Absolution - The First Book Of The Vampire Immortalis Trilogy (4 page)

The number of trigger words being monitored is surprisingly large and varied. Most people would correctly suspect that if they mentioned something like “Al Qaeda” in a telephone call or text message that the security services would be aware of it within seconds. The same is true of words and phrases such as “dirty bomb”, “nuclear”, “Anthrax”, and “suicide attack”. What few realise is that otherwise innocent words might also bring them to the attention of the security services if they are used in certain contexts; words like “police”, “virus”, and “airport” for example.

There are also certain words that bypass the junior analysts completely and go straight to senior analysts. These are words that are considered of high immediate value or ones that are of a sensitive enough nature to warrant the scrutiny of someone with a high level of security clearance.

In all her years at GCHQ, Sarah had never once seen this high value word flagged up. It appeared in a pathologist's report prepared for the Lothian and Borders Police force in connection with a suspicious death in Melrose, Scotland. The word was “vampire”. Sarah smiled as she followed procedure and forwarded the report with the standard covering email to a civil servant at the Ministry of Defence by the name of William Edgar.
Probably the same man who looks into reports of alien abductions and Loch Ness monster sightings
, she said to herself.

Although his email address placed him with the Ministry of Defence, William Edgar actually worked for Sarah's old employer, MI5. Eight years ago, he had been seconded to a top secret taskforce that operated out of an anonymous office deep within Whitehall and had been their ever since. With only two more years to serve, he thought he would probably see out his time with the taskforce and that suited him fine.

Edgar certainly wasn't smiling when he received Sarah's email and wasted no time in forwarding it on to two others as per protocol. One copy went to an Eduardo Lomardi, a high ranking official in the Section for General Affairs at the Holy See in Rome. The other went to a Jacob Wiseman, a man Edgar knew nothing whatsoever about beyond the unremarkable email address the document was to be sent to: [email protected]. If curiosity had ever got the better of him, Edgar would have found that there was nothing more than a blank holding page at jacobwiseman.com, but he wasn't the least bit interested in doing any snooping. Message sent, there was
The Times
crossword to get back to.

“A death seer who cannot see death! I've heard it all now!” Henry Warwick was berating the other ten members of the Grand Council seated around the large circular oak table. The events in Melrose were, not surprisingly, the only item on the meeting's agenda. “In a moment of weakness, we showed Anna mercy, and this is how she repays us.”

If Jacob Wiseman was the brains behind the Immortalis, Henry was most definitely the brawn. Built like a tank, and with the firepower to match, every inch of this six foot three frame was hard-wired for combat. That made him a great person to have on your side, but an even greater enemy, and at this moment in time he had his guns trained firmly on Jacob. It was Jacob's casting vote as Grand Master of the Council that had broken the deadlock and saved Anna all those years ago. “Anna's failure to even find, let alone confront, the Hundeprest has taken us to the brink of war with the humans, Henry continued. “If war comes, let it be on your head, Jacob.”

There were mumbled words of agreement from around the table. Some of it, not surprisingly, came from Henry sycophants, and underlined his growing influence within the Council, but even the less hawkish among the gathering were genuinely concerned about the return of the Hundeprest. Talk of war was premature, they all knew that, but there was a very real possibility that things could quickly spiral out of control if the killings did not stop.

At her trial, Henry had wanted Anna dead and he made no bones about that. She had broken the Codex and the punishment was death. For him it was that simple. “Live by a code, die by a code,” that was Henry's favourite saying. Before crossing over to the vampire world, he had been an English knight fighting to preserve the Kingdom of Jersulem during the Crusades. Over his armour, he had proudly worn the red surcoat with white cross of the Knights Hospitaller, a military order that demanded absolute loyalty from its adherents. He had taken an oath to give his life for his order in defence of Christendom and the innocent. The surcoat had long gone, and his allegiance was now to the Codex, but his convictions remained unchanged. He knew no other way and expected no less from others.

