by HDA Roberts
That meeting was with the Spanish Primus.
It was much smaller than the one with Hémery, and far less fun. He came to me, and we met in my drawing room over tea. I essentially told him the same thing I'd told his French counterpart, only I gave him a different date for the attack. That part was Tethys' idea. Because we didn’t have proper surveillance on everyone, I’d give each group of people I talked to a different date so that we could start to track which groups were compromised by what dates the Aurelias talked about.
I had more meetings like that planned for the next few days. Some were with political groups, but most were with people Tethys or Price wanted to start employing for our wider strategy, but who we couldn’t entirely trust not to be on Aurelia’s payroll.
My days became a blur of schooling, meetings with potential patsies, planning, reading Tethys’ reports and, of course, avoiding my mother's disapproving glares. I was aided in that by my parents’ desire to spend time with Des, though after days of this, he was starting to feel a little smothered. To give him a bit of relief, I bought him a phone so he could get back in touch with his old friends. That seemed to help.
What little free time I had, I spent with the Pixies, as Ross had returned from whatever rock she’d slithered under and was monopolising Tethys and Kandi again. Naturally, Des had taken one look at her and lost the ability to speak.
For her part, Ross was a bit confused when she saw him for the first time, something that still amuses me to this day.
"Well hello!" Des said, sidling up to Ross as she lounged in the garden with Tethys' head on her lap. This was on the next Wednesday evening.
"What the hell do you want Graves- Gah! What the hell happened to you?! Did you have work done?!"
"Sorry?" Des asked, his voice losing its confident tone and becoming a little squeaky.
I was on the second floor's inner balcony, on a wide cushion up against the railing, but out of Ross’ sight. Kandi was with me, her head on my lap. She put down her book and stuck her head above the railing so she could see what was going on. I joined her.
"You've got to admire the guts of a man that hits on a lesbian while her girlfriend is actually lying on her," Kandi whispered.
"Des once told me that there's no such thing as lesbians, only girls that hadn't met him yet," I replied just as quietly.
Kandi winced. "Seriously, are you sure you're related?"
I chuckled.
"Goddess, what did you do to yourself? You look ridiculous! At least with the scars you had a certain integrity, now you look like some... pampered boy-band Jessie!" Ross snapped.
"Boy-band wha?!" Des managed.
I poked my head a little higher over the top of the railing so I could see better. Tethys was on the verge of hysterics by the look of her. I spotted some movement on the other side of the garden, and saw that Cassandra was rolling around on the grass, arms wrapped around her ribs as she tried to keep from exploding with laughter.
"I mean, yes, you're more pretty, more muscular, but did you really think that would impress me? Hell, you were a prick, but at least you were an honest prick. This is just sad."
"That woman has all sorts of self-confidence," I said as Des finally gave up and just ran for it.
Cassandra couldn't keep it in any longer and let out the most explosive laugh I'd ever heard, startling Ross.
"What the hell?" Ross said, looking over her shoulder.
"Hey, Ross!" I said, which made her jump again and turn back to glare at me, her expression changing through a complicated gamut of confused and annoyed before landing on just plain angry.
"I see you met my twin brother?" I said evenly.
After a moment, Ross' mouth dropped open. "Oh. Sorry."
I think that was the first sincere thing she’d ever said to me.
"Don't apologise to me," I replied.
"What? Oh!"
She jumped up and went after Des, letting Tethys drop to the ground with a startled, "Hey!" which only raised more laughter from the twisted Demigod in the corner.
And, just like that, though I’d no inkling of it at the time, I had effectively provided a distraction for both the irritating woman nosing into my house, and my bored brother. Two loads off my mind for the price of one good deed (a good deed actually resulting in a good outcome was so rare for me that it was no wonder I didn’t notice right away).
After the apology, Des and Ross got to talking, and it turned out that those two shared an affection for sports. Duelling, in particular, but anything that involved a ball or sweat was also just fine. I heard all this second hand, though as there was no way I could actually stand to be in the room with those two at the same time, they were just so loud.
I must say, as much I disliked the woman (and the noise), I was happy that Des had found a kindred spirit.
However, that did cause one or two problems for Tethys...
"Why couldn't you have made nice with her?" she asked a couple of days later, dropping into bed with me and startling me awake.
"Huh?" I managed.
"My new girlfriend is currently watching the boxing with your brother, completely ignoring me."
"There, there," I said, patting her shoulder, not even bothering to roll over.
"Can you see what I'm wearing? I pulled out all the stops!"
I cracked open an eye. She was wearing a fluffy jumpsuit. It was white with big pink hearts on it. It was baggy and looked insanely comfortable.
And damn if Tethys wasn't pulling it off...
"Oh my," I said, doing my best not to drool.
"See? That's the right response. Not 'In a minute, baby, the fight's on'."
I laughed and she tickled me.
"It's not funny!"
"Yes it is. But, more importantly, after all the times you made fun of my relationship problems, it's also poetic!"
She shrieked and shoved me off the bed.
"Ow!"
She followed me and wrestled me to the floor.
"You are so mean!"
"Me?! You brought her into the house!"
