by Jan McDonald
Lane brought the wooden stake from out of nowhere, it seemed, and without warning she plunged it deep into Grace’s chest. Beckett was stunned, unprepared for the brutality of it but knowing from the depths of his soul that somehow, unbelievably this was right. The howl that came from Grace bore no semblance to any humanity and the fetid smell that issued forth from her could have come only from hell’s bowels.
Lane moved swiftly and deftly with a surgical scalpel. In seconds she had cut through her chest, broken her ribs and cut out her still heart. Beckett stood fixed to the spot in horror at the defilement of his precious sister, unmoving because of his instinctive knowledge that this was what Grace needed, however evil it seemed. He didn’t know how or why, just that it was so.
With practiced skill and alarming dexterity, the woman surgically removed Grace’s head and placed it on her ragged chest.
She turned to him.
“Now you pray.”
Beckett felt the first hysterical laugh rising in his throat, and let it out. He laughed, and then he screamed. And he was awake, shaking and sitting up on his sofa with perspiration soaking through his shirt. There was a young man looking at him oddly.
“So, Beckett, you do know. You poor bastard.”
Beckett didn’t reply; he’d passed out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Sanctuary had been quiet all night, apart from Lane and Kat there had been no visitors. Jane, the young receptionist had sat beside Kat all night as her immune system battled to become compatible with her new DNA. Lane had left without explanation of where she was going and Kat had slept fitfully, tossing and turning, muttering and mumbling, perspiring and shivering. The transformation for her had not been an easy one – surprisingly, as she was born a Latent vampire with her body already carrying the blueprint of the vampire slumbering within her at genetic level.
It was close to seven a.m. when the harsh buzz of the intercom on the wall near the door brought Jane from her doze to fully awake in a millisecond.
“Hello,” she whispered, not wanting Kat to wake whilst it was still dark.
“Jane, there’s a guy down here asking for Doc Lane. He won’t accept that she’s not here … in fact he’s being an arsehole about it. Can you come down and sort it?” The young donor that Jane had left in charge of the reception desk sounded apprehensive.
Jane looked across at Kat, who was now sleeping peacefully and apparently very deeply. She hesitated. She’d promised she wouldn’t leave Kat. Lane had been adamant.
“I’m with someone; a client who isn’t well. Can’t you deal with whoever it is? Did he give a name? If it’s treatment he needs, you can give him a room to wait for Doctor Dearing, or if it’s a meal, then honey he’s all yours.”
“Nah, he won’t tell me his name. He insists on seeing the Doc. Won’t deal with anyone else. Quite stroppy he is too. Says he knows she’s here.”
“Well, he’s wrong. Look, can’t you get rid of him?”
“He’s not going anywhere and he … Excuse me, sir. You can’t go through there! Sir, come back…shit, Jane he’s on his way up. Want me to call the Council Cops?”
Jane sighed heavily. Why on her watch? “No. It’s okay. I’ll head him off and get rid of him. Just call them and come quick if I hit my alarm. Okay?”
“Sure. You’re welcome to him. Loves himself a bit; right up himself if you know what I mean.”
Unfortunately Jane did know – without the girl’s colourful vocabulary.
She cast another quick glance at Kat. She hadn’t stirred, so Jane opened the door quietly and tiptoed out into the hallway. It was empty and there was no sound anywhere. She frowned. There were only two flights of stairs from the reception area, and even with the heavy carpeting she would have heard someone approaching. Unless . . .
Too late, she sensed the presence behind her. The cold shiver that ran down her spine told her before she felt the press of his cold hand on her shoulder, before she heard the seductive tone of his voice commanding her to do as he bid. Before she fell into the hypnotic trance that prevented her from pressing the red button on her personal alarm.
Michael Rabb leaned into Jane’s shoulder and whispered into her ear. Willing her to remember nothing of his visit, or of Lane and Kat’s earlier presence. She was to dismiss the young donor, telling her all was well. She would remember nothing. Especially, she would not remember him taking Kat away from the Sanctuary.
His seductive whispering caressed Jane’s subconsciousness and she responded to him invitingly, arching her back and murmuring, as she fell deeper and deeper under his influence. He kissed her on her neck, softly, enticingly. It would keep her enthralled in an erotic dream long enough for him to take Kat.
“Go,” he told her telepathically.
Jane remained motionless for several seconds, then walked towards the staircase and down into the hallway below.
The Proconsul opened the room door effortlessly and stepped inside. His vampire eyes penetrated the darkness immediately and came to rest over the sleeping Kat. His mouth, that had moments earlier been full of sensual promise, now held a hint of the brutality that he was capable of also. His eyes – once the darkest hazel – now shone a luminous yellow in the darkness, like toxic waste.
He lifted Kat roughly from her bed and she woke immediately. Her new vampire sight and senses alive with the night she pulled away from him, snarling at the restraint. With a swift movement of his hand he dug his long, manicured fingers into her temple and subdued her, claiming her mind for his own. Then he threw her over his shoulder with ease, as if she was nothing more than a silk scarf.
He opened the window with his free hand and stepped out onto the ledge and out into the breaking dawn.
