Authors: A.J. Aalto
What if Remy couldn’t get here to accept my nomination? What if she didn’t even want to? Had I just wasted my vote? “Tell me, uh, will my house forgive me for this?”
“Technically, you have remained loyal to your house, to your bloodline, in that Remy is considered a Dreppenstedt by blood,” He said, delighted by the mischief. “The other revenant houses are infuriated, but your own house will support your unorthodox choice. I trust they did not expect your announcement.”
“Nope,” I admitted. “Although some of them should have expected something like this from me. Duh.”
He giggled, a tittering laugh that set my teeth on edge. Asmodeus clucked His forked tongue, but did so with a smile, not so much a scolding as a warning not to infuriate the museum-like display of revenants around me, still very much listening to our discussion.
“So much sass,” He told me, sounding like Harry.
I continued, “Remy is accustomed to living apart and alone, as the king is. If she is sane, is there any reason she would not be the best choice for this position?”
The Overlord clapped His mismatches mitts together and His tail whipped around one of His cockerel feet. “
If
she accepts,
and
she gets the most nominations, I will raise House Dreppenstedt to the ruling bloodline and make Remy Dreppenstedt queen of the
Falskaar Vouras
. Now,” He plunked one bear claw atop the Stonecaller’s noggin, right between the horns. “There are two more houses to call.”
Aristoxenus had been listening to the iPhone, tapping his little cloven hoof, wriggling his wee butt against his bench. His little fist pumped the air with the beat. Now, he took the remaining earbud out and waved his obsidian mace at the stone statues made from living immortals. “And shall I…?”
“No,” Asmodeus intoned, sinking back into the shadows behind the throne. In seconds, He was no more than a black blur, something you thought you saw but couldn’t focus on. “They have misbehaved by moving to attack an advocate of this court. They will remain just as they are until I decide to release them. I appreciate sass, but I will not tolerate bad manners.”
I lingered uncertainly.
I don’t know how to leave. I don’t know how to turn around. Harry hasn’t told me that bit yet.
Then two things occurred to me at once:
stay like that
and
most nominations
? I opened my mouth to retort, but the Stonecaller’s scowl stopped me.
“Would you care to be made still as well? You have caused quite enough ruckus for today and are dismissed, Marnie Baranuik, DaySitter of House Dreppenstedt.”
“Can I have my iPhone back?”
Aristoxenus frowned as though he was reluctant to release it. “I only heard one song.” His lashes fluttered at me, and for a moment, he reminded me of Wesley asking for money or a favor. “I like this.”
I rolled my eyes and told him, “Put it on your Christmas list for Santa.”
“I like the music,” he repeated, like I wasn’t grasping that his pleasure was important. It might not have been the first time I’d seen a demon pout, but it was definitely the cutest.
“I suppose you can borrow it for a little while,” I relented. “Just don’t get your brimstone stink all over it, eh?”
I was not eager to turn and see a stilled Harry, no matter how many nights I'd had kinky thinky-thoughts about Han Solo in his carbonite slab. I tried to focus on Batten as I marched back to our banner, but Kill-Notch’s numb shock seemed no less than Harry’s, judging by the Olympic grade gnashing his jaw was doing. Fool was going to grind a hole right through his handsome face if he kept it up. I guess I should have given him a heads up.
Nahhhhh
.
For a dead guy covered in stone, Harry gave off a surprising amount of rage. And for what? Each DaySitter was obviously going to nominate their own house. It was expected. To do otherwise was suicide
. If… she gets the most nominations
. Wouldn’t happen, I thought glumly. Oh well. At least
Harry
wouldn’t be stuck here, and I didn’t have to nominate a reluctant Wilhelm. Lesser of a whole laundry list of evils.
Aristoxenus thumped his mace against the bench, put both earbuds back in, adjusted the volume like an old pro, and said, “Call House Nazaire! Call Jean-Etienne Auguste Dufort Dreppenstedt-Nazaire.”
Declan cut his eyes at me and I thought I saw a twinkle in his disturbingly green eyes. Freed of Malas and immediate consequences, he didn’t even wait until he got to the bench before barking, “I have no Second. I appear before you alone to nominate my mother, Remy Dreppenstedt of House Dreppenstedt, Duchess of the Darkest Corner.”
“Jesus fuck,” Batten muttered, grabbing my elbow as my gloved hand slapped over my mouth.
