He is a fitting tribute, Veronique decided. So nearly perfect. A worthy vessel.
“Enough!” she said, and moved forward, herding the sycophants away. “You will all stand at the edge of the circle, but you will turn your backs toward the center. You will not look, you will not see. Ephialtes will come to glory, but you must not turn. Should one of you dare even to glance over his shoulder, I will tear your eyes out with a single talon and pop them between my teeth. Do you all understand?”
They all nodded, moved to the edges of the circle, and turned their backs to Ephialtes. Veronique watched Konstantin for a moment. There was a curiosity to him but a strength as well. She thought that with Ephialtes gone, she would make Konstantin her lieutenant, or something more. Veronique was a creature of desires, always had been. It was her habit to take a lover from among her followers, and she wondered whom she might bestow that honor upon when Ephialtes was gone. Perhaps Konstantin. Perhaps not.
But for the moment, she knew she must push all such thoughts aside. Veronique had every expectation that the ritual would be successful. It was a simple thing, really, once the appropriate preparations had been made — and she had been meticulous about doing so.
Yes, shortly . . . shortly . . .
Veronique shuddered as a wave of depraved pleasure, of filthy ecstasy, swept over and through her. The sudden thought, the realization of all that she had been taking for granted, nearly overwhelmed her. After so long, all the centuries she had survived, dying again and again, the time had finally come. The Triumvirate would soon emerge into the human world, and all the things they had promised Veronique for so long would finally be hers.
Another shudder passed through her, and Veronique realized that she had transformed without intending to do so. Her face was feral now, the face of a vampire. Her eyes were yellow, and her mouth was open, fangs glistening. With a smile of vicious pleasure, she crossed to where Ephialtes stood, alone and naked and ready to die.
With a thin smile, Veronique kissed him. To his credit, Ephialtes returned her lustful attentions but said nothing. Then, after a moment, she nipped his lip with a fang, grinned, and moved with him toward the center of the circle. She nodded, gesturing for him to lie on the cold floor, surrounded by arcane images and flickering candles. She ran her hands over his body, gently at first. Then her lengthening fingernails dug into his skin, and Veronique sliced bloody furrows into his flesh.
Ephialtes grunted, tensing slightly, and his face transformed as well. But he did not cry out. Did not even blink. He went to his glorious destiny without hesitation.
She wanted him then, but she did not act upon it. The time for such indulgences had passed.
“Open yourself, Ephialtes,” she whispered in Greek. “Empty your mind. Prepare yourself as receptacle for all the power of Hell, and be blessed.”
Veronique stepped back beyond the edges of the circle. Within, Ephialtes spread his arms and legs wide, so that his body was an X upon the floor.
Then the Harbinger closed her eyes and began to sing. The language was ancient, belonging, as it had, to those twisted souls who had first torn away the veil between the world of man and the realm of demons and peered beyond to come away only with visions of madness. But it had been a beginning. Man had evolved a great deal since then, but he still feared the dark.
The five vampires she had sired stood around the circle, their backs to Ephialtes, and not one of them dared so much as a glance. Veronique swayed as she sang. The candles flared impossibly high, raging infernos of wax and wick and infernal flame. The fire roared. Ephialtes bucked, shrieking, his voice high and ragged and then suddenly silent. His mouth remained open, screaming in pain and terror, but no sound came from it.
“Yes,” Veronique whispered. She had attempted this so many times, and each time she had been thwarted. At first, her own ignorance had prevented her from succeeding. And later, after she had determined what she had been doing incorrectly, she had been interfered with. The last time, long ago in Venice, it had been that damned Slayer.
Veronique hated Slayers.
On the floor, the symbols etched there seemed to glow with a hideous light.
In an instant, it ceased. Ephialtes settled back with a heavy, sweaty slap onto the floor. The candle fire was snuffed, each leaving little more than a black mark in its place, casting the room into darkness, save for the light from the streetlamps outside.
