On a Darkling Plain (5 page)

“You got it,” she said. A pickup truck, its radio blaring a satanic anthem by Cannibal Corpse, its cargo bay full of whooping teenage boys waving beer bottles, hurtled down the street separating the beach and the bars.

“Not entirely,” Dan said dryly. “What made you think I might be involved? You know I’ve been living quietly in this town for years now, hunting about as discreetly as anybody else.”

“But there’s something different about you,” she said contemptuously, “something cold and nasty. People say you’re crazy, maybe crazy enough to unmask us to the kine without caring that you’re jeopardizing your own safety as well.”

Dan had heard this kind of disparagement of his character, or at any rate his demeanor, before, but had never had any idea what the Kindred who offered it were talking about. Probably nothing real. Generally speaking, vampires were no less self-righteous and self-deluded than humans, and perhaps it was only to be expected that they rationalized their snobbery by convincing themselves that he was some sort of freak. “Well, whatever you think of me, my mother loved me,” he said ironically. “And you’re barking up the wrong tree, so why don’t we break this off. I don’t want to delay your little manhunt.” He began to turn away.

“Hold it!” she barked.

Sighing, he pivoted back to face her. “What now?” he demanded.

“You admitted that no one can vouch for your whereabouts at the time of the killings,” she said.

“And you,” he replied, “have pretty much admitted that you don’t have a shred of evidence to implicate me. You just suspect me because I’m not one of your sissy prince’s snotty little bunch of ass-kissers.”

To his surprise, she snarled like an angry dog, her lengthening fangs gleaming even in the darkness. His intuition told him that, for some reason, his slighting reference to her leader had really gotten under her skin. “I don’t need evidence,” she said, articulating the words with difficulty.
“All
Kindred in a prince’s domain exist there at his sufferance and are subject to his commands. And in his name, I
order
you to accompany me to his haven for further questioning. Maybe I can’t tell if you’re telling the truth, but the psychics will be able to.”

For the first time since sighting the other vampire, Dan felt a pang of genuine anxiety. If his would-be captor actually meant to drag him off to the vampire equivalent of the slam, this nonsensical situation was more serious than he’d thought. Granted the prince and many of his followers were Toreador, a clan widely considered to have a softer disposition than the others, but Dan was still unwilling to trust them to treat him with justice or compassion.
Every
vampire, even the most seemingly human, occasionally fell under the sway of the Beast lurking inside.

Indeed, Dan felt his own Beast awakening even now, roused by the female vampire’s obdurate hostility. His own fangs lengthened, indenting his lower lip. His fists closed and his knees flexed to hurl him at his captor.

He’d hoped to take her by surprise, but she sensed his hostile intentions. Her revolver blazed, and searing pain stabbed into his gut.

Grunting, he lunged at her and threw a punch at her jaw. She hopped frantically backward, and the blow missed. Her gun barked, sending its next bullet into his right forearm, shattering the bone. The limb flopped down to dangle uselessly at his side.

Focusing beyond the agony of his wounds, Dan sprang at the female vampire again. This time she shot him in the forehead.

The head wound didn’t inflict any more pain, but he instantly acquired double vision and his body began to shake. Hoping that neither problem would ruin his aim, he pivoted, lashing out with a low roundhouse kick. His foot crunched into her knee, snapping bone, tearing her leg out from underneath her. She fell on her back and he dove down at her.

Her revolver fired once more while he was in flight. It seemed impossible that the shot could miss at point-blank range, but he didn’t feel it hit him. Perhaps his other pains masked the shock of impact.

He slammed down on top of her and, using his uninjured arm, grabbed the wrist of her shooting hand, squeezing and wrenching, trying to make her drop the gun. She clawed and snapped at him like a rabid animal. Thrashing, locked together, they rolled across the ground, his blood staining the pale sand black.

He felt the bones in her wrist begin to give. He gave her arm a final violent jerk and they shattered. A jagged splinter of bone lanced through her skin and scraped the palm of his hand. She cried out, her fingers spasmed, and the revolver tumbled out of her grip.

The fury in her face gave way to astonishment, as if she were amazed that, even with a bullet in his head, he was stronger than she was. Abruptly releasing her broken wrist, he began to batter her face.

