She didn't dare slip. Too many people knew what Dracula looked like. She'd given press conferences, posed for pictures, recruited openly in the mortal world. She'd been so arrogant in the assumption that the Germans would win and order would prevail over Europe.
Valerie shaved by feel under the dappled leaves. She would not give in to shame. The past was gone. Time for the future.
First order of business: get out of Germany and preferably, completely out of Europe. Perhaps South America. The people were said to be lively and tasty there.
Lively
and
tasty? She paused the razor at a shocking thought.
Her secret had prevented the usual string of lovers that vampires and men could have. She'd always sublimated sex into overwhelming violence.
But perhaps, just perhaps, now she could experience pleasure? She always wondered what it would be like to have a penis in her mouth. Rumors told of it being delightful.
“Shit.” She touched the slice under her nose. The cut healed quickly, but now she understood years of complaints about the complexity of female grooming. How she missed her flamboyant moustache. It required so little care.
Pleasure. Wicked indulgence of her every fantasy. A decadent tingle awoke her nipples.
Vlad tucked the razor in her pocket and left the woods. She sniffed the spring night air. A troop of well-fed American soldiers camped down the road. If she ran at full speed, she could reach them in an hour. That would be a fabulous start of her new, more sexual future.
Americans were not only oversexed, they were ridiculously protective of women, as well. She could travel with them, play with them, and feed herself at the same time.
Vlad the Impaler, Dracula was dead. Valerie, no last name yet, had no idea where she was going or what she would do. Not for the first time, her life ended.
Now was the time to rise again.
As she ran through the night, thinking on orgies of blood and sex, she barely noticed the sign reading NORDHAUSEN.
As she reached the American encampment outside the city, the reek of cold mass murder rose from the very soil. It wasn't the peppery scent of battle or the urine stench of premeditation. Instead, the rot of corruption, decay, and waste obliterated everything. Bodies on litters left the town in an ant trail of misery.
Curious, she skirted the 104th Timberwolf Infantry camp. When she reached the center of a work camp, she stopped cold in the middle of the scurrying medics and soldiers.
Two seconds ago, Valerie would have said nothing about warfare disgusted her. Had she not killed and killed often? Her native urges toward peace on the edge of pike left nothing untouched.
Until now.
Unnoticed amongst the devastation, she wandered the site. Corpses stacked like firewood filled abandoned machine shops and stairways. The fabulous rockets Hitler bragged about to her had been built here. The Führer hadn't mentioned the dead and nearly dead spread like fallen leaves.
Feces, intestines, flesh, and bones didn't merely decorate the concrete. The bombing had literally pounded the waste into the floor. Her boots squished as she walked through row after row of bodies.
Once, she breathed in. The stench of decay made even her battle-hardened nose close in on itself.
Cold fury propelled her to the middle of the death camp.
Her own death count numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The anger that scraped up the back of her shoulders made no sense.
A dim memory from her human days came back to her. When she ruled, her towns were safe for the law-abiding. Vlad Dracula killed thieves, criminals, invaders. Not the people who built her weapons. She turned a slow circle, taking in the pain.
Those who stocked the Dracul family's armory had been pampered, fed, and encouraged.
What she saw here would never have happened under her rule. Professional soldiers knew the risks. Criminals knew the price of their actions. Even those pressed into war knew that death wasn't personal. When each met their doom, it was merely the business of warfare. Any who met Vlad the Impaler's justice knew the rules of the game they played and the roles each took on.
Adolf Hitler had promised Dracula, “Bring your kind to me. When I win, all crime and disease will be gone. Isn't that what you've worked for your whole existence? You already rule the supernaturals, but you could rule even more by my side.”
A half-decayed head rolled by her feet.
Oh, yes. It was what she'd wanted all along.
And Dracula had delivered. Oh, how he'd delivered. And this is what they were doing with the power she gave them?
She knelt in the dirt and shit and bowed her head. Let Dracula and Hitler stay dead.
Vlad's reputation from his mortal life had been greatly exaggerated. Impale one or two people for a well-deserved punishment, and suddenly Ottomans on pikes lined the roads.
This travesty outstripped even the most outrageous tales about her. And she was partially responsible. Every ounce of honor she'd ever possessed demanded she make reparations for these horrors she'd unknowingly allowed to happen. But what penance would be appropriate for this disgrace?
The only answer was service to the helpless.
She found a die in the dustâa knucklebone, actually, marked with pips. She knelt amid the bodies and rolled it. Six.
