Masks (32 page)

Mircea managed to get the sword up in time. But a vampire’s bite is the strongest part of their body, almost impossible to break, and the result was . . . not as he’d intended. Venom slid along the blade, like elongated golden teardrops, milked from fangs that had bitten the metal so delicately they hardly seemed to be touching it.

And yet had stopped it cold.

Mircea looked up into cold, dark, expressionless eyes. They had about as much life in them as the featureless voids in the larve mask Sanuito had worn. The ghost mask he’d chosen on the night he knew he was to die.

Mircea had never killed a woman before. Had always forbidden it to his men, thinking it barbarous, unthinkable, cruel. That had held true even on the rare occasions when they had been combatants.

He found that he had no trouble at all with the idea of killing this one.

The problem was not of will, but of strength, as Mircea soon realized. Marte’s hands slid to either end of the sword, closing over his own. Keeping the blade motionless as she pulled back, licking the blood from the only wound he’d managed to inflict—a tiny cut on her lips.

And freeing her fangs for other things.

But biting him required getting to him. He saw her puzzle it out, leaning forward, trying to reach first his neck, and then either hand. She only needed the tiniest bit of exposed skin—anything would do. But nothing was close enough to reach without either letting go of her hold or loosening it by contorting her body awkwardly.

And as soon as she did, she was dead.

Or at least decapitated. It wouldn’t kill one as old as her, at least according to everything Mircea had ever heard. But that was all right.

He thought it might be a little difficult to bite the senator with her head on the other side of the room.

So Mircea was pushing upward with everything he had, but all he was doing was managing to keep the status quo. She couldn’t come closer, couldn’t release the blade, but he couldn’t seem to move it, either. Not even the short distance needed to cut her throat.

And so they stayed, locked in combat, equal in strength and determination. But with one big difference. Marte was unharmed, unbloodied, save for the small cut that had already healed. Whereas Mircea had given everything he had to the fight, to the point that he couldn’t even close the wounds the officer had inflicted.

He could feel them leaking on the stones underneath him, a sluggish, steady flow, and the last of his strength was draining away with them.

All Marte had to do was wait.

He, on the other hand, had to come up with yet another idea, with a mind fogging over and the edges of his vision starting to pulse and his hands already beginning to shake.

And, of course, she noticed, and a slight smile curved the crimson lips.

“You should have left,” she told him, bearing down. “Such a waste.”

“Like your life?” Mircea asked, panting in the effort of holding her off.

“My life is just beginning. Once she’s dead—”

“You will be, too. Do you really think they’ll let you live? The assassin of a senator?”

“I think . . . it may not be an issue,” she said, tilting her head.

A moment later, a voice rang out, unnaturally loud and echoing. There was no one there, no one in the cavernous space but the two of them. But Mircea could hear it as clearly as if someone had been standing over them.

“Great Antony is dead. Great Antony is dead. The contest resumes with the remaining contenders.”

“It seems I may have overestimated her,” Marte said, pleased. She looked back down at Mircea. “But even if she does survive, it won’t matter. I’ll be waiting. A weak servant, little more than a human, no one to worry about. Just a charming child, running to assist her exhausted mistress—”

“Running how?” Mircea snarled. “The moment you move, I’ll take your head. You can bite me, but you can’t prevent that.”

“Can’t I? You haven’t seen my bite.”

“But you have seen my swordsmanship. I only need an instant—”

“You won’t get it. Why do you think I put so much effort into that damned antidote? Without it, you not only wouldn’t have gotten to her, you wouldn’t have gotten out the door! You won’t have the time—or the strength—to do any—”

She cut off as a commotion started up somewhere nearby.

“You puling pustule on a donkey’s arse,” a man’s voice roared. “Let me go!”

From the corner of his eye, Mircea saw a terrible, misshapen creature appear at the end of the hall leading from the arena. It was backlit by swirling sand, too tall to be a human, with unnaturally elongated arms and an odd, shambling gate. Which he finally realized was caused by one person being carried across the shoulders of another.

