Ancient Blood: A Novel of the Hegemony (The Order Saga Book 1)

by Brian McKinley

  “Guard the love in your heart from any who seek to rob you of it,” Iago had said, knowing Geoffrey would try something like this.

  I looked at Caroline, nodded slightly.

  “With all due respect, Your Majesty,” she said. “I think you’re possibly the last person in the world who should be giving lessons on love.”

  “Touché,” he said. “Avery gets his freedom for the asking then, for whatever reason. In return, I get your solemn promise that the information you give me about the Domain will be complete and accurate, including any fruits of that secret research you’ve been conducting behind Sebastian’s back—didn’t think I knew about that, eh? Also, no planning or taking part in assassination plots against me for, say, three years?”

  Caroline nodded.

  Grinning, Geoffrey leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, completing the image of the perfect yuppie bastard. “Excellent. There’s just one last detail then. I shall require each of you to grant me one undefined, personal favor of high value.”

  Caroline stood. “No favors of any kind from us. Non-negotiable.”

  “Then it seems we’re done.”

  “I suppose we are,” she answered. “C’mon, Avery, there’s still time to try Jade Tiger.” I was stunned but got to my feet as she walked past me and headed for the door.

  “Medium value?” he said as we got about halfway.

  Caroline stopped and turned back and I tried not to smile. It was like that stupid ritual dance they always make you go through at the car dealership, trading prices back and forth when you both know pretty much where it’s gonna come out.

  “Medium value and only from me. Avery owes you nothing,” she said.

  Geoffrey hadn’t changed position but his eyes seemed to sharpen, if that were possible, as he studied Caroline. “You can’t win, Caroline. Not in the end. Not because you’re not clever, perceptive, or experienced enough and not because you haven’t got the determination to succeed or the strength of spirit to endure. No, you’ll never win for the simple reason that you cannot make yourself stop caring. Same as poor old Bishop here.”

  His Dhampir continued to watch us over his glass of scotch as Geoffrey spoke. “The man despises me and would happily tear me limb from limb—a feeling with which I’m sure you can sympathize—and yet I can put my life in his hands day after day. Why? Because he can’t stop caring about things other than himself and his desires. For almost eight hundred years, he’s been privy to my every scheme, my every political secret and has had innumerable opportunities to use them toward my downfall. However, he gets to a certain point in his plans and finds, to his growing irritation, that I’ve tied my fate to that of a person, cause, nation, or institution that is close to his heart. All he has to do, you see, is stop caring and go forward and I’d be done. He doesn’t, because he can’t. Just like you. Cold as you might try to be, your nature will never allow you to see it through. Still, I think I will enjoy using you. Therefore, I’m going to agree to your terms, provided you can tell me the one thing I most want to hear.”

  I felt a chill in my entire body and was sure Caroline did too.

  “Come now, Caroline, you’ve thrown out so many reasons for me to help your cause and yet I have not heard the only one I need. Show me what you’ve learned and tell me why I need to help you.”

  Caroline thought for a moment and met his eyes. “Because the Judicis is back in his peak form.”

  His eyes slipped closed for a moment in something like ecstasy. “Yeeessss…” he sighed.

  Then the eyes snapped open and he sat forward. “We have a deal, so you run along now and be sure to tell him. I’ll send Bishop down later with the tray.”

  We turned and walked out, closing the door behind us. Caroline slumped against the wall, her whole body shaking. Trembling a little myself, I reached over and pulled her into an embrace. “We gotta stop meeting like this.”

  She laughed, caught by surprise and rested her head on my shoulder. Though she’s usually excited by intellectual challenges and spirited debates, this was like surviving a knife fight.

  “Caroline,” I said. “I—about what he said—”

  “No,” she said, stepping back from me. “I don’t want to try to talk about any of that now. There are things I want to tell you about but this isn’t the time.” That look in her eyes—begging forgiveness in advance for something I wasn’t going to like—scared me more than anything Geoffrey had said. “When we have some idea of our future and the choices we have, then we’ll talk. That’s why I’m trying to keep you out of any long-term commitments, so that you have a way out when this is all over … if you want one.”

