Frost & Filigree: A Shadow Council Archives Urban Fantasy Novella (Beasts of Tarrytown Book 1)

by Natania Barron

  Yvan is dead, as well as two important Tarrytown figures connected to the Circle. It is personal. Once, she was fond of Worth; once, she relied on Vivienne’s alchemy to help them in their pursuit of Aberrants and Exigents, and her accounting to understand the connected threads. The idea of abandoning her to fend for herself made Nerissa’s head pound.

  Or maybe that is all the port. It is honestly hard to tell.

  “I suppose you’ll get your second party after all, Viv,” Nerissa says, shaking her head. “You do tend to get what you want. That much I’ve learned.”

  Soiree

  Despite the difficulties of the last few days, Vivienne du Lac can’t help but feel excited about the prospect of a second ball. While this get-together has all the pomp and circumstance of the Villiers’, it is in a bigger house, with more impressive guests, and the menu is the talk of the town. It is said that scarcely a wedge of cheese could be found between Tarrytown and New York City. The Rockefellers have more pull in terms of culinary influence than any family in the area and are not accustomed to hearing the word “no” in any capacity.

  Yet, through all her excitement, Vivienne is bothered by the circumstances around the event. She did get her way, in the long run, and part of her is most pleased with the outcome; getting her way is almost as delightful as ruining a soul in the old days, and it is a much safer replacement.

  But now, Worth is distant. He loved Yvan, and he is still mourning the man, and this opportunity to confront this beast is a chance for revenge.

  And Nerissa. Vivienne’s emotions sit on a very thin, nearly transparent level as she brushes her long hair in the mirror and stares through it. It is a calm place, but it is a precarious one, set between passion and fury. One tip up or down and she will be most difficult to deal with. The way the lamia looks at her, it is as if she were saying so much more. As if the quiet creature, so brilliant and so damned mysterious at the same time, has found someone worth fighting for. Vivienne is almost flattered.

  “You didn’t yell at Mr. Pender anywhere as long as you usually do,” Barqan said, materializing through her room, unannounced. He takes a glance at the silk dresses upon the bed, which are, in the grand scheme of Vivienne’s wardrobe, almost boring. The high collars are an interesting touch, but otherwise, they are unremarkable.

  “I wasn’t in the mood for screeching,” Vivienne says with a sigh. “You, of all people, should understand that. I am being squeezed out on every side by those I counted dearest.”

  “Perhaps because this situation is precarious,” the djinni offers, going to work hanging the clothes and accessories to Vivienne’s specifications. “For all of us. Even me. And I’m typically prepared to stand on the sidelines. Having to participate in this business is unsettling for me, to say the least.”

  Vivienne notices nothing unusual about the djinni, save for his recent obsession with voicing his opinion in a most grating manner. She had never noticed how his voice seems to come from more place than one, and it is, for the first time, just the tiniest bit unsettling. Her powers do not work directly on the djinni, and they never have, and she’s always enjoyed that lack of concern.

  “You’re looking at me strangely,” Barqan says, his back turned to her.

  “I have a question for you, if you don’t mind,” she says. “A couple, actually. If you wouldn’t mind me asking.”

  “When have I ever disobeyed a command, madame?” he asks.

  She cannot think of a time that he has, yet this conversation feels like undiscovered territory. As if it is the first time they are meeting. Yet they have been together for a hundred years.

  “When you are around me, Barqan, what do you feel?” she asks.

  “Irritation,” the djinni says.

  “No, I mean more specifically.”

  He pauses a moment, considering. “Intense irritation.”

  “I mean, from a supernatural sense. You are a being of curious make, as we are. But you are suffused with more magical matter than all of us combined.”

  “I am not sure what you are asking, madame,” he replies. “I am not interested in flattering you. You get enough of that with everyone you come into contact with.”

  “Barqan, you are being frustrating,” Vivienne says.

  “It is the curse of being insubstantial.”

