CHAPTER 36

 

 

Gunshots. Liliane shivered, then turned slowly. Ariadne’s pierced body hung on her hand like a bangle.

Roarke, torn and bloody, caked in dust and the corpses of a million dead ants, staggered into the room, rifle loaded for bear.

“That ain’t no proper way to treat a lady,” he said. “’Specially my daughter.”

“Finally.” Liliane smiled, indifferent to the struggling Ariadne skewered on her hand, fighting madly to stay conscious and free herself. “Our two Hands have come home, our left and our right.”

“Ain’t a soul in here that follows you of its own free will, Liliane. You’re alone.”

Soul. The word echoed in Ariadne’s mind. Of course. When Marie had tried to cast her own spell and failed, what had she said?

“I didn’t put my entire soul into the spell.”

Pain tore Ariadne’s thoughts apart every time she tried to form them, but at last she knew what she had to do. She grasped Liliane’s arm in both hands, and then pulled herself forward, impaling her body even farther, drawing herself closer to the Prince.

Opening hidden doors, making golems—that had been easy. But the blue lightning Ariadne had cast at the Council soldiers? Before creating that she’d consumed Po-Mo’s soul. The Almavore only gave its full power in return for a soul. To get that sort of power again, she’d need to feed it first.

The pain was excruciating. Ariadne crossed the distance of inches that seemed like miles, reared her head back, and threw it forward, fangs aimed right at Liliane’s neck.

Those fangs smashed up against cold, ivory stone, sending a terrible rattling through Ariadne’s jaw and skull. She felt her fangs chip, a new kind of pain she had never known, one that screamed out through her even louder than the gaping wound in her torso. A squeal like the whine of a whipped dog issued from her mouth.

Liliane turned her smooth, beatific face to meet Ariadne’s scrunched, reddened expression.

“Daughter, did you seek to feed on us? To draw strength from the power of our soul?”

With her free hand, the Prince pushed Ariadne down off her arm. She fell to the floor, writhing, struggling to see through a cloud of fireworks.

Liliane turned to face her first Seneschal. “Was that your plan all along, dear Roarke—have her drain my soul, use it to convene the Feast of Nettles? I heard her singing that spell. Only you could have taught it to her.”

Roarke kept his gun level but gave a short, gentlemanly bow. “An’ if I did? Her using that spell, that’s the whole point of her, remember? We had a plan, Lili. You changed it up. I was just tryin’ to even the score.”

“Nonsense,” said Liliane, stepping over Ariadne indifferently. “Nothing has changed since a century ago, when we recruited a brazen young morsel named Roarke to be our Hand. We saw in your blood the potential for great things.”

“I did what you asked,” he said evenly. “I had the Almavore’s voice inside me, and I did what it asked my sire to do. What he couldn’t do. I brought it here, into our world, didn’t I? You were supposed to do the rest.”

They were partners, Ariadne realized dully. She slithered on the ground behind Liliane, streaking red smears in her path. Her mouth and skull ached.

“How could I complete the great work?” Liliane slid up to Roarke, within an easy arm’s reach. He made no move to stop her. “What you gave me from your blood wasn’t enough. It was like trying to empty an ocean through a funnel, a little bit each night. It wasn’t up to the real task.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Politeness dripped off Roarke’s tongue. “I made Ariadne for you, didn’t I?”

“Oh yes. Our fair arrangement. You would sire her, I would raise her, and together we could claim a city’s worth of souls. We could take our place among God’s seraphim, become avenging angels truly worthy of His service.”

Liliane turned and wrapped herself into Roarke’s waiting arms. “So what went wrong?” she whispered. “The rebellion, the war . . . it was supposed to be a sham, a distraction. But you made it real. Why play Judas in earnest?”

“God only had one begotten son, Liliane.” He dropped the gun and held her close, as if whispering love poetry. “Ain’t no mention of two. Just as a Prince has but one Hand. Every time there’s two, there’s trouble. Cain and Abel. Jacob and Esau.”

“You think me so faithless? You think I would turn on you, once we ascended? Surely our minds would dwell on higher matters.” She pulled her arm around his neck, caressed it gently.

“You always had but one love, darlin’,” said Roarke. “That was this city o’ yours. Not the one we’re standing in, which you’re willing to burn to the ground. No, the one you lost a dog’s age ago. The one you’re tryin’ to rebuild. You ain’t gonna share that with no one. If I hadn’t a’ rebelled, you woulda ground me up for soul-chuck sooner or later.”

“What of faith?” she sighed. “Why do you always need proof?”

“Darlin’, I’ve got all the proof I need. Only one of us is walkin’ out of this place. The other’s gonna become a tasty morsel served up on a plate to Ariadne so she’ll perform the rite and empower the other.”

“You don’t see the beauty of the plan. You would just use the power for earthly delights. I would create a heaven.”

“But it’s still you or me. So let’s stop waltzin’ around.”

Liliane nodded, her eyelids fluttering. If there was genuine emotion behind the gesture, Ariadne was certainly not privy to it. Her world now was a cold stone floor, the daggers of pain stabbing all over her body, and the mantra in her head: Not my own, never my own . . . always someone else’s plan . . . just a weapon . . . used . . .

Across the room, the Prince and her former Hand disengaged from their embrace, fell to a few paces apart, as in an elaborate ritual, a dance about to begin. Without warning, it did.

Roarke leapt at Liliane, who stepped aside, seeking to pull him along by his own inertia and unbalance him. Roarke’s arms lanced out, grabbing her as she moved, and they fell tumbling to the ground. There they transformed into a blur of motion, a torrent of growls and hisses. Occasionally, someone’s claws scraped stone with a terrible shriek.