"And you brought your brother in, and now he's ruined my hedonistic beauty!"
I started laughing again.
"It's still not funny!"
"Then why am I laughing?" I replied.
She poked and prodded at me until I stopped and then she flopped down on my chest.
"Why don't you just play with Kandi tonight?" I suggested.
She leaned up long enough to give me a truly evil look.
"She's in there with them, isn't she?"
"Curled up around Lexi like a kitten- Stop laughing!"
Chapter 21
On Saturday afternoon, Myrddin came to see me again, mostly to check in on Des, but we had a nice chat in my library afterwards.
"The European Conclaves are abuzz with all this talk of your attack on the Aurelia Elders in a few days,” he said with a smile. “Nobody seems to know for sure when it's coming, though."
Wow, I know that the idea wasn’t to keep it a secret, but the Conclaves really needed to have a look at how they compartmentalised information; this was just ridiculous.
"You don’t say?” I replied neutrally before taking a sip of my hot chocolate.
I had thought of informing him about my real plan, but by that point I was so used to telling my particular story that it just spilled out of me again.
"Oh. Well I can see why you'd be out to attack so soon, then. Though I'd have thought that nothing they throw at you could be much of a threat if you have the Gods' Blade on you."
"Like I'd carry that hot potato around with me!" I said with a laugh. "That thing's safely locked up where nobody can get to it, thank you."
His mouth dropped open.
"You have the most powerful weapon in existence at your disposal... and you don't even carry it?"
"No... why would I? It's not like I make a habit of stabbing people."
He actually seemed to go pale at that for some reason.
"So..
. during all those attacks, when those Vampires came within a hair's breadth of killing you or harming your loved ones... you didn't even have the knife on you?"
"Of course not. The only knives I know how to use come out of a kitchen drawer, for Heaven's sake. I'd likely stab myself long before I got the thing anywhere near an enemy, and, like I say, I don't make a habit of killing people."
He rubbed his eyes, and I thought I detected a flash of rage for a moment there. I decided it must have been the light, as he was smiling again a second later.
"Well, good for you," he said eventually, "but keep that knife close; you might need it one day. Or I might."
"You can have it back any time," I said.
He laughed and finished his coffee before leaving.
Strange fellow.
Anyway, two hours later, as I was wading through some research materials for an essay, Tethys came to see me.
“They took the bait!” she said as she came bustling into my library with a stack of papers.
I looked up, a broad smile on my face.
“All of them?”
She nodded, grinning, "Jêgou and Gaume didn’t want to attend, as we expected, but Bellegarde convinced them. Even though it means that she’ll be at the meeting, too, we had a bit of good luck, there."
That really was a bit of good luck. Those two Elders were the most elusive of all the Aurelia. Even Tethys’ network hadn’t been able to find their bolt-holes, at least not yet. My plan would have accommodated only getting two of the Elders in this first gambit, but that would have prolonged the danger to my family and caused less predictable chaos (so to speak) later.
"I can work with that,” I replied. “Is the meeting where we thought it would be?"
She nodded, her smirk turning evil.
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Right on schedule!” I said, feeling perhaps just a little too pleased with myself.
I almost couldn’t believe it had worked! There had always been a risk of the Elders seeing through my lie about them knowing something that could hurt me and simply keeping far away from each other. I could have worked around that, of course, but it would have forced me to ferret them out one by one, diminishing the impact of what I had in mind and maybe ruining it altogether.
Now, though, I had a chance to end this quickly and (relatively) bloodlessly.
“Show me,” I said.
She pulled out a series of blueprints and photos, laying them out on the desk for me.
The first sheet was a detailed map of the area around Navarrenx, in France, where the Aurelias maintained a small country estate, marked in red. At almost ruinous cost, we’d discovered that when the Elders met for business, it was there, a neutral location in territory that none of them maintained direct control over.
Satellite and surveillance photos showed a beautiful, perfectly square, chateau built at the turn of the last century, with cream coloured walls, a black roof and pointed turrets that gave it a fairytale air. The entire property was surrounded by a tall wall the same colour as the house, and there was an amazing decorative garden than must have taken a small army of groundskeepers to maintain. There was sculpted shrubbery, a small maze, fountains, gazebos and even a few short follies, all of it immaculately maintained.
"The house was recently redecorated,” Tethys said, gesturing at the floor plans, “and the internal security was upgraded at the same time, but that shouldn’t be a problem for you. The upper floors are divided up into large suites, with the outbuildings set up to accommodate the permanent staff and visiting flunkies."
She pointed to a long row of buildings at the property's rear.
"We know that the Elders don't employ any non-human bodyguards, so you have a break there. Likewise the staff at the house is almost exclusively Vampire, generally either Lupin or Saphyron.”
Those were the two breeds most able to tolerate sunlight without adverse effect. That made sense; you wouldn't want your groundskeepers bursting into flames, after all.
There were many different breeds and bloodlines of Vampire, with different powers and strengths, but similar weaknesses, it was just a matter of degree. The Aurelia were mostly comprised of those two breeds, the Lupin were fairly good shape-shifters, able to assume an animal, or even human disguise. They were particularly good at extruding their claws and fangs into damned dangerous weapons. Saphyrons were like Crystal and Vallan, marked out by physical attractiveness, impressive Telepathic sensitivity and a very pleasurable bite.
