by R D Martin
"So I take it you agree with them?” she said. “That we should split away from the Imperium?"
It must have been the right question. Darius blinked and his darkened eyes returned to their normal bloodshot look.
"I…" he said, and paused. His pale brow creased for a moment, then he continued. "I don't agree with them, but I understand. I was turned before the Imperium rose to power, and I remember those days of chaos and freedom. The world was so much bigger then. No. No, I don't believe we should return to those days."
There was such conviction in his voice Bella almost felt herself nodding in agreement. Though she still felt uneasy, she chalked it up to sitting across from a vampire. Being around creatures who looked at humans as food would make anyone feel a little uncomfortable.
There was another blur and the young vampire from before reappeared at Darius's elbow. Bending at the waist, he whispered into the Elder's ear.
"Thank you, Charles. That will be all, I think."
The younger vampire tilted his head and disappeared again.
Darius picked up his drink and stared into its depths, swirling the red liquid around as he did so. Bella recognized the look on his face. She'd more than likely had a similar one on her own hundreds of times. The look was pensive, as though he was trying to decide about an unpleasant subject. After a few moments, he tilted his glass back, draining it until nothing remained. When he finished, his face had resumed its smooth, ageless look.
"My servants have completed searching your quarters and have found no sign of the Finder. I must confess, I'm confused. None of the wards were tampered with, nor were locks broken. It should not have been possible for anyone to enter the room. Unless, that is, you left the door open?" His eyebrow rose and Bella shook her head. Those doors were locked. "I didn't think so. There have been attendants at the portal pads around the clock since the start of the Conclave. With the wards surrounding us, they are the only other way in or out."
"What about emergency exits?"
Darius chuckled, though she couldn't see the humor in her question.
"What?"
"I'm sorry, I forget myself. This is your first time here, isn't it?"
Bella nodded. She hadn't known this place existed two days ago.
"I thought as much. We built this place as a sanctuary, a way to escape from the world above for a time."
"So we are underground?" When Darius nodded, Bella sighed. Cat would be even more insufferable when she told him.
"Excavated over centuries. We meant this to be a haven, regardless of what was happening above. Our abilities allow us free access, but it would be nearly impossible for anything else to enter or leave."
"But what if there's an accident or an earthquake, and the roof caves in?"
"We are immortal. If that happens, we will dig ourselves out. It may take time, but we have all the time in the world."
She wanted to ask more questions, but Darius stood and held out a hand. The gold of the large signet ring he wore glinted in the light, even while the deep red gem in the center seemed to absorb it. Without thinking, she let him pull her to her feet. His skin was cool, though not as cold as she expected, and his touch sent a small jolt of electricity racing up her arm. His grip was strong but gentle, and his hand enclosed hers as though it were a bird in a cage, though she got the feeling it would take him no effort to crush every bone if he chose.
"I'm sorry, Prime—"
"Bella."
"Bella, then. I'm sorry, Bella. My time is limited and there is so much more to do before tomorrow. I will make inquiries into what may have happened to your master, but I cannot act openly. It would be… unseemly if I were to do so, and unless we find him dead, the Council would see it as siding with you. I must remain neutral as long as the Conclave is in session."
He gave her a smile that, she supposed, was to take some sting from his words. She returned his smile and let him lead her toward the room's exit.
"I've known the Finder for centuries, and though we don't always agree, I respect his power. My people will find him, or find out what happened to him. In the meantime, I hope you come to me for help and advice."
Try as she might to resist it, his voice had a seductive quality that made her insides flutter. Whatever the Finder had done to make her immune to his vampire charms, Darius was still handsome. Even his limp didn't impact that.
Darius pulled open the heavy door separating his office from the reception area on the other side, where the young vampire who'd led her in stood at attention. The receptionist bowed and stepped aside to let Bella pass.
Her visit had been pleasant and informative, and her host had been well mannered and charming. She'd been made to feel comfortable in every sense of the word. But as the doors closed shut behind her with a hollow boom as a testament to how heavy they were, she couldn't stop feeling like a lobster in a restaurant tank. She'd escaped the boiling pot this time, but she was still in the tank and the pot would be empty soon.
9
Cat wasn't in the room when Bella returned, and, sitting alone, she felt her mind wandering. Darius had been helpful, but doing nothing was just not her. The Finder, for all his faults, had been like family when she was a child. Her father had brought her to the Finder's shop so often that she'd memorized the layout so well she could walk it with her eyes closed. The good times had come to a crashing end when she received the letter notifying her of her father’s death.
She was finishing her last semester in college and already had an offer to work for a large insurance company. When the letter arrived, her father had been away for months. He was a researcher who specialized in esoteric magic, so it wasn't uncommon for him to be in the field for long periods.
Since she'd begun college, he'd spent more time out in the field, disappearing for days or weeks at a time. During her sophomore year, he'd vanished almost an entire semester before reappearing out of nowhere, filled with stories about his latest finds.
He'd once told her his dream was to pin down all the laws and rules of magic, to make it so anyone with the talent could learn, claiming the clues to do this hid in the past. All he had to do was find them.