Ariadne could barely watch them. Her vision was clouded. She wanted nothing more than to rest her head on the ground, go to sleep forever, deny them the use of her. But she couldn’t die, not even if she wanted to. Ten years ago Roarke and Liliane had made her eternal. They had made her pain eternal. She could not escape. She’d been an idiot to think she ever could.

“Psst! Hey, Ariadne!”

This was her punishment, she decided. For being a bad girl, for not knowing, for loving too much, for wandering, for ambiguity, for betrayal. There really is a Hell, and she had been foolish enough, prideful enough, to never fully realize her place in it—not as an avenging angel, not even as a monster, but merely as an implement.

“Girl, snap out of it! You’ve had worse!”

Bourne came crawling toward her, his body bent and twisted, oozing gore from a dozen tears. Why hadn’t his bleeding stopped? Maybe the beasts’ bites were enchanted by the Almavore? Ariadne didn’t care. She was through with magic. Like everything else, like everyone else, it had betrayed her.

Bourne crawled up to her, picked her up into his lap. She hissed, batting at him uselessly, like a sick old tabby. “Wake up, girl! This is your moment!”

“My moment?” She rolled her eyes. Even that motion was painful. “You have to be joking.”

“No, I’m not,” he said. “For once, I’m not. Ariadne, I’m messed up—bad. Can’t run away, can’t vanish, can’t heal. I get the feeling that if I stay put, I’m not getting out of this one with my head, no matter whether Godzilla or King Kong wins this fight.”

Both young Kindred cast their gaze to where the elders were doing battle. The Prince and her former Seneschal were nothing but flashes of shadow and color, silhouetted forms against clouds of unholy energy.

“So what do you want me to do about it?” Ariadne’s words barely escaped her throat. “I tried my best and I failed. I couldn’t even give Liliane a challenge. How can I possibly beat both herand Roarke?”

“Haven’t you been listening? They need you.”

“I don’t need the reminder. Whether it’s Roarke or Liliane, a blood bond or magic or just hurting me enough, they can make me do what they want, and there’s nothing I can—”

She turned suddenly to Bourne. “You’ve got to kill me. If I’m gone, they can’t make that ‘Feast of Nettles’ happen.”

“No!” Bourne shouted. “I just lost Silas, damn it, and I’m not going to—”

He shook his head, composed himself. “No. Wouldn’t do any good. Roarke could just create another one like you. There’s got to be some way take out the statue.”

Ariadne fought to solidify her thoughts. “Marie. She said that to destroy the Almavore, she needed the power of someone’s entire soul. I don’t know exactly what that means, but . . . but I think I know how to take someone’s soul.” Again she remembered Po-Mo and the Council soldiers. “The Almavore taught me that.”

The cavern shook as the two elders continued their clash. Bourne stared at them for a moment. “I don’t imagine either of them is going to volunteer. But then, they’re not the only option.”

Ariadne looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.” He set his jaw. “Come on. Before my better sense kicks in.”

“Bourne,” she started, but couldn’t find the words to finish the sentence.

“Christ, no mushy stuff.” Bourne leaned in close, drew her head up, bared his neck before her. “Just get it over with. I ended my flesh and blood life dyin’ for a cause I thought was right. I’d rather go out of this unlife that way too, rather than some elder’s pickings. Just do the damned thing, will you, and kill the Almavore?”

Ariadne stared into his eyes. She shook her head no, but she was already moving closer, opening her aching jaw. Her fangs felt brittle.

“You fat bastard,” she whispered, feeling a small burning at the edges of her eyes. “You got me to kiss you after all.”

Bourne chuckled. The spasm from his laugh made his neck veins pulse, right up into her waiting mouth. Ariadne sank her teeth in and drank, deep and long.

Po-Mo’s soul was violent, passionate, a sensory overload. Bourne’s, to her surprise, was melodic, textured, a symphony of yearning and doubt and pain punctuated by violent librettos of anger and scorn. She tasted love, lust, loss, shame, frustration, pride, dreams. So many dreams.

She felt as if she would rupture. How had Liliane done it, slurping souls as if she were merely slaking her thirst? The rapture of this new fuel for her burgeoning magic filled her. It wrapped around her broken body, sought to flee heavenward before the gravity of her personal sphere drew it back in.

Only for a moment, Bourne. Just a small detour.

In her passion and confusion, Ariadne rolled over, saw the cavern lit by the flashes from the battle as the two elders unleashed magic upon one another. Liliane, her fearsome and terrible mother. Roarke, her rugged, brutish father. Both cruel, both deceptive, and Ariadne was the product of their twisted love.

You two made me to be a weapon. You brought this upon yourselves.

The light from their battle illuminated the pulsing, writhing black form of the Almavore. Like Ariadne, the Almavore was built to be a weapon, a tool of those with ambition. Like her, it contained a consciousness, a will. She could feel the entity’s rage and desire, but also its helplessness, its dependence. It was mute, frozen, utterly unable to act.

Unlike her.

In her mind, she let go the fingernail-grip on herself and let her consciousness fall into the pounding pulse of the Almavore’s presence. Roarke’s tune was her lifeline, the cascading slide that conveyed her down, down into the depths of the Almavore’s bottomless hunger. As she fell, she felt herself begin to splinter and peel away. The Almavore’s will peeled her apart to get at the morsel of Bourne’s soul inside. It could hear Roarke’s music; she knew that, somehow. As it had ripped all veils from her thoughts, she could stare into the madness that was its own mind.

Thoughts that were not her own raced through Ariadne’s mind, half-formed images of half-impossible things from the Abyss that beckoned and begged her attention; she refused, sensing that even to consider them would drive her insane. She swam instead toward what she understood, the basic emotions that she knew she and the entity shared.

