Blacker than Black

by Rhi Etzweiler

  “That’s my surname, yes. And you’re Vincent Noire the fifth, right? Version one.” He laughs, and it reminds me of one of those old nature shows I watched as a kid. Lions on the Serengeti, with hyenas cackling in the background. Scavengers lurking in the shadows. “Expendable. I imagine your sire is immensely grateful you’ve managed to survive all these years.”

  “I’m rather grateful for that myself, actually.” Smart-ass comebacks probably aren’t the best technique in this situation, but Farken’s just begging for it. How asinine can a lyche possibly be? I mean, I get that they’re pretty much preloaded with a superiority complex. But come on. “And I imagine you’re grateful my sire never forged much of an attachment to me, as it serves your purposes rather nicely.”

  Farken clamps his teeth around the tip of his pipe, steps closer. He flexes the fingers of his free hand, lips curling upward in a sneer full of teeth.

  He lashes out. The slap whips my head around so hard my ears ring, my vision blurs, and the back of my skull feels like someone whacked me with a hammer. There’s a slight lag before the pain explodes in the right side of my face, from temple to chin.

  I’m grateful he elected to do it physically, though. As opposed to the alternative.

  “Insolent.” The lyche turns away, exhaling a long plume of smoke. “I beat it out of your father as well, you know. It would behoove you to remember your place. It’ll go easier for you that way.” He turns back abruptly, gaze scanning me again. “Unless you prefer the discomfort that struggle brings you. Do you like it that way? A fin tap has the potential to be extremely painful or pleasurable. The choice is the victim’s.”

  I’ve no intention of submitting. Or cooperating. But I slide my gaze away, down toward the floor, feigning both. Hoping it will lull him into false confidence.

  Farken just barks a laugh. “Yes, definitely your sire’s get. He tried that one with me a few times also. As if I can’t sense the defiance. How gullible do you think I am?”

  Sadly, not nearly enough.

  He sets his snifter down on the sidebar, balances his still-smoldering pipe in a cradle with obsessive care. When he turns back around, he’s hefting a neatly coiled bundle of rope. Paracord. Old military issue. Cold sweat breaks out along the length of my spine as he approaches me again.

  I take an involuntary step back. And then a second, deliberately.

  “See? It’s a good thing I enjoy a bit of fight. Makes things challenging. Problem is . . .” He pauses and flicks his right hand at me. I manage not to flinch, whole body bracing for another backhanded slap that doesn’t come. Instead, his hand is suddenly engulfed in the same muddied blackness that Noire used to threaten the Monsieur of York. The lyche’s energy lashes out at me, whipcord thin strands that wind around my body from shoulders to knees. One moment I’m backing toward the door, and the next I can’t move, can’t breathe, his aura burning me like a glowing-hot brand wherever it touches bare skin. My clothing doesn’t offer much buffer, either. “You’re only half lyche, so you really aren’t much of a challenge at all.”

  “Yeah. Mutt,” I mumble. Stunned, numb, the gears in my brain spinning so fast they’re threatening to slip. Mutt—that’s not what my sire thinks. Who’s speaking the truth? Or do they both believe they are? That’s the tricky thing about auras—if someone believes something to be true, their aura reflects that honesty, regardless of what the facts would reveal.

  He sounds immensely disappointed. Even shakes his head, one corner of his mouth twisting down, as he uncoils the rope and begins winding it around my wrists and forearms, a seamless band of figure eights stretching to my elbows.

  As Farken cuts the rope and secures the end, he releases the energy coiling around me. With morbid fascination, I watch it unwind and recoil into the palm of his left hand, the muddied glow traveling up his arm, down his torso and back into his core.

  Very interesting. Worth the circulation being cut off in my fingers, even. I’d thank him for showing me that, but he’d probably take it the wrong way. And yeah, I need to stop contributing to the issue at this juncture.

  I shift my attention to the design on the carpet, turn my focus inward. Trying to figure out how to replicate what I witnessed the lyche do. Not sure if I—whatever sort of mutt I am, or whatever I am—can do it or not. But it’s all I’ve got, the chi of a powerful lyche—the former Madame of Orleans, to be precise—pulsing in my gut. I’m more than a battery, damn it. And this energy, it doesn’t belong to me. It’s Leonard’s. They’ve no right to strip it from me. No right.

