Susan Krinard - Nightmaster

Or more addictive. Some Nightsiders were highly prone to physical dependence on that same blood. And that was Trinity’s most powerful secret weapon. A dependent Nightsider was one she could manipulate.

But she intended to keep her true nature hidden as long as possible. In addition to the contacts, she wore caps over her front teeth to conceal her longer incisors, and no Nightsider she encountered would immediately be able to detect the difference in the smell and unique taste of her blood.

The experimental drugs she’d been given—drugs whose antidote had been inserted into one of her molars—would mask those differences until she didn’t need to hide them. They would also counter the addictive qualities of her blood until she required them. But just as important were the injections that were supposed to lessen the risk of Conversion or pregnancy.

Of course, no one was completely sure what happened when a dhampir was converted, in spite of the many times Aegis operatives had come into contact with Opir agents in the field. If any dhampir had become a Nightsider, he or she had never returned to the Enclave. And no one had ever seen the child of a dhampir and a Nightsider.

The engine of the ferry rumbled beneath Trinity’s feet, drawing her out of her thoughts, and soon the vessel was pulling away from the pier. No one spoke until they reached the Terminal in the old county of Marin. One boy of about eighteen let out a yell of sheer terror and then went silent when one of the soldiers turned his way.

After that, there was only more silence as the soldiers herded the prisoners to the truck.

The ride was jolting and uncomfortable, the truck carrying its unwilling passengers over roads left to weeds and weather, across fallow and overgrown fields, past empty towns and small cities that seemed to echo with ghostly voices.

Trinity stared straight ahead as the truck cut north toward the transfer point in the abandoned city of Santa Rosa. It was dusk when the truck reached its destination. The soldiers helped the exhausted prisoners climb down from the vehicle, unfastened the cuffs and offered them dinner rations and water. Some ate as if they were starving; others ignored the food completely.

Trinity ate. She needed all her strength, and because she was one of the sixty percent of dhampires who didn’t require drugs to digest solid food, she was free to eat whatever she wanted. Once she was finished, she listened to the hoot of an owl and the nearly silent footfalls of a coyote in the hills—sounds none of the humans could detect.

By sunset, as the human soldiers watched with guns raised and night visors glowing, the Nightsiders, anonymous behind their own visors, emerged from the fringe of oak woods at the base of the hills to the west.

In minutes the formal exchange had been made. The Enclave soldiers stepped back, and the Nightsiders closed in around the exiles.

No one put up a struggle. The Nightsiders spoke no more than was strictly necessary. The prisoners climbed into the hills and walked along narrow roads that wound through the Mayacamas mountains, wreathed in darkness lit only by the sweeping beams of the Opir soldiers’ headlamps. Halfway up to the pass, the Nightsiders made camp and allowed their charges to eat and sleep.

Trinity remained awake, listening and observing as the bloodsuckers spoke among themselves in their ancient language, hoping that one of them would be careless enough to reveal something that might be of use to her.

But none said anything she didn’t already know. After a while, the soldiers and their prisoners continued up the mountain, making camp again with the rising of the sun. The Nightsiders set up a shelter of heavy canvas, and two rested while the other two kept watch.

Near the end of the second night, they saw Erebus.

The vampire city was all black crystal spires and obsidian facets, a vast hive surrounded by pastures and fields of grain that produced food to keep the serfs alive and healthy. Trinity knew that Erebus housed some five thousand Opiri—and three times as many humans. Below the Citadel’s foundations lay countless chambers occupied by the lowest-ranked free Opiri and public serfs who served the city as a whole.

In the spires, the Towers, lived those of highest rank: the Bloodmasters and Bloodlords with their Households of vassals, serfs and client Freebloods. In their feudal society, rank and power were everything.

One of the prisoners began to weep and collapsed to her knees. A wiry man in his twenties helped her up with quiet words of comfort. Then they were moving again at a faster pace as the Opir raced the sunrise, descending out of the hills.

When the exiles were within a quarter mile of their new “home,” three of the soldiers picked up the slowest prisoners and flung the humans over their shoulders like sacks of grain. The rest, including Trinity, crept closer and closer to the Citadel until they were at its foot, gathering under the stares of the Freeblood guards along the sheltered battlements.

Trinity gazed up at the tall, heavy gates, obsidian black like the rest of the Citadel, and watched them swing inward. More Opir soldiers waited inside to take charge of the prisoners.

The humans stood inside a wide, enclosed area between the curtain wall and the Citadel proper. Heavy material that seemed to be a combination of canvas and plastic stretched across the open space several yards above Trinity’s head, protecting the Opiri within. Bright lights, harmless to the Nightsiders, shone from niches in the walls, obviously installed for the benefit of the human serfs, who were hard at work performing various tasks. The towers, visible through a slight gap in the canopy, pierced the lightening sky and the scudding, orange clouds.

The second set of soldiers uncuffed the prisoners’ wrists and gestured with their rifles toward a second gate on the other side of the courtyard. Moments later they entered a wide, dimly lit corridor, elaborately etched and painted with baroque designs and stylized figures in different hues. The corridor led to another and yet another, a maze humans might negotiate only with the aid of the changing colors and designs on each wall. Trinity could feel the passages descending into the bowels of the city, smelling of dampness and a taint of old blood.

The final corridor ended in a row of holding cells. Two by two the new serfs were ushered into the cells, and Trinity found herself housed with Rachel. The cell itself contained only two narrow cots, a toilet and a sink with towels.

“Are we supposed to clean up in here?” Rachel asked in a dull voice.

“I don’t know,” Trinity said, examining the sink. “There’s some kind of soap dispenser, but I can’t believe they expect us to do much with it.”

Nevertheless, she wet one of the towels, squirted a little soap on it and washed the grime off her face. She undid her hair from its rough ponytail and shook it out.

“You’ve got pretty hair,” Rachel said.

“Thanks,” Trinity muttered, hardly knowing how to react to the compliment. She wasn’t good at that even under the best of circumstances.

As Rachel washed her own face and sat on the edge of one of the cots, slumping in exhaustion. Trinity lay face up on hers, pillowing her head on her arms, and tried to clear her mind.

She knew what was coming: the Claiming, where the highest-ranked Opiri were given a chance to bid on the new serfs. Considering the process from an entirely intellectual perspective, Trinity knew the experience was going to be unpleasant. But her only goal was to catch herself a Bloodlord or Bloodmaster who would unwittingly help her achieve her goals. The higher the rank of her owner, the more freedom she was likely to have within the Citadel. And such freedom was what she needed to carry out her mission.