by A. J. Aalto
Batten continued, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. “I carry the Queen’s nectar in my veins; it’ll be more potent, right? It has to be me.” His stunned expression said he couldn’t believe he was even considering voluntarily opening a vein to save the creature who had thwarted their vampire hunting and stolen his grandfather. He looked at me with disgust and frustration, then shook his head.
“Okay, I feed him. Then what? Where do we take him? Someone threw his ass in here for a reason. If we set him free — ”
“He’ll be safe at North House.”
“If Harry tells Mr. Merritt to invite him in,” Batten pointed out, scowling. “Big if, there.”
Harry would, though, once he knew what I knew. Aston was a victim. Had he ever had a hand in any of the smuggling operations in Niagara? Maybe. Had he been the one to trap the Lord of Exile, so that he could usurp the status of Crowned Prince of the Blood? Probably. And now, someone else had done the same to him. His ironic comeuppance would have been sort of funny, except for all the death and suffering.
Before we could solve anything, we needed to find the Exile and get his phantasm out of the neighborhood to free the human victims. Aston could help us with that, assuming we could free him and bring him somewhere close to coherency.
“Are you sure this is necessary?” Batten asked quietly, and my doubts flared anew until he rolled up the sleeve of his jacket, exposing his left wrist. He didn’t wait for me to answer. The House Bond told him how I Felt about it.
It was rare that one revenant fed on another, but not unheard of. It was just... complicated. Not the mechanics, the aftermath. I wasn’t entirely sure that Batten feeding Aston a second time, this time as a revenant and in the spirit of saving his immortal life, wouldn’t form a fledgling, metaphysical bond between them. Leaving Aston here to rot was bad. Releasing him without feeding him first was worse.
“Hold on,” I demanded, stepping between them. I could hear the lich writhe behind me, struggling to reach someone, anyone, in his desperation. “Show me your ankles, waist, wrists, whatever holsters you're packing.”
“I’m unarmed.”
“Riiiiight,” I said, wiggling my fingers at him. “Not a stake, not a gun? Nothing?”
“Un. Armed,” he insisted.
“Then you won’t mind me patting you down before you approach the dude who gave you the world's gnarliest hickey.” I put my hand on his chest to stop him. “I still have the phantasm case to wrap up. It’s not all about you.”
Kill-Notch flinched, lifted the hem of his jacket, and turned so I could see that there wasn’t a stake sheath on his belt. He then stood there while I patted down legs and arms and torso with swift, sure, and – astonishing for both of us – chaste hands. I don’t know why I was surprised; he was, after all, a walking, talking weapon now, so I supposed stakes were superfluous unless dusting another revenant was called for. Is it? Does he still think so, and is he able to hide that, even through the House Bond, my traitorous, suspicious mind suggested.
“So,” I told him conversationally as he moved around me and approached Aston, “we’re back in a tunnel again. Why do we always seem to end up in tunnels together? Kinda Freudian, isn’t it?”
“Are you talking about your doom chasm?”
“Yes,” I said seriously. “I’m hoping my mentioning pussy might distract you from the fact that we’re probably-maybe definitely-for-sure going to die this time.”
“Wow.” He shook his head, staring up at Aston’s sunken, hideous near-cadaver. “Distract harder.”
“Okay.” I looked up at him adoringly, thinking only the dorkiest, cutest cheerleader thoughts in case he caught them flitting through my brain. “No matter what we run into, no matter what we discover, no matter what explodes from the mud or the rock or the vault, you’ve got this. You can do anything. You’re amazing. At everything. You’re the best, Mark Batten.”
He was still considering the folly of lifting his wrist closer to Aston when he did a double-take at me. “Wait, what vault?”
“The one at the end of this fucking tunnel,” I said, exasperated. “The vault I was hoping I could miraculously avoid because you’d quickly devise some magic Plan E for Escape that meant we didn’t have to, what with you being the best and all.”
“The best,” he repeated as if trying to convince himself. “Right.”
“But now I see the folly of bringing it up,” I said, “because after we fix Aston’s little red wagon, you’re going to make us go in there.”
“Obviously.”
I aimed my flashlight at him as he lifted his wrist to Aston Sarokhanian’s mouth, and he snapped, “I’d rather do this in the dark, thanks.”
