Dread Nemesis of Mine

chapter 9

Euphoria filled my body, flooding me with warmth and contentment. A coppery odor filled my nostrils. My eyelids fluttered open. A tall, muscular man, his fangs glistening red in the dim yellow light, grinned.

"Mine at last, boy. Mine at last." Maximus tore a paper towel from a nearby holder and wiped the blood from his lips and his close-cropped goatee.

Horror washed away the euphoric feeling and I strained uselessly against diamond fiber straps securing my arms, legs, torso, and neck to a diamond fiber table. "Did you just drink my blood?" I said, gagging at the thought of his nasty fangs in my body.

"The first drink of many, boy." Maximus slid on a pair of dark wraparound shades and pulled on a tight leather trench coat. "I have tasted spawn blood before, but there is something different, even more spectacular, about yours."

"You nasty perv," I said, squirming with disgust.

"And to think those idiots Franco and Marcel let you get away." His eyes narrowed. "Serves them right for trying to double-cross me."

"Let me go, Maximus."

"Not a chance, boy. You took your spawn father from me, but I do believe I've traded up."

"You won't keep me here for long. The Templars are going to sweep through here and clean house."

He chuckled. "I hope they try." He leaned in close, the metallic odor of my blood on his breath. "I heard a lot of them didn't make it out of the raid on Franco's compound."

"Yeah, right," I hissed between clenched teeth. "You only wish."

"Oh, I don't wish, little spawn—I know. I supplied those weapons to his drug cartel along with a large supply of cursed ammunition." He clucked his tongue. "I hear those bullets tore right through the much-vaunted Templar Nightingale armor."

My mind flashed back to my wild escape from Franco's compound. The chase. The plane ride from hell. The gunman who shot me and Elyssa. She'd been wearing Templar armor, but the bullets had gone through it like a knife through paper. We'd nearly died thanks to silver poisoning and the harmful spells on those bullets. If Maximus was really the supplier, it likely meant he had stash built up here. If the Templars came, he and his vampire army would mow through them like grass.

Anger flooded my chest. "What do you want with me? Why are you doing this?"

He straightened and crossed his arms across his chest. "You should know why I want you, little fish. Spawn blood will increase the potency of my own so I can finally turn noms."

"Is making more vampires all you care about?" I spat, imagining him sinking his fangs into my flesh over and over again as I grew weaker and unable to do a damned thing about it.

"Turning more noms is only a means to an end." He walked to the other side of the table and put a hand to his chin. "I grant them life eternal and supernatural powers. They will help me overturn the traditional order, the ancients who have ruled us like dogs. Eventually, we will overcome the spawn and turn them into our slaves. Not only will we rid the world of demon spawn, but we will finally be able to live as we were destined."

"As a bunch of blood-sucking parasites?"

The corner of his mouth twisted into a slow grin. "As the rulers of this world."

"No doubt with you as the almighty dictator of all."

"Perhaps." He looked across the large room and the other tables.

The neck strap allowed me to rotate my head just enough to glimpse a part of the room. It was obvious he and his cronies could strap down a hundred people in this place, judging from the length.

"There are those greater even than us who may have a say in who rules, however," the vampire said, eyes focused on something I couldn't see.

"Daelissa," I said. I knew she was involved in this mess. With my mind recovering from the horror of Maximus feeding on my blood, another thought occurred to me. "Where's my sister?" Cold dread laced my skin and plunged into my stomach. Please let her be okay.

His eyes snapped to me. "Your sister?"

"Where are you keeping her? Did you hurt her, you son of a bitch?"

Maximus regarded me for a long moment, one eyebrow arching. Understanding lit his expression. Then he threw back his head and laughed.

Bastard! Suffused with rage, I struggled against the bonds, but the diamond fiber resisted. Frustration welled in my chest as Maximus's laughter echoed across the large room. I loosed my inner demon and let it feed on rage, my helplessness. My desire to crush Maximus to a pulp. Stars of pain burst into sight as horns erupted from my forehead. My body swelled. And suddenly, I couldn't breathe. I felt my neck bulge against the straps, biceps and wrists straining at the material. As my body attempted to manifest into full demon form, it was choking me to death.

