Children of the Night

by Zan Safra

  She nears. I near. I feel her, her strength and her softness and the faintest touch of her—

  Belle crashes through the door. “Ayanda, where is the…oh!”

  The noise cracks the illusion. Ayanda and I jerk away from each other as the ballroom returns. Belle gapes at us, her face flushing a darker shade of blue. “Um…”

  She snaps her fingers. “I’ve remembered where it is!”

  She rushes out. Her retreating footsteps echo through the empty ballroom.

  Ayanda adjusts the shoulders of her gown, biting her lip again. I hurry to straighten my coat. “Ayanda, I—"

  A clock begins to chime. Ayanda shuffles her skirts, not meeting my eyes. “Nearly time.”

  It takes me a moment to remember that we’re meant to kill a vampire. “Yes.”

  Almost as one we turn and go to the door. The damned clock finally falls silent, striking ten. I follow Ayanda downstairs, silently cursing in every language I know. The next clock I see I’ll smash.

  I say nothing to her as we walk. I don’t know what it is that I feel, but I never want it to end.

  Ayanda…

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Belle

  I WRAP THE DARK leather gorget around my throat and tie it tightly. It matches the rest of the armor Olympia and Coppelia sewed for me this past day and night. It is not as solid as Ayanda’s, but she had no time to weave chainmail for us all. A leather cuirass and arm and leg bracers will give me at least some protection from fangs.

  I lower my arms and gaze at my reflection. I do not know what to make of myself. I have never worn trousers or a tunic, much less armor. Heavy leather gauntlets weight on my hands. My silver nails glint at their ends like cat’s claws.

  I lean closer to the mirror, searching my face. There is nothing amiss. No signs of decay.

  I am alive.

  I snuff the candle and leave the bedroom, going out into one of the Palaso Rurico’s many corridors and down the stairs. Lies. All Isadora told me were lies. Lies.

  A spidery automaton scurries up the bannister to meet me, eager for a task. I pat its metal head as I pass and go down to the laboratory. Another spider skitters out of my path, bearing a strange instrument to Jette. She paces back and forth before a row of whirring alchemical devices. She wears one of the Mascherata gowns Andreas found during the misty hours, a beautiful billowing dress of emerald green. Suddenly she stumbles and jerks her skirts away with a growl.

  “Stop! You’ll tear them!”

  I run to her and help her to arrange her skirt. “Petticoats in a laboratory,” she mutters. “This is how one sets herself alight. Alchemists always wear trousers under their laboratory vestments. I would prefer not to have a spill of living acid travel over my clothing and reduce me to a puddle of liquid meat.”

  “Well, you look lovely in that color.” I pat down her hair. “So do try not to burn up. Or, um…melt.”

  The nearest alchemical machine chimes. Jette pulls on a pair of gauntlets and hurries to it. Another grenade leaves the device’s glass interior and falls into her hands. This one is different from all of the other ones, burning silver like a tiny blazing moon.

  “What on earth’s that?”

  “A grenade of compressed argentic acid with enough explosive force to propel its contents at least thirty meters. Enough to strike a large number of vampires at once.” She takes her bandolier from a counter and carefully slides the grenade into place. “Though I suggest we avoid being caught in the explosion.”

  I need not ask why. The word acid tells me quite enough.

  Jette bites her lip. “I had only enough material for one.”

  “Well, if we can trap the fiend in a room, a single blast like that ought to take care of her.”

  She does not answer, only slings her bandolier across her chest and buckles her staff to her side. I help her to arrange the costume’s long green mantle over them, hiding all of it. I have nearly finished adjusting it when a different machine chimes. Jette’s eyes widen. “The tea!”

  “Tea?”

  “To keep one alert!” She runs to the machine, a strange device filled with bubbling dark liquid. As she pours some into a pair of cups I ask, “Um…ought you to have drinkables in a laboratory?”

  Jette freezes. Then she lifts her chin primly. “This is a singular situation.”

  She passes me a steaming cup. I stare at the brown sludge. It does not look like anything that ought to be drunk, but I suppose it is the Scotian thing to do.

  I take a sip and almost spit it straight back out. I have never tasted anything so bitter.

