Chapter 9: The Sanguine Queen

Infiltrating an Ostragonian stronghold wasn’t as easy as waltzing in and making introductions. But Kitara had a pretty good idea where to start.

At Valëtyrian intersections with Earth, the AIDO built their facilities. Where Ostragarn crossed, however, Ostragonians erected entertainment venues designed to entice humans with their supernatural glamor.

The fâșia întunecată just outside downtown Bucharest was no exception.

The diversity of the city’s architecture hinted at the long-lived creatures who resided there, dating back to medieval times. Gothic spires reached for the sky like bony fingers, sinister in their beauty. Neoclassical arches and columns punctuated Moorish structures in a mish-mash of style that shouldn’t have meshed, but yet somehow did. Hidden doorways and secret passages led to darker bars and clubs where music echoed louder, and substances ran stronger. The scent of acrid cigarette smoke and something sweeter mingled in the air outside.

Establishment names in both Romanian and English advertised to the passers-by on the sidewalk in blazing letters that didn’t quite chase all the shadows from their path. Kitara joined a queue of human girls waiting outside a bar called Regina Sangvină. Topped by a neon yellow crown, the name glowed on the building in a red script. Beneath, in smaller letters, the name was translated as The Sanguine Queen.

When the bouncer waved her in ten minutes later, he leaned forward and spoke low in Romanian.

Though Sleeper training required she learn a few, unlike Devika, Kitara wasn’t fluent in over a dozen human languages. “English?” she asked with a coquettish smile.

“Come up front next time.” His accented words were for her ears only. “We give…priority access to people like you.”

Kitara smiled, her eyes hooded. “Good to know, thank you.”

He nodded and straightened with a double-take lingering over her backside as she walked in, admiring the suggestive red ensemble she wore.

The choice of provocative outfit was a necessary but acceptable risk, though Netherlings usually distrusted their sexual partners as much as anyone else. It ruled out carrying any weapons, so Kitara kept an innocuous-looking hairpin tucked into her braided hair, though it would only buy her enough time to escape—not take down an enemy.

Tonight, she hoped she wouldn’t need to worry about either.

Kitara scanned the room, assessing the atmosphere. Conversation rose and fell in a mix of Romanian and English, while the tang of copper flavored the air from numerous glasses of thick, dark liquid. Dim lighting made it difficult for humans to pinpoint what, exactly, their companions might be drinking. Anywhere else, some patrons would inspire fear and panic. Vampires with ruby eyes and too-sharp teeth. Valorn framed by black feathered wings. But no one cared about red eyes or feathered wings here. Not in this smoky bar with its misleading blue ambient lighting. Not at this spot on Earth.

Satisfied, Kitara pulled her golden wings into existence. She stretched out their full eight-foot span as if unaware the sight would draw attention, then folded them neatly behind her.

She proceeded to the bar and the bartender approached, overlooking his other, less extraordinary customers. Slick black hair highlighted dark eyes and a jawline that could have inspired Michelangelo. He sported full tattoo sleeves on both arms and a pair of black wings tucked tightly against his back.

“Salut,” the Valorn said with a wanton smile. “Ce pot sa iti aduc?”

“Whiskey, please,” she said.

He switched to English without missing a beat. “Coming right up.”

When he returned with a glass of amber liquid and she made as if to pull out a bill, he shook his head. “Newcomers drink free first night.” He winked. “On the house.”

“Oh, I like this place,” she breathed.

He didn’t hide his gaze flickering over her curves. “Can I get you anything else?”

She smiled sweetly at him. “Possibly.”

“Name it.”

“I want to know the name of the fucking worm who killed my Erik.”

The Valorn blinked, eyes wide with momentary bewilderment. “Erik? Who’s Erik?”

“Valorn,” Kitara replied, waving a hand around her head as she described Landon’s alias. “Blue hair, wore lots of rings? Rumor has it someone in this area got him killed.”

The bartender appeared to regret offering her free drinks. “I didn’t know he was dead.”

“Someone does.”

“He stayed out of everyone’s way, didn’t cause problems. Don’t know why anyone would kill him.”

Kitara huffed an impatient sigh.

He signaled to someone behind her. “Look, I want to stay out of it. But I’ll introduce you to somebody who might know more.”

So you’ll leave me alone. The unspoken words hung in the air between them.

Kitara turned and met the blood-red eyes of a female vampire. She’d leaned into the vampiric trait; her hair and nails shared a similar hue.

“This is Scarlet.”

Seriously?

“Scarlet, this is—” The bartender frowned. “I didn’t actually get your name.”

“Sabine.” Kitara supplied the name of her own alias.

“Scarlet, Sabine has questions about Erik,” the Valorn stressed.

The vampiress arched an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Kitara shot the bartender another sycophantic smile. “Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.”

The Valorn rolled his eyes and turned his back to them.

Scarlet gestured for Kitara to walk with her. She didn’t look older than seventeen or eighteen—likely one of the humans Ostragarn devoured and spat back out forever changed. The Sleeper snagged her drink from the bartop and followed. With the movement, she deftly palmed a white packet of clear powder into the glass. It dissolved on contact.

“I have some questions,” Kitara said as she swirled the liquid inside.

Scarlet pursed her lips in the bartender’s direction, but he made a pointed show of wiping down a handful of bar glasses. “About what?”

“Erik,” Kitara replied. “He’s dead. I want to know who did it and why.”

Scarlet chewed the inside of her lip as she sat in a low-backed booth designed to accommodate someone with or without wings. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“He was my boyfriend,” Kitara snapped, draping her own wings over the booth. “Someone must know what happened to him. He didn’t end up dead on accident.”

