Antithesis: The Vampire Alliance Book Three - FIRST DRAFT COMPLETED

Antithesis Chapter 31: Tulloch Sullivan August 2013

Tulloch Sullivan, August 2013

Shaking my head, I watch Rob drive away. It’s hard to comprehend how we came to travel the road we’ve found our way along. Now is not the time to try and figure it out, to contemplate just how long I’ve loved Rob or if Rob, Eve and I were always meant to be together. Yet I can’t help wondering as I watch the tail lights of the Range Rover disappear.

I hope he doesn’t do anything reckless, I hope Eve doesn’t do anything typically lacking in any sense of self preservation. I pray that this works and we get to fully explore what it means to build a future together. How did we get here, to this place where, despite the potential futility of our continued fighting, I really do feel hopeful? As long as we don’t get caught we might be able to create a world we can survive. In that world I’ll have Eve, I’ll have Rob and we’ll be safe. As long as we don’t get caught tonight.

Eve could learn to regret this, of course. Regret what we’re doing, with it being as illegal as it is. There is so much she regrets, so much we all regret, so much we have all done to feel guilt over. She’s had to do so much, so young, if we build a future will she be able to truly let go of her past?

My phone rings, focussing my wayward thoughts. Looking down I see Eve’s name on the screen, “Eve?” I query as I answer.

“Focus Tul, your mind’s wandering. You need to go left.” She answers.

Frowning I look in the direction she’s telling me to go. “You know where I am, right down to which way I’m standing?” The notion is incredible; not so long ago she hadn’t even been able to reliably direct her visions and now she knows what is on my left. The idea is disconcerting. Eve is powerful in a way I’ve never believed anyone could be. Not only is she the first Strix in almost two thousand years but as a seer as well she’s tremendously powerful. That could be terrifying just as easily as it could be reassuring.

“I can see you,” reluctantly Eve admits the truth, “which means not only can I feel your surprise and discomfort but I can see the uneasiness in your expression too. I suppose unease is better than fear, which is how Rob will react.”

Forcing my features into a neutral composition I try my hardest to control my astonishment. “Evie hunny, it’s just unusual, that’s all. You’re something we’ve never witnessed before. In a very short space of time you’ve gone from someone we believed to be fragile to someone who could, quite frankly, kick our asses any day. It’s a lot to take in, for you as well as us. We worry about you, Evie, not what you are but what it could do to you, what everything could do to you. We worry about what everything is doing to you.”

“Do you think I’m dangerous?” She asks me, no doubt remembering the reason we journeyed to Yorkshire in the first place. “Do you think I’m unstable or do you simply think I’m unsafe?”

“Love,” I hiss urgently, needing her to believe me, “I don’t think you’re any of those things. Neither does Rob. You just... you shouldn’t have had to do half the things you’ve done. You regret things. I don’t want this to be another regret and if you’re as good as here, guiding me, when it was your visions that led us to this course of action...” pausing I don’t want to admit the truth, even though I know she will press until I do. “If this goes wrong I don’t want you to blame yourself. You shouldn’t blame yourself for Rob’s execution, for the Senate capturing me, for the Enforcers you had to...” I pause again and move on, “for what happened when you escaped the Senate, for Craig. None of it is your fault but you blame yourself and if anything goes wrong with this plan you’ll blame yourself for that too.

I want to do this Evie, Rob wants to complete his mission and we want this on our heads, not yours.”

“Do you know what will happen if I leave it on your heads?” Her voice is low, a growl as she questions me. “You’ll end up without heads. Now we only have a little time. I need to get you to Clarence’s house before Rob get’s into the bunker. Then I need to help him and he only has a short window of opportunity. Time is limited, Tul, for all of us. You can either trust me or you can’t, but if you can’t then we’ll fail.”

“I trust you implicitly,” I insist, horrified she’d think otherwise. After what happened at Charleston’s house the night I lost my hand I’ll never dismiss her again. “Evie, how can you even suggest I don’t? Sometimes we just want to protect you too, alright love? For once we’d like to successfully protect you.”

“Then protect me,” her retort confuses me a moment before she adds, “I want you both home safely, I don’t want to lose either of you again so for goodness sake, Tul, protect me from that by letting me help you.”

Sighing I have no choice but to concede. If this goes wrong she’ll blame herself either way and as much as I want to deny it she’s right, she can help, she could be the difference between success and failure. “So, I’ve got to go left?” I ask, giving in to her will.

