Blood Spirits (62 page)

We raced on . . . straight into what felt like a fog bank. Only the air was clear. Tony started cussing violently, and flung the rifle into the rack behind us.

All down the line came a sinister silence.

“Weapons won't fire,” he said tightly, and swung the sword in a figure eight, loosening his arm. “They've got full dark now. They're going to rush us, and it's going to be hand to hand.”

What he didn't say was,
there are too many of them to fight off. And no convenient secret tunnels at hand for a fast escape
.

What could I do? I remembered the prism light from the portal.

I had no idea if it would work, but I was going to try. I wrapped the reins around one forearm and thrust my free hand into my pocket. I pulled up the prism and reached mentally with frantic energy for that amazing light.

And there it was, incandescing, nearly strobing with full-spectrum effulgence.

It hit the vampires like a shock wave. They gave those horrible thin screams and hisses, then faded back to a prudent distance.

“I don't know how you did that.” Tony grabbed the reins. “But it was a
very
good idea.”

Now I could hold the prism above my head with both hands, my eyes dazzled to blindness. But I didn't need to see. I could hear the things running alongside us, keeping well out of the nimbus; I whiffed that moldy deep-freeze stink that made my shoulder blades crawl.

My arms began to ache as we raced up Devil's Mountain in tight formation. Somewhere, someone began to sing a strange, skipping minor key melody in Russian as we wound our way up toward the Eyrie through the darkness.

I squinted, my eyes tearing. I blinked away the moisture, my cheeks cold, and held the light higher above my head. I began to catch glimpses of things as we passed a shrine, a signpost—Tony scanning ceaselessly—we whizzed over the top of a small rise, and silhouettes converged, torches held high. I gasped, but they were ordinary people, the ones Tony had ordered as reinforcements.

They streamed on either side of us, footsteps churning up snow, and bore down on the cloud of vampires in our wake, roaring in fury.

That is, they rushed the vamps—but though they waved swords, axes, and sharpened farm implements that reflected blood-red in the torchlight, within moments there was nothing to attack. The vamps had scattered.

We rode on, leaving the villagers guarding the road behind us. We glided and bumped through several more hamlets, each enormous with bonfires in the central square, the ruddily lit shapes of burly inhabitants on guard, scythes and hoes and ancient flintlocks or swords or spears at hand. The glitter of crystals in every single window we passed made it clear that the Devil's Mountain people had no trouble with magic, even if their duke did. Or, maybe, once did.

The castle appeared at last, glimpsed between crags, every window lit. Now I understood why they kept the bazillion lights on. We slowed after racing through the mighty gates into a churned-up yard.

I lowered my aching arms and breathed out a sigh as a tall, slim figure loped gracefully toward us, her corn-silk hair a golden halo in the firelight.

“Find the portal?” Phaedra asked.

“Closed.” Tony jumped down from the sleigh. “Let's go inside. I haven't been able to feel my toes for hours.”

Only then did I realize my feet were numb as well. I climbed out of the sleigh as castle people swarmed about, taking care of the animals. Crunch, crunch—memory added its own whiplash. There was the jeep, and Reithermann died right there . . . Kilber was probably hiding behind that corbel on the rock wall, hidden by the hanging leaves on that nowbare tree, when he threw the knife that buried in Tony's shoulder.

Waves of exhaustion wrung me down, making my head feel like it was floating somewhere above my body. I followed the other two through the same stone archway where Tony had once carried me, a pistol pressed to my temple. We took an abrupt turn into a part of the castle I hadn't seen.

“Phaedra,” Tony said. “Battle report?”

“What battle?” Phaedra flung her hands up in disgust. “Wasted the entire day drawing up strategy and tactics—got hundreds of volunteers—just to walk around all night waving weapons at each other under the pretty lights in almost every window and hanging from every arch, tree, and gargoyle. Not a vampire in sight. In Riev this morning, Dmitros passed on the order for everyone to stay in except the Vigilzhi tonight. I couldn't stand another day cooped up indoors without knowing what was going on. I came up here in case they attack the castle.”

