Crimson Debt: Book 1 in the Born to Darkness series (27 page)

I looked at him uncertainly. “Are you
sure?”

“Perfectly fine,” he assured me and this time
he sounded much more like himself.

I breathed a sigh of relief—once again I had
dodged a bullet. But how long could my luck last?

“Well, well—most impressive,” Roderick said
from the couch at the far end of the room.

I jumped at the sound and hastily smoothed
down my dress. For some reason I had completely forgotten about him
watching and the entire reason we were doing this. I shot a glance
at Corbin—had he glamoured me somehow? Kept me from remembering
while we were actually doing the deed so I wouldn’t feel inhibited
or uptight? Or had my mind simply blocked the whole “we are being
watched by a very creepy Vampire Inquisitor” thing out of my head
on its own?

I didn’t have time to ask because Roderick
stood smoothly and came toward us. He looked at Corbin and smiled,
then looked at me and bared his fangs.

“My turn,” he said.

“
What
did you say?” Corbin growled,
putting himself between us at the speed of light. My view of
Roderick was now limited by his broad shoulder—not that I
minded.

“You heard me.” Roderick smiled, baring his
fangs. “I found your little show most amusing and not a little
arousing. It was so moving, in fact, that I would like a turn. So
step aside, Corbin—let me see if I can fuck your little human as
well as you did.”

“Now you’re just trying to pick a fight,”
Corbin said. “You know damn well I won’t let you anywhere near
Addison—she is
mine.”

“You’re lucky I’m only asking for a turn to
fuck her,” Roderick remarked coolly. “After all, as she is not
bound to you, it is within my rights to choose her as my tribute
instead of that lovely vase. In fact…” He looked thoughtfully at
the vase which he had left on a chair beside the desk. “I think
that’s exactly what I’ll do. You can have the vase back, Corbin. I
will be taking the girl.”

“I’ll die before I let you take her.”
Corbin’s voice was utterly deadly and utterly cold. “You know that,
Roderick.”

“Well, then, I guess we’ll have to revisit
the idea of a formal challenge after all.” Roderick’s eyes were
suddenly blood red and from the deep, angry snarl rising in
Corbin’s throat I was certain his were too.

“You bastard,” I said, speaking to Roderick
under Corbin’s arm. “You planned this all along. Why make us put on
a show for you if you were just going to fight Corbin anyway?”

“Because, my dear…” He grinned at me nastily.
“I so enjoyed your submission the other night that I wanted to see
it again. When you are mine, I will force you to do all sorts of
deliciously humiliating things—acts that will make you cringe with
shame and beg for the release that only death can give.” He licked
his lips in anticipation. “But I will not kill you…not for a long,
long
time. Oh, I simply cannot
wait
to have you.”

“You’ll be waiting a long time for that,” I
snapped. My fingers itched for my gun, which was still in Corbin’s
small restroom. The only problem was, Roderick was between me and
it and if I stepped out from behind Corbin’s protective stance, I
was making myself all kinds of vulnerable—and probably all kinds of
dead.

Corbin solved my problem for me by circling
slowly away from Roderick, as though trying to find a better
position. I circled with him, being certain to keep him between me
and the other vampire. Soon I had access to both the door to the
office and the door to the bathroom.

“Addison, go,” Corbin said in a low voice,
not looking at me. “Get out now. Take Taylor and drive as far from
here as you can and don’t come back.”

“You think that will save her?” Roderick
demanded. “I’ll find her, Corbin. I’ll find both of them and fuck
her little friend to death while your consort watches, just as soon
as I’m finished killing you.”

“You may try,” Corbin said evenly. “But I
promise you, Roderick, it will not be an easy fight.”

Roderick gave him a bloodthirsty grin. “I
would be disappointed if it was.”

He lunged forward in a movement too fast for
my eye to track and suddenly he and Corbin were locked together,
grappling. Just as quickly, though, they broke apart. Roderick
appeared unharmed but I was disturbed to see a line of blood
running from Corbin’s temple.

“Very good.” Roderick was looking at him
appraisingly. “You may be a more challenging adversary than I
thought. Which will only make my victory all the sweeter.”

