by Heather Knox
Caius starts to explain. “He pulled it off Tomas, by all reports a loudmouth piece of . . . Well, you know. You met them all. Zeke grew rather fond of him, said his loyalty was unmatched by any he’d met. Leave it to Zeke to bond with the enemy and then feel no remorse in decimating them.” He chuckles, a hoarse sound. “I guess he recovered it to honor him.”
A gift for his beloved. I remember what Zeke told me, about our Blood having far greater capacity for affection than other Everlasting. No doubt he felt genuine fraternity with the pack he infiltrated and mourned their deaths, a secret he took to his Final Moment. The curse wrapped within the blessing. I slide an antique six-shooter into a thigh holster underneath my skirt and clasp a pendant—another gift from Zeke—around my throat.
“The Stone of Nyx? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“You act like I’m bringing a grenade full of sunlight into Council chambers,” I joke.
“It’s sort of like bringing a wagon full of bloody steaks into a den of starving lions.”
“I’m sure it’s no secret that I possess the Stone of Nyx. Besides, it’s my Bloodright—none of them could attune to it.”
“I guess. They may consider it a show of dominance, though.”
I shrug. “Maybe it is.”
“The gun, though? Even if something happened and you opened fire, bullets do about as much as Tic-Tacs.”
I smile to myself, remembering something Zeke once said.
“Besides, arming yourself makes you look guilty,” Caius offers from the chair.
“I’d rather have one and not need it than need it and not have one,” I explain.
“Isn’t that from a movie?”
“Yeah.”
“The woman that says that line dies, doesn’t she?”
“Yeah,” I shrug.
“I ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT I’VE MADE MY DECIsion. You’re not going to change my mind.” I reach for my six-shooter but Zeke has already grabbed it.
“A gun? You might as well pelt her with gumballs, Delilah,” he admonishes. “No Everlasting fears bullets.” He turns the revolver over in his hands, inspecting it with a faint smile of approval despite his outward skepticism. “Where’d you get this, anyhow?”
“None of your business,” I snap, swiping the gun from his hand.
He frowns. “Don’t be angry—”
“Don’t tell me how to feel.”
“I’m only looking out for you.”
“You think me incapable.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Then you don’t trust me.”
He sighs, rubbing his furrowed brow. “I swear, Delilah, if my hair could gray you’d be the reason.” He studies me a moment, frowns, then continues. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
He tosses his hands up in surrender. “Fine. You can go in my place.”
I smile.
“You’re stubborn.”
I shrug. “Probably why I survived.”
“Probably.” In the kitchen he sits at a small square card table and gestures to the other folding chair. “This is a delicate matter, Delilah, not a time for brute force. Simone considers her collection an extension of herself. She won’t part with anything easily.”
“And theft isn’t an option?”
“Impossible, and don’t consider that a challenge. No, for this you’ll have to convince her to give it up willingly. You’ve seen me fight, right? And Caius?”
I nod.
“Simone doesn’t look like much, but she could ash us both blindfolded with her arms bound behind her back. She didn’t just command armies; she Ushered them. She singlehandedly trained them and fought alongside them until her empire was secured. Once it was, she handled the overpopulation with genocide. When the Keepers and Praedari split into factions, she was asked to serve as the Keepers’ unofficial warlord. Now she dedicates that same tactical genius to safeguarding her collection.”
“Understood.”
“We get one chance at this. Others are vying for the same artifact but Simone has decided that instead of awarding it to the highest bidder she’d see what else we’re willing to offer. Be careful, Delilah—if you offer your soul she’ll find a way to take it.”
“What is this artifact, exactly?”
“It’s safer that you don’t know. She’ll know I sent you and what it is I seek.”
“And if she takes our payment and sends me back with a decoy?”
Zeke shakes his head. “She should honor whatever agreement you reach. She carries herself like a snake-oil salesman but too many tricks loses business—and blood—and news travels quickly amongst Everlasting. Let me worry about Simone’s end of the transaction.”
