Spain

Spain

**of Note**

The old church tower loomed more ominously than should a place of worship. For mortals, the building might be where they came to be closer to God. For Lucita, it was a portal not to heaven but to torment. Yet she was here. She paused, delaying for a few more minutes the inevitable, that which she had held at bay for close to a century. She had sworn that she would never set foot inside the place again. Yet she was here. In her agitation at Talley and at the two different employers who had hired her to destroy Borges, she had convinced herself that she would return on her own terms. Now she was not so sure. And that infuriated her even more than the fact that she had broken her vow. So she waited, and grew angrier.

The brickwork of the church and the horseshoe arches, as throughout the entire city, spoke of Moorish influence, which reminded Lucita of another sore point. Fatima. How dare the Assamite tell Lucita face to face that her sire was a target, as if Lucita could do nothing about it? Why warn her, if not as a taunt? No, Lucita corrected herself. That was not Fatima's way. She wasn't one of the blowhards from the Camarilla, or even a Sabbat sociopath. Fatima was Assamite. Her way was arrogance. In her mind, Monçada was already as good as dead, because she had decided he should be. It was a done deal. So what was the harm of telling Lucita?

That was what bothered Lucita more than anything — the lack of respect. She'd bested Fatima before; she could do it again. The thought of Monçada's bloated body hacked to bits and smoldering away in the noonday sun did not distress Lucita. To the contrary. She found the image exhilarating, almost erotically so. Many were the times that she had imagined her own hands wrapped around his throat, squeezing until the corpulent folds of flesh bulged between her fingers, then twisting, wringing his neck, feeling the bones snap and twisting still...

Lucita found herself sweating a light sheen of blood. Her fingertips rested gently on her own neck.

She lowered her hands self-consciously to her sides. The streets were deserted, but who knew what spies of her sire's lurked nearby? There was no point in waiting any longer, she decided. If she stood there all night, she'd still have to go in when the sun rose.

"Well, goddammit," she muttered again, then changed her mind. "No. God damn me."

She pushed the door open and entered the church. Toward the front of the sanctuary, candles burned. Three elderly types, heads bowed, lips moving in silent prayer, knelt among the wooden pews. Lucita was glad that she'd never grow old, not physically. She didn't think that she could abide needing someone else to help her around, or the indignity of waiting for her body to gradually stop working. She wondered for a moment for whom the old folks were praying: themselves, asking God to ease their infirmity? Or were they praying for the souls of loved ones already passed?

Lucita snorted quietly in disgust. She knew damn well there was no one worth missing.

She moved along the edge of the sanctuary to a row of confessional booths and stepped into the third from the end. Instead of sitting, she stood and drummed her fingers against the screen that "Cocky bitch," Lucita muttered to herself. separated her from her confessor. The entire mortal charade had suddenly grown quite irritating.

There was a pause, and then the panel behind Lucita slid aside revealing a passageway leading into total shadow. She hesitated for the briefest instant before stepping into the lair of her sire.

"Welcome, my child," came the priest's voice.

"Let's cut the shit, padre. I've got places to be."

Friday, 24 September 1999, 2:17 AM Catacombs, Iglesia de San Nicolás de las Servitas Madrid, Spain Nib down into red ink, then tapped lightly to disembogue excess. Pen raised carefully yet confidently, then placed to parchment: 10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

With the last word and punctuation, the pen was dry, and another perfect verse was rendered.

Monçada dipped the pen again: 11 For by me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life.

The cardinal blew lightly on his handiwork, then blotted the page. He reached for a fresh sheet of parchment, but as he continued with the next verse, a faint sound of footsteps made its way to him — two sets of footsteps. A droplet of red ink dripped from the nib and splashed onto the new page. Monçada barely noticed. His hand began to quiver. By the time the door opened, he again was master of himself.

Cristobal was hesitant opening the door. He knew that his master did not like to be interrupted; he also knew that, in this case, he would be flogged within an inch of his pitiful life if he delayed.

Cristobal moved to the side and offered a prolonged genuflection, but Monçada hardly noticed his ghoul. In the doorway stood Lucita. Her enduring beauty, that which had led Monçada to bring her within the fold so that she might never wither, struck him mute. The thin fabrics she wore hugged her slender body closely. Her raven-black hair shone in the candlelight of the scriptorium.

