Terrible Praise Read online

  “Well said, my Lord. Infinite.”

  Fane extends an expectant hand. “Stela, come. I have grown weary of Bård’s room.” I rise without a second thought. “Let us discuss the events of the day in my chambers.”

  “My Lord,” Bård begins bravely, foolishly. “If I may keep your Stela this evening. I would like her opinion of Mr. Collins’s conduct and demeanor. An evaluation from a source I trust to be critical as well as keen.” I can sense my brother close behind me. He curls his large, dry hand over my forearm, pulling me back gently and away from Fane’s proffered palm. There is malice behind those pale blue eyes as they brush along Bård’s resolute smile, but a compliment to Fane’s protégé is a compliment to his good taste. And he has never been one to refuse a compliment.

  “Very well,” my Lord concedes with a gracious nod. He comes to stand in front of me, pausing before he takes his leave. “Tomorrow, I expect a full account of your confrontation with Andrew.” He cups the side of my face in his warm hand, and strokes my cheek with his thumb. A practiced gesture, and one that does not wake the sluggish beating of my heart the way it used to. “I want yours to be the first face I see.”

  “And yours the first I see, my Lord—” I barely finish the sentence. Fane covers my mouth with his own and firm, insistent fingers cradle the back of my head, pulling me close and out of Bård’s reach. His passion is clear, as clear as his dominion though why he would seek to prove such an uncontested point to Bård is beyond me. My brother has never shown any interest in me beyond that of a second, a captain to his lieutenant, and jealousy is a lesser emotion. A vice for mortals. A hurdle for the turned Strigoi, unfitting for a Moroi. After all, what reason could a god have to be jealous of his creations?

  Fane pulls his cradling hand away and the kiss ends so abruptly I stumble back into my brother. Bård does not budge, his body braces mine like brick wall and I straighten myself against him, markedly embarrassed. Fane has disappeared before my toes have joined my heels on the floor.

  Bård steps back and takes Fane’s place on the sofa. “Have a seat, Stela.” He pats the space beside him with a large, white paw. A gentle entreaty twisted round his words and posture.

  “I have sat long enough, thank you.”

  “That was not a request.” He has never been one to make demands, certainly not of me. I do as he asks without further protest, sitting further from him than I had with Fane, comfortably and as an equal.

  “I did not care for your associate,” I admit.

  Bård smiles and leans back with both hands once again folded patiently in his lap. He gives a small shrug. “What is there to like? The man is a scoundrel of the lowest form. An opportunist, a petty thief and a criminal. I did not keep you to discuss Mr. Collins.”

  I turn in my seat, curling a leg underneath me. I do not ask why he kept me from Fane’s suite, though I want to know. A gift is not something to be questioned.

  “You truly have no memory of our conversation?” he asks in his quiet baritone.

  I cannot look him in the eye, but shake my head and fold my empty hands.

  “We discussed Mr. Collins nearly a fortnight past. Having been silent facilitators in the arms trade, the drug trade for so long, human…produce…was a logical step. I should say, Fane and I discussed this venture. You sat in our presence as silent and distracted as you are now.”

  His face is as troubled as his voice. More than once I have questioned my brother’s boundless concern for me, his unfathomable kindness. He has absolutely nothing to gain by delaying my debrief with our Lord. He did so all the same, for my sake. I turn away from him and rest my elbows on my knees. I hold my head in my hands, searching for a reason, but there is nothing I can safely admit. The memory is there, as Bård suspected it would be. I do recall attending the round table discussion, naturally. But what I remember in place of what was said, are the thoughts that drove me to such spectacular distraction. Namely, the dream I was pulled into the morning prior, which has occupied my thoughts ever since.

  I was sitting on a low-lying floral print lounge, in a brightly lit and immaculately arranged living room. Despite the late hour—the early morning light flooding over the floor—I was not fatigued.

