by Ciar Cullen
“Hmnn?”
“I know I have failed you. I truly tried to leave you alone so you could find peace with your beloved mortal. This time I will do better. But please be careful.”
“Yes, yes, I love you as well, damn you,” Phillip snapped. “But what of Lillian? Surely she is next if Marie wants to hurt you?”
“Lillian won’t abandon me, and she won’t let me send her off to be safe. I don’t know what to do about it. She wants to find…” George growled. He still wrestled with anger at the men who had nearly destroyed Lillian, who had abused and tortured her into a darker beginning than he could ever imagine. Even though he had killed them, it wasn’t enough. They should have suffered as she was suffering now.
“Lil had a child, Phillip,” he said. “That monster solicitor of hers raped her when she was a girl, and she bore a daughter. She won’t leave Baltimore until she finds the girl, or unless I force my will upon her.”
Phillip grimaced. “You may be her maker, George, but wielding that power over her will put a chasm between you.”
As it has between us, brother? You should let him go, George. Why can’t you let him go?
“Why are you marrying Kitty, Phillip?” George found himself asking. “It’s simply…not done. Not necessary.”
“She’s mortal. She’s a normal woman with normal needs and expectations.” Phillip paused. “I imagine when she finally dies, since she will not let me turn her, I will not marry again.”
George sighed. “A normal woman with normal needs and expectations. Not so, my Lillian.” He eyed his brother surprisingly ruefully. “Of course, we have not been lovers for long. I suppose we are an aberration in Baltimore society, not engaged and living in—”
Phillip burst into laughter.
“What? Stop that!”
“You have the Devil herself after you and you’re concerned about Baltimore society? This is not my brother speaking!”
“Oh, shut up. Gather your Kitty and off with you.”
Phillip closed the distance in three strides and pulled George in for a quick hug. “Go. Leave,” he begged. “Marie’s minions have not extended west as far as Annaluisa could tell a month or so ago. California is splendid, I hear. We can go together if you like.”
“You would go with me? You and Kitty, me and Lil.” How lovely that sounded right now. What a wonderful dream. He really had changed.
“Yes,” Phillip said. “I would take a different route, that is certain, to ensure I keep Kitty safe. Of course, there will be a lot of convincing to do. Kitty has her heart set on this wedding at Christmas.”
“And Lil on finding her child.” George sighed and flopped into his favorite chair near the window, looking out onto the serene neighborhood he’d grown to tolerate in this home he and his brother had shared for five years. “There was a time, not so long ago, when we could have gone anywhere together without consulting headstrong women. We could still, I suppose…?”
Phillip sneered. “Ah, yes, the life that led you to become a brooding idiot and me a nervous wreck. What fun we had. Don’t be stupid. I haven’t seen you so full of life since you were…well, alive.”
Life. Yes. Thus his conundrum. He cared. “Damn it. I don’t know what to do! Ask her to abandon her search for her child? Leave without her?”
“Or…”
George arched a brow and sniffed out a tired laugh. “Stay and fight? Stay and be destroyed.”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps it’s time you stop running. I sense you’d like to stop. I know you cannot bear to leave me, as you seem unable to do so for more than a fortnight.”
George glared at him, even though he knew his brother was only joking. “You greatly flatter yourself. I am only looking out for you. In any case, I cannot defeat Marie alone.”
“No, I don’t suppose you can.” Phillip sat next to him and rubbed his chin. “In truth, I’m a bit tired of running as well. But what do we have? We’re feeble compared to Marie. Just the two of us…”
“And Lillian, if I let her stay.”
“A newborn. A strong newborn, I’ll give her that.”
George shrugged. “What else?”
“Let’s think this through. Does anyone in the New York House tolerate you enough to fight Madam Lucifer?”
“No, they detest me as well.”
“Do they detest Marie more?”
“Of course they do. I think so.” George looked at Phillip again, surprised anew. Was it possible? Phillip would stay, would try to help? No, too many innocents would be put at risk. But, George, when did you care so about innocents? Not before Lil.
