White Nights: A Vampires of Manhattan Novel, Page 3

  The first train of the day from Budapest had arrived in Vienna.

  The carriage was almost empty, apart from an elderly couple packing away their breakfast things into a canvas shopping bag, and a man wrangling his bicycle by the far door. Oliver swung down onto the platform and felt the fresh hit of morning air against his face. Though his eyes were still gummy from sleep, he could make out the time on the station clock: nine AM.

  He’d spent much of the night awake, walking the streets of Budapest, waiting as long as he could before going to the train station. Yesterday he’d left his battered duffel in a locker, and this morning he had just enough time to retrieve it and buy a one-way ticket to Vienna from a machine. The contents of his duffel were just as he’d left them: some dirty clothes, and a fat envelope of creased euros, traded for his dinars in a black-market currency exchange in Algiers.

  Oliver was strictly a cash economy these days, reliant on Schuyler sending money, via shady intermediaries, to collection offices on various continents. It was too risky for him to use a credit card or go near an ATM, so instead he made irregular pick-ups of cash – to eat, to travel, to bribe someone. Sometimes Oliver could see the dark humor in being one mugging away from destitution. It wasn’t just a world away from his old life of luxury and power: it was a surreal and dangerous parallel universe, this place he inhabited now. No wonder he was a nervous wreck.

  After a night of pacing the streets, Oliver had fallen asleep on the train, his duffel clutched to his chest like a pillow and the envelope of euros wedged low under his shirt – just where his worn leather belt hit his now-sunken belly. It had been a short and fitful sleep, and Oliver felt strung-out as ever.

  He walked fast, glancing around in the jittery, hyper-alert manner that had become second nature to him. Once again he stowed his bag in a locker, slipping the envelope of cash among the dusty pile of once-crisp Brooks Brothers shirts and taking just enough notes to get him through another day. Then he had a quick coffee, standing up at a high table outside a station kiosk, pigeons pecking around his feet. He needed a caffeine boost, or some kind of quick hit to give him energy and resolve. Every day was a fresh hell.

  Like so many times these past few months, Oliver had only the vaguest idea of what was facing him in this new place. He’d come to Vienna, as instructed by the wolf who now lay dead – maybe in a Budapest morgue, maybe still on the ground of the Fisherman’s Bastion, where he’d been felled. Whoever threw the blade had been stationed below them, on Castle Hill. Maybe they were on their way up and decided not to wait a moment longer, determined to stop the wolf before he passed on too much information. Nephalim or Venator? It didn’t matter much to Oliver anymore. Everyone was after him. Everyone was against him.

  The sight of the wolf’s stricken face – animated when the blade hit him, stunned and frozen a moment later – was the clearest thing in Oliver’s mind right now. He tipped two sachets of sugar into his bitter coffee, trying to get rid of the tang in his mouth. He’d seen plenty of deaths and plenty of killings, but every week they grew harder to deal with, harder to forget. It was sickening, physically and emotionally. Death followed him around, or maybe it wasn’t following: he was the one ushering it in, bringing havoc and loss and unhappiness wherever he turned up. Because of his own hubris, Oliver had turned Finn into a monster. One way or another, she had to be found and stopped, and this endless trail of blood and betrayal had to end.

  Wednesday. Vienna. The café at the Hotel Sacher. This was all Oliver knew. It was all his informant had managed to utter before he’d been dispatched with that lethal blade. No other word on what was going to happen, exactly, at this place.

  An enclosed space like a café wasn’t a typical location for a rendezvous with an informant. So maybe the wolf wasn’t directing Oliver there, where he could be spotted, captured, or worse. Perhaps he was about to tell Oliver that Finn would be there, if he wanted to lurk somewhere close by and follow her. That blade in the wolf’s back must mean that Oliver was getting close – didn’t it?

  It was a fine morning, the sky blue and cloudless. Oliver slipped off his jacket and carried it, grateful for the warm breeze ruffling his hair. These were his only pleasures in life now – small, simple things like a warm breeze, a comfortable chair, a sip of cold water. His old life of champagne and caviar seemed decadent and dream-like, a mirage. The old Oliver would have strolled the streets of Vienna admiring its handsome buildings, its stiff grandeur, its gorgeous store windows; the old Oliver would have gazed approvingly at its elegant citizens, driving past in their BMWs or Audis, or walking by in designer sunglasses and chic outfits. Vienna was a Blue Blood town, he knew, sophisticated and moneyed. Once upon a time, he would have felt completely at home there.

