Blood Hunt (27 page)

“Yes. No. I don’t … can we just …”

“Whatever you would like.”

“Just stay like this. I’m tired and confused and sad, and I don’t want to make a dumb mistake.”

Naomi was playing with a lock of Two’s hair. “Of course,” she said.

“Thanks. I … I’ll figure out what I’m feeling soon, I promise.”

“There is no rush. We have plenty of time.”

All the time in the world,
Two’s mind whispered, and she thought again of Theroen. For the first time in her life, she made a conscious effort to push his face from her mind. Closing her eyes, Two let herself drift, floating along the warm currents that Naomi was providing.

* * *

“I’ve booked three tickets to London,” Naomi said, looking up from her laptop. She and Stephen were sitting on one couch, Two on the other.

Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since she and Two had lain together on the couch, and Naomi had made no further efforts to advance their relationship, had put no further pressure on Two. The previous night had ended with Two eventually getting up, thanking Naomi, and going to bed. She was no closer to determining how she felt, but at least Naomi didn’t seem to be expecting any immediate answer.

“How do you guys deal with stuff like traveling?” Two asked. “I mean, what if it’s light out when we arrive?”

“It’s a bit of a pain in the arse,” Stephen admitted. “Not so much for Naomi, since she handles the sunlight relatively well. If I absolutely
must
go out during the day, I can do it, but it’s rather painful and it doesn’t do wonders for my otherwise charming personality. Most of the time, I stop in Iceland and spend the day there, flying out again at night. Unlike most people, I rarely have to look for the cheapest or fastest option.”

“That’s exactly what I did,” Naomi said. “We leave JFK airport at ten in the evening, and reach Reykjavik in the middle of the night. We stay in a hotel there, and then fly out of Iceland at night, and arrive in London before the sun rises.”

“Nice,” Two said.

“It’s much better than the old days,” Stephen agreed. “Booking passage on a ship, breaking into cabins at night to feed or just surviving on rats. Now the hardest thing is explaining to the flight attendants that even though you’re flying in business class, you don’t need or want the free meal.”

“It’s so weird to think that you guys were alive before airplanes.”

“When I was born, America was still a vast, unexplored land filled with natives, save for a smattering of European settlements,” Naomi said. “Reflecting on it does sometimes make one feel old.”

“You look fucking spectacular for four hundred,” Two said dryly. Stephen made a snorting sound.

“I came to the States in nineteen fifty-two,” Naomi continued, ignoring them. “I had spent World War II moving from town to town in France, trying to kill as many Germans as I could without arousing too much suspicion. Once the war ended, I decided it was time for a change of scenery and came here. I met Stephen in nineteen sixty-eight. He used to wander around the city by himself, late at night, in dress clothes, hoping to get mugged so that he could beat the offending party half to death.”

“Those were good times,” Stephen said, smiling. “This city is so boring, now.”

“You should spend some time where I grew up,” Two said. “Still plenty of bad shit going down there.”

“Yes, but then I’d have to go to Brooklyn.”

Two laughed. “Typical Manhattan asshole. All right, so when do we go?”

“Friday night,” Naomi said. “Two days.”

“How long until we can see the council?” Two asked.

“That … is a fine question,” Stephen said. “They don’t hold themselves to quite as rigid a schedule as the American council does, so it may be a while.”

“OK, but how long are we talking?”

Stephen glanced at Naomi, who shrugged. He turned back to Two.

“I think they try to meet every year, if they can,” he said.

“Oh my God,” Two moaned, putting her head in her hands. “Are you fucking serious?”

“This is why I was none too pleased with the American council’s decision,” Stephen told her.

“It won’t be so bad,” Naomi said. “London is a wonderful city, and perhaps we can take some trips to other parts of Europe while we’re there. I will have to spend some time making inroads with the council, but I don’t think it will be difficult to gain a meeting with them.”

“Do you know any of them?” Two asked.

“Not well. I have been before the European council before, but it was centuries ago. I think two of the members have since been replaced.”

“One of them for certain … unless his ashes stood up and started talking,” Stephen said.

Two rolled her eyes. “You guys have such peaceful lives.”

