Mozart’s Blood (27 page)

Domenico picked up the phone on the desk a dozen times, his finger poised above the keypad, but then set it down again. There were people he could call, in London, or in New York, to replace Benson and Marks. There was a plentiful supply of those willing to do anything at all to win a chance at near immortality. But since Ugo had escaped, it hardly seemed worthwhile. Ugo was the one and only link Domenico had. Until he had a new idea, or Ugo turned up, he didn't know what to do next.

He knew from the diary that there was a place, a great house somewhere where the elders lived. He imagined it as an elegant, quiet dwelling, a
villa
perhaps, or an old European castle, where the elders lived their long, long lives in seclusion, sending people like Ugo out to do their bidding. Of course they had to feed, but he thought they must have people brought to them, easy targets. Certainly the Countess Milosch, opera patroness, a member of the nobility, would not go out into the streets like a tramp. Nor would she allow anyone into La Società who would.

Benson and Marks hadn't had a chance of achieving entrance into La Società, even if that—that
creature,
that beast, hadn't torn them to shreds in the basement room.

Domenico shuddered, thinking of it. There had been blood everywhere, streaking the walls, running in dark rivulets across the cement floor. He had made it to the door with the wolf snapping and slashing behind him, and only barely made it out. Marks, hearing Benson screaming in agony, went rushing past him into the room and threw himself straight into the jaws of a violent death. The noise had been ghastly. Domenico had raced down the hallway to get away from the tormented howling, leaving every door open in his haste. He couldn't bring himself to go back to face the torn remains of Marks and Benson. He fled the area as swiftly as he could, abandoning the rented Fiat, leaving the carnage to be found by someone else.

They had been misinformed about Ugo. Their intelligence was, in fact, backward. Ugo's herb didn't trigger his transformation. It prevented it.

By the time he understood that, it was too late. Regrettable, especially for Benson and Marks. Naturally, such an end had been waiting for them in any case, one way or another. The diary made it clear that such as they would never be allowed to join the select few. Still, Domenico regretted the gory circumstances. The whole thing had been rather embarrassing, actually. And now he was back where he had begun.

Domenico turned away from the phone and went to the bathroom to shower and dress. He couldn't be late for the curtain.

Under the pleasant sting of hot water, he remembered his first sight of Zdenka Milosch at the opera, standing alone in the lobby of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. She looked like royalty herself: tall, thin, beautifully dressed in a silky black gown. Her haughty black gaze forestalled anyone who might think of approaching her.

There had been a rumor in the circles Domenico haunted, a story that one of the elders was in the city, had been seen at the opera. He had followed several women in those days, hoping for a clue as to which was the one. He had a feeling, when he spied the hawk-nosed Countess for the first time, that he had found her at last. And when he followed her out of the theater doors and into the street, he saw a slender young man, little more than a boy, really, open a car door for her, then slide into the backseat beside her.

Domenico had the license, and he had the name of the car service. It was easy to find the car and ridiculously simple to claim he had come in search of an item left behind by the Countess. It was a stroke of the purest luck that left a strangely bound book in his hands, forgotten—or dropped—on the leather seat.

What had not been easy was tracking her across London. A rash of missing maids and two or three unexplained bodies in the city made the final connection. Domenico's special gift—his real talent—was persistence. In divining that Zdenka Milosch was the one he sought, his persistence paid off. He soon learned that the slender boy he had seen was in actuality an enigmatic man named Ugo, a lover of opera, evidently a servant of the Countess. Domenico followed Ugo to try to reach the Countess, and in a second burst of happy fortune, was present when this strangely youthful man, standing in a shaft of moonlight in a London garden, transformed into a great gray wolf and bounded off into the darkness.

But Domenico was not surprised by good luck. What could have been luckier than to lay his hands on Zdenka Milosch's diary, and to find Mozart's name in it? Surely, he often thought, it was not so much luck as it was destiny that had led him to this point. How foolish it would be to waste the opportunity!

Domenico climbed out of the shower and rubbed himself dry. He admired his lean body in the bathroom mirror, his flat belly, his sculpted jaw. He didn't want to lose any of it. He wanted to stay just as he was, not too young, but not at all old. He would remain strong, healthy, capable. And if that meant others less persistent, less committed than he, had to pay a price, so be it. He could live with that.

