Sketched

by David Alan Jones

  “Directly in front of them.” Myra spoke in slow, deliberate words, as if fighting to convince herself of what she was seeing.

  Rubio paid no attention to Tanner’s walkie-talkie. The vampire didn’t seem to care whether some faceless Order ops caught sight of him, and that worried Rose. He crossed the sidewalk into the main parking lot without haste. Hunched forward slightly, he kept his arms plastered to his sides, fists bunched, chin tucked. He led them to an outsized SUV-style limousine parked in the second row, opened the rearmost door and stepped back. The car was empty.

  “Where’s my father?” Matt asked.

  Rubio remained silent, though his eyes flicked up to gaze at Matt for a second, before sliding back to the ground.

  “Do you need us down there?” Myra sounded drugged, the same as Stevens, her words slurred, but she was fighting the charm well enough to see the truth.

  Four figures materialized out of the night. Rose got the impression they had been hiding between parked cars all this time, but she never detected them. Two were vampires. They must have been Rubio’s people, because they moved like him or, rather, didn’t move. The female’s platinum blond hair shone in the light cast by overhead lamps. Besides her scuttling feet, it was the most lively thing about her. Same went for the short male vampire at her side, a dark-haired man dressed in jeans and sneakers—utterly mundane except for the double row of sharpened teeth glinting between his parted lips.

  Though she could feel their charm sawing away at her mental defenses, Rose was still taken aback when she recognized the other two figures as succubi. Beautiful to the point of unreality and dressed in expensive designer clothes, they looked like a couple of fashion models who had gotten lost from a photoshoot. Rose didn’t know them but she knew their type: elitists born to wealth, station, and privilege. Their charm, even combined, did little, but the feeling of condescension they exuded, even without uttering a word, made her want to grind her teeth.

  The taller of the succubi, a redhead with a perfect pixie-style haircut, nodded at Rose. “They said you were strong, but I never imagined you’d be able to withstand all of us combined, and you’ve got enough to spare for your boyfriend and the tank here. Respect.”

  “Who’s they?” Rose tried to stare the woman down—she had been told her gaze could be intense when she got pissed—but it slid off Pixie Cut like criticism off a sleazy politician.

  “I know people who know people who fought you in Mexico.”

  “Breathers?” Rose shrugged one shoulder. “Not many of them lived.”

  “Believe me, I don’t envy them.” Pixie Cut waved a hand at the SUV. “None of us are here to fight. We’re your escorts.”

  “But if we don’t go with you, your vampire friends kill everyone inside?” Matt stood with his feet spread apart, his hands dangling in a nonchalant manner that meant he was ready to fight.

  “I’d prefer we never find out. Please, get in the truck.”

  Seeing no other choice—she certainly wasn’t going to take on that many vampires at once with a meager security detail at her back—Rose climbed inside. Matt hesitated a moment longer before following her.

  Tanner started to climb in but, moving with preternatural speed, Rubio got in front of him to place a hand on the big incubus’s chest. “Not you.”

  Tanner looked at Rose and Matt. He had the worst sort of expression on his face—none at all. He possessed no fear whatsoever of either succubi or vampires, not even Rubio. At a word, he would go on the attack without question or hesitation.

  “Stay here.” Rose cocked her head to indicate the convention center. “Keep Torres safe.”

  “I don’t like this.” Tanner backed off, his jaw set, his muscles tensed beneath his security vest.

  “We’re not going to harm them, big guy.” Pixie Cut made a point of brushing close to Tanner as she slid into the SUV, making eyes at him once inside.

  All in a rush, the male vampire swarmed into the seat next to her and assumed a statue-like stillness, his dark gaze focused exclusively on Rose. He continued plying her with charm. Fortunately, though she had lost some votaries since the Drawn graphic novel deviated from her real life, she retained the majority of the die-hard fans who first bought into the mystique of Rose Carver, succubus. The charm she borrowed from them amounted to a mere trickle from each individual, but its accumulated strength turned the vampire’s single-minded attack into little more than an irritant at the edge of her consciousness.

