Fan Fiction ❯ The Vampire Hunter II: Bloodlines ❯ Chapter 4

Chapter IV

Gabrielle strode into the large room lined with old books that had never been read by their owner and took a seat at the end of one of the plush couches that had presumably been placed in the room for the leisure of its guests. Michelle sat next to her and Shiri sat next to Michelle. Yelena found an empty loveseat to occupy and Samantha, Trevor, and Theresa filled up the couch across from the three eldest vampires.

Their host took the leather recliner that sat facing Yelena and frowned at his guests. Gabrielle sat forward and considered how to address the Fourth Order vampire. Before she could utter a single syllable, however, he spoke.

"I'm not interested in your politics. I have enough problems running my own territory without having to worry about helping you out of your little troubles."

Gabrielle's understanding expression changed to mirror the head Chicago vampire's expression of annoyance.

"Paul, I have no intention of involving you in external politics. I just wanted to make sure that you understood that I'm now in charge of the Vampire Order and the rules I'm instituting need to be adhered to everywhere."

"I've already heard of your order concerning the Gift. You'll never be able to enforce it."

Gabrielle smiled.

"It's your responsibility to make sure your subordinates obey the new rules. If they don't, the only one answering to me will be you." Paul's eyes rounded and Gabrielle could practically see the sparks of anger igniting in them, but she continued. "So, as you can see, I don't need to enforce anything. You do."

Gabrielle stood and looked around at her entourage.

"I'm going hunting. Chen should be here by six and I will have returned by then, as well. Do as you will."

Gabrielle started to leave, but then turned and focused her gaze on Samantha.

"Our flight leaves at four this afternoon, so be sure to begin packing us up before then. Since we're traveling cargo, we'll need to be checked in early."

Samantha nodded her understanding and Gabrielle left.

Paul stood from his comfortable-looking chair, though he looked extremely unhappy from having spent the last few minutes in it, and snapped his fingers. Three servants stepped forward from their positions along the wall behind him and awaited his commands.

"See our guests to their rooms." He looked over the group and attempted to smile, but it fell flat. "If you require anything, food, drink, whatever, just ask one of them and they'll make sure you're taken care of. If you'll excuse me."

He bowed and then left the group to themselves.

~\/^^^\/~

Gabrielle walked among the shadows of the darkest alleys in a decidedly unhealthy part of the city and waited for opportunity to present itself. The night before last, she'd taken three victims in a frenzy of bloodlust after she'd said good-bye to Clark in order to keep herself from returning to take the dark woman's blood instead, but that had been her last successful hunt. Now she felt the need for sustenance again and she intended to feed before she had to return to the Chicago enclave for the day.

She jumped up onto the second floor landing of the fire escape of one of the buildings that lined the alley she was in and then calmly climbed the ladder steps to the roof. She walked around the edges of the roof and listened.

The night was far from silent, but so far, the only sounds Gabrielle had picked up on were rat claws scratching on the metal sides of dumpsters, meows and hisses from stray cats encountering each other in forbidden territory, and a few grunts and groans from drunk or sleeping homeless people.

Then she heard the raucous shouts of three men who had found their prey for the evening, unknowingly becoming prey themselves because of their actions.

Gabrielle jumped from the roof and hit the ground several seconds later. Her landing only slightly cracked the already broken asphalt floor and wasn't loud enough to be detected by the loud men a dozen meters in front of her. She kept to the shadows and walked slowly forward while she listened to the would-be rapists taunt the middle-aged woman into an hysterical state of terror.

When she was only three meters away, Gabrielle pulled back the hood of her cloak and stepped out of the shadows and into the fluorescent white light coming from a distant streetlamp. The woman saw her and screamed for help, which finally alerted the assailants to Gabrielle's presence.

The lead man sneered at Gabrielle and turned his knife towards her before his body followed suit. He took up what he must have considered to be a professional fighter's stance and Gabrielle smiled at his ineptitude.

"Hey, look, we get two for the price of one," he congratulated his friends and they laughed as they held the woman, while their leader squared off with Gabrielle.