  Upon standing I realized that the room was familiar to me, and though I was alone the presence of another was curiously strong. I could smell her everywhere, and it was her distinct scent that pulled me from the living room down the expanse of an eerily dark hallway. She stood at the end of the hall, before a white door that was slightly ajar and stole inside like a thief.

  I walked up behind her. Each step closer was an assault upon my senses. The sweet reek of decay and human illness hung heavy in the air, souring everything else, and I stopped myself from breathing.

  Elizabeth’s chestnut hair spilled over her shoulders, cascading freely down her back. Her head was haloed in the light from an open window on the far wall. She did not turn to look at me, though I could sense that she was aware of my presence. Elizabeth stood motionless, towering over a sleeping form stretched out on the bed in front of her. I wondered how she could stand to be so close to the body’s sickeningly sweet odor.

  Clustered in every available corner were monitors and machines, I recognized the heart monitor immediately, and the room seemed strung together by a multitude of brightly colored wires darting from device to bedridden patient. Some machines buzzed like insects, and others chirped like songbirds. The body I recognized as Claire Dumas was wrapped in a lovely, checkered quilt.

  Claire’s gray hair was plastered to her satin pillowcase with sweat, and gripping a second pillow, Elizabeth hovered over her. I knew what she was considering. I took a step inside the room and watched as Elizabeth’s proud shoulders slumped in defeat. Softly, she whispered to me: “You shouldn’t be here.”

  I grew still, waiting for her to continue. She did not.

  “You brought me here, Elizabeth.”

  She cast her head over her shoulder. There were deep, purple circles under her eyes, made all the more striking by her solid black dress. A mourning gown, thin and modestly cut that ended just below her knees. In her heart was the thickest despair I have ever felt, deeper even than my own melancholy. The weight of her sadness stopped my approach. She spared me a weak smile.

  Elizabeth stared down at her mother’s resting face. She placed her hand at the top of Claire’s head and bending down at the waist, bestowed a gentle kiss to her furrowed brow. Slowly, she straightened and bunched the pillow tightly in her fists. I thought to stop her, but what is an old woman to me? And the moment was intimate somehow.

  With a sudden cry like a whimper that gathered into a roar, she plunged the pillow over her mother’s face, sobbing and repeating over, and over “I’m sorry,” as Claire’s ragged nails dug into the milky skin of Elizabeth’s wrists. The struggle was prolonged until, finally, Claire dropped her hands and I did not need the wailing monitors to tell me she had passed. Elizabeth fell weeping atop her mother’s chest, the pillow still in place, and curled her fingers into the shoulders of Claire’s soiled nightgown.

  I closed the distance between us and with my hands around her upper arms, lifted Elizabeth away from the corpse and turned her to face me. I was bewitched for a moment. I have witnessed many deaths—I caused most of them—but this heartbreak was something I had never seen, but was certain I recognized.

  Elizabeth’s warm, soft eyes peered into my own and she quieted in my arms as recognition began to smooth her features. She licked the salt from her lips and blinked her tears back. Apprehension pulled her body taut as a bow in my hands.

  “I know you.” Her eyes darted over my face and I released her.

  I stepped around Elizabeth and took the pillow from her mother’s face. Claire was a portrait of peace and dignity, so serene I found myself smiling down at her. I turned away and swept aside Elizabeth’s hair clinging to blotched cheeks, curling it back behind her ear. She leaned into my touch, just as she had the night we met.
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  “So Elizabeth, this is what you dream of…”

  “Stela?”

  Bård taps the back of my hand with a brush of his long fingers, and startles me back to life. I remain cautiously mute, staring him down as though facing a stranger. We are at an impasse, he and I. I cannot admit the cause of my detachment, and he can offer me no further protection than he already has.

  “What does Mr. Collins do with bodies?”

  Bård shakes his head with a forced and humorless laugh. He is not accustomed to repeating himself. “He will auction what he can to the highest bidder. It is a flourishing underground industry. Medical implants made from body parts from the dead—bones, skin, ligaments, tissues that do not decay readily. Some of them may be sold to medical institutions, research laboratories, and so forth. Supply cannot keep up with demand, so corners are cut.”

