Blacker than Black

by Rhi Etzweiler

  “Fat lot of good it did.”

  “Indeed.”

  “That doesn’t explain why.”

  A heartbeat of silence, reluctance resonating through his aura. “You recall what I told you of Alpha’s presence in my metro.”

  “The diner. Yeah, I remember.”

  “They’ve been attempting to expand. To strengthen their stance. Soiphe and I caught whispers of Alpha courting an alliance with Kraveon. Premier to Premier, the sort of bond that, if forged, would align the forces and assets of their entire circles together. Fusing one to the other. The kind of power fusion that a minor truce with Modere could not hope to stand against.”

  “So you were trying to prevent what would functionally be a declaration of war?”

  “Alpha has always been the oldest, the strongest, but with the rest of us countering, the balance has been maintained. This alliance is of the sort that would not just upset that, but demolish it. Much in the same way the disclosure was triggered.”

  He’s venturing into areas and subjects of which I have zero understanding or knowledge. I can’t follow the thread of logic that leads from an unwanted alliance, to a pair of mutts whose foremost aspirations and goals involve earning enough to visit our mother’s old house in the countryside. But . . .

  “It sounds suspiciously like you hunted us down as leverage? Against our sire. What’s he have to do with all this?”

  “As Premier of Alpha, he’s the one seeking to join in an alliance with the Premier of Kraveon.”

  I push up, bracing on an elbow to stare down at him. A chill running down my spine, praying to Gaia I haven’t allowed myself to be so thoroughly manipulated. I try not to even think about what that would mean, but the words come spilling out. “You realize he doesn’t give two shits about us, right? You can’t possibly hope to blackmail him—”

  “You misunderstand.” He traces his fingertips over my face, the furrow of my scowl, the tension around the corners of my eyes. “This began as an effort to locate the two of you before he could. Of keeping you out of his grasp, no matter the cost. You’re the price he’s willing to pay to complete this alliance. The energy of his get, the Kraveon’s demand. He wouldn’t think to risk his full-lyche offspring. They’re old enough to defend themselves. So he came looking for you.”

  “You hope to protect us from him. A Monsieur against a Premier?”

  Leonard snakes an arm around my waist, holding me close, fingers digging into my flesh. An edge of desperation in his aura, determination on his face. The mask of the Monsieur of York meets my gaze. “I couldn’t possibly. As lyche, we may not put much weight on the bond of blood, but as a claim it usurps all others. He’ll come. I’ve planned on it. You see,” and here his fingers trail over my face, tracing cheekbone, jaw, chin, lips, his eyes following his touch, “in order to save your sire, I have to draw the puppet master out. And in order to rid my territory of Alpha’s influence, I have to gain access to the embassy. Draw the ambassador out. Kill him. The ambassadorial presence is a truce agreement with the individual, not the circle.”

  My pulse hammers in my ears so loud I’m surprised he can’t hear it. I expect my aura is betraying me enough that Leonard doesn’t need to hear it, but I don’t care. “I’m a pawn. Jhez and I both, that’s all we are?” He’s talking of killing two lyche in one stroke. With what army?

  His arm tightens. “No. The furthest thing from it.” Leonard slides his free hand up my side, trailing over the tangled cloth, lingering on exposed flesh, aural tendrils sinking deep, teasing, stroking. “You think I would throw you away so carelessly?” His words are a whisper of sound, the mask of the Monsieur evaporating abruptly. “No. I need you in there, with me. And the only way to get you there without attracting suspicion is to let him take you. I need you there when this goes down.”

  Mistrusting, I watch his face, his calm, open expression. No attempt to avoid my gaze. Or my own aural tendrils when I sink them deep, searching for a thread of taint. Subversion, evidence of half-truths and attempts at manipulation. It all leaves a smear in the energy. I doubt, and I search, to no avail. There’s nothing.

