Frost & Filigree
A Shadow Council Case Files Novella
Natania Barron
Contents
1. Lyndhurst
2. A Winter’s Ball
3. Ouroboros
4. The Tines That Break
5. An Invitation to Dine
6. Yvan
7. Into the Breach
8. Soiree
9. Solstice and Solace
10. Artillery and Arteries
11. Beautiful Terrors
12. La Petite Mort
Goodwin, Waldemar, and Crane
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Natania Barron
Falstaff Books
To the women who live wild.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
- La Belle Dame Sans Merci, by John Keats
She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd;
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolv'd, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries--
So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries,
She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf,
Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.
- Lamia, by John Keats
"You’re a woman with a brain and reasonable ability. Stop whining and find something to do."
-- The Dowager Countess of Grantham
Lyndhurst
These sorts of stories inevitably begin with a mysterious moment, some great, unexplained event. The scene is set, and the narrative begins apace.
This story, however, breaks with tradition. It starts with an invitation to a party, a little light gossip, and the promise of new neighbors. Hardly the demesne of the supernatural. But do not be put off. There shall be plenty of magic as our tale unfolds.
You see, for the two heroines of said tale, the ordinary is the extraordinary. In every way measured against humanity, these women are unusual to the extreme. They possess all the skills expected of women of birth, and are yet not women of birth in the traditional way. They are older, wiser, and stranger than their peers, yet possessed of abilities and persuasions to both delight and terrify.
Yet, in the unlikely instance that someone should stumble into their garden, their appearance would not, perhaps, be enough to raise alarm. They sit together, across a heavy iron table, positioned behind one of the largest mansions in Tarrytown, New York. Shade is provided by way of an enormous wisteria canopy. The two women sip tea out of delicate cups with an ivy and rose intertwined pattern, little rivulets of steam rising and eddying.
One is tall and lean, her face unmarred by time yet displaying a visible hunger in her lines. Perhaps it is her fiery eyes, an amber brown hue, or the shocking pale of her skin as it transitions to the full, inky curls about her brow. Either way, she is lovely by many measures, despite the pallor, and she dresses a la mode, down to the scalloping on her heels and the slant of her hat. These days she goes by the name Vivienne du Lac.
The other woman, Nerissa Melusine Waldemar, is shorter, rounder, with a plainer look to her features. Her eyes could be blue or grey or green, but never in a striking way. Her chin is a bit weak, her brows disrupted by a pair of spectacles. The hair atop her head might once have been arranged well, but now tumbles half-heartedly down one side. Her dress speaks to practicality, limned with mud about the hem, and something dark remains under her fingernails.
There are enough clues within these descriptions to give a close observer pause. It is cold, yet the wisteria blooms. As long as the women talk, their tea does not get cold. The woman with the tousled appearance wears no shoes, and now and again her grimy toes peek out from beneath the hem of her dress. The substance beneath each slivered moon of her fingernails is certainly blood.
From the front—and, indeed, all other angles of the house—this little garden oasis is invisible. For the world around them is wreathed in winter snow and wind. Yet here, in their little enclave, no frost or flake dare invade. This private garden is for these two friends, and them alone. Their mundane tea time, though clearly accentuated by a most vexing magic, is possessed of a deep calm and comfort, the quiet of two women known long to one another.
A third figure emerges from the house itself, a manservant of sorts. He is swarthy in appearance, dressed in the custom of a butler, with a long, single braid down his neat beard. He is broad of shoulder and light of step; so light, in fact, that he does not appear to walk so much as he drifts. Yes, where his feet touch the ground is a rather curious blur, a smudge of topaz and light where a pair of shoes ought to be. It is almost enough to be a distraction from the earrings he wears, thick and gold and marvelous, dangling almost to his shoulders.
When the man—if he is so—approaches, giving a most regal bow, the pale woman stands. “Barqan,” she says, “Nerissa and I were just discussing our new neighbors. Have they yet called?”
Barqan comes up from his bow and says, “No, Lady du Lac. I’ve only now just received the post, and while the Villiers have sent a most impressive invitation, the rest is sadly bereft of communication from the Rockefellers.”
“I told you they wouldn’t call,” Nerissa says, pushing up her spectacles with one hand and then peering down at her dirty foot, as if to examine it. She frowns at what she sees and then straightens, taking in Barqan’s figure. “And you’re not even trying to conceal yourself. It’s shameful.”
Barqan raises a neat brow and presents the letters to Lady du Lac. He does not, as is his habit, entertain Nerissa’s admonishment.
“He doesn’t have to conceal when he’s out here with us,” Lady du Lac says sweetly, taking the proffered letters and rifling through them quickly. “It’s the least we can do considering his continued indenture against his will.”
“You seem to have plenty use for him,” Nerissa says.
“That’s only because I can’t seem to break the bond. You know I find slavery abhorrent,” replies Vivienne, clicking her tongue. “You promised me you’d find answers.”
