And he needed Lucita to pose as the black queen.
“I’ll leave the room, of course, my dear childe. Modesty forbids me from remaining.” He’d turned and swept off, leaving her alone with the Tzimisce.
“If you please, Lucita,” was all Vykos had said, and then there was nothing but silence and the rustle of fabric for the remainder of the night.
Lucita had risked the dawn to leave when the work was finished, rather than spending the day under her sire’s roof. In her time she had killed hundreds, if not thousands. She had waded in blood and reveled in death, she had torn her enemies asunder with shadow and given their childer to the flame. But something in the house of her sire—and the sense of cold eyes on her as she posed—made her feel unclean.
Lucita shook herself out of reverie. “Focus, Lucita, focus. You’re a professional, remember?” she muttered to herself as she gathered up the files to continue her studies. She wanted to be ready to dive into work first thing the next evening.
On the nightstand next to the bed, her cell phone bleeped merrily. “Damnation!” she said, and reached for it. “Yes? What?”
She recognized the voice on the other end of the line instantly. It was the vampire who’d approached her not so very long ago about her current contract. She wasn’t certain for whom the man worked, though she had a sneaking suspicion that it was one of her target’s putative allies.
“What is it?” she said, putting less heat into the question than she felt.
“My patron has requested that I maintain contact with you on the matter of our business dealings. I felt a call would be less disturbing than a visit. Have I erred?”
Lucita bit back her first three responses, which were “Yes,” “Never speak to me again,” and “Had you knocked on my door, I would have killed you instantly.” Instead, she merely said, “I don’t enjoy interference in my work. The timetable for the target is in place. He will be dealt with on schedule and as we agreed. Now, are you just trying to impress me with the fact that you found my number, or do you actually have anything useful to add?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “A thousand pardons. I, of course, know nothing of this sort of work.” There was another pause. “If you are interested, I have some information that may aid your task.”
“Yes?”
“We are in the process of arranging a…situation for your benefit, so that you will have a clear shot at the target. The date and time will be communicated to you as we draw closer to fruition.” The vampire’s distaste for this arrangement was obvious; Lucita suspected he thought he was being forced to watch an amateur.
“I understand. Is there anything further I should know?”
“Not at this time. Pleasant dreams, mademoiselle. Good hunting.”
She hung up without responding, suddenly weary of the idiotic games and pointless fencing. All of the dancing around and veiled threats and double entendres, and in the end it would still come down to her skill, speed and shadows tearing the unlife from yet another unlucky bastard. That was what it was all about. Strip away the formalities and the rituals and the pointed little jabs designed to let everyone know who was cleverer. All of them were just ways of protecting her kind from its own savagery.
She preferred combat to talk, these nights. It was more honest, and honesty was one of the few virtues that remained to her after all of these years.
Several hours later, the information in the file memorized and the components themselves destroyed, she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. Beginning to nod off, she had a sensation of vague discomfort, then realized she had rolled over onto the cell phone. She picked it up and looked at it curiously for a second. Her client’s toady had used it to find her. Ergo, it was now compromised. With a minimum of effort she closed her hand around the plastic, and was rewarded with a shuddering crackle. The fragments of the device cascaded onto the floor, noiseless on the thick tan carpet.
As she closed her eyes for the day’s slumber, Lucita smiled.
Sunday, 18 July 1999, 2:19 AM
Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Peter Blaine had a great many nicknames, but none of them were complimentary. The kindest was “Lurch,” for his uncanny resemblance to the comic butler, and it was the only one he’d answer to with anything less than obscenity. He didn’t help his own cause, unfortunately; having a predilection for blocky, conservative black suits and shoes that could have started their own exterminator business. The fact that his face, shoulders, haircut and general build looked like the work of a lazy sculptor with a thing for straight lines didn’t help matters.
