At the pinnacle of leadership among his flock, he knows everyone will be out to get him, to steal what he has worked all his life for. Paranoia runs deep, and so he mustgrowhis flock ever-wider. It must become inclusive, a throng of well-wishers who will keep him in their hearts, so he can never be toppled.
Those are the thoughts he’s having as he’s making his concoction before mass: It’s all for the greater good. It’s all penance.
The holy water he serves to his people is a sacred thing. He mixes it with a strange chemical—just a few drops of the stuff, not enough to do any real damage. But it makes his parishioners more pliable, makes their ears open to the truths he has to tell them about the Truehearts.
And with those truths, the priest is guaranteed he can grow his flock into the sky, with so many thousands one day worshiping the ground he walks on.
It is absolution he seeks . . . and if he has to one day dine with vampires and eventually agree to their terms to reach the immortal status he so badly craves . . . then it’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make in the name of the Truehearts.
Chapter 39
Sephania
Three days pass and I haven’t gotten a chance to sit down with Imis and ask her about where she’s been and what she’s so eager to tell me.
It’s nice having another old friend in the mix, especially one like Im. Even if she is hardly around, sneaking off like a wisp during the daylight hours. When I try to find her on that first night back from Olhav, she’s nowhere to be seen. I briefly wonder if she got spooked from seeing my imposing vampires, and the Silverblood manufacturing operation in the underbelly of the Firehold, and all the gray-robed ladies mingling with the Grimsons.
This place is definitely not what it was when she left it.
I’m also busy during the three days that follow our wild attack on the North Mines. I have to use every hour at my disposal—including hours I’ve reserved for sleeping most of the time, since I’ve become a nocturnal animal like my mates—because there’s no turning back after such a brazen invasion.
Eight Gilded Ghosts, former interfolk miners, died in the conflict. Seven vampire guards belonging to the Military Ward perished, thanks to me and my mates. We left the silver mines in ruins, a layer of blood mixed thick in the dirt, with more silver deposits missing.
In objective measures, the attack was a success. We managed to catch the vampires flatfooted on their own turf, snatch theirtreasured ore away from them, and we didn’t all die while doing it.
Subjectively . . . I wish it had gone better. I’m not sure what we could have done differently, but it was hard watching people I’ve never known fight for something they don’t understand, because I asked them to, and then get slaughtered for it. People like Kimera, whose only crime was being interfolk and being a worker slave.
Even seeing Cordea’s cratered head and split-open ribcage was tough to see. All that beauty, that pristine sharpness and smirking, porcelain attitude, relegated to a bag of cold, bloody meat.
The thought makes me shudder, even now.
On the first day back, we knew we had to act swiftly before the counterattack came. I went out with some of the human Sisters in the afternoon, while my mates slept, and we secretively handed out Silverblood vials to anyone who would take them.
I felt like a beggar again at the House of the Broken. A child trying to peddle my wares or steal what I couldn’t buy. Now, I’m trying to steal loyalty and buy rebellion, rather than coin and food.
Most people ignored us. Some sneered at us, taking the ragged robes of the Chained Sisters to mean we were beggars. I understood the sneers, since Nuhav as a whole had been struggling in recent years. Who would possibly have the coin to help us poor orphan girls?
If they’d only stick around for a moment and listen, they’d realize we weren’t trying to peddle anything but their freedom.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to meet face to face with people,” I grumbled on the way back to the Firehold at twilight. “This didn’t work as well as I’d hoped.” I could hear the clanking of at least six vials of Silverblood in my tunic pockets. When I arrived this afternoon, I had ten.
“Hawking this shit is a tough sell,” said Aleth. The big-talking, diminutive hellraiser spat on the ground. “We have no incentive.”
“No incentive except their fucking lives,” I add.
On day two, I had Antones help me set up some meetings with barkeeps and tavern-dwellers. This was slightly more successful because drunk people were easier to ply, more susceptible, and more conducive to general rabble-rousing. The tavern owners like Kep, however, wanted nothing to do with me, and quickly booted me from their establishments once they realized what I was doing.
Planting the seed is all I can do for now,I thought morosely on my way back to the hold.
Now it’s day three. I’m having Ant go out on his own to partner the Silverblood with coin if he can’t convince people to take it from us for free. The problem, I realize, is that no one knows what to do with it yet. They don’t understand it’s a vaccine against evil. The regular lives of the tailor and butcher and artificer are so removed from vampires, I’m practically speaking another language when I try to explain the Silverblood will break mental bonds between vampire master and their thrall.
I tell Antones to speak with Archpriest Cullard, so the perverted old man can explain to his flock how this is in their best interest, using whatever sermons he wishes.
I meet with some of the less desirable gang leaders in town. Gang leaders I haven’t already killed for doubling as flesh-traders, that is. The three nightladies I sent to the Firehold after rescuing them from that disgusting prick Perevis prove useful in this situation.
It’s funny how I went from utilizing the poor and “innocent” Chained Sisters one day, to prostituting the experienced ladiesthe next. Two different sales groups aimed at two different demographics.
We aren’t trying to sway the common man now. We’re trying to convince the ne’re-do-wells of Nuhav to partner with us, join us, and strike it rich while doing so.