by Eric Griffin
Either way, this Vykos seemed intent on pushing the number of deaths attributable to the countess even higher. In her hand, she held a delicate silk handkerchief, which she used to carry a distasteful burden—the severed head of an Assamite.
With a casual shrug, she heaved the head onto the table, where it rolled some distance before coming to rest.
“Your pardon, my lords and ladies, for the lateness of my arrival. As you can see, I have been engaged in proving that there is no force—neither among the living nor the dead—that can deny us our victory here tonight. The head of the assassin that was sent against me is only the first gift I lay before you this night.” Vykos unfastened the curious necklace she wore. It was shaped to resemble a pair of folded hands. The smallest finger of each hand was grossly elongated and stretched all the way back around to the nape of her neck, clasping to hold the necklace in place. Vykos tossed the necklace after the head. As all eyes turned to these dismembered offerings, no one failed to note the disturbing dance of arcane symbols upon the palm.
“The hands belong to Hannah,” Vykos announced, “the Tremere chantry leader. As I said, no one will deny us.”
Cries of “Bathory!” and “Death to the warlocks!” erupted from all around the table. Foremost among the company of gibbering Tzimisce, the Butcher of Prague viciously tore into the dangling corpses nearest him. His wicked claws, as sharp and efficient as shears, reaped a bountiful harvest of alabaster limbs. These he laid at the feet of the Lady like an offering.
Spurred on by his example, the fiends laid into the bodies surrounding them with reckless abandon. Most of their victims had been previously rendered inanimate and well beyond the reach of pain by the efforts of the hunting parties. No small portion of their grisly harvest, however, was commandeered from the fiends’ fellow councilors in the excitement of the moment. The Tzimisce lined the path before her with dismembered arms and legs that had been slashed, sawed, torn and, in some cases, bitten off cleanly from their owners. She glided forward, never once losing her footing among the tangle of limbs and never once having to condescend to set her foot upon the floor.
The pathway thus created ran to a place of honor that had been cleared at the center of one of the long sides of the table. There, one enraptured Tzimisce had already crafted his body into the frame of an imposing throne. His fellows were throwing large, wet clumps of flesh upon this framework, much as a potter might throw clay onto the wheel.
The throne swelled in size, looming ever larger under their efforts.
Vykos ascended to the still-living throne amidst a scene of pandemonium that would have put to shame the best efforts of seven of the nine hells.
She raised her hand for silence, but it was not forthcoming.
She attempted to raise her voice above the clamor, but her words were carried away by the enthusiasm of her devotees.
With a flutter of skirts, she stepped down from the rapidly ascending throne onto the conference table and strode boldly out into its center. This curious displacement of a person walking atop the table seemed to startle the cavorting fiends as no amount of shrieking or bloodletting ever could. All eyes were upon her.
“Thank you. Thank you all for your…affectionate welcome.”
She pressed on quickly as the clamor began to rise once again. “You are no doubt aware that only the space of a few short hours stands between us and the utter and devastating conquest of the city of Atlanta. Two nights ago, you heard the venerable Borges relate to you tales of the glory of the pending Blood Siege. Last night, Polonia came to you with a compelling plan for launching a daring and decisive assault.
“But I say to you, that the conquest of Atlanta will be accomplished by neither siege nor assault.” She paused to let her words sink in. “Tonight, gentlemen, our forces will totally overrun the unsuspecting Camarilla. We have the advantage of them in numbers, tactics, power and surprise. Our single-minded devotion to the cause allows no room for failure.
“The Camarilla is weakened by attrition, civil disorder, Anarch revolt, the exile of the Brujah, the absence of the Gangrel, and the unfortunate demise of the leader of the Tremere chantry.” Her lip curled into a grimace of a smile as she swept Hannah’s hands from the table with the side of one slippered foot.
“But it will not be a battle, gentlemen. It will be a rout, a glorious Firedance. It is one of the most ancient and glorious traditions of our people—it is party, ritual and wild bacchic revel. It is a time of steeling our courage and casting our prowess into the very faces of God, Cainite and man.”
