by Vox Day
She bent over and retrieved something silver. It was Gloriana’s ring, and as she picked it up, it came to life and bared its little fangs. “Hush, Naedrakin, be calm.” She stroked its tiny head until it stopped hissing and turned back into a ring. She slipped it on her ring finger and kissed it gently.
“Tell me what happened, darling. Did someone take Gloriana?”
Robin could see the ring tighten on Lahalissa’s finger momentarily. So, it was more than a weapon, it was sentient too. He nodded approvingly. That was a neat trick.
“Did you recognize them?”
Two squeezes. It looked like one for yes, two for no, unless he had it backwards.
“Did they harm her?” Two. “Did they hurt Orgoglio?”
One squeeze, and Lahalissa raised a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no. Did they… did they destroy him?”
One squeeze. Lahalissa looked over at him with tears in her eyes, and he put his arms around her. “I saw,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”
“What do we do?”
“Right now, nothing.” He tried to reassure her. “Look, the Mad One wouldn’t have left Gloriana alone for this long if he truly feared her. He’s probably just making sure that Oberon’s escape doesn’t encourage all the old lords, the faery lords, to rise against him.”
“You’re right. You must be right.” She sniffed and wiped at her eyes, and bravely forced her lips to smile. “Otherwise, why take her. If they wanted to, they could have destroyed her as well.”
“Exactly. Now, let’s get out of here while we still can. Since Gloriana won’t be able to find a safe place for Oberon to hide, we’ll have to think of something else.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
Robin shot a self-mocking smile at the lovely demoness, whose eyes were still moist with grief. “Sure, I’ve got lots. I just don’t know if they’re any good.” He shrugged. There was only one way to find out.
Eight hours later, the sun had fallen. Only fourteen hours remained before Oberon must perforce leave the refuge of Sussex Weald, and so it was that Robin found himself leading Lahalissa through a harsh jungle of urban desolation on the east side of London. Windows were boarded-up when they were not smashed, and the jagged remnants that still remained in the frames were fogged with dust and age. Here and there, a well-executed frieze or a finely carved arch suggested that the area had once known better times, but for the most part, it was a depressing portrait of decay and mortal abandonment.
Indeed, it might have been an indictment of the Mad One’s derelict rule. There was no sign here of Albion’s green glory, lost now with the winds of time. Looking at the ugly collection of vacant warehouses, run-down row houses and rusting chain-link fences, it was hard to imagine that it had ever existed at all. But Lucere brooked no neutrals in his rebellion; if Heaven claimed that those who were not for it were against it, the same was doubly true for its princely foe.
Robin hated it, every inch of it. Even the mortals—in these parts they were all too similar to the buildings they inhabited, dark, dirty and decrepit. But he had his reasons for coming here, and it was not mortals that he had come to hunt.
Tonight, they hunted the hunters.
“I don’t see why we can’t simply go up to Soho and talk to the Camerati, if you’re set on vampires,” complained Lahalissa as she narrowly avoided stepping in something foul. “They’re a lot easier to find, after all.”
“Yes, mostly because they’ve come to an arrangement with the Mad One. Don’t underestimate the Twice-Fallen, they may not be immortal but they’re not entirely stupid either. If we were to go to them, they’d agree to help and show us their pointy teeth so very politely, but when we showed up with Oberon, we’d be lucky if there weren’t fifty archons waiting for us.”
It wasn’t likely that the Twice-Fallen still held a grudge against Oberon, no more than they did against the rest of the Fallen, Robin reflected. It had been centuries since the Wild Hunt had ridden, after all, and Robin could always blame that on Herne anyhow. To be sure, Twice-Fallen was a misnomer, for it was only their misbegotten children who roamed the Earth now, their fathers having long since been hurled into the pits by Prince Michael and his army at the behest of an angry King of Heaven.
