CHAPTER 33

 

 

The husk atop Eagle Hill mocked the very idea of a house. Charred, splintered, still reeking of burnt insulation and paint, its walls and doorways bent into wicked smile-curves that seemed to be laughing at the notions of home and shelter.

If the Invictus Council soldiers were proud of their handiwork, at least they didn’t show it. Saul led his team silently forward, stepping out from their unmarked black vans, saluting the hobo huddled for warmth on the sidewalk. His stupor evaporated once he saw them.

“No one’s been in or out,” the fake vagabond reported. “The ones we didn’t eliminate or lock up must be long gone.”

“No,” said Ariadne simply, not even slowing her pace as she passed the rag-clothed sentry. “Not all of them.”

She did not wait for Saul’s men, but she heard their footsteps behind her. The sound was soft, an afterthought to the pounding heartbeat of the Almavore statue within. Ariadne felt the statue’s presence all through the drive there. Its echoes reverberated inside her bones.

She followed the sounds-without-sounds through the house’s scorched halls, her boots negotiating warped floors and stray chunks of ceiling. None of it was real. Somewhere else, the real home she had known for the last ten years still existed, the linked hands and the shared cauldron and Liliane’s nightly regimen of torments. Just as somewhere else still, a twenty-year old Andrei and Ariadne were holding hands and exchanging love-murmurs in a dormitory room.

Ariadne’s fingers slipped gratefully around the hilt of her katana. Saul had returned it to her in the van, a sign either of his trust or his foolishness. She would take either.

Liliane’s study was empty. The burned hunks of books stood like a silent congregation that had been consumed by hellfire while listening to their preacher. Ariadne saw a skeleton of charred planks that had once been the bookcase. It had been shoved aside, the secret door ripped open.

“We’ve been down there,” Saul said. “There’s nothing in there but—”

Ariadne was already walking out of range of his voice. She moved into the storeroom. This time opening the portal was easy. The magic was like a muscle Ariadne just had to flex. She did not even have to seize the invisible handholds of the hidden chamber; they split open for her as if pulled by obsequious doormen. The atmosphere of the room seemed to boil away, revealing the cavern, the pool of blood, the statue pulsing in the candlelit darkness.

Saul had caught up. The footfalls of his men were close behind. “Looks like Liliane had a few tricks up her sleeve after all.”

Ariadne ignored him. She was busy trying to make out the lines where the statue ended and the darkness began. She wasn’t able to.

“Okay, boys, you know the drill.” Saul motioned to his fellows. “Tag it and bag it. The eggheads back at base can figure out what it is later.”

As two of the soldiers waded into the blood pool, Ariadne shook her head.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Tell me about it.” said Saul. “I’d love to know how Liliane made a warded room that even wizards couldn’t penetrate. I’d love to know how that’s even possible.”

“No,” said Ariadne. The pounding of the Almavore’s heartbeat, the throbbing of the darkness, was making it impossible for her to think clearly. “Something’s wrong. With the darkness.”

As Saul’s question began to form, Ariadne saw the black wall ahead crack and splinter, forming shapes. The shapes at first looked human, but then broke down into jagged outlines. They were missing pieces, and the limbs were at all the wrong angles.

Ariadne’s blade rose even before the first soldier screamed. By the time the second soldier went down in a cacophonous red splash, Ariadne had leapt into the fray, Saul close behind her.

The statue’s defenders snapped into focus as Ariadne waded into their mass. They were still spilling out of the dark and into the pool—men and women, or things that once had been men and women. Putrid, rotting flesh spattered her face as she slashed limbs loose from her attackers, hacked their heads from their trunks. This was the dance, the dance she had always known. One by one, the animated corpses fell before her.

Guns sounded all around. Rotting flesh flew.

Ariadne removed her sword from one corpse as she buried her heel in another. Her opponents were puppets with no brains, no skill, but they were many and they were strong. One grabbed her blade, indifferent to the cutting edge, and with a yank removed it from her grasp.

For a moment, the candlelight revealed her attacker’s face: Po-Mo. The shamrock tattoo festered like an open wound in the stitched-together flesh of his cheek.

