Kingmakers, The (Vampire Empire Book 3) (30 page)

His wife struggled against one of the things as it brought its jaws down on her throat. To his stunned surprise, the creature screamed and reared back, Tomiko’s own amulet tangled in its yellow teeth amid a wash of blood and smoke. With a clear path to his wife, the prefect started to bound onto the veranda. Then a hand seized his ankle and yanked him back onto his stomach in the dirt. The creatures that should have been dead all rose around him.

Mamoru rolled quickly onto his back, trying to keep the sword up as protection. The monster holding him gibbered and spit, and leapt up onto his abdomen, ignoring the blade slicing cleanly along its rib cage. A gnarled hand with long yellow claws streaked down at him, digging into his chest. The vampire screeched and fell back off him. It rolled in the dirt, clutching its smoking hand, before scurrying away. Its two companions followed like pack animals, and all three streaked across the courtyard and vanished into the darkness.

Mamoru felt warm blood spreading across his shredded tunic. Still, he struggled desperately to his knees and crawled up onto the veranda, shouting his wife’s name. Another vampire hunched over Tomiko looked
at him, seemed almost to smile with bloody teeth even though its eyes were nothing more than a savage beast. It didn’t flex and leap upward, but in a surreal scene, it just lifted slowly off the ground, still in a crouching position. Its brethren with the talisman in its blackened teeth writhed on the ground and finally lay still.

Mamoru dragged himself to the figure of his crumpled wife. Her coat and robe were shredded and the flesh nearly flayed from her bare chest. The wound at her throat was raw and horrific. He pulled her up from a pool of sticky blood and clutched her tight against his grief. Her round perfect face was stained bright red.

“Kiyo,” she gurgled, trying to reach.

Mamoru saw the shape of his poor little daughter lying not far away, completely still. He could tell there was nothing to be done for her, and his heart shattered. He pressed Tomiko’s face to his chest, silently clinging to his anguish.

“Kiyo,” she repeated, struggling weakly.

“Kiyo is fine,” Mamoru said, shielding his wife from the horror burning his own eyes. The sight of his daughter lying unprotected left him feeling as if his bones were frozen and broken. But he deserved the torture; he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the little figure. “Don’t fight, Tomiko. I will get a doctor for you.”

“Kiyo is safe?”

“She is here next to us.”

Tomiko sank against him with relief. “Do you still have the talisman I gave you?”

“Yes.” His voice cracked with anguish. He touched the stone resting against his bloody chest and realized with a shock that it had repelled the creature. But his wife had not been so lucky. His tears dropped onto her face, creating spatters in the blood.

“I’m so tired,” she whispered.

All he wanted to shout was
No, no, no! Stay awake! Don’t leave me alone!
But instead he said quietly, “Rest then.”

“Yes, I will. Kiss Kiyo for me. I’m too tired.”

“I will see you both in the morning.”

A small red hand tried to grip his arm. “Be a great man.”

“If you say it, I will.” He couldn’t finish the sentence because his breath was gone.

Tomiko died there along with his daughter, leaving Mamoru with his unrelenting grief.

Mamoru jerked awake from his nightmare, startling Sir Godfrey, who fussed nearby with Sanah. His face ashen, he reached for the watered-down wine beside him.

“You need to eat,” Sanah remarked, gesturing to a plate of food beside the wine.

“I’m not hungry,” the samurai muttered, throwing the cashmere blanket aside. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep.”

“You’re dead on your feet, my friend.” Godfrey stepped closer.

“I can’t risk one of your servants seeing me and talking to the wrong person. You two must stay free to coordinate my needs.”

Sir Godfrey harrumphed. “They wouldn’t arrest me. Would they? I am a man of some position. And I did save the empress’s life on the operating table.”

Mamoru gulped more of the wine, washing the bitterness of despair aside, letting his anger once more rise. “I no longer know what Adele will do. If she fears for that beast of hers, she may be capable of anything.”

Sanah flinched at his harsh tone, and he noticed because he glanced disapprovingly at her. His frown showed he would brook no dissension now.

“Is there a problem, Sanah?”

“No. I’m simply worried about you.”

“I’ll need you to gather crystals. I don’t have access to my personal collection.” He took a pencil and paper, and began to scribble notes. He handed the sheet to Sanah. “And mark you, they must be perfect.”

