The grim set of his jaw wasn’t reassuring.
“What is it? What’s happened?” she asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
“Easy, kitten,” Damien said. “He’s on the phone with Lily, the new Lilim queen. Sam’s alive. Focus on that.”
“Ariane. Good,” Vlad said as he hung up the phone. “Please, sit. We’ve some things to discuss.”
She sank stiffly into a chair, comforted when Damien perched on the arm of it, staying close. Everything about him, his scent, his solid presence beside her, gave her an anchor just as everything around her felt as though it were beginning to shift in dangerous and unpredictable ways.
“Just tell me he’s all right, and I’ll calm down.”
Vlad’s arctic eyes were far away and troubled, but he managed a smile. “They were found near Tipton, Massachusetts, late last night. He’d been beaten and bled, but he was conscious. A good sign. He’s being given time to heal. One of his wings was nearly severed, but it seems to be healing as well. Your Sammael is lucky to be alive, but he is alive.”
“His wing,” Ariane murmured, feeling slightly nauseous at the memory of what had happened when she’d severed Oren’s wing. It had killed him.
“Only another Grigori would have been able to hurt him like that,” Ariane said. “Sariel must have sent another to look for him.”
And for me. She was suddenly glad to be ensconced in the relative safety of the Dracul mansion. She’d defeated Oren, barely. But she wasn’t sure she’d be able to repeat such a feat so soon. Especially not when the Grigori would have been sure to send someone even more skilled.
Vlad nodded. “Sariel seems to have sent more than one, in fact. Both Sammael and the blood brother he was traveling with are in bad shape. The other has a wing that’s more shredded than severed, but the healing seems to be slow.”
Damien leaned forward. “So he is traveling with the one who slit my throat. He was massive, that one, and he looked like an ancient.”
Vlad’s mouth thinned. “Possibly. That one, Lucan, is damaged enough that he isn’t exactly talking yet. According to Sammael, it was two ancients who came after them.” He looked pointedly at Ariane. “Whatever caused your friend to run, it’s a secret the ancients are desperate to keep.”
She thought of the picture in her book, of the fierce winged demon called Chaos, and shuddered.
“I didn’t think there was anything they would kill for,” she said quietly.
“I’m afraid there’s something for most everyone,” Damien replied. “We’ll want to get to Tipton immediately, of course,” he continued, looking at Vlad.
Ariane nodded. “Please. I want to see Sam.”
And despite the condition he was in, she felt a surge of joy at knowing he was alive. Once that simple fact began to sink in, she couldn’t hold back her smile. “He’s really alive,” she said, her breath catching. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she’d stopped expecting to find him at all. She’d begun to believe he was gone.
Vlad inclined his head. “Of course. Once he found out you were with me, he immediately began asking for you. I’ve already arranged for the jet. You leave in an hour.”
Relief flooded her, so much that Damien’s voice sounded far away when he spoke. All she could see in her mind’s eye was Sam’s face. Since she’d left the compound, she’d begun to realize the value of the gift he’d given her in refusing to ostracize her the way so many of the others had. Sam was the only reason she understood friendship. The only reason she hadn’t gone as cold as so many of her kind.
“You’re not coming?” Damien was asking Vlad, sounding surprised. “You’ll usually use any excuse to get up there. I know you like to supervise.”
Vlad’s smile was thin and strained. “I would prefer it, but I can’t. Lily’s call about Sammael and Lucan was not the only news I’ve had today. Mormo has awakened and is insisting on a Council meeting. Since she may well want to announce her successor, I can’t deny her. Her lucid periods have grown few and far between.”
Damien gave a soft humph. “For all the good it’ll do her to pick someone. No one has been groomed, and I can tell you that the sharks are circling. When Mormo dies, someone is going to eat what remains of the Empusae. My money’s on the Ptolemy, but there are a couple out-of-country dynasties interested in getting a foothold. It’s going to be ugly. No one she’s got is strong enough to hold them.”
“Be that as it may,” Vlad replied, “in three nights, on Friday, I will be hosting the leaders of the North American dynasties.” He looked at Ariane. “Sariel will be among them. You can see why it’s more prudent for you to be elsewhere.”
