Blood Red (9781101637890)

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Or, judging by the hubbub that ensued, perhaps not.

  When the clamor finally died down—and it did so only when the Graf himself got to his feet and ordered them all to “Cease your bawling!”—Markos spoke again. At this point, every drop of alcohol in Rosa’s body had been burned away by fear and alarm and she was on a hair trigger, which was not improved by the fact that now she hurt all over again.

  The Graf was standing at this point. “Sit down, all of you,” he ordered, and when they all took their seats again, reluctantly, he glared at them. At that moment it was easy to see how his ancestors had won their title and estate. He was every bit the warrior that Rosa considered herself to be, and then some.

  “I invited the boy here, knowing exactly what he is, as I have known of his family all my life,” the Graf barked. “Do you think I would have brought anything dangerous into my own house? Now think, all of you. You’ve all heard, and read, of shape-shifters that work with the White Lodges. Well, they are real. And Markos is one of them. Hear him out.”

  Markos licked his lips, nervously. “It’s the Nagy bloodline, or rather, my branch of it,” he said. “We are not sorcerers, we are hereditary shape-shifters. The ability goes back centuries, probably before Christ. In some of the oldest books in my house, it is said we are the children of the goddess Asena, but I don’t know about that. Our tradition is that we have always used our ability to help us destroy the vampir, even though some people think we are associated with them.”

  Seeing that Gunther was not at all alarmed by the presence of—one of those—in their midst, Rosa had fought her immediate reaction to a standstill, and calmed herself down somewhat. Though she still wished for a coach gun, or at least, a pistol loaded with silver shot. Just in case. Because you never knew. . . .

  And it was Gunther who spoke up when Markos fell silent, speaking directly to Rosa. “I have told you that not every shifter is evil, Rosa,” he chided gently—though Rosa noted that she was not the only person in the room to look dubious. “I told you that from the time I began to teach you, did I not? And you never questioned me. I have known of the Nagy family for all my life, though I have never met one of them until now, and I know them to be good allies of the White Lodges.”

  “Yes . . . well,” she muttered, and favored Gunther and the Graf with a glare. “You might have told me before this!”

  “And spoil the surprise?” the Graf said, blandly. “This has been highly informative. I commend you all for being perfectly willing to bash out the brains of a fellow guest if he or she suddenly turned dangerous. It is a useful habit to be in, although the emotions are entirely misplaced this time.”

  At that moment, Rosa realized that she had been holding the handle of her stein all this time as if she was preparing to use it as a weapon. And so was everyone else. She flushed a little—but did not let go.

  “So, tell us about you, and your bloodline, and what you can do, Markos,” the Graf continued, with a wave of his hand. “This is all very instructive. Like Gunther, of course, I knew of you, but I have never met a Nagy that I know of.”

  “I can shift at any time, so long as I do it in shadow, because direct sunlight interferes with the process,” Markos continued. “It doesn’t depend on moonlight—but that is just my family. It takes longer when it is daylight, except for those of us who, like me, are Earth Magicians. We can draw on the power of the Earth and speed the process along.”

  “Or another Earth Magician like me can offer assistance,” Dominik said genially. “I can help, when someone needs to grow fur in a great hurry.”

  Now Rosa stared at him. An Earth Master? Helping shifters to shift?

  “And shall I expect you to grow long ears and teeth as well?” she blurted.

  Dominik chuckled. “No, not at all, that talent is in the Nagy blood, not in the Petro side. A pity, because it meant that I had to travel at man’s and horse’s pace to get here, and I couldn’t run across country with a change of clothing tied to my back.”

  “Is that how you got here?” Gunther asked, looking only very interested.

  Markos nodded. “Wolves can run for miles without stopping. That was how I got from my homeland to Budapest, where I caught a train like anyone else.”

  Rosa now found herself distinctly torn. On the one hand, this was fascinating, and she envied him being able to run free on four legs and not have to depend on horses and carriages and trains. On the other—

  He was a werewolf.

