SNAP: The World Unfolds (7 page)

Stefan grunted agreement. “I don’t think they can be happy with losing so many to us. Every time they get near us they lose someone.”

One of the demons suddenly snarled sand whipped his head around. “Something’s here...” Before he could say anything else, a werewolf lunged and sank his teeth into the demon ‘s shoulder. That one was followed by the rest of the pack. Spears and knives flashed, shots rang out. The attack happened as the Kandesky party entered a small clearing, giving them room to circle into a defensive position.

Stefan’s voice boomed out over the battle, “Stop. Stop. We’re a negotiating team! Felix is expecting us.”

The noise ebbed to a few individuals growls as the wolves shifted to a group of strong, hairy men, gathered behind their leader. “We’ll escort you,” the pack leader rumbled, silencing the others and turning to head for the Huszar holdings.

Felix was waiting when the Kandesky team, less the demon who’d almost lost an arm, came into the hall. The escorts dropped back and took places on benches along the wall while Stefan, Simon and Franz took the chairs Felix motioned them to.

“
The pack didn’t get the information that you were coming,” Felix purred, hoping this was enough of an apology.

Stefan glowered. “This mindless violence is what I want to talk about. Neither of our families is prospering. I understand that your family and followers don’t want to join us in our new ventures. I don’t agree with that decision. At least, though, let us, you and I, come to some pact.”

“
What kind of pact?”

“
We’ll define an areas, a swath, of the woods between our holding and designate it as neutral territory. That will give both of us a buffer. Your Weres can hunt there and our demons can pass through there without fear of attack.”

Felix raised his brows. “How does that help? We hunt freely anyway.”

“
It will give us an area where we can meet if need be, without trespassing on someone’s land. And if a pack runs across your boundary in a hunt frenzy, they have additional safety space before our demons attack. It’s a recognition that we’ve begun to act peaceably.”

“
And who will oversee this space, this land? You?” At this, the escorts began a howl. “No, No!”

Stefan shook his head. “No, the only way this will work is to form a joint group. We could call it the Intercouncil.”

“
Who will be on this thing...this Intercouncil? How can it work?”

“
The members must be vampires, high-ranking leaders of our families. Perhaps two from each house. We can meet in the neutral area, call if the Neutrality, when either family feels there’s a dispute. The council will hear the complaint and make a judgment.”

Felix listened. “What if we don’t agree with the verdict?”

“
Then it will have to revert to what we have now—a constant fight, an undeclared war. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of all this turmoil and unceasing violence. We’re trying to find a way to live in this world, the larger world, and prosper. This strife is taking resources we need. Frankly, it’s a waste of our time.”

Hackles rose on the Were’s and low growling as they began to change to wolves. “Cease,” Felix’ voice rang out, carrying through the hall. “This is a proposal I’ll take under consideration. I’ll send an envoy in two days to give you my answer. Now, you must leave while I still control my followers.”

He turned to a group of vampires ranged behind him. “Matthais, escort the Kandesky team to their own borders.”

An airport is an airport is an airport. The plane taxied into a hangar and we could have been anywhere in the world. At the bottom of the steps was a black Mercedes limo with the ubiquitous black-suited driver. As we reached the bottom and headed for the car, I realized there were two other limos at the door of the hangar and each of these carried two of the black suits. I was still leery of Jean-Louis but I had to ask. “What’s going on? Do we have some kind of escort or are we under arrest?”

“We do have an escort. The Baron always sends security teams when visitors fly in because we have to file flight plans. If we’d driven, our arrival wouldn’t be so traceable.”

Who would care if we were traceable? Although, with such a huge multinational company, it’s possible that the Baron took precautions against corporate espionage. In fact, it dawned on me that the drivers and security guards looked like clones. Maybe they were the SNAP guys; the other half of the SNAP girls.

I started to ask Jean-Louis but he gave me a head-shake and told me to just get in the car. And faster would be better according to his body language. When the driver shut the door, it sounded heavy and solid; European Mercedes’ were different?

Once inside, Jean-Louis slid the dividing window up and turned to me. “Now you’re beginning to see why the Baron wanted me with you and why I told you about us. You’ve probably noticed that all the SNAP drivers and security staff look a lot alike.”

“Look alike? They’re clones! Don’t tell me that the Baron has perfected some kind of medical procedure?”

“They’re not completely clones.” Jean-Louis wasn’t amused. “I know they’re all about the same size, wear black suits—that’s actually the uniform—and work out. What they all are is demons and half demons. You know Carlos and you’ve seen what he can do. The Baron hires them because of their strength and cunning. You sure don’t want to get into a squabble with one of them and they just love taking people down dark alleys. Even our friends are careful about keeping them calm.”

“No, just the ones here in Hungary,” he gave me a small grin. “The Baron does have corporate enemies around the world. People and companies that would love to hack into our IT system or bribe an employee for information. We can keep those away fairly easily. We’ve got a whole IT department to make sure we constantly trace all hacking attempts and, as
you
know, our pay scales are higher than any one else’s in the industry. If it looks like someone’s unhappy or wants to join the competition, a visit from one of the demons usually brings them to their senses.”

“You mean when people go to work for SNAP, they’re there for life? You said you’re not slavers.”

