Sanctuary (Forsaken Realms Trilogy) (6 page)

And what if there were? It wasn't like they could band together and rise up against the Clans.

Still, something had to be done.  And so here he sat.

He thought back to when he had first met Natalia.  She had taken him in and made him a part of her family instantly.  He owed her so very much. Though he had only been gone a couple of weeks, he missed his family fiercely. 

Markus turned his head and opened his mouth. The boat had begun to slow down, almost imperceptively which probably meant that it was nearly time to go.

Luckily dawn was several hours off and Markus would have plenty of time to find shelter in the sewers of London.

---

Brenden was wandering through the sewers of Kansas City on his way towards the West Coast.

His plan was to make his way towards California and then up the coast to Seattle and eventually into Vancouver before swinging back east through the rest of Canada.

The thought of going to California unsettled Brenden simply because it was known as the 'sunshine state'. 

Intellectually he knew that there wasn't any more sunshine there than there was anywhere else, but the idea still bothered him a little.

He didn't expect to find anything at all here in nowhere Kansas. The sewers weren't even all that extensive compared to the hundreds of miles worth of sewers found in most major cities.

But still, he needed a place to hang out during the daytime anyway, so he might as well use the time he had here...just in case.

Brenden had been unhappy for the better part of a century.   Sitting around doing nothing was simply not in his nature, and neither was admitting defeat.

During the culling he had been away from home, traveling, and had missed the fight. The thought burned him still to this day.   If only he had been there! 

In reality, if Brenden had been there during the culling, he would almost certainly be dead today.  That thought never crossed his mind though.  No, he would have done something to save his friends and family, he told himself.

Everyone considered Brenden a hothead, and he supposed that he was.  But what was the point of having the powers of a vampire and not using them?  Why slink in the shadows when you could rule openly? 

The thought had always bothered him.

He turned a corner and began to walk down a passageway when suddenly a net collapsed around him, yanked him off his feet, and pulled him to the roof. He began to curse as he dangled upside down from the ceiling of the sewer.

Brenden began to tear through the net with his long razor sharp teeth when suddenly he felt the sting of a dart enter into the side of his neck.

The world began to swoon before his eyes and in moments Brenden was out cold.

From an alcove in the side of the sewer stepped a tall Vampire in a six thousand dollar suit.

She had begun to meet Alexander here secretly several weeks ago, entering the building through a private elevator which opened into the sewers below the building that whisked her directly to this suite.

Alexander sat at a desk across the room shuffling through some papers, totally absorbed in his work.  Though they had been meeting regularly for several weeks, neither of them was completely comfortable with their arrangement yet.

They both agreed that it was impossible to maintain any sort of relationship in public. It would have been foolishly dangerous for both of them.

In the confines of Alexander's apartment suite though, life had taken on a happy balance with each finding something within the other that they both desperately needed.

Natalia stood up from the bed and crossed the room, her pale naked skin shining under the dim lights of the room.

"Are you going to stare at those papers all day or are you going to come back to bed?" asked Natalia.

"Just a few more minutes, I'm beginning to receive distressing news from some of our technology holdings, rumors of some new disruptive gadget about to be released..." intoned Alexander, still completely absorbed in the reports before him "something will need to be done very soon or we may have a problem".

"We as in
we?
" asked Natalia playfully.

"What?" replied Alexander, finally looking up from his papers "No, no sorry my love I meant the Medai. But of course it's nothing to concern yourself with."

"Yes, I'm much too dense to understand business, and a woman nonetheless" began Natalia, her eyes turning flinty in the low light of the room.

"That's not what I meant and you know it" chuckled Alexander as he stood and walked towards Natalia, taking her in his arms "You've certainly ruled your own people well these last centuries, I have no doubt."

Natalia pulled away from him "And what the hell does that mean? I've never mentioned ruling anyone, who are these people you speak of?"

"No? My mistake then." said Alexander, a slight twinkle in his eye, "I assumed there were more of you hiding out in that sewer of yours.  It just makes sense.  After the culling there must have been refugees. Who else would they follow?"

"I'm no leader" shot back Natalia, a little too quickly.

"Don't worry my love" replied Alexander "I wanted to clear the air with you about this. I thought it was time..."

He moved towards a fully stocked bar built into the wall and began to pour a glass of blood into a crystal goblet. "The Forsaken are no threat to me, they haven't been for centuries. Why should I need to destroy the scattered remnants?"

