“It’s not all what it looks like on the outside. Now that you’re in this world, you better learn that. Let’s go. Paul might come in after us if we take too long.”
Paul stood waiting for them outside the bathroom, leaning casually against a wall beside an abandoned concession area. Charlee was grateful it was abandoned. She didn’t want to see corn dogs soaked in human blood being sold for five bucks a pop.
He had worked to regain his calm mask, but now that she’d seen what lurked underneath, she didn’t feel so peaceful in his presence. Jane didn’t have the same aversion and rushed up to him. She planted a kiss on his cheek and looped her arm through his like she was off to see the wizard.
“Hey, babe,” he said, his features softening.
He led them to a gold roped-off portion in the stands. A section of a few hundred seats had been reserved for the friends and family of the contenders. Or minions, pets, and claimed mates. Ick.
Paul sat between them. Charlee laid her arms on the arm rests, and he placed a hand over hers.
“Anthony needs you calm for this.”
“Why?”
“With the claim, he can feel your emotions. He can’t be distracted by any human feelings you might have about what’s going to happen here.”
“Well, well, if it isn’t the little human that got lucky.”
Callie stood in the aisle, wearing a striking red gown and matching gloves that extended over her elbows. Charlee felt the calm Paul was pouring into her. Her emotions were like a lake unfettered by a single ripple, but her thoughts still spiraled through her mind, detached and chaotic.
She wondered if vampires felt like this. This eerie, calculated calm. Did they feel this when they hunted and fed? Anthony seemed more animated, so she assumed it was just the false serenity Paul was sending through her.
Callie leaned close to her ear, her voice lowering. “You might wear his mark, little one, but the moment Linus wins, you’re ours. My guy has experience with failed experiments. You’ll make a stunning addition to the collection. We’re going to have so much fun playing with you.”
Charlee knew she should feel terror, unease, something. It disturbed her what Paul was doing to her. She felt like a computer cataloging emotions. Fear, anger, revulsion. All just descriptive words with nothing more attached to them.
With creepy calm, she turned to the vampire and smiled. “When Anthony wins, I’m sure he’ll kill you for that.”
Callie looked as if she’d swallowed a live and wriggling fish. She turned, holding her back ramrod straight and made her way up a few rows to her seat, her entourage trailing behind her.
The words were something she would have thought in regards to Callie anyway, but she wouldn’t have had the nerve to say them if not for Paul’s steady hand covering hers.
“Way to go, girl,” Jane said.
This no-extreme-emotions thing had its benefits. But she’d still be glad when it was over. The thought flitted through her mind that this sort of thing might never be over, and if not for Paul beside her, she knew she would have been more upset by it.
The lights dimmed giving way to a large spotlight illuminating the ring below them. For the first time, she turned her attention to where the action would take place. It was the size of a football field and had probably been used as such, though now she could swear she was at a Medieval Times. There were several vampires in the ring with horses. The space had been set up for . . . jousting? They had to be kidding.
A hush fell over the audience and a booming voice sounded over the loudspeaker.
“This century we have fifty-one competitors. As we’ve done in the past, we’ll use a jousting event to open the tournament. Drawing blood, death, or being knocked from one’s horse is grounds for disqualification. We will continue until we’re down to the final ten. Good luck competitors.”
Even without Paul to steady her emotions, Charlee wasn’t sure what she would have or should have felt about Anthony down in the ring. He was attractive as ever, wearing a dark silk shirt and slacks, sitting astride a black horse. She was thankful for the emotion muting, because otherwise she would have felt arousal and would have been mortified that every vampire sitting near them could smell it.
She’d expected the jousting and sword-fighting to take a while, but with vampire speed, everything moved so fast the event passed in front of her eyes in a blur. Within minutes, they were down to ten.
The ring was littered with the bodies of injured and dead vampires. The dead were decomposing, flesh rotting off bone, and bone crumbling to dust. As Jane had said, in a sense they were already dead. Once the demon stopped animating the human, the body’s decomposition went to warp speed to catch up to the state it should have been had natural causes been at play in the victim’s death.
There was a brief intermission while minions cleared the ring of vampire dust and removed the jousting paraphernalia and swords. Others then entered the ring with various odd objects, including large hollowed-out logs and small sheds. It was like a theater set.
“And now,” the announcer began, “for our favorite event. We’ve tested our competitor’s fighting skills, agility, and courage.” In ten minutes? “Now it is time to test their senses and how well they hunt.”
She felt Paul’s grip tighten on her hand. This had been Anthony’s primary concern. Five humans were herded into the ring. One of them screamed. The others were begging for their lives no less fervently but with less glass-shattering volume.
Charlee looked on dispassionately, little thoughts rumbling through her mind, reminding her that when Paul removed his hand from her skin, she would care about this and care deeply.
The announcer spoke again, “It would be to your advantage to not scream or make any sound at all. In fact, you should probably hide.”
The vampires on the other end were blindfolded. She wasn’t sure if they could see through the cloth barriers, but it was clearly part of the test. A few of the humans tried to escape the ring altogether but were dragged mercilessly back to the center. They scurried to find hiding places among the set props that had been laid out. When they were in place, the blindfolds were removed, and the lights went out.
The lights had been extinguished for five seconds. And although Paul kept a tight grip on Charlotte’s emotions, Anthony could feel the faintest tinge of fear and disgust. Who could blame her? She’d watched five of her species herded into a ring like cattle to be hunted by creatures she hated because of him.
If he won, he wasn’t sure she’d stand by him. And then what? It wasn’t much to build a hundred-year reign on. Hell, if he won, he ran a serious risk of being overthrown in a couple of years anyway. Given the mess he’d made with Charlotte.
