Chapter 23 Arabella
Arabella
Gideon: Paul Badica has been reminded that the contract he signed when he and his new wife purchased their Sanctus property forbids him from talking about past interactions with members.
And when I say “reminded”, I mean, “reminded with Alaric’s testicle-severing sword”.
I am eagerly awaiting your presence this evening. I have a surprise for you.
Winnie: Celeste, Mina, Maisie and I will be there tonight. We’re so excited to see Sanctus up close! (And Mina is excited to do a bit of snooping.)
Celeste: What’s better for Thralls after they’ve had a vampire nibbling on their neck – whiskey chocolate ganache or coconut praline?
I FINISH APPLYING MY LIPSTICK and study my reflection in the mirror. I want to look positively fearsome tonight when I deliver the bad news to Gideon.
Normally, the idea of spending an entire evening in the company of vampires would turn my stomach – especially with Paul Badica and his new wife in attendance – but I cannot miss this opportunity to let Gideon know I’m his only hope to save Sanctus and lord it over him all night long.
Besides, Mina’s right – this will be the best opportunity to get the gossip on the Sanctus community and their Thralls, if there are any staff members acting suspiciously, as well as the issues Gideon is having with the Conclave.
I’ve chosen an emerald green dress in a beautiful, cascading velvet. If I must be in nature, then I am going to be the most beautiful flower in the garden tonight.
As I pass through the living room, I glance up at my painting.
Tonight, the woman appears smug, haughty, her neck extended to show off her jewels.
It’s some of Claude’s finest work. Several times over the last century, I have been tempted to sell the painting.
It certainly would have made my life easier during that terrible period when I slept on the streets and hunted in the dark like a shadow.
But I refuse to let a man – even one of the world’s most renowned artists – provide for me when I can do it myself.
I touch my bare neck.
Even though it’s been one hundred and fifty years since I wore them last, I miss those jewels.
I miss the certainty of wearing them, the knowledge that their magic made me invincible – that for once, no man could ruin what I’d built.
Until a man did.
I circle my neck with my hands.
After I rebuilt my fortune post-WWII as an intermediary, allowing Upyr to turn their old antiques and stores of gold into modern cash, I visited a jeweller in Italy and had them make me a replica of the Antirhodos Collar.
Of course, I have no photographs of the piece, but I had this painting, the Toulouse-Lautrec poster and a couple of portraits from édouard Manet and his circle.
The jeweller toiled for weeks on the piece, making sure each detail was perfect. When he presented me with the finished product, he wept. He said it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever made.
It was beautiful, but it wasn’t my necklace. It was missing something. No heart. No soul.
No magic.
I sold it the next week in Vienna and used the money to buy myself passage to America.
They don’t have courts, which meant I could live and work in peace.
Until… my past caught up to me once more.
An old client made a menace of himself, and I had to become a shadow again.
That’s how I found myself in the tiny, vampire-free village of Argleton.
I thought I could be safe here, but then Gideon Blake showed up.
And he wants to surprise me.
As if his very existence isn’t the worst kind of surprise.
I return to my room and fish around in my jewellery box, locating a gold necklace dripping with emeralds. I fasten it around my neck. The metal feels cool and heavy against my skin. It’s not the same, but it will do.
I grab my purse and exit my home, keying in the code to lock the doors. I wander through the winding woodland path, past the completed houses sitting back from the road, half-hidden in the trees. Windows reflect the starry night sky.
I follow the sound of voices and music into the Midnight Garden, which occupies an area between the executive homes and a block of smaller two-bedroom townhouses.
It looks like every vampire in Sanctus is here, plus a few invited human guests.
I grab a glass of blood from a tray held out by a human member of the Sanctus staff.
I notice the distinct bruises on her neck.
I sweep into the garden, admiring the world Gideon has created.
A stream runs through the middle, but it’s been corralled into a mosaic trench with little steps and sculpted corners to create a pleasing babble of water.
Little bridges and stepping stones enable visitors to cross over without wetting their feet.
The crowd mills around on the crisp white stone pathways, lit at the edges by LED strips that change colours, while night-flowering plants burst into bloom from the beds.
Large braziers at either end of the garden take the chill off the evening, and the air swirls with inviting floral scents.