I stand, adjusting the jacket into which I’ve tucked the revolver. “Got it.” I start for the door.
“Delilah—”
I turn at his address.
“For God’s sake, take this at least.”
He strides to me, the corners of his mouth twitching as if he hides a smile. He pulls something from his pocket. A deep red stone about the size of a quarter dangles from an intricately woven silver chain.
“Here,” he says, clasping the pendant around my neck. When the stone meets my décolletage it immediately warms. A quiet hum starts in my ears and slides to my temples, as if it buzzes with electricity. My Beast within raises its head, stirring from slumber.
“It’s . . . beautiful.”
“The Stone of Nyx, the Greek Goddess of night. Some sources say she alone birthed creation and mothered the twins Sleep and Death, two states we are caught between as Everlasting. She’s considered an oracle, just as you are. This pendant belonged to Ismae the Bloody, and now it is yours by Right of Blood.”
“Why not yours?”
“I didn’t inherit her Gift as you have.”
I nod. I feel the predator within me more embodied than usual, as if a part of me has turned a camera inward and the scene unfolds. She circles the heavy stone, eyeing it suspiciously, snarling. The stone pulses in response. I catch Zeke staring, a faint red glow emanating from it for a moment. My Beast growls. The stone burns my flesh, white hot, a sensation I haven’t felt since my Binding—and at once cool again, the glow subsiding. My Beast quiets, slinking to the corner of my soul and settling in to slumber.
“Her Blood is your Blood; her rage your rage. The predator within you will accept this dominance in time, though it won’t be easy. It is a pendant of transmutation—you will bathe it in your blood each full moon. This will serve to attune it to you, as well as infuse your blood with the blood of those who’ve worn it before you—including Ismae and, if the stories are true, the Goddess Nyx herself.”
“I won’t let you down,” I offer. Nothing else seems appropriate for a gift of this magnitude.
“You could never let me down, Delilah.”
I arrive at the address I’m given, a large mansion on considerable acreage outside of town—very much the type Hollywood would cast as the home of a powerful vampire, with spires and stained glass and a tall, black, wrought iron gate around the estate. Unlike the movies, though, the lawn is pristine and the gate does not creak when I push it open. Topiaries trimmed meticulously, but in simple shapes, dot the landscape as far as I can see. Around the property various flowers bloom, the colors not entirely discernible from a distance at night, mostly darker shades illuminated by meager moonlight. Despite the harsh architecture, the property welcomes visitors.
A woman greets me at the door, gestures for me to come inside.
“Lady Simone will see you in the parlor.” Her eyes dart to an archway to the right. My eyes follow and, when I look to her to nod in confirmation, she’s already disappeared. My boots click on the marble floor as I cross to and enter the parlor. I eye a gold-and-ivory brocade settee that, though not dusty, has likely been untouched for longer than I’ve been one of the Everlasting. Like in a museum, nothing feels touchable and yet the urge is overwhelming. I reach out to an urn on an orn
ate mantle.
“Good evening, Delilah,” a voice interrupts my act of defiance and I recoil as though a child caught with my hand in the cookie jar.
“I—”
The woman smiles. She was lovely once, and the half of her face that is not gnarled scar tissue still is. Even sans mirror, her shiny, new skin—puckered, as though she somehow survived a funeral pyre in her final mortal moments, but not unscathed—seamlessly smooths into a less cruel countenance. I do not doubt the seclusion of this estate to be at least somewhat related to her appearance, a truth most unfortunate. For a moment I pity her: in a mirror we’d likely be equally grotesque, the curse unavoidable, but she must live with this disfigurement every day. I want to ask how it happened but I do not.
“Ezekiel sent you, I presume. Had he pressing business to attend to?”
“He did,” I lie. “He said you’d know why I’m here.”
“Is that—the Stone of Nyx?” She steps closer, jealousy alight in her eyes. I can feel the Beast within her stir, as mine did earlier.
“It is. You know of it?”
