by Rye Brewer
The image of a half-mangled corpse with my face turned my stomach. I gagged, bile rising in my throat, my body clenching in agonizing spasms. And still, the rat hovered there, unsure whether to leave me alone or pretend I didn’t exist.
And I felt the same about it.
Was it my imagination, or could I hear its heart beating? And the blood flowing from its heart…
“No… no…” I tried to move my arm, to wave it away, and the rat jumped back in response. But it didn’t run away. It was bold, it knew I had little strength left. What would happen when they all knew? When I couldn’t move without screaming, without my body feeling as though it were being torn into pieces? Would I find the strength to move, to fend them off? Or would I let them do what nature had programmed them to do?
Would it be a mercy?
What if I…
They had blood…
Not much of it…
“No!” I closed my eyes again and kicked out with my feet. That scared it off. I heard its tiny claws scratching against the surface of the floor as it darted off through the crack in the wall, leaving me alone again.
Could I have caught it? Would I have? No.
I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t fall that far. Only mindless, soulless beasts drank the blood of rodents. And that sort of blood did things to a vampire, changed them. I didn’t know if it was possible to change back. I didn’t want to see for myself, either.
No matter how I suffered, I wouldn’t do that to myself.
Would I?
I licked my parched, cracked lips again and wondered. And hoped I wouldn’t live long enough to know how far it was possible to fall once true starvation set in.
14
Scott
The air didn’t move, and yet the fog swirled all around me as I stood not far from where we’d come through.
This was Duskwood. A black, blank sort of place that brought to mind the image of a creator who grew bored with the world they were putting together and deserted it halfway through.
“Come.” Fane led the way, my mother’s body still resting in his arms.
If it pained him in any way, he didn’t reveal it. Only through his hard, intense eyes did I get any sense of what she’d meant to him. That, and how reverently he appeared to carry her.
“What will you do with her?” I asked, careful where I stepped.
I couldn’t see the ground. What was down there? The tops of the gravestones just visible over the fog brought to mind another image, more disturbing than the last: hands reaching out from the graves all around me, stretching, seeking something to hold onto as they pulled themselves out.
Or pulled me in.
What was I? A child? I shook off the chilling superstitious thoughts and focused instead on not breaking my neck.
“There are several empty mausoleums here,” he murmured.
I noticed the confidence with which he walked. He didn’t have to look down, measuring every step. He’d been here many times.
“She can rest in Duskwood until more permanent arrangements can be made. No one here will harm her. That, I’m certain of.”
One thing I knew, he would never place her in harm’s way. He may have changed in many unimaginable ways, but he loved her.
That brought another question to mind. “I didn’t think about this before, but why are we here? If she’s… gone… why do we need to find a caster?”
“For Philippa. To take Valerius from Vance’s body. Since we have the presence of a necromancer at our disposal, I felt it best not to waste the opportunity. And Valerius must be stopped, by any means necessary.”
I couldn’t argue the point.
We reached a tall, imposing marble building which I quickly recognized as a mausoleum. A chill ran down my spine. This was where Fane would search for a caster? No great surprise, witches consorting in such a place.
He stepped inside, ducking to clear the low doorway, and placed my mother’s body on a low bench while Elazar and I waited.
To his credit, Elazar averted his eyes and seemed to keep a respectful distance. It occurred to me he had just lost someone, too. From the way he’d reacted after finding out she was dead, he had genuinely cared for her.
“Scott? Would you like a minute with her?” Fane beckoned.
I hesitated then shook my head. “I, ah, I already said goodbye to her. A long time ago.” I couldn’t do it again in front of him, and much less in front of a stranger.
He seemed to understand, or at least to accept my answer, then he led us to another mausoleum. “Hurry. I wouldn’t want us to be discovered.”
Elazar glanced around with that smirk of his as we hurried through the fog. Did he smirk at everything? I couldn’t tell if he actually thought things were funny, or if he thought he was smarter and cleverer than everyone around him and wanted to be sure we knew it, too.
“It isn’t much.” He ran a hand over the marble face of the wall as we stepped inside. “But even I can admit it’s a lot nicer than where I’ve lived as of late. I would rather never see that place again, if it’s all the same.”
“I thought you’d want to be there all the time, visiting your sister,” I muttered.
He shot me a look of warning, and, for once, the smirk was gone. “Think again, boy.”
“All right, all right.” Fane stepped between the two of us, doing everything but rolling his eyes. “I thought I left this part of my life behind once my children grew up, but I see that isn’t the case.”
“It’s all right,” Elazar assured him with a chuckle. “It’s been so long since I’ve been in the presence of others—save the few visitors I enjoyed over the course of my sentence—I’ve forgotten my manners. I won’t allow my temper to get the better of me.”
It was obvious Fane could see right through all of his fake charm. One thing he still had going for him, he was always a good judge of character.
