But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
— II Timothy 3:13
Dan awoke to the intoxicating scent of mortal vitae, the feel of the warm liquid splashing against his upturned face, and the burning throat and cramped stomach that the Hunger always produced if denied too long. He frantically gulped at the cascade.
Half-delirious with the ecstasy of feeding, he felt the blood begin to wash away a hundred aches and pains. Halfhealed injuries — he dimly remembered being shot, although as yet he couldn’t summon up the details -— resumed the process of regeneration. And then the stream of vitae stopped pouring down.
His eyes flew open. He seemed to be lying on a surface about a yard above the floor, although, strangely, he couldn’t exactly feel the solid length of it pressing against his back. The only light was a sourceless green phosphorescence, illuminating the rough dirt walls of a cave or tunnel. Above him towered a nude man, his skin golden, his musculature and face as perfect as those of a masterpiece of classical sculpture, clasping a chubby, unconscious woman with long brown hair in his arms. She had a wound in her throat, and Dan imagined the golden man effortlessly holding her above his prisoner’s mouth, squeezing out her blood as if she were a wineskin.
Smiling down at him, the naked man said, “That’s enough refreshment for now.”
But it wasn’t. Dan’s system was still depleted. He tried to make a grab for the woman, to drag her bleeding body back to his lips. But something not unlike the coils of a python tightened around his form with crushing force, holding him in place. He peered down the length of his body, but couldn’t see what was holding him; his restraints were invisible.
He didn’t think he could break the bonds, at least not instantly; yet, half-berserk with blood lust, he almost kept struggling against them anyway. But he didn’t want to humiliate himself in front of the golden man; he wanted to appear rational and self-possessed, not like a mindless animal. And so he held himself in check.
“Very good,” said his captor, as if commending him on his willpower.
Though he realized that he was in no position to express resentment, Dan bristled at the condescension in the other man’s tone. “Who are you?” the prisoner asked. Sharpening his hearing, he discovered that the naked figure had no heartbeat. Evidently, despite his atypical coloring, he was one of the Kindred.
Dumping the unconscious woman casually on the muddy floor, the other vampire smiled. “Durrell knows me as Timothy Baxter, but perhaps you’re familiar with my original name. In Hellas, when your mistress” — the matter-of-fact manner in which he alluded to Melpomene convinced Dan that it would be useless to deny he was her agent — “and I were fledglings together, I went by Tithonys.”
Dan felt a jolt of fear. Since the beginning of his mission, he’d dreaded the thought of coming face to face with
Melpomene’s opposite number. Now it had happened: he was bound and helpless, and the enemy Methuselah had turned out to be the adversary that his faithless patron feared most of all.
Except that he couldn’t really be, could he? Eager to discount the other vampire’s claim, Dan said, “Bullshit. Tithonys is dead. Melpomene killed him in France, hundreds of years ago.”
The golden Kindred’s beautiful smile grew wider. Beholding it, Dan was convinced that this godlike creature was telling the truth, that he could have no reason to deceive someone as insignificant as his prisoner. The younger Kindred belatedly grasped that he was responding to an unnatural charisma like Melpomene’s, but recognition did little to free him from the effect. “You’re half right,” Tithonys said. “1 was dead. But after my demise I entered the service of a, well, a god or a fallen angel according to your point of view, known as the Count of the Wasteland. Ultimately, after many achievements on its behalf, it saw fit to restore my earthly existence. Someday, perhaps, I’ll tell you the whole story. I can assure you that you’ve never heard anything like it.”
Struggling to mask his fear, trembling slightly anyway, Dan said, “What do you want with me?”
“Relax,” Tithonys said. He clasped Dan’s shoulder, and the prisoner’s fear gave way to a sense of profound relief. Knowing the feeling was artificial, that the ancient vampire was still manipulating his emotions, Dan struggled not to succumb to it. “If I’d wanted you harmed, I could have left you in Durrell’s clutches instead of persuading him to turn you over to me. But I’m hoping that we can be friends. You are, after all, quite special.”
Puzzled, Dan frowned. “What do you mean?”
Tithonys grinned impishly. “Aha! 1 didn’t think you realized, and yet you might have guessed, if you’d pondered the clues. You never knew your sire, did you?”
Dan instinctively felt leery of giving the Methuselah any information about himself, but he couldn’t see the harm in disclosing such a simple fact. “No.”
“And how long have you been a vampire?”
“About thirty years.”
“And you’ve discovered you’re quite powerful, haven’t you?”
Dan grimaced. “I don’t feel very powerful strapped down like this.”
“Possibly not. But I rummaged through your memories while you were unconscious” —- the idea of such a thing made Dan feel sick to his stomach — “and I saw that, even before Melpomene enhanced your abilities with a measure of her blood, you sometimes held your own against vampires far older than you were: undead against whom no one would have predicted you had a chance.”
Dan shrugged, causing his bonds to tighten slightly. He still had no idea what Tithonys was driving at. “All right, I guess I’m reasonably tough. So what?”
“So this.” Somewhere in the tunnels something thumped four times, a dull sound like a colossal heart beating. For a moment a foul, fecal stench suffused the air. Startled, Dan twitched, but the Methuselah didn’t react. “Do you understand that our race has two sources of power: generation, the number of ancestors that separate one from Caine, and sheer longevity?”
“I’ve heard it said.”
“Then you should be able to see,” Tithonys replied, “that, lacking the latter, you must be gifted with regard to the former. The creator who embraced and abandoned you was a Methuselah. Specifically, she was Melpomene.”
Dan goggled at his captor, so astonished that for a moment he forgot to be afraid. “That’s crazy! And even if it were true, how could you know it?”
“Various means, some of which you simply wouldn’t understand. Suffice it to say, I took the liberty of obtaining a sample of your vitae. It smells and tastes much like hers. And, as I mentioned, I looked into your head. Your conscious mind doesn’t recall your transformation, but your unconscious does, albeit murkily. Someday, when time doesn’t press, perhaps I can help you recover the memory... if you’re interested.”
Dan scowled. “I don’t understand why you’re telling me this —”
Tithonys smiled. “We’ll get to that.”
“—7 but I do see that you aren’t giving me any proof. I’m just supposed to take your word for it.”
“Not so. Be patient, I’m building a case. We’ve already discussed your unusual strength. Now consider the weakness you’ve developed since drinking Melpomene’s vitae. The tendency to stand helplessly transfixed before beauty. The Achilles’ heel of your treacherous mistress’ bloodline.” “Like you said, I caught it from drinking her blood.” Tithonys grinned boyishly. Despite himself, Dan felt a pang of affection for his captor. “Take it from an old diabolist. You can’t ‘catch’ other vampires’ handicaps that way. Otherwise I’d be as ugly as a Nosferatu, as hairy as a Gangrel, as short-tempered as a Brujah — well, you get the idea. That second drink from your sire’s veins merely activated a trait which, like certain of your abilities, has lain dormant inside you since the draft that made you.”
Belatedly Dan remembered something Melpomene had told him, a fact that seemed to contradict what Tithonys was saying. “Wait a minute. Melpomene told me that she had spent most of the last hundred years hibernating.”
“If so, and I think you’ve discovered just how far you should trust her word, then she roused herself long enough to create you. Although she evidently had no notion that I’d already returned from the afterlife, perhaps she, psychic that she is, had a premonition that she might need you, a powerful agent with no perceptible ties to her, a seasoned combat veteran who’d grown up in Sarasota and was thus well prepared to act in its defense. An ace in the hole. Or perhaps it was merely a precaution. We ancients concoct safeguards to defend ourselves against the unlikeliest contingencies. It’s what keeps us alive.”
“Why didn’t she tell me this herself?”
Tithonys arched an eyebrow. “Would you have pledged her your allegiance if she had? Haven’t you always hated the sire who Embraced and then abandoned you?”
Dan’s muscles tightened in rage. He couldn’t tell to what extent Tithonys’ charismatic powers had evoked the surge of emotion and to what extent it simply flowed from his heart. “Yes,” he admitted.
“And you don’t even know the full extent of her abuse.” Dan stared at him. “What do you mean by that?” Tithonys squeezed the prisoner’s shoulder as if to comfort him. “She didn’t want to teach and nurture you herself. That might have compromised your usefulness. But she couldn’t allow you to find affection or a master who would accept your fealty elsewhere, either, for fear that she wouldn’t be able to lure you into her service when the time was right. And so she laid two curses on you.
“First, she deprived you of the ability to feel affection for kine. Many Kindred pursue friendships with mortals for centuries after their transformations. A few never lose their fondness and their empathy for humankind. But you felt alienated from your prey immediately, didn’t you?"
Dan swallowed. “Yes.”
“Second, she put an invisible mark on your brow, a stain that would make you repellent to other vampires. And thus you’ve always been scorned, and desperately lonely. She removed the symbol the night she met you on the beach. Had she not, Wyatt Vandercar and his anarch tools might not have welcomed you even after you saved them from the Brujah.”
Dan remembered how, as he was sucking blood from her, Melpomene’s fingertip had traced a symbol on his forehead.
Her touch had left a tingling trail. He decided that everything Tithonys had told him was true: the female Methuselah was responsible for every bit of the misery he’d endured over the past thirty years. The realization made his fangs ache in their sockets. “God damn her,” he growled.
Tithonys smiled. “Why should we let the Deity have all the fun? If you’ll help me find Melpomene, we can punish her ourselves.”
Puzzled, Dan peered up at him. “I don’t know how to find her. I’m surprised you didn’t get that from my memory.”
“I did,” Tithonys said. “But you’re her childe. Her blood. The two of you are linked on the astral plane. If you’ll open your mind and soul to me willingly, completely, I believe I can attack her through you.”
For a moment, still seething with hate for Melpomene, Dan was tempted to go along with the plan. Then another reflexive flash of repugnance at the notion of having his innermost being invaded cut through the haze of fury.
