Duncan (7 page)

“So, what do you propose?” he asked now.

“It’s going to take time and a lot of money to put in a decent underground vault,” Alaric warned him immediately. “This whole city’s built on a fucking swamp.”

Duncan didn’t miss the gleam in Alaric’s eye when he said that, although it was probably as much from the challenge as the price tag.

“I don’t care what it costs. If it can be done, I want it done.”

The vamp shook his head, laughing softly. “I’ll give you this, my lord. You do things right. Okay. Let me get the rest of my guys in here, and we’ll do a full inspection.” He gave Miguel a pointed look. “I won’t be needing
you
for that part.”

Miguel looked affronted, but Duncan intervened quickly and said, “That’s good. I need Miguel with me tonight anyway.”

His lieutenant gave him an inquiring look, but Duncan just signaled him to follow. Vampire hearing was entirely too good, and as much as he admired Alaric’s skill, he had no desire to share the details of his personal affairs.

Miguel immediately took the lead, going upstairs ahead of Duncan, pausing to scan the hallway before stepping through the doorway. As if enemies were already lying in wait for them somewhere between the kitchen and the stairs. But Duncan didn’t say anything. The situation was still too unsettled. Security was better, but not yet up to Miguel’s—or Duncan’s—standards. There were vampires working all over the house, and yet it was still more than half empty. Eventually it would feel like home and safety. But not yet.

Louis was already waiting for them in the library. “I e-mailed the data to both of you, my lord.”

“What data?” Miguel asked, pulling out his smartphone.

“Victor was giving parties with guests who’d rather not be seen,” Duncan replied. “Which means he was using a house that’s at least private, if not isolated. He wouldn’t have wanted neighbors seeing people come and go all the time; they might get nosey and see someone they recognize. But he wouldn’t have been using some rundown cabin in the woods, either. Victor was a snob. The house will be elegant, expensive, very possibly in an exclusive area of homes, but with substantial acreage for privacy.”

 “Leesburg, Virginia, my lord,” Louis said confidently. “Victor owned two properties there, both of which would suit, and there’s a blood house nearby, too.”

“How far?”Duncan asked.

“About thirty-five miles. This time of night, thirty minutes to an hour, depending on traffic.”

Duncan nodded. It might be late winter, but the nights were still long. They’d have plenty of time. “Let’s go, then. Unless you’d rather stay here and knock down some walls for Alaric.” He started for the door, then glanced down at what he was wearing. Like the others, he was dressed casually, in jeans and a sweater. He hadn’t planned on meeting any of his new subjects tonight, hadn’t planned on even leaving the house, much less visiting any of the blood houses. But it would take time for him to change, and besides these clothes were warmer. That decided it for Duncan. He grabbed a leather jacket from the old-fashioned coat tree near the door, pulling it on over his sweater. There was a leather hair tie in the jacket pocket, so he finger-combed his hair back and tied it into a rough tail. It would have to do. Raj’s Manhattan club might be tuxedo territory, but most blood houses were far less formal. And if not, well, he
was
their lord and master, and he’d wear whatever he damned well pleased. And if anyone had a problem with it, he wouldn’t mind a good bloodletting either.

Chapter Seven

The blood house didn’t exactly look like a hot bed of vampire activity. Located in a tony housing tract in an upscale suburb of Leesburg, it was a meticulously maintained contemporary home with a low-slung profile and pristine landscaping. The houses in this area were spaced far apart and surrounded by a broad swath of green forest, which gave the illusion of living amongst nature. The effect was lovely, and very private.

It was two a.m., or vampire high noon, but there were no cars in the driveway or in front of the house. Duncan could detect two vampires inside, however, both wide awake.

“Kind of quiet for a blood house, isn’t it?” Louis asked, eyeing the house doubtfully.

Duncan nodded, agreeing with Louis. Something wasn’t quite right here. “Well, someone’s home. Let’s be polite and ring the doorbell.”

The door opened while they were still making their way down the paved walk to the flat front porch. Miguel and Louis both tensed and immediately formed a wall in front of Duncan.

