The Vampire's Revenge (27 page)

“Did I understand you to say that only faeries can see it?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Until you get there, that is. Once somebody’s actually
on
it, well, then they can see it. But only faeries can find it.”

“Did the faeries ever live there?” Jerry asked.

“For a while. Just until they could get on a ship going back to the Old Country. See, when the English started colonizing North America, the rumor got out among the faerie community that it was a happening place. They must have thought the streets were paved with gold or something, because a dozen or so decided to stow away on a ship and come over here to start their own colony. Little did they know that not only were the streets
not
paved with gold, but there weren’t even any
streets.
”

“Faeries sound pretty gullible,” Rennie observed, sorting through his cards. He adjusted his glasses to make sure we couldn’t see his hand in the reflection. Rennie was clever that way. The more I thought about it, the better a vampire I figured he’d make.

Otis gave him a sour look. “The other thing the faeries didn’t know was that the Native Americans had their own fey folk, called Yundi Tsundi.”

“So?” Rufus said.

“The Cherokees thought the Yundi Tsundi were as cute as pie and got along with them fine. But the Indian faeries turned downright nasty when they saw another race of little people trying to move in on their territory. No amount of peacemaking and gifts offered on the part of the Irish Sidhe did any good. The Yundi Tsundi came after them with spears, clubs, you name it.

“The legend goes that the Sidhe had to combine all the magic they could muster and conjure themselves an island where they could escape the Yundi Tsundi until they could figure out how to get home. They put a spell on the place so that their enemies couldn’t find them, and when a suitable sailing ship headed back to Ireland they literally jumped on it. I came over a few years after that when the frontier was pushed back west of Macon. When the normal-sized Cherokee left, the Yundi Tsundi went with them.”

“But you got sent over here to spy on the vampires, right?” Rennie said.

“Not at first. Initially I was just a scout, a kind of advance man in case the Sidhe ever wanted to try colonization again. Nobody wanted to repeat that first mistake. I was supposed to report back to the Sidhe nobility about the other kinds of little people here and whether they were friendly. Even though it was safe by the time I got here, the Irish fey never did immigrate in big numbers. Faeries are big on storytelling, and in our oral tradition the ferocity of the Yundi Tsundi got passed down over the generations until most of the fey were too shit-scared to come here.”

“You must be really brave,” Huey said, putting a chunk of his day’s tips in the pot. “I raise.”

Rufus snorted.

Ignoring Rufus, Otis said, “Thanks, Huey. I guess I had the wanderlust in those days.”

“So how did you get started spying on the blood drinkers?” Jerry asked.

“It wasn’t until much later—when the fey started seeing signs of the apocalypse—that they sent for me to return to the Old Country. That’s when they gave me the assignment to watch the undead,” Otis answered.

“Do you ever get homesick for Ireland?” Jerry wanted to know.

“Not really. I had some . . . misunderstandings over there, so I was glad to be able to come here.”

“So when was the last time you saw this island?” I asked, throwing two quarters into the kitty.

“Oh, man, it was many human lifetimes ago, before I was called back to the Old Country. I went out there to see if anyone got left behind. One of the fey folk had gone missing and never made it to the ship.” Otis laid his hand on the table. “I’m out.”

“Did you find them?” Jerry asked.

“Nope. Not a sign of ’em, or of anybody else either.”

I scratched my chin. “I call,” I said, and put my three queens on the table.

“It’s yours,” Rufus grumbled, throwing down two jacks.

“Lost again,” Huey said, sounding as surprised as ever, although he never won.

“What are you thinking, Jack?” Rennie asked, gathering up the cards for another round.

“Just that if somebody ever needed a place to hide, an invisible island would be pretty sweet.”

Otis shrugged. “I’m not sure I could even find it again, to tell you the truth.”

I’ve always been convinced that whenever anybody said
to tell you the truth
they are very likely to be lying. I gathered my winnings as Otis eyed the coins over his new hand of cards. Something told me that if any of us ever needed to disappear for a while, Otis might be persuaded to miraculously remember how to get to that island. The only question was, Would he be more motivated by a carrot or a stick? That is to say, a really, really sharp stick.

