There, Goliath faltered. He faced me with all the vehemence and hatred he could express.
“Read on, Goliath,” Menessos said gently.
“Master?”
“Read on.”
. . . that it may be determined if this Master Vampire has been bound not simply to his Erus Veneficus but by her.
Audible gasps were heard. A giggle emanated from one of the three women that had accompanied this Meroveus Franciscus. Introductions weren’t necessary; I could guess who they were.
“Let the shabbubitum ascend the stage,” Menessos said.
The three women strode up the ramp with all the pomp and circumstance they had, and they had a lot. Every eye in the room was on them as they strutted in perfect unison. Their similarly styled dresses of gray silk flowed like quicksilver as they moved. Either this trio was as well rehearsed as any Top-40 girl group, or they were just naturally ethereal.
Halfway up the ramp, their gowns became mist. Pieces fluttered away to form globes around every light. What was bright grew dim; what was already dim lost all illumination. The formal court ambience of the room disintegrated.
As the stage fell into murky shadows, the women’s clothes re-formed. Their chins lowered, warriors marching into battle, mouths opened to show threatening, bared teeth, and dark eyes glittering with the promise of bloodshed.
By the time they reached the stage, the front-most of them was dressed to kill—if she’d been going to the Dragonslayer’s Ball, that is. Her tight leather jacket was darkest gray and had spikes protruding from the outer forearms. Her pants were poured-on leather, and her heeled boots had silver embellishments on the shins, like owl heads with their wings wrapping around the back of the boot. It was beautiful, except for the fact that the owls’ hooked beaks protruded as spikes. Chains draped the top of her foot and ankles, securing spurs shaped to mimic very pointy owl talons.
The pair behind were attired much the same.
Mero asked Menessos, “Do you willingly submit to this as your Excelsior commands you, Quarterlord?”
For a tense moment, Menessos said nothing.
The air in the haven was too thick to breathe. His people were here, on edge with the dramatics, and ready to act should he give the word. I had no doubt that they would all fight for him and attack a vampire wizard without showing any fear.
He would never ask that of them.
I wanted him to run. But I knew he wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
This had to be done.
“That is,” Menessos finally said, “exactly how I wanted it to be.” He stood and stepped off the dais, setting his feet upon the newly inlaid circle, a pattern of yellow sphene, bright green emerald and the blue-purple tones of fluorite. It was lit from beneath, and the glow brightened as he spread his arms wide. I was sure Creepy’s advice had something to do with this newly added embellishment.
“I am ashamed of nothing,” he said. “Come, Liyliy, cursed daughter of a foolish father. Bring your sisters and your vengeance, and let this be done.”
A voice lifted from the back of the hall and cried, “Wait!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Liyliy’s sisters spun toward the back of the hall. She heard the assembly shuffle around. She saw Menessos, his Alter Imperator and his Erus Veneficus all rush to identify the interrupter. She, however, did not turn. She remained intent on Menessos. The speaker’s voice was unmistakable.
“Giovanni,” Mero whispered. He cleared his throat and announced, “Giovanni Guistini, Advisor to the Excelsior.”
Giovanni spread his arms, widening the gap of his shirt to display his scars. “I trust I am welcome here, Quarterlord? Your doorman wasn’t so sure.”
Menessos glanced toward Mero, but Mero did not acknowledge it. Liyliy wondered what Menessos was hoping to read on the other advisor. Since it was apparent that Menessos did not intend to try to escape as this interruption weighed on, she spun in time to see the concierge limp and stumble into view behind Giovanni. His nose was a bloody mess. Had he not been all the way across the room, she would have been tempted to taste him.
“Join us, Giovanni. Share the stage with me.” Menessos made it sound like a threat.
The scarred man swaggered his way to the stage. Liyliy thought him an ugly creature, parading as if the world saw majesty in him, but arrogantly unaware that he was not only atrocious but pitiful as well.
“Just in time,” he rasped as he ascended onto the stage. He claimed a position beside Mero and clapped the man on the arm. “I decided I couldn’t miss the show,” he said. With a gesture at Liyliy he added, “Proceed.”
