Kingmakers, The (Vampire Empire Book 3)

by Clay Griffith Susan Griffith

  Mamoru turned to the guards in the corridor. “You may go. Close the door and lock it, please.”

  The guards nodded. The samurai had a writ from the Court of High Justiciar giving him free rein on the prisoner, and given who he was, he could easily have produced a handwritten note from the empress. So the guards shut the door and locked it; then they all withdrew to their gloomy station at the end of the hall.

  Mamoru studied the cell now that he was alone with the motionless prisoner. It was a slimy stone hovel with no window. There was a cot and a bucket, nothing more. The stench of waste assaulted his nose, and he felt a tinge of regret that his old student had come to this. Selkirk's face was a little swollen, no doubt from some careless slaps or shoves from the guards, but he wasn't brutalized. There was no blood on the floor, at least none that was recent.

  “We have much in common,” Mamoru said. “Your late friend, Lord Kelvin, held me in this same dungeon just down the corridor. This room is smaller even than the one I was in last summer.” He stepped to the side of the cot, his sandals slipping on the greasy floor. “Do you know me?”

  Selkirk again moved only his eyes, lingering on the face above him. His mouth convulsed.

  “Do you know where you are, my boy?”

  The prisoner blinked.

  Mamoru exhaled sadly. “You are in Alexandria. Your home. But you are in a prison. Because you attempted to kill Empress Adele. Do you remember doing that?”

  The ragged man moved his mouth, but stayed quiet.

  “Selkirk,” Mamoru said, “do you remember stabbing the empress? I mean Princess Adele? The young woman you helped in London. Do you remember?”

  Silence.

  The prisoner cleared his throat and made a crude attempt to speak. But then he closed his mouth again, slipping back from communication. Mamoru reached down quickly and pressed his skillful fingers into Selkirk's collarbone. The student screamed.

  Mamoru said quietly but forcefully, “You will talk to me. Yes?”

  Selkirk breathed hard from the unexpected pain, but still sunk inward. The samurai slid his fingers behind the man's neck, sought a pressure point, and squeezed. Selkirk screeched and flailed up, grasping his head in pain.

  Mamoru pressed a hand against the man's chest. “Talk to me, son. Say something. Now. Or I will continue.”

  “No,” Selkirk howled. “Don't hurt me!”

  The teacher laid a comforting hand on the man's shoulder. “There. Excellent. Thank you. Let's begin again. Do you know who I am?”

  Selkirk nodded, gasping as the pain faded.

  “No,” Mamoru said. “Say it. Talk.”

  “You're my teacher.”

  “That's right, lad.” Mamoru sat on the edge of the cot, staring into the eyes of the prisoner. “Do you remember going to Britain?”

  Selkirk looked away.

  Mamoru placed his hand on the man's chest, causing him to squirm pathetically. “Do you remember going to Britain?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Good. Tell me why you went to Britain.”

  “I…I was mapping dragon spines. Ley lines. For your world map.”

  “Yes. Good. And did you do that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Excellent. Well done. Where are your charts?” When the prisoner looked away again, Mamoru tapped the man's collarbone and Selkirk flinched. “If you completed your charts, where are they?”

  The prisoner shifted on the cot, trying to move out from under the samurai's hand. “The princess is dangerous.”

  “Where are your charts?”

  Selkirk pressed his back against the wall, holding his hands out to ward off his visitor, even though Mamoru hadn't moved. “She will ruin us.”

  Mamoru stayed still, but watched his former student adopt a reasonable tilt of his head but with wild begging eyes. He kept his voice calm. “Where are your charts?”

  “He needed them. To show me the truth about the princess. How dangerous she is.”

  “Who needed them, Selkirk?”

  “Please don't hurt me again.”

  Mamoru chuckled reassuringly. “I have no intention of hurting you, my boy. As long as we are talking. Now, who needed your charts?”

  “Dr. Goronwy.” Selkirk stared at Mamoru like a frightened dog, expecting each change of expression to herald an attack.

  “Ah. I see. Dr. Goronwy. And who is he?”

  “A colleague. In London and Wales.”

