Frost & Filigree: A Shadow Council Archives Urban Fantasy Novella (Beasts of Tarrytown Book 1)

by Natania Barron

  The sense of elation lasts just for a short jolt of time. As mentioned before, Vivienne is not human. She does not experience emotion, or indeed, time, in the same way as a human. Her emotions are layers, and often she gets tied up in one or another. It is difficult for her to feel her way through the layers once she has ventured down into them. And once she understands that Worth Goodwin is not simply attending to Christabel Clare, whomever she may be, she descends quickly into cold madness. Jealousy is a guaranteed venture into the deepest chill of her soul.

  This is the state Nerissa calls “permafrost,” and it’s a helpful state for Vivienne, at least from a purely defensive standpoint. She becomes nigh impervious to the slings and arrows of the world about her. Her body temperature drops, her movements slow. She is no less lovely, but much more deadly. Those humanish components of her body diminish significantly, and her ability to make calculations where human life is concerned goes along with them. Which rarely ends well for anyone, let alone Vivienne herself.

  Which is why Nerissa is essential to her overall reformation. The good years have been consistent with her around. The lamia is even less humanish than Vivienne, and yet she has a great deal more intuition about her. Perhaps, Vivienne wonders in one of her deep-down layers, it’s because she doesn’t feed off people in the same way. She doesn’t know them immediately, feel them about her like a pressing wave. She has to reach out to read the signals.

  “Vivienne, listen to me, please,” Nerissa is saying at her.

  Vivienne discovers she is now sitting upon a gaudy settee in a rather dark room. There is a window open somewhere, and she can hear the rain pattering on the roof. It smells of stale old people and musty clothing, and she’d rather not be in such a place. But it is the sort of location Nerissa always seeks out. The dark and the dank.

  “I listen to you far too much, if you ask me,” Vivienne replies, batting at her friend. “You told me he was dead.”

  Nerissa takes a deep breath and backs away, her scales shimmering for a moment before they’re hidden beneath layers of her glamor again. Vivienne thinks it’s a shame, though she’s never mentioned it, because she’s quite lovely when she’s in her natural form. But that would be unwelcome. Nerissa has told her time and again over the many long years of their friendship that her natural state is abhorrent, and telling her otherwise would just be confusing.

  “Most likely dead,” she says in reply to Vivienne.

  “I loved him.”

  “You were bad for each other.”

  “But so delicious,” Vivienne sighs. “He didn’t even look at me. I don’t know what to say to him.”

  “Well, you best consider. You almost caused a scene, you know. Mrs. Yarborough nearly passed out when she touched you. You could have taken down half the party with your antics.”

  “Antics?” laughs Vivienne, the bitter edge to her voice like a cold knife. “You can’t honestly tell me that… he’s just… that it…”

  “You’ve been in a state for an hour,” Nerissa says. “An hour. After all this work for this ridiculous party, you freeze up, and I have to half drag you up the stairs.”

  “I am in disarray, but I have composed myself,” Vivienne replies, brushing her hair with her fingers, preparing to re-enter the fray. She must steel herself. If Worth sees her in such a weak state, he will assume her frail and pining, and while that may be true in the realest sense when it comes to him, it cannot be. She must be better.

  “Because I took care of things.”

  “Why?”

  Nerissa pauses a second, giving Vivienne the look of disappointment, before saying, “Because that’s what I always do.”

  “Oh, come now. You act as if these things happen all the time. You know very well that I’ve been on very good behavior since Worth…”

  “Yes, that’s what frightens me.”

  “It looks like he’s got his hands full as it is, and…”

  Vivienne feels him before she sees him; she always does. The huntress knows her prey, even when she’s been wronged. She smells him, tastes the words on his tongue before he utters them in the doorway. She is only surprised she didn’t sense him earlier.

  He enters the room, and with him comes the smell of the deep forest, of home. Copper and dirt and growing things, wet fur and a thousand memories at once.

