Neese bowed, only half-jokingly. “You honor me, Good Captain.”
“But,” Orlando added, “how-so-ever she convinced you to join this effort; whatever you receive in payment . . . it should be trebled.”
Neese snorted, stretched his neck and rotated his head. “Good Captain,” he chuckled mysteriously, “you have no idea.”
“Indeed.”
Orlando heard an owl’s screech then. He saw the woodsman frown and turn suddenly. He noted Neese’s mood had darkened in a moment’s time, but could not begin to guess the cause.
“I shall be back in a moment,” Neese murmured. Then he was gone, slipping from sight with astonishing speed.
Orlando pursed his lips, ordered a halt. The mercenaries could afford to wait for their odd Germanic ally.
Neese pressed every detail from the owl then dismissed it and turned, seething.
That ambitious, ruthless bitch! He thought. She has betrayed us—betrayed me!
The Lady was to be watching, now that Heinrich had taught himself to identify and destroy Neese’s creatures at a distance. She was to provide warning.
Neese growled under his breath and shifted his gaze from shadow to shadow. She spoke of sacrifices—always sacrifices—of the need for all to unite, to work together. And this was how she kept her word?
Had the Lady—the Bitch—decided to ally herself with Heinrich now; with his mad schemes and his slimy servant-in-bishop’s-robes? Didn’t she realize how much that would cost her? Not only Neese’s support and loyalty, but that of all the forest-dwelling vampires and even, indirectly, the mortal folk they oversaw and manipulated.
Neese considered the previous summer. He could understand about Bartel, though the human doctor had been useful and Neese was sure a better solution could’ve been found—but what of Wolfgang and Quinn?
A vampire that could so easily destroy her own creations was not to be trusted.
“Sacrifices,” Neese whispered to the shadows. “I was a fool to believe, to assist her.”
But the Lady was a fool, too. Her treachery would cost her everything, Neese determined. You would expand your power, Lorelei? Now you lose all! You shall be sacrificed this time! I shall drink the blood of you and yours, until nothing but dry husks remain!
Neese spun round, a feral look upon his face.
The Lady would be overthrown. But first, there was the fiend she had turned loose upon Neese’s territory. Heinrich must be dealt with. Neese raised his head, sniffed the night air and formed a plan.
The irony of using the Lady’s Genoese hirelings this way might have been amusing under other circumstances. But here and now, it seemed only just and proper.
“Turn your men to the northeast, Orlando!” Neese snapped the order, his humble woodsman pose discarded.
When the Captain only frowned, Neese seized the proud mortal’s elbow and met, held the man’s gaze. Neese was expert in controlling lesser creatures, but no match for the Lady’s ability to dominate human minds. Fortunately, the Lady had wanted all these Genoese left free of thought, unless otherwise required.
She would be outraged, which only made Neese more determined and his influence more potent. He spoke slowly, clearly. “Turn your men, Captain. Make them ready for a forced march. Have them extinguish the torches, as well.”
Neese couldn’t hope to control seven of them at once—or even Orlando indefinitely. His concentration was bound to wander; eye contact came and went. But if he got the Captain to lead his men there . . . perhaps a confrontation could be forced.
The renegade vampire Heinrich and his pet churchman had to be exposed, stopped and destroyed. If that took Neese’s own destruction . . . well, the Lady wasn’t the only one willing to make sacrifices.
Once pristine, the Sacred Grove was awash in gore. Neese drew himself up straight and shuddered. The intermittent moonlight sneaking through the clouds and the ragged flicker of the Church Knights’ torches did little to soften the scene. The central bonfire, so important to the gentle Druid folk, was merely smoking now. It was fresh-extinguished—by pagan blood.
The forest vampire shook his head. All this life, all this perfectly good and useful blood—wasted. Thrown away for more of the fiend’s idiot experiments!
Neese turned, saw the expressions on the Genoese and felt a surge of bitter hope.
“Those are Teutonics,” muttered one crossbowman.