He had to remember that Tithonys was a Methuselah too, and, beneath his preternatural charm, no doubt as icily intent on controlling him as Melpomene had ever been. If Dan were fool enough to take part in whatever piece of black magic his captor was proposing, there was no telling what terrible harm it might do him.
No, damn it, he was through being anybody’s flunky. He just wanted out of this nightmare. But maybe if he pretended to go along with the program, Tithonys would set him free. Trying to control his emotions — a painful tangle of fear, anger and, still, the irrational affection that the goldenskinned vampire had instilled in him — he said, “I’m with you. Let’s kill the bitch.”
Tithonys studied him for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. “Dan, Dan, Dan. You can’t deceive me. I’m too old and wise. I can see your aura too clearly. But why won’t you help me? Melpomene betrayed and abandoned you
twice: once when she Embraced you, and once when she left you to perish last night. And my cause is just. She murdered the only person I ever loved. Hell, she’s been committing similar atrocities since the dawn of time. Are you concerned about doing something that might endanger her other pawrns in this game she and I are playing? If so, I can’t imagine why. Roger Phillips and his people certainly never did anything for you. And they’re doomed in any case.”
Dan’s eyes narrowed. “How’s that?”
“As I told you, a wary old general like me is prepared for every contingency. Even as one scheme fails, it empowers a new strategy. Long ago, I laid plans to curse Prince Roger into madness. Since 1 needed some of the prince’s personal items for the spell — they’re buried in this chamber — I enslaved one of his progeny to steal them and to serve as my spy thereafter. I arranged the murder of Mary Sinclair, the wife of Phillips’ chief lieutenant, to cripple the grieving husband psychologically. And I recruited Durrell to organize a multifaceted campaign against the Kindred of Sarasota. The goal of it all, of course, was to destroy Melpomene’s descendants and the artistic treasures they’d created, gradually and painfully. I knew that such a calamity would devastate her even if it didn’t draw her out into the open.
“Alas, the strategy isn’t panning out. With the Toreador’s beloved Phillips unable to command, Elliott Sinclair was supposed to prove inadequate as a leader; but somehow he’s pulled himself together and is holding the line rather well. And now you, unbeknownst to poor Durrell, have provided crucial information about him and his efforts to Melpomene. She in turn has passed it along to her soldiers, who intend to launch a surprise counteroffensive after the park closes, in the final hours before dawn.”
Tithonys smiled. “But it doesn’t matter a bit. Because, having met you, I have a new plan.
“When Sinclair and his friends invade the fortress above our heads, they’ll find to their dismay that the resident
ofT!ffiSKUNG,?W!N
Kindred have had a little advance warning of their arrival. The resultant fighting will be chaotic and bloody in the extreme, and because the gore in question will be of supernatural origin, it will generate an energy I can use for occult purposes. Specifically, to strike down every living or undead being — except for you and me, of course — for miles around.”
Dan gaped at the ancient vampire. “We’re just outside Orlando. You’re talking about thousands, probably tens of thousands, of innocent people. Why the hell would you want to do that?”
“As a sacrifice to my patron, the Count of the Wasteland,” Tithonys said. “In return, he’ll grant me the power I need to reach through you and smite your mistress. I’d like to believe that I have enough power to destroy her unassisted, but she is my peer, and she did kill me once, so it would be foolish to take chances.” Sighing, he shook his head. “Please believe me, ordinarily I wouldn’t be so profligate with the lives of the masses, or betray and squander my servants either. But I’m on the brink of a final victory.” As he spoke, his somber expression gradually warped into a savage grin. “Now, not in five hundred or a thousand years. You can’t imagine the joy I’m feeling!”
What I imagine, Dan thought grimly, is that Melpomene told me the truth about one thing, anyway. You Methuselahs are all crazy. “I thought you said I had to cooperate for you to get at her,” he said.
“And now that you know everything, aren’t you willing to do so? Think it through, my friend. Melpomene forsook you twice over. So far, I haven’t harmed you, and you understand something of what manner of being I am. I rose from the final death. 1 have ties to an entity more powerful than Caine himself. Someday I’ll win the Jyhad, the entire Jyhad, and reign over this planet. Don’t you understand the futility of defying me? Wouldn’t you prefer to be on my good side?”
A wave of dread and awe swept through Dan’s mind. He cringed, tightening his bonds, and squinched shut his eyes. His courage and pride began to give way to a desperate need to capitulate, before his godlike captor squashed him like the gnat he was.
But something, perhaps his innate stubbornness, wouldn’t let him give in. He’s using his damn eyes and voice on you, he reminded himself desperately. You aren’t really this scared, it’s just a trick. And after a few more agonizing moments, his fear loosened its grip.
He decided he had nothing to lose by trying to lie one more time. Shuddering, panting reflexively — manifestations of terror he didn’t have to fake — he said, “All right! Please! I do want to work for you!”
Tithonys smiled. “That’s better.” Dan shivered anew, this time with surprised relief. “I almost believed you.” The prisoner flinched. “I see now how you managed to deceive your late associate Wyatt. But as I told you, you have no hope of fooling me. And since I evidently can’t convince you to help me in your present frame of mind, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to undertake renovations in your head.”
Dan had to struggle to keep his voice steady. “What do you mean — a Blood Bond?”
“No,” the ancient vampire replied. “Would that we could resolve the issue so painlessly. But alas, we don’t have three nights. I’m not sure I can hold on to the magic that the Count will grant me that long. And if Melpomene sensed the threat and chose to hide in slumber deep within the earth, we might not be able to find her even by exploiting your link to her. Thus I’m afraid we’ll have to change your attitude the hard way.”
Dan strained convulsively, struggling again to break his bonds. Tithonys said, “Stop,’’ and the prisoner’s muscles locked up on him.
Frowning thoughtfully, like someone solving a puzzle, the
Methuselah began to pass his index finger through the space about twelve inches above Dan’s eyes. His fingertip left trails of blue and crimson light, as if he were finger-painting on the air.
Dan’s intuition warned him to shut his eyes, but when he tried, he couldn’t. The luminous structure materializing above him was already too beautiful. Too captivating.
“You won’t be able to stop looking,” Tithonys said. “No Toreador could. The spectacle is simply too exotic.” He added another stroke, and a bolt of agony stabbed through Dan’s skull, a pain that was as much psychic as physical.
Tithonys was right. Dan still couldn’t look away. If anything, the glowing matrix was even lovelier, more fascinating, than before. And yet there was something wrong with it, something that tortured the eyes and ripped at the foundations of the mind.
“The design is a hyperspatial construct,” Tithonys said. He added another curve of azure sheen, and Dan screamed. “It exists in five dimensions. Unfortunately, the average psyche, kine or Kindred, is only equipped to see in three. If one forces the psyche to exceed that limitation, the result is anguish.” He added a final scarlet loop. “That should do it.”
“All right,” Dan croaked frantically. “I’ll help you. Just take the lights away!”
“You don’t mean that,” said Tithonys. “Even if you believe you do, you’d change your tune if I released you so soon. But by the time I return from conducting the sacrifice, you will mean it. You won’t care about anything except ending the pain.”
The Methuselah turned and strode toward an opening in the wall, his bare, filthy feet leaving tracks in the muck. Dan’s head throbbed, and he shrieked again.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
— William Pitt the Younger, in a speech before the House of Commons
Restless, Durrell prowled through the shadows in the new, uncompleted addition to the theme park. Lattices of girders rose around him, slicing the night sky into squares. To his hypersensitive nose, the balmy air held the smell of freshly poured concrete. Off to the south, in the portion of Camelot that was open to the public, colored lights glowed, rides groaned and clattered, and competing strains of modern pop and medieval music sounded from various pavilions.
Unlike many of his fellow Tremere, Durrell wasn’t truly psychic. His great talent was casting spells. But he sometimes suspected that he had a vestige of second sight, because he occasionally got edgy shortly before something went wrong. That was how he felt tonight.
Shaking his head as if to clear it, he reminded himself that his formless premonitions had proved wrong as often as they’d been correct. Perhaps he was simply out of sorts because the campaign against Sarasota was advancing so slowly, or perhaps because he and his associates had had such a close call last night. The mysterious Dan Murdock might easily have gotten away, and God — and presumably Timothy, by now — knew how much the Caitiff had learned sneaking around the chantry, or what he might ultimately have done with the information.
Despite his usual reluctance to visit Timothy’s warren, Durrell decided to go and learn the results of the interrogation. Perhaps the intelligence would soothe his jangled nerves. He turned, glancing around for the nearest entrance to the service tunnels, and then a hand tapped him on the shoulder.
Badly startled, the Tremere jerked around to see that somehow Timothy had crept up behind him. “Good evening,” said the ancient Kindred. “Can you spare a cigarette?”
His hands shaking slightly as he struggled as usual to conceal the mixture of artificial devotion and largely genuine fear that Timothy inspired in him, Durrell removed a gilt silver cigarette case and matchbox, both gifts from Aleister Crowley, from his pocket. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you outside your cave,” he said.
“I have rather urgent news,” said Timothy. Maddeningly, instead of going ahead and relating it he paused to take one of the custom-made Turkish cigarettes. He waved away the matches, however, and when he placed the cigarette between his lips, the tip began to burn of its own accord. “I’m afraid Murdock was working for Elliott Sinclair. During his reconnaissance, he learned your identity and exactly what we’re up to. And he managed to relay the information before your people captured him.”
For a moment Durrell could only gape in horror. “What are you telling me? I thought you said you were certain that we captured him before he could do any real damage!”
Timothy shrugged. “I didn’t see how he could have, considering that the phone in his rental car didn’t work. The circuits were fused. And my instincts told me no harm had been done. Apparently even I can err occasionally. I’ve since learned that Sinclair, his subordinates and certain allies are assembling in Orlando even now to raid Camelot as soon as it closes.”
Durrell ran his fingers through his hair. His mind felt frozen, paralyzed by the shock of his secret partner’s tidings, and he struggled to goad it into motion. “Then we have just enough time to evacuate.”
Timothy grimaced as if he were disappointed in the Tremere. “That would be foolish as well as cowardly.”
