The Obscurati (9 page)

“
H
AMLET
? Oberon?”

It was Pierre. We hadn’t heard from him for a month, since we’d met him and the queen in Bern.

“Palace in five minutes.”

“Okay,” I answered in mind-words.

“Wear black, Hamlet.”

“Okay,” Hamlet said. I had no idea where Hamlet was, but he was part of the mind-word conference call.

Five minutes would leave me just enough time to dress and feed. Oberon would have to do without his morning nookie today.

I dressed as fast as I could and flashed to the library. Without looking at the spreadsheet, I raised my voice. “Who is a donor for today?”

There are two doors in the library. The one toward the back of the house leads to the staff quarters. They have a lounge area just off the library, and there are blood donors in that room almost all the time. One of the men came into the library and offered me his arm. I was all business. My fangs found their mark, and I took my twenty seconds of blood before sealing the wound with my tongue. The donor leaned over and planted a wet kiss on my mouth. I saw he had a raging hard-on, so the donation must have been pleasurable for him.

Within seconds, I felt his blood go
swoosh
inside my body. Human blood is an instant high to a vampire. It doesn’t go through the regular digestive process. Human blood is attacked by vampire blood. It is like microscopic machines in my own blood. The machines attack the human blood and convert it to vampire blood. I am almost blinded for a second or two when the change first happens. It is a total rush.

By the time I came to my senses, my donor had his dick out of his shorts and was stroking himself. I didn’t object. In fact, I put my hands between his legs and pulled him closer. I had gotten his blood, and now I wanted to swallow his cum. Within just a minute, he was ready to shoot. At the last minute, he put most of his dick in my mouth, leaving just enough outside to let him continue pumping his rod.

Yum.

“You got up quickly,” Oberon said, standing near the other door. That other door leads to the main section of the house. It is how we get to our bedroom.

The blood and semen donor looked embarrassed. He knew Oberon and I were a couple, but he didn’t know that we have a completely open relationship.

“Sorry,” the donor said as he left the room.

“No problem,” Oberon said. “I’m happy you enjoyed my husband.” He winked at the blood donor.

“Hamlet and I have an errand,” I said using mind-words as Oberon walked over to my chair. He straddled my legs and sat on my lap. He hugged me and gave me a really sloppy kiss.

“Ummm,” he said, “that cum is tasty. What was his name?”

“I don’t know, but could you find out and put him into the spreadsheet for me?”

“It’s fucking raining,” Hamlet said. He was dressed in what looked like black Spandex, head to toe. He wore a black overshirt too. Stylish. This was probably the butchest thing in Hamlet’s wardrobe. He would be able to move however he needed to move, and the clothes wouldn’t be in the way. I wore black leather.

“Bye, husband,” Oberon said to me. “Don’t break a nail, Hamlet.”

And with that, we were off. Hamlet got above the rain clouds in record time. On my way through the cloud, I felt a tingle. It was a thunderstorm. One lightning bolt actually chased Hamlet.

“Woooo,” he shrieked. I don’t think I ever saw a vampire hightailing it any faster than Hamlet on his way to the clear skies above the rain.

The wind dried our hair, but I’m sure Hamlet was stressing over the possibility of having frizzies. We made it to the queen’s fortress with a minute to spare. Considering that we had fed and I got a mouth full of cum, that was fairly good timing. As we walked to the building, I saw Hamlet checking his hair. He saw something that he didn’t like, but there wasn’t anything to be done.

A
MAN
who looked like he could have been an accountant or FBI agent met us in the lobby. He asked us to follow him, and he took us to a foyer kind of room that had two lifts (elevators). Instead of pushing the regular lift button, he went to a small numeric keyboard mounted on the wall and typed in a code. I couldn’t see what he typed because the keypad was under a metal shield. As soon as the code was in, he bent down and let a red light scan his eye. The scanner apparently liked the man’s eyeball, because one set of doors opened with a
ding
.

