Chaos. Amadeus felt it on every inch of his skin. Mortals scattering like the cattle they were, the hive vampires paralyzed with fear. Cries of violence. Shoving and shouting and sweating. The musical artists with their devil-inspired beats who were only mortal after all dropped their noisome instruments and joined their mortal brethren in the mindless, sheeplike stampede to the front door. Useless, all this. Why would the barkeep not simply show him the way to Alek and Akisha?
Why, he wondered, must every act be accomplished with violence?
There was another scream, and then the fear that had petrified the remaining vampires in the club edged up a notch--and the spell was broken. As one, they rose, overturning tables, trampling each other, and began to crowd toward the front door. A woman brushed past him. He swung the limb in his hand like a jo staff and sent her flying back into the crowd. The cries grew and the press toward the door surged more urgently forward. Someone pushed Amadeus from behind. His hand snapped out and gripped the passing man by his ponytail of hair, bent him backward. He sank two fingers into the eyes of his offender, gripped the skull tight and tore it loose from its owner's body.
Instantly he was soaked in a glorious bath of hot, pulsing blood. He felt the tingle of his hair writhing with sentient power as it burst its binds. Someone neared him on the right and one long coiled mass exploded outward and snapped its venomous fangs into a mass of flesh pulsating with vampire life.
Then suddenly there was space all around him and another of the hive watchdogs approached him. His serpentine hair rattled ominously. The watchdog punched him squarely in the cheek. Amadeus slammed backward into a wall, felt the plaster give all the way to the studs. He experienced the ghost of pain in his face, a slight, unpleasant, tingling sensation in his upper palate as the broken cheekbone mended itself instantaneously and a new eyetooth forced the loose one out. The watchdog came for him again without hesitation.
Amadeus hissed and showed the creature his dripping eyeteeth. His serpentine hair did the same.
"Bloody freak," spoke this brave dead mortal. He took Amadeus by the collar and tried to haul him up off his feet.
Amadeus bit the mortal in the big pulsing vein in his wrist and emptied half the culminated venom of fourteen serpents into his bloodstream. The man released him and fell gasping, paralyzed with heart attack, to the floor of his babylon. He wept, shuddered like a tortured infant. Amadeus spat a mouthful of venom into his face. Flesh sizzled into a foul smoke as it was eaten up like acid. The man continued to wail, his voice echoing up from a chamber of meatless bone, and this time Amadeus felt no compassion and simply stepped over him and went in search of the stairs which would lead him to Alek, and, eventually, Alek's accomplice.
"Byron painted this in the week before he disappeared. I thought it was just another of his wild abstract ramblings. He was quite prone to those, being of that doomishly overdramatic Dali school."
Alek arched an eyebrow questioningly at Akisha.
Akisha smiled and glanced aside at the solemn, lily-fleshed, ebony-eyed portrait of herself on the wall. "He never had your greatness." She swiveled a little in her desk chair to catch the greenish glow of the banker's lamp on the surface of the painting propped against her legs, the paper torn away. "It was the last thing he ever painted; he was quite proud of it." She turned a little more towards the light so he could see it completely.
Alek dug out his wireframes and slipped them on, studied the images scrawled in oily gouche across the thirty-five-year-old canvas. A girl on a floor reading a book before a tipped oval mirror, it looked like. Hard to tell. The painter was less than masterful. The only thing of substance seemed to be the book, reflecting upside-down in the mirror. He took the framed picture from Akisha, turned it over so he could see the page of the book showing. He swallowed and felt his heart triphammer expectantly at the sight of the crude city map, scarcely able to stay in his seat. "And he drew this for Paris?"
Akisha nodded.
"What was Byron's connection with the Chronicle?"
"Paris supposedly mailed him the Chronicle in the summer of 1962, he said. Byron was connected to an editor at Doubleday at the time. The book was supposed to go to him for publication. Byron said it was part of Paris's plan to undermine the Vatican's work. He hoped this way the vampires would have complete access to the Church's plans for our race--"
"For when war was declared," Alek guessed.
Akisha shrugged. "But of course, Paris was slain only a short time later and Byron disappeared a short time after that. He gave me this and told me to keep it safe in the event something happened to him. He was very excitable at the time, in a hurry."
