The vampire had been no such thing in the past. He had been a lower-ranked soldier for their master. Ambitious? Yes. But powerful? Not in his wildest dreams.
Benedikte had refused to surrender, and that’s when Andre had declared war. But even before Benedikte could free any children, or before Sorin could use an ambush of violent magic to rip the hearts out of Andre’s vampires, or even before Benedikte could behead his bastard brother and his brood, a clearly immune Andre laid fire to a curtain, most likely planning to extinguish the flame once he’d driven out Benedikte from his own home.
Now, here in this abandoned house where he’d shut himself off from reality, phantom cries of his still-bound children, burning in the inferno, tortured him.
Fire. Why did it have to be one of his progeny’s only true killers, fire? He hadn’t even salvaged their soul vials from the flames….
Coward, he thought, remembering how he and Sorin had fled before the humans could arrive to put out the flames creeping from the Underground’s hidden entrance near the park.
They had separated in the gathering crowd, and Benedikte the Master—the master of nothing now—had crept back to his favorite haunt to wonder what had just happened.
Lying prone on the hard, wooden floor, the seeds of destruction still weighed heavily inside of him—an instinct for isolation, the urge to make the world a mirror of what he’d suffered tonight.
“Master?” Sorin whispered.
Benedikte realized that his body had gone vaporous, reflecting what he felt: empty. A useless nothing who had no choice but to live out endless years unless he was destroyed first.
Out of pure mortification at being so revealed, Benedikte sucked into solid form. Through the years, he’d practiced his talent for changing into other shapes, but he had lost control this time.
Not that it mattered.
“Master,” Sorin repeated, his tone careful, as if he were prodding a sleeping snake. “I am just as bereft as you, but we cannot stay here, not with all the human activity the fire has conjured tonight. We must go….”
He trailed off.
“Where, Sorin?” The Master’s voice was flat. “Where shall we go now?”
“Another home belowground.” His son slid to his feet, vampire graceful. “We can find one. We will begin anew, perhaps in Edinburgh—”
The Master stayed silent.
“Or…” Sorin began, logical until the end, never giving up. “Or America, Master. You adored San Diego and Los Angeles.”
“Never again.”
Sorin stilled himself, Awareness vibrating, soaking into Benedikte. The older vampire batted his son’s optimism away, seeing no use for it.
“I’m done.” The Master closed his eyes, willing darkness into every inch of him.
“Master, I know we are at a low ebb, but there is so much more to discover in this world. Night by night, there are new inventions, new movies for you to see. Think of more films with little Mary Pickford.”
Not even the lure of his favorite, an actress who smiled as Tereza had, could interest Benedikte.
He shut down, a broken film flapping in a projector.
Too weak to speak, the Master used his Awareness. I will never subject myself to this failure again, good soldier or not.
Numb, he blocked out Sorin’s inevitable answer.
He just wished he had enough hate to keep himself going.
With one last attempt, he tried very hard to conjure it, to summon some emotion that would spark the will to continue. And, miraculously, his form turned from this sad lump of cynicism to something he’d never experienced before: an awful monster he should be—the picture of horror. Yes, yes…
The materialization of the hatred he wanted to feel.
He reached his zenith, rising in the air and growing, seething, baring his fangs to the emptiness that this world had become.
The door creaked open again.
Two men in military uniform stood in the entrance, and Benedikte—the godforsaken Master—reared on them, hissing as he stretched himself wide.
With only a gasp of terror, the men’s eyes bugged out, as if witnessing hell frozen over.
Benedikte laughed and laughed, finally triumphant, until he glanced in Sorin’s corner, where his son was hiding his face.
Turning away from the horror his father had become.
FOURTEEN
THE OTHERS
T HE next day, the horizon was just bleeding into dusk when Dawn drove Kiko back to the office after a bout of physical therapy.
She was tuckered out. Not only had she conferenced with the therapist about Kik’s progress (“We’ll keep an eye on that medication,” was the only lame solution for now), but earlier, the whole team had brainstormed and individually trained. Dawn had made sure that her own workout had been especially grueling.
After telling the team about Matt’s take on Jessica Reese and that’s all (right, like Dawn was going to mention Eva’s damned dress to anyone, ever), she’d gotten out the old whip chain. The goal had been to stay frosty with her newly acquired skills, but the exercise had gone beyond that: Dawn had worked until the sweat washed off last night’s stinging disappointment.