  Why have none of them noticed, wondered, questioned? Highly unusual for a mutt to be wandering about with so much latent energy. At least, I assume it is. It seems like it should be. It certainly feels highly unusual to me. Then again, Leonard has taken a good number of my assumptions and turned them on their head in the past week. Mutt . . . or whatever I am. It doesn’t much matter what they define me as, so long as I can manage to save my ass here.

  Finally, finally I manage to take the energy in my gut and tighten it into a ball, feeding every last shred of emotion into it that happens to flit across my mind. Fear, apprehension, anger, impotence, rage, hate . . . love. The sensation of buoyancy, of detachment, is shocking. Makes me feel lightheaded.

  The black and red design dances before my eyes, a flowing river of blood against a midnight sky. Twining, twisting, moving. I lift my head a fraction, searching for Farken along the edges of my peripheral vision. Highly doubtful he would dare to leave me alone for even a moment, and I don’t know how many chances I’ll get at this. With this ball of energy levitating up through my chest, into my right shoulder. Stretching down my arm. It makes the skin tingle. Like someone slathered me in camphor and menthol.

  Not pleasant at all. But then, neither is the prospect of experiencing a fin tap firsthand. All things in perspective.

  Farken steps into the edge of my sight, focusing past me, and the curl of his lips is anything but friendly. He flashes his teeth and laughs.

  The rumble of an unfamiliar voice answers. I don’t dare look for fear of distracting myself, breaking my concentration, losing the control that feels tenuous and weak as it is.

  I have no idea when the strange lyche entered the room. I have no idea if this will work.

  “He looks cooperative enough to me. That kick in the ass I gave him must’ve broken something.”

  “Far from it.” Farken sniffs. “Monsieur Jhustyn Garthelle, candidate for the Premier successorship of Kraveon. Does this avatar of the alliance meet with your approval? We give you the prime get of Monsieur Vincent Noire, Premier of Alpha.”

  “Is it so? I thought his firstborn was a great deal younger.”

  I do my best to channel my initial shock and fear at the surname, the title, into the already well-formed energy balled in my shoulder. Another wave of tingles trails down into my fingers, and I watch my arms tremble beneath the sensation.

  “Ah, his namesake? Is simply his firstborn full-blood. This, this is the original. A half-blood whelped years before the disclosure. Not as desirable, from the Alpha perspective, but we’re willing to employ some leniency to meet your alliance demand.”

  “Rather considerate of you.” Jhustyn Garthelle steps closer, and I get a glimpse of him as he studies me with a critical, narrowed gaze. He looks nothing like Leonard. The eyes are too hard. And when he turns away, the profile is all wrong, lacking refinement, eloquence. For some reason, the relief I feel makes me almost limp. The slim control I have on the lump of energy inside me slips, just for a fraction of a second, flaring down to my elbow, before I manage to grapple it again.

  Both Farken and the Kraveon lyche glance at me, gazes flat, features devoid of expression.

  “What was that?” Farken’s attention slides past me, to where my sire is no doubt standing. I can almost sense the hostility radiating from him along the periphery of my aural field.

  “What did you expect, Farken? He has lyche blood in his veins, after all.” He sou
nds bored, dismissive, as he takes a step closer.

  “Mutt.” Jhustyn laughs, the edge of slander in his tone stinging at my pride.

  Vampire.

  Monsieur Garthelle Senior studies me more closely, eyes narrowing as if he’s seeing beyond the physical. “Where’d you find this gutter trawler, anyway? He reeks of lyche.”

  Silence ensues.

  “I know he hasn’t been living under your protection, Noire.” Jhustyn Garthelle’s gaze slides past me to settle on my sire, but only for a brief moment before he returns to his scrutiny. “If he had, it wouldn’t have taken you so long to produce him as a subject for this alliance.”

  “Astute observation.” Noire stands at my left shoulder, much too close for comfort. Another inch and he’ll breach my aura, despite the fact that I’ve sucked it in tight to focus my energies elsewhere. “Actually, he was under the protection of another’s household. Your own prime get, I believe. The Monsieur of York. I imagine that only makes him more suitable for you?”

