Stephen awoke and sprang to his feet snarling in fury the instant the sun’s tyranny and power over the day released him. He slammed into the bars of his cage before he realised they were there, and howled in pain. They were electrified. They had caged him like an animal. Where was Marie, what had they done with her? The thought of her dead or harmed almost unhinged him. His eyes blazed in fury. When he freed himself, he would slaughter every AML sympathiser in the city. He would make them beg for death before the end, and then he would drain them dry! More, he would hire Rachelle’s necromance to bring them back and hold them on the edge of death while he tortured them into gibbering mindlessness! There wouldn’t be a single one of them left sane before he gave them the mercy of death.

His fangs ran out of their own accord at the thought.

His eyes darted around his prison looking for escape. The bars of the cage were thick. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to overcome them. The electrification was overkill. Pain wouldn’t stop him from attacking the bars if he’d had any hope of escape that way. He didn’t. The cage had been built with his people, or maybe shifters, in mind. AML were psychopathic fundamentalists, but they knew their business. They weren’t in the habit of underestimating the monsters they hunted, and the strength of the bars proved they hadn’t here.

There was no escape.

He reached for Edward and found nothing. Had they killed him? No! There was no reason to assume that, but what else could prevent him reaching his human servant? Nothing he could think of. Grief clogged his throat and his rage built again. It threatened to send him careening into madness where he would spend it and his strength attacking the bars. No, he would not be a fool. He would husband his strength and spend it wisely upon killing his enemies.

He forced the rage away. He needed to be ready for any opportunities that might arise. They hadn’t killed him, and they could have done that at any time while he slept the day away. They must want something from him; he couldn’t imagine what, but something. He must find a way to turn their need against them.

Edward...

He closed his eyes wanting to howl his grief to the heavens. The thought of his old friend dead was like a dagger in his heart—sharp and immediate. They had been together many years. His poor friend... but wait. Wait a minute; just wait. There was no reason to think that Edward was dead. He hadn’t seen or felt him killed, and he would have. The blood bond meant that if Edward had been injured or killed he would have felt it, and he hadn’t. There was hope then. Yes, he would concentrate upon hope. He must assume all was well with his friend and that he was being blocked somehow, but how? He knew of no way. It didn’t matter how, he decided firmly schooling his emotions. He would not assume Edward was dead until confronted with his corpse, and even then, he would invent a way to bring him back!

He took a calming breath. Some magic or other trick was blocking him. That was what had happened. AML wanted him to assume they had killed Edward. They wanted him to despair. He would not be fooled.

He stepped close to the bars, careful not to touch them, and took stock of his new situation. He was underground. He could sense the earth all around him. It was part of being vampire, this affinity with the earth. His cage was one of many in the room; each one a steel cube roughly twenty feet on a side. Their occupants were diverse; most were human, one or two were shifters, but he wasn’t the only vampire. Three of the cages held newborns.

He reached out to them, trying to sense their lineage, but something was wrong. He couldn’t sense a bond; he should be able to sense it easily. He might not recognise their maker if he was new to the city, but familiar or not the bond should still be there. He frowned, feeling only emptiness from where they lay. That wasn’t right. They weren’t awake yet but that was normal for such young vampires, and he could tell that these three were very young. By the feel of them, they were only a few days old, certainly no older than a week. They probably wouldn’t wake for hours. Asleep or awake didn’t matter; he should easily detect their bond with their maker, but it was absent. That was impossible. Bestowing the gift always forged a link between a maker and his child. Always. That was one reason why so few were turned. The bond was intense and very personal.

There was something very wrong with them. They didn’t feel quite as weak as they should. Even inert he could sense their strength. They were far beneath him; that at least was as it should be, but their essence wasn’t a constant low-level hum in his head. Their auras were flaring like the vampire he had killed… was it only last night? These three were akin to O’Neal. Sired by the same maker then? If so, there was something very wrong with Michael. His children were unstable, probably due to the absence of the bond, which was an impossibility... he frowned again at the sleepers. It was no longer impossible and these three were proof.

“Mister Edmonton, do you know me?”

Stephen turned to his left to regard a man in the cage next to his. He recognised the face, but had no name for it. “I recognise you from Marie’s home.”

The man nodded and winced. He put a hand to the back of his head and brought it back bloody. The sight of the blood made Stephen hyper aware of his hunger. He hadn’t fed before his visit with Marie, and he’d spent the strength that he drained from his enemies fighting them. He doubted he would be allowed to feed tonight. He kept his distance in case something unfortunate occurred—his fangs were tingling, and that was a warning. He needed to feed within the next few hours, sooner if possible.