“Well, it isn’t as if I don’t have other work to do. Every time I bring it up, you seem to have another reason we need to keep him around.”
“It would be foolish to send him out to pasture while we figure this all out.”
“I’m still here,” Barqan says drily.
“You’re always here; that’s the problem,” Nerissa says, pushing away from the table. Her manner is like a farmhand getting up from milking the cows. “I’ve got to go visit the goats,” she says to Lady du Lac. “Viv, make sure you don’t let warm holiday greetings get to your head. You promised: One. Single. Party. That is all.”
Vivienne stands across from Nerissa, clutching the invitations close to her chest. Other than a twitching finger, she is a figure of ice and snow. The intricate lace on her shoulders almost fades into her skin, looking more like Fey tattoos than clothing.
“You are not allowed to tell me what to do,” Vivienne says.
Nerissa laughs as she passes Barqan. “Of course I’m allowed. You just don’t ever listen.”
A faint flush of red creeps upon Vivienne’s cheeks. It does not make her
look healthy. It makes her look monstrous, especially the way it accentuates her strange eyes. “We agreed on two parties this year.”
“That was last year. We’ve progressed firmly into nineteen eleven,” Nerissa says, as she retreats up the steps to the long porch, one of their servants opening the way for her—or else just through the power of the enchanted door. “You’re getting forgetful in your old age, my dear.”
“But I have three dresses already,” Vivienne whines. It’s a piteous sound.
“One party. Choose well,” Nerissa replies.
She does not look back to see Vivienne glaring at her, but knows full well the look.
Before the tale goes much deeper, it is essential to understand a few important things about Vivienne and Nerissa. As far as either of them knows, they are immortal. Nerissa is perhaps a century older than Vivienne, but neither knows for sure. Those first dark decades of their lives are somewhat clouded with a mutual thirst for blood. It took a long time—many lifetimes in the most literal sense—to rectify that debt. It is far more difficult for Nerissa who, unlike her friend Vivienne, is far less human.
But to say either of them is human is a stretch. Is a serpent any less a rock than a wolf? No, of course not. A human being may very well be defined by their extremely limited existences and their uncanny ability to tease out art and meaning in such short a span. Neither Vivienne nor Nerissa think much like human beings, though one might say that over the years they have gone a bit humanish. Especially Vivienne, who has always been drawn to people and their lives and rules. It gives her the illusion of warmth in her state of permafrost, as Nerissa is fond of calling it.
Vivienne is not the only one of her kind, but one of a dying race. Many have heard of the Fey, or the Fates, and she is certainly related to both of them. More properly she is a night sylph. In her youth, she was known for wooing young men and then driving them mad once they discovered she was not, in fact, human (this is very traumatic for men, especially those in the age of chivalry, for whom powerful women were ever a source of terror). It is in her nature to fall in love, however, and while she has learned some ways to curb her most deadly tendencies, it is not unheard of for her to fall off the proverbial wagon now and again.
Nerissa, meanwhile, is more reptile than human being. However, she is able to change her appearance to suit any will. Most of the time she looks as she does now—a barefooted and rather untidy woman of middling age who would be more at home in a library than a vast manse like their current residence (which Vivienne calls The Joyous Guard. Nerissa finds this name ridiculous, as most of Vivienne’s human obsessions. She has yet to get over the fact that she could not woo Launcelot from Guinevere and has named the manse in his honor. The place is called Knoll, properly, or else Lyndhurst, and it is a fine enough name.)
In specific terms, Nerissa is a lamia. Unlike Vivienne, she is the last of her kind. This is owed to the fact that most were killed during the previous century, often mistaken for vampires during the last Purge. It was due to Vivienne’s social connections and Nerissa’s own reformed behavior, no longer subsisting on human blood and, instead, turning to her flock of goats, that she was glossed over. Lamias are far more trusting of mankind, or at least they were before the Purge, so they came to a most gruesome end.
Now that the world has turned, another century passed, and the Americas established beyond a backwater trading post, Vivienne and Nerissa—after long centuries in England, Russia, China, and Japan—came, at last, to New York City itself. Finding the rush of such a place a bit too much to handle and their fortune better suited elsewhere, they relocated upstate to a town on the Hudson called Tarrytown, on the suggestion of a friend, one Anna Gould, who happened to be enduring a most horrendous divorce. Rather than stay in her family’s abode, she hired her friend Vivienne to keep after the place herself. Ms. Gould doubtfully knew the true nature of Miss du Lac and Miss Waldemar, but, as so many before her, she found Vivienne near impossible to argue with. And given the option to live in a Gothic manse, Vivienne spared no effort.
Much of Nerissa’s work, however, is tied up in the business of maintaining such a property, though it never will be hers entirely (a strange side effect of her kind is the incapability of ever owning land or property). Vivienne is all dreams and delights, while Nerissa is habitually left with the dregs. It had been Vivienne’s idea to build the “painted garden” as she calls it, a kind of mirror to the Fae realm in between the walls of Lyndhurst itself, a memory of the lives they once lived giving up their native world for this. Both have ever been creatures of both worlds, but the Fae realm is far behind the times of fashion and sadly lacking in blood nourishment.
