Esmond’s lairwas a large villa, as such things went. Surrounded by thirsty, flagrantly watered ornamental gardens already wilting in the heat, the structure itself lacked any grace or refinement. The outbuildings were similarly either overdone or glaringly utilitarian, drones frozen in the act of servicing a rich, long-dead mortal’s overweening pride.
Though aesthetically lacking, the estate was in a strategically commanding position for both the city and the larger, quite valuable territory, and possessed a number of crannies suitable for sealed daylight rest besides. A cloud of mortal death hung upon it now, thick and noxious but incapable of disguising Antinous’s scent—broad as a highway, the patriarch taking no measures to conceal his trail.
A breath of roses and fresh-ground coffee intensified on the hot, sluggish breeze as well. It speared the ossification, a sharp poke on fresh bruising, and Nemesis was moving too swiftly to care for things like mortal construction, even if walls and windows had been busily reinforced by the servants of a now-dead sanguinant.
Massive front doors of imported wood exploded, breached as if by ballista or later, far more violent artillery. The great staircase-decked foyer, floored with black and white marble squares—carefully crafted, perhaps the only truly beautiful piece of construction in this entire pile—resounded like a struck bell. The call of his fledgling, a slight internal tugging of shared blood, was still far too muted.
Had his enemy hidden her elsewhere? But her fragrance intensified, vivid and reasonably fresh, a weak but welcome antidote to the encroaching numb lassitude.
He knew where his foe lingered almost immediately. Of course the patriarch would choose the larger of two ballrooms; Nemesis had carefully left that space clear of mortal corpse-dreck, since he knew Antinous’s preferences for theatrical display even in battle.
There was no joy in finding that his opponent had taken both baits, leman and location. Why was the pull so faint? Had Antinous injured her, seeking to close his fangs in that luscious relief from slow age-death? Another sanguinant would find it deeply difficult to bite a bonded leman, near-impossible to claim one.
Thus, any challenge must be to death.
More internal walls crumbled before Nemesis. He did not bother with respecting mortal construction. Let this place shatter, brick by board, until he could take her from its hideousness. Was she wounded? Bleeding out? Impossible, no sanguinant would allow such damage to a rare, precious, irreplaceable leman.
And yet. The fear taunted, tormented, sharp spurs used to push at calcification.
More doors, some carved with foliage-shapes, others glimmering with glass insets. All shivered to pieces, flung inward, and the ballroom flowered before him. Parquet floor stillgleaming despite a layer of dust, drapes along one wall rippling with several shrapnel impacts, mirrored panels along the other cracking under invisible strain.
And at the far end, a single shape gracefully avoiding flying debris with blurring sanguinant speed, then coming to rest, tall and wild-haired as a statue of Dionysius.
Nemesis finally halted.
The chiton of thick brown velvet, the sandals of an ancient pattern, the belt of braided mortal hair—a similarly old custom, fledglings bringing a lock or two of any prey’s fur to their Maker—were just the same. Yet over the long tunic Antinous had draped a torn sweater, black wool with scorched, discolored leather patches shredded at its dangling elbows.
It had been wrapped solicitously about a leman just after dusk. The tatters were still redolent of her.
Antinous’s dark eyes held the killing glow, wet crimson spatters waxing and waning, but the slowly accreting dust over their otherwise depthless wells had been scorched away. He would have inhaled as much as possible of a leman’s fragrance, shaking away his own ossification; to be so close to the prize and yet unable to sink his teeth until her sanguinant was dealt with must be maddening.
Shehadto be hidden nearby. Had Antinous stripped her bare, attempted to claim what he could not yet bite? It was impossible for Nemesis’s rage to intensify, yet it did. The flame was colorless now, a sword in the vitals mounting to his throat, just as dangerous as the rising stone-apathy.
The patriarch’s grin was almost winsome. “My boy.” Pure old Greek, a tenor singsong. “What a beautiful grey-eyed prize you brought me.”
Centuries fell away. The rough, direct bark of an army camp burned Nemesis’s throat. “You think yourself Agamemnon? You are not even a second Tarquin.”
“You fancy yourself Akhilles, then? Do not forget he died young.” Antinous stroked the sweater’s rags, palms and fingers sliding with with lascivious slowness. “I will be enjoying her long after Lamia’s Children have forgottenyourname.”
Which one, Nemesis or Maximus?Irrelevant, really. None of this mattered since his overarching goal was so nearly accomplished. Now was the most dangerous moment; the cusp of eventual victory could be wasted by exhaustion or arrogance.
Antinous would preen endlessly if allowed, counting upon fatigue and the steadily mounting weakness of a sanguinant denied his leman. Outside the mansion, a city burned and the gates of Dawn quivered upon the verge of opening.
“Too much talking,” Maximus snarled, and flung himself into battle once more.
Ripping, rolling, tumbling, tearing, gouging, clawing—the patriarch roared as he fought, concentric waves of sound intended to dizzy, confuse, baffle.
Nemesis remained silent, and he noted almost absently the direction his enemy sought to keep the battle from veering. Leila was indeed nearby, then, tucked in the furthest wing of the main house, but the call of his fledgling was so very weak. It could be a trap, a feint—he tore at his Maker’s side, and a spatter of ichor was loosed before Antinous could seal the wound.
Claws blurring, deadly quiet, Nemesis pressed the patriarch through one wall after another, absorbed heavy blows in return, lost a few more drops of his own blood after a flurry of swift deadly strikes, Antinous showing unwonted tactical flexibility for one so old, so rigid.
Even so short a time with a leman bonded to another sanguinant could grant a measure of marvelous, stinging clarity. No wonder the treasures were so rare, so cherished; a single sip of her was enough to shake both soldier and Emperor free of immortal chains, to make Nemesis more than he had ever dreamed of becoming.
He began to force Antinous back to the ballroom, as if he had just realized what the other sanguinant’s caution implied. Again and again he battered at the patriarch, demanding retreat. Another sensation intruded, a brazen inner trumpet every child of the Blood knew intimately.
Dawn was nigh.
Now.The roar burst loose of Nemesis’s chest, every scrap of strength hoarded through the long night breaking free of constraint. Skating the thin blister-swelling edge of bloodcraze, dangerously close to the glut-rage yet not tipped into the whirlpool, balancing on a single spidersilk strand of her beautiful blue-sheened hair, the memory of his leman’s pulse against his fangs, the sweet hot velvet furnace, the throaty, desperate cries as she?—