“I’m Andrew—Mister Stirling’s chief of security.”

“Forgive me for saying this, but I must question your competence given the circumstances.”

Andrew grinned briefly. “Me too. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. Miss Stirling’s father is dead did you know?”

He shook his head. He did not remember seeing that, but he’d been busy with their attackers at the time.

“A heart attack I think. Our hosts were very upset. They wanted him for something. Money probably.”

“AML fundraisers are often bloody affairs.”

Andrew nodded glumly.

“Where is Marie?”

“She’s here. They dragged her off a few minutes before you woke up. Someone wanted to speak with her. I don’t think they’ll hurt her, not now her father is dead. They need her.”

Andrew didn’t sound entirely certain of that, more hopeful of her safety than sure of it. Stephen had to hope she was safe too, because there was little he could do to affect matters. Andrew moved closer to the bars and Stephen backed up hurriedly. He was excruciatingly aware of the fresh blood perfuming the air.

“No closer.”

Andrew frowned, but stopped his advance.

“I’m in need of blood. I will not vouch for your safety if you come too close. Take this as my warning and apology in one. If you come any closer, you’ll become breakfast.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Not a very funny one, but no, not really. I did not feed last night and I doubt our hosts plan to indulge my hunger tonight. These bars will keep you safe from me, but I advise you not to approach within reach.”

Andrew nodded and took an extra step back. “Thanks.”

“You are welcome,” he said but wished he could have apologised after he’d drank from the man. His hunger snarled and spit in the back of his brain, urging him to feed. It wasn’t enough to take control of him yet, but it would eventually. A starving vampire was little more than a ravening beast. “We need to escape before I lose all control.”

“How long do we have?”

“A few hours. I can control it for that long. If we’re still here tomorrow night, I advise you to keep your distance and trust nothing I do or say. Do not look me in the eyes for any reason.”

Andrew had already been avoiding eye contact. “Have you any ideas how to escape?”

“There’s no escape,” one of the other prisoners said. He was human, around thirty or thirty-five years old, and red haired. His unshaven face looked haggard, hinting at the length of time he’d been a prisoner. “They’ll feed you to your friend or one of the other vamps around here. That’s what you’re here for.”

Stephen pursed his lips thoughtfully. “If so, what am I here for, do you know?”

The man nodded and indicated the newborns. “You’re here to make more of those freaks.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“You’re not the first vampire to occupy that cage. I’ve been here a long time. Months I think. I’ve lost count of the days. He told me what they did to him.”

“And what was that?”

“They drained him and used his blood to make more vamps like the freaks there.”

Drained. The thought chilled him. “Why do you call them freaks?”

“It’s what he called them. He said they were abominations and unnatural. Kind of funny when you think about it.”

“How so?”

“He’s undead. It’s a bit rich calling them abominations when he’s one himself don’t you think?”

Stephen frowned. Either this man was an idiot, or he didn’t care what happened to him. “A fully signed up member of AML are you?”

“That was a while ago, in college. I say live and let live these days.”

“Sure you do,” Andrew said, sounding disgusted. “What did they say when you tried to re-join and talk your way out of here?”

The man scowled. “They laughed.”

“This vampire,” Stephen said. “Did he have a name?”

“Fabion or something like that.”

“Fabron? Michael Fabron?”

“You know him?”

He nodded.

“A friend?”

He nodded again.

“Small world eh? He’s not dead if that’s what you’re thinking. They took him out a while ago to drain him again. They always do that when you guys are asleep. I guess it’s safer.”

That made perfect sense and horrified him at the same time. They were taking no chances. He would be completely helpless to prevent them using his blood as they liked, just as Michael was now. Was this perversion of the gift the reason for the lack of a bond between Michael and his children? He couldn’t see why using blood that way would have that effect, but perhaps there was more to the process than he knew.

“They’ll bring him back soon. You better hope they don’t put him in with you or your friend. They get off on watching.”

“How do you mean?” Andrew said uneasily.

“He’ll be mad with hunger and won’t be able to stop himself. They like to bet on how long he can hold out.”

Poor Michael. He was such a gentle sort, relatively speaking of course. He was a powerful master of a House, and no master could afford to be too compassionate, but Stephen knew him well. Michael did not like to kill. His particular flavour of power meant he rarely needed to hurt anyone. His food loved him, and he loved them in return. This forced draining and feeding cycle would be hateful to him.

“They might throw him in with you,” Andrew was saying.

