Tues December 8, 2074 10:08 pm: 3387 Blackhorn Cr., Yitzenburg, Alpinloch
The door closed and locked as though by its own volition. The faes amongst them never confirmed which was the gatekeeper to their proceedings and everyone happily assumed that it was Ahriman. Being in the dark about the safety measures in place made Mariel nervous. Whoever enchanted that door knew the guest list and kept tally of the arrivals. This person had the authority to bar the exit or leave the entrance open to intruders. Not knowing the identity of that person was a dangerous thing for such a small and clandestine organization.
Tonight's meeting was somewhat privileged. Mariel's siblings and eldest nephew were there but the spouses were absent. Fae lords like Odin Rys and Anshar Davenport were there but royalty like Sarada Summerdream were not. None of Cade's people were there. Mariel was having difficulty piecing together what message could not be conveyed to her absent comrades and this made her nervous too.
Her mother was as rash of a decision-maker as Ahriman was cautious. These qualities might turn out to be a boon in the long run but for now, the organization was treading water. There would be a split if no progress was made, and Mariel's absent comrades would most likely rally behind Ahriman.
Then there was the question of Selket Redding, whose voice was beginning to carry farther than just Ahriman's ear. Mariel would not be surprised if Selket became the center of a third faction that operated under Ahriman's wing and without his sanction.
As for Mariel herself, her ideology was more closely linked to Ahriman's. She did not want to choose between what she knew in her heart to be just and her fealty to her mother if the organization were to split. More than that, she was certain that the resistance could not survive being cleaved in half and what then? Theirs was important work-- the most important work-- and if not these people then who? Who would step up to take on the most powerful man in the world? They were done waiting for divine intervention.
The Magister Templi raised his hand in silence and the room fell still. In his gentle way, he remained as monumental and arresting a figure as Mariel's mother. When he spoke, his voice rumbled with the toppling force of an earthquake.
"Welcome comrades and thank you. Forgive me if I do not take the time to introduce tonight's agenda but there is much ground to cover and little time to do so. Mahadeva Kvornan Tricou was last seen on November 25th at a cafe in downtown Pleasantview. As far as we know, he has not yet returned to the palace. If he is in contact with the Ib, as is believed, then it is no longer advantageous for us to attempt to identify and sequester her. She will be brought to Ethelden, perhaps within the month. Her estimated date of arrival is unknown. This council has determined that our best course of action would be to shift our focus away from the Ib and towards compromising the Sheut. This stage of our operation will not be simple. There is no prison that can bind him, no weapon that can hinder him.
According to his 1998 testimony before the Magi, Deus Rex continues to task him and will not allow him to rest until his tasks are accomplished. Most notably, he must continue the magical propigation of the fae race. As far as this council is aware, the Sheut has not reproduced since the death of Maheshvara Fricorith. The Sheut is consorted and it may only be a matter of time before the birth of a second child."
The room broke out into murmuring. Mariel watched her mother's face carefully. None of this was news to Thea Masters. Consorted? Mariel wrinkled her nose at the thought. She wondered what woman would dare.
Ahriman raised his hand for quiet as he continued, deepening the timbre of his voice.
"In the meantime, we must prepare our defenses. The Sheut can be compromised but only if he is vulnerable to the point of psychological instability. This will mean making some very powerful enemies. So if any of you have the least reservation about moving forward, then you have been a good comrade and thank you for your service. Please see yourself to the door."
No one stirred. Towards the front of the room, Mariel's father bowed his head in thought. To Mariel's left, her brother licked his lips and smiled. Mariel's mother lifted her head to address the assembly.
"This is not a decision to be made without due consideration," she said. "Some of you are very young. Most of you have families. Comrades, understand that what we make here is a declaration of war. We will strike those closest to him. Our first target is to be Jareth Alexei Garrison."
The room erupted but Mariel did not have the presence of mind to listen in on the individual conversations. Squeezing her eyes shut, she prayed that her corner seat and general insignificance erased her from the radar of anyone who might be watching. Only her sister Hannah knew about Alexei. She wondered briefly what Hannah's reaction had been but she could not turn. Even with her eyes closed, the room was spinning. Mariel's mother shouted to be heard over the din.
"Antoine has betrayed us. Cade Muenda is likewise an enemy. Make no mistake-- There can be no neutral parties. We are uncertain of the whereabouts of our target. We may even err in believing that his sacrifice would have any adverse effect on the Vampire Sheut. It is a calculated risk and one that will not end well for most, if not everyone sitting in this room."
Mariel covered her eyes with her hand, blocking as much of the light as she could. She might draw attention to herself this way but after so many months of harboring her secret affair, it was all that she could do not to scream. Ahriman's voice cut through her self-imposed darkness.
