Midnight Predator Part 7

"Does Midnight own the town it borders?" she asked, trying to kill time as well as to understand.

Jaguar nodded. "Not quite the entire town. Two apartment complexes, most of the stores, and a couple neighborhoods. The local paper is independent, as are the schools and most of the housing."

"Impressive." She meant it. Running Midnight was one thing; slaves were relatively easy to handle. Running a town filled with free-willed people must have been more difficult.

She didn't want to kill him. Turquoise realized that fact quite suddenly. She did not think Jaguar would try to protect Jes.h.i.+ckah, but any vampire might try to destroy two hunters he found in his territory, and if he did, Turquoise would have to kill him.

Deal with that later, she told herself.

When and if the problem arose she could think these thoughts. For the moment, Turquoise needed this time to return her body and mind to fighting condition. She couldn't afford to face Lord Daryl or Jes.h.i.+ckah as unfocused as she was, and she desperately needed to regain control after the last humiliating confrontation. As Jaguar continued to work, Turquoise ran through a stunted exercise routine, just enough to warm her up. She didn't have the energy to do her normal full set.

She collapsed onto the moss-covered ground, pausing to catch her breath, and then worked on honing her other senses.

Humans relied strongly on sight, but a hunter had to be focused in all ways if she was to survive. Hearing and smell could impart much knowledge about the terrain as well as about the enemy. More important still was the animal instinct for predators.

Humans had no natural predators, and so, like smell, they mostly ignored their latent sixth sense. Strong vampires put off an aura that made even dull-witted humans edgy; a more sensitive human would avoid the leech instinctively.

A trained hunter, like Turquoise, could consciously feel a vampire's presence. The ability made it harder to be startled, and it sped up reaction time in a fight.

She could feel Jaguar's presence, faintly, a tingling on the surface of her skin. From the same direction, she could hear the faint rustling of papers, and the soft sound of his breathing.

Breathing? She opened her eyes. Jaguar was paying no attention to her, and so she had an opportunity to observe him. She was startled to realize that he was breathing, regularly, as a human did. While Turquoise had heard them sigh or yawn or express other emotions, she had never known one who had retained this constant human habit. It was a rather endearing detail.

Jaguar seemed to sense Turquoise watching him; he rolled onto his side, for all the world like a cat himself, to look at her. "How are you feeling?"

"A little sore, but I'll be fine," she answered. "Get anything productive done?"

Jaguar shook his head. "I never get anything done. If I work in my room, someone usually shows up to threaten my life or sell something to me. If I work out here, this girl gets restless." He rubbed his hands down Shayla's muzzle affectionately.

Jaguar's voice was reflective as he mused aloud, "In the original Midnight, Jes.h.i.+ckah had an albino leopard that lived in the courtyard. Nekita, she was called."

"I wouldn't think Jes.h.i.+ckah much of a cat person, " Turquoise responded. She tried to picture Jes.h.i.+ckah tumbling with her leopard as Jaguar did with Shayla, and failed.

"When Jes.h.i.+ckah got angry, she'd tie people to the trees in the courtyard so Nekita could sharpen her claws. Usually the victims were humans, or occasionally shape-s.h.i.+fters. Sometimes they were other vampires."

Turquoise grimaced. She did not ask-did not want to ask-whether Jaguar had ever been Nekita's target. "I take it that's part of the original Midnight you decided to change?"

He nodded. "Shayla is very gentle. She'll hunt the prey I bring into this place-rabbits mostly, or birds if they land here-and she'll attack if she's frightened, but if given the chance she would rather retreat than give pain. Only humans have it in their nature to torture."

"And vampires?"

"You think vampire blood gives one the desire to hurt another?" Jaguar responded. He shook his head. "A feeding vampire is as natural and simple as a wolf or a lion. It's only when the human mind is in control that any creature has the desire to give pain."

He gazed at Shayla fondly, and Turquoise recognized longing there-longing to be so innocent. She wondered how Jaguar had survived so long. Sentimentality was a deadly flaw in a predator. Even Turquoise could recognize Jaguar 's weakness the way a wolf recognizes the stragglers in a herd.

"The more you describe the original Midnight to me, the less I can picture you as one of its fearsome trainers." Before he could speak, she added, "You don't seem like someone who would enjoy living there." Jaguar looked surprised for a moment. "You mean the type of person who would enjoy power, wealth, luxury, instant obedience, and virtually anything else I ask for?"

"I mean the type of person who would enjoy manipulating another living creature."

"Why not?" Jaguar responded unnervingly. "We all do what we're good at, and manipulation is a skill I learned very early."

Turquoise shook her head. "You're trying to scare me again."

