CHAPTER 27

 

 

The storeroom was as disheveled as Ariadne had left it. Stray styrofoam packing bubbles now littered the floor like freshly fallen snowflakes, but otherwise the room showed few signs of Ariadne’s rummaging.

“See?” Ariadne spread her arms. “There’s Roarke’s big revelation: Liliane’s a packrat.”

Bourne paced slowly up and down the circumference. “Doesn’t make sense. Why keep all these records, but then let them go to rot?”

Ariadne shrugged.

“Come on, girl. What else did Roarke tell you about this place?”

“Surprisingly little. Maybe because there’s nothing to tell.”

“Roarke sounds like a redneck, but he’s crafty. He would have planted some seed in your ear. Think back.”

Ariadne strained to remember what Roarke had told her when he had her at his mercy.

“Once you see what’s there, once you look inside yourself and figure out what to do, I’ll know you’re ready.”

“Look inside myself?” she muttered. Ariadne looked up and down, tried to somehow open her senses beyond their usual keyed-up state. She stared at her hands, her feet, the boxes in front of her.

It happened so quickly she almost missed it. One of the boxes seemed to flicker with an afterglow, like the images that used to get burned on her retinas after watching fireworks.

“Bourne, did you see that?”

“See what?”

Now that she was focusing, she saw it again, from all the boxes.

“For pity’s sake, Bourne, if you and Silas are stringing me along here, just have him come out and draw a sword. I’m sick and tired of these games.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” For once, Bourne sounded serious. She described what she saw, and he squinted, trying to see it as well.

“Hrm,” he finally said. “I’ve got a vibe.”

“A what?”

“Hang around a city of wizards long enough, Ariadne, and you’ll learn a few things. Something’s not right. And I don’t just mean Liliane cheated on her taxes.”

He circled the room. “Step out of the room for a moment.”

“Oh, really?” Ariadne crossed her arms, raised an eyebrow. “Is this where Silas has six demon dogs jump me?”

“Just do it!”

Ariadne, with an exaggerated flourish, stepped backward across the door’s threshold.

“There!”

“What?”

“Step back in. Yeah, the room feels different when you’re in it versus when you’re out.”

“How sweet.”

“I’m being serious,” Bourne growled. “Whatever it is you’re doing, keep doing it.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Stop using your eyes and ears and nose and just feel.”

“Just feel.” Ariadne rolled her eyes and tried to relax. She tried to remember all those yoga poses she had worked so hard to memorize back in her old life, tried to recall the scent of candles or the sound of poetry in her ears.

Feel.

A coldness settled upon her skin, a skin-prickling kind of physical chill.

“I’m cold,” she said. “Are you?”

“No. I haven’t felt cold in almost a century.”

Ariadne was definitely feeling the chill now, and could feel it wasn’t pervasive. There were spots in the room where it was more or less present, a map drawn out in patterns of temperature. She paced along invisible paths, one eye always on Bourne, until her full attention was drawn to the ceiling.

That burned-out light fixture. It was the center of the cold feeling. She reached out her hand, her fingertips wavering a foot beneath it. If she just let her muscles relax, her fingers still remained erect, as if her nails were metal drawn by a magnet in the light socket.

She felt the force pulling at her. So she pulled back.

The ceiling began to melt. The stone smeared into gray-black globs formed above the two of them. Then small hailstones of chunky black ash and soot rained down.

Ariadne shivered, shaking them off her.

“That’s a good trick,” Bourne whistled. “You made it it snow indoors.”

Ariadne ignored him. The world looked different to her now. The more she walked around the room, the more she found spots where her fingers, her toes, her eyes felt that magnetism. There were a host of invisible levers and switches that begged to be tugged. All she had to do was just find the right patterns in this web of cold drafts—and twist.

Another exertion, and the ceiling peeled away to reveal funnels. Hundreds and hundreds of funnels, stained brown from the passage of gallons of blood.

Ariadne barely had time to register the change before the cement floor irised open beneath them, revealing a wide, steep tunnel below. She leapt back as the boxes of papers and kitchenware slipped with a deadly, incriminating noise down, down, a long slope into the tunnel. Ariadne kept her balance as she slid her way down. Bourne, neither as prepared nor as nimble, tumbled into the room below in an embarrassing heap.

She did not help him to his feet, barely noticed him at all. They were now in a cavern, expansive, carved from stone. Crude candelabras were carved into the stalactites around them. They cast a pale glow along the ripples of a small, circular lake of crimson at whose artificial shores the two of them now stood.

Ariadne, sword drawn, cautiously dipped a finger in the pool and took a taste. Familiar memories and sensations crackled through her.

“This is the community cauldron,” she whispered. “This is a sacred place, Bourne. We’ve defiling it just by our—”

“Sssh,” he said, painfully hauling himself to his feet. “Look in the middle.”

A small dais, barely visible above the high level of the blood, jutted out in the center of the pool. Upon the dais sat a statue.