The female vampire jerked both arms, injured and sound, up in front of her features, trying to deflect his hammering fist, but her efforts were to no avail. His blows smashed through her guard as if her limbs were made of paper, flattening her nose, snapping her fangs and pounding her skull out of shape. Finally she shuddered like a mortal in her death throes and passed out.

Still trembling himself, Dan crouched over her. The thirst he’d been experiencing even before she had accosted him burned like a bonfire in his throat, intensified by both his anger and the massive blood loss from his system. He wanted to sink his fangs into the unconscious vampire’s throat more than he’d ever yearned for food, drink, or sex when he still breathed.

But, much as he generally tried to pretend to himself that he was inured to his lonely existence, deep down he knew it wasn’t so. He still yearned for the acceptance of his fellow undead. If he began breaking their most sacred laws, he wasn’t likely to win it.

The memories of countless insults and rebuffs rose in his mind, and he wondered who he was kidding. His fellow Kindred would never accept him in any case. For whatever reason, they’d always loathed him, and no doubt they always would. And perhaps it was time to start avenging the mistreatment he’d suffered at their hands.

Making himself move slowly, savoring the moment, he lowered his head toward the female vampire’s throat. A bullet fell out of his breast as his regenerating flesh ejected it. Just as his fangs pricked his victim’s skin, a lovely contralto voice behind him said, “Wait.”

TWO:
THE PROGNOSIS

If I am a great man, then a
good
many of the great men of history are frauds.

—- Bonar Law

By the time he reached the top of the wide oak stairs, Elliott knew there hadn’t been any improvement in Roger’s condition. The Toreador prince’s voice echoed hoarsely through his four-story beachfront Victorian house, ranting threats, accusations of treason, and obscenities. Nevertheless, cringing at the prospect, the younger vampire felt honor-bound to look in on his sire.

Straightening his green silk tie, Elliott paced down the softly lit, luxuriously carpeted hallway. Baroque paintings depicting the world of the undead — macabre masterpieces unknown to the art historians of the mortal world — hung along the walls. For a moment one of the pictures glimpsed from the corner of his eye, a depiction of a pretty young vampire spying on her own funeral, tugged at him in the old familiar way. But even as he turned to gaze at it, his sense of incipient rapture died unborn.

Sighing, he moved on and tapped on the door to Roger’s bedroom. His knock triggered a renewed outburst of his sire’s cursing. Simultaneously, a solemn baritone voice said, “Come in.”

Elliott entered the chamber. Roger lay, not in his ornate canopy bed, but on the hospital gurney his subjects had procured the night he’d fallen ill. Leather restraints bounds his arms and legs to the steel rails to keep him from hurting himself or someone else. Even those hadn’t prevented him from gnawing his lips bloody. The scent of the vitae tinged the air.

Lazio perched miserably on a Queen Anne chair in the corner, looking as if he’d aged ten years. A tall, black, shaven-headed vampire with a square, oversized head and narrow maroon eyes, his skin as dark as it had been in life but with an underlying grayness, stood beside the ailing prince’s resting place. Several gold studs gleamed in his left ear, in striking contrast to his conservative attire. The front of his three-piece pinstriped suit was stained with blood. Roger had probably spat it at him.

Seeing the Kindred, Elliott felt a faint stirring of hope: the man was Lionel Potter, come at last. When mortal, Potter had been a brilliant physician; in the century since his induction into the ranks of the undead, he’d become the closest thing there was to an expert on vampiric physiology and disease. Thanks to his invaluable knowledge, skills and discretion, he’d transcended his humble Caitiff origins to become one of the most respected young Cainites in the Camarilla.

Elliott gave Roger a respectful, affectionate smile. “Good evening,” he said. “How do you feel?”

Roger’s lip curled. “Well, the leader of the rats, come to gloat. If you have a shred of courage or honor, you’ll let me up from here so we can settle our vendetta in a fair fight.”

Elliott’s head swam. For a moment he felt a burst at rage at his sire for impugning his bravery, and yearned to give the older vampire the duel he was demanding. Stepping forward, he reached to unfasten the restraints. Then his mind cleared, and he realized that Roger was using his charismatic powers to manipulate him. Feeling foolish, Elliott lowered his hand, and the prince of Sarasota burst into peals of mocking laughter.

Elliott turned to Potter. “Thank you for coming,” the one-time actor said. “I’m Elliott Sinclair. We met in Paris two years ago.”