“They might,” the man agreed. “I’ve been stuck here so long, it might be a relief. Of course, they could do worse.”

“Oh?” Stephen said.

“They might turn me into one of the freaks. See those three?”

“I see them. What about them?”

“They were prisoners like me last week. We used to talk. Not much else to do down here. I bet all they’ll want to do is eat me now.”

There wasn’t much doubt of that. They were young and uncontrolled. They had no master or bond to keep them sane. What he didn’t understand was the purpose in turning them in the first place. AML wanted all of his kind dead. In fact, they wanted everyone who wasn’t pure human dead. They didn’t discriminate when choosing their victims. If you had any non-human blood in your veins then you were the enemy and fair game, even if that blood was generations in the past. Have an elven great-great-grandfather? Watch out. If AML learned of it, you’d find yourself on their to do list. Why were they creating vampires? What was their purpose?

David had proposed an idea that he had dismissed before now, but having seen this operation he was beginning to wonder. David had suggested the entire thing was a campaign designed to get the media and public opinion on side. A preposterous idea at first glance, but if AML could manufacture uncontrolled vampires at will and release them en masse, the carnage and resulting panic could easily do most of their work for them. The federal government couldn’t possibly overlook something like that. It would deploy troops onto the streets, and that might begin the long feared purge. It would make the European purge of the 1940s look like a mere riot, rather than the decade long war it later became. There were many more non-humans living in the Republic today than there had been in all of Europe back then. They wouldn’t take being forced into extermination camps lying down. Not this time.

Paranoia. Stephen glanced uneasily at those seemingly innocent vampires sleeping the sleep of the righteous. There had to be another explanation. A safer, saner, explanation. An explanation that was still in AML’s interests, but one which would not result in the end of the world as he knew it.

He sneered at his own thoughts; since when had he become an optimist? He frowned and realised he’d become one the night he’d met Marie Stirling at the club. He hoped she was all right. It was all he could do right now. He would have prayed for her if he’d had any confidence that he would be heard, but praying would do him no good. He was vampire, one of the cursed undead and damned by all the gods and goddesses. Religious consensus was a rare thing, but the damning of his kind was universal amongst them.

Time dragged slowly by.

Andrew made use of the uncomfortable looking bed in his cage to rest. Stephen had encouraged him to sleep stressing the need to be ready when the time came. Andrew had been doubtful, but he had eventually agreed. There really was nothing else to do. While his only ally slept, he paced his cage thinking about Marie. AML were ruthless. They had never been shy about collateral damage and wouldn’t care that Marie was pure human. If they thought torturing her would gain them what they wanted, they wouldn’t hesitate.

He tried to contact Edward again, but nothing had changed. He tried Danyelle next, and then Charles. Nothing. He had exhausted his options already. Charles and Danyelle were his only children; they were the only Edmonton vampires he had a strong connection to. He had taken Lee and Elizabeth into his House only recently and hadn’t bothered to blood oath them. It had made sense at the time. He had wanted to be sure that they would fit in at the club first. Now he regretted the decision. Not that the oath would have helped him now. If he couldn’t reach his own servant, which was a very strong and intimate bond, he certainly wouldn’t be able to connect with strangers, oathed to his House or not. Danyelle and Charles had never given the gift to anyone, and didn’t plan to as far as he knew. He regretted that now, but he was no Alexander. He wouldn’t risk attracting OSI’s attention by empire building.

They dragged Michael down the stone steps and into the room around midnight. He was a pitiful sight. His eyes were blazing red with his hunger and madness. His fangs were out and he looked skeletally thin in clothes that hung off him looking two sizes too big for him. The guards dragged him snarling and raging toward his cage. Michael howled at the sight of it, struggling even harder to get free, but he didn’t have the strength. His captors were vampire, and they had a firm hold upon him. The other three guards were human and were well armed. They kept back, and watched everything warily. They obviously didn’t trust their vampire allies.

Stephen stared at the scene unable to believe any of his kind would lower themselves to work with AML. It disgusted him at the same time as it confused him. He couldn’t think of any reason for AML to ally themselves with non-humans; they would sooner die. That was something he would be more than happy to help them with given the chance.

Michael howled in despair when the guards threw him into a cage and locked the gate. He crashed into the bars over and over, not caring that they were electrified. He bounced around the cage, slamming into the bars as if unaware of them. In his madness, he probably didn’t even notice the pain.

“Better toss him a bone I guess,” vampire guard number one said.

The other guard grunted and unlocked the gate to the chatty human’s cage. The man was asleep, but woke quickly enough when the guard began dragging him out. He shouted and pleaded, kicked and struggled, but to no avail.