Lane brought her MG to a silent halt outside a tall building, grey against the lilacs and yellows of dawn. It was in darkness except for the glow of light behind heavy curtains on the third floor. In its time it had been a school, a hotel, a government office building and more recently renovated in style to become a private home. Home to one of the wealthiest and most ruthless vampires that had set foot on British soil, who now held a prominent position within the government of the nation. Lane sensed for his presence and detected it, along with several young female energies, engaged in a variety of acts of indecency. Here was another that seemed untouchable by the Council, mainly because although his actions were despicable, they had not yet crossed the threshold of the Code in its strictest sense and human laws were not within her jurisdiction. She walked around the perimeter of the house, looking for the easiest route of entry. All the windows were closed but the lock on the rear door that led into the garden gave at her second push.
She entered the house and stood still, sniffing at the air, her hearing tuned into the conversation on the third floor – though conversation was not how she would term it. She shivered. Her own kind made her sick sometimes.
The atmosphere was heavy with marijuana smoke and coppery scent of fresh blood. She heard the distinct beating of three hearts, and smelled no essence of any death. At least the old man was still staying just inside the vampire law. She knew that he had not sensed her presence; too engrossed in his own deviance. She leapt to the first landing and listened. Then, in a split second, to the next and third before crashing through the door into what could have been a tasteful salon. Instead it harboured what had once been instruments of torture and an enormous bed. The three girls screamed in a chorus of fright and protest. He looked up at Lane and sneered at her.
“You need better security, Old Man. The lock on your back door is feeble.”
“Councillor Tribune. How nice of you to join us. Isn’t it nice, girls?”
“Enough, Minister. I’m here for information. In exchange for not reporting the death of one of these sweet young things to the Curia. Incidentally, just how young are they? Sixteen? No? Fifteen? Shame on you, Old Man. I wonder what the national press would make of it. They do seem to thrive on government sleaze these days.”
He rose into the air with an indignant cry and landed before her, face to face, his jaws wide open and his hands reaching for her throat, fangs down and ready for action. The girls huddled together, too terrified to move, all traces of drugs and suggestion gone from their brain in an instant.
Lane was too quick for him and overpowered him in an instant, throwing him onto his back and bringing down her elegant stiletto heel onto his throat, her right hand clutching the razor-sharp knife that she used for beheadings. He squirmed beneath her foot that stopped short of throttling him.
“Don’t even,” she said icily. “After what I’ve seen I may just take your goddamn head off anyway. So be nice.”
She released the pressure on his throat just enough for his larynx to work.
“What,” he rasped. “What the hell do you want from me? I’ve broken none of our laws and none of the girls is dead. I’ve enough power in the Cabinet and the Press for your threats to mean nothing.” Despite his arrogance his eyes remained focussed on Lane’s right hand.
“Dear me, you’re right, none of them are dead. Yet.”
“I don’t believe you. You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me,” she snapped, and increased the pressure on his throat, closing his windpipe and carotid arteries.
“I want to know the whereabouts of Andrei Marinescu. And don’t tell me you don’t know who I mean. I’ve seen you in the private rooms at the club. You disgust me. “
“How should I know where he is? I have no contact with him outside of the club.”
She bent forward and leaned into him, placing the knife above his heart. He whimpered.
“Wrong answer,” she hissed. The knife blade bit through the silk of his shirt and into his flesh, through muscle and sinew, down to the bone. She held it there.
The old vampire was writhing under her control now. “Wait. Wait. I may know something.”
“Better,” she snarled. “So, tell me. And if I don’t believe you, the next thing my knife hits will be your rotten heart before it slices it from your body.”
“There’s a house, in the Brecon Beacons. Only a few of us know of it. I was there once when Marinescu showed up briefly. He seemed to know his way around the place, as though he had been there many times.”
“Who owns this house?” she demanded.
“I don’t know.” The old vampire was clearly afraid.
Lane leaned into his chest hard and heard the crack of his ribs as the knife bit deeper.
“No!” he screamed. “I swear. I swear I don’t know who he is. He throws extravagant parties, inviting only a chosen few. I suspect it’s those of us that can be useful to him. But he never puts in an appearance himself. Always sends his apologies via his butler, welcoming us to his home and asking us to enjoy his hospitality. I swear it.”
“You will tell me now, mind to mind, how I find this place, and if for one second I sense you are trying to deceive me, I will kill you, without hesitation.”
As if to demonstrate, she pressed down on the knife until the tip of it rested against his heart wall.
She closed her eyes, never for an instant relinquishing her control over him, and probed his mind, seeing the country roads become lanes in the foothills of the Welsh mountains. She saw the house nestling among the pines and locked it into her memory.
She withdrew the knife from his chest but kept her heel hard against his throat. He laid still, eyes closed in healing mode. She turned her attention to the huddled girls. Her eyes blazed into their minds. “Get dressed,” she commanded silently. “Leave this place with no memory of what has taken place here. Never come back, but retain some fear; it may keep you safe in future. Now.”
There would be sub-zero temperatures in Hell before she allowed them to witness what was about to happen.