Blaine was one of the poor cousins of the Sabbat, a Ventrue antitribu whose very heritage inspired snickers of derisive glee from the “true” clans of the sect. Furthermore, he didn’t have the instinctive grace of the Lasombra or the sheer power or delicacy of the Tzimisce, so whenever he was in the company of a member of one of those worthy lines, he felt slow. Stupid. Awkward. Clumsy. Out in the field, when it was just him and his pack (which included one of each of the Big Two, but then again he knew how to keep Sonny and Terrence in line), then he felt like he was in command; but as soon as he got close to the big boys, the bottom dropped out of his personality.
Truth be told, the antitribu were the lower middle class of the Sabbat. Refugees from the tyranny of the Camarilla or descendants of same, they were relatively few in number and disorganized by temperament. If all of the antitribu had gotten together and demanded equal treatment, sure, there were enough to make a difference. But the Gangrel antitribu were too busy snarling at the Brujah antitribu, while the Toreador tried to ignore everyone and embarrass their Camarilla cousins, and the Ventrue worked extra hard to convince the rest of the Sabbat that they well and truly belonged. Meanwhile, the Tzimisce and Lasombra just laughed up their sleeves about the whole thing and sent the antitribu out to die when they felt like it.
Frankly, the whole thing gave Blaine a headache when he thought about it too much. He’d come over to the Sabbat voluntarily to get away from the stultifying class system in the Camarilla. Slowly but surely he was starting to suspect he’d gone from the frying pan to the skillet, if not the actual fire.
Perhaps that’s why he’d spoken up in the cold silence when Vykos and Polonia were having their staredown. Or perhaps he just wanted to get the hell out of the war council—he’d seen any number of other small-time war leaders abused, assaulted and decapitated, and figured that he really didn’t want to be next.
In any case, in the silence after Vykos’s challenge, Blaine’s was the voice that was heard first.
“I’ll take it. Me and my boys—we’ll take it.” Archbishop Borges laughed. “Thank you so much, Captain…”
“Blaine. And me and mine, we’ll take it.
Well, Captain Blaine, this is not nursery school. We don’t take volunteers here for important business.” He laughed harshly, and a few of his followers laughed with him.
Blaine noticed, though, that neither Polonia nor Vykos was laughing—and they were the ones, he felt, who mattered. He might not be near the top of the ladder himself, but Blaine had a good nose for the flow of power, and right now it was obvious that power and Borges had little to do with each other in this particular council. And that knowledge gave him the courage to take a chance.
“I said, Your Excellency, that I would take my men and handle it. You don’t know me, you don’t know my pack, and you don’t know dick about Pieterzoon. I do. You don’t know what he looks like; I’ve worked with his childer and I’ve met him. I know how he talks, how he walks, and what sort of stupid poncy little things he’s uncomfortable being without.” Out of the corner of his eye, Blaine saw Polonia nodding slow approval, the archbishop’s face a mask of impassivity.
“Bah. You say you know his childer? Wonderful. They’ll identify your corpse.” Borges’s voice took on a mocking, whiny tone. “Oh, look, Percy, it’s What’s-his-name Blaine. He’s dead. I
sn’t it droll?” Borges sat back, bristling. “We send you, we might as well not send anyone.”
“I find your assessment of Captain Blaine’s abilities intriguing,” interjected Vykos smoothly. “And I am sure you have excellent reason for making that assessment, yes, Archbishop? You have seen Captain Blaine’s pack in action, yes?” Borges flushed. “What? No? Then surely you’ve heard something of his inefficiency? No again? My goodness, what do you base this judgment of yours on?”
Coughs thinly masked snickers from various sections of the room. Borges looked around wildly at his tormentors, then up at Talley as if expecting the man to do something.
“I do not have to stand for this!” Borges finally roared. “And I am not going to let him botch things, this upstart, this traitor, this—”
“Antitribu?” said Blaine quietly.