The other DaySitters buzzed in surprise and horror, with the kind of rubbernecking mortal excitement that accompanies a volcanic explosion or massive train wreck. One of them burst out laughing; I looked to see who it was and found Netta of House Buryshkin with her head thrown back, her deep, velvety laugh bouncing off the walls to ring up into the high, stake-hung ceiling. Not far to my right, Lisa Pivratsky-Churchill joined her, radiating the kind of amazed shock that jerked a body into either laughter or tears. The banished female revenant that no one spoke of in daily conversation had suddenly vaulted into the lead in a race she likely didn’t even know had been happening ten minutes ago. For a moment, there were meetings between DaySitter eyes, mostly female, that seemed to be asking the same thing: “Are we doing this? Is this happening?”
Speaker Aristoxenus molted from grey to the liquid red of his demon lord, quaking with rage. “Say that name to me again,” he dared the little Irish
dhampir
.
“What a time to give up the drink.” Declan cleared his throat and repeated, “I stand for Remy Dreppenstedt, the Mistress Defiler, First Lady of the
Falskaar Vouras.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, aping my declaration almost word for word. “I stand for she who is called the Afterdark. Madam Brightslip, Mistress of the Eversea, Lady of Eternal Grace. My mother, who never got a chance to feed me from her blessed diddies but sure as shit brought me into this goddamned world in her own house, which was therefore my first house in every way that matters.”
“Abomination,” Speaker Aristoxenus declared, rocking forward on his bench. “That’s what they call you.”
“Funny, coming from a lesser demon,” Declan replied. “Ask your master if I’m off my nut, here, or if He’ll allow this.”
“You do not belong to House Dreppenstedt,
dhampir
.” The Stonecaller bubbled and frothed with rage, and he was not the only one. DaySitters on both sides of me huffed and muttered, and the Blue Sense warned of their resentment. Their houses were being left behind, their companions losing ground.
“My history is unclear, and so is that of the Duchess’s making.” Declan pointed off to the southwest, in the general direction of Ireland. “I have evidence that suggests that Wilhelm Dreppenstedt
and
Malas Nazaire were present for both my fathering and my mother’s turning. I consider myself a product of both houses. I demand a ruling from the Overlord Himself.”
Aristoxenus sat back, angrily mulling, as the shadow figure behind him drifted between worlds, now here, now gone, flickering and smoking like a dying fire. Though we could no longer hear or see Asmodeus, He communicated from the shadows with His little court Speaker. Ari had to remove an earbud again; whatever he heard from the stinking Beyond displeased him, and the lesser demon’s tiny lips pursed primly as he rolled his sickly yellow eyes.
“Fine! Fine! But all this going-over-my-head business has
really
got to stop.” He stabbed a finger in the direction of Declan’s belly. “You have nominated the lichlady, Sister of Worms. As has already been stated, before your nomination is accepted,” he added with a snide smirk, “she
must
present herself before this court and accept it. Return to your master’s side, Declan Edgar. You are hereby dismissed.”
I felt a great wash of relief flood my chest and realized I’d been holding my breath since Declan had made his announcement. Feeling slightly dizzy, I looked down at Batten’s hand, still clutching my elbow, and shrugged out of his grasp.
“Down, boy,” I murmured.
“Is it almost over?” he asked.
I nodded to reassure him. Of course, I had no idea that the messy situation I’d created was about to get much, much worse.
The last house to be called was House Duchoslav, and Marek Rys approached the Stonecaller with a determined stride. The only male DaySitter to be called was a slender, balding gentleman wearing glasses. What little hair he did have was dark and messy. He wore faded jeans with a rip in one knee, dirty red Converse High Tops, and a wrinkled, pale yellow polo shirt. His collar needed smoothing. He looked like a guy who maybe still needed his mom to straighten him up a bit before he went to night school classes, the eternal student who was never graduating and never leaving his parents’ home. Despite his rumpled appearance, I knew Marek Rys to be a medical doctor with a specialization in preternatural health and life extension; he was, himself, nearly two hundred years old, and looked about forty-five. Not too shabby for a human. His revenant kept him very vigorous. Marek Rys was the second oldest living DaySitter on record, the eldest being one of the Gold-Drakes. (
“The doctor is a combat SAMBO champion,”
Golden had reported.)