They sat in silence for minutes, mulling over the absurd notion that Marie de Bourbon could be defeated.
“Anyone in Philadelphia?” Phillip muttered.
“Lone wolves like us. Hoodlums.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, George. A few hoodlums would come in quite handy right now, if we could give them some incentive. I wonder how many of us it would take.”
“Too many. Where is our Elder when you need him?”
“For the love of God, don’t even think about him, George. We’re lucky enough that he ignores us.”
“You haven’t broken any rules, nor have I. What do we have to fear in Vasil? Isn’t he supposed to take care of renegades like Madam Lucifer? In fact, why hasn’t he already destroyed her?”
Phillip shrugged. “Perhaps the stories are true, that he is derelict in his duties to annoy his father. Annaluisa told of rumors of his incredible palace of earthly pleasures somewhere in the Caribbean. Perhaps he doesn’t even exist; perhaps none of the Elders do. What if they are merely stories designed to keep the Houses powerful? ‘Be good and listen to us or the Bogey Man will get you.’ But I’m not going to get on a ship bound for the islands to knock on Vasil’s door in any case.”
George sighed. Phillip sighed as well and turned their conversation in another direction.
“Do you know anyone in New York besides him?”
“No one, really.”
After a moment of silence, they spoke at once: “Sullivan is a devil himself.”
“Sullivan is an interesting notion,” Phillip added.
Chauncey Sullivan. He was rarely heard from these days, so ashamed of what he’d become was the rumor. A quiet man, black as coal and hard as diamond, he’d feasted on his own kind for nearly a century and amassed great strength. He had only bowed to the New York House because he couldn’t tolerate vampire politics. He’d been born into the life without guidance, with no one to tame him, to warn him that insanity and suicide typically followed cannibalism. In that way, he had become like his maker…Marie de Bourbon herself. She’d not only broken the rule of cannibalism but broken the rule of abandoning her newborns. Why hadn’t Vasil or one the other Elders taken her down?
“This can’t be a good idea, Phillip. Sullivan doesn’t like to fight. The last time I saw him he was feeding birds. I mean that literally. He sat on a bench with a bag of breadcrumbs, in the daytime, throwing them out onto the snow. He is as kind now, it seems, as he was once evil. I imagine he seeks to redeem himself, but who knows?”
“This would be an excellent path to redemption—at least in his mind, don’t you think? Kill Madam Lucifer herself?”
“Kill his maker? Break another commandment? He’d never do it, even if he were capable. Her control over him—”
“What if he thought we could help him redeem himself? What could be more appealing to a repentant cannibal than the destruction of the strongest of his kind, the one who made him what he is? To stop her reign of terror. If he truly has turned his back on all she made him, couldn’t that break the bond?”
“I don’t know… It’s been years since I’ve seen him.”
They fell into silence again. George felt the wheels grinding in Phillip’s brain, and a thrill shot through him. All talk of fleeing Baltimore had fallen away.
“How would we keep the women safe while we go look for allies?” Phillip asked.
“Don’t ask Lillian that. You’ll have your head served to you.”
“Kitty…yes, Kitty would be more fearful, but I could hide her away somewhere, I think.” Then: “What are we doing, George? Is it suicide?”
“Probably.”
CHAPTER FOUR
An evening in Central Park.
Chauncey Sullivan kicked the lifeless woman off the dirt path winding up from the side of the Croton Reservoir and watched her roll into a ravine. New York wouldn’t miss another prostitute. Why she’d roamed so far away from the center of the things, he couldn’t imagine; another half mile and the city dwindled to shacks, stables, and pig pens. He knew the area well, for in life he’d dwelled in one of those shacks, tended to those pigs and horses for his wealthy employer.
General Atherton had been his first kill. The pompous bloated miser never got the chance to serve in the revolution he so desperately wanted. Chauncey hadn’t been in his right mind, but if he had been, he thought, he might have beaten the man before killing him. Chauncey’s physical scars had faded since Madam Lucifer turned him, but his memories had not diminished.
