by J. F. Lewis
“Coming back here is traumatic for him,” Beatrice broke in. She stepped between me and Tabitha. “The embalming magics used on him have worn off. He has forbidden Rachel to dull his senses, to use any magic on him or in his presence, and he is facing the world sober for the first time in his unlife, Lady Tabitha. Add to this that the last time he was in France was as a soldier in World War II, when, yes, being shot at by Nazis, bombed by Nazis, and otherwise fearing for his life was a very real concern . . . and one may see why your comment incensed him.”
“That’s not an excuse.” I stepped around her.
“Like hell it isn’t.” Tabitha stared at me, angrier than before, cheeks flushed and eyes dimly lit with red. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were going through?”
“Because it’s stupid.” I mumbled the words. “That was more than half a century ago, and anyway, bullets can’t even hurt me anymore. There aren’t any Nazis hiding in the bushes. I know that. It’s dumb, but I still feel like they’re there, waiting to get a shot off.”
“Why did you confide in her, but not me?” Tabitha frowned, transitioning from hurt to sad. “I don’t understand. We’re married. I’m here for you. I—”
“I didn’t tell her any of that stuff.” I pointed at Beatrice. “She figured the war stuff out when we were getting off the plane, but—”
Tabitha and I both stared questioningly at Bea.
“I know you think Rachel is the most knowledgeable thrall you have, Eric, but I was Lady Gabriella’s for quite a long time, and if there is one thing a high society thrall has to learn, it’s how to find out every little thing about her master. If you know what’s bothering them, what they want, what they’re thinking about, you can be a better thrall and they treat you well.”
“So you spied on him?” Tabitha asked.
“No, Lady Bathory,” Beatrice said, using the most formal title for a female Vlad. “Well, maybe, but for me it’s doing my job. Some of the information came from Magbidion when he got back from the Hilton. I wheedled a little more from Talbot when he came to make sure we were all packed up, and the rest I got by paying attention to Eric and asking questions. How else am I supposed to do my job?”
“Still—” Tabitha began.
Luc reappeared, and I nearly went for him out of instinct. His armor was gone, if it had ever really been there, and he was wearing the suit and sunglasses again sans earpiece. “I’ve taken care of the minibus. No one saw anything. It was late, and Aarika acted quickly.”
“He should be deported.” Aarika jabbed her finger in my direction. “He is too dangerous. He’s an old soldier and I respect him, but let him return at another time, with his memento mori. Perhaps then he will be able to control himself.”
“Let’s get his wife’s petition handled first,” James said. He lowered his sword. “He can stay magic-side until that’s handled and then we can let the Council rule on the issue of whether he can stay or not.”
“Because he’s your wartime chum?” Aarika asked. “For that reason we should ignore his control issues? He should be muzzled, not kept magic-side. He should be staked. It won’t kill him.”
“He will remain magic-side until the Council has ruled,” Luc snapped. “And that”—he gave a pointed look, meeting the gaze of both other immortals, Aarika first, then James—“is final. Being kept here is restraint enough, I should think.”
“Fine.” She folded her hands over her chest. “I am not unreasonable. We are not in my country, after all. If the Treaty of Secrets is broken, it will fall at the feet of the Free French, not on Germany’s head.”
“Magic-side.” I looked around. The surroundings were still vaguely familiar, similar to where we had been, but with a few hundred years of urban development erased. “Where the hell are we?”
“A Vale of Scrythax,” James spoke first, sword still at the ready.
“That’s not how the Veil of Scrythax works back home.”
“V-A-L-E,” James said, “not V-E-I-L.” He had his hand over the lower portion of his face, mimicking a veil. “It’s a pocket dimension. Think of it as being two quick steps to the left of the mundane world. We use the Vales instead of playing with people’s memories. It works much better to keep the supernatural out of sight in the first place, and it keeps the European Mage Guild from getting the kind of stranglehold on the immortals that the American version has on the vampires.”
“So why doesn’t the U.S. use your kind of Vale?”
“We have a much bigger piece of Scrythax.”
