The Iscariot Sanction

by Mark Latham

  ‘The Blood Royal are not my kind!’ he snapped. ‘Have you heard nothing I have said? They are enslavers. They are debauched tyrants. They live as though they are Dark Age kings, with harems and slaves.’

  ‘Do you not have slaves?’ She waved a hand around the room.

  De Montfort’s thin smile faltered for a moment.

  ‘My hunters are not slaves. They are members of a warrior caste so ancient that their forebears saw empires rise and fall. They are bound to me—and I to them—through ties of duty and honour that you could not possibly understand.’

  ‘And the Majestics?’

  ‘They are paid, they are protected. Servants, if you will. But I keep no courtesans, nor debase members of my own race to attend my every whim. You shall see that side of wampyr society for yourself, soon enough. The Nameless King is most eager to meet you.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You represent more than just a means to bargain power from the humans. You are to be his latest plaything, his chief concubine. A true wampyr, untainted by centuries of inbreeding, and capable of giving birth to a royal child without dying in the process. A prize indeed.’

  Lillian scraped her chair away from the table and looked about. With all of her training, could she kill the guard and overpower de Montfort?

  ‘No, you could not,’ said de Montfort, reading her thoughts. ‘There are others loyal to me standing guard outside this room. And if you were caught within Scarrowfall by the King’s servants, you would suffer the fate I have described and more. He would think you part of a conspiracy to overthrow him, and make you suffer for the rest of your immortal life. If you will extend even a little trust to me, Lillian, I will set you free, and your brother, too, and end the dark curse that the Nameless King has brought upon the land.’

  Lillian weighed up her options and found she had very few. She did not relinquish the idea that she could fight, regardless of the consequences, and that thought brought a flicker of… something… to de Montfort’s stony features. Fear, perhaps. Or so she hoped.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door, and a smartly dressed human servant entered. This one did not look as broken as the others Lillian had encountered; indeed, he looked as fine an under-butler as might be found in any grand country house.

  ‘My lord, the guests are arriving. The King shall join the festivities at ten o’clock.’

  De Montfort waved the man away, and only when the door was firmly closed did he speak again.

  ‘The timing of your arrival is most propitious. Among our kind, the feast of All Hallows is a sacred one, though its celebration is anything but sombre. It begins upon the stroke of midnight, and the revelry extends for a full day, until even the wampyr are too tired to continue their debauchery. Tonight of all nights you will see the Nameless King for what he really is, and if ever there was an argument for helping me, I am certain it shall be made for me.’

  ‘I still cannot see how helping you will benefit the Crown,’ said Lillian. ‘Why trust one devil and not the other?’

  ‘The Crown is hardly a concern for immortals such as us,’ said de Montfort. ‘And less so since the death of your stone-hearted queen.’

  Lillian could not contain a gasp, but knew it was a reflex, an echo of a feeling from her human life. She felt little if anything at the news, though the suddenness of it, and the repercussions such an event would surely have, left her mind reeling.

  ‘Ah, you did not know about the Queen? That was remiss of me; I had assumed your brother had told you. I am afraid it was Victoria’s attempt to flee London that rather forced my hand—I still have some explaining to do about that, I can tell you. The most unfortunate part of the whole affair is that Kate Fox was travelling with the Queen at the time. None of us could have predicted the effect her death would have upon the Rift.’

  ‘The Riftborn… the shadow?’ Lillian said, a creeping dread taking hold of her.

  ‘Yes. It seems she was harbouring a quite terrible secret. London could go the same way as New York now that she’s dead.’

  Lillian remembered the stories in the academy of Margaret Fox, and what had happened in New York. The effects of those events were still being felt six years later, and now, if Kate Fox’s death had caused similar chaos, the balance of world power would undoubtedly shift again. Lillian wondered if that truly were accidental, for it seemed to play precisely into the hands of the Knights Iscariot, who alone did not fear the Riftborn.

  ‘Oh, but we do,’ said de Montfort, trespassing into Lillian’s thoughts again. ‘Not for the same reason that humans fear them, naturally, but we have no desire to live in a world of war and destruction. We are as much a part of this world as humans.’

