by Eric Griffin
Sturbridge ignored the disgruntled computer and keyed the visual. The camera just outside the chamber door revealed Eva, paused uncertainly at the threshold.
She was dressed not in the normal robes of the novitiate, but in a blouse and long black skirt. Civilian clothes. She stood awkwardly with one hand raised, as if debating the wisdom of knocking a second time.
A gesture from Sturbridge retracted the hydraulic bolts securing the vault door. Eva stepped back suddenly from the reptilian hissing, then, as the door swung back, she took three determined steps into the room and then stopped. Eva stood unspeaking and unmoving, her head and shoulders bent as if under a great burden.
Sturbridge pushed herself to her feet, scooping up a robe that lay draped over a nearby chair. “Come in, Eva. Thank you for coming to see me. Please, sit down.”
The novice continued standing, head bent, refusing to meet the regent’s eyes. “If it please my mistress, I will stand.”
Sturbridge pulled tight the sash around her waist, regarding the girl with curiosity. “I see. Very well then, tell me, what’s on your mind?”
Eva gathered her courage. “I have come to submit myself to your judgment, Regentia. Talbott’s story, he said it would have a price. I am here to settle my account.”
“Ah, yes. The price.” An uneasy silence fell between them.
“I would have thought,” Sturbridge mused aloud, “that a novice coming to lay such weighty concerns before her regent would come formally attired in her robes of office.”
“I have returned my robes to the vestry.” The admission cost her dearly. “I have broken trust with my regent. I have placed myself out of communion with this chantry. I submit to your judgment.”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. Yes, you are quite right to do so. Well then,” Sturbridge turned her back upon the novice and picked her way toward the tumbledown throne of books, “I suppose the question now becomes, what are we to do with you? You don’t mind if I sit down? Thank you.”
Sturbridge settled into the high seat and raised her voice as if addressing a courtroom.
“Disciplinary action record. Case before the regent: FitzGerald, Eva. Novice of the First Circle.”
The bedside terminal gave off a series of reluctant grumblings, thinly veiled as efforts to access the hard-drive, and then began a running transcription of Sturbridge’s words.
“The novice comes before us self-accused and confessed of, how did you put it again, dear?”
“Breaking trust with my regent,” Eva recited, “and placing…”
“Oh yes, breaking trust with her regent and placing herself out of communion with the chantry. Nicely put.
“The novice is also delinquent in her account with Brother Porter, in the amount of the price of the telling of one tale. The record will note that the tale in question was, after the brother’s usual fashion, a bit rambling and thus its price might similarly be expected to be quite large. If one were to take into account the exorbitant amount of interest the novice seemed intent on paying the storyteller and his tall tale, the bill might well be presumed to have grown exponentially. Have you got all that?”
The computer began to read back the transcript.
“Regentia, please! This is quite serious. I’ve been up all…thinking about leaving the…and you’re…”
Sturbridge crossed the intervening space and put an arm around the novice. “I know, child. It’s all right.”
She rocked Eva gently back and forth. “You wanted to know more. About me, about where I came from, about who I am, about what I am. About how I got this way and what I’m supposed to do about it now. Yes?”
Eva nodded, unable to master her voice. She buried her face in Sturbridge’s shoulder.
“It’s all right. It’s all right to wonder. It’s all right to ask questions. It’s all right to doubt. I’m only sorry,” she continued after a pause, “that you did not feel like you could come to me and ask me these questions.”
“What right do I have to demand explanations from you?” Eva’s reply was quick, with a note of bitterness behind it.
Sturbridge held the girl’s shoulders out at arm’s length. “You don’t have any right to demand explanations. But you can come to me. You can ask questions, even the hard questions. And if I can, I will answer them. Do you understand? That is a promise. If I can, I will answer them.”
Eva nodded past her tears.
“Now you sit down right here and wipe your face. You’re a regular fright with all that blood streaking down your cheeks, a regular little monster.”
