Ancient Blood: A Novel of the Hegemony (The Order Saga Book 1)

by Brian McKinley

  Sebastian sighed. “I consulted Hegemons Julia and Plantagenet on the seating. If thou have a complaint, thou should—”

  “Ah, we’re arguing about Draco’s status again, oui?” said a cheerful voice with a light French accent.

  We all glanced to the far doors where Jean-Paul Valmont, Hegemon of Africa and the Hegemon of Western Europe, Julia Agrippina, entered arm in arm. They glided across the floor with such grace that they hardly seemed to be moving at all and wore polite, appropriate smiles without a trace of warmth in them.

  Valmont is a few inches shorter than me with a very slender build and the kind of face you see in Renaissance paintings of angels. He showed up for dinner in one of the many variations of his usual Lestat costume: white with a crimson vest that matched the ribbons he tied his long caramel hair into twin ponytails with. Caroline’s bio mentioned that he stole his name from a character in some French novel.

  Sebastian tried to get his lips to smile at the newly arrived couple but only managed a grimace of clenched teeth. “We are not arguing, Valmont. There is no argument. I am merely explaining to Hegemon Draco—”

  “As you must plainly see, noble lady,” Draco interrupted, addressing himself directly to Hegemon Julia. “My standing has been incorrectly represented in this arrangement.”

  She and Valmont paused at the edge of the platform and she studied the line of chairs while her gilded boy-toy hung smugly from her elbow. “Yet plainly I see that it has not.”

  Draco’s spine stiffened and his Revenants hissed softly. “Though true that my Domain has, for a time, lost some small prestige, still my personal standing within this body is more distinguished. My age and years on the council both exceed the Oriental, yet she is positioned ahead of me.”

  Julia nodded, her polite smile still fixed and almost as chilling as Draco’s glower. “Yes but the gap between your age and hers is not so much. A trifle of perhaps a century, is it not? And while your years of service to this august body do exceed hers, the distance between the achievements of your two Domains can no longer be counted insignificant.”

  Her enunciation and pronunciation are crisp and her delivery displays a mastery of rhythm that only the greatest orators and classically-trained actors ever achieve. Her voice is a throaty contralto that has gravity, as if the air actually becomes heavier when it’s carrying her words.

  “I am also the Judicis’s designated Second.” Speaking of voices, Draco’s had taken on a dangerous edge.

  Julia didn’t blink. “As the position of your seat at council reflects. Your placement has been incorrect for some years now but I trusted the Judicis to see this impropriety corrected. Since he has not, what choice had I but to support Hegemon Blackwood’s obligation as host to right the matter? Of course, we may always break with tradition if you wish…”

  Draco said nothing for a few seconds and I don’t think you could have gotten me to walk between them at that moment for anything. Finally, he motioned to one of his Revenants. The creature pulled Draco’s assigned seat out from the table so the Hegemon could be seated.

  The way I hear it, when one of his Vampyrs back in Russia offends him, Draco inserts a red hot coal into their stomach and watches while they try to dig it out.

  Julia only had to raise an eyebrow to get him to send his Revenants back upstairs.

  The other footmen and I moved to seat her and Valmont. One of the other guys got to Valmont first, so I ended up holding the chair for her.

  Usually people become more human the closer you get to them. You notice crow’s feet or laugh lines or a small stain on their clothes or a gap in their teeth.

  Hegemon Julia Agrippina gets less human and more imposing the closer you get.

  She’s about five foot seven and carries herself with the attitude they coined the phrase “good breeding” to describe. Vampirism agrees with her as her thick bone structure allows her to look natural even without body fat. Still, she’s not what I’d call beautiful, or even pretty. She’s more handsome, mostly owing to her Roman beak of a nose.

  As far as her Vampyr history is concerned, it’s important to mention that she spent almost half of her two thousand years as the Judicis, or head of the Hegemon council. Caroline says that most of the records from her reign have “disappeared,” but the period she ruled is what’s known as the Dark Ages, so that should be a clue what it was like. Somehow, Iago (the current Judicis) managed to pull off a coup during the Renaissance and force her to step down in favor of him.