One exasperated other who dropped his burden unceremoniously in a heap just inside the hall.

“Enough!” a man said, and Mircea recognized the bald head of the official who had been presiding over the contest earlier. “Didn’t you hear the announcement? Great Antony is dead!”

“I’m not dead, you maggoty piece of scrofulous pig flesh—”

“For the purposes of the contest you are. Once you can no longer move on your own, the rules clearly state—”

“I can move, you stupid son of a whore! I can crawl, if I have to. Where’s my sword? Somebody give me a sword—”

“If you can crawl, then crawl out of here,” the official said nastily. It was obvious who he favored in the contest. “And your sword was thrown clear of the arena.”

“Then go get it, you bastard!”

“Get it yourself. There’s nothing in the rules requiring me to—”

“There’s nothing preventing it, either!”

“Your legs are crushed,” the man hissed. “Your right arm lies useless. You are
dead
, my lord. And soon your lady will be, too. I have taken my last command from you!”

The official left, disappearing back into the arena. But only because he’d passed into an area not visible from the doorway. The blowing veils of sand were too thin now to hide anything.

Marte noticed, too. “To think, I went to all this trouble, and he may kill her for me. But either way . . . it’s over, Mircea. My venom is deadly enough that it only takes a scratch. And I don’t think you can hold out much longer.”

Mircea didn’t think so, either.

But through the gathering fog in his mind, he did think something else.

“The venom . . . is on the blade. Perhaps . . . I’ll knick you first.”

She laughed. “Idiot. I already told you. I’m immune to my own poison!”

“Yes,” Mircea rasped, staring for the last time into those dark, dark eyes. “But you hadn’t told him.
Antony!”

The brunet at the end of the hall had been looking this way, squinting into the darkness. And then a hand shot up, to catch the sword Mircea was struggling to throw him. But Marte had more strength than he’d had expected, or he was weaker than he’d thought, because she hung on. And then she wrenched the sword away, knocking him back brutally when he lunged for it and swinging it up—

Only to pause, mid-movement, with a strange look on her face. And then to glance down, where something protruded from the front of her gown. Something red-tipped and wood-hard, tearing the fabric of her dress right over the heart.

And drenching it red.

“Go!”
someone yelled, from the shadows behind Marte.

It looked like Auria’s auburn head, but he couldn’t be sure, and it didn’t matter. Only one thing did. He scrambled back to his knees, grabbing the sword as Marte struggled with the assailant behind her. Who went staggering back a moment later, from a blow hard enough to have killed a human.

But the movement had cost Marte purchase on the weapon. And with the last of his strength, Mircea wrenched it away and threw it, in a tumbling arc. Light flashed along the blade, and it
was
a beautiful thing, gilt edged and running with reflected fire.

“No!” Marte screamed, at the same moment that Antony’s fist closed around the pommel. And then sent it flying again almost immediately, into the huge tail that whipped by, throwing up an arc of sand.

But not so thickly that Mircea couldn’t see the sword pierce the heavy hide, like one great fang sinking deep.

Mircea felt smaller ones slide into his throat at almost the same instant, felt his veins start to burn, felt consciousness slipping away.

But not before he saw the huge creature in the arena begin to flail. And fall. And writhe in apparently agony as a slim figure in white approached.

She never lifted a hand. Never did anything that Mircea could see. But the sand-filled wind gathered around the great body, in swirling, lashing exuberance. In seconds, it was black no more, but red, the skin scoured off by the relentless assault. And then there was too much sand to see, wrapping the colossal form in a swirling mass of gold, like a great cocoon.

Or perhaps a mummy’s wrappings would be more accurate. For, when the winds howled their last, and the dust faded, and their work was revealed . . . There was nothing left but an elongated skeleton, still rearing into the sky.

And then falling to earth, the bones rattling apart to rain down on the sand at the senator’s feet.

