Besides, Julian was still as much an aquilan as he could be. The events of last night merely changed the politics of his situation, not who he was. Feeling strengthened by his reflections, Julian picked up his trashy book and slowly drifted off to sleep.
Night had long fallen when he woke. Florence was asleep a few yards away, wrapped in a shaggy blanket. Julian made sure she was warm and secure before brewing himself a hot chocolate. He read for another hour before succumbing to sleep again. The stress of the previous night had clearly drained his resources.
A deep, dreamless sleep saw Julian to the following dawn. A cockerel made a huge din as Julian quietly went about his morning ministrations. His damaged wing still hurt quite badly. The aquilan was quickly realizing that the wound was more worrying than being separated from his brethren. He suspected he would need a strong, functional body in the near future and the injury showed no sign of healing at all.
Florence woke from an equally heavy sleep and grumpily worked through her morning yoga routine. Julian sensed a heavy tension in the air and knew it had nothing to do with him. The pair were about to travel back to the lycan chapter house and who knew what they would find there?
Florence was in no rush to head back to New York. It made no sense to go if their enemies were still present. The pair made their way to the bus stop and waited quietly in a fine drizzle of rain. The bus trip passed without incident and they arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal at two in the afternoon.
New York City, USA
Florence held Julian’s hand as they stalked the darkness of the ocean tunnel. The aquilan gave her hand a lingering, reassuring squeeze. Whatever awaited them, they would face it together.
The pair followed the same trail that Jack Foley had done thirty hours earlier. This time the main hall was deserted. Smears of thick blood confirmed a large battle had taken place, but there were no bodies to be found. Julian shuddered to think that Hector might wish to experiment with lycan corpses and he kept that notion to himself. Judging from her bleak gaze Florence was probably thinking the same thing anyway.
Despite her stoic performance, Florence couldn’t prevent the tears from falling when they came across the gutted cercarium. Whoever had been in there had not left a single scrap of dark tissue. The walls and pillars were completely naked. Worse, all the lycans that had been resting there, the venerated souls who continued to give life to the lycan pack, had been removed.
Julian took Florence’s hand and led her away from the impossibly sad scene. There was nothing there to see and certainly nothing to learn.
“You can’t stay too long,” Julian warned Florence as they strode down a stone tunnel.
“This place is filled with dark energy.”
“We have one more stop,” Florence said thoughtfully as they ascended a rough-hewn staircase. They stopped outside a polished mahogany door with strange symbols etched into it. Julian couldn’t make head nor tail of the strange inscriptions.
Florence made to press her hand against a glowing depression, but then seemed to realize that the door had already been damaged. She pushed it open.
Julian followed her into what had once been a stately, imposing office. He assumed it had been Mother Aurora’s. The bookshelves were empty. The lore they had contained had been stolen, to be pored over by lycan enemies.
Florence tread softly, taking care to absorb every detail.
“That smell,” she said. “Like decaying flesh.”
“If you say so,” Julian replied. His aquilan sense of smell was keen, but not as sensitive as that of a lycan. “Could it be the corpses that were removed?”
“There wouldn’t have been any fighting in here,” Florence said. “It’s possible that ghouls were in here.”
Julian’s blood went cold. The aquilan betrayal was bad enough, but if his people had made deals with those kinds of creatures … well, that was unspeakable.
Florence inspected the Mother’s desk very closely. For all intents and purposes, it appeared to have been ransacked along with everything else.
“What are you looking for?” Julian asked.
“She never told me as much, but I’m certain the Mother was working on something important in the last few weeks before she died,” she said.
“She was pretty good with a knife, I’ll give her that,” Julian said dryly.
Florence jerked her head up. “What do you mean?”
“She scratched some latin over here on this side,” Julian said.
“The hell you say,” Florence said, beaming at Julian and kissing him full on the lips. She read the etching aloud - “Novum clara die.”
“Bright new day,” Julian repeated in English.
“I wonder…?”
Florence raced over to a glass cabinet that had been smashed to smithereens. It had held special treasures collected over the centuries and from all corners of the world. The only item that had been left was a bronze globe of the world. It was a fine piece but rather heavy and hardly worth taking. It held no obvious intel and looked exactly how the Mother intended it to look - like a sentimental keepsake.
“Planning your next holiday?” Julian asked with a smile.
Florence plonked the heavy brass globe on the desk. “This thing is much more than meets the eye,” she said. “I used to look at this globe for hours after my studies.”
The werewolf stood a good yard away from the globe and intoned the latin that had been inscribed on the desk.
Nothing happened.
“Bright new day,” Julian said theatrically.
Florence yelped when a tiny pinprick of blue light appeared on the globe.
His heart in his mouth, Julian looked over Florence’s shoulder. The location was an island to the north of the city of Nassau, in the Bahamas.
“You really are planning your next holiday,” Julian said.
“We need to get to JFK airport immediately,” Florence said more seriously.
“What did the Mother know about that location?” Julian asked, feeling that things were moving way too fast.
“I don’t know,” Florence said, making sure the light on the globe faded again. “But where there’s light, there’s hope.”