“Faegan went by choice,” Naomi said. “He was tired and in pain.”

“Emotional pain,” Stephen elaborated. “Not real pain.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve said in some time,” Naomi said, a touch of disgust in her voice. “The woman he loved wouldn’t let him turn her. He spent seventy years living with her, begging her to reconsider. When she finally died … I’ve never seen a man so devastated. He was like a shell. You don’t think that’s pain?”

Stephen shrugged. “Aye, terrible, I’m sure. I once saw a man get his arm crushed by a morning star. Took the whole bottom half … he was left with this jagged nub of bone jutting out of a pile of ground meat, a big flap of skin swaying below it, blood spraying everywhere. He was begging for someone to kill him.”

Naomi sighed, shaking her head and turning back to her laptop. “You’re an idiot.”

Stephen grinned, leaning back on the couch and putting his feet on the coffee table. Naomi glanced with distaste at this, but chose not to say anything. Two watched without comment, amused. Stephen seemed to know all of Naomi’s buttons, and took no small amount of pleasure in pushing them. Two wasn’t sure yet what it was Naomi got out of their relationship, but she suspected that below the refined, political façade there was a part of Naomi that deeply appreciated Stephen’s irreverence and disdain for protocol.

“I’m booking a hotel for us in London,” Naomi said, glancing at Two. “We’ll get a flat eventually, but it’ll take a week or two. Do you mind sharing a room with me? There are two beds.”

“No, that’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“Good. We can just get a two-bedroom suite.”

“You mean I’m not invited to share the room, too?” Stephen asked in mock surprise.

Naomi rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have a fight to attend?”

“Not just yet,” Stephen said. “Another hour and I head for the Upper West Side. Then you ladies can get to your knitting, or … whatever it is you do when I’m not around.”

Two glanced at Naomi, but the vampire girl appeared to be intently involved in whatever was on her laptop screen. Two didn’t think Naomi had told Stephen about the previous night, or about her feelings for Two, but she wondered if Stephen had not perhaps guessed some of it for himself.

Naomi closed her laptop, stretched, looked at Two.

“Flights are booked, hotels in Reykjavik and London are booked, and I’ve sent out an initial email to the council requesting their attention. I’m afraid that is all I can do for tonight.”

“That’s plenty, Naomi, thanks,” Two said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Naomi shook her head. “Just promise you won’t go running off to Australia until we hear their decision.”

Two blew air upward, shaking her head slightly, but after a moment she sighed and said, “OK, I guess that’s reasonable.”

“Is there anything you would like to do in New York before we leave?” Naomi asked. “We will likely be in Europe for some time.”

Two shrugged. “My house got busted up by vampires, I’m not allowed to see my friends, and there aren’t any movies playing that I care about. I think I’m good.”

Naomi smiled, nodded, glanced at Stephen. He gave her a dismissive wave.

“We’re fine,” he said. “No need to mother us. Besides, we all know you’ll want to go to your club a last few times, say goodbye to all of your little friends. If you would, try not to alert the cultist to the fact that we’re harboring an
Eresh-Chen
?”

“I have never given Thomas any information on our activities,” Naomi said.

“Then all is well.”

Naomi looked over at Two. “Would you like to go to
L’Obscurité?”
she asked.

“Sure, I could use a drink.”

As they prepared to leave, Two thought of London, and what it would be like to live there for a year. Would she love it? Hate it? Not care? She had no idea, knew only that she was glad to be going with Naomi and Stephen. Two had spent too many long months alone. She was happy, now, to be with friends who would help her along this journey.

She wished that she could see Rhes and Sarah one last time, to apologize for the way she’d treated them, but that couldn’t happen. She would have to hope that they understood and didn’t hate her for it. When this was over, when she was a vampire again, then she would go to see them and make things right. Until then, it would be best if she remained focused on the European council and the things she might be able to say to them that would sway their decision.

Thinking of this, and of her impending return to vampire life, Two stood at the door waiting for Naomi. When the vampire girl was ready, she led the way, and as had been the case for some weeks now, Two followed.

Interlude

“What is your name?”