“About that,” Tony said. “No. First, where's Danilov?”

“Disappeared with Honoré and Gilles. Won't set foot in your house until the rest of the family agrees to your plan.”

“Plan?” I asked.

Tony shrugged as if it didn't matter, and said to me, “The other day, while you were at the inn getting ready, I went home and proposed that the entire family sit down together with Honoré. No one hiding diamonds or crystals, just some questions and answers. Mother took to her bed, saying that my implied accusation was worse than a vampire attack—Robert roared and stamped—everyone else galloped to the moral high ground. So I asked Jerzy and Percy to guard the house, had Madame Tullée pack up the last of New Year's dinner, and you know the rest.”

Phaedra's indifference at the mention of “Madame Tullée” made it clear that that secret was still intact—making me wonder just how many secrets the von Mecklundburgs were keeping from one another.

Phaedra's thoughts paralleled mine. “Now I'm beginning to think that someone wants us at each other's throats.”

“We've always been at each other's throats,” Tony said tiredly, and to someone down a hall, “Boris! Fetch the Rose and Thorn. Meet us at the garden doors.”

“Did you find the Esplumoir?” Phaedra asked.

“Maybe. Those caves are closed, whatever they are. The bloodsuckers attacked us on the way back. We lost three people.” He named them.

Phaedra flinched at every name, her grief swiftly turning to anger. She cursed as she followed us into the lower part of Tony's castle. This had to be the service entrance with its stone walls and low ceilings cut from stone.

We ran up two flights of worn stairs, and had just reached the massive floor made of yard-wide squares of black and white marble in a checkerboard pattern, when we were met by a tall, gloomy-faced, white-haired man carrying a heavy brass tray with two implements on it. The bowl was made out of solid gold, etched with the Dobreni symbols that had become familiar, twined together with rose vines. Same with the handle of the knife.

The Rose and the Thorn.

“Diamonds off,” Tony said, removing his earring. “Crystal, too.”

I unfastened my necklace and laid it in a waiting bowl of some translucent material. It looked impossibly old. Tony tossed his diamond earring in without looking. Phaedra took off not only earrings but a necklace.

Niklos turned up, shotgun on his hip and a heavy cavalry sabre in his other hand. A few of the huskier guys, armed with steel as well as shotguns, paced behind us as Tony and Phaedra led the way across the polished checkerboard floor to a pair of grand carved doors that opened onto the garden that I'd last seen in summer, when I ran for my life.

Now the grounds were blanketed in snow, softly glowing from the many lit windows. The sky was covered by a thin haze of clouds. The nice weather was already eroding toward more snow.

Crunch, crunch. We walked past the bare trees. The white statues were easily visible. No, not statues. My heart gave one of those bumps when I remembered that these were vampires—turned to stone.

Yes, there was one I remembered, a mossy, weather-blurred figure in medieval tunic and hose, the shoes elongated, on a carved stand. Its hands were out to the sides—probably bound by ropes. His face lifted skyward.

We paced in the opposite direction from where I'd run during summer, toward the highest end of the castle. There was a secluded garden behind the Sky Suite, which housed the ducal family. This garden was reachable by a long curve of stone steps. One side of the wall had a huge gate, which Niklos and a couple of the guys unbarred and pushed open. Beyond it was forest.

In the center of the garden was a smooth, shallow fountain that reminded me of an ancient Greek kylix—a two-handled cup with a stem. Tony set the tray down in the middle of it, and stepped back.

Then we waited.

And waited.

Nothing came through the gate.

“Don't you have to, like, send a message or something?” I said after what felt like a thousand years. My fingers and toes had begun to go numb again.

“They've got to be around,” Phaedra said.

Tony sniffed the air. “They're around.”

I sniffed as well. There was a trace of that musty deep freeze smell, charged with a sense of electricity—like the air when the desert winds blow in California, right before the wildfires start. It made the hairs on the back of my neck lift.

There were no ghosts anywhere.

“Damn it,” Tony said finally, lifting the tray. “Damn.”

“What's the problem?” I asked.

