The Living Night (Book 1) (5 page)

"We're not going to kill you,” Jagoda said.
“We could have—there was a certain party that wanted us to, and would have paid
well for it—but we’ve chosen another route. Ultimately, this line of action
will be the most rewarding."

"What do you mean?” Ruegger said.

"This is only our first visit to you. Before
we can see you again, though, we've got a grand opening to attend in Europe at the Castle."

"You're working for Roche Sarnova?"

"We never limit our fun to one
possibility,” Jagoda said.

"Is that what destroying Barrow was?"
Danielle said. "
Fun
?"

He smiled, revealing his large and seemingly
malformed teeth. "That was very entertaining—our coming-out party, you
could say. It's been some time since we'd access to that much ... skin. And I
think we did some good work there, too, although I doubt the police photographers
will give it the treatment it deserves." He seemed absorbed in thought for
a moment. “Today we won't kill you. But we will rape you both, oh yes." He
started to advance.

Danielle looked around desperately.

Just then, sounds of alarm issued from the south.

“Seems Ludwig and the rest of the cavalry are on
their way,” Jagoda said, disappointed.

“We’ve accomplished what we intended,” Junger
said, returning.

"Next time, then."

"Next time," Jagoda agreed, and
flicked away his cigarette.

They jumped to all fours, changing from men to the
shape of great wolves in less than a second and running off into the forest
just as the first sounds of rifle fire erupted behind them.

Ruegger dragged himself over toward Danielle,
who felt herself dying. She’d lost too much blood. Cradling her in his lap, he
bent his head to kiss her bloody mouth. She opened her eyes and tried to smile.

Ruegger’s strength gave out, and he toppled
face-first into the snow. After a moment, darkness filled Danielle’s vision,
and she fell back into it, too.

*
    
*
    
*

Ludwig,
rifle gripped smartly, fired off his last shot at the retreating demons, then
turned to the other snipers that lined this brittle ridge of snow.

“Let’s go.”

Covered by more snipers, his crew moved swiftly
down the ridge toward the bloody snow where once-beautiful wolves littered the
scene, and for a second only Ludwig allowed himself to lament their loss, then
he knelt next to Ruegger and examined him. Maleasoel, kneeling over Danielle,
looked at him questioningly.

"Alive, thank God," said Ludwig.
"How's she?"

Maleasoel shook her head. "Bad.”

"Let's get them out of here, sir," he
heard one of the others say. “They could come back.”

Ludwig rose to stare in the direction in which
the Balaklava had vanished. His gaze lingered.
He didn't know when, or how, but he knew beyond question that he'd have hell to
pay. And hell was not forgiving.

*
    
*
    
*

The
first thing Danielle wanted when she woke up was a cigarette. A nice, fat,
hand-rolled one, made out of that wonderful tobacco Ludwig kept. She lay
sprawled in the absurdly large four-poster bed in her room on the top floor of
Ludwig's villa. The view was grand, if only she had the energy to go to the
window to see it. At least she still smelled and felt clean from all the
doctoring and bathing she'd been treated to.

When he heard her request, Ruegger gladly
retrieved the tobacco for her and rolled the cigarette himself. He'd been up
and about not more than an hour after the attack, as his age enhanced his
recuperative abilities, and he'd doted on her constantly.

"Better than cloves," she said softly,
once he lit it for her.

"How do you feel?"

"Great.” She reached for his hand.
"You're cold, baby. Come here."

He obeyed. "We've been out searching for
them—Junger and Jagoda. Unfortunately, the snow's erased what tracks there
were. During the search, though, we came across something else—a mass grave of
shades.”

“Damn.”

“It explains all the disappearances
lately."

"You’re sure it’s the work of the Balaklava?"

"No, that's the worst part. The bodies were
intact and drained of blood, as only a kavasari could do."

"What's a kavasari?"

A dark light settled in his eyes, and when he
answered, his voice was bitter: "A type of immortal that feeds only off of
other shades—a vampire's vampire. They're the strongest race of known immortal,
and they're very rare."

“You’re kidding me. There’s something that can
feed on
us
?” When he nodded, she
said, “Holy shit. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“They’re very rare, and I didn’t want to worry
you.”

There was something in his face as he said it,
though, that made her think there was more to it than that. She decided not to
press him. He would tell her when he wanted to.

"Why would one be hanging around Liberty?” She paused. “Well,
the high concentration of shades here, I guess. A perfect feeding ground. But
you've gotta admit, what with all the other strange things going on here, it
makes you wonder. What did Ludwig say about it?"

