Vampire Elite (10 page)

Easy-peasy, except for the
without being noticed
part: on the tour that day, the demons had been watching them like hawks. Clearly Arianna and Simone had to get the demons desensitized to their presence. To do that, they’d convince Girtab to let them come along every day; he’d agree to it, figuring that it would keep them happy and occupied and that he was as good a guardian as anyone. If they did that for a week, Girtab and his colleagues would let down their guard and get used to having them wander off for brief periods. Meanwhile, they could use the week to develop Arianna’s shielding skills.
 

It worked perfectly. Every day the girls went with Girtab and the demon tour guides to pick up the tourists, and then the whole group headed out on the jungle tour. Arianna and Simone quickly became common fixtures and even managed to step outside of the hotel lobbies to befriend a couple of taxi drivers.

During the tours themselves, Arianna practiced using her new energy shield, first on Simone and then by playfully sneaking up on demons or hiding from them in bushes. By the fourth day, the demons couldn’t sense her at all. She could’ve stood right next to them; as long as she was out of sight, the demons weren’t aware of her presence.
 

Things were going so well that they were ready to implement their plan a day early, so on the fifth day they made arrangements with one of the taxi drivers to take them to the station the following day.
 

On the sixth day, while the demons were all busy dealing with the tourists’ logistics, Arianna activated her shield and they slipped out to the taxi stand, where the driver was waiting for them. They jumped into the cab and the driver took off for the train station.
 

Arianna rolled her window down and let the wind whip her hair haphazardly across her face and neck. She stuck her head out the window, closed her eyes and inhaled. Once again she was escaping from the vampires, and even though she felt less protected this time—no burly warriors to guard her—the past six days had left her feeling more secure than ever in her relationship with Simone. And her skills had grown so much! The threat from vampires was something she’d never eliminate entirely, but it was growing more ... abstract. And it was something all Amiti had to live with all the time. She’d get used to it. Everything was going to be okay.

Ten minutes later, a tingle of unease from her Amiti intuition disturbed her thoughts, and she made herself aware of her surroundings. The bumps she’d been feeling were those of a country road, not urban potholes. And the taxi, she realized, had passed by several lodges that Arianna remembered seeing on previous trips. They were not on the way to the train station. Fear flooded her body. She reached across and jabbed Simone’s thigh.

“I thought the train station was in the city.” Arianna watched the driver’s eyes through the rear view mirror. They didn’t meet hers.

“Shorter way,” answered the driver. He was terse now, all traces of his earlier chattiness and warmth gone. He muttered something else into his radio or a phone; Arianna couldn’t tell.

Simone glanced at Arianna and then the driver and commanded, “Turn around, right now.”
 

“Almost there.” Five seconds later, the driver turned onto a dirt road, then came to a stop and cut off the engine. There was nothing around but jungle.
 

“
Where is the train station?
” Simone yelled. Arianna sat frozen. She had that
prey
feeling again.

“You are arrived,
senhoritas
.” His voice sent a shiver through Arianna.
 

The next moment five tall figures surrounded the taxi and yanked open both back doors. Before Arianna could even open her mouth to scream—but who would have heard her anyway?—she was snatched out of the cab.
Sekhmi
. She struggled to break free from her captors but was hit by a powerful blast of energy.

Agony sliced through her body. Through dimming vision she saw Simone fighting off the abductors. One of the Sekhmi threw a radiant energy beam into Simone’s spine. Simone screamed and collapsed next to Arianna, her face the last thing Arianna saw before she blacked out.

Chapter 11

Somewhere in the Amazon Jungle
 

Arianna came back to consciousness through a fog of pain. She was trapped in a nightmare, freezing, every part of her body aching like a throbbing bruise. Her arms were being yanked from their sockets, her wrists burning and fingers numb. She opened her eyes and groggily took in her surroundings.
 

She was in some sort of cave, naked, her arms stretched over her head, her wrists tied firmly with rope. Arianna jerked on the rope, but it only tightened the knots around her wrists. In total panic she screamed and started thrashing back and forth like a trapped animal.
 

