Kingmakers, The (Vampire Empire Book 3) (13 page)

He laughed without humor. “I would rather die. I am a teacher, a priest, and once, a samurai. Never an elected official. But your point is well taken, Sanah. I called you all here to discuss the empress and our plans. It has been months since I spoke to all of you at once.” Mamoru poured another cup of stiff coffee. “What you may not know about the war is the reason for our glorious triumph at Grenoble. It was the empress who scattered the vampires there, allowing our army to walk in unopposed.”

Nzingu stared at Mamoru, along with her colleagues. Then she laughed with a startlingly loud cackle that surprised the group nearly as much as Mamoru's announcement. “However will the steam lords of Alexandria deal with a witch queen?”

“It isn't quite so simple.”

“I know that, Mamoru. We Zulu drove our vampires from the uKhahlamba with shamans leading our armies with botanicals and crystals. But then we turned on our magicians and priests. Will Equatoria have to destroy the great sorceress to preserve their comfortable worldview?”

Mamoru pursed his lips with tired bemusement. He checked his pocket watch. Sir Godfrey and Sanah kept quiet.

Nzingu flopped into an overstuffed chintz chair. “So have we reached the moment? Does the empress charge to the front and burn a swathe through the enemy? Why do we even need an army in Europe?”

“The strain on the empress in using her skill on that level is enormous. Grenoble was harmful to her. And the effect on the vampires was temporary. They could return. That's also part of the problem. If she starts rushing around Europe using her abilities like some altruistic bomb, she will wear herself out. She could well kill herself before I can make use of her. She still has much to do to prepare for the Event, and there is an additional complication.”

Mamoru peered out through the bead curtain separating their plush back room from the hazy hashish parlor beyond. Assured of their relative privacy, he returned to the cabal and stood near them. In a low voice, he said, “One thing which you all must know before we go further. It is something about the Greyfriar.”

Sanah sat up with alarm. “Is he dead? That will crush poor Adele.”

“No. He is quite alive last I heard.” Mamoru paused, considering his next words. “The man you know as Greyfriar is not a man. He is a vampire. His true name is Gareth. He is a prince of the British clan, the eldest son of King Dmitri.”

Nzingu's face flushed with shock and surprise. She exchanged looks with Sir Godfrey and Sanah. They both held the same disbelief that was no doubt reflected in her eyes. What Mamoru said couldn't be true, but for him to lie so flagrantly made no sense.

“He latched onto the empress while she was a prisoner in the north, and she has fallen under his sway. I have been unable to act against him because I feared losing my contact with her.”

Sir Godfrey murmured, “I had a strange feeling when I met him at the hospital after the empress was stabbed. But I dismissed it as incredible, a product of my own exhaustion at the time. How did you find out?”

Mamoru said, “I've known since I encountered him with the empress in Katanga last summer.”

Nzingu asked with the incredulity cracking her voice, “Since last summer? And we're only now finding this out?”

The priest glared at her. “This is not the time for your typical difficulty, Nzingu. We have other issues to attend.”

Sir Godfrey smiled weakly at his companions. “It's just that we find it hard to credit, Mamoru. How can a vampire pretend to be a human?”

“It's chilling to watch him mimic a human. It's sickening to see Adele fawn on him. He is a parasite even though Adele drapes human emotions on him the way people do with their pets. He is not a man. He is a creature. He must be dealt with.”

Sir Godfrey opened his mouth, and then closed it because he didn't know what to say. He moved his eyes back and forth in confusion. “Well, he is with the army much of the time. Can't you just alert the sirdar and let him take care of the problem?”

Mamoru said, “General Anhalt will be no help to us. The sirdar would say the sun was the moon if the empress wished it. He knows everything about Greyfriar. He has the vampire under his protection and expressly forbade me to harm the thing on penalty of my own life.” He continued to stalk the room. “Obviously he must be killed. However, nothing can be done in a way that might publicly embarrass the empress or reveal that she was aware of this abomination.”

“This debacle just keeps getting better and better,” Nzingu laughed. “It certainly won't do for the empire to learn their witch queen was consorting with a vampire. Although I would enjoy seeing that debated in Commons.”

Sanah asked, “Are we sure that killing him is necessary? It doesn't appear that he has prevented her from moving forward in her practices. She struck Grenoble.”

