2 Death Rejoices

by A. J. Aalto

  “Won't the eye regenerate?” Batten finally asked, toying with his cell phone, waiting for Chapel's call back.

  Harry huffed bitterly. “You'll forgive us, Agent Batten, if revenant powers only extend so far. Flesh, yes. Eyes? I think not.”

  “I've seen revenants heal a helluva lot of damage,” Batten offered. I heard him use the R-word and was grateful for it.

  Harry's hand through the air brushed this away. “You do realize, of course, that this disfigurement was meant for me, as this so-called delivery man asked for me by name. It was a personal attack, and I mean to discover from whence it came.”

  “Is it because the eye is a complex body part?” Batten persisted. “Is that why it won't—”

  “Stop!” Harry barked, then softer, “please, Mark, I can bear no more.”

  Harry had never used Batten's first name before. It shut Batten's mouth with a snap.

  “The boy took, I estimate, half a liter of holy water full in the face,” Harry said. “He is fortunate his mouth was closed when the bulk hit him or his voice might have gone.”

  “Did you catch him?” Declan asked Batten. When he didn't answer, Declan prodded, “Agent Batten?”

  “It's not a crime to throw holy water on a revenant,” he said. Though his face was matter-of-fact, I could hear a new kind of regret in his voice; for once in the hunter's life, I thought he saw the unfairness of the law.

  “Did you at least see the guy? Could you ID him?” Declan asked.

  “It doesn't matter. Everyone knows we can't do sweet fuck all about this,” I challenged. “It's not against the law to melt a revenant's face. Heck, if I was in a bad mood, I could light Harry on fire and dance around the ashes. Law couldn't touch me.”

  “Dumpling,” Harry winced. “That you could even envision such a thing wounds me grievously, grievously.”

  My shoulders went slack. “I'm sorry, Harry, you know I'd never hurt you. I'm making a point. It's just that Wes looks so pitiful. Is there nothing we can do?”

  Batten turned his phone around to show Declan the digital picture he'd snapped; a fairly good shot of the blond Prior in the act of throwing his leg into the driver's side of a van with a Shield logo, his face in profile. Harry came around my shoulder to look and I got a whiff of his faint 4711 cologne as he bent closer to me. He made a concerned noise low in his throat.

  “Harry?” I asked.

  Harry surprised me. “Let your agents handle this.”

  “What?” I said.

  Batten's brows shot up.

  “Agent Batten will act within the confines of the law,” Harry retreated to the sink. “Did you run facial recognition software on it yet, lad?”

  “Sent it in.”

  “And?” Harry prompted.

  “Got a hit right away,” Batten nodded.

  “Of course you did. You will have discovered that his name is Kyle Roland and he acts in the name of the Grand Prior, George Ansell, and perhaps by extension, John Spicer.”

  Batten agreed. “I'll handle it.”

  “You'll do nothing,” I said sourly.

  “No, you'll do nothing,” Batten said, raising his voice, “and that's an order.”

  His navy searchlight gaze nailed me in place across the table. I opened my mouth to object when Harry mused aloud, “ ’Tis rather a drastic distraction, this. What Mr. Spicer is hiding must be quite serious, indeed.”

  Batten thought about this. “Spicer isn't really after you?”

  “He'd like you to think that he is, certainly, but half a liter of holy water is meant to maim, not kill. Mr. Roland could have just as easily had a stake in his hand as a bottle. This is foul misdirection, and I would not be a bit surprised to find John Spicer behind it. As I have said, he uses evil to fight evil. He wants your attention here, on Wesley, or rather on myself, as I was the target. Which begs the question: where should you be looking? Not here, no.” Harry leaned his hip against the counter and examined his manicured fingernails. “I forbid you to shift your focus to our Wesley. I shall care for him myself. Is that understood?”

  Batten finally opened his beer; the twist expelled a hiss that sounded too loud in the quiet kitchen. “I'm not the one you'll have to convince.”

  “Oh, she will mind me on this matter,” Harry said sternly, glaring down the length of his patrician nose at my brownie meaningfully. “Won't you, ducky?”

  Numb with anger and grief, I could only nod, and pick up my fork. I'd never hated a brownie so much in my life.

