Blood Spirits (53 page)

I ducked the rest of the way through before anyone could protest, and began sludging my way down the street as fast as I could, my legs sinking to the thigh at every step.

The streets at the north end of town were terraced into the mountain slope. Scanning ahead for shadows I couldn't see into, I plunged and skidded and a couple of times rolled downward, my crystal sparkling reassuringly. Much tougher to deal with was lumbering through snow. It seemed forever before I finally reached a cleared street. I oriented myself fast, discovering that I was somewhat north of Nat's neighborhood.

And then I heard something pacing me.

I ran forward a few steps and paused. Yes, those were definitely slushy foot falls, and I definitely had that crawling sensation I get when I'm being watched.

My charm sent rainbow patterns of glittering light in an aura around me. But every time I looked back, all I saw was Stygian darkness.

When I reached the open street, the footsteps were on both sides, and getting closer. That's when I heard the hisses and faint skreeling cries, like distant bats.
Sinister
bats.

I whirled—and there, etched against the plaster wall of a building, was a flickering shadow in vaguely human shape.

Ever stuck your finger in an electrical socket? That's what the zap through my nerves felt like.

That thing is a vampire
.

I halted, staring. The shadow shifted and flickered, making it difficult to see. It was like trying to make out shapes at the bottom of a pool after everyone's stirred up the water, only in photographic image reverse—where you'd see light gleaming, you saw darkness, the facets making the shadow ripple and shift.

Didn't take a user's manual to figure that I was going to be surrounded pretty soon, and all I had was a glittering necklace for defense. At least it caught every slightest reflection from golden windows around me, strengthening the aura to a halo.

I looked around wildly, ready to bang on the door of the first lit house I could get to, then I heard the muffled, rhythmic thud of horse hooves in the snow.

And riding around the corner came a pair of Vigilzhi on horseback, armed with swords as well as pistols.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Here!” Argh—I'd yelled in English. I switched gears and called out in Dobreni, “I need aid!”

The guys were around my age. They wheeled their horses. I pounded up, my legs caked with snow to the knee. “Council building. Emergency!”

The one with curly dark hair and slanted eyes looked around warily as the fair-haired guy said, “Trouble?”

“Oh yes. Oh yes,” I gabbled. “Vampires! They are all
over
the city.”

Say that in L.A., and people will laugh—or look for someone with a camera trying for YouTube fame. In Dobrenica? They both scanned grimly, then the dark-haired one pulled his sword.

“Take me to the Council Building?” I asked.

“Where'd you get that crystal?” the dark-haired one asked. “It's alight.”

“This is what the charms do,” I said, “when vampires are around. And vampires don't like this light.”

The other guy extended his gauntleted hand, I put my foot on top of his boot in the stirrup, and up I went. I had enough time to register that horses' backs are about fifteen yards off the ground before a nine point three on the Richter scale nearly sent me hurtling off the other side.

“Hold on,” the guy said.

I flung my arms around his waist in a death-lock, and the horses began bucking and leaping, or that's what it felt like. My disjointed explanation of how the crystals worked turned into “Oog!” and “Argh!” as we jolted a thousand miles an hour down the road.

By the time I registered that no, we weren't going to be flung onto our heads, the animals slowed, and there was the parking lot behind the Council building. I scrambled gracelessly down, trying to hide how shaky my legs were.

“Thanks,” I managed. “Tell anyone you see to put crystals to their lamps and hang them outside!” I said, and bolted for the Council building door without waiting for an answer.

I was mentally preparing my report for Alec or Dmitros or even Beka, who I figured wouldn't be kept away by mere broken ribs, when I yanked the door open, lunged into the lobby . . . and stopped dead.

“Hello Kim,” said Tony.

My wits flapped out my ears as I stood there staring.

Standing in two tight groups behind him were the Council people. In the center of the first group was the duchess, her gaze glassy as she clutched an exquisite shawl around her fine mauve suit. Robert stood nearby, disgruntled as usual, wearing a bandage over one eye. Near him, hands in twin muffs, were his wife and Cerisette, looking confused.

