by Heather Knox
“We’ve summoned you for the truth, Delilah. Come now, meet the Council.” He places his hand on the small of my back in a too-familiar way and guides me towards the door. Caius steps towards us. The man raises a hand. “She must do this alone.”
“She is my ward. I swore an oath.”
“And there’s nowhere safer than in Council chambers. I assure you no blood will be spilled behind these doors tonight. You may wait here if you like,” he says, his voice edged in something dangerous despite gesturing to some seating as a concierge might. Caius grunts and stands against the wall near the door, arms crossed. I have no doubt that no matter how long I am inside I will find him still standing sentinel when I return.
Inside, seven high-back leather chairs surround a circular mahogany table. Two seats empty. The other five seat people I’ve never seen before but I can guess their importance. The chairs, the table—the only Everlasting allowed into Council chambers are invited guests and even that is a rare occurrence. Trials take place elsewhere—somewhere, I imagine, where sunlight could never reach and screams could never be heard. Salons, business meetings, and celebrations spill into other rooms of the seemingly infinite hotel, reaching even as far as the lobby where Caius waits. Even Zeke likely never more than glimpsed this room.
Everyone stares as I enter and I glance to the man, unsure of what to do. He gestures to a vacant seat near the door, one of the seven.
“Forgive our arrangement—it’s not often we have visitors,” he says, taking the other vacant seat. A woman across from me smirks as I sit in the chair. I glance at the expressions of the others, but besides her smirk and the plastered-on smile of the man who fetched me from the lobby, these people could be statues.
“First of all,” the man begins, “we wish to extend our condolences at your loss. The death of your Usher is a loss deeply felt by the sect. He—”
The smirking woman rolls her eyes.
“He didn’t die,” I interject before I can stop myself from arguing the semantics of a predator. I know what the Council thinks—that Zeke met his end at the hand of another predator, perhaps in a dispute for territory or prey or because he found himself too deep into whatever great mystery he might have been after at the time, the Valkyries or another. They do not think him murdered, they think him dead—you don’t consider a bear murdered by another bear in the wild. Murder is premeditated, motivated. Everything, even the Everlasting, dies, and usually at the hand of another, but that alone does not require it be murder. The definition lies not in the effect, but in the cause.
A palpable silence and I notice the air shifting around even the stoic members of the Council, a tension as when the quarry realizes they’re being stalked. I’ve spoken out of turn. I’ve contradicted something they know to be true. I’m alone with the wolves and even if Caius burst through that door any one of the Elders seated at this table could ash me before he understood what was happening.
“Delilah,” the man begins carefully, “I know this loss must come as a shock, but Ezekiel Winter is dead. The Everlasting do not leave corpses, but I assure you—”
“I know he’s dead. I’m saying he didn’t die. He was murdered.”
Again the palpable silence, but it quickly dissolves to whispering. The smirking woman narrows her eyes at me.
“That’s a bold claim, child,” she hisses. “The punishment for killing another Everlasting comes from the Ritae Aequitas. Those practices have been dormant for centuries and to levy such a grave accusation—”
“The punishment for killing another Everlasting if you’re caught,” an attractive man next to the smirking woman retorts. “How naïve can you be? Don’t leave a survivor to tattle,” the attractive man adds, shrugging.
“Let her speak freely, Evelyn,” a woman with a honeyed voice next to me says, addressing the smirking woman who now glares at the man next to her. “Please, Delilah, continue.”
“Enough!” The man who brought me inside slams his fist on the table. “Decorum matters in these chambers. We are not Praedari.” This last word drips the venom with which it was meant. The quarreling Elders quiet.
“That is better. Now, introductions. I am Leland. Though we do not have assigned positions within the Council, we do each fill a role that plays to our strengths. I tend to play host when we have visitors. This,” he gestures to the formerly smirking woman, “is Evelyn, something of an occultist and historian. If the sect has a secret, she is its keeper.” Though his tone is light, she looks displeased at this last statement, her lips pursing. She’s dressed sensibly, as you might expect someone named Evelyn who is an occultist and historian to dress: neutral colors, hair pulled back in a bun, minimal jewelry except a pin on her lapel that bears some crest I don’t recognize.
