Sonafi awoke and dressed herself when they began the process of unloading us from our plane. I watched with interest as she found places to put all her myriad of weapons I had forced her to disgorge before I would allow her to come near me. I had imagined the danger, and not without some validity, of losing fingers just by placing them in the wrong places. She smiled prettily now under my watchful eye, visible only in thermal, yet aesthetically perfect and deceptively dangerous. I was forced to smile back.
Once offloaded we were immediately reloaded into a ground vehicle of some sort, a diesel, I could both hear its engine and after we departed, smell its bio-fuel emissions seeping through even the tight fitting seals of the closed crate, and we were, apparently, on our way to our safe house, or safe wherever, that Brid had arranged for us.
“I have never allowed myself to be so fully within someone else’s power.” I said, wondering how I had allowed this to happen to me. I have been in similar circumstances, I amended, but never once when I had not myself made the arrangements, and knew exactly what I could expect. “I didn't even think to ask where we would be going first. Where we would be staying. I just blindly followed along like a lost lamb.”
“I don't think we're being sent to the slaughterhouse, dear. You know, you did it to show your son how much you trust him.” Sonafi said.
“Is that why I did it? I suppose, but I have to wonder what I was thinking.”
“You were thinking it was about time you gave your son some respect for what he has done.”
“No, that really wasn't what I was thinking, but you do have a point. He seems to have done something none of the rest of us has been able to do.” I agreed.
Our ride in the diesel tuned out to be a relatively short one and soon we had arrived at our destination. Wherever that was. We heard a chain link fence gate being opened, and then we were in motion again. The diesel drove maybe a hundred yards and then stopped again, this time to wait for an electric garage door. When it had opened, we were driven into a large, enclosed area. I could tell by the echoes given off from the sound of the running engine. Then the motor was cut and the only sound was that of the garage door closing itself. It sealed with a clunk and then all was quiet.
Doors opened and closed, the vibrations felt by us in our crate, and then footsteps came our way. There was a rap on the outside of the box and then a voice.
“We've arrived. Are you all right in there?” A man with a heavy accent I recognized as Russian asked.
“We're good.” I said. “Good and ready to get out of here.” The screw guns went to work. Any longer and I may have taken the lid off that thing myself.
CHAPTER 10
Russia was a good place for a person or persons who wished to avoid scrutiny. It was a place where money, especially the American dollar, could by you whatever you wanted, if you had enough of them. Brid did. His Network, I should amend. He had not asked us for a single dollar, though of any, we were probably the most able to contribute.
“Our contribution will be recruiting the other Elders.” I said.
“Since we're good for nothing else.” Sonafi added.
The Humans who had delivered us had since departed and we waited for the coming of night when the Russian members of Brid's Network would arrive to help us continue our mission. There were no windows in the warehouse at all, but we had retreated to an inner office the Humans had shown us, and we waited there. The night was descending, the day here nearly gone.
“We may not be good for this either.” I said, wondering what kind of response we were going to get. “We may not be able to convince any of them to participate.”
“Some of them may take a dim view of what we plan.” Sonafi said. “They may even take violent offense to it. What happens if they rise up against us? This is no small matter we broach.”
I had brought my Cumosachi Katana as well as my walking cane-swordand now both my thoughts, as well as my eyes, drifted to them where they rested on the table in the middle of the room. We were in a break room with vending machines, a refrigerator and a microwave on another small table beside the refrigerator. “Let them try.” I answered.
“I hate to say something like this but we may want to be proactive.” Sonafi said.
“Proactive?” I asked.
“If they seem violently set against it.” She said. Her face was hard, remorseless and unforgiving. That on top of the fact that some of these Elders would be our own children but Sonafi was not a being to be underestimated. She would do whatever she thought was necessary to ensure our survival, and she would not balk at killing her own children if she decided they posed a serious threat.
Not that a great number of Elders were our actual, biological children. Our children had shown no greater ability to surpass the thousand year transitional mark than any other Vampires, and our children were only a very small percentage of the overall Vampire population, so though the possibility that we would have to take action against one of our own was a slim one, it did exist.
“I can always count on your ability to face the cold, hard facts.” I said, hoping against hope that something drastic would not prove to be necessary, but if there was one thing I knew to be true about Vampires, it was that they, we, are capable of anything.
“I hate to think such thoughts,” Sonafi said, “but our enemies are all around us. There is nowhere to turn and the clock winds down. Our only chance for survival lies in embracing the hard line. We have to fight fire with fire. We will not survive pretending or hoping these hard facts do not exist.
“That is what humanity is doing.” Sonafi continued. “They pretend that nothing is happening and all the while they are slowly being eradicated. Their entire genetic heritage supplanted. They are going about meaningless lives totally blind to what is being done to them, and it has taken no more effort on their part than to turn their faces and look the other way.
“Having survived the transformation and having acquired the will to live, I have also acquired the will to do whatever it takes to see it through. I will not shy from doing what is required, whatever that requirement may be. This is as nothing to the hell I suffered then. Having acquired the will to survive now I want to survive! I want to follow the ribbon of Time on into the future and see what it holds for us. I want to follow it to the very end. So no, I have no inhibitions or compunctions about doing whatever might be required to see it so.”
