Seven Kinds of Hell (27 page)

“Dmitri Parshin got away,” Adam Nichols said, his face grim. “You can imagine he’s not pleased with you.”

I couldn’t help it. I swallowed.

“And he doesn’t need the figurines anyway, not for what he really wants. Nothing can give him that—not even you, Zoe, with all your powers.”

The blood rushed from my face. “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean, Dmitri thinks he can become like you, Fangborn, a werewolf, with the right artifacts, the right spells. Only it’s nonsense. You can’t be bitten, you can’t be made. You can only be born to the fang. You know that, or should.” He shook his head. “It’s gonna kill him if he ever figures it out.”

He had the door blocked. I backed away. “Wait, how do you know this? How do you know about—?”

Adam reached for the backpack in my hands.

I took another step back until I could feel the cool of the wall behind my back, felt the rough stucco through my shirt.

“It will all be easier if you give it to me. Then all of this goes away. It would be a great relief, wouldn’t it?” He closed the space between us with two steps, and I was trapped. “I’ll get it back where it belongs, I’ll capture Dmitri, and your cousin will be safe. All this will be behind you. No more running, Zoe.”

His presence was more than menacing: he was very large, very strong, very determined, and at least a little crazy. I’d seen him beat Dmitri like a bongo, and the fact he’d followed me to Italy and broken into my room scared the hell out of me. But I didn’t know what he wanted with the figurines, only that his interest in them seemed to make no sense. If they wouldn’t turn you into a Fangborn, who cared?

There was no reason for me to believe him. Why did he know about the Fangborn? How did he know about me? There was no time to concentrate for the Beast; there were too many questions.

He reached for my backpack, managed to unclip the flap. He gave me a suggestive leer.

Angered, I jerked it away. “What do you want with Dmitri?”

“Don’t be like our friend Grayling in London. The man just didn’t know when to let go—”

My eyes widened. Adam snatched the bag away.

The door slammed open, knocking Adam over.

Sean shoved himself through the doorway. “Zoe, trouble! Some guys asking about you downstairs! We gotta go!”

Adam still held onto my now-open backpack, but I refused to let go. He reached inside, grabbed the carefully wrapped yellow pencil box. The slick plastic bag made it slide right out, as if it was jumping into his hand.

“No!” I cried.

“Yeah, now!” Sean said. He grabbed me by the back of my shirt and pulled me from the room. I managed to keep hold of my backpack, because as Adam tried to follow me, Sean stepped in and slammed his fist into Adam’s jaw. As Adam crumpled, Sean shoved him inside, slammed the door.

“Sean, he has the—!”

“Doesn’t matter what he’s got.” Sean grabbed my arm, practically dragged me down the stairs. “What you said about those guys in Berlin? We don’t get out of here in about five minutes, we’re gonna die here.”

There was something powerful about the figurines, but I knew they wouldn’t make Dmitri a werewolf. But that fact didn’t matter much if I wanted Danny back. I still needed them because Dmitri wanted them.

I turned to go back upstairs; the door to my room opened. A gun appeared. Held by a very pissed-off-looking Adam Nichols.

Fuck this. If there was ever a time to unleash the Beast…

I yanked my arm away from Sean, tried to imagine I was squeezing my anger into a box too small for it.

I felt the stirring of the Beast. A prickle at the back of my neck.

“Out the back,” Sean hissed.

I squeezed my eyes harder and held up a hand. “Shut up!”

Heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. Doors opening. I opened my eyes and found a little tourist girl staring at me before her mother took one look around and grabbed her back into their room.

There were too many people. Too little time. The Beast was nowhere to be found.

Amateur. Squib. Muggle.

With a curse, I turned back, fled down the stairs.

I ran through the kitchen, glad Sean had gone first. The cook was still screaming and waving her knife around. I didn’t need to speak Italian to know how dangerous this shortcut was.

Sean was running blind, no plan in mind. I nearly overtook him when he dove down another alley. Maybe he was trying to lose our pursuers by going off the main tourist track, but we needed to be where we’d blend in.

And where there was bound to be a lot of cops.

I stopped, put my fingers to my lips, and whistled.

