Hunter of the Dead (16 page)

Topan cast his gaze down and while Damiana tried to keep Father Otto’s eyes, she couldn’t either. Father Otto clapped his hands down on both of their shoulders again, this time a paternal pat.

“Good. Topan, grab your seat. Literally. Damiana, you take yours. By that I mean just sit down.”

Topan skulked off to retrieve his chair from where it had slammed to a halt against the wall. Spitefully, allowing it to screech across the floor like fingernails on a chalkboard, he dragged it back every centimeter.

Father Otto followed Damiana back to her position at the foot of the table and hovered over her as she sat. Once both of them had seated themselves, Father Otto reached out and pressed the red button. He pressed it again and again, inexpertly, until his own meal of tow-headed waif was before Topan.

Then he walked behind Topan and dropped his hands down on the Cicatrice’s shoulders, massaging his neck and upper back

“Topan is right. I mean, he’s being a little bit of a jerk about it, but he’s right. Soon he’ll be patriarch of House Cicatrice. I forget sometimes; I’m used to all the deference, all the best things in life. Topan’s been a black sheep for a little too long. Manners go the way of the dodo when you’re out in the cold, I think. But let’s not forget, any of us, that it was Cicatrice who put Topan out in the cold, Cicatrice who stole his get, Cicatrice who arranged a separate peace with the Inquisitors for his House. Cicatrice has taken every effort to stick his finger in each of our eyes. He has nothing but contempt for the other Great Houses, and he reserves the greatest contempt for mine especially, and for me personally. That’s how Topan was raised: to be contemptuous. It’s no surprise he at some point was going to turn his contempt on the wrong person. And that person was my very own heir, senior Elder Damiana here.”

Father Otto ruffled Topan’s hair. He gestured at the little boy.

“Go on, son. Finest cut of meat. It’s all yours. I don’t even want it. I want to eat like you today. You can eat like me.”

Tentative, Topan reached out and pressed both hands to the sides of the boy’s face. With a dreadful slowness that betrayed his relative youth and inexpertise, he slowly began to drain the boy’s life essence. Father Otto returned to his position at the head of the table without sitting down.

“Eat, eat, please. Don’t wait for me.”

The others began to enjoy their meals. Sephera, the Teslan elder, had been left with the croaked ginger. She surreptitiously called to one of Damiana’s mortal disciples to bring her something else, rather than make a scene as Topan had. Damiana admired her composure.

As if proving a point about his seniority, Father Otto reached out and barely brushed the tip of his index finger against the meal he had been provided. At the mere touch of his hand, the twentysomething man’s hair turned grey, his skin sank into his bones, and his flesh turned to dust. All the other diners stopped eating to look at Father Otto. Father Otto was sucking his fingers.

“Deeeee-lish! You do put on a hell of a banquet, Damiana.”

“Father Otto…” Damiana started to say.

But he held up his hand to silence his senior lieutenant. With that, Damiana realized Father Otto was posturing, but he wasn’t going to be building to a reckoning. He was just making a point to Topan, in case he had missed it, about who the real superior was here. Topan seemed to sour on his meal and lowered his hands.

“I’ve got to say, this is a celebration I’ve long dreamt of. I was the cockroach under Cicatrice’s heel before any of you were glimmers in your sires’ eyes. But now, finally, after almost seventy years of him acting with complete impunity – by which I mean complete lack of respect – you’ve all come around to my way of thinking about him. He has bullied the other Houses. He has made light of us. Thrown us to the Inquisitors and never offered a hand when he’s the damn reason why we have to suffer the brunt of their piffling wrath. And now, breaking the code, stealing Topan’s get, he’s finally gone too far. The man is not above the law, not above the law he himself espouses.

“For a long time now I’ve considered declaring war on House Cicatrice. But I refused out of respect. I refused to go it alone. I thought to myself, ‘Otto, you need to go along to get along.’ But the truth is now all of you see. He has nothing but contempt for our code, contempt for our ways. He told us not earlier today, Sephera and I, that his will trumps the code.

“Well! Very well then! We’ll put his will to the test. And now that even his own heir is against him and with us, all of us, a united front, I think the next incarnation of House Cicatrice is going to be much more cooperative. Much more beneficial, I should say, as a partner in the immortal community.”

