Silver in the Blood (27 page)

“We're not monsters, Dacia. We have a great gift,” Radu said with such dignity that she turned to look at him. “You can turn
into a wolf anytime you choose! No! It is not just a gift: it is
power
!”

They were silent for a long time.

“Be that as it may,” Dacia said at last, putting aside the little thrill that had run through her at the thought of having this power, as Radu termed it. “Is serving the Draculas how it was meant to be used? Is that all there is for us?”

“Lady Ioana says that we live to serve the Draculas,” Radu said bitterly. “That is why God made us this way.”

“I don't believe that for one minute,” Dacia retorted.

Radu smiled faintly. “Neither does my father. Nor does Aunt Katarina.”

“Then what do they think?” The gown trailed from Dacia's hands, all but forgotten.

“I don't know if anyone knows why we are what we are,” Radu said, gazing out the window. “But I know what I feel. I feel like the Lady of Shalott.”

“What?” Dacia dropped the gown in astonishment, and would have burst out laughing, if Radu's face had not been so serious.

“In Lord Tennyson's poem,” Radu clarified, red staining his cheeks but his eyes still on some distant vision.
“ ‘I am half sick of shadows,' cried the Lady of Shalott
. I am not half sick, I am full sick of being a shadow.”

“From darkness into light,” Dacia said.

Radu's gaze sharpened, and he turned to look at her. “My father says the prophecy has nothing to do with the Draculas. There is no mention of them in it.”

“Actually,” Dacia said. “I think it has
everything
to do with the Draculas.”

She stooped and picked up the crumpled gown. “I'm going to get dressed now,” she announced. “And then I'm getting out of here. Lou must be frantic! Are you going to help me or not?”

“Of course I'll help, but they'll kill us both if we're caught,” Radu warned, one hand on the latch.

“My dear Radu,” Dacia said. “You do remember that anytime you choose,
you
can change into a wolf as well?”

 

Rua Gradeszky

15 June 1897

Dear Aunt Kate,

Your former lover, Prince Mattias, has abducted Dacia. Prince Mihai ordered the abduction and plans on forcing her to marry him, or so I assume from his previous behavior toward her. Mr. Theophilus Arkady and Lord John Harcastle are helping me rescue her.

If you have any sort of fondness left at all for your nieces, or if you have any respect for your queen, you will assist us.

Lou

Being in a gentleman's hotel room was of course a very damaging blow to a young lady's reputation, but Lou was not concerned. Dacia's kidnapping trumped matters of social status in Lou's mind, and both men had seen Lou mostly naked just that morning, anyway, she remembered as she entered the very masculine hotel suite.

Lord Johnny invited her to sit on the sofa and then went to pull the curtains.

“Well, Miss Neulander,” Mr. Arkady said, sitting across from her. “If you are truly seeing flashes of what your cousin sees, this may help us more than you know.

“Though it is frowned upon by the Society, I have some little skill with magic.” He spread his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. “I think I can help you to locate her.”

“What are you going to do?” Lou drew back.

He gave her a reassuring smile, but that didn't help. The last time she had seen magic, her mother had turned into a bat.
Although she felt her own, personal transformation that night had been a thing of wonder, she didn't particularly want to see Mr. Arkady turn into a creature in the middle of Lord Johnny's suite.

“I want to help you see clearer,” he said.

“Are you sure it will work?” Lord Johnny paced the room, checked and rechecked that the door was locked, and peered out the windows several times. He stared into the mirror over the sideboard and adjusted his tie, making it even more crooked.

Mr. Arkady just gave him a look, and he subsided. Lord Johnny muttered something and took a chair across from Lou, slouching like one of Lou's brothers being tiresome. Lou wondered if he was in love with Dacia. She was sure that Dacia was in love with him, though he wasn't her usual sort of beau, like the immaculate Will Carver.

Clearing his throat, Mr. Arkady brought her attention back to himself. She caught herself staring at his long lashes and dark, dark eyes and blushed, and he cleared his throat again.

