Authors: Scott G. Mariani
Her eyes fluttered open and she mumbled it again, more clearly this time.
‘Vâlcanul.’
The accent she used to pronounce the word sent a tingle down Joel’s back. That wasn’t something she’d learned in school. It seemed to come from some other place, as if the word was being channelled through her. He knew he’d been right. Backing away from her, he shut the atlas and tossed it on a chair.
‘You promised you’d free her,’ Dec croaked from the couch.
‘And I meant what I said,’ Joel replied.
He stared down at the girl on the floor, and she gazed up at him with pleading in her eyes. He was suddenly looking at a normal seventeen-year-old, a pretty girl with red hair and intelligent blue eyes and her whole life ahead of her.
Except he wasn’t.
He opened the lid of the case. Her wild cry filled the room as he reached inside and his fist closed on the cold cross. He drew it out with a shaking hand.
‘Nooo!’
Dec screamed, twisting up off the couch and making a desperate lunge at Joel. Joel sidestepped him, and the kid crashed to the floor with a wail.
Before the cross was even out of the case, Kate’s shriek was dying on her lips. Joel felt a sudden surge of heat in his fist as the cross seemed to pulse with invisible, ferocious power. Faster than he could register, the invisible force of it hit her. Blew her apart. Obliterated every shred of her being. Like something out of a nightmare, she disintegrated before his eyes.
Then it was over. Her final cry seemed to echo in the crashing silence. Joel looked grimly down at the mess on the floor that had once been a beautiful, happy young girl, and for the second time that night he tasted the harsh sting of vomit rising up in his throat.
Dec was struggling to his feet, ashen-faced and trembling. ‘You killed her.’
‘You can’t kill what’s already dead,’ Joel said quietly. ‘I did what I promised. I freed her.’
Dec nodded slowly, swallowed hard and gingerly touched the wound on his neck. He looked at Joel. ‘I’m going to become one of them, aren’t I?’
Joel glanced at the cross in his hand. He held it out. ‘Touch it,’ he said.
Dec tentatively reached out and brushed its surface with his fingertips.
‘Take it,’ Joel said softly, and Dec grasped it in his palm.
Nothing happened.
‘I think you’re going to be okay,’ Joel said.
Dec stared at the cross in his hand, blinking in confusion. ‘She bit me. She drank from me.’
‘I don’t know exactly how this works, Dec. She’d only just been turned herself. Maybe her powers weren’t strong enough. Maybe if she’d come back to you a few more times, drank a bit more…’ He shrugged. ‘You’ve been lucky.’ Already Joel thought he could see a change coming over Dec’s face. Almost as though he’d been freed too, from some kind of hypnotic power that had held him like a fly in a web. Joel laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss. You’ve been brave, Dec. I’m proud of you.’
Dec rubbed the tears from his face with his sleeve. His face twisted in sudden disgust.
‘I’ve been weak,’ he sniffed. ‘I shouldn’t have tried to stop you. I should never have let her in here.’ He handed the cross back to Joel. ‘What
is
that thing?’
‘Just a little something I picked up on my travels,’ Joel said.
‘Where are you going now?’
‘To take you home to your family. They’re worried about you. After that, I’m going to finish this once and for all.’
‘Let me go with you. I want to be there too. I want to see the fucker who did this to my Kate go down.’
Joel shook his head. ‘This is something I’ve been waiting eighteen years for. I need to do it alone.’
It was a dull early afternoon and clouds were scudding low over the airport terminal as Alex stepped out into the damp Brussels air. She popped a Solazal. Three left in the tube.
She’d been expecting to see Harry Rumble waiting for her in the lobby, but no sign. Then she spotted the gleaming black Mercedes SUV with mirrored windows across the tarmac. The back doors opened simultaneously and two figures she knew instantly were VIA agents stepped out across the car park to meet her. One was tall with thin white hair, the other dark and ruddy. Both were wearing long black coats over grey suits, like bad imitations of police detectives. They weren’t smiling.
‘Where’s Rumble?’ she asked them.
