“Go and catch him, Lucia. I have eternity.” The mordant remark dripped like acid from her tongue. The right half of her jaw and teeth were exposed through the charred hole in her cheek. The skin around the tips of her fingers sewed itself back together, and her right eye lid reformed around her wide open green eye as the socket shed the blackened skin around it. The missing hair on her head burst back into place like a lit torch. The parts of her that the light had turned to ash came back to life. Molly expected her to have been vaporized. Stepping backward into the shadows, the cool dark embracing her sympathetically, Corvessa vanished from sight.
It was not uncommon for hemonyxes to have many offspring, and it was much less rare of an event for hemonyxes to give birth to twins than it is for human beings. However, for vampires to have twin children is almost unheard of. Though every recorded instance of a vampire mother giving birth to twins results in her death, she would easily accept death in exchange for the greatness and prestige her children could expect during their lifetimes. To non-vampires, one’s life would not seem a reasonable exchange, let alone a bargain, for one’s conceiving twin children, but vampires have a great interest in twins.
A phenomenon occurs with vampire twins, the nature of which is never seen in other immortal beings. Twin vampires express the most powerful and rugged physiologies of any other variety of vampire. They are highly resistant to the maladies that afflict vampires. The skin scoffs at the damage that light wreaks upon it. Lost limbs and extremities may re-grow entirely. I cannot explain this occurrence other than with haggard theories involving the twins’ toll on the mother’s health while in the womb, or the possible dilution of certain “weak” traits during development, but the facts of the matter are unclear. Because of their physiological superiority, twins are considered one of the greatest blessings that a cult can hope for. They almost always are groomed for leadership from birth, and they marry often in order to increase the odds of producing a successive pair of twins. Human beings who are born as a twin cannot reap the same benefits, physiological or social, if they become vampires, but should they marry into a cult, and their children with a vampire partner are twins, their children will develop the great strengths vampires believe are the purest possible bodily link to their hemonyx ancestors.
The Black Coat Society had its eyes on Lucia Vasquez from the moment her conception was public knowledge. Gabriel Vasquez, during this time, crafted many a specialty sword or piece of jewelry for vampire dignitaries and his standing with immortals was one of esteem and fame. Gabriel, however, was uncomfortable with the vampires’ fascination with the unexpected arrival of his daughters. They were identical twins and natural magic wielders—an impossible combination for vampire children, because, unlike humans, no immortal beings pass on to their progeny anything comparable to the magesmith traits.
There was much excitement in the cult’s ranks, but not until he was approached in private by a vampire noble, who was prepared to pay a fortune for a contract of marriage to either of the girls, did Gabriel sever his ties to the Society. During labor, Gabriel’s soon-to-be wife, Justine Scott, passed away, and the second twin, whom her mother had named Maria with her dying breath, was lost just before she entered the world. Lucia, the firstborn, was passed off to Samuel Bishop, a horse breeder whom Gabriel had met so recently that he was certain there was no chance the Society would have known of him.
When I left London for the last time, I borrowed the original transcripts that I had been commissioned to translate, interpret and catalog into the Royal Library. I knew I wouldn’t be returning, and…well, my work, being incomplete, was unlikely to be finished by another scholar. I am the only expert on half-human histories, languages and cultures in the scientific world, and it was my professional responsibility to keep the documents safe and intact. I did not receive official consent to procure the transcripts for my use but … My point is to say that recently I uncovered some incomplete hemonyx histories in my personal archives, and I pieced together details of Corvessa’s past that, until now, were tossed in the rubbish bin of knowledge labeled, “mysteries.”
When Corvessa was born, she did not leave the womb alone. She was one half of a pair of identical twin sisters. The hemonyxes who knew of the twins’ birth knew not what to think of the children, for they were neither human nor hemonyx. The girls, descendants of Jas and Liryne, were the first vampires to ever walk the earth, or, to be precise, Corvessa was the first to walk the earth, for her sister did not live to take her first steps. Before their parents fled the village, Corvessa’s sister was seized by the elders and sacrificed in good faith to the gods of the night. The hemonyx elders in the village decided that the girls’ unique vampire traits were terrible omens as was their ominous time of birth, on the second to last day of the year, two years before the new century. That is to say, Corvessa was born on the eve of the year 10,400 BC.
