Kardina

by Thomas Emson

  He was shaking with awe.

  Ereshkigal floated up out of the coffin and slowly hovered down towards Simeon.

  She clutched the red rag around his throat, the mark of the Nebuchadnezzars, protection against vampires.

  Her voice was like a snake’s.

  “Do you think this protects you from me?”

  “I am your servant, Simeon,” he cried. “Do you remember me, my queen?”

  He stared at her naked body. He was shaking with desire.

  She tipped his chin back with her finger.

  “Oh my queen,” he gasped.

  She grinned at him, showing her deadly teeth.

  “Shall I kiss you, Simeon?”

  “Oh… kiss me, my queen.”

  “If I do, you shall die. Shall I kiss you? Or will you live and be the eunuch in my court?”

  He groaned.

  “Choose, or I shall kill you,” she said.

  He chose.

  And he shrieked when she gelded him.

  CHAPTER 19. SHE IS THORNS.

  Tălmaciu – 12.15am (GMT + 2 hours), 18 May, 2011

  LAWTON reeled, his head spinning. Every drop of strength he had seemed to leach out of his body. He suddenly felt weak in the woman’s presence.

  “Five hundred years,” she said. Her eyes flashed. She hissed out a breath and it was putrid.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  The woman didn’t answer. She was staring goggle eyed at the Spear of Abraham.

  “How did you come by this?” she asked.

  “I asked you who you were.”

  She looked him in the eye. “Ereshkigal. Mireasă de Nimrod.”

  Lawton furrowed his brow. “What?”

  She shook her head as if she’d forgotten herself by speaking Romanian instead of English. “Bride of Nimrod.”

  Lawton’s nerves fizzed.

  “Where did you come by the spear?” she said again.

  He didn’t answer. He was trying to regain control of his senses, trying to find his strength again. Slowly, it was returning.

  The woman’s hand shot out, and she laid it flat against Lawton’s chest.

  He stiffened. It felt as if pulses of electricity were passing from her palm into his body. He could have easily retreated, but he stayed put, not wanting to show any weakness. He had a feeling such a revelation would put him in danger.

  “I can feel your heart,” she said. She panted, her lips partly open. Her tongue slithered across her lips.

  Lawton’s defences were crumbling again. He had faced this temptation before. Three years ago, he had been forced to kill his ex-girlfriend Jenna McCall after she became a vampire. When she’d first appeared to him as an undead, Jenna had demanded he give her blood – or she would go out and kill. Lawton had given in, and she’d fed from him, taking enough blood to survive, but not too much so as to kill Jake. She had mocked him, and he’d felt weak after she’d fed. But days later, he’d killed her. And he’d not hesitated. He did not shirk either when it came to crafting the death of another woman he loved when she’d returned from the dead. Sassie Rae had died at the Religion nightclub when Lawton and his companions prevented the Nebuchadnezzars from unleashing the vampire god, Kea, on London. After coming back to life, Sassie had hunted him down, and he’d watched as Aaliyah drove a stake through her heart.

  He had the measure of vampires, even if he had loved them when they were human.

  Or he thought he did.

  This one was different.

  She had power. Real power.

  Vampires might be dangerous. They might be terrifying to most people. But they never conjured feelings of awe. Certainly not in Lawton.

  But for some reason, that was exactly what he felt standing in front of Ereshkigal.

  He sensed she was the most dangerous thing he’d ever met.

  Her hand became a claw on his chest, and her long nails dug into his skin.

  He gritted his teeth.

  He gripped the spear.

  He could have rammed it up into her chest.

  She might have been quick enough to avoid his attack.

  But he decided not to test her.

  “You like pain,” she said.

  “I try to avoid it.”

  “You reek of it.”

  “I should get a better deodorant.”

  “Or let me heal it.”

  She stepped towards him, her face turned upwards to stare into his. Her breath was on his skin. Her teeth flashed white and sharp, inches from his throat. Heat rose from her body. It warmed Lawton. Her hair smelled of roses. Her flesh smelled of death.