“Of course,” the physician said with a cursory smile, “at the party in the Louvre. I remember.”

“How is the prince?” Elliott asked.

Potter frowned. “Let’s talk outside.”

“That’s right, get out of my sight!” Roger raved. “Plot against me behind my back! It doesn’t matter — I’ll get free and kill you all!”

His heart heavy, Elliott escorted Potter out of the room and down the painting-lined corridor far enough that, if they spoke softly, even Roger’s hypersensitive hearing shouldn't be able to eavesdrop on their conversation. Lazio trailed along behind them. Potter stared at the dresser coldly for a moment, as if displeased that the human had followed them unbidden.

“All right,” said Elliott to Potter, “what’s wrong with him?”

“He’s paranoid, agitated, delusional, hostile, assaultive, and has a compulsion to engage in self-mutilatory behavior.” To Elliott’s annoyance, Potter’s sing-song delivery sounded as if he were reading from a psychiatric textbook, not describing a patient about whom he was supposed to be deeply concerned.

“Yes,” the Toreador said, “but
why?”

“I don’t know,” the physician said, frowning. “It’s a pity I couldn’t have seen him closer to the onset of the illness.” “We called you the night he got sick!” Lazio exclaimed. Potter glared at Lazio. For an instant, Elliott was afraid that the vampire physician would strike the human down for what he manifestly considered an insolent outburst. The

Toreador had observed that Caitiff often lorded it over mortal servants in the most arrogant manner imaginable. Perhaps it was the clanless vampires’ way of compensating for feelings of inferiority.

Elliott reflexively lifted his hand to restrain his fellow undead. But Potter seemed to recall that he wasn’t standing in his own home, about to chastise one of his personal flunkies. Some of the fury fading from his eyes, he pivoted pointedly away from Lazio and back toward Elliott. “It’s true what they say,” he remarked. “You Toreador permit your slaves too many liberties.”

“Perhaps that is true of some Toreador,” Elliott said evenly, “but the ones in Sarasota don’t
have
slaves. Lazio here is the prince’s faithful friend, and as such did not, I’m sure, intend any offense to you. He’s just profoundly worried, like the rest of us.” He made his voice steely: “I might observe in passing that I too was disappointed at how long it took you to arrive.”

Potter frowned uneasily. He was prudent enough to understand the danger of offending Elliott, a respected and powerful clan elder. “I came as soon as I could,” the doctor said. “I was treating another gravely ill patient in Venice. Surely you understand, I couldn’t just walk out on him.” “Of course,” said Elliott in a slightly more conciliatory tone. “Now, about the prince. We conjectured that he might have drunk tainted vitae.”

“It’s possible,” Potter admitted. “I won’t know for certain whether there are toxins or disease organisms in his blood until I run a battery of tests. But judging from his physical symptoms, or rather, lack of them, I very much doubt it. Has he been in a fight lately? Has he been bitten by another Kindred, perhaps, or a Lupine?”

Elliott didn’t think so, but he glanced enquiringly at Lazio, who, as Roger’s valet, knew the prince’s movements and activities even better than himself. Wisely reluctant to speak and risk provoking Potter anew, Lazio simply shook

his head.

“No and no,” Elliott said to the physician. “Roger’s subjects all love him, and we don’t even
have
werewolves hereabouts, although I hear there’s a pack in Tampa.” In fact, thanks to Roger’s skill as a ruler and diplomat, Sarasota had been at peace for decades, an oasis of calm in a savage, conspiracy-ridden world.

“Well,” said Potter glumly, “that would seem to rule certain possibilities out. In all candor, you ought to prepare yourselves for the possibility that his condition doesn’t
have
a physiological basis, in which case there will be little I can do.”

Lazio shook his head, mutely denying that what Potter had said could be true.

“I’m not following you,” Elliott said. “When someone is ill, there
must
be a reason for it.”

“But the cause could be psychological,” Potter replied, “or spiritual. You know as well as I do, it’s a traumatic thing to be one of the Kindred. One struggles constantly to hold the Beast in check. Sometimes it slips its reins anyway, and then the vampire must cope with the guilt its subsequent atrocities inspire. And at the same time he must deal with all the negative aspects of immortality. Boredom. Watching everything and everyone you love pass away.”