Chapter 1: The Bitter Heart
Let us first consider Peregrina Dante at her best: enchanting a monster. She waved her hand through the smoky air, conducting no magic, for she had none with which to work; instead, she gestured gently as she spoke, her voice soothing in the din of other conversations and the whine of a nearby fiddle. The hobgoblin she addressed took a sip of the chilled blood on the bar before him, but he was engrossed in her words, his golden eyes bright with bioluminescence and his flapping, pointed ears curved ever so gently towards her. Coarse, wiry hairs coated his squat, scaly body, standing on end as she whispered.
“I’m well aware of what most creatures have to say about the Shadow Guard,” she murmured, her accent too refined to be placed, although it was known that she had spent most of her life here, at the Crepuscular Resort, in Alaska. “But it is of the utmost importance.”
She raked her eyes away from the hobgoblin for just a moment, to take in the tavern crowded with various monsters. A fire roared in the grate as spectral vampires lounged against the cracked stonewalls and goblins chomped on smoldering cigars. The fiddle, a pure white instrument strung up with sinew, nestled in the arms of another hobgoblin that sawed his long, harsh fingers across it to create a sound both mournful and cheery.
Dragons made of metal slithered across these windowless walls, offering surveillance for the Resort’s staff. Threadbare tapestries hung here and there, portraying ethereal virgins beneath the fangs of fearsome beasts. An iron chandelier hung overhead, completing the tableau of dilapidation, a fine façade, indeed, for much money and effort were poured into maintaining this artful shabbiness.
But let us pause for a moment amidst this hubbub to consider Peregrina at her second best: hiding a hammering human heart in her oversized handbag. No monster would begrudge her this secret, although they would be disappointed to learn that she had perpetrated no slaughter on her own, but had, instead, acquired the heart, still beating thanks to a steady dose of enchantments, from the weekly Goblin Market. She could not hope to carry out such untidy violence on her own. Still, she kept the heart hidden, not least of all because she intended to offer it to a cantankerous demon.
“The Shadow Guard is ridiculous,” the hobgoblin growled with a cruel bite of his fangs, and he gulped back the remainder of the chilled blood. He tugged on the lapels of his gray dragon-skin suit, blinking at her through his yellow eyes. “There are more important things to focus on than the safety of Oblivions—they can’t even take care of themselves or the world they claim belongs to them.”
A lovely, warbling laugh emerged from Peregrina’s plump, Cupid’s bow lips. “Mr. Silverfang, the Shadow Guard is not devoted to the safety of Oblivions; we are devoted to keeping Oblivions away from the affairs of our kind—”
“Our kind?” he repeated with a cruel smirk, revealing long eyeteeth studded with rubies.
Within her handbag, the heart gave a boom that she was certain must have been deafening.
She forced the same laugh, but not before giving a miniscule pout, an expression that ushered in a youthfulness startling to her mature sophistication. For a moment, her meager age of twenty-five was apparent. In a flash, however, it was gone, replaced by stiffened shoulders and a conciliatory smile.
“Of course,” she said, peering behind the hobgoblin to consider the bulbous ogres snarling at a table of scaled goblins. “I mean your kind—the Resilients.”
She swallowed a grimace with a sip of fleurfrost wine. Monsters were a far cry from immortal, but they were difficult to destroy, and so they were called Resilients. They had survived and thrived in the boom of Oblivion technology, whereas the delicate Gossamer creatures—fairies, elves, centaurs and other such woodland beings—had been all but eradicated. The sorcerers and mages were another matter, entirely.
Peregrina was none of these creatures; like Oblivions, she was human, easily destroyed, but she noticed all of the wondrous and monstrous things that Oblivions ignored, their dull senses made even duller by their recent fascination with shiny, digital technology. And so she thrived among the monsters that lurked in the shadows, barely in the periphery of the Oblivion’s gaze. That is not to say that these beasts were always kind to her; indeed, she had developed her armor of charm to fend off monsters that flagged between derision and deathly desire for her flesh.
“The motto of the Shadow Guard,” Peregrina said, undeterred, even as the heart thrummed against her. “Is ‘Protect the Innocents’ Innocence.’ This is not out of some altruistic notion of helping the Oblivions.” She rolled her eyes and fixed Silverfang with a droll, enchanting smile. “As you say, their population has taken control of this world, and look what they have done with it.”
She didn’t dare point out that the hobgoblins would hardly be kinder to the world if given the chance.
