The Living Night (Book 2)

THE LIVING NIGHT

PART TWO

by
Jack Conner

Copyright 2014

All rights reserved

Cover image used with
permission

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Chapter 1

The
Congo
was hot and the mosquitoes weren't any nicer than Danielle remembered, but
there was a wonderful familiarity here. A wonderful, eternal quality; the Congo
was the darkest, thickest, most savage jungle in the world, had been that way
since long before she was born and would be that way long after she died. It
was the true immortal, a large, seething, and sultry beast.
Green
and lush, chaotic, and as noisy in its own way as Times
Square.

Of course, whenever Danielle thought of the Congo, she
always associated its smell with Kharker's cigars, and Lord Kharker himself,
who seemed just as immortal and unchanging as the jungle he lived in.

So it was strange that he didn't greet the odd
flock as they stepped down from the plane, as was his usual custom. Gavin was
there in his place, flanked by a score of Caucasian guards Danielle didn't
recognize.

"Welcome," Gavin said, taking first
Danielle's hand,
then
Ruegger's. "Kharker's been
looking forward to your visit."

"Then why didn't he meet us?" asked
Danielle.

"I think you'll have to discuss that with
him.
Please, but could you remove all your weapons?"

Ruegger and Danielle exchanged glances, but did
as they were asked. Gavin had never been anything but polite with them
(although he'd never seen them together), and he wasn't impolite now. Once
they'd handed their arms over to the host of soldiers, Gavin led them toward
the main building,
then
veered off, moving toward the
jungle as if he expected his guests to follow. Warily, they did.

The clearing around the estate soon gave way to
fierce vegetation, but several trails snaked off into the wild and almost
impenetrable darkness. Danielle immediately noticed that the jungle life was
oddly quiet—the first signal of an ambush—and ordinarily this would've given
her a few tense moments, but she heard the sounds of men working and, over them,
Lord Kharker giving orders.

When they came upon the man himself, he was
standing with the sleeves of his soiled white shirt rolled up past his elbow,
the stub of a cigar sticking authoritatively from one corner of his mouth.
Judging by the stubble on his face, he hadn't shaved in some time. The men he
was ordering about seemed to be digging trenches, and pieces of piping material
lay scattered around. When he heard the odd flock approach, Kharker turned and
offered a huge smile.

"Ah! It's good to see you again.” He
crossed to Danielle, hugging her, then embraced Ruegger roughly and stood for a
long moment examining him. "I've missed you, son.” His voice was soft. "Here,
let me look at you. Hair's a bit longer, but otherwise you haven't changed a
bit, and I don't know why you should. You know, my boy, I thought I might never
see you again."

The Darkling lit a cigarette, studying the
Hunter. "I vowed never to come near you again, old man."

"I know. I've respected it. And old I feel,
too. I celebrated my millennium just a short time ago."

"We heard.
Celebrated it
with Jean-Pierre."

Was there jealousy in Ruegger’s voice? Danielle
wondered.
Surely not.

"Indeed," said Kharker.
"On safari, of course.
That albino's turning into quite
a hunter, become even a better shot with a rifle than yourself—soon to outclass
even me, I'm sure, but I find that I'm looking forward to that. It's strange.
Perhaps I really am just getting old, looking for a successor. But seeing you
again ... after all these years ... it quickens my blood. Do you feel it,
too?"

It was clear Ruegger did. When he removed the
cigarette from his lips, his hand was shaking slightly.

"What are you doing here?" he said.

The Hunter smiled, cigar pointing up.
"We're digging irrigation ditches for the alligator swamp I'm going to
make."

"Alligator swamp?"

"In fact, I'm thinking of making an entire
zoo, replete with all the creatures I love. You see, recently I've begun to examine
myself in different ways—isolation fosters this sort of thing—and I've found
that one of the chief reasons I enjoy hunting so much is that I simply want to
be in touch with nature. It's not so much that I enjoy killing, although that's
part of it, of course, but that I enjoy animals themselves: their freedom,
their simplicity, their energy.

“So I'm having a zoo built in my backyard to
honor them, and so that I can enjoy them without going to the trouble of
organizing a safari. There are some times in the middle of the night when I'd
rather just walk outside and watch them. It calms me, and inspires me at the
same time. However—well, I don't like the idea of them being in cages, you
understand, so I'm trying to work out a system in which I can have them here
and at the same time keep them liberated. It breaks my heart to see them
imprisoned."

"I remember."

"Do
you
have any revelations to share?"

Ruegger glanced at Danielle, and Kharker nodded
in sympathy. If they were to have a good old-fashioned chat, she would have to
be absent. She watched them and understood what they were thinking, but it
didn't bother her. Sometimes friends needed time to talk alone. On the other
hand, the thought of Ruegger left alone with his old mentor made her edgy. He
was too open-minded for his own good, and she was a little afraid he'd be
susceptible to Kharker's corruption.

Plus, there was business to attend to.

"Ahem," she said.

Kharker gave his full attention to her. "You,
my girl, look even more sumptuous than the last time I saw you. The albino
still pines for you, you know." He said it with a trace of sadness, but it
was obviously meant as a compliment.

"Anyway, what's the deal here?” she said. “To
start with, why'd you have our guns taken away?"

He looked off into the distance. "I feared
you might have planned to undertake the revenge of your good friend Ludwig,
whom I had killed not long ago."

"Bullshit. What reason did you have to kill
him?"

"He wanted to take over the world, enslave
humanity. It's not in my interest to have humanity enslaved. That would spoil
the fun, wouldn't it? There would be no more Hunt. Ludwig had to die. For your
loss, I'm deeply sorry."