Too long ago, Chauncey. This bitterness was your ruination. Trust in God and move toward good deeds.
He’d promised Phoebe to try to let go of the past. She hadn’t been able to tell him how to do that, how to forgive and forget his sins, but she read scripture to him nightly to soften his anguish. You are forgiven, he’d repeat ten times, as she had instructed him.
“But I don’t have a soul,” he’d argue. She’d cry and wring her hands whenever he lost faith, so he’d try his best to humor her although he knew her delusional.
“We all have souls, and if you don’t give it to the Devil, then you are in God’s hands.”
He’d smile and nod, unwilling to remind her that she likely didn’t have a soul either. So simple, so lovely, his Phoebe. Given another chance, would he have given mercy to the woman who had just found freedom from slavery in the North? Let her live out a normal if harsh existence as a pig slop or washerwoman? Yes, given the chance to do it over, he would not have turned her. But now she waited for him at home, and after five decades together, it still thrilled him to be making his way to her.
He walked up the dirt path toward Fifth Avenue when a streetlamp flickered. That alone did not alarm him, but a rustling of animals in the brush made him spin around. A half-dozen squirrels and a few hares scampered across the path, all fleeing some hunter. Then, as one, dozens of birds stirred from their slumber and took off together, circling up from a pine and winging away as if blown by a hurricane. But the air didn’t stir.
What kind of creature hunted small mammals at night? Chauncey stopped, listening for sounds of stray dogs. The air was so still that he could hear his own cold breath.
“Who is there?” he called.
“Who indeed?”
Chauncey spun around but saw no one. A branch moved, and the gravel crunched on its own as if a person walked toward him. Ice flowed through his veins, colder even than his own tainted blood. He picked up a handful of dirt and cast it in the direction of the voice and movement.
“Clever fellow.” The voice was low and clipped, laced with a foreign accent Chauncey didn’t recognize. Then, from thin air, a silver shimmer like mercury flowed up from the ground until a form gradually took shape. A tall, fair, handsome man with long hair smiled and waved his fingers as would a flirtatious woman.
Chauncey’s legs grew watery as legends rushed through his mind. “They are from the North and are fair both in complexion and countenance. They love to laugh and to enchant with their beauty and wit. They can move without being seen, speak without being heard, kill with a glance. The children of Atil and Ursula are invincible, and it is best to not discuss them. Obey their commandments but do not dwell on them lest they hear your thoughts. Do not speak of them often lest they come to learn your intentions.” Chauncey fell to one knee and prayed that the end would be fast. Poor Phoebe.
“Not tonight, lieber Freund. Rise, and walk with me.”
Chauncey looked up at the ancient one but winced at an icy blue stare made intolerably intense by the red circles surrounding the pupils. “The legends are true, then?”
“Get up, Chauncey Sullivan!” The ancient reached down and pulled him up by the arm, practically throwing him into the air with the one easy movement. Yes, true. No human or ordinary vampire was that strong, had ever been that strong. “Now, do me the honor of walking with me for a while.”
The ancient linked his arm through Chauncey’s as if they were lovers out for a late-night stroll. “Some legends are true, yes,” he said. “Some are not. You and I, we care not about legends. We care only about our own hides, our own pleasures, our own days and nights. It is true of all men and most women, I find. Do you agree?”
Chauncey couldn’t find words. His arm burned from the creature’s icy touch, yet he dared not pull away. His limbs felt numb, but he moved as if in a dream, with no control. They strolled, and more small animals scampered away, and birds again rose from their slumber to fill the chilly sky. So, his sins had finally caught up with him. This Elder would exact justice.
But not tonight, he had said. What did that mean?
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I didn’t know. And by the time I understood—”
“Pish-posh!”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, of course you don’t. If I cared about our children eating one another, I would have stopped it, yes? One goes insane or one doesn’t. You didn’t. Is very much a…how do you say…self-correcting behavior, yes?”
“It is one of the commandments.”
