More Than Mortal (33 page)
Authors: Mick Farren
Renquist recalled Eva and Juan Perón had been in the
forefront of those who had made both an art and a fetish out of such bedchamber spying. In the guest rooms of the presidential palace, the charismatic but megalomaniac couple had secretly filmed the intimately private moments of their more prominent guests with ex-Gestapo espionage hardware, the most highly advanced equipment for the time. Renquist had found himself briefly in Buenos Aires, in the chaos immediately following World War II, when the SS and their gold—and some extremely outlandish tastes in recreation—were sailing into town in their U-boats and unknowingly turning the city into a nosferatu paradise. When, through his connections, he’d merited an overnight invitation to the palace, they had attempted to film him with a dark-eyed nightclub singer. The expectation was that he’d kill her, as he in fact did, and the Peróns would have their very own snuff movie. Evita had provided the woman, believing that Renquist was just one more totalitarian ghoul who’d acquired the taste for death between the sheets, and she felt she probably needed to make him simultaneously happy and vulnerable. Renquist had exacted payback by stealing some of the Peróns’ highsociety pornography and letting it fall into the hands of determined Nazi hunters from the Stern Gang.
forefront of those who had made both an art and a fetish out of such bedchamber spying. In the guest rooms of the presidential palace, the charismatic but megalomaniac couple had secretly filmed the intimately private moments of their more prominent guests with ex-Gestapo espionage hardware, the most highly advanced equipment for the time. Renquist had found himself briefly in Buenos Aires, in the chaos immediately following World War II, when the SS and their gold—and some extremely outlandish tastes in recreation—were sailing into town in their U-boats and unknowingly turning the city into a nosferatu paradise. When, through his connections, he’d merited an overnight invitation to the palace, they had attempted to film him with a dark-eyed nightclub singer. The expectation was that he’d kill her, as he in fact did, and the Peróns would have their very own snuff movie. Evita had provided the woman, believing that Renquist was just one more totalitarian ghoul who’d acquired the taste for death between the sheets, and she felt she probably needed to make him simultaneously happy and vulnerable. Renquist had exacted payback by stealing some of the Peróns’ highsociety pornography and letting it fall into the hands of determined Nazi hunters from the Stern Gang.
The reverie of reminiscing was quite deliberate. At the same time as fulfilling the cravings of Annie Munro, Renquist did nothing to hide the fantasies he was unreeling for her, or his opinions on optical surveillance as a quasi-sexual preference. Let Fenrior know Renquist had walked the planet among the high and the mighty for a very long time, and had not spent centuries holed up in his remote bloody castle, breeding his own humans and pretending William Wallace was still running amok. As the tiny Dahlia might have bluntly put it, he was going to make it clear Victor Renquist was not a being with whom to fuck.
Annie had balked slightly when he’d snapped open the steel spike. She’d never seen anything like it before,
and Renquist had to explain how, in other parts of the world, it was fashionable for the undead to have their fangs surgically removed, information she received with total disbelief. “Ge’ along wi’ ye. Why should they do a foolish thing like tha’?”
and Renquist had to explain how, in other parts of the world, it was fashionable for the undead to have their fangs surgically removed, information she received with total disbelief. “Ge’ along wi’ ye. Why should they do a foolish thing like tha’?”
“The way of the Castle Fenrior isn’t the only way things are done.”
“I wouldna’ ken about tha’.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
Her hand trembled slightly—the first sign the girl wasn’t totally blasé about the entire procedure. “Will i’ hurt?”
As he slid the spike into her wrist, he also consigned her mind to the undulations of a plastic roller-coaster ride of abstract erotica. “Does that hurt?”
The girl let out a long and satisfied sigh. “Oh, no, Master Renquist, tha’ din’a hurt one wee bit.”
