Adele touched his sleeve. “You must go.” It took a great deal of effort to phrase it as a statement and not a plaintive question.
“Yes. I must return to the continent immediately to salvage the situation or we could lose untold ground.”
“I understand.” She placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. “Stay safe.”
He took her hand in his and reverently kissed it. Then he stepped back and saluted. “With your blessing, Your Majesty.”
Adele nodded and then watched her general, her confidant, and her friend march from the room, leaving it quiet and still. Anhalt was gone.
Simon was gone.
Mamoru was gone.
Gareth was gone.
One by one she was losing all those she trusted, and the one she loved. There were so few people whose counsel she relied on, and that circle was growing smaller every day. Soon she would be alone and the only advice she could depend on was her own.
Adele’s hand brushed the huge wooden globe. She imagined her father standing here. His large hand covered twice the land her slender hand could. She wondered if he would be proud of her. Every day as she grew lonelier, she felt closer to him and understood what he must have felt, separate and distant from his friends, family, and subjects, each one slipping further and further away with every decision made. The burden of sovereignty was heavier than she had realized.
And now Gareth walked the same path.
“WHAT SHALL WE do?” Sanah asked from her place on the leather sofa.
“I believe I shall have another gin and tonic.” Sir Godfrey gave a heroic attempt at a laugh and winked sadly at his companion.
The library of his Giza town home seemed terribly dark, even frightening. Just the two of them now. Nzingu gone north and out of touch. Mamoru missing and likely dead. Both Sanah and Sir Godfrey were lonely and disconnected without the force driving their cabal. They had no idea what to do next. Or even if anything could be done.
Sir Godfrey fixed a haphazard drink with very little tonic in his gin, and drank half of it in one swallow. He stared at his bookshelves and shook his head. “I simply can’t believe it.”
Sanah didn’t reply, knowing he would continue.
And he did, tapping the thick gin bottle with a fingernail. “Even with all our preparation, we weren’t ready. We still underestimated them. We had one chance, one bullet if you will, and they took it away from us. But not by killing her, don’t you see. That’s the damnable thing. Gareth. He took her mind. He broke her will. He cut the human out of her like a surgeon. So cunning. Who would have thought them capable?” He drained the glass and poured another without benefit of tonic.
Sanah understood Sir Godfrey’s comment, but she knew the truth. When she saw Gareth save Adele’s life, she had witnessed something she could never have imagined. A vampire that was not a monster. Much of the blame for the break with Adele had to lie with Mamoru himself, but there was no point in saying that. Sir Godfrey would not hear it; there was no reason to alienate him now.
He fell grunting into an overstuffed armchair, gin spilling on his jacket. He stared angrily at the glass, then shouted into the air, “Laudanum! Majid, laudanum, do you hear!” When his manservant didn’t appear in seconds, he struggled back to his feet.
Sanah went to intercept the besotted old gentleman. She reached for the glass, but he pulled it back, drained it, and then allowed her to take it.
He looked blearily into her black eyes and wavered on his feet. “Would you care for opium, Sanah?”
“You should lie down, Sir Godfrey.”
There was a knock at the library door and he shouted, “Come in! Why do you knock, damn you! I asked for laudanum hours ago.”
There was another knock, prompting Sir Godfrey to stagger toward the door, which was open, and peer out. “Where are you?”
Sanah heard the knock from another direction, from inside the library. When it came a third time, she moved deeper into the room, her senses leading her to a grand Old Kingdom sarcophagus against the wall.
“Here,” Sanah said as she laid a hand on the gold, bejeweled surface.
“Here what?” Sir Godfrey stomped back into the library, staring at Sanah until a louder rap sounded again from inside the ancient coffin. The old man huffed with annoyance and pushed his age-spotted hand against the jewels. “What’s all this? No one was in the pyramid.”
“Allow me.” Sanah gently pushed his hand aside, and her fingers brushed over a series of gemstones in succession. There was a click.
