Mumbling thank you, Ari took them and walked out before she said something to Sophistrina that she couldn’t take back.
“I just meant whatever he’s doing, it’s given you…” Sophie’s voice was cut off by the slamming door.
Ari stuffed the computer information in her pocket and hurried around the corner of the house, hoping to get out of sight quickly if anyone attempted to follow. When no one did, she continued to an isolated area behind the cabin, threading her way through several tree stumps and leftover logs from the building projects. She stopped and leaned against the back of the building, closing her eyes.
Sophistrina had years of experience with vampires, and she knew their behaviors, their strengths and weakness. And, yes, they were pragmatic enough to adapt when the situation required it. But Sophie was wrong about Andreas. For him to truly join the O-Seven and embrace what they stood for would violate everything he was. He wouldn’t do it.
With that confirmed in her own thoughts, Ari tried to figure out why he was playing nice with the elders. She didn’t have much to go on. A little vampire logic might be helpful. She pulled out her cell phone to check the time. Gabriel wouldn’t be awake yet, but Daron might. She perched on a newly sawed off tree stump and keyed in the Toronto number.
She had to convince three different screeners that she knew the prince.
“Wow, Daron. You’re getting as hard to reach as the White House.” She was glad to hear his gruff voice. There was a time, not so long ago, when she was afraid of this man. Not that he couldn’t be frightening if he wanted to, but he had accepted her, initially for Andreas’s sake, but she’d strengthened the relationship by saving his life two years ago.
He chuckled. “Modern conveniences have only added to the need for vigilance.”
“In other words, you don’t want to be bothered with unimportant calls.”
“Something like that, but I’d never put you in that category. I assume this call is about Andreas. What do you think of their demand?”
“What demand?”
“Is that not why you called? A messenger delivered the elders’ demand a few hours ago before I was awake: Andreas’s life in return for giving them control of the Toronto court.”
“Well, crap. That makes no sense.” How did this square with the scene the fox had observed?
“How so? It makes perfect sense to me,” Daron said. “I consider myself a man of honor, Arianna. They know my friendship with Andreas will force me to consider their proposition.”
“But he wouldn’t expect you to accept.” She almost choked on the words. She would give anything to have Andreas back, but she couldn’t ask others to do so. Not Gabriel, not Daron. Andreas would never forgive her if she did.
“I have no doubt you are correct, but I lose with either decision,” the vampire prince said. “I can retain my court but lose my friend and be known as the prince who allowed another to die in his place. For make no mistake, I am the one they wish to harm.” He bit off the last words. “Or I can relinquish Toronto and start over someplace else. It would not be the first time. But I do not know I can trust the elders to keep their side of the bargain and release Andreas. I would need more than their simple word.”
“Hell, yes. But I didn’t know anything about this offer. I just find it confusing.” She explained what the fox had seen, except she didn’t mention the woman. She didn’t even want to think about that yet. “Some vampire dude named Bastian even had his arm draped over Andreas’s shoulder.”
“Bastian.” Sudden silence followed the quiet repetition of that one word.
“Do you know him? I’m told he’s one of the bigwigs.”
“Yes, I know him.”
“What can you tell me about him? Would he have any special interest in Andreas?”
“I need to think about this.”
“Think about what? Why do you sound so strange?” Then a possibility popped into her head. “I don’t mean to get personal, but is Bastian your sire?”
Deafening silence this time. She continued to wait, hoping she hadn’t made him so angry he’d hang up. He finally asked, “Did Andreas tell you this?”
“Only that your sire was one of the elders and that’s why they hadn’t tried to kill you. Andreas wouldn’t tell me his name.”
“I am not certain he knows. It is fairly common knowledge I have a connection to the elders, but I made a pledge to Bastian that I would not reveal his name.”
“But the elders have lots of descendents, why the secrecy? What’s so special about your relationship? Unless…are you a First Son?”
Daron’s heavy sigh answered the question for her.
“I don’t understand. Why would he hide that?” The first male and the first female sired by any vampire held special places of honor in the bloodline.
