"Hear hear," Sir Godfrey murmured, and tapped his hand on the sarcophagus, filling the chamber with the clang of his gold signet ring.
Sanah closed her almond eyes, revealing on the outside of the lids henna markings that looked like eyes. She turned the eternal sight away from Mamoru, raised her face, and softly began to pray.
Two mornings later, Senator Clark appeared on the reviewing balcony of Victoria Palace in Alexandria. He carried Prince Simon in his arms like a loving father. Prince Simon's actual loving father was not present, it having been decided that Emperor Constantine should stay out of the public eye to highlight his concern for the continuing gravity of the situation. The crowd was exalted by the sight of Prince Simon alive and well. And they were stirred by the tableau of Senator Clark as rescuer of imperial fortunes. Now they sensed the vampires would be sorry they had ever resorted to such a cowardly act as attacking the imperial children.
The night that had looked so dark to the Alexandrians now dawned brighter as the rays of the sun sparkled off Clark's brass buttons. After fifteen minutes of roaring adulation, Clark carried Prince Simon inside and deposited him on the marble floor without another thought. The boy naturally sought the side of Colonel Anhalt, who lingered in the shadows of the vast corridor.
Clark said to the properly attired prime minister, Lord Kelvin, "I want two cruisers-forty-four guns at least, but primarily with bombing capabilities. They must be fast. I want them to carry five com panies of marines experienced in vampire fighting. No household guards. Persian units if available; I hear good things about those boys campaigning around the Caspian. And I want them ready to move in two days. We've wasted too much time already."
Kelvin didn't blink because that would betray the shock he felt. He looked up at the broad American shoulders towering above him. "Why?"
"Because I'm going to bloody the enemy. I want those monsters worrying about me and what I might do." The senator clamped a cigar between his teeth. He held a flame to the end and drew heavily. "My wedding is only a month away, Mr. Prime Minister. It's high time I killed some vampires, or I might not get to walk down the aisle."
CHAPTER
T WAS A blustery evening when Greyfriar saw a few lights shining in the familiar skyline of Edinburgh with the sharp edge of Arthur's Seat on one end and the brooding castle on the other. He could tell it was cold from the many plumes of inky smoke rising and the cloying ash in the air.
He had made his way swiftly north from France in only a few days. Fortunately the sharp winds of the North Sea had allowed him to fly. Even in a brisk wind, it was difficult to accommodate his heavy sword and firearms, plus the rucksack containing his massive and precious book.
Greyfriar settled to the ground several miles from the center of Edinburgh. He removed the smoked eyeglasses and the cloth that masked his face. He rolled his weapons into his cape and carried the bundle as he walked toward his city. Most people were inside because it was dark, and they craved the protection and warmth of a fire. The peasants who saw the swordsman greeted him with obvious affection. One offered up his lone loaf of bread, but Greyfriar waved it aside politely.
Greyfriar made his way up the rough cobblestones through the open gate of the great castle. There were no lights here. And no fire. He opened a small wooden door set in a massive stone wall and went inside. The sounds of movement echoed throughout the rambling castle, and a strange stampede of soft padding came closer.
From out of the darkness a herd of cats appeared. They galloped toward him and crashed about his ankles like a furred wave. The mass of yellows and blacks and whites slipped around his legs. He reached down and stroked several of them, even though he could barely feel their small bodies beneath his fingertips.
Then a man entered the room, stepping awkwardly through the flood of cats. The man was tall and wore a heavy brocade shirt with a red-and-green kilt, an old regional fashion. "Did it go well, my lord?"
"No, Baudoin. I failed." Greyfriar opened the rucksack and removed the book. He inspected it for damage.
"She's dead then?"
"No. Flay took her."
"Flay?" Baudoin's face twisted in revulsion.
Greyfriar smiled slightly. "And I had my chance at Flay, but failed that too."
The servant glanced accusingly at the bundle of blood-caked weapons. "You were using those, then?"
"Of course."
Baudoin held up a hand, and his fingernails lengthened into sharp little daggers. "Next time use these."
