02 TRAVELING WITH THE DEAD ja-2

by Barbara Hambly

  Then twisted as a pistol roared in the enclosing walls of the court. Ernchester and Golge Kurt stood frozen, as between them Ysidro sank like a broken thing to the steps.

  Ignace Karolyi stepped from the colonnade on the other side of the court. "Go," he said. He had an army pistol in his hand, the barrel smoking. "I'll finish him." He spoke German.

  "He's faking." Golge Kurt looked down at the crumpled tangle of black and white at the foot of the steps. Blood glittered darkly on his face and throat where Ysidro's claws had ripped, but there was no sweat, nor did he pant-in fact, he did not breathe at all. "I never saw bullet stop one of us yet."

  Karolyi grinned. "My dear Kurt, you've never heard of silver bullets? They're a sovereign remedy for Evil. You'll have to look out for them, when you're working for us."

  Golge Kurt's dark eyes glittered warily on the last sentence, but he made a smile, a demon manufacturing one for human consumption. "Even so. Sharl..."

  Charles Farren, third Earl of Ernchester, had come down the steps to kneel beside Ysidro's body, his hand pressed to his mouth. "Simon," he whispered, half unbelieving, and Asher, still leaning against the wall in the warehouse bay's concealing shadow, knew then that it was true. It was, somehow, Ysidro. "Simon ..."

  "Come." Golge Kurt had mounted a step, half turned back, and Asher remembered how Olumsiz Bey had spoken to Zardalu that night in the garden.

  Ernchester looked up, his face struggling to regain an expression, some sign of life. The air was nauseating with the smell of blood. "This man..." he said haltingly.

  "Come."

  He did not touch him, did not make a move, but Ernchester flinched. Vampires do not generally show age, but Ernchester's face, thought Asher, was lined and haggard with the weight of centuries of immortality in which he had never, for one moment, been free.

  He rose to his feet and followed. The two vampires passed like shadows up the stairs.

  Karolyi crossed the court, cocking the pistol as he moved. From the shadows of the bay where Asher stood it was three long strides to the foot of the stairs, too long to move without taking a bullet in the chest himself. Still, the key was in his hand, ready to throw as a distraction to buy himself time to spring, when a voice called out from the passageway to the house, "Mr. Karolyi!" and Karolyi turned in surprise.

  If Asher hadn't spent seventeen years on Her Majesty's Service dealing with the absolutely unexpected, he would have thought, Lydia??? in sheer, baffled, horrified shock... and lost the split second her distraction bought him. He knew it was Lydia's voice even as he was moving, two fast strides, slashing down with the silver halberd blade at Karolyi's neck. The Austrian spun, his bullet cracking the pink plaster of the arch through which Asher came at him, and Asher reversed the halberd and caught Karolyi across the temple with the shaft.

  Karolyi fell back, dropping the gun, and grabbed for the halberd shaft. The two men grappled, and someone-absolutely and unmistakably Lydia-plunged out of the salon with a long bronze candlestick in hand whose weighted base she smashed into Karolyi's spine. Karolyi gagged, lurched; Asher kicked him hard in the belly, thrust him away, then stooped and snatched the pistol from the floor-at the same moment Lydia sprang back out of any possible range and stood panting, red hair everywhere, like a disheveled mermaid in a torn green gown and opera gloves, her neck a treasury of silver and pearls.

  Karolyi backed, his hands raised, panting. "My dear Dr. Asher." Firelight from the windows of the Byzantine house made everything luridly clear in the court.

  "You can't shoot me, you know." There was a wryness, almost amusement, in his eyes, his voice; the same glint he'd had in his eye when he saluted Asher as Asher was led away to the Vienna jail.

  It was a game. The Great Game.

  His clothes were rough, a laborer's clothes, spattered with mud and blood. His dark hair hung in his eyes. But his appearance, thus or in his gorgeous Hussar uniform, had always been only a disguise.

  Hollow inside, as the Bey had said.

  "Silly niggers broke up the refrigeration coils in the crypt," he said. "I heard them choking behind me. The place is chock-ablock with ammonia gas, and spreading. I know another way out."

  "That true?" Asher asked.