“Yes, well, you’d better not. I don’t think many of the witches who travel through Duskwood would take kindly to your presence here, should you choose to throw a tantrum and run away. Let’s not forget the nature of the crimes you committed against them—it takes quite a history of wrongdoing to earn a sentence on Shadowsbane Island.”
“And yet your son here almost earned himself a sentence, didn’t he? Had my sister not stepped in and altered the course of the—ahem—proceedings?”
“And you would still be locked tight in your cell had your sister not freed you. Not only are your crimes notorious, you didn’t serve your full sentence.”
“Why did you bring me here, then?” Elazar demanded through clenched teeth.
“Because you said you would help,” Fane reminded him. “And because if you ever hoped to leave Shadowsbane for any other corner of our world, you’d be hunted and put down like a mad dog. Only my presence is enough to keep you safe right now.”
Elazar’s eyes reminded me of two burning coals. He didn’t have a leg to stand on, no matter how strong and clever he thought he was. And he knew it. “A fair point, well-stated. Your travels through Duskwood should go much better than before, in any case. Seeing as how you’ve changed.”
Fane’s eyes widened a millimeter but no more. “Yes, I suppose I should thank you for that.” He turned to me, and the tension burst like a bubble. “I’m going to look for a caster willing to help us.”
I glanced around, wondering to myself how he planned to find one. “We’re not the only people here?”
“Not at all.”
“I don’t see anyone.” I barely saw anything, much less anybody. Only fog which stirred without the help of a breeze, and the tops of tombstones. And the deep, black, endless sky.
“Looks can deceive here,” he explained. “It isn’t so much a place where witches live as it is a common travel route. A meeting place, as well. There are usually dozens of witches here at one time, but they know how to keep to themselves. As Sirene used the mausoleum to meet others without being noticed, so do the witches who are here
now.”
“I didn’t ask about the habits of witches,” I snapped. “I was only questioning how you knew there were others here.”
“And I’ve told you,” he replied, raising his chin. “I forget how impatient you can be. And how disinterested in the habits of others. But there’s a bit of information I think you need to know, my son. And you are my son, no matter your feelings for me at the moment. I was there the day you were born, and the day you were turned.”
Then why have you spent all these years pretending you didn’t have children? Why call yourself by another name and insist we use that name when talking about you? Why pretend Dommik is dead?
I couldn’t ask any of those questions around Elazar, who stayed silent, but was all ears. Someone who stood as still and silent as he did could only be listening in on the conversation around him.
“What would that be?” I asked, pointedly ignoring Elazar’s presence.
“There will come a time when you’ll depend on the generosity of someone different from yourself. Perhaps it was wrong of me to allow my children to lead such sheltered lives for so long. The clan was most important, maintaining order and keeping us at peace. I was wrong not to expose you to more of the world—worlds—other than ours. Then again, I knew little of those worlds until we were no longer together, and that was by necessity.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but his look brought me to an immediate stop.
His eyes narrowed, fixed on me. “You’d do better to lose some of your hardheaded notions now, before you’re at the mercy of one you’d rather not rely on. At the rate you’re going, you’ll have alienated whoever it is, and there will be no one to help you.”
I had quite a lot to say about that, but not where we were or who we were in front of. “Sure. Fine. Do what you have to do. Philippa needs this.”
He turned his attention to our companion. Then he strode out among the tombstones and eventually disappeared into the swirling fog which seemed to swallow him. One moment he was there, the next he wasn’t. Like magic.
Which it could’ve been, for all I knew. Stranger things had happened before my very eyes.
Elazar sighed behind me.
I heard him slide down the wall and eventually hit the floor.
He was seated with his back to the wall when I glanced over my shoulder.
“It seems as though there’s little for us to do but wait,” he observed.
“It seems that way.” The less I said to him, the better.
He’d find a way into my head if I wasn’t careful. No one had to explain it for me to know it was true.
“You’ve been here before?”
It seemed an innocent question. “No. This is my first visit.”
“Hmm.” Nothing more than that.
“What’s so strange about my never being here before?”
“Nothing. It makes sense, if you’re as sheltered as your father said.”
“I wouldn’t call myself sheltered.”
“Who would?” he chuckled. “Please, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean to be insulting.”
“Oh, I’m sure you would never want to insult anyone…”
“It was merely an observation. And, really, isn’t it every parent’s instinct to protect their child? After all, your father hid himself from you for decades in order to protect you.”
Damn him. Just when I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t let him in my head. “How would you know about that, locked up the way you were?”
“Word has a way of spreading, even behind invisible bars,” he explained. “Your father is a very well-known personality—regardless of the name he uses. In fact, he garnered more fame for himself as Fane than he ever did as Dommik—”
“Don’t say his name,” I warned.
He didn’t deserve to speak the name of my father. I didn’t care how it looked, my snapping at him that way.
He only snorted softly. “A thousand pardons. I meant no disrespect.”
“It seems as though you manage to say a great many disrespectful things without the intention of disrespect.”
“Always my curse.” He chuckled. “I have a way with words. Not a good way, mind you.”