Monçada returned the pen to its holder, lest his trembling return and the utensil give him away.

"My daughter," he whispered. "Please," he indicated the shadowy interior of the scriptorium, "enter."

Hesitantly, Lucita stepped forward. Cristobal, eyes still averted and back bent, shuffled backward out of the room and pulled the door closed. The sound of the heavy wooden door pulling to, the click of the latch, comforted Monçada, convinced him that the vision of beauty before him was his childe, not an ephemeral spirit that might dissolve into the ether. And she had come back to him.

"This is going to be an incredibly short visit if you insist on calling me that," Lucita said, raising a finger. Monçada almost flinched at her rebuke. He'd let himself forget the little games she liked to play. She nodded toward the parchment before him. "I can come back when you're done finger painting."

Monçada smiled. Despite her disrespect, her voice to him was the nightingale's song. "I am transcribing the scriptures," he told her, as if his appointed task could be mistaken. "I have come to an interesting verse: `A foolish woman is noisy; she is wanton and knows no shame.' The Proverbs can be most instructive."

Lucita clenched her jaw, and Monçada's smile widened. "What news do you bring from the New World? I hear it is very ... beautiful." As he spoke the last word, Monçada inspected Lucita from "My daughter," he said again.

"It'd be a lot better off without your Sabbat flunkies running all over the place." A certain coyness crept into her voice. "There's not quite as many of them now," she said, looking at the ceiling.

"Yes," Monçada said, "I have heard that you've been busy, for whatever your efforts are worth.

Still, you never were one for idleness. I like to believe that is my influence. `A child who gathers in summer is prudent, but a child who sleeps in harvest brings shame."' Lucita rolled her eyes. "Solomon is probably moaning in his grave — if he's in his grave. Or do you keep him around here somewhere to play tennis on the weekends?"

Monçada let his smile slip away, and with it some of his patience. After all, he'd been patient already for many years. "`When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is prudent."' Lucita nodded, mockingly impressed. "You're quite good. A verse for every occasion. We could rent you out for parties. But I'll tell you what, here's a tidbit from the New World for you: Your stooge Vykos is playing both sides against the middle."

"Indeed. While she was pretending to run around being your lap dog, she was also busy hiring me to destroy Borges. Anonymously, of course. But the information I was fed was all from the inside, and her war ghouls crashed in on Talley just a bit too conveniently. Talley must have figured it out, unless he was too busy sulking about being second best." Lucita rocked triumphantly on her heels.

"First, as for Talley," said Monçada, "he did come to that same conclusion. And second, as for Vykos hiring you to destroy Borges ... of course it did. I instructed it to do so!" Monçada could not help laughing at Lucita's obvious shock. "Why do you think it chose you? For a reason as petty as to cause me embarrassment? Come now. You value yourself much too highly, but perhaps that is because I have spoiled you. No, I had Vykos seek you out, and you performed magnificently."

Monçada again let his gaze wash over her. "You are beautiful, my daughter. I must admit that the immodest modern fashions agree with you."

Lucita broke away from his gaze and looked at herself, suddenly growing self-conscious as well as angry at having been duped. Then she looked back at him, her face flushed and twisted into a scowl. She raised her finger again to instruct her sire. "Listen. I'm only going to say this once: I... am... not... your... fucking... daughter."

Monçada pursed his lips, nodded slowly. His mirth drained away until completely vanished. "You are absolutely correct-you are only going to say that once." He stepped from behind the workbench and opened his arms. "Now, come to me... my daughter."

She resisted him as long as she could. She stood stiff-legged, hands clenched into fists, jaw set.

Monçada waited, arms outstretched. After a few seconds, her right foot, as if pried physically from the ground, moved forward. And then the left. She was an awkward infant taking her first steps, coming to the welcoming arms of her father. head to toe.

"Indeed?" said Monçada, eyebrows raised.

Still she fought, though there was no hope of victory, of overcoming his indomitable will. She forced a word out with each step: "God... damn... you!"

Monçada ignored the obvious repartee that he was already quite damned, and instead searched his memory for the appropriate Proverb: "`Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.' I forgive you, my daughter."