Fear. She was terrified. It had been too, at first . . . but now it wasn’t.

Why? It should have been. It knew what she was trying to do, knew that somewhere far away her voice was starting to sing Roarke’s melody, the one that would banish it forever. It wasn’t afraid in the slightest.

No.

There wasn’t much of Ariadne left, not much more than a voice that was singing mostly of its own volition. Mostly, but not entirely. Roarke didn’t really want to banish the creature, she remembered. Roarke wanted it to consume the city. That was what his song was for!

She tried to stop her voice, but found she no longer remembered how. She kept on singing, and the Almavore’s excitement filled her.

Roarke hadn’t wanted to banish the Almavore, but Marie had. And Marie had had her own song—the song Ariadne had heard beating in the Almavore’s pulse when Marie had come so close to banishing it. That was the song she needed.

The Almavore’s thoughts reached out like tendrils, suddenly keen to snatch these thoughts away from Ariadne. Coiled smoke smothered her ideas, leaving Ariadne nothing but a memory of music. A fast-tempoed series of pulses—wild music, for the wild energies being unleashed.

Not Roarke’s tune, although a variation on it. Ariadne had forgotten why it was so important, but she knew she had to sing it, and fast, before the Almavore took even that ability from her.

Still singing, she changed the tune, and the wave of fear that hit her was so strong that she could not tell if it was hers or the creature’s. There were no more boundaries between them. They were one. Except for one impurity.

Bourne’s sacrificed soul. A wind kicked up from no discernible source, buffeting Ariadne from behind, spreading her hair in a billowing fan.

Her father’s voice, her real father, called to her in her mind. “Let’s go down to the garden, Pumpkin.”

Her mother, stretched out on her bed with angry fistfuls of fresh linens, relaxed her grip, turned around, said, “Ariadne, dear, you always know the right moment to come in. Leave the water by my bedside.”

Mom, Dad, Ariadne cried in her thoughts, suddenly remembering some small piece of herself. Wherever you are, I miss you. I’m sorry for these false parents. I’m not their child.

She swore she heard a voice, like Andrei’s, only much deeper. “Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices.”

Ariadne released Bourne’s soul. So blackened and mangled in life, to her eyes it now looked like a shining yellow comet, sparkling with all the beauty of the daylight sun that Ariadne missed so terribly much. It streaked across the underground cavern, tearing the fabric of the air itself with its song. The Almavore, as if in recognition, increased the pace of its pulsing heartbeat to a fever pitch.

Nearby, Roarke and Liliane, each torn and gasping, paused in their struggles. They broke apart and tried to race for the Almavore. All around, the giant corpse-beasts sprang to life with unnatural grace, teeth snapping for Ariadne.

They were all too late.

The statue glowed brightly, the white-hot bubbles of its stolen souls ballooning outward, ready to burst. Then they did. They showered the room in sparks of every color, sounding like a billion chimes all in perfect harmony.

Ariadne found her consciousness rudely slammed back into her own body, but the pain didn’t matter. She was seeing with her own eyes once more, and they had never seen such beauty. All the torment and pain for her whole unlife, for the briefest of moments, seemed worth it. That pain had brought her to this point, to witness this moment. She could swear she saw New Jerusalem spread out its parapets and avenues before her.

Then the souls freed from the Almavore flew away, up out of the cavern, undaunted by stone walls or warding spells. They took New Jerusalem with them, and the room seemed to shudder with the vacuum they left behind. The wall torches all blew out, leaving Ariadne with her night vision in a dark, cold cavern.

For a moment, all was quiet. Then, with a sob, Liliane fell to her knees. Her white robes were torn, mottled with dust and blood. She ran her hands through the pulpy mess of scattered fragments that used to be the Almavore. She looked up to the ceiling, her lips mouthing something Ariadne could not catch. The Prince’s body shivered and convulsed.

“Don’t leave me.” Liliane’s face was wracked with grief. “Father, I have been faithful! Please, don’t leave me.” She clawed at the ground, digging deep gouts in the stone. “Don’t . . . leave . . . me!”

She doubled over.

The corpse army crumbled to dust. A soft mist rose from their remains.

Roarke, a few paces behind the Prince, dusted himself off. Like a demonic rag doll that had lost half its stuffing, his body was shattered beyond the point where he should be able to stand. Yet stand he did.

“Tarnation,” he whispered.

Silence reigned for what seemed like decades. Ariadne lay prone on the cold stone ground, helpless.

Liliane rose at last, staggered toward Ariadne, talons extended. “I should destroy you.”

Ariadne could only watch as the Prince swayed in the grips of some unseen force; she wondered dimly how closely Liliane and Roarke and the Almavore had become tied, wondered how its destruction might be diminishing the two of them even as its life had given them power.

It didn’t matter. Liliane still seemed strong enough, as she lifted Ariadne up with one hand, brandishing her talons in the darkness. She threw Ariadne into in the blood pool, where the red liquid closed in around her.

It was all right. After what she had seen, Ariadne could die now.

“Liliane, enough.”

Ariadne rose to the surface. Her vision was too blurred to see properly, but she heard Roarke’s voice drawing near.

“You would defend your childe, Roarke, after all she has wrought and ruined?”

“Didn’t you always tell me that the Lord tests us?”

“How dare you suggest that this whelp is a tool of the Lord.” For all her anger, Liliane somehow sounded very small, very young, very lost.

Roarke was there, his hand on the Prince’s shoulder.

“There’s nothin’ more to be gained here. There’s a time to kill and a time to heal.”

“And the Devil can quote scripture for his purpose.”

“Let her go. There’s work to be done.”

“I must start over again?”

“You did once before.”

