Blood & Rust

by S. A. Swiniarski

  “I don’t think I have to answer that.”

  Nuri stepped forward. “This is a murder investigation, Mr. Van Sweringen. We would appreciate your cooperation.”

  Oris Van Sweringen glared at Nuri, but as he did so, the color drained from his face, and his knuckles whitened where he gripped the desk, but his voice was clear and steady. “I would appreciate it if you would talk to my lawyer.”

  “If—” Stefan began.

  “Would you gentlemen please leave my offices?”

  Nuri looked across at Stefan. Stefan nodded and took a step back. “I’m sorry you don’t want to talk to us, Mr. Van Sweringen.”

  As the two of them backed out, Oris Van Sweringen said quietly after them, “Is this Ness’ doing?” It sounded less like an accusation than a genuinely worried question.

  They didn’t answer him.

  On the way to the elevator, Nuri said, “We’re on to something here.”

  Stefan nodded. At the moment he was thinking less about the connection between Dietrich and Van Sweringen than about his final question about Eliot Ness. There was no way that he should know that the two of them were working directly for Ness. There was no way for him to know that this was nothing other than a normal investigation. Ness wasn’t even publicly involved in the murders, much less Dietrich.

  Either something had leaked—or Oris Van Sweringen had some reason to think that Eliot Ness might be interested in him. As they walked to the elevator, he asked Nuri, “If you were going to keep an eye on Mr. Van Sweringen, where would you camp out?”

  Nuri stopped walking and turned to face him. “What are you thinking?”

  “Maybe Dietrich isn’t the only man Ness has staked out.”

  Nuri looked thoughtful. “I’d want some place in this building. There’s nothing overlooking it. Maybe on this floor, or a floor above or below.” Nuri looked up and down the hallway. “Rented under some sort of front, since Van Sweringen’s company owns this place, doesn’t it?”

  “One of his companies.” Stefan said. “And you’d probably want to tail him as he left.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Stefan walked back toward the elevators. “We’re going to tail Mr. Van Sweringen ourselves and see who turns up.”

  Saturday, the papers all reported the discovery of the body. As the coroner was matching the head with the body, Eliot Ness was working—nominally—on security arrangements for the Republican National Convention.

  At ten-thirty in the morning, Detective Stefan Ryzard, disheveled and sleepless, burst in on the Safety Director and demanded, “What do you think you’re doing with this investigation?”

  Ness looked up from the desk. In contrast to how Stefan looked, he was neat, eyes clear, hair combed back. To Stefan however, he still looked like a college student. “Detective Ryzard?” he said.

  Stefan leaned forward on the desk and said, “Why weren’t we told about the surveillance on Van Sweringen?”

  Ness put down the files he was working on. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the two boys you had attached to him from the Union Terminal all the way back to Hunting Valley.” Stefan glared at Ness. “We’re supposed to be investigating Dietrich and his connection to these murders. Another one shows up yesterday, and I find out now that we’re operating on incomplete information.”

  Ness shook his head. “You have all the information on Dietrich we have.”

  “Do we? Why weren’t we told of the surveillance on Van Sweringen? What has that turned up?”

  Ness leaned back in his chair. “If there is such an operation, you wouldn’t be told for the same reason they couldn’t be told of yours. We’re dealing with powerful people, people who could interfere with the investigation. The less exposure the elements have with each other, the less likely the entire operation will be exposed—”

  Stefan made a disgusted noise and turned around. “We’re policemen, not spies.”

  “Right now you’re both.”

  There was a long pause before Stefan said, “Do you want my badge?”

  From behind him he heard Ness say, “What?”

  Stefan studied a corner of the frosted glass window on the door. It was like peering into a depthless gray fog. He swallowed and said, “If I can’t have all the information on this investigation, I’m resigning.”

  Stefan heard Ness stand. “You can be reassigned.”

