The Pilgrims of the Damned: A Vampire Thriller, page 3
Church licked Miles’s hand and walked around the table, getting her needed attention from everyone she knew, before stopping at First Lord Fuller.
“Magnificent,” he said, getting a lick on the face for his compliment, which made him laugh. It was a deep, throaty noise, full of genuine joy.
Church barked and moved on to Thomas, who gingerly patted her once on the head. Church looked back over at Miles with an expression of contempt, and walked out of the room.
When all of the drinks were made, Miles found a selection box of Scottish shortbread and placed it between his guests. He took a chocolate chip one for himself and dunked it in his tea before taking a bite.
“I should have brought lebkuchen,” First Lord Fuller said, taking a bite of shortbread. “I could have left you with a gift for having us.”
Miles got up and opened a nearby cupboard, removing a bag of the German gingerbread, and put them on the table to the obvious joy of the First Lord.
“A man of refined taste,” First Lord Fuller said, taking one of the small gingerbreads and popping it whole into his mouth. “Delicious.”
“No offence, but you didn’t all come here to talk to me about sweet treats,” Miles said. “I assume there’s a point to this meeting beyond an appreciation of Scottish and German baked goods.”
First Lord Fuller, his mouth full of more of said baked goods, motioned to anyone else to start.
“Miles,” Justice Balderas said, “we know that you’re taking time away from your role as an Arbiter. We all understand that.”
“But?” Miles asked.
“But we need your help,” First Lord Fuller said after swallowing his mouthful of shortbread.
“Okay, which one of you needs my help?” Miles asked.
“Both of us,” Drest said, motioning to himself and First Lord Fuller.
“Oh,” Miles said.
“I’m here, along with Thomas,” Charlotte said. “As seconds to our First Lords. Just to ensure that there are witnesses to this meeting.”
“And you?” Miles asked Justice Balderas.
“I’m here for the shortbread and tea,” he said with a grin. “Also, First Lord Fuller asked me who would be best for him to talk to regarding this matter, and I suggested you.”
“Thanks,” Miles said, with a hint of sarcasm. “Appreciate it.”
Justice Balderas and Drest both tried to hide their smirks, and did a terrible job of it.
“Is that how you talk about a First Lord?” Thomas asked with shock. “With so little respect that your name was put forward?”
“I could talk to him how I speak to Drest, if you’d like,” Miles told him with a smirk.
“I don’t think that would help things along,” Drest said quickly as Charlotte stifled a laugh.
“Okay, just tell me,” Miles said.
“It will take some explaining,” First Lord Fuller said.
“And yours?” Miles asked Drest.
“Oh, that’s definitely going to take explaining,” Drest said. “But as they’re both in the same place and involve the same thing, I’ll let First Lord Fuller go first.”
Miles knocked back his tea, got to his feet, opened a cupboard, and withdrew a glass tumbler and bottle of fifteen-year-old Dalmore whisky. He poured himself a large measure and drank it back in one swallow. He poured a second, similar-sized measure, removed four glasses from the cupboard, and took the glasses and bottle back over to the table, placing the latter in the centre.
“What do you know about the pilgrimage?” First Lord Fuller asked.
Miles barely stopped himself from knocking back his second whisky and pouring a third. He looked over at Drest, who had already poured himself his first whisky, and sighed. “Which one?”
“Maine,” First Lord Fuller said. “You start at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and you walk through to Kittery, Maine. From there, you pass through the Walls of Maine, to Brunswick, and then up to Bangor, where you pay your respects to the first great towns to have been destroyed.”
Kittery was the start of the Walls of Maine. It was a town that had once been a part of the state of Maine and was now one of several neutral cities—those along the border of New Hampshire or Canada that were now mostly full of military personnel. Kittery was one of only a handful of towns that was left untouched during the trouble that happened there back in the 1980s. Trouble that was still a sore spot for a lot of people, both human and vampire. The Walls of Maine started from close to Seaport Beach, and went straight up to South Berwick, before continuing north, skirting the border of New Hampshire, before reaching Canada and going east, doing the same thing. The Wall itself wasn’t always a physical thing, with large parts of it being patrolled by guards—both human and vampire—but there was no way to get into what remained of Maine without someone noticing. In theory, anyway.