At first the statue had seemed like just an extension of the shadows, a clot of darkness that spread out into several large fronds, some elaborate trick of the candlelight. But the central core was slick and oily with sheen that no shadow possessed. As Ariadne focused she could see bumps and pustules carved onto its face, knobs of stone that seemed to shift and change position with every new angle.

Ariadne couldn’t entirely conceive of just what the statue was supposed to be. It had fronds, crenulated textures, like some kind of fish, but it had no discernable eyes or fins and the knobby mounds were scattered with no regard to symmetry. It most closely resembled some sort of octopus lacking a head. A slow, rhythmic hiss, like the exhalation of air from a punctured tire, sounded in time to the rippling of the thing’s form.

“Bourne, what the hell is that?”

“I have no idea,” Bourne said, and for once Ariadne actually believed him. His mouth gaped, candlelight shining off his yellowed, uneven teeth and fangs. “I was expecting something more like a hidden safe with jewels. Or maybe pornography.” The crack in his voice undermined his flippancy.

Ariadne blinked. She’d had plenty of opportunities in the past to doubt her own sanity, but this was the first time she seriously entertained the prospect of madness. She could swear that, inside each knob on the statue’s surface, an image was forming. Ghostly faces, and few were recognizable beyond that. She squinted, using her eyesight to the fullest, in the way that she never could when mortal. The faces resolved as if under magnification. There, that one, a woman’s face. Ariadne knew it.

Hera!

Ariadne flinched. This had to be some trick Bourne was pulling, drawing on Ariadne’s guilt. Hera, who had died when no foe was evident. And there, another face—Mister Rose! And there, the dead mortal she had seen turning to black ash in the hospital where she brought Andrei.

“Do you see that?”

“The ugly lawn ornament in the middle of the birdbath? Yeah. I’ve got eyes.”

“No, the faces!”

Bourne looked to Ariadne. “Um, you been getting your beauty sleep? I don’t see any faces.”

“I see faces. And I . . . I opened up this place,” said Ariadne. “How did I do it?”

“I don’t know.” Bourne started to backpedal. “But how about we theorize later. Faces or no faces, this place doesn’t feel right.”

His voice seemed to fade, to become nothing more than the echoes it produced. The thrum of the statue sounded louder. The pulsing sound had been there the whole time. In fact, it had even been audible above, in the sanctuary. It was like the hum of an airplane; you could fail to notice it for a while just because it was everywhere.

Ariadne rubbed her temples, tried to close her eyes, but couldn’t move her gaze from the statue. The more she stared, the more well-defined its features became, almost as if it were shaping itself to fit her gaze. She could see striations in its stone skin, see the ripples of muscle carved beneath its stone coils. Even the faces in the knob-bubbles became clearer. She could see more faces: some of Roarke’s rebels, even some of the court’s elders thought dead or fled during the war. Ariadne could see Hera’s eyes wide, her skin taut; she could almost hear her scream. She could see Mister Rose’s lips parting, his mouth shouting unheard bellows.

Somehow Ariadne found herself hip deep in the blood lake, wading toward the statue. She didn’t remember stepping in the pool, but she was here, and the faces in the statue were so captivating. Her hand raised of its own accord, her fingers stretched to touch its shimmering surface. A mosquito whine that sounded like Bourne buzzed at her ear. She ignored it.

Her long nail hovered for a second on one of the knobs. Then the pad of her finger descended, pressed and flattened against the rough stone that somehow felt smooth and soft as a baby’s skin.

An electric jolt buzzed up and down her limbs. Blood splashed all around her, and Ariadne felt herself rise in the air, turn on her back, fly of her own accord. The room spun and swirled and blackened.

Then everything snapped rudely back into focus. She was on her back, against the stone of the cave. Bourne’s corpulent form hunched over her. She swiped him away.

“Hey, relax! I just saved you. Least I could expect is a peck on the cheek for thanks.”

Ariadne struggled to her feet. Blood dripped down from her soaking body. Her skin felt suddenly raw, as if it had been combed with iron tines.

“What happened?”

“Dunno. You got all zoned out, waded out into the lake, then touched the thing and started flailing. I had to pull you away.”

Ariadne stared into the crimson pool. The blood, placid before, was now churning as if from unseen jets below. Vague shadows moved beneath the surface.

Try as she might to watch them, Ariadne’s eyes kept being drawn straight to the statue in the center. “You didn’t hear it calling?”

“Um, no.”

She described the faces she had seen, the shadows beneath the blood pool, and the voices she had heard.

“I still don’t see or hear anything,” said Bourne. “But Hera and those others? They’re the ones whose ashes got turned black and crunchy.”

Ariadne tapped her forehead with her fingers, as if that could center her thoughts, drive out the pulsing beat in her mind.

“We have to get out of here,” she said.

“You finally agree, huh?”

The blood in the pool rippled and bubbled. The shadows inside grew more defined, coalescing into bodies and limbs.

“Now!” Ariadne spun on her heel and ran to the wall, seizing handholds and climbing up the incline that led to the storeroom above.

