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LORD KREATON WOKE JUST after nightfall feeling refreshed and full of energy. Conjuring up a glass of blood wasn’t the same as drinking it directly from a vein. He shouldn’t have drained the witch to death last night, but his hunger had gotten the better of him. The woman would have lasted a week if he’d been more careful. “There’s plenty more humans where she came from,” he said with a smirk and chose one of his black suits from his closet.
A nagging sense of unease had been plaguing him lately. It had begun last Halloween when Crowmon had unleashed his treachery on Nox. The trickster’s plan had been foiled and he’d been banished to his territory in the forest somewhere on the western edge of the Fae District. Still, things had seemed to be getting worse in the City of Night for the past eight months. The fiftieth anniversary of Nox’s creation was drawing closer. His sense of doom was growing with its increasing nearness.
“Nothing is going to happen to us,” he murmured as he used his inner reserves to call up a glass of blood. The fairy and elf who had brought him the instructions on how to use the artifact that was hidden somewhere in the city were dead. He’d destroyed the instructions and there were no other copies that he knew of.
Lord Kreaton’s brow furrowed at that thought. He’d ensnared the fae creatures with his vampiric charisma and had sent them home to eradicate their copies of the instructions. He’d then ordered the assassins to kill them. No one else should have been able to get their hands on the instructions. “Who gave the instructions to them?” he asked. It had to be the person who had smuggled the object into the city so long ago. The dead blood in his veins tried to run cold when he realized there probably was another copy somewhere in the city. He’d stupidly believed he was safe, but he’d overlooked that obvious point.
Gulping down the blood, the master vampire descended the stairs and strode to the door. He didn’t have any meetings scheduled with his allies tonight, but he would bring this up tomorrow night when they met again. For now, he would mull over just how dangerous the artifact could be to him.
Theoretically, nothing should be able to harm him, thanks to the magical shield that protected all three Immortal Triumvirate members. Yet he couldn’t shake the sense that he was in danger. It was growing stronger with each night that passed.
Lord Kreaton waited at the curb and a carriage lumbered towards him a few minutes later. He told the skeleton to take him to his headquarters, then climbed inside. He passed five fledglings that were huddled together and barely gave them a glance. Their cheeks were hollow and they wore hooded cloaks as if they were ashamed of their appearance. They were no doubt heading to the Fae District to attempt to capture a witch or a wizard to feed from. The poor wretches were so starved they were lurching more than walking.
A shadow flitted past his window as the carriage travelled beneath one of the rare streetlamps that actually cast light. Lord Kreaton glanced upward to see a crow with pale green eyes shadowing the vehicle. He glared at the bird ineffectually. He didn’t have magic and he couldn’t swat it out of the sky with a spell. His pride wouldn’t allow him to make a fool of himself by leaping out of the carriage to attempt to crush the bird to death with his bare hands.
The creature followed him all the way to the City Square, but it couldn’t infiltrate the building. He could feel its creepy eyes watching him when he strode up the stairs and through the doors. It faded once he was inside the building.
When he reached the top floor where his office was, he could sense Lord Graham in his office down the hall. Lord Dallinar’s office was empty. The bloodsucker shook his head in derision at the fae lord’s decline into alcoholism. If the alpha werewolf’s metabolism had been weaker, he would probably be just as useless by now from the amount of liquor he consumed.
The vampire took a seat behind his huge black desk and turned his thoughts to the plague of masterless minions in his District. They weren’t as bad as the rogues in the Shifter District yet, but he feared they soon would be. Starvation wasn’t pretty for his kind. If it got bad enough, the lesser vamps would become as mindless as the werebeasts who couldn’t change back into their human forms.
“There’s only one thing we can do,” he said quietly as he stared unseeingly at the wall. They’d taken drastic action to ensure the Night Cursed undead would never be able to rise up and attack the civilians ever again. Now it seemed they would have no choice but to use the same tactics on his people. He was sure Lord Graham would protest, but the same thing would have to be done to the rogues as well. The upside would be that their own power would be boosted in the process.
A cruel, hard smile flitted across Lord Kreaton’s stern face. Rendering the fledglings powerless would mean they would starve to death faster, but at least they wouldn’t start another war with the population in the Fae District. “We’re just culling the weak from the herd,” he said. Animals did the same thing when one of their own was defective, or proved to be a burden.
He heaved a quiet sigh that Nox had become a place of gloom and doom. It had never been the utopia he and his allies had promised it would be, except for the wealthiest citizens. The working class had at least been comfortable. There had once been enough magic to ensure everyone was fed and clothed. Now, the elite were still rich, but everyone else had to fight to survive.
Coaldust from the factories was slowly blanketing the Shifter District in filth. If factories in the other Districts began using coal, the entire city would become polluted. If he’d known that stripping the Night Cursed of their energy and magic would result in this steady decline, he would never have agreed to the plan.
After a few seconds, Lord Kreaton uttered a chuckle as he had to admit that that was a lie. No matter what the consequences of their actions were, he had become truly immortal. Nothing could kill him now. Not even his former friend and now bitter enemy could take his life. Sebastian was somewhere in the city, plotting his demise right now. It was only a matter of time before his nemesis confronted him with whatever army he’d managed to muster up.
His amusement vanished when he heard a rat slithering through the cavity between the walls. He spun his chair around and smashed his fist through the drywall. The rat squealed when he grabbed it. Its pale green eyes bulged as he squeezed it hard enough to burst its organs. Black blood and other fluids oozed from the creature, proving it truly was a mutant.
With a sound of disgust, Lord Kreaton pushed his window up and tossed the rodent to the street far below. The noisome fluids vanished from his hand before he could thrust it out into the rain to clean it. “Horrible things,” he muttered as he shut the window again. Rats had always been plague carriers. They could destroy entire populations with their mere existence.
He sat back down on his chair, more disturbed by that thought than he wanted to admit. It was still a mystery why the crows and rats were changing. He didn’t think they were going to learn the answer to that riddle anytime soon.
