Chapter Twenty-Four

Nirena’s pale violet eyes flew open and a look of startled curiosity swam to the surface.

“What passes?” she asked, taking in Vasco and Renata standing at the side of her bed.

“You offered your aid, Nirena,” Renata said.

“We’re holding you to that offer,” I said, sitting back on my heels where I knelt beside her.

She sat up slowly.

“What would you have of me?”

Renata turned to me and said, “Go with Iliaria and wake Vittoria and Vito. I will be there in a moment.”

I nodded.

“Dante,” she said, “take Epiphany to their quarters.”

“Yes, my lady.”

I followed him to a door next to Vasco’s room. Dante used a different key on the ring at his waist to open the door and let me in. Iliaria was close behind as I approached the large canopy. Drawing aside the white gauzy material, I crawled into the bed, setting the tip of my finger against the sword. Iliaria opened Vittoria’s mouth for me.

When the blood dripped past her lips, she woke, catching my wrist and wrenching my arm painfully behind my back.

Iliaria was a blur of onyx hair. She grabbed a handful of Vittoria’s dark locks and jerked her head back at an awkward angle, as if she would snap her neck.

In a blink, Vittoria had gone for my throat. If Iliaria had not been there to stop her she probably would’ve ripped it out. I would have healed, but that didn’t take away the pain factor or having to feed again to regain the blood I’d have lost.

The blackness of Vittoria’s pupils fluctuated. I should have taken better care waking her, for she and her brother were both trained in the art of battle.

“Epiphany?” she asked in a voice that was at once fierce and uncertain. “What are you doing?” I didn’t have to sense her accusation and distrust. It was a tangible thing.

“I told her to wake you,” Renata said, entering the room.

“We’re being recruited,” Nirena said. “Get up. Don your armor. I’ll explain while they wake your brother.”

Vittoria nodded toward a corner of the room that was veiled off by a sea of black hanging material.

“Vito is in his coffin.”

I hadn’t understood until then that the two shared a room. And from what I knew, there were very few vampires within the Rosso Lussuria that slept in coffins. She drew back the veils of netted material and approached the coffin that was on a slightly raised dais. She hefted the oblong wooden lid. His hands were clasped loosely over his stomach.

“I’ll need to be here when you wake him.”

“That is fine,” I said. “You can hold his mouth open.”

She went to the head of the coffin, out of my way but close enough to participate and interfere if need be. She opened Vito’s mouth with delicate tapered fingers.

I raised the sword and reopened the wound on my stained finger.

Vito tried to bolt upright and Vittoria placed her hands on his shoulders keeping him from reaching me, even though I’d thought to step back as soon as the blood fell.

“My brother,” she said. “My brother, do you hear me?”

The bloodlust and panic receded as recognition began to fill him. He looked at me and there was a flicker of fear, a fear that I had betrayed him. Vito’s attention slid from me to that of the Queen and the fear ebbed back into the ocean from whence it had sprung.

“I do not understand,” he said. “The sun is high. Why?”

“The Queen calls us, my brother,” Vittoria said.

He turned the question to Renata.

“Why, my Queen?”

“You said I had your aid, Vito…unless you wish to revoke your word?”

“I do not,” Vito said, looking a little more stubborn.

When Vittoria said nothing, Nirena stepped forward and started to explain in a quiet voice what was going on.

I went to Iliaria and said, “Thank you.”

She gracefully inclined her head.

“Do you remember where you were summoned?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Will you take us there?”

“Returning to the same place in which I was summoned may not be the safest option, Epiphany, and the vampire that summoned me will more than likely have changed location to avoid being found.”

It made sense.

“Then how will we know when another Dracule has been summoned?”

“I will know,” she said.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

I will also know, Cuinn said in a soft tone.

I shook my head. “But there is no guarantee the vampire who summoned you will try again.”

“He will,” Iliaria said. “He’ll keep trying until he succeeds.”

And so, we waited.

Vasco sat next to me. “Patience, sorella.”

The only response I gave was a slight nod.

Renata pulled a chair from a dressing table into the center of the room and sat.

I felt someone’s eyes on me and turned to find Vittoria staring.

“So it is true?” she asked. “The Queen and the Dracule are your lovers?”

I met Iliaria’s placid look. “That is for the Queen to say.”