Live nearly forever.

The opera opened with a minimum of trouble. Octavia forced aside her worries over Ugo and immersed herself in her rôle. Brenda's Donna Elvira surprised her with its vigor and commitment. As usual, Masetto and Zerlina received enthusiastic ovations. Nick Barrett-Jones sang exactly as he had sung in every rehearsal, without nuance or depth of meaning, but without errors. Peter's performance, of course, was a delight. Octavia hugged him before the curtain calls and told him so. Their applause was satisfying, and the alternate cast, coming backstage from their seats in the house, was generous in its compliments.

Russell and Octavia rode together in a limousine to the Ristorante Romani for a private reception. In a back room, tables were laid with linen and silver. Candles in hurricane glasses flickered everywhere. Colorful dishes of grilled eggplant,
gamberoni,
and tiny rounds of artisan cheeses filled a sideboard. A waiter circled the room with a bottle of champagne and a tray of glasses.

Octavia, grateful for not being thirsty for the moment, accepted a glass of champagne, but held it without drinking. Russell stayed at her elbow, reliving moments of the performance.

“The ‘Non mi dir' went particularly well, I thought,” he said. He rubbed the stem of his glass with nervous fingers. “But perhaps we could speak to Nick about the first ensemble. I still would like the tempo to be flexible there.”

“I was watching you,” Octavia said, and smiled as Russell rolled his eyes.

“I know
you
were,” he said, and then, as Nick approached them, he stopped.

“Great show,” Nick said heartily.

“Yes, very good,” Russell answered. “I hope it will go as well with the other cast.”

“We all do,” the baritone said, making an expansive gesture with his glass. “So what's your next engagement, Octavia?”

“After this run, I have a
Figaro
in Houston. The Countess.”

“Oh, good, good.”

“And you?” she asked politely.

He answered, with a little swelling of his chest, “I've just heard from my management. Another
Giovanni,
this one in Chicago.”

Octavia said, “That's very short notice. Is someone ill?”

“He had terrible notices in Seattle. They cancelled his contract.”

“Really!” Russell raised his eyebrows and asked for more details about the event. Octavia gave the conversation half her attention, letting her eyes stray idly around the room. When her gaze reached the doorway, she stiffened.

A woman in a long black lace dress stood there, surveying the room through tinted lenses. She was rather tall, narrow-shouldered, with a hawkish nose and a tight black chignon. She scanned the room steadily until her dark gaze alighted upon Octavia. She began to work her way through the room without hesitation.

Zdenka Milosch.

Octavia froze for a long moment. There was a door behind her that she was fairly certain led to the kitchen, but there was little point in using it. If the Countess Milosch meant to talk to her, such evasion would merely be postponing the inevitable. She sighed and set her glass down on a nearby table.

She murmured, “Russell, will you excuse me? I see an old friend.” With a nod to Nick, she turned toward the door. Her jaw was clenched, and she deliberately loosened it as she wound her way through the crush. The Countess came forward, too. They met in the middle of the room.

Zdenka Milosch put her cold hand on Octavia's arm to steer her to an empty corner. When she was certain no one was watching them, Octavia shook her arm free. She was careful to keep her face impassive, but her voice was bitter. “What are you doing here? I thought we had an agreement.”

“So did I,” the Countess said. Her voice was like shards of ice. Octavia felt a chill on her arm where she had touched her. “You broke it.”

“It was necessary.” Octavia met the Countess's stony gaze with one just as hard.

“She was not worthy to be one of us.”

“That street girl?” Octavia remembered the girl crying out, “What was that?” and a wave of nausea made her swallow. She tried to keep all feeling from her voice, emulating the Countess. “She may not survive in any case,” she said.

“She survived,” the Countess said, in an offhand tone. “For a while.”

Octavia's heart lurched. She stared at Zdenka Milosch for a long, awful moment, trying to absorb her meaning. In a voice that shook with fury, she finally said, “You killed her.”

With the faintest curl of her lip, the Countess answered, “It was necessary.”

