Death Deceives: Book Three (Mortis Vampire Series) (5 page)

A minute later, we were on our way again. Feeding had put me in the mood for sex so I suggested we pull over
for the quickie I’d put off earlier. The back seat of the car turned out to be pretty comfortable, if a bit squishy.

Crouched in a different
shrub the next night, Luc frowned at the few guards prowling the perimeter and interior of the mansion. The usual sounds of merriment from inside the building were muted. “I think you might be right, Natalie,” he said after midnight had come and gone without the van showing up at the usual time. “There are fewer guards on patrol.”

Again, the van was a no show and we headed back to the safe house before the sun could
appear and barbeque us to death. I opted to keep watch during the day this time. I was too worried to try to sleep.
Is the First somehow aware of our plan and has sped up his plan to clear out the mansion?
I didn’t see how he could know what we were up to. Not unless he had a prophet of his own hidden somewhere in his cavern of doom.

For the third time
in as many nights, Luc and I approached the mansion after parking our car at a safe distance from the property. Reaching the outer boundary of the estate, we didn’t bother to hide this time. Not after taking a quick look at the grounds and buildings.

Luc pulled out his mobile phone and called
the rest of our team. “Gregor, you might as well join us.”

“Why?” I heard the older vampire ask.
His tone was laced with dread. “What has happened?”

“They’re gone.” Luc tried and failed to hide his fear that we had run out of time.
On some level, I’d known something was wrong but I hadn’t trusted my instincts.
It looks like my hunch was right.
In future, I’d pay greater attention when I felt something was off.

“Who has gone?”

“Everyone,” Luc replied bleakly. “The entire Court appears to have been evacuated. The mansion is empty.”

We didn’t bother to wait for the others to join us before heading inside to search for clues. As far as I could tell, the place was completely deserted. The possibility that this might be a trap crossed my mind but it was doubtful. Luc agreed with my hunch that the building was ok and approached the stairs.

Since the fro
nt doors were standing open, we accepted the implied invitation and entered. I’d been inside the mansion a couple of times but was momentarily stunned again by the sheer opulence. Soft lighting from crystal chandeliers in the high ceilings illuminated priceless paintings. Highly polished antique furniture made of some kind of dark wood had been placed in aesthetically pleasing positions. Dusky pink wallpaper with rose patterned highlights covered the walls. Thick maroon carpet graced the floors. From memory, the Comtesse’s mansion in the UK was even more breathtaking with its white marble everywhere and gold accents. Still, this building was a far step above anything I was used to.

Luc and I
climbed to the fourth floor to begin our search. We encountered the subtle signs of battle during our journey. The ooze of the fallen imps I’d killed a few nights ago had been scrubbed away. Despite the clean-up job, I could still see the faint traces in the carpet and on the wallpaper of the hallway. The smell of undead blood still lingered and would take time to fade completely.

In
mutual silent agreement, we travelled to the end of the hall and entered the Comtesse’s suite first. The heavy wooden door hadn’t yet been replaced. The foot-sized hole I’d made when rescuing Luc had been covered with a sheet of flimsy wood. Taking a quick glance around the sitting room, nothing seemed to be out of place. The heavy furniture was undisturbed and there were no puddles of ooze on the floor.

With my weapons held at the ready,
I pushed open the door to the Comtesse’s bedroom. Red was the predominant colour. It covered the ceiling, walls, floor and bed. Variation wasn’t in the tiny blonde’s makeup.

Luc’s jaw tightened when he stepped inside.
This was where he’d been forced to be the sexual slave of his master yet again. He’d managed to escape from the Comtesse’s clutches three centuries ago when he’d become a lord. When his pretend maker, Monique, had been killed, he’d been elevated to her former position. It had given him enough power to determine who he would sleep with. Luc’s choice after being granted the title of a lord had been to sleep with no one. Until I’d come along and had dragged him into the sack with my newly risen flesh hunger, that was.

After a brief glance to verify the praying mantis wasn’t hiding under the
gigantic bed, we left the suite. Luc relaxed once we were back in the hallway and offered me a tight smile. I slid my arm around his waist to offer him comfort. He was being brave but it must have been painful returning to the mansion again after having escaped from it so recently.

We performed a quick search of the
rest of the bedroom suites on the top floor. All were decorated in tones of blood red. We’d spent the night here once and I’d privately thought the rooms were tacky. My opinion hadn’t changed at all since the last time I’d visited.

All of the suit
es were empty of life and unlife so we headed downwards. Over the past few days, everyone in the mansion had just up and left. Lights had been left on and the windows were unshuttered from the third floor downwards. I was reminded of the stories I’d read of whole towns suddenly becoming deserted or ghost ships floating around the ocean without a crew. If the courtiers had been human, food would probably still be sitting on plates waiting to be eaten. I could almost believe they’d all been beamed up by aliens to a mother ship and then spirited away. Maybe they had been, our creator had been an alien after all.

We both heard a car approaching
and went to investigate. After taking the long trip down the driveway, it parked near the doors to the mansion. Luc glanced out through a window at the end of the hallway. “Our friends have arrived,” he informed me. I squeezed in beside him to watch our friends pile out of the large black car. All carried weapons despite Luc’s advice that the house was deserted. Since I currently had a sword clutched in my hand, I couldn’t really blame them.

Our companions
caught up to us when we were in the ballroom on the second floor. Dark red drapes covered the windows, sweeping from nearly ceiling height to brush the floor. The floor was polished wood, stained the same dark shade as the four or five hundred year old furniture. A stage had been erected at the far end of the room so that the Councillors could look down upon their minions.

I frowned when I counted the
plush chairs that were lined up side by side on the stage. “Why are there only eight chairs?” I asked Luc. “I thought there were nine Councillors.