“Yes, an arrogant antitribu know-nothing who thinks that because he once licked some elder’s boots that he knows how to rip out that elder’s heart!” Polonia, Blaine noticed, had stopped nodding. The ground he was treading on had just gotten dangerous. “Perhaps. Or perhaps I know something you don’t, can do something you can’t, and don’t need a lifeguard from around the world to keep me safe in my own hotel room. Scared of room service, my lord?”
“Why, you little son of a bitch!” Borges tried to surge out of his chair, got about halfway to his feet and then crashed right back into his chair as Talley’s hand came down on his shoulder like a piledriver.
“Please sit down, Your Excellency,” said Talley pleasantly. “Cardinal Monçada has asked me to keep you safe from any and all threats, and that does include the ones you bring on yourself.”
Talley turned to Blaine. “Not that you’re entirely blameless; be thankful that Archbishop Borges was not in fact seriously upset.” His voice acquired the sing-song tone of a drill instruction. “So. Supposing that His Excellency had come across the table, what would you have done?”
Blaine showed teeth in a humorless smile and stood. “If he’d come across the table he’d have been an idiot, because by all rights he should be using shadow instead of putting himself in range for this.” So saying, he reached down and snapped off the front right leg of his chair. Unsurprisingly, the chunk of wood had a jagged, sharp edge. “Been working on that off and on the entire council. Thought it might come in handy.” Talley tsked. “Interesting. What else?”
The antitribu made a show of moving the make shift stake from hand to hand. “Not much, other than the fact that my people would have dog-piled the archbishop if I didn’t manage to stop him on the first shot. And we’ve got a lot of chair legs down here.” Talley raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Crude, but potentially effective. However, you’d do better to show more respect for someone of the archbishop’s power and position.”
Polonia watched the display, pursed his lips and cleared his throat. “Passable,” said the Archbishop of New York. “I approve of your forethought. Hmm. So, Captain Blaine, do you honestly think you and your pack have what it takes to deal with this Pieterzoon?” Blaine hesitated for a second. He could still walk away, he knew. Pieterzoon was a tricky son of a bitch. On the other hand, the chance to watch that pudgy bastard Borges squirm…
“We can do it. What’s the time frame?”
“As soon as possible.” That was Vykos cutting in. “I wish you luck, Captain Blaine. My staff has prepared everything you will need to carry out the operation. I assume you can provide your own weapons and transportation?”
The antitribu nodded. “Of course.” He paused, looked at his packmates. “Tomorrow night, midnight, you get Pieterzoon’s head on a plate.” He looked over at Borges. “You can come along and watch if you want, my lord.”
“No thank you,” said Borges tightly, and a warning flash from Polonia told Blaine he’d gone a bit too far.
“Right. If you could tell me where your staff has the information…?” His voice trailed off as he looked at Vykos. “Please.”
“The material is waiting for you outside the conference room, Captain Blaine.”
Blaine nodded once and walked out. His packmates, a nervous swagger infusing their stride, followed. The now three-legged chair that one of them had been holding tottered for a moment and crashed to the floor.
No one moved to pick it up.
The doors shut behind the last member of Blaine’s pack, the hulking monoceroid war ghoul who’d spent much of the evening trying to carve its name into the ceiling of the room with its horn. Best estimates revealed that its name was “Jam.”
“So, is that all we have for tonight?” Borges stretched and turned his head longingly in the direction of the door.
“Almost.” Polonia somehow had a black cat made from shadow in his lap, and he stroked it absently. “There is one more question to be answered before we can adjourn.”
The groans and complaints rose from around the room. “Oh, God. What now? Can’t it fucking wait?”
Polonia waited until everyone had shouted themselves out and it was obvious that he, at least, wasn’t going anywhere. “It’s a simple question, really, and can be answered in a moment, assuming that everyone cooperates.”
“It is, is it?” Borges was clearly disgruntled.
“Think of it as a simple exposition piece, Archbishop Borges. So, Vykos, can you answer this one?”
Vykos looked unsurprised. “To the best of my ability, of course. Though I would prefer we hurried. I have a,” and she gave a slight smile, “phone call to make.”