“Well, well, well, seems our little one is awake.”
 

Arianna jerked her head around to where the voice was coming from. A tall blond male walked over to her. Everything about him was pale—blond hair, pale blue eyes, pale skin, even his clothes were a kind of colorless beige that accentuated the effect. Reaching her, he put two fingers under her chin and raised it so she was forced to face him. Those icy blue, merciless eyes fixed on Arianna.
 

“I am Khay, the Crowned” he said, his voice slippery-smooth. Vampires usually provided the meaning of their names, which erased Arianna’s slightest doubt that the he was a vampire. Well, that and the fangs that he showed her, very deliberately, as he’d said it.

“Why are you holding me here? Let me go!” She tried to make her voice sound assertive, but it was breaking into sobs.
 

“Well of course I’m not going to hold you ...
here
. We’ll go home.” He grinned and tilted his head. “But first you will learn a few lessons.”

“What are you talking about?” Arianna’s mind was painting horrific pictures of this maniac’s victims. He was going to torture her and then mutilate her body and feed the pieces to the jungle creatures. Nobody would ever even find her bones. The jungle would conceal everything. She was going to throw up. No: she shoved down the horror and nausea and pulled up the fury that was lying buried under it.

“Let me go, you asshole!”
 

Khay slapped her so hard that her head smashed into the wall behind her. She was sure her skull had cracked.
 

“Lesson number one.” Khay pulled her chin back to face him. “You will respect your owners. You have no rights, no privileges. From now on, little one, you belong to my pride and specifically to me. You are no more than a piece of property. The sooner you accept it, the easier it will be for you. The choice is yours— you can make it easy or hard.”
 

He’s talking about bloodstock!
Her worst fears were materializing. Every muscle of her body strained to the point that she felt spasms in her legs and arms and then for a few minutes she lost sensation in her limbs. She was deafened by her inner voice shouting at her:
Get out of this prison!
Whatever it costs ... everything!
 

“Please, let me go. I have money; I can pay you,” she mumbled through numb lips.

Khay smirked. “Interesting proposition. How much?”
 

“Everything I have. Half a million dollars.”
 

Khay began to laugh. “Half a million. Now that’s a
lot
of money.” He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Do you have even the slightest idea how much an Amiti bloodstock is worth?”

Arianna didn’t respond; she was back to praying that this was a nightmare and she was soon going to wake up, safe in her own bed. Somewhere.

“Well,” said Khay. “Let me give you the benefit of a little education. An average Amiti bloodstock sells for five to ten million dollars. But you’d start at a lot more than that. The price for you would be the highest price ever paid.”

“Since I’m that expensive, maybe I deserve better treatment than this.”
Just don’t show your fears, continue negotiation, it’s the best tactic
, she tried to encourage herself. Why had her father only taught her how to identify vampires, not what to do if they caught her? He’d thought he’d be alive until she became immortal; he’d be able to protect her. She felt a new wave of grief over losing him.

“Sure you do.” Khay stepped back, held his hands in the air and making strange whirling motions. Out of each palm a bright ray of brilliant white light beamed and then twirled into spirals, mirroring the movements of his hands. Arianna had never seen anything like it before.
 

He seemed to sense her astonishment, grinned again. “Do you know what that is?”
 

She shook her head.
 

“A light lasso. An Amiti weapon, by the way. This light is made of white flame. All Amiti have white flame, but it’s dormant, buried deep inside you. It comes out when you kill your blood-bonds—which is
another
thing you people do.”
Wait, what’s the first thing I’ve done?
“And then some especially powerful Amiti, assassins, have learned to develop it. They’re the only other ones. Oh—and
me
. I got this”—he wiggled his fingers, sending the beams dancing more furiously—“from my blood-bond.
 

“Wanna see how it works?
No?
Too bad.” A brief, mockingly exaggerated frowny face, then the grin was back. “I’m going to show you anyway.”

