Vintage Soul

by David Niall Wilson

  “You mean,” She replied, “that no apprentice could have engineered all of this. You mean that someone who was still learning the arts wouldn’t have a fortress like this to hide away in, or the knowledge to put together a ritual like the one he’s about to perform. I wish I knew the answer to that. When he came to me, he showed some talent, but he must have dampened it for my benefit. I didn’t check – why would I? Someone with this sort of …”

  “He wouldn’t have needed to sneak in,” Donovan finished.

  She nodded. “He must have been planning this for a very long time, Donovan. He played me from the start, and he’d met you – through me – and well as others. All the connections he’d need, in fact, if he were a very powerful magician moving into our territory from…somewhere else. We handed it to him and shook his hand as he took it.”

  “There isn’t much time,” Donovan said. He shook his head to clear the confusion of thoughts. “Whoever he is, he’s got Vanessa in there, and he’s got everything else he needs too.”

  “The bone marrow dust?” she asked. Her voice sharpened. “How?”

  “It was a setup,” Donovan replied. “I think the collector, Windham, was in on it, but there’s no time to worry over him now. They got the dust, and they think they got away. In fact, they would have gotten away, except for that damned crow, Asmodeus.”

  Questions danced in Amethyst’s eyes, but he waved them away.

  “All of that can wait. How do we get into this place?”

  “Well, we could hang around out here and wait for an invitation,” she said, “But I’ve always preferred a more direct approach. There’s the front door, but somehow I can’t imagine that the main elevators reach the floor we’re after.”

  “Back down the alley,” Donovan said, and started off at a trot. Amethyst followed quickly, and in moments they were back at the chain link gate. Donovan opened the lock the same way he’d opened the padlock at Shady Grove, pressing the small, round pendant to the rear of the lock. It snapped open without protest.

  “That was easy,” Amethyst commented, staring down at the lock dubiously.

  Donovan shrugged.

  “He may not be expecting intrusion from this direction. Maybe he thinks we can’t find him. Who knows?”

  Amethyst didn’t look convinced, but she followed him through the gates and up to the door marked Service Entrance Only. Donovan stared at it for a long moment, but he didn’t touch it.

  “Won’t that amulet work on a door lock?” she asked him.

  “It will,” he said, “but there’s something…wrong…about this door. I can’t explain it, but I have the feeling that opening it is exactly what he hopes we’ll do.”

  They stood and stared at the door a moment longer.

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” she said at last. “Step back.”

  Donovan started to protest, thought better of it, and flattened himself against the wall on the opposite side of the door from where Amethyst stood. She reached into the front of her blouse, an act that on any other occasion would have gotten an interested stare from Donovan, and pulled out a dark blue crystal that protruded from the center of a gold sphere. Staying against the wall herself, she held the amulet out in front of the door and spoke a single word.

  The door exploded from its hinges and flew off down the service drive. It slammed into the fence with a nerve-jarring clang. Smoke rose from the point where it had been ripped from the wall, but otherwise, there as no indication of a threat.

  Donovan saw Amethyst push off from the wall, and he moved.

  “Not yet!” he cried. Before she could step in front of the door, or peek around the corner, he was moving. He launched himself in a headlong dive, and that single, quick motion saved her life.

  Amethyst stepped toward the now open doorway, and Donovan collided with her, wrapping his arms around her legs and dropping her back heavily. As he passed the entrance, a stream of sound and color rushed out, growing wider and brighter and louder with each passing second. It cleared his back by inches, riffling his jacket in passing. Loud, angry cries filled the air. They heard the beat of heavy wings.

  Donovan rolled over out of the direct line of fire. Amethyst stared upward for a second, gasped, and then reached for the amulet she’d used on the door. Without pretense at careful aim, she fired a blast into the air over their heads.

  Dragons peeled off in either direction with a loud screech. When they’d cleared the door, they couldn’t have been more than a foot tall and a couple long, but they grew with astonishing quickness until they filled the sky. Amethyst’s blast missed the first two, but when they split, it smashed into the pair following and drove them back into the final creature with a crunch of bone and the hot smell of burned flesh and sulfur. Donovan reached to his boots, drew forth two odd, half-moon-shaped blades, and leaped to his feet. He didn’t look up at the dragons as they rolled majestically and plummeted back to the attack.

  He drew back his left arm, let the blade fly, whispering a short charm under his breath. It whipped through the air, curved to the right, straightened out, and just as one of the dragons gave a loud roaring cry and dove for his throat, the blade passed cleanly through, like a flashing guillotine. Donovan didn’t stop to check his handiwork. He threw the other blade and dove to the side. He caught the second dragon as cleanly as the first, but it was only a few feet from the ground when it died, and the impact of its collision with the concrete drive shook the foundation of the building.

  Amethyst had taken out two with her initial blast and was sighting in on the last.

  “Get in there,” she cried. “I’ll take care of his pets. Get in and stop him.”

  He didn’t hesitate. He slipped through the door into the passage beyond, hit the ground again and rolled in case something else waited there, but he saw nothing. The corridor he stood in had several doors leading off from it. At the far end of the passage, on his right was the door to an elevator. He ran for it.