“Oh, it won’t take a moment. I just wish to know precisely how you are getting all of this marvelous insider information on Herr Pieterzoon and the like. After all, we’re at least temporarily hanging our strategy on your phone call,” the words carried a slight edge, “and before we send any more perfectly talented packs off to the hinterlands, I would prefer knowing on whose say-so they are acting, precisely.” He placed the cat on the table; it sat there, motionless. “Blaine may not be an archbishop, but he and his are certainly a worthwhile asset. I would hate to think we had thrown them away on spurious information.”
“I have my sources,” said the Tzimisce quietly. “They are quite accurate.”
“Ah, but there’s the trouble. You have your sources. I,” Polonia flicked a glance down at the cat, “have mine. Archbishop Borges has his. We all have our sources.” The archbishop began pacing. “I would even wager that the noble MacEllen has a few of his own. However, that doesn’t mean that all of those sources are accurate. Why, some might be better than others. And yours seem exceptionally well placed, which makes me wonder. Who are you talking to, Vykos?”
“Does it really matter, if the information is good?
If you don’t tell me, I have no way of knowing if the information is good, now do I?”
“The cardinal—”
“The cardinal is not here. I am. And I tell you this, my Byzantine friend, not another pack, not another ghoul, not another bullet, not another breath goes out of here on your information until you release your sources. I am younger than you are, but I am old enough to know when something is entirely too convenient. It is entirely too convenient that you were the first one to know about Pieterzoon’s arrival; it is entirely too convenient that you happen to have sufficient information available so quickly to hand to a strike force you just happen to need for immediate work. I do not like such coincidence. Am I making myself clear?”
Vykos scanned the room. There was a new edge there now, a faint charge to the air. Polonia had energized even the weary ones. She mentally counted allies and concluded reluctantly that she did not have enough on this particular issue.
“I understand perfectly, Archbishop. Better than you think. However, I hardly feel that revealing the name of my source to so many—any one of whom might be captured and forced to reveal what he had learned—is necessarily wise tactics.”
Polonia swept into a deep bow. “Of course. I hadn’t considered that at all. Then, shall we let the rest of these worthies go
, and you can simply tell, say, my fellow archbishop, his bodyguard, and myself? No sense putting anyone else here at risk.” He locked gazes with the Tzimisce, and, unbelievably, Vykos looked away first.
“Very well. Get the others out of here.”
The others, to no one’s surprise, left. It took surprisingly little time to clear the room. Within minutes, only Talley, Borges, Vykos and Polonia himself remained. Vallejo had left after a stern look from Vykos; Polonia and Talley both wondered what precisely had transpired there.
“So, what do we have, Vykos?” Borges’s voice was weary, though he would have fought tooth and nail to avoid being excluded. “Share.”
Vykos deliberately folded her hands on the table. “I will not give you the name of my source.” She raised one hand to ward off the storm of protest. “The name is unimportant, and will do more harm to tell you than you will benefit by learning it.”
“So why the charade?” Talley’s quiet voice, as usual, cut to the heart of the matter. “I’m rather disappointed, after that buildup.”
“Because, honestly, I don’t have the energy to deal with yet another riot. And I will tell you all that you need to know, of course.”
“Which is?” Borges was skeptical.
“Which is that my source, as it has been put, is a member of the Camarilla who is privy to the plans of the defense efforts against us. She, or he, is working to create windows of opportunity for us, as well as funneling me what information he, or she, is able. Beyond that, I cannot tell you more, and I caution you not to rely heavily on my source’s goodwill. Loyalty, as we all know, is a fragile thing.” She looked from face to face. “And with that, gentlemen, you will have to be satisfied. If you will excuse me.” She rose and walked out of the room. Borges followed her, as did Talley. Only Polonia and the cat, re-emerged from some corner of shadow, remained.
Clan Novel Lasombra: Book 6 of The Clan Novel Saga Page 5