Vamprotica 2006 Part 6

Gruner paused quite nonchalantly to pat Perry for weapons, knowing he never carried anything smaller than his old blackhawk. Then he simply nodded his satisfaction and led the way. As Perry fell in behind Gruner, it felt far too natural. Ever since the old man had turned him near on a century ago. The last few years felt like a pale illusion. Perry glanced back to see Leon following behind then, an uncertain expression on his face.

Gruner or Leon-neither was exactly a winning proposition.

Gruner entered the hall, directly into the dais. Vampires of every kind were seated in ranks. But Gruner's place on the dais was not vacant.

Kensey looked the same on the surface but twelve years had given him some internal stature. The air between Gruner and Kensey all but sparked with hostility.

"Calling for the vote of deposition, were you?" Gruner said in a still, small voice as dangerous as a serpent's hiss.

"I have already..." Kensey's eyes slid over Gruner to Perry and took a moment to recognize what they saw.

"There is a small matter of tradition," Gruner said, as if tradition were ever a small matter for vampires. "The inc.u.mbent and the challenger may both address the counsel before the vote is taken."

There was embarra.s.sed shuffling in the audience, amongst whom ballots were obviously already circulating. Kensey stood stiffly erect, then bowed and stepped back from the dais.

Gruner claimed the center of attention as if it were his birthright and every eye was fixed on him.

"Most of you here present do not recall the times when common men knew of our kind, hunted and reviled us. You did not live in the times when our traditions were formed and honed for the safety of all our kind. In this modern world a single error, a single rash action could reveal and exterminate us all. This is not the time for children to rule us."

Perry stood stoically behind Gruner. He knew there was an element of truth to what the old man said-these were dangerous times to be a creature of the night. But Leon had confirmed the whispers. Gruner was killing with increasing impunity, planning to take total control over who was made, so that all vampires answered to him, t.i.thed to him and obeyed him. Kensey was young, there was much he didn't understand but the elders were all too conditioned to follow Gruner. Only the youngest would ever rebel.

Gruner turned to Perry and gave him that secret smile, the one he always used before revealing his carefully laid plans. As he began to speak again, Perry held his hand back towards the curtains. Gruner had his back turned but the rest of the audience must have plainly seen Leon reach from the cover of the stage curtains and pa.s.s his old pistol over. There was a chance Leon wouldn't have done it. His allegiance should be to Gruner but he could always pretend he a.s.sumed Perry to be still under the old man's orders. There was a murmur in the crowd--- 'Peregrine', it seemed they could recognize him after all.

"So you will understand," Gruner said to the audience. "That I have to take precautions for all of our safety. There is precious little potion my a.s.sociate Peregrine's family pa.s.sed down to him. Absorbed through the skin and more than capable of conveying you all that extra mile to permanent death."

Perry felt the gaze of the a.s.sembled throng on him now. Well, of course. Gruner wasn't looking after an old comrade's safety; he simply needed a prop-something to make his threat plausible and his hold over the vampires complete.

It was not beyond plausibility that Gruner obtained a sample of one of Perry's more dangerous concoctions somewhere along the line and had it a.n.a.lyzed. Even if Perry denied Gruner's claims and was believed, it might lead to the death of every vampire in the room. Except if it was his recipe....

Gruner was counting on Perry falling into a long habit of obedience, paralyzed and unsure. The all but starved of blood Perry wasn't quite as much a slave to those vampiric imperatives as he used to be. He looked at his maker and knew he could not allow this bluff to continue.

"Gruner," Perry said quietly. Gruner just waved him away, a casual gesture that had been all too familiar during his time in the old man's service. "Gruner, I'm not backing you up on this one."

Gruner's hand had been lying casually in the dark shelf below the podium. He spun in one smooth arc to point a small, modern gun-finger already tightening on the trigger.

Perry's conscious mind was not expecting the move but deeper instincts never slept. Gruner always laid plans within plans like Russian dolls. If Perry would not support his ploy, Gruner would take him out swiftly. The shock of the elimination of another elder, a feared enforcer, on the stage before them would cow the younger vampires and sway the elders to caution.