  Sebastian approached the platform as I finished seating Julia. I stayed on the platform, since I could see that Geoffrey Plantagenet, Hegemon of the United Kingdom, had entered the room.

  “Hegemon Blackwood,” Draco said as Sebastian passed behind him on the way to his own chair.

  Sebastian paused and I could see him fighting the urge to bare his fangs as he turned back to Draco. “Yes?”

  “This use of your Pupil for servant duties sits ill with me. By tradition, the Uninitiated follow silent in the shadow of their Creator, observe his example and do his bidding. I cannot abide Vampyr answering to the commands of human or Dhampir. I say it is unnatural, a stain most base upon our race.”

  I held my breath.

  “I am inclined to agree with Hegemon Draco on this, Sebastian,” Julia said. “There exists a conflict wherein one must be able to question and instruct servants, yet the Uninitiated Pupil of another is not to be acknowledged.”

  Sebastian spread his palms out, speaking with a charm I wouldn’t have thought he was capable of. “Most noble comrades and gentle guests, my new Pupil has proven disrespectful and ill-mannered of late. I wish for this Gathering to instruct him and thus, must humbly beg yer indulgence. To this end, I would grant all of ye the right to treat him as a servant of this house in every respect, yet I have no intent but that he should serve only those of the high table in such office.”

  That made Draco turn with an eagerness I didn’t care for. “You say then that you disengage the Pupil’s body from yourself?”

  Sebastian nodded, folding his arms across his massive chest with a smile. “As much as any bondsman of mine, I do say so.”

  Naturally, it’d be rude to keep all the fun of Avery The Vampyr Punching Bag to himself. Asshole.

  Draco studied me, considering the possibilities. Behind me, I was sure I could feel Valmont doing the same. My skin crawled. Finally, Draco nodded and turned forward again. “I am satisfied, then.”

  Nice to know one of us was.

  The matter settled, Sebastian gave me a mocking grin and I barely resisted the urge to spit in his face. Lifting his eyebrows, he just indicated his chair. Swallowing my pride, I pulled it out for him.

  “That’s not a bad idea at all, Bastian,” said Geoffrey. He shifted his gaze over to me as Sebastian sat, adding, “I’m certain he’ll find the experience quite instructive.”

  Then he winked at me.

  It was so quick, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d actually seen it. By the time I blinked, he’d turned back to the table and begun making light conversation with Draco. I glanced over at Julia and Valmont but they didn’t seem to have seen it, so I just stood politely and tried to keep the smile off my face.

  Geoffrey Plantagenet is nearly nine hundred years old and was the brother of Richard the Lion-hearted and King John of England. After seeing some of the others, I just didn’t expect him to be so normal.

  He wears basic business suits, for one thing. Sure they’re probably custom tailored and expensive as hell but they’re still just suits. He’s a young-looking man, able to pass for a twenty-something Wall Street trader, with a slim but athletic build. He’s gotta only be something like five foot four or five foot five but his personality is so strong that you only notice if you’re standing right next to him. He has Tom Cruise’s eyes.

  He is the least trusted member of the Hegemon council.

  Anyway, it wasn’t much longer before Jade Tiger came in. She’d also decided to join in on the per
iod theme and was nearly unrecognizable. Her hair was styled up and pinned and curled into an elaborate sculpture with gold combs and ivory bands. Her face was also heavily made up in some ancient Chinese style with jade green eye-shadow and lips. The dress matched, of course. It was a gorgeous jade green with gold embroideries of tigers and inset jewels.

  Then a cell phone rang and from the way most of the Hegemons jumped, you would have thought it was an air-raid siren! I barely stopped myself from cracking up.

  “Terribly sorry.” Geoffrey pulled the Blue Tooth out of his pocket and answered it.

  “Geoffrey, how many times must thou be told to shut those infernal devices down when in company!” Sebastian yelled.

  “Right, scorched earth it is then,” Geoffrey said into the phone before putting it away.

