Solace & Grief (25 page)

A few more steps forward, and the size of the chamber seemed to double: they had reached what Solace now realised was the top of a rise, and for an instant she saw the whole of Sanguisidera's beautiful, terrible, barbaric court laid out before her, the candle-lined walkway snaking down like a ribbon of light to the foot of the protrusion. And then they passed over the rise, and there was no time for looking: all her attention was required to keep her footing on the treacherous slope, which her captor made no easier with his continued shoving.

The more they walked, the more it felt to Solace as if, since leaving the old familiarity of the group home, her life had consisted exclusively of one strange thing after another. To find out not only what she was, but that there were others like her – and to make friends with them! – was odd enough; but the discovery of her parents and Sharpsoft, of Sanguisidera, Lukin, Glide, the Voice in the darkness; of tripwalking and Starveldt – all of it taken together should have been bizarre. But what struck her as the most peculiar thing was how natural it all seemed. The morning after the fire, she remembered running through the same sequence of events and drawing a different, vastly more negative conclusion. Now, thinking back with the clarity that only fear and anger can bring, the truth struck her almost as forcefully as a blow. What she'd said to Manx had been
right
; and more, it was what she believed in. Almost until that moment, it seemed, she'd been living a shadow-life, devoid of anything to make it real. Without a genuine sense of self, without friends, Solace had been as sketchy and ill-defined a person as if she'd only been drawn on the earth in charcoal, living in constant danger of being washed away in a rainstorm. She'd started to take on form at the warehouse, finding a sense of self, but hadn't yet been complete.

Until now.

Suddenly, she realised the truth of Laine's earlier speech. Without motivation, what were any of them, really? Searching for meaning had been the next best thing, but now, driven for the first time in her life by a genuine sense of purpose, Solace felt more alive than ever before. She wasn't a superhero; she wasn't marked by destiny, fated to live out her days in service to some incomprehensibly higher burden; but she
did
have a goal. Sanguisidera was her enemy – and that enemy threatened her friends. The reason lay tangled in history, but Solace resolved to untangle it. And if it proved to be a Gordian knot?

She would be a sword.

Just as she had on her first night at the Gadfly, she found herself slip into sync with the world. She was aware of her heartbeat, slow at first, but gradually speeding up, thumping heavily in time with her footfall. Beneath her boots, the loose shale and rock-dust skittered and crunched like the bones of tiny mammals, giving way as the Bloodkin continued to urge her forwards. The air was full of smoke and the coppery scent of blood – thick, warm and animal. Where previously she'd blocked it out, Solace focused on the chatter of the Rare, picked up individual threads of talk or laughter, heard the low rumble of their languid motion pulse through the cavern like waves on a midnight shore. Her own breath felt loud in her throat. A waft of incense tickled her nose, while somewhere a glass tinkled and smashed, scattering myriad tiny crystals across the floor.

It was beautiful. Deadly, bizarre and beautiful.

Walking through the subterranean darkness towards a maniacal enemy, finally self-acknowledged as a vampire, felt real – though uncanny and frightening – as nothing in her human life ever had. Two of her friends were missing, possibly dead, while the others were chained in a dungeon, one of them weak and bleeding from her own bite – and it was
real
. Each and every damn second.

If Solace had been expecting an exultant feeling of strength and powerful knowledge to come from these revelations, she would have been disappointed. She didn't feel any less frightened or angry; she didn't worry any less for those she cared about. The effects of the blood in her system didn't vanish, and Sanguisidera's cavern didn't seem any less imposing. The only change that had taken place was small and internal: Solace no longer felt as if she ought to be doing something
else
, or as if at any moment, she would wake up. Her life, now – her life since she'd met her friends – was real, with real consequences. Reality was a frightening, dangerous place to live, she knew, but it also bestowed purpose on those who acknowledged their place in it, and purpose gave her cause for hope where there otherwise might have been none.

It was only a small, internal change. But it mattered.

By now, they'd reached the foot of Sanguisidera's dais. A red and gold carpet was laid down the backwards slope of the plinth, so that Solace's boots made a gentle scuffing sound as she walked. The climb seemed to take forever. Maliciously, the Bloodkin had slowed his pace, as if sensing her desire to hasten the inevitable. Before reaching the summit, however, he released her wrists and thrust her forward so sharply that she almost fell. When she looked back curiously over her shoulder, he only nodded, gesturing onward.

‘Alone,’ he said, and then grinned wickedly. ‘Well.
Almost
alone.’

And with that confusing threat ringing in her ears, Solace took the final steps upward on the path toward Sanguisidera.

‘S
harpsoft,’ said Evan.

Nobody paid him any attention.

Turning anxiously on his manacle chain, he stared at Manx. ‘Sharpsoft!’ he hissed.

Manx looked up at him through puzzled eyes, his forehead creased into a frown. ‘Evan, what –’

‘
Bloody Sharpsoft
!’ he yelled, jolting everyone out of whatever stupor they'd been in.

Three sets of eyes (Harper being unable to turn around) became instantly fixed on him.