When I got back to the house, I entered as usual by the side door and was greeted by an eerie silence and a rock-solid knowledge that something was bad wrong.

The kitchen was deserted, so I walked through to the foyer. The door to the formal parlor was closed, so I continued on to William’s den at the end of the hallway. What I saw made my heart jump into my throat. I froze. It couldn’t be.

It was William.

“Cheers,” he said, turning fully toward me and raising his glass in my direction. “If it isn’t the estimable Jack McShane.”

Will Cuyler, son of William Cuyler Thorne, leaned against the wet bar swirling a highball glass full of blood. He stared at the twins, who were huddled together on the sofa in petrified silence. The last time I’d seen him his hair had been dyed red, almost orange. Now he’d let it go natural, a tawny blond. Damn, but it made him look like William.

It took me a few seconds to get over the shock and compose myself. “What are you doing here?” He’d been painfully thin and drawn when I first met him. He looked like one of those heroin addicts you see in the movies. Now he had filled out some and the dark circles under his eyes were gone. All that made him look even more like his father.

“Is that any way to greet William’s son and heir?”

When he’d been here before, Will had treated me like a hired hand. I wasn’t about to let him get by with that. “I’ve been more of a son to William than you ever were,” I said.

“Through no fault of my own, mate. I didn’t even know my natural father was undead until a few months ago. Speaking of dear old Dad, where is he?”

Reyha yelped and ran from the room. Deylaud said, “Excuse me, please,” and trotted after her. I heard them run up the stairs to the bedrooms. I felt like joining them. I couldn’t believe Will didn’t know his father was dead. And I was going to have to tell him.

“What’s with them, then?” Will asked. “I could barely get the mutts to speak to me.”

“Don’t call them that,” I said. “Maybe they’re upset because the last time you were here your mother and Hugo broke Reyha’s legs and nearly beat her to death.”

Will drained his glass without looking at me. “That was Hugo’s doing and he’s in hell, thanks to my father. I was nearly dead myself with the vampire plague at the time, remember? Besides, I’m a Jedi now, haven’t you heard? I’ve turned away from the dark side.”

I remember what Olivia had said: Will was one of us now, no longer the vicious killer of humans that he’d been for hundreds of years. I didn’t buy it—maybe because I’d seen him rip out a defenseless human’s throat. “I’d sooner believe a leopard could change its spots.”

“What a surprise. You’ve never been my biggest fan.”

“That’s right. Especially since you helped kidnap Renee.”

Will slammed his empty glass onto the bar. “Again, not my idea, mate. You are a hardheaded sod then, aren’t you?”

“Maybe it wasn’t your idea,” I said, ignoring his jibe. “But you charmed her into going along with you and Diana and Hugo.”

“What can I say? She loves me. And don’t forget my role in helping my father rescue her.”

I heard a snarl beginning in my own throat. Will had somehow bewitched Renee, and she was usually the one who did the bewitching. I hated to admit it, but he was right. She loved him.

“So tell me, where is the little angel? I can’t wait to see her.”

“You’re lucky they’re not here. Melaphia would kill you with her bare hands if she were.”

“Sounds like I have a bit of fence mending to do,” Will remarked with a shrug.

“I’ll ask you again. What are you doing here?”

“The last time I saw him my father invited me to come. I want to get to know him.”

“Why didn’t you come with him when he first invited you?”

“I decided to do some traveling. I haven’t spoken to any other vampires since I left Olivia’s coven.” He glanced out the window for a moment with a puzzled look on his face as if he were distracted by some sight or sound in the backyard, then shrugged. From where I stood, I couldn’t see anything. “I want to help my father with his work—you know, join up with the Force and all that rot.”

My mouth had gone dry. I hated Will, but I hated even more being the one to tell him his father was dead. How did I even begin to do that?

“Not that catching up with you isn’t always fun, but I really want to talk to my father. Where is he?”

“I have bad news,” I finally said.

“Eh?” He blinked his cat-green eyes—so much like William’s—a couple of times.

“William is dead.”

Will just stared at me for a few awful seconds. He cocked his head to one side as if his hearing had failed him. “What do you mean? He can’t be dead.”