Her relief at my consent to follow her lead is instantaneous and I wonder how much of a burden it is to be able to see as much as she can see, to have the potential to know all of history and all of the future. “Left, yes, then take the third right.”

I follow Eve’s instructions as she guides me through a maze of streets, past modern houses and Tudor period buildings. I keep to the shadows, my automatic craving for stealth a natural response to hunting. No matter what my goal here, this is still a hunt. I may not want to feed on Clarence, although as a Strix I could, but I want him dead and every cell of the predator in me knows that I’m closing in on my prey. My senses heighten. Every whisper of sound is clear to my ears, my eyes will have silvered as my sense of sight sharpens and I inhale, sorting through the scents that assault me from the litter in the bins to the smell of the River Medway which flows through the town. Anticipation courses through me, excitement balanced by determination. I need to succeed, for all of our sakes I must succeed.

“Right here,” whispers Eve, “Clarence’s town house overlooks the Medway. There’ll be two Enforcers on the door but they’re only ordinary vampires; Charleston is still keeping his Strix for his own personal protection. Kill the first immediately. Put a silver knife through his heart for silence. The second you need to feed from before you kill him, it’s too long since you had fresh blood and you’ll need your strength later.”

“Killing Clarence is going to need me at full strength?” I query, anxiety growing. The man is just a vampire, I’m not, this shouldn’t be difficult. What reason could Eve have for suggesting it would be?

“No,” Eve replies, her tone reassuring in a way that serves only to increase my apprehension, “you can kill Clarence easily enough. You’re going to be in a car crash on the way home. You’ll take the most damage. You’ll be fine, you’re Strix, but you’ll heal faster if you feed now.”

“A car crash?” I repeat, not knowing what surprises me more, the fact Eve believes Rob will crash or the fact she feels a car crash will do enough damage to me that she requires I take extra blood now.

“Yes, a car crash, Tul. Now just do as you’re told. You want to be in and out before more Enforcers turn up for shift change.”

Without further question I comply, returning my phone temporarily to my pocket as I arm myself. After unsheathing one of the throwing knives which I have almost permanently strapped to my limbs, I take aim from my place in the shadows. There is nothing to doubt about my ability to fight now and as I loose the throwing knife I know it will flawlessly pierce my enemy’s heart even before the soft sound of impact disturbs the night. The Enforcer’s mouth goes instantly slack, his knees giving way beneath him and in the blink of an eye he’s dead.

I don’t give the second Enforcer a chance to react. I’m on him before he can make a noise or draw his firearm. My fangs tear into his throat and my venom, the venom of the Strix, immobilises him as easily as his would do a human. His blood flows over my tongue, coating it in delicious life as every cell in my body tingles with the energy I’m absorbing, setting me on fire as my senses heighten still further. It’s not the same as human blood but since Eve changed me vampire blood comes a very close second.

Once I’ve drunk my fill I kill the Enforcer with another of my knives before dumping both bodies in a side street. Taking my phone back from my pocket I find Eve still waiting on the line.

“There are more Enforcers in the house but they’re just vampires, you can clear them out easily enough.” She tells me before explaining, “Clarence is in the study making telephone calls, that’s on the top floor, second door on the right. Kill the Enforcers silently so he doesn’t hear you coming.”

Eve pauses briefly, distracted by something back at Norham House or at a place her mind has wandered to without needing her body to carry it there. “I need to help Rob now, stay safe Tul.”  With that she hangs up, leaving me to stare at my silent phone, thoroughly perturbed.

Forcing my concerns to the back of my mind I push open the door to Clarence’s residence. The halls are dark, not that it matters. I can see clearly enough as I creep through the expensively decorated house. The Enforcers employed to protect Clarence are easy enough to find and even easier to dispose of. I should probably feel guilty about killing the men who don’t stand a chance against me, but knowing who they work for, knowing that they must be Senate to the core to have gained a position in Clarence’s house, somehow I just can’t quite develop a sense of regret.

Alex’s image rears its head in my mind and I wince, knowing that some Enforcers deserve an extra chance. Once upon a time Eve would have told me to stop before slaughtering those who stand no chance against me. Now she asks that I kill without pause. She’s so much harder than she had been. We need to finish this before she becomes too hard, too cold. She may not want to lose Rob and I but I don’t want to lose her either and there are so many ways in which she can be lost; to death, to despair, to the void every Strix carries with them. The world needs to change and she needs to live rather than simply survive. We all need to live and so these Enforcers and the man they protect must die.