Well before Perry drew his conclusions, he raised the old pistol that he held naked in his hand. His bullet blew through Gruner's chest throwing him back an instant before he fired, sending his gun barrel up and off target.

The room went still. The absolute rulers.h.i.+p of a century faltered and drew back leaving a fearful void. Kensey stood to one side of the stage, Perry to the other. Many in the audience would have their particular followers but the pa.s.sage of years made these bonds specific and unyielding, there were few, very few who could hope to win a vote today.

And Gruner wasn't dead.

There was no bullet on earth that would kill an elder vampire outright. Perry disregarded the crowd. He walked forward to where Gruner lay paralyzed, his outflung arms trembling. Perry knelt by his side. Gruner's eyes were small and dark, showing unfamiliar surprise, and fear.

Looking down at Gruner, Perry spoke to Kensey, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Tell me why you challenged Gruner."

"What?"

"Tell me why you challenged Gruner."

Kensey did not speak in haste, after long moments he replied in a steady voice. "He started to kill. Not just the crazed few that might reveal us, nor those guilty of any crime. He killed any who opposed him and could not protect themselves. He killed those who inconvenienced him, and even those he merely did not like. And even before pa.s.sing the edict that new vampires could not be made without his approval he killed the new-made, casually, like drowning kittens."

Power, after all these years, had finally taken Gruner down the long dark path it had always offered.

Perry stood and went to Kensey. He took the capped syringe from his pocket and handed it to the younger vampire.

"While Gruner lives you will never be safe. His only desire is to rule our kind and he will do anything to depose anyone who takes that role from him. He will continue to kill those you love, or know, or even meet on the streets. He will live only to destroy you, if you allow him to live at all."

Kensey took the syringe and walked over to Gruner. He looked around. Gruner's soldiers stood and merely watched. With the old man humbled, thrown down they were not obliged to obey him and none seemed inclined to do it for the sake of true respect or commitment. The choice was Kensey's.

Kensey looked down at Gruner and it was clear on his face-deeply, savagely clear how much he hated this man who had ruled and brutalized him, killed his lover. But then he walked over to Perry and returned the drug to him.

"It is time we found another way," Kensey said. "A new way to be safe not only from the great ma.s.s of humanity, but from each other."

Perry took the syringe and placed it back in his pocket. Without a word he went to the front ranks of the audience where ballot papers lay upon the narrow desk before the first row of seats. He took a pen from his lapel pocket and marked the ballot clearly with Kenney's name.

As he walked to the great bra.s.s canister where votes were collected he unfolded the paper and showed it to the crowd before he pushed it inside.

"Leon," Perry called softly. "Come here and receive the votes."

Kenney was tense, hardly believing his fortune. Perry pa.s.sed him as he went back to the door through which he had entered. "Get me a sample of any material that Gruner may have used. Have everyone stay long enough for me to determine if Gruner's threat was in earnest and produced the antidote they will need."

"Gruner was never one for idle threats," Kensey replied.

"Perhaps not, but there was a time he would have done just as you have done today. There was a time when he was never so ruthless as to try and poison his people into obedience. Try to remember mercy, Kenney. Remember it for as long as you can. Long life and real power will steal it from you in the end."

"I will," Kensey said vaguely, his mind no doubt racing ahead, scheming to seize total control of Gruner's domain.

As he left the room, he heard Kenney step forward to the podium and start to speak in a clear, warm voice, giving instructions for the vote, for the containment of those who might have been poisoned. Perry hoped his old equipment was still here somewhere. The likely antidote would not be difficult to make in large amounts.

He stopped for a moment in Gruner's living room and held his hands out in front of him. His fingers shook. He knew that some time in the confusion of this night he would take that syringe and do what Kenney could not. Rulers needed to be gentle men, men of principle and moral depth.

And men like Gruner needed to die.

By immense force of will, Perry stayed awake well into the day, a.s.sembling his old dusty equipment. It was lying ready, no doubt set out by Gruner who expected the counsel to cave into his threats-and his old lover to return to his side. A powder dusted over the hall showed every sign of being bloodbane. The vampires were moved throughout the Rookery, the halls hummed with conniving but by the time most of them had gone to their rest barricaded in Rookery suites and guarded by human thrall, Kensey was elected, albeit by a small margin.