“This is Alistair.” Leland gestures to a man who appears to have been uncharacteristically old when he had his Becoming, gray peppering his hair. He, too, wears a suit, the unspoken dress code amongst male members of the Council, though his pocket kerchief and tie stand out amongst the predominantly neutral palette of the Council in the seemingly ever-shifting shades of a peacock. My attention falls to his wrists: platinum cufflinks in the style of tiny maps adorn his wrists. “Alistair is responsible for curating the majority of the gallery you saw in the lobby.”
“They’re from my personal collection,” he boasts.
“I found the Valkyrie particularly enthralling,” I respond, clearly speaking out of turn again.
He smiles the sort of smile that really isn’t. “Of course you did. It’s a shame the artist went mad and never painted another. She showed so much potential . . . ” His tone leads me to believe that went mad is a politesse for my benefit, that her fate may have been at the hands of the subject of her painting if, indeed, some of the darker rumors Zeke gathered about the Valkyries were correct.
“Next we have Brantley,” Leland continues, interrupting more politely than seems possible. His voice takes on a slight edge, though, as he continues. “Our resident chameleon—far older than he presents himself, he’s learned to adapt with the times rather than, as he would tell you, cling to outdated traditions and mannerisms that no longer serve the sect.” The latter half of this statement sounds tired, as if this verbal battle has waged for years. Brantley, the attractive man, leans back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. Another suit, though I notice on the back of his chair loops the strap of a leather messenger bag. On his wrist a watch easily recognizable as expensive; gaudy, even. He shrugs. Whatever nerve Leland hoped to strike, he seems to have missed. Leland doesn’t seem to be alone in his dislike of Brantley; Alistair and Evelyn have done little to hide their disgust with him.
That sweetly-lilted voice chimes in and nearly immediately the tension dissolves. “And I am Temperance Cordelia Stafford.”
“Yes,” Leland continues, regaining his control of introductions. “Not all of us have given up our proper names to the shadows.”
Temperance wears a gown that complements Alistair’s tie and kerchief, shades of the peacock and far too elegant for a gathering such as this—though you’d never guess by how she carries herself. Her hair falls to the middle of her back, curly, some of it pulled high on her head into an updo secured with what might be diamond-encrusted combs. The light refracting dances on the ceiling whenever she shifts in her seat or turns her head. She wears no other jewelry save for a ring on her left ring finger, where one would wear an engagement ring. The stone is a large, almost cloudy opal. Despite wearing no visible makeup, her skin seems to glow from within. Even her cheeks bear a blush difficult for the Everlasting to fake. I find it hard to take my eyes off her once I’ve begun studying her. I blink hard and force my gaze to follow Leland’s.
His attention falls on a man I didn’t notice until now, though he must have been here the entire time. Unlike the other men, he wears grayish what-can-best-be-described-as robes, regal but simple. He has not spoken once, his jaw set, his gaze unflinching. His eyes are gray, how the opal in Te
mperance’s ring looks at certain angles. How had I never noticed him staring at me?
“And this is Enoch, the Eldest among us.”
Leland offers no further introduction of the venerable, imposing figure, instead nodding to me to make my address.
“I am Delilah, Childe of Ezekiel Winter, Grandchilde of Ismae the—”
“Naming a Praedari Elder in your address to the Council of Keepers? Your Usher should have taught you better,” Alistair fires.
“With all due respect, Elder—” as Leland says, decorum matters and what is decorum but appearances? “—She is older than both our sects and for me not to name her in the recitation of my lineage would have been dishonest.” Return fire. The Germans have a word for Alistair. Backpfeifengesicht: a face in dire need of a fist.
Evelyn gives me a curt nod of approval.
“I say where there’s the blood of a traitor there’s treacherous seed—”
“Do not finish that sentence, Alistair,” Evelyn warns.
