Without hesitation she trailed McCaw and stepped into the chilly darkness within the cave.
Boarded up in the years prior to the current hybrid occupation, the cavern had since been opened and its tunnel spiraled through the rock towards the castle. Steps had been molded into the base of the passage, its walls and curved ceiling smooth yet cold to the touch. The aroma of fungi and wet rock filled the corridor. A thick obscurity settled in the lightless tunnel but the hybrids’ nocturnal vision allowed them to navigate the sloping corridor with ease.
“Nearly there,” McCaw called over his shoulder, his voice rippling down the cavernous tunnel in echoing waves.
Apprehension curled into a tighter ball in her intestines, and Tamara willed calm to find a way into her emotions. She and Cain were meant to be equals, to sit at counsel together and rule over the clan with an even distribution of power. She’d never been able to trust Cain however, not since the moment she met him, and with Reginald Bowers no longer offering a guiding hand the unwelcome feeling of isolation crept over her shoulders like the sickening touch of a cold-hearted killer.
The cavern leveled off and ahead, faintly in the darkness, a sliver of light cut the obscurity. Three steps led to a heavy wooden door, and a light jangling echoed down the passage when McCaw fished a ring of keys from his pocket. In response, the heavy breathing of McCaw’s struggling assistants traveled up the cavern to meet her.
Light flooded the cave, the groan of ancient hinges amplified within the enclosed space.
“This way, your highness,” McCaw repeated. Without waiting for her, he stepped into the castle.
Tamara inhaled a deep breath of damp rock, its tang tinted by smells drifting from the castle: an aroma of centuries-old history and aged furniture. The breath failed to calm her. She knew where McCaw’s loyalties lay; no doubt the two hybrids climbing the passage behind her also offered their allegiance to Cain. She’d hoped that due to the clan’s precarious situation she would find support and comfort in the presence of her own kind, but Tamara had never felt more alone.
Even amongst her kinfolk it had become survival of the fittest and she wasn’t sure if she had any strength left for the fight to come.
* * *
Anger surged through his system and although Simon Cain could easily control his transformations he was having a hard job quelling his rage. Last night’s events had brought him the most troubling news yet: thousands of hybrids slaughtered across the continent, the clubs and locales used for their breeding program shut down, in all probability for good. No one saw it coming, each devastating attack occurring without warning, undetectable like spores of a plague drifting on swirling air currents.
The swiftness of the ambushes, coupled with the staggering loss of hybrid life, appalled him, but what galled Cain the most was that after Tamara Wyatt implemented the breeding colonies she’d failed to foresee the likelihood of vampire and werewolf infiltration. None of the locations were fitted with early warning systems, nor did they contain companies of guarding soldiers. The colonies were open and bare; their throats exposed.
Cain feared the clan would not be able to recover from such a demoralizing loss of their numbers.
Tamara had underestimated their enemy; had undermanned the breeding sites—she would pay dearly for her neglect.
Unable to wait patiently for her arrival, Cain paced in the castle’s study, oblivious to the warming rays of sunshine flooding the room through arched windows set at shoulder height in the walls. He locked his hands behind his back and allowed fingernails to lengthen into talons and dig into his palms. He wanted to transform into his more powerful figure and tear Tamara to shreds when she entered the room, but he had to make a show for the clan’s surviving members. Scattered and in disarray, they needed to gather at a secure location where they could regroup for the next stage of this eternal war—a place where Cain could display his dominance and potency at Tamara’s expense to secure the clan’s everlasting allegiance.
Cain turned away from a window, the silver forms of dust motes dancing in shafts of sunlight. He’d had the castle renovated fifty years ago, with antique furniture brought in from all over Europe to refurnish the property. Seventeenth century book cases lined three of the study’s four walls, original volumes by such authors as John Milton, Alexander Pope, and Samuel Richardson arranged chronologically on the shelves. Diminutive windows graced the external wall, with two sets of hybrid coat-of-arms fixed to the stone ramparts between each frame. An eighteenth century Persian carpet coated the floor, Cain’s polished mahogany desk dominating the room, its surface meticulously organized.
