Clan Novel Nosferatu: Book 13 of the Clan Novel Saga

by Gherbod Fleming

  “I would think your underlings would be more obedient,” Calebros, attempting to maintain his ire, chided Hesha.

  “She is new to the family,” Hesha admitted. “Given time, she will grow to learn exactly how I would have her respond in any situation.”

  “Given time…” Calebros muttered to himself.

  They did not have much longer to wait. Calebros heard the footsteps first. Four sets. Umberto, obviously disgruntled, entered the chamber first. He was followed by Hesha’s underling, the Gangrel, and Cassandra. Both Umberto and Cass wore their best faces, so to speak—normal human visages, neither noticeably handsome nor beautiful, but not hideous either; nothing to attract attention. Neither Pauline nor the other girl, Ramona, had been subjected to the full brunt of facing a Nosferatu. Not until now, that is, when they were brought into Calebros’s presence. He did not hide his true appearance from them. And he could read the dismay, the fear and disgust, on their faces. Of the two, Pauline made the worthier attempt, attempt, to maintain her demeanor of professional detachment—perhaps Ruhadze had taught her well. The Gangrel, unsurprisingly, was not so couth. She gawked, both at Calebros and at Hesha in his current condition, and she hid her revulsion quite poorly, if she tried at all.

  “Welcome, Ramona Tanner-childe,” Calebros said.

  She stared hard at him, eyes narrowed. “Hesha?”

  “No,” Hesha said, repressing a chuckle. “I am Hesha Ruhadze.” Ramona looked back and forth between the Nosferatu and the Setite with his ragged, festering wounds. Hesha added to his underling, in a harsher tone, “That is all for now, Ms. Miles.”

  The woman’s earphone was dangling at her shoulder, a token of her disobedience at having revealed the identity of her Nosferatu guardians to Ramona. She nodded to her employer and retraced her steps from the chamber.

  “Likewise.” Calebros gestured for Umberto to go as well.

  “Are you sure?” Umberto asked, but then he, along with Cass, retreated beneath Calebros’s cold stare.

  “I would think your underlings would be more obedient,” Hesha said—with a straight face, no less—once the two younger Nosferatu had left. Calebros ignored him.

  Ramona, apparently having grown somewhat accustomed to the hideousness of her companions, was glancing uncomfortably at the low ceiling, the pipes, the cold walls all around. She was a pretty girl, Calebros could see. Not beautiful, but pretty beneath the grime. Her hair was wild, like a panicked flock of swallows. She was slightly built, but wiry with muscles, strong, tough, like shoe leather. She scratched at the packed-earth floor with bestial clawed feet.

  “We must get you some boots,” Calebros said. “Large, but…you’ll grow accustomed to them. There is the Masquerade to be maintained.”

  Ramona glared at him as if he weren’t speaking English, then looked back at Hesha. “Pauline said you wanted to talk to me. I’m here. Talk.”

  Hesha bowed slightly. “Allow me to introduce our host, my friend, Calebros. Your friend…if you are wise.”

  Ramona looked at Calebros again, a more measured look this time, trying to see through the deformities.

  Good girl, Calebros thought. Young and brash, but not stupid.

  Eventually, she turned back to Hesha. She looked at the third, empty chair, did not sit. “What do you want to talk about.” Still guarded, but less hostile this time.

  “As I understand it,” Hesha said, “it is you that has been asking after me.”

  “Not me,” she said.

  “Your companion,” Calebros said.

  She was instantly on edge again, but trying not to appear so. “He ain’t my companion.” She spat the last word distastefully.

  “He,” said Hesha. “Khalil Ravana.”

  She hesitated for a long moment, staring, one after the other, at the two beasts before her. “He said you could find the Eye,” she said at last to Hesha.

  “Did he, now?”

  “Yeah.” She waited. “So can you?” Her every word was hard, an accusation.

  What have you seen that makes you so angry, so bitter, little one? Calebros wondered. Family killed? Have you been betrayed? How many times, I wonder. You’d best get over it, if you hope to survive.

  “I do possess the means to find the Eye,” Hesha said.

  The gem, Calebros thought. The black and red stone. If Hesha had told him the truth about it.