  CHAPTER 20

  I WAS STILL AT THE TABLE an hour later, trying to eat the whole brownie, even though my stomach churned with upset for Wes. Declan had replaced Batten at the head of the table when Batten had gone to fill Chapel in on the situation with the Prior and the Shield van. Everything was quiet downstairs. Harry sat in a halo of light at the other end of the table, watching Declan cautiously, studying the Irishman's face with a strange look of familiarity.

  “As you are a fan of romantic tales,” Harry said to Declan, and motioned to the cookie jar atop the fridge. “Let me distract you from our tale of woe with a little story about my DaySitter's devotee, quill-driver.”

  “Holy hell, Harry, he was not my devotee.” I rolled my eyes and fork-stabbed at brownie bits.

  Declan looked confused. “Kermit the Frog?”

  Harry slid a menthol cigarette from the slim platinum box in his inside jacket pocket, and flicked the matching monogrammed lighter open. While the flame danced teasingly in front of the revenant's very flammable face, Harry's nimble fingers played the lighter in tiny gymnastic spins across his knuckles, bumping first one way along the ridge of his rippling fist, then the other, the engraved JB doing circles. He held still long enough to light the cigarette pinched in his lips, and then snapped the flame away. Declan's forehead lifted in surprise, and his forefinger tapped at his iPad, turning on the voice recorder.

  The revenant continued smoothly, “He was first called Gregorius, an Ostragothic chieftain who was as prolific a killer in life as he was to become after his death, or de la tombe, as we say, although the man never spent a minute in a tomb. Following a particularly nasty but profitable campaign against the Visigoths, Gregorius was brought down by an unseen murderer in the night and nearly killed at the banks of the Hellespont. Why, you would know it today as the Dardanelles, I suppose.”

  Harry gave a dramatic pause. Declan's body inched forward and I wondered if he realized he was tilting toward the revenant. I was certain that Harry noticed, for he spoke softer now, as if to draw his eager audience even closer.

  “A gleaming Goth he was in life, a real man of Valamir, her Gregorius, until Malas took him at the Hellespont. You see, Malas was an inexhaustible killer in his own right, but of an entirely different caliber. The old one had reached a time when he was desirous of a companion, an eternity at Bitter Pass being a lonely venture. Her Gregorius did not go down as easily as Malas expected, and this must have appealed to something in Malas. Perhaps it was predatory respect, the admiration the lion has for the cheetah. Malas turned him instead, but could not bring him home to the Nazaire Stronghold in the Pass. There was no assurance that his Younger would be safe there among the primeval ones.”

  I doodled around on my plate with the fork, ignoring Her Gregorius; this history was nothing I'd heard. I felt no deception through the Bond, just some underlying sadness, which could have been about Wes downstairs or about Gregori. It was hard to tell. Harry held his cigarette the European way, pinched and wrist supine, yet somehow made it seem masculine. Declan opened his mouth to ask a question and Harry's frown through the smoke silenced him.

  “At the time, monogamous consanguinity was très gauche, you understand; revenants did not have DaySitters, nor did they entertain the folly of creating Young and then cohabitating with a partner. So Malas took his new, illicitly-created Younger to what was at that time part of the Roman Empire. By the sixth century, they were glutting themselves on Merovingians, the Salian Franks. Ther
e is truth to the phrase ‘you are what you eat’.” Harry allowed himself a private smirk. “Her Gregorius soon learned to blend in with the counts of the Merovingian courts. Since France's baby steps, Gregorius, or Gregoire as he was called then, has danced merrily among them, feeding and imitating without a care in the world, casting a very long shadow upon their history. A merciless phantom, incomparably harsh, his Master and he were found in boneyards, courtyards, and backyards all throughout France. His is an account you should document, fair doctor.” Harry paused to point at him with the cigarette. “Mine is hardly so rich a tale.”

  Declan's gaze never once strayed from the unearthly allure of Harry's face. “Very interesting, of course, but who is this Gregori, Gregoire, Gregorius fellow? And how do you know so much about him? Did you know him personally, back then? Did you travel together?”