Moving silently through the house I creep up the stairs, following Eve’s directions precisely until I come to the study door which stands ajar, allowing a blade of light to spear the darkness of the upstairs landing. I can hear Clarence acknowledging some unheard commandment as I push the door further open. His body language shows him to be weary, slumped as he is over his desk, his forehead resting on one hand as he holds the phone to his ear. He’s such an easy target, so much easier than we’d ever envisaged because he isn’t as valuable as the Senate had made out. Yet his demise could be a catalyst for change. There is a certain irony in that I suppose.

My tread is silent on the think pile carpet as I position myself soundlessly behind the vampire Prime Minister. I don’t speak; there is no purpose in alerting him to my presence. Instead I tug another silver knife from one of the many sheathes strapped to my body and plunge the blade into Clarence’s back. He makes no more noise than the Enforcer at the door as he dies, slumping forward in his chair to fall face first onto his desk.

What a simple, understated end. There’s no battle, no fight, just a seemingly easy end. It would almost seem like a pointless gesture if I didn’t know that the repercussions of my actions could be far more influential than my actions themselves.

Clarence’s phone hits the desk with a soft thud and I can here Charleston’s voice crackling out of the receiver, demanding his subordinate reply to whatever question he’d been asked. There are a thousand things I’d like to say to the man, to the monster who had harmed Eve and Rob so grievously. I want to shout, to threaten, to demand he never come near either of them ever again. I want to tell him we’re coming for him, that his reign is about to end. I do none of those things; they would only cause him to raise the alarm more quickly. Slinking back into the shadows I leave the telephone where it has fallen, with our enemy’s voice still echoing from the plastic shell.

I wish I could feel victorious as I step back out into the night and return to the spot where Rob had left me. It’s too soon to claim any triumph though and truthfully the emotion that grips me strongest is the desperate yearning to get back to my wife. Perhaps once I’m near Eve, once I know she’s not alone, I will be able to celebrate this small achievement. I don’t want her to fight an army alone.

It’s an anxious wait for Rob’s return and when the car finally pulls up I can’t help but feel relieved, despite Eve’s warnings of our imminent accident. Slipping into the passenger seat I look over at my oldest friend, my newest lover. “Is it done?”

Rob nods slowly, frowning deeply, “Hopefully it’ll take, with luck Cameron won’t realise I’ve been playing with his mind and bring about our complete destruction. Is Clarence dead?”

Nodding I confirm my own success, “With Eve’s help.”

Sighing, Rob puts the car in first gear and pulls away. “She phoned me too. She’s...” he pauses, “her gift is...”

“Daunting?” I ask, “She’s upset that it makes us uncomfortable.” Who wouldn’t be though, considering the type of things she predicts and just how much she can see. “She made me feed, she says we’re going to crash on the way home and that I’ll take a lot of damage.”

Although shock and denial ripple momentarily through Rob the feelings don’t last long as reluctant acceptance pushes any doubts aside. If Eve has seen something then it’ll happen unless she finds a way to stop it. “Strange that she hasn’t asked us to stay where we are, to avoid driving, to prevent it from happening,” Rob murmurs anxiously.

I agree entirely but just then my phone beeps, the tone telling me it’s an Alliance emergency message. Opening the text from Johan I feel my heart sink, “We’re surrounded but safe,” it reads, “the enemy is drawing closer to Norham House as well. There’s a team on route to pick you up.”

“She knows we won’t stay away,” realisation dawns with a shocking clarity, “she knew that we’d try to get back to her no matter what now the attack’s starting. She’s orchestrated everything.”

Gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white with the pressure Rob presses his foot down on the accelerator pedal. I wonder if he’s trying to outrun prophecy or perhaps meet it faster and get it over with. Whatever his reasoning an hour or so still passes in uneventful silence before Eve’s apprehension finally spikes.

Anxiety and fear flood from her and into us, the emotions wrestling with her grim determination and informing us with absolute certainty that the siege on Norham House has begun. Then it happens, pain tears into my side in a series of rapid impacts, each blow searing me. It’s a sensation I’ve experienced before, long ago, when machine gun fire almost tore me in two.

Clutching my side I can’t even scream, the pain is so intense. When I finally manage to look up I note that Rob too is doubled over in agony. There is a bump as the car jolts onto the kerb and glancing out of the windscreen I wince at the sight of the road sign we are careering towards. “Shit,” I mutter, bracing for the impact which is sure to come. There isn’t time for any other reaction and I pray that Eve knows what she is doing.