Children of the Night Aff, 3/1-3 (Rated: R)
Act III: Playing With Fire
If restaurants could have a gender, Solo reflected, all steak houses would be male, even the determinedly upscale ones. Pat’s was no exception. Walls painted in primary colors, more polished wood than a carpenter’s workshop, all the booths upholstered in leather like the seats of an expensive sports car: the place radiated an aggressive masculinity as if no one there could conceive of a woman ever wanting a good steak.
Solo knew it was foolish, but he always felt safe here. Carl, the maitre d’, led them to a table located in the rear corner of the restaurant, away from any windows and far from the regular customer traffic. Sliding into the curving booth, both he and Illya could sit side by side with their backs to the wall and a nice, clear view of the rest of the large room.
They came often enough to Pat’s that the drinks arrived automatically, the usual Scotch and vodka. Solo settled back to sip his drink, Kuryakin perused the menu though it was largely unnecessary. Only the daily specials ever changed.
“He’s late,” the Russian agent observed irritably. “It’s eight-ten.”
Solo shrugged. “Maybe he just wanted to appear fashionable.”
“Maybe he’s changed his mind.”
Actually, Oliver had been waiting on the roof of a building across the street until he spotted the agents enter the restaurant. He’d already circled the place half a dozen times from the roofs and once on foot, checking for suspicious sights, sounds, and odors. There was only the usual chaos of color, vocalizations, and scent. Nothing felt overtly suspect. At ten past the appointed hour, no extra-armed men had come out of hiding or arrived in automobiles.
He descended to the street via the building’s interior fire stairs. After all, he was dressed for dinner. He had no desire to muss his Saville Row suit by scuttling down the grimy side of a building.
All his senses on alert, Oliver entered the restaurant. He was instantly aware of Solo’s location, but he didn’t let on. Instead, he purposely scanned the assembled diners until he appeared to finally spot the agents’ table. He made his way to the back of the room, ignoring the covert glances from women and some of the men he passed on his way. Oliver enjoyed cutting a fine figure, but tonight he wanted only to impress Napoleon
“Here he comes,” Solo said with a tip of his chin, sotto vocce.
“And without benefit of escort,” noted Kuryakin. “He walked right past the maitre d’.”
“I don’t think he eats out much,” Solo observed dryly.
“That’s a joke, right?”
“Wait until you meet him, then you tell me.”
When Oliver arrived at their table, he gave a shadow of a bow. “Napoleon, you’re looking well, so far.”
Both agents took note of the so far, but when Kuryakin shot an I told you so glance at Solo, the latter let it pass without response.
Oliver smiled, a shaft of winter sunlight on features bleak with worry. “And this is-?” He turned a hand over in Illya’s direction.
“My partner -”
“Illya Nikolaievich Kuryakin,” the other said, rising slightly and taking the extended hand. The shake was firm and formal. “And you must be Oliver King. Napoleon has told us at U.N.C.L.E. how you rescued him.”
“Ah, yes. I’m afraid he wouldn’t be with us now if -. But forgive me. I’m sure he also told you of my doubts concerning your collective ability to keep him safe. I am pleased that, thus far, you have proven me wrong.” He lay a hand on the empty chair. “May I?”
Solo gestured toward the seat. “Please.”
As Oliver settled in, Kuryakin studied the man. He was a strange one, all right; Napoleon had certainly been correct about that. The Russian agent took note of the suit, the fine, almost delicate features, the arresting silvery eyes and the unusual strength he’d felt in the handshake.
An aristocrat - the entitlement, the haughty sense of privilege, was obvious - but also a sheltered eccentric. If this were Paris, 1787, Kuryakin thought to himself, Mr. King, you would never survive the mob.
Oliver turned serious eyes on Illya. “I trust Napoleon has explained to you the danger posed by Veracity’s apparent alliance with these - these Thrush creatures?” His hands fluttered nervously along the edge of the tablecloth, then settled lightly on utensils and napkin. “I don’t mean to sound abrupt, but the problem has been weighing on my mind.”
“We know that, Oliver,” Solo said sympathetically. He drained his glass and set it aside.
“Needless to say, our superior is very concerned as well. Now, we need to know if -”
Without ceremony, Kuryakin slapped down Veracity’s little photo album in front of Oliver. “Mr. King, have you ever seen this before?” he asked levelly, hoping for a spontaneous reaction and ready to gauge it.
Oliver’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, but he recovered quickly and lifted the cover of the album with one finger. His face lit up when he saw the first eight-by-ten glossy, a serious yet handsome candid portrait of Napoleon. “Oh, how delightful!” He drank in the photo until he feared he was making a fool of himself, then turned the page. Kuryakin’s face was the next photo.
Oliver’s expression of delight shifted into a faint moue of disappointment, although he had to concede that Kuryakin was certainly a beautiful man. He turned another page. The next face was completely unknown to him. He flipped another page, then another, then lost interest and turned back to the first photo.
“I’m sorry, I’ve never seen this album before. But I would love a copy of the first print, if that’s possible.” His eyes warmed as he glanced at Napoleon.
Solo’s expression was pained. “I’m afraid, Oliver, that won’t be possible. Every person in that book is a field agent for U.N.C.L.E. working out of our New York office, only we didn’t collect those photographs. Thrush did. And that album was in Veracity’s possession last night.”
“She left it with the bartender at the Shangri-La Club,” Kuryakin added. “He mistook me for one of Barbarossa’s men and gave it to me in error.”
Solo leaned forward a bit to make his point. “Do you understand, Oliver? That’s an album of Veracity’s potential victims. And I was the first.”
Oliver looked stricken. “Oh, dear. It’s just as I feared. These nefarious allies of hers are planning to use vam -” He stopped himself and glanced around the restaurant. Then he changed his wording. “They’re going to use our kind against you! We must stop them at all costs.” He set his jaw, and his eyes darkened like a storm cloud. “I must stop Veracity.”
Just then, the waiter arrived to take their order. Kuryakin chose a N. Y. strip steak while Solo wanted his usual filet mignon. “And what about you, sir?” the waiter asked, turning to Oliver.
“The filet mignon sounds exquisite, but I’ll have the steak tartar.” He raised a brow inquisitively at Napoleon. “Have you chosen a wine? Please, pick anything you like, Napoleon. My treat.”
“That’s very generous of you, Oliver,” Solo said. “Thank you.” He glanced up at the waiter.
“Since we’re all having steak, a good Burgundy should do. How about a Côte d’Or?”
“We have a Chambolle-Musigny, 1959.”
“Perfect.”
“Very good, sir,” the waiter agreed and left.
“You said ‘your kind,’” Kuryakin ventured when they were alone again. “You mean vampires, don’t you?” This time, it was Solo’s turn to shoot the look, but Kuryakin would not be deterred.
“I’ve been to the city morgue. I saw the corpses of your friends. All six of them. Besides Veracity, are there any more in the city like you?”
“All six…?” Oliver shuddered. When he spoke again, his voice was forlorn. “Gone. My friends, all gone. More like me? Not in New York.” He took a deep breath and straightened his spine. “We find it wise not to over-hunt a territory. Of course, everyone in my nest had to swear to subsist on animal blood, so hunting was not the serious matter that it can be in other places.”
He snorted. “Not that Veracity honored that pledge. But even so, there can be only so many requests for blood from any given butcher shop before suspicions are aroused. We can also consume raw meat. And some are lucky enough to be capable of digesting other foods, allowing them to pass even more easily for human.”
Hunt. Nest. Blood. Raw meat. Every detail of his talk with the doctor at the morgue was still fresh in Kuryakin’s mind and what he was hearing now was not particularly reassuring. Despite Napoleon’s obvious sympathy, he had no illusions about what was sitting across from them on the other side of the table, and what Oliver was capable of. Whether this was a “real” vampire was immaterial. The fact that both agents were carrying Specials loaded with e-bullets was a comfort, but just barely.
“So Veracity has turned a predilection into an full-time pursuit.” Solo was thinking aloud.
“Why? What could Thrush possibly offer her?”
Oliver looked uncomfortable. “I’m afraid, my dear Napoleon, that Veracity chafed beneath my rules. My - companions - were all young vampires, all infected within the last ten years. I was alerted to their existence by -” He stopped himself, afraid he was giving up too much information about himself and his kind, especially in front of Kuryakin. “Well, that’s not important. What matters is that they were in my care, under my supervision, as it were.
“I supplied them with pocket money, helped them adjust to their new lives, that sort of thing. In exchange, I required that they refrain from feeding on humans. Veracity told me on more than one occasion that she considered me an antiquated old fool. She saw too many horror films in her youth, I suppose.
“She thought being a vampire was all about power and living outside the law. I had hoped she would adjust, over time, but I see I was wrong. Maybe I am an old fool.” The words seemed incongruous coming from Oliver’s youthful countenance.
“So, it’s money,” Solo observed. “Without you, she needs an income.”
“And blood,” Kuryakin pointed out. “Don’t forget, she wants human blood.” He was interrupted by the return of the waiter with their food and their bottle of wine. The plates in place, the waiter opened the bottle, and then offered the cork and a half glass to Solo for approval
“Fine,” the agent said and two more glasses were poured.
“So, we know the perpetrator, “Kuryakin said, cutting into his steak. “We know her motivation, her limitations, and Thrush’s overall plan.” Not one to mince words, he added, “What are we going to do about it?”
Solo looked to Oliver. “That depends. You said before you wanted to stop her. What exactly did you mean by that? Stop her how?”
Oliver lifted a cautionary finger and addressed Kuryakin. “You think you know her limitations, sir. I seriously doubt you can stop her without me.”
Kuryakin shrugged, untroubled by Oliver’s warnings. “Obviously, vampires have been stopped by mere humans in the past. If it hadn’t happened, the balance between your kind and ours would be different and the world would be overrun.”
Oliver’s eyes narrowed and he leaned back in his chair as he leveled a stern gaze at Kuryakin. “Like so many of your kind, your view of the truth has been altered by fiction and film. Vampires start out human. We change because we have been infected. We are not soulless, blood-thirsty demons on a crusade to rule the world. We are not in a battle to defeat the human world. We are a part of that world, but we’re forced to live on the fringes because of our bizarre dietary requirements and our appalling sensitivity to sunlight.” He sighed like a martyr. “We just want to be left alone to live out our lives as best we can.”
Chush’, Kuryakin thought, and he almost said it, but he knew they had a problem to solve and it would be impolitic to dismiss Oliver aloud. The agent wasn’t being influenced by books or movies, but by what he’d seen and heard at the morgue. Anything that had bones that hard, muscles that strong, teeth shaped like that, was a predator. And predators hunted; they were meant to. It was natural, and just fine with him as long as he and Napoleon and their kind - the word grated on him - were not the prey. As a Russian, he knew all about folklore and how it worked. Not all of it was fairytales for children. Some of it was based on truth. As a Marxist, he also knew about one group of people preying upon another. Not all of it was relegated to the history books. Vampirism, of a more mundane, economic sort, happened every day.
Oliver shrugged. “Or at least, that’s what most of us want. Sometimes there are rogues.” He snorted, mentally jumping back to Kuryakin’s earlier comment. “The misguided arrogance: to think you know all of our limitations.” Then his mood changed again, and he lifted both hands and wiggled his fingers. “On the bright side, it’s quite possible that her Thrush allies also think they know her limitations.” He chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind being there when they discover how little regard she has for human life. It would serve them right.”
