Thanks again for the fun night. Hope to see you again soon!
Allegra tore the note in half and put the painting away in the attic before Charles could ask her about it. The fall social season was in full swing and there was a lot to do: charity work, overseeing the renovations on their town house on the Upper East Side, supervising the various committees that made up vampire society. The immortal routine, Allegra thought, finding so much of her work ornamental these days, and no different from the daily frivolity enjoyed by empty-headed Red Blood socialites who partied their way through life in the name of philanthropy. She tried to put Bendix out of her mind, and most of the time she succeeded. He was living as he should: he would marry, have children, and lead a happy, uneventful life. He didn’t need her, he never did. She would only have brought him despair and madness. It was lucky that he had been strong enough to survive being chosen as her familiar in the first place.
On this brisk October day, Allegra was walking back home from visiting the Repository when she noticed a huge white van blocking the side entrance on 101st Street. It looked like an ambulance, but it did not carry the name of any hospital or clinic. While theirs was not a particularly busy street, it still needed both lanes for traffic to work properly, and a curious crowd of rubberneckers had gathered around the van, waiting to see if anyone would be wheeled out in a gurney.
They smelled blood and disaster, and Allegra was a bit repulsed by their avid interest. She was also just beginning to worry. What if something had happened to Charles or Cordelia? She pushed her way through the crowd and let herself inside the front door, trepidation in her chest.
Nothing seemed amiss, however. Cordelia was discussing the dinner menu with the staff in the kitchen, and Charles was in his study, where he was in a deep discussion with Forsyth Llewellyn. Charles was trying to coerce Forsyth into moving to New York and joining the Conclave. Forsyth wasn’t one of her favorite people, and Allegra wished Charles didn’t depend on him so much. There was something about the way Forsyth looked at her that she found unnerving. It was as if he knew things about her—secret dark things that she herself did not.
Charles had grown close to Forsyth in this cycle. She remembered their father had never liked him. Lawrence would not have been pleased.
They stopped speaking the moment she walked into the room.
“Charles, what’s that van outside? Does it have something to do with us? It’s blocking the whole street. There’s a crowd gathered around it now.”
“Forsyth, will you move it?” Charles asked.
“Of course,” Forsyth said, jumping up from his chair. He looked nervous, Allegra thought. Why was he nervous?
“What’s going on?” she asked Charles when Forsyth had left.
“There’s been an incident,” Charles said. “But nothing that you need to worry about, darling.” He did not say anything more, and Allegra felt annoyed.
“You’re doing it again, shutting me out. You know I hate that.”
Charles looked wounded. “I don’t mean to. It’s just…”
Allegra bit the inside of her cheeks in frustration. She knew why Charles acted this way. It always came down to what had happened in Florence, during the Renaissance, when she’d made that horrible mistake that could have cost them everything. She would never overcome it. She would never forgive herself. It was a memory she would carry her entire immortal life. The worst thing about it was she didn’t even know everything about what happened. She knew what she had done, of course, but there was more to the story, she was sure of it. Charles denied that he kept secrets—told her she knew everything she needed to know—and she had tried pry-ing once in a while—tried to see if she could access the hidden corners of his memory—but she never found it. Either he was good at hiding his thoughts or he was telling her the truth. She didn’t know what was worse.
Charles sighed. “Anyway, the situation is under control.
But you asked, so I’ll tell you. There’s some sort of sickness infecting humans that has affected several young vampires in San Francisco. There’s a human familiar in the ambulance that died from it. We’re having the doctors analyze its blood.”
Allegra raised an eyebrow. “You know as well as I do that there’s no human disease that can affect the vampires.”
“Not one that we know of.” Charles frowned.
“Charles, even you know it’s impossible. Don’t be obtuse.”
She crossed her arms. “Tell me what’s really in the van.”
He looked her directly in the eyes. “Are you accusing me of lying?” His voice was calm but tight, and Allegra could see the hurt flash in his dark gray eyes.
Her shoulders slumped. “No… I’m not. You know I don’t doubt you,” she said, backing down. “It’s just strange.”
