Page 53 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

Roland wasn’t smart, but he was stubborn, driven, and bloody-minded. He wasn’t good at finding things out on his own, but he could scare people into doing the work for him. People fell into step behind him and found out all sorts of things. They found out what the witches had wanted.

The witches had wanted immortality, and they had, in a way, created it, but not for themselves. They created the things that had become vampires, and the vampires could live forever as long as they took on the life force of others. That was the hunger. They needed life and couldn’t make their own.

His informants told him that the wand fed on life force, just like the vampires did. It was a backup plan meant to destroy vampires. Roland had laughed at that. The weapon wouldn’t even have worked against them; vampires could get more life, could drink and drink and drink it as long as they were willing to hunt it down. The witches were the ones who would be stuck if they were drained. After all, the life force was part of them. They called it magic, but Roland knew better. He knew better.

The witches were wrong about vampires. They thought vampires were abominations, mistakes, but they were fools. Vampires were pure, divine, the only true beings. They were separate from that life force, that magic, and therefore above it. Roland would show them. Every time he ate, it was an act of communion with himself. The more he ate, the more divine he became.

He found Iskra. Sharp, brutal, wonderful Iskra, the epitome of cold control. It hadn’t been love—gods didn’t love—but it had been as though he’d found a part of himself. She found the wand and didn’t even know how important it was. Just another silly trinket she picked up. He knew, though, and he took it and started experimenting with it.

He’d had one of his followers use it, of course. Gods didn’t do these things themselves. His people captured a hedge witch, the sort of lowly creature that scraped out a living curing warts and getting cattle to produce milk. When the vampire he’d selected leveled the wand at her, she withered away, weak and useless without her so-called ‘magic’. The vampire withered away, too.

There were many more experiments over the years. Every time, the peon selected to wield the wand was insufficient. It didn’t matter. Roland could always get more people to follow him. He was good at that. People liked following someone stronger than them, and Roland was stronger than anyone.

He wasn’t going to use the wand himself, that much was clear. But someone had to use the weapon, and it would have to be someone powerful enough to fully drain that witch before succumbing to the wand themselves. Roland knew what he had to do. He thought about the witch with the wand, how she had tortured him. He thought about the samples she and her accomplices took from him.

The samples had been preserved. His people found them. They’d captured another witch, kept her alive long enough for her to do the divine alchemy required to combine what was his and what was Iskra’s. When Roland pressed his hand to the magical womb, he felt the pride of a master smith who had crafted the perfect blade. A weapon to wield a weapon—an extension of Roland. The child would carry out his grand design one day, when Roland was ready. Roland kept the wand close, hidden where only he knew. Things were coming together, just as they should. He was willing them into place.

Roland saw the witch with the wand every time he closed his eyes, but it was nearly a thousand years before he saw her in person again. She didn’t recognize him. She came to him with offers of power. A seat at her right hand. Scraps and dregs of the corrupted, lowly results of her ‘magic’. But Roland saw the opportunity for what it was. The witch was strong and had gotten stronger over the years. She must have seen that vampires were the true and holy creatures, because she had begun to emulate them. She ate life now, too, although she still called it magic. She wasn’t made for it, and it twisted her up, made her erratic. She confessed that she was trying to gain enough power to undo this, to find an immortality that didn’t require the divine consumption. Roland nearly laughed in her face. Nearly struck her. So many years, and she still didn’t see.

Soon, she would understand. Soon, he would explain it all to her, just before he used the weapon. It would be him, really. The boy was part of him. Just an extension of Roland’s power. But the boy had forgotten this. He would have to be reminded, shaped into something useful.

He would understand. Roland would make him understand. And then the boy would fulfill his purpose, the witch would be dead, and the whole world would see the true power of vampires. The creature had made itself into Roland De Montclair, and then it had made Roland De Montclair into a god. He would destroy the witch, and then he would ascend. The whole world would worship him. They would beg to offer themselves to him, and he would finally drink his fill.

Roland wasn’t scared anymore, but he was still so, so hungry.

All of that rushed over me in a few seconds. I yanked myself out of my father’s mind and stumbled away, breathing hard with dead lungs. I couldn’t bear to touch him for a moment longer. Bile crept up my throat, and my stomach roiled with a ravenous hunger.

The fight had left my father. He was limp against the ruined prop throne, but he was smiling, eyes focused on me.

“Now you understand, don’t you?” he rasped. “You see what it’s all been for.”

He had never even wanted a child. I had always been a tool to him. All these centuries, and he never even saw me as a person.

My father hadn’t stopped fighting because he was exhausted or hurt. He’d stopped because he thought after that revelation, I would be on his side. He thought he’d won. His smile was triumphant.

Slowly, deliberately, I bent and picked up a piece of the throne that had splintered off. The cheap wood had splintered into a long, narrow triangular piece. It wasn’t terribly sharp, but it didn’t have to be—not with the amount of force I intended to use.

I stared down at my father, slouched in the remains of the cheap imitation of a throne. I knew what to do—I’d done it before. The right angle, the right placement, the right amount of strength. Roland kept his glassy, manic smile as I positioned the makeshift stake against his chest. Even now, it didn’t occur to him that I wasn’t going to do what he wanted.

As I thrust the stake in deep, his grin never shifted. There was a wet noise, and then silence.

I stood there for several long minutes, looking down at him, then I closed the corpse’s eyes and went to retrieve the files with the names of the dead.

19

GABRIEL

Istumbled outside in a daze, the trash bag full of papers slung over my shoulder. I felt as though I were in a completely different world. My father was dead by my hand. I’d never delved so deeply into someone’s memories before, and the aftershocks of his mind still haunted me.

Evangeline was on the gravel drive of the school, walking unsteadily toward the front entrance. When she saw me, she broke into a run.

“What happened?” She began to pat me down, checking for injuries. The blows my father had landed were already healing, my new strength speeding up the process.

“I know how we can stop Morgana,” I said numbly. “There’s a weapon. It’ll be strong enough to destroy her.”

Evangeline looked frantic now. “Gabriel, what happened in there?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t talk about it, not yet. It felt like a physical feat of strength to meet her eyes. I hated worrying her, but I couldn’t help it.

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