Polonia sat well back in his chair in shocked silence. This shameful display was already well out of hand. He had hopelessly lost track of the current body count among the raging mayhem. He firmed his resolve. This Vykos must be stopped and stopped quickly, before her fanatic converts brought the entire council chamber crashing down around them.
Polonia knew that even his voice, from which many present were accustomed to receive commands in the midst of pitched conflict, was unlikely to shout down this frenzied mob of zealous Tzimisce. Doubtless, debate and negotiation were not what was called for here. This situation required a more brutal and decisive solution.
Fortunately, Polonia had prepared for just such an eventuality. Deliberately, he folded his hands before him on the table. He noted with mild distaste that its surface sent an uncomfortable crawling and stinging sensation up his arms, much as if he had unknowingly brushed a nest of fire ants.
Slowly, he twisted his episcopal ring around in one full circuit anti-clockwise.
Even Polonia had some difficulty following the exact sequence of events set into motion at this prearranged signal.
Vykos was caught up in the fervor of her own exhortations. “And it will not end here, gentlemen. Already, our advance forces are on the move. By week’s end we shall smash the Camarilla forces in…”
She was brought up short by the appearance of the hilt of a delicate silver knife protruding from between her shoulder blades. There was an audible gasp from the assembly, followed by cries of dismay and, almost immediately, of fury.
Vykos took one staggering step forward, and nearly pitched from the table into the press of her followers. Many nearby Lasombra cautiously edged away toward the shadowed recesses of the chamber.
A voice whispered in Polonia’s ear, the voice of the envoy from the shadow-walking ritual he had enacted only two short nights ago. “It is done, master. I am bidden to ask you to come among us again at your earliest convenience. We have much news to discuss and we now have a boon to ask of you in return.”
When Polonia did not object, the envoy pressed on. “Think upon your wretched servant and have pity. It would be callous indeed for you to stay away longer than it takes for this wound—which I have received in your service this night—to heal. I have suffered the touch of silver for your sake. Come to us soon.”
Polonia rubbed his temples and nodded. The voice was gone as quickly as it had come. He knew that no one else had overheard, that no one else could have overheard. What concerned him more at this moment was Vykos.
As he watched, Vykos slowly, painfully, turned to face her assailant. Her eye immediately fell upon Averros. Averros glanced quickly to one side and then the other. Finding himself alone, the sole source of her scrutiny, he raised a hand in protest.
“No, my lady. You are mistaken,” he began. The nearly crazed mob of Tzimisce surged toward him, drowning out his denials. It was as if the wave of fiends had fused into a vast entity animated by a single will. The amorphous horror seemed to fill the room. It boasted no fewer than twenty heads and some fifty arms. Some of these flailing appendages terminated in vicious claws, others in slimed tentacles, others still in gaping maws. Averros saw numerous weapons borne aloft by the churning waters. Among the flotsam and jetsam, jagged shards of shattered crystal decanters threatened. Numerous bludgeoning limbs that had lined Vykos’s path now loomed over him. Not a few chairs in various states of ruin rode the flood tid
e.
The irresistible wall of flesh and debris crashed over him. He felt himself going under, drawn down by a riptide that left him with the distinct impression of dozens of hands clutching at his legs and ankles, dragging him to his death. He may have screamed in horror as the surge of shapeless flesh closed over his head. But the insignificant sound was lost in the eternal roar of the surf.
Vox populi, vox dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God.
Vykos bent nearly double as if under a great burden. Seemingly, the additional weight of the delicate dagger upon her back was simply too much for her to bear. She staggered beneath her load and fell heavily to one knee.
The Tzimisce wave surged again, this time toward the table and their fallen lady. But it drew back hesitatingly from that shoreline, reluctant to touch their patron—as if by doing so they might undo the magic of her incarnation, dispel the vision. They could not endure the possibility that their salvation might prove as fleeting and insubstantial as a morning fog upon the beach.
As the tide withdrew, it deposited its latest victim upon the rocky shore. Vykos did not even look at the mangled body.
