Royal Pains (Vampire Kings 2)

Will gritted his teeth and closed his eyes against the lash. The pain might have been more intense than before, but he was remembering what made it absolutely worthwhile. He would have taken a hundred beatings for the revelation he’d encountered this night.

8

The Secret

“I know your father.”

Will had been about to kill Chauvelin for the second, or was it third time, when Chauvelin came out with those four little words.

Lorien heard them too, and upon hearing them he let out a long, deep, and possibly quite frustrated sigh. He had retreated to a safe distance, away from the splatter, as Will described it. Even though when vampires died there wasn’t the same gooey residue you got from people, nobody wanted remains on them, whether those remains were dusty or gooey.

“We’re not going to kill him, are we? We’re going to let him survive so he can have another crack at us, aren’t we?”

Will wasn’t listening to any of Lorien’s rhetorical questions. He was entirely focused on Chauvelin, who had just become the most interesting man in the world.

“Who is my father? And how would you know when Maddox doesn’t know?”

Chauvelin laughed in a raspy way. “Maddox knows. Of course Maddox knows. He knows more than anybody else in New York and likely the world. If he is not telling you, then he does not want you to know. Perhaps he is not as much of an ally as you thought. Maybe I am not as much of an enemy.”

“He’s attempting to manipulate you, Will,” Lorien sighed.

Will knew Chauvelin was probably fucking with him. But that didn’t change the fact that Chauvelin was the first person he’d encountered, dead or alive, who seemed to know or even remotely care about the identity of his father. He wasn't going to kill him now.

“Tell me.”

“If I tell you, you kill me.”

“If you don't tell me, I kill you.”

Chauvelin smiled a little. “Maybe we can work out a deal that is somewhere in between.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you tell me what I want to know or I start breaking bones.”

“I used to work in a black ops site,” Chauvelin said. “You should start with my toes. They’re easy to break and they hurt like hell. But not as much as knees. And of course, because I’m a vampire, they’ll heal within hours and that means you can break them all over again.”

Will glanced over at Maddox. “He’s a freak.”

“I like him instantly more,” Lorien confessed, lighting another cigarette that would do no damage to his undead lungs.

Chauvelin had not previously moved from the place on the floor where he’d been thrown. Now he took the risk and sat up. He was still an unremarkable looking man, but he seemed much more interesting to Will than he ever had before, and even Lorien was looking at him with a begrudging respect. A man who told you how to best torture him was a man to be reckoned with.

“The deal is you don’t kill me. You hide me. And I promise not to try to kill either of you. My beef is with Maddox. Not either of you. He’s the one who killed the twins.”

Lorien looked somewhat shifty but did not say anything.

“You want me to hide you from Maddox? You know Maddox got me out of prison? Owns me, basically? You want me to betray him for you?” Will asked a series of what he considered to be very good questions. Chauvelin countered with one of his own.

“Which one of us is going to tell us what you want to know?”

Will conceded that part of the argument for the moment. He had other questions to ask.

“How do you know I am looking for my father?”

“Because you don’t know who he is, which means you must be looking for him. Your mother too. We cannot tolerate these mysteries in our lives. We are not built not to know. We are built to seek.”

“Think you’re a real smart guy, don’t you.”

Chauvelin shrugged. “I’ve survived you once, William. I am hoping to survive you twice.”

“You didn’t survive me. You became what you are now. Somehow.”

Chauvelin took the further risk of standing up. He was still shorter than Will, and still very much in danger, but there was a self-possession about him now. He’d always seemed such a pathetic, weak, bitter thing. But there could be no denying he was wicked smart and more dangerous than he seemed.

“I won’t kill you tonight if you tell me my father’s name,” Will said. It was a test. If Chauvelin said the right name, then maybe he could be trusted. If he didn’t, Will could kill him without fear that secret information was going to die with him.

“I’ll tell you more than your father’s name, Will. I’ll tell you where he is. His name is Ivan, and he is living in Wyoming. Do me a favor, and I will give you the address.”