"The whole point is not to use those." The swordsman laughed as he pulled off his gloves and tossed them aside, adding casually, "The princess killed some of us."
"What? How?"
Greyfriar stared into the distance, remembering the sight. "With a sword. It was perfect. A thing of beauty."
"Just luck, most likely." The servant placed the swords and gun belt on a long wooden table.
"Perhaps. She seemed surprised too." The swordsman sank gratefully into a chair.
Baudoin hung the mask and long grey cape on a peg. "You know where she is, then?"
"No doubt in London. With Cesare."
Baudoin busied himself cleaning the sword to cover his sudden agitation. After a moment, he asked, "So what will you do?"
"Go there."
"And what happens when Cesare has you killed?"
Greyfriar laughed again from his place at the table perusing the anatomy book. He had to be very careful not to tear the pages when he turned them.
Baudoin turned from the basin where he scrubbed awkwardly at the dried blood on the rapier. "That's not an answer, my lord." He struggled to grip the weapon. The sharp blade sliced his deadened fingers, but he gave the gashes only the barest glance of annoyance.
The swordsman grunted noncommittally and continued looking at the amazing plates of dissected vampires. He held up his own hands with their clawed nails and tried to imagine the intricately drawn network of tendons and muscles under his pale skin.
He said to his servant, "Bring some water to clean the blood from me. I have smelled like a human for too long." It was a tedious method of masking his true scent from other vampires, but effective.
Baudoin huffed with disdain and tossed the sword down with as much dissatisfied vigor as he dared given how much his master loved the weapon. Then he left the room, hissing at cats scampering around his feet.
After Greyfriar washed the caked bloody disguise off his body, he returned to the study of the book, unaware of the passage of any time until he heard a throat cleared above him. Baudoin stood with a teenage girl. The girl's eyes were averted to her feet. She trembled.
Baudoin said, "My lord. Dinner."
The swordsman felt a surge of hunger when he saw the young girl, but he fought the urge to leap to his feet. He closed the book and shoved it aside. He stood slowly and said to her, "Don't be afraid. I won't harm you. "
The girl nodded, but didn't look up.
"Do you know who I am?"
The girl nodded again.
Greyfriar said, "Tell me."
"Prince Gareth," she whispered with quivering lips.
"Correct. And you know I am your protector. No vampires prey here. And not one of your people has preceded you into this castle and not left alive. You know that too?" She was new to him, perhaps new to his kingdom as well. It wasn't unusual for refugees to seek out his land. There were tales told of safety in Scotland, but it was another matter to stand before a thing of legend and pray the rumors were true.
The girl swallowed, too terrified to respond.
Prince Gareth moved close to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She shuddered, but stayed on her feet. The swordsman signaled his servant to withdraw.
Baudoin said, "Her brother was delicious. I just dined from him. He's waiting for her below."
"Get out."
The servant smiled smugly and backed out.
"You may choose," Gareth said to the girl in a quiet voice. He removed a steel dirk from his
belt. "I can make a small incision with this. Or not."
The girl didn't respond. She breathed harshly through her nose. Eyes shut tight. She was so frightened, Gareth could take no pleasure in this. Sometimes his meals were more engaging. They knew they wouldn't be killed, and some even seemed to relish the honor, or at least the duty they were doing for their lord. Any blood provider was free of obligation for a year. He had even had pleasant conversations with some of them, and they had volunteered to return. He would always refuse for fear of acquiring too much of a taste for them.
Gareth decided to feed quickly and send the girl on her way. He sliced her quickly with the knife and drank. The familiar urge welled up in him. The delicious warm blood slid over his sensitive tongue. He could taste the knowledge of her. Aside from her crippling fear, which gave her blood a pleasant tang, she was quite healthy. And she was only a day away from being fertile, so her blood was very rich. He craved to know more, to learn from every last drop of her. He would feel her most in the paroxysms of the middle flow pumping hard into his mouth as her pounding heart fought to keep her emptying body alive. She would then collapse with her life, and he would relish the delicious liquid driz zling out as she died. That final trickle of memories and hopes over his lips would be the sweetest.
