Dread Nemesis of Mine (9 page)

"No!" Elyssa froze with indecision. Could the
woman with Justin have already gotten away? She ran back into the
alley and looked up the walls. It was at least three stories to the
top and too wide for her to brace against. Elyssa ran up the left
wall. About six feet up, she jumped the gap to the other wall. The
moment her foot touched the rough brick, she reversed momentum and
leapt back across. Within seconds, she reached the lip of the roof
and pulled herself up.

The view here was better, but the crowded
buildings and snarled alleys hid too much. The only movements she
saw were still-fleeing pedestrians and the occasional car or truck
in the distance. Police had formed a blockade on one end of the
road, but not the other. The vampire with Justin must be headed
away from the blockade, but there were too many narrow passageways
and side streets for her to lose herself in. For all Elyssa knew, a
waiting vehicle had already picked her up and Justin was gone.

"She went that way," Bella shouted from the
ground, pointing toward a glowing green line wending down an
alley.

"You used a spell?"

The other woman nodded. "We have to hurry.
The trail will fade."

It'd take too long to get back down, Elyssa
realized. Reversing her ascent wasn't as easy as jumping down the
walls. She'd end up breaking her leg or worse, and the time
required to recover would be all the time the abductor needed to
get away. She looked at the street below. At the trail leading down
the alley. She backed up to the opposite edge of the roof. Sprinted
toward the ledge. Jumped.

Bella shouted something unladylike from
below. Elyssa swung her arms to keep balanced. Already, gravity had
her in its clutches. She stretched her foot forward. It barely
caught the lip of the roof. Elyssa somehow kept her feet and
ran.

"I'm following!" Bella shouted, her voice
echoing from the alley.

Dodging right, Elyssa ran along the edge of
the roof. The buildings were closer on this side. She jumped each
gap without slowing. Ahead, a motor puttered to life. A tire
screeched. A tiny green car pulled out from a parking space at the
end of the alley. Elyssa saw Justin's limp form slumping in the
passenger seat.

"It's him!" Elyssa shouted. She leapt across
the alley to a lower building. Vaulted another gap and dropped onto
a concrete wall below. Bella streaked past her as Elyssa made it to
the alley floor. By the time she reached the street, Bella had
pulled out her wand and was looking at the parked vehicles. Most of
them were rusted heaps. Something chrome twinkled in the
sunlight.

A motorcycle.

"This one!" Elyssa said, rushing to it.

Bella jammed her wand against the ignition.
"
Contarte.
"

The engine roared to life.

Bella gripped her staff and shouted another
word. It collapsed into a compact rod. She secured it to her waist
and hopped on the motorcycle behind Elyssa, gripping her tight.
"
Madre de dios,
this is exciting! Let's go."

Elyssa gunned it. The bike was an old
Suzuki—a real piece of junk compared to her Harley—but the vampire
couldn't hope to outrun it in the compact car she was in. The
bike's rear tire squealed and the front end lifted off the ground.
Bella squealed.

A figure leapt atop a roof several blocks
down. Elyssa saw the person unroll a parchment.

"Another scroll caster," she said, shouting
over the noise of the wind and the engine.

The moment she said it, a sheet of ice
crackled and crept across the road in front of them. The bike hit
it. The tires lost their grip on the nearly frictionless surface.
Elyssa let off the gas, but it was too late. They spun out of
control and there was nothing she could do about it. If they hit
bare asphalt sideways, the bike would flip. Since neither of them
were wearing armor, they'd end up with a bloody road rash or
worse.

Bella held her wand out and twirled it. A
solid blast of air hit the bike, stopping the spin and
straightening the bike. Except now they were sliding backwards at
breakneck speed. Elyssa slid the katana from the sheath on her
back. Stabbed it against the ice and pivoted the bike a hundred and
eighty degrees. The bike straightened an instant before the front
tire hit pavement. The rubber squealed. The katana sparked against
the cobblestones. She slid the sword back into its sheath with one
hand while gunning the gas with the other.

