Chapter II
II
It took less than an hour to reach my home.
Jacques Avenel d’Ocerne offered little conversation as we rode. The young man was in great discomfort, perhaps injured or lame, though he tried bravely to hide it. His left hand barely gripped the reins and when he dismounted at the gate he snatched the arm close to his body with a grunt of pain.
I had a modest, isolated estate not far from the town of Corvano, on the outskirts of Turin.
Thankfully my years of living in squalor as a pariah were over by this point in history.
It was very comfortable, with solid stone walls and a slate roof, and the grounds were small, tidy and—most importantly—private.
The eighteenth century’s growing interest in science and medicine allowed me to earn a respectable living in larger towns as the local doctor, scholar, undertaker and sometime jeweler, as the occasion required.
Science at this time was a lot of flashy bunkum, so it was easy enough for me to pass off some of my more exotic work as “physicks.” Corvano had been home for nearly ten years, and while I was not quite a pillar of the community, I was well known and well regarded.
Livia, my housekeeper, brightened immediately at the sight of our houseguest. To my relief, she was respectably clothed when we arrived and there was a savory meal of rabbit stew, soft cheese and barley bread ready on the table.1
“I apologize for the humble meal,” I said as Livia filled our plates. “I was not expecting—”
“Your contract,” he said, sliding a rolled sheet of paper across the table to me, “should you require verification. It commits you to my father’s service in the hunt for the Beast, does it not?”
“I believe it does, sir.” I made a show of removing the ribbon and unrolling the page, which had been removed from a larger volume. “The bounty was also, as I recall, paid out to Monsieur Bauterne.”
Well.
My signature was right there near the top of the page, directly under Antoine’s.
Above our names were the insignias of the king and the baron and the particulars of the bounty—six hundred livres for the head of the Beast of Gévaudan—and below were dozens of other signatures belonging to men long dead.
“It was, but my father has promised to restore the bounty to you, should you be successful,” Jacques added.
“He—Really? All of it?”
“So he said.”
I pretended to read the details of the document, watching Jacques d’Ocerne over the edge of the page. The man was clearly starving and he ate like a jackal; he must have pushed himself hard on the journey from Chateau d’Ocerne.
In the lamplight, he was a thinner, graver version of Antoine.
He could have been no older than nineteen and not quite able to produce his father’s thick beard, but the dark eyes and blond hair were Antoine’s.
There were differences I presumed came from his mother: a softer, full mouth and wider jaw.
He was pensive and deliberate in his manners as well, which Antoine had never been.
I also noted that he ate entirely with his right hand; the left arm he cradled protectively close to his body.
“I am glad that you are still here, Professor,” he said, sounding not at all glad. “Your last letter was many years ago, according to Papa.”
“He never troubled to reply to my letters,” I told him carefully. “I saw no further need for correspondence. And I must admit I am curious how you found me so late at night and so far from town.”
“The wise woman by the scree told me I might find you at the cemetery.”
“I see,” I said. I added “professional discretion” to the list of things I would be discussing with wise White Marta after the night’s business was concluded.
A dutiful son, remarked Sarmodel, to come all this way alone, and in such a hurry.
Indeed, I thought to him, smiling evenly as I offered the young man some more wine. And I wonder what sort of baronet sends his son and heir out on a long, dangerous errand with no escort.
Jacques accepted the wine and watched me silently over a mouthful of cheese. Just as I was growing uncomfortable, he spoke again.
“I expected an older man,” he said. “Sebastian Grave of Larnaca was a lettered man of some many accomplishments at the time of the Red Winter. If you are the same man, you have remained remarkably untouched by time.”2
“Ah,” I said with some amusement. “I believe that this question has been troubling you, young sir. And the answer is simple: I lied. I made good pretense with beard and bluster, but I was barely in my twentieth year when I left Gévaudan. No older than you are now.” I gave a light laugh.
“I suppose I did not wish to appear the untested whelp among the hunters of France.”
The smile he returned was weak. “Of course, Professor. You must think me quite rude.”
He excused himself to get what sleep he could before our departure, leaving me full of braised rabbit and squirming apprehension.
Livia escorted him upstairs to the guest bedroom and I remained there at the table, watching my coffee cool.
The succubus returned and cleared the table around me with rather more care than usual, but she knew better than to interrupt my thoughts.
It wasn’t until I rose from the table that she struck. Firm hands pulled me into the scullery and closed the door.
“Meatbag,”3 she whispered sweetly to me, as Jacques moved around in the upstairs guest room.
“Did you enjoy your supper? Is your hunger satisfied?” We were in very close quarters and she had me backed up against the door.
A troubling amount of heat was emanating from her body.
True to her nature,4 Livia is devastatingly beautiful, with some singular imperfections.
I forbade her to show tail, talons or horns in polite company, but even in her shapeless housekeeper’s pinafore with her auburn tresses dutifully pinned under a cloth cap, she managed to be utterly heart-stopping.
Thankfully, my unexpected guest had paid her little mind as she prowled around the dinner table.
I knew where this was heading. “Yes, Livia, thank you. Supper was delicious. And no, Jacques is not for you,” I whispered back.
There was a hissing sound and a cloud of steam as she plunged her hands into the dishwater. “Why must I always starve? This one is young and ready to mate. You don’t care for him, I can tell. He will come willingly—and I will bring only pleasure to him!”
“I don’t disagree. But he would still be dead when you finished. I forbid it.”
“Sebastian you are cruel. Why does he get to feast while I diminish by the hour?” she demanded, pointing above my head. She meant Sarmodel, of course.
