Zen and the Art of Vampires (20 page)

Suddenly he turned away, evidently satisfied with what he'd seen. I slumped against the wall, sliding to the floor in a boneless heap as he returned to the desk, absently picking up one of the sheets upon which Kristjana had been writing. “I believe that will be enough. We will hold the marriage ceremony immediately, so as not to delay your initiation.”

Magda rushed to my side and squatted next to me, her face filled with concern. “Are you all right?”

I nodded, my arms and legs feeling shaky in the aftermath of Frederic's display of power.

“You will allow this to go forward?” Kristjana asked, storming over to the desk and slamming her hands down on it. “She is tainted by a Dark One!”

“Tainted? No. Used, yes, but perhaps that can be to our advantage. She has a knowledge of the one who killed the Zorya. We will use that to find him.”

“I will not allow this!” Kristjana declared, anger crackling off her. “I will not allow her to pollute the office of Zorya.”

“You have no right to refuse her,” Frederic said calmly. “She was chosen by the Zorya. A blood pact was created between them. That must take precedence over the fact that she was soiled by a Dark One.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said wryly, getting to my feet with Magda's assistance. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

No one paid any attention to me until my stomach growled so loud it was audible to all.

“My word is final,” Frederic said, leveling a stern look at Kristjana. “Unless you wish to challenge it?”

I thought for a moment that she might do just that, but after a few moments of her jaw working tightly, she fisted her hands and jerkily shook her head. “It shall be as you order.”

Frederic smiled, and I was amazed at how ordinary he appeared. A few minutes before, he'd held me prisoner against a wall, using nothing but his own personality, and now he looked like a perfectly normal middle-aged accountant. “I would suggest you feed your bride before the ceremony, Mattias. We wouldn't want her fainting away before the vows were complete, would we?”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Magda asked an hour later as I hoisted myself onto the windowsill of a large house that sat directly behind the church used by the Brotherhood. “I don't think your husband is going to like you missing your wedding night. Your second husband, that is, not your first.”

I grimaced and let myself drop to the ground,
oof
ing as quietly as I could. Magda's feet appeared next to my head. Hurriedly, I moved out of the way so she could climb out. “My husband has nothing to say about it. Either one of them. And as far as the latter one goes, I told him I was too tired to play house tonight, and wanted to sleep.”

“He bought that?” she asked in disbelief.

“He had no choice.” I gave her a quick smile. “One of the perks of being Zorya is that he pretty much has to do what I say.”

“I will say that I'm glad the Brotherhood folk were content with their version of a marriage ceremony rather than a civil ceremony, because I really would have hated to explain to them why they couldn't take out a marriage license in my name. You
really
want to do this? Audrey and Ray must be worried about where you've been all night.”

Magda brushed off my concerns and led the way out of the tiny yard to the street, being careful to stick to the shadows. “I called them while you were chatting with your hubby, and told them I'd see them in the morning.”

“Can we drop references to Mattias as my husband? It makes me feel . . . I don't know, uncomfortable somehow. As if I'm doing something underhanded. Which I realize is silly because that's exactly what I am doing.”

“Except you're doing it for a good reason,” she said, completing my thought. We paused at an intersection, carefully eyeing the streets for signs of police, tour members, Brotherhood people, or incredibly handsome vampires. “So it really doesn't count as a sin, if that's what's worrying you.”

We hurried across the street, heading toward the section of town where our hotel was located. Luckily, at that time of night, there wasn't much traffic, either pedestrian or vehicular. “I'm not overly concerned about sinning—I just don't want them to find out the truth and hack off my head or burn me at the stake, or whatever it is they do to people they think have signed on with the enemy. Which is just one more reason why I wanted to get away tonight—if something happens to me, I don't want them coming down on you.”

“Pfft,”
she said dismissively, giving me a friendly little shove. “What's a friend for if not to face almost certain death with, eh?”

“A worthy attitude, but you don't know to what lengths these guys will go,” I answered, rubbing my arms. “That little chat I had with Mattias after the ceremony wasn't just to discuss the sleeping arrangements. Did you know that even though Anniki picked me to be her successor, and I have ghostly charges and such, I'm still not officially recognized as Zorya? Evidently they have to conduct some sort of recognition ritual where the Brotherhood people assemble to acknowledge me. Only after that is over will I be able to take the ghosts to their destination.”

“A ritual?” she asked. “Like an initiation at fraternities and such?”

“Assumedly without the wild orgies and drunkenness.”

She grinned at me. “But that's the best part! Did Mattias say what the initiation is?”

I rubbed my arms again, not sure if the goose bumps were from the cold air or nerves. “He didn't really go into it much, other than to say that just as the Zorya requires the stone to channel power, so does she require the acceptance of the community to be recognized as Zorya. The ceremony is supposed to do the latter bit, and I gather after that I'll be put through my paces in front of everyone. It sounds kind of creepy, to be honest.”

“Very Masonic,” Magda agreed as we kept to the shadows at the next intersection. I recognized a couple of buildings, guessing we were a few blocks away from the hotel. “So that's going to take place tomorrow night?”

“That's the plan. In the ruins we were supposed to go to the other night.”

“Oh, good. I really wanted to see that place. I hope no one minds if I come along tomorrow? Ack. It's almost ten. You'd better get some sleep or you're going to be exhausted.”