He hadn’t been able to exact his justice on that cursed mortal woman—she’d disappeared off the face of the earth a year ago—and Cain was determined Tamara wouldn’t be able to evade her fate.
Pacing with vigor, he’d almost crossed the room when a heavy knock rapped the solid oak door.
“Come in!” Cain barked.
The door swung open, McCaw appeared in the entrance, and stepped aside to allow Tamara access. With ill-fitting garments taken from the bunker beneath Majdanek hanging from her frame as if she were emaciated, Tamara strode into the room with a grim expression molded onto her features. Brunette hair hung in knots around her weathered face, pouches of tiredness bulging beneath her eyes. The normally clear orbs were drawn and bloodshot, yet she tried her best to display an air of dominating authority.
“You call a retreat instead of sending me reinforcements!”
Cain clenched his jaw. The audacity of this woman; she’s been embroiled in this conflict for only a decade and a half and yet she thinks she can tell me how to control my armies. If Cain had an ounce less self-control he would have altered and ripped the insolent bitch to shreds by now. He held focus and reminded himself how important it was to display his dominance before the remnants of his shattered clan, and not just in front of his fellow commander.
“For all I knew you were dead,” Cain retorted. “It’s a waste of time to send an army out to defend a corpse.”
She stayed near the door, not advancing into the center of the room. Fear coated her emotions, as if it simmered around her body in a visible aura.
“I escaped by the skin of my teeth, whereas if I’d had an army we could have easily defended our ground. Reginald lost his life—”
“I’m aware of Bowers’ demise,” Cain snapped, cutting her off in mid sentence; her tirade tiresome to listen to, “and I have no remorse to give to the dead.”
Cain glanced over at McCaw, standing in the doorway. He nodded once and McCaw backed out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him—the lieutenant would be back soon; he knew what to do.
Tamara stood in silence. Cain watched her features for a moment, her jaw tight and muscles clenched as she fought to ward off fatigue and maintain a degree of control. Her loathing of him was easy to detect: almost a physical presence like a blast of hot wind shifting the room’s air currents. An underlying sensation of fear was just as palpable.
Standing motionless for the first time in almost a half hour, Cain straightened his back and stared into Tamara’s tired eyes. “Can you tell me exactly what you hoped to achieve with these breeding colonies?”
She hadn’t been expecting that question; her brow creased with a furrow of confusion. “Isn’t it obvious? We need to keep our bloodline intact and this is the only way to do it. By having concentrated breeding programs we can ensure a steady supply of newborn babies to restock our armies.” Altering her stance by placing a hand on her hip, Tamara breathed out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve already told you this.”
“Are you not concerned that our enemies will discover these . . .” Cain paused, making it seem he searched for the right words although he already had the sentences structured in his mind. “. . . These hybrid whorehouses, for want of a better turn of phrase.”
“No, that’s impossible; they’ll never find out our locations. The majority of the buildings are within the re
alm of mortal man, under the noses of mankind. Our enemies will be looking for more obscure places, they’ll never think of looking at the strip bars and brothels of Europe.”
She has no idea; this is going to be better than I’d hoped. Cain’s smile contained no humor, just a glint of satisfaction at delivering the distressing news that would hopefully shatter Tamara’s world. “Forty-six separate attacks were carried out last night; forty-six well coordinated and well executed assaults by both vampire and werewolf armies . . . forty-six of our breeding colonies—that’s all of them if memory serves me correctly—torn apart and destroyed by our unholy enemies.”
Tamara took a step backwards: a stagger of shocked disbelief. Her lips moved, as if her mind instructed her to say something only for the words to slip off her breath and fail to form. Already weathered by fatigue, her complexion paled further.
