didn’t know what was happening, and I didn’t care. I was just grateful for the distraction.
I started to edge away from the two vampire women, but then I stopped. The atmosphere of the ballroom felt charged with energy, like before a violent storm breaks loose. It had to be a psychic and not physical sensation, or else I probably couldn’t have perceived it, but whichever, it stopped me in my tracks and made me look up along with everyone else.
Darkness gathered along the mirrored surface of the ballroom walls, thickening and growing. And then the darkness exploded into a thousand shards which darted and whirled through the air, a cyclone of shadow. One of the black fragments dipped near my head, and I could see that what had been formless pieces of darkness had assumed the shape of large bats. Not actual three-dimensional animals, but instead shadowy silhouettes circling madly about the room.
And then the flock of shadow-bats drew close together directly above the gushing fountain of red, and coalesced into the form of a huge, well muscled man, who wore only a loincloth, boots, and a cape made out of black fur. His skin was white as bone, and his body looked hard as marble. He had long brown hair, and an equally brown beard which spilled onto his chest. His eyes were frost-white and cold as glaciers.
I didn’t need a formal introduction to tell me this was Lord Galm, progenitor of the Bloodborn and ruler of Gothtown-and, if I was lucky and Devona managed to persuade him to help me, my eventual savior.
“My children.” Though Galm spoke softly, his low rumbling voice echoed through the ballroom in tones as cold as an arctic plain at midnight.
As one, the assembled vampires fell to their knees and bowed their heads. “Our Lord,” they chanted in unison.
I was about to kneel myself to keep from drawing the Darklord’s attention, when I felt someone grab my arm and start dragging me backward. It was Devona-and she looked scared.
I didn’t know what to do: stay and risk being exposed as a zombie and a party-crasher-thus earning Galm’s wrath-or go with Devona and risk drawing the vampire lord’s ire for not displaying the proper obeisance. In the end, simple fear won out and I turned and we both ran like hell for the exit.
I felt a freezing-cold sensation on the back of my neck, as if it were suddenly coated in ice. I didn’t have to turn and look to know the Darklord was watching us. But for whatever reason, he did nothing, and we reached the corridor, turned left, and kept going.
As we ran, I thought it was a good thing I was dead. If I’d been alive, I would surely have needed a change of underwear at that point.
We didn’t stop running until we were a couple blocks from the Cathedral. Devona put her hands on her knees and gulped air-another sign that she was half human; a full-fledged vampire wouldn’t have needed to breathe, let alone catch her breath. I just stood and waited for her to recover, not fatigued in the slightest myself, although I thought my left arm was a trifle looser than it had been.
“Will Galm send someone after us?” I asked Devona when her breathing had returned to normal.
She shook her head. “He’s going to be too busy receiving guests for the next few hours. But I’m sure he’ll tend to us later.” She slumped back against the wall of a building and rubbed her forehead, clearly upset.
I laid a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe Galm will be more forgiving of our disrupting his entrance if we can recover the Dawnstone, or at least discover what happened to it.”
She gave me a weak smile. “Perhaps. It’s something to hope for anyway.” She stood straight, took a deep breath, and did her best to regain her composure. And then she noticed the cuts on my face. “Oh, you’re hurt!”
She reached a hand toward my wounds, but I took a step back. I didn’t want her smooth, half-living hands touching my dead flesh, didn’t want to see her possibly pull away in disgust.
“I’m a zombie; I can’t be hurt. Don’t worry, Papa Chatha will just take care of it the next time I see him.” Or in a couple days I’d be gone, and a few scratches wouldn’t matter anymore. I changed the subject. “Did you locate Varma?”
“No one had seen him. He’s probably off celebrating in the Sprawl somewhere.”
“Do you have any idea where he might be? Any favorite hangouts?”
“I know a couple places that he frequents. So we’re off to the Sprawl, then?”
“Not just yet. First, we need to find out as much about the Dawnstone as we can.”
“How are we supposed to do that? We can hardly ask Father, can we?”
“Maybe not. But I know someone else we can ask.”
“Who?”
I smiled. “Do you have your library card on you?”
SIX
“You can’t be serious,” Devona said.
We were on the Avenue of Dread Wonders, where museums housing the rarest and strangest artifacts in all Nekropolis were located. The neighborhood here was deserted and blessedly free of Descension Day chaos. I guess a museum district isn’t exactly high on anyone’s list of party destinations. Before us, nestled between the Pavilion of Nightmares Incarnate and the Hemesphere, stood the Great Library. I’d never visited the Pavilion, and from the way its shadowy architecture continually shifts and reforms itself into ever more sinister configurations, I’m not sure I ever will, but I had poked my head into the Hemesphere once. Inside the large round building is a museum that exhibits blood samples from famous people-both Darkfolk and human-acquired throughout history. The place doesn’t do much for me, but then I don’t have a sense of smell, let alone the enhanced sensory apparatus necessary to tell the difference between one blood sample and another. From what I’ve been told, you need to be a vampire or shapeshifter to fully appreciate the experience.
The Great Library didn’t look like much from outside, especially not compared to the two grander structures flanking it. It was just a simple wooden building, more appropriate for a cobbler’s or a baker’s. Devona’s doubts had nothing to do with the Library’s appearance, though. Everyone in Nekropolis knew what it looked like; no, what she didn’t believe was what I’d just told her.
“You really expect to just walk up to the door,” she said, “knock, and be let into the repository of not just the sum total of Bloodborn history but the accumulated knowledge of the entire Darkfolk?”
“No,” I deadpanned (I’m good at that). “I’ve never had to knock before.”
“Matthew,” she said in the tone of an adult speaking to a mistaken child, “no one just goes into the Great Library whenever he wants. That’s not how it works.”
So it was Matthew now. I wondered when in the last couple hours we’d gotten on a first-name basis.
“Call me Matt. And yes, that’s precisely how it works for me.”
“Waldemar is very selective about who he allows inside the Library and when. And no one knows how he chooses who may enter. I’ve never been inside. Even Lord Galm cannot just drop by whenever he feels…”
She broke off when she saw me reach out and open the door. Her jaw dropped. “That’s…impossible!”
“Are you sure Waldemar’s reputation isn’t just exaggerated? Like I said, the door’s always been open every time I’ve come here.” Even Nekropolis, a place where so many myths and legends are real, still has its share of tall tales.
“I don’t…” Whatever she was going to say, she decided against it and finally just shook her head.
“C’mon, let’s go.” I held the door open for her and gestured for her to enter. She walked past me and stopped on the other side of the threshold and swayed dizzily.
I shut the door quickly and put a hand on her arm to steady her. “I’m sorry, I really should have warned you. The shift in perspective hits you pretty hard the first time.”
We stood inside a vast room, far larger than such a small building as the Library appeared to be from outside could possibly contain. And the room was filled with case after case, shelf upon shelf, of books, papers, parchments, and scrolls. And what the shelves couldn’t hold were stacked on the floor, piled on top of cases, shoved into corners, jam-packed into every nook, cranny, and crevice available.
I didn’t have a sense of smell anymore, but I could imagine the wonderful musty odor of ancient knowledge and thought that permeated the place. Breathing this air would be like breathing Time itself.
