Cronin's Key (6 page)

He stood in the kitchen and ate the food that Eiji had bought for him. It was takeout from a French restaurant, which Eiji found funny, saying something about it being a night for French. Alec didn’t ask for details. With the way Cronin scowled at the Japanese vampire, Alec thought it best not to know.

Eiji had even bought him a coffeemaker, which Alec was most grateful for. And seeing how happy it made him, Cronin had thanked Eiji. Though from the assortment of different groceries he’d ordered, it was very clear that the man hadn’t eaten human food in a long time. It was a nice gesture all the same, but Alec really just wanted to go home.

Cronin’s apartment was clearly the most lavish place he’d ever been in, but it wasn’t his. Nothing here was familiar, nothing was comforting. It felt like a grand hotel to Alec: beautiful, opulent, but sterile.

When evening settled over the city and the sun was finally set, Eiji and Jodis said their goodbyes with promises to be back the next night. Jodis had put her hand on Cronin’s arm and whispered something Alec couldn’t hear, though by the way her eyes flickered to him, he was certain she was talking about him.

Cronin ducked his head, and Jodis and Eiji disappeared into the elevator.

And Cronin and Alec were alone.

Cronin seemed nervous, and Alec wanted to go to him. He wanted to touch him, he wanted to wrap his arms around him. But he knew he shouldn’t. It was too soon, it was all too much, and Alec admitted to being a lot of things, but a pushover wasn’t one of them. So his mind warred with his heart and won. He shoved his hands in his pockets and anchored his feet to the floor.

“I’d like to go home,” Alec said.

Cronin’s eyes shot to his. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Alec, your police friends are looking for you. And not only that, but the city is not safe right now.”

“You don’t have a problem with Eiji and Jodis going.”

“They can look after themselves.”

“I can look after myself,” Alec barked, offended. “I chased down a vampire, remember?”

“I know,” Cronin replied, the fact obviously still a little raw. “You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“You can’t even walk out onto the street, Alec. The police are looking for you, and they are no doubt monitoring your place.”

“And whose fault is that?”

Cronin sighed. “I don’t wish to argue with you.”

“And I don’t want to argue with you,” Alec conceded. And he didn’t. It was the last thing he wanted to do. “Look, I just want to go home. I wanna grab some clothes and some toiletries and then I can come back here. I miss my things.” Then Alec remembered something. “Oh, man. What about Sammy?”

Cronin’s reaction was immediate and serious. “Who is Sammy?”

Cronin was jealous, and Alec liked that more than he should. Alec smiled. “Someone I live with.”

Cronin’s nostrils flared. “I can leap there and get whatever you need.”

Yeah, right.
More like go there and scare Sammy to death. “You’re not going through my stuff without me.”

“And you can’t go there alone.” Cronin was quiet for a moment. “I could leap us there, though leaping was unpleasant for you.”

“Unpleasant?” Alec asked. “Is that the medieval term for hurts like a bitch?”

Cronin tried not to smile and failed. “Medieval?”

“Is that not correct?” Alec asked. “Is ancient more appropriate?”

Cronin laughed and gave a nod. “Possibly.” Then he compromised, something he didn’t do often. “How about we wait until a later hour, and we’ll both go. I’ll leap us, you get what you need, and I’ll leap us back. It’ll take a few minutes at most.”

Alec weighed his options. He wasn’t too keen on experiencing leaping again anytime soon, but he wanted to go home even more. He nodded. “Deal.” Cronin was seemingly pleased with this plan, so Alec figured it was a good time. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Who are the Illyrians?” Alec licked his lips. “Well, I know from history class in high school who they are. Am I right to presume we’re talking of the same people?”

Cronin gave him a small sigh and nodded. “I suppose I should explain from the beginning, and the Illyrians are a good place to start.” He waved his hand at the sofa. “Though you might want to sit down. It’s a long story.”

Alec sat on the sofa and folded one leg under himself. He waited for Cronin to sit on the opposite sofa. “The Illyrians inhabited what is now Bosnia and Croatia. Is that correct?”

Cronin nodded. “You remember well.”

“I have a photographic memory,” Alec told him. “If I see something, read something, even once, I retain it.” He shrugged. “It’s why I made detective five years ahead of my academy peers.”