8 - Yasmin
New York City, USA
The Masquerade Ball had become a bloodbath and Yasmin couldn’t help but feel that it was her fault. She wandered through the main hall of the Hadfield Pavilion, bodies strewn all around her feet.
It was almost dawn and the police had duly arrived with an entire team of detectives. New York had not seen a massacre of this scale for many years.
But of course, it was unlike anything they’d seen. There were both human and Flux corpses for a start. Some had been halfway through the shifting process.
Yasmin wandered around slowly, making sure she got a good look at all the dead. It was a horrible experience, one that sickened her to the core, but alongside her grief there was a fury of equal intensity. She wanted to etch this memory into her mind forever, so that she would never falter in her quest for revenge.
She had organized a gathering of Flux leaders in good faith, recognizing the need for cooperation at this early stage. The need for peace and stability.
That platform of peace had been completely trashed, along with the Lycan Society. Yasmin bit back tears as she pondered how many lycans had survived this dark night. Their enemies had been swift and brutal. Yasmin was craving the latest news from the New York Chapter House. She knew it would have been attacked. Plus, that’s where Jack would’ve gone.
For a moment she stood in the weak sunlight streaming through one of the windows. She received no warmth from it. The light made her feel nauseous and fatigued. She just wanted to crawl into a hole until it was night again.
When a man in a cheap suit and a bad combover approached her for a word, she gestured to her private drawing room and requested that the window shutters be drawn over. The suited man was able to command the uniformed officers at will.
“My name
is Detective Hernandez,” he said calmly once they were both seated on elegant divans. “You can probably imagine we have plenty of questions.”
Yasmin nodded, watching dust motes drift in a thin shaft of sunlight.
“The police will need to brace themselves,” she finally offered. “This is just the beginning.”
Hernandez cleared his throat. “That might be true, but we still have laws in this city. Until I turn into a mummy or something, I’m gonna try and solve cases.”
Yasmin considered the man for the first time. He had the look of a dogged, procedural detective, like one from those TV shows. She sensed he was a good man. She decided to be as candid as possible with him, up to a point. Besides, he clearly knew a little about the Flux and might have some valuable information.
“Now,” the detective began, notepad at the ready. “Can you please tell me, if it’s not too traumatic, how you managed to survive all this?”
Yasmin nodded. She was the only survivor on the scene when the police arrived. She could’ve melted away and gone underground. Hell, she could be on a plane right now. But she felt she owed something to the city of New York. For all she knew they’d lost their shield - the Lycan Society. The least she could do was tell them what she knew and assure them they weren’t alone, Even if she wasn’t so sure about that last bit.
“The event was a masquerade ball,” Yasmin began. “I’ll be straight with you, Detective. The perps were not human. They were aquilan. Eagle people.”
Hernandez nodded and then shook his head a little, as if he was still trying to adjust to this world where fantastical creatures actually did exist.
“These… aquilans. They were making a power play?”
Yasmin nodded. It was a useful description. She was gratified to have a detective that understood that the politics of power worked the same way in the Flux Age as it had when things were “normal”.
“They went after the Lycan Society specifically,” Yasmin said quietly. “I can show you the location of their Chapter House if you like.”
Detective Hernandez looked at Yasmin shrewdly, probably wondering if he could trust her.
“We have men down there,” he said. “I hear it’s just as messy.”
Yasmin’s heart sank. To hear confirmation of her worst fears wasn’t easy.
“Are you a friend of the lycans?” Hernandez asked, reading Yasmin’s expression.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Yasmin said truthfully. “But I was working at it.”
“Why didn’t these aquilans kill you?”
“A lycan saved me,” Yasmin said. Unable to prevent a tear sliding down her face. “Jack Foley. I found a place to hide while I waited for you guys to arrive.”
Hernandez grunted. “That’s very considerate of you,” he said.
“The lycans are dead,” Yasmin said firmly, forcing herself to confront the truth. “I just thought you should know.”
Hernandez shied away from Yasmin’s penetrating, defiant gaze. “New York City just changed forever, no doubt about that,” he said tiredly. “Now, can I trouble you to describe in detail the leader of these criminals?”
“Gladly,” Yasmin said.
An hour later Yasmin and Hernandez were still bogged down in the details of the night. She yawned heavily, eyeing a spreading shaft of sunlight warily. The detective must’ve noticed her discomfort because he snapped his notepad shut abruptly.
“We can finish this another time,” he said. “I have enough to go on.”
“I can’t guarantee I’ll stay in the country,” Yasmin said truthfully.
Hernandez gave her a look that said he knew something of her identity. “Just don’t forget who your friends are,” he said.
“Never,” she returned, accepting his hand.
Just as Yasmin reached the exit and was dreaming of a hot shower and a change of clothes, a tall man in a crisp suit pulled her gently by the shoulder. He exuded an air of effortless power.
“Mayor Talbot,” he said with a sad smile. “I just wanted to thank you for cooperating with the city. Thanks for hanging around.”
Yasmin considered how best to respond to a man who was responsible for the safety of eleven million people.
“I’m sorry about the lycans,” she said truthfully. “I’ve never met better people than them.”