When it became apparent that nobody understood what he meant, he swore loudly and exhaled through gritted teeth. ‘He comes when you call! He can bloody well teleport us out of here! Sharpsoft! Sharpsoft!
Sharpsoft
!’

Silence.

Breathing raggedly, Evan stared intently at the empty space in front of them.

‘He can't hear you, Evan,’ Laine said gently. ‘Or if he can, he can't come.’

‘Or won't,’ Paige muttered.

‘Yeah right! He's always heard me before, and he's hearing me now! He can save us and he knows it, and if he doesn't damn well get his arse in here
right this second
then he'll be wearing his ribs as a hat!
Sharpsoft
!’

‘Shut up, Evan!’ roared Manx. ‘You're not helping anyone! You
stupid
idi –’

‘I'm sorry,’ said Sharpsoft quietly.

If anyone present had picked up a pin and dropped it at that moment, it would have echoed louder than an anvil. Everyone, even Harper, stared. For once, Evan was silent, not venturing so much as a single
I told you so
.

‘I haven't got much time,’ Sharpsoft continued. His face looked haggard, the flesh of his cheeks sunken in around their high, sharp bones, weird eyes staring prominently from pale sockets. Reaching a hand deep into one of the pockets of his leather jacket, he pulled out a sheaf of papers. Taking a single step forward, he knelt in front of Evan, head bowed, and held them out.

Too stunned to do anything else, Evan took them.

‘Keep them safe,’ Sharpsoft instructed.

Dry-mouthed, Evan nodded, tucking the pages into his pocket.

‘Wait,’ said Laine, as Sharpsoft straightened again. ‘You can get us out of here. Harper's hurt, Solace is in danger – we need –’

‘I cannot help you.’ It was said so softly, they almost didn't hear. He bowed his head again, concealing his unnatural eyes, but when he looked up again the gold and the silver halves of each iris were whirling hypnotically. Only Laine saw the single tear seeping down the edge of his jaw, vanishing at the junction of coat and neck as if it had never fallen.

‘Forgive me,’ he whispered, and vanished.

For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Paige, who was hunched in a ball, began to cry.

‘He left us,’ said Evan, confused and shocked. ‘Why would he –’

‘Evan,’ Manx interrupted urgently, ‘
look
.’

In the centre of the dungeon was a ball of weird green light, no bigger than a ten cent coin but spinning faster than the eye could properly make out. Almost immediately, it began to enlarge. A fearful, shrieking buzz filled the room, roaring like the blue light behind the doors in Lukin's tower. The noise was so extreme that everyone clapped their hands to their ears and closed their eyes as a fierce, blinding force seemed to pin them in place. It was like being caught in a hurricane, and with the ball now the size of a small child the light was blinding to the point of pain, generating heat in waves.

Forcing open one eye Manx screamed – his cornea was
seared
– and as the heat and light and pain and wind and noise grew ever fiercer, he found that he was crying in fear, the tears streaming down his cheeks as Paige sobbed relentlessly in the background.

‘God oh God oh God oh God oh G –’

‘So,’ purred Sanguisidera, ‘this is the daughter of Aaron and Morgause Eleuthera of Starveldt.’

Her throne was ebony inlaid with blood-garnets, and her skin was white and fair, as if she'd been carved from marble. Neck to ankle, she was dressed in the finest, deepest dark-red gown that Solace had ever seen; her hair was all the colours of fire; and the velvet-black eyes set in her exquisite face glittered with madness. Flanking her throne were three men, only one of whom Solace knew by sight. Forcibly, she inclined her head to him.

‘Professor Lukin,’ she said tightly. ‘You'll have to forgive me. I don't know your
companions
.’

Lukin smiled and blinked. ‘Well! I suppose that ought to be remedied – although, sad to say, I can claim the pleasure of only one introduction. This man,’ and he threw a comradely arm around the shoulders of the stranger beside him, ‘is Mikhail Savarin, my esteemed cousin. You've met before: something about fainting and blood extraction, I think? But of course! I'm forgetting – you're also familiar with some of the work he's done. The portal in and out of the Town Hall, for instance, or the entrance to my laboratory via the Galleries Victoria? You and your companions even entered here through what is, if I may say so, a particularly splendid piece of pipe-work. Then again –’ Lukin's face, previously so open and friendly, hardened, the words becoming as sharp and indestructible as granite, cruel in tone. ‘From what I'd heard, you were somewhat indisposed during the journey. Tell me, little Desdemona, did you enjoy the black man's blood? Did it taste like wine and rubies?
Did it taste like joy
?’ This last was almost hissed, Lukin's face frighteningly contorted with sick humour. Then, just as abruptly as the change had come, it vanished, leaving behind his semblance of an absent-minded academic. ‘I only ask, of course, out of intellectual curiosity. Mikhail! Say hello to Solace!’

