Hi,

Okay, the last chapter was pretty action-packed and we don't really know what happened. Some questions will be answered in this one though! :-)

I hope you like it! Any theories as to what happened? Is Alexander right?

Lara

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Chapter 40

ANDY

The streets whirled past me like a spinning, checkered carousel. I still wasn't sure what exactly happened at Marrok's keep. Fabrice and George both vanished with vamp speed and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. When I made my way back to the street, Alexander and his vamps had packed up. They vanished into their assortment of black, sleek cars within minutes after Fabrice's attack. – A hastily executed escape strategy, was my first thought. But no, it looked like they were chasing after the devil himself in person. Why in cars? And who exactly were they going after? Fabrice? I had no idea, less time to figure it out. I might be chasing them for nothing. I didn't care.

I'd wrapped a cloth around my neck – a makeshift bandage to stop the bleeding. Never a good idea to stay around vamps with a bleeding wound. My leather jacket was fully zipped up. It would have to do, for now. My bike vibrated, roared underneath my legs, wind in my hair. I smiled, gritted my teeth against the razor-sharp night air, and accelerated.

The vamps stopped somewhere in the middle of the city, not far from the outer edges of Crimson District. I parked my bike in one of the side streets and followed.

My throat was dry, the cold night air scraping my lungs raw. Shadowing the head vamp wasn't exactly a walk in the park. I ran down another passage, following them, while switching back and forth between normal and second sight.

By the time our position became familiar enough for me to understand where the head vamp was headed, Victor Crawford's mansion was just a corner away.

Why Victor's mansion?

I followed the narrow alleyway and plunged back into second sight, turning the corner. I faltered in my steps.

Fuck. Too close.

I blinked. I was too slow, or too late. There was a clusterfuck of dark auras ahead and I almost stumbled right into them.

Dammit, what was I? A fucking rookie?

I stopped, pressed my back against the wall. Closed my eyes for a moment, then slowly eased forward again, craning my neck. We were in front of Victor's mansion – or whatever remained of it.

The building stood there like a set of broken teeth jutting out into the night sky – a battle-tested soldier, making a last stand. No yellow police tapes, no leftovers of an investigation the human police would have conducted, had the victims been human.

No one liked to meddle in vamp politics. No one wanted to end up standing between the head vamp and something he wanted. The TF3's existence in itself was an oddity in New York's political jungle. I didn't see them investigating this like they usually would. And I was pretty sure that was exactly what the head vamp wanted.

Less than thirty feet away and in front of the mansion, Alexander's vamps were standing in a semi-circle, facing what had to be Victor's coven members. Their home had been attacked by the rogues one night ago. Five vamps truly dead, and yet, Victor's vamps were standing here, impeccably dressed, not a hair out of line. Was it all just for show?

I didn't think so.

Alexander had his hand on Victor's neck, fingers digging into his skin as if he wanted to shake him like a rabid dog.

"You swore an oath. According to this oath your loyalties are with me."

Alexander's voice rang through the street, a wave of power boomeranging through the cobbled streets. Either he didn't care if anybody overheard their conversation, or he wanted someone else to hear it. I was betting on the latter.

Alexander cocked his head. "To me it very much looks like you violated the blood oath, Victor."

The voice sliced through the night like a bloody blade of a guillotine racing down and down. His eyes were deep blue. I held myself still. Alexander was vamped out. I wouldn't want to cross him in the state he was in right now.

Victor smiled, a warm smile that looked out of place. "You're not here because of the blood oath. You're here because something is going on in this city and you don't even have any idea what. You're as clueless as the rest of us, you just don't want to admit it," he said.

Air displacement, motion that blurred into nothing. A sound like a whip hitting air. I blinked. Alexander had Victor up against the wall, cracks in the wall fanning Victor's face like strands of hair standing on end.

"Careful," Alexander said. His voice was controlled. Soft but lethal. "I know more than you believe, Victor. I know for a fact that the attack on us and Marrok's wolves was executed by supernatural outlaws and a group of vampires not belonging to my own. It was a group of vampires I pronounced anathema in this city." He cocked his head. "Among them also vampires that once belonged to your coven."

