It was a vampire, but not like any he had seen before, in real life or in film. This was not the romantic kind of Dracula, but the monstrous kind of Nosferatu, an ancient and formidable ancestor of the “modern” families of vampire he had unwittingly encountered. The creature's face was drawn and shrivelled, with gaunt features, showing much of the skull beneath. He had no hair, and his skin seemed to have pulled back so much that his ears had shrunk. He had a large overbite, and from that larger upper jaw protrude long, sharp fangs. His eyes were open, and they were simple black marbles, with not a hint of anything within, but it seemed that he was not awake.
James heard the sounds of the scouting O'Neills behind him, and there was no way out of this chamber other than the way he came. So, in a moment of madness or genius—the outcome deciding which—he stepped into the coffin with the ancient sleeping vampire, pressing himself against the cold, lifeless and shrivelled body, and pulled the lid closed.
At first, he paid little heed of his graveyard bedfellow, for his attention was fixed on the sounds outside. He heard their footsteps loud and clear, and the tremendous echoes of their voices.
“I thought you said you saw something,” one of them said.
“I did. It came in here.”
“It?”
“Check the coffin.”
James' muscles suddenly seized. There was no room to turn or move, and no chance of escape.
“Are you kidding? That's Cían's tomb.”
“Lorcan's father?”
“Yes. If you touch that, we can kiss our dreams goodbye. He'll slaughter us all. Probably Lorcan as well.”
It was then that James' attention was caught by the vampire he leant against. His face was almost pressed against the drawn skin of Cían's bony cheeks, and his eyes stared straight into the dark, staring eyes of the other. A blade of light sneaked in through a crack in the coffin, just enough to illuminate key features, but not enough to remove those accentuating shadows. James felt no heaving chest beneath him, no twitching of muscles, no tiny shudders of nerves. Yet all through this, he knew in his heart and soul that Cían was alive, that he was merely resting.
Outside, the vampires continued their search for him, growing more and more restless as they came up empty. For James, however, his fears shifted from them to the one he had embraced. He tried to slow his own breathing, so that his own heaving chest might not stir the creature. He tried to turn his head, so that the vampire would not feel his breath. He closed his eyes, but even then he saw those eternally staring pupils. He tried to hold back the horror, to silence a scream. He tried to kill the thought that he had just climbed into his own grave.
16
Casus Belli
It must have been two hours before the O'Neills finally left, abandoning their search for James as the day began to wane—and the Kavanaghs began to wake. James stayed in his coffin hiding place, afraid that even trying to get out might awake the vampire, until Rua came and freed him.
“You are lucky it is I who found you,” she told him. “Lorcan might have had your neck.”
James loosened his collar. “I think everyone was after my neck.”
“This has all the trappings of the O'Neills.”
James shrugged. “I never got their names. I was too busy running and screaming.”
“Did you see a red-haired woman?”
“No. I saw two big twins though.”
“Those are the Brute Brothers. Definitely the O'Neills. They will deny it though. They've done that before when they've broken the rules.”
“Can't you punish them?”
Rua sighed, resting her hand on her hip. “I want to, but vampire tradition requires that we need a casus belli, a case for war. If the O'Neills deny they were here—and they will have covered their tracks with magic too—then it is largely your word against theirs, and they will argue that we coerced you. If we declare war on the O'Neills, not only will the Gormans and Danestis not come to our raid, they might even be convinced to fight against us. This is what the O'Neills want, a sudden slip-up by us, so that they can swoop in. If they declare war themselves, they will be outmatched. At the least, they want to isolate us, knowing that there are few left of the Kavanagh clan.”
They found the beast of Umbra Montis dead on one of the higher levels. Rua ran to it and knelt down, caressing its butchered head. For all its horror—and hers—seeing her tenderness with it made it seem almost endearing.
“They will pay for this,” she said.
James couldn't help but feel a little guilty. In many ways, the beast had died saving him. To think that he had feared it only days before.
“What do you plan to do?” James asked.
“We can't afford a war. If we fight them directly, then another family will strike while we are weakened. We need to maintain our authority over them. We need to make it clear that it is the O'Neills who broke the rules.”
They heard a rush of footsteps, and saw someone running down the corridor towards them. It was the driver who brought James to this horrible place, and this horrible life he felt he could now not escape from, even if he was no longer locked in his room.
On seeing Rua cradling the head of the beast, the man slowed, then halted, shaking his head. It was only then that James noticed the similarities in his and Rua's features, and thought they must be brother and sister.
“I'll round up the boys,” he said, turning back to the stairs.
“No, Caoimh,” Rua said, reaching her hand out to stop him.
“They have to pay for this!”
“They will. But let's do this smart.”
They found Ebed in the foyer, though only his torso—his head had been ripped clean off, and was nowhere to be found. A trail of blood led to the door, where a scattering of iron nails were left, spelling out the Latin phrase.
