Chapter 9: Old Friends

January, 1994

Tascha was not kidding about the state Lily was in. She had, in fact, understated the girl's condition. Jericho was standing outside the opened door to the first cell, from which emanated a hoarse, broken moan-like sound. There was a grim look in the hulking monk's pale face and he stepped away from the doorway with a relieved exhale, taking up a position against the wall in the hall. Walking to the door and looking in, I stopped in shock with my mouth gaping. The room, smelling strongly of cleaning products and bleach, was stripped of everything but a foam mattress and a creature strapped to the mattress with what looked like woven steel restraints. Had I not known who I was looking at, I never would have guessed it was Lily. Her once honey brown hair was darker, stringy and matted with sweat, tears, and snot, and saliva ran down the sides of her mottled face. The sound I heard was Lily screaming at the top of her lungs. Apparently, she had been doing so for long enough that her vocal cords were close to completely giving out. She opened her eyes to inhale at the end of a scream and gasped when she saw me. She shuddered, closing her eyes with a whimper.

She started whispering something so I walked over to the mattress and knelt to try to hear what she was saying. "Please, no. Please, no. Please, no," she breathed in an almost silent chant, eyes tightly closed. It was as if she were a five year old and I was the boogeyman she was hoping to banish with her prayerful mantra.

Trying to ignore the musty sweat stench emanating from her, I began my interrogation. "Lily? I am going to ask you a couple of questions," I told her gently. "If you calm down and answer me honestly, I will take off the restraints and get you something to eat. All right? Do you hear me?"

Her eyes cracked and she nodded spastically, muttering, "Yes. Yes. Yes."

I smiled down at her. "OK. Let's start with a simple one. What is your full name?"

"Lily. Lily. Lily," she breathed after a couple of seconds' thought. "Lily Black. Lily Black. Lily Black."

"All right Lily Black, where are you from originally?"

"Richmond. Richmond. Richmond," she whispered a little louder, adding, "Virginia. Virginia. Virginia."

"Good. Now we get to a couple of harder ones," I told her. "How long have you been with the Vampires?"

"Two years. Two years. Two years."

"Other than your mistress, were there any others with you?"

Fear bloomed in her eyes again, sharper and deeper than when she first looked at me. She shook her head jerkily. "Kill me. Kill mistress. Kill me. Kill-"

I shook my head and interrupted the odd three-peat loop in which her speech seemed trapped. "I won't let them. Just tell me and I will go take care of them for you," I promised, taking her hand. It was cool and very smooth as it gripped mine. She looked up at me hopefully and I nodded. "I promise. Just tell me."

"It's bad, bad, bad. Mistress belongs to the Lord. The Lord. Lord Euxallor," Lily whispered hoarsely, her hand clutching at mine with surprising strength.

"Lord Euxallor, is he alone?"

She shook her head rapidly, her eyes going wide again. "Wolves. Wolves. Wolves," she whispered roughly. "And a giant! A giant. A giant?"

"Giant? How big? What did he look like?"

"Big, big, big! Twice me, twice me, twice me!"

"Where do they live? Where are they during the daytime?"

"Near apple farm. Apple farm. Apple farm."

"In Maryland or Virginia?"

"Virginia. Virginia. Virginia," she whispered fearfully. She clutched my hand again, her eyes wide as they gazed up at me. "Safe? Safe? Safe?"

"Yes, we will keep you safe."

She sighed, her head relaxing back to the mattress. "Food? Food? Food?" she asked dreamily, her eyes drifting closed.

I patted her hand and smiled reassuringly. "We'll get you some food and water. Rest." Standing, I walked out to see a surprised look on Jericho's face. "What?" I demanded belligerently.

He smiled and shrugged. "Given the stories running around about what went on last night, I am just surprised at the empathy."