  “A colleague?” Mamoru shifted slightly, and Selkirk pushed harder against the wall. “I know of no colleagues in London and Wales. A doctor of what exactly?”

  “He is a scholar of geomancy.”

  The priest put a thoughtful hand to his chin. Selkirk seemed quite sure of what he was saying. The unbalanced mind often put specifics to stories to make them real. “A human doctor in the north?”

  Selkirk sensed his teacher's doubts. “It's true. Believe me, Master Mamoru. He is a very important man. Very high in the court.”

  “The court,” Mamoru repeated slowly with a chill.

  “Yes. Prince Cesare hangs on Dr. Goronwy's every word. As the princess does with you.”

  Mamoru felt a terrifying shock rack him. He stood, but his legs were unsteady. He waited a moment until he could speak with an unbroken voice. “Prince Cesare?”

  “Yes. I met him several times.” Selkirk settled into a more comfortable position. “He is a man of vision, guided by Dr. Goronwy. The prince is interested in geomancy, as you are. As we all are. He was most interested to hear all about our work. Although he and Dr. Goronwy held some contrary opinions on the princess and her abilities.”

  Mamoru felt the cell almost spinning around him. He swallowed deliberately. What should have been mushy ravings about human geomancers in the north and meetings with Prince Cesare clicked into sharp rational slots. Mamoru had expected that Selkirk had been a tool of the British clan; after all, he had been positioned in the imperial crypt by the late prime minister, Lord Kelvin, who was a confederate of Flay. However, Mamoru assumed that they simply used Selkirk because he was easily twisted and knew Alexandria.

  This was something more. Something monstrous and unbelievable. It was the second blow to Mamoru's world in six months. The first was discovering that his prize, Adele, was associated with a vampire and she couldn't understand why that was disastrous for her own kind. And now, Selkirk was telling him that he could have betrayed Mamoru's ultimate plan—to use Adele to destroy all vampires—to the leader of the enemy.

  Like ley lines, the course of treachery led back to Gareth. Cesare was his brother. Lord Kelvin had been an ally. Selkirk was an informer and agent.

  Mamoru covered his face with shame at his own stupidity. He had spent so many years in preparation; he had been so convinced of his unique role in the world, was so proud of his genius. He had made a critical mistake. He had ignored that his enemy could think. All he could see were the savages who slaughtered his wife and daughter as he fought to reach them. But perhaps his mistake wasn't fatal. The vampires would soon learn that a human could be as merciless as they.

  Mamoru turned back to Selkirk, his face rigid. “So you discussed all you knew about the princess and the Event with Cesare?”

  “More so with Dr. Goronwy.”

  “But he reported to Cesare?”

  “Oh yes. His Highness was fascinated by our work here.” Selkirk smiled. “They made an excellent case that Princess Adele is dangerous to geomancy. She could well stop the flow in the spines, which would be disastrous. Would you like me to explain it in more detail?”

  “No.” Mamoru's hand flicked like an adder, snapping against a spot beneath Selkirk's ear. The young man screamed and fell to the floor. He rolled on the filthy ground, clutching his head in agony. The samurai snarled, tight-lipped, “I would like you to lie there in pain until I decide it can stop.”

  Nzingu the Zulu watched Mamoru as he paced restlessly and sipped Turkish coffee. The scent of burning hashish wafted th
ick, not surprising given they were in a back room of a posh Alexandria hash house. Her other two colleagues sat at a low brass table. Sir Godfrey Randolph considered a plate of sweets, running thoughtful fingers over his bushy white sideburns. He was an older gentleman, given over more to fat than muscle, red-faced, but with the steady hands of a surgeon, which he was. And Sanah, the Persian, wrote in a leather-bound journal with hands decorated with exquisite henna tattoos. She was short and covered head to toe in a black robe. Her face was veiled but for dark eyes. Nzingu was tall and clearly quite fit, judging from her economical movement. She was both observant and ready to react. The Zulu woman wore a fashionable gown of bright yellow silk, and a hat with a lace veil perched askew on her coiled hair.

