by Zan Safra
She did this…she poisoned children…she poisoned me…
She tore a man to pieces, she turned innocents into beasts, she murdered the weakest, she tortured her own servants…
Her subjects.
The lady.
The fiend.
The cold sinks through my flesh. The lady seizes me like a puppet. My head turns and my eyes dart about as she looks about. I cannot stop her, I cannot move…
Her thoughts tear through my head and she sees Belle, the lock I fused, the trap I made.
She grins.
Belle steps back. Fiorella wails. The lady moves my arm to my bandolier and closes my fist around a grenade. Its heat tells me which it is.
Nitroglycerin.
I know what she means to do. I hear her. She will kill us all.
Belle will die. The rest of us will transform into a new pack of Dead monsters. Soldiers.
Stop!
The Dead blood strangles me, tearing at my veins, but I do not care, I shan’t let her—
The fiend hears me. Her thoughts bash mine out of the way, throwing me out of my own form. I watch from far away as time slows. The fiend moves me like a hand inside a glove, unbuckling the grenade.
I scream at her, fighting through a sea of tar, but more Dead vines seize me, dragging me into the dark. I am falling, I am sinking, further from Belle and the children and everyone the fiend will murder, and I cannot move—
My hand draws out the grenade.
The distorted voice cries out to me, the twin chained in the black cell. I wriggle and thrashing, clawing and tearing at the Dead vines, fighting through my own head until I find the door to the cell and drag it open. She is there, chained in Dead blood, drawn, weak.
She hurt her.
The Dead vines pierce me like thorns. I rip at them as they try to drag me away from her. The twin lifts her head, the light of her eyes fading.
She hurt her…
The fiend begins to laugh. She holds out the grenade to Belle, taunting her as she backs away from the bars, shielding the others.
More Dead vines lash at me. I beat them away and fall beside my twin. I grab one of the vines that trap her. It tears loose and melts. I rip away more, pulling their spines from her skin. She does not fight to free herself, only slumps, sagging. I catch her before she falls, throwing my arms about her. In this place I am not long-sighted. I see her face. My face. A reflection in the dark.
I will always protect you.
I hold her to me. I promise.
My double takes one of the vines that entangle me and tears it from my neck. I rip more away from her.
The fiend raises the grenade.
We tear away the last of the vines. I pull her to her feet. She straightens, steadying, uncurling a fist. I hear her voice.
We…are…strong…enough.
I grab her hand.
Red pain explodes inside my head, throwing me back into myself and the true world. The fiend snaps rigid, thoughts racing in bewilderment. Confusion. Panic.
We scream as one. Leave us!
The cold vise crushes. The fiend fights, but we force her back, snarling, shrieking. Leave us!
LEAVE!
Filthy blood rushes into our throat. We fall. Retching. Dead blood leaches from our veins. Inky slime pours from our mouth. Our hair blackens. Our skin grays. Rage. Rage. Rage.
We stand and grip the cage door. Wood splinters. Metal bends and tear. We pull the door from the cage and toss it away.
Belle remains still. “Jette?” she whispers.
We speak. Our voices entwined. “We…feel…much…better.”
A dry smirk spreads across her face. “Wait here, Fiorella.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ayanda
YUREI AND I STAND before the ballroom doors. The chatter of guests and the strains of the orchestra continue, though it’s nearly dawn. The rest of the Palaso Ducale is silent. I told the moroi I’ve freed to flee the Palace and warn as many as they can. Who can say if anyone will believe them, but at least they’re out of harm’s way, for the moment.
I adjust my crossbow, brushing my fingers over the loaded bolt. I can feel the fiend ahead, in the center of the ballroom, disguised again. It makes sense that she’d return. The Doge wouldn’t abandon his guests for long, though the ball will soon end. I’ve only delayed her. She’ll strike at any moment, if we don’t strike first.
Laszlo and Rionach stand to either side. Seventy-nine of the Lesser Dead are gathered behind us, waiting for my word.
My Court.
Yurei stares at the heavy doors, the part of his face that I can see paper-white. His eyes blaze like burning sulfur, hot enough to scorch the wood. The air about him quivers with rage.
