The Living Night (Book 1) (7 page)

She rose from the bed and walked naked to the
sliding glass door, which led to the bedroom's terrace, and flung open the
door. The wind whipped her sweaty hair, and she paused on the threshold. Becoming
accustomed to the chill, she stepped outside. The storm thundered and crashed
about the compound, and the rain flung its icy self down on her exposed skin.
The rain mixed with her recent sweat and washed it away. She opened her mouth
playfully and let the rain attempt to drown her.

Lightning cracked close by, and she laughed. The
stark light caressed her glistening body, and Ruegger felt himself aroused
again. Slipping from the clammy sheets, he followed Danielle onto the terrace.
Thunder smashed against the house, and she spit her water out so she could
growl into the storm. It didn't scare easily, however, and the thunder sounded
again, more loudly.

"Oh, yeah?" she roared. "Come and
get me if you can!"

Lightning blew open a nearby pine. The crack
echoed against the walls and the smell of charred wood wafted through the
choppy night.

"So you wanna play rough," she said
and began yelling obscenities into the storm.

A blast struck down another pine, this one even
closer.

"I think you're losing," Ruegger said.

Thunder roared again, but seemingly from within
the house. Then it roared again, only it wasn't thunder.

Suddenly, the terrace was empty, save for the
whipping of the wind. The vampires chased the screams down the hall toward
Ludwig's and
Malie's
bedroom chamber, also in this
wing of the house.

They rounded a corner and burst into the room of
their friends; the door was splintered and partially torn from its hinges. Five
dead and butchered Libertarian guards lay outside.

Blood spattered the room, as well as fragments
of bone and flesh. The central remains of Ludwig lay on his bed, his sundered
carcass partially hidden by the gusting satin curtains of his four-poster bed,
but twisted limbs and shards of gleaming bone and muscle covered the room. One
of the wooden columns that held up the canopy to his bed had been snapped off
and mounted by Ludwig's severed head.

“
No
,”
Ruegger said, going toward it. “Gods, no.”

There was no sign of Maleasoel.

Frozen rain and wind blew into the gore-haunted
room through the one great bay window, now fragmented. Most of the glass had
blown outward with the impact, but the force of the wind had swept several
glistening shards back in to mingle with the still-wet blood and viscera.

The moonstruck curtains blew like ghosts, and
Ruegger and Danielle approached the hole in the bay window slowly. Ruegger
leaned out over the icy abyss and strained his eyes to search the gloom. There,
on the outskirts of the estate, ran the demons, currently wearing the shapes of
great black wolves. The Balaklava vanished
into the night.

*
    
*
   
 
*

The
next day, Capt. Raulf D’Aguila was elected leader of Liberty, at least until Maleasoel returned.
Whether or not it had orchestrated Ludwig’s death, the dissident faction had
gained control;
Damaini
, who would have been Ludwig’s
choice for leader after Maleasoel, was now relegated to second-in-command.
Neither Ruegger nor Danielle saw the coronation ceremony or the Captain
himself; they were getting drunk in their room, trying to get themselves
together and figure out what to do next.

Danielle was concerned for Ruegger. He didn’t
even cry, just stared. A great sadness had obviously overwhelmed him and he
couldn’t shake it, but he couldn’t seem to release his feelings, either. He’d
seen so much of blood and tragedy that his heart had hardened—but, Danielle
hoped, not beyond repair.

Why had Junger and Jagoda had killed Ludwig?
None could say. But, if the assassins had spoken the truth, Danielle supposed they
would be headed for the Castle soon. Leaving Ruegger and Danielle a trail to
follow, should they choose to do so. However, if the Dark Lord was sponsoring the
actions of Junger and Jagoda, then he would be far less likely to admit the odd
flock to his home. And, if he did, he would surely kill them.

Ruegger and Danielle headed south after the
funeral, toward their estate in the wilds of Canada. Of course, the funeral was
supposed to be a party of sorts, because that was Ludwig’s wish; he’d wanted a
celebration of his life, not a lamentation of his passing. His meager remains
were burned and scattered over the frozen wasteland by Maleasoel's two winged
companions, jandrows like herself but with fair hair and brighter wings. They
looked quite heavenly flying above the trees in the shining night, ash falling
in a gentle cloud beneath.