“They don’t have much regard for human life, themselves,” Solo observed, “so they might not be as surprised as you think.”
“Well, then, perhaps that was why she was attracted to them. No one in my house shared her hunger for destruction and death, so she sought out others who did.” Oliver smeared some of the raw steak on a toast point. His eyes closed as he inhaled deeply of its fragrance. “Black angus, I believe. Nineteen months old. Corn fed. No, wait. The merest hint of wheat chaff in its feed.”
He opened his eyes and looked from Solo to Illya. Then he laughed out loud. “Oh, for God’s sake, I’m joking.” He popped the bite into his mouth and chewed with gusto.
Solo sighed. He was growing accustomed to Oliver’s affectations, but he knew Kuryakin would find the whole business irritating as hell. The Russian agent was concentrating on eating now, saying nothing, but Solo interpreted the deliberate silence as confirmation of his partner’s mood.
“Oliver, your involvement in this is a given, but you didn’t answer my question: stop her how?” He paused. “Kill her?”
Oliver swallowed. “I’m afraid it may come to that, yes. There used to be a procedure to deal with renegades. They were turned over to the strongest of our kind and subjected to a process of mental reformation.” He frowned in thought. “I believe your people would call it brainwashing.”
He took another bite of the paté of raw steak. “But I doubt that such a process is an alternative in Veracity’s case. She’s too much a part of the modern world. She has no regard for authority. Yes, I suppose she may have to die.” He stopped the fork on its way to his mouth, as if his appetite had disappeared.
He put it back on the plate and looked calculatingly at his companions. “And you want me to tell you how to kill her.” He took a sip of wine, no more than a taste, and set the glass back down. “How to kill me, in effect.”
Solo shifted uncomfortably. “Or at least incapacitate her. I’m afraid so.”
“Because if you don’t,” Kuryakin added, “Napoleon, here, is a dead man - along with every agent who works under him, including me.”
Dinner was over for all three of them. Solo pushed aside his plate and leaned toward Oliver again, watching the various emotions shift across the youthful, guileless face. “Last night, this morning, I trusted you with my life. You could have killed me. Now, you’ll have to trust me with the same power over you. There’s no other way.”
Oliver nodded, pensive. He shifted his gaze to Kuryakin for a moment, didn’t like what he saw there, and switched back to Napoleon. “You realize that if I tell you, I may be telling your people how to kill you as well - in the event of your infection?” He reached out and laid warm fingers over the back of Solo’s hand. “Is this man,” he tossed his head in Kuryakin’s direction, “enough of a friend to spare you, if you become one of us?”
The question - not to mention the hand - caught Solo up short. “It won’t happen,” he replied.
“There’s no infection. I was to our infirmary and they checked me over thoroughly. The doctors did tests.”
Oliver’s eyes softened and he smiled sadly. “My dear Napoleon, do you think you are the only man in the twentieth century to be bitten by a vampire? All my companions - my poor, deceased companions - were infected within the last ten years. They, too, had access to the miracles of modern medicine. I assure you, before they turned, they also had blood tests and tetanus shots and hospitalizations and God knows what else. And yet, they turned.”
“But there must be some cure, some antidote,” Solo said reasonably. “It just hasn’t been found yet.”
“Nor has one been found for cancer or birth defects,” said Oliver. “Yes, there is hope that one day a cure might be found, but frankly, no one is doing research on the vampire problem.”
Solo chuckled dryly. “Well, I don’t doubt that, but -”
Kuryakin listened, increasingly restless. Debate was pointless. He didn’t quite know what was going on here. King’s condition could very well be caused by some strange disease, some exotic virus, and if that were true, he doubted King or this Veracity or anyone like them would be particularly interested in a cure. Voluntarily give up so much power? Even the Greeks knew the answer to that one.
But demigod ethics was a subject for later philosophical discussion. Right now, they were losing focus on the problem at hand. “Look, Mr. King, Napoleon knows he has nothing to fear from me,” Kuryakin declared without the slightest hint of doubt. “I have always acted in his best interest, as he has in mine. We have saved each other’s lives more times than either of us can count - than even you can possibly imagine - and he knows I would not hesitate to save him again.”
Oliver’s expression hardened as he turned to Kuryakin. “I’m so pleased to hear it. I only hope your best efforts are sufficient. And if they are not,” he added gently to Solo, “I will find you and help you through the transition.”
Kuryakin watched the interplay and thought, Of course you would. The gentle words, the touches, the delight over the photograph, the interplay: it was obvious what was going on here. But Kuryakin knew Napoleon had to be aware of it, too; it was impossible to think otherwise. The steps might be improvised and the partner, unexpected, but Kuryakin had witnessed this pas de deux on plenty of other occasions. For a number of reasons, he’d learned to sit back and bide his time while Napoleon danced the music out. Not to do so now would probably prompt Oliver to accuse him of jealousy, along with hubris.
As if that settled everything, Oliver shifted in his chair and again tasted his wine. “Now, as for killing Veracity, first you must subdue her. The Thrush people who destroyed my home came in with flamethrowers and water cannons filled with garlic juice. We’re terribly allergic to garlic, some more than others. It can cause anaphylactic shock in some poor souls, but for most of us, it burns our eyes and lungs and makes breathing very difficult. As a result, if we smell it, we stay far away, given the choice.
“Garlic,” Solo repeated, nodding.
“We’re also allergic to gold. It burns the skin, but it’s not fatal, unless -”
Unless what? Kuryakin wanted to ask, but didn’t. Considering Oliver’s hostility toward him, he knew better, so he let Solo articulate the question instead.
“Unless what?” Solo asked.
“Never mind. That method would be exorbitantly expensive.” Oliver paused, remembering stories in his early years of vampires who died, writhing in agony, tied to large gold crosses. “Well, it’s not a good way to remove Veracity, because to use it, you still have to catch her. Frankly, the only way Thrush could have caught her, in my opinion, was to trick her. They offered her something she wanted, and she stepped willingly into that black bag. So, it seems trickery will be necessary. Once she is captured, there are three choices: decapitation, irreparable destruction of the heart muscle, or immolation. Complete destruction of the body by fire.” He shuddered.
A busboy arrived to clear away the dishes, followed by the waiter again with inquiries about coffee and tea. Solo ordered the coffee, no dessert, and the conversation didn’t resume until the wait staff was out of earshot.
“How about if her body explodes?” Kuryakin asked matter-of-factly. “Or just her head?”
Oliver’s voice was now subdued. Discussing modes of possible death was unnerving. “Drawing and quartering was effective in the seventeenth century, so I suppose exploding the body into bits would also kill her.” Or me, you scheming Russian.
Kuryakin looked at Oliver and added, “Unlike gold, exploding bullets are relatively cheap.”
“Yes, blowing her brain to bits with a head shot would do it.” His tone was growing increasingly defensive and hostile. “If you want to practice here and now, why don’t you reach for your weapon and attempt to aim and fire your exploding bullet? The resulting chaos would be an excellent practical lesson in agility for Napoleon, in the event of his turning.”
“A demonstration will not be necessary,” Kuryakin replied, amused, as the coffee arrived. “I gathered enough evidence of your physical capabilities from the autopsies.”
“You are a cold man,” said Oliver flatly, “to speak of the loss of six innocent lives as nothing more than autopsies to add to your knowledge of me. None of those people had ever taken a human life. I’m sure the same cannot be said for you, sir.”
“No, it can’t,” Kuryakin agreed. “And not for Napoleon here, either, and you’d do well to remember that. But then, as U.N.C.L.E. agents, we’re accustomed to being underestimated.”
Eager to defuse the tension, Solo reached for his coffee and cleared his throat. “Ah - well, so: now that the basic facts are established, and no one is going to underestimate anyone, could we please talk about a plan? It would be useful if we could somehow get Veracity to lead us to Barbarossa and his secret stronghold. After all, he’s been our main objective all along.”
Oliver exhaled slowly, letting some of his hostility escape on the long breath. “Yes, Napoleon, quite right. We need a plan. Barbarossa? Hmph. The man’s name means ‘Red Beard.’ Sounds like a pirate”
“If only that were all he is,” Kuryakin muttered.
Oliver spooned sugar into his coffee and sipped at it with the same delicacy he’d used with the wine, leaving as much coffee in his cup after the sip as before. “We’ll have to do what Barbarossa did. We’ll have to trick her. Offer her something she wants to -” He bit his tongue, but the words were already out.
“Well,” Solo said, reflecting, “at the moment, the thing she seems to want or need is me.”
“Judging by that photograph album,” Kuryakin observed, “she’s hunting all of us in Section II.”
“Yes, but at this point, the only one she really knows is me.” He looked at Oliver. “If it’s just you waiting for her, she might not even bother to show up. Worse, she’ll suspect a set-up.”
"Napoleon is right," said Oliver. "He is the one she wants. I took him away from her. And I know from long association with her that she will be very angry about that. I rescued him from her grasp, and from that moment on, it became very personal for her."
“So, Napoleon will be the bait.” The way Kuryakin made the statement, it was clear he didn’t like the idea, not at all
“There’s no way around it, is there?” said Oliver with a heavy sigh. His eyes were full of regret.
Kuryakin turned to Solo. “And how will you protect yourself? You can’t even draw your gun properly.”
Solo snuffled into his coffee cup, maneuvering awkwardly with his left hand as he had for the entire meal. “I thought that’s what you two were for.”
“That won’t make her any less dangerous.”
“As much as it chokes me to agree with Mr. Kuryakin,” said Oliver, “he is entirely correct, Napoleon. You cannot simply dangle yourself before Veracity. If she suspects anything, she might snap your neck so fast not even I could stop her.”
Kuryakin considered. “What if we use just Napoleon’s clothing as bait? One his shirts - a shirt with some blood on it.”
"Not good enough," said Oliver. "There are gradations of scent. She would know the difference." He addressed the rest of his explanation to Solo. "Imagine, if you will, that your skin is bright red in color. Some of your skin cells rub off on your clothing, leaving a pinkish residue. But you would have no trouble distinguishing between those colors, would you? The pink and the red? No, of course not. Well, our sense of smell is as capable of such differentiations as your sense of sight. Veracity would know the difference. She'll be expecting the bright red, and you cannot fool her by substituting the pink. You must be there in person, Napoleon."
“Well, then, what can we do?” Solo asked in exasperation. “This assassination thing has seriously handicapped our operations in the city and who knows? Barbarossa may have plans to send her elsewhere. I can’t have all my field agents hiding out in headquarters.”
He thought for a moment. “Oliver, tell me: if U.N.C.L.E. weren’t involved, if I weren’t involved, what would you do in this situation? You said Veracity disobeyed you. She’s killed people, and she’s responsible for the deaths of all your friends. You would have to deal with her anyway, try to stop her. You mentioned ‘mental reformation’ before. Is that really a possibility? Could you do that to her? Are you strong enough?”
Oliver knew exactly what he’d do if Napoleon weren’t involved. He would leave town, seek out an elder or two, and alert them that Veracity had become a renegade. They would decide if it were worth the effort to attempt rehabilitation. He couldn’t do that sort of thing alone, nor did he care to try.