  My heart raced. “I just want to be with you.”

  “Later. Please,” she whispered, turning away.

  “Okay,” I said, to keep the moment from stretching. I turned away and paced for the sake of doing something. “So, anyway, with the meeting, I guess we got Geoffrey on our side as far as the whole Iago thing, right?”

  Caroline smoothed down her hair and sighed. “Unless he comes up with a better reason for screwing us over.”

  “But, we have a deal! You mean all that crap back and forth was—”

  “Another game? Yes, in a way. The important thing wasn’t the deal, it was how I negotiated it, how hard I fought and how much understanding I showed of the situation. What I needed to show him was that I’m someone worth taking seriously, that I have the potential to be a challenging opponent if given the chance. Most Vampyrs try to crush potential rivals as early as they can. Geoffrey breeds them.”

  “Like that Bishop guy. Jesus, that’s fucked-up.”

  “If it’s true,” she warned. “But, if Bishop approaches you anytime soon with a way of compromising Geoffrey or insuring his cooperation, it’s a trap.”

  “Of course. Goddess forbid anybody should be what they seem around here. Okay then, if we all know the deal’s bogus, what about that favor he forced you into?”

  “That’s one of the main reasons I went in there.”

  “I give up,” I said.

  “Now I have a tangible value to him.”

  People trading rumors and innuendos like baseball cards, whoring themselves and their friends out for a little extra status and smiling as they circle each other, looking for a place to stick their knives.

  It was like being back in high school.

  “What about that thing about Jade Tiger then?”

  She smiled in that way she does when she’s being clever. “I knew he’d call my bluff but it forced him to reveal that he does have some big scheme going against Jade Tiger and since he thinks I was just reciting information, he now thinks that Iago knows about it!”

  “Speaking of Iago, is any of that stuff Geoffrey told us about him true?”

  “The facts are probably true but it’s his interpretation you need to question.”

  I was about to try for a kiss to end things on a positive note when something about all this snuck up into my mind and refused to be ignored any longer. I tried to push it away but at that moment of uncertainty, I needed to know if I was right or just starting to think like the rest of them. “So, uh, did you actually bring me in there to make you look stronger … or weaker?”

  She glanced away surprised but I’d seen the answer in her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I did manipulate you. I knew you weren’t practiced enough to keep Geoffrey from reading you, so I prompted you to show what I wanted him to see. It might make him underestimate us when it counts. I’m sorry, Avery, but he would have seen it if I’d told you the truth and you tried to fake it.”

  I nodded and said, “Okay,” even though I wasn’t sure yet if it was or not. “We should probably split up now, before Sebastian comes looking for us.”

  “You’re right. I’ve got to get some things taken care of before the council session.” She looked at me for another second and stepped forward as if to kiss me before changing her mind at the last moment and heading for th
e stairs.

  I couldn’t wait for our “talk” when all this was over.

  * * * * *

  “So, had thou a nice little parley, did thou?” Sebastian asked a half hour later as he yanked me to my feet. I was in the library, helping set up for that night’s post-meeting soirée and hadn’t heard him come up behind me.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Still gripping my arms with his huge, meaty hands, he slammed my back into one of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that ran the length of two walls. “I think yer quite well acquainted with that of which I speak! Were thou not, this very even’, secreted away with the Plantagenet as thou were with villainous Iago late last night? Speak true or be damned, boy, for I’ve had the confession in full from Caroline!”

  “I have no idea what you’re saying.” Despite being an honest person, life with Jim had required me to lie well under the right circumstances. “I served Geoffrey his breakfast and listened politely while he explained the mechanics of Global Chess. As for late last night,” I said, using my genuine feelings over Mrs. Kai’s murder to infuse my words with venom, “you know damn well who I was with and why.”

  His eyes narrowed and he sniffed at me. “Aye, thou’ve some experience now of the fine world to which yer loving Caroline’s brought thou. Remember it well, boy.” As usual, his breath reeked of stale blood and rancidity but the odor of his sweat was sweeter than it had been before.