By contrast, the slender, dark-haired vampire standing in the doorway gave them a big smile and bowed gracefully. “Welcome, my lord,” he said, trying discreetly to catch a glimpse of Duncan behind the wall of vampire. “Please,” he added, straightening to give a welcoming gesture, “come inside and get warm.

“Thank you, Brendan,” Duncan murmured, stepping around his two bodyguards.

Since they’d never met, Brendan twitched at the sound of his name, but Duncan knew he was Brendan Folmer. He’d taken the knowledge from the vampire’s brain before he’d ever opened the door.

“I am Duncan,” he said, entering the house. He indicated the others. “My lieutenant, Miguel, and security chief, Louis.”

Brendan closed the door behind them. “Erik will be down in a moment, my lord,” he said, referring to the second vampire in the house, the one Duncan could sense upstairs. “We didn’t expect you and—”

Brendan’s worried explanation was cut off as the second vampire appeared on the landing. He raced downstairs and immediately knelt in front of Duncan. “My lord Duncan,” he said reverently. “Thank you for coming.”

With a look of dismay, Brendan dropped gracefully to his knees next to his partner and lowered his gaze.

Duncan brushed a hand over their bowed heads, acknowledging their submission. “I’m gratified by your welcome,” he said.

Erik jumped to his feet as soon as Duncan’s hand lifted. “You’ll find no sorrow for Victor’s passing here, my lord. Nor anywhere in the territory, I would imagine.” He gestured at a matching pair of pale leather couches in front of the fireplace. “Would you like to sit? The fire is nice, especially on these cold nights.”

Brendan laughed. “Erik thinks anything below seventy degrees Fahrenheit is freezing.”

Duncan privately agreed with that assessment. Washington winters were going to take some getting used to after so many years in L. A.’s balmy climate.

“So this is your home, then?” he asked, settling onto the couch and stifling a sigh of pleasure at the fire’s heat.

“Yes, my lord.” Erik sat opposite Duncan and crossed his legs, propping an ankle on the opposite knee. “Bren and I bought this house several years ago from a vampire named Scovill. An older vamp. What would you say, Bren, two, three hundred years?”

“Oh, much older than that,” Brendan said. “And not too pleased with how Victor ran things, either. He bought a house way back in the Blue Ridge mountains, I think.” He shuddered discreetly. “Very unpleasant vampire, but powerful too. The locals probably think Big Foot has finally come home to roost.”

 Miguel had been prowling the downstairs, but now took up a position behind Duncan and said, “Victor had this place marked as a blood house. Why?”

“Oh, that,” Erik said dismissively. “We have a small group of vampires who come together every weekend, my lord,” Eric said, addressing Duncan. “Private affairs, very discreet. There is a blood house in this area, however. On the other side of Leesburg. Victor probably did own that one. And there’s a second property, more in the way of an estate—big house, lots of property. I imagine it’s all yours now, my lord.”

Duncan nodded and signaled to Miguel. “I want to verify the addresses we have.”

Erik pulled out his PDA and began conferring with Miguel. But Brendan gave Duncan a somber look. “What you really want to know about are Victor’s parties, I imagine.” He paused, waiting for a response. When Duncan simply looked at him, he hurried on. “That’s what the estate was for. He used to come out here regularly with a bunch of big wigs. Senators, congressmen, even the occasional cabinet member, and a whole bunch of lobbyists. That was the real purpose of the parties. The lobbyists got unfettered access to policymakers away from the glare of the Washington press, and Victor got paid very, very well for making it possible.”

“And what did the policymakers get out of it?” Duncan asked quietly.

Brendan looked away in obvious discomfort, glancing over at Erik and back again, clearly reluctant to continue.

Erik murmured something to Miguel, then nodded and dropped his PDA onto the side table. “Go ahead, Bren,” he sighed. “You’ve gone this far, so you might as well tell the whole sordid story.”

“The policymakers got different things,” Brendan said evasively. “Some of our fine elected leaders got kickbacks in the form of soft money campaign donations. Others . . .” He tightened his lips in distaste. “Sex, I think.”

Duncan frowned. Sex? That was the big secret? Men in power being offered sex in exchange for favors? That was so common it was almost trivial. There had to be something more to it, something the neatly pressed Brendan didn’t want to talk about.

