Page 6

Luc

I was resting in the hotel room, waiting for Tick to get back to me when my senses were alerted to danger approaching. I jumped up from the bed and stood in the room, ready, listening closely. I couldn’t hear anything but I knew trouble was coming.

I thought of the lay of the hotel, what I remembered from checking in. There were two stories and I was on the upper one, in the corner. There were stairs, no elevators. I checked my window, which had a narrow balcony. There was no other way, I had to leave this way even though it was the middle of the day and the sun was fierce. I was slower this time of the day, less agile and not as strong, but I could function.

There was no time to waste.

I opened the window and scanned the street outside but nothing appeared amiss. I didn’t have a moment to wonder if I was overreacting as I could now hear running in the corridor outside my room. The door was about to burst open with an unknown number of men who would be armed.

I swung myself out onto the balcony and leapt across to the neighboring balcony and the one next to that until I had reached the edge of the building. There was a building a few feet down and I jumped out onto the roof and up into a nearby tree. The foliage was dense and I was able to hide myself in there. I could hear voices calling out in agitation from the top floor of the hotel. They were asking how I could get away so quickly, where I had gotten off to. I didn’t have much time to get away. I didn’t like taking to the air in the middle of the day when I could be spotted more easily but I had little choice now. I dropped to the ground and took off as quickly as I could.

As I put some distance between myself and Sunside Swamp, I wondered how I had been found out. I had blanked the clerk who had checked me in that morning and hadn’t noticed anyone else. But someone had seen me and known what I was. This was worrying in itself. The most noticeable feature of our kind was our eyes. They were often said to be hypnotic or magnetic, emitting a powerful energy that made it easy for us to bend others to our will but I had found that as long as I kept my eyes hidden or avoided eye contact, I could often slip undetected through the world. I had a pair of sunglasses on me at all times, just for this.

Of course, there were some who claimed they could smell vampires, that we had a very particular smell. Shifters with wolf personas and some of the other predators could have a keen sense of smell. In humans, it was more instinctual. They had the fear that all prey had, the desire for protection and fleeing.

I slowed down once I was out of the marshes and in the deep forest. Surrounded by trees and shrubs, the light was more dappled here and I felt more comfortable. I checked my phone, which had been beeping, indicating a message.

It was from Tick.

Need to see you asap .

I took that to mean that she didn’t trust the phone lines to give me the information she had. It must be important. I felt a twinge of regret that I would not be able to check in on Ruby before I left. I had hoped to see her again soon.

I quickly typed a message.

Dearest Ruby, how are you? I have been thinking of you.

I waited for a moment to check that the message had been delivered. I thought about her and wished I had a few hours to pop in and see her but Tick’s message meant I had to get back to the Capital. I couldn’t linger here in the badlands anymore.

***

The Capital was situated in the far north. It was a city of glass and steel, almost rebuilt entirely after the catastrophic fallout from the nuclear disaster that nearly wiped out humanity at the turn of the century. The humans had rebuilt, with the help of our community. Vlas’s castle was situated in the mountains on the outskirts of the city, an ancient fortress that had withstood many wars over the centuries. Perched on rocks and overlooking the city, it had become known as Vampire Castle in the local vernacular. It was almost impossible to penetrate the fortress. There were several perimeters with steel reinforced doors manned by guards around the clock. Vlas almost never left the castle and when he did, it was by private helicopter or jet.

I arrived at the castle just before nightfall and took a moment to take in the sight of the city, sparkling with lights and lit up skyways intersecting the sky. Drones, unmanned vehicles and flying cars navigated the spaces between buildings. There couldn’t have been a bigger contrast to the places I had just been to.

I entered the castle on the western side, through a side door that opened to a modern office space. It would be impossible to imagine that this was what it looked like from the outside but this was where Vlas presided over most of our official business, under the trade name VCOM. Tick was situated in a private office on another floor, which was my domain. I found her tapping away furiously at her keyboard. She looked up when she heard me come in, visibly relieved to see me.

“Jesus, could you have taken longer?”

Tick looked like a real hacker, with her punky hair and tattoos. Rings, studs and piercings adorned every part of her skin but I had long ago become used to what she looked like. Tick’s brain was her biggest asset and she knew how to use it better than most.

“What have you got?”

I could see it was big and I felt apprehension at the thought of it.

“Matteo was right,” she said, in a low voice. I pulled up a chair so we were close together and could talk without being overheard. “The shifters are moving against us and, yeah, it’s happened before, but not like this. Look at this,” she said.