  Stefan spun around, looking into Ness’ eyes. The contact gave him uneasy memories of looking into the eyes of the undead thing in the warehouse. But behind Ness’ eyes there was life, and a soul. “You don’t understand. I’ve lived and breathed this investigation for too long. I have a hunk missing from my leg. You gave me the assignment because you said I could be trusted. If I can’t have full information after what I’ve been through, I want no more part of this department.”

  They looked at each other. Ness glanced down at the files on his desk and said, finally, “I don’t want to lose you. Not now.” He glanced up and his eyes were hard. “I take threats as badly as I do bribery. If you had given your ultimatum at any other time, I would have shown you the door myself. Remember that.”

  Stefan wondered what was so special about this particular moment.

  “What do you want?” Ness continued.

  “I want to know why you’re watching Van Sweringen, how long you’ve been watching, and anything substantial you’ve found out.”

  “Sit down,” Ness said, motioning to a chair. When Stefan sat, Ness began, “It started with two events. First, I overheard a conversation between Dietrich and Van Sweringen. Then there was an anonymous phone call I received last December thirteenth. Does that date recall anything to you?”

  At first Stefan tried to connect it with one of the murders, but after a moment it came to him. “That’s when Van Sweringen’s brother died ...”

  “That call began this investigation.” Ness stood up, walked to a filing cabinet and took a key out of his pocket. “That call connected Dietrich to the Andrassy murders, and with the body that washed up on Euclid Beach in September ‘34.” He opened the cabinet and withdrew a thick file. “From what I overheard months earlier, I had a strong immediate suspicion that Oris Van Sweringen made that call. Maybe prompted by the death of his brother.”

  Ness handed the file to Stefan, “That is the accumulated information gathered by the detectives watching Van Sweringen. Take notes, but the file isn’t leaving this room.”

  Stefan nodded.

  “You’re the only one other than myself that knows this.” Ness sat down and looked at Stefan deeply. “If I’m right, if Van Sweringen made that call and his accusations were right, then it has to stay that way or Van Sweringen is in danger.”

  Stefan leafed through the file. “What about this conversation you overheard. What was it about?”

  “It was at a victory party for the Burton campaign—”

  Carlo Pasquale could barely remember his previous life. So much had changed within him that he felt like another person. He no longer even thought of Papa, or his family, or his former job, in anything but the most abstract sense. He was part of the Master now, an extension of the Master’s will, and his body.

  The pain and blood of that conversion was so distant it was no longer even a memory. In the parts of his mind that still moved freely, Carlo thought of himself as a machine wound by the Master. A human machine that would eventually cease being human.

  But Carlo Pasquale still drove.

  This Monday it was a limousine owned by Eric Dietrich, and it stopped at several hotels to receive the Master’s guests. He stopped to pick up half a dozen men, all in Cleveland for the convention. Three were senators, three were congressmen, all held seats on important committees. All were invited to dine with Mr. Dietrich, who had become a very important contributor in the past three years.

  Carlo Pasquale listened to them talk among themselves. They talked about the growing crisis in Europe, about t
he economy at home, about their fears about FDR’s executive power. Carlo was still human, but his thoughts and concerns had drifted so far from humanity that the conversation was little more than an alien language to him.

  He drove the party down Euclid as the sun set. He knew that these six men would have the Master’s blood forced upon them, that they would become as much a human machine as Carlo was. Carlo still had enough of himself left to realize that he should feel some emotion at that fact, but the only thing he felt was a detached sense of irony that the most powerful would be brought to slavery.

  Like Carlo.

  And Carlo Pasquale drove.

  BOOK TWO

  July 1936-February 1937

  THE PHANTOM OF

  KINGSBURY RUN

  1

  Monday, July 20

  I ago stood in one of the darkened exhibition halls of the Great Lakes Exposition. It had taken him a long time to recover from his injuries. Even when he fed three times as much—which meant four or five people if he wished to stay short of killing—it had taken weeks for the burns on his legs to heal.

  Even so, he was lucky.