“But consider this,” she went on, gesturing for the goblin bartender to refill Silverfang’s glass. “Our—I mean, the Resilients’ territory is growing smaller and smaller, as the Oblivion population expands.” She paused for effect. “And then there are the basilees.”
Silverfang wrinkled his snout and shivered, making the dragon-skin crawl, as if it were alive once more.
She leaned a little closer, careful not to get too close, as monsters read a threat in such proximity. “You know as well as I that skirmishes have been increasing—Resilients fighting Resilients and Resilients fighting basilees, all in the name of more territory. That causes a lot of noise, and the Oblivions are beginning to notice. We have enough problems without the Oblivions finally noticing us. At best, they would try to parade us around their televisions as freaks. At worst, they would hunt us.”
She held her breath as he furrowed his wrinkled brow. She fretted that Silverfang would point out, tersely, that the Oblivions would never waste their time hunting someone as powerless as she. When he did not speak after taking a gulp of blood, she patted her fingers against the brass railing of the bar with a sense of finality, pressing one hand against her purse, the better to keep the heart in line.
“Think,” she said, facing Silverfang head on, and as she intended, he was startled. Humans, even other Observants, seldom met his reptilian gaze without a shudder. “Think of how the Oblivions could threaten your interests in Alaskan oil; if they find out about your kind, it would only be a matter of time before they find out about your secret veins of oil.”
She batted her eyelashes innocently, granting power to the implication that hung suspended from her words: the Oblivions would steal all of his hard-earned wealth. Her senses, sharp even for an Observant, had gleaned an enterprising selfishness in the hobgoblin’s gaze.
“All right,” he said after a long time, pushing away his glass.
His metallic gray claws disappeared into the breast pocket of his suit and resurfaced with a small, leather booklet. He scratched his right index claw into a slip of paper within, leaving behind a trail of graphite writing: a promissory note for several thousand kopper skales.
Peregrina allowed a brilliant smile to light up her features. Silverfang tore off the promissory note and handed it to her with an earnest tilt of the head, as if he were a teacher wishing to impart some significant piece of advice.
“Keep the Oblivions out of my affairs,” he said, waving the note before finally handing it over to her.
“Of course.” She took it and rose from the bar stool, unfurling a long, gamine height. Her beige purse she placed upon the stool, where she was certain it might burst with the efforts of the heart within.
Her superior height was an illusion wrought out by the hobgoblin’s childish stature and by her thick, high heels. Nonetheless, she was striking. She held out a firm hand, for most monsters—with the exception of vampires—found her willingness to touch them rather comforting. Humans made a habit of recoiling from the scaled, slimy and insidious.
“Good afternoon, Miss Dante,” he growled with the beginning of a close-lipped smile as he gripped her hand, a gesture of friendliness since he hid his fangs now. “I suppose I will see you at this evening’s Fete?”
“Yes, absolutely,” she said a little too brightly, for she planned to attend, but she also hoped to duck out after saying her hellos. The Summer Solstice Fete always prompted a migraine.
Silverfang let go of her hand, set off into the crowd of monsters and ultimately, out of the tavern. Peregrina sank back onto the bar stool and took a sip of her white, fleurforst wine. In a rare, childish gesture, she kicked her dangling legs in glee and sang a victorious show tune under her breath. It seemed a worthy enough celebration for securing a donation from the miserly Xenophilius Silverfang.
Still, she thought, sobering as the heartbeat echoed, it was not enough money. It would never be enough money, for fundraising was a Sisyphean task; as soon as kopper skales dripped into the Shadow Guard’s coffers, it seemed to drain out once more, channeled into research on the basilees, armor for the Guard’s agents, spells to confound the Oblivions and countless other things that kept the organization mere inches from failure.
Nevertheless, it was a task Peregrina enjoyed, for monsters had not the patience or the capacity for charm. She might not possess fangs like the Reslients or magic like the sorcerers and the mages, but she did possess something nearly as powerful: her charm was potent, almost as potent as her father’s had been, and it was fueled by a vicious ambition.
This ambition had recently bloomed with the fertile furtiveness of a weed, until she had gathered up her courage and confidence—two traits that could suffer an abundance one day and a deficit the next, for our dear Observant was only human—and set her sights on something grander: she had applied for the Shadow Guard’s open position of assistant director. Success was unlikely, we must confess, but as of late, Peregrina had suffered from an alarming surge of confidence and ambition.
