CHAPTER 5
“It’s a light night for executions,” said Reginald. “Just one guy to execute.”
“Then what?”
“Then it goes to new business, and the Council will begin voting in the new laws you just said were stupid.”
“I’ll get my veto stick ready. They can keep lobbing them in and I’ll just keep hitting them out of the park.”
“For now,” said Reginald. “But they’re starting to outsmart you. They’re adding riders.”
“Riders?”
“Apparently I’ve gone from one stupid system of government to another,” said Reginald. “I’m a bit unclear, but it seems that vampire politicians can make mash-up laws just like US politicians can. One law might contain two prime parts to it. For now, the Council seems to just be playing around to see how you’ll veto or not veto, but this could turn into an effective way to surpass the Deacon’s veto power.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, one bill might contain legislation to prevent the eating of babies, and also impose an age restriction on bootcamp applicants. Since you can’t make laws, you have the simple choice of allowing baby-eating or allowing the age restriction.”
“They can’t do that, can they?”
“I’m not totally sure, but it seems so.” Reginald had read the text of all of the night’s proposed laws while Maurice had been speaking. He’d also leafed through a rudimentary law book he’d found on the shelf. When he got home, he’d need to consult the official statutes online. He couldn’t get an internet data signal on his phone from inside the building, because it was designed with jamming equipment.
“That’s idiotic,” said Maurice.
“That’s government. Like I said, they’re finding ways to outsmart you.”
“Shit.”
“It’s okay,” said Reginald. “I can outsmart them.”
Maurice took a deep breath. “Okay. One step at a time. Let’s deal with this execution. What’s the guy’s crime?”
“Wanton creation.”
“Receiving? Or giving?”
Maurice was asking if the man was a vampire who’d been created illegally (like Reginald) or a vampire who’d created another illegally (like Maurice). Both were bad, and unless the new vampire could pass a strenuous test and be retroactively certified as acceptable, both maker and made could end up facing a death sentence.
“Receiving. He turned himself in, actually. Does that happen often?”
“It never happens,” said Maurice. “It’s not like we have a downtown police station that new vampires can walk into. What do you mean, ‘He turned himself in’?”
Reginald had already replaced the clipboard, having read the entire night’s business. He would be able to recite it word for word, letter by letter, forever.
“He claims not to know his maker. Woke up with blood around his mouth, recalling none of the night prior.”
“Glamoured. Glamoured while being turned, because it wouldn’t be possible once he was fully vampire.”
“Yes,” said Reginald. “He knows who he is and what he is, but he’s been figuring it out as he goes. He didn’t realize it was a crime to exist, and here he is.” Reginald found he was unable to keep the sympathy out of his voice. It was too easy to relate to the man.
“And he’s already been tested and failed, because this shows up as an execution,” said Maurice.
“Half right,” said Reginald. “According to the paperwork, he’s waived his right to a test.”
“That’s insane.”
Reginald, who’d been through the test and had failed miserably, didn’t think it was insane at all. He respected the man for trying to preserve his dignity.
“I’ll just pardon him,” said Maurice after a beat.
“The Guards say he’s strange,” said Reginald. That hadn’t come off of the clipboard. He’d heard it when they’d passed a pair of Guards in the hall.
“I don’t care how strange he is,” said Maurice. “Two can play the game of ‘let’s do things just to piss off the opponent.’ He’s getting a big, fat pardon. Bring him in.”
Reginald communicated Maurice’s order to a member of the Guard, who ran off.
Moments later, a door slid open at the far end of the arena and Reginald felt his skin crawl. It was where he himself had been brought in five months earlier.
The crowd gasped.
The man who came through the door — with a burly member of the Council Guard on either side — had the face of a hawk. There was no other way to say it. He was at least seventy or eighty human years old with stark white hair and piercing eyes that Reginald could feel on him even from a distance. His eyebrows were pointed down his beaklike nose. Every vampire had a strength, and everything in the man’s hawklike appearance said that his would be sight. He’d be able to spot a buttonhole from high orbit.
The prisoner flicked his head around the gathering like a bird. The spectators he looked at shrank back into their seats. It was a strange thing to see vampires do. Or rather, it wasn’t strange at all. It was what legend said happened when vampires looked on crosses — a myth Reginald still hadn’t tested.
