Clan Novel Assamite - Book 7 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Gherbod Fleming

“Mr. James has an automobile and a private airplane waiting,” Fatima said. “In Madrid you will be delivered to a secure location in which to base your operations.”

  Anwar closed the folder. His assignment was clear. The only details he didn’t have were those he did not need. He stood and nodded formally to Fatima. “Then I am on my way,” he said. “Unless there is anything else?”

  “There is not,” Fatima said, her face showing neither approval nor reproach.

  Walter James, ready to escort Anwar to the waiting car, stood just beyond the conference-room door. The assignment was not what Anwar had hoped, but he would serve Haqim however directed. He had been instructed personally by Fatima. That was a badge of honor he should not ignore. Loyalty and diligence had served him well thus far. Certainly they would continue to do so.

  Cinder blocks, gray and pock-marked. Mortar, brittle, chipped, ground to dust on the cool cement floor. Dank smell and taste of moisture. Dampness, clinging to hair, clothes, skin. The gentle swish of cobwebs swaying beneath the weight of their creator reached Fatima’s ears. Through the darkness, she could make out the smooth curve of the naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. A chain, sixteen individual metal beads strung together, hung down from the light. Her bag lay on the floor near the rough wooden pallet upon which she rested yet did not rest.

  Fatima lay staring. Numb. Master of her own heart and mind.

  She had faced Lucita, and even then she had maintained steadfastness of purpose. All the questions were beyond Fatima. She could not dwell on them and serve. There was only her purpose. Destroy Monçada, the sire. And then…

  Then was not now. She wouldn’t have to deal with then until Monçada was destroyed.

  But she could not help thinking of Lucita, just as she hadn’t been able to resist seeing the Lasombra. Fatima had needed to see her enemy, her rival, her future target. The childe of Haqim had needed to make sure that, even without the knowing presence of the amr to harden her heart, her resolve would remain firm and not crumble like the mortar between cinderblocks.

  Destroy Monçada, the sire. And then…

  Perhaps Lucita would heed the warning. Perhaps she would go away to where Fatima could not reach her—wherever that might be. But Fatima knew better. Lucita would not bend; she could only be broken. None would contain the fire that burned within her.

  Fatima shied away again from memories of the two of them together, yet thoughts of Lucita inexorably led to chaos. The very earth was not what it had always been. Fatima reached for numbness but could not find it.

  Cinderblocks, gray and pock-marked. Mortar falling away to dust on the cool cement floor. The floor listed; wall and ceiling crashed down onto her. If only it were so simple. Moisture. Dampness, clinging to hair, clothes, skin. Not sweat; blood. Rising through her pores. Pooling above her lip. Rivulets running down her side, her back. Cobwebs torn by lashing winds. Desert storm peeling flesh from bone. Spider come to feed on the flies and maggots of the dead. No small, metal chain but a tower leading to the sun that burned overhead. Creatures of earth envious of heaven.

  Fatima reached for her jambia, laid the blade at her breast. It was enough. Master of her own mind, of her heart. She did not yet see what wise al-Ashrad saw, but she would keep her eyes focused straight ahead.

  This one will need dealing with at some point, Anwar had said of Lucita, and he was right. Fatima had admonished him against jeopardizing the mission, yet she had already jeopardized it by seeing Lucita. A calculated risk, Fatima decided. It had been necessary.

  She closed her eyes, felt the weight of her blade on her chest, and tried to slip away from it all.

  Friday, 24 September 1999, 1:31 AM

  Outside Iglesia de San Nicolás de las Servitas

  Madrid, Spain

  The old church tower loomed more ominously than should a place of worship. For mortals, the building might be where they came to be closer to God. For Lucita, it was a portal not to heaven but to torment. Yet she was here. She paused, delaying for a few more minutes the inevitable, that which she had held at bay for close to a century. She had sworn that she would never set foot inside the place again. Yet she was here. In her agitation at Talley and at the two different employers who had hired her to destroy Borges, she had convinced herself that she would return on her own terms. Now she was not so sure. And that infuriated her even more than the fact that she had broken her vow. So she waited, and grew angrier.