The restless mood in the room prompted Jacob to speak out in Anna's defence. Jacob knew only too well that Henry's anger at Anna's failure was also masking a certain amount of pleasure. Henry was an ambitious man, and by reminding the Council of what he saw as the folly of sparing Anna, Henry was able to surreptitiously undermine Jacob's authority. “You are wrong, Henry, blinkered by your own prejudice. In your eyes, Anna can do no right. Had her gift delivered the Hundeprest to us, your praise for her would have been noticeable only by its absence.”

“Nonsense!” Henry replied, relishing the opportunity to go head to head with Jacob. “You are the one in the wrong, just as you were wrong to spare her all those years ago. I said we would rue the day that we rewarded her betrayal and that day has now dawned.”

“Come now, Henry, there is nothing to be gained by going over old ground.” Hendrick Bloemer got to his feet and walked the short distance to the window where a vista that included the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marin Headlands, and the Pacific Ocean, awaited. He had lived by the sea as a child and always envied Jacob's decision to buy a heavily-shaded villa in the exclusive Sea Cliff neighbourhood of San Francisco. Maybe he would offer to buy the house when Jacob had had enough of the high life. “All that should concern us now is returning order to our world.”

“Hendrick is right,” said Mary Smith, one of three women sat around the table. Technically speaking, Mary was the last surviving former American slave. She had been born a slave in 1832 on a cotton plantation, close to the small town of St. Francisville, Louisiana, and had lived on that same plantation until slavery was abolished in 1865. Now, Mary sat as an equal among perhaps the most powerful group of individuals in the entire world. “What is done is done and we cannot undo the past, not that I would wish to. What matters now is that we act quickly and decisively or there is no telling where this could end.”

“I couldn't agree more, Mary,” said Henry, sensing an opportunity to get his own way. “We must act quickly and decisively. Anna has failed us, of that there is no doubt. If she is allowed to continue to fail us, the consequences are unthinkable. When the second murder is uncovered by the humans, as it will be, all hell will break loose. And if the Hundeprest strikes a third time? A fourth? What then? I say we end this madness now.”

“And exactly how would you do that, Henry?” asked Jacob.

“By sending Adam McLeod to Scotland.”

Silence descended over the room. Nobody knew quite what to say. There would be no arguing that Adam was the man for the job. He was the most ruthless warrior the Council could call upon at times like this. Even the Sabbatarians, sworn enemies of the Immortalis, had admitted as much by putting a ten milion dollar bounty on his head. But reuniting Adam and Anna?

“If nobody has anything more to say, let's put it to a vote,” said Henry. “Time is of the essence. All those in favour of sending Adam McLeod to Melrose raise your hand.”

There was some reluctance on the part of both Jacob and Mary to support Henry's motion, but in the end the vote was unanimous. The Hundeprest had to be destroyed for the good of both vampires and humans, on that they could all agree, and if that involved playing with fire, then so be it. Jacob just hoped that, with Henry pulling the strings, any fire did not become a raging inferno.

Henry and two of his closest associates had made their excuses and left almost immediately after the vote had been taken. They went straight to San Francisco's airport to catch their respective flights, but before going to the boarding gates, they stopped for a celebratory drink at the Firewood Grill in the main International Terminal.

“A toast! To the Knights Perennius!” said Henry.

“The Knights Perennius!” Robert and William said as they touched beer glasses with Henry.

“To Adam McLeod!”

“Adam McLeod!”

“Even for a man like Adam, this is a big ask,” said Robert. “If he succeeds, it will be another nail in Jacob's coffin.”

“Jacob was rattled today, that's for sure,” added William. “The Council was like putty in your hand, Henry.”

“Adam won't fail us,” said Henry, gesturing to the barman to bring another round of drinks. “His loyalties lie with his brothers. As for Jacob, his days as Grand Master are numbered.”

It had fallen to Mary to tell Anna what the Grand Council had decided. Jacob thought it better coming from someone Anna considered a close friend and there was no dissent from the other Council members present.

