Fratricide, Werewolf Wars, and the Many Lies of Andrea Paddington

  Chapter Sixteen: Children of the Night

  Joel had spent the last fifteen minutes watching the perimeter like he was told, not that there was anything to see. The streetlights dutifully illuminated the empty street and the overgrown plants in the gardens of houses opposite. This house was hardly more interesting. Mostly the werewolves sat around talking too quietly for anyone to hear them. Missus Paddington had kept Joel company for a while, but they hadn’t had much in common and now they were sitting in silence in the house’s front room.

  “Missus Paddington,” said a northern voice. Mitchell. “Could I have a word?”

  It was dark, so it was hard to be sure of anything, but Joel thought she looked worried. Certainly she glanced at him, though whether she wanted support or was smiling a thankful goodbye he couldn’t tell.

  “It’s okay,” Mitchell said. “What I have to say I’ll say in front of Beck.”

  “Sure,” she said, settling herself back down at the table. She’d drawn some shapes in the dust by her side.

  “I’d like to apologise for how I treated you the last time we met.”

  “You mean when you ordered your soldiers to hunt me down and kill me?”

  Mitchell didn’t blanch at that harsh summary of his actions. “Yes. I didn’t take the time to fully understand the situation, I treated you like an animal, and I’m sorry. I could blame other pressures – the shock of an actual case; the zombies; finding out Archee was run by vampires – but the fault was mine. You deserved better than I treated you.”

  Lisa said nothing for a very long time. Mitchell didn’t leave. He struck Joel as the kind of man who could stay still for an age if he’d been ordered to.

  “All right,” Lisa said.

  Mitchell nodded and that was that. Sorted.

  McGregor emerged from the bedroom with Skylar a step behind. He placed his clipboard on the table opposite Joel, smoothed his goatee, then sat at his computer and typed fast enough to make most receptionists envious.

  “McGregor?” Truman said. “You’ve finished the exam?”

  “What? Yes. Yes, lots learned. Very exciting.”

  “Will, call the werewolves,” Truman said. “Not… not howl. I didn’t mean that. Just, you know, get them here would you?”

  Will nodded and left. Within a minute the front room of the house was packed again: nine werewolves, four Team members, and Joel. Quite the army, really.

  “McGregor, what did you learn?” Truman asked.

  “Okay. A lot of corroboration of what we learned from Clarkson: they’re fast but not strong; excellent leaping ability; higher heart rate and temperature; built for quick encounters not long engagements. However, I think I’ve solved a couple of mysteries. I don’t know whether it will help us in a fight, but it’ll… it’s interesting.”

  “Spit it out,” Mitchell said.

  “The sunlight thing. The town’s streetlights – all the lights on all the buildings – are L.E.D.s. There’s no fluorescent or halogen lights anywhere. The Andraste mansion on Archi was lit with candles or low-light bulbs. That may mean they’re not just protecting their skin; their eyes are also sensitive to light.”

  “Leading you to conclude?” Truman prompted.

  “That the Andrastes can’t go out in sunlight because their bodies’ abilities to repair damage from ultraviolet light is deficient, but Clarkson isn’t affected because it’s not a function of their vampirism; it’s a genetic disorder. Both parents have the condition, so all of their children do. Perhaps vampirism makes the condition more likely, I’m not sure, the odds of both parents independently having the condition are slim—”

  “Never underestimate their inbreeding,” Paddington said. “Keeping the bloodlines pure. They’ve never mentioned any other family and you’ve never found any other vampires. They may be it.”

  “What’s the condition, doctor?” Truman asked.

  “It’s called xeroderma pigmentosum. I can’t be sure without genetic tests, which we really don’t have time for, but that fits best. It’s somewhat shocking that they haven’t all died of cancer yet, actually.”

  “So what happens if we shine a U.V. spotlight at them?” Mitchell asked.

  McGregor’s hands twitched together, fingers playing with each other, uncomfortable with the idea. “They get sunburn. Quickly. And badly: blistering, ooze, scaly skin. Long-term, you’d probably also give them freckles and cancer.”

  “But they won’t crinkle and turn to ash?” Joel asked.

  “That’s an exaggeration. The sunburn would debilitate them. It… it wouldn’t be pretty. In fact, it would basically be torture.”

  “What’s the second thing?” Truman asked.

  “Right.” McGregor seemed glad of the change of topic. The last one had become a bit morbid. “You know how they say cats have nine lives? Well, the Andrastes basically do. That’s where the ‘vampires live forever’ myth came from.”

  “From where?” Truman asked.

  “They age at one-ninth of the rate of humans. I don’t know how yet, but can you think of the potential? A way to slow aging. Think of the lives we’d save!”

  “And the overpopulated world choking under the weight of millions of eternal couch potatoes,” Mitchell said.

  “How do you know this if you haven’t done a single test?” Paddington asked.