  A weary laugh rumbles up my throat, having finally been made to understand what Fane meant when he said: “spare parts.”

  “Stela,” Bård warns, placing his hand on my knee. “Whatever is behind this distraction. Whatever you are hiding from him…”

  He need not finish, I already know how that sentence ends. Whatever you are hiding from him is not worth the repercussions. I have told myself the very same, every single night, for longer than I care to claim. For years, when the dissatisfaction I harbored for this meager existence was no more than a faint ache in my chest. When the lust for battle was so keen as to drown my persistent hunger. How I long to wander this earth freely once more, in Fane’s service. To conquer in his name.

  The easy part will be killing Elizabeth, but that will merely right a single wrong. Crushing my own damnable pride is another matter entirely.

  I stand and make my way under the hatch in Bård’s chamber, establishing a healthy distance before I address him again.

  “Thank you for this evening, Brother.” I bow my head in gratitude, my legs coiled and ready to pounce for the exit in the ceiling.

  Bård rises, but does not approach. He rests his shoulder against his bedpost and crosses his willowy arms. His answering smile is a remorseful, deflated thing. “I will not distract him again, Stela.”

  “I would never ask.”

  IV

  Disturbance

  “Lie down, please.”

  Karen graciously holds the back of my gown closed as I hop up on the table. The sterile paper cover crackles under my hands like Christmas morning as I clench my bare legs, and sweep them up off the floor. In the dimly lit observation window, Arthur glances up from the monitor and gives me an uncomfortable smile from behind the glass. Immediately, I regret choosing a specialist from within my limited circle.

  Karen guides me down into the horseshoe-shaped headrest. With gentle fingers she straightens my floral hospital gown, pulling the modest covering down to just above my knees.

  “Ready?” she asks.

  I nod, certain that my voice will crack if I speak. She pats my arm and locks the table into position. I hear the soft thud of her clogs retreat across the yellowed linoleum, and the door settling on its hinges seems to suck the last breath of comfort from the room.

  All I can see from my prone position is the bright, white gleam of the harsh fluorescents, and the soft, molded plastic of the scanner closing in around me.

  “Elizabeth, try to lie perfectly still.” Arthur’s firm voice slices through the quiet—clinical and impersonal. “The first pass will be conducted without contrast. I may ask you to hold your breath.”

  I know the drill, but he’s obligated to give me a blow-by-blow of the procedure. It makes me feel like a patient—which, I am—and my powerlessness only exacerbates my fear of what he might find. I give him a thumbs-up from the table and his hearty chuckle warms the sterile lab.

  “Here we go,” he says.

  The room darkens and the only sound is the machine, loud enough to drown out my pounding heart. I hold my breath without being told to do so, as though any moment the MRI will rain poison on my face. The scanner knocks and hums.

  Have I overreacted?

  When I was a child and my mother would take me to the doctor, but however minor the ailment, it would inevitably improve the moment I sat down in the waiting room. I always felt so guilty for having wasted everyone’s time. I have a similar feeling now, enveloped in the cool embrace of the lab that Arthur had to pull strings to reserve on such short notice.

  This morning I woke with a start from a fresh round of increasingly vivid nightmares convinced I was not alone in my room. The unmistakable stench of fresh blood had clotted the air…

  I release a slow, steady exhale and fight the urge to fidget. The molded plastic obscuring my field of vision makes the room seem so manageable and contained. No space for fleeting faces. No dark corners to conceal…something. Someone. The sense of security this near-entombment brings me after weeks of unrest is both upsetting and infuriating.

  “Very good, Elizabeth,” Arthur needlessly praises. “Karen will be coming in now to administer the contrast.”

  “Straighten your arm for me.” Karen’s bright shock of orange hair and green eyes are a welcome sight, and I roll my arm to expose the IV strapped to my arm. Karen injects the contrast and I am assaulted by a metallic taste at the back of my throat that quickly conjures the taste of blood again.

