It was all a show, and they both knew it. But like their code, the occasional bit of dick-measuring had its place.
“You know why vampire is king and not demon?” Chernikov asked, flicking a few shards of glass from his suit jacket.
Dorian had several responses, all of which he kept to himself. “Enlighten me.”
“Magic.”
A dark chuckle escaped Dorian’s lips, and he reached for his coffee, shaking his head. “It’s that simple, is it?”
“Most things are that simple. We complicate them because we have human brains, and human brains like challenge. Makes us feel smart and superior, yes?” He opened a fresh bottle of vodka and poured another splash into his mug. This time, he didn’t offer any to Dorian. “Your witches… They give you more power. Change your nature. Make you smart and superior.”
Dorian sipped his coffee, waiting for Chernikov to circle back round to the bloody point.
“Demons? We have witches too,” he continued. “Not as many, of course. Most witches find demons… unpalatable. But there are some who crave the darkness. The chaos.”
“Yes, the dark witches. A charming lot, to be sure.”
“Charming, no. But powerful?” Chernikov shrugged. “Between this realm and hell, demons are always coming and going. It is the dark witches who decide how many.”
“They control the gateways.”
“Yes. And they could open more, if price is right.”
Dorian suppressed a shudder. Dark witches skirted the line, but they’d never been an outright threat. In Dorian’s lifetime, they’d played their part in maintaining the balance, carefully controlling the flow of demonic entities to ensure none of the supernatural races overpowered another or became too great a threat against humans.
“Is that what you want?” Dorian asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral. “Demons, storming the gates and flooding the city streets?”
“Nyet. I like being big fish in small pond. Too many fish come into my pond, they get ideas about taking over—like your Mr. Duchanes. But Alexei Rogozin? He has other aspirations.”
Rogozin. Just as Dorian had suspected.
Rogozin was currently number two among the greater demonic crime families, but if he could convince enough dark witches to fall in line, and they could turn up the tap on the flow of demons, and Rogozin united them all under the common cause of eradicating vampires and anyone else who got in his way…
“Many demons, many dark witches, all loyal to him,” Chernikov said, confirming Dorian’s fears. “This is Rogozin’s perfect world order. And he’s using traitor vampires to help build it.”
“House Duchanes,” Dorian grumbled.
“For now. But as soon as Rogozin is happy, he has no more use for Duchanes oranyvampires.”
“No, I’d imagine he doesn’t.”
It all made sense—everything from Duchanes attacking Chernikov’s demons in Central Park the night of the Salvatore auction, to his bid for Armitage holdings, to his sirelings’ attack on Charlotte at the fundraiser, to last night’s brutality. Even the attempted alliance was fake—a move Dorian now realized was backed not only by the other vampires of his house, but by Rogozin’s organization as well.
An organization whose leader—if Chernikov was right—wanted to wipe vampires off the map.
Chernikov raised his coffee cup and gave a single nod. “So you see, thisismutual problem, like you say. We have common interests. Keep our city in check, keep humans from discovering us, run our separate territories in best way we see fit, keep Rogozin from hostile takeover. Yes?”
“On all of that, we’re in agreement.”
“Perhaps we should make deal.”
Dorian sighed. He couldn’t imagine a worse idea.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t imagine a better one, either. As he’d told his brothers in Charlotte’s penthouse last night, his war was with Duchanes, not Chernikov. And while he didn’t particularly trust the demons, he saw no reason to make an enemy of the most powerful one in the city, nor to allow him to be seduced by vampires eager to see Dorian’s head on the proverbial pike.
Or Charlotte’s.
The thought sobered him, despite his promises to eradicate thoughts of her from his mind.
