Chapter 12: I’ll Be Watching You
“His Majesty wants you upstairs.” Those were the first, and only, words out of Boras’ mouth as he stepped off the elevator into Keel’s former bedroom. No “Hello, how are you?” or “In case you’re wondering, here’s why His Majesty is summoning you after four days of silence” or anything else remotely kind, reassuring or useful. Then again, I shouldn’t have expected it, since even this level of civility must have proved a massive strain for Boras. We’d had one sketchy encounter soon after Keel’s father imprisoned me and I’d been on his persona non grata list ever since. He was the type to keep things short, simple and ominous-sounding just to watch me squirm, but I refused him the pleasure. I excelled at playing stoic too.
“Okay,” I said, seeing no point in arguing. I was up and dressed, and had been for hours. Since Keel’s last visit I’d taken to sleeping in my clothes. I could never be sure when His Majesty would turn up, and I’d rather be ready. Definitely didn’t need him thinking I was giving him another invitation. Though how could I forget, His Majesty didn’t require one of those. Whenever I thought back to that encounter my skin crawled anew.
I’d spent much of the last day (or was it night?) – with no clocks or windows time lost its meaning – pulling books off Keel’s heaving bookshelf and sorting them into neat but towering piles. One series of bookish skyscrapers reserved for those written in Nosferatu and another for the English ones. The latter I intended to further organize into a “Nosferatu 101” to-be-read stack. Entertainment was scarce here. No TV. No computer. No smartphone. The compound was downright primitive in terms of 21st-century electronics and conveniences, and after three days of pacing the room, wandering around inside my skull, and finding zero answers, I needed to focus on something other than the direness of my situation. Too much brain time was pushing me towards the edge, making me ever more paranoid and skittish until I almost jumped out of my skin each time the elevator climbed to this level. So I started on the books. That way I wasn’t avoiding the reality of my new existence but rather approaching it from a different direction, a less emotional and more academic one.
As I hoisted myself up from where I was perched cross-legged amongst the books, Boras took in the six teetering, waist-high stacks. “You going to leave those like that?”
I shrugged, then bent over to yank down the elasticized ankles of Keel’s sweatpants, which had somehow gotten bunched up around my knees. “Why not? It’s not like anyone is going to come in here while I’m gone, right?”
“His Majesty would not be pleased with the mess. You shouldn’t be touching his things.”
“Then he should have taken them with him,” I snapped.
Boras gave me a stern, disapproving look. We were already falling back into our old habits, setting each other off with pointless griping and cheap shots. Also, he was wrong. It would thrill Keel to come down here and find this mess because it would give him another thing to punish me for. I’d considered that possibility when I first sized up the bookshelf and the enormity of the sorting job ahead of me, and boredom had beaten fear of reprisal. If this didn’t set him off, something else would. Never mind, I couldn’t tiptoe around forever.
“So does His Majesty want me upstairs now or would he rather wait while I put away his precious, abandoned books?”
Boras made a huffing noise, then turned and stepped back into the elevator. I wound my way through the old tomes, careful not to topple them, and joined him.
He said nothing as the door slid closed behind us and the door on the opposite side opened. He retained his monk-like silence as we walked down the hall to the compound’s other elevator, the one that would take us up to the throne room. But as we exited on the upper level, Boras set off towards the loading bay.
“Where are we going?” I asked, jogging to catch up.
I wondered if Keel planned on making good on his threat? I’d expected that to go down in the throne room, perhaps with the entire council as an audience, so they could partake in the full spectacle of my humiliation and grovelling.
“Upstairs,” Boras said, still being cryptic, and trying to piss me off.
“To the storage facility?” As far as I knew, the only thing that existed above the floor housing the Nosferatu throne room and the royal quarters was the subbasement of the human business that provided the front for the enclave of vampires living below.
“Yes.”
“What’s he doing up there?”
“None of my business,” Boras said, but his brittle tone suggested he thought otherwise.