Geoffrey Mylus,
July 5, 1833
II
On the Sun Side of Moondown
Gunshots and growls to his left and right, Thomas found his way through Paris with an impromptu navigational choice: running and never stopping to think twice. Transformed and terrifying the citizens whose homes he made his shortcuts through, he did his best to avoid the areas filled with French soldiers and werewolves. When he saw the Seine and realized he was going west, the wrong direction from Montmartre, Tom took to the rooftops. As soon as he reached the clan commune and felt invisible again, one of Henriette’s guards spotted him breaking the shingles off a building as his feet slipped out of his control, before leaping to the next roof.
Thomas, hunched low, hurried across the rooftop and down to the next. Whatever was going on in Paris was going to be an excellent distraction as he made his way out. Normally he would have noticed that he was being followed, but while his brain constructed his escape route, his heart kept reminding him that he’d forgotten something important back at Montmartre. He had left before he was convinced that what Corvessa had told him was true. The poison was leaving his system, but he couldn’t turn around now.
He stopped, turning to look back toward Montmartre. Below it, bright red and orange flames waved at him like drowning arms. Somewhere in the burning city, Molly was alone, and it was his fault. Tom’s chest felt constricted and he became anxious. As his brain dropped its careful plans, two werewolves boxed him in from the front, backing him toward the edge of the roof. Tom saw that they weren’t Jack’s werewolves. The one on the right burst into a sprint. Tom pulled up his right sleeve and spoke to the Uyl Talisman tied around it. The snake spine gave a rattle and a powerful gust of wind rolled across the roof, tumbling the werewolves and pushing them over the gutters. One caught the roof’s edge with one hand, and the other fell to the street. By the time they recovered, Tom was on the move again and picking up more pursuers.
One of the werewolves waited patiently behind a chimney stack as her fellows herded Tom her way. Tom’s nose caught her scent and location. To cause confusion, Tom whipped up a great wind that tore the shingles from the roof and pried the bricks from the chimney stacks. When the awaiting ambusher stepped out to surprise Tom, the roof became soft and gave in to the gales that crushed it inward. Tom jumped across to the next roof as the werewolf sank waist-deep into the roof and barked in frustration.
Another pursuer was waiting for him and clipped him with one arm as he ran by. Tom spun and spoke to the talisman again. As the werewolf caught up to him, a geyser of air exploded up from inside the building and threw him up into the air. Three more werewolves came to the airborne one’s aid, but Tom prevented them from coming any closer.
“Ta! Fura fura!” he commanded the wind, rousing its anger and tearing the rooftop behind him in half. He planted his feet and rode a wave of crumbling brick wall toward the next roof.
Landing safely, Tom kept running, leaving his pursuers far behind. As he chose his next path, he began to feel strange. Then he saw something curious. Growing from the rooftops was a
trail of white blooms—and clouds of moondown—crawling away to the east as far as he could see until it vanished beyond the city. A bright haze radiated from it. The vision left him, and the flowers disappeared, but he ran straight off the roof and fell. The street stopped him. He saw colors, and then a mob of figures pounced on him.
Molly, the only source of light on Montmartre, felt a tug inside that told her Tom was leaving Paris. The possibility of being abandoned did not occur to her. If Tom were leaving, he left out of necessity. Molly had told herself this again and again as she turned over debris and made her way to the front of Chateau Beaumonte from the rear colonnade, through the south wing, around the assembly chamber and out the front doors. The swirling vortex of light that bathed the palace shrank and was spent before Molly stepped out onto the front lawn. There, a number of vampires were picking through bodies and sorting Jack’s men from their own. Leon, among them, turned and looked at Molly from many metres away in the way a friend looks upon a friend strangely, when both have survived disaster and in their turmoil have become strangers, until they remember who they are.
