Chapter Fourteen

All Things Must Come To An End

Magnus McClane ran a finger along the blade half of his broken sword in his hand. "I should skin that bastard alive with this," he said. "Armagh has been a part of my existence for centuries. For him to just … break it like this, it signals disrespect."

Mick leaned back in his chair with a mug of blood in his hand. "Malcolm knew it didn't belong to me. Probably gave myself away with how I was using it."

McClane snorted as he slid the blade onto the desk next to the other half and reached for his mug. "I honestly didn't give you much of a chance with it. Lucky for you that you were carrying around one of your fancy stakes."

Mick did not respond. He stared at the pieces of the weapon on his desk, shaking his head. McClane noted the gesture. "What, St. John? Spit it out. What's on your wee mind?"

Mick's eyes flickered up from the weapon. "I was thinking about what he said about what he did to me. The experiments he ran over the years. Something tells me he had a lot of things going on over in Paris."

"Aye." McClane pulled out a folded piece of paper and tossed it on the desk. "I spoke with that doctor BloodMeld came across. Paris is definitely a hot bed for Rehnquist's dealings. Basically everything the doctor used was shipped from there. I'm thinking of sending my man Christoff to check it out."

Mick unfolded the paper and scrutinized it carefully. His eyes darted back and forth from it to McClane and back again. McClane sighed and gave a come-on gesture. "What now?"

Mick folded the paper and set it on his desk. "Did you speak to my ex-wife, Coraline?"

"Why would I do that?"

Mick sighed. "She lives in Paris. She conducted experiments herself. With the Oxford twins dead, Malcolm captured, and Lance running for his life, who do you think that leaves in charge?"

McClane stared hard at Mick as he took a sip from his mug and continued. "I heard she left town this morning. Flight to JFK for an intercontinental trip to ... Paris. Didn't one of your people drop her off?"

McClane sighed and took a sip from his mug.

"Sod off, St. John."

#

Alexandra Sanders poured bourbon in two tumblers. She looked back at her guest seated on one of the couches in her office. "Ice?"

Beth shook her head. "No thanks."

Sanders walked the glasses over to the couch. "I appreciate you coming by," she said, handing one to Beth before sitting down across from her. She flexed the fingers of her right hand several times before grasping her glass. "Two days and I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything."

"Believe me, I totally understand. The whole thing - vampirism, it all sounds far fetch until you actually come across a vampire."

Sanders leaned forward. "And fall in love with one," she said, grinning mischievously.

Beth smiled. "Yes. Fall in love with one."

"Well, I think I qualify with the coming across a vampire part. I'm not going to ask how does falling in love with one works. That's between you and St. John. What I'm interested in is how did it all start?"

"Before I go into that, I need your word that everything stays between you and me and goes no further. Even though the oldest vampires wanted to talk with you and Hayley Simms, that doesn't give you carte blanche to tell the world. You two even knowing that vampires exist in Los Angeles is very dangerous. Do I have your word?"

Sanders took a sip of her drink. She savored the taste briefly before letting it run down her throat. "Does Allison know?"

Beth shook her head. "No, and I would like to keep it that way."

"Yeah, I don't know how she would take knowing the guy who tried to save her brother's life is a vampire old enough to be her great-grandfather, but looks like a model from Fashion Week." Sanders sat back in the couch, looking down at the glass she cradled in her hands.

"Alex? Do I have your word?"

Sanders looked over at the other woman and gave her a soft nod. Beth nodded back and glanced down at her forgotten drink. She took a sip.

"Well, it started when I was four. Mick's ex-wife kidnapped me."

Sanders whistled softly as she raised her glass. "Wow. How many times was he married?"

"Once. You've seen her before. She was the one."

Sanders spat out her drink.

#

Adrian opened the front door and admitted Mick into the Kostan mansion. "He woke up about three hours ago," he said. "Mr. Gasol helped get him into his freezer he keeps for guests upstairs, but he's been asking for you the entire time."

Mick followed Adrian upstairs and down the hall past Josef's spacious bedroom to a door close to the end of the hall. Adrian opened the door slightly. "Please keep your conversation brief. Mr. Gasol said he still needs to be fed intravenously in order to speed up the healing process, but he is with him so he should be awake."

Adrian turned and retreated back to the staircase as Mick made his way into the room, a gray-toned space with several paintings on the wall, but no furniture saved one folding chair propped against the wall and a small table. A closed freezer rested in the center of the black tiled room.

Guillermo was throwing used IV bags in a red waste bag as he entered. "Hey, buddy. What's the word?"

"Checking up on your patient." Mick indicated the freezer behind him. "Is he awake?"