  I make myself swallow and gurgle out, “Is it meant to taste this way?”

  Jette takes a sip and chokes. “I may have overboiled it.”

  She sighs, frowning in disappointment, then drinks it down in one swallow and slams the teacup on the counter. She nods. “Ready.”

  We leave the laboratory and descend another staircase, heading for the library. I feel terseness, tension in the air. Jette remains silent as we reach the atrium. I would rather not speak either. I know the cause of the heaviness.

  Fear.

  Well, we do mean to murder a mad vampire.

  We enter the library, a wonderful wood-paneled room packed with hundreds of shelved books. The others are there, gathered once more around the map. Only Yurei looks like himself, wearing his black clothing, his hair a mess as usual. The others are dressed for Mascherata, Ayanda in a maroon gown much like Jette’s and Andreas in a black suit embroidered with gold. Their faces are grim.

  Andreas speaks first. “We have a complication.”

  My heart sinks. “Complication?”

  “Here.” Andreas points to a spot on the map, the Room of the Four Doors, where Yurei and I are to create our distraction. “It won’t be empty. There’s a gathering of the Ten there tonight. Some business, likely hers.”

  Ayanda leans over the map. “We need a different place.”

  “Yes.” Andreas points at the map. “Here. The Sala del Collegio.”

  Yurei narrows his eyes. “It’s further.”

  “I know. But I can’t find another suitable place.” Andreas rakes his fingers through his hair. “As far as I can tell, this is our only choice.”

  An uneasy quiet falls. Even Andreas cannot hide the worry in his face. I feel the

  same.

  A new route. A change at the last moment.

  I study the map, committing our new path to memory, tracing a route through the hidden passages we will travel. Ayanda, Jette and Andreas tie on their masks, white volti decorated with glittering swirls. They wrap brilliant scarves around their heads and necks, framing their masks, and finish with lacy tricorne hats. Unrecognizable.

  Andreas adjusts his bandoliers and buttons his coat over them. “Tally ho.”

  Yurei takes my hand. A strange feeling sweeps over me as he hides, or fades us, as he calls it. Ayanda and Jette take Andreas’ arms and we leave the Palaso Rurico, stepping out into the cold.

  Aetherships soar overhead, trailing glowing flags. Venice is a different place entirely, nothing like the maze of empty streets I have grown used to. The city bursts with movement, color and noise. Gondolas cram the canals and costumed Naturals pack the streets, chattering, singing, laughing. There is not a face to be seen, only masks.

  We cross the Grand Canal. Yurei and I slink through the crowds, dodging candle-like fireworks and organ grinders with capering Infernal monkeys. Finally we reach the Piasa. Enormous white buildings hem it in, mountains of marble columns and walls. The giant five-domed Baxelega looms, glowing in the moonlight like the carapace of some monster. Beside it stands the Pallace, a huge hulking thing, marble-walled and pillared like the rest. It seems heavy enough to crack the ground and fall through.

  A grand sweeping staircase comes into sight, leading from the Piasa into the Palace. Steams of costumed guests pour inside, glittering in costumes more brilliant tha
n any I have yet seen. In a flicker Andreas vanishes. Ayanda and Jette head for the staircase. They disappear into the crowd.

  Yurei squeezes my hand. I squeeze his. The Palace looms. The fiend waits.

  I am coming for you, Isadora.

  Yurei and I move towards the Palace’s southern wall. In my head I unscroll the map. The Palace matches it perfectly. We pass dozens of red-uniformed asenaloti, palace guards. I wonder how many are moroi.

  “There,” Yurei whispers in my ear, pointing at the wall, the place where we can slip directly into one of the hidden corridors. It is only an empty stretch of stone. We pass a final arsenaloto and Yurei slips us through.

  The feel of stone and wood scrape past me, and then suddenly we are in a narrow wood-walled passage. A pair of dusty gaslights cast clouds of wan light over the crooked, slanting corridor. The air smells moldy, musty and old.

  Yurei twitches his fingers, readying his weapon. I strengthen the volta in my chest, brightening it like a jet of gas. We follow the passage.

