Vampire Elite (19 page)

“You can describe what happened at Shay-Nefer, but you must not mention anything about Arianna. Just forget that she’s your sister. Very few vampires know that Istara had an Amiti heir and that there’s a young Queen. We need to keep her off the radar as much as possible.”

“Well, of course. Sure, that makes a lot of sense.”

“Good.”

The car stopped in front of the Arles Amphitheatre, a monumental building similar to the Colosseum in Rome. Built in the first century AD when Arles flourished as part of the Roman Empire, it accommodated over twenty thousand spectators. Back then, they came to watch gladiators, chariot races, animal slayings, and executions. Now, humans came to watch bullfighting, plays, and concerts—and immortals came to watch the Confederation’s Council hear cases and judge and punish the accused.
 

And now Simone was about to become a part of that history.
 

As she approached, flanked by Anock and Odji, the amphitheatre seemed silent and empty, but then everything changed. They passed through the energy shield erected on these occasions to conceal those present from human passers-by, and the whole area exploded with light and sound. Shit, it really was sold out.
 

Simone paused for a moment just before stepping out into the floodlights. She was entering at one end of a huge, oval arena that yawned before her, surrounded by tiers of terraced seating packed with spectators. In the arena’s center stood several contraptions related to various types of punishment—she couldn’t even look at them right now or she’d throw up. At the far end, a newly-built raised dais held sections of VIP seating arranged like large box seats in a theater. At the dais’s center, a smaller semicircular platform rose slightly higher—clearly where the Council would sit in judgment.
 

The whole dais was festooned in the Confederation’s official colors, deep maroon and gold, with banners displaying its emblem: a crowned, winged serpent devouring its own tail. Each element in the emblem was rife with symbolism, the kind of thing children learned in school. Simone remembered learning that the serpent itself, Uroboros, symbolized immortals’ regenerative capacity. She wondered if the Council had considered the irony of flaunting it here, where so many immortals’ regeneration ended.
 

She took a deep breath, gathered all of her dignity about her, and entered the arena, grateful to have Anock and Odji with her.
 

The crowd exploded with applause and whistles. But Simone wasn’t a fool; she knew why they were excited. The vampire princess had arrived to be judged for the entertainment of the crowd.

Holding her head high, she completed the seemingly endless walk to the far end of the arena and took her place beside the two other prisoners: a male Nightwalker vampire and a female werejaguar. She’d be tried last, saved for the finale; after all, she’d become the main event.
 

Odji leaned to her and whispered in her ear, “Hang in there, gorgeous. We need to go to meet the King, but remember—we are always here for you, no matter what. We are your pride.”

Flooded with gratitude, she caught his hand and squeezed it hard, fighting back tears. “Thank you, Odji.”

She felt blessed that she had been born a vampire and had her pride to protect her. Reluctantly, she let Odji and Anock go. She watched them walk to the dais and disappear behind it.

The crowd, which had quieted to a dull roar after Simone’s entry, suddenly erupted again with cheering and applause. The Confederation Council members—the Court who’d be passing judgment on Simone and the other accused—were beginning their procession across the arena toward the dais. Its eleven members included representatives from all major immortal groups. The hems of their dark violet robes swished against the arena’s sand floor, leaving sweeping trails behind them like snakes’ tracks. Fans threw flowers streaming with colorful ribbons into the arena.
 

How touching.

Simone’s eyes sought Tor, but she felt his powerful aura wash over her from across the arena before she saw him. Her eyes stayed glued to him as he reached the dais, where the rest of the pride was already waiting in the VIP section reserved for them. Simone watched as he exchanged greetings with the other dignitaries. Why wasn’t he looking at her? He hadn’t come here to socialize! Surely she deserved at least a sign of acknowledgment.
 

Why hadn’t she been born a boy? She’d have given everything for a fraction of the love he showered on his adopted sons.