She could hear Bourne’s clumsy grasping behind her, but beyond his struggles she could hear the shuffling of limbs, the scrape of wet flesh on stone. She refused to look back.

The moment she gained level footing in the hidden storeroom, she cast a hand out to the light fixture and pulled with her mind. The floor began to obediently re-seal behind her, almost catching Bourne as he hauled his bulk up through the swiftly diminishing aperture.

“Easy, girl!” he gasped. “What has you so spooked?”

She pointed wordlessly to the floor behind him, where the passageway had sealed around a fleshless hand, its finger bones sharpened to talons. The hand was caught with the rest of its arm behind the re-sealed ground.

The fingers spasmed briefly, then lay still.

“Oh,” Bourne said simply. Just this once, he had no snide comment to add.

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

The showers in the house on Eagle Hill, usually kept up meticulously by the house ghouls, were now caked with several nights’ worth of dried blood from Po-Mo and his soldiers. Shreds of towels were scattered everywhere and the sink had been ripped from its fixture. For once, Ariadne was grateful for the recent decline of the house’s environs: no one noticed a few more bloodstains on the carpets and the tile as she and Bourne made their way to wash off.

Ariadne emerged from behind the frosted glass. Although she had had her doubts, Bourne appeared to be keeping true to his word; he still had his back turned to her. She wrapped the most intact of the remaining towels around her and moved to let him past her and into the stall.

“How did that thing get into our communal blood pool?”

Bourne produced a garbled laugh as he slid under the spray. “How do you think? It’s beneath the Prince’s personal study. You do the math.”

“Roarke knows magic. He could have created it, to use against Liliane. We could be setting off some kind of doomsday device for him. Half of those faces are Kindred we lost in battles to him.”

“Mister Rose wasn’t one of them.”

The shower steam fogged up the whole washroom, plunging Ariadne into another universe. She felt as if the room were tilting, as if she would topple over and fall into the statue’s pull again at any moment.

Forcing herself back into the present, she called out to Bourne: “I know Liliane is capable of horrible, horrible things. Especially deception. I know that better than you do. But New Jerusalem is everything to her. She’s building a place where all are welcomed and all live in harmony. If she’s the one responsible for keeping this . . . thing down there, then it must have its place in that plan.”

Bourne laughed as he turned the water off. “How many times have I heard that before? How many big agendas, how many five year plans? Here’s the best lesson I ever learned, Ariadne, free of charge: Never watch laws or sausage being made. You’ll just see something that’ll ruin your enjoyment.”

Ariadne turned to him, unsettled by more than just the sight of his naked form. “You sound like a Carthian, Bourne, the Kindred who want to bring down the Council.”

“I was one. For a while.”

“You? I didn’t think you believed in anything.”

“You don’t think much of me at all.” Bourne reached behind a loose panel and pulled out the fluffy, immaculate white towel hidden within. He handed it to her. “Your mistake.”

She looked at the towel suspiciously, then took it. With a deft motion she exchanged the one she was wearing for this one and handed it to Bourne, keeping her body shielded the whole time.

“You haven’t exactly shown me your best self.”

“You haven’t bothered to look any deeper,” he said, wrapping the dirty towel around his body. “But this isn’t about you or me. This is about Liliane. Don’t change the subject.”

“Liliane’s planning an exodus,” said Ariadne. “What if it’s not about Archibald at all? What if it has to do with this?”

“Roarke knew about this a long time ago.”

“What are you suggesting—that this was why Roarke rebelled? That we go over and side with him? Is that what you’ve already done?”

“Hell, no!” said Bourne. “I’ve sided with myself. But that’s kind of a small army.”

“You’re asking me to join you? To betray my Prince?”

As soon as she said the last, Ariadne realized how foolish her outrage sounded. She had been having an affair, neglecting her wartime duties, following instructions from Roarke. She had been planning to leave the court entirely. Still, what Bourne was asking of her seemed much worse.

“Whatever wrong I’ve done so far,” she said, “I’ve tried to put it right.”

“How well has it worked for you?”

Ariandne remained silent.

“There is no ‘put it right!’” Bourne drew near. “You can’t live your life to please the man upstairs! He—or she—is always going to abuse you. Always!”

Ariadne’s anger at Liliane welled up in her, but she wasn’t about to give Bourne the satisfaction of seeing it. “Oh really?” Ariadne said instead. “What about Silas? If all leaders are corrupt liars, then why then should I follow you two?”

“I’m not Silas.” Bourne’s voice cracked. “He doesn’t have to be involved. It would be a partnership. You deserve that.”

Ariadne stared at him, letting the words sink in, reading his body language. What it told her made her insides knot.

She shoved him back. “What do you want from me?” she cried. As he teetered, she pressed forward and pushed him again. “What the hell have you wanted from me since the moment you began tormenting me?”

“I want you to be you!” Bourne slammed an open hand against the shower door, sending cracks racing throughout the glass. “In ten years you worked your way higher than any other Kindred I’ve ever seen, and not by squirreling around and playing favors, either. But in this past month, you’ve started to play the game, to put on false fronts. I’ve watched you tossing yourself crazy over which Elder to placate next, and then I see it’s all because of some mortal stooge. Now, despite the evidence, you’re defending Liliane. It’s killing me.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed.

