More quickly than she had imagined the Prince might register her words, his face transformed again. The rage and hate did not melt away, but instantly evaporated, and the Prince wore an expression of magnanimity. The look was too exaggerated to be real, and everyone knew it. Such serenity did not sit well on the Prince’s face, and not for the first time Victoria imagined that he must truly be mad, must truly bear the scars of the Malkavian clan, to change his emotional clothes so quickly and easily.
Then the Prince looked at Thelonious as he somehow grinned a bit more broadly. The Brujah involuntarily recoiled a step and Victoria saw him shiver. Benison must have put a little mojo into that look, she thought.
Then the Prince stepped toward Eleanor and put his left arm around her. His right arm lifted skyward and with a flourish he declared their presence again.
Benison said, “Let us enjoy the shortest night of the year and let us find that every moment tonight carries the weight of two on any other.”
Champagne glasses tinked and chimed and there were mutters of “hear, hear” and “cheers”, and though the moment of the solstice had passed some hours before, as the time neared half past eleven and the crowd pushed toward the rear of the gallery, the party was officially on.
Victoria helped usher everyone away from the entrance and then stayed to make sure the servants would be quick to supply the far end of the gallery. When she turned to join the guests, Victoria saw that Eleanor was waiting for her.
The Toreador primogen approached her Ventrue counterpart. When she neared, Eleanor gave Victoria a hug in greeting. Or rather, the Ventrue made it plain she was favoring Victoria with a hug.
When the Kindred separated, Eleanor said, “This looks like a wonderful party, my dear. You must be very satisfied.” Her face was animated with all the false sincerity she could muster, which was enough to fool and flatter anyone but one as perceptive as Victoria.
Victoria wanted to gut the bitch right here, but she knew she had to be careful. On the other hand, too much care might alert Eleanor as much as a blatant warning, so she had to play along with the Ventrue’s double-entendre politics.
“Well, thank you, Eleanor. Such compliments certainly mean something when they come from you. But I’m not really satisfied yet. Why, I’d say the entertainment and fun has really yet even to begin. My only regret is that I dressed in this Grecian style, when Roman would have been so much more suitable.”
Eleanor narrowed her eyes. She too knew Julius’s background as a gladiator in ancient Rome.
Then the Ventrue said, “It is certainly quite a cast of characters you’ll have on hand tonight.”
“Oh, indeed,” Victoria agreed. “But all of them, those from out of town too, have been strictly informed of the High’s Elysium status. I’m sure no one would even consider breaking the Prince’s peace.”
Eleanor bit her bottom lip. “Of course not. The Prince is a vengeful Kindred, and it’s not wise to cross him.”
“It’s true that no one is safe when opposed by the weight of Camarilla law,” Victoria admitted, obviously less concerned now about Elysium than other recent events in Atlanta, such as the dubious crackdown on the anarchs and the Brujah in particular.
When Eleanor was silent for a moment, Victoria continued, “Atlanta used to be such a backwater that the Camarilla probably cared little what happened here. But our Prince has done an excellent job of drawing attention to us all.”
“Oh, he has done a fine job, hasn’t he? The Olympics, of course, were a splendid coup.”
Victoria brightened with feigned realization. “That’s right, maybe my Grecian clothing is appropriate after all.”
The edge of Eleanor’s lip trembled, and the Ventrue had clearly had enough. “I’d best rejoin my husband,” she said as she turned her back on any farewell Victoria might offer. But after a few steps she turned right back.
“You know,” the Ventrue said, “it will be good to have a Camarilla representative here tonight. I find the long memory of the organization to be simply amazing, and I’m led to believe we’ll all have some interesting surprises tonight.”
Victoria didn’t have a response. Her eyes just blinked a few times in rapid succession. Eleanor smiled and walked away, alternating her thumb up and down in the style of a Roman Emperor. After several repetitions, all barely but completely within Victoria’s view, the Ventrue decided on thumbs down and she half turned her head to flutter her eyelids at Victoria one more time.
