Seer: Thrall (40 page)

"This one isn't as bad," I said. "We won't need to be up quite so late."

We sat in much the same positions as last time. Aubree poured a cup of tea and handed it to me, and then Solange wrapped a blanket around me as well. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and dully described the dreams.

"I didn't get a proper look at the people in the cells," I said. "I'm sorry."

"That's all right," Solange said gently. I answered a few questions, and then Amanda began making her drawings.

Ten minutes later, she said, "It would help if I could see how the woman was tied."

I sighed. "Do we have rope?"

"I'll get some," Aubree said. She was gone for another ten minutes while Amanda worked on other drawings. I drank my third cup of tea before deciding I'd had enough.

Aubree returned. She had several lengths of rope and a knife, presumably for cutting the rope to proper length. I stared for a moment then rose from the sofa, sloughing off the blanket and then the robe as well. I took some of the rope. "This is the wrong kind," I said. I turned to Amanda and explained the rope used, as best I could. She nodded.

"She sat on the floor," I said. "It's bare concrete." I moved away and sat down, then looked at her. "She was naked. Do you need me naked?"

"No," she replied.

I thought about it. It took me a couple of tries before I figured out what she had done. I tied my legs together, and I thought it looked the same as from the dream. "Like that, I think." Then I looked at Solange. "Bistra made her stand up."

Solange nodded and walked around the sofa to me. She helped me to my feet far more kindly than Bistra had helped Danette.

"She made Danette stand with her hands on her head," I said, demonstrating. "And she started by tying some sort of harness in place."

Aubree stepped over and handed Solange some rope. "She started across the chest, going above and below her breasts, and between them, too. Then she moved down around her stomach."

It took coaching, and it may not have been quite right, but while Aubree supported me, Solange tied my body the way Bistra had tied Danette's.

"Then her wrists," I said. I lowered my hands behind my back and slowly turned around so Amanda could watch. I couldn't see what Solange was doing, but as she wrapped more rope around my wrists, it felt right. "She tied the wrists together, side-by-side," I explained, "and then secured them to the harness. She did something with the knots so Danette couldn't reach them with her fingers."

Solange finished tying my wrists.

"Then one more above the elbows," I said, "drawing them more closely together. It must have hurt, as Danette cried out once or twice."

Solange tied my arms the same way, but she was far gentler. It was uncomfortable, but it didn't hurt.

"Can you stand that for about ten minutes?" Amanda asked. I nodded.

Solange and Aubree helped move me backwards to the coffee table, and I found myself sitting on next to the computer, my knots readily visible to Amanda. I heard her clicking as she drew the images.

I turned to Solange. She was watching me carefully. "Does it excite you to tie me up?"

She smiled. "A little."

I wasn't sure if she was serious or was helping me to lighten the mood.

I glanced over at Aubree. She wasn't looking at me. When I looked at Cadence, she wasn't, either, but she had her eyes on Amanda, so that was proper.

"Aubree, how about you?"

"No," she said. "Of course not."

"But aren't I prey? Now I'm helpless prey."

That was when she turned to me. "You aren't prey. You're my friend."

"Don't tease her," Solange said quietly, although I was sure everyone heard. But I nodded understanding.

"I think you should have tied Solange," Amanda said. "I'd have paid good money to see that."

Solange chuckled. "That wasn't going to happen."

A few minutes later, Amanda asked, "How is this?" She turned the screen so I could see it better.

"Good," I said. "Hmm. She has a mole on her right shoulder blade, and her back is lightly freckled."

"You can untie her," Amanda said as she turned the screen back and began working on it.

"Oh, I don't know," Solange said. "Maybe I like her this way." But she knelt down and began to untie my legs first.

"Funny," I said. "It's not my arms you need bound anyway."

"Oh?" she asked, not looking up at me.

"It's my mouth."

She laughed. "No, Sidney. I like when your mouth is free to do whatever you want with it."

Everyone else snorted.

It took her time to untie me. Once she was done, I took a small hug from her then moved back onto the sofa, wrapping back up in the blanket. Amanda finished the drawing, and I pronounced it good.

After that, I zoned out. Amanda did several more drawings, and I answered questions when asked. But she did a good job, and she didn't need much more from me.

"What about the other vampires?" she asked, once we were done with the horrible ones of Danette and Bistra.

"No," Solange said. "We want it to look like someone is spying on Bistra, not Gideon." She paused. "But I want one of Bistra on the phone, and I want her looking quite crazed. And remember to caption it."

And so Amanda did one more sketch. I glanced at it, and she did, indeed, catch her looking quite crazed.

"Break one of her fangs," I suggested.

"She has broken fangs?" Solange asked.

"No. And sink her cheeks in. Give her bad hair, too. Make her hand look like a claw, and give her an old fashioned cell phone, nothing modern."