With a cry of undiluted agony, she rolled her shoulders as if to work some terrible kink out of them. As she did so, the haft of the silver knife also rolled. It crested her shoulder like the mast of a tall ship coming over the horizon. The blade’s course was jarringly arrested as it ran painfully aground upon her collarbone. But it was enough. The fingers of her right hand closed over the finely wrought hilt and drew forth the blade. A fountain of blood arced toward the ceiling as Vykos slumped.
Polonia could no longer see her slight form over the swirling maelstrom of fanatics that pressed in upon her. He was aware that he was standing now, craning forward, although he could not remember rising to his feet.
Something was happening. There was some commotion there, but he could make out no details amidst the throng. Suddenly, from the very edge of the table nearest the fallen Vykos, a Tzimisce screamed. Polonia instinctively shrank from the hideous sound. The pitiful victim had been crushed, no doubt, between the weight of its fellows and the unyielding surface of the table.
But there was an undertone of uncertainty to Polonia’s conjecture. He could not say with confidence that the howl was one of pain. Perhaps it was one of grief. It might well be that the mournful cry heralded the death of Vykos, the Lord have mercy upon her black heart.
It was all such a great waste, Polonia reflected. This Vykos had traveled thousands of miles to make her bid for power here at the most significant Sabbat gathering on this continent in over a century. She had played her hand boldly and with great dramatic flair. And she had very nearly pulled it off.
Polonia could not help thinking of what a fearsome adversary the dread Monçada must truly be to command the loyalties of such potent and unpredictable minions. He resolved to steer well clear of the machinations of the Cardinal Maledictus Sanguine for the foreseeable future. Perhaps a decade or so hence, Polonia might attempt to reestablish relations by inviting the cardinal to follow the fine precedent he had set here in Atlanta—to commit some forces to the siege of Buffalo or Atlantic City or some other logical extension of Polonia’s domain.
Another shriek shattered the solemn silence of the council chamber. This time, Polonia was even less certain of the signs and omens present in the pregnant outcry. If he was not greatly mistaken, it sounded like a howl of shuddering ecstasy.
Surely not! They would not dare. Polonia fumed and began to shoulder his way forward through the throng, swinging his crosier before him in an attempt to clear the path. The shifting mob unconsciously resisted his efforts. It was like swimming through tar, or molasses, or quicksand.
“Halt! Desist immediately or suffer my extreme disfavor! You will not defile this council with your unclean hungers—with your foul diablerie. Stop, I command it!”
Suddenly the crowd seemed to part before him and he stumbled forward. The sight that greeted his eyes stopped him cold.
The body of Averros was there, on the floor. But it was not the body of Averros. It was twisted, contorted, torn from its original God-given shape. Now it resembled nothing more than a low marble altar.
The sickly pink marble was veined through with lines of palest blue. It was no stone that occurred naturally. More disturbingly, it seemed to pulse slowly and rhythmically. Crouched over a natural basin in the top of the altar was Vykos. The blood still seeped from the wound above her collarbone and plished softly into the nearly full basin below.
As Polonia watched, a Tzimisce staggered forward toward the basin. He picked up the delicate silver knife that rested beside the recessed basin, and made a deep, cross-shaped incision in his palm. Then, steadily meeting Vykos’s eyes, he squeezed his fist over the basin.
A small stream of blood ran from his hand and down his wrist before abandoning itself to the fall. Vykos cupped her hands and dipped them into the font, drawing up a double handful of the mingled blood. She extended her hands before the young Tzimisce’s enrapt face. “One blood,” she recited softly, affectionately.
He was hers utterly. “One body,” he replied solemnly. He drank deeply with closed eyes, in reverence and rapture. Taking her wrists gently, he licked her palm clean of blood.
The communicant bowed and withdrew, only to be immediately replaced by another.
Polonia got quickly to his feet, leaning heavily upon his crosier as he did so. The crowd did not seem to resist him at all on his journey back outward from the center of the mystery rite. He swung his crosier before him a few times, nonetheless, just for effect. He was anxious to escape any further pandemonium that was in store this night—the unbridled carnage that was now clearly beyond his meager power to prevent or even redirect.
As he none-too-gently brushed past his herald, he ordered, “Have my commanders attend upon me in my chambers. All of them,” he added firmly, with a significant glance back over his shoulder.