Ariadne could feel something inside Liliane shift. “Is that Your test, Father? Is that Your will? Must I begin to rebuild the city yet again, from the first stones, with nothing?”

“Not with nothing.” Roarke put his hand on her shoulder. She rocked backward, falling against him. Her grip on Ariadne weakened.

“You brought me into this plan o’ yours so you wouldn’t ever be alone again.”

Liliane cocked her head. “The taste of betrayal so fresh on your lips, and now you seek to ingratiate yourself once more?”

“We’re back to step one. That means we’ve got the same goal again.”

“And in the future?”

“Darlin’, ain’t a body living nor dead that can tell that.”

“You’ll leave me,” Liliane mumbled. “Like you did before. Like Peter. Like Astrolabe. Like Ariadne.”

“Maybe,” Roarke said nonchalantly, as if considering the future price of corn. “Maybe that’s your destiny. Maybe it ain’t. The man upstairs ain’t exactly forthcoming.”

“Forgiveness is the mark of the divine.” Liliane turned to Roarke. “Your youth has ever inspired me, as much as it has driven me to fury.” She ran her talon across his face, tracing a small red line in a cruel mockery of a caress.

Liliane looked at him with eyes Ariadne had never seen before. Eyes full of hope, of promise. In this moment, more than any other time, she looked human.

Roarke moved so fast that Ariadne could barely see the motion of his hand as it flew to Liliane’s neck, tensed to snap it. But the Prince was just a little bit faster as she her drove her fangs into his throat, ripping it apart.

Ariadne’s body, still neck deep in the blood pool, spasmed of its own accord. Every thrash of her sire’s dying body was matched by a twitch in her own. Even in the moments of his destruction, he sought to control her.

Ariadne focused her will, forced her hand to stop in its flailing arc, felt an object knock into it. Her fingers ran along a familiar shape, closing around it.

A thud shook the cavern. Roarke had fallen, and Liliane, swooning like a drunk, careened toward the pool. Her eyes were raw and ablaze with the rush of another elder’s blood. Ariadne could see the veins bulging in the Prince’s skin, making impressions against the white muslin of her dress, already stained deep crimson with blood.

Gone was the grace and majesty of Liliane’s bearing, replaced with an animal passion that erupted in a growl from her throat. When she spoke, it was not English that emerged but some other tongue, awkward as if unused to being voiced by human speech in millennia.

Ariadne could barely move. She could only watch Liliane drawing close, watch the shreds of the Prince’s disguise peel and melt away. There was no radical transformation, no eruption of horns or wings or tail, but the odd angles of the Prince’s posture, the sudden drawing of the flesh around the bones of her skull, the distended stomach in which Ariadne could actually see the waves of churning blood, all cried loud and clear what the Prince had always been.

Liliane lurched up to the edge of the pool, mouth foaming with blood, eyes wild yet wide and alert.

Ariadne heard the sounds of crashes and muffled booms from above. Was the house collapsing above them? Had Saul’s soldiers broken through? Had Marie brought reinforcements from the wizards?

Liliane grabbed Ariadne by the shoulders, and Ariadne felt her own flesh rip and tear as the Prince dragged her half out of the blood pool. Liliane raised the iron-gray claw on her index finger. The tip pressed against Ariadne’s flesh, against her carotid artery.

Ariadne could barely make out the syllables through the Prince’s growl. “I made you. Not Roarke. Me.”

And I destroyed you, Ariadne thought. I can carry that with me to my grave.

Another crash, followed by footsteps.

“Do you hear that?” Ariadne croaked.

“And the rock cried out, ‘no hiding place.’” The Gospel seemed to sizzle on Liliane’s lips. “There is no rescue from God’s wrath.”

“They’re not coming for me,” said Ariadne. “They’re coming for you. Again, Liliane. With the torches and pitchforks.”

The skin of Liliane’s face rippled. The talon by Ariadne’s neck quavered.

“Just like last time.” Ariadne pressed. “Everything you built, everything you dreamed. Gone.”

“No!”

“Yes,” said Ariadne. She raised the arm that still dragged in the pool of blood, the hand that had found the hilt of Saul’s sword.

As it rose from the blood pool, the blade shone with a brilliant light that cast shadows through the entire cavern and forced Ariadne and Liliane to close their eyes. The blood of one Kindred charged the sword enough to steal a soul with one blow. What would the collected blood of so many do?

Ariadne did not need to see to strike. She felt the blade connect, felt the sensations up her arm and shoulder as if the sword-edge was just one more cluster of nerves. Striking with it was as natural as breathing used to be.

Ariadne felt every snap of sinew and tendon. She felt the crunch of bone and the rapid shift in resistance, the sudden ease with which the sword, no longer impeded, sliced through the empty space, then shattered when it his the cavern floor. Ariadne opened her eyes in time to see the shocked gasp on Liliane’s face as the Prince’s torso corroded. Ariadne watched the arms that held her up snap away from a body that crumbled to dust. She watched the billow of skirts raised by the wind of disappearing legs.

Liliane’s face was the last to go. The expression of surprise lingered for a moment like a sand sculpture as the skin and bone pulverized. Then there was only the soft echo in the air, the faint reminder of a presence, a shooting star that passed in the night and was already half a memory before its light even faded.

Three Kindred whose eyes had seen the passage of centuries had walked into this cavern. Now, all that remained of any of them was some empty clothes and a battered old top hat. It was the last thing Ariadne saw as, spent, she sank into the blood pool and disappeared beneath its surface.

Somewhere, beyond the walls of the cavern, out beyond the charred and smoldering remains of a once-stately house, she knew the sun must be rising. Someone had reached her. Hands were grabbing at her form. A voice that sounded like Saul’s was asking her if she was all right.

