Aconite

Valentina opened the door for me. She was wearing a black suit and held a black coat over an arm. I recognized it as Clover's, but didn't remark on the subject.

"If you expect me to invite you in, you are rather mistaken."

"I don't. Of course. But I do have a car down waiting, in case you wouldn't mind accompanying me to it."

She closed the door behind her.

My eyes were drawn to the silver piece, showing under her jacket. She saw my gaze.

"My family is Catholic..."

"It would be polite to maybe take it off..."

She visibly hesitated. Then Valentina shrugged and reached for the lock. She fumbled at it.

The moment stretched.

"You mind?"

Her face was red, but she drew her thick dark waves to a side and offered for me her back. I reached to click into place the tiny catch, and slid the even smaller rings apart. They were truly tiny little marvels, and it had been some time since I had last been called for aid at a similar task. Such a small lock it was.

For a moment I held in my hands the long silver cross. It wasn't quite the cameo locket my memories had found. A cameo belonging to my son's mother... Some forty years ago.

She didn't say much as I offered the jewelry back. And unceremoniously slipped it inside a pocket in her trousers.

We started down the stairs, neither willing to exchange more words. She didn't let me open any doors for her, and I wasn't interested in pressing the point. I wasn't quite the gentleman I wished to be, anyway. And I had used her. Because she had been convenient.

Julia was seated by the driving Blizzard. She met my gaze through the rear-view mirror, her sky blue eyes set in pale young features. The eyes were the same eyes I had fallen for in my younger years. But the face was new. And I was far too old to be enchanted by them.

Yet, as the enchantment had evaporated, it had left behind a wariness I didn't welcome. I couldn't quite blame old Fern for trying to find and kill the mortal shell of Alfonso Moura. The task had almost been passed down to me once. Yet, as things stood, my dear old crone for a mother had no idea I had already succeeded once in what she sought to do now. Though that had been under some very special conditions.

And as the car started its motor and we slid into the evening traffic, I couldn't help the humorless twist of the corner of my mouth. How could the witches muster the audacity to think for a moment they could do anything against the ageless father of demons? Because Julia-Alfonso had on their immortal side an asset Fern would never possess, an inclination no one should have.

They were loved by spirits. The fae couldn't resist her charm any more than the boundless free spirits could. Even the vampire linked Valentina felt instinctively protective of her. She could ask anything, expect anything. And there would be those who cared.

Of course the power brought with it complications. It could take time and effort to make the spirits understand the nuances of the whims of the immortal. But if this small girl so wished, and had the evening to herself, she could drive the ocean from the shores, raise hurricanes or break every human crafted stone in the old city.

Alfonso Moura wasn't a witch. They were a real, whimsical force of nature.

And I truly hoped Hellebore knew what he was doing toying with it.

Valentina

The car left us in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere, by another car. From there we walked on a layer of melting snow that the night had crystallized into diamond hardness. The trees around us stood frozen. The full moon, which you hardly saw in the City, shone pale light and after a while my eyes adjusted to the glittering pale blue shadows around us.

"So," Julia broke the silence after a shorter moment. "Why are we dressed for a funeral, again? Isn't this supposed to be a happy event? We finally figured out what the skeleton wants. Timothy will wake from his long nap, and we can all go home together."

Blizzard shook his head forlornly. The snow hardly crunched under the weight of his massive form.

"It might take years or centuries, Julia. We will surely be there to meet him again. But not maybe for some time."

"It is a new type of a magical creature," Aconite helped him. "While we can call it a golem, we don't know what kind of twists the great Goddess has gifted it with. Quite like the Atlantean witches are different from those of Europe. And so is every vampire species different from all others. We have only the European accounts of golems. And those are bleak ones indeed."

"Plus," Aconite added as a side note. "If it does take centuries for him to wake up, I might actually not be here to see it. While I do intend to last for some decades, I am far from immortality. And Valentina here is definitely not going to be around. So. We say our farewells. Leave the being there. And go to our respective lives as if this had never happened in the first place. Time will sort it out, but it might not be merciful."

