The Obscurati (21 page)

When Hamlet landed, he was sobbing. We all were. I could barely see anything through my blood tears.

“Pierre is heading to the cabin,” Hamlet said. “I was sent to ask you not to shoot him.” He gave as much of a smile as he could but then started crying again. We hugged each other.

“Is anybody supposed to be with Pierre?” I asked.

“No,” Hamlet said. I went back to the PSG and looked through the sight. There was a vampire following Pierre to the cabin. Another blond with a beard.
Jeez, how many of these Nordic vampires are there?
I aimed carefully.

POP.
The blond vampire behind Pierre exploded. Pierre looked up at us and mouthed, “Thank you.”

He walked all the way around the cabin, which was mostly demolished by this time. The fire was starting to go out by itself as it ran out of material to burn. He pulled out a pocket-sized blowtorch and lit the smaller cabin. Nobody jumped outside, so I think the second cabin was empty.

In a couple of minutes, Pierre was at the perch. I didn’t see him coming, and I didn’t feel his presence. He just appeared.

“Let’s go down to the main house,” he said. He and Hamlet flashed away from our perch. Oberon and I tore down our gear. The PSG wouldn’t fit in my duffel bag with Oberon’s muzzle attachment, so I had to unscrew it. It was so hot that my skin sizzled, even if I couldn’t feel the temperature. I put my palm onto the ground to make sure I didn’t burst into flames.

As soon as we were packed, we headed straight for the house. Oberon kept one hand near his pistol just in case. My only weapon was the PSG, and it was packed away.

The queen and Pierre were sitting at the table on the back patio. I saw several vampires on the ground and in the air. They were the queen’s protection detail, and tonight she probably needed them. We landed nearby and walked up to the table.

“Did you get him?”

“I don’t know for sure,” I admitted. “I know that I got at least four or five blonds with beards.”

“Here’s a picture that Paco found,” she said.

“Yes,” Oberon said. “He’s dead. He was the second vampire to go. We saw him standing at a window in the cabin and took him out before setting the cabin ablaze.”

“I am so sorry about all this,” the queen said. “I think it was a power grab. They built an entire army of vampire warriors to come here, and they attacked Menz without warning.”

“How could that happen?”

“Menz’s Maker was always something of an outlaw. He turned Menz when he was just a child, and that almost never works out. The asshole didn’t care. He was just mean, and he didn’t bother with rules. Even if they had won this battle, he should have known that every vampire in Europe would respond. He was stupid and cocky.”

“They got Paco too,” Hamlet cried.

“What?” I said.

“He was just here,” Oberon said. “He was fucking fine half an hour ago.”

“I know,” the queen said, “but a vampire got into the house and attacked poor Paco before I could get to him. They’re both dead, I’m afraid.”

“This is really fucked up,” I said. We were in shock, beyond tears. I couldn’t grasp the idea that Menz and Paco were gone, especially since I had just seen Paco an hour before.

“I know, and I don’t know how to give the three of you comfort. We lost good vampires this night. I lost one of my closest friends.”

The world as I knew it had changed forever, and it was completely fucked up.

Menz dead. Paco dead.

Chapter 17

T
HE
house was drab and empty without Menz and Paco. We had lost about six of the human staff, four blood donors, and two groundskeepers. The others were safe. Paco had rounded them up and gotten them into an interior room. He was thinking of others all the way to the end.

I expected everyone to leave. With Menz gone, they didn’t have any reason to stay.

After a few days, Oberon called a meeting in the large dining room. It seemed to be about a kilometer long and had a huge table. With the entire staff inside, the room was only about half full.

“Can we have a couple of minutes of silence?” he said. Everyone prayed or cried, but everyone was quiet.

“I’m devastated,” Oberon continued. “I lost two of the closest friends I will ever have. We lost six of your friends, too, and I know we all need to grieve and mourn. It’s senseless, what happened here.”

He thought for a second.

“I don’t know what you thought of Menz and Paco, but I know Menz made promises to you. Nobody will blame you if you want to leave. What promises Menz made to you will be fulfilled. Those who are here for scholarships, know that your schooling will be paid even if you decide to leave the estate. If you are in school now but want to drop out for a year, you may stay here, and your college will still be paid when you want to go back to school.”

He paused again.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. It is like I personally lost my rudder, my direction, my mentor. Mårten and Hamlet and I will be honored if you will consider staying. I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to—”

“I’m staying,” said one of the college kids.

“Me too,” another one said. Most of the staff decided to stay. If anyone wanted to leave, they stayed quiet.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m sure we’re going to need your help, because I have no idea how to run this estate. With your help, I will do my best. Oberon and Hamlet too. And know that we are truly sorry for the loss of your friends. I think that all the bastards who did this are dead now. I don’t think a single one made it out alive.”

I looked at Oberon and Hamlet, and they both nodded.

“One of the people killed had a daughter,” I said. “His parents are taking the daughter, if you were worried about that. Oberon and I have arranged for the girl’s grandparents to get a monthly check. We are also paying for the girl’s schooling, even if she wants to get a PhD.”

“If you know of any other situations like that,” Oberon said, “please tell us. We want to take care of you and the families of those who died here a couple of days ago. I don’t know what to….”

He just stopped, and we all cried.

O
VER
the next month, we did have some turnover in the staff. Hamlet got Pierre to teach him how to do the mind trick to make departing staff forget all about vampires.

Menz had a will that left everything to Paco. It said that if Paco didn’t survive him by at least thirty days, the entire estate was to go to Oberon and me. I felt a little bad for Hamlet, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was in Bern most of the time anyway. I think he and Pierre had become an official couple.

