Shadows of Falling Night (32 page)

Peter made a choking sound; Eric snorted but very softly. Cheba gave them both a symbolic whap on the back of the head, wincing a little when she moved her left hand.

“And Hans told us all sorts of funny stories about the things he did when he was a soldier and knew Eric,” Leila said in turn, giggling as they came into the lobby. “Hans is cool,
vraiment
. This looks like a nice place.”

The Hotel Imperial had been a hotel since the Princes of Württemberg decided they needed the money more than the building about a hundred and fifty years ago, through a number of extremely discriminating restorations. One of the things that hadn’t changed was the swarm of uniformed flunkies that ushered them in; they and their predecessors had greeted everyone from Greta Garbo through Adolph Hitler to Simon Wiesenthal, and it was still used for the stodgier sort of visiting panjandrum.

Ellen mentioned the Hitler connection, and Peter laughed as they were swept into the splendors of oxblood marble and porphyry columns beneath the blazing chandeliers and up the sweeping staircases beneath huge portraits of bemedalled and mustachioed grandees from 19th-century Mitteleuropa and their long-gowned diamond-decked consorts.

“I looked it up. Before the First World War old Adolf…well, actually young Adolf…did odd jobs here, carrying out garbage and stuff when he couldn’t make enough selling postcards to pay for a doss-house. He didn’t come back until he’d done the rape-Austria thing.”

Adrian laughed aloud himself at the anecdote, with a sardonic note to it. Ellen did too, but felt a small twinge that took her a moment to identify. It wasn’t that Adrian didn’t genuinely loathe tyrants of the
Hitler-Stalin-Pol Pot type, it was that some part of it was…Well, one big reason von Stauffenberg and the other Junkers had finally decided they had to kill the man they called “the Bohemian corporal” was pure
de haut en bas
contempt for prole effrontery. Her husband wasn’t consciously any sort of a snob, and he’d spent most of his life
risking
his life in rebellion against his inheritance, but somewhere deep in there a hundred generations of aristo arrogance lingered. You didn’t have to be a Shadowspawn to assume you were a different, and superior, order of being.

You can take the boy out of the Château,
she thought.
But you can’t altogether take the Château out of the boy. On the other hand, it is
so
worth it.

Of course, the aristo thing had its upside. He hadn’t had to use the Power to get them the Maria Therese Suite, with its four adjoining bedrooms and sweeping view of the Ringstrasse and the Opera House. All it had taken besides money was his personal presence. That utter and sublime conviction that everyone was eager to get him exactly what he wanted, and of course that he deserved it. Throw in a charming smile, and it almost always worked.

Ellen hid a slight smile of her own at Cheba’s reaction to the Rococo splendors of the rooms, though she kept it well hidden. The Mexican girl had excellent natural taste; she’d seen that during her convalescence after the Rancho Sangre op, not least in the sort of thing she’d hypothetically chosen for the folk art import store she dreamed of opening someday. And this Belle Époque display of lux—complete with gold tassel embellishments on the swags of the looped curtains, eighteen-foot ceilings with gilt plaster work and a view of the Opera House from a great corner window—was an excellent example of its type.

You’d have to be an old-fashioned pickle-up-the-ass modernist prig to disapprove of it on principle. Still, it was obviously love at first sight
for Cheba. People who grew up practicing austere simplicity simply because they couldn’t afford anything else rarely embraced it as an aesthetic principle.

Adrian had also arranged a complete new set of baggage and its contents to replace the ones lost in Germany, which had probably been torn to pieces by the teeth of a pack of very annoyed von Trupps, not to mention copiously peed on. Cheba was pleased, though a little disconcerted by the fact that the butler service the hotel laid on had already put everything in place in the cupboards and drawers. Ellen helped settle in the children, a process itself helped by the discovery of the complimentary imperial torte waiting for them.

Can’t blame them for that,
she thought,
nibbling a bit of it herself. By God, the Viennese may have all their glories behind them and be living off memories, but one thing they can still do world-class is chocolate, dark and not too sweet.