That put an end to further conversation.

Eventually yellow light mingled with the glittering cold shapes around us. We came to the presence of a small fireplace. It burned on a rock.

We came to stand at the edge of water that had gathered on top of the ice below it. Tall pines reached up from the partially frozen swamp.

The queen of vampires stood in the icy water almost up to her knees, surrounded by the trees and a deep silence she seemed to share with them. Her back was to us, her hair falling in a long black curtain. She seemed to inspect her surroundings.

Timothy was held in her arms, the head of the skeleton visibly reflecting the dancing yellow flames. It was a big skeleton for a small woman to hold. Timothy must have been taller than his Queen.

"And you are sure, it wouldn't be clever of us to wait for the spring?" Julia asked, ostensibly from no one.

A raven hopped curiously closer.

Aconite sighed.

"It is March. Spring will come soon enough. I doubt it will make any difference."

The Queen came to us, as Plume took his human form and Hellebore strolled in from between trees to complete our little circle by the fire. Marquise with him, of course.

It was a silent night. The hour was too late for even the chattering of squirrels.

Our attention was concentrated on the Queen. Her black dress hung wetly around her, hugging her slim figure, as if she had been swimming. The glass skeleton in her lap didn't seem even a bit out of place, against her expressionless pale features.

"I have placed an enchantment around the place. No one, except for the ones now present, will ever be able to disturb his rest." Aconite offered the words as an odd icebreaker for any kind of a conversation.

Mo nodded.

"Shall we then?"

As she shifted aside and we moved closer to the edge of the water, I saw the reason behind her wet, freezing clothes: Apparently the queen had dug a man-sized hole through the ice all the way to the frosty ground below.

She crouched there by the still, reflecting pool of water and carefully let Timothy slip into the hole she had made. For a split second I wondered if the weightless skeleton wouldn't float. But then the impossible bones fell down into the dark cold water as a cloth that soaks the weight into itself. Then he lay at the bottom of the shallow water, framed by layers of ice. A glass skeleton in deep frost.

I crouched by the water's edge as well, balancing on a rock. I took off a black glove and tried the water. It was freezing. Up close I saw thin rafts of ice forming, ready to cover up Timothy's sleep once we left and doused the fire.

I put the glove back on.

"So", a female voice. I turned to look at Julia by the fire. "So," she repeated. "We know that Timothy needs earth. And we submerge him in an icy bath. I am still not sure I follow."

Hellebore exchanged a sightless glance with the witch.

The latter cleared his throat. "Yes. Well. We talked about it with Hellebore. And we decided that if we had, very theoretically, decided to create a golem, we would have used this swamp for starting material. It is fairly easy to guess how we would have proceeded. So. Here should be everything we might have used. Excepting human blood. But we have already established that this creature doesn't want blood. Whatever spells were used are now part of the skeleton itself. Thus, everything it might need or want, including time, should be here."

The two men turned their eyes to the kneeling vampire queen and the buried skeleton. Mo responded to their gaze with a raised eyebrow. There were more emotions displayed on her face then than I had seen thus far.

A heavy silence spread. There was an undertone to it I didn't quite catch.

"Oh, stop it," Julia exclaimed then. "Let's not doom this creation before it has even been completed. And Timothy is a person we know. He'll be fine. Plus, we already have a breed of bloodthirsty monsters in Atlantis. I very much doubt Iris allows another to exist. And we know he wants mud, not human flesh. You two have not created a new vampire, Hellebore, Aconite."

Aconite bit his lip. He looked behind the vampire queen with suspicious eyes.

"Right," he muttered, not sounding at all convinced. "Well, I hope you are right."

Julia gave a wink. "But," she continued wickedly, "I do wonder what it can do. I mean, I can talk to spirits. Mo has the power of fifteen grown men, and Hellebore can predict the near future with an accuracy that has given me goosebumps for centuries. So, I do wonder. What can Timothy do."

