On a Darkling Plain (23 page)

“Every human artist has a Toreador sponsor, who presumably knows him better than the rest of us,” Elliott replied. “If the patron thinks his client can be trusted with the secret of the Masquerade, then we’ll let him in on it. As for the rest of the mortals... I don’t know, we’ll tell them that our international investment cartel has run afoul of Muslim fundamentalist terrorists who’ve threatened to destroy us and everyone we cherish. That might sound plausible enough to satisfy them for a few days, and with luck, by that time the worst of this mess will be over;”

Lazio smiled, his expression a mixture of hope and skepticism. “Do you really think so?”

“We just need one break,” Elliott replied. “One prisoner, to rat out the architects of this harassment. And then we’ll show the enemy what war really is.”

Lazio nodded thoughtfully and then said, “There’s another problem you should be aware of. With all the local kine taking steps to defend themselves from Dracula, some of our people are having trouble hunting.”

“We’ll have one of the old hands, perhaps one of the Brujah, give stalking lessons. Beyond that, well, we do have human friends who understand our true nature. We can ask them to bleed a bit for the good of the cause. And our neonates can still derive nourishment from animal vitae.” Lazio raised an eyebrow. “Nobody’s going to be very happy about those last two measures. I mean, you Toreador think it’s poor form to feed on your friends, and animal blood supposedly tastes vile.”

Elliott shrugged. ‘“Needs must when the devil drives.’ Is there anything else you need to tell me? Has anyone found a Kindred answering Dracula’s description? Have we received any more anonymous phone calls?”

“No,” Lazio said.

“Then for God’s sake, go to bed,” Elliott said. “You’re exhausted.”

Lazio waved him off. “I’m all right. You might need me.” “1 imagine that, working together, we Kindred and ghouls can keep the lid on things for a few hours,” Elliott said dryly. “If not, we can always wake you. Go. Grab some liquor or

warm milk on the way, if you need it to help you relax. This is the down side of maneuvering me into being a leader. You have to do what I say.”

“Yes,
sir,”
said the mortal sarcastically, rising from his chair. “Despite this presumptuous treatment, I am glad I pushed you into the job, and not just because the domain needs you. Judy’s right: you’ve come back to us. Roger would be so happy, if only he were well.” Lazio trudged back into the hall.

Elliott stared after him, pondering what the dresser had said. He wondered if he was changing, shaking off the pall of despair that had enveloped him for so long. It was true, at certain moments he was too busy, too caught up in the ongoing struggle, to brood over Mary’s death. But sooner or later something, like, ironically, Lazio’s remarks just now, would remind him of the tragedy, and then his grief came flooding back. Indeed, he felt horribly guilty for having allowed it to slip away in the first place, even though he was well aware that his wife wouldn’t have wanted him to suffer until the end of time.

Sighing, he tried to set his personal problems and perversities aside. He had work to do. Unbuttoning his double-breasted jacket, he moved behind Roger’s desk and sat down in the executive chair to look at the notes he’d left on the blotter.

Elliott would have been the first to admit that the scheme he’d concocted was a simple one: select an office in a house where all the suspected traitors come and go at will. Spread important-looking papers across the desk, leave the door unlocked and the room vacant, and see who sneaks in and examines them. But in his experience, simple plans were frequently the best.

First he picked up the documents, held them to his nose, and inhaled deeply. Though Kindred didn’t perspire, and were likewise free of most of the other metabolic processes that contributed to a human’s body odor, they still sometimes possessed a scent discernible to another vampire with unnaturally keen senses. But all Elliott smelled was paper and ink.

Next, sharpening his vision, he peered at the pages front and back. Undead skin was rarely as oily as that of a mortal, yet it occasionally left traces even so. But the only fingerprints were his own.

Conceivably, there was no traitor. The enemy might be spying on the Toreador electronically, even though they hadn’t found a bug, or by occult means. That was one of the many problems with fighting an unknown supernatural opponent. There was no telling what extraordinary capabilities he possessed.

Alternatively, perhaps the spy hadn’t gotten around to studying the papers yet, had suspected a trap and avoided them, or was good enough at his job to look them over without leaving any evidence behind. But Elliott had one more examination to conduct before he set the documents aside for another night. He closed his eyes, tried to empty his mind, and held the notes against his face.