As she stared at Ephialtes, Veronique was momentarily frozen with the fluttering of hope within her cold, dead heart. For another moment, she hesitated, then she moved into the circle and knelt quickly at his side. The wounds that she had made were sealed, the blood that had been spilled gone as if it had never been. Ephialtes’s mouth was gone, his lips sealed together so tightly they seemed little more than a scar running across an otherwise unmarked face.
So, too, his eyes.
So, too, his nostrils.
His body had been completely sealed in order to protect that which even now incubated at extraordinary speed within. He had reached the last stage of the metamorphosis of his long life. From man to vampire and, now, to egg.
A beatific smile spread across Veronique’s features as she truly realized, for the first time, what she had done. Not brought her master to Earth, not quite yet. But the seeds had been planted, that much was certain.
She rejoiced.
Then she got down to business.
“Konstantin. Get him into the nest,” she ordered. “Immediately.”
The vampire responded instantly. With little more than a glance at the others, he indicated that they should help him. They went to Ephialtes’s still form and lifted him quickly. One of the vampires grunted as they lifted him. As they carried Ephialtes across the room to the open door of the office where the nest had been built, Konstantin glanced over at his mistress.
“He is quite heavy, Harbinger,” the vampire said, his voice hushed. “What will happen now?”
Veronique’s smile faded. Her nostrils flared. Without an ounce of amusement, but only wonder and the slow gnawing of her bloodlust, she whispered a reply.
“Something wonderful.”
One of her vampire servants, a tall, tawny-skinned female named Catherine, who had been an exchange student from Taiwan before Veronique claimed her, gasped and nearly let Ephialtes fall from her grip.
“Fool!” Veronique snapped.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” the girl stammered, as though she were still nothing more than human. “It’s just . . . something moved.”
“Harbinger, look at his belly,” Konstantin said in a ragged whisper.
She did. His stomach was distended. Beneath the skin, something moved. Or, rather, things moved, pressing against the skin from beneath. Veronique stared a moment in amazement, in spite of herself.
“Hurry.”
They did. Quickly, Konstantin, Catherine, and the others settled Ephialtes’s body into the nest that had been constructed within the office. The materials had been cobbled together, for the most part, from the building itself. Wood from shattered furniture, stone and brick from crumbling walls, cloth lining that had been the clothing of the human prey whose corpses even now decayed in the basement.
As one, they stepped back to allow Veronique through the door. She stood and looked upon Ephialtes’s naked form. His skin had taken on the sheen and texture of wax in just the moments that had passed since the end of the ritual.
But she spared only a brief glance for the rest of him. Her eyes were otherwise riveted on his bulging gut. They were all silent now. None of them even made the pretense of breath that was common among newborns. And in that absolute silence, they heard the ripping. Tearing. Chewing.
Ephialtes’s stomach stretched upward, and then the skin tore and split, three sets of talons ripping at their surroundings. Three pairs of eyes glowed a deep, mesmerizing red in the darkness.
“The Three-Who-Are-One,” Veronique whispered. “The Triumvirate.”
The hatc
hlings were covered in golden scales, awash with blood and gore. Their talons were razor sharp, their mouths filled with gleaming, gnashing teeth. Their heads and snouts were lined with jagged ridges, topped with needle-thin spines, almost reptilian, but some nightmarish vision of a reptile.
Still, they ate, moving in a stew of Ephialtes’s organs and intestines, feasting, their eyes roving around, studying the vampires who even now looked upon their hideous savagery.
“They’re like horrible little dragons,” Catherine whispered in wonder.
“They’re magnificent,” Veronique said. “And this is only the beginning. They’re nothing but hatchlings now. But in the time between this night and the night of the Reunification, when the portents are right and the stars aligned, the hatchlings will grow. Oh, they’ll grow.”
Somehow, she was certain of that. They’d whispered as much to her in her dreams. And something else besides.
“But in order for them to grow,” she added, turning to Konstantin, “they’ll need to eat. Go, now, and bring one of the dead up from the basement. Begin with the oldest, most rancid meat. I expect they’ll turn their noses up at a fresh kill.”