"That is the singularly biggest load of
atrocious crap that I've ever heard in all my years,” she said. “For one, all
the humans you ‘Hunt’ are captives anyway, so what does it matter?"

"The fact that I'm a hypocrite changes
nothing."

She waved this away. "For another, Ludwig
wanted to disband Liberty,
not keep it going. Enslaving humanity was the one thing he was trying to
prevent. It may be what he died for. Now what's the real story? And what's the
deal with all the white guys?"

Kharker looked to Ruegger, but the Darkling
offered no help.

"That's what we came here for,"
Ruegger said. "To find out what you know."

The Great White Hunter stared at the tip of his
cigar. "I recruited the white guys, as you call them, Danielle, to help
out in the event that Maleasoel organized an avenging strike on me."

"I don't buy it," said Danielle.
"If you wanted extra help, you'd train some natives, not hire a bunch of
Euro-trash mercenaries—if that’s what these are. Mercenaries are rough and
independent. The soldiers we saw looked formally
trained,
and trained together. An army of some sort, I guess. No, the way we see it is
that—and this is just one of many possibilities—you were afraid Roche Sarnova
would be accused of Ludwig's death, so you took the blame yourself, and ..."
She looked at Ruegger questioningly. "How to you figure in the
Caucasians?"

Ruegger's eyes never left the Hunter. "I
think someone approached Kharker, said that Sarnova would be accused of
Ludwig's death because of his association with the Balaklava
and asked the Hunter if he'd take the fall. In the bargain, whoever approached
him would give him a load of pre-trained soldiers to ward off Maleasoel. The
real question is who approached him. How does that sound?"

She nodded. "Well, Kharker?"

The Hunter remained silent a moment. "You
may not believe, or want to believe, that I killed Ludwig, but it's the truth.
I hired Caucasians simply for a change of pace. Now why don't you join me for a
nice glass of sherry?"

*
    
*
    
*

Once
they were inside, Kharker showed them to the Elephant Room. Ruegger moved along
the walls, studying the new additions to the chamber, and it wasn't long before
he came across his old poem; each page had been framed and hung from left to
right so that they could be read.

"Jean-Pierre gave me that for my
birthday," Kharker said. "I couldn't have asked for a better
present."

"Sorry I missed your millenium."

"Don't be. You didn't want any contact
between us, and I understood that. It's why I didn't send you anything for your
anniversary."

"You keep up with that sort of thing?”
Danielle said.

"How could I not?"

She walked over to the poem on the wall, but it
wasn't in English and she couldn't read it. "Darling," she said,
"why don't you write anymore?"

Ruegger winced. "I don't have anything else
to say. Everything I believed in I put into my poems, and I've said it
all."

"You have more things to say than anyone
I've ever met. When was the last time you wrote a poem?"

He paused, looking to her, then to Kharker. At
last he let out a breath. "When Amelia died," he said.

Studying the two men, she realized that this had
been an issue between them back when they were together. Kharker had probably
urged Ruegger to write again, but Ruegger had resisted. The Hunter had tried to
find a muse for his companion, but had been unsuccessful; all his attempts to
enliven Ruegger had failed. Danielle could sense all this, or some variation of
it, in the subtle gestures of the two.

"I don't wish to discuss it," Ruegger
added.

A servant entered, carrying a silver tray
bearing glasses of sherry. Danielle sipped hers and smiled.

"It's divine," she said.

"Thank you, my dear,” Kharker said. “Now
what exactly is it that you wish to know? If it's okay with you, I'd rather get
business out of the way first."

"That would be fine. We'd like to know
whatever you can tell us about the War of the Dark Council.
And
about Ludwig's death."

"I'm afraid I've said all I can on the latter
subject, but I wouldn't mind sharing what I know of the War with you. It's a
subject I've been most interested in of late. That said
,
I never like to divulge information to someone who's unwilling to do the same
for me."

Ruegger raised his eyebrows. "What do you
mean?"

"I know of your quest to gather facts about
the strange situations surrounding us these days, and would be very interested
in what you’ve learned. In particular, what you've found out about the
Scouring."

"Quid pro quo, eh?" said Danielle.

"If you like.
I would be more than
willing to share with you what I know, but I would be most intrigued by what
you have to tell me—if you chose to do so. Here, I'll go first."

He reclined in a large, comfortable chair, and
the other two joined him. Sipping his sherry, Kharker began recounting the
discussion he'd had with Roche Sarnova on the day he'd arrived at the Castle to
celebrate his birthday with the Dark Lord, after Sarnova had asked Jean-Pierre
to leave the
room ...

*
    
*
    
*

"Well,"
said Kharker.

"Indeed," said Sarnova, his voice
sickly, his face pale and ashen, and nodded at Francois Mauchlery.
"Ambassador, would you care to bring Lord Kharker up to speed on recent
events?"

"Certainly," said Mauchlery, rising.
He moved out from behind Sarnova's desk and started pacing. "As you may
know, the Dark One here is the head chair of the so-called Dark Council, which
presides over immortal matters in our immediate realm. Other than Roche and
myself
, the most prominent member of the Council is a female
morbine called Subaire. About a month ago Roche made the bold decision to claim
Romania
in the name of all immortals."

"Excuse me?" said Kharker.

"Please," said Sarnova patiently,
earnestly. "Allow me to explain."

Francois bowed his head.

"Shades have, as the term implies, always
lived in shadow," Sarnova said, "but dependent on humanity for our
very existence. We've always lived in fear of mortals, because they've
historically outnumbered us beyond proportion. Recently, however, our ranks
have swelled into a more fair distribution, do you agree?"