I look to Laszlo and Rionach, and nod.
The vampires smash down the doors. I send a thought to the Court, speeding down the strands. Go.
The Dead swarm into the ballroom. Shrieks erupt. The music dies. Guests scream madly, clutching each other, tearing masks from sweat-slicked faces. The Lesser Dead snarl, sending them reeling.
Yurei and I follow the Court through the doors. Yurei’s lips move as he silently murmurs, weaving an illusion. The lights dim. Living shadows dart across the ceiling and walls. Terrible dread soaks the air.
Bar the doors, I think.
A group of Dead separates from the rest does as I say, blocking every escape. Men who must be officers draw sabers, others seize chairs. One man tears off his mask and rams his blade through Rionach’s middle.
Rionach smiles.
She draws out the sword and backhands the officer into the crowd. The rest of my Court herd them out of our path as Yurei and I stride across the vast room, following the hawser, and stop before a man.
The false Doge stares at me through his golden mask. Searing fury pulses down the hawser, an unimaginable hate strong enough to weaken my knees. But I won’t falter. Not now.
I’m through with fleeing.
Yurei’s unheard voice amplifies mine, sending it ringing throughout the chamber. “The fiend is among you.”
I point to the false Doge. “There.”
Exclamations burst from the crowd. What? What did she say?
I lock my eyes on the fiend. “You aren’t the Doge. You are Dead.”
I raise my voice. “All of you know the fiend’s true nature. Don’t deny it. You know that she is a vampire.”
Not a single whisper pierces the quiet.
“She is a vampire that can change her form. She has designs on you all. She means to take the entire city. Those of you she doesn’t kill, she will transform into Dead. Everyone in Venice will die. You and all of those you love will be nothing but cattle and slaves.”
Gasps, murmurings. The fiend collects herself, strengthening the Doge’s stolen voice. “On this pretense you threaten my people?”
She draws herself up, puffing out the Doge’s chest. “Prove these absurdities,” she says through her teeth, barely containing a rabid snarl. “Prove them for all to see!”
I level the crossbow at her chest.
More screams burst from the guests. Officers shove their way to the front of the crowd. The Lesser Dead claw at them, driving them back.
“Silver alone does no harm to the living. A human may survive a crossbow wound, if properly aimed,” I say. “But a vampire?”
The fiend stares at me, frozen.
“Doge Leonardo Dandolo has led Venice in times of war. He’s gone into battle. If you are the Doge, then this is nothing you haven’t faced before,” I say. “But if you aren’t the Doge…”
The fiend begins to sputter, words I don’t bother to catch. “You have until the count of five to reveal yourself.”
I cock the weapon. Its cord tightens, drawing the bolt into position. “One.”
“You would not—”
“Two.”
“How dare you presume to—”
; “Three.” The silvery bolt glitters. “Four.”
The fiend falls silent. A new emotion rushes down the hawser. Fear.
“Five,” I say, and pull the trigger.
The Doge evaporates. The bolt flies through the air and strikes the wall.
Shouts of astonishment, screams of fear. I lower the crossbow. The bolt of silver-painted wood dislodges from the wall and clatters to the floor.
I take the real silver bolt from my belt and turn to the crowd. “I suggest you go.”
The vampires retreat. Guests stampede through the doors, trampling masks and feathers. The hawser stretches thin as the fiend flees, a streak of mist flowing down a corridor. “Follow me!” I scream. “Stop her!”
I sprint for the door and the marble corridor, Yurei beside me, the others close behind. I feel the fiend ahead, blazing through the air faster than I can run, but then a crashing wave of cold stops me. A frigid ocean thrashes beneath my feet, the mass of Dead seething like a rush of cold lava, pouring out of their prisons.
She’s unleashed them.
“Her army’s coming!” I scream at the others. “All of you—”
A muffled tearing of metal leaks from the ground. The marble floor shudders. Great cracks fork across the stone and dart towards us. Taloned hands reach through the gaps, prying the stone slabs apart.