Keel did spend a lot of time up there. Whenever I used the bond to check on his location, that’s where he was. I wondered what the Nosferatu thought of their absentee king; it couldn’t be helping his popularity or lack of it.
I tried to keep track of our route as we exited the compound proper and emerged in lower levels of the storage facility. It had become habit to try to map out the building in my head. During my first stay, it’d been all about some potential future escape attempt, but now I was looking for anything that might give me an edge in the power struggle. Especially since I was positive that at the end of this walk Keel would be waiting with something that would further hobble my free will. However, as always, the path proved too circuitous to commit to memory, or maybe Boras was taking me the long, convoluted route just to make sure I couldn’t do that. The maze of nondescript grey hallways and locked doors in the compound didn’t look all that different from the maze of hallways and locked doors here. The walls were painted the same bland, storm-cloud grey, only there were a great deal more doors and they were far more colourful, alternating between red, yellow, blue and green. We walked past a veritable rainbow of them before coming to a halt in front of a blue one.
Boras rapped on the metal three times in quick succession. The muffled sound of chair legs scraping across the floor erupted from within and a few seconds later the door cracked open just wide enough to allow me to enter. Keel was standing on the other side of the door, his expression neutral and unreadable. I hesitated at the entrance, trying to get a glimpse around him and his robes to what awaited me inside, but his added height made him an effective blockade. If it was a trap, I’d only find out after I entered. If he had Lucia or someone else I cared about strung up in there in some awful, soul-gutting way there was no opportunity to sneak a glimpse and steel myself for the worst of it. This was Keel asserting his dominance without saying a word. And, of course, it was all purposeful, like every other move he made. If it hadn’t been about manipulating me, I might have been impressed. But instead, worry gnawed at my gut like a half-starved rodent, all teeth and claws, driving up my anxiety to eleven and beyond.
When Boras judged that I’d stood there unmoving too long, he gave me a sharp nudge with his bony elbow and I had no choice but to step inside. Keel leaned forward, deep into my personal space, and closed the door behind him. It thudded shut with an ominous, resonating clang that rattled all the way up my spine.
The sound of the heavy metal door still reverberated in my head when Keel leaned past me and dead-bolted it twice – a security upgrade I wagered most of these units didn’t have. Was it to keep unwanted humans out or to keep me in? With all his vampy superpowers the mundane mechanics of locks and keys were just that, mundane, yet there they were. And here we were. As Keel entered my personal space, the bond unleashed a nerve-jangling zing, reacting to the sudden closeness of his body with the same raw craving it always did. I stepped deeper into the unit, dampening it.
Now that Keel was no longer blocking my view, I got my first look at the room. A quick sweep determined it held no prisoners. No unwitting humans chained to the ceilings or walls, no loved ones penned up in uncomfortable metal cages like stray dogs. No brand new vampire Happy Meals. I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and some of the tension drained from my shoulders, even though my relief was premature.
The unit was one of those standard 12′ by 12′ lockups; the kind people stashed extra furniture and boxes of old files in, but this one had been outfitted for a different purpose. A half-dozen flatscreen TVs hung on the far wall, while several smaller monitors perched on a grey folding table that spanned more than half of the room’s width. A dented gun-metal-coloured filing cabinet and a matching set of drawers, which were in considerably better condition, book-ended it on either side. The cables trailing from the backs of the various screens led to an extensive array of computer towers tucked side by side beneath the table. The only sounds were the gentle, persistent hum of whirring fans and hard drives and the rhythmic tap tap tap of Keel’s clawed index finger on the metal door frame behind me.
There was no way His Majesty could have done this – whatever this was – by himself. I’d never gotten the impression that computer skills were high on the Nosferatu’s education list. The way he’d explained it, vampires trained to get by in human society for only the brief periods required, not so much that they might be seduced by life topside. But whatever was going on in here went far beyond the basics, and somehow he’d constructed it all in the six months since taking the throne. This was so old Keel that a familiar hollow ache flared up in my chest. The ghost of him didn’t just haunt me in his room, it haunted me in corporeal form too.
