Forever Young The Beginning (68 page)

Marie cleared her throat and looking
at Mustafa and Liridona, saw that she still had her arm linked
through his. She said “Maurice, why don’t you come with us
then?”

Sophia spoke then saying “I’ll go with
Li.”

Mustafa brightened noticeably and
escorted Liridona to the large carriage.

Within the hour, they had found a
seedy looking garish yellow building with peeling paint in a seedy
district. Liridona pointed to an alley about a block away and said
“That thing was standing there when we drove up and asked for help
to find our way.” Henri had the driver stop while he looked ahead
at the place. Then he said “Drive forward at a normal pace. Don’t
slow down.”

They passed the place and the alley
had two three story buildings flanking it. There were some windows
in each building. There was no sign of life in the alleyway. Henri
had the driver go to the right at the next intersection and they
passed the alleyway again as they returned by way of the next
street over. There were two more large buildings that were four
stories tall flanking the alleyway. Two pairs of vampire’s eyes in
the coach took in every detail of the place including how best to
climb up the walls, the handholds, number of windows and even how
steep the roof was. The surrounding neighborhood was taken in one
thorough sweep. Areas affording cover, entrances, and exits were
all noted too. There was no doubt now that they could find this
place again on the darkest night.

Henri spoke “Very well, Liridona,
you’ve lived up to your part of the bargain. Now we’ll tell you
something and you’ll have a choice of going back to the hotel and
forgetting about this place and of our coming here with you. Or you
can come and see your brother now.” Here he stopped and locked his
eyes on hers and leaned toward her a bit for emphasis.

“
If you come now to see your
brother, your life will forever be altered. There is no going back
to this moment. You may not reveal what you see upon pain of death.
You, your brother, Anna, Lukas, his two daughters, and all of the
domestic staff of both the Fellmans and the Eschmann’s will die if
you talk about this to anyone.” Marie leaned toward Liridona and
locked her eyes upon Liridona’s eyes and said “Don’t make this
commitment lightly because I assure you that we don’t take it
lightly. Do you understand?”

Liridona looked from Henri to Marie.
She saw no hostility, but only a steady somber gaze from all,
including Maurice. “You’re Ian’s people, are you not?”

“
We are.”

“
Then that’s good enough for
me. He’s very kind and very wise. You have my word that I’ll keep
everything about this a secret upon pain of death.” Henri leaned
out the window and gave the driver directions to the abandoned
house.

***

Liridona ran to her brother as soon as
she got down from the carriage. He swept her up off her feet like
she weighed nothing and it took her breath away. “Andre, you’re so
strong!”

“
I was sick earlier today,
but am better now. Ian has already started my
conditioning.”

She turned to Ian and stepping forward
took both of his hands and kissed them. Looking at him tearfully
then she said “Ian, I’m forever in your debt. I am so grateful for
your kindness.”

“
Nonsense, Liri. Others were
only too kind in my time of need. I can’t forget that and I only
want the best for Andre. Don’t give it another thought.”

“
He is alive today because
of you Ian, and we’ll never forget that. What is this
‘conditioning’?”

“
Marie and Henri will
explain everything. I have to take Andre hunting now. We’ll return
after a while.” The two turned and bounded away into the woods in
two leaps. Liridona gasped and turned to the others. Celeste and
Alandra came to her and each put an arm around her. Alandra said
“Liridona, we’re new to this too, so we’ll all learn
together.”

The imprinting went well enough and
Andre was kept busy and out in daylight wearing only short pants as
often as possible even on rainy days. He trained regularly with
pistol and musket learning to reload properly and as rapidly as
possible. Swordsmanship and knife fighting were a part of his
regimen and he was forced to use his left hand much of the time to
develop ambidexterity. Hand to hand combat was brought into his
routine in just a few days and remained a part of the
program.

Li and Sophia had joined them on the
fifth day and Li took over the training much of the time to relieve
Ian. The three women were astounded by the intensity of the
training and they got to see firsthand when Andre would suffer a
painful bout as he imprinted the tolerances he would have
forever.

Li and Sophia went to investigate the
neighborhood where Andre was attacked. They alternated with Ian and
Henri on the night time surveillance, much of it done from the
rooftops of nearby buildings. Alandra looked nervous when it came
time for Ian to go at night the first time, but he reassured her
that he and Henri were only gathering information on the location
and strength of the coven.

Andre was counseled regarding his
making love to a human and what he could and could not do. Li and
Henri took turns taking Andre to one of the better brothels in
Paris so that he wouldn’t become impotent. After the second visit
to the brothel, he took up with one who was older by a good eight
years, yet seemed to brighten each time she saw him in the room
where the gentlemen waited. He became her regular for the allotted
time of about two weeks. Ian was glad to be able to get out of
taking him, but he did remind Alandra about what male vampires have
to do to preserve their libido. Being too embarrassed to explain it
to Celeste and Liridona, he was glad that Marie educated the two on
the subject.

By now they had spent enough nights
watching the area where the coven lived that they had narrowed down
their choice to one three-story building. On the roof of that
building, Ian had found a roof access that was not even locked from
the inside. He thought that the vampires used it at times to leave
or get back inside if they wanted to avoid using a street level
entrance. Most such rooftop accesses in buildings inhabited by
humans would be locked to prevent curious children from going
there.

One night he entered it and took the
stairs down to a door which he opened carefully. The stairs didn’t
squeak and the door opened silently. There appeared to be two doors
at street level. The street level windows were all equipped with
heavy wrought iron bars. There was no visible external entrance
door to any cellar if a cellar existed.

