They were six hours into their journey when he brought out the flat, tabbed packet of fabric he had first shown her in the Palm Court of the Garden Hotel, when they were surrounded by people in evening clothes and waiters with trays of drinks.
Irrelevantly, she wondered what had become of the woman in pink satin. Was she, like the Palm Court, the hotel itself, now reduced to ash, nothing left of her but charred bones? Or perhaps she was one of the lucky ones and had made her escape from San Francisco. The pink satin woman would have won passage through wealth and privilege. Hélène had escaped only because of Ugo.
He grinned at her, looking more like a naughty boy than an ageless creature of secrets. “I think you’re ready for this,” he said.
“Ready…for what?” she stammered.
He sat down beside her. He laid the packet on the little foldout table and began to untie the linen tabs. He smoothed back the panels of cloth, and she transferrred her gaze from his face to the equipment. The steel needles glittered in the light from the window. And the vials of brownish glass, empty before, now held something dark.
“What is it?” she asked, touching one of the vials. It was cold, and beads of condensation sparkled on its surface.
“Come, Hélène,” he said gently. “Bella. You must know.”
The vials mocked her, reminding her of her need, and her shame. “Where did you get it?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“You don’t need to know.”
“But is it…is it…”
He touched her hand. “Yes, it is. Sangue. Now roll up your sleeve.”
The process seemed strange to her, a bizarre echo of that which had kept her alive for more than a century. She folded back the full sleeve of her shirtwaist and watched with a kind of stunned fascination as Ugo bound her upper arm with a strip of black silk. He touched the vein on the inside of her elbow with one finger. It swelled invitingly under the pressure as he tightened the binding. At the bite of the needle, she shuddered and closed her eyes. Just so had she pierced so many veins, veins beyond counting. Her only consolation, and a faint one, was that she no longer brought her victims to the point of death. That, at least, she had learned.
And in so doing had attracted the attention of the elders, and of this strange man.
When the sangue began to flow into her vein, her eyes flew open. It was cold at first, but it warmed quickly as it wound its way into her body, and then it was hot, and sweet. She felt a dizzying rush of energy that took her breath away.
Ugo murmured, “Yes. I thought you would feel that.”
“Did you know? Have you done this before?” she said faintly.
“No, bella. No.” Gently, as though he had practiced it a hundred times, he withdrew the needle and pressed a bit of clean cloth to the site.
“Then how could you have thought…”
He was deftly repacking his things, coiling the tubing, rolling the strip of black silk. “I am,” he said, with a self-deprecating lift of his shoulders, “a student of history. And the history of intravenous injections is a long one.”
“You must tell me where you got it. Especially now, of all times.”
He lifted his eyes from his task. They had gone hard, like coals, with no light reflected in them. “Don’t ask me that,” he said. His accent was suddenly that of an American, the vowels flattened, the consonants dull. “I’ve told you. You don’t need to know.”
“But, Ugo…”
“No. Don’t.” He tied the tabs of his packet with a sharp tug and put the whole into an inner pocket. He stood up, taking three steps to the window, where the desert scenery jolted past. When he looked at her again, his face had resumed its mild, faintly amused expression. “A gift,” he said lightly. He flicked his fingers over the pocket. “My gift to you. A caval donato non si guarda in bocca.”
Hélène frowned, not liking the feeling of being dependent. But she felt so well—so strong and full of life—that she found it in herself to put her question away. She could press him another time, perhaps, if he were still here.
She lifted the bit of cotton from the tiny wound. A single drop of blood rose to the surface of her skin. She dabbed it away. There was no more, only a small red spot that began to fade even as she watched. In moments it was gone, leaving no evidence of what had just taken place.
She jumped to her feet, feeling too full of vitality to sit still. “Some of the other singers are on the train,” she said. “I’m going to find them.”
And he, with a limpid, white-toothed smile, said, “Have fun, bella.”