“After ninety years, I thought there was nothing more to believe in. I thought that I’d cured myself of causes at last. But you—” Bourne shook his head. “You crazy bitch, you made me believe in something again. You made me believe in you. And I don’t think I can survive you giving me one more lost cause to cry in my beer over. So either find your stomach or else make good on what you always threaten and chop my head off already, all right? I’m a little sick of the suspense.”

Ariadne opened her mouth, but a laugh or a scream, whatever it was that was going to come out, got stuck in her throat. Was he mocking her, even now?

She tried to imagine Bourne as some bomb-throwing anarchist. She recalled what her father had always said about “those people,” but she couldn’t take it seriously. She had been told so many lies by so many people she couldn’t even believe her father any longer.

“You want a partnership, Bourne? To do what? We don’t even know what this statue really is. We don’t know what to do about it. We need more information.”

“Hey, you’re saying ‘we.’ That’s a start.”

“No,” said Ariadne. “It was a mistake. You stay here. I’m going to do a little research.”

“Research? Where? Ariadne!”

He called after her, but she sped away, out toward her cell. At least he knew better than to follow her as she got changed and grabbed the guitar case that held her sword. For a moment she stared at the towel Bourne had given her. She folded it carefully and placed it on her slab. Then she stormed out into the night.

No sooner did Ariadne step outside then she skidded to a stop. Po-Mo and his men were standing expectantly outside the house on Eagle Hill. In the lamplight, she could see the totems dangling from their necks. The objects looked like pieces of jewelry to the casual eye, but her vision pierced through the dim of the night to see their true nature: ears, tongues, knucklebones.

“Hey, Miss Silent Knife, we missed you last night. You gonna come back tonight and lead us again?”

She stared at them, their guns and knives and brass knuckles forming menacing bulges beneath their jackets. With their muscles and their weapons and their burning blood, they were hers to command. She had earned that authority, by dint of effort and now lineage as well. All she had to do is reach out, beckon, and they would move for her, kill for her, die for her.

She remained motionless. Po-Mo and his gang shifted impatiently.

Ariadne’s head felt as if it had turned to stone. Slowly, so numb she could barely feel the muscles of her neck move, she shook her head.

Po-Mo looked her up and down. There was no challenge in his eyes, no smugness, not even any lechery. Instead, Ariadne saw something far more disturbing: confirmation.

“All right, you little bitches—” Po-Mo raised his shotgun high, turning to the troops. “—stop standing around holding your jewels. Let’s go hunt up Roarke once and for all!”

They cheered, fangs bared, weapons and fists shaking in the air. Ariadne watched them race off into the dark, into what remained of the war. They grew distant, a receding nausea. She steeled herself and headed in the opposite direction.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 28

 

 

“You found me. I’m impressed.”

A thin finger pushing her oversized glasses up her tiny nose, Marie leaned back on the bench by the Charles River as if it were a calm summer day, not a frigid Boston night. Knobby knees pulled up to her chin, she had been throwing breadcrumbs to apparently nonexistent ducks. The small chunks disappeared beneath the swiftly flowing waters.

“Don’t assume you wizards have all the tricks.”

Ariadne stood on the bike path, sword drawn but shielded from easy view by the guitar case. Marie could see it; that was what mattered.

“So how did you do it?”

Ariadne shook her head. “Asking how I found you isn’t a very good question. What you should be asking is what I want.”

Marie shrugged noncommittally, reached into her bag of bread again, and found it empty. As if Ariadne were the next best choice for her attentions, she turned to face her visitor at last.

“I always like the how and why questions better than the what questions,” said the girl. “But since you’ve got the sword and fangs and claws, I guess I’ll let you write the script for now.”

Marie’s wry smile indicated anything but anxiety. Still, heartbeats didn’t lie, and Ariadne could sense the girl’s pulse quickening.

“I need information. About an artifact.”

“Uh huh,” said Marie. “And in return?”

“Besides letting you live?”

“I kind of figured that was complimentary. Like peanuts used to be, on airplanes.”

Ariadne did not smile.

Marie wrinkled her nose. “Lighten up. Don’t be so ready to pick a fight. Didn’t anyone ever warn you that wizards are subtle and quick to anger?”

“I’ve seen you around,” said Ariadne. “I know you’re a part of the Merlins’ power structure here. You have a vested interest in what’s going on. What you’re going to learn from the question I’m asking is worth what I’m going to gain from what you tell me.”

“Hrm.” Marie pursed her lips, then folded her arms across her chest—an instinctive protective gesture of prey. “Maybe. Depends what you have to offer. Give me a preview.”

Ariadne didn’t feel like taking the time for careful excerpting, so she told the whole story. She described the hidden room, the statue and how it made her feel, the vampires turned to black ash whose visages then reappeared somehow in the knobs of stone. For good measure, she mentioned Roarke’s magics as well—the golem, his ability to freeze her with sorcery. Liliane’s voice in her head screamed at her to be circumspect; she took great pleasure in ignoring it.