"If I may, Comrade Masters, it should also be noted that Mr. Garrison is currently under RDI investigation. He has been implicated as a suspect in the attack of a fae. It will not long before he is found. Once the RDI has located the target, they will report to me. Comrade Kivetz has agreed to intercept the RDI before Mr. Garrison can be brought in for questioning. If our comrade is unsuccessful, we will strike at Vajra. From there, we will enlist the aide of Comrade Redding. She has some... experience breaking into maximum security prison cells."
Mariel removed her hand from her eyes, planting the heel of it against her forehead. This wasn't real. It could not be.
"Mariel darling, you look as though you have something to say." Her mother's voice. Mariel opened her eyes to find everyone in the room staring at her. She shrank into her chair.
"No, nothing." Mariel hiccuped between no and nothing. Her mother folded her hands upon her knee.
"Are you able to proceed then?"
"Yes comrade, I am." Mariel's mother tilted her majestic head upward to address the room.
"The true test of our commitment, not merely as an organization but as individuals, is yet to come. And when it does, who here will be ready to die for the light?" Mariel's brother Raul stood, almost reflexively.
"I will be ready." His lips curled back from his teeth when he spoke. Anshar stood to the far right of Raul.
"I also," he shouted. Mariel was quickly beginning to sense that the question had been intended less for the more impassioned persons in the room. She stood on wobbling legs. Perspiration beaded at her temples. She would not see Alexei harmed but she knew the price valor. Just the thought of it brought her pulse to the surface of her skin.
If only she could turn back time to a few moments prior, when her mother asked if she had anything to say. Mariel did have something to say, the one thing that was left to be said. She balled her fists at her sides.
"Death to the Vampire Sheut!" A chorus of similar oaths resounded throughout the room in response, like the angry swarming of wasps.
Weds December 2, 2074 1:23 pm-- 1023 Maple Crest Rd.; Yitzenburg, Alpinloch
“Good afternoon, nurse. Is it time for my sponge bath already?” Alexei's joke was delivered without the barest hint of a smile. When Mariel thought on it, she realized that she had never seen him smile or at least not in any pleasant way. Not once.
Mariel crossed the room and paused at his bedside while he followed her with his eyes. A bit of raisin bread and a cup of tea perched lovingly on his nightstand, no longer hot enough to give off steam. Alexei’s elder sister coddled him like a child, playing along with his caprices to the point where Mariel had to wonder which of them was truly the eccentric one. Perhaps both. But if Emilia was eccentric for the administration of thermometers, warm washcloths and breakfast in bed, then Mariel could not have been much better. She was there, after all.
“You seem to be convalescing well,” she said flatly. Alexei stretched out his arms and yawned. He scratched his midsection, his bleary eyes staring at nothing in particular.
“Nonsense. I need the sort of care that only my nurse can give me or else I may not make it.” Mariel crossed her arms over her chest. She knew what she would find when she arrived at the Garrison household but somehow she still clung to the hope that Alexei would not be so reckless as to call her home phone unless it was an emergency.
“You can go straight to hell, Alec. My father was inches away from answering when you called. You’re lucky Hannah was there.”
"No, 'lucky' would have been if Hannah had come along with you." Alexei smirked mischievously but Mariel failed to see the humor in the situation. She could not feel her expression change or her cheeks grow warm but Alexei's face softened in the wake of her disapproval. "I'm not afraid of your father, sweetheart. Nor your big bad wolf of a mother." Mariel sniffed.
"You'll get yourself killed someday," she said. Alexei looked off to the side, seeming to consider.
"Once a fellow has over-stayed his welcome, that threat starts to sound more like an invitation. Anyway I really am sick, you know. Ate something that didn't agree with me." Mariel tossed her purse by the door and walked over to the bed. Alexei followed her with his eyes, more wax doll than centenarian man. This was what had initially crumbled her defenses, what she found to be so difficult to resist about him. Most vampires that Mariel knew, her parents included, were rotting from the inside out. Mariel could see it in their eyes, almost smell it seeping through their skin. They were dying. And Alexei, he was dying too but it was a different sort of death. It was a death that never lost its luster. A death that resembled sleep.
For his part, Mariel did not have to wonder what Alexei saw in her. They had spent time together in public before and though his glances rarely lingered, she had noticed a trend in what attracted him physically. Young. Dark-haired. Short. Somewhat androgynous. But more than that, Mariel had the distinct impression that he embraced the danger of seeing one of Thea's daughters. Alexei patted the bed beside him. "Come have a seat, Miss Masters."