She seemed delighted by the idea of this unknown power lying dormant behind Mo's back. But I saw Blizzard and Plume exchanging worried glances. Aconite was staring into empty space. He could have been praying.

Hellebore, however, was smiling, her golden eyes gleaming in the dark. Marquise was wagging her tail to join in the alchemist's merry mood.

"Ladies and gentlemen, what great mysteries indeed lie there. I personally cannot wait to meet this Timothy I have heard so much about."

He turned his head toward the ice. "And one thing we do know of his powers, do we not?"

I frowned.

"I would love to have my memory back," the alchemist continued. "Or maybe erased altogether. I honestly cannot decide."

Julia's smile wavered.

"I do wonder indeed," Hellebore said. "How it would feel to be freed of centuries upon centuries of sightless life experience. All my sins wiped away, replaced by an empty plate. Oh, but do I wonder what kind of a man I might be. Reborn in innocence."

Julia wasn't smiling anymore. She stared into the dark forest.

"It became suddenly chilly," she remarked.

We bid our farewells to the skeleton. And returned through the forest to the parking lot. Julia went to talk with Hellebore by his car. They exchanged a quick word. Hellebore nodded.

"You should go," he told us, but somehow his sightless eyes seemed fixed on me. "Lavender will wake up soon. It would be gentler if she were in bed when that happened."

Blizzard nodded. He turned to the car in which we had come, but Mo was suddenly there by his side, holding the huge vampire by a hand.

Blizzard turned to her.

"Oh," Blizzard said suddenly. He reached inside a pocket.

He glanced at me when he handed over a vial of red blood.

"Valentina," he started. Then closed his mouth at an apparent loss for words.

"You go first," the Queen said. Her small hand was closed around the small glass tube. "I will take her back."

Julia opened the door for herself and Aconite followed, casting a last glance at me. Blizzard hesitated. He opened the driver's door. Then he directed his red eyes to me.

"You will always be welcomed, Valentina."

He closed the door behind him. The back lights came to life with the silent bewitched engine. He drove the car out. I was left facing the Queen alone in the parking lot, for Hellebore had gone inside the other car to warm up his hands that apparently were freezing. At least he held them against the air conditioning. As I watched, he sighed so deeply I could see it. Plume had disappeared into the trees.

"Valentina," the Queen called my attention. She was shorter than I was. Yet I suddenly felt very small facing her calm features. The eyes watching me were two red burning gems in the dark blue shadows. No human emotions were on display on her face and her voice seemed colorless.

"This is the last vial of your blood that Blizzard took in the autumn. I am going to keep it. It is an insurance. If you start acting out in any way, I won't hesitate to link you under my will. As long as you are alive, I can link you through this. And quite as easily take your life, if that for some reason were my wish. But I won't use it without very good reasons. You are one human. There are very few scenarios in which I would feel pressured to use this."

She waited for me to nod my understanding, before she pocketed the liquid.

"Now, Valentina, your link to Blizzard is wearing thin. You will not be one of my people after it totally dissolves. You are not welcome in the Castle anymore."

I swallowed.

I hadn't expected a conversation like this. Or rather, I hadn't been prepared for it now.

I held her carmine gaze. There were no emotions displayed on her face. It was not unlike looking into the eyes of a beautiful statue. Yet this statue had been there to witness the passing of centuries and hundreds of human deaths.

And I couldn't forget the explosion. All the houses that had been conveniently empty around the scene. I couldn't forget how I had stood by Aconite when he had cursed Clover. I had carried her upstairs on a shoulder like a sack of grain. I had moved in a daze. All of this because this being in front of me had wished for it to happen and possessed apparently indefinite means.

And a steady will to use all those resources.

And I had a request to this force of nature. How would I formulate it?

Uninvited, the answer came to me. Hellebore was just then safely locked in his car, yet it came in his voice:

You have to insist.