As he put his lips to her wrist, Renquist realized that this was far from the first time Annie had taken a ride of this kind. She cleaved to his projections with the practiced alacrity of a desperate spirit coming home to the only place she felt safe, wanted, and emotionally wonderful. He increased the intensity of the erotica that was steaming through her mind and directly caressed the pleasure centers. Annie groaned. “Oh, Master Renquist, wha’ ye’ doin’ t’ me? What ye doin’ t’ me.”
“You know very well what I’m doing to you.”
Annie Munro’s naked and freckled limbs writhed and wriggled with an uninhibited and unashamed display of pure pleasure. She made kitten noises, and with her free hand, she clutched at Renquist’s shirt, and he feared for a moment the girl’s involuntarily clawed, grasping hand might rip the fabric.
“Ye can think wha’ ye like o’ me, but please keep doin’ i’, please keep doin’ i’.”
And for a while he did, but then her color changed ominously, and Renquist removed his mouth from her wrist, before he took so much blood from her he’d cause
her to expire. She lay limply on her back and made a sound deep in her throat, of simultaneous satisfaction and disappointment. “Aaaaah. Ye stopped.”
her to expire. She lay limply on her back and made a sound deep in her throat, of simultaneous satisfaction and disappointment. “Aaaaah. Ye stopped.”
“Any more and you would have died.”
“Aye, but I’d happily die if tha’ was t’ be th’ end of i’. Some say th’ moment o’ death goes on forever.”
Renquist saw no reason to be excessively kind to the darklost, poor confused thing that she might be. “And you may yet die exactly like that.”
Weak as she was, her eyes and aura both turned knowing. “I’d no die at all if ye were t’ Change me, right here tonight, Master Victor.”
Cunning little vixen. And insolent, too. Calling him “Master Victor,” indeed. She scarcely had enough blood left in her body to remain conscious, and she was resolutely hustling him. “I should put you through the Change? For what earthly reason should I want to do that?”
“Ye’re all alone here, an’ ye might need all th’ friends ye can get.”
For a split second Renquist was tempted. It would be an audacious gesture of defiance, but he already knew the inevitable outcome. “Your lord would destroy me on the spot if I tried such a damned fool move.”
Annie Munro tried to sit up and look beseeching, but she couldn’t manage to raise herself. “Would he ha’ t’ know?”
“Oh, he’d know. He’d know in an instant.”
“Oh.”
Damn but Fenrior bred his humans hardy.
“You don’t really know what the Ceremony of Changing entails, do you?”
She weakly shook her head. “No, Master, tha’s th’ Great Secret.”
“Then believe me when I tell you I couldn’t do it here, now, and on my own even if I wanted to. It’s very much more complicated than that.”
Annie Munro smiled ruefully. “Aye, well. I could but ask. Y’ canna’ blame a girl f’ tryin’.”
Her voice trailed off, and then she was unconscious. Finally Renquist could sleep.
“Lupo is coming.”
“That’s all?”
“It could only have been Lupo himself. He said three words and hung up. ‘Lupo is coming.’”
For two long hours Marieko, Destry, and Columbine had watched the phone. Marieko, seemingly the designated speaker, had answered, but hung up after just a matter of seconds. Destry and Columbine’s first assumption was that their unspoken plea for help had been rejected out of hand, and Victor’s colony had decided to leave its Master to his fate. Then Marieko, in a decidedly unbelieving tone, had repeated the three words said to her.
“Lupo is coming.”
Destry was angry. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? He’s coming to England. He’s coming here? He’s coming to us?”
Surprisingly, Columbine had the answer. “I doubt we even signify in his plans.”
“Are you saying he thinks he doesn’t need us?”
“I’m saying exactly that. He doesn’t need us. Lupo isn’t thinking of us at all. He will go where Victor is being held captive, and he will rescue his don or perish trying. In Lupo’s terms it’s as simple as that.”
“Could he do it?”
Columbine shrugged. She held an unlit cigarette between her fingers. She’d been intending to light it when the phone had rung. “It’s possible. I’ve never had cause to meet Lupo, but I have met others from a similar background. The word
implacable
was coined for ones like them.”
implacable
was coined for ones like them.”
