by Vivian Shaw
It wasn’t something he had encountered before, and he wondered – catching a stunning redhead’s wrist and snapping the bones of her forearm in three places – if the distance was simply a function of the awareness that he was, after so very long, perhaps finally going to die.
The fighting all around him rose and fell. He glimpsed Francis Varney, stone-faced, eyes ablaze, his shoulder wet-red and scarlet, biting the back of someone’s neck, and had no idea if the blood was Varney’s or somebody else’s; saw a vampire go down under the killing jaws of the wolf in a spurt of blood and a choked-off cry. Saw, briefly, in a flicker, Greta Helsing on the other side of the heaving mass of combatants, pressing herself against the wall as she took one of the grey glass collimators from her pocket and set it into a rough niche on the wall. Saw Edmund Ruthven across the thrashing crowd thrusting a makeshift stake through the chest of Yves with sufficient force that the tip protruded from his back – and Grisaille, at that strange remove, was capable of noticing the odd serenity on those dramatic features. As he watched Ruthven pull the gore-covered stake free and turn with balletic grace to meet the oncoming advance of another vampire, Grisaille had the mental space to think, That’s beautiful —
And something hit him in the back, a blow that stunned him for a moment, like the fall of a hammer, before the pain came and flooded his mind blank and terrible red.
There was an arm around him like an iron bar; he was pulled close, someone’s face beside his, someone’s mouth to his ear, and the agony in Grisaille’s back flared red to white as the blade buried hilt-deep in him was twisted hard.
“So this is how you repay me,” a voice snarled in his ear. Corvin. “I should have killed you months ago, you filthy traitor, but I’m fixing that unfortunate oversight” – another twist of the knife, and Grisaille moaned, helpless to stop it – “You go to hell,” Corvin said, flecks of spittle cold against his ear and cheek, “and you tell the Devil that Corvin sent you.”
Grisaille couldn’t breathe, could hardly see: all the world was hazed behind that blank and sheeting agony. He had time to think stabbed in the back, stabbed in the fucking back, of course, what did I expect, a glorious and heroic death in art-directed battle before Corvin let go of him with a brutal shove, pulling the knife free; he stumbled, going to his knees and then collapsing completely. Someone trod on his outstretched hand; he scarcely noticed it through all that pain.
Had he really thought he was free of Corvin? Had he really thought there would be no repercussions from the years he’d spent, no price to pay? Had he thought he could simply – what had Greta said – saunter upward and join the forces of good?
What did I expect? he thought again, and wondered what dying would be like, and how long it was going to last before it was over. That he was going to die he already knew: not even a vampire’s healing powers could do their job fast enough to repair a wound like this. He really couldn’t breathe – something in his back bubbled, whistling with each attempt at inspiration, but he couldn’t get any air; when he coughed, a mouthful of dark blood came up all at once, and oh God but that hurt, hurt like nothing he’d ever experienced. Grisaille moaned again: a soft rag of sound utterly drowned out by the din of battle.
Anytime now, he thought. This can be over anytime now, come on, and at first when the hands touched him, he didn’t even notice through the pain; it wasn’t until someone shook him, gripping his shoulders, making it hurt more, that he realized anybody was there. Was there, and was calling his name.
A distant voice, high and panicky. A young voice.
Grisaille made his eyes open, trying to see past the gathering haze, and could just about make out the face of Emily-called-Sofiria very close to his own. “Grisaille!” she said, and shook him again, and the bolt of pain that went through him tore a gasp with it, clearing his head a little. “Grisaille, come on, please, don’t be dead, don’t be dead, you can’t be —”
He couldn’t really get enough breath to speak, but he could whisper, and it took a lot of effort to make the words: “Sorry, I’m afraid…’s a done deal. Get out of here, kid. Get out.”
“You can’t die,” she said again accusingly, and Grisaille was still trying to come up with some possible response to that when the sparkles obscuring his vision irised in all the way, and were followed by blackness; and he thought oh good, finally before the darkness closed over him completely, and took him down with it into the black.
Here is Greta Helsing, in a chamber underneath the city, flattening herself against the wall to stay out of the way of a moving, shifting mess of tangled vampires, all teeth and nails and mad burning scarlet eyes. Here is Greta Helsing setting a piece of grey glass behind a wall hanging of violet polyester with a shaking hand: two down, three to go, and she cannot get past the fighting to the places those last three need to be.
Here is Greta Helsing distantly aware of just how fast her own heart is beating, and just how easy it would be for it to stop, with just one bite – not even a bite, a blow, any one of these could crack her skull clean open with a flick of its wrist, snap her neck like a man might snap a piece of ice between his fingers.
