Page 10 of Vampire so Virtuous (Boston Vampires #1)

Boston, Massachusetts, Present day.

Joy of joys, Minh was walking in the street below.

It was tempting to avoid him, but Antoine was curious what he had to say. Maybe he could learn something.

Resigned, he waited, and not long after, Minh pulled himself up over the edge of the building.

Still dressed the same way: a sharp, expensive suit, this time with patent leather shoes.

But then Antoine was wearing his usual, too: black jeans, black T-shirt, long leather coat.

He made a wry face at his own predictability.

Vampires were definitively creatures of habit.

Maybe he should buck the trend and start wearing a more rainbow-themed wardrobe.

“Why don’t you walk the streets like a normal vampire?” Minh asked, brushing off his suit with an exaggerated, irritated motion. “You make me feel like Spider-Man, climbing up the side of a building. And Marvel is so trite.”

“That explains a lot.”

“Meaning?” Minh stepped onto the ledge beside Antoine.

“DC has no sense of humor. You’re so staid all the time. Marvel takes itself a lot less seriously.”

“It is obvious you’re a Marvel fan. No one could ever take you seriously.”

“You came all this way to trade insults based on comic books?”

Minh rested a hand on his knee and peered over the lip of the building at the streets below. “Have you found the girl yet?”

Antoine blinked, his humor fading. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t.” Minh said. “There must be some other reason you’ve been back here, every night for the last five. You’ve obviously lost something. If it’s not the girl you stared after with such longing, perhaps it’s your car keys?”

Antoine narrowed his eyes, looking away. He hadn’t realized his intent had been so… palpable . But then, he hadn’t known Minh had been watching him, either. He should’ve paid more attention.

“Haven’t you got better things to do than watch my hunting patterns?”

Minh gave him an amused look. “Outcast, you think I’d bother to watch you myself? I’ve got far more important ways to spend my time. Besides, is it a hunting pattern if you don’t hunt?”

Antoine accepted the confirmation that Minh had brought thralls uninvited into his territory with impassive stoicism. It wasn’t quite a declaration of war, but it was a clear provocation. The Code was clear regarding the rules of territories, but it was vague when it came to thralls.

That Minh had told him so blatantly was presumably meant as some kind of statement, but Antoine hardly cared.

There still wasn’t a real threat here—either from Minh or his thralls—and that, more than anything, seemed suspicious.

What was he planning?

The upstart pulled something from inside his suit jacket and threw it to the floor at Antoine’s feet. A pack of dead blood, stamped with ‘Massachusetts General Hospital’. From Gabriel’s territory. Minh got around. “Brought you some, as you can’t seem to find your own.”

“How thoughtful,” Antoine replied, his tone gracious. “I’d heard you were a foolish upstart, ambitious far beyond your ability. But you’re not, are you? You’re very kind, if a little stupid. A tip: drink less of this stuff, and you might get a bit smarter.”

Minh’s face went cold, his fangs showing.

It was a telling lapse. Poor form to let one’s fangs extend without purpose.

Antoine politely declined to comment, letting only amusement show on his face.

But inside, he was aggravated. He’d let himself be pulled down to Minh’s level, engaging in such a petty sally on impulse. He had more control than that.

Minh snarled. “I’m going to take your territory, then lock you in a steel box and bury you in concrete. And so you don’t get hungry, I’ll leave you with packs like this.”

He stamped on the packet of blood and the plastic exploded, spraying its contents towards Antoine. The act was petty, the blood harmless unless consumed, merely a mess. Antoine sidestepped, the crimson splatter arcing through the space he’d just occupied.

“We’ll see,” Antoine kept his words light.

Had Minh caught the tightening in his eyes?

It wouldn’t do to show Minh had struck a nerve.

No, that wouldn’t do at all. Again, Antoine wondered if Minh could read his mind, or if he’d simply picked the one punishment all vampires feared, not just Antoine .

“Perhaps I’ll start by littering your territory with some chattel corpses,” Minh mused, peering once more over the edge of the roof. “It would be entertaining to see your territory swarming with police for a while.”

Antoine glanced briefly at him before looking away again.

If Minh followed through, he wouldn’t be breaking the Code, but he’d be going against its spirit.

Such a move would attract significant attention; hardly in keeping with the mandate to ‘stay in the shadows.’ Yet unless Minh drained their blood first, leaving them as empty husks, the Curia would likely turn a blind eye. Just another provocation.