“Fenrior has a lot of swords at his back.”
“I doubt Lupo intends any kind of frontal attack. He’s
probably quite able to slip through an entire regiment of Fenrior’s Highlanders completely undetected. He might go directly to the top and kill Fenrior. It’s been said those old-time Renaissance killers could walk through walls, could make themselves functionally invisible.”
probably quite able to slip through an entire regiment of Fenrior’s Highlanders completely undetected. He might go directly to the top and kill Fenrior. It’s been said those old-time Renaissance killers could walk through walls, could make themselves functionally invisible.”
“Joey Nightshade.”
“Precisely. Once a nosferatu like Lupo had been set in motion, stopping him is all but impossible.”
They all arrived at the same question at the same moment, but Marieko voiced it. “If Lupo doesn’t intend to so much as meet up with us, what do we do?”
Before any attempt could be made to answer the question, Columbine twitched, and the phone rang again. Marieko looked at Columbine and Destry. They both nodded, and she picked it up. “Ravenkeep.”
After a short pause, she nodded. “Yes, this is Marieko Matsunaga.”
The next pause seemed to run to the eternal before she snapped her fingers and made a writing motion. Destry handed her a pad and pen. She quickly wrote down a sequence of figures. “Yes, I have it.”
Another long silence ensued, and then Marieko nodded once more. “I absolutely understand. There is no problem. We will be at the rendezvous.”
After the seemingly interminable and tantalizingly one-sided phone call, Destry and Columbine were all but beside themselves. Marieko let them suffer a little. “I was speaking to Julia Aschenbach.”
“And?”
“She had a lot to say for herself. To cut a long conversation short, she wants us to meet her at a private airstrip in the Midlands. At two A.M. tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“There will be a jet.”
Destry frowned. “Her and Lupo?
Marieko shook her head. “Just her.”
“Just her? They’re not traveling together?”
Marieko tore the page with the numbers written on it
and carefully folded it in half. “My impression was that Julia and Lupo are acting totally independent of each other.”
and carefully folded it in half. “My impression was that Julia and Lupo are acting totally independent of each other.”
“That makes no sense.”
Columbine pointed to the folded page from the pad. “What’s that?”
“The map coordinates of the airstrip.”
Destry leaned back in her chair. “Does anyone mind if I briefly recap?”
Columbine finally lit her cigarette. “Recap away, my dear.”
“We have called California, and the sum total result is that Lupo and Julia will be coming here. Lupo declines to even so much as contact us, and Julia will be showing up in a private jet. Did she suggest any course of action when she got here?”
Marieko tucked the map coordinates into her pocket. “No.”
“We are not exactly creating a grand alliance with which to confront Fenrior and his claymore-wielding cohorts.”
Columbine smiled resignedly. Her voice was brightly cynical. “Well, my dears, I think we can agree this has all the absurdity of any nosferatu effort at coordinated action. Once again, we are reminded why we are the top of the food chain but we don’t rule the world.”
The door swung back, and the cell was filled with the sound of boots on stone. Renquist was plunged into a world of cold and noise, initially not knowing where he was. It seemed, in his befuddled condition, that he had hardly made it to the dreamstate, and he couldn’t have slept for more than a few minutes. Realization was slow to return of how he was prisoner in an anonymous cell in the Castle Fenrior, and Gallowglass was bending over the bed shaking him. “Wake up, Master Renquist. Time t’ g’ up an’ go.”
“Damn. I feel like shit.”
“You’ll get over i’.”
Annie Munro had wrapped herself in a sheet and was making a rapid exit, doing her best to remain beneath the radar of the nosferatu. Two sturdy Highlanders flanked the door to the cell: Prestwick, the small one who carried the axe and the big brute with the broadsword and scalplock. They took no notice of Annie, however, as she slipped between them. Their eyes were riveted on Renquist, who, right at that moment, didn’t feel like having even friendly eyes riveted on him. He sat up with a groan and gestured to Gallowglass. “Would you be good enough to pass me the water.”