The lid swung out, and a short, stocky figure in tradesman twill stepped into the library accompanied by a blast of stiff hot air from the passageway that ran to the Great Pyramid. He pulled off his cap and looked up to reveal a bruised, swollen face.
“Mamoru!” Sanah exclaimed, and grabbed him before he fell.
The samurai leaned heavily against the Persian woman as if losing his strength now that he was safe. He still nodded toward the window. “Lower your voice and the shades, if you please. Shut the door as well. The house is being watched by every policeman in Giza.” As Sir Godfrey hurried to comply, Mamoru weaved, with Sanah’s shoulder for support, to the sofa, where he collapsed.
The old man leaned out to scan the hallway for eavesdroppers, and then shut the door and turned back with a great, inebriated grin. “Well, well, it’s lovely to see you, old boy. We thought you were quite dead and the whole game was up, and the vampires had won the day.”
“I am alive. The game has reached its final move, and it will end with every vampire dead,” Mamoru whispered in a rasping voice, his eyes beginning to droop with long-denied sleep.
Long ago Mamoru sat on the edge of a wooden veranda in the courtyard of the largest house in Lincang, a small village in Yunnan Province, China. Above the crumbling edge of the second-story roof, he could see the stars beginning to be blotted out by large whitish grey clouds. Through an overgrown archway on the far side of the courtyard, he saw his soldiers passing. There were no townspeople about, which was just as well. The inhabitants of Lincang had seemed properly cowed by the arrival of the dragon airship yesterday followed by the Japanese troopers marching into their town square and erecting the rising-sun flag.
He adjusted his gun belt and noted a rip in his khaki uniform trousers. He would have his adjutant mend that; he couldn’t afford to look unkempt in front of new subjects of the Japanese Empire. He shoved back a metal mess kit with the remains of tonight’s mediocre meal. The food would get better once his chef settled in and imported quality ingredients. It would be interesting to try local produce, but he would miss the fish so plentiful in Singapore. Such was the price of duty. Mamoru laid a hand on his father’s katana, which rested beside him. He heard the sound of soft footfalls and sat expectantly until a small hand fell on his shoulder.
“It’s cold,” said a woman’s voice. “Would you like your overcoat?”
“No, thank you.” Mamoru removed his officer’s cap and turned to look up at the woman. He touched his light cotton tunic. “It’s warm enough.”
Tomiko was small, just over five feet tall, but she was sturdy and moved with a delightful economy. Her face was flawless, soft and round, framed by cascading jet black hair. Her eyes were comforting and challenging at the same time. Her lithe figure was swathed in a heavy white fur coat. Her breath was visible hanging in the cold air.
Mamoru stood and took the baby from the crook of his wife’s elbow. He hummed with pleasure and touched the tiny wet chin with his oversized finger, and his daughter cooed. Her wriggling sent a shock of affection through him. He plunged his face inches away from her, eliciting giggles from both of them.
He bounced the infant while grunting lightly. He stared at the baby, but said to his wife, “We’ll have a wonderful nursery for Kiyo when I have a proper governor’s palace built.”
Tomiko watched her husband and daughter. “I’m worried about the rats and bugs.”
“You should stay on the ship.”
; She smiled. “There are rats and bugs there too.”
“Yunnan Province isn’t Singapore. I’ll have some of the locals clean tomorrow.”
Tomiko brushed strands of ebony hair from the baby’s face. “You have more important duties. I’m sorry I complained.”
He kissed his daughter’s chubby cheek. “I have no more important duties than caring for my wife and daughter.”
The woman beamed with pride and used her foot to tap a thick oilcloth packet of papers with the seal of the Serene Court in Singapore. “The emperor expects results from his youngest prefect. A few rats and bugs won’t matter in the long run.”
“He’ll get results, as he always has. Within a month, I intend to have coal and iron-ore sites surveyed. And I will need estimates on agricultural output. And I can manage to provide a clean home for my family.” Mamoru handed the baby back to his wife.
“Well, it is pretty here. The mountains are beautiful, and I saw lovely fields outside town.”
He pointed at her sternly. “Don’t be fooled. The forests are full of headhunters and cannibals.”
