helped her don the heavy costume, slipping her arms into the white embroidered sleeves. Experiencing again the confinement of the small, stiff hoops that created the slender bell shape of the skirt, Aurora held herself regally, her posture impeccable.

Then the servant helped her arrange her long, raven-black hair, entwining lilies in it as she piled it on Aurora’s head. When she was finished, Aurora fought the urge to glance in the mirror. She was more than five hundred years old, yet it still startled her when she could not see her own reflection.

The dress was beautiful, and she knew that modern society would have assumed she was a bride, and not in deep mourning. The royal court in her time had favored white for funerals. It felt more appropriate to honor Sergio in that way than with the modern black.

“How do I look?” she asked the fledgling.

“Like a beautiful ghost,” the girl said with a faint smile.

Better that than a corpse. Or a pile of ash scattering slowly in the breeze.

“
Bueno
, I’m ready,” Aurora announced, stepping through bits of brittle colored glass and vampire dust.

The woman walked ahead and opened the door, and Aurora glided out. She descended a circular stone staircase to the main hall, where nearly two dozen of her most loyal followers waited. At her request they too had dressed in white, although they had opted for modern styles of clothing—suits and formal gowns. She didn’t begrudge them that.

Leading the way, she left the house and walked slowly toward El Retiro Park. The others fell in step behind her, a funeral cortege, many carrying blood-red roses or lilies, others crystal decanters and simple glass jars filled with
blood. Along the route some human passersby stopped to stare. Others fled.

Aurora kept her eyes straight ahead, allowing herself to think more fully about Sergio than she had in years. Memories, both good and hideous, flooded her like a rushing river. Sergio had been magnificent and arrogant, passionate and unpredictable. He had been her one great love. He had also been willful, reckless, cruel, and insensitive. She had hated him as much as she had loved him.

He made me feel so alive.

Sergio had worshipped the dark god Orcus. Orcus no longer possessed active temples or followers. There was nowhere she could go to respect that part of Sergio. So she had chosen instead their favorite trysting spot in the city of Madrid.

Inside the park, the procession wound to the Fountain of the Fallen Angel. Meant to depict Lucifer as he was being cast out of heaven, it had always been their private joke. The sculptor who had fashioned it had given the Fallen Angel the face of a very different Lucifer: their vampiric sire.

Silently, the mourners circled the fountain. Emilio, an aged vampire Aurora and Sergio had both held in esteem, stepped forward, an ebony-and-maroon leather volume in his hand. He opened it and began to read the words he had written for the occasion.

“Immortality—the greatest of gifts—must not be approached with trepidation. Life is not something to be
sipped, but to be grasped with both hands and bled for all its worth. This fire—this passion—sustains, nourishes, uplifts, illuminates all. We are blessed, not cursed, to understand, to taste the finest fruits of the universe.”

He closed the book. “None knew this more than Sergio Almodóvar. Filled with bloodlust, the finest of killers, he was a vampire who knew how to live. Sergio himself would remind us that though we may have eternity, it can be taken from us in the twinkling of an eye. Every moment must be savored to its last drop of potential in the chance that it is to be our last.”

A stricken sigh passed through the assembly. Immortality denied was a terrifying tragedy. Humans were born doomed. Vampires . . . spared.

“We are here to honor his memory and to commit his soul to Orcus,” Emilio continued. “God of Light, God Below, look upon your most loyal son with favor.”

Around Aurora the others stirred, reflecting on the dark god or goddess they themselves worshipped. Like humans, vampires followed many deities, worshipped in many ways. For some, their underworlds were ruled by beings connected with light and the returning of their souls. For Aurora Abregón, there was only one thing that felt right. She rent her clothes, as her Jewish ancestors had done, ripping the finery with vampiric strength, and she wailed—mourning in the style of the ancient Romans, of Orcus.

Those who had brought flowers ringed them around the
base of the fountain. Those who had brought blood spilled it into the waters—an offering and a remembrance.

I will remember you. I will never forget who did this to you.

As she let out another cry, her heart was truly broken. Aurora would not have killed Sergio, had she had the chance. She knew that she would have forgiven him for every wretched, horrible slight, every cutting insult, every wrong he had committed against her.

She might have tortured him for a few weeks, but she would have declared the slate wiped clean.

Fueled by her passions, Aurora led the procession back to the crumbling palace. But even as she thought of the banquet that was waiting, her misery was so great that she had no hunger. She was too angered by her grief to eat anyone.

“My friends,” she said, facing the assembly. “Sergio must be avenged. Swear a blood oath with me that you will kill his assassin—the traitor Antonio de la Cruz.” She raised her left hand and sliced a fingernail across her palm. Blood welled up and began to drip as the others followed suit. Under the moonlight the vampires bled.

“He is as good as dead,” Emilio said; the others inclined their heads.

And Aurora smiled.

