Chapter Eleven #5
“What about the vineyard? There are acres of land, human workers, facilities, marketing and matters of import and export.”
The list went on and on, and Kyrillos wished he could sit down on the floor right there and ponder it.
“My secretary,” Silvio repeated, this time firmer. “It goes to him to handle and decide in my stead. He knows what to do. He knows how to manage my affairs. This is not his first time.”
The emails continued, followed by letters and newspapers that Kyrillos delivered each sunset. He arranged for French newspapers to come to the mansion, together with their German counterparts, and the occasional magazine or booklet Silvio might find interesting.
Out of all his responsibilities, Kyrillos continuously failed at only one. The only important one. Until today.
On the day Emerick had been made Regent, he left the Berlin Coven, promising Silvio to come back once he had seen to—and properly arranged—matters in Béziers.
Silvio had patiently waited for his lover’s return until the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months.
Eventually, two years had passed, and still there had been no sign of the Marquis; two years during which Kyrillos had failed to locate and retrieve the one thing his master craved.
He was on his way to the game room after a meeting with Silvio’s lawyers.
They had examined the bank accounts held in Emerick’s name, attempting to establish the Marquis’ whereabouts and, more importantly, the reason for his silence.
They found records of plane tickets to and from Germany and Bulgaria, a house deed, and multiple inconsequential purchases.
A joint account had appeared one day and Kyrillos squinted at the name of the second owner, ransacking his mind, yet failing to recall any vampire named Victor Gabrielli.
The lawyers assured him it was legitimate, all done as instructed by Monsieur Gabrielli himself.
It had taken them months, but they found him nonetheless. Whatever he was doing instead of abiding by his duties, the Marquis was in Bulgaria, leading a different life, pretending to be human.
In hindsight, it felt foolish not to have thought to search for a vampire in the same way one would search for a man.
Kyrillos was not accustomed to perceiving them as human, going about their daily routine with mundanity and repetitiveness.
They were ethereal, horrifying and undead.
Kyrillos could not imagine them completing chores, buying groceries or living in crammed spaces among mortals.
And yet, it had proven easy, so very easy, to find Emerick once Kyrillos stopped thinking of him as a vampire.
Or perhaps there was a part of Kyrillos that did not want to find Emerick, to let the Marquis reveal himself when and if he saw fit.
It was too late now, Kyrillos had seen the receipts, the paperwork.
He would have to show them to his master.
Kyrillos entered the game room and the sight of Silvio made him wonder if he should mention the joint account and the house. His master did not care for the specifics; all he wanted was a location.
The Coven Master was playing billiards on one of the tables, a cloud of cigarette smoke trailing him as he moved back and forth.
Sometimes the motions of his body were too fast, driving the tip of the cue so hard into the ivory balls that Kyrillos feared they might crack, and the felt rip beneath them.
The maids warned Kyrillos that the master had retreated to the game room following the visit from the Countess di Flaviari.
Judging by the sight of him—his rolled-up sleeves, his dishevelled hair, and the thickness of the smoke—Silvio had been here a while.
The ashtray was piled with cigarette butts and burnt matches.
Good news, I bring good news, Kyrillos reminded himself, before he closed the door and stepping further into the room.
Silvio ignored him, continuing to stalk around the table; he bent over it and set the cue for his next shot, angling it.
The crack of ivory against ivory echoed like thunder in the vast room.
Serving Silvio came at a price. He demanded more than Ingenuar ever had of the human servants.
He insisted things to be done in a particular way, mimicking how he ran the household in Béziers.
Yet Kyrillos remained—no, he begged to stay.
He obediently drew up the staff plan, extending it to include positions the previous Coven Master had no need of: tailors, painters, sculptors, even architects.
Kyrillos had been twenty-seven when he was made butler—the only one with a key to the Master’s bedroom. Back then, Silvio had made a bet with him: a private game for the two of them to play while they waited for the Marquis. He had come home in a good mood after a hunt, eager to propose.
“If you manage to seduce me, if you make me fall in love with you,” Silvio had breathed against Kyrillos’s neck, drawing their bodies closer so that he might hold his waist. “I will turn you into a vampire. But you have only until you turn thirty.”