The heart in her purse gave another boom, causing her to jump. She rose once more, reminded of the starved demon, collected her leather purse and crept out the doorway. This led her into a subterranean corridor lined with harsh granite and flanked by steel doors and grimacing gargoyles. Tapestries, these in better condition, rippled upon the walls in the breeze created by invisible ghosts. Black and crimson threads had been employed liberally to render scenes of demonic gore that Peregrina found strangely beautiful. More metal dragons slithered along the walls, flicking out scarlet forked tongues and hissing at each other.
Peregrina wound through these maze-like corridors, knowing them as well as the hammerings of her own heart—far less manic than the heart within her purse. Eventually, one of the corridors she entered disgorged her onto a wide, stone staircase. She ascended this, allowing her fingertips to trace the chilly bannister as she hummed a show tune.
The lobby above the staircase was a stark contrast to the subterranean corridors; here was a wide, welcoming room in warm shades of ivory and scarlet. The furniture was plush and the windows were large, albeit covered with heavy, velvet curtains. Ornate molding bordered the walls as white statues of Gossamer creatures flecked the lobby, occupying the space between chairs, tables, couches and the reception desk. Goblins and mages and other Observants in crimson uniforms rushed around her, pleasing guests, as needed.
Only a few guests tarried in the lobby: a trio of vampires willing to risk a little sunburn for the lobby’s glamor, and a group of sorceresses clad in outdated, flounced gowns that mimicked the greens and pinks and purples found in an English garden. The vampires sniffed the air, detecting the stench of Peregrina’s Observant blood. It was an odious smell to them, for vampires insisted that intelligence curdled the blood and ushered in rot, so Observants were not worth imbibing. The sorceresses, in turn, eyed the approaching Observant with cruel, arched eyebrows. To them, there was nothing more odious, more wasteful than being born an Observant.
Sitting behind the sorceresses, rolling his eyes at their high-pitched chatter, was the demon Peregrina sought. The vampires could pass for human in dim lighting, and sorceresses could feign humanity well enough—although Oblivions noticed something alarmingly perfect about them. The demon, however, seemed completely human, for the body he wore was just that.
Demons seek out a suitable human host and then devour his heart, soul and brains. Slimy fare, souls, and most demons prefer to survive on hearts and brains. Souls are reserved for possessions. Once a demon devours this triumvirate of identity, it takes complete control of the body and adopts the name that belonged to the unfortunate human. The poor creature’s personality is completely eradicated and, for all intents and purposes, the human is no more; now it is a demon with an armor of humanity, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The cantankerous demon that Peregrina knew well had devoured the heart, soul and brains of a squat Mafioso with a harsh bulldog stance during the Jazz Age. Intelligence had thrummed in the mobster’s skull, suffocating in impoverished circumstances until only bitterness remained. The Mafioso had not been a nice fellow, and our particular demon preferred to commandeer immoral characters—morality was awfully difficult on the digestive tract. Our demon had taken control of many bodies in the course of its millennia-long existence, and so it possessed the Mafioso without so much as a hiccup, enacting none of the jerky ranting in dead tongues that Oblivions seemed to think heralded demonic possession.
The demon Peregrina only knew as Sil—such a creature never revealed its true name, for there was no greater vulnerability—exuded crude elegance to his violence. Indeed, as she approached she watched him use a large knife to pare an apple, removing the peel in a delicate twirl that struck her as lovely and horrible all at once. It rather looked as if he were undressing a pirouetting ballerina, unwavering as he removed her very flesh.
When he lifted his head from his task and beheld her, he raised the knife and apple in exaggerated dismay. “Look who it is!” A harsh accent carved up his syllables, causing his voice to echo loudly throughout the lobby. “Trouble with a capital T, and it rhymes with P, and that stands for Peregrina!” He paused and gave an overstated pout. “You know, I got a bone to pick with you.”
Amusement smoldered in his dark eyes.
“Oh, no.” Peregrina rolled her eyes, mocking dread. “What did I do now?”
“I heard you were getting a drink with Xenophilius Silverfang,” he said as she perched on the arm of his chair.
“Why, yes, I was.”
They were both talking far too loudly and exaggeratedly. It was a game they played, one that made the sorceresses hiss at each other like displeased snakes. The vampires shook their heads, disappointed.
“Silverfang’s the shit-flecked asshole of a troll,” Sil said, biting into the nude apple.
“Maybe so,” Peregrina said, dropping her voice. “But he donated a not inconsiderable amount to the Shadow Guard.”
