"Did you come here because it was nearest, or because you trust me?"
Maeve stared at Myca numbly as he washed off the blood, trying to digest what he had said. The whispers hounding her the past hours.. days.. however long since she'd stepped into the church did not press so close here. But the dreams and nightmares of the past still gnawed at her - made her question how real this was. If she was still trapped in the cell, being picked apart an inch at a time. Mind pried open like a box for the pleasure of Gregarious... her escape was far too easy...
Panic rose like a tide again and she heard Myca repeat his request for her to take a deep breathe and count. Forcing herself to do as he requested to calm.
She had no other sanctuaries left. Poisoned in her own roof, spies among Frau Romand, the church a trap, Malachite missing, Tereza and Tomas gone, Gregarious haunting his den at court, creatures of foul intent prowling the city, Horus and Rainer turned against her...
WHY!? Why sire?
Of all the people and places in the city she knew, Myca was among those few that had neither ill will nor reason to harm her. It would mortify most of their kind of this holy city and surprised even her to realize, but she did trust him.
She asked him what she'd asked him for the first time she'd come to his home - the knotwork tattoo on her back. The symbols of her geis. Maeve released a tiny amount of the tension she'd been holding like a overstrung bow, after he recalled it. It was either truly him, or she'd been consumed so far that even her tiniest secrets - her most trivial sin - had been laid open and all hope was lost.
The unknown kindred - or things of like power - that she had seen through the district delivering the bottles. Maeve warned him of everything she had seen, the charms on the herd and retainers. Recalling names or addresses, locations as the Tzimisce requested them. The recitation was familiar territory. Logic. Calm.
Her mouth quirked into a very small smile, seeing him skip certain names or addresses on the paper. A few enemies of the Tzimisce would be dead soon, but not only did it not bother her, it warmed her a little to think of their demise. It was comforting behavior from Myca - more so then the gentle words had been at the start. It was the game of sin and death the Ventrue pretended not to play. Until their own childer started to perish - none of them had ever left their gilt halls to come seeking the lost Malkavian or Nosferatu....
Memory griped her through the fog of thoughts - the voices through the walls - and her errand, before the attack in the dark.
"Myca. Malachite was missing as well, wasn't at the church when I went looking for him b..before. Somewhere. I heard his voice, and tried to find him after I escaped my cell, but there was no sign of him. I couldn't... I couldn't linger in that place any longer after I had to kill the guard. Has he been found? And is.... Rainer.... missing, alive?"
The last question was practically dragged out, like she hated even asking, but had to find out. The incessant curiosity. If the voice had been lying and he was alive and well or he was truly ill.
Home 
