Allegiance
PROLOGUE
Movement from above. Unfamiliar voices. The dreams always began this way.
A shaft of light would pierce the darkness. Heavy boots would descend the steps. The gleam of a sharpened sword would rivet his attention until his gaze rose to the face of the man who bore it. The Slayer, Mirren Kincaid. The man who’d come to kill him.
In the dreams, Matthias Ludlam always met his final moments not with brave defiance but with humiliation, pleading for mercy from the man whose life he’d tried to destroy.
Each day at dusk, as Matthias came out of another daysleep, the dream would reach the same end. Kincaid would smile, and the blade would fall.
He had spent the past three months thinking of little else. Tonight, finally, could be the night the dream became real. The muffled thumps that drifted down from above were real enough, sounding as if an army were marching heavy jackboots across Matthias’s kitchen at the top of the stairs. His meticulous marking of time on the wall of his cell told him he still had one day before his execution, and he felt absurdly resentful that they’d even rob him of an extra day in which to brood about his fate.
His sluggish vampire heart sped up at the sound of keys rattling in the locked door at the top of the stairs. Every two weeks, always on a Wednesday, a silent brute of a vampire guard would accompany a human in and allow Matthias to feed—enough to keep him conscious and aware of his surroundings, but never enough to satisfy. Never enough to kill the gnawing hunger that burned his gut and further frayed his nerves.
But today was not Wednesday, nor was it his week to feed.
The voices were not familiar—but then again, his keepers rarely spoke. Never answered questions. Never responded to taunts or threats or pleas.
The last words he’d heard spoken to him—“Your death sentence has been issued, you sonofabitch”—had come three months ago, delivered by that British turncoat Cage Reynolds. He’d taken Reynolds into his inner circle and paid for it dearly. With a cadre of human soldiers, Reynolds had shoved Matthias down the narrow staircase into the basement of his own Virginia estate. He’d thrown him into the silver-lined cell Matthias had constructed for his own enemies. And Reynolds had pronounced the Tribunal’s sentence for Matthias’s so-called crimes.
Since then, Matthias had spent his nights in darkness, and during daysleep he dreamed. Oh, how he dreamed. Of killing Reynolds. Of dying at the hand of Kincaid.
A shaft of light penetrated the eternal, damnable darkness of the basement, followed by the click of the overhead light switch. Squinting against the harsh glare, Matthias held his breath, waiting for Kincaid’s heavy boots to come into view. Then the sword. Then the smile.
But it was a stone-faced behemoth with a clean-shaven head and a diamond embedded in one of his fangs. Matthias had never seen him before. Nor did he know his companion, a big, ugly, lethal-looking vampire; knives hung in scabbards on each hip and a rifle had been slung by a strap over his shoulder. A nice match to the big automatic that Stoneface wore in a shoulder holster. They expected trouble.
“Stand away from the door.” Stoneface pulled a set of keys from his pocket and dangled them from one finger. “We have a field trip planned.”
So they weren’t going to kill him here. Matthias stepped back, relieved that if he had to die, at least it wouldn’t be in this dungeon of his own making. He’d locked up his son, William, here throughout the boy’s early days as a vampire, hoping to starve or beat or whip him into submission, for all the good it had done. He’d kept that bastard Kincaid prisoner here for a month, starving him and keeping him locked in silver chains that burned his skin, hoping to coerce him into joining Matthias’s organization. Until William rode to the rescue on his proverbial white horse and took Kincaid back to that backwater town of theirs in Alabama.
Penton. Matthias wished he’d never heard of the accursed place.
“Where are you taking me?” Matthias didn’t struggle when Stoneface pulled his arms behind him and snapped his wrists into cuffs—silver, judging by the sting on his skin. They wouldn’t hurt him; just burn like hell and render him as weak as a human.
“Shut up and walk.”
Matthias paused, causing Big and Ugly to lower the rifle.
“You could at least tell me where you’re taking me. It’s my execution, after all. Is it Kincaid? Are you taking me to that godforsaken rat’s nest in Alabama? Has the Tribunal hired Kincaid to perform one last execution for them?”
Bad enough to die looking at Kincaid’s smirk. Worse if his own son William stood by and watched.
Faster than Matthias could track the movement from behind, Stoneface jerked a cloth bag of some kind over his head and shoved him toward the stairs. A shoulder-first crash into the side of the stairway was the only thing that kept him from hitting the floor.
