The Awareness scrambled, slicing colors and angles together until Sorin could not see.
“Who are you—?” began the garbled voice of the murderer.
Then the connection exploded into nothing, leaving Sorin staring at the Elite’s movie screen, two warriors rising, then flying at each other over the rooftops.
The Master’s reawakening was complete.
Yet, that is what Sorin had also believed over fifty years ago, back when a second Underground had seemed to be just the thing to resurrect Benedikte from his sorrows.
SEVENTEEN
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, 1954
N OW , there is a specimen,” Sorin said as he and Benedikte exited the Chadwick Arms Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. “Who would protest his absence?”
Benedikte glanced at the man Sorin indicated. The tattered threads of his clothing clashed with the white tuxedo jackets and black bowties he and his son wore.
A bum, they called this type. A man whose outer dishevelment mirrored the inner Benedikte: ravaged and lifeless.
At Sorin’s comment, the man lifted a dull gaze and an empty fedora hat to the vampires as they passed.
“Spare any change?”
A hotel doorman rushed over. “You leave these gentlemen alone! Out….” He shooed the bum away. “Go on now.”
Sorin lifted a grateful hand to the employee and turned back to Benedikte, matching his pace as they headed for the sidewalk this summer’s evening. “Are you certain you would not rather hail a cab?”
Benedikte carelessly switched into Awareness mode, knowing he was taking a chance on being discovered by another blood brother, but not caring. Normally, simple shielding was all they dared do Above since it wasn’t easy to detect. Yet, what did he have to lose now?
I prefer to stalk at the moment, thank you. It’s the only way to play tourist.
As day bowed under the coming weight of night, he noted that so much about this walk should’ve been a miracle: the Technicolor glamour of a city that housed all the silver-screen stars he adored, the sight of the sun, the wonder of being a preternatural creature among men.
But even as Benedikte’s blood simmered at the scent of human life, he couldn’t enjoy it. Not since London, when he’d discovered that everything was meaningless. It had broken his will to realize that even brothers didn’t have enough honor to stand by a code.
So why have one of his own? Why not kill and pillage at random? Why protect a brotherhood that would end up destroying itself before the true maker could awaken from his deep sleep?
Not that Sorin agreed with this. No, the younger vampire still had dreams of “making a family,” fantasies of another place he could call home.
Even now his son was going on about his latest idea: Guards for a second Underground.
“…The perfect build, Master. I could take such a man, even a transient in a fedora, and mold him into a soldier who would protect our territory. A first line of defense. Imagine if we had possessed a small army of Guards when Andre attacked.”
Home.
The concept floated through Benedikte briefly, but then he rejected it. Too soon for another one, too impossible. It would only be destroyed again.
To distract himself, he took up the trail of a redhead who walked with a bluesy sway to her hips. He imagined she was rushing to meet a lover at a motel. Benedikte fantasized about intercepting her there, erasing her wanton behavior by grabbing her hair, twisting back her neck to expose a ripe vein, drinking until she was drained. Then, he could make her over into what a woman should be—innocent, inspiring, and sedate.
That sounded just about right. During the last thirty years, he’d been lucky, never getting caught in his excesses, always fleeing from city to city before his victims could be discovered. It was an existence Sorin despised because he had, of course, come up with a far more civil plan to make everything easier. A plan that would allow them to settle in a place closer to Heaven than Benedikte would ever get.
Secrecy, Sorin kept saying. Remember how well it worked in London before we grew careless?
At the sound of Benedikte’s heedless footfalls, the woman looked over her shoulder. The vampires nodded and smiled in return.
Two well-heeled men out for a summer stroll. That was all.
She picked up her pace and darted into a market. My, my. Sharp instincts.
As they continued down the sidewalk, Sorin thought, She felt us. Do you not think a woman with such perceptiveness would make a proper vampire daughter for you? Think of how she would always hide her tracks.
Benedikte rolled his eyes. How many times do I need to tell you I’m not interested in more children?
Master, I see your face before you lay yourself to rest. I hear your lonely thoughts. Stop lying to me.
Benedikte kept walking.