Author: C. E. Murphy
Category: Vampires
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“Do you have an appointment?”
Margrit startled, then blurted, “You have a beautiful voice,” clearly not her rehearsed response. A twist of satisfaction went through Vanessa. Her voice was completely unlike her physical demeanor, yet another thing meant to upset expectations, and she was always pleased when it succeeded. More pleased when her opponent recognized and admitted to her own surprise.
Opponent. If it wouldn’t break character, Vanessa would roll her eyes at herself. Eliseo and Janx had filtered too much of their ways of thinking into her mind, if a young woman appearing on the doorstep was automatically classified as an opponent. “Thank you. Do you have an appointment?” They both knew she didn’t: a leather appointment book lay in front of Vanessa, still closed, but inside, its thick pages were unmarked.
Margrit gave a self-deprecating smile. “I don’t. I was hoping—”
“Mr. Daisani,” Vanessa said crisply, “is a very busy man.”
“I understand.” Margrit gestured to the lobby chairs. “I’d be glad to wait. I only need a few minutes of his time.”
They looked at one another a moment, cat and mouse, before Margrit’s attention slipped above Vanessa’s head and she asked, cautiously, “Your grandmother?”
Unable to resist, Vanessa turned to look at the painting she knew was there. It looked very like her, indeed, save for the clothes and hair were Roaring Twenties instead of modern-day. She had just won the speakeasy and Eliseo had commissioned the painting in amused celebration. Everything had changed since then; even the speakeasy was no longer hers alone, thanks to the streetwise ‘pirate’ Grace O’Malley. She resented the loss, but life was change.
That became more difficult to remember, the older she got. It should be easier, she thought, not harder, but bitterness tended to well where an ease of acceptance had once sat. She’d foreseen that once, the very day she won the speakeasy, but when the change had begun was a question that Eliseo or Janx would have to answer. Janx, probably: Eliseo would no doubt be kind and lie, if he had even noticed the severity that had crept into her.
“Vanessa Grey,” she said, to distract herself. “And Dominic Daisani, Mr. Daisani’s father.” Grandfather, by all rights, given the turning of the years. She would have to remember that next time someone asked about the painting. “I was named for her. My family has worked for the Daisanis for a long time.”
“She was lovely. You look like her.” Margrit Knight offered Vanessa a genuine smile, then stepped back. “I really don’t mind waiting. Just a few minutes of his time, maybe?”
Vanessa nodded very slightly toward the chairs, and let pleasure dance across her features in the moment Margrit’s back was turned. She let the girl wait nearly half an hour, then gestured her in to see Mr. Daisani. Let Margrit think it was flattery which had gotten her through the door. There was no need to admit Eliseo would have insisted, had he been asked, that Margrit be allowed in. Even if she wasn’t making a name for herself in the papers, everyone knew already that first Alban Korund, then a selkie woman, had gone to her for help.
Selkies , for pity’s sake. The selkies had been extinct, or close to it, since before Vanessa’s time. She had never met one, not in a hundred and thirty years, but Margrit Knight seemed to draw the Old Races to her like moths to a flame.
She had no idea, of course, what world she was rubbing up against, and probably never would. They were too cautious now, so cautious that Janx and Daisani hadn’t so much as seen each other in years. Too many people had cameras now, and were too eager to spread gossip. The business mogul and the crimelord couldn’t afford to be seen together, nor could they stay in any one place too long with their unchanging faces. They worked alone now, ancient rivals pursuing parallel empires without ever risking their paths crossing.
Eliseo hadn’t said as much, but he missed his partner. The emptiness where Janx was meant to stand was a void Vanessa could never fill.
Margrit left Eliseo’s office, closing the doors with such care that it clearly disguised outrage, and murmured her thanks to Vanessa again as she went to the elevator. Her shoulders were drawn back, pinched, and her posture rigid. Vanessa waited until the elevator had enveloped her before turning an expectant, amused gaze toward Eliseo’s doors.
He exited the moment the elevator doors closed, black eyes bright with merriment. “That’s Rebecca Knight’s daughter, Vanessa. Can you believe it?”