She watched them do her bidding without a word spoken between them but she felt their pain, and the pain and suffering of every young woman that had gone before, and her eyes welled with their tears. When they had left she bent once more to the old man. The ribs had begun to knit together again and the cut in his chest had stopped bleeding. She slipped a small case from her pocket and took out a loaded syringe, her intention to buy herself time. She wanted no warning given to Andrei or his unknown friend. She played with the idea that it may be Santorini, and shook her head. She wasn’t that lucky.
She looked down on the healing vampire and remembered the frightened girls. She took out the knife and bent low over him.
“To Hell with you. I’m going to kill you anyway, you bastard,” she hissed.
She gave him no mercy, cutting his heart out and decapitating him with the ease of experience. There was no hesitation.
And there was no regret.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The house stood in its architectural splendour in the backdrop of pine forests which clothed the foothills of the Brecon Beacons. Beyond it the wild mountains dominated everything, dark purple peaks against the lightening sky. A Welsh dawn had its own magic.
Nik had been unable to sleep, his mind and vampire body alive with new promise. He was no longer just another vampire who had to hide and prowl the midnight streets, taking what he could find. He was special; he had always felt it and now he knew it as fact. His father was highly respected and revered among the vampire community and he had been taken under the wing of a sublimely powerful and exciting being.
Santorini had promised him the world and, along the way, he was going to teach him the refinements and abilities that would one day make him, Nik, one of the greatest of his kind. Little wonder that sleep eluded him; even as the first streaks of the daylight stung his retinas, he could not sleep.
As if summoned by Nik’s restlessness, Santorini appeared silently at his bedside. He handed Nik a silver goblet.
“This will help you get the rest you need, and I have special blinds that will keep out the strongest rays of the sun at noon. I have to leave you for a while; I have an important meeting to attend. And when I return we will continue with your new experiences.”
Nik looked into the goblet, unsure of what to find there.
“It’s a simple sleeping draught, Nik. You need to rest. By the time I return you will have slept and be refreshed and ready for the night.”
Nik swallowed the amber liquid. “When do we go to Greece?” he asked.
“Soon, my young friend. Soon, you begin the journey to your father and to your destiny. Before then I have a great deal to teach you, to prepare you for what your future holds for you.”
“Why can’t I go with you today?”
Santorini clicked his tongue impatiently. “Because I said so. And that is reason enough. I do not intend to explain myself to you, now or ever. If you wish to continue under my patronage then you will respect my wishes and obey my instructions without question. I trust we have an understanding?”
Whatever emotion raged inside Nik at being treated as an erring schoolboy yet again, he kept in check; he was wise enough to gauge, quite correctly, that Santo’s arrogance was bred of a deeper power than Nik could even begin to comprehend.
He nodded sullenly at Santo.
“Whilst I am gone, you will sleep, with the aid of the draught you have just swallowed, and when you wake I will have returned or will be about to return. If the latter is the case, please make yourself comfortable and use whatever you wish. My home is yours now, Nik.”
His eyes penetrated deep into the boy’s mind, burning, searching. He appeared satisfied at what he saw there, and with a sudden movement appeared at the open door. He turned and nodded once at Nik, and was gone.
*
The windows were heavily veiled against the midday sun and there was an air of cool gloom pervading its walls. The men present had arrived wearing dark glasses and their faces lightly glistened, betraying heavy sunscreen.
The Patriarch showed little sign of emotion; it was his way and it was the trait that made him popular with some and frustrated others. It was more than a century s
ince he was elected Patriarch of the Vampire Council and in his time he had seen change coming; now was the time to hand over the reins to another. He had made his decision and made it known to the senior members of the Curia.
“Patriarch,” one of the visitors said, “You must surely be aware of the unrest within our world, indeed within the very Council itself. We live in very different times from the days when the Code was written. How can we expect to be able to live by it, when all around us there is bloodshed and violence, and our food supply is tainted and diseased? The Code is outdated and has to be revised.”
“I think you move too swiftly. The Code has enabled us to live alongside humans undetected for many hundreds of years. To change it will mean exposure and exposure will mean death – the deaths of thousands of humans and vampires alike. There is a need for caution.”
“These humans are intent on their own destruction, they need no help from us. And what then? Where does our food source come from then? We have tolerated your ‘caution’ for too long. Unless we act now, our kind will be driven into oblivion along with them. If they are going to disappear anyway, we should do what we can to protect ourselves. We must. Our survival depends upon it. You should know that there has been a vote within the Curia and it was unanimous. As from this moment, you are no longer Patriarch of the Council. I am to give you notice of your dismissal and to inform you that I have been elected temporarily as Patriarch until such time as the full Council can convene for a formal election. We have need of younger blood.”
“Election? Revolt is nearer to the truth. Led and fed by whom? I have no doubt regarding your part in this. Very well, then here is my reply. I have no intention of standing down as Patriarch until formally asked to do so by the full Council. Until then, you may consider yourself as operating outside of our vampire laws. I shall issue orders for your apprehension to the Tribunes. Now, if that is all, I would ask you leave.”
“You leave me no choice. It has been agreed that I may remove you in any way that is necessary. I deem this necessary and, it is why the Prelate is also present.”