“Any Everlasting who appreciates beauty knows of the Stone of Nyx. Bold that you wear it so openly—or perhaps that is what Zeke has sent you to offer?”
“The Stone of Nyx is far more valuable than what my Usher asks of you.” I have no idea if that’s true, but it’s worth a stab.
She takes another step towards me, eyes flashing like Tolkien’s Gollum in the throes of his desire for the One Ring, that same desperation and, in some ways, the sense of innocence that underlies it. “What is it you seek, Delilah?”
“Why don’t we see how this goes, first?” I bluff. I have no interest in her collection save what it might yield for my Usher.
“As you wish. I never ask twice. Instead, if you wish to please your Usher and return to him with what he seeks, you will not decline my next request.”
After a short drive, Lady Simone and I arrive at a sprawling cemetery. A part of her estate, the mausoleums onsite have been plagued with break-ins and, as she says, “Less than savory nighttime affairs.” Everything has a price: this artifact, apparently, being worth exterminating the Praedari pests who’ve been vandalizing her property. Typical of those in power, to put a price on it rather than get their own hands dirty. Though she fails to elaborate, I can only think of a few reasons to dig up dusty old bones and rotting corpses and none of them are, as she puts it, savory.
“I’ll wait here,” she says dismissively, pulling out a tablet.
I sigh and roll my eyes, leaving her and the chauffeur in the town car. I stride to the cluster of mausoleums she indicated as being the most recent in a rash of break-ins, a couple city blocks’ distance from the parked car. As I approach, I hear voices. I tuck myself into the shadows as I stalk nearer.
I freeze when I am tapped on the shoulder.
“Well aren’t you a pretty little thing?” a male voice snickers.
As I turn my head I’m met with a wall of flesh snapping my head back on impact. The blow would’ve killed a mortal, but instead my Beast within growls, lunging. I am fangs and nails and the tearing of his jugular. No pulse, but I can feel the satisfying wetness, the dark grass made darker as the liquid spreads. I drink. Within seconds he falls into ash.
More hands on me, two, then four, then six, and then a piercing through flesh and muscle and between the ribs that form the bone-cage from which my dead heart sings. My eyes widen. I look to the long shaft of wood in my chest—a classic weapon against our kind, as effective as it is tongue-in-cheek. I glance to the faces which mirror my widened eyes, then again to the stake. I am able to do this a few times before I realize I shouldn’t be able to.
“What the—”
“It’s glowing!”
“How—”
The shaft of wood works its way from my flesh, the force originating somewhere behind my heart and pushing outward. It hits my foot as it falls, then softly thuds to the grass, a sound beyond mortal ears but as loud as a footfall on a stair in an abandoned house to those of us gathered here. The wound cauterizes as if by a phantom surgeon. The surprise that caught even the predator within off-guard a moment ago subsides and I am on another man in an instant, a blur of fangs and kicking and animalistic cries, one of us indiscernible from the other. I feel sharp jabs landing, cutting, piercing, and then the flesh searing shut each time.
By the time the searing halts and the wounds start to take, I am only vaguely aware of the two figures I trip over as I advance on the last man standing. He pulls a gun and I barely have time to smirk before he fires. I scream as a bullet burns through me. The burning doesn’t stop, though, and I feel a sensation like splashing, but internally—not blood, too thin and light and nothing to be blood, as it radiates from the bullet wound in my abdomen.
The man laughs but his laughter stops short as a stake plunges out through his chest towards me and he erupts in a puff of ash. I am pushed to the ground, still screaming.
“Delilah! Are you o—?” But my hand is around the throat of the figure, thinner than the others, choking off the end of the question. I blink a few times and recognize the sickeningly smooth skin on one half of the neck and clarity rushes into my field of vision. I let go, pushing her off and rolling away to survey the wreckage: two piles of ash on blood-darkened grass and two still figures. Simone stands in front of me, rubbing her neck.
“The Stone of Nyx . . . ”
The stone, now black and matte, hangs from its silver chain.
“Those two . . . ” she says, pointing to the two figures I tripped over.
