by Vivian Shaw
The miners, she thought. The miners who dug these tunnels, way back when. It’s the timeslip thing, it’s happening again —
And as fast as it had appeared, it was gone again, leaving them blinking in the sudden darkness.
“Did you see that, too?” said Greta, clutching Varney’s arm tight in the darkness. “Tell me you saw that, too, that it isn’t just me.”
“Yes,” said Grisaille. “It’s been happening for a while, I think. I’ve seen the lights in the distance on and off, never knew what they were before. All thanks to Lilith and her Make-a-Monster games, poor silly bitch. Let’s keep moving.”
She didn’t have much time to dwell on the thought of Lilith and her pitiful summoning circle before St. Germain and Grisaille stopped again, with Varney right behind them. “What is it?” Greta whispered.
“Vampire.” St. Germain was a dim shape in the darkness, the only light being that cast by their various eyes, but she could still see him tense. “Up ahead, a little way. He must have set a sentry on the back door after all.”
“Will wonders never cease,” Grisaille put in, in an undertone. “I suppose I’d better go and see to whoever it is. I might not yet be persona non grata completely.”
“If he’s set someone on watch,” said Ruthven, “it’s pretty likely that he is aware of your defection and wondering if and when you’re likely to come back with a lot of friends intending to make him dead, or at least deader. Could be a trap, is my point.”
“Wait,” said Greta, just as softly, “Grisaille, take me with you. You haven’t deserted. You’ve simply gone out and recaptured the boss’s errant toy.”
She could feel it when he stared at her – feel the intensity of his gaze, even if she could barely make out his face in the darkness, just his eyeshine. Varney whispered “No!” at just about the same time as Ruthven and St. Germain, but Greta was looking directly into the two red pinpoints of light that were Grisaille’s eyes, the lights she’d seen for the first time back in the Opera above them, a hundred years ago.
“That might actually work,” he said thoughtfully. “For long enough for you to put those glass things where they need to go, anyway. Pity you’ve been and gone and got yourself some different togs than the ones you were last seen inhabiting, but beggars cannot be choosers. Shall we?”
He offered her his arm, as he had once before – and this time, with a brief passing squeeze to Varney’s shoulder, Greta stepped forward and laid her fingers on Grisaille’s forearm, aware of the absurdity of the gesture even as she appreciated it. She was on fire with adrenaline, every nerve lit up like a fiber-optic lamp, and thought: Yes sir, I will walk and talk with you.
Neither Brightside nor Crepusculus had relished the thought of returning to the Palais Garnier, not after the timeslip they’d experienced up in the dance studio tucked into the dome, but they didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice in the matter. According to Fastitocalon, the mirabilic resonant frequency of the building, or something, dictated the point in space where they could take best advantage of its amplifying effects. Brightside was very, very tired of technical jargon, and the demon seemed to have a never-ending store of it to employ.
He looked up at the huge colonnaded facade, pausing for a moment before following the others inside. ACADEMIE NATIONALE DE MUSIQUE, it said, and Brightside thought, It’s not just music, it’s make-believe, it’s imaginary worlds stacked on imaginary worlds, God knows how many stories are stored in there, tucked away in the wings or under the stage; no wonder it’s a complex weight on the fabric of reality.
He shook his head, and as he passed through the main entrance, he could feel the building’s atmosphere close around him, like the skin of a soap bubble. Fastitocalon and the others were waiting for him, and Brightside caught up without a word, following Fastitocalon into the huge echoing space of the atrium with its iconic sweeping staircase.
“Whoa,” said Crepusculus softly. The decor – overdone, opulent, gleeful in a way – was pretty damn good, as a matter of fact, but it appeared to be lost on Fastitocalon. He led them up the central staircase to the portal flanked by a couple of disapproving stone women, through a brief red-plush claustrophobic corridor, and into the vast red-and-gold cavernous hollow of the auditorium, with no fanfare whatsoever. Things like admission tickets happened to other people.
The last time Brightside had seen this particular view, it had been in a nightmarish instant of temporal dislocation, and he had witnessed that chandelier begin to fall. He and Crepusculus looked at one another, looked up at the huge brilliant fountain of light far above them, and both sighed.
“When this is over,” said Crepusculus, “let’s go somewhere as far away from Paris as is possible while remaining on this planet?”
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” said Brightside. “I hear New Zealand is nice this time of year.”
“Does anywhere in New Zealand have an opera house?” Crepusculus wrinkled his nose.
“Probably, but I bet you none of them have got phantoms in. Let’s get this over with, before he starts lecturing us about resonance and amplification again.”
Crepusculus’s expression intensified for a moment, and then he sighed and followed Brightside down the aisle. Neither of them looked up at the chandelier as they passed under it – all the way under it, and past, because apparently Fastitocalon intended to do this bit of magic from the middle of the orchestra pit.
He was already moving the folding chairs and music stands out of the way, assisted by Irazek, when the psychopomps climbed down to join them. “Why are we here exactly?” Crepusculus asked.
