And if that were not enough, there were also all the great vampires buried there. It was a living mausoleum, the perfect place for Kyle and his kind to call home.
As Kyle ascended the steps, it felt like a homecoming. He walked right up to the enormous iron double front doors, slammed the metal knocker four times – the vampire signal – and waited.
Moments later, the heavy doors slid open just a few inches, and Kyle saw an unfamiliar face. The door opened wider, just enough to let Kyle in, and then was slammed quickly behind him.
The massive guard, even larger than Kyle, looked down.
“They are expecting you?” he asked warily.
“No.”
Kyle, ignoring the guard, took several steps towards the chamber, when suddenly, he felt a cold, icy grip on his arm and stopped. Kyle fumed, burning with rage.
The vampire guard stared down at him with equal rage.
“No one enters without an appointment,” he snapped. “You’re going to have to leave and come back another time.”
“I enter anywhere I choose,” Kyle seethed back. “And if you don’t remove your hand from my wrist, you’re going to suffer greatly.”
The guard stared back, and they were in a deadlock.
“I see that some things never change,” came a voice. “It’s okay, you can let him go.”
Kyle felt the grip release, and turned and saw a familiar face: it was Lore, one of the chief advisers to the Council. He stood there, staring at Kyle, smiling, slowly shaking his head.
“Kyle,” he said, “I never thought I’d see you again.”
Kyle, still fuming from the guard, straightened his jacket and slowly nodded. “I have business with the Council,” he said. “It can’t wait.”
“I’m sorry, old friend,” Lore continued, “it’s a full agenda for today. Some of them have been waiting for months. Pressing vampire business in every corner of the world, it seems. But if you come back next week, I think I might be able to accommodate – ”
Kyle stepped forward. “You don’t understand,” he said tensely, “I didn’t come from this time. I came from the future. Two hundred years into the future. From a vastly different world. The final judgment has arrived. We are on the brink of victory – total victory. And if I don’t see them right away, there will be grave consequences for us all.”
As Lore stared back, his smile dropped, as he realized the seriousness; finally, after several tense moments, he cleared his throat. “Follow me.”
He turned and strode off, and Kyle followed closely on his heels.
Kyle passed down a long, wide corridor, and within moments, he entered the huge, open chamber. It was immense, wide open, with a soaring, circular ceiling and a marble, shining floor. The room was shaped in a circle, and its periphery was filled with ornate columns and statues looking down on the room, mounted on pedestals.
Standing along the periphery of the room were hundreds of vampires, of every possible race and creed. Kyle knew that these were mostly mercenaries, all as evil as he. They all watched patiently as the Grand Council, on the far side of the room, sat behind their bench and doled out judgment. He felt the electricity in the room.
Kyle walked in, taking it all in. Going to the Council was the right thing to do. He could have tried to ignore them, could have just hunted Caitlin down on his own, but the Council would have intelligence, be able to guide him to her more quickly. More importantly, he needed their official sanction. Finding Caitlin was not just a personal matter, but a matter of the utmost importance to the vampire race. If the Council endorsed him, and he felt sure that they would, he would not only have their sanction, but their resources. He could kill her quicker, and be home faster, ready to finish out his war.
Without their sanction, he would be just another rogue, mercenary vampire. Kyle had no issue with that, but he didn’t want to spend his time watching his back: if he acted without their sanction, they might send vampires out to kill him. He felt confident he could handle himself, but he didn’t want to have to waste his time and energy that way.
But if they rejected his demands, he was fully prepared to do whatever he had to to hunt her down.
It was ultimately just one more formality in an endless stream of vampire formalities. This etiquette was the glue that held them all together – but it also annoyed him to no end.
As Kyle walked deeper into the chamber, he looked at the Council. They were just as he remembered them. On the far side of the chamber, the 12 judges of the grand Council sat on a raised dais. They were dressed in stark, black robes, all wearing black hoods which covered their faces. Kyle nonetheless knew what these men were. He had faced them many times over the centuries. Once, and only once, had they pulled back their hoods, and had he actually seen their grotesque, aged faces, faces that had walked the planet for millions of years. He flinched at the memory. They were hideous creatures of the night.
Yet they were the Grand Council of his time, and they had always resided here, ever since the Pantheon was built. It was really a part of them, this building, and no one of his kind, not even Kyle, dared cross their judgment. Their powers were just too intense, and the resources at their fingertips too vast. Kyle could maybe get away with killing one or two of them, but the armies they could summon, from every corner of the world, would eventually hunt him down.
The hundreds of vampires in the room came to witness the Council’s judgments, and to await their audience. They always lined up neatly along the sides, stood at attention, in a huge circle, on the outskirts, leaving the center of the room entirely open. Save for one person. That was always the person who needed to stand before them in judgment.
Right now, it was some poor soul, standing by himself, trembling in fear as he stood across from them, staring at their inscrutable hoods, waiting for their judgment. Kyle had been in that spot before. It was not pleasant. If they did not like the matter with which you approached them, they might, on a whim, kill you on the spot. You never went before them lightly – it was always a matter of life and death.
“Wait here,” Lore whispered to Kyle, as he headed off into the crowd. Kyle stood on the periphery, watching.
As Kyle watched, a judge nodded, ever so slightly, and two vampire soldiers appeared from either side. Each grabbed one arm of the person facing the Council.
“No! NO!” he screamed.
But it didn’t do him any good. They dragged him away, as he screamed and struggled, knowing that he was being carried off to death, and knowing that nothing he said or did would do any good. He must have asked them for something they had not approved of, Kyle realized, as the vampire’s screams echoed throughout the chamber. Finally, a door opened, he was led outside, and the door slammed behind him. The room fell silent again.
Kyle could feel the tension in the air, as the other vampires looked at each other, dreading the moment of audience.
Kyle saw Lore approach an attendant, close to the Council, and whisper in his ear. The attendant, in turn, walked up to a judge, knelt down, and whispered in his ear.
The judge turned his head ever so slightly, and the man pointed, right to Kyle. Even from this great distance, Kyle could feel the judge’s eyes bore into him, hidden in his hood. Despite himself, Kyle felt a shiver. Finally, he was in the presence of true evil.
The attendant nodded, and that was Kyle’s cue.
Kyle pushed his way through the crowd, and walked right out to the center of the empty floor. He stood in the small circle in the center of the room – the spot. He knew that if he looked up, directly above his head would be the hole in the ceiling, the oculus, open to the sky. In the daytime, it allowed in a shaft of sunlight; now, at sunset, the light was filtered, and very weak. The room was lit mostly by torches.