In her moment of shock, the things swarmed her. Ariadne went down beneath a pile of suppurating limbs, and even then, recognized more faces. Hera—her green hair now white and the consistency of cobwebs, her underconfident posture now collapsed into a hunch. Some of Roarke’s rebels, several she knew she had killed before. And there—that meaty hand was from Mister Rose, a loose canvas of dried obsidian skin stretched like a tanned hide across his broad frame.

Ariadne recovered, ducked, twisted. She rammed her fist through a chest, kicked a pelvis loose from its connecting sinews. With a roar, she launched herself forward, up through the gruesome sentries, hurling them one into the other.

Beside Ariadne, a soldier had fallen, impaled by a dozen bony arms. She grabbed his rifle, slammed it into autofire, and braced herself. The kickback shook her form, but, steady, she directed its deadly spray of metal at her attackers. Ribs flew, bones splintered. When the gun coughed up its last shell, she used the weapon as a club.

Saul flashed at the corner of her vision, leaping in and out of the pool in a haze of red spray, his own wondrous sword singing as it decapitated and dismembered. Yet even a sword that stole souls served limited purpose against foes whose souls had already been stolen.

“Fall back!” Ariadne heard him shout.

Slowly Ariadne gave ground. She ducked a blow, grabbed her sword from the cavern floor in time to parry an undead thing’s charge, and then retreated behind the hail of covering fire that the surviving soldiers laid down.

The team scrambled back up the stone ramp into the storeroom. The guardian corpses shambled a slow pursuit.

Saul cursed, noting how many of his men had not returned. “You didn’t tell me there were zombies!”

“I didn’t know,” said Ariadne, angrily knocking a chunk of rotting flesh off her red-soaked bodysuit. “I saw a lot of those those people die—Kindred and even some kine. Not only die, but turn to black ash.”

“I saw Rogers there!” one of Saul’s men was shouting. “And Chang! I recognized his gold tooth.”

A gold tooth. Ariadne remembered it from when the Invictus soldiers had cornered her in the ammunition room, when she was trying to save Marie. She watched that man and his fellow consumed in the blue fire she had somehow summoned, saw them turn to ash. So they had been claimed body and soul by the Almavore. She had sent them there. And now, apparently, they had been returned to the physical world by the statue, albeit in altered form.

“So that’s what it can do,” Ariadne whispered, putting it all together. “It doesn’t just take souls. It can regenerate bodies.” Perhaps it could do so indefinitely; she couldn’t count how many times she’d torn apart Po-Mo’s corpse down there.

“That’s what Liliane is up to,” Saul said. “She’s building an army.”

Ariadne shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe New Jerusalem needs shock troops.”

“Well, they’re good ones.” Saul gazed down the slope of the secret passage, to where the walking corpses had begun to advance up the incline. “But not good enough.”

He motioned with one gloved hand, and four of his men unclipped grenades from their belt.

“Get back!” He waved to Ariadne as he retreated back up the passage toward Liliane’s study. Ariadne needed no additional persuasion. A cloud of heat accompanied the thunder of the explosion.

They turned around and saw nothing but smoke.

“That’s an end to that,” said Saul.

“No,” said Ariadne. “They’ll re-form. And there will be more. Many, many more.”

Saul shook his head. “You told me that Marie explained how the Almavore needs a sympathetic link to claim a soul. A piece of flesh or blood. Liliane’s got access to her whole court that way, and to victims of the civil war. But how many others? There can’t be an army’s worth.”

Ariadne stared.

“Look,” said Saul, “I know you still believe she’s going to claim the whole city, but think about it. Is she going to sneak around all of Boston, down each chimney at night to take skin samples from every last kine, without any of us, or any of the wizards, spotting her? We’ve had a dragnet out for over a week and have come up empty. We’ve blocked off all access to this house. If she’s still communicating with this statue, bringing it bits of hair and skin, then she’s doing it by means of a very well-trained team of mice.”

“No,” said Ariadne, eyes widening as the realization gripped her like the hand of a corpse. “Not mice. Ants.”

