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There’s something in him that feels wrong. I don’t know when it happens to vampires. Lex is almost two hundred and still has a lot of human left in him. But Marcus… It’s like talking to a different kind of being. That’s what happens when a vampire loses his humanity completely and turns into an entity.
“Lara,” he says. His voice has a strange absence of accent, as if he knows all of them and uses none.
“Marcus.”
“I’ve heard you were the one that found the body.”
“Yes.”
“Lex told me that you used your power and touched it.”
Of course he did. Lex would have told Marcus whatever he wanted to know. He didn’t have Julian’s gift. He is a slave until the end of his life – or Marcus’.
Marcus watches me without blinking. “What did you see?”
There is no point in playing cat and mouse. The best option is to be direct and give him what he wants.
“Necromancers. Ghouls. Probably witches,” I say. “I don’t know who was hired and who truly wanted him dead. The necromancers and ghouls are dead. The witches were hooded.”
Marcus’s face doesn’t change.
“One thing I need to know right now,” he says. “Do I need to drive to the Pit and rip Vito Caruso’s heart out?”
“I wouldn’t. Not now.”
His eyes narrow slightly.
“I think Julian’s body was first held at the docks in the Southside,” I say. “Then they moved it to the tower. That’s my guess. I have no proof. You can always start a war. The question is whether you’ll be able to win it.”
A faint, humorless curve touches his mouth. “A drug girl teaching a five-hundred-year-old vampire about strategy.”
“You asked for my opinion. I gave it to you.”
I should stop there.
I don’t.
“I also saw you that night.”
His eyes brighten.
The memory opens behind my eyes before I can push it away.
The same hotel suite. The same night Julian disappeared. Miriam looks straight at me, her red hair spilling over her shoulders, face tense and determined.
“...You need to train your power,” she says. “You need to come to the coven and discover your potential. With that, you could be unbeatable. We can help you. With you, the Red Coven could rule this city.”
The door opens.
Marcus enters. Looks like the guards answer to Marcus, not Julian.
He moves slowly like a predator. Unnatural. Inhuman. I feel stressed. No. Not me. Julian.
“Who is your little friend, Julian?” Marcus asks. “Introduce me.”
“Just a girl,” Julian says. “What can I do for you? Sire.”
Marcus approaches Miriam and studies her.
