“As much as I’ve hoped such wouldn’t be the case, I’m forced to accept that you might be right. I might have to end the life of my last great love. If that’s the case, then I won’t let it be a waste. Considine will carry what happened here back to the corpse-nobility of Caliphas. He’ll tell them that I did what Luvick never dared—that I put an end to the greatest vampire-killer of our time. You’re right, I’m not the rebel-demon Caliphas’s vampires make me out to be. But there’s still time for that.”
I almost laughed. “You’d rely on Considine? Fickle, unreliable Considine? Melancholy, hates-you-for-making-him-your-slave Considine?”
He ignored my humor and simply nodded. “No flattery is more true than your enemy’s.”
Considine might be a joke in the Old City, a pariah who’d only escaped execution so he could be tormented. Yet despite his nonexistent status, everyone knew he’d been Rivascis’s slave—even though he’d refused to follow after his master’s betrayal. He’d been lauded for his loyalty to Siervage, even as he was denounced for betraying his creator and prince.
“He won’t be so easily manipulated. Knowing Considine, he wouldn’t speak a word of this just to spite you.”
“I’ve known Considine for far longer than you. He is my son, after all.” His fangs showed as he smiled. He nodded toward the back of the theater.
Past the footlights’ glare, standing halfway down an aisle of red, Considine stood smirking. He awkwardly adjusted a limp body over one shoulder, a frail gray frame trimmed in lace.
Considine had sent me here. Then he’d abducted Ailson Kindler.
42
SHADOW PUPPETS
JADAIN
The rickety steps whined like a dozing animal as I climbed two at a time. Fortunately, I reached the cupboard-sized door at the top before the doubtful things decided to pitch me off.
I pressed my back to one cold stone wall, alone with my breathing and the dark well below. Listening, I stared back the way I had come, expecting the jangle of metal or a sinew-draped skull. Yet my own ragged breathing was all that disturbed the shadows.
It took several tries to look away from the stairs dropping away below. Each time I was convinced that I’d glimpsed something just as I turned away, that I was about to miss the last thing I’d ever see.
Damn this. I barged through the door and threw it closed behind me. The latch snapping shut was an incredible relief, dispelling images of slug-white fingers bursting through the narrowing gap. When nothing slammed against the closed door, I fell against the opposite wall—the close and surprisingly comfortable opposite wall.
Cushions, each a satin square perfectly sized for an individual bottom, stood in roughly even, waist-high stacks. Hundreds ran down the hall and out of my lantern’s light in both directions. I leaned for longer than I should have, letting the quiet softness comfort me. I had no more sense of where I was here than below, but the air didn’t pile upon itself like the inside a crypt. I breathed, remembering the ache in my face, the tortured skin throbbing at my wrists and ankles, the blood crusting my hair. As urgency faded, the pain rose.
A prayer of healing came to mind and, squeezing my amulet, I ignored the familiar sick sensation and spoke quickly. The goddess’s breath rose as I called, blowing across the worst of my wounds, tingling my abused joints and face. The numbing cold faded quickly. My hand went to my face. The gash was lessened, but still there.
I couldn’t linger, wherever this was. It would have to be enough. Lifting myself from the soft heap, I picked a direction and pushed on.
It seemed like a servant’s passage—close, with a low ceiling and unadorned walls. Eventually the stacks of cushions ended, replaced by tall rolled awnings or banners. More short doors appeared, some opened. Inside, my light picked out sewing tables and mountains of thick fabrics, but only high, narrow windows. Perhaps this was some sort of workhouse.
The hall finally ended in a corner room of benches and short cubbies. Red coats with tasseled epaulettes dangled in several of the alcoves, uniforms long employed only by moths. I barely paid them a glance, going immediately for the door. With the flip of a latch it opened and the night flooded in.
The vastness froze me. I’d expected some alley or muddy yard, not the endless sky and racing water. Garden hedges slid away in gentle slopes, slender trees posing alongside as they tumbled toward what looked like a tear in the night sky. Above, clouds blew like tattered pennants before a vague patch of moonlight. Below, the night had crashed to the ground, growling as it sought ways back aloft. Several stars had been dragged down with it, bobbing unsteadily as they sought to keep their places. Only faint lanterns on distant piers brought sanity to the view of three mighty rivers meeting and careening through the dark.
