Where Loyalty Lies (12 page)

“It’s lovely,” I said, with genuine feeling. “Do you spend much time here?”

“Not as much as I’d like,” Holt replied, pulling his laptop out from his luggage and setting it up on the coffee table.

“You can stay in the second room on the right upstairs, if it suits you. Take your time to freshen up, but come down when you’re finished and I’ll show you some books I think you’ll find interesting.”

I grabbed the bag that had my clothes and toiletries in and headed upstairs. The bedrooms were just as cosy as the rest. My room had a red carpet, cream walls and the softest mattress I’d ever come across. I also had the luxury of an en-suite bathroom, so I had a shower, put on some fresh clothes and went back downstairs.

Holt was sitting perched on the edge of the sofa, busy tapping away on his laptop. At some point he’d lit the fire and now it was crackling away and warming the room. As I took a seat on the sofa, he finished his typing and grabbed a book from a small pile he’d made. Just as he handed it to me, a high-pitched ringing filled the room and a mobile phone that was on the table lit up and vibrated its way towards the edge.

With a sigh and an apologetic smile, Holt picked up the phone.

“Hello.”

I could hear a voice on the other end of the line but couldn’t hear what was being said.

“Ah, yes, everything went fine,” Holt continued. “Mr Headly was very pleased with the proposal; we’re due to meet up again in a month’s time and go over our future plans.” There was a brief pause as Holt listened, then he got up and pulled some papers out of the briefcase he’d left by the door. “Yes, I have his contract here; I’ll fax it over to you now.”

Still holding the phone to his ear, Holt held a finger out to me and mouthed
“
one minute” before going through a door into the next room.

I glanced at the laptop. Judging by the jargon, it looked like Holt was typing up details of the meeting he’d just had. Biting my lip, I listened carefully. Holt was still on the phone and I could hear the whirring of what must have been his fax machine.

Before I could change my mind, I slid in front of the laptop. I felt a stab of guilt as I brought up Holt’s browsing history. Yes, it was dishonest of me, but at least if I found
www.dead-body-disposal.com
or www.50_ways_to_commit_murder.co.uk, I’d be able to make a run for it while Holt was in the other room. My heart raced as I ran through the list from the previous week, finding nothing that seemed odd until I saw one that made me start.

Holt had looked up Harry Potter. After my teasing him about not knowing who Harry Potter was, he’d looked it up online.

My original stab of guilt turned into a full-blown assault as I closed the history down and moved back to where I’d been sitting. I felt terrible. It seemed like Holt was genuinely trying to help me and, here I was, taking every opportunity to spy on him or accuse him of being the bad guy. Well, from now on I’d try to have a little more faith.

Holt was still on his phone in the other room and I heard snatches of his conversation; he said he was at his cabin and that he’d be back at Rillith tomorrow. I also heard him request that room 418 be cleaned and prepared for use as he’d be bringing a guest with him. I assumed that would be my room and found myself wondering what the accommodation would be like. Given the fact that the vampire race seemed very wealthy, I had no doubt that they lived in luxury, but what I didn’t know was what the staffrooms would be like.

“Sorry about that,” Holt said, coming back into the living room and sitting next to me.  “Can’t seem to go more than a couple of hours without something work-related popping up. Now I think you’ll find this interesting.” He tapped the cover of the book I was holding.

I read the title out loud, “
Rillith: its history and architecture
.” I flipped open the book and my jaw dropped as my eyes landed on a photo of an enormous building sprawled across the Scottish countryside. I’d been expecting something nice but this was way beyond nice. It was a castle! Not a boring grey castle, but a castle with walls the colour of wet sand, a gray slate roof and real honest-to-god circular turrets. There were three impressive areas of clustered turrets, joined together by lower stretches of castle wall with crenellations. There were four levels of windows in the lower parts and the turreted areas seemed to touch the skies. The whole thing looked like a gigantic, incredibly detailed sandcastle.

“Is this really what it looks like?” I asked, holding the book out to Holt so that he could see the picture.

“Yes, it’s quite a sight, isn’t it?”

“That’s the understatement of the year. It’s one of the most incredible places I’ve ever seen; it doesn’t look real.”

“Well, you have to remember that it’s where The Sénat lives. They’re like England’s royal family and government combined. They’re the ruling board of the vampire race; they make the laws and they’re the only people with the power to change them. They’re a mighty force; they would never stay anywhere that’s not worthy of their standing.”

I flicked through the book, trying to take in the pictures. Rillith was just as magnificent on the inside as it was on the outside. My stomach was churning. If this is what The Sénat considered acceptable, how were they ever going to accept me?

“What are they like? The Sénat?” I asked.

Holt picked up one of the other books he’d dug out. I put my book aside as he handed it to me. I was surprised to see it was a book on The Sénat. I shook my head in disbelief.

“How can you have a book about them? I mean a proper published, bound book? Shouldn’t all your history be documented on scrolls and stuff?”

“We’re vampires, Faine, not cavemen; we are capable of moving with the times. We’ve been publishing our own books since the fifteenth century.”

“No, I don’t mean it like that; it’s just that, having a published book of The Sénat, just seems like solid proof. If you have all these vampire history books, aren’t you worried that some of them will go missing? What if they were discovered by people?”

“We do what we can to make sure the books aren’t mislaid. Most of our books are kept in the libraries of our five main bases. The only reason I’m allowed these books here is because I’ve worked for The Sénat for a very long time and these are books I’ve needed for my work.”

I nodded in understanding but secretly thought that having so many books that could reveal all their secrets to the world, just seemed a little risky. My doubts must have shown on my face because Holt sank back into the sofa and then continued.