  He is so handsome, down to his very essence, and Vivienne wants nothing more than to surround herself in him once again.

  But his look is cold, focusing more on the lamia than herself. How one can cause physical pain with a glance? It is most unfair.

  “Regardless of what it may have looked like, I am here to see you,” says Worth. “Both of you. It’s been a long while.”

  Worth is limned in dull light from behind, his dark brown hair cast slightly auburn. It is a familiar face he’s wearing now, much like the one Vivienne met when they were first introduced. The one he wore when he and Nerissa were in business together, if it can be called such a thing. Waldemar and Goodwin: monster hunters. For a while it was an interesting collaboration, and she did enjoy working on the ledger of their adventures and finding an outlet for her alchemical hobbies, but...

  Nerissa hisses, the sound echoing off the walls of the small room, breaking her thoughts. What would one call this place? A foyer? A closet? Some anteroom to the balcony, perhaps. Whatever container she’s been put in, Vivienne is momentarily taken aback by the sound her friend makes. It’s a sound she has not heard in a very long time, and it reminds her of tastier meals than the canapes at tonight’s festivities.

  Vivienne doesn’t have time to process her surroundings further, nor does she concern herself with memories of bygone days, because seeing Worth this close throws her down a few more layers of emotion, not yet into the permafrost but to a crackling tundra just above it.

  “That’s hard to believe,” says Nerissa. “You look like you’ve had your hands quite full.”

  “I assure you, my intent is pure,” Worth says, looking genuinely hurt. Pitiful creature, but too damned handsome for his own good. “But where are my manners? It’s been quite some time since we’ve seen one another, and I was under the impression that you two were off to take a significantly less visible existence.”

  “Whoever told you that?” asks Vivienne, finding her voice, though it is a little meeker than she’d like. “Circumspection and gossip. You know I never like being out of the limelight.”

  “Except when you’re wanted for murder,” Worth points out.

  “That was a long time ago, and not the entire story,” Nerissa interrupts. “And for the most part, you are right. We have been keeping a low profile, inasmuch as we have not been working in the same capacity as we did once, when you were part of my business.”

  “Your business?” asks Vivienne. This is a strange way of saying things, but she senses that, yet again, Nerissa is playing at some invisible territory game with Worth. They were ever at each other’s throats before, but to say that the business was Nerissa’s alone is quite a blow. To both of them. Vivienne was essential to keeping them funded, to helping the access the strange and arcane. She might not have accompanied them on every mission, but...

  “That’s precisely why I came here. Well, once I heard rumors of a pair of women that met your descriptions taking up residence at Lyndhurst. I haven’t been in New York long, you see, but my friend, Ms. Crane, has a request to make of you, and I promised to make introductions,” Worth says, taking a tentative step forward.

  “Ms. Crane can ask us herself,” Nerissa says.

  “Oh, yes, she will,” says Worth, “but I first wanted to prepare you, of course, for the matter at hand. There is a detail of rather immense importance.”

  “Where have you been?” asks Vivienne, the words coming out of her mouth before she can stop them. She is bobbing between the permafrost and the frozen tundra, then down to the fire at her core. He isn’t even looking at her. He’s addressing Nerissa. He’s half ignoring her. What madness is t
his?

  “Who is this Ms. Crane?” asks the lamia. “Your new paramour?”

  “She is no lemman,” says Worth. “That’s what I needed to explain. I have to tell you how I got here, how I found you, and…”

  “But why did you leave?” Vivienne asks, her voice high and pining. “Why did you leave in the first place? Did I make you so miserable?”

  There would be time to answer this question, Vivienne knows, if the world were a fair place. But she is a supernatural being, one whom even the earth does not seem to understand.

  From below them, in the main hall, there is a sound like gunfire but lower. It reverberates, causes Vivienne’s ears to ache. It reminds her of their bygone days when Worth and Nerissa would sometimes take their work home, or else they traveled pathways between Fae and the Grey, what they called the world of mortals.