“And vampires?”
Mamoru shrugged. “They cannot be ruled out, but I don’t worry about them here in Yunnan. We are at the southern edge of their frontier. For my peace of mind, however, you are not to be outside this palace without an armed guard.”
“Of course.” She gave a plaintive look around the crumbling courtyard at the boundaries of her new world.
“Would you rather return home? You are free to. You said you wanted to be with me.”
“I do.” Tomiko reached out. “I want to be beside you and watch you as you create this place. And I want you to be with your daughter.”
“I couldn’t do it without you.” Mamoru took her wrist and kissed it. “I wouldn’t want to.”
Tomiko sat on the wooden veranda bouncing the baby as Mamoru began to pace the dirt. He grew animated as he explained how he intended to tame the wild fringes of the civilized world. The mines would expand. The farms would spread. The towns would rise. He would create a prosperous and powerful province on the northern frontier, a source of wealth for imperial growth as well as a brake on Equatorian expansion.
As Mamoru planned their future out loud, Tomiko took several crystals from her coat pocket and rolled them between her fingers. She tossed them on the wooden planks and stared at them. Her gasp caused him to pause in his speech, and she quickly snatched the crystals up again.
Mamoru asked with an indulgent smile, “What does your geomancy say about our path? Great things?”
“Nothing.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“No?” He took the crystals from his wife’s unwilling fingers and studied them. His mind filled with images of lush green mountains and particular scents that he recognized. “These are from Java, aren’t they? One day, I would like to learn more about this science.”
Tomiko seemed flustered and nervous. “It’s a mere game not worth your time. You should focus on the real world. Build your political career.”
“I have. But in a few years, once I have made Yunnan into the richest province in the Empire, we will return to Singapore, where I will receive a high position at court. There will be little more I can accomplish in the realm of the known world, since I can’t become emperor.” Mamoru laughed. “I will need some new field to conquer. You said once I had great promise as a geomancer.”
She merely shook her head. “No.”
Mamoru bent over her worried face with a look of false alarm, and put a hand on her trembling shoulder. “Did your cast predict something dire? Am I doomed?”
Tomiko stood and struck the crystals from his hand. “Stop! Don’t mock it!”
The prefect stood with open mouth. He took his resistant wife by the arm. “I’m sorry.”
She reached inside the collar of his shirt and pulled out a thin chain with a small crystal in intricate silver filigree. She exhaled in relief when she saw it.
“What?” Mamoru looked at her with curiosity. “Are you surprised to see it? That’s the talisman you gave me last year. The perfect match to yours. I always wear it.”
“I just wanted to know you had it.” Tomiko squeezed her eyes tight and placed the palm of one hand on the side of his face. “Promise me you will never ask me about geomancy. I don’t want you to study it. Ever. I don’t want you to be that man.”
“I don’t understand. You said that I had great skills—”
“Promise me!”
Mamoru took the back of her head, feeling her silken hair. “Tomiko, please calm down. You are overwrought. It’s all the travel and new surroundings.”
In the night air came the sound of gunshots.
Mamoru immediately reached for his pistol. Soldiers posted by the archway jumped in alarm, gripping their rifles, hands reaching for cartridge pouches on their belts. Shouts and screams began in the distance.
Mamoru pushed Tomiko toward a door and grabbed up his katana. “Run. Get Kiyo inside.”
“What is it?”
“Run, I said!”
Tomiko started for the door when several figures dropped into the courtyard and fell on top of her. She screamed and the baby shrieked.
Mamoru was turning to her when sharp hands seized him and thrust him to the ground. Claws. Teeth. Humanlike shapes surged around him. The feral creatures were like men, but naked and hairy. They circled him on all fours.
He began to rise, hearing his wife’s gurgling cries amidst the hissing and growling. He saw one of the vampires tear his infant daughter from Tomiko’s desperate grip. With a scream of fury, from one knee, Mamoru brought his katana around in an arc, feeling it bite the chest of one creature. He drew it back, stepped, spun, and thrust into another vampire. Twist. Pull. Spin and cut through a throat. In an instant, three vampires lay bleeding around him.
