Chapter Six #3
“Where did you get this suit?” He fingered one of the waistcoat buttons, then played with the neatly ironed collar of the shirt. An alluring scent came from the demon—smoky, spicy—it made Raffaelle’s mouth water.
Tabes smiled: even his teeth had grown sharp. A near perfect mirror.
“From their rooms.”
The shock on Raffaelle’s face made Tabes laugh, breaking the illusion. There was such giddiness in the shrill sound, like a naughty child who knew they were beyond reprimands. Emerick never laughed like that.
“I stole it weeks ago. They are rarely here: I bet they do not even know what they are leaving behind. There are so many trinkets!”
He lifted his hand, palm facing Raffaelle and showed the rings adorning his fingers.
Raffaelle did not know if he should be angry or pleased.
He realised why the suit was familiar: he had seen Emerick wear it on one occasion or another.
Now he was touching it, deciding if, and how, to strip it off the demon.
His servant pulled away and draped himself across the bedframe, oblivious to the tangle of sheets and pillows, the tea tray and the pile of magazines just within reach. Tabes looked inviting, alluring, even, as he gazed up at Raffaelle with such naked honesty.
Raffaelle had to remind himself that the body before him was a double. The real Emerick would never be this vulnerable, this overcome with need… with adoration.
Today, however, he was too agitated and found the trick childish and distasteful. After spending hours in Dulior’s company, listening to her whine and complain about the Marquis and—
“The other one then?” Tabes chirped and his body melted into a replica of Silvio, the moment the man’s face had appeared in Raffaelle’s mind.
The shift was so sudden and fast, the voice changing last; the clothes now too tight for this form, the stitching ripped at the back and shoulders; it startled Raffaelle.
He did not know what poison and lies Dulior had fed the All Father; had it been her endless drone about the Count—her husband—that had ignited Ingenuar’s curiosity, or did he too want to have a go at breaking the man.
Silvio had endured centuries confined and tethered to Dulior’s skirts.
To Raffaelle, becoming a Regent was the equivalent of wearing a muzzle: it did not grant power—not with a father like ours.
Silvio looked sumptuous in that muzzle, he wore it and the title with pride.
Raffaelle’s tongue twitched between his teeth.
He was suddenly thirsty. He could drink Tabes dry and the demon would rise again unfazed, but it was not his blood he desired.
Nor Dulior’s, for that was the blood that pumped through the Marquis’ veins.
Emerick’s blood would be the cleanest, closest to Silvio’s.
Raffaelle’s smile crumbled. He knew of no other vampire Silvio might have sired; his only option was Emerick if he wanted a taste.
“I’ll make do with you, pet,” he announced, smiling despite himself, and Tabes arched an eyebrow, long since resigned to the machinations of his master’s mind, and tired of them.
“How generous,” Tabes humoured him, mouth twitching, before Raffaelle grabbed him by the chin.
He squeezed, digging his nails in, and Tabes keened, all pretence at defiance dissolving. Raffaelle liked the show of arrogance and venom in Silvio’s eyes. He wanted those viridescent eyes to fill with tears, that stoic mouth to quiver and obsecrate.
The green suit kept bothering Raffaelle. It made him wonder what Tabes did with his days when his master slept or was not there. Does he go through all the rooms, rummaging, snooping and stealing?
“Is there a room you have not been in?”
Tabes grinned mischievously. He had started to undress unprompted, stripping Rafaelle as well. If he was not careful, he might end up enjoying having the Marquis serve him.
“You are not feeding off another vampire, are you? I would hate to share my secrets with anyone you have enthralled.”
“Are those putrid thoughts meant to be a secret? Oh, Raffy, there are worse, dirtier things in this Coven than our reveries, and your serpentine tongue.”
Later, once Tabes had served his purpose, the demon sat at the table, complaining about how cold his breakfast had grown, the coffee grounds settling at the bottom of the cup like mud.
Raffaelle watched him eat while wearing Emerick’s skin.
The slices of toast crunched and broke under the fangs; the Comte’s double reached for the knife to spread more butter, his other hand lifted the coffee cup to his lips and drowned the espresso in one single gulp.
How absurd, Raffaelle thought, unable to look away. He had never seen Emerick drink blood, but here he was, watching the Comte have breakfast, enjoying a hearty meal after a good fuck.