  Thorns, thought Lawton. She is thorns.

  “Your eye,” she said. “What is behind your patch?”

  “Why are you close to me? If you are what you are, then you should be scared of this,” and he removed the patch to reveal the red skin of the ancient vampires encased in the glass eye.

  Ereshkigal did not flinch.

  “The mark of the Nebuchadnezzars,” she said. “You are one of them. A servant of my Lord’s offspring?”

  He said nothing.

  “Another Simeon for me,” she said.

  “This doesn’t make you flinch? You’re not throwing a hissy fit.”

  “A what?”

  “Forget it. It doesn’t frighten you?”

  “I am Ereshkigal. I am of Nimrod, not of his offspring. I watched him tear them from his chest. I saw him birth them, his children. I was there when they began. I gave them freedom when the prophet of Yahweh stole into Irkalla, killed my sisters – and buried my Lord.”

  Her anger was mounting.

  “And these,” she said, gripping both ends of the Spear of Abraham, “these the prophet of God tore from my husband’s head.”

  Lawton finally shoved her away. She hissed. He quickly pulled the spear apart to make two swords.

  “How did you come by it?” demanded Ereshkigal again, crouching like a panther. “I sent it back to the east. I sent it with Nebuchadnezzars returning home after a war with Vlad Tepes. How did you come by it?”

  “I won it in a raffle,” he said.

  She cocked her head. “Who are you? Are you a voivode? I sense pain in you, but I also sense… power. Are you a Nebuchadnezzar?”

  He paused before saying, “I kill Nebuchadnezzars – and I kill your kind. And I’m going to kill your husband, too, if I ever find him.”

  She straightened. “You are going to find Nimrod?”

  “If I can.”

  “Take me with you.”

  He creased his brow. “What?”

  “Take me home to Babylon.”

  “I’m going to kill him, and you want to come with me?”

  “I can gain you entry – I can protect you.”

  “Why would you protect me?”

  “Because you are taking me home.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “But,” said Lawton, realizing that she wasn’t as powerful as she seemed, “without me, you are trapped here – for eternity.”

  She shuddered.

  “Give me blood,” she said.

  Lawton raised his eyebrows.

  “A few drops. I won’t kill you. I need you if I am going home. I’ve not fed in 500 years.”

  “Five hundred years?” he said. “I thought you could only live three days without it.”

  “Your experience of my kind has been limited to lower creatures. I am not a lower creature.”

  She moved closer again and touched his brow with her cold hand. “Your blood, here, where your eye is red – there is something inside that is different. There is something alive in you that isn’t of you.”

  He gently eased her hand away. “Can you take me to Nimrod?”

  “After blood.”

  When he’d given Jenna his blood, he’d felt weak. Now he couldn’t afford to be vulnerable. He faced a long journey. He faced a dangerous one. Enemies hunted him. He was becomi
ng paranoid, and needed to be alert.

  “Blood,“ she said, throwing herself against him. “Blood, now.”

  He dropped the swords and gripped her arms. He wanted her, this undead thing. This witch. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He twisted her around, aiming to toss her on the floor and mount her.

  But he managed to control himself again and shoved her away.

  “No,” he said. “No.”

  But she flung herself back at him, sailing through the air as if on wings, and crashed into him, sending him staggering backwards.

  CHAPTER 20. DESCENDENTS OF KINGS.

  Hillah, Iraq – 12.30am (GMT + 3 hours), 18 May, 2011

  ALFRED Fuad knew he was being watched. He was aware of it even before the scouts from Hillah came that morning to say a man and a woman had rented a house on the outskirts of the city. They were foreign, said the scout. The man was tall with dark hair and a thick moustache. He carried a cane decorated with a gold ferrule. The woman was tall and beautiful, her skin dark, her eyes fiery. The scout said she looked like an African princess.

  Aaliyah Sinclair, thought Alfred.