Others nodded, shifted uneasily. They’d fought and killed heretics by the score in the Holy Land and in Portugal. But those had been armed warriors. While others had done so, Orlando and his men had never cut down naked women, chopped helpless children to pieces. It was a point of pride among them that they were more chivalrous.
They watched a squad of Church Knights pull down the Druids’ May Pole, turn vengeful hatchets on bare wood. More Knights stood around in ones and twos. Some wore sad, even remorseful faces. Others smiled. Four stood over a pair of old men who’d chosen to die in each other’s comforting embrace, rather than make a doomed break for the woods. The four prodded one old man’s genitals with their sword points and laughed.
“Stand ready,” Orlando told his men.
“Sir?” The one who’d spoken first extended a gauntlet-clad wrist. “Those are Church Knights. See the black cross on their battle tunics, Captain? Order of the Sword.”
“I know it, Vito. Just be ready—you and everyone else.”
The Captain moved to Neese’s side, almost unbidden. “Do you see the Bishop or that—that Secretary of his?”
Neese shook his head and released the last of his tenuous control to be more alert. He stepped with Orlando into the Grove. They counted bodies as they went. All thirteen—the Knights had surrounded then slaughtered the entire coven. Now they were preparing the corpses and parts of corpses to be carried off—to Heinrich’s charnel shack for ‘study.’
The cowl-clad, skull-masked vampire and his willingly bound servant, Bishop Cecilio, stood over the last of the murdered Druids—a girl of 8 or 9 years. Like the others, the small body was torn and mutilated, and completely naked.
The pagans had been in the midst of some ceremony and unprepared, unwarned of their peril.
Heinrich turned at Orlando’s curt demand for an explanation. The fiend gestured toward the Bishop, feigning respect and submission. But anyone with eyes could tell who was truly the master and who the loyal, grinning servant.
“Does Holy Justice require explanation, my Genoese son?”
Orlando pursed his lips. The argument that followed was long and at first almost painfully polite. Heinrich stood back from it, smirking even as he probed from mind to mind. It didn’t surprise or alarm him that Neese had influenced the Captain, forced him to come here. It only showed the nature-loving vampire had enough sense to fear Heinrich’s growing power.
It irritated him that Neese had learned to block all but the most superficial of mind probes. That was likely the so-called Lady’s work and made things less convenient. But he could guess Neese’s intent.
The forest vampire was pledged to Lady Maximus and she was not yet ready to openly oppose him. When that time came, it would be too late and Heinrich would have firm control of these knights, as well as an army of risen dead with him.
The Black Forest and all around it would be his!
As for this night, Neese might be angry. But he lacked the numbers, the power and the Lady’s permission to act. Heinrich felt certain he had nothing to worry about, tonight.
Then he and the others heard the first scream.
The crazed werewolf killed two of the Teutonic Knights outright and tore a third one’s arm off, tossing him aside to bleed out. It took five bolts to bring the creature down, leaving only Vito and his Captain’s weapons still loaded.
Having fought the monster alongside the Knights, the mercenaries felt a good deal less hostile and made no effort to reload.
But Heinrich and his unholy servant had both noted the werewolf’s odd behavior—charging into a torch-lit clearing, a
lready snarling mad with blood-fury. And the man-wolf had been bleeding from several small wounds before the first mortal struck at it.
Someone had driven it into the Grove. Someone or something had.
Neese saw this too.
However, there was no time to think it through. This could be his one chance and he must act—now while things were still confused!
He called out, in a way no mortal could hear.
Two owls, a starling and five bats dove from the surrounding trees. They converged on Heinrich from assorted angles and directions. The vampire snarled instinctively, turning to fling deadly mind-blasts into the air. All but the starling and one bat fell dead, well short of their target. The two survivors swarmed madly against his face, clawing and screeching.
Heinrich swatted them down, caught and killed both with his talon-like hands.
But several mortals saw the telltale flash of vampire fangs. A few of these had crossbows; one had a loaded crossbow.
Orlando snapped into battle stance and squeezed the trigger.
Heinrich’s eyes widened then went blank. He jerked one step forward, and then pitched back, his heart impaled by a single, perfectly placed shot.