The world disintegrated before my eyes and my inner demon gave up. Woozy from lack of oxygen, my head lolled as far as the restraints would allow.

"Not going to work, little spawn," Maximus said, still sniggering. "And here I thought you knew how strong diamond fiber is."

"I will kill you," I said, in a rasping voice. "Laugh all you want, you filthy, leeching parasite, but I'll kill you and save my sister, you perverted sack of douchebaggery."

The vampire roared with laughter. "That's a good one. I'll have to save it for later." He reached out and casually slapped me on the cheek. "Because I'm feeling mildly compassionate, I'll tell you this, boy. I don't have your sister. The joke's on you."

My mouth dropped open but no words came out. Something in the vampire's eyes told me he wasn't lying. Why would he at this point? I lay completely at his mercy. The bastard hadn't been laughing because he had my sister—he'd been laughing because he didn't. I'd been lured down here. Tricked. Not even my demon form could get me out of this mess, and if the Templars tried to save me, Maximus's minions would tear them apart with enchanted bullets.

Maximus tsked. "Poor little spawn. Looks like Daelissa played you for a fool." He shook his head, speaking in the mocking tone people usually reserved for babies. "Don't worry too much. She does it to everyone, even me. I suggest you rest. I'll be hungry again in a few hours, and you'll need all the energy you can muster to replenish the blood I took earlier." He winked and walked behind me. A door squeaked open. For the first time since awakening, I sensed another cold presence outside the door. A female presence. My lips curled into a tight smile and it was all I could do not to laugh. Maximus was an idiot and I'd be out of here in no time.

I waited until Maximus's footsteps faded down the hallway before making my move. Closing my eyes, I extended a tendril toward the female vampire standing guard outside. I felt her cold aura. Overwhelmingly positive emotions welled from her, mostly adoration mixed with lust. Apparently, she wanted to break her off a piece of Maximus. All the better for me. I could manipulate most females into sexual feelings, thanks to my incubus skillz, but with her already feeling the way she did, luring her in here to cut me loose would be a snap.

Equalizing my emotional state with hers took a moment, because I wasn't feeling particularly lustful or happy at the moment. I eased my tendril into her aura, opening the channel to feed.

Alarm spiked. Anger quickly followed. The door banged open and a woman in her early twenties stormed in and stood over me. Long brown hair, matted and tangled, framed a pale homely face. She wore one of the pink T-shirts with the fang-pierced heart I'd seen during the attack and a pair of matching cargo shorts I could just make out with my peripheral vision.

Gripping the table to either side of my head, she leaned into my face, snarling and showing long yellowed fangs. "Try it again, spawn," she said in a girly voice, "and I'll cut these off." She reached a hand down to my crotch and gave a painful squeeze.

I yelped.

She smirked. "You don't think Maximus would put a female down here if she didn't know how to handle herself, did you?"

I looked her up and down with my eyes since I couldn't move my head much. "I don't know, looks like Maximus has pretty low standards for vampires nowadays. Can't you afford designer jeans?"

"We don't need that crap."

"And what's with these stupid hearts on the T-shirts? Did I miss Valentine's day?"

She ran a hand down one of the fangs on the symbol. "It's the symbol for Blood Rush." She pressed sharp fingernails into my stomach. "Maybe I'll tattoo it on your chest."

I squirmed, trying without success to get her hands off me.

She leaned over. Sniffed my neck. Licked it. "Mmm, so sweet. Too bad you belong to Maximus." She sighed. "Maybe he'll get me my own spawn soon." She walked away, slamming the door shut behind her.

Heartbeat thudding in my ears, I writhed uselessly against my bonds until my skin was raw. Lifting my head as far as the neck strap would allow, I looked at my body and flushed from head to toe. I didn't have on anything except boxers. A trickle of dried blood had pooled on my chest between my pectoral muscles. I gagged again, thinking of Maximus's nasty yellow fangs puncturing my skin.

"One requires help," said a calm, almost emotionless voice from somewhere behind me, sounding as though the owner might be in a far back corner.

I would have jumped except for the straps holding me down. "Really, you think so?" I said, unable to keep the sarcasm down to a dull roar.

"This entity believes so."