With the force of the Methuselah’s supernatural charisma behind it, the insult stung. Exerting his willpower, Durrell tried not to let it influence him. “The plan was to snipe at the Toreador from all sides, wear them down and then, if we had to, finish them off with one lightning stroke. We never figured on permitting them to attack us."
“Strategies change to fit changing circumstances,” the ancient Kindred said. “That’s the nature of war, or at least it had better be if one wants to win. My astral sources tell me that thus far, desiring a personal vengeance, Sinclair and his associates haven’t revealed your identity to anyone but their troops. Destroy them tonight, win the victory for which we’ve been striving, and they never will. Disappear, however, and they’ll denounce you to the Camarilla.”
“It would be my word against theirs.”
Timothy snorted, puffing out a burst of pungent smoke. “Do you think they won’t be able to find proof to back up their allegations, now that they know where to look? If you flee, 1 imagine they’ll find damning evidence in the very chantry beneath our feet. And once they’ve made their case against you, the pleasant existence you’ve known for the past few centuries will end abruptly. You won’t be Sebastian Durrell the respected elder and magus anymore, but a
wretched fugitive. Neither the Kindred of Sarasota, your prince, your clan, nor, indeed, the Camarilla as a whole, will rest until they’ve hunted you down. Remember, you willfully threatened the Masquerade.”
Durrell swallowed. “I have Guice to protect me.”
“Guice is an amoral opportunist who’ll abandon you at the first indication that supporting you might undermine his own position. And your enemies have their own Justicar.” The Tremere grimaced. “Very well, we’ll stand our ground. I suppose it is the only way. We have troops billeted in the general area. I can summon them to act as reinforcements. The only problem is that many of them — the anarchs, for example — don’t know for whom they’re actually working.”
“You can delude them for an hour or two. After the battle begins it won’t matter if they realize they’ve been duped. With Prince Roger’s raging childer at their throats, they’ll have to keep fighting or die.”
Durrell nodded. “1 imagine Sinclair will still have us outnumbered,” he said grimly. Many of the Tremere’s minions were scattered around the world, destroying art. Others were stationed in the Sarasota area, too far away to reach Orlando in time, because he hadn’t anticipated that he might need them to defend his base.
“But you and your people know the battleground,” Timothy said encouragingly. “You have your thaumaturgy. And you have me.”
Durrell peered at his companion in surprise. Timothy’s words inspired a glow of optimism, and yet the ancient vampire had always been so concerned with concealing his existence that the wary part of the Tremere, the part that habitually resisted the Methuselah’s charismatic spell, found the promise difficult to credit. “Are you saying that you’re going to fight alongside us?”
“Absolutely,” said Timothy, gripping the magus’ shoulder. Despite his doubts, Durrell felt a surge of affection and gratitude. “Now that we’ve reached the endgame, it’s time for me to emerge from the shadows. So you see, our victory is assured. At least it will be if you get moving. You have preparations to make.”
Durrell glanced at his platinum Rolex, then felt a jolt of alarm. It was later than he’d imagined. He’d assumed he’d be able to map out a cunning defensive strategy, identify and fortify key positions, place his troops where they could do the most damage and be least vulnerable to harm. But there simply wasn’t time. Camelot would close in about eighty minutes, and no doubt the Kindred of Sarasota would storm the place immediately thereafter. “My god,” he exclaimed, “when did you figure all this out?”
“Just a few minutes ago,” Timothy replied. “Interrogations and divinations take time.”
Durrell had to admit that they did. For the average Kindred. But with his charismatic powers and command over the potent magic of Al Azif, shouldn’t Timothy have been able to cut the required time significantly? The Tremere’s instincts told him that the ancient vampire had been sitting on the information, but he couldn’t imagine why Timothy would do such a thing. Surely, if he’d decided to betray his partner, he wouldn’t have warned him of the forthcoming attack at all. The only reason for waiting until the last possible moment would seem to be to ensure a protracted, savage struggle, one in which neither side began with a clear-cut advantage and both would suffer heavy losses. But what could be the point of that?
None, Durrell supposed. Not unless, as he’d sometimes suspected, his enigmatic collaborator was profoundly sadistic or outright mad.
“You have the oddest expression,” the Methuselah said mildly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were having misgivings. You do trust me, don’t you, Sebastian?”
Prompted by Timothy’s charm, Durrell felt a twinge of guilt for doubting the Methuselah, but his suspicions lingered in the other, less susceptible part of his psyche. Yet there was no point in acknowledging them. Indeed, he was afraid to acknowledge them. “Of course I do,” he said.
The handsome Methuselah smiled, his white teeth gleaming in the gloom. It looked as if his fangs were protruding slightly, but perhaps that was only Durrell’s imagination. “Good. You can. You should. When the battle is won, your faith will be rewarded with safety, new wealth, enhanced status and all the deepest secrets of Abd al-Azrad.” For the first time, hearing the name of the grimoire Durrell felt not greed, but a pang of loathing. Because Al Azif was the lure that had drawn him into this mess.
“If I didn’t trust you,” the ancient vampire continued, his dark eyes shining, “if I suspected that you might consider running out on me, I’d feel obliged to ask you to consider who you were more afraid of, Sinclair and his minions, or me. I’m glad our friendship is firm enough to preclude the need for such threats.”
Durrell repressed a shiver. “I am, too,” he said.
It is well that war is so terrible; else we would grow too fond of it.
-— Robert E. Lee
Standing on the grass among his restless troops, waiting for the last few minutes to crawl by, Elliott looked at the night sky and thought of Mary.
When he’d confronted Gunter in front of the assembled Kindred in Roger’s house, and when he and Rosalita had traveled to Ohio to retrieve the Fouquet painting, he hadn’t known for a fact that he was going to wind up in mortal combat. This time he did. He could feel Death’s door standing open, inviting him to enter. Promising him surcease from loneliness, sorrow and guilt; and perhaps, if the universe was kinder than it seemed, even reunion with his love.
The prospect of perishing in battle tempted him, but not as much as he might have expected. He realized that, at bottom, he wanted to win this war, end the harassment of Sarasota and restore his sire to health. He wanted to stake Sebastian Durrell and his thugs through their treacherous hearts and leave them lying outdoors to burn in the sun. The recognition made him feel vaguely uncomfortable with himself. He supposed he’d grown accustomed to the old, wretched Elliott, sunk in misery and self-pity. He didn’t quite know what to make of the angry, iron-willed stranger who’d supplanted him. -■
Dressed in loose-fitting black, his Herculean chest crisscrossed with bandoliers and his eyes glowing an eerie red, Angus looked at his watch. “The park closed fifteen minutes ago,” he said. “The last tourists should be pulling out of the parking lot by now.”
“Indeed they should,” Elliott said, shifting his grip on his Armalite AR-18 assault rifle. Evoking his charismatic abilities, he turned and regarded his followers. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time. The enemy we’re about to engage poisoned our prince, murdered our friends, destroyed our treasures and tried to drive us from our domain. Let’s make the bastards pay!” He pivoted and sprinted into the darkness. Silent and fast as swooping hawks, his companions dashed after him.
Elliott supposed that his companions really hadn’t needed his little speech to hearten them. They were, after all, vampires, not mortals. The abuse they’d endured, and the Beast lurking in every one of their souls, would ensure that they were avid for the fight. But he’d felt an urge to address them, so he had.
The vampires crossed one service road after another. Eventually raw Florida scrub land, coarse saw grass and palmetto bushes gave way to landscaping: smooth, verdant lawns; artificial lakes with gushing fountains; flower beds; topiary figures of dragons, damsels in conical hats, and knights on horseback. Then Camelot itself appeared, first as a smudge of glow against the eastern sky, then as a fantastic collection of illuminated turrets and battlements. Perhaps amused by the phony medieval architecture, Angus snorted. As the Kindred approachea the outer wall a few of Gunter’s Malkavians, who’d moved up earlier, relying on their powers of concealment to avoid detection, slipped out of the shadows to join them.
Elliott raised his hand to halt his onrushing troops, then took out his cellular phone and began making contact with the leaders of the other three advance teams. When he’d verified that everyone had moved up on schedule, that Camelot was surrounded on all four sides, he gave the order to go in.
The Toreador elder and his companions slunk up to the eight-foot wall. It was concrete, but textured and painted to look as if it had been constructed of blocks of rough-hewn granite. Scrambling over it without difficulty, the Kindred found themselves in a lane of obnoxiously quaint wooden structures with shops, including an ice- cream stand and a salon where tourists could be photographed in mock medieval clothing, occupying the ground floors. Evidently the scene was supposed to resemble an English town of King Arthur’s mythic age. .
The cool air still smelled of sweat and sunscreen and all the greasy and sugary snacks the day’s visitors had consumed. Some of the street lights, fashioned to resemble flickering oil lanterns, were still burning, but the majority had been switched off. Elliott neither saw nor heard anything stirring in the shadows ahead.
“Let’s press on,” he said. “Remember, we’re looking for a way into the service tunnels. That’s where the Tremere base is.”
The vampires glided forward. The street of shops led them into an open square. A double Ferris wheel towered on their right and a row of oaks bordered by a low brick wall — the edge of the Enchanted Forest of Arden, according to a sign — rose before them. A few pieces of litter, Coca-Cola cups and shiny foil hot-dog wrappers, lay on the cobblestones.
Angus stiffened. Looking around, Elliott saw that the justicar was staring at the trash. “What’s wrong?” the Toreador asked.
“No clean-up crews,” Angus replied harshly. “After the tourists go home, workers should come out to get the park ready for the next day. We haven’t seen any.”
“That doesn’t necessarily prove anything.” Pausing, Elliott sharpened his hearing to the utmost. “But I don’t hear them, either. I think their bosses gave them all the night off. Which can only mean that somehow Durrell was expecting us.”
He turned, scanning the landscape anew for any sign of hostile activity. Even so, he almost missed it: it wasn’t his superhuman vision or hearing but sheer intuition that prompted him to look up at one of the gondolas hanging from the Ferris wheel. Just in time to see the man inside it aiming a rocket launcher in his direction.
