Blood of Gold (10 page)

“Without young Hoss’s help, we would have been quickly overwhelmed,” Peterson continued. “I know it sounds precocious, but I suspect this chap is a kind of genius. He organized his followers into an effective force. He knows the Rules forward and backward, and what’s more, he believes in them completely.”

Again there were amused mutterings, and Hoss wondered what was going on.
This is the Council of Vampires. Don’t they all believe in the Rules? Isn’t that why they’re here?

“Without Hoss, here, I doubt I would have returned to give you an account of the extraordinary events in Crescent City, which is contained in the reports on the table in front of you and which I assume you have all read. Therefore, when Hoss asked to speak to us, I felt that we owed him that much. I also thought it would be a good idea to hear some fresh ideas. Hoss?”

Before Hoss could rise, another of the councilors spoke up. She was an overweight woman of indeterminate age, who had a jolly appearance and a high voice. “Don’t be fooled by Belinda Hanson,” Peterson had warned him. “She’ll kill you as soon as look at you.”

“Before Mister…” Her cheerful expression turned puzzled. “Hoss, is it? Do you have a full name?”

Do I?
Hoss wondered. Yes, he’d once had a name, but it was long gone. That name had belonged to an innocent child. He didn’t feel like remembering it, much less revealing it. “Just Hoss,” he said.

“Very well, Hoss. Before Hoss presents his case, I’d like to ask him a few questions.”

Hoss looked at Peterson, who shrugged as if he couldn’t do anything to prevent it.

“Yes?”

“Is it true that you and your followers allied with the humans against the Wilderings?”

“We did.”

“I see,” Hanson said. She looked around the table with raised eyebrows. “So you’re saying that you broke at least half the Rules of Vampire?”

Seeing the grim looks of the other councilors, Hoss suddenly understood that he was in trouble. Once again, his gaze fell on the table, which seemed designed to channel blood to narrow point near the legs. It had been used recently and often, he realized. But instead of being frightened, he found himself angry.

“I did,” he said defiantly. “If the Wilderings had won, then the existence of vampires would have been exposed, putting all of us in danger. I determined that it was best to help the human vampire hunters put down the plague, because they wanted to keep the secret as much as I did.”

“Did it remain a secret?” Hanson asked.

“Officially,” Hoss said.

“Nevertheless, it appears to have become common knowledge. So your gamble didn’t pay off, did it?”

“It’s a better result than what would have happened if I hadn’t intervened.”

“Still, you decided
on your own,
without any authority, to break half of the Rules.”

Hoss thought about objecting, but shut his mouth and simply nodded. He could see this wasn’t going well. The other councilors hadn’t changed expression as he’d explained himself. They hadn’t relaxed, as they would have if they were accepting his words.

“I think the young man showed great resourcefulness,” a deep voice said. It was coming from one of the men along the wall, and Hoss identified him as Roger Combs.

“There is one more individual I must tell you about,” Peterson had said. “He isn’t officially a councilor, but he controls at least three of the Council members. He is a short man, fastidious in dress, and looks like a nineteenth-century clerk from a Dickens novel. Do not be fooled by his innocuous appearance.”

Four of the eight councilors seated at the table froze at the new speaker’s words
. Interesting,
Hoss thought
. This vampire controls at least half of the current Council. Can’t everyone see that?

“I think this young vampire deserves our applause,” Combs said. He rose from his chair and started clapping.

Everyone in the room began to clap along with him, some more enthusiastically than others, true, but Hoss got the sense that what Combs wanted, Combs would get. Hoss realized he was safe, for the time being. Well, safe or not, he’d come here for a reason.

Hanson frowned and looked as if she wanted to object, but glanced around and realized she was outnumbered. She looked down at the table, blue blood suffusing her countenance.

“I understand you had something you wanted to tell us, Hoss,” Combs continued. “Please proceed.”

