by Sloan Archer
Leopold patted the man’s hand. “Very well.” He looked up at all our sad faces. “Let’s give Oliver some room to breathe, shall we?”
Leopold made a motion to get to his feet and Oliver reached out weakly. “I . . . have to tell you . . .” He coughed, splattering blood down his chin. He was fading fast. “Please.”
Leopold dropped down on his knees and lowered his ear to Oliver’s mouth. Oliver whispered and Leopold’s whole body went stiff. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who wanted to yell, “What is it? What did he tell you?”
Leopold repositioned himself so that his face was directly over Oliver’s. “Are you absolutely positive?”
Oliver nodded. It caused him great pain to lift his arm, but he did so that he could point. Collectively, we followed the direction of his finger, which targeted Edgar. “Him,” he croaked. “It was him.”
Edgar hadn’t observed us all gaping his way because he’d been preoccupied trying to sneak away unnoticed. The sudden silence must have alerted him. He turned his head slowly and blinked over his shoulder at us.
Oliver chose that precise moment to utter his final word: Traitor. His finger was still aimed on Edgar when he stopped breathing. Our entire group stood as frozen as mannequins.
Edgar moved first. He raised his shoulders towards his ears. “Oops,” he smiled coyly, and then he hauled ass.
He didn’t make it very far.
Like an old-timey battle film, Leopold bellowed, “Seize him!”
I felt the vampires more than I saw them as they rushed past. The sheer force of their speed knocked me off-balance. By the time I’d righted myself again they had Edgar in custody.
Edgar was fighting violently, but he was no match for the five vampires lifting him. Two had his arms, two had his legs, and the fifth held his head, which I thought was excessive. What did they think Edgar was going to do, pop his head off and lob it at them?
The vampire with Edgar’s head looked at Leopold and asked, “Want me to pull it off?” He said this causally, like, “Want me to pick up your dry-cleaning on the way home?”
Leopold held up a hand. “No, wait.” I let out a premature sigh of relief. “I’d like to question him first.”
It would have been okay if Leopold hadn’t tacked on that bit of clarification, “first.” Then I could have attempted to tell myself that Edgar would be questioned and then let go. Unfortunately, I wasn’t born yesterday. I may have not been an expert on vampires, but I knew enough about their culture to know that they had a zero tolerance policy for treachery—human treachery in particular. How much he’d be tortured before he was beheaded was most likely contingent on his willingness to cooperate. Based on the way he was kicking and screaming against his captors, his willingness was nil. Edgar was toast.
“Bring him to the house,” Leopold commanded. “To the basement.”
Edgar’s eyes bugged from under his thick eyebrows. “No!” he screamed. “No! No! No!” As Leopold’s butler, I imagined Edgar knew exactly the type of activities that went on in the basement.
I shivered. How often had Leopold been conducting torture sessions?
It was awful, hearing Edgar wail like that, even if he had orchestrated the massacre. But why would a butler do such a thing? He’d seemed like such a nice guy. How could it be possible that the same man who’d made amazing coffee and had gone out of his way to make us feel so welcome was in cahoots with the VGO? Furthermore, the VGO sounded like a powerful bunch. It didn’t make sense that they’d work with a human underling like Edgar.
Answering my question, Edgar wailed, “They made me! I didn’t want to! I swear!”
He was so pathetic that it was impossible not to believe him. I felt like I should jump to his defense, but what would I say? He makes a lovely cappuccino, so there’s no need to murder him. Yah, I’m sure that would have gone over real swell.
“Do it now,” Leopold barked at the vamps. He came over to talk to Robert and me as they dragged Edgar towards the house.
“What are you going to do?” Robert asked.
Leopold was surprised. “Have you forgotten my methods?”
“Not what I meant. I’m more concerned with finding out what the VGO know. Whatever it is you’re going to do, make sure nothing is finalized until you find out if they have Mercy’s information.”
“Understood.”
I said, “Does Edgar have to be . . . finalized?”