“When he is about, she suspends her studies, out of fear for his health,” Mamoru retorted. “That is unacceptable. She is growing more independent and headstrong, and powerful. She is even beginning to question whether she should use her abilities against the vampires at all. I can't allow her to stop me now. I have forged her into a perfect weapon and I intend to use her.”

Sanah whispered, “Surely you don't mean to sound so harsh toward your student.”

“I mean all I say.” The priest glowered with anger and fire in his face. “She is hardly my student any longer. I will finish what I started.”

“And what of the Greyfriar?” Sir Godfrey asked. “Are you saying all those exploits of Greyfriar in the north were the work of a vampire? For what reason?”

“I have no idea,” Mamoru replied. “Nor do I care.”

Sir Godfrey pointed out, “Greyfriar means much to the people of the north, and south. How can we remove him?”

“There is no more need for the Greyfriar,” the samurai snarled. “His day is done.”

“I will kill him,” Nzingu said suddenly.

All heads turned to her.

“Who else could?” she stated without pride. “It must be quiet and it must be sure. Of us four, only Mamoru or I could possibly manage it, and Mamoru is otherwise engaged training the world's suddenly reluctant savior. So I will kill this monster and save the poor empress from its loving clutches.” She turned to Sanah at the sound of the Persian woman's uncomfortable sigh. “Do you object?”

Sanah replied in a hesitant voice, “No.”

Mamoru nodded eagerly, rubbing his hands together. “You will serve admirably, Nzingu. It can't happen here in Alexandria near the empress. He will soon be here with us in the city. So we must wait for him to journey again to Europe and you will pursue him back to his lair in Scotland where he inevitably returns. Our network in the north will speed your travel somewhat. It won't be an easy task. He is a dangerous foe. He is skilled with weapons and has the natural cunning of his kind. We will discuss it in more detail later.”

“Fine,” said Nzingu, then more to herself, muttered, “No young girl should venture into womanhood untouched by the loss of her love.”

This was about the future, not the past.

“L
ET ME UNDERSTAND
this. You told Flay that you would kill Simon?”

“In so many words, yes.”

Adele shook her head slowly as she selected a cutlass from a rack of weapons. She swung the sword several times, appreciating the whisper it made in the air. Greyfriar waited nearby, twirling his rapier in his fingers to practice dexterity. An early-morning wind off the Mediterranean flapped the ends of the scarf wrapping his face. Their makeshift fencing strip on the roof of Victoria Palace overlooking the sea could be quite blustery. She took up a position ten feet away from the tall swordsman.

Adele always counted on Greyfriar for comfort and relief from the pressure, and was happy he had returned to Alexandria today. While she knew it was irrational to expect him to wipe away the numerous problems that surrounded her, the memories of those days in Europe when he seemed to have every answer she needed swelled immense at times. The young princess had depended on Greyfriar utterly then, but those days were far behind the empress now. She had to stand alone and only lean on him in private, and content herself with his occasional partnership.

“Well, what's one more unsolvable problem?” Adele said with a quirky smile. Her hair was plaited into a thick braid against the wind.

“I had little choice,” he offered. “She wanted me to kill you.”

Adele practiced a thrust, imagining she was skewering Flay. “That is tiresome of her. I suppose we could announce Simon had died, and hold a funeral.”

Greyfriar cleared his throat.

“Yes?” she asked, brandishing the cutlass. “Was there more to the bargain?”

“I have to bring a piece of him to her.”

“A piece of him? A piece of my brother? How large a piece will satisfy Flay?”

“I imagine a hand will do.”

“How fortunate he has two.” The empress came en garde in fifth position, prompting Greyfriar to raise his weapon. She struck suddenly with three moves planned. She swung high, bringing Greyfriar's blade up for a parry, intent on overpowering his lighter sword. Metal clashed. The rapier flew off her cutlass. She dropped low for a sweep across the midsection. His sword was there fast, as she knew it would be, so she surged forward with the cutlass drawn tight against her, sharp edge toward Greyfriar, pressing his long sword flat against his chest and pushing the razor edge of the cutlass across his throat. If the cutlass had actually been sharpened, he would have suffered a vicious deep cut, likely debilitating.

As it was, Greyfriar exclaimed, “Amazing. The perfect moves. As long as you have a cutlass and your enemy is a human carrying a rapier.”

Adele smirked with one eyebrow arching. “Well, you may have noticed that I do have a cutlass and my opponent is carrying a rapier.”

“You're right.” Greyfriar saluted with his sword. “I would have been dead if I was human.”