  Did that mean the man could be Jake Lawton?

  The name made Alfred shudder.

  He got up from his desk, where he’d been reading the scout’s report and viewing some photographs.

  He got a bottle of whisky from the cupboard and poured himself a tumbler.

  Lawton? Was that possible?

  The description did not fit the ex-soldier, but who knew with Lawton? He might have changed his appearance. He might have miraculously made it to Iraq.

  “No,” Alfred told himself. “It’s impossible. You are being paranoid.”

  He drank again. The liquid was fiery. It gave him confidence to believe the man wasn’t Lawton. It just couldn’t be. Nebuchadnezzar agents had been tracking the bastard across Europe. They’d lost him a few times. Found him again. Lost him again. He was devious and slippery. He was clever and dangerous. Very dangerous.

  They knew he’d left Britain after the battle in February. He and his companions had been picked up in Rotterdam. Christine Murray, her son, David, and the Chinese troublemaker, Kwan Mei, had been sent back to the UK. The Chinese woman was due to be deported back to her own country, because she was an illegal immigrant, but once in London, she’d slipped away with David Murray.

  But Christine Murray, that interfering hack, was apprehended by George’s men in Folkestone.

  He downed another whisky. His head was swimming. He needed a nap. But he didn’t have time. George would not be happy if he slept on the job.

  Alfred loved his brother. He always wanted to please him. Perhaps if Lawton had a brother like George, he wouldn’t be so much trouble. He would have had guidance. He would have had a sibling to smack him around when he did something wrong. Burn his back with their dad’s cigarettes. Force his hand into a jarful of wasps. Rub his face in dog shit.

  Bloody Lawton. The man was impossible. Five bullets lodged in his body from various conflicts. Two from Afghanistan, they said. One from Iraq. The other two, who knew. But he was still alive. None of his enemies had managed to kill him.

  But I will, thought Alfred. If he is the man in the house, if he ever comes here, I will kill him. I will kill Jake Lawton, and George will love me even more.

  He drank again, brimming with confidence now.

  He surveyed the maps and the plans pinned to the wall of his office at the dig. He buzzed with excitement. He felt so powerful. He was making history. He was creating a new future. He would excavate a god and give it to his brother.

  He thought about travelling home with Nimrod in tow. We will go by road, he thought. Every nation would kneel before Nimrod as Alfred’s convoy passed through its territories. Prime ministers and presidents, kings and emperors, would bow and offer homage to the new world order of vampires and humans.

  George would be master of the earth. Alfred would be his dutiful deputy.

  He wondered if George would take a queen. He’d been married twice. But Alfred had sent them packing. Driven them mad. Made up stories about them and whispered nasty rumours in George’s ear.

  Alfred didn’t want his brother to have anyone else. Why did he need anyone else? George could take his pleasure from whores as Alfred took his from young men.

  They needed no one else. They had each other.

  Mum had always said, “Family’s the most important thing in the world, darlings. You stick together. You’re blood. You’re brothers.” Mum was an East End girl. London born and bred. In his drunken state, he pictured the capital as a golden city.

  He pictured a throne.

  On the throne sat George – King George.

  George VII.

  And next to the throne would be Alfred, the faithful advisor, the loving brother.

  And behind the throne, the real power. The religion. The faith. The fear. It was always superstition that gave kings their might. The new church the Nebuchadnezzars planned to build in England would be the most powerful in history. It would make the Catholic Church, and all its authority, look like a scout hut meeting. Its atrocities would pale beside those the Nebuchadnezzars would commit. As in the Christian faith, the threat of suffering would hang over worshippers, and for non-believers it would be the same as the message conveyed by Yahweh – follow me or die. But unlike Christianity, the Nebuchadnezzars would carry out their threats. That was the only way to maintain control – terror.