Sir Godfrey set a bowl of rice and vegetables in front of Mamoru. It was only grudgingly that he began to eat, more for nourishment than for hunger.

“There is no more time for pleasantries and schooling. I have lost
control of the empress. Clearly the beast has her in his thrall.” He pointed his fork at Sir Godfrey. “I’ll want an airship standing by. A fast one. Do you have the ready resources?”

“Yes, indeed. I’ll make arrangements for a yacht. Do you intend to escape the Empire?”

“It isn’t for me. It’s for Adele. I need a ship to take her to the rift on Malta, if possible. But there are other sites that may suit me. Bring me the maps.”

Sir Godfrey went to a painting of a Turkish seraglio on the wall and slid it up to reveal a safe. A few twirls of the dial and he opened the heavy door, and retrieved leather-bound folios that he carried to the table next to Mamoru. The samurai shoved the fine bone china roughly aside and shuffled through the books until he found what he wanted. He opened the folio to reveal detailed maps of the Mediterranean and the north coast of Africa. The maps were marked with dots of various colors all connected by a network of lines. Rifts and the ligaments of their ley lines or dragon spines. They had been all painstakingly charted by Mamoru’s legion of geomancers over the last decades.

He touched the island of Malta, where a nearly infinite number of spines converged on a large rift. There were several rifts on the African littoral too, but none hosted nearly the number of lines.

“I much prefer Malta,” Mamoru muttered. “Nabta Playa could serve.”

“What about the Soma here in Alexandria?” Sir Godfrey suggested.

“If necessary. But not optimal. And I would much rather have her away from the capital and all her soldiers. I will need time to prepare her, and that would be difficult with her precious army knocking down every door in Alexandria.”

Sanah pretended to study the map, but she felt chilled fingernails scraping across her chest. “How will you convince her to do this? You said she had grown hesitant.”

“My days of convincing Adele are at an end. There is no reasoning with her. Her mind has been irrevocably corrupted. I will force her to initiate the final event.”

“You can force her?”

“I can. It isn’t my preference, but it will serve.”

Sanah turned to face him, her dark eyes glaring out from the veil. “She can trigger the rifts even against her will?”

Mamoru froze in place as he leaned over the maps. His muscles tensed. “Yes, Sanah.”

“And would you truly do such a thing? To her?”

“Yes, Sanah.”

The room seemed to darken with silence. Sir Godfrey rubbed his muttonchop whiskers. Mamoru continued to stare at the maps, but his breath hissed through his nose.

Sanah struggled to keep her voice steady. “But how will you live with yourself after the act?”

“I don’t care about anything after the act.”

“I know you won’t hear it, Mamoru, but I’ve come to believe that she loves this Gareth. And he loves her. The potential in that relationship could change the world too. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to explore that?” Sanah laid a henna-painted hand on Mamoru’s bruised knuckles.

“No. We owe it to the human race to destroy them all.”

“You loved Adele too, once. I can’t believe you would wish this future on her. It is an act of violation. If you don’t care about your own good, then what about that girl? How will she live with herself knowing what she has done?”

Mamoru turned his head and met Sanah’s gaze with blank eyes. “She won’t have to live with it. She will not survive.”

Sanah tightened her grip on his hand. “What? You’re going to kill her?”

“Not I. The energies of the Event will destroy her. If she were conscious, she might survive. But she surrendered that right when she surrendered her humanity.”

The Persian woman stepped back and pounded her fist on the table, rattling the dishes, and shouted, “It’s you who has surrendered your humanity! You are like that girl’s father. How can you even conceive of this?”

Mamoru turned back to the maps and began to run his fingers along the lines.

Sanah screamed, “Answer me!”

The samurai tore the North African map out of the book and folded it. “Sir Godfrey, I’ll trouble you for antiseptic and bandages before I go. I injured my ankle in the fall from the airship.”

The old gentleman looked from Mamoru to Sanah with alarm, slowly moving to the door. With a nervous nod, he darted out.

Sanah seized the samurai by the sleeve. “You must listen to me.”

Mamoru replied quietly, “I will find the crystals elsewhere. Don’t worry yourself over it.”