  Worth curses lowly. “Prepare yourself,” he says. “They may have deep pockets, but their wits are shallow.”

  He takes Vivienne’s arm, his hands warm through his gloves, the energy of him flowing freely into her so perfectly and completely she almost cries out.

  “I’m perfectly capable of defending myself,” Vivienne says, making no attempt to free herself of his touch. “Please, what is happening?”

  “Something bad,” is all the Glatisant offers. “Please. You must focus. You must not kill them.” He looks pointedly at Nerissa.

  “No promises,” the lamia replies smoothly.

  “Nerissa, please,” Vivienne says curtly. Except she knows Nerissa cannot focus well in a frenzy. Too much blood and there would be no controlling her, no matter how reformed.

  Worth grits his teeth and gazes at Vivienne, deep circles like bruses under his arms. The look in his eyes is sharp, concerned. People downstairs are panicking. The walls of the Rookery shudder again.

  But then, there is something else.

  Something darker.

  Vivienne senses it has been here the whole time, but with the shock of what happened in the room, it has slipped away. Something shifts, slides away into the night, a dark creature moving below with speed and power. Vivienne feels its negative presence, sucking in the energy she has claimed as her own.

  “What is that?” she muses, half to herself.

  “You felt it?” Worth asks, blanching.

  “It’s leaving… it’s… it’s gone,” Vivienne breathes, shaking her head to dispel it like a bad dream. “I didn’t realize the danger we were in until it had left.”

  Worth looks visibly relieved, but then he winces. “They’re coming. Brace yourselves. They may not know how to behave.”

  “Do you remember how to fight?” Nerissa asks Worth from across the room. Clearly, she’s come prepared because she’s carrying that silly silver knife she always manages to sneak on her person. As if she needs a weapon. She is a living tool of destruction. And lies, it appears, considering their present company. Lies and knives are nearly the same thing.

  Worth nods, but Vivienne senses he’s nervous. But that could be the echoes from below. Servants are running every which way, platters falling to the ground. The walls shake again, sending plaster and dust into her hair and across the shoulders of her gown.

  This is enough to send her into action, and, with Nerissa in the lead, she follows along into the breach.

  Ouroboros

  When the world was younger and people more accepting of strange beings, Nerissa was often told that she was an exception of her kind. Many lamias were known, she had heard, for being blinded by love and wanting that they were easily caught with a bit of fresh blood or the promise of a warm body. While there were certainly times in her life where such a temptation might have garnered her attention, she, nonetheless, prided herself on rising above the stereotype. As a feared creature, she knew that humankind often portrayed her sort in bold strokes so as not to be faced with the truth: that they are inferior in nearly every manner known. From their incessant need to breed and excrete, to their ever-changing rituals and religions and rules, human beings are short-lived and even shorter-minded.

  Perhaps that’s why they taste so good. Less time to get gamey.

  That thinking, however, would get Nerissa killed. She had spent years training that part of her brain to resist the call of human blood, and until she sees the scene in the Villiers’ ballroom, she is confident in her practice.

  The source of the noise is an explosive of some sort, designed to propel glass shards in every direction. And as a result, human blood is everywhere. Women are dripping in it, their arms and shoulders streaming the stuff. Men are wiping it from their foreheads. No one appears mortally wounded, but the shrapnel has shredded quite a few guests to the point where they look strewn in red ribbons.

  And it smells so delicious, Nerissa can hardly stand it. Even though she’s aware this is likely a trap.

  She feels Vivienne behind her, hears someone cry out. She knows she’s slipping, can’t hold… she will eat, finally, what is not goat blood and…

  “Another explosion!” someone cries, just before it happens.

  It’s a perfect diversion, and Worth pulls her so violently around her waist that she flies back with him, bursting back through a pair of doors. She fights with him because she hates him and knows she can’t win because he is the Glatisant, and she will never let him have Vivienne. Because he doesn’t deserve her, and Nerissa does.