Father Otto tossed himself back into his chair. He rubbed his hands together vigorously, his gauntleted hand making a total scabrous mess of his unclad hand, but it instantly healed.

“Now then! To brass tacks. Damiana, will you show the fixers in?”

Damiana nodded, rose, and went to open the door. She avoided wrinkling her nose as the most odious filth of the immortal world filed into her dining hall. Dozens and dozens of fixers poured in. Most were Signaris, proudly displaying their stripes, but the other Houses were represented as well, including a few Teslans with shiny replacement parts and naked Druids. She’d have to remember to set the cultists loose with a few scrub brushes in here after the midden ghouls had dealt with the remains of their meals.

“Benito, my boy!” Father Otto said, rising and embracing one of the fixers with a look of near-unhinged glee on his face. Damiana was chagrined to recognize Benito Scavatelli. “How’s my favorite fixer?”

“Always pleased to be in your service,” Benito replied, bowing his head, but he could hardly hide his own smile.

“You haven’t seen your brother lately, have you?”

Benito was a little too quick to shake his head.

“Oh, no, Father Otto. Not since you put us straight.”

Father Otto seemed to consider for a moment.

“Well if you do happen to come across him, let me know. He was supposed to check in with Damiana about a matter. Haven’t heard a peep from him, though.”

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything, Father Otto, but I try to walk the straight and narrow these days. You told me to leave the boy alone so I have.”

Father Otto gave Benito a Roman kiss and then slapped him hard a few times on the cheek fraternally. He walked around the room, shaking hands and clasping shoulders with the scum-of-all-Houses fixers.

“Hi. How you doing? Good to meet you. We met in Paris, didn’t we? No? I’m almost sure of it. I never forget a face. How are you?”

After finishing his circuit Father Otto didn’t return to his seat, but instead draped his hands over the back of it. He gestured for Damiana and whispered in her ear.

“Is this all that came? I thought you put the word out weeks ago.”

“There are many more, Father Otto. Almost five hundred, all told. These are just the ringleaders. It’s all I can fit.”

Father Otto nodded.

“Welcome, ladies, gentleman, children of all ages. I want one thing from you. Name your price.”

The fixers exchanged glances. Silence reigned supreme for a moment.

“Our price for what?” one of the Teslans asked.

“Excellent question,” Father Otto repled, affixing the asker with an imaginary beam from his finger. “What is your price for the sort of job that a House patriarch asks you to name any price for?”

Instead of silence, this time, it was as though a muted rumbling swept through the room. The fixers, many of whom were with partners, were debating back and forth what Father Otto was asking and what he might be getting at, or be up to, depending on how much they trusted him. Benito Scavatelli was the first to affix his balls to his crotch and step forward.

“I want to be patriarch of my own House.”

“You don’t lack for ambition, Benito,” Father Otto replied with a contagious laugh. Even Benito laughed at the Patriarch’s pleasure in his brassiness. Then, to Damiana’s utter surprise he cut through the giggling din with a, “Done.”

In that instant she could’ve heard a pin drop.

“I’m sorry…?” Benito murmured.

“I said ‘done,’ boy-o. Don’t you know not to keep asking once you get the answer you were looking for? Any manjack here who delivers will be made my senior elder and heir apparent. Signed, sealed, delivered, in a contract carved in stone. When I die, House Signari is yours. Hell, I may even retire in my dotage, you never know.”

Almost without even realizing it, Damiana was on her feet, her chair scraping the floor behind her. All eyes in the room turned on her.

“Father Otto…”

“No reflection on you, Damiana. You’ve served me loyally all these years. But the bounty’s been set. You’re welcome to claim it yourself, of course.”

That started the fixers into such riotous laughing that Damiana would’ve probably blushed had she still had blood flowing through her veins. Damiana was an excellent bureaucrat, Father Otto’s trusted confidante and
consiglieri
, a majordomo
par excellence
, but a street fighter and bounty hunter she was not. Like all Signaris, she loved a good scrap, but her preferred martial arts were fencing and falconry – dignified sports. No one would’ve ever mistaken her for a fixer. With what she could recover of her dignity, she seated himself.

“So what do you say, boy-os? Want a taste of
la dolce vita
? A shot at being boss of bosses? Then bring me back my mark,
tout suite
.”

“And who is your mark, Father Otto?” one of the fixers, a Teslan with a bionic eye, asked.