Sil let out a strangled cry, putting on a grand show of torturous discomfort. “We don’t want none a his money, drowning in oil!” He adopted a shrill voice that she imagined mimicked one of the sorceresses. “You know how I detest new, Metallic money!”
A giggle escaped Peregrina’s lips, for this utterance was sarcastic and affected. Sil disliked most creatures with shrugging apathy, but he loved to make a grand show of loathing significant personages, if only to cause a stir.
Indeed, one of the sorceresses whispered to her companions now, “I cannot wait for our sojourn to Everleigh—I hear there are no foul demons or worthless Observants there.”
“Oh, definitely not,” Sil cut in, rising from his seat to poke his head into the sorceress’ circle, appearing between the plush pattern of matched armchairs. “We wouldn’t be caught dead in a world where unicorns fart out rainbows and sprites sing as they work.”
For good measure, he belched an onion stench in the sorceresses’ breathing space. Despite her elegance and her charm, Peregrina burst into a cruel, cackling laugh, not unlike the sort wielded by the wicked witches of children’s stories.
The sorceresses let out a unified, indignant exhalation before gathering their flounced skirts and storming away. Peregrina and Sil exchanged triumphant grins, for the spring and summer season at the Crepuscular Resort brought the influx of snobby sorcerers and sorceresses with pretensions of old money and Verdant magic. They claimed that their form of magic was purest and best, although in recent decades it had diminished in the onslaught of Oblivion technology. They were ashamed to admit that children of established sorcery families were being born mere Observants. They fretted they would go extinct from this world, as the unicorns, elves, centaurs, fairies and other Verdant Gossamer creatures had done.
Peregrina supposed with a little frown that she should have taken pity on the sorcerers, but they called her worthless and many refused to even interact with her. The Resilient monsters at least tolerated her. But Sil had done far more than tolerate her; he had been her protector, her guardian, even if they would never put something as delicate as this into words.
She had first arrived at the Crepuscular Resort on her thirteenth birthday, three months after her father’s sudden passing. At that age, she was neither a child nor a woman; she was a monstrosity with long limbs, large eyes and acrimonious ambition that was worthy of fear. Sil, an apathetic owner of the Resort, had recognized this helpless monstrosity and declared that she would stay indefinitely—despite the protests of his vampiric co-owner.
Peregrina had never forgotten this and now she recalled the heart thrumming in her purse. Like the heart within, the handbag had been purchased at the Goblin Market, although years and years ago. This purse had been enchanted to change shape with an incantation and to hold an infinite number of objects without bulging or growing heavier.
From this article she retrieved a large plastic container, the sort favored by domesticated housewives. Within pulsated the vicious red organ. She held it out for Sil who eyed it with lengthening features.
His olive complexion went green and the amusement fled his face. Not for the first time, she noticed that his plumpness had begun to dissipate into slimness, although he was a far cry from gaunt. In her adolescence, his human armor had appeared on the cusp of a substantial middle age, but now crow’s feet flanked his eyes and gray peppered his dark hair. His eyes were watery, almost sad.
“What?” she asked, hiding her alarm with a single, bursting laugh.
In an instant, the amusement was back in his dark gaze, and he grinned. Somehow, though, she suspected it was a sham.
“So, you’re feeding me now?” he asked, taking the plastic container from her. “Like a dog.”
“No!” she cried. “I just saw it at the Goblin Market and I thought…” She hesitated, averting her gaze to a bone ashtray that adorned the accent table. “Bonnie said that you were getting weaker because you hadn’t fed in decades.”
“Yeah, well Bonnie’s so full a shit he bleeds brown.” He rolled his eyes. “I ain’t getting weaker. I’ll hunt again when I need to.”
Sil shook the plastic container so the heart within rattled wetly. Then, it disappeared before Peregrina’s eyes. “I’ll eat it later.”
She knew that a demon needed to dine upon human hearts to survive. An ancient demon, Sil had allegedly lost the ability to hunt humans when his claws and fangs refused to emerge at his command. This was the hallmark of his deterioration. Age made demons incapable of feeding and digesting, and they slowly starved. Having a heart fed to him was not the same; a demon needed to extract the heart from a fluttering chest cavity with its own fangs and claws.
