The Children of the Sun (21 page)

The other vampires of New York had laid low, waiting for the next meeting, formulating their arguments and opinions. All had been quiet, and it felt as if there was hesitancy in the air, as if the entire city was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then had come the phone calls and emails, the announcement of another meeting with only two hours’ notice. As a result, only the official council members and a handful of others, perhaps two dozen, had been able to attend.

No one seemed to know what it was about, and William himself had shown up only minutes before the scheduled start, going directly to the podium and refusing to talk to anyone individually. They sat now, watching, and when his opening pronouncement came, it caught them all off guard.

“I didn’t know what to do,” William said, his voice hoarse and broken, and he paused, staring out at the crowd, as haggard and unkempt as Two had ever seen him. “I didn’t know what to do … so I called you all here.”

“Whatever it is, we are here to help you, William,” Naomi said, and Two could hear in her voice a slight, perplexed hurt. It was clear that she was upset that he had not shared his news even with her.

William sighed, shook his head, and stood for a moment in silence. Finally, he looked away from them, off to the left toward a gigantic, stained-glass representation of the Crucifixion, and spoke.

“They have killed Mother Ashayt.”

His voice broke on the last word, and Two saw his jaw clench as he fought against the emotions that wanted to swallow him up. There was a sudden rushing noise as the occupants of the cathedral gasped in unison, followed by a deathly silence.

“Oh, dear God,” Jakob murmured from four seats to Two’s left, and he brought both hands to the back of his neck and held them there, staring down at the floor.

Two couldn’t seem to move, could barely breath. The news seemed to have knocked all sensation from her body, leaving her numb and empty. Not even a week past the massacre at the Ay’Araf club, and now this? Ashayt, that being of such pure peace and calm, was gone?

“No,” Naomi said. “No.
Ce n
’est pas possible
.
”

“It’s very possible,” William said without looking at her.

“It’s not,” Naomi replied and then, louder, “it is
not
!”

There was a shrill note in her voice that made Two start, and she managed to reach out, touching her friend’s shoulder. “Hey, Naomi, don’t—”

“Get off of me,” Naomi hissed. “Get your hand
off
of me! She cannot be dead. William, your information must be wrong.”

“I wish that it was so,” William said, and now at last he turned to face them. “I wish with every part of me that it was so, but it is not. It was Tyler, her host in Los Angeles, who found her. He called me directly. He grew worried when he didn’t hear from her for several weeks, and went to check on her. He found her lying in her bed, stabbed in the side, her throat slashed. It … he said there were no signs of resistance.”

“They couldn’t have taken her by surprise, not up close like that. She must have refused to fight,” Two said.  Her throat hurt, and it felt like there was a hard lump there that couldn’t be swallowed. The idea that Ashayt was dead, that the elder vampire who had brought Theroen back and likely saved them all from death at the hands of Aros’s superior numbers was gone forever, was impossible to accept.

“Her story is told in the old scrolls,” William said, sounding like he might be ill. “She killed only once, her very first feeding, and swore never to do so again. It seems she followed this vow to her death. They broke into the bungalow, and butchered her, and left. She is gone. She has been gone for almost a
month
, and we only now know it.”

“Can’t we bring her back?!” Naomi cried, and now her voice was breaking as well. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, those animals … those awful—”

“With what would you bring her back, Naomi?” William asked. “Have you a supply of preserved elder blood of which I am not aware?”

Naomi shook her head, refusing to meet his gaze.

“No,” William said. “Nor have I. We’ve had our miracle for this millennium. He is sitting three feet to your left.”

Theroen looked uncomfortable with this statement but said nothing. Two took his hand, squeezed hard, and looked at William with a thin smile.

“Let’s not act like this is Theroen’s fault,” she said, and William shook his head.

“No, it is not his fault. It is the Children’s fault, and may they rot in hell for all eternity for it. We had thought her dead, only to learn that she was there all along, and now she has been taken from us. We have lost not only her strength, but also her great wisdom and kindness. It is terrible. Terrible.”

“Now there is only one source left,” the senior Eresh council member, Leonore, said, and Two could hear distaste in the woman’s voice. She forced her hands, balled into fists, to relax. Leonore was grating, but now was not the time to fight with her.

“That is correct,” William said. “
Theroen-Sa
is here, and he is the last. I do not know if there will ever be another.”

“Ask again in four thousand years,” Theroen said. “Perhaps by then I will have an answer.”

His voice was quiet and calm, as always, but Two could hear within it a deep sadness. Theroen had held great respect for Ashayt, as much for her pacifism and her love of her fellow vampires as for her age and wisdom. Two was not surprised that his sorrow at her death was audible.

“You plan on living that long?” Leonore asked.

“I expect to live through this night and hope to live through the next,” Theroen said to her, unperturbed by her tone. “Can any of us say more? Could even Mother Ashayt have said anything else? Four thousand years is a very long time, but each day was just another in succession.”

Leonore looked unimpressed but held her tongue. Two thought this for the best; Leonore was not well liked among the members of the council. Young and impressionable when she had come to serve as Abraham’s apprentice, she had taken on many of his beliefs about the superiority of the Eresh strain and had never learned to conceal her lust for power and advancement.

Lewis, one of the two Burilgi on the council, spoke up. “Listen, we have to do something. The Children aren’t going to stop. They’re going to keep hitting us until we respond, or until we’re all dead.”

There were murmurs of agreement at this. The council had already lost four members, all of them Ay’Araf. Three were dead. The last, Erik Jannsen, had resigned after the death of his brother.

