by AJ Tipton
“But can’t we help in some way?” Alice asked.
Valerie bit her lip. “Any more than those two would look like an attack, and might put all of them in danger.” She sounded like she was mostly trying to convince herself. “We can help by staying here and rallying the troops. Let’s call our sirelings, and they’ll call their sirelings and we’ll all get ready, in case the worse should happen.”
Alice looked between them. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Valerie and Ben shared a loaded look. “Rhys being Rhys.”
Mourners stood dozens thick outside the looming iron gates of the ancient royal castle as Christopher’s car approached. Black flags bearing the family crest hung from the castle's Gothic turrets at half-mast, and the grounds felt strangely quiet, like even the birds who lived in the gardens knew death hung in the air.
Christopher had passed through these same gates regularly for centuries, and it never felt like this. He instinctively began to rehearse what to say to the king to try and knock him from the dark ages, but then Christopher remembered that there would be no arguments this time. His sire was dead.
Christopher rubbed a hand across his forehead. There hadn't been a new vampire king in over two millennia, but his sire's advisors would probably insist on following the rarely-used ancient rituals for mourning a monarch: months of dark clothing and plodding ceremonies as the advisors handled any business pending from the former king's rule. After that, the eldest prince would be educated at great length on trade deals, treaties, and taxes. The pomp would be endless, and Christopher already dreaded every minute of it.
The only upside he saw in the coming months was that he could finally start building a new, progressive future for his people. He drummed his fingers against the car's window. With a slow transition, Christopher hoped he could convince the remaining traditionally-minded folks to start thinking more inclusively, and he could give his people the prosperous future they deserved.
Twin motorcycles gunned down the drive at breakneck speed as Christopher got out of the car, and he tensed until he recognized Danny and Margot's helmets. They jumped off their motorcycles, grabbing weapons out of duffle bags and arming themselves to the teeth with swords and machetes lashed to their sides for easy reach.
"What are you doing here?" Christopher asked as Margot strapped a second knife to her forearm. "This visit is just a formality to see my sire's body and start planning for the transition." He looked at the bulges along her belt. "Are those grenades?"
Margot raised an eyebrow at him. "Didn't you hear? Grenades are the new black--"
"Except with a lot more fire," Danny finished, securing a machete to his thigh.
"This really isn't necessary--" Christopher started to say.
"Just think of us as your backup plan. You will be damned happy to see these grenades if your brother tries some shit," Margot said.
Christopher threw up his hands as he started up the stairs towards the castle. Margot and Danny walked on each side of him. The rhythmic tattoo of metal hitting metal as their weapons struck against armor sounded more comforting than Christopher wanted to admit. The castle, usually bustling with activity, was too quiet. Where are the funeral planners and staff to set up the castle for mourners?
Christopher's unease only grew as they approached the throne room. Strikingly large guards he didn't recognize stood along both sides of the hallway, easily three times as many than were necessary. Four of them blocked the double-doors to the throne room. Margot and Danny tensed on either side of him and Christopher's hand itched to grab for weapons he hadn't thought he'd need.
"Who are you?" The guard who stepped forward from the door had muscles the size of basketballs, no neck, and lips so thin his sharp canines dipped down outside his mouth like a stray dog.
Danny slid forward before Christopher got the chance to speak, stepping in between him and the guard. "This is Prince Christopher, you disrespectful, no-neck--"
"There's no need for that." Christopher moved forward. He eyed the guard. The vampire had the unsteady look of the newly turned. With all that muscle mass, he'd be a challenge to take down, but Christopher had no doubt that he, Margot, and Danny would be more than a match for the goons blocking the door. The other thirty vamps behind them would be a bigger problem.
He placed a calming hand on Danny's shoulder. "I am here to speak with my brother and pay my respects to my sire. Let us pass."
The guard shared a smirk with the others at the door and the one nearest the handle pulled the mighty-oak door open with a loud groan.
