For a moment the theater was silent. Then Malachi Jones said, “Hear, hear.” A number of the assembled vampires began to clap enthusiastically - but not all of them. Elliott had no way of telling whether he’d swayed enough of them for it to matter.
He supposed he’d know in a moment. Turning back toward Guice, he said, “All right, we’ve all spoken our pieces. Would you care to call the vote?”
“Yes, and I’d like to do it with a simple show of hands, unless someone has an objection,” the Justicar said. He looked out at the crowd, none of whom spoke out against the proposed procedure. “Very well, then. How many want to see Pablo Velasquez take over as regent of Sarasota?”
Elliott reflexively held his breath while he looked around the hall. Only about a third of the Assembly had raised their pallid hands. It was encouraging, but he wasn’t out of the woods yet. If a large number of those present abstained from the plebiscite, then he, Judy and Gunter might receive even fewer votes.
“And how many wish to see Prince Roger’s primogen remain in control?” asked Guice.
About half of the assembled vampires signaled their support.
The Toreador. Brujah, and even some of the Malkavians of Sarasota applauded and cheered. Bounding out of her chair, Judy whooped and threw her arms around Elliott. Lifting him up, she whirled him in a circle, hugging him so tightly that his ribs ached and he was glad that the undead didn’t need to breathe.
Guice gavelled insistently for order. Finally the noise subsided and Judy put Elliott down. The Justicar cleared his throat. “This is a little awkward,” he said.
Elliott felt a pang of apprehension. “And why is that?”
“I always try to determine the will of the Conclave,” said Guice, “and I almost always follow it. But I trust you all do understand that ultimately an Assembly is only an advisory body. It’s the Justicar who makes the decisions, and in this case, noting that the majority of our wise elders and princes supported the idea of change, I feel obliged to act on the basis of my own conscience and my own misgivings. I hereby declare Pablo Velasquez the acting sovereign of Sarasota.”
“You bastard!” Judy screamed. Faster than any mortal, she hurled herself forward. More agile still, Elliott lunged after her and grabbed her. Using her Herculean strength, she tore herself free instantly. The Archons flanking the bench hastily reached inside their coats.
“Calm down!” Elliott rapped, using his charismatic powers on the Brujah leader. “This isn’t helping!” He gripped her chill, bare forearm. Shuddering, fangs bared, Judy allowed him to drag her back a step.
Elliott looked up at the bench. When he beheld Guice’s smug, sanctimonious expression, he nearly went berserk himself. He was now certain that either the Ventrue was one of the enemies of Sarasota, or someone had bribed him. Either way, the outcome of the Conclave had been fixed from the start. And he didn’t know what to do about it. The Justicar, damn him, was right. Elliott and his friends couldn’t fight the entire Camarilla by themselves. “I request that you reconsider,” the actor said.
“As do I,” said Catherine. Many others shouted the same sentiment.
“I’m sorry,” said Guice. “I’ve made my decision, and no one here is empowered to gainsay me.”
“You’re wrong,” said a deep voice from the back of the auditorium.
NINETEEN:TH E ORDEAL
Indescribable, O queen, is the grief you bid me to renew.
— Virgil, Aeneid
As Elliott turned to peer out into the audience, a huge Kindred, whose bushy brown beard, wild mane of hair and barbaric gold earring contrasted oddly with his conservative suit and tie, rose from his seat and headed down the aisle.
“Do you know1 who that is?” Judy whispered excitedly, shrugging off Elliott’s grip.
“Of course,” murmured the Toreador, half-dazed with astonishment. “Angus, the Gangrel Justicar.”
“What’s he doing here? Is he on our side?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing. Now that I’ve heard him speak, I’m all but certain that it was him giving me Dracula’s description on the phone the other night.” The audience murmured. Looking as surprised as Elliott felt, Guice stared at the giant approaching the stage. “This is, ah, unexpected,” the Ventrue Justicar said. “I had no idea you’d even returned to your duties, let alone that you were present tonight.”
Angus bounded lightly onto the stage. “But I have and I am,” he rumbled. “And I dispute your ruling. As far as I’m concerned, the government of Sarasota should stay the way it is.”
Much of the crowd cheered. Scowding, Guice pounded with his gavel until the din subsided. The exertion caused his curly white wig to slip slightly askew. “May I point out,” the Ventrue magistrate said, “that I called this Conclave.”
Angus shrugged his immense shoulders. “You may, if I can point out that it doesn’t matter. According to the letter of the law, I still wield as much authority as you.”
“If you two can’t agree,” called Otis McNamara, light glinting on the gray iron ring in his septum, “then there’s no decision. If there’s no decision, then things stay the way they are.”
Guice’s mouth twisted. “Rest assured, we will come to a judgment,” he said.
“Considering your deep respect for the opinions of the Assembly,” said Malachi Jones dryly, the air in his box now hazy with rum-scented tobacco smoke, “why not let the vote you just conducted break the deadlock?”
