Vanities, page 3
“You thought I was nothing but a stupid girl.”
She was right. Alard and I made the same mistake everyone else made. But the Black Dragon didn’t. And he’d whispered the one prize she couldn’t buy when he’d seduced her. Not just power. Respect.
“What did it offer you?” I asked. I kept my eyes on hers. What looked out at me through her eyes wasn’t human, and it certainly wasn’t a vapid socialite. What glinted in those blue eyes was cold, calculating, and ancient.
She laughed, and I shuddered. Something in that sound felt as if her long nails had raked down my spine. “My father thought I was too stupid for him to trust me with the family secret. He forgot that Verhoeveren blood doesn’t play favourites. I’ve heard the voices since I was just a little girl. Everyone else ordered me about or spoke to me like a child. Not the voices. They saw my true potential.”
Your true potential to be a pawn, I thought, but didn’t say. I didn’t know how much of Anique was still inside, and how much was the Black Dragon. “When did you take the brooch out of the vault?”
“Just before my dear, dear parents had their tragic accident.”
Alard and Carel had been expecting the girl to be an innocent. The Black Dragon had recognized her as an ally, willing to do anything to get what she craved most.
“What did he promise you?”
Anique smiled. Although she was a beautiful girl, her smile bared her teeth in a way that said she shared a hunger for blood. “He promised me that I’d be free from an arranged marriage. Free from my father. Free from the lawyers that tried to steal my money after father died. I want what would have been mine if I’d been a son instead of a daughter.”
“All it needed was your blood.”
Her face twitched a little when I said that. I wondered if the Black Dragon was whispering to her while she spoke to me.
“The brooch didn’t lock him inside the vault, you know,” she said smugly. “The brooch is the vault. They bound his spirit inside the brooch to contain it, just like father’s stupid rules tried to keep me locked in a box. But together, we got out of the box.”
“Now what?” I wanted to keep her talking while I thought of something brilliant. I was a thief, not a fighter. I’d made my way robbing empty homes where I never had to encounter the prize’s owner. I hadn’t counted on having to do more than grab the necklace and run.
“Now you die, permanently.”
Anique moved with the speed of a vampire. She came at me and, as I threw myself out of the way, it was almost as if there were two images, not just one, when I looked at her. I saw Anique, beautiful, greedy and deadly, coming at me with her teeth bared and her hands raised like claws. But the image was blurred, as if a painter had tried to paint a second portrait over the top of an existing one. In that blurred image I saw a black shadow with real claws and real fangs, and I didn’t want to find out whose jaws I’d feel if they clamped down on me.
Something else stirred in the room, and before I’d truly had time to process what I’d seen, Alard had tackled Anique from behind. He’d come in prepared to fight, and I was certain that the telepathy he’d always refused to confirm played a big part in his perfect timing.
Anique gave a shriek, but the band downstairs had begun to play a loud tune, covering the noise. The black shadow seemed to fill her, leeching the colour out of her skin until she was a dull grey, the colour of a corpse. Filled with the Black Dragon’s power, she tore free from Alard’s grip, something a mortal could never do. Alard stumbled backwards, and Anique came at me again, matching my speed and reflexes in a game of cat and mouse.
I’ll hold her. Use your dagger. It was Alard’s voice sounding clear in my mind. I guess he’d decided to stop pretending. Alard told me that the dagger was spelled. That had made me feel pretty good, until I got a look at the Black Dragon. Now, it seemed like a puny weapon against a monster.
Too late for second thoughts. Alard was already launching himself at Anique, and I was moving too, trying to get a clear strike at her heart. Taking a vampire’s heart destroyed the vampire. I was going to have to hope that putting a knife through Anique’s heart would at least slow down the Black Dragon long enough for me to get my hands on that damn brooch.
Alard grabbed Anique from behind, locking his arms around her waist in a grip that should have crushed a mortal woman. I threw myself towards her, expecting Anique to struggle, or to buck and kick. Instead, the darkness around her shape grew more solid, and she arched, reaching back with both hands to grasp Alard’s head.
