Clan Novel Nosferatu: Book 13 of the Clan Novel Saga

by Gherbod Fleming

  The ragged tears in Leopold’s clothes were more recent, and were part of what alarmed Nickolai. The silk cloth wetted with Benito’s lifeblood lay beside the mirror. I won’t need his vitae again, Nickolai thought. He would feast on the remaining liquid in the vial later. A relatively short while ago, he had wetted the cloth and attuned the mirror. The Nosferatu, it seemed, had learned all they needed to know from dear Benito. All that he could tell them about me, Nickolai knew. Rather than disposing of the Giovanni properly, however, the sewer dwellers had dumped him unceremoniously in the desert. So the tidying up had fallen to Nickolai—which was just as well, because the warlock desired to test his control over Leopold. The test had met with mixed results.

  Benito was dead enough, but Nickolai had not expected to see the neonate fashion his very bones into a scythe and eviscerate Benito, nor to witness the boy’s ribs flay the Giovanni and lay him open to the world. But that was exactly what had happened. And now Leopold was back. Nickolai watched him warily. Those strange, fierce manifestations had not been a direct result of any of the warlock’s rituals.

  But perhaps an indirect result.

  For weeks now, Nickolai had been experimenting with, and on, his guest. Nickolai had grown increasingly convinced that something other than the Eye had been at work months ago in the cave. The Eye, formidable as it was, was not capable of carnage and sick creative brilliance on such a grand scale. Something else had to have been at work—during the nights of creation, and on the night that Leopold had reclaimed the Eye.

  The Eye had played a part, certainly. Nickolai’s experiments had confirmed that. The orb seemed to act as a lightning rod for mystic energies. When Nickolai directed a ritual of any sort at it, the Eye quivered, as if at the touch of a lover. The warlock had three tomes of detailed notes and calculations. He was certain. And tonight had been the test: Destroy Benito while Nickolai pumped energy into the Eye, energy that Leopold no longer possessed on his own. Left to himself, the boy was a babbling cretin, rarely managing a complete sentence or thought these nights. Yet with a bit of supernal aid, he was transformed into an atrocity waiting to happen. The manner in which he had dispatched Benito did not correspond to any of the manifestations of the Eye’s powers over the past weeks, yet it had happened. It smacked more of the abattoir of the cave. Perhaps residual traces remained of whatever source had driven Leopold to those heights of depravity, and Nickolai’s rituals, though directed at the Eye, had tapped into that source. Perhaps. So many question marks, so many unsubstantiated theories.

  In this case, however, the practice carried more import than did theory. For Nickolai’s enemies would surely come for him soon. Why else dispose of Benito, if they had not learned all that they needed to know?

  But it seemed that they had indeed given Nickolai enough time. He might not comprehend the depths of Leopold’s potential, of the Eye’s potential, but the warlock now had a potent weapon to wield. And with every additional night allowed him, he learned more.

  Turning from Leopold, Nickolai pulled back the cover from a tray of utensils both secular and arcane. He chose a large syringe. A pint should be enough, he decided, then turned back to Leopold.

  “Hold still, my boy,” Nickolai said as he raised the syringe to the Eye. “This will only hurt a bit.” Actually, it won’t hurt me at all, he thought, as he plunged the needle into the Eye.

  Saturday, 30 October 1999, 5:37 AM

  The underground lake

  New York City, New York

  “So you’re convinced?” Calebros asked.

  The distant plink plink plink of dripping water sounded almost like thunder amidst the silence of the cavernous chamber. Calebros and Emmett sat by the edge of the lake, the younger of the two recently returned from his sojourn in parts west. Wide, deep-set eyes were accustomed to the dark. Numerous manila folders spread out around them. The slight, pallid illumination given off by the iridescent lichen on the shore rocks and on the walls and ceiling cast the two grotesques in a sickly hue.

  “Benito was convinced,” Emmett said. “He’d gone to a lot of trouble to find out. So, yeah, I’m convinced. Gary Pennington is, was, Leopold. Anything that Jeremiah said make you think different?”

  Calebros shook his head. “According to Anatole, it was the ‘young wizard’ in Pennington’s studio in Chicago, and the ‘young wizard’ in Leopold’s studio in Atlanta.”

