Holidays Bite: A Limited Edition Collection of Holiday Vampire Tales

by Laura Greenwood

  Want a romance that transcends time and space? Check out A Dragon’s Destiny

  Want to fight for humanity and have Thor at your side? Check out Hellbent.

  Want to know how the dragons came to be in my world? Check out Marked by the Gods.

  Looking to laugh as a vampire must now drink fish blood to survive? Read Once Bitten

  Join Tina Online

  www.TinaGlasneck.com

  Bookbub

  Facebook

  Twitter

  Instagram

  Spy Versus Spy

  J. A. Cummings

  About Spy Versus Spy

  Two rival vampire clans are at war in 1985 Chicago. Two rival spies face off, vampires from different clans. Can there be a Christmas Truce?

  Chapter 1

  1985, Chicago

  Gas!

  Fumbling panic, then the feel of leather on his face…the whine of the shells overhead, and someone beginning to cough, the cough beginning to blur into a strangling gurgle…don’t look don’t look don’t look chanting in his head, but looking nonetheless at a nearby soldier, guttering like a streetlamp, dying in the gas, blood frothing on his beardless chin…

  He woke with a start, a cry of horror stalling in his throat. His hands, white-knuckled, gripped his mattress, and he sat panting, wide-eyed, staring into the darkness of his room. By the glowing lights of his alarm clock, it was half an hour after sunrise. The light in his apartment was filtered and grainy, with gray spots and grayer streaks in his woozy vision. He should not have been awake.

  Saul Phillips ran a trembling hand over his sweat-dotted face, blowing out the breath he’d been holding. Seventy years had passed since he had left the Western Front, but try as he might, he would never truly leave the trenches behind.

  If he were still mortal, he might have gotten up, made coffee, chased the ghosts away, but dawn would have the last word. Sleep stroked his mind with drowsy fingers, lulling him back into the sheets, taking away his will with morning’s torpor. At least in the grip of daylight’s early hours, he would not dream. It was one of the few benefits of being a vampire.

  When the sun was high in the sky, noon’s brightness broke the spell of morning, and he found himself once again swimming upward toward consciousness. Outside, he could hear the traffic noises on Lakeside Drive, and around the heavy velvet curtains covering his windows, the bright daylight peeked into his room. Today would not be a good day to forget his sunglasses. He had rarely been sunsick, but the experience was memorable enough that he always armed himself with his Foster Grants before leaving the safety of his home.

  Home? Not quite. Home was England, and always would be. He had only been here in the Windy City for two weeks, and most of his belongings were still being shipped from his former flat in Manhattan and from the house in Delaware. This apartment was cavernous and empty now, his foot falls echoing as he padded his barefooted way to the bathroom and his morning shower. He did so love indoor plumbing.

  Downtown, in a nightclub on State Street and Division, his new assignment waited for him. Somehow, through some mysterious pattern of attrition and promotion, he had been named Sergeant-at-Arms of the Kris. He would have been more suited by personality to be the vampire clan’s librarian, but never mind; he would do his duty as it fell to him now. He had once been a good soldier, and he supposed he would not change.

  The nightclub was called the Silk Tiger, and the proprietor was his purported king, the progenitor of the Kris, Tobyn Gemini. The First Kris ruled their kind as a sort of petty tyrant with his sister/queen Araminah at his side. Saul had known Araminah from the Manhattan kumpania, and the memory of her made him smile. It would be good to see her again.

  The thought of encountering her brother, though, gave him no such warm feelings. He had always found Tobyn too erratic, too mercurial to be a good leader, and the elder vampire’s moods were like a rope swing in a cyclone. Frankly, Tobyn was someone that he feared and did not understand. He hoped that Araminah would still be the calming influence she had always been back in New York.

  He shaved, combed his black hair, and donned one of his multitude of black Armani suits. He was a rich man, and he didn’t mind dressing the part. He had worked hard for every cent, nourishing his electronics and computer company into blossoming life, beginning in the early days when IBM was still manufacturing adding machines. Communications and electronics were the future, and he was certain with the advent of the newly more easily-accessed internet, his company would flourish. The Kris had already found a use for Phillips Electronics’ assets and abilities. No doubt that usefulness was what had propelled him to his current status in the clan, a status he had no desire to hold. He was not ambitious for power, which made him an anomaly among his kind.

  He checked the mirror once more, putting the lie to the old cliche about vampires having no reflections. When he was sure he was put together properly, he slid his sunglasses over his pale blue eyes, prepared to brave the world outside for yet another day. He rode the elevator from the fiftieth floor to the parking structure beneath the building. His new apartment was toward the top of the high-rise building on State Street that the Kris occupied, a sort of modern castle in the middle of the Gemini twins’ domain. It was well fortified with heavily reinforced doors, electronic locks and human guards who protected the entrances while the vampires slept. They had everything they needed inside this building in case their enemies should choose to besiege them.

  There were two warring vampire bloodlines that claimed hegemony over the darkness, called the Kris and the Prime. They both had towering buildings in the city, and Chicago was the newest front line of their centuries-old war. The Prime were the old guard, the immortals who were the first to rise from their graves and feed upon the blood of humankind. Their origins were lost in the mists of the past, and Saul personally had no knowledge of the story of their creation. The Kris, meanwhile, were entirely the “fault,” to use Tobyn Gemini’s terminology, of Romany magic.