Disliking him, Liyliy asked Mero, “Do you give the word, lord?”
“Proceed,” Mero said.
She smiled at Giovanni’s sneer.
She and her sisters approached Menessos. At the same instant, both his Alter Imperator and his Erus Veneficus stood. Liyliy halted and assessed both of them, concerned there might be a threat. She had good reason to be suspicious. No one on the stage was powerless—except Giovanni. In the information she’d gained from Heldridge, she knew Goliath was powerful and that Persephone was something special called the Lustrata.
Believing that neither of them would make the first strike, Liyliy proceeded. “When last we met, Menessos, I promised that I would drink of you . . . that I would bleed you dry.”
“Rash promises from a woman should never be taken seriously.”
She slapped him, but instead of following through, she jerked her arm back and sliced the side of his chin with the spike on her sleeve.
Another round of gasps claimed the audience at her insult, but Menessos, damn him, did not react. Liyliy snickered. “You bleed before me. Tasting will come next.”
“Liyliy,” Meroveus said warningly.
Menessos ran two fingers over his wound, then reached out slowly to wipe it on Liyliy’s lips. “Taste,” he said. “I do not fear you.”
She sucked on her bottom lip, then let it slide back into its pouting place as she mmmmed seductively and batted her lashes. “Delicious . . . I can’t wait for more.”
Unmoved, he offered her his hands.
Irritated that he showed no fear, Liyliy snatched them viciously. In position on either side of her, the sisters placed their fingers between the other’s joined hands, then grasped behind Menessos’s neck. Liyliy’s leather jacket disappeared, forming a tentacle that wrapped around his neck, and she whispered a chant. Her sisters murmured along.
The tentacle flattened and thinned until it covered Menessos’s face. Though her pleasure in this moment was obvious, she seemed irked when he did not fight her veil. Menessos simply inhaled. Almost all of her mist disappeared inside him in one inhalation; his chest rose with the depth of that single, fearless breath. It angered her, but she knew she was infesting him. She had only to wait for it. . . .
“You know what I learned from Heldridge?” she whispered. “I learned how you shattered him, rejecting him when it became clear he had no magic. I learned how it broke him. He wanted nothing more than your love . . . because he loved you more than his mortal father.”
Menessos gagged and coughed and wheezed for want of real air.
Liyliy guided their chant into a melodic song. Through the notes she sang, pieces of her aura traveled over the thresholds of the mental doorways opened by her mist, and she crawled around inside of him.
As one, she and her sisters lowered Menessos’s now rigid form to the floor so that he rested with his waist between Liyliy’s feet. She crouched over him.
The light shining up from the floor underneath him brightened. Yellow and blue and green shone up from around his torso, around his neck. She sensed the magic of the colorful stones, but it was too late. She was in a million pieces, in a million rooms of memory inside his mind. . . .
No!
Every room was empty.
Her chanting song changed in pitch and she rocked forward onto her knees—the spikes on her shins forced her to keep her toes
flexed, but she had anticipated he would fight back. Without releasing Menessos or her sisters, Liyliy bucked and her body lifted into a handstand. Then she slammed the two-inch spikes on the front of her boots onto Menessos’s thighs.
He groaned under her and gritted his teeth.
You cannot hide the truth, Liyliy thought. Her legs straightened, slicing him open.
He screamed.
The tang of copper filled the air. As Liyliy sang on, her will filtered into the air and mingled with his blood. Inside him, she tore down the walls, until only framework and connecting wires remained. Tearing on these wires, she ripped them in two and sucked on their sparking ends—his memories exploded into her like lightning.
It jolted. It hurt. It burned her alive and it devoured her. She loved every second of it. No matter the aching cost, this revenge was bliss.
A thousand pieces of her swarmed into the room of his marks. He was hiding the memories she wanted, so she burrowed into the walls and found hundreds of thousands of wires interwoven like threads of madness. Gnawing on the tangled knots, she tasted of dozens of memories at once, duplicating their essence, always searching deeper, farther, wanting information that would hurt him or destroy him.