“Even so,” Adele countered, with an attempt at levity. “Such a wound could bleed out a vampire as well as a human. Just admit that I was prepared for you.”

Greyfriar settled into his ready stance and waited. Adele didn't appreciate the challenge in his action. She had done what she needed to defeat him, which he recognized, but then added some pointless technicalities to lessen her accomplishment. The last person she expected nitpicking from was Greyfriar.

Adele came at him again with a precision strike. He parried and was gone, flipping over her head, putting one hand on her shoulder, and landing behind her. She was already spinning, expecting a blow to her head from the basket hilt of his sword, but he grabbed her hair and pulled her down. Her feet left the ground and his strength bore her to the hard rooftop. One of his knees pressed onto her chest and the other pinned her sword hand. Greyfriar ripped the cloth from his face and Adele saw his fangs bared. His mouth yawned open wide and his head surged toward her. There was a gentle rake of hard teeth and then soft lips against her neck.

In her ear, he whispered, “I pray you don't ever forget what my kind can do.”

“I thought this was only a friendly sparring match,” Adele chided.

Gareth shifted his weight off her and fingered the tendrils of her hair that had escaped the braid. Adele felt her irritation slipping away as she stared at his unmasked face and watched his gaze playing over her hair. His eyes were tight with sadness. And, he was right in his lesson. In reality, a vampire would not have a rapier and her victory against Greyfriar was only because she knew he wouldn't use his natural weapons against her. She had used that knowledge and crowed about it. There were times her overconfidence annoyed even her.
Touché
, she thought.

Adele heard a strange noise. Gareth looked around for the source. He pointed toward the sea, where a naval airship was passing off the coast, within easy sight of the palace. The crew lined the rail cheering at the empress and her consort on the roof. Adele rose to her feet with a hand from Gareth. She raised her cutlass to the ship in salute. The roar grew even louder. Gareth replaced the cloth over his face.

With a laugh she said, “You realize they thought they had caught us in an intimate moment? They only saw me reclined, and you bent over me tenderly. The stories will begin to circulate of the empress's romantic trysts on the roof of the palace. They don't know you had just pummeled me and threatened to drink my blood.”

“I'm sorry,” Greyfriar replied. “It was ridiculously stupid of me. I too can never forget what I am, or where I am.”

She took his arm. “You can take the vampire out of the north, but
you can't take the north out of the vampire. And I would have killed you with my first attack, right?”

The lines around his shrouded eyes wrinkled with a smile. “You would have incapacitated me. And you could have dispatched me with your typical bloody efficiency before I recovered.”

“That's all a young woman wants to hear.” Adele kissed him through the cloth. She took his rapier and tested it. “I like your sword. The balance is perfect. But why do you prefer a rapier? With your strength, a crushing weapon would make more sense.”

“Crushing is almost useless against vampires. It's more efficient to penetrate. If you destroy our heart, we die.”

She touched the center of his chest with the tip of the rapier.

He looked down, and then held out his arms helplessly.

Adele shook her head. Her slender hand replaced the point of his sword and she kissed the spot where it had rested.

He enfolded her in an embrace.

A singular warmth spread through her. Then she sighed. “Unfortunately, I have yet another meeting with Prime Minister Kemal, Lord Aden, and the War Materiel Committee in an hour, so we had better discuss how you intend to murder my brother without actually killing him.”

“Then let us just spar. No lessons, just simple exercise. It will clear our minds.”

Greyfriar crossed to the weapon rack and pulled a rapier similar to his. He then stood facing Adele and came en garde, as did she. They began to fence, their blades flashing and ringing. A few steps one way, a few back the other. Lunge, parry, riposte. Again. They fell into a pattern that matched each other so cleanly it seemed scripted.

Adele watched his long limbs whip almost as if they were an extension of the sword. His movements had both speed and a raw strength that was very different from Mamoru's purist skills. Her teacher seemed hardly to move at all; Greyfriar was a swirling mass of action. She studied what she could see of his face, wishing his eyes were uncovered so she could see the intensity and concentration in them.

“So, I'm assuming,” Adele breathed hard as they fenced, “we can find a suitable hand from the morgue, and that will satisfy Flay.”

“It isn't that simple. Flay knows Simon's scent.”

“Then how? Besides the obvious, which is out of the question.”

“I noticed when you were in the hospital, they gave you blood from bottles.”

“Yes.”

“I propose doing as you say and finding a suitable hand, then removing some of Simon's blood and soaking the hand in it. It should be enough to deceive Flay.”