  ‘And yet your schemes have damned it. By betraying your ruler, you have killed ours, and consigned the world to Hell.’ Lillian spoke coolly, and wondered if de Montfort truly could not see the damage he had done.

  ‘Again, you speak of betrayal—and yet your own beloved monarchy is guilty of worse.’

  Lillian frowned.

  ‘I mean Prince Leopold,’ de Montfort said. ‘Did you really think the prince could be so easily abducted if he did not wish it? That his guards would really turn against him after a lifetime of loyal service? That the plan to treat with us aboard the royal train, passing through our strongholds, was a sensible one? No, the prince influenced his mother, and in turn his mother influenced your father, and so it all came to pass.’

  ‘Why?’ Lillian pushed her chair away now, and stood at the table, fists clenched, drawing a low, menacing click from the hunter.

  ‘Leopold is a haemophiliac,’ said de Montfort, waving a hand to dismiss Lillian’s burst of anger. ‘His condition cannot be cured. Except by me… specifically, by the Iscariot Sanction. To have vigour, and immortality—these things are worth more to the prince than sovereignty. Even the news of his mother’s death has not swayed him from his path. Yes, I can tell by your expression that you understand at last. You were an experiment, a test subject. The Nameless King believes you to be of his own blood, gifted to me to further my experiments. As such, he believes he has total control over your mind and body, and will keep you as a curiosity, to take pride of place in his harem. He wishes to repeat the process upon Prince Leopold, creating a trueborn son who is heir to both human and vampire thrones. Leopold will be a puppet, nothing more, but he believes that together they will rule over this hellish new world of ours for all eternity. Unless, of course, we stop them.’

  ‘We? It is you who has paved the way for this madness!’

  ‘No!’ de Montfort shouted, a flash of indignation in his eyes. ‘I did what I did to secure my freedom. The Nameless King seeks to use my scientific breakthrough in order to conquer the world. This is the curse of all the greatest minds of science, is it not? We create gifts that can change the world for the better, and those in power wrest them away to wage war.’

  Lillian thought for a moment of Tesla, forging weapons at Cherleten’s behest. She said nothing, and only hoped she had not betrayed the Serbian or her Order with her thoughts.

  ‘The Iscariot Sanction shall prove not to be the King’s making,’ de Montfort raged on, ‘but his undoing. I have set a plan in motion that will destroy him.’

  Lillian saw clearly that de Montfort actually believed his own lies; he had convinced himself that his goals were noble.

  ‘And what is your plan?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you not see it? Do you really think that you were plucked out at random, from the many thousands of possible candidates to receive the greatest gift ever bestowed upon a human? No, my dear Lillian, I chose you. Prince Leopold helped to ensure that you were on that train, that you would fall into my hands. I chose you.’

  Lillian sat back in her chair, mortified at the magnitude of the betrayal, and resentful of any part she would yet have to play. She had one more question, and even though she knew the answer, she had to ask it.

  ‘Why? What did you choose me for?�
� she asked, her voice almost a whisper.

  De Montfort leaned back in his chair, his smile widening.

  ‘To kill the Nameless King. Why else?’

  TWENTY-ONE

  De Montfort and his hunters led Lillian from his private chambers, through wide corridors lined with grotesque portraits, down sweeping staircases and along crumbling passages. When at last they reached a large, ironbound door, through which strains of orchestral music and excited chatter drifted, de Montfort stopped.

  ‘Remember, Lillian, the blood of the elders flows in your veins. The Nameless King cannot intrude upon your thoughts, but he believes that he can control you all the same. You will hear instructions in your mind—they will be from me, interpreting the wishes of the King so that your charade might go undiscovered. Obey me instantly, and without question, until the time is right to strike.’

  ‘And when will that be?’ Lillian asked.

  ‘I believe that you are the expert in combat and assassination. You may choose the time and the method, as you see fit.’

  ‘And weapons?’

