The Damned

by Renee Ahdieh

  The rational side of Jae knew this was the best course of action. In fact, he’d already chosen which of them he would injure. Not enough to cause permanent harm, but enough to provoke a necessary response. To send a ripple of confusion through their ranks.

  But Jae couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t strike out at them. Instead he would flee. Disappear into the misted night. He’d done it before. He could do it again. He would not have it on his head if he hurt any member of his family.

  It would all come down to an instant. Less than an instant.

  The moment sensation returned to Jae’s knees, he blurred into the darkness of the sugar shed and knelt in the shadows, intent on taking up the least amount of space. Cries of frustration trailed in his wake. All around him, the smell of sugar permeated the air, its dust coiling through the moonlight filtering from the wooden slats.

  Jae took in a single breath, taking in the collection of scents around him. Letting his trained ears absorb all signs of movement, tracking his brothers and sisters as if they were his next targets. Bastien was the one to worry about the most. He was young. Strong. Unpredictable. Jae had not forgotten how Bastien had cracked Boone’s skull like an egg the night he first woke as a vampire.

  Once Jae took stock of his surroundings, he ducked into an alcove, then blurred toward the ceiling, angling for higher ground. Grasping an exposed beam, he watched the scene unfold below him, splinters fraying under his grasp.

  “Jae,” Bastien said.

  The single syllable reverberated to all four corners of the cavernous warehouse.

  Bastien continued. “Don’t fight us.”

  Figures blurred between the piled sugar sacks, causing more sweet dust to curl through the night air. Jae remained silent. Unmoving. Waiting for a path to clear toward the exit. Scanning the ceiling for a possible egress.

  “I only wish to know what Lady Silla wants with Celine,” Bastien said. “Please, brother. Help me.”

  Tension banded across Jae’s arms. Lady Silla must have revealed more than Jae’s treachery. She must have confessed that Celine was her daughter. Jae could not fathom why she would do that. It was clear his brothers and sisters knew he worked in service to the Lady of the Vale. But did they know the terms of their arrangement? Had she told them how Jae struck a bargain with her to obtain the location of Mo Gwai’s hidden lair?

  Jae waited. Listened, every muscle in his body taut.

  He’d given up so much in his life. But he’d received much in return. Perhaps it was enough that he surrender now and accept his fate. He’d known this day would come eventually.

  Motion stirred in Jae’s periphery.

  “He’s on the ceiling,” Madeleine said. “That’s where I would go first.” She stepped into a beam of waning moonlight. “The corners. Preferably the darkest one.”

  Jae’s fangs began to lengthen. She knew him too well.

  Two vampires and one ethereal began closing in on Jae.

  His options were narrowing with each passing moment. Though he loathed the thought of harming any member of his family, he could not allow them to capture him. He doubted they would ever resort to such a thing as torture to wreak their revenge. But Nicodemus would.

  And Jae had sworn years ago never to suffer the agony of torture again.

  He locked in on Arjun as the half fey moved closer. It was unfair, but Arjun’s mortal father put him at a distinct disadvantage. He was not as strong. Not as quick. And the half-breed was, after all, the one with the power to immobilize him. Better to eliminate that possibility.

  Jae caught himself. It had been an age since he used that particular epithet, even in his head. It took him back to the time he’d spent in the Vale, vying for Lady Silla’s attention. The fey of the Summer Court had always been obsessed with pure bloodlines. Jae himself had seen the kind of torment they inflicted on the ethereals who dwelled among them. The way they jeered at the so-called half-breeds, making sport of their pain. Mocking their inability to heal as quickly or run as swiftly.

  Nevertheless, Arjun was the one Jae would attack first.

  Moving soundlessly, Jae extracted one of the small silver daggers from inside his shirtsleeve. Set his sights on Arjun Desai. And slid from the shadows, moving quicker than a bolt of lightning across the sky.