“It’s the mirabilic isocenter of the building,” Fastitocalon said, taking out a piece of chalk. He drew a circle on the floor, rapid and neat, with a couple of sigils around the outside. It seemed to glitter for a moment, brighter than white, and then was simply chalk once more. “Not, as you might imagine, directly under the center of the dome: the symmetry’s not that simple. Take my hands,” he added, holding them out, and they obeyed, stepping into the chalk circle on the floor: the demons facing one another, the psychopomps between them. The moment their hands closed around one another, Brightside could feel his hair trying to stand on end: Fastitocalon had been completely right about this place acting as an amplifier; even the slightest flicker of power that under ordinary circumstances would barely be noticed was significantly more impressive. With the circle closed, he could feel the mirabilic field lines around the four of them moving, a current beginning to build; he could see it with a little effort, a faint blue light surrounding them. The chalk line on the floor was brighter still.
Brightside knew that he himself almost certainly couldn’t do what Fastitocalon planned on, even if he’d known how: using the combined mirabilic energy of all four of them, connected by the circle and amplified by the geometry of the building in which they stood, to – well, weld reality back together, was entirely not what he and Crepusculus were for. He couldn’t help thinking about how frail and fragile Fastitocalon had seemed the last time they’d met him, and despite how briskly competent he currently appeared, could he do this, even with all their combined strength? He wasn’t replaceable; Brightside knew he was the only one of them who had any idea how to manage the job, how to balance the forces involved. What would happen to them all if he suddenly ran out of strength in the middle of this operation?
We’ll find out, won’t we, he told himself, and a moment later Crepusculus’s voice, faint but present – damn, they were linked, they could hear each other – said, We will.
We most certainly will, said Fastitocalon in his mind, dry, and then Irazek, small and rather frightened, What are we waiting for?
For the collimators to be placed, Fastitocalon said, and Brightside was a little surprised at the patience in his tone. Greta has to put those where I told her to, or I won’t be able to aim and focus accurately to do this right.
How long is that going to take? said Crepusculus.
A
s you recently mentioned… we’ll find out.
It wasn’t the first time Grisaille had re-infiltrated the headquarters of somebody he’d just betrayed – probably about the seventh or eighth, all told – but there was always still a little frisson of excitement to the situation. This time it was exacerbated by the presence of the human, whom he’d absolutely not expected to do anything nearly this reckless shortly after escaping from durance vile.
(How had she escaped anyway? Grisaille realized he’d never actually gotten around to asking; the last time he’d seen her underground was when he’d returned her to her cell after the Lilith episode, and the next time they met had been at the entrance to the underground passage, where she’d made it to the surface by herself. Presumably she’d convinced somebody to unlock the cell door for her, but it puzzled Grisaille to try thinking of who other than himself might have done that deed. Couldn’t be the new kid, she wouldn’t dare do such a thing, so how had Helsing escaped?)
She was still flying high on adrenaline – that he could easily tell – and he hoped that when the high wore off, she wouldn’t crash in a particularly inconvenient manner: they were relying on her to place Fastitocalon’s collimators while the rest of them dealt with Corvin and his goons if this all went pear-shaped. He wasn’t actually sure he’d be able to protect her, as a matter of fact. Not without proper weapons. All he had was a knife from St. Germain’s kitchen, and why he was suddenly remembering Ruthven handing out the knives with a rueful expression and promising the werewolf a replacement set of Wüsthofs was entirely beyond Grisaille.
He looked down at her, and she could clearly feel the weight of his gaze because she looked right back at him, blue-green eyes wide in the near-darkness. He had been going to say something, and decided on the whole it was unnecessary – and then stopped, his hand closing around her wrist.
Beyond a bend in the tunnel there was the beginning of light visible – to vampire eyes anyway; he didn’t know if she could see it yet – and he could smell the perfume from here, one of the Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs concoctions the Kindred favored, all sweetness and civet. He thought it was called Dorian, or something equally unspeakable, and he knew exactly who was wearing it.
Leaning down, he put his lips to Greta’s ear – God, humans were so warm, one forgot that – and whispered almost without sound, “Approximately fifteen yards ahead of us around that bend there is a vampire, presumably Corvin’s sentry. His name is Aurélien, or at least he’d like people to think it is, and he will recognize both of us immediately. Stay quiet and let me do the talking.”
Her breathing quickened, and he expected her to ask something like “What?” or possibly “Why?” but she simply nodded once, and Grisaille straightened up. He shook his hair back over his shoulders and concentrated on replicating the expression he’d normally worn down here: faintly amused, and more than faintly cynical, and above all unsurprised.
He let go of Greta’s wrist and took her by the upper arms instead, propelling her before him like a prize, and together they walked around the corner and into what even for Grisaille was bright light after so long in the dark.
A tall figure in a floppy silk shirt with ruffles down the front stepped in front of them. “Halt!” it said. “Who goes th – Grisaille?”
“Me,” said Grisaille. “Unbearably delightful to clap orbs on you, Aurélien. Look who’s found the boss’s wayward little pet and brought her home again; aren’t I just the absolute most?”
