by Cas Martin
'Hello?'
'Hello, is this Elizabeth Hastings?'
'That depends who's calling.'
'I'll take that as a yes.' A hint of an English accent was hidden in the man's voice somewhere.
'Like I said, that depends on who's calling. Who is this?' Elizabeth tried to keep the fear out of her voice as she discreetly looked around to see if anyone was watching her. The streets were filled with people, just enough to make her feel safe. If someone was watching her, she wouldn't be able to spot them. Resigned, she carried on moving.
'Don't worry about me. I am a friend more so than an enemy. We met the other night. Well, almost.'
'You need to explain.' Elizabeth forced herself to keep going.
'I didn't realise until the following day that it was you pulling into the parking lot. If I had realised, then I wouldn't have been so quick to run away.'
'You're the runner?'
'Yes. I'd like to meet you. There is something I think you need to have. What are you doing now? We could meet for coffee. Somewhere safe. What about that little coffee shop over there?'
'What?' Elizabeth no longer kept up the subtle pretence as she span around. Her heart picked up its pace, wondering how she had been wrong-footed yet again.
'I'm over here. Under the street sign. The one by Brewsters Cafe. Hello,' he said, and she saw a man waving at her. He was grinning at her like she was a long lost friend. She racked her brains but could not remember ever seeing him before in her life.
She hung up the call without saying anything else, and began to make her way over to him, assessing the situation. If he was going to kill her then he could already do it from here. He seemed to be making a point of standing in the direct sunlight, as though he was trying to send her the silent message that he was safe. Before she could ask herself any more questions that she didn't have the answer to, she was standing in front of him.
'I'm Jack LeTraub,' he smiled again, extending his hand. The British accent seemed more pronounced in person. 'It's nice to finally meet you Elizabeth. Can I call you Elizabeth? Coffee?'
'Yes to coffee, I'm not so sure on the Elizabeth part yet.'
'I understand you're suspicious, and I would be too if I was in your position.' He headed into the coffee shop, making a point of fully turning his back on her as he did so, doing everything he could with his body language to convince her that he was not a threat.
'One grande latte please, and…' he prompted Elizabeth.
'Espresso. Double shot.'
There was an awkward silence while they waited for their order and then made their way over to a table by the window. The position suited Elizabeth. She didn't want to be secluded in some booth where no one would know what was going on until it was too late. She still couldn't guarantee being able to spot a vampire, even with her recent experience. Not in the way that Garth was able to. His instinct in that sense was far greater than hers. Nonetheless, she felt fairly certain on this one.
That in itself did not guarantee that he was actually on her side.
'So, Mr LeTraub, do you want to tell me exactly what is going on here?'
'Gladly,' he replied, taking a sip of his coffee. 'Let's cover off some of the preliminaries then shall we, as discreetly as we can in a public place like this. You can never be too sure of who is listening.'
'I agree.'
'It was only after speaking to one of my contacts I realised it was you who had turned up the other evening. As you can appreciate, I had, um, how can I say it without actually saying it? I had made it so that the men who I left behind would not be in a position to cause you any trouble.'
'You did that for us?'
'Perhaps I didn't make myself as clear as I thought. No, I did not do it for you. It never occurred to me that you would also have found out that the transfer of your father's journals was taking place.'
'Okay, so no fancy metaphor there. Now I know that we're on the same page.'
'Well, it would be better if we could go somewhere private to have this conversation, but I understand you are being wise in making sure that we're not alone together. I would be doing the same thing if I was in your position.'
'I'm glad you appreciate my caution. So if you didn't do it for me, then who did you do it for?'
'For myself, of course. I didn't know how many would be present, but I had anticipated at least four.'
'How did you know what was going on?'
'That is a long story. One which I'm going to tell you in the full course of time. You see, Ivan Mendelson was a very clever man, but his arrogance and sense of invincibility was always going to be his downfall. The high school is not far from where he lives. It's not the first time that he has used their grounds for his business transactions. He's like a drug dealer who has his turf. The bigger the deal, the more likely he is to trust that location. I've been keeping tabs on him for many years, even though he has never met me. Or rather, was never aware that he had met me.'
'You clearly have your sources.'
'That is true. I have some excellent sources, but I have to tip my hat off to you, you've done quite well for yourself in the short time that you've been here. It is my only regret that we haven't met before now.'
'Do you know something Jack – I can call you Jack, right? Since I came into this city, my life has been one confusing ball of mess after another. You are not helping.'
'I apologise.'
'Don't apologise. Just tell me what the hell is going on, and who the hell you are.'
'I used to live in England. I studied politics, although that was about fifteen years ago now. I used to be David.'
'Excuse me?'
'Okay, I put that really badly. Obviously, I'm not David. What I meant to say was that David was your father's protégé when he died. But I was the first ever one.'
