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"What harmed him?"
"Someone who is now very dead." Heat flashed across Cai's gaze.
Uthe took a sip of the coffee, finding it excellent. He declined when Cai offered cream or sugar. He wondered if Keldwyn found the sudden oasis of hospitality unexpected, but for Uthe it brought back good memories. The code of desert regions, where, as Cai had pointed out, company could be rare. Someone who didn't declare himself as an enemy was treated as a guest, as much for the news he brought as the companionship he provided. Plus, in this treacherous environment, a host might end up needing the same form of hospitality at some later date.
Cai looked toward Keldwyn. "Do you have a name, or should I just dub you Deathbringer, or some other moniker that goes with that forbidding expression?"
"My lord would be appropriate," Uthe interjected. Though Cai wasn't a fledgling, there was a restless, uncivilized character to him. The vampire demonstrated little understanding or regard for the dangers of offending higher ranking vampires or other powerful beings. "You've been here awhile, if you've been here since the Iraq War. What commends this isolation?"
"A lack of other vampires," Cai responded bluntly. "I'm no Trad, but I don't play well with others, nor do I care to learn. What's life without some risk? Still...I expect Rand might eventually enjoy a forest or two. We'll have to see if we end up back that way. Problem is there are overlords in more hospitable environments. No such oversight here." He glanced out of the cave. "Full moon tonight. If you wish to travel onward this evening you'll have good light for it, my lord."
When Uthe raised a brow at the title, Cai snorted. "It's obvious. You wouldn't know how to do commoner if your life depended on it." He dipped his head toward Kel. "He's another clue. His type doesn't waste time hanging with peasantry."
"You don't mince words, Mordecai."
"No point, really." Cai looked at the wolf. "Both of us came here to lick our wounds. He lost his pack, and I lost my family. And no, I don't care to talk about the hows or whys of that shit. But since I'm out here by my lonesome, it tends to consume my mind at times, so I can't stop myself from bringing it up. Self-flagellation and all that."
"I am sorry," Uthe said.
"It is what it is," Cai said shortly. "We love and we lose, because the gods are cruel. They like us to offer our hearts to one another, and then cut them out of our chests to show us how useless our love is before inevitable mortality, inevitable even for us. In the end, everything that matters is taken away." Cai made a dismissive gesture. "So, anyhow, I go where the majority of my food sources deserve to die and the loss of those lives won't be noticed, aka trigger the Council's worry meter about exposure to humans. We spare the shepherds, but everyone else... Well, let's just say the scavengers around here love us. Very few come out here except those up to no good, or up to something that they can't afford anyone else to see."
The charm had disappeared. Cai's cool tone and flat expression gave Uthe his true face. Unsmiling and savagely content to live in a place where he could kill his food, Cai was venting a rage that hadn't yet abated. Seeing the glowing eyes of the wolf, Uthe thought the two made a good match. Cai might be exceeding the Council's mandated human kill quota, but Uthe wasn't here to enforce Council policy. Plus, the vampire had a good grasp of the spirit of the policy, enough to avoid the wrong kind of human attention.
Cai took a swallow of coffee. "Since you don't fall into either category, I'm going to guess you're here for the sorceress. Which means you don't know."
"Know what?"
The younger vampire met his gaze. "She's dead."
Chapter Seven
It was like being punched in the chest. The ease of casual conversation disappeared in a blink. "What? How?"
"She was attacked while we were hunting, which we figured out too late was a distraction." The flash of anger in Cai's gaze told Uthe the truth, that Cai had been her ally. It saved the young vampire's life. "We would have helped her. She helped me fix Rand's leg."
She was in her eighties now, but she'd been descended from a line of strong, long-lived magic users. She could have prospered another twenty years before succumbing to Death's call. Uthe felt the loss of it, the waste. As well as anger that he hadn't been here to help protect her. She would have laughed at him, though, wouldn't she?
