“Gladly.” The sentry showed fang as he produced a machete from behind him. “Part of you, anyway.” He stepped out of the elevator, advancing toward Heldridge.
Heldridge widened his stance, preparing for an attack. “I am a haven master and I demand to see the Excelsior!”
“Dunno what you’ll see, but I promise to keep your eyes open for you, traitor. There’s a bounty for your head. The rest of you is optional.”
Heldridge hissed, “I want an
The elevator doors began to close. Heldridge surged forward. He blocked the vampire’s machete-swinging arm and hit him in the solar plexus, knocking him backward into the elevator car. Momentum carried Heldridge in also, and the doors shut them in.
The guard didn’t have room to effectively swing the long blade and resorted to jabbing with it. Heldridge caught the vampire’s arm, twisted, and felt the elbow break. The machete clattered to the floor and Heldridge slammed the guard’s head against the elevator wall, denting the shiny metal.
When the doors parted on the next floor up, Heldridge wedged the machete in the opening to keep the doors from closing and, more importantly, prohibit the car from picking up reinforcements. There were other elevators and stairs, but he didn’t have to make it easy for his opponents.
He dragged the unconscious vampire by his unbroken arm. The hall was nondescript gray with a slate floor and plain wall sconces for light. At the next checkpoint, six sentries blocked his path.
With minimal effort, Heldridge sent the body sliding to the sentries’ feet. “I want an audience with the Excelsior. He told me no.”
“Do you think our answer will be different?”
Heldridge could have torn both the door guards and the machete-wielding sentry apart, but he’d hoped his restraint would gain him a measure of consideration instead of indicating he was weak. They had been individual foes, however. With six vampires before him, his options were fewer.
He was willing to kill his way through the building if it became necessary, but as it would undermine his claims of acting in the best interests of VEIN, he preferred to consider slaughter only as an emergency exit strategy.
He gauged his adversaries as he calmly resettled his suit jacket. “I do not wish permanent harm to anyone, but the information I have for the Excelsior is worth any risk.”
More sentries burst from a stairwell behind him.
Heldridge was surrounded.
The wall speaker crackled. A voice ordered, “Conference Room Two.” The vampires stepped away from Heldridge.
Minutes later, a sentry opened a heavy black door with a scarlet “2” on it. Heldridge entered with a confident stride. The door shut loudly behind him.
A single forty-watt bulb glowed in the overhead fixture. Beneath it sat a plain stool. An array of video cameras, red lights blinking slowly, all out of sync, focused on the seat.
Heldridge couldn’t confine his irritation. He glowered into the centermost camera. “How do I know the Excelsior is receiving this transmission?”
Five floors up, in a darkened theater with six rows of executive seating, various viewpoints of Heldridge’s entrance played across the many screens mounted to the main wall.
“An imprudent endeavor, coming here.” The deep voice of Meroveus Franciscus thrummed like distant thunder. Except for the plain elastic band restraining the curls of his waist-length black hair, his appearance was that of a handsome thirty-something businessman in a Rolex advertisement—and he did wear an exquisite timepiece with his bespoke suit.
“He’s still annoying.” Giovanni Guistini’s voice was also distinctive, but not for a mellifluous quality. Giovanni’s every word scratched the ear in a painful rasp. Beneath his pointed chin an ugly scar gnarled the flesh of his neck. In life, his throat had been torn open. “Note his stance, his lifted chin. He is our prisoner, yet conceit pours from him. The young masters are always intolerable. They think they know so much.”
Mero countered, “Sometimes they do.”
“Sometimes they’re just overconfident fools,” Giovanni retorted, melting into a pose that might have been an attempt to appear thoughtful in counterpoint to the fierceness his shaven head afforded him.
Mero was familiar with his counterpart’s contemptuousness and had long considered Giovanni a deliberate egotist who dressed in black V-neck shirts and collarless jackets so no one would ever miss seeing his scar.
Both provided advice to the Excelsior, but Mero often found himself choosing words and opinions that would balance Giovanni’s typically stubborn and pitiless claims. The trick was guessing what opinion the other advisor would choose, then expressing his own opinion first, so that Giovanni sounded like a squabbling child.
On the screens, Heldridge cried, “Do you hear me? I demand to speak to the Excelsior!”
Sitting in the back of the theater, where the gentle radiance of the screens could barely reach, was the Excelsior. He wore an ink-dark suit, and the matching shirt and tie both had the sheen of polished obsidian. His black hair was loose and hung straight, framing his angular face with ferocity. Despite the pallor of his skin his hairstyle imparted a Native American quality, but Mero knew the vampire was descended from ancient Franks— indeed, from mortal kings.
The Excelsior touched a button on the arm of his chair, which activated a microphone. “I hear you,” he said crossly. His words echoed, slightly delayed, into the room with Heldridge. When he finished speaking he released the button so anything his advisors said would not be piped into the conference room.
“You will put a bounty on my head but you won’t meet with me directly?”
Giovanni chuckled. “Please let me kill him for you, my lord.”
The Excelsior pressed the button. “You attempted to strike down your superior. You’ve brutalized two of my sentries. Why should you not be drained to a husk?” The accented lilt of his voice did not soften the iciness of his words.
“On these premises I have only defended myself. As for the other matter, you have received misinformation. I did not attempt to strike down my Quarterlord, but his Erus Veneficus.”
The Excelsior triggered the microphone again. “You freely admit to this crime?”
“The witch has hexed him, bound him by witch-mark into her service.”
“Ha!” Giovanni laughed. “Never!” He paused. “Unless . . .” He cast a glance toward Mero beside him, then over his shoulder toward the Excelsior.
Mero had to concede that fact. “The Quarterlord made no secret of his long search for the Lustrata.”
The Excelsior did not respond.
His silence, to Mero, was a sign. “Do you have information about this?”
Nonplussed, the Excelsior said, “She claims to be the Lustrata, though the witches remain divided in this matter. She must not be slain. At least, not yet.”
Heldridge paced impatiently away from the camera. He spun back. “Do you still hear me? A witch has sway over your Northeastern Quarterlord.” His countenance was a confident mask, but his pacing and tone belied apprehension. His arms spread wide. “You do understand that my actions were merely to protect my Quarterlord and release him from her grasp?”
“He would have us see him as a defender, and be blind to his lawbreaking,” Mero mused.
“He would prefer,” Giovanni added, “advancement of his position. Exposing a weak Quarterlord who begs replacing creates a chain of repositioning.”
On-screen, Heldridge shifted his weight nervously. “My Lord Excelsior?”
Mero could see that Heldridge was about to do something desperate. Or stupid. He opened his mouth to make his own suggestion—
“I beseech you!” Heldridge blurted. “Release the shabbubitum. Send them to the Northeastern Quarterlord. You will find that my claim is true.”
Meroveus could not believe his ears. Heldridge had risked his own destruction to plead his case, but making