As Nerissa walks the long corridors of the ridiculously large mansion—it is honestly one of the most befuddling and insulting re-creations of the Gothic she has ever seen—she thinks about the goats and about her distaste for the djinni Vivienne has masquerading as a manservant. It’s a touch too precious, she thinks, and invariably a giveaway. He does not like doing what he is told and often lets things slip under the guise. It’s happened before, their discovery, and it’s never ended well. The agreement is to stay on at Lyndhurst for at least five years, and while only one has passed, it has felt like an eternity. The socialites of Tarrytown and its surrounding cozy towns are nothing if they aren’t insistent on parties and soirées and galas and events, all which disgust Nerissa.
Human food makes Nerissa downright ill. Especially fruit. To her, they always smell half rotted. Why anyone would want to stuff slimy seedpods down their gullet is beyond her, but Vivienne absolutely adores human food. It doesn’t make a difference whether or not she eats it, as her energy is simply gained by being around people, a kind of latent vampirism that does little harm in small doses but can be deadly in large.
Nerissa has no such luck. She knows she’s cranky because she hasn’t had much in the way of food, but in this forsaken palace, it takes so long to make the trip from the garden to the pasture.
The groundskeepers know to leave Nerissa alone to the goats, and she picks times when she knows they won’t be around. The younger one, Jim, has been looking at her a little oddly, but most of the servants simply discuss her as being the “eccentric sister” when it’s plain to see for anyone with a pair of eyes that the two mistresses of the house are not related.
Still, Nerissa feels her worry lessen slightly as she approaches the flock. She consented to a pair of boots on her way out, but as soon as she nears the paddock, she shirks them off and climbs the gate and sits among the goats for a bit as they paw around her. Despite her frequent feedings, they are not afraid of her. She doesn’t kill them after all, and based on skills learned while in Africa, she knows how to bleed them with minimal pain and maximum harvesting.
She only feeds off the females, of course. The rams are too aggressive and kept in another pasture, their blood muddied and unsavory to her palate. Today it’s Millie’s turn to give the gift of nourishment to Nerissa. The ewe is two years old by now, Nerissa reckons, and full of vigor. She does taste best.
Taking Millie by the bell, she walks her to the little stable where she goes about her “scientific” work, as she’s told the staff. She’s given explicit instructions to be left alone, despite their curious glances. After the first few months, however, and tasting the first slaughter, they did not ask further questions. A fortunate side effect of Nerissa’s feeding is surprisingly tender and less gamey meat. While no self-respecting elite would deign to eat such sub-par meat, the servants at Lyndhurst had absolutely no qualms regarding its swift consumption.
To feed, however, Nerissa cannot continue the facade of her human form. Practicing magic while absorbing life is almost impossible. One cannot both sneeze and drink at the same time, after all. The goats see her change, but it doesn’t appear to unnerve them. Most of them have moved on now that they understand Millie is to be selected—one might say in their primitive capabilities, they have rallied around the lamia as followers of some
ancient goat deity—but a few remain behind, nibbling weeds at the edge of the shed and peering toward her every now and again.
She disrobes and prepares to change, still petting Millie and preparing her.
Were a human being to see Nerissa change, as very few have, they would not remain so composed as Millie and her sisters. Her skin shifts in a thousand little undulations, myriad little plates rising in patterned scales about her face and down her arms. Where there were two arms and two legs, a most common arrangement for homo sapiens, there are now four arms—each with black claws upon three fingers—and a long tail more akin to a dragon or large lizard than a snake. There are some smaller appendages that sprout from the sides, under the dress she wears, that might prove helpful for some basic locomotion, but judging from the sheer musculature, they are likely unnecessary.
Her face and hair shift as well, her eyes going black—not just the color of her eyes, but the sclera as well—and widen to the size of a horse’s. Nerissa’s hair loses its soft, loose quality, and each individual strand becomes thicker, like limp algae. She is not ugly by lamia standards to say the least. Should any number see her, they would compliment the blood red of her teeth and the glistening mucous on her lips and ears and nose. These are desired characteristics and, it is rumored, in their heyday many went to great lengths to appear such a way, supporting a small cosmetics industry in Ancient Greece.
But to Nerissa, who has known so few of her own kind, she sees her own hands, all four of them, and shudders. The talons, the scales. These are elements of her body she has grown ashamed of over the centuries. Humankind fears these things. Those of cold blood, those of rough skin. Though she can shift into any shape imaginable and has lived the life of men and women a dozen times over, she must always be this way to feed. She must always face her true self, in all its sticky, inhuman glory.
Frost & Filigree: A Shadow Council Archives Urban Fantasy Novella (Beasts of Tarrytown Book 1) Page 1
