by Ilana Waters
Don’t ask me how I know that.
But now Rattler’s companions were pulling him back by the arms and shoulders. “Don’t!” said Stavros. “It is a trap. This is exactly what he wants.”
“Which is why I’m going to give it to him!” Rattler struggled against their grasp, trying to claw his way onto the pool table. George and I put our cues a hair’s breadth away from his throat. Abigail raised her magic high, the ball of energy crackling and giving off sparks. Through it all, Titus was smirking in the most maddening way possible.
“Go on, then,” he said, leaning his head so close to Rattler’s they were all but touching. “Give me what I deserve. Cause a scene in this very public place. How long do you think it will take to spread to the mortal world, only footsteps away? How angry would your precious Ferox be if you spoiled his plans by exposing your true selves? Surely under those circumstances you can resist having one little temper tantrum.”
Rattler gnashed his teeth, and it pulled the skin over his face so tight I could see the veins in his head and neck throbbing. His nostrils flared, and I was reminded of an angry dog, trapped behind a chain-link fence. He might snap and snarl, but he couldn’t break free and satisfy his rage. Finally, Rattler’s chest began to rise and fall more steadily as his breathing slowed. He let the other vampires pull him back from the pool table.
“This isn’t over,” he growled, his look one of pure hatred.
“Oh, I should hope not,” Titus said agreeably. “I’m having such a good time. And don’t forget your gift.” Titus made a motion with his hand, and Merula’s head went swiftly back into its box, tissue paper and all. Even the ribbon retied itself. “I’m sure you’ll want to share it with our mutual friend.”
“I mean it,” Rattler said. He picked up the box without taking his eyes off Titus. “Soon, none of these petty games will matter. Master is even closer to fulfilling his desires than before. When you see what he has in store for you—for you all—you’ll wish we’d killed you.” For a moment, his rage seemed to dissipate into an eerie confidence, and he gave a little smile. “Just wait and see.” He stared at Titus for a few more moments, then turned his spiteful eyes to me. Finally, he turned and walked out of the room, the rest of the vampires trailing after him.
We all waited a few minutes before daring to react. This was partly because we wanted to make sure they were really gone, and partly because we couldn’t believe what had happened. George blew a puff of air out through his cheeks and put his pool cue on the table. I dropped my cue as well and placed my hands on the table’s edges, bending over and trying to remember how to breathe. Abigail kept staring at the curtain, the magic in her hand growing smaller and smaller until she was certain the vampires weren’t returning. Finally, the ball disappeared, and we all turned to Titus.
“See?” he said, looking at me. “I told you it would be fine.”
Abigail threw up her hands. George just shook his head.
“You probably just got lucky.” I pushed my hands off the table and leaned back against the wall. My clothing was soaked; I didn’t even realize how much I’d been perspiring.
“Look, mate.” George sat on the edge of the table and turned to my father. “I’m relieved things didn’t turn ugly, but you have to admit, it was touch and go there for a while.” He took off his bow tie and put it in his breast pocket, and loosened his collar. I noticed sweat glistening on his forehead when he wiped it with his cap.
“I mean, Titus, was that really necessary?” Abigail’s face had that drawn look about it again. Only Titus seemed as collected as before.
“No, but it was fun,” he said, stretching his arms out to the side and smiling. “Indeed, what is it about my own kind that brings out my carnal side? This will make those mindless cretins think twice about trying to kidnap or kill us again. Any of us.”
“I have to admit, he has a point,” I said. “It may be an effective plan, even if it is a bit on the macabre side.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Titus said. “Vampires never respect anything else.”
“And if it had gone sideways, what then?” Abigail demanded. “It’s a good thing I’ve been working on my defense spells recently. You’re lucky to have me around.”
“So you keep telling me,” Titus muttered.
“I still don’t understand why Ferox is so hell-bent on destroying you anyway,” George said to Titus. “The city of Rome is nearly five hundred square miles. Surely there is room enough for two ancient vampires.”
Titus shook his head. “It’s not about lack of space. It’s about power. You heard Ferox—at least you two did.” He indicated Abigail and me. “Power isn’t something he’s keen on sharing.”
I thought how both my father and Ferox were mistaken in that regard. Power isn’t an object you grab hold of and clutch feverishly. It’s like identity: something you carve out for yourself, moment by moment.
“Speaking of which,” I said, forcing myself up from the wall, “I think it’s time we started making plans of our own. You heard what Rattler said. Ferox is closer to achieving his aims than before.”
“According to the rat,” Titus said.
“Whom we have no reason to doubt,” I said. “And apparently, once he does so, things are not likely to end well for us . . . or anyone else.”
Chapter 15
Less than an hour later, we were all gathered around the card table in Titus and Abigail’s suite, Arthur included. Pool tables, card tables—I was beginning to see a gaming theme to the evening. But this game with Ferox was one we had to win. You could almost say our lives depended on it.
We told Arthur everything that happened. After several minutes, during which his eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped, we finally recounted the entire tale and its repercussions.
“Bloody hell,” he murmured, sipping his drink. “Seems you’ve had quite a productive evening.”