He had told that to me just before I claimed ownership of the memories inside me.

And I had seen it happen. It hadn't been me who had insisted, but Blizzard. He had been naked, so had been the Queen and we had been in the Queen's own place, her castle of a warehouse. But Blizzard hadn't requested to be let into the mysterious room with Timothy's name on a plaque. He had demanded.

Here, in this parking lot, was the second time for me with the vampire Queen. And up until that very moment I hadn't understood the reason for this very unexpected behavior. I had taken it for a given that a Queen should be respected, not ordered around.

But just then the reason seemed obvious.

She wasn't human. And she had lived so long, witnessed so much and reacted in such a way, that nothing I did, nothing I said, could sway her balance. She couldn't be ordered around, any more than a mountain could be. She could deal with any consequences. There were things she wished for to be, and so it often became. But on most things she felt neutrally, and there anything could happen. If I were bold enough to name it.

Yet, she had said she wouldn't let me into the Castle.

And that was exactly what I wanted. To be able to follow Julia wherever she went. That had been my promise to Lavender. I had told her I would be there for her.

I frowned as I thought. The tip of my nose had started to drip. I was forced to dry it on a paper tissue. My fingers were cold and opening the tissue took a moment. Especially as I didn't want to take my eyes off the Queen. Who all this while stood immobile. There was no pulse, no movement in her eyes, no wind in her lungs. She was patience. Waiting for me to move, because she wasn't willing.

I finally pocketed the used tissue.

"I need to have access inside the Castle," I told her levelly. "Because I promised to stand by Julia. I know she is important to you, and, as you know, I am no threat to her continued existence. I am, however, not willing to give away my free will".

Mo nodded.

I felt a surge of relief at first. But then she opened her mouth to speak:

"I appreciate your honesty. And your intention. If it were possible, I would offer you a place as a vampire. As things stand however, you would never become one, just a life wasted.

"And I will not let you in with no strong connection to the magical creatures of the City. Were you a witch requesting this, I wouldn't mind letting you align with us. But you are not a witch either, Valentina. Just a woman."

My heart plummeted. I felt I had stepped on empty air where there should have been a landing.

"But, before we part our ways, I would like to try and persuade you," she continued.

I frowned as she spoke.

"Last time, we took your will, against your consent. This time, I wish you to give your free will to me, because it is in your interests to do so. Out of your free will. This explains further why I will not let you into the Castle as you are. It really isn't in my interest to do so. Instead, I offer you the access as a bonus. If you become a willing donor, let me form a link between the two of us."

She let her words sink in. I felt cold sweat forming to the nape of my neck. A monster. I felt slightly appalled. Somewhat desperate. And Mo was a deadly statue of millions of kilograms that couldn't be swayed. As she herself had said, there was very little I could do to offend her. And as I understood it, vampires killed humans out of habit.

In my eyes flashed Aconite's office. Blizzard hadn't even been present. It had just been in his interest that I follow the witch's orders. I had been there just to prevent Clover from escaping, just in case. There to calm Lavender, if she had come to the surface during the meeting. With no wish of my own to question anything Aconite did.

Of course I wouldn't...

I felt cold fingers on my cheek. The Queen's red embers were very close. Only then did I realize there was ice on her dress. Her hair had frozen into straight spikes.

"You are thinking with your gut, Valentina. With common sense. That common sense is not free will. It is formed by how people around you have expected you to behave for all your life. It is made of millions upon millions of little hints of how people around you think you should feel. It is the result of a process called socializing. And the product of the current ideologies trending in the human world."

Her eyes seemed to burn the words into my mind. The hand on my cheek warmed, so that I only felt the slight pressure of her touch. She held my undivided attention like nothing had ever held it. There was no time, and no cold. Just her words, breathed against my face in colorless tone.

