Ancient Blood: A Novel of the Hegemony (The Order Saga Book 1) (15 page)

Julia’s eyes burned and her lips stretched back to reveal razor-sharp, fully-extended canines. She struck like a snake, head whipping down between Valmont’s legs with one obvious intention.

It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy but I still flinched away.

When I turned back, Julia rose to her knees: the blood on her lips, teeth and chin said it all. The frenzy had disappeared but the shredded dress hanging from her shoulders like a burial shroud, ragged hair, blood dribbling down her pale body and the oddly untouched Roman necklace across her throat combined to make her a genuine Gorgon.

The sex slaves genuflected from their places on the floor and Valmont rolled over and pulled his knees beneath him to do the same. Face implacable, Julia reached up and tore the ruined dress off, throwing it aside as she rose. I saw nothing in her nudity but cold power, like a statue come to life.

As if to cement the image, Valmont drew himself forward, kissed one of her feet and whispered in Latin.

“What’d he just say?” I asked.

“He called her his living goddess,” Caroline answered. Her voice was oddly flat, not excited or scared or embarrassed or anything. “This is it. This is what we can offer Iago. Whatever Sebastian thought he was accomplishing with this, it’s going to bring him down.”

I looked at the time stamp in the corner and realized that this scene had occurred at exactly the same time Caroline and I had been having our little make-out session one wing over. I felt my nausea return along with smoldering anger.

“Can we please shut this off now?”

Caroline looked at me with a mixture of defiance and embarrassment. “Yes, of course. Look, Avery, I’m sorry that was so unpleasant but we’re fighting for our lives here. We can’t afford to be picky about how we gather the information that could save us.”

I sat down heavily in the chair. This had all been easier when they were just heartless monsters and we were the good guys. “Oh, well, excuse me for hoping we were a little better than that.”

“Dammit, don’t you dare start throwing morality in my face! You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed for the sake of my ethics and what I’ve done to keep things from being worse than they are. We’re better because our goals are humane, while Sebastian and Julia are malevolent but that doesn’t mean that we have the luxury of choosing our methods on abstract and, yes,
human
definitions of fairness.”

She was as angry as I’d ever seen her, gripping the back of her chair with white knuckles as she leaned toward me. “I told you when we started that this wasn’t going to be easy and you promised to follow my lead. I’m asking you to remember that from now on, because I can’t do what I need to if I have to coddle you every step of the way.”

I stood up, ready to snap off a good exit line like, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to work on being more cold-blooded,” and walking out but Ash interrupted before I could.

“Looks like Wilkes is on his way back. Maybe a good time for you to take off, Avery.”

It was enough to break some of the tension. I decided not to use my exit line, since I felt I’d still be owed the apology if I left things as they were.

Caroline didn’t look at me as I left.

* * * * *

Since the Gathering, I’ve had time to look over the security camera footage, so I can tell you what was happening in that council meeting while I was off in the kitchen. Thank Caroline and Ash for the quotes, however, since their translation from the Latin was the only thing that allowed me to understand it.

The council chamber is a large, rectangular room dominated by the gigantic table at its center. The Hegemons’ chairs can all rightly be called thrones, high-backed and ornately-carved with red silk upholstery. What little light exists in the room is focused on the table and—with the two-story tray ceiling (which Caroline says once featured gorgeous murals of the Continental Congress and Columbus’ landing) painted black and the black marble floor—gives the impression that the table exists in some kind of abyss. The only remnants of the chamber’s Federal style are the fluted marble columns around the table and the giant stained-glass window opposite the doors depicting an American bald eagle with wings spread and the word “Liberty” on a scroll clutched in its talons.

I won’t bore you with all the arguments over international finance, trade agreements and ancient precedents that make up the first three hours of the meeting. The part that matters comes right near the end after a vicious argument over the ownership of Mongolia, which Iago ended up taking away from Draco and awarding to Jade Tiger.

Iago, looking like a man at the dentist’s awaiting a root canal, asks if anyone has any further business to bring before the council.

Sebastian rises, saying, “I do.”

An expectant silence falls over the room and Sebastian savors the moment, letting his gaze touch each one of the Hegemons in turn. “Fellow Hegemons, I ask you to consider how much control you
truly
wield over your Domains. A foolish notion on the surface but indulge me for a moment. I have thought awhile upon the daily workings of my Domain and have come to the unhappy revelation that I have far less knowledge of the offices of those beneath me than I ought. The laws and practices by which my governments enact and enforce their laws, the myriad companies and banks in which I am invested, the political cabals who control others of their ilk, all of these are unknown to me in their particulars. Certainly though, this is a problem of little consequence. For do I not have my capable and honest Governors whom I may rely upon to carry out my wishes without thought for personal gain?”

He pauses for the knowing chuckles his joke produces, as smooth and confident as a well-loved president playing to a crowd of the party faithful.

“Yes,” he continues, “I see nearly all of you have had like experiences to mine. Policies delayed or never implemented and always the endless excuses about legalities, procedural difficulties, cultural obstacles and the lot. Fondly do I look back on the days when I knew every Reeve and Dhampir in my Domain and could, with but perhaps an evening’s preparation, assume their office as though it were my own. Days when I could dispatch a letter of instruction with my own hand to avert a crisis. Now, alas, I must confer with assistants and Governors and Executive Governors. Now I must tread lightly around human laws and mark the ever watchful eyes of human cameras. Now I must act the figurehead and choose from the meek options my Governors allow!”

If the Hegemony council was just a little less stuffy, there would have been a round of applause. Even Draco, sworn enemy that he is, sits forward and listens to Sebastian’s words with unabashed admiration.

