by Karen Chance
“Project of mine?” the praetor interrupted. “Say, rather, the consul’s; she’s the one who ordered it, but gave me no men to aid with it. They’re needed for her war, it seems.”
“I understand—”
“You keep saying that.” She crossed her arms on the edge of the pool, laying her cheek on them as the maid moved on to her back. “Of course, you’ve met her, so perhaps you do. Others see her beauty, her charm, her power—so much power! It blinds us poor mortals.”
“But . . . you’re not mortal,” Mircea said, confused. The praetor was said to be almost as old as the consul herself. Old enough to remember when Venice was founded, not that she was here then.
Like so many of her kind, when old Rome fell to the barbarians, she merely moved to one of her estates—in Spain, Mircea had heard, somewhere near the sea—drank her wine, watched generations of her servants cultivate her olive trees and . . . waited. Vampires as old as she had watched empires come and go more than once. They had time to wait for the next one.
“Yes, that’s the story they tell the young, to sway them into the fold,” she agreed. “For what does youth fear but age? Yet, how many do you see, from all those centuries past, who still remain? One day, death finds us all.”
“Then she is mortal, too.” He dared to sit on the edge of the bath, although he had not been asked, but she only looked at him in mild amusement.
“Says a boy, barely grown. She’s managed to avoid death for a millennium and a half. And her Sire was said to be ancient, perhaps five thousand years old. They are difficult to kill, that family.”
“Yet he died, too,” Mircea pointed out.
She laughed, and it sounded genuine. “You always know the right thing to say,” she told him cryptically, and waved the girl away. Go find out what’s taking Colleta so long.
The praetor rinsed herself under the streams of water, taking her time, while Mircea fought not to vibrate with impatience. But he said nothing, and kept his expression blank and dutiful. His old habits did him little good in this new society, where bluster and bravado were the habits of children, and where time, always the bane of mortal existence, stretched long.
Like the silences.
He watched the candlelight flicker in the dark water. The rain had stopped and someone had opened a window, letting in the scent of clean air, roses, and wine, because several servants were indulging themselves after a hard night’s work, somewhere below. Mircea wanted to elaborate on his previous theme, of how his daughter’s illness was keeping him from giving his full attention to the praetor’s matter, and how helping him to cure her would therefore benefit them both. But there was an odd stillness in the air. Something weighty that made him pause, and wait for her to resume the conversation.
And she knew he would wait, as long as required. She was the only one who could give him what he sought. Where else was he to go?
“Hand me my robe,” she finally said, and Mircea made himself move slowly and deliberately to retrieve it, as if it were a matter of complete indifference to him how long it took.
He turned to find her drying off—alone, because her servants weren’t back yet. And smiling at him, a brief twist of her lips, amused and a bit wistful, all at once. “I remember when things were so important,” she told him. “When I, too, vibrated with need.”
“Praetor—”
She held up a hand. “I know what you want. You know you haven’t earned it. But unlike our dear consul, I understand . . . exigencies. You may have until dawn. Do not waste it.”
“No, praetor. Thank you, praetor.”
She nodded and waved him off, her mind already on other things. Mircea bowed several times until he reached the door, trying to contain himself. And then he ran.
* * *
—
From rain-drenched Venice, Mircea tumbled into a world of dust so fine that it moved like water, sloughing off under his frantic feet and down a hill, before cascading into the valley below. The sky, which had cracked open with all the power of a lightning storm to release him, now snapped shut again, leaving only dancing red images in front of his eyes, like laughing demons. Which was fitting, Mircea thought, rolling over and trying to get to his knees.
After all, he’d just been in hell.
People called the rivers of lightning he’d traversed “ley lines,” a term that made no sense and was pathetically inadequate in any case. They weren’t lines. They were terrible, raging torrents that battered his flimsy shield as if desperate to consume him. As desperate as he was to get away from them.
But they allowed him to do what nothing else could, and travel hundreds of miles in a few moments, to visit the greatest healers of the age and search for a cure for Dorina. Not that that had been going so well, but then, he’d been able to see but a fraction of his list. Because, while the ley lines were owned by no man, and were therefore free, the shields required to traverse them safely definitely were not.
He wasn’t a mage; he couldn’t make his own. And he damned well couldn’t afford to buy one! Which is why he’d made his deal with the devil, or at least, with the praetor.
Who was going to kill him—quite, quite literally—if he lost her damned orb!
He scuffled about in what felt like an ocean of sand, for a round object the size of his palm. It looked like nothing more than a ball of glass, something the artisans of Murano might make as a toy, yet it was worth the price of a palazzo—a large one. He finally found it, and lay back against the sand, half-dizzy from relief. And noticed that the moon was up. Unencumbered by the clouds that draped it in Venetian skies, it was another pure, clear orb, lying low on the horizon.
He didn’t have much time.
Mircea got to his feet, dusted himself off, and looked around.
One of the praetor’s mages, who had been here once when he was younger, had spelled the little device to take Mircea to his destination. He’d also described the place, and it looked like it hadn’t changed in all the years since. It was nothing like Mircea had expected.