"Your free will is to dedicate long hours to study. Dedicate more than half of your lifespan to work for someone who will pay you money. So you can buy food to eat, and free-time vacation in places you wish to be. Right now your, so called, free will has led you to write essays no professor wishes to read. Because they have more interesting research of their own. Yet they will read your essay, because they, in turn, are paid to do so.

"Your free will has led you to work in a small bar called the Facade, so you can somehow scrape together enough money to pay the rent of the shared apartment you inhabit now. You do not have enough money, or time, to search for a therapist to fix an ankle that gives you occasional pain and prevents you from truly practicing the one thing you seem to enjoy: martial arts.

"Your will is no freer than the human condition in this time and age dictates, Valentina. What I am asking of you is not a wisp more than what you have already given the City and the human society inhabiting it."

She paused shortly. I wasn't sure I was breathing, even as I saw steam clouds escaping my mouth. I hung on to her words. And wished she wouldn't continue speaking. Because I knew that if she would, something terrible would happen. Yet she did continue, in a clear, certain voice:

"If you become mine, you will be part of the Court of vampires. I will fix your ankle, overnight. It will not double over from under you, ever again. I can guide you to any position in the city where you wish to be, if you wish to be. I will encourage studying, but there will never be a shortage of income for you. If you name a place where you wish to live, it can be arranged. The only condition is that it is in the country. If you come to me, as a link, and insist on having something or being somewhere, I will give it. As long as you can look me in the eyes and stand your ground. If you are sure about your wish.

"And whatever you choose, don't let yourself be fooled: your will is never even close to free. It aligns either with the desires of the Court, or with the desires of a human society. You will either work long hours for a human boss that measures your life in numbers or let me link you. And you can always come face me, look me in the eyes and name me as the evil behind the decisions you regret. But humans will always tell you that you are responsible for everything in your life. For the broken ankle, and for the harsh words you say to your loved ones when you are dead tired after a night shift in a bar where you have chosen to work."

I took a step back, trying weakly to break the charm. But the queen came with me, flowing with the cold night air.

I felt like she had hit me hard and I had passed out, and then woken up. My head felt odd. She had laid it all out in an even voice. With little emotion.

No garment could have hidden me from her eyes. And I suddenly understood why the vampires came to her naked. The clothes were for a human society. But no gala gown could ever hide the imperfections of a heart and mind. And her red gaze didn't look at my body. It looked into my soul. And I was both terrified of her, and fascinated by the power with which she held me in her presence. She forced my full attention to the reality she painted with words.

So quickly all I had thought of myself and the world had been torn apart. First Hellebore had triggered me to remember magic, and to admit it wasn't in my control. And that I had not acted altogether out of my free will. And now this being of the night, a demigod of the twilight hours, held me in her hand and forced me to look into even darker corners of my consciousness.

She was right of course. There were compromises because of the society. Long hours of work. And no guarantees of anything. Once I would get my papers, it would take a lot of effort to find a job. I still wasn't sure what I wished to do with my Arts degree. I had considered becoming a teacher, but it wouldn't be a simple position to land. Not in a high school, anyway. And translators of French were little needed.

What she said to me was that I could be a teacher tomorrow, if that truly was where I aimed. She would find the people and the connections through her network that could influence a neighborhood to be deserted for a certain hour of the day. I could probably pay the rent with ease. And I might not need to worry about the rent ever again. Or eat plain pasta for the whole week to make ends meet. Just the headspace from worry would be worth more than an average teacher could afford.

But the cost...

I had had no control over where I was and what I had been doing in Aconite's office. I had held Clover's head in my hands as the magician injected his curse, with not a thought in my head.

But... If I didn't take the offer...

Julia had made it clear she preferred the nocturnal vampires to plain diurnal humans.

And my ankle. I couldn't resist the temptation to feel the joints. There were many jump kicks I avoided practicing for the fear of the ankle giving way. This being in front of me offered me guaranteed health. She was a fountain of youth in humanoid disguise.

I remembered suddenly a conversation from many months ago, as I had sat at Hellebore's with Clover and Plume, and Timothy. At the time it had been hard to follow the conversation, but right then, I remembered something Plume had said.