  Vivienne crosses the room to get a better look at him. “Show me your real form. As best as you can. I don’t want to see the finery and the costume. If I didn’t ask you to dress the part of a footman, how would you look?”

  “I don’t see that this serves any purpose. These games you play grate on me, madame, if you permit me to be honest.”

  “I do not. That’s insulting.”

  “I am not sorry.”

  Vivienne grits her teeth, remembering what it felt like once to drown three knights in a bog after they competed for her hand over the course of a month, their bodies wasted to near nothing. In her darker days, this was her favorite method of killing. Consuming their sad energy in their last moments is a special kind of joy, the flavor so nuanced and complex, something so difficult to share with the non-soul sucking contingent.

  “From a magical point of view, you know how sylphs work, I presume, or at least how I do,” Vivienne says.

  “You feed off organisms’ energies the way plants feed off the sun’s rays, or at least, if the plants slowly destroyed the sun during their course of feeding. It is similar to the Glatisant. But colder.”

  “Yes, but with you, when I reach out to you, I get no response. I can try and pull you all I want, but there is an empty void. Like a cold current in a room.”

  “The djinni are older, darker, than you imagine, madame.”

  “You said that if you are freed in an unorthodox way, you could go mad.”

  “I would most certainly. Without my shackles, I would gravitate to my mistress. The pent-up fury of a thousand years, the sleeping rage just beneath my surface.”

  “And by unorthodox you mean…”

  “Worse than old iron.”

  She sighs. It is a risk, but one they must take. “You didn’t answer my first question, but perhaps I was asking wrong,” Vivienne says. He is never straightforward, though usually honest. Brutally so. “You always seem to find me, Barqan. How do you do that?”

  “Your voice,” he says. “Your very breath. As I am commanded, all others are but shadows to me, and you are a candle in the dark.”

  “Be sure to find me when I call,” she says. “We have a fight before us, and I need you close by me.”

  “Yes, madame. Of course. I know no other way.”

  Solstice and Solace

  At last, the day of the ball at Rockwood dawns, and every village in the nearby area is brimming with gossip and rumors. It is strange enough that Christabel Crane has resurfaced, claiming kinship to the local madman of myth, Ichabod Crane, but the weather has gone most strange, as well. The local farms know well enough what kind of ill omen that can prove. The morning of December the nineteenth rises in a mist, a thick and soupy business, which delays deliveries and perplexes travelers. Old Mrs. Nox gets so turned around trying to get to her last dress fitting that she does not find her way back until the day after the event.

  Vivienne and Nerissa, however, fare better. At least in terms of scheduling. The lamia is not, in any stretch, over her love of the sylph, even if she has convinced herself otherwise. Her days are spent feeding and taking long walks.

  Vivienne, for her part, continues to focus more on the logistics of the event than the pageantry. One of the concerned housemaids even sends a doctor in to see her, which is more than laughable, but serves, at least, to allay the fears of the mortal staff when the pale physic declares that “no illness in heaven or earth” affects the lady of the house.

  Worth finds the lamia on the day of the event because he knows her quite well, despite their ensuing years apart. She has to eat; it is a biological imperative. And he is aware that interrupting her in her feeding state
is both dangerous and stomach-churning. Having worked with her for many years, he is well aware of the risks.

  So, he waits until she is finished and surprises her on her exit from the barn, the sound and smell of goats emanating from behind her.

  “Worth,” she says, without inflection, not looking up.

  He’s always been certain that she can sense him before he arrives and has long wondered if they share some common genetic component. If so, it may be one of the reasons they were such a good team.

  “You didn’t used to hate me so much,” he says. “In fact, there was a time where I counted you among my greatest friends.”

  Nerissa snarls at him, then seems to think better of it, drawing her hands down each side of her face in an attempt at composure. It is cold outside, but there is no guarantee they will remain uninterrupted. Lyndhurst is always alive with the many souls who keep it going from day to day. In that way, Worth reflects, it is like a giant clockwork beast. The building itself is a kind of creature composed of a thousand little bodies doing their jobs. Not so different, perhaps, from a beast made of four monsters.