"Yeah, sure, your highness," the guard chuckled. "The king has been looking forward to this."
Christopher's unease transformed into dread. The king?
The throne room was the same as Christopher remembered it: gray, echoing, and cold with arched ceilings and stone gargoyles snarling from every corner. Dust hung in the air, and Christopher heard the sound of weeping from down another hallway.
Christopher's longing for a weapon grew with each second. His sire's advisors knelt on the floor along one side of the wall, their hands chained together. Guards stood over the advisors, brandishing axes and frigid expressions. There was no sign of Christopher's sire's coffin, and the royal throne was already occupied.
Rhys sneered down at his brother, one leg slung over the side of the throne's golden arm, his boots swinging with glee. Rhys's short, blonde hair lay slicked back on his head, the grease reflecting off the candlelight beside him. Christopher ground his teeth, fighting for a civil tone.
"What are you doing on our sire's throne?" Christopher eyed his brother's heavily-armed cadre of guards as he spoke. He could see Margot and Danny move closer out of the corner of his eye to guard his back, weapons at the ready.
Rhys wriggled where he sat. “It's quite a comfortable perch. I can see why he liked it so much.” His jocular tone had an edge like a sabre.
He's insane. Dread and fear coiled in Christopher's chest. He looked toward the chained advisors. They had been his sire's friends for centuries, men and women who had helped raise them both. What could Rhys possibly be thinking?
"Let them go." His fists clenched in an effort to appear calm. "Even if you will not listen to their counsel, you cannot leave them like this for the funeral."
"There isn't going to be a funeral." Rhys's foot swung back and forth, his voice smooth like he was commenting on the weather. "Our dear sire's body was already burned this morning, his ashes scattered in the garden. We're done with him."
Shock hit Christopher like a petrification spell. Margot and Danny made small noises of concern behind him, but the world seemed unstable around him and he couldn't move to comfort them. Christopher's mouth gaped open and he fought to find words.
"What? But...you can't...you…"
"I think you'll find I can. My coronation is in three days, and I don't need that old bag of bones just lying around."
“I am the rightful heir to that throne,” Christopher said. “Our sire is dead. In response to news of such a tragedy, you do not mourn him, you do not comfort your sire line. You instead seek to usurp my position with this...” Christopher gestured at Rhys’s guards, “attempt at intimidation.”
Rhys blew a bubble with his gum, a bright pink orb that expanded out six inches before snapping. He picked the bits off his nose with a manic grin.
“Who do I need to intimidate? You? Those freaks you've turned? You've spent your centuries turning poets and outcasts.” He gestured at a large man with tattoos of barbed wire circling his bald head and neck. “This big bastard here was a champion powerlifter before I made him part of my sire line. Now his will is mine. What chance do your ballerinas have against a force like him?”
Rhys hopped off the throne and strode toward him. Margot and Danny moved to block him, but Christopher extended his hand to stop them from interfering. Rhys's eyes were crazy, his long fingers taking Christopher’s chin in a tight grip.
“All of your little,
artsy farsty, riff raff sirelings,” Rhys said in a sing-song tone, “are ruining what it means to be a vampire.” He shouted the last words, spit flecking out in all directions.
Christopher pried Rhys’s hand from his face. “My sirelings are none of your business.”
Rhys tsked as he jumped back to delicately perch on the throne once more. “They're my business when you refuse to hold them to your will. You let your pets run around with no leash.” He spat on the stone floor. “It’s an embarrassment. How could a sire like you rule our people? You can't even rule your own line." He pointed to the guards poised next to the kneeling advisors. They weren't quite as beefcake as Rhys's new personal guards, but they all had the same vacant expressions. "Do you see my new sirelings? I selected these lucky bastards into my command because those old farts at their feet are their drinking buddies and mentors." He raised his hand and brought down like a falling guillotine. "Kill them."
