Minutes, maybe hours later, the door groaned open. Still panting, Benedikte glanced in its direction. There, even in the darkness, he discerned the beating outline of his only surviving son.
Sorin, his tattered clothing smoked with acrid memories of the battle, walked inside, closing the door behind him. “Here you are. I should have known you would be in your beloved sanctuary.”
The Master rested in this place often. Normally it was after a picture show, with the grand piping of organ music still chorusing through his limbs, or after a night of visiting clubs, with their Harry Houdini imitators or flappers dancing to the jazz music.
When Benedikte didn’t answer, Sorin tried again. “Your Awareness was closed off to me—”
“We had no protection.” Benedikte pressed his hands against his face. “I’m not a leader—I never have been—and we were caught off guard because of it. If we’d only had some sort of defense….”
Bonelessly, he allowed his hands to fall to the floor. He stared at the ceiling, much like the crucifix figure on the other side of the room, although there was an abyss of difference between them.
Sorin slumped back against a wall, coming to sit. He’d battled valiantly, utilizing the magic he’d been born with—magic that had been honed through vampire talents, magic that he’d refined from country to country, border to border.
But all the other young, jazz-baby children hadn’t been able to fight, thanks to Andre, the vampire Benedikte had once believed to be a brother in blood.
Benedikte rued the moment he and Sorin had been lured outside by Andre’s cryptic presence. There had been a frisson splitting the air, a faint thrum Benedikte had not felt since leaving the old country.
Unsuspectingly, they’d gone to investigate.
Andre had been waiting, arm draped over a bench he’d been sitting on in Hyde Park. The emerging moon had made him more shadow than substance but, all the same, Benedikte had noticed that his brother’s beard had been shaved off, his hair clipped to accommodate today’s fashions, just as he and Sorin had done, as well.
He hadn’t seen Andre for centuries, not since the brothers had discovered that each of them possessed diverse talents and had gone their own ways to revel in the discovery of how far they could take them. The others could perform feats such as commanding animals to obey or even affecting weather; Benedikte could do neither, although he was coming to believe that his immunity to religious objects might be a latent strength.
The only other time Benedikte had even been close to Andre was during their father’s mental gathering of the blood brothers—when the great one had commanded all of them to begin separate communities and then had gone underground himself, gathering power until it was time to rise again. At that point, communication between the brothers had somehow stopped, cut off by the pursuit of their own quests, Benedikte had thought.
But now, he knew he’d been wrong about that.
Coolly, Andre sat back on the bench while a sense of disquiet gnawed on the back of Benedikte’s neck. It was sharp enough to keep him from greeting his own blood kin.
“You never heard the rumors, my friend?” Andre asked.
When Bendikte didn’t respond, the other vampire was more than happy to supply his own answers. “Takeovers among the brothers. Civil warring. Greed. You should’ve done better at keeping your perception open, Benedikte.”
Before his brother could even fully explain, Benedikte suspected what might be happening Below.
“All I want is what you already have,” Andre added, direct and businesslike. “And I’m in the process of getting it right now.”
With a blast of preternatural speed, Benedikte and Sorin had whisked back to their Underground, where they discovered Andre’s vampires holding the children captive.
The youngsters had cocked their heads at Benedikte, their faces reflecting heartrending bewilderment: how can one of our own do this?
All they’d wanted was an oasis. And, for good money, Benedikte had provided these heiresses and playboys a hedonistic refuge where they could indulge, where they could dance until dawn and the party would never end. Up until this night, the worst threat had been a fear of humans and their destructive tendencies when it came to matters they didn’t comprehend—matters such as vampires. But secrecy had kept that particular threat away.
Who would have ever predicted that a brother vampire would be far worse?
By now, Andre had solidified behind Benedikte and Sorin, blocking the Underground’s veiled exit.
“Surrender,” the other said.
“Are you daring to go against our father’s mandate?”
Andre had laughed. “I am daring. And do you know why, Benedikte? Because I want to. It’ll be close to two hundred years before Father rises again and, by that time, I will be the one who welcomes him. I will be his right hand.”