Over the Night Horizon

by Kacey Ezell

  “Come by the Eventides and we can shelter you for a short time. We’re shorthanded with the illness. Just ask for me, Sister Amelia. It won’t be luxury, but it’s something,” Sister Amelia replied, ignoring Remy raging at the constable in the lobby as they carried Matthias out to the carriage.

  “Take him then. He’s a disgrace to the Elidon name.” Remy turned to head up the stairs to his office. He took one step, staggered, and fell into a heap on the floor at the foot of the stairway. His snores reverberated in the foyer of the mansion. Astrid and Jerome stared and left him there as they helped the Eventide Brother carry Matthias out into the night to safety.

  Matthias roused for a second. “The fire. The fire.” He lapsed into unconsciousness once more.

  * * *

  Matthias woke, disoriented and weak. He struggled to sit up in the small bed and looked around. It wasn’t the basement of the Elidon Mansion, nor his own suites, or the Sources’ rooming house. He blinked in the bright light streaming into the room. In the corner, an Eventide Sister in her blue and gold robes tended to someone on a cot similar to the one he was in. As he sat there, his head thrummed, and his lips cracked.

  “Sister?” Matthias gasped. “Sister…where am I?”

  “Sir, please, lay down before you fall. You’re at the Eventide Infirmary.” The Sister hurried over. Her name, Alice? Amy…Amelia. Sister Amelia. He’d seen her before. She was at the mansion, a friend of Lucia’s.

  “Sister Amelia, please summon a constable. I have a confession before I perish,” Matthias said in a frantic whisper, words sticking on his parched lips and tongue.

  “Here. Drink this.” She lifted a cup of water to his lips. “You sure you don’t need the Mother or Father for a confession? You need rest, but we don’t expect you to perish of the fever if you stay in bed and rest and recover,” Sister Amelia scolded.

  “I need a constable. Please,” Matthias begged and lay back on the pillows. “I have information they need. I’ve done terrible things.”

  Sister Amelia sighed. “Very well. Drink more water, we’ll bring some broth, and you must rest.” She helped Matthias lay down and drew the covers over him, then drew the blinds. The other patients snored softly, flinching and muttering, lost in fever dreams.

  “Sir, Matthias?” a voice spoke, and hands shook him awake. “The constable you asked for is here. And Father Stephan as well.”

  “I have to confess, terrible things. I ask no forgiveness.” Matthias sat up in the bed and shivered as Sister Amelia wrapped a cover around his thin shoulders. The constable and the Father pulled up chairs.

  “Speak freely, Mr. Elidon. We’ll sort this out. You’ve had a rough go of it.” Father Stephan held out a mug of tea to Matthias.

  Matthias drew in a deep breath. “My father, he’s a terrible man. He set me up. I did horrible things at his behest. I mean, yes, I sold myself on the docks, but he paid me a sum to light the fire that destroyed the warehouses. I should have refused; I wasn’t thinking clearly. He promised to take me back if I simply coordinated the fire. He wanted me to steal, and I did. The plague, though, that wasn’t him. It wasn’t the NightShips. It came in on the oceanic ships. He talked about using it as an excuse to shut down the NightCrews, to stop the trade at the docks, and to bring down Delsarte. It was his obsession. I’ll serve my time, but I plead for leniency, and I regret it all. Please, arrest him before he causes more harm. When he finds out I’ve confessed, he’ll surely kill me. He locked me in the cellar at Elidon House, hoping I’d perish. I have made a mess of things, and I cannot be absolved.” Matthias broke down in sobs as Father Stephan, Sister Amelia, and the constable listened in shock.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 17

  Remy watched as people trudged to the dockyards with suitcases and satchels. Every last Immortal, Source, and Consort would leave these shores. The city would be purified. No more plagues, no more depravity, just a return to good, solid trade. Rebuilding had started on the new warehouses, including Delsarte’s.

  Remy snarled at the thought. Would nothing slow the man down? Remy assured himself that his rival’s business had gone up in flames in the dockyards fire. That had to hit Delsarte hard. He’d told Matthias to ensure Delsarte’s main storage facility was where the fire started, so it would burn hottest there.