Ariadne felt it all pass away. Here within the earthen womb, she imagined she could feel the sun’s rays touching her face. The thought made her smile.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 37

 

 

Ariadne had no idea how long she’d waited in the gunmetal gray hallway, impatiently hugging her chest with her arms. As she paced she almost wished she was facing the corpse army again.

The waiting room seemed designed to inspire boredom. It had a gray couch, a potted plant, a few prints of inoffensive art hanging on the walls, and a desk where a plain, mousy woman clicked away on a computer while some insipid Bryan Adams song played from unseen speakers. She tried to recollect the melody Roarke had planted inside her, but it was gone. She knew somehow it would never come back.

A dozen cameras scanned the room from every angle; Ariadne didn’t know how Saul managed to explain her blurred presence on them, but at the moment she didn’t care.

When his men brought her here, they hadn’t chained her up, even though in her weakened state they could have. That was either a sign they respected her, or a sign that, after witnessing what she could do down in the cavern, they were terrified of making her angry. She could deal with either.

Andrei came walking down the hall. At first sight he looked the picture of someone who worked at this facility, not of someone who for the last few days had been a prisoner here. Cassie was trotting beside him, tiny hand gripped within his bandaged, four-fingered one.

“Hey.” He said the word hopefully, awkwardly, like a teenager asking someone out on a first date.

Ariadne turned to him. Her arms remained crossed. “Hey.”

“I, um . . . I guess I’m free to go.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. It was sort of like a forced stay at a hotel. A nicer one than Fresh Pond, too.” He chuckled nervously. “They even let Cassie come stay with me after a while. You know, the whole time, they didn’t even ask me any questions. I know the government’s gotten pretty screwy with arrests since 9/11, but this was just bizarre. I assume this, ah, has something to do with you?”

“Yes,” Ariadne said. After a moment she added, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said graciously, as if she had delivered an apology. “Cassie’s fine, you’re fine, I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

He reached out his good hand. Ariadne watched with casual detachment as he rested it on her shoulder. She felt the usual quiver of longing, and fought it back.

“I keep thinking I’m just going to wake up from all of this tomorrow with a bad hangover.”

“I hope so,” she said evenly.

“Ari,” he said, taking her chin in hand when she avoided his eyes. “Let’s go home.”

“No.”

Andrei pulled back, hurt. Cassie stared at Ariadne warily, then looked to her father to gauge his reaction. Ariadne thought he looked more confused than anything else.

She raised an eyebrow warily. “You still want to be with me after all you saw? Knowing what I am?”

“I’m not sure what I saw,” said Andrei, grimacing. “Things are a little foggy. I think it’s because I finally got some sleep.” He chuckled. “Most people get refreshed if they take a break from work. Me? My brain breaks down.”

Ariadne nodded with relief. She had, as she had promised Saul, made arrangements that the Masquerade would remain intact.

“He won’t remember anything that breaches the Veil,” Marie says, removing her hand from Andrei’s forehead. Aside from looking a little pale, there is no sign the young wizard has suffered multiple gunshot wounds just a few days earlier. She is wearing a knit sweater with images of gingerbread men all over it.

Saul looks unimpressed. “I’ve seen minds wiped before. They can sometimes be unwiped. A bullet’s a lot more permanent a solution.”

“We had a deal,” Ariadne says. “I’m not reneging on my end. And in case you’re thinking of backing out on yours . . .”

Marie knows her cue. “We’ll be watching. My Consilium can use a man with good computer skills. Especially a cute one.” Marie pinched Andrei’s cheek. He stared blankly ahead, his mind still enthralled. “Bottom line: this man and his family are under our protection. Understand?”

“Well, whatever happened,” Andrei was saying, bringing Ariadne back to the present, “I’m not angry. I promised myself that I wouldn’t be angry at you any more. That path led nowhere. I’m still finding a new one, I guess. This was just a bump. A weird one, but a bump. No charges. No jail time. We’re free to go. We can pick up where we left off, go to that apartment, start a life.”

Ariadne could see the chains wrapped around him, wished she could reach out and snap them. But just as she had to free herself, so, too, would he.

“I can’t be with you. I’m sorry.”

“Is it because of this?” Andrei pointed to his mauled hand, as if that mess of knitted flesh and muscle could truly encompass what the last decade of nights had wrought in her. “What those thugs did? Look, whoever you used to keep company with, you’re not like them. You’re still you.”

Ariadne wanted to cry out: I’m still just the same? So are you going to marry me? How will you explain a wife who never comes out in daylight? What kind of job am I supposed to get? What skills do I have, besides murder? And Cassie, what about her? Is she ever going to love a walking corpse? Is that what you want for your child? Is that healthy?

Instead, she just said, “No. I’m sorry.”

Andrei stared at her, then down at Cassie, who was tugging at his shirt.

“I want to go home, Daddy,” she said.

He mussed her hair. For just a moment, a frozen time between breaths, Ariadne imagined this scene as if lit by daylight. Andrei, the nurturing father, providing comfort. Ariadne, the smiling wife, looking proudly on the scene of her happy family. It was all real.

Immersed first in poetry, then later in blood, she had never even known she had wanted any of this. Not until now, this moment. She wanted to reach out, snatch the whole scene, wrap it around her.

Across the hall, one of Saul’s faux FBI agents tossed an obscenity in a conversation with one of his fellows. The scene around Ariadne shattered, a stained-glass window now in a million shards that could never again be assembled.

Words Liliane had spoken often came back to her. “What is it that set God above His creations? Perhaps nothing more than that fundamental declaration of self-knowledge: I am that I am.”

“Andrei,” she whispered. “I’m dead.”