When she ended their phone call, Mary gave a deep sigh. Anna had taken the news well, probably too well. The Adam that Anna spoke of seeing again was not the Adam that Mary knew. How could he be, given the many years that had past? Anna spoke of him with a love that had evidently barely diminished, but Mary only knew a very different Adam, an Adam who was a cold-hearted killer. Mary would never forget that it was Adam, together with Henry Warwick, who had destroyed her Benjamin, the kindest man you could ever hope to meet.

The very day that news reached the plantation that slavery had been abolished, Mary had resolved to put as much distance between herself and her former owner as quickly as possible, just in case them white folks changed their minds and decided that she was to be a slave again. With nothing more than a small bundle of clothes to her name, she had hopes of seeking sanctuary in one of the many makeshift shanty towns that were springing up like weeds on the fringes of Union army camps, but her former owner had other ideas. William Huckley had paid good money for his slaves and he was not about to watch his prize investments up sticks and abandon him at harvest time.

As the excited gaggle of 17 men, women and children, began to make their way down the road that led away from the plantation towards freedom, Huckley and his two overseers opened fire, killing seven year old, Betsy, and her father, Thomas, on the spot. If it hadn't been for the intervention of a passing Union army patrol, the death count would have been much higher.

Mary was shot in the melee that followed those opening shots, a soft lead minie ball hitting the back of her upper left arm. The bullet wound itself wasn't life-threatening, but the infection that she contracted at the army field hospital was. The doctors had little option, but to amputate Mary's arm close to the shoulder joint. They used what little chloroform they had left to numb the pain, but she was wide awake throughout the operation and the sound of the saw cutting through bone still haunted her nightmares all these years later.

Following the operation, a deadly form of gas gangrene set in. Unable to do any more for Mary, the doctors left her in the care of Benjamin, an old black orderly who had served with the Union army as far back as the the Battle of Carnifex Ferry in '61. Benjamin couldn't bear the thought of this beautiful young black woman dying before she had truly tasted freedom, but for two days he wrestled with his conscience, unsure whether to intervene or not. He could not save her life, any more than the doctors could, but what he could offer her was eternal life. As a vampire, he had that within his power. He knew that if he acted, he himself would be destroyed, but when he bit into her neck, he knew in his heart that he was doing the right thing.

Benjamin and Mary then managed to avoid the Immortalis for almost three years, by moving from one remote rural area to another, but the awful day came when they were discovered by enforcers of the Codex while living on a farm in Shelby County, Kentucky. That was when Benjamin was taken from her. He knew this day would come and he had mentally prepared them both for it. He said his goodbyes to Mary and then calmly walked out of the wooden hut that they called home and into the custody of the two enforcers who had come for him. She would never see him again. It was Henry Warwick and Adam McLeod who had come for him. Both were cockahoop at having tracked them down at long last and neither displayed an ounce of compassion for Benjamin or indeed Mary.

Anna had been shopping for clothes in Galashiels when she had received the call from Mary. A wave of relief washed over her, but news of who was coming stopped her dead in her tracks. Adam McLeod's was the last name she expected to hear.

Anna hadn't seen Adam in ages, absolutely ages, but she could still picture his face as if it was yesterday. It was a face she had been drawn to all those years ago, a face she could never forget. They certainly had a lot of catching up to do. The last time she had seen Adam, she had saved his life. Whether or not he would want to thank her for doing so, remained to be seen.

That evening, she received a text from Jacob:

Adam arriving in Edinburgh 07.55 (Tuesday) from Baltimore. Will arrive in Melrose 12.51 by bus.

Not a moment too soon
, she thought.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Khanjar-wielding Marmluks were on me like rats, ready to hack me to death. I tried to stay on my feet, but they were coming at me from all directions and I was knocked to the ground. I had all but accepted death when, out of nowhere, Gilbert came charging in on his monster of a white horse, toppling the Marmlucks like skittles.”