* * *
The time came. The door opened. Skylar unlocked Themis’s cuffs and stepped out of McGregor’s line of sight. The vampire followed Paddington out the front door into the night. The streetlights cast a flat white light across the street, on the far side of which stood the Andraste family. Everyone except Lilith. Maybe murder wasn’t her scene and she’d chosen to abstain from the battle.
Either that or she was the steadiest shot and was watching him through a rifle’s sights right now.
Paddington tried not to think about that. He kept his mind on one foot, then the other. That was the way. Nice and simple. Slow. Steady. Confident, even. Beck seemed to think he was a confident fellow, so that’s what he would be.
The Andraste children had changed outfits. They no longer wore flowing gowns low at the neck or finely-tailored suits; now each wore jeans and leather jackets that either had shoulder pads or – more likely – Kevlar reinforcement. Motorcycle jackets: better against a wolf’s bite than a sleeveless gown. The two boys and Niamh had rifles; the rest had pistols or automatics. Swords hung from most of their belts, but one had a morning star in one hand, the spiked ball resting on the ground at the end of its chain.
Hopefully they wouldn’t all rush at him. His mother’s straight-bladed sabre wouldn’t stand up against all that. Even if he’d known how to use it.
Paddington reached the edge of the street and stopped. The road seemed like good neutral territory. They could each stay on their respective footpaths and be happy.
“Adonis,” he said.
The eldest vampire’s face was a twisted sneering mask. He didn’t even speak. Perhaps he couldn’t. He nodded and Clarkson stepped forward holding a red leather book in his white-gloved hands. The Book of Three.
Paddington nodded for Themis to go and she started across the road. Her footsteps and Clarkson’s were the only sounds in the night. Distinctive clicks and taps of high heels and dress shoes, like metronomes.
Themis passed Clarkson at the halfway mark. So far so good. No shots, no deaths, no screams.
Clarkson stopped just shy of the pavement and held the Book out. Paddington took it. It was heavy and old, filled with text of the same characters the graffiti on Archi had used. Ancient Greek, McGregor had said.
“Clarkson,” said Phaedra, “please retrieve Ianthe’s body while the chief verifies the contents of the Book.”
That was a good idea. Paddington hadn’t even thought that Adonis might pull a switch – surely he hadn’t had time to make a duplicate – but he’d seem an idiot if he didn’t verify it and it turned out to be fake. Paddington flipped open the cover and rifled through the pages to make sure there wasn’t a bomb filled in the hollowed-out page – not that Adonis could do something so ghastly as desecrate a Book of Three – then walked inside. Hopefully the shake in his hands was attributed to hypothermia or the night’s wintery chill, not the terror of offering his back to a family of vampires.
Inside, he handed the Book to McGregor, who took all of fifteen seconds flipping from page to page. “It’s authentic,” he said. “As far as I can tell with no time or tools.”
“Good enough,” Truman said.
“No pictures, though,” McGregor said.
“Is that significant?”
McGregor looked straight at Paddington. “You promised me that the next time the world was ending, you’d steal me something with pictures.”
Paddington laughed. “I’ll bring your concerns to Adonis. I’m sure he’ll be inconsolable,” he said, and went back out. The wind had picked up now and it felt like rain couldn’t be more than a few hours away. As he resumed his spot by the footpath, Clarkson returned from beside the house, Ianthe’s body cradled in his arms. Gods. And he’d been joking with McGregor just a moment ago. Did Ianthe used to joke? Paddington didn’t know for certain; he’d never tried to learn about the Andrastes as individuals. They were always just “the vampires” to him.
A label.
And now Adonis had one less daughter. How would Paddington feel if that were Lisa’s corpse cradled in Clarkson’s arms?
What would he do to whoever had taken her from him?
Great. Now he was hoping that Adonis was a bigger man than he was. That he wouldn’t take advantage of the first sign of weakness to slaughter the lot of them.
Ianthe’s eyes were closed; that was good. If Paddington could ignore the way her head hung down farther than it should, she could almost be resting. At peace.
Clarkson reached the far footpath and bent to place the body on the ground.
“No,” said Adonis, more a gasp than a word. He held his arms out, unable to talk, tears streaming. Clarkson passed Ianthe to Adonis, who sagged as if his daughter’s corpse weighed a ton. To him, she probably did.
The usual calm, superior Adonis was nowhere to be seen. This weak and sobbing father was worse.
“You can go,” said Phaedra to Clarkson. “We don’t need spies and we don’t want hostages.”
They were returning Clarkson without a fight or demands? That was worrying. Maybe McGregor’s suspicion that Clarkson was his brother had some merit: the Andrastes certainly seemed to want him at Paddington’s side. Ripe for the murdering.
If Clarkson was worried it didn’t show. He just shrugged and came to stand beside Paddington.
