"Come," the lady said, "sit and tarry with me a while, traveler, for it had been long since any of your ilk have been seen beneath my roof, and I would not be thought an ill hostess."
"Thank you," Shido replied. She extended her hand and he bowed low over it. "But how may I address you?" he asked, finding himself matching the formality and courtliness of her speech almost instinctively. "I fear that I have come all this way as if beckoned by a dream, and having arrived I know not where I have come."
She gestured to a seat beside herself.
"This is by no means an unexpected circumstance, good sir. Join me, and I shall seek to ease your mind."
There was no refusing her gentle command; Shido circled the table and sat down beside her. The velvet cushions were luxurious, comfortably cradling his body. Beneath them, the feast went on, the costumed revelers heartily eating and drinking.
"You are a most generous hostess, milady, to so share your bounty with your people, low and great alike," Shido ventured.
She smiled in return, and he reflected that, other than the innkeeper, she was the first person he had met in this city who was fully unmasked, without even a delicate domino on a stick to be held coquettishly before her eyes.
Beneath her table the beasts shifted, as if they scented Shido's presence and were unsure what the proper response should be.
"There is nothing I savor so much," his hostess told him, "as life, and the rich living of it. That is why Carnival-time is my favorite. Everyone abandons all pretense and, donning a mask, seeks to indulge fully all the desires that during the rest of the year are kept trapped inside by reticence, propriety, and fear. A life lost might be sad, but a life wasted, left unlived, is a tragedy beyond measure. For why are humans born, if not to live? Why do we exist," she cried passionately, "if not for the sake of life?"
"Your subjects seem to agree with you," Shido told her, thinking of what he'd seen and heard in the city. "You've managed to bring your love of Carnival to them."
She smiled at him.
"You are kind."
The hounds slipped from beneath the table, snuffling the air. They ignored Shido entirely, their movements smooth and flowing as they descended the dais and passed out through the hall.
"But what is wrong, milady?" he asked. "Although you smile at me, I can see sorrow in your eyes."
"Sir, I–"
"Please, if I touch on private matters that are none of my concern, then I apologize, but I could not help but notice that despite your obvious pleasure in the Carnival revels, you are troubled." The antique phrasing came easily and naturally to him; Shido would have felt any other mode of speech to be crude and inappropriate for the setting.
The lady's face turned faintly wistful, as if by Shido's speaking of her feelings she could set them free.
"I..."
She glanced aside, blushing.
"You will think me a fool."
"Never that," Shido answered her.
"I am surrounded by gaiety," she said, "but I never take part myself. I do not only want to help others to live to the fullest. I am not so selfless as that! I want my own dreams, my own passions!"
She looked up into Shido's eyes, her own wide and yearning. A strand of hair had escaped and dangled down her cheek; she brushed it back but as she did so, her fingers lightly skimmed along the side of her neck. The gesture riveted him; he could not look away, somehow. The soft skin, the long, sleek curve, the faint pulse in her throat. Again Shido felt himself assailed by memories, one crowding upon another, but there was more to it. Something was awakening within him, changing him. He felt a mask falling away, not the one on his face but something more profound. The force of a terrible hunger seemed to be coming forth, as yet nameless desires but ones Shido could feel, that would soon have their way with him, will he or nil he.
The golden lady smiled up at him, but he did not see the terrible yearning in her eyes, for he could not take his gaze away from her sleek, white throat.
-X X X-
Riho sprinted from rooftop to rooftop, her steps quick and sure on the steep sloped and slippery tiles. Lightly, she sprang from peak to peak without apparent effort. From the streets below, and occasionally trying to climb up to meet her, came the rattle and clatter of marionette limbs, but the creatures had no chance against her. Only by swarming her with numbers did they have any chance at beating the vampire, and Riho was moving too fast and staying too far out of their reach for them to have any hope of that.
In very little time, she had reached the edge of the golden glow. There, everything changed. For a distance of two or three blocks around the palace, the city had come alive. Instead of dead silence, there was music and laughter, and instead of weird marionettes, there were people. Lamps and torches blazed, and a frenzy of merriment seemed to grip the crowd. It was as if Riho had walked into an entirely different world. The lit area, though, seemed to be growing smaller, the lamps and torches at its fringe steadily if slowly going out one by one, and at least part of the riddle explained itself.
Riho was perched on a roof just over a street-lamp set with royal blue glass. Beneath it, a costumed young couple embraced one another with hungry kisses, making her want to look away. In the next instant, though, the lamp's flame guttered out and the shadows ate another twenty or thirty feet of the city. As the darkness fell, so did the couple; what had in the light been a rakishly handsome young man and a slightly plump, curvaceous girl became two more faceless, featureless marionettes, which Riho could only tell apart by their clothing.
She wanted to scream, and choked it off only at the last moment. There was no time to be horror-stricken and give way to fear, as much as the plight of these people frightened her. She had to find Shido, before he, too, fell victim to the same fate.
If he hadn't already.
No!
