Dark Ascension: A Generation V Novel

by Brennan, M. L.

  “I trust in Mother’s wisdom, little brother,” Chivalry said, putting another forkful of omelet in his mouth and eyeing the plate of bacon assessingly, clearly wondering if he was up for a second helping. Wordlessly, Simone reached out and put two more pieces on each of their plates, and they shared a smile. Chivalry turned his attention back to me. “Holding the trust back until you’re fifty will give you time to mature, to attain new thoughtfulness—”

  “To conform to your values rather than mine?”

  Prudence snorted heavily. “Mother knew what she was doing. You can play human all you want now, when you see no visible differences between yourself and your peers. Just wait until you’re fifty, brother, and all the people you went to college with are now checking in with their doctors about their cholesterol and worrying about how they’re going to pay for their children’s educations, and you still look exactly as you do today.” A somewhat smug look slid across her face. “Perhaps then you’ll be a bit more willing to embrace who, and what, you are.”

  “And in the meantime,” Chivalry pointed out, “you are being given a perfectly appropriate allowance, which you are more than free to hand over to worthy causes at the beginning of every month, if that’s what you feel is best.”

  “A monthly allowance that just happens to be in the exact amount as my half of the apartment rent,” I noted. “How amazingly convenient.”

  “The amount will go up when you turn thirty.” My brother chomped down on a perfectly prepared slice of bacon with every indication of enjoyment. I nudged my glass of orange juice over to block my view of the serving plate. “And then continue to go up, a little bit every year, until you turn fifty and can touch the bulk of the capital.”

  “Mother decided all this on her own?” I asked. Both of my siblings looked at me blandly. “Of course not.”

  “Don’t fuss, Fort. There’s too much going on at the moment.” Prudence deliberately leaned forward and nudged the serving platter of bacon back into my eye line. “The faction heads are all being informed about Mother’s death today, though heaven knows that they probably know about it already. They’ve been twittering about nothing else for the last two weeks.”

  I moved the mimosa jug a strategic two inches to the left to block my view again. “Twittering as in your old-fashioned fancy-pants term for gossip, or actually tweeting, on Twitter?”

  Prudence gave me an icy glare. “Loren Noka can show you the screenshots, I’m sure.”

  “The cards are being delivered today by personal messenger,” Chivalry broke in calmly, giving his mouth a delicate dab with his napkin, “so we need to start having discussions about how we want to proceed. Mother was clear that these decisions needed to be made together.” He turned to Simone and gave her a melting smile. The worst part of the sudden radiation of charm that was emerging from him—as if clouds had suddenly parted to reveal the sun—was that he wasn’t even doing it on purpose. It was patently obvious that just being around Simone made him happy—of course, that had been the case with all his wives, before he’d eventually killed them. “My darling, I have the unfortunate inkling that this is not going to be a swift conversation, so would you mind terribly if I . . . ?”

  Simone leaned over to give him a solid kiss. “I need to do some endurance training anyway, honey, and I know that jogging around Newport with sixty-pound weights strapped to you is something of an acquired taste. I’ll catch up with you at dinner.” She got up from the table with a cheery wave, more enthusiastic than any person should be at the prospect of hours of jogging while weighted down with the equivalent of a baby harp seal strapped to her back. Simone was a professional mountain climber and guide, though, currently training in the hopes of being included in a May expedition to attempt an Annapurna ascent in the Himalayas. I liked her, but I wasn’t sure that we really understood each other, given that my ideal day involved being wrapped in blankets and watching a Doctor Who marathon, while hers involved using nothing but an ice ax and belaying pitons to inch her way up a mountain while icy winds attempted to rip her off to her death. I waved back as she left. Prudence lifted one hand and gave a small wiggling of her fingers that managed to effectively convey her sarcasm.

  “So, it’s just the cards going out?” I asked. “We don’t have to do a memorial service or something?”

  “Mother didn’t see the point, I suppose,” Prudence replied, toying with the last drops of her parfait. “She set the pyre details herself in advance, and Loren Noka let me know this morning that her ashes were collected into the appointed box, but that Mother’s directions indicated that the spreading of the ashes should wait until Edmund arrives.”

  “He’s coming?” I felt shocked, and more than a little disturbed. None of us had ever met our uncle, or even spoken with him. And after the last visit we’d had from a European vampire . . . well, it wasn’t something that was necessarily a good surprise.

  Prudence shrugged carelessly. “Mother apparently thought so. As for when, who knows? A month? A year? Ten years? He dates back to the Battle of Bosworth, Fort. Time has a different meaning for the old ones. And his tie was to Mother, not to us. I’d be surprised if he shows up before the colonization of Mars.”

  Chivalry gave a small snort. “Is that estimate including the defunding of NASA?” The space program was a sore subject with Chivalry. For all my own disappointments about the lack of emphasis given to exploration, he’d actually been present at President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University, and felt a personal affront whenever the NASA budget was cut. With a visible effort my brother pulled himself away from his usual diatribe and focused on issues closer to terra firma. “Well, this is my proposal—we need to start things off right, and move forward in the spirit of cooperation that Mother intended. Therefore, I believe that we should not move from this table”—Chivalry rapped the tabletop decisively with his knuckles—“until we can come to a unanimous consensus on one issue.”

