Clara paced the floors of Lord Stapleton’s manor in a frenzied manner, unable to see or think straight. Her friend and lover had disappeared almost a day ago, and the search team had not reported anything in the last several hours. What was left of the logical part of her mind knew that Shane, her vampiric lord, master, and friend was doing the right thing, diverting only the resources that he could while keeping his eye on the major prize, namely his enemy in Savannah, one Lord Lacroix. Lacroix had defied his elder lord, the Tribunal, and just about everyone in his quest for power, and was now connected with the evil morning star drug trade. And to Clara, the only thing that mattered was that Shamira was missing.
The only solace that she was able to take was that Shane had finally relented and allowed Renata, his werejaguar chief of security, to lead the search for his missing dark child. The werewolf lord of Huntsville, namely one Clyde Pritchard, had lent a contingent of his lycanthropic brethren to the cause. Shamira had apparently helped a wandering family of werehorses escape from fake police officers who had been gathering up specimens to be bled dry, and they had called hours after Shamira’s disappearance to tell what little they knew.
With their help and some cellular triangulation, the searchers had found Shamira’s cell phone and had been able to track her scent through the woods to another abandoned stretch of road, but then her trail simply vanished. Renata believed that magic had to be involved, because there was no way that this many weres would fail to track anything otherwise.
“Clara, please,” Shane said as softly as he could, approaching her from behind, “I need you to calm down. You and Lillian and Coramen could try again and –”
“We . . . have tried . . . everything!” Clara snarled, knowing that she was being insolent for the sake of it. “Every locater spell, every tracking aid . . . everything. She’s vanished and it’s eating at me that I can’t do a damn thing to find her.”
Shane understood all too well. He knew that Shamira had gotten herself into this, but he also knew that he loved her like he loved all those he had brought over to the world of the undead. He knew that his assumption that because she was a sexual submissive would make her less like to be rebellious in other areas had been completely off.
He had pushed at her and ordered her as of late, partially because he had been stressed out about his own problems and partially because he simply did not know how to handle the woman. “She still lives,” he said, though he knew instinctively that Shamira was in dire trouble. “That means we still have hope. I understand your pain –”
“Bullshit,” Clara said, a drop of blood welling up in her eyes as she turned to face Shane. “You have no damn idea how I feel. Eighty years, Shane. I’ve been around for eighty years now, and I’ve NEVER felt this way, so don’t you damn well tell me you understand.”
The vampire lord sighed. He was not going to punish her, because doing so now would be pointless cruelty. And Clara was crying, something he had never seen her do. “You love her, don’t you?”
Clara clenched her fists. She’d never been able to put a name to her feelings for a woman she had only known for a few months, but love . . . love fit. She had never said it, not to Shamira or anyone. She had not said it because she was afraid that it was rushed or that it would not be returned. She had not said it because she could barely wrap her mind around the concept after having gone without for an entire human lifespan. But she would be damned if the first person she admitted it to was Shane. It would be Shamira or . . . or she would take it to her own final grave.
But Clara was not truly angry at Shane. She knew he bore a heavy burden. “How do you do it?” she asked in a choked voice. “How do you deal with it when one of your enforcers or assassins goes out and does something dangerous?”
“I pray,” Shane replied. “To whatever gods might be listening, and to any being capable of smiling on my house. I pray that they are strong enough to survive, and weep when they are not.”
Clara brushed away the tear, for she would not weep again. ‘Shamira is strong enough,’ she thought. ‘She has to be.’
————- ———–
Elsewhere . . .
————- ———–
What was left of Shamira Stapleton hung from the ceiling of the chamber like a side of meat at a slaughterhouse. She had been wounded badly in a gunfight with a dozen armed agents, then thought she had found refuge with a potential friend before being swiftly and brutally betrayed. The elf who had once warned her to get out of town many days earlier had apparently been in league with the fake cops and evil forces that had conspired to produce the drug known as morning star. He had knocked her out with the help of an enchanted club, chained her up, and tortured her until she barely resembled hamburger.
Her body was riddled with hundreds of deep scars, both of the breast implants she had possessed when she was turned had ruptured, leaving her body as deformed as a Picasso painting. Her jaw had been dislocated, her ribs broken, her knees fractured, but that had all just been the warm up. Daniel, the vile entity who had worked her over for the last . . . who knew how long . . . had then paralyzed her.
