Fear the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity) (24 page)

Rounding a corner, he discovered Jagr standing in front of a silver door that had a small window cut at eye level. The one-time Visigoth turned at Styx’s approach, his always grim expression more bleak than usual and a massive sword held in his hand.

“Well?” Styx prompted.

“We caught him before he could reach Tane’s private rooms and brought him here,” Jagr answered, his ice-blue eyes hard with disgust. “Take a look.”

Styx moved to peek through the window, hissing in shock as he caught sight of the vampire standing in the center of the lined cell.

Even prepared, Styx found himself reeling at the image of himself on another vampire.

The same long, dark hair pulled into a braid, the same large body covered in leather, and distinctly Aztec features. Christ. It was like looking in a mirror.

Or at least, how he supposed it would be to look in a mirror. Without a reflection, he could only assume the bastard had gotten the features right.

Which begged the question . . .
how
had he gotten them right?

Had they met before? After so many centuries it was impossible to remember every vampire he’d crossed paths with.

“Damn.” He shook off the inane thoughts, concentrating on what was to come next. “What gave him away?”

“He was too pretty.”

Styx snorted. “Very funny. Now the truth.”

Jagr gave a lift of one massive shoulder. “He had to search for the hidden door leading to the lower floors.”

Styx shook his head as the faux Styx folded his arms over his chest in a manner eerily familiar.

“That’s just . . .”

“Creepy as hell,” Jagr finished for him.

“Yes.” Styx reached for the doorknob. “Stay here.”

Jagr frowned, clearly not pleased. “Are you sure? We don’t know the full extent of his powers.”

“Which is why I’m going in alone.” Styx held Jagr’s gaze, knowing his loyal guard’s first instinct would be to try and defend him. “For now, nothing’s more important than protecting the child. If something happens to me I want you to get Maluhia to the Commission.”

“The Commission?” Jagr looked like he’d chewed on a lemon. “They haven’t done a damn thing to help so far. Why would they protect the child now?”

Styx thought back to his recent encounter with Siljar, one of the Oracles who sat on the Commission. She hadn’t revealed much, but it was enough to make him suspect that they weren’t nearly so indifferent to the future of the world as they pretended.

“I would guess they’ve done far more behind the scenes than we’ve suspected,” he murmured.

“If you say.”

Styx laid his hand on his companion’s shoulder. “I have your word?”

There was a brief hesitation before Jagr gave a sharp nod. Once the vampire gave his promise, it was unbreakable. “Yes.”

Confident the child would be kept safe, Styx opened the door and stepped into the cell. Lifting his sword he’d grabbed on the way out of his office, he pointed it toward the intruder.

“Gaius, I presume?”

A smile. “I see my reputation precedes me. Should I be flattered?”

Styx snorted. “You can drop the disguise.”

“You have to admit it’s very good,” the creature smirked before there was a shimmer around his body and the image of Styx melted to become a vampire built on slighter lines, with lean features and dark eyes. He was naked now that he’d shifted to his natural form, except for the heavy medallion that rested against his bare chest.

“Not good enough.”

The vampire shrugged, appearing far too resigned for Styx’s peace of mind. “It was worth a try.”

“It was a dangerous gamble, which makes me think that there’s more to your plan.” He resisted the urge to take a step forward. As Jagr pointed out, they didn’t yet know the full extent of the bastard’s powers and the last thing he wanted was to get within arm’s length. “Are you the bait?”

Gaius gave a lift of his hands. “The Dark Lord is growing impatient to get her hands on the child. She doesn’t particularly care how many servants she has to sacrifice to achieve her goal.”

Styx shuddered. It was hard to remember that the Dark Lord had been resurrected into the body of a young female. “That I believe. You, however, I don’t.” He pointed his sword toward the center of the vampire’s chest. “Hand over your medallion.”

“This?” Gaius covered the heavy metal necklace with his hand, a faint smile curving his lips. “It’s nothing but a trinket.”

“You truly must think I’m stupid.”

Gaius pretended to ponder his answer. “To be honest, I haven’t given it a lot of thought one way or another.”

Styx wasn’t amused. “Even if I didn’t sense its power, I have seen Nefri’s. It’s remarkably similar.”

