Arc 2 Read online

  Sanguine started to say something, then stopped, eyeing Owen with a sharp, keen gaze that hadn’t dulled at all even after years of torture and abuse. He hit on the realization and turned it over in his mind carefully, like flexing a newly-healed limb. “You really are, aren’t you?”

  “I’m what?” Owen asked, though it was clear he didn’t actually care about the answer. He glanced pointedly at his watch. “Your master will soon return. I trust you’re sufficiently healed, and done ruminating?”

  “Actually, my arm could use some attention too,” Sanguine said, reaching out with a wince. “And…” he traced a finger down the scar running down the left side of his face, the one that had barely missed his eye. The one that never failed to bring a look of distaste to Wicked Gold’s face, and that Sanguine could never quite hide with his stringy, matted hair. “Anything you can do about this? He hates it.”

  “Mm.” Owen placed a hand on his once-dislocated arm. The pressure only carried a small flare of pain, and slowly Sanguine’s clenched muscles began to relax. “Afraid I’m not the best at erasing old scars. And I thought your liege delighted in leaving his mark on you. Why’s that one any different?”

  “Because he didn’t give it to me. But back to what I was saying.” A smile started to spread across Sanguine’s thin face. “You’re totally jealous of me, the lowly bloodbag. Because at least I have his attention.”

  “I believe it’s obvious that I have that in spades,” Owen countered. “I bother him, as well I should. He knows I’m watching and reporting his activities regularly to my Lady, and he can’t stand being overseen. The more he pretends to the contrary, the more I know he’s worth my Lady’s suspicion.”

  “That’s not the kind of attention you want, though.” Sanguine’s smile grew into something bordering on scandalous. “You’re in so deep, you want every vampire’s approval, even his. You want him to look at you with something other than a pissed-off fuck-off. Basically, you wish you were me.”

  “I do not.” Owen tightened his grip on Sanguine’s arm a fraction, maybe simply to keep him still, maybe some kind of dominance instinct.

  “Sure—just be careful what you wish for,” Sanguine said, eyeing Owen with a shrewd expression. “Even thralls have it easier than me. Most of the poor fucks are so checked out they don’t even know what’s going on. Like good little drones serving the Queen.”

  “Thralls are not drones, and neither are we,” Owen declared, passion rising in his voice at last, as Sanguine knew it would. There it was; something more than his lazy disgust. This came from poisonous love, twice as strong and even more dangerous. “We are believers. Servants of angels. Descendants of greatness, and disciples of even more magnificence. The greatest honor a human can receive!”

  Now he squeezed too hard, and Sanguine hissed in pain, pulling his arm away. He didn’t know if it was an accident or a message, and now he didn’t particularly care. “It’s not an honor if you don’t ask for it!”

  “We are meant to serve them, and by doing so, rule all else.” The Queen’s chosen consort spoke it like law, like stating a universal truth like gravity or death.

  “We aren’t meant to do anything,” Sanguine snapped back. “And they aren’t meant to rule. Nobody’s meant to suffer like this, and nobody’s meant to inflict that kind of pain.”

  “We are better than other mortals in every way,” Owen spat, gray eyes flashing in fury almost as brightly as the vampires he worshipped. “Even you are better, despite your best efforts. You are one of the chosen. You are blessed. You’ll never be just another piece of human garbage, no matter how you act like one.”

  “Oh, get off your high horse and enjoy the dumpster.” Sanguine let out a throat-scratching laugh. It felt like he’d forgotten how. “I’m a piece of mortal human garbage, and so are you. Despite your best efforts.”

  “Not for long,” Owen said. “Not if everything keeps going the way it has been. I’m so close to being rewarded for my loyalty I can taste it.”

  Sanguine suppressed a shudder. “Bet that’s not all you wanna taste.”

  “Don’t worry,” Owen snorted. “Once I have my fangs, and once your treacherous master is brought to heel, I’ll be gone from your miserable life forever. I’ll seek out feasts and pleasures far finer than anything you could offer. I’ll never lower myself to your company again.”

  Sanguine looked almost sad. He rotated his shoulder, and found that he could, fully and without pain. “Huh. And where’ll that leave me?”