  Vampires do not see the world with the encumbered eyes of a human. They see it in minute detail, as if they were afforded a small eternity to examine it. A focused vampire is the deadliest creature known to man or beast.

  Even then, Jae almost missed what happened next.

  Madeleine glided into his path, anticipating his motions as always. Jae changed tactic, but Madeleine was there, attempting to disarm him. They struggled, her hands wrapping around his wrists. He tried to pull back, but Arjun leapt toward them, a hand outstretched to freeze Jae where he stood.

  Jae twisted away, the knife in his hand pointed at an odd angle. Bastien shouted but it was too late. The solid silver blade embedded in Madeleine’s body like a hot knife through butter. Time stopped. Something lurched in Jae’s chest. Something that had been silenced for nearly a century.

  It was the sound of his dead heart breaking.

  Madeleine pulled the blade from her skin with a wince. Blood dripped from the dagger’s silver edge, down toward its ivory handle. It stained the front of her dress before the wound attempted to knit itself together. It failed, and the blood began spurting from her chest in a torrent, buoyed by the dark magic that had set it on its immortal course so many years ago.

  She offered him a weak smile, a trickle of crimson dripping from her mouth.

  Then Madeleine collapsed in Jae’s arms.

  BASTIEN

  Jae surrenders without protest. All his weapons are turned over at once. He does not attempt a struggle. Nor does he say a word in his own defense.

  Because Boone is the most fleet-footed of us all, he bears Madeleine through the streets of the Vieux Carré, moving faster than sound. When Jae, Arjun, and I arrive at Jacques’, the second floor is bedlam.

  The moment Hortense sees Jae, she attacks. “Fils de pute,” she screams, her fingers tearing at his face, her nails drawing blood. “I will rip out your dead heart and feed it to the pigs! I will make a meal of you,” she cries. “I will drink you dry until you shrivel into a husk at my feet.” It takes the strength of three vampires to keep her from ripping Jae to pieces. Still Jae does not try to defend himself.

  I steel my spine for the ordeal to come. Despite my best efforts, there is no way Nicodemus will not learn of the events that have transpired tonight. For the last two days, I tried to conceal Jae’s treachery from my uncle. It’s why I sought to avoid a confrontation at Jacques’ at all cost. Our maker would not wait to ask questions. He would destroy before he could be destroyed, as he’d done with Nigel.

  Despite what Jae has done, I feel we owe him more than that.

  Since Nicodemus is sure to discover the truth now, Ifan is summoned. The fey warrior arrives soon thereafter, bearing a small leather-bound case. The fey in the Summer Court of the Vale are not weakened by silver as those in the wintry Wyld are; instead they are at the mercy of pure iron. As a warrior of the Vale, Ifan learned how to exploit his enemy’s greatest weakness. How to cause a blood drinker pain using silver weapons, only to heal the wound and begin again. After Ifan was exiled from the Vale for the crime of falling in love with a vampire, he came to my uncle for sanctuary in the mortal world. For nearly half a century, Ifan has bound himself in promise to Nicodemus.

  Madeleine is lying supine on the longest table in the room. The same table upon which I was placed while undergoing the change. Odette holds a compress to her chest. Blood pools around them, dripping from the edges of the mahogany table onto the priceless carpet.

  Ifan opens up his case and comes to peer at Madeleine’s injury. “She is lucky,” he muses, brushing back strands of hair from
the long auburn queue trailing down his back.

  “Lucky?” Hortense sputters from the corner, where Boone and I continue to restrain her.

  “Yes, vampire,” Ifan retorts. “Your sister is lucky the blade missed the center of her chest. If solid silver splits the breastbone or severs the head from the neck, the wound is impossible to heal.” He grunts. “The blade missed her breastbone by no more than a hairsbreadth.”

  “How do you know it missed?” I ask.

  “Because she still bleeds. If it had struck true, the magic in her veins would cease to move her blood, and she would become a withered husk.” As he speaks, Ifan removes a poultice from a pouch concealed in his trunk, along with a small vial of dark green liquid.