“Yes, and now we need to continue doing so.” Titus tapped his index finger firmly on the table. “Otherwise, it seems there is a high probability of Ferox actually carrying out this hostile takeover of his.”
“Do I even want to suggest contacting the Council?” I asked.
Titus gave me a look of utter exasperation. “Are you failing to remember what they told us earlier? When they ambushed us just before we reached Ferox’s lair?”
I did remember. The High Council, a governing body of thirteen witches, had tried to convince me to drop my investigation regarding the crystal. Apparently, they were under the impression that Titus and I were trying to resurrect Ferox, an idea that would be laughable if it weren’t completely stupid.
But that hadn’t stopped them from magically thrashing me in the PIA’s basement, sending one Council member to kill me, and confronting Titus and me just before we reached Ferox. That last act was the ambush my father had just mentioned.
It almost got ugly when Titus and I refused to acquiesce and give up our search. Then things took a strange turn. Out of the blue, the head of the Council, Lord Ashcroft, received a call on his cell phone. He whisked the other Council members away, but not before issuing a final warning that bringing back Ferox would result in dire consequences for us. Titus and I had no idea what the content of the phone call was, but it must have been important if preventing Ferox from rising came second.
“I know they were convinced we were trying to help Ferox rise again—” I started.
“And what makes you think they’ll be less convinced now that he’s succeeded?” asked Titus. “Or do you really believe they’ll see our involvement and Ferox’s resurrection as a coincidence?”
“I have to agree with Aurelius,” Arthur said. “Let’s say you did request aid from the Council. They abandoned their previous quest to stop Ferox on the basis of a mere phone call, and they view you both as untrustworthy misfits. With that in mind, any attempts to enlist their help would likely prove futile. No offense intended on the misfit part,” he added.
“None taken,”
I said with a shrug. The Council didn’t like Titus because he was a witch turned vampire. They didn’t like me because I was the son of one, which should have been impossible. To them, we were more than misfits: we were abominations.
“I wouldn’t bother either,” said George. “Presently, no one in the Wiccan world can get in touch with them, presumably because they’re busy dealing with whatever prompted that phone call.”
“I bloody well hope it’s good,” grumbled Titus. Then, in a louder voice, “It seems we are on our own.”
“Makes one wish vampires had started their own Council to put a stop to this sort of thing,” I said.
“If there’s anything close to centralized power in the vampiric community at present, Ferox and his followers are it,” said Titus.
“Oh.” I felt a heavy sensation in the pit of my stomach. This was worse than I thought. We had to stop them.
We sat in silence for a few moments, no one really looking at anyone else. Finally, Abigail spoke.
“All right,” she said, hitting the table with the palms of her hands. “We’ll just have to go about this logically. Let’s think of all the ways there are to kill vampires.”
Titus looked at her and blinked several times. “I do wish you wouldn’t say that with quite so much enthusiasm, my dear.”
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just something I’ve given quite a lot of thought over the years.”
Titus’s eyebrows knit together. “And I wish you hadn’t said that entirely.”
“Well, we know that as with witches, guns, stabbing, hanging, and drowning won’t do the trick,” said Arthur.
“A heavy gauge shotgun might blow their head off,” George said.
“But we can’t go shooting them one by one,” I sighed. “The survivors would attack us before we finished.”
“We could use sunlight,” suggested Abigail. “Maybe burst in on them in the daytime?”
“But how?” George asked. “Even your abundant skills with earth magic couldn’t tear a hole in the ground above their lair fast enough. They’d hear it, or Ferox would sense the magic, and they’d just move deeper into the earth.”
“Joshua managed to do it to a different set of vampires,” said Arthur.
I shook my head. “That’s only because I distracted them by pretending to throw the crystal into their midst. We don’t have that luxury here. And we can’t set them on fire for the same reason. We have no way to do it fast enough to prevent their escape. Sorry, Father, are you all right?” Titus was frowning.
“Am I the only one who finds it troubling how much you’re all enjoying this conversation?” he asked.
Abigail pursed her lips. “We’re not talking about killing you. We’re talking about Ferox and his . . . gang, or whatever they’re calling themselves.”
“A gang that will likely be taking over the world, by the looks of it,” said Titus. More silence followed. I put my head in my hands and tried to think, but no brilliant ideas were forthcoming.
“Bugger all,” George mumbled after a few minutes. “I wish we could just blow the whole damn crew to kingdom come.”
My head snapped up. “Wait! We can!”
“We can?” Arthur echoed.
“How exactly do you propose to do that?” Titus asked. “Do you think Ferox and his faithful followers will just sit around and let us detonate them? You saw Rattler and the other vampires when they opened my little gift. They already thought it might be a bomb. They’re wary of explosives as it is.”
“Yes, what are you thinking, Joshua?” Abigail asked. “I get nervous when your eyes go all shiny like that.”
“Nothing to fear, everyone,” I said. “My plan hinges on two things.”
“And what might those be?” asked Arthur, leaning one elbow on the table.
“First, would you,” I nodded to Titus, “ever make a vampire you could not control? One who would cause untold carnage if left unchecked?”
