Revenire
Revenire
Hunter’s Moon (Volume 4)
Ramón Terrell
Copyright © 2013 Ramón Terrell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
* * *
Tal Publishing
Published by Tal Publishing Vancouver BC
ebook Edition: September 2020
First Edition: January 2013
Printed in the USA
Contents
Dedications
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Also by Ramón Terrell
About the Author
Dedications
Tanya, my loving wife, Terrel, my big bro, Fandy and Leonard Paisley, the best parents-in-law I could have prayed for, and Moms and Pops, parents beyond measure. Every work I have done and every work I will ever do is for you.
Chapter 1
Three remained. Three of the seven who had been captured. Alicia had not exaggerated. Not that Mariska thought she would. From the moment Mariska had seen the look in her eyes, she knew that Alicia was dangerous. Perhaps more dangerous than Massius.
She settled in a corner and surrendered to her thoughts. Across the room, Reed paced back and forth between her and Akin. Aside from the twins, Mariska had five allies who served as her eyes and ears in Castle Peles. She’d thought herself clever in keeping her interactions with them infrequent and restricted to the day. Apparently her adversary was more crafty.
Either Mariska had made a mistake, or the Elder had suspected her from the start. Either way, she had patiently waited. Instead of dispatching Mariska’s spies as she’d discovered them, the Elder had waited until she was sure she had discovered them all, and moved on them at once.
“We could just talk,” Reed suggested. “Tell her just enough to skirt the truth, but not enough to do any real damage. Maybe she might believe we fear death enough to tell her everything.”
Mariska narrowed her eyes at him. The younger vampire’s lips tightened and he sat on the floor and leaned his head against the wall.
“That idea is not only a bad one,” Akin said, “but an irritating one as well. We weren’t able to fool Alicia with our best efforts. Do you really think a half-conceived story skirting the truth would fool her?” The dark haired vampire shook his head. “A better question. Do you believe she would not syphon the truth out of our idiotic attempts to misdirect her?”
“If you’ve got anything better to offer,” Reed said, staring at the ceiling, “I’m listening.”
“What good we could do from in here, I have no idea,” Akin admitted. “If we must die, then better to die without taking the chance of failing Eldest Hunter.”
“But if we were able to convince her that we decided to side with her and betray Eldest-”
“We would die anyway,” Mariska interrupted him.
“Why so?” Reed asked, lowering his gaze from the ceiling to stare at her.
Mariska returned his stare until he looked away. “A chameleon can shift its color more than once,” she said.
Reed frowned. “What?”
She continued to stare at Reed, wondering if it was a mistake to keep him with her. “Are you truly this dull-witted, or do you simply enjoy having the obvious detailed out for you?”
“You’re saying she wouldn’t trust us if we would be so willing to betray the trust of Eldest?”
“I wouldn’t,” Mariska answered. “I would kill you the moment you imparted all your information and pledged your new allegiance to me.”
“That’s it, then,” Reed said. “We just wait to die.”
“Or wait until an opportunity presents itself,” Akin said.
“I don’t know what opportunity that would be,” Reed replied. “Every time Alicia sends for one of our number, two Reapers come. I’ve no doubt that they go before Alicia and say whatever it is they have to say, and then she kills them. I don’t see any opportunities lying in the path between this room and her chambers.”
Akin gave him a look. “Do not worry so much, boy. We will find an opportunity or we will die. This is simple. Try not to fret so much, it is annoying and cowardly.”
“I didn’t know you were giving orders as well,” Reed snapped.
“I didn’t know we had a cravenly Hunter in our midst,” Akin replied. He looked over at Reed with a bored expression. “I thought only Remy occupied that station.”
Reed leapt to his feet.
“Be silent,” Mariska ordered.
Both males turned to regard her, then Akin lowered himself to the floor and sat cross-legged. Reed looked from one to the other. Mariska watched the indecision on Reed’s face as he looked from her to Akin. The fool was about to speak again. Must she kill him?
“What about Barakus and Lydia?” he asked.
Akin sucked air through his teeth and Mariska shot Reed a warning glare. “Never speak your ally’s name, fool,” Akin hissed at him.
Mariska continued to glare at the young vampire. Massius had made him a Hunter prematurely in an attempt to discredit Yako, hoping the inexperienced Reed would die under the Eldest Hunter’s command. The plan had failed and now Yako was back in Vancouver, hopefully due to return soon.
