by Anne Schlea
She hasn’t been around many vampires, Kristoff remembers. Joseph lives on Damian’s estate and Dinah visited regularly. They are the only two vampires besides her husband Tara has ever met. Kristoff hopes she’s prepared because she’s about to get dropped into the deep end of the vampire pool.
“Thank you for suggesting this airport.” Damian approaches Kristoff quickly, his eyes scanning the area around them for threats. “I feel much better about this than the size of the main airport. Can we get out of the open?”
“Of course.” Kristoff shakes Damian’s hand and nods to Runa. She moves around to the other side of Tara. If anyone attacks, Tara will be protected by Damian on her left and Runa on her right. It’s not perfect, but it will make any assassination attempt more difficult. “I’m sorry we meet under such circumstances.”
“I told her to stay out of this.” Damian’s arm goes around Tara’s back as Kristoff leads them to his car. “But you know my mother. She was stubborn that way. Any injured child that needs help, Dinah’s going to go out of her way to make it better. Even at the cost of her own life.”
“You’re angry with her?” Runa finds Damian’s anger fascinating. Most speak of Dinah with reverence for her giving; beings of many races loved her regardless of politics. Yet here, her son chastises her choices in death.
“Wouldn’t you be?” He looks over at her, then frowns. “Maybe not. You’re a warrior. She wasn’t and never has been. Dinah was a matriarch even before the clans formed. She should have left town for somewhere safe as soon as this thing started.”
“We all have our place in this world, Damian.” Kristoff opens the door to lead them out of the airport. Kristoff’s car and driver wait on the other side. “Dinah had a right to pick hers.”
“Dinah had a responsibility to her family.” He opens the door and allows Tara to slide into the waiting car. “The Dragons and the Ravens are here to make war. Our people keep the vampires financially stable. She should have remembered that.”
“In war, take a target that is unexpected and emotionally devastating when possible.” Runa glances past Damian to Tara in the shelter of the car. They want to believe they’re safe, but Dinah thought she’d been safe in her car, too. “In some ways, you’re right, but trust me when I tell you they would have found a way, no matter where Dinah hid, if she had been the intent.”
“Is that what you would have done?” He seems to size her up, looking Runa from head to toe. Then he crosses his arms over his chest. “Would you have gone after my mother?”
“Yes.” She doesn’t see a reason to lie. They’ll all have a better chance of surviving this war if they start being more honest about how to fight it. “Antonia, Zartan, Kristoff, we all have a certain expectation of death. We go to battle knowing we might not return. Dinah was a civilian who was loved by many. Her death has caused great pain and made those in charge question the path they’ve set out upon. That makes all of us vulnerable.”
Kristoff is impressed. He watches Damian continue to look at Runa, her words running through his head. Damian nods and slides into the car next to Tara. Runa had unknowingly diffused a potential bomb. If Damian felt they were to blame for Dinah’s death, he could have pulled his clan out of Atlanta and withdrawn support for the war, which would be both an emotionally and financially devastating blow.
He’s right about one thing: without the support of the Silverblade’s anyone else will have some difficulty funding the war.
“I like you.” Damian says, his eyes still watching Runa. “We might just get out of this thing alive if Zartan is listening to you.”
The door closes behind Damian, giving Runa a chance to look up at Kristoff with a smug smile. She kisses him lightly on the cheek before circling the car to sit on the other side of Tara. “Look at who’s good at this. The valkyrie. Negotiation and talking sense into the vampires….”
Kristoff smiles, then joins his driver in the front seat of the car. As they head toward the hotel, he thinks about the next few days. Something needs to change. Something big. Otherwise, they all might find themselves rotting away in a nosferatu prison.
Chapter 12
Runa throws back a shot of vodka and then pours herself a second. She hands the decanter off to Damian and then moves to stand next to Kristoff; he’s leaning on the back of the sofa, his eyes trained on the cushions and his body giving off waves of sadness.