Riho hadn't noticed the two dark shapes that detached themselves from the palace and leapt to the nearest rooftop, but when she turned back from the street to continue the journey she saw them bounding towards her quickly enough. They were long and low, running on four legs like hounds, but they were by no means dogs, as she saw when they were only a few houses away. At least, not unless there was a dog with a body six feet long, black and brushed with scales, with hips and hind legs shaped like a great cat's, with foreclaws that were long and spread nearly like hands, with a narrow ribbon of forked pink tongue and three eyes that burned a pale lavender.
These weren't more toys or puppets. These were night breeds. Riho had never tried to fight one-on-one before against a breed, let alone two at once.
"I wish Mr. Shido was here!" she whispered fearfully, but then there was no more time for talk, Riho bit her finger and sprayed the blood-droplets at the nearer breed. The drops swelled into missiles, bursting against the roof and in a couple of occasions striking against the monster's body.
The second breed, though, was almost upon Riho even as she summoned up the bloodsword again. It swept at her with a foreclaw, and she was just able to dodge back far enough for it to miss–except at the last moment, its inch-long talons snapped out into eight-inch blades that sliced four vertical swipes down her chest through her dress and cutting into the flesh beneath. She screamed in pain and lashed down with the bloodsword in a reflexive attempt to fend the breed off. The blow connected solidly with its side and knocked the night breed tumbling back, right off the roof.
Riho's wounds burned, reminding her of an earlier injury, of the pain from a similar slice from a similar claw. She'd been cut open, left to bleed out, forcing her to choose between death and asking Shido to bring her into unlife. How eager she'd been then to rush into eternity, without any concept of what it really meant.
You could make up for it, a traitorous little voice whispered to her. You could let the breed kill you. Then there would be no pain, no heartache, no loss, only peace.
But she didn't want to die, she thought as the first breed attacked her and she parried desperately with the bloodsword. That hadn't been the decision she'd regretted. She'd had the chance to walk away from all this, from Shido and night breeds and vampirism. He'd warned her that staying with him would eventually lead her off the decent path. But she'd stayed by his side, because nothing was more important to her than being with him. She'd even dreamed of one day making the change, of being with Shido forever, a literal happily ever after. That was where reality fell apart for her and left her with only the cold ashes of her hopes.
Did Shido even know what she'd given up? Did he know she'd given it up for him?
"You are not going to take him from me!" she screamed defiantly at the night breed, blocking its next assault.
It was easier said than done, though. Riho's youth as a vampire didn't just count against her in terms of power, but because Shido had centuries of experience fighting breeds while she had virtually none. Her brain wasn't used to reacting with all the supernatural speed her body could manage. When the breed's tongue wrapped around her leg, Riho didn't realize she could use the bloodsword to cut free until it had already flipped her through the air to crash on her back on the roof, breaking shingles and raising a cloud of dust. It then pounced, spearing at her with all four of its clawed paws. Riho only managed to roll aside at the last second, feeling the slight tug as a claw plucked at her hair ribbon.
When the second breed reappeared on the roof, the rent in its side hissing forth lavender steam, she knew it was time to run. If she couldn't find Shido to help her, the odds of her winning the fight weren't good.
She pivoted and sprang, just ahead of the breed's attack. As she landed and leapt again, another tongue-lash just missed her ankle. It seemed like she covered the last couple of city blocks in seconds. At last she reached the central plaza and had made the last jump–only to realize that she stood no chance at all of clearing the broad open space before her. The fall probably wouldn't do much damage, but she would end up precisely in the middle of a seething, clattering mass of marionettes. Even if they didn't finish her, she'd certainly be left open for the breeds to finish the job.
In desperation, Riho bit down on her finger and called on her blood again, this time transforming it into a long, thin coil, a whip which she hurled at the palace. The bloodwhip lashed around a cornice, coming to full extension, and instead of falling she began to swing. Riho pulled herself up on the whip hand over hand, shortening the arc so that she soared over the dolls' clutching hands. She landed lightly on a second-floor window ledge, outside a fanciful latticework of steel and glass. Safe–for the moment. The breeds were still in pursuit, though, so she smashed through the window and sprang inside.
Even here, inside towering halls with mosaiced tile floors, the darkness was encroaching, candles guttering out one by one. Riho ran down the hall, following the vanishing light towards what she felt must be the core of this strange world within the painting. She rounded two turns, then burst out onto a landing overlooking a great feast hall. Lights around the chamber were going out as well, so that at the far end of the long banquet tables shadows were consuming people, and marionettes collapsed next to people who continued to carouse without apparent notice–or care–of what was beside them.
And at the head table...
"Mr. Shido!" Riho gasped aloud. He was wearing a small mask over his eyes and outlandish clothing better suited to eighteenth-century Europe, but it was unmistakably him. He was bending over an extraordinarily beautiful woman who wore a dress fit for a queen. Her head arched back, baring her neck.
From far above, the clock tower began to chime, its deep peals announcing the coming of midnight.
Shido's lips met the woman's throat, and his jaw flexed as he bit down. A trickle of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth, sliding down along the woman's collarbone and into her bodice. Her hand rose up, cupping the back of his head, her eyelids fluttering as her lips parted in an ecstatic sigh.
The bells pealed on.
"SHIDO!"