Children of the Night

by Zan Safra

  A blast of volta strikes the roof between us. Belle staggers across the roof, tripping over gables, weak with exhaustion. The fiend whirls to meet her, readying herself to—

  A shadow leaps from a dome and swings a staff into her like a sledgehammer. Its head cracks down on her shoulder with a grisly snap. The fiend screeches, wheels about and backhands Jette into the base of a dome. Jette strikes the stone and crashes down to the roof.

  The fiend staggers, holding her shattered limb. It twitches, grinding as it repairs, but its movements are slow, halting and weak. Her horrible mouth gapes again as she runs for Jette—

  A black cord lashes around her neck. Yurei drags the fiend back as Belle lunges for her again. The vampire slashes at her middle, scoring her leather armor and throwing her down. She catches Yurei by throat, spins and slams him down against the roof. Neither of them rises.

  “Maggots. Is this your best?” The fiend stands above us, wreathed in smoke. “Do you think you have ruined me?”

  Her shoulders heave with each breath. “You failed! You failed!”

  The fiend whirls to face us, one after another. “Failures of alchemy. Abortions! Abominations! Lower than the least of the Dead! ” Spit flies from her mouth. “You are the weak ones! You!”

  Her mirage of a face pulses and writhes. Her voice rises madly, ranting in a strange language, shrieking at empty air. Behind her Yurei lifts his head. He crawls over the jagged gables to Belle, helping her to sit. I struggle onto my knees. My left arm hangs at my side, gears grinding uselessly.

  A voice croaks my name. Jette stirs at the base of the dome, colors flickering faintly. She draws something from her bandolier and rolls it towards me. My hand closes around a glinting silver orb.

  A grenade.

  The fiend still rants, raging at someone only she can see as I climb to my feet, quavering, eyes tearing from burning lead. The shrieking of the fiend and the battling Naturals below grow distant. There is only the feeling of the grenade in my hand, the stinging smoke that fills my lungs as I draw breath, and my own voice as I scream with all I have. “Take cover!”

  I hurl the grenade at the fiend and drop behind a gable. The grenade explodes with a thunderclap and a flash of silver light. The fiend screams, a high, garbled wail. The hawser binding us snaps.

  The flash melts away. The noise of the battle diminishes.

  I make my way to the roof’s edge, clinging to a stone angel’s wing. The Dead in the Piasa are falling, crumbling to bone, leaving the mangled bodies of the living in their wake.

  I turn back. Belle and Yurei emerge from their shelters. Jette slips out of the shadow of a dome, herself once more.

  The burning domes cast their light over a shrunken shape crumpled in the center of the roof, a withered mummy, slashed with silver burns. It trembles, air croaking from its lungs.

  I know what must have happened. She released her army, drawing all of her strength into herself, just enough to remain alive.

  We go to her, limping, staggering. My foot strikes my crossbow. I take it up.

  The fiend turns her head. Half of her face is a blackened, burnt skull. The other half is that of a girl, scorched, peeling, gaze blank, bewildered. Isadora.

  “Not right,” she murmurs. “Not right…”

  We stand before her. I feel empty. The crossbow in my hand is strange, a foreign contraption I don’t recognize.

  Isadora lashes at me. I swing up the crossbow to aim at her. She collapses again. Part of her skeleton face crumbles to silvery ash.

  My arm wavers. But I mustn’t. I must do it now. This is what I meant to do from the beginning.

  Isadora’s half-gaze locks with mine. Panicked. Petrified.

  Sweat slicks my hand. Ash stings my eyes. I try to lock my arm, steady my aim. The fiend is a murderess. God alone knows how many she’s enslaved and killed. This girl died centuries ago. This is only an illusion, a rotten shell…

  “Ayanda,” Yurei murmurs. I can’t look at him, I can’t ask what he means, to fire, not to fire. I must, I should, I…

  Isadora’s face calms, as still as a wax figure’s. Then it twists, warping into a hideous contortion no human face should hold, a stare so poisoned with hate that it knocks the breath from my lungs. She inhales, gathering strength, and I know that I must fire, that I must—

  A shriek bursts from her mouth. My hand snaps shut, squeezing the trigger. Isadora bursts into dust.