Cronin smiled at him, but continued with his story. “The Illyrians to which you refer also inhabited Albania and Serbia, and into parts of Hungary. South of the Celts, North of the Greeks. They were large in numbers.”

“Did you fight them?”

“This will go a lot faster if you leave your questions until the end,” Cronin said with a smirk. “I have no doubt your inquisitive mind will have a few. Or a lot.”

“Questions are highly likely, yes,” Alec replied. He liked Cronin’s formal phrasing and found himself replying in similar wording. He particularly liked how it made Cronin smile. He ignored the no-question rule. “Why did you say ‘the Illyrians to which
I
refer’? Were there others?”

Taking a deep breath, Cronin continued. “Yes. These were the Illyrians that came before them. Ancient Illyrians, to be exact. Their precise age of origin is not known, but somewhere around 5000BC.”

Alec blinked slowly. “Ohhh-kaaaay,” he said. “And these are the Illyrians to which
you
refer?”

“You keep asking questions.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t believe you are.”

“Because I’m not.”

Cronin sighed again. Alec smiled.

“Yes, these are the Illyrians to which I refer,” Cronin said. “Now please refrain from interrupting with questions.”

Alec resigned himself to listening, even though he felt like a reprimanded child.

“The Illyrian coven were powerful and many in number. But as the vampire histories are told, their hunger for power and greed was their downfall. The more land and wealth they accrued, the more of a threat they were and, as it quite often happens, more of a target.

“They lived in the mountainous caves, mostly in what is now Bosnia and Croatia. There were no grand castles or palaces in those times, but the caves afforded protection from the sun during the day.

“They took what they wanted, doing little to hide their vampire nature, believing themselves to be unstoppable.” Cronin sneered ruefully. “If lore is to be believed, it was dissension within their own ranks that led to their downfall. Conflict among themselves—over who ruled, who owned what, and who was more powerful—eventually split the coven into factions, and they fought each other. The Egyptians only had to intervene in the end.”

Alec pursed his lips together. He
really
wanted to ask questions.

Cronin smiled. “Yes, Alec. The Egyptians.”

“Like Cleopatra?”

“Not her specifically. But yes.”

Alec couldn’t help himself. “How did this escape documentation? The Egyptians have been documented, studied over thousands of years, how did this not get out? How is this not known to the general population?”

“The one good thing the Illyrians did was set a precedent for what not to do. Every coven, no matter how large, has a governing body, or a president, if you will. Enforcing laws and accountability for felonies of vampire law was a logical progression.”

Alec’s head was starting to spin again. His voice squeaked. “Covens?”

“Yes. Vampire colonies.”

“Are you in a coven?”

“Yes.”

“With Jodis and Eiji?”

“Yes.”

“How many others?”

“Four hundred and fifty-two.”

“Jesus.”

“No, he’s not one of them.” Cronin laughed and Alec balked. “I’m only joking.”

Alec narrowed his eyes at him. “Is that vampire humor?”

Cronin still chuckled as he shrugged. “Shall I continue with our brief history rundown?”

“Please do,” Alec said. “And warn me next time you’re gonna try and make a joke, okay?”

Cronin ignored him. “To answer one of your many questions, vampire histories are not strictly documented in your history books but there is evidence if you know what to look for. Anything that was written or transcribed in any way in relation to vampires was made obsolete during the late medieval era. Common laws and religious books were rewritten across Europe, including England and Rome, around the twelfth century to rid any references to vampiric nature.”

Alec nodded in understanding. “To stop mass hysteria.”

“Yes. So the people would not live in fear. But to also give us anonymity.”

Needing a little head-clearing space, Alec got himself a glass of water from the kitchen. When he came back to the living room, instead of sitting on the sofa opposite Cronin, he sat beside him. He tucked one leg up under himself again and turned a little so he basically faced Cronin as the vampire recounted histories of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa and how, for a couple hundred years vampires were almost forgotten. “Then in 1347, hell was… unleashed.”

“What happened?” Alec asked softly.

“What you would refer to as the Black Plague.”

Alec stared at Cronin, unblinking. “The Black Plague…” His mind reeled as realization sank in. “It wasn’t a plague at all, was it?”

