The City

by Rachael Byrd

  Intrigue's mind fixed on Kshatriya's final sentence. Bury ... or burn.

  "How much of The City is dead already?"

  The others turned to her. Carmine spoke first, nervously running a tanned hand through her hot red hair.

  "All of it, for all concerns. Those still alive are recruiters and slaves."

  "Why not burn? It worked for Asylum; it can work for The City."

  Kshatriya's eyes were alive with understanding. “We wouldn't be able to save the slaves, Intrigue—there are too many of them and far too many are loyal to their vampire owners. They'd want—"

  "Revenge. Yes.” She remembered Hawk leading her through the black house, remembered the smell of smoke and fire. She remembered being visited by her own ghost and the memories that had followed, memories of burning orphans to save them. It made sense now.

  "No.” Crow stared at her, his eyes wide with concern. “No, Intrigue. That's not an answer."

  "If we don't do this, every one of them will be a Nosferatu within another week. There isn't much time left."

  Crow's pale brown eyes were fixed on her, wide and pleading. She could read the depth of his affection for her clearly in those amber mirrors but could not help but feel indifferent. Something stirred deep in her chest, some regret perhaps, or some small flicker of affection. She squashed it.

  "Ordinarily, we'd have to go through afterward, stake them all. We shouldn't, though. The fire will savage everything. They'd have no way to escape, and when daylight comes...” Intrigue trailed off.

  Belle spoke up, still clutching Arjuna's corpse. “What about his body? He hasn't melted into dust, Intrigue. He's not like the others!"

  "Neither were Phoenyx and Melissa. I don't know why some don't dissolve when most do. We'll burn him with the rest."

  "No!"

  "It'll be the greatest honor you can give him, Belle. Don't argue; there's no time.” She glanced nervously upward. The indigo sky was already lightening. “You said that you knew where we could find shelter, Caligula?"

  He nodded and pointed. “Just there. Sanctuary."

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  27

  "She's not dead."

  Angel stared at Tyrhennia. “What do you mean? She's been staked. She spent a day in the sun!"

  "She's a deformity ... a monster, if you prefer.” Tyrhennia moved her fingers along the puckered skin lining the wound in Phoenyx's breast. “Her heart's on the right side."

  Angel shoved Tyrhennia aside and ran his hands over Phoenyx's body, desperate to feel something from her, anything. It didn't matter to him that she was only Nosferatu; he only wanted her to rise again. Angel's fingertips slipped expertly between the wrinkled flaps of flesh that had once been lips. He pulled her mouth open and spilled a flask of blood between her mummified lips, his hand shaking.

  Phoenyx sighed.

  It might have simply been natural decay, but Angel didn't think so. Eager, he dumped the contents of his hip flask into her mouth and called for help. Nytala appeared at his side, ready for orders. He sent her for a gallon.

  "An entire gallon? Angel, the shortage—"

  "Starve the damn slaves or send the humans to Macabre, then. Get me a gallon in here now."

  Tyrhennia shouldered in beside Angel, toying with the split she'd cut in her dress earlier.

  "Angel?” He barely glanced at her. “Angel. This is no time to slow down. You have to get ready for Intrigue.” Her eyes glimmered. “If anything, you have more to fight for now—Phoenyx will want you to kill Intrigue."

  "Phoenyx wants nothing now, Tyrhennia, because she's Nosferatu.” Angel's fingertips ran gently over the deep crevices in Phoenyx's face. “My firebird wants nothing but blood. She'll have it."

  Nytala hurried back in, blood sloshing out over the sides of the glass cube. She set it down on the tabletop next to Phoenyx's motionless form and handed Angel a thin plastic tube. He motioned her aside and began to drip blood into the dried husk that was Phoenyx, using the tube as a siphon.

  "Another gallon,” Angel snapped. Nytala scurried off.

  "Phoenyx?” he whispered.

  Her flesh had relaxed a bit—or was it his imagination?

  Shriveled lips pulled back, revealing the sharp curves of bone that had remained unchanged through staking and sunlight.

  "Phoenyx!"