The great magical families of Venice lived in mansions every bit as fine as those owned by the wealthiest of merchants. This . . . was not one of them. In fact, Mircea hesitated even to call it a house, considering that it was half buried in sand, and what was still visible had a tree growing out of it.
Or sort of a tree. It was old, withered, and bleached a silvery gray by the harsh sun that was shortly to revisit this landscape. It had no leaves. It was a ridiculous excuse for a dead tree, and yet, there it was, poking out of the roof like a misshapen chimney.
Mages, Mircea thought in disgust, and slogged up the hill.
The little house sat at the very top of the rise, overlooking the small village that Mircea could see in the distance. It was dark and quiet, and Mircea hesitated before knocking. Humans rarely liked being awakened at this time of night, and human mages even less so. There was every chance the man would curse him.
But he’d curse himself far worse if he lost this chance, so he knocked.
Nothing happened.
Mircea swore under his breath, and tried again, louder this time.
Still nothing.
He could break down the flimsy excuse for a door, but there were undoubtedly wards here. Mircea couldn’t perceive them, even at the lowest range of his hearing, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. He hesitated, biting his lip.
Then sent a mental feeler inside, sliding past the worn wood, and into the small space within.
And was promptly slapped by something that felt like a lightning bolt, one that sent him flying backward through the air and tumbling down the hill, trying to curse but finding that his mouth suddenly didn’t work right.
Neither did anything else.
The hand clutching the orb was locked tight around it, unable to move, while the other was flapping about randomly. He rolled to a
stop and just lay there for a moment, watching it flutter here and there on its own, while the shock of the curse or whatever it was still echoed through him. He finally decided to attempt to get up, and found that his legs were just as useless, absolutely refusing to bear his weight, or even to let him crawl.
Not that he needed to. Because, a moment later, he was picked up from the sand by an unseen hand, and jerked back up the hill again. Where the strangest-looking creature he’d ever seen was waiting for him.
One would think that the great Abramalin could afford a better class of servant, Mircea thought, staring at a knee-length grizzled beard; a dirty loincloth over a scrawny, nut-brown body; and a pair of eyebrows so bushy that they were like little beards all on their own hanging down in front of the man’s eyes.
Mircea couldn’t tell if the creature was staring back because of the eyebeards, but he supposed so. Because a harrumph issued from between unseen lips after a moment, forcefully enough to blow out the regular beard a little. And then the creature turned and went back inside, prompting Mircea to call after him, and try to explain.
And to sound like one of the goats on the way to the abattoir back home, bleating its last, because his lips still didn’t work!
But a moment later, he found himself floating feetfirst through the doorway, into the small room with the tree. Which had all sorts of shelves nailed to its dead trunk, strewn with strange-looking devices and potion bottles and some things that might be shriveled body parts. Mircea felt himself swallow, and wished he’d had the forethought to have the praetor’s servant write him a letter of introduction, not that the creature looked like he could read. . . .
The man lit a little clay lamp, illuminating the rest of the room. And explaining why the shelves were on the tree. Because virtually every other surface—walls, floor, even part of the ceiling—was stacked with books and scrolls and collections of parchment.
The man toddled over with the lamp, and thrust it in Mircea’s face. And said something in a language Mircea didn’t know, and couldn’t even identify. And coming from a busy port like Venice, he found that disturbing, all on its own. Like everything so far!
“Do . . . do you speak Italian?” he asked, very carefully, so that his still-numb tongue wouldn’t trip over the words.
“Do I speak Italian?” the man mimicked, and flapped his arms around, like a bird. It caused the lamp to flap, too, and spread dancing shadows everywhere. Mircea stared.
And not just because of the strange mockery or whatever it was. But because the house had only one room, and there was no one else in it. Just a pallet on the floor, a small bench by a wall, where food was obviously prepared, and a wild-eyed hermit.
Who, Mircea was coming to suspect, might not be a servant after all, because the place didn’t look like it had one.
Mircea had been warned that all mages were at least a little mad. He should have thought to wonder where on the spectrum someone who chose to live out in the Egyptian desert, in a tree house, might fall. But he hadn’t, and now he was in the man’s power and the sun was soon to rise, and he didn’t know what to do.
But he knew that he couldn’t go home to Dorina empty-handed.
“I have a little girl,” he blurted, and the man—the mage?—who had been fussing about, fixing breakfast, looked up.
“Liar.”
“What?” Mircea blinked at him.
“You’re a vampire.”
“Yes. But . . . but I wasn’t eleven years ago! Almost twelve now, back when I lived in—but that doesn’t matter; you don’t care where I lived—” Get control of yourself, man! He was babbling, but the creature was listening, or he seemed to be, and Mircea didn’t know how long that would be the case. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he said, trying again. “But she’s dying. My daughter. And I don’t know how to stop it, and neither does anyone I’ve tried—”
“And who have ye tried?” The man took a swig of something from a bottle.
“I live in Venice, so I went to the great healing houses there first—Piloti, Lachesis, and Jalena—”
“Ha! Filthy poisoners. They deal in death, not life, boy!” The shaggy head shook.