"Yep." Guillermo dropped the bag on the floor and walked over to the chair. "I have to go to the morgue and check in, and see if they saved me some more stock. But I'm hoping one, maybe two more days of IV time, and we can switch to regular feeding. Maybe."

He tossed Mick the chair, and bent down to retrieve the waste bag. "I'll be back a little later. Don't have him yapping in here all day."

Guillermo exited the room as Mick unfolded the chair and sat down on it backwards. He tapped on the freezer door with his foot. "Hey! You're not standing in front of the pearly gates anymore! Come out and say hello."

Several seconds passed before the seal on the freezer broke as the door raised open. He peered down inside and whistled. "Beth told me what I looked like when I was brought back from the desert. You look ten times better."

Josef smiled. The two dozen stab wounds scattered all over his upper body were little more than pink blotches on his pale white skin. Slight bruising was still visible on his face, especially around his right eye socket where the majority of damage took place. A small piece of gauze was taped over the wound, holding the eyelid shut.

"Ten times better? Are you being nice or sarcastic? That son of a bitch snatched my eye out like a gigantic dog-stealing bird."

"Okay, okay. Some more work is needed." Mick grew serious. "How're you feeling?"

Josef groaned as he sat up, waving away Mick's hand as he offered to assist. Two IV lines ran from bags hanging beside him in the freezer into his arm. "I'm not leaking anymore, thank God. I swear I felt like I lost weight." Josef lightly touched the gauze covering his right eye and winced.

"Hey, Kostan, don't mess with it."

"The fact that I feel anything there is a miracle. I seriously need to put Guillermo on retainer." He draped his arms around the top edge of the freezer and looked up at his friend with a smile. "So, you finally got that bastard."

"Yeah. After I leave here, I'm heading over to the Cleaners. That's where they're keeping him."

Josef nodded. "I wish I could see the look on his face before they light his ass on fire. That will be a sight to see there." He chuckled softly and pointed up to his face. "Half see anyway."

Mick noted the weariness in Josef's voice. "I'll let you get some rest," he said, rising to his feet. "Sounds like you need it."

Josef was already sliding back down into the freezer. "I promise you, tomorrow I'll be walking around on my own two feet instead of Guillermo carrying me around like a baby."

The door automatically lowered over him, sealing him inside.

Mick turned for the door. Just before he exited the room, he glanced back over his shoulder at the freezer for a long minute.

"I can't wait, old friend."

#

The red haired Cleaner, dressed in a black, short-sleeved blouse and slacks with high-heeled shoes matching the color of her dark tresses, smiled as Mick walked into her office. "Thank you for coming," she said, walking over to give Mick a peck on his cheek. "How are you feeling? No despotic mood swings or urge to feed at live concerts or malls?"

"Funny."

She laughed as she gestured for him to sit in one of the leather chairs in front of her large oak desk. "I have to be funny. Takes the edge off around here. Though when Beth and Alexandra Sanders were here yesterday being questioned by McClane and Daggett, that was almost like an old time black and white film. Even McClane looked like he wanted to slice his own throat after all the questions Sanders was grilling him with." The Cleaner propped her hands on her hips and tapped her foot on the wooden floor.

"What's wrong?"

The Cleaner sighed and gestured to a set of double doors to the side of the room. "I have three of the oldest and most powerful vampires in the world, here, in my compound. Three vampires who can snap any one of our necks without so much as a thought. And Madame Wen, she keeps looking at me funny. Like she wants to offer me up for a sex trade or something."

"It's not like that." Mick smiled. "She, McClane, and Marcus Daggett have a lot to talk about. Everything Malcolm has done is on the table. They have a lot of work ahead of them."

"Yeah, I know." The Cleaner sat down on the edge of the desk and crossed her arms. "I'm worried that they won't have … enough. Lance kidnapped Beth and Miss Whitley, he was the one who released the list, and tried to kill you. His ass belongs in that cage just as much as Malcolm Rehnquist, as far as I'm concerned. More so, even. But aside from him holding you for weeks, there isn't much else."

"No one agrees with you as much as I do." Mick shrugged. "It will take some work to bring him down."

The Cleaner rose to her feet and walked behind her desk and pulled a pistol and cell phone from a drawer. "Yeah, well right now, your presence has been requested. Rehnquist wants to talk to you."

"Why does he want to talk to me?"

The Cleaner shrugged. "I don't know. Human prisons offer a last meal before executions. We grant visitor requests."

She and Mick walked out of the office and down a long hall cluttered with various pieces of equipment. Several associates stood watch at every set of double doors they went through, until the last set where four women dressed in coveralls guarded the entrance armed with military-grade flamethrower backpacks.

