The Vampire's Betrayal (14 page)

I started by reviewing what had taken place in London. Gerard and Lucius expressed shock and remorse over what happened with Eleanor. They all peppered me with questions, particularly about the gathering of the vampire council of old lords.

“Olivia,” I said, addressing the speakerphone, “have Alger’s scrolls and tablets turned up additional information on the Council and what they may be about?”

“No. When our coven house burned down, it was a tremendous setback. We had to reorganize all the material and check it against the inventory we had made.”

“How much was lost?” I asked.

“We were able to save almost all of it, but the parchments suffered smoke and water damage and they will take some time to restore.”

“I know that several of your vampires risked their lives to save the documents, so you must be confident that they will yield valuable information,” I said.

“Yes, once we get them translated. So I don’t have anything new to report from the texts, but I do have some news from our spies,” Olivia said. I thought that her voice sounded uncharacteristically small. Olivia was a strong woman, never afraid to express herself. I chalked up her tentative speech to the long-distance connection.

“Good,” I said. “We’ll hear your report presently.” I went on to describe what we learned from Otis and what Seth sensed with his animalistic instincts.

“Are you sure you’re not putting too much store in anecdotal evidence?” Gerard, ever the scientist, asked.

“The shape shifters in New York are nervous as well,” Lucius said, and I could hear the controlled alarm in his voice. “And they don’t know why.”

Jack rubbed the back of his head as if the preponderance of bad news was giving him a headache. “Jerry and Rufus feel it, too,” he said.

After a few minutes of discussion, I said, “Before we call on Olivia for her report, I want to return to one of the biggest issues we face. It’s something I learned from Ulrich and Diana when I was in the United Kingdom.”

My gaze came to rest on Jack. He knew what I was about to reveal and that I had no choice. I had expected defiance, but his eyes held only misery. My bleak narrative was about to get even bleaker.

“The vampire slayer prophesied by the lore and legend of many cultures is in our midst. But rest assured that Jack and I have things under control where the Slayer is concerned.”

There was a hubbub of voices, originating both in the room and over the speakerphone, as this dire news sank in.

“Just as you had your son, Will, under control?” Iban asked, only the fire in his dark eyes betraying emotion.

Despite our friendship, I knew he still harbored resentment over the fact that my human son, Will, had murdered Iban’s best friend, Sullivan. An evil vampire named Hugo had made Will and my wife, Diana, blood drinkers without my knowledge and kept Will under his thumb for centuries. Will grew up half-feral under Hugo’s tutelage, only recently redeeming himself in my eyes by helping me rescue Renee. I’d left him behind in London where Olivia was keeping an eye on him and, I hoped, setting an example of civility. For his part, Iban had sworn to kill Will and I had no doubt that he would one day try.

“We’ll discuss Will later,” I told Iban.

“What do we know about the Slayer?” Tobey asked. “I thought the vampire slayer was only a legend.”

“As did I,” Iban said.

Gerard said, “As a boy I remember hearing the Gypsies speak of the
dhampir
as vampire slayers, although I never met a blood drinker who’d ever seen one.”

“I remember this legend as well,” Lucius said.

“The
dhampir
was said to be half-vampire and half-human and the sworn enemy of the blood drinker.”

“Wait a minute,” Jack said. “How can there be a half-vampire/half-human? Female vampires can’t get pregnant and males can’t knock up human females.”

“Evidently, once in a great while a male blood drinker is made who is…gifted in that particular regard,” William said.

“What else do these prophecies say about the Slayer?” Lucius asked.

Melaphia said, “It is written that she—”

“She?” Lucius asked skeptically.

Melaphia continued, “
She
will be sworn to destroy every blood drinker on earth, and she’ll have special powers to do so, although we don’t know what those powers are. I’m still researching the ancient texts.” Melaphia went on to describe the birthmark, the Mayan goddess connection, and other signs that led to her being able to identify the Slayer. No one tried to refute the case she made.