  What if he doesn’t find anything? How do I explain it all then? The odors, the dreams, the visions, the feeling of being watched and followed? As terrifying as it would be to see a lesion on the scans, mental illness is also… I don’t know which diagnosis scares me more.

  Arthur is silent this round, which only underscores my fears. I hold my breath again and wish for something I can fight with pills, or a small benign tumor. Worst-case scenario: a “one-and-done” surgery. But please, a clear diagnosis of something with low to moderate severity. Temporal lobe seizures would be good.

  Last week I was washing dishes after work. Mother had lately been particularly awful to Helen, and I insisted she leave the chore for me. Gliding as silently as I could from cabinet to cabinet, stacking pots and pans and plates I looked up from the sink and froze with a colander in my hands. Outside my kitchen window, for as far as I could see, was a foam-swept tide brushing against a beach. The foam fizzled over smooth, round pebbles, scrubbing the shore clean. The sky was weighed down by heavy stagnant clouds, and the stillness was broken by screeching gulls that I could hear and see as plainly as the machine that holds me now. The hallucination was accompanied by something that wasn’t the beach at all. Something old, musty, a cross between a library and a cathedral fogged with incense. I could smell the earth—soil dampened by fresh rain. I stepped back and dropped the colander against the ceramic tiles.

  My mother’s voice came crashing down the hall, screaming about the late hour. I steadied myself and called back an apology. Shaking and unsettled, I picked up the colander, and when I faced the window all that greeted me was the predictable dark disrupted by the sudden glare of the motion light above the back patio. The light flicked off a minute later, shrouding my mother’s azaleas in shadow. I let the water out of the sink and stood watching the suds gurgle down the drain.

  On the back porch, the night breeze pulled the ends of my hair up around my neck, and beyond my suspicion that I wasn’t alone, everything was exactly as it should be. I called Arthur the next morning and made today’s appointment.

  * * *

  “There’s nothing physically wrong with you.”

  Dr. Arthur Richmond, neurologist and friend sits across from me, hands firmly folded. He drums his fingers on top of my results—a final percussive flourish—perfectly satisfied with himself, understandably content with the findings.

  I knew it was coming. I could see it in his eyes before the second scan began. A clean bill of health should be a blessing to any sound mind, but then again, my sanity is the reason for this expedited consultation. With a sigh that Arthur mistakes for relief, I draw forward in my seat. Tearfully, I plead wit
h him to understand what I’m too frightened to say, and Arthur’s pacifying smile vanishes when he sees my turmoil. He turns in his chair, facing the windows along the wall to give me a moment to collect myself.

  “You must have missed something,” I whisper. Arthur clears his throat diplomatically, and braces himself for what I’m sure would be a rallying pep talk.

  “Elizabeth,” he employs a softer, beseeching tone. “There are no abnormalities in your scans or labs. Your blood work was normal, hormone levels are stable. Hell, even your blood pressure is excellent. We’ll need to wait for serology for various pathogens, but I’m not expecting anything at all.” There is an air of genuine amusement simmering beneath his obvious concern. He’s more used to delivering tragic news.

  I walk over to the windows of his bright, cheerful office and take in the well-manicured view. A Japanese maple curls in the center of the path below, and I swear I can hear the leaves brushing against themselves in the breeze. “How do you explain the symptoms?” I challenge. “Auditory, olfactory and visual hallucinations?”

  He purses his lips, taps his index finger against his tightly closed mouth. “May I speak plainly?”

  “Of course.” I lean back against the window, watching the sun spill across my shoulders and rub my arms, more for comfort than heat. The rays of the setting sun and the warmth radiating from the glass seep into the fabric of my navy cardigan. Arthur runs a hand over his naked pink scalp.

  “I believe, from what you’ve told me of this…face you’re seeing, the smells, the sounds are all very real…to you.” He regards me with shy eyes and gentle tact. I’m grateful.