Mozart’s Blood

by Louise Marley

  “They will be.” He turned his head again, to stare at the countryside rolling by in the darkness. “You saw hers, didn’t you? And in her memories…”

  “Her memories are dim.”

  “Clear enough.”

  Teresa had no argument for this. Vague though the shapes in the Countess’s old, old memories were, their substance could hardly be in doubt. There were many like her, and like that man Teresa had remembered in the ancient wooden boat, his long, sharp teeth gleaming through the darkness.

  “How old, do you think?” Teresa breathed.

  But Mozart didn’t answer.

  All of this she told Ugo as they huddled among the refugees in Golden Gate Park. She talked for an hour or more, until the shaking of the earth stopped. Ugo let his coat drop, and they looked about them.

  Hundreds of people sat or squatted on the grass, and hundreds more were still crowding into the park. On the horizon, smoke obscured the view of the bay, and the red glow of flames flickered through the gray. Hélène stood up, peering through the trees to where the roof of the Grand Opera House should rise on Mission Street.

  “It’s gone,” she said in an undertone. “The Opera House is gone.”

  Ugo was at her shoulder, looking down on the wreckage of the city. It appeared that the entire district south of Market Street, from the waterfront to the Mission, was ablaze. From their vantage point, it looked as if the Ferry Building, too, might succumb. “I wonder what happened to the Palace,” he murmured. “And to Caruso, and Fremstad, and the others.”

  She looked at him over her shoulder. “There must be thousands dead down there!”

  “Yes,” he said calmly. “Thousands. But we’re not dead, nor are all these people around us. There will be no more performances of Carmen, whether Caruso and Fremstad survived or not. We should think what to do next.”

  “I’m under contract. I have to get to New York.”

  “Yes, no doubt. The question is how.”

  “I have to get to Oakland, to the train.”

  “If the Ferry Building burns, there will be no ferry across the bay. But I’ll think of something.”

  She turned so that her body faced him, and she gazed into his utterly composed face. “Do you think I will go with you, without knowing what you are?”

  His black eyes gleamed briefly before he dropped his eyelids.

  “Show me your teeth.”

  Obediently, as if it were the most natural sort of request, he parted his lips and showed her. His teeth were white and even. His canines were only slightly longer than the teeth around them, and only slightly sharper.

  “You are not like me,” she said flatly.

  “I told you I was not.” He closed his lips, and the corners of them curled in a spare smile.

  “I can’t trust you. I can’t trust anyone.”

  He took her arm, and this time his grip was gentle, dangerously comforting. “I know. It will take time.” He shrugged into his topcoat again, and adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. “Come this way,” he said, tucking her hand under his arm. “There’s someone I know who can help us.”

  It was there, the small refrigerated carrier. Octavia couldn’t see how it worked, or how it was powered, but when she touched the clasp, it popped open with a silky click.

  The vial, a single, tiny cylinder of glass, made her mouth water. It was only half full. But, she told herself, it was half full. It would buy her a little time, at least.

  She retrieved the rest of the equipment from Ugo’s embossed case: the tubing, the foil-wrapped alcohol swabs, a pack of tiny bandages, and a little cellophane bag of cotton balls. She laid it all out on the smooth comforter of the bed. She remembered, of course, the order in which Ugo did things, as she remembered everything, with precision and clarity. The weight of memories, the onslaught of small and large details, had never troubled her. She had learned to sort through them at will, picking the ones she wanted or needed, disregarding the rest. It was rather like performing a rôle on stage, thinking only of her character’s wants and needs and intentions, putting aside her personal concerns.

  No such blessing had fallen on Mozart.

  Octavia set that memory aside, too, for the moment. Using the mirror as a guide, she wound the elastic around her arm and swabbed the inside of her elbow, where the vein was prominent and where she thought it would be easiest. As she found the needle and filled the plunger from the vial, she thought how odd it was, really, that in all these decades she had never done this for herself.

  “Spoiled,” Octavia muttered to herself as she poised the needle over her vein. “And now you pay.” She tried to dart the needle through the skin and into the vein, the way Ugo did with such deftness, but succeeded only in skittering the steel across her skin, bringing a slender thread of red blood from the dermis.

