Page 66 of Absolution
Max’s phone rang. I knew it was his because he recognized the ring tone and was instantly annoyed. He picked up the phone and glared at the screen which read:Tresler.
Fuck. Was Max part of this mess too?
Max answered the phone and put it to speaker. “What do you want now?” The irritation in his tone left no question that he was not happy to hear from the final remaining member of the Tri-Mega.
“Galloway is dead.”
“I did report as much earlier this evening. It was his own damn fault.”
“Did he know the boy was a siphon?” Tresler demanded.
“Since he tried to take control of his power, I would assume so. I knew from the moment I met him. It’s unlikely that Galloway would not have known.”
“And yet you didn’t tell me.”
“Tell you what? What you should already have known? Wouldn’t it have been Gabe’s job to report his charge’s power to you?” Max nodded as if he knew the answer to his own question. “Gabe didn’t know what he was. Perhaps he’s never met a siphon before. I remember the days of the witch trials which eliminated entire family lines of them. Apparently our reach did not extend to Asia. Gabe actually spent a good portion of his life living in the East, didn’t he? Hiding from memories and constant wars, among people who thought he was some sort of kitsune.”
“It’s better off if you let the boy bond to me,” Tresler said.
“He accepted my bond. He destroyed Galloway with little effort. Would you really like to try?”
Tresler was silent for a minute. “You should accept my bond as well. How long until your mind frays like the rest?”
“My mind is fine,” Max assured him. And it was. He was clear, unclouded by doubt or scattered bits of emotion like Gabe had always been. I had thought that was what made Gabe more human, but perhaps that just meant Gabe had been broken a long time.
“There are so few left it is better for us all to unite. You could be part of the new Tri-Mega. You and Santini. You could have him back.”
“Did Santini let you blood bond him?” Max asked. My heart flipped over as the cold realization slipped through me.
“Of course. He wants to protect his lover and was willing to accept my help and strength.”
How many of the crazy vampires were blood bonded to Tresler? Had that happened before or after I’d gone to ground? Fuck. No wonder Gabe was completely batshit crazy now.
“You rejected my business proposal, how is that of sound mind?”
“For a stake in QuickLife? How many are blood bonded to you through the QuickLife?” Max inquired. “Without knowing it.”
“You know that was necessary. The young are so wild.” Tresler sighed whimsically. “Do you remember the old days? When we were worshipped and feared? When we didn’t walk among the cattle wining and dining them to our side?”
Max had thought those times very uncivilized and had found building his empire difficult. Too much unrest in the world at large. He thought the new ideas of diplomacy so much better for power consolidation and wealth building. “So you wish to return to the days in which the humans fear us and we were driven to hide from them? How is that a sound business decision?”
“I never hid from them.”
“Yet somehow you survived? Their numbers are so much greater than ours. It would take little effort for them to destroy us now. Even now they contemplate if that is a better course of action than diplomacy.” Max knew this for fact as he had several meetings with high-up members of the government speaking to him about that very issue. Asking questions. Demanding answers. If he hadn’t been tied to the government with a couple hundred contracts for goods and services through his vast array of businesses, he might have already found himself dead. Stupid, Max thought. This whole thing. A waste of energy over baseless greed.
I agreed.
“I am all-powerful, they would not dare.”
Right. The USA was a ballsy government who did it’s best to railroad anyone into their control, even decimating entire nations when it was convenient to them. A couple thousand vampires was nothing. Max nodded at my opinion. He’d seen it himself over and over again.
“I will think about your request,” Max offered, though had no intention of doing so.
“It’s not a request. You will accept my bond, as will the boy.”
I wasn’t a boy, and it irritated me that he thought of me that way. Hadn’t I just destroyed one of his equals? Bastard.
“The boy is bonded to me. It’s unlikely you can take his bond from me without my death. Perhaps you’re looking for a challenge?” Max suggested it as though it were no more consequential than the weather, but I felt the threat in him. He did not want to be pigeonholed. “Perhaps you forget that I have an organization of over one million witches at my beck and all? Or that Seiran Rou, the Pillar of earth, is currently the leader of that organization and the son of one of the most powerful Dominion witches in the world? The boy, as you call him, is theirs, I only bonded with him to control the revenant at Rou’s request. Take him from me and you take him from them.” There was silence over the line so Max added. “The last time you fought the witches the humans were on your side, eliminating them because it was convenient for them. Now the witches and humans are united. There are millions of them. Don’t think that because I am not the magical power that Galloway was, that I am weak. My allies are many.”