Laszlo sighs. “Bother.”
The floor splits like a bursting wound. Dead creatures of every varianta claw and crawl out of the machineworks. I seize the threads binding me to the Court and scream to them, Attack them! Hold them back!
Yurei and I race down the corridor, dodging cracks and grasping hands. The floor shatters behind us. I cast a look back. Vampires burst out of the machineworks. The Dead of my Court hurl themselves at them, screaming, ripping, biting. Black blood flies. In the midst of them Laszlo seizes one of the fiend’s creatures, a pricolici. The creases in the aluka’s face part as his entire mouth widens, his jaw unhinging and splitting to form a horrible blood-red maw—
Yurei grabs me. “Ayanda!”
I tear my eyes away from the battle and run. The corridor throws us onto a logia, a pillared walkway overlooking the Piasa. A hurricane of screaming bashes me. The entire Piasa is fractured. Dead creatures boil out of fissures in the ground like ants from a nest, plunging into the Mascherata crowd, slashing and tearing and dragging—
Pure horror roots me to the stone. No…God, no…
A blow like a stab jams into my heart. A black thread joining me to a samca withers to nothing. The creature is dead.
Another blow, another. Threads snap, pulling me apart nerve by nerve as vampire after vampire dies.
The Court is losing.
“Where is she?” Yurei seizes me by the shoulders and spins me around, yelling in my face. “Ayanda!”
“Near,” I gasp.
“Then run!”
We rush down the logia, following my lead. The hawser shortens. We’re almost upon her. We’ll kill her and all of this will end.
Even though it’s too late.
The logia throws us into another corridor. The screaming follows us. Venice is dying.
More threads snap as my vampires fall, one by one.
We turn a corner and halt. A wall of grinning faces blocks our path. A crowd of moroi fills the passage ahead, smiling statues burning with veins of Dead blood. Living shields.
Yurei flicks his wrist, readying his weapon. I know what he means to do. We’ve no choice. I’ve no time to free them. We must fight our way through.
We look to one another. Yurei’s mouth tightens. The weight in his hand lengthens into a blade.
An explosion rattles the Palace, so loud and crushing that it blots the horrible noise from the square. Molding falls as the ceiling strains, groaning with the shock.
The moroi begin to scream. Their line fragments, falling into disarray as the fiend’s servants collapse. The cold blood dies in their veins.
I don’t care to wonder at it. I only see the single form still standing, one that had stood hidden at the back of the crowd, a man dressed as a palace servant. His face is stunned, untouched by even a trace of moroi blood. He isn’t a moroi at all.
You.
The kudlak’s gaze meets mine. Fear courses down our connection. Hers.
Yurei flings his blade at the fiend. She dodges, not quickly enough. The silvered blade tears past her neck, gouging a furrow in her flesh. A spray of Dead blood spurts from the wound. The fiend clutches her neck. Her form begins to thin, dissolving at the edges, and grows solid again.
The silver’s poisoned her. She can no longer turn to dust.
The fiend flees. We follow, leaping over the groaning moroi. The kudlak’s illusion cracks like an eggshell as she moves, no longer gliding but running, staggering, stumbling, weighted down.
We chase her. We nearly have her. We can end this—
The fiend slips into an opening in the marble wall, a passage that shuts behind her. We crash into it. I rake my fingers over the hidden door, searching for a catch. Yurei slams his fist against the stone. Too thick.
Two figures appear at the corridor’s end, rushing towards us. Belle limps, dragging her blood-soaked leg. Jette drags her by the arm, her hair black, her eyes aglow.
I brace my feet, readying myself to fight. “Don’t!” Belle screams.
They stop before us. The transformed Jette makes no move to attack. “It’s all right,” Belle pants. “She’s free.”
Jette slowly tilts her head, studying me. A black slash of a grin spreads across her face. “Yes…we…are.”
Belle swipes dusty hair out of her eyes. “We’ve exploded the amplifying chamber.”
That’s what happened. “She’s lost her moroi. She’s still near! Hurry!”