A single gesture from Adrian had made sure everyone understood that for all his Wreakings they couldn’t talk frankly here. Eric and Cheba had made slightly stilted but perfectly genuine expressions of thanks for the
laying on of hands
that accelerated their recoveries. The new set of dressings Hans had put on Cheba’s claw-wounds had been spotted with new blood when she took them off.

Cheba even took a moment to thank Ellen, since she knew where the blood had come from to juice Adrian up before they arrived. Ellen still had a bit of that mellow, drifting sense of utter peace you got after the ecstasy of a feeding, the way it made absolutely anything feel so good and everyone seem lovable. Cheba would know a little of what that was like, but she couldn’t know how much more intense the high you got from the bite was when it was of your own will and with love,
without that nasty undertone of fear, guilt, self-loathing and dread afterwards.

Ellen felt more than a little sorry for her.

“Your man, he is a good
jefe
,” Cheba said seriously in a quiet aside as they walked towards the elevator.

Even if he is a blood-sucking brujo,
went unspoken. She continued aloud, in the same undertone:

“And you, you also do not forget those who help you.”

All in all it made dinner rather fraught, though Ellen found she had an excellent appetite.

After all,
she thought as they were bowed to their table,
in a way I’m eating for two. And Eric and Cheba are making up for lost time—the Power can force their bodies to heal faster, but cell division has to have something to work with. Peter’s the only one who might be worrying his stomach closed. And the kids just shovel it down, unless it’s pretty loathsome; though their table manners are absolutely superb for their age.

Which was fortunate; the maître d’hôtel had looked a little dubious at seating children that young. This place was on the high end of stuffy-formal.

Interesting how Cheba absorbed that sort of formal thing like a sponge, since she started out basically as a peasant with lizards in the thatch. She’s actually a bit better at it than me, by now, and I was the first in my family ever to go to university. Look at the elegant way she handled her napkin there, or the little serious frown over the wine list.

The hotel restaurant was about the degree of high-end stodgy-conservative you’d expect, but nonetheless impressive; red and gold, snowy linen, glittering silver and crystal and an atmosphere of subdued old-money sybaritism designed to make you feel like a pre-1914 grand
duke. Ellen worked her way through briny grilled octopus with wasabi and ginger-orange sauce that put her in mind of a makeout session with some sort of sea nymph, a small bowl of richly sweet lobster bisque with a bite of Armagnac and a tiny little floating lobster pancake, and finished by splitting the double entrecôte of dry aged Austrian beef with peppercorn sauce, sauce ravigote, and onion potatoes with Adrian. It was tender, but not so tender that it didn’t have an interesting texture, and it tasted like the earthy Platonic essence of grilled steer, one that had lived on a low-stress regimen at a bovine spa in the Alps with plenty of organic grass and gentle aerobic exercise and moo-yodeling classes. She’d never heard of the Austrian red wine that went with it, but the grapes had died happily too and Adrian gave it a glance of surprised respect.

“My goodness,” she said, patting her lips with the napkin and hiding a small belch. “There was more aged Austrian beef in that than there was in the last Conan movie. Wonderful for the red cell count.”

Her eyes met Adrian’s, and even with the tension there was an exchange of flirtatious subtext that stopped just short of him doing that Shadowspawn snap-of-the-teeth thing, a gesture expressing a combination of predatory sexual interest with a rather different type of appetite. That wouldn’t have been tactful with Peter and Cheba at the table; Adrienne used it too, and when
she
clicked her ivories at you it was usually a prelude to a starring role in some spectacular and quite involuntary piece of sadomasochistic kink. Which had been bad enough for Ellen, and worse for them.

In a way it was a pity they had to be so discreet, because it was a good idea for the kids to be exposed to a more positive role model for…

Well, predator-prey relationship relationships, I suppose you’d call it. They’re purebloods and they’ll have the, um, needs,
she thought, around a mouthful of iced
Milchrahmstrudel
.
It’s not as if they’re going to have all
that much difficulty finding human-type people who
want
what they have to offer. I hope they get something as good as Adrian and I have, but just learning to avoid that whole vicious lethal exploitation thing would be a nice passable good-enough. And of course if Adrian and I have kids too…deal with that when we come to it.

“Do you two think you could stand a Ferris wheel ride without losing that dinner?” Adrian said to his son and daughter.