Mariska’s eyes never left Reed’s, and the look that crossed his face when he averted his eyes told that he’d read the threat in her expression. If he spoke another word, Mariska would see to his uncreation before Alicia ever got the chance to interrogate him.
She watched him until he went and leaned against the far wall and slid down to the floor. Once she returned to her thoughts, she had to admit that it was a good question, if a stupid one to voice aloud.
Lydia and Barakus had not been among their number when they were captured, and without any intelligence outside the door to their room, there was no way to know whether the two had been captured or killed. If they had somehow managed to avoid Alicia’s attention, there was still hope. Mariska closed her eyes. There was a reason Yako had chosen her as his Second. Like himself, she was not given to concepts such as hope, or luck. She would make her own luck, and didn’t concern herself with hoping about anything.
Time passed indeterminably in their windowless holding room. As if in a mockery of comfort, Alicia had seen them detained in a spacious room with warm half-wood half-stonework decor, but devoid of any furnishings. It was a beautiful room with smoothly polished hardwood floors, but it was nothing more than four walls.
“I wonder how long she’s going to keep us here,” Reed said.
“You just can’t stand it, can you?” Akin asked. “You just can’t stand to be quiet. The laws state that only purebloods can be Hunters, but I’m beginning to think they made an exception. You burble like a fledgling shaquora who just can’t be still.”
Reed bristled at the reproach. A sure way to instigate a fight with a pureblooded vampire was to liken them to a shaquora; a vampire who had previously been a human and had been turned to the night. “Are we at that level now? Insults?”
Akin shrugged. “Observation.”
“Go to hell,” Reed said through clenched teeth.
Akin laughed at him. “I’ll send you there first, kid.”
“Try it.”
“Be … silent.” Mariska leveled her gaze at the other two Hunters. Yako might very well have ended both their lives for this foolishness. “I will not say it again. Speak if you must, but only if it is something that will aid our situation. If you have no such information or revelation to share, do not speak.”
Akin bowed his head in deference, and Reed did the same, if stiffly. Mariska would need to wo
rk with that one if he was to survive at Yako’s side. She was beginning to see what the Eldest Hunter saw in the boy. He was possessed of an occasional cunning that was useful, and he was quick on his feet. But he was also impetuous and impatient, qualities that led to fatal mistakes.
The sound of heavy bolts being released pulled Mariska from her thoughts. The thick iron door swung open and a somewhat short woman stepped into the room followed by three males. They each bore a struggling captive.
The female looked at Mariska. It was amazing how identical she was to her twin sister. The same black hair, green eyes, and diminutive five foot three inch frame. They could even mimic each other’s personalities if the situation required it. Mariska always knew, however. It was their eyes. Where Meilana’s eyes were strong and sure, Tara’s eyes were cold and remorseless. It was the main trait that separated the twins, and was why Tara was a Reaper and Meilana was a Hunter.
“You’ve gotten careless,” the small woman said.
Mariska bowed her head in respect to one of a higher rank. “You suggest our foe unworthy?”
Tara conceded the point with a nod. “And so it’s time for another four of our species to die.”
She nodded to the three males who one by one dispatched their captives with a silver knife through the throat. The lifeless bodies fell to the floor where they began to rapidly decay, death rushing to claim its prey.
“The Lady Alicia may be crafty, but her servants have not been blessed with such guile.” She shook her head in mock regret. “Only one left.”
One of the male vampires put away his knife and drew a sword. The pure silver blade glimmered in the light of the room. Mariska thought it ironic that death could be so beautiful.
“It will be as you command,” the male said as he stepped forward, gleaming sword at his side. “But are they not to die before Elder Alicia?”
“Normally, yes,” Tara said. “But it seems they had a stroke of courage and killed you before we were forced to kill them.” The Reaper’s voice was so casual she might have been speaking over a mug of tea.
The male turned a questioning expression on her. As soon as he’d turned his back, one of the other males sent his silver knife spinning end over end to imbed itself in the back of his neck. The stricken man’s eyes bulged and he reached back, trying in vain to pull the weapon free. In seconds the strength drained from his body and he fell to his knees, decaying.