“What happens now?” Paddington asked.
“We bury our sister,” said Phaedra. The streetlights made her hair as pale as her skin, such that she all but glowed, a bright light against the dark.
“And tomorrow?”
“If you haven’t…” She nearly said “killed your brother”, Paddington suspected, but that wouldn’t be Proper. Such an ugly thing to talk about: coercing someone to murder. Much nobler to leave it an inference. “…fulfilled the prophecy, we’ll find you again.” Phaedra’s grief had already turned to anger. “But for tonight, we part.”
Paddington nodded. He’d had enough of tonight: of being too worried to sleep while fighting off the lag of hypothermia. A day of rest might be enough for McGregor to make sense of the prophecy. Just what they needed. It might give them a fighting chance.
“Agreed,” he said.
He should have known that would be the cue for something awful to happen. After all, things had been going so smoothly.
Things never went smoothly.
Immediately after he’d spoken, before he’d even turned to leave, that was when the wolves attacked.
They came from everywhere, the whole pack, appearing from trees and houses and back yards, from behind cars and fences, and all sprinting straight at the vampires.
“No!” Paddington shouted. They finally had the Andrastes at the bargaining table. They had peace, if only for a night. Why were they risking everything?
Then Paddington saw how they launched themselves at the vampires and he understood. This wasn’t a calculated move in a complicated strategy. This was a schoolyard brawl fought with tooth and claw. Eye for an eye. You killed Rob. We’ll kill you.
Ianthe’s death didn’t make them even.
The vampires didn’t even have time to shout betrayal at Paddington. The boys brought their rifles up, but the barrel on Leander’s sniper rifle was too long for such close-up work and it ended up knocking a wolf aside as he brought it to bear on another.
Dom survived because Leander never had a chance to fire; Tony barrelled into Leander with his substantial bulk. Leander managed to get the rifle between the wolf’s teeth before the impact, which saved his throat, and he slipped out from under the wolf shortly before they hit the ground.
Melanthios took a couple of shots at the approaching forms, but his hands weren’t steady enough to hit them and he cast the rifle down to take up the sword at his hip instead. The others sprayed fire from hand-held automatics, eyes closed, unable to control the recoil. Bullets went increasingly into the sky. A few shrieked. All tossed away or stashed their guns when the wolves came close.
“Paddi
ngton!” shouted an American voice rushing up behind him. “What the hell are they doing?”
The battle played out before them. Paddington almost felt like he was at the theatre, sitting in the front row. So close, but in absolutely no danger; the combatants were too focussed on one another to even notice him. “They want revenge. They don’t care about a truce.”
“Is this your doing?”
Did Truman really trust him that little? Or suspect him that much? “Of course not!”
“Well what… What the fuck am I supposed to do?” Truman’s usually-smooth blond hair was now messy; he’d run his fingers through it too many times.
What were any of them supposed to do? The wolves clearly had no strategy. They bit at any vampire that left an opening, but lacked coordination; mad dogs nipping at whatever caught their eyes. The vampires were little better: their whole plan seemed to be to protect Adonis in the centre of their little group as he ran, Ianthe still clutched tightly in his arms. They’d been caught unawares, not in the mindset for a fight.
“You won’t talk them out of it,” Paddington said, “but you could take advantage of it.”
“That’s disgusti—”
“Do you think Adonis will care that you didn’t order this? Do you think he’ll spare your Team when he comes for revenge? The pack just spat all over any chance of a peaceful resolution. No more negotiating or bargaining. This just became very simple: kill all of them before they kill all of us. Now have your men start picking off vampires.”
They couldn’t fight fair now. Adonis wouldn’t, when he responded. Not that he’d been playing fair so far, between the secrets and the lies.
“Shit.” Truman rubbed his gnarled hands over his face. His blue eyes, usually so piercing and alert, were red-ringed and bleary. “Sometimes you sound like Mitchell.”
“Sometimes Mitchell has a point,” Paddington said, which wasn’t a sentiment he ever thought would come out of his mouth.
A screech ended the conversation as a long black car sped around the corner, swerved, and pulled up next to Adonis. He placed Ianthe in the back seat then followed her in. The car accelerated again, aiming for the group of combatants. The vampires leapt over its roof or into the nearby trees.
One of the wolves was not so lucky. The car’s right bumper hit his back end as he scrambled out of the way. The quick howl of pain was followed by an immediate transformation back to human.
The car was out of sight in seconds. The few vampires who had kept hold of their guns now made poor attempts at reloading them: fumbling with magazines and safeties. The wolves gathered at the base of their trees, but there wasn’t much they could do but snarl. When the vampires finished reloading they’d be easy targets, but they were too angry to care.
