“None of us wish to sit here, inactive, while they whittle us down,” Jakob said.
“The question is, what can be done?” William asked. “We have men and women – talented people – out hunting for information, and yet we’ve learned so little.”
“There is no one left to learn from,” said Peter Markham, one of the senior Ay’Araf councilmembers. “Their field operatives have all withdrawn. There are few leads to follow at the moment, but we’ve been tracking their movements for some time. They are almost certainly based in the Midwest. Chicago seems a likely candidate, or Detroit. We will know more soon.”
“That’s good,” Leonore said, her tone caustic. “By the time we’ve narrowed it down, there might be as many as five of us left to debate our options.”
“Have you something constructive to add?” Naomi asked. “Or are you merely content to sit there making useless, snippy comments?”
Two looked over at Leonore, whose jaw was set as if to keep her tongue from doing even more damage to her reputation. The woman was raven haired, with dark brown eyes and pale white skin. Spots of pink sat high on her cheeks, an expression of her anger and humiliation, and her carefully-tweezed eyebrows were furrowed downward.
“She has a point,” Two said.
“Oh?” Naomi asked, turning back to Two. “Does she really?”
“They told us they were coming. That’s what the attack on Matthias and his fledglings was about. They gave us their warning, and what did we do? We sat around. We kept on living our lives like this shit was all going to go away. It’s not going away. I was there, all right?”
“Two, I understand that—” William began, and Two cut him off, raising her voice.
“I was there, and Theroen was there, and so were Jakob and Sasha. Stefan Jannsen was there, watching as his twin brother was chopped to pieces right in front of us. Let’s be clear … this is not going away. They will hunt us down and kill us, one by one or in groups, unless we do something about it. We have to fight.”
“We can’t fight them if we don’t know where they are,” Naomi said.
“Then we fucking find them!” Two cried. She could feel her body shaking, feel tears trying to force their way into her eyes, and she willed them away. “No more of this ‘some good people are on it’ bullshit. We need everyone on it, every man and woman. Every vampire in this country, no matter how young or stupid, no matter how much they hate the council. We have to make them understand, and we have to make them help, or we are all going to die.”
She looked around the room. Jakob was nodding, Naomi had closed her eyes and was breathing deeply, and Leonore was watching with interest where before there had only ever been apathy or abject dislike. Two glared at William.
“They kidnapped my friend and turned her against us, and we did nothing. They abducted and killed a bunch of Burilgi, and we did nothing. They slaughtered half the Ay’Araf in the city five nights ago, and we scheduled a meeting. They murdered the woman who gave me my life back, a woman who hasn’t harmed anyone, anywhere, in four thousand years … they cut her throat and left her body lying there. We can’t wait any longer. We have to do something!”
William looked at her for a long moment, and it seemed then to Two that a part of him fell away. Perhaps it was a slight slump in his shoulders, or just the look in his eyes, but some of the leadership he had possessed since she first met him seemed suddenly to leave. When he spoke, it was in a voice that was old and weary, the voice of a man who had already tried to leave this behind once, and had been dragged back in against his will.
“What would you have us do?” he asked her. “Tell us, Theroen-Chen, what is your grand plan?”
“Set a trap,” Two said. “That’s my grand plan. Get every vampire in this half of the country together in one place. Do it every night until it’s too goddamned tempting for them to resist, and when they come for us we fight them. We take prisoners and we get the information we need, however we have to get it. That’s my stupid, shitty plan, but it’s better than sitting around and waiting for the inevitable. It’s better than doing nothing!”
There was a period of silence that followed this, and then Jakob gave a short, sharp laugh.
“It’s not a bad plan, William,” he said, and William put a hand to his face, rubbing her eyes. When he looked up at them again, there was a small smile on his face, and some of his strength seemed to have returned.
“No, it’s not a bad plan,” he said. “I don’t know that it will work, but it’s not a bad plan.”
He looked now at Naomi, who had opened her eyes again. She shrugged, gave him a slight, sad smile, and turned her hands upward.
“What do you want me to say?” she asked him. “Shall I tell you I favor diplomacy? Everyone here knows I do, just as they know that we have given diplomacy chance after chance. These people are madmen. Zealots. They have given us no chance for dialog, no hope for change. I would try to talk with them even now, if I could, but if the council no longer supports that course of action, I have no better suggestion than what Two proposes. What choice do we have?”
“There is always a choice,” Theroen said. “The question is whether we believe there is value in taking the high road.”
“Without a bridge, the high road leads around a corner and off a cliff,” Jakob told him. Theroen shrugged.
“If we continue to gather in numbers, then yes, it most certainly does. I was there with you, Jakob. I know what they are capable of. I am simply not convinced that an all-out battle can end in success.”
“So, what then?” Sasha asked him. “We skulk in the dark on the fringes like the vermin we’re so often portrayed as? I will not live like a rat.”
“No one is asking you to,” Theroen said.
“I would rather follow Two’s plan and at least have an end,” Sasha continued.
“Such a surprise … an Ay’Araf wishing to go out in a blaze of glory,” Naomi said, and Two heard in her voice the acidity that she knew the woman behind the politician was sometimes capable of.