  Back in the 1720s, Tobyn and Araminah had been gitanos, traveling with their family band on a circuit that took them from their native Spain to France, Germany, Belgium and back again in an endless loop. They would go to a place, stay there for as long as the locals would tolerate them, and then move on. During a disastrous swing through France, so the story went, the King of the Prime took a shine to Tobyn and tried to bring him into the Nightworld. Unfortunately, Tobyn was no ordinary Rom, and his grandmother had placed magical protections upon him that prevented him from becoming one of the Prime. The convergence of vampire power and Romany witchcraft created a new kind of vampire, and at that time, he was the only one of his kind. He was labeled an abomination by the Prime and immediately condemned to death.

  Tobyn wasn’t one to take a death sentence lying down, and though he and his twin sister had retreated, they came back with a vengeance. They hid in Ireland at the estate of a former member of the Prime named Tristan of Carmaugh. He had chosen to live a hermit’s existence on the coast of Donegal, and he was ancient and powerful enough that the younger Prime were too afraid to come to him without an invitation, which he never issued. There were no attacks, and the infant vampire clan was allowed to grow in peace.

  Tobyn learned how to create more of his bloodline, starting with his twin, and he learned how to thrive. The Kris, named after the ruling elite in a Romany caravan, grew in numbers and power while they were in hiding, and seventy years before Saul was born, they had dared to emerge and claim their half of the Nightworld. The Prime had not taken their reappearance very well, and it had been war ever since.

  Saul was one of the Kris. If he had to be a vampire, this was the form he would have chosen. The magic that had helped speed along their creation gave them advantages over the Prime, things that their enemies were insanely jealous of. They didn’t die each day only to rise again at night the way the Prime did. They had no need of coffins or native soil or any of the trappings of “traditional” vampirism. Instead, they fel
l into a near-comatose sleep at the first light of dawn, the length of which shortened with the advent of greater power. Tobyn and Araminah could rise after only three hours, if they had to. The youngest vampires slept until almost dusk. Saul was in between, and he normally rose in the early afternoon. He was glad that he was still able to enjoy the warmth of the sun; as a Kris, he could walk in daylight, as long as he kept the sun’s beams out of his eyes. The sun would destroy the Prime, whom the Kris snidely referred to as “Trads” for their traditional ways. Not so the Kris. Sun sickness, which happened when a member of the Kris was “flashed,” was abject misery, and something they had all learned to avoid. Saul didn’t know how their clan existed in the daylight before the advent of sunglasses.

  The winter sun was bright today, but not as bright as in the height of summer, so his sunglasses and the visor on his car were sufficient to keep him from being injured. Most of the Kris opted not to take the risk, but he enjoyed living like a human being. He had a company to run, after all, and much work to do outside of whatever Tobyn would soon be requiring of him.

  He didn’t know what being Sergeant-at-Arms would entail, but he was certain that he’d be doing some form of violence to some of Tobyn’s enemies. Perhaps he would even be the enforcer of the twins’ laws within their clan. That would be helpful. The Kris tended toward rebelliousness, and it was difficult for Araminah to herd all those cats all on her own. Tobyn was no help, because he was a proper reprobate and enjoyed chaos, and he liked to Make people who were woefully unsuitable to eternity just to see what would happen. Araminah, like Saul, enjoyed order.

  His first stop was the office building owned by his company. He had hundreds of workers toiling away inside, ranging from customer service representatives to programmers to marketing executives. Saul was the CEO, and he kept a tight grip on what his company did. They were currently creating a newer, more streamlined form of personal computer, with one branch of the company developing business programs and the other half focusing on entertainment. They designed, programmed and manufactured all of their own PCs, and Saul was excited to see how their latest product was doing.

  It was just after American Thanksgiving, and Phillips Electronics had rolled out the shiniest new version of their popular PC model, just in time for the holiday shopping season. His staff should have the Black Friday sales information on his desk when he arrived. He looked forward to seeing how things had gone.

  Like with the apartment building, his office had a parking garage in the basement, and he had the best parking place in the house. He rolled his BMW into its spot, locked it up and went to the elevator. He had a key that would override the elevator’s functions and take him directly to his office, but today he wanted to start in the lobby. The holiday display should have been up by now, and he wanted to see it.

  This was his first Christmas in Chicago, and PE’s first winter in this building. He loved the aesthetics of the lobby on regular days, with its cathedral ceiling, sand-colored marble and the tumbling water in the fountain. With holiday decorations, it would be even more beautiful. He couldn’t wait to see what his staff had done.

  Saul loved Christmas. He had been raised as a vicar’s son back in England, and his Christian faith was strong, if somewhat dented by his current existence. He loved the carols, the bedecked trees, the nativity scenes, the sparkling lights… though he had nearly reached what would have been the end of his natural life, he could be filled with childlike glee by the fripperies of the holiday. He had been a holiday enthusiast since 1899, and every year he found something new to love.

