Battle Lines. Will Hill

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      6

      CIVILISED MEN

      CHÂTEAU DAUNCY AQUITAINE, SOUTH-WESTERN FRANCE

      “More wine?” The voice was smooth and full of quiet authority.

      Admiral Henry Seward nodded, raising his glass with one slightly trembling hand. A servant in immaculate black and white eveningwear, his eyes glowing a faint, respectful red, appeared beside him and filled his glass with wine that was a purple so dark it was almost black. The chateau’s cellar contained treasures that would have widened the eyes of even the most experienced sommelier, and bottle after stunning bottle was brought up and decanted every evening in anticipation of dinner, even though the diners never numbered more than three, and usually only two.

      Such was again the case this evening.

      Henry Seward sat at one end of a long table that could easily have seated twenty, while his dinner companion sat at the other. A small team of vampire servants attended to his every request, looks of devoted terror on their supernatural faces, although Seward knew full well it was not him they were scared of.

      The source of their fear was sitting at the other end of the table, a gentle smile on his narrow face.

      Vlad Tepes, who had later been known throughout Europe as Vlad Dracul and Vlad the Impaler, and who had eventually come to call himself Count Dracula, sat easily in his chair and regarded his guest. Valeri Rusmanov, who could not be faulted for his loyalty or his diligence, but often left much to be desired when it came to manners and etiquette, referred to Seward only as ‘the prisoner’, which was unacceptable to Vlad. It was factually accurate, but it created an atmosphere he considered unbecoming of civilised men, men who had commanded armies and fought for what they believed in. So he referred to Henry Seward as his guest, and treated him accordingly during the dinners they shared. The treatment the Director of Department 19 received in the long hours of darkness after the meals were finished was far less civilised, but was a regrettable necessity of the situation. Regrettable from a perspective of manners, that was. From a personal perspective, Vlad found the nightly torture of Henry Seward utterly delightful.

      The first vampire looked down the length of the long table at his guest. Seward was clad in a beautiful dark blue suit that Vlad had ordered made for him by one of the finest boutiques in Paris. He had sent one of Valeri’s servants north to collect it two days earlier, and had been pleased to see that it fitted his guest like a glove. He had not been sure that it would; Seward was losing weight rapidly, a result of the deprivations and torments that had been inflicted upon him in the last month. And, despite the elegant shimmer of the suit and the soft lines of the shirt and tie beneath it, the damage inflicted during the long nights could not be completely hidden.

      Two fingers were now missing from Henry Seward’s left hand; they had been broken with hammers and torn off at the end of the day the Blacklight Director had been delivered to the chateau by Valeri, who had worn a grin of immense satisfaction on his craggy, mountainous face as he presented his prize to his master. The stumps were bandaged neatly, and the dressings were changed every day by a vampire servant who had once been a doctor. More bandages, small caps of bright white, covered the tips of five of Seward’s remaining fingers, hiding the ragged pink flesh that had been uncovered as his fingernails had been pulled out. It was an ancient torture, one of the very oldest, and although it could not be expected to break a man with as much determination and experience as Henry Seward, it still produced a pitch of scream that was music to Vlad’s ears. It was also a good place to start, an early benchmark to establish, from where things would only get worse the longer the victim held out. And, indeed, they had got much, much worse.

      Beneath his suit, the Director’s body was a horror of bruises, burns and wounds: marks left by simple beatings, by lead pipes and plastic cables, and by pairs of metal clips attached to a car battery. As was appropriate for a man of his standing, Vlad had not inflicted any of this damage himself; instead, he had stood and watched Valeri and two of his servants as they worked, maintaining an air of detached professionalism as the torture was administered. But, beneath his veneer of disinterest, his mind raced with possibilities and his stomach churned with a longing so powerful it was almost physical: a desire to push the others aside, to spill blood and inflict pain with his own bare hands.

      Throughout it all, Seward had told them nothing beyond his name and his Blacklight identification number. Vlad was impressed by the man’s fortitude, though he knew full well there were things he could order done to his guest that he would have no chance of withstanding. But he was in no hurry; there would come a time when he would need to know everything Seward knew, in case there was something of which Valeri was unaware, but it could wait. His recuperation was progressing well, fuelled by a constant stream of warm running blood. He was now draining three or four human beings every day, each drop of their blood contributing to his gradual return to what he had once been. Valeri sent his servants out each night, and each morning they returned before dawn with victims taken from the surrounding towns and villages. Vlad had ordered them to make sure they spread their hunts far and wide; he had no interest in creating a panic or attracting unnecessary attention to this isolated corner of the world, not when he was so close to regaining the power he had once taken so recklessly for granted. He was not there yet, not by any means, but he was getting closer with each passing day, with each swallowed mouthful of blood. And the exquisite reality of the matter was this: there was, in truth, almost nothing Henry Seward could tell him that he didn’t already know.

      The Operational frequencies of the various Departments, the access codes to their bases and computer systems, these were things that could have one day been extremely useful to Vlad and Valeri. However, both vampires knew full well that they would all have been changed the minute Henry Seward was taken, rendering his knowledge of them useless.

      He must know that too, thought Dracula, his gaze locked on his guest. Surely he must. Yet he refuses to tell us, regardless. Admirable.

      Until his recovery was complete and he was ready to take direct action, Vlad was content to let Seward believe he was successfully resisting. When that time came, Seward would tell him everything, whether he wanted to or not, at which point Vlad would kill whatever was left of the man and send his head to Blacklight on a spike. But for now, he was content to play Seward’s game. They would continue attempting to get the Director to give up the information he didn’t want to reveal, using what he would allow Seward to believe were his most persuasive methods, and his guest would continue to refuse. It afforded Seward a measure of dignity, and it helped to pierce the boredom that Vlad had felt so keenly since he had been reborn, boredom that was slowly beginning to abate as the recovery of his mind and body gathered pace. It also afforded him an agreeable dinner companion, sparing him the stoic silence of Valeri’s company or the embarrassment of dining alone.

      At the other end of the table, the servant had finished refilling Seward’s glass. Vlad raised his own and waited until his guest did likewise.

      “Noroc,” said the ancient vampire.

      “Noroc,” replied Henry Seward. He had spoken the Romanian toast many times over the last month, evening after evening, glass after glass; it was now almost second nature.

      He drained half his wine, looking forward to the numbing effect of the alcohol, feeling his arm tremble as he raised the glass to his lips. It was one of a number of shakes and tremors that had appeared over the last month, one result of the tortures inflicted upon him every night. Another was his inability to sleep, even when the torment was СКАЧАТЬ