  “Was it Malas and Gregori?” I asked Harry. “In Paris, I mean. The history books have it wrong. Reported sightings of the pair of them were later explained away by psychosis due to ergot poisoning, but you're suggesting the sightings were accurate.” I mentally sifted through the documented revenant sightings of early France. “A false history is being taught. This should be corrected.”

  “Yes, St. Anthony's fire.” Harry let a stream of smoke out of his nostrils slowly. “But you should know, it is of little importance what most humans believe, my own darling, and proving Gregorius’ tale would be difficult if not impossible, now that he has been so neatly dispatched.”

  I pressed my back into the vinyl kitchen chair, feeling chastised. I managed not to look at the cookie jar with Gregori's ashes in it, but only just barely. I felt it sitting there, atop my fridge.

  “They were the only revenants to inhabit France for a good three hundred years,” Harry told Declan, “and had walk-alone status on the streets of Paris long after other Youngers, from the German and Bavarian bloodlines mostly, moved into the territory. Much later, long after an industrious vampire hunter called Charles attacked and nearly killed Malas in a farmhouse outside Arles, he and Gregori were separated.”

  Declan offered, “Charles Edwin Merovech?” and I wondered how much of this story he already knew.

  “Gregori fled underground to the Paris catacombs, where he found a cozy, abandoned cavern and went into wraith-state, remaining entombed until he was awoken by the racket of the Parisian members of the French resistance during World War Two.”

  “Ruby Valli?” I asked.

  “She was among them.” Harry gave a lazy one-shouldered shrug, but there was some longing in his eye that I couldn't quite diagnose. I picked up the remains of the cold espresso in my demitasse cup and gave it a taste, mostly to distract myself from the growing discomfort stirred by Harry's history, and that of Malas and Gregori Nazaire. Why did Harry know so much about Malas? And why did he care to share it, tonight? I still felt no deception through the Bond, and in fact, I felt that Harry was trying to steer Declan's focus to Malas and Gregori, I just couldn't imagine why.

  “Were Malas and Gregori regular visitors here, before Gregori was staked?” Declan asked. “Were they your DaySitter's….?” He left it hanging, but the suggestive tone of his voice left no mistake. I frowned warning at my assistant, but his attention was entirely fixated on Harry.

  “Lovers? Oh, yes,” Harry replied with biting sarcasm, “my home is a veritable Threadneedle Street. What makes you think I would voluntarily share my DaySitter with any man, immortal or not?”

  “For the simple reason, Lord Dreppenstedt, that you could, with your empathy, experience their feelings for her. Granted, with Gregori and Malas, it would not be love that you experienced, but pleasure, undoubtedly.” Declan made a note in his iPad, not making eye contact with either of us. “That must be a temptation where human men are concerned.”

  I aimed a swift kick under the table at his shin, but Declan ignored that, too.

  “For you, an empathic revenant, to be offered the opportunity to feel a man's love toward Marnie…” Irish continued, watching Harry's reaction, “why that would be the closest you could ever get to truly loving your DaySitter, is it not?”

  Declan could not have known the insult and jealousy that bubbled up in Harry's veins, nor could he have seen it, because Harry's calm façade hid his frustration with the mastery of one who is completely in control of his outward appearance. I, on the other hand, eyeballed Harry's favorite eight inch Sabatier cook's knife laying on the kitchen counter top not two feet from his shoulder, and knew if he wished it, he could have it at Declan's neck in a blurring strike before either of us could react. Not that he'd need the knife if he decided to use his fangs, or simply snap Declan's neck like so much uncooked spaghetti.

  “Perhaps we should move into the drawing room,” Harry said coolly.

  I gave Harry a look; he's normally a lot more polite about not stealing my ideas. “He means the living room,” I explained, jerking a thumb over my shoulder at the woodstove. “Hope you don't mind it extra toasty. He gets chilled easily.” My tone might have been frosty enough for a mortal to shy away from, but Harry shrugged it off with a glance, stubbing out his cigarette as he rose.

  When we'd settled in the living room, Declan motioned with his head to a cello case I hadn't noticed, resting just inside the doorway. “Do you play?”

  “What is there left to do but play?” Harry replied, something he believed in so strongly that he had it carved on the headboard of his big, four-poster bed. I fought down a wicked, roiling tide of longing at the memory of the times we'd played there. It was always phenomenal, life-changing, promising powers Harry only hinted at, and I was swept away with it. The sex rocked my froggy-print socks off, too.