The structure I’d barely set a foot from stood undaunted by the great rivers beyond. A cliff of blind arcades climbed over me, regularly interrupted by dark glass and friezes of wan angels. I felt the gazes of shadowed celestials, but not only theirs.
The garden wasn’t empty. Dozens of bodies lay scattered across untended lawns and stained benches, a small army of tin knights cast aside by some divine child. But it wasn’t a battlefield. While I couldn’t be sure in the moonlight, none were obviously wounded or bloodied. They would have looked like they were merely sleeping, except that none had their eyes shut. Dozens of heads lazily rolled to look at me.
Squat stairs led from my door down to a path slipping away around the temple-like building. The way was scattered with bodies. I’d lost my fear of corpses long ago, but these …
I eyed the mound of rags sprawled across the bottom of the steps. The heap stared back from beneath heavy white brows, any suggestion of a face lost amid deep wrinkles and a beard of bristles. I recognized it all the same.
Careful not to disrupt the lulling rush of the rivers, I crouched on the stairs. I reached out to the old man, checking for some sign of life. I didn’t dare more than a whisper. “Sir?”
His watery eyes didn’t move. Maybe I imagined it, but now they seemed to see, fixing on me rather than through me.
“Sir, are you … all right?” Of course not, but I couldn’t think of anything else to ask. Still, he didn’t respond.
Uncertain, my hand danced in the space between us, reaching, drawing back, reaching. Finally I touched his shoulder, something between a comforting pat and rousing jostle.
The rags toppled and spread, cracking and rustling as they pushed themselves up. Beneath those damp, dark eyes, a gap in the beard fell open, his face and mouth rising as though he meant to swallow me.
I leapt back as he gained his feet, his form lost in a patchy heap. There was nothing in those eyes, no recognition, no intent. I’d seen the dead walk, seen corpses strung with foul powers into magical marionettes, but this was different.
“Sir!” I filled the whisper with all the severity I could. Sharp wood dug into my palm. The desperate sensation was becoming familiar. My shiv came up.
He ignored it, stumbling up a step. I had to give ground just to avoid stabbing him.
“Sir, please!”
His mouth worked like a fish, toothlessly gumming the space between us. With a muffled clop, he climbed. I fell back farther. In the yard, more of the fallen took note. Heads rose, hollow eyes narrowing on our scuffle.
Even if I did overcome the old man, even if I could bring myself to silence him with a crusty splinter, how long before those others were on me? I could feel their coarse hands already. Was this the half-dead mob that had dragged me from Miss Kindler’s?
It didn’t matter. This couldn’t be the way.
I grabbed the door handle and pulled hard. A thick glove came up. His eyes said nothing, but as the door slammed, I realized what was half hidden within his stained beard. That mouth opening and closing, hidden lips repeating again and again: “Help.”
But I didn’t know how.
The door quaked under a heavy blow. I flipped the flimsy-looking latch and backed into the hall I’d ju
st followed. The door quivered under another slam, the bang echoing, but it held.
For how long, though? My only choices were the long dark hall I’d already followed, or on through the dressing room.
Someone else made the decision for me.
An indistinct voice reached me. I couldn’t make out the words or the distance, but it definitely came from back down the hall.
It could have been Rivascis returning, growling orders after finding his minion dead. That would have been fast, even for an accursed thing like him.
Another slam upon the door shook the whole wall.
I couldn’t stay. The mindless thing outside wasn’t as easily deterred as I’d hoped. I tried to make out more of the voice. It came again, but offered no reassurance. It was too far off, too indistinct.
At least it was someone, in a place perhaps better used and lit than these forsaken halls. If nothing else, I’d seen what lay behind the structure. Perhaps the front would offer an easier escape.
I rushed back the way I’d come, moving as fast as I could while keeping somewhat silent. Behind, wood splintered. Ahead, the voice grew louder … and more familiar.