  ‘Though I am certain you will trust me once you have seen the King, I am not so certain of your allegiance right now. To arm you here would be foolish of me… I am sure you understand. Besides, if you are searched, my work shall be undone, and I cannot have that. No—you must find your own way. But remember, he is strong; stronger than any of us. That he believes he can control you utterly may give him pause, and you can use that against him. But you must either sever his head from his body, or burn him to ashes. Anything less may allow his survival, and as long as he lives, his servants will take heart. If he receives the final death, then my circle of brave knights shall do the rest.’

  Lillian scoffed at that. His scarified attendants were more like the creatures of myth that ‘brave knights’ would quest to slay.

  ‘And my brother?’ she asked.

  ‘John Hardwick is being held by the King’s loyal serfs, in the dungeon. When the King is dead, those serfs will be of no consequence. You have my word we shall free him.’

  Lillian thought on this, and nodded. She still harboured a desire to kill de Montfort too, and he doubtless knew it. But for now, she would have to play along.

  De Montfort smiled his thin, sly smile, and his servants opened the door. Beyond was a long, broad corridor, draped either side in velvet curtains and tall tapestries in crimson, purple and black. Fires burned in tall iron braziers, and hundreds of candles burned in a row of massive chandeliers. At the end of the corridor, men and women—or, rather, vampires—filed from rooms and passages to enter a grand hall, from which the sound of music came, louder now; a string orchestra playing melancholic, discordant tunes. The guests wore sinister costume masks and garish, formal clothing styled after a bygone age. They swirled about in motions too fluid and graceful for mortals, their otherworldly presence and glittering eyes betraying them as monsters dressed as men. It was a picture of bourgeois decadence, as if Bosch had lived to paint a nightmarish Venetian ball.

  De Montfort placed a hand on Lillian’s arm.

  ‘I warn you,’ he said quietly, ‘there are such sights in here as to overwhelm your sensibilities. The humans who attend the Feast of All Hallows have seen it before, or else have found themselves on the dinner menu. As for the wampyr… we have found, over the centuries, that only in excess can we feel anything. And no one in the world can imagine excess quite like us. Do not quail, do not flinch. They expect you to be one of us; show no fear, and steel your mind.’

  Lillian nodded, although she did not think she could truly feel revulsion or fear any longer; she almost hoped to be proven wrong.

  ‘Oh, and put this on,’ de Montfort added, handing Lillian a small velvet eye-mask studded with glittering crystals.

  Lillian donned it as de Montfort tied an identical one around his own head.

  ‘Now, we are ready. Come, Lillian, it is time to meet the master of Scarrowfall.’

  * * *

  John dreamed of fire, as he so often did. He dreamed of the night his sister had run away across the fields and had almost died. Except in the dream she did not drown, but was attacked by a vast, fire-breathing dragon with scales of gold and red and a maw that could swallow a man whole.

  John fled the dragon, but his father faced it. He returned home with Lillian in his arms, stepping through a wall of flame as though it were nothing, while the wails of the great beast echoed in the night. In the dream, Lillian died. She always died. Their father looked down at John sorrowfully, and shook his head as John reached out to Lillian’s cold hand. A hand blackened by fire.

  John woke to the dark cell. The low grunt of John’s inhuman cellmate drifted from the shadows; it was there still, watching and waiting. Another sound joined it, from somewhere above John’s head. The sound of scraping on stone. He tensed; was there another of the creatures in the cell? Was it climbing above him like a bloated spider, waiting to pounce?

  ‘Hardwick! For pity’s sake, are you there?’

  The voice was a harsh whisper, and had the urgency of someone who had been trying for some time to attract the attention of another.

  ‘Smythe?’ John hissed back, craning his neck to look at the small window.

  ‘Look, we don’t have much time. I’m going to get you out of here, but you need to hold on until help comes, do you understand?’

  It occurred to John that he might still be dreaming. It seemed singularly unlikely that Smythe had escaped the vampires back in London, or indeed tracked him down here. But then again, the surgeon was one of the few agents who knew where John was likely to be taken, and if the Order still functioned following the attack, Sir Toby would surely be hell-bent on revenge against the Knights Iscariot.

