If Truth Dies
Silkie Faggini, the Madam of the Crimson Lady Brothel, had once been one of the most beautiful courtesans in Waejontor. At forty-four years old, the angles of her light-bronze face had hardened, and the lines radiating around her eyes and the corners of her mouth had been etched deep by the harshness of the life she had lived. Yet enough traces of her fading aristocratic beauty remained to make her striking to look upon.
She maintained an attitude of arrogant indifference, indurate to the vicissitudes of life while Heironim Traxton raged through her office, throwing books and papers about, smashing her fragile treasures. She clutched her murdered lover's words to her heart: 'Don't let them see you cry.'
"Where's Ellie?" Heironim seized a delicate blown-glass bird from a shelf.
Silkie planted her gaze on the door as her stomach soured – her son given her that bird when he was nine. Cullen had taken their son shopping to buy her a birthday present. She remembered the joy on their faces as they had watched her unwrap it. I'm not going to cry, Cullen. I promised you I wouldn't let them see me cry. "I don't know."
"Who was her last customer?" Heironim smashed the bird against the wall.
"I told you. Eideard Doyle."
"Did Kynyr Maguire send him to talk to her?"
"How would I know?"
"You spent an hour talking to him."
"He wanted to know about Cullen. I didn't tell him anything."
"Doesn't matter whether you did or didn't." A thin sneer crossed Heironim's face. "Kynyr Maguire is dead."
Silkie's tough façade cracked. "You killed him."
"Of course."
She spit in Heironim's face.
Heironim raised his hand to strike her and Silkie laughed at him. "I'm pregnant, remember? The Serpent will not be happy if you cause me to miscarry his son."
"Bitch!"
"I wish." Silkie turned the insult into a double entendre, because lycans called their females bitches.
"Heironim!" Jondries entered the office and stared at the destruction. "I found Ellie."
Heironim lowered his hand and turned toward his lieutenant. "Where is she?"
"Dead."
Disbelief flashed across Silkie's face and then she began to laugh.
Heironim glared at her. "What are you laughing at?"
"An eye for an eye. No one does it better than a lycan."
As soon as Heironim and Jondries left, Silkie kicked her way through the debris and dropped the bar across her office door. Her throat felt tight and tears lurked behind her eyes, telling her that she was not as tough as she had once believed.
At twelve, Silkie had fled her sa'necari family who planned to sacrifice her to the hellgod Bellocar for failing to inherit the recessive sa'necari gene, and had become a child prostitute. By the time that Silkie reached the age of thirty, she had become hardened and calculating. She established the Crimson Lady and felt completely safe and beyond the reach of her family and the rest of the sa'necari.
But then she had made a mistake. Silkie had fallen in love with a lycan courier, Cullen Blackwood, eleven years ago, borne him a son named Cooley, and counted herself happy. Three months ago, the sa'necari returned to Hell's Widow. Heironim and his employer, the Butchering Serpent – whose face she had never seen – tortured and murdered Cullen in front of her. She had sent their son, Cooley, to Cullen's friend Kynyr Maguire, begging for help just before Heironim's net closed like a spider's web around her, robbing her of contact with the outside world. Kynyr came two weeks ago, and promised to return with sufficient help to get her out. But Heironim killed him.
"An eye for an eye, Heironim."
Silkie reached her desk, shaking so hard at the memories, that she could barely lower herself into her chair. With Kynyr dead, the only options left to her were measures so desperate that she had always prayed that she would never need them.
She jerked open the middle drawer of her desk, causing it to land in her lap with a thunk. The drawer was shorter than the shelf that held it. She shoved the drawer onto the floor with a flash of anger, leaned down, and fished around the back of the shelf until her fingers brushed against what she was looking for: a black velvet pouch that contained a wooden box.
In her youth, Silkie had risen to the highest levels that a prostitute could hope to reach, and become the highest priced courtesan in Torment Lake, the ancient capital of Waejontor. Her clients and lovers had included mages of every stripe and the magic-obsessed aristocracy. They had all given her gifts, dangerous gifts – and they were all in that box.
Silkie grasped the drawstrings on the pouch, and drew it out of its hiding place. She took the ornate box from its velvet shielding and set it on the table before her. Silkie's hands trembled as she stroked the leaves, vines, and flowers carved into the lid. A sense of melancholy resignation replaced her anger and her fear as she spoke the word that would release the mage-lock on the box.
The lid came free.
"You told me that one day it would come to this, Brandrahoon – my undead dragon of damnation. I did not want to believe you then. Now I know you were right."
Beneath a layer of enchanted jewelry and arcane stones, rested nine vials wrapped in black cloth. One by one she unwrapped them, lingering over a vial of crimson fluid with an elegant 'B' and runes of preservation upon it.
She remembered his words and the look in his eye as the oldest and greatest of the Lemyari vampires handed her that bottle.
"You are so beautiful, My Silkanna, My Lady of Silken Grace. When the vicissitudes of life engulf you beyond all hope, drink this and die. Then come to me and I will vanquish your enemies and wrap you in my love, forever. You are my Amalthea returned to life."
She sucked in a deep breath to steady herself, twisted the golden top of the vial to break the seal, and drank it. The liquid burned her throat, yet she swallowed every drop of it. Silkie tasted more than blood in it. She tasted something sharp and sweet, and the tingling of a spell at the back of her throat.
"Brandrahoon … what did you put in it?"
Silkie tried to remember everything he had said when he gave it to her. Forever young … forever mine.
A sensation of first dizziness, and then a searing joy spread through Silkie so intense that she could find nothing to compare it to.
"Drink it and then choose a way to die."
She swayed in her seat as the fire lit her veins. A surge of anger cleared away the disorientation.
"The sa'necari be damned. Let them face the wrath of the blood of Brandrahoon."
Silkie returned the contents to the box, closed the lid, and slipped it back into the velvet pouch. She tied the strings to her belt, reached into another drawer, and brought forth a long dagger.
Rising from her chair, Silkie faced the wall behind it and spoke the word that would reveal and open the spiritdoor. A panel of the wall shimmered, became transparent, showing a comfortable room with thick carpets behind it.
Silkie entered the room and sealed it once more with a word. She lay down upon the floor, slit her wrists, and closed her eyes to await death and the transformation that Brandrahoon had promised her.
"Soon, you bastards … I'll be coming for you. Silkanna Mircala de Waejonan will have her vengeance."
As blood loss dragged her toward oblivion, Silkie dreamed of Cullen and smiled.
Site Map | Forum | Scientology Warning | Designed by Phil Smith. | All content © Janrae Frank 2005-8.