Sanctuary (Forsaken Realms Trilogy) (2 page)

She pulled her mind out of the gutter and began to focus on the task at hand.

---

As the hours ticked by, Natalia became more and more desperate.  She'd come across a few skinny cats, and a few rats...but nothing that would sustain her entire family.

She needed human blood but dared not venture too close to the heart of the city. Time was running out though, so she began to edge closer to the warehouse district. 

It was less likely she'd run into a Council member in such a low rent neighborhood, but she didn't want to take any chances.

She was confident in her ability to defend herself. In fact, she was one of the more skilled fighters alive today. But against a group of five or more she knew her chances would be slim.  Best to keep a low profile and hope that her luck would stay with her.

The sun would be up soon, but she knew of a warehouse nearby with direct access to the sewers where she could make her way back to her family.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught what might have been movement. She began to move towards it, but the scent was all wrong. It wasn't remotely human, nor was it any of the animals one would expect to find in the warehouse district.

Natalia shivered slightly as realization struck.

"Time to go." she thought to herself as she ducked into the warehouse that would lead back to the sewer and the relative safety of her family. 

She'd have to try again the next night. 

In the skies above the warehouse, the first rays of dawn broke majestically across the skyline and moments later a limousine pulled up...

Moments later Alexander sat alone at the head of the massive black marble conference table, slowly strumming his fingers across the surface; lost in thought.

A side door slid open and in walked Gabriel, Alexander's long standing assistant and the closest thing he had to a friend...if anyone in his position could
afford
to have friends.

"That went smoothly." noted Gabriel.

"Too smoothly" shot back Alexander, "With things they way they are in the world right now, the Council should have been much more vocal. What do our eyes and ears within the Clans say?"

"Much as always" clipped Gabriel "the Elders grumble but nothing serious. Business is down, and no one's particularly happy. Why, what's on your mind?"

"I'm not sure yet." murmured Alexander almost to himself.

"Does this have something to do with where you've been the last few nights? It's not like you to go wandering alone." quipped Gabriel "Why won't you tell me what you've been up to?"

Alexander returned a stare that would have turned Gabriel's blood to ice, if he still had any.

"Fine, fine, I won't ask again..." demurred Gabriel "What do you want me to do about the Elders, should I increase surveillance?"

"Do nothing...yet." commanded Alexander as he stood up from the massive conference table and began to walk back to his office. 

As he walked along the polished corridors, his mind wandered back over the Council meeting that had just taken place.  The Elders were too compliant, too agreeable throughout the meeting.  It could only mean that some plot was underway.

That didn't bother Alexander, the Elders lived to plot and scheme. What bothered him was the fact that he'd been unable to uncover a hint or whiff of the plot so far. The Elders weren't usually this subtle.

Before he realized it he was sitting behind the large onyx desk in his luxurious office; deep leather furniture contrasted the flat panel screens covering the far wall showing global business news and stock market quotes non-stop from around the world. 

His mind had wandered back to that scent...

"I said your wife, the Lady Graves, has requested an appointment for early next week. Do you want me to put her off again?" prodded Gabriel.

"What?" said Alexander "...ah, my good wife...no let's see what she's up to. How long has it been since we were last graced by her presence?"

"Must be nigh on a decade now" suggested Gabriel "I'll put her down for Wednesday night - early."

Alexander and Melyndra had been nominally married for over 300 years though they seldom saw each other.  Alexander had married her to cement his control over the Clans and the marriage was merely ceremonial.

Still, he needed to keep her happy. The last thing he needed was to have his grip over the Clans disrupted by a falling out with his wife. Losing the support of her Clan would be problematic, and coupled with some larger plot within the Council; could be deadly. 

It was just the sort of nonsense that an enterprising Elder might choose to take advantage of.

Marriage among the Vampires was vastly different than among humans. Love and emotion never entered into it, except sometimes amongst the Forsaken - but they were considered abnormal by civilized Kindred.

No; marriage was more about alliance and power. Vampires used it to seal treaties and strengthen Houses and Clans within the never ending game of power.

But still, the formalities must be observed so he'd meet with her next week.

Pushing thoughts of his wife, the scheming Clans, and that haunting scent from his mind, Alexander Graves settled in and began to focus on running his sprawling global empire...