Alek thought about that, studied the little legends scribed here and there on the miniature map. "What are these?" he asked, pointing them out. "These little key-shaped things here and there?"
Akisha shook her head. "I don't know. He never explained much of this to me. I thought him a fool." She looked sorrowfully on him. "I'm sorry. I don't know anything else."
Alek smiled, turned the picture right-side-up and set it aside. "It's a start," he admitted. "Maybe Teresa can tell me more, maybe--" His voice drained away to an allover shudder. Cold in here suddenly. He glanced toward the big, moon-filled mosaic window. Something wrong somewhere--
"Alek?"
Alek shook his head, stood up and peeled off his glasses. "Did you hear something downstairs?"
"Shrapnel," Akisha said, studying him askance from her seat at the desk, "It always gets a little rowdy when they play..."
Alek scarcely heard her. Someone on the stairs. Slow, disturbing presence. Intimate. Amadeus. No. Not Amadeus. Amadeus would not trail him here. Would not. How could he? Their marriage was a curious mixture of bonding and mindplay, yes, but even Amadeus could not literally see through his eyes. And even if that miracle were possible, the Father would sooner send agents rather than do this himself. And save that, he would not make a public spectacle of their quarrel. They would have their inevitable conflict, most certainly, but it would be done in private. Not here. No.
Yet even as Alek watched, disbelieving it, trying to convince himself of the absurdity of the possibility, the door to the lounge opened and Amadeus let himself in, let himself in silently and civilly, with no pomp whatsoever. He closed the door and set his back to it, his blood-drenched clothes sagging heavy on his tall, upright frame..
Akisha stood up immediately, but it was clear from the way she took her posture beside Alek that she was uncertain as to what to do next. "I am Akisha," she said, "I am mistress of this house. I imagine that you are looking for me."
Amadeus smiled wickedly, his bloody dreadlocks shifting horribly across his scalp. He bowed slightly at the waist and clicked his heels together, his dead white eyes pinning Alek squarely. "I am the Covenmaster Amadeus, madam, der Vampir sklavischer. And you imagine wrong, I believe you have something which belongs to me."
Alek took a pensive step back, so overwhelmed by a desire to bolt that it took a conscious effort of will for him to hold his ground. He sought something to say, some excuse for this, something that would make amends maybe and erase all this--but what did you say to the man you were betraying, the man who raised you and gave you a home when you had none, a purpose when you were bereft of purposes? The man who was your father and brother and mentor and the greatest part of you? What did you say? What?
Amadeus drew his splattered leather coat close. "You are leaving now, Alek."
No. You said no.
"I'm not going back with you," he said.
"What?"
"No."
Amadeus stepped farther into the room, tilting his head in surprise. "What did you say to me?"
"No. I said...no," Alek answered, nearly choking on each word. "I need to be on my own for a while, I need...."
Amadeus drifted toward Akisha even as the old Shogun warrior woman stood solid in place, staring at him with a disturbing and uncharacteristic combination of horror and fascination. Alek t
hought to shout something to her, to warn her, but surely she recognized the encroaching danger for what it was, surely. Yet even as he watched like an uninvolved passerby studying a pickpocket in action in the middle of Times Square, he felt the terror constrict his throat and turn his stomach cold. No, Akisha would do something, would fight as she had in feudal Japan. She would react.
If she could.
The Covenmaster's eyes darkened glowingly. His smile grew into the lolling hungry grin of a white wolf. Alek sucked in a breath even as Amadeus reached her and drew the katana from the black lacquered scabbard on his belt.
The bizarre stasis holding Akisha in place broke in that moment. Maybe it was the smell of the Damascus steel, the ring of the sword leaving its scabbard. Maybe it was the look of bloodlust on Amadeus's face or the honest cruelty of his smile. Maybe it was all or none of these things--but Akisha reacted automatically, turning sideways to minimize herself as a target and kicking the Covenmaster's feet out from under him.
Amadeus lurched to his side on the floor, but did not lose his grip on the unsheathed sword. Instead he used the momentum of his fall to carry his steel in an arc across Akisha's legs. Akisha saw and moved, but too late. Blood spewed in a thin, purple line as the katana slit her gown and the flesh of her upper thigh wide like a pair of bloody lips.