“Hrm,” said Marie when Ariadne had finished. Her fingers were steepling and unsteepling throughout Ariadne’s speech. She bit her lower lip at the corner.

“Not all of it fits,” said the young wizard slowly. “But enough of it does to bother me. Congratulations.”

“What bothers you? What is it?”

“I need to see it myself.”

“Not possible.”

“Look,” said Marie, “there are all kinds of statues. I know people who spend whole lifetimes categorizing them. What I think it might be, and what it actually is, could be wildly different. You didn’t come all this way for a vague answer, right?”

“Give me some possibilities, then.”

Marie shook her head. “I need to see it.”

“We can work out some payment here.”

“Seeing it with my own two eyes. That’s my price.”

Ariadne walked up to her, came within striking distance. She felt Marie tense, felt that same magnetic buzz from the storeroom crackling around her.

“I can bring you there,” Ariadne finally said. “But I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“I can take care of myself. Besides, I’ve been to Eagle Hill before. I’ve met with your, what do you call her, Prince? I even saw you there once.”

Ariadne frowned. So she had noticed.

“Your aura was still hidden, then,” said Marie. “But now I see light peeking out, like through holes in a cloth. I might even be able to take a peek . . .”

Marie reached out a hand toward Ariadne’s face, only to find, between eyeblinks, the flat of Ariadne’s blade blocking her.

“Relax,” said Marie. “You asked me about why you felt cold down in that basement, and how you managed to open that secret room, right? How can I tell you anything about yourself if you won’t let me take a peek?”

“I’m not your guinea pig,” said Ariadne hotly. “I’ve found out a few too many things about myself lately, so excuse me if I’m not eager for more revelations.”

“It’s not going to hurt.”

“Of course not. Because the moment it does, I kill you. Got it?”

Marie nodded. Ariadne slowly lowered her blade, but only just enough to admit Marie’s hand. The wizard reached out again, touched the air just above Ariadne’s forehead, moved her fingers slowly as if picking through threads of a tapestry.

“Wow,” Marie said with a heavy intake of breath. “There’s some powerful magic at work here. You’ve got quite a cloak over your aura.”

“A cloak?”

“You’re telling me you didn’t do this yourself?”

“No.”

“Then someone did it to you. A while ago, too. This spell’s pretty old.”

“Why would someone do this to me?”

“Cliché as it sounds, auras are windows to the soul. This cloaking spell here, it’s a shield against prying eyes. Remember those old disguise kits for kids—the Groucho glasses and fake mustache? Same concept, but much more effective. This is better than a wig and new fingerprints.”

Ariadne’s thoughts raced. Liliane. It had to be. She had to have been disguising Ariadne’s identity. Every time a Kindred joined the court of New Jerusalem and shared communal blood, Ariadne had asked him or her if they had recognized the taste of hers, if they could match it to a sire they knew. No one ever could. It must have been by design.

“But now the disguise is fraying,” said Marie. “I can get glimpses of the real you. Not much yet, but in a few weeks you’ll be back in the public domain.”

“Maybe the spell’s served its purpose,” Ariadne muttered. “Maybe the caster decided it’s not needed anymore.”

“Could be,” said Marie. “The funny thing is, it looks like it’s been broken down from the inside.”

“What?”

“You’re doing this somehow, Ariadne. The fact that you don’t seem to be aware of it is all the more interesting.”

“I’m doing this?” Ariadne took a step forward. “How? Why?”

“Eh-eh—” Marie held up a hand “—I’ve given you more than enough in return for your information. We need to keep that quid pro quo going. You need to bring me to the statue.”

Ariadne paused, considering. She and Bourne had already tred where they shouldn’t have. Bringing a new person into this conspiracy would only add to her chances of discovery. But she couldn’t stop now, not when there were these many questions, not when Marie might have the answers.

If there was any chance this road led to freedom from Liliane, she had to take it.

“You’re a fool,” said Ariadne. “But if you live long enough to tell me what I want to know, I suppose you’re worth it.”

“Gee,” said Marie, “I like you, too.”

Ariadne gestured for Marie to follow her.

“Um, is that a cellphone?”

Ariadne reached to the buzzing object at her belt. Andrei’s number. The green text message glowed brightly on the cracked LCD screen: READY WHEN U R. @ THE COVERED BRIDGE ALL NIGHT.

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

Ariadne seldom prayed, but when her fervent wish for Liliane’s study to still be unoccupied came true, she breathed silent gratitude to a God that had not totally abandoned her. She could use all the help she could get, especially since she could already feel the pulsing of the statue beating loud in her veins as Marie and she entered the secret corridor behind the bookcase.

By the time Ariadne reached the storeroom, the noise almost drowned out Marie’s words.

“There’s a hidden passage here all right,” said Marie. She walked the circumference of the room, finger raised as if trying to find the direction of the nonexistent wind. “But the shielding spell is strong. It could take me hours to break it. But you said you just . . . tugged and the door opened?”