It’s a piercing noise, one Sean has always hated. He stopped, whirled around, scowling.

I jerked my head and ran. He could follow if he wanted. If he was smart.

What were the chances?

A plan came to me as I ran and made the last corner. Through the archway and into the Piazza San Marco.

A final burst of speed that almost left Sean behind, and I realized I’d just caught a massive break. There, near the Museo. A young
carabiniere,
looking quite sharp in his uniform.

“
Signore,
” I began. I spoke rapid Italian, gesturing to the men following us. I could see Adam Nichols and his three men entering the piazza now.

The
carabiniere
had smiled at first, no doubt pleased to see such a prettily flustered foreigner speaking such idiomatic Italian. Then his smile faded, his face grew concerned, and then finally angry. He compressed his lips; another piercing whistle echoed through the piazza.

A squad of young and muscular men, dressed in navy or black uniforms and bristling with automatic weapons emerged from the administrative building behind us.

The
carabiniere
motioned for me and Sean to stay where we were.

Sean looked questioningly at me; I shook my head almost imperceptibly, held up one finger. We had to wait another minute before—

When Adam Nichols and his men reached the piazza, he was surrounded by a grim-faced mob of soldiers all pointing their weapons at him.

When he began to protest—and he did, loudly with gestured Italian and flashing his badge—the soldiers reacted strongly.

I thoroughly approved of their roughness.

Sean was about to step forward and reclaim my possessions when I stopped him.

“You want them to find out all those things are really mine? You want
them
to ask you how I happen to have them? How do you think that will go?”

“I just thought I would help. Sorry.”

Since when did Sean voluntarily talk to the authorities? I cast a last desperate look at Adam and realized, even if I had the figurines, Dmitri wouldn’t believe me when I told him nothing could make him a werewolf if he wasn’t born one.

I thought about the gold disk hidden in my shirt. Maybe I could trade on that if he was into Fangborn weirdness, which this seemed to be in buckets. Or for its monetary and antiquary worth, maybe. That much gold, at today’s prices…it was a fortune.

After three eternal seconds, I nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

We hurried away, all eyes on the exciting scrum in the center of one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, and went around the corner and out to the water taxi stand on the Grand Canal. At last, luck was with me and the strike was over, so we jumped on the first vaporetto we found.

The last thing I saw as we passed the lion-guarded columns of San Marco was the team of soldiers piling onto Nichols and his men, now almost invisible beneath them. They handcuffed them as their fellows tore through the contents of their pockets and briefcases.

I thought I saw a flash of yellow plastic, and I turned away in distress. They had my pencil box. They had
everything.

“What the hell did you tell that guard?” His breath recovered, his ego at full bloom, Sean had admiration enough even for me. “Whatever it was, it worked!”

“I told the guard that there was a man following us who’d been boasting about being able to slip past the border to deal with antiquities. That I’d heard him in the hotel today and that he was showing artifacts around, trying to sell them. I was afraid that he was after us because I told him off.”

“And who were those guys? What were they about?”

“The
Tutela Patrimonio Culturale,
the TPC. It’s the arm of the
caribinieri
dedicated to the protection of Italian antiquities.” I settled back in my seat. I was shaking and sweating now that the moment of action was passed. “You do not want to mess with them. Imagine a group with the obsessiveness of archaeologists and the training and tactics of a SWAT team. With a government mandate to hunt down antiquities thieves.”

Sean whistled and suddenly looked nervous. “It’s a good thing I didn’t run into them when I was at the field school in Ravenna.”

I looked up. “What happened in Ravenna?”

“Another time.” He ducked down, made sure his pack was secure. “I’m only sorry we couldn’t stay to see what happened to that bastard! Who is he? What was he doing in your room?”

“Well, that guy—I think his name is Adam Nichols?—was trying to take some…things from me, which he did. Things I needed for Dmitri to save Danny. Things I risked my life for and broke the law for. So we’re pretty well screwed.”

I shook my head. “I say ‘we,’ but this isn’t your problem. Sean, you should leave.”

“Why? Haven’t I helped? At the apartment, in the cemetery, at the airport?”

“You have. I’m just worried for you. This situation is getting worse and more complicated and more dangerous every minute.”