Sixty years, then. Vlad promised herself sixty years to serve the victims of this horrific crime.
“Miss? Miss? Are you all right?” A young American soldier, his hands and uniform covered with other people's gangrene, knelt in front of her. “I'm a medic. Do you need help?”
Valerie met his war-weary brown eyes. “No.” She took an unnecessary breath. She would have to breathe to maintain her façade. “But I can help.”
“Come with me.” The boy was too tired to question how a woman came to wander the camp alone. She was here and she was able-bodied.
Â
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For two years, she helped the Allies clean the camps, moving from Mittlebau-Dora to Dachau to Sobibor. All over Germany and Poland she studied the wreckage of lives.
The waste revolted her.
All the labor and energy the guards and commanders had put into the camps could have been used on the fronts, perhaps preventing the Germans' defeat. The tortured and the dead Jews could have been productive laborers instead of starved and ruined. Disgust ruled Valerie until a strange new emotion, pity, stirred her dead heart.
In 1947, the UN formed Israel. It was a clear signal of what she had to do.
Valerie lied on her application and joined the newly formed Israeli Army as a trainer. Safely hidden now in her new gender and identity, she hunted the vampires she'd made, destroyed every collaborator she'd used. One by one, they found themselves on the receiving end of her tools of the trade.
The small new country was riddled with holy ground. She endured the endless pain and weakness as part of her penance. Through it all, Valerie vowed she would never allow these horrors to happen again.
Because she planned to execute every murderer herself. Only then would she allow herself to experience life as a real woman.
Chapter 8
Twenty-four whole hours had passed since Lance Soleil's radical act and Radu Tepes still couldn't wrest the media attention back to himself. He had a plan, though.
If it hadn't been for his dignity, he would have sprinted down the Governor Hotel's luxuriously patterned carpeted hallway toward his private meeting room. Instead, he forced himself to advance like conquering royalty through the throngs of shouting press and onlookers.
“How do you feel about the Tualatin Mountain Homeless Shelter and its new, integrated services?” one asked louder than the others.
“This is wonderful news,” he replied. “I am now meeting with my staff to best decide how to support Father Soleil in his quest for greater social accountability.”
As he reached for the suite's doorknob, his gaze fell to a flake in his carefully buffed thumbnail. Quickly, he pulled a sleek platinum PDA out of his suit jacket's inner pocket. A fast
SCHEDULE MANICURE
note on the screen and he secreted the device back before any mortals could see.
“Would you ask Father Soleil to be your vice president when you throw your hat into the ring?”
Excitement tightened his lungs. For the first time in his long life, he was poised to get exactly what he wanted, when he wanted it.
“You know that I don't wear hats.” Radu gave the reporter a mysterious smile. “If you would be so kind as to excuse me now.”
Radu threw open the heavy white painted wood door. Lucifer below, he loved the Governor Hotel. Of course he enjoyed the large, old-fashioned windows, perfect furnishings, and the lavish rooms.
Mostly, he loved the quick service. Two minutes ago he'd asked for a private conference space, and now he had it. There was no way he could be seen having these conversations in his fabulously press-friendly terrace suite.
When the news of Lance Soleil's actions broke, Radu's advisors, Joe Carter and Ben Trask, had suggested the CCC and the shelter work together to expand their mutual goals.
Radu refused. He was tired of being Number Two, of being someone else's partner. It was his turn.
No showboating priest was going to steal his limelight. It merely meant he had to scramble to contain the situation. Radu didn't like scrambling, but it was a necessary evil.
He closed the door behind him and smiled at the solitary person waiting for him. The rest of his staff had orders not to show for another three minutes. He had a situation to exploit. Radu needed perfect deniability.
Straightening his crisply ironed blue Oxford shirt, he faced his hand-picked supernatural. Roger Corbetti, his unofficial enforcer, sprawled in a chair. The big were-tiger had served Radu well in the past.
“Roger, the Tualatin Mountain Homeless Shelter has integrated. This throws my plans into complete disorder. In less than a day, this priest, Soleil”âthe name tasted terrible on his tongueâ“has managed to upstage the entire conference. I just got asked if he'd be my vice president! The media has called him the greatest proponent of civil rights since Martin Luther King, Jr. That is my title.” He jabbed his finger into the air, outraged.
“Yes, boss.” Roger stood up, ready to get to work. As a man, Roger was built like a tank, broad shoulders tapering down to a firm waist.