Veracity had been a thorn in his side since the day she arrived in New York. He didn’t care about Thrush or her alliance with them, and except for Napoleon, he didn’t really care about U.N.C.L.E. either. He didn’t want her killing humans, but she was a rogue. He wasn’t responsible for her actions. His first instinct was to let an elder deal with her. But that would take time, and they didn’t have any.
She was hunting Solo, and Oliver did not want anything to happen to him. Veracity would have to die. Perhaps the U.N.C.L.E. agents could help him find her, but he wouldn’t stand by and allow them to capture her. He chose his words carefully when he spoke. “Yes, Napoleon, I’m strong enough. If I can get hold of her, I can control her.”
A couple of snorts of hypnomist and I can fog her mind long enough to snap her neck. “Of course, if we had more time, I could notify an elder of her crimes -”
“No,” Kuryakin said quietly, “no more vampires.”
“If you can get some sort of control over her,” Solo said to Oliver as he warmed to the idea, “maybe, you could even manipulate her into giving us information about Barbarossa’s operation.” And if she were docile enough, they might manage to bring her to a secure cell for observation, thought Solo, though knew Oliver wouldn’t be immediately receptive to the idea. “But most importantly, we wouldn’t have to kill her.”
“Not killing her would be preferable,” Oliver lied. “But,” he frowned a question at Kuryakin, “hold her where?”
The Russian agent shrugged. “I don’t know. Some place where she could be contained, some place where we’d have the advantage.”
Solo was thinking again. “Oliver, the other day, you said she knew about all the places you owned. When you were hiding me, you were worried she would track us down. Is there some place that we could allow that to happen? She must still be out there, looking for me, for us. Maybe we could even send clues her way - nothing suspicious. Just enough to lure her into a trap.”
Oliver nodded, thinking. “Actually, there is one place she knows about that we might use. She thinks I’m unaware of her knowledge, you see. One of the others told me she had followed me there one night, against my orders.” He smiled at Napoleon. “It’s a brownstone with a delightful wine cellar. I rent it out, but the people who live there owe me a great deal. They’ll vacate for a few days if I request it.”
“You’d have to get them out by tomorrow night,” Solo said. “We can’t wait. It has to happen right away.”
“A wine cellar...” Now it was Kuryakin’s turn to speculate. “That might work. One entrance and no other exit, probably a narrow passageway, a stairway that’s difficult to negotiate, no windows. We could seal it off fairly easily from the house above.”
“She can pick up scents, Illya,” Solo said. “She’ll smell you if you’re around.”
“I’ll find a way to disguise my scent, to confuse her. The weather report is for rain tomorrow night, and that might help us, too.” He looked to Oliver for affirmation. The vampire nodded.
“And,” Oliver added, “when I say these people will vacate for me on a moment’s notice, Napoleon, I am not exaggerating. If we put them up in a nice hotel, I’m certain they would appreciate the opportunity to, shall we say, repay their debt to me. As for confusing or disguising Mr. Kuryakin’s scent, that might not be necessary. These tenants do a consulting business out of their home, so people come and go during the day. The scent of strangers will not be suspect there.”
“Before, Mr. King,” Kuryakin reminded him, “you said you might not be able to protect Napoleon. Perhaps I shouldn’t be outside the house, but inside, close by, inside that cellar. I’ll find a place to conceal myself. Still, in the end, for at least a few crucial moments, it will be just you and Napoleon. How much of a risk will we be taking here, and how might we keep it to a minimum?”
“As long as Veracity does not detect the trap immediately, I think she’ll want to gloat a bit. Taunt me. She’s been known to do that before. She’s quite argumentative, you see. She won’t want to miss an opportunity to tell me how antiquated and ridiculous I am.”
He dropped his gaze to his lap for a moment, then steeled himself against the unpleasant prospect of yet another ugly scene with Veracity. “So I should have time to put myself between her and Napoleon.”
“And what will happen afterward?” Solo wanted to know. “Can you really brainwash her? Just like that?”
“Not exactly. Rogues often end up dead, one way or another. But if we can subdue her, perhaps there is a chance. I’m not an elder, but I’m old enough to have learned a few techniques that could be useful in this situation.”
“Like U.N.C.L.E. detraining,” Solo joked to Kuryakin. “We’d best not let Section IV hear about this.”
“And I would need your assurance that, if we succeed, your people won’t simply destroy Veracity and myself afterward.”
“Of course,” Solo said. “I would prefer that everyone comes out of this alive.”
“Well, then,” said Oliver. “I suppose I should go call my tenants and send them to a hotel. I can stay at their place tomorrow. The basement is windowless, and I have a sleeping box there, for emergencies. And the two of you? I suppose you’ll be coordinating and planning and commanding your forces? When do we set our trap?”
“As soon as possible,” Solo said. He glanced at Kuryakin. “Tomorrow night?”
“It could be arranged,” Kuryakin agreed. “Mr. King, you’ll need to give Napoleon a diagram of the house. In the meantime, I’ll return to headquarters to arrange backup and see to the weapons.” He checked his watch. “It’s almost ten. That gives us less than twenty-four hours.”
“All right, then.” Solo reached for the wine and poured out the remaining last drops into each the three glasses.
“To tomorrow night,” he said, lifting his own glass.
Oliver lifted his as well. “May we all live to see many more.”
Perhaps not all of us, Kuryakin thought.
***
After Kuryakin headed back to U.N.C.L.E. HQ, Oliver and Napoleon left the restaurant together and strolled toward the U.N. The open space made Oliver feel more secure. There were no roofs nearby for Veracity to drop from without being seen.
While they talked, Oliver walked as close to Solo as he dared, brushing elbows and stealing whiffs of scent when he thought Solo didn’t notice. He filled him in about the layout of the house, the cellar, the surrounding neighborhood, and then kept talking, not wanting their time together to end.
“You and Illya seem very close.” Oh, that was subtle, you buffoon, thought Oliver.
“We are,” Solo agreed. He pulled the collar of his topcoat up. Although the night was clear and not too cold, there was a strong, sharp wind blowing in from the East River. “Like brothers, I guess.” He glanced up at Oliver. “Hard to believe?”
“No, not at all.” Oliver looked away. Then he chuckled. “Yes, very hard to believe, actually. You seem so different. But then, opposites often attract, don’t they?”
“I suppose,” Solo conceded. “Although, deep down, I don’t think we are really opposites at all. We believe in the same things, share the same goals, value our jobs with U.N.C.L.E. - its vision and our commitment to that vision. I can trust him in a way that I don’t think I’ve experienced with any other person - ever. And trust is important in our business.
“And then there are the risks, the almost constant uncertainty. A lot of terrible things can happen to an agent - things too terrible to tell an outsider. And it can be a lonely way of life, and a short one, too, without a partner watching your back.”
Solo drew close to the railing and leaned against it, allowing the wind to whip against his cheeks and through his hair. “There were times, I think, that without Illya, I might have gone mad.”
Oliver nodded. “I see.” He mirrored Solo’s pose, then turned his head to study Solo’s face. “He is very possessive of you. The way he spoke of taking care of you, watching out for you. And you feel the same way about him?
“Yes, I do,” Solo said frankly. “I’d better. We need each other to survive. He has skills and knowledge I don’t have. We complete each other, and in a very real way, we make each other possible.” He smiled self-consciously. “And besides, I like that gloomy Russian. Believe it or not, he has quite a sense of humor. We’ve been in some grave situations together, and he’ll just say something witty or unexpected, and I’ll laugh, and then I’ll know everything will come out all right. I feel very comfortable in his company, always have, almost from the first time we met.” He glanced at Oliver. “Haven’t you ever had someone like that in your life?”
“Yes, I have,” said Oliver wistfully, “but it’s been a long time. His name was James Andrew Winston. He always used both Christian names, James Andrew. We shared two decades together. More than two decades.
“He meant the world to me. We lived in Atlanta, until Sherman’s March. We’d built a cozy nest together. We were comfortable and safe, and James Andrew found wonderful ways to appreciate our vampire state. When the city burned, James Andrew was devastated. He never recovered. So depressed. I kept hoping he’d snap out of it, but that’s not the way of depression, is it?”
“What happened to him?” Solo asked.
“Suicide,” said Oliver. He stared out at the water, lost in the past for a few moments. Then he shook it off. “But that was a long time ago. We are here and now. Life goes on.” He tried a half-smile. “I’m glad you have such a good friend.” He laughed softly. “Now I’m repeating myself.” He turned a keen eye on Solo. “He doesn’t like me at all, does he?”
“Not very much,” Solo admitted, “No, I’m afraid not. Our entire section is threatened and he’s very worried.” Solo cocked an eyebrow at Oliver. “And throwing money around on an expensive bottle of wine will not win you his friendship. Illya’s a Marxist. So, where do you come from anyway, Oliver? What’s your background? How did you become ... like you are?”
“I suppose I’m European. My father was English and Catholic at a time when it was not safe to be Catholic in England. He journeyed to Spain where he met my mother in Barcelona. They had me late in life, and they took me back to England for schooling. Things were changing then, and the family stayed on. I grew up there, in Buckinghamshire.”
Buckinghamshire? Not safe to be Catholic. “Ah - “ Solo asked gingerly, “what year are we talking about here?”
“Well, my father left England in 1575. I was born in 1590. My father learned he could return to England if he would attend Anglican services and pass my mother off as Portuguese. She was Catalan, so almost no one questioned the deception. Mummy hated it, of course. She took me to the Continent as often as she could.”
“Your mother was Spanish? Weren’t England and Spain at war during that period?” Solo asked, remembering his history and forgetting for the moment, the surrealistic quality of their conversation.
“That’s why they needed the deception.”
“Born in 1590 ...” Solo did a quick calculation. “Did you ever see a Shakespeare play?”
“Many, actually, but I never met the bard, and I saw the plays much later. Those theaters were full of commoners and we didn’t live in London. My father looked down on that sort of thing.”
Solo clicked his tongue against his teeth. Imagine: seeing a Shakespeare play practically in its original run. He could almost get caught up in the fantasy.
“My father arranged a marriage for me when I was thirty, quite a good one, actually. But I deferred and deferred, being more attracted to men and not ready to do my duty to family by siring a child. My father insisted I marry in my thirty-fourth year. He wanted a grandchild before he died. Well, of course, I was going to do the right thing, but I told him I wanted one last month of freedom in London before settling down. He agreed, the poor man.”
“A last fling, huh?”
Oliver nodded. “That month was my undoing. I drank too much, attended parties with the wrong people, and tried all sorts of bizarre behaviors. By the end of the month I was home in Buckinghamshire, sick and dying, or so we all thought. I had been bitten by a vampire in London, or more likely several, and I was infected. There was no cure. I was declared dead, and they deposited my body in the family crypt.”
“That must have been, eh, a little awkward.”
“Fortunately for me, one of the London vampires had followed me home. He freed me from the crypt and cared for me as I learned to survive as a vampire. Of course, I couldn’t tell my family I was still alive. That would have been a greater blow than my death. So I began traveling with my benefactor. Eventually, I came to America.”
“In time for what? The American Revolution?”
“Yes, actually.” Oliver smiled. “Now that was exciting! Of course, Manhattan was much more rustic then. A surprising number of tasty sheep lived on this island. And I mean the baa-baa kind, not the human kind.”
Solo was shaking his head and smiling too. It was an appealing story, whether delusional or not.
