The chamber was located in the underground. Not the kind of underground that politicians and businessmen spoke of when they discussed underground dealings and organizations. This chamber was literally underground. It was dug into the earth centuries ago by people long dead and forgotten, kept clean by servants whose eyes had never seen the sun, and lit by candlelight whose only purpose was ambiance instead of the light it provides
The vampires who stood in this chamber could see fine in total darkness. The candles were a tradition, and tradition among ancient beings who'd been around since the dawn of time was as good as law.
A long, dark table stood in the center of the chamber. It was made of oak, old oak, and the wood was stained with the substance of a thousand years worth of secrets. Twelve chairs, six on either side, surrounded the table. The vampires who sat there were dressed in the manner of lords and ladies, and each held the stiffness in their spine and the poise in their bearing of a noble family that could trace its roots back to the ancient dynasties.
The thirteenth chair at the head of the table, however, was empty.
The twelve vampires who filled the other chairs were old. Not old like Methuselah, not old like the grandfather clock in the corner. These were men and women who'd seen it all, who watched as empires fell and new ones rose in their place, fed upon the blood of the rich and powerful, and lived through plagues and wars and the steady march of progress that threatened to expose them. Now, with the world becoming more and more populated, they were finding it harder and harder to hide themselves, their new numbers growing smaller with every passing century.
And, at the moment, they were angry.
"Twenty-eight," said the vampire who sat third from the head on the left side of the table. His name was Marcus, or so he said, and he might as well have been speaking to himself, because the other vampires around the table knew his name wasn't Marcus. He'd been Marco three centuries ago, and Marcellus before that, and a name in a forgotten language before that. "Twenty-eight of our agents have been detained and disappeared. Our monitoring stations in four major cities have all been compromised within a week's time."
"We're aware of the number, Marcus," said the vampire who sat directly across from him. Elaine was her name, or rather, that was the name she'd adopted for herself in this century - three centuries ago she'd been Eleanora, and before that she'd had another name altogether that no one living could pronounce. "You're not clarifying anything by repeating it."
"And I'm not wasting any time," Marcus snapped. "That's twenty-eight of our agents compromised and scattered throughout the world. How long have we been using these methods?"
"Long enough that we know what we're doing," Elaine said.
"There's no telling what we're up against. We've been operating undetected throughout history, and suddenly the Justice League has our agents sniffing out all over the place."
"Not suddenly," said David, who sat on the far right side of the table, "because not only have they been detected, they've been captured. Our agents weren't just scattered, they were found simultaneously, in a coordinated strike against four major cities."
"That makes no sense," said Marcus. "We've placed our agents in this world using time tested methods. They've been living in secret, feeding off the lifeblood of innocents without detection for centuries. How could the League possibly have found them all at once?"
"Maybe one of them slipped up," said a thin vampire who sat near the end of the table. He was pale and his eyes were the color of onyx, and the name he'd taken for himself at the moment was Solomon. It might have been Sebastian a century ago, or Samuel before that, but no one was really certain. "Something could have happened to alert the League to their presence."
"One of them slipping up would explain how they found our agents," Elaine said, "but not how they found them all at once. Our agents are scattered all over the world, knowing nothing of each other. Unless they all take the time to look each other up and down on the street, then the fact that they were all found means that whoever found them had knowledge of where they were to begin with."
"Which would indicate that they didn't find out where our agents were by observing them," said David, "which indicates that they knew where our agents were beforehand. Which indicates that they may have someone working from the inside."
"There are no leaks," said Solomon. "We've all worked together for centuries. Any one of us would have known if one of ours slipped up."
"Unless it was you," Elaine said evenly, "because if it wasn't any one of our agents, then someone or something must have let them in."
"Speculation," Solomon said. "You're grasping at straws."
"Suspicions," David corrected. "Not grasping at straws because the truth is standing right in front of us. Someone is helping the League, that we are certain of. Whether it's one of us or something else entirely, I don't know. But the fact remains that this is something new, and new means that there's something we don't know about."
The debate raged on, the voices rising and falling in carefully measured cadence - creatures of experience who knew long ago that losing their tempers was the privilege of the young and the dying. Arguments were thrown, theories floated, and promptly shot down. Candles sputtered against the unnatural draft that shouldn't exist this deep under ground.