  He stood in the long echoing hall, alone. He stared at the glass case in front of him. It was unlit, the Exposition was long past closing this evening, but Iago’s sensitive eyes could focus the dim light enough to see by.

  Behind the glass, behind the ghost of his own reflection, was a display that wasn’t part of the planned exhibits. This one was more makeshift. Room for it had been made at the last minute.

  Resting behind the glass was a death-mask, along with a small placard asking if anyone could identify the man. Iago could. In the dark, Raphael’s face hung, almost floating in the darkness behind the glass. His expression was peaceful, almost one of sleep—not the slack inactivity that plagued his kind in the daytime, but a true mortal sleep.

  For Raphael, the long endless hunt was over.

  His head and body had been found by the railroad tracks, like Polillo, Andrassy, and Anacreon....

  Anacreon, and now Raphael. Iago had known two communities, two homes, since he had walked into the night. Melchior had destroyed both of them.

  “What use is a Covenant that only I keep?” Iago whispered, placing his fingers on the glass above Raphael’s face. The glass was cold. Iago felt as if Melchior had torn out a piece of his soul. Anacreon was one thing; he had lost his mentor, his friend, and the master of his circle—but there was still a community out there. His world still had rules, and he still had a place within it.

  Now it seemed as if that had crumbled, leaving him adrift.

  What use is a Covenant that only I keep?

  The thought itself was self-destructive heresy. Simply questioning the Covenant was a dangerous thing to do. It was supposed to protect those of the blood, fashioned at a time of their near-extinction. But if one as powerful as Melchior flouted the Covenant, what point was there to it? Especially if those who were supposed to be first among those of the blood enforced nothing....

  Now Iago suspected that it was beyond enforcement. He had tried to contact members on the Council, but he had not found them. He suspected that those who had not suffered Raphael’s fate had fled.

  Once he had pictured his kind as having a certain dark nobility, a dignity granted by a centuries-old culture. It was a fraud. They were all little more than brute animals, savage and cowardly at the same time.

  What use is a Covenant that only I keep?

  The answer was, no use at all.

  Melchior had to be stopped at any cost, and if Iago stood by and obeyed his own Covenant, he would soon be fighting alone. And there wasn’t any way he could defeat Melchior alone. To someone that ancient, his own blood would betray him. Melchior would sense him long before he was able to do any good.

  “What was your plan, Raphael?” he asked the glass. “What conflagration? What is it that Melchior is not enough of this century to realize?”

  Iago had tried in vain to uncover some evidence of Raphael’s plan, some sign that might tell him. But Raphael had been too smart for that. He had left no evidence that could be uncovered. Nothing had been left behind him. All Iago knew was that it had to do with the location where Melchior had placed his thralls. Somewhere in the Slovak community.

  Once he knew where, he would know how.

  2

  Thursday, July 21

  He called himself Byron. He had been the second most powerful member of the Council that ruled the night in his city. Now he was dressed in rags and bound inside a wooden box. His mind reeled with the hunger. He hadn’t fed in days. The only sensation he had, aside from the hunger, was a rhythmic rattling sensation, and the maddening smell of blood.

  He had tried to escape what was happening. He and his circle had abandoned Cleveland when he saw that the power games he had fallen into with Lucian were wildly unbalanced. The Council might have been moved to act with the death of Raphael, but Byron had known it was already too late.

  He had made it all the way to Chicago, and had begun talking to others of the blood, trying to find someone with the power or inclination to intervene. But before he had gotten anywhere, he had been taken.

  Through the darkness he heard a screech of metal, and the rattling rhythm stopped. It had happened before, and like the prior times, the sudden change in his environment cut through the haze of his hunger, and he began fighting his imprisonment.

  The aching lack inside him had yet to eat away all of his strength, or all of his mind. In his manic kicking and pulling, he focused his mind upon the smell of blood outside. His feet slammed the inside walls of the box containing him, his hands struggled with his bonds.