"Why did you need to destroy them to begin with!?" replied Natalia, her voice becoming fierce.

"That was my father" began Alexander, his back to Natalia as he finished pouring, "...it was his war.  Maybe he had a good reason, maybe not. It's irrelevant now."

He continued "After his death I needed to finish the job though. It was the only way to unify the Clans.  Ending the war before it was finished would have been seen as weakness by the rest of the Council. They would have devoured me before I had a chance to consolidate my power. But now...?"

"What are you saying?" replied Natalia, some of the defiance slipping from her voice.

"I'm not saying anything..." answered Alexander, turning from the bar and walking towards her, a glass of blood in hand "if the Forsaken resurface I'll have to destroy them to save face, but I'm not actively hunting them.  And a time may come when I totally control the Council, when that time comes and my power is absolute..."

"I understand" said Natalia "it's the world we live in".

"It's the world we live in" replied Alexander "But maybe someday we can change the world..."

It felt like decades had passed since he had last heard that voice, but he was sure that he'd heard it this time, that it wasn't just in his head.  In the very dim distance he saw a speck of light. 

Slowly the speck began to grow.  After several hours it was the size of a golf ball.   Tym settled in to wait. Anything was better than the constant falling that had become his world.

He wondered how his family were doing back in the sewers. He wondered how long he'd been asleep.  Hours? Days? It felt like years at the least though he knew time had little meaning here.  And oddly enough, he hadn't become hungry at all since his journey began.

Still, the light ahead suggested that events were drawing to a close.  He couldn't wait to see what would happen next...

For what seemed like the last few days, Tym had been trying to remember back to the time before he was a Vampire; and to the time when he had been turned.

Try as he might, he simply couldn't remember and the more he tried, the more the corner of his head began to throb. 

The throbbing bothered him more than the not remembering.  As long as he could remember there had been a small portion of Tym's mind that felt like it was locked away, but it wasn't until he had begun this journey that that small locked away section had begun to take on a physical space in his head.  And now that space throbbed whenever he tried to think too far back. 

It was disconcerting.

To most vampires, their
turning
was the single most defining aspect of their lives.  It determined the sort of vampire they would become, what clan they would be born into, and even what powers they would come to manifest.

Tym wondered if there were others who couldn't remember. He deemed it unlikely.  But still, if he ever got out of this strange place, maybe he should start to look for them if they were out there.

The problem was, the very old vampires were usually the most powerful ones...often rising to preeminence within their clans.  It wasn't like Tym could just stroll up to these powerful beings and ask them if they were crazy.

He would likely be killed before he even had the chance to speak to them.  He was a Forsaken, after all, and Forsaken were generally killed on sight. 

Maybe Natalia could figure out a way to do it. She was very clever after all. 

With that Tym put the thought out of his mind and settled in to wait for the now baseball sized shape to grow closer.

---

Vostrof sat in a plush high backed chair set within the recess of a balcony overlooking the gritty arena below, dark velvet curtains flowed along the walls and a well dressed waiter stood near the wall.

Below him two humans fought to the death inside a dank soil stained wrestling ring.  The crowd in the arena, made up entirely of vampires, cheered loudly as the two humans desperately fought each other.  The winner would live to fight another night while the loser would watch his life dribble out in the ring.

Vostrof turned his head and motioned for Nikolai to move forward.

"Tell me Nikolai, have we made any progress with our infiltrations yet?"

"Not yet sire," answered Nikolai "but I've hand picked the specific agents we'll use and created viable background stories for each of them.  With your permission I'd like to begin actual infiltration tonight."

"Excellent; proceed Nikolai." intoned Vostrof, "Tell me, how will you begin?"

"I thought it best to move slowly sire," Nikolai answered "our sources suggest that the enclaves do not have contact with one another, but even so - I don't think it wise to attempt to infiltrate all enclaves at once.  We will attempt the largest enclave first and move from there as quickly and as prudently as possible, gathering intel as we proceed".

"Very good Nikolai" commanded Vostrof, "very good indeed."

The crowd surged to its feet as one of the human fighters dealt a crippling blow to his opponent.  It was only a matter of moments before the fighter would be dead.

Yes, thought Vostrof, soon his agents would infiltrate the enclaves of the remaining Forsaken and he would soon come to control them all.

But that was only the beginning...

Pulling is mind back to the present Vostrof continued "tell me about this human, the new one...Grey?  He's causing us considerable difficulty with this new technology of his."