Of course. It had been in front of her, in front of all of them, the entire time. Solenopsis invicta. Ants that did Liliane’s bidding, ants that as a mass could eat a body alive . . . but in twos and threes they could tear tiny, unnoticeable chunks of flesh from ten thousand bodies, then deliver their prizes back home to the Almavore. The distances, in ant terms, were vast, but what if they passed along their precious cargo to others, who gave it to still others, forming a tiny, but vast bucket brigade dedicated to New Jerusalem? It would take time, but Liliane had been at this for decades, maybe even longer.

Ariadne recalled the ants in Ronnie’s office at the cab company, ants on the campus of her alma mater the night of her doomed attempt at Embracing Andrei, even on the Danish in Saul’s interrogation room. How many were simply insects, and how many were Liliane’s tiniest couriers?

“Everyone in the city’s at risk,” said Ariadne. “She could have gotten to anyone. Even you. At any moment, she could claim all our souls.”

Saul shook his head, unbelieving. “Then why hasn’t she done it yet? Why not take yours, for example?”

Ariadne didn’t know, and she didn’t have time to mull over the question. A shudder in her ears, like the change in pressure from an airplane changing altitude, turned her back around. Po-Mo’s skull, rotted flesh knitting itself into a hideous tapestry around the breaks in the bone, was poking out from the heap of bodies in the tunnel, crying a soundless battle scream. Behind him were massing a legion of other soulless skeletons scorched by the fires of the explosion.

Again the swords flew, the guns blasted. Again Saul gave the order to retreat, to toss their grenades. This time, drawing on the invisible magnetic hooks, Ariadne magically sealed the hidden entrance to the cavern as the explosion shook the ground beneath them.

Clouds of dust and shredded paper floated through Liliane’s storeroom, with no sign of a breach in the door to the Almavore or the Almavore’s army.

“We’ll bury this place if we have to,” said Saul. His Kevlar mesh was torn and his face was splashed with blood. Ariadne noticed grimly that their team had been halved. “We’ll collapse the house.”

Ariadne shook her head. “Those caverns could extend beneath the whole city. Liliane’s minions might strike topside at any time. She gave up an army of Kindred for those things, and she must have done so for a reason. We can’t just seal them in and hope they go away.”

Saul nodded, as much an admission of defeat as he was likely to give her. “Okay, so continue to earn your keep. You bought your existence, and Andrei’s, on the condition that you could help us ‘tie up loose ends.’ Any idea how we’re going to do that?”

“We need to find Marie.”

“Who?”

“The girl I rescued from the fire. Did she survive?”

“We don’t know,” said Saul. “She vanished en route to the hospital. When we spoke with the wizards, they wouldn’t say anything about her.”

“Fine,” said Ariadne. “I know some other people who might be able to help out.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 34

 

 

Ariadne had waited ten long years to see the look of terror in Bourne’s eyes as the door to Room 12 of the Fresh Pond Motel came crashing down before him.

His awkward bulk shifted laughably as he tried to rise and grab the rifle on top of the dresser. She waited until the squad of Council soldiers had him on the ground, arms pulled painfully behind him, gun barrels jabbed into the small of his back, before she made her appearance.

She strode into the room, twirling her sword in a lazy series of circles. The tip accelerated fast enough to make a soft whoosh in the air.

She watched Bourne crane his neck painfully up to see her, waited until the realization bled into his beady eyes.

“Ariadne? What the hell are you—?”

“Goodbye, Bourne,” she said, and brought the blade down close enough to whistle right past his right ear. His face scrunched in anticipation and remained tensed for a good six or seven seconds. Finally, tentatively, he opened his eyes.

“God . . . damn it . . .” He exhaled. “You bitch.”

“Good to see you, too.” She smiled cruelly as she leaned up against the nightstand. “Cavalry’s here, Bourne.”

At her gesture, the Council soldiers hauled Bourne to his feet, relaxed their grip on his arms. Bourne made a token gesture of snarling and swiping at them before adjusting his clothes and patting himself down.

Ariadne was not watching his performance. She was lost in the déjà vu that came along with their location. How many times had she stood before this door, trembling with anticipation? She remembered, as if from a half-forgotten dream, how she used to live for such moments only a few weeks ago.