Peregrina suspected this, but she would never admit that Sil’s mortality was approaching at an ever-quickening speed. She had long taken comfort in the notion that he would outlive her, granting her a kind of everlasting life by telling her story. But if she outlived him…
“Oh!” she said suddenly, eager to not only change the subject, but to wonder about something that had been nagging at her for the past few days. “Have you and Bonnie and Eileen decided on a new assistant director—for the Shadow Guard?”
“Uh…” He rubbed his chin. “No, not yet.”
She arched her eyebrows and tried to smile. “You seem uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, I got indigestion; I ate a wedge of Parmesan cheese a little while ago—”
“Oh, Sil, you know you’re lactose intolerant—”
“Bah, that’s just a condition Oblivions made up to humiliate cows!”
“That doesn’t even make sense!”
“Whaddya want from me? Oblivions don’t make sense; they put contraptions in space so they can talk to people across the world, meanwhile they got their heads in their phones while they walk around, so they don’t gotta physically interact with each other. They’re like ostriches, only dumber…” He chuckled, recalling a fond memory. “And a lot easier to catch.”
Peregrina tilted her head back, laughing and laughing, as they exchanged nonsensical theories about Oblivions that bled into gossip about visiting vampire swarms. In unison, they recalled their meeting for the Shadow Guard across the Resort, and rose, continuing their exchange.
It was only as they passed out of the lobby and into the iridescent day, that Peregrina realized that Sil had done a spectacular job of changing the subject from the Shadow Guard’s opening for assistant director. Our dear Observant was difficult to fool, and so it was a testament to Sil’s cleverness—and to the deep concern she harbored for his health. She supposed she would have looked far more foolish if she suddenly called out his demonic trickery, and so she left their conversation alone.
Their footsteps echoed against flagstones while they meandered through the courtyard’s garden, half of it pristine and the other half corrupted by gnarled brambles and dark vines. Hedges and bushes in the shapes of Resilients and Gossamers rushed to and fro to form a maze that Peregrina and Sil had no difficulty deciphering. After so many years living in the Resort, they knew all the tricks of the enchanted hedges.
“Bonnie got Noah Diamond for the Fete tonight,” Sil said in the midst of a brief, comfortable silence that hung between them when their gossip was at an end. “He just booked him.”
“The guests will love that,” she said, averting her gaze to leafy centaur. Her voice was flat, but Sil detected her lack of enthusiasm all the same.
“I thought you liked him?”
“Noah Diamond? Yeah, I like his music.”
“So, you’ll stay at the Fete for more than ten minutes?” Sil asked, an edge of suspicion in his words.
“I plan to stay for the whole Fete—”
“Slick.” He cut her off as the maze of hedge creatures expelled them onto a wide, cobblestone road, quaint and outdated with brick storefronts surrounding it. “You and I both know you’re going to fake a migraine to get out of the Fete.”
She screwed up her face into a pout as young goblins, faces runny with sugary blood, sprinted around her. “I do not fake my migraines.”
“Maybe not,” he said thoughtfully. “But you’re real good at giving yourself one to get outta the things you don’t wanna do.” He offered a smirk. “It’s an enviable skill, really.”
She said nothing for a moment, wishing Sil did not bring up such things.
A group of mages, stockier and generally less becoming than sorcerers, emerged from a bar. Unlike sorcerers, mages wore trousers, boots and vests in metallic colors, shining like polished copper in the sunlight. This particular group crooned one of Noah Diamond’s songs unevenly, and Peregrina supposed that word of the Fete’s guest had already spread, no doubt with the gossipy intervention of the pea-brained pixies, creatures torn between insect and humanoid.
“Does it gotta do with Everleigh?” Sil asked.
She ground her heels into the cobblestone, coming to a halt in front of a barbershop that offered advertisements for fang cleaning and scale polishing.
“Everleigh?” she repeated, shocked, not least of all because her avoidance of the Fete did, in fact, have everything to do with Everleigh.
“The Fete is a celebration of the door opening to Everleigh,” Sil pointed out, meandering ahead of her, hands in his pockets.
“It has nothing to do with that,” she said, keeping a steady clip with him. “It’s like a giant carnival, the Fete, and I hate carnivals.”
He studied her but then let the matter go, for she did hate overly large crowds of adults acting like children, battling over toys and screaming on pointless rides.
The shops gave way to a huge Gothic basilica, complete with spires and gargoyles that lobbed profanity at them as they pushed through the steel doors. Inside the Obsidian Cathedral, however, were no pews, altars or images of religiosity. The windows within were stained glass, although their depictions were shielded by heavy black curtains, to blot out the sun.
