“Wyatt’s posse has killed a thousand vampires?” I said, repeating what Thoth said. “That seems a bit much.”
I’d learned in Iraq that it didn’t matter if a roadside bomb, gun, or friendly fire dropped on your head—dead was dead. Even if I was concerned about a world-destroying demon, I couldn’t not pay attention to a bunch of vampires coming after me for failing to protect Rebecca Plum. Dead was dead, even if you were a vampire. Especially if you were a vampire.
Thoth frowned. “I am not speaking figuratively. When I say they have killed a thousand vampires, I mean they have killed a thousand vampires. After the Reveal, there were a vast number of young and stupid fools who wanted to be changed into the undead. They did not put their faith in God or the Devil and wanted to live forever—as if it were that easy.”
“Isn’t it?” I asked, shrugging.
Honestly, I kind of wondered if vampires trying to restrict expanding their numbers was a good idea. Was it really such a bad thing to have hundreds of thousands of vampires rather than tens of thousands? Yes, being a vampire was going to probably make you a murderer. Yes, the more vampires concentrated in one place, the more likely they were going to fight for territory. Yes, the more vampires, the greater the likelihood that all the propaganda that we were just another persecuted minority and not horrifying monsters would fall apart. Yes, wait, what was my point again?
“Yes, Peter, it is that easy. That’s why I’m putting you through all the tests I am because immortality is easy. Because it shouldn’t be. Only a small subset of people are emotionally, spiritually, and physically capable of surviving immortality. Misnomer as that may sound like.”
Yukie got a foul look in her eyes. “I remember the early days. Every week was another contract put out on vampires who had turned their mortal families after being turned or just killed them all due to their misunderstood hunger. Everyone was terrified of another Oakley, Montana. So the voivodes purged their city’s numbers extensively and are still hardasses about creation.”
“Oakley, Montana?” I said. “Never heard of it.”
“Nor will anyone unless fools talk,” Thoth said, sounding angry that some apparently were. “In 1971, Gog and the Order of the White Worm turned an entire town of over thirteen hundred individuals. It was meant to reveal us to the world and cause a revival of the Secret Crusade.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“We took care of it,” Thoth said, cutting me off.
“This seems like a story,” I said.
Thoth closed his eyes. “They turned infants, Peter. We took care of it. Never ask about this again.”
“Right,” I said, uncomfortably. I had to wonder why Gog and Magog were so dead set on screwing with vampires. As a general rule, vampires weren’t fond of demons and vice versa. There was even an edict in the city about not turning demonkin. Honestly, I never quite got it since vampires were some of the most selfish and murderous assholes I’d met in my life.
And I grew up in Detroit.
Being the defenders of humanity against Lucifer, Azazel, and Cthulhu (who I hoped wasn’t real) didn’t fit with my image of them. I could buy Thoth as wanting to give back by being the protector of mankind (as well as its lord and master) but just barely. Everyone else? I didn’t think Ashura had ever thought of humans other than what she could get from them. Which, in order, was blood, money, and sex. Not that humans were much better in that regard—vampires just one-upped them on it.
Thoth, reading my thoughts, said, “Vampires are still at least partially human, Peter. In that respect, they will never be as bad as a demon. As a human will think of want, greed, sadness, or sorrow but a demon will spend all his time on his purpose—destroying and debasing man. They are no less focused or determined as they were servants of God in Heaven, merely devoted now to the opposite of their charge.”
“Say what?” I asked.
“Demons are worse than vampires,” Thoth explained. “Also, vampires are smart enough to keep other predators away. There’s no point in destroying the world like Satan’s forces want. What would we eat then?”
Okay, that made sense at least. “Gotcha. So, back to Wyatt and his peeps?”
“Wyatt and his team are trained vampire hunters,” Thoth said, getting us back on topic. “They are dangerous, powerful, and not all of them are vampires.”
“And yet Wyatt helped you against Magog?” Yukie asked.
Thoth nodded “Wyatt and I used to be friends. There’s just one thing he loves more.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Money,” Thoth said.
“Can’t you just bribe him?” I asked.
Thoth opened his mouth to object then frowned. “Yeah, but that’s going to cost me.”