I stand and reach down to grab the stake from one pile of ash. As I advance on the two figures, eyes still open, I swear I can see the rage of their Beasts within flicker like the last bit of candle flame trying desperately not to be drowned out by wax. I plunge the stake into the heart of the first figure. Ash. I kneel by the second and plunge the same stake into his heart. Ash.
“I was going to suggest interrogation,” Simone says through pursed lips.
“No mercy,” I state plainly, wincing as I stand.
“You’re hurt.”
I look down. Through the dirt and dampness and blood, I see what she means: a mark blazes radially across my abdomen from where I took a bullet, about the size of a baseball, shiny and raw-seeming and familiar. A starburst of new skin, of scar. I glance around to the ash piles. Next to one I see the gun and, though she spots it when I do, I am to it first. I pocket it.
“May I?” She holds her hand out expectantly.
“No,” I say, turning and heading back to the car.
I spend the ride refusing to speak, instead tracing the starburst-like pattern on my abdomen.
“He loves me, he loves me not,” I silently intone, a children’s game that rings as familiar somewhere in distant, untouchable memory. The trick, of course, choosing a flower with an odd number of petals.
You’d think immortality would be as predictable, or would become more so with time—not less. It occurs to me that, until now, I’d never been injured since my Becoming. Never has Zeke let me come to harm. Hurt, of course, being the other side of the same coin: I’d hurt many times, often at Zeke’s hands, but always in pursuit of something greater than myself, greater than us. In pain, suffering; in suffering, enlightenment. Unattainable, perhaps, but isn’t immortality? Don’t we claim that for ourselves out of arrogance?
If Nyx rather than Chaos birthed creation—if she mothered Sleep and Death—who are we to say we’ve mastered timelessness, as in sleep, or cheated Death? Aren’t we siblings, at best—another phase of the moon that hangs in the night sky? Can one birth without mothering? Can one create without Ushering?
Maybe we place too much importance on the Becoming where instead the grave, or the soil, deserves the credit, for cradling us as the womb from which we emerged the first time, or the worms for showing us the way up. Such could the Praedari question and I was made in their way—so how am I less Praedari than those that I ashed
tonight? The rage of Ismae the Bloody sings in my veins, or so a recurring vision often foretells. Zeke repeated as much to me before I left. Her blood, some Praedari thugs, nearly killed me tonight when I thought myself immortal; and yet it was her Blood that saved my life when I thought myself dead.
My grasp on logic becomes tenuous, as when the ground beneath me shifts and gives way to one of these visions. A spiral dances in front of me and I feel its pull, or a vision indeed lurks in my field of reason, awaiting the chance to strike.
The honking of a horn jars me from reverie. The spiral, the vision, these questions will have to wait. After all, I have forever or it has me.
When I enter the apartment Zeke is pacing. I feel his Beast stalking just beneath the surface, further enraged by being given a taste of control before being denied. I promised Simone I would deliver the artifact without gazing upon it myself and, though my curiosity great, I am familiar with the story of Pandora’s box: had she just listened she would not have unleashed from that prison such evils on humanity. Better safe than sorry, I figure, as I place the carved wooden box with the velvet lining peeking out on the floor next to the door, one of the few spaces as of yet undestroyed by what I can only guess was a tornado, or burglary, or war.
The bed, flipped on its side, leans against the broken window. Shards of glass litter the floor, trailing to the kitchen, the remaining shrapnel of the window. The bookcase has crashed onto the desk, breaking it in two, but not before nearly every book was either torn in two or flung at the wall, some leaving craters in the drywall. The bathroom sink blocks the doorway to the kitchen. Water pools in the bathroom, the pipes mangled and no longer spewing water.
“You’re angry,” I say, stepping inside.
“You’re hurt,” he says, his gaze directed to the scar on my abdomen. “You weren’t supposed to get hurt.” He shakes his head.
“But you were angry before I walked in the door,” I point out.
“Simone called me on the way over,” he explains. I must’ve been lost in thought when she did.