  His determination is impressive. He doesn’t think he’s infallible in the least, but he’s willing to risk everything in one bold throw. Lyche and their games. How much of this has been planned from the outset? Not that it matters. I’m as tangled as a fly who thrashes in the web. Emotionally as well as all the rest. Maybe I’m a sucker after all, but I’m a loyal one. And he didn’t steal the emotions, I gave them freely. Don’t even know if he realizes all that just yet.

  “Explain to me how this is going to go down.”

  He shakes his head, and when my anger flares his arm tightens, restraining me. “Stop, mon noire. Listen to me, please.” I slam my fist into his chest, and he catches my hand in his, grip firm and unyielding. “Your emotional responses must be authentic. They’ll recognize if you feign it, and be on their guard. I don’t have the strength to face them that way. Not if I hope to overthrow their plans and take out the ambassador as well. They have to be relaxed, confident that they’re safe, secure in success.”

  I want to be sick. Who’s the puppet master now?

  A rap on the office door, swift and sharp, precedes it swinging inward by only a heartbeat.

  “Monsieur, you’ve a visitor.” The butler stands there, one hand on the knob, his usually pristine demeanor visibly ready to shatter. He fists the fingers of his other hand in the material of his crisp, black slacks. “Awaiting your presence in your formal office. And may I say he is not doing so with any measure of patience? I think perhaps the prospect of beginning an inter-territorial dispute, or worse yet, outright inter-circular warfare, is all that restricts him to the proper protocols.”

  Leonard’s arms stiffen, hands clenched into fists in his pockets, knuckles straining the linen. “Is that so. Does this marginally civilized individual have a name?”

  I do my best to remain completely still, even going so far as to hold my breath. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one attempting to confront the Monsieur of York this afternoon. There’s no other plausible reason for the audience request being executed in such a fashion. That much is obvious.

  “He declined to provide his surname. The only identification he offered was his circle symbol. Alpha, Monsieur. Unmistakable.”

  “You’re certain.”

  The butler huffs in disbelief and glances back over his shoulder, as if fearing the unexpected guest has followed him through the halls to find the Monsieur of York. “You wound me. Shall I tell the gentleman you’ll see him shortly?”

  He shakes his head. “No need to do that. I’ll go see to this myself.”

  The relief is readily apparent in the butler’s face, the lines of tension and fear relaxing from his features, his posture. “Thank you, Monsieur.”

  “Not at all. In fact, remain here while I’m gone, in the event that Jhez needs anything for our other guest.” He gestures in the direction of the bedroom door, and the butler gives a crisp nod of assent before stepping inside and holding the door for Leonard, who takes a step toward the hall, then glances back at me expectantly. “Well? Come along then. I might have need of your energy on hand. And you’ll find it interesting to meet your sire after all these years, I expect.”

  Glancing at the closed bedroom doesn’t make Jhez appear suddenly. I’m grateful I can spare her this, but at the same time . . . I chew my lip and study Leonard as I follow in his wake. “How do you know it’s actually him?”

  The line of his back is stiff, straight. As if he’s holding himself that way through sheer force of will alone. I lengthen my stride to walk at his side, watch him in my peripheral vision. He doesn’t look at me, just makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat and keeps walking, shoulder bumping mine, as he leads the way through Dragulhaven’s labyrinthine corridors. I don’t really want to forge a connection with my sire. The man who abandoned me and Jhez to the whims of fate, for the streets to ba
tter, for strangers to abuse. The man who plans to trade us to further his own aims.

  Are all lyche this way? It would explain why familial bonds are so weak. Doesn’t explain why a blood claim trumps any other, though. Unless they wouldn’t bother except when the need is great enough.

  Leonard’s hand brushes deliberately against my palm, fingers tangling through mine to grip my hand. “Stop going in circles over it.”

  I glance at him, frowning. “How do you know that’s what I’m doing?”

  “Your aura has cycled through the same series of vibrations at least three times now.”

  “Yeah, well. What would you have me do instead? Chew my nails?”

  “No. Don’t even give him the satisfaction.” His shoulders roll in one of those languid shrugs of his. “Put up a wall to keep him out, and leave it up.” He reaches out and runs his fingertips along the wall of heavy, solid stone flanking us. Glances at me with a chilly rendition of his grin. “Like this.”

