It was well before dawn when they arrived back at the apartment. The place was dark and quiet, no signs of anything amiss. Andrej, ever cautious, walked in quietly and turned off the alarm. He went straight back to Anne-Marie’s room and found her door shut, no light on. Silently he tried the door handle. Unlocked. He needed to remind her to keep it locked when he was out. If anything happened it could buy her a few more seconds, maybe long enough for him to return. He entered the room to make sure she was in bed sleeping. The curtains on the window were drawn back, allowing the light from the full moon in. Anne-Marie was sound asleep in bed; he could sense her heartbeats, regular and even while she slept. He walked over and stood next to her bed for a moment. As he stood looking down at her, her eyes slowly opened. For a second she was startled before she realized who was in her room.
“I’m sorry,” Andrej whispered, “I didn’t mean to wake you. Hope I didn’t frighten you.”
She smiled sleepily at him. “It’s ok, I felt someone here. I should have known it was you.” She reached up and took his hand, giving it a little squeeze. She never minded that his skin was so cool to the touch, but she noticed there was some warmth to him just then.
“You guys ok?” she asked, still half asleep.
“We’re fine. Just wanted to check on you.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead, and she pulled his hand in to her chest, hugging it to her. He let out a sigh. He was letting her go too deeply into this infatuation, but he didn’t know what to do to stop it, short of firing her and sending her back to the States. He couldn’t bring himself to do that, she had nothing and no one to go back to. She might end up back where she’d been when he found her: going nowhere with her life, ending as he had ended. Or maybe not. She’d had more of a taste of life now, she might be all right. He realized she’d drifted back off to sleep and slowly extricated his hand from hers. He walked to the window, standing in the moonlight for a moment, watching the reflected light dancing on the ripples in the river. In these last couple hours before dawn, everything felt peaceful. For a moment, he allowed himself the luxury of the illusion that life was as trouble-free and serene as it felt at that moment. But he knew better than to indulge in that for long. For all he knew, the crusaders were out there even now, watching him, the apartment, Anne-Marie. He glanced over at her again. He was deeply touched by her attachment, the devotion and affection she felt for him. From the first day she met him her life had gotten not simpler, with all the complications serving a vampire engendered, but certainly more directed. He could protect her better than any mortal man could, even with the thorny sorts of problems his life came with. He knew he should send her out of town again for awhile until he sorted out what to do about the crusaders. There was no reasoning with them; their self-delusions were too deeply embedded. He could either continue to run and hide from them, or he could take them on, and eventually have to kill them or convert them. The problem was he wasn’t entirely sure how many of them there were. The way they were organized there was no way to tell, which was exactly the point. Killing them all, or converting them all, would be impossible. No, he would have to find another way. He was used to being on the move, being hunted, but Anne-Marie wasn’t. His reverie was broken by Neko.
“Everything ok?” Neko whispered, silently coming into the room. He walked over to stand next to him, watching Anne-Marie sleep.
Andrej nodded.
“She really is cute,” Neko said quietly.
Andrej started walking toward the door, indicating to Neko to follow him before they woke her up. When they were back out in the living room Andrej lit a cigarette and poured himself a glass of whiskey, offering one to Neko.
“I’ve been thinking it might be a good idea to get Anne-Marie out of town for awhile,” he said. “I may have to deal with some of these crusaders, and I don’t want her caught in the crossfire.”
Neko gave him a dubious look. “You sure that’s a good idea? They’re bound to be watching her, if they’re watching you and me. She might be better off here where we can protect her. Those guys won’t care that she’s not a vampire; all they’ll care about is that she’s with us.”
“I’m counting on them following her. I want to make them split up, at least for a day or so, before they can contact their network and set someone else on her trail.”
“What are you planning?”
“An accident or two.”
Neko lit a cigarette and considered this. “I thought you didn’t like to leave a trail of bodies?”
“I don’t, but I don’t think we have much choice any longer. If we don’t kill them, they’re going to keep coming after us, and they’re going to try to kill us. I don’t want Anne-Marie around if it comes to that.”
“If?”
“All right, ‘when.’ We can’t go after them openly, by our methods. It’ll have to be more subtle than that. I don’t want to add any justification to their cause.”
“All right. But I have people who can take care of this kind of stuff, you don’t even have to be involved. Just cross their palms with some coin of the realm and they won’t ask any questions. That way the police won’t be able to connect it to us. I’m just not sure how much good this will do,” Neko said. “We don’t even know how many of them there are. Taking out a couple here and there, what’s that going to get us?”
It was Andrej’s turn to weigh options. It would be safer, as long as it didn’t get traced back to him or Neko, and he had confidence in Neko’s methods and experience. He was no stranger to hired hits. “I want to send them a message. I don’t want to have to worry about having these fanatics dogging our every step, threatening me or Anne-Marie. How many can there be? Let’s think about this. There are probably less than one hundred of us worldwide now, unless there’s been a push on to convert more, but that serves no one’s purpose.”
“Except our creator’s,” Neko said.
Andrej considered this. Whoever or whatever the creature was that was the grandfather of all vampires, he seemed to have enough vampires to keep him supplied with the sacrifices he craved. Creating more, or allowing too many other vampires to be converted, could endanger them all. Alexandra came to mind.
“I don’t think we’ve seen enough others to think that’s been happening,” Neko said. “We don’t know how he does it, how he transforms us, or why. It could be it takes more energy and strength to do it than he can afford to spend more than once in awhile. And most vampires don’t bother converting anyone.”
“Well, you and I don’t, but whoever converted Alexandra is less selective, or just careless.”
“I vote careless. Whoever he was he didn’t hang around her long afterwards. Maybe he realized he’d screwed up.”
Andrej nodded. “Possibly, or didn’t care. He should have finished her off instead of letting her go her own way, though. That was stupid.”
“Ok, so we’ve got another stupid one out there. Do we try to trace him and deal with him?”
“In time. Let’s take care of the most pressing problem first. I’m guessing these crusaders are a small group, less of them than us. It’ll take time for them to recover from any losses.”
“Agreed. So you want me to set something up with my network?”
“How much do you need?” Neko was sure to know the best in the business, and Andrej figured these guys didn’t work cheap. Not that money was an issue, but if it was a significant amount it could take some time to get it together.
“Let me talk to them. It should be a simple deal. How many do you want targeted?”
“Just one. I still want one for myself. We’ll let the third one deliver the message to the rest.”
Chapter 16