Ariadne nodded, eyes fixed on the center of the floor where the skinless hand was now noticeably absent. Had she imagined it the whole time, or would its freakish owner be waiting for her once the portal reopened?

“I don’t understand how, but I did it.”

“I told you before, vamps don’t have magic,” Marie said. “But you clearly have something, something I don’t understand. I’m not sure I can coach you, though I’ll try.”

“No need,” said Ariadne. “I remember how.”

Without giving any further warning, she raised her hand to the light fixture and pulled with her mind. The secret passage yawned open in the floor, eliciting a yelp and a leap back from Marie.

Ariadne dropped into a fighting stance, but the passage was clear. There was no sign of the things that had pursued her before.

The two women descended slowly into the cavern below. Ariadne’s sword was out, her senses primed, but the pounding pulse of the statue rendered them almost useless.

Marie stopped in her tracks as she followed Ariadne’s gaze to the center of the blood pool. “Oh,” she said softly. “I was afraid of this.”

“What?”

“It’s an Almavore,” she said, all humor gone from her voice. “Which, of course, shouldn’t be possible.”

“A what? And why?”

“A soul-eater.” Marie shifted with visible discomfort. “No one at my Consilium has ever seen an actual one. I don’t think there’s been a firsthand of one report since the sixteenth century. They were carved in the first days after the sundering of our world from the Supernal realms of existence.”

Ariadne stared uncomprehendingly, unsure if Marie’s obscure explanation or the statue’s call were to blame.

“It’s a long story.” Marie waved her hand dismissively. “Let’s just say that long, long ago human beings got cut off from the higher realms and started looking in all sorts of places for a substitute for that wholeness. Some looked in the opposite direction, right into the Abyss, into the spaces between nothingness. Thankfully most of those who looked there went blind or insane before they could tell anyone what they saw. A few remembered enough of what moved in there to carve images of it. This is one of those images. Stop looking at it!”

Marie seized Ariadne by the shoulders and forcibly turned her away. Ariadne shook her head, blinked, tried to refocus.

“It’s more than just a statue,” Ariadne said. “I think it’s alive somehow.”

“Not life,” said Marie, emphatically. “But not just a statue, that’s true. This isn’t just an image. It’s a reproduced piece of the Abyss. A reproduced entity. And like everything from the Abyss, it’s hungry.”

“How and why did it get here?”

Marie’s eyes kept nervously taking in her surroundings. Her body was tensed for some inevitable attack. Still, she kept speaking in hushed tones. “No clue. I only know the stories. Boston was a refuge for all sorts of mages—classy ones such as the Putnams, who left Europe over religious disputes, and . . . others, folks who had every reason to be on the run from any sane society. Nalwood was one of those types. The man was crazy-obsessed with vampires, which, no offense to present company, wasn’t looked upon as a sign of sanity. Especially back in those days. I think he actually wanted to be a vampire.”

Ariadne gave a bitter chuckle. “He did? And here I thought wizards were supposed to be wise.”

“Well, he was smart enough to stay away from becoming one. But he found what he thought was the next best thing: the Almavore. He summoned it and bent it to his will. It would let him drink souls, the same way a vampire drinks blood. It gave him power.”

“How?”

“I don’t know the details exactly, but I know the general principles. You establish a sympathetic link with a target—through, say, a lock of hair—and then you can zap that target’s soul into the Almavore from near or far. Said person becomes ash and their soul becomes juice. The Almavore gets to eat and gives you a dividend in return. Magic, of a sort. Not nearly as cool as what I can do, naturally. But effective enough for brute purposes.”

“Souls.” Ariadne shook her head. “Liliane always told us the Damned had barely half a soul left. But obviously it works on our kind. Does that mean we really do have souls?”

“Um, this sounds more like the kind of discussion you want to have with your priest. We have bigger priorities.”

Ariadne pressed her. “What can one do with this power, once one has it?”

“Nothing good. Power from the Abyss is tainted, warped, and it warps the wielder in turn. Things like the Almavore don’t just give handouts. They want something, usually something that involves making our world more like theirs. Nalwood created a rainforest where all the vines were made out of children’s intestines. A lot of good people died taking him down and, I thought, destroying the statue as well.”

“Is that why you said the Almavore being here shouldn’t be possible?”

“One of a dozen reasons at least,” said Marie, “but it’s in the top three. Yes, number one, the Guardians told us the Almavore statue had been destroyed. Of course, the Guardians are all a bunch of damned liars. It’s their job. It’s also a marvelous way of hiding their screw-ups, of which this obviously is one. Which brings us to reason number two: none of us at the Consilium had any idea this was here until you told me. Our radar should have been pinging like mad the moment this thing showed up in the city, but it sounds like it’s been in your basement for quite a while and this is the first I’ve heard of it. This has cover-up all over it. Someone clearly doesn’t want us to know they had missed one of these.”

“And the third reason?”