“Being his First Son makes me an even bigger embarrassment.” Daron hesitated. “I admired Bastian in the beginning, until I saw the streak of cruelty in the elders’ treatment of our people. When I became vocal in my opinions, the council ordered me to stop such heresy. I defied them and left the court. That act made me a hindrance to Bastian’s ambitions. At first he tried to force me to rejoin the council.” Daron’s pause was longer this time. “He finally realized he could not control me, and if I had not been his First Son, he might have had me killed. As it was, he offered me his on-going protection if I would cut all public association with his name. We have both honored our bargain.”
“Would he protect Andreas?”
“Because of me?” Daron released a bark of humorless laughter. “The opposite, in fact. The elders have gone out of their way to hunt down and destroy my friends.”
“I know that’s what the council has done, but maybe Bastian hasn’t been part of it. Are you positive he wouldn’t help?”
“Do not get your hopes up, Arianna. Have no illusions about my sire. He is not a good man. He obviously agreed to Andreas’s abduction. It takes a unanimous vote of the council to interfere with any vampire prince. No, it is more likely he intends to use Andreas to discredit and humiliate me.”
It was a harsh judgment. Could a father hate his son that much? In her experiences with the Riverdale vampires, they took care of their own. Those that didn’t were ostracized. Had Bastian been totally alienated by Daron’s beliefs? Cut off forever from a First Son?
Daron was a First Son. It was hard to believe. Now that she thought about it, it also made him much older than she’d thought. Not hundreds of years old, but maybe thousands.
“When do you have to give the O-Seven an answer?”
“They gave no deadline. But soon.”
Soon. She was so sick of that word. It had echoed in her head all week, yet she wasn’t any closer to making something happen than when she first came to Germany. “Any ideas on how I can get him out before you have to do anything?” She bit her lip, hating the hint of desperation that had crept into her voice.
“I have spent the last few days thinking of little else. I can only suggest that you do what you do best. The unexpected. Trick them, surprise them. But don’t try to fight them or you won’t have a chance.”
Ari hung up and thought about what he’d said. The unexpected. Hell, maybe she’d just march up to the castle door and knock.
As she shoved the phone in her pocket, her fingers touched the papers there, and she pulled them out. This might be a good time to find out all she could about Bastian. His name just kept cropping up. She moved to the side of the building until light from a window fell across the printed pages.
The witches had neatly divided the background information into categories and columns, beginning with a physical description that didn’t amount to much: medium height and weight, dark hair, age: unknown, mid-thirties in appearance. There was no sire listed. No one seemed to know how the O-Seven came to be. She glanced away from the paper and thought about the theories she’d heard: that they were sired by a son of Satan, mutations caused by some long extinct disease, or cast off by an alien race. She’d have to ask, if she ever met one of them and survived the encounter.
She dropped her eyes to finish reading. Bastian’s original home was recorded as Bavaria, but it was followed by a question mark. He had a First Daughter named Elise, who was an enforcer, but the spot for a First Son was blank. That squared with what Daron had told her.
She flipped through the pages, skimming his known history. Geez. For Daron to say he wasn’t a nice man was an understatement. Bastian had a recorded history of bloody massacres, spanning nearly two thousand years. By comparison he had mellowed over the last five centuries or he was just too busy with council affairs to wander around the world slaughtering people.
She skipped to a paragraph on the last page, covering Bastian’s primary abilities. Top of the list was mind control. Well, damn. She wouldn’t be staring into this guy’s eyes. Funny Daron hadn’t mentioned it, but he’d been more focused on history and the practicalities of gaining Andreas’s freedom.
And so should she, instead of wondering what made Bastian tick.
She refolded the papers, stuck them in her pocket, and returned to her perch on the stump. She still hadn’t figured out how to get into the O-Seven’s stronghold—and then out again.
She was obsessing about Daron’s prediction on fighting the elders—“you won’t have a chance”—when Lilith finally joined her, dropping onto one of the larger logs. Ari shared the news about the O-Seven’s demand and Daron’s concerns that she needed a plan that didn’t include what he considered an unwinnable fight.
“Well, he was honest anyway,” Lilith said. “Not that we ever thought we could wipe them out short of dropping a nuclear bomb.”