  Alfred drank another whisky and felt blurry. He wanted to grip the world in his fist and crush it. He was sure he would be doing that in the next few months. He was quaking with excitement, and he grew hard. He would have that young student brought to the office. He picked up the phone, but he was seeing double by now, and he fumbled with the receiver. It crashed to the floor. Alfred dropped his drink. It spilled everywhere. He fell to his knees. He was on all fours, scrabbling about, feeling dizzy, wanting to puke.

  Not looking much like ruler of the world, he thought.

  Something crackled. Static exploding in his head. He thought he might have broken his skull, because he had a terrible headache.

  But then he realized the noise came from the walkie-talkie on his desk.

  He got to his knees and reached for the transmitter.

  A voice came through the interference, “Mr Fuad, Mr Fuad… ”

  He answered, slurring, “What is it, Malik?”

  “You need to come down. Something very big. Very big.”

  The excitement in the dig supervisor’s voice sent pulses of adrenaline coursing through Alfred’s veins.

  CHAPTER 21. VAMPIREOPHOBIA.

  London – 12.45am, 18 May, 2011

  GEORGE Fuad felt bloated with power. And he was hungry for more.

  He grinned at Elizabeth Wilson and thought, You’re fucked.

  Fucked leader of a fucked country. In thirty hours or so, the polls would open, the election would be under way, and Wilson and her country would be on the road to hell.

  Near the door stood Christine Murray. She bristled with hatred, her eyes burning. She looked a bit of a mess.

  He’d had the women woken up and hauled out of bed, so no wonder they looked bedraggled.

  It wasn’t the first time he had called a meeting with Wilson in the run-up to the election. And to keep her on her toes, he had been dropping by at all hours. He could do that. He was in the ascendancy. She knew it, and he knew it. He wanted her to throw in the towel. He wanted to humiliate her. Force her to quit even before voting began. But she was holding on. “Liz, sweetheart,” he said. “This is your last chance to drop out. You don’t want to make a fool of yourself, do you?”

  She baulked, obviously hating the way he was speaking to her.

  “Liz,” he continued. “You’re fucked, see. This time very early on Friday morning, I’m going to be pissing in your mouth – ”

  “You’re a murderer and a liar,” said Murray.

  “I am going to win the
election – ”

  “By murdering and lying,” said Murray.

  “People will believe what they want to believe,” he said. “You got your truth, I got mine. We offer our respective truths to the voters, and they choose the version they like best.”

  “Your truth is blood and death,” said Murray.

  “Don’t be fucking melodramatic, darling.”

  “Don’t darling me, you murderous – ”

  “That’s enough, Christine,” said Liz Wilson.

  “Yes, that’s enough, Christine,” said George.

  “Mr Fuad,” said Wilson, “I won’t stand down, but can’t we come to some sort of accommodation after the election?”

  He leaned back in the leather chair and scanned Liz Wilson’s office in the Millbank building. It was a paltry little hovel. Once he was master of the world, he’d live in golden palaces. He’d surround himself with beautiful things. He would empty the mansions, the castles, and the churches, and fill his coffers with their treasures.

  He’d be rich and powerful.

  “Yeah,” he said, “if you’re not willing to step aside, we can certainly come to an accommodation, like, erm, Wandsworth Prison maybe. And you can rot there in a cell while I sort out this fucking country.”

  Wilson paled.

  At one stage he had considered the type of accommodation Wilson had in mind – a coalition.

  She would have been a good partner because she was easily manipulated and reasonably presentable. It would have been one of those old-fashioned coalitions forged by marriage. He would have taken her as his queen. Then he would have locked her away in a castle somewhere while he romped his way through the British female population.

  He’d not bedded enough birds recently. There had been a dry spell in the past few years. After his second marriage broke down, and he had started to focus fully on acquiring power, his desire for flesh dwindled while his hunger for power grew.

  But now the cravings were back.

  Kings should always spread their seed, he thought. It was their responsibility. They had to keep the gene pool as potent as possible. They had to make sure there was an heir in place.

  And Wilson was too old to produce a successor.