I studied her eyes, trying to determine if she was on board. It was hard to say.
“There is one catch, though,” I said. “To do this, a vampire is going to have to die.
“Now, there are currently two staked vampires in this house. There’s you, and there’s Atwood. Atwood is a traitor. She was partly responsible for the death of Selene Eventide. She helped spark this whole mess. Now, there’s some argument that she may not have been strictly compos mentis, but I’m guessing that won’t weigh too heavily on you. And honestly, none of your vampire friends need to know that Atwood was obeying the will of her swain. Not unless you feel like telling them.
“If you want Atwood to face the sun instead of you, though, I’m going to need some guarantees. First, I want your word that no freed swain will suffer any retribution from you or your people. Remember that it is against your laws to take an unwilling swain, and once they’re freed, they will certainly be unwilling to return to your service. I hope you will punish harshly any vampire that tries to take a freed swain back against their will.
“Also, the war with the ogres is over. It’s done. I have the person who murdered Eventide and poisoned One-tusk. A goblin hit man hired by Atwood and Nolan. I’m willing to give him to you to do whatever the hell you want with. Imprisonment, ritual execution, I don’t care. You can claim full credit for his capture. The goblins won’t miss him. He was a pain in their side as well. You can be the one who rooted out treachery in your ranks and took a dangerous killer out of the community. You can be the one who stopped the war. Or whatever. I’ll let you figure that out. You’re the politician, not me.
“Thirdly, when the dust has settled from all this, we’re going to take a close look at swain rights. I know you vampires are kind of old fashioned, but we don’t really go in for slavery anymore. Now, I know you need blood to survive, and there are plenty of folks willing to give it to you. But you need to remember that that’s a two-way street. It’s an exchange. And if I were you, I’d get out in front of this thing. You might not survive the next rebellion.
“And lastly, you still need to honor our original deal. I held up my side of the bargain. I found the truth. I helped stop the war. So I get access to your archives. All of them, for as long as I need.”
I took a deep breath and leaned back. “All right. You got all that? Need me to write it down for you? No? Okay. Let’s see. How are we going to do this? Oh, I know. Blink once to say, ‘Fuck you’ and twice to say, ‘You’ve got a deal.’ Okay? Go.”
She glared at me a long time. Then she blinked once. A long second later, she blinked again.
I stood up. “I knew you could be reasonable. You sit tight and I’ll come and get you when Atwood is ash.”
I was standing around checking the time nervously when Early finally came and told me they were ready.
“Cutting it pretty close,” I said. “We’ve only got half an hour of daylight left.”
The old man led me out to the garden. The swains were already gathered, looking over the ritual circle with wide eyes. It occurred to me that although most of them had seen vampiric sorcery before, they wouldn’t have experienced arcane magic like this.
In the center of the circle lay a large blanket-wrapped bundle. It was so motionless I could almost pretend it was just a rolled-up carpet. Almost.
Nolan knelt next to that bundle, a hand resting on it. The other swains hovered around the edge of the circle while Whitworth made the final preparations. Lilian was the only one not here. She was on guard duty, making sure no one interrupted us.
“Do you want to talk to them?” Early asked. “Or should I?”
“Better be me. It was my idea.” I hesitated, then glanced at Early. “I’m still not sure this is the right thing to do.”
“Neither am I,” Early said. “What does your heart say?”
“It’s awfully quiet on the topic.” I sighed. “Look at them, though. We can’t send them away.”
“No,” Early agreed. “No, we can’t.”
“Justice is a tricky lady, huh? Maybe that’s why she’s blindfolded. Because she’s just stabbing in the dark.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t want to look upon what she has wrought.”
I sighed. “Well, I have to.”
The old man squeezed my shoulder and I stepped forward to address the swains.
“This is your last chance to back out,” I said. “You can return to your masters. No word of your presence here will ever pass my lips.”
None of them moved.
I took a breath. “This is dangerous. You all know that. Even if we can transfer the bonds intact—and that’s a big if—severing those bonds might well kill you. It could shred your soul. It could burn out your mind. At the very least it will hurt. It will hurt a lot.
“I’ll do my best to make sure you face no retribution from your former masters, but I can’t guarantee it. Maybe some of them will come after you. Maybe they’ll try to take you back. Maybe they’ll just kill you. Maybe that’s preferable. I don’t know.
“So this is your last chance to leave. No going back.”
I waited. Still none of them moved. There was resignation in their eyes. It was the same look I’d seen on Elaine’s face back in the sunroom.
She still bore that look now. Someone had brought out a seat for her to sit with all the other swains. She didn’t seem to bear me any ill will for the pistol whipping. Maybe she’d invite me around for milk and cookies when all this was done.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s get started.”
There were several steps to the ritual. First, Whitworth had the swains surround the ritual circles, then he went around and daubed some sort of oil on each of their foreheads. After that, he brought out a large jar. Something thick sloshed about inside. He went around the circle again, getting each of the swains to drink some. By the looks on their faces, it wasn’t pleasant.