She’s not sure who made the call to gather at Kristoff’s hotel, but all afternoon, one by one, vampires started showing up. Thankfully, the room isn’t too trashed; she was able to pick up discarded weapons and clothes, tidy up, and even had the downstairs kitchen bring in a pot of coffee. Look at her, being all kinds of domestic. When did that happen?
The coffee hasn’t been touched. Kristoff’s vodka, on the other hand, is getting low in the bottle.
It seems “things to do” have run out and now it’s time to feel the brutality of what happened the day before. Dinah is gone. There’s no more avoiding the emotions, no more frantic scrambling of forces or hurry to control the human authorities’ response. The maji have done the best they can, but the rest is up to the powers that be and a good prayer to any god that decides to listen.
The groundwork has been laid to blame the car bomb on a cartel or a gang rivalry, leaving no fingers to point to the supernatural. With any luck, the words “vampire” will never be uttered.
“Why are we all here again?” Runa reaches a hand over to touch Kristoff lightly on the back. She can feel his sorrow bleeding through the air and hates that she doesn’t know what to do. She’d never seen him emotionally hurt like this before. Touching him seems to help. “Isn’t this place a little out in the open?”
“We’re hiding in plain sight.” Damian tosses back his drink and sets the glass on the sideboard. “It seems unrealistic that the nosferatu will come at us in the middle of the city in a crowded hotel. There are too many of us here.”
The door to the bathroom opens to reveal Tara, still looking shell-shocked. Being waken in the middle of the night, told to pack, and hurried onto a jet to another city because your husband just became the leader of his vampire clan will do that.
Damian immediately goes to her and wraps his arm around her shoulder, tucking her against his side like he’d protect her with his own body. Runa glances at the huge windows looking out to the inner courtyard of the hotel. The blackout curtains have been drawn, but she wonders if that would really stop a sniper with a FLIR rifle scope.
“We don’t hide.” Zartan, sitting on a chair pulled in from the dining room, keeps his eyes on his hands folded in front of him. “We’re regrouping.”
Runa ignores him. “With all due respect, it seemed unlikely two days ago that the nosferatu would use a car bomb in the middle of the daytime. I think we’re past the point of unrealistic. And while we’re on the subject of daytime, we might want to start thinking about who exactly is allied with us and who might be secretly allied with the nosferatu. One of the nosferatu sure didn’t set that bomb. Dinah arrived after daylight.”
“What exactly are you implying?” Zartan looks up from his hands, waves of aggression rolling off his body. The look on his face alone would make most logical beings head for a different room.
Good, Runa thinks, he needs to get his head back in the game. Let him get angry. Anger means energy. Energy means motion. Forward motion means some of them might survive. Someone needs to pull them out of this downward spiral of despair before all of them are dead.
“I’m not implying anything. I’m stating a fact. Someone planted that bomb in the daylight.” He stands up and takes several steps toward her. She meets him in the middle of the room, using her own energy to push back against him. “The heads of all the vampire families were invited. Someone talked and then someone who can walk in the daylight set that bomb.”
“You’re saying one of our own is allied with the nosferatu?” Damian shakes his head, glaring at her. “No. They might not want to go to
war with us, but they wouldn’t knowingly try to kill us, either.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.” She looks around the room. “There are seven clans, eight if you count the maji. Four of those clans are here, allied together. Marcus came to that meeting but isn’t here now. That’s five, trusting he isn’t the rat. We all know the maji move with Kristoff. You hold the power; it doesn’t matter what the other families say or vote. The four of you will out rule them; and believe me, they know it. Are you really so sure none of the others are power hungry enough to take you out, one by one, to put themselves in power? Or at least to keep you out of their territory?”
Runa meets each of the vampires in the eyes. None of them will deny it because they all know it to be true. Somewhere in time two of the men in this room had been generals, fighting wars much different and bloodier than today’s conflicts. When did they forget how to fight? When did they forget how to play dirty?
Wars aren’t won by gentlemen. Wars are won by warriors willing to do what is necessary to win. Sometimes what is necessary drives them to the brink of madness; but necessary is what ends wars.
