by HDA Roberts
I’d really felt as if I'd made a new friend, a rare enough occasion for me that it felt truly remarkable.
Naturally Tethys was supremely miffed that she'd missed him (she'd been off violating some local hotspots with her new gal-pal). She pouted for the rest of the week.
Chapter 11
With Myrddin on the case, and preparations underway in case of Aurelia mischief, I was able to slip back into my routine with something resembling ease. I was even willing to hope that the Vampires had gotten the message and would leave well enough alone.
I was actually starting to feel content.
But then, two days after Myrddin’s visit, Crystal came home.
She just walked through the front doors, past the Wardens and right into my library, where I was reviewing my notes from that day's classes. I was relaxing in one of my recliners, some soft music playing in the background, buried in knowledge, all but lost to the world.
She sat down on the sofa next to me, and I didn’t even notice until she spoke.
"Hi," she said gently, startling me enough to scatter my notes all over the place.
She smiled, though it was fleeting and tinged with sadness; her eyes were set hard with controlled anger when she looked at me.
"Hi," I said (once my scream had stopped reverberating through the room and my heart rate had dropped to merely double normal). “I missed you.”
I wanted to go to her, to hold her, but her posture told me that this would not be welcome. I didn’t even dare move to the sofa next to her for fear that I would have to watch her recoil from me.
"I know. I got your messages, but... I just couldn't reply, Matty, I'm sorry."
"That's okay. I understand. Are... are you home?"
She shook her head. "I can't. Understand?"
"Sort of," I said, a little sadly.
"Sort of?! Matty, you killed my father!" she said, darting back to her feet.
"I killed your Sire."
Why I thought splitting that hair would help, I don’t know...
She scowled started stomping back and forth in front of the fireplace.
"He was the man in my life, Mathew. He was my role model; he raised me, made me what I am today. He was my father in every way that mattered. Could you be with me if I'd killed yours?"
"My father never opened a Portal to the Realm of Darkness."
The actual name of the place, by the way.
I know; the ancient Magicians who thought up names really were an overly-dramatic lot.
"Not the point, and you know it!”
"No, I suppose not.”
She stopped pacing after a bit and retook her seat perching a little closer to me. Neither of us seemed to know how to carry the conversation forwards.
"Your family tried to kill me recently," I said.
Not my best work.
"I didn't know. I would have told you."
"I never thought otherwise," I said truthfully.
She cleared her throat, looking away.
“I don’t know much about what’s happening. They won’t tell me about it in case I tell you, but... I’ve seen this before, when Elders have... died.”
She frowned and tucked a stray lock of golden hair behind her ear.
"If things go as they have in the past, then they won't stop,” she whispered, “not until blood has been paid for blood. Even the younger, more adjusted, of us will fall in line for something like this. It’s the same for us as killing a Conclave Primus would be for you, or even more, because Vallan was also family to many of my people.”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes in frustration.
"They have to stop, Crystal. If this gets out of hand, then I'll have to fight back, and your House will either end up ruined or worse.”
She smiled again and looked at me. "Like I said, they won't stop. It's almost a religious thing for us, it’s all pride and blood and righteous rage. Words aren’t going to fix this."
Damn it, I’d been having such a good day.
This was bad. Nothing less than I’d feared, but still very bad. If the whole House was against me, then this could only get messy.
"Is there nothing I could give them? Nothing they'd take in the way of reparations?"
"Nothing you'd want to part with."
"And... and what about you?" I asked tentatively.
"I'm keeping well out of this. I'm going home to the Red Carpet; Vivian is opening up a second branch location, probably in London. She's giving me the job of building it, then running it."
Thank God for that small mercy, at least. The idea of Crystal returning to her old job would not have sat well with me. I was glad that Price was giving her an alternative. I owed that woman a big favour.
"Do you think that you might forgive me one day?" I asked after the silence had stretched on again.
"I hope so, Matty," she replied softly. "But I don't think it'll be any time soon."
I nodded and stood as she did.
"Watch your back. My House will come at you sideways. They'll go after allies, try to find ways to weaken you; distract you."
"Thank you.”
She leaned in and kissed my cheek. I could see that it cost her some effort, and I appreciated her doing it. I walked her to my room, where she packed up the things she'd moved in, and then I followed her to the front door. She smiled briefly and then walked away; she didn't look back.
"Well, that went better than expected," Tethys said, appearing at my shoulder before leaning her head against mine.
"I don't think she's coming back."
"Nope."
"I should feel... devastated, right? I mean, I loved that girl. I'm sad, but I'm not wrecked like I should be."
Tethys took my hand and led me back indoors.
"Matty, you’ve always found it easy to care for people, even love them, but you haven't been in love with anyone since Cathy left you."
"You think so?"
She nodded, "That girl hit you hard. Your heart hasn't mended yet."
"I'm fine."
"Sure you are. Because dating a former escort was very healthy behaviour."
I went red.
"Hadn't thought of it like that, had you? You picked the anti-Cathy, for heaven's sake. It doesn't take Freud to figure out how all this happened."