“But—”

She put a finger to his lips. “This body, it’s a lie. It looks like me, it moves like me. On some days, it even thinks it is me. But it doesn’t feel. Not the way I need it to. Not the way you deserve it to.” Those last words seemed to weigh tons as she pushed them out. “You need more than the kind of devotion hunger brings. Even if you don’t, I need more than that. And I’m not sure I’m even capable of it.”

“Enough with the poetry,” said Andrei. “Let’s be serious. How do you even know what you’re capable of? We could take time, explore.”

“You don’t want that. Cassie won’t want that. For a while, I thought I could change myself. I had all sorts of plans, like you wouldn’t even believe, to change you. But I don’t think that would work any more than you could change me.”

“You mean like I tried to in college?”

Andrei looked to her, then down at Cassie nuzzling in his sweater. For a man not burdened with the weight of centuries of life, his eyes looked far too careworn.

“I always tried to do right by you. By her.” He ruffled Cassie’s hair. “I screwed up. How many times do I have to admit that? But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying.”

Of course it didn’t. Andrei would steam on ahead, even if the tracks led into an abyss, so long as some light shined on a hill. He would lose his other nine fingers for her.

Ariadne sighed. “Maybe that girl with her sandals and her poetry back at college could have changed. You could have changed with her, and both could have become something better together. Not now.”

Andrei closed his mouth, looked at the floor for a while. Finally, he spoke.

“You’re strong. I know that. If you don’t like who and what you are, you can still change.”

“Maybe I can,” she said. “But it has to be without you. Every time you’re around, I feel so much . . . so much less than what I can be. It’s like the clock goes back in all the wrong ways and I shed all I’ve gained without reclaiming anything I’ve lost. It might not even be your fault, but it still isn’t right.”

Andrei stared at her. Ariadne could see the arguments piling up like a maddened snowfall in his eyes. She feared that if he started hurling them at her, she might weaken again.

“Just promise me one thing, Ari,” he said. “If you do change, come back and find us.”

Ariadne laughed softly, shut her eyes. “Please, Andrei. Please. Move on. You’re alive, which means you have no excuse for getting stuck. Go, find some woman who’ll appreciate you. I loved you, your wife loved you . . . there’s sure to be a third out there.”

Andrei stared. “So this is it?”

Ariadne leaned forward and kissed Andrei lightly on the cheek, then touched Cassie’s face with her finger.

Cassie flinched away, but not before Ariadne felt her soft cheek, not before she allowed herself a momentary fantasy of how the love of a daughter might feel. Like an unexpected gunshot, she felt a startling flood of empathy for Liliane, felt how desperate the desire for a daughter’s love could be . . . and how twisted it could become in the hearts of the damned.

Without saying another word, Ariadne walked out of the room. Andrei was calling something after her. She chose not to hear. He would move on. Ariadne had confidence in him. Humans were resilient. They had to be. Only Kindred could truly afford the luxury of forever wallowing in their broken dreams.

“You.”

Saul was waiting in the hallway beyond, beckoning her into a stairwell. She followed tentatively, senses alert. The heavy door closed, kicking up a gust that made the folds of his trenchcoat billow around his stout form. From beneath them, he produced two katanas, one in each hand. She took note of how he knew precisely the right way to proffer the swords.

His face was healed, his characteristic calm restored. “You did well, girl. There’s a place for you here, with us.”

Ariadne took the swords from him, felt their weight. She slid them neatly into the guitar case that Saul had procured for her. She did not reply.

“Liliane and Roarke snowed us,” he said. “I’ll admit that freely. They staged a war to distract us from what they were doing with that soul eater, and it worked. I don’t need to tell you the Masquerade would have been shredded if not for you.”

“No, you don’t need to tell me that,” said Ariadne simply. “You just need to let me go.”

“Don’t be so hasty,” Saul drew near. “The Council needs a new Prince in East Boston. We need to re-establish our compact with the wizards, and it’s clear that at least one of them gets along with you. I can’t think of a better candidate.”

“I can,” said Ariadne flatly. “Anyone else.”

“Come on, be reasonable,” said Saul. “Kindred aren’t a solitary species. We don’t last long on our own.”

“I’ll take my chances. I followed through on my end of the deal, and you’re going to follow through on yours. We’re done now.”

“Do you understand what I’m offering you here?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “More puppet strings. More masters. I’m done with all of that. If you want the swords back, fine.”

Saul’s face darkened. She saw the small sparks of anger crackle in his eyes, saw the stolid demeanor crack just a millimeter.

“Keep the swords.” Saul’s voice grew terse. “They can serve as a reminder that we’ll be watching you. You’re not just any Lick. You can do things very few of us can. That makes you valuable, and it makes you vulnerable. When we let you go, are you prepared for handling all that on your own?”

Ariadne just raised an eyebrow.

Saul continued. “Think carefully. If you refuse the Council now, we may come back later with an offer on less generous terms.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Ariadne said, then turned her back, walked away, and was swallowed by the darkness.

 

 

 

 

EPILOGUE

 

 

Who am I?

Ariadne rewrites those three words in a dozen different scripts, in different colors, across the inside cover of her notebook with the college logo on it, the price tag from the campus bookstore still clinging to a stray piece of plastic sheathing.

Who am I?

It sounds like a simple enough question. A few months ago, in high school, she could have answered it so freely, without any hesitation. I am either a man or a woman. I am possessed of a certain age, height, weight, and build. I came from here or there, I plan to study this or that.

Ah, but that still doesn’t do it, doesn’t catch the elusive little rodent in the innermost wheel of “identity” that escapes every trap she lays for it.

Am I “type A” or “type B?” People person or introvert? Ectomorph or endomorph, Democrat or Republican? Latte or mocha?