“Not just sex,” Erik explained, with a sympathetic look in Brendan’s direction. “Victor seduced women for these men, often very young women, and all of them very beautiful. He got them to do things that I’m quite certain most of them never would have done otherwise. Hell, he got them to do
men
they probably wouldn’t have done either. I know power’s an aphrodisiac and all that, but even that can only carry so far with most people.”

“So, Victor was getting paid for these parties?”

“You mean were the lobbyists paying him directly?” Erik clarified. “Yes, I think so. More than one of them joked about it. Victor insisted some of us attend his sordid little affairs, even though we refused to whore for him. We were all professionals of one sort or another, and Victor thought his clients would respect him more if they saw the kind of vampires he controlled, if they saw how powerful he was.”

“As if,” Brendan muttered.

“Yes, well. He thought so, anyway,” he continued. “And then there were the other parties, the
special
ones.”

Duncan felt Miguel’s attention sharpen behind him.

“Booze flowed freely at Victor’s parties and his guests liked to talk. One of the things they loved to talk about was the special parties. That’s what they always called them, ‘the special.’ Like, they’d point out a particular woman and say, ‘Hope that one’s at the next special.’ Victor didn’t have that kind of party often, maybe a couple times a year, but they were hard-core. If you can believe what the men bragged about—and I do—the women were flat out raped, and by more than one man. Some of them were even hurt pretty badly. The man who told me all this laughed when he talked about how Victor would heal the women afterward so they’d be ready to go again the next night. It made me sick, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Victor or his henchmen have a website where you can download a video of his ‘specials’ for a price.”

Miguel leaned forward. “Surely the men involved wouldn’t want their identities revealed.”

“So they film from the back,” Brendan said, with a shrug. “The viewer gets a shot of a senator’s pasty white ass while he whips some poor girl.”

“Did you report this?” Duncan asked.

“To whom, my lord?” Erik asked mildly. “Victor was our lord. By rights, he was the one to whom we’d have reported such an abuse. And every vampire lord in the country would be after our heads if we went to the human police. We’d never live long enough to testify.”

Duncan was forced to agree. Even if Erik or Brendan had complained to another vampire lord, Victor would have been told, and the two vampires would have been executed without anyone raising a word of protest.

And even now, hearing about it for the first time, Duncan didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound like a meaningless platitude. All they had was his word that he was different from Victor, that such things would never happen under his rule. Duncan stood, turning to face Erik and Brendan, who had jumped to their feet.

“If you ever need anything,” Duncan said, “you may call me. If I’m not available, you may speak to either Miguel or Louis. They’ll fill me in, and I will get back to you. I’m not Victor, gentlemen. You will see that in time.”

He stepped around the couch, signaling Louis who was waiting by the front door.

“Thank you for the information, and for your hospitality.”

“My lord,” Brendan said when Duncan was halfway to the door.

Duncan turned and gave him a questioning look.

“Thank
you
, my lord. We knew you were different from the moment you claimed the territory. You cared more in those few minutes of terror and confusion than Victor had in his entire rule. Just by getting rid of him, you’ve done every vampire in this territory a service already. We’ll talk to the others, too, and let them know.”

Duncan nodded. “We’ll see each other again, Brendan. I don’t intend to be a stranger to my people.”

* * * *

 “Fucking Victor,” Duncan swore as Louis steered the big SUV down the curving driveway. “I can’t believe none of us realized how corrupt he was.”

“How could you, my lord? He never let anyone but his guards live in the District, and anyone else who may have known was too frightened to take action.”

“That’s no excuse. I saw him every damn year at the Council meetings, and I never suspected any of this. Neither did Raphael, and it’s not easy to pull one over on him.”

Miguel shrugged. “Not if he’s looking for it, but why would he have looked for any of this? I’ve never been to a Council meeting, but I know they don’t last long. A few hours, maybe? It’s not like they meet for cocktails and dinner afterwards. And when they’re together, I imagine everyone has their shields locked up as tight as a virgin’s knickers.”

Duncan gave his lieutenant a sideways look. “You’re not old enough to know about virgins or knickers, Miguel,” he said dryly.

“Hey, we still have virgins!” Miguel protested with a smile.