Of Masques and Martyrs

by Christopher Golden

“She’s just awoken,” Tsumi explained.

  Then Hannibal realized who the woman was.

  “Ah, Mrs. Collins,” he said, “is it possible for me to enter your home and welcome you to mine at the same time? If so, I do.”

  “No, lord,” Mrs. Collins said softly. “It’s your home now. I hope that it’s everything you desire.”

  “Oh, it is,” Hannibal replied. “It truly is. And you, madam? You’re feeling no ill effects from your . . . transformation? I imagine all that horrible pain in your stomach is gone now, hmm?”

  The former owner of the house, Mrs. Collins had suffered from intestinal cancer previous to her death. Tsumi had truly done an exemplary job of finding such a woman—with such a house. Especially since Hannibal had been forced to rush her at the end.

  Yes, this house would most assuredly do. It would be the place from which he would take control of New Orleans, making it completely his own the way he had New York. Then he would leave someone, perhaps Tsumi, in charge, and move on. But of course, New Orleans would be the sweetest victory because it would mean the end of civil war. The end of Peter Octavian and his acolytes once and for all.

  Hannibal smiled down on Mrs. Collins. “Have you eaten, darling?” he asked.

  Tsumi shook her head gently. “She’s still getting used to the idea,” she explained. “Though we’ve got her night nurse upstairs, unconscious. Getting her to eat has been a trial.”

  “Has it?” Hannibal asked as his eyes darkened, narrowed. He stepped forward to grab hold of Mrs. Collins’s chin in a crushing grip, silently commanded her to meet his gaze.

  “You will kill that cow upstairs, and you will do it now,” he said. “You will drink her life down and you will exhilarate in it. We are not in the habit of caring for children, Mrs. Collins. Instead, we eat their hearts. Do you understand?”

  “Y-y-yes, lord,” she stammered.

  “Sima,” Hannibal said, and the huge Viking dragged the woman from the room. She would drink or die. Hannibal didn’t trust any vampire who didn’t want to kill. In fact, now that the house had been sold to him—for one dollar—he might simply kill her anyway.

  He glanced around again. Ah, but it was a beautiful house.

  “I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” he told Tsumi.

  As Hannibal stared out the window at the gardens beyond, Tsumi came up behind him.

  “The house is being prepared, Hannibal,” she explained. “As many as possible will sleep here today, and possibly tomorrow as well, depending on how the battle proceeds. After that, we will disseminate them all over the city.”

  “I’m very excited,” he admitted, and he thought of Will Cody and Peter Octavian, of what he planned to do to them. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep at all today.”

  In a camp hastily thrown together an hour before dawn, U.N. troops wolfed down whatever breakfast they could get their hands on. It wasn’t pancakes and sausages as far as Commander Jimenez was concerned—even though that’s what they were calling it—but the military didn’t waste too much time with culinary concerns.

  Roberto stood in front of one of the large mess tents and sipped black coffee. He watched the sun rise over the blackened and still burning city of Atlanta, torn by the sight.

  It was a job well done. They’d taken down a huge vampire population with limited human casualties, military or civilian. He ought to be proud. It was his plan, after all, and it had worked. And in the weeks to come, they’d do it at least three more times, maybe as many as half a dozen, around the world.

  If it came to it—and Roberto thought it would—they might even have to torch all of Manhattan Island.

  That’s what got him. Atlanta had been nothing more than an experiment in feasibility. If they’d really wanted an effective first strike, they’d have had to burn New York City down. But Atlanta had seemed, somehow, less of a risk. A world-class city, yes, but in its way, New York was the hub of the world.

  They had to be sure of what they were doing before taking such drastic measures.

  Now they were sure.

  A lot of dead vampires. Roberto’s heart raced as he thought of their fear, their agony. He hoped that the others would remain as arrogant as always, and not see the events in Atlanta as much of a threat to their own cities.

  He hoped John and Lucy Macchio had made it out okay. Roberto knew a number of people in Atlanta but he’d been friends with the Macchios for years.