The Toreador was stunned. Eleanor had allowed Victoria to steamroll her in that conversation in order to make that last blow even more unexpected and telling. More than that, she was worried about what Julius might know, because there were a couple of well-concealed secrets of her past that were best left buried.
Victoria had expected to be on the offensive all night, and this sudden twist made her fear her own defenses were inadequate.
Monday, 21 June 1999, 11:24 PM
The High Museum of Art
Atlanta, Georgia
The gesture was virtually frictionless: nearly pore less, alabaster skin stroking smooth, cool marble. His hand gliding to a stop, Vegel gently and methodically clasped the wrist of the sculpture, his attention so fixed on this simple act that it became meditative.
Vegel stood thus for many moments. As his fingertips resumed their fluttering along a forearm of one of the sculpture’s figures, Vegel lost his thoughts in the display of emotion captured in the marble expressions of the grieving parents. The son’s head cradled in the lap of the seated father. The childless mother—for now one was dead and the other exiled—collapsed on the ground beside her limp son, clutching his arm, burying her head in his shoulder. Her anguish was acute, almost cruel in its portrayal, while the father’s questioning eyes gazed up, looking for the God he knew with certainty did exist.
Transfixed though he was, Vegel noted two things: first, the lighting for this sculpture was too diffuse, failing to reveal the detail of Canova’s chisel marks completely; and second, someone was approaching him from behind. Whoever drew near stopped, though whether loitering to speak with Vegel or lingering in courtesy of Vegel’s presumed reverie, the Kindred did not know.
Not willing to disengage wholly from his appreciation of the sculpture, Vegel hoped to dismiss the need to converse with a mutter of small talk that might encourage the uninterested to leave him uninterrupted. “There is no marble smoother than Canova’s.” As was his habit, to annoy those fond of stereotypes and to encourage those drawn to legend, Vegel drew his “s” out a bit, so his “sssmoother” had something of a hiss.
He was answered mirthfully, “Nor any skin so ripe for plucking by the serpent fangs.” A woman’s voice—he recognized it immediately from the charming laughter he’d heard earlier: Vegel’s hostess, Victoria Ash.
Vegel gathered himself, allowing the emotional residue of his interaction with the beautiful sculpture to drain away. Turning, he said, “Good evening, Ms. Ash. Were you observing, expecting me to nip Eve’s marble flesh and double the caterwauling of the Kine as their descent from God hastens?”
“My, my, Vegel. I do believe this piece has you in a philosophical frame of mind.” Victoria Ash stood before Vegel. As a peacock could outshine an emu, then surely the most beloved of mortal models would be lonely for lack of admirers when Victoria Ash was nearby. Her features were as perfect as only those of a beautiful Kindred could be—the perfection Antonio Canova had reserved for the mythical subjects of his sculpture: Eve, Psyche, Venus, or even the magnificent Head of Helen elsewhere in this room, which Vegel instantly realized was Victoria’s guise of the evening.
With exaggeration so lavish as to border on embarrassing, Vegel’s eyes traveled up and down Victoria’s slender yet sumptuous frame, which was clothed in a silken and sleeveless variation of a classic Greek robe. Then Vegel mock-bowed and recited:
“In this beloved marble view
“Above the works and thoughts of Man
“What nature
could, but would not, do,
“And beauty and Canova can!
“Beyond imagination’s power
“Beyond the Bard’s defeated art
“With immortality her dower
“Behold the Helen of the heart.”
An enchanted smile warmed Victoria’s face, though Vegel knew it was deceit no greater or less than he could expect from any Kindred with whom he spoke this evening.
Victoria stepped closer, whispering, “I would not have recognized that bit of Byron’s before planning this little display for tonight.” To emphasize how “little” her display was, Victoria gracefully fanned her hands to her sides to indicate the extent of the huge chamber. Meanwhile, she elegantly stretched her neck—revealing a marvelous profile—to absorb the scene along with her guest.
Naturally, Vegel looked about as well, though he took a half step backward, since his instincts found his hostess’s proximity a little too cozy.
The entire top floor of Atlanta’s High Museum of Art had indeed been transformed into a neoclassicist’s dream. Vegel knew that the quality, let alone history, or rather historical impossibility, of most of the pieces on display was lost on the hollow-eyed and cheerless crowd that formed the majority of Victoria’s guests.