"This—what? Entity?" I strained my neck but couldn't twist it far enough to see more than a couple of tables to either side. Parts of the room were dark, florescent lights flickering in fitful spurts.

"Yes," replied the same deadpan voice. "This one is also an entity."

My neck felt sore from all the twisting, so I gave up trying to see whoever was speaking. "Okay, Mr. Entity, can you get me out of these straps?"

"This one is unable to do so, other entity."

"Call me Justin."

"This is a designation?"

"It's a name!" Had Maximus stuck me in here with a brain-damaged vampire? Or even worse, someone suffering dementia brought on by the vampling virus? Cold prickles walked down my spine. "Why are you unable to help me?"

"Justin, this one is also bound."

"Why do you keep saying 'this one'? Do you know how to use pronouns?"

"Pronouns—yes. There are many words inside. And some rules for using them."

"Okay, well rule number one, start using pronouns. You sound like an imbecile."

"This one—I will."

"That wasn't so hard, now was it?"

"This one does not feel the 'I' inside—in me."

My brain struggled to decipher what he'd just said and gave up. "What are you?"

"An entity."

I groaned. "What kind of entity? You sound male. Are you a vampire?"

"I do not know. I look like the others."

"Like Maximus? The tool bag who was in here talking to me?"

"Yes," he said in the same unfaltering tone. "Therefore, I must be a tool bag."

I would have laughed if not for wanting to cry even more. Great. Just great! Not only was I trussed up as Maximus's personal snack pack, but I had the intellectual equivalent of a lobotomized yak to talk with.

The willpower to talk abandoned me. I had to think, dammit. I closed my eyes and saw Maximus's leering face. When I'd accused him of kidnapping my sister, he'd been completely surprised. He didn't know a thing about it. Could Daelissa be behind this trick? Had she somehow faked the entire video? The memory of Bigglesworth's mocking smile and laughter slapped me in the face. His complete lack of concern for Ivy's kidnapping made sense now. That ball of sludge was in on the joke.

Heartache abruptly stabbed me in the chest as another possibility came to mind. What if Ivy had participated in the sham? What if this was her way of getting rid of me?

Please, no.

Daelissa may have cooked up the idea, but it didn't mean she hadn't used Ivy and the others to stage it. Maximus obviously hadn't lent his voice talent to it, but there were other ways to fake or use recorded versions of his voice. I thought back to the recording on the ASE and tried to remember exactly how Maximus's voice had sounded on it. But my memory was imprecise.

And now, it really didn't matter.

"Are you also a tool bag?" the voice from the back of the room said.

"I'm a tool bag. We're all tool bags." My hands and jaw clenched with rage, frustration, and worst of all, sorrow. My sister thought I was evil. She despised me enough to toss me to the vampires so they could enslave me and drink my blood forever. I felt the hot sting of a tear trickle down my cheek. Betrayal was such a wicked thing. I had tasted it when Mom left. When she told me Dad and I were no longer part of her family. I'd felt it again when Dad told me he was giving up on Mom and marrying Kassallandra. And with this added betrayal, I just felt like crying.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I forced back the tidal wave of pity threatening to flood from beneath my lids. I thought of Elyssa and the Templars and wondered if they'd made it out of the ambush alive. Worry burrowed into my chest.

This isn't helping!

I had to do something. Figure out how to free myself. Sure, this table and the straps were made from what I had been told was nearly unbreakable material. By "nearly" I didn't know if I'd need an atom bomb or just a dragon to part the material. I'd seen Meghan press the ends of a diamond strap against concrete, bonding it to the surface. I'd seen her touch two ends of the material together to form a loop. To open the straps, she'd touched the material. Come to think of it, I'd toyed with it before as well, connecting and disconnecting it with a simple touch.

How did the material know when to bond and when to release? If I could reach one hand over and touch the strap holding the other, would it release me? Or did it somehow magically know I was the prisoner here and I couldn't free myself?

Why in the hell didn't I find out stuff like this until it was too late?

It didn't matter. I didn't have a free hand, and I couldn't slide one of my hands or bend my wrist enough to touch the straps holding them. There had to be another solution, something I was overlooking. And then it came to me. I might have the answer if I could only figure out how to use it.

Magic.