“Oh yes, Papa,” Leila said, her brother nodding agreement as he chewed.

“Should we be—” Cheba began, then stopped before she could say:—
wasting our time that way.

Ellen was morally certain that someone had nudged the other woman under the table, though she wasn’t certain who.

Peter, Eric or Adrian?
she thought.
Hmm, Peter or Eric, I think. Probably Peter. He’s got a sort of brotherly vibe going there. Wonder if Eric has figured out that he has the serious-type hots for her yet? And under that tough marine/cop/divorced thing, I think he’s a lot more sentimental than she is.

“Yes, that sounds like a good idea,” Cheba said, her voice neutral.

She really isn’t a very good liar,
Ellen thought.
Not bad, but not very
good
either. Too ferociously straightforward.

The concierge was a little surprised that they intended to walk to the Wiener Prater; like most Europeans he assumed that Americans didn’t have functional feet. He did supply umbrellas, which were useful, a list of the attractions of the park which were still open this time of year, and some completely unnecessary directions.

“If we are to stop Harvey, we must get this matter of my uncle’s killing out of the way,” Adrian said abruptly. “And I received a message, a telepathic message, suggesting a meeting to discuss just that. No names, but it is supposedly one of Adrienne’s principal supporters who wishes to turn on her.”

I notice he didn’t say murder,
Ellen thought mordantly.
Where there is no law, there is no murder—just killing. And among Shadowspawn
…

The crowds out enjoying the splendors of the Ringstrasse were considerably thinned by the light drizzle. The cast-iron streetlights made a watery glimmer as they reflected on wet stone, like an Impressionist cityscape done by someone with undiagnosed myopia. The children ran on a little ahead, doing an occasional two-footed jump into a puddle. Ellen, Adrian and Eric Salvador all did occasional expert checks for tails and other forms of surveillance; Peter and Cheba were a little more obvious about it.

My name is Ellen…Ellen Bond…I mean, Brézé,
she thought, conscious of the comforting outline of her derringer and the weight of the knife under her coat.

And it’s even more comforting that Adrian’s here.

He walked easily, not quickly but with a springy grace, his hands in the pockets of his dark coat and a hat—hats were fashionable once more—slightly tilted over his brow.

“Why do you trust whoever sent you this message?” Eric said bluntly.

“I don’t, of course,” Adrian said. “But there are ways of…authenticating…telepathic messages. We do not use them very often, because it requires some lowering of barriers, of defenses, on the side of the one wishing to show truth.”

A mirthless grin: “Of course, one of the ways around that is simply to change your mind after you sent the message. But I can say with some confidence that the sender meant what they said at the time they said it.”

Eric’s snarl had the same savagery: “Hey, just to make our heads hurt a little more, couldn’t one of you guys get another one to put the mojo on him so he believed something during a conversation and switch it back afterwards?”

Adrian nodded crisply. “Yes, that actually can be done. It almost never is, because it requires letting down
all
your defenses and allowing another to control your mind. The only person I would allow to do that would be Ellen, and she does not have the capacity. And I am unusually non-paranoid, for a Shadowspawn purebred.”

Peter snorted, and spoke without turning his head. “Not long on trust, you guys, are you? And I thought John le Carre novels were bad!”

Adrian gave him a small sly smile. “Well, le Carre was—”

Peter pummeled his own temples. “God, how I always hated all-explanatory, non-falsifiable conspiracy theories! And now I’m living in one! You have
no
idea how offensive this is to a scientist.”

Ellen held up a hand. “No,
don’t
tell me le Carre was one of you, lover. Even if he was.”

“No, my darling, I shall cruelly torture you by leaving you in suspense. And here we are.”

The Prater had been an amusement park for more than a quarter of a millennium, or rather longer than the United States had existed; large chunks of it were still open even in the depths of winter. It was the sort of place that only really closed down for the apocalypse or a Russian invasion, and which featured a main avenue much like the Ringstrasse except that it was straighter. Ellen felt a slight pang as they walked through the cheerful crowds, many of them youngsters even at this hour, but many also good solid burghers just enjoying themselves among the restaurants and food stalls, the mimes and jugglers and haunted houses.