Chapter 9: Winter Comes Early
Despite being the Emissary's go-to man for this excursion to North America, Mitchell had only seen Mr. Snow a hand full of times. And he had spoken to him barely twice, both occasions falling within the last eight months. But Snow was the oldest of the Old Ones, and one does not go through a century without hearing his name in the dark circles.
And one does not forget his voice. Ever.
When the Mitchell had returned to his apartment, he found his complimentary snack littered in parts around the kitchen. Blood, wasted, pooled on the dinner table and in glass cups. There was evidence of a vicious feeding and possibly more. He wouldn't be sure though, since the only thing that still resembled the poor girl was the slender left ankle, noosed with a nylon twisted rope. Entrails draped like party décor from the kitchen counter to the three-blade ceiling fan, and bloody torn clothes and lacy red undergarments stuck to the walls and the windows. Her face was in the vampire legend's hand and he was judging it like he were critiquing pottery.
"I didn't expect you till the eleventh," the younger vampire mentioned cautiously, tip-toeing around the dismembered body parts. He tried his best to ignore the hunger when her young scent of sweet blood swelled into his senses. He hated how he salivated, and a little shudder of bloodlust rushed through his veins. Not for the first time in the last five years, he struggled with the urge to take up a piece and drain it of liquid.
He'd be like a scavenger. He'd be like a rat. He tried to remember his sins and he tried to remind himself that a minute of pleasure always was followed by a lifetime of remorse.
He reminded himself that giving in was what got him in this mess in the first place.
Not too safe to drink dead blood anyway, it's not good for you. Rationalized Mitchell. He repeated, 'it's not good for you,' in his mind another four or five times before he finally approached the vampire leader.
"I caught an earlier flight," shrugged the other, he mustn't have found fault with the snack's face, for he took a big bite out of her cheek as if he were eating an apple. That image was enough to turn Mitchell's stomach over, and he was no longer hungry for the girl on the house's dining table. He had to look away to hide his disgust while the soft-toothed vampire finished off her head.
Mitchell's American associate had just dropped him off at the safe house and the visitor was hoping to find Annie before he went back out there to look for their missing werewolf compatriot.
She insisted vampires had him, and he trusted her completely. But, as deep a red as he was seeing at the Cage, Aiden's words held logic. George was not there.
Despite being an old vampiric tradition, werewolf fights had been banned in Europe within the last few decades; they were too costly and too high-profile a vampire social gathering. Every arranged 'wolf fight either resulted in uncontrollable feeding frenzies, deaths, or unnecessary human media attention.
The last 'wolf fight Mitchell had been to was during the high tide of the second world war, where a company of American soldiers brought their pets for entertainment, other than that Mitchell hadn't known much about professional 'wolf fights. He wasn't prepared to see the cages.
The fights were not banned in America. In the United States, the fights were passed on by worth of mouth and held in secret underground—but Mitchell had been aware of a particularly large stadium in South America where they practice transparency for their fights. Snow and other Old Ones living in the South American quarters probably encouraged this bloodthirsty tradition.
"The arrangements have been made, per Mother's request," Mitchell wondered where Annie could have been during all of this, and for a moment his soul worried for her innocence. He hopes she had fled when Snow arrived. "And your lodgings have been prepared, stocked and inspected. We can expedite your formal invitations to the house if you want to retire there tonight."
Snow gave Mitchell a menacing look, "Do you think I just turned yesterday? All of the Old Ones own the same guest houses. None of us need invitations, even if we would not be injured by that curse."
Mitchell had just been trying to be polite. He apologized then said: "I think you'll find everything else to your satisfaction."
"So far I'm not impressed," Snow admitted, dropping what was left of his snack onto a small ceramic platter in front of him. "By them, or by you."
It was then Mitchell noticed the Star of David pendant coiled neatly on the corner of that platter.
"George!" The pendant belonged to his housemate.
"Your precious little mongrel is alive," Snow announced before Mitchell could lunge forward in anger. The Old One dabbed the corners of his lips with a cloth napkin and then dropped it over his devoured dinner. "He's alive just enough to remind you why you are here, and who you serve."
"If you've hurt him—" Mitchell wanted to say he would tear off the other vampire's arms with his hands, but the Old One cut him off.
"He's far worse than hurt, Mitchell. He's dying, bleeding, needs medical attention, riddled with silver. But he's alive and we'll keep him such so that you will cooperate till your contract with me has been paid fully."
Mitchell scowled. Dealing with Wyndham's blackmail seemed difficult enough, he was beginning to wonder if making this one-time deal with Snow would be any better. "You'll be clearing my slate with Edgar Wyndham. That's motivation enough for me to do all these things that you ask of me. George was never a part of the agreement."