  “Why is it,” Hesha asked Ramona, “that you want to find the Eye so badly?”

  Ramona hesitated again. She obviously had many questions of her own, but she was being very guarded about what she said. Quid pro quo, my dear, Calebros thought. Quid pro quo.

  “I have my reasons,” she said, kicking at the dirt some more.

  Hesha shook his head, disappointed. “That’s not good enough if we’re going to work together, Ramona.”

  “I didn’t say nothing ’bout working together,” she said.

  “Do you really think Khalil can get you what you want?” the Setite asked. She didn’t have an answer for that, so Hesha continued. “You were with Xaviar…in the mountains. You saw what it could do.”

  Calebros and Hesha had speculated as much over the past nights, but if the Setite’s assertion was a gamble, then Ramona’s wide-eyed expression was the payoff—and confirmation of the truth of his words.

  “I want to kill it,” she said, finding her tongue after a few seconds. “Leopold, the Eye.” Her words dripped with hatred. She was not one to hide her feelings, this Gangrel whelp.

  “I will make sure that it harms no one else,” Hesha said, the casual tone of his conversation gone, his words even and cold. “I will find it with or without your help. But you have seen it; you, like I, have survived it.”

  “I’d say she did a better job of surviving it than you did,” Calebros suggested.

  “I would like to think,” Hesha went on, ignoring the interruption, “that we could help one another. Are you better off with me, or with Khalil?”

  “I’m not with Khalil,” she snapped at him.

  “Of course you’re not,” Hesha backtracked, somehow without seeming to, “but he’s the best you’ve done, and I suspect he has told you more lies than truths.” Ramona was obviously not convinced; she regarded the two elders warily.

  “We are trying to bring about the same end,” Calebros insisted. “For you to trust Khalil over us is insanity.”

  “I didn’t say nothing ’bout trust neither.”

  “Perhaps a token of good faith,” Calebros suggested. “We’ve already brought you here safely, and I have guaranteed your safe passage—whether you help us or not. What if Hesha provides you with something that is a marker of his trustworthiness? And you…? Khalil mentioned a way to cure wounds inflicted by the Eye…”

  Ramona’s hand moved absently to her cheek—the cheek that Calebros knew had been scarred but now was healed. Cassandra, who had seen the wound, seemed to think that the injury was the same type as those Hesha bore, though less severe.

  “I’ll tell you that,” Ramona agreed. The thought of counteracting the harm done by the Eye seemed to sit well with her—either that, or she was excited by the prospect of undercutting Khalil’s bargaining power.

  “And in return?” Hesha asked.

  This time the Gangrel whelp did not hesitate at all. “I want Liz freed.”

  Calebros cocked his head, not fully understanding. For an instant he thought he saw surprise register on the Setite’s scarred and bandaged face—but only for an instant.

  “What are you saying?” Hesha asked, sounding slightly suspicious.

  “Khalil has been keeping her chained up,” Ramona said. “I want her free of him. I want her free of you, too.” Her hard, accusing stare didn’t waver from Hesha.

  She can see his injuries, Calebros thought. She knows she has him. He has no choice.

  “You have my word,” Hesha said solemnly.

  Ramona crossed her arms. Her scowl, which seemed to be her only expression, deepened. “Your word, h
uh? Once I tell you how to cure yourself, why should you still help me?”

  Calebros sighed. “I am more than willing to vouch for—”

  “Do I know you?” Ramona asked pointedly. “I mean…your name, and this is your place, yeah, but…as far as I’m concerned, you’re on his side.” She nodded toward Hesha.

  Calebros took no offense, though he was caught off guard by the whelp’s audacity. I shouldn’t be, he reminded himself. Maybe what Emmett said was true, and he didn’t get out enough. When, Calebros tried to remember, was the last time he’d spoken, face to face, with an outlander? Or, before Hesha, with a Kindred of any clan other than his own?

  “I give you my word,” Hesha said, “and if that is not enough…” His hand was in one of the pockets of the wrap the Nosferatu had given him to wear. He took something from the robe and tossed the small object to Ramona. She started to flinch, as if the Setite might be attacking her, but then snatched a small key from its lazy arc in the air. She studied the key intently.