Elliott wasn’t as psychic as Roger, or as any number of other Toreador and Malkavians he’d known over the centuries, but occasionally he could manage the feat of psychometry, gleaning information about an individual from the psychic signature he’d left behind on some object that he’d handled. And after about thirty seconds, he experienced an instant of vertigo before an image wavered into existence before his inner eye. He saw Schuyller Madison poring over the papers, his pale aura tinged with the murky red and blue of malice and suspicion.

Elliott winced. He’d hoped that the traitor, if indeed he existed, was neither a Toreador, an elder, nor someone he deemed a friend. Sky was all three. Elliott couldn’t imagine what inducement could have persuaded the poet to turn on his sire and his clan.

He supposed that he’d better go find out. His feelings an untidy mixture of anger, excitement and sadness, he rose and marched from the office.

A ghoul directed him to one of the gardens behind the house. Seated on a marble bench, Sky was gazing raptly at the moon, looking so inoffensive, so
himself,
that for a moment Elliott wondered if the incriminating vision might have been merely a product of his imagination. Night-blooming flowers, generally the most common blossoms in a vampire’s garden, perfumed the cool evening air, and surf whispered on the beach.

Sky turned and smiled at Elliott. “Over the years,” he said, “I’ve written a dozen poems about gardens in the moonlight. I wonder if I’m good for one more. I saw a shooting star fall into the Gulf a few minutes ago. Perhaps I can work that in.”

“We have to talk,” Elliott said heavily. “I know that you’re the spy.”

Sky’s soulful eyes blinked in apparent confusion. His wan aura flickered with a rainbow of shifting colors, the signature of startled bewilderment. “What are you talking about?” he said.

Elliott shook his head. “You can drop the act. It’s quite convincing, and coming from me, that’s a compliment. But I left the notes sitting out in Roger’s study as a trap to enable me to determine who crept in and perused them. They don’t actually contain any important information; but then, you already know that.”    .

“All right,” said Sky, spreading his hands, “you caught me. I confess, I did read them, because I was curious and, to be frank, because some of us are still concerned about your ability to direct the defense. I wanted to gauge the quality of your ideas. But I swear I never passed information to any outsiders.”

“Nice try,” Elliott said. “But my clairvoyance vouchsafed me quite a vivid vision, one far more informative than those I generally achieve. I even saw your aura. Since you thought you were unobserved, it was clouded with your treachery, not shimmering innocuously as it is now.”

A hardness, a bitterness came into Sky’s face, twisting it into a countenance Elliott had never seen before: virtually the visage of a stranger. “A particular shade of ethereal light, glimpsed in a dream,” the poet said. “Not a superabundance of evidence, to turn you against an old friend. Yet you’re convinced, aren’t you?”

“Reluctantly,” Elliott said. “It should have been Gunter if it had to be anyone at all. Why did you do it? Why would you help destroy art?” It was all but unimaginable that any Toreador, unless his spirit was as damaged as Elliott’s, could be a party to such a desecration. “Why betray your clanmates to foes who meant to kill them, and poison poor Roger?” Sky’s lips quirked into a mirthless smirk. “Is that your theory, yours and the sagacious Dr. Potter’s? No one poisoned Roger, not in the sense you mean, though I admit to helping others lay him low.”

“Why?” Elliott repeated. “Roger loved you and treated you like a son. The rest of our brood esteemed you, too. And you never really cared about wealth or power.”

“Can’t you guess?” Sky cried, with such unexpected vehemence that Elliott nearly recoiled. “Not even now? f didn’t want to do any of it! The memory of doing it, and the knowledge of what I’m supposed to do next, has been driving me mad! He enslaved me with a Blood Bond!” Drops of scarlet vitae: seeped from the poet’s eyes, mingling their scent with the fragrance of the flowers.

“Who did?” Elliott demanded.

“Drink a Kindred’s blood three times and you become his servant,” Sky said somberly. “Well, over the years, he must have forced me to drink
thirty
times, and his vitae is more potent than you can imagine. No one could have resisted, not even infinitesimally. Sometimes I think I don’t even recall the person I used to be.”

“If that’s true,” Elliott said gently, “then no one will condemn you for what you’ve done. Tell me who Bound you, so I can help you win your freedom.”