“What would be the objective in keeping him alive?” Leopold asked.
I wracked my brain for a justifiable response, drawing a blank. I didn’t think pretty please don’t kill him would work.
“What did Oliver tell you?” Robert demanded. “Before he died, he whispered something.”
“He told me: They wore spacesuits,” Leopold said. “How odd.”
“Spacesuits?” Robert and I chimed in unison.
“I’m assuming it was the nonsensical ramblings of a dying man.”
“But he was right about Edgar,” I interjected. “You saw how he was trying to sneak away.”
“I still can’t believe it,” Robert said to Leopold.
“You can’t believe it? The man was living under my roof and I had no idea!”
“No, I mean the butler did it. It’s almost too ridiculous to conceive.”
A few hours later, somebody came knocking on our bedroom door. I bundled myself in the velvety robe Leopold had furnished—customized with a monogrammed M—and shuffled to the door. The knocking had started back up by the time I opened it.
“What time is it?” I croaked, foggy from slumber. Robert and I had assumed that we’d never be able to fall asleep, but that hadn’t been the case. Robert had started snoozing as soon as his head hit the pillow. I’d joined him a couple minutes after. Crazier, it had been one of the deepest sleeps of my life. Stress could really drain a person.
Leopold pulled up his sleeve and examined his watch. “It’s two.” It was dark out so I knew he meant two in the morning. For Leopold, this was more like a human’s noontime.
“What’s happened, Leo?” Robert asked, sitting up in bed. He pulled on his own robe—monogramed R on his—and shambled to my side. His hair was sticking up in the back like cockatoo feathers. It made me want to kiss him.
“I’m sorry to wake you, but I have some things you need to hear.” Leopold gestured to the seating area behind us. “May I?”
The bedroom was fully furnished, with a sofa, coffee table, and two chairs. The attached bathroom had a gigantic claw foot tub and even a bidet, which I still wasn’t entirely sure how to use and had no desire to learn.
It was odd that Leopold was asking permission to enter a room in his own home. He had the pleasantest manners of any vampire I’d ever met. Perhaps Edgar would disagree with this sentiment after being tortured for the past few hours.
I opened the door to let Leopold in. “Of course.”
“Thank you.” Leopold entered and I noticed his disarray for the first time. His eyes were wild and panicked. His shoulders slumped forward, a vast change from his usually impeccable posture. His hands were at his sides, squeezed into tight little balls.
Once we sat down Robert probed, “How bad is it?”
“I want to start by telling you both that I never intended for this to happen.”
“How bad is it?” Robert repeated.
“How about I tell you what I’ve learned and then you two can be the judge,” Leopold said in a flat tone. “But I’m afraid it’s very bad . . . for all of us.” He could hardly look at me.
“So, Edgar talked, then?” Robert asked.
Leopold nodded. “He did . . . eventually. It took a fair bit of persuasion. Edgar proved to be quite resilient, for a human.” He said this almost admiringly. “The news was worse than I’d expected.”
Robert sighed. “Then it’s best to get on with it.”
“Right.” Leopold sat back rigidly and crossed his legs under him, now in storyteller mode. “As I told you both earlier, Edgar came recomm
ended to me by Seraphim. Before you ask, I’ve been trying to reach Seraphim all night, to no avail.”
“You don’t think Seraphim had anything to do with the attack, do you?” I asked. “I can’t believe that she’d be capable of doing something like this.”
Leopold said nothing.
“I don’t know her as well as you do, of course,” I added quickly. “I only met her once. But she seemed so . . . not murderous.”
“I share your outlook, Mercy. Seraphim has been a loyal friend of mine for many years,” Leopold said. “But there’s proof. Edgar confessed to not knowing Seraphim, yet she was the one who’d vouched for Edgar’s work performance. And then there’s the way she contacted me out of the blue—she just happened to contact me when I needed a new butler? She lied about their association, made it seem like he used to work for her. I haven’t been able to reach her since the incident at the lab, which has never been the case. Seraphim never turns off her mobile. She sleeps with the damn thing.”
