Mozart’s Blood (34 page)

The servingman, a scrawny, dark little man, scuttled in with a tray and an assortment of bottles and glasses. He set it on the inlaid table and went out again. Ugo removed his foot from Hélène's boot and reached for one of the bottles. A slight rustle sounded from the far end of the long room and he stopped, his hand outstretched, looking into the shadows. Hélène followed his gaze.

Ugo had told her they were old. Ancient, he had said.

Even that word hardly served. They shuffled forward, one after the other, their clothes hanging about them in shapeless silhouettes that shifted vaguely as they moved. The woman—if woman she could still be called—peered out from beneath her hood. The men swayed from side to side as they coasted to a stop just beyond the circle of candlelight.

No, not ancient, Hélène thought. Atavistic. Primeval. Surely even their long, long memories could not contain the years that had passed for them.

One of them spoke in a thin voice. “Is this the one?”

The Countess stood, and pointed at Hélène. “It is she.”

Hélène stared up at the three gloomy figures. When one of them—Anastasia, it must be—moved closer, a smell like that of rotting meat came with her, overpowering the scents of beeswax and dust. The creature leaned forward, into the light, and Hélène caught a glimpse of hooded eyes, a nose that drooped over wrinkled lips, and fearsomely long teeth.

Unconsciously, Hélène touched her own canines with her tongue, reassuring herself. They had retracted slightly, subtly, since Ugo's advent. They were still long, but they were nothing like Anastasia's. Anastasia's teeth were a marvel, a grotesquerie. They were fangs, tusks of yellowed ivory. They protruded, curved, depressed the papery skin of her chin. Hélène's stomach quivered with nausea at the idea of those teeth, of lips that could no longer close, of a face that must not be seen.

The Countess said, “Teresa. Stand up so the elders can see you.”

And without protest, hypnotized by those terrible teeth, she obeyed. Anastasia's mouth stretched in a ghastly attempt at a smile. “Sssssing,” she hissed.

Hélène said faintly, “What?”

Anastasia's face receded into the shadows of her hood, but she stood, hands folded, as if waiting. Hélène turned to the Countess. “What does she want?”

The Countess nodded to the three elders. “They want you to sing.”

Ugo stood now, too, and Hélène felt his shoulder just touching hers. She gazed into the dark depths of Anastasia's hood, then peered into the shadows where the others, Eusebio and Henri, loomed like great wordless crows, staring back at her. One of them, she didn't know which, lifted a trembling hand and pointed at her.

“Is this,” he said in a hoarse and horrible voice, “the vessel?” The
s
was distorted, as if his tongue could no longer reach his hard palate.

“Vessel?” Hélène said. “What does he mean?”

“Vessel,” the Countess replied, with a hint of impatience. “Container. Receptacle.”

“I know what a vessel is.” Hélène felt Ugo's hand come up to encircle her waist. “What is this about?” she snapped. “I've come a long way, and I'm certainly not going to sing tonight. I'm tired and I need a bath.” She gestured to the three ancients. “And I would venture a guess that I'm not the only one.”

Anastasia hissed something, a warning sound, and Ugo's arm tightened around Hélène.

Zdenka Milosch said, “Have a care, Teresa. Anastasia may not be able to hurt you anymore, but she employs people who can. I am one.”

Hélène's anger flared, and her lip lifted involuntarily.

The Countess's black eyes narrowed. She stiffened, seeming to grow taller and wider. With deliberation, she revealed her own impressive teeth, with a glimmer as of ivory knives in the dim light. “I don't think,” she said clearly, “that you want to try me.”

Hélène turned to Ugo. “I want to leave,” she said. “Can we go?”

The Countess answered. “No. You can't.” Her lips folded again, hiding her teeth, but her eyes still glittered dangerously. “However,” she said, “you can wait to sing until tomorrow, when you're rested. I'll have Kirska show you to your room. And you may certainly have a bath.”

The elders pulled back, out of the light. Hélène took a deep breath, leaning into Ugo's arm, trying not to think about the specter that Anastasia's face had become, nor to guess at the years reflected there.