  “And I, who have also come to the Count with the same request, was forced to ride to Budapest, suffering flea-infested piles of straw that cheating innkeepers dared to name ‘beds,’ truly terrible food, and worse beer.” Dominik sighed theatrically. “Oh, how I would have liked to be able to run as a wolf! I have other talents, however, and quite useful ones. For instance, Fraulein Rosamund, I assume you would like to have that injured shoulder of yours back in condition by morning?”

  What did that—oh!

  “Your Mastery includes healing?” she asked.

  “It does, if you will trust me to do so.” Dominik’s eyes twinkled. “After all, I am in league with a werewolf. Worse! He is my cousin! Who knows what terrible things I might do to you?”

  Rosa was torn. This was a very good test of their sincerity. But on the other hand—

  She glanced around at the rest, who seemed to have decided to give the two young men the benefit of the doubt and looked much more relaxed and accepting of them than she was.

  Even Gunther. Even Gunther. Well, it was true that Gunther had been insisting from the time she had been rescued that not all shape-shifters were bad.

  Well, Dominik Petro—or to use Hungarian fashion, which placed the family name first, Petro Dominik—was an Earth Master and there was nothing about him that set up alarms in her. Be polite. After all, you have silver knives, and you know how to use them.

  “I would very much appreciate that, Master Petro,” she said. “Very much.”

  “Before you go to bed then, I would rather not make you move from that comfortable chair,” he replied, with a hint of a laugh. “And I would rather not perform like a dancing bear in front of everyone, so perhaps a place with less of an audience.”

  “We’ll get you a quiet corner,” the Graf promised, then added, wryly, “I think we can find some privacy somewhere.”

  “Really?” Dominik responded, feigning shock, and looking around at the ersatz bierhalle. “I cannot imagine where!”

  When everyone laughed at that, Rosa decided, with only a little reluctance, that she was beginning to like Dominik very much. And I liked Markos very much until . . . Damn it all. Should she trust her knowledge or her instincts? Should she trust everything she had learned, often the hard way, or the Graf and Gunther?

  She listened to the music, took part in the conversation, drank the Graf’s truly excellent beer, and watched the cousins, trying not to look as if she was planning where to stick her silver knives into them.

  Then, finally, the obvious occurred to her. If there was anyone likely to tell her the absolute truth about the two, it was her little allies, the Earth Elementals. And this was protected, sheltered ground for them; everything that could be done to make Elementals feel welcome on the Graf’s estate had been done. So, do the obvious. Go ask the creatures that you know you can always trust in matters of magic.

  The room was getting a bit warm, so she used that as an excuse to lever herself up out of the armchair and go out onto the terrace.

  “I need some fresh air and a short walk before I fall asleep here,” she said, with a little smile as she got up. She winced a bit at the pain in her shoulder; had she dislocated it? It felt as if she had, and then popped it back in again. It wouldn’t have been the first time she had done such a thing.

  “I’ve ordered the gardens to be illuminated,” the Graf said, with less than half his attention,
as he watched two of the professor’s pupils dancing a polka in a manner that could only be described as “wild.” “They are lovely that way, if I do say so myself.”

  Well that was the perfect invitation, and Rosa walked slowly to the doors to the terrace—taking with her a napkin full of cheese, of course. And from the terrace, she took the steps down into the garden, finding a quiet spot surrounded by the Graf’s beloved roses. There she settled down on the perfectly manicured lawn, and drew a circle around herself with her finger in the grass, watching as the line of power followed her finger and enclosed her. This was not to keep anything out, it was to provide an even more protected space for whatever chose to answer her invitation.

  Then, with a few sigils sketched in the air, and a warm glow of welcome, she issued that invitation.

  She hoped, mostly, for one of the little alvar. There was no telling what—or even whether—an Elemental would actually come when called like this. She’d never had the invitation fail, but then, there was always a first time.

  But it wasn’t a moment later, before she found herself swarmed, not only by alvar, but by haus-alvar, a couple of fauns, and even a sylph, who darted in, dropped a rosebud in her lap, and vanished before she could say anything.