“Yeah, I'm a bit pooped. Whoops. Come back. I think that's a cop car.”

We pulled back as we were rounding a corner, both of us watching suspiciously as a man strolled out of the front of the hotel, pausing to talk to someone sitting in an unmarked car.

“Cop?” I asked Magda.

“Definitely. They must be watching for you. Let's go around the back. Maybe there's a way we can get in there without them seeing.”

We slipped around the block, coming up against the kitchen entrance, but there was a policeman there, too, talking with easy amiability with a woman wearing a traditional white chef's hat.

“Damn. OK, how's this? I go in and distract the cop in the lobby, and you sneak through to the side stairs and go up to your room.”

“I don't have my key,” I whispered, my hopes sinking. Although the Brotherhood people had said they would give me money, I wanted my own clothing and things, which Magda thought were still in my room. “It was in my room when I left, but I'm sure the manager or police picked it up.”

Magda pulled out her hotel key—really a plastic card with a magnetic strip—and looked thoughtful. “There's the bathroom. That's a way in for you.”

I ran my mind back to the morning, shuddering at the memory. “I left the door unlocked when I went to bed, in case you needed to use the room, but this morning when I found Anniki, it was locked.”

She gave a little grimace, then said thoughtfully, tapping the key card on her lips, “That's as may be, but the police unlocked it at one point. I caught them peeking in while I was getting dressed. If they didn't lock it, I bet you could get into your room from mine via the bathroom. Or in a worst-case scenario, use the balcony our rooms share.”

“There's still the matter of getting up into your room.”

She smiled and fluffed her substantial cleavage. “Oh, I don't think that's going to be too difficult to overcome. The girls and I can keep the lobby cop's attention long enough for you to slip in and go up the side stairs. I would avoid the elevator, though.”

“And if we're caught? I don't want you to get into trouble with the police for helping me.”

“If you're seen, I'll simply point at you and scream bloody murder,” she said confidently, giving me her key card. “There's nothing they can do to me since I haven't done anything wrong. Just a little aiding and abetting, but what's that? Nothing, really.”

Whereas I'd honored Anniki's last request, which left me running from the scene of a murder, I thought with a twinge of guilt.

“Come on, let's go in via the verandah, and I'll go dazzle the cop inside with my fabulous breasts.”

Her plan—or breasts—worked like a charm. She had no difficulty engaging the cop's attention long enough for me to slip inside and along the far wall to the hallway that led to a set of lesser-used stairs. The reception clerk was too busy watching Magda to notice me, and my luck held all the way to Magda's room. With a quick, fearful glance up and down the hallway, I opened her room door and let myself in.

I was about to turn on the light when a muffled snore emerged from her bed. Evidently Raymond had decided to wait for her here. I knew where the door to the bathroom had to be, and edged my way carefully through the room, but it was dark and impossible to navigate without running painfully into things. The third time I smashed my toe against a piece of furniture and uttered a smothered yelp, Raymond snorted, and groggily asked, “Honeycakes?”

I murmured something that I hoped sounded Magdaish, and almost sighed with relief when the door to the bathroom opened easily. I closed the door behind me before turning on the light, hesitating for a moment as I considered locking it in case Raymond decided to follow me, but decided against such an action. It wouldn't be fair to keep Magda from using the room for a second night.

The bathroom had been cleaned up, so presumably the police were done with their forensics work. I eyed the spot where Anniki had lain, begging me for justice, and renewed my intention to fulfill her dying wish.

“If it was Kristoff that killed you, he won't go unpunished,” I told the empty room.

And if it was Alec?
my inner critic asked. I moved toward the door, mentally shaking my head. It couldn't be Alec. I would know.

The bathroom door that led into my room wasn't locked. I sagged with relief for a moment before peeking inside. The room was dark. “Thank heavens for police who don't stay at a crime scene.”

I was halfway into the room before the voice spoke. “Not to mention women who just can't live without their things.”

I gasped and whirled as the lights came on. Kristoff stood next to the bed, dressed entirely in black, the golden glow from the lamp casting sinister shadows across his face.

“What are you doing here?” I asked in a high, wavering voice. I started to back away from him but realized I had nowhere to go. There was no safety for a fugitive.

“Waiting for you. Alec had an idea you'd be back. I packed up your things.”

I looked where he gestured. My large leather bag was sitting on a chair.

“Why are you following me?” I asked without thinking.

“Why did you run from me?” he countered.

“You killed a man! Right in front of me,” I said.

“I killed a reaper,” he corrected. “One who was about to kill you.”

“He was not. He was just using me as a shield so you wouldn't bite him and turn him into the evil undead.”

Kristoff adopted a martyred expression that for some reason, I found endearing. “Dark Ones are very much alive, and we do not turn people without a profound reason.”

My eyes widened at his words. Until that moment, I wasn't sure what part of the vampire myth was true. “You mean you
can
turn people into vampires?”

“We can. It strips the soul from the person, so it is not done frequently. Certainly we are not building some sort of Dark One army to take over the world, if that's what you were about to ask.”

I closed my mouth. I was, in fact, about to ask that very thing.

“Now, if there are no more ridiculously misinformed ideas you'd like debunked, I'd like to get going. The night is young, and I have much to do.” He started toward me as he spoke.