Something flashed through the man’s dark eyes even as he took a step backward, his fingers clutching the medallion. “So, the frigid bitch has left the Veil,” he growled. “Astonishing.”

Styx allowed his power to fill the room, even as he debated the wisdom of attacking the vampire to get his hands on the medallion. He was fairly certain he could overpower the vampire, but he couldn’t stop him from disappearing before he could get his hands on him. For now, it seemed his only hope was to provoke him in the hopes he could discover what game he was playing.

“You will show respect to your clan chief.” He allowed his power to shove the vampire against the silver-lined wall. “She offered you sanctuary when you were at your most vulnerable and you repaid her trust with betrayal.”

Gaius cursed, struggling away from the wall as he glared at Styx. “I had no choice.”

Styx rolled his eyes. He’d heard the same excuse used thousands upon thousands of times over the centuries. Hell, there’d been once or twice he’d used it himself. And it was always a cop-out.

“Try again.”

Genuine anger tightened Gaius’s expression. “It’s so easy to be noble when you have your mate safely tucked in your bed.” Gaius tilted his chin, his gaze defiant. “But tell me, Anasso, how far would you go to keep her there? Is any betrayal too great to have her back in your arms?”

Chapter 15

Styx shut out the accusing words. He couldn’t afford to feel sympathy for the traitor. Not when the future of the world hung in the balance.

“None of us can comprehend the loss you suffered, but Dara was not the only one to depend upon you,” he said, trying to stir the vampire’s ancient loyalties. Just perhaps it wasn’t too late to remind the once honorable clan chief of his sense of duty.

“My clan was better off without me.”

“And what about your son?”

Gaius stiffened, his eyes dark with a vast sense of loss. The sort of loss that destroyed a man.

“Santiago?”

“So you haven’t completely forgotten about him.”

“Of course not.” Gaius clutched the medallion so tightly his knuckles turned white. “He is my child. He will always be my child.”

Styx didn’t have to fake his contempt. Not when he’d personally witnessed what had happened to Santiago after Gaius’s abrupt departure behind the Veil.

“A father doesn’t abandon his child.”

Gaius frowned, visibly disturbed by the memory of leaving behind the child he’d sired. “I couldn’t allow him to be tainted by my bargain with the Dark Lord.”

“So instead you allowed him to become a slave to one of the most vicious vampires it has ever been my misfortune to meet?” Styx rasped, recalling Santiago’s broken and bleeding body he’d found in the fighting pits beneath Barcelona. “He made him into a Gladiator. Santiago was forced to fight every night in the blood pits just to stay alive.”

“I suppose you slayed his dragon and became his hero?” Gaius attempted to mock.

“Would you rather I had discarded him like you did?”

Gaius flinched, his gaze shifting away from Styx’s accusing expression. “No.”

Styx lowered his sword, but he wasn’t foolish enough to approach the skittish vampire. “Gaius, it’s not too late to redeem yourself,” he urged.

Gaius shuddered. “It’s later than you can even imagine.”

On cue, the door behind Styx was shoved open and a female with short, spiky strands of red hair and black eyes rushed into the cell. Laylah, the Jinn mongrel and mother to Maluhia.

“The baby’s gone,” she announced, her face white with a combination of shock and fear.

God dammit.

He’d known that Gaius was merely a distraction.

“How?” Styx didn’t bother with platitudes. People didn’t come to him for comfort. They came to him for results.

“I don’t know.” Laylah struggled to contain her panic. “I was holding Maluhia in my arms when he was suddenly snatched away. He”—she gave a helpless lift of her hands—“disappeared.”

“Magic?”

“I don’t think so.” Laylah shook her head, turning to reach out a hand to the male vampire with Polynesian features and a dark mohawk who rushed into the room.

Behind Tane was another vampire, this one a slender female with long dark hair and tilted blue eyes.

“I could feel the hands as they grabbed Maluhia,” Laylah continued, her voice breaking. “And I’m certain something stirred the air when I raced through the door.”

Tane tucked his mate tight against him, his expression warning that when he got his hands on the evil bastard who had taken his son, he was going to rip them limb from limb. Then he was going to stitch them back together and do it again.

“The kidnapper was invisible?” he demanded.

There was a minute of silence as they all pondered the strange turn of events.