  “Not free, of course, but the next best thing. The mercy of a quick death instead of a slow one.”

  Sanguine pondered that, then sighed. “I guess that is about as good as it gets.”

  Owen didn’t answer, and this time Sanguine did not break the quiet. Unfortunately, the calm wasn’t to last.

  “Sanguine, I’m home!” called a jocular voice. Wicked Gold didn’t always announce his presence before simply appearing from thin air, but when he did, it was usually loud and sitcom-flashy.

  Sanguine held perfectly still and waited, head bowed. Owen took his hands away and took one smooth step backwards as the vampire strode into his personal kingdom, pointed smile flashing as brightly as his mirror-shine gold shoes.

  “Well, someone’s looking better than the last time I saw him,” Wicked Gold said, casting a sharp gaze over Sanguine’s newly healed skin, then over to Owen. “You’ve got some s’plaining to do. Have you two made friends after all?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Owen deadpanned, then took a step backwards to lean against the wall, pointedly excusing himself from further interaction.

  “So,” Wicked Gold said in a conversational tone, turning his undivided attention to Sanguine. “I didn’t give you much time to use your mouth for talking before—you followed the Witch like I asked you to?” It sounded like a question but wasn’t; obviously there was only one answer.

  “Yes, Lord,” Sanguine said, visibly shaking, even if his voice didn’t. But even with his injuries healed, the circles under his eyes were still much too dark and deep, he was just as dangerously thin, and he kept glancing over his shoulder with the same well-founded paranoia.

  Wicked Gold circled him, as he had Cruce in his last moments. “And?”

  “And she went to the rocks. Like you thought. I tried to see what she was doing, but she disappeared—so I stayed there,” he continued, looking away and speaking more quickly as Wicked Gold’s expression hardened. “And then a couple of her friends showed up. They got some dirt. Like some actual dirt, they dug it up from the ground in the circle, I don’t know why. I tried to stop them, but I—but they got away. I’m sorry!”

  “That is irritating. But not a disaster. In fact, that might work out quite nicely, actually.” Wicked Gold looked oddly pleased. He had many smiles, but the one that came from genuine satisfaction and pleasure was one of his worst. “What else?”

  “Nothing,” Sanguine said quickly, and continued speaking technical truths. “They left. Then I left.”

  “Nothing else happened? No more arguments, no interlopers, no complications?”

  “No, Lord,” Sanguine said. “Nothing more.”

  Wicked Gold looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t continue. Sanguine wasn’t allowed many methods of resistance. Silence was one of the only shreds of power he had left, and sometimes it was enough.

  Then, abruptly, the vampire turned away and faced Owen instead, while Sanguine quickly scuttled over to one corner and sat down on the polished hardwood floor, knees pulled up to his chest. “I do apologize for playing such a poor host. I hope you haven’t been bored.”

  “I was told to work with you and keep my Lady up to speed,” Owen said, impassive as ever. “My entertainment isn’t a concern.”

  “Oh, of course. Transparency and everything. I hope I’ve been as accommodating as you require. So far, I’ve adhered loyally to the agreement between your lovely Lady and myself—I crack the puzzle of the stone circle and collect the
first wave of the energy they contain, and she gets all residuals after that. My ‘lump sum’ versus her ‘royalties,’ so to speak.”

  “Yes, we’ve established this,” Owen said. “What is your point?”

  “Point is, the moment of collection is much closer than it was last time,” Wicked Gold said, voice hardening and dropping out of his charismatic default lilt. “And it’s shaping up to be quite a lump sum indeed. You see, I’ve found a witch—the very Witch I was looking for, actually—and she’s quite a doozy. Or, I should say, he found her.” He waved a hand at Sanguine, who curled up around himself a little tighter. “Credit where credit’s due.”

  “Good,” Owen said with a noncommittal shrug. “She’ll be glad to hear the plan is on schedule, finally.”

  “You don’t sound very excited,” Wicked Gold observed.

  “The only reason I care about any of this is because she does.” He spoke in a near-monotone, as if it were something he’d memorized. “It’s her project. I don’t care about anything you do, for any reason, so don’t feel obligated to keep me posted.”