  Sebastian’s thick nails tapped the table-top and a few of the others shifted in their seats. My feet were already starting to ache and I can only imagine how bored Caroline and the servants waiting out in the entrance hall must have been.

  “Well,” Julia said after another moment. “It would seem, once again, that we await the Judicis’s pleasure.”

  They only waited another few minutes but the point had been made.

  * * * * *

  The feast had five courses or “removes” as Sebastian called them, each of which contained a full buffet’s worth of dishes. The maids brought the dishes out from the kitchen while the other footmen and I poured drinks and were responsible for serving the guests upon request. I don’t remember all of it but there were four varieties of blood soup, various flavors of blood puddings, cold blood custards with hot blood sauces poured over them, blood gelatin molds, blood sorbets and, of course, blood liquors which had absorbed everything from cognac to honey mead to champagne. I got some of the leftovers after we finished cleaning up and, I have to say, Helmut’s Sweet and Sour Blood Soup with Garlic Essence is damn good.

  The regular food was pretty grand too. There was lobster, spit-roasted suckling pig in brandy cream sauce, marinated peacock tongues, shark fin soup, Caribbean-style roast swan, veal chops with pear and cranberry chutney, Blue Fin tuna steak with caviar, wild venison medallions in dried cherry sauce, grilled swordfish and even whole roasted dolphin with oyster, truffle and honeyed pomegranate stuffing! Of course, there were also a bunch of little side dishes and some normal stuff but things like having to carve up Flipper and serve it to Jade Tiger while she scarfed down some Clotted Heart’s Blood Pudding sweetened with virgin menstrual topping tend to stick in my memory.

  As Caroline told me later, the human menu didn’t have to be appetizing; it just had to be impressive.

  She only sat a few steps away at the head of the right-side low-table but I barely got to look at her the whole evening. I made the mistake once and splashed a few drops of spiced blood wine onto the table while filling Julia’s glass. She noticed me for the first time. Those eyes are deep brown like polished walnut. There’s a sense of motion almost like clouds parting to reveal the sun and, suddenly, you can feel two thousand years bearing down on you.

  She threatened to have me flogged for my incompetence next time.

  I can only imagine what it must have been like for Caroline to endure this kind of thing for five decades, never once allowed to speak or be spoken to by anyone. No, on second thought, I really can’t imagine it. I would have gone ballistic by the second or third time.

  Finally, the fifth remove arrived in the form of a “grand subtlety.” Heavily sweetened blood was thickened, froze and sculpted into a free-standing piece of art. It was a world map inside a frame with all the continents represented in blood and the oceans done out of blue rock candy. Everyone applauded, Helmut bowed and each Hegemon got served the portion that represented their Domain, Iago, having no Domain of his own as Judicis, got the “free territory” of South America, while the servants got the rock candy oceans.

  I finally got a chance to exchange smiles with Caroline while everybody was busy with their candy. She looked gorgeous in that dress, just a little makeup and her hair up like a golden age movie star. She looked like a princess.

  Unfortunately, the feast still wasn’t over because we had to go through the presentation of everyone’s “host gifts” for Sebastian. They were all gaudy and expensive as hell, if not literally priceless. I remember Valmont giving him a pair of African tribesmen to hunt. Servants just paraded them out like slaves at the auction block and Sebastian practically salivated as he thanked the African Hegemon.

  I barely stopped myself from leaving the room.

  Anyway, after all the speeches, applause and bullshit, Sebastian was about to announce the end of the feast when Iago spoke and everyone went still.

  “Just a moment, if it pleases,” he said, rising. “For I have also come bearing a host gift.”

  Iago de’ Medici, Judicis of the Hegemony, was a surprisingly unimpressive Vampyr. Caroline’s bio made him sound like Geoffrey and Julia rolled into one. After starting out as a humble professor of mathematics and philosophy, he’d gone on to have one of the most extraordinary careers in The Order’s history. He helped his mortal family, the Medici of Florence, become one of the most powerful in Western civilization and used them to reach deep into other people’s Domains and influence events there.