'What?' Elizabeth was stunned. Of every possible scenario, this was not the one she had seen coming.
'It's true. It was a fortuitous set of circumstances that brought us together. He had discovered all of these amazing things, and with that came a lot of good and bad knowledge. He had come to realise that one day they may kill him. I was very sorry that day actually came, by the way. I can honestly say I'm still recovering from the shock. Your father may have been my teacher originally, but eventually he became a very good friend.'
'I'm starting to realise he had many good friends I had no clue about.'
'He was a very respected man in his circle, believe me. Anyway, as I was saying, he realised that someday he may know too much. He knew that he could not let all he had learned die with him, and so it made sense that he find someone he could share that knowledge with. He chose me.'
'If he had you, then why did he have David?'
'Another very good question. Your father and I had gone our separate ways in order for me to be his eyes and ears over here on a permanent basis.'
'Why?' Elizabeth knew how lonely it was to live this life. She couldn't imagine sending away someone she could share it with.
'Obviously, for your father, he was tied to England. He had his job. His family… But America held great appeal for many of the families. The opportunity and space to escape some of the old ways and start again. So that is exactly what they did. And when they did, lots of things subtly changed from the way they had been for thousands of years. There was no way your father could continue his research and keep abreast of all of the new changes of the past century.'
'But why would he need to carry on his research? Surely what was going on over the past century is the important part?'
'I can see why you would think that. But your father was convinced there would be big changes, and that the answer would lie in the past, rather than the more immediate actions of the present.'
'The original splitting of the families?'
'Exactly. But you are also right that such information was useless without knowing what was going on now. Who had the power, who wanted it, and who was willing to cross boundaries. T
hat role fell to me. Together we worked our separate areas of expertise, in the hope that it would provide answers when the time came.'
'And did it?'
'Certainly. Every two weeks your father and I would speak on the phone, discussing anything new we had discovered, anything we thought would be important. It put me in the advantageous position of not needing his journals after he was killed. I already knew the contents.'
'So that's why you didn't take anything last night.'
'Oh, I took something, just not the journals. Carrying the journals as well as a gun would slow me down too much. I wanted to take one, even if it was just so I could have the pleasure of reading it. I would have returned it to you, of course, but reading your father's words has always been a source of great pleasure to me. He had a way of writing that was interesting and informative, but very graceful, all at the same time.'
'So what did you take?' Elizabeth wasn't going to be distracted.
'Haven't you figured it out yet?'
'We have some theories, but we only read the journals for the first time last night. There was a lot to absorb in there.'
'Tempting though it is to make you guess, I realise that wouldn't be fair, especially in such trying circumstances. I assume that Monica has told you all about her ring? From what my sources tell me the two of your have been working together quite closely since you got here.' There was something in his tone that made her think he was faintly surprised by that. Surprised and not altogether approving.
'Is that a problem?'
'Your father was the first who was able to make a more equal arrangement with them. In some ways it never really was. At every meeting there was a chance he would be killed. He was older than you, and not as fit. He was a university professor, not an athlete. He took refuge in his ability to reason with people, no matter what differences they started out with. It was also why he tried to encourage you to take part in sports at every opportunity. He always knew you were smart, but he wanted to make sure that you were strong and fast too, in a way that he knew he would never be.'
'I never realised.'
'He was so subtle in the way he convinced people. Even those who were closest to him didn't realise they'd been talked into something until it was too late. Plus of course, he never let one of them, you know,' he made a biting motion, 'because once you do that then you hand over all the power. Things can never be on an equal footing after that.'
'Are you sure?' The question was out before Elizabeth could stop herself, but Jack didn't seem to grasp her underlying reason for asking. She prayed her jacket collar was covering the faint traces of Monica's bite.
'How can it not? Once you've done that, there is no way you can be on the same level. You make yourself physically weaker in the process, whilst simultaneously making them stronger. You have emotionally given a part of yourself while they haven't given anything back in return. It's like any relationship, once one person has some great advantage over the other everything becomes unbalanced. They own you.'
'Well, you know more about these things than I do. Anyway, back to what you were saying,' Elizabeth decided to steer things back on track before they got lost in the realms of opinion and the personal. Especially when it came to thoughts she wasn't ready to face.
'Ah yes, I'm sorry, I do have a tendency to get distracted. This is the first time I've actually spoken to someone about all this in over a year. After your father was killed, I went underground. I knew there was a chance that this whole sorry saga wasn't over, especially once I realised that they had taken his journals. Unfortunately, it was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was what your father had been working towards that finally started the ball rolling.'
'Do you mean that they were finally coming together again? As one big family?'
'That was clearly the plan of certain individuals. You see, in the month before your father was killed, he finally found this.' Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a small circular bronze disk. So thin it was virtually flat, it fit nicely in the palm of his hand. Other than a triangle stamped into its surface, slightly off-centre, it was completely unremarkable.