  “I promise that Elizabeth will be free,” Hesha said. “At the very least, you can free her yourself.”

  Calebros, uncharacteristically, found himself a few details short. Elizabeth? Khalil was keeping someone Hesha knew prisoner? The Nosferatu assumed that Ruhadze would fill him in after this meeting. Hesha had proven remarkably forthcoming throughout their discussions. Still, Calebros wondered about the possibilities, about exactly how forthcoming the Setite was being with him, and with Ramona. Hesha promised this Elizabeth person would be free. Immediately? Did that include being alive? He’d tossed Ramona a key—but not specified whether or not the key actually matched Elizabeth’s bonds. Was Hesha making a symbolic gesture that he knew the Gangrel would misinterpret? A great deal of truth could be skirted without lying.

  “Turmeric root,” Ramona said. “Light it, press it down in the wounds good.”

  “Light it,” Hesha repeated. “On fire?”

  “Yeah, but let it burn out. You know, so it’s just smoldering. Hurts like a motherfuck, but it works.”

  Hesha thought about that for a long moment. He did not appear to relish the idea, and Calebros couldn’t blame him, not considering the amount of the Setite’s body that was covered by the Eye wounds. The very thought of pressing burning anything… No, Calebros would not think about it.

  “You should know this, Ramona Tanner-childe,” Hesha said. “We have arranged a meeting with Khalil tomorrow night. He has agreed to tell us the secret of healing these wounds—agreed to sell us the secret. All he wanted was cash. It seems he’s no longer interested in finding me…or the Eye.”

  Ramona glared. She seemed skeptical but not surprised.

  “Know this also,” Hesha said. “I believe what you have told me—and, regardless, I will know the truth of it soon enough. I believe just as strongly—no, more strongly—that Khalil will lie tomorrow, that he cares not one whit about this bargain, or about you, or Elizabeth. I ask you to come tomorrow night, to listen secretly, and to make up your own mind. I do not expect you to trust me unquestioningly…but I do know, for a certainty, that you will better achieve your aims with me than with Khalil.”

  Ramona considered that. “I’ll be back tomorrow night,” was all she said.

  “Be here by nine,” Calebros said.

  Ramona nodded and left them.

  “Cut away as much of it as you can,” Hesha instructed.

  “Yes, sir.” Pauline stood behind her seated employer. Even so, he had to lean his head back for her to reach the wide, seeping rend in his forehead. She was not a tall woman, but she wielded her butterfly knife with a degree of expertise. She was not comfortable with being ordered to cut her master, but neither were her hands trembling. She proceeded with grim determination.

  Calebros watched, fascinated. Other than a telltale clenched jaw, Ruhadze did not seem to feel the blade slicing away his flesh. Granted, much of that flesh was blackened and rotting, and the nerves undoubtedly destroyed, but still…

  The three were in the small room that Calebros had moved Hesha to once the Setite was well enough. It was damp, and the rough brick walls were bare except for a few fungus-covered 1950s pin-ups. Even so, it was more private than the communal shelter that Hesha had initially shared with any number of hard-luck cases and restrained lunatics.

  Hesha raised a mirror to inspect Pauline’s work. “More,” he said.

  “More, sir?”

  “As much as possible,” Hesha explained with forced patience. “I would rather feel the knife than the fire… And yes, Calebros, I would think my underlings would be more obedient.”

  Pauline took that as a rebuke, but Calebros grinned. The woman cut more deeply, and though this was largely healthy meat that she carved away, still Hesha betrayed no signs of the pain he must certainly have felt. He raised the mirror again. “That should do, I think.”

  Pauline set down the knife and took up the turmeric root that Calebros had sent Umberto for, and a lighter.

  “Wouldn’t that be the height of irony,” Calebros said, “if a Gangrel whelp tricked a Setite elder into taking a torch to himself?”

  “Irony is not the first word that comes to mind,” Hesha said dryly. Pauline looked nervously back and forth between the two Kindred. “Proceed.” Hesha closed his eyes.

  Reluctantly, Pauline lit the lighter and raised the flame to the turmeric. The root sputtered, and what the flame did catch quickly gave way to glowing embers.