  When he reached the sliding doors, he saw that they were closed tightly. Two crystals were imbedded in the wall, one on each side of the door. One was dimly lit and glowed rose red in the semi-darkness. The other was clear and unlit. Donovan considered the two for only a moment, then reached out and touched the unlit crystal. It glowed immediately. There was a grinding sound, and then it stopped. The glow dimmed, and the rose-red crystal remained lit.

  He considered breaking through the doors and climbing. There were ways he could ease and speed the ascent, but it was too risky. The fact that Ezzel had locked the elevator in place on the top floor seemed to indicate he either knew he had company, or had expected it. If Donovan allowed himself to be found out while in that shaft, it would be a simple matter to lower the elevator and crush him.

  He turned and ran back to the door to the alley. Amethyst stood outside the door. She leaned heavily on the wall. There was no sign of the dragons…nothing moved, and the carcasses that had steamed and released their foul order moments before had dissolved into pools of a black, sticky substance Donovan didn’t recognize.

  “The elevator is sealed,” he said.

  She glanced up, and he followed her gaze. Near the top of the building something glinted, and he frowned. He glanced back into the darkened doorway, then back up the wall.

  “Whatever that is,” he said, “is directly above the elevator. Could the car be stuck up there?”

  Amethyst reached into her pocket, pulled out a green satin bag. She untied it and shook a small, clear globe into her hand. As Donovan watched, she breathed on the ball, closed it between her palms and closed her eyes. She said something under her breath and opened her hands.

  The crystal globe had gone smoky, and as they watched, it slowly cleared. When the last of the mist had disappeared from its depths, an image shimmered into view. At first it wasn’t clear, but Amethyst whispered something, and it came into focus.

  They saw the top of the Tefft complex. The moon had dropped nearly off the edge of t
he skyline. Dawn was approaching fast. They looked closer, and saw that the glint they’d caught before. It was a window of some kind, a single glass pane on the stone face of the building. It was near the top. Amethyst spoke again, and the image shifted closer.

  “Damn them,” Donovan said. He saw Vein and the others, staring out defiantly at a sky that would soon fill with sunlight and incinerate them.

  “It’s a trap,” Amethyst said.

  “Of course it is,” he sighed. “And I still can’t leave them there. I’m being paid by their council to save one of their own…I doubt if they’d consider it much of a service if I let that whole group of idiots die in the process.”

  “There’s not much time,” she said softly.

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “The crystals,” she said simply. “He took my crystals, but I still feel them. He’s set them in place. The ritual is beginning now, and once he’s started, he can’t stop. They can only be used once every cycle of the moon. If he tried it again before that, the crystals would shatter. It’s one of the reasons they are so rare.”

  He stared at her, then back up the wall of the building.

  “How long?” he asked. “How long before it’s too late and he’d have to wait?”

  She closed her eyes. Something her skin shimmered for a moment, as if encased in a sheath of light. Then she opened her eyes and met his gaze.

  “An hour, maybe two, but it won’t be any more than that. If he waits longer, the ritual will fail, and the crystals will be destroyed.”

  She fell silent, and Donovan turned away toward the building. She reached out and gripped his arm. He turned back.

  “If that happens,” she said, “if he destroys the crystals? You don’t want to be in the building. You probably don’t want to be on this block, but you definitely don’t want to be in there. It won’t exist.”

  “They’ll explode?” he asked, frowning.

  “No,” she said. “They are timeline crystals. If they are destroyed, whatever they have the strongest link to will draw them along with everything and anything near them through time, space, and dimensions – whatever is between them and their source. Donovan, whatever is too close to them may not be destroyed, but it won’t be here, and there won’t be any way to get back.”

  “Then I’d better hurry,” he said.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “If I can’t go up the inside,” he replied, I’ll have to go up the outside. If I can blow the outer door off of that elevator, they’ll have a chance, and they’ll have to take it. I’ll be going in that way and going after our boy Lance.”

  “I’m going in the front,” she said. “I think I can trace your friends up there,” she pointed at the trapped elevator. “They must have found a way in. If you make enough of a disturbance blowing the side off the wall, maybe I can slip in under his guard. One of us has to get through.”

  Donovan nodded. He stepped forward impulsively, and she almost stepped back, but he was too quick. He pulled her close and slid his fingers into her hair, feeling crystals slide over his fingers. She pressed against him, and they kissed. He let the moment linger for a heartbeat, and then stepped back.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  “I’ll try, she replied, grinning at him, “but I’m kind of pissed off right now.”

  He stared at her, glanced up at the building, and then laughed. “I bet you are at that,” he said.

  She winked at him, turned, and was gone, running back around to the front of the building. He watched her go until she was out of sight, and then turned back to the wall. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he’d come prepared to climb the inside of the elevator shaft, and the exterior wall wouldn’t be that much different. There would be wind to contend with, but he thought he could manage, as long as he reached them before the sun crested the horizon.

  The charm was simple, but he took his time. This was one tall building, and though he might find a way to survive a fall, he’d never make it up the side twice in the time allotted to him. He drew a leather bag from his jacket pocket. It bore a beaded design in the shape of a thunderbird, and the top was tied closed with drawstring straps. The bag was old and slightly brittle, and he handled it carefully.