“Because I don’t consider that appropriate in this situation,” Guice replied.
Ang;us smiled unpleasantly. “Shall we fight it out then, you and I? Provide the gory spectacle so many of them” — he nodded at the audience — “crave?” Though struggling to retain his composure, Guice looked somewhat taken aback. .
“Surely,” said a male vampire, rising from his seat, “we ought to try to resolve this matter in a more rational manner than that.” Elliott recognized the speaker as Sebastian Durrell. Durrell was a Tremere elder from Louisville, a tall, well-dressed, fortyish and somewhat prim-looking vampire with a high, bony forehead, deep-set eyes, and a pronounced widow’s peak.
Arching a shaggy eyebrow, Angus said, “I’m guessing that you have a suggestion.”
“Not to minimize Ms. Morgan’s or Mr. Schmidt’s importance to their city,” said Durrell, giving the vampires in question an apologetic smile, “but on the basis of what I’ve heard here tonight, it seems that the heart of this matter is Mr. Sinclair’s fitness to lead. His mental stability, that is. Well, matters deadlocked in Conclave are occasionally decided by an ordeal, are they not? As it happens, using my magic, I can subject him to high levels of psychological stress.”
“How?” Judy demanded.
“You’ll see,” the Warlock replied. “Rest assured, it does no physical harm, and it will work. If he doesn’t crack under the strain, then perhaps we can trust him to serve as Roger Phillips’ steward."
“Ordinarily,” said Angus slowly, “we use ordeal to determine an alleged criminal’s guilt or innocence, not to decide questions of praxis.”
“What about the invasion of my domain?” said Gilbert Duane. “If breaking the Fifth Tradition isn’t a crime, what is?”
Elliott drew a breath to say that he’d submit to the ordeal. Evidently sensing his intent, Judy gripped his forearm with crushing force. “Don’t do it,” she whispered. “You don’t know what Durrell’s really talking about. He could be one of our enemies. Maybe the whole point of the Conclave was to set you up for this. To do the same thing to you that they did to Roger!”
“It doesn’t matter,” the Toreador murmured in reply. “Durrell’s right. One way or another, this has all turned out to be about me. Perhaps if I prove myself, Guice will feel obliged to let us alone.” He raised his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be happy to let Mr. Durrell read to me from the complete works of Bulwer-Lytton, subject me to easy-listening music” — the audience laughed — “or whatever he intends.” He gave Gui
ce a level stare. “Provided, of course, that you first guarantee that my performance will settle the issue before the Assembly.”
Guice gazed out at Durrell for a moment, then looked back at Elliott. “Agreed.”
Angus shrugged. “It’s your sanity and your position on the line, Toreador. If you’re willing, I won’t object. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
Elliott grinned at him. “That would be preferable, wouldn’t it?”
Durrell hastened toward the stage. Lacking Angus’ inhuman strength and grace, he had to clamber up out of the orchestra pit. Elliott derived a bit of pleasure from seeing his would-be torturer’s dignity compromised, even if only for a moment.
Rising to his feet, the Warlock looked at the bench. “If I may proceed?” Guice nodded curtly. “Then could we have some room, please?” Angus and Judy stepped back, the latter with manifest reluctance, abandoning center stage to Durrell and his subject.
Elliott felt a twinge of apprehension, which he did his best to mask. “If I remember my vaudeville days,” he said to the Tremere, “you’re supposed to ask the audience for absolute silence, too.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Durrell said, smiling thinly. He plucked a silver stickpin, its circular head embossed with a cryptic hieroglyph, from his lapel. “However, I will require a drop of your vitae.”
Elliott offered his index finger. Durrell pricked the tip, squeezed out a blob of fragrant blood, and smeared it in the palm of his own white hand. The Toreador noticed that the other Kindred had been correct. Even if he did want quiet, it hadn’t been necessary to ask for it. The onlookers, most of whom had never had the opportunity to witness any of the legendary Tremere sorcery, were watching in fascinated silence.
Durrell lifted his hand to his face, causing Elliott to wonder if he intended to lick the vitae off. But the Warlock simply inhaled deeply, filling his head with the coppery scent. Then, lowering his arm again, he used his finger to draw a symbol in the crimson liquid. “Please close your eyes and open your mind,” he said.
Elliott obeyed. For a moment nothing happened, and then a terrible vertigo seized him. He felt the world spin, and he staggered to stay on his feet.
The dizziness was matched by a comparable feeling inside his brain. His thoughts were whirling too, disintegrating into a maelstrom of confusion.
The surface under his shoes abruptly stopped rotating, throwing him off-balance once more. Reeling, he opened his eyes. He had a vague sense that he shouldn’t, that he’d told someone that he’d keep them closed, but he longer remembered to whom he’d said it, or why.