“Yeah.” He glanced out over the canal. He took a deep breath. “But it would be worse for me if you got hurt.”

I waved my hand tiredly. “I’m fine, he just scared me.”

“No, Zoe. I wouldn’t…I couldn’t take it if anything happened to you.” He turned red and refused to look at me. “It’s been like that forever, but you wanted Will.”

I felt the blood rush from my face. I would have given anything to stop him speaking.
You’ll ruin everything, just don’t say it—

“…And you don’t say anything to your best friend’s girl. Not unless you’re a real shitheel.”

I opened my mouth, closed it again. “Sean, I—”

“Don’t. Don’t say it, I know. And it’s fine.”

I didn’t know what to do. His admission was as unexpected as it was badly timed. Best stick with the simple truth. “You’re my friend, Sean. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. It was bad enough, those, uh, muggers in Boston—”

At the word “Boston,” Sean blinked hard and seemed to shiver. “I don’t think you should go to Delos. I think you should wait for everyone to catch up to you here.”

“But Dmitri said Delos…” Why had he so suddenly switched subjects? “Why do you keep saying that I should stay here?”

“I just have this feeling it will be better to stay put. Stay here, Zoe. Tell Dmitri you’ll meet him here.”

“I can’t. You know that.” Sean’s sudden change confused me. Why was he so hung up on me staying in Venice? He’d been like that since Berlin. “Danny.”

“Danny will be fine. He’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

Sean said it so mechanically, I stared at him. He didn’t look like Sean. He looked…blank. The way he had when Claudia had drugged him.

Except Claudia had no idea where we were.

I summoned up every bit of concentration I had and suggested, as strongly as I could: “Sean, tell me what’s happened to you. Tell me who’s been talking to you.”

“What the hell is your problem, Zoe?” He looked away, confused and angry. “What are you going on about? Why don’t you just stay here, let someone else do the worrying?”

Something was wrong. And this wasn’t the very public place to try and sort it out.

Someone had got to Sean. Hard, and probably vampirically. I remember wondering why he’d slept so long in Berlin, and now I knew, with an absolute certainty.

A vampire had tampered with Sean. Maybe it was someone working with Adam Nichols and Senator Knight, maybe it was my Fangborn cousins from Boston, but whoever it was wanted Sean to hamper me now, to get the figurines.

I reached down and tightened the straps on my backpack, tucked in my shirt, straightened myself. I took a deep breath. “Never mind, Sean. I’m beat and my brain’s scrambled.”

I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He blushed, raised his hand to the spot, and stared at me.

I felt my eyes fill up and saw the heart of Venice blur behind my tears.

I jumped to the railing of the vaporetto. Screams and curses followed me as I leaped from the boat.

I landed on the delivery boat at the edge of the canal, stepping over the carefully piled crates of fruit and onto the sidewalk. I ran back the way we’d come until I reached the piazza, where I made for a Blue Line boat to take me to the airport.

When I settled in, I said to myself,
Don’t even think about crying.

I had no figurines and no way to ransom Danny. Even if I did get them to Dmitri, if Adam was right, they wouldn’t get him what he wanted.

I knew from what Gerry had told me about the Fangborn who’d escaped Dmitri that no one, least of all me or Danny, wanted him disappointed.

Once at Marco Polo airport, I bought a ticket to Athens and got in line. A slow, bunching caterpillar of tourists shuffled before me.

It was possible Dmitri wouldn’t even make it to Delos. In fact, I had to assume Adam Nichols or those Italian vamps or who knows who else would be waiting for me there, despite his precautions.

Sean was bugged—vampirically tampered with, spooked, call it what you will. His insistence on following me so persistently was just odd. Now I knew: he wasn’t traveling under his own steam, and I didn’t know who had sent him.

I had nothing, not even company now.

And then I realized I had a new disaster.

I had to find a way to get an ancient gold tablet the size of a stack of York Peppermint Patties through customs.

I racked my brain. Despite what I’d seen in the piazza, Italian customs had a reputation for being lax and susceptible to a pretty face. I suspected I was red and sweating and far from my prettiest, but I unbuttoned another button of my shirt and worked on my posture.