“To make matters even more complicated and regrettable,” I said with a glance toward Jack, “the Slayer is someone known to most of us.” I paused, loath to continue because of the pain it would cause Jack, but surely, I thought, he understood that I had no choice. He sat stone-faced, opening and closing his fists.

“Don’t keep us in suspense,
mon ami,
” Gerard said. “Who is the Slayer?”

“The Slayer is Connie Jones.”

Jack

My first urge was to lash out. I felt my muscles coil, ready to propel me to my feet, but then I felt Iban’s cool hand on my arm.

“Jack, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m in shock. I adore Connie. So did Sullivan.”

The others expressed their condolences as if Connie were already dead.

“Death by exsanguination is not the worst way to go, you know,” Lucius pointed out helpfully.

“Lucius, please,” Iban said. “Perhaps a little sensitivity is in order.”

I ignored them. “She doesn’t know she’s the Slayer. Maybe she won’t find out,” I said, hearing the desperation in my own voice.

“She will,” said a deep voice from the doorway. Distracted by the revelation about Connie, we hadn’t noticed that Travis Rubio had opened the door. Or maybe it was because he moved with the silent, graceful tread the Native Americans are known for. I was both grateful and fearful to see him. Grateful because he alone of us all had some experience with slayers past and might offer some alternative that could spare Connie’s life. Fearful because that same understanding might prove the old adage that no situation is so bad it can’t get worse. Given his opening statement, I didn’t feel lucky.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Travis said. With his angular nose, black eyes, and leathery skin the color of antique bronze, Travis looked like Sitting Bull in that famous photograph of the Lakota chief. “The destiny of the Slayer cannot be denied. She will discover her mission.”

That was almost exactly what Sullivan had said. Not good. Not good at all.

The other vampires greeted Travis in subdued tones, given the gravity of our subject. William shook his hand in welcome as I tried to figure out what to say or do next. My plan to talk to Travis in private if he showed up had been blown all to kingdom come. I’d better think of a plan B in a helluva hurry.

Travis nodded toward William. “I got word of the meeting shortly after Tobey left a message with a mutual friend about it. Sorry I’m late.”

William invited Travis to tell us what he knew of the Slayer, so the ancient Maya related the story of how blood drinkers came to be established in the land now known as Belize.

“About five hundred years after the birth of Christ, I was a young priest of the Maya’s polytheistic religion as my forefathers had been. The Mayan nobility had sunk into dissolution under the influence of peyote, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and coca leaves, all of which it was legal only for them to partake.

“Their rituals rivaled those of the old lords for bloodshed. One of my tasks was to cut the beating hearts from sacrificial victims and anoint the king and queen with their blood. It was thought that the blood of a sacrificed human being could open the portal to the underworld.”

I shivered. I knew a little bit about opening the portal to the underworld myself.

“I’ve read about the Maya,” Tobey said. “It was as if even the humans were vampire wannabes. They even filed their teeth into sharp points.”

“It’s true that some historians and anthropologists believe that they sharpened their own teeth,” Travis replied.

“Wait until you hear the rest of the story,” I said.

Travis continued, “Human sacrifices were most often made from prisoners of war. The higher the rank of the prisoner, the more prized was his blood. As one might imagine, the rarest and most valuable vintage was that of a king. As fate would have it, the day eventually came when our warriors were able to capture the king of another city. They kept him alive for months, letting his blood in increments, savoring it, until he grew weak and delirious.

“Finally, our king decided to make the enemy ruler into the ultimate sacrifice, so amidst a great festival I raised the ceremonial obsidian knife and struck him in the heart—but not before he put a curse on our ruler. The doomed king called out to Itzamna, the lord of the heavens, to curse our leader so he could never again see the sun and, since he was such a lover of blood, require that it be the only food that could ever sustain him.

“Our king laughed at the curse and drank the blood of his enemy, but he immediately became ill and fell upon the ground writhing in agony. I sat with him until after sundown on the second day when he awakened and bade me lie on his bed and rest, for I had not slept in many hours.

