Alpha's Legacy (Black Moon Saga Book 3)

27. The Basement

It’s actually shocking how much time and effort Bria puts into taking me around the house and showing me everything she can think of, including the necessary parts like the kitchen as well as various other rooms that she thinks will interest me. She doesn’t take me around to everyone’s private quarters, but she does make a point of showing me Bo’s room. His room is surprisingly neat and utilitarian considering what a ball of energy and chaos he seemed to be when I met him downstairs, and I suppose that might be why she wanted me to see it.

She also takes me to a room that she calls the “tearoom,” though I’m pretty sure that’s a joke that I’m not getting and that she probably isn’t going to explain. She describes it as a place for the crew to relax and entertain guests, but nothing about it suggests that it has anything to do with tea. It looks more like a home gym, considering the heavy bag hanging from the ceiling, though there is also a retro arcade machine in the far corner.

It’s the strange, padded tables off to one side of the room that really catch my interest, though. They look like they’re for massage or physical therapy or something like that, but Goddess only knows what other purpose they might actually be using them for.

The longer we linger there as she tells me about how Caz dominates on that arcade game, the more I start to suspect that those tables are used for something dirty. I’m picking up on the faint scent of s*x and pheromones lingering in the air as though it’s not been all that long since the room was put to good use, and not for playing video games. I’m guessing that “tea” might be an innuendo of some sort, and her story about the arcade game is probably not even true.

“You know, on second thought, it’s probably best if you don’t mention to Tian the part where our little tour included the tearoom,” Bria comments thoughtfully as she ushers me back into the hall and closes the door behind us. “I mean, I’ll gladly take the scolding because it was worth it to see the look on your face, but I’d also rather not deal with him like that.”

Yep, definitely an innuendo.

“Well, at least there wasn’t anyone in there having tea right now,” I offer my attempt at humorously shrugging it off like it’s no big deal.

And apparently succeed, judging by her amused cackle.

“Too true,” she agrees. Then she pauses, turning around and c*****g her head to the side as she studies me. “You know, I’m glad to see you adapting so quickly. When you first got here, you were all wide-eyed and rosy-cheeked and gasping and blushing at every little thing, and now that you’ve settled in some, you’re shrugging off all the eccentricities of our lifestyle like you see it all the time. And it’s been what, two hours?” She grins and nods at me approvingly. “Good for you, kid. Even being the offspring of the biggest goodie-goodie this world has ever seen, there’s still hope for you. I might just succeed at corrupting you, and you might just enjoy it.”

She winks at me and turns around to continue down the hall before giving me a chance to respond, and I follow her. It takes me a second to wrap my head around whether what she just said was even a compliment. I decide that it was, though not the sort that I should thank her for lest I want to provoke her into teasing me for my manners. I also can’t tell whether she likes my mom or is complaining about her, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’m not my mom, and Bria seems to like me regardless of whatever opinion she has of her.

“So, where are we off to next?” I ask, deciding to let her comment pass without responding to it at all, in much the same way that she tends to do when she’s just done with a topic.

“Back to the war room for a minute, and from there I plan to take you to the basement.”

I get the impression that the “war room” is the room that I’ve been calling the armory, and though I thought that it was in the basement, I’m getting the sense that she’s talking about somewhere else now.

“Why does that sound like a threat?” I ask her teasingly. “What doom awaits me in the basement?”

“Well, honestly, you’re not far off. It wasn’t a threat, but the basement is kind of an intense place to be seeing already,” she explains, turning down the hall that will take us down some stairs and eventually to the war room. “But I’m also getting the impression that the basement will turn out to be what interests you the most. It’s kind of the meat of what we do around here.”

A shiver of trepidation and excitement courses down my spine as I try to imagine what she might mean by that. To my understanding, what they do is hunt feral vampires. Could she be alluding to showing me one? I didn’t even think it possible, especially considering Tian’s threatening warning to them before he left. I’m not supposed to be anywhere near the hostile ones.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she cautions me, apparently noticing my excitement. “Yes, we hunt vampires, but keep in mind that we don’t do it because we enjoy killing our own kind. We try to save as many of them as we can, and to do that, we’ve set up rehabilitation centers at our various safehouses around the world. Rest assured that you won’t ever see one of the wild ones in person if I can help it, but we do have a couple down in the basement who have been working hard at curbing their primal instincts and preparing to assimilate into normal society.”