We run together. I feel the fiend slow in the maze of passageways, dodging and stumbling as they wind. A wooden groan rocks the floor under our feet. Cracks tear across the ceiling, showering broken beams. Yurei barely pulls Belle out of the way in time. She shrugs, almost sheepish. “The explosion was rather large.”
More plaster and beams tumble down. Cracks split the ceilings as we race down the corridors, following the connection. We’re close, closer, nearly—
The ceiling falls. An avalanche of rubble smashes me down, pinning me against the marble. I wriggle and crawl through the wreckage, thrashing my way out until I see a starry sky above. The entire wall of the Palace has collapsed. I can see aetherships rising from the wharf, Dead creatures clinging to their hulls, crews fighting to beat them back as they crawl over the gunwales.
“Ayanda!” Yurei screams.
I run to the barricade of debris, grabbing at whatever I can. With every beam and rock I pull away another falls into its place. Three stories of collapsed palace block the entire corridor like a rockfall.
“Ayanda!” Belle shouts. “We’re well! We’ll find a way through!”
The binding pulls tight as the fiend leaves the hidden passage. She’s just ahead, but drawing further away. I can’t wait.
I run from the barricade alone, following the connection. It leads me up a narrower flight of stairs, one that becomes plainer and plainer until it ends in a square wooden door. I kick it down and burst out onto a red-tiled roof. A billowing shadow flees from me, racing towards the domes of the Baxelega.
I chase it. The fiend leaps from the Palace’s roof to the cathedrals. I jump after her just as one of the fleeing aetherships explodes in a giant ball of flame. Fiery debris pelts the Baxelega. I dodge net of burning rigging and run into the shelter of a looming dome. Wreckage rains down upon it. The dome’s lead-tiled roof ignites. The rest of them follow, boiling into tremendous blue-flamed pyres.
I leave the shelter, stepping around burning wood, sweat beading on my forehead. The roof is a maze of tilting gables, ringed by a crown of sculptures and cupolas. Gusts tear past spires like whistling ghosts.
I walk into the canyons betwe
en the domes, searching, my heart in my throat. My crossbow shakes as I aim it, bolt flashing in the firelight.
One. One silver bolt.
A shape stirs in the corner of my eye. I wheel around. The fiend stands at the roof’s edged, black garments flying in the wind. She points to Venice. A dozen columns of smoke pour from the rooftops. The screams of the Naturals and the screeching of the Dead rise from the lanes, whirling with the wind and fire.
The fiend’s skeleton hand trembles, white against the smoke. She needn’t speak. I understand.
Look. You’re too late.
The kudlak hurtles at me. Her claws seize me, dragging me into the air, high above the Baxelega. Blue fire roars about us. Putrid smoke strangles me as I beat at her, ramming my fist into her injured neck. A gout of black blood drenches my arm. She screams but her claws only tighten. One hand clamps about my neck. My own hand catches in her gashed veil. I rip it away.
Her face.
Her face.
Eyes that aren’t eyes, empty pits like charcoal smears. Features that aren’t features, only shifting impressions like a portrait turned to liquid, an impossible eldritch distortion wrapped over a mass of writhing worms. But her mouth, her mouth, a frozen rictus that covers a full half of her skull, a giant wall of gritted black teeth…
It drops open, like a loose jaw falling from a skull. A fang-rimmed black pit yawns before my face. I grab her neck with one hand, Dead blood dripping through my fingers. My crossbow hinders my every move. The black pit gapes, straining for my throat. The stench of the grave engulfs me, rot, ruin, death.
I can’t force her back, she’s too strong, even with my Dead strength she’s too strong—
I let go of her neck and punch my metal fist into the mouth. The jaws clamp down on the brass. The fiend chokes, snapping back. The fangs shred my sleeve as I drag out my arm and jam my hand into her pit of an eye. Her grip loosens. I kick and thrash and somehow, somehow wrestle free—
And fall.
I strike a gable. Metal snaps in my arm. I tumble down the gable’s side and onto the roof. I can’t move. I can’t lift a limb. Through a fog I see a black cloud descend as the fiend comes for me again—