Read SNAP: The World Unfolds Online
Authors: Michele Drier
SNAP: The World Unfolds (25 page)
How much should I tell her? She’d already let me know she didn’t approve of Jean-Louis and me together. She didn’t like that my arrival at SNAP has upset the calm and well-ordered life she’d led. Maybe she even blamed me in some nebulous way for the Baron’s decision to take her out of the limelight.
Alternatively, I had no one else to talk to. My family was dead, ending with my mother’s death from cancer five years ago. My college friends were back in L.A., probably toasting my great fortune at snagging such a cushy job. Even Jazz, who I’d come to rely on, was denied me.
“Misgivings is an interesting word,” I started, setting my glass down. “I’m not sure yet if I should be happy, sad, angry, betrayed. I’m trusting Jean-Louis more, and I guess by extension, trusting all of you more, but I’ve had to give up my life to do that. I don’t think you can understand how that feels.”
Wow, I really hit a button!
She stood up and stomped over to the windows, which looked out at the dark, dark Hungarian night. She was so flustered or angry that she was taking in great gulps of air. Her nostrils flared, she paled, with two hectic spots of color on her cheeks and her right foot tapped a furious rhythm. Suddenly she whirled around to me, now icy calm.
“You are such a child. And such an ill-tempered one. What makes you think I don’t know how that feels? Who do you think I am? How do you think I got here?”
Very good questions to which I had no answers.
“I wasn’t always a vampire...none of us were...”
And that black, black night I began to learn.
“I was the daughter of a minor baron,” Pen began. “It was after the last episode of the Black Death and my father had taken our family to his country estate, out of Vienna. It was thought that the slums bred the death. In the 1600s, no one knew or understood germs or bacteria. The plague was quieter in the country, but there were rumors of vampires hunting at night. My poor father was beside himself, damned on either hand.
“Stefan was there, one of the village elders. He and my father did farm business together and I got to know him. He was a villager, but he had manners and breeding more than most of the minor nobility. I was entranced. He was older than I, but when we were together, it didn’t matter.
“Eventually, the plague subsided and we moved back to Vienna. I missed Stefan dreadfully and pined over him like the silly girl I was. My father was upset with me. I was of marriageable age and was turning away all the suitors he thought appropriate. I acted like a spoiled brat.” she stopped, then went on, “I probably was.
“It got so bad my father shipped me to the country again, little realizing that that was what I wanted. I was with Stefan. He was falling in love with me, too, but he held himself back. I thought it was because of his age. One night I was walking near the stream and was attacked. I never saw what attacked me, but Stefan was right there, fighting it off. That was the night he told me about being a vampire.
“Over the next months, I watched more and more of the vampire world unfold. I still couldn’t leave my world, my father, my family, but the attraction to Stefan was beyond all reason. Stefan asked if I would be his acolyte and I was torn. Then came word that the plague was back and this time it came so fast it killed my family before they could leave the city. I was the only one left. But I had Stefan and I agreed to become his acolyte.
“I could inherit all my family’s property, but not the title, so we married and Stefan became the Baron. And now you see us. And now you know why I think of you as an ill-mannered child. You remind me of what I went through. But this time, there’s no plague, nothing to pull you away from your world.
“So, maybe you should stay there.”
I was stunned into silence. “Please forgive me, Pen, I had no idea....”
“That’s just the problem, you have no idea. You blindly go around knocking things over, bashing into people’s lives, and you have no idea because you don’t think beyond yourself and your petty problems. You are going to have to grow up if you want to be part of us.”
The door to the study opened and the men came out, Stefan in the lead, Milos and Jean-Louis talking quietly behind him. “Well, we came up with a plan,” Stefan turned to Pen. “Come, let’s sit and we’ll share it with you.”