  This time, after days of motion and stillness, dazed hunger and manic rage, something gave. His foot broke through one of the sides of the crate. The smell of blood was intense now, overwhelming. He scrambled for the hole like a madman. The force of the smell gave him the strength to break his bonds and push apart the crate around the hole his foot had made.

  Driving him was a hunger frozen deep in the core of his body, a void inside him that could only be filled by the essence of the living. The drive was primal, and almost absolute. It was powerful enough for him to take two steps away from the crate that had been his prison before he realized exactly what he saw.

  He stood inside a long rectangular chamber. The wooden walls had gaps between the boards that allowed moonlight to slice the interior into strips of narrow light alternating with wide bands of darkness. The smell of blood was rank within the car, as was the smell of overripe meat. Outside was the sound of chirping insects, but in here was only the buzz of flies.

  Near his feet was a head, severed from its body. Moonlight slashed across it, revealing an eye and a swath of skin that had already begun to discolor. A fly walked across its cheek as Byron watched. He knew the face.

  It had been one of his circle, one of the trusted ones he had taken to Chicago with him. He raised his eyes, and, for once, the hunger was forgotten.

  They were everywhere, the bodies of his chosen. A dozen souls who had pledged fealty to him lay in this car, mutilated, their essence staining the straw bedding their corpses sprawled upon. Heads, their staring eyes accusing him.

  Fear had completely replaced hunger.

  There were giant sliding doors on either side of him. He dove to the right and began pulling madly at the latch. The door had been secured from the outside, but that hardly mattered to him. He pulled, and eventually the latch snapped. He spilled out over the moonlit railroad tracks.

  Byron pushed himself upright and moved with a terror that he had not felt for over a century, not since he was human. He stumbled, running, through the weeds by the tracks. He had no idea where he was; all he wanted was to get away from the massacre behind him.

  He had not gotten far before he heard a voice say, “Do you think you can escape me so easily?” It was as much in his head as in his ears. He knew then, felt in his core, that it was the ancient Melchior br
inging this evil.

  Byron spun around to find the source of the voice. Melchior was not that simply found. He saw the tracks, the woods bordering them, and a motionless boxcar, alone on a siding.

  Byron screamed at the sky, “Why?”

  “You are weak,” came the shuddering reply. It slammed into his brain like a hot iron, dropping him to his knees.

  “You hide from yourselves and the cattle that should serve us.”

  Byron looked around wildly, but his gaze could not find the speaker. The area felt abandoned, far from any artificial lights. The long grass rustled around him as he tried to gather his courage in the face of the thing threatening him. He spoke, his words sounded small and hollow on the wind.

  “We follow the Covenant.”

  “Empty words.” The voice slammed into his head. “You knew me, what I did. If you loved those chains of the Covenant so much, you would have moved against me. But you did nothing, and when that no longer served you, you tried to flee.” A shadow moved in the long grass in front of Byron. “Your kind disgusts me. A member of my proud race, nothing more than a scared animal.”

  Byron tried to stand, to move, but his body was still locked in the grip of his fear. That and the force of the being talking to him held him fast to the spot. As he tried to move, the shadow before him unfolded itself, became a dark figure emerging from the grass.

  Facing him was Melchior, the ancient one. The first vampire ever to be punished under the Covenant, his corpse supposedly reduced to ashes. “What do you want?” he whispered.

  - The shadow stepped closer, parts of it resolving into pale skin and hair. “I want to take back everything that was lost to us with that blasphemous Covenant. I want us to rule again. I want the heads of my enemies on pikes in front of my palace. I want the cattle to worship my name.”

  Melchior reached out and touched him. Byron felt the touch like a brand that seared his flesh down to the bone, bone that felt frozen. “You were to be honored, like the others. Their blood fed my power, my service. Their essence will be part of my reign.” Melchior shook his head slowly as he looked down at Byron. Byron could feel a wave of emotion that was too much like pity. “Not now. Your coward’s blood will soak useless into the ground.”