Infernal: Bite The Bullet (17 page)

“Yes,” he said, his lips curving in satisfaction.
“Here. You. Are. Kiss me, and all shall be forgiven.”

I watched as Konstantyn went rigid, arms by his
sides while Dante folded him into a brotherly embrace. I saw Dante’s lips move,
whispering foreign words in Konstantyn’s ear. I couldn’t make out what he said,
but a muscle at the corner of Konstantyn’s jaw tightened visibly in response,
and once again, when I tried to make eye contact, his gaze slipped away.

His lips grazed Dante’s cheek, the same lips that
had crushed a promise to my mouth only hours before.

A Judas kiss
, I thought.

Dante was blackmailing him into submission.

“You are with me then?” Dante asked.

“This madness ends with her?” Konstantyn motioned
in my direction with the hand that held the vodka.

“Yes. The sacrifices end with her. You have my
solemn word,” he said, hand on heart.

My gut went into free fall. The bindings bit into my
wrists as I strained to see more of Konstantyn’s face.

Look at me
, my eyes pleaded, but his eyes
were all for Dante.

Konstantyn’s expression was slitted with
suspicion. “My sister will not be harmed?”

“Not a hair on her pretty head. On this too, you
have my word.”

“Then I’m in,” he said. Closing his eyes, Konstantyn
filled his lungs with air.

His words of allegiance hit me like a kick in the
stomach. My world swam out of focus. My heart sank and my body sagged. He told
me he’d do anything to save his sister. He’d warned me: when they caught up
with him, Dante would be the one in control. If Daniel were alive, how would I have
chosen? Part of me wanted to believe he had no choice, but the clench in my
chest cavity felt like the bitter pain of betrayal. Surrounded by enemies, I’d
never felt so alone.

“It is good to have you back in the fold,
Lazarus.”

“Good to be back,” Konstantyn agreed with a terse
nod. “Here, I brought you a gift,” he said, placing the bottle of vodka in the
other man’s waiting hands.

Dante’s lips spread in a genuine smile, his good
eye crinkling at the corner as he inspected the label. “Ah, how I’ve missed
you. We drink to the Prodigal’s return,” he announced, nodding his approval and
holding the bottle aloft.

They left me there, bruising my knees and quietly
contemplating my death, while they sat on my couch and drank shots from glasses
Konstantyn took from my kitchen.

“What makes this one so special?” he asked,
refilling their glasses. God, he sounded bored. My brother’s murderer and the
man I’d trusted with my life were discussing my rape and torture like normal
people talked about the weather.

“She is the bastard child of a transference
ritual,” Dante replied, “performed by the Order of Gilles, more than a quarter
of a century ago. That makes her quite unique.”

“Transference? Of what? Something more than just
body fluids, I presume.”

“Indeed. The ritual is used to transfer the living
soul from one physical body to another.”

Konstantyn spluttered his vodka and his eyebrows
disappeared into his hairline.

Man, and they said my mother was crazy? This Dante
guy was a total nut job.

“You still doubt your mentor,” Dante said sourly,
sucking vodka from the rim of his shot glass, “after everything we have been
through together.”

“I believe what I see with my own eyes.”

Dante looked up from the glass, his eyes bright. “And
what is it you see, my friend?”

“I see a desperate, dying man.”

“In Russia, you saw me shot through the heart, no?
A wound no mortal man should survive.”

Konstantyn frowned hard.

“You brought me that girl,” Dante continued, “and
I used her to heal myself. You saw it for yourself.” Dante popped a couple of
buttons on his crisp white shirt and pulled the fabric aside to reveal a
perfectly smooth chest. “Look. Not even a scar.”

“It’s not possible.” Konstantyn dropped his head
and kneaded his temples. “There was no gunshot wound. You murdered her,” he
said, but doubt weighed down his words.

“I used her. I channelled her fear, her sexual
energies, and her blood into healing my own body. I didn’t mean for her to die,
but my need was great, and once the ritual is underway, it is difficult to
contain the flow of power. My donors rarely die anymore. Whilst searching for
you, and the girl, I have been perfecting the technique.”

Konstantyn made a sound of disgust, deep in his
throat. “You’re serious? You honestly believe torturing and raping innocent
people is keeping you alive?”