Mick whistled. "You're not kidding around."

"Between you and me, it took us nearly a month to track him down." The Cleaner gestured for the door to be opened. An abundance of light from inside shone through. "We have no intention of repeating that until we receive word from the big wigs."

Mick nodded and slipped on his sunglasses before entering the room. He thought the room was flooded with fluorescent lighting, which would have no effect on a vampire and essentially a waste of time.

The source of the lighting was a natural source, as he was able to determine once his eyes adjusted. A large skylight was cut into the high ceiling, illuminating the enclosed steel reinforced cage and its occupant below it easily. Malcolm Rehnquist sat restrained from head to toe in titanium chains, obviously affected by the sun shining directly down on him. His shirt was almost completely soaked through, and a small puddle of sweat was just forming underneath the small chair he was chained to.

Mick stepped close to the cage, just staying out of range of the sun. "You said you wanted to see me."

Malcolm slowly raised his head. His eyes were milky in the irises as they blinked up at Mick. "I knew you would come," he said. The resonate tone of his voice was strong despite his present condition. "Somehow, I knew you would come."

Mick glanced around the spacious chamber. "Look, I'm really busy, so why don't you tell me what you want so I can get back to my day, okay?"

Rehnquist nodded. "Of course. Planning my demise is very busy work."

"I don't have any say in that."

"But you do." Rehnquist leaned forward in his chair, squinting hard at Mick. "I'm sure that everything you and I went through over the past few weeks has not gone unnoticed by the powers that be. Obviously they're very interested in my work."

He sat back and tilted his head up until he was staring directly into the sunlight unflinchingly. "I don't know how, considering I really did nothing wrong."

Mick remained silent as Malcolm continued. "Everyone thought I had this masterfully concocted plan to distract all of Los Angeles with the mysterious awakening of Sarah Whitney. In a sense, I did use her to force Kostan to give you up. To keep him preoccupied and out of my way. But do you want to know the real reason why I did what I did?"

Malcolm looked over to the side of the cage wistfully. "For years, I heard rumors of "The Sleeping Beauty of New York." A woman Kostan, as Charles Fitzgerald, attempted to turn into one of us, and ultimately failed."

"I wanted to kidnap her and really put Kostan into a spin. I had one of my associates enter his brownstone under the guise of an electrician. He was able to send me pictures of the interior, and also several of the sleeping beauty herself. St. John, she is the splitting image of the one love of my life from an era long ago. My beautiful Cerise."

Mick took a tentative step forward, finding himself interested in Malcolm's tale. "Was she a vampire as well?"

Malcolm shook his head. "As you well know, Louis XVI was a part of my noble line."

Mick nodded.

"Cerise, she was a handmaiden; a part of Louis and dear Marie's court. I pursued her for a time but my business affairs took me out of Paris constantly. And plus Louis didn't feel comfortable with both of us there at the same time.

"I wanted to bring Cerise with me, but Marie didn't like for her to be far from her side. You can pretty much deduce the rest of the story from history."

Mick gave him a slow nod. "She was caught up in the Reign of Terror."

Malcolm sat back in his chair. The chains restraining him rattled as they settled in their new positions. "Yes. Before my dear cousin and his beloved wife were executed, dozens of the Royal Family's staff faced the guillotine. Cerise, she … was one of the casualties."

Mick pursed his lips and looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry," he said. "She must have meant a lot to you."

Malcolm considered Mick very closely for a minute. "When I saw Miss Whitley's picture, I admit my goals changed briefly. I wanted to wake her … in the hopes of bringing my Cerise back to me. But when I did, I could instantly tell that the time she lost, her continued fascination with Kostan, and my thirst for making you suffer, everything brought me back to reality."

Malcolm locked eyes with Mick. "I sit here realizing that the journey I took has led me to failure, and that my life will soon come to an end. All things must come to an end. I'm at peace with that. I really am."

Malcolm lowered his eyes to the floor at his feet. Mick took that as a sign that the conversation was over. He started to turn to leave, but Malcolm spoke up once again. "She is very beautiful. Your Beth Turner. I didn't want to believe half the stories Coraline told me about you two during her time here, but after seeing her, I can certainly see for myself why you are so smitten with her."

Malcolm smiled as he once again stared up unblinkingly into the sunlight. "A love like that has the ability to transcend the test of time. If you choose it."

#

A who's who of vampires and humans slowly entered an abandoned warehouse close to midnight. Mick and Beth exited his newly repaired Mercedes and watched them go inside.

Beth looked over the car at Mick. "Is this necessary? All this? Why can't they just be done with him so that we can move on with our lives?"

