Solace & Grief (26 page)

He didn't speak; neither did his lips move. The word hung heavy in her head, and although his gaze was fixed on hers, Solace longed to disobey. Only a stubborn refusal to give Sanguisidera the satisfaction kept her silent. Instead, she spat, hoping her expression could convey enough of her bile.

‘Jess's prophecy,’ she growled. ‘It makes sense, now.’ Without meaning to, she found herself reciting it. ‘“Grief is behind it all, Grief which seeks Solace”. That was you at the end, though, wasn't it – telling us to “trust in the blood”. It was
you
who spoke through her and cut her adrift. She almost
died
!
Bastard
!’

Sharpsoft's voice was calm. ‘Yes. It was me. Am I needed further?’ This last he addressed to Sanguisidera, who narrowed her eyes.

‘That depends. Has Glide been taken care of?’

‘He had served his purpose in fetching the book. I killed him myself.’

Gleeful as a child, Sanguisidera reached out and fondly touched his hand.

‘
Good
boy. Then no: you are not needed further. Leave us.’

‘As my mistress commands,’ Sharpsoft said. His gaze flicked once more to Solace, so swiftly that no one else noticed. But she didn't care, and gave no sign of acknowledgement, watching with leaden eyes as he executed a short bow and disappeared, leather coat swirling.

‘A handsome helper,’ Sanguisidera remarked absently.

‘What do you
want
with me?’ Solace whispered.

Her enemy arched an eyebrow. ‘What do I want? But my dear, you've read at least some of your mother's book. You know what I want.’ She laughed again, but this time the beauty was gone: it was a flat sound, dead and crazed. ‘I want what everyone wants. I want the world. And you,’ she added, standing at last, ‘can help me.’

She took Solace by the arm and led her to the edge of the promontory. Below them stretched the vast enormity of the cavern. The Rare blanketed the visible floor like a living carpet, the countless torches glittering like jewels on a necklace. It was ugly in its splendour, and although she longed to, Solace was unable to look away. Closing tight around her forearm, Sanguisidera's fingers were cold to the touch, her grip like iron.

‘Too many of my followers are conspicuous in daylight,’ she said. ‘I can put to use Rare like the friends you've made. They would serve me well.’

‘And then you'd kill them, like you killed Glide?’ She was surprised by how angry that made her. A traitor he might have proven to be, and a murderer besides, but there was no comfort to be taken from his death, only a numb and distant fury that he was beyond all punishment, beyond all redemption. If Sanguisidera noticed her reaction, however, she gave no sign of it, shrugging the accusation aside.

‘Most probably. Or I would have them turned. Our kind is superior, Solace – such an amusing name! Whatever their strengths in sunlight, those wretches chained in my dungeon would last not a second against you, should you so choose it. And your brother would love your company.’

‘You don't need me,’ said Solace flatly.

Serpent-swift, Sanguisidera's free hand shot out, gripping her fiercely by the chin. Her nails were filed to tiny points, and it took all of Solace's willpower not to cry out as the soft skin along and below her jaw was pierced. Blood began to trickle down her throat, and the image of similar red lines slipping from Harper's neck over Laine's fingers flashed vividly through her mind.

‘No,’ hissed Sanguisidera. ‘I don't need
you
, specifically. What I
need
is every member of our kind.
You
, I only
want
– because you are strong, and because it would please my Grief. Whatever else I could possibly
need
from you is in your blood, which, thanks to Mikhail Savarin, I already have.’ So saying, she pulled her hand back from Solace's chin, delicately licking a drip from one of her nails. ‘Such
sweet
blood it is. But you must remember, Solace dear, as your late and eloquent mother so thoughtfully pointed out, that I am, perhaps, just a little mad.’ She forced a laugh, the sound high and grating. ‘So others have always said! And perhaps that means I should phrase my offer in a different way, with the honesty born of madness. Mikhail!’

Swiftly, she turned. A knife appeared in her hand, plucked with lightning speed from somewhere around her waist.

‘My lady,’ said Mikhail reverently, stepping forward.

To her horror and sick fascination, Solace saw that Lukin was holding a bowl below his cousin's arm. Before she could so much as cry out, Mikhail had taken the knife and slashed his forearm. It was a deep cut, and his blood flowed thick and freely into the bowl. Panting, he stood back, letting Lukin hand the libation to Grief, who sipped it as appreciatively as if it were a fine wine.

‘Mage blood,’ he whispered, passing the bowl on to Sanguisidera. ‘Delectable.’

Solace felt herself pale. The blood smelled
good
, singing to the aftertaste of what she'd already consumed. The realisation disgusted her, but even so, she couldn't shut off her senses.