Scarlet gave her a once-over, eyes narrowed. “Where’ve you been the last year or so? Never knew he had a girlfriend.”

“We were doing the long-distance thing.”

“And you never…thought he was unfaithful, or anything?” Scarlet leaned back and crossed her arms.

Kitara blinked, like she hadn’t considered that possibility. “I—no, of course not. What does that have to do with him getting killed?”

A thin smile spread across the vampire’s face. “Let me tell you something,” she said, “you know, girl-to-girl, or whatever. Your Erik was definitely screwing around.” When Kitara tensed as if to lunge at the vampiress, Scarlet held up her hands in a pacifying gesture. “Relax, chiclet, not with me.”

“Who?” Kitara bit out in a tone of icy steel.

“A Valorn was fond of him, sucking face all the time,” Scarlet said. “Then he and a vampire had a thing for a while, but I think they broke up. At least, their screaming match here a few weeks ago implied they did.”

Kitara’s hands curled into fists. “You think that bitch killed him?”

Scarlet laughed. “It’s not out of the question, but I don’t know.” She waved at another vampire—a waitress—to pause by their table.

“What do you need?” the vampire asked.

“Bring me something dark and neat, would you?”

The waitress nodded and moved away. Scarlet appraised Kitara with a jaunty eyebrow.

Kitara took a long drink from her glass. “He’s been here screwing around this whole time?”

“Apparently.”

Kitara’s expression turned murderous. “Then I should have killed him. I still want to know who was responsible.”

Scarlet sighed. “Okay, I’m going to throw you a bone, because I’ve had my share of assholes and been where you are, a long time ago.”

That might have been true, but it wasn’t likely the reason for the offer. Offering information with the intention of calling in a later favor was common.

“There’s this guy—no one knows who he is—but everyone calls him ‘the Maker.’ You heard of him?”

Kitara shrugged, willing her pulse to remain steady lest the vampiress hear it. “Doesn’t ring abell. What about him?”

Scarlet lowered her voice, red eyes darting around for eavesdroppers. “They say when immortals disappear, he’s usually responsible,” she whispered. “He’s got connections to…hell, anybody who matters. He’s the de facto ruler of Ostragarn, regardless of who’s actually in power.”

“Why do they call him—them—the Maker?”

“Because he makes things happen,” Scarlet said. “And those who get on his bad side tend to ‘meet their Maker,’ if you know what I mean.”

Kitara snorted, lifting her glass as the waitress returned with a lowball of sticky red darkness for the vampiress. Scarlet wasted no time and tipped the glass back while Kitara sipped her own drink, studying the other woman with wary curiosity.

“So.” Scarlet put the drained glass back on the table. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m…not sure. I came here for answers, maybe to start a blood feud.” Kitara scowled. “How do I contact the Maker?”

“You don’t; he contacts you.” The vampiress stirred the dregs of her drink with a finger and popped it in her mouth. The Sleeper stifled a shudder of revulsion. “The closest you might get is a group of his friends. They’re here a few nights a week.” Scarlet scrutinized the crowded establishment, squinting through the dimness. “You’re out of luck tonight, though.”

“Of course,” Kitara muttered.

“Look, unwind a little, have a few drinks. I’ll sit here, and you can tell me how much that Erik guy sucked in bed.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“You’re accosting bartenders and demanding to meet the Maker. Ballsy, if not downright stupid. You might prove useful to me later,” Scarlet said, waving her hand.

Ostragarn’s hierarchy was built on power. Who lost it, who craved it, and who could prove they had any. Scarlet wasn’t an exception.

Kitara spent the evening with her new friend. She’d gotten lucky—the vampiress gossiped quite a bit. Nothing significant; no, the power of information held too much value for that, but Kitara filed away a few things she prattled on about in hopes it might pan out later.

Begging jet lag and her desire to sleep before dawn, Kitara extricated herself from the vampire, who admitted she wanted something fresher than the blood behind the bar.

After Scarlet withdrew, Kitara left too. She wandered through the streets and various establishments, leaping between rooftops to ensure no one followed her. Finally, after taking a circuitous path back to her flat, she began a report for Storm, who, mercifully, hadn’t crossed her mind until then.

Storm bolted upright in bed the next morning, scrambling for his phone. Too exasperated to absorb Kitara’s infiltration plan when she sent it and too distracted to reflect on it when the guys left, it woke him in a panic before dawn. He struggled to remember the details. Something about a boyfriend, revenge…

Something to draw attention: the exact opposite of a Sleeper’s job.

Stars, was she trying to get him fired?

He pulled up her correspondence and read it more thoroughly this time, dread gnawing at his gut as he confirmed what he’d been too tired to recognize the night before. A plan involving drawing attention to herself and the Sleeper who came before her. While well-educated on military strategy and torture methods, the memory of the pictures of Landon’s corpse still nauseated him.

He swore to himself, sending off a text.

Are you crazy? Don’t do that.

He didn’t expect a response this early, considering Kitara’s nocturnal schedule. So it surprised him when three dots appeared on his screen, indicating she was awake and responding.

Too late. It’s done.

Storm considered throwing his phone across the room.

Are you trying to get yourself killed?

You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Major.

He snarled out loud before typing a message with enough force the screen warped with each tap.

Not likely. Send me everything you did and said, so I can try to walk it back.

The dots appeared again, and he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The dots disappeared. No message came through.

Growling, he sent another.

I’m serious, Kitara. I’m your handler. That was a stupid plan, I need to figure out how to fix it.

He waited a few more minutes, but the dots didn’t reappear.

Now Storm did throw his phone, shoving his hands through his hair while cursing her to Ostragarn and back.