Mick walked around the car to Beth. "A message has to be sent out. The vampires who live here in the city don't have anything to worry about partly because Josef has worked for years to help our kind maintain a sense of normalcy while blending in with humans. But there are those who are jealous of how we live."

He took Beth's hand and led her to the warehouse. "This message will get to those vampires and tell them that this is our city, and acts of violence against us will not be tolerated. Now, we just just have to able to send it."

They entered the decrepit structure and looked around. Several scaffolding lamps illuminated the center where a raised, wooden platform rested. Storage containers were scattered all around the perimeter Everyone stayed away from that portion, preferring to circle it while covered in somewhat of a shade of darkness. Beth saw Alexandra Sanders and Hayley Simms standing over against a far wall talking with Harper Ryan. Several feet away, Guillermo and Logan spoke with Xavier King, who Mick met briefly earlier in the day following Rehnquist's incarceration. A woman Beth recognized from a picture in Detroit as Elizabeth, King's wife, stood beside him, smiling and laughing as if conversing with vampires was a normal occurrence. Adrian and Ryder, Josef's closest associates, had all three heads of the Cleaner services in conversation on the other side. Behind them, several beautiful women dressed in black leather stood in stony silence.

Beth looked over at a very familiar petite, short haired blonde walking by. "Hi, Mick," she said, waving as she strolled past them. Mick smiled and returned the way, belatedly feeling the burning eyes of the blonde standing beside him.

"That was, uh, Lisa," he said. "She's a student. At Hurst."

Beth smirked. "Oh really?"

Mick shrugged. "She's into jocks this summer."

"Whatever." Beth glanced outside. "Where are McClane and the others? Where is Rehnquist?"

"They'll be coming from the Cleaners' compound together, so it shouldn't be long." He glanced sharply over his shoulder at the entrance as he spoke. Beth noticed out of the corner of her eye that several of the vampires also turned their attention outside, obviously picking up something with their vampire hearing.

A dark SUV led a black panel van through the gate, pulling up just outside of the building's raised door. The Kings and the junior Cleaners walked out as the vehicles shut off and McClane, Daggett, and Madame Wen exited the SUV. Daggett gave Elizabeth a peck on the cheek and clapped Xavier on his back as the other vampires minus the Cleaners filed past him.

McClane spied Mick and Beth over to the side and walked over to them. The expression behind his black goatee was grim and full of doubt. "We're gonna need you in a minute, lad."

Beth glanced from McClane to Mick and back. "Magnus, this had to be a slam dunk. What's the problem?"

The answer to Beth's question was a second SUV entering the lot, coming to a halt beside the first one. A tall man exited the vehicle and moved to open the back door for his passengers.

Beth gasped as Simone Walker stepped out, followed by Sarah Whitley. Simone spotted Beth and Mick and offered a small wave. Sarah glanced around nervously while being escorted inside by Daggett. She did not even look over at Mick or Beth.

Mick sighed as he gave Beth's hand a gentle squeeze.

"The problem is that Malcolm was right. He's won."

#

"Our vampire nation here in this city is one of the largest in the country. One I am proud to be a part of, and one I have always protected to the best of my ability." Madame Wen looked over the small gathering standing before her. "Tonight, we are gathered here to determine if Malcolm Rehnquist is guilty of crimes against one of our own."

She glanced over her shoulder at the platform behind her. Rehnquist stood chained to it by his wrists and ankles. He stared back impassively, unblinking.

"The evidence produced clearly indicate that the actions taken by Rehnquist were acts of vengeance against Mick St. John and him alone. Acts of violence taken against other vampires like Josef Kostan were committed by the vampire known as Lance."

"Wait a minute." Alex Sanders stepped past Mick, shaking herself loose from Hayley Simms' grasp. "What about when he pretended to be a FBI agent? Assaulted me? Broke into my building in an attempt to kidnap the doctor?"

Madame Wen gave her a stern look. "Acts against humans are frowned upon, yes, but no one was killed, Miss Sanders. St. John himself is alive and here with us today. Know your place in these proceedings."

Sanders did not back down. "Oh, if you think I'm goIng to follow some stay in your lane advice right now, then you don't know me very well. Do you think I'm just going to let everything he did slide because I'm human? Everything he has done would have him locked up for years!"

"Which would be both impossible and dangerous for humans involved," countered Wen. "The evidence we have does not support incarceration."

Sanders gave her an incredulous look. "Then what options are you considering? Because if you're looking at cutting him loose, that doesn't sit well with me at all."

The two women glared at each other for a long moment. Sanders did not flinch as Wen took three slow steps forward until they were mere inches from each other.

