Burning (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

vampires in the history of the world. This guy is one generation removed from Satan. He’s gotta be five hundred years old if he’s a day. I had no idea that Dracula 1.0 was even still kicking.”
    “ He is indeed, still kicking. He vowed to kill me before the year is out. There’s a contract out on me.”
    “ A blood oath? That’s serious. Why does he want to kill you so bad?”
    “ Last year, I killed his vampire lover.”
    “ You’ve got some balls, woman!”
    “ Yes, I do. He took Rudolph from me. So—”
    “ Whoa. An eye for an eye?”
    “ I admit, monsieur , that I had biblical justice in mind when I killed her. She was a vampire who had never personally done a thing to me, but she killed more than six hundred people as a human being and many more as a vampire.”
    I digested this. “Who was this vampire woman you killed?”
    “Elizabeth Bathory.”
    My mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”
    “I am.”
    “ Why did you do that? I mean, why her ?”
    “ Elizabeth Bathory was a means to an end. I wanted to rid the world of her likes. But mostly, I wanted to hurt Vlad in the way that he had hurt me.”
    I was appalled. “Do you have any idea how sick that sounds? How cold and calculating?”
    “I do. But it’s not revenge on my agenda tonight.”
    “ Then what is your agenda?”
    “ Protecting other humans from this monster is our duty and goal. Vlad was with the ones who killed Rudolph—my lover, your brother.”
    “ I’ve been searching for them for years. Who are the others who killed Rudolph?”
    “ We think their names are Nero and Delilah.”
    Admittedly, this is the first that I even knew their names. My heart raced appropriately. “How do you know this?”
    “Intelligence gathering. We have a computer guru, Jade, and she mines the internet and we check out leads. We have paid informants, on occasion.”
    I chewed on the names. “Nero and Delilah. Surely not the historical figures?”
    “Of course they are.”
    I was suddenly thunderstruck. I pulled out my wallet.
    “What is it, Rand?”
    “ I want to show you something I have carried in my wallet since the day Rudolph died. I found it next to his body. It never made sense until now.”
    I reached into the secret compartment of my wallet and pulled out the item and showed it to her. She asked if she could examine it and I said sure. She turned it over in her hand. “It’s a bronze coin,” she said, then looked at me. “With Nero Caesar’s face on it.”
    “You know your numismatology. Does he always leave his coin next to the dead? Like a serial killer’s calling card?”
    “ Oui, ” she said, shuddering. “Put it away, s’il vous plait . I can’t look at his face.”
    “ Now we know. Nero killed Rudolph. Or at least took partial credit for it.”
    “ I wouldn’t put it past him to even be involved in your parents’ deaths, too.”
    How and why they were connected, I didn’t know, but I know one thing: he needed to die. They all did. I said, “Maybe Vlad will leave us clues to where the others are.”
    “We think so.”
    I thought about this, pacing in the confined quarters of Gabby’s room. “How many people do you think have tried to kill Vlad over the centuries?”
    “Hundreds. Including Rudolph. They all failed.” She shrugged. “You won’t even help me tonight, Rand?”
    “ Of course I will! This one time, I’ll help. For Rudolph. But I want to let you know that we’re probably going to get killed tonight, so any long-term promises, like me joining your organization, would be moot.”
    “ Call it a hunch.”
     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    We grabbed a bite to eat and I tanked up on fluids.
    For some reason, flying with Samantha left me dehydrated. As we set up for Gabrielle’s intimate nightclub show, I pondered Rudolph’s killers; Vlad appeared not to have been the actual murderer, but an accomplice. That was good enough for me. He deserved my silver arrow in his heart.
    The wheels