“Vater is fond of his commandments, it is true.” The ancient stopped and faced Chauncey, who tried to take a step back but couldn’t.
Father. Atil. Which son was this?
“Vasili. Vasil. Basel. Your choice.”
Vasil, as Chauncey had heard him called for decades, smiled, his pale cheeks flushing. Except for his build, with his waist-length pale golden hair and flawless fine features he looked nearly like a beautiful woman. He cocked his head to the side for a moment, and Chauncey squirmed under his scrutiny and at the unfamiliar pull the creature had. It felt for all the world like falling in love. He wanted desperately for the Elder to leave, and at the same time he never wanted to be parted from him.
“And now we sit,” Vasil said and motioned to a low stone retaining wall. He moved close to Chauncey and took his arm, made the burning come alive again. Then he chuckled and said, “What we will do for the love of a beautiful woman! I should say, what you will do. I am not so drawn to beautiful women.”
“Please don’t harm Phoebe! She is no cannibal!”
“You will stop speaking now, yes?” Vasil scratched his overlong nails on his trousers, making a noise that sounded like trolley wheels squealing loudly only inches away. Chauncey covered his ears and tried to ask Vasil to stop, but he couldn’t make a sound.
“Good. Just so, you already suspect that I will destroy your Phoebe, and not in a kind fashion, should you refuse my order. Of course, your life is at risk as well. And for good measure I will add everyone you ever turned. You are a guilt-ridden man, so that should make your decision so much easier. I am generous, am I not?”
Vasil rubbed the backs of his fingers lightly along Chauncey’s jaw, setting that side of his face afire. Chauncey nodded, wondering what he could do for Vasil that Vasil could not do for himself.
“The first commandment is…?”
Again, Chauncey could only nod. Do not breed.
“Correct. Offspring, in the extremely unlikely event they survive, can tear the curtain between our world and the next. We would not like that, now would we? We survive forever here, but what awaits us on the other side of that curtain?” Vasil shuddered dramatically and pulled his cloak tighter around him. “At least, Vater does not wish to perish in Hell just yet. Perhaps someday. So, that brings me to you!” He patted Chauncey’s a
rms happily. “Just so!”
“What the hell does this have to do with me?” Chauncey realized he’d been allowed to speak, and he wished he had chosen different phrasing. Chatting with Vasil felt like dancing through a field of sharp-toothed animal traps.
“Yes, so you will take care of a little problem for me. You will kill Madam Lucifer.”
“My maker? That is also forbidden! How would I do that?”
Vasil waved away Chauncey’s objections. “She flaunts her broken commandments, yes? She is one of the cannibals who has neither gone completely insane nor become at all penitent. So you will kill her. And so, Phoebe lives on happily, as do you, and I may go home.”
“You could kill her with a glance! I cannot harm her.” I would like to, he realized. With all my being, I would like to.
“And, moreover,” Vasil continued, ignoring him, “you will kill everyone who is dear to her, who is near to her. Her maker, her children…anyone you can find.”
“I thought you didn’t care about cannibals?”
“Madam Lucifer claims to have bred. Whether she did or not, it would be good to kill her, no? Pleasurable for you, no?”
“How? I’m no match for her! You could—”
“Tsk, tsk. Manners, please. It is not a request. I choose not to approach a torn curtain.”
“I still do not know how,” Chauncey said. I will fail, and Phoebe will die.
“Silence! Your chattering annoys me.” His girlish smile gone, Vasil’s blue eyes flashed black until he closed them and blew out a deep, freezing breath. He withdrew a small gold vial on a chain from his cloak and let it swing in the air, which rippled and shimmered along that arc. “A few drops, that is all. Marie will want it, crave it, which will make your task easy!”
Chauncey recoiled. The vial seemed to have life, to stretch and breathe on its own.
“Take it. It will not bite.” Vasil laughed loudly, sending more birds aloft.
Chauncey extended his hand, eyes closed. Vasil clucked and leaned forward, put the chain around his neck.