  There was one piece of immediate consensus, and that was the clear horror that both Prudence and I felt at the thought of that proposal. Clearly we had much clearer memories of the miserable afternoon spent debating the succubi petition than Chivalry did.

  “Now, don’t look at me like that,” Chivalry chided, his voice laden with deliberate enthusiasm. “We can do this if we just work together. Now, what are some of the items on our agenda? The succubi? The request from the new karhu that was conveyed at the coronation? The kobold activities that Fort observed?”

  If Julie Andrews had been male and a vampire who dated back to the Civil War, this was what sitting at the table with her would’ve been like. I could only count my blessings that Chivalry had always considered spontaneous singing outside an opera house to be incredibly vulgar; otherwise I could quite easily see him try to motivate togetherness through a Disney-style song and dance number.

  After a long, horrible pause, where I mulled over the fact that the grieving process was clearly being expressed differently by all of us, I asked, “Are we going to be able to take bathroom breaks?”

  Chivalry frowned at me. Apparently this was not the response that he’d expected. “What? Fine, fine.”

  “Oh, good,” Prudence cut in. “I was worried that we’d end up resorting to the flower vase, and if there’s one thing I don’t miss about older and grander ages, it’s the chamber pots.”

  As ever, the realization that I was actually in agreement with my sister was a terrifying one, and something that made me wonder if a reappraisal of my life choices and value systems was in order.

  Over the following four hours, I was at least reminded about all the ways that Prudence and I disagreed, as we moved through every prominent item on our collective agenda and managed to fundamentally deadlock on every single one. Our progress on the succubi was nonexistent, with forty minutes spent just disagreeing on whether or not we should even continue to support them as they hovered at the edge of the territ
ory in red tape limbo. The only reason the food funding was still in place at the end of that conversation was simply that we couldn’t even agree to cut it—and any greater issue remained almost congressionally untouchable. Prudence absolutely hated the idea of agreeing to a metsän kunigas adviser on bear issues, which killed the whole thing, even when I pointed out that Gil Kivela had made significant compromises on what he’d actually wanted. The only result of that had been Prudence’s suggestion that we kill Gil, along with Dahlia for good measure, and institute a puppet regency for Anni Kivela. That, thankfully, died quickly, as even Chivalry agreed that that seemed like a bit of an overreaction (though his use of the term “a bit” had me more than a bit worried). Even the kobold issue was something that we couldn’t agree on—my sister actually liked the idea of allowing the kobolds to hunt the homeless population, provided that they were discreet about it and left no survivors.

  “Can we at least agree to expel all the witches from the territory?” Prudence asked plaintively.

  “Absolutely not,” I said, my forehead pressed against the tablecloth in despair.

  “Maybe just some additional regulations?” Chivalry suggested. Prudence and I both disagreed in unison—though of course for entirely different reasons.

  There was a long silence, born of exhaustion, fruitless arguing, and the sad realization that we’d all used our allowed bathroom breaks.

  “Okay,” I finally said, breaking the silence. “This has been a complete bust. And if we stay here any longer, then we’re going to have to eat lunch, which is a depressing thought. So now we’ve also managed to ruin lunch, which I didn’t think was possible.”

  Prudence nodded. “On this sole subject, Fortitude is right. Chivalry, my brother”—her voice became coaxing—“perhaps we need to adjourn this for another time.”

  Chivalry’s expression was dogged. “Absolutely not. I refuse to believe that we are incapable of all agreeing on just one subject.”

  “Despite all available evidence?” Prudence furrowed her brow, perplexed. “Really, I would think that you’ve been given a more than adequate sample set to draw conclusions from.”

  I finally lifted my head off the table and really looked at my brother, at the grim set of his jaw and the strain showing on his movie-star-perfect features. He’d driven the conversation for hours, ignoring every completely predictable deadlock, and now he sat there looking incredibly disappointed in us. We were all grieving for Madeline, even as much as none of us wanted to show it, and this fixation of my brother’s to act out our mother’s last directive to us was clearly how he was trying to deal with the situation. I racked my brain for a long minute, trying to come up with something that could give Chivalry the unanimous agreement that he needed right now. After considering and rejecting half a dozen ideas, I finally just spit something out. “How about we change the staircase?”

  Both Chivalry and Prudence turned to look at me, nearly identical quizzical frowns stretching across their faces. “. . . the staircase?” Prudence asked, clearly wondering if she could have possibly heard me correctly.

  I was committed to this now. “Yes. Our sexually explicit staircase. I’m just going to say it—I find it kind of embarrassing whenever I pass by a female staff member when I’m walking up it. Between the toplessness and the bottomlessness, I’m kind of sure that we’re creating a hostile work environment. Also, it’s really weird.”

  There was another long pause while we all took a second to picture our grand staircase, with its extravagant upward sweep of solid marble, and its depictions of human-mermaid sexual congress engraved with such clear detail that one was practically forced to entertain disturbing insinuations about the personal life and inclinations of the sculptor responsible. Especially when one also considered the clear voyeurism expressed on the parts of the carved porpoises. It was a staircase that had prompted hundreds of visitors to say, “Oh, how interesting,” in tones that left no doubt that “interesting” did not in any way indicate “good.”