I glanced away again, over the tombstones. So many of them. Ancient. There was no telling just how ancient they were. I wondered if he would know but wasn’t in the mood for the mental gymnastics it took to have a simple conversation with him.
Be that as it may, the only alternative was to hang around in silence. I could’ve handled the silence under ordinary circumstances, but when surrounded by pressing blackness and the sense the fog swirled without the air stirring it…
“What did you do?” I glanced over my shoulder.
“To be locked away?”
“Yes. Fane alluded to crimes you committed. How serious they were. I think it would be nice to know who I’m dealing with if we’re going to be traveling together.”
He surprised me by laughing. “I’ve never been able to stand down in the face of reason. Let that be known as one of my better qualities, since I know my lesser qualities are what will be remembered long after I’m gone.”
“I’ll be sure to spread the word.” I turned away from the landscape outside the mausoleum, facing him with my back to the wall.
“Are you sure you want to hear what I have to share?” He raised an eyebrow in challenge. “They’re not pretty stories.”
“Don’t buy into Fane’s version of me,” I warned. “He’s been away for a long time. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.”
“Oh, I’ve seen what you’re capable of. You’re no child,” he observed with an arch grin.
I wasn’t sure if he was making fun of the scene I’d caused on Shadowsbane or expressing approval. Maybe both. If anything, it led to him being freed. He had no room to mock me.
“So? Are you going to tell me, or not?”
“Why is it so important you hear what I’ve done?”
I shrugged. “I thought it would be something to pass the time. A diversion. What’s the alternative? Waiting for Fane and a caster until we both rot? Hanging around, thinking about who we’ve lost?”
Just like that, his genteel, charming façade shattered. “What do you know about loss, boy? You’ve lost nothing.”
That threw me; the last thing I’d expected was for him to turn on me like that. “You were there. You saw what happened. And I saw what happened to you.”
“You know nothing of loss,” he hissed, his voice reminding me of a snake’s. Somehow, it was much more chilling than a shout or scream. “You don’t know what it is to love another, to devote yourself to them body and soul. You don’t know what it means to share a life with another, to truly share. Even when one of you is taken away, locked up, and the other remains faithful to you for all that time. When they give up everything to be with you, just to be with you, because you both know there’s no life without the other. To take strength and courage from the presence of that other half of yourself, to live for the moments in which you’re together—even if you can’t touch each other.”
He looked away from me, staring at the wall opposite the one against which he sat. Staring through it, seeing something far away. “I didn’t get to touch her again until she was already gone. Cold and dead. How cruelly fate can twist sometimes. I lived for the moment I could touch her again, I truly did. There were days when that one fantasy was all that got me through without losing my mind. And yet…”
The depth of his reaction stunned me into silence. It was the last thing I’d expected to hear from someone like him. To think he’d truly felt for Samara.
“And you believe you’ve lost something,” he mused, tipping his head back against the wall with a sigh. “It would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic. So misdirected. You lost nothing in that little girl. She never loved you.”
“You know nothing,” I growled, fangs ready to descend. The only thing that stopped me from throwing myself onto him and tearing
him to pieces was the thought of Philippa, and how she needed him. Nevertheless, I wondered what it would be like to bathe in his blood.
“I know much more than you do,” he whispered. “If the girl had loved you—really loved you, ready and willing to join her life to yours—she wouldn’t have had her head turned by Stark or any other. You don’t think someone as beautiful as my Samara had her share of chances to fall into another’s arms? You don’t believe there were times when she felt lonely, hopeless? With hundreds of years stretching out in front of her, standing between us?”
“That doesn’t mean there was nothing between us, or that I don’t feel her loss keenly.”
“It would be better for you to forget she ever lived,” he advised with a grim smile.
“I would love nothing more than to be able to do that.”
“Do it, then. It’s not as difficult as you want to believe it is.”
“How? If you’re so experienced, how would I go about forgetting her?”
“See a little more of the world, of life,” he suggested. “I realize they who live in Manhattan believe it’s the center of the universe, but I can assure you that isn’t so. You’ve seen nothing, you’ve experienced nothing. You throw yourself around like a spoiled child—”
That was enough for me. I couldn’t have cared less if Philippa or Vance or anybody else needed him.
A single snarl escaped from my throat before my fangs descended and I threw myself across the mausoleum, claws extended and ready to rip him apart.
He didn’t flinch. He merely waved a hand in my direction and sent me sprawling.
It was like hitting a wall of solid energy. There was no fighting something like that. I hit the floor with a bone-crunching thud and saw stars for a moment before shaking my head to clear it.
“Now. Have you gotten that out of your system?” He sounded bored. He actually sounded bored.
“You bastard.”
“Words, words, words.” He sighed. “They mean nothing to me by now. I’ve been called just about everything under the sun. I believe new epithets have been invented in my honor. None of them mean a thing, not really. I know who I am and what I am, and that’s all that’s ever mattered.”