“Feast”? Indeed. You are welcome to join us at the piggery next time I am “feasting,” half-breed.
I will stuff you both ends with as many swine as you desire, he replied.
But you should think about what she offers, Sebastian.
The succubus may be the easiest way out of the situation, and this younger Ocerne is quite disagreeable.
And he was traveling alone on a long and dangerous road.
Livia turned to me, her luminous green eyes full of tears.
She held up her talons, dripping with dishwater.
“I work so hard and ask for so little. He wants me, I know, and I want him.” Her barbed tail emerged from beneath her skirt and stroked my thigh.
“Please, Sebastian. It will be fast and magnificent, and I promise to clean up afterward.”
“Livia. No.”
A long creaking came from the floor above us as Jacques opened the armoire in the guest quarters. Livia stamped her foot in frustration. “He is undressing ready to mate,” she insisted.
“He is undressing ready to sleep. And he is Antoine’s son, no matter what I think of him. I will Shackle you if I must,”5 I warned her.
“Sometimes, meatbag, I hate you,” Livia said darkly, folding her arms. Her tears dried up with a sizzle, and just like that, she was all business again. “Have you packed?”
I spent the remaining hours of darkness collecting everything I would need for the journey.
The Gévaudan I remembered was a bleak, hostile place full of bleak, hostile people and I packed accordingly.
After some consideration, I included some formal attire in green silk and a short courtly wig.
I unraveled the cellar Wards and descended into the basement proper to pack my valise.
I checked and packed all of my standard equipment (bandages, surgeon’s knives, deer brushes, specimen jars, that kind of thing) and then found myself reaching for the high shelves and locked repositories where I kept my most potent inventory.
Two precious globes of quicksilver,6 an amphisbaena gland, a stick of waxed pyric chalk—I threw them all in with shaking hands.
I had been thinking all the while, hypothesizing on what might be causing the troubles in Gévaudan, without really wanting to believe what Jacques had told me. But the memory was there. Huge and naked and smiling with red teeth, it was there.
Are we storming the Holy See? asked Sarmodel. What in the name of the Rift are you doing?
“I know. I know! I need to calm down.” I sat down on a stool, pulling off my gloves. “I just don’t know what we’re going to find,” I said.
That’s exactly right. We don’t know what we’re going to find.
“You heard what the boy said—the terror of the Red Winter. The Beast.”
He could not have survived, my love.
“Are you sure? Could he have returned somehow?”
So many questions. I felt a shifting in my mind as he thought, like the shu?ing of immense coils.7 You could always send the boy on his way, you know. Even if you won’t kill him, there are ways to make him forget he was ever here. Or who he is, if it comes to that.
I thought about it. The sensible part of me really didn’t want to go back to Gévaudan.
I had barely survived my last visit and made some enemies in high places; I was especially loath to put myself back within reach of the French clergy and their Divine counterparts.
France was also developing a nasty reputation for lawlessness, with rumors of riots and treasonous uprisings.
And Sarmodel was of course correct; I had numerous means within arm’s reach to charm, drug or otherwise dispose of Jacques.
But if I did any of those things, I wouldn’t see Antoine again.
And I needed to know. I needed to be certain.
“No,” I said to Sarmodel. “If this is something I’ve left unfinished, I need to make amends. And six hundred livres will not go astray.”
What a terrible bind, he said lightly. Is twenty years too long to wait to say “I told you so”? I don’t think it is.
“What should I have done, Sarmodel? Left them all to die?”
Do you really want me to answer that?
“No, no.” I waved his laughter away. “Just . . . help me. Tell me what I need. I can’t think properly.”
He turned and turned in my head.
Better take it all. Just in case.
1. Livia is a succubus I met in Rome at the height of the Empire. We share a deep affection, but it took her nearly five hundred years to learn to cook anything other than naphtha.
2. I stopped aging as soon as my body and mind were mature.
I am naturally olive-skinned and dark-haired thanks to my staunch Cypriot heritage, and I can usually present myself as anything from twenty-five to thirty-five.
Over my years in Corvano I had altered my appearance toward maturity, with slightly longer hair and a studied disdain of young people.
It was enough to deflect suspicion, but I would eventually need to move on, as always.
3. A rough translation of the Tartaric term “v’herrec,” Livia’s appellation of choice for human beings. The verb form is herrequet, which she uses to describe the process of human living, but it doesn’t translate quite so well: “to meatbag.”
4. Not true Spirits, succubi are among the more sophisticated occult half-breeds.
Along with a host of other abominations, they’re the product of demonic or angelic involvement in mortal reproduction.
Unsurprisingly, such a union rarely results in viable offspring, but there are enough to keep me in business.
I have written extensively on the subject in my Occult Compendium, available for purchase from my website.
5. I made a beautiful pair of silver earrings for Livia, inscribed with the sigils of her Contract. They’re very elegant, but to Livia each is a leaden anvil.
6. A liquid alloy of mercury, silver, chromium and platinum, with various alchemical salts. Needless to say, it’s prohibitively expensive, highly toxic and extremely di?cult to make. It will, however, take the pepper out of just about anything: angels, demons, monsters, undead, clergy—anything.
7. I get the impression that my Guest is many times larger than I am, or he would be if able to manifest in the Mundane world.
I can’t see him unless he Projects an image, but Livia looks straight up when she speaks to him, which is quite unnerving.
I’ve no desire to know what he really looks like.
I have witnessed three powerful Spirits in their Prime Incarnations and suffered in turn blindness, madness and deadly illness for my efforts.