“Would you care to hazard a guess at how many of our clan survived these covert raids?”
Tamara said nothing.
“Well . . . would you?”
She shook her head.
“None; not a single hybrid who was present in all of those facilities are alive at this moment. Male, female, children; unborn fetuses ripped from the womb and discarded on the floor like rotten trash.” He took a step towards her, voice rising in volume, anger and an intense hatred driving the words from him. “There is only one person alive who can possibly be responsible for this carnage. Do you want to hazard a further guess at who that might be?”
Tamara backed away. She swallowed, but had to force the saliva down her gullet. Blinking, maybe in an effort to transform this bad news into some kind of cruel nightmare, Tamara reached out and curled her fingers around an eighteenth century baroque chair, a shaky grip only just keeping her standing. She shook her head. “Surely you don’t mean me?”
Now only four feet from her, Cain lowered his voice. “You implemented this plan—”
“Yes; with full backing from counsel.”
“You implemented this plan yet failed to follow it through. You failed to provide adequate security; you failed to protect our innocent soldiers and their families.” Cain sighed, happy that the terror masking her face was exactly the response he’d been seeking. “You failed to protect our future.”
She pushed away from the chair, straightening in an attempt at proving she could not be intimidated. “I want to see proof of these atrocities.”
“Do you not believe me?”
“Frankly, no; I don’t.”
Cain dropped his smile. “Tough shit.”
“I assigned soldiers to control each of those colonies,” Tamara countered. “They were ultimately in charge of security.”
She was trying to shift blame but it wouldn’t work. “They are all dead. Someone has to suffer the consequences of such catastrophic neglect, Tamara.”
The door eased open. McCaw stood in the entrance, a needle in his right hand. She didn’t look at him, kept her frightened stare locked on Cain’s face.
He hated the fact that a large section of his remaining army had been massacred in some of the most seediest joints in Europe; hated that his attempt at winning this war had now been made a hundred times more difficult in one solitary night—but he reveled in the sweet aroma of fear wafting from Tamara’s body.
“What are you trying to say?” she stammered.
“You are to go on trial, Tamara, charged with the indiscriminant neglect of the clan.”
If possible, her face paled further. Her jaw dropped; disbelief and rising shock drifting across her countenance. She knew the penalty for such a crime: execution.
“No,” she whispered.
Cain nodded once. McCaw stepped forward and thrust the needle into Tamara’s neck. Within ten seconds she was unconscious.
Eight
The Elder Catacombs
Rome, Italy
Beginning its existence more than two and a half thousand years ago as pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill, the city of Rome has spread to the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea and left in its wake a dramatic and violent history. The city center has retained a Renaissance and Baroque style, its ancient elements and architecture having survived the ravages of time, the destruction of mortal warfare, and the creeping advance of modern technology. This mercurial city, the third most visited destination in the European Union, has two sides: its public façade of age-old churches, historical buildings, and the home of the Catholic Church; and its clandestine mask of primordial burial chambers and tunnels that weave for many kilometers through the stratum of subterranean Rome.
Archeologists have uncovered around forty such catacombs beneath the city, but having been safely hidden for the better part of a millennium the Elder Catacombs would surely remain unseen by mortal eyes for the rest of eternity.
Only vampire and werewolf Elders were privy to knowledge of the catacomb’s location, and the fact this information had been closely guarded by both factions for almost a thousand years showed that a fragile thread of respect existed between the two species despite their six centuries of bloody warfare.
A small matter of misguided loyalties, Isaac thought. He realized he had a hand in maintaining that erroneous allegiance, but all that would soon change. When the ideal opportunity presented itself the Alpha-Male would ensure he shattered that thin strand of reverence in devastating yet spectacular fashion.
He marched with purpose and a self imposed admiration through the cramped tunnels of the supernatural world’s most private catacomb.