  Matthias had, predictably, failed to do even that simple task correctly. Delsarte’s main warehouse remained, only partially in ruins. Useless boy. The Eventides were welcome to him for as long as he lived. Doubtless the Immortal plague would take him any day now. He’d fired the staff that conspired against him to smuggle Matthias out of the cellar.

  Remy turned his attention back to the small group of desolate people as they boarded ships and shuffled into the warehouse-turned-bunkhouse. He frowned. There had to be more, even accounting for the ones lost to the plague or still in the Eventides’ clinic. The number of NightShips and Sources, the ocean-liners and the Consorts of flesh, no, there had to be some in hiding. Time to find them. Roust the foul Immortals from their rest into the cleansing light of day.

  “See that no one leaves these docks, not a single Immortal, not a single Consort or Source back to the city. Board them on ships and make sure they depart with haste,” Remy ordered the guardsmen at the barricades as a more extreme plan ignited in his mind. He would make every last Immortal pay for his wife, for his son, for his fallen fortunes.

  “Gentlemen, we have work to do,” Remy addressed the small troop of men standing at the ready. “You have your orders. Scour every inn, every tavern and rooming house. Every Immortal, and anyone who sells their blood or body to the Immortals. Incapacitate them if they resist. A stake to the heart will do neatly in either case.”

  “And if the mortals ask for Eventide salvation?” the lead guardsman asked with his mallet and dagger at hand.

  “We’ll leave them alive for now. They can beg for redemption first,” Remy replied. “The Immortals can be slaughtered. They’re dead already.”

  The sun was falling in the mid-afternoon sky and cast the city in a gloriously radiant golden light. Remy took it as a sign that the city could be purified by light and fire.

  He took a seat at one of the booths in their ground floor pub, along the back wall, and waited. A few dock workers sat at a table, muttering over their dinner and drink about the blockade, and their jobs.

  He couldn’t wait to see the first wretched Immortal and trollop dragged from their bed.

  Remy Elidon sat with a tankard of beer before him, scarcely able to contain his excitement at the event soon to begin.

  A pair of henchmen marched up the stairs to the rooms above, their footsteps heavy. Good working men would be heading home from the dockyards, and the filthy vampires were only just rising to feed and do unspeakable things. Elidon shuddered. It just wasn’t right to allow an undead man to bite, to feed on delicate flesh. The vampires could slake their thirst in other cities, not Marinport.

  Screams and yells erupted from the upper floor, and the sounds of a heavy struggle in progress. Remy smiled to himself, savoring the sounds of the protests and screams. It was so much music to his ears, as he watched the guardsmen escort a vampire and his Source, caught in a state of undress. The woman shivered in her shift and bare feet, sporting bites at her throat and chest, while her Immortal paramour, clad only in trousers, licked blood from his lips.

  Both put up considerable resistance as the guards dragged them down the stairs and out to a waiting wagon. The woman kicked and screamed as the guardsman hauled her into the street. The vampire himself dragged and resisted but was little match for the team of guards who stepped in to haul him out. Eventide Brothers and Sisters clustered around, frantically trying to dissuade the guardsmen from their brutal treatment of the lovers, but to no avail.

  A shriek, a howl that set the hair on end drew Remy to the window. There in the amber sky of late sundown, the Immortal writhed and thrashed on the ground, scrambling for shelter from the searing rays of the
sun. Smoke curled from his skin and clothes as his lover looked on, shrieking and distraught. In moments, the Immortal man was bones and ash on the cobblestone road. His lover sobbed, heartbroken, as the Eventides threw a blue cloak around her and ushered her into a waiting carriage, offering consolation and sanctuary.

  Remy smiled, satisfied. He’d never known the name of the Immortal who’d seduced his wife and destroyed his marriage. He did know, however, who had ruined his son. De Graaf was sailing, and if he set foot in Marinport again, Remy would be ready. De Graaf would pay. They all would.