No, not the senator, Mircea thought, as she looked up and then around at the screaming, hysterical crowd, her beautiful face as impassive as ever.

The consul.

“It’s dual consuls, actually,” someone said, as Mircea struggled back to consciousness. “There’s going to be two of them, just like in old Rome.”

“Two of
them
?” someone else asked. “Oh, that should be fun.”

Mircea didn’t know where he was, or what was happening. It was dark and he was in pain—so much pain. And when he tried to sit up—

He was immediately hurting even more, when his head came into contact with a familiar low ceiling.

He was home, he thought dizzily.

Or what passed for it, these days.

And that made no damned sense at all.

“He’s awake! He’s awake!” Jerome’s voice, excited as a boy’s, came from somewhere above his head. And then the bed began to shake as someone jumped up, making Mircea grab it like the sides of a boat in a storm tossed sea. Oh,
God.

“He’s gonna be sick,” Bezio said, grabbing him. Which definitely did not help.

And then he thrust a clean bedpan under his nose, which did.

Oh, God, Mircea thought again, moments later. What the hell had he been drinking?

“Something Sanuito left for you,” Bezio told him, when he gasped the question out loud.

“San . . . uito?”

The older vampire nodded. “Remember that shitty wine?”

Mircea frowned.

“The one you pulled out of the bean sack? The last time we were in the kitchen?”

Mircea vaguely recalled something about looting Cook’s latest stash. “Yes?”

“Sanuito left it for you. Or maybe he planned to give it to you, we’re not really—”

“He’s up?” Paulo asked, sticking his blond head in the door.

“Yes!” Jerome said proudly.

“Sort of,” Bezio countered. “And I’m trying to explain—”

“Mircea?” Zaneta shoved in behind Paulo, causing him to push Jerome onto the bed.

And Bezio to growl. “All right, all right, give him some room.”

“Why does it reek in here?” Zaneta asked, her nose twitching.

“Because he’s sick!” Bezio said. “Damn it, he almost died! Now, if you’ll hush up, I’m trying to—”

“Is it Mircea? Is he—oh,” Auria said, from the doorway, where she must have been on tiptoes. Because her auburn head was just visible over Paulo’s.

“The gang’s all here,” Jerome said, grinning.

“Oh, not even,” several more voices laughed, from the hall. And then from inside the room, as Danieli, Besina and the two blonds whose names Mircea could never remember started trying to fit into a space that was already bursting at the seams, half of them falling on the bed in the process.

“All right, that’s it!” Bezio bellowed. “Everybody out!”

“Even me?” someone said, from the doorway.

Bezio started to curse and looked up, only to swallow whatever he’d been about to say. And to choke slightly. And then to start doing something that Mircea couldn’t quite—

Oh. He was trying to bow. But there wasn’t room so he mostly looked like he’d just collapsed beside the bed.

Antony eyed him for a brief moment, a single brow raised. He was still in armor, a golden breastplate framed by the dark red draperies of a distant age, a golden helmet stuck under his arm. How the hell he’d walked through the streets like that, Mircea didn’t know. But it was Antony, and the rules didn’t seem to apply to him.

He regarded Bezio a moment longer, and then apparently decided he didn’t care and came forward to slap Mircea. Or perhaps it was supposed to be a friendly cuff on the arm. But the way Mircea felt at the moment, he was surprised he didn’t fall off the bed.

Of course, that would have required more room.

“There’s a good sturdy fellow,” Antony said heartily, while Mircea struggled not to be sick again.

“I—thank you, consul.”

Antony grinned. “That never gets old. Consul,” he rolled it over his tongue. “Mmm, yes.”

Mircea lay there awkwardly, trying not to rub his arm.

And trying to remember the thought he’d had a second before, the one that had seemed . . .

“W-would you like some wine?” Bezio’s muffled voice came from somewhere near the floor.