The letter said he'd been put on trial and executed for murder. At first, she'd thought it a cruel and pathetic joke. Her father was capable of amazing and terrifying things, but murder? Her father was a pacifist, believing everything had a right both to life and to live without violence. He even refused to step on spiders. Being executed for murder was unthinkable.
When she couldn't reach her dad by normal means, she took the letter to the Finder to ask for his help. When he confirmed it, her world seemed to drop out from beneath her feet. Staring down at the Finder with the letter clutched in her hand, she couldn't stop the ice forming in her veins, making her numb and twisting her stomach at the same time.
The next few weeks were a blur. The casket was empty, since the Imperium never returned his body. She hadn't even wanted a funeral, but people expected it. His execution wasn't a secret and everyone she knew had promised to show.
The day had been sunny without a single cloud drifting overhead in the clear blue sky. Birds chirped and flew about as if trying to show off their colorful wings to the crowd of people dressed in black. It was as though the universe was turning its back on her, refusing to give her the overcast sky and heavy downpour to match how she felt.
Standing in the receiving line with the rest of an extended family she really never cared for, including a horrible little cousin who kept sticking his tongue out at her, Bella didn't feel the heartrending sorrow everyone expected from her. Instead, she was angry. And the more people came up to her, offering words of comfort, the harder it was to keep her anger in check. The worst part was she didn't understand who she was angry at. Was it at her father for abandoning her and getting himself killed? Anger at the Imperium for putting him to death? Anger at everyone expecting her to act like a dutiful daughter and cry on cue? Maybe she was angry at herself for not b
eing more sad.
So many people had shown up, all of them shaking her hand and saying how sorry they were. Some she recognized, while others were complete strangers. But years later she still remembered them. She remembered the woman with mascara running down her face, smudged from trying to wipe away her tears. She remembered the fat man with a too-tight suit, sweating so much in the warm sunlight his outfit seemed to change color. She remembered the man with the tic in the corner of his eye that made him look as though he was winking every time he looked at her. She hadn't wanted to shake his hand, and the thought that he and her father knew each other…
Bella almost slapped herself in the forehead. That's where she'd seen him. The man in black from the Conclave dais, the Imperium Representative. She knew she recognized him from somewhere. But why had he been at her dad's funeral? Did they know each other? Maybe he'd been sent to see who would show up at the funeral? That would be like the Imperium, she supposed. Stalking funerals to monitor people. But he was here now. She could talk to him. She could demand that he give her answers about what he'd done to the Finder. At the very least, she could get some answers about her father.
Anger boiled in her chest as she stalked out of her room and down the corridor. After ten minutes and many turned corners, though, she had to stop and ask for directions. All the halls looked the same with their slate-gray walls and red pile carpeting. The only way she could tell them apart was from the wall tapestries. Each hall seemed to have a different theme, and each theme seemed centered on ways people die. One hall was filled with battles between men and monsters. Another hall had scenes of vampires tearing into humans, each tapestry unique with its depiction of bloody death. She had never considered how creative vampires could be when killing, and seeing it so brazenly shown made her shiver. After twice seeing the same image of a man's entrails ripped from his stomach, Bella had to admit she was lost.
Finding someone to ask for directions was a challenge. Vampires move fast, and she would catch just a blur of them before they disappeared. She could knock on one of the many doors she passed, but wasn't sure she wanted to interrupt whoever or whatever was on the other side. Peace might be enforced by the Conclave, but that didn't make nasty creatures any less so, and accidents could still happen.
Her anger dissipated from a heavy burn to a dying ember when she decided to turn around and head back to her room. Maybe she could ask Darius how to find the Imperium Representative. It was a left at the hanging that depicted, well, a hanging. Followed by two rights and another left. Or was that a right?
Panic welled as she tried to retrace her steps. She wanted to tell herself she wasn't lost, that all she needed to do was to work her way backward, but the lie was ash on her tongue. Her slow walk became a jog, then a panicked run as she raced down the gray halls, turning whenever she thought she recognized the right spot. She raced by a tapestry with a hanged man, but was it the same one? There were others that could be the right one. Did the one she was looking for have dogs at the bottom? This one looked more like the man was being pulled apart than hanged. Was that right? Was that what she'd seen?
Fear knotted her stomach, and an electric tingle raced across her skin. She was lost in an underground maze with no way out, no escape. The walls seemed to close in on her, and the air became thick and heavy. It was getting harder to breathe and her heart pounded in her chest as her lungs worked overtime. What had she done? The ceiling could cave in at any second and tons of earth would bury her. Would it kill her immediately? Would she suffer? Her head spun as though she stood in the center of a carnival Tilt-A-Whirl. Faster and faster. Doors and tapestries became brown and red blurs as her panic tightened its grip on her. This was it. She knew she would die here, lost and alone.
Turning to sprint in the other direction, she didn't see the blur until she ran into it, knocking them both to the floor. She bounced off it and hit the wall, banging her head into the stone. The spinning came to an immediate stop as her panic shifted into pain. Stars bloomed in her vision, and it felt like small explosions were being set off inside her skull. She grabbed the back of her head and hissed through the pain, "What the bloody hells?"
