Everafter Series 2 - Nevermore (12 page)

But beneath my fatigue, anger simmered. I didn’t care who or what I had become in the past two days. If Helen thought that I was going to run around creating new vampires just to repopulate a clan, she was sadly fucking mistaken. I slid out from under the thin sheets and stood naked in the empty room. Helen had put me under house arrest, but I wasn’t going to let that stall me. At least I had a legitimate reason to be lurking around the Consortium’s medical facilities. I wasn’t going to stop until I finally got some answers about the disease.

Alexa would find her way home. I had to believe it. My job, in the meantime, was to focus on making “home” a safe place again.

alexa

Chapter Nine

I ran. The whispered drumbeat of my paws on dry earth mingled with the throaty call of a nearby ibis and the rustle of wind through cedar leaves. The air was redolent with the musky aroma of macaque, but still satiated from my morning hunt, I did not slow. As the cedar canopy began to thin, the spires of Telassar became visible to my trained eye. Nestled in the shadow of Jbel Toubkal, the highest mountain in Morocco, the city’s precise location was a secret jealously guarded by the Were community. Shifters patrolled its borders unceasingly, keeping tourists, explorers, and enemies at bay. Its remoteness made it an ideal place for Weres who wished to embrace their animal halves in a more sustained way than was possible in the midst of human civilizations. Many Weres thought of it as their one true home, but mine would always be with Valentine. Nonetheless, Telassar was a welcome sanctuary and training ground.

I broke out of the grove and began to make my ascent to the citadel. Rocky debris trailed in my wake as I leapt nimbly up a scree slope that would have been impossible for a human to climb. I loved this body—the powerful surge of my haunches, my impeccable balance, the panorama of sounds and scents accessible to me. It felt good to be strong.

The guards stationed at regular intervals along every possible route into the city paid me no mind; they knew my scent well. On my first foray into Telassar, by contrast, they had surrounded me moments after I had crossed over the invisible border of the shifter enclave. Menaced on all sides by a variety of snarling beasts, I was ungraciously herded into the presence of their alpha, despite having been expected. Constantine Bellande placed the highest possible premium on the continued secrecy and safety of his kingdom.

The narrow, winding path—little more than a goat track by human standards—broadened as the front gate came into view. Only after darting beneath the menacing portcullis did I slow my pace. Silently, I urged my muscles to flow in, in and up, up into my two-legged form, until I felt the warm, packed earth of the courtyard slide between toes instead of claws.

A familiar figure stepped out of the building to my right, holding my robe. Weres in Telassar rarely bothered with conventional clothing—in a community such as this, it was sensible to dress in garments that could be easily shed for transformation. I had chosen a soft blue fabric for my robe, a royal blue that matched the shade of Valentine’s eyes. It had been over a week since I’d last seen her, and two more would pass before we were reunited. Every reminder of her was equal parts pain and pleasure, and I sent up a silent prayer that this, our last and longest separation, would pass quickly.

Unmindful of my nakedness—another byproduct of having spent two months in Telassar—I took the robe from Delacourte’s hands and wrapped it around me, then tightened the white sash emblazoned with Constantine’s crimson crest. Delacourte was Constantine’s chief medic. The former army surgeon from the French and Indian War was dark-haired and bearded, his muscular, heavy-set body hinting at the
Morphoviridae ursus
that gave rise to a massive and fearsome Kodiak on the night of each full moon. His size belied his gentility. Highly educated and cultured, he was one of the few Weres in Telassar who didn’t pointedly ignore me. My arrangement with Valentine was distasteful at best to most shifters. In my first days at the walled city, racked with homesickness for Val and burned by the caustic reception of my peers, it was Delacourte who had taken me in and filled my nights with conversations about history and literature.

“How did you—”

“The guards saw you coming,” Delacourte said. “I was walking along the parapet and heard them conversing.”