Here is Greta Helsing vividly, viscerally aware of having felt weightless, high with adrenaline and the reassurance of companions, confident that this would be easy, and oh, but she could have kicked herself for it. Here is Greta Helsing wondering, How in God’s name are we going to get out of this – how am I supposed to get these glass things where they need to go before everyone gets killed – Fass will be so disappointed, the world’s going to break because I didn’t think things through, didn’t plan for a pitched battle —
— and being shocked out of the helpless fugue of terror by a hand closing around her wrist. It was a very strong hand, despite being small, and it was cold, and she was absolutely sure that whoever it belonged to was going to kill her dead —
And blinking through the haze at a face that wasn’t frozen in a snarl, a face that was all huge shock-wide imploring eyes.
“You’re a doctor,” Emily said for the second time in their acquaintance, her voice high and quavering. “You have to come, please, right now, there’s so much blood, he’s – you have to come now —”
“Who?” Greta asked, but she was already letting Emily draw her forward – both of them flattened against the wall, trying to stay out of the way of the fighting – and it came as exactly no surprise to find that the crumpled form Emily had dragged out of the melee belonged to none other than Grisaille.
“Shit,” Greta said, soft, and fell on her knees beside him as Emily did the same. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, he’s bleeding terribly and he was making this kind of – bubbling sound.”
She leaned close. He was still making it, a faint unpleasant sucking liquid noise. Good. “Help me roll him onto his side.”
She’d never dealt with a punctured lung in a sanguivore, but there was a first time for everything, and Greta had to hope that because he was still breathing, sort of, the weapon hadn’t nicked his heart: if that was true, if she was fast and he was lucky, she might be able to stabilize him long enough for his accelerated healing to kick in.
Grisaille’s shirt was slicked to his skin with blood: there was a puddle of it underneath him, and dark red bubbles swelled and popped at a point where the shirt fabric was torn. “Okay,” she muttered, “right side, good, that’s good, might have a chance – Emily, I need you to grab that curtain and pull it off the wall right now.”
“Will that help?”
“Do it,” she snapped, getting her fingers under the edges of the torn shirt and ripping it open to expose the wound. It hadn’t gone all the way through, which was also good. Greta braced Grisaille with a hand on his chest and pushed her palm over the wound in his back, hard enough to jerk a moan out of him, hard enough to form a seal and keep the air inside his punctured lung; his ribs expanded almost at once in a deeper effort to breathe. She barely noticed Emily yanking down one of Corvin�
�s decorative brocade hangings from farther down the hall, away from the main action, until the girl was right there with the cloth, thrusting it at her awkwardly.
“Fold it up into a square pad,” she said, a little pleased that Emily hadn’t simply devolved into hysterics at this point. When the kid was done, she grabbed the folded curtain – still keeping pressure on the wound – and as hard and fast as she could, she snatched her hand away and shoved the pad of cloth against his back.
“I need a belt,” she said. “Something to tie this with. You got anything?”
Emily shook her head, her face shock-pale even for a vampire.
“Velvet scarf with fringe on it? Spiked bondage leash?” Greta continued. That got a tiny hiccup of laughter – good, she thought, she’s still on this side of hysterics, but only just – and Emily shook her head.
“Then I need you to keep pressure on this. I’m going to roll him over onto his chest, and I need you to hold this against his back as hard as you can. It has to keep a seal. Hard as you can. Moving him in one – two – three.”
Grisaille gave a terrible little moan as they rolled him over, and Greta pressed down on the pad of cloth over his wound, hard. “Here,” she said to Emily. “Where my hand is. Push down hard. Going to move my hand now.”
She was a little impressed at how fast and without question the kid obeyed, pressing down on Grisaille’s back with her spread palm. He moaned again, a little torn-out shred of sound. “Harder,” Greta said. “Put weight on it.”
“But – that’s going to hurt him,” Emily said, looking at her with those shock-bright eyes again. Greta sighed.
“It sure as hell is,” she said. “It also might keep him alive long enough for him to start healing. You keep that pressure on. I’m going to call for help.”
“From who?” Emily demanded, the quaver back in her voice.
“The only person who might be able to answer,” said Greta grimly and got to her feet. The knees of her jeans and the palms of both hands were dark with Grisaille’s blood. The fighting was still going on, although there were fewer combatants: she saw Ruthven covered in blood, St. Germain with his fur black and matted with it – Varney, where is Varney, no —
She saw him for a moment in a gap between bodies. Hands red to the elbows, one arm hanging uselessly by his side, but there.
Okay.
Fass, she said inside her head sharply. Fastitocalon, I need you.
Bit busy right now. When are you going to have those collimators placed?
I can’t, that’s what I’m trying to say, we’re in the middle of bloody Agincourt down here, I can’t get to the last three locations, we need some help and we need it right the hell now.
He paused, and she could feel him retreat, thinking fast, and then, Stand by. And don’t touch any of the stacked bones.