Elliott jerked up his rifle and fired. The sniper lurched back against the side of the gondola. His long tube of a weapon flew from his hands and, tumbling end over end, plummeted toward the ground.
Long before it landed, Elliott was pivoting, looking for other attackers. He found them. Suddenly dark figures loomed in windows around the square. Fortunately, the actor’s comrades saw them too and were already starting to shoot at them.
Elliott ran. Leaping oyer the low wall encircling the stand of trees, he hunkered down behind the barrier and grabbed his phone. He had a second contingent of Kindred and ghouls waiting in reserve; those who, lacking both superhuman speed and powers of invisibility, might have had difficulty sneaking up on Camelot. Now that taking the enemy by surprise was no longer a consideration, it was time to call them in. As he dialed, stray bullets streaked over his head.
He travels fastest who travels alone.
— Proverb
For a long time, Dan couldn’t think. His head was too full of the terrible beauty floating before his eyes. Too full of pain. As the intolerable spectacle ripped at his mind, he thrashed, and his invisible bonds tightened repeatedly, so suddenly and powerfully that in other circumstances he might have worried about them cutting him or cracking his bones. Now, however, fascinated and tormented by the hyperspatial matrix, he was barely conscious of the coils.
Eventually, however, his anguished psyche groped its way back toward rational cognition. It wasn’t that the uncanny spectacle before him had become any easier to bear. Rather, he supposed, his brain was making a last-ditch effort to escape the torture through intellect and ingenuity before fleeing into howling dementia.
There had to be a way out of this. If he could just close his eyes, or turn his head! He tried for perhaps the thousandth time, once again to no avail. Obsessively, against his will, his perception fumbled at the lace-work of red and blue light, trying to comprehend its structure. A burst of agony blazed through his skull, and his self-awareness, his fragile hold on sanity, began to crumble.
“No!” he croaked. Exerting the last of his willpower, he fought to hang on. To stay focused on the prospect of escape. And somehow he succeeded, at least for the moment.
Maybe if he could get out of his bonds, he could walk or crawl backward from the matrix, loosening its hold on him with distance. Struggling to ignore his torment, to think beyond it, he considered the invisible coils. And after a while he realized something.
His bonds constricted whenever he shifted more than a fraction of an inch. But then they loosened up again. Their violent resistance prevented him from breaking them or squirming out of them rapidly, but it might not keep him from worming his way out of the end of the coil slowly, one tiny movement at a time.
He flexed his legs and dug his heels into the peculiar, only half-felt surface beneath him, straining to move with infinite care. Another flare of anguish transformed the maneuver into a spastic lurch. The bonds tightened.
No matter how many times he made the attempt, the result was always the same. The pain robbed him of the fine motor control his plan required. Unless he could somehow block out the crippling spectacle burning at the center of his vision, he was, in a real sense, going to die here, crumbling into the psychotic, cringing puppet that Tithonys required for his magical assault on Melpomene.
Alas, there seemed to be way no way to blot out the matrix. But what, he wondered abruptly, if he managed to understand it? To perceive it clearly? Tithonys obviously did, and with the enhanced vision Melpomene’s vitae had given him, maybe Dan could do the same. Then, perhaps, the construct would lose its hypnotic fascination, or at least stop hurting him.
Up until now, though he hadn’t been able to look away from it, he’d been straining to do so, flinching away from the torture. If he was to have any hope of seeing it whole, he’d have to do exactly the opposite. Steeling himself, he sharpened his vision to the utmost.
A blast of pain even more devastating than those he’d already experienced wracked him. He fought to ignore it, to keep peering, analyzing, trying to grasp the relationships of the luminous planes and angles hanging in the air. Another spasm wracked him, and then another. He felt as if someone were chopping him with an ax, one that cut his flesh and spirit both.
Despite himself, he felt his resolve beginning to fail. But then something changed inside his mind, like a lamp coming on in a darkened room. The glowing matrix altered without altering, reminding him of the optical illusions that had interested him as a kid, like the drawing that was a pretty young girl or a hook-nosed old woman, depending on how you looked at it.
As he grasped the true shape of the hyperspatial construct, his pain vanished. Now only the matrix’s loveliness remained, more compelling than ever because he recognized the five-dimensional symmetry that produced it. He gazed at it raptly, drinking it in, until it finally released him.
His mouth tasted of his own blood, and his lower lip stung. He realized that at some point during his ordeal he’d unconsciously extended his fangs and cut himself. Scowling at the discomfort, petty though it was compared to what he’d just undergone, he tried again to inch his way out of his restraints.
The process seemed to take a long time. Periodically he moved too aggressively, and the coils constricted. Telling himself repeatedly to take it easy, praying that Tithonys wouldn’t return for a while yet, he eventually managed to work his upper body free. He dug his fingers into the muddy floor for leverage and yanked his legs out with one
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convulsive pull. The coil made a metallic clashing sound as it snapped shut on itself.
Sprawled in the muck, Dan lifted his head and looked around. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. The surface on which he’d been lying was invisible, too. Several feet away, and out of his visual range until this moment, his wallet, keys, .38 and the little antique gun he’d stolen from Wyatt’s haven were hanging above the floor as if resting on an unseen shelf. Apparently Tithonys’ magic was so potent that he casually hardened empty air to serve as furniture, or else cancelled the force of gravity.
Dan tried to stand, and a wave of dizziness swept over him. A pang of Hunger cramped his belly. His exertions had left him weak and famished again. He scrambled to the chubby woman, still sprawled where Tithonys had dumped her, and pressed his fingers against her carotid artery.
To his surprised delight, he found a pulse. He flung himself on top of her and buried his fangs in her neck.
He meant to spare her life, but she was weak, too, from having been bled once already. As he guzzled her vitae, desire and need overwhelmed him. He couldn’t stop drinking until she shuddered and an ugly, rattling sound came out of her throat.
Refreshed and slightly ashamed of his murderous gluttony, his torn tip tingling as it healed, he sprang to his feet, grabbed his possessions off the invisible ledge, and slunk toward one of the openings in the wall. There were two sets of footprints on the floor: Tithonys’ bare ones and others left by someone wearing shoes. With any luck, one of them would lead him out of the earthen tunnels. From that point, he hoped, he shouldn’t have too much trouble getting out of Camelot. He only prayed that the Methuselah’s magical H-bomb, or whatever the hell it was going to be, wouldn’t go off until he was clear.
And then, much to his surprise, a twinge of, if not guilt, at least uneasiness, lanced through his resolve. Did he really want to run away?
He scowled at his own idiocy. Of course he wanted to book. If he tried to interfere with Tithonys’ “sacrifice,” that would mean that he was still doing Melpomene’s dirty work, and the very thought of that enraged him. He didn’t care if Durrell’s Tremere and Sinclair’s Toreador got killed. Both sides had abused him in one way or another. He didn’t care about kine getting massacred, either; hell, he’d just drained one himself. Even if he had given a damn about stopping Tithonys, he was realistic enough to comprehend that he was nowhere near powerful enough to do it alone, and since every other Kindred and ghoul in the park regarded him as an enemy, who could he get to help him?
And yet—
The man, the human, Dan had once been would have cared about the impending slaughter. He suspected that the undead creature he’d become might have also, if Melpomene hadn’t tampered with his psyche. If he truly wanted to defy the Methuselah’s efforts to control and exploit him, to be his own person again, maybe he needed to try to rekindle the empathy and the principles she’d extinguished in him, by behaving as if he still possessed them. And besides, suicidally reckless though it might be, he yearned to get even with Tithonys for torturing him.
Someone among his fellow vampires would listen to him. He’d make them listen. Straining his hearing, trying to make sure he wouldn’t unwittingly walk up on his erstwhile captor, he followed the sets of tracks.
His caution was unnecessary. Except for small, strangely blurry creatures hissing and scuttling in the shadows, the cave appeared to be empty. Maybe Tithonys had needed to move closer to the battle to cast his spell.
The Methuselah’s footprints simply ended in the middle of a chamber. But the other set led Dan to a rickety-looking wooden staircase ascending to what appeared to be a blank rectangle of concrete blocks set in the dirt wall.
Dan bounded up the steps and examined the surface, looking for another shadow-symbol or some other catch that might open a secret door. For a moment the cold stone seemed to quiver beneath his hand, but nothing else happened.
He guessed he’d have to do it the hard way. Drawing on his superhuman strength, he pressed his palms against the wall, braced himself as best he could, and shoved.
His arms and shoulders quivered with effort. The platform beneath him groaned ominously and he was afraid that it would collapse before the mortar gave. But then several of the blocks broke loose and fell outward, crashing down on the other side of the barrier. Dan sprawled forward into the breach he’d created.
Peering about, he saw that he’d opened a hole into one of the service tunnels he’d visited before. After the dim green phosphorescence of I ithonys’ lair, the fluorescent lighting hurt his eyes and made him squint. Fearful that the noise he’d made would draw some potential attacker, he hastily scrambled through the breach and snatched out his .38.
After a moment he decided that, once again, he needn’t have worried. He didn’t hear anyone rushing toward him, nor did he hear any gunfire or other sounds of commotion echoing through the tunnels. Maybe Durrell and his men hadn’t wanted to fight down here, where they might conceivably be cornered. Perhaps they’d preferred to make their stand aboveground, where they’d have more room to maneuver and, if worst came to worst, might find it possible to flee.
It didn’t take long to find a stairwell to the surface. As Dan neared the door at the top he heard shooting. When he cracked it open and peeked out, the scents of gun smoke and vitae filled his nose. But no one was fighting on the section of sidewalk before him.
Wishing as he so often had that his powers of invisibility would shield him when he was in motion, he stalked out under the starry sky and toward what sounded as if it were the nearest battle. And then an assault weapon clattered, just to his left.
He reflexively leaped to one side. One of the bullets hit him anyway, shattering his knee. Somehow lurching on despite the burst of agony, he threw himself down behind the nearest available cover — a fish-and-chips stand in the shape of a miniature castle, topped by a sign that read The Fisher King’s Feast.