"Doesn't matter how it works," said the vampire sitting fifth from the right, a corpulent man formerly known as a merchant prince in the Ottoman empire before he turned, "we need to deal with the immediate problem. We've lost direct observation on our assets. Our surveillance on the targets we've been nurturing for years is compromised."
"What's the plan of action?" asked Marcus.
The Ottoman - a human for the last century or so, went by the name of Kasim these days - shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"You realize what you're suggesting don't you? That we pull out all our remaining assets in the compromised cities. That we abandon decades of painstaking work."
"We don't have the luxury of time Kasim," said the vampire sitting opposite the former Ottoman. He was tall, with the sharp features of a bygone nobleman, a looker in his day. His name was Friedrich, and he had the clipped accent of Prussian nobility in his speech. "Every single one of our remaining assets is potentially compromised. The moment they're caught will give the League a wealth of information about us. More than we bargained for."
"Agreed," said Elaine. "We can't keep them in the field, risking exposure. We'll lose more agents - not that they're not replaceable, but it'll take us some time to cultivate new ones which we can't do right now since the league is hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles right now ."
Friedrich nodded. Kasim was nodding already, his jaw set tight. The former Ottoman knew she was right, logically, but each word was like a knife twist in his dead heart.
"All our remaining assets," she said at last, "will need to be pulled back in immediately. Secure the field bases, move the agents to new safe houses until we have more information about the method of detection used by the League."
"There's a risk of public exposure as well," said the vampire who until this point hasn't said a word, rising to lean against the far wall. She was small and nondescript, the kind of person who could walk among crowds and vanish like a drop of ink in water. Her name was Mei, and she was the council's spy. "We've been operating in the shadows for years, but the League's recent string of successes has inevitably attracted press attention and public ire. The last thing the Council needs is another incident involving civilians."
"The press has been asking questions," David said. "Hard questions. The Council's image people have been feeding them nicely. It's the politicians who are having second thoughts."
"They won't stop us," said Friedrich.
"They always do," said Elaine quietly.
"They won't stop us," Friedrich repeated, "but they want us to understand they believe this operation is more important than their careers. The League is - if not a direct extension of the state, certainly its beating heart. Superman and Wonder Woman both have been known to respond directly to populist pressures. If the league suffers too much image damage they will have to respond but they have chosen not to defend themselves against these accusations means they understand this more important than their reputations. They understand right now they are racing against time."
"They know," said Marcus flatly.
"Or think they do," corrected Friedrich. "They may not understand exactly what's happened, but they're aware of the dangers. The dangers to the League's image, to its safety."
A heavy silence fell on the room.
Then Solomon spoke.
"Maybe it's time to try a new approach."
Everyone turned to look at him.
"The silent approach is compromised," Solomon said, his onyx eyes sweeping the table. "Our people are being discovered using methods we can't control. Our contacts are no longer useful assets. The League is coming after us with resources and firepower that would rival any force in our long history." He leaned back, his bony shoulders squared, his gaunt face set in a grim mask. "I say we go on the offensive and take out the League, root and branch, then return to our work, unimpeded."
It may not have been a cold room, but the silence that fell had all the stillness of a winter's night. It was the silence of the sword being unsheathed; the sound of a long-awaited snowfall falling over a forest of ancient pines. It was the kind of stillness and quiet that came when a room full of killers, more deadly than any man in the history of the world, made the decision to kill.
The two vampires closest to the empty head chair turned to face Solomon at the exact same time.
To the left of the empty seat sat a woman who looked old enough to be in her late thirties, but whose eyes were far older than her face. She'd long since stopped answering to any of her names except the one the council had given her. It had been centuries since she'd stopped pretending to be someone she wasn't. The Left Hand reported directly to the Head, and she was the second most powerful vampire in the world.
To the left of the empty seat sat a man. Or what passes for a man. To call him tall would be likening his abilities to his appearance. He had the same practiced anonymity of his consort, except that being unremarkable had taken him twice as many years to perfect. He was tall enough that when he sat at the head of the table, he didn't have to lower his gaze to regard his peers. When in motion, he cast shadows that stretched back into the hall with every step. When he stood, his presence filled the room, the walls, the ceiling - the entire edifice seemed to lean inward to hear his thoughts.