“Mamoru.” She pulled him around to face her. “Taking Adele’s life won’t bring back your wife and daughter.”

He slipped the map page into his shirt.

Sanah stared at him. There was no life behind his eyes, no reason at all. She released him. He moved like a terrible, unhurried automaton. Every motion drove the story toward an irrevocable conclusion, a heavy curtain dropping over the last act of a play.

The door opened and Sir Godfrey returned carrying a glass bottle and several rolls of gauze. “Shall I attend your wound?”

“No.” Mamoru took the medical supplies and went to the sarcophagus. “I will contact you when I need you.”

Sanah began, “Mamoru, I beg you—”

He triggered the secret door and vanished into the shadowy passageway, pulling the lid closed behind him. Sanah sank into a chair with a long ragged exhalation.

The old surgeon started to touch her shoulder, then drew back his hand. “Sanah, we’ve trusted Mamoru for years. We can’t change horses now, so to speak. It will all be fine. He has given his life to this. We all have. There’s nothing to be gained by doubting it all now. Is there?”

Sanah closed her eyes, revealing the tattooed eyes on her lids. She clasped her hands together, seeking a moment of purity to cut through the confusion. She needed a sign, guidance, peace. She wished for a message of comfort and support from her beloved sister, Pareesa.

She opened her eyes suddenly. She needed to talk to the empress.

P
ARIS STRADDLED THE
moon-flecked Seine River. The countryside, once threatened by urban expansion, was once again cloaked in gloom, and only the center of the old town was spotted with the lights of its human inhabitants.

Floating shapes rose above the city, while others clutched onto miles of broken chimney pots and once-magnificent colonnaded palaces. Flocks of vampires settled to the wide boulevards in their own sinister version of an evening promenade. People hurried about their business through narrow lanes while shuffling herds of humans also wandered in the wild green spaces.

Gareth had lived in Paris centuries before, but many of the old venous streets and crowded warrens he knew were gone, replaced by long straight avenues and uniform buildings. Lucky the city hadn’t been that way in his day because old Paris was a fertile hunting ground of shadows and corners. So much of this new city had been altered as an open display of human ego just a few decades before the Great Killing.

Now humans were no longer so proud.

No one confronted Gareth as he drifted toward the shambling old pile of the Tuileries Palace north of the river. Only when he reached the vast palace, and lit on the front façade, did several figures separate from
the masonry and advance on him. Before they could speak, he said, “I am Prince Gareth of Scotland. I’m here to see King Lothaire.”

One of the vampires, an older fellow, smiled broadly. “Gareth! I know you. We fought together in Brittany.”

Gareth studied the creased face, and managed to recall it younger and covered in blood, but always smiling. “I remember. Fanon?”

The vampire laughed with joy at being remembered by a prince of the British clan. “That’s right, sir! I haven’t seen you in a long time. What’s it been, a decade?”

“One hundred and fifty years.”

“Almost like yesterday.” Fanon backhanded one of his companions on the chest. “Prince Gareth here killed more humans than any other I know. Such a sight to see.”

The Scottish prince nodded in uncomfortable modesty.

“He was incredible,” the vampire continued. “He moved so fast, I could barely see him. Killing. Just killing.” He pointed at Gareth. “Do you remember when we struck those ships trying to escape Brest? Why, when Gareth was through, there were thousands dead on those vessels. So much blood flowing off the decks that—”

“Thank you, Fanon,” Gareth interrupted. “I’m honored you remember, but I’ve forgotten much of that time. Is the king at home?”

“He is,” came a bellow from above, and a figure dropped to the ground. He was a young male, likely under one hundred years old, and he wore a uniform jacket with epaulettes along with striped trousers. He looked a great deal like Lothaire when Gareth had known him; shorter, but more muscular, with a full face and flowing flaxen hair.

“Honore?” Gareth bowed. “I see your father in you.”

“I am the Dauphin,” the boy said without any welcome, using the old term for the French royal heir, another seizure of human traits by vampires. “So you’re Gareth? I’ve heard about you, but have never seen you in all my years.”

Fanon gave Honore a hard look of reproach, but it found no purchase on the lad’s demeanor.

“You wish to see my father?” the Dauphin said with a pompous breath. “Come with me.”