  He slit his wrist over the glass cube as the level dropped and his own blood dripped sluggishly into the container. He licked the wound to seal it, then grasped Phoenyx's shoulders and pulled her into his arms.

  Eyelids flicked back, hindered by the leathery stiffness of the skin. Phoenyx stared blankly up at Angel through the shriveled black raisins that had once been eyes. Blood was already restoring them; they were slightly swollen and the whites were visible again.

  Phoenyx coughed and feebly attempted to pull away. Angel lowered her back onto the tabletop. Phoenyx sucked at the siphon until the blood was drained.

  "An IV drip setup?"

  "Yes please, Nytala."

  She had brought two half gallon pouches this time instead of the gallon glass cube. She unfolded a collapsible IV stand and poked a tube into each pouch, threading them up into the small attached computer. Pulling the stand safely out of Phoenyx's reach, she set the end of one tube into Phoenyx's mouth, and hooked the other up to a needle, which she slid neatly into the Nosferatu's arm. She stepped back, trembling, and Angel set a hand on her shoulder.

  "Nytala?"

  She looked at him flatly and Angel knew that the disease had taken hold in her. She would be Nosferatu before the next sundown. Sighing, he pushed her away from him. Vampires and vampiras were infinitely more useful than mindless Nosferatu, but there was no way for him to halt the advance of the disease; not all of them could be so strong.

  "Melissa."

  Angel wheeled, staring at his Queen's body. “'Nyx?"

  "Angel ... we were Nosferatu. You would have been proud of us ... if we had been fighting intentionally.” Her chest heaved as if she actually needed to breathe.

  Angel ran a finger along the side of her face, unable to believe what he was hearing. Phoenyx had been Nosferatu; there were a number of slaves who had been able to confirm that. Now she spoke rationally.

  "What are you now, Phoenyx?"

  "Like you, Angel."

  "Phoenyx? Take it easy, don't strain yourself, but there's something I need to know. We're after Intrigue. How did you come back? You were Nosferatu; now you're a vampira again."

  "Don't know ... maybe..."

  "What?"

  "I saw it again. I saw ... sunlight ... the whole day..."

  Sunlight? Could it possibly be that that hideous ball of flame in the sky was able to purge the disease from the Nosferatu, possibly revert them to vampires and vampiras?

  "Is that all, Phoenyx? Do you know anything else?"

  Her eyes closed and she sighed. For a moment, Angel was convinced that she had fallen asleep, but her lips parted again, and her tongue flicked out, shining with blood.

  "Crystal."

  Crystal. How cryptic was that? “Go back to sleep.” He turned away from her, Tyrhennia on his arm. He left Phoenyx to the fastidious attentions of Nytala, and he hurried to the human's slave chambers, intent on waking the humans early. Double shifts for everyone today.

  He recoiled upon opening the door, certain that he'd walked into the wrong room.

  All but perhaps forty or fifty of the humans were scattered on the ground, their heads flung back and their throats flayed open. Flies hummed from corpse to corpse, fouling the remains. Crude symbols were bloodied onto the walls and the remaining humans were crowded together in a sweaty knot at the back corner of the room.

  "What happened here?"

  Infuriated and anxious, he strode across the room. Grabbing a young man from the flock, he brushed the bloody hair out of the boy's eyes and snarled in his face.

  "What happened here?"

  The dull brown eyes stared up at him in pure, ani
mal fear. The boy raised one trembling hand to point to the opposite corner of the room, where Nosferatu slept in a heap. Angel had overlooked them.

  Angel turned to Tyrhennia, seething. “They were given specific orders to stay away from the humans’ quarters!” He grabbed her elbow and strode out of the room.

  "Nytala!"

  She appeared quickly and silently, her blank, off-colored eyes meeting his with a quiet insolence that was most unfamiliar. He looked at her for a moment, troubled, then shook it off.

  "Keep things under control here. Watch over Phoenyx and take the rest of the slaves somewhere safe. I don't want any more of them being attacked by the Nosferatu.” He sighed, glancing at Tyrhennia. “I need a drink."

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  28

  The door opened with a squeal of protest. Angel paused and frowned at the rusted hinges. He'd never known Myst to allow such an imperfection at Asylum. He entered with a growing sense of trepidation.

