Persephone Alcmedi 00 - Wicked Circle

him.
    Heldridge was surrounded. Stairs to the rear. Focus to the front and they’ll all think you’re going forward. Let them get a little closer, then make a break for it.
    The wall speaker crackled. A voice ordered, “Conference Room Two.” The vampires stepped away from Heldridge.
    Minutes later, a sentry opened a heavy black door with a scarlet “2” on it. Heldridge entered with a confident stride. The door shut loudly behind him.
    A single forty-watt bulb glowed in the overhead fixture. Beneath it sat a plain stool. An array of video cameras, red lights blinking slowly, all out of sync, focused on the seat.
    Heldridge couldn’t confine his irritation. He glowered into the centermost camera. “How do I know the Excelsior is receiving this transmission?”
    Five floors up, in a darkened theater with six rows of executive seating, various viewpoints of Heldridge’s entrance played across the many screens mounted to the main wall.
    “An imprudent endeavor, coming here.” The deep voice of Meroveus Franciscus thrummed like distant thunder. Except for the plain elastic band restraining the curls of his waist-length black hair, his appearance was that of a handsome thirty-something businessman in a Rolex advertisement—and he did wear an exquisite timepiece with his bespoke suit.
    “He’s still annoying.” Giovanni Guistini’s voice was also distinctive, but not for a mellifluous quality. Giovanni’s every word scratched the ear in a painful rasp. Beneath his pointed chin an ugly scar gnarled the flesh of his neck. In life, his throat had been torn open. “Note his stance, his lifted chin. He is our prisoner, yet conceit pours from him. The young masters are always intolerable. They think they know so much.”
    Mero countered, “Sometimes they do.”
    “Sometimes they’re just overconfident fools,” Giovanni retorted, melting into a pose that might have been an attempt to appear thoughtful in counterpoint to the fierceness his shaven head afforded him.
    Mero was familiar with his counterpart’s contemptuousness and had long considered Giovanni a deliberate egotist who dressed in black V-neck shirts and collarless jackets so no one would ever miss seeing his scar.
    Both provided advice to the Excelsior, but Mero often found himself choosing words and opinions that would balance Giovanni’s typically stubborn and pitiless claims. The trick was guessing what opinion the other advisor would choose, then expressing his own opinion first, so that Giovanni sounded like a squabbling child.
    On the screens, Heldridge cried, “Do you hear me? I demand to speak to the Excelsior!”
    Speaking of children, Meroveus thought.
    Sitting in the back of the theater, where the gentle radiance of the screens could barely reach, was the Excelsior. He wore an ink-dark suit, and the matching shirt and tie both had the sheen of polished obsidian. His black hair was loose and hung straight, framing his angular face with ferocity. Despite the pallor of his skin his hairstyle imparted a Native American quality, but Mero knew the vampire was descended from ancient Franks—indeed, from mortal kings.
    The Excelsior touched a button on the arm of his chair, which activated a microphone. “I hear you,” he said crossly. His words echoed, slightly delayed, into the room with Heldridge. When he finished speaking he released the button so anything his advisors said would not be piped into the conference room.
    “You will put a bounty on my head but you won’t meet with me directly?”
    Giovanni chuckled. “Please let me kill him for you, my lord.”
    The Excelsior pressed the button. “You attempted to strike down your superior. You’ve brutalized two of my sentries. Why should you not be drained to a husk?” The accented lilt of his voice did not soften the iciness of his words.
    “On these premises I have only defended myself. As for the other matter, you have received misinformation. I did not attempt to strike down my Quarterlord, but his Erus Veneficus.”
    The Excelsior triggered the microphone again. “You freely admit to this crime?”
    “The witch has hexed him, bound him by witch-mark into her service.”
    “Ha!” Giovanni laughed. “Never!” He paused. “Unless . . .” He cast a glance toward Mero beside him, then over his shoulder toward the Excelsior.
    Mero had to concede that fact. “The Quarterlord made no secret of his long search for the Lustrata.”
    The Excelsior did not respond.
    His