“And what about you?” said Oliver. “Where do you come from?”
The smile faded. “I was born in Quebec, but my father was American. Like you, I come from an upper class family. One of my grandfathers was an admiral; the other, an ambassador. But my parents were disowned and so I wasn’t raised wealthy.” Solo sighed. “It’s a long story and I really don’t think about my childhood any more. When I joined U.N.C.L.E., I started over, another life. Everything I am today began then.”
“How sad. Sort of like waking up a vampire. The old life is gone, the new one consumes your being. Do you ever have to go into hiding?” Oliver was half joking. Then he realized that Solo and his fellow agents were actually doing that because of Veracity. “Oh, I’m sorry. That was an insensitive question.”
“I work in espionage, Oliver. I hide in plain sight every day of my life.” Solo paused, as the realization occurred to him. “Just like you do.”
“Well, well, well. We seem to have more in common than either of us realized.” Oliver examined his perfectly manicured nails. “Except for one very important area, that is.” He tilted his head back and inhaled the night air. Then, trying to sound nonchalant, he said, “Women must fall all over you.”
Solo chuckled. “Now, what would make you say that?” He hadn’t shared much of his private life with Oliver and certainly nothing about his dating habits.
Oliver shrugged. “I can usually tell if one is straight or gay. I’ve had lots of practice, you know. And watching you with Kuryakin… well, once again it seems I have misplaced my affections. You seem very straight to me. Alas.”
Solo saw the disappointment in Oliver’s face and didn’t know what to say. He had to be honest; Oliver would know if he was not. “Well, I must admit, I enjoy the company of women, although Veracity certainly didn’t succumb to my charms, did she?”
“Well, she wasn’t looking at you as a person. Now, if you were a vampire -. That is, I mean,” he stumbled, “that is to say, she was all over the males in our nest. That’s all.” He sighed heavily. “I’m making a mess of this conversation, aren’t I?”
“Not at all,” Solo said. He unfolded himself from the railing and gave Oliver’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “It’s been, ah, fascinating.” That it might all be true was hard to conceive, but Solo had no need to share that. “I’d best be getting back to HQ. Remaining out in the open like this, I’ve probably pushed my luck far enough already.” Solo glanced up at the buildings around him. “I keep expecting her to swoop down on us any minute.” He shivered as a sharp wind whipped by.
“As long as I’m here, you’re safe,” said Oliver, with more than a hint of protectiveness. “I will not let her have you. Ever. Even if you turn, I would never trust her around you. She has fed off you. That will affect her opinion of you forever. She sees you as a victim.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Solo assured him, which was the truth. He began to walk toward the avenue. “Still, I have to admit, it was a singular experience. Not one I would like to repeat necessarily, but I’ll certainly remember it. Kind of like losing one’s virginity.”
Oliver reached out and caught his arm. “She’ll use that if you give her a chance,” he said. He pulled his hand back. “Forgive me, Napoleon. It just startled me to hear you speak of it. I know the chemicals transmitted in the vampire’s bite can produce a tremendous high in humans. I’ve experienced it myself. But don’t let yourself be seduced by that rush, not to the point of letting down your guard. Ever. I beg you.”
“Sorry. I guess I’m just an adrenaline junkie. Occupational hazard.”
Oliver fell into step with Solo. “How are you feeling, by the way? Still no fever?”
Solo shook his head. “Nope. Nothing. I feel fine. A little tired, of course, but then it’s been a helluva day.”
“Well, then, I suppose you should get some rest. Or will you need to work all night preparing for our trap?”
“I assume that’s what Illya’s been doing while we’ve been here.” Solo grinned. He indicated his fractured wrist, still in the sling. “All things considered, I think I’ll leave the heavy lifting to him, if I can help it. The perks of being chief of the section. Of course, Illya will find a way to exact some sort of retribution.” He yawned. “No, I’ll be heading off to bed, at least for a few hours. And don’t worry: we’ll be safe in U.N.C.L.E. HQ. The walls are solid steel. I don’t think even an atom bomb can breach them, never mind a vampire.”
“Very well. I’ll try not to worry about your safety, then. But you will let me know if you begin to show symptoms? Headaches? Fever? Body aches? The initial stages of turning resemble the onset of influenza.”
“Sure, sure,” Solo said. They had turned down the avenue. A block or two more and Del Floria’s would be in sight. Although he didn’t say so, Solo considered the idea that he might actually turn into a vampire himself preposterous, their conversation notwithstanding. Still, just to be safe, he made a mental note to stop by the infirmary in the morning for another check-up. The doctors there might have a suitable antibiotic on hand. For the moment, however, his mind was focused on the next twenty-four hours. They had to trap Veracity and get her to talk. And then, with luck, they’d nail Barbarossa’s ass to a jailhouse wall.
“Good night,” Solo said to Oliver when they reached Del Floria’s. The tailor shop was closed so he veered away to slip through the Key Club’s alternate entrance.
Oliver watched him go, catching a last faint whiff on the night air. His nostrils quivered. Was there something different about Solo’s scent this evening? Or was Oliver reading too much into the vagaries of the night air? Solo said he felt fine. Leave it alone, Oliver. If he turns, you’ll be there to help. Meanwhile, he had a brownstone to vacate and he needed to feed.
***
When Solo returned to U.N.C.L.E. HQ, he expected to find his partner gone, busy with preparations, or already fast asleep in one of the cubicles located next to the infirmary. With a quarter of the agents in Section II being accommodated that night, the beds had been doubled up in each cubicle.
Illya was sitting on one of those beds, waiting for him, dressed in his pajamas with a dim lamp still on. Normally, neither one of them would have bothered with nightclothes. But, they were in HQ and a security alarm could always go off, and there was always the embarrassing prospect of having to run past the nighttime secretaries drawing a gun while in one’s underwear.
Solo noticed his own suitcase sitting beside the opposite bed. Apparently, one of the secretaries had gone to his apartment and retrieved his packed bag. As Solo took out his own pajamas and laid them on the narrow bed, Kuryakin asked, “Have a nice walk?”
“Cold, actually,” Solo said. He shook out a suit and hung it on a clothes bar so he could wear it, unwrinkled, in the morning. “There’s a strong wind blowing in from the east.”
There was a long moment of silence. Solo continued to transfer his clothes one-handed to a metal cabinet, fishing out ties, shirts, socks, underwear and a shaving kit.
“Why are you so sure we should trust him?” Kuryakin asked. He didn’t need to identify who ‘him’ was.
Solo talked as he continued to work. “He’s been honest with us. Cooperative. Informative. He didn’t have to show up for dinner. Or volunteer to help. He could have walked away from it all, but he didn’t.”
“Because he’s in love with you.”
So there it was. Solo didn’t react at first, then he merely shrugged. “Isn’t everyone?”
“Be serious, Napoleon. He has - how do you Americans put it? - a ‘thing’ for you. If he wore pigtails and knee socks, I’d call it a school girl crush.”
“I know,” Solo replied softly. “I think he’s just lonely. The last person he loved committed suicide.”
“Really? Was this lover human?”
“No. A vampire.”
“Interesting,” Kuryakin murmured, tucking away the information. “So: what are you going to do about the current situation?”
“What can I do?” Solo began to undress. “Maybe we can use it.”
“That could be very dangerous. You know you’re playing with fire.”
“I can handle it.”
Kuryakin snorted. “Famous last words. We’ll carve them on your tombstone.”
Solo shook his head helplessly. “I don’t think so. Tonight, after you left, he told me how he became a vampire, how he came to America.”
“And met George Washington, no doubt.”
“As a matter of fact -”
“Oh, Napoleon!” Kuryakin said irritably, unable to maintain the pose of detachment any more. He leaned forward, determined to make Napoleon listen and understand. It was time to call the game. “Rescuing you. Flattering you. Plying you with pretty stories. Don’t you see what’s happening? You, of all people! He’s seducing you!”
“And that disturbs you?” Solo asked, pulling on his pajama bottoms with effort. Afterward, he slipped his uninjured arm into one sleeve of the pajama top and draped the other sleeve over his sling
“Yes, it disturbs me. Ironically, if he were female, you’d protect yourself, be on your guard as you are with Angelique. You know that it’s not his taste for men that I object to; with his kind, I doubt gender even matters anyway. One source of protein is as good as another. It’s his obvious physical superiority coupled with an extreme sense of entitlement that I don’t trust. If he were female, I’d feel exactly the same.”
Despite Kuryakin’s insistence, Solo remained calm. He found a perch on the edge of his own mattress. “He says he doesn’t hunt humans. He drinks pig’s blood. I saw it. And raw steak - you saw that tonight. I don’t know what he is, I suppose we’ll have to wait until we get Veracity into a holding cell here to find that out, but I don’t really think he’s a threat to us.”
“Not a threat?” Kuryakin sucked in a deep, calming breath. When he spoke again, his words were level, sober. “Tell me, Napoleon, what did you feel when Veracity attacked you? I notice you didn’t go into much detail in your report.”
Illya had him this time. Solo looked away, reluctant to answer. The memory of being paralyzed, trapped but accepting - more than accepting, wanting, needing - as an erotic, incandescent rush like liquid electricity raced through his body, was still vivid in his mind.
“Turned on,” he finally murmured.
“Yes. I surmised as much. It’s probably something in their saliva that finds its way quickly into the blood stream and reacts with our brain chemistry. Another one of their biological advantages. Sex and feeding, attack and exploit - it’s linked in them. They’re the ultimate predators - what our friends in Thrush can only dream of being.”
Solo didn’t have a good comeback; he knew Illya was right. As he studied the floor, Kuryakin seized the advantage. “Listen to me: when I was a small child, at my grandfather’s dacha in the country, I had a little lamb. I made a pet of that lamb. I named it, loved it, played with it; let it follow me around just like the nursery rhyme. But at the end of the season, that lamb still ended up on our dinner table.
“It’s the same with Oliver. You can see it in his manner, in his eyes. You’re not a lamb, Napoleon, not by any means. More like an exotic wild animal to him - a wolf, a white tiger. Some foolish people try to domesticate wolves and tigers, adopt them young, take them into their homes. But a tiger is a tiger and eventually, it must behave true to its nature. So will you.
“With his strength and more importantly, with his sense of superiority, Oliver is incapable of seeing you as a lover, only as a beloved pet.” Kuryakin paused. “And possibly, a meal.”
Solo let out a sigh. He didn’t want to debate this, didn’t want to argue. After all that had happened to him in the last thirty-six hours, he could barely think. “It’s been a long day,” Solo said, after a moment. “I’m tired.” He pulled back the blankets and climbed in. “How are preparations for the operation coming along?”
“Simpson will report in around five to adapt our weapons and jury-rig some new ones. I’ve chosen a team. With so many field agents cooped up in here, there were a lot of volunteers.”
“Good,” Solo said his voice ragged, empty. “I’ll try to meet with Don in the morning as early as possible, but I need a few hours.”
“No doubt,” Kuryakin agreed sympathetically as he switched off the light. In the darkness, his voice drifted through the small room. “Your experience with Veracity - don’t feel guilty about it. You couldn’t help it, Napoleon. It’s simply a matter of biology. Remember that.”
“Yeah,” Solo said. He wasn’t sure he actually agreed, but even if he did, that still didn’t solve the complicated, messy problem of what to do about a curious Innocent named Oliver King.