Ariadne is starting to suspect that, here in college, the answer is always “yes.” Or “no.” Or “check back with me in a week.” Yesterday she read Erik Eriksson; he described college as a “moratorium on life,” a time when young people try on all the hats in the clothing store with no obligation to buy and no charge for soiling the merchandise.

So why am I so scared? she wonders, dabbing at her lower lip with the eraser of her pencil. Is it a fear of all that potential for change, or of the thought that this might be my last chance for it? She has to pick a major, after all, as early as sophomore year. She needs to explore this time now, treasure it, before she ossifies.

Ariadne writes: There is nothing more terrifying than ossification.

Then she leans back, breathes in the fresh campus air. She is seated on the lawn outside the library, feeling the grass tickle her bare ankles beneath her flower-print skirt. The sun shines gloriously upon her, baking her skin, its rays a gift. She feels as if she can latch on to any of those beams of sunlight, follow it to the end, bump up against a wall of stars that scatter, destroying her carefully drawn map of the constellations . . . and then she’ll draw a new one.

“Who am I?” she calls out to the sky with a smile.

“Um, you’re the girl who’s laying on my bookbag.”

“What?”

Ariadne rolls over, sees she has leaned back into someone else’s personal space. When did he sit down? He hadn’t been there when she arrived.

She sees a pair of patent-leather shoes, impeccably polished. Her eyes follow the khaki pants, up over the knees, to a leather belt. In the lap, a computer science textbook. Then a button-down shirt and tie. Finally, Ariadne sees a blond young man staring back at her. The glare of the sun bathes his face in a fiery aura.

“Oh.” She exhales, drawing herself up to an unsteady sitting posture, her skirt awash in fragments of grass and leaves. “I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” he says. His gaze lingers on her for a moment, then returns to his book.

Ariadne rubs her eyes a bit to chase the sunspots from them. She wants to see his face clearly. She wants to see if it was only the sun in her eyes that made him look like Adonis.

He looks up again when he feels her gaze still falling on him. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“No,” she says, cocking her head. There is a flush behind her cheeks, a fluttered beating of her heart. “I was just thinking: it’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

She would never have tried something like this in high school. That simply wasn’t who she was. But now, she can be anyone. Even the kind of girl who would start up a conversation with a complete stranger.

He cranes his neck, as if he needs to look around, to confirm her words by some sort of examination. Ariadne stifles a giggle.

“Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.”

She has already jumped off the cliff, she realizes. She might as well flap her wings and try to fly.

“I’ve just decided that it’s too beautiful for me to study right now. I’m going to go for a walk. Do you want to join me?”

He stares at her as if she has just asked him to jump off a cliff. Uh oh. Now she’s done it. She’s flown too close to the sun; it’s going to melt her wings and send her plummeting.

Well, fine. At least she would make a spectacular splash. Better to die in the pursuit of living, to die on fire, to—

“I said, my name’s Andrei. What’s yours?”

She blinks. “Oh, I, ah . . . Ariadne! My name is Ariadne.”

“That’s Greek, isn’t it?”

“It is. I’m not. Well, I might be. I haven’t ever really done a proper family tree. It’s something I imagine I’ll do when I’m old and gray in a rocking chair somewhere, with a glass of lemonade and a whole collection of cats.”

Andrei narrows his eyes, as if trying to determine if she is in fact speaking English.

“Well,” she says, scratching her neck self-consciously, “I’m going to go, then. For my walk. If you want to join me, that’s great. If not, well, that’s okay, too. Enjoy your textbook.”

As he stares, utterly stupefied, Ariadne rises to her feet, nods, smiles, then begins walking. She has no idea of her destination. She just starts walking. Because she said she was going to walk, and if she says it and doesn’t do it, then—

“Excuse me.”

She turns. Andrei is jogging up to her, holding her notebook in one hand.

“You left this behind.”

“Oh. Thanks.” She flashes a stupid grin without even realizing it, and then it is too late to call it back.

He seems to soften, though, when he sees it. He blushes, produces a thin smile, then half-coughs. It’s so cute! It’s like he’s almost British.

“I, ah . . . I have a class in just a few minutes. So I, um . . . so I can’t walk with you. Not right now. But maybe later? I mean, I don’t know what your schedule is like, but . . . um . . .”

“I don’t have a schedule.” Ariadne rocks nervously on the balls of her feet.

“You don’t? Registration was weeks ago.”

“Well, sure, I mean, of course, I have classes and everything,” says Ariadne. “But I consider it all flexible. Life’s too short to stay within the walls all the time. That’s my new philosophy.”

“New philosophy?”

“I try a new one every few days. See how well each fits.”

Andrei scratches his neck, still smiling. “You’re, um. You’re . . .”

He pauses, trying carefully to find just the right word. She waits with baited breath for the judgment.

“Different,” he says at last.

“Oh.”

“No, no,” he says, seeing her expression sink, “not in a bad way.”

“In what way, then?”

“Different as in, ah . . .” He coughs. “Well, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before.”

“Of course not,” she says. “I’m unique. We all are.”

He squints again. “Are you really like this?”

“Really like what?”

“This. All the time.”

“I told you: I’m trying on philosophies. It’s the only way to find out who I am.”

“So tomorrow, you might not be Ariadne?”

“That’s right,” she says, smirking. “So you’d better walk with me today. Otherwise, tomorrow, how will you ever find me?”

“I think I’d manage,” he says. “You seem like the kind of person who stands out. That,” he quickly adds, “was a compliment.”

“Why, thank you, sir.”

“My last class today is over at eight.”

“Eight?” she says.

It will be twilight, nearly dark. Well, so be it, she decides. Think how much of life one would miss if one were only a heliophant! Perhaps it is time for Ariadne to try out the nocturnal life.

“Eight,” she says confidently.