Solange chuckled. I closed my eyes while Amanda made the changes. "Good," said Solange several minutes later. I cracked an eye and smiled.

"That should get her goat," I said. "Raving bitch."

They made a few more small changes to the drawings before printing them out. I remained quiet, but I leaned against Amanda as we sat together on the sofa. When she was done, I leaned further and kissed her cheek. "Thank you."

In turn, she caressed my cheek with a hand and said, "You're welcome."

"I'll walk them out," Aubree said.

Everyone wished everyone else a good night, and soon Solange and I were climbing the stairs to my bedroom while our guests headed home. I trudged slowly, emotionally weary, but Solange displayed no impatience but simply walked alongside me.

At the door to my room, I turned to her. I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what. So instead I simply took her hand and pulled her into the room. I headed for the bathroom but said, "Please stay."

"I will."

"Not dressed like that." I gestured to her clothes. She nodded.

I stepped into the bedroom, leaving the door open widely, and headed for the bathroom. By the time I was done, Solange was standing alongside the bed. She was wearing undies and a camisole. She'd been down to her room and back awfully quickly.

I didn't say anything but simply crossed the room to the bed and climbed in. Solange joined me, and I snuggled against her, closing my eyes. "Help me relax a little, get me completely high, then help me sleep. Please."

And she did.

After that, everything accelerated. Solange completely babied me on Sunday. By Monday, I was back to work. On Tuesday Solange told me, "You're taking Thursday off work. Move any appointments."

I sighed but only nodded acceptance.

Wednesday night, she drank lightly from me then made me dream.

It was a short dream and entirely horrible.

* * * *

I screamed wordlessly; I screamed and screamed. "Who is doing this?"

Two minutes later, I was in the basement. The slaves were still lowering themselves to their knees when I burst in. I didn't even bother playing with them but simply entered each cell, one after another, and ripped their heads right off their necks. It didn't even put a dent in my rage, and what I did to the bodies afterwards didn't, either.

Upstairs, I didn't bother cleaning. I found a working phone, which was more challenging than it might normally be, and dialed one number. "Get everyone here. NOW!"

While I waited, I destroyed the living room, throwing the furniture against or even through the walls. I spent most of the time screaming my rage.

My vampires began arriving two minutes into my tirade. They collected in the foyer, the bravest of them watching from the living room entrance. When I had run out of things I could easily throw, I turned to them and screeched, "Get in here!"

They filed in, all of them keeping some distance from me.

"You summoned us, Mistress," said Landon. Landon was the oldest of my surviving offspring and the one with the most reasons to want me destroyed.

"Some of you are plotting against me. Tell me everything right now and I will only banish you. Lie to me, and I will destroy you all!"

They immediately denied it. I saw a few exchange looks, and I knew right then they were going to rise against me.

I beat them to it.

It took me perhaps twenty seconds to destroy all of them.

Haven was last. She was the newest of my children, and had been my favorite for a while. She begged for her life, assuring me over and over she had always been loyal to me. But she tried to run, and if I'd been tempted to spare her, running was the wrong choice.

She died when I ripped her heart from her body.

Then I stood in the middle of the destroyed room, looking about me. There was vampire dust everywhere.

"Garrett!" I screamed. "Clean this up."

The dream ended.

* * * *

When I rolled over, Solange and Aubree were already watching me.

"She destroyed all her vampires, or at least all the ones who came when she called them."

"We called Amanda when your dream started," Aubree said. "I'll go wait downstairs."

Aubree stepped out and Solange crawled into bed with me.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Of course."

I told her the dream. When I got done, I asked her, "Can you really tell if I lie to you?"

"Yes."

"Then we're going to play three truths and a lie," I said. "Except there will be five truths."

"All right."

"Growing up, my favorite color was pink."

"Truth," she said immediately.

"You're supposed to wait."

"Uh huh. Keep going."

"When I was very young, we had a dog, but it was old and died when I was four or five."

"Truth."

"Some of my foster homes had pets, but they weren't really mine."

"Truth."

"But Chaos and Des were my first pets since Red died."

She paused. "You little vixen," she said. "Truth and a lie."

"My dad's dog's name was Blue."

She laughed. "Truth. Not Red."

"I got Chaos and Des at the same time."

"I thought this was five truths and one lie. That was a lie."

"If you can do that, why didn't she trust Danette when she denied spying? Why didn't she trust her vampires?"

"I can tell when you lie, Sidney. I can't necessarily tell when Cadence does."

"Because she's a vampire?"

"Because she's a far better liar than you are."

* * * *

We did more drawings, and afterwards, Solange climbed into my bed with me. I drank a great deal of her blood. She crooned to me as I drank, and then she stayed the rest of the night with me.

