Birth of a Killer (7 page)

Many assistants perished horribly before they
could be blooded. That was the vampire way—they only accepted the most resilient. If you failed, the clan was better off without you. Larten knew he could expect no sympathy if he came up short of his master’s expectations. Nor would he ask for any.

As the sun dropped, Larten slit the wildcat down the middle, then speared it on two spits and hung the meat over the fire. The smell was delicious, but he tried not to take pleasure from the scent. If Seba caught the young man’s mouth watering, he’d probably toss the carcass aside and insist they hunt for raw meat.

As Larten tended the roasting cat, he hummed a song that Seba had taught him. It was an ancient melody, not of the vampires but from the human world of three hundred years ago. Larten would have liked to learn a few vampire tunes, but Seba said they were best kept for the Halls of Vampire Mountain.

Larten grew wistful as he thought about the legendary home of the clan. Seba hadn’t told him much about the mountain, but Larten had heard enough to fire his dreams. In his imagination it was a majestic place full of noble vampires. Great deeds were recounted there, lavish feasts were laid on for the Princes and Generals, and vampires had the opportunity to test themselves against their fellow night
stalkers. There was little in the human world to really challenge a vampire, but in the caverns and tunnels of Vampire Mountain, you could truly find out what you were made of.

Larten stopped humming and kept his gaze on the roasting cat. He appeared to be listening to the crackle of the flames, but he was actually concentrating on very soft steps behind him.

“Will you be dining with us tonight, sir?” he called, without looking up from the fire or turning around.

Someone clapped. “Very good,” the stranger said, stepping forward out of the shadows. “You have a sharp ear.”

“For a human,” Larten murmured, and turned to greet the visitor. He’d known by the sounds that their guest was a vampire—he moved in the same quiet way Seba did when he was testing Larten’s senses. If a vampire wished to sneak up on a human, they could move so silently that detection was impossible. But this one had wanted to give Larten a chance.

The vampire was about Seba’s height but a little broader. He looked even older than Seba and had long white hair and a tight gray beard. He was missing his right ear. The flesh around the hole was a pale pink color.

“Your name?” the vampire asked, approaching the fire and warming his hands.

“Larten Crepsley. I serve Seba Nile.”

“Aye,” the vampire said. “I gathered that much. I’m Paris Skyle. Seba has told you about me?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. I don’t like being discussed behind my back.” The vampire winked, then ran a curious eye over the young man’s face. “Have you been with Seba long?”

“Close to five years,” Larten answered.

“Still a ways from being blooded, then?”

“Seba doesn’t say so, but I suspect that I am.”

Paris sniffed the fumes from the cat. “In answer to your first question, yes, I accept your offer of dinner. But in the future you should be more careful who you extend an invitation to. Never ask anyone to break bread with you unless you’re sure of their intent.”

“I knew you were a friend,” Larten said. “Seba has been waiting for you. He didn’t tell me, but I guessed.”

“He might have been waiting for an enemy,” Paris growled.

Larten shook his head. “You don’t smile when you’re waiting for an enemy.”

“Certain vampires do,” Paris disagreed, but he
was prevented from arguing any further by the appearance of a yawning Seba Nile. Paris yelled a greeting when he saw Seba drift from his sleeping quarters, and the vampires gripped each other’s forearms, grinning widely.

Larten was excited–this was the first vampire he’d met since becoming Seba’s assistant–but he fought to keep his emotions to himself. If he smiled the way the pair of old friends were smiling, he would earn a cuff from Seba. So, maintaining a neutral expression, he stayed by the fire and focused on the roasting wildcat, acting as if that was his only concern in the world.

Seba and Paris ignored Larten for a long time, but he didn’t mind. He could tell they were old friends who had a lot to catch up on. He served them their meal and provided wine from a jug that he’d bought in the last town they’d visited. Then he settled back and listened as they swapped tales and discussed other vampires.