That would get them killed, very soon. And there was nothing Paddington could do about it. Yelling wouldn’t break through their animal rage and there wasn’t time to run over and drag them away before the Andrastes started firing.
Then one of the outlying trees exploded. A flash of heat washed over Paddington and clumps of dirt sprayed in all directions. Truman stepped in front of Paddington and turned his back to the blast.
“What was that?” Paddington yelled. His head rang and he couldn’t tell how loud he was being.
“Mitchell,” he said. Paddington followed his finger and saw the Lancastrian kneeling on the driveway and sighting along his rifle toward the trees. In the doorway Skylar and McGregor were doing likewise.
Mitchell’s grenade had dislodged one of the vampires, but the Team didn’t have a clear shot at her for all the wolves in the way. She leapt up to run, but someone hung to her leg and dragged her back down. After that she was lost beneath the fur. Paddington turned away.
The other Andrastes cut their losses. A few took shots at the Team as they flitted into new trees or onto houses, but most just disappeared with all the speed they had.
Not all of the wolves followed. Pete and Curt lingered until the fallen vampire stopped moving, then sniffed for a moment and sped off after the pack.
Paddington ran to the naked man lying on the road. It was Rick.
“Are you okay?” Paddington asked. It was a stupid thing to ask, but everything was a stupid thing to ask someone who had just been hit by a car. Odds were he’d be in so much pain he couldn’t even talk.
“I’m fine,” Rick said.
Paddington couldn’t see any blood, but there had to be broken bones or something. He’d seen the sharp whip of fur. So where was the bruising? How could he now stand as if nothing had happened, as if he was fine? Lisa had been shot when she’d been a wolf and her human form bore a kiss-shaped scar on her left forearm to this day. So why wasn’t Rick doubled over in pain?
“It hit you,” Paddington said.
“It hit my tail. Probably broke some bones.”
What difference did that mak—
Oh… It hit his tail. But humans don’t have tails so when he’d changed back, the pain – the whole injury – disappeared. Would it return when he changed back? Would his body remember the wound and recreate it, or would a new tail grow from the base of Rick’s uninjured spine?
Since Rick was okay, Paddington turned his attention to the other figure lying on the street. Her leather hadn’t stopped the wolf bites. Dark patches soaked her jeans, her torso, her throat, even her face.
Poor Erato. She’d been the loveliest of the daughters: curling hair, heaving bosom, eyes that always had a hint of smile or promise in them. Now her eyes were closed and her hair was matted with blood from the hole in her neck. Paddington wondered which of the wolves had dealt the lethal blow; he supposed it didn’t matter.
“Orders?” Mitchell asked Truman, somewhere behind Paddington.
“Secure any fallen weapons. Skylar, bring the car around. We’re going to the castle.”
“We can’t leave her here,” Paddington said, without turning around.
“Who?”
He extended a hand. “Erato.”
Erato, who had tried to seduce him once, enticed him with the Book of Three: appealed to his intellect before his loins. Now dead like Ianthe. Like Rob.
“You want to return her?” Mitchell asked.
“She deserves better than being left in the street.”
“All right. Bring her inside the house.”
A minute later, Paddington, Lisa, Truman, Skylar, Mitchell, Clarkson, Beck, and Rick had placed the vampire’s corpse beside the werewolf’s, dumped the most important equipment and weapons in the jeeps – with Truman complaining that he was sure they’d brought more explosives than that and Mitchell asking if he honestly wanted to stop and search around for them now – and were heading to the castle. Lisa said nothing, just stared out at the Estikan scenery.
The wolves were waiting a street away from the castle, the outer portcullis of which had been left open. The Team parked at the back of the apartment block and a wolf trotted up to meet them and became Will.
“They had cars par—”
Will was by no measure a weak or small man, but Truman flattened him with a punch. The rest of the pack – still wolves – closed around them, heads lowered, a deep rumble emanating from their throats. Mitchell and Skylar raised their rifles. Beck scrambled with his gun; Paddington laid a hand on the holster to stop him. No matter who Beck planned to support, this would go better without him.
McGregor was still in the jeep, reading the Book of Three, oblivious of the drama outside.
“What the hell were you doing?” Truman yelled. “We had a ceasefire!”
“They put a bullet in Rob’s eye!” Will yelled back. He put a hand on the ground and sprang to his feet. “What were you doing trusting them? Now get us into the castle!”
“There are no other entrances,” Truman said. “Mitchell checked.”
Will glanced toward the castle. He couldn’t see it – the block of apartments was in the way – but they all knew it was there. And it afforded everyone a moment’s breathe
r without losing face. “So we’re stuck out here?”
Truman took a deep breath and released it. “Let’s all go up to the nest—”
“The what?”
“Our apartment overlooking the castle,” Truman said, somewhat sharply. “And then we’ll see if we can find a way to win the war you just started.”