Now, however, he was engaged in a furious battle of strategy. Or, as furious as a battle could be when one’s opponent had not moved or spoken in over an hour, at any rate.
His companion had shown no interest whatsoever over the last few weeks as Eris planned his trip to Cyprus, only to show up randomly—not to mention, uninvited—shortly after Eris checked into the hotel. He supposed that Snag had followed him across the Atlantic out of something like affection, though the others would doubtless argue that the ancient and powerful vampire was incapable of any such emotion.
He moved his attention away from the fading light of the sun and back to the chessboard, hoping that Snag would make a decision soon about his next move. Stimulating though the contest was, by now it had dragged on long enough that Eris just wanted it to be over. Snag, however, was a deeply serious player who would plan out at least twenty moves in advance for each possible move available to him at that moment. The only reason Eris had agreed to the game—and the inevitable, humiliating defeat it would eventually entail—was that he needed to pass a few hours before meeting with his art buyer during the nighttime hours to seal their deal.
Who am I kidding? I lost the game the moment I moved the first pawn, Eris thought irritably, scratching his brow and dragging his wandering mind back to the game.
Despite Snag’s cold visage, his eyes were moving around the room, as though he were growing restless as evening approached. This was not an uncommon occurrence. Eris often got the sense that his companion struggled with his private demons more as the sun was setting.
After a few moments, Snag’s gaze sharpened and returned to the board. Slowly, deliberately, he reached forward with skeletal fingers and moved his remaining knight.
Eris almost let out a groan of frustration. All of that, for a move that accomplished nothing in the broader strategy?
“You and I need to find a different game to play,” he said.
Snag’s deep-set eyes rose to meet his, the pupils blown permanently wide like an owl’s. He did not speak, but Eris felt a faint thread of amusement pass between them. He had the distinct impression that Snag, although clearly still uneasy about something, was enjoying his mild irritation.
Eris turned back towards the board and glanced down at all the pieces strewn across the black and white squares. With a sigh, he tipped his king over and sat back, signaling defeat.
Snag sent a flicker of annoyance towards him through their mental connection.
“Snag, why do we keep doing this?” Eris asked.
Snag looked steadily at him, but made no move to communicate.
“We sit here, day after day, playing chess at a pace slower than the Earth circling around the sun. We would have turned to stone before this game ever finished.” He huffed a sigh. “Speed chess. Have you ever heard of it? You should look it up sometime.”
Snag still did not move or speak.
Eris shook his head, clamping down ruthlessly on the smile that tried to tug at his lips. “Well,” he said philosophically, “at least you’re a good listener.”
A wash of hunger not his own flowed across his awareness for only an instant before it was gone. He frowned.
“You need to feed soon,” Eris said. “Unfortunately, that means I need to feed, first.”
The sudden rush of shame and buried rage was not unexpected, but it stabbed at Eris’ cold heart, regardless. Snag refused to feed from humans, from animals—from any source of blood other than Eris. Even then, he fought to hold his hunger at bay until he was already weakened, like some form of twisted self-punishment.
He knew that Snag was in need of a fresh supply of blood, and soon, but he would be better able to provide for his sad, tormented friend after feeding from a human victim to replenish his own strength.
Despite the fact that Snag had eschewed verbal communication for years now, Eris made it a point to converse normally with him, attempting each day to draw him out of his self-imposed silence. Over the last few centuries, he had only heard Snag speak a small handful of times, and never in the last fifty years. Eris often wondered if Snag even remembered how, or if his vocal cords would still work after going so long without use.
Feeling more animated now that the chess game no longer loomed, Eris stood and turned toward the window. He did not open the drapes, but instead raised his hand, palm out, to touch the curtain separating them from the last rays of the setting sun. He could feel the heat under his palm, but he sensed that the sun was nearly below the horizon. It would soon be safe to leave the shelter of the hotel room.
“It’s almost dusk,” Eris said aloud. He felt Snag stir behind him, and he could tell that the older vampire was oddly anxious for Eris to hunt.
When the sun was safely hidden, Eris excused himself and headed out onto the darkening streets on foot. Breathing in the smell of the city around him, he allowed his mind to wander back to his mortal life.
He had been a smuggler, of sorts; although that was not the name they used millennia ago. At the time, he had considered himself a collector of fabulous treasures. The money he made from artifacts that had come into his possession—by fair means, or foul—had eventually lifted him from humble beginnings to the halls of wealth and power. Over the centuries, much of his wealth had been retained, invested wisely in gold, platinum, stocks, and real estate.
Still, every now and then it became necessary to draw from his private collection to fund some project or another. Hence his presence here tonight, so many, many years after he had first left the beautiful island he called home. As he walked down the jarringly modern boulevard, memories assailed him from the shadows, and he felt a pang of old pain.
So many memories, so much suffering, he thought to himself. It was true. This city held a long and checkered history, and much of it still haunted him.
Not willing to allow himself to sink into listlessness, he turned his attention to the people milling around him on the street. Hunger surged as he idly imagined luring one of them into a dark alley.