Every detail she could use, she consumed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When Liyliy spoke, a wisp of power fluttered at the nape of my neck and I thought, Get ready, Johnny. Here it comes.
When the mist covered Menessos, when he gagged on it, I realized that I was holding my breath. A heartbeat later, his body trembled, then seized. It was unbearable, so I concentrated on Liyliy. She reacted to his suffering with vengeful glee.
Menessos had predicted this would be as painful to watch as it would be to bear. And he said not to interfere under any circumstances.
Giovanni, the newly arrived advisor, laughed out loud when Liyliy sliced Menessos open. He lay there helpless, wounded and bleeding, pouring out his life to defend me, to protect our trio. Despite my earlier wounds, my fists were clenched at my sides and I found myself contemplating the murder of this advisor.
He stood rapt in deviant delight as this gruesome scene played out. Of the non-haven members on the stage, only Meroveus appeared to have any distaste for the activity before us.
My vision grew blurry with tears I didn’t want to shed, but I was aware when Liyliy’s head suddenly snapped up in my direction. Peripherally, I detected Goliath also facing me. I blinked to force the tears out. The disbelief and confusion were so plain in his expression that I could see his self-questioning begin as he relived a few choice memories and searched for the clues he’d missed.
Menessos groaned in anguish, drawing my attention back to him . . . and Liyliy. Her eyes were condemning slits.
“Tell us!” Giovanni demanded.
She wrenched free of the others and pointed at me. “Twice-marked he is! By her!”
I spun to grab the broom leaning against my seat. Menessos had also told me to be ready to flee, and I was sooo out of here. “Awaken ye to life,” I whispered as soon as my hand was on the broomstick.
Then Goliath’s hand was on mine.
With a shocked gasp, I tried but couldn’t wrench free. “Strike me,” he said softly. “Now.”
I blinked stupidly but saw Giovanni heading toward me.
“Make it good, Lustrata, while I can still be of aid.”
I yanked free and smacked the handle of the broomstick across his forehead. He stumbled back.
I lowered my grip on the broom and swung it at him, connecting with the side of his head. Off balance, he tumbled off the dais and right against Giovanni. Both fell down hard.
“Restrain her!” Giovanni croaked.
Liyliy struggled to her feet—her footwear wasn’t making it easy.
Frankly, straddling a broom in a hurry wasn’t easy. Doing so in a dress was worse. The dress’s high, high slit made the straddling part easier, but actually sitting the broom with my feet tucked up behind me and my toes curled over the dried and dyed-black straw was completely immodest. Everyone could see my undies as I flew up and across the former theater.
I heard Mero say, “Get her, Liyliy. Bring her to me.”
A screech—a terrible, grating and inhuman sound—filled the theater. Over my shoulder I saw Liyliy’s body transforming, becoming something owl-like. Something with wings.
Shit.
I intentioned the broom faster, hunkering as I shot past Sever and through the double doors of the theater entrance. The broom skidded sideways in the hall. Accustomed to flying in the wide-open sky, I meant to use more speed than was wise. I needed to maneuver, and there wasn’t enough room to accelerate.
At the bottom of the staircase, I could hear the sounds of giant wings struggling with a space not large enough for them. A shriek of frustration chased me up the stairwell, but so did the crack of splintering wood. Liyliy wasn’t giving up.
On the ground floor, I turned toward the ticket booth, shouting, “Open the doors!” to the guards ahead. The vampire on duty did as he was bidden, then—bless him—recognized that he’d be in the way. To his credit, he hit the ground and propped the door open with his torso.
I intentioned the broom up and avoided the people on the sidewalk just beyond the haven’s entrance. The abruptness and manner of my exit caused people to point and shout. Heading due north, I looked back and saw Liyliy crash through the haven doors, shattering them. The people’s shouts changed into screams. She had become a giant black owl, stumbling about on her talons before her flapping wings caught air.
Intent on my escape, I wondered where I could go.
Not the den. Wait! I have a dragon at home.