Elder Bellegarde was different, though, she was a Yadgra, a bloodline with its origin somewhere in old Russia and very rare in Western Europe. They actually burned on contact with sunlight, and were very lethargic during the day, but they made up for it with impressive physical speed and strength. They were also powerful Empathic transmitters, capable of filling their victims with either a soothing calm or a chilling terror, depending on their mood or preferred method of hunting.
Honestly, alone, or as a group, none of them were even remotely a threat to me. No Vampire was, as long as I could see them coming. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't even have bothered opposing them on this sort of scale, I'd simply squash the individual attackers as they came at me and called it done.
But they’d gone after my family.
Even if I’d thought I could negotiate, even if I’d been willing (which, for the record, I no longer was), I simply couldn’t, now.
It would set too bad a precedent. I couldn’t have anyone thinking that they could come after the people I loved and get away with it. I simply couldn’t. The Aurelia had to go, and they had to go hard.
I would make of them such an example of how bad an idea it was to come after the family of Mathew Graves.
And it would be a pleasure.
"There may well be some humans there as food, and that's where things will get tricky,” Tethys continued, unaware of my dark thoughts, “you'll need to find some way to get them out before you begin your... festivities."
I nodded.
"If I had to guess, I would say that they wouldn't risk having non-Vampires around for their discussions, or even in the building, but if they do, they'll likely leave them in their suites. There are smaller rooms attached to each one for this very purpose," she said, using a red pen to circle them.
"We can only hope they’re feeling especially paranoid," I replied.
"They should be. Knowing that an Archon is planning to attack you would make anyone nervous.”
I smirked.
"I’ll hope for the best. But if I can't clear the people out quietly, I'll just have to do things the hard way."
"Oh no, you don't!" Cassandra barked, having snuck up on me again, making me wince. "If you can't make your current plan workable, then you leave, understand?"
"Okay," I lied.
"I'm serious, Mathew. If your plan falls apart, then you keep far, far away from claw distance."
"Okay."
Cassandra glared again, but seemed to accept my answer.
"Any sign of another Magician on their payroll?" I asked. That was a potential wild-card, but one that was at least vulnerable to either bribery or blackmail.
"None that I've seen," Tethys replied, "but I still wouldn't do any prep work until the last possible minute."
I grunted in dissatisfaction, but agreed. If I put up any big preparatory Spellwork, a surprise Magician could detect it, and that was the whole plan buggered.
Once we’d studied the intelligence, Cassandra made me go through my plan, and then she made me do it again, over and over until she was satisfied that I knew what I was doing. She was worried.
For my part, I wasn't especially concerned. Unlike just about every other time I'd gone into a fight, I was actually prepared, for a change. I had a plan; with contingencies and actual, achievable objectives... it was a novelty for me.
I still spent the rest of Saturday curled up with Tethys and Kandi, though, with the Pixies in close
proximity. For all that I wasn't worried, I still wasn't someone who actually enjoyed fighting. I’d always done what I had to do, but that was it. Actually planning on doing immeasurable harm (and believe me, that was the plan) sat badly in my guts, in spite of its necessity and everyone's agreement that I was little short of an evil genius and had nothing to feel bad about.
Finally, Sunday evening came around, and it was time for me to go. Cassandra fussed over me for a good quarter of an hour before letting me out the door.
I dressed in a close-fitting hooded sweatshirt, the hood pulled down, with dark trousers and walking boots. Suddenly I missed the staff I’d lost down a Demon’s throat. It wouldn’t have made any difference, mind, but it would have been a nice little psychological boost against my nerves.
Once I was ready, I gave my friends a tight smile and stepped through a Portal, which let me out on the outskirts of Navarrenx, just before eleven o'clock. I was about two miles away from the property as the crow flies, and I surrounded myself in a Shadow cocoon to prove it.
The whole area was picturesque, even at night. It was mostly farmland and forest; beautiful countryside with the Gave d'Oloron (River Oloron, I had to look that up) flowing north to south next to the town. Navarrenx itself was rather small, as towns went, but quite lovely. It was once a fortress, but was now just a sleepy community with nothing to draw too much attention to it, which was why Aurelia had chosen it for their home away from home and secret conference site.
According to Tethys, the various convoys carrying the Vampire Elders were on schedule and would arrive over the next two hours, which gave me plenty of time to get the lay of the land. The Chateau Daville (the name of the place I was about to ruin) was south of the town, perched on a point of land created by the river, at the end of a road that only led to the property.
I cast Mage Sight as I flew, finding my destination with little trouble (for once) and flying a wide, slow circuit to scout the area. There were half a dozen vampires already there, three in the house and three on the grounds, walking a patrol.
Even if I weren't cloaked in darkness, the night was dark enough that they wouldn't have been able to see me, even with their enhanced senses. With my Shadows, I was essentially undetectable, and that gave me a certain sneaky satisfaction as I flew above my enemies, leaving them completely unaware of my presence.