“If I remember correctly,” Miles said. “Some of your more… senior members continue on to Blue Hill, the epicentre of what happened back then. The latter is a symbolic journey for the most part, although you do make sure to kill as many desolate as you find on the way. That sum it up?”
First Lord Fuller nodded. “Although you have missed out several of the more religious aspects of the pilgrimage. And also, why we do it?”
“It’s a rite of passage for House Idolator members,” Miles said. “And you also spend time in the various villages that still exist, providing help to those who need it. The whole trek to Blue Hill to carve your name on one of the wooden posts in the village there isn’t my cup of tea, but the rest of it does actually help people, so I get it.”
“You think that’s all we do in Blue Hill?” Thomas asked, a little too tersely for Miles’s liking.
“Oh, that’s right, you talk to the First Priest of House Idolator,” Miles said, deciding to ignore the tone of the First Authority. “A position that isn’t in any other House, and was created after what happened. Let me see if I’ve got this right—it’s mostly symbolic in regard to actual power within the House. A new priest is selected every few pilgrimages. They’re expected to stay there and help, to commune with those who came before, so to speak. Those who do it usually come back and take up an advisory role within the House. I think you’re on your fourth priest, but I could be wrong about that.”
“Fifth,” First Lord Fuller corrected. “Otherwise, that’s spot on. Although the current First Priest, Pedro de Moxica, was actually in Maine for decades before the fall. Left a few months before it happened, thankfully. He has waited a long time for his chance to return and do good there.”
“Fortunate timing on his part,” Miles said.
“Sometimes fortune favours us. Since the fall, we do the pilgrimage every few years but only change the priest when necessary. This will be our twenty-eighth time performing the pilgrimage since the Maine incident happened in 1984. Our first pilgrimage was sent in 1986, when the incident had only just been dealt with. When the walls surrounding the state of Maine and parts of New Brunswick were still being built. We go there to help those who could not leave, or refused to. You know that there are several flourishing towns still within the area of Maine, as it currently stands. Thousands of people—mostly vampires—still live there. Most who remained behind refused to leave. They either want to put things right, or they consider it their home and won’t have the Assembly or US government tell them otherwise. They are self-sustaining, but they still need aid, people to come in and help as needed. That is why we do what we do.”
After the desolate outbreak in Maine, and subsequent fall of the state, the US government had been advised by humans within it to nuke the whole place and call it a day. Thankfully that hadn’t happened—in part because the humans in charge had realised that nuking your own countrymen during an election year is a terrible idea, but also because a deal had been struck between the humans and the Assembly. The vampires stayed in Maine, it was walled off—New Brunswick, too—and it was up to those who remained to keep the place safe. Over forty years later, the area still wasn’t what Miles would have called safe, and the human politicians usually ignored its existence, but it wasn’t a radioactive wasteland, so most people considered it a stalemate, if not a win. And sometimes, you take what you can get and make it work.
“And what does any of that have to do with me?” Miles asked, already dreading the answer.
“Allow me to show you,” First Lord Fuller said, motioning for Thomas, who removed his phone and sent a message.
A few seconds later, the front door of Miles’s house opened, and a voice called out, “Hello?”
“In here,” First Lord Fuller called out.
Miles listened to the footsteps as the newcomer walked through the house to the kitchen, until she stepped into the room itself. She was a little under five and a half feet tall, with shoulder-length light brown hair that was tied back in a ponytail. She had pale skin and a tattoo of a snake around the forearm of her right arm. Her left arm had several tattoos from various pop culture icons, and Miles noticed both the Wonder Woman and Batman logos among their number. There were several piercings in each ear, and as she stood in the mouth of the kitchen in her jeans and black hoodie, with a pale brown leather satchel over one shoulder, she gave the impression of someone who wanted to be elsewhere.
