what
am I? Have you ever met a vampire before, Mr. Wallace?” Darius asked politely. “As you have gone to so much trouble to invite one into your home, I would expect you to have a fairly good idea of what you are dealing with.”
Wallace glanced at his companion, frozen in place by the mere whim of the intruder. He decided to be as polite as his guest, hoping to catch him off guard. The house was swarming with his men. Sooner or later one would come. In any case, he had a secret weapon, if he could just get the vampire close enough. “Do come in.” He waved an expansive hand, indicating a chair close by.
Darius smiled, a show of teeth, a leap of flame in the depths of his eyes, but he did not move. “By all means, let us be civilized. I’m sure you had that in mind when you sent your assassins after my woman. Do not bother to deny your intentions. I can read your thoughts so easily.”
Wallace decided to brazen it out. “Evil calls to evil. I know your kind and what you’re capable of. Others like you killed my own son, murdered two of my brothers-in-law. Yes, I intended to take my time enjoying the woman. She is pretty enough. It would have been... delicious.”
Darius put out his hand and studied his immaculate fingernails. One by one, razor-sharp talons sprang to the tips. He smiled again with the menace of a predator. Once more his black gaze touched the older man, and it was like a physical blow, a punch that seemed to shake Wallace’s brain so that he clutched his head in pain. He felt the tremendous power of the visitor, and his insides turned to jelly.
Darius glided into the room, fluid and supple, muscles rippling with power beneath his elegant white shirt. He seemed to take up the entire room, seemed to suck the very oxygen out of the air. “I see you have decorated the windows with garlic. Do you believe vegetation bothers me in some way, perhaps weakens my power?”
“Doesn’t it?” Wallace countered, stalling for time. The gleam of stark white teeth was his answer. Darius moved to the fireplace, reached out, and touched the large silver cross there. “You seem to have all the supplies for bagging yourself a vampire.”
Wallace was horrified. He glanced toward the door, suddenly aware of the deep silence in the house.
Darius glided closer. “What is it precisely you wished to learn about me, Mr. Wallace? Now is your opportunity.”
Wallace jerked out the syringe filled with the toxin and plunged it deep within Darius’s arm. He jumped back, grinning in triumph.
“Ah, yes, the poison you worked so hard to develop,” Darius said softly, his voice as beautiful and unconcerned as always. “It is so difficult to know what really works unless you have the chance to test it. Let us observe the results together.” The soulless eyes met Wallace’s. “You do fancy yourself a scientist, do you not, Mr. Wallace?”
Wallace nodded slowly, staring at the one he thought was a vampire. Darius slowly rolled up the sleeve of his silk shirt, exposing the roped muscles of his arm. He stared at his skin, causing red flames to flicker and dance, and Wallace nearly screamed when golden dots of liquid poison began to ooze from the Darius’s pores and run in a stream down his skin to drip onto the floor.
“Interesting, is it not?” Darius inquired in a menacing purr. “You should have known more about an enemy you wished to challenge, Mr. Wallace. It is a poor business to hunt without sufficient knowledge of your prey.”
“Where is the woman now?”
Darius’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you really so arrogant that you think I would allow your ridiculous assassins to take from me what is mine? I suspect you are more interested in the whereabouts of your soldiers.”
Wallace sighed and ran a hand through his shock of gray hair, leaving it standing on end. “And where are they?”
“What was left of them can be claimed from the local morgue,” Darius answered, unconcerned.
“I suppose my other men are also destroyed,” Wallace ventured.
Darius sent his mind seeking throughout the house, then smiled in satisfaction. “I must admit, they seem to have been in very poor health. You should choose your companions more carefully, Mr. Wallace.”
Wallace’s faded eyes flashed with sudden malice. “I see that you yourself have not gone unscathed. You are bleeding.”
The white teeth gleamed again. “It is nothing, a mere scratch. My body will heal without difficulty, but thank you for your concern.”
Wallace hissed between his teeth. “You mean to kill me.”
The glowing red eyes poured over him like molten lava. “With great pleasure, Mr. Wallace. I protect my own. I allowed you to go free after the last threat you made to my family, but you insist on asking for release from your miserable life. I can do no other than oblige you.”
“I will go back to Europe, leave you alone.”
Darius shook his head slowly. “You had her touched by your filthy servants. You intended to rape her, torture her. Not because you thought her vampire but because it would bring you pleasure. You wanted me here, Mr. Wallace, and now you have the very thing you wished for.”
Wallace glanced at his young companion, the one he had chosen to groom as his protйgй because he had found the same deviant nature in the young man as was in himself.
Darius had easily picked thoughts of starring in a snuff film with Tempest out of the younger man’s head, knew he didn’t believe in vampires but was attracted to the violence and sexual rush the vampire-hunting society promised to provide. His black eyes bored into the young man while he contemplated the evil that existed in both his world and the human world. He released the young man from the thrall. Instantly the youth launched himself at Darius, seemingly too dense to understand that Darius had been controlling him.
Darius stood so still that he seemed to be a part of the room, of the earth itself, silent, watchful, unmovable. At the last second, just as the man was about to lay hands on him, Darius shimmered into vapor, dissolved, and reappeared behind the young man.
“Daniel, behind you!” Wallace warned.
Daniel tried to drag the gun from out of his waistband as he turned. Even as he caught sight of the intruder, the vampire’s face rippled, contorted, and lengthened into a long muzzle. Teeth burst forth, razor-sharp, jaws rushing forward to bore straight into Daniel’s chest, tearing a hole to reach the pounding heart.
Wallace leapt out of his chair, knocking it over as he tried to get to the door. The elegant figure moved, a gliding blur that cut off his line of retreat. Once more Darius looked like a handsome man, black eyes impassive, mouth set and cruel. There was not a stain on his immaculate shirt, although a puddle of thick sticky blood pooled around Daniel’s body. He looked like a rag doll lying in a heap on the floor.
Wallace froze, not daring to get any closer to the terrible fiend that threatened him. “Don’t you see?” he hissed. “I’m like you. I could serve you. Make me like you are—immortal.”
Darius lifted an eyebrow. “You flatter yourself to think we are anything alike. There are those of my people who have become evil and twisted, rotten shells as you are. They might grant you a short stay of execution, allowing you to live for a while on the meat of the dead while you serve their dark purposes. But that is not who I am.”
“Who are you, then?” Wallace whispered. He could hear something else now. Not the silence that haunted this house of death. Not the sound of his men coming to his aid. But low, insidious whispers assaulting his ears. He tried to repress them, not understanding the language but knowing there were more creatures near than the one he was facing. They waited, calling to this one to finish Wallace, to come to them.
“I am an instrument of justice. I have come to send you from this world to another, where you must answer for your terrible crimes against mortals and immortals alike.” Darius said the words softly, almost gently.
Wallace shook his head adamantly. “No, you can’t do that. You can’t. I’m a leader. I have an army behind me. No one can defeat me.” He raised his voice hysterically. “Where are you? All of you, I’m in danger. Protect your leader!”