Once inside Derring Hall, we went down. After several turns and then a long corridor, we were at the basement. There was a guard there, and Bones walked right up to him with a genial smile—and then hit him with his gaze.
“Let us pass, and we were never here,” he said. The guard nodded and let us by him without losing the glazed look on his face.
There weren’t any other people in the basement. Bones took me past several storage rooms until we came to a small, locked gate. He casually ripped the bolt away from the gate and held it open for me.
“After you, Kitten.”
I went inside and waited at the entrance of the narrow, tight tunnel that led into darkness. There were WARNING, ASBESTOS! and other such signs on the walls heralding danger.
“We couldn’t have just met at a Starbucks?” I remarked.
Bones shut the grille behind him. “Less chance of anyone seeing or overhearing us down here. No one knows Mencheres is even in the States yet.”
“And you said Mencheres is the same vampire who made Ian,” I commented thoughtfully. “So that makes him, like, your fang granddaddy.”
After a short walk, the tunnel broadened in size. Tubes and wires were all along the wall, and the temperature kept rapidly changing from normal to hot. Once past this section, there were multiple passageways to choose from. It was like a labyrinth down here.
Bones began to walk to the tunnel on the right. “He’s my grandsire, yes, but more importantly, he’s a very powerful vampire who Ian wouldn’t want to cross. Since your father, Max, is a member of Ian’s line and still under his protection, any attack against Max would be the same as an attack against Ian in the vampire world.”
“But the fact that Max tried to have my head blown off is okay?” I asked irritably.
“You have no Master claiming you under their line,” Bones replied in an even tone. “You remember I told you vampires operated under a form of feudalism? When one vampire changes another, they take that person under their protection, and conversely, so does the head Master. But you weren’t changed—you were born, so no vampire’s ever claimed responsibility for you. That makes you without a Master to defend you against any outside attack.”
“So just killing Max once I find him could set off a full-out war with Ian’s people, like there aren’t already enough problems with your horny sire to begin with.”
Bones nodded. “Which is why I’m going to change your status in the vampire world. I’ll claim you under my protection, but first I’ll need to break free from Ian’s line. Otherwise, anything I claim as mine is also his, since he’s head of our line. That’s why we’re meeting with Mencheres. Ian would be a damn sight less likely to retaliate against me if Mencheres chooses to ally himself to my side.”
“Did Ian know you were looking for me... before?”
“After your run-in with him, yes. I told him I’d been hunting you to limit the damage you’d do to the undead world. When he expressed his desire for you and fed me your description of our former relationship, I said a few ungentlemanly things to try to discourage him from his pursuit.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s see... I told him that you whined ceaselessly, snored with abominable loudness, and were terrible at shagging. Oh, and that you lacked desirable hygiene.”
“You what?”
He chuckled. “Now, Kitten, I had your best interest at heart. After all, you called me a welsher and said I refused to pay you for your work. Weren’t worried about my reputation, were you?”
“I was trying to protect you, not slander you!”
“As was I. But Ian didn’t fall for my description and still obsessed over you. Not as much as I did, of course, but he didn’t know that.”
I’d address his way of trying to discourage Ian later. After all, he could have come up with something other than saying I was a whiny, smelly, trumpeting-snoring bad lay.
We reached a fork in the tunnel. Bones went to the left this time, and we ventured farther into the campus’s underbelly. Talk about private, I thought. We had to be at least fifty feet underground here.
“How about you just kill Ian and I kill Max?” I muttered. “That would solve a lot of undead political hassle, if you ask me.”
Bones stopped. He grasped my shoulders, and his face was very serious.
“If it came to a choice between you or Ian, Kitten, yes, I would cut him down. But despite our many feuds over the years, or the fact that he’s being a ruthless sod in his pursuit of you... ” Bones closed his eyes for a moment. “We have a bond,” he said at last. “Ian changed me into what I am, and he’s been a part of my life for well over two centuries. If there’s a way to solve this without killing him, then that’s the route I’ll seek.”
A wave of shame swept over me. Idiot, I lashed myself. You should have known that.
“I’m sorry. Of course you couldn’t just kill him. I couldn’t, either, when I knew who he was.”