“She is my Inamorata, Vittoria.”

“Will you claim as such before the entire clan?” she asked, sounding more curious than rude.

“I will make a declaration when the time comes.” From Renata, that was answer enough.

“What of you, Dracule?” Nirena asked. “Do you claim love of this one?”

Iliaria fixed Nirena with her unwavering stare.

“She is my dragă.”

“I see,” Nirena said.

“Dragă?” I asked.

Iliaria’s lips parted as if she was about to say something, but she closed her mouth and shook her head, sending the long onyx tresses dancing in a serpentine manner about her body. “I do not know how to explain it in a way that you will fathom.”

“Dragă is the Dracule’s way of saying that you are someone she cares about,” Nirena said.

Vasco nodded his agreement beside me. “It is what they call those they mark but are not in love with.”

Vittoria looked like she was going to add to the conversation when Iliaria distracted us all by turning her face toward the door. Her nostrils flared slightly.

Cuinn’s voice rang like a clear whistle inside my skull. Time to go!

“It is here,” Iliaria said.

“Can you track it?” Vasco asked.

Iliaria’s only response was a predatory smile. She settled the leathery wings around her body like a cloak and went for the door. As if someone had clapped their hands, all of us that were not standing spilled to our feet.

*

“Anatharic,” Iliaria said. “Halt!”

The Dracule turned at the sound of Iliaria’s voice, its long bat-like ears swiveled in our direction where we stood in the great hall just outside the throne room. I kept the fox blade’s point down, holding it against the line of my thigh.

Like Iliaria’s, the Great Sire’s eyes were dark and bottomless in its Draculian form. The coal black of its fur was sprinkled with dustings of smoke and ash.

“Iliaria?”

“Before you commit yourself to a wrongly impulsive decision, let me speak with you. Where is the vampire who summoned you?”

He did not answer.

Iliaria moved toward him. The tip of her spaded tail twitched in irritation.

“Anatharic, you know me. Tell me where he is.”

“Why ssshould I?” He looked at me, for I stood closest to Iliaria. Vasco and Nirena stood next to me. Vittoria and Vito stood on either side of Renata, while Dante and Dominique had taken up the rear of our little execution party. “They would kill usss if they could.”

“Lies,” Iliaria hissed. “Epiphany, show him.”

“Ssshow me what?” Anatharic’s ears flattened in a smooth flap to his skull.

I raised the sleeve of my tunic, baring her sigil.

“Does it look like we’re here to kill you?” she asked.

I think he frowned, but it was not exactly easy to read the Dracule’s expressions in such an animalistic face. “No. I do not underssstand.”

“Your summoner,” she said, “he asked you to kill for him, did he not?”

“Yesss.”

“He told you the vampires hate you. That they would eventually grow in numbers and power and overthrow our kind. How ungrateful they are for the gift of immortality that descends from us?”

“Yesss,” he said.

“He is playing you, Anatharic. The Rosso Lussuria and their Queen stand before you and none lift hand or weapon. I ask again, where is your summoner?”

“Why would the vampire play me?”

“The vampire who summoned you plays you in a gambit for my throne.” Renata, once again, respectfully lowered her gaze instead of looking him in the eye.

Anatharic moved forward and tension rippled between Iliaria’s winged shoulders.

I knew without a doubt that if she had to fight him, she would. She would not hesitate. I moved forward, reaching out and touching the wing folded around her body. I laid my hand flat against that wing. I did not tell him of the alliance between us. I showed with my actions that I stood with her.

“You are either with us or against us, Great Sire. I would hope that you stand with us, for it is true, you are being used as a pawn in a gambit for my Queen’s throne.”

He knew we were not lying. I could taste it. He knew and that knowledge made him angry. He did not like to think of himself as a pawn.

He turned toward the two great doors that led to the throne room.

“There.”

He stated his alliance. He chose a side for which to play. As a group, we stepped through the door he indicated.

A hooded figure knelt in the middle of the throne room in a cloak of white velvet that pooled around him like a circle of snow. The figure kept his head down so that I could not see his face, but as soon as we entered the throne room I knew he had been waiting for us. It was too dramatic and posed a position to be otherwise.

A familiar unstrung laugh trickled throughout the room, and the hair at the back of my neck prickled.