When they’d all taken a gulp—he didn’t let any get away with just a sip—he lit a candle that was set in a silver candleholder. The flame wavered in the breeze but refused to go out.
He also produced a small knife. Making his way around the circle for the third time, candle in hand, he approached each swain in turn. One by one he handed them the knife and instructed them to cut their palm. Clenching their hand into a fist, each swain in turn let their blood drip into the candle flame.
The blood didn’t extinguish the flame—in fact it seemed to glow even brighter. As each drop of blood hit the flame, it simply hissed and turned to smoke.
By the time Whitworth had taken blood from each of the swains, the candle flame was burning a deep red. He pocketed the knife and made his way to the center of the circle, where Nolan crouched beside the blanket-wrapped body.
The sky above had grown red to match the candle flame. The sun was about to touch the horizon.
The potion seller handed the candle to Nolan. He muttered something to the swain, but I couldn’t catch it. I got the gist of it anyway.
Every swain here was going to be transferring their bond to Carlotta Atwood. In that moment, when the ritual was complete, they would become her swains.
Assuming, of course, that the ritual didn’t go horribly wrong, tying those bonds into some terrible knot or ripping out the swains’ souls in the process.
In any case, the ritual required input not just from the transferrers, but also the transferee. Atwood, in other words.
Except Atwood wasn’t entirely in control of her own soul. Through the deal he’d made, Nolan now held that leash. So he would be the one to grant the transfer.
He took the candle and the potion maker retreated out of the circle. Nolan stared at the flame for a second, then looked up at me.
“This is just the beginning,” he said. “There are still others that need to be freed.”
“I know.”
“For what it’s worth—”
“It’s not worth anything,” I interrupted.
His mouth formed a
tight line. He nodded his understanding.
Whitworth started grumbling. “Well, hurry it up. Ain’t got all damn day.”
Nolan nodded once more. He took a deep breath.
And he blew out the flame.
Like the beginning of some macabre dance, every swain contorted at once. Screams rose from a dozen throats. Several of them dropped to the ground, convulsing.
Nolan grunted, dropping the candle and planting one hand on the ground. His other palm pressed against his skull, as if trying to push something back in. I thought I glimpsed the blanket-wrapped body of Atwood twitching as well, fighting against the paralysis.
A gust of wind blew into the garden, carrying with it a sickly sweet scent. Powdered silver and grains of salt blew into the air, swirling and then falling onto the writhing bodies of the swains.
Early took a step forward, but Whitworth grabbed him and kept him from interfering.
I didn’t know how long it went on for. It felt like hours, but when I glanced at the horizon, the sun had only sunk a little lower.
And then, all at once, everything went still.
The wind died away as quickly as it had come. The swains stopped their convulsions and lay there panting, wide eyes staring up at the sky. Nolan sat doubled over in the center of the circle, looking like he was trying not to puke.
I looked at the potion maker. “Is it done? Have the bonds been transferred.”
“The ritual is complete,” Whitworth said.
“That’s not quite what I asked.”
“Do I look like I can see metaphysical bonds with my naked eyes?” he snapped. “The ritual is complete. That’s all I can tell you.”
I grunted and looked up at the rapidly setting sun.
“Well,” I said, stepping into the circle. “One way to find out.”
I hesitated for a second, doubting myself. My moral compass was uselessly spinning in circles.
Like blind Lady Justice and her scales, I weighed life against freedom, human against vampire, retribution against mercy.
Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the corner of the blanket and swept it back.
Atwood’s eyes swiveled to meet mine. She stared at me for a split second, paralyzed by the point of my truncheon embedded in her chest. Her face was still fixed in that predatory visage, fangs extended, snout outstretched.
For an instant, though, her eyes seemed nearly human.
A wave of heat rose off her as the light of the setting sun struck her skin. I staggered back, caught off guard by the intensity of the heat.
Red blisters spread across her exposed skin. Her eyes opened wide. Around the circle, the swains all started screaming again. Nolan toppled to the side, fingers tearing at his face.
Atwood burst into flame. It tore through her body in an instant and burnt out just as quickly. It was like staring at a magnesium fire. I cringed away, shutting my eyes tight against the sudden brightness. A purple afterimage of Atwood’s burning body was seared into my retinas.
When I looked back, blinking away the purple halo, Atwood was gone.
A pile of ash in the approximate shape of a person lay atop the singed paving stones. In the center of the ash pile lay my truncheon, somehow undamaged.
As the chorus of screams continued around me, I stepped forward and plucked my truncheon from the pile of ash. Fighting back nausea, I wiped the soot off on my sleeve.
Early rushed to action, bringing his bag of potions and poultices to the nearest swain and crouching at her side. It would be a long night, helping the swains through the agony of their severed bonds. It would be a while before we knew for sure if it had even worked.
Glancing down, I realized Nolan wasn’t moving. His clothing had been singed a little by the intense heat from Atwood, but it didn’t look like he’d suffered any serious burns. Crouching beside him, I rolled him over.
Glassy eyes stared up at the dusky sky.