“Whisky?” Miles asked, raising the bottle.
“Oh God, yes,” she said, walking over to the table, where Miles poured a measure into one of the still unused glasses.
“Miles Watson,” he said, offering his hand as she picked up the glass and took a drink.
“Amelia Roberts,” she said, her accent placing her from somewhere in Yorkshire.
“Amelia here is from York,” First Lord Fuller said. “Although she lives in Liverpool.”
Amelia nodded and sipped more of her whisky as Drest stood and motioned for her to take a seat.
Liverpool was a vampire-controlled city and had been for centuries. A lot of large port towns the world over had vampire control, at least in part.
“Thank you,” Amelia said.
“And why are you here, Amelia?” Miles asked. “You’re human, which I definitely wasn’t expecting, so I’m genuinely interested.”
“Are you the Arbiter?” Amelia asked.
Miles nodded.
She offered her hand for Miles to shake. “I’m a reporter for the Independent.”
Chapter Three
Miles ignored Amelia’s hand. Instead, he frowned. “Whatever this is, the answer is no.”
Amelia retracted her hand.
“Miles,” Drest said warningly. “It’s important.”
“A human reporter usually means something bad,” Miles pointed out. “No offence meant.”
“A little offence taken,” Amelia said with a shrug. “I don’t know what you’ve dealt with in the past, but I’m not here to cause trouble, or do some stupid hit piece on vampires. There are enough idiots doing those already.”
The amount of venom she placed in that last sentence made Miles believe that she was telling the truth. At least inasmuch as her not liking the hacks whose job it was to do little more than stir up old fears and give those who already hate something to shake their fists at with impotent rage.
“Okay,” Miles said, raising his hands in surrender. “Let’s start again. Apologies. You’re a journalist, you’re here to do a story on vampires. I assume you want me to take you to Maine.”
“I want to do a story showing that vampires and humans still live together, in harmony, inside Maine,” Amelia explained. “I went to Lord Drest to pitch the story and ask for help in gaining entry to Maine, in a safe way that doesn’t interfere with the people living there. It’s not a huge surprise that a lot of vampires distrust human journalists. Sadly, they have a long and storied history of writing nonsense to make people afraid. Unfortunately, fear sells. He suggested I talk to the Assembly, and Justice Balderas put me in contact with Lord Fuller.
“First Lord Fuller was very helpful and suggested we go along with one of the pilgrimages, which is due to take place in a few days. Lord Drest, who was present at the meeting, put forward the idea of sending a bodyguard in with me. Someone who could protect the pilgrimage and knows how to survive in a hostile environment.”
“Me,” Miles said.
“Yes,” Amelia said.
“Okay, I have questions,” Miles said, looking over at Drest. “One, why me? There are hundreds of vampires who could do this.”
“I trust you,” Drest answered. “Justice Balderas trusts you, and we know that no matter what happens, you will do all you can to keep Amelia safe.”
“Okay,” Miles said, certain there was more to it, but wanting to move the conversation on. He looked back to Amelia. “How’d you get in contact with Drest?”
“I know someone who works within House Venator,” Amelia said. “He’s a friend of mine, and he kindly told me he could help.”
Miles looked over at Drest for confirmation.
“True,” Drest said. “Her friend has been a member of Halime’s group for several years now. Good guy, good soldier, and trustworthy. Besides, I’m always looking for positive vampire PR, and Amelia had a good story. It’s not like you’re currently doing anything.”
“So this isn’t Assembly official?” Miles asked Justice Balderas.
“Nope.” He shook his head. “If I asked you to go in on official business, we’d have to involve a handler, and honestly, the fewer people in the Assembly who know everything, the better. Doing it that way might alert others in the Assembly who might have opinions on sending an Arbiter to Maine, and right now that wouldn’t be helpful.”