Gareth and Fanon followed Honore inside, and the trampled glories of the Tuileries enveloped them. Portraits were torn and crystal shattered. Windows were cracked and jagged. Tattered fabric hung mildewed, and rugs decayed underfoot. They went up a once-grand staircase now crusted in dried blood and bits of hair and bone. The hallways were crowded with clan lords and retainers hurrying about their great business. Some faces latched onto Gareth with recognition, but none spoke, preferring to stop and stare and whisper about why the Scottish prince was in Paris.

Gareth and Fanon walked, but Honore leapt and floated everywhere, vaulting up stairs by bouncing from wall to wall, grasping columns and spinning. It wasn’t exuberance; it was aggression, directed at Gareth. Honore was a young male, spending energy in pointless display, and since energy wasn’t needed any longer for hunting, it was free to waste. Fanon seemed annoyed by the rudeness, but Gareth was amused by the boy showing his power in front of his father’s old friend.

No doubt, Gareth reflected, he and Lothaire had been the same in those times together. Both young, ambitious, strong, and violent. Gareth, like most young males in those days, spent much of his early life wandering. He found Lothaire to be an agreeable companion, so they hunted Paris and environs together for decades. Then during the Great Killing, Gareth had returned to join Lothaire in battle to cement the alliance between Dmitri and Lothaire’s father. The battles they won and the bloodshed they caused were legendary. The sheer destruction of human life was enormous. Shamefully, Gareth could still recall the screams, the feeling of claws tearing flesh, and the smell of fear everywhere, the pure stench of terror that fed the vampire hordes nearly as much as the oceans of blood.

Honore settled onto a massive door lintel, crouching impatiently above Gareth and Fanon, who approached on foot. “I’ll leave you here.”

“Thank you, Dauphin. I hope to see you again.”

After the lad lanced up into the darkness, the embarrassed Fanon exhaled. “My apologies, sir. Prince Honore is…young. Please forgive him.”

Gareth shook his head and laid a hand on the old fellow’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry. We were all like him once. I certainly won’t mention it to His Majesty, if that’s your concern.”

“Thank you. The boy is good at heart. A bit impulsive.” Fanon shouldered open the door onto a horrific chamber of noise and motion. It was a room full of children of all ages. Toddlers. Young males and females. Even a baby who crawled on the floor. Shouting. Screaming. Frantic motions and bodies flying from one place to another. The children looked openly at Gareth as he shuffled uncomfortably into the room. A small female stopped at his feet and stared up at him. Gareth nodded to her, but she continued to glare at him like a snake. An adult female vampire standing quietly near the baby lifted her head briefly, and then turned her attention back to a child beside her.

With one eye on the girl with the reptile stare, Gareth asked with an uncertain stammer, “Fanon, is this the clan nursery?”

“Of a sort,” was the answer. “These are the princes and princesses. Some of them.”

“These are all Lothaire’s children? There must be ten here.”

“Yes. But these are not all of his children. Honore is the oldest, but there are…” Fanon rolled his eyes up in thought. “Four others beyond these you see here.”

Two children roared up to Gareth, using him as a barrier, as they clawed at each other, screaming and hissing. He tried to step aside, but the boys grabbed his legs, leaping from one side to the other. He reached down to urge one farther away, but when he covered the male’s face with his hand, the wide-eyed female jumped the boy and smashed him to the floor.

Gareth was about to ask if they could wait somewhere else a bit less like the center of Hell when a distant door opened and a man who resembled an older, fatter Lothaire entered. Several children shouted and ran to him. He smiled and reached out, grasping or touching each one. He lifted a young female into his arms, and as he was swinging her around, his gaze fell on Gareth. Lothaire halted comically with his mouth open. He pushed his head forward as if that would clear his vision.

“Gareth?” he muttered in confusion.

“Your Majesty.” Gareth bowed.

The French king staggered forward with several children attached. He stopped a few paces from the Scottish prince and stared while a grin slowly broke over his face. “I don’t believe it. Why are you in Paris? No, never mind.” He impetuously embraced Gareth, pressing the wriggling little girl between them.

Gareth inhaled the familiar scent of his friend and his youth. Lothaire’s frame was softer, with less muscle and anger, but he was still much the same.