“Can I meet you in front of the library?”

“Hmm,” Ariadne says, hand over her eyes, surveying the campus. “No, we’ve already been here. Let’s meet . . . there.”

He follows the direction of her finger.

“That covered bridge?”

She nods. “It looks like the perfect place for a meeting.”

He shakes his head. His smile is now full and robust, and she feels herself shivering inside. She almost asks him to step on her feet, so she won’t float away.

“Thanks for bringing back my notebook,” she says, taking it from him. She notices that his hand is shaking slightly.

“Oh, no problem,” he says. “I just know that if that were me, I’d be going crazy looking for it. I’m a firm believer in helping people avoid misery whenever possible.”

“A regular knight in shining armor.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say—”

“Sir Knight,” Ariadne curtsies, “I shall see thee at eight. You can tell me all about whatever quest it is that you’re on.”

He walks away, looking back several times. Ariadne feels ablaze with the sun’s glow. She has stolen a piece of it for herself, and wraps it around her like a cloak.

Who am I?

I have no idea. But no matter how scary it might be, I’m going to have so much fun figuring it out.

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

Route 2 spread up a precipitous hill as it struck out from Boston. Ariadne followed at the margins of the highway as closely as she could, navigating the dead shrubs, junk piles, and other trappings of the suburban wasteland that ringed the city’s perimeter. Liliane always told her the world beyond the city—any city—was dangerous, that werewolves and beasts and unnamed horrors lay in wait. If that was not another lie, then Ariadne would deal with those creatures as they came. She had no quarrel with them. If they decided to make one, they would regret it.

Even at the mere thought of violence, Ariadne’s perceptions shifted to the weight on her back. Saul’s swords, inside the guitar case, did not carry the familiar weight of her old ones. Some day, Ariadne knew, she would forge new blades. For now, she almost enjoyed the eeriness, the thrill, of this new load.

Her boots tapped softly against the pavement and dried grasses, crunched broken leaves and other detritus of a long-gone autumn. The city receded behind her. Liliane’s perennial advice about not looking back on Sodom and Gomorrah was probably well taken. Ariadne looked anyway.

A light drizzle of rain was falling, and in the distance Boston twinkled placidly in the late evening fog. From here Ariadne couldn’t see the Charles River at all. For the first time in a decade, she saw the city without its perpetual mirror-companion. It was one and only one entity, calm and unchanging. So much had happened since the last time Ariadne had seen the city as a singular form, a city above and not also below. She had a hard time remembering when that had been. But from what all the elders said, the years would eventually lap away at all the dams of her memories, grind them down until everything blurred in their irresistible flow. Perhaps that would be a blessing.

Ariadne wondered if any of Liliane’s court or Roarke’s rebels had survived, whether they would join or contest the Council in rebuilding the shattered remnants of the Prince’s abandoned empire. Ariadne squinted into the night, trying to find the lights of the Fresh Pond Motel, knowing it was impossible. From this distance they were well obscured by some taller, prouder structures.

A fragment of Shelley floated to her lips:

 

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

 

Some day the Council might seek her out. If they did they would not find her a pliant weapon to wield. But if she was not a weapon, then what was she?

Bourne’s laughter echoed in her mind. Ariadne could still see the grime on his fangs as he smiled. Were he there, he would doubtless interject some dry remark to belittle her soul-searching. She had never thought she would miss that.

She had been loved by two men, one human and one not, but which was which? Each had been looking for something that they thought Ariadne could help them find. Had either been right? Standing alone, whipped by the night wind, splashed by the spray from cars passing on the highway beside her, Ariadne realized it was hard enough to sort through one set of thoughts, let alone more.

Besides, love was a human emotion. Whatever Ariadne was, she was no longer human. For those like her, love was as unwieldy, as unbalanced, as a blade in the hands of a bear.

For those like her . . .

Who am I?

“I am that I am,” she said.

It was a beginning. Even with endless pages to fill, a single sentence nevertheless tasted to her like victory.

 

—The End—

 

 

 

 

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, andExalted 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.

 

DEDICATION

For Liana

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

 

This book made a long journey, rising from the grave more than a few times, and I have many people to thank for the fact that at last it walks the earth. I have to begin with my childhood (and much cooler-than-I) friend Dave Gleason, who took a pause from cavorting with the stars in Hollywood to email me the news of this novel contest White Wolf was running, and who persuaded me to enter it. At White Wolf, Stewart Wieck decided my stuff passed muster and gave me that “break” all writers dream of.

The other thing all writers dream of is a good editor, and James Lowder has been the best. Patient, good-humored, compassionate, infinitely accessible, and keenly insightful, he has been as much mentor as editor to me in this process, and for that I am immensely thankful. Eddy Webb has also been a wonderful editor to work with at White Wolf, on this and other projects.

James and Eddy both get paid for their work, but the following people, motivated only by some mysterious affection they held for me, also read drafts of this book and offered much-needed advice and critiques: Morgan Crooks, Josh and Taneka Mintzer, Ryan Sweeney, Sophia Rovitti, Dale Donovan, Marshall Finch, and my wife, Liana Tuller. To her, my partner in all of life’s endeavors, I owe far more than I can ever express in the words of an acknowledgments page.

I want to thank my parents, sister, and niece for their love and encouragement, and for not giving in to any temptation to disown me.

Two additional thank-yous, no less important than the rest: My gratitude goes out to two teachers, one who I had when I was a high school student, and one who I had as a colleague on a high school faculty: Paul Sonerson and Tom Hart. They believed in me, and such belief gives life to the near-dead.

Finally, a lusty thank-you to the Marvel Roleplaying Club, for twenty years of gaming and more to come. Live Long and Prosper and Floss Daily, crew!