Gallowglass reached for the Jacobean glass jug and handed it to Renquist, who took a long drink. As he rehydrated, he began to feel sufficiently improved to at least put a bold face on this unwanted arousal. “So, for what occasion do you come to drag me from my bed, good Gallowglass? Is it to be my beheading, or just some preliminary torture?”
Gallowglass laughed. “Why neither one nor th’ other, Master Renquist. The Clan is gathering i’ th’ Great Hall, an’ m’ lord would ha’ you attend on him.”
T
he Master of Ceremonies roared like a stentor over the hubbub of voices.
he Master of Ceremonies roared like a stentor over the hubbub of voices.
“Master Victor Renquist of California!”
A hush fell over the Great Hall of the Castle Fenrior. It was the largest gathering of the undead he’d seen under one roof in almost a century. His prediction that the Fenrior community would number sixty or more had turned out to be highly accurate, and, at the announcement of the honored guest and celebrity prisoner, every one of them looked up at him. The smoky kaleidoscope of auras turned to a uniform orange-gold curiosity. So this was Victor Renquist, about whom many had heard, but a nosferatu few had ever seen. He had entered the Great Hall by an upper gallery, and now he stood at the top of a flight of stone steps that led down into the body of the hall with its high, smoke-blackened, gothic-arched ceiling. These were stairs by which one made a formal entrance—stairs to be walked down at the dead center, head held aloof, back stiffened with exterior pride, doing
one’s best to look casual but invincible, while the whole Clan Fenrior watched and evaluated. Renquist was determined, at least in his public behavior, that he would not be found wanting.
one’s best to look casual but invincible, while the whole Clan Fenrior watched and evaluated. Renquist was determined, at least in his public behavior, that he would not be found wanting.
He was pleased he’d had the foresight to pack a tuxedo for the trip to Ravenkeep. In fact, it wasn’t a tuxedo, it was evening dress. He’d been living in the United States for far too long. The long frock jacket came to just above his knee, and it boasted black on black embroidery on the facings and a row of close, almost ecclesiastical Victorian buttons. A last-minute instinct had told him not to underestimate his surroundings. The Great Hall of Fenrior might not be the brawling midden described in thirdhand tales. Among nosferatu it was folly to expect anything to be predictable. The unexpected was the rule. In addition, by all the precepts and protocols, colony to colony, he came to Fenrior with something close to ambassadorial status, and he wasn’t about to relinquish rank simply because he’d been brought here by force. He would dress with the maximum style the contents of his traveling bags would allow.
With no model to work from, Renquist had pictured Fenrior as some nosferatu approximation of the court of Catherine the Great, where unwashed cossacks held orgies in a palace of gilt and marble, but as he stood leaning lightly on his silver-topped cane, waiting for the prearranged signal to descend the stairs, he knew in the first instant he had underestimated quite drastically. Despite all his efforts, he had seriously misjudged the degree of decadence possible in a place that had been so isolated and such a law unto itself for so many centuries. Forget about Catherine, her cossacks, and their horses—Fenrior was even stranger that Renquist had anticipated. The Great Hall was a seemingly impossible mixture of the barbaric and the sophisticatedly bizarre.
At least the basic layout was as medieval as could be expected. The high table, on the raised platform, at the
end of the vaulted space was straight out of any baronial hall, as were the other two longer lower tables, at right angles to it, seating the rank and file. The blazing logs in the massive carved fireplace also made no connection with modern times. The lounging, sprawling Highlanders with their beards, dirty plaid, fearsome tattoos, unkempt hair, and the weapons that they wore even to the feast also contributed in no small part to the atmosphere of wild ages long gone. Much the same could be said for the scantily clad but heavily bejeweled young humans, most darklost, kin of Annie Munro, who had been provided for the Highlanders’ amusement. Although, in their wisps of silk, gold collars, headpieces, and the bangles at their wrists and ankles, they resembled more the denizens of some Turk’s seraglio than anything from the Middle Ages.