A few more pained steps and she was in his arms. Monçada crushed her against his girth-So many nights, so many years, he had waited to feel her embrace. She had come home to him, and she would take her rightful place at his side as he embarked upon the greatest calling of his long existence.

He pressed her head against his chest and, drifting into bliss as he was, only belatedly heard her curses and insults: "...will kill you."

"`The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off."' "`The fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short'!"

"` He who guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin'!" The tremors were returning to his hands. Monçada held his daughter more tightly, but that helped little.

This was not how he'd imagined their reunion.

Monçada was shaking, trembling with fury. He took Lucita's shoulders roughly in his meaty hands and lifted her from the ground. "`Like a gold ring in a swine's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion'!"

Lucita spat in his face. He squeezed until he heard bones snap, then threw her to the floor. Her head bounced violently on the stones. Monçada turned to his sturdy workbench, ripped it apart with his bare hands, found a long piece of solid wood.

Again and again he beat her. Long after her insults had ceased, he crushed the sneer from her face, pounded her back and head. His body vented the fury of years, the pain of abandonment, and all the while he quoted words of righteousness to her: "`The mouths of fools feed on folly'! `There is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way'!" He beat her until her insolent clothes were "Hush, hush, my childe."

"Miserable... fucking... bastard."

"Son... Of... a..."

"Fuck you... fuck you... fuck you..."

"Fucking sonuva..."

"`A rod is for the back of him who lacks sense'!"

He slammed the makeshift club across her spine.

"By insolence the heedless make strife'!" shredded and lay about her in tatters. "`...That one may avoid the snares of death'!"

He beat her until, finally, he raised his club into the air but held the next blow. It was over.

Monçada stood above her, staring vacantly, spent, stunned by the divine peace that swept over him. The fury was purged from his being. He dropped the remnant of the workbench to the floor beside his bloodied childe. Her eyes were closed, mouth agape, blood draining from it.

For a moment, Monçada savored the sensation of having hugged her to him. He stared at her bruised body. Cristobal would need to see that she was made comfortable, provided new clothes.

Absently, he turned from her. He picked up his most recent sheet of parchment and tsked at the spilled drop of ink. Then, still vaguely distracted, he walked from the chamber and pulled closed behind him the door of the scriptorium.

Friday, 24 September 1999, 11:20 PM The Presidential Hotel Washington, D.C.

All was silent in the sixth-floor penthouse suite until Ravenna/Parmenides whirled and flung his oaken cane. He whipped the throw so that, instead of spiraling like a spear, the brass ferrule and handle tumbled end over end with deceptive accuracy. The irregular flight would confuse the typical kafir and prevent him from blocking the attack. In the same motion as the throw, Parmenides triggered the latch that released the spike to protrude from the ferrule.

The spiked tip thudded into the center of an armchair's back, running the piece through and knocking it over. The next sweeping motion of Parmenides's arm sent a dagger toward a landscape print on the opposite wall. Before that weapon had even struck its target, he lashed out at two marble busts with a weighted length of razor wire that, the instant before, had been concealed in the hem of his pullover.

The heads of both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony toppled to the floor. The pedestals upon which they'd rested, upper torsos still attached, tottered but remained upright.

Parmenides surveyed his handiwork. If only he had one more chance at Marcus Vitel, the deposed prince of Washington would not escape. But Vykos had sent her faux-ghoul against the venerable Ventrue before Parmenides had fully healed from the experiments she had conducted and the transformation she had wrought. How could she have hoped for him to succeed? She had overestimated his recovery.

In other ways, she had underestimated him. Tonight, for instance, his hands were idle, and why?

Because Councilor Vykos had relieved him of his duties with the Tremere siege. She said that she didn't want to dull his senses with such tedium. Did she not realize that a childe of Haqim could observe a potential target for countless nights, for years if necessary, and remain every bit as alert and diligent as he had been the first night? Was this another of her subtly barbed taunts, or did she have some grand scheme in mind?

"Maids will have their work cut out for them," said the voice that Parmenides had come to recognize almost as well as his own. Parmenides cocked his head. All summer this voice had acted as messenger, from the first night that Parmenides was just remembering, when he'd failed to destroy Vitel, till the present time. The voice was soft and kindly like whispering moonlight. "I bring a message," it said.

