A call from Lydia interrupted Conrad’s plans for the evening. Gage Grant, the insubordinate elder, had paid a visit to Marlow House. Conrad’s scheduled visit to the police department could wait until he found out what the elder was up to.
“I am the elder of this territory; you can’t hold me like some common hostage,” Gage seethed as Conrad swept into the vile dining room of the dilapidated house. The smell of mold and decay seemed only to have worsened since his last visit.
The elder was standing by the table glaring at Lydia, who blocked his passage out of the room with the assistance of two shades.
“And yet we have done,” Conrad said, a taunting smirk tugging at his lips. “What are you doing here, Gage?”
His eyebrows took off up his head, and a stutter of disbelief burst from his mouth. “Are you kidding me? Are you actually kidding me? This is my territory, I don’t have to explain what I’m doing here!”
“Actually, all territory belongs to the Nytarch. You’re just the caretaker,” Lydia said coolly.
Gage glared through squinted eyes at Conrad’s number two. “If I’m the caretaker, then what are you? The cleaners?”
Conrad swept his foot across the floor in a swift arc, clearing a small path through the dead rats so he could step closer to Gage. “I’m the Nytarch,” he said in a weighted whisper.
Gage’s tongue flicked out to lick his lips, and with lizardly slowness, he bowed his head. “I just came to investigate,” he said, his tone more subdued and respectful. The word Nytarch was enough to cow most vampires the world over.
“While it is good of you to finally do your job, it is a tad late. Your master already handled the initial investigation for you, so why did you feel the need to come yourself?”
He looked uncertainly around the room at the other vampires before meeting Conrad’s gaze. His tongue slipped out to wet his lips again. “I just wanted to be sure that nothing was missed. I’ve already soiled my reputation in your eyes, and I wanted to do everything I could to rectify that.”
“Lydia, what do you think?” Conrad said, glancing over his shoulder at his night daughter. He was confident that she would share his thoughts on Gage’s honesty.
“He’s lying. That’s what I think.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Let’s not lose our cool now,” Conrad said, his words heavy with caution. He began to walk around the room, sweeping the rodent corpses out of his way as he went. “I’ve been around a long time, Gage. I understand the games of politics better than most. There are some who play the game for power’s sake, and once they’ve had that first taste, it only whets their appetite. You are not content to be an elder in the domain of Pennsylvania. You desire all of Pennsylvania. And you’ve come here tonight to find some way to pin this incident on your master so that she will be removed and you can take her place.”
Gage spun on the spot, unleashing a thick cloud of dust that swirled around him dramatically. He waved his hand in front of his face to clear the gray smog before speaking. “No, hear me, Mr. Sinclair, please. I’m not plotting anything.”
“No? So, you don’t have an issue with Sabine? You don’t long to take her place as master?”
Dust had settled over Gage’s shoulders turning his dark suit pale gray. He tried to wipe it off, but after only succeeding in making it worse, he surrendered, his shoulders sagging. “Full disclosure?” he said wearily. “I loathe Sabine. And not because she was promoted instead of me. That irked me, as surely as the sun burns my flesh, it irked me, but that is not why I despise her.”
“Then why?”
“Because she doesn’t take her job seriously. She lounges around in that casino, gorging on blood like she’s going to run out. And playing her stupid cage matches for her own amusement. She conducts herself distastefully. You saw the state of her the other night; that’s not a rare occurence. Honestly, I don’t think she has a full wardrobe in her possession. All she cares about is blood, orgasms, and fighting.”
“She sounds like a lot of fun,” Lydia said, earning a laugh from the two shades.
“Being Master of Pennsylvania is not supposed to be fun,” Gage huffed.
“Who are you to dictate such things?”
“I’m the elder who has to serve her. I conduct myself as befits my station. I don’t spend my time lazing around and hobnobbing with creatures far beneath me. It’s bad enough that she behaves that way openly for vampires local and foreign to see, but I’ve seen the things she associates with in private—holding meetings with humans and mor—”
“Enough,” Conrad said softly, raising a hand. “I am not interested in listening to your bitter rants. Tell me now, what did you hope to find by coming here tonight?”
Gage sucked his lips in, kissing his teeth as he tried to dispel some of the aggression that had built up within him. “I came here to look for any signs that Sabine might have had something to do with this. I did not come here to plant any evidence. She knew a lot about the incident that occurred here and yet she never spoke to me about it once. That doesn’t sit right with me.”
