This might be a good time to explain that the Michael Vanderhorst who once worked for the librarian in Phoenix was an entirely different man. He was weak. He had those pesky feeeelings. He spent far too much time worrying about the librarian’s well-being, making decisions that put her before his people.
This Michael killed that part of himself, using a time-honored technique taught to me during the Great War. It allowed be to become a ruthless killing machine. The Executioner. That coldhearted Michael is back for good this time, and he places his kingdom first.
“The librarian has overstepped, thinking that our past relationship will grant her leniency.” I calmly take my seat again. “Send five soldiers to detain her and bring her here to our prison.” Let us see how brave and insolent she is from our basement prison.
Freddy bows his head. “Very good, sir. Shall I send in your next appointment?”
“Yes. I have a schedule to keep, and we have a vampire kingdom to whip into shape.” Literally. I have a mass whipping at three this afternoon. It is for the vampires who were known to have socialized with traitors of the Uprising. I am a fair man, so I will allow them to confess before executing them.
“Yes, sir.” Freddy takes his leave, and I grab a folder from the towering pile atop my desk, wanting to make use of my time. We have twelve geographies, all without councils to oversee them. There is much to be done, such as approve travel visas, resolve complaints between families or vampire business owners, and send soldiers out to societies to ensure some of our less human-friendly vampires are behaving. Just yesterday, a troublemaker named Dali the Damned, down in Tijuana, Mexico, took ownership of a taqueria. Vampires own all sorts of businesses, so no big deal. Until a neighbor noticed that people were going in, but not coming out. She is on the run, but we will find her.
As I read the request for additional security resources from one of our societies in Russia, my mind begins to drift to the last time I saw my librarian. And that-that-that…thing. The child.
I note the hollowness in my chest and utter lack of affection. Good. Soon, everything I have ever worked for will be on the line, and I cannot afford the smallest of distractions. If I succeed, the victory will make my accolades of the Great War seem like breakfast cereal—nothing more than a mundane snack.
As for the librarian, tomorrow I will set her straight. Like it or not, she is my subject and will not undermine my authority. If she does not like it, well, that is simply too bad. She only has herself to blame for becoming a vampire.
CHAPTER TWO
The next morning, after only having slept one hour, I am dressing for another long day on the throne. Like most vampires, I do not have to sleep, but it does impact one’s performance. Go long enough without and you turn mad. Some say this is what drove Mr. Nice insane. No sleep for a century. I think he is simply a twisted, evil soul who stopped caring what the world thought of him. Others say he is eccentric, and eccentric people tend to obsess. In his case, it’s frilly lace and Fanged Love—a vampire romance series. Honestly, they are fantastic books, but his obsession grew from merely raving about the stories to kidnapping the authors, Kylie Gilmore and Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, so he could force them to write more books. Then he kidnapped the librarian, claiming she was his real-life fanged love.
He kept her for five long years. Five! And along with her, he kept a secret. A child. My child—who had been in the librarian’s womb when he took her.
I slam the door on my dark thoughts, reminding myself that it serves no one to rehash history.
What’s done is done!
I shall hunt down Mr. Nice and punish him for taking what was mine. But not before I get what I need. Afterwards, I will forget him. He does not deserve to be remembered. Not by me. Not by the librarian. Not by the lace factory employees he drove mad with his thirst for ruffles. And certainly not by Kylie Gilmore or Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, although, I understand they are now safe after changing their names and moving to a remote island in Alaska, where they spend their days hunting for faux beavers to make faux beaver pelts.
Well, I said they were safe from Mr. Nice. I never said that the kidnapping episode did not leave them deranged.
I straighten my blood-red tie in the beveled mirror in my bedroom—decorated in the classic Victorian style (still very modern to me)—and take the last sip of my wonderfully nutty espresso with undertones of Bavarian chocolate. I head downstairs, grabbing the keys to my Mercedes G550.
Ah yes. A beautiful vehicle worthy of a man of my taste and status. No more compact, electric-blue shoeboxes for me like in Arizona. While I do support our laws pertaining to the avoidance of human detection, which means a vampire must live within his or her means, according to their human cover story (i.e., if your cover is a college student, as mine was while I lived in Phoenix, then you must live like a college student), I am far too old to be squeezing my large manly frame into a child-size clown car. Nevertheless, the tiny, affordable vehicle I was forced to drive while in Phoenix has forever scarred my masculine soul. I ended up torching it in the desert.
Just as I’m setting my security system, the doorbell buzzes. I glance at my watch. It is a quarter to seven, a little too early for a delivery.
I pull my cell from my pant pocket and check my messages to ensure I have not missed any security breaches. I have guards outside around the clock, and when they fail to check in, it sets off alerts.
Nothing.
I walk to the door and look out the peephole. It is Freddy, and he brings with him that face, the one that tells me he has more bad news.
Arrrgh. What now? I unlock the deadbolt and jerk open the door. “Whatever this is, I hope it’s important.”
“Ye-yes, sir,” he stutters, and holds out a big white box with a red bow and an envelope stuck to the top.
“What is that?”
He keeps his gaze focused straight ahead, over my shoulder. “The five men you sent to collect the librarian, sir.”
It takes a moment to comprehend his meaning. “You mean, they’re in the box? All five?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is this some sort of joke?”
“No, sir.” He blinks rapidly.
I sneer. “You are telling me that a tiny, five-foot-four librarian who has been a vampire for less than two months took out five trained vampire soldiers on her own?”
He nods again.
I do not believe it. I grab the envelope from the lid and pull out the letter.
Dear Mike,
I warned you not to mess with me. I’ll give you one more chance to come to the library. We have a lot to discuss, and time is of the essence.
See you in the morning.
—Miriam
I crumple up the letter and throw it in the hedges to the side of my front door. Who does she think she is? In particular, two things—no, wait, make that three—three things about her note grate on my nerves. One, I hate being called Mike, and she knows it. Two, she assumes her threats work on me. Three, I cannot stand the sound of her name. Not on paper, and not said aloud.
This slight cannot go unpunished.
“Sir? Do you want the box?” asks Freddy.
I narrow my eyes at the thing. I know that Miriam was trained by her parents to be a Keeper, a sort of vigilante vampire slayer, but she never took on the role. She became a librarian instead. So while she claims to be an expert with a crossbow, I do not see how she could have carried out these executions. Killing our kind takes years—decades—of practice.