Dead Matter

27

After a half hour of wandering, the distant promise of electric lighting became apparent and the Shadower team headed me toward it. Without too much manhandling, they escorted me back upstairs and took me to one of the rarely used rooms up on the second floor that looked a bit like a professorial lecture hall. I was forced to sit down in the first row with one Shadower on either side of me and two directly behind me.

“Isn’t this a little overkill?” I asked. “I’m not going to run.”

None of my guards responded. Time passed in silence for quite a while before I heard the door at the back of the tiny lecture hall open, and voices approached. Dozens of members from various divisions of the Department crammed into the space, filling the seats and lining the walls. Director Wesker came in with Jane trailing behind. I gave her a weak, weary smile, and even though she smiled back, she looked nervous for me.

The two of them sat together in a section off to my far left. Last in the room were the thirteen members of the Enchancellors, with my accuser, Allorah, coming down the stairs last and remaining standing while the others seated themselves at a long table along the front. As Allorah waited for the room to settle, Inspectre Quimbley entered and moved down to my row, taking the one empty seat two people to my left.

Another of the female Enchancellors, this one much older than Allorah, cleared her throat and the room went silent.

“Due to the specific nature of this inquiry, we are deferring to Enchancellor Daniels, given her knowledge of vampiric lore and taxonomy.”

Allorah nodded to her, then turned to address the assembly. “I have conferred with the rest of the Enchancellors on what I have seen this evening,” she said, her face solemn as she raised her voice, “and we are meeting on the grounds that a member of Other Division stands accused of treason.”

The assembled crowd let out a dull murmur, and I felt the eyes of everyone in the room focus on me. I felt my face go flush and all I wanted was to sink into my seat until no one could see me.

“Will the accused please rise?” Allorah said, not even bothering to look at me.

I stood, despite a weakness in my knees and the sudden racing of my heart. Allorah stepped toward me.

“What say you?” she asked.

“I don’t wish to offend any of the Enchancellors,” I said, “but ‘what say you’? Are we at the Salem witch trials here?”

“Salem is not in our jurisdiction,” Allorah answered, humorless. “But I take it your willful betrayal of the trust of this Department strikes you as humorous?”

“Not at all,” I said, sobering. “What strikes me funny is the tone of these accusations.”

“Did you or did you not willfully invite a vampire into this building?” Allorah said, her voice rising in anger.

I took a deep breath to keep my cool. “I did,” I said, drawing another murmur from the crowd.

“A known enemy of this Department,” she continued. “A creature of the night who, I might add, is also a known enemy of the Fraternal Order of Goodness, of which you are a part.”

Inspectre Quimbley stood up. “In the boy’s defense, Allorah, I saw no aggression from this creature when the boy brought it to my office.”

Allorah ignored him, her eyes still focused on me.

“You are aware of the sign hanging high on the wall overlooking the main section of the office floor, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Would you kindly tell the assembled Enchancellors what it says?”

The blood in my veins started to race. I was losing patience with this whole affair.

“It numbers the days since our last vampiric incursion,” I said, very slow and pointed. “I believe it’s almost at eight hundred now.”

“Until today,” she said. “Yes. It was.” She turned away from me and walked down the line of seated Enchancellors. “Mr. Canderous here has had his issues with that sign before, calling in a false vampire alarm a few months back, if you will recall. Tell me, Mr. Canderous, did you think we put that sign up there just for fun, or do you think maybe we had a reason for doing it? Like maybe the fact that vampires are considered a threat in New York City, one that must be eradicated.”

I felt myself getting defensive, especially with what I knew about Allorah. “Given your personal history with this cause, Allorah, I feel I must warn the Enchancellors that perhaps your judgment is clouded on this matter.”

Allorah’s eyes widened. “Oh, really? Do you now equate experience with poor judgment?”

“When it is a deeply personal matter, yes.”

“Mr. Canderous,” the other female Enchancellor who had addressed the crowd said, “I think there is little doubt in the minds of our assembly that vampires are considered a threat in New York City.”

I sighed. “That seems the current, if erroneous, impression that the Department has, yes.”

Allorah walked over to me, livid. “And who do you think you are to dictate contrary policy to the governing board of this Department?”

I actually laughed out loud at this. “Man, when an Enchancellor is pissed off, it doesn’t take you long to get all motivated, does it?”

Allorah narrowed her eyes at me. “Would you care to explain that?”

“Yeah,” I said, standing. “I think I would. How long did it take you to pull together this little tribunal? A half an hour… tops? When Connor and I called ‘vampires’ on that case a few months back…”

Wesker spoke up from his seat next to Jane off in the general gallery. “You mean the one that turned out not to be vampires?”

“That’s not the point!” I shouted back at him.

“I do hope you are getting to one, Mr. Canderous,” Allorah said. She pointed at Thaddeus Wesker. “I’ll see to the questions, Director Wesker. One more outburst and you will be removed.”

Wesker’s eyes looked like they could burn a hole into the female Enchancellor, but he kept his mouth shut and remained quiet.

