Luther walked away. He hated what had happened. He was used to coldness, rare feeding, years without the hunger. And when he fed he usually indulged in slow torture, protracted suffering, extracting all the terror possible. He loathed the coarseness of this new burning within him, felt soiled and disgusted by the bestiality of what it forced him to do.
The consolation, of course, was that he was less than
twenty hours away from forever eliminating useless humanity from the face of this beautiful world.
Michael could scarcely believe his senses as the octopus icon happily stuffed data packets into his bag. Of course; he relied on the HKB link to preserve the anonymity. The security was given to stopping anyone linked to the Azanian company. His registration here in Vienna was absolutely open. Bioenergetica Archival. Vienna address. Check it out in the public database.
He whipped through the dataline junctions and past the SAN, sleazing his way past as he so loved to do, racing onward, his analyze program plunging into the street directory. Now, let's get out and download, he thought, jacking out almost before he'd put the frame to work.
"That's a message forwarding number if ever I've seen one," he growled as the paper managed to make it out of the printer without being torn in half by his eager fingers. "It hardly matters, though. Here's our name. Luther von Hayek."
"Bingo," Serrin said. "The Regensburg name."
"What did your lady friend's friend give you on him?"
"Luther von Hayek, born seventeen November twenty-ten, son of Luther and Mathilde von Hayek in Miinchen, at a private medical clinic. Educated privately in Regensburg. His mother died in twenty-eleven."
"Very convenient, that," Michael commented.
"Father died in twenty twenty-eight. Luther Junior was privately educated by home tutors. No university education recorded. No existing photographs. Luther is believed to be elven, though any details of UGE or goblinization are lacking. Birth certificate doesn't record any metatype, but that isn't unusual, given the date. Interestingly, his birth certificate states that his father was born in Kralovice on 4.11.1956. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed all records there in twenty-twelve. Most convenient again, isn't it?"
"Where's Kralovice?" Michael asked. "Poland?"
"No. That's Katowice, isn't it? Our place is in the west of the Czech Republic. Just across the border."
"So, no records for Daddy then."
"No. Explains the name, though; it's Czech rather than German, except for that 'von.' Mind you, Julia's chum-mer has tabs on a Luther Hayek, citizen of Zvolen in Slovakia circa eighteen-ten. The most interesting thing about him is a privately published pamphlet, author one Jesuit of the parish if Jesuits have parishes accusing him of necromancy and vampirism. No firm evidence of a link. The name isn't that unusual. It could be just a coincidence."
"So why's she got our Luther down as a bloodsucker?" Michael asked. "I mean, it can't be common knowledge, that's for sure. I can't imagine the Marienbad Council has an entry in their local tax office saying, 'Make sure we get the full dollar from the vampire up the road next week'."
"Look, the woman who gave Julia this stuff needed a lot of calming down before she was willing to give it up. It also cost me a hefty cred transfer. And you should have seen how scared Julia looked to be passing it. Julia's contact asked her three times whether we had her name or ID. One time of telling her no wasn't enough," Serrin said. "That lady was definitely not lying." "I'll go along with that," the troll added. Michael looked at them and shrugged. "Look, she gave us the name. You confirmed it. It sounds like she did her homework properly," Serrin said. "And we know exactly where this Luther is?" "Owns a monastery outside of Schwandorf. Just up the road from Regensburg."
"So, we've got our man. Or our nosferatu, rather. Now we've got to analyze what we think we know." Michael took a deep breath and ruffled a wad of virginally white vellum, reaching for a pen. "Let's go through it one step at a time."
They mulled over all that had happened, every piece of the jigsaw they'd gathered together. It took less time than Michael would have expected. It was what they were going to do with it all that worried him. One possibility, especially, sent a chill of fear down his spine, "If this is the same guy amp; " Michael mused. "What do you mean?" Tom asked.
"I mean, what if there's only been one Luther all this time. From what little we have it looks like our modern-day Luther Junior was hardly ever seen private tutors, all that stuff. Sounds like it could be the same Luther."
"If he's a nosferatu, why not?" Serrin pondered.
"Well, if he really is an elf that must mean that he was born one. Back at the tail end of the nineteenth century, or even earlier, in Slovakia. It's possible, I gather; we know about spike births, but it would have required the mana at an incredible level for such an early birth. It's not going to be a picnic if his magician's talents reflect that fact."
They were silent for a moment or two.
It was Michael who broke the silence. "Now, exactly what did Magellan say about Luther's little surprise?" he asked Serrin.
"I can't remember the precise words. Something about it being in the genes. A permanent fix."
"So, not drugs then," Michael said. "A genetic fix. But how could that be done? He can't go around rewiring the DNA of every human being individually."
"There'd have to be some kind of vector," Serrin suggested.
Michael went white. He hadn't any background in molecular biology, but he'd helped Geraint with some of his work in it when they were at the university. Enough had rubbed off on him to know the language of the discipline.
"A virus. A retrovirus," Michael managed to say. "Works back into the DNA. He's got a viral fixer. Something that won't affect metatypes."
The printer chattered behind him as he was mulling all this over. He almost didn't bother to look, but, stymied in his thoughts, he ripped off the paper for something to do. His eyes widened as he read the text.
"Tracey's been busy. I should have checked her out earlier. Three more kidnappings of mages have been reported while we were running around the globe. One in Beijing, suspected gang involvement. One in Atlanta, suspected corporate involvement. One in Regensburg, motive unknown. Yesterday. Well, well."
"I'd say there's absolutely no doubt at all now," Serrin muttered.
"This Luther is getting hungrier. But that doesn't fit the nosferatu pattern," Michael said, having read through Serrin's scribbled notes on the undead. "They feed only rarely. The last six kidnappings that seem connected have occurred within a period of seven weeks. Why don't you call Julia and ask her to talk to her friend again and find out what that could mean?"
Serrin was back with a reply within minutes. "She says she's not a hundred percent sure, but that this would only happen if the nosferatu was storing, or using, a very high level of power. It would fit Luther, if he's burning the midnight oil over this research, if he's really consumed by it. Oh, and she says don't ask for anything else. She's disconnecting the line for now." Having seen Magellan's near-mania, Serrin thought this fit, and he said so to Michael. The Tir Tairngire elf was apparently not working for Luther, but the two shared a kind of madness that linked them somehow.
The Englishman nodded wearily. "So, what are we to do?"
"The authorities?" said Serrin hopefully.
"Wonderful. Let's go and tell the German police that a dangerous nosferatu is kidnapping mages and concocting a world-killing virus up at the monastery. Do you think we've got enough evidence to substantiate that? We don't have a single hard fact. All we have is our own testimonies. We don't even have any proof that Luther was involved in the kidnappings. Nor can we prove that he's a nosferatu."