Cole responded. ‘Henry Millar had nothing of use to add, sir.’ There was an edge to Cole’s calm. Henry had seen Cole like that recently, walking into a room to torture a horrible, carnivorous animal.
The Grandmaster crossed his arms. ‘Armiger, let me get this right. You stumbled across rogue Cipactli in your patently incorrect and utterly biased persecution of the same man who accuses you of murder. Then you summoned us all here to accuse Andrew of orchestrating the kidnappings, with no evidence and no knowledge of what has happened to the vampires that you claim to have finished investigating?’
Henry wasn’t sure the Grandmaster wanted to take that tone with Cole. He’d seen what could happen, first-hand.
Cole was reaching for something. Oh God, it was all about to kick off. Cole’s small silver flask appeared in his hand. Was Cole about to …? Henry strained as though he could prod Cole with his eyes. This isn’t the fucking time, man, it isn’t the … and it was too late. Cole pulled heavily from the flask. Great, Cole. That was real professional.
*
Cole’s guts burned, and not just from the whisky. The truth scalded too, truth he couldn’t speak. He’d tried to tell them after the Grandmaster started verbally beating him up, but it had been a mistake. He couldn’t tell them the truth without landing Nessie in the shit. Proof sat in his mind like bank notes from a robbery gone wrong, stained by an ink pack. But proof was useless currency, and if he’d kept his shit together, he’d have seen that before he opened his stupid mouth.
The Grandmaster was still pushing him. Cole could put his fist-knives straight through the toothy hole in the old bastard’s face. That would stop his preaching. Jump ten feet straight up and fall. He’d be a tonne of bricks with sharp edges. His legs sang. Andrew couldn’t be gone. How the hell could he be missing? It was a trick, it had to be. The plan was falling apart. Nessie sat behind him like a guilty conscience. Who the hell did the Grandmaster think he was shouting at anyway? Cole could push it in his eye, he deserved it. The Grandmaster kept talking. The alcohol fought for space with his parasite, but Nat’s protection held.
Cole had to breathe. Stabbing the Grandmaster in the face would cause terminal problems. He’d come to get Nessie off the hook. But the Grandmaster was going out of his way to make him look like an idiot. Cole had done what they’d asked, and it wasn’t fair on Nessie, none of it was.
Maybe he should commit and tell the truth – the whole truth? Yeah, that had gone so well last time he was here. Nessie was in prison because Cole had decided to throw out some truth bombs. He’d keep his mouth shut and take his licks. The Grandmaster was still going on.
The Greatshadow jumped on the bandwagon. ‘You killed all your credible witnesses and discovered evidence they had been surveying most of the vampire populace. You then chose to bring your intelligence here accompanied by wild and convenient theories while the city is on its knees?’
Cruickshank grinned down from his lordling seat. They were going to have a serious run-in, and soon. Cole couldn’t bear to look at Nessie. He was barely hanging onto control. If Nessie’s face looked as disappointed as he thought it might … It waited.
The Greatshadow wouldn’t stop going on and on. ‘Vampires are rising from the Pit. Licensed vampires vanish from our streets. Some you have accounted for, and your casual petulance suggests you were not even aware of the others. Have you even accessed the reports collated by your Coalition?’
He hadn’t had time. Nessie had needed his help. It was getting hot, but whisky would cool him. The jeering from the cheap seats clenched his fists. He’d take that mob and go straight through them. It battered his gut armour. He glanced around, weighing the room. He could see the readiness in the Council’s soldiers. They were each watching him, nervous, with their rifles pointed ready to erase him. Slay the monster, kill the beast. They would try. It stopped fighting with him, now undulating to his own rhythm.
The Grandmaster pressed, relentless. ‘To make matters worse, Armiger, we have lost men despite my own and the Greatshadow’s best efforts to defend the Pit. The Council is not able to contain this threat. Our only chance lies in the discovery and elimination of the root cause of why beast vampires are escaping from the Pit.’
Cruickshank’s mob seemed to quiet. Cole would make them feel pain for leaving their fellow soldiers in the lurch over their petty vendetta against him. He wanted to say something. He tried to gather his thoughts. If only the Council would stop telling him what a fuck-up he was and let him catch his breath. The Grandmaster folded his arms. ‘There is a reason a siphon has held the position of city armiger since the Armistice.’