Vanessa glanced after the girl, eyebrows elevated. Margrit was much lusher than she remembered Rebecca Knight being, but there was something in the cheekbones, perhaps, now that Eliseo had mentioned it. “What on earth did you say to get her back up?”
“Oh.” Eliseo sat on the corner of her desk, looking pleased with himself. “I offered her a job. It offended her to no end. No wonder Korund likes her. She’s forthright, stalwart and true. Like her mother, but less devious. He’s going to tell her, you know. He has to. She’ll never help him unless she knows what he is.”
Vanessa arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Gargoyles never tell anyone.”
“Alban isn’t like most gargoyles.”
“And if she’s like her mother, she won’t help him even if she knows.”
Eliseo shook his head, eyes on the elevator and the memory of the girl who’d just left. “No. Rebecca would never have risked jogging in Central Park. Margrit needs to fight the system. She’ll help.” Satisfied with his conclusion, he looked her way with apology suddenly strong in his gaze. “I’m sorry about the speakeasy, Vanessa.”
A pang went through her and she breathed deeply to send it away. “It’s all right. Everything changes.”
“One of that woman’s hideaways is beneath the derelict building I own uptown. I’m having it taken down. It won’t expose her, but it’ll inconvenience her. A fair trade, I think.”
She took another breath, this time to object, and let the protest go unspoken on an exhalation. Eliseo was rarely swayed once his mind was made up, and a part of her—small, petty, oh-so-human—wanted the revenge. The speakeasy had been hers for almost a century, and to lose it, even to a grateful city, would always sting. “Thank you.”
He smiled and stood. “Anything for you, Vanessa. Now, I’m about to be late for my next meeting, unless I go by myself. Is there anything I should remember about the gentlemen I’m seeing?”
“The one with the bad toupee always thumps the table when he’s got a bad hand. Don’t sign anything until the lawyers look it over if he’s not getting physical.”
“I never do anyway.” Eliseo tipped her chin up and stole a kiss, rare treasure in the workplace, then was gone between one blink and the next. The fire stairs doorway brushed shut long seconds later, but by that time he would be at his meeting. Vanessa smiled at the sound, then arched her eyebrows in expectant curiosity as the elevator chimed a second time. These were nominally Eliseo’s public offices, but almost no one visited them unannounced: one did not simply waltz into Eliseo Daisani’s presence and expect to be seen.
Three women exited the lift. They were of an age at a glance, but one walked a step in front of the other two, somehow denoting her as the elder. She was stunning, black hair framing an ageless face, and she carried an unfamiliar chill of power.
The girls behind her were nearly as lovely, both with hair as black as their mother’s. Vanessa twitched an eyebrow again, wondering what made her think they could be mother and daughters when they appeared so close in age, then nearly laughed at herself: certainly over a century of living with Eliseo had inured her to superficial age appearances meaning anything. Curious, interested, she said, “May I help you?”
“Vanessa Grey,” the older woman said, traces of a Russian accent marking her voice. “A pleasure to finally meet you. Do you still play poker?”
***
Vanessa didn’t remember the last time a blush had colored her cheeks, but surprise brought one now. Not just surprise: excitement. Whether it was long exposure to Eliseo and Janx, or her grandfather’s cardsharp skil
ls still lying deep within her, the thrill of an unexpected game could still delight her. She nodded once, then waited.
“The stakes,” the Russian said, “are very high. My daughter wishes to meet her father.”
“Eliseo,” Vanessa said after a moment. The Old Races had rules against breeding with humans, but it had always seemed to her inevitable that somewhere in his long life Eliseo might have fathered a child or two. She had never particularly wanted children herself.
The low thump of jealousy in her chest startled her. All rational discourse aside, it was unpleasant to have her idle suspicion confirmed. One’s lover, she thought, should not have fathered someone else’s child, regardless of when that may have happened.
“No,” one of the girls said. The more delicate of the two: she was small and blue-eyed and wore diaphanous layers even in the winter chill. She spread her fingers, indicating the other girl. “Janx.”