"And you only mention it now?!"
"Friends don't poke holes in each others' delusions. It's the same reason you haven't swatted Lexi like a bug, and I know you desperately want to."
"Spotted that did you?"
"Love, I can read you like a book, and do you really think that Lexi's... oh, let's call it a personality, because I don't really have a polite word for 'ingrained bitchiness', escaped me?"
"Then why do you put up with her?"
"You're kidding, right? Have you seen that girl? She makes me tingle in all the right places-"
"Alright, alright, stop! You win!" I said, covering my ears.
"And you wouldn't believe where she has piercings... they're all fun!"
"Please stop, she eats with us from time to time, and now I'm going to be watching for those!"
Tethys laughed and spun me around so she could wrap her arms around my neck and look me square in the eyes.
"And let's not forget the real reason nobody's been able to get past those walls of yours," she whispered in that tone that set me shivering. "It's because there's already someone there, someone who owns that delectable soul of yours."
She kissed me sweetly on the cheek and then lips before letting me go and strolling away.
She smirked over her shoulder before disappearing around the corner.
Damn, but that woman had me over a barrel...
Crystal’s visit, painful though it was, did force me to concede that the Aurelia was going to be a far larger problem than I’d hoped they would be. Thankfully, even though I’d been hip-deep in denial, Tethys and Price had not.
They’d been very busy, tapping their sources in the Supernatural communities fo
r intelligence about our enemy and cultivating more when that proved inadequate. Tethys, in particular, had greatly expanded her network of relevant contacts. She’d hired informants and forensic accountants, paid off snitches, courted dark-web hackers... she’d even found a small clan of Far Eastern Scryers who’d been willing to be put on retainer. It was impressive work.
They’d scoured ether, internet, public record and human mind alike to paint a picture of the Aurelia’s dealings in and around Europe. The combined ability of those people to gather information was staggering (and horribly expensive, but I considered it money well spent).
Two days after Crystal had left, Tethys, Cassandra and I met in my Library to look at a summary of the intelligence gathered so far. Tethys had a map open on my desk, showing France, Spain and Southern England; House Aurelia's interests were marked in red.
And there was a lot of red. An awful, awful lot.
"And we haven't finished digging yet," Tethys said as I looked over the map in growing horror.
"But there weren’t even two hundred Vampires at that dinner!" I said.
"That was just the Elders and their close associates," Tethys replied.
I puffed out my cheeks. "So, what are we looking at, here?"
"A big, tangled hydra of a mess. Their central authority is in Paris, with branch offices in Madrid, Toulouse and Seville," Tethys said, pointing at the larger spots of red on the map. "Their English operations run out of Bournemouth, of all places."
She brought a sheet of paper out of a folder and placed it in front of me, "This is a list of the companies, businesses or holdings in which they have a majority interest. These are only their larger sources of income; there are others. The revenue gets fed into a sort of a massive communal fund in which every Vampire has a right to a share, depending on their age and contributions to the House. I think I’ve managed to nail down the location of that, too; I’m just waiting on confirmation."
Damn, but that was a long list. Medical supply companies, farms, building firms, transport companies... the list went on and on, and this was just the property of the House, not the individual members.
She produced a stack of paper. "It took a little extra digging, but we got those lists you requested; the individual properties of the Elders and their top lieutenants. These are mostly in Paris and its suburbs, but there are also some larger estates near Madrid."
"That is a lot of real estate," I said, flipping through the pages. Mansions, blocks of flats, hotels, restaurants... and that was just one of the Elders.
"I reached out to a contact of mine within the Rosanav Vampire House in St Petersburg, they had some rough ideas on numbers. We're looking at between two and three thousand individuals, grouped by region, generally under the control of an older or Elder Vampire."
"Two to three thousand?!" I nearly squeaked.
"We're talking about an entire House, Matty, not an isolated group of half-wits."
I took a moment to breathe, "Alright, it can't be that bad. That's their entire population; they can't send them all out to kill me."
"Why?" Tethys asked, smiling sweetly.
"Umm..."
"Yes, nasty thought, isn't it? What would you send against a walking Magical nuke? You'd send everyone, wouldn't you? I would," Tethys said.
"Me? I'd sneak up on said nuke while he was sleeping. You know, like a sensible person," I replied.
Tethys laughed. Cassandra frowned.
"Well, you're a little different, aren't you? And if what Crystal said is true, and this has become a quasi-religious thing for them, then we need to consider what their worst-case response will be."
“It won’t be like that,” Cassandra interjected. “Everything they do will have to be deniable in case they actually succeed. They can’t risk bringing the First Circle down on them, after all. Even if that weren’t an issue, Vampires don’t attack en masse, not against a prepared Magician, and definitely not against an Archon. They don’t have the muscle to take you down if you’re prepared, and having Wardens with you will negate any element of surprise. So their game has to be more subtle. As long as you’re careful, you should be fine. The real danger is to your allies and associates. They’ll want you off-balance, hurt, angry; doing stupid things. Easy prey for an ambush or a bomb, something we can’t necessarily see coming."