* * * *

I had my next dreams on Saturday night. Solange asked me to dream about Gideon. And so I watched him make a series of telephone calls. Each took only a few minutes. In each, the only thing of importance was quite simple. "I'm calling a conference for Tuesday." He assured each person he called they would be his honored guest.

We didn't need drawings.

Tuesday, I spied on the resulting meeting. Including Gideon, there were eight vampires I knew were kings or queens or masters or whatever they had each decided to call themselves. With them were a few other vampires serving as aides to the masters.

There was very little small talk. Gideon showed the drawings he had been receiving. Most of the others in the room had received similar drawings. One of the women vampires asked, "So?"

"She has become unhinged." He then relayed his phone calls with Bistra, giving what I thought was a restrained version. Around the room, a few lips tightened, but it seemed like the vampires took it in stride.

Then he sat back and let the other seven discuss it.

At first, they tried to decide how it was happening. "She has a spy amongst her midst," was the popular opinion. "She's off her rocker," was the other theory.

"She's definitely off her rocker," Gideon chimed in.

One of the others said, "She is drawing attention to herself, and she risks drawing attention to all of us. If the humans discover what she is doing, she won't go down easily."

"She's a lunatic," one of the women said. "I've been warning all of you about her for three hundred years. Did you listen to me then? Of course not. But Gideon shows us a few paltry sketches, and suddenly she's a threat?" She rose to her feet and slammed her fist on the table. A crack appeared.

"Safire," said Gideon, holding his hands wide. "Peace."

The woman turned to him, and I saw her fangs were out. The two studied each other, one of them far calmer than the other.

"We heard you in the past, Safire," the other woman said. "But we needed more to act." She gestured at the sketches. "I believe we must act. We should call her and remind her of the risks."

"Remind her of the risks?" spat Safire. "You've always been so... cautious, Celeste. How did someone as docile as you ever reach such an exalted age?"

But Gideon held up his hand. "Our other choice is drastic," he said. "We should perhaps attempt diplomacy before choosing a less reversible path." He didn't wait but pulled out a phone. He dialed, and then everyone waited... and waited... and waited. Gideon frowned, pushing a button on the face of his phone. "Perhaps she is screening her calls. Celeste, perhaps you should try."

Celeste tried, and then Safire, then two of the other men.

"It seems she doesn't wish to talk to us," Safire said, her eyebrow raised.

"Perhaps she is out," said Celeste, but she tried her phone again, and it was clear this time it was answered. Celeste listened for a moment then said into the phone, "Bistra, darling, I am going to put you on speaker phone." She set the phone on the table. "I'm in Atlanta with-"

And there came forth from the phone a lengthy, incomprehensible string of invectives. The only thing that was clear was when Bistra said, "I'll be coming for you when I finish with Gideon, you bitch!"

Celeste destroyed her phone with one fist, completing the crack in the table Safire had started at the same time.

Everyone stared at the remnants of the phone. "I am ready to vote," Celeste said tightly.

Gideon gestured, and two of the lesser vampires moved around the room, passing out small marbles.

"Green for additional diplomacy," Celeste declared. "Blue for imprisonment. Black for destruction. White to take no action at this time."

One of the lesser vampires set an upside down hat on the center of the table, immediately over the crack. One by one, the eight masters walked past it, depositing a marble. I could hear them clicking as the marbles dropped into the hat. They finished, and then one of the men asked, "Who counts it?"

As a group, they all turned to one of the other masters, one who had been quiet throughout the discussions. The vampire nodded, moved to the center of the table, and tipped the hat over. He waited a moment, then lifted the hat. Some of the marbles tried to escape, but he corralled all of them. Once they were still, he pulled his hands away.

There were six black marbles and two blue.

"Destruction," he intoned. His voice was deep, almost majestic, and certainly ancient. "Does anyone contest this count?"

No one said a word.

The vampire fished out the two blue marbles. "It is best if we are unanimous, although it is not strictly necessary. Are the owners of these two marbles willing to change their votes?" He held them flat on his hand and waited.

There was a pause, and then, much to my surprise, Gideon stepped forward. He removed one of the blue marbles and replaced it with a black one. The ancient vampire lifted an eyebrow.

"She threatened you most directly," one of the others said. "And you would have simply imprisoned her?"

"We couldn't hold her anyway," Safire said.

"She was once a friend," Gideon said. "Of sorts, anyway." He tapped his black marble. "This does not please me."

Then he stepped away. The ancient vampire looked around. "Does anyone wish to claim this last marble?"

No one said a word, but they all looked at each other. Then the vampire said. "Good, because it was mine." And then he replaced it with a black marble. "We are unanimous." He looked around the room, his eyes settling on one of the other men. "Will you lead this quest, Godwin?"

The vampire nodded. "Immediately?"

"Immediately," said the ancient vampire. And one after another, the other assembled masters agreed, "Immediately."

There was a rush, and then all eight of them were gone, from one moment to the next.

I woke.