Ashayt smiled, bowing her head slightly in acknowledgement. She stepped forward, hand extended, and William took it, marveling at her.
“You are of my blood,” she said, and William nodded.
“I am, Mother. Descended of Alexander, part of Eadwyn’s line.”
“I remember Alexander,” Ashayt said, tilting her head. “You are too young to be his fledgling … who was your sire?”
“Isabelle.”
“I did not know her. A pity … does she still live?”
William lowered his eyes for a moment, and when he brought his gaze again up to the elder vampire, his expression was one of old, deep sorrow.
“She took her own life. I … I could not stop her.”
Ashayt lowered her gaze momentarily, frowning. “The curse of my blood,” she murmured.
She looked back up at William and shook her head. “You blame yourself for this, my child – I feel it – but it is not your fault. It is my blood. I am Ovras, and all troubles of this line stem from my own failings.”
William found himself again at a loss for words. Stephen, sensing this and rarely afflicted with such troubles, stepped in.
“There’s a time and a place for dwelling on the past, my dear, and I’m afraid ‘tis not now. This meeting was called to order for a reason, one I’m curious to hear more about. What has happened to Jakob?”
William looked at Stephen, surprised. “You’ve not heard?”
“We’ve been in this country for but a span of hours, William, and I spent most of those sleeping. You’ll forgive me if I’ve not had time to check my email. Do fill us in on current events, would you? That way I can give Naomi the short version when she arrives.”
“Naomi is here?”
“I’ve told you this. Not here, here, but on her way. Good Lord, William, has something happened to your brain?”
Stephen’s caustic tone seemed to cut through William’s daze. He glanced at Stephen, smoldering, and then rolled his eyes. “You’ve a way with words, Stephen.”
“It’s a talent. Brevity. Simplicity. Honesty.”
Ashayt covered her mouth, but Stephen saw that William had seen the motion and knew that Ashayt had moved to cover the beginnings of a smile on her lips.
William smiled, laughed a small laugh, nodded to Stephen. “Very well.”
“We will sit, William, and you can tell us a story.”
“Yes, but not one you want to hear. That is, if I remember your political associations correctly.”
“I don’t make political associations,” Stephen replied. “I make friends. Should we introduce our guest to the rest of the group?”
“It would probably be better to get it out of the way,” William admitted. “I think they’ve guessed that something important is happening, but most have not studied their history. They don’t know who you are, Mother.”
Ashayt seemed unfazed by this. “I have spent millennia in seclusion. That my name is remembered at all is something of a miracle.”
The assembled vampires around them had been silent, sensing that something of grave import was happening. Few had taken the time to read the old scrolls, though, and Stephen knew that most could only guess at Ashayt’s identity. Those who knew seemed to be waiting for whatever was to happen next. He stepped down and took a seat in the shadows. Ashayt moved to stand next to William, who turned again to address the council, but before he could speak, Malik stepped forward.
“With an elder present, I must formally raise protest,” he began. “These proceedings are an egregious—”
“Shut up!” Stephen roared, leaping to his feet.
Malik and William, both startled by this breech of etiquette, could only turn and stare, mouths agape.
“I tire of this bullshit,” Stephen snarled. “I tire of protocol and formality, of rules and restrictions. I tire of deferring to my elders when they’ve not the common sense necessary to pull their heads from their very arses and make a decision. The European council makes their choices in the time it takes you, Malik, to make your opening pronouncement. I have seen how they operate firsthand, and it is better than this. So I beg you, for the sake of us all: shut up. Sit down, shut up, and let us address whatever problem it is that’s caused this meeting.”
“Of all the—” Malik began, and Stephen overrode him again.
“I know. You believe I am an impertinent fool. Even William, who likes me far more than you ever will, thinks I am a fool, but I am not a fool and I will not sit here while you waste our time. Jakob is missing. Sasha is standing here with some human child. Something has gone wrong. Naomi is not here to contain me, as she normally does, so I shall speak my mind. Shut up. Sit down. Let William tell us what has happened to Jakob, so that those of us who are capable of action may take it.”
“I—”
“SIT!” Stephen roared, stabbing a finger at the nearest empty chair.
Malik looked to Ashayt for help, but the elder vampire simply looked back at him, a small expression of sorrow on her face. She shook her head once and said, “I have not come here to assume control of this council. It is not my place to take sides or pass judgment. I cannot help you.”
Malik’s face hardened. “This will destroy the council!” he snarled, and he whirled on his heel, striding toward the exit. His apprentice Theresa looked startled, caught off guard by this action, and scurried after him.
“Good,” said Stephen, and then shouted it at the departing figures. “Good! Too long have we huddled in this church, ignoring the world around us!”
“Stephen …” William sounded old and tired, his tone that of someone who had seen too much, felt too much.
“Oh … get on with it,” Stephen growled. He sat back in the shadows, arms crossed, and only Ashayt saw the small tick at the right corner of his mouth as he, too, suppressed a grin.
There will be changes, he had told Two, and it was true. Her entrance into their world had changed everything already, and it was only just beginning. Stephen, for one, could not wait.