Desks, conference tables, dividers and lamps appeared throughout, giving the impression of a library or an office. Tight, spiraling staircases disappeared up and down, into dark uncertainties. A crest appeared throughout, imprinted on the tables, plastered on the walls and carved into the iron doors: a bespectacled gargoyle and the looming shadow of a horned beast.
The Shadow Guard’s managerial and administrative staff surrounded the largest, circular table in the cathedral. They were thirteen various creatures, from Observants to ogres.
A vampire sat at a desk, several feet from the conference table. He wore a lilac suit and a brilliant smile, as if a gory feast was laid out before him. His skin was dark, as dark as Peregrina’s, for his thirty-five year human existence had begun and ended in Ptolemaic Egypt. He stretched out his long, long legs and waved spindly fingers to Sil and Peregrina, beckoning them to him.
“My pet,” he greeted Peregrina with a kiss of the air above her cheek as she smiled. “Delightful to behold your beauty, as always, although I wish the fragrance of your blood were less pungent. If you were only a bit senseless, I think I might tolerate your presence just a little more.”
He spoke with a luxurious, rolling accent cultivated after centuries of living in Europe, where he had also acquired the ridiculous moniker of Philip Bonnet. His true name was a mystery he hid behind a fanged smile.
“Silvio.” The vampire’s maroon eyes took in the cartoon crow on the demon’s sweatshirt. It was bashing a sledgehammer into an alarm clock. “Must you dress like Oblivion peasantry? I should never have permitted you that television.”
“You don’t permit me shit,” Sil grumbled, settling into the other chair flanking the mahogany desk.
The vampire called Bonnie and the demon called Sil had been allies since the fall of the Roman Empire, and they insisted that this association (not friendship—they would never use such a disgusting word) had only lasted so long because no other creature could tolerate them, not even their own kind.
Together, the two monsters founded and owned the Crepuscular Resort—and the Shadow Guard. They managed neither, preferring that more sensible creatures do all the hard work. Both were certain that, under their management, both organizations would crumble in hours. Still, they were owners if for nothing but amusement. Sometimes, though, Peregrina suspected that their intentions bordered into the tangled territory called honorable.
At the end of the cathedral, where an altar should have been, stood a gigantic black grandfather clock, all ornate swoops and swirls that resembled claws and tumbling waves. The monsters made no attempts at religion, but if they respected one intangible being, it was Time, ruthless and unswerving. The clock boomed out the passage of the hour just once, and the leader of the Shadow Guard coughed at the conference table.
Dr. Eileen Wang-Hurwitz was a short, slightly plump she-wolf of Chinese descent. Her sleek black hair hung to her chin and she cast her dark, weary eyes over Bonnie and Sil. Although she was in the midst of her forties, she seemed over a decade younger thanks to the werewolf that had bitten her shortly after the birth of her twin sons. Gold encircled her dark irises, marking her affliction with the lupine virus. Peregrina’s Observation detected a wet dog reek from Eileen, although her affliction had rendered her striking, replacing plain features with the glow of vital carnality—not that Eileen would ever admit to indulging in carnality.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” she said as Peregrina settled into a seat at the conference table, between a petite mage in her late twenties and a bulbous ogre all elbows and muscles. “Thanks for coming out in the daylight, and I hope you can all stay for the Resort’s Summer Solstice Fete.”
Employing magic that smelled of burnt fur, Eileen presented numbers over a white screen that floated in the air before them. The she-wolf addressed the daily, dull logistics of the Shadow Guard, but Peregrina stayed alert, scribbling notes into a little book.
Eileen yielded her presentation to the heads of the departments within the Shadow Guard. A bearded mage rose, placing his calloused hands upon the table, where Peregrina’s Observation could detect the coppery sheen of Metallurgical magic circulating, stark, in the blue blood of his veins. Horace Joyce was the leader of the Resilient agents that worked in the field to ensure Oblivions remained oblivious to their existence.
He stroked his beard as he delivered his news: Oblivion children had been rescued from the jaws of dragons; zealous Oblivions had been made to forget encounters with insatiable demons; exsanguinated humans had been collected and their remains divvied up and stored in the freezer of the Resort, for consumption by the guests; a nest of pixies in heat had been extracted from a mall; and a grisly murder perpetrated by a necromancer had been covered up and attributed to an escaped convict.