“Honestly, that’s better than seeing one of the feral ones. If I’m being honest, though I respect what you do and find it all to be exciting and fascinating, I’ll also never forget the feel of the vampiric sickness that was inside Pete, and I’m not keen on the idea of coming face-to-face with one of the creatures that did that to him. I know that shifters and casters have no business hunting vampires, and I’m both. That's double the reason for me to stay away.”

Her normally smirking, perpetually amused expression falters for a moment when I mention Pete, and knowing that she might feel responsible for what happened to him, I quickly add, “But a fledgling vampire who has gained control of his mind and body, or is working hard at doing that? That’s incredible, and I’d love to meet them. It would be an honor.”

That seems to effectively distract her from her dark thoughts about what happened to Pete, and now she’s smiling at me in a way that I almost want to describe as prideful. She does important work, and she knows it.

“Good. We have two held in this location, a man and a woman, and they’ve both come a long way since we took them in. It’s probably been about five years now, give or take, and they’ve developed the necessary awareness of the harm that their nature can cause to others. But I will say that though their social consciences are now fully online, they’re still at one of the more difficult stages as far as control is concerned. Fighting bloodlust is not an easy thing to do, and it takes decades to get used to never quite being satisfied by blood rations and adapt to the hunger. So, they’re both aware and have decided that they don’t want to hurt others just to feed themselves, but they’re not even close to the point of being trustworthy around anyone but other vampires.”

Considering that I’m not a vampire, I’m guessing there’s more to the situation. I can’t see her taking me down there if she doesn’t have some plan for how to manage their bloodlust around me.

“Which brings us to why we’re here,” she says, stepping into the war room and turning to make sure I’m still with her. “Not only is my favorite access door to the basement right over there,” she gestures to a metal door at the back of the room, beyond all the tables, “but I need to prep you before we go down there, and the stuff I need for that is in here.”

She points to the cabinets lining the wall to the left, but she doesn’t make her way over there just yet. The tables are clear of all the equipment and weapons that were sprawled out all over them before, and we’re the only ones in the room now. There’s a single sheet of paper sitting at the edge of the table nearest to the door, and that seems to have captured her attention.

She strides over to it and picks it up, pausing briefly to read the note on the page before relaying to me what it says.

“The crew just wanted to make sure you didn’t think that they scattered to get away from you or anything. Bo left for home to enjoy his days off, Mitham is off to stay with Ella at another location for this weekend, and the others have work to do. You’ll encounter them here and there all over the house, but Shy and Caz are waiting for us downstairs. They’re getting our tenants ready for your visit.”

“Tenants?”

She acts as if they’re just a couple people renting apartments from her or something, which seems odd considering all that she just told me about them. They’re fledgling vampires who have only recently discovered that they can be more than just raging, bloodlusting beasts. They’ve just discovered their humanity, basically.

“That’s what we call them, though of course, we don’t call ourselves landlords,” she explains, chuckling. “It’s meant to signify that they’re people, not monsters. They’re not working and paying bills, not in the human sense, but they do work and ‘earn their keep’ when they can. They’re still too new to be able to handle sunlight, which is why they stay in the basement, but at night when they’re feeling up to it, we let them wander around the house freely and help us with whatever we’re working on. The woman, Deborah is her name, she likes to tinker. She’s fixed and restored a lot of stuff around here, some of which we acquired especially for her to tinker with. She’s quite gifted, and keeping her hands busy seems to help keep her mind off things.”

“Like her bloodlust?”

She nods, crumpling up the paper and tossing it across the room and into a crate of some sort as if shooting a basketball.

“That, plus the fact that she’s even a vampire in the first place. She used to be a university professor.”

“Oh, wow,” I exclaim softly, feeling a bit stunned by that revelation. “I’m guessing that wasn’t a lifestyle change that she chose for herself. What happened?”