Corbin didn’t take his eyes off his enemy or
answer Roderick’s taunts. Instead he spoke to me from the corner of
his mouth.

“What are you waiting for—go!”

“I won’t leave you here with him,” I said
stubbornly.

“There is no way you can help me other than
leaving.” Corbin risked a quick glance at me. “Addison, I am almost
certainly going to die here tonight. Don’t let my sacrifice be in
vain—go!”

I was almost swayed by the desperation I saw
in his eyes but then I saw Roderick laughing and my resolve
hardened. No, damn it, I was
not
going to leave a man I
cared for—even if he was a vampire—to face certain death alone. I
was going to do something, even if it got me killed too.

The vampires came together again, striking
with the speed that made a king cobra look slow. This time I didn’t
wait—I took the opportunity to run for the door.

Behind me I heard Roderick laugh. “Run little
consort—run as fast and as far as you can but I’ll find you. You’ll
be mine soon enough.”

“Like hell I will,” I muttered, certain he
could hear me. Despite their great speed, the vampires fought in
almost total silence—it was an eerie sight, watching them strike at
each other, grapple in a complete blur, and then break apart, all
without making a sound.

I headed for the office door but at the very
last moment, I veered off toward the bathroom. Once inside, I knew
I didn’t have much time. At the speed this fight was progressing,
it would be over before I could load my Glock—luckily for me, it
was already loaded.

I grabbed the gun and eased the door open,
looking for a good shot. Unfortunately, the fight happened to be in
one of the blur stages and all I could see was a fast-motion tangle
of vampire limbs and flashing fangs.

When they broke apart, I could see that
Corbin was definitely getting the worst of it. My heart gave a
painful thump when I saw his wounds—obviously slashes from
Roderick’s razor-sharp fangs. Vampires heal fast but even so he was
bleeding from over a dozen places and some of the wounds looked
really deep—deep enough that a human would have been incapacitated.
But Corbin just kept on fighting, a silent grimace of determination
on his face. Clearly he was going to see this through to the
end.

“Will I enjoy her?” Roderick taunted as they
circled again. “Does she taste as good as she smells, that little
human consort of yours?”

“You will never get a chance to find out,”
Corbin ground out.

“Oh, I think I will.” Roderick laughed. “At
first I simply planned to fuck her to death but now…now I think
I’ll turn her. After she is born to darkness, she will be so much
more
durable.
Her torment will go on and on…forever.”

The thought of becoming a vampire made me
feel physically ill but I forced my feelings down and aimed my gun.
I finally got a good shot at Roderick but just as I was about to
squeeze the trigger, Corbin gave a low roar and launched himself at
the other vampire.

Shit!
They blurred together again and
I lost the shot. This time when they came out of it, Corbin’s left
arm was hanging limply by his side and Roderick was laughing. There
was blood on his fangs.

Okay, this was it—I couldn’t wait for the
perfect shot again, I just had to do the best I could. Corbin had
his back to me though, blocking my view. Damn it, if I waited for
him to move, he might be dead the next time I got a chance at
this!

I wanted to stay in the safety of the
bathroom and shoot from there but the way they were constantly
moving meant I needed to get closer. I pushed open the door and
came out, gun first. Unfortunately, the motion caught Roderick’s
eyes. I saw his eyes widen, then narrow and then he was coming for
me.

As fast as vamps move, I shouldn’t have been
able to get off a single shot. But for some reason—maybe because he
was wounded or maybe because he wanted to play with me—Roderick was
just slow enough for me to squeeze the trigger.

At the same time I shouted, “Corbin,
down!”

The gun roared. Corbin dropped like a stone
just in time for the bullet to whiz by and bury itself in
Roderick’s left shoulder.

Now, a bullet to the shoulder isn’t normally
a killing shot. But as I’ve said before, my bullets are
special—hollow points filled with liquid silver nitrate that acts
like acid once it touches vamp flesh.