“The Bishop’s its Familiar!” Neese screamed as Cecilio lunged.
Cecilio broke the crossbow and Orlando’s arm in one motion, but Neese was his ultimate target. He tossed the Captain aside and grabbed for the forest vampire.
Vito’s bolt struck the Bishop in the right eye, producing a ghastly wound. But it hardly slowed the spell-strengthened, raging-mad thing in Church robes. Neese thrust his dagger into Cecilio’s gut and grappled, hoping the dumbstruck mortals would recover and aid him before he was forced to defend himself with obviously non-human powers.
Neese shrieked, allowed the vile thing to crush his hand. The dagger fell and Neese considered shifting, turning himself to mist—anything to escape!
But three Teutonic Knights finally found the courage to thrust their swords into the Bishop’s back. Cecilio bellowed like the man-wolf, sent the Germans sprawling. He killed one with his bare hands, but some of the other crossbowmen were at last reloaded. One bolt struck an arm; another buried itself deep in the Churchman’s chest.
After that, there was relative calm.
“Both seem dead,” Orlando remarked once his men secured his shattered limb.
Several mortals muttered and Neese picked his spot, joined in. “Somebody once told me,” He observed, “you’re got to cut their heads off. If you want to be sure, that is?”
“That’s right!” a Teutonic Knight agreed.
“I’ve heard it too!” a crossbowman declared.
“Let’s be sure!” someone else said.
“Absolutely sure,” yet another rumbled.
Neese turned, not wanting the mortals to see his amusement. He glanced back, saw the axes swing. Then he staggered quietly into the murky forest.
“These mortals turn on their former masters quick enough,” Gerda said with a smirk.
Neese spun, his wounded hand throbbing.
Gerda was the Lady’s last surviving offspring and, in Neese’s view, even more of a bitch. She stood beside Maximus herself, dressed in mannish hunting clothes.
“You planned all this,” Neese accused. He gestured, winced. “You let them come here, knowing I’d be nearby with the mercenaries.”
Still smirking, Gerda shook her head. “What is your complaint, beast-master? The Lady said she’d find a safe way to eliminate that grave-robbing cretin and his repulsive, robed associate.”
“A safe way?”
Gerda nodded. “The truth was discovered by mortal humans and it was they, not us, who destroyed them.”
“One of you followed them; the other observed our werewolf hunt—correct?” Neese turned, addressed the Lady directly. “I see you’ve taught her the invisibility trick.”
Lorelei Maximus nodded.
Total invisibility, even from other vampires, was one of the more complex abilities they could develop. But 120 years undead allowed more than enough time—and drinking powerful rivals dry seemed to help, as well.
“You and your schemes.” Neese shook his head. “If we’re all damned, surely you are doubly so.”
Gerda hissed, started forward but stopped behind her creator’s outstretched arm. “Be cautious and respectful when addressing your betters, beast-master.”
“Of course.” Neese made a face that was not all pain, but close. “Otherwise I may become another ‘sacrifice,’ eh?”
“Perhaps,” the Lady said mildly. “But not just yet—and possibly not at all. Gerda, our loyal ally has been injured in our service. He requires blood to speed his healing. Extend your arm.”
The younger vampire’s face contorted in dismay. But she did as instructed—the memory of what happened to her defiant brothers was still fresh enough to ensure her obedience.
Neese was equally reluctant. But he fed as directed—just enough to regain his strength.
Standing before them, the Lady Lorelei Maximus, vampire and uncrowned ruler of the Black Forest, smiled easily and planned here next moves.
If all went well, in a mere century or two the Holy Roman Empire would be far more than a sick joke and she would be the unseen power, controlling its every action.
THE END
My Queen, My Queen by Christine Ruggiano
Vanilla Queen popped on the stereo and there was the old feeling again. An angel stood in my doorway looking everywhere but at me. But she was gone, and she’d always be gone.
But the moment ends the second I can’t hear the sound of the turntable. That soft purr was absent and in the remaining air of silence was just that, silence.