Maleasoel had seemingly disappeared. It was
widely speculated that the Balaklava must have
dragged her off into the wasteland to perform unspeakable acts upon her before
rending her limb from limb as they were surely wan to do, but if so neither
Ruegger nor Danielle had seen any evidence of it. In any case, she was gone.

Damaini
smiled once, only
briefly, as Ruegger and Danielle packed their bags.

"Where are you going?" he said.

Danielle closed her eyes, glanced at Ruegger,
and sighed.

"Home," she said.

They departed in the same plane they'd arrived
in.
Damaini
waved at the vampire couple as they
climbed into the aircraft, which started with a roar and took off at speed into
the clouds.

Chapter 6

Six
nights later, Danielle was drinking a beer in the hedge maze out back of their
estate, her potbellied pig Cerberus beside her, when the parrot called Elvis
landed on her arm.

“What the hell?”

“You have visitors in the lobby,” he squawked.

“Van Reisser, it that you?” Normally the bird
was controlled either by Ruegger or herself, but sometimes their manservant Van
Reisser would send messages through it. All three immortals could control it
with their minds.

“Visitors in the lobby,” the bird said again and
flew off.

Danielle drained her beer, made her way out of
the hedge maze and approached the old mansion. Occasionally she would ask
Ruegger about its founding, but he would shrug and grow taciturn, so she’d
learned not to ask. There were many things about him she didn't know, and it was
infuriating because she knew many shades dramatically older than herself, and
these people, she was certain, knew all about him and his past. Yet when she
prodded them they invariably said that he should be the one to tell her. Danielle
agreed.
So I wait.
She was tired of
waiting.

Once, under his breath, he'd referred to this
estate as
Casa de Amelia
, and she recognized the name of Ruegger's
long-dead lover. Otherwise, he wouldn't talk about her.

In any case, the mansion was home, though they
only stayed at it a month or so every year. They lived on the road mostly.
Danielle called it Mount
Vapor because of all the
mist shrouding it the first night she’d seen it, and the nickname had stuck.

As she entered the manse through its rear
entrance, she wondered where Ruegger was. He’d been brooding since their
arrival. Alone, Danielle pushed on through wide stone corridors into the foyer,
where a group of soldiers waited impatiently. At their head stood Maleasoel.

Danielle gasped. The jandrow's wings
had been ripped off
.

“Dear God,” she heard herself say. “Malie, what
happened
to you?”

“Later.”

Despite her injury, Maleasoel seemed very much
in control of herself, with only her lack of humor confirming that she was even
aware of her husband's death.

Danielle crossed to the dour Van Reisser, who
looked greatly annoyed.

"Where's Ruegger?" Danielle asked.

"In dispose, I believe."

She knew what that meant. "Have him meet us
in the private conference room upstairs in ten minutes."

"If you insist."

"I do.” She turned to Maleasoel. "Please,
invite your soldiers inside."

Ludwig’s widow glanced over her shoulder at her
men, and this drew Danielle's attention to them for the first time. They seemed
to affect a certain look of ... was it disdain?

"I don't think they'd come," Maleasoel
said frankly.

"Why?"

"Because you have humans living here with
you as equals.”

“We have some small staff, and friends that
visit from time to time …”

“My people feel offended and I can't help but
feel a little uneasy myself—it's almost unheard of, you know."

“Will
you
,
at least, come in?” When Malie, nodded, Danielle led her upstairs to the
conference room. Ruegger was already there, rooting through the cabinets and
the mini-refrigerator of the private bar. He came up with salt, limes, a shot
glass and a bottle of
Cuervo
Gold. His eyes stared out,
blood-shot and crazed, and dark stubble covered his face.

"Want a—?" he started, then noted Maleasoel's
absence of wings. “Dear gods.”

The trio sat down at the large table and stared
at each other in silence.

