It was a fabulous-looking party. The kind of event normal people only saw in movies. A huge crowd filled the main room—living room? She wasn’t sure what to call it. Rich, caramel-colored marble covered the floor, and Greek columns and mirrors along the far walls. Everywhere waiters drifted past, eyes blank, carrying trays of food for the humans, small aperitifs whose nature Selah couldn’t guess. Fine pastry rolls, small piles of glistening compotes atop expensive crackers, smoked salmon, caviar. Everybody seemed to know everybody else, and as she walked to the left to find another corner to hide in, she watched as beautiful people exclaimed in pleasure and surprise at the sight of each other, leaning in to kiss cheeks, throwing their heads back and laughing loudly, listening avidly and nodding to show just how well they were listening. They stood in dynamic clusters, dissolving and reforming as people pulled away from one group by the magnetic appeal of another. A swirling maelstrom of metallic dresses, fabulous haircuts, jewelry, and wide eyes.
Selah resisted the urge to stand behind the potted plant, and settled for simply standing by its side. She didn’t know what to do. Where to go. Should she take a glass of champagne? She wasn’t hungry, but she didn’t know what to do with her hands. Should she try and mingle? The thought of trying to talk to one of these people both horrified and amused her. Should she look for Karl?
There was a stir on the far side of the room, and people craned their necks to see what was happening. Somebody had emerged from a side door, and was gradually making his way across the room. Selah couldn’t help but look—she rose to her tiptoes, and then immediately sank back down, heart pounding. She’d caught a glimpse of a shaven black head, a hint of black eyes. The Dragon.
She pressed her clutch into her stomach. She couldn’t run, but didn’t know what else to do. If she stayed still, if she looked only down, then he would surely pass by, heading toward the staircase at the back without noticing her. Did she want to remain unnoticed? She was confused, couldn’t tell. Thought of his hands on her hips, then tried desperately to banish the memory.
People drew back, moving away in complex swirls of social ranking, voices raised in conversation even as others fell into whisper. Selah stared fixedly at the ground, willing herself to turn invisible. Felt attention fall upon her, countless eyes, and looked up to meet the eyes of the Dragon.
He was dressed in a severe black suit, the shirt a burgundy so dark that only the raised contours betrayed its color. Hands linked behind his back he watched her, chin lowered, studying her face, the people around them grown quiet, curious, to see this girl was who’d arrested his attention so.
“Good evening,” he said at last.
“Hello,” she managed. Why couldn’t all these people mind their own business? She took a breath, and then stepped out from behind the frond, feeling slightly ridiculous for having been caught almost but not quite hiding.
He watched her, and she wondered if they would make small talk, if he would ask how she was, why she was here, whether she found the crepes to her liking. The thought of chitchatting while all these hangers-on watched made Selah want to scream, to laugh. It was all so ridiculous, she didn’t think she could go through with it. Instead, he simply offered her his arm.
Selah blinked as this gesture set off a firestorm of whispers, and without thinking she stepped forward and slid her arm through his. He turned and led her through the crowd, walking as if through a bank of fog, ignoring faces and politely framed greetings, Selah drifting alongside him as if in a dream, trying to avoid the jealous, spiteful glares and curious appraisals discretely leveled at her. As if she’d cheated in some manner, cut ahead in line, broken social mores she wasn’t even aware of.
They crossed the vast room, and she tried to think of something to say. Stole glances at the side of his face, but it betrayed nothing, was as stoic and harsh as if carved from obsidian. He moved with that same fluidity that she recalled, though it had no similarity to Cloud’s natural grace. It was unnatural, unnerving, but she felt as if at any point he could sweep her up into a ballroom dance, or break into a run, or stop and grow completely still.
They reached the base of the steps, and Selah saw that there was nobody standing too close to them. A second guard in an elegant suit stood to one side, his presence keeping the uninvited from ascending. The Dragon ignored him, and took her hand from his arm and extended it so that she could go first. Carefully, terrified that she might trip before this whole crowd, she ascended the spiraling stairs and left the crush of perfume and resentment behind as she climbed to the roof of the Wind Tower.
The music here was elegant, produced by a string quartet that seemed able to blend their sound with the night winds so that their music was ethereal, beautiful. The sky was vast, a great dome of eternal dark with no clouds to obscure it, vast and total in every direction, the light of the rising moon obscuring some of the stars. Selah resisted the urge to stare up, and instead stepped forward and aside as the Dragon came up behind her.
There was a second party happening here on the tower roof, a roof that was more garden, a garden out of a dream. A lawn as fine as a putting green covered the ground, and everywhere beautiful ferns and slender palms grew, their layout creating a cunning and subtle maze through which ran slender streams and the sound of falling water. White beds and recliners stretched under sumptuous tents, ensconced under vine-covered trellises.
Fewer people mingled about, and they seemed to be either much calmer and self-possessed than those below or vastly more nervous at being here. The Dragon stepped up next to her, and led her forth from the solarium and out into the night. Once more, she took the Dragon’s arm, and followed his lead as they drifted along a path of white stones.