  Lydia nodded. She was well clear of them both, in the center of the court, firelight a carnival of brass and vermilion on her hair, her spectacles rounds of fire. "We were directly behind them, Ysidro and I. He covered my face with his cloak..." She glanced toward the silent, bleeding huddle at the foot of the stairs, but said nothing more.

  "You'll never get out of here without me." Karolyi lowered his hands a little.

  "In fact you look hardly able to get yourself anywhere, if I may say so. They killed two of the Bey's servants already. We nearly fell over them in the alley. They're going to think you're exactly the same."

  "And you're not?"

  He widened his eyes, amused. "Who, me? You must know me better than that." "He started the rioting," Lydia said quietly. "He and the interloper."

  "Oh, nonsense, madame, the Armenians have been itching for days to start fighting again." He turned back to Asher with a rueful grin. "So we're stalemated, you see. And you'd better make up your mind soon, because in another few minutes you're going to pass out and that would probably be a bad idea right now. At least I can get you-and more importantly your wife-out of here alive."

  He was right, Asher reflected. Every movement of his ribs was a sword cut, and he could feel his hands and feet growing cold. God knew what the mob would do to Lydia...

  "Come now." Karolyi held out his hand. "A temporary alliance, offensive and defensive. Nations do it all the time. You can't tell me I've done anything you wouldn't have done yourself. You would have done exactly what I did, and for exactly the same reasons."

  "Yes," said Asher, seeing again the whore in Paris and the beggar in the alley he hadn't helped. Cramer laughing as he suggested going to Notre Dame for a crucifix. The body of his Czech guide all those years ago in the Dinaric Alps.

  Fairport dying in the light of the burning sanitarium, and the last, baffled, uncomprehending look in Jan van der Platz's eyes. He felt strangely distant from himself, the world narrowing to the handsome face he had seen-what? almost three weeks ago-at Charing Cross. "I would have. That's why I quit."

  And he shot Karolyi through the head.

  There seemed to be no transition between that and Lydia propping him up, holding him under the arms-it was the stab in his ribs that brought him back from momentary unconsciousness He clutched her convulsively against him, pressing his face to hers. "Lydia..."

  "God, Jamie..."

  It seemed absurd to ask her how she'd tracked him. Ysidro, he thought, turning, even as she broke from him and ran to the vampire lying like a smashed kite on the bloody pavement.

  "Simon..."

  The skeleton hand moved, gripping hers. "Go after them.

  "You..."

  "I shall be well."

  She was already tearing his black evening coat aside, revealing the white shirt nearly as black with blood. "Don't be ridiculous, you can't-"

  "It went through... I'll be ill for a time... the silver... burns..." He raised his head, long hair falling back bloodied from his face. Surely, Asher thought, horrified, he had not looked like that when they had parted a year ago. "Go."

  His hand pressed to his side and blood welled between the spidery fingers. "Both must die. The man and the Undead with whom he made his bargain. It is your part of the pact, mistress," he added, still more softly. "For this I came with you."

  Asher propped himself on the nearest archway and checked the revolver's chamber. Four bullets left, all silver. He started to say, Stay with him, but there was a crashing within the passageway to the house, renewed smoke and voices cursing.

  Madness fleered in the air. Instead he said, "Stay behind me." But it was Lydia who helped him mount the stairs.

  The gallery stank like an abattoir of corruption and blood. The door stood open,
and Asher stepped through quickly, gun held ready and his other hand clamped hard on Lydia's shoulder for support.

  The long room was still. The few lamps flung huge shadows, glistened stickily on black lakes of gore.

  It soaked the pile carpets, ran down the tiled steps to blend with the melting ice; splashed the walls, the columns, the divan. Asher took another step into the room, sickened, heart hammering, and in the heavy blackness made out shapes, the broken ruin of battle.

  That thing like a killed dragon, glittering with blood and jewels, was Olumsiz Bey. It was too dark to see well, but he looked as if most of his throat had been torn out and his intestines strewn among the ripped silk of the robes. It might have been a trick of the candle flame, but Asher thought he saw the movement of those orange eyes. Unsheathed and covered with blood, the silver knife lay in his open hand. Beside him was a broken form in a black coat, wounds curling, blistering, blackening with the burning of the silver, short fair hair soaked dark with grue. Asher said softly, "Charles..."