Gabrielle stood perfectly still and waited. The man had no patience and stalked forward to grab her wrist from where it was hidden within her cloak. Just as he got a good grip on the appendage through the cloth, Gabrielle whipped out her cloak with her other arm and enveloped him within its shroud as she spun them around so that her back faced his buddies.

Her fangs extended and she dropped onto his neck as though magnetically drawn to his carotid artery. She moaned inaudibly as his warm blood flooded her mouth and her craving finally found some satisfaction.

In only a few moments, Gabrielle had taken her fill from the man and she easily tossed his body into a dumpster several meters away. She turned around to face the remaining two men and stepped forward.

"Holy shit! It's a vamp! Get the fuck out of here!" the new leader yelled to his comrade and dropped the woman's arm as he ran towards the street with all the speed the adrenaline pumping through his veins could muster.

"Fucking shit! No!" yelled the other one as he ran to catch up with his retreating buddy.

Gabrielle moved. One second, she was standing next to the still hysterical woman, and within the same second, she was a small black wall blocking the fleeing men from their escape. She caught them both, one in each hand, and held the smaller one while she drained the first one who had run. She tossed him to join his fallen leader and then brought the younger one to her lips.

"Please, please, please, no, no, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, please, no," he whimpered and she paused for a moment to look into his eyes.

Though his face was in shadow, Gabrielle was able to see him as clearly as if a spotlight had been trained on him, her eyes gathering in the few particles of light bouncing off of him much better than any human eye ever could. He continued to whimper and beg and tears rolled down his dirty cheeks, making clean streaks.

"Breathe deeply. It doesn't have to hurt," Gabrielle said quietly. "But you will die now. Nothing will change that."

As her last words finally registered, he tried to fight and screamed louder than the woman, who he had been torturing moments before, had. It wasn't until Gabrielle began to draw his blood from his body that he calmed and relaxed into her hold on him, the temporary telepathic link soothing him into his death. She pulled his blood much more slowly from his body than she had the others, but she did eventually drink him dry.

Gabrielle walked to the dumpster, where she had thrown the previous two bodies, and gently placed the last of her prey in it. As she turned to go, she heard crying and saw the woman huddled between several garbage bags next to the other dumpster where she'd interrupted the assault.

Gabrielle easily crossed the distance and came to a stop in front of the woman. The woman slowly looked up at her and, as recognition of what Gabrielle was became clear to her, the woman screamed and then hid her face behind her arms. Gabrielle shook her head and walked to the mouth of the alley. A quick check up and down the street found a payphone not too far away and Gabrielle dialed for emergency assistance. She was told the police were already on their way, having been alerted from several other calls, and that she should stay where she was.

Gabrielle hung up the phone and made her way to the roof of one of the nearby buildings to await the arrival of the police. As soon as she saw the woman being escorted to an ambulance, she left.

~\/^^^\/~

"So she just killed him?" Yelena asked the two lounging vampires.

They had all decided to stay in, the servants of the household providing the vampires with plenty of nourishment from themselves, and the vampires' servants getting a chance to interact with their mistresses in a more casual setting.

"No. I mean, it sort of looked like that, but they were moving so fast, they must have felt like they'd been fighting for hours instead of seconds," replied Michelle.

"I think it felt like that to all of us," Shiri put in as she rolled over onto her stomach to find a more comfortable position next to Michelle on the king-sized bed. "A lot of us died that night, mostly thanks to Clark."

"I'd heard she was there. How did that happen?" Yelena queried again.

"Huh. Who knows? Gabrielle decided to recruit her or something, but she says the Hunter isn't her servant," Shiri said.

"She's not. They're in love," Michelle supplied and watched with an amused expression as all the eyes trained on her widened in shock.

"In love? You must be joking," Yelena managed to cough out.

"Well, I don't know about that, but they've definitely got some kind of relationship thing going on," Shiri hedged her lover's announcement.

"No. I'm sure of it. I saw the look on her face when you kept threatening to kill Clark. There's a lot more there than just some 'relationship thing,'" Michelle argued.