Parmenides listened carefully. With the exception of that first night that seemed so long ago, the voice had always sought news to take back to those whom it called Parmenides's masters. Unusual as the voice's announcement was, Parmenides was more intent upon the very sound of the voice itself, the tones that caused his ear to prick up. So closely did he listen, that he could almost feel the rippling of the air as the sound passed.

"You bring news?" Parmenides asked. "Are you not confused?"

"I am not confused, young Assamite," said the voice, the slightest trace of humor apparent.

"And I am not so young," said Parmenides. He moved slowly away from the center of the suite toward the pierced landscape print. He paused, changed direction. "Are you so old?"

"Old enough to know when a hunter tracks the sound of my voice."

Parmenides halted. He was indeed trying to follow the voice, to trace its direction, but each way he turned it sounded no closer. Parmenides laughed. "Old enough to play your voice like a huntsman's whistle, while the young pup chases his tail in circles."

"Would you have me show myself, young Assamite? Do you wish me to grow no older?"

"I do wish you to show yourself," Parmenides said to the empty room. "I have no reason to harm you."

Parmenides shrugged. "Our masters wish us to work in concert. I would not defy them. And if that is not enough guarantee of your safety, I give you my word."

There was a long pause before the voice responded: "I pity you — you who have been given over to fiends. I will face you. Come into the lavatory."

Pity? Parmenides wondered at that, but he moved toward the closest bathroom. As he stood in the doorway, scanning the spacious facilities, he couldn't help glancing in rapt fascination at the porcelain fixtures. He'd heard so many stories about the comings and goings of the monstrous Nosferatu, of their warped proclivities. They lived in the sewers. Could the messenger take that route?

But then a quiet scrabbling caught his notice, not from the toilet but from the tiny fan recessed in the ceiling. The cover of the fan shook just a little. A moment later, it was detached from the ceiling and suspended two or three inches below. Slowly the fan unit lowered, and Parmenides could see that it was held by... a hand? But the fingers, if fingers they were, were too few, as well as elongated. The long, painfully thin hand emerged, then a wrist no thicker than a single bone, and a forearm.

Parmenides could not fathom what he saw. The opening where the fan had been attached was no more than six inches square. Was the messenger going to unlatch a larger, secret portal? Surely it couldn't hope to...

The rest of a long, emaciated arm followed. In the light, Parmenides could see that the skin was scaly in patches and dark, dark green. Then the surreal scene grew stranger still. A misshapen, bulbous joint — a shoulder — wriggled through the opening. And then the head began. It seemed to fill the opening, but then somehow contracted like a deflated ball. The wrinkled crown crossed the threshold and expanded again, filling out somewhat. The rest of the head passed similarly, slowly rippling. Parmenides steadied himself against the doorframe. He wondered if perhaps the message needn't be delivered in person after all.

Even when the head was through, Parmenides wasn't sure exactly how the chest fit. The ribcage seemed to compress, to fold in on itself. He kept ex "My blood is not reason enough, young pup?" pecting to hear bones grating or the pop of joints though in truth, much less time had passed than Parmenides at first believed, so engrossed was he in that which was literally unfolding before him. At last, with one dexterous foot still grasping the edge of the opening, the messenger was able to stretch all the way to the floor. He seemed a long string of body parts only inadvertently connected — drawn-out limbs and over-sized joints. His eyes were small and black and almost lost among the splotchiness of his irregularly bulging cranium; his nose and mouth would have been delicate on a beautiful woman, but seemed disconcertingly out of place on this misaligned, cadaverous heap.

A few seconds more and the messenger was squatting on the floor, his spindly arms hugging his folded legs to his chest. Those parts of his body not covered with scales were darkened by severe bruising.

"Greetings, young Assamite," said the same kindly voice, now somehow originating from the creature before Parmenides. "I am Jon Courier."

"Well named and well met," the Assamite said stiffly. "You may call me Parmenides." The creature already knew that. His -kind supposedly knew everything. And though the voice was still gentle, the eyes watched Parmenides as if he were a predator.

"Vykos is away for the evening," Parmenides said, hoping to ease the beast's agitation. "We are alone."