  She shared out the cheese as equally as she could; normally at least some of the Elementals would have snatched the treat and run, but tonight, they all arranged themselves around her as if they were having a picnic together in the grass. There must have been three dozen of the little alvar, and as she looked about her, it came to her that this looked exactly like one of the happier illustrations in a fairy tale book. Some of the alvar were actually leaning against her, and all of them were on the charming side of grotesque. Most of them were dressed in garments made of flowers, leaves, and moss. Their little faces were all pleasant, and they spoke softly to one another in voices that sounded like sleepy birds. One of the fauns looked up at her expectantly.

  “Well, my friends,” she said, looking down at their strange faces in the moonlight. “I called you because I need to know something, and I think you can tell me.”

  That occasioned more soft twittering. They seemed to be quite pleased that she would ask them something. But the Graf is a Fire Master, so I suppose even though he makes his gardens welcoming for them, the Earth Elementals are rarely called on.

  “Is it the answer to a riddle?” the faun asked, nodding his curly head. “We know a great many riddles!”

  “Not that kind of riddle,” she replied. “It is a riddle in the shape of a man.”

  But the faun laughed. “Oh!” he exclaimed, as if she had delighted him. “We already know what you want! You are the Master of the Hunt, and there is a shifter up there in the Big House! You want to know about him!”

  She sighed with relief. The Elementals could on occasion be extremely obtuse. Tonight it seemed they were in a mood to be direct. “You are right. There is a shifter there that the others think is—”

  One of the haus-alvar interrupted her by shyly putting its sticklike hand on her knee. This one was very thin, and seemed to have somehow created clothing out of broomstraws. “The Wolf-Runners are good,” it whispered to her. “My cousins’ cousins’ cousins know them. And this one is very good. But—”

  She waited, while it struggled for words. No use in trying to rush the little creatures, nor prompt them. Their minds didn’t work the same as humans, and if you tried to get them to say something before they were ready to come out with it, you often got nothing you could use. Possibly because they were so used to speaking in aphorisms and riddles that when they wanted to say something directly, it was very difficult for them to do so.

  Finally it seemed to figure out what it wanted to say. “There is a danger. If the man runs as a wolf for too long, the man is lost forever in the wolf.”

  Her mouth went a little dry. This was exactly what she had been afraid of—that the mere act of shifting shapes itself was dangerous to the shifter and those around him. “Is that a danger to me, or to him?” she asked, managing to get the words out.

  “Both,” the haus-alvar said solemnly. “The wolf may not know you. The wolf may be afraid. Bad things could happen.”

  Suddenly, all their heads came up at once, alert and alarmed; Rosa bit back an exclamation of pain as she wrenched herself around to see who or what had alarmed them.

  But they all relaxed again and settled, and slow, steady footfalls—the footfalls of a man who was deliberately making his approach known—heralded the arrival of someone she knew immediately by the unmistakable silhouette of his Hungarian coat against the light from the garden lamp behind him.

  “Well, having a feast and didn’t invite me?” Dominik said, feigning hurt, and making the alvar giggle and the fauns laugh aloud. “Maybe I won’t share what I brought, then.”

  That caused all the Elementals, who were extraordinarily relaxed in his presence, right to their feet, clamoring to see what treat it was he had brought with him.

  He finally relented, sat down on the grass across from Rosa, and opened the parcel that someone had made up for him out of a breadbasket and covered with one of the enormous napkins. The bundle was full of more cheese chunks and bread, and the alvar and fauns swarmed it so thickly nothing of the contents could be seen for a moment.

  When they cleared away, their arms were full of “loot,” and there was not so much as a crumb on left in the basket. Dominik made a little shooing motion as they waited to hear what he wanted of them. “I am going to heal this lady. Leave a bit of magic for me to use, if you wish to, and go enjoy your treats.”

  He didn’t have to tell them twice. Before Rosa could blink, the circle was emptied of Elementals, but full of Earth energies. Elementals liked things in balance; if they hadn’t managed to steal something, if they accepted a gift, they were uneasy until they gave a gift in return.