“How the hell did you get in here?” asked Bourne, his eyes darting nervously back and forth. “Doesn’t moving a small platoon into the hotel cause some noise? Not to mention threaten the Masquerade a wee bit? Your new friends must be real whizzes at obfuscation.”

“All that should matter to you is that we’re here,” she said, looking around. The hotel room was a mess, with sheets and clothing strewn all over. “Not that ‘here’ looks terribly impressive. This is what became of the rebellion I charged you with?”

“It’s not much as command centers go, I’ll admit,” said Bourne. “But then, that’s what I get for not selling out to ‘The Man.’ So, did you cop a plea with the Council? Are you here to turn me in?”

“Maybe,” said Ariadne, arms folded. “Unless you can make it worth my while to spare you.”

“I tell jokes,” he said in the most unhumorous tone she had ever heard. “That’s why you sought me out, right? Life getting too humdrum at the country club?”

“Save it. I wasn’t even looking for you. We came here to find Roarke. Saul taught me how to sense my sire, and I sensed him all the way here. Your bulk just happened to be in the way.”

There. The words were out. She half expected Roarke to appear upon the mere mention of his name.

Bourne gave one of his characteristic choke-laughs. “If Liliane couldn’t find Roarke, what makes you think you and these bozos can?”

“Last time we spoke, Roarke wanted to find me, once I came around to his way of thinking. Well, I’m finally ready to take him up on his offer of going after Liliane. Albeit on my terms.”

Saul stepped into the room nonchalantly. “And speaking on behalf of the, ah, bozos, let me just point out that, if we’re good enough to hide the actions of our whole squad, we’re good enough to see through your own tricks, Roarke. We know you’re in the room. We need to talk.”

The air beside Ariadne shimmered, giving form to the feeling she had been tracking for the last hour. How easy the war against Roarke would have been, had only she known months ago that she was capable of sensing her sire. What else was she capable of, that no one had told her?

She stared at the man who had created her. The last time she had been this close to Roarke, the former Seneschal was astride her, pinning her to the ground, the force of his will holding her helpless.

Her sire did not look nearly as imposing tonight. His prized hat was gone from his head, and the hair beneath it was tousled and filthy. The rough, rugged skin of his face was torn, and one ear was nothing but a stump. His clothing was riddled with a thousand small holes, and although he still paced the room with a steady stride, his right leg dragged in a small limp.

“Evenin’, Ariadne.” He pantomimed the doffing of a hat. “’Pologies for my appearance. A lady deserves a little better.”

“What a lovely time to become concerned about me. I could have used a little of that fatherly care here or there in the last ten years.”

Her words barely masked the clenching feeling inside her. Aside from Liliane, Roarke was the Kindred most able to control her, and she could barely keep down the urge to remove that threat with a swift swipe of her sword.

Sensing her discomfort, Saul moved in. The soldiers split to let him approach.

“You, I recognize,” said Roarke. He was smiling at Saul, but the hatred that spread out like a wavefront before his words was unmistakable. “You’re the feller that’s leadin’ the latest posse tryin’ to end me.”

“The Masquerade is there for a reason. So are we.”

“I’ve heard that routine plenty o’ times before. I have to say, I don’t quite cotton to it.”

The small motel room had become very crowded. Ariadne winced at the thought of how messy a fight would become in here. Saul had assured her that the local police would stay far away from an “FBI operation.” If things got ugly, there was nothing to stop them getting as ugly as possible.

“Well, you’re in luck,” said Saul, undaunted. “The Council is prepared to offer a truce. You can thank Ariadne for that. She let us know about the reason for your rebellion, and we agree with it. Liliane should not have access to the power to steal souls and turn them into an army.”

“Hmph. You could have just asked, ’stead of tryin’ to kill me.”

“And you could have come to us with this information, instead of waging your own private war. So let’s just go back to square one, shall we?”

Ariadne turned to Bourne. “Where’s Silas? Isn’t he in on this little party?”

Bourne darkened. “I don’t know. The night after you left us, he just vanished. I have no idea where he is.” Bourne shivered a bit, then steadied himself, forced his usual wry smile to spread across his face. This time, it only made him look queasy.

