Uneasy Alliance - Chapter 1

It’s a cliché, but it was dark the night my life changed, and a storm was lurking on the horizon. From my vantage point on my balcony, up on the fifty-second floor of Dusk Tower, I could see the lightning flashing in the distance and the ozone in the air was tickling my nose.  Morning was closing in, and soon every vampire in San Francisco would close their blinds or seek refuge underground.

I had set my entertainment system to play a selection of Haydn symphonies, and the music was sifting softly through the open French doors. I remembered sitting with Sulien in the Bodyguards Room at the Tuileries Palace in Paris in 1787, listening to the Chevalier de Saint Georges conduct the very same symphonies, and so many years later, it brought the same delight it did back then.

I sat on the railing, legs hanging outside. The cool wind was slipping under my silk kimono, making it flutter around my naked body, but the cold didn’t bother me. I loved the feeling of knowing that if anything went wrong, I could die from the fall. You have silly thoughts when you’ve lived for over five hundred years. Unfortunately for me, Dusk Tower had been built for vampire tenants, so they had included platforms every ten or so stories so we could jump down to the ground without falling to our death. Its twin, Dawn Tower, had been built for werewolves, and it had stairs all around so they could climb up and down easily. Thankfully my apartment wasn’t facing that way. It’s not that I hated them, but I really couldn’t get past the fur and the howling. And the smell. By chance, they were up during the day, while we lived in the dark of night, so our paths didn’t cross much. Usually.

I was about to call my friend Arabelle to ask where she wanted to go for the Sunday pre-dawn snack we had agreed upon, when my phone rang. My Sire was a creature of habits, and him calling me, so close to daybreak, was unusual, even disturbing. The Daemon inside of me shifted uncomfortably, reminding me I hated stress, and unfortunately, I didn’t have time to go into one of the dozen routines I had established to calm it down.

“Milord Arcturus.”

He had been born under a different name over a millennia ago, but he has chosen this one during his passage and it was the only name we knew. It was the only name we were allowed to use. Most of us changed names when we traded the day for the night, either voluntary or not. We had died, after all; our old names just reminded us who we were, not who we had become.

“I need to talk to you. Come right now.”

And as my Sire, there was no way I could turn him down without endangering my life. And this time without the fun of the fall. But I was intrigued by his call, and I would have come even if there had been no threat.

“Of course.”

Gone was the idea of a pair of French toasts dipped in maple syrup. I’d get a coffee on my way.

I got dressed promptly, slacks, shirt and jacket, I collected my wallet, my phone and my keys, and jumped in the elevator. Too close to daybreak to take my car, I went down to the lowest level of the building and accessed the subway through the underground complex without stepping outside. I took the time to text Belle I couldn't make it, because I knew how much she worried. I was in front of Arcturus’ door in barely fifteen minutes, counting the go-cup I had grabbed in a little booth while waiting for the next train. 

I took a second to pause, calm my breath and check my outfit. Arcturus detested unkemptness more than tardiness. I knocked twice, and waited. He was one of the two tenants on that floor, and the other one was a human couple who spent their time visiting friends all over the world. At such an early hour, there was little chance of running into them, if they were here.

After a minute, I knocked again. If the phone call had been unusual, the butler not opening the door within thirty seconds was alarming. The Daemon made its presence known again, and this time I took a minute to calm down. Breathe in, breath out. Visualize a peaceful place. A forest of popped into my mind, from a place in France which name I couldn't remember. The Daemon calmed down enough for me to think clearly. I knocked one last time, waited some more, and decided to get the caretaker to open the door. This building was all glass, there was no way to climb down to his windows, and I didn't want to break the door, just in case Jimmy hadn't heard me and Arcturus was having company.

It didn’t take long to go down and come up again. But as soon as the door was open, I smelled it.

It was a scent I knew.

A scent I feared. 

My Daemon roared and I swayed. I had to muster up all my inner strength to rein it in and not let it take over. The caretaker was probably wondering what was happening, but with the ugly stench of death reaching him, he quickly had others things on his mind.

Five hundred and five years, and I was still unable to control my Daemon properly. Arcturus had trained me, devised exercises for me, but it was still strong. It took a minute, and about a hundred deep breaths to calm it down enough. Good thing I had drank blood recently, otherwise it would have taken control of me. The frenzy of the Daemon taking over was not in any way something desirable. It cut you off your thoughts and mind, and you became like an animal. Worse than an animal, really, because you killed to extinguish a thirst of blood that would never end. The Daemon was the part of yourself you never wanted anyone to see. The policy of the Codex Noctis on frenzy? Kill on sight. Use whatever means necessary. Because a vampire in a frenzy was contagious. The Daemons of the vampires nearby would be waking up as well.