“Almost as surprising as an Ashayt wishing to hide from a fight at all costs!” Sasha spat back, and voices rose. For a moment, Two thought the council would again descend into a lengthy session of useless, pointless bickering, but William brought his hand down on the podium with a flat cracking sound that quieted the assembled vampires.
“If we have to move to a system where we raise our hands to speak, as if this were primary school, then we will,” he said. “Let us try to keep things civil.”
Naomi took a breath and forced herself to relax. “My apologies, Sasha.”
The Ay’Araf woman blew air out through pursed lips and nodded. “Mine as well. It has been a difficult week.”
“It’s lovely that we’re all friends again,” Leonore said, “but I think … I suggest that we should give careful consideration to Two’s ideas.”
There was a moment of not-quite-stunned silence at this, and Two thought it might have been the first time since Abraham’s death that Leonore had chosen to endorse anything whatsoever put forth by another council member. Two covered a small smile under her hand, cleared her throat, and spoke.
“Look, I haven’t thought this out,” she said. “I don’t have some awesome, step-by-step agenda, but we need information right now. We’re not getting it through scouting and poking around, and meanwhile they’re picking us off. If they get rid of the council, can you imagine how easy it will be for them to start wiping out people like the Burilgi? Uh … no offense, Lewis and Richard.”
“None taken,” Richard said.
Lewis only laughed. “Hard to take offense when you’re right.”
Two continued. “So if the council falls, then what? Sure, there are a few others out there, vampires like Tyler out in LA who are old and strong but not on the council … but there can’t be that many of them.”
“A dozen, at most, over the age of one hundred,” Jakob said, and from his post at the podium William nodded.
“Most of the elder vampires in this country are gathered at this cathedral,” he said.
“Right, and if the Children can take on a club full of angry Ay’Araf fighters, I’m pretty sure they can handle Tyler-from-LA. If we don’t do something now … I mean …”
“If we don’t do something now, we’re looking at genocide,” Jakob finished for her. “Two is absolutely correct.”
“Could we perhaps entreat the Europeans to help?” Peter Markham asked. “And the South Americans?”
Naomi stirred, speaking up. “I sent an email to Eadwyn the night after we heard Matthias’s story. He expressed his sympathies but said that the European council, while a governing body, did not control an army and had little aid to give. Perhaps if we contacted them again and explained the severity of the case … surely they cannot ignore Mother Ashayt’s murder!”
“I think that would be wise,” William said. “I will contact them directly, Naomi. I do not doubt that Eadwyn took your initial request seriously, but as the head of the council, I should have made the contact in the first place. What of the South Americans?”
Here, Naomi hesitated. “They are … I am sure they would send aid if they could, but the South American vampire population is mostly Burilgi and, much like the Burilgi in this country, not involved with their council.”
“We’re making in-roads there,” Richard commented.
“Yes, of course,” Naomi said. “We all appreciate the work you and Lewis have been doing on the council’s behalf. Yet we are out of time, and it is safe to say that the vast majority of Burilgi vampires in both countries would be hesitant, at best, to come to our aid. It will take time to convince even those who favor our laws.”
“We don’t have a ton of time,” Two said. “Even if the European council agreed to help us tomorrow, it will take weeks to get enough people over here to make much of a difference. I don’t think we can count on the Children waiting that long.”
“We have to go on the attack,” Jakob said.
“Or fortify our defenses,” Theroen said. Two could hear in his voice a sort of general distaste, as if neither option really appealed to him.
“That is the crux of it, then,” William said. “We have two options available to us. The first is to mount an offensive – Two has suggested one way in which we might accomplish this. The other is to attempt to improve our safety while we work on increasing our numbers. Can we all agree that these are the two most logical courses of action?”
There were murmurs of assent from the crowd, and William nodded.
“Very well,” he said. “I suggest you all refresh your drinks and take a few moments to gather your thoughts. This promises to be a lengthy decision process.”
* * *
“I don’t really understand what the European council is supposed to do for us,” Two said. She was standing near the Cathedral’s main entrance, sipping on a glass of warm blood laced with anticoagulants. With her were Theroen, Jakob, and Sasha. Naomi was talking with William not far away, and she glanced over when she heard Two’s remark, but opted not to address it.
“There are many Ay’Araf in Europe,” Jakob said. “If the council there can mobilize them, it would give us a much larger fighting force.”
“No, I get that,” Two said. “But we still have to get them organized, get them over here, and then once we have them we have to do something with them. Otherwise it’s just more time and more chances for the Children to pick us off.”
“That’s a good point. You should make it during the debates instead of when you’re standing with three people who are already on your side,” Sasha said. She was holding a small glass of vodka and ice, its sides sweating tiny beads of condensation, with the silicone fingers of her prosthetic hand. Two found herself fighting between fascination and the desire to not stare.
“Not quite three,” Theroen said. “I am still … undecided.”
“Theroen’s a lover, not a fighter,” Two said.
