“Alexei,” Dorian said, “I can assure you, Gabriel is—”
Rogozin held up his hand. “I understand. I had brother once too. But prince—Gabriel—believe me when I tell you my organization wants peace. We want to work in this city, to exist below radar of human authorities. We do not wish to bring wars of underworld into streets of New York.”
“On that, we are absolutely aligned,” Dorian said, and Gabriel nodded.
“You have plan for dealing with succubus?” Rogozin asked.
“We are working with dark witches on a spell that will bind her power and keep her trapped here long enough for us to eliminate her,” Dorian said, thankfully leaving out the part about rescuing Jacinda’s father from hell. “But our witches have not yet perfected the spell.”
Rogozin nodded. “I do not know about magic and binding spells—that is witch’s domain. But I do know way to kill original demon like Viansa.”
“What about Azerius?” Gabriel pressed.
“I told you, vampire prince. Those who’ve sworn fealty to King of Ravens cannot actively take up arms against him.”
“But—”
“Butto leave something is very different from taking something, yes?”
Gabriel reined in the urge to ask him if he was drunk. “I don’t understand, Alexei. Leave something?”
“Taking, leaving, it is all matter of interpretation.” He rose from his chair, lifting the small black briefcase he’d carried in with him. Then, setting it on the table, he said, “I am old. Not ancient, as you helpfully reminded me, but old. Memory is… unreliable. Sometimes I forget things. I leave them behind. Sometimes others find these things. Sometimes they remember conversations that I, being an old demon who is fond of vodka, do not.”
Cole—clearly fluent in the language of the perpetually inebriated—nodded sagely, but Gabriel was lost. He understood that Alexei meant to leave the briefcase behind, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of the man’s cryptic babble.
“Thank you for enlightening evening,” Rogozin said with a smile that appeared genuine. Then, turning to Gabriel, “And for honesty. When we meet again, perhaps we will drink to surviving King of Blood and Bullshit, yes?”
Gabriel had no idea what the hell to say to all that, so he just nodded and reached out to shake Alexei’s hand.
The demon said his farewells, then saw himself out.
After replacing the vodka with scotch and bourbon—and Cole’s favorite cheap whiskey—Dorian finally opened the briefcase.
“Bloody fucking hell,” he whispered.
“Thatold thing?” Cole shook his head. “And here I thought he was leaving us some of them Russian dolls or more vodka or… something.”
Dorian flipped the case around so Gabriel could see it.
His stomach bottomed out at the sight. “Is that…”
“The Blade of Azerius,” Dorian said.
Gabriel stared in utter disbelief.
Nestled into the velvet-lined case was a bone-handled dagger with a blade cut like a raven’s wing—a blade as magical as it was ancient.
It was a weapon with the ability to strip a demonic essence from its human vessel with a single nick, trapping it for eternity inside the blade itself, never to re-spawn, never to awaken. The effect on humans was equally dire, expelling a human soul straight to hell, turning the body into a vessel ripe for demonic possession.
It was the weapon Dorian had shoved into Malcolm’s chest at Bloodbath, saving Charlotte’s life and inadvertently summoning Azerius himself—one more falling domino in the chain that eventually led to Malcolm’s brutal demise.
The lore wasn’t clear on what the blade would do to vampires. In Malcolm’s case, it’d turned him into a vessel for Azerius. But then Dorian had killed the vessel, turning Malcolm’s body to ash and banishing Azerius back to hell. They had no idea what, if anything, had happened to Malcolm’s soul.
Through bleary eyes, Gabriel stared at the black blade, unable to form words. Unable to form a coherent thought.
For hundreds of years, the dagger had been hidden inside a sculpture—one Augustus had stolen from the former vampire king before he murdered him and usurped the throne.
Dorian and Charlotte had discovered it at Ravenswood a few months ago.