Then, Jaelyn growled low in her throat. “Kostas,” she said.

Laylah sent the one-time Hunter a puzzled frown. “How can you know?”

Jaelyn shuddered. She had never fully revealed what had happened to her in the hands of the Addonexus, and in particular Kostas, but what little Styx had discovered had been enough for him to make a clean sweep. He wouldn’t have his people terrorized by tyrants.

“There’s no one else who is capable of cloaking themselves so deeply in shadows,” Jaelyn pointed out, her gaze turning toward Styx. “And he’s been crazed with the need for revenge since you removed him as Ruah.”

Shadows.

Styx felt the urge to ram his thick head into the wall.

“Beware the shadows,” he snarled. “Dammit, we were warned and I still failed.”

“No, the failure was mine,” Laylah said softly, her voice filled with such heartbreak that it filled the air with sorrow.

“We will get him back, Laylah,” Styx said, his gaze shifting to Tane. “I swear.”

“It’s too late, Anasso,” a voice said from behind him. “Concede defeat and bow to the Dark Lord.”

With a snarl, Styx spun on his heel and prowled toward the forgotten Gaius, delighted as hell to have something to stab with his big-ass sword. It was obvious the vampire had deliberately distracted them to give Kostas the opportunity to steal the child.

Now he would pay the price.

“Never.”

Gaius smiled with unmistakable bitterness. “Then die.”

His words were still hanging in the air when he abruptly vanished from the cell.

“Shit.” Coming to a halt, Styx lifted his eyes toward the ceiling. “Could this day get any worse?”

“Don’t tempt fate,” Tane muttered.

Leashing his fury, Styx forced himself to concentrate on the best means of tracking Maluhia. Then, turning back to his companions, he took command.

“Jaelyn, see if you can pick up the bastard’s track.”

The Hunter gave a swift nod. “Of course.”

“I’m going with her,” Laylah abruptly announced.

Styx frowned. The half-Jinn was powerful, but no one was certain if she was truly immortal.

“Laylah.”

The hint of lightning prickled through the air. “I’m going.”

“Fine.” He glanced toward the silent vampire at her side. “I suppose you intend to go as well?”

There was no compromise in the eyes the precise shade of honey. “Yes.”

“Take Jagr,” Styx said, reluctantly realizing his place was here, organizing additional search parties to look for the babe. “He’s the best tracker we have.”

“We’ll also need the gargoyle,” Jaelyn startled them all by announcing.

“Levet?” Styx scowled. The tiny demon was a walking disaster.

“He can see through illusions,” Jaelyn said.

Tane’s growl trickled through the room. “Then why didn’t he sense Kostas when he entered the lair?”

The Hunter shrugged. “I think he has to be searching for the illusion to actually see it.”

Styx rolled his eyes. It was a sad day when the damned gargoyle was their best hope for halting the end of the world. “Fine, take him.”

“What about Gaius?” Jagr demanded from the doorway.

Styx slammed his sword back into its sheath. “He’s mine.”

Kostas’s lair

Once again fully dressed, Gaius easily found the opening to Kostas’s lair, and with an impatient knock on the heavy metal door, he waited for the surly vampire to lead him down the stairs and through a series of cement tunnels. Eventually, they entered an eight-by-eight box of a room with a chair in one corner that was surrounded by a pile of sharp weapons. Nearer at hand was a shelf of tattered books that were focused on the histories of various demon species. No doubt they revealed all the strengths and weaknesses that a Hunter would need to know.

“All the better to kill you with, my dear . . .”

He grimaced. Not so much at the barren lack of comfort. He’d lived as sparsely as a monk beyond the Veil. But rather at the heavy sense of impending death that filled the room.

Was it because Kostas had devoted his existence to killing? Or a premonition?

“This is your lair?” he demanded.

Kostas glanced around the cement box. “Why?”

“It’s . ..”

“It’s functional.”

“I suppose.” Gaius shook his head, dismissing his strange imaginings. He had enough troubles without inventing new ones. “Where’s the child?”

Kostas planted his hands on his hips, his bulky body consuming a large chunk of the room. “What about my reward?”

Gaius made a sound of impatience. “I told you, that’s between you and the Dark Lord.”

“Not good enough,” the Hunter snapped. “No reward, no child.”