They watched until it was over. Four piles of clothes and ash were the only evidence the dead vampires had ever been there.
“You brought one with you who was loyal to Alicia?” Akin asked.
“Because you needed to show that there was a struggle,” Reed reasoned. “And it would have been too neat if you had just killed us without any casualty.”
Tara glanced at him and then at Mariska. “Obviously I would not sacrifice one of my own men, and those three,” she indicated the ashy clothes on the floor, “were annoying anyway.”
“We don’t have much time,” one of the other males said.
Tara pointed at a pile of clothes. “Dust it off and get dressed. You have the ill luck of being the only woman here, and will need to leave clothes with what is, of course, your remains.” She looked at the other two. “You as well.”
While the three prisoners changed, Tara and her two remaining escorts carefully stabbed through their old clothes and rolled them in the ash. Afterward, they slipped out of the room and through the corridors. They came to the same huge steel door that Braggus had taken Yako through. So much had happened since then that it seemed long ago since they’d first spoken with the giant Reaper.
“I trust you understand I cannot accompany you any further,” Tara said. There are no guards present at the moment, and no one is searching Sinaia for you, since you are detained. I’m sure I need not stress the importance of timing when making your resurrection?”
“No need at all,” Mariska replied, bowing her head respectively. The Reaper had put herself and her sister at considerable risk in aiding them. “Thank you.”
Tara waved her away. “Just keep away from here at least until that gruff Eldest Hunter of yours returns. I’m sure he’s tailing that chicken-hearted cretin all the way back here.”
Mariska couldn’t help a half smile at the truth of it. “I’m confident he is.”
“And hopefully he won’t be long behind Remy,” Tara continued. “This situation is coming to a head rapidly. Vicken suspects something and is keeping an eye on Massius, which leaves Alicia more room to move.”
“Can you not warn him?” Mariska asked, stepping through the door behind Akin and Reed.
“No,” Tara answered. “And not for lack of desire. I cannot discuss this matter openly, but when the time is right and the proper threat arises, I can act.”
Mariska nodded. As the elite guard of the Elders, Reapers underwent a process that made them unable to strike against those they protected, and unable to discuss the inner details of their ranks. Her unusual mind bond with her sister was a way around it, and a secret known only to Mariska and Yako.
She turned away as one of Tara’s men closed the door. The night was quiet and still, the normally rainy weather cold and breezy.
“What now, Second?” Akin asked, coming to stand beside her.
Mariska stared out into the starless night and beyond, where her thoughts resided. The weather may be calm this night, but a storm of a different nature was surely coming. “We go to Sinaia tonight. Tomorrow I will speak with the lycans.”
Chapter 2
They sat on the couch talking, sipping two steaming mugs of tea—chamomile, no doubt—and sharing little fresh baked cookies. It was just another night for them. Another night of gossiping and awful television and giggling.
Jelani sighed. Even from his position on the roof of a building across the street, he could still read their lips. They had no recollection of the night’s events. No memory of the many vampires that had converged upon his and Daniel’s apartment in an almost successful effort to kill them both. The stray thought of his friend sent an icy lump into the pit of Jelani’s stomach.
He shook his head in regret. Wen and Alisha had no memory of any of it, and no memory of him or Daniel either. He supposed it was for the best. Whatever vampire had wiped their minds of this whole mess had done them a favor. Still, it hurt. And that they knew nothing of Daniel’s death made it worse, though a small, selfish part of him envied Wen the pain she was spared.
“I’m sorry, man. I tried and failed. I failed you, and I failed the girls. But I promise you I’ll make it right.” The voice that answered him from behind chilled his blood.
“You gonna do that all by yourself?”
Jelani froze. The voice he’d just heard had to have been his imagination, which meant he was likely going insane.
“Cat got your tongue?” the voice asked. “You not going to turn around and greet your dear old friend?”
Daniel? How was that possible? He saw his best friend dead, that huge guy looming over his lifeless body while his lifeblood pooled underneath him. Slowly, Jelani turned around. Standing a dozen feet behind him was indeed Daniel. Questions assaulted Jelani, not the least of which was the fact that Daniel had managed to get so close without Jelani hearing him. Since he’d been turned, Jelani’s hearing was many times more acute than when he’d been human. He opened his mouth, but could think of nothing to say.