As one, Solomon turned to face the two vampires. For about two seconds their eyes locked onto his every trace of swagger drained from his body along with the blood that now ran down his legs. He seemed to shrink, to literally become shorter in both posture and height. His hands, which had been resting atop the table in a relaxed pose, moved back toward his knees. Cold sweat formed on his brow and upper lip.
"I only meant," the vampire said defensively,
"You suggested attacking the Justice League," the Right Hand said.
His voice was calm. The calm before the earthquake that is.
"Let us look at that suggestion with the seriousness it deserves." The Right Hand folded his hands on the table. "The Justice League's membership consists of Superman; a Kyrptonian whose cells convert solar energy to energy at a rate deemed to be infinite. Immune to the affects of point-blank detonation of nuclear bombs. He has dueled opponents who can shattered planets with a snap of their fingers. He can perform calculations and move at the speed of light which besides the two of us none can react and that too while we are at our best. Kryptonite is his weakness but what good would that object be if he can toss us into the sun or uses his laser to evaporate us before we get close enough to use it?"
Solomon said nothing.
"The League also contains a Green Lantern; possessor of the most powerful weapon in the known universe. A weapon that requires only your imagination to power it. If we threw a volley of nukes against the League's doorstep, the man could pluck them from the air and throw them right back at us."
Solomon's neck seemed to disappear into his shoulders with every word.
"And then there is the Flash who has linked his psyche to the Speed Force; an amorphous field of energy that permeates the universe and is the basis of motion itself. The man can run faster than light. Faster than sound. Through matter. And if he is goaded into it, or if he is sufficiently motivated, he can even run through time."
The Right Hand let the last statement hang in the air.
"I want you to ponder the implications of that statement very carefully, Solomon. We are people who thrive on our longevity. Upon our ability to outlive our enemies. To outlast them. To out-produce them. That ability is no longer a given. It never was, really. Because the Flash can outrun us."
Solomon looked as if he would liquefy and slide down into his chair.
"We are strong now. Stronger than we have ever been. Our resources, our reach, all greater than ever before. But we were not always as we are. There was a time, many times when an enemy who was determined with only a fraction of our resources could have walked in off the street and took everything we have with no more thought than you would give a pesky housefly. That is why making an enemy of a time traveler is the last thing this council should ever consider doing. Under any circumstances. And for any reason."
He paused to let the import of the last sentence sink in.
"And I trust I do not need to go into the details of Wonder Woman; a demigod trained by the Amazons for three millenia, or Martian Manhunter; a psychic so powerful he could lobotomize every vampire on this council from orbit. Or the other several dozen members of the League all of whom are more powerful individually than anything our armies contain."
Solomon opened and closed his mouth a few times.
"I withdraw the suggestion."
"See that you do and never speak of it again"
The Right Hand sank into his chair. The Left Hand's posture relaxed by a fraction of a degree; still rigid, still brimming over with displeasure, but no longer actively sending out the vibe that made elder vampires consider that perhaps, just perhaps, final death would be preferable to what they were currently experiencing.
"The silent method was chosen because the option of direct confrontation with the League is not viable," the Left Hand said for the first time. Her voice was musical, like the deep currents of the ocean, wonderful and capable of drowning a man without effort. "Nothing in our current predicament has changed that equation. We adapt. We adjust. We seek out new methods of achieving our objectives without drawing the direct ire of those who are vastly more powerful than us."
"And what do you suggest?" Marcus asked, his tone respectful in a way it had not been with other members of the council.
The Left Hand opened her mouth to reply
[T/L: Damn this part. It was so hard to translate and edit 😭]
The doors blew inward.
Not opened normally but exploded as someone kicked it open. Ancient oak reinforced with iron bands and protected with blood magic that had last been renewed four centuries past exploded inward, raining shattered on the floor of the chamber.
Vampires at the table were on their feet. Fangs bared, claws unsheathed. A hundred and more years of predatory instincts in their very bones screamed at the sight of the figure in the doorway.
Too tall, too still, too filled with the power that made the air tighten around him. As if the space around the man was delighted to be able to contain him.
The candlelight, which had obeyed the command of the councilors at the beginning of the meeting, seemed to lean towards the newcomer, drawn by something in his aura that not even vampire eyes could see.
When the figure stepped forward, the light revealed him to the council.
