The Obscurati (15 page)

It was always business with the local vampires. They may have been Obscurati, but we never exchanged names or phone numbers. We never had sex with any of them, although we never hid the fact that we were a couple. Nobody ever said a word. They didn’t just stay away from the topic of being gay; they didn’t say anything that wasn’t about the kill. I almost never knew the name of the target. Our local guide would have our sniper nest already located, and he (or she) would take us there. They knew how Obscurati operated, or someone told them the kind of sniper nest we would need. We’d get just enough background on what to expect. Some vampires would land nearby and walk to their lair. Others just whooshed down right by the door, and those always required fast action on my part.

Once or twice I didn’t have a good shot, so I just told the guide that we’d try again the next night when the vampire was leaving the house or cave or wherever he was staying. Nobody ever objected. I guess they felt that we knew best.

Oberon treated our sniping assignment as a science project. He almost always watched as the vampire’s head exploded, but he didn’t ever react to it. It was just our job.

Once, in Russia, Oberon wasn’t his usual self. I had grown to know how businesslike he could be. Do this. Do that. Bang-bang, thank you, ma’am.

After one of our kills, he just stood there and watched as the vamp went up in flames. Oberon always gets us packed quickly. He gets our payment as I swoop on ahead. He is so much faster than me that he always catches up in just a few seconds.

This Russian hit had caused something. As he stood quietly, I packed up his gear and went to get our gold. The local jumped over to start cleaning up the dead vampire’s ashes, and I moved closer to Oberon. As my hand ran up his back, I saw a smile. He was crying and smiling, and the smile was as sincere as the tears.

“What’s up, babe?” I asked.

“I enjoyed it,” he said. “I mean, I enjoyed the kill. I watched you put a bullet that I made into the vamp’s head. It was my ammunition, and I really liked… I mean…. God, what am I saying?”

“It’s okay, Oberon.” He was really starting to freak me out. This was a side of him that I had never seen. I noticed that there were several locals down at the dead vampire’s lair, and they were giving us plenty of space. I just held Oberon as he watched the cleanup.

“He looked like my dad,” Oberon finally said.

“The vampire?”

Oberon nodded. “You killed a vampire that looked like my father. I am here wishing that we could find somebody else like that to kill. I want to go out and hunt vampires. I mean, really hunt them. It’s something that… I mean, I have these dark feelings, and I’m so ashamed.”

What do you say to that? It was a hundred years before he opened up enough to tell me that he had a dark streak to his personality. Vampires are predators. We are all killers somewhere deep inside. Oberon had found his dark energy, and he was finally able to tell me about it.

“Do you want to shoot sometimes?” I asked. What a stupid thing to say. I felt the words as they left my mouth, and I tried to get them to stop at my teeth.

Oberon thought I was trying to make him laugh. “I love you,” he said with a smile.

“I love you too, husband.”

I feel bad about squeezing the trigger. I don’t like the killing.

Some of our targets were really old, but most were newly turned and out of control. Killing the newly turned vampires hurt me inside because I had been there. It wasn’t their fault that they were running amok. The vampire I should have been killing was the one who had turned them. You can’t turn a vampire accidentally. It takes lots of work on the Maker’s part. These new vampires were either partially or poorly turned, or their Maker had just abandoned them to figure things out by themselves.

That’s what had happened to me. If Menz hadn’t rescued me, I would have ended up tearing up the countryside, leaving human bodies everywhere. I wouldn’t have known that I was doing anything wrong until somebody came and killed me. The Obscurati themselves never give a warning. By the time Oberon and I are called, all the warnings have already been made. We are called to finish things. We clean up vampires that the locals can’t control. Or won’t control. Or whatever.

It makes me sick sometimes. I hate this killing, especially a new vampire. I know when a vampire is newly turned because I can feel it, even at eight hundred meters.

The trouble is that there aren’t many people I can talk to. Nobody is supposed to know who I really am. It’s the way the Obscurati work. Queen Cécile in Switzerland knows I’m Obscurati, and so does Pierre. Hamlet knows too. I’m sure Menz suspects, but he also knows he can’t ever ask about it. Menz is a thousand years old, so he knows all about the Obscurati and how secretive we are.

