Lure of the Night Read online

  I shook my head. “I can’t do it, Ethan, bury myself in the middle of a forest for the rest of my life, or most of it? I’m sorry, but no. I want to fight them.”

  “Fight them?” he grinned, his dark eyes sparkled with amusement. “You’ve only just found out about all of this centuries old battle between the Medusans and the Amstrydae and yet already you want to fight them? How would you go about it?”

  I thought for a moment. “Can they be killed?”

  Ulysses smiled grimly. “Kill a Medusan? They’re tough, really tough, killing them is very difficult.”

  “Ok, then there’s another way to deal with this.”

  They waited patiently for me to explain.

  “You see, we need to take away their powers, pull their teeth, so to speak, so that they’re not a danger to the Amstrydae ever again.”

  They were deathly quiet for long moments, thinking about what I had said.

  “It’s a thought,” Dad said, “if it could be done.”

  “Ethan, you need to contact your people and find out if it’s possible.”

  I don’t know why but I thought he would do something dramatic, like travel thousands of miles to Europe and speak to a meeting of the Amstrydae in the dead of night at some remote mountain location. Instead, he pulled out his cell and simply said, “I’ll call from the bedroom, I won’t be long.”

  I couldn’t help it, I giggled and they all looked at me sharply. He disappeared through a doorway into the bedroom and we sat silently, waiting. It occurred to me that I knew so little about these strange people, who it seemed I was destined to be bound up with for the rest of my life. I got up and looked out of the window again, but there were no watchers to be seen. I wondered how far their powers extended, how it would be possible to stop them. They say that knowledge is power and right there and then I felt almost powerless.

  “Claire, I imagine you’ve got a lot more questions about our enemies,” Ulysses said.

  “How on earth did you know that I was about to ask them, are you a mind reader as well?”

  He smiled. Like the rest of his people, his eyes sparkled when he spoke, it wasn’t the smoldering, burning glow of Father Ryan, but more like beautiful beams of light that seemed to merge and shine like the rays of a tiny sun. I wasn’t too happy becoming dragged into this titanic struggle, but when I felt those eyes on me I sensed something noble and good.

  “No, we are not mind readers, I could just see your expression. You looked as if you were puzzling something out. But you have hit on something there, you see, the Medusans can read minds, some of them at least. We have never known how many. But going back to what I was saying, if I was in your position, I’d want to know more about who I was involved with.”

  I nodded. “Yes, exactly, will you tell me? What about these Medusans?”

  “Well, they developed the ability to read minds, that’s their main advantage. They are also very strong, as a rule, each of them possesses more strength than most of us Ardethans, although most of the Amstrydae are stronger. They are also evil, ruthlessly evil, human life is not precious to them at all. But it’s not so much the powers they have, as the ones they lack. Their genetic makeup prevents them from benefitting from our strengths, which is why they need The Carrier. Some even believe they would be able to extract cells from the newborn infants to inject into their bodies to transform them, but as they have never had access to a Carrier, they do not know for sure.”

  “But there have been Carriers before, I’m not the first one? What happened with the others?”

  His face went cold, the light almost faded entirely from his eyes. They were like dark, fathomless pools. “It is true, there have been several, the last was only one hundred and seventy years ago.”

  I waited for more, but he was silent. “Ulysses, what happened to her?”

  “She died,” was all he said. But I knew there was more.

  “Tell me the truth, what happened to her?”

  “I told you, she died,” he snapped. Then his head slumped.

  “She was my daughter. I killed her rather than let her fall into their hands.”

  Chapter 6

  We sat there in silence while I watched him suffer his grief, as he must have suffered it so many times in the past. It struck me then that the answer to their problems would be simple. If they killed me, the threat would be over. Ulysses again seemed to read my mind.

  “No, don’t think that you are in any danger. At the time, I had no choice. We were not as organized as we are now, our communications were poor, and I found myself in a situation with my daughter where we were surrounded. She knew too what she was facing if they took her, just before they finally closed in she begged me to kill her. I used my pistol and shot her between the eyes. I will never forget her look, her final look just before I pulled the trigger. When they reached us, they were enraged to find her dead. They tried to kill me, but I survived and the Amstrydae reached me and treated me until I regained my health.”

  It was a terrible story, I felt so sorry for him, holding in all of that grief for such a vast amount of time.

  Then Ethan returned from the room where he had been making the call.

  “It’s good news and bad news,” he said. “The good news is that it can be done, the bad news is that the method of doing it is almost impossible to set up and even then, potentially fatal to those of us that implement it.”

  He explained what he meant. The Amstrydae considered before how they could remove the powers of the Medusans, so as to completely remove their threat. They had concluded that it was impossible, they did not possess any technology that would achieve that end. However, there was another way, we now lived in the nuclear age. The ranks of the Medusans numbered just about twelve hundred, concentrated in Europe and the USA. The Amstrydae and their Ardethan allies were slightly less, about nine hundred and fifty. If they could lure the Medusans to a place where they had a radioactive source, it should theoretically be possible to irradiate them, to expose them to sufficient radiation not to kill them but to sterilize them. If they were then unable to breed, The Carrier would be of no use to them. Ultimately, they would die out altogether, a terrible fate but one that their constant attacks on the Amstrydae had brought about.