  The lights grow further apart, leaving wide gulfs of darkness between. A cold draft wafts through the cracks. Yurei’s fading muffles our footsteps, but the passage is not silent. Faint music drifts from the distance, along with the even fainter chatter of voices, but the sounds are distorted, watery.

  We walk on and on, I in the lead, following the map in my mind. Small crooked doors line the passage, but none of them are correct. It is only when we pass the ninth that I stop, before a featureless wall. “Here,” I whisper. “The Sala del Consiglio.”

  I take a breath and hold it. Yurei clenches his jaw. We slip through the wall.

  I expect what I have felt before, a shower of sand or splinters against my skin, but passing through feels like being doused in slime. The light turns from pale to rust-red, the color of dried blood. A smell chokes me, stinging and burning, alchemy and rotten meat.

  I choke. Yurei covers his mouth, his other hand crushing mine. I stare about through watery eyes and stiffen. This isn’t right…

  The room we are in was grand once. It is wide and long, its walls paneled in mahogany and studded with beautiful paintings, but that is all the beauty that remains. The room is destroyed. Pieces of a torn-away ceiling jut like broken teeth from the wall-tops, revealing the room just above and the room above that, creating a chamber three stories high, and covered in…

  Something.

  It takes me a moment to understand what it is that I see. The room is overgrown, plastered with dark oily vines, slimy black tentacles stuck to the walls. Each is as thick as my arm and slowly writhe as they cling, covering the paintings as though imprisoning the figures inside, draining the life from them.

  But that is not all there is. A ring of alchemical machines encircles the room, humming with energy, tangled devices of wood and golden spinning parts. The black vines sprout from the machines, separate tendrils wrapping around them and piercing their sides. Streams of golden glyphs travel over the tentacles like blood coursing through veins.

  The sight and the stench and the bloody light make vomit rise in my throat. We are in the middle of a giant rotten wound.

  A silhouette I did not notice steps out of the shadow of one of the taller machines, one wearing a black Mascherata costume and a red-and-white mask. Andreas.

  Yurei lets go of my hand, unfading us as we run to him. Andreas stares at us like an automaton. Yurei reaches him first. “What is th—”

  Andreas grabs his arm and clamps a golden manacle around his wrist.

  Yurei snaps rigid, choking as though someone has seized him by the throat. Glyphs flare red on the gauntlet’s surface. Andreas releases him. Yurei staggers, holding the manacle.

  I catch his shoulders. He raises his head, his face inches from mine. The light in his eyes fades like dying embers, leaving them faint as yellowed glass.

  He collapses. I fall to my knees beside him. “Yurei!” I grab him, shaking him. “Yurei!”

  He lies limp, his eyes only half-open. I throw my arms around him, trying to heave him up, but he slides out of my arms again. The golden manacle rings like a chime as it strikes the marble floor.

  A shadow falls over us. The masked figure stares down at us, eyes nothing but empty black pits. My fingers dig into Yurei’s arm. “You’re not Andreas.”

  The figure takes off the scarf and tricorne and tosses them away. Andreas Greiff smiles at us. The sight stops my heart. His skin is white as chalk. His eyes shine with sickness. Blackened veins crawl from under his collar, reaching into his jaw.

  The knowledge smashes me like a boulder, leaving me dulled. “You’re a moroi.”

  He spreads his hands and shrugs, with a motion of What can I say?

  “Y-you were always a moroi?”

  “No. I came to my senses last night.” He looks down at his injured arm, rippling his fingers with no sign of pain. “I cauterized the wound,” he says. “I let Jekyll treat me with silver. Perhaps that slowed it. Or perhaps it’s because I’m Unnatural.”

  He sighs in relief. “But it finally happened, thank God.”

  I stare at him. No. This cannot be. He looks like Andreas, he sounds like Andreas, but he is wrong. Everything is wrong…

  I came to my senses last night…

  I know what it means. The knowledge chokes me. “You told her everything.”

  “Of course.” He shakes his head, as though telling me the most obvious fact. “What else would I do?”

  Isadora knows we are here. Everything is ruined. Destroyed.

  Andreas takes a step closer. I try to drag Yurei away, but he is too heavy, a limp dead weight in my arms. “What have you done?”