‘Charmed,’ said Mikhail Savarin, in that now-recognised voice, which was so much like, and yet unlike, that of Lukin himself. The professor's vicious transformation left Solace feeling ill. Even Sharpsoft's warning hadn't prepared her for such a brutal contrast. All at once, she realised she was more disgusted by Lukin's façade than his real face. She'd trusted that veneer, and felt violated at seeing how easily it was stripped away. As her throat tightened with betrayal, she hated herself for finding it easier to loathe Mikhail than to meet Lukin's crinkled, friendly-seeming eyes.

‘I'd say the same,’ she managed, finally finding her voice, ‘except I'm really not. And who's your other stooge?’

The third man present had not, as yet, spoken, but as Solace asked her question, he smiled at her. There was something familiar about him, something in the face, perhaps, or eyes, which niggled because she couldn't place it. Where had she seen him before? He looked to be in his mid-twenties, and although looks among the Rare were clearly deceptive – Sanguisidera herself must have been decades, probably centuries older than she appeared – she had no other marker to go by. Without intending to and despite her fear and anger, she found herself studying his face.

Like Sanguisidera, he was pale-skinned and black-eyed; his hair, too, was jet-black and shoulder-length, tied in a neat tail behind his head. He was dressed in charcoal-grey trousers and a long-sleeved, tailored linen shirt, and although somewhat piratical, it didn't seem out of place. He was almost handsome in a sharp and distant way, but as he inclined his head, Solace saw the same flash of madness in his eyes that marked Sanguisidera and her Bloodkin. Glancing down, her anger returned in a wave.

‘My manners are poor,’ demurred Sanguisidera. Her voice was rich and velveteen, persuasive and almost playful. ‘But then, I have never been good at the little niceties which others perform so well. You have only met this man once, Solace – I hear you swapped words while Mikhail Savarin borrowed some of your life's blood – but you have seen him before, less informally. I can only imagine the things he longs to say to you. He's waited for this day, you know, with almost more anticipation than I myself. I believe he told you as much.’

‘And why would that be?’ Solace shot back. The skin at the top of her neck had suddenly begun to tingle like crazy, and when Sanguisidera's perfect lips curled in a smile, she felt her heart drop through her stomach.

‘Why, my dear! Isn't it obvious? This is Grief. Your elder brother.’

Grief which seeks Solace.

Faceless man.

Myriad thoughts clamoured for her attention, all of them denials, but when the stranger smiled again, the words of Jess's singsong prophecy burned her heart, and Solace
knew
it was true. For the first time since drinking Harper's blood, she felt her vision clear. Grief was familiar because he looked like
her
– she could see it in his colouring, in the shape of his face and shoulders – and because she knew his silhouette, that ghastly waking nightmare she'd met in the alley and in her dreams; the man who'd laughingly strapped her down and stuck steel in her flesh.

‘How?’ she asked.

Brother.

‘The book, please, Erasmus?’

Sanguisidera held out a hand. Obediently, Lukin bent down and picked up something from the side of the throne. As Solace recognised the object, her stomach clenched. When Mikhail smirked at her reaction, she found it in herself to hate him all the more, furious that she couldn't keep from speaking her thoughts aloud.

‘My mother's book.’

Sanguisidera raised an eyebrow and half looked up, signalling patience. Flicking aside the cover with a delicate, slim-boned finger, she opened at a set page and began to read aloud:

‘“I can only hope that the raid was a consequence of Sanguisidera's madness – of all things to hope! – and not revenge for her discovery of the agent in her midst. I will not even write their name, in case this book should fall into her hands. And so, though I burn to tell more, I will only say this of the most important matter: the heart of our plans has been stolen. Only the grief of Sanguisidera remains”.’

She closed the book carefully, a smile both beautiful and bestial licking along her lips.

‘“The grief of Sanguisidera”,’ Solace echoed numbly. ‘That was their plan. I wasn't the first child Morgause bore. But you found out. And the night she gave birth –’

‘I raided Starveldt. Yes. The lore does say that your brother should have been fed on the blood of his
parents
, but I wasn't willing to test the theory. No need to have any more of their traitor-blood in my Grief than could be helped. Thankfully, it would seem that the blood of strangers serves just as well. All that mattered was that they were willing to die.’ She chuckled, and the sound was like oil on water. ‘Well, perhaps more
able
than
willing
.’

‘And the agent?’ Solace was trembling, too shocked to know what to do or say. She wanted to
hurt
Sanguisidera, somehow, anyhow, and it was the only weapon she had to hand. But the Bloody Star only laughed and shook her head, smiling.

‘Ah! Such naiveté must run in the family. Their “agent” was never such to begin with. They thought he'd recovered from blood addiction to save them all; a pretty deception. Still, he has kept a part of his oath to them, at least: to protect your family. Grief? Why don't you summon him?’

And before the man – her
brother
– could so much as open his mouth, Solace already knew what name he would call. A low moan escaped her lips, but no one else heard.

‘Sharpsoft?’ Grief called imperiously. ‘Come!’

There was a pause, followed by a small flash of light. Anger and despair burned in Solace. She wanted to scream, but when she met Sharpsoft's eyes, she saw they were whirling – gently, as they had on the day they'd first spoken.

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