Hoss took a deep breath. He’d prepared a long and reasoned discourse, but decided at the last minute to keep it short and simple. “I’ve come to you today to plead for a relaxation of the punishments for breaking the Rules of Vampire. As conceived by Terrill, these Rules were meant to be guidelines, to keep vampires safe. Nothing more. It is a perversion of the original meaning of the Rules to make them mandatory.”

“How else are we to get other vampires to obey?” asked Jerome Bacher, the German representative.

“Vampires will obey what vampires want to obey,” Hoss said, and Combs chuckled at this. “While they may pretend to follow the letter of the law, unless they actually agree with it, they won’t follow the spirit of the law. So making the punishment draconian for failure to comply not only doesn’t work, it serves to undermine the very meaning of the Rules.”

“Isn’t this true of all laws?” Bacher objected. “Are you suggesting that all laws be voluntary?”

“Again,” Hoss said patiently, “we are vampire. We aren’t human. We aren’t meant to follow laws, though we might be open to suggestions, if they make sense, if they are in our own best interests.”

Combs laughed again, and this time others joined him. “Just what I’ve always said. We vampires aren’t meant to be tame.”

Hargraves spoke up, his boyish voice high and shrill in the small room. “Perhaps we should wait for Fitzsimmons to return from America before we make any decisions. He believes the Rules must be mandatory, and I don’t think we should even discuss reversing them until he returns.”

“Agreed,” Peterson said, and two of the other councilors quickly approved. It was four to four, and everyone looked to Combs to see what he would decide.

“I agree, too,” Combs said. “We need the full Council for such a momentous decision.”

The tension went out of the room, tension that Hoss hadn’t even realized was there.
Always helps to delay the hard decisions,
he thought. He, too, found himself relaxing.

“Meanwhile, we appear to be missing an American representative in our august group,” Combs said. “Clarkson isn’t returning, I’ve been told. I hereby nominate Hoss for her position. I believe we need some fresh ideas, from someone who is not only aware of the new technologies, but has lived with them and knows how to use them.”

There was a stunned silence in the room. Whatever was going on behind the scenes, Hoss sensed that they had listened to him only because of Combs and Peterson, not because they believed in what he said. This last bit of business was unexpected.
I’m thirteen years old!
he wanted to object.

“I second the motion,” Peterson said, surprisingly. Hoss had a sinking feeling mixed with a sense of excitement. Since both of the power brokers in the Council were on his side, within a few minutes, the vote was taken and he was approved.

Peterson pulled out the chair to his right. “Take a seat, young man. Welcome to the Council of Vampires.”

#

After getting handshakes and pats on the back from seemingly everyone in the room, Hoss found himself alone.
Nice,
he thought.
They congratulate me, but none of them want to be around me for long.

Somehow he wasn’t surprised that the exception was Combs. The little man was waiting for him outside the chambers, hand extended and a big smile on his face. “Sorry to spring that on you,” he said. “But we need an American member to get anything done.”

“It’s all right,” Hoss said. “I’ll do my best.”

“I’m sure you will,” the older vampire said approvingly. “Come with me. I have dinner waiting in my suite.”

Hoss followed Combs, though he knew Jodie was probably waiting for him back in his hotel room, naked and already in bed. He doubted that Combs would take no for answer.

In Combs’s suite, there was a liveried servant and a two-person dining table with a white linen tablecloth and immaculate place settings. Combs offered Hoss some red wine. “It’s been mixed with fresh blood, and I like the zing,” he explained.

Hoss hesitated, then accepted. With his strict upbringing, he’d never had any alcohol in his young life. His mouth puckered up at the acidic taste, but he was determined to drink enough to see what all the fuss was about.

The conversation wandered, Combs asking him about school and friends, and then slowly but pointedly drifting into questions about the Wildering battle. Then came the question that Hoss thought was probably the entire reason he’d been invited there.

“Tell me about the vampires with blood of gold,” Combs insisted. “Tell me about Terrill.”

By then, Hoss was feeling fine. The soft white tablecloth, the congenial surroundings, the sophisticated host: all of it seemed like a great adventure. He took another gulp of the blood-laced wine, then said, “I don’t know much. They seem stronger and faster than us. They can walk in daylight. Other than that, I don’t really have much to tell you.”