“Ah, yes, therein lies the rub. You don’t get to be patriarch unless you bring down a patriarch. One of you fine young immortals in this room today is going to bring me the head of Cicatrice.” Father Otto allowed the fixers to mutter to one another for just a second before continuing, “Oh, don’t act silly. You’re looking for sanctions, you’re looking for proof above and beyond the fact I’m offering you a big fat plum as a reward? Elder Sephera?”

The Teslan coughed, obviously an affectation for an immortal, and rose to her feet.

“The council has met and discussed the matter. Father Cicatrice has gone too far around the bend this time. All the Great Houses are in agreement. It’s war.”

“Thank you, Sephera. It is war, boy-os. And the fastest way to end this war is to cut off the head of the snake. Look, let’s face it. Immortals don’t kill immortals. And killing humans, well, it gets boring. Like shooting fish in a barrel. You’re all like me, you became fixers to get the thrill of a sanctioned fight with another immortal. You and I both know there’s nothing like it. And you wouldn’t be the best fixers in the world if you weren’t constantly challenging yourselves. Well, you finally get it: the ultimate challenge. What do you say? Think you’re up for it?”

Benito stepped forward.

“It’ll be my pleasure to bring you the head of that Cicatrice scum, Father Otto.”

Father Otto patted Benito’s face a few times with his gauntleted hand.

“Attaboy.”

“Wait!”

All eyes in the room turned to Topan, who looked like he was ready to rocket out of his chair. He pointed a finger around the room in every direction.

“All of you, all of you listen to me.”

“Shut up, Cicatrice scum.”

“Turncoat.”

“Traitor.”

“Shitbag.”

Topan grabbed his chair and with a petulant flick of his wrist shattered it to pieces on the ground. He grabbed Benito, a man easily twice his size, by the neck, and lifted him off the ground, holding him parallel to the floor, his arm fully extended to do it. He jabbed the splintered end of the chair leg into Benito’s chest. All he had to do was release his grip on Benito and the fixer would drop by gravity and impale himself. Benito struggled, but was obviously outclassed by the Cicatrice. Damiana’s eyes widened. She had always assumed Topan was useless and weak.

“He’s not yours to kill, Topan,” Father Otto growled, “Not for an insult. He’s a Signari.”

“And I wouldn’t harm a hair on his head, Otto. Just so long, that is, as he and everyone here, and oh yeah spread the word to all your scumbag friends on the streets, there’s a little girl with Cicatrice. About eighteen years old. An immortal. Chinese. Beautiful beyond all reason. You can’t miss her. And I’d better not miss her at the end of all this.”

“All right!” Benito grunted between his thrashing, “Don’t touch the Chinese girl. Spread the word. Got it.”

Topan let Benito and the wooden stake drop at the same time, and they clattered into each other.

“Cicatrice losses are acceptable,” Father Otto said, “Except for the girl named Idi Han. She’s Topan’s get. And Topan is the new patriarch of House Cicatrice. Even I can’t protect you from his wrath if any harm comes to her.
Capisce
?”

“
Capisce
,” Benito muttered, and led the exodus.

Father Otto waited until the door slammed. Languorously, he kicked the broken piece of chair up into his hand. Topan stared at him defiantly. It was a child’s petulant stare. Father Otto jabbed the stick into Topan’s neck.

“You’ve got a way of letting your emotions control you, my little tempest-in-a-teapot. That won’t serve you when you’re a House patriarch.”

Topan grunted out a laugh.

“I used to think being a House patriarch meant something. Now it seems like you’re just giving it out to every Tom, Dick, and Harry.”

Father Otto glanced over at Damiana. He pointed the jagged stick in her direction.

“Damiana is my heir apparent. I haven’t named her as such but she’s my senior elder. I haven’t had a get in almost five hundred years. Know what happened to that one?”

“No. I’d love for you to tell me, though.”

Father Otto clapped his gauntleted hand down on Topan’s head. He was so much taller than Topan, and his hand so massive, that he nearly palmed Topan’s head. Judging by the pained look of defiance in Topan’s eyes, Father Otto was squeezing his melon and all but trying to burst it.

“Cicatrice killed my last get. I haven’t gotten over it, to be honest with you. Her name was Katarina. Not a good-looking girl. But then I don’t fuck my gets like some immortals. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Topan?”