New Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 3) (20 page)

And then a smiling man, a guard from the old place, appearing to be twenty years old, strode through the narrow gap. He nodded at me as he looked up from a digital display in his hand. The gates continued to open. "Taavi wants a word."

"Does he now?"

"Hurry up," he said, bored. He bowed his head, tapped the screen, and the gates began to close again.

Two choices. Stay where I was, or walk straight into the most well guarded building in the country, full of vampires that would like nothing more than to feast on my blood, rich and strong with magic that would be lapped at eagerly. Another nail in the coffin of our existence.

I dashed through the gate before it closed.

Yeah, I know, don't rub it in. It seemed like the right thing to do, and like I said, I was following my gut. But I was also hoping, more than I'd ever hoped before, that things were still on track to get the matter settled once and for all.

Plus, I was curious. I had to know. So many unanswered questions could be resolved from the other side of the gate.

It is one of my flaws. I'm a nosy sod.

Keep Calm

I followed the blond bombshell up the drive. I was Mr. Cool, making sure my tie was just right, swinging my arms in a nonchalant way, having to force myself to stop whistling as that was a step too far and the obvious sign I was faking it.

Patrols passed in front and behind, giving me the evil eye I'm sure they must have classes for every day. Dogs sniffed and drooled, vampire venom watering the grass with its poison.

The whole place was saturated with essence of vampire. You could smell it. Magic caught on the back of my tongue and I swallowed involuntarily, feeling myself go a little colder as I got closer to their world of disdain for humanity, what they saw as feeble and weak, something the older ones often refused to acknowledge was a part of their history.

The goon disappeared with a fast vibration. In his place, paper-white hair shifting gently as he came to a stop a few feet away from me, was Taavi. Doctor Evil himself. If he'd stuck his pinkie in the corner of his mouth and gone, "Mwaahaha," I'd probably have just nodded and said, "Yup, you got that right. Where's the cat?"

For nine months, I hadn't seen the "man." I'd avoided all enforcer jobs, kept mostly out of the world, shacked up with Kate as I recovered from the last encounter with vampires. Meaning, I'd forgotten just how damn scary he was.

More than that. He oozed malevolence and superiority, as if he truly was a superior being. That I was less than nothing, hardly even worth suffering to deign to talk to, and yet, I could see in his eyes there was almost an admiration too. We go back a long way, but that has always entailed him summoning me and me trying not to freak out or go stark raving mad.

Taavi is very old, and obscenely powerful. If I hadn't maintained my mental block against the force of his will, held the magic tight in my mind that stopped him insinuating himself inside and sending me mad with visions and feelings of utter worthlessness, I would be insane in a moment.

I had forgotten just how hard it was to keep that distance, keep that mental barrier in place. Rather than weaken in the intervening time, he had grown stronger since our last meeting. He certainly didn't look like he had been killing without cause the entire evening.

"Ah, Spark, I never did thank you for the part you played in last year's slight annoyance." His voice was slow, the accent still there, something that would sound comical coming from anyone else. But from him it just magnified the vampire vibe, that he wasn't from this world.

He was ancient, the stuff of myth and legend, the focus of stories still told to young Finnish children to this day. Of when he terrorized their villages and took the daughters of the cowering locals when of the right age. I'd heard the tales, and it was all true, and more. He put Vlad the Impaler to shame as if he were an amateur.

Maybe this was it. Was he just bored?

"Oh, my pleasure. You've been busy." I nodded at the militia, the scores of vampires seemingly all busy coming and going from the house. I also pointedly ignored Kaisa Hayashi on his left, his long fingers wrapped right around her upper arm, digging tight into her bare flesh. She was motionless, looking like hell with a heartbeat.

"No rest for the wicked. Haha."

"You killed the shifters. Nearly all of them. Witches too, although some seem to have teamed up with you. And some," I nodded at Kaisa Hayashi, "I'm not too sure about."

"What," Taavi feigned mock shock, "the great enforcer isn't abreast of all current events? Surely not."

"Why don't you enlighten me, Taavi? Why don't you go fuck yourself at the same time."