“Mostly what I am is a distanced observer,” Theroen said. “Vampire politics, or at least the pretense thereof, murdered my first love. I spent the next three hundred and fifty years listening to Abraham explain how the council was merely an entity he manipulated in order to stay in power. My sister Melissa and I … we did what we wanted. We didn’t concern ourselves with the council and whatever nonsense it was up to.”
An uncomfortable silence followed this statement, and Theroen glanced around, startled, before shaking his head.
“My apologies,” he said. “That came out extremely poorly. I did not mean to insinuate that this council’s doings were nonsense. What I meant is that we had been raised to think of vampire politics as nonsense. That was our mindset, and our failing, not yours.”
“No harm done,” Jakob said, and grinned. “Your sire led us to believe that his children – the ones who weren’t feral animals, at any rate – were decadent fops incapable of grasping the intricacies of council politics and vampire law.”
Theroen sipped at his glass of wine, sighed, shook his head. “Abraham was a practiced liar.”
“He was an asshole,” Two said. “But my point is that it doesn’t matter if we get ten thousand people here to help. If we don’t know where or when the attacks are going to happen, then at best it’s a standoff. At worst, they keep killing us off in bits and pieces.”
“Exactly right,” Jakob said.
“So if I’m right, why is this going to be such a long discussion?”
“Your own lover is not yet convinced. I do not think he and Naomi are the only two here who have doubts about trying to take the fight to the Children by goading them into attacking us as a group. Just because there are many Ay’Araf on the council does not mean they will all support the most aggressive option by default. We will need to convince them, especially with all these others here watching.”
“I don’t know what to tell them that I haven’t already. Seems pretty convincing to me.”
“That won’t be enough,” Sasha said. “Naomi has tremendous skill as a debater. She will make strong points while simultaneously weakening your own. If you wish to defeat her, you—”
“Whoah, wait, when did this become all about me fighting with Naomi?”
“Roughly half an hour ago,” Jakob said with a small smile. “Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“Apparently not,” Two said. “Look, if Naomi is right about diplomacy being the better approach, then she’s right. I’m not going to fight with her.”
“Is she right?” Sasha asked.
“No. Diplomacy’s not going to work. They want to wipe us out.”
Sasha shrugged. “So fight with her. That’s what the council is about, Two. A few thousand years ago, this would have been settled with one of you chopping the other’s head off and claiming her lands as your own. The council offers a less violent solution. Even under Abraham, some amount of debate was encouraged.”
“I’ll say what I have to say,” Two said. “But I’m not getting dragged into hours of debate. I won’t. Stephen’s ashes would come back to life, rise up out of the ocean, and strangle me.”
“He did seem to appreciate your lack of enthusiasm for the council’s methods,” Jakob said.
“I don’t have a lot of patience for bullshit.”
“It’s not all bullshit,” Theroen said. “Debate is a valuable tool. While I share your enthusiasm for gathering more information, Two, I fear that grouping together in an attempt to set a trap will result in heavy losses even if successful.”
“Heavy’s better than total,” Two replied.
“Academically, yes. In practice it’s hard to appreciate the rationale as your friends are dying around you.”
“I know that. I just don’t think we have a choice.”
Theroen shrugged. “It should still be discussed.”
“It will. I told you I’d say what I have to say, and so will everyone else. Probably for hours. I don’t control the council,
hon. Pretty much the exact opposite … I’m the youngest member by like sixty years.”
Theroen smiled and put his hand on her shoulder. “It will be fine.”
Two saw that William was headed again for the podium and that some of the other vampires had already taken their seats. She was about to suggest that they do the same when she heard a voice from outside the cathedral’s main door say, “OK, do it,” and realized – only an instant before the entire cathedral was thrown into smoking, flaming chaos – that Theroen was wrong.
Nothing, as it turned out, was going to be fine.
Chapter 11
In Ashes, Underground
The blast killed two members of the council instantly; it could have been argued, afterward, that they had been lucky. A senior Ashayt councilmember named Samuel was standing close to the floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window on the cathedral’s eastern wall, and when the bomb outside of it exploded, the resulting glass-laced shockwave tore his body to pieces. Peter Markham, too, was caught in a blast – this one coming from the cathedral’s main entrance. The massive oak doors blew inward, pummeling him with huge chunks of heavy wood, and the force of the concussion flung him the length of the chamber, where he landed in a broken heap near the speaker’s podium.
Two, also near the main entrance but not directly in the path of the explosion, was thrown against Theroen, and they landed in a tangle on the stone floor by the table full of wine and blood. As the ringing in her ears subsided, she first heard someone – she thought it was Kanene – screaming Peter’s name. Then she heard a woman’s voice call out the opening words of the battle.
“Ten minutes! Kill as many bats as you can.”
Bats? Two thought, feeling slow and stupid as she tried to disentangle her limbs from Theroen’s. Are they serious with that shit?
There were two more explosions, one from above them that caused glass to rain down into the cathedral, and another from the depths of the administrative wing. Two could hear the sound of footsteps as combatants flooded the building, the noise far too close for her liking.
The II AM Trilogy Collection Page 91