  He thought of their kids, Little Jack and April, who was just four.

  And he found himself staring at the ruins of the city even more intently. His eyes narrowed, watching the flames. He thought of John and Lucy and the kids and wondered when he’d last spoken with them. Roberto couldn’t remember. They might even have moved out earlier, when things started to get bad.

  Moved out and left behind their jobs and schools and home and friends and family . . . and all the things that made a life. All the things that he had burned.

  Commander Roberto Jimenez refused to acknowledge the way his eyes began to water, wouldn’t even wipe a hand across them. His hatred for the vampires grew even more intense in that moment, but something else happened as well. As Roberto watched a city full of homes and hopes and dreams burn, he began to hate himself, just a little.

  11

  We all have a face that we hide away forever,

  then we take them out and show ourselves,

  when everyone has gone.

  —BILLY JOEL, “The Stranger”

  KUROMAKU SAT ON A BLACK WROUGHT-IRON chair on the patio at Café du Monde and watched as the day got under way in and around Jackson Square, at the heart of the French Quarter. By this time of year, New Orleans had usually grown quite warm already, even hot, but this morning was cool. Several tourists wandering about after breakfast had their hands stuffed into their pockets.

  But Kuromaku could sense the weather changing around him, could smell it on the wind, and knew it would grow warmer as the day grew long. He guessed that the next day would be quite hot. Yet, at this point, the weather was the least of the Crescent City’s concerns. Right now, the question was whether New Orleans would even still be standing by this time the next day.

  A self-deprecating smile came over his face as Kuromaku wondered about such melodrama infecting his thoughts. It was all too human. He appreciated all that Peter Octavian had opened his mind to, was grateful to realize that there was still a great deal of humanity within the shadows, even if they failed to realize it.

  As a warrior, however, he wondered if he had become too human in recent years. Too sensitive to the smaller things, the details of life. He’d heard westerners use the expression “God is in the details.” He wasn’t quite sure, nor had he ever been, what the phrase was intended to mean. But he knew what it meant to him.

  Not merely the appreciation of a flower or a sunrise, but the longing gaze of human love, the gentle lilt of a child’s laughter, the soft crinkles around aged eyes. These were the holiest of things, the things that gave humanity its value. God, or whatever higher divine power might exist, was indeed in the details. It wasn’t mere humanity, but the awareness of it, the recognition that made one a human being. And in some ways, the shadows were gifted with an even greater ability to recognize that divinity, those details.

  They were closer to heaven, he believed.

  Thus, they had much farther to fall.

  He thought of these details, the things that might make immortality attractive and yet were so often forgotten instantly upon attaining it.

  Kuromaku sipped from his steaming café au lait and lowered it to the table. Half a block away, a sax man got an early start. Kuromaku ate the last beignet on his plate, drained what remained of his coffee, and stood up from the wrought iron chair. Leaving a sizable tip, he strolled out across Decatur Street and through the gates of the park at Jackson Square.

  On a bench across from the statue of Andrew Jackson, Kuromaku chuckled softly to himself. His mind was straying into are
as best left alone. But he could not help himself. His musing about the little things in life brought memories of his own humanity, memories of his baby sister, long centuries ago, before either of them had died.

  How she’d worshiped him then. How she’d performed for him, desperately craving his attention and approval at every step of her life. Even after, when she had been born into the shadows, she had followed his lead, had embarked upon a life of noble battles and quiet suffering.

  But time had changed her. Corrupted her. Kuromaku remembered Tsumi when she was still the sister of his heart; but he could not stop himself from wondering if she remembered as well. Or if she had forgotten herself entirely.

  “Mornin’ sir,” an elderly black man said, approaching with a coffee-stained Dunkin’ Donuts cup in one hand. “Help an old man get some breakfast, sir?”

  Kuromaku stared at the old man a moment, then nodded. He reached a hand into his pocket, peeled a bill off his bankroll, and dropped it into the man’s cup. He saw the wrinkles around the man’s eyes stretch as the beggar recognized the face of Benjamin Franklin on the bill. Kuromaku hoped the old man would spend the money wisely: buy some food, clean himself up. But he’d done what he could.