"Do not test me, Spark. Not tonight of all nights. Or I will rip you inside out and let the dogs lick at your innards." Taavi's ancient fangs, deadly and sharper than a faery's wings, dripped as he snarled. His skin wrinkled although nowhere near to the sallow and semi-translucent state it had been in for as long as I had known him. The death, the feeding, maybe even the relishing of glory to come, clearly agreed with him.

"I'm past caring. What do you want, Taavi? Why am I here?"

"You are the one that came to me. To us, my family."

"You know why. What do you want?"

"Child, is it not obvious? Oh, to be so young and innocent once more. I want it all, Spark. Our friend last year, the one responsible for burning down my House, he may have been a fool but he opened my eyes to a few things. The Councils are weak, ineffective and no longer have the hold over Hidden they once did. For centuries, millennia, I have towed the line, accepted the Hidden Council even though I have always rejected the Dark Council. Such foolishness. You humans and the need to always have your own thing, believing it makes you equals."

"Just get on with it. You're rambling, old man. Maybe it's time you let someone put you down like the diseased dog you are." Look, I love dogs, but it was the best I could come up with. I was a little stressed in case you haven't noticed.

"Do not interrupt me again, or I shall make good on my promise about your innards." He meant it. I kept quiet.

"That traitor, the man you dealt with, saving me the trouble, he showed me quite how ineffective the Councils are. Bunch of old fools, inept and so behind the times they do nothing. They did not come to our aid, did nothing as my Ward burned and vampires many thousands of years old perished. There was no assistance. Nobody lifted a finger to help us, to allow us to rebuild, to take us in, give us a roof over our heads. No, they let us flail and lose our sense of community."

He was right, I couldn't argue with that. Nobody had helped, none of the Councils had come to assist, as they should have. The Hidden Council, anyway. Vampires are Hidden, part of our world, with as much right to it as any other species. It's the way of things, and yet the Council had remained entirely quiet during the duration of their plight.

What could I say? It was enough to turn you bitter, and he was already far from being a jolly old man that gave you sweets and took you to the park to play. I shrugged.

The way things were going, I'd be dead any moment. May as well play it cool to the end.

A Long Chat

"Nothing to say, Spark? No comeback?"

"What would you have me do, apologize for the Councils? That isn't my place. But you either ignore or suffer them because you have to. Why would they help?"

"Because we are Hidden!" Kaisa Hayashi flinched as Taavi's grip tightened. "Because we are a part of them. Or so I thought. Obviously not. So if that is the way they wish it to be, uncaring for our lost brothers and sisters, to ignore us in our hour of need, and do nothing to assist, then I am done with them, all of them. This is the dawn of a new age, Spark, and it shall be most glorious. Oh, you may spill a few tears, your pathetic emotions getting the better of you, but I assure you it is for the best."

"For vampires."

"Of course for vampires! I've had it with you humans. With all the Hidden. They failed us, and you have always disappointed. You frail fools. It is our time now, and we shall shine in the Hidden world. I will never be disappointed again."

"So you kill innocents, same as you always have? You let children watch as you butchered their parents. You desecrated the sanctity of the troll mind to warp them, to get them to do things. Become addicts."

"The shape-shifters are animals, disgusting. They got what they deserved. They should have been eliminated long ago. As to the trolls, you have my friend here to thank for that."

"And what exactly did you do, Kaisa Hayashi?" I studied her for the first time. Her green eyes were mirrors of hurt, but she held my stare as she lifted her chin, gently shaking hair that had always appeared to overflow with luster and magic but was now limp and untended.

"I did what I had to do, to save my people."

"Is that right? You didn't throw in your lot with Taavi here just to gain power and save your own skin?" She flinched. I'd hit a nerve, and it obviously hadn't played out the way she had expected. "What, promised you position and to be left alone, did he? Promised if you made the troll smart pills you and the witches would be taken care of? You make me sick. At least Taavi has always been a cruel bastard, you are meant to be a human being."