  “If you trust Jeremiah.”

  “I do trust him,” Calebros said. “I trust his data. I’ve studied it closely. The conclusions he suggests…many of them seem warranted.”

  “He sent you an encyclopedia’s worth of crap,” Emmett grumbled, flipping through one of the closest folders. “I mean, really: ‘Anatole begins his sandal rubbing. Four seconds, changes directions. One minute forty-four seconds, changes direction…’ What drivel! Jeremiah is off his gourd.”

  “He was recording the actions of a madman,” Calebros insisted. “Why should it seem sane? Regardless, the little we’ve been able to glean from Anatole seems to confirm what you learned from Benito. Do you disagree?”

  “No,” Emmett admitted grudgingly. He tossed the folder back down. “I don’t disagree. Benito was definitely the man on the ground. He was an accomplice in the murder, but he wasn’t the brain. He was used. Just like Pennington, or Leopold or what the hell ever you want to call him, was used. Benito arranged for the sitting, Leopold sculpted—”

  “But did Victoria Embrace him before or after he changed his identity and moved to Atlanta? Surely, as prominent as she is, if she’d been involved we would have come across her name before now.”

  “There’s a lot we didn’t come across until now,” Emmett said.

  “Could she have Embraced him after the fact, after he’d fled, and she didn’t know?”

  “Don’t know.” Emmett shrugged. “We should check with Rolph again. He should have had an inkling that Leopold was Victoria’s childe.”

  Calebros was about to comment on that, but stopped. He cocked his head.

  Emmett heard the telltale sound also. “Was that your freaking back popping or something?”

  “No.”

  The two broodmates eased silently from their seats among the rocks. They zeroed in on the origin of the faint scraping sound—the tunnel, the one down from Calebros’s office. They edged closer. The sound was growing louder. Someone was scrabbling down to the lake. Emmett drew his claws back, ready to strike. Calebros picked up a rock that more than filled his hand.

  Whoever it was coming down the tunnel was sliding feet first. The shoes appeared first from the darkness—saddle shoes, scuffed, torn, and worn within an inch of their lives, if not beyond. Then the bobby socks, the elastic long since gone slack, fallen down around puffy swollen ankles. The legs were hairy and white, all loose skin and sagging collections of fat. Because of the slide down the tunnel, the poodle skirt and its crinoline had ridden inside out above her waist. Calebros and Emmett profoundly wished that she’d felt the need for undergarments. Hilda scooted the rest of the way from the tunnel and landed on her more than ample posterior with a graceless flump.

  “Look at you two,” she said, flashing them an almost toothless grin. “I thought I might find you down here.”

  Calebros and Emmett stared at her, both speechless. Emmett lowered his hand, his claws melting back to fingers. Calebros dropped his rock.

  Hilda struggled to her feet. “No, no, don’t mind me. I can get up by myself,” she said as she straightened her torn petticoat and threadbare skirt. “Care for some skinny dipping?” she asked, eyeing the lake.

  As Calebros watched her, he had second thoughts about having dropped his rock. This creature had been nothing but grief since she’d arrived bearing the parcel from Rolph. Calebros found his tongue, just barely. “How…?”

  “It seemed to me,” Hilda said cheerfully, “that there just had to be something behind the bookshelf. Don’t know why. Just call it a gift.”

  “You,” Emmett said coldly, �
�are not welcome here, woman—and I do use that term loosely.”

  Hilda sidled up to him, raising her eyebrows in a way that made her jowls sway, and firmly grabbed his crotch. “You boys get so grumpy when you’ve got nobody to wax your beanpole.” Emmett pulled away. “Hmm? No like the señorita? That why you two sneak off down here…together? Don’t know what you’re missing.” She cupped her hands under her breasts and lifted them above where they sagged at her belt.

  Emmett was not amused. “How did you fit down that tunnel, you fat heap of—”

  “Hilda,” Calebros interceded lest events grow too heated. “What Emmett is trying to say—”

  “I’m not trying to say anything,” Emmett said. “What I am saying is—”

  “Have you ever heard of London Tommy?” Hilda asked, her flippant manner suddenly turned cold. The raw threat in her voice chilled Calebros. “London Tommy was rude to me too.”