  In another life, he might have simply drained the man dry, thinking him the refuse of a consumer society. But Peter Octavian had changed that part of him. Shown him his own humanity, and how to make it bloom.

  So Kuromaku was torn. He had dedicated himself to Peter’s cause. It was the only thing worth living for after all that time. But in his mind’s eye, his little sister Tsumi still clapped delightedly when he did a headstand.

  He knew he shouldn’t do it. Knew it was a mistake from the outset. But Kuromaku closed his eyes, ignoring the profuse thanks the old man still spouted as he walked away. Kuromaku shut out the birdsong and the distant saxophone, the idle chatter of passersby. He focused his mind on one thing.

  Tsumi, his mind whispered, spreading out across the city in search of her. Before, he hadn’t wanted her to know where he was. But he wasn’t at the convent now. Even if her mind located him, she wouldn’t be able to hurt the others with that information. And Kuromaku felt that he at least had to try. She was his sister, after all, and the idea that their swords might soon clash disturbed him greatly.

  Tsumi, he thought again, and his eyelids fluttered slightly as he mentally sifted through the ether. There were many vampires in New Orleans. He could sense them, but not pinpoint their locations. They were not his bloodkin. Tsumi was his sister by human birth, and by her rebirth in shadows. Even if she knew he was in New Orleans, and was purposely trying to hide herself, he should at least be able to . . .

  Ah. There.

  Kuromaku blocked out the clatter of hooves from horses drawing rickety carriages across cobblestone, and the wail of ancient saxophone, and the constant exotic blend of aromas; he blocked even the feel of the bench beneath him, the sun on his face, and the slight breeze across his brow.

  Instead, he felt the suffocating closeness of other bodies smothering around him and the growing heat of the day in a tightly shuttered room.

  Tsumi’s eyes snapped open, her lip curling back in an instinctive snarl. She’d been sleeping, resting, so that she might fulfill Hannibal’s expectations of her that night. Hannibal. Somewhere in the house, he would be sitting awake, she knew. Unable to sleep due to his growing anticipation. He’d—

  No. What had woken her? The touch of a mind had. . . .

  “Kuromaku,” she thought, feeling him there with her. Instantly, she shuttered her mind tightly, closing out all but a thin connection between them. “Have you turned against me now? Are you giving your friend Octavian our location even as our minds meet?”

  She felt him smile, but felt as well the melancholy in it.

  “If I’d been able to determine your location, yes, I would have given it to the coven, my allies,” he admitted. “You should leave New Orleans. I have no wish to kill my own sister. I know that Peter hurt you once, very badly. If you wished to face him in honorable combat, I would not oppose it. But, Tsumi, what you do now with Hannibal is not honorable. In truth, it would seem only to make Peter’s reasons for spurning your love nothing less than prophetic.”

  Tsumi felt her face contort with fury, and she imagined her mind, her thoughts, a dagger as she thrust them at her brother.

  “It’s not only him I hate, Kuromaku. I hate you, as well,” she sneered, exhilarated by this admission. “I am a vampire, brother. For centuries, I have crushed every emotion that rose in my heart, trying to become the monster you made me. Now it’s all that I know. Hannibal is a hero, my brother. If what I’ve become horrifies you, remind yourself that it was your doing!”

  She felt Kuromaku reel from her words, and Tsumi rejoiced in it.

  “You begged for eternal life, Tsumi. Or have you forgotten your pleas to me not to leave you behind to die?” he roared in her mind.

  “I didn’t understand what I was asking!” she cried in return. “You knew! I would have hated you then, but you should have let me die hating you rather than making me live like this.”

  Their mental rapport crackled with angry silence.

  “I loved my little sister,” Kuromaku thought, his mind whispering it with a heartfelt pain that only made Tsumi scowl.