“But anyone can become a Golden Vampire?”

“No… my understanding is that they must renounce all feeding off of humans.”

Combs laughed, and Hoss joined him. So this was what it was like to be an adult! How wonderful that he didn’t have to wait any longer! And his host… this was a wise and great man!

“Well, that doesn’t sound like much fun,” Combs said.

“Anyway, I only saw them for a short time. You’ll probably need to talk to Fitzsimmons when he comes back.” The room started to spin a little, and Hoss put down his wine glass with a clank against the porcelain plate. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“Strong wine if you’re not used to it. Listen, I have a spare bedroom if you need to stay.”

Hoss considered it. His hotel was across town, and getting there would require a taxi ride. But he had a sudden image of Jodie waiting for him, and he tried to get up. “I need to get back,” he said, then flopped back down into his chair.

“Stay! I insist,” Combs said. “I’ve got a surprise for you.” He raised a finger to the servant, and a few moments later, a couple of giggling girls were led into the room. They were human. Hoss could smell their blood from across the room, and he realized he hadn’t really fed since he’d crossed the ocean.

The two girls were way too young to be dressed so skimpily.
But that’s just the small-town boy in me
, came a thought. It was his thought, and yet it wasn’t. It was as if it came from somewhere outside himself.

Hoss felt a tug at his sleeve and rose to his feet. He approached the girls, and one of them, the smaller one, took him by the arm and led him to a bedroom. Hoss tried to unbutton his shirt, but his fingers didn’t seem to work very well, and she laughed and helped pull it over his head. Then his pants were down around his ankles and she was on her knees in front of him. He fell back onto the bed.

Jodie will be pissed
, he thought. But his body was responding, and the girl was very skilled. When she was done, she crawled up beside him and nestled against him. The blood in her neck was only inches away.

She’d been so nice to him. He didn’t want to kill her.

Feed!
the voice in his mind insisted.
Take her!

He sank his fangs into her neck and she started, then relaxed, almost as if she was expecting it, even accepting it.
Or
, he thought underneath his bloodlust,
as if she’s being controlled.

The thought of control sobered him, and as he continued feeding, his brain started working again.

There is something wrong here,
he thought.
Someone is trying to manipulate me.

Chapter 10

Rod was free to come and go as he pleased, though Patty often glared at him as if she still didn’t trust him. She’d get his attention in some subtle way and then give him a look that said,
Don’t be trying to get away, buddy.

Laura, on the other hand, seemed barely aware he was there. She didn’t acknowledge him, and whenever he came near, she would move away, always keeping a distance between them.

He wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t want to leave Simone’s side. They were constantly together now. He left the house only for necessities and then hurried back, worried the girls would leave without him. Fortunately, though they fed in a manner that was frighteningly ferocious, they didn’t have to eat that often, not as often as humans did.

Simone wouldn’t look him in the eye after their almost-kiss, but she didn’t shy away from him, either.

He couldn’t imagine the horror she had been through. It was almost inconceivable that she would ever feel safe again. He wouldn’t blame her if she never allowed another man to touch her for the rest of her life. But he’d be patient. He would wait for as long as she needed. It was enough just to be near her.

They were sitting at a rickety, makeshift table they had constructed out of bricks and an old door. Rod was showing Simone how to use a smartphone. The Wiki app especially seemed to grab her attention, and she spent hours using it to find out about the missing decade-plus of her life.

“It’s all so familiar,” she said. “And yet so strange…”

Patty marched into the room and stood over them silently until they both looked up. “Laura’s gone,” she announced.

“What do you mean, ‘Laura’s gone?’” Simone said.

“I mean she’s freaking gone!” Patty said. “Vanished, vamoosed, skedaddled, out of here!”

“Where would she go?” But even as Simone asked it, a look of realization came over both of the girls’ faces.

“She went back,” Simone breathed.

Patty nodded. “I should have known.”

“Went back!” Rod exclaimed. “Why would she do that?”