This
doctor? He didn’t look like he could fight his way out of a paper bag.
He met my eyes as he passed under the banner of House Dreppenstedt; as far as I knew, we’d never seen one another, but perhaps he knew me by my bad reputation, or had heard that I’d helped a Younger from his house, Krystof, back home in Colorado. Or maybe he just thought my nominating Remy was ridiculous. The Blue Sense reported a whiff of
discontent
and
disappointment
from him, but as always, my empathy was rarely helpful. Was he disappointed in me, in the court, in his master, in himself? I had no way of knowing.
“I am told to throw my weight behind the banner of House Dreppenstedt as the obvious best choice to hold the throne,” he said.
My jaw dropped. For a moment, my hope soared. Was this my knight in rumpled armor? All he had to do was say her name.
“… and we hereby nominate Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt for king of the
Falskaar Vouras
,” Marek finished. “I stand in contest with my Second, Roland de Hagh.”
I felt Harry’s sinking horror hit me like a boot in the ribs; it was indistinguishable from my own. Harry had two nominations. So did Remy. So did Aston Sarokhanian. A Dreppenstedt could ascend the throne… the problem being, Remy might not accept my nomination. By the sound of it, she might not even be
able
to appear to accept it, in which case Sarokhanian and Dreppenstedt DaySitters would fight to the death in the Olmdalur; there was a good chance I could die, or that Harry would be staying at Skulesdottir for-fucking-ever.
And so would I.
Fuck.
My only hope was that Asmodeus wouldn’t allow this. Marek Rys was the third person tonight to nominate outside their own house. Seemed like funny business. Who was I kidding? Asmodeus thrived on funny business.
Fuck, fuck, fuckanut.
“
Innnnnnnnteressssssssting
,” Aristoxenus hissed, drawing it out as his body leaned way back on his bench so that the black figure could whisper commands in his frayed bobcat ears.
Asmodeus began laughing. Braying from His dark well behind the throne, His laughter raised all my hackles and started a ribbon of dread that tied my guts neatly in a knot. I knew it. Funny business. I felt my hopes drain away to be replaced by full-on panic. I could not stay in this place forever. I could not eat nutrimatrix and hang out with dead guys all day every day until I was centuries old. Hey, maybe I’d get lucky and House Dreppenstedt would decide that Harry’s lucky seventh wasn’t so lucky after all. You know your life is lookin’ bleak when the best you could hope for was one last brownie before your full body impalement.
“The Overlord has spoken: we will allow this cross-nomination if your master wishes it.”
The revenant was stone, but the lesser demon or the Overlord must have been using the immortal bond to judge the reaction of this dead guy to his DaySitter’s words. Aristoxenus nodded once, satisfied. “Tomas Duchoslav, Crowned Prince of the Blood, approves of this nomination and it is done. Congratulations go, one way or another, to the House of the Raven of Night.”
I didn’t dare look over at Harry. Even in stone, he radiated an unmoving fury. I tried to send him comfort through the Bond. When that did nothing to quell his internal struggle, I whispered, “I got this, Harry.”
Georgina Harris stepped away from the stone figure of Yulian Buryshkin and said loudly, forcefully, “I wish to change my nomination!”
Aristoxenus harrumphed, but his ear twitched back and he was overruled before he could even object to her unexpected announcement. “Speak, Ms. Harris.”
“I agree with everything that Ms. Mochizuki has proposed, and throw my nomination behind Aston Sarokhanian.”
For a moment, my mind scrambled to accept the sudden upset in power. If Sarokhanian took the throne, humans were in trouble. I was already calculating how quickly I could prepare for a culling-by-trolls sort of situation; who would I have to alert first, and how to make them listen?
One final voice cracked the tension, as someone moved stealthily under the quiet banner of House Prost; it was not Jeremiah himself, but a young black woman with straight, layered hair cut in a wispy bob around a heart-shaped face. She only came as far as the nearest gas lamp, but Aristoxenus spotted her immediately.
The Stonecaller listened once more, cupping his ear, his eyes growing. Excitement vibrated his bobcat ears to the tips, and he wriggled a bit straighter on the bench, voice climbing an octave. “Call House Prost! Call Umayma Eyasi.”
The woman sidled up beside him; if she was nervous about being close to a demon, she didn’t show it—she had Batten’s cop face mastered—and if she said something, it was too low for me to hear.