"Nothing, really."

"Damn, but he is acting suspicious. What do
you think? You know more about the kavasari than I do."

"They ...” He passed a hand across his
face. “One killed someone I loved very much, a long time ago. But as to their
role in the greater picture, I haven't a clue. Could Junger and Jagoda be
involved with a kavasari? I don’t know."

“The most powerful immortal involved with two of
the second most powerful? God help us.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

She breathed in a long draught of smoke. Softly,
she said, “Who did you lose?”

He looked at her. “I … don’t want to talk about
it.”

She waited a beat, then nodded. "Well, I've
been doing some thinking. Jagoda said something about more than one
possibility, and he said that in connection with the subject of his employment.
I think maybe the Balaklava are working for at
least two employers. Or at least two different people approached them."

"I've had similar thoughts. It seems likely
that one of those employers was the same one who hired Jarvick. But Junger and
Jagoda had something else going, perhaps a deal from this second person, and
it's that that they carried through today, neglecting the contract from the
first one, the one who hired Jarvick. That one wanted us dead and the Balaklava didn't. If that's true, then someone wants us
six feet under and someone wants us ... harassed, or something. Whatever the Balaklava intended to do."

She suppressed a shudder. "Maybe to put
pressure on Ludwig."

"Maybe. That leads back to the question of
the dissidents."

"Not necessarily. Maybe there's more than
one entity that wants to pressure Ludwig. Maybe for different reasons."

"Maybe one wants him to continue leading Liberty and the other
wants him to step down. And both are using the same method—threatening those
Ludwig’s close to."

"It explains why he's been acting so
weird,” she said.

Ruegger lit a cigarette. “The Balaklava
mentioned Roche Sarnova. It’s possible both they and Jarvick were hired by the
Castle.”

“Jarvick didn’t seem as if he was getting paid
enough. The Castle could have paid him whatever he wanted.”

“Unless they
wanted
him to bargain with us instead of kill us.”

“That’s a reach. Anyway, so where does the kavasari
fit in? And what’s with the Scouring? And the War?”

“Well—”

Someone knocked on the door. At Ruegger’s
invitation, one of Ludwig's many servants entered. "Master Ludwig is
having dinner prepared. If you're feeling well enough to attend, he'll expect
you on his private terrace in half an hour."

Danielle smiled. "We'll be there. Count on
it.” When the man had gone, she said, “
Now
we’ll get some damned answers.”

Chapter 4

Francois Mauchlery looked down from the helicopter as it
swept just above the Carpathians past an outcropping of rock. Crevices,
fissures, sheer facades and crumbling ruins dotted the ragged mountains which
rose like rotting fangs from the jawbone of a monster. He knew each rise and
bump by heart, and loved them all.

Keeping one leather-gloved
hand on his black attaché case, Francois smiled. Blackout curtains, drawn
tightly over the compartment's windows, prevented him from peering directly
into the gaping void below, so he watched the sinking sun through the pilot's
eyes; it disappeared and reappeared sporadically between the mountains.

Slowly, the light drained
from the Dark Country as night sank its teeth into the hard Transylvanian hide.
Villagers and gypsies, those that believed, would be retreating to their homes
and cowering behind doors and crucifixes, but some, believers or nonbelievers,
would be corpses in the morning.

Francois lost the sun as it
sank below
Carpathia
. Only then did he raise the
blackout curtains to watch the frozen tumult of twilight. The new dark sent his
hairs on end and a shiver up from the base of his spine.

His companion in the passenger compartment of
the helicopter, Victoria Lisaund, removed her sunglasses, then uncrossed and
recrossed
her legs.

Sitting opposite her, he regarded her in silence
for a moment. She had dark red hair and muddy brown eyes, was wearing a navy
blue suit-dress and long combat boots that emphasized the shapeliness of her
legs. They were nice, and Francois remembered they tasted quite good, too. Full
lips, turned up at the corners, grinned at him.

"First time in Transylvania?" he asked in well-etched English, as
he knew her to be a Brit.

"Of course not,"
she said. "But it
is
my first
visit to the Castle."

He nodded. He'd met her two
days ago in Paris on his way home from the front
lines in London.
She was the representative of a group in Whales that had been forced to flee
the island, and now she was making the journey to the Castle in order to request
aid on their behalf from Roche Sarnova, the Dark Lord, the most powerful
immortal in the East, if not the world.

She leaned forward and
placed a hand on Francois’s knee. He'd been her escort since they had met in France,
and they'd grown close.