Even now, the only thing Shamira could feel from her waist down was the burning caused by the silver disk that Daniel had used to separate the two halves of her spine after sawing it into two. Shamira had gone from experiencing pain that she never even could have imagined to feeling . . . nothing. And that “nothing” terrified her even more.
Finally, he had apparently decided that he was finished. He looked up at her like an artist appreciating his finished work. He went to a nearby shelf and grabbed a digital camera and took several pictures of her. “People will speak of my work for centuries to come,” he said proudly, his voice completely lacking even the most basic of warmth. “Would you like to see?” He held the digital display up to her eyes.
Shamira would have wept if she could. Frankenstein’s monster would have cringed at the sight of her. The young were chained to the wall across from her was certainly cringing. He did not want the elf to do this to him. He did not want to wind up like Shamira.
“You are my masterpiece,” Daniel said again, running one strong hand across Shamira’s mutilated skin. He looked aroused by what he had done. Was he going to rape what was left of her? The thought no longer frightened the vampire. She felt nothing at all.
A bell rang and Daniel’s eyes were drawn instantly towards the ladder that led from his garage down into the bleeding room. His hand fished a gun out of the back of his pants, but it relaxed when he heard a voice drifting down through the grates.
“Daniel? We need to talk.”
“Come on down,” the elf said, grinning and looking at Shamira. Shamira’s response was to drool.
For a moment, something flashed inside her . . . hate. Complete, blinding hate.
A vampire slid down the ladder and turned to face them, his face displaying disgust when he saw Shamira’s remnants hanging there. “That her?”
“Yes. This was the troublesome creature that killed all of your collectors,” Daniel replied, running his fingertips around Shamira’s neck. “Well, all but one.”
Shamira’s eyes finally focused on the newcomer . . . Jonas. This was Lacroix’s security chief. She had been right, though that little victory meant nothing at this point.
“Fucking cunt,” the new vamp muttered, punching Shamira in the rips. She swung in the breeze and grunted. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? How long it took to get this operation rolling?” He looked at Daniel. “Couldn’t you have left her face intact long enough for me to see if I might recognize her?” Jonas preemptively waved off Daniel’s response. “Bah. At least tell me you tortured her to find out who she works for.”
“No, but does it really matter? She had to have been from somewhere nearby. Maybe one of Stapleton’s whores?”
“Hmm, maybe. He’s made a bunch recently.”
“Here’s her picture before I started working on her.”
Jonas stared at Daniel’s digital camera and frowned. “I don’t recognize her, but I spent most of the party trying to keep that ass from ruining everything.”
“It’s your job to control him,” Daniel said.
“Trust me, I’ve got my end handled. Except thanks to this thing, I’ll have to send some of Lacroix’s enforcers to get a few more weres and possibly a faerie. Damn Florida and Alabama lords have shored up the borders, and Stapleton has an army down here right now. Lacroix’s basically outlived his usefulness anyway. It would have been nice if we could have gotten Stapleton’s territories, but I’ll be satisfied with southern Georgia. For a while, at any rate.”
“Don’t forget your promise,” Daniel growled.
“I’m not a fool like Lacroix. I won’t stab a business partner in the back. You’ll get Macon, just like I promised.”
Shamira’s mind was furiously processing information. Too little, too late, but she was understanding. Jonas had done something to Lacroix to destabilize him. Shamira was now convinced that her theory about Lacroix being on morning star was correct, and now she was sure Jonas had gotten him hooked. It made the elder vampire unstable and easy to control. So Lacroix makes a big mess, gets killed by Shane or the Tribunal, and a too-young but handy vampire like Jonas gets his territory? It made sense. All this evil, just because Jonas wanted to be in charge of a small patch of Georgia? It made Shamira’s blood boil. Too bad her body was incapable of doing anything about it.
“What about the insurance policy?” Daniel asked.
For the first time, Jonas appeared nervous to be talking in front of Shamira. “Not here,” he muttered.
Some dark part of Shamira had a chuckle about that. What could she possibly do to them now? The simple act of existing was unbearable. The parts of her that could still feel cried out for death, while the rest simply hung there.
Before he left, Daniel gave her another grin, then his hand drifted to the wall. “I’ll leave you alone to think about what it means to lie to me,” he chortled, then flicked the switch. And Shamira’s body screamed in agony even when her throat could not. Her Shadow Healing had kicked in and it was trying to repair damage that could not be repaired. Wounds cause by silver scarred over instantly, and vampiric healing, even when boosted by her Aspect, could do nothing.