Ariadne recalled her vision of Silas crumbling, the top hat falling. Bourne broke her train of thought as he pounded the wall, his fist leaving a dent in its wake. The Council men all trained their guns his way, but Bourne waved them off with a fat hand.

“Whatever. He was a bastard. Good riddance, right?”

With a heavy sigh, he turned back to face the others. “Anyway, once he was gone, I went looking Roarke myself, and found him. We’ve been planning ways to take down Liliane this whole time.”

“Looks more like hiding with your tails between your legs,” said Saul.

“Well, that’d be your doing,” said Roarke. “You haven’t made it too hospitable for us, especially with the warrant still out for my head. Lucky I got me some tricks.”

“Those tricks are why we’re here,” said Ariadne. “The Almavore’s guarded by an unstoppable army, and the local wizards either can’t or won’t help us. The one wizard I trust is nowhere to be found. The only two Kindred I know who can control magic are Liliane, who’s obviously not an option, and you.”

“Ah ha,” said Roarke, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall. “I see.”

“You’re going to help us, old man,” said Saul, “or else we pass our sentence on you right here and move on.”

“I reckon you’ll try.”

“Wait,” said Ariadne. “Give us a moment alone.” She turned to Bourne. “All of you.”

Saul stared at her long and hard.

“We’ll be right outside,” he said at length. “Everywhere outside. One way or another, we’ll be seeing you in a moment.” With a swift motion of his head, he led his troops in a withdrawal.

The moment they left, Roarke closed his eyes, chewing on an imaginary reed.

Ariadne stood before him and could not control the sudden shaking of her body. Here he was. The prime mover. The hand, the fangs, that had started her on this journey ten years ago.

Ariadne swallowed hard, forcing herself to ask the question she had been yearning to ask ever since he first appeared in the room. “Why?”

“Why did I make you, girl?” Roarke’s eyes opened into deep, brown pools full of sadness. “Ain’t that the question every man wants to ask his Creator? God never answers, you know. I wonder if it’s because no answer would really suffice.”

“Stop ducking the question.” Her hand flexed around the hilt of her blade. “Why did you do it, and why did you hide your identity from me?”

Roarke walked to the window, addressed his words to the night air.

“Our blood ain’t ordinary. Not even for Licks.”

“That deal you made,” said Ariadne slowly. “The one that gave you magic. Who and what did you make it with?”

“Deal was made for me,” he said slowly. “So long ago I can’t properly remember when, I got myself bitten up right and good by one of the picaninnies on the plantation.”

Roarke’s eyes stared at some point in the night sky where Ariadne couldn’t follow. “Turned out he was a Lick, all right, but no ordinary one. That boy’d come from some kinda strange voodoo-hoodoo land. He’d been a right proper wizard in his day, till he got bit, and then all the magic left ’im. Couldn’t stand not havin’ that power anymore, so he searched far and wide . . . till he found something that could give him back what he lost.”

“What was that something?”

“Don’t rightly know. But I reckon that once you’re damned like us, when you go looking for something like that, you’re only gonna find devils.”

“The Almavore.”

“Ain’t no accident, said my slave-daddy. It was waiting for him. Some even bigger voodoo man a long time ago summoned it, bound it to a certain bloodline of Kindred. Wanted to keep it in the family, I s’pose, and lo and behold, my slave-daddy was a descendant of that line. Ain’t no one else, quick or dead, who could talk to it, and my daddy wanted power, so, there you go. Match made in hell. The critter moved on in, or a piece of it, anyway. It shared space in his body with his blood, gave him just a teeny bit of its power. When he passed his blood down to me, the critter came with it. Said he wanted it that way. Said his blood was too thick, that in makin’ me, I’d have more room for the critter’s presence. I’d be able to use more of its magic. He had these big plans for a slave rebellion, see. . . .”

Roarke closed his eyes. “I don’t remember much of what happened next. The mind gets cloudy. I think that boy joined up with Nat Turner’s crowd, probably died along with ’em. Me? I mighta been damned, but even damned, I wasn’t gonna be no slave to a slave. I took off.”

“And here you are, rebelling at last,” said Ariadne. “Nice to see that even a racist can find something to stand up for when it’s his own ass on the line.”