The miserable quasi-mortals took many different forms, and were known by almost as many different names by the mortals upon whom they preyed. But even the proudest vampire lord would fear to challenge a minor demon such as himself. They were pathetic, neither fish nor fowl, soulless half-breeds shunned by the Divine and regarded with contempt by the Fallen. Which, to Robin’s mind, made them a perfect ally in Oberon’s time of need. Their assistance would not come without cost, of course, but as long as he could pay the price in future coin, he foresaw no problems.
“How did you know where to look?” Lahalissa broke in on his thoughts.
“I don’t.”
“Then why did we come here?” She sounded annoyed.
Because, my dear demoness, it doesn’t matter where in the world you are. Wherever there are the poor, the desperate and the dispossessed, wherever the weak and the sick are found, there you will also find the predators.
“Bear with me,” he advised. They finally reached a likely location—walking shadow where they were both invisible to any mortal, or half-mortal eyes—a relatively busy intersection featuring three lowlife pubs, two ethnic restaurants, and most importantly, a narrow alley that curved and twisted its way into impenetrable shadow.
“Start in the pub with an aspect of a not-particularly attractive woman. Stumble and sway as you walk, and be sure to wave off any offers of assistance. Do you see the entrance to that alley? Walk there, wait a little while, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll try it again in the other pub.”
Lahalissa frowned at him, but she acceded readily enough and followed his directions to the letter. Robin laughed when she stumbled out of the Blue Hog, cursing abusively at someone over her shoulder. For a moment, he thought someone had taken the bait, as a dark shadow detached itself from a wall on the other side of the street and moved to intersect the meandering path of the fallen angel. But the silver that flashed under the flickering neon showed that this was only a lesser predator, of no significance whatsoever.
Lahalissa glanced up at him, and by way of instruction, he punched his fist into his palm. A moment later, the would-be assailant was lying unconscious on the sidewalk, and Lahalissa joined him on top of the nearby building.
“For a moment, I thought—”
“I know. But next time, go into the alley before flying up here. It doesn’t look as if his Guardian or his Tempter are around, but we don’t really want to be attracting any attention, do we?”
“Oh dear, how silly of me.” Lahalissa made a face. “I’ll remember next time. Shall I try the next pub?”
“In a bit. Let’s give it a few minutes. I can’t imagine anyone is watching, but it might look a little suspicious if the next three women leaving the pub are all doing exactly the same thing.”
Robin nodded and glanced back down at the mortal his companion had knocked out. The man moaned and stirred slightly, and Robin, uninterested in his fate, turned away. But when a piercing cry from the street below was choked off a moment later with a strangled, choking sound, he strolled back to the building edge and looked down. The mortal was gone!
No, not quite. A flicker of movement caught his eye, and he saw the strange sight of the unconscious, or now perhaps deceased, mortal seemingly dragging himself towards the alley, albeit without moving.
“What do you make of that?” he asked Lahalissa.
“Shadowspawn,” she said with a smile. “Rather poor substitute for a vampire, don’t you think?”
“If he’s strong enough to drag that mortal, he might know something worthwhile. What do you say we make him manifest?”
The problem with talking to shadowspawn was that they were as insubstantial as their name suggested. They were hard to see on either the material or the immaterial sh
adows, as they were barely strong enough to exist even as pure will. After so many generations, the angelfire that coursed within the children of the Twice-Fallen was thinner than the most inbred line of mortal royalty, with the exception of those rare ancients of the early generations who had somehow managed to survive over the centuries.
But this particular specimen was clearly extraordinary for a shadowspawn, and with just a little help, there might even be enough of him to support a conversation. As Lahalissa watched with interest, Robin slashed his palm with a fingernail, and from the shallow wound he produced a small green fireball which he hurled at a slight shimmer in the air below them. Were it not for the bizarre evidence of the horizontally sliding mortal, the shimmer might have been nothing more than a trick of the light, but when the angelfire struck, it splattered and outlined a short, twisted form, less than four feet high, pulling at the outstretched arms of its treasure.
