Clan Novel Nosferatu: Book 13 of the Clan Novel Saga

by Gherbod Fleming

  She said something to that Leopold freak, Theo mused. He shrugged. Whatever works. Watching the Setite stooped over his bag, Theo was still partially stunned himself. Get my ass whupped by one Toreador and saved by another, all in one night. He shook his head.

  Hesha had unzipped the Kevlar case and laid it open. It was full of thick mud or clay. Intent on what he was doing, he smoothed the substance with his hands.

  Theo cocked his shotgun and tried to speak without moving his mouth any more than necessary. “You’re not planning on takin’ that, are you?”

  Hesha didn’t look up from his task. “Archon Bell,” he said politely, as if he didn’t have a gaping hole in his chest, “perhaps you were not informed. If you check with Mr. Pieterzoon, you will find that Lucinde has granted me this.”

  “I look like Lucinde?” Theo asked.

  That gave Hesha pause. He stopped and looked up at Theo. “I believe Justicar Pascek signed off on the agreement as well.”

  “Shoot it,” said the bloody, half-crippled Kindred who was crawling toward them. One arm hung useless, dragging along. She’d shown up at some point in the fight. Theo couldn’t remember exactly when, but she, like Victoria, seemed to have come in handy.

  “Ramona,” Hesha said, unperturbed, “you did well.”

  “Fuck you,” she snarled, then looked at Theo. “Shoot it. Shoot him if you have to. Shoot it.” She was angry, but there was desperation in her voice too. “Don’t believe anything he says. We were gonna destroy it.”

  “Ramona,” Hesha said, “I never lied to you. We agreed that I would see that the Eye caused no more harm. I doubt I could have accomplished this without you, and I don’t want us to part on unpleasant terms. But I will have the Eye.”

  Beneath the Setite’s calm words, Theo sensed desperation of a different sort—fanaticism. He instinctively tried to gauge the extent of Hesha’s injuries, what the chances were if it came to violence. Theo didn’t like it one bit—the back-room deals, the sly promises, and to a Setite, for Christ’s sake. You may not have lied to her, he thought, but I bet you sure as hell didn’t tell her the truth.

  Hesha went back to his work. He gingerly lifted the Eye and placed it into the clay, settling it firmly into place. “Archon, you might wish to take up the matter with Lucinde or Jaroslav, but in the meantime, I must see this to a safe place.” He carefully closed the case and resealed the zipper. “If it makes it any difference, I promise you, both of you, that you will never have to face this again. And, Archon, a portion of turmeric root, still smoldering and pressed firmly against those burns, will allow the blood to do its work. They will not heal otherwise.”

  “Hmph,” Theo snorted. Right. Flaming whatever-you-said. He wanted to blow the fuck out of the thing that Hesha was packing away, like Ramona had pleaded. But decisions, the archon had come to learn, were not always his to make. “Go on. Get out of here.”

  Ramona, too weak to fight anymore, sagged to the ground. Hesha slipped the quiescently bulging case into his backpack and was on his way.

  Saturday, 13 November 1999, 3:52 AM

  A subterranean grotto

  New York City, New York

  Calebros sat in the flickering light of the candelabra. He stretched and popped his back; he allowed himself to rest. Elsewhere in the city, in the Bronx, the war still raged. But the hunt was over.

  Umberto had passed word along to him and Cock Robin as they had scoured the city: The Eye was captured; Leopold destroyed; and more importantly, as confirmed by the Tremere, Nickolai was no more. Sturbridge had tracked him somehow—Nickolai, betrayer of his blood, murderer of Justicar Alonso Cristo Petrodon de Seville. The Tremere messenger, flushed with victory, had been unusually forthcoming. Not intentionally, perhaps. But he had mentioned the explosion in Midtown and linked it to the final, mystical blow.

  So much that had weighed on Calebros’s mind was resolved. Even Cock Robin seemed to take his own sort of grim pleasure from the news, though he would have preferred to have done the deed himself, Calebros was sure.

