CHAPTER 14



 

Liliane, her back to Rose, sighed a small sigh of disappointment. She did not turn around, speaking instead to the air in front of her. “Is the Council so eager to pluck the fruit of our long years of labor?”

“Once we clear the maggots out of it, yes.”

Mister Rose strode around the edge of the divan until he was facing Liliane. He seemed to take no notice of the kneeling Ariadne by his side.

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” said he said. “It’s not your fault. What you have here is a gaggle of misfits, rejects from a dozen other coteries who found refuge in the shadows of wizards’ capes. It should come as no surprise that, sooner or later, the city would fall to chaos.”

“A few fires in East Boston do not equate with a city in chaos,” said Liliane.

“I beg to differ,” said Rose. “East Boston may be one neighborhood, but it’s your neighborhood. If you can’t control your own backyard . . . well, look, this is the way it is. I have a squad of soldiers a phone call away. They’ll move in and finish off Roarke’s men before dawn.”

“Will they now?”

“You can bet on it.”

Liliane smiled sweetly. “And, of course, they will not leave once their task is accomplished.”

“They’ll stay for a period, yes. To ensure security and make certain no ripple effects from these incidents compromise the Masquerade any further.”

Liliane sighed, but her smile remained. “It must be very satisfying, the prospect of ruling a city that has eluded the Invinctus’s grasp for generations.”

“Let’s focus on the present for the moment,” said Rose. “Besides, this is business. I think we’d all be happier if we left the personal factors out of it.”

“Left the personal factors out?” Liliane cocked her head, and Ariadne felt a small frisson move through the room. “We have never done so in the past. When the emissaries of the wizards’ Ebon Noose first came to parley with me, they reduced one of my lieutenants to dust with a finger-snap before we settled on terms. We took that personally.”

“Well, wizards have always been a hassle. All the better, then, that we move in and—”

“When we debated theology with the wizards’ White Putnams for two-score hours, uninterrupted, until a concordance was reached—” Liliane’s voice took on an edge as she interrupted him “—we endured the pain and lethargy of day itself, and we took that experience very personally.”

“Don’t think the Council doesn’t appreciate the pains you took to secure alliances,” Rose began, “but nevertheless—”

Her voice became sharper still. “When our trusted Seneschal Roarke rebelled, we took it so personally that we decided not to rest until his ashes were scattered to every corner of this demesne.”

“I’m not sure I like where you’re headed with this.”

“And now that the Invictus Council has decided to play the hyena and steal the lion’s kill.” Liliane’s voice, after reaching crescendo, suddenly eased off into a sweet, dulcet whisper. “We take it very personally indeed. We reject your kind offer of assistance.”

Mister Rose blinked. “Excuse me?” A rumbling shook his formidable frame. “You reject? Prince Liliane, your sense of humor falls here on deaf ears. We have authority, we have jurisdiction, and—”

“You have one man,” said Liliane.

The room grew ice cold. Ariadne, still bowed to the ground, looked from her Prince to the Invictus Councilor and back. Everyone in the room remained frozen for a moment. Then Mister Rose shifted uncomfortably.

“I will pretend I did not hear that implied threat.”

“You have one man,” Liliane repeated softly, “and you presume to dictate terms to us, in the heart of our power.”

“Liliane.” Mister Rose took a deep breath, and the absence of his use of her title as Prince was marked. “They say many things about you, not all of them complimentary, but no one would call you a fool. I know you well enough that—”

“You know nothing about me,” Liliane whispered. She was no longer smiling. “I was old when your sire was not yet born.”

Rose closed his eyes, tapped his nose with one finger. “You’re just embarrassing yourself. Show some dignity. I’m going to make a call now, and this will all be over.”

Liliane gave a small, ladylike shrug. “Then I suppose you leave me no choice but to prevent you from making that call.”

Ariadne had been coiled for long seconds now, and before her Prince had even finished the statement, she leapt up at Rose, not stopping to think of the consequences. Her Prince’s word was law, not to mention how this unspoken order gave her a chance to redeem herself.