"Okay," Danielle said finally.
"What happened?"

Maleasoel downed a shot, then told her story. “Ludwig
sensed danger coming and sent me away to a little cabin outside of Barrow just
before he was murdered. Later, the Balaklava found
me, beat me, raped me, and tore off my wings. They laughed and said for me to
never try to fool them again—they would always find me, no matter where I went.
I believe them. They probably know where I am right now. They could be outside
watching.”

After Ludwig's murder, she said, she’d gathered
some loyal troops and gone searching for Junger and Jagoda, but to no avail. She
intended to scour the world for them and for answers to his death. Not even she
knew why he'd been killed, and she was sure it wasn't just a random act of
violence on the part of the Balaklava. With her
soldiers, she would find who had hired Junger and Jagoda and rip them limb from
limb.

"So what's our involvement in all
this?" Ruegger said, after expressing horror at what had happened to her.

"You're involved the same way I am,"
she said. "The dissidents were using us as blackmail against Ludwig—either
he advanced the movement or we would die, one by one. I would be last. I
was
his wife. Honestly, though, I think he loved you, Ruegger, more than me. That
was a miscalculation on the part of the dissidents."

"But he didn't advance."

"No. There was someone else who wanted him
to step down, someone who was even more powerful than the dissidents. He
employed the same methods as they did, though, using us against Ludwig. This is
the one who hired Junger and Jagoda, as well as those sand-rats who attacked
you in the desert."

"So Ludwig was stuck between two bad
choices and did nothing," Danielle said. “Who was this someone else?"

Malie downed another shot. "I'm not sure.
Ludwig tried to keep me in the dark as much as he could, saying that the less I
knew the safer I'd be. I wish I'd known even less."

"Who
was
it?"

Malie let out a breath. "Roche Sarnova. He,
or one of his emissaries, was the mysterious visitor you were asking
about."

The room fell silent.

"I'm not saying that it was Sarnova who
killed him,” Malie added, “although I'm not saying that it wasn't. But it makes
sense, doesn't it? Liberty
has the second highest concentration of shades ever—Ludwig almost had more
direct followers under him than Sarnova himself. So it would follow that Blackie
would want Liberty
disbanded."

"We think the Balaklava
were employed by two people, or at least approached by two,” Ruegger said. “Based
on your information, it seems that one of them was Roche Sarnova. Who was the
other?"

"Does it matter?"

"Very much. If Junger and Jagoda had
followed the orders of Sarnova—if it was he—who seems to have meant to kill us to
add further gravity to the threat of killing you next—we’d be dead now. Instead,
they followed the instructions of another employer—they hinted as much—for
another purpose entirely. And it was for this employer that they killed
Ludwig."

"How do you figure?"

"The dissidents and Sarnova apparently had
opposite aims, but neither would be served by Ludwig's death. If he died, the
dissidents were afraid of half of Liberty
getting up and walking away—besides, the others would know that it was the
dissidents who killed him and the compound would be in chaos. If Sarnova wanted
Liberty
disbanded, he wouldn’t have killed Ludwig. No offense, but Ludwig was a weak
leader. A stronger leader would only replace him. Therefore, it must be another
entity that hired the Balaklava to do Ludwig
in and harass us. Tell me, did Junger or Jagoda say anything about coming to
visit you again?"

"They said never to hide from them because
it only made it more fun to find me."

"But nothing direct?"

"No."

"Then perhaps it's only Danielle and I that
are involved. Somehow, the fact that the Balaklava
intend to further harm us is connected to Ludwig's death." He raised his
eyebrows at Danielle, and she was surprised to see that he looked lucid.
"It's up to us to find out why. And who."

"
Gimme
a
shot," she said. It was all she had to say. He knew she would do whatever
needed to be done.

Malie took a long breath. “There’s another
problem.”

“What’s that?”

“My people, many of them, want to
act
. They’re afraid that if they delay
our resolve will weaken.”

“By ‘act’,” Danielle said. “You mean … ?”

“That’s right. They want to move against the
world
now
.”