Tabes noticed him staring and smiled. Not a toothy smile, no. His lips stretched into a wide grin and his whole face beamed with delight. He kept chewing the toast, licking jam from his fingers. The aroma of apricots was so strong and sweet that Raffaelle almost growled with hunger.
“Why are you him again?” Raffaelle grunted. Tabes had done him the mercy of shifting after intercourse.
“Because I was sure you wouldn’t like it,” the demon sneered.
Tabes’ neck and chest were covered in bite marks and scratches.
Raffaelle had not bothered to heal them when they were on Silvio’s body.
There had been something satisfying in leaving those marks, a visible claim that this man—fake or not—belonged to him.
That he had a Regent who served him unconditionally.
When Tabes changed shapes, the bodies did not carry over any wounds or imperfections from the previous form—a demon would heal fast well on its own—which meant that he had kept those same marks on purpose.
He remembered when they had first met, decades ago.
Tabes had come across as a vengeful spirit in a morality play.
He was wearing the skin of a servant, someone who had died a long time ago.
Raffaelle had killed the man himself, breaking his neck in a fit of fury.
Yet now, that very same man was scurrying down the corridors of the Berlin Coven, chattering excitedly to a footman.
Raffaelle tried to read the man’s thoughts, but could not.
A veil separated him, one muffling all sound and motion around.
Next thing he knew, the man—this revenant approached, and addressed him by name, goading him.
“What are you? Came back to haunt me, eager for revenge?” Raffaelle had asked.
“Revenge will not feed me.”
Raffaelle could not remember if the voice matched the face; he had never paid much attention to those who served him.
“Then what dish would satisfy you?”
The spectre sneered and the flesh on the face sagged like a mask coming loose. It had not offered to strike a deal. It had not attempted to persuade him to surrender his soul or anything pertaining to eternal damnation. Vampires were already damned: what more could a demon possibly offer?
“Your blood and company in exchange for my services,” the thing had said and smiled. It flicked its tongue over its lower lip like an eager reptile.
There was a certain perversity in allowing such a creature to drink his blood, a lesser being feeding on the blood of a son of the All Father.
“What are your services?” Raffaelle had asked, and the demon ignored him.
“You may address me as Tabes.”
During the course of their conversation Raffaelle had discovered that this uncanny creature’s mind was in fact impenetrable—a bothersome quirk for this lowly, hellish aberration.
There were others of its kind, princes of Hell and patrons of immorality.
Tabes listed their monikers until Raffaelle was sick from the lecture: Astaroth guided thieves; Caries encouraged corruption; Forente was marred by hunger, a gluttonous prince; Memon, the harbinger of wrath; Vihal, the tortured.
“And do all demons look like you?”
“Of course not. Some are so hideous that even a fellow demon cannot bear to gaze upon them, let alone a human. Their eyes would refuse to absorb the image, allowing barely hints of the whole to form. Not even mirrors can capture a draugr’s true reflection.”
Then Tabes had shifted.
Not into Emerick. That would come later.
Raffaelle would have to request that shape specifically, practically beg on his hands and knees, pathetic, crawling like a rodent.
He would have to dare utter the request aloud, when he could wait no more and his frustration had overflowed.
To speak the Comte’s full name so Tabes could morph into him.
Demons could read desire buried in the mind, and Tabes had already seen what Raffaelle wanted a long time ago.
But he had to say it, make the words flesh.
Oh, how Raffaelle had pleaded, surprising even himself at how low and dry his voice had turned, parched and yearning.
All for a man he hated.
The All Father’s broken body lay prostrate on the ground. The man to whom Raffaelle once bowed and swore his fealty was now nothing but an empty husk at his feet. He was dimly aware of the figures moving on either side of him, coming and going from the study.
“Call the Marqu—”
“This does not leave the Coven!” Nhalme snarled at his brothers and sisters, pointing towards the room.
Scarlett’s skirts brushed against Raffaelle’s legs.
She pressed a pale hand to her mouth, and a muffled cry escaped between her fingers.
Her whole upper body trembled, tears of blood welled her eyes.
The agony overtaking her face and body looked divine on her, the All Mother bereft of her immortal consort.
Raffaelle reached and took hold of her upper arm, steadied her, and drew her closer.