“I lost my ear at the last Council,” Paris told Seba. “I was surprised you were not there.”

“I broke my leg on the way,” Seba grunted, blushing slightly. “I had to hole up in a cave for five months. I fed on bats and the occasional stray goat. I thought
my time had come, but I healed and was able to hobble out in the spring.”

“I thought you had a bit of a limp,” Paris laughed.

“Tell me more about your ear—you look strange without it.”

Paris shrugged. “I was wrestling. My opponent’s nails caught on my ear, and rather than take the time to free them, he ripped his hand away.”

“Painful?” Seba asked.

“Aye. But I bit a chunk out of his cheek in response. We forgave each other over a mug of ale later.”

Larten knew a bit about the Council. It was held every twelve years in Vampire Mountain, and vampires from all over the world made their way to it. Laws were passed there, tournaments were held, and friendships were forged or renewed.

While listening, Larten was stunned to learn that Paris Skyle was one of six Vampire Princes. There were three classes of vampire—thousands of normal bloodsuckers, hundreds of Generals, and, overseeing them all, the Princes. They held complete power. Their word was law.

Larten had pictured the Princes clad in fine costumes, like royalty in the stories he’d heard as a child. He’d assumed they traveled with servants and guards.
But apart from a few extra wrinkles, Paris looked much like Seba. His clothes were worn and dusty from the road. He was barefoot. He carried no crown or scepter. And unless his retinue was hiding somewhere nearby, he was alone.

Paris threw away a bone and nodded at Larten to serve up more of the wildcat. He certainly had a princely appetite—this was his third helping.

“What’s wrong with your hair?” Paris asked as Larten gave him the last chunk of cat. Though Larten’s hair had dulled slightly since his days in the factory, it was the same unnatural orange color it had been five years before.

“Dye,” Larten said self-consciously.

“You dye your hair orange?” Paris chortled.

“The dye seeped into his skin years ago,” Seba said. “There is nothing he can do about it.”

“Why in the name of the gods did you dye your hair in the first place?” Paris asked.

“It was not by choice,” Larten answered quietly. “I worked in a factory. This is how the foreman marked me.”

Paris studied the boy some more as he chewed. “It’s been a while since you took an assistant,” he said to Seba.

“It is a complicated process these nights,” Seba
scowled. “I preferred it when you could snatch a baby from its cradle and no one cared. Now the Princes complain when we do that. They urge us to only take those who will not be missed by humans, and gods help you if you blood the wretch before he comes of age.”

“Times are changing,” Paris noted. “For the better, I feel. It’s good that people worry more about their young, that we cannot pick as freely as we once did.”

“Perhaps,” Seba said grudgingly. “But such cautious maneuverings are not for me. I have trained and blooded several fine vampires over the centuries. In terms of bolstering our ranks, I have done more than my fair share for the clan.”

Paris waved a hand at Larten. “Yet here you are with another apprentice.”

Seba smiled. “Master Crepsley was an unusual case. When you find a boy eating cobwebs in a crypt in the middle of the night… well, such a lad has already driven a wedge between himself and the human world. If I had not claimed him for the clan, some other vampire surely would have.”

“It sounds like an interesting tale,” Paris murmured. “I will ask you to tell it to me one night, Larten. In return I’ll tell you a few of mine if you’re interested.”

Seba laughed. “The lad does not know much about you, Paris, but in years to come, when he realizes what a treasure trove of stories you are, he will remind you of that promise. You may live to regret it.”

“Nonsense,” Paris sniffed. “I never tire of discussing my great exploits.”

Talk moved on, and Larten was again forgotten. He had enjoyed being part of their conversation, even for a brief while, and looked forward to the time when he was considered worthy of full inclusion in talks between vampires as old and wise as these two.

Paris started to tell Seba of his recent adventures in a jungle. He seemed to have traveled to every country Larten had heard of, and many more besides. Larten was fascinated, but he excused himself and went in search of food to serve to the vampires later in the night. His duties had to come first.