She hears the voice, but does not open her eyes. There is a hint of smoke in the air. Incense. It has been burned here within the past two days. This detail is unimportant, but she notices it anyway. She notices everything.

If she had a name once, she no longer remembers it, and so she gives the answer that she knows the owner of the voice wishes to hear.

“I have no name.”

The air in the room is cool against her skin but not cold. She has knelt here in this room before, naked, eyes closed, for hours at a time in conditions of every type. Sometimes the ceiling is opened and rain pours in on her. Sometimes the vents at the base of the wall blow freezing air in around her. Sometimes the room is heated to such levels that the floor singes her knees and the small pads of her toes. She has endured all of this without complaint.

“Why are you here?” the voice asks her, and this she remembers.

“I am here to learn.”

She doesn’t flinch when the needle enters her skin where her neck meets her shoulder, nor at the sudden burning as the liquid is injected. The sensation spreads out, becomes less acute, runs hot through her entire body. Colors swirl behind her eyelids. Her nipples grow tight and hard for a moment, the digits of her hands and feet going numb. There is a taste like heated copper at the back of her mouth. This is the only absolute during her daily visits to this room: the questions and the needle.

This is not something she must endure. She knows this because she has been told, and slowly she is coming to understand. This is something she must accept. This is something she must embrace.

“Who are your enemies?”

She takes a breath, and the air flows cool inside her burning body. “The enemies of my master are my enemies.”

Her heart is pounding now, her breathing ragged. The injection makes the edges of her mind fuzzy, makes it difficult to think but easier to sense. She feels a bead of sweat roll down her forehead, pausing at her eyebrow and falling to land on her thigh. It is difficult to concentrate on anything else, but still the voice persists.

“Who is your master?”

Her hands move as if on their own, fingers interlocking to form a symbol, the gesture already ingrained within her. It is the symbol of all that they are. She can no longer remember how to form words but knows she must answer. When she speaks, it is as if someone else is controlling her lips and tongue.

“The Emperor of the Sun is my master,” she says. “The Emperor brings light to scour the world of darkness. The Emperor brings power to his children and death to his enemies. With the sword in his right hand, the Emperor cleaves through the darkness. With the staff in his left hand, he sweeps away those who stand before him. All those who would oppose him are vanquished. All those that give him their allegiance are rewarded. Those who do his work will bask forever in his light.”

“Will you swear to serve your Emperor and do his work?”

“I am his to command, always and forever. I am the right hand of the Emperor. I am the blade with which he will strike down his enemies.”

“Name these enemies.”

Even the drug is not enough to dull the ache in her soul, though she cannot remember the reason for this pain. It throbs within her like a decaying tooth, and she knows that only blood and death will satisfy it.

“Vampires,” her mouth says, and she knows that it is the truth. “Those who walk by night and drink the blood of the Emperor’s children. Those who would destroy us all. Vampires are my Emperor’s enemies, and there can be no rest while any still live.”

There is a pause, and when the voice comes again, it is pleased.

“Good. Meditate on this.”

“As you command.”

She leans back on the balls of her feet and lets the drug take over at last, a red haze settling behind her eyelids. The red reminds her of blood, and blood reminds her of vengeance. Somewhere, in the furthest and dimmest recesses of her mind, there is a brief flash of memory. Blood on the floor … not red, but black in the early morning light. Her jaw tightens, and then the vision is gone.

All that remains is her hate.

Part III

Chapter 15
Disquieting News

“They’re tired of waiting. If the council isn’t going to take action on this, then the Burilgi are going to take matters into their own hands.”

Jakob rested his fingers against his brow. Vampires did not get headaches (or at least he never had), but it seemed to him that one was brewing nonetheless.

He was tired. This came as something of a surprise to Jakob, who was quite capable of spending an entire evening in athletic competition without reaching the point of exhaustion. This fatigue was mental. Abraham had kept the council running during his many long years at its head, but Malik was proving incapable of doing the same. As a result, Jakob had become more and more involved in the past months, trying to help maintain order amidst an increasing swell of grudges, petty vendettas, and legitimate concerns.