Andrew woke at the noise. “I’ll stake you all for this!” he shouted. “I swear to the Goddess, you’re all dead men!”

If only, Stephen thought. Given the chance, he would hold them down for him, but he doubted they would get the opportunity. The screaming human looked pleadingly at him, desperate for aid.

Stephen shrugged at him. There was nothing he could do.

The guards opened the gate, shoved Michael’s dinner inside and slammed it shut. He moved in a blur of speed. The screaming abruptly stopped with him latched upon the human’s throat. The struggling continued for a space, but it was over quickly. Michael was literally starving; he drained the man in less than two minutes, not wasting a drop. He came back to himself then, but it was too late. He began to cry. He dropped to his knees cradling the dead man and rocked him like a child.

The human guards laughed, shoving at each other like schoolboys. One of them held out a hand, and the other slapped a twenty into it. The vampire muscle did not laugh. They watched Michael in silence.

“Why are you doing this?” Stephen asked them. “How can you ally with them?” The guards ignored him. “You have no honour.”

That got a reaction, but not a constructive one. They glared at him in silence. When Michael stopped his carrying on, they opened the cage and dragged the body out for disposal. Michael didn’t try to escape; the humans had spread out to cover him with their weapons in case he tried, but he didn’t notice. He remained kneeling in the middle of the cage, rocking to some internal rhythm.

“Another one to plant,” one of the humans said in disgust, lifting the corpse onto his shoulder. “Maybe we should just drop him in an alley somewhere. I hate all this bloody digging.”

“You have your orders.”

“Taking orders from a damned vamp,” the human muttered as he started up the steps. “It ain’t right.”

The rest of the guards followed him up.

“Michael!” Stephen called when they were alone, but his old friend didn’t respond. “Michael!” he barked the word, louder and more demanding.

“Stephen?” Michael said looking vaguely around his cage. “Are you real?”

“It’s me. I’m real.”

“He got you too?”

Stephen frowned. “AML raided the house I was visiting.”

Michael climbed to his feet and approached the bars of his cage. He studied Andrew for a moment, and then dismissed him. “They’re working together,” he said finally.

“Who?” Andrew said.

“This is Andrew; he was captured with me, and there was a woman with us. A human. Marie is her name. Have you seen her?”

“No, I have not seen her,” Michael said and inclined his head politely to Andrew.

“Who is our enemy, Michael? I’ve seen things here that I do not understand. Newborns with no maker bonds, vampires working alongside AML thugs. Name him to me.”

“He calls himself Arcadian—”

Stephen inhaled sharply.

“No, Stephen, he isn’t old enough for it to be true. It’s an affectation, but I think he believes it. His people pretend, or maybe they believe it’s true.”

“What is happening? He’s forcing you to make new vampires. Why is AML helping him? It doesn’t make sense.”

“He’s insane, but it does make sense. An awful evil sense. He tried to recruit me, but when I said no he took my child.”

“John O’Neal.”

“How did you know?”

“AML raided your house, but we caught them there and killed them. I’m afraid they killed a lot of your guests. O’Neal is dead too.”

Michael nodded grimly. “They took John. I loved him well, but I would not submit to Arcadian’s madness, not even for him.”

Stephen winced. “Do we have to call him that?”

“I have no other name for him.”

“Can we get to the part where AML work for vampires?” Andrew interjected.

Michael nodded. “They think Arcadian is working for them. They’re funding his research, but they don’t realise his true aim. They think they will discover a cure for vampirism and a way to inoculate the human population. Basically, AML want a way to make us extinct.”

“Sounds like them,” Andrew said. “Is it possible?”

“I have no idea, but it doesn’t matter anyway because he isn’t researching a cure. He’s designing a weapon, an airborne virus that mimics the gift. He says the human monopoly on population is the reason we have no rights. His idea is to create an airborne plague to turn as many humans as possible all at once. Once we are no longer a minority in the world, governments will have no choice but to recognise us as equals. Besides, most of them will be vampire too by then.”

“That might actually work,” Stephen murmured in surprise and Andrew shot him a look. He shrugged. “It might.”

“No,” Michael disagreed. “It won’t. He says he wants equality but it’s a lie. The weapon will kill a third of all humans alive today, and turn a third while keeping the remaining third alive as cattle to feed the new population of vampires. It’s madness, and evil, but worse than that, it won’t work. I’ve seen the abominations he’s made with my polluted blood. They aren’t sane, and they have no bond to their maker with which to control them. Their maker is a virus in a petri dish.”