"I can destroy ten vampires without disturbing a hair on my head, my lord." She'd cackled, running a hand over her sparse, balding pate. "You run and play your vampire games. Leave me be. I can take care of myself."
"It happened a couple weeks ago. She was ready for it, though. She always seemed so ready for anything." Cai shook off the anger. "Soon as she died, I think it triggered some kind of protection spell on her place. Incinerated the bastards tossing the cave and blocked any more from going in. Been that way ever since. Neither Rand nor I can get in. That's why these guys following you have been lingering. They're trying to see if it will wear off in time. They sneak up there to test it every other day or so. We took out a couple of them who did it after nightfall, but they've gotten smarter since then and now they only check it out during daylight. At least we make them sweat in the sun."
"So why aren't you concerned about our motives?" Keldwyn asked. He had one foot propped on the edge of the rock, his arm loosely wrapped around his shin to hold it, while his other arm was braced on the rock. With his head cocked, the dim light gleamed off his dark eyes.
"Christ, you can see why people wander off to your world and never want to come back," Cai said. "A coating of sweat and sand on you is like powdered sugar on a donut. You're a walking hard-on."
"Cai," Uthe said sharply, snapping the vampire's gaze back to him. "He is a Fae Lord."
"I understand, but isn't he your servant, my lord? Why else would a vampire and Fae be traveling together?"
Keldwyn's lip curled, his gaze glittering like embers. The wolf responded in kind, but Uthe suspected his reaction was as much his displeasure with Cai's appraisal of Keldwyn as defense of his Master. He couldn't say it thrilled him that much either--though it was an apt description of the Fae Lord's appeal--but he focused on more important matters. Like interceding before Keldwyn downgraded his sentence on the vampire from rodent to cockroach. Keldwyn was motionless on his rock, a bad omen.
Uthe wondered if the Fae could actually transform someone into something else, or if that was just a euphemism for hacking the offender into pieces.
"An instant and sincere apology would be wise, Cai," Uthe advised.
The boy wasn't actually as dense as he seemed. Cai blanched at the overload of tension. "Christ. I mean...I'm sorry."
The wolf rose, stalked over to the other side of Cai and sat down. Since he didn't lie down, his position impeded Cai's view of Keldwyn. Cai rose to his feet and gave Keldwyn a half-bow, including Uthe in the gesture. "My apologies to you both. It never occurred to me..." He cleared his throat. "I'm not all that familiar with the Fae, to tell the truth. I meant no offense."
"Most who do offend do not intend it. They just don't know how to guard their tongue." Yet Keldwyn's negative energy dissipated enough that the wolf's ears pricked back up and the pressure around Uthe eased so he could pursue the information he needed.
"So back to Lord Keldwyn's question. Why are you not concerned about our motives for seeking the sorceress?" Uthe asked again.
Cai sat back down, eying Keldwyn. "She told me a week before she died that she'd figured out something important, and a high-born vampire would be coming to get the information, to use it for good. She told me that Rand and I should help you if we could, because what you're going to do will be vital for all of us."
Cai gestured with the coffee cup. "I pay attention to words like vital. You're lucky, because if she'd said you all were here to serve the will of the gods, I would have said bollocks to helping you. Never helping them again, not in this life nor the next, even if they spend it roasting my nuts over hellfire. Piss on them."
The wolf dipped his head, brushing his ruff against the
vampire's shoulder, before he took a light nip of his clothing. "Rand says I'm about to become morose, an odious trait for a campfire companion." He opened a flask, offered it to Uthe. "A touch of last night's meal with some chili pepper thrown in. It's good in the coffee."
Uthe refused politely. No vampire took blood from another without verifying the source.
"It's the hospitality law of the desert, my friend," the vampire said, serious now. "I intend you no harm, I swear it." He nodded to Keldwyn. "Plus, should I so much as stain your tunic, he's going to turn me into wolf food, so there's no point to me harming you, is there? Unless I have a death wish."
"You would wish for death before I was done with you," Keldwyn said passively.