Damien bared his teeth. “You’re still going to host him? What if we get to Tipton and Sammael tells us that what’s in that book is true? And even if it isn’t, there’s something really bloody wrong with him if he’s having his own people murdered simply for leaving. He was ready to have Ariane dragged back home, and Oren made no bones about the fact that they were going to kill her, whether it was to have something suck out her soul or just to perform your standard decapitation! You’re going to sit and smile and make nice with him?” He threw back his head. “Of all the ridiculous highblood bullshit…”
Damien had stood during his tirade, and Ariane watched with amazement as he finished shouting at one of the more powerful vampires in the world. It was true—he’d opened up more with her than she’d imagined he might in the short time they’d been together. But she’d never expected him to become publicly outraged on her behalf.
It seemed to be a night for welcome surprises.
Vlad didn’t seem at all perturbed by the shouting. But then, he was friends with Damien. He had to be used to it.
“If you’re finished, Damien. Think about this. Rationally.”
Damien exhaled loudly, shoved a hand through his hair, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Finally, he glared at Vlad. “I suppose you want him here so you don’t have to go off to the desert to destroy him if he turns out to be guilty as sin. Which he is.”
Ariane arched a brow. “You can do that? I wasn’t aware the Council could do much in this case, short of war. He’s only hunting his own people.”
Vlad shook his head. “If this Rising is really something the Grigori are involved with—even if they’re feeding some monstrosity souls to prevent it—then it’s something that affects us all. It’s no longer just a matter for the Grigori. And with Mormo here, gods willing, she can perform a divination for final proof. Then there can be no question.”
Damien’s voice was sharp. “She has agreed to this?”
Vlad nodded. “She has.”
“Well. Holy hell,” Damien said wonderingly. “You really do think they’ve got a demon chained in the basement.”
“I think there’s something very wrong. At the moment, that’s enough,” Vlad replied.
Ariane looked between them, confused. “What is a divination? I don’t remember ever running across that term when I read about the Empusae.”
It was Vlad who answered her, his deep, rough voice quickly regaining her full attention.
“Empusa, or Mormo, was a powerful witch even before she was a vampire. She retained some of her powers in the change, one of which was the ability, under certain circumstances, to reveal past, present, and future. It’s extremely difficult for her, now more than ever, and she is frail. Several powerful vampires are required for the ceremony. But to be perfectly honest, she and I have both been waiting for something like this ever since the Lilim’s awakening.”
The description sent a chill down Ariane’s spine. “Something like what?”
“I don’t know,” Vlad growled, his frustration showing through. His long, elegant fingers curled into his fists on the desk. “There are so many old legends, old stories. All point to great upheaval wherein old dynasties reawaken, where the night races will have to come together or be torn apart. But torn apart by what is never clear. Your book is just another piece of the puzzle. But it’s the clearest piece I’ve seen, especially if the story this Perkins gave you about how it came to be is true.”
“I admit, the Chaos thing is… disturbing. But don’t you think you’re overreacting, Vlad? There have always been times that were rougher than others among us. And yet we go on, as we always have. There doesn’t have to be some boogeyman behind it all, some chained beast lurking in the closet just waiting to be unleashed.”
Damien, Ariane noted, sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. She didn’t blame him. Thinking of their entire world being ripped apart was nothing she wanted to dwell on either.
“Hopefully you’re right,” Vlad said, and then smiled, appearing to relax a little. “This is why I like you, Damien. Feet always on the ground. You’re a realist.”
“No. I just tell you what you want to hear. But for now, I’ll take it,” Damien replied.
He held out his hand to help Ariane up, a casual, chivalrous gesture that he barely seemed to notice, but one that made her smile. She slipped her hand into his and rose, enjoying the warmth that spread from her fingers up her arm.
Ariane turned to Vlad before leaving, trying to keep all her worries from marring her joy at the simple fact that Sam was alive, that she would see him tonight, and that she might, at least, get peace of mind where he was concerned. The rest was for the dynasty leaders to sort out. And for right now, though she was deeply unnerved by Vlad’s talk of dark legends, she was happy to leave the larger problems to others. Hopefully the divination would reveal something that could be sorted out among the leaders.
She doubted it, but for tonight, she would let her relief overrule everything else. The thought of facing down a flesh- and-blood version of the illustration in her book was more than she could handle right now.