“I do not believe. I know. See for yourself.” He
motioned down his suit-clad body.

“That tumour is turning your brain into Swiss
cheese,” Konstantyn countered. “And what’s wrong with your eye?”

Dante bared his teeth in a bad attempt at a smile.
“Only a small nuisance. Sex and blood keep the tumour at bay, for a time, but
effecting a cure requires something more radical. Believe me, I intend to
divest myself of this rotting body at the first opportunity.”

Konstantyn jerked his jaw in my direction, but
still refused to look me in the eye. “And you believe she’s the
opportunity
you’ve
been looking for?” he said, sceptical.

Dante inclined his head.

“You’re not just sick. You’re fucking insane.” He
laughed and refilled the glasses.

Alexei stiffened, like a dog whose master had been
threatened.

Dante’s good eye narrowed. “It is a foolish man
who mocks what he does not understand. I raised you to be better than that,
Lazarus.”

“You’re not my father,” he said through gritted
teeth. “Don’t speak to me as if you were.”

“You prefer that vodka-sodden wife-beater who sold
you to me for a few measly kopecks?”

I saw Konstantyn’s jaw tighten at the mention of
his biological father.

“Who made you the prime specimen of manhood you
are today, if not me?” Dante demanded. “You were a weak, snivelling boy when I
took you in. And how many times have I saved your miserable life since then?
I’ve cared for you as my own. Everything you are now is because of me. Yet you
run from me. Why? When the moment of truth is upon us, you doubt your own
maker. You cut me deep, Lazarus. Loyal unto death. Have you forgotten so
easily?”

“I’ve forgotten nothing. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are, Lazarus.” Dante rested a hand on
Konstantyn’s shoulder. “And the girl too. My family is complete.”

“Your family?”

Dante waved a hand. “She might be mine, or she
might be the bastard of any of the other six who fucked her mother and drank
her blood that night. Her parentage is irrelevant. During the transference, the
seven become as one.”

My mother?
Every muscle in my body tensed
and my head went on a tilt-a-whirl. Dante was saying my mother had also been a
victim of their perversions. That he might even be my…
No. No. No. Not
freaking possible.

 The guy was way too young for a start.

“The night of her conception?” Konstantyn said,
echoing my own incredulity. “You’re saying you were there, at this ceremony,
twenty five years ago? You can’t have been more than ten years old, Dante.”

“I am older than you know, Lazarus. Of course, I
inhabited another body then, one whose heart was growing precariously weak,
just as this body is failing me now. Human bodies are such fragile, mortal
things. Don’t you agree?”

“You speak as if you aren’t human yourself.”
Konstantyn’s laugh was sarcasm distilled.

“Perhaps I am not.”

I jerked my gaze to Dante. He flashed his eyes in
my direction, and for the briefest moment, I could have sworn his irises glowed
red.
A trick of the mind
, I told myself. Buying into this whole group
psychosis thing wasn’t going to get me anyplace good.

“I’d hoped to have another ten years before
needing to complete the transference again, but this meat suit, blond and
handsome though it is, unfortunately came with a fatal genetic mutation. I
blame her mother’s impurity. She was unclean: a whore, and an addict.” His lips
kissed the rim of his glass and he shot back the clear liquor, sucking air
through his teeth. “But she was all I had at the time, and she was more than
willing to let the seven impregnate her in exchange for drug money.

 Except then she sobered up, and when the birth
came close, she got cold feet. She ran, hoping to spare the child the same fate
she’d suffered, I suppose. She made it to London on a boat. You know how easy
it is to lose yourself with a new name in a big city, don’t you my friend?” His
lips pulled into a wry grin that I wished I could carve off his face.

Painful though it was to hear my mother called
those horrible things, every detail fit, from her mysterious immigration and my
dubious parentage, to the timing of my birth. How could he know those things?
And there was her abhorrence of anything even vaguely occult, and her raving
about demons that had landed her in the psychiatric unit. But why couldn’t she
have told me any of this? I reached for my anger, but when it came to my
mother, that well had dried up a very long time ago. She’d been a victim, just
as Daniel had, just as I was about to become. She probably had been trying to
protect me, the only way she knew how. Now my rage was focussed solely on these
men who had taken over my apartment and were planning to use me as the main
course in some whacked-out sexual sacrifice.