  As his fingers brushed the old hide, images floated through his mind. He saw an old man with gray hair. Feathers and bones were woven into that hair, and the eyes that stared at him over a hawk-like nose were slate gray and piercing. Across time and death, he felt the old shaman’s presence, and he breathed a prayer of thanks. The images dispersed, and he continued.

  He opened the bag and drew out two feathers and a beaded necklace. The necklace was a string of claws, more feathers, painted beads, and stones. Donovan slipped it over his neck. He quickly removed his boots and placed one feather in each, then laced them back up.

  Working quickly, he shuffled in a slow circle and recited the incantation he’d learned so long ago. He closed his eyes and pictured the old Lakota’s face once more. He felt the rhythm shiver through his bones, and felt the familiar lightening, as if the air around him had permeated his skin, soaked in and drained back out, taking his weight and his mass with it. He continued until he actually felt a breeze through his heart.

  “One with the wind,” he whispered. He didn’t hesitate. He turned, and like a large insect, he scuttled up the side of the wall. The cracks and niches he used for steps and grips were narrow. They shouldn’t have held his weight; but they did.

  As the sunrise seeped closer to the horizon, he climbed, repeating a soft prayer to the thunderbird as he went and wishing the ancient god could grant him its wings.

  EIGHTEEN

  Deep in the secret heart of the Tefft Complex, beneath the chamber where Vanessa had been held captive, but far above the ground floor lobby, a larger space had been created. The elevator appeared not to stop on this floor, and the only other access was by certain passages not obvious to the average eye. There were other safeguards. Ezzel knew that the wards he’d placed weren’t going to stop anyone truly determined to get in, but at this point it didn’t matter. He didn’t need them to be stopped, only slowed. When he stepped from the elevator, he sent it upward, and with a short phrase, he locked it in place. This elevator was a mechanical device, but it responded to other controls as well, and it was these less mundane methods he now employed.

  The center of his private floor was another round chamber, and it was there that he gathered the items he’d spent such time and effort gathering. They were spread over the top of a long altar table, which itself sat in the center of a wide circle that had been first carved, and then burned into the floor. The braziers that would have to be placed at the compass points in a less permanent circle were imbedded in the stone floor. The room was designed with a single purpose in mind.

  The inner circle was also cut into the floor, but it was narrow, and shallow. Ezzel stood within, pouring white powder from a vial around this smaller circle. As he passed each of the braziers he lit it and spoke the invocation, then continued until he reached the final brazier. A ring of symbols had been carefully drawn between the concentric circles, and when he reached the southernmost point on the circle, he would close it, seal it, and light the powder. He’d run through this with meaningless elements a thousand times. He’d repeated the ritual, breaking it into pieces so that he set no random power loose on the room, nor created any anomaly accidentally, and he’d committed every motion, and every word to memory.

  In the center of the altar, the ancient journal rested on a wooden stand. It was open to the first page of the ritual. Ezzel didn’t need it. In fact, if he’d still needed to read the instructions or the words of the ritual from that book, he would not have been ready to complete the process at all. The timing of each segment was critical. He just felt it was proper that some portion of Le Duc join him at this penultimate moment – the culmination of something begun centuries earlier. Le Duc had met his untimely end trying to secur
e the vampire’s blood necessary to complete the ritual. Ezzel had been more careful, and more patient.

  The urn with Father Vargas’ remains stood off to one side, beyond the circle. He had extracted the ashes he needed the moment it was in his possession. At the bottom of a chute he used to dispose of garbage, the corpse of the collector, Jasper Windham, had begun its long courtship with rot and maggots. Loose ends were not acceptable, and even though Ezzel knew he was no longer operating in secret, he saw no reason to change the rules of the game now. Windham couldn’t be trusted – it was obvious in the way he’d betrayed DeChance, and with a very long lifetime ahead of him, Ezzel intended to surround himself only with those he could trust. The rest would be eliminated, or brought in line.

  The room he’d prepared for his ritual was awash in color. Tapestries hung from the walls, depicting astrological signs, chemical formulas, arcane symbols and images from the Tarot. It was mostly an affectation – but it was one that he enjoyed. The entire room – the building surrounding it – the melodrama of the kidnapping and thefts – none of it had been specifically necessary. He could have spent the time and money to range further and find the ingredients he needed. He could have taken a different vampire, one with fewer connections and less beauty. He might even have found one whose people wouldn’t have been sad to lose them. In some ways he wasn’t so unlike the pretender he’d slain, Cornwell. He liked the idea of who, and what he was and saw no reason not to surround himself with the symbolic trappings.

  Ezzel didn’t want his triumph to be a secret. He didn’t want anonymity, or silence. He was about to complete something that had never been completed. When the ritual was finished, he would be immortal. He would have lifetimes without end to enjoy every pleasure the world had to offer, and he didn’t want that feat to go unnoticed. If he could have performed the ceremony on top of the most prominent building in town with an audience of his peers watching him become more than their peer, he would have done so.