  And Ernchester moved. Spastic, desperate, unable to rise or speak, still he

  flung out his hand in warning. Asher turned, throwing himself against the wall, and fired at the shadow that fell upon him from the denser shadows near the door. The bullet went wild; he fired again, and blackness covered his mind, blinding him, followed by pain in his side, in his shoulder, his neck. He rolled, struck one of the pillars at the end of the hall and someone dragged him back against it-Lydia-and his head cleared in time to see Golge Kurt walking away toward the broken and bloodied forms of Ernchester and Olumsiz Bey. He moved unhurried, without the drifting, ghostly swiftness of Ysidro. Asher guessed he had not been vampire long.

  Lydia ripped free one of her gloves, fumbled with the tangle of silver and pearls around her throat. "Put this on." She pressed a couple of chains into his hands. He realized Golge Kurt was between them and the distant door.

  Asher obeyed, knowing it would do no good.

  Olumsiz Bey was moving. Golge Kurt pressed the barrel of Karolyi's pistol to the older vampire's head and fired. The report was like a cannon in the long room.

  In the pit of ice the boy Kahlil cried out, a terrible sound; the Turk turned and fired at him from where he stood. The body jounced and lay still.

  Lamplight glittered on Golge Kurt's smile.

  "I should give you to my friend, I think." He touched Ernchester with his foot.

  "We are hurt, and the taste of death will make us feel better. But I think with the silver of the knife burning in his wounds, he may be hurt too much. So maybe I'll just have you both myself."

  He grinned wider, then threw back his head and laughed, the blood from Ysidro's talons running black down his face.

  "I'll hold him," Asher said very softly. "You run for the door."

  She had to know it was hopeless, because she nodded. The silk whispered as she gathered handfuls of it to free her legs. "I love you, Jamie."

  At the far end of the chamber the door closed, with a sound like the shutting of a tomb. The shadow standing just within it moved, turning the old-fashioned key.

  Candlelight flickered on the wicked, curving blade of the silver halberd.

  Golge Kurt turned his head.

  She stood there like a witch, like a thing truly risen from a nameless grave, filthy in her rags of luminous blue, blood in the curling raven ocean of her hair. The brown eyes had the weird sanity sometimes found on the far side of madness: calm, but a demon's eyes. There was blood on her mouth, and on her hands to the elbow, but the gold of her wedding band shone through.

  Golge Kurt pointed the gun at her and fired, and she was stepping forward even before the hammer clicked harmlessly on the empty chamber, and with a vicious blow of the silver halberd took the gun hand off at the wrist.

  The vampire screamed as blood exploded from the severed arteries, lunged at her only to be driven back with face and chest slashed, clutching, grabbing at the wounds where the silver blistered and burned. "Orospu!" he shrieked at her, rage inhuman in his eyes. "Infidel whore!"

  She stepped in toward him, slashing with the silver weapon, slicing open his legs, his feet, his thighs. When he tried to climb up the lamp niches, to spring from them to the windows of the dome, she cut the backs of his knees so that, when he fell back screaming with his remaining palm a fingerless charred wreck, he could not stand. And all the while her face did not change, nor did the tears cease to run from the empty demon eyes.

  Only when she had driven him into a corner, blood gushing from his wounds to splash her skirts, the walls, the floor, did she stop, looking at him with an inner peace beyond compassion or hate.

  "You killed him," she said, quite gently. "You let him take the brunt of the fight, let him destroy the master you hoped to supersede. You cared no more for him than he did, this Bey, this... this master. It will be day very soon," she said.

  Golge Kurt made a move to lunge, but with his hamstrings severed he could only flop on elbows and knees, while blood spattered around him like thick and stinking rain. She stood out of his range, looking down at him. Without turning her head she said, "Charles?"

  The broken form moved then, lying near Olumsiz Bey on the blood-sodden carpets; moved, and reached for her with one hand. No louder than the scratch of a single leaf blown across a marble floor, Asher thought he heard a voice whisper, "Beloved..."

  "Beloved," she replied. Her voice shook a little, but she never took her eyes from Golge Kurt. "You never did want this life, did you?" she asked softly. "Never wanted to continue, Undead but Unalive..."