A world populated by insane vampires? “We need to stop this.”

“Stop it, hell,” Andrew said. “We need to kill this whack job and everyone involved. Imagine this thing falling into a terrorist’s hands.”

“I wouldn’t trust our own government with this,” Stephen agreed grimly. “No one must have this!”

Michael agreed, looking grim. “The researchers must die, and their work must be destroyed.”

“We have to get word of this to Gavin, but how?”

One of the shifters in a nearby cage had been listening to them. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of his cage watching. “There’s no escape. Only the dead leave this place.”

Andrew regarded the shifter with sudden speculation.

“Don’t even think about it!” the shifter snapped.

“He’s immune in any case,” Stephen said, guessing at Andrew’s sudden interest in the stranger.

“Yeah, what he said.” The shifter got to his feet and made a point of turning his back to them before sitting down again.

“Miss Stirling?” Andrew said. “Damn them, what did they do to her?”

“She’s been bitten,” Stephen said in a hard voice. “One of them has fed from her, hopefully nothing worse than that. She’ll recover if they didn’t take too much. Can you see the bite? Is it sealed?”

“I can’t see properly. Miss Stirling? Marie! Look this way... over here!”

“Andrew?” she said dreamily. “You’re here too?”

“You’re back in the basement with us. Can you remember what happened?”

She raised a hand to her sore neck. It felt as if she had the worse hickey in the history of hickeys. She winced as she explored it. “He bit me!”

“Who did?” Andrew and Stephen said together.

“Terry, that bastard!”

The anger cleared her thoughts and memory crashed over her. Oh Goddess, he’d raped her. She felt icky all over as she remembered responding to him. Oh Lady, she wanted a shower so bad right now. She would use bleach if it would rid her of this feeling. She was sticky down there, between her legs, and she felt bile rising. She forced it down. She would not be sick. She was stronger than this. Terry hadn’t been able to get it up, thank the Lady. He had used his mouth and hands on her. Terrible as that memory was now, she was thankful. Her humiliation could always be worse.

Magical manipulation used to rape was a capital offence. All she had to do was survive and accuse him, and Terry would die. Executed. No trial, just a stake, and a quick beheading after that. She took a careful breath turning the pleasant thought over in her mind. She had always thought the law a barbaric thing when applied to non-humans. Where was justice in execution without trial? But for Terry, it would be justice.

“Marie, please talk to us... don’t think about what he did,” Andrew begged, sounding desperate and close to tears. “You’ll be all right. Stephen says you won’t be addicted if he leaves you alone from now on.”

Addicted! She hadn’t thought of that, but she remembered clearly, too clearly, how good it had felt. It would be easy to crave that feeling again. The thrill seekers who frequented Stephen’s club had fallen into that trap. She wouldn’t allow herself to become one of them no matter how good it felt.

“I’m fine,” she said, forcing herself to believe it. Inside she was wailing like a little girl, but she wouldn’t let the men see her lose it. She had to be strong for them. “Arcadian—that’s the one in charge here—plans to let me go. He wants me to stop dad’s investigation into Wilson.”

“It’s too late for that,” Andrew said.

“I know, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“What went wrong? Why are you locked up again?”

“He told Terry to put me back down here while he meets with Newman.”

“The leader of AML, that Newman?”

She nodded.

“It must be important for him to come out of hiding and risk capture. I wonder if it’s about Wilson too.”

“Could be,” Marie agreed. “They’re both supporting Arcadian for some reason.”

She broke off as the subject of the conversation came down the steps. His friend, Cadmon, followed him looking grim faced. The others she’d met upstairs didn’t make an appearance and she was glad, but she couldn’t help wondering about them. She didn’t want to think about Terry, but she would prefer to know where he was, rather than worry about him showing up.

Everyone watched Arcadian warily, including Cadmon. Stephen was studying his enemy intently. Marie didn’t know enough about what he could and couldn’t do, but she would bet he had a way to evaluate his nemesis. Andrew looked worried, as did the other prisoners. Everyone was scared and watched warily as the vampires paused in the open space between the cages ringing the room. Arcadian surveyed each prisoner thoughtfully, perhaps judging how they would taste. Who knew? She certainly didn’t know what went on in a mad vampire’s head.

“Miss Stirling,” Arcadian said, acknowledging her. Cadmon switched the power off to her cage and opened its gate. “Please, step out if you will?”

She couldn’t stop trembling. She stood and left the cage.

“Where are you taking her?” Andrew said. “She can’t donate blood again so soon! Look at how pale she is, damn you!?