Wine,
Mircea thought, that was it. “What were you saying just now?” he asked. “About Sanuito’s wine?”

But Bezio appeared too awed to answer. Luckily, Jerome had no such trouble. “Sanuito had two containers of the antidote,” he explained, as Antony bumped him over and sat down on the end of the bed. “Either there were two to begin with or he made another after Marte saw him give you the first one, on the assumption that she’d take it. It wouldn’t have been difficult; it was made with his blood, after all.”

“And he put the other . . . in the wine?” Mircea didn’t know if it was because he was at considerably less than his best, but that sounded a little . . . odd.

“He didn’t have much time,” Auria pointed out. “He had to know she’d come looking for him as soon as she left you.”

Jerome nodded. “And he must have known she’d check his room, so that was out. And mithridatum is . . . pungent. She might have been able to find it by smell alone if he put it anywhere in the house. Unless, of course, he dissolved it in something that already had a strong odor.”

“I told you he was smart,” Auria said, looking sad and proud at the same time.

“But it was hidden,” Mircea pointed out.

“Well he couldn’t just leave a decanter of wine lying around,” Jerome said.

“Not in this house,” Paulo added.

“Sounds like a fun place,” Antony put in.

“And everyone knew we raided the cook’s stash,” Jerome finished. “He might have thought it was the best way to get some of it into you. Or, more likely, he just needed a place to put it where Marte wouldn’t find it. And the sheer volume of stuff in the pantry made it a good hiding place.”

Mircea lay there for a moment, feeling sick for a different reason. “So he stuck it in a bag of beans.”

Jerome nodded.

“And if I hadn’t stumbled across it that night—”

“Oh, you’d be stone cold dead,” Antony said cheerfully. “Like that damned Anoubias.”

“Anoubias?”

“He means Marte,” Jerome said. “That was her real name.”

“Named after the god of the dead,” Antony agreed. “And I don’t care if it was a common name at the time, as a certain someone tells me. That’s prophecy if I ever heard it!”

“But . . . she’s dead?” Mircea asked, trying to remember what happened. But it was mostly a blur. “I didn’t kill her. I don’t think . . .”

“No,” Jerome said, glancing at Auria. “But you weren’t alone.”

“Lucky thing, too,” Antony added. “I sent troops to help you, but I doubt they’d have arrived in time. The damned woman’s venom was strong enough to render you unconscious, antidote or no, and heart blow or no, she was still mobile. Fifteen hundred years gives one certain . . . advantages.”

Considering that Antony wasn’t dead even after having most of the bones in his body crushed, Mircea assumed that to be true.

But then . . .

“
You
killed her?” he asked Auria.

She nodded, silently.

“But . . . how?”

“She was distracted with you. I think she thought I was done for. But she hadn’t killed me, just stunned. And there was shattered glass from the lamp everywhere, and her neck was unprotected as she attacked you. . . .”

“But why were you even there?” Mircea asked. “I didn’t think anyone could find me.”

Auria scowled. “She made the mistake of sticking me on the ground floor, near the back stairs. We were scattered all over the place, to serve as distractions for you, if you showed up before they closed off the place. But either she was in a hurry, or a hundred years has a few privileges, too. Because the suggestion she used on me started to wear off.”

“And you went looking for her.”

Auria nodded angrily. “I didn’t know what she was doing, but I damned well intended to find out. But by the time I found her, you were fighting that guard and I was afraid if I distracted you . . . and then she jumped you before I could do anything, and the sword was so close to your neck. . . .” She shuddered.

“It was very brave,” Mircea said, only to have her look at him heatedly.

“It wasn’t brave! It was like with Sanuito, all over again. I heard what she said—enough anyway. I knew what she was! And I was so afraid—that I’d get you killed, that she’d turn on me, that I’d only make things worse and we’d both—” She broke off.

“But you did it anyway.”

“I couldn’t just stand there! The last time I did that . . . and there was no time to go get anyone else, and you . . . you weren’t even as powerful as me, but you were fighting her. You were
fighting
!”