I notice a couple half-glances in Temperance’s direction, her posture erect as she draws herself even more so with a subtle arching of the back, her breasts rising almost imperceptibly, followed by her shoulders. The predator within me flicks tail, recognizing the alertness of that within her. Her tight-lipped smile does little to hide that her cuspids have elongated in response to something I’ve apparently missed.
“Am I on trial for loyalty to the sect?” I challenge, out of turn, perhaps more hostility to my tone than I originally intended, my tongue flicking like my Beast’s tail. “Is Zeke? Why else should my Bloodline be questioned? Surely it is not news to the Council, my lineage.”
“Absolutely not, Delilah. We are aware of your lineage. You are here because your Usher spoke often of you—and your gift,” Temperance purrs, having dismissed that which rose within her just a second ago. When she speaks, I feel myself involuntarily calm, my Beast retreating to someplace deep inside to slumber for a little while. I suspect hers is a gift of the Blood, as others visibly relax as well.
“Temperance . . . ” Leland warns.
“No. She has a right to know that we know her secret. She has a right to know why she was really summoned.”
Leland pauses a moment before continuing. “Very well. Delilah, Temperance is right. Zeke spoke to the Council about your oracular visions. Some”—he glances at Brantley and then to Alistair—“do not believe in such things. They assume knowledge claimed to have been gained this way must have come about from another source. Regardless, it is the duty of the Council to consider all possible sources of information when it comes to sect security.”
“Sect security?” Many seconds pass and no one offers so much as confirmation, so I continue. “So Zeke told you what I saw when he made me?”
Five heads nod. Enoch merely stares in his way. Now that I’ve noticed him I find it difficult to pull my attention elsewhere. Probably what the hunted feel like once they discover they’re being stalked.
“Do you remember what you saw that night?” Temperance asks.
I nod. I’m speaking before my brain can intervene and tell my mouth not to. “Sometimes things are hazy but it usually comes back to me later. That night I saw a pale woman, sleeping but with a thick tube down her throat.” The room wavers in my vision and I am in that place again. It echoes as I speak in two places at once. “The tube is clear and filled with red. She is bound at the wrists and ankles with industrial-looking chains. Time passes. I don’t know how long. Her eyes open. I feel her hunger . . . ”
I become aware of a hand on my arm, startling me from my remembrance and back to the present. My fangs have extended and my pulse races, my Beast again just underneath the skin of this fragile shell. I don’t know why I didn’t mention the teenagers also sleeping with IVs in their arms, but something in me isn’t ready to trust these strangers with the whole of my secret.
“That’s roughly what Zeke recounted to us. Is there anything else you remember? Details about the location? Was anyone else present?” Temperance leads in such a way that I suspect at least she knows the answer.
I lie, shaking my head to indicate no. Easier to lie without relying on words. “It’s not a linear thing. I—I can’t explain it.”
“Ssshhh, child. You’ve done well,” she purrs. She stands and offers me her hand. The others stand, too, taking their cue silently. Apparently we are finished. She guides me to the door.
“Wait. Delilah,” a voice from the table interrupts. Brantley. “You said Zeke was murdered?”
I nod.
“How do you know?”
“I watched him die.”
NIGHTTIME BEHIND A DONUT SHOP AND SOME seedy dive bar. The alley smells like dough and the stink of garbage baked to the bottom of a dumpster by summer. A few backs of heads bob along in the distance towards a car. Three or four or two or eight, the uncertainty one feels in a hall of mirrors. As they start the engine of a black car, dark liquid—the kind of inky dark that makes the shadows themselves—drips into what first resembles a pool of shadow underneath where the engine roars to life, then coagulates and morphs into the shape of a large, dark bird, as if the bird itself melts from underneath the body of the vehicle, a bird cast of molten metal and shadow. I blink and it lands on the dumpster a few feet away.