  “Up yours, you fat fucking whore.”

  “Emmett!” Calebros gestured for silence. “Hilda!” He did the same to her as she opened her mouth again. The two names, intertwined, echoed through the chamber. “Hilda,” he said again more quietly and calmly. “This is a…private place for me. I come here usually for solitude, to be alone with my thoughts; sometimes to speak of important matters with Emmett. Generally, I prefer to—”

  “To keep out the fat fucking whores.”

  “I know where I’m not wanted!”

  “Oh? Coulda fooled me! What gave it away?”

  Calebros’s head was reeling as he felt the situation spinning horribly out of control. He was no good at this. Confrontation with strangers left him feeling weak, although Emmett seemed to make up doubly for the shortcoming. “Both of you, stop!”

  A tense silence fell over the cavern. “Would you leave us please, Hilda?” Calebros asked.

  “That’s all you had to say,” she sneered at Emmett. “I just wanted to see how you was coming with that ugly thing Rolph had me bring up.”

  “It’s a worthless hunk of shit,” Emmett said, smiling, “so thank you very much.”

  She glared, but Calebros stepped between them to avert further contention and possible bloodshed. “I would prefer,” he said pointedly, “that you not mention this chamber or the passages leading to it to members of the warren. The few that know about it know enough to stay away. Can you agree to that, Hilda?” She was still glaring at Emmett over Calebros’s shoulder. “Otherwise, I will be forced to see that you return to Atlanta at once.”

  That got her attention. “I like it well enough here,” she said. “I’ll not be telling anybody.”

  “Thank you. And now, if you would…” He gestured toward the way she’d come.

  She paused long enough to spit once before crawling sullenly back into the tunnel, a sight from which both Calebros and Emmett averted their eyes.

  “It doesn’t do any good to provoke her, Emmett.”

  “Nothing else does any good either.”

  Calebros couldn’t argue with that. Hilda was, in many ways, as repugnant as they came, but she was of the blood, and thus he felt obliged to provide her shelter. Over the years, he had winnowed away the more offensive elements in the warren—the child molesters, the uncontrollable killers and sociopaths, those who were likely to draw unwanted attention to the warren and thereby endanger all who resided there. Hilda might at some point require winnowing herself.

  “She did bring this…” Calebros said, pulling from the folds of his cloak a Ziploc bag containing the pieces of a broken clay model and a photograph. “And, contrary to popular belief, it is not ‘a worthless hunk of shit’.”

  Emmett shrugged. “Poetic license. So sue me. Besides, Rolph could have mailed it. He just wanted to get rid of her—for obvious reasons.”

  “Mail it?” Calebros said. “Would you entrust proof of Petrodon’s murder to the U.S. mail?”

  Saturday, 13 November 1999, 1:41 AM

  The International, Ltd., Water Street

  New York City, New York

  “I should’ve gone,” Theo Bell said. Injured or not, he wasn’t pleased about being left behind while a battle with the Sabbat was going on in the Bronx.

  “I need you here,” Jan Pieterzoon said. “Pascek could run into trouble on Staten Island. Something could easily come out of the woodwork in Brooklyn…”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” Theo said. It was all true, he guessed, but he refused to be happy about it. “You’re the general.”

  Jan moved closer to the archon, so that his words would not be overheard by the other Kindred and ghouls in the room. “We both know that you could have gone…that you would have gone, whether I asked you to or not—if you felt up to it. But something beat the hell out of you, and you need the rest.” The words didn’t do anything to soothe Theo, but the archon didn’t argue. “No one’s seen it tonight.”

  “Nobody that survived,” Theo said.

  “Perhaps. There’ve been no reports at least. The Eye thing—are you sure it was the same thing…Xaviar’s Antediluvian?”

  “It was the same thing Sturbridge brought the picture of, if that’s what you mean. We both know it ain’t no Antediluvian, but there’s gonna be trouble if it shows up again.”

  “Mr. Pieterzoon?” Hans van Pel called from one of the desks in the office. He held a new report in his hand. Jan went to examine it, leaving Theo to brood in peace.