She was rewarded with a choking laugh that quickly dissolved back into broken sobs.
“That’s better, settle down here next to me and I will tell you more of the story you so dreadfully needed to hear. It’s a story of magic and immortality. Of devils and witches. Of blood and fire.
“It’s your story. Did you know that? You’ve already paid its price. You pay it every evening when you—against all reason and logic—rise again. You pay it every night when you hunt, drink life, endure. You pay it every morning when you surrender once again to the little death.
“Already, you can recognize hints of the familiar in the tale, snatches of dream, shards of song. Things you knew before their knowing. Yes? Good. They are our heritage. The legacy of the Pyramid. The Blood of the Seven that runs through all of our veins. Connecting us, drawing us closer together, uniting us.
“It doesn’t matter how far away you go, little one. You reach out one hand. You touch the thrumming strand of blood that stretches between us, and I can feel your touch. Right now, I can tap my sire. Watch. Closer. You can almost see the shiver running up the nape of his neck. Just like someone walking on his grave.
“Ah, now he’s found us out.” Sturbridge’s eyes closed at the answering caress, lost for a moment in memory before breaking contact.
“We are of a blood. Nothing can take that away. Nothing can change that. Not even death. Do you understand? Quiet now, child. Quiet now.”
Eva was silent a long while. Then she asked tentatively, “Regentia, what Talbott said, is it true? About your having a daughter, I mean?”
The lines of Sturbridge’s face grew hard. Just a moment before she had found herself calling this little one “child.” She fought to master herself before she spoke. “Yes. I had a daughter once. A beautiful little girl. A magical living child. I know such a thing is hard to imagine here.”
She found herself thinking, not for the first time, how much alike they were—her young novice and her lost daughter. They were of an age and there was even a hint of resemblance between them. She knew she had felt instinctively protective of her newest novice from the day she had arrived at Five Boroughs.
Eva’s voice broke in upon her musings. “I think I should have liked to have had a daughter.”
Sturbridge gathered in her young novice and buried her tears.
part two:
interiora terrae
Tuesday, July 27 1999, 3:16 AM
Chantry of the Five Boroughs
New York City, New York
“All of them, Regentia?” the overwhelmed novice asked.
“All of them,” Sturbridge replied. “And I want all of his papers: his notes, his letters—his grocery lists for that matter. All of these books that are not in their proper places, I want them. If they are lying open, mark the pages. If they’re not open, scan them for marginalia and mark those pages. Give the whole room—make that the room and the entire way down to the Exeunt Tertius—a good going-over for any resonances. Anything you find, I want that too. That ought to get me started. What do you know about the ritual he was enacting when he was…interrupted?”
The novice’s eyes kept involuntarily straying to the desiccated body at the room’s center. “I don’t…I mean, it’s a questing, obviously, looking at the diagramma hermetica but… Surely Jacqueline would be better able to answer these questions. She assisted in preparing for…” The novice broke off, but recovered herse
lf quickly. “I’ll send her along too,” she added hastily, forestalling the next order.
Sturbridge paused, then dropped the finger that was raised to instruct Eva on this very point. She smiled. “Better. Tell me, how would you say he died?”
“Something went wrong, Regentia. The protective circle has been effaced in places; the candles overturned. We’re lucky the whole room didn’t go up in flames….”
“It can’t, but go on,” Sturbridge interjected.
Eva looked questioningly at the regent, but as no further information seemed forthcoming, she continued her speculation. “The ritual went wrong. Something…stepped through. It killed him and fled. That way, toward the Exeunt Tertius and out. Aaron tried to block its escape and was killed as well.”
Sturbridge shook her head slowly. “You’re rushing ahead. But perhaps you do not appreciate the danger. We’re dealing with death here—the Final Death. Do you understand? When you hunt mortals, you can be ravenous. If you would contest with Death, however, you must be dispassionate. You must be disciplined. You must be patient. Death is so very…patient.”
