First Drop of Crimson

Chapter Thirty

“That was impressively inept of you.”

Spade cursed but kept walking through the dense forest that bordered the house, not deigning to respond to Ian.

The crunching sounds of leaves continued behind him. “If I were a betting man, I’d wager the lass is in tears right now,” Ian went on.

Spade’s jaw clenched. “Not bloody likely. She’s the one who just threw me away, not the reverse.”

“Hmm. I suppose. If you’ve resigned yourself to things being over between you two, then I think I’ll wander back to the house and see if the fetching little shape-shifter is in need of any comfort—”

Spade had Ian against a tree when a knowing laugh made him drop his hands.

“Indeed, right finished with her, you are,” Ian taunted him.

He forced himself to step back from Ian, cursing that he’d so easily fallen into that one.

“It doesn’t matter that I still feel for her. She’s as good as dead as a human, and I’m not going through that again.”

The knowledge burned like silver in his heart. Lovely, brave, stubborn Denise. Rotting in a grave within a few fleeting decades—if she was lucky. Sooner, if she wasn’t. He couldn’t tolerate that. It had nearly destroyed him with Giselda.

“Your problem is you’re too bloody honorable for your own good,” Ian said. “Were I you, I’d change Denise over regardless of her objection.”

Spade let out a cold laugh. “Mate, I know that better than anyone.”

Ian shrugged. “Yes, you and Crispin would, wouldn’t you?”

He stopped and gave a hard look at the vampire opposite him. Ian stared back, unapologetic, uncompromising. The same stare Ian had given him over two hundred and twenty years ago, when he’d been responsible for Spade being turned into a vampire. Ian might not have sired him, being too weakened after changing Crispin, but Spade was turned because Ian asked for a favor, ignoring that Spade hadn’t wanted it.

For several long, merciless seconds, Spade considered that. He’d eventually forgiven Ian, after all. So had Crispin. True, Denise might hate him for a hundred years if he changed her despite her objections, but at least she’d be alive to hate him. Not feeding worms beneath the earth.

But could he truly do that to her? Pretend to accept her humanity, and then snatch it away from her as soon as those brands were off? If he did, how could she ever trust him again? He and Crispin forgave Ian, yes, but the nature of their relationship had been very different as betrayed friends versus a betrayed lover.

Or what if Denise didn’t realize it was a betrayal? She’d proved susceptible to the power of his gaze before. He could plant the idea in her mind to welcome changing over. She’d never even remember that it hadn’t come from her…

With a violent curse, Spade shook his head and began walking again. “No. I’ll have something real with Denise, or nothing at all.”

“Fool,” Ian called after him.

He clenched his jaw again. That might be true, but it was his decision all the same.

The knock on the bedroom door made Denise’s heart leap. “Come in,” she called out at once.

That brief hope was extinguished when Bones entered instead of Spade. “Even if I couldn’t read your thoughts, your scent of disappointment is overpowering,” Bones noted.

Denise flopped back in the bed. She’d been trying with no success to sleep in the hours since Spade stormed out. Had he left for good? He might have. Bones and Cat could more than handle giving Nathanial over to Raum.

“Of course Charles didn’t leave for good,” Bones said, taking the chair near the bed. “He’s brassed off quite a bit, but he’ll be back by dawn at the latest.”

“You know, I never realized how intrusive your mind-reading skills were,” Denise said dryly. “Can’t you switch to another channel or something?”

“Don’t you realize how much Charles cares for you?”

Denise scoffed. “You can’t care for what you don’t respect, and Spade has no respect for humans.”

“That’s not true. Charles does respect humans. He’s just avoided caring for any human again because humans always die,” Bones said softly.

“Vampires die all the time, too,” Denise countered. “There’s no such thing as immortality, no matter the species.”

“Vampires can’t die from the passage of time, diseases, or accidents. No one can protect himself against every form of death, but death is so much closer to humans than vampires or ghouls. What happened with Web obviously inflated Charles’s fear of your mortality to the level that had him storming out when you rejected the notion of ever turning into a vampire.”

“But I don’t want to be a vampire,” Denise said, frustrated. “Why is that such an unreasonable thing for Spade to understand?”