Mariel wrapped her legs around him, straddling his waist. The pale copper of his irises shone through the green contact lenses, making him look perhaps even more other-worldly. Mariel snaked her hand up his torso until she reached the base of his neck, pursing her lips in thought.
"I can't come to see you again. This won't bode well for your brother when they find him." Alexei tensed at the mention of Antoine. The Dissenters were seeking him out, albeit lazily. Antoine still had friends amongst their number that did not want to see him caught.
"Any sign of him?" Alexei's voice was thick and coarse in a way that Mariel had never heard from him before. Mariel studied him briefly. His smattering of freckles. His parted lips. The thin creases at the corners of his eyes.
"No," she said. Alexei leaned forward and kissed the bridge of her nose, pressing her glasses to her face. "He is a traitor but for your sake, I hope he stays missing. In any case, the damage is done."
"Don't believe it. Antoine is still a threat and I feel comfortable in telling you so. You won't find him. Or if you do find him, turn the other way-- He wants to be found." Mariel pushed herself to her feet. With anyone else, this conversation would have been politics. Mariel might have said that the Sheut would be dead within the year so who gives a flying fuck about Antoine Garrison?
It was a mistake to get involved with this man. It was a bigger mistake for her to think of him as a friend. They weren't friends and not just because he was playing for the opposition. There were things about him that made her skin crawl. Certain offhanded remarks and peculiar behaviors. Mariel had reason to believe that he was a hunter and a violent, unscrupulous one at that. Alexei rose from the bed, joining her.
Her anger instructed her to move away as he drew in close. It told her to brush his hand from her hip. Perhaps even to leave. But Mariel remained stiff as a rail, pretending that his proximity had no effect. Alexei's lips brushed her cheek, coming to rest near her ear.
"What's bothering you, kitten?" He was so close now that she could feel his pulse against her chest.
"I could have stayed home if I wanted to have a conversation about the Sheut." Alexei twined her hair around his fingers. She was so stupid, no matter how many times she tried to convince herself that she knew just what she was doing.
"Listen to me carefully—and I am only telling you this because I like you—Antoine did you all a favor. If Kvornan thought for an instant that you knew the identity of the Ib before he was ready to make that information public, you would be dead right now. Some of you worse than dead. You'd have never gotten close enough to the Ib to 'protect' her or whatever you call yourselves doing." Maybe it was his mention of the Sheut by name or maybe it was the futility of his argument but the spell was broken. Mariel pushed him away as forcefully as she could.
"Better to die a martyr than to have done nothing at all! Better to serve something larger than yourself—"
"And so Antoine has done, in his way."
"All that Antoine has done is to stall and waste time that we simply don’t have."
"No. Antoine has saved you from your own foolishness. The Ib is sacrosanct. I’d have misled you too." Mariel shifted her weight to one leg and leaned in towards him as he fell inexplicably sullen.
"What do you hope to accomplish by defending him right now? What am I supposed to say to you? ‘Antoine was right. We were wrong. I’m going running home this very minute to tell my mommy to call the whole thing off.’ Fuck you, Alec. For all we know, the Sheut is siring the Ib as we speak."
"He wouldn’t."
There is was. The loyalty. The conviction. What was she supposed to say to that? Alexei was so certain that he knew the devil as a man. And he trusted him. Mariel shook her head, narrowing her gaze.
"I don’t understand you. Why would you knowingly invite that monster into your life? And stay with him for so long?" Alexei flinched at the question. The instant that Mariel said it, she realized that she had wanted to ask for months but that she hadn't the gall. Alexei looked up at the ceiling and for a moment, Mariel thought that he would not respond.
"When I was a kid, I had this toy car that ran on kinetic energy. If you rolled it across a flat surface in reverse and let it go, it would take off just like lightning. It was a popular toy at the time—the S150. Darong Toyworks manufactured it. Everyone had one. But mine was defective. When you let it go, instead of just moving, it shot an impressive array of white and blue sparks. It was incredible to see.
My mother took it away. She was afraid that I would burn myself. I was distraught. I ended up rescuing it from the garbage. Buried it under a tree in the park. For years, I would dig it up, race it down the street and bury it again. I couldn’t give up something that remarkable just on the off chance that it might harm me. So I took a risk." Mariel was not expecting that level of honesty and knowing Alexei, she was wary.
"Did you ever get burned?" she asked. Alexei wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve.
"Repeatedly."
"Was it worth it?"
"Always. But when I think about it, it isn’t really that apt of a metaphor. Any injuries that I got from the car healed a long time ago but Kvornan…" He shook his head slowly.
"Was he worth it?" Alexei exhaled deeply, as though he were laboring over something. He leaned back against the nightstand, causing the china to rattle.
"Always," he said.
