Authors: Kailin Gow
“So I know. We were to be the instruments of fear among humanity, reminding them of their place in the great order of things. We were to make them cry out for the aid of the gods and goddesses. That is what we are. What we were made for.”
“But it does not have to be all that we ever are,” Cruces said softly. Had he had this conversation with his sister before? His tone made it sound like it was a well worn argument. One that neither would give ground on. “When I became the Keeper, I learned to love them, to want to keep them safe.”
“I remember when you used to be more than that,” Lydia countered. She sounded not just sad now, but angry. “You used to fulfill your purpose. Our sire was not pleased to hear of your betrayals.”
Cruces shrugged. “I helped humans, and in doing so, I did what I believed to be right, Lydia. Can you say as much?”
Lydia paused. She did not back down, though. “I do what I was created to do, brother. I do what we were all created to do. It is all I can do.”
Beside Scarlett, Rothschild sighed, and this close, Scarlett could feel his annoyance spilling into her like a wave. “You know, there’s a reason I dislike family reunions. Nobody ever sticks to the point. What are you doing here, Lydia?”
The female vampire spread her hands elegantly. On anyone else, the gesture might have seemed innocent and open. Somehow though, Scarlett doubted that she had ever been those things.
“Can a sister not see her brothers?” Lydia asked.
“Lydia.” From Cruces it was deeper, more threatening. “Tell us why you have come here. We have not seen you in long years, yet now, here you are. Tell us.”
“Very well,” the female vampire said. “I have come because I have been instructed to do so. Unlike the two of you, I still do what I am instructed.”
“And what else have you been instructed to do?” Cruces asked carefully.
“First, I have been instructed to retrieve the bow. Hand it over, Rothschild.”
“Let’s assume that I’m going to say no to that,” Rothschild replied. Scarlett noticed that even before he said it, the bow flashed back into its form as Gordon’s stick. The glamor didn’t seem like much protection for it there and then, but perhaps it was better than nothing.
“You would keep it from me?” Lydia asked. “Even though we are on the same side?” She held out her hand, as though expecting Rothschild to simply step forward and pass the bow to her. “I have no wish to harm you, brother.”
“You should know by now that I’m mostly on
my
side,” Rothschild said. “And you said ‘first’. What is second?”
“Ah, yes.” Lydia nodded to the side of the cavern, where the light did not reach so strongly, and the shadows gathered in deep clusters.
Scarlett turned to look, as did almost everyone else. Because of that, she was just in time to see the limp form of Caesar tumble from the shadows. His throat was gone. Simply gone, in a red ruin that was hard to look at. He collapsed to the floor, already dead by the time he hit it. Scarlett stared at his body for a second or two, barely able to comprehend the suddenness of his death. Just a short while ago, he had been helping them to paddle to shore, while complaining that his cousin would be angry about the loss of his boat. Now, Caesar would never see his cousin again.
Scarlett was still thinking of that feeling a faint feeling of sadness and guilt when the shadows themselves seemed to leap forward in human shape. No, not human. Vampire. Scarlett could feel that as surely as she could feel the presence of Rothschild beside her. The creature was tall and slender, seemingly composed of the shadows themselves. It slid around the darkest recesses of the cave, and then bounded straight at Scarlett almost quicker than the eye could follow. Rothschild half turned to intercept it, and was knocked to the ground for his trouble. Tavian went sprawling into the nearest wall. The creature reared over Scarlett, seeming to blot out the light. Only two deep red eyes broke the darkness of it
Cruces hit it, slamming into it from the side with a roar of rage. The creature didn’t seem to notice as Cruces passed through it like smoke, yet when it turned, slashing with hands that were more like claws, three gouges briefly opened up on Cruces’ chest. Cruces struck back, and again, it was like he was punching mist. His hand passed through the creature completely, only for the return blow to knock Cruces back a pace.
“What are you?” Cruces asked. Scarlett could hear the fear in his voice, though her concern right then was with helping Rothschild back to his feet.
“Don’t you recognize him, brother?” Lydia asked. “He is one of us. A vampire of the Order. Or he was, until you and yours slew him.”
She would have said more, but Tavian chose that moment to attack the shadowy vampire. Scarlett thought that it would be as futile as Cruces’ attempts, but Tavian drew on his fey heritage as he attacked, wrapping glamor around himself so that for an instant or two, he appeared as the vampire did. The strike he threw made the shadowy creature cry out in pain, and Scarlett knew that somehow, he had succeeded in connecting where Cruces could not.
His success was not total though. The power needed to use glamor as a weapon like that was clearly immense, because Tavian’s glamor flickered and shifted, there only in brief bursts of effort. When it was not in place, all Tavian could do was dodge and duck, trying to avoid the strikes thrown his way while he recovered enough concentration to attack once more.
“Who is it?” Cruces asked his sister again.
Lydia smiled sadly. “You should not have left the Order, Cruces. We have advanced a great deal since you did. We have been focused in our search for Devices, unlike Rothschild here.” She looked over to where Scarlett clung to Rothschild. “One brother who has forgotten what he should be, and both made weak by desire. Such foolishness.”
“You still haven’t answered the question,” Scarlett pointed out. “Who, or what, is that creature?”
That earned her a brief smile. “So, you can think beyond how much you love our dear brother. Interesting. The short answer is that we have a Device that can connect with the ethereal. With it, a dead vampire need not stay that way, not entirely.”
In that moment, the shadowy vampire battling Tavian stepped away and spoke. “Cruces, you should not have left the Order. It was because of you I perished, even if it was at the girl’s hands.”