  The brickwork of the church and the horseshoe arches, as throughout the entire city, spoke of Moorish influence, which reminded Lucita of another sore point. Fatima. How dare the Assamite tell Lucita face to face that her sire was a target, as if Lucita could do nothing about it? Why warn her, if not as a taunt? No, Lucita corrected herself. That was not Fatima’s way. She wasn’t one of the blowhards from the Camarilla, or even a Sabbat sociopath. Fatima was Assamite. Her way was arrogance. In her mind, Monçada was already as good as dead, because she had decided he should be. It was a done deal. So what was the harm of telling Lucita?

  “Cocky bitch,” Lucita muttered to herself.

  That was what bothered Lucita more than anything—the lack of respect. She’d bested Fatima before; she could do it again. The thought of Monçada’s bloated body hacked to bits and smoldering away in the noonday sun did not distress Lucita. To the contrary. She found the image exhilarating, almost erotically so. Many were the times that she had imagined her own hands wrapped around his throat, squeezing until the corpulent folds of flesh bulged between her fingers, then twisting, wringing his neck, feeling the bones snap and twisting still—

  Lucita found herself sweating a light sheen of blood. Her fingertips rested gently on her own neck. She lowered her hands self-consciously to her sides. The streets were deserted, but who knew what spies of her sire’s lurked nearby? There was no point in waiting any longer, she decided. If she stood there all night, she’d still have to go in when the sun rose.

  “Well, goddammit,” she muttered again, then changed her mind. “No. God damn me.”

  She pushed the door open and entered the church. Toward the front of the sanctuary, candles burned. Three elderly types, heads bowed, lips moving in silent prayer, knelt among the wooden pews. Lucita was glad that she’d never grow old, not physically. She didn’t think that she could abide needing someone else to help her around, or the indignity of waiting for her body to gradually stop working. She wondered for a moment for whom the old folks were praying: themselves, asking God to ease their infirmity? Or were they praying for the souls of loved ones already passed?

  Lucita snorted quietly in disgust. She knew damn well there was no one worth missing.

  She moved along the edge of the sanctuary to a row of confessional booths and stepped into the third from the end. Instead of sitting, she stood and drummed her fingers against the screen that separated her from her confessor. The entire mortal charade had suddenly grown quite irritating.

  “Welcome, my child,” came the priest’s voice. “Let’s cut the shit, padre. I’ve got places to be.” There was a pause, and then the panel behind Lucita slid aside revealing a passageway leading into total shadow. She hesitated for the briefest instant before stepping into the lair of her sire.

  Friday, 24 September 1999, 2:17 AM

  Catacombs, Iglesia de San Nicolás de las Servitas

  Madrid, Spain

  Nib down into red ink, then tapped lightly to disembogue excess. Pen raised carefully yet confidently, then placed to parchment:

  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

  With the last word and punctuation, the pen was dry, and another perfect verse was rendered. Monçada dipped the pen again:

  For by me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life.

  The cardinal blew lightly on his handiwork, then blotted the page. He reached for a fresh sheet of parchment, but as he continued with the next verse, a faint sound of footsteps made its wa
y to him—two sets of footsteps. A droplet of red ink dripped from the nib and splashed onto the new page. Monçada barely noticed. His hand began to quiver. By the time the door opened, he again was master of himself.

  Cristobal was hesitant opening the door. He knew that his master did not like to be interrupted; he also knew that, in this case, he would be flogged within an inch of his pitiful life if he delayed. Cristobal moved to the side and offered a prolonged genuflection, but Monçada hardly noticed his ghoul. In the doorway stood Lucita. Her enduring beauty, that which had led Monçada to bring her within the fold so that she might never wither, struck him mute. The thin fabrics she wore hugged her slender body closely. Her raven-black hair shone in the candle light of the scriptorium. Monçada returned the pen to its holder, lest his trembling return and the utensil give him away.

  “My daughter,” he whispered. “Please,” he indicated the shadowy interior of the scriptorium, “enter.”