The figure raised his head, dramatically tossing back the hood of the cloak with a pale hand.

No male, was she. Her crimson hair spilled like bloody strokes against the white cloak. A measure of triumph lit her bright green eyes.

“Lucrezia,” Renata said. A wave of anger surged from her like an ocean wave crashing violently against a rocky shore.

She stepped forward and a flash of silver spiraled in the torchlight.

“No!” The word burst from my lips.

I heard the sound of metal hitting flesh and bone.

The two Dracule moved like shadows around me.

Iliaria’s wings clapped open like a slap of thunder. The sound reverberated off the stone walls. Another heavy clap echoed hers and I knew that Anatharic had also taken a defensive stance.

Iliaria pulled me in against her body, using her wings as a shield.

A blow sent the front of her body slamming against the back of mine, knocking us forward. I had a moment to fear for her safety when something metallic clattered on the stone floor.

“Renata,” I whispered, struggling to free myself of Iliara’s grip.

Iliaria moved enough that I was able to see Anatharic using his massive form to shield Vasco’s body as much as she shielded mine. Vasco struggled with Anatharic, trying to get away, trying to get to Renata as I was.

As if in a nightmare, the sounds of fighting poured over my ears, steel against steel, fist against fist, the meaty sound of a punch, the sound of a blade cutting and singing through the air, the spattering of blood like rain, the sound of daggers whirring like tiny fans.

Vasco turned in Anatharic’s grip, breaking the Dracule’s hold. He was suddenly on his feet and moving toward the sounds of fighting.

I wrapped my fingers tightly around the pommel of the fox blade.

“Iliaria,” I whispered, “let me go.”

“Not yet.”

There were footsteps behind her. I opened my mouth to warn her when her arms tightened around me. Iliaria’s body tensed and jerked, something thick hit flesh. A man screamed like a wounded animal. A wet sucking sound came from behind before her tail swung forward, hitting the stone floor like a discarded whip. Crimson drops fell from the barbed point of her tail.

“Idiot,” she mumbled. I felt her smile against my hair and fought to stifle the shudder that wriggled down my spine. If I had ever feared any of the Elders, I had feared them not knowing the Great Sires.

“Iliaria,” I tried again. “Let me stand, please.”

Someone was hurt. The dagger had hit someone.

I prayed to the Divine it wasn’t Renata.

“Stop!” Lucrezia’s voice carried over the fighting, above the ringing din of steel. “Fools stop! The Queen is dead!”

Gradually, the sounds of fighting began to fade, replaced by a great silence.

I wasn’t sure I’d heard Lucrezia’s words correctly. Renata couldn’t be dead…

Iliaria moved so that I could see.

Renata’s moonlit form lay pale and motionless on the stone floor, bright pool of crimson blossoming out around her body.

The rage burned like something scalding in my veins. I could taste metal and copper on my tongue. I had never known madness, nor thought that I would ever taste it, but in that moment when I caught sight of Lucrezia standing near the dais, standing straight and tall as if she were a Queen amidst the chaos, I knew something akin to it.

I screamed, lunging without thinking.

Iliaria caught me by the shoulders and jerked me back into the safety of her arms. I screamed again, angry and wild, throwing my elbows back into her body in struggle to get free.

Hearing my rage howling her name, Lucrezia turned to face me with a smile.

She moved, stepping close to Renata’s still form.

“Well,” she said, smiling, “not much of a Queen, after all. I told you to be wary, Epiphany.” She pouted. “Now do you see what you have done?”

I drew my lips back and hissed.

I’d kill her. If Iliaria let me go, I was going to claw the skin of her face off with my bare hands.

A blur of silver moved too fast for me to follow.

“I’ve been dead a lot longer than you, Lucrezia.”

Lucrezia went to her knees, eyes wide with pain. Her hands clutched at the dagger Renata had buried hilt-deep in her ribcage. Blood stained her white cloak, pouring down the front of her body.

I saw it, saw Lucrezia try to catch Renata’s mouth with hers and knew she sought to use her power. Before I could warn Renata, Renata caught her throat, holding her back with sheer strength. I’d seen Renata move like some liquid phantom in the night, but I’d never seen her pit her strength against another. The hand holding the dagger disappeared into the cavity of Lucrezia’s chest.