  Jhustyn’s lips purse into a fine line. “Whatever rights you had in laying claim to him, this alliance will forge stronger antagonism from the Modere camp.” I can’t bring myself to raise my gaze higher than his chin. His position to my right leaves me flanked by lyche. “The Monsieur of York will not stand idly by while we desecrate a . . . highly valued member of his household. Are you prepared to shoulder the ramifications of completing this alliance?”

  The three exchange glances.

  Farken laughs, and I have to grit my teeth against the visceral reaction it triggers in me. Gut-wrenching horror, mostly.

  “All things considered, it will serve our purposes beautifully. I couldn’t have planned it better if I tried.” The ancient lyche looks immensely pleased with himself. I almost expect to see a perfect fan of vibrantly colored feathers sprouting from his ass.

  Peacocks, every single one of them.

  It’s nice to hear such decisive confirmation that the Monsieur of York won’t stand idly by while powerful lyche take what they want and do as they will. I wouldn’t expect more from him than seeking vengeance after the fact if I hadn’t heard him describe intentions to the contrary with my own ears.

  Then again, he said he needed me here; he never said he’d need me alive. Unless Jhez motivates him, somehow. I shouldn’t doubt him, but there’s this niggling voice in the back of my head. Vampire, just like my sire. One more who can’t be trusted.

  I know it’s not true; they’re nothing alike. Leonard hasn’t given me reason to doubt he’ll keep his word. He wouldn’t let me die after going through so much trouble to keep me out of Noire’s grasp.

  I tighten my grip on the energy in my shoulder, feeding it with the anger I feel. The injustice of this whole fucked-up situation. The sire that replaced me because I wasn’t good enough. Fuck him. The puppet master who thinks the world is his playground. Fuck him, too. And the sire who thinks it’s appealing to take that which has the mark of his firstborn get radiating from every inch of aura.

  The butler’s flat tone echoes through my head. Monsieur, I’ve come to warn you of your father’s imminent arrival. I know Jhustyn senses it saturating me, recognizes the signature of the Monsieur of York. And he doesn’t care. Or maybe he does, and revels in the opportunity to inflict offense against his kin. His flesh and blood.

  Fuck them all.

  The energy slips from my control, slithers down my arm in a torrential flood to explode from my right hand. The flash of brilliance, of raw aural power unleashing into the room, blinds me.

  Like the negative afterimage that comes from gazing at the sun, I watch the impact slam into Farken’s chest dead center, with such force that the excess knocks Jhustyn back a few steps, plants Noire on his ass, hard. Farken flies backward into the rear wall of the room, slides down the plastered cement to slump on the floor.

  “Oops.” I stare at the starburst cracks in the wall. It wasn’t my intention to expend so much on just one of them. My energy must respond more to thought, need, than I realize. Because the rope is gone from my forearms as though it never existed. Not a trace, the only evidence it was ever there the flushed red marks of abrasion from having struggled against the cord.

  “Just a mutt?” Jhustyn rushes me, crushing my arms against my chest as he restrains me in a rough embrace. “Like hell. No mutt has that kind of strength.”

  Noire picks himself up off the floor a little more slowly, even taking a moment to brush off the back of his slacks. I hope he bruised his tailbone when I knocked him on his ass.

  I try to break loose of the Kraveon’s hold, but his arms are a vice encircling my chest. Not an inch of leniency to be found, no matter how I twist and writhe and grunt with the effort.

  My sire approaches slowly, face twisted into a mask of rage. “There will be hell to pay for that. You can’t even begin to imagine. Count yourself lucky you won’t be alive to suffer the torment.”

  I furrow my brow in confusion, the backlash of aural energy searing through my body like acid. “How do you know he’s not dead?” My voice is a hoarse rasp of sound, my breath coming in shallow, quick pants. “He could be. If he’s not, he’s defenseless at least. Aren’t you strong enough to finish him off? Then there won’t be any hell to pay, right? And no need to go through with this alliance. No need for a fin tap. No need for me.”

  Noire stops trying to bore a hole through my skull with his eyes, and shifts his attention to Jhustyn, whose arms crank a fraction tighter around me. “How about if we finish them both off.” He smiles, shoulders relaxing a fraction. “That would be a very strong alliance bond indeed. What do you say, Monsieur Garthelle?”