“So, you did come here against the interests of your master?”
“I came here in my own interests. I don’t want to make any moves against Sabine. However, if she is going to sink her own ship, then I want to make sure I’m not sinking with it.”
Conrad stared the elder down, considering all that he’d said. Although he did find the vampire before him to be reprehensible, he also found himself believing him. Not that Sabine was up to anything nefarious, but that Gage was not plotting against her.
“Did you find anything worthy of further investigation?”
Gage shook his head. “No.”
“My advice to you is to find a way to come to terms with Sabine’s style of rule. For all your complaints, her territory functions perfectly in the eyes of the Nytarch.” Conrad dismissed the elder from the ruined house, hoping that he wouldn’t have to deal with him again.
“Do you want me to keep watching him?” Lydia asked once Gage was out of earshot.
Conrad shook his head. “No. The only thing he’s guilty of is negligence and having a very large chip on his shoulder, and that is no concern of mine.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Simon had called the police department during the day and arranged for Conrad to bring his “client” to give a statement to the investigating officer of the Halloween case—as they were calling it. After collecting Jay from the house and feeding him a second dose of blood to ensure his compliance, they headed toward the police department in Simon’s perfectly maintained Porsche.
For the first five minutes of the drive, Jay kept his eyes focused entirely on the road ahead. His fingers clutched the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles had turned lily-white. It was obvious that he had questions bouncing around in his head and Conrad wondered how long it would take him to conjure the courage to ask them.
“Can’t you drive?” he asked at last. The question took Conrad completely by surprise. He’d expected something more insightful. When most people learned about the existence of vampires, they wanted to know more about the supernatural world. The boy was more concerned with Conrad’s mastery of the automobile.
“I can drive. Do you think because I am 1,000 years old that I don’t bother to learn how to operate modern technology?”
Jay’s eyes widened and he let out a long whistle. “A thousand…” he said in awe.
“It must be hard to comprehend when most humans don’t make it to 100.” Conrad was watching Jay intently, observing every expression that worked its way onto his face, no matter how small. Jay’s eyes flicked to Conrad for a millisecond before returning to the road. The boy hadn’t made eye contact with him since his attempted insurrection.
“Why am I driving then?” he asked.
“If you’re concentrating on the road, you’re not trying to escape.”
“But you hypnotized me not to escape.”
Conrad did not wish to tell Jay that vampiric control over humans wasn’t infallible, so instead, he said, “I mesmerized you.”
“What?”
“When a vampire uses his blood to command a human, it is called mesmerization.”
“That other vampire—Scott, he said something about being enthralled. Is that the same thing?”
Conrad wondered why Jay was interested. Ultimately, there was no harm in answering; the information was useless to him. “When a vampire repeatedly gives a human his blood, he can enthrall the human and turn them into a servant. I have only fed you twice, which puts you on the path to enthralment, but you are not quite there yet. Are you interested in becoming a thrall?”
“No,” Jay said quickly, fear entering his voice like a door crashing open. “No way. I was just wondering how it worked.”
“How does it feel when you have to follow my instructions? Tell the truth.” Conrad threw in the final command to give Jay a reminder of how it felt to have his free will taken from him.
“I hate it,” he spat the words out, baring his teeth as he pulled on the steering wheel to turn the corner.
“If you were enthralled, you wouldn’t hate it. You’d love it. If you were my thrall, you would always want to please me, and the idea of disappointing me would make you want to hurt yourself.”
Jay turned his head, his jaw slack in surprise. In his eyes was something else, something other than surprise or even revulsion. Something Conrad had seen in countless people, both vampire and human. It was lust. Jay wasn’t lusting to be enthralled; he wanted the power to enthrall others. Conrad would allow maggots to consume his heart before he gave it to him.
The rest of the journey was silent. Jay focused on driving, but Conrad could see his mind was elsewhere. When they arrived at the precinct, Conrad stopped Jay before he could climb out of the car.
“You will tell the police only what I told you to say,” Conrad instructed him. They’d already gone over exactly what Jay was going to say. Since Conrad was posing as Jay’s lawyer it would be easy enough to whisper any additional instructions in his ear. The police officers would think he was giving legal counsel rather than outright instructions.
“If you rule the whole world, why can’t you just order them to drop the case?” Jay asked, and the snark in his tone was undeniable.