There were many more Kindred here now than earlier. The crowd was beginning to differentiate with the arrival of a less couth element of the Camarilla society. No longer were the only guests those interested in political maneuvering. Some of the Kindred were actually examining the sculpture rather than the minute facial ticks of a debate opponent, though Vegel noted the specifics of one such examination of the artwork—a black-leather-clad idiot was sniffing the hindquarters of Adriano Cecioni’s Dog Defecating.
The works of art were amazing, but no less so than the fine ringlets of dark hair arranged on Victoria’s head in perfect duplication of Canova’s Helen. Vegel didn’t know Victoria’s true age, but her stunning hair framed a face that could be that of a woman in her mid-twenties. She was slightly rounder than the athletic good looks held in vogue by modern American women, but she surely came from a time well before this century, and hers was a classical beauty sure to please no matter the trend of the decade or day. There was a bit of a Mediterranean hue to her, but Vegel couldn’t be sure if that guess was overly influenced by her similarity to Helen of Troy. Perhaps it was the hint of Asia in her eyes.
Victoria caught him looking. “Am I a dancing cobra to transfix so easily another serpent?”
Vegel’s response was witty and quick. “I have no doubt that you could deceive as proficiently as the serpent who claimed Eve, but if we are to remain on this theme of my Setite clan, then I will admit the snake-like coils of your hair do indeed mesmerize me. However, my fascination with the Eve of this Mourning the Dead Abel has nothing to do with cold-blooded kinship. The available knowledge claims the piece was never executed in marble from the terracotta bozzetto Canova prepared.”
Victoria’s response was enthusiastic. “Delightful!” she exclaimed. “Perhaps my innuendo of snakes was misguided. Perhaps I should treat you as an honorary Toreador, so extensive is your knowledge of these masterpieces. But of course, the knowledge to which you refer is merely mortal knowledge, and we are both clearly in a position to possess much more than that.
That is true, Ms. Ash.”
“Please, just Victoria is fine, or for tonight ‘Helen,’ if you prefer, and it seems that you might as I noted earlier that you were quite taken by the bust and now quite by my own…resemblance to it.”
Vegel smiled sourly at Victoria’s stutter. “That is true as well, ‘Helen.’”
Victoria did not acknowledge her guest’s expression, but only said, “How is it that you come by such knowledge of art masterpieces?”
Vegel stepped away from the sculpture as he answered the Toreador. It made him uncomfortable to have such a trifling conversation so near the heartrending anguish that was Adam and Eve’s for their son Abel. Especially since Vegel had been warned before that such were the reverberations of the black essence of the first murder, that Caine himself—if he indeed still wandered the Earth—was connected to every portrayal of it and even the mere mention of the event was a clarion call to him. According to the stories Vegel heard, many were the neonate fools who tempted this legend, and enough were the unfortunates who were dead soon after to give superstitious credence to the legend’s veracity.
If Victoria noticed his discomfort, then she made no sign of it.
Vegel answered, “In the service of my master, of course.”
“Hesha?” Victoria asked, though she clearly knew the answer.
“Yes.”
“I was so looking forward to meeting him,” Victoria pouted, a behavior splendidly suited to her attire and grooming.
Vegel nodded, and then smiled as he said, “Is that why you treated your guests to Clesinger’s scandalous Woman Bitten by a Snake? Is it poison or is it ecstasy which makes her writhe so?”
“You’re dreadful, Vegel,” said Victoria. “But why is it that Hesha would require his progeny to be so mindful of art like dear Auguste’s Woman? While it is a piece of no small notoriety, and perhaps some innovation for its time, it surely has no special value to a treasure-hunter such as Hesha. If nothing else, then surely its age must be a deterrent. I mean, it’s only 150 years old!”
Vegel casually explained, “It is a new piece, ‘Helen,’ but Hesha desires we be aware of the old and the new. Besides, though 150 years is youthfully refreshing to us, it is quite an ancient age for the new money of the United States. I’m certain there must be an information-age millionaire loaded with silicon dollars who is eager to reveal none-too-subtly to his guests via his new sculpture that he is a hearty man of sexual appetite and not merely a cerebral gentleman of meek physique and diminutive manhood.