Victor's smile didn't waver. Nothing in his expression changed. "Once. As you said they once belonged to my coven. No more."

"And yet there are rumors that you still seek them out in times of trouble," Alexander said. "A live and let live policy that guaranteed their existence as long as they stayed beneath the radar. Or so you believed, Victor."

Victor's face was motionless, pleasant enough to look at. But what Alexander said made sense. Fabrice and his band of outlaws had frequented parts of the city that were under control of Victor and his coven.

"When I questioned you last night, you claimed that your coven was attacked by a group of vampires unknown to you. You claimed that you were outnumbered and that only those that escaped through the tunnels underneath your mansion survived. You lied to me. You were attacked by Fabrice and his group of supernaturals I pronounced anathema. Since you have history with parts of the group, you must have recognized them, yet refused to share the detail with me. Unless, you had a specific reason to withhold the information from me."

"The attackers were not part of my coven. They still aren't," Victor said, watching Alexander.

"You did not answer my question. How long since you betrayed the oath you swore, Victor? How long since you collaborated with a third party?"

"There is no collaboration. Why then this attack on us and our coven? Think, Alexander. We've never seen eye to eye, but you know that there are lines I will not cross," Victor said softly.

"Do I?"

Adrenaline spiked. A flip-switch of another sort, the power of the grave tearing into the night air like a set of deadly claws. My muscles locked down. I fought against the reaction, breathing in and out evenly, arms loose at my sides, feet wide apart.

Victor didn't avert his eyes. "You cannot kill me without getting on Dark Death's radar. Or without dipping the scales in favor of chaos for good."

"Maybe I am past caring," Alexander said softly.

Victor smiled. "No. You care."

Alexander moved his head, slicing it to the side once. Zack, Alexander's second, shoved one of Victor's vampires forward, holding him in a wrist lock, bending his arms back.

Zack Hamilton. Second in command and "the nice guy" Alexander sent around like a fancy calling card. The shoulder-length auburn hair, the easy smiles and that mirth in Zack's light green eyes made him look boyish. He looked and acted like the guy from next door. A role he had perfected over time. Perfect camouflage.

His looks and the way he acted usually said, "Hi, I'm the friendly guy from next door." The muscles and the elongated teeth I saw now said, "I'm a monster and I'm gonna eat you for lunch and enjoy every second of it."

It looked like Alexander wasn't the only one that was vamped out. Zack cocked his head, poised and ready to kill.

"You lost half of your coven. How much more are you willing to lose?" Alexander said softly.

Victor stared at him, motionless. Silent.

Alexander took a step towards his second in command. "You want proof that I do not care? Or you want your second in command, intact? What will it be, Victor?"

"You could use the right of the blood oath," Victor said.

Alexander smiled. "I could, if I so preferred."

Victor cocked his head, matching the head vampire's smile with one of his own.

"Why use this method then?"

"Because I am giving you a choice," Alexander said, before turning to Zack, slowly. The smile on Victor's face vanished.

"We kept an eye on the outlaws," Victor said. "They started vanishing in these past two weeks. One after the other. At first we thought you were doing another raid. But there were simply too many things that did not add up. I started to suspect they were behind the vamp killings, but knew you would blame us, if I aired my suspicions in front of you. We underestimated their power and strength once united. We thought Fabrice wasn't interested in gaining power. They were too fast and caught us unaware."

I stared at Victor, then at Alexander, hard. How was the head vampire going to react to-

The swish of air being displaced. I jerked, threw myself to the side.

Someone pummeled into me from behind. I turned, raised my fist. Froze.

"There's no need for that, witch," George said. "Alexander wants to have a word with you."

Hesitation. A two-second-halt-in moment. In battle, instinct and intellect must work together like a well-oiled machine, instinct taking over when facing your opponent head on.

Advance or retreat? Fight or flight?

Neither was a wise choice. This wasn't just any vampire. George was the head vampire's enforcer.

Dammit.

I nodded mutely. I was going to comply – for the moment.