Standing at the head of the table, she met the eyes of her vampire.
A thousand years had produced quite a collection of portraits of the Wind’s Dog. Rian had seen Vensium’s, and Tylette’s, and the mosaic at Salinae. All rather different images, but every one featuring a hollow-cheeked man with streaming black hair, a banner of darkness. Prytennia’s infamous assassin and spy.
Rather than hidden death, this short, slender and tousle-haired youth called to mind a dreaming poet. He was far better dressed this time around, but there was still a weary calm about him, lightly mixed with derision.
Entirely without intending to, Rian raised her hands and clapped them together, producing a staccato beat. Astonished, she struggled to stop herself, then realised what was happening.
“Very funny.”
“Hilarious.” He allowed her hands to still. “And you’d give someone this control over you for a tidy yearly sum.”
“For something I wanted, at least. I take it this means you’ve done whatever was needed to complete the binding?”
He didn’t reply, but did something. Rian swayed, overwhelmed by a wave of dizziness. It felt like all her blood was running backward. Groping for the nearest chair, she dropped into it.
“I’ve asserted control over the colony,” he said, watching with a complete lack of sympathy as she gasped and shuddered. “An interesting sensation. Part of myself, sitting before me.”
Refusing to lose her temper, Rian closed her eyes briefly, then managed to say: “You’ve never bound anyone before?”
“I’ve no interest in building a herd. Or keeping you as a pet. Forest House should sufficiently cover whatever income I can be said to have cost you.”
This was excellent news. “How long before the binding wears?”
“One to two months, usually. We’ll see what happens.”
There was a note to this answer that she didn’t like, and she studied him narrowly. “But?”
He lifted a shoulder. “The colony is at a self-sustaining level, dominant in your system. It’s unlikely to diminish naturally.”
In the pause that followed Rian could distinctly hear running feet, could sense the bright river that was Griff, racing not to miss out on any excitement. She thought of strawberries, and sex, and hoped the Wind’s Dog would do her the favour of not dying in the near future.
“So I will inevitably become…a kind of vampire that can tell when people are lying?”
His expression changed, the smallest alteration, and for the first time Rian truly believed that this boy was Heriath, famous for dealing in death.
Then he tch-ed, and sat down at the opposite end of the table, dropping the air of menace—or perhaps simply hiding it once again behind the guise of something less dangerous. “That tedious prig told you.”
“I was curious to see whether you would. And yet, I can tell if people are lying, sometimes.”
“The heart beats faster. The liar’s emotions intensify, are more controlled, or don’t match the words. It’s not so sure as the Ma’at line, who simply see lies as a colour. But more nuanced.”
Aware of Griff’s rapid approach, Rian said: “I’ll keep that in mind,” and philosophically abandoned any thought of giving him half-truths.
The Amon-Re line, that of Egypt’s god of air and sun, was rumoured to possess all manner of gifts, but none were confirmed beyond the usual unnatural speed and strength, and the pharaoh’s unique ability to command other stone blood. Makepeace—it would be simpler to call him that—had also done something to hold the sphinx in place. As his Bound, Rian would possess only a pale echo of his powers, but they would still be useful for her investigations.
“Did you catch it? Did you kill it?”
All bright enthusiasm, Griff approached her vampire with far less caution than Rian would prefer, but Makepeace didn’t seem bothered, merely turning his head to study the boy.
“Should I have killed it? Would you have liked that?”
Griff, who had somehow managed to achieve scrubbed-pink cleanliness in less time than it would take Rian to walk to the bathroom, plucked at the seam of his shendy, but showed no other concern at the question.
“Well, I don’t want it to come back,” he explained. “Could you kill it? If all you can do is tell when people are lying?”
“I also hit quite hard,” Makepeace said, as Eluned and Eleri arrived, less obviously excited, but almost as speedy as their brother. “And killing it wouldn’t tell me why it was here, or what it wanted.” He turned back to Rian. “Though perhaps you can answer that.”
“Does that mean you didn’t catch it?” Rian asked, and suspected from his lack of response that he had expected to, and was annoyed. “And no, I don’t know either. I have at most some wide guesswork.” She surveyed her small audience, then said: “Sit down, you three. We can talk while we eat.”
Makepeace waited without comment as food was dispensed, but when Rian introduced the Tennings he said: “Is this something you want children involved with?”
“They were involved before I,” Rian said. “Eluned, will you tell him the start of it?”
Eluned, however, had other points to cover first. Finely-sketched brows drawn together, she said: “How did you get here? The grove might be in shadow, but most of the streets weren’t.”
“Perhaps I’ve been here all along.”
“What? Is there a secret room?” Griff stood up, clearly ready to race off to hunt for it. “It would be in the cellar, wouldn’t it? Do you live down there?”
“Is he lying?” Eluned asked Rian, but Rian couldn’t tell, and said so.
“Could have been nearby,” Eleri said, frowning in response to Makepeace’s faintly amused expression. “Or took an enclosed car.”
“But is there a secret room?” Griff repeated.
“There’s a safe hidden about somewhere, I know that,” Makepeace said. “Though I haven’t a clue where. What, then, is the start of it?”
“Fulgite,” Eluned said. “Artificial fulgite.”
NINE
She’d intended to shock him, but Eluned couldn’t spot any reaction from this strange boy who was really an old man.
“What about it?” Dem Makepeace asked, when she didn’t go on.
“That’s what started it.” Eluned had her glass shield well in hand, refusing to act hesitant before this dangerous stranger. “At the beginning of spring term our mother accepted a commission to investigate fulgite that was said to be haunted, and hardly ever released its charge. Mother’s early research had been on charge drain, though she’d moved on to advanced automata control mechanisms.” Eluned did not look down at the arm that had been the reason for the change. “We don’t know who commissioned her, but we do know they gave her two pieces of fulgite, round, about this big.”
She held up thumb and forefinger in a not quite closed circle.
“Whoever brought the fulgite to her wanted mother to find a way to make the charge release reliably, and create an automaton that did not rely on physical switches to activate movement.”
Dem Makepeace propped his chin on one fist, waiting. Eluned glanced at Eleri, who took up the thread of the story.
“Mid-term break. Mother hadn’t made any progress. Father had nearly completed the automaton, said the charge would release when he triggered functions. Never moved on its own. Mother asked me to create a small second automaton, one that could operate on a weaker charge. Gave me one of the round fulgite. Did that over the rest of spring term. No result. It never released charge that I could verify. Then the—then Aunt Arianne came.”