One recent kill was just a kid, maybe thirteen years old. It is criminal to make a vampire when the human is only a kid. It is cruel, and it never turns out well. The vampire who did it should have known better.

“Even a thirteen-year-old boy has to take responsibility for what he does,” Oberon told me. He held my hand, and I remembered that he was that age when he killed his own father.

“Is there a way I can find out who turned this boy?” I asked the local guide. She seemed uncomfortable that I was even speaking to her. Maybe I was breaking a lot of rules.

“It isn’t possible,” she said.

“I want to kill the bastard.”

“So do I, but we can’t.”

I took aim and made the kid’s head explode. We were somewhere in Africa. When we got to our resting area, a large building near Cairo, I sat up and cried. Oberon tried to get me to stop. He tried to be a good husband, but there was nothing he could do. I had just murdered a thirteen-year-old boy who didn’t know that murdering people and drinking their blood was the wrong thing to do. I couldn’t wait for morning, because this night was almost too much for me to handle.

O
N
THE
way back to Germany the next night, I asked Oberon to go ahead.

“I need to go to Switzerland,” I said.

“I’ll go with you.”

“No, I need to do this myself.”

“
M
ÅRTEN
?” Pierre said. “What brings you to Bern?”

“You.”

“Is Hamlet okay?”

“Huh, oh… yeah, this isn’t about Hamlet. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Sure, follow me.”

He walked over to the fake lift that was nothing but an empty shaft. He punched in a code and let the biometric box scan his eyeball. The lift doors finally opened. Once we were inside and the doors closed behind us, the top of the cage opened to reveal a shaft the height of the building. He floated into the shaft, and I followed. In a flash, we were up about ten stories standing in front of a metal door. He and the biometric thingy came to some kind of mutual agreement, and the door buzzed. Inside was an empty room.

“My office,” Pierre said. “It isn’t much, but the whole floor is shielded from everything.”

I looked around as we walked—with real feet, not just floating—over to a set of oversized leather chairs.

“What’s up?”

“Two things,” I said. “First is the gold we get for killing vampires.”

“You don’t want it?”

“No, I’m sure it will come in handy. I can’t really ask Menz to hang onto it, and banks are closed when I’m awake.”

“I understand,” he said. “You can give Menz some of the gold from time to time. You live at his house, and he’s never asked for anything in return.”

“Right, but….”

“He will understand,” Pierre said, “and he won’t ask any questions. For the rest of the gold….” He walked over to a desk and got a piece of paper and a fountain pen. Old vampires never really got used to ballpoint pens. He scribbled something on the paper and gave it to me.

“Call Schmidt,” he said. “I guess that’s her last name, but I don’t know her first name. Everybody just calls her Schmidt. She is the manager of a bank in Zürich. She and her bank have been dealing with nighttime customers for generations. She won’t ask any questions either. Actually, she doesn’t really need to ask questions, because she will just know where your gold is coming from. She will be able to set you up with a credit card or whatever you need, so you can use some of your wealth. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

“I couldn’t. Oberon and I are really rich at this point.”

“I’m sure,” he said. “Share a little with Menz and do something nice for all the human donors there. They’ll all appreciate it. What’s the other thing you want to discuss?”

“I’m a sniper,” I said.

“I know. You’re a damn good one. You’re known as one of the best in the world now.”

“I hate it.”

“What went wrong?”

“I just killed a little boy.”

“You need some time off? I’m taking Hamlet out on the queen’s yacht next summer. Would you and Oberon like to go?”

“Sure, but that won’t help me with the killing.”

“You want to quit being a sniper? What you did to that boy was probably the kindest thing you could have done.”

“I know. He would never understand how to live as a vampire. He’d just be a killing machine and make things hard for the rest of us.”

“So, what do you want?”

“I want to go kill the bastard that turned the boy. That’s the real criminal.”

“Where was the kill?”

“We were put up in Cairo, but I think the boy was in Chad or Libya.”