Natalia's family had gathered in their main living chamber which was an overly large sewage connection where several branches of waterways met and offered a bit of a great hall like appearance.

News of her previous night's hunting failure had spread and the atmosphere was quickly taking on an air of desperation and anger.

"
Right?
" shot back Markus "There is no
right
...there is only power. And we have none."

"It wasn't always that way..." murmured Tym "...in the beginning we were all equal and the Gods' blessing shone down among one and all.  It was never supposed to be like this..."

"What do you mean?" asked Natalia as several others snickered in the background.

"Huh?" answered Tym.

"You said back in the beginning...what did you mean?" prodded Natalia.

"I don't know what you're talking about" replied Tym with a slightly dazed look in his eyes, "Did I say something?  I...what?". He got up and scurried off.

Natalia let it pass. Lately Tym had been slipping further and further into what could only be described as madness...though Natalia had never heard of a Vampire going mad before. 

She had thought it was just lack of food, but more and more began to fear it might be something worse.

"We just need food. Everything will be better then. I'll go back out tonight and I'll find something. The Council should have left town by then and I'll be able to roam further abroad." announced Natalia.

"No!" bellowed Brenden, "We need something more. We need to fight back. It's been four hundred years. Will we wait another four hundred more before taking back what's ours?"

Natalia rose, "And how do we do that? We can't begin to march against the Medai, we don't even know how many of us are out there, or where. We can barely feed ourselves. It's madness to even consider!"

"We need to organize." suggested Markus "Why don't some of us head out and search for the others.  There's no food here anyway. I've seen humans using the Internet, we can use it to keep in touch and begin to piece our kind back together. It's better than rotting away".

"Maybe" mused Natalia, "let me think on it". Lately she had been coming to the same conclusion but was hesitant to divide their already small numbers.

"What's to think about?" shot back Brenden "Do you want to spend the rest of eternity in this dump?  And who made you King anyway?"

None of her recent family knew Natalia's history. None knew who her father was, but from nearly the beginning they had looked to her as their leader. 

It began when she made a few simple decisions; things like where to find food, when to hide; simple common sense things that came easily to Natalia.  

Over time a natural order had emerged and the others simply followed her lead in everything. There was no formal agreement, just an easy alliance that everyone fell into. 

In the end, Natalia had kept everyone safe and that was all that mattered. But lately the others had grown discontent.

"Do what you want," answered Natalia "I'm going to hunt."

And with that she stalked out of the hall.

Of course Brenden and Markus were right. Something would have to be done eventually. Natalia had known that from the beginning when they had first settled in these sewers. But the longer she delayed, the longer they all stayed alive.

They might not thrive down here in the sewers, but they survived.

She pushed the thought aside and began to hunt.

In the days since the Council meeting Alexander had become obsessed. The scent haunted him relentlessly and he could focus on nothing else.

It should have bothered him. Never in his long life had he cared for anything but power and expanding his control of the Council and the world.

But now his days were spent in a sleepless anticipation and his nights were spent hunting.  He
had
to find that scent, though he didn't understand why.

He knew only that he needed to find that scent, and destroy it. Or more importantly, destroy
him.
  For truly that scent belonged to a powerful Vampire though Alexander didn't yet understand the nature of that power.

Gabriel was becoming more and more suspicious but had yet to openly confront Alexander since the night of the Council meeting.  He covered for him in his absence but was not equipped to truly rule on his own.

Alexander had begun back at the warehouse where he first discovered the scent, and combed the entire city to no avail. Now he simply waited in the same spot.

Waiting came easy to many Vampires - likely because time meant very little to the long-lived; but waiting burned Alexander up inside. Patience was not a trait that the Lord Graves maintained or appreciated.

But still he waited.

The night had grown long and dawn would soon break. In less than an hour Alexander would need to admit failure once again.  He impotently clenched his fist and focused on the warehouse.

Suddenly; a rustle of movement and a hint of the now familiar scent materialized and Alexander moved.

---

Natalia left the sewers to think.  The night after the Council meeting she had caught a meek little human who had sustained her family's immediate hunger.

Then strangely the rats began to appear again, alleviating the food problem for the time being.