The II AM Trilogy Collection

by Christopher Buecheler

  “Aros is most definitely toying with you, but he is not lying to you,” the vampire said. “Unfortunately, that is not the greatest of our concerns at this time.”

  “It isn’t?” Sarah asked, sounding mildly insulted.

  “Aros has, in the best tradition of all lunatics, decided to fill me in on some of his plans. He means to steal Two’s blood, and we know that once he does he will kill me, and kill Naomi and Stephen if they come here with her. Further, he plans to use the blood to create some sort of serum that will ‘level the playing field’ by unifying all vampires under a single strain.”

  “What if they don’t want to be unified?” Sarah asked, and Jakob glanced at her.

  “I don’t think he plans on giving them a choice. And given what I’ve learned tonight, that is what concerns me the most. I didn’t know for sure until this evening that the army he’s built for himself now stands at well over two thousand vampires.”

  Rhes stared at Jakob in astonishment. “What the hell does he need that many men for?”

  “It began at Abraham’s request, God only knows why. Now? A cult organization called the Children of the Sun, an anti-vampire group, have begun abducting Burilgi. Many Burilgi have come to him for protection because they have no faith in the council. I … can’t say that I blame them, though I wish they’d chosen a more stable leader.”

  “What are they doing with the vampires they kidnap?” Sarah asked.

  “We don’t know, but it’s probably not good. Aros has reached a point where he no longer cares what they’re doing with the abductees. He plans on wiping the cult out entirely. Once that’s done, there’s nothing to stop him from sending his people out across this country, and further. He will attempt to usher in this new age he desires.”

  “Would it be such a bad thing if all vampires were the same? I mean … it does seem kind of unfair that some of you get to be superheroes, and others are stuck living in sewers.”

  “It’s highly unfair, and I’m not entirely against taking steps to attempt to improve the Burilgi strain, or to unify all four races. The problem is that I don’t believe Aros is going to get what he wants from your friend’s blood.”

  “And when he doesn’t …” Rhes began.

  “You’re afraid he’s going to crack,” Sarah finished for him.

  Jakob massaged the back of his neck, frowning. “Yes. I’m afraid it will be the last straw that sends him from envy to murderous rage. If he can’t be on the same level as us, he may decide to simply wipe us out entirely, and if he comes at the council with two thousand vampires, he stands a good chance of accomplishing that. His chances are further improved if he kills Naomi, Stephen, and me, the three vampires most capable of actually galvanizing the council members into action.”

  “And if Two comes here, so will they,” Rhes said, “because they’re the ones protecting her.”

  “It’s a very pretty little package,” Jakob said. “I really don’t think it could have worked out this well if he’d planned it. My being at your townhouse, Naomi and Stephen on their way back to America, the council in complete disarray …”

  “So what’s the plan?” Sarah asked, and Jakob glanced up at her, amused.

  “Americans. There must always be a plan.”

  “I think if we try to wing it, we’re going to get shot to death.”

  “I think you’re correct. There are several issues with an escape attempt, not the least of which being that Aros does not even allow me above ground without a detachment of guards, all of them carrying guns. I’m not fast enough to outrun a hail of bullets, and even if I managed to fight through them, you would both die. I’m not fond of that idea.”

  “Hey, me neither,” Rhes said, his tone unusually sarcastic. Sarah gave him a wan smile.

  “Nobody’s dying,” she said.

  “I think we wait,” said Jakob. “We wait, and we try to keep Aros in a good mood. At least for now, it seems to be serving us well.”

  “I don’t like counting on Aros’s goodwill,” Sarah told him.

  “Nor do I. If you have suggestions, Sarah, I am open to them. I’m rather tired of living off of bagged blood. It tastes like plastic.”

  “Gross,” Sarah said. She bit her lower lip for a moment, thinking, and then sighed and shook her head.

  “Got nothin’.”

  Someone banged on the door and snarled, “Time’s up! Fucking Bourgeoisie, get out here!”