“No need to be rude, girl. Time was when ladies were ladies and gentlemen were—well, some of them at least could rise to the occasion. Anyways, my slave-daddy, what little magic he had didn’t help him much against the Virginia militia. For years, I didn’t know how I coulda made much difference. Not till I found out how to make right use of what the critter gave me.”

He turned back to Ariadne. “You seen some o’ the stuff I can do. Wild stuff. Stuff that my daddy surely would’ve done, if he could’ve. Who knows, maybe I coulda won him his war. But even damned, I didn’t want no truck with devils. I walked away. Thought that was the end.”

Ariadne suddenly began to feel sick. “But it wasn’t. There’s me. I’m your childe. You said, as the blood thins, it makes more room for the creature’s magic.”

“Yep. Like strainin’ the water out of gin.”

“That means that I’m . . . that I’ve got . . .” A wave of revulsion rippled inside of Ariadne as she remembered that pulse in her blood, that call that only she could hear.

“You’ve got it inside you, yep, and a hell of a lot stronger’n I do. Leastways, that’s what I was banking on.”

“Banking on? What do you mean?”

“Liliane. Ain’t never should have shared my blood with her in that damned unity ritual. It let her talk to the critter, or it to her, or however it worked out. It started teachin’ her things in exchange for services. Now she done found the statue and set it up nice and cozy. I got wind of it years ago, watched her growin’ scarier and scarier for some time. I needed some insurance, some way to fight back if’n ever I needed to.”

“So you created me to be some sort of agent?” Ariadne blinked. “I was a sleeper ready to be activated and used against the Prince?” She shook her head. “No. Liliane would never have been fooled. There’s more to this than you’re telling me.”

Roarke closed his eyes, nodded. “Yes’m, there is. Liliane figured out what I was plannin’ almost as soon as I did the deed, and decided to move in. She snatched you away ’fore I could say more’n two words to you. She kept you locked up, raised you like her own, made you into a charity case. She used the blood bond to help make you worship her, cast a mojo on your blood to hide your legacy, even from yourself.”

“At one point, she told me she was my sire.”

“Really? I’m surprised. That damned well begged for investigation.”

She only did it when she thought I was having doubts, Ariadne recalled silently. When I had been breaking through her cloak. When she thought I might pick Andrei over an eternal life of servitude to her.

“Maybe she thought you were ready to draw in close,” Roarke went on. “Sooner or later she was bound to try and unlock that magic inside of you. But whatever plans she might have had for that, I imagine they’re loused up right good about now.”

“Everyone thinks I’m a pawn on their chessboard. What about your plans for me?” she asked acidly.

“I reckon you can see them plain as day,” said Roarke. “The Prince’s off her rocker. The Council can’t stop her. All they did was kill off or drive off anyone who might’ve stood in her way. That was all part of her plan. She used the Council like she uses everybody. She bought herself time to plan in solitude, and now she’ll deliver the coup de grâce any day.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“You haven’t figured it out? Maybe you ain’t as smart as I figured.”

“I know about the Almavore,” said Ariadne, “and the corpse army. I think the ants play a role, grabbing little bits of people all over the city. But what has all that to do with New Jerusalem?”

“Think about why the first one fell, girl. All the lessons’re there. Heck, all the lessons’re there in the tragic tale of my dear ol’ Dixie. Two problems with any walled city. First: the folk outside the wall always outnumber them that’re inside. And second: not everyone inside’s thinkin’ the same way. From without or within, every dream falls. Us who’ve been around long enough, we’ve seen that.”

“But Liliane’s been around even longer than you,” said Ariadne, starting to finally see the pieces assemble before her. “If even a city of Kindred won’t last, maybe she’ll build one full of things that last even longer.”

Roarke nodded. “Things that won’t disagree, either. Things created out of souls both living and unliving. Souls with all that the Prince don’t like about ’em just shucked right away, like cotton from a boll.”