Octavia pulled back a step, as if she could no longer bear the proximity with Zdenka Milosch. The memories of the street girl filled her mind, nearly blinding her for a moment. There had been a little brother, who died of some illness, and an inconsolable mother. There was a grandmother, cooking in a small, dark kitchen, smiling across a bowl of
pasta.
There was a teacher who took advantage, under the guise of sympathy…a screaming argument with a father, a family fractured, a home lost….

With a supreme effort, Octavia shoved these memories aside, walled them off. She glared at the Countess, her body vibrating with impotent fury. “I can't talk to you here,” she said. “You shouldn't have come.”

And as if he felt her distress, Massimo Luca appeared at her side. She managed to smile up at him, though she still trembled with anger.

If he noticed, he gave no sign. He bent to kiss her cheek. “You were fabulous,” he said.

“You had a great ovation yourself,” she answered. “And you earned it.”

“Grazie.”
He glanced at the Countess and nodded politely. “Did you enjoy the opera?”

She stared at him without answering, until Octavia said hurriedly, “This is my—the Countess Milosch, from Prague. Massimo Luca, our Masetto.”

Massimo grinned at the Countess's indifferent silence and turned a dismissive shoulder to her. To Octavia, he said, “Not a fan, I gather. But I came to ask if I can drive you home.”

“Yes,” she said instantly.

“No,” the Countess said at the same moment.

Massimo's brows rose, and Octavia touched his hand. “Massimo, a moment, please? I'll meet you…over there, where Russell is standing. Five minutes.”

He turned his hand to caress her fingers. “
Va bene.
Five minutes.”

When he was gone, Octavia said bluntly, “Ugo is missing.”

The Countess's eyelids flickered. “Missing? How can he be missing?”

Octavia gave an exasperated sigh. It was useless, she supposed, to comment on the stupidity of the question. She said only, “He disappeared our first night in Milan.” Anxiety welled anew in her throat, and she had to drop her eyes. She dared not show weakness in the presence of Zdenka Milosch. The network of La Società was complex, and Ugo was not their only resource. Their creatures went armed with wicked little knives, and they knew how—and where—to use them.

“No word?” Zdenka said.

“None.” Octavia regained control and lifted her head.

Zdenka's lips curled in the barest of smiles. “You can come home with me.”

“No, I can't. I'm under contract, and I have another performance in three days.”

The black eyes narrowed. “What do I care about that?”

Octavia felt her cheeks warm, and she seized the Countess's arm, relishing the faint wince at the strength of her fingers. She hissed, “Listen to me, Zdenka. You knew I was a singer when you began all this. I have a right to live the way I like, just as you and those walking corpses do at the compound!”

The Countess's upper lip lifted, slid up just enough to give Octavia a glimpse of her fearsome teeth. “You would have been dead two centuries ago if it weren't for the gift of the bite, Teresa!
My
bite!”

“But I'm not dead. And I am what you made me.” Octavia dropped the Countess's arm and glanced across the room to where Massimo stood smiling down into the eager face of Marie Charles. “Go back to the compound,” she said in a hard voice. “Go now. And don't come near me again.”

“No more conversions, Octavia. This is our last warning.”

“You would rather see me die?”

“If necessary.” The Countess's lip released, and her face settled into its customary mask. “Surely, my dear, you don't expect me to have an attack of conscience at this late date?”

“No. I know your loyalties are reserved for the elders.” Octavia couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice. The elders had offered her neither sympathy nor friendship. To them, she was only a vessel.

Zdenka Milosch appeared not to notice her tone, or not to care. She gathered her shawl around her, preparing to leave, and fixed Octavia with her hooded gaze. “We will not admit any more to our number, not without very good reason. The risk of exposure is too great.”

“What do you expect me to do?” Octavia nearly snarled the words. She saw Massimo bend down to hear Marie say something and then toss back his errant lock of hair as he laughed.

“You know perfectly well what we expect,” Zdenka said. She turned toward the door, adding over her shoulder, “If you must feed, kill.”

 

Octavia forced a pleasant expression to her face as she turned back to the party, but her nerves vibrated with rage. The face of the little street girl danced before her, and her stomach turned. She had no illusions about the nature of the world. Predator and prey. Winners and losers. The conquerors and the vanquished. She had been naïve to think she could compromise, that she could take what she needed without paying the full price. It seemed, after all, that there was not enough blood in the world to go around.