A year passed before she asked him again about the source of his supply. This time they were in the train station in Prague, and Ugo had a hand over the pocket where he kept what she now thought of as her packet. Fretfully, she said, “What’s wrong? Is it there?”
“Of course. What’s bothering you?”
“I don’t know.” She tried to brush scattered flecks of ash and soot from the short jacket of her traveling suit. “I don’t want to see her. I don’t like her.”
He patted her arm. “I don’t either. But we won’t stay long.”
“And what if I…what if I need…”
He touched his pocket again. “It’s here, Hélène. I told you.”
“But if you run out, what will I do?”
“I won’t run out, silly girl.” He put his hand on her back and began to steer her through the crowds. It had been a long time since she had heard the Czech language, and it made her feel even more out of place to be unable to catch more than a word or two of the hundreds shouted and called around her.
As they waited for a hack to be free, Hélène asked him. “I can see it doesn’t last long, Ugo. Tell me where you get it.”
He flashed her a look, and she remembered now how hard those limpid dark eyes could turn when he was angry. He said, in that same American accent she had heard on the train from Oakland, “I won’t tell you. And I don’t want the Countess entertaining the question.”
Hélène felt a chill in her belly that crept up to her breast. “Ugo,” she said breathlessly. “She doesn’t know?”
His full lips pressed into a tight line. He shook his head.
“Then—what does she think? How does she think I—I manage?”
“She thinks you feed, of course. But that you kill.” His flat vowels made her nerves jump. “Don’t tell her, Hélène. She won’t like it.”
“Teresa.” The Countess Milosch rose from her seat in a vast, dim parlor. “You’ve changed.”
“It’s Hélène.” Hélène came forward into the vague circle of light cast by three thick beeswax candles in old cut-glass holders. She glanced briefly about her. Everything in the room was old. The furniture spoke of other centuries. The carpet beneath her feet had gone hard as the cobblestones outside, as if the years had dessicated it, petrified its fibers into a fossil of itself. Even the air seemed to have been breathed too often and too long.
“Hélène. Hmm. I suppose it’s useful, to change your name.” The Countess looked as Hélène remembered her, or more properly, as Teresa remembered her. Her sharp-featured face and sharp-boned shoulders looked as if they had been carved from stone.
“It’s necessary,” Hélène said. “If I want to have a career.”
“You’re having success in America, then.” The Countess’s voice held no real interest.
“In some places,” Hélène answered.
Zdenka Milosch sat down again and let her head fall back against the sofa. “I don’t like America,” she said.
Ugo waved Hélène to a chair and took one himself. “Why don’t you like America, Countess?” he asked. His tone was conversational, as if this bizarre place were a normal home, as if this were a social meeting.
“Colonials,” she said sourly. “They’re never civilized.”
“It’s been a hundred-odd years since America was a colony,” Ugo said, smiling. “They might surprise you.”
The Countess didn’t bother to answer.
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Hélène gazed at her with mounting resentment. “Why am I here, Countess? I don’t like being given orders.”
“Indeed.” The Countess lifted her head and fixed Hélène with her unfriendly gaze. “My brethren wished to meet you,” she said.
“The elders,” Ugo said quietly. He leaned back and crossed his legs, adjusting the careful pleat of his elegant flannels. “Hélène has a contract in New York in six weeks,” he said. “We can’t stay long.”
One of the Countess’s narrow brows rose. “We?” she said, her voice no more than a thread of sound.
Ugo laughed. “I am now the assistant to Mademoiselle Hélène Singher, up-and-coming French soprano, who made a miraculous escape from the disaster in San Francisco. I like it.” With an elegant gesture of his slim fingers, he said, “It keeps me off the streets, you know.”
“We must not be giving you enough work,” the Countess replied. Hélène blinked, surprised at the near humor of her remark.
Ugo shrugged. “I’m busy enough,” he said. “Your interests will be seen to in all the cities Hélène will visit.”
The Countess sat up a little straighter, in a rustle of bombazine. Her dress was fifty years out of date. Hélène wondered if she ever went out anymore. She fixed Hélène with her cold gaze. “Ugo has made it clear to you, I gather,” she said. “What it is we require.”