  “Uh, division,” McGregor said. “Ianthe looks sixteen, but she’s actually one-hundred and forty-six. Themis wouldn’t tell me her age. Also, the painting Beck found from the early nineteenth-century matches my theory if the sitter isn’t Leander, but Adonis.”

  “Does any of this help us?” Will asked.

  “A little knowledge never went astray,” Truman said.

  “Spoken like a Mainlander,” one of the wolves – Rob, maybe – said just loud enough to be heard.

  “Wouldn’t that mean Adonis is over five-hundred years old?” Lisa asked. She was the only one who had sat down. “That’s what we’re fighting. Someone with half a millennium of experience. Not to mention that his kids have between one-hundred and fifty to two-hundred and fifty years of experience. Each.”

  That was certainly one way to look at things. A worrying, terrifying way of looking at them. And it killed the mood.

  “It didn’t do Ianthe much good,” Skylar said.

  “I never said it was combat experience,” Lisa pointed out.

  “Let’s concentrate on our prisoners,” Truman said. “Get what we can out of them before we have to return them tomorrow night.”

  “I still say we’ll get more out of them if we don’t hold back,” Curt said.

  “You don’t touch them,” Truman said. “Clear?”

  The werewolves bristled. Not in an obvious way – they didn’t leer or step closer – but their hands tightened into fists and a few exchanged glances.

  “If we don’t return them the way we found them, Adonis might take that as an act of aggression,” Paddington said.

  “Which it would be,” Curt said. He had deep-set eyes, even deeper than Joel’s, though Curt’s hair was darker and his jaw was angrier. It was hard to describe it any other way: there was something about the set of his bottom jaw – it stuck out more than the top – that made him seem constantly about to start a fight.

  “Which would be bad,” Truman said.

  Curt had opened his mouth to rebut this idea, but at that moment the streetlights went out. They had the curtains closed, but enough ambient light had drifted through to see by.

  Now the only lights were those of the nearby laptops. McGregor came into view of one and began typing. Other Team members ignited the flashlights attached to their rifles. Joel couldn’t help but feel that when the lights came back on they’d find someone missing or dead.

  “They must have cut the power line,” McGregor said.

  “Mitchell, Skylar, check the front and back doors. Stay inside. McGregor, get flashlights for the others.”

  A beam of light that was presumably attached
to a person moved toward the back of the house and another toward the front windows. The figure peered around but didn’t pull aside the curtain.

  “Too dark to see out,” said a female voice. Skylar was checking the front, then.

  An emergency flashlight was pressed into Joel’s hand.

  “Will,” Truman said, “are y’all more useful with guns or as wolves?”

  “We can see better as wolves,” Will said, “but we can’t communicate so well.”

  “You held us hostage in the police station well enough.”

  “Conall was coordinating us.” Will sounded almost apologetic about his involvement.

  “Fine.” Enough light spilled around the room from the flashlights that Joel could see Truman’s brow creased in concentration. “Paddington, why are they doing this? We had until tomorrow sunset.”

  Paddington’s long tan coat was on the floor and he was slipping the shoulder-strap-thing of that sword heirloom over his head. A baldric, that’s what he’d called it. Joel kind of wished he’d come from somewhere that they still used words like that.

  “I guess Adonis didn’t like our having two of his daughters at gunpoint,” Paddington said. He placed the overcoat back on. The baldric’s strap was still visible crossing from his right shoulder to left hip, but the sabre was hidden.

  “Shit,” Truman said. “We haven’t got anything out of the girls yet.”

  “The ‘girls’ are over a hundred-and-fifty,” Lisa said. “Just saying.”

  “You know what I mean! We haven’t had time!” Truman snapped.

  A shape entered the front room from the rear of the house. Several lights spun to face it. Joel thought he heard a safety clicking off as well. Mitchell didn’t even flinch. “Back of the house is clear,” he said. “Nice sword.”

  “It’s the Bretherton Sabre,” Joel said.

  Mitchell looked ashen; probably it was just the flashlights that made his face look so white and… skull-like. “The what?”

  “A family heirloom.”

  “Yes it has a funny name,” Paddington said. “Can we move on?”

  “James Paddington!” The booming voice came from the street outside.

  Skylar glanced out the window, then back in. “At least three.”

  Paddington looked at Truman. “Permission to respond?”

  Truman nodded. “You’re the negotiator.”

  Everyone else moved away from the door. Paddington paused at it for a second, took a breath, then stepped outside. Joel waited near the window to see what would happen; Truman distributed pistols to the werewolves.

  “You’re early,” Paddington said, with all the inflection of a host whose dinner guest had arrived at lunchtime: mostly surprise, but with some annoyance at the inconvenience.

  “This is your chance to return my daughters without bloodshed, chief.”

  “I’m not chief here, just negotiator. I’ll have to run any offers past the man in charge.”

  Adonis snorted. “Please. We both know that Captain Truman wouldn’t dare harm my daughters.”

  “Maybe, but the pack of werewolves are a tad upset at all the lying and betraying you’ve done in the past.”