"How do we minimise those risks? Tethys?" I said.
"I’m not that worried. To come after our people, they’d need to find them, first, and not even the forensic accountants and Scryers we have working for us could do it. They’d have even more trouble finding our holdings and assets. I regularly scrub our information and what little needs to be kept is stored only on Enchanted paper. Nobody's getting anywhere near any of it. Their one potential avenue would be human intelligence, and, frankly... well, you have no friends."
"Hey!"
Cassandra snorted.
"You know what I mean. Aside from the people who work for you, or live under your roof, nobody knows anything about you aside from your family and your Circle. Grommit’s watching your parents, and I doubt any of the Archons would tattle. We're essentially a closed loop."
I muttered and sat back. I had plenty of friends, for the record... they just weren't in town at the moment, which was probably a good thing. Hopefully all this would be resolved before they got back.
“I’m still worried. Enough people know about me that the Aurelia will find somewhere to squeeze.”
“We’re being careful, Mathew. Demise will be home soon, and I’ve already warned her. Likewise Kandi and her security detail. She was just about done with her overseas tour anyway. She’ll be safe as well,” Cassandra said, which reassured me.
“This really is stupid. They have to know that they can’t kill me and get away with it,” I said.
“No, as I said, all they know they can’t be seen to kill you. That just means that they can’t come at you straight. They’ll make sure that anything they do is untraceable, or points at someone else. They’ll want to distract you, hurt you, like wolves nipping at a bear until they can bring you down. And I doubt that Crystal was wrong. They won’t stop. Not if Vallan was their Eldest,” Cassandra said, optimistic as always.
I puffed out an unhappy breath.
“That means that we’re going to have to stop them,” I said, my tone resigned, “and that means...”
“Yes,” Cassandra replied simply. She knew what the plan was; she’d helped me and Tethys design it, after all.
"Alright. I'm still hoping that we can find a peaceful way to resolve this, but I'd like you to make preparations to start Phase One."
Tethys nodded, smiling broadly, "I almost hope they do escalate. The plan is going to be so much fun!”
"You are a little too enthusiastic about this," Cassandra said.
"What? Why?"
"We are talking about a war, here!"
"It's Matty; he pisses off enough people to start a war every two or three months," Tethys said with a dismissive wave. "This time, we're talking about an enemy with actual assets I can pinch, and it's ethically alright for me to do so! I'm in heaven!"
Cassandra clapped a palm over her eyes and groaned. I just hoped that they were both right about all this. Three thousand Vampires seemed like a bit much, even for me.
Aside from a little increased security, my life didn’t change much in the wake of Crystal’s warning, though I did get into the habit of having at least a rudimentary shield up when in wide open spaces.
Things got better that Sunday afternoon when Demise came back from her holiday. The Bahamas had been good to her, leaving her normally ivory-pale skin a burnished bronze. Just having her back in the house was great, but how she reacted to Ross was... transcendent. I don’t have a better word.
It only took two minutes for Ross to say something Demise objected to, and unlike the rest of us, wonderful Demise was far less willing to put up with it.
She knocked Ross out cold with a single punch (God bless t
hat superbly violent woman).
To this day, the slightly goggle-eyed expression on Ross’ face as she went spinning around, tongue lolling out of her mouth like a dog in a slip-steam, remains one of my very favourite ‘moments of comeuppance’.
As you might imagine, Tethys wasn't best pleased... until she realised that she could have all sorts of fun bringing Ross around and sauntered off with the Space Mage's unconscious body slung over her shoulder.
Demise was happy see us, but very displeased that we’d started a war without her. Cassandra had wanted to bring her back early, but Demise hadn't had a holiday in over a hundred years, and it had been little short of pulling teeth getting her to agree to go on that one.
I felt better having Demise back in town, though. Cassandra was dangerous, but Demise was just plain scary. She was one of the few people I knew who could come close to matching Cassandra's speed, and she had the powers of a talented Death Sorceress on top of that.
She was also disturbingly pleased with me for how I’d dealt with Vallan...
"Your first kill, I'm so proud of you!" she said, practically gushing as we sat in my library after her welcome-home dinner.
"It wasn't like that," I protested.
"Yes, yes, I know, sanctity of life, mustn't hurt people, blah, blah, wringing hands and all that crap. But just you try and tell me that ending such a horrific monster didn't feel good."
"I am not looking too closely at those emotions; that way lies terrible things."
Demise smirked and leant back in my recliner. It was her favourite spot, and one she was perfectly willing to shove me out of if she was in the right mood; that night, she'd just been faster.
"I am sorry about Crystal, though," she said.
"Because you lost the pool?"
"Because I lost the- hey! How did you know about that?!"
I smiled and she shook her head. She'd mellowed a bit in the last year, growing more relaxed and comfortable in her new home and job. She and Cassandra had grown very close, spending a lot of their free time together. Demise had even started dating a friend of Cassandra's (the poor bastard. She was apparently not being gentle with him).
"The Captain filled me in on this problem with the Vampires. She tells me you have a plan. Do you really think it'll work?"