Phaedra said, “Wouldn't it mean that Uncle Robert completed the treaty, if they aren't here?”

Tony headed toward the path, after sending a grim look out into the darkness. “Not that simple. They're out there. They could tell us if he did. I think what this silence means is that there's unfinished business.”

He started up the stairs to the castle.

THIRTY-SEVEN

T
ONY LED THE WAY in angry silence back to a part of the castle I hadn't seen during the summer. This was deep in the lower level, the service area. Past a jumble of baskets and brooms and garage kafuffle, a glance at a huge coat room full of boots and shoes neatly lined up, and coats on hooks, and oh, warmth and light—we walked into an enormous kitchen, with restaurant-sized prep tables and ovens, and glimpses of smaller prep annexes through open doors.

A grizzled old man in a long apron bustled in. “In the boot room, in the boot room.” He waved his hands. “You know better,
hertsa'vos
,” the man scolded.

“His dukeship” (the closest translation) withdrew to the big closet we'd just passed through, trailing Phaedra and me. We struggled out of our sodden boots and socks. As I hung up my coat, I fished the prism out and stuck it in my pants pocket—then remembered I'd left my backpack full of dirty clothes and toothbrush in the sleigh. Oh, well.

“Leave those wet things there,” the man said from the doorway. “Boris will see to them. We will bring you something hot.”

He made shooing motions at us as Phaedra led the way through the big kitchen to another smaller one that smelled like cinnamon and nutmeg. Big flour barrels were lined up, and on a vast bread board, pastry dough sat rising.

Through there to a short hall where an odor of chicken paprika lingered, and through yet another door into a small, cozy room with carefully repaired but timeworn French streamline lounge chairs from the thirties. I sank into one with a sigh of relief that came up from my needle-stinging, defrosting toes.

A fire burned in the fireplace. I worked my gloves off my tingling fingers and held out my hands toward the blaze.

“Thanks, Boris,” Tony said shortly as the gloomy-faced, white-haired man came in with mugs on a tray. The delicious aroma of mulled wine filled the room, replacing the smell of wet socks that seemed to have followed us in. He served me first.

I looked at the wine, my lips ready to taste it—then I said, “You two drink first.”

Phaedra and Tony both gave me startled looks, then their eyes narrowed in exactly the same way.

Tony set aside the mug and went to the door. “Boris?” he called.

The white-haired old man shuffled back in. “
Hertsa'vos
?”

“Do you remember who was here for Thorn night?”

“Thorn,” the man repeated. “Jakov and I were alone in preparation. We were going to ride together after, down to . . .” The man rambled on about the servants' Christmas plans, discovered Tony still waiting, then found his way back to the subject.” . . . and that was when Count Robert and Baron Parsifal arrived. They were alone.”

“Thank you, Boris.” As the man shut the door behind him, Tony waved his hand impatiently. “Just as Robert said. We can guess why someone would try to kill Honoré. Who stands to benefit if Robert is dead?”

Cerisette
, I thought.

“Cerisette,” Phaedra stated. “But if she wanted to organize a family coup, she'd be more efficient about it.”

Tony laughed. “At least the planning of it. Though I can't see her whacking Honoré with a poker, much less with Plato.”

“If she can lift one of those busts, I'll eat it for dinner,” Phaedra said. “Anyway, after her—assuming you're dead—Percy would inherit. Then Danilov. I can't think of two people less likely to do any of these things.”

Tony slapped his hands on his knees. “We're not high enough,” he said.

“High?” Phaedra glanced at the plaster ceiling.

“High?” I said. “We're on the highest point in the—oh.”

“Strategically. I keep coming back to the entire government neatly assembled at the Council Building for that hearing. Obviously I wasn't the only one to think it a convenient way to round up the lot of them.”

Ice ran through my bones and nerves. “I think your unfinished business is connected.”

Phaedra scowled. “Who stands to gain if the government is all swept away? It's not like vampires would be appointed. Everybody laughed when Honoré dug up the old laws about them, a few years ago. Remember? But laws there are. A vampire is for all legal purposes considered dead.”