“Piece?” Tabitha asked. “As in body part?”
Aarika snorted. “Aren’t you a little squeamish for a vampire?”
“Aren’t you a little short for a storm trooper?” Tabitha fired back. Score! I laughed. Aarika frowned.
“I have no patience for the spurious accusations,” Aarika began. “I am not a Nazi. I fought the Nazis. I—”
“She was making a Star Wars joke, Jerry.” I flipped Aarika the bird. “Calm the fuck down and try to keep up with the times.”
James opened his hands, and the sword dissipated into a cloud of silvery-blue effervescence that sank into his body. Interposing himself between Aarika and me, he held up his open palms. “Let’s all stay friendly. Okay?”
Aarika considered looking to Luc for support—I could see it in her eyes—but I respected her for not taking it there. She backed down a little and so did I. God help me, but I was starting to like her, despite myself.
“Scrythax was a very powerful demon,” she began, “the most powerful of the Infernatti. We’re talking pose-as-a-deity powerful. In the Dark Ages, when the True Immortals and the other magic-siders went to war with each other, before the Treaty of Secrets, Scrythax stepped in on the side of humanity. Both sides united against him and he was torn apart for his trouble. In a weird way, though, he got what he wanted. United by a common foe, the magic-siders agreed that humanity and the supernatural needed to be segregated and that for the supernatural to endure, limits needed to be put in place on all sorts of things: vampire population growth, hunting practices of the therianthropes . . .”
“Over time,” Luc picked up, “the various mystical properties of Scrythax’s remains were discovered and he was parceled out.”
“And which part of him alters the memories of humans in Void City, or dare I ask?”
“His skin,” Aarika said. “Vampires stole,” she emphasized stole like she was accusing me of doing it, “portions of his skin when the renegades who believed in less restrictive population controls fled to the Americas.”
“Why would his skin do that?” Tabitha asked.
“Scrythax loved humans,” Luc explained. “But his visage was terrible to look upon and his form was so . . . primal . . . that he could not alter his shape. Instead, he enchanted his skin to make mortals see him as something other than he was. He didn’t much care what, just so long as they didn’t run in fear. In the hands of the right mage, Lord Phillip of Void City for example, a piece of his skin can be used to make mortals see something other than what is and cloud their memory even of that.”
“I wonder what his little toe does,” I muttered. “So what piece do you guys have?”
“His h—” James began to answer me, but Aarika cut him off.
“A substantial one. Those the Council trusts can create a small pocket dimension which represents their present location as Scrythax remembers it. In this fashion, our differences may be settled away from mundane eyes and powers which might otherwise draw attention to our community may be exercised—”
“Without scaring the norms,” Tabitha butted in. “So you guys have his head then, right . . . or an eye maybe?”
“I wish we had one of his eyes.” Luc spoke up. “Either one is said to hold remarkable powers. There are stories of Scrythax restoring the dead with one eye while peering forward into the future with the other to ensure the world was a better place with the newly resurrected returned to it.”
“I wouldn’t
want to be around if he decided the world was better off without me,” Tabitha chimed in.
“No.” James shook his head in vigorous agreement. “You wouldn’t. One of the rules I was going to tell you about. In Europe, we don’t allow supernatural combat in the mundane world. If you’re a member of the community, you open a Vale of Scrythax and settle it there. Never to the death or destruction, either. Only the Council can grant permission for one magicsider to kill another. Breaking that law is an offense punishable by destruction or permanent banishment into a Vale of Scrythax. You’re lucky that you had your freak-out before I told you about it.”
“Yeah, thanks for . . .” As I spoke, my heart beat . . . the first time I could remember that happening without Rachel around since I’d become a vampire. Then, the scenery shifted like air over gasoline or hot asphalt. Buildings rose up around us, winking into view to match the place we’d just left in the real world, right down to the wrecked minibus.
Luc glanced about, black hair falling down over his sunglasses. “Alors! Aarika?”
“We’re still in the Vale of Scrythax, Luc. I don’t understand. It should still appear as it did the last time Scrythax saw it.”