Rose, for his part, was not stupid. He was ready for the attack. He seized Ariadne’s arm as she struck, attempted to turn the charge aside and hurl her to the ground. He was only half successful.

The two tumbled to the finely woven carpet, each struggling to gain leverage. For all his bulk, Rose was nimble. Ariadne couldn’t pin his limbs. She could only wrestle him to a nervous stalemate.

Ariadne heard a hiss of air, felt a shiver transmit through Rose’s limbs to her. Then a force beyond her reckoning hurled her from his body, across the room, to impact painfully with the wall. Plaster and a chunk of brass candelabra exploded out from around her.

As she fell, Ariadne dropped catlike to her feet, hand flying to her back to draw her sword. It was dulled from last night’s battle, but it would have to do.

Rose drew his own blade from the scabbard beneath his jacket. A thin trickle of blood ran down his arm and landed on the blade, sending crackles of electricity arcing across the tip. Ariadne remembered his claim in the parking garage that, once charged with blood, the weapon stole souls with its next touch.

“Call her off.” Rose’s voice shook slightly, but his sword did not. “Call her off, Liliane. This is treason.”

Liliane remained on her divan, sitting ramrod straight but otherwise placid. “Hrm? Call her off? How can we, Mister Rose, when you just informed us that we are no longer in control of the situation?”

“Stop it! Stop it this—”

“Goodbye, Mister Rose,” said Liliane, and inclined her head in Ariadne’s direction.

Ariadne charged, her sword held high. Rose brought up his own blade in time for a parry. A bright burst of light accompanied the clash, and Ariadne felt a wave of static buzz uncomfortably through her.

The two took one another’s measure, the slight young woman and the large old man. His sword was shorter, so Ariadne tried to keep her guard tight, force him to stay at a distance. Every time he lunged, the sheer power behind his stoke pushed her back a step. If his sword really did drink souls, then she couldn’t allow herself to be cut even once.

“I will give you one more chance to join us.” Rose bared his fangs. “Your loss would be a waste.”

Ariadne let her sword speak her reply. She and Rose clashed once, twice, and on the third meeting she managed to get inside his guard and slice into his side.

Immediately she realized her mistake. He had drawn her in, and now she was vulnerable. His sword came jabbing toward her gut. She threw herself aside and down, missing the blow but falling into an indefensible pile on the ground.

Gunshots sounded, and Ariadne heard Rose hiss. One of Liliane’s soldiers had charged into the room and was emptying his pistol’s entire clip into Rose’s chest.

Rose simply walked into the hail of bullets, his body shaking slightly with each impact. Ariadne could see some of the shells tear through him and embed themselves in the library books at the far wall, sending forth little cloudbursts of paper and dust.

“As an Invictus Councilor, I order you to stand down.”

“Where the hell was the Council when my sire got wasted by Lupines?” the soldier spat, madly reloading. “Liliane took me in, and—”

Rose’s swift downward slice cut off the soldier’s hand at the wrist. Immediately, the other vampire’s body lost all rigor, flopping to the ground, where the skin and bone began melting into the carpet.

So Rose’s boasts about the sword’s power were true.

Rose kicked the door closed with such force that it wedged in its frame. As the sound of pounding fists thudded from the other side, Rose turned with a growl, slashing his blade left and right through the air as he advanced upon Liliane.

Ariadne rushed between them, sword in hand again, blocking his strike just before it reached the Prince. Liliane did not move a millimeter. The clang echoed throughout the room.

The dance began again, Ariadne leading Rose as far from Liliane as she could. The Seneschal dropped into a crouch just in time for Rose’s sword to graze the air above her in a tight arc. She felt the wind muss her hair.

Ariadne kicked out from her crouch at his knees, but Rose leapt up to avoid her blow. He slashed downward as he landed, slicing a path through the carpet just as she rolled out of the way.