***
If restaurants could have a gender, Solo reflected, all steak houses would be male, even the determinedly upscale ones. Pat’s was no exception. Walls painted in primary colors, more polished wood than a carpenter’s workshop, all the booths upholstered in leather like the seats of an expensive sports car: the place radiated an aggressive masculinity as if no one there could conceive of a woman ever wanting a good steak.
Solo knew it was foolish, but he always felt safe here. Carl, the maitre d’, led them to a table located in the rear corner of the restaurant, away from any windows and far from the regular customer traffic. Sliding into the curving booth, both he and Illya could sit side by side with their backs to the wall and a nice, clear view of the rest of the large room.
They came often enough to Pat’s that the drinks arrived automatically, the usual Scotch and vodka. Solo settled back to sip his drink, Kuryakin perused the menu though it was largely unnecessary. Only the daily specials ever changed.
“He’s late,” the Russian agent observed irritably. “It’s eight-ten.”
Solo shrugged. “Maybe he just wanted to appear fashionable.”
“Maybe he’s changed his mind.”
Actually, Oliver had been waiting on the roof of a building across the street until he spotted the agents enter the restaurant. He’d already circled the place half a dozen times from the roofs and once on foot, checking for suspicious sights, sounds, and odors. There was only the usual chaos of color, vocalizations, and scent. Nothing felt overtly suspect. At ten past the appointed hour, no extra-armed men had come out of hiding or arrived in automobiles.
He descended to the street via the building’s interior fire stairs. After all, he was dressed for dinner. He had no desire to muss his Saville Row suit by scuttling down the grimy side of a building.
All his senses on alert, Oliver entered the restaurant. He was instantly aware of Solo’s location, but he didn’t let on. Instead, he purposely scanned the assembled diners until he appeared to finally spot the agents’ table. He made his way to the back of the room, ignoring the covert glances from women and some of the men he passed on his way. Oliver enjoyed cutting a fine figure, but tonight he wanted only to impress Napoleon
“Here he comes,” Solo said with a tip of his chin, sotto vocce.
“And without benefit of escort,” noted Kuryakin. “He walked right past the maitre d’.”
“I don’t think he eats out much,” Solo observed dryly.
“That’s a joke, right?”
“Wait until you meet him, then you tell me.”
When Oliver arrived at their table, he gave a shadow of a bow. “Napoleon, you’re looking well, so far.”
Both agents took note of the so far, but when Kuryakin shot an I told you so glance at Solo, the latter let it pass without response.
Oliver smiled, a shaft of winter sunlight on features bleak with worry. “And this is-?” He turned a hand over in Illya’s direction.
“My partner -”
“Illya Nikolaievich Kuryakin,” the other said, rising slightly and taking the extended hand. The shake was firm and formal. “And you must be Oliver King. Napoleon has told us at U.N.C.L.E. how you rescued him.”
“Ah, yes. I’m afraid he wouldn’t be with us now if -. But forgive me. I’m sure he also told you of my doubts concerning your collective ability to keep him safe. I am pleased that, thus far, you have proven me wrong.” He lay a hand on the empty chair. “May I?”
Solo gestured toward the seat. “Please.”
As Oliver settled in, Kuryakin studied the man. He was a strange one, all right; Napoleon had certainly been correct about that. The Russian agent took note of the suit, the fine, almost delicate features, the arresting silvery eyes and the unusual strength he’d felt in the handshake.
An aristocrat - the entitlement, the haughty sense of privilege, was obvious - but also a sheltered eccentric. If this were Paris, 1787, Kuryakin thought to himself, Mr. King, you would never survive the mob.
Oliver turned serious eyes on Illya. “I trust Napoleon has explained to you the danger posed by Veracity’s apparent alliance with these - these Thrush creatures?” His hands fluttered nervously along the edge of the tablecloth, then settled lightly on utensils and napkin. “I don’t mean to sound abrupt, but the problem has been weighing on my mind.”
“We know that, Oliver,” Solo said sympathetically. He drained his glass and set it aside.
“Needless to say, our superior is very concerned as well. Now, we need to know if -”
Without ceremony, Kuryakin slapped down Veracity’s little photo album in front of Oliver. “Mr. King, have you ever seen this before?” he asked levelly, hoping for a spontaneous reaction and ready to gauge it.
Oliver’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, but he recovered quickly and lifted the cover of the album with one finger. His face lit up when he saw the first eight-by-ten glossy, a serious yet handsome candid portrait of Napoleon. “Oh, how delightful!” He drank in the photo until he feared he was making a fool of himself, then turned the page. Kuryakin’s face was the next photo.
Oliver’s expression of delight shifted into a faint moue of disappointment, although he had to concede that Kuryakin was certainly a beautiful man. He turned another page. The next face was completely unknown to him. He flipped another page, then another, then lost interest and turned back to the first photo.
“I’m sorry, I’ve never seen this album before. But I would love a copy of the first print, if that’s possible.” His eyes warmed as he glanced at Napoleon.
Solo’s expression was pained. “I’m afraid, Oliver, that won’t be possible. Every person in that book is a field agent for U.N.C.L.E. working out of our New York office, only we didn’t collect those photographs. Thrush did. And that album was in Veracity’s possession last night.”
“She left it with the bartender at the Shangri-La Club,” Kuryakin added. “He mistook me for one of Barbarossa’s men and gave it to me in error.”
Solo leaned forward a bit to make his point. “Do you understand, Oliver? That’s an album of Veracity’s potential victims. And I was the first.”
Oliver looked stricken. “Oh, dear. It’s just as I feared. These nefarious allies of hers are planning to use vam -” He stopped himself and glanced around the restaurant. Then he changed his wording. “They’re going to use our kind against you! We must stop them at all costs.” He set his jaw, and his eyes darkened like a storm cloud. “I must stop Veracity.”
Just then, the waiter arrived to take their order. Kuryakin chose a N. Y. strip steak while Solo wanted his usual filet mignon. “And what about you, sir?” the waiter asked, turning to Oliver.
“The filet mignon sounds exquisite, but I’ll have the steak tartar.” He raised a brow inquisitively at Napoleon. “Have you chosen a wine? Please, pick anything you like, Napoleon. My treat.”
“That’s very generous of you, Oliver,” Solo said. “Thank you.” He glanced up at the waiter.
“Since we’re all having steak, a good Burgundy should do. How about a Côte d’Or?”
“We have a Chambolle-Musigny, 1959.”
“Perfect.”
“Very good, sir,” the waiter agreed and left.
“You said ‘your kind,’” Kuryakin ventured when they were alone again. “You mean vampires, don’t you?” This time, it was Solo’s turn to shoot the look, but Kuryakin would not be deterred.
“I’ve been to the city morgue. I saw the corpses of your friends. All six of them. Besides Veracity, are there any more in the city like you?”
“All six…?” Oliver shuddered. When he spoke again, his voice was forlorn. “Gone. My friends, all gone. More like me? Not in New York.” He took a deep breath and straightened his spine. “We find it wise not to over-hunt a territory. Of course, everyone in my nest had to swear to subsist on animal blood, so hunting was not the serious matter that it can be in other places.”
He snorted. “Not that Veracity honored that pledge. But even so, there can be only so many requests for blood from any given butcher shop before suspicions are aroused. We can also consume raw meat. And some are lucky enough to be capable of digesting other foods, allowing them to pass even more easily for human.”
Hunt. Nest. Blood. Raw meat. Every detail of his talk with the doctor at the morgue was still fresh in Kuryakin’s mind and what he was hearing now was not particularly reassuring. Despite Napoleon’s obvious sympathy, he had no illusions about what was sitting across from them on the other side of the table, and what Oliver was capable of. Whether this was a “real” vampire was immaterial. The fact that both agents were carrying Specials loaded with e-bullets was a comfort, but just barely.
“So Veracity has turned a predilection into an full-time pursuit.” Solo was thinking aloud.
“Why? What could Thrush possibly offer her?”
Oliver looked uncomfortable. “I’m afraid, my dear Napoleon, that Veracity chafed beneath my rules. My - companions - were all young vampires, all infected within the last ten years. I was alerted to their existence by -” He stopped himself, afraid he was giving up too much information about himself and his kind, especially in front of Kuryakin. “Well, that’s not important. What matters is that they were in my care, under my supervision, as it were.
“I supplied them with pocket money, helped them adjust to their new lives, that sort of thing. In exchange, I required that they refrain from feeding on humans. Veracity told me on more than one occasion that she considered me an antiquated old fool. She saw too many horror films in her youth, I suppose.
“She thought being a vampire was all about power and living outside the law. I had hoped she would adjust, over time, but I see I was wrong. Maybe I am an old fool.” The words seemed incongruous coming from Oliver’s youthful countenance.
“So, it’s money,” Solo observed. “Without you, she needs an income.”
“And blood,” Kuryakin pointed out. “Don’t forget, she wants human blood.” He was interrupted by the return of the waiter with their food and their bottle of wine. The plates in place, the waiter opened the bottle, and then offered the cork and a half glass to Solo for approval
“Fine,” the agent said and two more glasses were poured.
“So, we know the perpetrator, “Kuryakin said, cutting into his steak. “We know her motivation, her limitations, and Thrush’s overall plan.” Not one to mince words, he added, “What are we going to do about it?”
Solo looked to Oliver. “That depends. You said before you wanted to stop her. What exactly did you mean by that? Stop her how?”
Oliver lifted a cautionary finger and addressed Kuryakin. “You think you know her limitations, sir. I seriously doubt you can stop her without me.”
Kuryakin shrugged, untroubled by Oliver’s warnings. “Obviously, vampires have been stopped by mere humans in the past. If it hadn’t happened, the balance between your kind and ours would be different and the world would be overrun.”
Oliver’s eyes narrowed and he leaned back in his chair as he leveled a stern gaze at Kuryakin. “Like so many of your kind, your view of the truth has been altered by fiction and film. Vampires start out human. We change because we have been infected. We are not soulless, blood-thirsty demons on a crusade to rule the world. We are not in a battle to defeat the human world. We are a part of that world, but we’re forced to live on the fringes because of our bizarre dietary requirements and our appalling sensitivity to sunlight.” He sighed like a martyr. “We just want to be left alone to live out our lives as best we can.”
Chush’, Kuryakin thought, and he almost said it, but he knew they had a problem to solve and it would be impolitic to dismiss Oliver aloud. The agent wasn’t being influenced by books or movies, but by what he’d seen and heard at the morgue. Anything that had bones that hard, muscles that strong, teeth shaped like that, was a predator. And predators hunted; they were meant to. It was natural, and just fine with him as long as he and Napoleon and their kind - the word grated on him - were not the prey. As a Russian, he knew all about folklore and how it worked. Not all of it was fairytales for children. Some of it was based on truth. As a Marxist, he also knew about one group of people preying upon another. Not all of it was relegated to the history books. Vampirism, of a more mundane, economic sort, happened every day.
Oliver shrugged. “Or at least, that’s what most of us want. Sometimes there are rogues.” He snorted, mentally jumping back to Kuryakin’s earlier comment. “The misguided arrogance: to think you know all of our limitations.” Then his mood changed again, and he lifted both hands and wiggled his fingers. “On the bright side, it’s quite possible that her Thrush allies also think they know her limitations.” He chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind being there when they discover how little regard she has for human life. It would serve them right.”