end of the vaulted space was straight out of any baronial hall, as were the other two longer lower tables, at right angles to it, seating the rank and file. The blazing logs in the massive carved fireplace also made no connection with modern times. The lounging, sprawling Highlanders with their beards, dirty plaid, fearsome tattoos, unkempt hair, and the weapons that they wore even to the feast also contributed in no small part to the atmosphere of wild ages long gone. Much the same could be said for the scantily clad but heavily bejeweled young humans, most darklost, kin of Annie Munro, who had been provided for the Highlanders’ amusement. Although, in their wisps of silk, gold collars, headpieces, and the bangles at their wrists and ankles, they resembled more the denizens of some Turk’s seraglio than anything from the Middle Ages.
At this point, though, the strict resemblance to the fourteenth and fifteenth century ended, taking a turn in the direction of pure nosferatu caprice. The furniture in the hall of any medieval baron or earl would, even allowing for an element of decoration, have been solid, foursquare carpentry. In the Great Hall of Fenrior, the creators of the furniture seemed to have studied under no less than Dalí, Henry Moore, or both. The long tables and the chairs and benches had been carved from living wood into sweeping curves following the form of the grain. Polished and finished, and then distressed by long years of hard use and abuse, the forms were as wild and organic in their invention as the Highlanders who sat at them. Instead of straight lines, they undulated like the distortions of a hallucination, with strange insets, liquefying faces and torsos, inlays, patterns of jewels and mosaics, gold and silver inlaid coins, and the irregular heads of huge, individually designed iron nails. Made for decadent function, though, the angry, storm-tossed kinetics of the designs were softened by expanses of velvet cushions, pillows, leather upholstery, tapestry, and exotic rugs. The central seat at the high table was little short
of a throne, and obviously where Fenrior himself must sit. The two lesser seats flanking him were actual sculpted forms, more distorted human figures, but in this case huge, with angular arms and blind staring eyes, racked and misshapen into contortions to conform to and enhance the seated figure of the lord.
of a throne, and obviously where Fenrior himself must sit. The two lesser seats flanking him were actual sculpted forms, more distorted human figures, but in this case huge, with angular arms and blind staring eyes, racked and misshapen into contortions to conform to and enhance the seated figure of the lord.
The walls were equally surreal in their decorations. Vast expanses of stone, in some cases stretching from floor to ceiling, had been carved into complex and apocalyptic bas-reliefs depicting some end-time horror of monsters, seemingly from some nightmare location beyond space and time, carrying out the flesh-rending destruction of a hapless humanity. Renquist had to believe the carnage was the vision of the stone carver. If the scenes were based in any earthly mythology, it was one quite unknown to him, although he suspected some of the figures might be representation of the Old Ones, the dire and fearsome contemporaries of Cthulhu. Where the walls had escaped the carvers’ grim art, they were hung with a profusion of paintings. An art collection worthy of the most exacting human multimillionaire looked down on the assembled clan and its bacchanal. Some were what might be found in any Scottish stately home. Armed aristocrats in kilt and plaid posed against impressive mountain backgrounds with dogs at their feet, or lurking behind them, or in the more exotic examples, a falcon perched on a gauntlet. In addition, though, violent abstracts by an artist Renquist didn’t recognize shared vertical space with at least one Francis Bacon, a William Blake lithograph, two of Turner’s more spectacular sea battles, some of Goya’s more unpleasant horrors of war, a scattering of German decadents, and one of the best-known death-row paintings of a notorious serial killer. Sculpture also played a part. A special alcove had been constructed to house the almost perfect, twice-lifesize stone idol of an Assyrian bull god, while other niches contained smaller pieces, both ancient and modern. Fenrior’s taste, taken as whole, seemed to favor
art created near the brink of the abyss. At the foot of the stairs, the rearing form of Madigan’s notorious
The Balrog
(which humanity believed stolen from a New York gallery in the 1950s and lost to the world) seemed to guard the approaches. The mind that had conceived the Great Hall was unusual, even by Renquist’s standards, which accepted many outer extremes as still near to the norm.
art created near the brink of the abyss. At the foot of the stairs, the rearing form of Madigan’s notorious
The Balrog
(which humanity believed stolen from a New York gallery in the 1950s and lost to the world) seemed to guard the approaches. The mind that had conceived the Great Hall was unusual, even by Renquist’s standards, which accepted many outer extremes as still near to the norm.