“I mean, sure,” I said, shifting the light out into the hall. “You can see in the dark anyway, I don’t get the big… oh, you don‘t want me to watch. Privacy. Gotcha.”
Batten opened his mouth to retort and was cut off by a loud, sonorous clang, followed by a splortch and the wet clumping of multiple feet and frantic scraping. It sounded like something big, moving fast, chasing something that very much did not want to be caught. I glanced down at Gunther and saw him quivering and alert, his hackles raised.
“You should maybe hurry,” I suggested, just before Aston sunk his fangs into Batten’s wrist.
Thirty-Five
Kill-Notch grunted and squared his shoulders, forcing himself to take it. For the first two seconds, this wasn’t too hard. Then the lich flared greedily, and Batten’s sounds of effort became a broken howl of agony.
A starving revenant is not a tidy eater, and the sound of Batten’s flesh tearing and Aston’s noisy slurping was far more repulsive in the dark than I’d mentally prepared myself for. I tried not to grimace much, but my shoulders crept up around my ears protectively. Through the House Bond, I Felt him struggle with pain and disgust, and I understood the warring emotions sluicing through him — this was an enemy, one he wanted dead, and we were rescuing him from starvation and madness.
I began to question, not for the first time, our life choices. Feeling around the floor, I picked up the bolt cutters, and I waited with my back politely turned. I tried to ignore Batten's hissing around newly elongated fangs, followed by several long puffs that sounded like entirely pointless Lamaze breathing. When he stopped panting, stumbled back and said my name, I turned and approached the withered thing chained up on the wall.
Aston’s pale eyelids were closed and his mouth a mess of smeared, inky, light blue gore. But when that mouth opened, a sound came out of it, a long, pleased gurgle, and then his eyes found me, filled with relief, confusion, and a terrified type of gratitude, like he was afraid I had saved him just to stake him.
I had a lot of things I could unload on him, but none of it felt right. Instead, I fell back on etiquette. “Death Rejoices, glorious elder,” I said, showing him the bolt cutters. “Marnie Baranuik of House Dreppenstedt. Nice to see ya. You remember Mark Batten? Boy, when you imagined being rescued, bet you didn’t think it would be us, eh?”
If he’d known Batten had faked his death, it didn’t show. Aston’s eyelids slid shut again and he hung his head; I wondered if he was trying very hard to block out my existence, as if he could deny what was happening and with whom. Apparently accepting his fate, he opened his eyes to face me again.
I nodded. “I know, this isn’t cool. I’d rather be at home watching reruns and drinking butterscotch schnapps in my tea. The good news is, I’m not here to stake you. And I won’t let the vampire hunter stake you either, as long as you behave yourself and be a good little dead man. Just one question, and I’ll release you.”
“Question,” Aston rasped.
“Well, yeah,” I said, the duh heavily implied. “We didn’t just help you out of the goodness of our hearts. People don’t have that.” I looked to Batten to confirm my judgment against the general kindness of humanity; though he’d pulled on his cop face, revealing little, I thought Kill-Notch agreed with me.
&nb
sp; Aston asked, “Sayomi — ”
“Will be fine,” I assured him, knowing he could taste the truth in my words. “We’ve fed her, set her outside, and called an ambulance. Help is coming.”
Aston’s head rolled to the side against the wall and he let out a shaky sob of relief. Gunther whimpered and wriggled his foxy butt, twining his tail around the revenant’s scrawny ankles. I hadn’t expected to be comforting my weeping enemy, but here we were.
“Hey, we’ve got her,” I assured him softly, and the muscles in his face twitched as if in pain. “And we’ve got you, too. I mean, I should clobber both of you for your past sass. Sayomi shot at me, and Gunther peed on my Keds.”
Kicking someone when they were down had never been my style before, and it felt wrong now. Still… “You could have told us the truth years ago, Aston, but you had an agenda. Don’t act like that didn’t happen. We’re not friends. Your punishment is coming, but I won’t be the one meting out justice. I also won’t be riding to your rescue a second time. But here I am, right now, making sure you’re released and fed. I must be out of my mind. No doubt, Harry will call me crazy in six or seven languages.”