“The foolish woman let herself believe she’d
fallen under my radar, but I have always known where to find her. I have always
been watching. And as I just explained to Neva before you arrived, the time has
come for me to call in my debts. I need to move sooner than expected, but I am
confident my new body will not fail me.” A smile threatened at the corners of
Dante’s mouth as he looked Konstantyn up and down, and I wondered if Konstantyn
saw what I did. The man was measuring him up, like you might a suit of clothes.

“Neva’s blood is strong, forged by the power of
the ritual,” Dante went on. “That should overcome the many flaws of her
breeding. We are ready. My new seven are assembled.”

“Was her brother’s blood strong too?” Konstantyn
asked. “Is that why you used him?”

Dante shook his head. “He was a mongrel, worthless
to me, except as an insurance policy to keep Neva here in line when the time
came. The boy was handsome enough, and a good fuck.” He sneered over at me and
I spat in his direction. “Raider and the Friar went too far with him, but he
would have lived, if he hadn’t tried to run. My surgeon would have seen to
that.”

His cruel words broke my heart and my spirit.

 “You have reminded me of something, Lazarus,”
Dante went on. “A loose end I need to take care of: the matter of the insider
who helped the brother escape.” He reached over and grabbed a fistful of my
hair, wrenching me toward him.

I bit down on the pain bubbling up my throat.

“She knows who it is. Don’t you, you little cunt.
I can smell your concealment.” He licked his lips.

I spat in his face, and it took a moment for his
fury to register. He twisted his fist in my hair and I felt the individual
strands tear from my scalp. Tears sprang to my eyes and I grimaced.

“It will be my great pleasure to extract a name,”
Dante sneered.

I gritted my teeth.
Never.
I would not
betray Gracie.

“I know who betrayed you,” Konstantyn said.

Dante’s grip immediately relaxed and he looked to
Konstantyn, expectant.

“Gracious Samuels,” he said, tossing back another
shot and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Your drug pusher.”

My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach.

Bastard
.

If I had my hands free, I’d have clawed out his
traitorous eyes.

Dante’s disgust caught in his throat. “Of course.
I should have slit that freak of nature’s throat when I had the chance.
Raider’s too, for persuading me to let it live.”

“I’ll do it,” Konstantyn replied coolly. “I’ll
kill her. I’ll kill both of them if you want.”

Dante smiled, seemingly appeased, and slapped a
hand on Konstantyn’s thigh. “Yes, my Lazarus will hunt the rats from my cellar.
I have trained you well. Raider will be no loss.
He was only ever a substitute until I got you back, and I never did care
for his perversions.”

Raider’s perversions? What a hypocrite
, I
thought. I’d seen the photographs of what this man did to innocent men and
women. I’d kissed my brother’s cold, broken body.

“I want something in return,” Konstantyn murmured.

“Your sister Mariya is unharmed, I assure you.”

Konstantyn shook his head slowly. His mouth
narrowed to a slash and tension bracketed his hard face. “That is not what I
want.”

“What then?”

Konstantyn’s gaze cut to mine and his glassy,
green-flecked stare stole my breath. I watched the muscles twitch in his
clenched jaw, his chest rising and falling with scarcely controlled breaths.

Dante caught what passed between us. “The girl
means something to you?”

Konstantyn shook his head and shrugged. “No. But I
want in.”

“You two have been intimate. I can tell.”

“She gave me a blow-job,” he said with a shrug.

My eyes hit the floor and I pressed my lips
together. I hated that his easy dismissal stung more than the humiliation of
being tied up and on my knees, at their mercy.

“Ah. Is she talented?” Dante’s laugh was smug.

“Yeah.”

A pair of polished black shoes appeared in my
field of vision, and I looked up to find Dante standing over me.

He stroked the muzzle of the loaded gun along the
seam of my lips.

“Very nice. We’ll do her together. It’ll be just
like old times, eh Lazarus?” He sneered at me and forced the muzzle into my
mouth. The warm taste of metal was like blood on my tongue and my gorge rose.