Page 155 of Vampire Kings Box Set

“Er. He’s on vacation.”

“I have slept for over a hundred years, but I have not been entirely insensate. I have listened to the whispers and the chattering of the Library. Most of it was tedious and irrelevant. None of it interested me. And then, there was a great disturbance. Not only was there a royal uproar like none I have ever heard since I took to slumber, but there was an infestation of beasts. Old blood. Forces of destiny are beginning to converge here. Do you know what that means?”

“No,” Lorien said, shaking his head vehemently.

Gideon leaned down, his fearfully handsome, ancient features ripe with menace. “It means, call Maddox back from vacation.”

2

“Maddox?”

Will would have known who was on the phone even if he hadn’t been able to hear Lorien’s voice across the room. Lorien had called so many times it was basically as if they were all still at home.

“Yes, Lorien,” Maddox said in a what have you done now sort of tone.

“So. I don’t know where to start. The Library has been destroyed…”

“Don’t call me because the place is messy, Lorien.”

“No. It’s been exploded. And there’s a guy. Not a guy. I don’t know what you’d call him…”

Maddox put his hand over the speaker and mouthed be there shortly to Will, who was watching the conversation unfold while tied to a bed and nursing a massive erection, overlooking out over the Mediterranean sea.

Will glanced at the pretty view, then back at Maddox. He wasn’t really listening to the conversation. More Lorien babble. Nothing for him to worry about. But when he looked back, Maddox was pale. Entirely without color.

“I’ll be there soon,” he was saying. “Lorien, I want you to get as far away as possible. Put Henry on. Good boy.”

Will frowned slightly at hearing Maddox call Lorien a good boy. That wasn't the way he usually spoke to him. Lorien had never been a good boy. Will was the good boy. Or at least, the boy.

“Henry. Yes. I need you to take Lorien and go back to your pack. And then I need you to take your pack and go somewhere as remote as possible. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. You all need to hide. Now. Yes. Go.”

Maddox hung up the phone and came back over to Will, loosening the bonds. “We have to go. Well, I have to go.”

“I’m going with you,” Will said.

“I really don't think that’s a good idea.” Maddox was not talking to Will so much as he was thinking out loud. “Then again, where on Earth would I leave you where you would be safe? Nowhere, I imagine. Not in your condition. Not with your appetites. Not…”

“What’s happened?” Will interrupted Maddox’s all too swift train of thought. He’d never seen Mad this way before. It was a little unnerving.

“Someone has woken up,” Maddox explained. “Actually, not someone, so much as something. Imagine a creature of pure hunger with no conscience or remorse.”

“Oh, Ivan’s awake? I didn't know he was asleep.”

“Not Ivan,” Maddox said. “His name is Gideon.”

“Sounds like a nerd.”

“He’s not a nerd. He’s one of the very few original vampires.”

“OV’s, not OG’s,” Will interrupted again. Maddox gave him a look that very strongly suggested interrupting for a third time would be a spectacularly bad idea on his part.

“He existed before humanity. He saw our kind rise and spread, and he watched us make the world in our own image. Many of his kind resented humans. Some of them bit and turned us into what you know as vampires. This is the short version, mind you, boy. There is not enough time to give a full explanation now. Gideon distinguished himself in two ways. One, most of his kind destroyed themselves in one way or another as the human world became the world, as the truly wild spaces disappeared and were forgotten. Others went to sleep, waiting for a time humanity would be gone. Gideon has been active more than most because he has an unending appetite for war. He has been at the center of every major war since the beginning of human history. His gluttony means he can only be fed and sated by hundreds of dying soldiers. If he is awake again, that means humanity is in danger. All of it.”

“Okay,” Will frowned. “Doesn’t sound great.”

“I need to go back to New York. I need to try to convince him to go back to sleep. I’m going to need to do something I told you I wouldn’t do.”

“What?”