With a battlecry of rage and pain, Akisha sidekicked him squarely in the chest, tearing her damaged skin further, flecking her adversary's face with a second gout of her blood. But instead of crushing in his ribcage, Amadeus absorbed the kick, grabbed her ankle in one hand and twisted it brutally to the right. Akisha choked through the rending crunch of her ankle bones and went down, her landing awkward.
It was all the opening Amadeus needed. Licking the blood off his lips like a lion in battle, he reached out and snagged ahold of Akisha's hair, tearing some of it out at the roots as he hauled her back with him to the floor. Akisha hissed, kicking out like a wounded animal and instinctively raising her arms to protect her throat. Amadeus's sword caught her in the upper forearm, ripping the meat wide in a smiling gash. But the need for self-protection was too great upon her to leave her throat unprotected, and instead of dropping her arms, she let them take a second and then a third bone-deep strike.
Amadeus was on his feet, roaring. He tore her head back, trying to expose her throat to his blade. Akisha twisted like a monkey and snapped her legs around his neck. She squeezed him like a vice. She twisted sideways, trying to break his neck, but the act had no affect on him whatsoever other than to activate the writhing mound of serpents on his head. A dozen reddish eyes opened. A dozen rattles echoed soundingly against the lounge walls. A dozen red, dripping mouths hissed wide and attached themselves to Akisha's legs.
Akisha screamed in agony and let him go, her body sliding and shuddering to the floor at Amadeus's feet like some pathetic human in the throes of an epileptic fit. Her body spasmed, her spine bowing almost to the point of breakage, her lips snarling back away from a bloody white grimace of unrelieved suffering. And then the back of her skull hit the floor once, twice, a third time, and her eyes rolled up in their sockets to show only the whites, and something about that unbelievable feature, that Amadeus feature, snapped Alek out of his own horror-inspired paralysis at last and caused him to act.
"STOP!" Alek crashed to the floor beside her, caught Akisha's head before it could compulsively smash against the floor again and held it in a grip of pure, unrelenting iron. Akisha snapped blindly at him, her eyeteeth savaging the flesh of his palms, her eyes narrow, bleeding slits. Alek groaned as Akisha hiccuped a massive gout of blood that painted her ruined lips like rouge. Christ, so much blood, she was going to bleed to death. What the hell had the Father done to her?
Amadeus tried to take him by the shoulders. Alek threw off his foul hands. "Leave me alone, you son of a bitch!" He gathered Akisha's groaning, twisting form into his lap. He looked up, appalled by what he saw. How could any creature look on another's pain with such dead interest as Amadeus was doing now? How could any creature do this? He was dreaming this. He could not now believe that he had once loved this soulless creature standing over them, patiently watching a creature suffer like this, could not now believe that he had kissed it with such reverence, drank from it. That was another person, another time.
Akisha's blood-filled mouth opened wide, and for a moment a kind of conscience light briefly seemed to fill her eyes. "Ahh..." was all she could manage. "Ahhhsch..."
"Help me," Alek pleaded. "Help her, damn you!"
Amadeus's empty stare broke away. He sheathed his sword and went to stand behind Akisha's chair, his hand caressing the back invitingly. "Have a seat, Alek."
He could not seem to stop Akisha's bleeding no matter how he held her, pressed the wounds on her body and face. So much fucking blood. How was it possible for one of their kind to have so much blood in her? Akisha gripped him by the wrist. Akisha's hand was cold, colder than he ever remembered it being, even all those years ago when she had first touched his hand in passing. No oh God, no, please. He could save Akisha, he knew he could. A little of his blood, that was all she needed. Akisha would survive. Like she survived Carfax's death and Empirius's passing. Akisha, older than nations, was a survivor.
"Alek."
"Go to fucking hell!" Alek sobbed. "Akisha's bleeding!
Amadeus sighed and came back around, unsheathed his sword, and with both hands drove the steel tip of it into Akisha's heart. Akisha convulsed like a fish around the sword pinning her heart to the floor, vomited a near fountain of black heart's blood, almost said a name, his name, then collapsed to silence in Alek's arms.