The Silent Knife took over. A centrifuge spun thoughts of Liliane, Roarke, even Andrei, to the edges of her mind. All that was real was here, now, two Kindred and two swords.

Ariadne scrambled to her feet, and the duel resumed. They circled and matched blades while standing on chairs, on tables, now one giving ground, now one taking it.

“Enough, little one,” Rose said as he maneuvered her toward Liliane’s little Japanese rock garden. “You can’t win.”

Ariadne ignored the words, focusing instead on the rocks beneath her feet. Soccer style, she slid her toe beneath one. As Rose made his next thrust she kicked it into his chest.

The impact threw off his strike. Ariadne moved in, slicing clean and true through his torso. Blood sprayed over the rocks, over the back of the Prince’s divan. Unfortunately, unlike his blade, hers, dulled as it was, didn’t kill with one blow.

Rose bore down on her, but now he was wounded, sloppy. Ariadne, still in trim, pressed her advantage before his wound, already knitting, could heal.

She forced him backward, cut him twice more across the arms. He continued to give ground. To him, this was a mission. He wanted to get out of this room alive more than he wanted to kill Ariadne. To her, this was redemption.

A savage swing severed Rose’s ear. As he cried out, Ariadne grabbed the edge of Liliane’s bookcase with both hands, letting her sword fall even as she heaved with all her might. Rose threw up an arm uselessly as dozens of books pelted him. With a final heave she toppled the heavy wooden frame over onto him, pinning him to the ground.

Only his head and shoulders protruded from beneath the bookcase. Ariadne searched madly for her sword. If she couldn’t find it, she would simply crouch down, seize Rose’s head, and twist it off with her bare hands.

Rose began to rise, bookcase and all, only to find Ariadne’s blade by his throat. He sank back down and growled, a fox in a trap, all professional graces gone.

“Enough.”

The Prince had risen and stood beside Ariadne. Her voice tugged an invisible leash, reeled Ariadne back as if on a choker. Ariadne froze, fangs still bared.

From the ground, Rose turned a blood-soaked face as best he could to look up at the two women. His bushy beard was matted red and brown.

“You’ll pay for this,” he rasped, and then burst into a fit of coughing. “You’re signing your death warrant to oppose the Council so nakedly!”

“The Council is no longer your worry, Mister Rose,” said Liliane. “We have done you the great service of relieving you of the burdens of your duties. It was the same blessing you wished for us, was it not?”

“You’re finished! Whatever happens to me, you’re still finished!”

“Believe us, Mister Rose, when we say we have barely begun.”

At that moment the door burst apart into shards. Liliane’s soldiers piled into the room, weapons drawn. Po-Mo was among them. Upon seeing Ariadne he burst into a proud smile.

“We are well, children.” Liliane turned to face her brood. “Though victory was not without cost.”

All eyes turned to the decaying remains and the crumpled clothing of the fallen soldier.

“See to the mourning rituals. We will join you shortly, after some further business with our distinguished guest.”

One by one they filed out, some lingering just long enough to stare at Rose’s trapped form, at Ariadne, standing tattered but triumphant, by her Prince’s side.

“As for you, my Silent Knife,” Liliane said as Ariadne watched the last of them depart, “stay with us.”

Ariadne felt the victorious song in her blood sink into the minor chords of a dirge at the Prince’s words.

“We have new things to discuss.”

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

Staked to the ceiling, pale to the color of slate, hung Mister Rose’s body. Liliane gestured. Drop by drop, his blood ran from the small funnels implanted here and there in his body. Below where he hung, a cistern much like the one in the dining room greedily sucked down the hour’s accumulated pool.

Below, Liliane embraced her Hand. “We rejoice to see you are not lost to us.”

Abruptly, the Prince pulled back. “Your absence has been acutely felt.” The edge Liliane gave to her words was unmistakable. “As you can see, circumstances have grown more . . . complex.” She gestured toward Rose hanging above, half-insensate. “Knowledge is crucial. You will tell us everything.”