His wife struggled against one of the things as it brought its jaws down on her throat. To his stunned surprise, the creature screamed and reared back, Tomiko’s own amulet tangled in its yellow teeth amid a wash of blood and smoke. With a clear path to his wife, the prefect started to bound onto the veranda. Then a hand seized his ankle and yanked him back onto his stomach in the dirt. The creatures that should have been dead all rose around him.
Mamoru rolled quickly onto his back, trying to keep the sword up as protection. The monster holding him gibbered and spit, and leapt up onto his abdomen, ignoring the blade slicing cleanly along its rib cage. A gnarled hand with long yellow claws streaked down at him, digging into his chest. The vampire screeched and fell back off him. It rolled in the dirt, clutching its smoking hand, before scurrying away. Its two companions followed like pack animals, and all three streaked across the courtyard and vanished into the darkness.
Mamoru felt warm blood spreading across his shredded tunic. Still, he struggled desperately to his knees and crawled up onto the veranda, shouting his wife’s name. Another vampire hunched over Tomiko looked at him, seemed almost to smile with bloody teeth even though its eyes were nothing more than a savage beast. It didn’t flex and leap upward, but in a surreal scene, it just lifted slowly off the ground, still in a crouching position. Its brethren with the talisman in its blackened teeth writhed on the ground and finally lay still.
Mamoru dragged himself to the figure of his crumpled wife. Her coat and robe were shredded and the flesh nearly flayed from her bare chest. The wound at her throat was raw and horrific. He pulled her up from a pool of sticky blood and clutched her tight against his grief. Her round perfect face was stained bright red.
“Kiyo,” she gurgled, trying to reach.
Mamoru saw the shape of his poor little daughter lying not far away, completely still. He could tell there was nothing to be done for her, and his heart shattered. He pressed Tomiko’s face to his chest, silently clinging to his anguish.
“Kiyo,” she repeated, struggling weakly.
“Kiyo is fine,” Mamoru said, shielding his wife from the horror burning his own eyes. The sight
of his daughter lying unprotected left him feeling as if his bones were frozen and broken. But he deserved the torture; he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the little figure. “Don’t fight, Tomiko. I will get a doctor for you.”
“Kiyo is safe?”
“She is here next to us.”
Tomiko sank against him with relief. “Do you still have the talisman I gave you?”
“Yes.” His voice cracked with anguish. He touched the stone resting against his bloody chest and realized with a shock that it had repelled the creature. But his wife had not been so lucky. His tears dropped onto her face, creating spatters in the blood.
“I’m so tired,” she whispered.
All he wanted to shout was No, no, no! Stay awake! Don’t leave me alone! But instead he said quietly, “Rest then.”
“Yes, I will. Kiss Kiyo for me. I’m too tired.”
“I will see you both in the morning.”
A small red hand tried to grip his arm. “Be a great man.”
“If you say it, I will.” He couldn’t finish the sentence because his breath was gone.
Tomiko died there along with his daughter, leaving Mamoru with his unrelenting grief.
Mamoru jerked awake from his nightmare, startling Sir Godfrey, who fussed nearby with Sanah. His face ashen, he reached for the watered-down wine beside him.
“You need to eat,” Sanah remarked, gesturing to a plate of food beside the wine.
“I’m not hungry,” the samurai muttered, throwing the cashmere blanket aside. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep.”
“You’re dead on your feet, my friend.” Godfrey stepped closer.
“I can’t risk one of your servants seeing me and talking to the wrong person. You two must stay free to coordinate my needs.”
Sir Godfrey harrumphed. “They wouldn’t arrest me. Would they? I am a man of some position. And I did save the empress’s life on the operating table.”
Mamoru gulped more of the wine, washing the bitterness of despair aside, letting his anger once more rise. “I no longer know what Adele will do. If she fears for that beast of hers, she may be capable of anything.”
Kingmakers, The (Vampire Empire Book 3) Page 26