  “Do it,” Hesha said, sensing Pauline’s reluctance. “Make sure to get it all.”

  With a steady hand, she lowered the smoldering root to his forehead. Undead flesh crackled and burned away. Hesha’s fists tightened on the arms of his chair. As she moved the turmeric to cleanse all of the wound, Pauline peered through the acrid smoke that billowed forth from her point of contact on Hesha’s brow. His skin crisped and curled before the embers. Finally, she pulled the root away.

  Hesha neither opened his eyes nor relaxed his grip on the chair. Pauline, horrified, stared at him as if she’d sent him to his Final Death. Then, one at a time, Hesha did begin to unclench his fingers. He drew in a deep breath—hill of the smell and taste of his own burning flesh—and opened his eyes. He raised the mirror and nodded, satisfied. Before their eyes, the gap in his forehead began to heal over. The skin was pink and tender against his dark complexion, but there was no sign of rot and corruption. The fiery root seemed to have done its job.

  “One down,” said Calebros. “What…a few hundred to go?”

  “I will require blood,” Hesha said. “Much blood.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Calebros said. “I think I’ve seen enough here.” He left them and headed for the kennels. He was glad to leave the scent of burning flesh, as it gave way to the familiar, comforting smells of the sewers.

  Tuesday, 31 August 1999, 2:57 AM

  Piedmont Avenue

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Jeremiah huddled in the corner. The friendly shadows would help him remain hidden—from Anatole, and from the ‘Queen of Apples’, who was descending the basement steps even now.

  Near the bottom, she paused for a moment to survey the cellar cum atelier. It was a cluttered and dirty affair, full of work tables and partially destroyed statues. Anatole, his blond hair shorn close tonight, did not look at the woman, did not acknowledge her presence now that she was with him.

  There was only one undamaged piece of sculpture in the studio, and from Jeremiah’s vantage point, the bust was aligned almost perfectly with the new arrival. The two faces were all but mirror images, but Victoria Ash—she whom Anatole called the Queen of Apples—had only seen the back of her stone twin.

  The Prophet met Victoria’s gaze at last, and Jeremiah was rewarded by the sight of the Toreador staggering in the presence of one more compelling than herself. Jeremiah smiled as he took his notes. Victoria descended the final stairs in a daze.

  Anatole was smiling also. “Welcome to your parlor,” he said.

  Jeremia
h shared the little joke and dutifully jotted down every word, but Victoria was puzzled. She moved around the bust to see the face, and laughed, impressed with the likeness, and with her own beauty, no doubt.

  “You knew this was me?” she asked.

  As she and Anatole engaged in a guarded bout of wordplay, Jeremiah grew too preoccupied with recording what was said—each exact word—to worry out the meaning of the Prophet’s seeming nonsense. “My riddles do not hide a lie but attempt to reveal the truth,” he said at one point. As Victoria rummaged half-heartedly through a cardboard box of bozzettos, scaled models, the sculptor’s thumbnail sketches, Anatole told her, “Keep looking to find what we need.”

  Victoria pressed him for his meaning, but her attempts were not fruitful. She continued sifting through the box as she and the Prophet feinted and parried. Jeremiah had long since given himself over to observing Anatole rather than understanding him. The Nosferatu, unlike Victoria, recognized greatness. Calebros might not have seen fit to allow Jeremiah to seek Anatole’s insights regarding the malevolence beneath the earth, but Jeremiah could not ignore the great honor accorded him by way of this assignment. He had taken Anatole to Chicago, to the studio of Gary Pennington, and now here to Atlanta and Leopold’s studio. Soon they would travel far to the north, to the mountains and a scene of a great atrocity. But for now, there was this room, and Victoria. Even the Prophet’s seemingly inconsequential mutterings with this woman, Jeremiah thought, must have some greater significance.

  Jeremiah looked up from his notes to see Victoria reaching for one of the bozzettos on the table next to the box. The model was darker than the rest, so dark it was almost black compared to the smooth gray surfaces of the others, like midnight against the pale white of Victoria’s skin. It was more the color of the clay models he’d seen in the Chicago studio. It was also, Jeremiah suddenly realized, a likeness he recognized.