Schmidt, the banker, sent over some security experts. One was able to get the lock on the vault changed. Oberon and I had the new combination. We spent a month going through the contents of the vault. There was a Gutenberg Bible, or part of one, that nobody knew was in existence. We found a copy of the
Magna Carta
from the 1400s, not the original but still really old.

The new security system included an invisible bubble around the estate. If anything larger than a bird flew near the house, it would set off alarms. We had to adjust the size and sensitivity of the bubble after several airplanes sent the staff into hysterics.

Once Menz’s estate was settled, Oberon and I had a little over three billion euros in the bank. We had gone from filthy rich to oh-my-God filthy stinking rich. We offered money to Hamlet, but he told us he had plenty.

I
BOUGHT
a jet, an Airbus A330. As soon as we took delivery, they flew it to Dallas for a makeover. I had no idea, but Dallas is the main place where you take jets to be… um… well, you take a brand-new jet that is perfectly fine and that you’ve just spent €150 million ($208 million US) to buy, and you spend more millions to get a new interior.

What we wanted was a vampire-safe bedroom. When we finally took delivery, the bed was huge and could accommodate four or five. The bedroom was windowless and shielded.

I didn’t know it, but what fries vampires isn’t daylight itself. It is gamma rays. That’s why we can’t pop off to the moon. The Earth shields us from enough gamma rays during the night. During the day, the atmosphere doesn’t do enough filtering on its own. We need wood or stone or dirt between us and the sun.

So since our new jet couldn’t be completely encased with gamma ray shielding, we had to travel with coffins or make shorter hops at night if we weren’t going to stay in the bedroom.

We could travel with a staff of thirty or forty too. The cabin had fifty “lay-flat” chairs for the staff and cabin crew. During the day, the chairs were comfortable, but they could turn into a nice bed for sleeping. We also had a fully stocked galley and bar and electronic everything. There was a huge TV and great sound equipment. The folks in Dallas did a pretty good job with our new puddle-hopper. The remodel ended up costing almost nine million dollars, which is almost seven million euros. Either way, that is real money.

The good part is that we can rent out the jet for gobs of money when we aren’t using it. Our only requirement is that they use our staff and stay within a twelve-hour flight of Munich. I don’t know if we have lost any business because of those rules, but I would rather see it parked somewhere than be without my baby. You just never know when you’re going to need to pop over to Fiji or New Zealand and take staff with you.

Here’s the fun part: I put the Airbus on my American Express card. The agent didn’t even blink when she saw my black metal credit card. It was like people did that every day. The company in Dallas didn’t want to use credit cards, so Oberon and Schmidt worked out some sort of percent-of-completion wire transfer. I don’t know, and I didn’t ask.

Oberon had a tennis court put into the yard, and he arranged for martial arts training for all of the humans. The groundskeepers weren’t thrilled, but Oberon explained it in ways they understood. I don’t know, and I didn’t ask.

Our reputation had grown among the Obscurati and royals around the world. Everyone called us the Unseen Death. Almost nobody knew our real names or where we lived, but my services were in high demand.

I
NDIA
again. And it was with the same person who had been my guide years ago during my most botched-up nonkilling. The target knew I was around and had fled.

“He’s back,” said my guide. “Think you can get him this time?”

I love the Indian accent.

We floated into position. Oberon used his instruments and quietly whispered settings for my sight. We didn’t have long to wait. The guide spotted the doomed vampire using some binoculars. There were three others with him.

“It’s the tall one in the red shirt,” he said. “Should we wait until tomorrow? He might be alone.”

POP.
The vampire’s head exploded, and the others scattered. One of the others was a vampire who popped out of there fast. He probably needed a change of underwear. I’m just sayin’.

“Stay quiet,” said the guide. “Let the vampire just go away.”

The guide didn’t want the vampire to be able to see us. When a vampire tries to be still and quiet, he or she is really still and completely quiet. There’s no breathing, no heartbeat. I was able to still my thoughts. We were indistinguishable from a rock. Even a tree showed more life than a vampire who knew how to stay still. We stayed like that for an hour.

“Okay,” the guide whispered. “Do you need to stay here?”

“No, we have transportation.”

That was all he needed to know. Telling him about the jet was more information than he needed. We were the Unseen Death.

The kill was somewhere between New Delhi and the Pakistan border. We had parked the jet over on the Arabian Peninsula, where they were used to seeing private jets all the time. Nobody would pay much attention to an extra one.

We always had three flight crews, just in case. Most of them were gay, I think. All of the other humans on board were gay. Oberon was a little discriminatory in his hiring practices, but I didn’t complain.

“I’m thinking Bora Bora,” I said.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Oberon said as we landed just inside the jet’s open door. He insisted on discussing it with the flight crew first. If they said it was okay, we would let the staff take a vote. They were all used to last-minute plans. It took about an hour for the pilots to get the jet ready for a longer flight. They had to file flight plans, check the weather, and buy more fuel. It gave me time to get Pierre on his cell phone.

Oberon also got the American Express Centurion people looking for a place to rent.

“Could you mark us as being out of commission for a week?”

“Why are you using the phone?” Pierre asked.

“I don’t know. It seemed like a quaint thing to do. We’re going to pop over to Bora Bora for a week or two.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Want to come? There’s room.”

“No, but I will tell the queen and get Hamlet to keep an eye on the estate.”

“You’re the best,” I said.

I was relaxing on the bed when we took off. Oberon was out with the staff but walked in with a gorgeous young man.