“Africa. That’s King Gadi,” he said. “Wait here.”

Pierre was gone in a flash. In about five minutes, he returned, and the queen was with him.

“Your Majesty,” I said. “I apologize for barging in without advance notice.”

“Sit, sit,” she said. “My door is always open for you, so don’t worry about that. Pierre has filled me in on the situation.”

She paused to make sure I understood or to formulate her words. “I had words with King Gadi a minute or so ago, and he assures me that the vampire who turned the young boy is already dead,” she continued without any emotion. “You were called because the boy was so dangerous. He had already massacred two vampires who came to kill him.”

“He was protecting himself.”

“Right, but he should never have been a vampire. Not at that age. I have never seen a boy or girl so young turn into… wait. Menz was turned when he was very young. I do know one who developed into a good vampire. This boy was making a mess of things in Libya, and he was getting all the wrong kinds of attention from the humans. King Gadi tried to fix the situation himself, but he failed. You and Oberon are called only after all the other things had failed.”

“Is there a way for me to be asked to kill the Maker in cases like this?”

“Probably not, but only because that is the first thing the locals do. The Obscurati get called only when the local vampires can’t handle the situation. You aren’t the first one called, but you are always the last.”

She thought about it. “Except that time in India,” she said.

I think I blushed.

“I can do this,” the queen continued. “When you are called, the request always comes to me or to Pierre. Nobody else in Europe knows your identity. I will ask if the job involves a botched turning. If it does, I will find out what has already been done to the Maker. If the Maker is alive, I will ask that you be allowed to kill him too. Fair?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“So formal for an American. A hundred years has made you quite European.”

I nodded as Pierre handed me a handkerchief. I guess I must have been crying.

“I think you need some time off. I have a boat, you know, and Pierre is taking Hamlet on a trip.”

“I know.”

“Pierre and Hamlet,” she laughed. “Would you fill me in on that some day? Pierre won’t tell me anything, and I find the whole thing… um… intriguing.”

“Intriguing,” I said. “More like friggin’ bizarre, if you ask me.”

“Would you and Oberon consider going with them? I think maybe Pierre needs some adult supervision.”

“Hamlet can take care of himself, Your Majesty.”

“Quite so. Pierre, do you think you can be ready to go in a couple of days?”

“Um, I don’t see why not. I will ask Hamlet.”

“Let me take care of Menz,” the queen said. “Pack enough clothes for a month. Pierre, why don’t you go and alert the crew of the yacht and round up some human donors who want to go. Mårten, we will make room for at least fifteen or twenty of the humans at Menz’s estate if any want to go.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “Sorry, ma’am, pardon the language. You must have a really big yacht.”

“When you see it, it will blow your fucking mind,” said the queen with a chuckle. “Pierre, off you go now. Mårten and I have another matter.”

“Ma’am.”

When we were alone, she said, “What is this thing with Pierre and Hamlet?”

“I have no idea. They spend a lot of time with each other, but I don’t think they’ve ever had any sex.”

“Friends?”

“More than that,” I said, “but I don’t exactly know what.”

“I’ve known Pierre for almost a thousand years, and he has always been something of a ladies’ man.”

“Hamlet is almost a lady.”

“Natürlich, aber mit einem Schwanz,” the queen laughed, “and he doesn’t fight like any lady I’ve ever seen.”

“I told Pierre that if he hurts Hamlet, he’ll have to answer to me.”

“Well, if he hurts Hamlet, you won’t get the chance to do anything.”

“Ma’am?”

“If he hurts Hamlet, he has to answer to me,” she said with a smile.

“When I find out what’s going on, I’ll let you know.”

She nodded.

“One request,” I said. “Could you see if Pierre could mainly pick gay humans for donors?”

“Is their blood better?”

“Not at all, but I have a completely over-sexed husband. Oberon will completely wear me out if he doesn’t have a larger menu to….”

She put up her hand and stood up. I stood up too.
Do I follow? Do I wait for Pierre to return?

“You follow,” she said with a smile. She could read my mind. “I can read it like an open book, Mårten.”

“Yes, ma’am.”