Arabesk was known as the City of the Five Academies. The youngest upstart among the institutions of higher learning had only stood for seven hundred and fifty-six years and was widely regarded by the other universities as a breeding ground for childish pranks and wild ideas in lieu of serious academia.
This was where Arne dragged himself after a slow, tired breakfast and an unhurried trip to the public steam baths to relax and unknot his still bruised and weary body.
His contacts at the university were extremely proficient at research of all kinds and uniquely bribable. They were also quite outside the normal network of informants and had often provided him with an edge his competition didn’t expect. They also had friends to call upon, in this case specifically people in languages and history, so he could perhaps get an idea of what the Family was chanting, what the strange squid like carvings on the altar meant and what the animal masks were supposed to signify.
Any information could be an advantage. …And he had quickly added an enquiry on the morphology of vampires into the mix of things he needed information on. And the means of extinguishing said vampires, in case he should happen to need that at a later date.
The rest of the day was spent personally bribing his way through government officials to try to figure out who owned and ran and paid taxes on the house the Family had bought, a dreary task he would normally assign to others in his network but privacy was dear to his heart in this case. Then he made sure his business was running smoothly and that the goods procured reached the correct destination and that the target that needed to be removed was in fact removed.
When he finally made it to the tavern where they were supposed to meet at sunset, he stopped before entering the private room and took a moment to listen to his ‘companions’.
“Were they happy with that?” came Dia's voice.
“I don’t know.” Toog sounded a little uncertain. “I mean, they died soon after, so I didn’t really bother checking.”
Arne closed his eyes, hoping against hope that nothing stupid and damaging had happened during the day. “Who died?” he asked casually as he entered and took a seat. This was more pressing than overhearing things. For now.
“The criminals. I’m a faithful of the Family, remember?” Toog said. “I went to the executions today to watch people get strangled. And hug them. With the others from the temple.”
“Alright. Did you learn anything?” Arne asked, relieved those that died were outside the sphere of interest to their current investigation.
“When people are strangled, they die? I already knew that, though.” Toog shrugged.
Arne looked at Dia.
“Oh, I had nothing I needed to do, so don’t give me that look. I spent my time trying not to see orange anymore, a problem which you two ass-gnats happily ignored yesterday,” Dia said pointedly.
“Right. How was the orange, by the way?” Toog asked.
Dia saluted everyone with her middle finger.
“I spent the day looking into the money trail. Hopefully, we’ll get an answer on that soon,” Arne continued before things got shouty.
“Right, last night!” Toog stated. “I decided not to go to sleep, so when the others at the temple drifted off, I went into the ritual hall.”
“They don’t lock it? What kind of a sloppy not-quite-death-cult are they?” Dia asked, disgusted.
“The kind that uses open friendliness to throw you off?” Arne suggested.
“So, I went to the altar and looked,” Toog continued, “but if there was a secret room or something, I couldn’t find it. Then I went to the room at the back and listened, and I heard voices in there, but couldn’t make out the words. So I knocked.”
“…Right. As one does.” Arne just nodded. Whatever strange and disastrous methods the others brought to the table were really on the Queen, not on him.
“One of the Officiants answered. I told him I couldn’t sleep and was having nightmares and he blessed me and said I should join the good works, which I realised meant criminal-hugging. So when I said I was already going, we chatted a bit and I learned that there is Family in other cities and towns, too. He mentioned some place called Ester? And Rasheed? He sounded like there were some other places, too.”
“Estrin,” Arne clarified. “Large city northeast of here. It takes a caravan roughly thirty days to get to Estrin from here. Rasheed is about two weeks out. Northwest along the coast.”
Toog shrugged.
“Well, that’s good confirmation that we are dealing with a bigger organisation. I don’t think they have reason to lie about that,” Arne nodded.
“What did you see in the room? We’re talking about the place where the berry disappeared from, right?” Dia asked Toog.
“It was quiet as soon as he opened. And there was nothing in there. There were a couple of lamps on the walls, and I couldn’t see all of the room, so I’m not sure how big it was, but the part I could see was just walls, lamps and nothing else. No windows, no furniture.”
Arne thought it over. He kept coming to a stop when the magic was concerned, and he had no idea how to plan for it or with it. He looked up and realised Dia and Toog were looking at him. “What?”
“This is usually where you tell us to do something as though you believed you were in charge,” Dia said.
“We only just met, there is no ‘usually’ yet,” he protested.
“A couple of orgies goes a long way towards making a ‘usual’ stick,” Toog commented calmly.
“I don’t know what to do now.” Arne shrugged. “It’s all a magic thing, isn’t it? Not my expertise. We know they can sense your magic, Dia, since they told you to stop shielding yourself yesterday? But we also know they didn’t react to the berry, unless the reaction was to push her into …you said another plane of existence? Or scattering her? And I don’t even know if you meant that or if it was a joke. All of that? Magic! Not my expertise. So, what should we do?”
Dia stared at him with narrowed eyes for a moment before giving Toog the same treatment. “I don’t know. I’m brute strength, remember? I vote we just kill everyone and level their temples wherever we find them. Done deal.”
