Page 94 of Resurrection
“Sei?” Gabe whispered, holding him hard enough to hurt. Whatever was bothering him was big.
“You know how there were three souls in the golem, and we couldn’t find the body for the third?”
“Yeah?”
“The body was Matthew’s.”
Gabe blinked, processing. Not possible was his first thought. Beheaded, and exploded, the entire site now a field of nullification. However, if there had been enough of the body intact… put in the ground and resurrected? Possible.
“You’re certain? You have the body?” He could kill it for sure. End that vampire as he had thousands in the past. It was something necessary as a sire and master vampire, but in this instance, he would enjoy it. The man who had abused Seiran as a child, manipulated Sam, and had tried again to take Seiran from him, he deserved to die a slow and painful death.
Seiran wouldn’t look at him, his gaze going blank and finding a spot of nothing on the far wall to stare at. “We only have pictures. Video. Some security footage.”
“You don’t know if it’s really him.”
“It’s him,” Seiran said firmly, an icy hand forming like a fist around their bond. Gabe flinched as it cooled the fire, but felt sharp enough to cut. His rage, he realized, not Seiran’s who was all heat and life, but the cold touch of the grave.
“But the soul is in the golem? We could release them.”
“Which would free the revenant to control the body.” Seiran sighed and finally shifted his tired gaze back Gabe’s way. “We think they are using Matthew’s body as a vessel for a demon.”
“Who’s we? I’ve seen demons before. It’s not pretty.” Gabe recalled that Seiran had said he’d encountered one before too.
“Sam. He’s been my enforcer, at my back until you can fill that role. I guess if you want to. I mean, maybe you want to go back to business or something instead of following me around.”
“I have no intention of going anywhere without you again.” And Gabe’s first goal would be to put down Matthew Pierson once and for all.
“Then best get training. Sounds like there is a course you have to complete before you meet the requirements to be my backup. Sam says it’s intense.”
“To Sam, anything beyond playing a video game is intense.”
A smile touched the edge of Seiran’s lips. He still looked way too tired.
“When was the last time you slept?”
“I sleep. I come home, hug my kids and fall into a coma for about three or four hours.”
Gabe groaned. Back less than an hour and he had a dead man to rekill, an organization to take over, or several of them, and a lover to retrain. “You’re a lot of work.”
“Yeah? Maybe you’d like to go back in the ground?”
“Fuck that,” Gabe said. “I have an empire to rebuild.”
“Everyone said you were sort of the anti-king. Didn’t want to be in charge.”
“Who told you that?”
“Max. Mike.”
“I’m not anti-power, only anti-media spin. Let’s work on ruling the world from the shadows, okay? It’s what I do best.”
“I just want my family safe,” Seiran admitted.
Gabe wrapped his fingers through Seiran’s hair, missing the length, but enjoying the texture. “We’ll work on that. Are the Dominion still after us? I noticed the house was open.”
“Always and probably. It’s complicated. Long story short, the Dominion has been declared a cult. A lot of people died when I reflected their spell back at them. The government has been arresting members, mostly high-ranking officials, but they haven’t gotten them all. And we can’t completely trust the government. I think they are more on board with all this because they got to seize assets and money, rather than the loss of life raising their ire.”
“Sounds about standard for any government,” Gabe remarked.