Three stouts later and I found myself in a record shop. Lined with hipsters desperate to grasp onto a feeling they were born too late for. I dug through all the vinyls. Half of it was from hipster bands that knew their audience wanted to pretend they were hip and have their album on an old black disc too big for simple storage.
There was not a single Golden Earring album in the whole place. I stumbled out of the record shop looking like the old sketchy drunk guy. Mumbling a “you, too,” as the thick-rimmed sales clerk wished me a “pleasant evening.”
I kicked the sidewalk to check how drunk I was. My analysis led me straight passed my car. I’d have to collect it in the morning. Shouldn’t have driven there in the first place.
Three drinks a night later, cheap all-American Lite beer. I could drive home on five more. I’d already asked for my tab. They handed my friend and I a leather folder we placed our debit cards in and they took them away.
“Should’ve grabbed one for the road.” My friend added as he tapped the bar.
I shrugged and could’ve sworn I heard some familiar chords on the bar’s music but it was just another overplayed radio tune.
“Do you remember Val Lawton?”
“Ol’ Valerie?” He laughed and turned his stool towards me. I remained facing the wall behind the bar. Forced a sip of the warm beer, tried to finish it but it was too stagnant to be swallowed in full.
“Yeah. Ol’ Valerie.”
“Course, I remember her. The legs on her! God, I bet she’s a saggy wrinkly skeleton of a woman.” He smacked his gut. “She couldn’t retain her meat like us.” His hand smacked my shoulder and he downed the remnants of his final beer. “Hell the way she smoked.” His voice had dropped its humor.
“Yeah right.” I forced the final mouthful and our cards were returned to us. We scratched tips onto the receipt and stretched off the stools.
Couldn’t hear each other on the way through the young crowd blocking the door. The night air was like listening to a CD. All around me there was silence where there shouldn’t be.
“I know who killed her.”
“What?” My friend stopped in his tracks, “No, wait, what?”
“Val’s been dead ten years.” I broke the news. Didn’t think he cared. I left him on the sidewalk. Looked back in th
e rearview mirror but he hadn’t come around the corner. Maybe I was drunk? I had no reason to say what I said.
The silence played in the background all night. I kept the song on repeat and laid my head against the cold window. The orange glow off the asphalt, could’ve matched her skin.
The rain started. I could smell it first, thick and musty. Then a knock came on my door. My friend let himself in.
“You drunk, man?” He asked.
“Was.” I shook my head and held up my fresh bottle directing him to a similar offering in my fridge. He took it but didn’t take a sip. His nose hit on something he didn’t like, I didn’t apologize.
“You saying she was murdered?”
I shrugged and took a seat on the couch.
“You said you knew who did it.” He stood before me. Thick shoulders his beer at waist level, both his arms at ninety degree angles. His stance wide at the feet. He was positioned.
“I did.”
“You know, maybe sometimes it’s not murder so much as self-defense.” His knuckles had whitened around the bottle. “Not everyone always jumps to that, but that can happen.” His tone was sharp.
“Never said it was murder. Dying caused by another is still a killing.”
“So where does that leave us?”
He wanted to know if I was going to turn him in.
“Same. I’ve just been thinking about her.”
“What do you want?”
“I want Moontan on vinyl.” The song still played behind us in all its silence. It had just started all over again.
“You are drunk.”
“Yeah. Sold all that stuff away and now I just want it back. I want to hear this song the way I remember it. I want to hear the needle.”
He eyed me for a long time. I didn’t look up at him. Just kept taking sips.
“I like it when it pops just before it starts a new track. Remember that?” I met his eyes; they were as bloodshot as mine, but probably not from the beer. His postured slouched and he took a seat next to me on the couch.
“No one else knows.” He whispered first, then raised his voice and repeated so he knew I heard. His elbows dug into his knees and he drank. “I was drunk. Probably should’ve quit that day, but drinking never reminded me. If I was thinking about it, the drinking made it easier. Not like, I forgot, or got over it, or even just took my mind away. Just made it like, I couldn’t actually touch it. I’ve kept it separate from my life all these years. But I can tell you.” He looked me over as if my judgment was in his favor.
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