I snorted. "See to those restraints while I go run down some food for her," I ordered crossly. "Be careful, though. She isn't playing with a full deck. Get them off and get out. Lock the door behind you. She was calm while I was in there but that may only be due to the fact that I knocked her arse out last night."

His smile faded and he nodded curtly before entering the cell. I watched him unstrap one of her hands while she lay there docilely before heading upstairs. What I found was amusing as hell. My boys were leaning nonchalantly, faces blankly amiable, on the front of Tascha's desk, behind which sat a glaring Tascha. Jerome was sitting in a chair next to the desk with a look of dumbfoundment, as if someone had clubbed him over the head. Tyrone was gaping idiotically, eyes bugged out as he stared at Edgar. I would have laughed at the tableau had I not a pretty good idea what the looks were about, given the effort John was putting into his blank amiability.

I turned a glare of my own on Edgar, whose eyes immediately tracked to me as I stepped out of the stairwell. "How did you lose the tail? Never mind; I don't care. You have been telling stories, haven't you," I said, not really asking since John's blank façade cracked slightly when he saw me. His eyes now had that look that all hard men get when they first hear tales of my exploits. Especially when they hear about Belfast or the Kelpie attack on Eoin's country home. "Which one?"

"Belfast," he replied laconically, eyes amused at my discomfort.

Jerome and Tyrone gaped at me. "So they are just stories?" Tyrone asked plaintively, half-offended that Edgar might have lied and half-hoping that they were just stories.

I snorted angrily, not liking the doubt in my abilities that hopefully offended question implied. "Not having heard the recitation, I am not in a position to judge the degree of embellishment my minion has seen fit to heap upon my history," I retorted, my Oxford dialect heightening the haughtiness of my English accent. "I need someone to procure food for Lily. I have her calm but I do not know how long that will last. She says her mistress belonged to someone she calls 'The Lord', Lord Euxallor, and that they have a Giant that stands twice her height with them. She comes from Richmond, Virginia and her name is Lily Black. She was taken two years ago."

Tascha's frown turned into a thoughtful grimace. "Some of that is easily verified," she said as she picked up her phone and dialed a number. "It's Tascha. Do you have a Lily Black in your missing persons files? About two years ago. You do? Family? Parents dead, older brother. I see. Yes. Maybe. No, she is pretty messed up right now. We are going to run her through the Clinic and I'll call you when the doctors have put her back together. No, you don't want to know. We'll worry about that when the time comes. Thanks; I'll be in touch."

She hung up and looked at me searchingly. "Lily Black disappeared from her brother's apartment twenty-six months ago. He filed the next day but there were no leads. Police assumed she ran away. I will call the Richmond Police back when she is fit for company. There is a $50,000 reward for her safe return. Do you want it?"

I rolled my eyes. "I have checking accounts with more than that in them," I told her with a trace of embarrassment, still not completely comfortable with my wealth. "You can claim it. Pad your budget or give it to your favorite charity or something."

She peered at me with a soul-searching gaze before nodding. "There is an asylum for the mentally ill near Ashville, North Carolina jointly run by the Church and the Order that we will send Lily to in a few days, after the effects of the Vampire blood her mistress fed her fades from her body. We will get her deprogrammed and give her rational explanations for all that has happened to her over the last couple of years," Tascha explained in her business-like manner, once more making me think I wanted to be her when I grew up. Or got older. I probably didn't have a lot more growing up to do, much to my dismay. "Once our doctors and therapists get her put back together, we will reunite her with her brother through the kind offices of the Richmond Police."

Nodding, I pressed on with the rest of Lily's answers. "I am rather rusty on my Giant lore, but I was under the impression they were much taller than ten feet."

"They are, generally," Jerome confirmed. "I suppose it could be under a glamour; but they usually try to glamour themselves into normal size, not just cut their height in half. A glamour, after all, can make them look like anything and allow them to fit into human buildings and vehicles. I don't think what she saw was a Giant, just something so big she thought of it as giant. I suppose it could be a Troll mercenary. I just can't remember the last time I heard of a Giant that was less than fifteen or twenty feet tall."

