More Than Mortal (30 page)
Authors: Mick Farren
Marieko finally spoke. The first time either of them had made a sound except soft cries, gasps, and intakes of breath. “Do you yield, Columbine?”
“It’s only blood, you bitch. I can still best you.”
“You believe that?”
“I know that.”
Now Columbine also gripped her saber double handed, as though her arms were tiring. She aimed a diagonal slash at Marieko, but suddenly Marieko wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Removing one hand from the hilt of her sword, she came at Columbine, her point describing circles in the air, and suddenly Columbine was disarmed. The move was so fast and accomplished Destry hardly saw it, and would have been hard-pressed to describe it later. Columbine stood bemused and swaying slightly, her breasts and torso slick with her own blood. Her saber was stuck at an angle in the lawn, some twelve feet away. Marieko was poised to finish her, but Destry raised her staff.
“Hold!”
Marieko’s face was streaked with both Columbine’s blood and her own and she could only stare at Destry with a sullen, semi-comprehension. “Hold? Why should I hold? She’s mine now. She wanted this, and now it’s hers.”
“I said hold!
”
”
Marieko, caught up in the fury of the fight, now raised her sword to Destry. “I will not hold!”
Destry pointed at her with the staff. “You will obey!”
Marieko, reason gone, prepared to swing at Destry, who stood very still and quickly used the voice of authority at almost its most and full commanding power. “Strike me at your peril, madame!”
The voice was enough to cause Marieko to hesitate, and as she faltered, Destry struck her hard across the wrist with the heavy emerald-and-silver head of the ceremonial staff. All in one, Marieko dropped her saber, clutched her wrist, and cursed. “Fuck you, Destry. I think the bone’s broken.”
“You’ll mend. The fight stops here.”
Columbine glanced in the direction of her own sword, but Destry picked up Marieko’s dropped saber and gestured warningly. “Don’t even think about it, my dear.”
Both Marieko and Columbine stared at Destry. The two of them were bloody, breathing through flared nostrils, but not speaking. Destry retrieved the sheepskin and walked to where Columbine’s sword was stuck in the ground. She jerked it from the earth, spread out the fur, laid the stained blades on it, and carefully rewrapped them. “Ready to resume reality, ladies?”
Marieko began to protest. “You have no authority to stop the proceedings like this.”
“No? How about we try to recall this is the twenty-first century, and we do not fight duels to the true death because one of us supposedly insulted the other in the heat of argument?”
Again she was met with silence.
“While you two were dressing for your bloody pas de deux, a thought occurred to me. We have never factored Renquist’s people into this equation.” With so much visible blood, it was hard for Destry to sound as calm and logical as she might have wished, but somehow she managed it. She knew her only hope of avoiding disaster was to get their minds rather than their emotions working again before they once more went at it like two hellcats. If they completely lost it, she’d be powerless to stop them. The staff was only a symbol, and useless if they turned feral. In that state, they wouldn’t bother with the sabers. They’d rend each other tooth and claw like creatures of the primeval wild. “I would imagine if word was to reach California that Victor had been taken captive, it would cause a good deal of consternation among the other members of his colony. We might even find ourselves with some long-distance allies.”
Marieko winced as she forcibly set the bone in her wrist. Columbine stripped off the rag that was her bloodsoaked shirt and was naked to the waist. Destry was through to their cognitive minds.
“Why didn’t you tell us before we fell into all this?”
Marieko also seemed to somehow blame Destry. “That’s right. Why didn’t you stop us?”
Destry snorted with derision. “Me stop you two? Give me a break. You were too damned determined for that. Too much psychic poison was flowing.”
Columbine seemed about to say something, but Destry cut her off. “Don’t say a word. Not a word. Just consider how ridiculous you look standing there with your tits bare to the night and bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Marieko pulled her slashed kimono tighter around her body. “I—”
“And you. Don’t you say a word, either. I don’t want to hear any more of this. The episode is closed. Go and get cleaned up. After that, we’ll discuss other options beyond simply turning on each other.”