Gareth suddenly saw an image of Princess Adele drooping lifeless in the bony hands of Cesare. He saw his brother moan and his eyes roll in his head as he mouthed the last congealing blood from the princess's still-throbbing throat. Adele's lips twitched, calling an unheard name.
Gareth pulled his face away from the red incision and clamped his hand to stanch the flow. "Baudoin!"
The servant scuttled in and led the unsteady girl away.
Gareth plunged his hand into the dirty water in the basin and washed off the girl's blood. He seized the rapier with his wet hand and squeezed, relishing the hardness of the hilt, then sat heavily and felt the familiar onslaught of empty rage that always followed one of his limp half feedings. The hot, bloated warmth that came from draining a meal was a distant memory to him. There was no pleasure like it. A complete feeding made for a satisfied stupor that left the senses stunned and delivered the feeder into remorseless slumber.
Gareth had not slept so well for nearly a century. Not since the war and the break with his father. And certainly not since Greyfriar had appeared.
CHAPTER
EN EN CLARK STOOD on the quarterdeck of USS Ranger and watched Mr. Montoya, chief meteorologist, approach trailing a long stream of paper tape. Clark saw a smile on Montoya's face and he relaxed.
"Much improved," Montoya reported with a touch of pride, as if he controlled the weather, not just reported it. "High tomorrow should be over eighty. Winds light."
"Thank you, Chief." Not optimum, but as well as could be expected here this time of year. When fighting vampires, the warmer the better. And light winds cut the creatures' air mobility. Clark turned to the commander of Ranger, Captain Root. "Signal the fleet. We attack Bordeaux tomorrow at thirteen hundred." As the signal lights informed Persepolis and Canterbury, Clark went below to prepare.
Prior to departure from Alexandria, military commanders had debated tactics. The Americans had come equipped with samples of some of their newest weapons, including shroud gas bombs that could envelop vampires and deprive them of natural advantages of preternatural senses of sight and smell, and blood gas that mimicked the scent of blood and was used for misdirection. Clark argued against using the gas in this case. He would open the operation with several solid firebombing runs over Bordeaux, intending to blast the town into rubble, to burn it to the ground along with the clan that inhabited it.
In his spartan cabin on Ranger, the senator studied old maps of the Bordeaux area, confirming yet again the brilliance of his planning. The vampires of Bordeaux were a minor offshoot of the Paris clan, small in number, perhaps only two hundred. This clan was not a major military power. They were not the authors of the attack of Ptolemy. They did not have Princess Adele.
Clark didn't need her to be there. He just needed vampires to be there. They needed to know that he would respond to provocation with force. Massive. Overwhelming. Force.
The senator had fought vampires too many times to be awestruck by their mystery and lore. Those unfamiliar with vampires frequently went into battle already mesmerized by fairy tales, and it was typical to be stunned when confronted by the creatures' preternatural physical abilities. But ultimately vampires fought like animals, driven by instinct and conquering by cunning and prowess. Against a disciplined and wellarmed force, these monsters once thought unbeatable could be destroyed. Clark had done it. Five years ago, he had led the army that drove them from St. Louis. Of course, the next winter the vampires returned and took back the city, but by then Clark's myth had been made and could not be unmade.
This mission would be the first tile in a new mosaic of his legend. The kidnapping of Princess Adele, or the "Ptolemy Disaster," had come as a surprise and had thrown Clark's plans into disarray. Still, the senator was a man who made obstacles into challenges and challenges into legends. This would be the greatest yet. He would cut a bloody swathe to rescue his bride. Times were changing, and the pendulum was swinging back toward humanity. Soon New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Munich, and all the rest would be free. The vampires would be annihilated, or at least driven underground to exist as the inconsequential parasites they had been for millennia before.
This would be the first battle of the Great War. The history books would read "The Battle of Bordeaux was the opening blow struck by humanity to retake the Earth. Senator Clark led the victorious allied forces in a brilliant audacious strike." With thoughts of glory in his head, thoughts he had nurtured his entire life, the senator drifted off into his usual deep comfortable sleep.