  “No!”

  The silver bolt falls uselessly to the tiles. The cloud of dust drifts into the sky, melting into the smoke.

  I lower the crossbow. The others come to stand beside me, Yurei, Belle, Jette, silent, watching the skies as Venice burns.

  Epilogue

  Two Weeks Later

  I FINISH INKING THE schematic of my new glaive and set my pen in its well. My repaired automatical arm moves smoothly as I open a drawer. I drop the sheaf of schematics inside. They fall atop the newspaper folded there, this evening’s La Serenisima. THE DEAD VANIQUISHED! flashes and disappears.

  I shut the drawer. It’s good that the newspapers have begun to print again. It shows that the city’s recovered, somewhat, though it’s taken nearly a fortnight. The carabinieri and the forces that arrived from around the Continent searched Venice day and night, hunting the newly transformed, as word of the attack raced across the world. Another London, Naturals whisper. They’ve returned.

  All know what truly happened. The freed moroi spread the news, and after the Dead rampaged through the city the Naturals had no choice but to believe it. The moroi led the carabinieri through the Palace, revealing everything to them, the fiend’s chambers, laboratories, prisons, and the mummified remains of the Doge.

  I haven’t ventured out of the Shadow Palace since we returned. I haven’t wandered the city, sensing its moods or fears. But I know that Venice will never be as it was.

  Neither will we, I suppose.

  No one has come searching for us. Perhaps Isadora never revealed us to her servants, or perhaps they’ve kept that knowledge to themselves. I don’t question it. I doubt I’ll ever know the answer.

  I stand and go to the mirror, making certain my hair and garments are straight. I’ve only a few minutes left. I can’t chance looking unkempt or weak. I must make a proper impression, or at least a projection of strength.

  My reflection stares at me. There’s a difference to it, a quality I can’t place, though I look the same as I always have.

  Dhampiresa…Dracula…

  Have you truly forgotten yourself?

  I turn away, collecting myself. Isadora can’t have survived long after her escape. Injuries so terrible must have killed her. She must be truly dead.

  She must be.

  I leave my room and cross the Shadow Palace, passing the parlor. Andreas lies sprawled on the chaise with an open book on his face as Fiorella arranges paper flowers in his hair. He brushes one away, muttering, “I’m convalescing. Don’t torment the sick.”

  “It’s been weeks and weeks.” Fiorella adds another flower. “You’re not sick anymore.”

  I slip away and continue on, past Madrina in the classroom with Pia, Renzo and Milo, and Beatriz in the herbarium, wrestling another bristly plant. I pause to look into the workshop. Jette and Belle are inside, a half-repaired Olympia propped up between them like an unsettling dressmaker’s dummy. Jette stands on a chair behind her, etching alchemical glyphs into the automaton’s head as Belle holds a pair of cables connecting her fingernails to Olympia’s back. Belle bites her lip nervously. “Are you certain about this?”

  Jette jumps from the chair, adjusting her goggles. “Very nearly!”

  The hallway clock begins to chime. I grab my skirts and sprint down the corridor and up the stairs. The Campanile bell strikes its twelfth clang as I rush out into the cupola and the cold.

  “I took the liberty of arriving early,” a man drawls.

  Laszlo slips into sight, swinging from t
he cupola’s roof to land inside it, just before me. I don’t allow myself to flinch. “Well?”

  “Well? Well enough.” He adjusts one of his lacy sleeves, smirking. “The Court’s returned to its, ah, partial glory. Everything in order, as far as I can tell.” He raises an eyebrow. “Of course, maintaining order isn’t quite my duty, is it?”

  I know what he means. I won’t let him see how I feel. “What else?”