Courier nodded. He looked as if his spine and neck had trouble holding his head aloft. Perhaps he was more at home in the tight crawl spaces of city and sewer. Indeed, he appeared at a loss sitting there, huddled in the middle of the cold bathroom floor. Then, just as Parmenides had these thoughts, Courier reached out a hand. Parmenides's instinct was to step back; he checked his response and held his ground. He was too far away for the creature to reach him.

But Courier did reach him. The hand kept coming, the arm stretching out to the doorway. The assassin froze, gripped by a revulsion as deep as that he'd felt upon awaking mid-experiment and finding Vykos tinkering with his internal physiology. The hand came closer — mottled green, purple, and black; thick, shingled skin and deep bruises. Finally, it came to rest on his forearm.

Thumb and three fingers, one half as long as it should have been, stroked the hair on Parmenides's arm. Courier seemed slightly bemused. Then, more quickly than he'd reached out, the Nosferatu withdrew its hand, and a crinkled piece of paper rested on Parmenides's arm.

He took and unfolded the paper. It was a soup label peeled from a can, but on the back were scrawled the names of two streets, an intersection not too far from the hotel.

"Go there," Courier said. He seemed calmer for having touched Parmenides, or maybe the fact that the message was now delivered comforted the creature. Without waiting for a reply, Courier uncoiled his body and easily reached the opening in the ceiling. He thrust a hand through first and pulled himself upward. Not until his skull had collapsed and slipped through the hole did his second foot leave the floor. In the other foot he held the fan unit. In a matter of seconds, the dislocating, but the passing occurred in virtual silence.

After the torso, it went much more quickly; cover was reattached, and Parmenides stood alone in the bathroom. There was no sign of the creature's brief visit; none, at least, other than the goosebumps still standing on Parmenides's skin.

He gave another look at the sink and toilet-those receptacles that Vykos only used to dispose of liquefied flesh that she no longer had a purpose for — then closed the door.

The gray Land Cruiser pulled to the curb within seconds of Parmenides reaching the intersection.

A flurry of thoughts rushed through his mind as he stepped deliberately toward the vehicle. He had little reason to suspect treachery. If Vykos desired him destroyed, there were simpler ways.

That did not rule out the possibility of betrayal from Vykos's putative Sabbat allies, if one wished to move against the new archbishop of Washington. But why go to such trouble to eliminate a mere ghoul? Parmenides felt confident that none had seen through the Ravenna charade.

Unless Courier was not what he professed to be. Or not who he claimed, at least. There was no doubt what he was. Nosferatu. But it was he who had contacted Parmenides; it was he also who had asserted his role as go-between for the Assamite and his masters. There were Nosferatu that served the Sabbat. Had Courier duped him?

Parmenides watched as Ravenna's hand reached for the door handle. No interior light shone when he opened the door.

Parmenides did so and pulled the door shut. The car was in motion immediately, pulling away from the curb quickly but not recklessly, nor with so much haste as to draw attention.

"Your sire sends his greetings," said the driver, still obscured by darkness though Parmenides was only a meter away.

"My sire...? She went to her Final Death nearly two hundred years ago." It was the type of test of non--confirmation that Parmenides would expect, but which, in the end, proved nothing. The Tzimisce were capable of replacing a contact with a credible doppelgänger, or of uncovering many secrets through torture. This driver could be a forgery-and if truly a child of Haqim, undoubtedly was skeptical of Parmenides's identity.

But then the darkness faded away within the car, and sitting across from him was... "Fatima."

Fatima al-Faqadi. Parmenides, though he hated to admit so even to himself, was surprised. That Fatima, most highly regarded of the brotherhood, assassin without peer, should be here could only mean that he had been chosen for great deeds.

"It is strange..." she said, "to see you with this other face, and voice."

Parmenides nodded. "And not altogether pleasant, even for myself."

In those first seconds, his trained eye took in every detail of Fatima. She wore a loose, long-sleeved shirt over close-fitting pants, with her dark hair pulled back. She had been sitting with only one hand on the steering wheel, but now she casually raised her left hand to the wheel as well. Her eyes were in constant motion, not jerking about nervously but scanning calmly like a bird of prey, "Get in," said the driver, obscured by darkness.