What happens if I —
There was a sudden shock in the air, like a pressure wave, violent enough to send her staggering against the wall: her ears popped painfully.
That hadn’t felt like magic, she thought. She’d been around Fastitocalon when he’d done actual magic enough times to recognize the static-electricity crackle, the smell of burned tin. That had been like pressure. Something coming into being all at once.
Fass, what the —
And then she heard the voices.
CHAPTER 14
S
everal hundred feet above them and perhaps a quarter-mile away, in the orchestra pit of the Palais Garnier, Brightside could hear a little of what Greta was broadcasting, the edges, echoes of her voice, through the link to Fastitocalon: he could very clearly hear Fastitocalon’s response. Stand by, and don’t touch any of the stacked bones.
What – Irazek began, through static.
Brightside, said Fastitocalon tightly, are you and Dammerung one-way gates, or can you function in reverse?
It took him a moment, dazzled with the sheer level of power that was building up all around him. Can we bring ghosts back? I – we’ve never tried, I don’t think.
How about you try it now? said Fastitocalon. The dispossessed. The bones they stole from the ossuary. Bring those people back to give our friends some reinforcements in the fight.
Through the blue light, he looked at Crepusculus across the circle; could just about see him shrug: I’m game if you are.
It was more difficult than anything he could remember, the simple effort involved in projecting themselves through the planes while remaining physically part of the circle, but Brightside felt strangely exhilarated: they were being used for their purpose, even backward.
Finding the ghosts was easy by comparison. So was getting their attention. The resounding YES to Brightside’s question – will you let us bring you back through, give you physical strength, to revenge yourself on the ones who most recently disturbed your rest – nearly deafened both of them.
And opening the way – he knew it was a risk, with this part of reality so attenuated and worn, but hopefully it was a risk that would pay off – opening the way for thirty ghosts at once to slip back into the prime material plane was like parting gossamer curtains. There was an instant of mental turbulence as the group went through, and then Brightside could think again, and let himself snap back into the circle in the Opera, shaking with effort.
That’s done the trick, said Fastitocalon. Thank you both. Not long now, I think.
Greta thought for a moment that the timeslips were back, that she was inside a wrinkle of the past – but the sounds of battle continued underneath the guttural new voices, coming from behind her.
She turned very slowly, feeling her spine creak, and discovered herself staring at something she hadn’t ever seen before outside of films or fever dreams: translucent, greenish figures with cold-burning eyes, points of pale light in deep sockets. There were… many of them. Many. And they were coming toward her.
There were more at the other end of the room, painting the lair with their corpse-light. And now Greta could make out something peculiar even by the standards of the current situation: all of the ghosts seemed to be missing something. A leg, an arm. Both. A head. A jaw.
It didn’t seem to slow them down. The ones missing legs moved as if they still had them. The headless ones had eyes nonetheless, merciless little points of light hanging in nonexistent faces.
She watched, frozen, as the ghost army came on; watched, eyes apparently unable to close, as a translucent greenish arm hooked itself around a vampire throat and gave a sharp jerk. There was the bitter-ice crack of bone, and the vampire went limp.
Don’t touch the stacked bones, Fastitocalon had said. Corvin’s decorative bones, stolen from the ossuary.
These men and women had come, at last, to reclaim what was theirs. What had been taken from them.
Across the chamber, Ruthven was just as frozen in amazed shock as Greta herself: she could see it very clearly when he slipped out of that frozen state and back into right, let’s get this done mode, and the battle joined again.
This time the advantage was in their favor. Considerably so. The remainder of the coven was driven back, away from the tunnel Greta needed to access. She felt for the last three pieces of grey glass tucked into her pockets, incredibly grateful they were still there. Now that the remaining Kindred were distracted, she could do the job they’d really come for.
It didn’t take her long to find the other places Fastitocalon had indicated. They felt random; she knew they weren’t, like the pieces of optical-illusion paintings that made no sense unless you looked at them from precisely the right angle to form the complete image.
She set the glass rectangles leaning against a wall here, flat atop a piece of furniture there, cradled in the fold of a wall hanging. Collimators, enclosing some kind of beam, shaping and aiming it at a particular part of the universe, and if she had been slightly less desperate and frightened, she would have found it fascinating to try to visualize.
I’ve done it, Fass, they’re all in place – what hap
pens now?
Thank you, my dear, he said. And withdrew, rather than answering.
Withdrew all the way, completely leaving her mind. The shock of it was like a door slammed against a gale-force wind, and Greta actually stumbled, hands going to her head. It hurt having that empty space there again; the last time he’d vanished like that without warning, five months ago, she had been convinced that he was dead.
This time she wasn’t sure what to think – and was still blinking against that sudden empty shock when she came back to Emily and Grisaille, moving on instinct alone.