Mircea swallowed. “And then to Zoan of Napoli—he didn’t have another name—but I was told—”
“Oh, he had one. His family stripped it from him after the last scam.” The man took another swig. “Toad doctor.”
“What?”
“Picked it up on his travels. Britain, I believe. Hang a bag containing a live toad around an afflicted person’s neck.”
“And . . . and what does that do?”
An eyebeard went up. “Absolutely nothing. Hence the scam.”
“I—”
“And before that, he was selling wool soaked in olive oil, supposedly from the Mount of Olives. Said to cure all sorts of ailments, when coupled with a long-winded story about a soldier named Longinus—”
“—healed of his blindness by the blood of Christ,” Mircea finished, feeling sick.
The old man cackled. “Got you, did he? Ah well. The old tricks are the best tricks.”
“Do you know anything that aren’t tricks?” Mircea said, more sharply than was wise, given that he still couldn’t control his movements. But he’d spent a small fortune on that damned bit of wool, and that was after searching through half the bars of Naples for the bastard. And all for nothing!
“Oh, perhaps a few things,” the mage said, pausing to sniff something in a pot. Mircea watched him hopefully, until the man shrugged. And spread whatever it was on some bread.
Mircea swallowed his anger, and tried again. “I’ve been to healers in Paris and Rome, Tripoli and Antioch. All for nothing! Nobody knows anything about dhampirs—”
“Dhampirs?” The old man turned around, holding his breakfast. “Ye didn’t say anything about dhampirs!”
“I’m sorry!” Mircea said quickly, because the man was already shaking his head. “Please! I’ll pay anything you say!”
The bread went in the beard, and crunching sounds were heard. “Don’t look like ye have anything to pay. No gold or jewels, clothes’re nothing special, cloak’s been mended—”
“I can get you whatever you want. I will get it—if you help her.”
Some more crunching ensued. It was all he’d done all night, Mircea thought. Sit by—or levitate by, in this case—and watch people eat. People who weren’t in a hurry at all, despite knowing what was at stake!
The man walked over to the tree, and stood musing awhile, before picking out a small bottle. He came over to Mircea. “You’re from Venice, y’say?”
Mircea nodded.
“Good, good. Give this to the little one, three drops at a time, in water. No more, no less. It will calm her fits—for a while.” He tucked it into Mircea’s sleeve, because flappy hand was still flappy.
“Thank you. I—”
The man tutted. “Don’t thank me yet. ’Tis not a cure. For that, I’ll need a little something.”
“What? Anything—”
Black eyes glittered at him through veils of hair. “Some associates of mine have been having trouble getting a certain ingredient. We use it in many of our potions, but it’s scarce as a virgin in a brothel these days—”
“I can get it for you. Just name it—”
“It’s not about a one-time shipment. We can arrange that for ourselves. It’s the trade we want resumed, and right quick. Problem is, this particular ingredient only comes in quantity from one place: Venice. But somebody’s been fiddling with the flow, likely trying to up the price. You get it moving again, and I’ll take care of your girlie—and not by hanging a frog round her neck! How’s that, vampire?”
“I—yes.” Mircea didn’t know much about trade, despite living in a city based on it, but he could find out. He would find out. “Yes, I can do that. What ingredient are you inte
rested in?”
The old mage grinned, showing a mouthful of blackened and half-missing teeth.
And then he told him.
Chapter Twenty
For the second time in less than a day, I woke up to a man in my bed. Only this one was little and uncomfortably hot, and was wearing a pair of Star Wars Underoos, because putting him in something he liked was the only way to keep any clothes on him. And more than SpongeBob, more than Transformers, more than Lucille Ball—don’t ask—Stinky loved Star Wars.
Of course, he’d wanted to be Boba Fett, which had worried me, but lately he’d been leaning more toward Rey. Which opened up a whole different set of questions, but I decided I could figure them out later and started to get up. Only to find myself pinned to the mattress.
“C’mon,” I said sleepily. “Move.”
Nothing. I knew he’d heard me, because those long fingers and toes had just gripped the mattress even tighter, which wasn’t going to work. Because Stinky and I had wrestled before, and I always won. Except for today, apparently, when my best efforts left me right where I’d started.
Of course, I couldn’t do my best work, because something else was snuggled into my right armpit. Or make that someone else, I thought, recognizing Aiden’s silky head. And chubby little baby hand, which had just batted at me to stop moving around, because he’d had a hard night.
You and me both, kid, I thought, wondering what had happened after I zonked out. But all I got was a rush of memories, some crazy, some confusing, all overwhelming. So I shut that shit down, and waited for somebody to come and tell me.
Only no one did.
I glanced at the bedside table. Somebody had gifted me a small violet in a pot—one guess who—about a week ago, which had been a charming thing with three shy little blooms. But Caedmon must have had some more excess energy, because the table was no longer visible, being draped in a mass of purple flowers that spilled down from the surface and were spreading across the floor.
There was nothing else to do, so I watched them for a little while. Fortunately, they seemed to be slowing down, so maybe we wouldn’t be smothered in violet exuberance in our sleep. That was good, I decided.