“I've been a fool.” I admitted. “No better than humanity and I knew better. Yet I have stood complacently at the sidelines watching it happen, thinking I had forever. Thinking a day of reckoning would never come. You are right. We have to do whatever is necessary.”
“If they are not with us, then they are against us.” Sonafi said as I noted her flinty obsidian eyes.
“That thought had crossed my mind.” I agreed. “We can’t afford any of our own actively opposing us. I’m in agreement.”
“Then it is settled.” Sonafi said. “Let's just hope it doesn't come to that.”
“Let's hope.” I agreed, holding out very little real hope. Most Elders were reclusive hermits, their individualism the trait which had most helped to preserve them, and they the least likely, I thought, to wish to be involved in any group or concerted effort. They would be those most likely to be angered by activities that threatened to upset the tenuous balance that seemed now to exist. That contained the very real possibility of disrupting the lives they had acquired through long centuries of single-minded purpose. That would threaten them. We would be threatening them. We would do well to keep this thought uppermost in our minds. We are not omnipotent. A fool and his life are soon parted.
The night arrived as all nights must, as the Earth spun on its axis, giving it the separation of day and night, as the earth's core spun below us, giving us the magnetic field which held the solar winds at bay, allowing life on what would otherwise be little more than a boiling chunk of molten rock, and we were soon joined by the Vampires whom Brid had arranged to meet
us. All Juveniles, they slunk into the warehouse and slowly entered the lunch room where we waited. They were terrified, not having the benefit of Brid’s presence to calm their nerves and assure them they had nothing to fear from us, but stoically they entered and introduced themselves. There were six.
“We are sent to provide you with whatever you need.” One said. A blond female, stunningly beautiful, with blue eyes and delicate features around five hundred years of age, or so, I sensed. She had been no more than eighteen when she had been changed, some male Vampire’s Human play-toy whom he had decided to give eternity. Sonafi cast a glance on me that said she was eavesdropping on my thoughts and that the judgment I had made of the blond, that she had been some male Vampire’s Human play toy, could also be said of her and her origins as a Vampire. I quickly tried to think of something else, though it wasn't exactly easy, with Sonafi's flinty eyes turned in my direction. She turned her attention back to the new Vampires.
“Are there many of you here in St. Petersburg?” She asked. We had, of course, learned everything else we needed to know from the Humans who had unloaded us, except this.
“No. There are but few.” The blond said. “Rostov does not allow us great numbers. He guards against discovery. He is wise.”
“Wise and fearsome no doubt.” Sonafi said, her sarcasm hidden, but I knew her well enough to know what she meant. The girl was obviously terrified of Rostov, and with good reason. Rostov was the Eldest Vampire in all of Russia, and one I was really hoping I would be able to convince to join us. He was rattle-snake mean, I knew, but was also an accomplished fighter, much similar to Sonafi and I in the way he had triumphed against all adversity over the long centuries. He would be a great addition to the team if he could be convinced to join with us.
“As you say.” Said the blond, seeing into what was said with a depth of perception that was at once both revealing and little disconcerting. She was obviously very intelligent. “Rostov has requested that I enquire into the reason for your visit. He waits for my call now.”
“You do not know the purpose of our visit?” I exclaimed. That possibility had escaped me, but further showed just how cunning Brid could be.
“We do not ask of that which does not concern us, any more than we would expect to be questioned about requests we send the way this had come, or from any direction, through the Network. This request has come from Rostov, however, who has now learned of your arrival, and whom I do not believe is pleased you are come, to be perfectly honest, and if I could appease him by conveying to him the reason for you visit, it will go better for us.”
“Go better?” Sonafi asked. “By that I assume he blames you for our presence.”
“Of course.” Volga said. I plucked her name from her unresisting mind. “We did bring you here, and Rostov does not like… surprises.” I did not need to smell the pheromones she suddenly released, as she thought about Rostov, to know she was afraid. “Someone within the Network has informed, and I do not wish to displease him further.”
“We have actually come to see Rostov.” I said. “To ask a favor. After we see Rostov, we will wish to visit with several others.” I gave her their names, four other Elders who had long made their home here in St. Petersburg and whom I had no doubt would still be here, but Volga was shaking her head.
“You will not be seeing them.”
“Why is that?” Sonafi asked, but I had already seen the reason why.
“Rostov is the only Elder remaining within the St. Petersburg area.” Volga hedged. A misdirection more commonly known as a lie, but Sonafi was as aware of that now as I. The other Vampires with Volga seemed to be looking everywhere but in our direction, and were becoming obviously edgy at the direction in which the conversation was going. So I let it rest, despite how angry I was.
“We are on personal business and do not care about your internal politics.” I told Volga. “If you would be so kind as to request an audience for us with Rostov, we will be about our business and gone from here. We merely have a request to make of him, and then we will be on our way. We've no desire to make problems for you.”
