Death Deceives: Book Three (Mortis Vampire Series) (6 page)

“Don’t tell me you and Igor live down here,” I said in appalled shock.
I’d often lamented that my one bedroom apartment had been small and shabby. It had been a palace compared to these bare cells. I mentally vowed never to complain about my life as a human to any of my friends. Their sympathy would be understandably lacking.

“
We do,
chérie
. Or did.” Geordie looked even glummer now. I wondered which cell was his but didn’t ask. Just knowing he’d been living here for two centuries was bad enough. If the Council and Court truly had been called to the First then Geordie, Igor and Luc would now have the mansion all to themselves. How long would it be before they were discovered by curious humans once the bills stopped being paid? I could picture them fleeing from a crazed mob bearing flaming torches and pitchforks all too easily. Now that I’d joined their merry band, I’d also be fleeing from the mob when they found us.

We listened for any
sounds of movement and I sent out my senses once more but came up blank. It was far too quiet for anyone alive or undead to be hiding on this level. After a glance at Luc and Gregor, Igor shrugged at their reluctant nods and took another staircase downward.

Geordie squeezed in
front of Luc so he was directly behind me. He was so close he was all but treading on my heels. I trusted his instincts so if he showed any signs of nervousness I’d know we were in trouble. “I do not like this level of the catacombs, Natalie,” he whispered suddenly, almost making me jump.

Neither did I and I didn’t have any particular reason for it.
“Why not?” I asked just as quietly.

His response was gloomy. “It is said to be haunted.” I threw a look over my shoulder to see if he was joking or not
. His grin was weak and half-hearted as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe the stories he’d been told or not.

“Haunted by
what?”
We
were the walking dead. If anyone was haunting the earth, surely it was us.

“By the ghosts of those who were slain as
food or entertainment for the Comtesse, the Council and the Court,” Igor intoned. He cast a dark look back at me that didn’t ease me at all. “This is where the humans are kept.” Gesturing to a long, pitch black tunnel, he nodded for me to precede him.

Luc had once told me that there were no such things as ghosts. Maybe that had been wishful thinking on his part. He
seemed to be just as uncomfortable as the rest of us at being down here.

Ok,
I told myself as I squeezed past Igor,
remember that you are Mortis, mistress of death. You are the bane of vampirekind. You are strong and powerful and you aren’t afraid of anything.
That was a big, fat lie. I was afraid of plenty. I was especially afraid of making a fool of myself. It happened all too frequently for my liking.

Luc gave me a reassuring nod and
Gregor gave me a smile that didn’t quite make it all the way up to his eyes. My friends were spooked and were hiding it badly. They also seemed to be ashamed, either of themselves or simply from being members of the Court in their various ways. Even Gregor, who lived as far apart from the Court as possible, hung his head a little. I suspected their shame revolved around the deaths of generations of poor human captives who had provided food for our kind.

It was
far too quiet down on the lower levels. It was still pretty early and humans were noisy creatures even when they were asleep. I should have been able to hear them breathing, twitching, crying, farting and making all the usual sounds humans couldn’t help but make.

With a serious case of the heebie-jeebies, I pulled my
second sword free and passed my backpack to Geordie. I was the fastest, strongest and most impervious to death so it only made sense for me to go first.

A
heavy metal door waited at the end of the tunnel. It swung open at my light shove with a rusty creak that added to the overall creepy atmosphere. A nauseous smell hit me and I understood why the humans were so quiet. Geordie muttered something beneath his breath about the odour as I stepped through the door.

Cages lined a room that stretched too far
into the distance for me to see the end of. Humans were crammed in together, up to twenty per cage that should have only housed fifteen at the most. Their living conditions were equally as appalling as the captives I’d dreamed about in the cavern of doom. These poor souls had only bare dirt to lie down on and would have to take it in turns to sleep. Naked and malnourished, they wallowed in filth like penned animals. I resisted an almost overwhelming urge to turn and rake a scornful glare across my companions. I reminded myself that the Council was at fault, not my friends. If they’d made any kind of protest, they no doubt would have been punished for it.

It wasn’t just the smell of human waste that tainted the air. It was also thick with sticky,
congealed blood. Every single man, woman and child had been slaughtered in their cages. Their pitifully thin bodies held multiple stab wounds. Many were missing limbs and most had claw marks on their abused bodies.

“Imps
did this,” I concluded as the men gathered beside me in front of the nearest cage.

“How can you tell?”
Gregor asked. He eyed the dead calmly enough but I sensed his fury and pity at the fate that had befallen the captives. By his pained expression, he found their living conditions to be as abhorrent as I did.

“Because some of them have been partially eaten.”
I pointed at teeth marks in an arm that had been torn off and dropped to the floor. Vampires drank blood, we didn’t eat meat. That could only mean that our transformed kin were responsible for the slaughter.

“There’s no point searching
through the entire catacombs,” Igor said wearily. “They are too extensive for just the five of us to search effectively. Besides, the courtiers and Councillors are long gone by now.”

“And we have no way to track them,” Luc said grimly.

Gregor studied my face, reading me far more easily than I cared for. “Natalie, do you know of a way for us to locate them?”

“I might,
” was my reluctant reply.

Luc
gave me a long look then gestured to the tunnel entrance. “Let’s head back to the safe house. We can discuss our options there.” I wasn’t about to argue, not when I wanted to get away from the smell so badly. It was bound to linger in my hair and clothes as well as in my memory.