The Countess rang a small bell that waited at her elbow, and the stolid, silent Kirska appeared. As Ugo and Hélène followed her upstairs, Hélène looked at her curiously, wondering what kind of creature she was. She seemed ageless, like the Countess…like herself. Kirska, the hulking gardener—Tomas, he was called—who had met them at the gatehouse. The other employees who lurked here and there in the dimness, like rats waiting for crumbs. Why would they stay here, serving in this dark place?

Kirska opened the doors to adjoining rooms, and without a word, bustled off down the corridor. Hélène hoped that meant a bath would be forthcoming. She stood in her doorway and scowled at Ugo in his.

He lifted his shoulders and gave a light laugh. “I tried to warn you what this would be like. Words don't suffice.”

“Why should I sing for these…for them?” she demanded. “I owe them nothing.”

“Actually,” Ugo said, sobering, “you do.”

“Why? Because they didn't kill me?”

He leaned against the doorjamb. Whitened lines pulled at his mouth. “Hélène. It's more than that.”

“What, then?” she demanded. Fatigue and irritation made her querulous. Even as she spoke, she shook her head in frustration, knowing she sounded like a spoiled child.

But Ugo straightened and came to her, taking her arm, guiding her gently into her bedroom. “Sit down,
bella,
” he said.

The bed was a four-poster affair with a carved wooden canopy and a coverlet of heavy brown wool. Hélène sat down on it, finding as soon as she took her weight off her feet that they ached. She bent and began to unlace her boots. She glanced up at Ugo. “Go on.”

“You know, Hélène, what I am.”

“Only what you've told me.” Hélène straightened and worked at her left boot with her right foot. It fell to the bare floor with a light thud. She bent her knee to bring her left foot onto the bed and massaged it with her fingers, giving Ugo a narrow-eyed look. “I haven't seen it.”

“I hope you never do.” He went to the window and drew back the heavy drapes. Dust rose in little spirals from the folds. “And with the help of La Società, you never will.”

He came back and stood before her, his slight body tense, his face intent. “They found me in the streets of Rome,” he said. “Zdenka Milosch came for me. She taught me what it was, and how to control it.”

“And so you do as she tells you.”

“I need La Società. I need the network.”

“Why, Ugo? There are herbalists everywhere, aren't there?”

“Not who carry what I need.” He shook his head, a slight, graceful movement. “Please trust me. I need them, and so, if you want to continue as we have been, you also need them.” He hesitated, his lips twisting. “Hélène, if you want to continue…you need them even more than I do.”

She sat quietly then, one boot on and one off. Oppression weighed on her until she thought her shoulders must bend beneath it. The past year had been more peaceful, more serene, than any she had known since the bite. The thought of going back to the streets, driven by thirst, losing herself in need and urgency—it was a grievous prospect.

“Ugo,” she said softly. “Could we not manage on our own?”

He stood looking down at her, his face as dark as her own heart. “I can't go back any more than you can. I know what it is to have no control. To lose myself. And—” His eyes left hers and drifted around the high-ceilinged bedroom. “I loathe it,” he said, so low she almost didn't hear him. “I have loathed it from the very beginning.”

 

Octavia had checked no luggage. She fidgeted impatiently as the passport control officer flipped through her much-used passport, and as soon as he let her through, she hurried into the terminal. She found an exchange and fidgeted more while the agent exchanged her euros for Czech crowns with their sepia portraits of emperors and saints. She stuffed the bills into her bag and followed the signs to the taxi stand. From her prodigious memory, she dredged up the name of the road where the elders' mansion was. She knew no number. There had been none in 1907.

She was fortunate to encounter an enterprising cab driver, who laughed over her predicament and listened to her explanations of how the place looked the last time she saw it, of the ivy-hung walls and the little stone gatehouse. The man's English was paltry, but his German was quite good, at least as good as Octavia's. His cab was passably new and had been outfitted by the state with a GPS device. After a drive of thirty minutes, with a mechanical feminine voice reciting instructions, they came to Mohács Road and began cruising down it.