“We have made arrangements for your use of a car. It waits outside.” One of the males said. He was a Vampire of no more than seventy-five years but the oldest of the group next to Volga. Despite his immaturity he had some small amount of assurance about himself, that and a distinctive cast of look which led me to believe, without actually forcing my way into his closed mind, that he was Rostov's biological son. If Volga and the others did not know it, that would explain the leak in their Network. Most Vampires were not as open minded with one another as were Sonafi and I. It was possible they had never seen within this one's mind.
Nor is mental telepathy a see all, know all, all inclusive method of seeing everything inside another being's mind. Secrets could be hidden away in mental constructs fabricated and hoarded within the mind, so that it might appear as if the mind were open and divulging all its secrets when in fact certain things could be effectively hidden. It was not particularly difficult nor was it a secret. Most Vampires were able to do so. Sonafi and I were doing the same now with the reason for our visit, not that any of these would have the temerity to tempt to look into our minds, not without having been invited. All they would know, if they had looked, was that we were keeping it a secret. There was no way to fabricate false thoughts. The secret itself might not be known, but that there was a secret could seldom be hidden; unless one did not know there was a secret.
Volga left the room to make a call, though she might just as well have done it right then and there for all it did to hide what was said or what she was thinking. I supposed she thought she had gone far enough outside both our audible as well as telepathic range, but she was certainly not the first to underestimate our abilities. It is nearly impossible for most to imagine the abilities we have acquired and which continue to grow and sharpen.
Rostov was not pleased that we wished to see him and even less pleased now with Volga and her Network for helping to bring us here. If I had not seen it within Volga's mind already, I would now have been able to guess unerringly what had happened to the other Elders who had once made their homes here. Rostov was a tyrant. He had killed the other Elders before they might decide to rise against him. It wasn't a new story, was in fact nearly as old as the Community itself.
'This Rostov is a real bastard.' Sonafi's thought tickled within my mind, too low and indistinct for the Juveniles to detect.
'He may be rogue.' I replied, but I wasn’t sure that was it. Rostov had been much like me, sailing over the thousand year mark as if it had been no more than another day. Rostov had always been a Vampire who preferred to remain aloof from the rest of the Community, living the life of the reclusive, but that had apparently changed. He had decided to take a hand in Community government, to the detriment of the Community. The murders of the four Elders struck me a mighty blow, every one of them a better being than Rostov.
'He will never agree to help us now.' Sonafi whispered in my mind as Volga walked back into the room. A quick shift of her attention betrayed that she had detected the barest whiff of our telepathic communications, but not enough to know what we had communicated. She was far too immature to have gotten more than that.
“Rostov will entertain you. He assures me he will do his utmost to honor you request, whatever it might be.” She said, conveying Rostov's displeasure unwittingly.
'He is arrogant.' I sent to Sonafi. 'He must feel he holds the high ground. We had better be prepared.'
Aloud I said; “Thank you. We only have a small request to make, and then we will be on our way.”
'She does not believe you.' Sonafi sent.
We took the car which had been provided us, a Russian model that was no joy to drive but would not be missed if we had to ditch it quickly. We followed Volga and Patar, the Juvenile whom I suspected to be Rostov's son, in another car as they led us through the city streets and then into the country beyond. Finally we came to a
large dacha which was mostly hidden behind a high steel fence.
“Obtrusive.” Sonafi said as we pulled to a halt behind Volga and Patar's car. “Is he that secure then!”
“So it would seem.” I said. “We would never get away with such an open display in America.”
“Maybe we have forgotten just how comfortable the Old Country can be,” Sonafi said, “if a Vampire can live right out in the open here now.”
“I would not want to attempt it.” I added.
The gate was opened electronically from somewhere within the house, presumably, and slid aside to let us enter. Volga and Patar entered ahead of us. I put the car in gear again and followed them inside.
“Volga is terrified.” Sonafi said. I could feel the girl's fear, as well. It was strong.
“She has good cause.” I said. The fact that she had entered the dacha's grounds meant that Rostov wanted her to answer for her actions- after he had dealt with us. “I would not want to have to answer such a summons from such a monster, were I his junior.”
“He will try to kill us.” Sonafi said simply, a fact we had both already recognized.
“So we are now Judge and Executioner.” I said. It was a statement of fact. Not a fact I was particularly happy about, either.
“Maybe we have been gone too long.” Sonafi said.
“Maybe we have.” I agreed.
We began to follow them up the long curving drive. Rostov's massive dacha was still three hundred yards down the curving drive, possibly a hundred yards as the crow flies and it was as we were about to enter an area free of the decorative landscaping, where we would be in plain sight of the dacha ahead, that I knew.
I don't know how this process works. It’s the ability to sense malignant purpose. A dread rose up within me. A surety of evil intent and that I was about to fall under attack. I have always had this ability. This sixth or seventh sense if you will, of being able to detect when I am threatened. All Vampires have this ability and it increases with age similarly to our other attributes and is one of the reasons it is so difficult for a Juvenile to kill an Elder. I knew we only had moments, knew that we had to get out of the close confines of the rolling metal death trap in which we were enclosed and which was about to become our permanent coffin if we remained within it even only a moment longer.
The Alien Agenda Page 9
