Greyfriar studied the crypt. “Where is your mother's place? I thought it was customary to bury couples together.”
Adele shook her head. “This crypt is for emperors. My mother is in another mausoleum. Not far away. I'll be here too. Maybe I could have her moved.”
“Didn't you spend time with your father?” Greyfriar asked.
“He was always busy,” Simon offered.
“When I was very young,” Adele added, “I remember some state events and a couple of family trips. After our mother died, our father stayed close to us for a year or two. But it didn't last. He was the emperor. His time was not his own.”
“My father was similar,” Greyfriar said.
Adele replied warily, eyeing Simon, who was not privy to Greyfriar's secret, “But you said he taught you to hunt. And taught you lessons about…survival.”
“Yes. Surely your father taught you similar lessons.”
The princess shook her head. “No. My mother, yes, but my father taught me very little.”
“Do you think he wanted to?”
“I don't know. At the end, he seemed to want to reach out to me. Maybe he sensed something. Maybe he was sorry about the marriage to Senator Clark. He tried, but I was so angry.” Adele took Gareth's hand and leaned against him. For the first time there was a slight hitch in her tone. “They say he fought back against Flay. That he wasn't afraid.”
Simon said with pride, “They found him with a sword in his hand.”
Greyfriar bobbed his head in admiration. “Good. I hope he hurt her.”
“He didn't stand a chance,” Adele said.
“I hid.” Simon spoke in a low voice, toeing the marble floor. “I hid in a servant's pantry.”
Greyfriar said forcefully, “Smart. I would've hidden too.”
“No, you wouldn't,” the boy argued. “You're the Greyfriar. You would have killed that vampire.”
“No, you're wrong.” The swordsman regarded Simon like the little prince was a fellow warrior. “I've faced Flay before, but not by choice. I've never defeated her, and only escaped with my life by sheer luck. Simon, there's no victory in being goaded into combat by a stronger enemy. The wise war chief chooses the proper time to strike. That night was Flay's time. Escaping her was the greatest victory you could have scored. In time, we will have her, and you will be a part of that success. If you had played her game on her terms, you would be dead too, and her victory would be complete.”
Simon nodded, smiling slightly as though a burden had been lifted. “Now that you're here to help Adele, can we really win this war?”
“She doesn't need me.” Greyfriar's voice was assured and confident. “But we will win.”
Adele was grateful for him engaging her brother, easing the boy's guilt over the night their father died and softening his fears of the future. She cuffed the back of Simon's neck playfully, and he pulled away with typical boyish annoyance to wander off among the other sarcophagi.
Adele asked Greyfriar in a low voice, “So, is Flay better than you? In a fight?”
He thought about it as Adele studied what little of his face she could see, measuring the question. He said cautiously, “I'm not sure. It would likely depend on who struck first. Surprise would decide it. Flay is fast. Deathly fast.”
Adele looked around for Simon, then whispered, “What about your brother? Is he better than you?”
“Cesare?” Greyfriar gave a derisive snort and said quietly, “He's no match for me. I'm much stronger than he.”
“Really?” Adele felt a pleasant flush. He wasn't bragging, merely stating a fact. His arm did feel like iron under her fingers.
“I am capable of decapitating and disemboweling with my claws. In my society, that makes me quite desirable.”
“No doubt. Though in my society, keep it to yourself.” Adele gave him a sly look. “I'm in this relationship for the capes and castles.”
“So am I,” he said with mock seriousness.
“We can't both be romantics. One of has to be a realist.”
“I nominate you.”
“Thank you.” Adele crossed her arms. “So what about me? Do you think you could beat me?”
His head lifted slowly, and he reached up to remove his glasses, revealing his crystal blue eyes. “In a fight to simply defeat one another, in practice, I would easily best you. My strength and stamina would overwhelm you. In a fight to the death, however, I stand no chance.”
“Are you being serious?”
“Of course. In life, I am your master. In death, you have no equal. You would slay me.”