I’ve never really given much thought to where feral vampires even come from, though in the back of my mind I’ve always understood that a fully grown newborn vampire would have to be created from an adult human who has led a whole other life up until that point. And the fact that they’re feral generally means that they’ve either been created as part of a vampire nest, which doesn’t usually happen consensually, or they’re the result of a random, unplanned encounter with a rogue or feral vampire. Vampires that are created consensually and on purpose are rare these days because it is a practice that is heavily restricted by modern supernatural laws.

“The male happened,” Bria answers, giving a short laugh, though I can tell that it isn’t because she finds it to be funny. “His name is Scott, and he was a student of hers. I’m not going to tell you all the details because a lot of it is confidential, but let’s just say that there are certain districts of a certain city that are best avoided. My crew and I were called in to deal with the situation then, and now we’ve been called in to handle a problem in another area of that same city, but it’s not a quick nor an easy process to clear out an infestation of that magnitude. A lot of it comes down to intel, which is something that can be hard to come by, depending on who and what is responsible for the situation, and the rest of the problem has to do with access, which is even harder to come by sometimes. So, basically, we barely put a dent in it back then, and we’ll probably not have much success now either, but we still have to go in and fight the good fight and do what we can, when we can, where we can. I just wish …”

She lets the rest of her sentence linger unspoken and shakes her head, as if she doesn’t want to continue that train of thought.

I’ve noticed that she’s been clutching the edge of the table and holding a lot of tension in her shoulders as she explains things. It’s obvious that whatever she’s holding back is the real story, and it’s stressing her out. I also have to wonder if what she’s not telling me has anything to do with whatever some of her crew were returning from doing earlier that left them bloodied from head-to-toe, and part of me worries that my insisting on coming here has forced them to put something far more important on hold.

“Well, anyway,” she continues her tale, shaking off whatever dark or upsetting thoughts have invaded her mind, “Scott was one of the unlucky ones who didn’t have the better sense to stay away from the shady part of town. He was cornered by a rogue vamp outside of some sketchy club and ended up getting bitten. It took a few days for him to turn, and he happened to be in class when his bloodlust finally took over. His professor wasn’t the only one he got to, there were some other students and staff involved, but the two of them were the only ones we could help. And of course, The Council swooped in and did their thing with clean-up, and now no one even remembers that it ever happened.”

“Wow,” is the only response I seem to be able to come up with for that.

It’s stunning to realize that something so profound and earth-shattering can happen to people one night, and then by the next morning, they’ve been erased, and their experiences become little more than information that is shared on a need-to-know basis. And then if they’re lucky, they’ll move onto living in the basement of a mansion inhabited by some of the oldest and strongest vampires in the world, re-learning how to exist in the greater human society.

I’m still standing there mulling it over as Bria steps over to one of the cabinets and opens it. As usual, she seems to have quickly moved on from what we were talking about and is already focused on what’s next, completely unconcerned about how she just rocked my entire world. She’s good at doing that.

“Before we go down there, I need to spray you down with this,” she informs me, stepping back from the cabinet and holding up a bottle that looks suspiciously similar to the one that I remember Lee using the night that he snuck into my guest room at Luna’s Grace.

“Scent neutralizer,” I state in a way that ends up sounding more like a question. I think I recognize it, but I could be wrong.

“You’re familiar with it then. Good,” she responds, gesturing with her hands to indicate that she wants me to lift my arms up.

“Well, kind of. I saw someone use it once is all.”

“Pete?” she asks as she goes about the task of spraying me all over.

“No. Actually, it was a friend I met during my trip with Tian.”

“Oh,” she chuckles, pausing to make eye contact with me. “That guy. Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s the sort of guy to carry around scent neutralizer. Alpha males don’t tend to keep it in their pants.”

She must sense the way that her comment makes me tense even though I haven’t said anything because after just a couple more sprays she adds, “Sorry. That was probably insensitive of me. I know you really liked him.”

“How do you even know about him?” I ask demandingly, feeling kind of betrayed by Tian if he’s just been blabbing my private business around.