There, for a moment, Ariadne could see it: the parapets of New Jerusalem, the avenues and streets filled with staggering mockeries of the human form, presided over by Liliane, resplendent in her unchallenged power. It seemed at once ridiculous and utterly possible. She had been in the cavern, had seen the corpses rise again and again, indifferent to blades, bullets, and bombs. She doubted that even the wizards could stop them. They might even join the ranks of the shambling undead, depending upon how many the ants had reached.

Roarke drawled on. “She’s been buildin’ that new world soul by soul for a long, long time. The more souls she claims, the more powerful she gets and the more she can take the next time. Any day now, she’ll swallow the city up whole. Who knows where she’ll go then?”

Would Liliane be satisfied with one city? Or would she move on? Had she moved on already? Had she found another young woman to pluck from the throes of childhood pain, to shape and ruin and torment into becoming a killer? Would this new Silent Knife help lay the groundwork for the next harvest of souls?

No. Ariadne wouldn’t let that happen. Maybe a monster really could do some good after all. The woman she had been would have tried to save the city, even though she lacked the power. The woman that she was when she was around Andrei would at least fight for his safety.

And the woman that she was, here and now?

That woman wanted Liliane to pay for so, so many things.

Roarke could see the fire growing in Ariadne’s eyes.

“You see what has to be done, then, girl. You see why it’s all been worth it.”

Ariadne’s sword leapt up to point at Roarke. “Don’t you dare,” she said, struggling to keep her arm in check. “Don’t you dare talk to me as if you were in the right the whole time. You started all of this. You destroyed everything I used to be. Whatever else happens tonight, Roarke, I will kill you for that.”

“What I did, I did because I had to,” Roarke huffed. “Girl, do you think I got my kicks off wreckin’ your life? Do you think after two centuries o’ bein’ what I am, I wouldn’t know what it is I was settin’ you up for? I didn’t have a choice. I needed someone to stop Liliane’s plan, and you were it.”

“Was I, now? Why did I get the honor of becoming your secret weapon? Why was I so special?”

Roarke’s eyes watched the edge of her blade with sadness, not fear.

Why should he be afraid, the bastard? thought Ariadne. He can stop me any time. Unless maybe, if I’m fast enough.

“No,” said Roarke, “you’re not.”

With a shout, Ariadne leapt and drove her blade forward. Roarke had time only to shake his head once to the left . . .

And Ariadne teetered off-balance and nearly fell into the wall. The sword in her hand seemed heavy, unfamiliar. Clouds swarmed her vision.

“Listen,” Roarke said, getting up, walking around her, tongue so close to her ear that she fought with all her might to swivel and rip it out. Or rather, she fought to even think about the prospect.

“I don’t like messin’ with your mind like this, darlin’, but you got to listen good. I had to pick you. I spent months stalking ’round the city, trying the tenements, the parks, the schools, the offices, the clubs. It ain’t easy for a man like me to sneak around. Not without someone noticin’, ’specially one of them wizards. I had to find someone I knew it’d take root in. The magic, that is. Use the critter’s own power against it, against Liliane.”

“Why . . . not . . . just . . . hire . . . a wizard?” Ariadne spoke through the fog.

“Needed more than a wizard. Woulda needed a damned powerful one. Ain’t easy to get close to those kind, and all the boss wizards were on Liliane’s side. She fooled them but good. ’Sides, you can’t trust no one but your own.” He smirked. “I needed to start fresh, and I needed someone who could see past the skein of the world. Someone with an eye for what lay beyond. Someone whose soul ran with the poets, the artists, who didn’t accept the chains this carpetbagger of a world sells us all at one time or ’nother.”

Ariadne wanted to cry, wanted to fall to her knees. What Roarke had valued in her was everything that Andrei had been frustrated by in her. What he had called “scattered,” “dreamy,” “slipshod.” The very things that he had deemed in her so unworthy, those were the things that had drawn Roarke. The things that had doomed her.

“The magic’s in the seeing, in the hearing,” said Roarke. “Sensin’ the warp and woof of the world beneath the world we perceive. The potential’s got to be there, or it won’t work.”

“I think you could have been one of us,” Marie had said, “if you hadn’t, well, got bit by a bat, or however the heck you become a vampire.”