They passed a group who turned to regard them. Polite nods of the head, and Selah snapped her gaze away as she saw that two of them were vampires, skin luminous in the light of the moon, eyes like black holes in their skulls. Three people sprawled out amongst cushions on a vast king-sized bed beneath the falling fabric of a tent to their left, and Selah once again looked away with a stab of fear and revulsion. The woman in the center drank from the neck of the man to her right, even as the other man stroked and kissed her shoulders.
On they walked, and Selah couldn’t decide where to gaze. Finally, she settled for keeping her eyes on the night sky just above people’s heads, not interested in investigating the sources of laughter or small cries of pleasure and pain.
They reached the edge of the garden, a railing set before a glass wall, and the Dragon released her arm and leaned forward, resting on his forearms as he gazed out over the city. Selah examined him, and then rested her hip against the railing, holding her clutch artlessly.
“That should afford you some measure of protection,” he said at last, turning his head to look at her.
Selah almost asked what, but stopped. Of course. She’d been seen on his arm by almost everybody.
“Thank you,” she said. “But I don’t think it will ultimately make much of a difference.”
“Perhaps not,” he agreed. His voice was smooth and cool like a freshly fetched river stone. “But it might remove much of the evening’s unnecessary unpleasantness.”
Selah could hear somebody moaning through a thin screen of ferns, the voice pitched in a low, private register, raw and urgent. She turned more fully to the view of the beach below, to the magnificent spread of the ocean beyond. Someday, she thought, she’d have to come see these waters under the light of the sun. Azure, with white sand. Not jet with ash gray tidal reaches.
“Why are you here?” asked the Dragon. “I have heard that this is Plessy’s arrangement, but not much more.”
Selah restrained a surge of hope. Might he intervene? “Do you mind if I ask your name? People keep calling you ‘the Dragon,’ but that’s … awkward in conversation. Why do they call you that?”
For the first time, he smiled. At least, his lips quirked. He still didn’t look at her. “My name’s Theo.”
Selah w
aited for more, and then accepted that was all she was getting. “Theo. That’s … better. And, one last question. Why are you helping me? Why did you help me back in the club, even?” She tightened her fingers on the railing. Hadn’t understood until this very moment how important a question this was. Couldn’t bear to look at him.
He didn’t answer for an agonizingly long time. It only made her heart beat harder, and she thought he might simply straighten and turn and walk away. At last he said, “You remind me of someone. Someone who was very important to me.”
“Oh,” said Selah. Wanted to press on: during your human life? During your unlife? Who? Your mother? Wife? Daughter? “Well, Plessy, yeah. I—well. When vampires feed from me, we exchange something. Like, I walk away with the vampire’s strength and speed, while they gain my … I don’t know. Humanity? Ability to feel emotion?” She shrugged.
Theo pursed his lips and looked away. Selah waited for a response. Finally he nodded. “Interesting. I’ve heard of something like this before. It’s rare. The last time was … nearly a century ago.”
Selah leaned over the railing next to him. “He thinks that might be of interest to some important people, though I don’t see why. All it did was make Charles cry.”
Theo laughed. “It does more than that, I believe. To become one of us, you have to die. The embrace brings you back, or at least parts of you. The rest of what you once were remains dead, leaving you little more than a combination of predatory instincts, the desire to feed, and to survive. Empathy, compassion, even love—those are absent. Yet we feel that absence, as a tongue might a missing tooth. Years of causing pain to others can grind us down, leave us little more than animals, but always we feel that absence, that loss.”
He spoke slowly, quietly, as if figuring out the words as he went. When he paused, he looked at her, and she couldn’t help but stare into his dark eyes, those pools of liquid night. “If you are what Plessy believes, then for a night you can bring back that part of us that has died. Can make us feel what you humans take for granted. It must be a terrible thing to experience, yet also something sublime.”
“Oh,” said Selah, “I see.” She looked away, chilled. No capacity for love, for compassion. And yet. Here he was, speaking quietly with her, helping her understand. Sawiskera’s right-hand man, feared by most if not all as the Dragon. Because she reminded him of someone? There was too much here that she didn’t understand.
“You don’t like Plessy, do you?” asked Selah, the realization coming to her unbidden. “Is that part of the reason you’re being nice to me? Because you don’t like him?”
Theo stirred restlessly, turned around and leaned back against the railing, one arm crossed over his midriff, the other stretched out to the side. He didn’t respond at first, but if anything, his face became harder.
“Never mind,” said Selah. “It’s not important. But—could I ask you something else? Why is Blood Dust illegal in Miami?”
Theo gave her a sardonic look. “Because Sawiskera wills it so.”
Selah shifted impatiently, “But why?”
“Sawiskera does not explain himself.”
Selah opened her mouth to ask another question, but then felt Theo’s touch at her elbow, and turned to see Karl approaching. He’d made no attempt to dress up for the party, still wearing his little suit. He walked unaccompanied and glanced down at the ground every few steps as if afraid of tripping.
“Ah,” he said, smiling brightly to them both, “how nice! The two of you having a little chat. Informal, discrete, perhaps even a little romantic? No, that couldn’t be, how perverse. Still, you two cut quite the couple.”