“Why did you do it?” cried an anguished female voice. Laurie’s voice. “We cared about you! We wanted youto be part of our family! ”
Dan felt a mixture of dismay and hope. He cringed at the prospect of fighting another friend, but with luck, it wouldn’t come to that. Surely he could convince Laurie of the peril that Tithonys represented far more easily than he could persuade a stranger. “I’m sorry about Wyatt!” he called. “But you have to listen to me. We’re all in terrible danger!” “Because you brought the enemy here!” she shouted back. “To the anarch base!’’ Dan thought he could see her now, a vague black shape in the dark, but he wasn’t positive. At the moment the fierce pain of his wound was clouding even his superhuman senses.
“Durrell and his people aren’t anarchs,” he said. “They’re rogue Tremere. He and Wyatt lied to you about everything There are these two Methuselahs —”
“Shut up!” she screamed. “I’m not gullible enough for you to con me this time! You murdered my friend, I’ve caught you escaping, and now I’m going to get you!” She charged out of the darkness, her flapping bellbottoms, Yellow-Submarine T-shirt and leather peace-symbol pendant an ironic contrast to her fiery eyes, bared fangs and the AK-47 blazing in her hands.
Dan couldn’t run from her: his leg was still healing. Nor would his powers of concealment protect him when she’d already pinpointed his location. All he could do was fire back.
She lurched backward, and the gun flew from her grasp. She collapsed and lay motionless on the asphalt. Clutching the wall of the fast-food stand, Dan dragged himself to his feet and limped painfully forward. After a moment he flinched and averted his eyes.
He hadn’t meant to destroy her, just incapacitate ber, but his pain, or perhaps simple bad luck, had spoiled his aim. One of his bullets had penetrated the center of her forehead and splashed her brains out of the back of her skull. Some Kindred could recover even from a wound as ghastly as that, but he could see that she wasn’t one of them. She hadn’t had the necessary stamina.
His eyes stinging, shedding tears of blood, he waited for his knee to finish repairing itself. When the pain in his leg disappeared, he picked up her assault rifle and skulked on.
And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.
— Matthew 26:23
Driven from their last redoubt, Durrell and his bodyguards — a Tremere, a Caitiff anarch and a ghoul — pounded down a cobblestone lane looking for a new refuge. As they passed beneath a flickering crimson lantern it dashed their shadows onto the ground.
Actually, the elder magus and his soldiers were racing by any number of shops and enclosed rides which might have sheltered them. But Durrell wanted to stay outdoors, where he could see more of what was going on. It gave him the feeling of being in control.
In his present straits, he needed that feeling, even though he recognized that it was an illusion. Because he hadn’t had time to position and instruct his forces properly, the battle had turned out to be every bit as chaotic as he’d feared, disintegrating into countless small but deadly confrontations scattered throughout the park. He and his officers had cellular phones for communication, but as the enemy struck savagely, repeatedly, unpredictably, and as more and more of his troops lapsed into frenzy, it had become impossible to
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maintain any semblance of overall direction. At this point, the only thing he was certain of was that his army was being gradually overwhelmed by superior numbers.
Where was Tithonys? Where was the awesome sorcery that was supposed to turn the tide? Durrell peered about for any sign that some great work of magic was rising to his aid, but could only see the mundane flashes of guns and explosions flickering in the murky distance.
He wondered if the Methuselah had abandoned him. If he, who’d worked so deviously to ruin Roger Phillips and his minions, had been himself deceived. The suspicion was so excruciating that he struggled to expel it from his mind.
The Caitiff, a coarse-featured, redheaded woman with a perpetually swollen belly — evidently possessed of a perverse sense of humor, her sire had embraced her when she was pregnant — lurched to a halt and pointed. “There!” Startled, Durrell spun around. “What?” he barked.
“That pen,” she replied. “Isn’t it what you wanted, a place where we’ll have cover and be able to see in all directions?” He saw she was referring to Elfland. The attraction, intended specifically for small children, featured miniature cottages and giant concrete mushrooms, lawn-jockey-sized statues of butterfly-winged fairies and pipe-smoking leprechauns, all surrounded by a four-foot version of Camelot’s usual phony castle wall. “Yes,” he said tersely, “it’ll do. Come on.”
He and his minions ran to the enclosure. The three Kindred vaulted the wall, and the ghoul, a shaven-headed youth with a pentagram tattooed on his cheek, ducked through the child-sized gate. “Spread out,” said Durrell. “I want one of you watching north, one east, and one south.” His warriors scurried away.
The master magus looked again for some indication that I ithonys was about to reach out and start killing the enemy, soon, while some of Camelot’s defenders were left alive. He still couldn’t detect any. Fighting to quash a fresh wave of doubt, he jerked his phone off his belt. Maybe this time more of his lieutenants would answer. Maybe he could gather some useful intelligence, something that would actually enable him to organize his forces. Maybe —
A winged shadow with glowing scarlet eyes swooped over his head.
Durrell pivoted, firing his Uzi wildly, but didn’t hit anything. The flying creature — the bat, he realized, the shapeshifter — had already disappeared. Startled by the racket, crying out, the magus’ trio of warriors jerked around.
“It’s Angus!” Durrell said. He was all but certain he was correct. As far as he knew, the Justicar was the only Gangrel involved in this fiasco, and one of the few members of the enemy army powerful enough to contemplate confronting the Tremere elder and his bodyguards by himself. “I think he landed in the center of the enclosure!”
“How right you are,” rumbled Angus’ voice, sounding grimly amused. Suddenly, moving as fast as any Toreador or Brujah, the bearded giant popped up from behind a pixiesized gingerbread mansion with candy-cane trim and fired his automatic rifle at the ghoul. The servant flew off his feet. By the time the remaining defenders brought their own guns to bear, the Justicar had ducked from sight again.
“Move in!” Durrell cried. His minions hesitated, and he repeated the command using the coercive power of his voice and glare. “Do it! Damn it, we’ve got him surrounded!” This time they edged forward. Sharpening his senses to the utmost, Durrell studied the whimsical shapes — lollipop trees, thatch-roofed cottages scarcely larger than ostentatious tombstones, dwarves playing baseball, and a hollow stump with spindly minarets rising from its center
— that sprouted from the ground before him. Surely a Kindred as huge as Angus couldn’t hide among such objects for long.
From the corner of his eye, the magus glimpsed something gray, something that was built low enough to the ground to conceal itself easily, streaking across the gap between two of the huts. Turning, he fired, but the shape was already gone.
The Caitiff screamed. Lurching around again, Durrell saw a huge wolf with shining crimson eyes spring at the woman and carry her down behind a row of vendors’ stalls in a goblin market. Her severed head tumbled over the barrier a second later.
Though Durrell couldn’t see Angus and didn’t have a shot at him, at this moment he knew his approximate location, and thus was able to cast a spell at him. Hastily he gestured and jabbered the three syllables that triggered the effect.
An instant later, despite his anxiety, he felt a rush of pleasure and vitality. The magic had stolen a portion of Angus’ blood and transferred it into his own system. He could tell that the spell hadn’t siphoned enough to incapacitate his opponent, but at least it had hurt him.
Fangs bared and assault rifle leveled, the other Tremere, a gray-haired, fortyish-looking vampire with a saber sheathed at his hip, charged the fairy marketplace. Reaching a position from which he could see Angus’ last known location, he shouted, “He’s moved on, Sebastian!”
“Not very far,” Angus’ bass voice replied. In human form again, or nearly so, he shot up behind the junior magus and grabbed his throat in his taloned hands.
The Tremere dropped his gun and frantically groped over his shoulder. Durrell understood what his clan brother was attempting. If he could grab his attacker, he could blast him with magic. Evidently understanding the same thing, Angus kept knocking away and otherwise avoiding his arm.
Durrell fired. The other Tremere was pretty much shielding Angus, but it would be worth hurting or even destroying the younger magus if he could cripple the attacker. Bullets hammered into the gray-haired vampire’s chest, and then the Uzi clicked, its magazine empty.
Angus’ claws ripped the younger Tremere’s head off. The corpse fell, pungent vitae flowing from the raw stump between its shoulders. Its slayer was bleeding, too, from the bullets that had driven through the magus’ body to strike his own, but he didn’t seem to feel the wounds. Pulling a stake out of his belt, leering at Durrell, he said, “You, Warlock, I’m taking alive. Sinclair and his people want to talk to you.”
For some reason, the smug self-assurance in Angus’ tone reminded Durrell of Tithonys. It roused the Beast and swept the fear out of his mind. By God, he was a sorcerer, a master of the unseen forces governing the universe. He’d earned his powers through centuries of study and perilous experimentation. In contrast, the Gangrel, however much brute strength he commanded, had received his abilities automatically, simply as a result of his transformation. Like most Kindred, he was little better than the undisciplined savage, the animal, he so resembled.
Durrell realized he didn’t have time to reload the Uzi. With his supernatural speed, Angus would be on top of him before he could ram a new clip into the gun. But that was all right. He wanted to humble the arrogant Gangrel with his wizardry. He should have relied on it from the start. “Come on then,” he said, tossing aside the firearm. “Take me if you can!”
Angus hurtled forward. Striving to exert every ounce of psychic might at his disposal, Durrell cast another spell. A statue of a pointy-eared gnome playing an accordion wrenched itself loose from its base, streaked through the air and slammed into the Gangrel’s shins, tripping him. Angus fell, but instantly leapt back to his feet.
Still straining, feeling the vitae in his system burn to fuel his magic, Durrell levitated an entire miniature cottage and slammed it down on Angus’ head. The Justicar sprawled back onto the path. With a murmured phrase and a flick of his fingers, the Tremere drained another portion of the other vampire’s vitae.
He expected that the'second theft, combined with the purely physical punishment Angus had taken, would put the giant down for good. It didn’t. His gashed scalp streaming blood, the Justicar scrambled to his feet and lunged into striking range. He poised the stake for a thrust at Durrell’s heart.