She had once more to face the war that raged in her soul, if she still possessed such a thing. It was a great battle waged between the artist struggling to survive and the human being longing to be restored. To surrender would be to lose her music, to lose her deepest desire. But to continue was to give up on the last shreds of her humanity.

A waiter was passing, and she seized a fresh glass of champagne. She had almost drunk it all when she felt Massimo's warmth behind her, his hand slipping around her waist in a gesture of familiarity, of confidence. She turned to look up at him, her body still throbbing under the tide of emotion.

His eyes widened. “Octavia?”

She took a swift breath and drank off the rest of the wine. “Can we get out of here?” she asked in an undertone. “Have we stayed long enough to be polite?”

Massimo took the empty glass and set it on the buffet table. “Yes,” he said, with a husky edge to his deep voice. “We'll just slip out. Where's your coat?”

“I don't have one.”

He grinned, and his eyes kindled with a conspiratorial light. “Good. I know where the back door is.”

The staff of Ristorante Romani looked up as they passed through the kitchen, but no one interrupted them. The old Mercedes was parked in a nearby alley, and in moments they were safely inside, with the heater warming, the motor purring as Massimo drove expertly through the cramped and twisting streets. Octavia knew Milan, but Massimo knew side streets and hidden lanes she had never discovered.

She forced herself to focus on his profile as he drove. It would do her no good to think about Zdenka Milosch anymore…or about the girl by the Dumpster. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could have done. She felt as she had in the beginning, when Teresa struggled against the thirst, slowly coming to understand what she had become.

And she remembered Mozart's refusal.

 

Teresa Saporiti went back to Rauhensteingasse the next day and found Mozart a little stronger. Constanze whispered to her, “What did you do? What did you give him?”

Teresa couldn't meet her eyes. “I talked to him,” she said. “I told him how much we all care about him, how much we want to sing another opera.”

Constanze seemed to think this was reasonable. But Mozart, though he was clearly better, his hands less swollen, his color stronger, would not speak to Teresa. He turned his head away on the pillow, and his curling hair hid his eyes. Constanze shrugged and shook her head. “I'm sorry, fräulein. He's not himself yet.”

Teresa nodded and excused herself. As she walked back to her lodging, she told herself it would be all right, that he had taken enough for the moment. One more day wouldn't matter. She would go tomorrow, and again the next day, until he would listen, let her explain how important it was that he preserve himself, how great his gifts to the world could be.

That night the thirst came on her, sooner than it should have. She had given Mozart so much, and her body demanded its return. With an unbearable burning in her throat, she slipped out into the night and wandered the streets of Vienna, hunting.

She knew by then the sorts of taverns that were the natural habitat for her prey, and she found her way to one of these in the Kärntner Viertel, the southeast quarter. It was a ramshackle place, too rudimentary even to have a sign. Its uneven roof appeared to be made of scavenged tiles. It had three walls cobbled together with planks that didn't match, and the city ramparts formed the back wall. The single door hung crazily in its frame, emitting a rectangle of lurid yellow light. Patrons toppled in and out like rodents from a rat hole.

One presented himself to her like a gift, reeling out of the sulfurous glow of the tavern into the starlit night. He was a red-faced, big-bellied man reeking of beer and insensate with lust. The veins in his neck were swollen, and capillaries laced his fleshy nose. He seemed a man bursting with what she needed, and she barely restrained herself from sinking her teeth into him right there in the street. She managed to lead him to a shadowed place beneath a jutting support for the ramparts. He had time only to make a clumsy grab at her skirt before she fell on him.

When she was finished, she left him propped against the ramparts and strolled back to her lodging. Sated, she fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep, and woke with a start when the winter sun was already high in a pale blue sky. She leaped out of bed and hurried to wash and dress her hair. The maid, hearing her moving about, offered coffee, but Teresa refused. She wanted to see Mozart. She wanted to show him how well she felt, how strong she was. She wanted to persuade him that he should seize his opportunity, as she had. That although their path had not been of their own choosing, and though they had lost any hope of heaven, there was still life, and there was music.