  “The news from the front is encouraging,” Sir Godfrey said as he chose a sugared date. “We've occupied St. Etienne and Grenoble. In winter, at that. At this rate, we'll be in Paris by May, eh?”

  Mamoru set down his porcelain cup. For the first time it rattled. “The truth from the front is not so encouraging as the news.”

  “Really? I attended the prime minister's speech before Commons yesterday and he seemed quite optimistic.”

  “Prime Minister Kemal is the empress's man. It's his job to appear optimistic.”

  The old gentleman worked the date's pit. “Are we losing the war, then?”

  “No, no,” Mamoru said. “We did take those two cities, but at great loss. Nearly ten thousand dead or wounded at St. Etienne, and almost ten more outside Grenoble. And that's to say nothing of the Hungarian expedition. That campaign is a meat grinder, and I fear the Equatorians are the filling.”

  Sanah said, “Listen to you, Mamoru. Politics. Economics. Military strategy. Perhaps you should be prime minister.”

  He laughed without humor. “I would rather die. I am a teacher, a priest, and once, a samurai. Never an elected official. But your point is well taken, Sanah. I called you all here to discuss the empress and our plans. It has been months since I spoke to all of you at once.” Mamoru poured another cup of stiff coffee. “What you may not know about the war is the reason for our glorious triumph at Grenoble. It was the empress who scattered the vampires there, allowing our army to walk in unopposed.”

  Nzingu stared at Mamoru, along with her colleagues. Then she laughed with a startlingly loud cackle that surprised the group nearly as much as Mamoru's announcement. “However will the steam lords of Alexandria deal with a witch queen?”

  “It isn't quite so simple.”

  “I know that, Mamoru. We Zulu drove our vampires from the uKhahlamba with shamans leading our armies with botanicals and crystals. But then we turned on our magicians and priests. Will Equatoria have to destroy the great sorceress to preserve their comfortable worldview?”

  Mamoru pursed his lips with tired bemusement. He checked his pocket watch. Sir Godfrey and Sanah kept quiet.

  Nzingu flopped into an overstuffed chintz chair. “So have we reached the moment? Does the empress charge to the front and burn a swathe through the enemy? Why do we even need an army in Europe?”

  “The strain on the empress in using her skill on that level is enormous. Grenoble was harmful to her. And the effect on the vampires was temporary. They could return. That's also part of the problem. If she starts rushing around Europe using her abilities like some altruistic bomb, she will wear herself out. She could well kill herself before I can make use of her. She still has much to do to prepare for the Event, and there is an additional complication.”

  Mamoru peered out through the bead curtain separating their plush back room from the hazy hashish parlor beyond. Assured of their relative privacy, he returned to the cabal and stood near them. In a low voice, he said, “One thing which you all must know before we go further. It is something about the Greyfriar.”

  Sanah sat up with alarm. “Is he dead? That will crush poor Adele.”

  “No. He is quite alive last I heard.” Mamoru paused, considering his next words. “The man you know as Greyfriar is not a man. He is a vampire. His true name is Gareth. He is a prince of the British clan, the eldest son of King Dmitri.”

  Nzingu's face flushed with shock and surprise. She exchanged looks with Sir Godfrey and Sanah. They both held the same disbelief that was no doubt reflected in her eyes. What Mamoru said couldn't be true, but for him to lie so flagrantly made no sense.

  “He latched onto the empress while she was a prisoner in the north, and she has fallen under his sway. I have been unable to act against him because I feared losing my contact with her.”

  Sir Godfrey murmured, “I had a strange feeling when I met him at the hospital after the empress was stabbed. But I dismissed it as incredible, a product of my own exhaustion at the time. How did you find out?”

  Mamoru said, “I've known since I encountered him with the empress in Katanga last summer.”

  Nzingu asked with the incredulity cracking her voice, “Since last summer? And we're only now finding this out?”

  The priest glared at her. “This is not the time for your typical difficulty, Nzingu. We have other issues to attend.”

  Sir Godfrey smiled weakly at his companions. “It's just that we find it hard to credit, Mamoru. How can a vampire pretend to be a human?”

