Descending Star

THIRD DESCENT

Gianna served many roles for her employers: audience chamber herald, guest escort, nanny to the demonic twins, and on this particular occasion, as she led Edythe and Alice into the octagonal courtyard, ombudsman. She was charged with softening up Volterra's guests, calming their jitters, and putting them at ease by hearing their woes and offering what bromides she could. Like the venerable namesakes from news desks long-gone, she was an advocate for the voiceless, herself possessing no pull or authority: in short, an impotent buffer. She would listen, and empathize, to no effect whatsoever, as she led Volterra's guests to slaughter.

Small-talk was her particular forté.

"So, ladies, I take it you have a passing familiarity with our other honored guest, Ben Swan."

"Benjamin," Edythe corrected acidly.

"The very one. A good boy. A delightful boy. His visit is fortuitous, don't you know. He truly could not have chosen a better time to drop by. Opportunity abounds for qualified mortals, throughout the palace. And we offer room to advance. Just look at how high I've climbed. From scullery wench to betrothed lady, though few who are aware of my qualifies are surprised.   Why, it so happens that we've been seeking a playmate and companion for the twins, these past seven hundred years, and everyone is simply delighted with the way Alec and your Benjamin have hit it off. And don't even get me started about Ben and Jane. You'll see. That pair would make such a darling couple."

Edythe leapt for the woman's neck. Alice saw it coming, and they collided in mid-air to roll halfway across the courtyard, cracking and crumbling paving stones all the way.

"Oh dear," said Gianna. "The work crews have so much to do, already."

She absently proofread her scroll, while Edythe and Alice sorted themselves out, and then they resumed their grand progress.

At the ornate doors, Gianna stopped, wrinkled her nose, and inquired, "Have none on the way to the palace suggested to you that first impressions count? I only ask because you look like unkempt ruffians."

Alice glared silently at Edythe, who snapped at Gianna, "Let's get on with it."

Gianna gave a maudlin sigh with the remark, "We once enforced a dress code," as she clicked a button on a remote control. The doors weighed four thousand pounds each, and they levered open silently. "Handicap accessible," she explained. "We are an old institution, but we have modern amenities for the physically challenged."

Inside, on the polished stone walls within an airy coffered portcullis, were mounted brass fingerbowls containing Holy water steeped into sponges. Gianna caught Edythe's stupefaction at the sight and whispered, "Brother Marcus is an anointed Saint, don't you know."

Edythe bristled at the incongruity, and on the next moment recalled Carlisle's crucifix. Were these Volturi not also entitled to indulge in the display of ironic symbols? While she absently pondered the question, Alice dabbed an index finger into a bowl and tapped the sign of the cross on her head, heart and shoulders.

Gianna led them into the vast columned rotunda, past a sizable court. Dozens of heads turned with idle curiosity.

Edythe saw nothing in that chamber of horrors but the cruciform sculpture that hung on chains above the central throne. Her gaze scanned up over the many dismembered sections of Victor's body, each chunk hammered into a smaller block of its own. Venom oozed up from each impalement and dripped onto the accumulating puddles on the floor. Then her attention found his decapitated head, itself dissected, the lower jaw hacked from the rest and pinned onto a rectangular granite block. Finally she found Victor's eyes, which swiveled wildly in their sockets, albeit uncoordinated, the only parts of his body that still had the liberty of movement. The eyes found her. First one, then other, somewhat later than the first.