How much more hypocrisy would he be forced to listen to? The Armistice was a joke, the position of armiger a fucking ridiculous punchline.
Cruickshank’s mob jeered and shouted, ‘Leech!’ It writhed, a kraken rising from the depths. Listening time was done.
Cole stood, slamming the desk. ‘Yeah, the armiger exists to protect the scum – the monsters and predators that we license and house among us. They hunt our city population, and I’m expected to protect them when they start to vanish? The thing you call a threat to vampires, I call a friend of humanity. I’ll buy whatever it is a beer. Then, I’ll swap some tips on killing vampires.’
Then he was out from behind the table, stabbing at the assembled onlookers with his flask, whisky spilling up his arm. ‘You jailed the Commander for a vampire. You point to me and call me leech, but when it all goes wrong, you point and say fix it? You send me out to protect vampires when their kind are bursting out the Pit? You have me up for the murder of someone who died a hundred years ago?’ It rose up, a vast shadow growing inside him.
The Council’s guard had formed up, weapons at the ready. It mimicked their readiness.
‘Has anyone even looked for Natalia Torres? She’s been missing for four days now, and I can’t find her.’ Spittle flecked his lips as the soldiers raised their guns. They were welcome to try it.
He stabbed his flask at the soldiers. ‘Nat deserves your help. And you lot threaten the Commander over a piece of shit like Andrew Ancroft?’ His flask bounced as he threw it on the floor. The Grandmaster was a foot away. It seethed …
‘Ethan! Please!’
He spun. Nessie’s face, cracked with pain, killed the fight pooling inside him. Nessie looked frail, somehow. The sight of his proud mentor, bent-backed and vulnerable, bled his rage onto the floor. He was here to get Nessie out, not to make things worse for both of them. Nessie pointed to the chair. He sat, looking back at his mentor.
*
Nessie held his breath. He saw the boy that lived inside Ethan’s body shine through the threatening violence simmering in the man. ‘Thank you, Ethan.’ Ethan was all heart and temper, always had been. The task had been too much to expect of him from the start. Nessie was the steady hand at the rudder, and he had been gone.
Worse, Natalia was missing. Ethan had been alone. Left fighting the creature that pushed him and never slept. Where could Natalia be? By the grace of the old gods, let her be alive and safe. Let disturbing truths remain buried, and Natalia remain hidden from those who might try to find her. Ethan cradled his head in his hands. Beneath all the man’s impulsive destruction and wild eyes, there was a frightened and traumatised boy.
Ethan looked to Nessie, haunted; he had always seen through others with a vigilance for detail that went beyond watchfulness. Ethan rooted out the worst people may have thought of him, then he proved them right. Nessie wanted to tell Cole it would all be fine – he wanted that for himself too, but the Council had just been put in an impossible position.
Cruickshank spoke. ‘Entertaining as this is, sirs, me and the lads are here for our piece of justice against your armiger.’
The Grandmaster spun. ‘You will have your chance for your pound of flesh, Peter Cruickshank.’ Nessie’s old friend was terse with the leader of the Northern Lodge.
Cruickshank held up a hand. ‘We had better, if you want help with the
Pit.’ Loathsome worm. Ethan smiled coldly at Cruickshank.
The Grandmaster spoke. ‘You behave like a child, armiger. A very dangerous child.’
The Council needed Cole. He couldn’t be sentenced to execution yet. That might come later. But the Council would have to impose sanctions, right then and there. Ethan had told them in plain words he would not do what the position of armiger required of him. If he wasn’t the armiger, he was a rogue siphon …
The Council had to go easy on the boy. He stood. ‘Please, Grandmaster. Whatever the Council decides, we must keep the armiger’s ability to fulfil his duty in mind.’
Nessie’s old friend looked over at him. There was jeering from Cruickshank’s mob. Communication passed between the Greatshadow and the Grandmaster; Nessie could see the lines of it plainly. The Greatshadow would be leveraging the opportunity. Cole’s existence greatly strengthened the Human Coalition, despite the professed neutrality of the position of armiger.