Contrary to the stories mortals often told each other, it wasn’t necessary for a vampire to kill a human to feed. Vampires could lean heavily on a human’s consciousness and wipe all memories of the attack, which minimized the possible fallout from panicked victims running to the authorities to babble about supernatural beings drinking their blood. Aside from feeling a bit weakened from blood loss, they suffered no further adverse effects from becoming a vampire’s lunch date.
Eris’ gaze wandered over the crowd, looking for a likely female target who would not put up much of a struggle. Shaking his head at himself, he realized that he was acting like Duchess, who always hunted in a crowd of men. Though she also tended to seduce her victims, sleep with them, and then feed before wiping their memories and sending them on their way—generally with vacant, ridiculous smiles on their faces.
He wondered how worried he should be that he was apparently turning into his Duchess in his old age. Though he, at least, would limit himself to a single victim at a time.
See, he told Duchess, even though she was half a world away and couldn’t possibly hear him. I still have some standards.
As he rounded the corner, he almost ran face first into a woman who was coming from the other direction.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, dropping her cell phone on the concrete as they steadied each other. “I’m so sorry! I wasn’t paying any attention at all…”
Eris smiled at her and leaned down, picking up her phone. He dusted it off, checked the screen for damage, and held it out to her. “No, no,” he said. “The fault was entirely mine. Thankfully, your phone doesn’t seem to be damaged, so no harm was done.”
He could tell that she was taking in his appearance, subtly looking him up and down. He was playing rich tourist for this trip, rather than a local—a bit scruffy, a bit mussed. Khakis and white button-down shirt rolled up to the elbows, dark hair a few inches longer than what was fashionable. Judging by the pink creeping into her cheeks, she liked wh
at she saw.
Almost too easy, Eris thought.
“You know, it’s far too lovely an evening to spend it rushing around corners, engrossed in the screen of a phone,” he said.
The woman touched her throat with her fingertips and laughed—a light, fluttery noise that caused new hunger to course through Eris’ body in anticipation of what was to come.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “If it results in collisions with dark, handsome strangers, maybe I should try it more often.”
The exchange was so clichéd, so predictable after all these long centuries that Eris had to stifle a sigh of boredom, despite his need for her blood.
“And what has you so distracted that you’re posing a hazard to pedestrian traffic?” he asked, playing the game even though his heart wasn’t in it.
“Nothing that I couldn’t whole-heartedly abandon,” she replied in a sly tone.
“Well, then—why don’t you tell me all about it over drinks?” Eris suggested, holding his arm out to her.
She looked flattered and shrugged agreement, but before she could reach out and take his arm, a strange feeling passed through his body like a wave. An odd, shivering vibration, deep inside his fragmented soul. It resonated within him and he looked up, alarmed, stretching outward with all his senses.
His sensitive hearing picked up the sound of police cars wailing in the distance. He knew that the woman next to him, looking at him oddly as he stood frozen in place, would never be able to hear the distant noise. Something he couldn’t explain compelled him to follow the sound. He was powerless to resist the pull, like a moth drawn to flame.
“Forgive me,” he said, stepping back from the woman and turning in the direction of the pull. “I’ve just remembered something, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a rain check on those drinks.”
Behind him, his would-be victim was saying something about phone numbers, but he was already hurrying away.
Eris could not explain, even to himself, why he felt so strongly about the situation. He jogged. Then he ran. Then, he ran hard, passing people on foot left and right. He could feel their stares following him, but he didn’t dare slow down long enough to apologize for the jostling or to account for his actions.
Get there, get there, get there, a voice inside him chanted. He managed to control his instincts just enough to run at a speed that would not raise alarm with the humans flashing past him, but Eris could feel the strange compulsion to be there now eating away at him.
He rounded corners seemingly at random, drawn forward by intuition rather than by his senses. Before he had traveled five blocks, he found himself approaching a police barricade erected a few hundred paces ahead.
Not wanting to be seen running towards a large group of alarmed police officers, Eris sidestepped quickly into the dark shadows of a nearby building’s recessed doorway. He could taste human fear and tension hanging in the air around him, and he wondered what had happened to cause such a response.
The attention of the officers down the street seemed to be focused on a large building with a glass paneled front. He thought that it could be a stock exchange or a bank of some kind, and tried to orient himself against his mental map of the city. The Hellenic Bank of Cyprus, maybe? That would make sense, given where he’d started from and how far he’d run.
While he was taking in his surroundings, three officers decked out in riot gear came around the corner from a nearby side street, talking swiftly to one another.
“He’s got an unknown number of hostages located at the northeast corner of the lobby. As far as we can gather, there’s only one perp, but the text messages being routed through JointComm are garbled,” the first officer rattled off.
It sounded to Eris like he was updating his superior on the situation at hand.
“Garbled? From panic? Or maybe injury?” the second man asked.
“Unknown, sir. It’s possible that the individual is sending text messages when the perp isn’t looking.”
“Hmm. Base command?”
“One hundred fifty meters to the north of the front door. They’re working on establishing telephone contact with the lobby right now.”