Unthinkingly, Radu smoothed his hand down his own flat stomach, making sure nothing sagged.
Radu pointed at the were-tiger. “Later this evening, that bastard is going to give a press conference at the Hollywood Theater.”
Roger growled eagerly under his breath. “I'll be there.” He was a man of few words. The shape-shifter escaped through the open windows so smoothly that no one even got a photograph of him.
The so-called priest wouldn't stand a chance. Only a vampire could beat the were-tiger's strength.
Radu knew exactly where all the vampires were. Right now, the three left in the world were in this hotel. Himself, Joe, and the third.... Well.
Umar, Radu's were-hawk advisor, escorted in a vampire with a shaved head, layered punk rock shirts, ragged jeans, and stained combat boots. When the door closed behind Umar, leaving them alone, the younger vampire sat and put those horrible shoes on a round table's pristine tablecloth.
In the quiet elegance, he looked like a black eye on a beautiful woman.
“Why have you brought me here, Randall?”
Radu narrowed his eyes at Anthony O'Neill. His last surviving spawn never failed to rebel. Some nonsense about being Irish. Or French. Or it could be the circumstances of Anthony's making.
But Anthony's past made him valuable. A risky choice but necessary.
“You know I go by my name again.” Radu waved his hand, avoiding looking at the damaged nail.
Anthony shook his head. “Something wrong with the old manicure?” he asked, his disdain ripe in the air even though his tone was polite.
Angry, Radu gathered his powers. Time to remind his rebellious child who was in charge.
A tiny hole appeared in Anthony's throat. A pinprick at first, but Radu drilled his determination into the bald man's flesh. A bead of blood pooled and spilled away from the tear as Radu's concentrated willpower penetrated like an ice pick into Anthony's undead body.
Blood dripped down Anthony's black T-shirt. As the wound deepened, the drip turned into a fountain, eventually soaking into his ragged jeans.
For long moments, he kept his eyes locked on Radu, defiant until the puncture reached his spinal cord. A little more pressure to the spine, and Anthony would be beheaded. And finally dead.
The Irishman closed his green eyes, giving in. Radu smiled. He loved the rush his power gave him.
Anthony futilely wiped at the mess left of his throat. It would heal in its own sweet time.
Another reason why Radu loved the Governor? They were so good with cleaning up blood.
“Someone you know very well will be at the conference. You are to discredit her.” Radu snapped off the order.
Beaten and dripping gore, Anthony bowed his head. “Anything else?” he asked.
“No.”
The Irishman headed toward the door. Even though Radu's child was under seventy, he moved like an old, old man. The young vampire quietly left the room.
Radu narrowed his eyes. He was suspicious of Anthony's quick capitulation. His slippery make never gave in this easily. There had to be a catch.
He'd find out soon enough what Anthony's game was. The younger vampire couldn't keep his master out of his head for any length of time.
In the most basic terms, a vampire created another by feeding a human blood and tears. Even though vampires wept tears of blood, the transformation needed both substances. Radu had never bothered to find out why.
No one ever mentioned how individual each Change was. When Radu had dripped his fluids into Anthony's reluctant mouth, the struggling man had bitten Radu's fingers. Some of Anthony's saliva had mixed with Radu, creating an unusual mental bond between the two. Radu could control Anthony's behavior. Conversely, Anthony knew just what was going on in Radu's head.
As a result, each knew just how much the other despised him. It was an uncomfortable co-existence.
After Anthony left, the third known vampire in the world crossed the threshold into the meeting room. From a chance meeting in a smoky bar in Paris, Radu had founded the CCC with Joe Carter back in 1969. Ever since then, Joe had been Radu's advisor and attorney. The handsome black vampire was a valuable asset, but Radu knew little about him. Radu occasionally wondered who Joe's maker had been, but Joe never told. Unusual. Radu dismissed the thought when Joe spoke.
“Governor Green on the phone for you again.”
“What does he want?” Radu countered.
“He is curious about your choice of vice president.”
“What state is he from, again?” Radu couldn't keep all of them apart. Seizing power in the old days in Europe had been more violent, but certainly more straightforward.
“Wisconsin. He's a wildly popular governor with a very unpredictable populace.” Joe's memory was always useful.
“Very well. I'll take it.”
Joe reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a gold and red iPhone.
Radu took the slim machine and did not thank his advisor. Face bland, Joe left the room as Radu greeted, “Hello, Governor Green!”