“That’s the best one of all. Nalwood was a mage. If you’re right and this Roarke fellow summoned the statue . . . well, I’ve never heard of a Dracula being able to use the kind of magic that would summon and command a thing like this.”

“Roarke obviously can.”

“Let me rephrase,” Marie said, by now wearing the pedant’s mantle so comfortably that Ariadne wondered if she wasn’t a teacher somewhere. Her bearing and manner reminded her of a TA she had had during her breathing days. “I’ve heard of Draculas who can pull all sorts of tricks with their blood. Call it magic if you want, but it’s not. Something must be special about this Roarke if he got the Almavore to listen to him.”

“But why could I uncover it? I didn’t make any deals with it.”

“I don’t know. I can’t even begin to explain how you could do that, how you could feel its power inside you like you say you do. Maybe you should be giving me the magic lessons.”

The pulsing noise grew so loud that Marie’s next words were lost to Ariadne entirely.

“Can’t you hear that?”

“Hear what?” asked Marie.

“I can barely hear anything else. There’s a sound coming from the statue.”

Marie stared at her, then at the statue, then back to Ariadne again. She snapped her fingers.

“I knew it!” Marie shook with what might have been either fear or excitement. “You’re burning through that cloak around your aura. Now that I look at you, I can see it clear as day here: a nimbus! Well, sort of. A magical resonance. At any rate, something I’ve never seen on a Dracula before. I think you could have been one of us, if you hadn’t, well, got bit by a bat, or however the heck you became a vampire.”

“It needs to stop.” Ariadne winced. “It needs to stop or I’m going to go insane!”

“Don’t worry,” said Marie. “I paid attention in history class. There’s a spell to banish this thing. Stand back and cover your ears.”

Marie closed her eyes, raised her hands perpendicular to one another before her, and began muttering words in a language Ariadne couldn’t understand. The young wizard’s body glowed brightly in the dark cavern; Ariadne had to shield her eyes.

The glow spread across the cavern floor and crackled across the blood pool. Yellow flames flickered up and down the statue’s mottled surface. The hum of the Almavore resonated in Ariandne’s mind still, now joined by a fast-tempoed series of pulses that almost felt like music. Wild music, for the wild energies being unleashed.

Marie pitched forward slightly, but caught herself. “Whew! Someone’s warded it well. The enchantment’s strong. But so am I.”

This time she spread her arms. Her hands glowed red, then white. Unseen winds tugged at her hair and clothing. Ariadne had to shield herself behind a rock outcropping from the sudden blaze of heat. Her sword began to burn her hand, forcing her to drop it. The pulse-music in Ariadne’s mind grew louder, more frenetic.

Red clouds evaporated off the blood pool as the Almavore glowed brightly. But within seconds, the glow faded, commensurate with a dimming of the light from Marie’s hands. With a cry, the mage fell to her knees.

“I will not be denied!” she shouted out, her voice echoing. “Do you hear me? I am Marie Silvermoon, sentinel of dusk, and you will yield to me!”

She thrust her hands forward, white lightning leaping from her palms to smash and cascade against the Almavore. Small showers of rock rained down from the ceiling, and Ariadne gave up all hope of this little visit being undetected. She imagined Marie could be heard from across East Boston.

Abruptly, the lightning ceased. With a cry, Marie toppled forward. The Almavore stood placidly in the pool, mocking the two figures before it with its hideous shape.

Ariadne waited a moment, then crept close.

“I’m okay.” Marie crawled back to her feet, waving Ariadne off. “Sorry for the dramatics. They kind of help. But not in this case.”

“What happened? What went wrong?”

Marie wiped her brow, now soaked in sweat. “It’s like trying to remove a stone on a riverbed, but you have to reach through a raging current to do it. The Almavore’s being charged up, getting linked to thousands and thousands of souls, and I’m not powerful enough to disrupt that stream. The stream’s getting stronger. It feels like a whole city’s worth of souls is headed its way.” She shook her head. “I have to tell people about this. A lot of people. I assume you knew this before asking me, so you’re not going to lop my head off now to stop me, right?”

“My sword’s across the cavern.” Ariadne pointed to where it had fallen.

Marie stared at her for a moment, and then burst into a smile. Ariadne did not return it.

“A shame you’re a walking corpse and I’m me. Funny thing is, I think that if things were a little different, you and I might even be friends.”

With a wink, Marie worked up a running start and jogged around one of the rock formations. She never emerged around the other side.

Ariadne walked over to her sword and retrieved it. The pulse of the Almavore, temporarily drowned out by Marie’s magic show, had returned stronger than ever. She couldn’t stay around here.

As Ariadne turned to go, a rolling moan issued through the cavern, like the lowing of a cow in childbirth. Ariadne could not stop herself from turning to see the Almavore begin to shiver and bubble. Its carved stone tentacles curled in, then stretched out again, as if it were in the throes of either agony or pleasure. Somewhere at the base of its pedestal, a thin red line spread and parted to reveal pulsing walls of juicy pink flesh.

