"You thought right," Evanna said. "Our father had edged the world to a point where there were only two futures. When you killed Steveand sacrificed yourself, it opened up dozens of possible futures again. I could not have done it I would have broken the laws if I'd interfered but as a human, you were able to."
"So what's happened since I died?" I asked. "You said two years have passed. Did the vampires defeat the vampaneze and win the War of the Scars?"
"No," Evanna said, pursing her lips. "The war still rages. But an end is within sight an end very much not to our father's liking. Persuasive leaders are pushing for peace, Vancha and Harkat Mulds on the side of the vampires, Gannen Harst for the vampaneze. They are debating a treaty, discussing the guidelines by which both sides can live as one. Others fight against them there are many in both clans who do not wish for peace but the voices of reason are winning out."
"Then it worked!" I gasped. "If the vampires and vampaneze make peace, the world will be saved!"
"Perhaps," Evanna hummed. "It's not as clear-cut as that. Under Steve, the vampaneze made contact with human political and military leaders. They promised them long lives and power in exchange for their help. They wanted to create nuclear and chemical warfare, with the aim of bringing the world and its survivors under their direct control. That could still happen."
"Then we've got to stop it!" I shouted. "We can't let"
"Easy," Evanna hushed me. "We are trying to prevent it. That's why I am here. I cannot meddle too deeply in the affairs of mankind, but I can do more now than before, and your actions have convinced me that Ishould interfere. Hibernius and I always stayed neutral. We did not get involved in the affairs of mortals. Hibernius wished to, but I argued against it, afraid we might break the laws and free the monsters." She sighed. "I was wrong. It's necessary to take risks every now and then. Our father took a risk in his attempt to wreak havoc and I must now take one in an attempt to secure peace."
"What are you talking about?" I frowned.
"Mankind has been evolving," she said. "It has a destiny of its own, a growth towards something wonderful, which our father is intent on ruining. He used the vampires and vampaneze to throw mankind off course, to reduce the cities of the world to rubble, to drag humans back into the dark ages, so that he could control them again. But his plan failed. The clans of the night now seek to reunite and live separately from mankind, hidden, doing no harm, as they did in the past.
"Because the vampires and vampaneze have become part of the present, our father cannot unmake them. He could return to the past and create another race to combat them, but that would be difficult and time-consuming. Time, for once, is against him. If he cannot divide the clans within the next year or so, it is unlikely that he will be able to bring about the downfall of mankind which he craved. He might and no doubt will plot afresh in the future, and seek some other way to break them, but for the time being the world will be safe."
Evanna paused. Her hands were directed towards her face, illuminating her features. I'd never seen her look so thoughtful. "Do you remember the story of how I was created?" she asked.
"Of course," I said. "A vampire Corza Jarn wanted vampires to be able to have children. He pursued Mr Tiny until he agreed to grant him his wish, and by mixing Corza Jarn's blood with a pregnant she-wolf, and using his magic on her, he fathered you and Mr Tall."
"That was not his only reason for creating us," Evanna said, "but it was an important one. I can bear a vampire or a vampaneze's children, and they in turn could have children of their own. But any children of mine will be different from their fathers. They will have some of my powers not all and they'll be able to live by day. Sunlight won't kill them."
She looked at me intently. "A new breed of creature, an advanced race of vampire or vampaneze. If I gave birth to such children now, it would drive the clans apart. The warmongers of both sides would use the children to stir up new visions and violence. For instance, if I had a child by a vampire father, those vampires opposed to peace would hail the child as a saviour, and say he was sent to help them wipe out the vampaneze. Even if the wiser vampires prevailed, and talked down the troublemakers, the vampaneze would be afraid of the child and suspicious of the vampire clan's long-term plans. How could they discuss peace terms, knowing they were now inferior to vampires, for ever at risk?
"The War of the Scars promises to end because both sides see that it might go on for ever. When the Lord of the Vampaneze and the vampire hunters were active, everybody knew the war would have a destined end. Now that Steve and you are dead, it might never finish, and neither vampires nor vampaneze want that. So they're willing to talk about peace.