Ruegger and Danielle glanced at each other.

Cautiously, Ruegger said, “What’s your plan for
dealing with Roche Sarnova?”

“That was always a problem. I think we’ve solved
it, though. Some of my people have found a supplier of stolen tactical nuclear
warheads.”

“Shit!” said Danielle.

“The weapons should put quite a dent in the
Castle. Combined with Sarnova having most of his resources tied up in his war,
he could, in theory, be dealt with.”

Danielle put a hand to her forehead. “That’s
insane.”

Grimly, Malie said, “The only way I’ve found to
keep my people occupied and focused elsewhere is by finding Ludwig’s killer. If
we can find him or her and punish them, that will go a long way to ensuring
it’s
Ludwig’s
legacy that prevails
among my people. Not … anyone else’s. A legacy of peace and responsibility.
Also, once he’s been avenged, I think the half of Liberty that was ready to leave if he stepped
down will do just that. The other half, the dissidents, won’t be able to carry
out their plans without the full army. Until he’s avenged, though, the army
will stay together and the dissidents will only grow in power.”

Ruegger’s face had gone rigid. “You’re saying if
we don’t find Ludwig’s killer, your army will take over the world.”

“That’s about the size of it. And I’ll need your
help to do it.”

*
    
*
    
*

“What
of the Scouring?” Ruegger asked, when he and Danielle had absorbed this new
development. “Have you found anything out about it?”

“No,” Malie said. “Do you think it had something
to do with Ludwig’s death?”

"No idea, but I'm beginning to think it's related
somehow.”

“What about the war?” Danielle said.

"It's a very secret war," Malie said.
"That’s about all I know. They call it the War of the Dark Council, but
I'm not really sure what that means."

After the three shot back a last round of
whiskey, Malie said, “I have to go.”

“But you just showed up!”

“I just came by to assure you I was alive and to
recruit you for the hunt. Until next time, friends.”

When she left, Ruegger slunk off to, presumably,
continue getting drunk, while Danielle made her way to the library, selected a
work by Joe Lansdale and read for some time, but her mind drifted to other
matters. Ruegger had skipped a significant question, she thought: why had the Balaklava chosen to follow the orders of their enigmatic
"second employer" instead of those of Roche Sarnova, who had more
clout and prestige than most world leaders? And that was assuming that the Dark
Lord was their original employer in the first place.

Her mind buzzing, she decided to take a walk in
the large green maze outside. The moment she stepped into the first dark
corridor, she could hear some urgent, rhythmic sound that only grew louder the
further she pressed into the labyrinth. Just before she got to the clearing
with the gazebo, she recognized it as crying.

She rounded the final corner to see Ruegger and
Maleasoel curled up with each other on a bench in the gazebo. At first Danielle
had the horrible notion that something sexual was going on, but no. Ruegger and
Malie were embracing tightly and tears were flowing from both their eyes. Their
backs arching and convulsing, they looked perfectly wretched, and Danielle
realized they were mourning the loss of Ludwig together, privately, in their
own way. Although she felt a twinge of sadness that Ruegger hadn't come to her to
cry on, she knew that Malie was really the only one that could fully share his
feelings, and that Ruegger was perhaps the only one Malie could turn to as
well. They'd been the two closest people in Ludwig's life and it was fitting
that they mourn together.

Danielle felt her heart swell with relief; if
Ruegger couldn't open up to her, she was glad he could open up to someone. Hoping
that the mourners hadn't seen her, she crept back out of the labyrinth.

And stopped cold.

For there, at the mouth of the labyrinth, stood
two big black wolf-like creatures. Similar to werewolves, but larger, more
demonic, with long, broad snouts, horn-like ears and thick coats of black fur.
From the cheeks of one sprouted symmetrical rows of small tusks. The creatures
smiled at her. The smiles were eerily human.

“We’ve always loved labyrinths,” said the one
that must be Junger. The one with the tusks.

Trembling, she reached for a Colt .45—she never
went anywhere unarmed these days—and pointed it at the assassin’s head.