He had looked at Clover, who had been appalled at the idea of Timothy willingly choosing the vampires. And the vampire had said he wished to break the girl's legs, in a scenario where she wouldn't be able to call on magical aid. Clover hadn't understood.

But I did. If I caught a permanent illness, a sudden cancer, I would suddenly become a dead weight to my family that wasn't rich by any measurements. I would spend long days in a hospital. Receiving rare visits from people that would steal the time from some hobby they would otherwise be enjoying. In pain. With no guarantees of a recovery.

I understood Timothy all too well.

It made all the sense. The big human society was made up of numbers and luck. Chance encounters and lost opportunities. Hard work in a mediocre environment. And the human life in it, all the hard work, could be swept away in a blink of an eye. Even in a rich western country with social security. Part of being a martial artist was accepting the fragility of a human body. You could lose a tooth, or break an ankle.

But to accept that I could work all I wanted to secure a job as a teacher, and then suddenly become ill... From earning those numbers on my bank account... to a dead weight that might be doomed to die. I had never been to Chile, where my parents were from. I wanted to see Santiago with my own eyes.

And the very sudden realization that I might actually never get that far, that I might not ever actually even have the time or money, suddenly turned my mind.

As the Queen had said, there was no one to blame if next year I was suddenly diagnosed with a cancer and I never amounted to anything in my life. But I could always look Blizzard into the eyes and know who and what had made me stand aside when Clover had needed me most.

And there were surely more people killed by stressful social pressure than there were those killed by the vampire Queen. Especially if there were many like me who she persuaded. And she seemed skilled at persuading.

"I see," I tried to say, but my jaw had frozen and the words came out thick and incomprehensible.

Yet, she didn't seem to need my words, but was reading something straight from my soul.

The vampire Queen let go of my face and took the little vial of my blood from a pocket. For a split second I wondered why it hadn't frozen there. Then I felt like laughing at myself. I stood on a moonlit parking lot with a vampire and a blind alchemist, and I wondered about a liquid that wouldn't freeze? Surely that was the least of the wonders present.

She unstoppered the vial. There was a short moment when I watched her against the blue shadows and glittering trees. The small glass container lasted only for a second. Then it was gone and hidden in her pocket. Not a drop was spilled.

I felt a sudden surge of warmth. Feeling flowed back to the tips of my fingers.

"Ah. I see," the vampire Queen said, apparently to the moon, her head tilted towards the heavens.

Then she turned her back to me and went to tap on the window of Hellebore's car where the alchemist was happily streaming music into a headset. His head was tapping the tune.

Hellebore took off his huge black headset to turn his face towards Mo. He opened the window for her.

"I will not make a bet with you ever again. As I think I have said a thousand times before. Please move aside. I think it is safest if the car is driven by a licensed human driver. And not a blind man, or by a being not visible in any cameras."

Hellebore shrugged. And moved aside.

In no time, I found myself on the driver's seat.

I adjusted the rear mirror. Mo was sitting at the back, but the only obstruction to my view was a near white dog's head. Marquise had laid her snout against the back seats. Her eyes were closed.

I didn't twist around in my seat to make sure Mo was still seated behind me.

Instead, I drove us back to the motorway.

Mo and Hellebore spoke jovially in Chinese, excluding me completely from the conversation. Even so, I had the nagging sensation that they were talking about me. Maybe it was just a feeling. Or maybe it was the link.

They didn't break the conversation to give me instructions.

And I didn't need any.

It wasn't because I knew the way. I was sure I drove for the first time half the roads I took. Saw for the first time half of the signs.

Yet I made it to my home without a single wrong turn, or any doubts.

And when I gave the wheel to Mo, as I rose to go upstairs to my shared apartment, I knew Mo had never been worried about any checkups, or cameras.

She had simply tested the link.

I felt uncharacteristically clear headed and calm as I ascended the stairs to my home.