Ariadne lost all awareness of the sword clutched in her hand, lost every perception and sensation except those that surrounded the Almavore. Thin human hands were parting the stone shape, hauling out a crimson form behind it.

A head of hair matted red with gore emerged first, and then a smooth neck and shoulders, followed by a torso with tight cords of muscle across the back. Two high, ripe breasts emerged next. The rest of the body followed in a sluice of Vitae.

Prince Liliane, naked and blood-soaked, rose to her feet before Ariadne. Her body reflected the candlelight like a beacon that lit the dim corridor. Her fangs were out, and her eyes blazed red.

Ariadne suddenly wanted to do nothing more than fall on her knees and bow, but the horrific spectacle of it all kept her frozen in place.

With as inelegant a move as Ariadne had ever seen from her Prince, Liliane wiped her long arm across her mouth, lapping up the blood on it. Then she stared out, her eyes focusing on Ariadne as if she was having trouble remembering who she was.

“Ah.” Liliane’s voice was a raspy whisper. “Daughter.” Her chest rose and fell rapidly, patches of pale white showing from beneath the coating of scarlet. “You should not have come here.”

Ariadne could find no sensation in her limbs. Her nerves had all gone cottony. In a moment of panicked doubt, she wondered if she still even had a body, if she had not just become a floating consciousness, held in place only by the Prince’s will.

The stone of the Almavore behind Liliane had resealed as if it had never parted.

“Tell me why you have come.” Liliane spoke the words softly, yet her voice pulled at Ariadne’s brain like a set of rusty iron fishhooks. Ariadne’s own words began streaming out uncontrollably. The events of the last few weeks, told against her own will, came all out of order. Every attempt Ariadne made to obscure or hide information only made her shout it louder. By the end of the tale, Liliane’s face had curled into a ladylike but deep frown.

“We gave you everything,” the Prince said slowly. “Our love, our teachings, our very name. We gave you titles, blessings, forgiveness when you erred, infinite tolerance of your transgressions. And how do you reward us?”

Liliane opened her mouth grotesquely wide, like a python, her eyes sinking into thin red slits to make way for the expansion of her cavernous maw. A furious hiss emerged, and when she spoke next, it was in a hissing voice.

“You give audience to our adversary! You pry into our affairs, despoil our holy place with your befouling feet, sell our secrets to impudent magicians!”

The Prince’s face shrunk back to its normal dimensions, reformed into her characteristic frozen masque of elegance.

“They have all told you lies. Roarke. The magician girl. This room here is a font of purity, the shining jewel in New Jerusalem’s crown. Yet you were weak enough to believe it to be a place of evil.”

Liliane’s words burned themselves into Ariadne’s mind, threatening to overwrite her memories. Her thoughts warped and dissolved. The more Liliane spoke, the more difficult Ariadne found it to think about anything other than the Prince’s words.

“Our love, we see, was wasted.” Liliane shook her head, striding up to Ariadne and running a bloodstained hand across her daughter’s cheek.

Then, with the other hand, she slapped Ariadne hard.

Ariadne felt her limbs collapse, felt herself fall to the ground, her sword clanging out of reach.

Liliane stood above her Seneschal, glaring down, and her gaze tore into Ariadne’s heart, forcing tears from her eyes and sobs from her throat.

“F-forgive me,” Ariadne heard herself say. At once, Liliane was her father, her mother, every angry teacher or priest who had ever caught Ariadne even considering the mere possibility of wrongdoing. In the Prince’s presence, Ariadne could not voice, could not even think, of the horrors of the Almavore, of the suspicion and fear with which she now regarded her sire and Prince. She was suddenly that small, helpless college student once more, whose life had been freshly torn from her. The young Kindred for whom Liliane was both tormentor and salvation.

“These are perilous times,” Liliane said, “in which those who do not serve the light with all their heart must be culled. We thought you a servant of holiness, Daughter.”

“I am!” Ariadne cried out, her mind regressing with every passing second. I’m a good girl! I promise I won’t do it again! Please!

“We want to believe that.” Liliane paced around her in a circle. “Despite all your treasons, we wish to, in the service of God, emulate His infinite mercy. Yet God also deals swiftly and surely with those who will not repent. He is both Lamb and Lion, and so shall we be. As the Holy One will call for a sorting on Judgment Day, so shall we. You shall have one more chance, our Silent Knife, our ungrateful daughter. One more chance to turn from your wicked ways. Should you do so, we will raise you up to take your place by our side, on the watchtowers of New Jerusalem. But should you choose the path of sin. . . .”

The statue groaned, a shuddering, needy noise, a hatchling’s hunger yawning in anticipation.

 

 




 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

 

DAVID NURENBERG, PhD, is a teacher, freelance writer, and social activist who lives in the Boston area. His credits with White Wolf include writing for the Vampire: The Requiem, Scion, and Exalted lines. His nonfiction has appeared in the Boston Globe, Newsweek, USA Today, and Multicultural Review, as well as many lesser-known papers, ’zines, and blogs. Silent Knife is his first novel published by a major press. His favorite animal is the wombat.