  I’m at a loss. I have no idea what he’s referring to, let alone how to go about it. So I just stare at him.

  “You can’t hope to perfect the technique in the next five minutes.” The lines framing Leonard’s mouth deepen, and he stares off down the corridor. His fingers crank tighter around my hand, aura blending into mine like a caress. “He’s going to feel the strength of your chi sooner or later, and know it’s enhanced. If you stay close to me, he might not be able to distinguish the origin if he probes here and now. Later will be too late to make much difference.”

  Why is it important for Noire not to be aware of what Leonard’s done to me? Would be nice if all this were as simple as a concerned father discovering his children still live, wanting to bring them back into the loving embrace of his arms, his life, his household.

  But Vincent Noire is lyche. And despite all the vague, faded memories of my childhood, such things are not so easily defined. The Monsieur of York has given us a place in his household; Leonard has given me a place in his arms. Was it all a ruse to make the charade sufficiently convincing for the Alpha Premier?

  “Stop, mon noire. You can’t walk in there with your thoughts jumbled.” He leans close, voice low. “I don’t want to give him excessive cause for alarm. Clear your mind and focus.” Leonard pauses with his hand on the door of his office, squeezing a pulse of his energy into me before releasing my hand. Calm, soothing, centering, a wave of deepest purple bleeding through my aura. His gaze plays over my face, watching my reaction, and then he nods in approval and pushes the door open.

  This is, without a doubt, his formal office. It screams of rank and privilege, from the large crest painted with meticulous, loving strokes into the mural of the back wall, to the family heirlooms adorning the side walls: aging portraits from centuries past tracing ancestry and lineage, swords and shields that haven’t felt the firm grip of a hand or the hot splash of blood in eons.

  No endless shelves of dusty tomes here. Nor vases filled with sun-kissed flowers still wet with dew. The one pedestal in the room holds a bust of a flawlessly stunning woman carved in marble. A collection of jade figurines in varying sizes marches across the surface of the sideboard, mounted warriors and battle elephants guarding a menagerie of animals both fantastical and mundane.

  The central focus of the room is the massive, dark wood behemoth the Monsieur of York doubtlessly considers a desk. And the man standing before it, arms folded, legs braced shoulder width—a width whose span causes me to stop in my tracks. There is nothing soft or svelte or even hinting at gender duality in this lyche. His face is a study of hard planes in a complexion hidden behind a clouded, murky aura, his hair shorn so close it’s nothing more than a hint of darkness against his scalp.

  Garthelle dips his head a fraction. “Premier Noire, your presence here is a surprise.”

  “Is it. My sibling expires beneath your roof, and you deny my ally the collection of her body.” The strangely vibrant green of his eyes is clearly distinguishable even from a distance as his gaze slides past the Monsieur of York to bore into me. “I come in person to resolve the confusion you’re obviously experiencing, and discover my long-lost get sheltered beneath your roof as well?”

  “Soiphe was aware of the threat on her life. She was also aware of the threat against the lives of your children. She wanted them safe, at the cost of her own life.”

  “And so you kept them from me. When I’ve need of them. They’re not the only children I have, Monsieur Garthelle. I have others whom I prize more highly. And to save them, I must have something to sacrifice in their stead.”

  I hold my aura tight, tension fed by fear, as Noire straightens, drops his hands to his sides. The swirl of aura around his clenched fists is a viscous blur of brown, black, and the darkest red imaginable. Not beautiful, rich hues, but blurred, cloudy. Tainted. Even from this distance, the lyche seems to suck the very life and energy from the air, the room. I can almost feel my mood sliding in increments, spiraling downward toward despair and hopelessness.

  If ever there was a quintessential vampire, a true leech, it would be Noire, Premier of Alpha. I don’t recall him having had this particular quality when I was young—but time blurs memories. I remember that je ne sais quoi he wielded like a weapon, that vibrance that drew every gaze when he stepped into a room. He hasn’t lost that; people would still look.