  “Oh, for God’s sake … I grew up a goat farmer,” Jakob muttered. He stood, and started for the door.

  “Try not to get killed before we see you again,” Sarah told him as he passed her. Jakob laughed.

  “Yes. I will do exactly that. You do the same.”

  Chapter 20

  Reunion

  “Malik, I’m telling you that I have the information we need right now. I know where Aros is. Will you not at least call an emergency meeting to discuss it?”

  Sasha was leaning back in her chair, staring at the ceiling, clearly furious. Molly was watching from the couch, no happier than the vampire about what was obviously being said on the other end of the connection. The email from Jerry had arrived that evening, containing not only information on Aros’s whereabouts, but blueprints of the decommissioned base and even information on some of his known associates, most of whom Sasha had never heard of, though Lewis and Richard’s names had been among those listed. Jerry was many things, and most of those were bad, but he took his work very seriously.

  “No,” Sasha was saying, “I don’t think I’m overreacting. I think you’re afraid of confrontation and unwilling to do what’s necessary.”

  Sasha was expressing more emotion than she had at any time since Molly had met her. As well as the vampire woman had hidden it, Jakob’s absence was eating her up. Molly could sense ragged edges growing in Sasha’s composure, and knew she must be terrified of what Aros might decide to do with Jakob.

  “I will not take it back!” Sasha snarled. “Mark my words, Malik, when this is over, there will be changes.”

  Sasha’s voice had grown tight, her left hand wrapped around the chair’s arm, knuckles white with the pressure.

  “We will see. No. No! No, I will not promise you anything. Ah … yebat' tvoyu mat'!” This last was a shout, and Sasha hurled the phone across the room. It made a dent in the sheetrock and clattered to the floor in three different pieces. Molly doubted it would ever work again. Sasha sat forward and put her head in her hands.

  “Govnyuk,” she muttered, her voice tired.

  “What?” Molly asked. Sasha glanced over at her. The sofa folded out into a bed, and Molly had been using it as such for several days. It was almost two in the morning, and Molly was propped up against her pillows, wearing a pink nightgown.

  “Nothing. Russian. Go to sleep.”

  “Can’t,” Molly said. “Hanging with you is totally fucking up my schedule.”

  “We won’t be ‘hanging’ for much longer,” Sasha said.

  “Why not?”

  Sasha ignored her and instead turned to the computer. She read the email again, looked over the attached documents again, went to the Web and checked on a few things.

  “Two hours,” she muttered.

  “Until what?” Molly asked.

  “No, I mean that is how long it would take to get there, give or take. Two hours. I could go tonight. I could …”

  “Get killed,” Molly finished for her.

  “I have to try something,” Sasha replied. “He’s going to kill Jakob. He has to. If Aros leaves him alive through all of this, there’s going to be a reckoning. Such blatant disregard for council law won’t be tolerated. Aros knows that Jakob can stir the council where Malik cannot. The only way this works is if Jakob never comes back alive. He might be dead already.”

  “What could you do for him?” Molly asked.

  “I’ll do whatever’s necessary for him,” Sasha said.

  Molly tilted her head, resting it against her palm, studying the
vampire. At last, Sasha made a sound of frustration, tired of this silent appraisal.

  “What?” she asked. “What is it?”

  “Do you love him?” Molly asked.

  “Love is a waste of time,” Sasha said. “He is my boss.”

  “Didn’t ask what you thought about love.”

  Sasha bit her lip, but she wouldn’t meet Molly’s eyes.

  “I love my mom and dad, too,” Molly said. “Not like that, of course, but I mean … I love them.”

  “I didn’t say I loved him.”

  Molly smiled, another of those adult expressions she sometimes wore that had no business being on the face of a young teenage girl.

  “Sure you did.”

  Sasha sighed. “It’s not like that. Not exactly. Yes, very well, I love Jakob. Not quite the way I loved my fiancé before he died, but not quite the way I loved my father, either. It’s … somewhere between the two, and is difficult to explain. I would die for Jakob if he needed me to, but I am not upset that in two hundred years he has never kissed me. Why does it matter?”

