The Children of the Sun (38 page)

When at last he finished and gave her permission to speak, Vanessa could think of absolutely nothing to say. She had no words with which to respond to what Charles had told her, and she was not sure she ever would. She sat unable, it seemed, even to form a coherent thought.

Charles reached out with his good right hand, and wrapped it around hers, and squeezed tightly. Vanessa looked down at it with incredulity and then back up at him. These things he had told her … she didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

And so, for a time, she did both.

Chapter 17
The Plan

They chose to meet for what they knew might be the final gathering of the American council of vampires not in Naomi’s apartment, but in the bar Rhes managed in the East Village. Two cleared it with him first, promising there would be no drama and that they would leave the waitress an exorbitant tip. Rhes, for his part, had been fine with the idea and promised to reserve a table for them.

They chose the location in no small part because it was the very last place in which anyone would think such a meeting would be held. It would also be loud, and virtually certain not to be bugged, thus eliminating the possibility of eavesdropping. Naomi’s apartment was likely safe as well, but Two and Theroen had insisted that she had done enough already.

Rhes was not there when they arrived, having already put in a full shift and gone home to Sarah, Molly, and the new baby. He had told Two to expect this, and while she understood that he was needed at home, Two wished desperately that she could have seen her friend; in times like these, she missed Rhes’s kind and caring nature so much that it was almost a physical ache. Still, she was glad that he was not involved, and glad that Sarah, and Molly, and Nathan were safe.

Two, Theroen, and Naomi were greeted instead by a pretty Asian girl with black hair that reached almost to the small of her back. She led the trio toward a table in the back.

“Wow, this place is nice,” Two said as they were sitting down, and the girl smiled at them.

“Thanks! We’ve got forty-six beers on tap, more than a hundred bottles, and a kickass wine list. There’s a cocktail menu, too, and the kitchen’s still open for another hour.”

“I believe we will be sticking to drinks,” Theroen said, thanking her as she handed him a beer list.

“Sure thing. Rhes told me to tell you that we have a bottle of 2002, uh … God, sorry, I’m going to mangle this … Boozy-joar? It’s not on the list but he said it’s good.”

“
Château Beauséjour
,” Naomi said. “It’s a Bordeaux and it’s exquisite. Please do bring the bottle.”

“Awesome! Three glasses?”

“I’m probably going for a beer,” Two said. “I need another minute though.”

“You might as well bring extra glasses anyway,” Naomi said. “We have others coming who might be interested.”

“No problem. I’ll go get the wine. My name’s Amy and I’m around all night – just wave or shout!”

She left, and Two glanced again around the bar. She had spent many hours in Sid’s, the Brooklyn pub at which Rhes had worked for many years, but hadn’t yet been to this new bar he’d helped open. The décor and furniture were modern, focusing on dark wood and copper. The lighting was low, and there was a good amount of crowd noise in addition to the ambient electronica being piped in through speakers. This suited the vampires’ interests very well.

Naomi was looking at her phone. “Sasha says she’ll be here in ten minutes. She’s picking up Leonore.”

“See? I told you they were starting to get along,” Two said.

“Yes, I’m sure it will be a love story for the ages,” Naomi said, her voice dry. She slid the phone back into her purse.

Two saw Lewis, the Burilgi councilor, making his way through the crowd, and she waved to him. He smiled and headed for their table, shaking everyone’s hands and sitting down across from Two, next to Naomi.

“It’s good to see you all,” he said. “That first night … I wasn’t sure how many of you made it out.”

“It’s very good to see you as well, Lewis,” Naomi said. “How are your wounds?”

“Oh, they’re all set. Couple of scabs, now.”

“Very good.”

Lewis glanced around, grinning. “I don’t think I’ve been in a bar since the ‘70s. I can’t drink and Richard kept asking me what the point was of going, and eventually I realized he was right.”

“We were sorry to hear about Richard,” Naomi said, and Lewis nodded.

“Best friend I ever had, and I’ll miss the guy for as many years as I have left. You know that’s why I’m here, Naomi. We have to finish this.”

“That seems to be the consensus,” Theroen said. “Our goal tonight is to put together the actual strategy for doing so.”

Amy returned with the wine and opened it for Naomi, who tasted it, smiled broadly, and nodded. Amy poured full glasses for Naomi and Theroen, and Two ordered a stout. Lewis declined a beverage, and Amy left again.

“You have no idea how much I envy you that beer,” Lewis told Two, and she laughed.

“I haven’t had one in months.”

“That’s nothing,” Lewis replied, grinning. “The last beer I had was in Innsbruck, back in 1945. Got bitten five days after that.”

“Here come the others,” Theroen said, gesturing toward the front of the building. Two saw that Sasha had retrieved a spare prosthetic and was thus in possession of two arms again. The Ay’Araf woman sat down on Naomi’s other side, and Leonore sat on Two’s left. The group exchanged light pleasantries for a time. Sasha ordered a vodka martini and Leonore settled for water. When all of the drinks had arrived, Two took the initiative and began the discussion.

“All right, look – we’re operating with a really limited window here. The Children are back home in their base healing up, probably getting ready to go after the rest of us. Now’s the time to attack, but we have to do it without them realizing it’s happening and diving underground. Just to make things more difficult, I want a six-hour head start so Theroen and I can get in there and try to talk some sense into Tori.”

“I still think that part of the plan is madness,” Sasha said. She and Two had reached an uneasy truce on the subject of Tori. The Ay’Araf woman would not actively seek Tori out, but neither should Two allow the two of them to come into close proximity.

“You are not alone,” Naomi replied.

“I know none of you think it can work and, no offense, I don’t give a shit. We’re going to try it anyway.”