  “I was ecstatic to have you with me,” he thought. “What I gave you was the gift of eternal life. Thanks to the truths Peter has uncovered, I believe that now more than ever. The curse has been lifted from our kind, Tsumi, and Hannibal and his brood are so terrified of coming into the light, of that freedom and the responsibilities that the truth entails . . . ”

  Tsumi felt her brother sigh.

  “The truth is that we have free will, just like the humans,” Kuromaku thought. “Hannibal chooses evil but will kill anyone to retain his ignorance of that fact. If you embrace the myth, the monstrous evil of vampires, you believe you cannot be held responsible for your perversions and predations.

  “In the end, it just makes you all an army of craven cowards,” he thought, his mind cold to her now.

  “Tonight,” Tsumi snapped in return, “the streets of New Orleans will be painted with human blood and strewn with the flesh of the undead. If we meet, we will see who is a coward, Kuromaku. For you may shirk at the task, but I will not hesitate to take your head. ”

  “So be it!” Kuromaku said aloud, opening his eyes, the connection to his sister now broken.

  His outburst had drawn quite a bit of attention. A young couple hand in hand turned to stare at him, but Kuromaku ignored them, ignored all those who had focused their attention on him for that moment. He rose from the bench and hurried along the path through Jackson Square.

  When Bethany appeared beside him, Kuromaku was startled.

  “You’re good for your age,” he said. “Sneaking up on me like that.”

  “Well, you were a bit distracted,” she said. “That was quite a performance back there, by the way. Who were you ‘speaking’ with?”

  Kuromaku froze, spun, and stared down at the shadow woman, lips set in a grim line.

  “You’re not unattractive, girl, and you seem kind in your way,” he said menacingly. “But I don’t think you’ve come upon me now by chance, nor do I think it was your own curiosity which set you after me. Someone in your coven has asked you to keep an eye on me. I won’t object.

  “But if you ever question my loyalty to this cause or to Peter Octavian, I will tear your eyes out by their roots and fill the ragged holes with silver!”

  Bethany’s face fell apart; fear, horror, disgust all played across her features as her jaw dropped and she blinked away red tears that began to well up in her eyes.

  “I’m not . . . I’m . . . sorry, I . . . ” she stammered.

  Kuromaku blinked, then looked away, the rage draining from him.

  “No, I’m sorry,” he said softly. “It’s only that this is not the time to question my loyalty. You see, I’m planning to murder my sister tonig
ht.”

  The chapel was full this time. Or it had been half an hour earlier. Perhaps a dozen people had left the room since that time. George Marcopoulos stood in the rear of the chapel and fought the horror and sorrow that threatened to wash over him.

  Multicolored light poured through stained glass, cascaded across the faces and bowed heads of those sitting and kneeling at the pews. Some prayed, some merely waited. Some had desperately wanted to be there, others had made the choice out of loyalty, or love, or some ancient and nearly extinct nobility. Several people had even gotten up and walked out, having changed their minds at the last moment.

  George couldn’t blame them. He would not have joined them for the world.

  “George,” a voice whispered at his side. He turned to see that Bethany Hart had entered the chapel. Many of those gathered glanced up, and most of them looked quickly away. Two or three lingered, watching her. Finally, all but one of them dropped their heads.

  “Denny’s been waiting for you,” George said quietly. “He says you promised it would be you.”

  Bethany smiled, but George could see the sadness in her eyes. Perhaps, though she was no longer human, she felt a little of what George was feeling. It occurred to him, in a horrible way, that it was a bit like Jonestown. But he pushed the idea away. It was nothing like Jonestown. These people all knew exactly what they were getting themselves into. It had all been explained at great length, every question answered. All but one. All but George’s question.

  Was it even possible for them to know what they were getting themselves into, no matter how many questions they asked, without dying first? Would they regret it when they awoke? He was certain some of them would. The thought of their regret sickened him.

  “I’m sorry,” Bethany replied, “I had an . . . errand to run.”

  Their eyes met again, pain shared, and she nodded and put a hand on his stooped shoulder.