“Such destruction,” Lorcan pined, shaking his head and seeming horrified by it all. For a vampire, he didn't seem to like the sight of blood all that much.
“Ebed wanted to be turned,” Rua said. “We promised that we would in time.”
“There are things you can do with the dead,” Caoimh suggested.
“No!” Lorcan snapped. “Defile not the dead.”
“What's those words written in the blood?” James asked, pointing to the nails, loosely formed into letters by the door.
“Absit Omen,” Lorcan explained. “Let an omen be absent. This was a motto used by the Order of Nails, a group of gypsy vampire-hunters that formed in the absence of the blood wardens.”
“What does it mean?”
“It is designed to ward off evil, to ask the Divine—” He stopped to scowl, then regained his composure. “To ask that an event does not turn into a bad omen of more evil to come.”
“What it means here,” Rua said, “is that the O'Neills are making every effort to hide their footprints. They will claim that it was the Order of Nails that attacked.”
“So, what's the plan?” James asked.
It was odd to think it, but he felt more on their side than before. That was the beauty of a common enemy. The O'Neills had hoped to stop him before he got started, but now that he had seen the threat they posed, a part of him—that vampire-hunting part—wanted vengeance. If anything, they had jump-started the process for him.
“They wanted to kill you before you realised your power,” Rua told him. “They failed in this attempt, but it is unlikely to be their last. The only way to truly defeat them is for you to become the blood warden you were meant to be.”
17
Gargoyles
Given the recent events, Rua was in a bad mood. She said she needed to get out of the castle for a bit, “for a breath of fresh air,” and directed James to wait outside. It was funny that she didn't expect him to run now. She knew he was just as much in their protection as they claimed to be in his.
While standing outside, he heard the trio of vampires shouting back and forth. It seemed they disagreed strongly on how to proceed. Ru
a and Lorcan fought the most. For the so-called “perfect marriage” that tradition required, it didn't seem all that perfect.
While he waited, James stared up at the building of Umbra Montis. It was dusk now, but there was still enough light left to highlight its many ancient features. This was the first time he spotted the many gargoyles protruding from the hotel walls, and perched upon its roof. He hadn't really noticed them before in the darkness, but now they were hard to miss. They were all of the same grey stone, with garish faces and fangs bared. Some had wings, and many had claws. All of them had eyes that followed you, and gave you the impression that even if you left the area, they'd follow you still.
“I thought gargoyles were supposed to scare away the demons,” James said, when Rua eventually came out alone. By now, the dusk had deepened, but still she lingered in the shadows of the doorway, waiting for the veil of night.
Rua forced a smile. “Not us,” she replied. “There are worse things than us in this world, James, and worse still in others. If humans fear vampires, what do vampires fear? What feeds on us?”
“And these protect you?”
“These, and other things. We are at our most vulnerable when we rest, and that is when the dead-eaters would strike, if we did not take precautions.”
“You know, you're giving me a lot of information about your weaknesses.”
Suddenly she seized him by the throat with her knife-like nails and forced him against the old brickwork. It happened so quickly he barely saw it. He felt it just fine.
“I know yours,” she said. “It's called being human.”
She let him drop, and he coughed and clutched his neck.
“Some say that's a strength,” he replied.
She humphed. “Only humans say that.”
He stood up and followed her into the car. “So, what else protects you?”
This time it was a real smile, and a sensual one. “In time … you.”
18
Dinner
Caoimh was the driver once again, but this time James was not alone in the back. Rua sat beside him, one pale leg crossed over the other. Her dress parted almost at the hip, and she sat as poised in the vehicle as she did on her throne, though she didn't wear her crown out here.
It seemed that the vampire queen was lost in thought. She stared out the window, though it was tinted almost completely black. She also moved her fingers through the air as if she was tapping against some invisible table. James could only imagine that it must have been a struggle to resist the provocations of the O'Neill family.
James found himself wandering in his own mind, wondering how he had ended up here. Some of the things his grandmother had told him before now made more sense. She wasn't, as he initially assumed, senile. She had seen and experienced the hidden world, a world which wouldn't remain in hiding for James any longer. He wanted to get away from his dull life. The problem with excitement is that, in this case, it was dangerous.
The car halted outside a restaurant in the City Centre, dubbed Night Bites in neon lights. It looked a bit like an American diner, but something told James that the guests were a little different.
Caoimh opened the door for Rua. He might have been her younger brother (if that really mattered in the endless lives of vampires), but he still treated her like a queen. Maybe it was the Irish in them, or the demon, but those families seemed to look out for each other more than most. Yet maybe it was the uniting effect of another family they could call an enemy.
When Rua rocked her hips up to the entrance of the restaurant, it seemed that everyone inside it noticed. She had a presence that radiated all around her. A flurry of figures came to the front door, holding it open, curtseying to her as she passed.
James followed, but the figures didn't bow to him. They crowded around him, blocking his path. One of them, with tattoos running up his neck, bared his fangs.