“I agree, which is why we’re keeping a close eye on it.” He cleared his throat. “What’s really bothering you? You’ve been irritable since we took that trip out to California. Did something happen? I didn’t want to pry. I figured you would tell me if it was important.”
Allegra shook her head. She had wanted to tell him, but she didn’t want to cause a scene, and without even meaning to, she realized she had distanced herself from him again. “I saw Ben,” she finally admitted, steeling herself for Charles’s disapproval. “It’s not what you think… nothing happened…
he’s getting married.” She exhaled. “But that’s not the reason why. I mean… you know what I mean.”
Charles took the information in stride with a thoughtful nod. “I’m sorry you’re upset. I know you cared for him.”
Allegra felt as if a huge burden had just been lifted from her soul. She sat down next to her twin and leaned her head on his arm. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.
“Yes. It just… scared me. Seeing him again. After what happened last time, you know?” She had forgotten how close they were. Charles was her best friend, the person she told all her secrets to, the person she trusted the most, the one who knew her intimately. They were two sides of the same coin.
They shared an immortal life: countless memories reaching back all the way to the beginning, when they were first blood bound to each other. She had nothing to hide from him.
He pulled her close to him. “Don’t be frightened.”
Forsyth returned, twirling his keys. “All clear. Found a great parking space on Riverside.”
Charles reluctantly disentangled from his embrace with Allegra. “Darling, would you mind leaving us alone for a bit?
Forsyth and I have some business to attend to.”
Allegra shut the door behind her. She felt better after confess-ing to Charles, and what he’d said was true: he had never lied to her. But lies of omission were sins just the same. She couldn’t help but feel that there was more to this story, and that there was something Charles was keeping from her, something important, and she had to find out what it was.
In all their history she had never heard of such a thing as a human disease that could affect vampire physiology. Nothing could affect vampires. Oh, they caught ordinary colds and flus like everyone else. They were made of the same basic material as the Red Bloods, with one crucial difference, of course, but on the whole they were immune to serious disease. When the cycles were over and it was time to rest, “death” was just a deep sleep until the
sangre azul
was woken again in a new shell. There was no such thing as cancer or heart problems in the Fallen.
Would
Charles lie to her? It made her sad that she was even entertaining the possibility. It just showed how estranged they had become. She didn’t trust him anymore, not completely, and it wasn’t even his fault.
Allegra put on her running gear. She liked to run in the park to clear her head. “I’m going out,” she called, so no one would worry.
She jogged down the hill, planning to run down to the loop by the river, which took her all the way to the boat basin.
There were a few other runners on the trail, some Rollerbladers and bicyclists, moms jogging with their fancy strollers. She kept an easy speed, her sneakers pounding the pavement in a staccato rhythm. On the way back to the house, she passed the van, which Forysth had parked on Riverside and 99th. She hesitated for a moment, but her curiosity and skepticism won, and she moved toward it. There was no one else on the street, and it was easy enough to pop the lock. She pulled open the back door and crept inside.
There was a body bag on the floor. It contained a human body, Charles had said. A familiar who carried a disease.
She had a flash memory of being a Venator in Florence, when she’d been called Tomasia. With her team she’d spent her nights skipping over rooftops, hunting the renegade Silver Bloods who were trapped on this side of the gates. As Venators they had caught and killed all the remaining Croatan on earth—or so they had believed. Like Charles, she’d been certain that they were finally safe from harm, but then there was that incident at Roanoke. They’d lost an entire colony. Cordelia and Lawrence had always believed that the Silver Bloods had never been defeated, that the Coven had been comprom-ised, corrupted somehow. Charles thought it was ridiculous, of course. He put his faith in the gates. But what if Lawrence and Cordelia were right and Charles was wrong?
Who—or more likely
what
—was in the body bag?
Allegra unzipped the bag, her heart beating. Not sure what she was looking for, or what she expected to find. She had seen lifeless bodies of vampires who had been taken to Full Consumption before; had listened to Silver Bloods who spoke in the voices of her fallen friends, her dead comrades who had been sucked into becoming part of a monster, their immortal spirit trapped forever, chained to the devil spirit.