"Spare me, Spark," she said shaking her head, hair brushing against bony shoulders that were once brimming with hardly suppressed energy, always toned and lithe, defying her seventeen hundred years. Now they looked sallow, beaten and rounded like the rest of her frame. It was as if she'd aged centuries, her body mimicking the state of her mind.

"Now, now, children, play nice. Maybe I should answer for our friend here, anyway." Kaisa Hayashi pulled away a little from Taavi and his amused face morphed to a hardness I've seen countless times. He does not like to be disobeyed in any way. She ground her teeth as his grip tightened. What the hell kind of deal had they struck?

"You two look perfect for each other." I wondered how long I could keep talking and stay alive, before he flipped out. Or maybe he'd set Kaisa Hayashi on me. Was she his pawn now, or what?

"Oh, I'm perfect for her. And, Spark?"

"Yeah?"

"Never for a moment think I have forgotten about Kate. I understand she is with that foolish old woman at the moment, and that Kaisa's people, and my own, were utterly ineffective in getting her and you to me, but here you are. I'm sure she'll be along soon enough, once she knows I have you."

"You don't have me, and you never will."

"Don't be so sure. Listen to my offer first. Why do you think I am talking to you at all?"

"To have some fun? Gloat? Dunno, and I don't really care."

"Liar!" Taavi stepped forward. I could see the veins in his eyes, the yellow flecks at the corners, the ice-hard coldness of something far removed from what it once was. "Kaisa here made her choice, pathetic witch that she is, and she will do as she is told if she wishes her kind to survive the night, let alone the week."

"He's got them, Spark, he's got the young ones, the apprentices. They're inside. These sick creatures are draining them, taking their blood. They'll kill them if I don't do as he says."

"Quiet!" Kaisa Hayashi almost collapsed at the words, but remained standing as Taavi did the shuddery thing. One moment by her side, the next at her neck, then back again in the blink of an eye. He licked full lips as blood trickled down her neck before it slowly fizzed and evaporated, the wound closing as Kaisa Hayashi allowed a wisp of magic to dance at her neck like green hate.

"So you coerce the witches by fear and threats? Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"What she has failed to tell you is that when I went to her with my proposition she was more than happy to make the smart pills for the trolls, knowing full well what my intentions were. I offered her a prize and she accepted it gladly. Didn't you, my dear?"

"And what prize was that?"

"Why, we are to be wed, Spark. Isn't that nice? Won't you congratulate us?"

"Congratulations, I'm sure you will be perfect for each other. So this was the offer? She marries you? Seems kind of one-sided. You're not exactly a catch, Taavi, no spring chicken. But then, neither is she." I looked at the woman once entrusted with the protection of her people with utter contempt. She'd sold out her own kind for power, the chance to rule, and to be left alone and be damned with the consequences for the rest of us.

"I had no choice, Spark," pleaded Kaisa Hayashi. "He came to me, said he would wipe us all out, all the witches, unless I went with him, did what he asked. He took some of the younger ones, so I spoke to some of the witches. They agreed to be with him. They wanted to be, Spark. I never would have thought it, but they wanted the things he offered, to be his wives. To be with him, become like him."

The penny dropped. So that was it. Some had heard of the offer and accepted gladly. To become vampire witches. Such a thing was extremely rare, and they would be incredibly powerful. But she'd gone along with it too, wanted the same, that was obvious. Now the truth had hit, she wasn't quite as happy, the reality different to the expectation.

"You sold yourself out, and everyone else too. You wanted to be a goddamn vampire, rule and have your own witch vampire army."

"And so what if I did?" She squared her shoulders, like I was the one in the wrong. "My sisters would have been protected. Nobody would touch us if I was ruling with Taavi. We would have been the future, the witches would have taken the Dark Council from fools like Rikka, and we would have ruled the country."

"Along with me, my dear," said Taavi, amused by her outburst.

"But what, changed your mind, have you, Taavi?"

"On the contrary. We shall be wed, same as I shall wed the rest of the damn witches in my House. They just need to learn their place, like my other wives." I didn't even know he had one wife, and I'd certainly never seen one or heard one mentioned.