"Maybe," he answered. "Maybe I don't need to try. Maybe I just need to be honest. I refuse to work as a trainer anymore," he stated, "but that doesn't mean I never did, and that is not work any creature can ever forget. The instinct to a.n.a.lyze, manipulate, destroy, and dominate never goes away. Reason and . . . morals can overlap and control instincts, but they can never destroy them."

He shook his head, his gaze distant. His voice was soft as he added, "I don't want to have to break you."

She didn't like the way he phrased that.

"If Jes.h.i.+ckah takes over Midnight, she won't let you stay here as freeblood. Either she'll kill you, or she'll have someone tame you."

"Lord Daryl didn't manage it," Turquoise stated, bravado in her voice.

"Daryl is too soft," Jaguar stated coldly, and this time Turquoise did recoil. Soft? The creature of her nightmares, soft?

Then Jaguar's voice was in her mind. Daryl decided to act as a trainer because it was profitable, and he liked power. He can't read people very well, and he certainly has no idea how to control them.

Turquoise would not look away, though she wanted to get as far from the vampire in her brain as possible.

A trainer who knew what he was doing . . . For a split second images came to her, vivid and painful; her knees gave out and she fell to the ground, the phantom taste of blood in her mouth. You're strong, Audra. But you don't know what you're up against.

He paused.

Would you like me to let you go?

Yes! Her mind was still reeling from the brief taste Jaguar had given her-a taste of what it was like to be in a trainer's cell, one that would keep her awake at nights longing for the more gentle memories of a beating from Lord Daryl.

Think I have somewhere else to go? she answered, as soon as she could gather her thoughts. She would love to go, to get as far away from Midnight as possible, but she had a job here and would not leave until it was finished. Besides, if she ran now she would need to run forever. One was either predator or prey; a person could not be a hunter if she hid from that which she hunted.

"As you wish." She could feel Jaguar leave her mind, like a subtle pressure draining away. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I wanted to make sure you knew what there was for you to fear."

"Thanks," she answered hoa.r.s.ely, not yet trusting her legs to hold her if she stood. She forced herself to focus on the job.

Information was safe, safer than memories, anyway. "Why is Jes.h.i.+ckah so upset about how you're running things here?"

Jaguar sat beside her. "She wants me to rule Midnight like she used to."

"Don't you?" Jaguar's expression was shocked. "You don't know much about the first Midnight, if you ask that question."

"Then tell me."

Jaguar's expression was distant as he spoke. "The east wing was a row of cells, each of which usually housed a litter. " He hesitated with distaste, and then explained. "The humans were bred for beauty and obedience. Eight or nine children were usually born each year, but it was rare for more than four or five to live past the first culling."

Turquoise choked back bile as Jaguar continued.

"The first-generation slaves, the ones brought into Midnight from the outside, were kept in the combined lower cells, or on occasion in individual trainer cells if they had caught someone's attention." He paused, and then gave an example. "Jes.h.i.+ckah's idea of a well-trained slave would make most of Daryl's dogs seem rowdy, and her methods make Daryl himself seem like a humanist."

Audra nodded, remembering the silent slaves Lord Daryl had surrounded himself with. To her eyes, they had been perfectly obedient, eerily so.

"You don't want to know more," Jaguar stated bluntly, and of course he was right. She had not wanted to know as much as he had already told her. "I worked in the original Midnight for almost two hundred years, until it was destroyed."

"Why did you rebuild it?" Turquoise asked quietly.

Jaguar looked surprised. "Someone was going to."

"Why?"

"Why not?" he responded. "Wealth. Power. The vampire who was threatening to rebuild at the time was generally disliked, and an old enemy of mine." His gaze searched her face for a moment as if wondering whether to say something. He continued, "Daryl, to be exact. You know him well enough to understand that it would have been disaster if he had taken control. Jes.h.i.+ckah had disappeared after her Midnight burned, and Gabriel didn't want to lead, so I was the only one with the power to challenge Daryl."

He shrugged, but there was pain in the movement.

"Is he really so strong?" Turquoise asked. Though there were crevices in her soul that held a particular horror of him, a panic that appeared when he was near, in her rational mind she knew he was not powerful.

"Physically, no, but he has political power. He was called a trainer in the original Midnight, and even though his methods were often ineffective, that t.i.tle gave him a following." Jaguar shook his head. "Still, no one would back him against one of Jes.h.i.+ckah's blood. I'm not quite the strongest in my line, but I'm close enough that the people who originally followed her will follow me."

"How . . ." She broke off, unsure that she wanted to know the answer to the question she had been about to ask.

Jaguar looked at her questioningly. "What?"

"How were your methods different from Lord Daryl's?"

He looked away from her, but still answered. "Daryl's line is known for its ability to manipulate the minds of humans, and he depends on that talent. He uses a simple mixture of brute force, physical and mental, to twist his slave 's minds into what he wants them to be." There was contempt in his tone as he continued, "It works about half the time. Frequently, he ends up with products too damaged to be of use. Scarring, for instance," he added, his tone apologetic, "is common on Daryl's projects. I knew you were once his the instant I saw your arms."