Movement from above. Unfamiliar voices. The dreams always began this way.
A shaft of light would pierce the darkness. Heavy boots would descend the steps. The gleam of a sharpened sword would rivet his attention until his gaze rose to the face of the man who bore it. The Slayer, Mirren Kincaid. The man who’d come to kill him.
In the dreams, Matthias Ludlam always met his final moments not with brave defiance but with humiliation, pleading for mercy from the man whose life he’d tried to destroy.
Each day at dusk, as Matthias came out of another daysleep, the dream would reach the same end. Kincaid would smile, and the blade would fall.
He had spent the past three months thinking of little else. Tonight, finally, could be the night the dream became real. The muffled thumps that drifted down from above were real enough, sounding as if an army were marching heavy jackboots across Matthias’s kitchen at the top of the stairs. His meticulous marking of time on the wall of his cell told him he still had one day before his execution, and he felt absurdly resentful that they’d even rob him of an extra day in which to brood about his fate.
His sluggish vampire heart sped up at the sound of keys rattling in the locked door at the top of the stairs. Every two weeks, always on a Wednesday, a silent brute of a vampire guard would accompany a human in and allow Matthias to feed—enough to keep him conscious and aware of his surroundings, but never enough to satisfy. Never enough to kill the gnawing hunger that burned his gut and further frayed his nerves.
But today was not Wednesday, nor was it his week to feed.
The voices were not familiar—but then again, his keepers rarely spoke. Never answered questions. Never responded to taunts or threats or pleas.
The last words he’d heard spoken to him—“Your death sentence has been issued, you sonofabitch”—had come three months ago, delivered by that British turncoat Cage Reynolds. He’d taken Reynolds into his inner circle and paid for it dearly. With a cadre of human soldiers, Reynolds had shoved Matthias down the narrow staircase into the basement of his own Virginia estate. He’d thrown him into the silver-lined cell Matthias had constructed for his own enemies. And Reynolds had pronounced the Tribunal’s sentence for Matthias’s so-called crimes.
Since then, Matthias had spent his nights in darkness, and during daysleep he dreamed. Oh, how he dreamed. Of killing Reynolds. Of dying at the hand of Kincaid.
A shaft of light penetrated the eternal, damnable darkness of the basement, followed by the click of the overhead light switch. Squinting against the harsh glare, Matthias held his breath, waiting for Kincaid’s heavy boots to come into view. Then the sword. Then the smile.
But it was a stone-faced behemoth with a clean-shaven head and a diamond embedded in one of his fangs. Matthias had never seen him before. Nor did he know his companion, a big, ugly, lethal-looking vampire; knives hung in scabbards on each hip and a rifle had been slung by a strap over his shoulder. A nice match to the big automatic that Stoneface wore in a shoulder holster. They expected trouble.
“Stand away from the door.” Stoneface pulled a set of keys from his pocket and dangled them from one finger. “We have a field trip planned.”
So they weren’t going to kill him here. Matthias stepped back, relieved that if he had to die, at least it wouldn’t be in this dungeon of his own making. He’d locked up his son, William, here throughout the boy’s early days as a vampire, hoping to starve or beat or whip him into submission, for all the good it had done. He’d kept that bastard Kincaid prisoner here for a month, starving him and keeping him locked in silver chains that burned his skin, hoping to coerce him into joining Matthias’s organization. Until William rode to the rescue on his proverbial white horse and took Kincaid back to that backwater town of theirs in Alabama.
Penton. Matthias wished he’d never heard of the accursed place.
“Where are you taking me?” Matthias didn’t struggle when Stoneface pulled his arms behind him and snapped his wrists into cuffs—silver, judging by the sting on his skin. They wouldn’t hurt him; just burn like hell and render him as weak as a human.
“Shut up and walk.”
Matthias paused, causing Big and Ugly to lower the rifle.
“You could at least tell me where you’re taking me. It’s my execution, after all. Is it Kincaid? Are you taking me to that godforsaken rat’s nest in Alabama? Has the Tribunal hired Kincaid to perform one last execution for them?”
Bad enough to die looking at Kincaid’s smirk. Worse if his own son William stood by and watched.
Faster than Matthias could track the movement from behind, Stoneface jerked a cloth bag of some kind over his head and shoved him toward the stairs. A shoulder-first crash into the side of the stairway was the only thing that kept him from hitting the floor.