The darkness of the alcove erupted into sound. ‘The Shadow Council cannot condone the unfettered existence of a blatantly biased armiger. An armiger whose unique talents this Council and this city need to survive.’
Cole’s good heart and refusal to allow harm to come to a child had brought them to the business with Ancroft which had hamstrung them so completely. The Armistice required sacrifices that Ethan could not stomach. He was not callous enough.
Nessie couldn’t let them crucify him for that. ‘Please, Greatshadow! I understand the position you are in, but Cole is young. He has been left without support.’
Cole produced another infernal flask of whisky. Had Nessie been too easy on the boy? He had always protected Cole; they all had. The boy had not been prepared for acting on his own.
The Grandmaster spoke. ‘We are left with no choice, Commander. The armiger has told the Council he is unwilling to do his duty. If the beast vampires continue to assault from the Pit, a city full of lives will be lost. The Council cannot allow the freedom of this naive rebellion.’
What would they do to him, then? Might they press for execution? There was no other who could sense the darkness like Ethan; surely, the Council needed him. Ethan looked to Nessie, but he could offer nothing of comfort. The Grandmaster and the Greatshadow shared another unseen exchange.
Ethan needed help if he was to stand any chance at all of doing what needed to be done. There was no one to steady him. Nessie saw a chance. ‘If it pleases the Council? The armiger requires a watcher. He has lost me, and we can see the effects of that. My apprentice, Natalia, is missing. Cole is alone and set with a task the Council itself cannot acquit. There are too many lives at stake for punishment here. We must help Ethan, for the good of us all. Let him appoint another as watcher.’
Cruickshank’s mob heckled while the unseen communication between the Grandmaster and Greatshadow blazed through invisible cables of power.
The Grandmaster turned. ‘This, we will permit.’ Nessie’s old friend looked relieved. He could only imagine how hard the Greatshadow was pushing to end the position of armiger.
Chained as he was, Nessie could do no more for Ethan. It was not much hope, for who among this rabble could help Ethan Cole contain his darker nature? Nessie glanced around the room.
*
Henry wondered what was going on. The freaks were restless. Man, they really hated Cole. Soldiers could swear the world over, too. The sergeant on duty listened with a scowl while the seated soldiers muttered and spat about Cole.
Cole’s magic, as Cole had called it, was horrific. People held it against him, but it was becoming obvious to Henry why men like Cole were needed. Henry needed to get his head into this world. His survival depended on it. If he hadn’t been in the land of blunt-faced bullies, he might have asked what Andrew’s missing status meant for him.
Fledgling. An uncomfortable idea sat like a lump in his throat. He was human; Cole had been emphatic on that. Still, a fledgling was a small baby bird. Did that make him a baby vampire? No one around here looked like they might chew the fat with him on that. Focus, Henry, he needed to get himself and Lucy as far away from the city as possible. Finding out there were legal monsters running around had already put a permanent dent in his ability to sleep.
Maybe Glasgow would be different. Hard to imagine all the magical goings on somewhere with Glasgow’s salt-of-the-earth attitude. They’d start in Glasgow. Did someone say his name just then?
‘Henry Millar.’
Someone had said his name, and it fell like dropped glass.
‘Yes?’
Silence wrapped him. The big, flat, shaven heads of the soldiers turned. The Grandmaster and everyone else were looking at him again. When would they leave him alone?
The Grandmaster called up to him. ‘The Council needs to fill the position of watcher for the armiger. As your master has a pending Category One claim against the armiger, you have the right to fill that role.’ The soldiers smirked. ‘Did your master ever educate you on the role of the watcher?’ This fledgling–master chat was disturbing.
‘No.’ Watcher sounded vaguely pervy, but hey, when in Rome.
The Grandmaster began to stroke his chin. ‘You will be required to arbitrate on behalf of the Council. Should the armiger fail in his duty, you will have the power to carry out his execution.’ Cole’s friend, the one he was trying so hard to get off the hook, wanted him killed, if he slipped up? With friends like that no wonder Lumbering-Beast-Man was all hugs and rainbows.