Cruces looked as dumbfounded as Scarlett felt in that moment. “Elder?” Cruces asked. The shadowy vampire did not answer, but plunged back into combat with Tavian instead. The fey-blooded young man barely deflected a rapid series of strikes, while his own efforts were parried easily.
“It cannot be Elder,” Cruces said. “I saw him die.”
“You saw me die once, to become this,” Lydia pointed out. “The idea of living beyond a death should not be so hard for you. This is simply Elder’s… ghost, if you will.”
“But vampires do not have ghosts,” Scarlett said. She of all people should know. She had seen so many ghosts in her life, after all. None of them had been the ghosts of vampires. So how could this one be? Not understanding, Scarlett turned to Rothschild. If anyone knew, it would be him.
“That is impossible,” Rothschild said.
“Oh, it is possible,” Lydia retorted, bringing out a silver box. On it were etched designs that featured skulls and funerary artifacts. “Let us test our Seeker. Do you know what this is? Come, take your eyes from my brother long enough to look.”
Scarlett wanted to retort that she was not mindless, but it was in fact a struggle not to look at Rothschild. She stared at the box. “It is a Device. It must be the one you mentioned.”
“There, that wasn’t so hard.” Lydia lifted the box. “A simple thing, with the ashes of dead vampires inside. Those who hold it control the shade it brings up. Allow me to demonstrate.”
She glanced over to where Elder and Tavian still fought, and the ghost of the vampire kicked Tavian back from itself.
“Where did you find it?” Rothschild asked. “I had searched for it, but concluded that it was merely a legend.”
Lydia laughed at that. “Well, perhaps if you did not spend quite so much time causing trouble in England and chasing after young women, you might have found it instead. You might even have gotten to it before me, though I doubt that. I was always a few steps ahead of you both, brothers. I think I will stay that way, too.”
Scarlett could feel Rothschild’s anger through the connection they had. This time, it was barely restrained.
“No,” Rothschild said. “I have Scarlett now. She will help me find the rest before you do.”
“No,” Lydia said, with a shake of her head and an almost apologetic look at Scarlett. “She won’t. She will not get the chance.”
Lydia disappeared then. Simply disappeared. It took Scarlett a moment to realize that she must have used her ring to leap between worlds. By the time Scarlett realized that, Lydia was back, only she did not reappear in quite the same place. Instead, Scarlett found her neck being wrenched back into a taut line as Lydia seized her from behind.
“I am sorry,” the vampire said, her mouth opening to reveal the fangs that would flash down to end Scarlett’s life.
R
othschild struck out at Lydia before the vampire’s fangs could touch Scarlett, knocking her back with such force that she slammed into the cave wall in a shower of dust and fell to one knee, her features torn and bruised by the impact. Rothschild started forward, his hands clenching into fists.
“How dare you?” Rothschild demanded, in a tone that was practically a roar of anger. “Scarlett is mine. My woman, bearing my mark. Striking at her is striking at me. You know that attacking one marked by another is forbidden.”
“Forbidden?” Lydia straightened up, reaching behind her head and frowning as she spotted a smear of blood on her hand. It was the kind of frown a housewife in London might have given on finding that the maid had missed a spot when dusting. Her features were badly bruised from the force of Rothschild’s attack, yet even as Scarlett watched, those bruises faded. Vampires were not slowed by such minor injuries. “Nothing is forbidden by a mark, Rothschild. It merely means that the vampire making an attack must be prepared to fight the one who placed the mark there. And I am more than prepared to fight, if that becomes necessary.”
Rothschild bristled. “If? Scarlett bears my
mark,
Lydia. You think I will not fight for her?”
Lydia smiled sadly. “I think that you will not succeed if you do. Be wise, brother. Accept that the Seeker was always meant to be fair game for all of us. She bore the Order’s mark before you placed your own within it. I have the right to do as I have been commanded, and if you will not recognize that… well, I will do what I must.”
Rothschild shook his head. “Scarlett might have borne the Order’s mark first, but I
did
place mine within it. She is mine now, by my mark and by the rest of it. Aren’t you Scarlett?”
Scarlett nodded. She was Rothschild’s. Even without the mark, it was in her heart. They were meant to be together. She loved him, totally and completely. She did not think that she would be able to live without him.
“I hardly think her opinion matters here,” Lydia said. She stretched like a cat, apparently checking that the damage done to her was gone.
“What about mine then, Lydia?” Cruces demanded. His voice was as firm as before, but there was something almost pleading about it. He clearly did not want to fight. “I marked Scarlett even before the Order.”
Lydia shook her head. “You know that does not matter, my brother. Marks… well, they are a question of honor, they always were. There is little enough honor left in the Order. There is no honor among thieves, as they say, and we are far worse than thieves these days.”
“You don’t sound happy about it,” Scarlett said. The vampire woman looked over to her as though only just remembering that Scarlett was there. “Why not leave?”
“Perhaps I
do
have some honor,” Lydia said. She looked over to Cruces. “I keep my word, unlike some.”
Cruces shrugged. “I have seen what the Order has become,” he said. “I have seen enough that I am happy to be without honor if it means being no part of that.”
“You should not have left,” Lydia said. “We have all missed you, Cruces. I have missed you. It simply wasn’t the same, but we have grown. The anger at your leaving has given the Order strength. You have not weakened it. You have fueled it.”
Cruces looked pained at that. Scarlett wondered what it would be like, having a sibling still caught up in something like that. A sibling who was apparently happy to be a part of it, or who at least seemed to be proud of remaining within it.
“You should leave the Order, Lydia.” Cruces took a step towards his sister as he said it, though whether it was to comfort her or seize her, Scarlett didn’t know.