  “This one reeks of my son.” His breath is hot against the back of my neck, his tone radiating hatred, loathing. “That will make for a very strong alliance. So long as you’re willing to face the consequences.”

  Noire laughs, vicious and soft. “Don’t speak to me of consequences, Garthelle.” He turns away, moves across the room toward Farken’s slumped, still form. “Can you handle that little beanpole? Or do you require assistance keeping him under control?”

  The lyche’s grip tightens to the point where I can barely breathe. I struggle against his strength, but the room starts to turn gray. I don’t want to pass out . . .

  But maybe it will work to my favor to pretend to. While my sire is distracted. I let my body go limp in Jhustyn’s arms, throwing my full, dead weight against his grip.

  His arms loosen, caught off guard by the sudden shift. He stumbles forward as I drop toward the floor. I let my body twist as I fall, and though the instinct to catch myself is strong, I focus my attention on the residue of energy still pulsing in my shoulder. Weaker, now. I expended a lot tossing Farken across the room.

  Jhustyn is closer, though. Much closer than Farken was, as he loses his balance and falls on top of me, my right shoulder pressed dead center in his chest. The energy explodes from me, slamming into him. I turn my head a fraction to look up at him, at the expression of shock on his face, at the strange aural halo of pale blue radiating from his chest, leaking up his neck, turning his irises a sickly shade of green.

  His body tenses, twitches, and his eyes unfocus, glazing over as I watch. He slumps to the side on the carpet beside me, lifeless.

  I have no idea what I just did. Stop his heart? Fry his brain? I scramble silently to my feet, heaving the inanimate lyche form away from me. My sire has his back to me, struggling to lever Farken’s unconscious, dead weight from the floor. Dark, oily tendrils of aura coil down his shoulders, over his hands, and encircle Farken’s body, seeping into the older lyche, pulsating.

  Each tentacle a leech, sucking the energy in, writhing and bulging with each gorging swallow.

  Noire is so engrossed in devouring the puppet master that he doesn’t seem to have noticed what I did. That Jhustyn is dead now. Focus? Or thrall? That usually doesn’t happen until after in my experience, but perhaps there’s a different effect with fin taps. Pre-feed thral
l, the hypnotic anticipation.

  I’d always thought feeding was feeding, and I’ve had occasion to see a few in the past week. But this blows it all away. There is no finesse in his technique. No consideration. He is taking what he wants, ripping it away in large, viscous chunks.

  Surely this is why they got the Homo hirudo name.

  “You and I are rather similar, Jhustyn,” he says in a conversational tone, then grunts as he shifts Farken up into his arms. “I get the impression you’re getting a great deal of enjoyment from the prospect of taking something that belongs to your son.”

  Shit. Noire is ripping the energy out of the lyche who pulled his strings for the past two decades while I stand here and watch. There is something primal, ruthless, in his method. I don’t want to turn away from him, not with my heart pounding in my ears. He could move across the room and pounce on me; I’d never hear him coming. I glance over my shoulder and back carefully toward the door, trying to move unobtrusively, slowly, and as fast as possible all at once.

  He’s slipping into the kind of feeding thrall that’s familiar to me, eyes half-hooded, face slack, lips parted. And though it’s an expression I know well, even one I find attractive, arousing, on Leonard—it’s a horrifying sight on this lyche. My sire is a dangerous, unstable individual at best. I back up a few more steps, reaching out behind me to fumble for the door latch.

  The door swings inward abruptly, slamming into my shoulder. Pain shoots down my arm, across my back, as the force of the impact throws me.

  I roll onto my side on the floor, struggling to inhale, vision greying around the edges. Again. Leonard looks down at me, a flash of shock and concern registering in his eyes. Then he pushes the door open the rest of the way with a straight-armed shove and straddles me.

  “Vincent.” Leonard’s voice is icy, hard.

  Noire’s stance is wide, but he still sways like a drunk when he drops Farken’s limp body to the floor at his feet. The pulsing, dark tendrils of aura around his arms and hands don’t retract, though. If anything, they seem to thicken.