“Damn, boy,” she piped. “I done told you I seen death! Death on your name. Death on your blood. Don’t none of that mean nothin’ to you?”
I rose. “It does. But look again. You see me telling Ethel Hoobin I quit? You see me leaving Martha Hoobin at the mercy of those who have her? You see me just walking away?”
She gathered her bag. She rose, and she was crying when she hit the door.
I sat. “Whippoorwills,” I said, to my empty chair. “There aren’t any whippoorwills in Rannit. Haven’t been in years.”
None sang. Ogres huffed and doors began to open and slam outside and old Mr. Bull’s broom started its daily
I listened for a while and then got up, combed my hair and headed across town to speak with Evis about corpses, new moons and ensorcelled silver combs.
I hadn’t even hailed a cab when a sleek black carriage pulled up to the curb before me. The driver tipped his tall black hat, all fresh-scrubbed smiles and shiny black boots with silver buckles and a just-picked yellow daisy in his topcoat buttonhole.
“Good morning, sir,” he said, to me. “I believe you have an appointment with the House this morning.”
I agreed I most likely did. I opened the door and clambered inside. A short time later we were across the River and through the tall iron gates of House Avalante.
I’d have been impressed, were I not so engrossed in my new aches and pains. My right eye still stung from Mama’s soap, and my hips were sore where Sara had snatched me up. So all I can recall is a maze of oak-paneled corridors and gold-plated lamp holders and mirrors set in silver frames. That, and the hush, and the constant strong smell of fireflowers.
I was ushered through half a dozen lavish sitting rooms, each done in fussy pre-War Kingdom style, lace and claw-footed tables and tiny swooping dragons, each biting the tail of the last, carved along the door-frames. I was greeted by half a dozen human household staff, each one more polished and reserved than the last. By the time I was finally shown the anteroom outside Evis’s office, I’d guessed I’d met all the most trusted and highly placed of House Avalante’s daytime staff. Each one called me Mister Jones, and each knew they spoke a lie.
I sat. A butler dusted a forty-candle candelabra and eyed me. I yawned at him. I’d worn my good coat and my new hat and he still lifted his eyebrows and bit back admonitions to keep my feet off the furniture.
Yet another butler appeared, and at last I was presented to Evis. He was seated behind a massive ironwood desk, in a dimly lit forty-by-forty office with red-gold Gantish carpet covering the floor. Three of the walls were lined with cherry bookcases crammed with leather-bound books. The other wall held a glass case filled with curios and old swords and glittering spinning things I took to be sorcerous knick-knacks but couldn’t see well enough to identify. There were, of course, no windows. In fact, by my count of stairs, we were three stories underground.
“Good morning, Mister Markhat,” said Evis. He signed a paper, blew the ink to dry it, and rose. “I trust you slept well?”
I crossed to the empty chair at his desk. “Well enough. How’s Sara?”
Evis motioned for me to sit, then seated himself as well.
“She is recovering.” The room was dark. There was a small candle burning in each corner, but I still couldn’t read Evis’s expression. “I shall tell her you inquired.”
I nodded. Evis reached into a pocket, found his dark glasses, put them on before whispering a word.
Light flared, bright and white, from a pair of glass globes hung on silver chains from the ceiling.
“For your comfort. By the way. Sara’s husband Victor wishes to extend to you his apologies. He fears his manner was brusque, in the carriage.”
I shrugged. “He didn’t tear my head off and eat it. I thought we got along famously.”
Evis grinned. “Nevertheless. We were all disturbed to distraction by what we discovered last night.”
“Oh, we most certainly were. That was…let’s see…” I unfolded and consulted my list, picked out the tenth name. “Milly Balount, wasn’t it? Or maybe Allie Sands?”
Evis nodded. “Allie Sands, we believe. Examination of the body revealed a tattoo, which matched one Miss Sands was said to possess.”
“Allie Sands. She was number nine. Snatched just before the new moon three months ago.”
“Indeed.” Somewhere, a clock ticked and tocked. Evis sighed. “How much do you know about halfdead physiology, Mister Markhat?”
“Very little,” I replied. “I’m not sure anyone does.”
Evis nodded, not in agreement but acknowledgment.
“Miss Sands was bitten many times. We estimate that some eleven halfdead fed on her.”
I stared. Halfdead usually hunt alone, that much I knew.
“Multiple bites result in the unfortunate condition you saw last night. To do such a thing is anathema, even to the oldest and most depraved of my kin. But it is not the first such attack we have discovered. I believe this is significant.”
“I’ll tell you what I think. You stop me when I’m wrong.”
“I shall.”
I took a breath. “Someone-maybe one of the Houses, maybe not-decided that snacking on Curfew-breakers wasn’t good enough anymore. This person or persons has other tastes. Tastes that include young women, consumed without the fuss and bother of plying them with flowers or sneaking through their windows.”
“We do neither,” said Evis. “But do go on.”
“So, once a month, our hungry friend arranges to have a dinner party. Catered, if you will. Someone lures the main course into a carriage with a bauble, or a bribe. Did Miss Sands have a silver comb among her possessions perhaps?”
“She did not. Though her somewhat avaricious business associates rifled her belongings before our agent arrived,” he said. “It is entirely possible such a comb was among her things.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. She was chosen-like the rest-because she was young and pretty and she was a prostitute and no one would look hard when she turned up missing.” I made myself stare at those round black lenses. “How do you like my story so far?”
“It lacks certain elements.” He didn’t smile. “But, sadly, the theme is generally correct.”
“I’ll bet. So, once a month, and always in a different place, this industrious halfdead and several of his closest friends gather. They gather, and they wait. And at the appointed time-”
“At the appointed time,” said Evis, interrupting, “a young woman is brought out. She is abused, slain and left in the state you observed last night. And that, Mister Markhat-that, we will not bear.”
“Because if word got out, the Curfew laws wouldn’t keep mobs from burning the Hill to ash. Even the Regent couldn’t stop it. I doubt he’d even try.”
“That is a reason,” said Evis. “But it is not the sole reason.” He took off his glasses, squinted in the light, but looked me square in the eye and I looked him square back.
“How old do you think I am, Mister Markhat?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Forty, maybe. Give or take.”
“Correct. And how long will I live, in this state?”
I shrugged again. “A hundred years or more. Until the bloodlust drives you mad.”
He shook his head. “That may be so, among the other Houses. But I expect to live for another three centuries. Perhaps four, even-and at the end, I shall be old and feeble, but I shall be neither mad, nor more of a monster than you see here.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “That’s not the way it works. If it did, why all the old mad vampires?”
“Because they insist on sustaining themselves with the blood of their own species. Because they succumb to the hunger that drives them to slay their own. Because the hunger takes over, bit by bit, until nothing is left of the person but the physical shell and an awful, irresistible thirst.”
“And you?”
“We at Avalante resist. Oh, we must have blood. Bovine blood, porcine blood, any blood, save that of men. And because we resist, we will be spared the madness.”
“And that works?”