  The Sabbat was still struggling, Cardinal Polonia personally laying waste to Kindred. Calebros, upon his return, had sent Emmett with most of the hunting parties to Throgs Neck. If they could break Polonia’s power, the city would still not be won, but the Camarilla would be so much closer to that goal.

  Calebros himself was taking a few minutes to savor the successful labor of several years and countless of his clanmates. Soon he and Cock Robin would follow Emmett and see what further aid they could give. There was no time for him to retreat to the lake, but Calebros was tired and hungry. He rose from his desk and followed a different, seldom-traveled tunnel.

  They heard him coming, as they always did, and the howling began, guttural cries of pleasure at his approach. The smell of the long, narrow chamber was very strong, and very familiar to Calebros. Sweat, body odor and wastes. The inhabitants wrapped their thin fingers around the bars of their makeshift cells and cages and rattled them. Many scampered back and forth in the few cramped feet allowed them. Calebros could never avoid a wash of nostalgia for the hard realities of the kennels.

  Most of the children in the cages had long since forgotten all but the faintest traces of their former lives. It was best that way, Calebros believed, as Augustin had believed before him. For the few, the strongest, who would be brought into the blood eventually, it was better not to have a past to pine for, better for it to be washed away over the years. That way the Embrace was truly a gift, and one’s place within the clan was one’s only place. Even so, Calebros recognized in himself the occasional hints of regret, the rare longing for those distant, pale memories, for what might have been.

  Ah, but how much harder it would have been, taken directly from the mortal world and thrust down here, away from the sun forever.

  He walked along the row of cells, some wrought-iron bars sunk deep into stone, others small steel cages tucked into cubbyholes or tied to the back wall. Everywhere, expectant eyes watched him pass, each occupant hoping to be chosen—to be nourished, or to provide nourishment.

  Calebros stopped before one of the cages, and the boy—it seemed to be a boy—thrust his hand through the bars. Calebros grasped the arm tightly just below the elbow. The boy knew to make a fist, to squeeze. Calebros waited, waited, as long as he could. As the veins in the skinny wrist and forearm rose, so did his own desire, his hunger. The boy tried to hold still, though one of his feet was bouncing against the back of the cage. He grunted and moaned in anticipation. And when Calebros could hold himself back no longer, he tore into the arm.

  The world was a chaotic din, the children and youths pounding on the walls, wailing, and rattling metal against metal. Blood spurted into Calebros’s mouth. A strong pulse sounded at his temples and attempted to drown out the external sounds. He felt whole in this place, one with these demi-humans, some who would be lucky enough to join him in time. He remembered his own blood drawn forth by Augustin’s fangs; he remembered, later, standing with his sire as Emmett was chosen. The blood coursed into him, through him. Which one of these human larvae might one night prove him- or herself worthy to join the clan, so that the circle might continue…?

  Calebros stopped drinking suddenly. Blood pulsed onto his face, ran down his chin. Absently, he licked the boy’s wound, healed the flesh, and rushed from the kennels. The howling followed him through the tunnel, but already it was forgotten.

  The circle…the circle!

  He rushed back to his desk and began rummaging for the particular folder he needed—Jeremiah’s reports from his time with Anatole. And all the while, the words were running a circle through Calebros’s mind: One in a minute, and one in an hour.

  There, the folder. A circle, you fool, a circle! Calebros berated himself. On the face of a clock—the second hand makes one each minute, and the minute hand makes one each hour. He flipped pages furiously until he found the early notation he was looking for: “Anatole places his hands inside his sandals and then rubs the
soles together.” That was part of what he wanted, but not all. Calebros skimmed farther down the page, on to the next page, and found it: “…constantly rubs his sandals in circles, first one way and then the other.”

  The Prophet was leading him somewhere. Walk a mile in but seconds to deliver my letter. Literally? Unlikely. Nothing so straightforward with the Prophet. Perhaps a progression. Walk a mile…in the shoes of your enemy? Sandals, in this case? But Calebros had already connected the sandals. Had he skipped ahead somehow? And what did seconds have to do with it? Reference to the clock again?