You’re very funny, Vegel,” Victoria said, smiling. The smile seemed more genuine this time, but that only served to help Vegel maintain his wariness. She continued, “It’s no wonder Hesha’s wealth is rumored to be so vast. With huntsmen as able as you flushing out the game, he need only scheme the means to obtain it.”
Vegel said, “If I seem a show-off, though, it is because you have struck upon a particular fancy of mine—the heads of Helen.”
Victoria raised an eyebrow as invitation for him to continue, but Vegel demurred at first.
Still shaking his head, Vegel continued to resist, “No, no, the explanations really reveal much too much about me. I must decline in general, only to say that her divine smile, so finely wrought by Canova, communicates the very essence of self-knowledge. This Helen clearly knows something about herself, her world, and the others who inhabit it, that the others have yet to discover for themselves.”
“Perhaps, then, dear Vegel, you should keep the head I have on display tonight. A memento of the evening, shall we say?”
Vegel’s back shuddered from a chill wrought by Victoria’s face. Her surprising offer was imparted while reproducing exactly the impossible smile of the Head of Helen. It was so perfectly performed that it seemed entirely natural for the moment. Precisely set were the lips wherein the smile was virtually nonexistent but for the slightest cast of the eyes that lent the curious illusion of a smile.
Flustered though he was, and realizing for the first time that he was far, far out of his league when dealing with Victoria Ash, Vegel managed to stumble haltingly forward with the conversation. “A totally unforeseen and unreservedly generous offer, Victoria, but I must decline. Not least of all because I already possess a copy, but properly so as well. You clearly deserve the piece more than I have ever imagined I might.”
“Thank you,” Victoria said sincerely. “I believe I would have regretted my gift had you accepted. Funny how a piece that has simply served its place as part of my collection could suddenly come to mean something more to me. Thanks go to you, Vegel, for that gift.”
Something or someone caught Vegel’s attention and he glanced left before re
turning his gaze to Victoria, though it was not a distraction that escaped her attention.
Vegel said, “As I stated, you clearly deserve it, and now your bust deserves you. However, I fear that as delightful as I find your company, I should remind you that you have other guests here tonight as well. More than a handful of them have cast me baleful gazes for distracting you for so long, so for my sake, perhaps I could encourage you to bless them with your radiant smile.”
“Yes, yes,” agreed Victoria. “I’m certain we both have other business to attend to tonight. However, I don’t regret this time spent with one who was previously a stranger to me. I hope I’ll hear from you again, Vegel.”
Intrigued, Vegel asked, “Pray tell me, on what pretext, ‘Helen’?”
Victoria answered, “Why to examine Helen’s bust, of course. Or to bring word of any treasures not fit for Hesha that might on the contrary make a fine contribution to my own collection.”
Motioning toward the previously unknown Canova, Vegel said, “Perhaps we should trade positions. I will put my knowledge of art and art history to use as a vain Toreador poseur, and you can put your treasure-hunting wiles to work as a slippery and conniving Setite who pretends many friends but truly has only one if allowed to count himself.”
Victoria didn’t appear to find such a rude comment surprising, or if she did she hid it with silence.
So Vegel continued, “Therefore, I bid my snake-charmers adieu.” Turning to the anguished marble woman, Vegel continued, “Lovely Eve, save us all an inordinate amount of trouble and forgive Caine his transgression.”
Then Vegel stepped close to his hostess and whispered to her, “Do not give up your innuendo of serpents, lovely ‘Helen.’ Though I suspect it will serve you better with mortals than an immortal snake such as myself.”
With that, Vegel quickly turned on his heel and strode away. As he did so, the Setite noted with chagrin that the poor lighting from earlier seemed to have been corrected, which was impossible unless the reason for the problem was unassociated with electricity and light bulbs. That made Vegel very uncomfortable.
Clan Novel Toreador: Book 1 of The Clan Novel Saga Page 14