  “Come now, Nerissa. We must behave,” admonishes the Glatisant. She wants to rip out his eyes. It would be most satisfying. Eyes are her favorite part.

  They struggle through a dark hallway, blessedly free of people save for a few servants who pretend to look the other way. They have been well trained. Vivienne is reining in her power, but Nerissa can feel it building. Yes, yes. This is what she is hoping for. Perhaps if Vivienne lets go, they will be able to leave this dreadful place and start again somewhere else. Somewhere warm. Without corsets.

  They twist and turn into a storeroom and begin to fight in earnest, Nerissa fighting back both Worth and the mounting fury inside her. So much human blood! She wants to get through him to get a taste and, in that moment, will do anything to attain her meal.

  It isn’t the first time she’s fought Worth, but he’s holding back. Neither of them are letting go entirely. He doesn’t feed on people. His power is a strange, intangible thing. He does not need to live off human beings in such a way, and as such, has always kept far from Fae.

  But Nerissa senses that he is expecting this, somehow. Had been trying to warn them. It’s hard to remember when all she can think of is draining people of their lifeblood.

  In her moment of weakness, Worth clobbers her across the shoulders well and good, and Nerissa tumbles forward into a high cabinet stocked with glasses and platters. They rain around them, clattering off her body as ineffectual as rain. Though she does not yet appear a monster, her scales are tougher than iron and still exist beneath her glamor.

  Nerissa sees an opening and goes for Worth’s side, hoping to sink her claws into his skin but coming up empty as he writhes away. He’s deadly fast and dances away as if her steps are choreographed.

  But the angrier she gets, the clearer she understands Worth’s weaknesses. It’s his disguise that is weakest. It stems from a thumb-sized organ in his chest, and it works to refract and bend light and sensation. His human form is real and functioning, but only so long as the pressure point is unharmed. A good thwack around the center, and he’s bound to go down. She rises up on her back tails, wonderfully strong, and roots herself into the ground prepared to deliver the blow just when he’s least expecting—

  Nerissa is about to get the rise on him when Vivienne stops everything. It’s a talent she has. Her permafrost is usually contained, but she can express it with surprising alacrity given the right circumstances. While fisticuffs don’t become her—and she’s reticent to fight considering the risk it runs to anything with a pulse—she is strikingly good at them.

  Then the world stops abruptly at an
icy command, and Nerissa and Worth are frozen together in a hideous pastiche; he, part jaguar, gazelle, and bison, and she ripped entirely through her dress and protruding her tails halfway down the hallway. Vivienne will be most furious that she burst out of her vestments.

  Vivienne, for her part, rises in a frosty column, ice in her wake like the delicate veil on a bride of death. Nerissa is ready for the inevitable tide of stinging icicles—this is not the first time Vivienne has had to separate the two—but her power stops, a wave of warmth blasting into the room, enough that Vivienne falls to her feet, but not enough to thaw the Glatisant and lamia.

  Then lights kindle. Doors slam. Nerissa can feel a dozen presences or so cluster around them; Vivienne groans something incomprehensible in Fae.

  “You see, I told you they were the real thing!” says a voice, crackled with age.

  There are hushed words of praise and amazement. Laughing, too.

  “Well, it is as we thought. Welcome, friends, to the Circle of Iapetus. We welcome you into our mysteries and implore your help.” A second speaker.

  The voice comes from a tall man, stern of face but not quite yet aged into palsy. This is not, Nerissa thinks, Mr. Villiers, who as she recalls is merely a winter or two away from death (with what can only be described as frustrating irregularity; sometimes she is able to ascertain the future of various mortals, and for some reason, Mr. Villiers is on her list).

  Neither Worth nor Nerissa can speak, but that’s due to Vivienne’s spell, though it is lessening. Nerissa begins to calm herself, to steady her hearts and slow her blood. Outright attacking Worth might not have been the best course of action, but she did enjoy it.