Seth wasn’t too happy about having to leave Tara so soon either, but he knew it was a necessity. He allowed his bad mood to settle into his brooding, Byronic idiom.
He knew when and where the next meeting would be held from Mickey’s intel. It hadn’t been too difficult to find out – Root of All Evil was actively recruiting. That in itself was a red flag – secret cults that murder people are usually, well, secret. It’s like they were trying to attract the attention of the police. We intended to oblige – Mickey had planned a raid by SSOps well into the meeting. We didn’t want to raise their suspicions by not taking their invitation – but on the other hand, we needed enough of the meeting to take place for Seth to get his foot in the door.
There were some areas of Dalgherdia where decent people just didn’t go. Thomas had assumed that they’d be swept under during the reconstruction, especially if the government took control of the station from CenGov. But that wasn’t what Tara had in mind. RR Laboratories was the number one provider of contraband in the Domha’vei. Until now, RR-2 Labs was the major manufacturing center, but Tara had a mind to move it from Dolparessa to Dalgherdia, cutting out the distance between the production site and the hub of distribution. The hub of distribution was, of course, Tom O’Bedlam’s. Was Thomas prepared to handle that? Not that he really needed to get involved – better that he didn’t. Eloise took care of everything, getting the merchandise directly from Chase.
In Tara’s eyes, she was performing a public service. If clean, cheap, low-risk drugs were available, then people would avoid product which was possibly tainted and dangerous. Basically, her way of dealing with the drug problem was to undercut the competition. Of course, she couldn’t get rid of everything. There were just some drugs whose powerful effects seemed to outweigh the very undesirable side-effects – Black Opium-27, for instance. That’s where SSOps came in.
Obviously, the whole thing would fall apart without dealers. Mickey hadn’t laid the whole situation out to Tara: lack of Sparkle, Ripscorch and LS-Fort had led to a boom in the opium trade out of Volparnu. But why would a vampire cult target drug dealers? Did they think they were doing a public service too?
Another wrinkle: Mickey had received a weird message from Wyrd Elma. Well, that’s probably the only kind of message anyone ever gets from Wyrd Elma. It said, “The vampyre’s fangs are sharper than a serpent’s tooth.”
Vampyre with a y, says Cillian. Elma is so fucking pretentious.
She spells wyrd with a y, too, says Davy. Maybe she just likes the letter y.
You just can’t indulge that kind of bullshit, says Cillian, looking at Cuinn.
I still want my umlaut, says Cuinn.
If I and I wanted you to have an umlaut, you’d have been born with one, says Dermot.
If one of those unemanated guys from Goliath gets an umlaut, I’ll be pissed, says Cuinn.
None of the Goliath emanations has an umlaut in his name, says Davy.
Good, says Cuinn.
Of course, the Yggdrasil emanations are another matter.
W-H-A-T???
Nothing, says Davy.
Nothing? says Cillian. That noise like a Volparnian hailstorm was the sound of a thousand leaves dropping. You can’t just say something like that and leave it.
Well, IF I were ever to create another tree, and IF it made sense for it to have a Teutonic mythological backstory, then I’d probably name it Yggdrasil and then some of the emanations would probably have umlauts.
We don’t need another tree, says Ari. Two trees are enough.
Not really, says Davy. The thing with Lucius using mind-control is awkward. We’ll probably need trees all over the galaxy, sooner or later. A whole forest.
I’m having an anxiety attack, says Evan.
It’s not awkward, says Lucius. The SongLuminants have used it for billions of years. I’m still getting the hang of it.
How many more do you think you can fit in here? says Ari.
There’s plenty of room for the Atlas emanations, says Davy. It’s not my fault that your cave sucks.
Actually, it is, says Patrick. If you and Dermot had been upfront with them, Ari probably would’ve created a nice mental space. But the only thing he knew were the caverns beneath Eden.
Oh, right, says Davy. Well, next time, we have to be sure to mentally imprint a palace or something.
I’m really having an anxiety attack, says Evan.
Take some Calminex, says Tarlach, and do Tara-therapy.
I’m first in line for the umlauts, says Cuinn. I get dibs.
We might try returning to the story at hand, hisses Mickey through his teeth,
Right. As I was saying, Seth had to go into a pretty bad section of Dalgherdia City, an area called the Burrows. There hadn’t been much damage there from the CenGov occupation since the Earthers were afraid to go into that district. No damage meant no cleanup, which was kind of a shame, since it would’ve been an opportunity to just ream the whole thing out. The Burrows were dirty, and the Burrows were dark.