As the doors of the council chamber thudded closed behind him, he could already pick out the first wild, bacchic strains of the Firedance.
part two:
the firedance
Tuesday, 22 June 1999, 12:07 AM
Peachtree Street
Atlanta, Georgia
“This isn’t right!” Caldwell sputtered through clenched teeth.
Antonio Vallejo barely suppressed his rage. “The attack must go forward, Señor Commander.”
On the other side of Peachtree Street, the main thoroughfare of downtown Atlanta, stood the High Museum of Art, a distinctive rounded structure built around the circular well of the interior lobby. Aside from the handful of cars that had arrived earlier, including two limousines and a Rolls Royce, there was no evidence of the gathering that Vallejo knew to be occurring there on the fourth floor—a gathering of the Camarilla vampires of the city, come together to fawn and gawk over mortal sculpture, come together to deceive themselves, to pretend that they were somehow still human. Come together, unknowingly, to die in a hellish conflagration of violence.
If Commander Caldwell, that was, would pull his head out of his ass and give the preliminary orders so the attack could go forward.
“It is a simple order, Señor Commander.” Commander Caldwell obviously felt otherwise. In his agitation, he paced among the preternatural shadows that concealed the two from view; he ran his fingertips along his scalp, up and down, a thumb above each ear, pinkies together along the crest of his bald head. As he rubbed his stark, white scalp, his fingers left furrows in their wake—slight furrows of skin, barely noticeable at first, but as Vallejo watched and as Caldwell’s agitation increased, the furrows deepened until they became gullies that must have, of necessity from their depth, delved into the substance of the commander’s cranium itself. Yet he continued his pacing and his stroking, seemingly unconcerned by, in fact unaware of, the deformity he wrought upon himself.
Tzimisce, thought Vallejo. He was reminded again—as if he could ever forget!—why t
he mere mention of the clan evoked such unease in his heart. They at least, unlike the Camarilla pretenders, retained few pretensions to humanity. But perhaps the fiends had taken their transformation, their transcendence, many of them would claim, a bit too far.
Not that Vallejo had any doubts about where his own eternal soul was eventually headed. But these Tzimisce, these fiends…
May the Virgin help us if they ever gain control of the Sabbat, Vallejo thought, then cringed at the inadvertent piety. Ostensibly, he had left behind the religious trappings that had so bound his mortal life, but like a penitent having allowed his confession to have lapsed for quite some time—two and a half centuries, to be precise—he didn’t like to press his luck by drawing the attention of the Holy Mother. Such a misstep was as sure an indication of Vallejo’s own agitation as was the self-disfigurement of the Tzimisce’s.
Vallejo chastised himself for such laxity. A time of battle was the most important instance for discipline. Thus Caldwell’s recalcitrance was that much more galling.
“The attack cannot go forward until you draw in your patrols, Señor Commander,” Vallejo said.
Caldwell abruptly ceased his pacing, shoved a stubby finger toward Vallejo, and bared his obvious fangs as he spoke: “Somebody has screwed up the orders. This can’t be right.”
Vallejo was dumbfounded, so foreign to his frame of reference was this assertion—an order not acceptable to a subordinate? Nothing of Vallejo’s centuries of training at the hand of Cardinal Monçada in Madrid had prepared him for this. As a squadron leader of the cardinal’s hand-chosen legionnaires, the most elite, highly trained military force the Sabbat possessed, Vallejo knew that a soldier’s job was to execute his orders, not to question them.
But this New Worlder, this American, was unwilling or unable to see that basic truth. It was more than the predictable and natural resentment of a Tzimisce against the more astute and politically dominant Clan Lasombra, Vallejo realized, since the “objectionable” orders had come from another Tzimisce, Councilor Vykos. No, this insubordination rose from Old-World efficiency trampling on New-World sensibilities. The offensive about to be launched had been conceived of by Cardinal Monçada and was to be implemented by Councilor Vykos. Certainly Caldwell and others, in seeing designs they had bungled for decades carried out by perceived interlopers from across the sea, suffered from wounded pride. But to endanger the entire operation, to place at risk the ascendancy of the Sabbat on this continent, was unthinkable, unconscionable!