“My point is this,” I said, wanting to regain control. “When we called vampires back then, the entire Enchancellorship came to a grinding halt while it hemmed and hawed its way into action. The red tape you people generate around here is astounding. People could have been dying out there, and until you had a meeting, formed a committee to explore the threat, then followed it up with another meeting and a special subcommittee was formed, they’d still be dying.”

“Young man,” one of the older male Enchancellors said, speaking up, “we have protocols in place for a reason.”

“Is that reason ‘to have more dead people lying around’?”

“Need I remind you,” Allorah said, “we’re not the ones who brought a vampire into our midst…?”

“I was trying to help the situation,” I said, “believe it or not.” I turned and looked at the crowd. “We live in extraordinary times, ladies and gentlemen. We’re not the Department of Affairs now, are we? No. We’re the Department of Extraordinary Affairs. That means we all need to be thinking outside of the box on a regular basis. Maybe you’ve all forgotten that. The vampire menace of the past you all fear? That’s exactly what it is… in the past. They’re evolving, changing… They want peace, and last I checked, so did we.”

“They?” Allorah asked. “You’re saying you know more than one vampire?”

I shut my mouth, unwilling to give away more than I knew.

After a moment, Allorah spoke up again. “Your silence tells me all I need to know. So… you’ve put your trust in vampires now, have you?” Allorah scoffed. “You take them at their word!”

The rest of the Enchancellors looked around, skepticism etched on their faces.

Allorah shook her head, her eyes cold. “It is not the policy of this department to negotiate with the living dead.”

“Do you want the blood of this city on your hands?” I asked. “Is that really what you want?”

“They’re the ones who shed blood,” she countered. “Or rather, drink it.” She reached down and pulled out her necklace, showing me the amulet again. “That is an indisputable fact. You’ve seen it using your own power. Now, tell us where to find them.”

I paused and sat back down. “I can’t do that,” I said.

“Can’t?” she repeated. “Or won’t?”

“Won’t, if you have to put a point on it,” I said. “Look. What you want, I can’t give. I’m not going to be responsible for either side going off half-cocked and getting a lot of good people killed.”

I felt the Inspectre’s hand on my arm as he stood up and reached over to me. “That’s the problem, my boy,” he said. “They’re not people.” His eyes were sad. The old man looked tired. “Just tell them what they want to know. This is a very serious offense you’ve committed. They’ll go easier on you.”

“Inspectre,” I said, “I can’t.” My stomach was balled into a painful knot and I felt like I wanted to throw up. My brain was going in two different directions. “I can’t do that… to either side. If the Enchancellors would just listen to reason…”

“Reason?” Allorah exploded. “How long have you been in the field? Maybe a year…? And you want to tell me what’s reasonable…”

I looked to Jane off in the crowd, my eyes begging her for some kind of guidance. Should I? I wanted to ask. Jane shook her head and her eyes were full of understanding.

I turned back to Allorah. “I understand what you’ve been through,” I said, “but I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

One of the other Enchancellors spoke up, a senior member of Greater & Lesser Arcana. “Son, what makes them so special that you feel so strongly about protecting them?”

“Well,” I said, knowing how bad it would sound, “they kind of see me as their savior. It’s some sort of prophecy in one of their books…”

Allorah laughed out loud. “So you’re the Chosen One now, are you? Somebody has a superiority complex. Chosen Ones, prophecies… I’ve heard it all before. It’s the stuff of fiction.”

“That may be,” I said, “but that doesn’t change where I stand. Look, just because something is prophetic or religious or what have you doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea whether you believe in it or not. Take the Ten Commandments, for instance. Thou shalt not kill. Seems a pretty good rule to live by, if you can help it, no matter what your belief system is. Do I really think I’m a savior? Right now, I don’t seem to be doing so hot on that account, but I do know this… If I let you know where those vampires are, especially you, Allorah… this city will be a graveyard. I can’t allow that.”

Allorah took in a deep breath. “Then you’ve made your choice… and I’ve made mine.” She looked at the four Shadowers guarding me. “Take him out of here.”

The four men lifted me up, a little rougher than before, their hands digging into my arms as they pulled me up the stairs leading toward the back of the room.

“Inspectre…?” I said, trying to turn around. The Inspectre was on his feet and crossing to Allorah.

The crowd was in an uproar now. Whether they were for me or against me, I wasn’t sure, but from the way I was being manhandled, I had an idea.

“For goodness’ sake,” the Inspectre shouted. “Allorah, where are they going with him?”

“For goodness’ sake, Argyle?” I heard her say. “Goodness has nothing to do with him. He’s chosen his stance. There’s nothing for him but pain and misery. And Thaniel Graydon will hold him just fine while we decide what to do.”

My heart sank at the mention of that name. The Thaniel Graydon Center, the floating prison barge named for the F.O.G. agent who brought down the necromantic Benjamin Franklin centuries ago. Some of the more bizarre and paranormal offenders in New York were kept out there. Just the idea of being held at the floating prison made me weak in the knees. Still, given the alternative of starting a major bloodbath in the streets of New York? I could live with it. That was, if I could live through my stay there.