'What is that?'
'Your father called it the Unifying Object. In the absence of knowing their name for it, he couldn't come up with anything better.'
'There was no mention of it in his journals.'
'Your father was very careful. He knew people would assume the answers were in there. The only problem was that they were looking at the words. Instead it was literally in his journal.'
So she'd been right about the torn back page. 'But if they knew that it existed, why didn't they get to it before my father did? Why did they wait until he already had it?'
'The Unifying Object had been hidden, undiscovered, for centuries. No one knows how long. The only record we have of it was in oral tradition, and each family had its own story that had changed over time. There was no definitive location, and even the description varied between families.'
'So how did my father know that he had found the right thing?'
'The only thing that was consistent was the description of this triangle thing on the top.' He pointed to it. As he turned the disc over between his fingers, she saw that there were markings on the back too, stamped in a language she didn't recognise. 'The last time I spoke to him he told me he could feel its power. I can't say that I do, and I've had it on my person for the last eighteen hours. But I know better than to question your father's judgement.'
'I'm starting to realise that now. Even though it's too late for me to learn anything from him.'
'Now you have his journals, as well as his other writings, he'll still be teaching you, just as he taught me. He never doubted you for one instant, you must remember that.'
'So people keep telling me, but part of me thinks they say it just to make me feel better. Why didn't you get in touch with me when he died?'
'For the same reason I think David didn't get in touch with you straight away. We were shocked to the core. We had lost complete trust in our little band of followers. You see, we believed that no one knew that your father had found the Unifying Object other than us. None of the families should have even known he was looking for it. He spoke to them about a myth he didn't believe in. Purely cultural research. It had been several years since any of those conversations had taken place. The whole process was very discreet.'
'Apparently not discreet enough.'
'Don't underestimate your father. He knew when he was being followed better than anyone. It was another one of his skills, and you've seen the way that David and I have our network of informers. We learnt all of those techniques from your father.'
'How come David never mentioned you then? You do know about David, don't you?' Elizabeth gulped. She did not want to be the bearer of bad news.
'Yes I do. I'm very sorry you had to endure another loss. It can't have been easy for you.'
'It's not, but I still don't understand why he never told me about you.'
'Just because I knew David doesn't mean that David knew of me. David came here after your father died. Your father trusted me as his second in command, but that meant I was also his secret. It was a sensible security measure.'
'So what went wrong?' Elizabeth needed to know. If her father had made a mistake that had got him killed, then she wanted to make sure she never did the same.
'I can only assume he trusted the wrong person. For my own safety I just chose to drop below the radar completely, and a lot of others seemed to do the same. We were wrong to not have some kind of contingency plan for this. I heard when you avenged his death. For that I salute you.'
'It was something that I needed to do. To get closure.'
'I understand. We all have our own road to follow. Your alliance with Monica Carletto was a stroke of genius. Get her to trust you so you could use her resources. It only took me a couple of days to see that you were going to be a chip off the old block.'
'So what now? How does th
is thing work?' Elizabeth picked up the disk and held it in her hands. She filed away his comment about Monica. His take on the situation was completely different to the reality, but she had no intention of correcting him. The cold metal sat in her palm. She felt nothing. None of the power her father had allegedly felt.
'I suggest we don't find out. The stories vary, but a common thread remains. The Unifying Object allows one person to combine the protective devices of all families. The world as we know it would never be the same again if it fell into the wrong hands.'
'So why hide it for so long? They could've united under a single leader years ago.'
'If only one person can be the head of a unified family, then that person must initially come from a single family. Everyone would want that person to be from their family, and they wouldn't want it to be from someone else's.'
'It's hard to believe that egos and petty rivalries would stop them from getting ultimate control.'
'You've seen firsthand how they are completely set in their ways. Their first choice of weapon is always themselves, for example. For those that enjoy killing, they need it to be a visceral experience. To them, a gun is just as lethal as it is to us, yet it will seldom cross their minds. For their kind, forward thinking is rare.'
'So what now? Will you be coming back to England?'
'I'm not sure. Don't worry about me treading on your toes. I have no intention of taking your father's place. I think that you've stepped into that role quite admirably.'
'I didn't mean to imply…' She trailed off, embarrassed. She hadn't meant to sound quite so defensive.
'I know. I really believe that, despite everything he said about wanting to protect you, he knew you would do this someday. He wanted you to have a normal life for as long as you could. But I will always be there for you if you need me to be. Not that I believe you will.'
'Everyone has more faith in me than I do. I feel like I've had nothing more than a month of lucky escapes.'
'You have what your father said he could not teach, no matter how willing we would be to learn. You have the instinct. You're part of a long tradition. Trust that instinct, but never get complacent. Getting complacent will get you killed.'