  Another pair of guards trooped up, and the scene repeated itself several times. The tavern was deserted by the time the third pair was extricated, save for Remy, watching in the corner. All across the city, the scene was repeating, as known refuges of the Immortal crews were no longer safe. The smarter ones had left the city. The rest would be smart to flee now as the ranks closed in on them.

  And then, after the final sweep, the city would be cleansed. Emmeline’s death wouldn’t be in vain. They’d lured her to her death, and Remy Elidon would send the Immortals to theirs. Several beers later, Remy followed along, staggering behind the guardsmen’s carriages, weaving past the distraught Consorts and the Eventides who had swept into the city as word of the massacre unfolded.

  Drunkenly, Remy called out for Emmeline and begged her to come home.

  * * *

  Emmeline had met one of the Immortals at a lavish ball a couple of winters ago at the start of the decline of Remy’s luck. Remy walked into the ballroom with Emmeline in her finest dress of green and gold, and the emerald, a stunning green stone, around her neck on a chain. She danced, and he admired how happy she was. The future held so much promise.

  The Elidon peers and Emmeline herself noticed every facet that reflected off the gem. Remy had worked long hours to pay for that last dance, and money was sparse. Over the following months, the vampires lured her to the docks, hooked her on their charms, though so far as Remy had known, she’d never taken one to bed. He wasn’t sure, she’d never said, and he dared not ask.

  Emmeline frequently returned home in the middle of the night, bitten, Blissed, clutching bills, and wearing new jewelry Remy couldn’t afford. Remy threw himself into his work, while pushing Matthias harder in his studies at the Naval Academy, as Emmeline dallied at the docks. The emerald, the legacy she wore once, was sold for a pittance to keep the Elidon manor in food and firewood.

  Emmeline turned up at the house, near death, as the winter snow melted away to spring. The Eventides comforted her, but she was too frail and ill from the toll of her suitors’ demands on her. She suffered a bitter, wracking cough he was sure the Immortals carried on their ships. Emmeline died less than six months from the first time she met the NightCrews.

  Matthias, hurt and lost at his mother’s death, was drawn in as well. He lashed out at Remy for failing, that Emmeline would turn to the docks for comfort and survival. While Elidon’s fortunes suffered, Delsarte seemed untouchable; the small gods smiled on him. Remy would see the fates set right, even if they needed his guiding hand to do so.

  * * *

  After the tavern was emptied and cleansed, Remy trailed the men who went door to door to the rooming houses. All across the city, they pulled Immortals and Consorts from their rooms. They concentrated their efforts on known spaces where the Sources conducted their disgraceful trade.

  Twos and threes, and a few fours, were hauled out as the sun set on the city. The mortals all pleaded for Eventide intercession. The Eventides themselves tried in vain to console the terrified mortals in shackles who clung to their Immortal lovers.

  “Sisters! Brothers! Please, silence this racket. You lot should have seen this coming. There will be silence, or we’ll add disrupting of the peace to the list of charges,” the head guardsman watching over the captives bellowed at the shivering group. Some had barely a moment to dress to satisfy the demands of modesty. As night fell, the temperatures dropped precipitously.

  “Sir, allow us to fetch blankets for the ladies; they’ll catch their death out here,” one of the Sisters pleaded to the head guardsman. Remy watched from the shadows, basking in the sounds of the protest and chaos. The city would be his at last.

  As the night wore on, Remy made his way back home, suffused with a sense of optimism he hadn’t felt in some time, and profoundly drunk. Matthias was gone, the house was silent, even the servants had left in defiance. He paced the halls and wondered if he might start anew. A new shipping company. A new wife, a new family. He prepared a cup of tea with a dash of liqueur and headed to his study. Time to make new plans. He passed out at his desk, a puddle of saliva forming on his ledgers.

  * * *

  By morning, the city was abuzz with the talk of the door-to-door roundup of Immortals and their associates. The NightShip Concordian had been spotted off the coast a few hours out from arrival in Marinport. Their rigging was bright with the message flags that declared boldly they would take on the people who wished to leave. Other NightShips did the same.