  …Seconds to deliver my letter. A message? The riddle was a message of sorts, or there was a message in the riddle?

  Calebros impatiently flipped more pages. Where was Anatole taking him? Where had the Prophet taken poor Jeremiah? Had Jeremiah recorded the right details? He must have. Anatole would have seen to it somehow. The Prophet had known all this would come to pass. He’d known about Jeremiah even before Calebros had sent him. Anatole had planted seeds with Donatello in the cathedral that would grow and bear fruit with Jeremiah much later.

  Seconds…letter…

  Calebros scanned ahead through the reports. “Anatole begins his sandal rubbing. Four seconds, changes directions. One minute forty-four seconds, changes direction…”

  “Seconds!” Calebros said aloud. Anatole knew that Jeremiah was timing him—knew that he would time him. Calebros had to abandon chronology; he had to acknowledge that causal and temporal relationships did not necessarily exist with the Prophet. Planting the seeds for the fruit he knew would be needed…

  It had to fit. Jeremiah had timed the sandal rubbings, timed them in seconds. But how did that deliver messages? A message, rather. No, not a message, a letter. The answer had to be here. Seconds. What did seconds have to do with a letter? And what did Anatole’s sandal rubbing have to do with anything?

  Four seconds, changes directions. One minute forty-four seconds, changes direction. Calebros slid his finger down the page to the notes from another night: Four seconds, changes directions. One minute forty-four seconds, changes direction. These were the first recorded times for the given nights. They were followed by various times, all between four and one-forty-four. It must mean something that they were the same. But then Calebros cursed when he saw the next night: One second, changes directions. Twenty-six seconds, changes directions.

  What, Calebros tried to discern, was the pattern? Most of the recordings were four seconds followed by a minute and forty-four seconds. But every so often, seemingly at random, there was the one and twenty-six substitution, and on those nights the subsequent times all fell within that range: 1-26-1-14-1-14-7-5-12…

  A combination? he wondered. Or a mathematical relation? One and twenty-six, four and one-forty-four. He started scribbling down the math. One-forty-four was divisible by four…thirty-six times. Was there a significance there? Thirty-six months? Three years? Was something going to happen in three years? The numbers all started to run together in his mind, then…not one-forty-four. Seconds! One minute forty-four seconds is one hundred four seconds, not one hundred forty-four. And one hundred four divided by four was twenty-six.

  Calebros slammed his pen down in triumph. Even when the initial numbers were different, the ratio was one to twenty-six. And how is twenty-six related to a letter? Each letter is one of twenty-six! Calebros hastily began making a chart along the margin of the report: 1 = A, 2=B, 3=C…. The four nights were merely multiples!

  And the last line of the riddle, Which way do I go? Which direction. Jeremiah had already recorded the changes in direction. They signified the end of one letter’s time and the beginning of the next.

  Quickly, he began flipping back through the report, gathering all the times that Jeremiah had listed. What if he missed something? Something vital? Ah, but the Prophet would have seen that that didn’t happen. Best to see what’s here, though…

  It did not take long before Calebros saw the numbers transformed into letters into words into sentences. It did not take much longer than that for him to realize that he should find Cock Robin—right away. There was not a moment to spare.

  part three:

  beginning of the end

  Saturday, 13 November 1999, 4:41 AM

  Beneath Manhattan

  New York City, New York

  Their restless, bloodthirsty gazes followed his every movement. Especially the stare of the silent one. Pug could feel them watching him. Knowing that their hatred was not directed at him did not calm his nerves. He’d already brought them farther than anyone else could have, but if he failed now, if he lost the trail, their denied vengeance might be directed toward other outlets—like him.

  Calebros had led him into the still-burning hotel. How desperate did the chief have to be to do that? It was because of the silent one, Pug knew. The silent one wouldn’t rest until this was over. After two nights of the relentless hunt, Pug thought he might rather have just kept helping that strange Hilda woman search for Jeremiah. In the hotel, Pug and Calebros had stayed away from the fire crews. They were everywhere, as was the smoke and the water. It had turned out that the floors Calebros wanted to check were too far gone. There wasn’t much of them left, really. Nothing that Pug could have picked up a scent from. They’d left, defeated, and there it would have ended.