Still crying, Sky laughed bitterly. “Much of the time, I didn’t even remember what had happened to me. He had so much control over me that he could erase my memory like a chalkboard. Even when I did remember, 1 couldn’t speak of it, any more than I can reveal anything substantive to you now. But I always prayed that my dear friend Elliott, the man I considered even shrewder than Roger, would discern that something was wrong with me and investigate. Alas, you never did. You were too busy agonizing over Mary’s death to spare a thought for the other people who loved you. But now, when it’s too late, you want to ride to my rescue! It’s rather comical, in its way.”

Trying to repress the guilt that Sky’s reproach had inspired, drawing on his charismatic powers, Elliott knelt in front of the other Toreador, clasped his hand, and stared him in the eye. “It’s not too late,” he insisted. “So far, we’re holding our own, and you can help us carry the fight to the enemy.
Tell me what you know.”

Sky smiled mirthlessly. “What I know,” he said. “Actually, I know a lot. Once he had me fully in his power, he told me things. I don’t suppose he has any true confidants. I wonder if a creature like that can be lonely.”

“Who are you talking about?” Elliott said. “The leader of our enemies?”

“Milton’s Satan,” Sky replied. “At least that’s who he reminds me of. Beautiful, arrogant, and very, very cunning. You only
think
you’re holding your own. He’s been planning the attack for decades. He’s anticipated every move you’ve made, every move you
can
make. Every step you take carries you closer to disaster.”

Sky sounded so certain of what he was saying that Elliott felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “But
why
does he want to destroy us? Did one of us offend him in some way?”

o^^TarklTR?TW!n

Sky laughed harshly. “Of course not! Could an ant offend
you?
That’s what we are compared to him: tiny, crawling insects.”

“The hell we are,” Elliott said stoutly, as much for the benefit of his own morale as Sky’s. “You wouldn’t feel that way if he hadn’t bewitched you, and I daresay the feeling will pass when we destroy him. If his quarrel with us isn’t personal, then what is he trying to accomplish?”

“To draw your master — or mistress rather — his opposite number, into the open.”

Elliott frowned in perplexity. “Do you mean Roger?”

Sky sneered through his bloody tears. “No, fool! You see,
this
is why you’re doomed. You don’t understand anything. You can’t even feel the fingers that lift you up and move you from one square to another.”

Elliott kept gazing into his fellow Toreador’s eyes. “No more talking in riddles.
Tell me the enemy’s name.”

Sky shook his head. “I can’t. I wish I could, but your influence is nothing compared to the power of the Bond.” “Please,” Elliott said, squeezing the other vampire’s hand, “fight it! Don’t make us torture your secrets out of you.”

“I don’t think that would work, either,” Sky said, “but i’ll spare you the trouble of trying.” Suddenly, moving with inhuman speed, he tore his fingers out of Elliott’s grip and kicked him in the chest, sprawling the actor on the ground.

Sky thrust his hand inside his coat, evidently reaching for a weapon. But quick as the traitor was, Elliott was faster still. He scrambled to his feet and snatched his Beretta 92F out of its shoulder holster, beating the poet to the draw.

Sky inclined his head in acknowledgment of the other Kindred’s superior agility. “I remember when we used to spar and fence,” he said wistfully. “I never could beat you in any sort of physical contest, though 1 fancy I gave you a few bad moments at the whist table. Well, this sorry business is ending better than I thought it would, in that it’s ending sooner. Farewell, old friend, and if you can find it in your

heart to forgive me, carve some of my verses on my tomb.”

“What are you talking about?” Elliott said.

“Behold,” Sky said, and then his reedy body burst into crackling blue flame.

Elliott recoiled. Like many vampires, he had an instinctive dread of sunlight and raging fire, two of the few forces that could actually destroy him. Struggling to overcome his fear, he dropped the Beretta, peeled off his coat, and lunged toward the furious heat and glare, intent on using the garment to smother the blaze.

But it wasn’t possible. Even as Elliott reached for Sky, the fire finished devouring the poet and went out in the blink of an eye. Shrouded in the folds of the jacket, the surviving vampire’s clutching hands encountered only Sky’s blousy embroidered shirt and powder-blue silk ascot, in the process of tumbling to the ground.