Adele stared at him open-mouthed. She couldn't respond. She didn't know how to take what he had just said. His expressions and tones were not always the same as a human. Part of her felt some sliver of pride that he judged her so powerful and competent. But another part felt there was an accusatory undertone to his statement, some unspoken fear, some untapped unease about her. Perhaps it was an inbred resentment about her power, her native ability to kill his kind. Still, it was unlike him. Even when they had been at odds early in their stay in Edinburgh, he had never expressed such confidence in her savagery. Maybe in his world, he had just paid her a great compliment.
She asked hesitantly, “Do you think I would kill you?”
Gareth didn't pause. “I think you could. That's all. That's what you asked me. That is what you are training to do. Your…what do you call it, geomancy? Your lessons with Mamoru. You are becoming a weapon to destroy vampires.”
“That's not what I'm doing! Just because I may have an ability doesn't mean I have to use it. I have control over myself. I think this ability—whatever it is—can lead to better things. It doesn't have to be a weapon. I will learn to control it so what happened in the Mountains of the Moon doesn't have to happen again. Don't you trust me?”
“Of course.”
Simon's voice came from the distance, low and conversational. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Adele and Greyfriar both bolted toward the boy. Greyfriar leapt over a sarcophagus to find Simon face-to-face with a strange man, his beard unkempt and his long, matted blond hair hanging about his face in clumps. He wore filthy clothes and stank of sweat and dirt.
“Selkirk?” Adele said in confusion as she reached Simon's side. She stepped in front of the boy, but waved Greyfriar off his aggressive stance.
The man was on one knee beside a large tomb. He made no threatening move, but slowly looked up with recognition in his intense eyes. Greyfriar eased his sword back into the scabbard, sensing Adele's alarm shift to curiosity.
Adele asked the disoriented man, “What are you doing here? What happened to you? Does Mamoru know you're here?”
Selkirk rose and took an unsteady step toward her. He seemed weak, perhaps hungry, not quite sure of his surroundings. His hand lifted from the folds of his stained coat holding something. He launched himself the few feet to Adele and plunged a dagger into her chest. The princess gasped and raised her hands.
Greyfriar shouted in alarm, and his rapier tore free. Selkirk pulled the knife out and stabbed her again with a sick, solid sound. The swordsman seized the man by the shoulder and threw him away from Adele. Selkirk grunted as he crashed against a tomb. Greyfriar drove his blade deep into the man's rib cage, and Selkirk collapsed with a whimper.
“Adele!” Greyfriar turned as the princess stumbled and fell to the ground. The swordsman dove to the floor beside Adele and scooped her into his arms.
Wet scarlet spread across her white silk gown. She looked up at Greyfriar, but her eyes were wide and jerking side to side. Her mouth moved soundlessly, and her breath rasped.
“Adele,” Greyfriar cried. “Can you speak? Can you hear me?”
Her eyelids fluttered and her eyes rolled up in her head. Adele went limp and heavy in his arms. Her heartbeat faltered.
“No, no!” He looked up at Simon, who stood petrified next to them. “Get someone, anyone. Go! Now! Please!”
Greyfri
ar huddled in the dark corner of a small room in the Iskandar Hospital. Adele's blood was dried stiff on his clothes, but he could still smell her as if it were fresh. It had been hours since General Anhalt, never far from her side, had responded to Prince Simon's cries for help and fell into action. Military doctors had attended Adele on site, struggling to halt the bleeding, while word was sent for surgeons to assemble at the hospital. Simon was taken under guard in case the attack on Adele was part of a larger scheme. The mysterious assassin was still breathing, so he was bundled unceremoniously onto a gurney and rolled away, with instructions from Anhalt to preserve his life. Then, Adele was rushed, pale and unconscious, from the palace grounds in an ambulance, a shrill blast of steam erupting from the brass whistle as it departed.
Greyfriar had almost been forgotten in the chaos. He pushed into the ambulance with Adele. Only when orderlies at the hospital carried her poor, helpless form through the swinging doors did General Anhalt place a firm arm against his chest.
“You can't follow,” the general said. “She is going into surgery.”