  While most Vampyrs of The Order fought against the sweeping social changes that would come to be known as the Renaissance, Iago embraced them and used his family’s widespread influence to help direct their effects. Sometime during this, he hooked up with a Sicilian Vampyr called Draco who became his chief enforcer. He’s believed to have arranged the assassination of his Hegemon so well that, not only did he get the job himself but Julia wasn’t able to uncover a shred of evidence against him. They say Iago immediately set his sights on Julia herself. After a few centuries of passionate, scheming, soap-opera style romance, he pulled off that infamous coup whose specifics are still known only to the participants—he blackmailed Julia into swapping places with him. What followed was a long list of intrigues, counter-schemes and dead Hegemons. Then, like so many shooting stars before him, he lost his steam and began his slow slide into oblivion.

  I think he resembles Boris Karloff. Caroline disagrees but I think she’s being too literal about it. He has that kind of elegant facial structure, the long nose, those prominent cheeks and slightly hooded, mysterious eyes.

  “This is most unorthodox, Iago,” Julia said. “Such exhibition is unseemly for a Judicis.”

  Between them, Sebastian squirmed in his seat. Iago lifted the palms of his hands in a gentle Italian-style shrug. “I protest, ‘tis simple courtesy. Not for personal glory and favor would I do such but simply moved by my love for all assembled.”

  That voice was pure Karloff. The accent was a little different but the liquid baritone and hint of rapier wit at the edges was too familiar for an old Universal fan like me to mistake.

  There were gasps as the footmen hauled the thing in and everyone turned to watch. On a wheeled base sat a simple globe, except this globe was about five feet in diameter and constructed with black marble oceans and solid gold continents. It was really something, must have weighed a ton.

  The room went dead silent.

  Iago smiled his weary smile and drifted his arm up to indicate his gift as the footmen got it into position between the low tables, the candlelight glinting and rippling across the golden continents. “As you did so generously bestow the world upon us, Hegemon Blackwood, so do I now gift it back to you. It glitters there, does it not, like the rarest of treasures? So enticingly close, one need but reach out to cup it in hand.”

  He gave the slightest of nods to the footmen and lifting a catch I couldn’t see on one side, they swung the globe open on hidden hinges to reveal … nothing.

  The globe was completely hollow.

  “Strange,” Iago whispered. His voice, as melancholy as I’ve ever heard anyone sound, carried easily through the stillness of the room. “I thought sure ‘twas a bounty
there.”

  All eyes turned to Sebastian, whose stillness revealed the fury he kept from his face. We waited for his response.

  Iago, however, spared us by saying, “I should like to retire to my rooms now, if it please you. The journey has been long and much awaits us next even.”

  “Aye,” Sebastian said, eyes on the globe. “Much does indeed await.”

  * * * * *

  “If that was a preview of this weekend,” I said as I came into Caroline’s room and slumped against the wall. “Just stake me right now!”

  Caroline finished touching up her makeup. “Unfortunately, that was the easy part. Now we have to deal with Sebastian’s bid to unseat Iago, apparently with Julia’s backing.”

  I sat down on her bed and pried the shoes off my feet. “Excuse me? I missed the part where that made sense.”

  “Wasn’t it obvious from the gifts?”

  My blank look must have conveyed the depth of my ignorance because Caroline sighed and went into Teacher Mode. “Draco gave Sebastian an empty suit of Roman Centurion’s armor. When you think Roman, you think Julia, right?”

  I nodded. “Okay, so, Sebastian is Julia’s good little soldier or something. Gotcha. No wonder Sebastian was so annoyed.”

  “Exactly. Draco made a statement—well, more likely, Iago made a statement through him—that Sebastian in power will be nothing more than Julia’s puppet.”

  “But,” I said, “Sebastian hasn’t even announced he’s running, has he?”

  She smiled. “It’s pretty much understood. Sebastian’s made no secret of his desire and disagreement with Iago’s policies over the years. But notice what Julia gave him tonight.”

  “Papal robes.”

  “Not just papal robes, the very robes of Leo the Tenth—who was a Medici—making him Iago’s descendant. If that weren’t enough, she said they were originally meant for Iago but that Sebastian now seemed the more fitting choice.”