  Now Oliver was a ghost haunting its streets, immune to its charms. He followed the path he’d memorized from the city map in the station. The Hotel Sacher was opposite the Opera House, he’d learned, one of the city’s most famous baroque landmarks, and he didn’t need a tour guide to find it. Halfway down the avenue he could see its dark red awnings shading the sidewalk seats, and when he slowed his steps to pass it, he could glimpse a plush red-and-gilt interior with marble-topped tables, its waitresses in white frilled aprons. Stately, picturesque, old-fashioned – just like the city itself. A tourist attraction. Definitely not the place a gaunt scruff like Oliver would blend into the background, and definitely not the place to meet an otherworldly informant.

  Oliver stepped into the hotel’s wood-paneled lobby, similarly over-decorated with red and gold, looking for any potential suspects: Venator, wolf, demon. Some businessmen, speaking loud German, were checking in; an elderly lady, pristine in a white Chanel suit, sat reading a newspaper. A concierge caught his eye and nodded, smiling, though Oliver could see the wariness in his eyes. In his current scruffy state, someone like Oliver didn’t belong here.

  Waiting outside under the portico of the opera house seemed his best bet, but the road was too broad and busy. All Oliver could see was the blur of passing trams and taxis, not people leaving and entering Café Sacher, and he felt too exposed, blinking in the sunlight and stifling yawns. Better to be inside and in danger than out of the way, oblivious to whatever was going down there today. Whatever the wolf had tried to tell him – or warn him – about.

  In the café Oliver took a seat near the door, sitting at a high-backed red banquette against the wall. He could see people coming and going, and had a pretty good view of everyone in the long, narrow room.

  “Your order, please?” asked the waitress, who seemed to be able to tell at a glance that Oliver wasn’t a German speaker. Is that what he looked like now – a gauche, untidy tourist, with no idea of how to dress in polite society?

  “Goulash, please,” he said, keeping his voice low. “And bread. I’ll have coffee later.”

  The waitress looked surprised, probably because he wasn’t ordering a slice of rich chocolate cake doused in cream, like all the other tourists in here, busily taking pictures of their plates and muttering to each other about the cost. But however foreign he appeared to the waitress, in her starched cap and apron, Oliver wasn’t here for the tourist experience. In the past twenty-four hours, he’d had nothing but a gobbled-down hot dog in the street in Budapest, and too many cups of strong, sweet coffee. Right now he needed sustenance.

  After he’d mopped up the last dark, succulent streaks of goulash in his bowl with a hunk torn from a crisp roll, Oliver decided he felt almost human again. The phrase made him laugh: almost human. That’s what he was, after all. Not an actual human, not anymore, and a pariah in the vampire world. The tourists in the next table would drop their camera and guidebook and run screaming from the café if they had the slightest idea that the young man sitting near them preferred the rich, intoxicating taste of blood to their over-priced hot chocolate.

  The waitress cleared his plate and took his coffee order, returning a few minutes later with a copy of that day’s New York Times International. Ol
iver smiled his thanks and flicked it open – not to read, but to obscure most of his face from other patrons. The café was busier now, the waitresses whizzing between tables. He peered over the top of the paper, careful to keep an eye on new arrivals, ignoring his cooling coffee. Maybe he’d have to sit here all day. Maybe the wolf’s information was bad, or Oliver was already too late.

  A gruff voice – male, American – asked for a table for two, and Oliver froze. The couple he could glimpse, just above his wall of paper, were not ordinary American tourists. A man and woman, young and athletic, both dressed in black jeans and T-shirts. Neither of them carrying cameras, or iPads, or backpacks. Neither of them smiling. That was the real giveaway, Oliver thought. American tourists usually smiled, hoping to win over the brusque waitress and get an outside table.

  These weren’t tourists. They were Venators.