“I’m pleased to report,” Horace Joyce concluded. “That this month, we’ve had little trouble with the basilees.” He nodded towards the petite mage sitting next to Peregrina. “Flora actually had a little luck with one.”
Flora Sweeny, her cheeks perpetually rosy with ideas and information, pushed her mousy hair from her round face and stood up. Like most mages, she wore a vest and boots, but she paired the articles with a knee-length flounced skirt.
“Thank you, Horace,” she said, smiling nervously. “Although I wouldn’t call a run-in with a basilee luck.” She held up a begrudging finger. “I did manage to kill it—her.” She winced, correcting herself, for Flora led the Shadow Guard’s department of research, and she held tightly to a modicum of sympathy for the basilees she studied.
Eileen tilted her head to one side, a mother urging her child, for the precocious and sweet mage enjoyed a close friendship with the she-wolf. “You’ve preserved the carcass, haven’t you?”
Flora nodded, and murmurs of disbelief rippled throughout the cathedral. Peregrina looked back at Bonnie and Sil, who had both covered their mouths with their hands. She almost laughed, for it was startling how they could mimic each other.
The mage waved her hand in the air, unleashing a ripple of Metallic magic that summoned the basilee carcass onto the table. Horror murmured throughout, and Peregrina felt all the blood leave her face. Despite the mage’s warning, she had the sudden, almost irrepressible urge to flee the cathedral.
To begin with, the basilee was remarkably tall, taking up the entire length of the nine-foot conference table. Horns blossomed from the monster’s forehead, one long and curling, the other shorn sloppily. Pale blonde tresses cascaded around her head, a tangle forming between the horns. Flesh, the withered and lovely consistency of crape, grew and extended in a startling shade of emerald to form a lavish gown. Within the folds of the gown had been stitched—or carved—scenes of violence wrought out upon unthinkable beasts.
A large, golden skeleton clock rested against her waist, counting off the seconds with precise booms that resounded with the black grandfather clock. Fangs bloomed from the creature’s ruby mouth, and yellow claws protruded from her remaining, right hand. These weapons glittered in the torchlight with breathtaking diamonds and gems. The left arm hosted a tangle of black stalks that Flora identified as Blackthorns.
“Does anybody remember what Blackthorns are?” she chirped with an eager grin, acting like a schoolteacher.
Horace Joyce made an unattractive, pensive noise deep in his throat.
Peregrina leaned forward and spoke despite her legs bouncing under the table. “They’re the mark of a ruling basilee queen—and the mark of Everleigh’s sorceress queen.”
She did not add that the sorceress queen only wore the Blackthorns, because her grandmother—or, was it great-grandmother, Peregrina could never remember—had slaughtered a basilee queen to steal all rights to her territory, nearly half of Everleigh.
“Exactly!” Flora sang, nearly jumping with joy. “So, this is the Countess of Scars, the ruler of the two basilee colonies in our world.”
She was only called a countess, because the basilee queens and the sorceress queen of Everleigh refused to acknowledge her as an equal. Not to mention that the Countess existed in a country that had a long history of disdaining monarchic rule.
Midas Copperhorn, the goblin head of finance and Peregrina’s direct supervisor, coughed out a growl. “Uh, Flora, don’t you think they’re gonna want your blood, since you slaughtered their Countess?”
She lowered her head to study the fallen Countess of Scars. “W-well, yes, but they’re creatures of terror; if we let our fear hinder our actions, then it’s a victory for them.”
Peregrina couldn’t help a small smile in the mage’s direction.
“Have you looked beneath the mask?” Bonnie asked abruptly.
Peregrina considered the basilee’s most prominent feature now: the ivory mask plastered over her face. Like the diamonds and flesh gown, the mask was beautiful, painted and crusted with gems and images of slaughter. It reminded Peregrina of a Venetian Carnivale mask, and she reflected once more that she really did hate carnivals.
“No,” Flora said, withering further. “Even with magic it cannot be removed.”
There were whispers and rumors that beneath a basilee’s mask lay a face so deformed that it contained all the monstrosities of the universe, and any unfortunate onlooker would perish in agony. But Resilients and sorcerers did love hyperbole.
Peregrina took a closer look at the mask, intrigued, despite her resolve not to look too carefully. Recognition struck her like a blow when she beheld a familiar spade-shaped pattern of black diamonds; she had encountered this basilee years ago, before she had arrived at the Crepuscular Resort, before she had even heard the title Countess of Scars. She gulped, pushing away this memory of when she had been at her most wretchedly vulnerable: dumped into a colony of basilees, offered to them as food by…well, Peregrina preferred not to think about the person that had betrayed her in this way. If she entertained the memory, she feared that vulnerability would find her out once more.