  “I can heal her, but it will cost you,” he says.

  Boone snorts, his face incredulous. “You work in service to Nicodemus, warrior of the Vale. Do as his progeny commands.”

  “Nicodemus has not summoned me,” Ifan says in a smooth tone. “And I doubt he has knowledge of what occurred here tonight, or he would be the one directing me, not you.” His smile is vicious, as if he relishes our discomfort. “I do not serve you, leech.” He looks to me.

  “I’ll pay whatever the cost,” I say. “Heal her now.”

  “There is a fey blade in the Saint Germain vault,” Ifan says, his affect flat. “The silver is laced with diamonds. It was made a millennium ago by one of the most celebrated metalsmiths in the Vale. I want it.”

  “It is yours.”

  “Then we have a bargain.” Ifan nods.

  “Is everything a bloody bargain with your kind?” Odette says, her fingers crimson.

  “Yes,” Arjun replies. “It is.”

  Ifan removes a handful of dried herbs from inside the pouch. “You’ll have to hold her down,” he says to us. “This will not be pleasant.” The smile has not faded from his face.

  “If you hurt my sister,” Hortense says, “I swear I will—”

  Arjun freezes her in place without a word.

  I sigh. “Boone, please take Hortense onto the roof and keep her there for the next hour.”

  * * *

  An hour later, the bleeding in Madeleine’s chest has lessened to a trickle. Though she remains unconscious, Ifan assures us she will be fully healed once she has fed. Odette leaves to find blood, and I sit with Arjun, Boone, and Hortense in the darkness, our clothes stiffened by rust-colored stains, our expressions set in stone.

  Jae has been tied to a chair with silver chains. He says nothing, but his face tells a different story. Everything about the way he watches Madeleine is haunted.

  Lines bracket Boone’s mouth. He sits down and buries his face in his hands. “I can’t do this again,” he says. “I can’t suffer through another betrayal.” He takes to his feet and blurs toward Jae, his movements erratic. “Why have you lied to us this entire time?” he whispers. “In you, I saw a brother. How—how could you betray us like this?” His voice breaks.

  “I did betray you,” Jae says. “But I never lied. Everything I’ve ever said or done, I meant. This family”—he pauses—“is my life.”

  I listen to him. Before Lady Silla’s revelation, I believed Jae incapable of subterfuge or deception. He was always the most honest of us all. Not once did he shy away from painful truths. But now everything I’ve ever believed is being called into question.

  Nigel betrayed us. After years of laughing, smiling, and living among us, it was the work of a moment for him to stab us in the back. It would be foolish of me to believe this could not happen again.

  When you care about someone, they are able to hurt you and betray you.

  I watch Hortense enfold her elder sister in her arms, crooning to her in French. It is unusual to see Hortense offering comfort to Madeleine. Usually it is the other way around.

  Jae finds my gaze. “What do you intend to do with me?”

  For a breath of time, I think about my uncle. Nicodemus would deal with Jae without mercy, just as he did with Nigel. He would not give Jae a chance to speak for himself.

  If I could have been the one to decide, would I have listened to what Nigel had to say?

  My heart is heavy when I realize I would not have cared. Nigel’s actions cost me everything. If you had asked me at the time, I would have agreed to everything that transpired. Maybe I myself would have been the one to tear Nigel limb from limb.

  I was raised to believe a traitor deserves a traitor’s death.

  It’s possible I might have agreed to even more violence. Perhaps to torture. I think of Ifan and the set of skills he possesses. To hurt and heal in equal measure. I wonder how often my uncle used them to his advantage. As I look at Jae and the countless scars along his face and neck, I think of what that means.

  I would have supported causing pain to someone in a defenseless position. I would have relished this pain, believing it to be the righteous path. But I know what I should do, despite my desire for the twisted kind of justice my Saint Germain blood demands.

  When you care about someone, they are able to hurt you.

  But it is your choice whether you return the favor.