I looked at him, stunned. “Seriously?”
“I didn’t make my fortune by wasting money,” Thoth said.
“You spent two million dollars on a blood fountain with lesbian mermaids in it,” I said, stretching out my hands in front of me. I remembered that purchase well since Thoth had invited us out to his country estate to unload it. Apparently, part of my duties as bellidix included helping him move stuff.
Yukie looked at me strangely. “Lesbian mermaids?”
“They were statues,” I explained.
“No, I got that,” Yukie said.
“You never know in this town,” I said, honestly.
“That was a gift,” Thoth said, picking up his walking stick. “Also art. Still, your plan is possibly workable. I am one of the richest vampires in the world.”
Thoth was probably exaggerating on his financial status. He was rich but not that rich. Then again, maybe he wasn’t. Vampires were, at least on paper, the richest minority in the world. Dozens of billionaires and thousands of millionaires. Even bigger dollars and cents men than the Saudi Royal Family. They’d managed to pony up a trillion dollars in cash to rescue the United States economy during the 2008 financial crisis.
Supposedly.
The truth was vampires had never been as rich as they claimed and a huge amount of the money they put back into the economy had come from American businesses in the first place. Some people suggested the undead had even engineered the crisis, but I blamed bad housing loans for that. Either way, it was financial leverage, and plenty of undead were scrambling to get their share of it once they were out in the open.
Voivodes who could just mesmerize the tax man away before now had to deal with the government taking their cut. There were also hundreds of poor young vampires for every rich older-than-dirt one. It was part of the reason why New Detroit was such a big deal since it allowed the undead to launder their fortunes and cover up centuries of financial misdeeds. It still pissed me off despite the fact I was now on the other side of the bloodsuckers draining the economy. Oh, and I was fighting the Devil’s top general.
“Glad we have some kind of plan,” I muttered. “You still with us, Yukie? Gog isn’t your fight.”
“He’s responsible for the death of my charge,” Yukie said, still acting like anyone cared about Rebecca Plum’s death. “However, he is also kin to Magog and thus a valid target. Destroying my grandfather, a king of hell, will make me the most famous assassin in the world.”
“Is that a good thing? I kind of think being a famous assassin isn’t doing it right,” I said. “I mean, Oswald, Carlos the Jackal, and Booth are the big names but only because they were caught—”
Yukie just stared at me. “You just never shut up, do you?”
I pointed at her. “It’s your ecstasy meets LSD blood, girl. Not me.”
“I highly doubt that,” Yukie said.
“Kennedy was actually killed by—” Thoth started to say as he was interrupted by a knocking at the recording studio door.
It was Sam. She was wearing a frantic look on her face. She kept beating on the door, and Yukie walked over to let Sam in then shut it and locked it behind her.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to stop anything that could threaten us,” I said.
Sam shot me an unhappy look. “It’s not you I’m worried about. I’m a squishy wizard, remember?”
“Right.”
“What’s wrong, Sam?” Thoth said, sounding surprisingly tender. I didn’t think those two were together, but there was a definite respect there he didn’t show many of his people. Maybe it was the fact both could warp the fabric of reality with their brain.
“It’s the BOSS agents,” Sam said, breathing heavily. “It’s bad.”
“You mean aside from the fact they’re probably going to arrest us all. Maybe before we’re left in a cell with a window facing the sunrise?” I suggested.
“That wouldn’t hurt me,” Thoth said.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to risk it,” I said, looking at him. “Because if that doesn’t work, they might leave us without blood for a few months so they can justify shooting us up with explosive rounds. Trust me, I have a lot of bad experiences with cops.”
“I’m familiar with the problem,” Thoth said.
“Yes,” Sam said, looking irritated. “Much, much worse.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, suddenly paying attention.
“They’re Hollowed,” Sam said, as if revealing we were in the midst of a bunch of Al-Qaeda terrorists.
You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
“Oh for hell’s sake,” I muttered. “For those of us who aren’t spending their nights pouring over dusty old tomes?”
“You’re familiar with the story of Faust, Peter?” Thoth asked, not entirely certain.
“Yeah, dude sells his soul to the Devil,” I said, frowning. “It ends poorly for Satan because he never does well in these bargains.”