  He needed more blood. Theo knew that much. The little bit he’d had, both last night after the fight and earlier tonight, hadn’t seemed to do much good. He felt some of his strength returning, but the burns from the acid, or whatever it was that spewed from that fucking Eye, hadn’t healed, hadn’t even started to scab over. He just needed more blood. That’s what he hoped, but he had a bad feeling about all of this. And that only made him more irritated that he hadn’t gone with Federico or that wet-behind-the-ears Mitchell.

  Theo almost didn’t notice the boy who slipped in the door, except that the youth was so obviously looking for someone he couldn’t find. He looked to be about fifteen years old, but Theo could tell he was Kindred, so looks didn’t really mean much. “Who you need, kid?”

  The boy seemed surprised that anyone had bothered to address him. “Archon diPadua,” he said. He was holding a folded piece of paper.

  “He’s gone and not gonna be back anytime soon. I’m Archon Bell. I’ll take your message.”

  The boy hesitated, obviously uncomfortable with the suggestion, but also obviously uncomfortable with refusing an archon. He handed Theo the paper and slipped quickly back out the door. Theo opened the note and skimmed it. “Hey, Jan.”

  Pieterzoon left was he was doing and took the proffered note. He read it quickly, looked up at Theo, then back to the note and read it a second time, aloud: “’Federico: News from Ruhadze. Eye is back. East Village. Little Ukraine’.” And that was all. “Who brought this?” Jan asked, handing the paper back to Theo.

  “Some kid. Kindred, though.”

  Jan nodded. “He’s been in and out with notes for the archon all night.”

  Theo crumbled the paper. It had blood on it from one of his wounds that wouldn’t close. “If I got burned all to shit because of some deal Lucinde made with that Setite…”

  Jan looked around nervously and gestured for Theo to keep his voice down. “She’s agreed to let Ruhadze have it…if he can get it. Apparently he’s been after it for a long time. We had no idea it would show up here in New York. I had no idea,” Jan emphasized.

  “Well, it’s here,” Theo said. He raised the crumpled wad of paper in his hand. “And if Ruhadze can put it on ice, more power to him. But until he does—”

  “There’s no one else I can send with you,” Jan said. “Federico took our reserves. I sent most of our Manhattan teams with Mitchell. Those that aren’t with him are north of Central Park. I’ll call them back, and some of the squads from Brooklyn.”

  “You do that,” Theo said, unclasping his shotgun from within his tattered ja
cket and slipping rounds into the magazine. “They can meet me there.”

  Tuesday, 2 November 1999, 2:40 AM

  Chantry of the Five Boroughs

  New York City, New York

  “I’m here to see Sturbridge,” the rasping voice said. The hunched wretch leaned heavily against the great portal. The creature’s chest heaved in great broken sobs as if it had grown unaccustomed to the effort of drawing breath for any purpose—much less for something as delicate and ephemeral as speech. Its oversized teeth scissored wetly as it spoke with a sound like knives sharpening.

  Talbott’s face betrayed no hint of the revulsion his guest had come to expect—to rely upon. In his forty-plus years of serving as the gatekeeper for the Chantry of Five Boroughs, Talbott had witnessed more than his fair share of the disturbing, the inexplicable, the macabre. One more disfigured immortal bloodsucker was not about to put him off his game.

  “I will see if the lady of the house is available. Please, make yourself at ease.” Talbott gestured the newcomer within. “May I assist you with your parcels?”

  The Nosferatu clutched more tightly to the overstuffed bundle of loose-leaf paper, photographs and used envelopes peeking out from beneath one arm. The whole was rather ineffectually bound together in fish paper and bakery twine. A small avalanche of handwritten notes, crude sketches and used carbon paper followed closely on his heels as he dragged himself and his burden across the threshold. “No!” he snapped back and then as an afterthought added, “Thank you. No, thank you, Talbott. Your name’s Talbott, right? Thought I saw that here somewhere.” He began rummaging among various scraps of paper that stuck out of his bundle at odd angles.

  “Talbott it is, and kind of you to remember. Who may I say is calling?”

  Emmett looked up from his notes, irritated. “Emmett. She won’t know me, though, so you’ll have to tell her it’s important. Do that, won’t you, Talbott?”

  “Have no fear on that account. Can I tell her what this is about, Emmett? Regent Sturbridge might ask why this is so important.”