A sharp intake of breath, from a hundred throats, as recognition set in.
Twelve vampires, each of whom had once been the scourge of their nations, each of whom had built empires and kingdoms with their blood and determination; each of whom had lived and thrived and fed and killed for over a thousand years, all of them bowed.
Fangs were retracted, claws hidden, and heads lowered in a gesture of respect and obedience.
The Right Hand, who had been the silent force behind the throne room's power and influence for over three centuries past tilted his head in a mincing little bow. The Left Hand, whose word was law amongst her underlings moved away from the head of the table where she had been standing, making space with a sweeping courtesy.
No one said a word.
The figure walked the length of the chamber, unhurried, unhurried pausing twice to let the weight of his presence settle over the gathered vampires like the certainty of death. Those who had feasted on the lifeblood of men and women only hours before cowered, every predatory instinct screaming at the sight of the newcomer.
Even the ancient vampire kings and queens who flanked the head of the table now resembled the hunted rather than the hunters, save the man who had just entered the chamber.
He was something else entirely.
Something younger but far far more deadlier, and altogether more terrible than any of them combined could ever hope to be
He came to a halt at the head of the table. Took his time about it, as if the journey from door to seat was a pleasure he was reluctant to end. Then he sat.
A breath, and the room was silent save for the swish of candle wax dripping onto the floor.
One by one, the council members took their seats. And with the first creak of wood on stone, the new king of the vampires opened his first meeting.
-------
The Batwing cut effortlessly through clouds any commercial aircraft would have deemed rightly too high and any military jet rightly too slow for the occasion.
Bruce Wayne sat in the pilot's seat, hands lightly resting on controls designed to react to the tiniest fraction of motion.
The aircraft's stealth technology made it effectively invisible to every tracking system on Earth, and a handful of strategically-placed sensors orbiting just beyond Earth's atmosphere that Batman had no official knowledge of but knew were there.
Clark Kent settled into the passenger seat, or what could generously be called the passenger seat on the Batwing - which had been designed by a human for human use, and the Kryptonian's broad shoulders only just fit between the armrests.
"You could have told me where we were going," Clark muttered, settling into his sixth seating position since takeoff. "I can fly faster than this thing."
"You can fly faster than most things. That does not mean you shall." Bruce Wayne kept his eyes on the instrument panel. "And I did not tell you where we were going because you would have argued the matter."
"That means I'm not going to like who we're meeting."
"You're going to hate who we're meeting. But you are going to do it anyway, because he is the best asset we have for dealing with the situation we're facing."
"Bruce. Who are we meeting?"
A long pause. Then the Batwing banked sharply, veering off towards a set of coordinates that did not mark the location of any city, any military base, any superhero facility.
"John Constantine."
Clark closed his eyes.
"No."
"Yes."
"The last time Constantine got involved with the league, three buildings went up in smoke, a demon ended up in a Walmart, and Zatanna didn't talk to us for two weeks."
"The demon was contained within forty minutes. The buildings were insured. Zatanna's silence was not directly related to the mission."
"Bruce."
"He's our foremost authority on supernatural threats. Constantine's knowledge of vampire hierarchies, blood magic, and necromantic ritual. It goes beyond anything in our databanks or the Amazonian archives. We need that knowledge."
"We need that knowledge from someone who isn't a walking disaster."
"Unfortunately, walking disasters are the only ones who collect that kind of knowledge. Responsible people don't spend twenty years at the bottom of a bar in the dimension of death playing poker with demons."
Clark opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling of the Batwing's cockpit. "You've already contacted him."
"He's expecting us."
"Of course he is." Clark shifted again his knee knocking against the control panel. "Fine. Constantine. What are we asking him?"
"Everything he knows about ancient vampire power structures. Chain of command. Leadership. Capabilities. And most importantly, if there is any way to neutralize the leadership without outright war."
"You think there's a leadership structure beyond what we already know?"
"I know there's a leadership structure beyond what we already know. The twenty-eight vampires we captured were foot soldiers. Soldiers don't decide campaigns. Soldiers don't endure centuries of vampiric existence, surviving plagues and wars and centuries of human advancement, without a strong central command. Someone old enough to have planned this operation, patient enough to have waited for the perfect moment to strike."
Clark sat in silence, processing this information.