  ‘There’s no time, Smythe. Get me out of here now!’ John replied, heedless of whether or not he was whispering to a hallucination.

  ‘Hardwick, just hold hard. If I break you out now I risk raising the alarm. This place is swarming with guards, and worse. Every vampire in Europe is here tonight. Pickering is escorting a fleet along the coast. When the guns start firing, I’ll come back for you.’

  ‘I’m not alone down here, Smythe.’

  There was a pause. When Smythe replied, it was more cautiously. ‘Who’s with you?’

  ‘One of those things,’ John said. ‘I don’t know how long I have. I don’t know how long Lillian has.’ It felt somehow wrong to use his sister’s name as leverage against Smythe, but it was true nonetheless.

  Another pause. And then, ‘Hold on, someone’s coming.’

  John strained his ears, and thought he heard footsteps on gravel, though very far off. When that sound had passed, he spent what seemed like an eternity listening to silence, until he thought Smythe must have either left, or he’d dreamed him up.

  ‘Hardwick?’

  John breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I haven’t gone anywhere. How could I?’

  ‘I cannot jeopardise the plan, but I can arm you. Do you understand?’

  ‘I’m not an imbecile, Smythe.’

  ‘Very well. See if you can’t get loose, and then find somewhere to lie low. Don’t cause a scene. We attack at dawn, and nothing must alert the Knights Iscariot to our plans.’

  ‘Very well, but please get on with it.’

  Chains rattled, and the ghoul’s low growl became a more agitated snarl. John swore. Seconds later, the sound of scraping at the window-ledge overhead was swiftly followed by a dull thud on the floor. Then a second thud, slightly further away.

  ‘Sorry, old boy, I think that last one went astray. Look now, I have to go. I’ve tarried too long already.’

  ‘I understand,’ John whispered back.

  ‘Good luck, Hardwick. See you on the other side.’

  Silence descended once more, but for the snarling from somewhere off to John’s left, accompanied by the bobbing of those baleful eyes. John patted the floor around himself for whatever Smythe had thrown. When it was not immediately apparent, he
risked moving about as far as his chains would allow, searching desperately in the darkness, alert to every soft clink of chains in case the ghoul should rush at him. Only when his ankle grew raw with the effort of straining at his manacle did John finally get a fingertip to a cloth bundle. He stretched out as far as was possible, holding his breath.

  His fingers had scarcely closed around the bundle when the creature sprang from the darkness. Jaws snapped at his face; a claw swept a hair’s breadth from his hand.

  John rolled away, pushing himself across the flagstones as the creature strained at its bonds, its growls becoming a pained gargle as its stocks bit into its throat. It let out a shrill cry of frustration, and John heard its chains scrape as it retreated once again.

  He relaxed only when he had returned to his original position, his back pressed against the rough stone wall, clutching the bundle in his arms like a baby. That thought made him remember Hetty, and the recollection stung. He had failed the girl, and he could only guess what they had done to her after they had dragged her from the cell. He thought of Lillian, and wondered if her fate would be the same. These things mattered to him more even than his own life.

  With numb fingers he unwrapped the bundle. There was another package somewhere else in the darkness, but he could not risk scrabbling around after that just yet, with the beast so near. He half hoped to find a gun. Instead, his hand felt a small knife, a book of matches, and a thin strip of leather, which John unrolled to reveal a set of lockpicks. John flexed his numb fingers and sighed. He slid two picks from the leather roll, took a breath, and set to work.

  * * *

  Lillian was led by the arm through a vast chamber, where pairs of pale-skinned dancers whirled across a polished floor, never pausing for a moment, and never once impeding her advance towards the large dais ahead. Lillian spotted humans mixing freely with vampires; subservient, letting their blood or bowing and scraping to their monstrous lords. She had grown used to her preternatural senses now; around all the vampires was a dull amber glow, which she had almost come to ignore. This aura was more volatile and colourful around Majestics, while humans emitted no trace of such phenomena.