My heart beat again, once, twice, and the magnitude of the effect expanded. When it stopped, the change stabilized.
“Hey, guys?” I asked. “The eye of Scrythax, the one that could raise the dead? What would it look like?”
“No one knows,” James answered as Luc and Aarika went through motions very similar to what Magbidion does when he’s looking at things through his magic. I guess they were gauging their surroundings. If what I suspected was correct, however, they’d have had more luck studying my chest. “Some pieces of his body crystallized into beautiful gems, others grew dull and black, like a rock or a piece of coal, and still others maintained their gruesome forms, like desiccated remains. Why?”
“No reason.”
“We should get to the Council quickly,” Aarika told Luc.
“This way.” Luc gestured in the rough direction in which I’d seen the castle. “We aren’t far. Let’s press on magic-side. Aarika and I can maintain the Vale for all of us as we move.”
Tabitha did what she always does—forgave me too much, too fast—and we set out along the road, my right hand in her left and my left hand in Bea’s right, like I was a little kid or a sick old man who needed looking after. When we turned at the corner, the area that had been out of my line of sight before we transitioned to the Vale was still old-school.
Of course it is, I thought, because I didn’t see it in the real world and I’ve got an Eye of Scrythax, also known as the Stone of Aeternum, in my fucking chest, turning me into the mystic equivalent of those guys from Google Maps.
Updates.
Jeez.
“I wanted to show you this anyway.” James dropped back to walk with us while Aarika and Luc led the way. “We’ll have to hurry to make sure we get there before you have to sleep, but the approach to the Château de Vincennes looks much better magic-side.”
“I’m sure it does.” I walked on, looking down at the ground in front of me. And if you want it to stay that way, I suggest we leave by the same route. Normal honeymoon? Yeah. Not so much.
15
RACHEL:
PARIS OR BUST
When you’re young, hot, and a witch (particularly a tantric witch) you can soar through airport security—no broom required. Customs agents find it hard to do anything but pass you through when they’re feeling unexplained pulses of sexual pleasure. The succubus who taught me magic calls it Blissing. “Any demon can punch their way through security,” she used to say, “walk through all horns, scales, and hellfire, but it takes skill to ensure that when the hosts say serving you has been their pleasure, they’re making a gross understatement.”
Unlike my old teacher, I don’t see the elegance of making someone cream their pants or experience an uncontrollable erection, but it sure is fun.
I walked out of Charles de Gaulle International Airport Terminal 2 with a garment bag over my shoulder and a small rolling suitcase trailing behind me. Springtime in Paris, and all I could see was pavement. I’d noticed from the air that the sections of Terminal 2 are shaped like eyes, with a road and TGV line where the eyelids would meet. The space where the iris would be is covered with ground-level parking, and the terminals make the eyelashes. I leaned back against a rounded section of the exterior wall, looking right toward the rest of the terminal. Even the roofline had little puffy parts that looked like eyes.
Businessmen and -women went on their boring little ways, hailing taxis and yammering away on cell phones, which reminded me to swap the SIM card in mine so it would work on the network here. I powered the phone back on, started downloading my messages, and began reading through them while I waited for the vampire Winter’d arranged for me to meet. The screen went black without warning and I stabbed the power angrily.
“Work, stupid fucking phone!” I looked up to see if there was a phone kiosk, thinking maybe the battery had gone bad, when I noticed the airport, the planes, the parking lots, the roads, the TGV line . . . everything . . . was gone. My surroundings had been drastically altered, going from nouveau French to rural farm, the bright lights of the city replaced by a panoramic starscape. I was leaning against a waist-high bit of crumbling stone wall.
“Oh, great! Somebody roofied me.” It probably wasn’t Kansas, but the surrounding area definitely looked like farmland. It wasn’t modern farmland, with tractors and computerized irrigation, either. I couldn’t put my finger on why, maybe it was the smell of French “fertilizer” or the too-clean country air, but the whole place seemed positively medieval, especially in the dark. “I’m probably being assfucked by some freako security kink and I’m not even getting any damn energy out of it.”