* * *
“Some of you have studied our history and others know only bits and pieces, but I believe all who sit here before me know that a moment of some significance has come to pass,” William said, staring out at the council members from his podium. “Before you stands the elder vampire Ashayt, known in the old scrolls as the Girl from the Desert, quite likely the eldest among us all, and the only living Ovras vampire.”
Ashayt bowed her head momentarily before looking up and out at the council. “I extend my greetings to you all.”
Her words were met with a kind of soft rushing noise, the sound of a crowd lost in awe and, perhaps, fear. Ashayt had become a vampire during the height of the Egyptian empire’s power. Even the eldest of the vampires assembled before her were, by comparison, mere children. William held his hands up, hoping to calm the crowd before the murmur could become a roar.
“Please, Mother, if you could make it clear that you are a … a benign figure, it would be very helpful. There are those here who will fear you and the powers you possess. You are a name out of legend, for us.”
“I hold no ill will toward any here or elsewhere,” Ashayt said to him, and turned to the crowd. “Children, you have less to fear from me than from any other vampire in the world. I have not taken a life, human or vampire, in more than four thousand years. I have sworn on my very soul that I will never do so again, even if it means my own death. I am an emissary of peace and wish only that all of my people, be they of my line or any other, might live together in harmony.”
“How are we to believe that?” called a voice from the crowd, and Stephen recognized it as Leonore’s. “You’ve been gone for thousands of years, and now you’re back at the side of a rogue Ay’Araf bent on tearing apart the council. Are we to rejoice at your coming? How can we know that your vow is real, that your words are not lies?”
“If she wanted us dead, idiot, we would already be so,” Stephen said from the shadows in a quiet, exa
sperated voice. William gave him a disapproving glance, but also nodded.
“My friends, I understand your concern,” he said. “Here before us is a legend come to life, returned after millennia of absence. You are right to fear her power, but you must understand: if she had come to us with the intent of doing harm, then all who she wished to eliminate would be gone. She is Ovras, and before her not even Abraham would have stood.”
“I am here only to observe,” Ashayt said. “I am here only to advise. I will not make decisions for this council, nor take sides in any argument. Events are occurring now in our world which will ripple outwards. They will eventually touch the vampires in Europe, Asia … everywhere. No other Ovras vampires remain to help, to act as guides in this time of danger. I have stayed too long in seclusion, it is true, but I hope that you will forgive me and accept my aid.”
“What dangers do we face?” the British vampire, Peter Markham, asked. He at least seemed unafraid, and his words were couched in a tone of deep respect.
“The vampire Aros has built an army,” William said. “He has abducted Jakob and two human beings who are friends of Two Majors, the fallen Eresh-Chen. You know this because Sasha brought it to your attention at the last meeting. He intends to use his army as a weapon against the Children of the Sun, the religious cult of humans bent on destroying our kind. We fear that he will provoke them into a full-scale war, and that whichever group proves victorious will come then for us and those we care about.
“Even should Aros and the Children not prove a direct threat, there is always the possibility that their fighting will alert the human world to our existence. I don’t think I need to explain to any of you why that would be tremendously dangerous. We live in an age of GPS tracking and instant communication to all corners of the globe. There will be nowhere to hide if they decide to wipe us out.
“We must therefore strike first, in order to prevent full-scale war with one or both of these armies, or at least so we may wage it on more favorable terms. I have asked you to come here tonight so that I might propose—”
William’s words were cut off by the loud crack of wood on wood as the church doors were thrown open. The council members stood as one, turning to see what had caused this distraction. From the shadows, a woman’s voice giggled and said, “You don’t know your own strength yet.”
At these words, Molly, who had been sitting quietly and following along as best she could, leapt to her feet.
“Two?!” she cried, racing up the carpeted aisle. “Is that you?”
“Yeah. Who’s asking? Molly?!” Two came into the light, caught the girl in her arms and hugged her, looking baffled. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
“The vampires took Mom and Dad and I had nowhere to go so I went with Sasha and she took me here and then let me stay at her place and they wouldn’t go get them so we had to go ask William for help and he said he’d hold this meeting and then the elder vampire lady showed up and everyone was like ‘holy crap!’ and then we were just really getting started but now you’re here!” Molly spoke in a rapid rush, without pause for breathing. Two’s eyes grew wider and wider.
“Wait, slow down. Calm down, Molly. What are you talking about? Vampires took who, now?”
“Everything will be explained if you’ll come forward,” William said from the podium. “Your timing is most fortuitous. Is Naomi with you?”
“I am,” Naomi said, stepping also into the light and bringing Theroen with her. She and the others made their way forward, stopping before the podium. Molly sat back down on a bench, watching with curiosity.
“I suppose it worked, then,” Stephen said from his place in the shadows, and Naomi nodded at him.
“It is good to see you, Naomi,” William said. “I do not recognize your friends.”
Naomi smiled at William, looking at home and in her element. Two was glad that returning to this council chamber brought comfort to her friend.
“You’ve never met. This is Two Majors, the Eresh-Chen, but I think you’ve guessed that already. Two, this is my mentor, William.”