  They drove, Rubio at the wheel, for ten silent minutes. Rose wanted to engage the succubus woman—the vampire gave her the creeps, she wanted no part of him—but she got the feeling neither of them would volunteer any information anyway.

  A wrought-iron fence topped with sharpened spikes longer than Rose’s hands soon appeared outside the limo to the east. It unfurled next to them for several minutes before Rubio slowed to turn.

  “Talk about deja vu,” Matt said as a gate opened before them, and they started down a narrow, tree-enshrouded drive.

  “Mexico all over again,” Rose agreed. The first time she met vampires in the flesh had been in a walled hacienda in Mexico.

  Another five minutes brought them to a house plucked out of Victorian England. Floodlights shone upon its stone face, picking out dozens of windows precisely formed from terracotta brickwork in sharp relief. A large front porch, also made of stone and inlaid with intricate designs, gave onto the mansion’s wide doorway, which stood open, silhouetting a slim figure waiting there.

  Rose nodded to herself in relief. Despite the fact she had killed Clemente, Rubio’s sire, and a real bastard who had once murdered an innocent child in front of Rose, she had harbored serious concerns that he might have somehow survived. Unlike in the movies, though, real vampires were living creatures. Their hearts beat, their blood flowed, and when you killed one, they didn’t come back.

  “Matthew and Ms. Carver, greetings,” said the man on the porch the instant they climbed from the limo. “Ms. Carver, my name is Donald Selway. Welcome to Oakmoore Manor.”

  Matt stopped short as if he had run into an invisible tree, his gaze nailed to Selway, who stared back with cool calmness.

  “What’s the matter?” Rose inspected their vampire and succubus escorts, half expecting an attack, but they hadn’t moved.

  “Where’s my father, Don?” Matt nearly growled.

  “This guy works for Kraft?” Rose asked.

  “Don’s his personal man. He practically raised me.”

  Selway, whom Rose pegged as an incubus on sight, wore a fine tuxedo matched with a short coat and embroidered blue vest. The faintest smile stretched his lips, there and gone in an instant, before he stepped back, opening the way for his guests to enter. “Mr. Kraft is inside. He is eager to speak with both of you.”

  Rose knew better than to refuse. She and Matt could probably fight their way out of this situation—though from what she had seen of the new and supercharged Rubio, he could pose a problem—but what then? Torres was still speaking to a crowd liberally doused with bloodsuckers. What exactly would set them off? Rose had no idea but harming one of these people seemed like a sure bet.

  Together, she and Matt strode into the house. Rubio and Pixie Cut followed, leaving the others behind. Selway led them through a grand entranceway and receiving room—the latter looked big enough to host a skate park—and along a hall wide enough for two people to navigate side-by-side without rubbing shoulders. It was, by orders of magnitude, the finest home Rose had ever visited.

  “It’s good to see you, Matt,” Selway said, his heels clicking on the polished parquet floor.

  “I don’t have any ill will toward you, Don. You were always good to me growing up. Disciplined, but fair. Unfortunately, you work for a monster.”

  Selway made a faint noise of disapproval in his throat but said nothing.

  Not for the first time, Rose wondered at Matt’s upbringing and the way he hid it. They had been dating seriously for over a year now, a
nd he never mentioned Selway. He sometimes referred to servants caring for him while his parents went off pursuing opposite goals, but those had been faceless entities he skirted around on the rare occasions she cajoled him into talking about his childhood. Here stood a man who must have comprised a large part of that period in Matt’s life, and yet he seemed underwhelmed on remaking his acquaintance.

  Growing up a slinker, Rose always thought herself disadvantaged compared to children in rich, powerful families, but at least she had her mother and father, strange as they were, to care for her. Matt had a man in fancy dress who raised him by proxy for his disinterested parents. It broke her heart to think of it.

  Selway pushed through a large, mahogany door inlaid with a pastoral carving of cattlemen driving stock across a river. It opened onto a cozy study with several plush chairs and a couple of leather couches surrounded on all sides by bookshelves. Ensconced in a chair facing the door sat Jason Kraft.