  “Cretina,” she spat this time. “No fancy stuff.” She placed the needle over the vein and pressed it in, feeling every millimeter as it slid through the venous wall. She pressed the plunger with her thumb and watched the precious sangue drip into her vein.

  The burning in her throat began to subside immediately. Welcome warmth traveled up her arm to branch across her chest, where her lungs could take it up, spread it to her belly and her back and down her legs. Her toes tingled, and she sighed with relief.

  Five days, she thought. Half a vial should get her through five days. Surely, by then Ugo would return. And if not…

  When the syringe was empty, she pulled the needle from her skin. She watched the tiny wound bleed a tiny drop, and then close almost immediately. In an hour, the spot would be invisible, just as it had been that first time.

  She began to put the things back in their places, being careful to leave everything just the way she had found it. She didn’t want Ugo to complain that she had left things amiss.

  As she coiled the length of tubing, she reflected that this could be only a stopgap. She felt better now, but it wouldn’t last. If Ugo didn’t come back, she would have to go for help. She would have to go to the elders’ compound.

  The thought made her shudder. She would be perfectly happy if she never laid eyes on Zdenka Milosch again.

  23

  Brutto, brutto si far quest’ affar!

  This affair is turning ugly!

  —Zerlina, Act One, Scene Four, Don Giovanni

  Ugo reawakened slowly, becoming aware of his body bit by bit. His toes were cold, and his back felt damp. The gluey tangle of his eyelashes resisted as he lifted his lids.

  Gloom shrouded the dank space around him. Experimentally, he extended one hand, testing the surface he lay on. His fingertips encountered icy stone. He wriggled upright. Chills rippled across his back as cold air met wet skin. He felt across his belly and thighs. No shred of his Roberto Cavalli slacks remained. He was naked.

  For a moment he sat still. Roberto Cavalli? Odd, that he should remember such a name. That he should remember any names at all.

  He put his hand to his forehead, as if to rub sense into it, and he was startled. No claws scratched his skin or elongated his fingers. He traced the contours of his nose, his cheek, his beardless jaw. He ran his palm down his throat to his chest. It, too, was smooth and hairless.

  Ugo. He was Ugo.

  Octavia would be missing him.

  Octavia! And that bastard Domenico. He shot to his feet as awareness returned to him in a flood.

  How many days had the wolf been abroad? And where had its wild feet carried him?

  Remnants of rough hair and claws, shed by the wolf, slid under his feet as he moved, but no scrap of clothing had been left to him. He was not hungry, which meant the wolf had fed. A wave of loathing filled him. There would, no doubt, be bloody bones somewhere in this cave of cold, wet rock. Ugo didn’t want to see them.

  A shaft of gray light marked the end of the cave, a few yards away. Ugo made his way toward it, shifting his shoulders as he walked. They still felt swollen, as if his own body had not yet reclaimed itself. Scars
from Benson’s attempts at torture marked his chest and belly. The burns on his chin stung, and his toes burned, both with cold and with pain. His groin smarted from the place where Domenico had, just barely, touched him with his silly little scalpel.

  Ugo knew, from long experience, that he would recover from all these hurts in a matter of hours. His body would thrum with the vibrant health of youth, and his skin would glow. His scars would vanish as if they had never been. Such was the power of the lupo mannaro.

  He wondered if Domenico or his two thugs had survived. It was possible, though he doubted it. It had been a very small room, and a very angry wolf. But whatever had happened in that basement room, it was not in his memory. He didn’t know—he had never known—if the wolf had a memory.

  Ugo moved out into the light, squinting against the glare of early morning sun on fields of snow. He found himself on a ledge of snow-powdered stone. The mouth of the cave yawned behind him. To the south of him, three great mountain peaks rose, white and forbidding. Three less impressive mountains rose above a town beneath the slope on which he stood. A thread of blue twisted through a valley dark with evergreens, and buildings ranged along it, their roofs sharply slanted. Church spires abounded. He couldn’t guess, yet, what mountains these were, or what river meandered at their feet. He would find out, soon enough. But first, he needed clothes.