  Hesitantly, Lucita stepped forward. Cristobal, eyes still averted and back bent, shuffled backward out of the room and pulled the door closed. The sound of the heavy wooden door pulling to, the click of the latch, comforted Monçada, convinced him that the vision of beauty before him was his childe, not an ephemeral spirit that might dissolve into the ether. And she had come back to him.

  “My daughter,” he said again.

  “This is going to be an incredibly short visit if you insist on calling me that,” Lucita said, raising a finger. Monçada almost flinched at her rebuke. He’d let himself forget the little games she liked to play. She nodded toward the parchment before him. “I can come back when you’re done finger painting.”

  Monçada smiled. Despite her disrespect, her voice to him was the nightingale’s song. “I am transcribing the scriptures,” he told her, as if his appointed task could be mistaken. “I have come to an interesting verse: ‘A foolish woman is noisy; she is wanton and knows no shame.’ The Proverbs can be most instructive.”

  Lucita clenched her jaw, and Monçada’s smile widened. “What news do you bring from the New World? I hear it is very…beautiful.” As he spoke the last word, Monçada inspected Lucita from head to toe.

  “It’d be a lot better off without your Sabbat flunkies running all over the place.” A certain coyness crept into her voice. “There’s not quite as many of them now,” she said, looking at the ceiling.

  “Yes,” Monçada said, “I have heard that you’ve been busy, for whatever your efforts are worth. Still, you never were one for idleness. I like to believe that is my influence. ‘A child who gathers in summer is prudent, but a child who sleeps in harvest brings shame.’”

  Lucita rolled her eyes. “Solomon is probably moaning in his grave—if he’s in his grave. Or do you keep him around here somewhere to play tennis on the weekends?”

  Monçada let his smile slip away, and with it some of his patience. After all, he’d been patient already for many years. “‘When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is prudent.’”

  Lucita nodded, mockingly impressed. “You’re quite good. A verse for every occasion. We could rent you out for parties. But I’ll tell you what, here’s a tidbit from the New World for you: Your stooge Vykos is playing both sides against the middle.”

  “Indeed?” said Monçada, eyebrows raised.

  “Indeed. While she was pretending to run around being your lap dog, she was also busy hiring me to destroy Borges. Anonymously, of course. But the information I was fed was all from the inside, and her war ghouls crashed in on Talley just a bit too conveniently. Talley must have figured it out, unless he was too busy sulking about being second best.” Lucita rocked triumphantly on her heels.

  “First, as for Talley,” said Monçada, “he did come to that same conclusion. And second, as for Vykos hiring you to destroy Borges …of course it did. I instructed it to do so!” Monçada could not help laughing at Lucita’s obvious shock. “Why do you think it chose you? For a reason as petty as to cause me embarrassment? Come now. You value yourself much too highly, but perhaps that is because I have spoiled you. No, I had Vykos seek you out, and you performed magnificently.”

  Monçada again let his gaze wash over her. “You are beautiful, my daughter. I must admit that the immodest modern fashions agree with you.”

  Lucita broke away from his gaze and looked at herself, suddenly growing self-conscious as well as angry at having been duped. Then she looked back at him, her face flushed and twisted into a scowl. She raised her finger again to instruct her sire. “Listen. I’m only going to say this once: I…am…not…your…fucking…daughter.”

  Monçada pursed his lips, nodded slowly. His mirth drained away until completely vanished. “You are absolutely correct—you are only going to say that once.” He stepped from behind the workbench and opened his arms. “Now, come to me…my daughter.” She resisted him as long as she could. She stood stiff-legged, hands clenched into fists, jaw set. Monçada waited, arms outstretched. After a few seconds, her right foot, as if pried physically from the ground, moved forward. And then the left. She was an awkward infant taking her first steps, coming to the welcoming arms of her father.

  Still she fought, though there was no hope of victory, of overcoming his indomitable will. She forced a word out with each step: “God…damn…you!”

  Monçada ignored the obvious repartee that he was already quite damned, and instead searched his memory for the appropriate Proverb: “‘Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.’ I forgive you, my daughter.”