I wondered what exactly they had said about me. Nothing complimentary, I was sure. Tamping down a surge of bitterness, I smiled my thanks at Delacourte for his kindness in coming to greet me. Old prejudices died hard; I knew that already. My true friends, like Karma and now Delacourte, understood exactly why I had chosen to be infected with
Morphoviridae pardus
and had so readily accepted my role as Valentine’s sustenance. I got the sense that Constantine understood as well, but he was so preoccupied with the governance of Telassar that we rarely had a chance to speak. Hopefully that would change tonight, when I finally had the opportunity to share a meal with him.

Delacourte offered me his arm, and we proceeded across the courtyard toward the avenue that would lead us deeper into the city.

“Would you care to dine with me this evening?” he asked.

“I’d like to very much, but Constantine has invited me.”

“Ah. You haven’t heard.” Delacourte’s expression turned sympathetic. “He and Katya left the city a few hours ago. They’re not expected back until late tonight, perhaps even tomorrow.”

Disappointed, I suppressed a sigh. “Do you know why they left?”

The brief hesitation before Delacourte shook his head was a sure sign that he knew more than he was letting on, but I knew better than to push him. He patted my hand. “Will I have your company, then?”

“Of course.”

Delacourte’s apartments were adjacent to the infirmary, one of the buildings in the inner sanctum of the city. We walked at a leisurely pace through the sinuous streets, enjoying the crisp breeze blowing down the valley from Toubkal’s summit. When I had first arrived, Telassar’s labyrinthine corridors had confounded my geometric sense of direction ingrained from years of living in the perpendicular orderliness of Manhattan. The six-and-a-half-acre city comprised concentric rings of stone buildings connected by passageways, tunnels, and blind alleys. Narrow streets separated each structural layer, and broader avenues intersected the circles and provided throughway to the city center. At the heart of the city sat a one-acre park, bisected by a brisk stream and densely studded with tall evergreen trees. From the center of the park, one could see the clay-tiled rooftops of the innermost band of buildings, a fusion of civilization and wilderness that made me homesick for Central Park.

As we drew closer to the city center, we passed beneath an archway more ornate than the others. The walls in this section had a hint of green to them and were subtly embellished by engraved patterns. Weather and time had worn away the fine detail; if they were symbols, I had no idea what they meant. But Delacourte might.

“The architecture here is different from the rest of the city,” I said. “And the stone—it has a greenish tinge. Do you know why?”

“This is the oldest part of Telassar, built in the late seventeenth century. I believe the green comes from traces of fluorite within the marble.” Delacourte paused to run his hand over the delicate etchings that veined the white stone. “Building the keep was a massive undertaking, especially since Balthasar Brenner demanded that the marble be transported from a quarry in what is now Namibia.”

“Balthasar Brenner?” The name brought me up short. “Who was he?”

Delacourte grimaced. “Not was,
is.
He is a powerful wolf Weremaster and, among other things, the founder of Telassar.”

“Does he have a son named Sebastian?” I asked, unable to shrug off the surge of anxiety I felt whenever I thought of Sebastian Brenner and his fixation on Valentine. The panther snarled in response to my unease.

Delacourte scoffed. “Probably. He takes great pride in spawning whelps all over the world.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. For Balthasar Brenner to have founded Telassar in the late seventeenth century meant that he had to be over four hundred years old. The oldest shifter I had met was Malcolm Blakeslee, Weremaster of New York, who was in his two-hundreds. What must life look like, to a person who had seen four entire centuries pass? Both man and beast must have evolved in ways I could barely fathom.

And then there was Delacourte’s tone of voice when he spoke of Brenner. Distaste. Fear. Perhaps even some grudging admiration—it was difficult to tell. But whatever the exact nature of Delacourte’s feelings, they were complicated.

“I’m intrigued by this Balthasar Brenner,” I said as we entered Delacourte’s lodgings—a set of chambers spanning two floors, the west wall of which abutted the infirmary. A rich tapestry depicting some long-ago maritime battle hung over the fireplace, its colors complemented by the lush rug that covered the floor. Aside from those two splashes of color, the furnishings were wooden and unadorned, as was the prevailing style of interior décor in Telassar. Possessions had little meaning here, where residents were encouraged to give up the props that had defined them as humans and seek harmony with their inner beasts.