“She’s right.” Kristoff finally looks up. He reaches out a hand to pull Runa against his body and she lets him. Maybe being around vampires is ruining her, like her sisters warned, but she sees the benefit to it as well. Being overrun by feelings can destroy you; having none is just as crippling. He kisses her gently then lets her go to move to the center of the room. “We’ve become a nation divided and I don’t think a Council will fix that problem. For centuries, vampires ruled the creatures of the darkness, not with an iron fist, but with guidance. We lived in harmony for centuries after the Demon Wars. It’s our own fault this is happening now.”
Runa bites her tongue. Vampires ruling with guidance isn’t exactly how most of the other races remember the days of the vampire Council, but now isn’t the time to bring that up. These are new players, new vampires with very different experiences than the original vampires who once ruled. After some of the things she’d experienced from the Council, Runa would happily spit on Terrin’s grave if she knew where it is.
“If not a Council, then what do you suggest?” Damian challenges him. “If we’re killing each other what is going to stop the nosferatu?”
“One nation.” Kristoff smiles, irony on his face. He’d fought hard at one time to stay independent of the other. “One leader over all the vampires as the other nations have. No more division.”
“A King.” Zartan scoffs, his face reddening in anger. “I see where this is going, and I’ll be damned if I let you use my mother’s death to buy yourself a throne. You’re here on my kindness, Russian, don’t forget that. This is my territory you stand in.”
“A King.” He shrugs and looks around the room. “A Queen, a President, hell, call the leader the Tooth Fairy for all I care. We didn’t set up the nations that way a millennium ago because it didn’t make sense. We couldn’t expect Zartan to take a boat from the Orient to Madrid for every problem. He had to have sovereignty to handle his own issues. Today we can be around the world in a microsecond. All it takes is a phone and a satellite. Bring the clans to heel under one head and then establish a new Council, one that gives voice to all nations, not just the vampires.”
“A United Nations of demons and night creatures?” Damian snorts and leans back in his seat, away from Kristoff. “You’re dreaming.”
“No, he’s making sense.” Tara looks at her husband, her voice soft but serious. “Disenfranchised people will rise up. From what you’ve told me, this started because laws were governing the nosferatu that they had no say over. Does the American Revolution ring a bell to anyone here?”
“We have no Queen.” Runa shrugs, feeling a bit of guilt at her half-truth. “We get along just fine.”
Kristoff looks at her with a deadpan expression.
“What?” She’s offended but then she smiles. If there’s any time for honesty, now’s it. She shrugs. “Fair enough. We have no Queen we publicly acknowledge but we do follow a hierarchy to keep our numbers in line. Yes, before you ask, while my sisters don’t play well with others, they believe in strength over all else. They would probably be willing to ally themselves with the strongest contender for a unified vampire nation. It would help, of course, if that ‘Tooth Fairy’ were a woman.”
“I supposed that this new vampire King should be you?” Joseph, quiet until now, crosses his arms over his chest. He’s noticeably sitting apart from Damian, now his leader, his closest friend since his transition to their life. Runa had never seen them apart before. She wonders if Tara or Damian’s new position in their clan has more to do with the rift she’s sensing.
Joseph, already the target of terrible persecution in his human life, has a well-defined code of honor and trust. He won’t trust just anyone to rule the nation.
“Not me. I wish to mate a valkyrie, my allegiance to the vampires will be called into question. I’m afraid I’ll have enough of a difficult time holding my own clan together if someone wants to fight me. We need a leader without divided loyalty. She must be mated to a vampire and keep a strong household. A warrior household.” Kristoff points across the room to Antonia. “Queen. Her.”
“Wait, what?” Runa looks at Kristoff, her stomach falling, the world spinning under her feet. Did he just say mate? Did he seriously just propose to her in front of all these vampires?