43
MALEDICTION
LARSA
Considine.” I spoke as evenly as I could through clenched teeth. “Put her down.”
He brushed the words away, strolling down the aisle with the old woman slung over his shoulder. “Oh, it’s quite all right. She weighs almost nothing at all, and I’ve already brought her all this way.”
Rivascis was already watching when my look shot to him. I closed on him quickly, steps resounding like blows upon the stage.
He answered my unspoken question gently. “I told him to.”
It all seemed suddenly familiar: Kindler, swooning over Considine’s shoulder, like any soon-to-be bloodless victim. Rivascis, arch and arrogant, so like the creatures of the Old City he claimed to loathe. They looked like the garbage I’d spent years scouring from Caliphas’s streets.
“Tell him to put her down.” I drew Kindler’s dagger, its whisper sounding like a slow, eager “yes” as its silvered blade slipped free.
Rivascis’s head tilted a single surprised degree. “No.”
The blade practically flew for his chest.
Even surprised, Rivascis likely could have darted away, avoiding the lunge entirely. Maybe he expected another violent tantrum. Maybe he wanted to further remind me of the threat I didn’t pose. Regardless, he was wrong, and didn’t move.
Silver sizzled in his chest. Dead flesh hissed around the gleaming metal, the wound’s edges shriveling, turning rotted and black. The shock of one who’d entirely forgotten a sensation contorted Rivascis’s expression. His look snapped to his chest. I drove the blade and whatever toxic blessing it bore into his ageless husk.
His growl seemed to emerge from the wound before slipping between bare fangs. Too late, he surged backward. The speed of his retreat yanked the blade from my hands, but the dagger—a veteran of who could say how many slayings—refused to let its prey escape. It clung fast, burning the vampire’s core.
Traversing half the stage in a blink, Rivascis yanked the dagger free. The wound’s withered edges hung dead, making no sign of knitting closed. He sneered at the clean, gleaming weapon, strangling it in his grip.
“This was to be our moment … if needs be, our revenge!” There was more in his voice than just anger. “She would have remembered and we’d be what Luvick never let us be, or she’d die and we’d have the closure we both needed.”
“I didn’t come here to be a part of your stage show.” The dagger’s twin drew just as eagerly. “You almost made me forget why I traveled all this way to begin with. But your tirade reminded me. I came here to kill you, and damn it, I’m going to do my job.”
He spat. “A killer for humans that fear you and dead things that resent you.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I’ve just decided to make sure there’re fewer reasons to be scared of the dark.”
Whatever hopes remained in Rivascis’s eyes froze and died. “So be it.” He threw a clawed hand toward me as he shouted, “Take her!”
Hours of preparation were instantly ruined. Precisely arranged petals cascaded, hands rotted into claws drawing four corpses awkwardly from their coffins. Dead eyes, or the darkened absence of eyes, turned my way. Nearest me, the remains of Oralo Viacarri scrambled to extricate herself, violet-stained claws scoring casket wood. From between fangs fell an obscenely long tongue, as plump and bruised as if she’d been strangled.
My dagger spun from the vampire to the thrashing thing. As soon as I split my attention, Rivascis’s form tore itself apart. I cursed, but couldn’t follow as the ashen smoke wisps slithered from the stage.
Viacarri’s hungry husk burst free in a whirl of broken nails and teeth, and three equally ravenous corpses followed.
44
CHARMING THE DEVIL
JADAIN
It was a theater, and the stage was far from empty. Coffins, giant portraits, and hundreds of flowers framed the production already in progress. Larsa brandished a dagger at the monster who’d left me prey to his servants. Their words boomed through the hall—the not-so-empty hall.
Midway down one of the wide, crimson-carpeted aisles stood the only member of the audience. The only two members of the audience, I realized as my eyes adjusted to the low lights.
Miss Kindler lay wilted over Considine’s shoulder, her normally tightly packed hair falling down the vampire’s back like unraveled lace. She looked smaller than last I saw her, facing down intruders on her lawn, and didn’t move.