Hélène, her temper gathering, opened her mouth, but Ugo forestalled her. “You haven’t heard of any exceptions, have you, Countess?” he drawled. “It’s been a year.”
Again, Zdenka Milosch did not bother to reply. Her lips curled in her mirthless smile, never revealing her teeth. Hélène drew breath again, a retort rising to her lips, but Ugo found her foot with his and pressed down. Her gored skirt was cut in the new style, short enough to expose her soft-heeled boot. It appeared Ugo didn’t care if he damaged the leather. His meaning was clear, and she subsided.
The servingman, a scrawny, dark little man, scuttled in with a tray and an assortment of bottles and glasses. He set it on the inlaid table and went out again. Ugo removed his foot from Hélène’s boot and reached for one of the bottles. A slight rustle sounded from the far end of the long room and he stopped, his hand outstretched, looking into the shadows. Hélène followed his gaze.
Ugo had told her they were old. Ancient, he had said.
Even that word hardly served. They shuffled forward, one after the other, their clothes hanging about them in shapeless silhouettes that shifted vaguely as they moved. The woman—if woman she could still be called—peered out from beneath her hood. The men swayed from side to side as they coasted to a stop just beyond the circle of candlelight.
No, not ancient, Hélène thought. Atavistic. Primeval. Surely even their long, long memories could not contain the years that had passed for them.
One of them spoke in a thin voice. “Is this the one?”
The Countess stood, and pointed at Hélène. “It is she.”
Hélène stared up at the three gloomy figures. When one of them—Anastasia, it must be—moved closer, a smell like that of rotting meat came with her, overpowering the scents of beeswax and dust. The creature leaned forward, into the light, and Hélène caught a glimpse of hooded eyes, a nose that drooped over wrinkled lips, and fearsomely long teeth.
Unconsciously, Hélène touched her own canines with her tongue, reassuring herself. They had retracted slightly, subtly, since Ugo’s advent. They were still long, but they were nothing like Anastasia’s. Anastasia’s teeth were a marvel, a grotesquerie. They were fangs, tusks of yellowed ivory. They protruded, curved, depressed the papery skin of her chin. Hélène’s stomach quivered with nausea at the idea of those teeth, of lips that could no longer close, of a face that must not be seen.
The Countess said, “Teresa. Stand up so the elders can see you.”
And without protest, hypnotized by those terrible teeth, she obeyed. Anastasia’s mouth stretched in a ghastly attempt at a smile. “Sssssing,” she hissed.
Hélène said faintly, “What?”
Anastasia’s face receded into the shadows of her hood, but she stood, hands folded, as if waiting. Hélène turned to the Countess. “What does she want?”
The Countess nodded to the three elders. “They want you to sing.”
Ugo stood now, too, and Hélène felt his shoulder just touching hers. She gazed into the dark depths of Anastasia’s hood, then peered into the shadows where the others, Eusebio and Henri, loomed like great wordless crows, staring back at her. One of them, she didn’t know which, lifted a trembling hand and pointed at her.
“Is this,” he said in a hoarse and horrible voice, “the vessel?” The s was distorted, as if his tongue could no longer reach his hard palate.
“Vessel?” Hélène said. “What does he mean?”
“Vessel,” the Countess replied, with a hint of impatience. “Container. Receptacle.”
“I know what a vessel is.” Hélène felt Ugo’s hand come up to encircle her waist. “What is this about?” she snapped. “I’ve come a long way, and I’m certainly not going to sing tonight. I’m tired and I need a bath.” She gestured to the three ancients. “And I would venture a guess that I’m not the only one.”
Anastasia hissed something, a warning sound, and Ugo’s arm tightened around Hélène.
Zdenka Milosch said, “Have a care, Teresa. Anastasia may not be able to hurt you anymore, but she employs people who can. I am one.”