Lucrezia had sought Renata’s mouth, but Renata sought her heart. A bit poetic, that.

Lucrezia glared at Renata. I did not understand why, aside from trying to kiss Renata, she did not fight back. As soon as I thought it, I felt it, the crashing wave of Renata’s power.

Lucrezia was fighting back, but it was a useless battle. I felt Renata’s power and trembled, the intensity of it paralyzing, but she did not direct her power at me. All of that power was focused on the traitor in front of her.

She may not have been Lucrezia’s Siren, but Lucrezia was bound to her and the Rosso Lussuria. Renata was her Queen in more than name.

Lucrezia’s eyes blazed like uranium glass. I did not have to see Renata’s to know that hers were alight with the radiance of a darkened sky and moonlit waters.

Renata gave one last push, her arm nearly elbow-deep in Lucrezia’s chest, and yanked.

Lucrezia fell to her knees and before she could scream, Renata caught her head in her hands.

I turned, burying my face against Iliaria’s body, unable to watch.

“Baldavino,” Renata said darkly. “So glad you could join us. Is this a friend of yours?”

Something heavy hit the floor and rolled.

A man’s ragged scream tore through the throne room.

And then all hell broke loose.

I caught a glimpse of Vito and Vittoria moving back to back.

Epiphany! Cuinn yelled. The fox blade burst into white light and I was suddenly on my feet, moving in front of Renata with the sword held in a two-handed grip.

Baldavino’s golden hair like a lion’s mane was spattered with blood.

“Baldavino,” I said, warning.

“Epiphany,” he practically growled. “Get out of my way.”

“No.”

“Then you will die for her. You think you are the only one capable of wielding a death blade?”

In my mind, I saw Cuinn give a vicious little snap.

The short sword in Baldavino’s hands began to glow, burning soft gold.

“I will tell you one more time, Underling. Get out of my way.”

“No.”

“So be it!”

Cuinn gave a little bark of laughter. Nothing but an overgrown chicken —

His words were interrupted as Baldavino chose to take a two-handed swing at my head. The fox and eagle blade met in a clash of white and golden sparks. The impact sang up my arms and to my shoulders.

Baldavino gritted his teeth, glaring at me over our crossed swords. Before he could shove me away, I set my feet and pushed first. Distantly, in some part of myself, I was aware of the orange glow standing beside me, as if I could see Cuinn’s fox form in my peripheral vision.

The piercing cry of an eagle sliced through the room. Golden light hit orange and our fight broke out in earnest.

As Gaspare had done, Baldavino took the offensive. He put me on the defensive, making me parry, sidestep, and use the sword to sweep his blows away from my midsection. I used Vasco’s memory of footwork along with Cuinn’s powers to guide my hands. The two skills together made us fairly well-matched. But I was not like Baldavino or Gaspare, who anxiously sought an opening, who rashly went on the offensive and tried to beat his opponent down with the might of his weapon and ego.

A deep calm settled over my mind and body.

Your greatest weapon is your mind, Renata’s honeyed voice whispered, calm and steady, like an anchor securing my body against thrashing waves. She was my Siren and my lover. I drew on the calm she offered. I let my own abilities absorb her quiet reserve, her steady and unflinching calculations.

Baldavino went for my leg. I leapt as the sword sang inches in front of me, barely missing.

He gave a growl of frustration and his pupils shrank to tiny points, swallowed by the color of dark evergreen.

His power was like something scratchy and rough against my skin as he focused it on me.

Which is why he never saw Vasco coming. Baldavino raised his sword and was about to rush me when his mouth opened but no sound came out. Baldavino gaped like a fish.

The point of Vasco’s blade protruded from his tunic, skewering him.

Vasco grabbed him by the neck and leaned in close enough to whisper, “I haven’t killed you yet, Baldavino, but if you don’t drop your blade, I will.”

The sword slipped from Baldavino’s hand and clattered to the ground.

I moved forward, kicking the eagle blade, sending it spinning away from us.

Renata approached, flanked by Iliaria and Anatharic. Anatharic was taller than Renata, but Iliaria, in her more human form was near the same height, perhaps an inch shorter. Renata met my gaze and reached out to touch my hair. I resisted the urge to throw myself at her, to wrap my arms around her and cling to her as if she were the last solid thing in the world. Instead, I focused on Baldavino.