“So how old would that make the Lord Fenrior?”
Gallowglass looked sideways at Renquist. They had just left the town of Carlisle behind them and were out of England and into Scotland. “D’ ye take me f’ fool, Master Renquist?”
“Certainly not.”
“Oh, aye, old Gallowglass will ramble on wi’ his tales o’ gore an’ glory, an’ th’ daring deeds o’ yesteryear, an’ no doubt ye’ve been thinkin’ I’ve let slip a muckle mess about th’ background o’ Fenrior an’ Fenrior, but truth is ye’ve learned little except some proud history o’ this grand land. Ye don’t know th’ half o’ i’, an’ wi’oot th’ half o’ it, ye really know nothin’. Do I make m’self plain?”
Renquist smiled at his own presumption. “Eminently plain, my friend.”
“The vampire is like a good malt. He improves with age. But I was forgetting ye din’a like yon word, do ye?”
“I don’t use it myself. Not after 1919.”
“Oh, aye, I ken your sensibilities. Mercifully we kept oot o’ aw tha’.”
“You were lucky.”
Gallowglass shook his head. “We were careful. We
stayed i’ our own realm an’ avoided foreign entanglements.”
stayed i’ our own realm an’ avoided foreign entanglements.”
“So what, between us, do we actually know about the others in Renquist’s colony?” At Destry’s businesslike question, Marieko and Columbine both looked at each other, not quite making eye contact. Neither wanted to speak first. Destry was uncompromising. “Still in shock, are we, dears? A little weak from our cuts and exertions, and loss of precious bodily fluids? Well, that’s going to be just too bad, because right now we have to focus. An act of war has been committed against Ravenkeep, and we must act accordingly, if only for the sake of appearances. We cannot have this troika seen as vulnerable to any gang of undead ruffians who walks in here smelling of sweat and with naked swords. Very soon, we’ll have the reputation of being three helpless females and find ourselves overrun by opportunists, adventurers, and the worst class of nosferatu carpetbagger. I don’t intend to wait around for that. We’ll consider the incident of the duel to be closed, filed under catharsis, because as of now, ladies, we are at war. If anyone doubts it, let her speak out right away, otherwise it can be our only priority. If nothing else, we have to be seen to exact payback from Fenrior to prevent our autonomy being compromised.”
Marieko and Columbine again remained mute, but their auras showed Destry a greater sense of purpose. Destry nodded. “Good. Okay. Now I’ll repeat the question: What do we collectively know about the Renquist colony?”
Marieko was the first to volunteer information. “There’s one named Lupo who Victor actually misses. I’ve gleaned that he’s essentially Victor’s strong right arm. He is from the Italian Renaissance, and the story goes that he never came through the Change, but was actually created by Craft.”
Columbine sniffed. “Many claim to be created by
Craft, but I never met one who could prove or authenticate it.”
Craft, but I never met one who could prove or authenticate it.”
Marieko glanced at Columbine. Their eyes met for the first time since the duel. For an instant, it seemed as though competition might be rekindled, but Marieko shrugged. “If there ever was an authentic one, it would be Lupo. I understand he refers to Victor as his don. This Lupo is also supposedly a legendary figure in the human underworld, among crime families in both the United States and Europe. He is spoken of as the perfect assassin.”
Recognition dawned on Destry. “Joey Nightshade.”
Columbine was mystified. “Who or what is Joey Nightshade?”
Destry pushed back her chestnut hair. “It was a long time ago in Marseilles. I had some brief connection with men who worked for the Guerini brothers, the Corsicans who ran the heroin trade, what they later called the French connection. They knew stories about this almost mythic character Joey Nightshade, who was reputed to be the absolutely unstoppable hitman. Seemingly, once he’d taken a contract, no target could be made safe from him. The other part of the myth was that he always killed by night. When I first heard that, I wondered if he might be nosferatu.”
“You believe this Nightshade character and Lupo are one and the same?”
“I think it’s infinitely possible.”