A brilliant ball of starfire speared from the
figure on the roof. Elyssa leaned hard to the side as a
pumpkin-sized globe of white energy turned a nearby dumpster into a
heap of glowing slag. The caster tore open another scroll. Another
sphere of starfire coalesced and bolted at them. Elyssa sped up,
but it was too late to dodge. Her only hope was to lay the bike
down and that would hurt. A lot.

At the last minute, Bella shouted and the air
overhead shimmered into a mirror-like surface. The energy rebounded
like a moonshot. The scroll caster screamed and tried to dive to
the side, but he was too slow. The crackling starfire caught him in
the chest, vaporizing the right side of his body into blackened
mist. His smoldering corpse rolled off the roof and clanged into an
empty dumpster.

"Amateurs," Bella said in a loud huff.

Elyssa saw the green car weaving through
traffic ahead. She almost smiled. Now that vampire bitch was hers.
She split the lane between two cars. Swerved right to avoid
another. Bella's grip tightened. The vampire's car broke free of
the traffic jam and turned left. Elyssa weaved through the last of
the cars and leaned so hard into the turn, her knee almost touched
the ground, and the wheels squealed with the effort of holding the
road.

The green car screeched through a roundabout,
clipping several cars along the way. Elyssa spotted a break in the
chain guarding the center of the roundabout and steered through it,
cutting the distance between her and the car in half. A truck
pulled out from an alley right in front of the car. It swerved away
and crunched into another car in the opposite lane.

A lone figure jumped from the car and blurred
away down the street, empty-handed. Elyssa braked hard and
screeched to a stop. She leapt off the bike. Rushed to the car.
Tore the door open and gasped. The passenger seat was empty.

"No." She spun on her heel, searching the
nearby traffic. "No!"

Bella came to her side and shouted a stream
of Spanish. "The bastards tricked us. They must have pulled him out
while we were getting the motorcycle."

"Or skating on ice." Elyssa groaned and
pounded her fist against the roof of the car. A tear of frustration
and disbelief burned down her cheek. She turned to Bella, weak with
the realization of everything that had happened today. More tears
gathered in her eyes, though she fought with everything she had to
keep them at bay.

"Oh, god, Bella. Oh my god." Her knees went
weak and she clutched at the other woman for support. "I've lost
Justin. And my dad, he's—he's—" she couldn't say it. How could
Thomas Borathen, a man who'd survived wars and everything else the
supernatural community had thrown at him, die? It wasn't possible.
It couldn't be.

But it was.

Euphoria filled my body, flooding me with
warmth and contentment. A coppery odor filled my nostrils. My
eyelids fluttered open. A tall, muscular man, his fangs glistening
red in the dim yellow light, grinned.

"Mine at last, boy. Mine at last." Maximus
tore a paper towel from a nearby holder and wiped the blood from
his lips and his close-cropped goatee.

Horror washed away the euphoric feeling and I
strained uselessly against diamond fiber straps securing my arms,
legs, torso, and neck to a diamond fiber table. "Did you just drink
my blood?" I said, gagging at the thought of his nasty fangs in my
body.

"The first drink of many, boy." Maximus slid
on a pair of dark wraparound shades and pulled on a tight leather
trench coat. "I have tasted spawn blood before, but there is
something different, even more spectacular, about yours."

"You nasty perv," I said, squirming with
disgust.

"And to think those idiots Franco and Marcel
let you get away." His eyes narrowed. "Serves them right for trying
to double-cross me."

"Let me go, Maximus."

"Not a chance, boy. You took your spawn
father from me, but I do believe I've traded up."

"You won't keep me here for long. The
Templars are going to sweep through here and clean house."

He chuckled. "I hope they try." He leaned in
close, the metallic odor of my blood on his breath. "I heard a lot
of them didn't make it out of the raid on Franco's compound."

"Yeah, right," I hissed between clenched
teeth. "You only wish."

"Oh, I don't wish, little spawn—I know. I
supplied those weapons to his drug cartel along with a large supply
of cursed ammunition." He clucked his tongue. "I hear those bullets
tore right through the much-vaunted Templar Nightingale armor."