“Tell me,” he said. “If you had no reason to believe that vampires existed and you thought they were simply mythical creatures, what would you think if you found one of these books?” He indicated to the small pile between us on the sofa.

I tried to consider what an unbiased opinion would be. “I suppose I’d assume it was a book of fiction. Maybe some sort of collector’s edition for people who love the idea of vampires. But there have to be people in the world who’d believe the book is true.”

“There certainly are, but the majority of humans would choose to believe the same as you. So, you see, in the unlikely event that one of our books does go astray, it’s even more unlikely that it would fall into the hands of anyone who’d take it seriously.”

“But if you’ve had books around since the fifteenth century, you must have had some situations where they fell into the wrong hands and caused problems?”

“Well, yes, but we have people who can deal with those situations.”

“Enforcers?” I asked.

“We have people whose job it is to stay in certain circles of the human world; they’d be the first to discover if there were humans claiming they had proof of vampires. An enforcer would be sent out and they’d use Influence to help the human forget all about it.”

I nodded and then remembered something Holt had said.

“You said there were five main vampire bases. Is Rillith one of them?”

“Ah, now that’s a good question. Yes, Rillith is one. The Sénat move location every fifty years, they move from one base to another. There’s a large entourage that travels with them and that is for three reasons; the first is that The Sénat will always have extensive security around them so it is safer to be close by. The second is that wherever The Sénat are, there is usually drama and there are many vampires who like nothing more than drama. The third reason is that The Sénat have the final say on everything and so if you want to keep on their good side, you need to be close at hand so that they know who you are.”

I ran my tongue along my top teeth as I tried to take in what Holt had just told me. Once more I found myself dreading meeting The Sénat. I was way out of my league. Suddenly I had an overwhelming urge to find out all I could about them so that at least I’d feel more prepared.

I spent the evening going through Holt’s books. Every page I read seemed to refer to a whole bunch of things I’d never heard of before and, after only ten minutes of reading, I had to find a pen and paper so that I could start another list of questions. What I really needed was an
Understanding Vampires for Dummies
guide or a
Vampire Dictionary
!

I learnt the faces and names of the five members of The Sénat. Holt had told me that there used to be thirteen and I was grateful that there was no longer that many. As a rule my memory wasn’t too bad but remembering five names and faces was a damn sight easier than remembering thirteen.

The book about The Sénat had dedicated a whole chapter to each member and, whereas a lot of the information went over my head, I could pick up on the ages, which were simply ancient, and how long they’d been part of The Sénat.

I also discovered that they’d been the founding members of The Sénat. It had started off as thirteen vampires who’d decided that the vampire race needed a ruling board to maintain control and to prevent them from being discovered by humans. After a couple of hundred years or so, The Sénat had proved themselves worthy and the majority of the vampire race declared an oath to obey and follow them. In return for the vampires’ allegiance, The Sénat provided them with safety, homes and jobs. The vampire race had started their lives as outcasts and freaks, living in filth, but now they had a high-class lifestyle and the opportunity to achieve huge wealth and recognition within their own society.

It was mind-blowing and I had to admit that, what The Sénat had achieved, was amazing. Of course, there were still some of the vampire race who chose not to obey The Sénat’s laws but, as Holt had told me earlier, it was the enforcer’s job to deal with them.

I uncurled my legs from underneath me and winced as pins and needles shot through my legs and feet.

“So, are you feeling like you’re beginning to understand it, or are you more confused than ever?” Holt asked.

For a few moments I couldn’t speak until the fuzzy pain in my legs had passed. When it had mostly gone, I stretched, feeling my bones and muscles creak in protest to the movement.

“I think I’m somewhere in the middle,” I confessed. “On the one hand, I know when and why The Sénat came into power, and I know all five of their faces and names but, as with everything else, it feels a bit like it’s one step forward and two back.”

I held up the new list of questions I’d made. Holt eyed the list and crossed to a cabinet. He pulled a door open to reveal a bar.

“Something tells me I may need a stiff drink to get through this.”

Holt grinned as he spoke but it didn’t stop the guilt from rising up in me. I wondered if Holt would still have decided to take me to Rillith, if he’d known what a pain in the arse I was going to be. He held a glass up and raised his eyebrows in question, but I just shook my head; alcohol was not going to help my concentration.

“I’m sorry,” I said as Holt reclaimed his seat on the sofa. “I know answering all my questions must be incredibly tedious for you.”

“Don’t apologise,” Holt said. “When you didn’t pass out or have a panic attack when I showed up at your home and told you everything I did, I was worried; you seemed so in control. I thought you might have gone into shock or something. But now I understand that you have a different way of thinking. Like you said, you’ve had three years to ponder the fact that there’s more to the world than people know. And now you just want to understand it. Being curious and interested is not something you should be apologising for, it’s something you should be proud of.”

I blinked at Holt a few times, I wasn’t quite sure if he was telling me off or complimenting me. Unable to come to an answer, I decided to start on my second list of questions.

As we pulled up at the gates that surrounded Rillith, complete panic hit me. This was my last chance to back out. I glanced at Holt to see if he was worried; his expression gave nothing away.

Holt opened his window and a shock of cold air rushed in. A young male face appeared on the other side of the window. He glanced at Holt and then briefly at me before he nodded and went back into a brick hut where he presumably pushed a button as the gates in front of us started to open. The size of them made me think of the welcome gates in
Jurassic Park
; they towered about forty feet above us and, as we drove through, I saw they were two feet thick.

“What exactly are they protecting themselves from?” I asked as Holt drove us down a single-track road that seemed to lead into the middle of the countryside. “Don’t tell me that dinosaurs are secretly roaming the planet too.”