“You had plans with me that weekend, even if you didn’t know it then, and Tian called to cancel,” she explains. “And of course, I wasn’t just going to let him get away without an explanation. He didn’t give me much of one, but I guessed at the rest, and you’re kind of confirming it all right now. You liked Alpha boy, and he was the kind of guy who snuck around with a bottle of this in his pocket to avoid Tian’s wrath for daring to touch his little girl.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I start to protest, until I realize that she actually isn’t wrong about anything she just said.

What bothers me is her tone, and I don’t like how she talks about Lee. He doesn’t deserve that.

“Which part?” she wonders from behind me as she works on spraying down the back of me.

She’s being incredibly thorough about it too, far more than Lee was when he used this stuff. It kind of makes me wonder if his visit really did manage to escape Tian’s notice, or if Tian just decided to let me off the hook because he didn’t go in my room until after the encounter with Margot. Guess he figured that my broken heart was punishment enough.

“The slant you’re putting on it all,” I tell her. “Yeah, I mean, he snuck in to see me, but it wasn’t for what you’re thinking. We mostly just talked, though Tian wouldn’t have cared that that’s all we did.”

“Yeah, fair. He is a bit overprotective,” she agrees. “I can’t even imagine growing up with him as my dad. I give you a lot of credit because I probably would have escaped out the window more times than anyone can count, and probably not come back at some point.”

She seems to be finished with the scent neutralizer now and is returning it to the cabinet she got it from, and I’m debating whether to even bother continuing our conversation.

I am curious, though. I know she’s not actually Tian’s daughter, and she was an adult before he turned her, but he often seems a bit protective of his progeny too. I can only imagine what it was like to be in his care as a recently turned vampire, cut off from the rest of the world as she learned to control her nature, and I kind of want to ask her about it.

But I lose my train of thought when she opens the cabinet again, and this time I catch a glimpse of all the jars and bottles and tubs of various substances inside.

“What is all that?” I find myself asking her instead.

“The perks of having an in-house herbalist and poison expert,” she answers without explaining, shrugging as if her cabinet of concoctions is inconsequential.

“Who makes the scent neutralizer?” I wonder next, finding myself feeling even more curious now that I realize she took it from her cabinet of goodies that the herbalist made.

Lee said that Black Moon scouts use that same stuff, and though I suppose it makes sense for these hunters and our scouts to have a common supplier since they’re both linked to Tian, I find it interesting if that supplier turns out to be one of the hunters, as I’m now suspecting. I had assumed it was someone from my pack.

“Our herbalist and poison expert,” she confirms my new suspicion, turning and smirking at me.

Yep, definitely interesting. I wonder if the Black Moon scouts know that they owe some of their favorite tricks to a bunch of vampire-hunting vampires. Though, now that I think of it, it’s also intriguing that vampire hunters even use poison. I would have thought that they’d have no use for it, but I already know from what Aspen was telling me earlier that they poison their weapons to help along the process of subduing the hostile vampires without hurting them more than they need to.

“I just thought of something. Vampires are supposed to be immune to poison, right?” I wonder, pausing before asking the rest of my question because I suspect that Bria will guess at what I’m about to say before I get a chance to. She’s quick like that.

“That’s why Aspen told you that our poison expert is kind of a savant,” she answers. “He really is. He reverse-engineered the tech that allows some of the more sadistic rogue vamps to craft the poisons that mess with people on a genetic level, making it so that creatures like werewolves and casters can be turned, and he figured out which genetic mechanisms hold the key to creating temporary vulnerabilities in a vampire and how to manipulate them. Basically, he crafts a serum that takes only a few seconds to weaken a vamp and slow down their reflexes, and we like to coat a lot of our weapons with it, especially projectiles. Some of his more potent poisons even knock them out entirely, though those have effects that linger for quite some time, and we try to use them sparingly.”

That’s not only mind-blowingly impressive, but I also find it interesting how Bria shifts into this no nonsense, informative mode when she has something important to explain to me. It’s intriguing to see how many sides there are to her, but also reassuring to learn that this one exists. This is the version of her that I can picture successfully leading a world-renowned team of vampire hunters, but the eccentric and playful sides of her are probably what keep the team in good spirits and allow them to relax and enjoy themselves when it’s appropriate. She’s a good mix of fun and serious, perfect for her role and responsibilities.