My mind flashed back to my wild escape from
Franco's compound. The chase. The plane ride from hell. The gunman
who shot me and Elyssa. She'd been wearing Templar armor, but the
bullets had gone through it like a knife through paper. We'd nearly
died thanks to silver poisoning and the harmful spells on those
bullets. If Maximus was really the supplier, it likely meant he had
stash built up here. If the Templars came, he and his vampire army
would mow through them like grass.

Anger flooded my chest. "What do you want
with me? Why are you doing this?"

He straightened and crossed his arms across
his chest. "You should know why I want you, little fish. Spawn
blood will increase the potency of my own so I can finally turn
noms."

"Is making more vampires all you care about?"
I spat, imagining him sinking his fangs into my flesh over and over
again as I grew weaker and unable to do a damned thing about
it.

"Turning more noms is only a means to an
end." He walked to the other side of the table and put a hand to
his chin. "I grant them life eternal and supernatural powers. They
will help me overturn the traditional order, the ancients who have
ruled us like dogs. Eventually, we will overcome the spawn and turn
them into our slaves. Not only will we rid the world of demon
spawn, but we will finally be able to live as we were
destined."

"As a bunch of blood-sucking parasites?"

The corner of his mouth twisted into a slow
grin. "As the rulers of this world."

"No doubt with you as the almighty dictator
of all."

"Perhaps." He looked across the large room
and the other tables.

The neck strap allowed me to rotate my head
just enough to glimpse a part of the room. It was obvious he and
his cronies could strap down a hundred people in this place,
judging from the length.

"There are those greater even than us who may
have a say in who rules, however," the vampire said, eyes focused
on something I couldn't see.

"Daelissa," I said. I knew she was involved
in this mess. With my mind recovering from the horror of Maximus
feeding on my blood, another thought occurred to me. "Where's my
sister?" Cold dread laced my skin and plunged into my stomach.
Please let her be okay.

His eyes snapped to me. "Your sister?"

"Where are you keeping her? Did you hurt her,
you son of a bitch?"

Maximus regarded me for a long moment, one
eyebrow arching. Understanding lit his expression. Then he threw
back his head and laughed.

Bastard!
Suffused with rage, I
struggled against the bonds, but the diamond fiber resisted.
Frustration welled in my chest as Maximus's laughter echoed across
the large room. I loosed my inner demon and let it feed on rage, my
helplessness. My desire to crush Maximus to a pulp. Stars of pain
burst into sight as horns erupted from my forehead. My body
swelled. And suddenly, I couldn't breathe. I felt my neck bulge
against the straps, biceps and wrists straining at the material. As
my body attempted to manifest into full demon form, it was choking
me to death.

The world disintegrated before my eyes and my
inner demon gave up. Woozy from lack of oxygen, my head lolled as
far as the restraints would allow.

"Not going to work, little spawn," Maximus
said, still sniggering. "And here I thought you knew how strong
diamond fiber is."

"I
will
kill you," I said, in a
rasping voice. "Laugh all you want, you filthy, leeching parasite,
but I'll kill you and save my sister, you perverted sack of
douchebaggery."

The vampire roared with laughter. "That's a
good one. I'll have to save it for later." He reached out and
casually slapped me on the cheek. "Because I'm feeling mildly
compassionate, I'll tell you this, boy. I don't have your sister.
The joke's on you."

My mouth dropped open but no words came out.
Something in the vampire's eyes told me he wasn't lying. Why would
he at this point? I lay completely at his mercy. The bastard hadn't
been laughing because he had my sister—he'd been laughing because
he didn't. I'd been lured down here. Tricked. Not even my demon
form could get me out of this mess, and if the Templars tried to
save me, Maximus's minions would tear them apart with enchanted
bullets.

Maximus tsked. "Poor little spawn. Looks like
Daelissa played you for a fool." He shook his head, speaking in the
mocking tone people usually reserved for babies. "Don't worry too
much. She does it to everyone, even me. I suggest you rest. I'll be
hungry again in a few hours, and you'll need all the energy you can
muster to replenish the blood I took earlier." He winked and walked
behind me. A door squeaked open. For the first time since
awakening, I sensed another cold presence outside the door. A
female presence. My lips curled into a tight smile and it was all I
could do not to laugh. Maximus was an idiot and I'd be out of here
in no time.