"There's something else I'd like to discuss," he said after a pause. "Before we land."
"Luthor."
"Yes."
The word seemed to hover in the cockpit between them, a name belonging to one of the most dangerous individual on the planet, depending on how you defined 'danger'. Billionaire. Genius. The foremost enemy of Superman. And a man whose disdain for Kryptonian interference in human matters was rivaled only by his personal conviction that humanity's progress was hampered by the existence of alien protectors.
Three days ago, Luthor had contacted Batman, personally.
He used a means of communication Bruce had no idea LexCorp even possessed, which in itself was a terrifying prospect considering the amount of research he and his team had done on the Luthor Corporation in recent months.
It hadn't been much, save for the usual bombastic delivery. "I know about the vampires. I have information and research you'll find useful. Take it or leave it."
Obviously, Batman had taken it.
He met LexCorp's owner in a location of his choosing, and against his better judgment because it violated at least a dozen of his personal security regulations - a fact Clark still hadn't forgiven him for.
In the end, Luthor had given him a data core containing his own research on the vampire menace, years' worth of meticulous work from a corporation that had no idea what they possessed. It included everything from biological make-up to social organization, and it would have taken the League at least half a year to reach similar conclusions.
All he had had to do in exchange, apparently, was nothing at all.
Which was actually the most worrying part of the entire situation.
"Do you believe what he told us?" Clark asked. "About why he was helping us?"
Bruce was silent for a long moment. The engines of the Batwing hummed reassuringly in the distance. "Considering his personality, his actions are perfectly in-character for Lex Luthor," he said at last. "He believes that humanity will never reach its true potential so long as it's being protected and guided by aliens, which is a rather self-centered thing to believe, actually. Everything about him screams self-aggrandizement."
"It doesn't exactly answer my question."
"It kinda does. He wants humanity to survive, but not because he sees value in us. He sees us as wasted potential. Vampires are the opposite of everything Luthor stands for. They're parasites preying upon humans, and not in the metaphorical sense. They don't create, they don't innovate, they don't advance. They consume and reproduce and that's it."
"So you think he was genuinely helping us?"
"I think he'd rather see all of humanity die out at the hands of vampires than accept the idea that he needs - or rather, deserves - our protection. It goes against everything he is to believe otherwise, and I highly doubt it."
"And the data?"
"Already being processed. His research on the biology of vampires alone will cut our estimated time of biological solution by at least six months. I'm also cross-referencing his notes on the hierarchy of the vampire clans with the little intel I managed to gather before our little meeting. Everything checks out, and it's all very useful information."
Clark looked past Bruce's shoulder and out the cockpit window where the clouds moved by like great white curtains. "I really hope you're right about him," he said eventually. "Because at the moment, nothing seems to be going our way and I really don't need Luthor backstabbing us in our most vulnerable moment."
"If he does, I'll be prepared," Bruce said. "There are seventeen contingency protocols designed specifically for Lex Luthor."
"Only seventeen?"
"The other twelve protocols are classified."
Clark couldn't help it - he chuckled.
The Batwing started its descent, and slowly but surely, the city appeared in the distance, a jumbled collection of concrete structures and polluted air, a place that looked like it gave up being a real city somewhere around the eighties.
"We're here," Bruce announced.
He unfastened his seatbelt, accessed the autopilot command prompt, and opened the canopy. A gust of wind slapped Clark in the face and nearly knocked him off the seat. Then Batman jumped.
Out of the Batwing, without a word, without a backward glance, without seeming concern that they were hundreds of feet above the ground. He vanished into the gloom below, his cape billowing behind him like a living entity trying to swallow him whole.
Clark watched his friend fall for roughly three seconds.
"I could've just flown you down there," he muttered to no one in particular.
He sighed and followed Superman's most reluctant ally into the night, searching for answers and a man who smelled like cigarettes and bad decisions.
Behind them, the Batwing hovered a good mile above the ground, circling like a vulture waiting for its prey to die.
And below, in some boarded-up flat above a fish-and-chips shop, John Constantine lit up his thirty-seventh cigarette of the day and waited for some undeserved company to show up.
----------------------------------------------------------
T/L: This chapter might have been the hardest to translate because I think he used every word he could find on our dictionary to write this. Fuck him 😭