  Oliver didn’t recognize either of them, but that wasn’t so surprising. When he was Regis of the Coven, he used to have regular meetings with the Chief Venator, but Oliver took scant notice of the ranks of skilled fighters at his disposal. They were beneath him, those foot soldiers of the Coven, slipping about New York under cover of darkness to do his dirty work. He should have been more attentive, more observant. It would have saved him a lot of trouble now.

  Another of the waitresses gestured to a small table in the middle of the room, and Oliver spied on the pair walking, in what seemed like slow motion, towards it. They were in no hurry to sit down, he noticed; they were looking around the room in a deliberate way. He raised his newspaper, aware of the now-familiar twist in his stomach when danger was near. These Venators might be here looking for him; they might be here to accost someone else. One thing was certain: they weren’t here to eat cake.

  There was a crash, then the sound of glasses shattering as they hit the floor. The tourists at the next table gasped, and somewhere close by a woman shrieked. Finn? Could that really be Finn? Was she sitting here in the café the whole time?

  Oliver leapt to his feet, dropping the newspaper. He couldn’t see Finn. All he could see was an overturned table, and people standing up, crying out in protest or flinching as chairs flew through the air. The shrieking woman appeared to be an hysterical middle-aged redhead, clutching at her children. Oliver tried to push his way through the crowd to find out what was going on. Protecting himself was all well and good, but he was here for information, not to skulk in the corner until all possible informants lay dead on the ground.

  One of the hotel’s security guards shoved past him, bellowing in German. Then Oliver felt a hand clamp his shoulder and he braced himself for what was coming: a punch, a blade in his back, a gun pressed into his ribs. Maybe this whole fight was a diversion, just to draw him out of his hiding place.

  “Follow me,” murmured a gutteral voice close by, and Oliver recognized the smell rather than the sound of the voice. The earthy, feral smell of an animal, its breath like peat. A wolf.

  Following wasn’t easy in the crowded café, especially as Oliver wasn’t the only one making for the door. Patrons were bustling out, and armed police were charging in. In the surging crowd – some of them scared, some of them clearly excited about skipping out without paying – he couldn’t pick out the man who’d spoken to him. On the sidewalk outside, the sun high overhead, Oliver paused and looked around.

  And there he was, inches away – a familiar face. Mac, Edon Marrok’s brother. It was years since Oliver had seen him last, but there was a strong family resemblance. Green eyes, angular face, low forehead.

  “Bad business,” Mac said to him, gesturing with a sharp nod of the head for Oliver to follow him down the street.

  “Who were the Venators after in there?” Oliver asked. He kept his head low, and matched his pace to Mac’s swift steps.

  “Venators? Nephilim, I expect,” said Mac. “But I was talking about what happened last night.”

  The murdered wolf in Budapest, thought Oliver. Of course.

  “He only had time to tell me to come here,” said Oliver. Police cars, sirens screaming, raced by. Shopkeepers came out to see what was going on. Tourists held their phones aloft, filming the action, or at least the tops of other people’s heads.

  “Well, you’re too late.” Clearly Mac was as gruff and abrupt as his brother. “She’s already moved on. North, for the summer solstice. That’s what I hear.”

  “Finn?” Oliver couldn’t say her name without his voice catching.

  “Here,” said Mac, not looking at Oliver. He pressed a folded piece of paper into Oliver’s hand. “You’ll be safe there – for a while. If any of us are safe anywhere. Get there today, if you can.”

  One of the police cars slowed and a door opened, though the car was still crawling along the curb.

  “Today,” Mac repeated, and dived into the moving police car. The door slammed behind him. Oliver stood clutching the piece of paper, watching the car speed away; it had to swerve to avoid a tram.

  On the paper was an address scrawled in black ink, Oliver’s next destination on his round-the-world wild demon chase. Sweden.

  5 | Cleaning House

  Edon had to pack and go, right away – orders of the new Chief. It wasn’t going to take him long, because wolves traveled light. In his office the desk was bare of anything but a sleek platinum computer, and that was Coven property. Edon had never felt comfortable sitting at that shiny black desk, squinting into the blue square of a screen. He was too scruffy, too feral, for a place like this.

  “What have you done with all your case files?” Ben Denham, a young Venator who couldn’t keep his nose out of other people’s business, leaned in the door.