"But my children could change everything. With the renewed promise of victory either for the vampires or vampaneze, depending on which I chose to be the fathers of my young the war would continue. As my children grew and they'd grow quickly, since they'd be creatures of a certain amount of magic they'd be raised on hatred and fear. In time they'd become warriors and lead their clan to victory over the other and our father's plan would fall back into place, a little later than anticipated, but otherwise intact."
"Then you mustn't have them!" I exclaimed. "Mr Tiny can't make you, can he?"
"Not directly," she said. "He has threatened and bribed me ever since the night you and Steve died. But he does not have the power to force me to give birth."
"Then it's OK." I smiled weakly. "You won't have any children, and that will be that."
"Oh, but I will," Evanna said, and lowered her hands so that they shone on her stomach. "In fact, I'm pregnant already."
"What ?" I exploded. "But you just said"
"I know."
"But if you"
"I know."
"But"
"Darren!" she snapped. "I. Know."
"Then why do it?" I cried.
Evanna stopped to explain. As soon as she paused, the shapes in the walls began to press closer towards us, hissing and snarling, claws and tendrils extending, stretching the fabric of the rock. Evanna spotted this and strode forward again, speaking as she walked.
"I asked Desmond to free your spirit. Guilt drove you to the Lake of Souls, and would have kept you there eternally there is no natural escape from that Lake of the damned. But rescue is possible. Souls can be fished out. Knowing that you were my half-brother, I felt honour-bound to free you."
"What about Steve?" I asked. "He was your half-brother too."
"Steve deserves his imprisonment." Her eyes were hard. "I feel pity for him, since he was to some extent a victim of our father's meddling. But Steve's evil was primarily of his own making. He chose his path and now must suffer the consequences. But you tried to do good. It wasn't fair that you should rot in the Lake of Souls, so I pleaded with our father to help." She chuckled. "Needless to say, he refused.
"He came to me a few months ago," she continued. "He realized his plans were unravelling and he saw me as his only solution. He'd spent most of the time since your death trying to convince me to have children, with no more success than I'd had trying to get him to free you. But this time he took a fresh approach. He said we could help each other. If I had a child, he'd free your soul."
"You agreed to that?" I roared. "You sold out the world just to help me?"
"Of course not," she grunted.
"But you said you were pregnant."
"I am." She looked back at me and smiled shyly. "My first thought was to reject our father's offer. But then I saw a way to use it to our advantage. There is still no guarantee of a peaceful settlement between the vampires and vampaneze. It looks promising but is by no means certain. If talks break down, the war could continue, and that would play into our father's hands. He would have time to go back to the past and create a new leader, one who could pick up where Steve left off.
"I was thinking of this when Desmond put his suggestion to me. I recalled the way you tricked him, and wondered what you would do in my situation. Then, in a flash, I saw it.
"I accepted his proposal but told him I wasn't sure whether I wanted a vampire's child or a vampaneze's. He said it didn't matter. I asked if I could choose. He said yes. So I spent some time with Gannen Harst, then with Vancha March. When I returned to our father, I told him I had chosen and was pregnant. He was so delighted, he didn't even complain when I refused to reveal who the father was he just quickly arranged to send me here to free you, so that we could move forward without any further distractions."
She stopped talking and rubbed her stomach with her hands. She was still smiling that strange shy smile.
"So whose is it?" I asked. I didn't see what difference it made but I was curious to know the answer.
"Both," she said. "I am having twins one by Vancha, one by Gannen."
"A vampire childand a vampaneze child!" I cried, excited.
"More than that," Evanna said. "I have allowed the three blood lines to mix. Each child is one third vampire, one third vampaneze, and one third me. That's how I've tricked him. He thought any baby of mine would divide the clans, but instead they will pull them closer together. My children, when they are ready, will breed with other vampires and vampaneze, to give birth to a new, multi-race clan. All divisions will be erased and finally forgotten.