  He lifted his face into the fresh breeze and sniffed. There was woodsmoke on the wind, and the scent of bleach. He stepped to the lip of the stone ledge, his bare toes scuffing the thin layer of white.

  Now he could see a highway far below him, and a small city. Houses scattered between his perch and the town, each nestled among narrow pines and thickets of alpine broom. The wolf had not climbed too high, it seemed. Ugo, shivering now, squatted on the ledge and lowered himself, using his hands, onto the snowy slope below. The wolf, no doubt, had leaped effortlessly up, his prey in his teeth.

  There were rocks under the snow, and the sharp tines of pine-cones. Ugo skidded downhill, ignoring the small stabs of pain in the soles of his feet. He fell twice and had to catch himself on his palms. He was aching with cold by the time he reached a two-lane macadam road at the bottom of the hill. He sniffed again and turned in the direction of the smoke, working his way through the trees and brush above the road. It would be awkward to be caught walking naked by one of the infrequent cars passing by.

  It was awkward enough, once he reached the house, to figure out how to approach it without being seen. Tendrils of fragrant smoke rose invitingly above its alpine roof. Freshly washed laundry flapped on the clothesline, making Ugo’s nose twitch with the sharp smell of laundry soap and bleach. He peered at the sheets and towels, disappointed that there were no clothes to steal. He would have to get inside. It was too cold to wait until dark.

  Shaking now with cold, he hunkered behind a clump of broom and eyed the house. Even a half-frozen sheet was beginning to look inviting. He was debating the wisdom of bursting into the house when the laundress emerged from the back door, a basket on her hip. She was tall and stooped, with a shock of white hair that ruffled in the breeze as she began pulling the sheets from the line. The sheets were stiff, and she struggled to bend them into manageable shape with swollen arthritic fingers.

  Ugo rubbed his chin and chest again, to be certain there were no remnants of rough fur on his body, and then stepped out of the shelter of the woods. He called, in a high, boyish tone, “Ma’am? Ma’am? Can you help me?”

  The woman whirled to face him, clutching the frozen sheet to her chest. “Comment?”

  Ah. French.

  Ugo took another hesitant step, modestly covering his groin with his hands, but allowing the remnants of his wounds to show. “Madame. Madame, pouvez-vous m’aider?”

  The white-haired woman lowered the sheet and eyed Ugo’s naked, shivering body. She looked wary, but not afraid. At least she didn’t drop her frozen laundry to rush back into the house. “Qu’est qu’il y a?”

  Ugo came a little bit closer, letting his lips visibly tremble. Still in French, he said, “I’m in a bit of trouble, madame. And I’m freezing.”

  The laundress kept a careful eye on her naked visitor while her hands automatically worked at the sheet. With a crackle of stiff linen, she succeeded at last in folding it. She dropped it into the basket at her feet and straightened, holding her back with both hands. Her voice was clear, the voice of a much younger woman. “What happened to your clothes, monsieur?”

  Ugo shrugged, careful not to move his hands, and dropped his eyes in shame. “They took them. They beat me up, but that wasn’t enough, I guess.”

  “They left you in pretty bad shape, it looks like.”

  “Not so bad. I’m just awfully cold.”

  “Who were they?”

  Ugo let himself shiver violently. “My girlfriend’s brothers, madame. They—” He shivered again. “They caught us when we were—”

  She was unrelenting, this woman. “Were what?” she snapped.

  Ugo’s voice trembled most convincingly. “I love her, madame, really I do. I wouldn’t have—if I didn’t—but they think I seduced her, just for—just for sex.”

  “Hmm.” The woman pursed her lips. Her eyes were a pale blue, her glance shrewd. “You spoke to me in English first.”

  Ugo nodded. “I’m American. An exchange student.”

  “Where are you supposed to be in school?”

  Ugo hunched his shoulders and inched closer. He made up a name, not having an idea where he was. “Lycée Ste. Marie.”

  “There are hundreds of those. Which one?”

  From his memory, Ugo plucked the name of a village. It had been Hélène’s village, and this woman could hardly deny there was a Lycée Ste. Marie there, since the place had never existed. “The one in Pontalie.”

