“Mr. Renquist, we have a letter for you.”
“You do?”
“I believe it was delivered by a messenger earlier this evening.”
The clerk handed Renquist a small beige envelope with just the two words
Victor Renquist
written on it in carefully formed calligraphy. Renquist turned the note slowly over in his hands and then slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket unopened. “Thank you.”
“Our pleasure, sir.”
He walked thoughtfully away from the desk. Without having to open the envelope, he knew there would be a very different but equally meticulous calligraphy inside it; the flame-form script of the nosferatu Old Speech. Other letters in the same writing were upstairs among his papers, and their contents had brought him to England in the first place. He wasn’t, however, about to open this fresh missive right away. He knew it represented a subtle form of tactical game-playing, and his response would be to ignore it until at least the following evening. He also had more pressing needs. His instinct was to hunt and feed after the confinement of his journey. He surveyed the lobby of the Savoy, and even there, he could see at least eight potential prey. He knew, however, that as a stranger in town, he must be circumspect. He would hunt, and he would feed—but not to the death.
Marieko Matsunaga watched with an absolute tranquillity as Columbine Dashwood reached the lupine pacing stage of impatience. Marieko’s thin, almost boyish body was swathed in her favorite grey silk kimono decorated with the blue-crossed axe symbol of the Yarabachi, her limbs were folded into the physically complex and taxing
sinshu,
and she held the ceremonial lacquered mask on its slim ebony wand in front of her face. She knew that her detachment and perfect stillness would only
serve to increase Columbine’s self-generated frustration. It was a part of their long-played and perhaps infinitely continuing game. The acquisition of her impenetrable and armorlike geisha formality had not been without a terrible cost of time and pain, both as human and nosferatu, and she neither wanted to give it up nor, indeed, would she have been able to do so. She could not detach it from her character any more than she could rid herself of the elaborate tattoo of wild-eyed sea demons and Hokusai waves that ran all the way from her right wrist, up the full length of her arm, over her shoulder, and down on her tiny right breast, where it terminated in a tattooed carp with its mouth wide, as though in the act of taking a bite at the nipple. Both were permanent and irremovable, both inseparable and integrated parts of her personality.
Marieko never ceased to be amazed at how Columbine, after surviving more than two hundred years, could remain so overwhelmingly juvenile in her mercurial enthusiasms and inability to wait. Even on the most basic and bestial level, she was supposed to be a huntress and predator, but she never seemed to have acquired the capacity to bide her time, content in the knowledge that everything would ultimately come to her. Columbine had never mastered the technique of the silent cat interminably watching the mousehole. Marieko refused to allow herself to display such raw and unfiltered emotion. Such was a transgression to die for, and many of those with her training and background had done exactly that. Marieko also wouldn’t permit herself to fall into the trap of immediately offering advice or instruction to her companion. Marieko knew much of Columbine’s seeming capriciousness was far from spontaneous, a designed and deliberate girlish camouflage to disguise devious games fed by fully developed ambitions. Columbine might appear perversely immature, but beneath the facade, she was hard and determined, and more than capable at her own kind of control.
“He should have called by now.”
Marieko didn’t reply or even move, giving no indication she’d heard. Columbine hissed at her, a taunt of gratuitous fury. “Do you have to be so damned Oriental?”
The final remark all but tempted Marieko to react and respond in kind. Columbine was crossing a lot of lines. By one set of standards, merely entering the room qualified as an unwarranted interruption, but despite the escalating provocation, Marieko remained as still, silent, and expressionless as a work of art. The medium-size room on the second floor of Ravenkeep Priory had for years been looked on as Marieko’s exclusive domain. The austere and almost antiseptic space of polished wood had been remodeled to a mathematic harmony with screens, a lowered ceiling, and false, backlit walls. The furnishings were minimal; a lacquered table supported carefully arranged decorative jars and bottles on its polished surface. The large rectangular sandbox waited so that she might slowly and elaborately rake its contents when in the mood for abstract creativity. A longer and narrower rectangle contained about seventy gallons of clear, pure water. Concealed speakers built into the sides of the tank caused ripple effects on the surface of the water. Right at that moment, they were playing a repeated, eighteen-note, sub-bass melodic figure, so low that it approached the limits of even nosferatu hearing, but in its time, the water in the container had vibrated to everything from Gustav Mahler to The Who. She had attempted to keep fish of various kinds in the tank, but all had succumbed to the damage of the vibrations and died. Now the only creature that lived there was a large, elderly, emerald-green frog who seemed able to survive any audio wave pattern and remain perfectly happy, provided it was fed a pellet of food every day. The koto she now very rarely played rested carefully positioned on its stand. Beyond these things, the only other artifact was the rush mat on which
she had currently formed herself into the
sinshu.
Under more normal circumstances, it would have been unthinkable for Columbine to enter the room while Marieko practiced her intricate disciplines. But, as Marieko well knew, these were not normal times. Victor Renquist was on his way to them, lured by Columbine’s letters and a very partial account of Marieko’s own discovery. The dice had been cast. Their plan was in motion. If it succeeded, they would be mistresses of an immense power. If it failed, it could well cost them their very existence, and Renquist was a crucial fulcrum for success. That his arrival in London should cause such overwhelming tension was only natural, and each member of the troika dealt with it in her own way. Marieko attempted to lose herself in the internal labyrinth of
sinshu,
while Columbine threw fits and trampled their personal protocols.
“Can’t you put down that mask and speak?”
Marieko didn’t immediately respond. Columbine was obviously having difficulty handling the situation without someone to talk to or, more accurately, someone to talk at, but she couldn’t always have everything she wanted the moment she wanted it. Unfortunately, Columbine never saw it that way.
“Talk to me, damn it!”