Hélène’s anger flared, and her lip lifted involuntarily.
The Countess’s black eyes narrowed. She stiffened, seeming to grow taller and wider. With deliberation, she revealed her own impressive teeth, with a glimmer as of ivory knives in the dim light. “I don’t think,” she said clearly, “that you want to try me.”
Hélène turned to Ugo. “I want to leave,” she said. “Can we go?”
The Countess answered. “No. You can’t.” Her lips folded again, hiding her teeth, but her eyes still glittered dangerously. “However,” she said, “you can wait to sing until tomorrow, when you’re rested. I’ll have Kirska show you to your room. And you may certainly have a bath.”
The elders pulled back, out of the light. Hélène took a deep breath, leaning into Ugo’s arm, trying not to think about the specter that Anastasia’s face had become, nor to guess at the years reflected there.
The Countess rang a small bell that waited at her elbow, and the stolid, silent Kirska appeared. As Ugo and Hélène followed her upstairs, Hélène looked at her curiously, wondering what kind of creature she was. She seemed ageless, like the Countess…like herself. Kirska, the hulking gardener—Tomas, he was called—who had met them at the gatehouse. The other employees who lurked here and there in the dimness, like rats waiting for crumbs. Why would they stay here, serving in this dark place?
Kirska opened the doors to adjoining rooms, and without a word, bustled off down the corridor. Hélène hoped that meant a bath would be forthcoming. She stood in her doorway and scowled at Ugo in his.
He lifted his shoulders and gave a light laugh. “I tried to warn you what this would be like. Words don’t suffice.”
“Why should I sing for these…for them?” she demanded. “I owe them nothing.”
“Actually,” Ugo said, sobering, “you do.”
“Why? Because they didn’t kill me?”
He leaned against the doorjamb. Whitened lines pulled at his mouth. “Hélène. It’s more than that.”
“What, then?” she demanded. Fatigue and irritation made her querulous. Even as she spoke, she shook her head in frustration, knowing she sounded like a spoiled child.
But Ugo straightened and came to her, taking her arm, guiding her gently into her bedroom. “Sit down, bella,” he said.
The bed was a four-poster affair with a carved wooden canopy and a coverlet of heavy brown wool. Hélène sat down on it, finding as soon as she took her weight off her feet that they ached. She bent and began to unlace her boots. She glanced up at Ugo. “G
o on.”
“You know, Hélène, what I am.”
“Only what you’ve told me.” Hélène straightened and worked at her left boot with her right foot. It fell to the bare floor with a light thud. She bent her knee to bring her left foot onto the bed and massaged it with her fingers, giving Ugo a narrow-eyed look. “I haven’t seen it.”
“I hope you never do.” He went to the window and drew back the heavy drapes. Dust rose in little spirals from the folds. “And with the help of La Società, you never will.”
He came back and stood before her, his slight body tense, his face intent. “They found me in the streets of Rome,” he said. “Zdenka Milosch came for me. She taught me what it was, and how to control it.”
“And so you do as she tells you.”
“I need La Società. I need the network.”
“Why, Ugo? There are herbalists everywhere, aren’t there?”
“Not who carry what I need.” He shook his head, a slight, graceful movement. “Please trust me. I need them, and so, if you want to continue as we have been, you also need them.” He hesitated, his lips twisting. “Hélène, if you want to continue…you need them even more than I do.”
She sat quietly then, one boot on and one off. Oppression weighed on her until she thought her shoulders must bend beneath it. The past year had been more peaceful, more serene, than any she had known since the bite. The thought of going back to the streets, driven by thirst, losing herself in need and urgency—it was a grievous prospect.
“Ugo,” she said softly. “Could we not manage on our own?”
He stood looking down at her, his face as dark as her own heart. “I can’t go back any more than you can. I know what it is to have no control. To lose myself. And—” His eyes left hers and drifted around the high-ceilinged bedroom. “I loathe it,” he said, so low she almost didn’t hear him. “I have loathed it from the very beginning.”
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