“That works,” Toog said.
“Alright. But if they are a not quite death cult working to do… whatever they are working to do, then won’t they have defences?” Arne asked. “Does it seem likely that three people can just go temple to temple and eradicate them?”
“I am very brute strength,” Dia just emphasised.
“I’m not in any doubt. But what our… undead, probably vampire said was that they are hiding something, and she wanted us to infiltrate the Family to find out what they were hiding. Only then did she want us to solve the problem. To me, that sounds like she herself didn’t actually know precisely what question to ask.” Arne shrugged. “I’m not saying I’m not scared of meeting her monster friend again, but I think we may be assuming she knows things already when she doesn’t.”
“You should go ask her,” Toog said.
“Maybe we should go ask her,” Arne agreed meaningfully.
“No, you. I agree,” Dia stated. “You go report to her and ask her what she wants. How we should proceed. You’re the charm, remember?”
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“Her precise term for me was planning and organising. Charm is not my function! If it were, we would not be having this conversation in this tone!” he argued.
“I don’t know what to do,” Toog said, shrugging. “I think you should go ask her, so you can plan and organise. And you better do it quick before I turn into a Family cultist and blow our cover.”
o-0-o
Arguing for yet another hour ended up exactly as useless as expected. Arne also recognised that whatever it was about the magic, it didn’t make sense to the others either. So, a report was in order. Although he hated asking for orders. But on the other hand, admitting that he had no authority in whether or not a monster was sent out to murder him was counterintuitively …almost soothing. A few moments of not having the habitually crushing responsibility for the situation and everyone in it.
Undead, probably vampires were nocturnal, that much he knew, or at least felt safe assuming. Though the first meeting had been just after noon. So maybe he shouldn’t assume too much. Vaguely wondering about vampire protocol, and ignoring it, he knocked. The door opened on the darkness like last time, and he assumed, when nothing else happened, that he was allowed to enter.
The doorman looked blank and dead at him when he did.
“I’m here to make a report,” he simply said, keeping himself calm.
Lerr the doorman lowered his head a bit so they were at eye height. “The others are dead already, I take it.”
“No,” he said, holding the dark, empty gaze and volunteering nothing further.
Finally, the doorman stood up straight. “The Mistress is enjoying her sustenance at the moment. I will let her know you are here.”
He left and Arne forced himself to wait calmly, staring at the happily bubbling fountain. There were too many fountains in his life at the moment. This and the Family’s laurel scented giggle-grope one.
“The Mistress, surprisingly, will see you.” Lerr stood in the doorway and when Arne followed, he was led to a large copper inlaid door. Lerr stared at him for a moment, impossible to read. Then he silently opened the door and stood aside.
The room Arne entered was smaller than he expected. It was almost cosy, with a more private feel to it with the soft chair, a side table with a colourful vase of flowers and an open book, and the elaborately carved wall of bookshelves; cosy, that is… horror aside.
The Queen stood looking at him, a tiny smile in the corner of her pink lips. She wore a finely wrought golden collar around her elegant neck and a long length of purple silk was fastened through a loop in it, snaking down around her petite hourglass figure in a casual, utterly captivating way to form a dress fastened only by a fragile looking gold belt around her round hips.
On a low table, so they were a little lower than head height for the Queen, two very young women, clearly identical twins, with smooth red hair, were kneeling back-to-back, naked and bound both to each other and the table. Both were clearly terrified, eyes wide in horror, and Arne suspected they would be screaming and panicking if not for whatever force aside from the ropes that held them immobile. Tears were streaming down their cheeks, and the one closest to him sent him a heartrending look of pleading terror.
He held the doomed young woman’s gaze for a moment and then forced himself to look away. Not quite to the Queen yet, he needed a few seconds to gather his wits. He looked to a large, polished dining table that stood in one side of the room, with only one chair at the end of it. Quite a normal sight. Then he noticed the solid leather restraints for arms, legs and chest drilled into the tabletop and felt a sliver of something break permanently somewhere in his sense of security.
Nothing for it, back to the vampire. He met her pale green gaze, and she gave him a knowing little smile.
He forced himself to take a few steps closer to her, so the doorman could close the door behind him if that was required. “I’m here to report, Your Majesty.”
“I assume that means you’ve already made progress. Not that your companions have gotten themselves killed.” She still smiled sweetly at him, a hand absentmindedly caressing the slender arm of one of the twins. The girl’s skin had been broken, he noticed now that he had a different angle because he was closer, at the back of the shoulder. He couldn’t fully see the wound, but a trickle of blood had traced down over her arm.
“Your Majesty, I would of course have been hauling my companions’ corpses here if that were the case.”
“Of course you would, Arnor Grenn. You take orders so well.”
He forcefully kept the need to give an instinctual reply down, keeping his voice level. “We are now relatively familiar with the layout of the house and the Family’s daytime activities. We have gone to some of their ceremonies.”