  “I dunno, maybe he wants to but—”

  “No, I’m not asking about that. Molly … he doesn’t want to. Jakob has never fancied women.”

  “Oh. OH!” Molly’s brain caught up with this information, and her cheeks went pink. “I get it. Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. It’s no secret. What I meant was, why does it matter now whether I love him or not? How does it impact the present situation?”

  “Well, I have an idea, but it’s not gonna make you popular. I thought, you know, if you loved him enough …”

  Sasha glanced over at her. “What’s your idea?”

  “Just call the meeting without Malik.”

  Sasha laughed at this, a pretty, sparkling sound that Molly thought the vampire’s friends probably would have liked to hear more often than they did.

  “You are insane,” Sasha said. “I probably just cost myself a council seat with that phone call. Attempting a coup d’état? I would be killed.”

  “You’ll be killed going after Jakob by yourself, too.”

  “Yes, that’s why I’m not going to.”

  “Not tonight anyway,” Molly muttered.

  “What?” Sasha asked.

  “Oh, come on. You can hear whispers through walls. I know you know what I said.”

  Sasha looked exasperated. “I wasn’t asking you to repeat yourself, but to explain yourself.”

  “You’ve gotten worse every night. What’s it gonna be? Two more days? Three?”

  “Until what?”

  “Until you fucking go by yourself and try to save him!” Molly sounded annoyed, and Sasha supposed that was within the girl’s right. It was a bit unnerving, having her motivations so easily and accurately read by a child.

  “You may have a point,” she admitted.

  “The vampires on the council don’t like Malik, right?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “So who do they like?”

  “Naomi. Jakob. Stephen is highly respected, but he wouldn’t accept a position of leadership even were anyone so insane as to offer it to him. There is no one who …” Sasha’s eyes grew suddenly wide.

  “What?” Molly asked.

  “Good God, I’ve been a fool,” Sasha said, already turning back to her computer. “William! They would listen to William.”

  “Who’s William?”

  “Naomi’s council seat once belonged to William. He retired after … you remember what I told you of Abraham and your friend Two’s actions? He retired after that. I believe he needed some time away from politics.”

  “Will he help you?”

  “Me? Probably not. We were on good terms but not friends. But he might help Jakob, if for no other reason than because Naomi would. He is nearly as old as Malik, and he is an Ashayt, and he is … Lord, Molly, thank you. I should have thought of this already.”

  “No prob.”

  Sasha clicked through a few screens, scanned one briefly, and said, “I have his number.”

  “Awesome,” Molly said, dryly amused. “Now if only you had a phone …”

  * * *

  “I agreed to meet with you because I know that you and Jakob are very close with Naomi, Sasha, and because I respect your sire very much,” William said. “I am not sure, though, that I can do these things you are asking of me.”

  They were sitting in William’s apartment, a penthouse in lower Manhattan that offered extraordinary views of the Brooklyn skyline. Two entire walls of the room they occupied were made of glass, and Molly was standing in front of one, staring rapt out at the city below.

  “I would not ask you for this help if there was anyone else,” Sasha said. “Malik is … he is weak. Forgive me – he is my elder, but it is true. Aros is going to kill Jakob and bring his army down upon us. We must strike now.”

  William sighed and laid his head back against his couch, staring up at the ceiling. He was an older man, as vampires went, having reached his early forties before undergoing the change. He had short, immaculately cut brown hair and the polished look of a corporate VIP, a vice president, perhaps. He was wearing what Sasha could only assume was his idea of a casual outfit: a button-down shirt, tie, and sport coat. Every time she had seen William in the past, he had been outfitted in a full, exquisitely tailored three-piece suit.

  “I thought I had escaped all this,” William said at last, to no one in particular.