‘There's no need to blanch so, girl,’ the Bloody Star purred. She drank, careful as a cat, licking a stray drop from her bottom lip before it could fall awry. ‘Your nose works as well as mine, and what's more, your body yearns for it. As well it should! And you are free – free as the birds in the air – to accept or reject my gift. But
if
you reject it,’ and here her lovely face darkened, ‘I would have only to force it down your throat for you to become what you profess to hate. And then I would lead you to that dungeon from whence you came, back down with your friends, and you would drink of them willingly in rage and laughter, as if they were no more than cattle. As if they were
beasts
.’ She took another sip. ‘Accept, however, and I may put them to use – I'll probably kill them eventually, of course. I'm not particularly adept at keeping merciful promises, and so I tend not to make any.’

‘That isn't much of an offer,’ Solace managed to say. Her stomach was tying itself in knots, but she was dizzying, swooning at the scent of Mikhail's blood. It was increasingly difficult to think straight, and impossible to keep her eyes from following the bowl of their own accord, as if she were no more than a starving dog.

‘Don't be so ungenerous,’ cooed Sanguisidera. ‘I'm giving you a choice. In one alternative, the deaths of your friends are on your hands – and in the other, they might even live! Or at least, live longer.’

And all of a sudden, the bowl was in Solace's hands, the coppery, spicy, enticing scent of blood too close to her nostrils for comfort.

‘You read the words in the pipe.’ The speaker was Grief, his soft voice echoing as if from a distance. ‘I wrote those words, sister Solace. I painted them in my blood. They call to our kind, invoke us, bind us. They free our true selves. They're all over the city, hidden in places where the night folk roam. And they called
you
. I know what you truly want.
Drink.
’

‘Drink,’ echoed Solace, staring into the bowl. Dimly, she was aware of Mikhail shouting something unintelligible – his voice was weak, and it seemed as if she were encased in a kind of bubble. She could no longer feel Sanguisidera's grip on her arm, and looking down, she saw that the blood in her hands was limned with a vivid emerald glow. Light blossomed around her like the petals of an orchid. A piercing scream rattled the distance, but Solace didn't hear, the sound unnaturally muted by – what? Slowly, oblivious to the encircling light, she found she was raising the bowl to her lips.

And then, as violently as if someone had yanked hard on a rope around her waist, she was jerked backwards and up. Pain blossomed in her body. She opened her mouth to yell, but no sound came out – had the earlier scream been hers?

The last thing she saw was the bowl of blood, broken in two as its awful contents soaked into the rock, as wet and reproachful as tears.

F
or the first time in what felt like years, Solace awoke slowly and in comfort. She was somewhere soft and warm – a proper bed! – and yes, the familiar soft weight tucked against her body was a real doona. Tentatively, half afraid of herself, she probed her memories of what had happened, cringing in shame at her weakness as she recalled lifting the bowl to her lips. Then there had been the light, fierce, green, and pulsating, as Sanguisidera shrieked and screeched in the background.

And then she remembered Glide, and Grief, and Sharpsoft, and felt like weeping.

As she rolled over, she wondered where she was. Opening her eyes would provide an answer easily enough, but it seemed as if the last few mornings had only resulted in the knowledge of some horrible new truth. More likely than not, she realised, heart sinking, her friends were still ransom in Sanguisidera's dungeon, helpless in chains or dead already. And what had become of Jess and Electra? No. Too much uncertainty awaited Solace if she decided to open her eyes, and now that she knew how real her life had become – knew that it was never going to go away, none of it, not even if she wished it to – the risk seemed almost unbearable.

She started to cry.

‘Hey there. Hey. It's all right.’

The voice was familiar and female. Someone rested a hand on Solace's head.

‘Jess?’ she whispered.

‘That's the one.’

Solace's eyes snapped open. Laughing out loud, she turned around and sat up, all but crushing the seer in a fierce hug, tears forgotten.

‘Ah. Ah! Easy on the ribs there, Breaker of Doors!’

‘Sorry,’ Solace sniffed, but she was smiling. Looking over Jess's shoulder, she realised she didn't recognise where they were.

Catching her glance, Jess nodded towards the doorway. ‘I'll explain in a minute. You're pretty much the last one awake. Come on.’

Cautiously, Solace followed her friend. The doorway led out to a landing and a flight of stairs. In turn, these led down to a proper lounge room in what was, to all intents and purposes, a proper house. Evan and Laine were squeezed into a single giant armchair, while Manx and Electra leaned against their legs. Harper was stretched out on a nearby couch, his neck swathed in bandages, while Paige was sitting on a cushioned dining-room chair, her knees drawn up under her chin.

And in the centre of it all, curled up tight as sole occupant of the largest, most comfortable-looking sofa in the room, was Duchess, the tiny grey cat.

Exchanging a glance with Jess, Solace found herself staring. ‘Explain,’ she said flatly.