The topical effect of the bane on the skin was not all that severe but Kensey arranged to have the ingredient collected and Perry constructed a salve to minimize unpleasant effects, and comforted the minds of those effected. If anyone had inhaled it in significant amounts, there was nothing that could be done.

Kensey was busy establis.h.i.+ng his rules, forming the first alliances of the new court. As the next night began to fall, Perry came back to Gruner's old room, which lay empty. With a sigh he settled down onto the sofa. His body and his heart felt leaden. He lay down upon his side, feeling the cold leather against his face. Sometime during the night, Kensey had arranged for Gruner to be removed, and n.o.body knew where.

Somebody sat beside him, and without looking he knew who it was. Leon.

"Well, that was fun," he said acidly. "Collecting votes from every vampire of the city whilst most of them were busy freaking out. I'm lucky I survived. Thanks for dumping that job on me."

Perry opened his eyes reluctantly, just wanting to stay right here. During the night, he could never sleep but just lying still would be enough.

"It set you in the center of Kensey's new court, Leon. Don't miss your chance. And, if in your travels you found where Gruner is, you might tell me that."

Leon looked down at him, lips pursed. "Why do you need to know that?"

"If Kensey's rule is to be established, your own role safe, Gruner needs to die."

Leon shook his head. "After what you said to Kensey." His disapproval was clear.

Perry struggled to sit up. "After what you did for me, Leon, Gruner will never rest until you are dead."

"Is that how Gruner started," Leon reb.u.t.ted. "Self preservation, to protect his people from those more savage and dangerous? It doesn't stop there, does it?"

"No, I suppose not." Perry looked aside. "He meant well to begin with, the old man. I suppose people always do but..."

"But killing crosses a line, and only becomes easier once done." It seemed Perry struck a chord in Leon-something along the lines of 'thou shalt not.'

Leon was right. It was not only Kensey who needed to cling onto his mercy, but what of what Gruner would do if allowed to live? Who could contain him? How could holding him eternally prisoner not be more cruel than death?

"Is that why you left him?" Leon asked with an edge of irrational jealousy in his voice. "Because of the killing?"

"I suppose it was why I stayed away," Perry admitted. "But I left because of a simple argument." He looked over towards the small foyer. "I was a fisherman once, it was one of Gruner's little conceits that he liked to take fishermen as thralls and fledglings. He saw himself, increasingly in the literal sense, as a Christ figure."

"And the argument?"

"It was so foolish, so utterly foolish. He was installing that aquarium. I didn't like it. It reminded me that Gruner chose me on a whim and might caste me aside so easily. I was just one of his fishermen, those d.a.m.n fish would be a daily reminder of it... I stormed out when he insisted on that stupid thing even after I explained to him that I never wanted to see another fish, another reminder of my former life."

"Well," Leon said. "Maybe there is still a softer side to the old man."

"What on earth do you mean? In a ham-fisted way he just threatened everyone here with death, he is utterly ruthless."

Leon nodded. "I've been here the last few years, Peregrine. I might know the depths Gruner sank to even better to you. But take a closer look. Corals, anemones, hermit crabs and snails-but there never has been a fish in that tank. Maybe he really did want you back."

Leon was right, even if it didn't seem to make much sense. Gruner had to be shown mercy. Killing him in cold blood achieved nothing but speeding Perry's own descent into d.a.m.nation. That was true mercy, wasn't it? Not to spare the innocent who were never any threat, but to spare those who might turn upon you that night or the next. To give the d.a.m.ned a chance at redemption. Who knows, maybe the sudden change in his circ.u.mstances might bring about change in Gruner-just like withdrawal from the blood had wrought a change in Peregrine, once enforcer of the Rookery.

Perry stood compulsively. "I have to get out of here. Leave young Kensey to it."

"Perhaps keep an eye on him, from afar?"

Perry shrugged. "Perhaps. Perhaps vampire rulers need a few checks and balances like human government. Someone to watch for the callousness that blood and power breed. I will rest easier knowing you are near him, someone who can see the ruler's feelings no matter what he says, and remind him of his promise."