Finally she offered Sanders a thin smile. "I like you, Alexandra. I admit, your argument is sound, but one of your kind has made a strong case for the accused."

She gestured to Sarah, who stood over to the side between Simone and Elizabeth King. "Come forth, my dear."

Sarah stepped forward, coming to a halt two feet away. "Miss Whitley, tell Miss Sanders what you told me."

Sarah nervously looked up at Sanders. "Josef Kostan attempted to turn me into a vampire, but … something happened. I fell into a deep sleep. Like suspended animation of a sort."

"Malcolm came to the house where I was being kept under a nurse's care. He had a doctor administer to me. Somehow, I reverted back to a human state and was able to wake up. If it wasn't for him, God knows how long I would have slept.

Sanders glared at her. "That's very nice. You were able to wake up. What, you were in a coma for a week or two?"

At that, Mick cleared his throat. "Try sixty years."

Sanders' eyes widened. She looked at Sarah closely before slowly taking a step back, shaking her head in disbelief. "You're joking," she whispered. "That's … impossible."

"It's true, Alex." Beth stepped forward. "Josef attempted to turn her … in 1955. Sarah is over eighty years old."

Sanders glanced at Beth who gave her a soft nod. A look of regret shadowed Mick's face as he stared back at her.

Wen placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Our world is not very different from humans, Miss Sanders, but our mysteries are deep and complex."

She conveyed an equally comforting look to Sarah before returning to her original post in front of Rehnquist's platform. "Miss Whitley's testimony was very compelling. Combined with briefings from St. John, Miss Sanders, and associates of Josef Kostan, it has been deemed that -"

"Wait." Sanders held up a hand. "I have one more thing to say. A question, actually. For him."

Wen sighed but nodded consent for her to continue. "It seems that everything that happened to me doesn't matter to anyone here," said Sanders, stepping past Wen to the platform where Malcolm stood. "That's fine. I'll just get back to my life and my company and forget this ever happened."

She looked up at Rehnquist, who stared back at her with a puzzled look on his face. "But there is one question that I want to ask. Answer it for me and I'll consider the matter settled. I'll go back to my boring vampireless life."

Malcolm cocked his head slightly to one side. "Obviously I'm not going anywhere, my dear. What is your question?"

Sanders shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and steeled herself. "Benjamin Talbot," she said softly. "Who killed him? Was it this Lance character?"

Malcolm smiled. "The district attorney. He was the one who was given the list, correct?" He looked up at Mick, who nodded in confirmation.

"I was trying to find out what Coraline and Lance were doing here," he said, speaking to Sanders. "I found out about the list of vampires circulating at some of the highest levels of access. Truly a threat to the society built in Los Angeles."

Malcolm paused for a second before continuing, this time speaking to all present. "Benjamin Talbot represented a major threat to that society. It took me a minute to realize that. I originally was going to allow it to go forward, but that would have been wrong of me, especially when I only wanted to sink my claws into one, only one vampire."

Malcolm locked eyes with Mick as he exclaimed, "In the end, I realized the threat! I realized the threat, and I eliminated the threat! Anyone of you would have done the same thing! Some of you have done something similar to protect your secrets and your secrets alone. I protected an entire nation, and you have me chained here like an animal? Hypocrites!"

His eyes darted back down to Sanders, who stared back up at him. "So, the answer to your question, Alexandra, is yes. It was me. I killed Benjamin Talbot. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Sanders did not immediately respond to Rehnquist's confession. She took one step closer to the platform while bunching her hands tighter in the pockets of her jacket. "Thank you," she said. "I just wanted to make sure."

She snatched her hands from her pockets and stuffed something into the front of Malcolm's jacket before hurrying away at a run. Malcolm's darted from her down to the object, eyes bulging wide at its sight. Mick started to run onto the platform until he saw another object in Sanders' hand.

Without thinking, he grabbed Beth's arm and began pulling her away, yelling to the others, "RUUNNN!"

He and Beth ducked behind a large metal container, as the vampires and humans quickly dispersed, leaving Malcolm still chained and alone on the platform. He locked eyes with Mick for a split second.

And smiled.

The fiery explosion that issued from the platform forced Mick to shield his eyes with his free hand, his other arm draped protectively around Beth. She glanced up at him, gasping for breath. "What - what happened?!"

Mick looked over to the side where several others were gathered behind a large storage container, Sarah and Simone among them. Magnus McClane held a smiling Alexandra Sanders by her arm. She stood in silence, spinning what appeared to be a grenade pin around her finger.

Mick pulled Beth close. "Justice."

#