CHAPTER 3
The vampires in the cathedral room all began to talk at once. EU Council members turned to Maurice, asking if he knew Timken, if he’d known what was going to happen tonight, if this felt like justice to him. Others turned to Reginald and asked for his analysis: What did the overthrow mean? Was it bad because it was a coup, or good because that coup had ousted an incompetent tyrant? It was true, what Timken had said about the human shock troops; there was even a human/vampire summit in Paris in just a few days. Would Timken’s overthrow help the spirit of the summit or harm it?
Karl, unreadable, began to stalk back and forth like an angry cat.
Reginald felt his head spin. He’d been diligently ignoring the outside world, and now he felt like he’d been beaten over the head with it. Not only had the changes in the Vampire Nation just ratcheted up a huge notch, but now everyone was coming to him — he with his unmatched vampire mind — for advice. He felt frozen and out of practice. He’d spent the last three months trying to kill that “unmatched vampire mind” with the numbest of inputs and the worst of foods, all the while refusing to drink enough of the blood it needed to function. For three months, all he’d thought about had been food and entertainment (and, when Nikki became horny enough for her lust to overcome her irritation, sex). And now this. This was his welcome-back puzzler.
Revolution. A coup d’état.
Reginald struggled to assimilate all of the details and decide: was this a necessary and righteous overthrow, or was it just more blood in the water?
Karl held his hands high. His red and gold robes swayed and opened beneath his arms like a cape.
“Quiet, quiet!” he yelled, his voice irritated. He squinted his eyes and pinched his forehead as if he had a headache. “Let’s discuss this, but one at a time only. Obviously this changes things. But for the better or worse, I cannot say.”
“Are you joking, Karl?” said a thin, beautiful woman with dark hair. It was Lola, the woman with whom the angel Santos had been infatuated. “It’s better. How could it be worse? We couldn’t so much as contact Barkley; we just had to watch him destroy America and wait for the chaos to spread here. But you know Timken. Now we have an open door to speak to America. Timken mentioned the AVT shock troops, so he understands what’s at stake. He knows about the summit, and he knows you’re attending it. Now they’ll listen to reason. Now, they’ll talk.”
“I don’t know,” said Karl. “I don’t know.” He continued to pace, his eyes at his feet. “Reginald, you are the strategist. What do you think?”
But Reginald had no idea what to think. He’d spent too much time lying around on his ass and trying futilely to die. The only things he knew about the outside world were the few bits that Nikki told him while he watched downloaded movies on his computer and tried to ignore her.
“Charles didn’t care about leading the Council,” said Lola, speaking if Reginald wouldn’t. “He only cared about having power. The only item on his agenda was satisfying the angels after the Ring of Fire, but his solution was to kill and turn as many humans as possible. Reginald said that things on the streets were bad when you left. They must be much worse now. With Charles at the helm, America would have very quickly disintegrated into war. The walls of secrecy keeping vampires hidden and safe would fall. Gangs would roam the cities in the open, and in retaliation, humans would seek out and eliminate entire nests while the sun was out. The balance would swing back and forth with each cycle of the sun, with humans ruling the day and vampires ruling the night. The bloodshed would increase as each tried to outpace the other, the only question being who could do more damage with the half of the day they were given.”
“So this is good,” said Karl, still looking at Reginald and ignoring Lola.
But Reginald could only shake his head.
Karl continued to pace.
“Nicholas has been petitioning the Council for months, and they have been ignoring him,” he said. “I have seen the frustration and the fury in his emails. He must have felt that this was the only way.” Karl was talking to himself, seeming to think out loud. “Nicholas is an interesting fellow. His intentions usually seem noble, but he is so ambitious that it has always made me uneasy. But he says he will hold the elections. Maybe he means it. After all, Timken supported Maurice. He was one of the few. So maybe it is true. Maybe we have a new friend in America.”
“He’s not calling for Maurice’s return, though,” said Nikki.
“But he is calling for elections,” said a thin vampire named Mellus.
“Which could be rigged,” said Nikki.
Reginald looked over at Nikki. She’d been a vampire for nearly a year now, and the role fit her like a glove. It was hard to believe she’d ever been human. She was dark and beautiful and mysterious and quiet and moved like a panther. Her lips looked best with a pair of fangs.
“This was the only way and we all know it,” said Mellus. “They would not listen to reason. In this case, a just and peaceful overthrow by a good vampire would look exactly the same as a power grab by a tyrant, so we can’t tell them apart. At least Karl knows Nicholas. And no matter what we think, he is there now. It is done. We have to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“It was the only way,” Lola agreed. “It took violence to fix what Charles was doing. Now Timken is there, but he’s just a wartime leader, holding power until a suitable replacement can be found.”
