The Devil's Soldier (2 page)

Dmitri parked next to a closed coffee shop. "Walk three blocks that way and you will be in the Oberkampf district. You'll find plenty of people to work with there. And I want you to wear this." He reached behind her seat and pulled out a stylish black hat. "Just to provide a little more anonymity in case you let your guard down."

"I won't let that happen," Eve said, but she still pulled the hat over her head. The one thing she couldn't do is let anyone recognize her. That's why she was using magic to help her go unnoticed. People would see her, but they wouldn't really see
her
.

"I'll wait here. Take all the time you need." He removed his special book, the one she always saw him with.

Eve opened the car door and closed it behind her. The air was warm with a slight breeze. She walked toward the sounds of Paris nightlife: people laughing, music playing, horns blaring.

Just before she turned into the city's center, she stepped off to the side hidden beneath an awning. She needed to invoke
all of her powers
, using the techniques Dmitri had taught her. Focusing on her heart, the source
of all her power
, she thought of the friendships she'd made over the last year, of the experiences that had helped her grow, and specifically of her love for Lucien. A deep burning ignited inside her, stronger than it had ever been before, and spread to the rest of her.

Her eyes opened. She was ready.

Time passed quickly as she walked the streets using her magic to interact with others. It took some time before she was able to recognize every prompting, but soon she was able to discern the smallest thing: a lone woman contemplating suicide, and another woman who had recently lost a child. She was able to help them both. She even got into a fight at a restaurant to prevent a man from harming his brother, something that would've haunted him for years. She'd forgotten how much she loved using magic this way, and how it helped to sooth her own raw heart.

She glanced at the time. Almost three hours had passed. Confident that her abilities were still functioning properly, some of them even having gained strength, she turned down the street where Dmitri was parked. She stopped abruptly. Something was tugging on her senses, something dark, something
alluring
. It was an attraction she hadn't felt for a very long.

She pushed the feeling aside, recognizing it was not an attraction she could entertain, and followed the source of the distress into a crowded bar. Most of the bar's dim light came from the many neon signs hanging on the walls, and every time she walked, she stepped on crushed peanut shells. The prickly sensation grew stronger the closer she drew to the back of the room where there was a row of crowded pool tables. Her attention focused on three average-
looking
people, two men and one woman. They appeared to be in their twenties, college students most likely.

Eve wrinkled her nose. Something was wrong. What was she missing?

One of the men, a blond haired
fellow
, leaned in and touched the woman's hand, the one holding a glass of a wine. Both of them laughed. The other male, a black-haired man, leaned away, a
dark
expression mirroring the
room's
many shadows. There was power pulsing from him in great waves. It spread across the air, blanketing it as if a spider's web. He was definitely a Supernatural, but what kind?

Eve focused on his movements, blocking all outside stimuli. His gaze didn't shift as he looked about the room, but more glided
like
the way an eel slips through water. His chest rose and fell. Eve counted. She reached forty-five seconds before he took another breath. Everything about him was too calculated. A cold chill scraped up her spine. This
man
was a vampire.

She should've left then, but the woman was in danger. Eve stepped closer.

The vampire's eyes turned toward her, as if he too could sense another's power within the crowded room. Eve tensed as his slippery gaze passed over her. Seen, but unseen.

She relaxed and positioned herself behind the vampire, her back to him. Because music was playing loudly, she could barely hear their conversation, but it sounded like the two men had just met the woman. The blond man wasn't a Supernatural, but Eve sensed his desire for control in the way he spoke to her. Every word held a threating note. 

The woman lifted the glass to her lips. That's when Eve’s witchy intuition finally kicking in. The drink had been spiked. This woman was going to be raped and murdered if Eve didn't do something fast.

Eve spun around and reached for the glass. The vampire blocked her before she could, startling her. With only a split second to decide, Eve whispered a command. The glass flew from the woman's hands and shattered against the wooden floor.

It was a stupid thing to have done in front of a vampire. She knew that before his hand clamped around her throat and long fangs filled his mouth. He shoved her into the darkest shadow of the room.

The vampire leaned into her and ran his cold nose up the length of her neck, inhaling deeply. "Witches smell so good, but they taste even better."

His fangs moved toward his neck. Eve struggled beneath his grip, but couldn't break free.

Do something!

Eve didn't mean to, but she thought of Lucien in that moment, a strong and powerful thought. It escaped from her body, traveling fast.