  “Sasha, you should check this out!” Molly was pressing herself against the window, arms spread wide. “It’s like you’re flying!”

  Sasha, who in nearly two hundred years had never fully conquered a fear of heights, said only, “There is more important business at hand.”

  “Your loss,” Molly said, glancing over her shoulder before returning her attention to the view.

  “William …” Sasha began, but he held up his hand.

  “I knew when I left the council that Malik was weak,” William said. “Are you sure I am any better? Stephen had unpleasant things to say about me when I announced my retirement.”

  “Stephen was frustrated because he cares about the council. He knew that leaving Malik in charge would cause problems. He was … disappointed.”

  William shrugged. “Stephen did not have to spend three hundred years dealing with Abraham. Attempting to counter that maniac’s machinations was exhausting. If there had only been Malik to hold him back, the vampires of this country would be living as his slaves.”

  “We know. That was why we assumed you would succeed Abraham … but few of us would deny that you’ve earned some peace.”

  “There must be others who are capable. Naomi is ready.”

  “Naomi is gone,” Sasha said. “She left us to take care of the Eresh-Chen, and no one has any idea where she is. Calls are going unanswered. The European council could keep her for years, if they choose to.”

  “I am sure if she could have predicted the current crisis …”

  “But she couldn’t.”

  “And now she’s gone. Yes, very well, I understand.”

  “All you have to do is call them. You know they will come, if it’s you. Tell them it is an emergency, that we must meet tomorrow and decide our course of action. There is no more time.”

  “You are sure that this army of Aros’s is a real thing?”

  “As sure as I can be without having seen it with my own eyes. Lewis and Richard swear to it, and the data we acquired from Molly’s … acquaintance … backs them up. He’s building an army. He may aim his people at the Children of the Sun first, but eventually he will come for us.”

  William closed his eyes. Sasha continued, trying to keep the note of pleading desperation from her voice.

  “You spent three hundred years fighting to protect the vampires of this country, William. Abraham is dead now, and you deserve your peace, but there is danger still and … and I cannot face it alone. I am not strong enough.”

  This was as hard an
admission as she had ever made. Sasha was Ay’Araf; she was a warrior. She was not supposed to be so powerless, so dependent upon others for help. The tone in her voice seemed to convey something of her misery at this situation to William. He looked at her, smiled, and nodded.

  “Very well, Sasha. I cannot promise you that the council will decide in your favor, but I can promise that you will have your meeting. I will help you.”

  “Yeah!” exclaimed Molly, turning again to look at them. “Kickass!”

  Sasha took William’s hands in hers and said, “Thank you. Jakob would thank you too, I’m sure, as would Molly’s parents.”

  William gave her a thin smile. “Wait to thank me,” he said, “until we are sure that they are still alive.”

  Sasha, who didn’t want to think about any other possibility, nodded her head. She collected Molly, shook William’s hand, and took her leave. Soon they were in her car, driving north along First Avenue, heading for her apartment.

  “So what now?” Molly asked.

  “Now? Molly, I …” Sasha shook her head, focused on the road ahead of her for a moment, thinking.

  “What?”

  “If the council decides to act, there is going to be fighting. I think your part in this is done,” Sasha said.

  “Fuck you!” Molly cried. “I’ve been helping! Haven’t I been helping?”

  “Yes, of course. Very much! But things are going to get complicated.”

  “I’ve done complicated.”

  “And dangerous.”

  “Done that, too.”

  “Not like this.”

  Molly crossed her arms, her lower lip jutting out, and stared ahead. “This isn’t fair. I want to help.”

  Sasha glanced at her and smiled. “I know, but—”

  “I’m not a kid! I’m not a normal kid, anyway. I know how to hold a gun, and I know how to … how to … I can do something, anyway!” Molly’s voice wavered and Sasha realized the girl was fighting off tears. She reached across the seat and took Molly’s hand.

  “You’ve already done much.”

  “Not enough.”

  Sasha smiled a little and said, “Your parents … do you love them?”