“Karl,” said Theo, voice little more than a low drawl. Selah decided that the best way to not lose control was to ignore Karl, so she instead gazed over the garden at some indeterminate point.
“I do hate to interrupt, but I’m going to have to steal Miss Brown away. Who, may I add, is looking quite fashionably stunning. Well done, Selah! I’d hoped you wouldn’t show in tennis shoes and jeans. Much more presentable. I see you’re taking to your new role quite well.”
Selah couldn’t help it. She looked over at him and gave him the most vicious, level stare she could manage, pouring all her contempt, loathing, and disgust into the look. Karl met it with a blank look of his own, and then grinned, delighted. “Come, let’s be on our way. The hour grows propitious.”
Selah looked at his extended hand, small and plump, and stepped forward. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. For now she was going to be taken like a doe-eyed sacrificial victim to some altar. That one step was akin to crossing a chasm, a step in which she acceded to what was going to come. All she could do was raise her chin and retain as much self-control as she could manage.
Karl watched her with glittering, bottomless eyes, and then slid his hand so that it pressed against the small of her back. He was talking, chatting inanely with her about her dress, about fashion, but Selah tuned him out. They walked through the garden maze, leaving Theo behind. Selah fought the urge to look back, to beg with her eyes for his help. He had no doubt done all that he was willing to do. Would she be taken here, in plain sight? Would they gather to watch? She tried not to shudder. Reminded herself that it had happened twice before, each time a soaring epiphany of pain and ecstasy. One could grow used to it, in the proper frame of mind. Used to a soul-deep violation, exsanguination that took her humanity along with her blood. She was shivering, she realized, and fought to relax.
Karl guided her through the garden, and then back to the solarium. Found another set of stairs leading down into a different part of the penthouse, and down they went, Karl behind, into a different world. Small, interconnected rooms in sultry shadows, lit by red and burgundy and maroon lamps that made suggestive islands of faint light in the heavy, velvety shadows. It wasn’t a series of different rooms, Selah realized, but rather another vast one that had been divided by screens and partitions. A new maze, a separate labyrinth in which the smell of sweat and sex and blood hung thick like a wretched pall, a miasma of physical scents that spoke of the human body in all its humors and secretions.
Selah tried to breathe lightly through her mouth. Karl was still talking, and though she didn’t listen to the actual words, his voice was a litany of sound that helped block out the rhythmic, pulsing music that seemed more bass than anything else, the sounds of people enjoying themselves in all manners carnal. She felt as if she were drunk in a world gone mad. It took all the effort she could muster to not stagger, to not grow dizzy, faint. On they went, around partitions, stepping carefully over countless cushions.
At last they reached an open area, a clearing of sorts. A dozen or so men and women were lounging in a circle of great cushions or chaise longues, and as one they turned their black eyes to her. But Selah couldn’t see them. Didn’t see them. Instead she stared with horror at the man who hung naked by his ankle in the center of the room, a great hook thrust under his Achilles tendon, holding him aloft. He spun slowly, his throat torn open, his blood drained into a great, roughly carved stone bowl set beneath him. Strips of flesh had been torn from his ribs and thighs, and those strips were nowhere in evidence.
Had she thought she was ready for this? Had she thought herself brave when she’d told Cloud that she would do whatever it took for the Resistance? That she was prepared for this evening’s entertainment, that she was willing to sacrifice for the greater good? Selah stared at the man’s glazed, open eyes, one of which had filled with blood, saw that his mouth was open and missing its tongue, just a guttered well of black and crimson.
She didn’t scream. Though her gorge rose, though her stomach cramped and her mind spun until she couldn’t think, she didn’t scream. She didn’t move, didn’t cover her mouth. Who had he been? What had he done to deserve this? Nothing, nothing, no crime could be equal to this punishment. She stood shivering, trapped, and allowed herself one mercy: she closed her eyes. She couldn’t close her nose against the charnel smell,
couldn’t close her ears against the music and the whispers, but her eyes, those she could close, and if for but a moment gain respite from the sickening spectacle before her.
Karl spoke. It was as if she could no longer understand English. His tone was servile, subservient. He was praising somebody, or something. She didn’t care. She didn’t need to understand. They would have their pleasure regardless. Right now she didn’t care. Couldn’t think, act. Instead, she fought for simple self-control. To not run screaming, wailing, to be dragged down by laughing fiends as they pulled her back to this space, to toy with her and derive even more enjoyment from her terror.
A woman spoke. Selah opened her eyes, and saw that it was a beauty such as she had never seen before. She seemed unreal, too fleshy and carnal to be human, her thighs and breasts too full, her figure voluptuous, her lips blood red, her eyes the same pitch black but surrounded by lashes so dark and thick, they became impossibly huge. Black hair to make Maria Elena weep was a vast wash of ink behind her recumbent form, and her fangs were exposed and an almost shocking white against her lips. Selah felt entranced, couldn’t tear her gaze away. There was such redolent power to her that it almost made Selah vertiginous, such allure that she was drawn despite herself, despite everything.
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