A woman’s laughter pierced the silence. In the starlight, I could see that her hair had been dyed candy apple red streaked with cotton candy pink and cut in a stylish pixie-cut with long bangs hanging down in a ragged edge over her left eye. Physically, she couldn’t have been older than early twenties, but she had the washed-out irises of a vampire and hadn’t bothered to hide them with contacts. Eyes once brown were now a faded gold. She wore blue lipstick and a mismatched ensemble of outerwear that meshed together perfectly. She’d abandoned modern trends, but she hadn’t kept with the old styles either. Instead, she’d created a style of her own and it suited her.
“It’s a cliché,” she said as she extended needle-sharp fangs that appeared far more delicate than Eric’s, “but you look good enough to eat.”
“I am.”
“I’ll bet.” Watching her move was hypnotic, each gesture out of time with her surroundings, too slow, then too fast. One instant she’d be looking straight at me, the next straight up at the sky, the next to the right or bent over, all with no intervening movements I could detect. In an eyeblink she was behind me and in another she was still walking toward me, until I felt dizzy as if she was approaching me from both directions at once.
Hands rested on my shoulders, caressed my cheeks . . . She was still walking toward me, but the touches were hers. Brief phantom whispers of touch cupped my breasts, curved along my pelvis, my lips.
“I can see why Eric finds you so tempting,” she said when she finally reached me. Her hands were clasped before her, but they were in my hair, too, running through it.
“Your speed is impressive.”
“May I taste you?” Cold breath carried the words into my ears. The scent of old blood mingled with wine in my nostrils.
“A little,” I said.
Her bite was slow and lingering, the fangs pushing against my skin and sliding through painlessly. She went for the throat like most vampires do, but her tongue rasped against my neck, warm with my own heat, the suction of her mouth gentle yet insistent. I touched her chakras with my energy and gave her taste. I expected an increase in the urgency of her feeding, but it didn’t come. She kissed me then and sudde
nly, inexplicably, my mind put a name to her face. She was Irene, Eric’s Irene, the Irene of El Segundo. If I hadn’t known before why Eric once loved her, I knew then. Her kiss was wild and unrestrained. Her fangs nicked me, but I didn’t care. I’m not into girls really, but it was nice.
“You taste like cinnamon,” she said. Her lips were slick with red, and I recognized the color. There’s a peculiar thrill when you see your own blood on someone else’s lips, and Irene knew it.
“I could drink you all myself.” She stretched absently. The visual, like a movie with too many cuts made in it to repair the film, hurt my eyes.
“Then there wouldn’t be anything left for later.”
Her feral grin faded. “Just because you like candy doesn’t mean you should always save a piece for later.” She was behind me. “There is a certain joy in gobbling down the box of chocolates all in one go, to sit, greedy and full”—her hands, now warm, slid along my stomach—”and sick, with nothing but the memory to sustain you and the wrappers with which to play.”
“Is that what humans are to you?”
She nodded. “When I was alive they had these little wax bottles, tiny things, with flavored liquid inside. You could pop the whole thing in your mouth.” She mimed tossing a bottle into her mouth and chewing it up. “Or you could just bite the top off and,” she mimed that too, biting the top off of an imaginary bottle and spitting it on the ground. A red trail of blood hit the ground. “Spit it out. That’s all humans are: funny little blood containers. You walk and talk. You’re fun to hold, fun to play with, but you’re so close to fungible that one dead human hardly matters. There are billions more.”
“Yeah, okay. You’re all spooky or whatever.” I opened myself to the magic and really looked at my surroundings. Was this an illusion? Glowing dots of demonic magic slowly separated themselves from the background. Pinpricks of power, combined and shifted, creating a bubble of reality? No. I studied the hue of the magic. At first it appeared red, but if I caught it at the right angle, a blue sheen came through. Memory? If Magbidion hadn’t just worked with me on how memory magic worked, it might have been too subtle for me to notice. I opened Ajna, the chakra that controls magic, my third eye, and my view of the magic came into better focus.