  She tipped her head to one side, evidently trying to place the name. “I don’t know it. What’s it near?”

  “Um…the closest city is Rennes.”

  He started at her sudden open-throated bark of laughter. “You’re a long way from Rennes, my young friend! A very long way. And all for a tumble!”

  “Am I? Where—what is this place?”

  The laughter died. “If you look down the mountain toward the river, you’ll see the rooftops of Lourdes. Do you know it?”

  “Lourdes?” It was a strange place indeed for the wolf to have left him. “I can’t imagine how I—”

  “We’re in the commune of Aspin-en-Lavedan. A short walk from Lourdes itself.”

  Ugo had gotten close enough to the woman that one of the sheets still fluttering on the clothesline brushed his elbow. He gave her a pitiful look. “Madame…I’m half frozen.”

  “Yes,” the woman said. “I can see that.” She bent and picked up her basket. “Well, you look as if you’ve done all the harm you’re going to. Come into the house. I’ll find something for you to put on.”

  Ugo followed her through the door and into a cheery kitchen, blessedly warm. A merry fire crackled in a woodstove and a large pot of some fragrant soup bubbled on a gas range. His hostess set the laundry basket near the woodstove and adjusted the damper. Over her shoulder, she said, “Do me a favor, and don’t sit down until I get you some clothes. God knows what muck you have on you.”

  Obediently, Ugo stood beside the woodstove, glad of its wave of heat. Strains of Dvoák played softly from somewhere. He looked around and spotted a small CD player on a sideboard. As the woman returned from a back room, a pile of clothes in her hands, she followed Ugo’s glance. She said, “Don’t get any ideas, my friend. I’m old, but I’m not helpless.”

  Ugo took the clothes from her hands. “Madame,” he said with complete sincerity, “I don’t want to steal it. It’s just that I recognize the music. It’s the overture to Rusalka.”

  “So it is. Are you a music student? Do you play?”

  “No, not really. But I love opera.”

  “This is a live recording from a performance in Paris.”

&n
bsp; Octavia had sung Rusalka in Paris last year. A sudden urgency made Ugo’s heart race.

  “What’s your name, my young friend?” The ice-blue eyes regarded him with frank curiosity.

  “I’m Zack. Zacharie, in French, but everyone calls me Zack.”

  “Hmm. Very American. I’m Laurette, but you can go on calling me madame. I think you’ve taken enough liberties.”

  Ugo said humbly, “I know. I appreciate your help.”

  Laurette gave another barking laugh. “What are you going to do about the girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook out a pair of worn corduroy trousers and a flannel shirt. Laurette had also provided a pair of boxer shorts and a well-darned, thick pair of wool socks. Feigning embarrassment, he moved behind the stove and turned his back as he began to dress. The clothes chafed against the raw places on his chest and belly. His toes looked ghastly, the nails gone, the cuticles torn and bruised.

  “I’ll get my cell phone. Do you want the police first, or the doctor?”

  Ugo said hastily, “Oh, no. Please, no police. And I don’t need a doctor!”

  The pale eyes fixed on him again. “Why, Zacharie? If what you say is true, these—brothers, you say—they attacked you. That’s a crime.”

  “But I’m hoping Annette’s brothers won’t tell her parents, now that they—they think they’ve settled things.”

  “Very chivalrous. But not very smart. What about when you go back to school?”

  Ugo buttoned the flannel shirt and turned back the overlong sleeves. “I think I might just call my parents. Go home.”

  “Well, suit yourself.” The music rose, filling the warm kitchen, the opening scene of the opera. Laurette said, “Sit down at the table there. The soup is ready. I was about to have lunch.”

  “This is so kind of you.”

  Laurette shrugged. “It’s all right.” As she ladled soup into wide pottery bowls, she said, “I’ve met other exchange students, but never one who speaks French as well as you do.”

  Ugo blinked innocently at her as she came to the table with a loaf of brown bread on a cutting board. “My mother is French,” he said.

  “She’s not going to be happy with you.” Laurette took a bread knife from a drawer and laid it beside the cutting board. “Getting in trouble like this.”