Turquoise swallowed the lump in her throat, and forced herself to say, "And how did you work?"

"Pain . . . is easy to give." His voice was remote, and his gaze rested on some distant point. "Daryl doesn't have the patience necessary to bide his time and observe. Every person has her own weaknesses, physical, emotional, spiritual. After a while, finding those weaknesses and pressing against them becomes a habit, almost a game." Turquoise remembered uneasily how Jaguar had done just that when she had woken that evening and pulled away from him. He had reacted to her fear almost angrily, like a shark that had caught a blood scent but did not want to acknowledge his attraction to it.

When he spoke to her, was he sizing her up, testing her as a possible opponent? He said he did not want to break her. Did that mean he saw her, a human being, and was content with her actions and reactions? Or was she just a slave he happened to be fond of, and which he would wait to tame until she ceased to please him?

Her thoughts were cut off as Jaguar looked up abruptly. He muttered a curse under his breath and then jumped to his feet.

Stay here.

Turquoise ignored the words and followed Jaguar. She swore at a rock that nearly tripped her, and arrived in the southern wing just in time to hear the crack of Jaguar's whip and a loud string of colorful expletives from Ravyn. Ducking, she narrowly avoided the knife that Jaguar's whip had caught and tossed across the room.

I thought I told you to stay put.

She did not respond to Jaguar, and he did not insist on an answer. They both had more pressing issues to deal with.

Ravyn had her back pressed to the wall; her hair was in disarray, and she stood stiffly, favoring her right leg. Her gaze flickered to Turquoise briefly, and then returned to the two vampires in the room with her.

Jes.h.i.+ckah was leaning against a table; despite a slit in the side of her s.h.i.+rt, which had probably been made by Ravyn's knife, she looked unfazed. Her gaze was fixed on Jaguar.

Jaguar snapped the whip to disentangle it from Ravyn's wrist; Ravyn hissed in pain, and from the doorway Turquoise could see blood on the burgundy hunter's skin.

"Are you in the practice of letting dangerous pets run about like feral dogs?" Jes.h.i.+ckah asked acidly, causing Jaguar to stiffen.

"Or are you completely out of control of your own property?"

Audra, out. The command was forceful, inviting no disobedience.

However, one does not leave one's allies to get slaughtered, even if those allies are the likes of Ravyn Aniketos.

Audra. The second voice rolled through her mind like honeyed blades, a combination of sweetness and threat. Aren't you going to obey your master?

The words loosed a vivid memory, intentionally Turquoise knew.

Catherine, aren't you going to obey your master? The vampiress's voice slipped into Cathy's mind at the same time that Jes.h.i.+ckah said aloud, "Your pet is rather poorly behaved, Daryl."

Lord Daryl wrapped an arm around the human's waist, and attempted to pull her back against himself, saying, "She's a work in progress."

Cathy slammed a heel down onto the bridge of Lord Daryl's foot and wrenched herself out of his grip, a.s.serting, "I am not your pet."

Lord Daryl was trying to impress this Jes.h.i.+ckah, whoever she was. Cathy refused to be a good little slave so he could flaunt his power. She saw amus.e.m.e.nt in Jes.h.i.+ckah's expression, and then fierce rage in Lord Daryl's, and belatedly realized that making him look like a fool in front of this particular member of his kind had been a really bad idea.

The first blow brought the taste of blood to her mouth. The second was a slug to her gut, and it sent her to the ground, gagging. The third was a kick to her rib cage. Normally, he would stop hurting her once she was down, but normally he wasn't nearly this furious.

The memory was enough to kick the hunter into action.

Turquoise dove, trusting the vampires to be unprepared; she rolled, grabbing the knife Ravyn had lost, and was almost to her feet by the time Jes.h.i.+ckah reacted.

Jaguar shouted, but Turquoise did not turn her attention to him; instead, she tried to keep Jes.h.i.+ckah's backhand from striking her across the side of the face. The blow would have been crippling, had it connected.

Every fighter has an instinctual tendency to defend first, then attack; that tendency has ended many a hunter 's life. Only one ineffective defense means death, but only one effective attack means victory. If that attack is fast and hard enough, there is no chance of losing because an opponent has no chance to fight back.

Her left shoulder contacted with the vampiress's gut, knocking her off balance. In the instant before Jes.h.i.+ckah could recover, Turquoise raised the knife in her right hand.

The crack of a whip echoed dimly in the back of her mind.

Then blackness.

CHAPTER 14

LORD DARYL SHOVED HER AWAY, toward Nathaniel. She couldn't get up again. Everything was bleeding, bruised, throbbing.