  Dominik gave her a long and measuring look. She returned it.

  “You don’t entirely trust us,” he said. “Me and Markos, that is. But you trust me a little more than Markos.”

  Well if he was going to be candid with her, she would be just as blunt with him.

  “I’ve been killing shifters for a long time now,” she pointed out. “And when I was a young child, one tried to kill me, and did succeed in murdering my teacher. I found the mangled body in the pantry I tried to hide in. This is the first time I’ve seen one that didn’t want to kill me first.”

  “A good point.” Dominik nodded. “Well, since you are not drawing a knife on me just yet, let me address your injuries first. Then, when that is done, we can speak of other things.”

  That was, to her mind, a perfectly reasonable response.

  “As you will,” she replied.

  8

  USING Earth Magic to heal, as Rosa was well aware, was generally not that . . . impressive. It certainly wasn’t as impressive as making lightning strike, or controlling a wildfire. Dominik simply muttered a few things under his breath, and sketched a couple of sigils in the air, while she sat where she was and watched, with interest but not a lot of comprehension, as the golden glow of the magic somehow drained into her. She didn’t feel any immediate relief, either—but she hadn’t expected to. She had been worked on by a healer many times in the past, and she knew that in most circumstances, a healer merely helped your body to heal itself more quickly. She’d heard of healers doing more than that in great and desperate situations, but she had never seen such a thing, nor spoken with anyone who had.

  On the other hand, she had never met a “good” shape-shifter before either, so . . . it could be possible.

  When the last of the golden glow was gone, she flexed her shoulder experimentally. “Well, I can see that by morning that will be better,” she remarked, pleased. She knew her body well enough to be able to tell when even the smallest improvements had taken place. Already there was a little less pain and a lit
tle more free movement. That was a sign she was healing faster than she would have on her own.

  “Good. Now, about my cousin . . .” A couple of the little alvar crept close again, and settled down politely near them, watching their faces and listening. Dominik coughed politely. “You know, the Nagy family is very well thought of where we come from. They perform exactly the same sort of tasks that your Schwarzwald Brotherhood does—they keep the land healthy, they hunt down magicians gone to the bad and evil things, they find lost children. It is just that some of them do so on four legs, at need.”

  The light from the garden lamps fell clearly on both of them, so she studied his expression. It was open and honest, and the way the alvar were at ease with him just reinforced the fact that they had vouched for him, and for his cousin, Markos.

  The only possible conclusion was that she needed to make some fundamental changes in her outlook, at least where the extended Nagy family was concerned.

  She took a long, deep breath to calm herself. “I understand that is your reality. But you must please understand that this is very difficult for me to believe. My reality is that I have never once encountered a shifter that was not murdering people, Elementals, or both. I generally ended up fighting for my life when I encountered one. And the few times that I did not, it was because I killed them before they knew I was there.”

  “But!” Dominik said, raising a finger. “Wait! Have you ever encountered one that was not either a sorcerer, or cursed, or infected? I would think not. The ability to shift from birth is confined to a very few bloodlines, and every one of those I know personally is . . . moral to a fault.”

  She thought about that for a while. “I believe you are correct in asking me that question. I don’t think I have ever encountered one that was born to the . . . would you call it a talent?”

  “I certainly would,” he said emphatically. “Absolutely. And absolutely, I would trust those I know under any and all circumstances. I mean that, Fraulein, and I have done so. I have spent time utterly alone with Markos when he was shifted and never had a moment of unease. And as for the rest of his family—well! I have known Nagys to go out into howling blizzards, into conditions that would kill a man, and patiently herd cattle, sheep, or goats into shelter, thus saving the herds and the livelihoods of their neighbors. I have known them to search for missing children until their paws bled. I have known them to search for missing men, and when found, hold bears or boars off wounded hunters all by themselves. And I have never known them to harm so much as a hair on the head of someone who did not deserve punishment.”