“I didn’t realise that Maine was such a hotbed of issues at the moment,” Miles said.
The Justice sighed. “The Magistrate are making it one.”
The Magistrate were a group in the US who were officially meant to investigate vampire-on-human crimes, and work alongside the Assembly to ensure that everyone was safe. Unofficially, they wanted to hunt and exterminate vampires out of a combination of hate and fear. The Magistrate were backed by billionaires and politicians, and like all hate groups, preyed on the stupid, the gullible, the angry, and the easily afraid to bolster their numbers.
“How?” Miles asked.
“They’re lobbying to have Magistrate forces sent into Maine to carry out… inspections,” Drest said grimly. “They suggest that vampire numbers linked to the Assembly are increasing in Maine, and that they’re building an army of our kind. It was decided to keep Assembly numbers to a minimum.”
“Are you?” Miles asked. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“No,” Justice Balderas said. “But for now, the Assembly has agreed to step back from Maine while this is all dealt with. The likelihood is nothing will happen. The Magistrate are just shouting the loudest in an effort to stir up trouble, but after what happened in Seattle—which was no fault of your own—we are erring on the side of caution.”
The Seattle Magistrate branch had been shown up for what they really were, and the subsequent investigation had proved them to be a well-funded law unto themselves, who were quite happy to kill vampires should they get the chance. And weren’t averse to murdering humans if it meant using those murders to further their own bigotry.
Public perception of the Magistrate had shifted after that, and more pro-vampire groups had started to gain traction in the Congress and Senate, exposing those corrupt members who accepted donations from the billionaire founders of the group.
Membership in the Magistrate had plummeted since, but those who remained were ardent supporters, extremists who wouldn’t listen to the possibility that they were in the wrong. It made a lot of remaining members dangerous, but they were small in number so overall, the vampire community took the win. There was a long way to go, but it felt as though the US was turning a corner in human-vampire relations.
Miles stared at the Justice for a moment before he said, “Right, so what else is going on? Am I being asked to go because there’s Magistrate shittery afoot? No offence, but House Idolator could keep an eye on Amelia.”
Everyone else at the table had the good grace to look uncomfortable.
First Lord Fuller got to his feet. “I asked them to tell you about the pilgrimage first,” he said.
“I told you we should have just laid the cards out on the table,” Drest said to First Lord Fuller.
“Yes, well, officially, I’m not meant to be involved in this bit,” First Lord Fuller explained. “So, I thought I’d just stay here for the pilgrimage part. The rest of it is something you all need to discuss.”
“What are you getting out of it?” Miles asked him. “You didn’t agree to be a cover story for no reason. None of this is ever getting out to the wider public, so I may as well know now.”
“House Idolator gets to put forward a proposal at the next meeting of the Houses,” First Lord Fuller said. “A new settlement in Maine. North of Brunswick. Using Assembly and House personnel. Currently we have to keep to the coast, go from Kittery to Portland, to Brunswick, Rockland, and up to Bangor. It’s a long, but ultimately a relatively safe, route which we have done many times. We want to clear out Augusta and Waterville and make an alternative, and much faster, route to Bangor.”
“Waterville isn’t there anymore,” Miles said. “It was firebombed because there wasn’t a single living soul in the city by the time the desolate turned up. There’s nothing left but several hundred craters, and the remains of buildings that are still full of any desolate that managed to survive. Augusta isn’t much better, it was just never firebombed. Mostly because by the time they flew to Waterville, the military discovered that electronics don’t work in Maine when at low altitude, and they lost several aircraft as they tried to fly home.”
“I never said it would be easy,” First Lord Fuller said. “But it can be done.”
“The start of reclaiming the state of Maine,” Miles said. “I did wonder how long it would be.”
“The state has a lot of work that needs to be done,” First Lord Fuller explained. “When were you last in Maine?”