Ariadne swallowed hard.

She began describing the battle, the rout of Roarke’s forces, the golem that covered his retreat, the flames that raged out of control and beyond the reach of the Masquerade. And then . . .

She explained how, wounded, she took refuge in a maintenance closet. Healing took longer than she had expected. The lies and half-truths poured out of her mouth as if possessed of their own intelligence, weaving themselves and using Ariadne’s lips and tongue merely as tools.

Liliane’s cold blue eyes remained fixed, evaluating. Ariadne knew she was betraying the Prince who had placed such trust in her, betraying it not for some beautiful divine goal, such as New Jerusalem, but for whatever it was she had felt when she was in Andrei’s arms, a feeling she couldn’t even put name to. Some small voice momentarily wondered whether saving the Prince’s life from Mister Rose wasn’t atonement enough for her betrayal. Then that voice got lost in the din of her rallying loyalty to her Prince.

She had been unprepared for Andrei, that was all. Her schemes had gone awry. If it happened again, she would be ready.

“I had a moment of weakness,” Ariadne said, referring aloud to her fictional refuge in the closet. “It won’t be repeated.”

“Of course not, Daughter.” Liliane smiled serenely. She ran a lacquered nail through Ariadne’s hair, sniffing the air slightly. Could the Prince smell Andrei on her?

The Prince had called Ariadne daughter, as she always did, as if she were Ariadne’s sire in fact and not by adoption. But it was just like Liliane to glaze her cruelty with love. And the timing made sense. If punishment was coming, she was going to mete it out here in private, so no one would question the Prince’s wisdom in trusting a woman who had failed her. Discipline would be hidden to preserve decorum—one simply did not punish a Seneschal in public—but it would be no less painful, or shameful, for that.

Ariadne had not been disciplined in years. She remembered the raking of claws across her eyes after she spoke to an elder without first being beckoned, the removal of her tongue for speaking out of turn, and of course, the ants . . . the ants . . . oh God, would Liliane use them on her, for the first time in half a decade?

A confession was right upon Ariadne’s lips when Liliane spoke again.

“Fix this. All of it. Speak with Archibald, speak with whomever will help you achieve our goal. But thanks to . . . whatever happened last night, we are now fighting a war on two fronts. You will fix this.”

The Prince did not have to speak further. Both women knew what the alternative was for Ariadne.

Ariadne could fix it. She knew she could. It was what Liliane had built her to do. Back in her cell she sharpened her sword. With an easy flick of the wrist, she spun it in an arc, the blade whistling sharply in the air. Lightning fast, she spun around, stabbed a phantom foe in the heart, spun again, lopped off an invisible head with a clean sweep.

She was not that weak, simpering girl from the pictures in the album, mooning over poetry and desperate for a loving grasp of Andrei’s hand. How could she have ever forgotten that?

Ariadne labored until dawn, poring over intelligence reports and drawing up plans, so intent on her studies that she almost failed to hear the screams of the house-steward, upon whom Liliane was finally enacting punishment for his earlier clumsiness with the urns.

His cries shocked her out of her pre-dawn sleepiness. This was a huge task. Defeating Roarke was one matter. That was a question of tactics and strategy; judging from field reports, her choices there were still working. Roarke’s headquarters had been destroyed. His ranks were decimated. Roarke’s attack on Silas had to have been a last gasp. One more good strike would end his rebellion.

But now that the Invictus Council was involved . . .

There was no way Liliane’s court could stand up to them. And what had been done to Mister Rose could not be undone. Ariadne had to move quickly, stop their intervention before it moved forward again, before they came looking for Rose. Short of that, Ariadne had no idea what course of action to take. There were just too many variables.

The battlefield had become political as much as tactical.

Ariadne wracked her brain for every possible alternative, and when she came up short, as she knew she would, she began looking for Bourne.

 

 

 



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.