Vanessa laughed this time, astonishment deep enough to run to delight. Janx’s daughter had emerald eyes and no more than red highlights in her black hair, but she could see him in the length of the girl’s jaw and in her slender height. “You look like him,” she said, and uncertain pleasure crossed the girl’s face.
Agreement filtered through the mother’s expression as Vanessa looked back at her. “What does this hand have to do with me?”
“Eliseo Daisani took Jana away from Janx and her mother the night he first saw you.” Simple words, with no more explanation offered.
Vanessa held herself still, not so still as the Old Races might, then let a slow sigh escape. “He should not have done that.”
“No,” Jana said, loathing in the single word. The other girl took her hand, sorrow etched in her features. Complicated sorrow, and complicated anger, from both the girls and the mother too. They were a family, full of love for one another, but torn apart by a kidnapping decades in the past.
But Eliseo should have raised the girl, not this Russian beauty with a daughter of her own. “How did you come to be her mother?”
“I took her from Eliseo,” the woman said. “Will you play the hand?”
She could say no. It was clear in all their eyes; clear most particularly in the anger and hope and fear in Jana’s. She should say no, because to lose was to lose all.
It was simple, really. What went around came around, for want of a better phrase, and this circle had, all unbeknownst to her, spent fourteen decades coming to its close. A daughter lost the same night a lover was found; there was only one way, in truth, that it could end.
Vanessa, clearly and quietly, said, “Of course I will.” Then, with humor, because there was no use in anything else in this moment, she added, “And I won’t
even cheat.”
***
Five card draw had won her the speakeasy. There was no other game she would play, not with stakes this high. Winner take all, of course: a single hand was as much as they needed. This was not a game for wits and canny intuition. It was luck and nothing more, and after all the lifetimes Vanessa had lived, that was more than enough.
The deck of cards, still sealed, came out of her desk drawer; the one she played solitaire with was on the other side, but one never knew when the opportunity for a hand of poker might arise. The other daughter, the diaphanous one, shuffled and dealt just two hands: one to Vanessa and one to the Russian woman, who sat on the desk corner just as Eliseo had a little while earlier. Jana stood aside, fingers made into fists and held rigid in front of her stomach.
The Russian glanced at her cards, discarded two, and took up the new ones her second daughter dealt. Vanessa lifted her own, studied them, and did the same. A moment later both hands were on the desk: two pair of sixes and tens and a queen besides, from the Russian. A single pair of aces and a scattering of number cards from Vanessa: a losing hand.
Jana gasped, both hands covering her mouth, and the other daughter gave Vanessa a look of regret as she stood. Vanessa shook her head and murmured, “It’s all right. Good luck, Jana. He’s…remarkable.”
The girl nodded behind her hands, and their mother edged them toward the elevator. “Go. I will follow.” Obedient, nervous, they scurried away, and not until the doors had closed did the Russian reach out and overturn the two cards Vanessa had discarded.
Aces both. High cards. Winning cards. There was no surprise on the mother’s beautiful face, and her accented voice was soft when she spoke. “I will tell him you did this.”
“If you wish.”
“It may save your life.”
A tell: a miniscule shake of her head, almost too small to be seen, but unstoppable. “Do you think so?”
Cool power filled the woman, more by far than what she had come into the room with. She wasn’t one of the Old Races: Vanessa knew them too well to think that. She was human, but not wholly, and it was with a tone of prophecy that she said, “No. I fear not.”
Vanessa nodded once. “Who are you?”
“I am Baba Yaga’s daughter.”
She knew the name from folklore: the Russian witch who lived in a hut with chicken legs, and who scoured the countryside looking for men to make meals of. She’d thought that was all it was, folklore and fairy tales, but she should have known better. Eliseo, after all, was a fairy tale, too.
“No,” she said after a moment. “Not if the stories of Baba Yaga are true. Baba Yaga wouldn’t have given me the chance to choose, and she wouldn’t have offered to tell Janx what I’d done. She may be your mother, and you may be a witch, but I think you’re not Baba Yaga’s daughter.”