Their voices faded as they continued forward, approaching the barricade.
A hostage situation, then, Eris thought, wishing that he could see past the group of armed officers standing nearby with guns drawn, and into the building. Curiouser and curiouser.
Ducking into an alley that he guessed would span the entire block flanking the cordoned-off area, Eris passed silently around the officers monitoring the perimeter. Once he reached the back of the large building, where the police presence was minimal, he slipped quietly by an officer who was intent on the large, hand-held radio pressed to his ear.
Eris drew his power inward and shifted into mist, rising unnoticed through the evening darkness and swirling toward the building, brightly illuminated with police spotlights. He circled, following the contours of the rooftop until he saw a second-story office window cracked open to let in a breeze. His vaporous form flowed unimpeded through the screen covering the gap.
He materialized inside an office that was completely deserted. The lights were off, but his vampire senses were much more acute than a human’s. He had no trouble navigating his way into the dark hallway. For a moment he stood completely still, allowing his awareness to expand outward. He could smell a faint trace of blood, the scent tainted by fear, creeping up from the floor below this one. He followed it until he found a staircase. It opened into a wide hallway, clearly a main thoroughfare through the offices. He moved forward along the passage, still listening intently and allowing the smell of human blood to fill his senses as it grew stronger.
Finally, Eris saw light ahead and knew that he was nearing the main lobby where the hostages were located. His footfalls were so quiet that even he could barely hear them. Nevertheless, he proceeded cautiously, not wanting to startle a potential gunman.
He reached the end of the hallway and glanced quickly around the corner, taking in as much of the scene in one brief look as he could.
Shifting quickly out of sight again, Eris considered what he had seen. A huddle of people crouched together at the northeast side of the lobby, clustered into a bunch as if frightened. One lone figure stood before them, pacing back and forth. Eris had not seen evidence of a gun.
So, how was he controlling them, if not with a gun?
Suddenly a shout rent the air, making Eris jerk in reaction as the unexpected noise assaulted his sensitive ears.
“I swear, if you start talking again I will blow this thing sky high! I know you’re all plotting against me!”
Eris could practically feel the hostages trembling with fear. One female voice spoke up, as if trying to reason with the man. “No one said anything at all, we just want to get out of here.”
“Shut up!”
Silence fell again, and Eris closed his eyes, thinking.
He’s unstable, possibly hearing things. And he’s got a bomb. Not a good combination. He could snap and kill these people any second.
It was clear what Eris needed to do. Blocking out the sounds of continuing shouts in the lobby, he reached down into the pit of his damaged soul and pulled forth the memory of a peace that he had not experienced in many years. Breathing deeply, he allowed the feeling to swell inside him, until it felt like it was going to overflow the bounds of his body.
These days, in his perpetual state of worry and ennui, such peace was a sham. A ruse—and one that he would pay for afterward, especially since his meal had been interrupted earlier. But it would serve.
Exhaling, Eris mentally pushed at the feeling until—with the sensation of a popping bubble—the force expanded past the boundaries of his skin. He thrust it outward until his power of suggestion was filling the lobby and the hallway all around him.
As each person was enveloped in the serenity that he was pressing outside of himself with all his will, Eris became aware of that individual
’s mind and swirling emotions. All of the hostages were terrified, almost to the point of collapse after being held so long at the mercy of an unpredictable madman.
The madman himself struggled wildly for a few moments against the mental sedation that Eris was forcing upon him, before relaxing into a state of blissful surrender.
Knowing that it was now safe to emerge, Eris stepped around the corner with his hands raised in the air. Although he was focusing all of his energy on maintaining pressure on the mind of the man before him, Eris knew that with enough effort, the bomber would be able to jerk himself out of the peaceful stupor and become violent again.
“Hello, my friend,” he said in the most soothing voice he could muster. “I’m here to help you.”
As everyone, including the captor, turned towards him, Eris’ eyes fell on a device strapped to the man’s chest.
Ah. A suicide vest. That made sense.
Eris walked calmly forward, keeping his gaze on the bomber, never breaking eye contact. The man blinked slowly at him, still looking unnaturally relaxed. Eris was struck, the strangest feeling overwhelming him in that moment. He knew on an instinctual level that the person before him was not a bad person, but rather someone who had become lost in the depths of an evil not of his making.
Another victim of the dark curse spreading across the world. Would he never be able to escape the dark cloud of Bael’s expanding power, even here on the island of his birth?
Sudden sympathy for the damaged man in front of him coursed through him.
“What’s your name?” Eris asked quietly.
The man seemed to consider the question for a moment before answering, “Ibrahim.”
“Well, Ibrahim, what seems to be the problem?”
The man called Ibrahim looked around, confused. “I—I don’t know. I need to go somewhere.”
“Anywhere in particular?”
“I—” The man paused, swallowing hard as his eyes glittered. “I have to get away. They’re coming after me! You don’t understand. I need to get out of the country.”
“All right. I hear you,” Eris said slowly, trying to placate him. “Go on, I’m listening.”
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