“This man is a vampire?” said Maurice.
“Yes,” said Reginald. Ever since Nikki had infiltrated the Council as a human, the Guard had begun testing every prisoner to make sure.
“He must be seventy.”
“According to the file, he’s ninety-three,” said Reginald.
“He wouldn’t have had a chance if I weren’t here,” said Maurice. Then he exhaled and shook his head. “I wish they’d brought someone in who wasn’t quite so… unusual.”
“No kidding.”
“When I pardon a man this old…”
“They hate you already, Maurice,” said Reginald. “And remember, you wanted to prove a point anyway.”
“What’s his name?”
“Thomas Balestro.”
Maurice walked to the front of the box to address the old man just as Logan had during Reginald’s trial, but the Guard hadn’t yet released him. By this point in Reginald’s trial, he’d already been tossed into the center of the arena and the Guard had walked out. Reginald also hadn’t been bound in silver, and this man was heavily bound — far more than seemed necessary.
“Thomas Balestro,” said Maurice. “I am Maurice, Deacon of this Council, and it is my duty today to assess you. You have waived your right to a physical trial. You won’t be tried. You are pardoned. Go in peace.”
But the Guards on either side of the man didn’t move, didn’t release his arms. Finally, the one to Balestro’s right said, “Uh… Deacon? You may want to try this one.”
“He’s waived his trial. And he’s pardoned,” repeated Maurice. “You can all deal with an old vampire. Old, fat… we take all comers these days.”
There was a grumble that ran through the stands at Maurice’s pronouncement.
“Deacon?”
The same Guard. Maurice raised an eyebrow.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant, he’s unusual.”
“He’s old.”
“He’s unusual.”
Maurice shook his head.
“He knew our names. He knew our family’s names.”
That wasn’t anything special. Reginald knew the men’s names and the names of their families, too. He also knew where they lived, what they’d been like as humans, how they’d been turned, which schools they’d gone to, what their parents occupations had been, and where they went on vacation. Before his trial, he’d read everything available on the Council and the Guard, then had scoured records and encrypted databases to find out all he could about everyone he could. You never knew when information might come in handy.
“Fine,” said Maurice. “Unchain him and leave him.”
The Guards remained where they were. This time, the other spoke.
“Um… Deacon? New procedure is to keep prisoners bound with silver, except during their actual testing, until their final release from the final set of escorts,” said the Guard.
There had to be thirty pounds of silver chain on the man. It was absurd.
“Fine. You can go.”
“And new procedure is for Guard to stay by prisoners until the trial commences.”
“He’s waived his right to trial.”
“If you want to ask him questions, that counts as trial.”
“Fine. Trial is commenced. Whatever gets you to leave.” Then, to the prisoner: “This is just a formality. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry that this is how you’re being welcomed into our society.”
“I don’t mind, Deacon,” said the prisoner. “You may try me.” He spoke with an accent that Reginald couldn’t place. It was so subtle. English? Italian? French?
“Go,” Maurice said to the Guards.
“Will there be a physical trial, Deacon?”
“Jesus.”
“If there’s no physical trial, we have to leave him bound,” said one of the Guards, gesturing at the chains.
“I don’t mind remaining bound,” said Balestro.
“Whatever. Just leave.” Reginald saw Maurice’s arm flinch and realized that he’d just barely restrained himself from throwing the rock on the arm of the throne at the Guards out of sheer exasperation.
The two Guards nodded and backed away, keeping an eye on the prisoner as if they expected him to explode.
Thomas Balestro stood alone in the center of the packed-clay floor of the Council arena, silver chains binding his wrists and ankles, draped around his waist and over his shoulders. He didn’t look very old to Reginald. He was supposedly ninety-three, but he wasn’t stooped and there was nothing humbled in his eyes or his expression. He’d looked seventy when the Guard had brought him in, but now Reginald decided he’d place his age closer to sixty. His eyes bore the stare of an ambitious, aggressive man in his twenties. Reginald had seen the same stare from almost every twenty-something-seeming member of the audience and Council since they’d arrived.
Maurice turned to Reginald and whispered, “He’s supposed to test while he’s wearing all that silver? I couldn’t climb a staircase with that much on me.”