The Grandmaster frowned at Henry. ‘By fail, we mean fall. Do you know what that means?’
Flashes of the living-room floor where the Cipactli had died intruded. ‘He turns into something really bad.’
The Grandmaster nodded. ‘Just so. If the armiger falls, the watcher terminates him. It is a sorry duty, but the safety of innocent civilians living under our protection in the city is paramount. Do you understand, Henry Millar?’
This place got worse by the minute.
Henry wanted to get the hell out of there, and he didn’t want to babysit Lumbering-Beast-Man. The lump in Henry’s throat said no thanks, but his brain said he needed to know more. Cole would be going after Andrew. And where Andrew was, Lucy was.
But who was Henry kidding? It sounded hellish, being responsible for containing an outbreak of Lumbering-Beast-Man.
Henry spread his hands. ‘As much as I’d love this honour’—like a good dose of cancer—‘there is no chance I could keep the public safe from Cole.’ It was humiliating, indicating his frame with a sweep of his hands, but apparently his complete lack of physical prowess wasn’t immediately obvious. Must be the dope threads.
Or perhaps the fact they all seemed to think he was a baby vampire meant they thought he could handle Cole? The Grandmaster’s tone lacked any amusement.
‘Yes, we know, Henry Millar.’ Henry could feel the grins of the soldiers.
He turned to the soldiers. ‘You take on Cole then, if you’re so cool and tough.’ His outburst died before it could get any further. The creak of slighted macho men’s muscles flexing drew the standing sergeant’s glare to Henry.
The Grandmaster seemed oblivious. ‘The Council will provide you the means to instantly summon the last functioning Guardian. The Guardian will see to the armiger’s execution.’
A kill switch, eh? That would knock away some of the terror provided by Lumbering-Beast-Man.
Even with that, Henry could see an issue. ‘So, sir, how quickly would the Guardian come? I mean, I’ve seen him move, sir.’ Bat out of hell didn’t cover it.
‘Near instantaneous. You need not fear, Henry Millar. If the Council thought you were unable to keep the city safe, we would not offer the position, legal claim or not.’
Well, that settled that. Hold on Lucy, Henry Millar is coming. He hadn’t known he had it in him. He could turn up to wherever she was hiding, all heroic, and sweep her away to safety. Did this position come with a fricking cape? It should have come with a cape. He tried to look as cool as
he could, imagining Cole telling Lucy this story one day about how Henry had stepped up, like a real man. In his mind, the blunt-faced soldiers put lunch money in his pockets and clapped.
‘Henry Millar?’
Crap, he was daydreaming.
‘Sure, why not?’
The room exploded like a horde of football casuals looking for a fight after the full-time whistle. Below, Cole rubbed his hands through his hair.
*
Cole ground his teeth. Henry Millar, watcher for him? The Council had just managed to revoke the kid’s civilian status. And the naive kid probably thought he was rescuing this Lucy of Andrew’s. Millar couldn’t understand the stakes, not in any real way. It was nodding off, calmed. The flask was close to dry. He was going to beat his kick-bag to a pulp after this. Cruickshank’s mob. He’d think about them while he trained, imagine visiting them in the barracks. Cole pushed their shouts around in his mind. He was storing the best ones to quote back to the kick-bag while he imagined crushing them.
Something was passing between the two Council leaders; the Grandmaster’s body was tense. The Grandmaster turned. ‘There is one remaining stipulation, Armiger. We have few levers left to pull, but the Commander will be held accountable for your failure and will remain in the Council prison.’ Cole shook his head as Nessie nodded stoically.
Cole stood. ‘There’s no need for that; I’ll sort it out.’
More tension between the Grandmaster and the blackness above. The Grandmaster sighed.
‘The Council will conclude. The Shadow Council pushes for more severe measures, Armiger. The Coalition has backed you fully. Our futures are all now in your hands. It is for this reason alone that the position of armiger will be tolerated to continue. Failure on your part to complete your task or to die in the attempt will result in the Commander paying the price for your debt to the Council, the city and your fellow soldiers.’ The Grandmaster hung his head, suddenly avoiding eye contact. What did it mean?
The Cost of Magic (The Ethan Cole Series Book 1) Page 19