Aston let out a gurgle. As his power surged back to life, raging with the strength offered by the nectar of the queen’s own Younger, I could see the color return to his flesh, and the fire to his eyes. I softened my voice even further, cautious of his preternaturally acute senses and how recuperating from lich form often violated their nerves.
“Sir…” I felt a low bubble of ripening frustration and stamped it down — it wasn’t Aston’s fault that I was being sidelined over and over lately, and I wouldn’t take it out on him just because he was handy, even though no one in the world would blame me for it. “I’m here to facilitate a peaceful resolution. I’m suggesting that we settle this mess together.” I chuckled, shooting a thumb behind me at Batten. “Not about to try and save the day alone. Got this undead bozo for back-up, though between you and me, he thinks I’m here to back him up.”
“You should not speak slightingly of the First Blood of the Queen, DaySitter,” Aston advised weakly.
“First Blood of the — are you shitting me? You’re giving this Jerkface a title? Oh, fuck that, fuck you, and fuck him,” I said with an explosive sigh. “This jackass ditched me and died intentionally for the sole purpose of living long enough to get answers out of you. What kind of a jackass passes on all this,” I used broad hand motions to indicate the whole me-ness of me, “to stalk you?”
Batten backed away, exhausted from supplying the feed and still not entirely trusting. He’d wanted answers for so long that he was struggling in the face of actually getting them. Maybe it had happened too fast — he'd given up his mortality for a long-haul chase. But the fact was, the only one who knew what happened to Colonel Jack during that fateful invasion was at our mercy, and he was ready to talk. And he owed us, big-time.
“Prince Sarokhanian,” I said, reluctantly giving him one last taste of his stolen title, “we know two things. We know that you’re not old enough to cast a phantasm. If you were, you wouldn't be this weak.”
As if to demonstrate my point, Aston whimpered and swung his gaze back at Batten’s opened vein. Kill-Notch tugged his chain-mail glove gingerly back into place.
“And we know you’re not the eldest Sarokhanian. You’re not the Crowned Prince of the Blood. I don’t need Maury Povich down here to announce that you’re not the father, do I? House Sarokhanian is led by an ancient immortal. He’s not dead, or you’d all be dust. He’s down here, isn’t he? Feeding in phantasm form. He’s trapped in a vault, and you’re the one who trapped him.”
Aston’s eyes slunk sideways at the hall, eastward.
Well, now we know where the vault is. Thank you for having a truly shitty poker face, I thought.
“You’re not the Soul Caller, are you? You can’t leech souls from one body to another, but you pretend you can to keep everyone in line. To keep the hunters away. Because before Jack Batten attacked your lair, there were others, weren’t there? So many other hunters looking to make their name by getting rid of you. You must have been a spectacular asshole.”
His head fell, but he remained silent.
“What happened to Colonel Batten, Aston?”
By now, I thought I knew the answer. Deep down, Batten knew the answer, too, though I knew he’d have to hear it from the horse’s mouth to be certain.
“I knew you weren’t dead,” Aston told Kill-Notch, and his eyes flashed with power. “I Saw that much. I Saw you, Marnie, holding my DaySitter, limp in your arms, pale and emaciated. And you, Mark, with your face pale and your eyes shimmering, I knew in that vision that they would turn you. I knew, the first time I tasted you, young and thrashing beneath my lips. I knew before I saw you again, grown to an angry man, before the UnHallowed Throne. I always knew you’d be one of my kind.”
So there it was. Batten hadn’t fooled anyone. We stayed silent, hoping Aston wasn’t done talking.
Aston straightened, indignant. “I inherited my maker’s precognition. I inherited his taste for fine things. Alas, when the Master decided that House Sarokhanian would abide by the rules and laws of man, when the law came to Shipman’s Corners and Prohibition threatened him, it turned him into a coward.” Contempt radiated off him, even without the Blue Sense. "I could no longer support him. Our House needed a strong leader, someone who would find ways around mortals’ petty laws and squeamish ways. Our Youngers deserved steady, powerful continuation in the face of so much change. And so, my maker became the Lord of Exile.”
“You’re saying you did this all for the glory of your house,” I said wryly. “Usurp power as an unselfish act?”
