Читать книгу Bring It On - Laura Anne Gilman - Страница 10

Darkness. Not merely night, which mankind had banished ages ago with the first, stuttering campfire, but an absolute, terrifying dark. No moon sailed, no stars glittered. No light reached into the cold heart and set the blood to pumping again.

“Do so swear to it.” One voice. Confident. Neither demanding nor coercing, not inviting or seducing. It did not echo in the darkness but rather settled into the corners, softening the edges, herding those within hearing distance into a tighter group, although few of them did more than shuffle in place.

“I do so swear.” More than one voice, less than a dozen. Muted, one or two uncertain, but all with an underlying note of—determination? Fear?—carrying them forward. Like most initiations, it was less about wanting to belong, and more about the fear of being left behind—or left out.

“Then I hereby declare the overwrought and pretentious portion of this meeting to be concluded.”

Faint, relieved laughter, and the lights flickered and came up, revealing an open courtyard surrounded on three sides by thick stone walls, the center one with a simple doorway set into it. Directly opposite it, similar stones framed an open window running the length of the wall, showcasing what, in daylight, would have been an impressive view. Tonight, the river below glimmered darkly, black against black.

“Please, come inside and join us.” The woman who had spoken last came forward. A tiny, elegant silver-haired woman, immaculately dressed in a gray wool suit and sensible heels, she made a welcoming gesture that included everyone. Turning with the assumption that they would all follow her, she walked through the door in the far wall. The stones underfoot were smoothed with generations of use, and as the others followed, expensive suits and elegant dresses mingling in a casual dance of friendly power, one might think it was the opening moves of an ordinary cocktail party, lacking only the waiters passing trays of canapés and champagne.

As they left the courtyard, something sparked in the distance, over the river flowing below them. Thunder, or an electrical fire on the other side, or something else. One of the participants turned to look, barely a twitch in the middle of conversation, and frowned, as though suddenly reminded of a minor chore left undone.

“Has any of this been discussed with the Others?” he asked, the capitalization plain in his tone.

“Those avenues were explored.” The response was smooth, cool, conciliatory.

“Indeed?” He sounded surprised. “I had heard nothing—odd, as my contacts on that side of the river are usually quite vocal about everything.”

That got him some appreciative, and sympathetic, laughter. He went on, warming to the topic. “I would hope that each of those avenues was indeed thoroughly explored, as you say. I would not want to go home and discover that anyone had—”

The knife appeared between heartbeats, turned under the third rib, and shoved in deep.

“We cannot afford to be distracted,” his killer said calmly, as the knife withdrew and disappeared back from wherever it had appeared. “All avenues are closed to us now, save this one.”

The three remaining conversationalists in that group stifled whatever reaction they might have had, and merely nodded, stepping over the body to continue their move into the mansion.

Without seeming to look, other attendees managed to somehow stream around their former fellow initiate, moving past him without hesitation; his body might have been one of the stone columns framing the room for all the attention they gave it. The message, if messy, had been perfectly clear. Accept your status as one of the elite—or lose it, and more.

The body lay on the stones as the courtyard emptied. A moment passed, then another, and the blood pooled, congealing even as more flowed from the wound. Another woman came out, this one dressed in a simple scarlet dress that set off her brunette curls to perfection.

“Idiot,” she said to the dying man, not without regret. “You should have known better. They’ll only replace you with someone less prone to asking questions.”

Shaking her head at the stupidity of it all, she placed her hands, palms down, in the air over the body.

“Allow no secrets uncovered, no confidences broken, no vows released, but hold this body to the darkness until time has time to erase the traces.”

The body shimmered with a faint silver glow, then disappeared. In the distance, there was the sound of a faint splash, the kind a fish might make as it leaped into the air and crashed down again. Or a body, slipping deep into the waters, might make as it sank and was carried out into the ocean.

“It’s too late to change course. Too much has already been done.”

The woman went back into the mansion, leaving the courtyard completely empty, even the pool of blood gone as though it had evaporated entirely in the cool autumn air. After a few moments, the lights slowly began to fade out, until only one illuminated the doorway. Soon enough, it too went out.