It looked like a lift door, but it wasn’t. Maybe the other door was a regular lift, but the one that opened was not ordinary. The casual observer in the lobby would see nothing unusual, but that was only for appearances. It would fool any humans who were in the lobby when the fake doors opened. As soon as we stepped into the lift and the doors closed, the roof of the “cabin” opened to reveal a shaft. It was nicely tiled with modern-looking shapes of different colored tiles, not the industrial concrete you would find in most actual shafts.

“Please follow,” he said when the ceiling opened. He flew up the shaft and waited for us about two-thirds of the way up. We floated up to the man’s level.

We were at a regular door, made of metal. To the right of the door was another box of electronics. The man typed a code, and then he put his eye close to the box. It was some kind of biometric security device. You had to know a code, and your retina had to be on the computer’s list of vampires approved for entrance.

I looked up and down the shaft. It seems like every other floor had one of these doors. The other floors had regular doors, but I couldn’t tell if they opened or were just for show. Each lift door was numbered: one, two, three, etc. The metal doors were lettered. Our door was marked “K.”

Very clever. The queen’s fortress was hidden in plain sight. Half the floors were served by the other lift, but half were accessible only if you were a vampire who could float. I have no idea what you’d do if you were one of the vampires who couldn’t float. Maybe you just stayed home or something.

When we stepped into the room, it was full of computer monitors on one side and what looked like a lounge area on the other. On the far wall were heavy-looking doors, each with its own biometric security box. They took security seriously here. Everyone I saw was vampire. I didn’t sense any humans on the floor, and my senses would have known. The room was full of vampires.

Our guide (chaperone? docent?) walked across the floor to one of the large metal doors on the far wall. He typed in his code and let the biometric box look at his retina. A buzzer sounded, and the door unlocked. The man pushed the door open and motioned for us to follow. I could tell that the door was heavy, like it was solid metal. This time, the man stayed outside the room.

It was a large conference room. The décor was understated. It didn’t scream wealth, and it wasn’t overly fancy or frilly. Windows took up one long wall, and they gave a terrific view of the city of Bern. I can only assume that there were also steel plates hidden in the windowsill or the ceiling to turn the conference room into a fortress or to block out the sun during the day. A large conference table took up most of the room. It was far too large to have been brought into the room in one piece. It had to have been built in place, and it looked like solid wood instead of particleboard or laminate. It was ringed by about twenty leather chairs. At the head and foot were chairs that matched the others but had added arms. I had no idea how they could even get the pieces of this table into the room using the shaft. The regular lift didn’t have doors on this floor. Some vampires can lift a hippopotamus and a humpback whale at the same time, but the top of the table was bulky and showed no signs of scratches. It seemed too large to fit in the shaft. Getting it up to the floor in one piece must have been a challenge. Whoever the building’s manager was had a really tough job. Maybe they removed the windows and used a crane.

Fifteen or so others sat around the table. Pierre was one of them. He was sitting at the head of the table in one of the armed chairs.

On the wall behind Pierre was an oil painting of Queen Cécile. It looked very old. The painting was something you would find in a museum, and the queen was wearing the kind of dress that hadn’t been seen since the 1600s. I’m sure it was the latest fashion when she posed for the painter.

“Come in, please,” Pierre said. “Sit.”

He was pleasant, not barking orders, but he made sure he motioned toward armless chairs on the side of the table, like he assumed I would head to the empty big chair at the foot of the table.
Moi?

He didn’t use our names, and he didn’t introduce us to any of the others in the conference room. It was almost evenly divided by gender. Some of the women looked petite and vulnerable, but I would guess they could handle themselves in a fight. I didn’t think it would be safe to test their strength.

Hamlet and I took chairs on the closer side of the table. We had that wonderful view of Bern across the table.

“We have a situation,” Pierre said aloud in English. “Every few hundred years, all of the various vampire kings and queens get together for a short meeting, face to face. They communicate with each other all the time using mind-words, but they like to see each other too. Queen Cécile is hosting the next meeting, which will be in a few weeks.”

He paused, either to let us all take in what he had said or to formulate what he was about to say. His English was very good, but French was the language he preferred.