But nothing had happened since Roanoke, and Charles had been convinced that perhaps the lost colony had simply decided to go underground, even with that message on the tree that said otherwise. The Silver Bloods were eradicated from their history books. Charles did not want old fears to plague their new lives in the New World.
What was in the bag?
Could it be?
She didn’t even want to voice her fear.
Finally, she pulled apart the opening to see.
There was a girl in the bag. A human girl, her skin already gray. There were two small scars, almost unnoticeable, on her neck, which indicated she had been a vampire’s familiar.
What disease did she carry, Allegra wondered. To die this way, so young and so alone. It was such a pity. The Red Bloods had short enough lives as it was.
Allegra zipped the bag back up. She couldn’t admit it to herself, but part of her had almost expected to find a dead vampire in there, as impossible as that sounded, and she was relieved to discover that Charles had been telling her the truth after all.
The Last Venator
It was late in the evening when Jack returned from Gezira, and the first thing he did was check on Schuyler’s wound, un-peeling the bandages around her torso and studying Mahrus’s handiwork. The skin was still nubby but no longer red, and while the scar was noticeable, it was not ugly. “A battle wound,” he said. “I am proud of you. You were brave to fight the way you did.”
Schuyler buttoned her blouse and sat cross-legged on their hotel bed. The small room had begun to feel like home even though the clerk at the reception desk still cast suspicious glances their way. “I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “I knew you would have done the same.”
“I should have been there with you,” he said. He had listened to her story without interruption, and had kept a stoic front, but now the full brunt of it—what he could have lost—was slowly hitting him, and Schuyler could see how hard it was for him to keep his emotions in check.
“Don’t worry, my love.” Schuyler smiled and put a hand on his cheek. “I felt your strength was with me. I couldn’t have done it without you. What about you… did you find what you were looking for across the Nile?”
Jack shook his head angrily. “When we arrived at the safe house, the Nephilim were long gone. I think they meant to lead us astray. The Lennox brothers visited the temple, but they say there’s no priestess named zani, that they’d heard wrong.”
“Maybe Mahrus will have some news that can help us in that arena,” Schuyler said.
“If he’s been working this area for as long as he has, I’m hoping he does.” Jack nodded. They planned to meet with the Venator after Jack had returned, so they could trade information and discuss their future strategy. The Lennox twins had gone after Deming and Dehua, who were still trying to track down the remaining members of the Eygptian Coven, to hand over the blood spirits.
The coffee shop was crowded with students, old men trading war stories, families having their late dinner, as Franco-Arabic music tinkled over the speakers. Jack and Schuyler took a table in the back, where they could see all the entrances. So far, the Nephilim did not strike in Red Blood areas—they seemed to confine their attacks and violence on the vampire strongholds—but it was better to be prepared and on guard.
Mahrus arrived promptly at the designated hour. He was so beautiful that many in the shop turned to stare at him.
Jack rose from his seat to greet him, and pumped his hand. “I owe you her life. Thank you, healer. I know I can never repay you, but my sword is yours whenever you need it, you have my word.”
Mahrus bowed. “The honor is mine, Abbadon.”
The waitress arrived with cups of steaming Turkish coffee, and for a few minutes the three sat and enjoyed the early evening air, drinking the strong dark blend. Schuyler felt better with some caffeine in her system. The coffee made her senses feel more alert. Since she did not take the blood anymore, she had to rely on other sources for a spike of energy.
“I have not heard of priestess named zani,” Mahrus said.
“If she is a famous holy woman, then the Wardens would know. I will ask.”
“We think she might be Catherine,” Schuyler said.
“Interesting,” he said. “Could be. I thought I would find my sister at the Cairo museum. She was fond of Egyptian history, and an art lover. But she was not there.” Mahrus told them about his life in Jordan. After leaving Rome during Caligula’s reign, he had traveled to the eastern front, finding a home in an outpost of the former Ottoman Empire.