“He was killed not long ago.”

“No.” Will’s body went rigid and he fisted his hands at his sides. “You’re lying.”

“You have no idea how much I wish I were.”

“I don’t understand.” Will shook his head and took a step toward the center of the room and then back again. “How could this happen?”

Now this was the tricky part. No way did I want Will to find out that Connie had killed his father. “Shortly after he came back from Europe, he was . . . staked.”

Will stood still, his eyes round with shock. He’d gone even whiter than his normal pallor, making his cross-shaped scar, the top of which was just visible at his open shirt collar, stand out in vivid relief. Will’s bravado was gone in an instant. His chest heaved a couple of times and he stammered, “But—but I’d only just found him after hundreds of years. I wanted to learn from him. This can’t be happening.” He threw his head back and bellowed,
“No!”

The sound vibrated with unhuman agony and loss. I heard the dogs start to whine upstairs and wanted to cover my own ears. “I—I’m sorry,” I stammered.

“Who? Who killed him?”

“I don’t know,” I lied.

There was a loud crash as the bay windows exploded inward. I thought for a second that Will’s scream had caused the glass to shatter, but then I saw what—
who
—had entered the room like a wrecking ball.

It was Diana.

Twenty-three

Diana sailed into the room like a Valkyrie on the warpath and landed a few feet from me. “He lies! He knows full well who murdered your father!”

“Mother!”

With Diana’s entrance, Will’s world was doubly rocked. If he was telling the truth about not having spoken to any vampires since he left London he couldn’t know his mother was still undead. The last he knew, she was buried under tons of rock in a cave-in underneath the city.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “You weren’t there.”

I knew I had to take advantage of Will’s disorientation before what was going on really sank in, and I had to silence Diana if I could. I grabbed a floor lamp, the closest thing at hand, and swung it at her. It caught her in the midsection and she crashed against the wall behind the sofa. Then I leaped on her as she was sliding down the wall and pinned her shoulders against the oak paneling. My fangs were an inch from her throat when Will grabbed me by one arm and pulled me off his mother.

“If you know she wasn’t there, you must know who
was
there,” he roared.

I wrenched my arm out of his grasp and punched him hard on the chin with a left. He flew backward and hit the wet bar but was on his feet again at once. I wrapped my hand around Diana’s throat, but not before she shouted, “He saw who killed William. It was his lover, the vampire Slayer!”

I tried to crush her throat, but she kicked out and connected with my knee hard enough to force me to release her. “Don’t listen to her,” I yelled. “She only wants to control you again.”

“Vampire Slayer?” Will hissed. “Who is this vampire Slayer?”

I tried to grab a fistful of Diana’s hair but she darted away and landed beside her son in a move so fast I could barely see it. “It’s the policewoman Connie Jones. The one he saved from you. I wish you had killed her that night you killed the filmmaker. If you had, your father would still be undead.”

I got to my feet. “It’s not as if you didn’t try your damnedest to kill William yourself, you whore,” I said.

“So you don’t deny it?” Will said to me, his eyes wide and bloodshot with rage. “Your lover is the Slayer who killed my father.”

“While
he
stood by and did nothing,” Diana charged. “And now you’ll never be able to spend the time with your father that you could have.”

“That’s a lie,” I said. “I did everything I could to save him. And as for you not getting to know your father better, Will—it was Diana who kept you from each other for hundreds of years while she whored around with any vampire she thought could help her with her ambitions.”

Will glowered at both of us. I hoped I was getting through to him. I couldn’t get a clear strike at Diana now that she stood an arm’s length away from Will. If I attacked her and he decided to come to her rescue, they would double-team me. “I tried to stop what happened that night,” I insisted. “The Slayer had just been activated, and William had been injured in the earthquake. The Slayer was wild, inhuman, uncontrollable. She’s matured now, and she’s sorry for what she’s done. She’s sworn to help us.”

“Help you?” Diana mocked. “She helps you fight and kill your own kind!” Sensing an advantage, she turned to her son. “Come with me, my love. Join me in working for the old lords. Help me gain favor with the Council. Glory is ours for the taking.”