But their poison expert sounds like he’s someone rather special himself. I suppose it makes sense that a vampire would best be able to find and exploit weaknesses in other vampires, but it also seems kind of risky. What if he slips up and ends up poisoning himself? I can just imagine what a disaster it would be if he accidentally gave himself the sleeping poison, for instance.

“Don’t you worry that it might be dangerous for him to make these poisons?” I can’t help asking, though she cuts me off before I get a chance to explain. She already knows what I’m thinking, as usual.

“No. Why would it be?” She shrugs as if she’s completely unconcerned by the prospect. “He’s not even a vampire. I mean, he’s careful about it anyway because you’re right that poison is poison, and if it’s strong enough to affect a vamp, it’s probably strong enough to do something nasty to pretty much anyone else. But the worst of the effects are specifically for vamps, and he’s got the steadiest hands and best reflexes that I’ve ever seen. He’s been crafting for us for years and never had a problem, so I don’t expect that to change any time soon. Or ever, really.”

Not a vampire? This poison expert is truly intriguing. I really wish he was here so I could meet him and ask him some of these questions directly.

Besides, I know some things about herbs and herbalism. I’ve been keeping Pete’s herb garden by myself for going on eight years, and before he left, he was teaching me all about each of the plants and some of what he does with them. I’d probably have a lot to talk about with their herbalist, and maybe that’s why Aspen and Delia seemed to think that we’d get along so well. Tian has probably told them about my interest in it all.

But the part about the nastiest effects of his poisons being specifically for vamps is concerning, especially if he’s as talented as she claims. Other than the poison expert, it seems like her whole team consists of vampires, and I doubt that their hands are as steady as his. She was just gushing about his skills as if he stands out from the rest.

“And you guys aren’t worried about accidentally poisoning yourselves with your weapons?” I ask next, worrying about them as I picture the multiple sheaths and holsters full of weapons that Aspen was caring for earlier. “I mean, Aspen seemed concerned about just showing them to me, and I’m not even a vampire. But you guys are, so isn’t it kind of dangerous for you to be going around wearing and handling all kinds of poisoned weapons?”

“Most definitely,” she answers, though I can tell by the way that she abruptly turns away from me after she says it that she doesn’t intend to expand on that.

She’s walking away from the cabinets and heading for the door that she pointed out earlier as the one that leads to the basement.

“So, now that we have your scent masked, we should be able to go downstairs without much incident. Just stick close and let me know if you get too spooked and want to leave,” she instructs me, coming to take my arm and guide me over to the door. “But I assure you, these guys can’t hurt you. They’re in secure containment cells for now.”

“Then why did we need the scent neutralizer?”

“Because werewolves are tasty, tempting snacks for us vamps,” she explains, turning and giving me another smug smile, gauging my reaction to that news, “and these guys haven’t developed the willpower and self-control yet to be able to discern friend from foe once the scent of food is in the air, activating their bloodlust. Your scent would just rile them up, which would not only make this much scarier than it needs to be, but it would be a major setback for them. They’ve worked hard and come a long way, but they’re not ready for exposure to a scent like yours. Even with it masked, they’re still not to be trusted around food, hence the containment cells, but we’re also not going to dangle it in front of them and get them all agitated and out of control for no reason.”

That makes sense. And now that she’s explained it, I’m glad she took the time to do a thorough job of masking my scent. The work that they do here with reforming the feral vampires is important, and I know it takes a lot of patience, willpower, time, and energy on both sides. I wouldn’t want to disrupt that process just so I can catch a glimpse of their world, no matter how curious I might be.

“Yeah, makes sense,” I tell her, whispering now that we’re descending the stairs. She didn’t ask me to lower my voice, but it feels like the right thing to do.

I’m used to the scent of vampires having grown up with one, but somehow, the smell wafting up from the basement is unfamiliar. The underlying scent of ozone is there as well as a hint of sulfur, presumably from using their powers, but there’s something else mixed in too. Whatever the smell is borders on being rancid, leaving me to wonder what it is that we’re about to walk in on.