“Because it means he’ll bury you one day,” Bones replied. “One day soon, to a vampire’s way of thinking. It’s not the same as a normal relationship, where there’s a chance that your life spans will be similar. With a human, an early death is guaranteed. If the situation were reversed, would you be content to let Charles die, if you could prevent it? Don’t you remember what you said when you found Randy’s body? You screamed at me to fix him. It was too late, but if it wasn’t, you would have demanded that I do whatever was necessary to ensure that you and Randy could still be together.”

Memory sliced ruthlessly across her mind. Vampires everywhere, blood and dirt spattering them. She slipped, landing in something dark and sticky. The stain coated the floor, widening as it led to the kitchen. Green light from a passing vampire’s gaze shone on the large, misshapen lumps in front of her. What were those?

Her stunned gaze diagnosed the shapes and she gagged. Pieces of a person were all around her. The glow of another vampire’s gaze reflected off something shiny on the small clump next to her leg. It was a hand, with a familiar gold and silver wedding band on it…

“You’re right,” Denise acknowledged, her voice husky with remembered grief. “I would have done anything to keep us together.”

Bones raised a brow. “So now you must ask yourself, do you feel the same way about Charles?”

Spade strode through the front doors of the mansion the same way he’d entered them yesterday—speaking to no one and heading straight to one place. This time, it wasn’t upstairs to the bedroom. It was downstairs, past the basement that was the living quarters of the half-dozen humans who were permanent residents here, to the guarded entrance of the cellar. The vampire standing at attention opened the door without a word, letting Spade into the narrow concrete reinforced hallway that had only two doors on opposite ends. The walls were so thick around those two rooms, Spade couldn’t hear a heartbeat to know which one Nathanial was in.

He was in the first one Spade checked, asleep on the narrow cot. The room was bare of most amenities, as it was a holding cell for brand-new vampires. A vampire took anywhere from a few days to a week to master the overwhelming hunger that would cause him or her to kill any human around. That was why these rooms were perfect to hold the shape-shifter. No matter what form Nathanial might take, he wouldn’t be able to breach the walls that had been built to withstand even a rampaging new vampire.

But Nathanial hadn’t changed from his normal form. Just in case, though, Spade closed the door behind him. It sealed with automatic locks. He’d need the intercom to inform the guard when to let him out.

“Wake up,” he said, giving the man a shake.

Nathanial lunged in a flurry of movement that had Spade pinning him against the wall with his fangs out, fury coursing through him at the attempted sneak attack. But once Nathanial’s eyes fully focused on Spade, the strength left his limbs.

“Oh, it’s you,” Nathanial said, slumping. “You startled me.”

Spade shoved Nathanial back on the cot. “Am I to believe that was an accident?” he asked with heavy sarcasm.

Those hazel eyes that were far too similar to Denise’s stared up at him. “You don’t know what normally happens when someone pounces on me while I’m asleep. I’ve learned to wake up fighting.”

Spade could imagine what. Package deals. He still couldn’t bring himself to pity the man. Not after what Nathanial had cost Denise—and now him—but it did make Spade enjoy the memory of slaughtering Web’s guards more. No one deserves to live after that.

“You couldn’t be more safe from me when it comes to that,” Spade responded. “I’m here to learn everything you know about killing demons.”

Nathanial smiled at that, making his face look even more boyish. He must have been quite young when he’d struck that deal with Raum. Twenty? Twenty-one?

“Now there’s a subject I like to talk about,” Nathanial said with obvious relish. “Just stab one in the eyes with that knife. Instant death.”

“What knife? A silver knife?”

The color drained from Nathanial’s face. “When you got me, you didn’t get the knife, too?”

“What. Knife,” Spade bit out, his temper already stretched to the breaking point.

Nathanial shot up with a moan, his movements far faster than a human’s should be. “How could you not know about the knife? You knew about me! You knew what I was, what the girl was, and how it happened. How could you not know about the fucking knife?”

Spade swatted him almost casually, sending Nathanial crashing back onto the cot. “Don’t waste your time railing at me when you should be answering my question.”