“Okay, well, let’s back up,” Robert said. “If Edgar didn’t have an association with Seraphim, then it must have been the VGO who recruited him.”
“That’s right,” Leopold agreed. “They hired Edgar to spy on me, because of the lab. They knew that I wouldn’t hire just anyone, so they used Seraphim to make the initial contact since she and I have a longstanding friendship. I insist on a background check for all new employees—this day and age you can never be too carful as a vampire—but the VGO assumed I’d forego this policy if a close friend recommended that employee. They were right about that.” He was sheepish. “I delved into the lives of every single employee at the lab: where they lived, how many children they had, their hobbies . . . I even went as far as researching the crew who built the lab, right down to the forklift operators, architects, and interior decorators. But Edgar, I let him walk right in.” He looked sick—as sick as a vampire can look.
“But how much could he have learned?” I asked. “He wasn’t working alongside the scientists, so he couldn’t have had much to report to the VGO.”
Leopold hung his head. “Edgar was the one employee I had given open access to at the lab. I did this because he was in charge of feeding the staff. I provided them with meals on account of the lab’s rural location and the long hours they worked. It was more for security, which is grossly ironic. I figured that the less they left to get meals, the more secure the lab would be. Come to find out that the bloody person providing the food was the biggest threat.”
“What sort of information would he have been privy to?” Robert asked.
“You name it,” Leopold said. “Not only was Edgar in the lab throughout the day, but he also served the scientists dinner during group meetings. He would have seen information on the trials, sales numbers, and learned the identity of the test volunteers. Edgar gave the VGO the shipment schedule, which they specifically requested, though I can’t imagine why. Edgar didn’t know why, either.”
“Maybe he was lying,” I suggested.
“I doubt it. My methods of obtaining information can be very persuasive,” Leopold informed me. “In the basement.”
I trembled.
“And I double-checked; the shipments arrived at every location. The VGO didn’t steal or destroy a single vial.”
“That’s weird,” Robert said.
“Edgar knew nothing about Seraphim, right? But did he know the nature of the relationship between Seraphim and the VGO?” I asked Leopold. “What incentive would she have to help them?” I’d only been around the woman for a couple hours, but I felt betrayed. I thought we could be friends, but after finding out that she was helping the same vampires responsible for the massacre, it was not going to be possible. I’d heard of “frenemies,” but this was too much.
“I asked Edgar, but he didn’t know. I believed him, since he had no motive to protect Seraphim. He would have given her up, had he thought doing so would save his skin.”
“So where do we fall into all of this?” Robert said.
“Edgar started enquiring about your stay after you two arrived,” Leopold answered. “He eventually stopped probing because I never provided him an answer—I didn’t think it was his business. I try to avoid getting too personal with the staff, or else they tend to get too comfortable. Now we know why he was asking about you in particular, Mercy. The VGO were planning to go after you, and so they wanted to know when you’d be here on the property. They’d clearly been hoping that the times coincided with the lab destruction. It was very fortunate that you happened to be gone today, or else something awful may have happened to you.”
There was no “may” about it. I said, “You mean they would have murdered me like the others?”
Leopold didn’t deny it. “I’m afraid so.”
“Another fortunate thing had happened, too. On his way out after work yesterday, Edgar noticed your luggage sitting by door, not realizing that you were only sending it out to be dried. He’d assumed that you and Robert were heading back to San Francisco last night, which is what he told the VGO.”
I reflected on that for a moment, how objects so insignificant—those wet suitcases—had impacted my life so massively.
I clasped my hands together. “I don’t mean to sound awful—or in any way vindictive—but what I don’t get is why they didn’t just kill you, Leopold.”