A cloud passed over Mayor Talbot’s face. The strain of the situation was wearing on him.
“I’m hoping not all is lost,” he said hopefully. “The city of New York would like to keep in touch with you, Yasmin. Don’t be a stranger.”
How much did the Mayor know about her? Yasmin suspected that he knew that she was a vampire. All of a sudden she felt under pressure to stay. Who did they think she was? Some kind of caped super hero? She didn’t have time to explain to this worried, vulnerable man that she was basically still on learner plates.
“I’m a work in progress, Mayor,” she said eventually. “You can rest assured that I have your best interests at heart.”
Yasmin headed through the door and began her lonely walk down the stairs.
“Yasmin,” came the Mayor’s voice from the doorway to the ballroom. “One more thing. Our Harbor Master reported an unusual departure this morning of a ship called the Saint Helena. Europeans. They spoke German. Scheduled destination was the Italian port of Livorno.”
Yasmin’s heart did a little somersault, though she wasn’t sure why.
“Hundreds of vessels leave New York every day,” Yasmin said tiredly. “What makes you think this one was special?”
“The Harbor Master knows Jack Foley,” the Mayor said. “He swears Jack boarded that ship of his own free will.”
This time Yasmin’s heart kept somersaulting. Could it be true? But why would Jack be leaving with strange Europeans? Perhaps he had been drugged. Or charmed. Anything was possible now that the Flux Age had begun.
“Thanks, Mayor,” Yasmin said with a smile. “I’ll remember your friendship.”
“Make sure you do,” the Mayor replied with a wave.
Yasmin took a taxi out to JFK airport. There was a box containing her cocktail dress back at the ballroom. Less than a day ago she was in love with that scarlet dress - now she never wanted to see it again. Aside from being splattered with blood, it would remind her of the worst night of her life. If possible, she felt worse than she did when Jack left her to fend for herself in the ocean tunnel under the city.
Shrinking from the morning sunlight, Yasmin slid low into her chair and tried to ignore the loud music the cabbie insisted on playing.
There were financial ramifications from the disastrous ball. For starters, the Hadfield Pavilion had been trashed. Repairs to such a beautiful building would come into the tens of thousands, perhaps more. Then there was the security detail. By all reports they’d simply disappeared before the aquilans arrived. Had they been paid off or killed? Yasmin fervently hoped it was the former. Otherwise there would be all kinds of lawsuits filed against her.
The one saving grace was that no one knew where she now lived. Out in the wilderness of Romania she was a nobody. She didn’t exist. The castle had been purchased in Tomas’s name and he’d paid off certain customs officials. Yasmin could now come and go with no official documentation at all.
As the taxi battled its way through notorious New York traffic Yasmin noticed a black sedan tailing them over several blocks. The police? The mayor’s office? Or maybe the aquilans? In any case, someone was interested in her movements.
Yasmin let her mind wander as it explored ways of evading her tail. The taxi had come to a complete standstill - there must have been an accident ahead. Ordinarily she might’ve felt vulnerable in this situation, especially since over fifty people had been slaughtered the night before. It made sense that Hector would want to clean up all “loose ends”.
One of the unique aspects to being a vampire was that one didn’t need to “shift” into the creature like a lycan or an aquilan did. Vampires were “active” all the ti
me. Their particular characteristics became more obvious when it was feeding time or if danger was close at hand. Yasmin’s need to be somewhere else became so strong that a strange sensation gripped her skin. Her physical form felt elusive and intangible all of a sudden. With a cold lurch she felt her consciousness drift beyond the confines of the taxi and surge over the stationery cars on Fifth Avenue.
A cloying mist had emerged from nowhere, thickening around her mind and arousing fears in those she passed. Several drivers were compelled to leave their cars, some of them leaving them unattended so they could escape the doom-laden mist. Yasmin could only watch on in amazement as her weightless form passed over the traffic and beyond the broken fire hydrant that had caused the jam. She settled into a quiet landing on the sidewalk outside the Rockefeller University. The mist seemed to thin out almost immediately, sucked into the clear winter sky. Yasmin felt her physical form coalesce into something intimate and recognizable. Within a minute she found herself standing on the sidewalk and hailing the first available taxi. She was well on her way to the airport in no time.
Her spirits lifted somewhat, Yasmin pondered the extent of her new powers. She’d have to tell Tomas about this latest one - the oppressive mist that seemed to consume her body for a short period, delivering her to safety when needed. He was going to love that. Hopefully it wasn’t just a queen thing, and that all vampires were able to draw on the ability.
At JFK Yasmin wasted no time in acquiring a ticket for the next available flight to Rome. She used Tomas’s funds to access the exclusive Platinum Club so she could relax in comfort before boarding. She made a mental note to repay the doktor everything that he had provided her. After all, she was a queen and needed to start acting like it.
Soon enough Yasmin was on a plane and safely over the Atlantic nursing a glass of red wine. Ensuring the window was shut, she let her thoughts roam far and wide. She felt that familiar hunger growing within her, and knew that she would need fresh human blood soon. She would have some business to attend to in Budapest.
The Lycan Collapse (The Flux Age Book 2) Page 9