My knife plunged into her chest, and for good measure, my fangs sank into the artery that pulsed at the base of that beautiful white neck. Suddenly, I was covered by a fountain of blood. Warm blood, spurting from the gaping wound in Anique’s chest and the bright red liquid that filled my mouth from her throat. And cold blood, dark blood. Anique’s arms came back down holding their prize. In her hands, she held Alard’s head, torn from his body with the Black Dragon’s inhuman strength. The whole house seemed to shake as if the earth suddenly moved beneath it, and from the lower levels of the house, I heard the revellers scream.
Anique crumpled and I stumbled backwards. Alard’s voice was suddenly silent, and I knew then that I’d accepted his presence as a constant background hum in all the years since I’d been turned without thinking about it. Now that it was gone, I reeled, as if blinded. Anique had killed my maker, my source. I’d taken her heart with my knife, but she’d wounded me far worse. The middle of a battle is the wrong time to learn how to deal with the death of your maker. I fell to my knees as Anique’s body dropped to the ground, my dagger still sticking out of her blood soaked bodice.
Then I realized that the shadow was shifting. A dark mist coalesced above Anique’s body. The Black Dragon was taking its true shape, and in that dark mist I saw every nightmare I’d ever dreamed.
The shape grew taller and darker, a giant that stretched to the ceiling. Its arms were too long for its body, and the hands ended with talons. Faceless, eyeless, it still found me. I had to get that brooch. The Black Dragon swung clawed hands at me, but I dodged, barely. I felt hot slashes open down my back. It dived at me, and again I scrambled out of the way as long teeth snapped just a breath away from my leg.
I threw myself at Anique, trying not to see Alard’s headless corpse behind her. She was still breathing, which meant my knife had missed its mark, or whatever spell it held didn’t work as Alard had planned. I wrapped my fingers around that damned brooch and pulled, but the clasp held.
The dark mist swirled back around me, and as I watched in horror, it streamed back into Anique’s body, entering through her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her ears. I jerked my spelled blade out of Anique’s chest and stumbled backwards. Anique’s body began to tremble, as if the power that filled her was too much for her dying form to handle. But the Black Dragon brought Anique to her knees, and then to her feet. The disdainful sneer that twisted her finely drawn lips was all Anique, regardless of the power that animated her.
Anique came at me again, even as I heard something in the hallway. The distraction slowed me down just enough for Anique to nearly close the distance. A loud blast came from the doorway, sending flame and smoke into the room. Anique’s head exploded in a shower of blood and gore and I dove aside as a musket ball tore through bone and flesh, taking off her head the way she had torn Alard’s from his body.
As she fell, I grabbed for the brooch. The edge of the brooch tore a gash in my palm from the strength I used to jerk it clear. The brooch was slick with blood: Anique’s, Alard’s and my own.
Dietger stood in the doorway with a matchlock.
Everything happened at once. The black shadow shed Anique’s dead body and came after me. And in that instant, I had a plan. I held up the brooch.
“Come and get it.”
The Black Dragon streaked toward me and stopped, and I began to laugh, a high-pitched sound born more of nerves and fear than my normal chuckle.
“You can’t touch me.” I had Verhoeveren blood in my veins. Anique’s blood, which I’d drunk from the punctures in her neck. Verhoeveren blood not only ran in my veins, but now, it covered my clothes in bloody gobbets, and it ran down my arm where I held the brooch that was sticky with her blood.
I held the brooch in my left hand. In my right was the spelled dagger. Now, I knew why Alard had insisted that I bring it.
It wasn’t meant for Anique.
Antwerp has its own way of dealing with monsters.
Brandishing the Verheen Brooch like a weapon, I charged at the Black Dragon. With a war cry, I brought down the spelled dagger not in its chest, but across its right arm at the wrist. The dagger cut through the cold, dark mist and met resistance, but I brought all my vampire strength to bear, knowing that my existence, and Dietger’s, depended on it.