  "... Don't... know." Ernchester moved his hand again, tried to raise his head. The guttering candles showed his throat cut almost to the hawse bone. Asher didn't even know whether the dying vampire was actually capable of making a sound.

  "Don't... remember... what I wanted. Only that I did not want to leave you."

  "Nor I, to leave life," she replied. "Not if your love was part of that life, no matter what the cost to my soul. Nights and nights and nights, killing that I might not die... and you killing, that you might stay here with me. Not so?"

  "I chose..."

  She moved back to kneel at his side, though she still watched the Shadow Wolf, bleeding on the floor. One hand still held the master's silver weapon; the other reached down to touch the graying hair. "I understand," she said. "We all choose. And in a very short time it will be time for us both to go."

  Black eyes wide with horror now, Golge Kurt shouted at her, raged at her, cursed her in German and Turkish and broken French, and she listened with a face of stone.

  "It is not I who brought him to this place," the vampire shouted. "Not I who did this to him..."

  "It was you who met him among the tombs," Anthea said. "You who used him, who controlled his mind, because he is what he is, weak... Don't you think I was aware of it, hiding among the cisterns and the catacombs of this city, when you two walked its streets to war with Olumsiz Bey? Don't you think I sensed it in my dreams, when you covered and hid his mind that he might not even know I followed and sought? To kill you is nothing."

  The yellow light edged her face as it edged the halberd's dripping blade. There was no sound, now, outside, and the windows above showed as squares of ash against the night.

  "I have killed every night to stay alive. Brought victims to him to kill when he was so weary of the life he lived that he could not even go to seek his own. All because Grippen wanted him- and Olumsiz Bey wanted him-and you wanted him to keep him from the Bey. And all you wanted was rest, Charles."

  Charles shook his head and did not let go of her hand. "No," he whispered. "I wanted you."

  It was Golge Kurt whose flesh ignited first. It puckered, blistered, blackening as he crawled screaming for the door, and Anthea cut at him again and again with the silver halberd until he retreated, screaming, to the corner, where the fire took hold. It swelled up from within him, not great flame, but thick blue- burning sheets. He sank to the floor and ceased to move qui
te soon, but he continued to scream for some time.

  By that time Olumsiz Bey was burning as well, though Asher heard no sound from him. Perhaps he was dead, perhaps only lapsed into the vampire sleep that came at daylight, mercifully unaware of the end of his long unlife.

  Anthea, who had begun to nod with the onset of that same sleep, laid down the weapon she carried and knelt beside the man she had loved, gathering him up into her arms. Their mouths were pressed together as the fire took them, and neither moved, except to tighten their grip on one another until the very bones locked within the veils of heat. Lydia watched until the end, but Asher turned his face against her shoulder, the suffocating heat pounding him, nauseated with the stink of burning flesh and blind with tears.

  Twenty- Two

  The army came soon after. Shock had set in, and as Lydia supported him down the stairs with all the grim expertise of one used to maneuvering dead bodies, Asher felt himself drifting in and out of consciousness, pain coming and going in alternation with eerie, frightening dreams. He half expected to find the charred remains of Ysidro's body at the foot of the steps, but didn't-or the reality in which he did was quite clearly a dream. Only Karolyi's body was there, lying in a pool of blood with a hole in his forehead and an expression of astonishment in his eyes.

  "I was terrified he was going to talk you out of shooting him, Jamie," she said, helping him to sit on the bottom-most step and sinking beside him in a rustle of skirts. White-lipped and shaken, she propped her eyeglasses with a forefinger and blinked around her. "I mean, he tried to kidnap me this afternoon-yesterday afternoon-and if we'd gone with him, we'd never have gotten out of here alive."

  Trust Lydia, he thought, and wondered who had warned her about Karolyi.

  The house around them was utterly silent. The Bey had evidently been right about the rioters leaving before first light. It was almost impossible to reflect that he hadn't seen this woman in three weeks, and that the last time they'd spoken it had been on the railway platform in Oxford. He leaned his back against the wall of the stairwell and asked, in what he considered a reasonable voice, "What are you doing in Constantinople?" and lost consciousness again before she replied.