  Declan smiled faintly, not without compassion. I liked him a bit more for that. “How long have you played cello?”

  Harry closed his eyes, and without even a warning tremor from our Bond, Harry's sorrow hit me like a burst steam pipe. I was nearly knocked over by it and had to grab the couch with both hands to keep from leaping across the coffee table and throwing my arms around him for comfort. Of course, that sort of melodramatic behavior would not do, especially in front of company, but my viscera cramped up with the need to go to him. My breath hitched in my chest.

  “Long ago, a companion of mine played,” Harry explained softly when he found his voice. “Her music was a splendid gift, with which she delighted and enchanted many in her society. Upon her passing, I learned to play.”

  I knew immediately that he meant Marie-Pierrette by the haunted, empty look in his eyes. He never got like that about his other DaySitters. That I wasn't enough to fill that empty space gutted me like nothing else, but I pushed it away; jealousy over a long-dead woman was senseless. Every heart has a vacancy that can only be filled by the one who created it. I would be doing Harry a disservice by trying to shove myself into that particular space, whether I was cello-shaped or not.

  “When did you meet her?” Declan pushed, though his voice was tentative, as if sensing how thin the ice was here on the surface of Harry's most sacrosanct memories.

  “I liberated Marie-Pierrette from Barbary pirates, and returned with her to her homeland of France, where she did me the great honor of agreeing to stay with me. The year was 1610 and I had only been one year de la tombe.”

  “By liberated,” Declan consulted his notes, frowning at something there. “Do you mean rescued?”

  Harry cleared his throat, then massaged his hand along its length as though something itchy had crawled down inside it. “Hardly anything so noble, I am afraid. I purchased her from an Arab slaver with a flea-infested beard, a swollen drum of a belly, and a rancid case of syphilis. He had ruined her virtue, of course, but there was something of a fierce wit about her that I could not resist. Even without a tongue, she got her point across.”

  I nearly swallowed my own; nowhere in Marie-Pierrette's journal did it mention she'd lost her tongue to a corsair's blade.

  “And before her?” Declan asked. “I assume you had no
choice but to feed on less-than-willing sources. Do you remember their names, or do they blend in an innumerable blur of faces and bent necks?”

  “You speak as though I have no redeeming qualities in the least.” Harry's eyes laughed brightly on his behalf, but I sensed he did care what Declan thought of him despite his nonchalant posturing. “In 1381, during the peasant's revolt, I ate a fair number of tax collectors. Surely, lad, that must exclude me from complete aristocratic villainy.”

  Declan rocked forward to the edge of his seat. “1381, you say? That's interesting, I think, since the official records at Gold-Drake & Cross claim your mortal birthday was October 29, 1574.”

  Harry rested his cigarette in the ashtray of the coffee table, and folded his pale fingers across his midriff calmly. “What is all this business with dates and records and facts, my sparrow?”

  “Dr. Edgar thinks it's an interview,” I told him sourly, “and he also thinks you've been telling him the truth.”

  Harry watched us through whorls of menthol smoke for a long minute, before his lips curled into a devious and satisfied smile around full fang.

  Declan wilted. “How much of that was lies?”

  I couldn't answer, because I knew Harry had enjoyed blending fact with falsehood, knowing full well that his audience would not know one from the other.

  “Whilst sharing with you the truth about my life is completely out of the question, I do fancy a spot of first-rate fiction,” Harry said. “As I have said, my story is not nearly as entertaining as some others I could tell.”

  “I suppose you wish we had a romantic tale?” I asked Harry, stung by his comment. “Like Gregori and Ruby? Or the way you rescued Marie-Pierrette? That we had met under different circumstances, something worthy of a ballad, or at the very least a pub song, instead of something involving leftovers and paperwork.” My mood slid sideways into a wounded sulk. “It's romantic as fuck to be an inheritance, I bet. I still get damp when I hear the words, ‘…. being of sound mind and body’. Oooh, baby, show me your actuarial tables!” I wasn't exactly sure those were a lawyer thing, but they sounded boring and paperworky.