  A few more pained steps and she was in his arms. Monçada crushed her against his girth. So many nights, so many years, he had waited to feel her embrace. She had come home to him and she would take her rightful place at his side as he embarked upon the greatest calling of his long existence.

  He pressed her head against his chest and, drifting into bliss as he was, only belatedly heard her curses and insults: “…will kill you.”

  “Hush, hush, my childe.”

  “Miserable…fucking…bastard.”

  “‘The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off.”

  “Son…of…a…”

  “‘The fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short’!”

  “Fuck you…fuck you…fuck you…”

  “‘He who guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin’!” The tremors were returning to his hands. Monçada held his daughter more tightly, but that helped little. This was not how he’d imagined their reunion.

  “Fucking sonuva…”

  Monçada was shaking, trembling with fury. He took Lucita’s shoulders roughly in his meaty hands and lifted her from the ground. “‘Like a gold ring in a swine’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion’!”

  Lucita spat in his face. He squeezed until he heard bones snap, then threw her to the floor. Her head bounced violently on the stones. Monçada turned to his sturdy workbench, ripped it apart with his bare hands, found a long piece of solid wood.

  “‘A rod is for the back of him who lacks sense’!” He slammed the makeshift club across her spine. “‘By insolence the heedless make strife’!”

  Again and again he beat her. Long after her insults had ceased, he crushed the sneer from her face, pounded her back and head. His body vented the fury of years, the pain of abandonment, and all the while he quoted words of righteousness to her: “‘The mouths of fools feed on folly’! ‘There is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way’!” He beat her until her insolent clothes were shredded and lay about her in tatters…That one may avoid the snares of death’!” He beat her until, finally, he raised his club into the air but held the next blow. It was over. Monçada stood above her, staring vacantly, spent, stunned by the divine peace that swept over him. The fury was purged from his being. He dropped the remnant of the workbench to the floor beside his bloodied childe. Her eyes were closed, mouth agape, blood dr
aining from it.

  For a moment, Monçada savored the sensation of having hugged her to him. He stared at her bruised body. Cristobal would need to see that she was made comfortable, provided new clothes. Absently, he turned from her. He picked up his most recent sheet of parchment and tsked at the spilled drop of ink. Then, still vaguely distracted, he walked from the chamber and pulled closed behind him the door of the scriptorium.

  Friday, 24 September 1999, 11:20 PM

  The Presidential Hotel

  Washington, D.C.

  All was silent in the sixth-floor penthouse suite until Ravenna/Parmenides whirled and flung his oaken cane. He whipped the throw so that, instead of spiraling like a spear, the brass ferrule and handle tumbled end over end with deceptive accuracy. The irregular flight would confuse the typical kafir and prevent him from blocking the attack. In the same motion as the throw, Parmenides triggered the latch that released the spike to protrude from the ferrule.

  The spiked tip thudded into the center of an armchair’s back, running the piece through and knocking it over. The next sweeping motion of Parmenides’s arm sent a dagger toward a landscape print on the opposite wall. Before that weapon had even struck its target, he lashed out at two marble busts with a weighted length of razor wire that, the instant before, had been concealed in the hem of his pullover.

  The heads of both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony toppled to the floor. The pedestals upon which they’d rested, upper torsos still attached, tottered but remained upright.

  Parmenides surveyed his handiwork. If only he had one more chance at Marcus Vitel, the deposed prince of Washington would not escape. But Vykos had sent her faux-ghoul against the venerable Ventrue before Parmenides had fully healed from the experiments she had conducted and the transformation she had wrought. How could she have hoped for him to succeed? She had overestimated his recovery.

  In other ways, she had underestimated him. Tonight, for instance, his hands were idle, and why? Because Councilor Vykos had relieved him of his duties with the Tremere siege. She said that she didn’t want to dull his senses with such tedium. Did she not realize that a childe of Haqim could observe a potential target for countless nights, for years if necessary, and remain every bit as alert and diligent as he had been the first night? Was this another of her subtly barbed taunts, or did she have some grand scheme in mind?