“They don’t have much regard for human life, themselves,” Solo observed, “so they might not be as surprised as you think.”
“Well, then, perhaps that was why she was attracted to them. No one in my house shared her hunger for destruction and death, so she sought out others who did.” Oliver smeared some of the raw steak on a toast point. His eyes closed as he inhaled deeply of its fragrance. “Black angus, I believe. Nineteen months old. Corn fed. No, wait. The merest hint of wheat chaff in its feed.”
He opened his eyes and looked from Solo to Illya. Then he laughed out loud. “Oh, for God’s sake, I’m joking.” He popped the bite into his mouth and chewed with gusto.
Solo sighed. He was growing accustomed to Oliver’s affectations, but he knew Kuryakin would find the whole business irritating as hell. The Russian agent was concentrating on eating now, saying nothing, but Solo interpreted the deliberate silence as confirmation of his partner’s mood.
“Oliver, your involvement in this is a given, but you didn’t answer my question: stop her how?” He paused. “Kill her?”
Oliver swallowed. “I’m afraid it may come to that, yes. There used to be a procedure to deal with renegades. They were turned over to the strongest of our kind and subjected to a process of mental reformation.” He frowned in thought. “I believe your people would call it brainwashing.”
He took another bite of the paté of raw steak. “But I doubt that such a process is an alternative in Veracity’s case. She’s too much a part of the modern world. She has no regard for authority. Yes, I suppose she may have to die.” He stopped the fork on its way to his mouth, as if his appetite had disappeared.
He put it back on the plate and looked calculatingly at his companions. “And you want me to tell you how to kill her.” He took a sip of wine, no more than a taste, and set the glass back down. “How to kill me, in effect.”
Solo shifted uncomfortably. “Or at least incapacitate her. I’m afraid so.”
“Because if you don’t,” Kuryakin added, “Napoleon, here, is a dead man - along with every agent who works under him, including me.”
Dinner was over for all three of them. Solo pushed aside his plate and leaned toward Oliver again, watching the various emotions shift across the youthful, guileless face. “Last night, this morning, I trusted you with my life. You could have killed me. Now, you’ll have to trust me with the same power over you. There’s no other way.”
Oliver nodded, pensive. He shifted his gaze to Kuryakin for a moment, didn’t like what he saw there, and switched back to Napoleon. “You realize that if I tell you, I may be telling your people how to kill you as well - in the event of your infection?” He reached out and laid warm fingers over the back of Solo’s hand. “Is this man,” he tossed his head in Kuryakin’s direction, “enough of a friend to spare you, if you become one of us?”
The question - not to mention the hand - caught Solo up short. “It won’t happen,” he replied.
“There’s no infection. I was to our infirmary and they checked me over thoroughly. The doctors did tests.”
Oliver’s eyes softened and he smiled sadly. “My dear Napoleon, do you think you are the only man in the twentieth century to be bitten by a vampire? All my companions - my poor, deceased companions - were infected within the last ten years. They, too, had access to the miracles of modern medicine. I assure you, before they turned, they also had blood tests and tetanus shots and hospitalizations and God knows what else. And yet, they turned.”
“But there must be some cure, some antidote,” Solo said reasonably. “It just hasn’t been found yet.”
“Nor has one been found for cancer or birth defects,” said Oliver. “Yes, there is hope that one day a cure might be found, but frankly, no one is doing research on the vampire problem.”
Solo chuckled dryly. “Well, I don’t doubt that, but -”
Kuryakin listened, increasingly restless. Debate was pointless. He didn’t quite know what was going on here. King’s condition could very well be caused by some strange disease, some exotic virus, and if that were true, he doubted King or this Veracity or anyone like them would be particularly interested in a cure. Voluntarily give up so much power? Even the Greeks knew the answer to that one.
But demigod ethics was a subject for later philosophical discussion. Right now, they were losing focus on the problem at hand. “Look, Mr. King, Napoleon knows he has nothing to fear from me,” Kuryakin declared without the slightest hint of doubt. “I have always acted in his best interest, as he has in mine. We have saved each other’s lives more times than either of us can count - than even you can possibly imagine - and he knows I would not hesitate to save him again.”
Oliver’s expression hardened as he turned to Kuryakin. “I’m so pleased to hear it. I only hope your best efforts are sufficient. And if they are not,” he added gently to Solo, “I will find you and help you through the transition.”
Kuryakin watched the interplay and thought, Of course you would. The gentle words, the touches, the delight over the photograph, the interplay: it was obvious what was going on here. But Kuryakin knew Napoleon had to be aware of it, too; it was impossible to think otherwise. The steps might be improvised and the partner, unexpected, but Kuryakin had witnessed this pas de deux on plenty of other occasions. For a number of reasons, he’d learned to sit back and bide his time while Napoleon danced the music out. Not to do so now would probably prompt Oliver to accuse him of jealousy, along with hubris.
As if that settled everything, Oliver shifted in his chair and again tasted his wine. “Now, as for killing Veracity, first you must subdue her. The Thrush people who destroyed my home came in with flamethrowers and water cannons filled with garlic juice. We’re terribly allergic to garlic, some more than others. It can cause anaphylactic shock in some poor souls, but for most of us, it burns our eyes and lungs and makes breathing very difficult. As a result, if we smell it, we stay far away, given the choice.
“Garlic,” Solo repeated, nodding.
“We’re also allergic to gold. It burns the skin, but it’s not fatal, unless -”
Unless what? Kuryakin wanted to ask, but didn’t. Considering Oliver’s hostility toward him, he knew better, so he let Solo articulate the question instead.
“Unless what?” Solo asked.
“Never mind. That method would be exorbitantly expensive.” Oliver paused, remembering stories in his early years of vampires who died, writhing in agony, tied to large gold crosses. “Well, it’s not a good way to remove Veracity, because to use it, you still have to catch her. Frankly, the only way Thrush could have caught her, in my opinion, was to trick her. They offered her something she wanted, and she stepped willingly into that black bag. So, it seems trickery will be necessary. Once she is captured, there are three choices: decapitation, irreparable destruction of the heart muscle, or immolation. Complete destruction of the body by fire.” He shuddered.
A busboy arrived to clear away the dishes, followed by the waiter again with inquiries about coffee and tea. Solo ordered the coffee, no dessert, and the conversation didn’t resume until the wait staff was out of earshot.
“How about if her body explodes?” Kuryakin asked matter-of-factly. “Or just her head?”
Oliver’s voice was now subdued. Discussing modes of possible death was unnerving. “Drawing and quartering was effective in the seventeenth century, so I suppose exploding the body into bits would also kill her.” Or me, you scheming Russian.
Kuryakin looked at Oliver and added, “Unlike gold, exploding bullets are relatively cheap.”
“Yes, blowing her brain to bits with a head shot would do it.” His tone was growing increasingly defensive and hostile. “If you want to practice here and now, why don’t you reach for your weapon and attempt to aim and fire your exploding bullet? The resulting chaos would be an excellent practical lesson in agility for Napoleon, in the event of his turning.”
“A demonstration will not be necessary,” Kuryakin replied, amused, as the coffee arrived. “I gathered enough evidence of your physical capabilities from the autopsies.”
“You are a cold man,” said Oliver flatly, “to speak of the loss of six innocent lives as nothing more than autopsies to add to your knowledge of me. None of those people had ever taken a human life. I’m sure the same cannot be said for you, sir.”
“No, it can’t,” Kuryakin agreed. “And not for Napoleon here, either, and you’d do well to remember that. But then, as U.N.C.L.E. agents, we’re accustomed to being underestimated.”
Eager to defuse the tension, Solo reached for his coffee and cleared his throat. “Ah - well, so: now that the basic facts are established, and no one is going to underestimate anyone, could we please talk about a plan? It would be useful if we could somehow get Veracity to lead us to Barbarossa and his secret stronghold. After all, he’s been our main objective all along.”
Oliver exhaled slowly, letting some of his hostility escape on the long breath. “Yes, Napoleon, quite right. We need a plan. Barbarossa? Hmph. The man’s name means ‘Red Beard.’ Sounds like a pirate”
“If only that were all he is,” Kuryakin muttered.
Oliver spooned sugar into his coffee and sipped at it with the same delicacy he’d used with the wine, leaving as much coffee in his cup after the sip as before. “We’ll have to do what Barbarossa did. We’ll have to trick her. Offer her something she wants to -” He bit his tongue, but the words were already out.
“Well,” Solo said, reflecting, “at the moment, the thing she seems to want or need is me.”
“Judging by that photograph album,” Kuryakin observed, “she’s hunting all of us in Section II.”
“Yes, but at this point, the only one she really knows is me.” He looked at Oliver. “If it’s just you waiting for her, she might not even bother to show up. Worse, she’ll suspect a set-up.”
"Napoleon is right," said Oliver. "He is the one she wants. I took him away from her. And I know from long association with her that she will be very angry about that. I rescued him from her grasp, and from that moment on, it became very personal for her."
“So, Napoleon will be the bait.” The way Kuryakin made the statement, it was clear he didn’t like the idea, not at all
“There’s no way around it, is there?” said Oliver with a heavy sigh. His eyes were full of regret.
Kuryakin turned to Solo. “And how will you protect yourself? You can’t even draw your gun properly.”
Solo snuffled into his coffee cup, maneuvering awkwardly with his left hand as he had for the entire meal. “I thought that’s what you two were for.”
“That won’t make her any less dangerous.”
“As much as it chokes me to agree with Mr. Kuryakin,” said Oliver, “he is entirely correct, Napoleon. You cannot simply dangle yourself before Veracity. If she suspects anything, she might snap your neck so fast not even I could stop her.”
Kuryakin considered. “What if we use just Napoleon’s clothing as bait? One his shirts - a shirt with some blood on it.”
"Not good enough," said Oliver. "There are gradations of scent. She would know the difference." He addressed the rest of his explanation to Solo. "Imagine, if you will, that your skin is bright red in color. Some of your skin cells rub off on your clothing, leaving a pinkish residue. But you would have no trouble distinguishing between those colors, would you? The pink and the red? No, of course not. Well, our sense of smell is as capable of such differentiations as your sense of sight. Veracity would know the difference. She'll be expecting the bright red, and you cannot fool her by substituting the pink. You must be there in person, Napoleon."
“Well, then, what can we do?” Solo asked in exasperation. “This assassination thing has seriously handicapped our operations in the city and who knows? Barbarossa may have plans to send her elsewhere. I can’t have all my field agents hiding out in headquarters.”
He thought for a moment. “Oliver, tell me: if U.N.C.L.E. weren’t involved, if I weren’t involved, what would you do in this situation? You said Veracity disobeyed you. She’s killed people, and she’s responsible for the deaths of all your friends. You would have to deal with her anyway, try to stop her. You mentioned ‘mental reformation’ before. Is that really a possibility? Could you do that to her? Are you strong enough?”
Oliver knew exactly what he’d do if Napoleon weren’t involved. He would leave town, seek out an elder or two, and alert them that Veracity had become a renegade. They would decide if it were worth the effort to attempt rehabilitation. He couldn’t do that sort of thing alone, nor did he care to try.