  But for an entirely different reason.

  He takes a step forward, toward Garthelle, who doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move, doesn’t even bother gathering his energy.

  The Monsieur of York is calm and unruffled, hands casually slid in his pockets, for Gaia’s sake. His words from the previous afternoon echo in my head. Your reactions must be authentic. Echo, and then begin to jumble into mindless nonsense. I want to do something, anything. Can see this heading toward disaster, a granite boulder rolling downhill. Gaining speed. Destructive force. Knowing it will obliterate anything and everything in its path. Indiscriminate. Noire takes another step closer and lifts an aura-muddied hand to point at me. “This is my get. I’m here for what’s mine, and my sister’s body. Don’t try to stop me, or so help me, the bond of friendship in our past won’t keep the peace between us any longer. It’s only in memory of that bond that I leave the other twin here in your care.”

  “The Madame of Venice wished her interment to take place in the territory by which she was so loved. I have simply been honoring those wishes, not directly thwarting yours. She certainly wouldn’t have wanted her physical remains employed in your nefarious activities.”

  Noire’s aura swirls darker, faster, his left hand a mass of ugliness. He opens his fist slowly, moves his palm toward Leonard’s face. Leonard angles his head a fraction, avoiding the touch, his own aura pulled so close to the skin it’s invisible. The Alpha Premier sneers, feigns a second attempt to touch him, and Leonard has to take a step back to avoid contact with the murky aura.

  Retreat, seen as submission. Leonard turns his head away, exposing neck and cheek, eyes closed.

  Why doesn’t he defend himself? Why’s he letting the Premier walk all over him? I know what he said yesterday, but there’s such disconnect—never have I seen this kind of blatant submission from him. It chills my skin, leaves me wondering about the precise nature of their childhood friendship. Noire turns his sneer in my direction, and I back away in the direction of the door.

  “Don’t, Black. You’ll only make it worse.” Leonard’s voice is flat, devoid of intonation. “Go with him. Please.”

  There’s no thread of warmth, no residual softness of intimacy. That isn’t Leonard speaking, it’s the Monsieur of York. So it begins. He wants to hide behind his role, fine. I’ll buy into it. I’m all in anyways, at this point. No backing out. Not even if I wanted to. I need you there, when I face them down. Still, not going to make it easy on him. “Give me one good reason why, Monsieur?”

  A heartbeat of silence, Garthelle’s aura still as ice, tight and close, almost imperceptible.

  “Because I ask i
t of you. Because if you don’t, he’ll be within his rights to level this entire estate down to the bedrock.”

  “He has that kind of power?” The adrenaline is so thick in my veins that the question ends in a squeak.

  “It’s what comes of feeding from one’s fellow lyche, instead of from humans.” His gaze finds mine, nothing moving but his eyes.

  Like sire, like son. I might be a mutt, but I’m more lyche than human. And I’ve been feeding off them for decades. I scramble to wrap my brain around that, but it slips away in a seething flood of questions and confusion.

  Noire’s hand clamps down around my upper arm. His touch feels like raw sewage sliding through my aura. I choke down the swell of bile in the back of my throat, swallowing convulsively, and squelch the urge to fight. I can’t hope to win, struggling against this lyche. Not in a direct battle of wills, not like this.

  Noire isn’t inclined much to speaking. He grips my arm with more force than strictly necessary. As if he doesn’t trust the Monsieur of York’s direct assurances that I won’t try to escape. I’m Noire’s flesh and blood, after all. Some things just breed true, beyond the boundaries of nurture. Like deception.

  He drags me out of Dragulhaven without a guide to lead the way back to the foyer. If he hadn’t intimidated and impressed me previously, this feat alone would be sufficient. I consider dragging my feet for all of a heartbeat before abandoning the idea. It would do nothing but increase the lyche’s rage, and one glance down at the angrily swirling mass of muddied energy wrapped around my arm is sufficient deterrent.