She drew out the last word like a caress. But there was no warmth in it. “You proceed from too many assumptions. For starters, how did the ritual go wrong? Foley was a regent secundus. He was assisted by two apprentices, one of the Third Circle, one of the Seventh, either of whom could have pulled off a simple questing by himself. It simply does not hold together.”
Eva began to protest but was cut off.
“Two. You can’t ‘step through’ a questing. Nor can any of the denizens from the ‘other side’. That’s an old wives’ tale fit only for frightening neophytes. A questing is not like throwing wide the postern gate. It’s more like putting an eye to the keyhole. A seeing, rather than a going. Or, as a diligent novice would say, a scrying rather than…”
“An apportation,” Eva finished quickly, ducking a rather longish lecture implicit in the regent’s glare. “But what if it wasn’t just a questing? What if it was a full-blown summoning? I know the standard precautions aren’t in place—there are none of the names of the archangelic protectors, no proper warding of the cardinal points, nothing more efficacious than chalk and candlelight and quill and parchment. But maybe he didn’t want anyone to know it was a summoning.”
The regent gave her a look of stem reproach. “You know full well that it is forbidden to perform any summoning within the domicilium. Even to assist in such an ill-conceived venture would be to invite my extreme displeasure.”
The tone of this last pronouncement carried a far greater threat than the words themselves. Eva, however, was too caught up in fitting together the pieces of her theory to take the hint.
“All the more reason for him to conceal the true nature of the ritual! Any of the protective diagramma would have given him away. His assistants would have divined his purpose and,” she paused triumphantly—and then suddenly remembered herself. “And dissuaded him from such a disobedient course of action,” she finished, somewhat lamely.
“Yes, the assistants,” Sturbridge resumed the narrative. “Whom Foley had decided to include in his ‘secret’ ritual for what purpose? It seems to me that not even druids, Satanists and Templars go to such great lengths to ensure that their secret rites are so well-attended.”
“If I might speak frankly, Regentia,” Eva began meekly, “There are those within our chantry who do not feel as fervently about the interdicti as you and I do.”
Sturbridge raised herself up to her full height and seemed for a moment as if she might strike the novice. Eva, for her part, scrutinized some detail of the complex pattern of floor tiles, her head bent in submission.
Sturbridge exhaled audibly. “The interdicti exist precisely to keep foolish novices from indulging their folly unto self-destruction. Whether you realize it or not, we are besieged here. Do you know what lies beyond these walls?”
A slight smile stole over Eva’s features before she could suppress it. She was thinking about the relatively cloistered campus of Barnard College upon which the chantry was situated. She wisely did not give voice to these thoughts.
“Beyond these walls,” Sturbridge continued, “lies enemy territory. New York is a Sabbat stronghold. The Sabbat stronghold. Notwithstanding anything you might hear to the contrary from the self-styled Ventrue ‘prince’ of the city. Thus far, you have been carefully shielded from this harsh and uncompromising reality. But surely, even from within the safety of this chantry, you realize what is at stake here.”
“Yes, Regentia.” Eva’s tone was submissive.
Sturbridge raised the novice’s downcast face. “We can hold the ravening Sabbat at bay. We will hold them at bay. But we will do it the right way. We will not resort to high-risk rituals—especially those that dispense with proper wardings—within the confines of the chantry. We will not endanger our sisters in our search for better weapons to bring to bear upon our enemies. We will not embroil other powers—particularly those from beyond this terrestrial sphere—in our struggle.
“What is most important in fighting monsters is to ensure that one does not…”
“Become a monster,” Eva finished quoting the philosopher. He was a countryman of hers, part of the complex intellectual and mystic tradition that was her birthright. Eva could not help but call to mind, however, that the catchy phrases of the philosopher were also a part of the birthright of the Reich. How often had his aphorisms been used to defend and expound a pogrom of genocide that humbled even the worst excesses of the undying?
Words too, it seemed, could become desperate and monstrous.