But Minh wasn’t done. “I think I’ll start with the girl you seem to care so little about.” He flashed his fangs at Antoine—this time deliberately. “Don’t worry, when I’m done with her, I’ll be sure to leave what’s left of her somewhere even you won’t miss it.”

Antoine’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t respond. Minh smiled, clearly delighted by some flicker in his expression, then stepped off the roof. “See you soon, Outcast.”

Antoine watched in silence as Minh drifted down to the street below, his thoughts elsewhere.

*

Nantes, France, 1747.

“ Tu ne m’as pas entendu t’appeler, mon chou? ”

Of course he had heard her calling. How could he not, with the hearing he now possessed? He could hear everything.

Antoine sat stiffly in the small room she’d given him, staring at the wall.

“ Tu devrais venir quand on t’appelle .”

No. Antoine was beyond obeying. What could she do to him that she hadn’t already? He refused to move.

“ Oh, un peu de rébellion? Amusant .”

She surged forward before he could react. Even with his enhanced vampiric abilities, she was still more powerful, stronger and faster than he ever imagined. Her hand gripped his hair, dragging him behind her through the chateau.

Back down to the basement, where it had all begun.

He tried to ignore the discomfort of his hair being pulled, the humiliation of scrambling for footing as she dragged him down the stairs.

She flung open the door.

The cage lay as he had left it weeks before, the iron bars torn out. She couldn’t put him in there, so how did she expect to restrain him ?

She threw him into the corner of the room so forcefully that he flew through the air, crashing into the wall. A jolt of pain shot through his arm, a blow to the head stunning him.

In the few seconds it took him to recover, Belle had lifted a flagstone from the floor. She pried up a second while he watched.

“ Et maintenant, tu m’as fait salir mes vêtements ,” she said, blaming him for the dirt on her clothing.

But Antoine didn’t care. There was nothing she could do to make him obey. Not anymore.

A third flagstone, set against the wall. She gestured at the earthen floor she’d uncovered. “ Creuse .”

Dig? That was an unusual punishment. Dull and pointless. He turned onto his side to stare into the corner, ignoring her. Refusing to cooperate.

It was the only weapon he had remaining.

She cursed under her breath, then, to his surprise, did the work herself. Her hands pushed into the earth, again and again, until a pile collected on the floor of the basement around her.

If she had objected to the dirt before, it was nothing compared to the state of her now.

The hole was almost large enough to stand in when she finally stopped. What did she have buried down there that was so important?

She climbed out, gesturing to the hole. “ Viens voir .”

Curious, he did lean up, peering over the edge. But it was too deep to see the bottom, and he was determined to hold on to his resistance. He slumped back down again.

Once more, her hand closed in his hair, and she dragged him to the hole, scraping his skin painfully over the coarse edge as she thrust him in. There was nothing down there. Nothing but packed earth, hard and old, compressed by the weight of stone for decades.

Belle replaced one of the three flagstones she’d removed, but it wasn’t until she reached for the second that he finally understood what she intended.

“ Non!” he cried, reaching for the edges of the hole to pull himself out.

But she was ready for it and still too fast for him.

A blow to the head stunned him, and he slumped back into the grave she’d dug. She set the second flagstone down while he was still reeling from the blow. He tried to resist as she dropped the third, but again she merely cuffed him away, pressing it firmly in place above him.

The hole was cramped and dark, with hardly enough room to crouch. But did she really think this would hold him? Was she going to sit above him for the duration of his punishment? That hardly seemed her style.

The noise of something heavy scraped above his head as she dragged it into position, and Antoine’s mind snapped to the many crates in the room. For the first time, he felt real fear. His strength was far greater than it had ever been, but was it enough to push upward against a weight such as this?

He tried many times that first night, but his strength failed him.

He tried to dig, but there was nowhere to put the earth. His fingernails soon tore, bloody and useless.

It was pitch dark, yet his eyes still registered every ridge of earth in his grave and every line of the flagstone above him. His legs cramped, forced to hunch beneath him, and he was whimpering with the pain within hours.

His only respite came when the sun finally rose, for even though he couldn’t see it, sleep overcame him.

In this way, he was able to distinguish night and day, but he soon lost track. Had it been three, or was it four? Then six, or maybe seven?