  “Dad.” Matt said the word without a molecule of emotion, but Rose imagined she saw waves of red wafting off him like heat. Here sat his father, the man responsible, whether indirectly or not, for his mother’s death. Any moment now, she expected Matt to launch himself across the room to end his father’s life.

  If he did, Rose wouldn’t stop him.

  “Selway bet me you’d show. I thought, even with the video, you’d rather fight and lose people than allow someone to strongarm you. That’s fifty dollars I owe you, old friend.”

  Selway bowed at the neck in acknowledgment before leaving the room, leaving Pixie Cut and Rubio behind.

  “I guess that shows how little you know us,” Matt said. “But then, how could you? You don’t know the meaning of the word loyalty.”

  Kraft’s back tensed, and his smile morphed into the sort of straight-lined frown worn by military commanders, nurses, and football coaches in the heat of their respective trades. He started to say something but clamped his mouth shut and drew in a breath through his nose.

  Dressed in a sport coat and slacks—who the hell wore that kind of ensemble relaxing at home?—the middle-aged incubus with his graying, unruly hair and salt-and-pepper beard looked weary but dangerous. Dark circles colored the tan skin beneath his eyes, and he no longer filled out his clothes the way he had when last Rose had seen him on the news.

  Though she had never met the man, Rose knew Kraft’s reputation for irresistible charm. A Sing, meaning he could draw no more than a single trait at one time from his votaries, he nevertheless possessed the capacity to overwhelm most anyone who dared stand against his will. To hear Matt tell it, his father’s career stood on a mountain of borrowed charm and shrewd political maneuvering. Skills he had more than willingly used on his wife and son in the past.

  Oddly enough, Rose felt no charm emanating from Kraft now. Rubio and Pixie Cut, yes. Though they had ratcheted down the attack from the limo to a subtle probing, their attentions lingered, swarming about her, enticing her to accept whatever Kraft might say. But from Kraft himself, nothing. For some reason, the wily politician wanted Rose’s and Matt’s unvarnished attention.

  “I deserve that.” Kraft relaxed, easing back in his chair. “I suppose from your vantage point, I’ve never been loyal to anyone but myself.”

  “You’re damned right.” Matt remained ready to pounce, his muscles quivering with pent up energy, but a hint of doubt flavored his voice. His father’s docility put him off his stride.

  Rose placed a consoling hand on her lover’s shoulder. A moment ago, she would have joined him in fighting this man, but Kraft’s demeanor intrigued her.

  “How do you know Barbara Griffith is dead?” She had watched a news stream minutes before leaving for the rally in case one of the top poll makers released a campaign update. There hadn’t been any mention of a prominent politician's death in Washington.

  “I still have connections in Society.” Kraft’s sly smile returned. “I might be on the outs with everyone you speak to, but not with everyone I speak to.”

  “Let me guess,” Matt said, “you’re going to enlighten us as to who killed her?”

  “As I said in the message I sent you: I have my suspicions.”

  “And why wouldn’t we assume you did it? It’s a move straight out of your playbook. Off the competition at every opportunity.”

  Kraft shook his head. “I wouldn’t have anything to gain by killing Barbara except more enemies. Besides, you may find this hard to believe, but she was one of my oldest and dearest friends. As for regaining my foothold in Society leadership, I couldn’t care less at the moment. The two of you, and that vampire firebrand you’ve aligned yourselves with, made that an impossibility. I couldn’t host a dinner party in DC right now, let alone take the reins of power.”

  “Thank God.” Matt pointed a finger at Kraft. “But it’s not enough. You belong in a prison cell for the rest of your unnatural life for what you did...for killing my mother.”

  Kraft nodded slowly, a look of genuine anguish stealing over his features. “The raid on Camp Den was ill-planned and ill-played. I never meant for it to go that far. David Lord had strict orders to capture you, your mother, all the leaders within your little cabal. Your mother and I had our disagreements, but I never would have harmed her, not like that. She died because I trusted David Lord.”

  “What about the fear factory?” Rose held Kraft’s gaze. “Was that all David Lord? Was it just a mistake that cost my parents’ their sanity?”