  “You’re a rude thing, but you’re loyal to a fault. You had the opportunity to escape, and you turned me down.”

  “I would never abandon my Lady.”

  “Impertinent and loyal, a winning combination,” Wicked Gold chuckled. “I like that—but only in my own people. And only then to a point. It can easily get tiring.”

  Owen gave him a slow, unimpressed blink. Wicked Gold’s own eyes widened at the impertinence, then narrowed in fury, and finally, he smiled, all casualness and light.

  “And besides that, you’re jealous,” the vampire continued pleasantly. “You’re jealous of the Witch for her power, for living her own life when you’re tethered hereby your own envy and avarice. You’re jealous of your Queen for her glory. And you’re jealous of me. You always have been, and you always will be. Hell, you’re even jealous of him—”

  He pointed to Sanguine, who had yet to move. But the battered human had raised his head from his knees to watch, and now gave Owen a deadpan, very deliberate look, and tiny shrugging nod.

  “I am not—” Owen started, frustration finally cutting through his daze, but Wicked Gold didn’t seem to notice, or care if he did.

  “—For having my attention. And you hate me! You really, really hate me. And even still, you’d rather feed my appetites than see a servant pick up the scraps. A crown prince, lusting after the place of an undeserving blood-bag. Isn’t that pathetic? See, Sanguine, no matter who you are, there’s always someone who has it worse. For someone who’s supposed to worship and respect my kind, Owen, you’ve got an awfully funny way of showing it. And a dangerous one.”

  “I don’t serve ‘your kind,’” Owen sneered, even as he straightened and his heart began to pound faster and harder, surely audible to Wicked Gold’s heightened senses. It was almost as if, despite his contempt for this vampire in particular, he was programmed to snap to attention whenever any of them fixed him with a displeased eye. “I serve my Lady, Ombra Dolce, she who possesses a higher grace and glory than you could ever hope to touch. She is a Queen. You are a conniving parasite. You might as well be a different species.”

  “You really do have some nerve, speaking to me like this,” Wicked Gold observed with apparent surprise and something bordering on respect. “What if I sliced your throat open right here? Or drained you dry, or—oh, did any of the fun things I could think up if you give me half a second?”

  Owen gave him another calm, slow, poker-faced blink. “Try it. See what happens when the Lady sees you’ve killed her favorite. It’ll take you a much, much longer time to die than I.”

  Wicked Gold stared back at him, gleaming eyes hooded and dangerous. Then he broke into a bright grin, then a boisterous laugh, spreading his hands wide in a conciliatory gesture. “Well, all right then! What can I say? She’s always had an ace in the hole, and I guess in this case, that’s you. I should’ve known better, really.”

  Owen’s voice was a combination of long-suffering patience and barely-concealed bile. “I’ll be sure to send her your regards.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel and left.

  Wicked Gold waited until the door was closed and Owen’s footsteps retreated. Then he sank down onto the luxurious sofa and stretched his legs out, not bothering to remove his gold-tipped shoes before resting them on the glossy-finished table. Sanguine kept an eye out for scratches, ready to ask permission to buff them away should any appear.

  “Ugh, that boy is such a headache,” he sighed. “Him and his Lady. Sometimes I think they’re doing nothing but purposely trying to get under my skin. Sanguine?” he called.

  “Yes, Lord?” The human started, scrambling to his feet and hurrying over, only to kneel again at Wicked Gold’s feet, knees hitting the hard floor.

  “No, no, get up here,” the vampire said with a wave of his hand. “I need a drink.”

  “Yes, Lord.” Tone no longer questioning, but appropriately deferent, Sanguine rose to his feet again and sat gingerly on the very edge of the sofa. He was painfully aware of his own grunginess in contrast to the pristine surroundings. Wicked Gold usually had him shower before feeding; he must really be in need. But sometimes, Sanguine thought, drinking from him while he was this dirty might be a kind of personal rebellion for the otherwise uncompromisingly-tidy vampire. A sinful indulgence, a naughtiness that made every drop that much sweeter.

  Wicked Gold rolled up his sleeves and removed his suit jacket, partially unbuttoning his fine linen shirt and pushing the collar away from what may become a potential splash zone. He didn’t enjoy blood-stained clothing, vampire or not.