  He considers, pursing his lips. “Dona Marina’s emerged. She’s already arranging a celebratory gala in honor of your ascension. She’s sent for a culinary genius from Verona for the occasion.” He sucks air through his jagged teeth. “An estrie. Marvelous lass. Her bloated horse-leeches are things of beauty.”

  I grit my teeth to stop my stomach heaving. Laszlo tilts his head with the slightest narrowing of his eyes. Then he flourishes a bow. “Consider this your official debut, Dona Ayanda.”

  I clench my fists. “I’m not Dead, Laszlo.”

  A thread-thin smile slices his face. “Well,” he says. “Imagine the success you’ll be when you are.”

  He turns to jump from the cupola and tosses over his shoulder, “You’re expected to deliver a speech.”

  He steps over the edge and drops out of sight.

  I rub my eyes, wondering when the world went utterly mad. Yurei’s voice comes from a shadow. “Will you go?”

  I whirl about and gather myself, trying to seem composed. I’m still not accustomed to his appearing out of nothing. “I have no idea whatsoever.”

  Yurei sidles out of the darkness, glancing at me from underneath his hair. I feel a flush rising beneath my skin and look away, arranging my skirts. This happens whenever he’s about. I don’t care for it. Yet I don’t quite mind.

  Yurei seems about to speak, and doesn’t. He adjusts his new black coat, cravat shifting as he swallows, and I blurt out, “You look very…that is…well, your new clothing suits you very…I mean, I don’t mean to say your other clothing didn’t, I just…”

  I wish I could slap myself.

  Yurei fidgets, swallowing again. “You…your gown is lovely, you always look very—”

  He catches himself, eyes darkening with pure mortification. I understand. I’m near to throwing myself from the roof.

  I steel myself. Enough. I’ve faced enough. Far too much to be undone by this.

  Take heart.

  I go to him and take his hands. A shiver runs through him. He lifts his eyes, gazing directly at me now, without hiding.

  “You know I’m not like you,” he whispers.

  I squeeze his hands. “You are.”

  “I’m an Infernal.” The line of his mouth twists. “I’m no different than the beasts out—”

  “I don’t care.”

  He draws a ragged breath. “You saw my face.”

  I touch his mask. “This is your face.”

  Before I can think better of it I press my hands to his chest. His hands leave mine. His arms slide about me. He’s so near, so near, and it’s time, it’s right, it must happen now, I can’t bear it any longer…

  He pulls me closer. My arms slide about him. The world vanishes. There’s nothing but him, his closeness and his touch and his heart beating against mine as we come together and he…

  Stops.

  A shudder courses through him. He closes his eyes, his mouth tightening. “I nearly killed you,” he whispers.

  “But…” I grip his lapels. “But…Yurei, you weren’t…”

  He releases me. Cold air rushes between us. I want to clutch him, to pull him close and show him that I understand, I know that it wasn’t him, I know it wasn’t truly his doing, I know…

  But it’s too late. The moment is gone.

  I turn away and go to the cupola’s railing. Venice shines before me. After a moment Yurei joins me. The back of his hand brushes mine.

  I take his hand. Our fingers entwine as gaze out over Venice, its spires and icy domes, gas-lamps that shine like fireflies.

  Perhaps, for now, it’s enough.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s hard for me to truly express my gratitude in a few short sentences. My most heartfelt thanks to my family for their love and incredible, incredible patience: my parents, David and Lydia, my grandmother Marta, my grandfather Luís, z”l, my Tío Mario and my Uncle Michael. I’d also like to thank my beta readers Chloe, Hester, Megan, Lauren, and Samantha for their invaluable input (and cheerleading!), and Lorna Reid and Stefanie Saw for their gorgeous designs.

  Finally, thank you to Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Gaston Leroux, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H. G. Wells. May your works and your memories forever be a blessing.

  About the Author

  Zan Safra was born in Texas, educated at the University of Houston, and raised on a healthy diet of Universal Classic Monsters and Hammer Films. When not writing or reading, she can be found performing onstage and composing haunting melodies in mostly minor keys.

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