They didn’t reply. She shrugged and followed them to the car. The driver had the engine running and didn’t glance back at them in his mirror as they got in. Alex sat sandwiched between the two sullen agents.
‘So I suppose this is meant to intimidate me,’ she said. ‘The whole silent act. What do I call you guys?’
The two agents stared fixedly ahead and said nothing.
‘Have it your way. I’ll call you Chico and Harpo. How about that?’
‘He’s Agent Bates,’ the tall, white-haired one muttered out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I’m Agent Verspoor.’
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you boys,’ Alex said. She wasn’t expecting a reply, and spent the next few minutes staring out at the drab scenery as the Mercedes sped around the outskirts of Brussels. Belgium. Land of chocolate and chips, and not much else.
The Hotel Grand Châteauneuf sat secluded in twenty acres of its own wooded grounds a few kilometres from Brussels. The high level of luxury and even higher security made it perfect for the big-shot conferences and summits that were regularly held there. Bilderbergers, global business cartels, now vampires. The Mercedes was halted at the barred gates and the driver showed his paperwork to the armed private security guard that stepped up to meet them. A nod and a wave, and they glided on through the gates and into the rolling grounds. The hotel appeared through the trees as they came closer, all steel and glass and concrete. To Alex’s eye it looked slab-like and postmodern, but she guessed the brutal architecture appealed to the powermonger types. The main building could have been a grounded space station, with a giant glass dome in its centre that caught the dull sunlight.
Up ahead, a procession of other vehicles was filing up towards the car park as vampires arrived from all over the world. Their driver slotted into a parking space and Bates and Verspoor escorted Alex from the car. As they followed the crowd funnelling towards the entrance of the main building, she could see the limos of the top Ruling Council dignitaries parked in a cordoned area. More agents were milling about, some of them conspicuously armed and glancing about nervously. Whatever stocks remained of Nosferol were sure to have been diligently reserved for VIP protection, Alex thought.
Her two goons shadowed her every step of the way as she walked into the hotel lobby and glanced around for Harry Rumble. She spotted him through the crowds, standing in conversation with Xavier Garrett. Rumble didn’t seem his usual self-possessed self as she approached him.
‘I like the way you sent this double act to pick me up,’ she said. ‘Am I under close arrest or what?’
Garrett smirked. Rumble shifted nervously and looked down at his feet. ‘I wouldn’t put it that way exactly.’
‘Then exactly how would you put it, Harry?’
‘We can talk about it later,’ he said. ‘It’s just about time for us to go in.’ The crowd was beginning to break up and drift towards the stairs leading to the main conference room. As they walked, Alex noticed the grim look on Rumble’s face.
‘What’s the matter, Harry? It can’t just be because of Solomon, can it?’
He shook his head. ‘There have been more incidents. While you were in Italy the field stations in Bombay, New York and Tokyo were hit. Nosferol grenade attack. No survivors. Late last night there was another attempt, Paris this time. If the grenade hadn’t failed to go off, every one of our agents there would have bought it, too.’
‘Stone,’ she said. ‘He’s tightening the screw.’
‘And we don’t know what we can damn well do about it. The bastard has us by the balls.’
They entered the conference hall and Alex glanced up at the high glass-domed ceiling she’d seen from the car. The banked rows of plush red velvet seats could seat up to five hundred, and they were filling up quickly. A host of ushers with Federation insignia on their smart red uniforms were running back and forth, attending to the delegates, smiling and shaking hands, offering glasses of blood. The elegant classical music piping into the room from hidden speakers was all but drowned out by the buzz of conversation. Rumble was whisked off to join a contingent of VIA section chiefs seated in the front row among other Federation leaders, while Bates and Verspoor steered Alex up the sloping side aisle towards a seat in the row second from the back, looking down from on high at the broad stage below. She got the distinct feeling she was being sidelined. They pointedly sat behind her, spaced two places apart as though that seemed more intimidating.
There was nothing she could do except sit back and watch the conference hall fill up. She could feel the sense of anticipation building in the room as the event ticked steadily closer, but the overall atmosphere was downbeat. Many faces were frowning. Some of the conversations taking place among the rows of seats and in the aisles were more like arguments. Whether the Federation leaders liked to admit it or not, Gabriel Stone’s uprising had everyone deeply rattled.