Leon came to stand behind him. "Maybe you'd rest better if I stayed here, but I am not yours to command, as yet. Give me the keys Perry; I'll drive."

Perry handed over the car keys, but stood still a moment as Leon headed over to the elevator until he could barely see the boy through the bubbling water of the aquarium.

"Are you coming?" Leon called out saucily.

Perry laughed. Life suddenly looked so much better, not just because of what he was leaving behind, but what was going with him. "That's rather going to depend on you," he replied as he went to join his lover. Perhaps he had finally become, in his own modest way, a fisher of men-a catch of one was all he'd ever need.

THE END.

About The Author.

Emily Veinglory Emily Veinglory is a writer of fantasy and erotic romance. She writes many types of romance but is best know for her gay romance e-books with fantasy and paranormal themes. She is also involved in book reviewing, ill.u.s.tration and stock photography. Emily is a New Zealander currently living in Indiana and working as a postdoctoral researcher in the area of animal behavior. Visit her at: http://www.veinglory.com Our authors love to hear from their readers!

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JOHAN'S POSSESSIONS.

By Adrianna Dane

JOHAN'S POSSESSIONS.

He belonged to her, was devoted to her every need. She savored the taste of his blood, which was thick and so very rich, and he had become a dedicated disciple to learning to appease her voracious appet.i.te. She liked that about him. It had been a long time since she had bound a human to serve her, one so...eager. When she encountered the brooding young man in The Blood Pint six months before, something drew her attention to his perfect male beauty. Maybe it was his look of desperation, the pain she saw reflected in his eyes. Surprising emotion washed through her, the urge to soothe him, yet at the same time to savor him. He had been an eager player in her little game and she was not disappointed by her choice. Nate more than lived up to his potential.

He maintained his position at the hospital because she chose to allow him to do so. She liked the idea that he continued to have access to a ready blood supply if an emergency should arise. However, she did insist that he move into her home. His own apartment was not much to speak of anyway. She enjoyed hearing the steady rhythm of his human heart, to smell the enticing aroma of his warm blood, knowing that at any moment she chose, he was there to a.s.suage her hunger. Yes, his presence was in some way comforting, and arousing.

Each night she awoke, she knew he would be there, waiting for her, ready to please her in every way imaginable. She no longer felt so alone. There was no overwhelming urge to make him vampire, instead she enjoyed the heat of his humanity at her service.

She now sat at the end of the gleaming rectangular dining table watching as he consumed his hearty dinner of succulent thick, rare steak, fresh carrots, and baked potato. He leaned back and sipped at a gla.s.s of red wine, staring at her over the rim. She lifted her own gla.s.s and sipped from it.

The white tuxedo stretched across his broad shoulders enhanced his dusky, rich complexion. When they first met, his hairstyle had been short and spiky. Now, he wore his thick, sable hair longer, tied back neatly, as she required of him. He kept his body toned and defined by using the exercise room located in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the house. He was so beautiful, even more than when she had first met him.

Everything he did was now centered around her pleasure, her needs. Tonight was his night off from the hospital and she had plans for their evening together. Her gaze moved to the throbbing, purple vein that threaded along his neck and she licked her lips.

Only having recently risen from her day of rest, she ached to consume his blood. She always took very good care of her possessions. Just looking at Nate, one could tell he was cared for, not like some she had encountered over the years.

His dark gaze tangled with hers over the rim of the gla.s.s before he set it back on the table. "Did you have a good rest?" he inquired in his husky voice, vibrating warm life.

She liked the sound of it as well as the vibrancy throbbing through him. He belonged to her and she meant to savor and appreciate her possession tonight. She looked forward to unwrapping him from the attractive packaging, tasting of the rich texture of his lifeblood and feeling his c.o.c.k pulse with energy inside her.

Licking her ruby-embellished lips, she rose and sauntered along the carpeted distance lying between them, trailing her fingers along the polished surface of the table. She made a point of feeding well the night before so she could sup at her erotic leisure from her succulent slave this night.