I took the lead again, more
to avoid any questions than because I thought it was necessary. No one was going to attack us here. My senses were on high alert and they were coming up empty. The First had called the entire Court to him and he hadn’t left any nasty surprises for us.

We had a silent ride back to the safe house and didn’t stop for a quickie this time. Even Luc wasn’t in the mood for it, which was rare. The fact that I was still
holding one of my swords might have been a minor deterrent for him. My reflexes were so quick that startling me could end badly for the startler.

Back in our safe house, I took
a seat in the living room and waited for everyone to settle into place before telling them my idea. I felt secure enough to put the sword away. “You know it’s possible for me to sense the imps,” I began. They all nodded. “You also know the First can mask them from me somehow.”

“Yes,
chérie
,” Geordie said and made an impatient gesture. “We all know these things.”

“
Well, what you don’t know is that I can also sense other vampires.” I ignored their startled looks. “It’s a skill I picked up during my short vacation in the cemetery a few months ago.” Geordie sniggered then cringed at a dark look from Luc.

“How close do they have to be for you to sense them?”
Gregor wanted to know.

I gave
him a shrug. “I don’t know exactly. I’m hoping it will be easier to find a large group.”

“Is this going to put you in any
kind of danger?” Luc demanded.

“I don’t think so.”
How the hell would I know? I didn’t get the Mortis manual when I was turned by Silvius.
I hadn’t received any instruction at all from the creature that had created me. Once I’d realized what he was, I’d been too busy trying to kill him to ask him if he had any tips to pass on. The only thing Silvius had taught me was that holy objects had a tendency to make us burst into pretty blue flames when we touched them.

Gregor
sat on the edge of the couch, keen black eyes focussed on me intently. “When were you planning to try this?”

“There’s no time like the present,” I replied
then stood. “It’ll be easier if I do it lying down.” Not being the object of their stares would also be far less of a distraction.

Geordie bit his lips trying to suppress a laugh at my choice of words. “It usually
is,
chérie
.”

Rolling my eyes, I headed upstairs. Luc followed me and closed our bedroom door to give us at least a
semblance of privacy. “I will watch over you,” he reassured me and sat on the edge of the bed. Being a man, it had to be difficult for him to stand around doing nothing while the woman did all the work.

Putting the
backpack on the floor beside the bed, I lay down and closed my eyes. Sending out my senses, I immediately picked up Luc and our three friends downstairs. Unsure of how to proceed, I hovered there, undecided. I’d never tried to sense multiple vamps at a distance before and they could be headed in any direction.

In the en
d, I decided being methodical would be my best option. I swept my senses to the south, west, north then east. I immediately hit on several tiny groups of vampires plus occasional singles spread out across France. None of them were my quarry so I tried again, sending the probe out further. My method finally paid off and I distantly sensed a larger group of vampires. Homing in on the moving pack, I didn’t know exactly how many there were, just that there were a lot.

Opening my eyes, I sat up. “I
think I’ve found them.”

Comfortable and at ease,
Luc was stretched out on the bed beside me with his elbow bent and his head resting on his hand. He cocked an eyebrow in query. “Did you see where they were headed?”

“No.
It doesn’t work like that.” I couldn’t use my eyes when sensing other undead but I could at least tell the general direction they were heading in. “I can’t actually see them but I can sense their presence. They’re somewhere to the north-east.”

“That’s a good start. We should begin following them when we rise for the night.”
Luc avoided my gaze by taking my hand and raising it to his lips.

“You think we’re going to lose, don’t you?” I said
very softly, hoping the others couldn’t hear me. Morale was already low and I didn’t want it to peter out altogether.

Luc
struggled against the urge to lie then lifted sorrowful dark eyes to mine. “I do not see how we can possibly win against a creature that can call monsters forth from within us.” He spoke even more quietly than I had.

“
Kokoro thinks we’ll have an army to back us up,” I said in a decidedly lame attempt to cheer him up.

Running his thumb across the back of my hand, Luc gave me an amused smile. “Then I hope this army shows up sooner rather than later. We could
certainly use their assistance.”

Igor’s black car was large enough to carry all of us but we opted to take both cars rather than all of us cramming into one. I for one didn’t want to share an enclosed space with Geordie for several hours at a time. He was ok in small doses but had a habit of getting on my nerves fairly quickly. Luc was more tolerant than me but he’d known the kid a lot longer than I had.

“
Tell me about Igor and Geordie,” I said during a long stretch of silence. Luc was driving, as always, heading roughly north-east. We were keeping to the main highways in the hope that any imps sent after us might think twice before attacking. Some of them weren’t quite as stupid as they looked and were able to plan their attacks. Igor followed us, maintaining a distance of about four car lengths between our vehicles. “What are their stories?”

“What do you mean?” The dashboard lights
gave Luc’s pale skin a ghoulish, greenish cast.

“Who are their maste
rs and are they still alive?” I clarified.

“
Geordie is a strange case.” I politely bit back an automatic snigger at his choice of words. Luc shot me a look anyway, sensing my mirth. “He was not made by a Lord or Lady but by another servant. The girl was very young when she was made, only twelve or thirteen. Her master was extremely cruel and had a tendency to use up his servants quickly.” He frowned for a moment as the memory of the poor girl’s suffering. “Unwisely, she secretly turned Geordie, hoping he would kill her master and become her companion.”

Boy did she choose poorly.
I couldn’t imagine Geordie killing a much older and far more powerful vampire. “I guess her plan didn’t work out all that well for her.”