Before Christopher could move, the guards' swords chopped off the heads of the kneeling advisors. The decapitated bodies of his sire’s most trusted confidants fell to the stone floor with sickening, wet thumps. Rhys's hold broken the moment they fulfilled the command, the guards holding the swords immediately started to shake and sputter in shock. One started to vomit, another fell to the ground, sobbing.
"Fucking hell," Danny cursed behind Christopher, his voice small with shock and horror.
"I can take them," Margot said, quiet enough that only Christopher could hear.
"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" One guard wailed over and over.
"Shut up!" Rhys yelled and his guards all froze silently in place, tears and horror cemented on their faces. Rhys leaned back onto his throne and crossed his legs. "Anyone who disagrees with me is going to face the same consequences."
Rage and shame circled in a whirlwind inside Christopher.
“This isn’t over.” If they stayed in the room any longer, Christopher knew he wouldn't be able to stop Margot, Danny, or himself from attacking Rhys, and they were hopelessly outnumbered. They needed a plan. Christopher pulled Margot and Danny out of the throne room, their footsteps echoing against the empty stone walls.
They didn't speak until they'd gotten outside and the moonlit sky was a welcome relief from the castle's weight.
“Well...that’s not great.” Margot’s voice broke the silence.
Danny ran a hand through his short, black hair. “I don't know why we didn't just kill him right there.”
“We will stop him.” Christopher stood tall now, steady in his conviction. “But first, we need to get out of here. Now.”
* * *
Christopher barely remembered the car ride back. Danny and Margot drove their motorcycles in front and behind of his car to keep watch in case Rhys sent one of his mind-wiped minions to run Christopher off the road. Rhys had always been reckless with his use of the hortari, but Christopher had never believed his brother would go this far. The sound of the heads hitting the floor, immediately followed by the anguished cries of their friends who couldn't resist Rhys's command, was a miserable loop repeating in his memory.
Rhys has to be stopped.
As soon as they arrived home, Christopher asked an anxious-looking Danny and Margot to gather the lieutenants in the dining room. Shouts of horror reverberated throughout the house as his sirelings learned of Rhys's actions. Christopher ransacked his rooms, dumped boxes out of storage and gathered as many floor plans and charts of the castle that he could find. He was about to ask his sirelings, his family, to engage in a full-scale assault against a fortified castle, and he couldn’t leave anything to chance.
Christopher was in the midst of unrolling each map along the long, wooden dining table, and weighing down the edges with coasters and candlesticks when his sirelings filed in. Margot came first, taking her place at his right hand, and nodding to Danny, Ben, and Valerie as they ringed the rest of the table, their expressions grave. The dining room wasn't outfitted as a war room--the pastoral paintings of hillsides weren't exactly the scenes to inspire battle--but it was the only room with a big enough table for all the maps scattered across its surface.
I'm not outfitted for war, Christopher thought with a nervous twinge.
A moment later, Alice slipped in behind them. Christopher’s heart skipped a beat in terror. He left the table to pull her aside.
"I don’t want you anywhere near this,” he said. "Whatever we decide here today, you shouldn't be a part of it." He tried to push down images of Alice mangled on the battlefield. Alice being torn to shreds by Rhys’s men. Alice broken and dying all because Christopher wanted to be king.
She raised her chin and pulled her arm out of his grip. "If you didn't want me to be a part of this, then you shouldn't have made me one of you. I have a right to be here."
Christopher looked at his other sirelings. Margot, Danny, Ben, and Valerie had spent decades learning to fight. At one time or another, they'd had to defend themselves or someone else, but they'd never seen real war. Thinking of any of them hurt was like a stabbing pain through his heart. But if Rhys became king, his choices would harm them too. They deserved the right to choose their fate. He touched Alice's hand, needing the comforting contact of her touch.
"You're right," he said in a quiet voice.
He took a deep breath and stepped back to the front of the table. Christopher’s sirelings were already pouring over the blueprints and maps spread across the table. He tried to keep his eyes off of Alice as she took an open space between Margot and Ben, looking down at the plans.