The fire flared up brightly for a moment, then was absorbed and the fiery outline faded into the shape of an ugly little goblin, with yellow skin, pointed ears that jutted away from a misshapen skull at sharp, but differing angles, and a long, hooked nose. The Shadowspawn, shadow no more, released its grip on the man and looked down at its thin, clawed hands in disbelief, then glanced uncertainly in Robin’s general direction.
Robin burst into laughter at the expression on the thing’s hideous face, which was frozen somewhere between terror and delight, and he spread a massive pair of black wings from his shoulders as he leaped into the air and sailed effortlessly to the ground. Lahalissa joined him, in equally dramatic fashion, a moment later.
The little being quailed before them, his knobby knees literally knocking in terror.
“Please, don’t hurt me!” he pleaded.
“Who said anything about hurting you?” Robin glanced at Lahalissa. “Of course, that’s assuming you’re willing to tell us what we want to hear.”
“What is given can be taken away,” Lahalissa added, examining her long fingernails as if she could not possibly be less interested in the Shadowspawn’s fate, whatever it turned out to be. “But to have something precious, and then to lose it? That, my ugly little friend, is painful indeed.”
It was pathetic to see how the wretched half-breed whimpered and clutched at his spindly, twisted body as if it were precious indeed. Though to him, it probably was. Who knew how many centuries he had spent as little more than a gauzy presence with a will attached? Robin neither knew nor cared, but he was sure that the Shadowspawn knew where he could find others of his kind.
“You want to keep that horrid excuse for a body?” The goblin nodded fervently. “Then tell me, is there a Camerati clan hereabouts? Good. And the Raustravi? Them too, excellent. And you know where they can be found? Not the Camerati, I want the Raustravi.”
Robin winked at Lahalissa as the goblin nodded again, so energetically he seemed in danger of spraining his newfound neck.
“Best you show us where they are, then, little one.” The goblin shrieked as Robin caught him up and tucked him under one arm, then leaped skyward. London by night was a marvelous sight, and the lights of the great sprawling city below outnumbered the stars overhead. The Mad One could not possibly search every nook and cranny; there would be safety out there somewhere, if only he could convince the Twice-Fallen to hold their lifeless tongues. “Don’t struggle there, mate. Just you point, and we’ll be on our way.”
They did not have long to fly, as it turned out, although they were forced to descend to Earth and take shelter at one point, when a fiery glow on the horizon turned out to be a marauding band of Divine warriors. Fortunately, the Divine were too focused on their mission, whatever it was, to take any real notice of two insignificant demons going about their business; one Romakhim did lob a desultory fireball at Lahalissa, but she pulled in her wings, rolled, and dodged it with ease.
“There.” Robin’s captive pointed a nondescript row house below them, slightly less seedy than its neighbors but otherwise indistinguishable. It was made of brick, but the door looked to be painted metal, slightly more sturdy than the wooden doors more commonly found with such structures. Robin spread his wings and hung suspended in the air for a long moment, studying the environs first before taking a closer look at the row house in question.
There was an unusual pattern in the bricks laid above the door, nothing definitive, but then, Robin was at least two hundred years out of date with regards to vampire ciphers. He’d had no reason to interact with any since one aided his escape from a vengeful African demon-prince who objected to the little principality over which Robin had briefly ruled deep in the jungles of the Congo. In addition to the pattern were also runes that looked like a crude attempt to bar his kind from entry, three over the door and one over each window.
Lahalissa giggled.
“Do you see those?” she pointed to the runes. “Ooh, I’m scared!”
“We’re here to ask them a favor, remember?” Robin couldn’t help smiling himself, but still, this was no time for taunts, much better to be polite. He swooped down to the concrete steps, deposited the shadowspawn there and tapped the door with his fingertip.
“Just knock, and when someone opens the door, tell them I want to speak with the clanmaster.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry; we’ll be right behind you, mate. I didn’t go to all this trouble just to set you on fire and leave you here.”
The goblin blanched a paler shade of yellow. He didn’t seem to like being caught directly in the middle of what promised to be a dangerous situation, which wasn’t all that unreasonable, in Robin’s opinion.
“No, great, um, great lord, sir. I only meant to say, who shall I tell them calls?”