By the time Tor took his seat among the pride members, the Council had gotten settled in their tribune. It was a comfort to see Theores among them, representing the vampires, even though to Simone’s disappointment Theores had to recuse herself from Simone’s case. She reminded herself that it didn’t matter, technically speaking: a tie would count in Simone’s favor. The Council Chair, Brianne, was an elegant, diminutive elfin with white hair, alabaster skin, and long, slender ears shaped like inverted teardrops.
 

Court sessions always began with opening ceremonies; Simone vaguely registered a fire dance being performed by a pack of werewolves clad in minimalist black leather costumes. When the performance was over, Brianne raised her staff and the arena became deathly quiet.
 

The Chair opened the Court session by calling forward the first prisoner, a Nightwalker vampire accused of murdering a human family. According to his defender, the Nightwalker had had no intention of harming the humans; he’d lost control, overcome with bloodlust. Simone stopped breathing at the word
bloodlust
: she was about to use a similar defense for herself, and the Council’s determination in this case might affect what they decided in hers.

Her heart seized when the Court sentenced the Nightwalker to death. They went on to explain the verdict: the vampire was over a hundred years old and should have had his bloodlust under control, so his excuse was unacceptable.
 

With a combination of fear and morbid curiosity, Simone watched three executioners enter the arena. They looked like embodiments of Death itself, with every inch of their bodies swathed in black and black hoods completely covering their faces.
 

One of them carried what must have been the biggest sword Simone had ever seen. The other two tied the Nightwalker’s hands behind his back and led him to the center of the arena, where they forced him to his knees.
 

At a wave of Brianne’s elegant hand, the sword hissed through the air, neatly slicing off the Nightwalker’s head. A fountain of blood exploded from his neck and his head landed in the dirt, eyes wide open and face and hair covered with blood.
 

Simon covered her mouth with her hand, horrified. She turned toward where her pride sat, trying to catch her father’s eye. But he wasn’t even looking at the arena, just sitting there speaking casually with Leon, holding a Pink Sunset, not disturbed at all by the beheading. If the Council ordered her beheading, would Tor just keep drinking his Pink Sunset? Or would he intervene somehow?

Brianne raised her staff again and summoned the next prisoner, a young female werejaguar named Madalena who was accused of killing three humans. At twenty-five, Madalena had only recently acquired the unique characteristics and skills of her species. Her defender argued her case diligently. She’d killed the humans because they were hunting jaguars in the jungle. They’d already killed one and were looking for more.
 

Madalena interjected to point out that jaguars were an endangered species whose numbers were declining annually. Humans considered it a crime to hunt jaguars, so what these human poachers were doing was illegal. They would sell the skins in the illegal fur trade, and the body parts would be sold for use in potions of all types, primarily to enhance males’ sexual prowess.
 

As humans could not monitor hunting deep in the jungle, Madalena had taken the law into her own hands and administered her own brand of justice. She closed by stating proudly that these humans were not worthy of the privilege of life and that she had no regrets about her actions.
 

Simone thought that Madalena had acted more like a hero than a criminal and hoped that the Council wouldn’t condemn her for what she’d done. It appeared that the sympathies of the crowd and the Council were with the girl. All but one thumb went up: Madalena would not get the death penalty. The crowd roared with approval.
 

Madalena’s face melted into a wide smile of relief; her life had been spared. But she was not yet free to go. As a crime of mortal severity, murder could not go unpunished. The Council huddled in consultation for a moment and then announced the penalty: de-clawing. The amputation of claws was a relatively mild punishment for someone of Madalena’s species—with time, her body would regenerate the claws—but the procedure itself was extremely painful and humiliating.
 

Madalena’s eyes shone with tears as two of the executioners led her over to one of the contraptions in the center of the arena, a large cube of what looked like solid, highly-polished granite. They guided her into a kneeling position and secured her wrists and hands with metal cuffs that had been embedded in the stone. Madalena didn’t resist at all, just exuded a combination of dignity and despondency that seemed to capture everyone’s sympathy, judging from the crowd’s stillness and silence.