I asked the caretaker to stay outside and not interfere, and I opened the door wide. I hadn’t been an officer of the Vampire Police Force for a long time, but the reflexes kicked in. I used the back of my hand to turn the lights on. The foyer was wide, filled with antique and precious items precisely ordered and spotless. I gasped and froze. Jimmy, Arcturus’ butler for the last century or so, was in the middle of the room, his severed head a few feet from his desiccated body. No way to determine how long he’d been dead; his body had returned to the stage it would have been in if he’d died instead of being turned. Nothing else seemed out of place but the hand-knotted carpet would have to be thoroughly cleaned.

I started thinking like a cop again, leaving all emotions behind. If Jimmy had already been dead when he called, Arcturus would have been quite upset, and I would have heard it in his voice, but he’d seem only annoyed. So, my guess was he had been murdered after the call, but before I arrived. I checked my watch, 5.36 AM. The call had come in at 5.13. I put Jimmy’s death between 5.15 and 5.25, leaving enough time for the perpetrator to leave before my arrival. The VPF would check the video surveillance.

Next, the door. The caretaker had opened it with a master key. I crouched and checked the lock. It was untouched, no marking of any kind that could indicate it had been picked. So Jimmy had probably opened to let the visitor in. I looked at him again. He was lying on his stomach, facing away from the front door. That could mean several things: either he had turned away and let the visitor close the door himself, which was next to an impossibility since he was very dedicated to his job, or he had been walking to the right of the apartment, living room and study, to announce the visitor, and had been hit from behind.

At the moment, I missed my notebook and pen like I would have a finger.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. The Daemon shifted but stayed calm. And I let the smells take colors in my mind. I opened my eyes again and all the shades appeared. There was the dirty brown of Jimmy’s dead body, the deep blue always associated with Arcturus, some amber from the whisky he drank, the lilac of his lover, Circe, the light-blue-almost-white of the storm. And whisp of black I had never smelled before. I concentrated on it, knowing enough of the apartment’s layout to follow it to the study.

I walked in the foyer, staying close to the wall not to disturb the scene, or as close as I could without bumping into the precious antiquities. I checked the other rooms on the left side of the apartment for some sign of disruption, but everything was perfectly ordered as usual. Jimmy ran a tight ship.

I finally entered Arcturus’ office. The bottle of his favorite whisky was lying on the floor, half-emptied on the carpet, a glass was broken on the desk and a few papers had been pushed aside in a heap. There was a big scorch mark on the wall in front of me. And Arcturus was nowhere in sight.

I took out my phone and called the head of the VPF in San Francisco. Gerard was a friend and I could count on his diligence. Arcturus was a member of the Vampire Council of Northern America, and his disappearance, along with Jimmy’s murder had to be taken very seriously. I took a few pictures of the crime scene with my phone so I could study them later on and recorded a few notes.

While I waited for Gerard and a team of scientists back in the corridor, I tried to think of what I knew of Arcturus’ life at the moment. I remembered the two vampires he sired I knew of: Nuwa, in China, after his Sire Azita had died, at the end of the seventeenth century, and Circe, a nineteenth century British Countess. But I couldn’t fathom either Circe or Nuwa killing Jimmy and kidnapping Arcturus.

I always forgot Arcturus wasn’t my Sire, but he had acted like it from the moment we met. He and Azita had found me a few days after my transformation, living alone in the underground of Bordeaux, feeding on rats and small animals, half crazed. I owed him my life, and more important, my sanity.

Along with Azita, we had searched for my Sire, but in vain. So, he had taken me under his wing, shared with me his life, his passions, and some of his wealth, but I had no idea how he made his fortune. He had introduced me to High Courts all over the world, had me meet important vampires, and important humans. He helped me become a scientist and an intellectual, a writer and a member of the VPF. But I still had no idea how he knew so many people. He was my mentor, and I had no idea who wanted to do him harm.

My thoughts kept coming back to the black mark on the wall that smelled of darkness and fear. What could have done it? How was it done? I leaned against the wall of the corridor. I hoped Gerard had some ideas.