The lighting on Dalgherdia was weird by any measure. Its rotational period was just under six hours, which meant that the sun rose and set four times in a GalStandard day. Circadian rhythms were shot to hell, which might partially account for the temperament of the locals. Since no one wanted to sleep and wake with the vacillating sunlight, the lights were on all night, creating the effect of a constant twilight occasionally punctuated by a few hours of day. It had been one of the hardest things for Mickey and I to get used to when we lived there. A tree depends on the constancy of sunlight. However, the Burrows were always low-lit, half by choice and half by necessity. No one wanted to pay the energy bills to keep the streets bright, and the locals weren’t too interested in outsiders seeing their business.
In the half dusk, Seth caught a glimpse of his opalescent blue-green eyes in a dirty storefront window. Cu’enashti eyes. Almost almost human, but if you knew what to look for, a giveaway. And no matter how much our emanations changed, the eyes were always the same. We couldn’t do a thing about it.
Seth ducked into a dingy tavern, into the dirty bathroom at the back. The water looked none too inviting, but he cupped his hands, filling them. He leaned forward, bringing the liquid up to his open eyes. He just needed a second, just enough to get the eyeballs wet. Then he concentrated, changing the water molecules into a thin, purple polymer that matched the color of his greatcoat.
Colored contacts – a crude, ancient solution, but still used sometimes by people who like variety. Those who want a longer-term change usually have genework. In our case, certain body modifications are permitted, like my tattoo or Callum’s piercings, but something as drastic as genework would revert to type almost immediately. Seth’s solution was only cosmetic, which meant we’d be in trouble if subjected to a retinal scan.
Seth left without ordering a drink. The bartender glared at him. Seth glared back. The bartender retreated, averting his eyes. Seth looked in the window again, saw that he had inherited Suibhne’s crazy creepiness, with a touch of rough and ready wildness from Blackjack, rough and ready wildness that cried from a distance low-impulse control. Only a fool would mess with Seth. He smiled.
The meeting was held in an old spaceship garage, a greasy, cavernous dump which had been converted into a makeshift gothic cathedral. It was candle-lit, and black velvet curtains were everywhere, black velvet which had, in places, an iridescent sheen from wicking up the various oils that had pooled on the concrete floor.
You’re not half-bad, says Cillian. In fact, you’re pretty good. The writing, I mean.
It is very descriptive, says Evan. It’s because Tommy is a romantic at heart.
I agree, says Mickey. So you might consider not interrupting?
Anyway, when Seth walked in, people moved aside, deferring to him like he was already in the inner circle. It helped that he looked just like the kind of guy in every horror-vid ever made who was running the secret cult, you know, the guy who stole the sacred dagger from the museum and was going to use it to sacrifice the virgin in order to open the gates of hell.
Like Tara’s letter opener? says Blackjack. Except that’s probably a fake.
As the evil demiurge of Archonism, I thought opening the gates of hell was solely my responsibility, says Aran.
I really dislike the whole idea of heaven and hell, says Ailann. It’s childish. I want to move the faithful towards more of an enlightenment paradigm, but the Archbishop won’t have it.
The Archbishop is right, says Aran. The threat of damnation is much more politically useful.
Tarlach, may I have some of that Calminex? asks Mickey.
Getting back to the story, the curtain opened, revealing a slender man dressed in black. He looked more pseudo-intellectual than macabre; Seth would’ve made a much better chief-minion. Seth heard a click behind him, inaudible to human ears, but to us, quite distinct. The doors were being sealed. The minion raised his arms dramatically – well, kind of awkwardly, if the truth be told. “The serpent has come to Eden,” he said in an equally faux-dramatic fashion.
And then Seth was overwhelmed by a familiar feeling, the sense that Tara was nearby. He tried not to telegraph his panic – had she followed him here? But no, she was clearly asleep in the hotel room, safely surrounded by a dozen SSOps agents. And yet – he was sure she was here.
Or not. The feeling faded as quickly as it had come. The minion had retrieved a bowl from the altar. “Take – eat,” he said.
For a moment, Seth was intrigued. What was in the bowl – a drug? A poison? Bits of human flesh? He took a deep breath and focused on the scent.
Walnuts.
Walnuts. Of course. What better way to show your defiance of Archonism than by breaking the Cu’endhari taboo? The participants were being asked to eat walnuts. We recoiled in horror.
No, we didn’t, says Valentin. Not all of us.
You know he’s right, says Ari. Manasseh and I used to buy into the thing about nuts, but the more I consider it, the more it seems like another one of the Cantor’s useless indoctrinations.
Seth calmly stepped forward, taking a handful of nuts and eating them slowly, one by one, without blinking a violet eye.