  The atmosphere was wrong. He flicked on the light over the counter, hoping to be reassured by the warm light and Myst's callous smile, but saw no one. The bar stools stood abandoned. Leaning over the bar, he could see the bottle of Vomit lying on its side, its contents a sticky mess on the hardwood floor. Many of the other bottles were broken on the floor.

  Tyrhennia licked her glistening lips and stepped away from him, flicking the bar light off as she did so. “This is where you come to escape?” she demanded. “You promised me a better life with you, Angel, and what have you done for me so far? You let the Chaotics escape because you did not move quickly enough. We could have followed their shadows in the darkness but you spent too long dallying over your rotten dead Queen. The trail is all but gone now."

  Angel turned to face her, his anger smoldering in the darkness.

  "Yes, Angel. Your dead Queen, as she should be. You had no right to resurrect her when you already had her replaced. What should have been done was as good as done."

  "Shut up, Tyr."

  "You had only to drop a stake through her real heart, and you would have saved all three of us a great deal of trouble. What will she think, Angel, to awake and find that you've taken a second Queen in her stead? That you've sold yourself for information? What will your firebird do when I drag the cat's body to you, as a gift?"

  Angel stared at her. “Why are you bringing this up now?"

  She shrugged lightly and stepped forward, trailing her fingertips along his arms. “Why have you brought me here? You promised me fresh blood."

  "This is Asylum,” he whispered.

  "What of it?” she snapped. “This is an antique place; the blood is long soured and the liquor reeks from its place on the floor. Why did you not take me to a place where you could fulfill your promises?"

  "This is Asylum!” Enraged at her lack of understanding, he flung her to the ground. Her green eyes glimmered darkly as she stared up at him. Tyrhennia stood, the smooth marble curves of her shoulders thrown back.

  "Have your refuge then, Angel. She's stalking you and you don't even know it. Why did you bring me here? Why did you leave Phoenyx and the humans with Nytala, a vampira on the edge of joining the Nosferatu?” She moved closer to him, her sooty lashes harsh against the bloodless white of her skin. “You've lost already, Angel, and I know that you know it. She's hunting you and you're afraid."

  "I'm afraid of nothing, Tyrhennia."

  "Your Nosferatu are out of control, Angel. If you return—"

  "If I return, they will obey me faultlessly."

  "As they always have?"

  "As they always have,” he affirmed.

  "Have you not found the humans’ corpses scattered in the sanctuary you provided them with?"

  He was silent, impotent anger simmering in his stomach. She turned away from him, her lime dress switching against her pale thighs, and vanished through the door.

  Angel turned and walked up the stairs, intent on finding out what had happened to Myst.

  The doors to the whores’ rooms stood open, but he had no concern for them. They could be dead and gone, or sleeping quietly on thin mattresses, waiting for work. It didn't matter. Only two doors were closed: that which belonged to Myst and that which led to the chamber of that unspeakable horror that was kept here for some reason.

  "Myst?” Angel called softly. He tapped her door, and hearing no answer, pushed it open.

  Red!

  Angel recoiled sharply. The City's most acclaimed recruiter lay dead on the floor, his throat flayed open and his intestines strewn about the room. Myst was nowhere to be seen and he suddenly couldn't remember why he had come to see her.

  Angel's stomach rolled as he approached the corpse. He lifted Aymir's broken body into his arms, a few tears collecting in the inside corners of his eyes. Aymir's head dangled loosely; his neck had been snapped in Myst's frenzy. Great tufts of deep auburn hair had been torn out and bloodless gashes in his skull gaped like laughing mouths. One of his odd grey-green eyes was still open, staring, and Angel winced as he pulled his son's eyelid closed.

  It had been years since he'd thought of the boy Aymir as anything other than a fantastic recruiter, a child who had willingly sold himself into slavery in order to procure his future freedom. Or had Aymir really made the choice himself? Had Throckett sold Aymir into slavery? Had Aymir known who his parents were? Angel was fairly sure that the boy had known who his mother had been, but had he ever realized that Angel was his father? He doubted it.

  What would Nytala think?