“That's gruesome.”

“Will Simon object?”

“Oh no,” Adele said. “He'll love it.”

“We'll need a lot of blood to make her believe that he is dead. We'll take some of his clothes drenched in it too, as well as the hand. She'll assume with that much loss of blood he will have died of grievous injuries.”

“It might work.” Adele lunged forward with a remise, perfectly executing a number of short attacks in quick succession, not allowing any quarter, but Gareth deflected them all.

“Good. Of course we'll need to make Simon dead to the public. It must appear a vampire murdered him. Cesare and Flay have agents everywhere. If your old prime minister was in league with London, we can safely assume there are others here still passing information northward.”

“I pray that's not true. We combed through Lord Kelvin's papers and, as meticulous as they were, if there were other agents in Equatoria, he would've mentioned it. Knowing Kelvin, he would have registered their pay slips. He was incapable of not keeping records of everything.”

“All of Cesare's spies may not be part of the same network. Greyfriar has agents across Europe; they don't all know each other. It's safer for them that way. You must decide whom you trust, and limit the most sensitive information to that group. But there may also be information you tell no one, even me.”

“I trust you.” Adele began to retreat, now unable to maintain her speed of riposte before Greyfriar's tireless attack. “And General Anhalt. And Mamoru.”

“Then the truth about Simon can go no further. To everyone else, he must be dead.”

Adele's voice was nearly lost in ragged breathing. “King Msiri. We'll need his help too.” She stumbled and fell with a grunt.

Greyfriar was on one knee beside her. “Are you all right?”

The empress could barely answer with one hand on her heaving chest. Her face was bright red, but she shook her head and forced herself to say, “I'm fine. Just tired. I'm fine.”

He went and dipped a cup of water from a nearby pitcher. “You are exhausted. You shouldn't be so winded. Are you sleeping at all?”

She drank deeply, huffing for breath, and gave a wet cough. “Not much, no. There's so much to do. Dispatches from the front. Meetings. Speeches. Training with Mamoru.”

He studied her intently. “Adele, you look many years older than when I first saw you.”

“That's so sweet, thank you.” She glared up at him wearily, shaking her head. “Let me give you a little tip. Human women don't like to be told they look old.” But she had noticed it in the mirror too. There were darkening circles under her eyes and creases showing on her forehead. Even more, her lush hair seemed different, wirier and more brittle to the touch.

Adele stood as quickly as she could muster to put him at ease, but it was just pretense. She was weary, and it wasn't from fencing practice. She wiped her perspiring face with a towel. “If I look old to you now, what happens when I'm sixty, but you still look the same?”

“Nothing will happen,” he replied with no hint of falseness. “I will still be here. I only said it because you seem to be suffering. Should I not tell you?”

“No. I want you to say something if you think there's a problem. You just could tell me in a nicer way.”

Greyfriar responded, “I adore you, and you look very tired.”

“That's better.” Adele laughed and handed his rapier back.

He swept the sword back into its scabbard. “There is one more thing that I learned from Flay that will impact us.”

She groaned. “Yes?”

“My father is dead.”

Adele heard an unusual catch in his voice, and her heart dropped.
She took him in her arms. “Oh Gareth, I'm so sorry. I know he meant a great deal to you.”

“Once, he did. But he hasn't been that person for a long time.” He put his arms around her. “His death wasn't unexpected, but it complicates the immediate future. On the other hand, it gave me the perfect sparkling object to dangle in front of Flay. I told her that I intend to kill my brother and become king.”

Adele pulled back with eyes full of surprise.

Greyfriar quickly held up a calming hand. “It's merely a ploy. Flay has dreamed of being my war chief for centuries. She's more likely to give me what I want if she thinks that great prize is looming on the horizon.” He paused to think. “If I have the chance to kill Cesare, I will. But odds are he will be heavily guarded at all times from now on.”

“Well, in any case, you're not likely to see Cesare any time soon, are you?”

“Yes, actually. He has called a coven in London to choose a new king.”

“You're not going, are you?”

“I must.” He pressed a finger against her lips as she began to argue. “Adele, there is no need. We both have our duties that we can't avoid. No amount of worrying will stop them. And whether I go or not, the outcome will be the same. My brother will be king, and my days of freedom in the north as Prince Gareth will be at an end. Cesare will want to have me killed, but I suspect he'd prefer to wait until he is the king so it looks like he won because he's better, not because he was the only choice.”