Radiance (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #3) (9 page)

“
Where is this coming from?”

“
We have almost a hundred million dollars in the treasury, well in a Swiss bank account.”

“
Truly?”

“
Yes. Most of it is from music royalties from Gabrielle, and investments by Lucas. We can do pretty much anything. We can hire vampires to be vampire hunters and bring their families. We can feed the hungry, heal the sick, find the missing. Hell, we can build a few McMansions if we want.”

“
You’re being silly now.”

“
Yes, I am. My point is, we can buy resources and hire good people for the greater good of our mission, which is to rid the world of evil vampires.”

“
You really propose to bring a family of five to live here? With a vampire husband, a non-vampire wife and three small children? And let us not forget, there is a pack of wolves right outside. And a resident werewolf. The better to eat you, my dear.”

“
Ambra, Corbin is not a threat. He’s so devastated that he lost your trust, I don’t think he’ll ever cross that line again, with anyone. In fact, I would bet my life on it.”

“
You really trust him after what happened?”

“
I have to. He helped save my life from Delilah, but more than that, he’s a part of this place that’s irreplaceable. We need him. The good certainly outweighs the bad. The man…the werewolf… He had about a ten-second lapse in decision-making skills. After talking to him at length, I think he is seriously underappreciated. And we’ve made him the butt of a lot of canine jokes, well, at least I have.”

“
His allure escapes me at the moment since I am still very angry,” Ambra said. She took a deep breath and let it out. “I do like Lucian.”

“
I like him, too. Despite being a vampire, he has integrity.”

“
We do need him, but if he betrays us—”

“
He won’t. I can’t think of a better way to fill the void of Lucas as a vampire hunter and Daphne as chef than to ask Lucian and Uta to join us. You don’t want to cook for this group, do you?”

“
Ambra does not cook,” she said, talking about herself in the third person to let me know she was serious. “And why does the cook have to be a woman?”

“
We could ask Corbin to do it, but I’ve never seen a vegetable cross his lips. He’s carnivorous. We can’t eat like that. And I sure as hell have never made anything but breakfast in my life. And not very well, either.”

Ambra nodded. “We do need a chef. Out here in this remote castle, it’s not like we can just pile into the troop vehicle and go out for hamburgers and
pommes frites
. And because of what we do here, we can’t just hire someone off the street to cook for us. There would be questions about why we are all armed to the teeth and sleep during the day and stay up all night.”

“
Exactly.”

She pressed her lips together in thought. “The security systems of the entire castle and grounds would have to be revealed to Lucian, otherwise, he could get killed by our door and window security.”

I added, “And he should never, ever enter the vampire trap. Not for any reason, so we would have to tell him everything.”

“
We have to tell Uta, too, and find a way to secure certain parts of the castle from the children.”

“
If they mostly stay in Lucas’s old suite, they’re safe up there. It even has its own security system. We’ll buy a lot of kids’ toys and games and books. It’s big up there. They can even ride tricycles or Razor scooters.”

“
All right, Rand. Let’s go to Romania and see if we can recruit Lucian, the vampire who helped us kill Vlad Tepes at Raven Citadel. If he helped us kill one vampire, maybe he’ll be willing to help us do it for others. For a price.”

“
Yes!” I said, and high-fived her. “Thank you for your support.”

“
You’re setting a precedent. This will be the first time that the Brotherhood of the Blade attempts to hire a vampire to work as a vampire hunter,” she said.

“
We had a good experience with Samantha Moon in testing the vampire trap and providing intelligence work and internet surveillance, so I think my idea to hire Lucian is sheer genius.”

“
You think all of your ideas are sheer genius, surfer boy?”

“
Someone had to say it,” I said and smiled at her. It was starting to feel normal with her again.

“
Did you call Lucian?”

“
I tried. Their phone is apparently disconnected.”

“
Email?” she asked.

“
Are you kidding? He doesn’t have email. He is too afraid that people will find out he’s a vampire and somehow trace him.”

“
We’ll have to train him to safely use the internet. So, Ambra, we have to go there and get him.”

“
We, Rand? As in you and me?”

“
I don’t speak any of those languages and you do. It’s a long train trip with transfers and layovers. Will you please go with me?”

“
Yes, I will, since you asked nicely and aren’t ditching me and making me follow you like a thief, I will accompany you.”

“
Sorry about that last time. Let’s go pack.”

“
Wait, Rand. One more thing. Even though you have made an executive decision, I still think you need to tell the others what you mean to do. You
are
intending to bring a vampire into the house. To live here. They should know.”

“
We had Samantha Moon in the castle and nobody even blinked.”

“
Samantha Moon is a free agent and bound to no other vampire. And she has shown herself to be trustworthy, time after time. She’s about as squeaky clean as any vampire who ever existed.”

“
But?” I said.

“
There’s always a ‘but,’ isn’t there?” Ambra said. “Let us not forget that Lucian was the jailer of kidnapped children whose blood he drew and drank through IV ports. It’s the ugly truth and you know it.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He didn’t know that he could drink animal blood and satisfy the hunger. I do value your perspective. Before we go further toward recruiting him, let me ask you three things.”