Nathanial’s lip was bleeding where Spade had hit him. He swiped at it immediately, wiping the blood on a blanket, eyeing Spade with tension reeking out of every pore. Then Nathanial let out a short, unamused laugh.

“You’re the first vampire in seventy years not to go after my blood. Even the guards, who were forbidden from tasting me, constantly snuck sips. I don’t even know how to react to you ignoring it.”

“React by telling me about the knife,” Spade replied in an icy tone.

“Only weapons made from their own bones can kill a corporeal demon. Because of that, demon bones are almost impossible to come by. If a demon kills another demon, they destroy the bones. But a demon will keep one weapon as defense against other demons. I stole the bone knife from the demon who branded me when I sent him back to the underworld. Just in case he ever returned.”

Spade considered this. His knowledge of demons mostly consisted of information about the noncorporeal ones who possessed humans, so what Nathanial said could be true. But then again, it could be utter shite.

One way to be sure.

Spade grabbed Nathanial, pinning him to the wall. The man struggled with considerable strength considering his heartbeat, but he couldn’t break Spade’s hold. What he did do was snap his eyes shut at Spade’s first move, however.

Clever sod. “I’m not going to hurt you. I only want to be sure what you’re telling me is the truth. Open your eyes.”

“No,” Nathanial gasped. “You could make me do anything.”

“For pity’s sake, you have nothing I want except your knowledge,” Spade replied curtly. “If that wasn’t true, why would I bother mesmerizing you? Anything else I’d want, I’m strong enough to take without using my gaze.”

Nathanial’s pulse thundered like hoofbeats from a stampede and he stank like fear, but slowly his lids fluttered opened. Spade let his power blaze forth, seeking to dominate the will behind those hazel eyes.

The lad was stronger here, too, than Spade would have imagined. Then again, Nathanial would need an iron mental fortitude to endure Web’s treatment the past several decades without going insane. Spade pushed that thought aside, because it led to a reluctant admiration that he couldn’t afford to feel.

“Open your mind,” Spade said, more power flowing from him.

He felt the snap of Nathanial’s will as if breaking it had made an audible sound. Then he pushed through the trailing cobwebs of consciousness until he was sure anything he asked Nathanial would be answered with the truth.

“How do you kill a demon?”

Nathanial repeated the same answer as before in a monotone Spade was used to hearing from someone enthralled. The lad hadn’t been lying. He must truly not know that revealing such information brought him closer to his own destruction.

“Why do you think I captured you?” Spade asked next, just to be sure.

“To save your girlfriend,” Nathanial mumbled. “So I could help her control the power from the marks.”

No, Nathanial had no idea what his fate was. Spade pushed back a flicker of remorse. He and Denise might not have a future together, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a future free from the demon’s essence. Spade would make sure Denise returned to being human just as she wanted, with her family safe. Through his own fault, Nathanial was the cost of that.

“Who has the knife?” Spade asked, though he had already guessed the answer.

“Web. Keeps it close to him always. Afraid of the demon killing him to get me back.”

No doubt Raum would indeed have tried to slaughter Web to regain Nathanial, if he’d known Web had him. But now Spade had him, and Web would know Nathanial would tell him about the knife.

Bloody hell, Web would be expecting Spade to try to take the knife. He’d know Spade needed it, just not for the same reasons Web had kept it.

Spade’s mouth twisted. Looked like Web would get another chance to kill him after all.

“You will never try to escape me,” Spade said, looking deeply into Nathanial’s eyes. “Say it.”

“I will never try to escape you,” Nathanial repeated dully.

Web had probably forced the same directive in Nathanial. The lad had fought with him as Spade dragged him out of Web’s, but no matter. In Spade’s case, he wasn’t using the command to try and keep Nathanial with him indefinitely, but only a short while. Just until he gave him away to Raum, where, if all went well, he’d also be giving Denise away, too. Surrendering her back to her fragile, lethal humanity that would end up forever separating them.

The knowledge of that rose like bile within him, but he forced it back. It’s what she wants more than anything else. Even me.

“Right, then. Wake up,” Spade said, releasing Nathanial.

The other man blinked and shook his head as if to clear it. “Find out what you needed to know?”

Spade’s jaw clenched. “Yes.”

And he was staying the course regardless.