"Will
he
help me out?" she said in an
excellent Romanian accent. "If anyone could know, it's you."

Francois ignored her hand. "I
can't answer for him."

She slowly sat back. "Something
wrong, lover?"

“Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t what?”

“Call me lover.”

She sulked, or pretended
to.

That was the thing that
bothered him; she wasn't half as ingenuous as she pretended. Somehow she had
her own secret agenda, but what that was, or how she was going to go about it,
was something she kept guarded, even pretending at its nonexistence.

The helicopter blasted
between twin snow-capped alps, and a rough gust shook the craft rudely. Rocky
outcroppings challenged the skids as the machine cleared the crest of the next
mountain and snow swirled thicker as the ship flew on, ice and wind whipping
madly against the thin walls. Neither moon nor stars could be seen. The dark
heart of the Carpathians loomed ahead, hidden in the spinning night.

"How old are you?"
she asked suddenly.

He paused. Few were brave
enough to ask the question, though he was sure all wondered. He couldn’t tell
if she actually expected him to answer, but he thought courage should be
rewarded.

"I ... to give you
some idea ... was quite old when Caesar wept at the feet of the statue of
Alexander the Great.”

“You’re that old?”

“Older.”

“So Christ has nothing to
do with us? I heard rumors that shades were mixed up with the early Christians
and got damned somehow.”

“Every culture has its
creation myth. We’ve got reams of them.”

“So God had nothing to do
with us?”

“Which god?”

She nodded. "I'm
sorry, Ambassador. You understand, I had to ask. I'm not yet a hundred years
old and I still think about these things."

He softened. "We all
do.”

Silent again, she turned
her face to the bleak nightscape.

"We're approaching my
home," he said.

Using one of his mental
powers, he merged his mind with that of the pilot, making sure the mortal
didn’t crash the helicopter. Francois preferred a shade to pilot these things,
but most of the immortal fliers were in London
or thereabouts, engaged in the war, and the ones that were available couldn’t
fly in the daytime.

In the pilot’s mind,
Francois felt Victoria’s
psychic presence brush up against his own. She, too, kept tabs on the human. Frowning
slightly, he turned to her and saw her brown eyes fixed on him with some awe.

“Such control,” she said, to answer his question.
“What I mean to say—”

He waved her off.

"We've arrived,"
he said.

The helicopter swept past
its last ice-covered summit and plunged down toward an immense stone structure
whose great towers and bulwarks burned with light from within. The castle sat
embedded in the side of the approaching mountain like an iron thorn. Like a
torch blazing on a catacomb wall.

"My God," she
whispered. "It's beautiful …"

Francois smiled as he
watched the looming castle from the eyes of the human pilot. Coldly grandiose,
his home looked. Mysterious in its bed of stone.

They approached it
cautiously. From a distance it really did look like a cluster of sharp iron
thorns embedded in the mountain's side, but as they drew nearer it seemed more
like a flower, the cold battlements rising like deceptively delicate-looking
stems into the freezing, snow-blasted night. Landing wasn't going to be much
fun under these conditions, but a visit to Roche Sarnova always tended to be
dramatic.

Tensely, under partial
mind-control from Francois Mauchlery, the pilot approached a battlement that
doubled as a helipad and landed. The machine rocked back and forth on the icy
surface.

The deafening roar of the
rotors wound down as three figures on the stone platform ran carefully toward
the black helicopter and accepted the emerging couple as the doors were flung
wide and Francois and Victoria stepped down. Wind blasted them without mercy.

"Ambassador
Mauchlery!" shouted a ranking general and member of the Dark Council, the
leader of the welcoming party. "Wonderful to have you back! Welcome
home!"

The Councilman led the way
toward the battlement doorway and out of the freezing snow. The cold didn't
disturb Francois, but he respected the needs of the others.

Inside, he was made to feel
at home (which it was) as he was courteously led to his chamber. He looked
fondly around as he went—the wide crimson drapes, the flinging snow against the
courtyard windows, the warm torchlight along open halls. The comforts of the
modern world too nestled snugly amidst the splendor of the old ways: the
electric elevators, indoor saunas, and cellular phones against the backdrop of
stone and tapestries.

He found himself running
his hands along the familiar walls and smiling to himself as his manservant led
the way.

Finally, they arrived at
his suite, and the servant opened the thick mahogany door and showed the way
in. Francois followed the young one into his room and turned to dismiss him.

Once alone, Francois saw
the cart of champagne in its silver bowl of ice. The accompanying meal could be
smelled from the bedroom. He laid his attaché case on his dresser and followed
the smell down a short hallway into his bedchamber.