“No sooner than I had lain down, the king was on me, holding me down with inhuman strength. His mouth opened, showing what looked to me like the awful fangs of an animal. I was helpless as he bit into my throat and drank my blood until I heard my heartbeat dying away. Then he ripped the flesh of his wrist and forced me to drink of his blood in return, thus making me a vampire like himself.”

“My God, they
were
vampires,” Melaphia said.

“He set about making the rest of the nobility into blood drinkers as well, and they all preyed upon the common people,” Travis continued, “who were forced to flee the great city to live in the lush jungles and forests. But when the aristocracy’s bloodlust reached its zenith, the slayers came. They slaughtered all the blood drinkers save me. I managed to get away and hide in a cave until they were gone. Thus ended one of the greatest civilizations in history.”

“Do you have any idea why you were spared?” Melaphia asked.

“I’ve been asking myself that question for hundreds of years, but I have yet to come up with an answer,” Travis said. “But you were correct when you said they have special powers. They descended on us from the sky like Valkyries and slew the blood drinkers with swords. The ancient Maya were a fierce people, but I never saw blood such as I witnessed the night the slayers came. Blood ran in rivulets down the pyramids and into the streets.” The old Maya closed his eyes as if to banish the memories.

“What should we do?” William asked.

“I understand that many of you call her friend, so I don’t say this lightly. But my advice is to kill the Slayer as quickly as you can.”

I came to my feet, and looked to some of my best friends in the world—William, Melaphia, Tobey, and Iban—for help, some kind of encouraging word, or a sudden brainstorm that could pry me out from between a rock and a hard place. Instead, I saw my friends looking to
me
for…what? Protection? Leadership? It was as if a hand grenade had been tossed into our midst and since I was the closest, I was supposed to fall on it and get blown to smithereens.

And I would have, if it hadn’t meant Connie’s death. I would destroy myself in a heartbeat for them. As they would do for me. All the excuses that had bubbled up to the tip of my brain died on my lips.

William froze me with one look. “Jack understands what must be done,” he said. “And he’ll do it.”

The vampires listening remotely no doubt believed him. I could tell Tobey, Iban, and especially Travis weren’t so sure. I could see by their expressions what they were thinking: that one of
them
might have to fall on that grenade to save us all, because I didn’t have the guts.

“Wait,” I pleaded. “What if I just go to Connie and tell her all this? She knows us. She knows that we don’t hurt humans. When she realizes that we’re on the same side, she’ll help us fight off the old lords.”

“I wish it were that simple, my friend,” Travis said, “but you have no idea what you’re dealing with. I have seen slayers with my own eyes. Our bloodlust is nothing to theirs. When they are on the hunt, they…” He searched for the right words. “They turn into something not human. Something that I hope I never have the misfortune to see again. The essence of the slayers, that which is in them that is not human—once awakened can never be turned off.”

“I know you saw them attack and that you got away,” I challenged. “But how do you know about this—this activation, as you call it?”

“The priests brought by the conquistadors destroyed for heresy most of our writings that were left behind when we abandoned our great cities. Priceless texts on mathematics and astronomy were burned and broken in the white men’s religious fervor. After I fled the city to escape the slayers, I returned. I stole away with many of those tablets and secreted them in places where not even the most determined of archeologists can find them. I have read the texts that survived the purge.

“I had been unaware of many of these documents before the slaughter of blood drinkers. Some of the ancient ones had prophesied the arrival of the slayers. And they also prophesied a later rise of a single slayer, the greatest of them all. That is what is taking place now.”

“What else do these writings say about the Slayer?” William asked.

Travis said, “The Slayer is the product of an unholy union between blood drinker and human.”

“That jibes with the European
dhampir
legend,” William said. “Is there more?”

“Only that she will not be easy to kill, and that she cannot be turned away from her destiny. The gods alone in their wisdom know how and why this creature is empowered to slay blood drinkers. I don’t know why she has not already begun to do so, but she will. There is no doubt,” Travis said. “I am not exactly sure what causes the activation and how that activation turns into bloodlust, but I have the impression that it is a distinct process.”