After the congregation had fully participated in the sacrilege, another figure emerged from behind the curtains: Lilith. She took the last walnut, placed it between her full, red lips.
She was strikingly lovely, slender with pert breasts, rich, dark hair, pale skin and enormous brown eyes. She was small, but gave the impression of being enormously powerful. Her apparel was appropriate for a self-styled Queen of the Night: a tight-fitting silken gown, slit up to her hip on one side, long silk gloves, a black velvet cape.
In other words, incredibly trite, says Driscoll, yawning. But I suppose there’s a market in giving the people exactly what they expect.
Yeah, but there was one thing really unexpected about it. I didn’t find her sexually attractive at all. I mean, I get turned on by applesauce advertisements and gardening catalogs. A beautiful woman who doesn’t catch my eye – we should’ve known something was wrong, right there.
Foreshadowing again, says Evan. We should be careful of overusing that technique.
“Children of the night,” she said, “long has man lived in darkness, finding his destiny in the cold, lightless space between the stars. Yes, man may dwell in darkness, but no tree survives without light. The Archon promises immortality to our grandchildren, promises them the stars, but we have no need of that. Immortality has always been available to those willing to cross into the darkness. Immortality with no need of trees, no need of machines. True animal immortality transferred through blood. Is it not said that blood is life?”
We could hardly believe what we were hearing. There was no scientific basis for those old vampire legends whatsoever. Were these morons really falling for this shtick?
“I am Lilith, Queen of Night,” she said, in a much more successfully dramatic tone than the minion. “Who would drink of my blood?”
She pulled back her slit skirt to reveal a dagger strapped to her shapely thigh, a rather more impressive ceremonial dagger than the Tiki letter-opener. With one swift movement, she slashed across her hand, offering the blood to the minion. He licked her palm.
Lilith raised her hand for everyone to see. Before their eyes, the wound healed. And then she slashed the hand of the minion, and it healed as well. The credible crowd gasped.
She had to be Cu’endhari, Seth reasoned. The idea that she was a true vampire was ridiculous. But brown eyes? Seth looked closer. Plastic. He smiled slightly. Touché. But he couldn’t see behind the lenses, couldn’t tell if she were Cu’enashti or Cu’enmerengi. As far as we knew, the only other tree capable of travelling farther than Sideria was Ashpremma – and Lilith certainly wasn’t him.
And then Lilith looked straight at Seth. “You, perhaps? You look the part – have you the courage to forsake your human soul and join the children of night in eternal darkness?”
Seth met her eyes, plastic to plastic. “I’ve already sold my soul,” he said.
I thought that was a good one, says Suibhne.
No it wasn’t, says Lorcan. It was dumb. All of this is just a bunch of childish phantasms. If you want real horror, let’s review the history of genocide. We can start with the fucking SongLuminants.
Lorcan, you have a remarkably clear sense of ethics, says Lucius.
Piss off, Lorcan replies.
Well, Lilith seemed to go for it, anyway. “Indeed,” she replied, “it seems that you have a fair devil for a master. Then I’ll take another form of payment. Bring me sustenance. Bring me the living scum from the streets so that I might drink of their blood. All of you,” she said, raising her voice. “What matters it to the vampire whether the blood is from the righteous man or from the sinner? Bring me those least likely to be missed, and help raise humanity from the gutter with the culling. Best of all, bring me those so-called prophets who prostitute themselves to the obscene poison of the trees.”
That was the angle. It wasn’t random drug-dealers she wanted. She was fucking with the trade in Gyre.
But why? Seth wondered. If she was Cu’endhari, why turn humans against the Nau’gsh? And what Cu’endhari would eat walnuts?
“The police,” Lilith snorted. “They’ll be here in a few minutes. You think they’d thank us for doing their jobs for them. Of course, any fool knows that they collude with the underworld. Soon, we’ll take back the streets for our own. For now, I suggest that we take our leave.”
Minion gestured, and a panel slid open behind the velvet. Of course – it was a stair leading into one of the old tunnels. Before the science station had been built, Dalgherdia was a mining asteroid, and the city was laced with them. The city was perfectly designed for criminal conspiracies. It would’ve been a shame to waste it on tourism.
Seth followed the cultists through the tunnel and out onto a back street several blocks away, where they quickly dispersed. “It’s for the best,” he muttered. “It’s getting near my bedtime.”
Only then did Seth hear the insistent voice prodding him above the constant mental chatter. Uh, Seth? Better look twice at the minion, Mickey suggested. Look in my branch.
He’s the guy from the café, Seth realized. The plot thickens.
It sounds so much better when you say it, said Mickey. I just don’t have the gravitas.