"Has she said anything?" Shiri asked, curious about what secret knowledge her longtime companion might have.

"No. Gabrielle's very tightlipped when it comes to the great Vampire Hunter. But you saw how Clark fought on our side. And anyone who even looked like they were going for Gabrielle got a stake straight through the heart. Whatever it is, it's mutual," Michelle stated.

"The Queen and a Hunter? Is that even possible?" Theresa spoke up and then bowed her head, suddenly unsure of her place in the conversation.

No one seemed to take offense and Theresa relaxed again as Michelle answered her.

"Well, it's obviously possible. It's happened," Michelle replied. "In fact, I was sure Clark would be coming with us, but then Gabrielle told me she sent the woman off on a vacation to recuperate. She said they needed to figure a few things out and they needed to be away from each other to do that. That's why I think it's a lot more serious than she's letting on."

"That's crazy. Clark's a Hunter. She's probably just using the Queen and when she's gotten everything she wants, she'll stake her. I don't think we should let her near the Queen again," Trevor said and looked around for agreement from the other servants and the vampires.

"Clark's not like that. Okay, so it's not like I know her all that well, but we talked for a long time that one night and she seemed pretty cool. I think she's been good for the Queen," Samantha protested.

"But what if that was part of the act? I say we..." Trevor began to argue, but Michelle cut in.

"It doesn't matter what we think. No one here could force the First Born to do anything she didn't want to. And if she found out any of us had hurt Clark, we'd be better off dead compared to what she would do to us. So don't even think about doing something so stupid. Dana Clark is under our Queen's protection. Abide by her wishes or leave now."

"I would never disobey the Queen, Mistress. I just want to protect her, that's all," Trevor spoke quietly with his head bowed. "I meant no disrespect."

"Me neither. Whatever the First Born wishes will be hers," Theresa agreed.

"That's good to hear," Gabrielle said from the doorway and everyone except Shiri jumped at the new voice.

"Good evening, First Born," Samantha greeted her and Gabrielle smiled at the young woman.

"Good evening, Samantha. And the rest of you. Has Chen arrived yet?"

"He's on his way from the airport. He should be here in half an hour. He told me to tell you that the download went fine and he had no problems with anyone after we left," Michelle reported.

"Good. I didn't think he would. Well, I'll let you get back to whatever it was you were discussing. Good night."

Gabrielle smiled in amusement at the faint blushes that were forming on the cheeks and necks of several of those present, before she turned to walk down the hallway to her own suite. But instead of going all the way down to the end of the hall, where her door was located, she detoured into a stairwell and walked down several flights to get to one of the lower levels of the mansion that housed the Chicago headquarters.

She knocked three times on one of the doors off of the narrow hallway and then opened it. A man, who appeared to be in his early twenties, was sitting at a computer and he looked up when she entered his room.

"Good evening, First Born. I expected you sooner."

"It's closer to morning and I had some hunting to do."

Gabrielle closed the door behind her and walked over to the quickly rising man. She embraced him and held him tight for a moment before pulling away to hold him by the shoulders.

"It's good to see you, Chris." Gabrielle released him and took the chair he pulled up next to his own. "How are things going?"

"Very well. Here, let me show you."

Chris minimized the window of the program he'd been working in and launched a new program from his desktop. Within a few minutes, he'd called up several files and accessed three other programs so that he could illustrate as he talked.

"Okay, these are your various accounts and these are the accounts under Paul's direction. You remember how I set it up so that every day, the change is rounded up or down for easier managing. Well, Paul's gotten used to it being like that, so that's how he's been keeping it on his books. So he never sees a difference and neither does anyone else who looks."

"Nice."

"Very. So anyway, I know you didn't say to change anything, but I figured if he liked rounding that much, I'd make it even easier for him, so I've been rounding up to the hundreds. He gave me a raise for the initiative I showed."

Chris grinned and Gabrielle just shook her head as she smiled in return.

"So no one's questioned where the extra money is going?" Gabrielle asked.