The king set the complaining girl down and grasped Gareth by the shoulders. “It is so good to see you, I can’t tell you. I can’t believe you’re here.” Then Lothaire’s face fell into suspicious disappointment. “Oh no. Are you here from your brother? You’re not bearing messages from Cesare, are you?”

Gareth smiled to comfort his companion. “While this isn’t entirely a social call, you may believe me, I am not here on Cesare’s behalf.”

“Good!” Lothaire scooped up a different child out of habit. “I’ve heard entirely too much from your brother recently. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“I had no way. I don’t have packs of retainers to do my bidding.”

Lothaire pursed his lips reproachfully. “So I’ve heard. How’s Baudoin?”

“He’s well. Thank you.”

Lothaire began to jiggle the boy in his arms to placate his cries for attention. “Gareth, I heard about your father. My condolences. Dmitri was a remarkable king.”

“He was indeed.”

“All the more remarkable to have avoided killing both you and Cesare at some point.”

Gareth laughed and indicated the menagerie of children. “Is that the voice of a father?”

The king rolled his eyes. “Sometimes. I’d introduce you, but they’re young and they don’t care who you are. My eldest is about. He’ll want to meet you.”

“The Dauphin. We intersected briefly. He seems quite…vigorous.”

“If he was disrespectful, I apologize. The younger generation is uncontrollable. They’ve had everything too easy. Not like when we were boys.” Lothaire brushed at the soft hair of the child in his arms, and smiled to himself. “Gareth, you have no children?”

“No.”

“So you never found anyone…”

Gareth hesitated and then, to save complications, he said, “No.”

“What about Hallow?” Lothaire asked, falsely casual. “What became of her?”

Gareth let silence stretch out, pretending to be amused by the stampeding offspring all around him. Then he replied politely, “That ended. Badly.”

“Ah. Well.” Now the king found some distraction to pull his attention away.

Gareth felt no discomfort, but was amused by Lothaire’s. So he decided to ask a question that might bring embarrassment on him. “So, how is…your queen?”

Lothaire guffawed. “My queen is well. And she is still Katerina. She will want to see you, of course.”

“Katerina bore you all these children?” Gareth shook his head and nodded toward the female across the room. “I thought perhaps she was the new queen. She seems exhausted enough.”

“No. She’s a nanny.” Lothaire noticed the infant on the floor was screeching, red faced. He caught the nanny’s attention. “He’s hungry.”

Without a change of expression, she went out another door and quickly came back with a human woman walking behind her. They waded through the children to the spot where the infant bawled. The human sat on the floor, and the nanny used a clawed finger to slice her across the throat. Dark red blood oozed out immediately. The baby stirred toward the woman, crawling onto her lap and staring at the dripping neck, crying out, reaching up.

“Help him,” Lothaire said.

The human woman reached down with a blank stare and caught the baby under his pudgy arms. She lifted the snarling infant to her throat. The little thing latched itself onto the woman with frantic arms
and legs, burying his face in the bloody neck. The sucking sound brought the attention of all the children, who gathered in a circle around the feeding.

After a few moments, the king called out, “Enough.”

The vampire nanny pulled the infant off the human, who then pulled a cloth from her pocket and pressed it against her throat. The woman stood unsteadily and walked out of the room, seemingly unperturbed by the hungry glances of the royal brood.

Lothaire turned to Gareth with a cheerful smile. “Shall we adjourn to more comfortable quarters?”

“Yes.” Gareth studied his friend with new eyes. “Why did you allow that woman to live?”

The king bristled as if at a common criticism. “Why are you, of all people, asking me that? You are Dmitri’s son. Surely you believe in moderation and preservation?”

“I do,” Gareth replied quickly. “I’m not criticizing you. I applaud it. It’s just an unusual attitude for our people.”

Lothaire set his little son on his feet with a comforting pat on the backside. “I have many mouths to feed, and I am merely a poor king. I have to use human bloodnurses, of course, but I see no reason to kill humans just to feed.”

“I knew I was right to come to Paris.” Gareth smiled and placed his arm over his friend’s shoulder, feeling a sense of comradeship with one of his own that he hadn’t felt in over a century. The French king latched a companionable arm around Gareth’s waist as they left the room just like they were still old hunting partners out for a night of adventure.