The next day, he was well rested when the time came. His American frigate led the two Equatorian ships out of the light clouds, venting buoyants rapidly and taking in sail as fast as possible. Chief Montoya's science and art were dead-on. The air was warm and the wind was still. Only a few vampires were aloft in the sunshine. At the sight of the warships some of the creatures sluggishly drifted away. Others dropped to the crumbling town below, no doubt to warn their fellows.
As Ranger veered hard alee, the Equatorian cruisers opened their keel ports and made a slow bombing run, laying stacks of incendiaries on the town. Flames sprouted in the predatory shadows of the two warships.
Soon a swarm of vampires rose in the light air. Some used the updraft from the fires, but others were covered in flames and soon spiraled down like burnt embers. A group of vampires tacked for Ranger, which wallowed low without sail. Gatlings at the rail and in nests aloft swung out. Cranks turned and the guns roared, sending a wall of steel into the drifting vampires, pounding their feather-light bodies, shoving them back, and ripping some into pieces.
Senator Clark gripped the quarterdeck rail and waved a gloved hand in a circle, indicating he wanted another bombing run. Flags went up on the yards to signal the squadron. The Equatorians came around smartly and passed over Bordeaux again, dropping line after line of bombs. The old town erupted in flames and smoke. Dilapidated buildings burst into fire and crumbled to pieces. Small figures scrambled through the havoc; vampire or human, it was impossible to tell from the decks of the attacking ships.
Senator Clark drew a hand across his throat, and the signals for bombing came down. The Equatorians drew off as Ranger dropped to near treetop level leeward of the smoke roiling from the city. He raised an open hand and the bugler sounded "Lines Away." Boarding cables dropped, and Clark's Rangers took positions at the gunwales between the smoking Gatlings. Clark seized his own line and raised a gloved fist. The bugler sounded "Charge!" and his boys plunged over the side.
Clark plummeted toward the green earth far below his feet. He loosened his grip on the clamp to fall faster; he intended to be first down. The wind whipped through his clothes and pounded in his ears. It was like flying. Just like the va
mpires. He relished the brutal irony of attacking them from the air. It made the killing sweeter.
Black shapes circled in the sooty sky. A figure loomed up in front of Clark, scrabbling with its claws as he slammed against it with his shoulder. The vampire spun away above him. Clark scanned the air beneath him and breathed with relief to see no other creatures moving toward him. But he heard a faint choked scream over the rush of the wind and strained his head around just in time to see one of his men clawed from his drop cable.
Clark felt rather than saw the earth coming up; his drop timing was impeccable. He couldn't help grinning with anticipation as he squeezed the clamp to slow himself. His feet touched down, and he pulled pistol and glowing saber to cover his boys.
Commandos landed and quickly formed ranks, unslinging their gaspowered Winchester carbines and kneeling in defensive formations. Clark had no intention of moving a step closer to burning Bordeaux. Between the Americans and the outskirts of town lay a decrepit orchard in which dark figures darted from ragged pear tree to ragged pear tree, lurking among the fresh green leaves and grey boughs. The Rangers waited, guns poised, eyeing the trees. When the enemy came, they would have to cross two hundred yards of open ground with no cover.
Clark paced and patted men on their shoulders, making heroic small talk. His sharp eyes caught the creatures gathering behind the distant brambles. The vampires watched from the shadows, showing more restraint than normal. Typically they would have rushed headlong at the humans. The Americans couldn't stand here forever; the imperials might get the glory of cleaning out Bordeaux.
Clark felt an unusual pinch of worry and checked the position of the sun. He had barely two hours of maximum temperature. His meteorologist had predicted a cool breezy evening. Surely there was no way the vampires could know this, but if the creatures did wait to attack, once the sun set, they would have all the advantages.
The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire, Book 1) by Clay & Susan Griffith;Clay Griffith;Susan Griffith Page 10