"Rakshasa?" Tyrone suggested doubtfully.

"No. They tend to hate Vampires, especially Vampire Lords," Jerome said in a tone that was turning slightly pedantic. "Rakshasas would rather eat a Vampire Lord than work for one. No, I think Lily's giant might be something more exotic, possibly even native. I will get Research on it."

Scowling in confusion, I asked, "Both you and Lily say 'Lord' like it should be in all capitals, maybe even underlined and in italics. What is the difference between what you both are talking about and that trollop I decapitated at the party?"

Tyrone's mouth dropped open in disbelief as Tascha and Jerome closed their eyes in prayer again. "Normally that question would make me afraid for you to be out wandering the world unescorted," Jerome said with vast patience tinged with worry, "but both Edgar and Karl have told me about Belfast so I know you killed the Vampire Lord Alexandrios of Byzantium. It is frightening, and a testament to your own skill and power, that you don't know the difference between a fairly young and weak Vampire like Jessie, Lily's mistress, and a Vampire Lord like Alexandrios, who was reputed to be the power holding up the Soviet Empire. Think of it like this, Alice. Lily's mistress would be around a 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 while Alexandrios was ... what do you think, Tascha? A 9, 9.5?"

The older woman shuddered. "I would say that monster was a 10!" she spat, fear and anger plain on her pale face.

Jerome shook his head. "There were Vampires that even Alexandrios feared, my dear, and you know that," he retorted gently, compassion in his eyes and tone. "One of those being Lady Honda Miko, the real reason the Soviets never invaded Japan any farther than the Kuril Islands during World War II. She has ruled over Japan for as long as the Order has been able to discover and was powerful enough to challenge the Dragons of China. And then there is Hazarin of Mazar-i-Sharif, the real reason the Russians, be they Czarists or Soviets, were never able to conquer Afghanistan."

"And the three or four Vampire Lords that have carved up Western Europe betweenst them," Tascha shot back angrily. "I know! Alexandrios was still the most beastly of them."

By that point I was frowning in confusion. "Beastly" was not a word I would have used to describe the Vampire named Alexandrios that I killed in Belfast. Urbane, refined, maybe even cultured. I found him to be scarily polite and disconcertingly charming in that brief meeting at the dinner Eoin took us all out for on my 13^th birthday. Even when he was threatening my family and me, he was never "beastly." Not even when I was fighting him sword-to-sword for the amusement of the Demon Balor would I have used that descriptor.

"Um, are we talking about the same Alexandrios?" I inquired diffidently. "The gentleman I killed in Belfast? The one whose absence allowed the Soviet Empire to collapse? That Alexandrios of Byzantium?"

Tascha snapped, "Yes!"

"Of course, Alice," Jerome said more gently, his eyes shooting Tascha a quelling glare. "Why do you sound surprised and confused?"

"Because the word that comes most to mind when I think of Alexandrios is urbane, not 'beastly' as you two seem to want to describe him," I replied honestly. Shrugging, I added, "Even when he was surrounding my family and me with his minions, threatening me in the name of his Demon employer, he did it with a certain panache and stately elegance."

Now Tascha had joined Tyrone in gaping at me while Jerome simply shook his head in wonder. "I am only guessing, since the object of our discussion is no longer alive to confirm my suspicion," he said tentatively, a wan smile barely curving his thin lips, "but he was probably so careful with you either because he was unsure of how powerful you were or the Demon who employed him wanted it done that way to set you at ease in an effort to make it easier to maneuver you as they wished. Trust me, Alexandrios of Byzantium had a millennium's worth of corpses to cement his reputation as one of the worst Vampire Lords the Order was forced to leave alone."

"Why?" I asked naively. Seeing their confusion, I clarified with, "Why, if he was so bad, was he left alone?"