“They said it comes off for a physical trial. I’m guessing human Sub-Guards would come in and remove it. It’s too much for the vampire Guards to handle.”
“This is because of you?”
“Looks that way,” said Reginald, who couldn’t help but be flattered that he’d made the Council this paranoid.
And yet, the way the roof had come off two weeks earlier didn’t seem to bother them at all.
Hard to protect against something you can’t see — or something you don’t believe in, he thought.
Maurice was ranting. “It’s idiotic. If someone is a big enough threat to require that much silver, the threat will just be a threat again as soon as it’s all removed.”
“No,” said Reginald. “Look.”
Reginald pointed to a ring of windows above the stands that hadn’t been there during his own trial. One advantage of a meeting place that was disassembled and reassembled every 8-10 days was that it was simple to make changes to the structure — such as adding a ring of sniper windows.
Reginald and Maurice looked around the edge of the arena, taking in the small windows. Each appeared to be made of thick, unbreakable Lexan. There was a tiny hole in each window, and the muzzle of a rifle protruded through each hole. Reginald had read about the security upgrade a few months ago. The rifles fired wooden bullets. Originally, the Council had considered placing archers at the windows, but missed arrows could be used as weapons. Bullets, on the other hand, were useless without the rifles that fired them.
“Again,” Maurice said to Balestro, “I apologize for the chains.”
“I understand completely. I’d keep me in chains if I were you,” Balestro said mildly.
Maurice’s face registered a puzzled expression.
“I’m a baaaaad man,” said Balestro. “For instance, I’m about to kill a whole bunch of you.”
Maurice turned to Reginald. “What else do you know about this man?”
“Nothing.” Reginald’s entire dossier on Thomas Balestro began and ended at the one-page affidavit he’d found on the shelf at the back of the Deacon box.
“Murder among vampires is serious business, Mr. Balestro,” said Reginald. “I’d advise you not to joke about it. If I weren’t here today, you’d probably already have been executed. Just so you understand the mood of this audience.”
“Just making conversation,” said Balestro. “Conversation such as the fact that this incestuous little community of yours has proven that absolute power does indeed corrupt absolutely, meaning that your deaths mean very, very little. Well, imagined ‘absolute’ power, anyway. But yes, let’s talk. What should we talk about? How about your wife, Deacon? Celeste. Yes. Lovely woman. Did you know that she had an affair a few years ago? Naughty naughty.”
Balestro smiled a grin that was all teeth. Beside him, Reginald could see something change in Maurice’s expression.
“But you, Mr. Baskin,” he said, looking at Reginald, “you’re who interests me most of all. The man who proved to the mighty Vampire Nation that brains mattered as much as brawn. And then you took your place beside the Deacon, fat and unfit to exist in the eyes of most. Tell me, how does it feel to have proven yourself as superior and more evolved… yet still be considered unworthy to live?”
For the first time in months, Reginald found himself outmatched. He had nothing to use against the man, and he couldn’t read him at all. What did he want?
“I want to know what you think, Reginald,” he said, as if he’d read Reginald’s mind. “May I call you Reginald? I’d be honored if I could. Meeting you, after all, is one of the reasons I came here. Well, that and to kill a lot of vampires and to… well, the rest is a secret.” He pressed his lips together theatrically.
Maurice, finding his voice, said, “Who are you?”
“I’m a poor old man who was turned into a vampire illegally, but fortunately, I’m about to be pardoned by the Deacon. Lucky me.”
Reginald was running through scenarios in his head. Just because the man was cruel, angry, and had a lot of information didn’t mean that he was a threat. But there was more to it. Reginald didn’t like the way Balestro didn’t seem to be humbled by the silver chains binding him. He was standing tall, as if the chains were simply a part of his clothing. And there was still the matter of the last session’s odd happenings to consider.
“I’m a friend to you, Reginald,” said Balestro. “Or at least, I could be, for the time that all of you have left. I want to know what it’s like to be so universally rejected, despite your clear superiority. I want to know how you feel about being scorned simply because you’ve had the audacity to join a club that you’re not good enough for.”
The room had stopped talking.