The funeral bier positioned at center stage was empty. Was she bound for it?
I hesitated, and Hell’s gates tore open.
Larsa’s blade disappeared into Rivascis’s chest, a blow that momentarily pinned time in place. Stillness reigned for an instant, a crystalline quiet I feared my frantic pulse might shatter. Unstoppering his bloodless wound, Rivascis freed the dagger, along with the breathless moment. The shouting upon the stage turned to growls and orders. Larsa was armed again.
Closer, Considine rolled his head impatiently.
The rich carpeting masked my footfalls, but I didn’t presume he wouldn’t hear me coming. The pathetic piece of wood in my hand made a desperate weapon, but it had already pinned Considine once. If it needed to, it would make a fine threat.
The vampire turned a cheek toward the hall’s unlit chandelier, addressing the ceiling. “You didn’t leave a mess downstairs, did you?”
“Someone cut me free. I was bound to defend myself.”
“Well it smells like you reveled in it.” He turned, training his cynical consideration on me. “Ugh, did you skin her?”
“Please put Miss Kindler down.” I adjusted my grip on the makeshift stake.
He cooed, as if over some decadent dessert. “Did you get a taste for killing in the dark? How your church charity group will gossip.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. Just let me take her out of here.”
He drew himself up. “Can you hurt me? Can you bring yourself to do it? My favorite servant?”
He winked, and his eyes glimmered emerald.
The color of the ocean welled up at the edge of my sight, the hall’s crimson sinking into the murky shade. All around, the glint in the vampire’s eyes seeped in, soft and calm, unavoidable and certainly lethal. It seemed like the color poured into the room, but I knew it was all in my mind. That shade, an intruding reflection of Considine’s eyes and whatever unspoken will lurked behind them.
I clenched my eyes shut just to avoid drowning, whether in the vampire’s gaze or the silent waves eroding reality. But the rotten green didn’t fade. Even behind my eyelids the color spread like ink from an idle quill. It looked so much like deep water that the drowning sensation felt natural.
I gripped the goddess’s symbol, clinging to it like a buoy. The sinking sensation lessened, but not because of the cool calm of Pharasma’s power. The god
dess’s dead chill was there, but it was merely a wisp amid the whirl of nausea that swept through my body. The spinning sickness, so reminiscent of the spiral clenched in my palm, forced out everything else. The lapping emerald tide rippled and faded, like a flood scattered by a hurricane.
The sensation was hardly comforting, but at least it was familiar and came from inside me.
“You are not welcome.” I glared at Considine down the length of my outstretched arm, across the soft blue glow that spun in my vision. “Not in my mind and not in this place.”
“Oh dear, now you’re starting to sound like a Pharasmin.” He flexed his neck. “Do you abjure me? Do you condemn me to some untidy hell? Oh, I know—”
“Perversion of life and the Spiral of Souls, in Pharasma’s name, I cast you out!” The goddess’s symbol flared as I thrust it toward him. Pale light and cold air burst forth, and suddenly the amulet wasn’t a mere thing of twine and wood, but a door to the chill halls of Pharasma’s immortal court. The touch of death—true death—was in that cold caress, a solemn promise to the living but, to a thing like Considine, a harsh reminder of his false immortality.
His wan features withered as if scoured by flame, and his words died on a tongue that wasn’t there. I drew my amulet back, gasping. I’d meant to rebuke the strange vampire—the dead man who’d, after a fashion, saved me at least once—not burn him to ash.
His shape billowed, a dank mist riding the crest of the luminous wind. Nothing more than vapor, he surged back and scattered like a ground fog retreating from the dawn.
The rustle of Miss Kindler’s skirts was louder than the slap of her body as she struck the ground, facedown. Forgetting Considine, I rushed to her side. Maybe she was made of tougher stuff than it looked. Maybe every bone had shattered without bothering to make a sound.
“Goddess willing, this isn’t your time,” I muttered, checking her arm for breaks. Finding none, I rolled her over. She gave a weak but heartening noise. “Ailson? Are you all right?”
Bloodbound Page 36