Greyfriar stood helplessly as the door closed on Adele. He was overwhelmed by the scent of blood and alcohol and death, and by the sounds of fear and sorrow that surrounded him in this place. He turned to the Gurkha. “They will save her, won't they?”
“She will have the best surgeons in the world.” Anhalt glanced around. “We have not told the public that the princess has been injured. You must wait out of sight. If the Greyfriar is seen here it will cause talk. Come.” As the two men walked the tile hallway with its flickering gas lamps, the general said, “I will have a change of clothes brought for you.”
“Why?”
Anhalt left the swordsman in the small, cool room with orders to stay inside until he was summoned. And so he did. Hours passed as figures moved through the hallway beyond the door, but Greyfriar's ears never picked up word of Adele's condition. Finally, he strode to the door, ready to demand information. Then he smelled something harsh and acrid.
The door swung in and Mamoru appeared. The samurai was dressed in a fashionable black suit with a pearl-grey bowler hat. A walking stick was gripped tightly in his fist. Greyfriar withdrew across the room with a deep rumble in his throat.
“What happened to her?” Mamoru snarled at him.
“I've been here for hours with no word. How is she?”
“I don't know.” The priest suppressed a smile, savoring the pain he was inflicting on the vampire through his various amulets and crystals, and by withholding information. “I ask you again, what happened to her?”
“She was attacked by a man who was hidden in her family tomb. Stabbed before I could intervene. I was not cautious enough. She seemed to know him.” Greyfriar raised a baleful eye at Mamoru. “She said you knew him as well.”
“What do you mean? Explain yourself, damn you!”
“She called him Selkirk.”
Mamoru stiffened, and his eyes darted with confusion as he whispered, “What? That's impossible. You misheard. Where is the assailant's body?”
“They brought him here. He's still alive, to my shame. My first concern was Adele.”
The schoolteacher leaned out the door and shouted to an unseen figure, “You! Send for General Anhalt.”
The samurai and the vampire stared silently at one another for minute after minute until finally the doorknob rattled. Mamoru moved swiftly and went outside before Anhalt could enter. He closed the door on the vampire and confronted the general in the hallway.
“Where is the assassin?” he asked.
Anhalt replied coldly, “He's recovering. His surgery was successful and he will likely survive long enough to attend his execution.”
“I need to see him.”
The general looked surprised, but said, “As you will. Follow me.”
The two men climbed an echoing stairwell to a vast, dim ward, now deserted but for one lone bed surrounded by White Guardsmen. A pale figure with matted hair and bandages wrapped around his midsection lay in a metal-frame bed. Clicking footfalls halted yards from the patient as Mamoru caught a glimpse and faltered. Anhalt stopped too.
“What's wrong?” the general asked.
Mamoru breathed as if he were injured. “I know him.”
“How so?”
“He is a student of mine. I don't understand.”
Anhalt grew grim. “I don't either, but I intend to.”
Mamoru ignored the potential threat to his affairs. He had outmaneuvered greater dangers to his secret cabal than this simple soldier. The extraordinary thing was that Selkirk, one of his chosen geomancers, was here in Alexandria as the would-be assassin of Princess Adele. He couldn't imagine what could have happened to the lad between here and Britain. He had to find out. The implications for his network were catastrophic. The samurai turned abruptly and left the ward with Anhalt following. “I'll want to see his possessions.”
“He had only his clothes and a dagger. They've been searched to no benefit.”
“I will want them. I may see value where others do not. General, even in this horrific time, we have been given an ideal opportunity to end the blight on what we both hold dear. We both know this grotesque situation with the princess can't continue.”
“What grotesque situation would that be?”
“That monster that has latched onto her. You have no idea of his power. We can't know what happened to her in the north, but we both understand that this cannot be allowed to stand. The princess must be free of that parasite. We can do it now while she is not here to protect it.”
The Gurkha general stared at the teacher with no outward emotion. He clasped his hands behind his back. “Prince Gareth is under Her Highness's protection. He is, therefore, under mine as well.”