  “You know when that changed,” Nerissa says, though said in a lighter manner than Worth would expect. The lamia is tired. “And I helped you escape what could have been a very unhealthy relationship.”

  “I shouldn’t have left her the way I did,” he admits.

  “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “No, but you did what you thought was best for her. And for yourself, perhaps. I was an interloper. But for the time we had together, we did great things. And I think we could, still.”

  “I have no time for turncoats. Especially in matters of the heart.”

  This is intriguing. Such passion from the lizard.

  “I have no desire to pursue Vivienne, if that is where your concern lies,” he says gently, knowing how delicate he must tread. “I understand how you feel for her. And had I known, from the beginning, I would not have pursued her then, either.”

  “You see, therein lies my disgust,” Nerissa says, flashing her natural teeth. They are bright and sharp and, in their way, lovely. Worth has always appreciated glimpses of her natural being; it makes him feel less abhorrent to the world. “You do not want her. You had her, you let her go, you have moved on with your life. You hurt her and scorn her and flaunt other women around her, and still she loves you. It is a most cruel thing you have done to her, Worth. And you have taken her from me, forever.”

  This is a surprising turn of events for Worth. He has never thought of his relationship with the sylph in such terms. For once, he is without a word. All four of his tongues are incapable of forming the right reply.

  “Yes, it is quite a terrible thing,” Nerissa says. “But, as we stand, her life hangs in the balance. And though you claim not to love her as you once did, you are still her friend, I hope.”

  “I will always be her friend. And I will always love her. But there exists a point between two people where the maintenance of the relationship is a detriment to the happiness of one or both of its participants. She is many things, but capable of meeting my particular needs, perhaps not.”

  Worth can tell that these words do little to allay Nerissa’s ire. She looks away from him, brushing new-fallen snow off her sleeves. The lamia has dressed hastily, and the precipitation is filling the wrinkles of her clothing in a pattern like lightning. Worth cannot tell how much of her is figment. She is strongest after a feeding and, therefore, her magic at its pinnacle.

  Nerissa frowns, shrinking down into her muffler. “I wish I could dislike her. I wish I could detach myself from this fondness. It has burned inside of me for ages, Worth. And I thought that coming to Lyndhurst, spending time together in retirement, away from the prying eye of the rest of our sort, we could connect in ways we had not been able to before. But now I see I was being dull-witted.”

  “Vivienne wants one thing more than all else,” Worth says, starting to reach out to put his hand on Nerissa’s shoulder and then thinking twice of it. “To be accepted.”

  The words slide off Nerissa’s scales for the most part, he can tell, but a few of them stick. Some of them are too true to ignore. Perhaps that is the great gulf between them, not the unrequited love of self, but that of their very natures, Worth wonders. The lamia is difficult to understand, that much is true, but her love—and near obsession—with Vivienne is, at least, dependable. It always has been. And perhaps that is the most difficult part, watching Nerissa realize just how impossible her infatuation with the sylph is, how utterly at odds their natures.

  “She didn’t used to be like this,” Nerissa says at last. “She was once so…”

  “Free?”

  “Proud was the word I was looking for,” she says, almost a whisper. “Of what we are.”

  “And now, no longer.”

  “She and Yvan both sought the key to mortality. Perhaps we must learn to let them to their choices. If we love them.”

  Black tears streak down Nerissa’s face as she nods. “I suppose there is a time we all must choose. For my part, I have something specific in mind.”

  Worth can’t help but smile. They worked together long enough that these discussions always have had their own subtext. “What caliber?” he asks.