  Remy stood, with a thunderous headache, looking out the window that faced the dockyards several miles away. Few airships were in dock, and in the distance at sea, only one oceangoing ship. The normally bustling docks were quiet, partly from the fire, and partly from the embargo on NightCrews.

  His memories haunted him and drove him onward. Matthias, sick and pale the day the Naval Academy expelled him, months after Emmeline died. Her funeral. Matthias sobbing, broken-hearted. Then Delsarte, living it up as Lucia dallied with Captain de Graaf. Anything to line his pockets with the lucrative trade from the NightShips. Remy set down the cold cup of tea and returned to his desk, content with his progress in setting things to rights.

  Remy’s secretary rapped at the doorframe with a soft tap. “Sir, the City Council has called a meeting for this evening. I’ll have a carriage readied.”

  “Come in. Thank you.” Remy took the offered letter.

  “Sir, where are the servants? It’s quiet today.”

  “I let them go,” Remy replied in a brusque tone. “No need, with just me alone. Your employment is secure for now.”

  Remy worked until late afternoon on contracts and shipping; his secretary carried them to him as they arrived. He was pleased to see small increases in trade as the oceangoing ships contacted him. Delsarte was seen at the dock office scrambling to get his orders on the ocean ships, and to get the NightShips into town. His fortunes had to be suffering now. All was going to plan.

  Shortly before Remy departed for the City Council Hall, he pulled the emerald from the space in the desk and cradled it in the palm of his hand. Perhaps the size of a small walnut, it glowed with a green fire in the rays of the dying light streaming in the expansive window of his office. It warmed in the palm of his hand, turning from cold stone as he turned it carefully, examining the facets as they shone.

  “At least Matthias did this much, Emmeline. Pity he’s otherwise worthless. You’d scold me, I know, but I can’t bear to think of the things he’s done. I wish you were here. Maybe things would have been different. I did what I thought was right, to protect our name, your honor…even after you tried to give it away yourself. Filthy Immortals.” He put the emerald back in its case and into its drawer, then locked the desk. The Elidon manor, once a hub of family life, was now silent and cold as Remy left for the City Council meeting.

  He knew tonight was about the future of the shipping industry in Marinport, the rebuilding. Remy hoped the city had seen clearly now that the Immortals had been driven off trade and out of the streets. It was time for a new beginning.

  * * *

  The carriage rolled past the burned-out dockyards. “Driver, slow down. Don’t stop, just drive slow,” Remy ordered, and he gazed out the window of the carriage at the deportation going on, the rebuilding of the warehouse district in progress. Consorts and Immortals still huddled on the dock in the cold sea air, boarding ships. The city would thrive under his leadership. Marinpo
rt would rise from the ashes.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 18

  The Chateau d’Annees was a massively ornate stone monstrosity that lounged among the hills and trees a few hours sail from the crowded, bustling sprawl of Paris. The Leeuwin docked for a couple of days and nights in the city, then departed after the sun had set over the winding Seine. A mere three hour’s flight saw them approaching the woods and hills of their destination, until finally Lucia caught sight of the gray stone building ahead.

  “Who is he?” Lucia asked as they glided closer and closer. She didn’t look over her shoulder at de Graaf as he approached, instead keeping her eyes locked on the candlelit glow from inside the Chateau. She didn’t need to look; she knew he was there.

  “The Buyer? No one truly knows,” de Graaf said. He reached out and gently placed a wool cloak around Lucia’s shoulders. She reached up with one hand to fasten it closed at the same time de Graaf closed the pin at her throat without looking. She turned then and give him a smile of thanks. He responded with a perfectly correct nod, though the glint in his eyes spoke of desires that weren’t correct at all.

  “He’s been here longer than I’ve been sailing,” de Graaf went on, turning his attention back to their hulking destination. “His origins are something of a mystery. Some say he’s among the oldest of us.”

  “Us?”

  “The Immortals. He helped set up the NightShip trade in Paris and London, and throughout the Southern cities, from Venice down to Cairo, though he’s not a sailor himself. Doesn’t like great heights, it seems,” de Graaf said with a small grin. Lucia raised her eyebrows.