“Yes, well, Miss Neulander,” he said hurriedly. “I am going to burn some incense, and have you breathe in the smoke while I play the flute.”

Lou felt her eyebrows climb to her hairline. This was unlike any magic she'd ever seen. But then, her entire knowledge of magic consisted of her family turning into wild creatures in a dark forest.

“It is perfectly safe,” Mr. Arkady went on. “And it will help you to think better. Concentrate on your cousin. See if you can pick up any clues about where she might be.”

“All right,” Lou said.

She tried to sound nonchalant, as though this were something she did every day. When Mr. Arkady gave her a sympathetic smile and reached over to squeeze her hand, she knew she had failed in her nonchalance. They both blushed, and he busied himself lighting some sticks of incense that were planted in a brass bowl of white sand on the table near Lou's elbow.

Once the incense was smoking, Mr. Arkady reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small flute. About the length of his hand, it was wood, painted red, and carved with angular patterns. He placed it to his lips the way one would play a clarinet or an oboe, straight on, rather than sideways.

“It's the shepherd's flute of my people,” Mr. Arkady explained. “A bit different from the Western flutes that you are used to.”

“All right,” Lou said again, because she didn't know what else to say.

He began to play, very softly. The flute had a beautiful sound, like wind chimes. He wasn't playing any tune that she could detect, only a series of long, soft notes that flowed into one another. After a minute, Lou found her eyes closing as the soft flute played on.

Lou thought about Dacia as she leaned against the high arm of the sofa, unable to open her eyes. She just breathed in the exotic scent of the incense and murmured her cousin's name. Where was Dacia now? Was she well?

And then Lou
saw
.

Dacia was standing in a narrow room with a sloping ceiling. She had just finished dressing in a traditional Romanian gown
and was still tightening the sash. The room was small and the furniture plain but good quality. Lou had the distinct feeling that it was a hotel room.

Dacia stiffened and raised her head, sniffing at the air.

Lou opened her eyes. For a nauseating moment, she could see both Dacia's hotel room and Lord Johnny's. She coughed, choking a little from the incense, and the vision cleared.

“Did you see her?” Lord Johnny leaped from his chair to kneel in front of Lou.

“She's not far from here,” Lou said, her voice faint. She coughed again. “It felt high, and narrow . . . a hotel room. A rather strange hotel room. The ceiling sloped, and the room wasn't very big, but the furniture was nice enough.”

“Are you sure it was a hotel?” Lord Johnny asked, perplexed. “And nearby? There's nothing like that around here.”

Lou coughed again. “I'm sure.”

“It had a bed?” he pressed. “It wasn't an office? Or the back room of a shop?”

“It had a bed,” Lou said. “There was copper, something copper out the window . . . A shutter? A . . . balcony!” She sat up straight. “I've seen it! I think I've seen it! Isn't there a hotel near here that is very, very narrow? With a peaked roof with copper facings on the balcony? We passed it when we were having lunch with the Szekelys!”

“That Dutch hotel, on Smardan Street,” Mr. Arkady said with a small cry of recognition.

The sick feeling came back, and Lou's head pounded. No . . . someone was pounding on a door . . . not Lou's door, the one
where Dacia was. The pounding . . . it wasn't pounding, it was knocking . . . but it scared her all the same.

“It can't be Radu,” Lou said as Dacia's fear stabbed through her heart. “It can't be Radu, it must be
him
.”

Prince Mihai.

“I have to go to her,” Lou said.

Then she was the Smoke.

Her clothes fell away and she swirled out the window that Lord Johnny had opened in his fidgeting earlier.

Lou slithered through the air. She was reminded of the way dragons were depicted in ancient Chinese art, as though they swam through the clouds. She hoped that no one looked up and saw her . . . and then wondered why it mattered. What would they see? Would they understand what they were looking at? Would they care?

It was a relief to ask questions whose answers didn't matter for once.

She followed her senses to Dacia. She would not be able to describe it to anyone, but it was as if she could smell and hear and feel her cousin with the same sense organ. As she got closer, she could almost taste Dacia as well.