“Baldavino,” she said, giving him a look that was as cold as an arctic winter. “You?”

He gave a sly smile that I certainly would’ve never given were the situation reversed. “Yes,” he said. “Are you surprised, Renata?”

She did not answer his question. “Why?”

He coughed, sending blood and spittle down his chin. “You had something I wanted.”

“What would that be, Baldavino, the throne?”

“What else would it be?”

“And what about Lucrezia?” she asked. “How did you sway her from her oath to me?”

“With not much difficulty,” he said. “I promised her a crown and vampires to rule. I promised her power.” For some reason, he looked at me briefly before turning back to the Queen. “I would not have given it to her. It would have been mine in the end.”

“If you could have,” I said. “I am certain Lucrezia was thinking to do the same to you, Baldavino. She would not have hesitated to kill you, given the chance.”

He smiled and there was rage in it. “I know.”

“And yet,” I said, “you loved her. You loved her enough to try and avenge her death.”

He turned away from me then. Renata laughed and said, “Iliaria, ask your questions.”

Iliaria slipped between Renata and me to kneel in front of Baldavino. He tried to move back and Vasco twisted the blade, forcing a cry of pain from his lips.

“Who is the Dracule you are working with?”

When Baldavino did not answer, Vittoria and Vito stepped up. They were both carrying long swords anointed with blood. Vittoria grabbed one of Baldavino’s arms and Vito grabbed the other. They pushed the sleeves of his tunic up, exposing his wrists.

Iliaria grabbed two handfuls of his shirt and ripped the tunic open wide, exposing his pale and muscled chest. Blood was smeared across his skin.

There, on the clean skin of his pectoral muscle, was a mark of flowing black lines.

“Damokles,” she said.

Anatharic took a step forward, casting his glance at the sigil. I thought he was going to say something, when a serpentine hiss rode the currents of air, echoing throughout the throne room.

“Traitoresss ssspawn.”

Iliaria whipped around, searching for the body that went with the voice. I followed the line of her sight to the double doors that spilled into the greater hallway. Beneath the archway stood a tall figure, cloaked in a pair of leathery wings.

Iliaria’s spaded tail thumped against the floor behind me, an inhuman growl rumbling in her chest. When she spoke, her words were clear and carrying despite the growl. “I should have guessed it was you, murderer of your own sister.”

The figure’s ears swiveled, tail twitching. The tension in the air was thick enough it felt as if I could reach out and touch it. I sensed more than saw Anatharic lower himself to his clawed-hands and move up beside me like some great guardian beast from the depths of Hades.

“Ssshe wasss a traitor like you and traitorsss mussst die.”

Anatharic’s long ears flattened smoothly against his skull, a rumbling growl pouring from his Draculian lips.

Iliaria stood perfectly still, and even her tail slowed its fidgeting motion. I felt it as she put a steady hand over her emotions, going to some cold and dark place inside herself.

Baldavino’s voice was thin, holding a thread of pleading excitement and hope. “Master!” he said, and the figure ignored him. “Master, please!”

Renata brought the back of her hand down across Baldavino’s face. Blood flew in an arc from his mouth.

“Hold your tongue, dead man. The Great Sire will not save you from your fate.”

“They are all dead!” Damokles’ face contorted with a ferocious hiss.

“I think not.” Iliaria’s voice was an angry growl, and then she was moving in a black blur, as if darkness traveled faster than light.

A high-pitched screech, the sound of blade slicing flesh, a cloud of black smoke…

Iliaria stood beneath the archway, holding weapons in both hands. One of the crescent shaped blades dripped with blood.

“Damn you, Damokles! You coward!”

Anatharic was crawling on all fours toward her, long tail held slightly above the stone floor. “Figuresss,” he grumbled. “He did murder hisss sssissster while ssshe ssslept.”

Her eyes met mine, briefly. She growled again, not at me, simply at her own frustration. Her wings snapped open and she turned, ducking down as if in a dance.

There was a cloud of smoke with flashes of lightning in it and she was gone. Anatharic followed, but before he too vanished, he said to me, “We will find him.” Then he was gone, swallowed by the smoke of his own power.

“Epiphany,” Renata said, calling me back to myself. “We have a certain matter to which we must attend.” She lowered her face to Baldavino.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 755