‘Okay,’ said Jess. ‘Well.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Remember when the Bloodkin first showed up, and Laine started running downstairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, Electra and I were lying down with Duchess, half asleep, and she was stretched out over both our legs. We were about to get up and see what was happening, but before we could move, we were – well, we were
here
.’ She blinked, looking to Electra for confirmation.

The blonde girl nodded.

‘It was bizarre. One minute we'd been at the house, and the next – it was instantaneous. We didn't feel a thing.’

‘And we're sitting in this room, right?’ Jess continued, speaking with the undimmed, half-outraged enthusiasm of someone who doesn't quite understand her own experience. ‘No explanation, no warning. Nada. And we're looking at each other thinking, “What the hell just happened?” But then we realised that Duchess hadn't moved either, that she was still asleep across both our laps.’

‘No way,’ said Evan. ‘No
way.
You are
not
telling me we were all just saved by that
cat
!’

‘Believe it,’ Electra said.

‘What happened next?’ asked Harper. His voice seemed a lot stronger than it had been, but Solace still looked away when he smiled at her. The memory of his blood and Mikhail's was still too strong, the temptation too real to be mistaken for anything else. He frowned at her reluctance, hurt, and her sense of shame deepened. Searching for a way out, she nodded towards Jess, miming concentration.

‘We woke up Duchess,’ Jess was saying. ‘And, well, you guys –’ she indicated Manx and Solace, ‘– said you'd been talking to her before, that she understood us. The thing was, though,
we
couldn't understand
her
. It was ages before we could get her to communicate – she's a stubborn little miss! – because we had to keep saying, “we know you can hear us, but we can't hear you, meow once for yes, twice for no” – that sort of thing.
God
was it painful, because apart from anything else, we had no idea of what had happened to all of you or where we were, and it seemed like the longer we waited, the more trouble you'd be getting into. Eventually, though, she seemed to agree. We asked if she'd brought us here: yes. Would she tell us how: no. Had the Bloodkin come to that house before: yes. Had they bothered her: no. Was she able to help us rescue you: yes.’

‘Would she?’ Electra chimed in, grinning. ‘No.’

‘She wanted a nap – we think,’ said Jess, glancing with fond irritation at the small, sleeping feline. ‘It took us about another forty minutes to get her to say she'd help. It was Electra's idea: she figured that if we couldn't plead with her, we might as well try bribery. I didn't know what sort of things a cat would want, but I guess Electra's spent enough time with Manx to be able to take an educated guess.’

‘And what did you give her?’ Solace found herself asking, her brain not yet entirely in sync with her ears.

Electra grimaced. ‘A swan. A whole, entire swan. I teleported one here from the university lake. The poor thing's wings were clipped – she chased it around the house for about twenty minutes. I mean, I thought it would probably peck her eyes out or something, but it seemed too confused about where it was and how it got here to do much more than run away. She finally did kill it, though, and ate most of it.

‘FYI, a cat that size, eating a swan? It should be the textbook example of “hilariously disturbing”.’ She made a face. ‘It was only afterwards that we managed to come and get everyone.’

‘Well,
almost
everyone,’ Jess amended. ‘We didn't realise that Solace was somewhere else. I don't fully understand what it is that Duchess does, or why, or how, but it seems to be harder if she isn't actually there. We think she, I don't know,
used
Electra somehow, took strength from her. But it pretty much worked out that whatever we were doing got way out of control with five people. Duchess passed out. We thought she was dead.’

‘
We
thought we were being executed,’ Manx confessed. ‘I honestly can't ever remember being so frightened. We were all on edge because of what Sharpsoft had said.’ Solace's eyebrows shot up at that, but she kept silent. ‘And then this weird green light started spinning and glowing and doing all kinds of painful shit. It was like being in one of those amusement park rides where you're strapped against the wall while it rotates at some insane speed – that, plus pain and noise and heat. I think all of us had passed out by the time we got here; we didn't wake up much before you just did.’

‘And then you came and got me the same way?’

Jess nodded. ‘Yes. We had to wait for Duchess to come to, though – she's been asleep like that ever since you arrived.’

‘I had to promise her another swan before she'd go back for you,’ Electra apologised. ‘There was just no way, otherwise.’ She sighed. ‘Poor, stupid birds.’

‘Solace,’ Laine asked suddenly. ‘What happened to you?’

All eyes turned her way. For a moment, she considered lying, keeping quiet about Sanguisidera and Grief and Sharpsoft, but too much had already happened to everyone on her account, and she couldn't bear the thought of even more people being deceived.