“Like Julius Caesar,” said Nikki.
Mellus and Lola both shot her a look.
Reginald rubbed his forehead. He felt as if all of the abilities he’d developed over the past year had totally vanished: processing so fast that it was like stopping time, the ability to block pain, his balance and dexterity, his ability to influence blood relatives, and the sensed-but-still-hidden bomb that the angel Balestro had planted in his mind. He felt as if he was once again just a fat treadmill salesman, unable to defend himself against Todd Walker’s mockery.
“We would have done the same,” he said.
The others turned to look at him.
“If we’d had the support,” Reginald went on, “we’d have done the same thing. I’d have pushed for it if there had been more than four of us. Barkley was an arrogant, evil prick. He didn’t care for order. He wanted bloodshed. He fed on the panic that’s been everywhere since the Ring of Fire, and he fanned the flames. He destroyed the Council. He was leading us to war. He’d have killed us all if he’d had his way.”
With the mention of “the four of us,” Reginald found himself thinking of Brian Nickerson and wondering if Brian had survived the sun when he’d stormed from the Council. Where had he gone? Had he gotten his family away, and had the Council pursued him? Reginald, Nikki, and Maurice had taken their families to Luxembourg. Where would Brian’s family hide?
“But a coup?” said Maurice.
“Pretend you’re on a ship,” said Reginald. “The captain goes crazy and starts steering toward a waterfall or into a killer storm. Do you sit there and take it like a good soldier, knowing that he’s doing the wrong thing, or do you rise up for the greater good, even if it means using your sword?”
All conversation had stopped. Someone had turned off the monitor showing the Council feed. Addled as his brain was, Reginald suddenly realized that he was giving a lecture. Even the EU Council had come to think of Reginald as the best strategic mind they had. The joke was on them, though, thought Reginald, because these days the most mental exercise he got was trying to tell Owen Wilson from Luke Wilson and deciding which of the killer asteroid movies from the 90s was the best.
“I don’t know,” said Karl, resuming his pacing. “I don’t know.”
“What if he doesn’t give up the Council leadership?” said Nikki.
“Then Timken will rule instead of Barkley,” said Mellus. “I don’t really see the problem.”
“He stormed in with six hundred troops with deadly weapons,” said Nikki.
Reginald shrugged. Nikki saw the movement and looked over.
“This was how Maurice came to power,” he said. “The only difference was that we actually killed Logan, whereas Timken has just taken Barkley into custody. If we’d been able, I’d have done it differently. I’d have killed Charles, too. I want him dead.”
As soon as he’d said it, Reginald wanted to take it back. It sounded terrible, but it was true. He wanted Barkley dead. He wanted Walker dead. He’d been a punching bag for his entire human life, and he’d become even more of a punching bag once he’d become a vampire. Fuck them. Fuck all of them. Reginald was tired of being pushed around and pursued and persecuted and attacked and beaten up. He had the best mind of his species, and yet the first thing that most of the Nation looked at was his size. So fuck them. Fuck. Them.
“Me too,” said Mellus.
Karl nodded. Then little by little, the assembly of vampires broke into groups. For now at least, the show was over.
Reginald felt relieved. He was tired. He needed to rest his mind and his eyes. He needed blood, too. He’d had too little of late, choosing instead to focus on comfort foods. He hated the taste of blood, but he’d have to suffer a few extra pints over the next few days in order to get himself back in shape. Like it or not, Karl and the others would be looking to Reginald more and more in the coming days and weeks.
As if reading Reginald’s mind, Karl walked over and with a businesslike air said, “You will need to come to the summit in Paris. I can tell you are tired and drained, but you must go. Feed. Get ready. Especially after tonight, we will need you.”
Reginald sighed. “Sure, Karl.”
“And you too, Maurice. You are still the titular head in America.”
“I’d planned on it,” said Maurice. There was a heavy note in his voice. Maurice hated politics and he hated responsibility. He’d become Deacon because assassinating Logan had been the only way to escape, but he’d never wanted to be involved in the Council. He’d always been a rogue and a constant thorn in the Council’s side.
“And me,” said Nikki. She took Reginald’s meaty forearm in her small, powerful hand. “Reginald and I are a package.”
“Yeah,” said Reginald, placing his other hand over Nikki’s. He felt grateful. He needed Nikki, especially now. It wasn’t every guy who was lucky enough to have a girl who could knock his face through a stone wall one minute and be his rock the next.
“Sure,” said Karl, waving a hand theatrically to indicate that the matter was beneath him. “I like looking at your chest.”
“Thanks,” said Nikki. “I’ll bring it with me.”