No matter how outlandish the decor, it was no match for the sinister diversity of the assembled crowd. Although the rough nosferatu Highlanders made up the majority, they were by no means the only guests at this feast of the undead. A representative selection of archetypes ensured it was no simple gathering of kilts and fangs. Some present could never have ventured out of the castle, while others obviously traveled regularly to London and Edinburgh and, for all Renquist knew, Paris, New York, and Singapore, where, after dark, they made profitable sport with merchant bankers and the political elite. Renquist spotted an exquisite in a powdered wig apparently left over from the court of Versailles, unable to move on in either fashion or manners. Nearby, a hairless and massively obese grotesque in a blue-and-gold kaftan stroked the naked legs of a darklost plaything and drooled unappetizingly in anticipation of some gross gratification on which Renquist didn’t care to dwell.
A dour group of five in ceremonial black robes and cowls stood apart from the festivities. Renquist suspected they might be a pentacle coven of the Craft-workers, who many claimed were now nothing more than a part of history. He recognized a young male in white tie and tails with hair like Fred Astaire: Henri Brazil, a Euro-trash nosferatu whom Renquist recalled as being an incredible and vapid nuisance in la dolce vita of the 1950s. A flamboyant and voluptuous undead female with purple hair and proud curves contained in a form-fitting leather sheath barked orders at a younger companion harnessed as a pony and wearing platform
heels of an absurdist altitude. The orders were reinforced with cuts from a flexible switch, and Highlanders watched the interaction with leering appreciation. They similarly stared at another female, who was fully naked apart from shoes and a full head owl mask, but paid no attention to a thing enclosed in a rubber garment akin to a diving suit, its face covered with circular goggles and a snoutlike air filter, as though the very atmosphere acted on it as a toxin, sitting by itself and looking from side to side with slow rhythmic turns of its head.
heels of an absurdist altitude. The orders were reinforced with cuts from a flexible switch, and Highlanders watched the interaction with leering appreciation. They similarly stared at another female, who was fully naked apart from shoes and a full head owl mask, but paid no attention to a thing enclosed in a rubber garment akin to a diving suit, its face covered with circular goggles and a snoutlike air filter, as though the very atmosphere acted on it as a toxin, sitting by itself and looking from side to side with slow rhythmic turns of its head.
Liveried thralls moved among the crowd, fetching and carrying, and even removing the human playthings rendered unconscious or dead by the depredations of the guests. Renquist might have been surprised at the thralls serving many of the guests, particularly the Highlanders, with whisky by the bottle, had Gallowglass not warned him in advance how it was a practice of the Clan to become intoxicated by a microfungi introduced into the raw spirit by a process of filtering through peat. Gallowglass had also, somewhat primly, warned that, before Renquist “went tryin’ i’,” he should remember it was a long-acquired taste. He could observe how groups of armed Highlanders were already showing a noticeable boisterousness. The group around Duncanon was acting particularly frisky, and all but butting heads in cock-of-the-walk male competition, and Renquist couldn’t see how the night could fail to end with swordplay and drunken fury, unless Fenrior was a genius at keeping his wild ones in check.