Veracity had been a thorn in his side since the day she arrived in New York. He didn’t care about Thrush or her alliance with them, and except for Napoleon, he didn’t really care about U.N.C.L.E. either. He didn’t want her killing humans, but she was a rogue. He wasn’t responsible for her actions. His first instinct was to let an elder deal with her. But that would take time, and they didn’t have any.
She was hunting Solo, and Oliver did not want anything to happen to him. Veracity would have to die. Perhaps the U.N.C.L.E. agents could help him find her, but he wouldn’t stand by and allow them to capture her. He chose his words carefully when he spoke. “Yes, Napoleon, I’m strong enough. If I can get hold of her, I can control her.”
A couple of snorts of hypnomist and I can fog her mind long enough to snap her neck. “Of course, if we had more time, I could notify an elder of her crimes -”
“No,” Kuryakin said quietly, “no more vampires.”
“If you can get some sort of control over her,” Solo said to Oliver as he warmed to the idea, “maybe, you could even manipulate her into giving us information about Barbarossa’s operation.” And if she were docile enough, they might manage to bring her to a secure cell for observation, thought Solo, though knew Oliver wouldn’t be immediately receptive to the idea. “But most importantly, we wouldn’t have to kill her.”
“Not killing her would be preferable,” Oliver lied. “But,” he frowned a question at Kuryakin, “hold her where?”
The Russian agent shrugged. “I don’t know. Some place where she could be contained, some place where we’d have the advantage.”
Solo was thinking again. “Oliver, the other day, you said she knew about all the places you owned. When you were hiding me, you were worried she would track us down. Is there some place that we could allow that to happen? She must still be out there, looking for me, for us. Maybe we could even send clues her way - nothing suspicious. Just enough to lure her into a trap.”
Oliver nodded, thinking. “Actually, there is one place she knows about that we might use. She thinks I’m unaware of her knowledge, you see. One of the others told me she had followed me there one night, against my orders.” He smiled at Napoleon. “It’s a brownstone with a delightful wine cellar. I rent it out, but the people who live there owe me a great deal. They’ll vacate for a few days if I request it.”
“You’d have to get them out by tomorrow night,” Solo said. “We can’t wait. It has to happen right away.”
“A wine cellar...” Now it was Kuryakin’s turn to speculate. “That might work. One entrance and no other exit, probably a narrow passageway, a stairway that’s difficult to negotiate, no windows. We could seal it off fairly easily from the house above.”
“She can pick up scents, Illya,” Solo said. “She’ll smell you if you’re around.”
“I’ll find a way to disguise my scent, to confuse her. The weather report is for rain tomorrow night, and that might help us, too.” He looked to Oliver for affirmation. The vampire nodded.
“And,” Oliver added, “when I say these people will vacate for me on a moment’s notice, Napoleon, I am not exaggerating. If we put them up in a nice hotel, I’m certain they would appreciate the opportunity to, shall we say, repay their debt to me. As for confusing or disguising Mr. Kuryakin’s scent, that might not be necessary. These tenants do a consulting business out of their home, so people come and go during the day. The scent of strangers will not be suspect there.”
“Before, Mr. King,” Kuryakin reminded him, “you said you might not be able to protect Napoleon. Perhaps I shouldn’t be outside the house, but inside, close by, inside that cellar. I’ll find a place to conceal myself. Still, in the end, for at least a few crucial moments, it will be just you and Napoleon. How much of a risk will we be taking here, and how might we keep it to a minimum?”
“As long as Veracity does not detect the trap immediately, I think she’ll want to gloat a bit. Taunt me. She’s been known to do that before. She’s quite argumentative, you see. She won’t want to miss an opportunity to tell me how antiquated and ridiculous I am.”
He dropped his gaze to his lap for a moment, then steeled himself against the unpleasant prospect of yet another ugly scene with Veracity. “So I should have time to put myself between her and Napoleon.”
“And what will happen afterward?” Solo wanted to know. “Can you really brainwash her? Just like that?”
“Not exactly. Rogues often end up dead, one way or another. But if we can subdue her, perhaps there is a chance. I’m not an elder, but I’m old enough to have learned a few techniques that could be useful in this situation.”
“Like U.N.C.L.E. detraining,” Solo joked to Kuryakin. “We’d best not let Section IV hear about this.”
“And I would need your assurance that, if we succeed, your people won’t simply destroy Veracity and myself afterward.”
“Of course,” Solo said. “I would prefer that everyone comes out of this alive.”
“Well, then,” said Oliver. “I suppose I should go call my tenants and send them to a hotel. I can stay at their place tomorrow. The basement is windowless, and I have a sleeping box there, for emergencies. And the two of you? I suppose you’ll be coordinating and planning and commanding your forces? When do we set our trap?”
“As soon as possible,” Solo said. He glanced at Kuryakin. “Tomorrow night?”
“It could be arranged,” Kuryakin agreed. “Mr. King, you’ll need to give Napoleon a diagram of the house. In the meantime, I’ll return to headquarters to arrange backup and see to the weapons.” He checked his watch. “It’s almost ten. That gives us less than twenty-four hours.”
“All right, then.” Solo reached for the wine and poured out the remaining last drops into each the three glasses.
“To tomorrow night,” he said, lifting his own glass.
Oliver lifted his as well. “May we all live to see many more.”
Perhaps not all of us, Kuryakin thought.
***
After Kuryakin headed back to U.N.C.L.E. HQ, Oliver and Napoleon left the restaurant together and strolled toward the U.N. The open space made Oliver feel more secure. There were no roofs nearby for Veracity to drop from without being seen.
While they talked, Oliver walked as close to Solo as he dared, brushing elbows and stealing whiffs of scent when he thought Solo didn’t notice. He filled him in about the layout of the house, the cellar, the surrounding neighborhood, and then kept talking, not wanting their time together to end.
“You and Illya seem very close.” Oh, that was subtle, you buffoon, thought Oliver.
“We are,” Solo agreed. He pulled the collar of his topcoat up. Although the night was clear and not too cold, there was a strong, sharp wind blowing in from the East River. “Like brothers, I guess.” He glanced up at Oliver. “Hard to believe?”
“No, not at all.” Oliver looked away. Then he chuckled. “Yes, very hard to believe, actually. You seem so different. But then, opposites often attract, don’t they?”
“I suppose,” Solo conceded. “Although, deep down, I don’t think we are really opposites at all. We believe in the same things, share the same goals, value our jobs with U.N.C.L.E. - its vision and our commitment to that vision. I can trust him in a way that I don’t think I’ve experienced with any other person - ever. And trust is important in our business.
“And then there are the risks, the almost constant uncertainty. A lot of terrible things can happen to an agent - things too terrible to tell an outsider. And it can be a lonely way of life, and a short one, too, without a partner watching your back.”
Solo drew close to the railing and leaned against it, allowing the wind to whip against his cheeks and through his hair. “There were times, I think, that without Illya, I might have gone mad.”
Oliver nodded. “I see.” He mirrored Solo’s pose, then turned his head to study Solo’s face. “He is very possessive of you. The way he spoke of taking care of you, watching out for you. And you feel the same way about him?
“Yes, I do,” Solo said frankly. “I’d better. We need each other to survive. He has skills and knowledge I don’t have. We complete each other, and in a very real way, we make each other possible.” He smiled self-consciously. “And besides, I like that gloomy Russian. Believe it or not, he has quite a sense of humor. We’ve been in some grave situations together, and he’ll just say something witty or unexpected, and I’ll laugh, and then I’ll know everything will come out all right. I feel very comfortable in his company, always have, almost from the first time we met.” He glanced at Oliver. “Haven’t you ever had someone like that in your life?”
“Yes, I have,” said Oliver wistfully, “but it’s been a long time. His name was James Andrew Winston. He always used both Christian names, James Andrew. We shared two decades together. More than two decades.
“He meant the world to me. We lived in Atlanta, until Sherman’s March. We’d built a cozy nest together. We were comfortable and safe, and James Andrew found wonderful ways to appreciate our vampire state. When the city burned, James Andrew was devastated. He never recovered. So depressed. I kept hoping he’d snap out of it, but that’s not the way of depression, is it?”
“What happened to him?” Solo asked.
“Suicide,” said Oliver. He stared out at the water, lost in the past for a few moments. Then he shook it off. “But that was a long time ago. We are here and now. Life goes on.” He tried a half-smile. “I’m glad you have such a good friend.” He laughed softly. “Now I’m repeating myself.” He turned a keen eye on Solo. “He doesn’t like me at all, does he?”
“Not very much,” Solo admitted, “No, I’m afraid not. Our entire section is threatened and he’s very worried.” Solo cocked an eyebrow at Oliver. “And throwing money around on an expensive bottle of wine will not win you his friendship. Illya’s a Marxist. So, where do you come from anyway, Oliver? What’s your background? How did you become ... like you are?”
“I suppose I’m European. My father was English and Catholic at a time when it was not safe to be Catholic in England. He journeyed to Spain where he met my mother in Barcelona. They had me late in life, and they took me back to England for schooling. Things were changing then, and the family stayed on. I grew up there, in Buckinghamshire.”
Buckinghamshire? Not safe to be Catholic. “Ah - “ Solo asked gingerly, “what year are we talking about here?”
“Well, my father left England in 1575. I was born in 1590. My father learned he could return to England if he would attend Anglican services and pass my mother off as Portuguese. She was Catalan, so almost no one questioned the deception. Mummy hated it, of course. She took me to the Continent as often as she could.”
“Your mother was Spanish? Weren’t England and Spain at war during that period?” Solo asked, remembering his history and forgetting for the moment, the surrealistic quality of their conversation.
“That’s why they needed the deception.”
“Born in 1590 ...” Solo did a quick calculation. “Did you ever see a Shakespeare play?”
“Many, actually, but I never met the bard, and I saw the plays much later. Those theaters were full of commoners and we didn’t live in London. My father looked down on that sort of thing.”
Solo clicked his tongue against his teeth. Imagine: seeing a Shakespeare play practically in its original run. He could almost get caught up in the fantasy.
“My father arranged a marriage for me when I was thirty, quite a good one, actually. But I deferred and deferred, being more attracted to men and not ready to do my duty to family by siring a child. My father insisted I marry in my thirty-fourth year. He wanted a grandchild before he died. Well, of course, I was going to do the right thing, but I told him I wanted one last month of freedom in London before settling down. He agreed, the poor man.”
“A last fling, huh?”
Oliver nodded. “That month was my undoing. I drank too much, attended parties with the wrong people, and tried all sorts of bizarre behaviors. By the end of the month I was home in Buckinghamshire, sick and dying, or so we all thought. I had been bitten by a vampire in London, or more likely several, and I was infected. There was no cure. I was declared dead, and they deposited my body in the family crypt.”
“That must have been, eh, a little awkward.”
“Fortunately for me, one of the London vampires had followed me home. He freed me from the crypt and cared for me as I learned to survive as a vampire. Of course, I couldn’t tell my family I was still alive. That would have been a greater blow than my death. So I began traveling with my benefactor. Eventually, I came to America.”
“In time for what? The American Revolution?”
“Yes, actually.” Oliver smiled. “Now that was exciting! Of course, Manhattan was much more rustic then. A surprising number of tasty sheep lived on this island. And I mean the baa-baa kind, not the human kind.”
Solo was shaking his head and smiling too. It was an appealing story, whether delusional or not.