“If I thought it’d matter worth beans, girl, I’d apologize, but truth be told, I ain’t sorry. You’ve got my magic, and you’ve got it strong. It’s how you could see the soul-eater, and it’s how you’ll be able to destroy it an’ save the city. I’ll teach you how. It ain’t hard, if you got the magic in you. Nadine didn’t, much as I tried to use her as my backup plan. But her grimoire—it was good for something. It taught me the spell to banish the soul-eater. I wasn’t powerful enough to cast it, but I’m hopin’ you are.”

Ariadne managed, barely, to move her lips. “I . . . have no idea . . . how to . . .”

“Castin’ spells ain’t hard, darlin’. Sometimes it’s just like whistlin’ a happy tune.”

He pursed his lips and then began to whistle. Something that couldn’t have been actual breath escaped his lips, and notes too perfect and resonant to be made by air over flesh emerged: “Daaa-da-da-daaa, da da da . . . da da da ta-ta-ta-ta . . .”

Ariadne’s confusion crystallized into terror. It was the song. The song. Note for note, measure for measure, in full at last. Even had he not been in command of her body, she couldn’t have moved an inch. All these weeks, she had thought the song was some half-remembered piece of her past with Andrei. But even that hadn’t been something she could call her own.

“There,” he said at last, his features falling into what looked almost like fatigue. “That’s all there is to it. Hold that in your mind and push for the critter to be gone. You know what I mean by ‘push,’ right? I can tell just by lookin’ that you’ve let the critter’s power flow through you, that you’ve sussed out how to make that power do all kinds of little tricks. Later, when this is all done, I can teach you even more. Or you can try and kill me, but I reckon you’ll have to get in line. Now come on.”

He stretched, eyeing the view out the window. “Night’s boilin’ away. I can hear the soul-eater as well as you can, and it’s getting ready. It’s happening tonight. Only another few hours left, and Liliane sure ain’t gonna make things easy. Time to go get your friends. We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

Roarke strode easily out of the room, and the moment his form moved through the doorway, the invisible grip on Ariadne lifted. She flew forward, sword slashing into the ratty couch-chair, sending clouds of stuffing flying into the room. She screamed and cursed as she fell to the stained carpet.

“Hey, Ariadne?”

With a growl and bared fangs, she turned and seized Bourne.

“Calm down! We need you.”

“I want to kill him!” she snarled. “I want to kill him, and you, and Liliane, and Saul, and Andrei—”

Awkwardly, with the gesture of a confused teenager, Bourne put his arms around her.

Ariandne struggled against him, then settled. “I’m not anybody’s tool. I shucked all that off long ago. But Roarke . . . Roarke can make it all come back. Did he blood bond me, too?”

“Maybe. Maybe it’s just magic, or a really good mental dominating whammy.”

“Does it matter? I can't fight him.”

“It’s okay,” said Bourne, meaty hand stroking her tentatively.

“It’s okay?” she leered, face taut. “Did you just say that? No put-downs? No mockery?”

“No time,” said Bourne, his voice soft and sad. “This is the big one. All hands on deck.”

He was still holding her. She was still not pulling away.

“As long as Roarke’s around, I can’t be my own person. I’m going to die in this battle, and I’m going to die as his tool.”

“Technically, ah, you’re already dead.”

The look she gave him made him shrug apologetically.

“Hey, come on, Ariadne. I’ve charged a hell of a lot of battlements in my day, and the lost causes are the most fun. No pressure to figure out what you want to do with yourself once the battle’s done.”

“Stop it. You don’t have to be a part of this. You can leave any time. In fact, why haven’t you?”

“Dunno. With Silas gone—dead, I think—any number of Licks I’ve pissed off are gonna try and do me in sooner or later. Might as well go down in flames.”

Ariadne didn’t believe that for a second. Bourne was the consummate survivor. And yet here he was, by her side, holding her.

Bourne was holding her.

Ariadne finally pulled away. “How much of what he said did you hear?”

Bourne shrugged. “Enough. He’s a bastard. For now, he’s a bastard we need. Believe me, once we’re done with him, I’ll help you kill him. That’s a promise.”

“That, Bourne,” said Ariadne, “is the first promise of yours that I think is actually sincere.”

 

 




 

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.