“That’s not how it works. The Nytarch’s power is not exercised so directly. At least not at this level.” Miriam probably could order somebody to kill the case but by the time the instructions trickled all the way from the top of the chain to the bottom — which was where Mistwood PD stood — it would have raised more questions with many more people. Some things needed to be handled more slyly. Not to mention the additional complication of the mayor.
“So, how does it work?”
“I’m not going to tell you that.” He reached for the door handle.
“But why not just mesmerize the police then? Why go to all this trouble?”
Conrad clenched his jaw, his fingers pausing on the metal handle. Had he not found Jay Hickey to be such a deplorable person, he might have found his curiosity to be an appealing characteristic. “I can only mesmerize the officers that are here. And let us not forget that the mayor is pressuring the police to investigate this case fully. If somebody else were to visit the department and look into this case, as unlikely as that would be, they would see that the case was closed without a thorough investigation. It would signal corruption. Some might even question if there had been a vampire attack after all. Then I would have to return, and this charming city is not captivating enough for a second visit. Therefore, we are going to leave a paper trail.” Conrad did not tell him that the mesmerization would wear off after a couple of days and the police officer, depending on their mental fortitude, might get a little niggling feeling at the back of their mind. That niggling feeling might grow, and then one day, they might just decide to revisit the case.
Jay’s curiosity seemed to be sated for now, and Conrad stepped out of the car. After a brief wait at the reception, a short, tired-looking detective showed them through to an interview room. He dropped his wirebound notepad on the stained table and looked over at Conrad with heavily bagged eyes. After a moment of contemplation, he turned to Jay and sighed.
“I’m gonna be completely honest with you, I’ve got a lot of cases on my hands right now, and yours really isn’t a priority. The only reason I’m giving you the time of day is because the chief ordered me to, and we all know why. So, if you can go ahead and give me your statement quickly without feeding me any bullshit about vampires, then maybe I can finish off the rest of my workload, and just maybe I can get home in time to eat the dinner my wife’s cooked me before it’s stone cold and inching its way into the trash,” he said.
Conrad smiled politely, pleased to hear that the police weren’t treating the case as serious. “We’ll be quick, Detective…?”
“Allen,” he said.
“Detective Allen. My client simply wishes to amend his statement, and then we’ll be on our way,” Conrad said.
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” Jay said, nodding his head. “On Halloween, my friends and I weren’t attacked by a vampire.”
“You don’t say?” Apparently, Detective Allen still had time for sarcastic interjections.
“We paid a bum to pretend to be a vampire, and he got a bit carried away,” Jay said.
“Let me get this right,” Allen said after a moment of silence. “You paid a homeless guy to pretend to be a vampire. He attacked you and seriously injured your friend, and then your girlfriend stabbed him with a piece of wood before he ran away—that’s what happened?”
“I don’t think Ruby really stabbed all that much,” Jay said.
“I have a blood-soaked weapon in a forensic lab right now that says otherwise.”
In fact, he did not have anything in a forensic lab because Conrad had stolen the stake on his first night in Mistwood. The weapon was nothing but ashes now, and the tests that had been carried out on the stake had been corrupted. Apparently, Detective Allen hadn’t been notified yet.
“My client is doing you a favor, Detective. There was no real attack at Marlow House. Ethan Weller has not pressed charges on anybody, and nobody has come forward to report having been stabbed by Ruby Myers. There is no case to investigate. Consider yourself unburdened,” said Conrad.
Allen drummed his chubby fingers on the tabletop as he stared down at the lined pages of his tattered notepad. “Ethan Weller might not have pressed charges, but Mayor Weller is breathing down my chief’s neck, and he’s not going to stop until he has someone to blame,” he said, eyeing Jay aggressively. “Someone injured his son. Someone has to answer for it.”
“If that homeless individual were to come forward, would that placate all parties?”
“I dare say it would. He’ll be charged with battery, given a sentence that the mayor can be pleased with, and this whole stupid matter can be put to bed.”
“You’ll have him by this time tomorrow,” Conrad assured him. It would be easy enough to find a local vagabond to mesmerize. By the time the mesmerization wore off, his statement would have been made, and it would be too late to take it back. It was the last step in closing this case and finishing up in Mistwood.
Conrad was still none the wiser as to why Scott Jackson had been drained and left in the old house, but his curiosity wasn’t strong enough to keep him around to investigate; it was Sabine’s problem, not Conrad’s. Miriam had sent him here to kill the story, and that’s what he’d done. Come sundown tomorrow, Conrad was going home.