  His mind reeling, Angel stumbled down the stairs and out into the street, Aymir in his arms. His mind reeled with memories as he lurched back toward his Den. Nytala, still human. Nytala, a young woman with a swollen abdomen. His ambition to provide for his unborn child. Nytala, stumbling backward and repressing a scream when he had revealed to her that he was a vampire; his fangs had been short then, barely pointed. Nytala, wide-eyed with wonder when he had returned one evening and announced that he had cleared a church and that they would lead their own Nest.

  He remembered the Den on the first night that he'd brought her there. Had there still been some intelligence in her eyes then? He couldn't remember. He had quickly stopped loving her but he had loved the child, and that had blurred things a bit. He remembered her hiding herself away in a supply closet when he had brought the first batch of blunt-fanged slaves into his Den. The slaves had come first, not the intelligent Nest members who helped to organize things. He had been angry at her when he'd first discovered that she was hiding, angry that she hadn't trusted him to protect her, angry that she refused to understand that blunt-fanged slaves weren't really dangerous. She'd been submissive when he yelled at her, obedient when he requested something of her, forgiving and accommodating and compliant. He'd decided then that she'd make an excellent slave.

  The memories came more quickly now and Angel's head pounded. His vision skewed and he staggered without knowing where he was headed, but still, the memories came. Nytala screaming when Aymir was born. Nytala falling silent as she realized that she had angered Angel. Nytala huddled against a wall, trembling in fear as he came for her with fangs bared. The taste of Nytala's blood filling his mouth while his newborn son wailed on the floor. That last spark of life fading out of Nytala's eyes.

  Things had quieted down a bit after that. Aymir had been born human. He was far stronger than the average infant but never displayed a hunger for blood. The Nest had grown; Nytala had retained her position as Angel's personal servant and Aymir had been growing into a beautiful toddler. Nytala had cared for Aymir constantly, loving him every moment. Angel had loved his son more than anything, and although he still hadn't loved Nytala, he took care of her and watched over her with a gentle affection. They had been all set for an average existence, a life of mediocrity, when Angel had discovered Phoenyx.

  There hadn't been many then. Vampires were truly rare, and Angel was careful to blunt the fangs of almost all of his Nest members. So it had been no real surprise
to find the radiant ex-New Yorker wandering the streets in jeans and tennis shoes.

  She'd glared at him when he met her gaze and she'd swung a knife at his throat when he'd grabbed her wrist. Her eyes had been chips of obsidian glinting under the too-bright moon, and he'd decided then that mediocrity wasn't good enough. She had been strong, a fighter with a purpose, and he had been determined to prove that he was everything he had always thought himself to be. He had led her to Communion and she had accepted the immortality that he offered her. Her blood had been strong, potent, and more flavorful than any he'd ever tasted.

  Nytala had cried alone in her room that night when Angel announced that he'd selected a Queen. She had stood silently at the back of the room during his Ceremony, Aymir on her hip.

  And then? What had happened to Aymir then? Angel had never quite been clear on the details, but there had been talk that Nytala was afraid that the new Queen was somehow a threat to her son. She had pawned little Aymir off to her cousin, a particularly hideous middle-aged drunkard by the name of David Throckett.

  Angel had lain in his Haven that day under a rich black canopy and thought about his son. He had looked at Phoenyx, lying a few feet away on a separate bed, and he had made his choice. He had banished Aymir from his thoughts, chosen to forget that Nytala had been a mother, and remade his life with Phoenyx as his Queen. Nytala had never been allowed back into Haven.

  When he'd heard of the boy recruiter who had made several sensational mass captures within a week, he had not connected the name ‘Aymir’ with memories of the beginning of his Nest. He'd even hired the child on several occasions to procure slaves proficient in a number of different trades. He'd seen his son before him, living and breathing proof that there had once been something meaningful in his life, and he had dropped a few coins into the boy's palm and agreed to sign the papers to bring the boy closer to freedom when the slaves were delivered.

  Aymir had come to him once, asking if Angel would hire him. He had wanted to work for Angel until he had made enough captures to free himself. Angel had smiled at the boy and turned him back out onto the streets. He hadn't wanted a full-time recruiter.