"We're going to create peace, Darren, in spite of our father. That's what you taught me we don't have to accept destiny,or Des Tiny. We can create our own future, all of us. We have the power to rule our lives we just have to make the choice to use it. You chose when you sacrificed your life. Now I've chosen too by giving life. Only time will tell what our choices lead to, but I'm sure that whatever future we help usher in, it has to be better than the one our father planned."
"Amen to that!" I muttered, then followed her silently down the tunnel, thinking of the future and all the surprises and twists it might hold. My head was buzzing with thoughts and ideas. I was having to take on board so much, so quickly, that I felt overwhelmed by it all, not sure what to make of everything. But there was one thing I was absolutely sure of when Mr Tiny found out about Evanna's babies, he'd all but explode with anger!
Thinking of that, and the nasty little meddler's face when he heard the news, I burst out laughing. Evanna laughed too, and the laughter stayed with us for ages, following us down the tunnel like a flock of chuckling birds, acting almost like a protective spell against the banks of walled-in, ever-moving, ever-reaching monsters.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
About an hour later the tunnel ended and we entered the home of Desmond Tiny. I'd never really thought of him having a home. I just assumed he wandered the world, always on the move, in search of bloodshed and chaos. But, now that I considered it, I realized every monster needs a den to call its own, and Mr Tiny's had to be the strangest of them all.
It was a huge and I mean HUGE cave, maybe a couple of miles or so wide, and stretching as far ahead as I could make out. Much of the cave was natural, stalagmites and stalactites, waterfalls, beautifully weird rock colours and formations. But much more of it was incrediblyun natural.
There were grand old cars from what I guessed must be the 1920s or 1930s floating in the air overhead. At first I thought they were attached to the ceiling by wires, but they were in constant motion, circling, crossing paths, even looping around like planes, and not a wire in sight.
There were mannequins all over the place, dressed in costumes from every century and continent, from a primitive loincloth to the most outrageous modern fashion accessories. Their blank eyes unsettled me I got the feeling that they were watching me, ready to spring to life at Mr Tiny's command and leap upon me.
There were works of art and sculpture, some so famous that even an art cretin like me recognized them theMona Lisa, The Thinker, The Last Supper . Mixed in with them, displayed like art exhibits, were dozens of brains preserved in glass cases. I read a few of the labels Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Mahler. (That one gave me a jump I'd gone to a school named after Mahler!)
"Our father loves music," Evanna whispered. "Where humans collect sheet music or gramophone records" She obviously hadn't heard about CDs yet! " he collects brains of composers. By touching them, he can listen to all the tunes they ever composed, along with many they never completed or shared with the world."
"But where does he get them from?" I asked.
"He travels to the past when they have just died and robs their graves," she said, as though it was the most casual thing in the world. I thought about questioning the right and wrong of something like that, but there were weightier issues to deal with, so I let it slide.
"He likes art too, I take it," I said, nodding at a flowery Van Gogh.
"Immensely," Evanna said. "These are all originals of course he doesn't bother with copies."
"Nonsense!" I snorted. "These can't be real. I've seen some of the real paintings. Mum and Dad" I still thought of my human Dad as my real father, and always would. " took me to see theMona Lisa in the Loo once."
"The Louvre," Evanna corrected me. "That is a copy. Some of our father's Little People are created from the souls of artists. They make perfect copies of pieces he especially admires. Then he slips back to the past and swaps the copy for the original. In most cases even the actual artist cannot tell the difference."
"You're telling me theMona Lisa in Paris is a fake?" I asked sceptically.
"Yes." Evanna laughed at my expression. "Our father is a selfish man. He always keeps the best for himself. What he wants, he takes and he normally wants the best of everything. Except books." Her voice became pointed, as it had earlier when she'd been talking about his attitude towards books. "Desmond never reads works of fiction. He doesn't collect books or pay any attention to authors. Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Tolstoy, Twain all have passed him by unmarked. He doesn't care what they have to say. He has nothing to do with the world of literature. It's as if it exists in a separate universe from his."