Staring into his opponent’s fiery eyes, Durrell said, “Stop!” The command didn’t stop Angus, but he faltered for a split second, affording the magus enough time to sidestep the attack, grab the Gangrel’s forearm, and work yet another charm.
Angus stumbled as his blood began to boil. Releasing him, Durrell stepped nimbly backward, certain that this final injury would finish the shapeshifter off. He was looking forward to watching the meddler die.
Recovering his balance, his ivory skin blistering and crisping, Angus whirled. His empty hand shot out and grabbed Durrell’s forearm, the talons tearing agonizingly into the Tremere’s flesh. Then he yanked the magus forward. Onto the stake.
Durrell felt a terrible stab of pain, and then a wave of weakness flowed through his muscles. He slumped in Angus’ arms, utterly paralyzed. The fire raging inside the Gangrel’s flesh seared his own body.
Angus swayed, nearly dumping both of them on the ground, “I need blood,” the huge man croaked. “In all these centuries I’ve always shunned diablerie, until tonight. Another offense I lay at your door, you Warlock son of a bitch.” He buried his fangs in Durrell’s throat.
No more tears now; I will think upon revenge — Mary Queen of Scots
His forearm throbbing, Dan prowled through the shadows. Fortunately the last gunman’s bullet had only creased him, and after a few more steps, the wound closed and the pain faded. Somewhere in the darkness automatic weapons rattled, and a woman screamed.
Dan reflected sourly that in other circumstances he might have relished the carnage unfolding all around him. After three decades of slights, rebuffs and aching loneliness, he could have enjoyed trading shots with the arrogant Kindred of the Camarilla, or just sitting back and watching as they butchered each other.
But not now, not when he knew that Tithonys was preparing his death magic. Now the martial fervor of Dan’s fellow vampires, the rage that prompted them to start blasting away at him as soon as he made his presence known, that kept them from listening, filled him with anguished frustration.
Once again he felt the urge simply to run away and save himself, but he knew he wouldn’t heed it. He’d made his decision and he was going to stick to it, no matter what the cost.
His mother had always told him he was stubborn. He paused for a moment, wondering when he’d last thought of her, if she was even still alive, and then his hypersensitive hearing caught the sound of soft, stealthy footfalls coming around the next bend in the lane.
Dan stepped into a shadowy doorway between two display windows full of dolls that looked like Medieval Barbie and Ken. A moment later Elliott Sinclair glided around the corner, darting glances this way and that, fangs bared, all alone. Evidently the battle was so fierce and so chaotic that even a general could find himself separated from the rest of his army. Dan noted with a fleeting twinge of amusement that the foppish Toreador’s starched and ironed fatigues fit perfectly, as if he’d had them custom-tailored.
Dan was still wondering how best to approach Sinclair when the elder whirled with blinding speed. His senses, which were evidently at least as keen as Dan’s, had penetrated the outcast’s shield of invisibility. The muzzle of the silver-haired Toreador’s AR-18 swung into line.
Dan’s instincts screamed for him to lift his own rifle and defend himself — he couldn’t help anybody if he let Sinclair blow him apart! Instead he let the weapon fall from his hands.
Sinclair’s gun blazed. Two bullets slammed Dan back against the door behind him, rattling the glass. But then, as he’d hoped, Prince Roger’s lieutenant stopped firing.
“Don’t hurt me,” Dan rasped, his voice thick with pain. “I’m on your side.”
“The hell you say,” Sinclair replied. “Don’t you think I remember your face, Murdock? You diabolized one of Gunter Schmidt’s people. You fought against Judy and her Brujah by the Gardens. You killed one of them.”
“It wasn’t like you think,” Dan replied, struggling desperately to think of a way to convince the actor that he was telling the truth. His story was too damn complicated, to say nothing of unlikely. “I didn’t mean to kill the Brujah. When I worked against your people, it was an act to help me infiltrate Durrell’s conspiracy.”
Sinclair scowled. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not!” Dan said. A bullet slowly slid from his chest, then fell, as his clenching, regenerating flesh expelled it. But even though he was healing, he knew it would be a while longer before he’d have a snowball’s chance in hell against Sinclair, even if the older vampire were fool enough to turn his gun aside. “There are other people involved in this war, people you don’t know about! I was working for one of them!”
Sinclair frowned. Dan realized that his words had hit home. However he had come by the knowledge, the Toreador did know that there was more to the campaign against Sarasota than was apparent on the surface. “Keep talking,” the actor said.
“There are these two Methuselahs,” said Dan. “You and Roger Phillips are descended from one of them, named Melpomene, and she cares about you and your art. The other one, Tithonys, hates her, and he sicced Durrell on you to hurt her.”
His brow furrowed, Sinclair hesitated, evidently mulling over what Dan had told him- After a moment he said, “That’s... interesting. 1 want to hear all about it. But first I have a battle to fight.”
“You don’t understand!” said Dan. His chest throbbed as the other bullet slid out of it. “Tithonys doesn’t care who wins your little war anymore, as long as it’s as bloody as possible. He’s a magician, like the Warlocks only better, and when enough Kindred have been destroyed, he’s going to tap into some kind of energy the deaths will create and use it to slaughter everyone for miles around as a sacrifice to the devil. So Satan will give him the power he needs to kill Melpomene.
“You’ve got to order your people to stop fighting. That’ll derail his ritual.”
Sinclair laughed. “Do you know, you actually had me going for a moment there. You’re good at managing your face and aura both; you should have gone on the stage. But no, I’m not going to pull back my troops on the basis of a lie as preposterous as that. I’m not sure, but I believe we’re winning. Apparently you think so, too. Goodbye, Mr. Murdock.” He shouldered his rifle and sighted down the barrel.
Dan’s arm shuddered with the desperate impulse to make a grab for the .38 hidden under his tattered, blood-encrusted jacket. Instead he cried, “Tithonys killed your wife!”
Sinclair gaped at him. “What?”
“The guy murdered your wife,” Dan repeated. “These Methuselahs set up schemes that take years to come together. Tithonys decided to make war on Sarasota a long time ago. Part of the idea was that if he drove Prince Roger nuts, and his second-in-command was crippled with grief, there wouldn’t be any effective leadership: the domain would fall apart in nothing flat. And so he had somebody whack her.”
“That would explain why the witch hunters picked on Mary,” Sinclair murmured, more to himself than to Dan. “I could never understand, why her, out of all the Kindred in the region?” His tone, and his gaze, hardened once again. “But 1 only have your word for this.”
“Do you think I’d try to sell you such a weird story if it weren’t true?” Dan replied. “Do you think it would even occur to me to mention your wife? Why would a social reject like me know anything about your personal problems? Look, if you don’t believe me, fine, gun me down and get on with your war. But you’ll be letting Mary’s real murderer walk away. You’ll be letting him kill you, too, and all your buddies. You’ll be letting him win!”
Sinclair glared at him for another moment, then turned the muzzle of his assault rifle to the side. “If you’ve lied to me, you’re going to suffer for a very long time before you meet the true death.”
“Whatever,” Dan said. “Just pull your people back.”
The Toreador shook his head. “I can’t. They’re scattered over the entire park. Most of them don’t have phones, some are no doubt in frenzy, and others would probably have difficulty disengaging themselves from their current situations even if they knew they should. Besides, for all we know, enough of us have already died to fuel Tithonys’ conjuration. He may be reciting it even as we speak. Our only hope is to find him and stop him.”
Dan felt a cold pang of terror even though, deep down, he’d known the situation would come to this. “You have no idea how tough this guy is.”
Sinclair shrugged. “Perhaps I do. I’ve heard stories about Methuselahs. But I don’t see that we have any option but to go after him.” He smiled savagely. “Not that I truly want another option, of course. We don’t have time to round up many reinforcements, but we’d be fools if we didn’t try to link up with Angus the Justicar. He’s almost certainly the most powerful fighter on my side.” The actor took out his cellular phone and punched in a number.
After a moment a deep voice rumbled out of the instrument. With his superhuman hearing, Dan could hear it clearly: “Yes?”
“It’s Elliott,” said the Toreador tersely. “We’ve—”
“Well, hello,” the Justicar boomed. “I just staked our friend Durrell. It looks to me as if we’re winning this—” “Listen to me!” Sinclair rapped, exerting his supernatural powers of influence. The effect rocked Dan back a step even though he wasn’t the target. “I’ve met someone who tells
me we’re in trouble. Supposedly Durrell was working for an ancient Kindred, who’s also in the park—”
“Oh, shit!” Angus exclaimed.
Sinclair grimaced. “1 take it that you knew all along that there were Methuselahs involved in this affair.”
“Where are you?” Angus said.
Sinclair looked around. “On Tennyson Lane. One of the streets of gift shops that run off—”
“I remember where it is from the map. I’m not far away. Stay put until I get there.” The phone clicked, then droned a dial tone.
Sinclair gave Dan a sour smile. “All right, now I believe you,” he said.
And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
— Exodus 21:23-25
Elliott strode through the dark, his senses honed, peering for any sign of the Methuselah. Beside him his two companions, both clad in bloody, pungent, perforated clothing, were presumably doing the same. Angus’ eyes glowed crimson.
The Toreador kept thinking that he ought to be frightened if he was about to battle a primordial vampire powerful enough to snuff out thousands of lives at once. Yet he wasn’t. The sight and smell of Mary’s rotting body and severed head filled his mind. The knowledge that there was still something to be done about it, a retribution to be exacted, filled him with a kind of feverish joy.
But he could tell that Angus and Murdock — or Dan, as the Caitiff had asked his comrades to call him — were afraid.
Their faces and voices concealed the fact well enough, but Elliott could see the telltale wisps of orange in their auras.
“I never heard of a Kindred rising from the true death,” the giant Gangrel rumbled to Dan, who’d just told him his story. “I’d like to think that the man you met is some other Methuselah who has assumed Tithonys’ identity to rattle Melpomene. The problem with that notion is that, as far as' we know, he never tried to tell her he was Tithonys; besides which, the description you give fits the vampire I knew. If he has come back, then God help us.”