The buzz halted abruptly with the first signs of movement down below and, one by one, to a thunderous applause, the dignitaries hosting the conference filed out from behind the curtain and made their way to the long, curved podium. Alex had never seen them in the flesh before but, like every other vampire in the place, she could put names to the faces that appeared on the big screens flanking the stage. Hassan. Borowczyk. Korentayer. Goldmund. Mushkavanhu. Behind them followed the rotund figure of the FRC Number Two, Gaston Lerouge. The Supremos took their places, three to a side. The seventh, central, seat remained empty; and then the applause intensified and there were shouts as Olympia Angelopolis burst out from behind the curtain. She swept across the stage, dressed in a flowing white gown that shimmered under the lights, mirroring the silver of her hair. The imperious, unsmiling features of the Vampress filled the screens over the stage. She paused graciously to acknowledge her reception and raised a hand. The applause died away.
Then the great Olympia Angelopolis spoke.
‘On behalf of my fellow Supremos of the Ruling Council, I thank you all for gathering here today. Let us begin with a minute’s silence to mourn the lamented passing of Supremo Teshigahara, Councillor Sen and the other victims of the recent atrocities committed against our great Federation.’
There was a soft murmur of assent among the audience, and a reverential hush hung over the auditorium. Olympia and the other Supremos solemnly lowered their heads. Up on the big screens, Gaston Lerouge was seen to wipe away a tear, even though everyone in the room knew that vampires couldn’t cry. After exactly fifty-nine seconds, Olympia abruptly raised her head and ended the silence. ‘Thank you. Now, let us begin.’
Why am I here,
Alex thought as the talking began. She could have been out there trying to find Joel instead of wasting time listening to this. She slumped deeper in her seat, put her feet up on the backrest of the row in front of her and folded her arms. She could feel the eyes of Verspoor and Bates right behind her, boring into her.
Right from the start, the main thrust of the meeting was exactly the party line she’d been expecting. Gaston Lerouge took the floor and spent most of the first hour stirring the audience’s shared outrage with an impassioned account of the recent acts of sabotage, murder and robbery committed against the Federation by the new rebellion, the instigators of which he described as terrorists and insurgents. Having whipped up the sentiments in the room to a pitch, Lerouge masterfully changed gear and talked at length about the Federation’s long history: the struggle to establish order in the early days, the first successes and failures, the heroic efforts of esteemed colleagues such as The Lady of Steel herself to bring peace and harmony to what had been an embattled, divided, grievously endangered race. Were the sacrifices of the Founders to have been in vain?
No,
the audience roared. Was this towering monument to democracy, this paragon of justice and good, to be brought down by a rabble?
No!
Visibly moved, Lerouge handed the floor to his colleagues. The next hour was spent reassuring the audience that in no way was the Federation under any significant threat from the uprising. Thanks to the worthy efforts of VIA and its global network of agents, the situation would be fully in hand within six months at the latest; the Federation would continue to march undeterred onwards and upwards. Ramming home their message of a bright and optimistic future, the screens overhead displayed a slideshow of the plans for the construction of the new Federation pharmaceutical plant in Andorra. The audience duly nodded and marvelled.
Olympia Angelopolis thanked her colleagues and took up the baton once more.
‘In the light of the recent crisis, however, and as a result of protracted debate, the Federation Ruling Council has reluctantly elected to implement a range of new measures. From now on, every registered Federation member will be required to report twice yearly to their local VIA office so that we may keep updated records of their movements and activities.’ She paused to let the audience absorb this, which they did with only a very few shrugs and raised eyebrows, then went on: ‘Second, as a result of diminished supplies, and to enable us to get production back to normal, we propose the introduction of a new levy on prescriptions of Solazal and Vambloc for all registered members. Federation personnel and VIA agents are, of course, exempt.’ The Supremo smiled at this display of her organisation’s generosity.
In the moment of silence before Olympia continued, Alex raised her hand.
‘Excuse me, ma’am?’
Many faces turned to look at Alex. The Supremo had not invited questions.