“Sometimes,” Thoth said, frowning. “Unfortunately, the act of making an infernal compact is not a revocable act in real life. Once you pledge yourself to an archdemon, they usually claim your soul instantaneously and replace it with a lesser demon. The resulting creature will look, talk, sound, and even act like the person they once were but they are wholly evil.”
“Which means?”
“In this context, they are incapable of disobeying their demonic masters,” Thoth said. “An army of perfect obedience because they possess no free will and only the malevolent will to do whatever they are commanded to—no matter how heinous.”
“So, they’re a bunch of demonic Terminators,” I said. “Absolutely will not stop until we’re dead.”
“Thankfully, they’re no tougher than their human counterparts,” Thoth replied. “Their patrons can lend them supernatural powers or even teach them magic, but it is their role as doomsday cultists that makes them dangerous.”
I felt a headache coming on, which was biologically impossible for a vampire. “Just so we’re clear, the Feds investigating us are answering to Satan?”
Thoth adopted a harsh expression. “So it seems.”
“Yeah,” Sam, looked between us. “Every last one of them has made a soul pact and has had their spirit replaced. We’re surrounded by a good twenty to thirty Hollowed.”
I cursed. “How the hell did Gog convince a bunch of good old boy right wing nutjobs to sell their souls?”
“It’s happened before,” Thoth said, frowning. “Majestic-12 and the Men in Black were completely corrupted before being purged by the Star Chamber. Many fundamentalist churches have their leaders make the pledge as the literal existence of the Devil is almost a relief for many struggling with their faith.”
I pulled out my Desert Eagle and checked my ammo. I still had a nearly-full magazine. “What’s the chance they’re going to let us out of here alive?”
“Slim,” Thoth said. “We walked into a trap.”
Yuki placed her hand on the hilt of her katana. “I’m not afraid of a bunch of humans.”
“Hey!” Sam said.
“You don’t count,” Thoth said as if he was paying her a compliment.
Which, from his perspective, he was.
“Killing a bunch of federal agents isn’t the best way to make sure vampiredom lives to see another sunset. As bad killing Rebecca Plum looked, it’s going to be worse to have us suddenly looking like terrorists. My solution? We all just run really, really fast for the stairs with the vampires pulling up the back. We can take any bullets the bad guys can toss at us.”
“Unless they’re blessed or enchanted like all bullets BOSS agents have are,” Thoth pointed out.
I blinked. “Okay, I’m an idiot.”
“Yes,” Sam said. “Especially since you have the power to stop time.”
I looked over at her. “Stopping time? No. Slowing down time? Yes. I also point out that doing it on one person is easy. Doing it on a room? Multiple people? Sorry, you need Doctor Who for that kind of craziness.”
“In the show, he’s just the Doctor, not Doctor Who,” Sam said.
Yuki felt her face. “God, I am trapped by the federal government with an army of supernatural nerds.”
“Says the girl straight from an anime,” Sam muttered.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Yukie asked, ignoring she was a beautiful white-haired werefox assassin.
“Because it’s true,” I said. “Okay, listen, we need to just kill these bitches. Any objections?”
“I object to the word bitch,” Sam said. “It’s derogatory and sexist. It should only be used to refer to dogs and werewolves.”
“One problem at a time,” Thoth said.
I nodded. “Then let’s do that.”
The intercom spoke above us. “Peter Stone, we have your slave. If you do not come out here to get him, we will cut off his head then set the remains on fire.”
“That’ll kill me, right?” David asked, his voice coming over the intercom from behind whoever was speaking.
“Yes,” the man speaking said.
“Dammit,” I said. “Well, I know what I’m doing in that one minute.”
I’d already gotten David killed once. Despite the fact he was the shittiest servant ever, that he disrespected me at every turn, and the fact he’d taken to eaten human flesh—I wasn’t going to lose him again. He was my friend, my brother, and there was no way in hell I was going to let Gog’s literally goddamned cult kill him.
“Peter—” Thoth started to say.
I kicked off the door of the recording studio then charged out. “This is how we do it Downtown!”
That was when the blessed bullets started flying.