“You don’t want to tell me? Perhaps your human friends Nikki and Claire would have thoughts on the matter. It’s 1:04pm. Claire just finished lunch and is drawing in class while she should be paying attention. Nikki is bored, sitting in an airport in New York, waiting for her connecting flight back to Columbus. I’m sure either would be happy for the diversion I’d offer. Does it strike you as odd that out of your three true friends, two are human? But of course…”
“You should execute him,” Reginald said to Maurice.
Balestro made a hurt face. “Well, look at that. Now you’re the one condemning people for being who they are. Should I die because I’m different?”
“Yes,” said Reginald.
Maurice, accustomed to trusting Reginald’s judgment, made a Roman emperor’s “thumbs-down” gesture. It wasn’t in the Council script, but it felt right. The crowd made pleased noises. Reginald felt conflicted. Balestro had to go, but Reginald didn’t like that he’d done something that pleased the crowd.
Below them, on the floor of the arena, Balestro was pulling the silver chains away with a mildly bothered air as if he’d just realized he was covered with spider webs. The links broke with popping sounds like small-caliber rifle fire. He snaked a finger under each of the thick wrist manacles and pulled. They snapped as if made of kindling. When he was done, with the silver chains in a pile at his feet, he ran his hands over his clothes as if to smooth out wrinkles.
There was a sharp sound from above, and the fabric of Balestro’s jumpsuit popped over his chest, leaving a small spatter of blood above his heart. The sequence repeated twice more. Reginald looked to where the sound had come from and saw one of the snipers reloading his rifle. The others were alternately looking at Balestro and then Maurice, whose presence in Council suddenly seemed to matter after all.
Balestro brushed fussily at the holes in his jumpsuit, then looked up at Maurice and Reginald as if to say, Can you believe how rude that was?
Maurice looked up at the snipers, ready with their wooden bullets.
“Again,” he said.
This time, all of the snipers fired. Balestro’s chest erupted into dozens of tiny geysers of blood as dozens of wooden bullets entered his heart. The impacts made his shoulders jump, but he remained otherwise impassive, waiting for the assault to end. When it finally did end, Balestro spread his hands at Maurice: Are you finished?
Maurice vanished from the Deacon’s box fast enough that Reginald couldn’t see where he’d gone. Suddenly, he was down on the clay floor — literally on the floor, lying on his back about twenty feet from Balestro.
Then, as Reginald watched, Maurice leapt up in a blur and ran at Balestro. Balestro watched him with boredom on his face. Maurice hit an invisible wall and flew back again, landing in roughly the same spot as before. Then, undeterred, he got back up and walked forward. He stopped a few feet from Balestro, but his toes continued to push into the dirt without actually moving him closer. It was as if he were being held at a distance by an invisible hand.
Reginald recognized the phenomenon. He’d experienced it himself when he first met Claire, when he tried to enter her house without her permission.
“What is this?” said Maurice.
“Checks and balances,” said Balestro. “We had to give the humans something.”
Maurice stepped back. From where Reginald stood, Maurice didn’t look like the two-thousand year old Deacon of the Vampire Council. He looked like the teenager he must’ve once been, millennia ago.
“You have gotten used to the idea that you are on top,” said Balestro, addressing the crowd. “But you are not.”
Balestro’s form flinched as if a tiny shiver had run through him. In the same instant, the heads of the entire front row of spectators became detached from their shoulders, and then, seconds later, both heads and torsos exploded into ash. Balestro was scratching at the side of his face before the last head hit the floor. Someone screamed. It was chilling to hear a vampire scream.
Balestro hadn’t moved, and hence hadn’t killed those vampires. And yet, he had.
“You have thirty days to quail in fear and decide whether you choose to die by our hand or your own,” said Balestro.
“What do you…?” Maurice began.
“At midnight on the thirtieth day,” said Balestro, interrupting him. Then he winked at Reginald. “You‘ll know where to find me.”
Balestro crouched and exploded upward, propelled like a rocket toward the arena’s metal ceiling. When he broke through it and into the bright mid-afternoon sun, the roof made an undramatic foomp sound. Then there was no Balestro, and there was only a shaft of sunlight spearing the pile of silver chains like a starlet in the spotlight. Maurice took a quick step back, away from the sun, and the spectators started to scream.
The rest of the meeting, including Charles’s new legislation, was shelved for the time being.