“Power needs to be used, not squandered in acquiescence to mortals and their laws. We used to be masters of our own space, not craven cowards, hoping to feed on scraps. Food does not make rules for me. I brought us back to respectability.”
“That looks like it's going really fucking well right now. If I hadn't come along, Sayomi would die, and you'd die with her, and take all your Youngers with you. That's a hell of a way to make your house great again.”
“I won’t pretend otherwise, DaySitter,” Aston said, deflating. “I have enjoyed the perks of my status and the luxuries offered by so much wealth. So much so that I ignored too many warning visions of the future. I trusted the wrong words, and heard only what I wanted to. And here we are, where I knew we would end up.”
I waggled the bolt cutters at him. “Where is Colonel Batten?”
“Do you know how close he came to killing me?” Aston said, gaining strength as Batten’s blood pumped through his newly fed veins. “To killing every immortal I had offered eternal life? He left me no choice in that moment.”
Batten’s voice thickened with emotion. “You’re not capable of taking souls, are you? You’ve never had the power to keep souls on Earth.”
Aston raised his head and looked at Batten for a long, long moment, neither of them blinking, breathing, or moving.
“No.”
The word didn't echo in the small, dank chamber, but hung in our ears with utter finality. Batten’s disappointment tore through the Dreppenstedt Bond and spilled into my heart, and I didn’t dare look at him in that moment. I did my part, instead. I closed my eyes and touched Aston Sarokhanian’s cheek with my bare palm.
I expected him to flinch or lunge and latch onto my wrist with his fangs, but he did neither. He went still and let me Grope him, wasting no energy resisting by putting up psychic walls; he showed me openly the truth of that night. The sights and sounds of the invasion, the shouting, the screams of men cut short by tearing fangs, the copper stink of spilled blood. The death of the elder vampire hunter. The moment Aston had tasted young Batten’s blood. I Felt Batten’s mood spiraling downward, misery and futility and wasted time. Colonel Jack Batten had been dead, truly dead and gone, all along. His soul was never called, had never been kept, could not be salvaged or released.
&nbs
p; “In a petty moment,” Aston admitted, “I had his body cremated, and I kept the ashes for many years as my trophy, as I had done to others. I had a display case full of such urns. And why shouldn’t I? A murderer had violated my sanctuary without provocation, and I had won. It happened many times. I defended my home, and my bloodkin. You may see me as a monster, both of you, but to me, the hunter was the monster.”
Batten wasn't going to accept that viewpoint anytime soon, but I hoped he could hold his tongue long enough for us to finish. I could practically hear Kill-Notch clenching and unclenching his jaw. Maybe he wanted to tear out Aston's throat and drink the nectar he'd just supplied from his own vein. I didn't want to think too far down that path, in case the idea hadn't already occurred to him.
I used the bolt cutters to snip the silver chains holding Aston’s ankles, then moved to release his wrists. The flesh beneath his chains had been scarred badly by the contact, and the wounds were angry, wet, and shredded. When he was free, he swayed unsteadily on his feet, and I offered him my shoulder, stumbling as I braced his weight.
He propped against me, casting me an uncertain look. “What happens now?” Aston asked, though he turned his attention to the angry hunter standing between us and the world, taking up the doorway.
Before I could suggest a next move, Gunther let out a shrill alarm call. In the small room, it amplified painfully. I dropped the bolt cutters, readied my flashlight, and took out Malashock’s gun, aiming at the door. Scrambling noises filled the hall, jacking up my pulse. The revenant leaning heavily on my shoulder moaned in response, smelling my hot blood pumping wildly. Both he and Batten were at full-fang and ready to rip into throats.
When the first boggle showed up behind Batten, it was snarling.
Thirty-Six
Gunther sprang forward, yipping furiously, and rushed the boggle until it backed off. Having bullied off the first, he retreated to my side, ready for more. When the next came, it did so from above, scuttling across the ceiling, showering us with torn cobwebs and grit. It chittered and showed green, needle-thin teeth; I pictured those teeth shredding through flesh and bone, and cringed. The boggle’s red, gem-coated flesh trembled with excitement, causing a ripple of clicks. It scrambled forward.