  The elevator from the parking structure opened into the lobby, and as he walked through the bustle of his employees intent upon their business, he was delighted to find that his decorators had been hard at work. Seven towering trees stood around the fountain, which had been transformed into a Christmas village complete with a little train that circled the base. The trees were visions in tinsel and colored lights that flashed and danced. Blown glass icicles and silver glass balls hung from the evergreen branches, and a giant wreath with a scarlet bow had been affixed to the wall above the reception desk. Garlands wound their way up the handrails and banisters of the stairs to the second level, and holly berries adorned the directory plaque. The lobby sound system piped in instrumental Christmas music; currently, “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” was being played on harpsichord. He grinned like an idiot.

  “Ah! Mr. Phillips.”

  He turned to see his secretary approaching. Dana Page was a no-nonsense lady who had been with him for fifteen years, and though she was not immortal, she looked far younger than her age.

  “Hello, Ms. Page. I’m very pleased with the decor.”

  “I thought you would be.” She handed him a manila folder. “This weekend’s sales reports.”

  Dana’s eyes were twinkling, which told him that he would be pleased with what he’d find when he opened up the file. The fact that she’d been lying in wait for him with it in her hand was proof enough that it was going to be extraordinary.

  He looked at the numbers and grinned widely. “Well, this is fabulous news! We’ve had a spectacular project debut!”

  “Yes, sir.” She clasped her hands in front of her trim hips. “Mr. Adelbert is waiting in his office to discuss the numbers with you.”

  “Of course.” He held up the file, still smiling. He didn’t worry about his teeth giving him away; the fangs that he used for feeding would stay hidden until he needed them. It was another perk of being a Kris. “Thank you, Ms. Page.”

  “My pleasure.”

  They turned and walked up the stairs to the second level, where an executives-only elevator waited. As they went, he asked her, “How long were you waiting for me?”

  “Only a few minutes,” she fibbed. “I knew you’d be in around this time, and I wanted to be the first to show you… and to say I told you so.”

  Dana had been the one to convince him that a game-oriented PC would be just as big a seller as a business machine. It appeared that she was right. “Yes. You did tell me so, and I should listen to you at all times.”

  She smirked. “Yes. You should.”

  They entered the elevator, and he touched the button for his penthouse office. All of the buildings housing his company had the same layout, for he had been careful to replicate the design. He never knew where in the world he might be needed for business, and it wouldn’t do to get lost in his own building.

  Dana had transferred to Chicago from New York along with him, as had Adelbert. This was now the flagship office of Phillips Electronics. As always, he was touched with Dana’s loyalty, especially as it had required her to up stakes and move just before the holidays.

  He turned to her. “Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?”

  She nodded. “It was lovely. Thank you. I tried some new Chinese restaurants and watched movies on cable all weekend.” Dana glanced at him. “And I tried out this new nightclub called the Silk Tiger.”

  Saul kept his expression neutral. “Indeed.”

  “Not my sort of place,” she shrugged. “Too much bloodletting.”

  He laughed. “What a fanciful imagination you have, Ms. Page. I’m glad you didn’t leave it behind in New York.”

  “I left nothing behind, sir.”

  They emerged into his office, where she helped him to hang up his coat. She talked about his meetings that day, and he tried to pay attention, but he was distracted. As soon as he’d stepped inside, he’d smelled it.

  Old blood.

  “Thank you, Ms. Page. That will be all.”

  He’d interrupted her mid-speech, and she was surprised by the uncharacteristic lapse in etiquette, but she took no umbrage. Instead, she stepped out and left him to find the source of the smell.

  It didn’t take him long. There was a shoe box under his desk, and inside was a drained human heart, pierced with a wooden stake. A piece of his own desk stationery was inside, on which someone with antique penmanship had written in Russi
an, Welcome to Chicago.

  The smell of blood overpowered the lingering scent of the writer, but he had his suspicions about the identity of the visitor he’d missed. He narrowed his eyes.

  “Svetlana,” he said to himself. “What are you doing out of Moscow?”

  Chapter 2

  He tucked the heart into his desk, then had his meetings, including a brief celebration in the office of Adelbert, his CFO. It was back-to-back business until nearly six o’clock, when he bade Dana good night. She left the office and he went back inside to contemplate the box.

  The stake was hand-made, and on the flattened end, it had a tiny flower carved into it. It was Svetlana’s calling card, one he had seen many times. The heart had clearly belonged to a human being, and judging from the smell, death had been the night before. It had been mostly drained of blood, but enough remained that it reeked distressingly.

  Saul and Svetlana had crossed paths many times during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, they had pursued a sort of running rivalry, the only two vampire spies serving their respective countries. Saul had been a proud member of MI-6, and Svetlana had been an officer in the GRU. The chess game was UK versus USSR, and they time and again they infiltrated, befouled and frustrated each other’s organizations. Human spies had little defense against the heightened and specialized skills of vampires. They hadn’t exactly been enemies. They’d been each other’s foils. They challenged each other, one-upped one another, and occasionally helped one another so the game could continue.

  The last time he’d seen her was in East Berlin in 1964. Apparently she’d decided that it was time to renew their acquaintance.