  Except Pug found the trail. He’d found it where none of them had expected, where they had congregated beneath the hotel. While Calebros and the silent one had decided what to do next, Pug had noticed the familiar scent, the scent from the photograph. It had been touch and go through the tunnels since. It was touch and go still.

  He moved forward slowly, cautiously, approaching another storm grate. Untold scents from the chaotic upperworld flooded into the tunnel through the metal cross-hatching. The wave of competing stimuli engulfed Pug—litter blowing overhead, food wrappers, stale urine, motor oil, the ever-present, all-permeating exhaust fumes. He hesitated, doubted, faltered. The strand he followed was so faint!

  “Concentrate, Pug,” said Calebros from behind, understanding but anxious, impatient.

  The silent one watched, glowering. He clicked his jagged fingernails together. The sound, like spiders clattering up Pug’s spine, made the hair on his neck stand on end. He hoped that the others didn’t smell his fear. But he knew the silent one did.

  Concentrate, Pug! he echoed to himself Calebros’s words. The extraneous smells, the clicking spiders in his mind—Concentrate! Set them aside. Then he heard the nervous shuffling. Behind Calebros, the others, too, were unnerved by the silent one, the monster among monsters. They wanted desperately to prove themselves to him, to play a part in his vengeance, but none could match his brooding ferocity.

  Pug caught the trail again, moved forward, felt the beginning of the collective sigh behind him, instantly lost the scent. The tunnel split ahead, just beyond the storm grates—their quarry must have known that, must have risked rising this close to the surface for just that reason. The downdraft whipped the maddeningly churning scents into a cavorting frenzy.

  The silent one let out a deep, throaty warble, a peculiarly disturbing sound.

  “Which way, Pug?” Calebros urged.

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “You must know,” Calebros said quietly. “Take your time. Here.” He reached into his pocket, took out a folded Ziploc bag, and handed it to Pug.

  Pug opened the bag carefully, sniffed at the picture inside—a handsome kine, the former justicar before his change, before his first death or Final. The picture was not their quarry, but their quarry had handled the picture, had touched it and left his scent upon it. That was long ago, much too long for any normal bloodhound to pick up a scent, long enough that Pug was having trouble even without the distracting wind and smells from above. He handed back the bag, then closed his eyes and covered his ears, trying to ignore the mocking breeze that smacked at his face, and to concentrate instead on the plethora of scents the air carried. He tried, as best as he cou
ld, not to hear and feel the agitated trilling of the silent one awaiting results…

  There. The left tunnel. As they continued, Pug moved more quickly, felt more sure of himself. The tunnel split again, but he barely paused before taking the left fork. The urgency of his clanmates drove him forward. His increasing confidence was exceeded only by his sense of relief that he had not failed those who depended on him. Not yet, he hadn’t.

  There were still competing scents, distracting odors that threatened to overpower the true path, but Pug was up to the challenge. He had the trail. He had the scent of the Kindred they pursued and didn’t think he’d lose it again. It seemed normal again, natural. Not like before at the storm grate. Something there had been…not right. Even with the wind-borne smells from the upperworld, he shouldn’t have had so much trouble. He never should have come that close to losing the trail and not finding it. He shouldn’t have needed the picture again. Maybe it was the Tremere they were following. Maybe he’d stopped and tried to conceal his passing—and almost succeeded.

  What mattered, Pug reminded himself, was that he’d found the trail. Now, after the fact, he was halfway miffed with himself for having been so nervous. It wasn’t like they would have tossed him back into the kennels had he failed…at least he didn’t think so. But it wasn’t over yet. They were still right there behind him, after all. The silent one, Calebros, all of the others. Still depending on him…

  Concentrate, Pug reminded himself, not wanting to subject himself needlessly to the overwhelming pressure of those other thoughts, of that slippery slope.