An inhuman wail tore from the Black Dragon. I had no free hand to clap to my ears, and the sound seemed to tear at every fibre in my body. Dietger fell to his knees, dropping the gun and covering his ears in pain. I was shaking all over, but I forced myself to move forward, still brandishing the brooch.
“Verhoeveren blood runs in my veins. You must obey the blood. Return to the brooch.”
This time, when the Black Dragon came at me, I thought I was ready. Some say that the dead don’t feel fear. They’re wrong. Terror filled me as that black mist swirled towards me, no longer bothering to take a shape. The air around me became freezing cold, and I braced myself with all my immortal strength to hold up the brooch as the mist entered it, and the dome of the brooch began to glow. In a moment, it was over, but I stood, trembling, unable to speak.
Only then did I realize that smoke was seeping into the room from the hallway behind Dietger.
Dietger seemed to come back to himself. He grabbed up his gun and gave a pained glance to where Alard’s body had collapsed into dust. “Great job with the brooch, but I’m afraid there’s no way out. The house is on fire.”
“How’s that?” I heard him, but I wasn’t processing the information. I still felt as if I were making my way through molasses; everything seemed to take enormous effort.
“Something rocked the house while I was on the way up here. Damn near knocked me down the steps. It must have knocked over the candles.”
All those candles, and the tinderbox of fine, billowing skirts and kindling-dry wigs. The smoke was thicker now.
I looked to Dietger. Either we took our only chance, or we burned with the brooch. “On my count, we run for the windows.”
“We’re four stories in the air.”
“Trust me.”
Dietger gave me a look that told me clearly that self-preservation had more to do with it than any kind of trust, but on my count, we ran for the window and burst through the glass. The brooch was clasped tightly in my left hand. I flung out my right arm, letting the dagger fall, and caught Dietger around the waist as we fell.
“You can fly?”
“No.”
We plummeted. Beneath us, I could see flames shooting from the lower windows of the once-grand home, and chaos in the street. No one looked up to see us fall. Mortals never look up. They didn’t see us until we were almost on them, and they scrambled out of the way, expecting us to hit the ground in a spatter of blood. To Dietger’s credit, he did not scream, but I could hear him reciting a prayer. I didn’t pray. Instead, I focused all my will on what I could do.
I couldn’t fly, but I could float.
We fell like a cast stone. Then, when we were only about the length of a man’s arm above the unyielding pavement, we slowed with a jerk that must have sent Dietger’s heart into his throat. We hovered for a moment, and then touched down gently. But before the crowd around us could react, I ran, carrying Dietger with me, still clutching the brooch. To the mortals in the street, we must have disappeared in a blur. I hoped that they would take it as a trick of the smoke, but I had more important things to worry about.
Dietger whispered directions, taking me through the winding streets. We made enough switchbacks and turns to deter even the more dogged pursuer. I came to a stop in front of Vanities, and put him down.
Dietger looked pale as one of the undead. He swallowed, and straightened his waistcoat. The door to the shop opened, although the front of the shop was dark.
“Come in. Hurry.”
We didn’t need light. Dietger and Carel knew the shop’s crowded layout by heart. I could see in the dark. We followed Carel to the same parlour where he had greeted Alard and me just a night before. Only then did I feel the magnitude of my loss.
Alard was gone.
I collapsed into the chair where Alard had sat and put my head in my hands. The Dark Gift denied me the release of tears, but my whole body shook with grief. More than grief. Alard had brought me across. For the first hundred years of my undead existence, it had been his power that sustained me. I was only just at the threshold when fledglings could leave their maker and survive. Now that the battle with the Black Dragon was over, I felt Alard’s destruction in every sinew of my body. For the first time since my turning, I felt like a dead thing.
I can give you what you crave.
For a moment, I didn’t know where the voice was coming from. And then, I knew. It was the Verheen Brooch. I had jammed it into my vest pocket during the escape. Now, it called to the same Verhoeveren blood that had enabled me to imprison it, and I understood why Anique’s family had kept this thing locked away, buried beneath stone and iron.