“Tell them Opportunity is knocking. Or, alternatively, Death. Whichever suits them.”
The goblin eyed him dubiously, but he nodded obediently enough. As Robin flew up to join Lahalissa some twenty yards up and away from the step, his envoy attempted to straighten his hunched shoulders and knocked on the door.
No one responded immediately, and after a questioning glance upward, the Shadowspawn knocked again. This time, the door was answered by what appeared to be a loutish teenager, with the close-cropped hair and doughy complexion of a football thug. Only the fact that its chest was not moving betrayed the fact that the boy was no longer alive, but had become the fleshy shell of a young Twice-Fallen.
“Whaddya want?” it snarled in an Australian accent.
“Opportunity is kn-knocking,” stammered Robin’s messenger. “Er, actually, Death, that is to say, I mean—”
The vampire snorted and sent the goblin sprawling to the ground with a savage backhand. It started to step back inside the house when Robin cleared his throat. The creature looked up, and upon seeing two black-winged fallen angels hovering above him, its dead, piggish eyes widened with fear. Out of the corner of his eye, Robin saw the shadowspawn take the opportunity to scuttle away. Cheers, mate. Robin didn’t care about the goblin one way or the other, but the thing had served its purpose and since it knew less about his mission than the trees of Sussex Weald, he saw no reason to stop it. He nodded at the vampire.
“I fear my envoy lacks for eloquence, but since he’s proven to be eminently unsuitable, would you be so kind as to inform your most senior sire present that I should very much like to speak with him?” Robin thought perhaps the monster was too thick-witted to follow him, but just as he was beginning to think he’d have to repeat himself, the beast nodded.
“Yeh, all right. Who’re you?”
Someone who’d just as soon wipe out your wretched little nest of abominations as look at you, you monstrous eyesore. “A potential friend.”
The vampire looked skeptical, but it ducked its head and turned back into the house.
“Oi, Jimmy!” They could hear it shouting. “Git Vashya, and tell ‘im teh git ‘is skates on! They’s two bad-mother demons wanna talk teh ‘im outside, right!”
Robin sighed an
d glanced apologetically at Lahalissa. She shrugged, and made a what-did-you-expect sort of gesture with her hands. They were both surprised when an elegant Indian vampire appeared at the door a moment later. It was tall, well-groomed, wearing a pin-striped suit that flattered its lean figure. This Vashya was by no means what Robin had learned to expect from the Raustravi, and for a moment he wondered if they had the wrong clan. In any case, the vampire was an old one, and had seen somewhere between three and five centuries judging by the rigid appearance of its still-dusky flesh. The demonfire was strong within it, strong enough, perhaps, to create difficulties should he prove unhelpful.
“Greetings, my lord, my lady. How may I be of service this evening?”
The vampire’s voice was deep and cultured, with no trace of apprehension, and a quick glimpse into the surface of its mind showed that any attempt at intimidation would likely be misplaced. Robin descended to the ground and sketched a sign on his chest with his left hand, indicating he was no stranger to the greater clan.
“I have not seen such a sign in many a year, my lord. Indeed, we are most content when we are ignored by your kind.”
“You don’t strike me as a typical Raustravian prince, Lord Vashya.” Robin ignored the gentle hint. “I expect an elder of your years and experience will see the wisdom in seeking a rapprochement with a great power among my kind. I am but an envoy.”
The vampire’s face was still, except for a faint movement of one eyebrow. A betrayal of interest? Or was it merely curiosity.
“An end to the Wild Hunts… for your clan.”
“An end? There has not been a Wild Hunt since long before my time.” The vampire’s eyes flared red as they narrowed. He did not like being threatened.
“You misapprehend. I mean you no harm, it is only that the Hunter has been loosed and it will not be long before the Hunt rides again.” Robin suspected it might be counterproductive to mention just who had set Herne free, but he had no aversion to putting a scare into any unseen ears that might be eavesdropping. “But I offer protection, if you will provide us with a certain service.”