I turn to go to my car and someone stands in front of the dumpster, cloaked in shadow. They speak but the black bird starts cawing so I cannot hear. I see the glimmer of metal in their hand. It drips light. Everything drips, but drips as if time has slowed, each drop peeling off the source and hovering just too long before plinking below.
I speak but not words, just voice. Zeke’s voice.
The figure steps forward but shadow seems to follow and obscure their features—no, not obscure: the figure is shadow, either born of it or built of it. One moment they tower over me, the next I could crouch to be at their height. How shadows grow and shrink as the sun moves across the sky. The metal in their hand seems almost alive, flickering as if reflecting phantom candlelight. The figure raises the metal which is now wood. More speaking, drowned out by the bird, but with the cadence of a prayer.
My eyes widen as I step outside myself. Zeke falls to his knees, gasping, before slumping to the ground, a hole in his chest where his heart, in life, once beat. The figure erupts into hundreds of black birds, all cawing, cawing, and the cawing is my screaming. The moon, now red, resembles a heart. My screams settle into silence.
“THAT’S IT? THAT HAS HER CONVINCED IT WAS murder? A bad dream?” I hear Brantley challenge as Leland gives Temperance a little wave. She escorts me from the room into the lobby with the paintings, her arm linked with mine as sisters might. Before the door closes I hear Evelyn admonish Brantley for being a close-minded dolt incapable of understanding any of the subtleties of our Blood. I’m starting to like her.
Temperance turns to me. “You’re worried, but I believe you, Delilah. Zeke and I were close.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Not close like the two of you were, but he came to me shortly after he made you. He didn’t know what to share with the rest of the Council. Why did you leave out the teenagers you saw?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure. I just—”
“Wasn’t sure who you could trust?”
I nod.
“That’s why I didn’t press it. But the person who killed him . . . ?”
I shake my head. I really don’t know. “What now?”
“Now Caius will escort you home where you’ll wait to be summoned again,” she says, indicating him with her eyes. “And the Council will argue about what your vision means, where else the information may have come from, whether you can be trusted, and what to do from here. Delilah,” her voice softens, “don’t take this the wrong way, but . . . don’t expect much, okay? You’ve done your part and Ezekiel would be proud. You didn’t let them bully you. You met your duty with grace.”
She leans in and gives me an awkward hug, too familiar for us having ju
st met. I manage a weak smile and nod as she disappears into the room pulling the door behind her.
“You sassed off in the Council chambers, didn’t you?” Caius asks, grinning. We start walking.
“What? Why would you ask me that?”
“I’ve known both you and Temperance long enough to know what ‘You didn’t let them bully you’ means.”
“I recited my lineage as etiquette dictates when meeting someone for the first time.”
“That’s an outdated custom and you know it.”
I shrug. “It certainly got a rise out of Alistair.”
“You were testing them?”
I nod.
“And then Temperance came to your rescue?”
I nod again, noticing the newspaper rolled into a tube in his hand.
“You must’ve learned that from Zeke,” he muses before continuing. “You can’t trust her.”
“I know.”
“I mean it. They start wars. Her kind could convince the Pope he’s Jeffrey Dahmer.”
“That’s an obscure cannibal reference.”
“Delilah.” There’s an edge to his voice. He pauses at the bottom of the stairs.
“I get it, really. I don’t trust anyone, except you.”
Satisfied, he climbs a few stairs.
“By the way, who says ‘ward’ anymore?” I call up after him. “Are you in a Jane Austen novel or something?”
“SHE HAS NO IDEA THAT THE ELDER FROM HER vision on the night of her Becoming is her Usher’s Usher?” Alistair asks.
“Seems that way,” Leland agrees.
“And she somehow didn’t see the face of Zeke’s supposed murderer? And that some stupid bird drowned out what they talked about?” Brantley’s voice still drips with doubt.
“It’s likely she did see but can’t remember,” Evelyn explains, taking on the role of lecturer. “Visions of this nature are incomplete at best. She is lucky she remembers anything of them after they’ve passed. And the bird . . . the bird could be a symbol rather than a literal bird.”