The stadium was bathed in a level of darkness few vampires experienced on a day-to-day basis. He wasn’t sure of the visual acuity of his opponents, but Anthony could see the barest outlines of the various props that had been set out for this task.
And he smelled the blood.
In her desperate need to hide more fully, one of the humans had cut herself, probably on the jagged edges he’d noticed on one of the logs before the lights had gone out. He scanned the space in front of him.
Ah. There. At the edge of the stadium near the bleachers.
On his way to his quarry, he was knocked on his ass. So, we’re playing this way, are we?
It wasn’t enough to hunt prey and be the fastest. Some genius had gotten it into his head to start taking out the competition in the dark while the judges were too far away to clearly see what was happening. Fine by him.
He leapt up and pulled a stake from his pocket. Nondescript Competitor Number One wasn’t the only one who could play dirty.
The two grappled in the dark for what felt like a brief eternity, but by Anthony’s calculation was probably thirty seconds. Thirty seconds in which another vampire could have caught Anthony’s prey. He thrust the stake into the other vampire’s chest, praying it was Linus now dying. For Charlotte’s sake.
He wiped the spray of blood from his face as the other vampire groaned and crumbled to the ground. The stench of the rotting corpse reached his nostrils, and he nearly gagged. It had been an old one.
He could hear the human’s heartbeat, thudding against her chest like a steel drum. Her crying was soft and controlled as she tried desperately not to let him hear her tears and give her location away. He reached inside the log and dragged her out, kicking and screaming.
Anthony was glad what he had to do, he could do under cover of darkness. If Charlotte had to watch, it would bring back too much of the night he’d fucked up royally. As it was, he wasn’t sure they’d ever get past it.
He sank his fangs into the girl’s throat and drank. He stopped a few moments later and sealed the wound. He could only be grateful that the past two centuries running this test had comprised of later enthrallment, rendering the former hunt-and-kill method awkward.
A few minutes passed, and the lights came up. Anthony blinked as his vision adjusted. Five vampires including himself had a victim they’d fed from. Two of the competitors had been left off to the side, beaten and bloody in the fight for a human, but alive. The other three no longer existed, except for three piles of dust at various points in the ring.
Anthony held the girl in his arms. She was still trembling, but since he’d put his hands on her, she’d calmed considerably. He turned her in his arms, and she turned her head away, avoiding his eyes. Smart girl. Unfortunately her intelligence regarding vampire thrall wouldn’t keep him in the competition.
“I’m going to make this simple for you. Do exactly as I tell you, or I’ll kill you. I have no problem causing your horrible death if you cause my elimination. If you do what I say, I’ll let you live. Do you understand?”
Her eyes met his. That a girl.
He took control of her mind, sifting through her thoughts, then implanted the command for her to wrap her arms around him and kiss him. She complied, her tongue sweeping into his mouth with the kind of enthusiasm he might have enjoyed if it had been real. He sighed against the woman’s lips. Just one more thing for Charlotte to be pissed off about.
He looked up. The judges nodded. While not a horrific display, kissing your captor and meaning it passed muster. His competition hadn’t been nearly so classy in their requests and though Paul kept a steady rein on Charlotte’s emotions, Anthony could palpably feel her disgust at the hypnotized orgy.
All five of the vampires passed on to the next round. It had never really been in doubt. This part of the tournament’s purpose was to feed the normal lust that blood lust caused in most vampires. Anthony had restrained himself, in part because of Charlotte’s presence, but also because if he won, he had much easier access to the respect and cooperation of the older of his kind, by showing self-restraint.
When the test was finished, the remaining vampires snapped the necks of their victims and let the bodies fall to the ground. Anthony had loosened his mental hold on his victim after she’d completed the task. She turned in his arms, a mask of horror over her features, as if she’d been lied to.
“Go,” Anthony said. Regardless of whether they liked it, this wouldn’t disqualify him. When she got to the edge of the ring, a guard blocked her path. Anthony said, “Let her pass.” The guard made a disgusted snort but stepped aside.
He took a deep breath. And now to the fun part. While his attention was focused on getting the young woman out of the ring, minions had stepped forward to bring out five chairs. Nice of them to think of the comfort of the competitors for the next round.
The announcer took the microphone again. “And now, for one of our less tasteful tests. The vampire who will lead us for the next hundred years must display many qualities that have already been tested; endurance is next. Competitors, have a seat.” The remaining vampires took their places.
Anthony wasn’t shocked to see Linus among them. He was, however, surprised that Gregory had made it this far. It struck him at once that Gregory had fed. From a throat.
Under cover of darkness, he’d abandoned his supposed principles with regards to drinking from the source so he could stay competitive. Gregory was a true politician.
He caught the look of guilt etched in the other vampire’s eyes. Gregory was sorry he’d killed his victim. He’d been out of control. The blood was too strong, and he wasn’t used to it. For a moment, Anthony felt sorry for him. Then there was no time to feel sorry for anyone.
The announcer spoke again, “The rules are quite simple. You are free to leave your seat at any time, but getting up, you forfeit your right to be king.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Gregory said.
Anthony chuckled. Gregory knew as well as he did what was next.
Five werewolves in black hoods rolled out carts with tureens of holy water and golden crosses. The Weres wore the hoods because relations between them and vampires were strained to begin with. This way they wouldn’t be hunted down later and paid back in kind for the pain about to be delivered.
The wolves worked as a choreographed unit, each using the same amount of holy water, or pressing crosses against the same expanse of flesh. Five minutes passed before the first vampire dropped out.
Another ten minutes and they were down to three. Linus, Gregory, and Anthony. He had to admit, he was impressed with Gregory’s ability to withstand all this, and a grudging respect grew. A couple more minutes and Gregory was eliminated.