Ari chuckled to herself, remembering her earlier thoughts of a similar solution. Macabre humor. Funny how weapons of mass destruction came to mind when you were talking about vampires. “Well, I don’t think Andreas would appreciate being nuked with the others. So how do we do snatch him out of there without a fight?”
“Convince Sophie to try the teleportation again.”
“She’d need to train new witches. Only six remain of her original coven—not enough to power a teleportation spell. That could take weeks. And since every witch’s energy is different, we’d have to blend the new magics with mine all over again.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“Yeah, and time consuming.” Ari picked up her cell phone again and checked the time. “But unless Gabriel can suggest something, I’m out of other options. I’ll have to go to Sophie, and the coven might refuse. Rebekah will definitely be against it.” She finished putting the code into her phone and waited for Gabriel to pick up.
“Hey, Ari,” he answered. “Any good news?”
“Sort of. Andreas has been seen alive. And apparently well. They claim he’s made friends with the elders.”
“That’s a relief. But he’s no friend of the O-Seven.” Gabriel chuckled. “What an act he must be putting on. You know he can be diplomatic when he has to—but friends? Never.”
She related what the foxes had said, even casually mentioning the woman—after all, this was Gabriel—and then told him most of her conversation with Daron, withholding the Toronto prince’s relationship to Bastian. She wasn’t about to get caught in the middle of a pledge made between very powerful vampires.
Gabriel was silent for a moment. “It’s the woman that bothers you most, isn’t it? Whoever she is, she’s meaningless to him. You’re the only woman he thinks about.” He paused, as if picking his words. “When you’re around the O-Seven, you have to say and do certain things just to survive. He must have convinced them he’ll abandon Daron, which makes them bloody idiots.” His voice grew cautious. “Surely you don’t believe it?”
“No, but I know him. Others don’t understand, including Sophistrina. If we can’t think of some other way to get Andreas out of the stronghold, my only chance is the witches. And they have no reason to trust that he’s any different than the others. To them, this looks bad.”
“They don’t have to believe in Andreas. Only in you.”
She thought about it. Would it be enough for the witches to put aside their fear they’d be rescuing the enemy? Could she stretch sisterhood that far? “Any other ideas?”
“Hunt down and kill that damned warlock. Then you’ll be the only one with fire magic, and even the elders aren’t immune to fire.”
“It’d help if I knew which brother to trust and which one to kill. One of them has a small scar above his right eye. Does that fit the guy you saw?”
“No, I’m sure of it, and I’m good with faces. Which of the Kirsch brothers has a scar?”
“Gerhard.”
“So Warin is the killer. Twenty-one of our vampires died inside the compound that day, plus five lycanthropes. That doesn’t include the three people who died outside. If Andreas didn’t expect me to stay here, I’d love to accompanying you to Germany and rip out the warlock’s throat.” Gabriel’s voice held more than a hint of loathing.
Ari nodded on her end of the phone. “If I get a chance, I’ll tell him you said hello.”
Gabriel laughed before hanging up. It wasn’t a happy sound.
Chapter Thirteen
“Now that you know Gerhard isn’t working for the O-Seven, maybe you should ask him to help you,” Lilith suggested. She and Ari were still sitting outside in the dark, debating their alternatives. A couple of the witches had been in and out of the cabin during the discussion, but no one had come near the Americans. “Two fire witches against one would be good odds.”
“He offered. I just didn’t trust him enough to accept. Maybe I was too hasty.” The cell phone in her pocket buzzed.
“It’s me, Gabriel.”
“Didn’t we just talk?” It had been less than five minutes.
His serious tone didn’t match her flippancy. “I may have given you bad information. I don’t think so, but now I’m not certain.”
“About what? Cut to the chase, Gabriel.”
“It’s the scar. A friend who was locked in the audience chamber during the attack thinks the warlock had one. I’m almost positive he’s wrong, but in case he isn’t…I didn’t want you trusting the wrong guy.”
“Damn.” Just when she thought the mystery was solved. “Well, thanks, I appreciate the call back. I’ll be careful around them.” She hung up. “So much for getting Gerhard’s help. He could be the bad guy after all.”