Chapter Seventeen #3
“In 1934, Nyoka fell in love with Julietta Ravensport and Terenzio Marrazzo, who was head of a small but well-connected and wealthy blood clan in Italy. At the time, they were what you might call outlanders, sworn to no larger clan or master, which gave them great freedom and yet no protection. Already, in Hitler’s Germany, there were signs of war and danger to what the Nazis called others.
“Hitler had a fascination with the occult, and sent out witch hunters and vampire hunters, to bring him the best and the finest. The paranormals of Europe fled. When one such witch hunter was too close on their trail, Ravensport and Marrazzo left Nyoka with a stake in her belly to be captured.
“She was taken by the witch hunter and imprisoned in a little village in the mountains.
Her treatment was horrific even by the standards of the day.
But Nyoka survived her torturer, forced the witch hunter to fall in love with her.
She was not able to kill her abuser, but she freed herself and found safety.
I never located anyone who knew for certain where or with whom she acquired safety, but it is during that time of upheaval that she must have met Prince Oleg and Konstantin.
“Hitler’s war was brutal. For everyone. I lost track of so many. Most of Europe was destroyed. People disappeared. Millions of them. The Jews were decimated. The Rom. The Mithran vampires. Blacks like me. Everyone who did not fit Hitler’s vision of the acceptable.
“Years later, after the Second World War ended, I heard that Nyoka was still alive, living again as an outlander, but nominally under the protection of Clan Hapsburg-Lothringen.
“Ravensport was in seclusion, somewhere unknown.”
EJ said, “We have Willim, you, and Nyoka. Then Julietta Ravensport and Terenzio Marrazzo, who is Karson’s sire. A witch hunter who tortured Nyoka. Possibly Prince Oleg. Any others you know?”
Walter gave a maybe shrug. “Before World War Two, Marrazzo’s clan was powerful.
Afterward, not so much, his resources diminished by war.
He sent his scion to America to set up Clan Marrazzo in Chattanooga, but Karson—though charming—was not particularly astute, and the American branch of Marrazzo did not flourish.
Terenzio was unwilling to gamble resources to help a weakling in the United States. ”
EJ listened, committing the timeline to memory.
When long-lived vamps were involved, the layers of history were part of the present and vital to the future.
There was the slavery. Then Walter’s freedom and his master’s supposed death, followed by a century in Europe cavorting with Nyoka until World War Two, when they parted ways.
Later, Walter had discovered Willim had survived and had started trying to find him.
Walter revealed the heart of the problem.
“I hadn’t seen Nyoka since the world war, when we ran into each other in a little café in Greece, on the Mediterranean, in the last part of the 1960s.
She was searching for the human witch hunter, her torturer, even as I had been searching for mine, both of us seeking vengeance, neither of us finding success, except to know for certain that both had survived the war. ”
His mouth softened with kinder memories. “We spent a lovely two weeks on the coast. She went her way. I went mine.”
Quiet, sour notes trilled on the air. Walter rubbed his brand. Whatever good memories the two had made on the seashore, it must have been then, when Nyoka put more workings into her lover’s scars. And Walter hadn’t known.
Walter picked up his story. “My failures continued in the decades after. Willim, the coward he is, lived at sea, hiding, knowing I was much more efficient at weapons-play than he.”
Walter picked up his glass again and twirled it, as if suddenly needing something to do with his hands.
He held the glass to the light, tilting it slowly back and forth.
Sipped. “Your timeline,” he said, his tone saying he didn’t like the word, “continued after World War Two. Terenzio Marrazzo reappeared. Ravensport came to the States. There were a few decades of relative peace in Europe. Then the Vampire War in Europe began in the early two thousands, supported from here by Leo Pellissier in New Orleans. Many European vampire clans lost their seats of power and their heads. Clans and lands were won by Edmund and the Dark Queen’s War Lord, Grégoire of France.
“Marrazzo was not a player on the vampire political stage.
“Rumors say the witch hunter who tortured Nyoka came to the States, though that would make the hunter very old.
“Karson sank low in power and relevance. When peace was at last restored, and Edmund the First was crowned Emperor of Europe, the Dark Queen’s court opened for refugees.
I came to America, for safety. I met you and your family at the queen’s court in Asheville.
You two were”—he stopped and shook his head—“ ‘mischievous,’ I suppose is the kindest word. ‘Troublemakers’ would be more accurate.”