“Very well.”

“
One. When he drank the children’s blood, do you think Lucian was under a compulsion by Vlad Tepes?”

“
Definitely.”

“
Two. Do you think that since Vlad is dead, that the assumed compulsion that controlled Lucian is now a moot issue?”

“
Probably. We don’t know enough about compulsions to formulate data instead of opinions.”

“
So noted. Three. Do you think he’d make a good vampire hunter?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
What do you mean?” I asked.

“
In theory, the
idea
is compelling, but what could make Lucian want to rip himself and his family from his calm life as a butcher to pack up their kids and move to another country and then risk his life every day to fight the very thing that he
is
?”

“
Okay. Good points and well said. So, who
would
be your first choice to join our vampire hunter family?”

“
Samantha Moon,” Ambra said.

I waved my hand dismissively. “She wouldn’t leave Southern California. Her kids are in school and she has her sister, Mary Lou. They’re really close,” I said.

“True. So, our second choice then defaults to Lucian?”

“
Yes. He’s the only other vampire who I believe we can trust to actually kill other vampires.” I paused, waiting for her dissent. There was none.

She threw her hands up in surrender. “Very well. Let’s get ready to go to Romania,” she said.

“Transylvania or bust.”

“
Whatever that means,” she replied.

“
I need to get you a classic American movie channel so you can understand my English.”

“
You probably don’t know this, Rand, but the only thing I watch on TV is the Winter Olympics.”

“
Why does that not surprise me?”

We went to our respective rooms to pack.

When I was packed, I called Samantha Moon on Skype. She picked up right away.

“
What’s wrong, Rand?” she asked right away, as if she knew it was going to be something bad.

“
I have very sad news. Daphne and Lucas got killed by carbon monoxide in a parked, running vehicle. It was an accident.”

“
Oh no! I’m so sorry. How tragic!”

“
Yeah, Ambra and I well, I’ll spare you the details but a vampire named Linus Ankeny, the same one who killed Ambra’s husband, and just recently, her cousin, Nina, is now dead.”

“
Damn. Damn.
Damn!
I am so sorry for your losses and hers. “

“
It’s hard to rejoice about the vampire hunts when there is such a high price on the other end.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah.”

“There’s more to tell you.”

“
Okay, shoot.”

“
Maybe you can find out if Linus Ankeny was connected, even distantly to Nero, or Delilah. I don’t think so, but we have a lot of vampire activity here.”

“
I’m writing myself a note about it.”

“
The weird thing was, Linus had a love affair with Nina, as a vampire. And then he ended up killing her, he said for the insurance money. So, could he have been compelled to do that by another vampire?”

“
Oh, yes, he could have.”

“
I thought so. I was just bouncing it off you.”

“
What else?”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “I killed Delilah on the castle grounds, and just before she died, she told me she had Kristin.”

“Wow, a break in the kidnapping case. Unless she was lying.”

“
Those are a lot of vampires you keep running across.”

“
I know. It’s not always that we are good at finding them, but that they are good at finding us.”

“
Lovely. I bet that makes you feel safe.”

“
We do live in a castle. It’s a veritable fortress.”

“
I know. And good thing, too. So, Lucas is dead. I liked him. Daphne, too.”

“
Me, too.” I was momentarily choked up.

“
Who’s in charge now?”

“
I am. Looking for work? A change of zip code?” I knew she would say no, but I had to ask.

“
I’m always looking for cases. But not in Switzerland. Not right now. I have stuff going on locally.”

“
Okay, I just thought I would ask.”

“
What do you need, Rand?”

“
A vampire who is a vampire hunter. Or wants to become one.”

“
For sure that’s a ‘no’ on my end. That’s way more dangerous than what I do as a vampire detective. I’m a mom. This is my turf, you know? And my kids…I can’t rip them away from the neighborhood. It’s their stability.”

“
I know. And your ex-husband. He must want to see them sometimes.”

“
Rarely.”

I heard something weird in her voice.

“What happened to that cheater, Danny?”

Samantha paused and something prickled down the back of my neck. “He’s kind of dropped out of sight.”

“I’m sorry for your children.”

“
Thanks.”

There was an edge to her voice so I changed the subject back to the reason I called.

“I do miss California. But I have a duty to follow this thing through and my home is now in Switzerland. We hardly have anyone left of us and Ambra and I are going to Romania to recruit Lucian to work for us as a vampire hunter. He’s the vampire who helped us kill Vlad Tepes.”

There was silence on her end.

“You there, Sam?”

“
I’m here, but I’m just kind of stunned. What does Ambra say about all this?”

“
She says that, except for you, I’m crazy to think a vampire can be trusted to become a full-time, live-in sworn vampire hunter. What do you say?”

“
When in doubt, listen to Ambra. She’s like an angel on your shoulder. A tough love angel.”

“
I know she has my back. I would have been killed a bunch of times if not for her. I am just at a loss to know who to recruit, besides Lucian. I need to keep this thing going, and somehow, make it my venue not just for saving the world from evil vampires, but for finding Kristin, too.”