Guilty Pleasures

38

Nikolaos sat in her carved wooden chair, tiny feet swinging off the ground. Charming.

Aubrey leaned against the wall, tongue running over his lips, getting the last bit of blood off them. Valentine stood very still beside him, staring at me.

Winter stood beside me. The prison guard.

Burchard went to stand by Nikolaos, one hand on the back of her chair.

“What, animator, no jokes?” Nikolaos asked. Her voice was still the grown-up version. It was like she had two voices and could change them with a push of a button.

I shook my head. I didn't feel very funny.

“Have we broken your spirit? Taken the fight out of you?”

I stared at her. Anger flared through me like a wave of heat. “What do you want, Nikolaos?”

“Oh, that's much better.” Her voice rose and fell, a little-girl giggle at the end of each word. I might never like children again.

“Jean-Claude should be growing weak inside his coffin. Starving, but instead he is strong and well fed. How can this be?”

I didn't have the faintest idea, so I kept quiet. Maybe it was rhetorical?

It wasn't. “Answer me, A-n-i-t-a.” She stretched my name out, biting off each syllable.

“I don't know.”

“Oh, but you do.”

I didn't, but she wasn't going to believe me. “Why are you hurting Phillip?”

“He needed to be taught a lesson, after last night.”

“Because he stood up to you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “because he stood up to me.” She scooted out of the chair and pattered towards me. She did a little turn so the white dress billowed around her. She freaking skipped over to me, smiling. “And because I was angry with you. I torture your lover, and maybe I won't torture you. And perhaps, this demonstration will give you fresh incentive to find the vampire murderer.” Her pretty little face was turned up to me, pale eyes gleaming with humor. She was good.

I swallowed hard, and I asked the question I had to ask, “Why were you angry with me?”

She cocked her head to one side. If she hadn't been bloodspattered, it would have been cute. “Could it be that you do not know?” She turned back to Burchard. “What think you, my friend? Is she ignorant?”

He straightened his shoulders and said, “I believe that it is possible.”

“Oh, Jean-Claude has been a very naughty boy. Giving the second mark to an unsuspecting mortal.”

I stood very still. I was remembering blue, fiery eyes on the stairs, and Jean-Claude's voice in my head. All right, I had suspected it, but I still didn't understand what it meant. “What does the second mark mean?”

She licked her lips, soft like a kitten. “Shall we explain, Burchard? Shall we tell her what we know?”

“If she truly does not know, mistress, we must enlighten her,” he said.

“Yes,” she said and glided back to the chair. “Burchard, tell her how old you are.”

“I am six hundred and three years of age.”

I stared at his smooth face and shook my head. “But you're human, not a vampire.”

“I have been given the fourth mark and will live as long as my mistress needs me.”

“No, Jean-Claude wouldn't do that to me,” I said.

Nikolaos made a small shrugging motion with her hands. “I had pressed him very hard. I knew of the first mark to heal you. I suppose he was desperate to save himself.”

I remembered the echo of his voice in my head. “I'm sorry. I had no choice.” Damn him, there were always choices. “He's been in my dreams every night. What does that mean?”

“He is communicating with you, animator. With the third mark will come more direct mind contact.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“No what, animator? No third mark, or no you don't believe us?” she asked.

“I don't want to be anyone's servant.”

“Have you been eating more than usual?” she asked.

The question was so odd, I just stared for a minute, then I remembered. “Yes. Is that important?”

Nikolaos frowned. “He is siphoning energy from you, Anita. He is feeding through your body. He should be growing weak by now, but you will keep him strong.”

“I didn't mean to.”

“I believe you,” she said. “Last night when I realized what he had done, I was beside myself with anger. So I took your lover.”

“Please believe me, he is not my lover.”

“Then why did he risk my anger to save you last night? Friendship? Decency? I think not.”

All right, let her believe it. Just get us out alive, that was the goal. Nothing else mattered. “What can Phillip and I do to make amends?”

“Oh, so polite, I like that.” She put a hand on Burchard's waist, a casual gesture like petting a dog. “Shall we show her what she has to look forward to?”

His whole body tensed as if an electric current had run through it. “If my mistress wishes.”

“I do,” she said.

Burchard knelt in front of her, face about chest level. Nikolaos looked over his head at me. “This,” she said, “is the fourth mark.” Her hands went to the small pearl buttons that decorated the front of the white dress. She spread the cloth wide, baring small breasts. They were a child's breasts, small and half-formed. She drew a fingernail beside her left breast. The skin opened like earth behind a plow, spilling blood in a red line down her chest and stomach.

I could not see Burchard's face as he leaned forward. His hands slid around her waist. His face buried between her breasts. She tensed, back arching. Soft, sucking sounds filled the room's stillness.

I looked away, staring at anything but them, as if I had found them having sex but couldn't leave. Valentine was staring at me. I stared back. He tipped an imaginary hat at me and flashed fangs. I ignored him.

Burchard was sitting beside the chair, half-leaning against it. His face was slack and flushed, his chest rising and falling in deep gasps. He wiped blood from his mouth with a shaking hand. Nikolaos sat very still, head back, eyes closed. Perhaps sex wasn't such a bad analogy after all.

Nikolaos spoke with her eyes closed, head thrown back, voice thick. “Your friend, Willie, is back in a coffin. He felt sorry for Phillip. We will have to cure him of such instincts.”

She raised her head abruptly, eyes bright, almost glittering, as if they had a light all their own. “Can you see my scar today?”

I shook my head. She was the beautiful child, complete and whole. No imperfections. “You look perfect again, why?”

“Because I am expending energy to make it so. I am having to work at it.” Her voice was low and warm, a building heat like thunderstorms in the distance.

The hair at the back of my neck crawled. Something bad was about to happen.