  “Why did you betray us?” I ask. “Tell me everything. I swear I will listen.”

  Jae’s shoulders roll forward, his long hair falling into his face. “Why do you care what I have to say? Just do what you plan to do, Sébastien.”

  I consider sniping back at him. Letting the desire for pettiness win out. But that would be weak. I think of the strength it must have taken for Celine to fight for my life when no one else would. “Because I love you. You have been my brother for years. I owe us this much.”

  Jae blinks once. “I was disloyal. Why not do as your God tells you? An eye for an eye. All the gods of the world would agree I deserve it.”

  “That would make sense, wouldn’t it?” I say. “It would be easy. But life, even for an immortal, is not easy.” I think about what Valeria said to me. “Love and loyalty are not always the same thing. Loyalty is easy. Love is doing what is right, even when it is difficult.”

  He peers at me, a strange light in his gaze. Then he leans back in his chair, wincing as the silver chains brush across his bare skin. “Even as a mortal child, I knew something about me was different. I first saw a dokkaebi the spring of my sixth year. It was nighttime in Busan. The smell of the sea was strong. The sprite came to me from the water. It looked like a child my age, with hair the color of the moon and skin the color of a summer sky. It smiled at me. I followed it into the water and nearly drowned in the waves.

  “When I told my mother what happened, she did not believe me. She said I should never speak of such things again, or people would think me possessed by a demon. From that night on, the fey never left me alone. They continued beckoning me closer. I became obsessed with following one to its home, so that I might catch it and make it do my bidding. I’d read somewhere that there were certain kinds of fairy creatures who could grant wishes.” His eyes still on the carpeted floor. Even Hortense listens, her expression rapt. “But they would always vanish into the mist, through tears in the world I could never see.

  “One day on the eve of my eleventh year,” Jae continues, “I was walking along the beach alone when a chollima galloped toward me, its wings whiter than a cloud and its hooves kicking up gold dust. I said nothing, but I knew to grab hold of its mane and hoist myself onto its back. It took me to the land of the Sylvan Vale. You can only imagine what I saw and experienced. Fruit with nectar sweeter than honey, collected from a forest of nettles and thorns. A world that shimmered on the edges. Flowers that blossomed to life before my eyes, their centers cut from yellow sapphires, ready to slice open your skin at the first touch.

  “This was the first day I met Lady Silla. From then on, the chollima would come for me once a year on my birthday, and I would spend an afternoon with the fey. It was in the Sylvan Vale
that I first learned of my skill with weapons. It was there that I began training to become an assassin. Time passed, and I saw myself growing older each year, while those among the fey remained the same. When I turned sixteen, I begged Lady Silla to give me the power to stay young always. She refused. I swore fealty to her. I asked her what it was she wanted. She said there was nothing she could desire from a mere mortal. But I continued asking, again and again. Two years later, she said she wished to bring an end to the enmity between those of the Sylvan Vale and those of the Sylvan Wyld. I asked what the Wyld was, and she said it was the Vale’s counterpoint. The darkness held against the light. The shadow cast by the sun. I recalled my mother explaining the difference between yin and yang—the necessary balance between the two—and I thought I understood. Though I’d never been there, I thought the Wyld to be a world littered with bloodthirsty monsters, poisonous glasswing butterflies, and giants carved from ice who would tear out the trees by their roots.”

  Jae pauses as if mulling over his next words. “I believed everything I was told by those in the Vale. Everything Lady Silla said. I did not waver when I said I would do whatever I could to bring about peace between the Summer Court of the Vale and the Winter Court of the Wyld. She informed me where I might find Nicodemus, who was the direct descendant of the last Lord of the Wyld. I was told to become useful to him. To make myself invaluable, in the hope he would one day trust me.” A bitter smile curls up his face. “I did even better than that. After several years of proving myself indispensable, I convinced him to make me one of his children. Finally I had what I wanted: the chance to be immortal.” His expression sobers. “Fool that I was, I did not understand the price.”