  “Tamed an Infernal. Don’t worry. He isn’t hurt.” His smile widens into a grin that reveals every tooth. The light stains them red. “The lady would never harm us.”

  He raises his hands, palms towards me, as though trying to calm a wild beast. “Belle, listen to me.”

  “Listen to you?” I heave at Yurei. “You’ve gone mad! You’re one of hers!”

  “There’s no reason to be afraid. The lady will save us.”

  “Save us?” I scream. “She’s a vampire! A murderess! You know how many she’s killed!”

  He goes on as if I said nothing. “She loves us.”

  “Loves—”

  I see movement in the corners of my eyes, stirrings in the dark. Silhouettes emerge from the shadows, men and women in black alchemist’s coats, bandoliers loaded with metal instruments crossing their chests. All of their necks and faces are marred with blackened veins. They grin at us, teeth bright in the dark.

  I jump up, unwinding every thread of volta within me. Andreas goes on. “Why do we fight her? For them?”

  He throws open his arms, sweeping them towards the moroi alchemists. “Hollow, pathetic, unfeeling wretches? Insects?”

  Volta sparks from my fingertips. But there is no point. I cannot hurt him, not Andreas…

  “Those aren’t your words. They’re hers.”

  His arms fall to his sides. His eyes narrow. His face contorts into a snarl that does not belong on his face. It does not belong on any human face. “Don’t insult me,” he hisses.

  The moroi step forward as one, surrounding us in a tightening ring. “We needn’t be monsters anymore, Belle,” Andreas says. “Not even you.”

  “I’m no monster!”

  “You are to the Naturals.” His snarl deepens. “Dead girl.”

  I cannot breathe. It is worse than hearing it from her, worse to hear those words in his voice…

  His hands curl into claws. “What do you want, Belle? To spend your life as an outcast? Skulking like a rat in the dark? Waiting for the day a mob comes for you? What don’t you see?”

  He takes a step forward. I bring up my hands, but he does not flinch. “The lady can save us. She loves us as she loves the Dead. Don’t you see? We can help her! She needs us!”

  His grin returns, a mad smile. I
sadora’s smile. “We have a purpose at last. A reason not to blow out our brains. We have a new world to build, Belle! We—”

  He staggers, his legs buckling as though about to give way. Sweat runs down his forehead. The blackened veins crawl further into his face.

  “She’s killing you, Andreas!”

  He straightens, still advancing. Sparks flit from my fingertips, but none of it matters. It is only a show. I cannot hurt Andreas…

  “What do you mean to do, Belle? Fight me?” he rasps. “Have you mastered that volta, Belle? Can you control it? Does it matter to you?”

  His grin widens, taunting. “How many more will you kill to save yourself?”

  My volta sputters. I feel sick.

  Andreas shudders. Though his voice has hoarsened it is still his. But the words are not. “Will you kill him, Frankenstein?”

  The alchemists tighten their circle. There is nowhere to run. All I see is the flash of eyes, the flash of metal from their bandoliers, of Andreas’ pistols and blades as he opens his coat…

  Metal.

  Metal weapons strapped to them. Half-metal machines all about.

  I gaze into Andreas’ eyes, into the eyes of the thing using him. “You know what happened at the Scholomance. You know that I can throw volta,” I say. “Do you think that’s all I can do?”

  Andreas pauses. I see her thoughts racing through his head. Then in a lightning movement he rips three blades from his bandolier and flings them at my face.

  But I am faster. Volta flashes at my fingertips and captures the blades in a violet corona. I let them clang to the floor.

  The moroi stare at me, stunned, all but Andreas. His hands fly to his pistols, but before he can grab them I let my volta surge again, seizing hold of every piece of metal on him. Knives, buckles and the twin pistols glow violet. I shove. The metal objects drag him with them as I fling them away from me. Andreas slams down on the marble.

  The other moroi run at me. I grab their metal instruments, lift the moroi with them and throwing them down. One of them rushes me, a hypodermic in her fist. I grab her by the bandolier and hurl her into a machine. One of them grabs me from behind, throwing his arms around me. I channel the volta through my entire body and send it bursting out. The moroi flies back, screaming, his coat aflame.