It’s modern and clean and so far removed from the dazzling gothic finery of the courts, and I love it. Gideon has—
No, don’t give Gideon credit for this.
Gideon hires people who dream up this stuff for him and then stands in the spotlight and lets everyone congratulate him for his genius.
Gideon is currently on the brink of total financial ruin.
Gideon is vampire enemy number one because many of our kin think he’s trying to establish his own court in Sanctus, which, looking around, isn’t too far from the truth.
He doesn’t build things. He doesn’t create.
He destroys.
But this time, I’ll destroy him first.
Ten sculptures stand on plinths down the length of the garden, each one covered in a black cloth, ready for its big unveiling.
Near the bar, a quartet of human classical musicians – three men in decadent Baroque ensembles and demonic face paint, and a woman in a flowing red gown – play a strange and eerie composition that sends a delicious shiver down my spine.
I would have hired them at La Petite Mort…
“That’s Broken Muse,” Alyra whispers as she appears at my side and hands me a blood cocktail. “Gideon knows them. He flew them off their European tour specifically for this event. They’re exquisite, especially the violinist. I’d like to have a nibble on that gorgeous neck.”
I seethe internally as I sip my drink. Of course, Gideon hangs out with rockstars. This life of his should have been mine.
It can still be mine. Once I take Sanctus from him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Mina and one of her husbands, Moriarty, cornering one of the servers, who keeps touching her neck.
I spy Celeste at the catering table, fussing over the dishes, and Winnie is rubbing Alaric’s back and whispering encouragingly in his ear as he stares at the covered sculptures with a mixture of terror and derision.
“We shouldn’t talk about humans as if they’re meat for the slaughter,” Alyra’s companion says stiffly. “If we create a culture of othering them, then it becomes difficult to reconcile our issues with consent—”
“But they are other,” Alyra rolls her eyes. “They’re food, and occasionally entertainment, like cat videos on the internet. But they hardly deserve our respect.”
“We were all human once—”
Alyra laughs and hugs her friend close. “I’m teasing, you silly goose. Arabella, I’d love you to meet my friends, Luminita Le Fey and Eleanor Mock, both of the Blood Alexandre. Ladies, this is Arabella Lestrange, of the Blood, er—”
“Just Arabella,” I interrupt.
Alyra’s smile freezes, but she doesn’t make a fuss over why I refuse to give my blood allegiance. “Eleanor is our resident activist. She’s working on a campaign to raise awareness of the issue of illegal siring. She wants every vampire who sired without consent to face trial. Isn’t that absurd?”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea.” I lean in to air kiss Eleanor’s cheeks. She does the same, and when she steps back, she looks excited.
“I’m so pleased you agree. If you like, you can come along to our first meeting. It’s next month in Brimstone.” She fishes around in her handbag. “Let me find you a flyer—”
“She doesn’t want a flyer, Eleanor. She’s just being polite. Arabella, welcome to Sanctus.” Luminita leans in for an air kiss. “You’re a friend of Beth Duncan. I saw you dance at her studio opening. You were sublime.”
“I was helping out my friend. I don’t do that sort of dancing.”
Anymore.
“Oh, please, Arabella.” Luminita’s tinkling laugh grates my nerves. “Modesty is useless for a vampire. We’ve all had our bad girl century – Alyra can tell you about that time we stowed away with Sir Francis Drake.”
“Those jolly days on the Golden Hinde… he should have named that ship the Golden Behind for how much that man worshipped my derrière.” Alyra laughs.
Luminita hoots, “Pirates do love their booty.”
I smirk.
Alyra nudges her friend. “But nothing can beat Luminita here. Why, she once left some rather graphic graffiti on a pillar in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.”
“You did?” I give Luminita a second glance.
I’d have guessed her a younger vampire, Kissed fewer than a hundred years ago.
Even by vampiric standards, she is startlingly beautiful.
Vampires don’t age as humans do, with wrinkles and grey hairs, but time leaves its marks on us.
We develop a deathly pallor, as if we are turning to stone.
Our eyes grow hard, crystalline. And we become monstrous, less empathetic to the cycle of life and death after existing outside it for so long.
I’ve known such vampires in my life, and they are terrifying and dangerous.
It had already begun to happen to Alaric before Winnie came along and made him reconnect with the world again.
But Luminita is so fresh and vivid and alive.