  He’d changed just in the week I’d known him. His panther eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, his thick nails had lengthened into claws again, his hair was longer (still a crew cut but a shaggy one) and his beard had gotten a little bushy. Vampyr metabolism is faster than human but Sebastian’s still seemed to be racing. His feralism must have been exacerbated into another stage.

  I found myself searching his face and eyes for some trace of that man Iago had told us about. I couldn’t see any but wasn’t too surprised. The creature left standing in front of me was just a beast waiting to be put out of its misery.

  Is that what always happens to guys like me in The Order?

  Is feralism genetically transmitted?

  “Sebastian, man, what’s the point?” I wasn’t sure what I was trying for but interested to see if I’d get anything. “Why are you trying so hard to win a job that’s just gonna make you more miserable, huh?”

  He barked a laugh and shook me a little, lifting me higher. “Thou see much for so callow a fellow but not as I see. There must be a reckoning, righteous judgment cast in blood!” Quivering with excitement, he threw me down onto the ground. “All shall be honest! Honest and true and the innocents shall remain if it can be arranged. Thou may not wish ‘twere so in the beginning but thou’ll grow to the challenge if thou but heed me! Look to your precious Caroline tonight, boy and thou shall see the truth of her, that which took me decades to learn.”

  “What the hell are you planning?”

  Sebastian stomped past. “Questions, naught but questions and secrets! Aye, sure enough yer Caroline’s get. I’ll say no more than look to her, for I’ve a Judicis to draw first blood upon ‘fore I drain him out slow…”

  He swept across the library, through the smaller antechamber next to his private study and out into the entrance hall with his wolf coat fluttering behind him like a cloak. All the other servants were gone and the small orchestra, that had been brought in to supplement the medieval quartet that night, just stood there on their platform and watched me with naked curiosity.

  Taking my time, I brushed myself off before facing them.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, giving them a slight bow. “As you were.”

  * * * * *

  A few minutes later, I sat in the servants’ dining room eating blood sorbet straight from the container. The room isn’t very big, crammed as it is between Helmut’s office and the big storeroom near the loading dock but it holds a table that seats eight. I was alone. The two assistant chefs who’d been finishing up their meal left in a hurry when I entered.

  When I had felt depressed as a human, or lonely, or nostalgic, or bored, I sat down with a big bowl of ice cream and watched a vampire movie. Well, I was a Vampyr now, the undisputed top of the food chain with thousands of years of world domination as my birthright. I could eat all the blood sorbet I wanted.

  It seemed like everybody kept telling me to not trust my girlfriend.

  The last time something like this happened was with Michelle. We’d been in an uneasy period because she wanted to go further into the hard-core goth and vampire stuff than I’d felt comfortable with. She’d been going out to parties and clubs by herself, while I stayed around the apartment and gamed with my friends. It turned out, of course, that they’d all been hearing reports of her hooking up with other guys at these places, including her abusive scumbag of an ex-boyfriend.

  I didn’t want to be thinking about this when there was much more important stuff going on but it was getting difficult. I had to wonder if everybody was trying to ruin me and Caroline just for the fun of it or because they all knew something I didn’t.

  The love I feel for Caroline is stronger than any adult feeling I’ve ever had. It’s a feeling I thought was lost to me forever when my mom died, a passion that makes me ache sometimes with a physical and spiritual need for her. How the fuck is something so intense not enough to make doubt impossible?

  Can we ever really know someone beyond what they choose to show us? Isn’t love really just another form of trust? “I give you my heart, please don’t break it,” and so on.

  So, the real question was whether I trusted Caroline.

  * * * * *

  “So, have they finished balancing the budget yet?” I asked, strolling into the security office.

  Caroline, at the console transcribing and Ash, at his desk going over some reports, both gave me humorless glances before returning to their tasks.