  “No. Not a mistake. A stopgap,” Kraft said, his tone full of resignation. “I was only doing what would have happened eventually. Do you think that was the first of its kind? Children, please. Those sorts of places have been around as long as there have been succubi to use them. They’re as old as whorehouses. A thousand years ago, there were champions whose prowess in battle relied primarily on the number of votaries they could maintain in the throes of ecstatic fear. Probably fifty thousand years ago, it was the same for all I know.”

  Matt was shaking his head. “No one knew how to steal courage except a small number sworn to the secret. Those champions you’re touting were used only in dire need.”

  “Is that what your mother told you about the fear draw?” Kraft looked amused despite his pain. “Leave it to Robin to idealize into triviality something as nuanced as our entire way of life. The secret wasn’t kept hidden because Society needed heroes every now and again. The rich saw to it no one beneath landed status could know it back in medieval days. They wanted to keep it to themselves. So, when someone beneath their station happened upon the secret, they killed them. That’s how your people came about, Rose. The slinkers are simply an ancient outcropping of powerful, educated succubi culling the peasant crop.”

  “In other words, nothing’s changed,” Rose said. “They did it, you did it, and whoever comes to power now will likely do the same unless we stop them.”

  Kraft leaned to one side to address Rubio and Pixie Cut. “I’m the worst criminal this world has ever seen. Move over Pol Pot, Hitler, here comes Jason Kraft, Satan among succubi.”

  “Are you going to defend the fear factory? Is that your plan?” Matt’s face had gone ruddy with his anger. “Our kind has done this throughout history, and that somehow makes it right?”

  “Our people have done it throughout history, and I saw no way to stop it, so I centralized it. What do you think is more likely to draw human attention, ten thousand fear factories, or one? You have no idea what it was like before the Indrawn Breath seized control of Society. Every rich, privileged succubus in the country had his or her own warren of woes. Some claimed they stocked them with criminals, and maybe that was true, but it didn’t change the fact that the practice was widespread. As the times changed, cameras became ubiquitous and the internet made it possible for humans to communicate what they saw or heard instantly. I knew something had to be done.”

  “So, you consolidated.” Rose could hear blood rushing in her ears, though her nose and lips felt cold. Why in the name of God did sh
e understand the logic here? She didn’t want to understand. She wanted to hate Kraft, and she did, but she could also see where his story was going, and it turned her stomach.

  “It was the main reason I created the Indrawn Breath in the first place. No one would listen to my warnings. I told them we couldn’t keep ourselves hidden with fear votaries left to individuals. I took charge in order to shut down the private factories—”

  “—and set up one to service all,” Rose said, awestruck in the most horrific way possible. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to marry her old image of Kraft as a power-hungry tyrant bent on dominating the world, with the reasoned monster sitting before her now. Both disgusted her, but at least this new one possessed grounds, albeit distasteful ones, for the things he had done.

  “You two did more to spread fear factories throughout America when you exposed that one than anything I could have managed. Now, instead of fear drawing from a small, collective group under constant guard from outside forces, succubi all over the country have gone back to their old ways of kidnapping people off the streets, financial and political rivals, and poor human vagrants. We are more exposed than we’ve ever been.”

  “And you did this, why?” Matt asked.

  “You think I didn’t see people like Alice McAleese coming? Europe has been vying to throw its yoke over us since the revolution. Granted, I never thought it would be the Irish who managed to usurp their masters and sweep across the continent, but I knew we had grown too cozy here in the New World a century ago. We’ve had it all our own way for too long, and we haven’t prepared for an outside force to come calling. I was making those preparations when you ended my career in Congress and Society.”

  “No, you’re lying.” Matt shook his head. “You don’t care about any of that. You want to be the one in charge. You want lesser succubi like the slinkers to bow before you and to make humans your chattel.”

  “I never said chattel.” Kraft sounded reproachful. “Yes, I want us to reveal ourselves to the humans, eventually. I can’t see how that won’t happen one way or another, no matter what we want as a people. Instead of letting it happen blindly, I say we make ready, and when the time is right, we show them who we are. If they accept without rancor, so be it. The world will go on as it always has. If they turn on us in some fashion, our preparations will have put us in a place to master them.”