The second group was made up of Honoré and the Danilovs, Beka, and her brother and grandfather. In their center stood Alec, immaculate as always, wearing a fine suit under a long camel overcoat.

And circling these two groups, pistols cocked and ready, stood Tony's mustachioed mountain riders, most in Russian-style belted coats and trousers stuffed into boots, some wearing furry conical caps.

As Tony strolled toward me, my distracted senses took in stray facts, like how the frigid lobby smelled of stale wine, old laundry, and vinegarsoaked cabbage, as though people had been camping out for days. Tony was the only one smiling. “Kim! A surprise, but you're most welcome.”

Almost at the same moment, Cerisette shoved past Phaedra and said nastily, “Who invited
you?
” Her put-upon drawl was such a contrast to Tony's suavity that it would have been funny if the situation hadn't been so very unfunny.

The best answer I could give her was nothing, so I looked past her to Alec, and Beka right behind him, white with fury. “What's going on?”

Tony was still smiling, though he wasn't looking at me. “Why are you here, Kim?”

“I just—” I began.

“Danilov,” Tony said. “Let's keep a pretense of friendliness, shall we? Step away from Alec. Kim, I beg pardon for interrupting.”

“I have—” I tried again.

“But I detest pretense,” Danilov retorted, a flush along his elegant cheekbones. And he added a pungent Russian curse.

Phaedra glared at Tony. “You wouldn't have got away with it if the Vigilzhi weren't stretched to the limits, guarding every house in the city, including
yours
.”

I was beginning to get the picture: as everyone, council members and privileged attendees, arrived for the Council meeting, they walked straight into Tony's trap.

Tony usually wins
. . . who had said that?

Didn't matter. The important thing was, though it seemed that most of his cousins had turned against him, it looked like Tony's second try at hijacking a government had worked.

THIRTY-TWO

A
LEC HAD GONE INTO heavy-duty Statthalter mode. “Your game, Tony. You scored. Have you thought out the consequences?”

Tony retorted with superficial ease, “I've thought out the consequences if you—”

Honoré muttered something. Whatever it was, Tony recognized it because his cheekbones reddened and his eyelids flashed up, betraying his own anger.

Tony said, “Will it sting less if you think of this as preventive intervention? It really was heroic, my boys getting here during that storm in order to hold the building.” He tipped his head toward the neat line of sleeping bags and rucksacks stashed in front of the coat room, where a Vigilzhi guy stood with his hands up, a pair of goons at either side. “I apologize for the cold in here. It's a mystery how the furnace could go out midway through the first still night in three days, but we were too preoccupied to deal with it—”

“Hey!” I stepped forward. Furious as I was with Tony, I had to get my news out, but just as I spoke, the doors at the far end of the lobby rattled, then someone pounded loudly. That was followed by a sharp whistle.

The guard at that end was curly-haired Niklos, lounging with one foot propped against the wall behind him, a twelve-gauge shotgun loose under his arm, barrel down. He straightened up. “Vigilzhi, probably from the perimeter check.”

“Let him join the party.” Tony made an expansive gesture. “We're nearly ready to begin—missing only one guest.”

“Listen,” I said, but Tony had turned to Beka, who stood with both arms folded across her middle.

“Would you like to sit down, Beka?” he asked in a low voice.

“I can stand up until your firing squad gets here,” she said.

“Beka!” Tony protested.

“What else are you going to do with us?” she retorted fiercely. “Stick us in the dungeon up at the Eyrie? Because you know the
second
any of us get free—”

Her words were drowned by the door opening for the Vigilzhi. Everyone stared as Commander Trasyemova dashed in, tall and handsome in full uniform, complete to shiny boots and saber at his side. He was supporting another Vigilzhi.

Up came the pistols. The commander ignored them and spoke across the lobby to Alec. “Geslin started the perimeter patrol to relieve the night guards. He and his partner were attacked.”

“Beniamin?” Alec asked sharply.