Seeking to hearten his allies, allowing a touch of his preternatural charisma to enrich his voice, Elliott said, “If he is Tithonys, 1 find that encouraging. If you destroyed him once, we can kill him again.”
“When we fought him in Normandy,” Angus replied glumly, “he was starving and had just been maimed in a brawl with a pack of Lupines. There was one of him and seven of us, including Melpomene herself. Even so, our side lost two Kindred before the fight was over.” A shadowy figure with a rapid heartbeat and a shotgun in its hands scurried through the darkness ahead. The Gangrel lifted his assault rifle, but the ghoul strode on across the mouth of the lane and out of sight without so much as glancing in the vampires’ direction. Elliott wondered fleetingly which side this particular servant was on.
“Maybe Melpomene will show up to help us now,” the Toreador said, aware that it didn’t seem likely. He’d already tried to contact the female Methuselah using the phone number she’d given Dan, only to discover that it was no longer in service.
Dan laughed bitterly. “I told you how she abandoned me.
I guarantee you, she won’t risk her own neck.”
“I agree,” Angus said. “In France, with Tithonys crippled, her safety was all but assured. Even so she hung back until my friends and I wore him down, letting us bear the brunt of his attacks. No, we won’t see her here tonight.” He gave Elliott an ironic smile. “Sound pretty scared, don’t we? Well, we have a right to be, as you’ll find out soon enough. But don’t worry, we’ll stick. The three of us will nail the bastard somehow.” He squeezed Elliott’s shoulder with one huge, taloned, blood-encrusted hand.
Elliott repressed a reflexive wince at the thought of what the claws and the filth could do to his shirt. He smiled back at Angus. “I know we will,” he said. “I just wish we knew' where to look for him. The park is too damn big.”
“I think he might be somewhere high and centrally located,” Angus replied thoughtfully, “where he can see what’s going on. That would help him judge when enough Kindred have died to power up his magic. And sometimes sorcerers like to perform their rituals under the open sky. You two keep searching down here, and I’ll hunt from the air.” He lifted his arms and they melted into dark, membranous wings. Transformed into a huge black bat, he soared up into the night, vanishing behind the gabled roof of a mock medieval tavern an instant later.
Elliott and Dan stalked on. Guns barked and rattled in the distance. After another minute, the Toreador glimpsed smears of green and silver light hanging in the sky above the flat roof of a white stone structure resembling the Tower of London.
The smudges of glow were so faint that Elliott had to squint for a moment to be certain he was actually seeing them. He doubted that any being with vision less keen than his own would perceive them at all. After a few seconds a twinge of pain, like the beginnings of the headaches from which he’d sometimes suffered when he was breathing, jabbed between his eyes. There was something indefinably wrong with the masses of phosphorescence, something that made it painful to look at them too closely.
Elliott pointed. “See that?” he asked.
Dan peered in the direction he was indicating. “No. What are you talking — wait. Yeah, I do see it, sort of. It’s more hyperdimensional stuff!”
“Does that mean you think Tithonys is on that rooftop?” Elliott asked.
“Yeah.”
“So do I. Let’s hope that Angus spots him, too. Come on!” Sprinting, they raced toward the lights. Elliott kept drawing ahead of Dan, then having to force himself to slow down and let the Caitiff catch up. Frantic as the actor was to come to grips with Tithonys, he realized that he couldn’t destroy the Methuselah by himself.
As the two Kindred neared their destination, Elliott saw that the pale, boxlike tower rose in the center of an open plaza. There was no structure of comparable height, from which he and Dan might have sniped at Tithonys, anywhere nearby. Even if the actor hadn’t yearned to confront the architect of Mary’s murder face to face, he wouldn’t have had another choice.
Elliott reached the entrance several strides ahead of his companion, only to discover it locked. He knew from Judy’s account just how strong Dan was. It would have made sense to let him break the door down. But the Toreador was too impatient; the Beast was snarling and pacing in his soul. He whirled, lashing out with a spinning back kick, and the panel burst open with a crash. .
Beyond the threshold was a large, dimly lit chamber hung with heraldic banners and filled with steel railings which defined a path running back and forth and ultimately through an arch in the far wall. A sign posted halfway along the twisting aisle read, Forty-five Minute Wait from this Point. The air had a distinctive hot-metal smell that Elliott associated with trains and other vehicles that ran on tracks.
Across the room, separated from the path by one of the railings, was an unobtrusive door. Elliott dashed to it and
pushed it. It wouldn’t move. He kicked it, but failed to break the bolt.
Dan pounded up behind him. “Let me,” the younger Kindred said. He punched the door with the heel of his hand and it flew open. The boom echoed hollowly through the spaces beyond.
The service hallway on the other side of the doorway led to a stairwell. In all likelihood there was an elevator somewhere as well, but Elliott didn’t feel inclined to take the time to search for it. As the two Kindred hurried up the steps, he began to hear a faint, discordant chanting in an ugly language he didn’t recognize. Or perhaps hear wasn’t the right word. The sound had a peculiar quality which made him wonder if it wasn’t somehow entering his mind directly, without passing through his ears. It also incorporated lengthy periods of silence, reminding him of plainsong, of some vile choir croaking and gibbering responses to the inaudible recitation of a priest.
The resemblance jolted him. “Can you hear that?” he said, instinctively lowering his voice.
“I think so,” Dan replied. He hesitated. “Is it demons?”
“I suspect it’s demons chanting ritual responses to Tithonys’ incantation,” Elliott replied grimly. “He’s already working the spell. Come on!” No longer concerned about leaving his ally behind, only about interrupting the magic before it reached its conclusion, the Toreador charged on up the steps.
Above him, wavering luminous figures and faces, even dimmer than the masses of light he’d seen floating against the sky, began to shimmer in and out of view. They hurt his eyes, too, for reasons that had nothing to do with their gross deformities, and the stench of rotten flesh and brimstone hung in the air around them. He readied his AR-18, but soon realized that the shapes couldn’t harm him, though some tried: snapping at him, lashing their tentacles at him, or scrabbling at his face with three-inch claws. It was as if they
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hadn’t quite emerged into the mundane world from whatever hell they normally inhabited. But the Toreador had a nasty suspicion that, if Tithonys concluded his ritual, they would. Doing his best to ignore the horrors, he quickened his pace yet again.
The stairs terminated in another corridor, which led in turn to a ladder. Now Elliott could hear both the infernal chorus and, murmuring down through the ceiling, the masculine voice, beautiful even when framing the grating syllables of the unknown language to which the spirits were responding. He scrambled up the steel rungs and tested the trapdoor above them. It was unlocked.
Despite the urgency of his mission, Elliott paused for one more instant to think of Mary, thus fanning his rage to a white-hot blaze. Then, drawing on every bit of his supernatural speed and agility, he surged out onto the roof and started shooting.
The naked, golden-skinned Adonis in the center of the structure of light was facing away from Elliott. He stood with his arms upraised, chanting to the ranks of phantasmal faces and shapes now blemishing the sky. The Toreador’s bullets neither knocked him off balance nor marked his shoulders and back.
Tithonys completed the phrase he was intoning, then turned without apparent haste. He gave Elliott a radiant smile, half-pitying and half-amused, the kind of smile a god might give a petty sinner. A pang of trepidation stabbed through the actor’s rage. He hadn’t wanted to believe that the Methuselah was as powerful as Dan and Angus claimed, but now, despite his fury, he was discerning the reality firsthand.
“I’m afraid that ordinary bullets and blades don’t inconvenience me anymore,” Tithonys said gently. “I’ve grown beyond that.”
Elliott dropped the AR-18 and snatched out the wooden stake sheathed at his belt. He meant to stalk forward, but the Methuselah laughed when he brandished his new weapon, and despite himself, he faltered. At that moment Dan scrambled through the trapdoor.
“Well, well,” Tithonys said, “the gang’s all here, all of my former darling’s principal slaves. Even Angus, fluttering round and round the tower, no doubt hoping to take me by surprise. You might as well come join the party, old friend.”
Angus swooped over the crenellated rampart, changing form while still in the air. By the time his paws touched the roof, he’d become an immense gray wolf with crimson eyes.
“Give it up,” said Dan to Tithonys, a subtle tremor in his voice. “Since you didn’t break me, you can’t use me to get at Melpomene. So there’s no point in killing all those people.”
Elliott felt a surge of impatience. He didn’t want Dan to persuade Tithonys to halt his sorcery. He wanted to destroy the Methuselah! And yet, for a moment, unnerved despite his hatred, he wondered if the situation could be resolved without a battle.
Tithonys grinned at Dan. “It’s obvious you’re no magus. I’ve rung the dinner bell, and all these spirits” — he waved a perfectly formed golden hand at the specters massing in the sky — “to say nothing of their master, my patron, would be quite upset with me if I didn’t put food on the table. Besides which, you haven’t spoiled my plans. I know countless ways to break you, fledgling. Nor, now that I’ve tasted your vitae, would I have any difficulty locating you, even if your companions managed to detain me while you fled.”
Without warning, moving faster than Elliott had ever seen a Kindred move, Angus charged. Drawing on his own inhuman speed, the Toreador elder plunged after him.
The Methuselah snapped his fingers, and his handsome countenance became a gruesome mask of ridged, decaying flesh sporting a leprous snout, a lopsided slash of a mouth full of stained, jagged tusks, and the bulbous, faceted eyes of an insect. Most horribly of all, it was on fire: surrounded
by a corona of crackling blue and yellow flame.
It was, quite simply, the most terrifying sight Elliott had ever seen. The fear he’d already been experiencing exploding into outright panic, he floundered to a halt and then recoiled. Angus did the same. They wound up cringing beside the equally frightened Dan, next to one of the ramparts. Obviously convinced that he’d rendered his would-be attackers harmless, Tithonys turned away. Lifting his arms, he resumed his incantations.