  “Filed them,” Edon replied. Most Venators got on his nerves, especially eager beavers like Denham who asked too many stupid questions. What was it like, the final battle? What’s it like to be a guardian of Time? Wherever Edon was headed next, he hoped vampires would be thin on the ground.

  He snorted at his blank screen. Fat chance. His next assignment was certain to involve supporting a Venator squad somewhere, sniffing out Nephalim. The Fallen sure needed a lot of help.

  “Well, it’s been great working with you,” Denham prattled on. “Great to get to know – you know, a golden wolf.”

  Edon slouched in his seat, wondering if it would be bad form to leave some incisor-shaped puncture marks in Denham’s baby face. A sort of going-away gift for his number-one fan.

  “And the chief wants to see you.” Denham sounded nervous. Maybe he could mind-read. “When you’re ready.”

  Edon stood up, flashing Denham a fake grin. Nothing showed off those incisors like a smile. Denham scuttled away and Edon headed in the other direction, to Kinsgley’s office. The night shift was almost over, and Edon had spent most of it taking care of paperwork, trying not to think about Ara – no doubt fuming amid the debris of her apartment, angry and hurt that she was on forced leave. Ara didn’t like being forced to do anything – especially take a mental-health vacation, while Edon got to zoom off somewhere dangerous and exciting.

  Kinsgley was standing at the window, watching the sun rise over the East River. For someone so important and powerful in the Coven’s world, Kingsley was hardly an imposing figure: he was tall and thin rather than broad and muscular. Maybe, Edon thought, the anxieties of this job were starting to take their toll on him.

  “OK to come in, Chief?”

  “Sure. Shut the door.” Whatever Kingsley had been dreaming about, he was all business now. “I just got confirmation on where you’re going. You fly out in six hours’ time. Not too short notice, I hope.”

  Edon shook his head. His office was emptied of unfinished business. If only he could say the same of his personal life.

  “Where am I going?”

  “Scandinavia. Sweden, to be precise. Intelligence says there’s been Nephilim action in the club scene and a possible sighting of Finn Chase.”

  Edon’s eyebrows shot up. So the notorious Finn Chase was in Sweden, was she? Up to
no good in those long white nights up there. Their whole world disrupted by one snooty, ambitious girl who didn’t even know how to fight. The opposite of Ara. Ara was worth a hundred Finn Chases, any day.

  “Chief, about Ara …” he began, but Kingsley held up a hand. His eyes looked sad rather than angry, Edon realized. Kinsgley wasn’t mad with Ara, just disappointed. Worried, maybe. Someone as astute as Kingsley knew the true value of a dedicated Venator like Ara.

  “Ara needs a break.” Kingsley leaned back in his black leather chair. “She’s been too highly strung for a while now. You know it and I know it. After a month’s vacation – who knows? She’ll be ready for a fresh start with a new partner. I hope so, anyway.”

  Edon suppressed the low growl forming in his throat. A new partner. He and Ara would be separated forever. Maybe he’d been kidding himself, thinking that somehow they could keep working together, traveling the world, getting into trouble. Together.

  Kingsley stood up, signaling that the meeting was over. He pulled a black leather jacket from the sleek platinum coat stand behind his desk and shrugged it on, preparing to head home to Mimi, Edon guessed. Outside a benign June morning was forming, the moon already a faded ivory circle in the haze. The traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge was heavy. Edon wondered when he’d be back at Orpheus Tower again. When he’d see Ara again.

  “I trust you to take care of this nasty business in Sweden.” Kinsgley flashed something between a grimace and a grin at Edon. “The Nephilim are buzzing over there, and I have a bad feeling that Finn Chase, for some messed-up and dangerous reason, may be their queen bee. And don’t worry – you’ll have an outstanding Venator partner to help you over there.”

  I had an outstanding partner here, Edon wanted to say, but he knew there was no point. There was no talking sense with the Fallen, in his experience. Give him a feral pack of wolves, acting on instinct, any day. Wolves might not look as slick as these wealthy, over-groomed vampires, with their designer clothes, glossy hair and buffed skin. But wolves were born knowing how to hunt with a pack, and how to work alone. Edon would rather work alone than get stuck with some eco-everything, bike-riding Swedish Venator. Shame that nobody ever asked him what he wanted.