2

Lucien kicked in the door of another run down house on another dead end street. They had raided so many vampire nests lately that they were beginning to look the same.  Even the inside looked similar—old and often broken couches, stained walls, torn carpet. Not many vampires, especially new ones, cared about where they slept.

One of them darted by him now attempting to muscle his way outside, but Lucien punched the vampires face, shattering his jaw. The vampire fell backward. Lucien caught him by his throat before he hit the ground. Lucien bet if he squeezed hard enough, he could pop off the vampire's head like the cork from a wine bottle.

"Not yet!" Charlie said, hurrying through the broken front door. "We have to ask him."

"A waste of words." Lucien raised his fist again, but Charlie stopped him.

"Just ask," he said.

Lucien closed his eyes, then opened them again. To the vampire, he asked through his teeth, "Is there any part of you that wants to do good?"

The vampire spit blood-tinged salvia into Lucien's face. "Go to hell."

"Now you can kill him," Charlie said.

Lucien snapped his neck and dropped the vampire to the floor. Before he could wake, Lucien plunged a stake into his heart.

"Who else is in here?" Charlie asked, his gun-like weapon held at eye level.

"One already escaped out the back." Lucien cocked his head to the side. "And one's hiding in a closet. Back bedroom."

Charlie hurried down the darkened hall while Lucien dusted himself off. Vamp dust was the worst to get out, especially from his hair. The manager of the hotel Lucien owned, Ronald, asked him once if he had a dandruff problem after coming back from a kill. Lucien wanted to show him what it really was, but then he would be out a manager.

A series of clicks echoed from behind the wall. Lucien's head snapped up.  He recognized that sound. Charlie was almost to the closet, but what Charlie couldn't hear was a crossbow being loaded from within.

"Charlie!" Lucien yelled and ran down the hall. 

Charlie was opening the closet door just as Lucien entered the bedroom. Lucien shoved him out of the way, but the door was already open. A wooden dagger came flying out. It pierced Lucien in the back of the right shoulder, and he fell forward into the opposite wall. He reached behind him, but couldn't quite grasp it to pull it out.

Charlie's face paled, but he quickly recovered and aimed his weapon at the vampire who was scrambling out of the room. A blast of electricity left the gun. It hit the vampire in his legs, and he fell to the ground shaking uncontrollably. Charlie was quick to drive a stake through his heart.

He turned around, panting hard. "Are you okay?"

"Get this thing out of me," Lucien growled. "It hurts like a mother."

Charlie came over and jerked the stake free. Lucien grunted in pain.

"I think you're finally getting sweet on me," Charlie said.

Lucien walked by him, rubbing the back of his shoulder. "What are you talking about?"

"You just saved my life."

"Only because human bodies don't clean up as nicely as vamps." Lucien walked outside and sniffed the air. The full moon hung high above him in a clear sky. Eve would have liked the moon tonight.

Charlie joined him on the front lawn.

"I can't tell which direction the vampire went," Lucien said.

Charlie cursed. "We really needed to question one of them."

"Why? We've destroyed five vampire nests within the last three weeks and not a single one knew Boaz. This isn't working." Lucien walked down the street to Charlie's Toyota. Since he had lost his cool last time, he had been more careful to keep his rage in check. At least
in front of
Charlie and Rick.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Charlie asked.

Lucien said nothing, even after they got into the car and headed back to the Deific. As much fun as these never-ending vampire killing sprees were, they needed to find a lead on Boaz.

Maybe if Lucien had kept some contacts among Supernaturals, he might have a place to go to for information, but up until a year ago, he was a lone vampire with no connections to the outside world, and he'd been like that for over a hundred years.

But then Eve had found him.

An ache seared his heart. He leaned forward as if the movement might help ease the pain. He missed her so much. The only thing keeping him going was knowing that someday he would avenge her death.

"Are you meeting with Henry again?" Charlie asked, breaking the silence.

"In a few hours."

"How's that coming anyway?"

"It's coming."

"Are you able to use magic now?"

"None of your business." Lucien
hated
talking about his training with Henry. It felt too personal, probably because it was. Henry was constantly badgering Lucien to look inside himself to see things that Lucien didn't believe were there. Lucien loathed it.

"Maybe if you could speed up the process, we might have better luck finding Boaz."

Lucien huffed. "You're the psychic."