“But we thought you were gone,” said the vampire, who really ought to have been gently dissuaded from attempting flowing bottle-blonde Lestat waves of hair. Or possibly forcefully dissuaded. “That you left. Like, you quit. Corvin was furious.”
“Don’t I know it, ducks,” said Grisaille. “An unfortunate misunderstanding, that’s all. I expect he’ll be terribly glad to see me back now that I’ve recaptured his prisoner. Is he asleep?”
“They all are, probably. Let me take you back to the cells so we can lock her up again?” He sounded as if he relished the prospect, and Grisaille’s fingers itched to close around his neck; he made himself keep the mild expression and tone of voice nonetheless.
“That would be super,” he said. “Come along, little human. Time you were safely back in your box, and don’t open that pretty mouth of yours to bother trying to convince me not to put you there; I’ve had enough of talking.”
Under his hands he could feel Greta’s shoulders stiffen, just for a moment, and he had time to think, Oh God, she’s going to give the whole farce away, before she relaxed again.
This might even actually work.
“It’s working,” St. Germain said in an undertone. “I can smell it – they’re leaving together, all three of them, and there’s no serious alarm or stress in the scent. Whatever he said to the sentry, it was enough.”
“And now we follow,” said Varney. “Closely. Let’s go, all right?”
In the darkness he could see the werewolf nod, and then the three of them were moving again: completely soundless, wrapping themselves almost unconsciously in a layer of the don’t-notice-me influence they all used to cover certain activities in public. A passing rat was startled when an unexpected shoe came down quite close to it: there hadn’t been sound or sight or scent to warn of any other creature in the tunnel.
Varney’s eyes narrowed as they entered the part of the passageway that was lit: electrical cables had been run along the corner between wall and ceiling, held in place by metal staples knocked straight into the pale stone. It was a professional job, and the lamp hanging from the ceiling was not tasteful but at least appeared to be installed correctly.
Someone with experience did that, he thought, and nothing Grisaille had told them earlier had given him any reason to believe that Corvin’s group was well versed in electrical infrastructure. It had to have been a human, and he knew what would have happened to that human after they had done the job they’d come to perform.
He could smell vampire now, too, and a host of other things. As they moved deeper into the lair, and as chambers began to open up on either side of the passageway, a whole collection of scents assailed Varney’s senses. Multiple kinds of perfume, some cheap and some less so, but all with the staleness of unmoving air, limited ventilation. Blood, and liquor, and the cloying sweetness of scented candles.
These people turned a child, Varney thought again. It was the cardinal sin for him. Killing was bad enough – but killing was at least clean, an act over and done with, and the person’s soul would be taken care of in whatever fashion was appropriate. Turning someone was the worst thing Varney could imagine, condemning them to a twilight existence neither living nor dead, a creature of darkness that preyed on the living and gave nothing in return, a creature that was damned and could not die and reach that ending —
This is not the time or the place, he told himself, slightly amused to note how much the mental voice sounded like Greta Helsing’s. It was right. He could reflect on the terrible things he himself had done, and the terrible thing he himself was, later. Now was for justice. Now was for retribution, and – if they were lucky – they might be able to rescue the youngest vampire, and at least attempt to help her adjust to the limitations of her new world, if not undo the damage already done.
And right up until someone far ahead in the tunnels shouted, “Corvin! Wake up! Everybody – Grisaille is back!” Varney thought things were going rather well.
There hadn’t been enough warning for him to choke off the idiot’s announcement before he could wake the whole lair. Grisaille shoved Greta away and grabbed Aurélien’s head between his hands, breaking his neck with a single violent twist, but it was too late, the damage had been done.
“Fuck,” he said, dropping the body, “that’s torn it – get out of here, try to get those glass things in place,” but doors were already opening, and people were there. Corvin’s people. Sleep-blurred and blinking, but conscious and present, and when a moment later the other three membe
rs of the little impromptu infiltration force arrived, it was evident how badly they were outnumbered. Corvin himself emerged in a red silk dressing gown, his hair mussed, and stopped dead to stare at Grisaille and Greta.
“Hi!” said Grisaille brightly. “I’m here to ruin everything. Greta? Run.”
There was just enough time for him to see out of the corner of his eye St. Germain beginning a leap that started on two legs and landed on four, a dizzying scrunch of shape and form as he went from man to wolf, and then Corvin’s uncomprehending expression settled into blank poisonous hatred, and he lunged for Grisaille’s throat.
After that, things happened very rapidly. Grisaille was aware of the members of the coven all around him, and even as he ducked Corvin’s grip and feinted to the left, coming back with a curled fist to hit his quondam leader so hard his hand went numb, even as the shouting rose and the meat-slab sounds of flesh against flesh rose with it, even as he dodged another vampire whose face seemed all made of white and snarling teeth and whom he’d watched waltzing extremely badly to techno only a day or so ago, he felt oddly distant. As if he were observing everything from a remove, dispassionate and without particular investment. That they had badly miscalculated the combined abilities of the now-fully-awake members of the coven was evident; that he did not, somehow, care so very much about this was equally unmistakable, if strange.