I paused, waiting for Leopold’s surge of outrage—maybe even a small amount of indignation on his part. He stared back at me blankly and waited for me to continue. Guess he’d heard worse in his day. I said, “What I mean is, why would the VGO go through the trouble of hiring a spy, burning your lab, and murdering a bunch of scientists when they could have gone directly to the source—you—and put a stop to it all? Without you, there would be no more serum. That’s what I’m assuming this is all about—that goddamned serum.” I knew I was starting to come off as belligerent, but I really didn’t care. “The VGO killed all those people so it would stop being made. It obviously wasn’t an attack against you personally, or else they would have destroyed the house and not the lab.”
Robert reached over and patted my hand. He could tell that I was upset. Damn right I was, and I was in no way sorry about it.
Leopold’s eyes didn’t flicker, but his mouth curled into an expression that somewhat resembled a smile, albeit a very chilly one. “Your assumptions are correct, Mercy. And the answer to your question is this: I have connections that run very deep. In light of their actions today, it would be a stretch to claim that I have friends in the VGO. However, I did have their loyalty—to a degree. What happened today was a warning.”
“What?” I burst out. “This was a warning?”
“Indeed,” Leopold said. “You may find this difficult to grasp, Mercy, but it could have been worse.”
I could feel the anger uncoiling inside my belly, spiny and fixing to strike. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Leopold was still downplaying. I gnashed down on the inside of my cheek until it started to bleed to stop myself from unleashing the fury.
Robert talked me in from the ledge. “It’s true, Mercy,” he said with the utmost sincerity. “It sounds crazy, but this attack was mild by VGO standards. If they didn’t hold Leopold with some regard, they would have murdered him along with the others at the lab.”
“Humph.” I let go of Robert’s hand. He was probably right, but I didn’t like him defending Leopold, who was turning out to be a real snake. I was trying to like the vamp for the sake of Robert, with him being Robert’s maker and all, but damn if he wasn’t making it difficult.
“If they decide to launch another attack, it will be on my life,” Leopold said. “The destruction of the lab was the VGO doing me a favor. It was their way of telling me Last chance.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I murmured.
“Ridiculous but true,” Leopold said. “Whatever allegiances I may have had with VGO have now been severed.” Sensing my bitterness, which anyone would be able to unless their eyes were shut
and their ears plugged, he added, “If it makes you feel any better.”
“No, it doesn’t make me feel better whatsoever. All those people are still dead.” I rubbed my searing abdomen. I could have sworn that I was getting an ulcer. I dreaded the next question, but I had to know. “And where does this leave me?”
Leopold rubbed the tops of his arms. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, then sat back again. He was stalling.
“Leo?” Robert prompted.
“I’m afraid . . .” He squeezed a breath out from under his tight lips. “I’m afraid your situation is a trifle more precarious than mine.”
“What does that mean, more precarious?” I gasped. The room was spinning. “Do they still want me dead? Even after this?”
Leopold aimed his gaze out the window. “Yes,” he spoke softly.
I brought my fists down on the tops of my thighs. “But why? Why would a group of vampires I’ve never met want to kill me?” It was like the Michael situation all over again. But at least Michael’s nutty ass knew me. Who were these fuckers? I had no fucking idea.
Sometimes I swore a lot when extremely agitated.
Leopold said, “It’s your blood. They view it as a threat, you see, since it cures vampirism.”
“No!” Robert fumed. “What you actually mean is that her blood is the key component to the serum you made to cure vampirism.” I could feel his rage vibrating through him, jittering the sofa. “She was never a threat until you made her a threat.”
“I . . . Yes, because of my serum,” Leopold admitted. “It would be less complicated for the VGO to go after you than me—due to my affiliations—so that’s what they’ve decided to do. But don’t worry. I’m going to try my hardest to sort this out with—”
“Let me get this straight,” I spat. My speech had become as shaky as Robert’s body. I couldn’t even go to the trouble of being polite anymore. “Because you have fucking connections with that group of murdering psychopaths, I’m the one being targeted? Me? The innocent party.” This time Robert didn’t try to restrain my outburst through handholding. It was a wise decision on his part, since there was no stopping me. He would have to clamp a vice grip down on my lips to shut me up. “And you are going to ‘try’ to sort this out? Try? I’m completely screwed!”