The tall, narrow hotel that contained Dacia was not far from the hotel where Lord Johnny and Mr. Arkady were staying. Lou curled herself around the chimneys and then swooped down to the balcony, following the rain gutter that Dacia had tried to climb.

The door was closed, but that didn't stop Lou for very long. She merely poured herself through the keyhole and into the room,
ignoring the cramped and oily feel of the lock in her frantic journey to Dacia. She took her human form between her cousin and Prince Mihai, who didn't notice her until she had finished her transformation.

“Lou!” Dacia threw her arms around Lou's neck from behind, and Lou turned around, hugging her cousin fiercely.

“Are you all right?” Lou glared over her shoulder at Mihai.

The prince smiled at Lou, holding out his hands to show that he was unarmed.

“I have not harmed a hair on her head,” he said with a smooth laugh. “I only wanted to ask her a very great favor . . . but first, let us find you some proper garb, Miss Neulander!”

Lou looked at her bare arms and almost shrugged. It was becoming sadly normal for her to find herself undressed in company. Dacia let go of Lou to snatch up a Romanian gown from the bed. Lou stepped away, her back still pointedly turned on Mihai, who just laughed again. She was sure he was staring at her backside.

Dacia slipped the gown over Lou's head, and Lou wriggled her arms into the sleeves and got her head through the collar as quickly as she could. Dacia tied the drawstring at the neck with quick fingers, and just like that, Lou was decent. She decided that there was a definite difference between having Mr. Arkady peek at her legs and Prince Mihai leer at her.

“Now,” Lou said brusquely, facing Mihai. “Just because you haven't assaulted my cousin does not mean that you haven't harmed her!” She planted her fists on her hips so that she wouldn't slap the prince. “You will release her at once!”

“My dear Louisa—I may call you Louisa, may I not? Or perhaps LouLou, though that is such a silly name!” Another unctuous smile that made Lou want to slap Mihai even more, and he just went on talking without pausing for an answer. “Your dear cousin is free to leave at any time! I am sorry if the manner of my bringing her here caused either of you distress!” He looked from one to the other as though the idea that being kidnapped might be traumatic had never before occurred to him.

“Is she?” Lou folded her arms, frankly disbelieving.

“But of course she is! I am not a monster!”

Dacia flinched at the word, and Lou's eyes narrowed. Mihai continued to smile as though he hadn't noticed, but Lou was certain he'd used that word on purpose.

“Excellent,” Lou said. She took Dacia's arm, hoping that her cousin could not feel how tense she was. “Let's go.”

“Ah-ah!” Mihai waggled a finger at them. “There is one small condition.”

Dacia made a noise in her throat and Lou sighed. Of course there was a condition. How like Mihai to toy with them like this.

“You may leave,” Mihai said, “as soon as Dacia agrees to become my wife. We will go straight to a church . . . and then you may go wherever you like!”

Lou snorted. “Do you honestly think that she would marry
you
? And do you really think that you can keep her here forever if she won't?”

“Forever? Oh, no,” Prince Mihai said with a light laugh. “In fact, I don't have more than an hour to wait for her to make up
her mind. I have other things to do today. The priest is waiting at a church on Calea Victoriei.

“So let me make this all much clearer: Dacia can decide to marry me now, of her own free will, or she can refuse. But please understand: if she refuses, I will simply force myself on her, and ruin her more effectively than simply being abducted in her underthings has already done. And if she still refuses I will tie her to this chair and force her to watch while I have my way with
you
.” He said all this in a reasonable tone, as though saying he was going to order a tea tray from the hotel restaurant.

“You're mad,” Lou choked out, bile rising in her throat.

Mihai frowned at her. “You will keep a civil tongue around me, girl,” he said. “I am your king!”

“You're mad,” Lou said again, her voice shaking. Mihai's face filled her vision. She recognized him, suddenly, as the dark man from her nightmares. The man whose words turned to blood when he spoke.

“I will possess Dacia, then I will possess all of Europe,” he announced.

Dacia made the little noise again, and crumpled to the floor.

“You—you—you
monster
!”