Only Iago appears unimpressed. Seizing the natural pause in Sebastian’s speech, he slips in to cut him down. “I’m afraid circumspection of action is one of the necessities of civilization.”

“Theirs or ours?” Sebastian responds without a hitch, stealing the thunder from Iago’s would-be zinger. “Perhaps I am mistaken but it was my understanding that we controlled the humans and not the reverse.” He pauses here for effect, looking grave. No one attempts to interrupt this time. “Perhaps I am mistaken, at that. For I have saved mention of the most dire threat to our power for last. Even were we to ignore or accept our present limitations, there are the ‘computers’ to account for. ‘Computers,’ those once novel tools for keeping records and performing calculations, will very shortly be the end of us.”

Now he’s on the verge of losing them. Geoffrey smirks and the others look a little puzzled. Iago seems to be biding his time, waiting for Sebastian to cross some invisible line.

“I see that a few of you find this difficult to credit,” Sebastian says as if this was only to be expected, “so allow me to elaborate. These devices are not only many times more powerful than they were only a decade ago, they are also quite omnipresent. There is no aspect of the modern world which they have not infiltrated. What is the danger in this? Simply that these machines keep records of
everything
, tirelessly and ceaselessly. Humans can be bought, controlled. Paper records can be destroyed or kept secure. My Caroline is quite taken with these cunning devices and I have taken opportunities to learn about them from her and others who are knowledgeable. Fellow Hegemons, what I have learned has only increased my unease—”

“I beg your pardon, Hegemon Blackwood,” Iago says, his weary tone somehow conveying, without being the least bit impolite, that Sebastian is raving like a madman. “But this session has already stolen many an hour and I still cannot even guess at your purpose.” With a dismissive cock of an eyebrow, the Judicis turns his attention to Geoffrey, leaving Sebastian to stand and look foolish. “Hegemon Plantagenet, you are quite familiar with the contemporary world. Were there some imminent danger from these machines, you would have informed us of it, would you not?”

Geoffrey, of course, knows an opening when he hears one. “With all my heart,” he says to a small ripple of laughter.

Julia isn’t laughing, however and the others wither beneath her attention. Sebastian inclines his head toward her in silent thanks. “May it please Your Exaltedness, I would continue and, by not so long a journey as you suspect, arrive at my destination. Many thanks.” It’s a subtle shift but you can feel it. Without Julia sabotaging Iago’s play, it wouldn’t have worked but Sebastian has regained the floor and closed the door to any further heckling from Iago.

“I do not doubt that gentle Geoffrey would warn us if he were to behold doom hanging close over our heads. Indeed, were we all more like him—liberal of thought and attitude, dealing comfortably with humans and willing to surrender to every new whim of time and ‘civilization’—then perhaps we would also perceive no threat. However, the danger I warn of is more subtle and insidious than those to which we are accustomed. Computers now hold more clues to our presence, our plans and our weaknesses than has ever been known in any time previous. Any human with enough luck, time and skill can access all of it! Do not believe those who assure you that this information is protected by ‘your’ computers, for I am well informed that such security can never be absolute.”

He stalks around the backs of the chairs to give them all that subtle sense of menace he’s so good at conveying. “As this world grows more organized, more interconnected and more complex, so is it also less and less amenable to our continued secrecy. There already exist computers which can recognize faces through any disguise or subterfuge by means of those elements which never alter—even after Creation! These machines, I am told, will also see subtle things such as body temperature, destroying any chance for us to camouflage ourselves among the masses! Imagine your face recorded by cameras somewhere only to be compared to another picture a century later and found to be unchanged—how will you explain yourself?”

Geoffrey raises a finger just as Sebastian completes his circle. “Yes, yes, Geoffrey, I have anticipated your objection,” Sebastian hurries to assure him. “We do have the power to falsify these records and make our movements even more subtle in order to minimize this problem. I cannot help but wonder, however, if such thinking leads us down the correct path. In this past century, we have devoted more time and energy to keeping, altering and hiding records than ever before. Why? To hide from the humans we
supposedly
control!”

His volume raises just enough to sweep everyone along in his strident tide. “In the last century alone, we have retreated further from the direct control of our Domains than at any other time. Why? To hide from the humans we control and minimize the risk of upsetting the spider web of institutions which, to human eyes, appear to steer the world. Iago’s decisions of late have also encouraged the decentralization of our individual power and as you just witnessed with Mongolia, supported the benefit of ‘the people we rule’ over our own!”

Sebastian is now in direct opposition to Iago. He pauses to let everyone soak it in and cut a glance to where the Judicis sits, weary and wrinkled.

“Friends,” Sebastian resumes. “We stand now in the early dawn of a new millennium and I say it is high time we reverse this base inclination toward passivity! I say it is time we once again took the reins firmly in hand, reins which are ours alone by virtue of Divine rebirth! Nay, more I say that it is time we take hold of humanity by the ears and show it the unabashed face of its master!”

A shockwave rolls across the assembly. Sebastian is talking about throwing aside the most ancient law Vampyrs have. He’s talking about the entire race coming out to rule in the open.

“Outrageous!” Draco shouts, first to react.

The others mutter and whisper among themselves, while Iago sits forward. “Sebastian, have you lost—”

But Sebastian presses his case before the shock wears off. “I do not speak of the impossible or the foolhardy! Together, we alone have the power and the wit to achieve this—we need only set ourselves to the task and it is done! Of course we shall proceed with all the care and planning which becomes such an undertaking but we must set our minds to it and see this subtle erosion of our power stopped. I pledge myself to this suit and would go so far as to challenge Iago for his place to see it accomplished!”

Now he’s committed. He doesn’t look worried, however—he looks thrilled. He watches Iago rise from his chair like a mountain lion ready to pounce.