“Thank you all for joining me.” He straightened his spine and raised his voice to be easily heard throughout the room. “I’m sure by now that you’ve all heard that my sire, your king, has died.”
Somber murmurs made small laps around the room. Margot banged her fist down on the table for silence.
"As his eldest sireling, I am the rightful heir to that throne. As vampires, we can never age, but that does not mean we cannot grow.” Christopher calmly clasped his hands in front of him. “We must ensure our values of freedom, independent expression, and respect for all are protected. The vampire community must know that, although the hortari is a reality of our existence, it does not give anyone the right to enslave others." Christopher smiled a thin smile, dreading what he must ask of them all. “Rhys has seized the throne as his own, muscling his way to sovereignty. He threatens to make legions of hortari-locked slaves to carry out his whims. We must prove that our way is stronger."
"And how do we do that?" Valerie asked.
"We are going to take back the castle."
"Okaaayyy," Danny said slowly. "How?"
Christopher smiled. "That's the point. The ability of each of us to think for ourselves is what will preserve our ideals." He outstretched his hands to encompass the table of maps and drawings of the castle. "We're going to combine our skills to build a plan together. Rhys's coronation is in three days. I need you to bring in everyone you need, and consult with every contact you have. We are stronger because we are together, and we will win."
The whole table broke out into cheers and applause. Christopher's heart swelled with pride at their loyalty, but his gaze was irrevocably drawn back to Alice, her head bowed in intense conversation with Ben at the far end of the room.
He walked along the length of the table watching the others jump into action. Margot and Valerie pulled maps toward themselves and started to point out weaknesses in the outer structure, while Danny scanned the lists of castle employees and made notes on his tablet. Christopher cared for all of them, but Alice looked so vulnerable next to his years-hardened sirelings, his chest ached with worry.
“Alice, what do you think about checking out my dark room?” Christopher told Alice once he'd reached her side. “You can start to develop some new photos. We’re safe here for now, you don't have to stick around for all the planning.” He pressed his hand to the small of her back, guiding her towards the exit.
“Are
you going to use your UV flash bombs?” Alice slid out of Christopher’s grasp, returning to the table next to Ben, taking a device about the size of a roll of quarters out of the inventor's hand. She seemed to be studiously ignoring Christopher, her gaze fixed on the delicate glass and steel structure.
Christopher couldn't smell her emotions now that she was a vampire the way he'd been able to when she was a human, but he recognized the tightness in her jaw and the hunch in her shoulders as signs of fear.
She shouldn't be doing this. Alice was an artist. She didn't have the training for war. Of all his sirelings, she was the most likely to get hurt, and the thought terrified him more than he thought was possible.
Ben smiled at Alice. “You don’t have to be so gentle with it, this one’s inactive.” Ben pointed down at the blueprints of the royal throne room. “If we set them up to blast here, here, and here.” He pointed to three different sections of the page. “We should be able to knock ‘em back a bit.”
“Hmmm." Alice bit on her thumb, then pulled some loose change out of her pocket and placed the coins down onto the map. “You’ve got a really good strategy, but there’s an opportunity to miss some of Rhys’s men in the shadows you’ve created here and here. If you install the UV flash bombs where I’ve put these coins, they will overlap so every inch of the throne room will be covered.”
Ben tilted his head to examine the new placement of the coins. “That's brilliant!” Ben clapped Alice on the shoulder proudly. “How did you know to do that?"
Alice smiled. "When I first started taking pictures, learning proper lighting was rough. But now I'm a bit of an expert."
“A lighting expert! Good thinking, bringing this one in, Christopher.” Ben laughed heartily. “They’ll never see it comin’.”
Margot leaned over, "What's this? Our photo prodigy is going to help us UV the crap out of these douchebags?”
"Just in the initial planning," Christopher growled. "She's not trained for battle."