Tap tap tap.
The rest of the unit held a large weathered trunk (the old-fashioned kind with wood panelling and metal latches) and an unattractive beige couch which, judging from the judicious wear and tear, unidentifiable stains and slight muskiness, Keel had probably salvaged from another unit’s cast-offs.
When I looked at His Majesty again, he hadn’t moved from the door where he was still standing and tapping his finger, watching me take it all in. If this was a piece of theatre, I would have said he was (im)patiently waiting for his cue.
“What is this?” I asked, forgetting it was not my place to question him.
His finger halted mid-tap, freezing in its current position.
“Security measures.” His voice filled with pride. He’d hoped this room would impress me, and it’d achieved the desired result.
“How?” He’d let me slip in one question, so I figured I’d try my luck with another.
“Money, time, research, a bit of human cooperation and hard work.” The answer was so prosaic I almost laughed, which would have been a mistake. All this was still leading somewhere and wherever that place was, it was no good.
“Your father’s human was not without some salvageable ideas,” Keel continued. I suspected he chose these words in particular to see how I would react. I failed his test.
“His name was Bruce.” I managed to stop myself there, even though there was much more that bore saying. Then again, Bruce was tough, and he didn’t need me to defend him. He had no problem with being human, it hadn’t stopped him from dispatching supes one bit.
Keel’s boots made almost no sound against the concrete floor as he strode past me towards the bank of computers, where he pressed a button on one of the wall-mounted flatscreens.
Showtime, the voice in my head whispered. Time to find out how well you know the Nosferatu king.
Problem was, I didn’t want to find out, I didn’t want to know I’d put those I cared about in danger. I’d never be able to protect both them and me. I’d have to…
Another puzzle piece slid into place.
No. No. No.
I recoiled from the thought, but it had already burrowed its way in, chewing deeper and deeper like a starving rat. I could almost feel its tiny teeth.
The monitor Keel turned on flickered briefly before fading to black. No signal. He didn’t seem surprised – or concerned. His hand slipped into his robe and retrieved a cellphone, the cheap and disposable kind. He punched in a number from memory and whoever was on the receiving end of the call answered on the first ring.
“Current position?” Keel asked, all business. There was a pause as the person – or was that Nosferatu? – replied, then Keel said, “Superb. Begin transmitting.”
The flatscreen blinked to life, offering up a live feed of a grainy city street. The nighttime lighting robbed the image of much of its colour and depth, but I could still discern row housing, parked cars, glowing streetlights. A moment later I recognized what street it was: Lucia’s. The only reason it didn’t click sooner was because the feed kept the psychic shop out of view.
“What have you done?” I demanded. Versions of this conversation had played out in my head ever since I came up with my hypothesis about this plan of his, only my voice never sounded so weak and reedy in my imagination.
“Nothing,” Keel said, eyes trained on the screen, on the front steps Lucia’s house.
“Then what’s this? You said she’d be safe if I came here.” I forced myself to swallow back some of my anger.
“Insurance,” he said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world, and indeed the only answer. Keel turned and looked at me then, his inhuman eyes rising to meet my red-ringed ones. “Since your sworn oath is so meaningless, I required something a little more,” he paused and smiled a triumphant, fangy smile, “persuasive. Brilliant, right?”
Was he expecting praise? Accolades? He’d taken to playing me just like he used to play the Nosferatu guards during our daytime adventures, only now he was engineering my reactions, my behaviour, not theirs. All those months skulking around the compound with me he’d been studying up, whether he knew it at the time or not. I doubted this is what Arthos had in mind when he’d facilitated our little cross-cultural exchange. He’d thought better of half-human Keel and so had I.