A quintet of musicians was grouped in a corner close to the high table. The ensemble consisted of two nosferatu (one on keyboards and the other on tenor saxophone), a darklost on percussion, and a human bass player, who was there with a guarantee of non-molestation from Fenrior simply because he enjoyed the music. They played a syncopated form Renquist could only assume was of their own creating. To his ear it sounded like overcast bebop with decidedly sinister African
polyrhythms, but also traces of a keening hunger from the mountains of eastern Europe. At one and the same time, it was both savage and mournful, and couched, as Renquist walked, in a very loose instrumental reading of Bob Dylan’s “The Gates of Eden.” The musicians stopped, however, when a female at the high table rose to her feet from the semi-throne on the Lord Fenrior’s right hand and made a discreet signal. The lady was willow-slender, clad in white, gold, and silver, ethereal in a diaphanous dress and a coronet of large, faceted diamonds. Renquist could tell, even at a distance, that if the court had its high alpha-female, she was it. As the quintet fell silent, six other females detached themselves from the crowd and started to make their way to the foot of the stairs where Renquist waited.
polyrhythms, but also traces of a keening hunger from the mountains of eastern Europe. At one and the same time, it was both savage and mournful, and couched, as Renquist walked, in a very loose instrumental reading of Bob Dylan’s “The Gates of Eden.” The musicians stopped, however, when a female at the high table rose to her feet from the semi-throne on the Lord Fenrior’s right hand and made a discreet signal. The lady was willow-slender, clad in white, gold, and silver, ethereal in a diaphanous dress and a coronet of large, faceted diamonds. Renquist could tell, even at a distance, that if the court had its high alpha-female, she was it. As the quintet fell silent, six other females detached themselves from the crowd and started to make their way to the foot of the stairs where Renquist waited.
Gallowglass had told Renquist to stay where he was until the leading ladies of Fenrior, known through the Castle as Fenrior’s Seven Stars, made their formal approach and bade him enter the festivities—and now that formality seemed to be under way. The voluptuous one with the leather and the purple hair, who wielded the switch on her companion, was one. Whether the pony girl who followed behind her with an extraordinary high-stepping gait was a second or just an accessory remained to be seen. The lady from the high table was also making her way toward the stairs, drifting rather than walking, as though her feet hardly needed to touch the ground. She was joined by a Victorian study in scarlet and a rail-thin, long-legged, sixties vision-in a Mylar minidress. Two more females fell in behind her, completing the seven. One was a distaff version of the untamed Highlanders, a sword-maiden through-and-through, with the same plaid and the same red hair. Renquist was starting to wonder if the proliferation of red hair was a sign of too much past inbreeding that maybe still continued among the humans of the village. The seventh of the Seven Stars was one of the figures in black robes, an apparent Craft-worker. This surprised Renquist. In other
parts of the world, the undead discussed whether the Craft was practiced at all. Here a supposed adept occupied a position of power, and Renquist was starting to suspect the Castle Fenrior might prove the grave of many popular illusions. The robed female seemed to complete the set, and since no other joined the group moving toward him, Renquist could only assume the pony girl was actually one of the exalted seven despite her costume of submission.
parts of the world, the undead discussed whether the Craft was practiced at all. Here a supposed adept occupied a position of power, and Renquist was starting to suspect the Castle Fenrior might prove the grave of many popular illusions. The robed female seemed to complete the set, and since no other joined the group moving toward him, Renquist could only assume the pony girl was actually one of the exalted seven despite her costume of submission.
The Seven Stars reached the foot of the stairs and waited for the lady from the high table to join them. When she reached them, she didn’t hesitate. At the first step, she seemed to simply rise. The leather and the purple hair followed with pony girl close behind, separated only by the length of her reins. Purple hair undulated, sensual and self-aware. The pony girl teetered. Behind her, the Victorian in scarlet imposed a sense of melodrama, the go-go dream all but danced, the sword maiden strode resolutely with her claymore in a shoulder sheath, and the cloaked figure brought up the rear with anonymous determination. They came toward him in single file, close to the left-hand balustrade. Renquist thought they would come all the way to where he was standing, but instead, the lady from the high table stopped at exactly the halfway point. The others halted behind her, each standing two steps below the female in front, against the balustrade almost like a ceremonial receiving line.
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