"No. Why should they? As far as Paul's concerned, all the money's still there, I'm just rounding the totals for him each day."

"Okay. So what have we got?"

"See for yourself," Chris said and pulled up the totals for each of the accounts Gabrielle had created for herself to fund the different projects that were most important to her.

Gabrielle swallowed audibly.

"Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?" Gabrielle whispered as she used his mouse to scroll through the very large numbers.

"Because I wanted to see the look that's on your face right now," Chris smirked.

After a moment, Gabrielle managed to gather her thoughts again and let go of the mouse.

"You were able to shunt all this through the proper channels?" Gabrielle questioned the proud accountant/hacker.

"Yeah, it's all clean. The largest amounts go through G International and Future Productions and your smaller companies launder the rest of the transactions individually. It just looks like profits coming from doing good business," Chris promised.

"Good."

"And your PR rating is way up, too, because of all the donations going into the grants you had me set up. So your legitimate profits are way up, which makes for good cover."

"This is great, Chris. I didn't think we'd be able to get this much so soon."

"Thank Paul. He's the one we're skimming from," the vampire grinned again.

"Yeah. Which worries me."

The grin disappeared from Chris' face as he frowned.

"What do you mean? Why? He doesn't know what I've been doing for you."

"No, not that. We're only skimming from his accounts. That means he has that much more."

"Well, it's not quite like that. You're not using any of your money, at least, not very much of it, so it's piled up, but Paul's always reinvesting into some other scheme, so he really doesn't have that much free cash. If you're worried about competition, don't be. He'd have to liquidate most of his assets before he could even come close to rivaling you."

"That's good to know, but I'd like some insurance. Can you do something so that it's possible to freeze him out of these accounts if necessary? And keep access to just you and me?"

Chris studied his monitor and thought for a moment. His face remained a little clouded, but he nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, I could do that. Just set up a hidden PIN access that only me and you have. Since he does everything through me, he'll never find out about it. If he figures out what I'm doing, he won't be able to get into his accounts to change anything without the final password." Chris finally looked up at her. "But why? Paul's not really a bad guy. He's just a little stupid when it comes to this kind of stuff."

Gabrielle had to suppress the first words that wanted to come out of her mouth. Paul wasn't the only one with a blind spot. For reasons Gabrielle had never quite figured out, Chris had formed a strange attachment to Paul. He looked on Paul as both an older and a younger brother, someone to both idolize and look out for.

Chris was only an Eighth Order vampire, compared to Paul's Fourth Order status, but Chris was nearly half a millennia older. Chris had been steadily working his way up through the ranks of the Order ever since first receiving the Gift. He'd attained Ninth Order, and therefore become one of the inner circle, only a century before, after saving a Ninth Order vampire from being burned to death in a VHA-started fire. The vampire, who was later killed in another VHA raid, had allowed Chris to drink from him, thereby bringing him into the Ninth Order. Several decades later, Chris had wrangled another increase in rank by challenging an Eighth Order vampire to a duel at the Arena. He'd won, just barely, and gained his current level that same night.

Paul, on the other hand, had been chosen by Blake only a few hundred years ago to run his criminal operations, after watching the boy build a mini-empire based on racketeering and other minor criminal endeavors. Once Paul had aged to full maturity, Blake had sent one of his Third Order lieutenants to bring Paul into the Order.

So even though Paul was much higher up in the Vampire Order, Chris was much older and it showed.

Gabrielle pushed away the thoughts and came up with an answer to Chris' question.

"Paul was never very close to Blake, but he thinks about things the same way Blake did. He's happy with his little empire here and I hope he stays that way, but if he decides to make a play for more power, I want to be able to stop him before he can even start. I'd rather not go through what I did with Blake," Gabrielle explained.

Chris nodded.

"Yeah, I see what you mean. Alright, I'll put the new password in by tomorrow night and make sure you get it within the week."

"Thanks. I have one other thing I want you to do for me. I need another account set up, but it needs to be completely aboveboard and free of any connections to me."

"Okay. What's up?"