“But he's a vampire. And the princess is not in her right mind. We must do the right thing!”
“Keep your voice down, sir. This is a hospital.”
The samurai paused, then smiled with recognition at what he took as Anhalt's cleverness. “Ah, I see. Will you then leave me alone with that creature? You need have no knowledge of events.”
General Anhalt pursed his lips and said in an even voice, “I play no games with you, sir. I care nothing for your secret, occult studies with Her Highness. If she enjoys it, teach her; that is not my concern. But if you act against Prince Gareth, I assure you I will fall on you like unholy hell. Do I make myself clear?”
“General, I—”
“Do I make myself clear, sir?”
Mamoru eyed Anhalt with new suspicion. “Yes, General. You are crystal clear.”
“Thank you. I will expect a full report on your relationship with the assailant.”
“In due time. We have more pressing matters. This man, Selkirk, could not have acted alone. He carried no food. Where is his transport? How did he get into the imperial crypt? The doors are always locked and the keys are held by a loyal few. Clearly, he has confederates here in Alexandria, perhaps in the palace itself. We must move before they flee.”
“All traffic—air, sea, rail—has been halted. If he has allies, they can go nowhere.” Anhalt paused, then added, “The only contact we know he has here in Alexandria is you.”
Mamoru reddened, and his mouth tightened in anger. “How dare you! Damn your implications! If you bring me his possessions as I asked, I may be able to track his recent movements. I saw how efficient your dragnet was in preventing Princess Adele and that monster from escaping the city after the wedding. Your men couldn't even find a vampire and a woman in a wedding gown! Now, every second you delay costs us a chance to apprehend whomever may be party to this conspiracy.”
“Do it,” came a voice from down the corridor. Greyfriar emerged from the shadows. “The teacher has abilities that may help.”
Anhalt nodded and barked an order to a nearby soldier to fetch the assassin's belongings from the hospital director's office.
Mamoru said to Greyfriar, “I see you followed us. How much of our conv
ersation did you hear?”
“My hearing is good and you are loud.”
“Then we can stop pretending about where we stand, you and I.”
“I stopped pretending when you tried to take my head in Bunia. Adele covets your teaching, and appears to need it. I don't intend to stand in your way as her instructor. Also, I don't intend to turn my back on you.”
Mamoru's smile transformed into a savage sneer. “You're wiser than I thought.”
MAMORU REMOVED SELKIRK'S filthy clothing from the canvas bag stenciled Iskandar Hospital. He laid it out in the empty operating room where the surgeons had recently labored to save the assassin from his wounds. The samurai priest searched the items, checking seams and cuffs particularly. Then he examined a pair of heavy leather boots with rubber soles, now worn thin. These were the same boots Selkirk had when he had departed Alexandria for Britain nearly two years ago. Mamoru studied the soles, picking at the seams and cracks with his fingernails.
“Ah!” He held up a small stone. “This will do.”
General Anhalt asked, “What can you learn from that pebble?”
“Something, I hope.” Mamoru opened a leather satchel and began to arrange metal instruments on the porcelain tabletop. “Not as much as Selkirk himself could tell me; a finer geolocationist never existed.” He popped the blue flame on a small handheld torch. “You may wish to remove our vampire friend, as he could find his senses offended by some of my practices. Return in an hour.”
Gareth followed Anhalt into a guarded corridor as he lifted his wrap over his face. The general glanced at the soldiers who stood tensely along the walls, feeding off the stressful mood of the hospital.
“General,” Greyfriar said, “may I please see Adele?”
“She is still in surgery.”
“I just want to see her. Please, I beg you.” His tone held a hint of a man on the brink of losing everything.
The general considered for a moment, then nodded. He ordered nearby troopers not to let the priest out of their sight before departing with Greyfriar. Passing countless soldiers, they turned several corners, striding endless pale-green tiled hallways. Anhalt led the way onto an inconspicuous staircase, and through another door into a theater of sorts. Troopers saluted as the two moved quietly down the steps between the rows of benches until they reached a railing. Both men faltered.
The Rift Walker Page 39