“No.” Antonia stands up from her chair next to Zartan, shaking her head and gesturing with her hands. Clearly, she didn’t hear Kristoff’s announcement about wanting to mate Runa. “Absolutely not. I’m not your queen.”
“Listen.” Kristoff keeps talking like neither of them objected. “Right now, we can do anything we want within the bounds of our own territory. That means if Zartan takes one too many sword blows to the head, he can start blowing up Chinese cargo ships in the Sea of Japan. We can’t stop him. It doesn’t make sense. I’m not saying to give complete power to one person, that would be just as foolish. But to vote in, by a majority of the heads of families, a leader who will de facto rule for a predetermined amount of time. The leader would answer to the families who would elect a voice to represent them among the species. A senate.”
“He’s not wrong.” Damian sighs and rubs his eyes with both hands. “Someone has to take control of our world. If you think the things being done by nosferatu scientists is bad, imagine what would happen if the humans found out about us. We might be immortal, but they’d overcome us in sheer numbers. It will happen. You all know it will. It’s a miracle we’ve been kept in secrecy this long.”
“A queen, a senate, a UN.” Zartan laughs. “What next? A Minister of Magic and schools of witchcraft?”
The whole room looks at Zartan in silence.
“What?” He leans back in his chair. “I read.”
“But why me?” Antonia paces the room, her head shaking slowly. “Just a year ago…”
“We know what happened a year ago.” Kristoff takes a drink of his own vodka, grimaces, and then takes another. “You’re well known to be a great negotiator. Our people respect you. A year ago, you added an Elder’s head to your belt. Hell, I’d think twice about challenging you after that. It might have been a fluke, but you still managed to take out the second oldest member of our race. I doubt anyone is willing to fight against you for a while.”
“Wait.” Runa sees Antonia waver on her feet and hold up a hand. “What do you mean the second oldest member?”
“Richard was the first vampire the Old One ever created.” Kristoff looks at her in confusion. “Didn’t you know? He was almost as old as she is; she couldn’t travel or hold any kind of status by the laws of her time, so she needed a male servant to represent her publicly. That was Richard. He changed his name centuries later to help hide his age and blend in better in contemporary society. As far as I know, The Old One’s had a dozen names, too. I thought you knew.”
Runa feels the blow to Antonia’s stomach bef
ore she even reacts. Elders are incredibly secretive of their age, so no, Antonia probably had no idea. Neither did anyone else in the room, gauging by their reactions. Damian even shifts his body away from Antonia like he expects her to attack at any moment.
“I’m going to be sick.” She collapses back in her chair and doubles over, causing Zartan to jump up and kneel in front of her. Runa can hear him whispering softly, his hands rubbing her arms lightly. Not the reaction Runa would have given. If she’d managed to take out one of the oldest valkyrie in existence in a bid for power, she’d probably do backflips.
“How did you know?” Damian looks from his sister back to Kristoff. “If none of us knew, how did you?”
“In a Council meeting, centuries ago.” Kristoff crosses the room to pour more vodka. When he sees the decanter empty, he pulls a fresh bottle from inside the sideboard. “I overheard Richard and Terrin arguing over the leadership of the families and the formation of the Clan of the Dragon. He thought, as the oldest, he should be given control of the new family, not Zartan. He thought Zartan was too young. The bastard never did learn leadership is earned, not given.”
“What about the Old One?” Damian rubs his eyes again, exhausted. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. “Shouldn’t she have a say in this?”
“I already talked to her.” Kristoff moves back to Runa and takes her hand. “The Old One helped me to formulate this plan. She agrees it’s time to unite under one banner.”
“You’ll understand if I don’t take your word for it.” Damian raises an eyebrow.
“By all means.” He pulls his cell out of his pocket and holds it out toward the male. They look at each other for several moments before Damian curses and looks away. “I’m not suggesting we do anything tonight. Go to your clan. Talk to them.”
“What do we do in the meantime?” Zartan looks up from the floor. “A full out onslaught? Kill as many of them as we can before they kill more of us? Or do we just sit here and wait to get picked off, one by one?”