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Jean-Pierre nodded. “That is what Nadya called her four generals. We oversaw the day-to-day operations. Nadya had no patience for the administrative work required to organize a picnic, let alone a war. I am willing to help you convince the others to cooperate. We can remotely access and operate the entire vampire empire between the four of us.”
“Which one are you?” Viktorija asked.
Jean-Pierre smiled proudly. “Conquest. I was a captain of industry, running companies worth billions when Nadya took me.”
“Come on, then. Let’s go talk to them. This is only the first stop on our little tour.” Ash gestured at the door. “Euan, Viktorija, would you accompany us to visit the other Horsemen?”
Russian Countryside, Sunday, January 13, 2013, Morning
Jean-Pierre and the other Horsemen were valuable resources since they knew the locations of other sizable vampire nests. They all shared Conquest’s attitude and chose survival over a pointless death. They had been taken for their skills rather than an inclination toward evil.
Death was a witch named Arien Shuska, who’d been renowned for her skills with necromancy when Nadya had turned her. Sabine Michel, a woman with a skeletally thin frame, had been a famous fashion model with an enormous following before Nadya made her Famine. War was named Hale Beaumont, and he’d run a weapons company that made shady deals before he was changed. They’d all pledged to Ash’s service and jumped into being helpful.
The first nest they’d led Ash’s crew to was a bust. The vampires had attacked when they saw Ash, and they were put down. After that, they let one of the Horsemen take point. The next three stops were far more productive, with another forty-seven converted to the new vampire regime.
As they traveled to the fourth nest, six vampires stepped into the road and flagged them down. In a coordinated movement, they dropped to their knees and held their hands up in surrender.
“What is this?” Ash asked in Russian.
“You are the new queen, da?” one of the vampires asked.
“I am,” Ash responded.
“You set us free. Killed the evil bitch who slaughtered our families and stole our lives. She forced us to feed on our loved ones. We want to burn her from history so she is forgotten.”
Another nodded, looking devastated and angry. “We were new and didn’t know what was happening. It didn’t even feel real. The hunger…”
“Stop,” Zia ordered. “You don’t need to explain. We understand the horror of what Nadya did to you.”
Ash growled at the atrocities Nadya had committed for her amusement. “I’m so glad I ripped that monster’s heart out of her chest. She sure as shit wasn’t using the damned thing.” Turning to the six kneeling vampires, Ash smiled. “Get up. You’re welcome with us. I can provide a safe place for you to live and the resources to help you control yourselves.”
“What are the rules, please?” another of the vampires asked.
“Animal blood or a willing host. No killing. Never take more than a pint in a session. The war’s over, and we’re allied with the Therians,” Ash recited. “There will be more, but those are the basics. I’m working on establishing a base where our kind can seek shelter and gather to meet with other species. We are moving toward a lasting peace.”
“As long as you continue to defend those who can’t stand up to the monsters, we will follow you wherever you go,” the first vampire agreed.
Zia made space for the recruits in their convoy, and they continued toward their next objective. By the time Ash finished out the week and opened a portal to take them all home, she expected her forces to number over a thousand vampires.
She hoped they found an appropriate property quickly. Ash needed a place her people could call home and feel safe.
CHAPTER NINE
Mosier Home, Enfield, New York, Monday, January 14, 2013
Maerlin appeared out of thin air, materializing in the space outside the Mosiers’ home. She hoped Melinda and Brian wouldn’t hate her for what she’d done to Ash. Cloaked, Maerlin simply appeared to be a woman of ethereal beauty. In addition to the auras she recognized as her old friends, Maerlin could sense multiple Therians in and around the home.
Rather than going to the door and discovering how Melinda and Brian would react, she mused about the path that led her to this point. Examining her memories often helped Maerlin sort out her motivations and face the truth of a situation.
She had felt the final seal on Ash’s soul break a week ago. Maerlin had been investigating the activity around the Abyssal rift, revisiting her long-ago home at the bottom of the ocean for the first time in a very long time. After so long on this planet, Maerlin had become an expert at compartmentalizing and letting the memories she didn’t want to keep fade, but she struggled to let go of the horrors she’d seen during the fall of Atlantis.
Maerlin was content that the activity was strictly geological at this point and hadn’t affected the rift, but she knew what was coming. She could feel the potential growing on the other side of the rift. Maerlin’s memories of the lives she’d lived in the Abyss were splintered, but the feeling of an impending birth was ingrained into the fiber of her being. It called to her with the hope that after billions of years, she would no longer be alone. From experience, she knew nothing coming through the rift wanted a companion. The urge to conquer and consume was instinctual to Abyssians.
She had been reborn on Earth during the first collision. She’d spent a long time alone in this world, guarding the portal and waiting for life to evolve.
She’d stayed in Atlantis’s ruins long enough to ensure the rift was stable and place additional wards that would warn her of further magical activity there. It had taken all her willpower not to run to Ash when she’d felt the seal break, but her failure to check the rift could doom the entire world to a gruesome death.
She’d chosen to seek out Ash’s parents first. She didn’t know Ash, who was essentially her daughter, and she hoped her old friends could guide her about approaching her with the news. Revealing what she was never went well for Maerlin, and she expected their reactions to range from disbelief to fury or hatred, which would hurt.