“Miss Bishop,” he said plainly. The tuning keys in his throat were too loose. “Thomas came back. Corvessa has filled his head with noxious lies.”
“Where is he now?” Molly glowed like a candle. When she last saw him she was merely a magesmith in the rough. Now she carried herself like a sorceress queen.
“We had a fray, and then I lost him.” The charming tonal quality of his voice was damaged but he did not lie. “I believe Corvessa told him it was my intention to kill him and, perhaps, to take you from him.”
“I don’t believe that and neither would Thomas,” Molly assured him. “He left for a reason.”
“A French foot soldier informed me that something transpired between Thomas and Jack Darcy out on the lawn, but what, he did not know. As it would seem, Thomas left Jack to die on the hill when the armed forces came to capture him, but by the time the soldier reached the place, both Jack and Thomas were gone.”
As Leon looked upon the battleground and his abode in dismay, the clover on his cheek drooped. His épée hissed as it slid into the sheath at his side and clicked tight. A great part of Paris to the west and south of Montmartre was melted to char. The eastern fires had been dealt with, but to the west and central the French had been forced to put many a lead ball and cannon through their own turf. “Where had Thomas meant to go before Corvessa spoiled the evening?” he asked.
“East, into clan country. He means to wrest a demon from his body.” Molly began to walk down the hill toward the gates.
“Ah, yes, I saw the dark thing in his stare. But why east? Tell me whom or what he seeks.” The front doors of Chateau Beaumonte sneezed white dust following a crash from within.
“He didn’t say. Thomas is a mariner of the soul, Mr. Beaumonte. Since the day I met him he has slaved over charts and maps galore and has yet to follow a single one of them. He goes where otherworldly things compel him.”
“They call him a pirate, you know.” Leon placed a hand on one hip and looked south, hot wind from the burning city combing his chocolate hair up and away from his head. “Those seafaring men of fortune are something of yesteryear. There is no haven for glorious outlaws on that blue frontier anymore, and they call him a pirate.” Shifting his weight to one leg he opened his mouth and flicked his teeth with his dry tongue. Molly watched him calmly, waiting for Leon to empty the rest of his mind. “A pirate is a thief. Thieves take what they want from others, and they just go away. This man walks with powder kegs on his feet, a crackling trail following them o’er hill and dale.”
“He is neither a thief, nor a pirate,” Molly agreed, continuing slowly down the hill.
“Nor is he a man. Paris does not burn itself halfway to the good earth in one night because of one man.” The glint in his eye, if Molly had seen it, was one of admiration and great respect.
The life that Arnaud Beaumonte had prepared for Leon had been steeped in pitch and strapped with kindling since his birth, and Thomas Crowe had put it to the torch. The sandy-haired, demon-eyed ruffian werewolf had seen through it all. Before their steel had met on the lawn, Leon had felt it in the pirate’s smirk. With every sounding of blade against blade, Thomas had laughed as if it were all a game. Leon thought the hooting young scapegrace was just mad with vengeance. Foolish of me, he thought, to think that a man with nothing to lose would fight for something he’d lost. No, in any strike on an opponent there was something to be gained. If Thomas were a pirate, his bounty was measured in the breaths in his chest, and the ocean ended only where his longevity rolled and crashed upon the shores of death eternal. In seconds, Leon forgot his palace, his kingdom, and his superficial legacy. He remembered for a moment his childhood as a human being. He thought of the days past when he had always had a choice to become whatever he chose, and the end of those days when he became a Black Coat. As steadfast his reserve had been, Leon never had and never would enjoy the fruits of upholding his father’s honor in a house full of his estranged kin. Drawing Fantome, he hurried to the east lawn where the stable and carriage house lay. From the stable he brought two mares to the front lawn where Molly waited for him.
“I don’t need your protection,” said Molly apprehensively.