“He is a fascinating man,” Delacourte said after a moment, choosing his words carefully. “And dangerous. I will tell you what I know of him over our meal, if you wish.”

I nodded, and while Delacourte went to the pantry, I lit the candles on the mantel and around the room. He returned carrying a large platter laden with fruit, bread, cheese, and a bottle of wine. The Weres of Telassar, I had quickly learned, rarely ate meat while in human form. While I understood the rationale—when nearly every day involved a hunt, there was no point in further depleting the wildlife resources around Toubkal—my very human self hungered for a juicy ribeye. I smiled as I thought of how eager Val would be to take me out for a celebratory steak dinner upon my return to New York. She would probably insist on Smith and Wollensky.

Delacourte set the tray down in the center of the rug and we sat across from each other. I poured the wine while he broke the bread, and when our glasses were full, we raised them in a silent toast.

“I would start from the beginning,” he said, deftly slicing an apple with precision learned on the battlefield, “if I knew it. But Brenner’s origins—his family and childhood—are remembered only by him. He is reputed to have served as a member of the Habsburg forces during the Thirty Years’ War, but his meteoric rise to power happened a few decades later, as an officer in the Holy Roman Emperor’s offensive against the Ottoman Turks. He funneled the personal wealth he gained in battle into seeking out and gathering together Weres living throughout Europe. He established a sanctuary deep in the Basque mountains and mustered them there.”

I could only imagine what it must have been like to be a Were before the advent of modern medicine—before the mechanism of infection was known and most of its effects understood. To be alone during that transitional period, confused and overwhelmed by powerful and conflicting impulses, must have spelled death for so very many shifters. Without Karma’s Web site and Darren’s example, not to mention Val’s unflagging faith and love, I would have been lost. The Consortium, despite its many faults, had saved many lives.

“All of this was before the founding of the Consortium?” I asked.

“The vampires built their own network much earlier,” said Delacourte. “But there was no collaboration between the species, and often open hostility. No one had ever succeeded—perhaps had never even tried—to gather more than a small pack of Weres together at a time. Brenner’s charisma was the force that brought and held them together, even when they might have turned on one another.”

I nodded. Sebastian had inherited that kind of charisma, and it was reflected by his success as a businessman. “So if Brenner formed an enclave in the Basques, what led him to found Telassar?” At Delacourte’s shrug, I considered what I knew of the Basque Country, a small area in the Pyrenees that straddled the border between modern-day France and Spain. “Maybe he wanted more space?”

“Perhaps. In any case, Brenner led his band of Weres here, drove out the local tribes, and founded Telassar. He ruled the city for nearly a hundred years before the newly formed Consortium ousted him.”

Startled, I leaned forward, the food forgotten. “Why? And how did they do it? I thought this place was impregnable.”

Delacourte’s smile was bemused. “You have been…what is the American expression? Drinking the…”

I felt myself blush. “The Kool-Aid. You’re saying I’m naïve.”

“How could you not be? It was not an accusation, merely an observation.” He refilled my wine. “But Telassar inspires legends, and most are half true at best. This city has been invaded many times. The Consortium used the vampire stronghold of Sybaris, only two days’ journey from here by horseback, as a staging ground for their assault against Brenner. They besieged the keep for months before finally breaking through its defenses. Many of his followers were killed. A few surrendered. A small, elite group escaped with him.”

It was difficult for me to imagine the thick walls being overrun by any host, even an army of blood-drunk vampires. “He must hate the Consortium.”

Delacourte murmured his agreement. “He has tried to retake the city several times over the past two centuries. But he has never succeeded.”

I twirled the stem of my goblet between my fingers and gazed into the deep red liquid. Delacourte’s knowledge was formidable. I had been focusing my attention inward, in an effort to understand and embrace the panther’s needs and desires. But maybe it was time I paid closer attention to the external world as well—to the history of my people. The political tensions had to run deep in a community with such a long living memory, and if Val and I were going to thrive within the Consortium, we would need to know the big picture.

“You’ve made me curious,” I said. “Are there some books in the library that you might recomm—”