‘Sanguisidera talked to me,’ she managed. ‘Lukin was there, and his cousin – the one Sharpsoft mentioned. Mikhail,’ she gulped. ‘And there was my brother. His name's Grief. He was in your prophecy, Jess. He's the faceless man.’ She was running on quickly now, as everyone stared at her, shocked. ‘I didn't think I could have a brother, but it's true. He even looks like me, and it was in my mother's book, only I just didn't know to look for it. He was the first child they tried to have to defeat Sanguisidera, except she found out about it and stole him. He's as mad as she is, her pet Bloodkin. And the man who betrayed my parents to her was – was Sharpsoft.’

That did it. Everyone started yelling and talking at once. After almost a minute of confusion, it was Evan who finally managed to make himself heard over the top of everyone else, staring levelly at Solace as he spoke.

‘Look.
Look
! Shut up, all right? He came into our cell and said he was sorry. I don't know what for, but he gave me this.’ He reached into his pocket and held out the crumpled wad of paper.

Taking it from him, Solace had barely begun to flatten the first page before recognising the neat, sloped handwriting. ‘These are from my mother's book,’ she said, slowly. She scanned the opening lines, then looked away, unable to bring herself to keep reading. ‘Parts I haven't read yet. But Sanguisidera has it. He must… he must have stolen them. Why, though?’

‘Because he's on our side?’ Evan asked sarcastically, ignoring Paige's loud and unconvinced snort.

‘I don't know,’ Solace said quietly. ‘He said he'd killed Glide, that he'd done what he was meant to in getting the book.’

‘Of course he'd have to say that! If he really is a double agent, then he's obviously got some pretty hefty lies to tell. And anyway, if Sanguisidera really knew he was hanging out at our old place, why did she need Glide to steal from us?’

‘Perhaps she just wanted him to milk Solace for information.’ Electra's voice was faint. She looked even paler than usual, almost nauseous, her normally bright hair lank with perspiration.

Evan was outraged. ‘But he told her more than she ever told him! Right?’ He swung his head to Solace for confirmation.

She shrugged helplessly. ‘I honestly don't know. He spoke to me in my head when they showed him to me – when Grief summoned him, I mean – and told me not to say anything. It would make sense if they didn't know I'd met him before, but then he admitted to being the one who spoke through Jess at the end of her prophecy, who sent her spiralling out into everything. Remember?’

‘I remember it was Glide who “rescued” her,’ Evan said, pointedly.

‘He never said why he was helping me,’ Solace persisted, but she wasn't sure why. A large part of her desperately wanted to do as Evan did, and trust that Sharpsoft really was their ally, that he wasn't the one responsible for Grief. But after everything that had happened, it was a hard suspicion to shake, especially for the Vampire Cynic. Physically, she felt weaker than she ever had in her life.

‘Well, I'm still reserving judgement,’ stated Evan, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest. ‘Nobody else has to agree with me and that's fine, but I'm the first one of us he ever spoke to – and
I'm
the damn
empath
! I say he's not on Sanguisidera's side, and that's that.’

‘All right,’ said Manx quickly, seeing that Paige was preparing for an angry rebuttal. ‘Let's just leave it be, okay? We don't know for sure, he's not here right now, and we've got more important things to worry about – like, for instance, where we should be headed next. We don't even know whose house this is. Perhaps Duchess does, perhaps not, but either way, we can't stay here indefinitely, and I'd prefer to know sooner rather than later if someone's about to come home from work and accuse us of breaking and entering.’ He breathed in deeply. ‘At any rate, I'm guessing that getting as far the hell away from Sanguisidera as possible is a good plan right about now.’

Nobody spoke. Breaking the silence, Duchess wheezed contentedly in her sleep, rolling briefly onto her back before stretching full length on her side, exposing her long, white belly.

‘I wish I could sleep like that,’ murmured Jess.

‘Starveldt,’ said Solace abruptly. ‘Evan, do you still have the key?’

Her friend pulled a face. ‘Take it,’ he said, rummaging in his pocket and tossing it to her. ‘I've never been overly fond of responsibility. Why people keep entrusting me with it is beyond me.’

‘Me, too,’ Paige muttered, without humour.

‘You think we should go to your castle?’ Laine asked, raising an eyebrow. When Manx glared at her, she raised her hands defensively. ‘No, no! I don't think it's a bad plan. I was just asking.’

‘We should, I think,’ said Solace, and then, having experienced a jolt of delayed memory, ‘there's one thing I never told you. When we jumped back through from the tower that night – well, I went somewhere. An empty place. And there was a Voice – all right, more like a presence, and I'm not going to pretend it wasn't annoyingly cryptic – but it claimed to be a guardian, an interested party. The point being,’ and here she sucked in a breath, ‘it told me that the warehouse was on fire. That “events had been set in motion”. It sent us home.’

‘And you never thought to mention this before now.’ Paige's voice was flat.

Solace shuddered, not so much at the accusation, but at the fact that nobody rushed to negate it. ‘I'm sorry,’ she whispered, momentarily dropping her gaze. ‘So much was going on at the time that I didn't…’