  Sanguine dutifully pulled his long, matted hair aside, exposing the scarred and bruised skin of his neck and shoulder.

  “You really should cut this mess,” Wicked Gold muttered, catching a stray tangle of dirty red and tucking it behind the human’s ear.

  “Yes, Lord,” Sanguine said again, but with no promise behind it. It was a ritual by now, a kind of game—if he actually cut his hair, Wicked Gold would be displeased, disappointed, dangerous. Unless he himself did it personally, he just didn’t like change.

  Wicked Gold leaned in closer, mouth opening in a smile, fangs out. He turned his head to trace Sanguine’s neck just a few inches away, and took in a long breath through flaring nostrils, slow and deep. Vampires didn’t need to breathe, no, but that didn’t mean they didn’t enjoy their sharpened sense of smell, as useful for pleasure as detecting prey. Sanguine held perfectly still, and let himself slip away from this room, this moment, somewhere else, somewhere sunny. The vampire would still be here when he came back.

  But it wasn’t fangs that sank into his neck. A clawed hand closed around it, shoving Sanguine away but not letting go, instead tightening, cutting off his surprised yelp.

  “You little liar,” Wicked Gold snapped. “Really? Really, Sanguine?”

  “Lord?” Sanguine gasped, eyes wide and terrified, every muscle locked and tense.

  “You said you never got close enough to the Witch to touch,” the vampire snarled with a gold-tinted flare of his eyes, all good nature in his face and voice gone, as if it had never been.

  “I didn’t!” Sanguine cried.

  “Then why do I smell her on you?!”

  “I don’t know! I haven’t seen her since this morning, and she didn’t even touch me!”

  The vampire reached out to place a single claw tip on his bony chest, the motion and pinprick pain recalling when he’d sliced through Sanguine’s hoodie. The plain shirt he wore now was even thinner, even more easily shredded.

  “And who did you say was at the circle doing the Witch’s bidding?”

  “The mall cop,” Sanguine jittered out. “I think his name’s Jude. And the lady who runs the place, Eva. She… caught me. Just for a second. I got away.”

  “So it’s a human who smells of witch,” Wicked Gold mused. “Is she a witch herself? No, surely not. Letizia should know bet
ter than to get close to any others, not after what I did to her last witch friend. But she’s never been the most cautious of girls, and witches leave trace magic on everything they love…”

  Wicked Gold gave Sanguine a flippant wave as he turned away and rose to his feet, rolling his sleeves back down and re-donning his suit jacket.

  “Get yourself cleaned up. You’ve been filthy long enough—long enough to learn your lesson, I’m sure. I’m still very disappointed in you for your behavior at the circle. An unwilling sacrifice? I’m hurt. I expected more loyalty from my favorite.”

  “Yes, Lord.” His eyes were downcast and tone flat as he began to obediently remove his grime-encrusted shirt. He showed no self-consciousness or hesitation to bare his skin before the vampire; that was one of the first things Wicked Gold tended to remove from any humans in his employ.

  “But to get my hands on the Witch? I might actually need bait to get the bait I need,” Wicked Gold mused as Sanguine neatly folded his ruined shirt and decided against laying it on the expensive table. “Sanguine, hold on a moment.”

  “Lord?”

  Wicked Gold was looking at him with an awful smile on his face. Not satisfaction, but anticipation. He put both hands on Sanguine’s shoulders, and from the outside it looked like an affectionate gesture—except for how hard he was pressing down.

  “I changed my mind. Kneel.”

  He did, closing his eyes in anticipation. But instead of baring his fangs, the vampire took Sanguine’s head in one hand—and in one swift movement, slammed it into the nearest wall.

  Not everyone who frequented the circle at night had fangs. Some just had a bit of magic, a quick smile, purple contacts, and just-as-purple hair.

  Milo walked through the darkened park paths with ease. In their arms sat a large bouquet of flowers, picked from many different spots along their way from The Abyss, the one store in the mall where someone with all-black clothes, dark makeup, and multiple piercings wouldn’t stand out in the least. They moved with a bouncy step and happy hum, completely at ease and unperturbed by the circle’s overwhelming energy.