So what
should
have happened was this:
the bullet should have ploughed into Roderick, exploding and
expanding, vaporizing his shoulder and a good part of his chest.
Then the silver would spray everywhere, eating into his flesh like
a fast acting acid, gouging holes in his face and arms and
hands—everywhere it sprayed on impact. At this point, Roderick
should have fallen to his knees, screaming and clawing at the
burning silver that continued to eat its way into him like a rat
gnawing cheese. He should have continued in agony until the silver
reached his heart or brain or I had mercy on him and shot him
again—this time in the head.

That is
not
what happened.

Oh, the bullet
did
plough into him and
it made a very large hole—one big enough to see through, actually.
I knew because I could see the tasteful Klimt painting Corbin had
hanging on the wall behind his desk through it.

But then, instead of expanding, the hole
began to shrink. And instead of eating into his skin, the silver
nitrate seemed to dissipate. It was as though he was somehow
repelling it. Or maybe his flesh was actually taking it
in—ingesting it and neutralizing it, somehow.

For whatever the reason, shooting Roderick
did nothing—well, nothing but enrage him.

“You little
cunt,”
he snarled. “That
hurt!”

His face grew white and frightening and his
eyes, already blood red, blazed like flames. Looking into them, I
was sure I could see my death—the only bright side was that I had
probably pissed him off enough to kill me immediately instead of
toying with me first. Still, I wasn’t going to stand there and wait
for death to come to me—I was going to fight it.

I fired again and again, squeezing the
trigger reflexively, but Roderick was too fast. He dodged around
the room as I shot, always one step ahead of my bullets. One of
them went wild and I saw the priceless Ming vase, which Roderick
had put carefully on a chair earlier, shatter as a result.
Oops.
Well, that was probably the first and last time I
would do over a million dollars' worth of damage with one shot. Too
bad I was too busy trying to stay alive to enjoy it.

I kept squeezing the trigger until suddenly
the gun clicked instead of roaring. I stared at it, uncomprehending
at first. Finally it hit me, empty—it was empty. I had nothing to
defend myself with now.

Roderick realized it too. Suddenly he was
right in front of me, leering like a death’s head, his face a white
horror mask of rage and greed.

“Well, my dear, it seems you’re all out of
ammunition.” His voice was distorted to a weird, shrieking howl and
the breath blowing in my face smelled like the snake cage at the
zoo. Ugh.

“Looks like it.” I looked at my gun. Well,
even without bullets, it could still be a weapon, though I doubted
Roderick realized it. And he was so busy leering at me, he probably
wasn’t expecting another attack.

If you’ve never pimp-slapped a vampire with
an empty Glock, well, I can’t say I recommend it. It might break
their nose—I heard Roderick’s crunch as I slugged him with the gun
as hard as I could. But that doesn’t help when they heal almost
immediately—it only pisses them off.

“Little bitch!” he hissed, coming for me
again. “You’ll regret that—for a thousand years you’ll regret
it.”

“Roderick!” Corbin called from behind
him.

Looking over the angry vampire’s shoulder, I
saw Corbin pulling something out of his inside suit jacket.
Something long and sharp and lethal looking—a black metal stake. My
eyes had a brief instant to notice that the stake was carved all
over with intricate silver curlicues and markings, almost like
runes—and then Corbin plunged it into Roderick’s back.

The vampire Inquisitor gasped, stiffened, and
dropped to his knees. Such was the force of Corbin’s blow that the
black and silver stake protruded a full three inches from the front
of his chest.

Finally!
I thought with a surge of
relief.
Something that affects him—something to take the bastard
down!

And he
was
down—down but still moving,
which disturbed me. A stake through the heart—especially one with
any kind of silver—was usually the end of a vamp, no matter how
powerful they were. But Roderick was still hanging on. His eyes
opened and closed and his mouth moved like a fish trying to breathe
air instead of water.

I frowned—he should have been completely
dead. I could tell by the placement that Corbin had skewered his
heart like a piece of steak on a shish kabob. The silver rune-like
markings were covered in blood—blood so black it looked like tar.
As I watched, they began to move—writhing like centipedes along the
black shaft protruding from Roderick’s chest.

And then the unthinkable happened—Roderick
grasped the stake and pulled it free. He rose to his feet, the
jagged wound in his chest sealing itself as I watched. What the
hell? Could
nothing
kill this son of a bitch?