Cronin shook his head slowly. “No.”

“Holy shit,” Alec whispered. “Over a hundred million people died.”

“It was closer to two hundred million,” Cronin said, his voice low. “A seven-year rampage of one coven, Alec. Seven vampires started it, changing humans as they went, making themselves an army that almost wiped out Europe. They called themselves Yersinians, dressed all in black. Hence where the term ‘black death’ was coined.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Cronin looked as though was going to joke again that no, Jesus wasn’t there, but he didn’t. Alec wondered if the look on his face made Cronin stop.

“How did it end?”

“We stopped them.”

“You were there?”

“Yes.”

“Fucking hell.”

“Yes. Hell, indeed.”

Alec couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His mind was running around in circles. “You were there?” he asked again.

“Yes. Many of us died.” Cronin looked out over the city skyline, and Alec could tell by the way Cronin flinched and his eyes hardened that he was reliving some horrors.

After a few long minutes of silence, allowing them both to get their thoughts in order, Alec asked, “So there are good vampires and bad vampires?”

Cronin looked into Alec’s eyes, and he gave him a small smile. “Yes.”

“How do you tell the difference?”

Cronin’s dark eyes glittered. “The one that’s vying for world domination is the bad guy.”

“But there’s no distinct markings,” Alec asked. “Like in the movies where the bad vampires have red eyes?”

“Uh, no.” Cronin tilted his head. “Red eyes?”

“Have you not seen… You know what? Never mind.”

“I don’t credit popular culture,” Cronin said. “Though I did read Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
once.”

“And what?” Alec deadpanned, letting his head fall back onto the backrest of the sofa. “Friend’s autobiographies a little too self-serving for you?”

Cronin roared with laughter, surprising Alec. “You’re very funny,” Cronin said, his grin huge and his eyes shining.

After such a deep and depressing conversation, Alec was grateful for the break, and hearing Cronin laugh like that stirred something in his chest. He found himself smiling at him. “You’ve seen a lot of things, haven’t you?” It was hard to get his head around just exactly what Cronin had lived through. Not just technological changes in the last few decades, but fundamental changes that shaped mankind in general, like agriculture and industry. Alec was a modern man and took things like electronic communication and medicines for granted, whereas Cronin lived in times when people wore shoes made from animals they’d skinned with their bare hands. He shook his head. “Wow.”

“It is a lot to take in,” Cronin said soothingly.

“Yeah, just a bit.” Alec looked up at the ceiling and puffed out a breath, then let his head loll to the side so he could look at Cronin. He looked at the shelves of keepsakes, artifacts, and antique pieces. No doubt, each had its own story, but for now he was dealing with enough information for his brain to handle. “Promise one day you’ll tell me everything.”

Cronin’s smile was immediate and warm. “I will.”

They sat in silence for a short while, Cronin allowing Alec the time to absorb what he’d learned. Finally, Alec spoke. “What other times have there been…
incident
s like the Black Plague.”

“Evidence of vampires has been found from as long as seven thousand years ago, when humans were still mostly uncivilized. Though very little is known about them. The Illyrians and the Egyptians were the first that I know of. Then there were a few isolated events, though nothing that caused widespread carnage until 1347. After that, there have been some more
incidents
, as you call them.”

“Such as?”

“There was another plague in London in 1665, then in Moscow in 1771. Only a few tens of thousands of humans were killed in those…” Cronin cringed, likely at how callous that sounded. “There’s been
plague incidents
in Italy, Africa, Helsinki, Baghdad. They weren’t as severe as the first time, and the Yersinians, what little remained of them, were finally eradicated after Moscow.”

“Eradicated?” Alec picked out the one word. “You mean that coven is all gone?”

“Yes.”

“Well, good,” Alec said. Then he shrugged. “Sorry.”

Cronin snorted. “There were also Mayan people.”

“Yeah right. Now you’re pulling my leg.”

“No.”

“The Mayans were vampires?”

“Not all.” Cronin sighed. “Some villagers escaped, and the localized myth of blood-drinking demons spread like wildfire. There were many books and scribes about what happened, though the Spanish coven controlled the incident and burned all evidence.”