Salamanca Hunter’s Manual: The Eternal Battle

It may feel as if your struggles against the Cursed Ones are endless. This is true. The enemy can—and will—create more of his kind, and all of them seek your death. So you may question if your holy calling has meaning, and why you must press on when fortune favors you so little. Remember this: The Savior, too, had doubt, and yet He prevailed when it mattered most. If you fight without ceasing, dedicating your soul to the conquering of the foe, you will receive the ultimate reward—not in this world, but the next.

(translated from the Spanish)

I’m starving. I need blood,
Heather Leitner thought as she crouched in the overgrown gardens outside Aurora’s ruined palace. Her threadbare jeans and shredded sweater were barely distinguishable from her hair and skin. She was coated from head to toe with dirt and dried blood. She looked like an animal—or a nightmare.

She was faint with hunger, and she had trouble remembering how she’d tracked Aurora to Madrid. During the battle in Salamanca, Aurora’s vampire army had piled into trucks and vans, and Heather had yanked open the car door of an unsuspecting motorist unlucky enough to be in the vicinity, dragged him out, and taken off after them.

Did I kill the driver? Did I drink his blood?

She was drawing a blank. Or maybe she couldn’t face the truth. If she had drunk of him, would she still be this hungry?

She closed her eyes, sick to her soul at the thought. To bite a human being, to drink their blood. It sounded . . .

. . . wonderful.

Clenching her fists, she swayed with weakness as she studied the silhouettes of the Cursed Ones through the stained glass. Which one was Aurora?

“I’ll kill you,” Heather whispered, feeling her fangs
pressing against her thin, chapped lips. “I swear to God I’ll turn you into dust.”

If she didn’t drink from a living creature, she would lose the fragile hold she had on her sanity. And Heather had to stay sane.

So she could kill Aurora.

In the courtyard of the ancient Toledo monastery, Jenn made a double fist and flung herself at Noah. The hardened Israeli soldier dropped to the ground and swept out his leg, grinning at her when, unable to stop her momentum, she tumbled forward and face-planted in the dirt. Then he grunted in surprise as she rolled onto her back, grabbed his ankle, and yanked it toward her chest. He teetered for a moment, then fell on his butt.

“Ha!” she shouted. Before she could gloat any further, Noah straddled her, catching her wrists in one hand as he mimicked slashing her throat with his other.

“How did you do that?” she managed between gulps of air as he sprang to a standing position, then pulled her to her feet.

They were both wearing clean white T-shirts and sweatpants, courtesy of the brothers in the monastery. Their feet were bare. Noah’s hair was crazy wild from the tussle, but
it only added to his allure. He had freckles across his nose, like her, and his dark eyes were almost as heavily lashed as Antonio’s.

Antonio.
Jenn drew a slow, steadying breath. She had hoped that sparring with Noah would take the edge off her tension, not add to it. After all, there was no her and Antonio. Before leaving America for Spain, Antonio had shut the door on any hope of their having a relationship. He had told her that he was renewing his vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity to the Catholic Church. He’d been studying to become a priest when Sergio had changed him into a vampire, and Antonio believed that only through prayer and strict observance of his holy orders could he keep from becoming a depraved, soulless Cursed One forever.

“How did I do that? I let you take me,” Noah said, as he sidled away from Jenn and took a sip of water from a glass on a wooden tray. He tipped back his head and poured a little of the water over his face. “Then I came in for the kill.”

He grinned at her, then grabbed a pack of cinnamon gum from the tray, pulled out two sticks, and handed her one. He was trying to quit smoking because it bothered her, and cinnamon gum was his weapon of choice. It also happened to be her favorite flavor.

“Krav Maga?” Jamie said, coming up behind Jenn. Without the chance to shave his head, he’d let caramel fuzz obscure some of his tattoos. Jamie was a Northern Irish street fighter with tons of anger issues. “We were teaching
our tricks to Marc Dupree. Jenn mention him? We got him killed in New Orleans.”

Noah stared back at Jamie. “I thought Jenn beat that lippy crap out of you.”

Jamie flushed and made a show of adjusting his Adam’s apple, which Jenn had dislocated during their fight in the cave. He smiled sourly at her, and she tensed, angry and wary. She should have known Jamie would never really accept her as his leader.

“Talking shite’s a bad habit of mine,” Jamie said, which was probably the closest he would get to an apology. Still, it meant a lot to hear it, and Jenn relaxed slightly.

Noah chomped his gum. “Habits can be broken.”

Jamie ignored his comment. “May as well smoke ’em while I’ve got ’em. I’ve got nothing better to do.” He pulled a cigarette from behind his ear and fished a lighter out of his jeans pocket. He lit the cigarette. The pungent scent of burning tobacco irritated Jenn’s nose as he exhaled, blowing smoke at Noah, taunting him with forbidden fruit; the two had been smoking buddies before Noah quit.

“We
have
something to do,” Jenn said. “We’re having a meeting about it tonight, after dinner.”

Appraising her, Jamie took another drag on his cigarette. “You’re one for the mysteries. Why not just tell us now?”

Because it’s daytime, and the sunshine makes Antonio tired and sluggish, and I want him at his best when we discuss our next move,
she thought.

Without replying, she sauntered out of the courtyard.