  “Sebastian’s been giving Iago both guns for the past half-hour,” she said. “I hope Iago knows what he’s doing because Sebastian’s burying him in there. He’s compiled an exhaustive list of every ruling in the last hundred years where Iago endorsed a humane course over one, which in Sebastian’s version of the facts, would have given The Order greater control or profit. He’s even using examples where Iago ruled in his favor!”

  I sat down next to her. “Well, isn’t that what we expected?”

  “I suppose, though this whole line of argument conflicts so completely with his nature and every life philosophy I’ve ever known him to hold. Yes, it’s politics and it’s a means to an end but it’s so false that I find it hard to reconcile. It’s … it’s almost as if he’s mocking them.” She sighed. “Maybe that’s it. He’s sure the vote is locked, so he’s venting his spite at having to use Julia’s arguments by overplaying it and I’m just being paranoid.”

  “Aren’t you the one who said there’s no such thing as paranoia in The Order?” I asked, getting a smile from her. “Anyway, could you put that aside for a minute?”

  “Sure. Not as if Sebastian’s going to check the transcript.”

  “Now, what the devil were Wilkes and his cronies doing at Plum Island this morning?” Ash muttered at his desk, looking through his papers for some explanation. “No follow-up at all. Gonna chew somebody’s ass for this, that’s for … oh, sorry, kid. Don’t mind me.”

  Careful not to put too much emphasis on his implications about Caroline, I told them what Sebastian had said to me in the library. “So, it made me think of what Geoffrey said back in the meeting about Sebastian having something in store for us.”

  She nodded. “He suspects what we’re doing and is going to try something to neutralize us. I’ve been assuming he was planning to execute me just before assuming his judicatus. He’s come to believe that I held him back and made him weak, so I thought he’d want to rub my nose in his success before getting rid of me. However, it’s possible that Julia has convinced him to get me out of the way sooner. Ash, has Sebastian said anything at all t
o you that might be related to this?”

  Ash sat back and sighed, running his fingers through his short hair. He looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept well in days. “Why the hell should Sebastian tell me anything? I’m only his Dhampir and Bailiff. Well, for the rest of the weekend, anyway.”

  “C’mon, man,” I said. “What about last night’s disc? Did Julia say anything that might be a clue?”

  It was Caroline who answered. “It seems Sebastian has ordered Wilkes to be responsible for monitoring Julia’s room from now on.”

  Damn. That meant Sebastian knew something.

  Ash crossed his arms. “Little piss-ant just burns my ass with that attitude of his. Tells me the Hegemon expects to see more ‘activity’ in the cameras from now on, giving me that shit-eating grin, then just kinda slips in how he’s gonna enjoy having me as his first meal when he gets ‘promoted.’”

  “He actually said that?” Caroline asked. “That Sebastian plans to Create him?”

  “That is affirmative. I advised him that, Vampyr or not, he’d better bring a friend or the only thing he’d be sucking would be shoe polish after I kicked my size twelve’s up into his tonsils.”

  I chuckled, picturing how satisfying that would be to watch. I turned to Caroline. “I don’t suppose we could just corner the scumbag sometime tonight and hypnotize him into telling us Sebastian’s plans?”

  “I wish it could be that easy but I’ve never learned how to hypnotize—not the Vampyric form,” she admitted. “I’m told it takes a certain kind of personality and a lot of practice.”

  “Of course.” I shifted in my chair a bit and watched the screen as Sebastian took his seat and yielded the floor to Iago. The Judicis rose slowly, maintaining his illusion of weariness.

  Caroline watched and listened with equal parts interest and concern. “His speech is wonderful but he’s delivering it with almost no passion at all. He’s accepting Sebastian’s charges and detailing how his decisions are supported by the ancient precedents and traditions, from back when The Order was a moral organization with enlightened goals. I suppose he’s laying the groundwork for the reforms he plans but it strikes me as a very risky move. See the others? If this were a play, they’d be cat-calling him off the stage!” She paused and looked closer at the screen. “Wait, look at Julia, she couldn’t be more rigid. She didn’t think Iago knew about any of this. I think Iago’s trying to get her to panic and make a mistake.”