“Not likely,” Titus said. “You don’t live as long as I do without wisely judging which mortals would enhance our kind’s reputation and which would not.”
“But it’s within the realm of possibility, yes?” I pressed.
“It’s not unheard of for mortals to undergo more than a physical change when they are made vampires,” Titus said. “Some simply cannot endure what they’ve become, and run mad. Others exhibit a propensity towards violence that they never had when they were human.”
“And second, would you, the great Titus Aurelius, ever go begging an enemy for help?” I asked. Titus made a sound in the back of his throat that was halfway between a laugh and a choke.
“Your derisive snorts aren’t helping,” I said as he chuckled. “I’m serious. Would you ever beg an enemy for help?”
Titus stopped laughing and set his mouth in a firm line. “That is ridiculous. Of course I wouldn’t. Especially if it’s the one you’re thinking of. The one who just sent a small legion to kill me.”
“Excellent,” I said. “Then this will work perfectly.”
“What will work perfectly?” asked Arthur, turning his head from me to Titus and back again.
“It’s simple,” I said. “We pretend Father recently made another vampire, one whose bloodlust he can’t control. He’s gone on a killing spree just outside of Rome—”
“Wouldn’t it have been on the news?” asked Abigail. “Everything’s that happened with Ferox certainly has.”
“—but we’ve managed to keep it out of the press so far,” I continued. “This vampire is running completely wild, and despite our best efforts, we can’t track him down yet. All we can do is clean up his mess—aka, the corpses, before authorities find them.”
“I still don’t understand how this helps us blow up Ferox et al,” said George.
“Ah, that’s the clever part,” I said, pausing for dramatic effect. “You see . . . we’re running out of places to put the bodies.”
“We are?” asked Arthur. The hand holding his drink stopped halfway to his mouth.
“Yes. We can’t bury them fast enough. Burning them would attract attention, what with the fire and the smell and such. And dumping so many bodies into rivers and lakes would never go unnoticed.”
“This is getting more grotesque by the moment,” said Abigail, her lips puckering.
“Hear me out,” I pleaded. “We ask Ferox if we can store them in his lair, underground. But in reality, they’re body bags full of explosives. Then, when the time is right—”
“We really do blow them all to kingdom come!” cried George. His face lit up like it was his birthday, winter solstice, and Samhain all at once. “I love it!”
“I don’t,” said Titus. His face looked more severe than I’d ever seen it. “It’s dangerous and unpredictable.”
“I’m not quite sure I follow either,” said Arthur, pushing his glass to one side. “What makes you think Ferox cares if another vampire goes on a killing spree? Isn’t that rather what they’re made for? Again, no offense.” He nodded at Titus.
“Because this out-of-control vampire—” I started.
“The one I made that you made up,” Titus said.
“Yes, that one. Because he’ll spoil Ferox’s plans for world domination. Even Ferox is savvy enough not to advertise the existence of vampires like that. At least, not until the time is right. Remember how quickly he stopped killing cattle and went back underground? Until he’s ready to put his plan in motion, he can’t afford to have the world know about supernaturals. This vampire would threaten all of that.”
George was nodding enthusiastically. “Exactly. Ferox isn’t against carnage per se, but he needs vampires who will destroy what he tells them when he tells them to. Not those whose newfound bloodlust will make them act rashly.”
“We just have to make sure he and his vampires are all in place at the right time,” I said. “Probably in their lair just before dawn. The only problem I can see is getting enough explosives. They would have to be something with
serious power, like C4.”
“Leave it to me, Joshie old boy,” said George, rubbing his hands together.
“Are you sure you can get that much C4 in time?” I asked. “We need to do this quickly.”
George gave me a look. “Joshua, you’ve known me for how many years now? Why do you insist on asking such silly questions?”
“I’m not so sure Ferox would believe us.” Abigail folded her hands and leaned forward. “Wouldn’t he be a little suspicious that it’s all too good to be true? That his ancient rival is cowering before him, completely helpless?”
“Let’s not get carried away,” said Titus. “I never cower.”
“He’ll believe it because he wants to,” I said. “To him, it will look like fate. He feels he was always destined to rule, and this is simply the inevitable turning of the tide. And Father’s acting so out of character will ‘seal the deal,’ as they say. He’ll never think that Titus would swallow his pride like that unless he absolutely had to.”
“And he’d be right,” Titus said.
“So, to continue the charade,” I said to Titus, “do you know where we might acquire a great number of body bags posthaste?”
“Of course,” Titus said, rolling his eyes. “Ask the only vampire in the room.” He sighed. “I believe I have a contact in the armed forces I could call.”
“Splendid,” I said. “Although . . . damn. What if Ferox or his lot check the bags?”
“We could always have a decoy,” George said. “You know, one real body to make the whole thing seem plausible. Then they’d know we were serious, and it’s unlikely they’d feel the need to check the bags after that. Or want to.”
I couldn’t help but make a sour face. “As distasteful as it sounds, you may be right. But I’d really rather not go around killing random people. Where can we get a body in short order, and someone so awful the world wouldn’t miss him?”
“You mean a black-hearted reprobate of the most irredeemable sort?” said Titus. “Trust me; I’ll find one.”
