“You said he knew magic,” I remind him.
“Knew it? Oh, yes. But he had a weak mind. A feeble mind. How does someone allow himself to become so fat as to not be able to use his own damn legs? It’s not only a lack of discipline! It’s like he did it on purpose, just to spite me. You have to consciously make an effort, day in, day out, to end up like that.”
A fire lights Paul’s eyes. He keeps going. “Melvin had so much promise. He had potential. He was born one of us, and he was set to inherit everything from birth! I gave him the greatest education. He was a smart boy. He took to it quickly. For the first fourteen, fifteen years of his life, I had such hopes for him. He trained with the men and spent all his free time in the barracks. Strong, quick, fast, agile—you name it, he had it. He impressed all of his tutors with how easily he’d retain information. His mind was great, James, it was a beautiful thing. For those first early years, I could not have asked for a better son.”
My eyes narrow in consideration. Melvin, the wheelchair-bound man who looked like he ate as much as five men do daily, was once a promising pupil? He lived with the soldiers?
“So, what the hell happened to him?” I ask. “How did he fall so far?”
“I don’t know,” Paul says softly. He looks away. Regret tinges his voice. “I don’t know when it all went wrong. Halfway through his teens, he began to be distant. At first, I assumed it was just a phase. You know—” he forces a laugh, “—the same sort of rebellion all teenagers go through. I assumed it would pass. I didn’t take it too seriously.” He exhales. “But it got worse when he hit his twenties. He shut himself in all the time. He’d completed his schooling many years before. So again, I just thought it would take time. Whatever rebelliousness he was feeling would pass when he realized, or remembered, the greatness of the organization he belonged to.”
Paul turns away. The screams from the humans continue unabated.
“Every time he emerged from his room, he became worse and worse, fatter and fatter. He would mutter gibberish and then squeal in laughter to himself about it.
“Once, I sent Beast to have a word. Melvin had respected the soldier before. But it was all for naught. The moment Beast approached him, Melvin lashed out. He hit him with a blast of magic, knocking him out and putting him in a coma for weeks. We kept it hidden from the others. They could not know. And I, myself, knew not what to do—it was Melvin who carried Beast’s unconscious body back to me, dumped it on the floor, and then dissolved in a puddle of tears, saying how sorry he was, how remorseful.”
Paul grunts with disgust and spins back to look at me. “It was then that the first step of hatred took hold of me. I hated what my son had become. And I had absolutely no idea what to do with him.”
“The magic he knew,” I say slowly. “Was it taught to him by someone here?”
“No,” Paul replies. “He taught himself.”
An uncomfortable shiver crawls down my spine. “Could it have been the push that sent him off the ledge?”
“It’s entirely likely,” Paul admits. “That would not bode well for you.”
“No,” I agree. “It would not.”
“But you’re a vampire,” he says. “And strong. You’ve been alive for centuries. Your mind is your own. It would take quite a bit to corrupt it. Melvin was a boy, just a child, when he got his first exposure to his abilities.”
“Melvin did not have the markings on his head as Sylvia did,” I say. “Why? I thought all those born to office in The Crusaders have those marks given to them.”
“He had them,” Paul says.
“What?” I screw up my face. “I did not notice.”
“He had all his hair grown over top.” Paul shrugs. I realize there have not been any human cries for the last few minutes.
Just then, I feel a vampire running down the hall toward us.
I step out and see Victoria. She slows when our eyes meet.
“It’s done,” she tells me. Paul comes to join me. “All the generals are fed. And James… it’s marvelous.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Victoria
An outpost of The Crusaders.
I trot half a step behind James as he marches to the enclosure where all the humans were kept.
He opens the door and walks through. He misses a step when he sees what lies before him.
I smile.
All the fledglings are standing in a line by the wall, in perfect formation. The human bodies, white and drained of blood, have been precisely placed in one corner. The room is spotless—there is not a drop of blood anywhere.
Usually, when vampires feed, they leave only carnage, especially when that feeding is their first.
These fledglings have supreme discipline.
“You!” James points at one of them at random. “Step forth.”
The general takes a single, long stride forward, separating himself form the rest.
James approaches him. I feel him flare out his influence, directed at the fledglings.
The one he’s singled out stands perfectly straight and does not flinch.
James stops an inch from him. He looks him up and down. He examines his face. He picks up his hand and brings it between them.
“Show me your claws,” he says.
On command, the claws come out. James nods, satisfied, and drops the hand.
“And your fangs?” he asks.
The fledgling draws back his lips to expose two perfect, sharp, shining fangs, glistening from his top gum-line.
“Very impressive,” James notes. “Go back in line. You!” he calls another one forward. “Come. I want to see what you have.”
The next fledgling comes forward and James conducts the same examination.
“Good,” he says, turning away. “This is very, very good. You did an excellent job with them, Victoria.”
A bit of heat rushes into my cheeks. I try to cover it up by coughing and raising a fist to my lips.
I think he catches the reaction anyway.
“Paul,” he says. “Are we able to return to the main facility? I know your humans have means of detecting vampires. Will we be at risk of being exposed?”
“No,” Paul says. “There is a strict chain of command in the organization. All the men on levels below these will accept whatever I order of them. The only ones we could have trouble with are the generals and officers who refused the offer…” He nods at the pile of bodies. “But they are either dead or locked up.”
“Is this enough men for you to take control with?” Paul asks. “Do you have enough fledglings who will take charge so as not to disrupt the functioning of the Crusaders?”
Paul gives a sly smile. “The Crusaders is running perfectly, right now, even with all the generals missing. I told you. We have a strict chain of command. There are multiple fail-safes in our own hierarchy to ensure that each man, down to the last, knows what to do.”
“If we go back,” James considers, “is there a chance for revolt? Could some of the men take up arms against their superiors, if they see it as right and discover us as vampires?”
“There’s always some small chance of that,” Paul admits. “But I would not worry much. With so many vampires, it will be easy to put down any uprising. Yes, they have weapons which are deadly to our kind. But we have weapons, too, and superior speed, stamina, and strength, besides. The only way I could possibly see us running into trouble…” he licks his lips, “…is if all the available men mount an immediate coup the moment we return. But they would have to have been forewarned for that to happen, and I see no way of them knowing about it. And like I said before—if I give the order to stand down, they will. We exterminate independent thinking like that from our recruits right away. If they have a problem with authority, they would not have made it past the first month.”