Free Kardinal by Thomas Emson Page A

Nebuchadnezzars from unleashing the vampire god, Kea, on London. After coming back to life, Sassie had hunted him down, and he’d watched as Aaliyah drove a stake through her heart.
    He had the measure of vampires, even if he had loved them when they were human.
    Or he thought he did.
    This one was different.
    She had power. Real power.
    Vampires might be dangerous. They might be terrifying to most people. But they never conjured feelings of awe. Certainly not in Lawton.
    But for some reason, that was exactly what he felt standing in front of Ereshkigal.
    He sensed she was the most dangerous thing he’d ever met.
    Her hand became a claw on his chest, and her long nails dug into his skin.
    He gritted his teeth.
    He gripped the spear.
    He could have rammed it up into her chest.
    She might have been quick enough to avoid his attack.
    But he decided not to test her.
    “You like pain,” she said.
    “I try to avoid it.”
    “You reek of it.”
    “I should get a better deodorant.”
    “Or let me heal it.”
    She stepped towards him, her face turned upwards to stare into his. Her breath was on his skin. Her teeth flashed white and sharp, inches from his throat. Heat rose from her body. It warmed Lawton. Her hair smelled of roses. Her flesh smelled of death.
    Thorns , thought Lawton. She is thorns .
    “Your eye,” she said. “What is behind your patch?”
    “Why are you close to me? If you are what you are, then you should be scared of this,” and he removed the patch to reveal the red skin of the ancient vampires encased in the glass eye.
    Ereshkigal did not flinch.
    “The mark of the Nebuchadnezzars,” she said. “You are one of them. A servant of my Lord’s offspring?”
    He said nothing.
    “Another Simeon for me,” she said.
    “This doesn’t make you flinch? You’re not throwing a hissy fit.”
    “A what?”
    “Forget it. It doesn’t frighten you?”
    “I am Ereshkigal. I am of Nimrod, not of his offspring. I watched him tear them from his chest. I saw him birth them, his children. I was there when they began. I gave them freedom when the prophet of Yahweh stole into Irkalla, killed my sisters – and buried my Lord.”
    Her anger was mounting.
    “And these,” she said, gripping both ends of the Spear of Abraham, “these the prophet of God tore from my husband’s head.”
    Lawton finally shoved her away. She hissed. He quickly pulled the spear apart to make two swords.
    “How did you come by it?” demanded Ereshkigal again, crouching like a panther. “I sent it back to the east. I sent it with Nebuchadnezzars returning home after a war with Vlad Tepes. How did you come by it?”
    “I won it in a raffle,” he said.
    She cocked her head. “Who are you? Are you a voivode ? I sense pain in you, but I also sense… power. Are you a Nebuchadnezzar?”
    He paused before saying, “I kill Nebuchadnezzars – and I kill your kind. And I’m going to kill your husband, too, if I ever find him.”
    She straightened. “You are going to find Nimrod?”
    “If I can.”
    “Take me with you.”
    He creased his brow. “What?”
    “Take me home to Babylon.”
    “I’m going to kill him, and you want to come with me?”
    “I can gain you entry – I can protect you.”
    “Why would you protect me?”
    “Because you are taking me home.”
    “Why should I trust you?”
    “You shouldn’t.”
    “But,” said Lawton, realizing that she wasn’t as powerful as she seemed, “without me, you are trapped here – for eternity.”
    She shuddered.
    “Give me blood,” she said.
    Lawton raised his eyebrows.
    “A few drops. I won’t kill you. I need you if I am going home. I’ve not fed in 500 years.”
    “Five hundred years?” he said. “I thought you could only live three days without it.”
    “Your experience of my kind has been limited to lower creatures. I am not a lower creature.”
    She moved closer again and touched his brow with her cold hand. “Your blood, here, where your eye is red – there