“Covered me so I could report.” Geslin spoke up from the commander's side, his voice hoarse with pain. “There were three or four . . . things coming at him when I ran.” He swallowed, staggered, and Trasyemova propped him up. “We found both night guards dead. Drained of blood.”

A moment of stunned silence. I'd never get a better cue.

“
Excuse
me! I've been
trying
to tell you something!” I faced Alec, because one's instinct is always to talk to the one you trust and who trusts you, because then you have only to speak, without having to explain and justify every word. “We got up to watch the eclipse. Saw shadows. Hundreds of them, converging here.
This
building.
Right now
.”

“That's impossible,” the duchess stated, as if her disbelief could undo fact.

The old nun on the Council said, “There has been no outbreak for generations.”

“The eighteenth century,” the Prime Minister said.

“If your people never saw them,” Alec said to Tony, “Then they must have come in through the basement.”

“They couldn't have,” Niklos began, startled out of his Casual Tough Guy cool. “We've been camped here for two and a half days.” His gesture took in the lobby where we all stood.

Tony and Niklos exchanged a look. “Did you do a sweep through the basement today?” Tony asked.

“No—we stayed put so the outside guards wouldn't detect us.”

“There's your explanation for the furnace having gone out,” Danilov drawled as he sauntered a couple steps toward the wall. “They probably came in through the old fire tunnel. Did you think to check that?”

“Nobody checks the old fire tunnel,” Niklos protested. “Not even the Vigilzhi.”

“Not since the Soviets left,” another guy said. “You can't even find the other end, it's got to be buried under snow—”

“
They
obviously found it!” Niklos retorted.

Everyone began talking at once, Cerisette shrill as she clutched at the commander's tunic. A few paces away, the duchess said, “What is that,
chérie?
What is he talking about now?”

“Sisi, how many of those pills did you swallow?” Robert's wife asked, for once not whining.

Alec had drifted a few steps, his expression mild. His brows rose, and he looked past the Council members to Tony. “Will you get the Council to safety?”

“Me?” Tony put his hand on his chest in a mocking gesture. “How?”

“
Nunquam est fidelis potente societas
,” Honoré intoned, regarding Tony with half-shut eyes. He stood, as if by accident, directly under one of the crossed pairs of weapons mounted on the lobby wall, his hands crossed over the head of the cane he leaned on.

Alec turned to face the Prime Minister. Beka, her older brother Shimon, and their grandfather had been whispering. Baron Ridotski gave Alec a short nod.

“Grandfather, the keys?” Shimon murmured.

“There's a tunnel,” Alec said to Tony, who laughed, one hand flashing up in the fencer's acknowledgment of a hit.

“Why didn't I guess that?” Tony asked as he watched Beka's brother unlock the door on the other side of the coat room. “And why didn't I find that?”

“Because you never looked behind the old files,” Beka said. “Honest work of any kind being much too dull to examine.”

As Tony's smile tightened, Beka turned her back on him. The door that had been unlocked opened on a dark space. Beka stepped in. A scritching sound, a flare, and a lantern lit, throwing yellowish light over shelves stuffed with files and old ledgers.

She was joined by Shimon, who did something that I couldn't see, and out swung a hidden door behind a bookcase stuffed with moldering files, opening onto a narrow passage that sent cold, dank air flowing in.

“Better make sure they haven't discovered this tunnel, too,” Danilov said.

“I'll go,” said Shimon.

He reached for one of the mounted swords. The two of Tony's guys nearest him stirred, but Tony didn't say anything, so the guys didn't react as Shimon pulled a sword off the wall. It had not been bolted down. So there was an unspoken truce, at least long enough to escape the vampires. But Tony's guys still held all the weapons.

“If you've got a diamond or a crystal,” I said to Shimon, “hold them near your light.”

Shimon gave me a short nod, then tucked the sword under his arm. He yanked his shirt cuff below the hem of his coat. The diamond cufflink caught the light brilliantly, glittering through the full range of colors as he took sword in one hand and lantern in the other, then started down the tunnel.