Whether it was a question, or a comment, didn't matter. The words cut through the throbbing in her skull like rays of sunlight through a fog bank. Blinking away the tears in her eyes, she tried to see whom she'd run into. When the blurred shape came into focus, she recognized it.
Though his slicked-back hair flopped forward and looked more like a wave than a styled coif, she couldn't forget the haughty look that seemed permanently etched on his face. Even lying on the floor, he still had the look of someone who'd smelled something nasty and was trying to get away from it as fast as possible. He'd looked the same way at both the portal pad and in Darius's office.
"I'm, I'm so sorry. I didn't see you there and—"
"Can't you look where you're going? These halls are not your personal gym, and others have to use them as well."
"I didn't mean to run into you. I was turned around—"
"Lack of consideration, that's what it is. I've said it time and time again. Inviting all these, these beings here was an awful idea. Something will go wrong, I said. We should just—"
"Charles? Your name is Charles, right?" It was her turn to interrupt. She'd only heard his name in passing, but she felt a flood of relief when he stopped talking.
"Do I… Oh. It's you." The vampire stood and began brushing himself off, though he never took his eyes off her. "I'd expect a friend of Elder Darius to have more manners. It's bad enough you move so slow, but you should watch where you're going."
"I said I was sorry, and I didn't mean to run into you. I was lost and you're the first, um, person I've seen since I left my room."
"What are you talking about? This is practically Grand Central Station."
Bella looked back and forth down the empty corridor. Maybe she'd run into him harder than she'd thought. "I, um, don't see anybody. Apart from us, that is."
"What are you prattling about? There's…" He trailed off and the disapproving scowl on his face shifted a little, becoming more puzzled than angry, before settling back into its normal pinched line. "I see. Or rather, you don't see."
Bella tilted her head. They say brain injuries can affect people in different ways, but the vampire was just talking gibberish. She watched him raise his hand to his face and stick his thumb in his mouth like a child. There was an odd scraping sound and a pop. When he pulled his hand away, a bright red bead of blood sat on the pad of his thumb. His thin-lipped smile returned, and his arm blurred. At almost the same moment it came into focus, she felt something hitting her forehead. It wasn't hard, nor was it soft, and her hand shot up.
Halfway to her face, her arm stopped as though it had run into a wall. Charles knelt in front of her and wrapped his hand around her wrist, encasing it with thin fingers that might as well have been shackles. Strain as she might, there was no breaking his hold on her.
"Give it a moment, human."
"What? What did you…" A blur in the corner of her eye caught her attention before it zoomed off. She turned her head in time to see another, then a third. She recognized them as vampires flitting through the hall, but there was something not quite right. The blurring figures seemed more solid, as if they were speeding and yet slowing down at the same time. Trying to watch the movement while wrapping her mind around the idea hurt her head almost more than banging it on the wall.
"You see them now, I assume. The pain will subside as your eyes adjust."
His tone made it clear he knew what she was seeing, but how was she seeing it? And he was right. The throbbing behind her eyes settled after a few moments. As it did, the figures speeding by seemed to slow down until she could see each passing vampire. His grip on her wrist loosened, and she dropped her hand. In just a few moments, she'd seen no fewer than half a dozen people striding through the hall.
"What did you do? I mean, I can see people, uh, vampires."
/> "It's a gift we normally reserve for thralls," he said as he waved his hand in the air dismissively. "Your eyes work a little better now, informing your mind of our presence faster than before."
"But why? Why would you do that?"
"Self-preservation." His voice dripped with undisguised sarcasm. "I should think now you'll be less of a threat to those around you."
Standing up, he made a slight bow and turned to leave.
"Wait," Bella shouted after him. Though she could see him, his movements hadn't slowed, and he'd already made it a dozen yards before she could yell. The vampire stopped and she could see his shoulders rise and fall as though he'd taken a deep breath and sighed. Turning around, he flitted back and stood above her with his arms folded across his chest.
"What do you want now? Some of us have work to be about. We can't all afford to laze all day."
The comment stung, though not as much as her backside. As thick as the carpet was, her rear still felt bruised, and she knew a lump would form on the back of her head. "I'm still lost. I, I—"
"And you need someone to guide you to your room."
"What? No. No, actually I need someone to show me to the Imperium Representative's rooms."
That got a rise from him. His right eyebrow shot up as he gave her a look of mixed incredulity and curiosity. "And why do you need to speak with him?"
To accuse him of at least one murder, she thought, though she stopped herself from saying so. She couldn't tell him the truth, but she didn't want to lie either. "It's, uh, a personal matter."
"Personal matter?" His eyebrow rose even higher. "And what personal matter would that be? The Representative will not open his doors for just anyone."
"Well, he will for me."
"And why is that?"
Great question. Why would he open his doors? He doesn't know me, not really. We met for two seconds at a funeral.
"We, uh, that is, he was a friend of my family. A friend of my father, actually. He's like an uncle." She was blabbering now and knew it, but there was no stopping her tongue, and she had no choice but to hold on as it took her for a ride.