  Artillery and Arteries

  Nerissa has always been fascinated with mortal weaponry. From cannons and crossbows to the more sophisticated firearms and ballistics, their pure alchemy has always amused and enticed her. It is a rather brutal way to go about killing Aberrants, and she’s aware of the strange irony involved, but destroying those of her kind—regardless of their state—with her own magic has ever made her uncomfortable. Both she and Worth agreed, in their days doing business together, that their abilities should only be used for the finding and apprehending of Aberrants, not the killing and disposing.

  Worth, for all his propriety, has always encouraged this behavior, and Nerissa is reminded of just why they worked together so long when she sees his reaction to her trove.

  The shed serves a dual purpose for the lamia. Since she arrived at Lyndhurst, and knowing Vivienne’s distaste for human weapons, she’s kept her cache locked away in a series of custom-made chests, cleverly hidden behind the tack. Most of it is organized in an old dental cabinet, ideal for the smaller, more delicate mechanisms. She still occasionally finds bits and pieces of dental equipment and dentures, but more often than not, they come in handy for small repairs.

  So when Nerissa opens up the first drawer to reveal a magnificent assortment of both familiar weapons and new models, Worth draws a breath of awe.

  She is quite proud of the firearms, mostly because they are improvements upon the original designs. Back in their early days fighting Aberrants, they were lucky enough to have a weaponsmith of their own. A goblin by the name of Chester, to be exact. He was happy to do the work for them in exchange for wine and a roof over his head, and over the years, he came to accompany the team on occasion. Ultimately, the drink did him in during a visit to Scotland; the proliferation of whisky proved too difficult for him navigate with his explosives. A rare case of goblin combustion.

  “You kept everything,” Worth says. “It’s all pristine.”

  Nerissa watches as he draws his hands over the shotgun he’d christened “Malice” and notices his hands are shaking. She wonders, not for the first time, why she couldn’t have simply fallen in love with him and have been done with it. They always had so much more in common than she and Vivienne. One can never underestimate the power of a mutual appreciation of complex firearms, after all.

  “We will have to be discreet,” Nerissa says. “We will be under a glamor, and the more irregular our forms, the more challenging blending in.”

  “Alas, no Malice, then.”

  “Likely not. But you forget, Malice had a little sister. Mercy.”

  She feels the smile before she realizes it’s on her lips. For some reason, she does not bury it. Instead, she lets it spread, the warmth whorling dow
n the front of her, like a current of sunlit water in a pool.

  Mercy is a small weapon, but marvelously made. Some would call her a Derringer, but that is a gross simplification of a weapon designed to debilitate creatures of immense size and power. Its charges are few, and perilous, composed of a many-layered bullet designed by Chester himself to deliver both a low electric shock, generally enough to incapacitate even Level Three Aberrants. But then comes the poison layer, comprised with one of Vivienne’s own recipes, both neurotoxin and poison combined. To an average human being, it would be certain death; to an Aberrant, it’s enough to shock them into sleep for a long time.

  Worth takes Mercy in his hands and audibly sniffles. It appears that Nerissa has, inadvertently, struck a chord with Glatisant. It makes her mildly uncomfortable, but also rather amused.

  “It’s been a long time since I felt anything but hunted,” Worth says at last. “With Yvan, there was a sense of pause, a sort of escape from it. But when I hold Mercy in my hands, when I am well accoutered, I feel as if I am not only doing right by myself, but I am stronger.”

  “Dangerous, perhaps, to lend that much power to anything outside of yourself,” Nerissa suggests, not at all certain she likes where this conversation is going.

  Worth sighs, taking Mercy’s holster and worrying his fingers over the leather. “I know that, Nerissa. But what I’m trying to say, however ineffectually, is that I miss working with you. I know you wanted me out because of my connection with Vivienne, and I don’t fault you for it. But I think we could have worked things out better. If no one hunts the monsters, is anyone safe?”

  “I’m not sure who the monsters are anymore, Worth. I just know that if what you say is true, and if what Vivienne is planning is true, we’ve got to protect ourselves. And that’s why I’ve kept this arsenal all these years.”