  “So how will you manage to get them all into one place at a single time?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “We have discussed that, yes, but it’s not a solution that I like.”

  The others were staring at me too, what was on their minds? Then it struck me, they’d worked it out, their look was one of pity, the kind of look that would be given to a victim.

  “You want me to be the bait, don’t you?”

  “I’m sorry, honey,” Dad said hurriedly. “They’ve talked about this and they can’t find any other way to bring them all to one place at one time. There just doesn’t seem to be anything else that would bring them together. If you agree, we will contact them for a meeting to resolve our differences. As far as they are concerned you will be there as the solution on offer to them, provided we can agree on all of the other things, most importantly an end to the hostilities. But yes, you’ll be the main prize, to be handed over to them if we get agreement. At least, that’s what they’ll think.”

  I was chilled to the bone, how he could even suggest that I might be handed over as a breeding cow. He saw the horror in my face. “Claire, don’t even think that we’d ever hand you over to them, you’ll be heavily guarded, they won’t even get near you. You will only be there to get them to come.”

  Megan came and sat next to me, doing her big sis act. “You don’t have to agree. If you say no, they will have to find some other way of dealing with them.”

  “What would you do if it was you they were asking to risk everything?”

  I could see her thinking about that. But it didn’t take her long.

  “I guess I’d do it, Claire. But that would be my personal decision, I’ve always known how bad they’ve been over the centuries
, the trouble they’ve caused our people. I would want to put a stop to it, but it’s my life and it’s all I’ve ever known. It is different for you, it’s all new and very confusing. Maybe you need more time to think about it.”

  I looked across at Ethan but he wasn’t looking at me, his gaze seemed to be somewhere else, somewhere in the infinity of his personal universe. I wished he was sitting beside me, to advise me and put his strong arm around me. Inside, I was saying ‘Ethan, tell me what to do, I need your cool, calm strength’. Outside, I must have looked like the lost schoolgirl I was. Then my mind cleared, I could hear Ethan’s voice in my head. ‘I will be with you every step of the way, we would face this side by side’. He still hadn’t looked at me, but I realized that his gift of super communication had enabled him to talk to me, to reassure me. He got up and walked over to the window.

  “There are more of them out there now, they are starting to gather. I got up and looked outside, Ryan and Olivia Constable had come back, but now they formed part of a group of about ten people. Medusans. As I watched, another two approached the group and joined them. It was enough.

  “I’ll do it. There isn’t much alternative, is there? If I don’t help you solve this battle with the Medusans, I will spend my life looking over my shoulder waiting to be kidnapped. That would be sheer hell. I’d sooner get it over with, or fall down trying.”

  The group relaxed, visibly. Ethan looked across and nodded. Yes, his communication had been for me alone and he intended to stand by me, come what may.

  “You are very brave, Claire,” Ulysses said. “Let’s hope we can finish this once and for all. You are right, of course, the last thing you’d want is to live every day not knowing when and where the blow was going to fall.”

  I wondered which school he’d gone to, obviously not mine. Claire Winter, everybody’s punch bag. Roll up and take a swing at me, get in the queue.

  “The next question is where do we meet?” Dad said. “We need somewhere remote, where there is a large enough facility to hold over a thousand people as well as some kind of underground space to hide the radioactive isotopes.”

  “Andros,” Ulysses said immediately. “It would be perfect. Since the earthquake, the island is almost deserted. We have the outdoor amphitheater there and you all know about the network of caverns and tunnels that run underneath the whole of the island.”

  I must have looked mystified, he turned to explain it to me.

  “Security, we had to have places to hide once the Medusans started the rumors of us being bloodsucking vampires. People came to hunt us down, some of our people were staked out in the sunshine and stakes driven through their hearts to kill them. So we started to build the tunnels, everywhere we have a community we have underground tunnels and hiding places where we can retreat to in an emergency. Some of them used to be dug in graveyards, which is where the old myths about vampires spending the days in coffins began.”

  The others were nodding. “Andros sounds perfect,” Dad said.

  “I agree with Guy and Ulysses,” Megan added. “If the Medusans are gathering here, though, we ought to think about getting Claire away before they mount a direct assault on us.”

  “We could get her out through the tunnels,” Ethan said. “We ought to leave immediately.”

  They all stood to leave. I looked from face to face. This was all so strange, and worrying. The word ‘tunnel’ left me feeling uneasy. I wasn’t nervous about the dark, but the idea of being entombed in some close, claustrophobic tunnel brought me out in a panicky sweat. I tried to push it to the back of my mind.

  “What tunnels?” I asked.

  Ethan smiled. “This is New Orleans, the whole place is riddled with secret tunnels, at least where the ground wasn’t too wet for them to be dug. They date from the old bootlegging days and before then it was for black magic practitioners and smugglers. You name it, anyone that needed to do something in secret dug a tunnel. We discovered some that were useful to us and we have improved them for use in an emergency. Which this is, here and now, an emergency. I suggest we get moving.”