“No, but you need my accompaniment if Thomas is to believe either of us when we find him.” Leon twirled the épée in his left hand and clung to the reins with the other.
“We?” Molly could do nothing to hold back a grin.
“We the crew, of course.” With a toss of his hair he threw off a billow of dust and ash.
“Welcome aboard, Mr. Beaumonte.” Molly looked east. Thomas would be waiting where the sun rose, in Wallachia. She marked the way and off they flew on the backs of the mares, tearing up the hill in full gallop.
Tom sat upright with a start, knocking the smelling salt from Henriette Petit’s hand. His brain’s instructions to transform and fight did not entirely agree with his body’s immediate condition. As a result, his fangs protruded and his limbs swelled, but he was so off-balance that all it took was a kick to the back of his knees from Henriette to put him on the floor again.
“You’re not one of Darcy’s and you aren’t one of us. What divine calling of Luna Mater has you scampering about the rooftops in the midst of a siege, young man?” The high priestess rested her hands on her hips and bent forward to look him in the eye. “By the shine of the heavens! Thomas Crowe! And what dark thing is this?” Her hands cupped his face and she tilted it up, waving her index finger at his demon eye, nearly poking it out as she glanced from it to the deep blue one in the other socket.
Many of the werewolves around Henriette gathered close to take a look. After Thomas fell from the roof, they had dragged him to the clan commune and hid him away in an unused cellar until Henriette could be summoned from the battle in the streets. Thomas let his head clear and then backed away from her.
“Where are my things?” he demanded, checking his pockets and feeling for his missing belt. A few of Henriette’s men approached, and he flashed his teeth at them.
“Stop it, all of you!” Every ear turned to the high priestess and no one moved. “Your belongings are safe, and you may have them again soon. First you will explain your presence here.”
“What business of yours is it?” he roared. Everyone in Paris held him under suspicion, and it was making his blood boil.
“Mind your tone, boy. I only hope you had no part in the Blood Moon raid. Clear your name of any association with Jack Darcy and you can leave now. I won’t ask you a thing further.” Henriette had a way with words. It was not that she was eloquent or leading, but rather fair and soothing, yet stern. Her white staff passed from one hand to the other and Thomas recoiled. “Be still, boy, you’re bleeding buckets.” With one scooping motion of her staff and the utterance of repas gra’das’i the good blood on his forehead flowed backward into the wound and the flow stopped. “Luna Mater will deal with the rest.
”
Tom assumed she meant that the curse would heal the cut. “Yours were the werewolves who came to the French army’s aid.” Tom settled and surveyed the strangers in the room.
“Yes.” She waited for him to answer her question.
“Last I saw, Jack Darcy was napping on Montmartre with a ball in his gut. I hope he’s having sweet dreams.”
“I didn’t take you for a Blood Moon,” Henriette admitted. “None of them would have been making a bolt for the countryside without his pockets jingling and a young lady over one shoulder.” Some of the werewolves snickered, and she shot them a hard look. “Forgive me, my name is Henriette Petit. I and those about the premises are of the Paris Clan commune.”
“I would introduce myself but you took that pleasure from me,” said Tom. “If you must know, my ‘business’ is to get my heels out of the muck here in Paris and be on my way to the east.”
“Come,” she interrupted, “let’s get out of the others’ way. They’re all aching for you and me to finish this business, and their impatience is palpable.” Henriette left her men to their preparations and led Tom along to the next room. They sat at a wobbly tea table, and Tom explained his intentions. “You haven’t said a thing I expected of you.” Henriette squinted in curiosity. “Why do they want your head in England? You’re a man of bad luck, not bad deeds.”
“Bad luck or else, my way of living attracts it. I have only myself to blame. I may have a few things that belong to men of consequence as well.” With that introduction, Thomas told Henriette most of his young life’s story in a matter of half an hour, sparing a few minor details and focusing on his intent to remove the dreigher that now pestered him so.
The Lore Series (Box Set): All 3 Books In One Volume Page 44