  “It's chilling to watch him mimic a human. It's sickening to see Adele fawn on him. He is a parasite even though Adele drapes human emotions on him the way people do with their pets. He is not a man. He is a creature. He must be dealt with.”

  Sir Godfrey opened his mouth, and then closed it because he didn't know what to say. He moved his eyes back and forth in confusion. “Well, he is with the army much of the time. Can't you just alert the sirdar and let him take care of the problem?”

  Mamoru said, “General Anhalt will be no help to us. The sirdar would say the sun was the moon if the empress wished it. He knows everything about Greyfriar. He has the vampire under his protection and expressly forbade me to harm the thing on penalty of my own life.” He continued to stalk the room. “Obviously he must be killed. However, nothing can be done in a way that might publicly embarrass the empress or reveal that she was aware of this abomination.”

  “This debacle just keeps getting better and better,” Nzingu laughed. “It certainly won't do for the empire to learn their witch queen was consorting with a vampire. Although I would enjoy seeing that debated in Commons.”

  Sanah asked, “Are we sure that killing him is necessary? It doesn't appear that he has prevented her from moving forward in her practices. She struck Grenoble.”

  “When he is about, she suspends her studies, out of fear for his health,” Mamoru retorted. “That is unacceptable. She is growing more independent and headstrong, and powerful. She is even beginning to question whether she should use her abilities against the vampires at all. I can't allow her to stop me now. I have forged her into a perfect weapon and I intend to use her.”

  Sanah whispered, “Surely you don't mean to sound so harsh toward your student.”

  “I mean all I say.” The priest glowered with anger and fire in his face. “She is hardly my student any longer. I will finish what I started.”

  “And what of the Greyfriar?” Sir Godfrey asked. “Are you saying all those exploits of Greyfriar in the north were the work of a vampire? For what reason?”

  “I have no idea,” Mamoru replied. “Nor do I care.”

  Sir Godfrey pointed out, “Greyfriar means much to the people of the north, and south. How can we remove him?”

  “There is no more need for the Greyfriar,” the samurai snarled. “His day is done.”

  “I will kill him,” Nzingu said suddenly.

  All heads turned to her.

  “Who else could?” she stated without pride. “It must be quiet and it must be sure. Of us four, only Mamoru or I could possibly manage it, and Mamoru is otherwise engaged training the world's suddenly reluctant savior. So I will kill this monster and save the poor empress from its loving clutches.” She turned to Sanah at the sound o
f the Persian woman's uncomfortable sigh. “Do you object?”

  Sanah replied in a hesitant voice, “No.”

  Mamoru nodded eagerly, rubbing his hands together. “You will serve admirably, Nzingu. It can't happen here in Alexandria near the empress. He will soon be here with us in the city. So we must wait for him to journey again to Europe and you will pursue him back to his lair in Scotland where he inevitably returns. Our network in the north will speed your travel somewhat. It won't be an easy task. He is a dangerous foe. He is skilled with weapons and has the natural cunning of his kind. We will discuss it in more detail later.”

  “Fine,” said Nzingu, then more to herself, muttered, “No young girl should venture into womanhood untouched by the loss of her love.”

  This was about the future, not the past.

  “LET ME UNDERSTAND this. You told Flay that you would kill Simon?”

  “In so many words, yes.”

  Adele shook her head slowly as she selected a cutlass from a rack of weapons. She swung the sword several times, appreciating the whisper it made in the air. Greyfriar waited nearby, twirling his rapier in his fingers to practice dexterity. An early-morning wind off the Mediterranean flapped the ends of the scarf wrapping his face. Their makeshift fencing strip on the roof of Victoria Palace overlooking the sea could be quite blustery. She took up a position ten feet away from the tall swordsman.

  Adele always counted on Greyfriar for comfort and relief from the pressure, and was happy he had returned to Alexandria today. While she knew it was irrational to expect him to wipe away the numerous problems that surrounded her, the memories of those days in Europe when he seemed to have every answer she needed swelled immense at times. The young princess had depended on Greyfriar utterly then, but those days were far behind the empress now. She had to stand alone and only lean on him in private, and content herself with his occasional partnership.