Page 139 of The Shade of Things
It didn’t surprise me that the master vamp had kept all this a secret because if I was right, this was a massive vulnerability that he wouldn’t want becoming public knowledge. He was no different from Laurent or Tatiana in that regard.
I recalled Delilah.
Zev wasn’t that different from me. None of them were. We are all too proud and scared to show any chink in our armor.
I remained lost in thought as I headed through the unkempt lawn teeming with statues outside Rome that I’d dubbed Gargoyle Gardens. It was creepy being all alone out here even in daylight, and I doubled down on my thoughts as a distraction.
James Learsdon was dead because this ancient vampire called Dagmar believed he’d given her a phony elixir. But I hadn’t ever asked myself what that elixir did or why it was so important to someone who had eternal life. Not until now. What if it wasn’t just Zev’s vamps that were suffering? Dagmar’s cadre of vamps were in New England, so how widespread was this disease or whatever it was?
I hit the top of the lane as a vampire hobbled toward me, his body stooped and twisted. Silver was threaded through his dark hair, and his face was gaunt.
It was Yoshi, looking decades older than he had when I last saw him. His lithe frame was dangerously thin and wasted, but he didn’t appear to see through my cloaking.
He grasped the doorknob, his shoulders sagging, and rested his head against the door like even that tiny movement had sapped his energy. Beating a fist against the wood, he threw his head back to the heavens with a snarl.
I swallowed, my mouth dry.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and slipped inside.
I ran back through the gargoyle statues and inside the club, flying down the stairs to the basement and along the corridor, hoping Zev was awake. My magic had fallen away by the time I rapped repeatedly on his office door.
He opened it with a scowl. “You were making enough ruckus to be heard two floors away.”
“Was it all because of Yoshi?” I voiced the question as softly and respectfully as I could.
Still, Zev hauled me inside his office none too gently and shut the door. “I’d be careful what you say next, Ms. Feldman.”
“Your search for the Ascendant was for the same reason Dagmar went after James and the elixir, isn’t it?” I said gently. “The last time I saw Yo—your friend in the sake bar, he didn’t look so good.” My eyebrows shot up. “Was that why he asked to drink from me?”
“Too clever by half, aren’t you?” Zev’s eyes glinted, his words a lethal purr.
“Did my blood help?”
He blinked at me, then physically drew back, his face a perfect blank mask. “Only temporarily,” he finally said.
“Did the estrie cure him? Did she give him a transfusion or something?”
“It required far less of her blood than that, but yes, he’s recovered.”
At a steep cost. Would Yoshi regain his full health? Looking at Zev’s expression, I decided not to ask. Yoshi had violated my memories when he’d fed off me, but I didn’t want him dead.
Necessarily.
Nor did I regret my part in his survival. Better that I’d helped than Zev go rampaging in thrall to his emotions because he’d lost his best friend.
I shivered at the very idea. It was so easy to dismiss Zev as cold and unfeeling, capable only of deep anger due to the circumstances of him being turned. When he’d betrayed Tatiana, I’d believed that even that relationship, the one human person he was attached to, meant nothing.
How wrong I’d been. Zev had taken no glee in compelling her. He’d sacrificed that relationship, one that may have lasted decades, for the one I suspected had lasted hundreds of years with his best friend.
“Don’t ascribe some human sentimentality to me,” Zev said. “Yoshi is a strong ally, even now. It was in my interests to keep him alive.” Off my blink of surprise, he rolled his eyes. “You wear your thoughts on your face.”
“I wasn’t thinking that at all. Just wondering if he was older than you. Is he even of your line?
“He is much older and no.” He paused. “The one who sired him was killed long ago.”
I sank into a new miasma of thoughts.
Zev’s lips quirked. “I feel your mind whirring, Ms. Feldman. Do share.”