Nolan’s chest rose and fell with even breaths. I put two fingers to his neck and found a pulse, strong and steady. He was alive.
But when I looked into his staring eyes, there was nothing.
Nothing at all.
39
One-tusk came out of his coma a few days later.
Holdfast had already awakened by that point. The older ogre had received treatment soon after his poisoning, so it didn’t take him long to recover. He was out only a little over 24 hours, though he wouldn’t be dancing a jig anytime soon.
Of course, that might’ve had something to do with his broken ankle.
I wasn’t there when One-tusk woke up—certain members of the ogre community were still a little angry at me. Early was there, though. Had been whenever he could get a spare moment. Between the poisoned ogres and the freed swains, the old man was running himself ragged.
It had been Early who broke the news to One-tusk. He told the ogre that it had been an assassin that had attacked him at Doyle’s Reach that night.
And he told him that his lover was dead.
I was glad I hadn’t been there when Early told him. I didn’t want to know what it was like to watch an ogre weep.
I didn’t know what would happen to One-tusk now. The truth about his relationship with Eventide was out. Everyone knew he’d tried to leave the clan.
Maybe now he’d be exiled. If so, Early would find a place for him. That was what the old man did. He loved collecting strays.
I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, though. One-tusk had lost so much already. Now, more than anything, he’d need family by his side.
Rachel was on the mend. Early had been too busy to tend to her himself, so he’d left her in my hands. I followed his instructions to the letter, using the old man’s potions and tinctures to prune away the bond that still clung to her soul. Neither of us had known for sure if she would survive when Eventide’s body was finally incinerated in the light of the sun.
But she did. The destruction of Eventide’s body brought her right to the brink, sending her screaming into a stupor that lasted two full days. Finally, though, she awakened, escaping the cold hand of oblivion to find herself a free woman.
She was having trouble with memories—sometimes she struggled to recall her own name, and other times she would swear black and blue that she had often hunted in the woods by the light of the moon, leaping between trees with superhuman speed and tearing out the throats of strange creatures with her bare teeth.
She even told me about a dream she’d had, a dream where she had lain on a hilltop beneath the stars, wrapped in the embrace of a man with the biggest smile she’d ever seen, a smile that held a single broken tooth.
One of the swains didn’t survive the ritual at Lockhart’s mansion. He was the oldest, a man with an existing history of mini strokes. Another swain was still prone to hours-long bouts of weeping and vomiting, though Early said it was slowly resolving.
The other ten swains—including Elaine—had recovered from the ritual remarkably well. They were still staying with the ogres under Early’s watchful eye, but some were talking about taking off.
They were free now, after all.
Atwood’s sunlit death had severed their bonds nicely. We’d worried at first that some fragment of the bonds might remain, dragging at their souls like a shackle after the chain has been cut free. But the remnants of the bonds seemed to have withered and fallen away, more like a severed umbilical cord than a chain.
Nolan, though, was gone.
I mean, he was alive. He could still breathe. His heart still beat. You could spoon food into his mouth and he’d eat it. If you held his hand you could lead him around a room. He would shy away from lights that were too bright or a heater that was too hot.
But that was it. He was a body without thought or personality. Without a soul.
It occurred to me, one dark night, that he would now make the perfect swain. He would never rebel. He would never feel a longing for freedom. A vampire could feed on him and it would be like taking a sip from a juice box. Hel
l, maybe he’d still get the pleasurable rush from being fed on, and maybe that would be the best thing in whatever was left of his life.
But I never spoke aloud that possibility, and no one else ventured it. Even considering some of the stuff he’d done in pursuit of his revolution, I couldn’t face returning him to some vampire’s clutches, to be fed on until he died.
No, we’d find a better place for him. Somewhere he could be looked after. Maybe he’d even start to recover one day. Stranger things had happened.
In fact, Early and I weren’t entirely sure what had happened to him in the first place. For a while our theory had been that the bonds had somehow become knotted around his soul. The reversal of his bond with Atwood was unique, after all, and it had left Atwood as both mistress and slave. When combined with the dozen other bonds that had been transferred to Atwood during the ritual, it was possible that everything had become tangled up, so that when Atwood died his soul was ripped away with her.
On a hunch, though, I ran a few tests on Nolan. Simple stuff, nothing invasive. And I found…something.
I still wasn’t sure what it was. A residue, almost, something metaphysical rather than physical. It wasn’t vampiric sorcery, though, nor the kind of arcane magic the potion maker had used for his ritual. This was something else.
Something left behind, maybe, when some dealer had reversed his bond with Atwood. Like a scar from a surgery. Except there seemed to be more substance to it than that. More order. Like it had been planted there. A slipknot around his soul, waiting to yank it loose as soon as something tugged too hard.
A kill switch.
I would have to ask the Dealer if he knew anything about it when he showed up in six months to collect what I owed him—my memories of Michael. It was a reunion I was not looking forward to.
That was what I was thinking about when I knocked on the front doors of one of the oldest churches in Lost Falls at two in the morning.
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