“Pleasure,” Two said, shaking William’s hand.
Theroen held his hand out and introduced himself. “My name is Theroen Anders, first child of Abraham, and also an Eresh-Chen, which I'm told is of some significance.”
William gaped openly at him. “But you’re dead.”
“I was,” Theroen said, still holding his hand out. After a moment, William shook it.
“I am glad to meet you, Theroen. How is it you came to be … less dead than previously reported?”
“The lady here gave me her blood and the blood of Ay’Araf himself,” Theroen said, indicating toward Ashayt. “Two injected these gifts into my body, and they have combined with the blood that has shaped me these past four hundred years. They have made me into something which does not have a name yet, something new.”
“Theroen-Sa,” Ashayt said, and Naomi nodded. Behind them, the assembled vampires murmured in confusion, their voices again tinged with the sound of fear.
“If I am a source, an Ovras, then it means no more for me than it must have meant for Ashayt, or Ay’Araf, or even Eresh herself once.” Theroen was pitching his voice loud enough to be sure that the council members seated behind him could hear. “I am not a god, not an ancient, not possessed of heavenly powers. I am just Theroen Anders.”
“Few of us know anything about Theroen Anders, though we all know of your sire,” William said. “Naomi speaks well of you, which is enough for me, but if you could take a moment to reassure us that you are … well …”
“That I am not my father’s son?” Theroen asked, smiling. “Yes, I can say that. No one on this earth is more pleased than I am that Abraham has been sent to his death. If I had thought it at all possible, I’d have attempted the act myself. Abraham murdered my first love, split me from my friend Naomi, and sequestered me away from vampire society for centuries. He attempted to kill my second love more than once, and had she not survived, he would probably reign still over this council.
“Abraham was evil, and it is a good thing that he has passed. I have no intention of following in his footsteps, and I happily submit myself to the council’s laws.”
“Let’s not go too far,” Stephen said, and Naomi shot him a glance. Two gave a small laugh.
“You probably should have a spot on the council,” William mused. “Certainly your age warrants it, and if you are truly an Ovras …”
“We can discuss that some other time,” Theroen replied. “For the moment, I would prefer to observe. It is clear that we are in dangerous times, and that decisions must be made this night. I would not stand in the way.”
William nodded, said, “If you would take your seats, then, I will explain, and we may come to a decision on what actions to take.”
Naomi led Two and Theroen to the bench where Stephen sat, and Ashayt followed. After quickly introducing Theroen to Stephen, Naomi left to take her seat among the council members.
“Fun night?” Stephen asked Two as she sat down next to him.
“It’s had its ups and downs,” Two replied. “Do you know what the hell this is all about?”
“William will explain it, give him a moment. Prepare to be unhappy.”
“Great.”
William stepped up to the podium again and cleared his throat. The murmuring from the council members quieted.
“A quick summary for those who just arrived,” William said. “The Burilgi vampire Aros Kreskas has formed an army and is preparing to make war on the Children of the Sun. We fear that this war will spill over into our ranks or alert the general human population to our existence. In addition, he has kidnapped our fellow council member Jakob and the two humans Rhes and Sarah Thompson, because he wants Two for some reason and believes she will come after them.”
“He’s right about that,” Two said. “What the hell are we doing sitting around here?”
“That’s what I’ve been wondering,”
said Sasha from her seat amongst the council members.
William tapped on the podium. “The purpose of this council – the entire reason for its existence – is to make sure that we avoid making rash decisions. If we leapt into action at every hint of danger, we would risk bringing too much attention to ourselves. If we act rashly, if we expose ourselves, we risk destruction. This has always been true.”
“Yes, but William—” Naomi began, and the elder vampire held up his hand, stopping her.
“Clearly, this is a special case,” he said. “Jakob has been abducted. That will not stand, and I am so confident in my belief in this council that I hardly feel it necessary to call a vote. Still, a vote we shall have. Sasha has obtained information on Aros’s whereabouts. I propose … I make a motion that we task a small group of vampires with going to this place, liberating Jakob and the humans, and bringing Aros here to face trial for his crimes. Do I have a second?”
Sasha and Stephen gave their affirmation simultaneously.
“Very well. The vote, then: all those in favor of the motion?”
William was greeted by a strong, if not universal, “Aye.”
“Motion passed. Sasha, please take the lead in assembling the group.”
Sasha glanced around the room. “I assume Stephen’s coming unless we chain him down. I’d also like Peter and Kanene’s help, if they’re willing.”
“We are,” Peter answered.
“I’m going,” Two said. “He’s got my friends.”
“She’s not going anywhere without Theroen and me,” Naomi said. Sasha raised her eyebrows at this.
“I may not be much of a fighter,” Naomi said, “but I’ve learned how to take care of myself from Stephen, and I will happily wager on Theroen’s strength and Two’s … utterly perplexing indestructibility. Besides, I didn’t fly halfway around the world and spend the past year reuniting these two just to let one or both of them get killed.”
Sasha smiled, nodded, turned to William. “That should suffice. Too many would just be difficult to coordinate and would make stealth impossible.”
Blood Hunt Page 43
