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“He was my only brother,” he continued.
“Okay,” I said, looking past him. My apathy seemed to agitate him further, which is exactly what I’d hoped it would do. This guy needed to be taught a lesson. If I let him get away with his bravado in public, it would make me appear weak to the other vamps. Word would spread, and next thing you know my reputation for being a heartless bitch would be ruined. What good is an assassin if no one fears them?
“Listen, bitch, you need to pay for what you did.”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, dude, I’ll save you some time here. What was your brother’s name?”
“Zeke Calebow.”
I snorted. “You mean the Zeke Calebow who threatened to expose our existence to the mortal media if the Dominae didn’t give him a billion dollars?”
The guy nodded curtly.
“That ass**le was too stupid to live.”
Zeke’s brother hauled back a meaty fist. Dirk, who’d been approaching our little party from behind, grabbed the guy. His fist made a loud crunching sound as Dirk crushed it. The two friends moved in to help, but stopped at the telltale sound of a pump-action shotgun.
“Don’t even think about it,” Ivan said calmly. He stood behind the bar with the weapon pointed at their heads. Even if Ivan didn’t have cider shells in the gun, a shotgun blast could blow their heads clean off, making them very dead.
“Didn’t your mama ever teach you it’s rude to hit a lady?” Dirk asked Zeke’s brother, whom he had in a headlock.
“Fuck off,” the guy said, struggling.
I leaned against the bar, sipping on my drink, happy to let the staff handle the situation for the moment. If it’d been me, three dead vamps would already be on the floor.
“Apologize,” Dirk said. He winked at me, and I toasted him with my drink.
The friends and Ivan were holding a stare-off. The rest of the bar had stopped to watch. No one rose to help, nor did they look especially excited. Vampire life tended to make one a bit numb to confrontation.
“Apologize,” Dirk said again, tightening his hold.
“The bitch is gonna die.”
I laughed out loud. After tossing a Ben Franklin on the bar, I approached him. He struggled against Dirk’s hold while his eyes shot white heat in my direction.
“That’s okay. I was leaving anyway.” I lifted his chin with my index finger. Leaning close, I whispered, “Your brother screamed like a girl when I staked him.”
As I swaggered away, the guy growled. Ewan rushed in, looking worried as he took in the scene. He moved toward me, holding up a hand. “Sabina, watch out!”
I turned just in time to see Dirk hit the floor and Zeke’s brother come after me. He growled like an animal, showing a flash of fangs. I grabbed my gun and spun into a crouch, pulling the trigger as I rounded. He ignited midair—a brief, intense burst of heat—and then his ashes rained to the floor.
I turned and pointed the gun at his friends. Their mouths gaped stupidly as they eyed the pile of cinders and ashes on the varnished concrete floor. “Do we still have a problem?” I asked. They shook their heads frantically and backed away with palms held up in surrender.
Ewan stood over the mass of ash on the floor. He shook his head. “Someone’s going to have to clean this up, you know.”
“Put it on my tab.”
Over Ewan’s shoulder, I noticed the mage watching the scene without expression. This surprised me. I figured at the first sign of vamp violence he would have blinked his way out of there. Instead, he looked almost bored as he sipped on his beer.
“Hey, Ivan.” I leaned on the bar to talk.
“Yeah?” he asked, sounding distracted as he watched the vamp’s two friends get escorted from the bar.
“Who’s the mage?”
We both turned to look where the mage was sitting, but to my surprise, he was gone. Poof.
“That’s weird. He was just there,” I said.
Ivan shook his head. “Freakin’ mancies. They give me the willies.”
“Do you know who he was?” I asked.
“Nah. But he was asking questions before you got here.”
“What kind of questions?” I didn’t know why I was so intrigued about some random mage, but something about him set off my warning sensors.
Ivan looked at me and said, “About you.”
Well, if that wasn’t the perfect end to a perfectly craptacular evening. Why in the hell would a mage be stalking me?
3
A guard holding a large semiautomatic rifle greeted me at the front door.
“Follow me.” He had to turn sideways to get through the doorframe as he led me inside the Dominae compound. His hair was coppery red, indicating that, like me, he was less than a century old.
He lumbered up one wing of the double staircase. My boots scuffed the limestone steps, the sound unnaturally loud in the cavernous room. When we reached the top, he motioned me to follow him to the right, down a long carpeted corridor. At various intervals, we passed guards standing still as statues next to priceless artwork set in niches along the blood-red walls.
Finally, we reached the doors to the antechamber. A handful of other vamps littered the room. Most of them were young strawberry blonds; only a few had darker shades. These were hangers-on, hoping to curry favor. A pair of older vampires, members of the Undercouncil, stood in the corner whispering to each other.
As usual, all conversation ceased when I walked in.
More art hung here—landscapes mostly, depicting Tuscan hillsides. Flowing crimson sheers hung over arched windows, which reached from floor to ceiling. Beyond the panes lay the well-lit grounds of the estate. Past that, the ocean sparkled in the moonlight.
At the back of the room stood two doors, each emblazoned with a bronze relief. The left panel showed Lilith seducing Cain, which resulted in the creation of the vampire race. The right depicted her coronation as the Queen of Irkalla following her marriage to Asmodeus. On either side of these, torches sat in brackets, illuminating the raised images.
The sound of static from a walkie-talkie broke the silence. One of the guards spoke into it in low tones.
“Sabina Kane,” he announced finally.
In unison, the guards each grabbed a handle, sweeping the large panels open with a flourish. I could feel the stares of the others as I moved. The words “killer” and “mixed-blood” were muttered in hushed tones. Once I passed the portal, the doors closed, locking out their judgment.
I had an impression of candlelight in my peripheral vision, but my eyes were focused on the middle of the room. Softly lit by recessed lights, the Dominae sat behind a long wooden table in the center of the chamber.