“I was trying,” Mircea corrected ruefully, but it didn’t seem to affect Auria’s euphoria.

“It’s something I never thought I could do,” she told him. “To fight back. But . . . it’s not as hard as I thought it would be. It’s easier, in fact, than all those years I spent so afraid. So sure I couldn’t do anything about what happened to me. That because I didn’t have strength, I’d never be anything. But I helped!”

“You did more than that,” Mircea said. “But I still don’t understand how you reached me. I barely made it down the hall on the other side, and that was through luck as much as anything. It couldn’t have been easier on yours.”

She nodded. “The winds were appalling. I think that’s what helped me shake off Marte’s suggestion, as much as anything.”

“Then how did you manage?”

She blinked at him. “I didn’t.”

“Then how—”

She looked at him oddly. “I just went up a floor.”

Mircea stared at her, and Antony burst out laughing.

And then he got up.

“Well, this has been fascinating, like so much these days,” he said, looking satisfied. “But I have to be going. I’ll let an . . . acquaintance . . . of yours know that you’re all right, shall I?”

Mircea nodded. “Thank—”

“And that you’ve regretfully declined her invitation to join us in Paris.”

“In . . . Paris?”

“She thinks you’d do well at court. I, on the other hand, see you prospering better here. I’ve had a word with the Watch. Don’t think they’ll be troubling you in the future.” He dropped a heavy purse on the side table. “Lovely place, Venice.”

He clapped Mircea on the shoulder again.

It was the same one.

He left.

Jerome stared after him, openmouthed. “I . . . think you were just warned off,” he said slowly.

“That’s . . . and with his reputation . . . I just . . . oooh,” Auria said, scowling. “The consul—the other consul—is right. Mircea would do wonderfully at court!”

“Yes, but he’ll live longer here,” Jerome said cynically.

“But think of the possibilities! So many patrons—so much wealth!” Her face shone. “We should all go!”

“I have an errand.”

“An errand, he says,” Bezio muttered, from the floor.

“You can get up now,” Jerome told him. “That government type that you don’t respect at all is gone.”

Bezio looked up. “I didn’t respect the old government—which was run by a madman,” he pointed out. “Maybe this one will be different.”

“Sure it will.” Jerome rolled his eyes.

Bezio frowned at him. “Did anybody ever tell you, you’re awfully cynical?”

“Me?
I’m
cyn—all right. Yes, sure. Then maybe I’ll just have to take you with me, so you can bring me out of myself.”

“Well, someone needs to. You’re too young to be that jaded.”

“For the last time, I have two centuries on you, ‘old man’!”

“Two centuries?” Mircea asked.

“Later,” Jerome told him. “Rest now.”

They left, still arguing, and took the others with them. Leaving Mircea alone with Auria, who was smiling at him tearfully. “We got her, didn’t we?”

He nodded.

“I still can’t quite believe it. I always thought . . . I was always told that I couldn’t do anything alone. That without my master, I was nothing. But the bad things—they can be fought. They can be fought, and we can win!”

“Sometimes,” Mircea agreed.

“A lot of the time. But even if we don’t, it feels so good just to
try
. It makes me angry that I spent so much of my life fearing the bad that I couldn’t enjoy the good things that were there, too.” She leaned over, and kissed him softly. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

She left, and Mircea lay back against the sheets, exhausted from just that quick exchange. But strangely euphoric, too. Some of Auria’s seemed to have rubbed off.

Or maybe it was something else.

It feels so good to try,
he thought. Yes, yes it would. Mircea felt sleep claiming him, but not before he saw himself again at that house in the woods. But this time, he didn’t wait in the trees. This time, he went in. To warmth and life and a woman who deserved the truth she’d asked for, and the chance he’d never given her.

Even if it didn’t work, he was tired of living in fear, too.

Maybe . . . it was time to try.