She opened files on her computer and talked me through it. Her initial investigation into Tomás Farad and Sunside Swamp had not produced much. There was an increase in revenue but not on the scale that would send out red flags but when she looked into Sunny the Snake, that was when things got interesting.

“Sunny is a nickname. Real name is Sun Li Choo. Not exactly a shifter. Belongs to the genus of Changeling.”

She brought up a picture of a man with fine features and a reptilian glint in his eye.

“Changeling? Haven’t heard of them for a while.”

Changelings, like shifters, were able to take on an animal form, but their nature was essentially human. They used the changed form as an extra skin but still had their human consciousness and intelligence. Unlike shifters, who usually did not know what their animal selves got up to, changelings could decide which form to take and were able to do so whenever they wished. They were masters of control and manipulation.

“He likes to be a snake,” Tick said. “Not just any snake, but a Water Snake. He’s been breeding vast colonies of them.”

She paused, as if to let that sink in.

It took me a moment, then I had it.

“The marshes?”

She nodded. “He is almost impossible to detect as he moves in the water around Sunside Swamp, where there are millions of miles around. He has shifters here, of various aquatic species, and they have been multiplying. Crocodiles, alligators, other snakes.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to get my head around it.

“Look here,” she said, zooming in on a satellite of Sunside Swamp. The marshes and wetlands to the south of the place were vast and remote. She scrolled over them to give me an idea of the size. Then she zoomed in on small dots, maximizing the view until clear images appeared. These were holes in the ground, big enough for animals to slide into.

“What are those?”

She looked at me. “Gates to an underground lair?”

“How many are out there?”

She shrugged.

“Get everyone on this, now! Do heat mapping, send in drones, get me numbers. We need to know if these are juveniles or how many adults we’re dealing with!”

She nodded.

“I have to brief Vlas,” I said, getting up.

“He’s in a foul mood,” Tick warned me. “There are problems with the oil deal, remember? He wants you to sort it out.”

There was too much going on. I didn’t like it. Why were there problems with the oil deal?? It was a simple contract renewal, surely?

I found Vlas on the terrace, overlooking the city.

I reported on the last couple of days and he was in a strange, meditative mood, listening to me without interruption. He appeared tired and distracted and not that worried about the increased shifter activity.

He said, “The shifters have launched several attacks in Yel-al. We have defeated them, but I suspect these were to distract us. I have heard about this Snake. I’d like more information…”

Before I could speak, there was a knock on the door and Harris rushed in.

“Your Highness!” He looked flustered. He barely seemed to register that I was in the room. “Two of our plants in the Harrati sea have been bombed and destroyed! The men working there were killed. Survivors say bombs were dropped from the air. Gas reserves have been damaged, we are gathering estimates.”

“From the air? They have planes?”

Harris shook his head. I had never seen him look so upset before. “Nothing has been confirmed. Shifters have never had access to this kind of technology before. We need more information!”

“My team is on it,” I said.

Vlas looked at me. “We need to close the cities, tighten access and control air space.”

I nodded. “I will convene a war room, alert the council.”

Vlas came closer. “Look into the Harrati business, Luc. It’s important.” His face had an unhealthy pallor but I had no time for this.

I rushed off to organize an emergency meeting of the most influential advisors and counselors. It appeared that we were about to go to war and needed a coordinated response.

This would require all the families to send fighters and resources.

I informed the head of our forces, Captain Curranos, to ready all troops and call on our reserves. When I asked him what our capacity was, I was shocked to hear only a few thousand. We needed more vampires.

We couldn’t simply seize humans and turn them, and they were too volatile anyway when young and we needed experienced soldiers.

I keenly felt the loss of Matteo. He would have known what to do and how to approach this situation. I felt certain that Sunny the Snake was behind Matteo’s murder. He must have discovered their plan to gain power somehow. All of this happened while I was away, stuck on Ice Island, trying to resolve a dispute between warring families.

I called Tick. “I need more information about those tunnels, urgently. We need to destroy them.”

My phone pinged.

But it wasn’t a message from Ruby.

I had sent more messages during the day, but none of them had been read.

I didn’t like that.

Why wasn’t she reading her messages? I thought of her face when she had mentioned this, Danny, character. She didn’t like him, and she was afraid of him. She didn’t want him to find us.

Perhaps I needed to pay him a visit.