What a cruel game, Kyrillos chewed on the inside of his cheek, imagining himself forever bound to Silvio’s side. There were far worse fates for a mortal, the Patrikia used to warn him.
The three years he had been given to complete the task had seemed like all the time in the world, and not nearly enough. A glimmer of a second in the eyes of a vampire.
“How many vampires have you made?” Kyrillos could not help but ask back then.
As if it matters... He did not care how many others shared the Blood with Silvio.
All that mattered was that he could be one of them.
He was already an obedient little thing, as Silvio used to call him. All he needed was the Blood.
“Two,” his master answered, fangs glistening with saliva, his mouth curled into a mirthless smile. He was enjoying this: toying with his pet.
What a good pet Kyrillos could be, if only he had eternity to perfect it.
“Two? And I have to convince you to turn me??”
Silvio had laughed at the horror that twisted Kyrillos’s face.
“I have sired two vampires. Perhaps I shall make more now. Make me turn you, Kyrillos. Make me hunger for it.”
Kyrillos’s time was running out. Come spring, and he was going to celebrate his thirtieth year.
They spent most nights together; Kyrillos bore teeth marks under his collar and kept finding small trinkets laid out for him.
Silvio continued to take him hunting, consulted him on matters concerning both vampire and mortal residents alike.
Yet, he never let Kyrillos taste a lick of blood.
I found the Marquis, Kyrillos told himself. I will give him what he wants, and he will turn me.
“Your station is at my side, Kyrillos. In my bed.” Silvio had told him once.
Kyrillos was not greedy, he would learn to share. He did not care about the Marquis, nor about any other lover his master might call to his bedchamber, now or in the future, as long as there was room for Kyrillos.
Silvio had lived for almost a millennium and found two souls worthy of being sired by him. Kyrillos intended to be the third. He was going to be the first vampire made by the new Coven Master—the first of a new royal line. All he had to do was deliver the Marquis to the Court.
SCARLETT, 2020
Trust Raffaelle to be the one to break the news that the Marquis had been found.
Scarlett had never asked how her brother came by such knowledge, what mortal or vampire whispered secrets to him.
Nothing of her own remained hidden; she had bared herself in service to Ingenuar and the Coven, in her station as the All Mother.
Now, as Silvio’s councillor, Scarlett had even fewer secrets.
The servants were busy preparing for Emerick’s return, Silvio had sent instructions for a banquet. He made himself the architect, cook and guest of honour at the grand table of his greed, and the centrepiece of his table was meant to be a dish of dripping gold, left empty, waiting to be filled.
Over the years since his ascension, Silvio fed that hunger by cramming every corner of the building with things of beauty and delicacy.
He pried his fingers into the very walls and ripped the marble tiles off the floors, replaced them with an opulence so excessive that bordered on madness.
Silvio consulted Scarlett on the renovations and restorations.
He listened to her patiently, nodded along, kept notes himself or trusted Kyrillos to mark down whatever his master found of interest. Scarlett was not particularly fond of the mansion.
Without Ingenuar, the Coven was only a building, a place to keep her safe and dry, and nothing more.
If Silvio wanted to level it with the ground and erect a cathedral to carnality, she would only argue with him over how the waste would outweigh the practicality of it.
“You are turning this into a monument of remembrance. It is not a homage to the living,” Scarlett had pointed out, when she actually wanted to ask whether this was what Emerick himself would have wanted. Love, if love it was, had turned into a sickening obsession for the Coven Master.
“But we are not of the living, my dear,” Silvio began, trying to contradict her, but she cut him off.
“And neither are we of the dead. We are beyond.”
When a maid delivered the summons, Scarlett assumed it would be for yet another list of ghastly paintings or crystal chandeliers Silvio sought her opinion on.
It made her bitterly recall how Ingenuar has never summoned her into his study or sent for a servant to fetch her.
He had always come to her and extended his invitation in person. Never a summons. Never an order.
She did not expect to find Silvio behind his writing desk, with Kyrillos standing frozen by the wall, his hands clasped behind his back.