Chapter One

The Tyrant's Nephew

Sophie Masson

Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

(from Macbeth, by William Shakespeare)

 

The big black limousine purred through the dark, silent streets of Madinatu es Salam. Because of curfew there was not a soul about to get in the way. Everyone knew what happened to those who broke curfew – or at least, they knew that those people were never seen again. Shutters and doors were tight-closed against the night; no-one wanted to be caught even accidentally glancing out of a window. Years of The Vampire’s rule had taught them well: curiosity was a very dangerous thing, and best not indulged in.
Inside the car it was as silent as the city outside. The uniformed driver stared straight ahead; the three heavily armed bodyguards glanced from side to side; the tall, thin, bespectacled man in the elegant suit sat quietly with his smart fedora hat on his lap, not speaking to the short dark boy at his side.

Omar was glad the Secretary didn’t speak to him. He was scared of the man. He was scared of all of them. He didn’t want to be in this car, heading for his uncle’s palace. He wanted to be back home on his widowed mother’s farm, with his younger sister, Mariam, living his life in peaceful obscurity. He wanted to be a farmer. He’d always loved green, growing things; he had a way with them that people said was nothing short of magical. But now, all that was finished. He was on his way to his uncle’s palace. His uncle, Haroun bin Said al-Alakah, more commonly known as The Vampire,the feared dictator of Mesomia.

Omar hadn’t seen his uncle for several years.Very few people had seen him in recent times. It was said that the sorcery and evil The Vampire indulged in had so ravaged him that he was almost unrecognisable as a human being and stayed hidden in his palace all the time. Omar couldn’t believe this, not really.

But his uncle’s few appearances on television didn’t do much to allay the rumours – he always wore sunglasses and was always heavily made up. His thuggish son, Sayid, who The Vampire had been preparing as his successor, used to be seen out and about, but Sayid was dead now, killed in a high-speed car accident a few months ago. That was why Omar had been plucked from the safety of his mother’s farm. God save him, he was to be The Vampire’s heir.

Omar swallowed and glanced blindly out of the window. If only he could have escaped, run away to the far ends of the earth. But that was impossible because The Vampire would go after his mother, and he would show her no mercy even though she was the widow of The Vampire’s, much-loved older brother, Ali. 

Omar thought of his mother’s still, white face when she heard the news he was to live at The Vampire’s palace. He remembered the fear leaping into her eyes. She knew that she could not refuse; and knew, too, that being chosen as The Vampire’s heir might well be his death sentence.There was no choice. He had to do as he was told. He had to pretend to be glad of the ‘honour’ The Vampire was conferring on him. He had to pretend to be glad about living at The Vampire’s palace, being groomed to take over from his uncle eventually. That would not be for several years; Omar was only fourteen. In his mind, the years stretched on in front of him, heavy, dark, full of fear.

He started. What was that? Something small and white running across the road. The Secretary raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s just a cat,’ he said coolly, flicking Omar a glance of amused contempt. Omar felt the sting of it like a whip. In the eyes of many of The Vampire’s men, Omar was just a pawn, a thing that only needed to be taken into account because it belonged to their master. For the moment, anyway.

Omar shivered and huddled down into himself, clutching his prayer beads. His mother had given them to him just before he left.‘They were your father’s,’she said. ‘They will protect you.’ Omar had thought, but they didn’t protect poor Father. Ali, Omar’s father, had died in a plane crash eleven years before. Mariam had only been a baby in their mother’s belly, then. She had never known their father. 

The beads were a small comfort to him – they were the last thing his mother had given him, and they still held the fragrance of the velvet-lined drawer where she had kept them. He could feel tears sparking hotly under his eyelids and blinked them fiercely away. It would never do to let these hard men see him weeping, like a girl or a baby. They already thought badly enough of him.

Without any warning, the car lurched violently to one side. There was a huge bang, a sharp crack, then another. The front passenger window exploded; a bodyguard slumped down in his seat, his machine gun still in his hand, his face covered in blood.The driver shouted, ‘Hang on!’ and pressing down hard on the accelerator pedal, he swerved the car wildly, the other bodyguards firing madly out of the windows into the night, a machine-gun stutter that seemed never-ending. Omar and the Secretary crouched down beneath the back seat. Omar could smell the sickly scent of the Secretary’s hair oil and see the sheen of cold sweat on the man’s nose, on either side of his spectacles.Why, he’s afraid, he thought vaguely.

He felt nothing himself – except for a weird sensation as if all his pores were really tiny sharp pins of steel, prickling up. 

There was another huge bang, and more of the cracks. The driver screamed – a long peal of terror. Omar, lifting his head up, thought he saw an impossible sight: a tall figure made of the night, with red eyes, looming like a ghost.The driver screamed again, then fell forward onto the wheel, the car now spinning wildly out of control, the bodyguards shouting and firing. One of them tried to grab the wheel, but the car was too far gone into its skid. It careered off the road, heading straight for the tall grim wall of a house. Shouting and yelling, the bodyguards pulled open the front doors and jumped clear, firing into the night as they did so.

The Secretary fumbled with his door and got it open. Omar clutched at him but the man pushed him violently away, and spun himself out of the speeding car. For a disjointed second Omar thought he saw a snake slithering out. It was only in the blink of an eye; in the next second all he saw was the car door swinging, and the rushing dark outside.

The car was heading straight for the wall, but Omar could not move. He closed his eyes.There was another huge bang, a great jolt, then suddenly, he was flying through the air. I’m dead, he thought, in bleak surprise; then everything went black.