Konstantin blinked. “But Ephialtes —”
“— had been dead a very long time,” Veronique cut in. “Now go.” Then she turned to the others. “Catherine. I charge you with a vital responsibility. I must continue the Gathering of Thirteen. I leave it to you to continue your cemetery visits. We must not run out of sustenance for the hatchlings.
“Even if you have to rob every grave in Sunnydale.”
“Maybe Dr. Frankenstein has all the corpses he needs?” Xander suggested.
“Let’s hope not,” Cordelia replied. “I mean, if he’s dug his last grave, we’ll never catch the guy, and then we’ll never know what he’s doing, and if he’s trying to build the perfect body, you know he’s going to need part of me.”
Oz and Willow both turned to stare dubiously at her.
“What?” Cordelia protested. “That always happens.”
Oz shrugged. “She has a point.”
“A very small point,” Xander admitted.
“Wait, so now we’re actually hoping our grave robber hasn’t completed whatever perfidious thing he’s got going with the missing corpses?” Willow asked, looking down sadly. “Somehow, I have the feeling our priorities got majorly out of order somewhere.”
Xander frowned. “Perfidious.”
“Oz gave me one of those word-of-the-day calendars,” Willow explained. “Today equals perfidious.”
“Perfidious,” Xander repeated.
Cordelia sighed. “God, Xander, it means —”
“I know what it means,” he said defensively. “Just don’t necessarily recall ever hearing it used in a sentence. Except maybe at a spelling bee. Anyway, are we really thinking our guy’s given up the ghost? So to speak.”
There was a moment’s pause as they all contemplated that question. Willow’s research had revealed that no fewer than seventeen graves had been ransacked in the previous ten days from the dozen cemeteries within the town limits. And those were only the ones Willow could find by hacking police and town hall records.
But last night, nothing.
They’d patrolled for hours, split into two teams. Oz and Willow, and Xander and Xander. It was supposed to be Xander and Cordelia, but she’d had other priorities. Tonight, though, she’d apparently realized that the threat was serious . . . or, and to Xander’s mind more likely, Giles had simply guilt-tripped her into behaving herself. Once again, they’d split off, but after hitting five cemeteries apiece and coming up empty, they’d decided to do the last two, Restfield and Shady Hill, together.
Now they stood in the middle of Shady Hill Cemetery, completely baffled.
“I don’t know, Xander,” Willow said at length. “I mean, just because we don’t have a record of a grave robbing last night doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.”
“Even if there wasn’t,” Oz added, “doesn’t mean the groovy ghoulie has given up. Maybe he had a date last night.”
“Maybe he’s been digging up his dates,” Xander suggested.
“Eeew,” Willow and Cordelia said in harmony. Even Oz wrinkled his nose.
“Sometimes I just can’t help myself,” Xander said, head hung in mock shame.
“Do you think we could move on to our last stop so I can get home? Believe it or not, I do need some beauty rest from time to time. Unlike the rest of you, I have people who expect me to look my best. It’s not a responsibility I take lightly,” Cordelia said snappishly.
“Cordelia,” Willow said, chiding her like a patient schoolteacher.“We are trying to figure out the pattern of a series of pretty gruesome crimes that make no sense at all. You offered to help.”
“Actually,” Oz noted quietly, “I’m sort of trying to figure out how a place with no trees and not much of a hill could be called Shady Hill. But that’s me.”
Cordelia ignored him, giving Willow a scandalized how-dare-you stare. “Help? Um, hello? What do you think I’ve been doing?”
“Mostly carping about how knowing all of us has ruined your life. Which, by the way, gives me an immense happy,” Xander told her.
Cordelia just glared.
“Tell you what,” Oz said. “We spread out, do a quick run through this place, buzz over to Restfield, and do the same. Then home. Tomorrow . . . you look even better than you did today.”
Now Cordelia beamed. She reached out and grabbed a flashlight from Xander, glared at him, and started off in the opposite direction. “The sooner we get this done, the better,” she muttered.