“Indeed,” she smiled broadly, serrated teeth showing. “I understand they are quite physical. Well, I did assume you to be thoroughly serene about getting your hands and other parts of your anatomy dirty, when I chose you. As I understand it, they were in fact all quite filthy before you agreed to work for me.”
Arne gave her a small polite bow. “I clearly cannot hold a candle to your expertise.”
“Sweet of you to notice, Arne. Do excuse me a moment. I’m positively famished.”
He watched her, carefully minding his expression and stance to be as blank and unaffected as he could muster, though he was certain his heart must be about to burst from the speed with which it thundered. The vampire swept one of the twins’ hair away in a gentle caress, ignoring his presence in the room. Her slender fingers tangled into the young woman’s hair, slowly tilting her head slightly back, baring the throat. The victim sent him a look of absolute horror, knowing what was coming, unable to move, unable to do anything but receive her horrible death without a fight.
It was like watching a snake unhinge its jaws to make room for a mouse, in a sense. Not that the vampire did that, but when her serrated teeth effortlessly broke skin, he saw how she drank the violent rush of blood escaping the deep wound without needing to swallow or breathe. There were no gulps like a person drinking. It was as if the dainty, beautiful woman just absorbed the forceful gushes of blood that poured forth.
And he couldn’t look away.
The entirety of the scene burned itself into his mind with full hideous clarity. The victim’s eyes, he knew she would have screamed out her agony and terror if she could. He saw the light and life slowly fade in her gaze. He saw the vampire’s elegant, feminine hand gently brush over the victim’s skin, running playfully along her collar bone and down to caress a naked breast.
Arne was desperate to find her hideous. He wanted her to look like a monster as much as he knew she was, but as she effortlessly absorbed the blood that rushed forth, fresh warm pink blossomed in her cheeks and he could almost sense from small subtle movements she made how her body loosened up, joints much more supple and moveable.
He saw how the life was quickly draining from the young woman, her naked skin had grown pale compared to her sister’s behind her. And then the vampire suddenly moved, lightning quick, stepping to the side so the last sticky gushes of blood didn’t hit her, and violently twisted the young woman’s head around with a loudly audible crunch-pop.
Arne flinched involuntarily and clenched his teeth to remain immovable where he stood. The victim’s head had been twisted around so severely that she was now facing the back of her sister’s head. …Until the vampire untangled her fingers from the young woman’s hair and the head twisted back to hang floppily and hideously down towards the chest in an absolute parody of a restful repose.
The Queen closed her eyes and stretched her arms over her head, in what seemed like joy. Then she smilingly opened her eyes to look at him, running her hands down her waist as if to straighten her purple dress.
“Ahh, a meal can be so invigorating, don’t you agree?” she smiled. Then she softly petted the remaining girl’s copper hair and went to sit in the soft chair, looking expectantly up at Arne. “So, you have been to a few orgies, I’m certain that was interesting. But that cannot be all you have to report, can it?”
He took a second to find his voice again. “No,” he said, somehow managing to sound infinitely calmer than he felt. “We found out they use the ritual sex to funnel energy off from the participants to something else which we have yet to discover.”
She raised a delicate dark eyebrow, urging him on, her full attention still on him.
“Right now,” Arne continued, holding her gaze so he didn’t have to look at the hideously lolling head of the dead woman chained to her still breathing twin sister, “the people with knowledge of magic seem unsure how to process without either levelling the building or waiting months for Toog to be inducted into the priesthood. I don’t suppose either of those options are to your liking?”
“Arne.” She simply said his name matter-of-factly and looked pointedly at him. “Are you genuinely unsure how to proceed, or are you here mostly to have some alone time with me?”
She straightened up in the chair when he only raised an eyebrow, not sure how to proceed.
“Perhaps Dia really could level the temple, but that’s not what I asked for, is it?” she continued. “So,” she held out a finger near the vase on the table and then quietly and calmly pushed it off the edge, holding his gaze. It smashed to the intricately tiled floor with a brittle sound. “What are you afraid of? Breaking some porcelain? Because I know for a fact that you are otherwise capable of using very thorough violence like a precision tool.”
“I didn’t think you would be happy with that since you asked for infiltration,” he said.
“This will likely surprise you, but I trust you to make whatever sensible choice the situation requires.” She picked up the book on the side table and looked at him. “You are capable of making choices, aren’t you?”
“I am. Thank you. We will be back to report as soon as we have some results.”
“Oh, so it wasn’t about alone time with me? Hm. Well, you know what you are missing.” She smiled and looked lovingly over to the remaining morsel, chained to her dead sister.
Arne knew. And he quickly left the room, letting Lerr open the door to let him into the Arabesk evening.
He walked back in the direction of the tavern where the others were but took a detour into a dark alley. Making sure he was alone, he leaned on the rough wall and allowed the helplessness, horror and disgust to surface like a tidal wave. He gave himself to the slow count of ten to heave for breath and let his hands shake as he pressed them to his eyes, knowing he would never get the sight of the young woman’s death out of his inner vista.
Then he forcefully got a grip on his mind and drew some long, steadying breaths until his body was under control again, and walked on to the tavern.