As I sped up and into the night, I passed over the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway and wondered if I could ask that much of Zoltan. He had no wings. Sure, Creepy had transformed him for the purpose of my protection, but leading this harpy to my house meant putting all of my animals and Mountain in danger. A standoff wouldn’t be pretty even if I did win, and, worse, she could use everything there as leverage.
Where would I have an advantage over a giant, pissed-off owl? Certainly not high up in the wide-open sky. Maybe I could outmaneuver her. Just as I was closing in on the water of Lake Erie, I intentioned a hard left and zoomed south around the backside of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Skimming the North Coast Harbor walkway, I heard a screech and shot upward, rocketing over the dome of the Great Lakes Science Center and heading for the turbine.
Owls are renowned for their specialized feathers that afford them nearly silent flight, so I kept checking behind me. Liyliy had been gaining, but my evasive spin cost her. She was pumping her wings hard.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Meroveus Franciscus knew Liyliy was transforming to pursue the Erus Veneficus. “Bring her to me,” he commanded. Her answer was a scream as her body warped. Her nose elongated and curved sharply down like a beak. Her pouting pink lips grew thin and faded to white, becoming a crooked line with drooping ends. It was nauseating to see her skin swell and sag, beset with wrinkles, as that cracked topography replaced her lovely face with sunken ravines and bruised slopes. When the feathers burst forth, she screeched again, revealing two rows of little pointed teeth in her hideous mouth.
As the eldest of the sisters took flight, her wing brushed his chest and a gust of wind hit him hard enough to force him a single step backward. He visually followed her departure, but as soon as she was out of sight, he realized, The most dangerous of the three just slipped away.
Perhaps I should call her back.
He reached to his chest to touch the necklace—and discovered it was gone. Instantly, his jaw clamped hard and his hand curled into a fist. So clever! She’s stolen the only means I have of controlling them—but her sisters do not know that. He collected himself and smoothly flattened his fingers on his chest as if merely smoothing his shirt.
Movement on the stage drew his attention. Giovanni shoved the Alter Imperator off of him and lurched on
to his feet. “You idiot!” he shouted at Goliath. “You let her get away!”
Slowly, and with some graceless difficulty, Goliath got his feet under him. He shook his head, dazed.
“Liyliy will bring her back,” Mero said calmly. With the necklace gone, however, he was sure Liyliy wouldn’t bother chasing the Erus Veneficus. She would simply flee, but no one else knew she had that option.
Giovanni stared down at Menessos, who was in shock and bleeding profusely. Liyliy’s sisters were lapping at the blood on his thighs. “Damn, this is sweet,” Giovanni said as he crouched. “You’re ruined. And now the Excelsior’s wrath is yours. Let’s drain him dry, ladies.” He dropped to his knees, and, mouth wide, fangs gleaming, aimed for Menessos’s throat.
Goliath ran forward and kicked Giovanni in the head. The blow had enough force to send Giovanni sprawling backward. His nose gushed blood. Across the theater, Sever was heard emitting a triumphant, “Yes!”
Giovanni threw his arms up and trembled with rage, screaming as he gathered himself to stand.
Goliath straddled his wounded master and glowered at the sisters, who scurried away to sit at Meroveus’s feet like dogs.
“You dare!” Giovanni bellowed. “You dare strike me? You’re in league with him! Has she marked you as well?” Giovanni spun to Mero. “Tell them to read him!”
Meroveus shrugged. “When Liyliy returns. Perhaps.”
“Mero!” Giovanni shouted.
“Unless I am presented with a sealed document of kill-authorization from the Excelsior,” Goliath said through gritted teeth, “none of you bastards will touch my master.”
“I bear no such document,” Mero said. He knew his son would not sign such. “Do you, Giovanni?”
The other advisor’s answer was a wordless growl. He stomped from the stage and away toward the theater entrance.
Mero wandered closer and scrutinized the Quarterlord. He had seen Menessos at his best; this had to be his worst. It pained him to know that he had delivered this trouble to the great Menessos. “Call your Offerlings to the stage,” he said softly.
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