“Yo, what blood type is you?” he asked.
“Eh. A.”
“Damn. I'm A-intolerant.”
“You're what?”
“Ain't got no tolerance for Type A. Didn't I just say that?”
James raised an eyebrow. “What, gives you gas?”
There was a chorus of laughs, and “oohs” and “aahs.” These seemed like lowlife gang vampires, unbecoming of the likes of Rua. They didn't radiate the same presence, and they seemed to be making a special effort to be intimidating. The Five Families didn't have to.
“You ever hear a dead guy break wind?” the vampire asked.
“At a morgue once—”
“It ain't pretty, let me tell you that!”
“Boys,” Rua interjected, strolling between them like a latin dance. “He's not for eating.”
They looked James up and down, clearly wondering what was so special. They never argued with her though, and he was let pass.
“I feel like the turkey that got pardoned,” he said.
“Well,” she replied. “It isn't Christmas yet.”
“Fattening me up?”
She glanced at his chiselled cheeks. “Maybe.”
She brought him to a table in the corner, in the shadows. A waiter immediately came over with what an average person might assume was red wine, but James thought it must be blood. Rua gulped it down like an alcoholic.
“It's not the same,” she said.
“As what?”
“As drinking straight from the tap.”
James almost felt the veins in his neck bulge conspicuously. He adjusted his collar a little, accidentally unearthing the tiny crucifix the airport Garda had given him. Rua's eyes caught sight of it, and she recoiled and snarled at him, holding up a claw to her face, as if she was warding off some evil—or some good.
“Don't wear that thing around me,” she barked.
“Sorry, but I don't feel safe without it.”
Her glare was penetrating. “You're not safe with it either.”
“If it's all the same, I think I'll keep wearing it.”
Then her eyes seemed to change, and he felt suddenly paralysed. He had the sensation of falling, except it was like falling forward, straight into the pupils of her eyes, and then drowning there, as if they were an ocean. He heard her speak, but couldn't quite make out the words.
And then he snapped out of it, and found he was wasn't wearing the necklace any more, that he was handing it over to her. She took the little cross between her fingers, which smoked at the touch, and snapped the thing in two.
“I guess you can have it,” he said.
“You'll need to learn to resist,” she told him. She dropped the two halves of the cross onto the tray of a passing waiter, who almost stumbled when he saw them.
“Maybe you're hard to resist,” James replied with a grin.
“But you are not. Your weakness is unattractive.”
“Boy,” James said. “Talk about rejection.”
“The O'Neills will make short work of you if you do not learn to tap into your power soon.”
“Yeah, see, about that. I kinda still think you've got the wrong guy.”
“Well,” she said. “There's a test for that.”
“A blood test?”
“Of sorts.”
“As long as I don't have to drink any.”
She held up her empty glass, licking a stray droplet from the rim.
“You know not the hunger,” she told him earnestly. “You know not the thirst. It overcomes you. It devours you. Whatever humanity we have left is crushed by it, until only the animal is left. When it needs to feed, it must feed. We are on its leash. Where it goes, we must follow. The hunger drives all and consumes all. It is everything. It is life.”
“Can you not control it?”
“Some have tried, but most have failed. A few became blood hermits, hiding away from humanity, eating what scraps they could get. They claim great strength in their resistance, but they are but a shadow of themselves. They are not worthy of the name vampire.”
“Does no one try to
stop you?” he asked, only to realise that probably should be him. “I mean, the government just lets you kill people?”
“Do they have a choice?” she asked in turn.
“Can they not, you know, wipe you out?”
“Can we not wipe them out?”
“Ah.”
“That is what they fear, and those of us who have been around long enough to remember the Blood Wars know what it is like if the peace of the vampire clans is broken.”
“All hell breaks loose, huh?”
“You could say that. And what peace your kind has will be shattered too.”
19
Ballyboden Bastion
In Ballyboden, not far from Kiltipper, the O'Neills had set up their “forward camp,” from where they could launch their operations. The Kavanaghs had lodged a complaint about this move at the Red Council, labelling it as an intrusion into their jurisdiction, but the O'Neills dismissed the complaint as a Kavanagh excuse to further deride that noble family.
The O'Neills were building a fortress there, not just to house them, but to provoke the Kavanaghs into a fight. To justify their actions, they used an ancient claim to the land at that location, combined with the vampire tradition of staking such land claims with a building worthy of the family name. It was hard to dispute, and few felt the urge to make a war of words, so often the precursor to a real one.
So Ballyboden fell to the O'Neills without a fight, and the O'Neill clan crept ever closer to Umbra Montis, night by night.
After the recent attempt to extricate James from that castle, the O'Neills retreated to their half-built fortress, where the workers were still busy laying bricks. There was anger among the family at their failure to find the blood warden, and talk of retribution by the Kavanaghs, and fear that they had not covered their tracks well enough.
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