“And what about you?” said Oliver. “Where do you come from?”
The smile faded. “I was born in Quebec, but my father was American. Like you, I come from an upper class family. One of my grandfathers was an admiral; the other, an ambassador. But my parents were disowned and so I wasn’t raised wealthy.” Solo sighed. “It’s a long story and I really don’t think about my childhood any more. When I joined U.N.C.L.E., I started over, another life. Everything I am today began then.”
“How sad. Sort of like waking up a vampire. The old life is gone, the new one consumes your being. Do you ever have to go into hiding?” Oliver was half joking. Then he realized that Solo and his fellow agents were actually doing that because of Veracity. “Oh, I’m sorry. That was an insensitive question.”
“I work in espionage, Oliver. I hide in plain sight every day of my life.” Solo paused, as the realization occurred to him. “Just like you do.”
“Well, well, well. We seem to have more in common than either of us realized.” Oliver examined his perfectly manicured nails. “Except for one very important area, that is.” He tilted his head back and inhaled the night air. Then, trying to sound nonchalant, he said, “Women must fall all over you.”
Solo chuckled. “Now, what would make you say that?” He hadn’t shared much of his private life with Oliver and certainly nothing about his dating habits.
Oliver shrugged. “I can usually tell if one is straight or gay. I’ve had lots of practice, you know. And watching you with Kuryakin… well, once again it seems I have misplaced my affections. You seem very straight to me. Alas.”
Solo saw the disappointment in Oliver’s face and didn’t know what to say. He had to be honest; Oliver would know if he was not. “Well, I must admit, I enjoy the company of women, although Veracity certainly didn’t succumb to my charms, did she?”
“Well, she wasn’t looking at you as a person. Now, if you were a vampire -. That is, I mean,” he stumbled, “that is to say, she was all over the males in our nest. That’s all.” He sighed heavily. “I’m making a mess of this conversation, aren’t I?”
“Not at all,” Solo said. He unfolded himself from the railing and gave Oliver’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “It’s been, ah, fascinating.” That it might all be true was hard to conceive, but Solo had no need to share that. “I’d best be getting back to HQ. Remaining out in the open like this, I’ve probably pushed my luck far enough already.” Solo glanced up at the buildings around him. “I keep expecting her to swoop down on us any minute.” He shivered as a sharp wind whipped by.
“As long as I’m here, you’re safe,” said Oliver, with more than a hint of protectiveness. “I will not let her have you. Ever. Even if you turn, I would never trust her around you. She has fed off you. That will affect her opinion of you forever. She sees you as a victim.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Solo assured him, which was the truth. He began to walk toward the avenue. “Still, I have to admit, it was a singular experience. Not one I would like to repeat necessarily, but I’ll certainly remember it. Kind of like losing one’s virginity.”
Oliver reached out and caught his arm. “She’ll use that if you give her a chance,” he said. He pulled his hand back. “Forgive me, Napoleon. It just startled me to hear you speak of it. I know the chemicals transmitted in the vampire’s bite can produce a tremendous high in humans. I’ve experienced it myself. But don’t let yourself be seduced by that rush, not to the point of letting down your guard. Ever. I beg you.”
“Sorry. I guess I’m just an adrenaline junkie. Occupational hazard.”
Oliver fell into step with Solo. “How are you feeling, by the way? Still no fever?”
Solo shook his head. “Nope. Nothing. I feel fine. A little tired, of course, but then it’s been a helluva day.”
“Well, then, I suppose you should get some rest. Or will you need to work all night preparing for our trap?”
“I assume that’s what Illya’s been doing while we’ve been here.” Solo grinned. He indicated his fractured wrist, still in the sling. “All things considered, I think I’ll leave the heavy lifting to him, if I can help it. The perks of being chief of the section. Of course, Illya will find a way to exact some sort of retribution.” He yawned. “No, I’ll be heading off to bed, at least for a few hours. And don’t worry: we’ll be safe in U.N.C.L.E. HQ. The walls are solid steel. I don’t think even an atom bomb can breach them, never mind a vampire.”
“Very well. I’ll try not to worry about your safety, then. But you will let me know if you begin to show symptoms? Headaches? Fever? Body aches? The initial stages of turning resemble the onset of influenza.”
“Sure, sure,” Solo said. They had turned down the avenue. A block or two more and Del Floria’s would be in sight. Although he didn’t say so, Solo considered the idea that he might actually turn into a vampire himself preposterous, their conversation notwithstanding. Still, just to be safe, he made a mental note to stop by the infirmary in the morning for another check-up. The doctors there might have a suitable antibiotic on hand. For the moment, however, his mind was focused on the next twenty-four hours. They had to trap Veracity and get her to talk. And then, with luck, they’d nail Barbarossa’s ass to a jailhouse wall.
“Good night,” Solo said to Oliver when they reached Del Floria’s. The tailor shop was closed so he veered away to slip through the Key Club’s alternate entrance.
Oliver watched him go, catching a last faint whiff on the night air. His nostrils quivered. Was there something different about Solo’s scent this evening? Or was Oliver reading too much into the vagaries of the night air? Solo said he felt fine. Leave it alone, Oliver. If he turns, you’ll be there to help. Meanwhile, he had a brownstone to vacate and he needed to feed.
***
When Solo returned to U.N.C.L.E. HQ, he expected to find his partner gone, busy with preparations, or already fast asleep in one of the cubicles located next to the infirmary. With a quarter of the agents in Section II being accommodated that night, the beds had been doubled up in each cubicle.
Illya was sitting on one of those beds, waiting for him, dressed in his pajamas with a dim lamp still on. Normally, neither one of them would have bothered with nightclothes. But, they were in HQ and a security alarm could always go off, and there was always the embarrassing prospect of having to run past the nighttime secretaries drawing a gun while in one’s underwear.
Solo noticed his own suitcase sitting beside the opposite bed. Apparently, one of the secretaries had gone to his apartment and retrieved his packed bag. As Solo took out his own pajamas and laid them on the narrow bed, Kuryakin asked, “Have a nice walk?”
“Cold, actually,” Solo said. He shook out a suit and hung it on a clothes bar so he could wear it, unwrinkled, in the morning. “There’s a strong wind blowing in from the east.”
There was a long moment of silence. Solo continued to transfer his clothes one-handed to a metal cabinet, fishing out ties, shirts, socks, underwear and a shaving kit.
“Why are you so sure we should trust him?” Kuryakin asked. He didn’t need to identify who ‘him’ was.
Solo talked as he continued to work. “He’s been honest with us. Cooperative. Informative. He didn’t have to show up for dinner. Or volunteer to help. He could have walked away from it all, but he didn’t.”
“Because he’s in love with you.”
So there it was. Solo didn’t react at first, then he merely shrugged. “Isn’t everyone?”
“Be serious, Napoleon. He has - how do you Americans put it? - a ‘thing’ for you. If he wore pigtails and knee socks, I’d call it a school girl crush.”
“I know,” Solo replied softly. “I think he’s just lonely. The last person he loved committed suicide.”
“Really? Was this lover human?”
“No. A vampire.”
“Interesting,” Kuryakin murmured, tucking away the information. “So: what are you going to do about the current situation?”
“What can I do?” Solo began to undress. “Maybe we can use it.”
“That could be very dangerous. You know you’re playing with fire.”
“I can handle it.”
Kuryakin snorted. “Famous last words. We’ll carve them on your tombstone.”
Solo shook his head helplessly. “I don’t think so. Tonight, after you left, he told me how he became a vampire, how he came to America.”
“And met George Washington, no doubt.”
“As a matter of fact -”
“Oh, Napoleon!” Kuryakin said irritably, unable to maintain the pose of detachment any more. He leaned forward, determined to make Napoleon listen and understand. It was time to call the game. “Rescuing you. Flattering you. Plying you with pretty stories. Don’t you see what’s happening? You, of all people! He’s seducing you!”
“And that disturbs you?” Solo asked, pulling on his pajama bottoms with effort. Afterward, he slipped his uninjured arm into one sleeve of the pajama top and draped the other sleeve over his sling
“Yes, it disturbs me. Ironically, if he were female, you’d protect yourself, be on your guard as you are with Angelique. You know that it’s not his taste for men that I object to; with his kind, I doubt gender even matters anyway. One source of protein is as good as another. It’s his obvious physical superiority coupled with an extreme sense of entitlement that I don’t trust. If he were female, I’d feel exactly the same.”
Despite Kuryakin’s insistence, Solo remained calm. He found a perch on the edge of his own mattress. “He says he doesn’t hunt humans. He drinks pig’s blood. I saw it. And raw steak - you saw that tonight. I don’t know what he is, I suppose we’ll have to wait until we get Veracity into a holding cell here to find that out, but I don’t really think he’s a threat to us.”
“Not a threat?” Kuryakin sucked in a deep, calming breath. When he spoke again, his words were level, sober. “Tell me, Napoleon, what did you feel when Veracity attacked you? I notice you didn’t go into much detail in your report.”
Illya had him this time. Solo looked away, reluctant to answer. The memory of being paralyzed, trapped but accepting - more than accepting, wanting, needing - as an erotic, incandescent rush like liquid electricity raced through his body, was still vivid in his mind.
“Turned on,” he finally murmured.
“Yes. I surmised as much. It’s probably something in their saliva that finds its way quickly into the blood stream and reacts with our brain chemistry. Another one of their biological advantages. Sex and feeding, attack and exploit - it’s linked in them. They’re the ultimate predators - what our friends in Thrush can only dream of being.”
Solo didn’t have a good comeback; he knew Illya was right. As he studied the floor, Kuryakin seized the advantage. “Listen to me: when I was a small child, at my grandfather’s dacha in the country, I had a little lamb. I made a pet of that lamb. I named it, loved it, played with it; let it follow me around just like the nursery rhyme. But at the end of the season, that lamb still ended up on our dinner table.
“It’s the same with Oliver. You can see it in his manner, in his eyes. You’re not a lamb, Napoleon, not by any means. More like an exotic wild animal to him - a wolf, a white tiger. Some foolish people try to domesticate wolves and tigers, adopt them young, take them into their homes. But a tiger is a tiger and eventually, it must behave true to its nature. So will you.
“With his strength and more importantly, with his sense of superiority, Oliver is incapable of seeing you as a lover, only as a beloved pet.” Kuryakin paused. “And possibly, a meal.”
Solo let out a sigh. He didn’t want to debate this, didn’t want to argue. After all that had happened to him in the last thirty-six hours, he could barely think. “It’s been a long day,” Solo said, after a moment. “I’m tired.” He pulled back the blankets and climbed in. “How are preparations for the operation coming along?”
“Simpson will report in around five to adapt our weapons and jury-rig some new ones. I’ve chosen a team. With so many field agents cooped up in here, there were a lot of volunteers.”
“Good,” Solo said his voice ragged, empty. “I’ll try to meet with Don in the morning as early as possible, but I need a few hours.”
“No doubt,” Kuryakin agreed sympathetically as he switched off the light. In the darkness, his voice drifted through the small room. “Your experience with Veracity - don’t feel guilty about it. You couldn’t help it, Napoleon. It’s simply a matter of biology. Remember that.”
“Yeah,” Solo said. He wasn’t sure he actually agreed, but even if he did, that still didn’t solve the complicated, messy problem of what to do about a curious Innocent named Oliver King.
***