Brianne rose and faced the crowd. “According to our law,” she announced, “a volunteer may act as proxy. Is there anyone who wishes to take the punishment in this female’s stead?”

Madalena desperately scanned the crowd.
 

“I do,” roared a voice from the second tier of seating.
 

All eyes turned to find a young male with Brazilian features and lithe body moving with feline grace down to the arena. He was clearly also a werejaguar. The crowd responded with a thunderous ovation.
 

He approached the Council and respectfully bowed his head. “I am Raul and I will take the punishment for Madalena.” With an approving smile, Brianne nodded her consent.
 

As Raul walked over to where Madalena knelt in the cuffs, she finally burst into tears, her face shining in the floodlights like the granite’s mirrored surface. “No, Raul, no,” she begged, her voice echoing through the amphitheatre, which had grown silent again.
 

“Please, Lena. I must do this,” he urged her. They were speaking to each other with an almost painful intimacy, as though thousands of spectators weren’t eavesdropping on their conversation.
 

Madalena didn’t say anything else, just shook her head back and forth as Raul moved in behind her. She probably knew that her objections didn’t hold any weight; those who’d been sentenced were not permitted to refuse an offer of proxy.
 

In fact, Simone realized, the whole proxy setup had really been designed to maximize the suffering of everyone involved—and to maximize its poignancy and pathos for spectators. Those who had been sentenced had to get into position as though their punishment was certain, ensuring their terror before a volunteer was even sought and during the suspenseful wait while the Chair asked for volunteers. They couldn’t refuse a proxy, even if the volunteer couldn’t physically handle the punishment.
 

And then there was the ritualized intervention component, where the volunteer had to physically cover the sentenced individual’s body with his (or her) own, and remain in place, unrestrained, during the punishment. Like what Raul was doing now, kneeling behind Madalena, his back pressed against hers, arms reaching around her body to place his hands above her cuffed ones. One of the executioners, meanwhile, was taking a seat across the stone from him.
 

As the executioner took out a pair of sturdy pliers and began to extract Raul’s claws one by one, Madalena completely lost it. Sobbing and dropping her head, then thrashing it side to side as though she couldn’t stand what she had to witness. When Raul’s blood dripped onto her cuffed hands, she began to struggle against the restraints like a wild animal.
 

Raul remained silent throughout the ordeal, grimacing slightly with each extraction. The blood streamed from his fingers and down the stone, soaking the sand, its thick scent stirring the crowd’s bloodlust.
 

Despite the cruelty of the scene, Simone found it wildly fascinating. The male taking pain on his female’s behalf was an act of such passion, the scene before her so public and intimate, that she just watched, mesmerized, as the punishment was completed, Madalena and Raul left the arena arm in arm—and the sound of her name being announced snapped her back into the present.
 

It was Simone’s turn. She rose and faced the Council.

Chapter 27

As the hearing began, Simone was trembling so violently that she had to concentrate on not letting her legs buckle. She anchored herself by staring at Theores, who watched her from the Council dais, her face expressionless but her gaze warm.

She barely heard her defender making her case. He was talking about youth and inexperience and being pushed over the edge by extraordinary circumstances. Then the prosecutor began to question her about her kidnapping, his manner polite, even concerned. She’d been promised that she had nothing to worry about; maybe she really would get out of this alive. Obviously the prosecutor was more interested in staying in the King’s good graces than seeing her executed.

Simone detailed her story as she’d been instructed, leaving Arianna out of it. Then, with tears flowing freely, she told them that she sincerely regretted the death of the tourist and would accept whatever judgment the Council deemed fitting. When she finished speaking, she glanced over at her father. Her heart filled with hope at Tor’s ever-so-subtle nod of approval. How could she ever have doubted him? He wouldn’t abandon her; he would save her.