His imprinting was at an end now so
Andre would now be able to accompany the others to the house where
the coven lived. They all went to Marie and Henri’s suite and sat
down to plan their attack on the place

It was decided that they would try to
infiltrate the house and wait in hiding inside and strike before
dawn, hoping to catch most after they had returned.

Henri said “That sounds good as long
as we don’t wait too long. We still have to cover and transport the
remains, or at least all of their heads.”

At this, Alandra and Celeste both drew
in their breath sharply. The others all glanced at them as Ian
patted Alandra’s hand and continued. “Henri has arranged for a
large wagon with a tarpaulin to be harnessed and ready at a
warehouse he owns. It will be moved there quietly around dusk by
him, and the horses will spend the night in there so we can quickly
move the remains away before dawn. We now all know how to get
there, do we not?”

Everyone nodded. “Li and Henri will
dispose of the remains and I’ll help if needed. Oh, we ‘ll each
have a complete change of clothes at the warehouse. I was thinking
that Li and I could station ourselves not too far from the two
ground level entrances. We might follow the first two that leave
and kill them quietly a short distance away. That would be two
vampires fewer for us to worry about coming back later. We would
have to divide ourselves to do that. What do you think?”

“
That’s worth the risk. We
could pursue other targets as a group so as to be sure of killing
them. We could leave one to watch the doors and three of us follow
and take the third target. That way we’d know if anyone got past us
while we were absent.”

“
Good idea, Henri. We could
leave Andre behind to see if any slip out while the rest of us
pursue our targets. Any other thoughts?”

“
Yes. We need to carry those
bodies over to the warehouse and store them there so that they’re
not seen by the others or by humans. They can’t be allowed to lie
in the streets all night.”

“
Good point, Sophia. We may
do more killing outside than inside for once it seems. Louis and
Mustafa will stay with Celeste and Alandra here in this suite until
we return. If there’s nothing else we might just as well get to it
then.”

He turned to Alandra, pulling her
close and kissing her then. “Not to worry. We’ll return by some
time tomorrow morning. Good bye until then.”

***

At the warehouse they gathered and
talked it through again while Ian and Li inspected everyone’s
weapons. He and Li would tug here and adjust there and look at each
detail as they always did before such an event. They were all used
to this but it was reassuring to Andre being so new to all of it.
It was dark now, so they followed Ian out of the warehouse through
the back alleyway door. In minutes they had split up and taken
stations where they could all see both entrances. In no time a door
opened and a shadow glided out followed by another. The door closed
and the two flitted away in opposite directions.

Each was unaware that they had a
trained killer following and that these were their last minutes to
live. Ian and Li each took their targets from behind and lopped off
their heads as they ran. Both of them dragged the bodies and heads
from the streets and put them at the base of buildings in a nearby
alleyway and returned to their posts

Soon three more came out and two went
together towards Ian while one went towards Li. Li took his target
some three blocks away cleanly. Ian wasn’t so lucky. He took one
down but the other heard and turned to fight, her red hair created
a whirling scarlet mass in that instant. It was a female and Ian
had just beheaded her mate. She quickly cried out as she spun and
ran, seeing a black-clad figure without a face bearing down on her
holding a bloody sword. Tall for a woman, she was really fast too,
so Ian had to pursue as fast as he could. She darted from side to
side, always changing direction.

He ran a good bit but finally got
within striking distance of the vampire when she suddenly leaped to
a rooftop and streaked towards the other side and leaped across a
street to another rooftop. Ian pursued grimly as she twisted and
turned, knowing that she was in mortal peril. Finally he got within
striking distance and struck her head from her body with his sabre.
Her head rolled under a dim street lamp, looking like a flaming
lopsided ball bouncing errantly along the cobblestones. Returning
with his grisly burden he put her remains there with his first kill
and quickly retrieved her mate and dumped him there too. Carefully
he wiped his saber clean so as to have no smell of blood to alert
the next one.

After an hour of waiting he signaled
to the others and they joined him then. “How many did the rest of
you get?

Li said “Two.” and Henri said “We got
one.”

Let’s carry them to the warehouse now.
No telling how many more we might have to carry out later. I need
two of you to come with me. I have three.”

Within three quarters of an hour they
had completed that task and had gathered with Andre.

“
Did any leave while we were
gone?”

“
No.”

Henri said “This is working well.
Let’s wait and see if we can get any more this way.” They silently
separated and took their posts.

It was after two AM when Ian
stood up and signaled to the others. Going to each one, he again
checked their weapons. He leaped to the roof and opened the roof
access door. The others soon joined him and filed in behind him. As
he descended the dark narrow staircase he thought
I wish I could seal this door.

They glided down the stairs and
silently filed into the upper hallway. Splitting into two teams
they began to silently enter each room on that floor. In just a few
moments, they had entered each one and found them empty and with
the windows covered over. They looked as if they had been occupied.
Ian silently glided down to the second story and the others
followed.

It was the same on that floor. They
all stopped at the head of the main staircase. Ian whispered for
Henri and Li to go to the back staircase to the kitchen and to
start down when he started down the front staircase. They could
intercept any who tried to escape through the back door. In under a
minute, they all started down their respective staircases, four of
them coming down the front stairs and two down the back stairs.
They could hear voices from the parlor, and now and then there was
also a tittering sort of laughter. Ian flitted silently to the
parlor entrance and carefully peered around the corner into that
room.