“When the royals are here, it leaves their homes unprotected. They have guards and warriors, but each king or queen is the oldest or toughest vampire of that area. It leaves their homes more… umm… it invites opposition. We don’t have to worry about that, but you need to know that all our royal visitors will be on edge. They have left their territory, and vampires can be overly protective of territory.”

He waited again.

“You are here because we have to keep our visitors safe. They are the best fighters in the world, of course, or they would never have become king or queen. I need everyone here to maintain a perimeter about a kilometer out from this building. Every one of you can fight, some more insanely than others.”

He looked at me and winked. I scrunched my eyes at him.

“If a rogue or unauthorized vampire tries to head to the building, we must stop it. If you spot several vampires, use your head to ask for help. Nobody should drop their guard or leave a position. We need you to stay in place to watch. If there is an attack—and I doubt there will be, but you never know—I don’t want to leave any holes in the perimeter. Don’t let anybody coax you away from your position. We have plenty of warriors who will be up instantly to help.”

“When is this?” asked a woman, in English but with a heavy Italian accent.

“I don’t know exactly,” Pierre said. “Soon, sometime, but everything is subject to change. They don’t like to give advance notice. I will find out the day it happens. When I find out, I will call you all back to Bern. Sorry to be so secretive, but that is how the royals work. Oh, and it isn’t just our royals who need protection. We need this gathering to happen without being noticed by any of the humans in the city. This is the queen’s home, and she wants to remain as invisible as she can.”

He paused to see if anybody had any questions or concerns.

“Weapons?” another vampire asked.

“If you want, but your main job is to watch. Okay, thanks everyone. I will call you sometime within the next few weeks.”

W
ITH
that, the meeting ended. We were back in Bavaria in a matter of seconds.

“What was the deal with wearing black?” Hamlet asked.

“Pierre probably figured you’d show up in drag,” I said.

“Butt-wipe.”

“I can hear you,” Pierre said in our heads.

“Yeah, well, good,” Hamlet protested.

“
B
ACK
so soon?” Menz asked as we walked into the library. “You were only gone for an hour.”

“Hiking,” I said.

“Right. Give Queen Cécile my regards when you see her next time.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Hamlet said in a kind of mocking, Scarlett O’Hara voice.

“We have a new blood donor,” Menz told me.

“We always have new blood donors.”

“We do, don’t we? But this one is from north Texas. I thought you’d want to know.”

Menz clapped his hands, and in walked a young man. Tall. Thin. Muscular but not pumped or ripped.

“Lonny,” Menz said, “this is Mårten.”

“Yummy,” Lonny said. “Nice to meet you, Mårten.” I love that Texas twang. It isn’t southern but more like what you might hear in Kentucky. It is a twang, not a drawl.

Lonny walked over to me and kissed me on the lips as his hand rubbed the front of my pants.

“You here to give blood?” I asked.

“I’m here to give blood and whatever else you want, big guy. You and Oberon… both of y’all.”

I had already fed before going to Bern, but I could certainly use a snack. Flying does take some energy. Having Lonny in our bedroom would be a definite plus. His fingers were long, and we all know what that means. Like most of the other human blood donors, Lonny was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He had gorgeous thighs and a nice bubble-butt.

“Oberon is waiting for you,” Menz said.

I guess the night’s entertainment was prearranged. Works for me.

Oberon was indeed waiting in our bedroom, the room we have shared as lovers for a hundred years. He can still make me stop dead when I see him nude. That long hair, naturally black. Most of the hair on the right side of his head was colored deep blue. The hair matched his blue eyes. Wow.

He glided up to me and started taking off my leather clothes. Lonny didn’t need a written invitation. He was out of his shorts and T-shirt in a few seconds and came to rub my inner thigh with both hands. One of his hands moved up to hold my crotch. I groaned because I got so hot with two men working on my body at the same time. Oberon’s hands went for my butt cheeks and crack because that was what he wanted to use. Lonny played with my thighs and crotch. Wow.