“One of the Council members
disappeared a few months ago,” he replied. “The Comtesse assumed he had turned traitor and ordered his chair to be removed.”

Since none of the council members had been created by the praying mantis, they still had the freedom to make their own choices. I could
hardly believe one of them had had the balls to run from her after being her lackey for so long.

Hearing
footsteps approach, we turned as our friends entered the room. “We’ve just searched the ground floor and could see no signs of attack,” Gregor said as he entered the ballroom first. “What do you think has happened to everyone?”

“
My guess would be that the First has called them in,” I replied. It was the only explanation that made sense to me. The First could control all possessed vamps. They wouldn’t be able to resist his long distance mental imperative to march to their doom.

Geordie scratched his head in puzzlement
. “But not all of the courtiers were ancient enough for their shadows to be in possession of them.” Igor frowned in agreement but remained silent.

“It doesn’t matter
how old they are,” I said in resignation. “The Comtesse is possessed by her shadow. Since she owns almost everybody, she just has to order them to follow her.”

I’d
recently learned that we didn’t actually need to be ancient before our shadows began to change. One of the vamps I’d culled from the Japanese nation had only been turned fifty years ago. I hadn’t shared this fact with my friends because I didn’t want to freak them out any more than they already were. So far, we were all safe so what was the point in worrying them unnecessarily?

“
When the Comtesse is possessed by her shadow, she has no power over us,” Luc reminded me.

I gave him a look that probably looked
as jaded as it felt. “You were smart enough to figure that out but obviously no one else is.” After centuries of following the Comtesse’s orders, it was ingrained in the courtiers and servants to obey her every word. It had taken guts for Luc to defy the praying mantis. Probably more guts than I’d ever be able to understand. I’d only been Silvius’ slave for five minutes before I’d killed him and that had been five minutes too long. Luc had been under the Comtesse’s spell for centuries. I personally thought his hatred of her had helped him to override his automatic instinct to obey.

“How could they
spirit so many of our kin away while we were watching the mansion?” Gregor wondered. “Surely we would have seen a convoy of vehicles leaving the area.”

“
I bet they used the trucks stationed near each of the exits to the catacombs in case of invasion,” Geordie said as he nervously toyed with his knife. We all turned to regard him and he hunched his shoulders at being the centre of attention. “But you probably already knew that.” His French accent deepened slightly with embarrassment.

“
I
didn’t know that,” I said. “Where are these catacombs?”

“
They lie beneath our feet,” Igor replied. “A series of rooms and tunnels were created to house the courtiers and servants. Several exits leading to the surface were constructed to aid our escape if it ever became necessary.” He seemed insulted that his young helper had thought of the escape routes before he had. Geordie smirked but his smugness was half-hearted.

“I’d
almost forgotten about the catacombs,” Gregor said softly.

Luc nodded
thoughtfully. “They are not a place that one wants to remember.”

“
We might as well take a look and make sure no one is hiding down there,” I decided. My curiosity had been aroused at the thought of secret tunnels that had been dug beneath the sprawling grounds.

Luc and
Gregor exchanged a glance. They knew something that I didn’t, which wasn’t hard since I had zero knowledge of the catacombs at all. Igor looked uncomfortable and Geordie was downright grim. It was strange to see such a serious expression on the teen’s usually mischievous face.

Taking the lead, Igor headed towards the back of the
building. We passed a servant’s staircase that led to the upper floors. It was the entrance I’d used when breaking Luc free several days ago. Turning the corner, we entered a narrow, dark hallway. It stopped abruptly and Igor pressed a recessed button that was almost invisible even to my sharp eyes. A cleverly hidden door popped open.

I didn’t like the look of the staircase that awaited us. It brought to mind a dungeon with a mad scientist
waiting at the bottom. Being at the mercy of a mad vampire scientist once had definitely been enough.

Down we went
and the air quickly turned stale and damp. Since we didn’t need to breathe, there was no need for air conditioning. Rough concrete stairs gave way to a smoother, paved floor after we’d traipsed downwards for twenty or so steps. Lamps that had burned out hours ago were spaced out at regular intervals. A faint odour of smoke still lingered.

Igor
quickly strode down the hall, forcing me to almost trot to keep up with him. He made a few turns, pushed open a door and we ended up in a gigantic, lavish living area. It was nowhere near as opulent as upstairs but it was far from shabby. The couches, coffee tables and other assorted furniture were antique and well kept.

I couldn’t see any
books, TVs, stereos or entertainment of any kind. I’d been told that vampires slept, fed and had sex and that was all. Gregor seemed to defy the odds and enjoyed reading. So did I. I wasn’t sure about the rest of our friends. We’d been too busy trying to stay alive to discuss what we liked to do in our spare time. At the moment, we didn’t have any spare time.

Doors and hallways branched off on three sides. We
performed a quick sweep of what turned out to be numerous well-appointed bedrooms but found no one lying in wait or trying to hide.

“I guess
this is where the courtiers sleep,” I said to no one in particular when we regathered near the stairs. I also guessed it was where they practiced most of their naked entertainment. Some of the rooms had contained chains, handcuffs and sex toys that would have made me blush if I’d still been able to.

Geordie nodded in response to my
guess. “The servant’s quarters are on the levels below this one.” His answer was decidedly glum and my curiosity was peaked again.

We
took the stairs, descending deeper into the earth. Almost immediately, the wealth and comfort were left behind. Reaching the next level down, the hallways were roughly dug and the dirt walls and ceiling were bolstered with cracked or rotting boards that badly needed replacing. Doors stood open, revealing rows of small cells furnished with a thin pallet on the floor and not much else. There were no comfortable living areas or bedrooms down here.