“And if this Lupo heard his don was in danger?”
“I think he’d move heaven and earth to be with him.”
“Okay, so that’s Lupo. What about the others?”
Destry stared at Columbine, who bridled slightly, saying, “What would I know about Victor’s extended family?”
Destry’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Get off it, darling. You’ve followed his career like a bloody fan. This is no time to be coy.”
Columbine huffed impatiently. “All right, all right.
The most I know is that after the destruction of Renquist’s darling Cynara, there was trouble. The colony was forced to flee from New York, and by that point, their numbers were down to just seven.”
The most I know is that after the destruction of Renquist’s darling Cynara, there was trouble. The colony was forced to flee from New York, and by that point, their numbers were down to just seven.”
“Just seven?”
Columbine nodded. “Seven. That’s all. The Residence in New York had succumbed to a bad outbreak of Feasting, and some of the young ones attempted a coup. I heard Victor had to cull the young males.”
Marieko frowned. “Seven is a very small colony. Hardly viable.”
Columbine continued. “There were rumors they’d brought others through the Change, in Los Angeles, around the time of the Cthulhu incident, but I have no idea how many or what they might be like. Of the original seven, three can be excluded immediately, as far as we’re concerned.”
“Excluded?”
“The weird sisters Dahlia and Imogene would never travel across the Atlantic.”
“Why not?”
“They’re peculiar.”
“How peculiar?”
“Too peculiar to go among humans. One maintains the outward physical appearance of a ten-year-old, and the other is simply too bizarre even by nosferatu standards.”
“And the third?”
“A traffic-stopping grotesque called Segal.”
“So who does that leave apart from Lupo?”
“A female nonentity called, I think, Sada and, of course—” Columbine hesitated. “—Julia Aschenbach.”
Destry raised an eyebrow. “Julia Aschenbach? I’ve heard that name. There was a Julia Aschenbach working in the NKVD’s paranormal division. And then I heard about the same Julia surfacing in the very darkest end of CIA counterinsurgency. She was doing stuff at which even I drew the line.”
Columbine nodded. “That’s Julia. She’s had many totalitarian adventures. Even before her Change, she had been a budding starlet in the Nazi film industry and reputedly one of Joseph Goebbels’s countless mistresses. Also there’s a neatly incestuous factor in Julia’s case.”
Marieko looked interested. “Incestuous?”
“The story is that Victor created Julia and then abandoned her. He’d assumed she was nothing more than a stunningly vacant beauty, but as a nosferatu, she turned out to be a viciously consummate survivor.”
Marieko was expressionless. “You sound as though you don’t like her.”
“She’s dangerous and, by all accounts, a headstrong wild card, totally a nosferatu of the twentieth century. Stories have circulated how it was really her that fomented the trouble in New York, but then, at the last minute, she sold out the young males and sided with Victor. Her ambition has always been to bond with Victor and become his full consort, but he’s held her off with an equal determination.”
Marieko almost smiled. “That should at least please you.”
Columbine frowned. “The problem is she’d be ideal for our purpose. To have Julia and Lupo with us would be a positive asset. Indeed, it might be all we’d need.”
“So what’s the problem except she has eyes for Victor?”
“The mixture could be just too volatile and backfire on us.”
Marieko held up a hand. “Wait a moment. Aren’t we moving a little ahead of ourselves? We are deciding which of Renquist’s people might be of use to us, and we haven’t even been in contact with them.”
Columbine waved a dismissive hand. “That will be no problem. We simply call this Lupo and tell him his don is being held prisoner. All else should follow from that without any effort on our part.”
Destry looked skeptical. “You think it’s that easy?”
Columbine nodded, as if she entertained not a single doubt. “If what you’ve both said about him is true, his loyalty will be all the driving force we need. After he hears what has happened, he will be honor-bound to destroy Fenrior, and that awful Gallowglass, too.”
Destry shook her head. “But, no matter how powerful, he’s just one. How could he go up against Fenrior and all his swords?”
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