“At any rate,” Sasha continued, “I have forty-six Ay’Araf who have committed to moving on my signal. That is nearly every one of them in America.”

“Nicely done!” Lewis said, and Sasha turned her eyes down, smiling a little, her cheeks going pink.

“They are furious about Jakob,” she said. “I just gave them something to rally around.”

“Or perhaps they think you’re a capable leader and are willing to follow you,” Naomi suggested. Sasha shrugged.

“Maybe.”

“I’ve got people too,” Lewis said. “My number’s bigger, but I bet Sasha’s group could wipe mine out pretty easily. I might have been exaggerating when I called it an army, but I can mobilize close to three hundred in the next week if you need me to, though some of them …”

His voice trailed off, and the group looked at him, waiting for him to continue. At last he said, “Look, I’ll be honest, some of them don’t like you very much. A few of them actually fought against you, when the whole Aros thing went down. Two, I uh … I’m pretty sure you shot one of them in the shoulder, actually.”

“Super,” Two said. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see me.”

“He’ll be fine. I haven’t even bothered with the ones who are still pissed off at the council. There are a lot of people who’ve been impressed with the way you guys have reached out since everything went down. The only way we’re going to convince the others is to just keep doing it.”

“Assuming we actually survive,” Sasha muttered.

“There’s no point in focusing on that,” Two said. “We know the risks and we’re here anyway. Between Sasha and Lewis, we can drop about three hundred and fifty people on the Children. That’s a hundred more than Kanene estimated their forces at.”

“If we cannot defeat them with those numbers, then we most likely cannot defeat them,” Naomi said. She finished off her glass of wine and refilled it.

“Naomi, might I try that?” Leonore asked. “I have been around long enough now that I can stomach a glass or two without consequence. I rarely get to try wine that has been ordered by people who know what they’re doing.”

Naomi looked surprised, both at the request and at the politeness with which Leonore was speaking. “Of course,” she said, and she poured into one of the extra glasses, handing it to Leonore. The Eresh woman put her nose to the glass and breathed deeply, and a rare smile broke out on her face.

“That is lovely,” she said, and Naomi laughed.

“You can credit Two’s friend, Rhes. It was his suggestion.”

“It was a good choice. Thank you, Naomi.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

There was quiet for a moment at the table, and then Two glanced around at her friends and spoke.

“How are we going to do it? How do we move hundreds of vampires without the Children noticing? That’s crazy, right? I mean, what are we going to do, charter one of those gigantic, two-story planes?”

“That seems unsubtle,” Theroen said.

Two stuck her tongue out at him. “No shit. So how do we do it? There has to be a way.”

“First and foremost, I think everyone sitting at this table needs to be among the last to move,” Sasha said.

“Why?” Two asked, and Sasha turned, raising an eyebrow.

“If they are watching anyone, is it not more likely to be us than a random Burilgi in North Dakota?

“I still think if they were watching, we’d all be dead,” Two replied, but then held up her hands in concession. “You have a point, though.”

Lewis spoke up. “I agree that whatever we do, the council members should only head for Chicago when we’re really ready to get started. We’ll want to stagger our departures, but probably not by more than forty-eight hours.”

“By the time they realize we’ve all left, most of us will already be there,” Two said.

“Yes,” Naomi said. “Coordinating the six of us, however, is not the problem here. We need to handle the three hundred and fifty
other
vampires.”

“The answer seems obvious to me,” Leonore said, a little of the haughty tone they knew so well returning to her voice. The others turned to look at her.

“Please enlighten us,” Naomi said, keeping her voice pleasant, and Sasha made a small noise that Two thought was a laugh. Leonore shot the Ay’Araf woman a brief look of displeasure but chose to continue without comment.

“Waukegan is practically as close to Milwaukee as it is to Chicago, and it is not so far away from Indianapolis or St. Paul, either. I think we should fly our people into all of those airports. The Children will be less likely to notice a few vampires coming in at a time, through many different locations, than if we arrive in O’Hare
en masse
. We can station them at motels along the highways that run through Illinois, which will draw less attention than renting out an entire hotel. When the time comes to strike, the six of us fly in and collect the forces. If we begin at dusk, we can have everyone easily assembled before midnight on the night of our choosing.”

There was silence for a time as everyone digested these suggestions. Two spoke first. “That is a pretty fucking good plan.”

Leonore gave her a cool glance. “Of course it is.”

“Not to rain on the parade, but I can’t land at sunset,” Lewis said. “That would mean traveling during the day, and unlike some of you guys, I can barely survive that.”

“It wouldn’t be pleasant for me, either,” Sasha said.

“We could send the two of you to Milwaukee the night before,” Two said. “That still fits in the forty-eight hour window, and I don’t think the Children are going to call a full evacuation based on a couple of vampires taking a vacation.”

“If we go first, that should work,” Lewis said. “The rest of you can handle the sun, right?”

“That’s correct,” Naomi said. Her voice was far away, and she seemed to be pondering the plan that Leonore had laid out.

“Two and I can operate during the day, but we are hardly at our best,” Theroen said.

“You’re going to have to spend some time under the sun, at least in transit,” Leonore said. “It’s the middle of July.”

“Yeah, we’ll be lucky to have nine hours of darkness,” Two said. “That’s just how it is. Too bad they didn’t attack us in December.”

“I’m sure they chose to attack during the height of summer for that reason,” Naomi said. She was contemplating the last of her glass of wine, still distant.

“Something about this isn’t working for you, is it?” Two asked, and Naomi looked up, as if just becoming aware the others were watching her.

“What? Oh, no, I think it’s an excellent plan. We will have to organize transportation and lodging, and the council will have to cover expenses for those willing to fight, but we can manage that.”