The scenery had changed, of course. Wars and their subsequent political upheavals, a burgeoning population, and membership in the EU had brought a flourish of new construction. Other estates flanked the road, filling spaces Octavia remembered as orchards and fields. The cab's headlights picked out elaborate scrolled-iron gates and elegant landscaping. But the same gentle mountain still sloped up above the road, and the inviting sparkle of blue lakes showed here and there between the rooftops and the landscaped gardens. In the distance, the red roofs of Prague glowed through the gathering darkness.

The cab driver kept his speed down, chattering away to Octavia in German sprinkled with oddly anachronistic English phrases, perhaps picked up from someone who had learned English in another time. Octavia answered absently. They had been on the road for perhaps ten minutes when she cried,
“È qui!”

She didn't realize until he looked at her oddly that she had spoken in Italian. He grinned as he pulled the cab to the side of the road.
“Signorina, parla italiano? Ho pensato che fosse americana.”

“Yes, I am American,” she said. “But I've been working in Milan.”

He nodded as if this were perfectly normal and went around to open her door for her. She climbed out with her purse and her little night case. She paid him in crowns, and he stood with the money in his hand, looking dubiously at the dark, overgrown grounds of the mansion, the shuttered windows of the gatehouse. He turned to her, his brow furrowed.
“Si sente al sicuro, signorina?”

She gave him a rueful smile. “I know it looks awful,” she said. “But I'm all right. I promise.
Molto gentile, signore.
”

With evident reluctance, he climbed back in his cab. As he drove away, she saw him looking at her in his rearview mirror as if expecting her to change her mind.

She waited until he was out of sight before she walked up the moss-covered cobblestone path to the gatehouse and knocked firmly, and loudly, on the door.

 

Hélène had soon found that baths at the elders' compound were taken in a small building behind the main house. Kirska led her through the maze of corridors and stairs, out a back door, and on to the bathhouse. A huge, battered tin tub steamed on a floor of flagstone. The workers who had just filled it slipped away the moment Hélène appeared. A fire burned in a small grate, and an oil lamp shed yellow light over wooden benches and a low table holding soap and towels.

As Hélène began to undo the fastenings of her short suit jacket, Kirska stepped forward as if to help her. Hélène said, “No,” shrinking away from her touch.

Kirska gave a short nod, her mouth twisting. She pulled a painted screen forward and unfolded it so the tub was hidden from the door. Before she left, she raised her eyebrows as if to ask if there was anything else. Hélène shook her head.

The water was clean and hot. Hélène put a fresh cake of soap on the edge of the tub before she draped her suit and shirtwaist over the screen and folded her lingerie into a tidy pile. She unpinned her hair and stepped into the warm water. She sank beneath the surface with a sigh, letting the water lap at her chin. Her hair trailed in wet strands over her shoulders as she laid her head back against the edge of the tub. She closed her eyes, giving herself up to the warmth.

She thought she might have drowsed for a time. When a wave of cool air touched her wet shoulders, she opened her eyes. She hadn't heard the door, but she thought Kirska must have come back. She called out, “Kirska? I'm not done yet. I want to wash my…”

She stopped speaking. The smell that permeated the bath-house was unmistakable. She sat up, catching her wet hair back with one hand. She snapped, “What are you doing here?”

There was no answer, but the smell intensified, and there was a rustle of fabric against the flagstones. Hélène thought of jumping out of the bath, but she would be wet and shivering. “What do you want?”

The creature, ancient and wavering, put a spotted hand on the edge of the screen, then shuffled forward to stand beside it. Her hood had fallen back, showing a thatch of thin white hair, raggedly chopped. Hélène stared up at her face, fully revealed now in the light of the oil lamp. She expected to feel the same horror she had experienced earlier in the day, but this time, what she felt was sorrow. And sympathy.

Anastasia struggled to speak past her teeth, emitting only an unintelligible sibilance.

Hélène said, “What? I can't understand you.”

The ancient tried again, leaning forward a little, as if propinquity might help. Her skin was an indeterminate color, as if whatever melanin had been there once had leached away over the years. She peered from beneath her sagging eyelids and croaked, “Vesssssel.”

At least, that was what Hélène thought she was trying to say. Her lower lip could not quite reach her upper teeth to form the initial consonant. Hélène let her hair drop back into the water, and she folded her arms around herself. Her exposed shoulders prickled with chill. “Vessel? Is that what you said?”