  I allowed myself to be propelled out of the apartment. Instead of taking the main stairs, Dad led us to a small staircase at the back that was once probably used by domestic staff, in the days when this was one large house for some wealthy New Orleans family. The others followed behind, we didn’t stop at the first floor but pushed on down into the basement. Up above I heard a crash, like woodwork smashing.

  “We need to hurry,” Ulysses called along to us. “They’ve reached the apartment, when they find we are not there they’ll come looking.”

  We hustled across the basement and into through a door marked ‘Janitor’ and into a storeroom. They shut the door behind us, then Dad opened the door of a locker screwed to the wall. He fiddled inside and then pulled, the whole locker swung outwards to reveal a dark opening.

  “This is it, let’s go. Ulysses, make sure you close and fasten the locker when you’re in.”

  I followed Dad into the black entrance, I could feel Megan behind me, smell her perfume. There were no lights in the tunnel and I remembered that these people didn’t need lights to see in the dark. But I did, I was about to remind Dad when Megan took my arm.

  “I’ll guide you forward, don’t worry, I won’t let you bump into anything.”

  She was as good as her words, steering me through the dark, damp tunnels. Water dripped constantly from the roof and the walls were soaking wet when I touched them. At least there was no sound of anyone following us, evidently the Medusans hadn’t yet found the entrance to the tunnel system. I worked hard to force back my claustrophobia, I really hated being in the dark tunnels, although my father was in front and Megan’s hands were on my shoulders, showing me the way to go. Eventually we reached the bottom of an iron staircase.

  “This is it,” my dad turned and said to me. “We can get out of here, I know you’ve never liked being in confined spaces. You’ve been really great, Claire, I’m proud of you.”

  I was astonished, how would he know about the terrors I used to suffer with that? I never realized that he took that much interest in me, not enough to know something that personal about me. Maybe he was not as bad as Mom often painted him. I mumbled something about it not being so terrible.

  We started up the staircase and emerged into another basement. It appeared to belong to an empty house, we climbed up yet more stairs and into a hallway. It was definitely an empty house, dark and dusty, empty of any furniture. We went out through the front door and into the New Orleans evening. It was warm, balmy, with the faint, spicy scent of the city and the sound of jazz in the distance.

  “Where are we headed now?” I asked Megan.

  “We’re going for the car, then the airport. We need to get you out of the city,” she said.

  That was fine by me, I had had enough of this place, so exotically attractive, yet so deadly in the dark of night. We hurried along then swung into a small courtyard where there was a row of garages. Ulysses unlocked one of them and went inside, there was the sound of an engine starting and a car nosed out of the garage. It was a black Cadillac Seville limousine with blacked out windows. They opened the doors and told me to get in. I hesitated for a moment, as if climbing into this car really would be saying goodbye to the life I had known before, for the unknown future, even if much of that life had been pretty crap. Yet what choice did I have? None, so I got into the car. The alternative was too awful to imagine.

  We drove to the airport and straight past the terminal to a small building near the maintenance hangars. There was a small aircraft parked on the tarmac, we stopped by it and they hustled me into the building and through to a small waiting room. I sat down and reflected that I was being shoved around like a UPS parcel. Story of my life, I guess. I must have looked a bit forlorn, Dad looked down at me with a rueful smile.

  “It’s not easy for you, is it, honey?”

  I shook my head. “No, Dad. I just want it all to be over.” />
  “And get back home and go to school, have some fun again?”

  Fun, are you serious? But I did think about that one for a short while. Back to school, where I was generally on everyone’s shit list? No, not really, but how could I explain how things were to Dad without sounding like a whiner? In the end I did what I’ve done for most of my life, I just fuzzed over the sharp edges.

  “I guess so.”

  Ulysses was on the phone, something about travel arrangements. Megan was pulling cold sodas out of the icebox in the corner. Ethan was, well, just Ethan. He stood there, I could see he was a million miles away from here, what was he thinking about? He was not really a mind reader, I now knew that was the Medusans, but he must have sensed my attention on him.

  “Don’t worry, Claire, I’ll be with you, every step of the way.”

  I gave him a smile. “In that case I won’t worry.”

  “Right, I’m sorry about the way this is all happening so quickly. We’re flying directly to Greece, then on to Andros.”

  For a few moments my brain refused to accept what he’d said. Greece, so soon? That was, well, thousands of miles away, halfway across the world, wasn’t it?

  “But, I’ve got school next week. I need to make all sorts of arrangements and let Mom know too.”

  He looked puzzled and I realized that I had just said something totally dumb.

  “No, that was just plain stupid, forget about all that. But I don’t have a passport, so I can’t leave the country.”

  “That’s not a problem, we’re flying out on a private jet, it’s waiting outside right now. Our people in Greece have organized a temporary visa for you.”

  Whoa, there, this was all going too fast. “Right now, Ethan, are you sure?”

  “Yes, of course, what else can we do? It is the best move to make, it will get you out from under their noses. Why, what’s the problem?”

  No way was I going to tell some boy that I was frightened or worried, even if it was true. But he understood. “It’s a big step, I know, I wish you didn’t have to do it, but I don’t know what else to do, they are all over us here, they won’t be expecting us to move so fast.”