Joke’s on us, I guess, I thought bitterly, wanting nothing more than to yank the nearest monitor off the desk and throw it at him. I was here giving him my time, my blood, my life. He had everything he wanted, yet he couldn’t resist doing this too.
“So if I screw up, your little minion does what exactly? Bites her, kills her?” I could have gone on, I’d been visualizing vamp-related atrocities for the better part of the last four days.
“Depends on what’s warranted.” The smugness rippled off of him, invisible but suffocating. “I can’t say I haven’t considered what a human of her particular talents might bring to the compound. Blood and prophecy. It’s an attractive combination.”
“You wouldn’t,” I said, but I knew he would. He just needed the right excuse, the right misstep from me.
“I will do what’s necessary. Don’t doubt that for a second.” It was like he’d been listening in on my thoughts. Could he do that now too? Was the bond as big of a betrayer these days as he was? My anger returned full force. There was nothing about this conversation, this ploy, that wasn’t infuriating.
“I hate you.” The words seethed out before my brain could catch up with my mouth and stop them from doing their damage.
Keel waggled the cell phone at me. “Now, now,” he warned, but it sounded more like a taunt.
“Fine,” I grumbled, though I refused to dampen any loathing flowing through the bond to him.
“Don’t test me.”
It felt as if we were in the middle of some screwed-up game of chicken, only it wasn’t us standing in the middle of the road staring down oncoming traffic, it was Lucia, whose only mistake was taking an interest in me.
I should have kept walking that day she stopped me on the sidewalk, I could have put a halt to this before it even started, but I was weak, lonely and still clinging to whatever desperate vestiges of humanity I could after six months in the compound. Not even a year had gone by and I’d already turned out to be just as dangerous as I’d warned her. No one was going to nominate me for any Friend of the Year awards anytime soon.
“I’m really not sure what you want from me.” Though it sickened me, I tried on a more subservient tone. If I kept pushing, sooner or later I’d push him too far and I didn’t think I could live with the accompanying guilt.
“Obedience. Loyalty. Blood.” He paused, as if he was about to add another item or three to that list, then decided against it. “Whatever happens to her, it’s up to you, your choices.”
“But… but…” There was so much I wanted to say, yet the words wouldn’t form. The only thing I could imagine him using Lucia for was to convince me to do all those things I had zero intention of doing. I could picture the new ultimatum already: Her or you? Who will it be?
“No ‘buts,'” Keel said, cutting off my useless stammer. “A king must maintain control over his charges, and where there is doubt, it must be brought to heel.”
Something hard and raw came to a boil beneath my rib cage. “Because you’ve been doing such a good job of that already?”
I slapped my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say that.
Keel’s red eyes darkened and his grip on the phone tightened, the bony knuckles of his right hand jutting against the translucent flesh of his fingers. I waited for him to raise it to his ear and bark out some horrible command I would spend the rest of my life beating myself up over, but instead, he stomped past me and threw open the door.
“We’re done here,” Keel told Boras with a chilly curtness. “Take her to my quarters. I’ll finish this there.”
Wait. What? I expected to be removed from his sight, sent back to my room, but this… this was…
“Hold on,” I said, stalling, trying not to let the desperation I felt about my new destination become obvious, but Boras had already grabbed my arm and stepped through the doorway. “Please,” I begged as he steered me out of the room and down the hallway.
No match for his Nosferatu strength, I considered using my magic to root us both in place, but what was the point?
Keel had won yet again, and entirely on his own terms.
No, he wouldn’t lord over me like his father did with physical violence, his methods of control were much more incisive. He hadn’t forgotten a single one of my weaknesses, nor anything else I ever told him in confidence or love, and now it all became his ammunition. A million bullets to tear through the tatters of my wounded heart.
As Boras and me reached the first bend in the corridor, I looked back. Keel was standing in the middle of the hallway watching us go, still clutching the phone in his hand, no doubt already planning what would happen next. I swivelled my head back around, but not before I caught the slightest hint of a smile turning up the corner of Keel’s lip.