I turned out that Milos was a local who’d stayed here and made it his life’s work to watch and monitor the Huszars. He’d tracked most of them and discovered there were some younger Huszar members—he wouldn’t give a number—who were angry with Matthais. Milos had heard them grumbling over beers in a nearby village pub and got acquainted. Neither Milos nor the Huszars admitted to being vampires, so the conversation was more like teenagers complaining about overly-strict parents, but Milos gleaned enough that he felt the young Huszars trusted him.
He would get two of them to a meeting with Stefan and Jean-Louis where the Kandeskys would reveal themselves then offer to work with the younger Huszars to overthrow Matthais. The carrot was their own SNAP program. After the initial meeting, I would be introduced, to work with them on the new program and magazine. They would get to know me, this time as an ally, not as prey.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
I’d slept some on the plane. Being back on vampire time, though, was going to take a few days. I excused myself and headed up to my rooms where Elise and Lisbet had finished unpacking. Books were on shelves, framed pictures were set on tables, clothes were in my dressing room and toiletries in the bath.
Both women grinned when I thanked them. “If we’ve misplaced anything, please tell us, or tell Elise,” Lisbet nodded to her sister. “The Baron made it clear that he wants this to be your home. I’ll leave you and Elise now.”
Huummm. This might be awkward. I’d never had a maid. On my last trip, Lisbet had been helpful, but she had other duties in the house and her own rooms. Now, Elise would be with me, even sleeping in my apartment.
She sensed my hesitancy. “If you’re ready to go bed,” she said, “your nightgown is laid out and everything is ready. I’ll say good night. Please call me if you need anything.”
“Thank you.”
“By the way,” she added as she started to leave the room, “please don’t just walk out of the apartment. There’s a guard at the door.”
“We’re locked in here?” I could feel my scalp tingling. My voice was reaching shriek stage.
“No, no, we’re not locked in. It’s simply a demon who will watch through the night. I didn’t want you to open the door and be frightened.”
She was gone and I was on my own, at the beginning of my new life.
Once again, after reading myself to sleep, I woke to a presence in the room. Disoriented, I let out a small scream when a hand touched my face. “Hush, hush, it’s me,” Jean Louis said and his hand stroked me.
“You have to stop doing this. I don’t wake up well. I’ll have a heart attack or something.” My comments were getting quieter as his hand worked its way down to my breast and his mouth covered mine. This love-making was slow and languorous and I drifted back to sleep held against his beautiful chest.
When I woke, he was gone. I got up and wandered through the sitting room, drawn by the smell of fresh coffee.
Elise had set up a tray by a small window. I called her name and she popped out of a pantry carved from a corner of the office.
“Good day. I guessed you were waking so I had some rolls and coffee sent up.”
Last night I didn’t take the time to check out all the rooms. I’d overlooked the pantry, a cubicle with storage for basic utensils and a dumbwaiter connected to the main kitchen, two floors down. This meant that I didn’t have to have all meals with the vampires and was a way to have privacy and keep my own schedule.
Elise pulled the drapes and weak sun filtered in.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“It’s just before 2 in the afternoon. Do you want to bathe or shower before you eat?”
First, I just needed coffee.
Once awake and cleaned up, I went into the office and logged on. Fifty-seven emails popped up, more than half of them from Jazz. She was keeping in touch, as she’d promised. I answered the ones I needed to and checked our sites for any updates.
Elise tapped on the door. “The Baron wanted to know if you’d dine with them tonight?”
Was he awake? During the day? She saw my confusion. “He leaves all the household orders before he retires at sunrise so that all is ready when they wake.”
“Yes, I would like to have dinner with them.” If I’d just relax, there were no mysteries here, just a different way of looking at the world.
After a few hours of work, Elise tapped on the door again. “If you’re going to dinner with them, you need to get ready. The Baron is punctual about this and expects everyone to be on time.”
“Is dinner formal? Last time I was here there was a house party and I dressed for it.”
“No, family dinners are more casual. I have some clothes ready for you.”