Alek stared with confusion at the dead woman. Blood. Akisha was all ignoble blood and silence. What had happened here? It was as if he were moving through a dream, a nightmare of some kind, the images refracted, unreal. Only ten minutes ago she had been alive and they had been having a conversation about Byron's work, and now...
Amadeus said, "Your whore is no longer bleeding."
Alek set Akisha's ragged, still warm body on the floor. He touched her ruined cheek. There was blood on her white skin, her black eyelashes. There was blood on the whites of her eyes, her goddamn eyes. How the hell had it gotten there? He felt numb, as if he were the one dead, as if his own soul were gone. Yes, it had gone with Akisha, returned to the fabled web where the souls of the damned and the undying went. He wept tearlessly in gasping dry sobs. Soulless. Helpless. "I'll kill you," he said, a promise.
"I rather doubt it." Amadeus said matter-of-factly and slid the blade of his sword under Alek's chin. The motion brought Alek to his feet, stood him up like a puppetmaster pulling the strings of his creation tight. "Now take a seat, mein Sohn, before I hand you your beautiful head."
Alek saw the lounge in shades of red. Something had happened here, some cataclysm. What? He wanted to reach for Akisha's body, but the sword held him back. He swayed uncertainly. He felt intoxicated, alien to himself and to his world. Amadeus had to guide him to the chair like a small child, and there he collapsed into it with a series of unspent shudders.
"How dare you," said Amadeus, sliding behind him and twining his fingers in Alek's hair. And with one deft yank Alek's head was cranked back to the point of pain and his neck exposed to the freezing cold kiss of Amadeus's unforgiving steel. Alek closed his eyes. His breathing came in fitful spurts as his master's voice growled in his ear.
"How dare you disobey me, you ungrateful little whelp! How dare you!"
Alek's breath hitched, caught. "Fuck you."
"WHAT?"
Alek gritted his teeth, felt a sliver of warmth trickle down his throat from the press of the sword's razor-sharp edge against his jugular. He swallowed and felt the blade sink deeper. "I said FUCK YOU. What part of FUCK YOU don't you understand, you fucking monster?"
The sword was lifted away and Amadeus's arm found its way around Alek's throat instead, lifted him from his seat with a disturbing lack of effort. "Four hundred years worth of my wor
k ruined. Four. Hundred. Years..."
Alek choked, tasted blood like smeltered steel in the back of his throat, thought with distant, childlike rage that the heroes in the stories he'd read as a child had never died like this, doing the right thing. Not fair. Not fair at all. Alek sobbed as something broke from him, some runaway rage. He twisted in his hangman position, clawed at his master's face like a cat.
Amadeus snarled and let his acolyte blight his face with wounds and held him still with ugly strength. "The beast runs strong in your veins, beloved, so you cannot be held responsible for your foolhardy decisions. As I have said many times, we are all of two minds. But you mustn't worry." He smiled. "All will be made right again."
"Let me go," Alek gurgled. "Please--I don't want to be Covenmaster--pleeease--"
Amadeus dropped him.
Alek coughed bloodily. But as if in answer to his pleas, a pair of stony hands clamped around Alek's head like a living vice and turned his attention on the bloody mess on the floor at his feet. Amadeus's voice cooed in his ear as if he were only a young student again. "Now you will tell me," he said, "was the whore's death--"
"Damn you."
"--price enough--"
"God damn you."
"--for this?"
"This is between you and me!"
"No, pet, this is between you and me and whomever you choose to involve. And now you will give up on this silly quest, lest your other little whore breaks as well."
Alek gave up and wept silent, heavy tears. For Debra and for Akisha and for himself lastly because he was lost and out of love and he could not, could not break these inhuman hands holding him in place...
Amadeus leaned close, their hair mingling, and touched the pointed tip of his tongue to one of the spattering of tears sliding freely down Alek's face. Alek balked at the contact, thrashed uselessly in Amadeus's ironlike embrace
Amadeus sighed. "I should release you and then where would you run? Where would you go that I could not feel your heart beating and drawing me on? I taught you once that when you run, you run only into the waiting arms of your destiny. And I am that destiny."
Slayer Page 17
