Free The Living Night (Book 2) by Jack Conner

going to greater
efforts to acquire it than he'd ever expended on behalf of a certain
elephant—or other beast—that he'd been courting. He was the Hunter, whether it be for grapes or blood.
    On this night, he took to wandering the smaller
tunnels that emptied out into the main chamber. These were the tunnels where he
kept the best of the best wines, the ones with the highest prestige or simply
the ones that meant the most to him personally.
    Suddenly, he plucked a bottle from the shelf and
began admiring it. He held it up to the light and stared at it fondly for a
long time. It was a bottle he'd spent years tracking down, but that wasn't its
real significance. This was the decanter that he'd found himself hunting for
after the conclusion of World War Two.
    Once Ruegger had left him, without so much as a
word good-bye, he'd needed something to distract him from his grief, so he had
set out on the quest for this bottle, this wine. It had consumed his thoughts
utterly for a time, taking up the space that the Darkling would have. If he'd
allowed himself to wallow in misery, he might just have killed himself. In a
sense, this bottle had saved his life.
    Gingerly, he set it back in its crevice and moved
on down the tunnel, illuminated at this point only by torchlight.
    It must be nearly dawn, he thought, and sighed. Time to go to bed, if he was to continue keeping the vampire hours
that Ruegger was forced to. He didn't really need to sleep, in
the way that younger immortals did, but he desired it (at some times more than
others) and his body was used to the rest.
    He wound his way through the smaller, more
protected tunnels and again through the Labyrinth of the Grape. Soon he found
himself going up the staircase. At the landing, he turned around for a final
view of his collection. Beautiful, he thought. They were things that could
bring a man pleasure without ever needing to be held to his breast—and without
him ever wanting them to, either. He ascended the stairs and entered one of the
Lodge's central hallways. From there, he selected a back route and a
seldom-used flight of stairs up to another hall that he then took to his
personal chambers.
    His quarters stretched, large and comfortable,
adorned with the heads of animals and draped in their skins and furs. Already
in his smoking jacket, he slipped between the covers of his massive canopied
bed and lit a cigar. The coversheet was zebra hide, and he scratched at its
rough softness with one hand while smoking with the other. For nearly an hour,
he sat upright in bed, thinking of Ruegger. What was he to do with the
Darkling? He had loved the vampire and thought he still did, but was this
Ruegger truly the same creature Kharker had befriended so long ago?
    Questions that couldn't be answered, Kharker decided.
Not by him. Still, he was unable to sleep. He called up the mortal musicians
that Jean-Pierre had mocked, the same ones who had played for him on his
birthday. It was not the first time. In fact, the ritual was becoming more and
more frequent, as if he were a baby that had to be lulled to sleep.
    The humans’ dark skins sweating and their lids
heavy, they began to play, their instruments resonant in the fur-lined room. It
may not be Jean-Pierre's favorite, but Kharker liked it just fine. The players’
devotion, as much as their music, made him smile. He placed the cigar in the
ash-tray and lay back, closing his eyes. Letting the music wash over him, he
tried to sleep. Slowly, he could feel the real world tugging away. Gladly, he
let it ...
    Someone knocked on the door.
    At Kharker’s invitation, Gavin entered. The band
stopped playing, but the Hunter gestured for them to continue.
    "What is it?"
    "Bad news,” Gavin said.
    Kharker swore and reached for his cigar. "What
is it this time?"
    "Remember that group of terrorists killed
two weeks ago—I believe it was about fifty miles from here?"
    "Yes, I remember. Has there been another incident?"
    "Yes, my lord. The bodies