Larten often hunted by himself. He hadn’t in the first few years, but Seba had trained him well, and now he was left to his own devices most nights. While he enjoyed hunting with Seba, he preferred the solitude of the solo chase. He’d never feared the dark as a child but had been wary of it. Now he’d grown to love it. Humans retired when the sun went down, leaving the world in the control of the creatures of the night.

Larten wandered freely, relishing the heady smells, the sounds of small animals rustling in the bushes, the cries of owls and bats. While his senses were nowhere near as sharp as Seba’s, he had learned to see, hear, and smell more than most humans ever did. He was aware of a different world unraveling around him, nature rolling its dice as it did every night, animals fighting, birthing, feeding, dying. There were a dozen dramas unfolding everywhere at once, in the bushes, in the trees, beneath the soil. Larten could only follow a few of them—he saw an owl swoop on two mating mice and carry them away, and watched a fox drink by a stream, studying the water as if admiring its reflection. But the snatches he caught put a smile on his face like no human tale of ghosts and gods ever had.

On a rough road he kept to the shadows as a caravan of people passed, no more than three or four feet away from where he stood. It pleased him that he could follow their progress without their knowing he was there. He could have boarded the caravan and stocked up on fruit, meat, and wine if he’d wished. But although he and his master sometimes stole when needs dictated, vampires were not natural thieves. They would rather hunt.

Returning to the forest, he became part of the
hunting and killing frenzy. In a stream he caught two fish with his bare hands. Vampires could not drink the blood of a fish, but as with a cat, its flesh could be eaten once properly prepared and cooked. Larten kept one of the fish but gutted the other and left it lying on the bank as bait. He lay in wait nearby, as patient as any other predator. A rat nibbled at the guts, but Larten was in no mood for rodents, having eaten more than his fill of them over the last few nights.

Finally a weasel wandered by, homed in on the fish, and greedily dug in. Larten gave it a minute, then swept down on the weasel and made short work of it. While washing his hands, he darted after another fish–this one even bigger than the first two–but it slipped away and reached the safety of deeper waters. Larten bid the fish luck as Seba had taught him–“Always respect the ones that get away”–then returned to the ruined castle with his catch.

Seba and Paris were arguing when he got back. Rather, Paris was shouting at Seba, while the slightly younger vampire was smiling wryly.

“This is the honor of a lifetime,” Paris huffed. “Thousands of vampires dream of such an offer.”

“I would say it is more than most even dare dream of.” Seba nodded.

“You could enforce your views,” Paris said. “If you object to the way we treat those who blood children, you could help reshape our laws.”

“But I do not want to,” Seba said. “I am old-fashioned. I do not like some of the changes that have been introduced in recent decades, but I acknowledge the need for change. I am no revolutionary.”

“I need your support,” Paris pressed. “There will be a crop of new Princes this century. I’m currently the second youngest, but at six hundred I won’t be for long. The prospect of sitting beside a handful of young, headstrong Princes troubles me. I need an ally who sees things my way but who can also relate to the newcomers. You’re the best of both worlds, Seba, the old and the new.”

“You flatter me,” Seba murmured. “I am proud that you think so highly of me, but…” He spotted Larten listening. “Paris has made me a marvelous offer, Master Crepsley. He has pledged to help me become a Prince.”

“A Vampire Prince!” Larten gasped, eyes widening. He didn’t know much about Seba’s past. He thought his master was a General, but he wasn’t certain. And even if he was, Larten figured he couldn’t be one of great importance, since he had so little to do with the rest of the clan.

“At least the boy is excited by the prospect,” Paris muttered sourly.

“Power always impresses the young and foolish,” Seba said dismissively.

Larten scowled at his master and almost snapped at him but bit down on his tongue, not wanting to earn a thrashing in front of their visitor. “How do you become a Prince?” he instead asked Paris Skyle.