  The vampire lord didn’t blink. “And they also know the terrors I can bring upon their futures.”

  “Like you brought upon Charlie when you tried to kill me?”

  Adonis merely arched an eyebrow. What did that mean? Shouldn’t he be disappointed that Paddington still lived? Or angry? But, wait, didn’t he need Paddington alive for his prophecy? Wasn’t that what this was all about? What would he gain by killing him before that?

  “Don’t want to talk about that?” Paddington asked. “All right. Then let’s talk about family. Yours and mine.”

  The vampire stood a little straighter. Joel wouldn’t have thought it possible – the man was already rigid-backed in his finely-tailored suit. He didn’t seem to be armed, but the two male vampires – his sons, presumably – standing guard behind him held rifles. Not with the solid confidence of Truman, though, or the casual disregard of Mitchell. The vampires almost looked awkward.

  “Why ask me?” asked Adonis.

  “Who else is still alive that knows the truth? My mother was apparently too scared of you to ever tell me that my father had left with my brother. She died keeping that secret, so now you’re the only one with the answers I want. So… where’s my father now? Come on. I’m sure you know.”

  “I do.” Adonis broke eye contact. “He passed away.”

  Strange that Adonis had chosen that phrase. He could have said “Dead” or “Buried”, but he chose a softer phrase. An almost kind phrase. Sympathy… from a vampire?

  Paddington nodded. Joel couldn’t even imagine what was going through his head: the loss of a father he’d already lost, the existence of a brother he was destined to murder, having to chat with his nemesis so that Truman had time to coordinate an attack. Joel was glad it wasn’t him out there.

  But he knew how it felt to lose a father, so he understood why Paddington changed tune and asked, “If I give you back your daughters, both of them, will you go back to Archi tonight?”

  “No,” said Adonis.

  “I’m not saying swap them for the Book. If we just let them go.”

  “No.” There wasn’t even a delay. “Not until the prophecy is fulfilled.”

  “Why the rush?”

  Adonis thought for a moment before replying. “If you had read what awaits the world, you also would herald it with all speed.”

  “Oh, is murdering my brother the highlight of your week?” Paddington asked brightly.

  Adonis actually looked away. Joel could barely believe it: Paddington had stared down a five-hundred-year-old vampire.

  “Not that,” said Adonis. “What comes after.”

  “Another apocalypse? Like when you tried to overrun the world with zombies under the rule of über-monsters?”

  The count looked back at Paddington. “I sought for the Three Races to be as they had been at the dawn of time: spread across the world in glory. Is that so bad? Do you regret what you are now? Would you rather be human again?”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  “It is entirely and solely about you, as you pointed out.”

  “Except you butted in.” Paddington took a step forward. “If it costs you two daughters, will it still be worth it?”

  “You won’t take their lives.”

  “I don’t know what I’ll do,” he threatened. “You’re pushing awfully hard.”

  “Indeed I am.” Now the vampire stepped toward Paddington, closing the distance between them to less than ten feet. “You will return my daughters and fulfil the prophecy or people will start dying.”

  “I’m not fulfilling any prophecies until you hand over the Book.”

  Adonis arched an eyebrow and rumbled, “We shall see.”

  “Did you take a correspondence course in creepy villain dialogue?”

  Adonis looked surprised. “That would imply that I am the villain here. That the end I seek is disaster. Nothing is further from the truth.” With that, Adonis turned his back on Paddington and walked into the dark beneath the trees lining the other side of the road.

  The two Andraste boys also retreated to the shadows, but without turning their backs. Paddington left the empty street for the house.

  The moment he closed the door, the first gunshot came. A crack of thunder and shattering glass. Someone fell. One of the bigger werewolves near the front window. People were all over the house, trying to guard the front, back, and side doors all at once. That spread them thin, even with the werewolves providing additional manpower. The front room was by far the most crowded with Paddington, his wife, Joel, the big werewolf, and Truman.

  “Shot!” Truman shouted. “Front room!”

  Joel knelt at the werewolf’s side, trying not to make himself a target through the broken window while Truman did his best to aim at the street without risking any part of himself.
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  “Stay with me!” Joel said. The werewolf’s eyes were already closed. Joel cradled the man’s chin in his hand and turned his head toward him.

  “Don’t get of his blood in you,” Lisa said, scooting underneath the window to help him put pressure on the wound.

  “Why?”

  “That’s how I… turned. Cleaning up a bloody paper cut.”

  “How is he?” Truman asked without looking away from the window.

  “Dead,” Joel said. “Straight through the head.” He placed the man’s head gently on the ground.

  “Marksman,” Truman muttered. He keyed his radio. “Stay away from windows. Let’s not give them any easy targets. And someone check that the prisoners haven’t disappeared from under our noses.” He released the radio and turned to Paddington. “I think you made an impression.”

  “I have that effect on people,” Paddington said. Then he drew the sabre from its sheath and threw open the front door.