Xander was staring at Oz.
Oz raised an eyebrow.
“That was more than I think I’ve ever heard you say at one time,” Xander said in astonishment. “And you . . . complimented Cordelia.”
Oz just grinned, then started up the gentle rise toward a huge old family crypt with the name “HART” engraved above the door. Xander watched him go, then turned to see Willow shaking her head and sighing, staring after Oz lovingly.
“What?” Xander asked. “You’re not jealous? He just said Cordelia was beautiful.”
“No,” Willow replied. “He didn’t. That was only a compliment if you’re as vain as Cordelia.”
Then, vastly entertained by the cleverness of her taciturn boyfriend, Willow turned and started off on a path perpendicular to the line between Oz and Cordelia. Shaking his head with confusion, Xander sighed and moved off the other way.
Shady Hill Cemetery wasn’t much to look at. Angel’s house wasn’t that far away, and like most everything in that part of Sunnydale, this particular cemetery had been really something in the forties and early fifties. The people who’d been buried here back then were wealthy enough to be remembered with enough pomp and circumstance that Xander thought it bordered on the silly. There were enormous angels with swords drawn and fat little cherubs with open, loving arms. There were vast crypts with intricate carving, some of which, according to the plaques outside, had only two or three people laid to rest within.
But as the years had passed, and many of the wealthiest families moved to newer areas, or even more ridiculously ostentatious dwellings, the neighborhood around Shady Hill had sort of faded and cracked, like an old photograph. The cemetery was the same. There were broken headstones that looked as though they might have lain that way for years. Weeds had spread wildly in some places. It was all just . . . old.
“Old,” Xander whispered.
He frowned, mind working, moving in unusual patterns. Without missing a step, he turned and started after Willow. After a moment, he jogged lightly. He hadn’t gone that far when he saw her and let out a little whistle, a terrible imitation of a bird that they’d used to call out to each other when they were kids.
Willow stopped in mid-stride and looked back at him. Xander beckoned to her, and she started back, walking fast. He saw movement in his peripheral vision and turned to see Cordelia coming toward him
as well. He took a quick glance up the hill, but all he could see was the enormous Hart crypt. Oz was nowhere in sight.
“What is it?” Willow asked, frowning with concern as she reached him.
“Just a thought,” he said. “You were sort of rattling off the names and stuff on the missing bodies, and . . . they’re all recent, aren’t they?”
Then Cordelia was there with them. “Nothing that way,” she said. “Home, please.”
They ignored her.
“Well, they were all in the last year or so,” Willow said, “but I don’t know if that counts as recent.”
“A lot more recent than anybody buried in this place,” he reasoned. “They’re not exactly lining up around the block to get in. And if our guy knows that, would he even come in here to begin with?”
“Hello?” Cordelia said, more loudly.
“But there must be some recent graves here,” Willow said, frowning. “And he can’t just keep hitting the same spots, or the police . . . would just do nothing. Still, though, it makes sense that he’d try to vary his activities.”
“I don’t know,” Xander said. “I think we should just get on to Restfield. Ah, what do I know? Maybe I’m just —”
“A lot,” Cordelia snapped. “You know plenty. You want to go, and I’m on board with that. Let’s just get Oz, and maybe I can still be human in the morning.”
“Still?” Xander asked.
Willow had think-face. Which, to Xander, was good. He’d had one logical stream of thought tonight, and he didn’t want to risk hurting himself by trying for two.
“You do have a point, though, Xander,” Willow said pleasantly. “Maybe we should just go.”
“Y’know, if we just start with my plan in the future, these nights will go by that much faster,” Cordelia observed. “Now, why don’t we . . .”
Her face went slack.
“Cordelia?” Willow asked with concern.
Xander waved a hand in front of her face. “What’s wrong?”
With a nervous glance at the ground, Cordelia took a step backward. “Um, nothing. Let’s just go. I need to get home and . . . oh, all right. I can’t stand these high-pressure tactics. You’re like the old salesladies at Neiman Marcus.”
Immortal Page 8