"Oh with you youngsters, you can never be too careful. And no one likes to get caught with their pants down," Snow grinned and displayed his rotted teeth proudly. "Do a good job and maybe we'll open up his wounds less often during the day. Hmm?"
This time Mitchell did drop his fangs. He hissed loudly, and a bit childishly, but he was very upset. "Let me see him."
"'Let me see him, Mr. Snow, Please'," sang the vampire, "Really, manners that the young generation have these days…"
"Don't play games, Snow. I'm not lifting a finger against Mother or Yuum or any of the others until I see George."
"Oh, alright. Suppose it's only reasonable," he wiped his fingers on the towel, "Driver?"
And a pair of vampires in dark suits stood up from the back porch and entered the bloodied kitchen. Mitchell instantly did not like them. "Fetch me my coat please, and then take us to the Boston Halloway Hotel."
The thinner of the two nodded, rushed to the garage door and in a few seconds returned with Snow's ash colored trench coat. The other went to start the car. Mitchell followed the other into the car and sat respectfully in his corner of the 300C's luxurious black leather seats feeling much like a sardine in the presence of a shark. He had just threatened Snow, and how he had to ride bitch with him, talk about awkward.
'Maybe I'm too far below him for him to take notice of me,' thought Mitchell as Snow straightened the fingers of his black gloves and then adjusted the strap of his seatbelt.
They had traveled in silence along the little American roads. The Darkness was thinning and the weekend was waking, and Mitchell couldn't imagine any more of an uncomfortable car ride than here, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the being who claimed to be the creator of the modern vampire.
When the road changed from Interstate-93 to Atlantic, Snow finally said, "I really hate American cars."
- - - - -{Elsewhere}- - - - -
"Mitchell is gone!" Annie repeated, as if any of the other occupants in the room couldn't hear her outburst the first time. "The condo is trashed, the little girl is completely torn apart and the blood, the blood, and her face!-"
Sally ghost herself to Annie's side and frantically waved her aura onto her shoulders. They mingled a bit and while Annie tried to pull her particles out of Sally's, slowly came into a softer hysteria.
"Okay, girlfriend. Say that again, but this time with air."
"I just went to the safe house. Mitchell's not there. The girl that that the Family gave Mitchell to drink? She had been killed. Slaughtered. Her guts were on the ceiling! How does it even get on the ceiling?"
"Mitchell didn't do it did he?"
"Of course not!" she looked furiously at the American ghost and Sally just made a 'don't blame me for asking' face. "It was someone else. It was someone who wants to hurt Mitchell."
"You can't be sure of that. The home is situated in a vampire popular place in town," Aiden reached for his cell phone anyway. "Maybe someone desperate saw a tethered girl as easy dinner. There isn't a reason I can think of that Mitchell would be treated as anything less than an asset by the Family."
"You don't know that! Mitchell was sent here by his superiors on orders to assassinate someone!"
"What?" Aiden recoiled at the very thought, "who was he suppose to kill?"
"I don't know," Annie cried.
"Mother?" The other vampire was letting the urgency blast through his voice.
"I don't know," Annie repeated.
"Janssen?"
"I don't know!"
"Won't you leave her alone," George cut in loudly enough to be heard over the inquisition, and Josh helped him to a sitting position. "Annie, look we don't know what happened in the house after we left. For all we know, someone did break in and tear up that poor girl. But that also means we don't have any reason to think Mitchell is in immediate danger. Maybe he went back to the hotel to tell the Mother."
"Mitchell—" she started, worry laced in her whine.
"He's lived longer than either of us have, Annie. He can take care of himself for a little while."
"Look, that's all well and good and I know he is your friend and everything, but if he's planning on murdering someone in the Family, I do kind of need to know."
"Why do you need to know?" Annie snapped. Aiden didn't like the conversation any more than she did. He had to ensure Mother's confidence or the already tremulous peace-grounds that he protects Sally and Josh in would threaten to collapse. Mother's expectations of him were the only thing keeping Josh alive, and Sally out of purgatory. One more trip to the waiting room and she may not come back as Sally. Aiden didn't even want to think of what could happen to Josh if he disappointed the Family again.
"It is my duty to know," Aiden had meant to raise his voice, but dropping his fangs and filling up his eyes was half involuntary. "I can't protect any of you if insist on hiding the dangers from me."
"It's not you he wants to kill."
"Then who?" Realizing that retort was sharp and rude and not helping the matter any, Aiden made a conscious effort to take a deep breath and slow his speech, "If he is going to be going up against any of the Vampires from the Dutch or the Old Ones, Mitchell will be completely outclassed. Mother herself could pull out his heart before he even saw her coming."
"This is true, we've seen how a fight between them would end already," Josh received a glare from Sally at the mention of that memory. He realized that it may have been a bit insensitive to say that to his friends. "If we can talk him out of it…" he trailed off quietly.