Marieko finally took pity. She slowly lowered the mask and, with great care, disengaged herself from the
sinshu.
She stretched slowly but remained seated, her eyes still closed, letting her breathing return to its normal rate before she looked up at Columbine. Finally she stretched and flexed her fingers with their extended and perfectly varnished nails. “Hasn’t everything possible been said already?”
“He’s in London. I can feel it.”
Marieko now rose to her feet, but again slowly, and with great care. Even for one of her long experience, the
sinshu
was an extreme physical trial. Legend insisted it went all the way back to the ancient days, when the
shape-shifters still walked the night. She would have sat longer, but she didn’t like Columbine standing over her. Relative positions of dominance in a troika of females needed to be matters of much sensitivity; careless physical psychology could easily abrade nerves. Again Columbine was exceeding the boundaries. When the two of them were on eye level, Marieko spoke briskly and not without irritation. “London is over a hundred miles away. You can’t possibly sense him.”
“It was the arrangement. His aeroplane landed hours ago.”
“So?”
“So why hasn’t he contacted us?”
“You know exactly why he hasn’t contacted us.”
Columbine grimaced. “Because he’s Victor Renquist, the all-bloody-powerful, and he has decided to make me wait. As he has always made me wait.”
“You can’t still be venting resentment at a petty slight from two centuries ago.”
“It wasn’t a petty slight.”
“Of course it was. He was already the notorious Renquist, and you were a freshly changed airhead. What did you think he’d do, bond with you as a hunting companion the first time he met you?”
“He led me to believe—”
“Oh, please.”
Marieko decided Columbine was being far too self-indulgent, especially since the instigation and a good part of the authorship of the plan was hers. Although, with her superior and painstaking calligraphy, Marieko had been the one actually to write the letters dispatched by special courier to California; Columbine had, with equal attention to nuance and subtlety, devised the wording. The bait on the hook, so to speak. Marieko was well aware that Columbine, at heart, resented Renquist simply because he was Renquist. He was in all ways impeccable, never putting a foot wrong, but with a modesty second only to his secrecy. And yet, despite his efforts at
concealment, his reputation grew and grew. Over the last few decades—and especially since he had become a Master of Colony—he apparently had done his best to lead a quiet and anonymous existence, but his more colorful and altruistic deeds, like removing the incriminating books from the DuMont Library or neutralizing Marcus De Reske and the Apogee in Los Angeles, had not only made him visible to his peers, but had also elevated his name to near legend. He was possibly the most powerful and respected nosferatu on the planet, unless, of course, there lurked others so much more powerful they could cloak their very existence. He was also held to be among the most knowledgeable and authoritative historians of their kind. Those were the reasons they needed him so badly in order to achieve their goal, but for Columbine to need anything from the male she saw as the purple betrayer of her first wild days of nosferatu romance angered her deeply. It wasn’t rational, but it was Columbine.
“Where’s Destry?”
“Destry will tell you the same thing.”
“I just want to know where she is.”
“Riding again.”
Destry Maitland was the third of the troika, the final interlocking piece that enabled the three females to exist in the unusual, but not unique, hunting and survival bond.
“What’s with her and that new bloody horse?”
“You know what’s with her and the new horse. It’s from the rarest of bloodlines. A familiarity with our kind is bred into its genes. That horse is her new pride and joy.”
Columbine sniffed and scowled. “I’ve heard all about the thing’s damned bloodlines. She’s talked about nothing else since the beast was brought here.”
“As I said, it’s her new distraction.”
Columbine pouted. “But does she have to ride it all the time?”
“She’s bonding with the steed.”
“Steed. Did you say
steed,
darling? Isn’t that a trifle archaic?”
“Have you seen it? Have you examined its aura? It’s definitely a steed.”
“I don’t loiter in stables.”
“But you do loiter here disturbing me.”
“Is that an indirect way of saying you want me to leave?”
“It’s almost dawn, Columbine. My intention is to sleep.”
“How can you sleep?”
“You should sleep yourself. Renquist will not make contact until nightfall.”
“You don’t think so?”
“He has to make it clear by his silence that he’s not rushing to your summons. He will come in his own good time and not before.”
“Damn his insolence.”
“Sleep, Columbine. Conserve your strength.”
Columbine pursed her lips and turned in the direction of the door, but not before emitting a final soft feline hiss. “We’ll see about his own good time.”
“I think I should go.”
“It would probably be a good idea, in case your husband tries to call you.”
“He won’t call.”
Renquist turned, faced the women who lay tousled on the ruined hotel bed, and nodded. “It will be dawn soon, and I need to sleep, I have a meeting later.”
“I never fucked anybody in the Savoy before.”
Renquist raised an eyebrow. The remark seemed hard to believe. Her body was as pornographically perfect as the best plastic surgery could make it, and tanned to an even bronze without any white areas created by swimsuits or underwear. She clearly spent much time in the
sun, at the beach or poolside, in nude idleness. “Not even your husband?”
“He doesn’t count.”
Renquist slowly smiled. “Ah.”
The woman scowled. “Don’t
ah
me. I look on it as a form of virginity.”
“But you didn’t fuck me.”
“I didn’t?”
“Not in the strictest sense.”
The woman blinked. She didn’t have a clue what had happened to her. She was the Swedish trophy wife of a millionaire Venezuelan commodities speculator who had parked her at the Savoy while he went to Paris for three days. He name was Frieda, and she suspected the Venezuelan had a Parisian mistress. She had allowed herself to be picked up over cocktails by Renquist as a form of payback for the supposed marital infidelity, or at least that was what she thought. In reality, from the start of Renquist’s first approach and overture, she’d had no choice in the matter whatsoever, but he wasn’t about to let her know that. She frowned with the effort of focus through confusion. “It seemed to me like a very fine approximation.”