“None of us wish to sit here, inactive, while they whittle us down,” Jakob said.

“The question is, what can be done?” William asked. “We have men and women – talented people – out hunting for information, and yet we’ve learned so little.”

“There is no one left to learn from,” said Peter Markham, one of the senior Ay’Araf councilmembers. “Their field operatives have all withdrawn. There are few leads to follow at the moment, but we’ve been tracking their movements for some time. They are almost certainly based in the Midwest. Chicago seems a likely candidate, or Detroit. We will know more soon.”

“That’s good,” Leonore said, her tone caustic. “By the time we’ve narrowed it down, there might be as many as five of us left to debate our options.”

“Have you something constructive to add?” Naomi asked. “Or are you merely content to sit there making useless, snippy comments?”

Two looked over at Leonore, whose jaw was set as if to keep her tongue from doing even more damage to her reputation. The woman was raven haired, with dark brown eyes and pale white skin. Spots of pink sat high on her cheeks, an expression of her anger and humiliation, and her carefully-tweezed eyebrows were furrowed downward.

“She has a point,” Two said.

“Oh?” Naomi asked, turning back to Two. “Does she really?”

“They told us they were coming. That’s what the attack on Matthias and his fledglings was about. They gave us their warning, and what did we do? We sat around. We kept on living our lives like this shit was all going to go away. It’s
not
going away. I was there, all right?”

“Two, I understand that—” William began, and Two cut him off, raising her voice.

“I was there, and Theroen was there, and so were Jakob and Sasha. Stefan Jannsen was there, watching as his twin brother was
chopped to pieces
right in front of us. Let’s be clear … this is not going away. They will hunt us down and kill us, one by one or in groups, unless we do something about it. We have to fight.”

“We can’t fight them if we don’t know where they are,” Naomi said.

“Then we fucking
find
them!” Two cried. She could feel her body shaking, feel tears trying to force their way into her eyes, and she willed them away. “No more of this ‘some good people are on it’ bullshit. We need
everyone
on it, every man and woman. Every vampire in this country, no matter how young or stupid, no matter how much they hate the council. We have to make them understand, and we have to make them help, or we are all going to die.”

She looked around the room. Jakob was nodding, Naomi had closed her eyes and was breathing deeply, and Leonore was watching with interest where before there had only ever been apathy or abject dislike. Two glared at William.

“They kidnapped my friend and turned her against us, and we did nothing. They abducted and killed a bunch of Burilgi, and we did nothing. They slaughtered half the Ay’Araf in the city five nights ago, and we scheduled a meeting. They murdered the woman who gave me my
life
back, a woman who hasn’t harmed anyone, anywhere, in four thousand years … they cut her throat and left her body lying there. We can’t wait any longer. We have to
do
something!”

William looked at her for a long moment, and it seemed then to Two that a part of him fell away. Perhaps it was a slight slump in his shoulders, or just the look in his eyes, but some of the leadership he had possessed since she first met him seemed suddenly to leave. When he spoke, it was in a voice that was old and weary, the voice of a man who had already tried to leave this behind once, and had been dragged back in against his will.

“What would you have us do?” he asked her. “Tell us,
Theroen-Chen
, what is your grand plan?”

“Set a trap,” Two said. “That’s my grand plan. Get every vampire in this half of the country together in one place. Do it every night until it’s too goddamned tempting for them to resist, and when they come for us we
fight
them. We take prisoners and we get the information we need, however we have to get it. That’s my stupid, shitty plan, but it’s better than sitting around and waiting for the inevitable. It’s better than doing
nothing
!”

There was a period of silence that followed this, and then Jakob gave a short, sharp laugh.

“It’s not a bad plan, William,” he said, and William put a hand to his face, rubbing her eyes. When he looked up at them again, there was a small smile on his face, and some of his strength seemed to have returned.

“No, it’s not a bad plan,” he said. “I don’t know that it will
work
, but it’s not a bad plan.”

He looked now at Naomi, who had opened her eyes again. She shrugged, gave him a slight, sad smile, and turned her hands upward.

“What do you want me to say?” she asked him. “Shall I tell you I favor diplomacy? Everyone here knows I do, just as they know that we have given diplomacy chance after chance. These people are madmen. Zealots. They have given us no chance for dialog, no hope for change. I would try to talk with them even now, if I could, but if the council no longer supports that course of action, I have no better suggestion than what Two proposes. What choice do we have?”

“There is always a choice,” Theroen said. “The question is whether we believe there is value in taking the high road.”

“Without a bridge, the high road leads around a corner and off a cliff,” Jakob told him. Theroen shrugged.

“If we continue to gather in numbers, then yes, it most certainly does. I was there with you, Jakob. I know what they are capable of. I am simply not convinced that an all-out battle can end in success.”

“So, what then?” Sasha asked him. “We skulk in the dark on the fringes like the vermin we’re so often portrayed as? I will not live like a rat.”

“No one is asking you to,” Theroen said.

“I would rather follow Two’s plan and at least have an end,” Sasha continued.

“Such a surprise … an Ay’Araf wishing to go out in a blaze of glory,” Naomi said, and Two heard in her voice the acidity that she knew the woman behind the politician was sometimes capable of.

“Almost as surprising as an Ashayt wishing to hide from a fight at all costs!” Sasha spat back, and voices rose. For a moment, Two thought the council would again descend into a lengthy session of useless, pointless bickering, but William brought his hand down on the podium with a flat cracking sound that quieted the assembled vampires.

“If we have to move to a system where we raise our hands to speak, as if this were primary school, then we will,” he said. “Let us try to keep things civil.”