  “I . . . actually agree with that,” Prudence said, practically tasting the words as they came out of her mouth, her amazement clear. She paused, considered, then gave a decisive nod and returned to her usual clipped and confident delivery. “Yes, I agree. It makes for a very awkward moment when giving someone the full tour. Let’s replace the staircase stonework. Chivalry?”

  I felt the kind of internal triumph that should probably only be reserved for discovering radium or teaching a cat to use a toilet. Chivalry was staring at us, his jaw hanging. “Look, Chivalry, it’s happened!” I said happily. “We’re all in agreement, and it didn’t even break the seventh seal and bring about the end of the world. Go Team Scott!” I extended a hand in perfect high-five position to my sister, which she met with withering scorn. I attempted to pretend that I’d actually meant to scratch my ear.

  Chivalry was still just staring at us.

  It was starting to feel a little ominous, and it was Prudence who leaned forward and asked, very cautiously, “Chivalry? You do agree with us, don’t you?”

  My brother, that final beacon of good manners and fine breeding, hit his breaking point at last and absolutely exploded. “Of course I don’t,” he yelled. “That stonework is a one-of-a-kind work of art from a master craftsman! We’ve been featured in architectural magazines that have taken and displayed close-up photos of that staircase, and I know for a fact that there are at least four professors of well-regarded private universities that include pictures of it in their PowerPoint presentations. We are not going to destroy an amazing piece of artistic expression simply because the two of you find the sight of a naked breast distressing to your sensibilities!”

  “Chivalry . . .” I blinked, trying to process what was actually going on. “You covered up the pornographic portions with newspaper when I was little.”

  My brother adjusted his shirt collar fussily and smoothed back his still perfectly coiffed hair, pulling himself together. He slanted an annoyed look at me. “I also put our copies of D. H. Lawrence on upper shelves and locked up the rolling ladders. As I assume that you are not also proposing the censorship of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I fail to see your point.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Chivalry,” Prudence snapped, “this is not about defending artistic liberty. This is about how Mother hired an artist, gave him too much leeway, and then kept the result because she enjoyed how uncomfortable it made guests. It is the Egyptian Room all over again, and you are just being stubborn.”

  “The Egyptian Room?” Clearly this reference predated me.

  My sister gave her most superior sniff, one that usually came out whenever we got trapped in a family game of Trivial Pursuit and I’d missed what she considered to be an obvious question. Snobbery established, she finally gave me the background. “There have been several waves of Egyptomania in the United States. Mother decided that it would be amusing to jump aboard a brief one that rolled through in the eighteen eighties. She bankrolled an archaeologist for an expedition to Egypt that lasted three years, with the only stipulations being that he could go wherever and do whatever, as long as he brought back enough authentic items for her to decorate the main drawing room.”

  I considered what I’d just heard, then ventured, “So she hired Indiana Jones?”

  Prudence glared. Apparently pop culture references were not an appropriate frame for this conversation. “If Indiana Jones had ever returned with a local wife, two local mistresses, a depressing assortment of small children, and what I can only imagine to be a raging case of herpes, then yes, just like that.”

  I pondered that particular mental image of Harrison Ford. Parts of it, I had to admit, seemed plausible, particularly when one considered the events of Temple of Doom.

  Chivalry looked affronted. “Dr. Shearer did bring back the artifacts that he promised.”

  “Yes, he certainly did.” Prudence leaned forward and fixed that gi
mlet gaze on me. “Fortitude, you may not know this, but there are whole basements in museums around the world that consist of nothing but Egyptian art and relics that they absolutely cannot put on display because of the explicitly sexual nature of the pieces. Dr. Shearer brought back seemingly nothing but that type of work, and Mother thought that it was utterly hilarious, and promptly decorated with it anyway. We’d be sitting in that room trying to have tea with callers, and none of those poor women could take their eyes off the wall mural of a fully erect pharaoh about to sodomize some poor handmaid. And do not even get me started on just how many individual pieces seemed to focus on male masturbation.”

  Well, that certainly put our staircase into historical context.

  Chivalry shifted uncomfortably, clearly not welcoming the vividness of Prudence’s references to the full frontal memory lane. “It was a very rich culture, with a fascinating series of creation mythos, some of which apparently involved masturbation. Though I’ll grant you that over cake and coffee it was a bit much.”

  On a roll now, Prudence continued. “And we had to live with that for almost forty years. I cannot even tell you how grateful I was when she decided to have the interior of the house gutted and rewired in 1927. I donated the whole of the Egyptian Room to the Peabody Museum, and Mother didn’t find out until it was too late for her to do anything about it.”

  “The museum actually took them?” I asked. “I thought you said that they had basements full of that kind of stuff.”

  “I included a very sizable check, and the Peabody managed to find more room in one of their storage areas.” Ah, wealth. Prudence’s answer to every problem.

  “I’m really not sure that the staircase is on that kind of level,” Chivalry insisted, but I could see that he was starting to waver.