"I'll call Henry and see if anyone went back to the hotel," and Aiden turned away to dial on his cell phone. Something Sally and Josh suspected was what he wanted to do before the whole thing got this far out of hand.
"Who would have the clout to hire a vampire like Mitchell?" Josh asked, once Aiden had started speaking to his phone.
"I don't know him personally, but Mitchell calls him Snow," Annie looked miserable and spent. "Snow wants someone on the council. Mitchell didn't tell us the details, but I overheard him on the phone. It was just another vampire to me; I don't remember who he asked for."
"Isn't Snow the on Old Ones' chair this century?" Josh asked, "He's the one that Aiden had been preparing hospitality for all month. I thought he and the Family were friends."
Sally shrugged, "I guess not."
They all turned when Aiden shuffled quickly back in grabbing his navy blue sweater from where it draped over the stair railings. He said 'Okay, be there in a minute. Thanks Henry.' Then to the room at large, "There's a problem at the hotel."
"A 'problem'?" echoed Josh, suspiciously
"The Emissary Snow and his vampire familiar are already in town. What makes matters worse, someone tore through the groundkeeper's estate. It was a massacre: we lost a few new-blood and one of the senior security members."
"Ooh," Sally flushed a bit of a guilty color, "That may have been us!"
"You?" Aiden fought back a swear word, and just said, "It was those 'wolfs from the reserves, wasn't it? Okay, well either way I must go there now. If Mr. Snow is at the hotel, its likely Mitchell, as his fore-runner, is there with him."
"I'm going with you," Annie insisted, she materialized before Aiden and he staggered trying not to hit her as he reached his front door.
"Just be quiet, okay?" then the vampire searched his pockets for his keys. "And stay out of sight if you can help it. Mother's almost always a little more heartless during the day."
"I can be quiet," Annie pouted, insulted that she had to be shushed like a little child. She found, however, after fifteen minutes in the car with the stoic vampire, that being quiet would be quite the challenge.
Aiden's vampire associate, Henry, was waiting for Aiden when they pulled into the hotel's parking lot. He gave the ghost a quick once over, thought to say something then decided to simply ignore Annie. Annie didn't ignore him though; he was a stunning looking man, though Annie wasn't sure if she would have used the word 'attractive' if she had just glanced at him. He had the same dark mysterious aura that almost all vampires carried and he had that allure that made him both menacing and inviting. But like all still blood vampires, he looked like a creature too good to be true and therein lay his only note of repulsion, that slightly crawling feeling that a man like him could not be human.
"Snow was not here during the attack. But Hettie overheard it. She's in a state of bloodlust."
"She's insatiable," groaned Aiden.
"Who is Hettie?" Annie leaped a bit to catch their attention.
"Snow's familiar. She's also a member of the Old Ones. And she's as bloodthirsty as the lot of them. I've had to entertain her two or three times in the last century. It's never enjoyable. And clean up is a bitch. Just be glad you guys didn't run into her on your way out."
"You were at the hotel earlier?" the vampire named Henry asked.
"Don't ask any more," cautioned Aiden. His offspring just looked at him unhappily. "Where is Hettie?"
"Ballroom," and from the way the young doctor said it, Aiden understood she was feeding.
"Milo?"
"Not with them."
"Good. That is one less hassle to deal with. Have you seen the vampire Mitchell?"
"The chew-toy?" Henry made the unusual reference to an insensitive nick name, "He's actually on his way here. Snow's driver just radioed in saying Snow and Mitchell were on I-93. They should be arriving any minute now."
"Okay. Help me hide this one," he signalled to Annie and she protested, "And I'll deal with the Hettie."
"But I—" 'want to speak to Mitchell,' was what Annie had meant to say. But Aiden, in an unveiled rush, cut her off swiftly.
"You can see Mitchell after you confirm he's safe with Mr. Snow. Then before you speak to him, go back to the house and tell your werewolf friend that your boyfriend is safe."
"He's not my boyfriend…" But she blushed and nodded obediently when Aiden gave her a very stern and unpleasant look. "But I'm coming right back."
Aiden sighed, "I don't expect any less of you."
So Annie hid herself from sight and watched by Henry's shoulder as the black Chrysler ground to a stop in front of the big sign in front of the premise that read 'Boston Halloway Hotel'. She sighed in relief when she saw Mitchell crawl out of the driver-side passenger seat and look loathingly at the hotel's large tracery windows. She waited long enough to confirm it was her vampire that Aiden approached, Mitchell's gait familiar and distinct to her. And in her hurry, she flew off back to the Haunt before she saw the seething anger in her housemate's eyes when he smelled George off of Aiden's clothes.