Tied in white silk bonds to
his bed, a beautiful young woman struggled on his satin mattress.

The girl couldn't be eighteen,
and her flesh was warm and supple. Her luscious figure, bursting from silk
panties and brassiere, was emphasized even more by her thrashings. Golden hair
fell about her head and over her wide blue eyes. Caucasian, Francois mused;
some length must have gone into fetching her. Her breasts rose and fell quickly
with her frightened gasps. Her long legs squirmed to and fro. Sweat glistened
on her thighs. The smell of life rose from her sweetly and Francois inhaled it
with a sad smile.

His fangs lengthened.

“Ah,” he said. “It’s good
to be home.”

*
    
*
    
*

The dining hall was immense, all mahogany walls and
burning incense. The seemingly endless dining table stretched on forever in the
grand hall. In its life the table had risen heavenward from its soft bed in the
redwood forest of northern California,
but, like everything else in this room, the table had moved beyond mere life. It
was law that nothing mortal should pass into this room, except the food.

Dozens of beautifully bound
mortals wriggled hysterically along the redwood table, their young skins
rubbing delightfully against the dark and polished wood. Several scores of
vampires and other assorted immortals hunched at the table, which had only one
head; the other end was rounded off.

Francois had the guest
position (his usual) at the left hand of the head of the table, which was
vacant. Roche Sarnova would make an entrance when he chose. Then the
festivities would begin.

Mauchlery lifted a large
wine-filled goblet to his lips and drank as his eyes scanned the familiar
faces—many tried to catch his eye, but he pretended not to notice—until he lit
upon Victoria Lisaund, the beautiful representative of the fugitive Whales
faction, who it seemed had been watching him for some time; when his eyes met hers,
she quickly looked away, then slowly back. Coy.

Finally, the host of the
evening appeared, making his way down a lavish staircase which branched off at
the middle to disappear upward in two opposite directions. Dressed in
carefully-embroidered black garments, the host smiled at his guests as he
descended the last stair. Simultaneously, the meals ceased writhing and grew
quiet.

Mauchlery appreciated Roche
Sarnova's understated entrance. No thronging escort, blaring music or
superfluous attire. Not even a crown or cape. Simple and dark and smiling.

All the guests were on
their feet in deference, as if they were the host and Roche Sarnova their
honored guest. His half Anglo, half Egyptian face radiated warmth and
friendship, and—in his characteristically understated way—absolute command.

"Sit, sit," he
beckoned in Romanian, and his guests took their places while he remained
standing. "Thank you all for coming. I know the difficulty of a great
meeting such as this in these chaotic times and appreciate the sacrifices
you've all made to get here. I won't bore you with a speech. I dare say you’ll
hear enough of my voice in the days to come. Now, a warm welcome to a newcomer
to our home, Ms. Victoria Lisaund."

She stood briefly to
scattered applause.

Roche turned elegantly
toward Francois and smiled deeply. "Now with great affection we welcome
home our best friend, Ambassador Mauchlery!"

The Ambassador rose and
grinned as they applauded him, then sat back down.

Roche Sarnova continued. "I've
met with many of you today and will continue the meetings throughout the week—business
unfortunately taking precedence over pleasure when our brothers and sisters are
dying on the front lines. For now, let us enjoy each other without the stresses
of war intruding and enjoy the life of these beautiful mortals." He smiled
at his company and lifted a crystal glass of red wine in the air. "To the
night!" he cried and drank deeply.

"To the night,"
Francois muttered and did the same.

Later, while Sarnova and
Francois were trying to converse between the host's many visitors and between
Roche's sips from the gypsy-girl's big toe (he was trying to make her last),
Sarnova said, smiling, "So you and the dear Ms. Lisaund know each other
well?"

“I took her on the scenic
route from Paris.”

The Dark Lord convulsed
with laughter. “I’m glad someone’s having fun these days.”

Francois made a face. “There’s
something ... not quite right ... about her.”

“What race is she?”

“A Finnish werewolf.”

“Finnish, really. I always
did like the Finland
girls.”

“Roche ...”

“I know, I know. Did I ever
tell you that you take things too seriously?”

Francois pretended to count
on his fingers.

“Just enjoy her,” said the
Dark Lord. “These may be the last days of my empire and do you see me
complaining? No, you do not. Why? Because—”

“You live in the moment,
right.”

Sarnova grinned. “Have you
heard any news not related to the war, something to take my mind off it?”