"Boaz is blocking me with magic, and you know that. What we need is someone with magic who can use their ability to hunt him down."

"Then ask Henry. He's the super powerful one."

Charlie shook his head. "Henry is our secret weapon. Boaz can't know he's alive. Not yet, anyway."

Lucien leaned back into the seat. Henry wasn't their only secret weapon. Lucien's magic was the other. At least, that's what Henry said. Lucien wasn't so sure. Sure, Lucien could do a few things, like the whole turning-into-smoke-and-flying thing—he liked that one the most. And if he concentrated long enough he could move objects, but so what? That was nothing compared to what Boaz could do.  Lucien was hardly a weapon.

Charlie drove into the underground parking garage beneath the Deific office in New York City. They had come here from Seattle a couple of weeks ago when there was a sudden increase in vampires. This was a major concern, especially since his brother, Aiden, was dead along with Aiden's plan to unleash a deadly plague among the humans. So who was turning these new vampires, and why?

The elevator doors opened.

"Are you going straight up to your place?" Charlie asked, as they stepped inside.

The pain in Lucien's heart ignited all over again, a deep burning that constantly threatened to consume him. His
place
was once Eve's apartment. Every time he stepped inside it, he smelled her and felt her presence. She was a ghost in his life, but no matter how much sorrow it caused him, he'd rather have her as a ghost than nothing at all.

"I'm going to get some work done first. Can I use the conference room?"

"Go for it. I'm going to crash."

Just before the elevator stopped, a steady calm washed over Lucien. It was a familiar feeling. "Henry's here."

Charlie groaned. "At this hour? I was really hoping to get some sleep."

The elevator doors opened. Henry was on the other side. "Sorry, Charlie, but I need your opinion on this too. You can sleep in tomorrow."

"You mean today," Charlie mumbled as he walked past him. "Let's go into the conference room."

Lucien flipped on a nearby light. The rest of office was quiet and dark. It would be another four hours before anyone else arrived.

"How did it go?" Henry asked, walking next to Lucien.

Henry, who rarely appeared stressed, had deep lines etched into his forehead.

"Same as always. Just a bunch of vampires who don't know anything." He turned the light on in the conference room.

A large white board hung on the wall. Scribbled on it were a bunch of locations of where vampire activity had been reported. Lucien walked around a long table to the other side of the room.

"Lucien saved my life tonight," Charlie said and collapsed into a rolling chair. It spun around several times.

The corners of Henry's mouth lifted. "That doesn't surprise me."

"It surprised me," Lucien said.

Henry dropped a newspaper in the center of the conference table. "Have you read the news?"

"Missed it today," Charlie said through a yawn.

Lucien picked up the paper and scanned the front page. "Virginia's governor was found dead in his home."

"Read the bottom right too," Henry said.

Lucien glanced down. "And a senator died in California."

"Rough day to be in politics," Charlie said.

Henry lowered into a chair. "This month there have been a total of six high-up government officials found dead. One committed suicide, one was murdered, and the other four were either ruled as accidents or natural causes. Can you tell me when in history this has happened before?"

The room was silent. Lucien hated politics, but a lot of Supernaturals liked them. It was one area of their lives where they felt in control, as they were easily able to manipulate humans either through bribes or threats. It didn't take much. The Supernaturals used their influence to have certain laws passed in their favor. For example, keeping the US borders open. Supernaturals loved all the undocumented people coming into the country. No one seemed to notice when one disappeared.

"It hasn't happened—ever," Henry said while he removed his long brown jacket and draped it onto the back of the chair.

"You believe these aren't accidents," Lucien said, staring down at the newspaper.

A pain stabbed him in the head, hard enough that he cried out and dropped to his knees.

Henry and Charlie jumped to their feet.

"What's wrong?" Charlie asked.

Lucien drilled his palms into his temples, as if he could somehow squish whatever was twisting his brain. His vision changed, flashing blues and oranges. He fell over on the ground, gritting his teeth.

Henry knelt down beside him, his hands outstretched and hovering over Lucien's body. He was saying something in a language Lucien didn't recognize.

Slowly, the pressure subsided and his muscles relaxed, but just before the pain disappeared altogether, Lucien heard a single word from a voice he never thought he would hear again.

"Lucien."

Lucien's eyes flew open, and he sucked air into his lungs.

"It's Eve," he gasped. "She's alive!"