He flipped his hands, directing the rays at Arianna. They slammed into her flesh with a sickening slice and her body convulsed with the pain. The light lasso moved away, then hit her again, spiraling around her this time. Arianna screamed; she felt like she was being burned with molten lead.
 

“Stop it, stop it, stop it ...”
 

Her body twisted with raw, bloody pain, but she knew there wasn’t even a scratch on the surface of her skin.
 

“Pretty effective, isn’t it?” Khay grinned. “I got it from my blood-bond—who was killed by
your people
. You destroyed her body and sent me her head. I vowed to spend the rest of my life avenging her. Every Amiti is my enemy.”
 

“I didn’t kill anybody. If your blood-bond was killed, I’m sorry, but I had nothing to do with it,” she wailed. She understood now: this guy was crazy, out of his mind with grief, and he saw every Amiti as responsible.

“Oh yes—you had
everything
to do with it,” he spat out. “If you are not stopped, you will sanction the death of hundreds of other innocent blood-bonds. You’re the Amiti Queen and there is no price high enough that you can pay for your crime. I hate you.
Monster!
” She saw the light swirling around her brighten just as a renewed surge of agony pulsed through her.

Even through the pain, Arianna was totally shocked by the vehemence of his hatred. She opened her mouth to say something him, but right then Khay projected another beam of light from his palm. It burned through the rope around her wrists, sending Arianna tumbling to the ground at his feet.
 

Khay grabbed her long hair and flung her sprawling along the stones, forcing all the air from her lungs. The next second, he was on top of her, crushing her against the cave rocks with his body. She raised her head and bit down on his shoulder. Her fingernails had become claws. She tore savagely into the flesh on his sides and back, ripping his flesh apart anywhere she could reach.
 

But it didn’t stop him, only added to his fury. He punched her viciously in the chest and before she could recover the breath expelled from her lungs, his hands were wrapped around her neck. When he reared back to look down at her, he looked utterly maniacal, exactly how she’d have pictured a murderer caught in the act, and she felt his erection press against her pubic bone. A spasm of horror rolled through her. Her vision was already dimming, blurring.
 

“Hathor!” she screamed. But there was no air for the scream to travel on. Still, she did it again, with her mind, her lips: “
Hathor!
”

Everything that happened next felt like a dream where time was suspended. The darkening cave suddenly appeared crystal-clear, but filled with dark, bloody smoke. She knew Khay’s hands were still on her, but she couldn’t feel them. She knew, more than saw, an orb of brilliant light, yellow-gold like the sun, forming in her solar plexus. Pulling its energy up to her hands, she blasted it at Khay; he flew off of her and smashed into the opposite wall. She shot another blast, hitting him right between his eyes. He gasped loudly, like he’d been the one being strangled, and tumbled down.
 

Frozen, Arianna stared at her trembling hands. OK, that was
totally
awesome. But it hadn’t fixed her situation, just bought her some time. Unless she could kill him?
Think
... She shook her head and took some deep breaths, trying to bring herself back into the present. The chances of killing a vampire with this—this
power
—were probably slim, and she didn’t even know what it was, how it worked. She sprang to her feet and shot to the cave’s entrance, then stopped abruptly, squinting in the sudden brightness.
 

Now what?
She couldn’t just run into the jungle, stark naked, without the slightest idea where she was. And what had happened to Simone? She couldn’t abandon her sister. She tried to reach out through the blood-bond, but got nothing. The bond was too new—and
she
was too new, and her ability to concentrate was shot.

Hearing a rustle, Arianna held her breath, stepping back and flattening herself against the rock wall of the cave. She glanced outside to see four figures emerge from the jungle just a few yards from the cave’s mouth. Two males simultaneously leaped at Arianna.

Eat shit, losers! You have
no
idea who you’re dealing with!
She reached again for the golden energy—and came up empty.

It was one of the last straws, she’d think later on. She just froze, her mind seized up like a useless, cramping muscle on a memory of the time she’d left her headlights on before a college exam and gone to start her car, only to hear a tiny
click
instead of the engine roaring to life—