Sunshine

“It is a Cup of Souls from the ceremony of gathering at Oranhallo.”

“What?” I put it down hastily. Just stop asking questions, Sunshine. No wonder it goddam tingled against my goddam hand. Nobody knows where Oranhallo is. Well, nobody who knows is telling the rest of us. It’s not a big issue on the Darkline but it is one of the things that keeps coming up. Among the people who think it exists somewhere you could describe by latitude and longitude, none of the plausible guesses are anywhere near New Arcadia. But there isn’t any consensus on whether it is a geographic place or merely a part of the rite. It is a big magic handlers’ rite, done by clan. The Blaises probably knew how (and where) to do it, but I didn’t. I didn’t know anything about cups of souls or ceremonies of gathering, but I didn’t want to.

“It is one of the few articles in this room that my master was given,” said Con. “Usually there was some constraint involved.”

I bet there was. “Why would a magic-handler clan want to give something like this to a master vampire? Especially a master vampire.”

“It was not freely given,” Con said after another of his pauses. “But it was offered and accepted as payment for a task he had undertaken that was to their mutual benefit. There was some choice about the conclusion to this task. This reward was proposed as persuasion to make one choice instead of another. The Cup carries no taint that might distress you.”

And your gracious dining accessories don’t run to wineglasses from Boutique Central. “Then why does it buzz against my skin?” I said crossly.

“Perhaps because it was the Blaise clan that possessed it,” said Con.

I jumped off the sofa, staggered, bumped into the little table, and heard the goblet crash to the floor as I ran off into the darkness. I didn’t get far; Con’s master had been a very enterprising collector, and I wasn’t up to the weaving and zigzagging to make my way through the spoils. I collided with something that might have been an ottoman almost at once, and hit the floor even harder than the goblet had, although I didn’t spill. Further note on vampire emotions, if any: don’t expect a vampire to understand the turbulence of human family ties—including broken ones—or maybe it’s that vampires don’t get it about cowardice, and how a good sound human reaction to unwelcome news is to try and run away from it.

I picked myself up. More bruises. Oh good. It wasn’t going to be a mere matter of high-necked T-shirts this time; I was going to need an all-over bodysuit plus a bag over my head. I turned around slowly, balancing myself against some great furled spasm of plaster that might have counted, in these surroundings, as an Ionic pillar. Con was standing up, facing me, his back to the fire, haloed by its light. Maybe it was my state of mind, but he suddenly looked far larger and more ominous than he had since before I knew his name. I couldn’t see his face—maybe my dark vision had been further unsettled by my fall—but there was something wrong about his silhouette against the firelight; something wrong about him being surrounded by light at all. I remembered what I had thought that first time, by the lake: predatory. Alien. He wasn’t Con, he was a vampire: inscrutable and deadly.

I made my way back toward the fire. I don’t know if I wanted to reclaim Con as my ally, if not my friend, or if it was that there was no point in running away. I had to pass very close to him to reach the fire; there was only one gap among all the arcane bric-a-brac that would let me through. I knelt on the hearthrug—at least there was a hearthrug, even if the hairy fanged head at one end of it didn’t bear close examination—and held my hands out toward the fire. It felt like a real fire. More important, it smelled like a real fire, and when I leaned too close the smoke made my eyes sting. It spat like a real fire too, and since there was no fireguard a spark fell onto the hearthrug. I glanced down; the hearthrug was unexpectedly unprepossessing, the fur short and brownish and patchy, having had sparks fly into it before. A few new burns wouldn’t ruin its looks because it didn’t have any. I felt hearthrugish. I’d never worried about my looks much; I had always had other things to worry about, like making cinnamon rolls and getting enough sleep. But I was beginning to feel rather too burn-marked. Like I’d been lying too near a fire with no fireguard.

Did I hear him sit down near me? You don’t hear a vampire coming: I knew this by experience. But this wasn’t any vampire; this was Con. I’d already promised to help him, if I could, because I needed his help. No. I hadn’t promised. But it didn’t matter. The bond was there. I hadn’t ratified any contract, I’d woken up one morning to discover fine print and subclauses stamped all over my body. If I wanted a signature, it was the crescent scar on my breast. It meant I heard him coming even when I didn’t hear him coming.