Burning torches, fixed to the walls at regular intervals, bathed the cavern in an eerie luminescence. Light danced with shadow, the ancient burial chambers having been purposely deprived of modern-day lighting. A dank aroma settled in the passageway, its soft volcanic walls coated with a thin layer of moisture. The Elder Catacombs had four levels and a labyrinth of interconnecting tunnels. Arched niches dented the walls at periodic intervals, the recesses built to house the bones of those individuals worthy enough to be buried in such a sacred place. Cornelius, the once-proud Alpha-Male of the pack, should have been entombed here, but his decapitated body was burned then scattered to the winds following the revelation that he’d fathered a hybrid child.
There’s someone else alive today who should have suffered the same fate, Isaac mused. It didn’t worry him too much, though; that traitor’s punishment would arrive soon enough.
His footsteps cut through the catacomb’s silence, the rustle of disturbed clothing whispering in rhythm with his stride.
He didn’t make the journey alone. Trace walked a step behind on his left-hand side; the pack’s highest-ranked soldier fresh from a most successful campaign. Isaac hadn’t seen the muscular lycanthrope since dispatching him on his mission of slaughtering hybrids in America. That had been almost a year ago, and Isaac was once again glad to have the superior officer by his side. To Isaac’s right, Sava stayed close in the manner he’d done for the better part of two centuries. Isaac had no confidant, or comrade, as dependable as the five hundred and sixty year-old werewolf. Although younger than Trace and less experienced in battle, Sava had an exceptional military brain. To this day Isaac considered turning the Prussian warlord into a werewolf back in the middle of the fifteenth century to be one of his better decisions.
Here, on the catacomb’s third level, there were no occupied tombs. Isaac hoped the crypt on the lowest level that contained his own name would never be used. Rounding a corner near the end of the burrow-like passage, they neared their destination.
Shrouded in shadow at the corridor’s end, the dark outline of heavy doors dominated the passage; beyond this access lay the main chamber where the war cabinet had been meeting on a quarterly basis over the past twelve months. The vampires were no doubt already there. Isaac had a habit of being fashionably late, if only to annoy Markus.
The tall, vaulted entry doors were guarded, and a sentry shuffled from its station in a small alcove carved into the tunnel’s volcanic rock. Stooping forward
due to a disfigurement of its spine, a process of sadistic evolution had robbed the creature of its vampiric qualities. Dark robes covered a frail body, gnarled fingers protruding from lengthy sleeves, the digits twisted as if ravaged with arthritis. The creature’s alabaster skin contained an alarming form of luminescence, its face appearing to hover in the blackness like the moon’s full orb. Lips peeled away from a deformed mouth, the gums no longer housing uniform teeth but jagged stubs, each one resembling a misshapen fang. Its bloated eyes contained a deep pink hue that glowed in the darkness. Isaac had no clue as to the age of the creature before him, but doubted the guard had exited these darkened burial chambers in all of its wretched existence. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the sentinel was allergic to daylight. If any bloodsucker could conform to the myth that vampires became incinerated by sunlight, Isaac figured this specimen was it.
Bulbous eyes studied the three werewolves and the creature grunted; probably the only language it was capable of producing. Shuffling towards the huge door, it took a firm hold on the handle, pulled, and dragged the timber gate open.
Without a word Isaac led his commanders into the boardroom.
He could easily have stepped through a time portal and arrived back in the Middle Ages. Torches burned atop staffs jutting from mountings on the walls, fluctuating light struggling to penetrate the gloom. Intricately designed tapestries hung on the walls, each one bearing a different coat-of-arms from the various states in the supernatural world. The hall’s expanse of floor—utilized six times previously to display the casket of a deceased Elder so that dignitaries and luminaries might be able to pay their last respects—contained a large sixteenth century easel with a white sheet draped over it, upon which images could be displayed during the course of each meeting.
The war cabinet’s mahogany table stood on an elevated section of floor.
The Last Stand -- Blood War Trilogy Book III Page 8