"I want to set up a kind of trust for someone. If you could make it look like it came from a long lost relative, that would be great. And I want it to go into effect only if something were to happen to me."

Gabrielle tried to sound like it was perfectly normal to consider the possibility of her own death in the face of being immortal and the most powerful vampire on the planet, but Chris' eyes still bugged out.

"What do you mean 'if something happened to you'? What do you think's gonna happen to you?"

"It's just a precaution. There needs to be a safety deposit box as well. I'm going to L.A. next. Can you set it up with a bank out there? I'll need to assume the identity of the 'relative,' so make sure identification cards are waiting for me when I get there."

Chris pulled up one of the minimized windows and began typing.

"Okay, who's the trust fund for?"

"Dana Clark."

Chris stopped typing and stared at her.

"So it's true. You and that Hunter did team up against Blake. I was told she was under your protection now. I thought it was a joke, but Paul said you were serious."

"She saved my life several times. I couldn't have stopped anyone else from attacking me while I was fighting Blake. If it hadn't been for her..."

If it hadn't been for her, I'd be dead and the Order would be at war with the VHA and eventually humanity itself, Gabrielle finished internally.

"So, this is to pay her back?" Chris asked as he went back to typing.

"No. Hopefully, she'll never collect on this account. This is just to make sure she's protected from any retaliation, if I'm ever killed and can't protect her myself anymore."

"Alright. How much do I put into the account?"

"Pick a number between one and ten."

"Three."

"Now put ten zeros after it."

"Thirty billion? You sure?"

"Yeah. She'll need it, if I'm no longer around."

"Yeah. She thought she had a reputation before. Now, every vamp on the planet knows what she did."

"And they all know I'll turn them into dust if they hurt her, so it'll be open season on her if I'm ever incapacitated. I want to make sure she has all the resources she needs to protect herself, if I can't."

Chris finished typing and closed the file after saving the changes he'd made.

"Everything's in order for tomorrow night. I've set up a late night appointment for you, so they'll be expecting you, and with the size of the account, they won't have a problem staying late to meet with you."

"Good."

"I'll put in a call to Kim before I sleep today and make sure the IDs you'll need are ready by the time you get there."

"Thank you."

"Anything else I can do for you?" Chris asked in his best imitation of a fast food clerk.

Gabrielle smiled.

"Yeah. Give yourself a bonus and then get some rest. I'll be in touch," Gabrielle said as she rose from the chair.

Chris stood with her and hugged her again.

"Don't stay away for so long next time. I love your voice, but it's nice to see you, too."

"I don't think you have to worry about that. I think you'll be seeing a lot more of me soon."

Chris looked at her carefully as they stood in front of his door.

"You said it would be at least another century, maybe more."

"Things have changed. I assumed Blake would continue as he had before, but he lost control."

"I think it was Cronopsychosis," Chris said quietly.

"So do I, but he was so old. It usually happens within the first thousand years."

"Sometimes it stays under the surface. Do you know what might have triggered it?" Chris asked curiously.

"Not really. I let him lead in my place because he was the best person for the job in the beginning. But he was never completely happy with what he had. He always wanted more. Nothing satisfied him. Maybe it was that need for more that finally pushed him over the edge," Gabrielle told him.

"And his actions pushed you into taking your place as our Queen. If I had the chance, I'd thank him for that. You are the First Born. You should have been leading us all along."

"I never wanted to lead us."

"It's not about what you want. Do you think any of us really want half of what we've been given in this life? Do you think your Dana Clark would have chosen to be The Vampire Hunter if she'd actually been given a choice? I don't think so. I'd be willing to bet that even she wishes she were someone or something else sometimes. But we live with what we are in the moment."

Gabrielle smirked at Chris' serious expression.

"When did you become such a wise man?"

Chris grinned.

"Nah, I'm probably just quoting from you, we just don't remember it."

Gabrielle gave him another hug and then opened the door.

"I'll talk to you soon."

"Sweet dreams, First Born."

"For you as well," Gabrielle returned the sentiment and then disappeared down the hallway.