Genuine pleasure flashed through the Russian woman’s eyes. “I will tell him,” she promised, then, like her daughters, went to the elevator.
“Wait,” Vanessa said. The woman turned back as the doors opened, one hand holding them from closing again. “The other girl…?”
Now sympathy shone in the Russian’s gaze. “Yes. Before he knew you, if it matters at all.” She nodded a farewell and stepped away, leaving Vanessa alone with a scattering of cards on her desk and an ache that had little to do with her own fate, and entirely to do with what Eliseo would do in the next few days.
She would not say goodbye. That was a given: he couldn’t be warned. He would try to rescue her, and that would cause unnecessary strife. Besides, she wasn’t certain she wanted to be rescued. Not after thirteen decades, and wasn’t thirteen an unlucky number anyway? Smiling, cool, calm, aching, she gathered her belongings and left Eliseo’s office as she did every day at lunch. It felt odd, knowing she wouldn’t return.
What would you do if you had only one day to live? An eternal question, asked curiously, seriously, playfully, by millions.
Go home was her answer, but home was a riverboat on the Chicago River, and had disintegrated decades earlier. There were other things to do, though: a walk through the park, and dinner with Eliseo. She ordered filet, a rarity for her, and Eliseo teased her for it. They spoke of inconsequentialities, for she could say nothing else without warning him, and the lightness of regret within her promised everything had been said already, anyway.
She did stop as they parted—her position as his secretary dictated they keep separate homes—she did stop to say, as she did not often do, “You know I love you, Eliseo.”
He turned back, pleasure and concern in his answer: “I do. Is everything all right, Vanessa?”
“Entirely,” she said, and it came easily enough to not even seem a lie. “I just couldn’t remember if I’d mentioned it this decade.”
“You did.” His smile was lightning quick, just as he could be. “The day the towers came down.”
“Oh yes. Well, all right, I shan’t beleaguer the point, then.” Vanessa smiled back and Eliseo laughed, pulling her close for a kiss that he clearly didn’t care who saw. Vanessa hit his shoulder with her purse, scolding. “Stop that. We’ll have to start all over somewhere if someone catches us.”
“It’s nearly time to do that anyway. Perhaps Paris next, my love? Or should we go to
the Orient and be exotic?”
“I think we’re seventy years too late for that. Paris would be lovely.”
“Not,” Eliseo said, in an excellent approximation of his rival, “as lovely as you. I love you too, Vanessa. Will you come home with me tonight?”
“Maybe later. I’m going to go look at my speakeasy one more time. I’d like to be alone.”
He softened, as he did so easily with her, and kissed her knuckles. “Later, then. Give it my farewells, as well.”
“I will.” She left him then, sometime long after sunset. The gargoyle would be gaining Margrit’s help by now, and Baba Yaga’s daughter would have introduced Jana to her father. It had been enough time for all the cards to be played, all save the last hand.
There were motion sensors installed in the speakeasy now, and cameras, as well as the guards outside. Hundred dollar bills laid on the table until the security chief broke a sweat was enough to have the guards removed and ensure cameras and sensors suffered a catastrophic failure. Assured of privacy, Vanessa slipped through familiar tunnels, and into the darkness of the speakeasy that had for so long been her refuge.
“My dear Vanessa.”
“Oh.” Her heartbeat soared, bringing color to her cheeks a second time that day. “It’s you. I’m glad.”
“You’ve earned that much, at least.” Janx came out of the shadows, a candle sparking to life in his hand. Unnecessary, of course: there were electric lights, but even now Vanessa preferred the flames.
Appropriate, then, that it was Janx. She smiled a little and took the candle as she stepped past him, bringing it to the first of the stained glass windows. Color reflected the light, illuminating her face: not such a different face, save for the drawn angles of it, than the one that had first looked at these windows more than half a century earlier. Janx was a fainter reflection in the windows, his changeable expression holding solemn. She traced not his face, but the lines that made up a hint of dragon, then those that were the vampire in the stained glass, moving to each of the other two windows to complete the images before coming back to the center of the room.