“Jean-Claude has his followers, Anita. If I kill him, they will make him a martyr. But if I prove him weak, powerless, they just fall away and follow me, or follow no one.”

She stood, dress buttoned to her neck once more. Her cottonwhite hair seemed to move as if a wind stirred it, but there was no wind. “I will destroy something Jean-Claude has given his protection to.”

How fast could I get to the knife on my leg? And what good would it do me?

“I will prove to all that Jean-Claude can protect nothing. I am master of all.”

Egocentric bitch. Winter grabbed my arm before I could do anything. Too busy watching the vampires to notice the humans.

“Go,” she said. “Kill him.”

Aubrey and Valentine stood away from the wall and bowed. Then they were gone, as if they had vanished. I turned to Nikolaos.

She smiled. “Yes, I clouded your mind, and you did not see them go.”

“Where are they going?” My stomach was tight. I think I already knew the answer.

“Jean-Claude has given Phillip his protection; thus he must die.”

“No.”

Nikolaos smiled. “Oh, but yes.”

A scream ripped through the hallway. A man's scream. Phillip's scream.

“No!” I half-fell to my knees; only Winter's hand kept me from falling to the floor. I pretended to faint, sagging in his grip. He released me. I grabbed the knife from its ankle sheath. Winter and I were close to the hallway, far away from Nikolaos and her human. Maybe far enough.

Winter was staring at her as if waiting for orders. I came up off the ground and drove the knife into his groin. The knife sank in, and blood poured out as I drew the blade free and raced for the hallway.

I was at the door when the first trickle of wind oozed down my back. I didn't look back. I opened the door.

Phillip sagged in the chains. Blood poured in a bright red flood down his chest. It splattered onto the floor, like rain. Torchlight glittered on the wet bone of his spine. Someone had ripped his throat out.

I staggered against the wall as if someone had hit me. I couldn't get enough air. Someone kept whispering, “Oh, God, oh, God,” over and over, and it was me. I walked down the steps with my back pressed against the wall. I couldn't take my eyes from him. Couldn't look away. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't cry.

The torchlight reflected in his eyes, giving the illusion of movement. A scream built in my gut and spilled out my throat. “Phillip!”

Aubrey stepped between me and Phillip. He was covered in blood. “I look forward to visiting your lovely friend, Catherine.”

I wanted to run at him, screaming. Instead, I leaned against the wall, knife held down at my side, unnoticed. The goal was no longer to get out alive. The goal was to kill Aubrey. “You son of a bitch, you fucking son of a bitch.” My voice sounded utterly calm, no emotion whatsoever. I wasn't afraid. I didn't feel anything.

Aubrey's face frowned at me through a mask of Phillip's blood. “Do not say such things to me.”

“You ugly, stinking, mother-fucking bastard.”

He glided to me, just like I wanted him to. He put a hand on my shoulder. I screamed in his face as loud as I could. He hesitated for just a heartbeat. I shoved the knife blade between his ribs. It was sharp and thin, and I shoved it hilt deep. His body stiffened, leaning into me. Eyes wide and surprised. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. He toppled to the floor, fingers grabbing at air.

Valentine was instantly there, kneeling by the body. “What have you done?” He couldn't see the knife. It was shielded by Aubrey's body.

“I killed him, you son of a bitch, just like I'm going to kill you.”

Valentine jerked to his feet, started to say something, and all hell broke loose. The cell door crashed inward and smashed to bits against the far wall. A tornado wind blasted into the room.

Valentine dropped to his knees, head touching the floor. He was bowing. I flattened myself against the wall. The wind clawed at my face, tangling my hair in front of my eyes.

The noise grew less, and I squinted up at the door. Nikolaos floated just above the top step. Her hair crackled around her head, like spider silk. Her skin had shrunken against her bones, until she was skeletal. Her eyes glowed, pale blue fire. She started floating down the steps, hands outstretched.

I could see her veins like blue lights under her skin. I ran. Ran for the far wall, and the tunnel the ratmen had used.

The wind threw me against the wall, and I scrambled on hands and feet towards the tunnel. The hole was large, and black, cool air brushed my face, and something grabbed my ankle.

I screamed. The thing that was Nikolaos dragged me back. It slammed me against the wall and pinned my wrists in one clawed hand. The body leaned into my legs, bone under cloth.

The lips had receded, exposing the fangs and teeth. The skeletal head hissed, “You will learn obedience, to me!” It screamed in my face, and I screamed back. Wordlessly, an animal screaming in a trap.

My heart was thudding in my throat. I couldn't breathe. “Nooo!”

The thing shrieked, “Look at me!”

And I did. I fell into the blue fire that was her eyes. The fire burrowed into my brain, pain. Her thoughts cut me up like knives, slicing away parts of me. Her rage scalded and burned until I thought the skin was peeling away from my face. Claws scrapped the inside of my skull, grinding bone into dust.

When I could see again, I was huddled by the wall, and she was standing over me, not touching, not needing to. I was shaking, shaking so badly my teeth chattered. I was cold, so cold.

“Eventually, animator, you will call me master, and you will mean it.” She was suddenly kneeling over me. She pressed her slender body over mine, hands pinning my shoulders to the floor. I couldn't move.

The beautiful little girl leaned her face against my cheek and whispered, “I am going to sink fangs into your neck, and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

Her delicate shell of an ear was brushing my lips. I sank teeth into it until I tasted blood. She shrieked and jerked away, blood running down the side of her neck.

Bright razor claws tore through my brain. Her pain, her rage, turning my brain into silly putty. I think I was screaming again, but I couldn't hear it. After a while I couldn't hear anything. Darkness came. It swallowed up Nikolaos and left me alone, floating in the dark.