She folded her hands and inclined her head, communicating nothing. This carcass, she recalled, Countess or no, was the basilee that had shown her mercy, the creature that had allowed her to escape the murderous colony intent on dining upon her. She suppressed a shudder, unable to focus on Flora’s harrowing tale of overpowering the Countess of Scars.
Moments later, when she had finished, Midas Copperhorn droned through the budget, tearing off his bifocals and snarling at Bonnie when he yawned dramatically. And then, when he was done, Eileen issued closing remarks, some words of encouragement that rang hollow in the vast, godless cathedral.
“Go get ‘em, champs!” Bonnie called out in a poor imitation of a high school football coach.
The employees mingled about, exchanging personal news and bits of gory gossip. Bonnie and Sil, consummate monsters that were terribly ostentatious until they shucked off that loudness for stalking into the shadows, had disappeared. Eileen was gone, as well, and Peregrina imagined them congregating in her office, discussing some secret matter or another—perhaps, the assistant director.
Flora approached Peregrina, and the Observant congratulated the mage on successfully acquiring a basilee carcass; but, this seemed to make the mage uncomfortable, and she changed the subject to Noah Diamond’s encroaching performance with a grin.
Even as they talked, Peregrina’s mind and attention wandered towards Eileen’s office. She liked Flora and usually found her a good partner in small talk, but now she was eager for a decision to be announced on the open position in the Shadow Guard. Sil had changed the subject earlier when she had asked about it, and that was certainly not a good sign.
“Okay,” Flora said suddenly, rolling her eyes, and Peregrina realized that she had let her mind wander too much. “Well, I should go get ready for the Fete—see you later.”
This made Peregrina sag her shoulders, for her Observation was keen, sharp when she employed it well, but there were times when she found it terribly exhausting to wield. Not to mention that forging friendships, especially with other women, was messy, difficult work for Peregrina. Charming donors and monsters was one thing, but establishing friendships was another beast, entirely.
She sighed, but shrugged her shoulders, certain that someone as cheerful as Flora would forgive her absentmindedness—and Peregrina was, after all, so very charming. She ventured back into the daylight, pressing through the crush of tourists visiting Crepuscular. As her mind wandered back to the matter of the Shadow Guard’s assistant director, she gnawed on her lip, worrying.
Earlier, charming Xenophilius Silverfang, she had felt untouchable: a tamer of monsters. Now she felt like a child, taunted by savage beasts. Let us now consider Peregrina at nearly, but not quite her worst. That will come soon enough. She tugged nervously at her designer blouse and frowned down at her emerald pumps. Her teeth worked at the dead skin on her lips, until blood bloomed into her mouth.
Ridiculous, came a shrill voice in her head. You’re being ridiculous.
She was, she supposed, far too young to expect such a prestigious promotion, but did Bonnie not take great, teasing pleasure in telling her that her lifespan was a mere blink for him, and that she was more fragile than fine china? So, it was not too soon for her to consummate her ambitions of greatness. She was a flimsy, ephemeral mortal among monsters.
Still, she wondered, as she sometimes did, about the depth of her ambitions,
her need to prove her might to these snarling beasts.
Thirteen years ago, when she first arrived at the Crepuscular Resort, she had been fleeing something more fearsome than any beast: the mediocrity of the copious Oblivions intent upon squashing all tremors of eccentricity.
And, she had to admit that she had been fleeing the mediocrity of her father’s demise. Arcadio Dante had been a brilliant Observant, his charms and smile as bright as the sun. A scheme had always been present in his dark gaze and a con never far from the reach of his short, stubby fingers. Oblivions and monsters he duped without discrimination. Peregrina had surmised that in his old age he would slip up and find himself sliced beneath the claws of a murderous monster. Instead, his heart seized up and stopped before his forty-fourth birthday.
Heart attack, the doctors called it, and she was furious that no purpose bloomed from his death; there was no opportunity to declare vengeance, to seek out a monster and slaughter it. Instead, there was only pain, crushing defeat.
In the end, her father had been human and there had been nothing fantastic about his ending. It had been mediocre. But Peregrina was certain that she was more than the human mediocrity the monsters claimed her to be. Perhaps, if she wielded her influence like a weapon, they would see the greatness within her.
*