Shuddering, eyes averted from the ancient vampire, Dan tried repeatedly to edge toward the trapdoor. But he couldn’t proceed in that direction without moving toward Tithonys, too, and he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d shift his foot an inch, then snatch it back. Meanwhile, the flesh beneath Angus’ gray fur flowed and bulged. It looked as if he were trying to change shape, perhaps to become a bat and fly away, but was so frightened that it was interfering with his powers.
Elliott was equally terrified, but somehow he found the strength to fight it. The bastard murdered Mary! he told himself. As a ploy to get at somebody neither of us had ever even heard of! He has to pay! And the fear isn’t real, just a souped-up version of a trick I can do myself. And gradually his trembling, and his panic, abated.
Peering about, he saw that Dan was now staring at the rampart as if nerving himself for a leap over the side. Angus was flopping and writhing on the rooftop, his ears batlike and his forelegs transformed into misshapen wings, but otherwise still trapped in the body of a wolf.
Elliott grabbed Dan and jerked him off his feet: then, crouching, he seized Angus by the neck. Forcing both of his comrades to look him in the face, straining to exert every bit of his charismatic powers, he said, “You don’t have to be afraid. Tithonys is playing with your minds. Snap out of it! ”
For a moment, as they stared back at him, wild-eyed and
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shivering, he was certain it hadn’t worked, that his own influence wasn’t potent enough to counteract the Methuselah’s. Then the dread in Dan’s face gave way to a furious, fang-baring snarl. Angus’ useless wings began to turn back into serviceable legs. Elliott released his companions, sprang up and ran at Tithonys.
Turning swiftly, the Methuselah waved his hand.
Some instinct warned Elliott that he was in immediate peril. He dodged to one side, and a dazzling burst of azure flame exploded in the space through which he’d been about to run.
Clamping down on his reflexive dread of fire, he charged Tithonys again. With a flick of his fingers, the Methuselah conjured another blast. As before, only Elliott’s superhuman agility saved him from incineration. At the same instant, Angus rushed the ancient vampire, who, whirling, gestured with his other hand. The Gangrel sprang to the side, but not far enough. The new explosion caught him in midair, turning into his leap into a helpless tumble and setting his coat ablaze.
From the corner of his eye, Elliott saw Dan pointing a tiny antique pistol, and felt a surge of disgust. Evidently the clanless idiot hadn’t heard Tithonys say that metal weapons couldn’t hurt him. Elliott wished he could shout the information, but there was no time for that or anything but trying to dart into striking range of his foe.
The Toreador lunged. Moving almost as quickly, Tithonys wheeled back in his attacker’s direction. Now that Angus was out of the fight, both of the Methuselah’s hands were poised to hurl fire at Elliott, who realized to his horror that it would likely be nearly impossible to dodge two blasts at once.
Dan’s pistol coughed. Tithonys staggered and clasped his shoulder. Waves of darkness like concentric ripples created by a stone tossed into inky water pulsed from the wound
through the rest of his body. Exulting, taking full advantage of the Methuselah’s distraction, Elliott sprang at him and thrust the stake at his heart.
Despite his distress, Tithonys managed to twist his body aside. Instead of plunging deep into his chest, Elliott’s weapon gouged a long, shallow furrow. He started to yank it back for another try, but the vampire in the illusory mask
— up this close, Elliott could feel that the flames shrouding his enemy’s head shed no heat — slapped it out of his hand. The stake rolled clattering across the roof.
No problem, Elliott thought savagely. My teeth and hands will do just as well. Kicking and striking, he threw himself at Tithonys. Behind the Methuselah he glimpsed Angus rolling over and over in an effort to extinguish his burning pelt, and Dan fumbling with the pistol, trying to reload it.
Tithonys blocked Elliott’s first punch with one arm and gestured at Dan with the other. Fortunately, either because of the dark energy streaming through his flesh or because the Toreador was distracting him, his aim was off. The blue fireball exploded six feet to the side of Dan, not right on top of him. Nevertheless it staggered him, and two bullets flew from his hands.
Elliott kicked Tithonys in the knee without so much as knocking him off balance, then thrust his stiffened fingers at the Methuselah’s eyes, or rather at where he believed the true eyes behind the fiery mask should be. He was high by perhaps an inch, feeling his fingertips glance along the ancient Kindred’s brow. Then Tithonys grabbed him by the wrist.
The shadowy ripples now fading from his flesh, the Methuselah squeezed Elliott’s arm with bone-crushing force. An excruciating pain burned into the Toreador’s flesh as if Tithonys’ fingers were white hot, or sweating nitric acid.
Screaming, Elliott tried to twist his arm free, but he couldn’t break Tithonys’ grip. And so, lapsing at last into utter frenzy, his agony fueling his rage, he grappled with the other vampire, biting madly at his golden skin.
Tithonys snapped at him, too, shredding Elliott’s shirt and the pale throat and shoulder beneath. At the same time his hands clutched at the Toreador’s body, searing and dissolving whatever flesh they touched. Abruptly he bulled Elliott backward. Feeling one of the crenellations slam into his back, the maddened actor realized dimly that his opponent was about to throw him off the roof. He struggled again to break the Methuselah’s grip, but to no avail.
Then Tithonys fell onto the rooftop, dragging Elliott down with him. Reeking of charred flesh and hair, his hide a patchwork of burn marks, Angus savaged the Methuselah; evidently he’d charged up behind his ancient enemy and tom his legs out from under him.
Elliott and the Justicar ripped at Tithonys for another second and then, with one convulsive, blindingly fast movement, the Methuselah grabbed each of them by the throat. The Toreador struggled frantically, but couldn’t break his opponent’s grip; he could see that Angus wasn’t faring any better. As Tithonys’ fingers ate their way into his flesh, he realized that in less than a minute they were going to burn his head off.
Unable to match the primordial vampire’s strength, Elliott glared at him, exerting his charismatic powers, trying to jolt Tithonys with a spasm of fear, praying that it would startle him into loosening his grip. That didn’t work either.
Dan appeared above the thrashing combatants. Perhaps he hadn’t been able to find the bullets he’d dropped, because the little gun was nowhere in sight. Instead, he had Elliott’s stake, and now, grasping it in both hands, moving in slow motion compared to the other three preternaturally agile Kindred, he swung it over his head.
Elliott felt Tithonys tense, preparing to wrench himself from beneath the attack. No! the Toreador thought. Now ignoring both his agony and the prospect of his imminent destruction, he clutched at the Methuselah, struggling to immobilize him.
The stake hurtled down and punched into the center of Tithonys’ chest. Dan’s gargantuan strength buried nearly the entire length of the shaft in the ancient vampire’s body. Elliott suspected that it had nailed its target to the roof.
Tithonys screamed, and his magical mask dissolved. His hands jerked away from Angus’ and Elliott’s ravaged necks. But impossibly, in defiance of everything the Toreador believed he knew about his own undead race, even a piece of wood through the heart didn’t paralyze the Methuselah. Instead, he gripped it and began to pull it out.
Elliott grabbed Tithonys’ arms and strained to wrestle his hands away from the stake. An instant later Dan did the same. Meanwhile, Angus’ lupine jaws ripped at the ancient Kindred’s neck.
Despite all that Elliott and Dan could do, the stake lurched upward, an inch at a time. Then Angus flowed back into the form of a bearded giant with talons and flaming eyes. On one knee, he sank his claws into the sides of Tithonys’ head, then wrenched at it. Already weakened by the wounds the Gangrel had inflicted in wolf form, Tithonys’ neck and spinal column simply couldn’t take the punishment. Showering vitae, his head tore away from his shoulders.
Elliott glimpsed movement overhead and looked upw'ard frantically, fearing some new threat. He beheld a gauzy form resembling Tithonys hanging in the darkness. It was only visible for a second. Then the phantoms summoned by the ritual streaked at it, swarmed over it hissing, cackling, clawing and biting, those who were unable to reach it mauling their fellows to clear a path. The Methuselah’s spirit screamed, and then he, his tormentors and the structure of light his magic had erected all blinked out of sight at once.
“I’ve got a hunch,” said Dan, an icy satisfaction in his voice, “that the son of a bitch won’t come back this time.”
Angus and Elliott slumped down on the roof and willed themselves to heal. Because their injuries were of supernatural origin, the process was slow and grueling. The Toreador’s wounds were more agonizing than ever now that he didn’t have the desperate fury of battle to counteract the pain, but his heart was full of the savage joy of vengeance. He wondered vaguely why he hadn’t felt this exhilaration years ago, when he’d butchered the witch hunters. Perhaps, somehow, he’d sensed even then that the mortal fanatics were only pawns.
Even as the vampires’ flesh repaired itself, Tithonys’ perfect body decayed, more rapidly than any Kindred corpse Elliott had ever seen. After a few moments the stake slumped sideways, because there was no material in the Methuselah’s crumbling chest sufficiently solid to hold it upright. Soon nothing remained but a shapeless mound of dust, sifting away in the cool night breeze.
Moving stiffly, his eyes no longer red, Angus retracted his claws. Reaching under the singed and bloody remnants of his beard, he gingerly fingered his neck. Evidently deciding that it had healed sufficiently for speech, he looked at Dan and rasped, “You should’ve told us that you had magic bullets. It might have helped our morale.”
“I didn’t know they were magic,” the Caitiff replied. “I just hoped they were. There are a lot of things I didn’t have time to tell you.”
Angus grinned. “I’ll bet.”
Elliott heard shots in the distance, a reminder that the war wasn’t over even now. He wished he could simply lie on the rooftop and rest, recover, revel in the fact of his revenge, but it was out of the question. He had to tend to his command. His throat raw and aching, partly from his burns and partly from renewed Hunger, his own voice a broken whisper like Angus’, he said, “We should go feed. And then wrap this operation up.”
“I’m not going to help you kill any more Kindred,” Dan said somberly. “I’m sick of it. But I can tell you where Tithonys buried his voodoo doll or whatever it is he used to make Prince Roger crazy. Maybe if you destroy it he’ll get well.”