Sturbridge put a hand on the novice’s shoulder and steered her toward the doorway. “But you look weary. Go to the refectory. Get some nourishment into your system. When you are quite certain you can hold something down, then—and only then—may you return here and gather the things I have requested.”
As Sturbridge closed the chamber door behind them, Eva visibly sagged as if the immediacy of the corpse was the only thing that had been keeping her upright. She staggered down the corridor toward the refectory. A somnambulist.
Sturbridge watched the receding figure until it reached the bend in the passage, as if to make certain that it would not stumble and fall before then. Satisfied, she called after her, “Eva…”
The figure turned with apparent effort.
“Be wary. Not all monsters come from beyond these walls.”
Sturbridge strode off purposefully toward her sanctum. The few novices she passed along the way, catching sight of their regent’s demeanor, pressed back into doorways and side corridors to let her pass.
Sturbridge batted absently at something before her face as if trying to clear away a cobweb or persistent insect. She purposefully triggered no fewer than three defensive systems (two silent and one very much audible) which she left for the security team to disarm in her wake. She was none too pleased with the demonstration of their obvious shortcomings two nights earlier, and was not inclined to make their work enjoyable tonight. She even went so far as to collar a particularly perverse guardian spirit and dispatch it to convince the chantry’s autonomic defenses that the domicilium was ablaze. That particular impossibility ought to keep them occupied for some time. They would probably have to take the “malfunctioning” system oh-so-carefully offline, dismantling and reassembling the complex series of mystic, electronic, biochemical and geomechanical wardings one by one.
It was, perhaps, a small cruelty. But not one of which Sturbridge repented. The punishment was, if anything, overly lenient compared to the bloodprice she might have exacted for their recent failure—a failure that resulted in the murder of her second-in-command in the sanctuary of his own workshop.
As she passed into her own sanctum, she noted with satisfaction that the door sealed itself behind her with the hiss of hydraulics and the singing of steel bolts ramming home. She called for the status of the chantry’s exits and found them all secured. She crossed to the desk and keyed a
gimmel-level override, unbarring one of the exits (the Exeunt Tertius, just to rub their noses in it a bit). A few quick gestures and she set a ward—a screamer, and a loud one—to go off when the door was resecured, crying the exact response time.
Only then did she allow herself to collapse into the overstuffed armchair in the room’s farthest corner. This chair was the only concession to comfort in the austere study. Even so, there was something imposing, almost throne-like, about it. The chair seemed to rise from a dais of piled books. Jumbled stacks of tomes rose to well above shoulder-level in places, swaying precariously. Not infrequently, an entire wing of the edifice would break away and cascade to the floor in an avalanche of illuminated manuscripts, fashion magazines, papyrus scrolls, advertising circulars, penciled manuscripts, clay tablets, and loose-leaf paper.
Sturbridge sank into the voluminous chair. She wrapped herself in the enfolding wall of books, pulling it tightly about her. She felt its reassuring proximity, its warmth, its protection. Slowly, the dark wings that buffeted about her face began to recede.
She was more than casually acquainted with their shadowy touch—the flurry of blows that neither cut nor bruised but rather seemed to smother. Her ears rang with the cry of carrion birds. She could feel their weight above her, hovering oppressively like the noonday sun, waiting. One among them, bolder than its fellows, picked experimentally at the hem of one sleeve.
She snatched back her hand to within the shelter of the cocoon of books. Her first instinct was to lash out, to strike, to shriek, to frighten and scatter the murder of crows. With effort, she suppressed this instinctive animal response.
She knew better. There was no point in expending her energies in avenging herself upon mere messengers, upon these harbingers of the end. She withheld her scorn, reserved it for their master, the one true nemesis.
So he is come among us once again. Sturbridge found herself unconsciously gathering her defenses about her, sketching the outlines of cunning wards, beckoning to unseen allies. She harbored no illusion as to the eventual outcome of the life-long confrontation. Even her (not inconsiderable) powers would avail little against her unwelcome guest.