I can make you rich. Powerful. Respected.
With a cry, I tore the damned brooch from my pocket and hurled it across the room.
Dietger and Carel looked up from where they were huddled in conversation, respecting my need to grieve. I saw that Carel had tears running down his cheeks. He, too, mourned my maker, his friend.
“It speaks to him,” Carel said to Dietger, with a nod toward where I’d thrown the brooch.
Dietger went to retrieve the brooch, and held it warily, dangling it from the chain Anique had used to hang it around her neck. “Alard was right. Once he had Verhoeveren blood in his veins, the Black Dragon had to obey.”
A bitter smile touched the edges of Carel’s mouth. “Fortunately, that will pass.”
I nodded. It took about twelve hours for a feeding to spend itself. I would not carry Verhoeveren blood in me forever, and when it passed, the Verheen Brooch would be a dead thing to me.
Carel brought me a goblet of blood and pressed it into my hand. “Eat. You’ve been through a lot.” The thick strip of linen wrapped around his arm told me whose blood it was. I looked at him, questioning.
“Alard and I were friends for a long time,” Carel said quietly. “Over the years, I gained immunity to his powers, and he used his Gift to extend my life. Many a time, I gave him human blood when nothing else would suffice. This is one of those times when naught but human blood will sustain you. Drink.”
The blood cleared my head and steadied me. Only then did Carel’s words sink in. I turned to him. “Alard extended your life?”
Carel nodded, and I could see the answer to my next question in his face. Just since our first meeting, it looked as if he had aged decades. His eyes were sunken, and his skin had grown paper-thin. “There’s not much time left,” he said. He looked from me to Dietger, and motioned for Dietger to join us. Dietger knelt next to his father, watching with a mixture of horror and grief as the man aged in front of our eyes.
“Swear to me, both of you, that you will carry on the work.”
“What work?” I looked from Carel to Dietger.
“The Alliance Alard and I created has kept the Black Dragon and things like it from returning to the world. Dietger knows everything you need, even if he’s never put the pieces together to realize it. What is bound must remain bound.” Carel’s voice had grown wavering, and he began to cough. “This store, Vanities, is much more than it appears. For decades, Alard and the Alliance brought me found objects, objects of power, and I moved them to places of safekeeping. Sometimes, other people brought me things they thought to be cursed or haunted, and I made them disappear.”
Talking had become difficult, but determination flashed in his eyes. “You must take over for me,” Carel said, reaching out a bony hand to clutch Dietger’s arm. “You must take over the work.”
Dietger bowed his head. I could see his struggle. He had only grudgingly acknowledged this part of his father’s life, and now the full responsibility was about to fall on his shoulders. “I swear to.”
Carel turned toward me. Cataracts now covered both of his eyes, but he stared at me as if he could still see. “Swear to me, Sorren. Swear that you’ll take Alard’s place. Swear it, and he won’t have died in vain.”
I didn’t want to do this. Like Dietger, I wanted to be leagues away from this place. Then I thought of Alard, and how his dust by now was mingled with the ash of the Verhoeveren home. I swallowed hard. A million objections screamed in my mind, and they were my own objections, not the voice of the damned brooch. I didn’t know how to reach the Alliance. I didn’t know how to find the objects, or what to do with them. I didn’t know anything, anything except that I owed a great debt to Alard, one I might spend my immortality repaying.
“I’ll do it.”
The light seemed to fade from Carel’s eyes. “Good,” he said in a raspy whisper. “Good.” He began to sway, and Dietger reached out to grab his shoulders, but I knew that life left him before he slumped to the floor.
I looked at Dietger over his father’s body. “Now what?”
Dietger took a deep breath to steady himself. I knew the grief he was feeling. Tonight, we had both lost our fathers. “Now, we bury our dead.” He closed his eyes and seemed to give himself a shake to clear his head. When he looked at me, his blue eyes were clear, filled with the same determination I’d seen in Carel’s eyes.