It was an outfit I would have worn on a dinner date in L.A. I hoped Jean-Louis wasn’t kidding about a shopping trip to Paris; I was sadly outclassed.
Milos and Bela, whom I’d met last time, joined us for dinner. Conversation was rapid and vehement in Hungarian between the men so I chatted with Pen about possible day trips to the towns and villages near by. “There’s not much to shop for and no decent places to eat, but some of the architecture is interesting. Much dates back to before I was a girl. To me, it’s not unusual...” she shrugged. Probably thinking someone with my background would be impressed.
After dinner, I was introduced to the two Huszars, Karoly and Alessandr. Both were attractive men who looked to be in their twenties. Their English was rudimentary so Jean-Louis translated. They were excited about being involved with SNAP and thrilled at the possibility of mixing with, or better yet discovering, celebrities.
I sat through a discussion that later Jean-Louis told me concerned how the Huszars were going to communicate with the Kandeskys as the plans went forward. I gleaned some of this from the technical terms; I heard “wifi”, “firewall”, “hacker” and “router.”
After they left, Jean-Louis walked me to my apartment. “I’m pleased,” he was on a low glimmer. “I know this is going to work. Once we work out some of the communication bugs, we’ll be able to track how well Karoly is doing with turning the other Huszars. When they neutralize Matthais, we’ve averted a war.”
He touched my hair and folded me into his arms. “I’ll come and spend sometime with you later,” he murmured as he kissed me.
It wasn’t late, just after midnight, but I climbed into bed with my book. Tomorrow, I was going to chart out a schedule. I still had to interact with the regular world. That meant I had to be awake and functioning during part of the daylight hours.
Suddenly, lights snapped on in my bedroom and someone dragged the drapes open to a world lit up with searchlights. All the perimeter lights were on. Raucous screams echoed against grunts, screeches and guttural yelps.
Two demons were at my window, yelling into their headsets, then they turned and ran out. Elise was in my doorway, wrapped in her robe, with sadness in her eyes.
“What’s happening? What’s the noise?” I shouted above the din.
“I think the Huszars have attacked the castle,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I’m frightened. I’ve never seen them attack like this.”
Together we edged to the window. Outside, wolves—werewolves?—came leaping over the hedges with figures of men beside them. A flock of winged shape shifters swirled by, their blackness inky in the harsh light. Demons were everywhere, shooting wolves, shooting other vampires, netting and shooting the shape shifters.
And I felt we could reach out and touch the sounds. They filled the air and smashed against my body with a force, rocking me back on my feet. I put my hands over my ears and howled and howled, not able to stop, not able to separate my sounds from the battle sounds raging outside.
Suddenly, it was quiet; silence rang in my head. I peeked out again and saw Sandor and three other demons with Milos and other vampires from the village making a sweep of the lawns and edging toward the forest. The lights made everything appear like an old movie, washed of all color, as the Kandesky troops strode over the grass.
Elise and I looked at each other. “I think it’s safe to go back to bed now,” I told her. “Will you be alright?” She nodded and headed to her room.
She may be alright but was I? I’d heard those screams, cries and sounds in my dreams. I’d seen those leaping, swirling forms attacking. I felt the impotent fear. Was I moving into the vampires’ world through my dreams?
I stifled a scream as my door opened at the same instant the light outside went off. The bedside lamp lit up Jean-Louis, tousled, a long scratch down his face, his knuckles scraped and skinned. “Oh my God,” I gasped. “What happened? Are you OK? Is everybody all right?”
“I’m fine,” he grimaced. “Most everybody else is fine, but one of Lisbet and Elise’s cousins was killed. That’s what started all this. A shape shifter followed Karoly and Alessandr as they left here earlier. They still don’t know our plans, but it was enough that two Huszars visited us and nobody died. Matthais took their visit as traitorous and decided they needed to learn a lesson so he set a hunting party out to our village with orders to take someone close to us. Lisbet’s family has served us for generations, so her cousin was the target.