He found he was standing in the foyer of his own home. For a moment everything looked strange. The soft lights burning beyond the doorways. The high corners of the hall. The sweet-smelling yellow roses in the delicate white porcelain vase, and the green marble-topped stand on which they sat.
He shook his head, perplexed at his own reaction. Nothing was strange. The house looked the way it usually did. He didn’t understand why he was picturing it as it had never been — neglected, shrouded in shadow with veils of cobweb hanging in the corners, the vase full of long-withered blooms, dust coating every surface and hanging in the air.
He couldn’t remember when, or from whom, he’d last drunk. He wondered if he’d imbibed vitae laced with alcohol or drugs. He supposed it didn’t matter; his disorientation was fading. Noticing the sheaf of neatly typed pages in his hand, he remembered that he’d gone away alone to finish his new comedy without distractions. Well, the piece was done now, and it had a wonderfully funny part for Mary. Eager to see her, kiss her and show her the script, he called her name.
His shout echoed through the building. No one replied.
Puzzled — he’d phoned and told her to expect him this evening, hadn’t he? — he ranged through the lavishly furnished ground floor of the house. Neither she nor anyone else was there, so he headed for the second story.
Halfway up the staircase the odor hit him, the rich scent of Kindred vitae mingled with a sickening stench of decay. Suddenly terrified, moving with every iota of his superhuman speed, he charged up the steps.
He found his wife, both pieces of her, lying on the bedroom floor, her yellow hair as luxuriant as ever but the flesh already black and rotten on her bones. She was still wearing the gorgeous sky-blue silk kimono she used for a dressing gown, and several of the gold and crystal vials on her vanity — the cosmetics he’d never been able to convince her she didn’t need — were open. Evidently the killers had surprised her shortly after sunset, while she was still busy with her toilet.
Elliott couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Mary was both the most wonderful, important person in the world and a powerful immortal, a queen of the night. Someone like that couldn’t simply be butchered like a beast in her own boudoir. It wouldn’t make any sense.
And yet, simultaneously, he did believe it. He understood instantly, instinctively, that the center of his life, the fountainhead of all his joys, was gone forever, and that all the best parts of himself had perished with her. He threw back his head and howled like an animal.
The room spun, whirling him into darkness.
When the light returned, he was climbing the stairs, looking for Mary and shaking with fear, though he didn’t understand why. Just because she hadn’t answered his call and he hadn’t found her on the first floor, that didn’t mean anything was wrong. Then he smelled blood and decay, and his dread turned to outright horror. He bolted up the steps, into the bedroom, beheld the carnage and shrieked
The world went dark, then light, like a great eye blinking.
His nose full of the smells of rot and vitae, Elliott raced across the landing, burst into the bedroom and saw his wife’s decapitated body. He screamed in anguish.
The universe lurched, and now he’d just this instant blundered into the bedroom doorway. Spying Mary’s lifeless and desecrated body, he cried out. Then the moment repeated, over and over again, the bursts of agonizing grief and despair pounding his mind like a hammer.
He couldn’t tell how many times he’d relived the instant of discovery. Oblivious to everything but his pain, he didn’t know that each time wasn’t the first. But finally, wailing, his hands upraised as if he were King Lear raging on the heath, he noticed the red streak of blood on his finger.
Time skipped backward, repeating that one second like a scratched record, scrambling his thoughts. He nearly forgot about his wounded hand.
Nearly, but not quite. Because he couldn’t recall how he’d hurt himself, and somehow the blood wasn’t right. He had a sense that it didn’t belong in this ghastly place and time.
That suspicion did not halt the agony associated with Mary’s destruction; nor did it enable him to grasp that he was trapped in a single recurring moment, or otherwise restore his capacity for rational thought. Yet murkily, instinctively, he fumbled after the meaning of the tiny injury, groping in his own head like a drowning man struggling to reach a life line.
A series of images tumbled through his mind. He was standing on stage. But not for a performance, because he had a sense that he was in danger. And then a Kindred with a pinched, sober-looking face that reminded him of Cromwell and his Roundheads climbed up on the platform and stuck his finger with a silver pin. The other vampire’s name was Durrell, and he was one of the Tremere!
Though Elliott’s thoughts were still fragmented, he now seemed to remember that Durrell had cast a spell on him. And if that were so, perhaps this hideous experience was only a dream. He strained to wake himself up, just as, when mortal, he’d often managed to rouse himself from a nightmare.
It didn’t work. The sight of Mary’s severed head, with its skeletal grin and eyes dissolving into slime, smashed at him again and again and again, until he began to doubt that his recollection of Durrell was real. Perhaps it was merely a delusion manufactured by his mind in a last-ditch effort to deny the truth of his wife’s murder. Certainly, he felt himself going mad.
Fighting the pull of the spectacle before him and the overwhelming anguish it inspired, he struggled once again to free himself from the illusion. Abruptly, Mary’s corpse, and the bedroom around it, evaporated.
TWENTOTHE PROMISE
Better it is that thou shouldest not voui, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
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