Immortals After Dark 10 - Demon From the Dark

grave. More guards lined the walls, with swords at the ready. In the back, a black-robed sorcerer worked at a vial-cluttered table.
    Gods, let the rumors be untrue ... those whispers of the Scarba--the abominations.
    Kallen muttered, "Can you see a way out of this?"
    Normally, Malkom could. Without fail, he figured his way out of seemingly impossible predicaments. "Not as of yet."
    The guards shoved Kallen and Malkom to their knees before the grave.
    "Ronath will pay for this once I get free," Kallen grated. Ronath the Armorer was a seasoned warrior, the strongest demon after Malkom. He'd once been Kallen's favored commander. "The traitor will not see another night."
    'Twas Ronath who'd turned Malkom over to the vampires. Disastrous enough. But without Malkom's unwavering defense, Kallen's fortress had fallen just a week later. The Trothans' beloved prince had been captured.
    Blinded by his hatred for Malkom--a slave turned commander--Ronath had unwittingly doomed Kallen and all the Trothans.
    Malkom had already planned his own revenge. As he was neither noble nor good like Kallen, his retribution would be far more vicious than the prince could ever envision.
    Without warning, a vampire traced into the room, teleporting directly onto the throne. Clad in costly silk robes, the male was pallid, his skin untouched by Oblivion's blistering sun. His eyes were wholly red, his visage twisted by madness.
    The Viceroy .
    When the vampires had conquered Oblivion and turned it into a colony, they'd dispatched the Viceroy, their most malicious leader, to act as ruler of the plane.
    "Ah, my two new prisoners," he said in Anglish .
    Though Malkom and Kallen both were fluent in the language, they refused to speak anything other than their native Demonish--even as the use of that tongue was now punishable by death.
    The vampire rubbed his narrow, clean-shaven chin. "At last, you have both been captured."
    Malkom and the prince were the leaders of the rebellion, and to break them would be to break the resistance. The vampire overlords had searched for them relentlessly.
    When the Viceroy snapped his fingers, the two slaves exited the room, returning moments later with an unconscious demon boy. One of their own, handed over for a vampire's refreshment. A leisurely repast .
    Malkom started sweating. He strained even harder against his bonds but couldn't get free before the vampire collected the boy in his arms, then bent over his neck.
    At the sight, rage spiked within Malkom. Those sucking sounds...
    He bared his fangs, overwhelmed with memories of his childhood as a blood slave. His only consolation was that this boy was unconscious, a luxury he himself had never been afforded. Nor had Malkom's neck been taken, for that skin would have been readily seen--and he hadn't been kept only for his blood.
    "Steady, Malkom," Kallen murmured in Demonish. "Keep your wits about you."
    How many times had Kallen said those exact words? The prince has long kept me sane.
    The Viceroy dropped the boy from the dais to the ground like refuse, then dabbed at his lips with a crisp handkerchief. "I confess, you two fascinate me." His red eyes burned with curiosity. "A friendship between a beloved royal and his brutal guard dog. The highest of the high, and ..." He flicked his hand at Malkom.
    No one had been more perplexed by their friendship than Malkom. Kallen was the crown prince of the Trothan Demonarchy, hundreds of years old, and filled with wisdom.
    Malkom was the illiterate thirty-year-old son of a whore, raised as a vampire's slave--and filled with rage.
    Yet somehow he and Kallen had become comrades in arms, brothers by choice if not by blood. Kallen had said he'd recognized something in Malkom, an innate nobility. As if he'd known how badly Malkom wanted to be noble.
    "Penniless, ignorant, and fatherless," the Viceroy intoned. "The son of a demon whore who sold her body." With a sneer, he added, "Until she could sell one of her offspring."
    Malkom could deny nothing.
    "How easily you sprang to life, when you should have been no more than seeping waste in a back alley."
    "If Malkom is not noble in blood," Kallen said, "then he is noble in deed."
    Kallen, still defending me.
    The Viceroy seemed amused. "I can imagine none so lowly, yet you had the gall to resist us, knowing death awaited. Amazingly, you very nearly routed us from your world, demon."
    Malkom could scarcely comprehend this. Though he'd won numerous battles, he hadn't imagined his