“We’re not. This is just a regular job. At least for those employees who aren’t vampires or demons. Everybody’s free to leave. Unless we discover that they’re already working for the competition.”

This conversation was unsettling. Jean-Louis was right about my knowing the pay at SNAP. When they made me the offer I was stunned and didn’t take more than fifteen seconds before I said yes. It would have been only five seconds if I could have made my mouth work. I slid over to the side window to get my first look at Hungary and some perspective on the information I’d just been handed.

With a security car ahead of us and another one behind us, we were driving through countryside that looked rural. In the distance, I could see an occasional house or farm, but the spill of moonlight didn’t reveal much besides flat agricultural land. We started to climb slightly and the flat grassy fields became vineyards; old vineyards by the look of the gnarled vines. I craned my neck and saw that the road was rising into mountains. Ahead were forests and the moonlit glint of a small river pouring over a fall of stones.

“Where are we? And how long before we get there. By the way, where’s ‘there’ anyway,” I asked. It was bad enough that I was in the company of a vampire, being driven by a demon, on the way to see the head vampire, or whatever the right title was. The least Jean-Louis could have done was tell me where we were headed.

“This is the edge of the Carpathian Mountains,” he motioned out the window. “The Baron’s castle, the one we’re headed for at least, is here. He has a few holdings in Romania, Slovenia, all the countries that used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His family goes way back.” He gave a big chuckle. “Well, that’s probably an understatement, being he’s a vampire,” he actually laughed out loud.

I couldn’t resist a smile. This was just another straw in the pile of outrageous stories I’d been hearing for the past few hours. “Okay, I’m glad to see that vampires have some sense of humor. But how much farther?”

As I asked, the lead car turned left, on to a smaller paved road. There was a signpost, a wooden ones with arrows pointing in all direction and mileages marked, but I couldn’t read Hungarian. The road looked like we were going deeper into the forests and mountains.

“”It’s about five miles more,” Jean-Louis said. We were quiet for the next few minutes then the car slowed and I could see lights ahead of us. Coming through the last stand of trees, suddenly Castle Kandesky loomed up. It was a castle. I don’t know what I expected, probably something along the lines of a large English country house, but this was a medium-sized castle. There were spires. There was a dome. There were wings spreading out on either side of a park. A massive circular fountain centered the park, which was surrounded by a gravel driveway.

The security cars peeled off and drove behind the main building, but we stopped in front of the arched doorway under the main spire.

“We’re here,” Jean-Louis announced. He was full of understatements tonight.

The driver helped me out, several servants came to take our luggage and Jean-Louis and I walked up into the entry foyer where our host waited.

And on his arm was Pen

“Welcome,” the Baron said. Pen just serenely smiled.

“I hope your trip wasn’t too tiring. I think it’s easier to break it up so I ordered the pilots to make the refueling stop in Newark longer than usual. Jean, you have your usual suite. Ms. Gwenoch, you’ll be in the Marie Therese suite in the same wing. We’ll let you get settled then we’ll meet in the ground floor drawing room.” The Baron moved off, with Pen sailing right along. I could hear her saying something, but she wasn’t speaking English.

Jean-Louis saw me watching. “Here, we speak Hungarian,” he spoke quietly. “Many of us speak several languages, it makes it easier to move around. Come on, I’ll show you your room.”

Two flights rose from the foyer to the open mezzanine above and he took the left-hand one, heading down a long hall at the top.

“This is mine.” He opened a door to an apartment whose furnishings were early 19
^th
century. Mary Shelly and the group would have felt right at home. There were tapestries on the walls, thick carpets on the floors and carved furniture like I’ve never even seen in a museum. “The Baron has made some improvements. There’s a modern bathroom through the dressing room and the whole castle has wifi and satellite dishes. In a pinch, there’s even a satellite phone.”

That certainly made sense, for the owner of one of the world’s largest media empires.

“Yours is along this corridor. I’ll show you,” and he put his hand casually at the back of my waist. It tingled, like his touch had when we danced those weeks ago. But now I knew what he really was; was this a tingle of attraction or fear? I wanted to pull away. I wanted to melt back against him. There was too much new information happening and I couldn’t process it fast enough. I needed some time alone, time I wasn’t likely to get until we were back in LA.

My rooms, with bed, sitting and bath, were further along the corridor. Smaller than Jean-Louise’s, they were beautifully decorated with 19
^th
century furnishings. Both a fireplace and a ceramic heater with painted and gilded Baroque flourishes were in one corner.

“Is it really that cold here?” I asked, pointing at it.

“That’s a later addition,” Jean-Louise said. “The castle has been in use for more than 400 years so the Baron has done a few renovations. Those heaters date back to when this wing was redone, some 250 year ago. There’s a central tunnel connecting all the rooms so the servants can keep them going without disturbing anyone.”

A knock and the door opened. One of the guards was there with my luggage followed by another man and woman.

“I’m Josef,” the man announced. “The Count wants to see you in a quarter of an hour. Lisbet will help you unpack and get freshened up,” He nodded at the young woman who looked way too healthy to be a SNAP girl. She smiled, said “Welcome,” which came out “Velcome” and began taking my things out and putting them away.