EJ said, “I was a kid when Eddie the Great was crowned and vampires got back their souls. I remember people dancing in the hallways at vamp HQ in New Orleans. Vamps laughing. It was freaky.”
“Umm. Freaky,” Walter said, not smiling but looking amused nonetheless. “Yes. That broken curse brought on more chaos, more upheaval, which lasted until Prince Oleg and his scions appeared onstage and the Witch War started. War after war.
“Karson needed something, someone to give him a boost in standing.” Walter was staring at the wine as if mesmerized.
“He found Angelina. Wooed her. Married her. The only reason he succeeded was that all of Angelina’s allies and family were too engaged with the war to discover his intent. Karson had big dreams.”
“When the Witch War ended, Terenzio, the elder Marrazzo, reappeared, alone and powerless.”
EJ put it all together, his brain practically snapping into place. “With Karson being married to the queen’s godchild, Karson had more power than his sire.”
“Indeed. Karson had found what he looked for. The protection of the Dark Queen, through his wife, Angelina Everhart-Trueblood Marrazzo. Terenzio wanted his scion’s power. Karson’s power.”
“Okay. I have the players, and their histories. What about Nyoka?” EJ asked.
“Nyoka had sworn vengeance on her betraying lovers, and on the long-lived witch hunter who had tortured her. Terenzio Marrazzo, Ravensport, Konstantin, and possibly the witch hunter are here in the States, but Nyoka has never been a warrior. Even if she had some way to reach them, she has no skills to destroy them.” Walter frowned.
“The witch hunter should be dead of old age, therefore, if they yet live, they are no longer human, and their motivation to keep searching for prey is either an enigma or an obsession-based abnormal psychology.”
“Then why join Asshat Marrazzo?”
“I don’t know.” Walter shrugged, one of those elegant vampire gestures that drew the eye.
“Willim stopped running. He found Ravensport and signed a contract with her, which included a blood clan of Londyn, Chancy/Cennet, Terenzio, all things we have only these last two days uncovered, but which dovetails with the layers of history, vengeance, and passion. Terenzio brought in Karson, who was friends with Konstantin.”
“And there was the emperor’s reception,” EJ said, “planned for months. They wrangled invitations.”
“All of the queen’s attendees’ names were made public on social media. There was no secret that you and Angelina were attending. Did Londyn wish to be your plus-one?” Walter asked.
“Yeah. I told her no guests. She wasn’t happy. Nyoka went to watch her enemies?”
Walter said, “Hidden beneath her shadow working, she learned what their goals were, where they were staying. She knew they schemed to attack us, and she found my location.”
EJ remembered the car with the dent that had followed him from the tea shop. “Enemies watching us for days. I never noticed.”
“I rather think Nyoka was watching Karson’s allies, who were watching you, and when they sent Chancy/Cennet to you as a client, Nyoka followed her.”
EJ cursed in the deeps of his mind. “So, if Karson doesn’t have Ivyanna Holmes, then who does?”
“Any of the bedfellows, but, I hazard to say, not Nyoka. I believe Nyoka went to Karson’s to find her betrayers, Ravensport and Marrazzo. Instead of killing them she was possessed and the demon went after us.”
EJ leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands between his knees, saying, “So we have multiple players. Karson and his pals who planned to kidnap or kill you, and attack the queen’s party with demons to get to Edmund the First and the queen.
Nyoka, who was preparing her own attack on Karson’s allies to protect you and got possessed.
And the witch hunter, who may have been chasing them all.
Is there any chance the witch hunter was at the queen’s party? ”
“Possibly. The name I last knew was not on the guest list. I have checked.” He shook his head slightly, the faintest of motions. “Layers. History. Time. The 3-D chess of vampire politics and vengeance.”
EJ started when Walter said “3-D chess.” That was strategy directly from his own past, from his training with Uncle Eli, Alex’s older, strategist brother.
“If Nyoka thought all her torturers would be in one place at one time, she would have gone to the queen’s no matter what she had to do, no matter who she might need to bespell.
I had assumed Nyoka entered the queen’s soirée as a plus-one of an invited party, but I think now she walked in with the servers, hidden by her shadow working,” Walter said.
“It is to be assumed that all parties in all these endeavors and plans, had the means and the power to bring what they wanted to fruition, and that it involved, or perhaps still involves, Edmund the First of Europe and the Dark Queen. But nothing happened at the reception. Perhaps Nyoka never found her human torturer. I do not know.”