by Michele Lang
“It’s lost,” Raziel said, his voice soft in thought. “I brought it first to the Garden of Eden, when the world was young. And long the daughters of Eve guarded the gem, until the First Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed. And now … who knows.”
I drew back and looked at my beloved. His thick dark hair rippled in the wind coming off the river, his hat clasped in his hands. All of us are ancient in a certain way, I suppose; we are sparks thrown off by the Maker of the world at the time of the creation.
But Raziel remembered. As a man he was new, raw, in a strange world he still hardly knew. But he remembered, all the way back.
He did not speak of it often and I respected him enough not to demand he reveal his secrets, not when they were so painful to remember. But just knowing he carried these secrets inside of him filled me with awe.
“Can I summon it out?” I asked.
“No,” Raziel replied. “Your magic is in words. This gem is invested with great power, but it is not translated into human or even angelic speech. It is pure.”
The thought of the gem, the Heaven Sapphire, in my hand made me shiver. With it, I could destroy my enemies. But I had been unable to capture the bespelled Book of Raziel from Hitler and Asmodel. What made me think I could master the gem itself?
It didn’t matter what I thought. I had sworn to Gisele and myself that I would do everything in my power to fight the evils arrayed against us and all of our kind, and no matter how slight the chance, I had to try.
And Raziel stood by my side. I might have lost the Book, lost my beloved sister, even lost my best friend, Eva, to the war. But Raziel, now my husband, walked with me.
Night had fallen over Budapest. Soon the vampires would be out, hunting, and though I walked under Bathory’s protection and could protect myself in any case, I had to get inside.
We had an impossible dream to pursue.
2
For the moment we were staying above the flower shop on Ferenc Körút, where Eva had once hidden from the Fascists. We returned from Heroes’ Square, and tidied ourselves up as best we could.
Once night had fully fallen, I prepared myself for my first audience with Bathory since we had returned. I was determined to go alone—the Café Istanbul was a dodgy place for mortals at the best of times.
Raziel got undressed, washed up at the basin in the corner, then started putting on his clothes where they lay in a crumpled heap by the bed. I loved to watch Raziel dress. He did so many things masterfully, but buttons and clasps still got the better of him. He had not been human for very long.
He slipped his shirt on, studied the buttons upside down, then gave me a piteous look that drew me to him at last with a laugh.
“I’ll save you, archangel,” I said as I joined him near the nightstand. “Buttons are easy, once you’ve got the trick of them. One, two…”
His buttons distracted me from thoughts of Gisele, and I welcomed this kind of diversion. I buttoned my way up his chest, half-breathless. When I reached his collar I looked up into his eyes, warm as a sunset, and all my levity melted away.
“We have to get out of Budapest,” he said, his voice gentle, his eyes full of wariness. “Bathory will have to help us get out of here alive. You were right to send Gisele away, my love. Since war has come, Budapest has changed. Too dangerous for us, too.”
I am a tall girl, but my husband towered over me. I laced my fingers together behind his neck, raised up onto my tiptoes, and kissed him breathless. “It was hard to get here,” I murmured, pulling back from our embrace to look him in the eyes. “It will be harder to leave.”
Now that war had come, crossing the border had become a high-wire act, and without Bathory and his network of supplicants and fanged cousins we would soon be lost in the East. In our battles with Hitler and his resident demon, Asmodel, we had decimated Hitler’s stronghold, the Wolf’s Lair, and its forces. But Hitler had over a million men in his army, with a cohort of magical warriors besides.
Despite my every effort, Hitler still held Poland. It was the false peace of the fall and winter of 1939–40, and the world held its breath, waiting for the Reich to make its next move. France and Britain had declared war against the Axis, but so far they had attempted no offensive against the Reich. And the Reich had not attacked the West, not France nor Britain, either. Not yet.
The world hung by a single thread. Something as small as a gem, an ancient sapphire of primordial power, could tip the balance. Plunging the world into war or vanquishing Hitler’s army for good.
I had my theories of where to find this hidden gem. And so did Hitler’s demon, Asmodel. Both Raziel and I suspected that the gem was hidden deep inside the territory of Hitler’s reluctant ally, Stalin.
“You will talk to Bathory,” Raziel said. “And he will help us.”
“He’ll help us because he thinks we will succeed. Bathory is nothing if not practical,” I said. I had to steel myself against Bathory’s ancient, predatory charms. Over the centuries he had perfected his avuncular, elegant persona.
But he was a vampire. Created for murder, dismemberment, and war, he performed all of that mayhem without turning a single well-groomed hair. Oh, Bathory was loyal, loyal unto death.
Not for the first time I realized how strange were my feelings about him. I loved the old duffer. All the more reason I had to protect myself from my softheartedness for him.
Raziel didn’t bother replying to my anti-Bathory ravings. He knew my feelings for the dapper old vampire were dark and tangled. He was counting on these ties to persuade Bathory to invest in our venture.
But I didn’t know how or whether to tell Bathory about our marriage. How would he react?
* * *
I left Raziel to pace the little room alone, and met Bathory that night at, of course, the Café Istanbul, Bathory’s unofficial place of vampire business, where he received human supplicants of an evening, and where one could eat lovely pastries and sip strong coffee. As I entered the café and ran my fingers along the length of the smooth wooden bar, I felt a sharp twist of nostalgia, though I had left Budapest for Poland only a few short months before.
Now that I was married, my allegiance had shifted. I had been and always would be Bathory’s loyal, mortal assistant—one cannot give one’s notice for that sort of position—but my first loyalty, now and forever, was to my family. My little sister Gisele, my sister of the heart Eva Farkas—and now my husband, my beloved soul mate Raziel, the once but no longer king of the angels.
By day, the sleepy café was all but deserted, with only an atmosphere of gloom to suggest how dangerous the place could prove to ordinary people. But now, at night, the vampires came to roost, warming their cold bodies with Turkish coffee, rumballs, and perhaps something more illicit before they swooped into the night, seeking their prey.
Bathory was surprised to see me. “So you have returned! With no fanfare, and alone. But it is a Wednesday,” he murmured. I was shocked he did not say hello. My count was always the soul of good manners, no matter the circumstances.
“Yes, my dear count, I know,” I said, peering over the side of the mezzanine railing. The lights were still dim.
“And tonight is the floor show. The special entertainments presented on the Wednesday nights.” His nostrils quivered ever so slightly, I guessed in anticipation.
I could not suppress a sigh. “My troubles force me here tonight.” Before this night, I had always refused to work on Wednesday nights at the café. And Bathory, knowing I did not ask for much otherwise, acceded to my request.
Before I could explain myself, a set of spotlights shone on the main level of the Istanbul, which had been cleared for the night’s performance. A beautiful girl, slender and blond, was bound in silken cords and seated backward on a chair, head tilted back. She wore only lingerie and silk stockings.
The band started playing “J’attendrai,” slow and sinuous.
“Where is your handsome Raziel?” Bathory asked, smiling just enough to revea
l the tips of his fangs.
I sank into the seat next to where Bathory held court in the corner so I could hear him better over the trumpets and the snaky oboe. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t bring anybody mortal in here on a Wednesday night. Raziel has come back with me, too. He’s hidden away, for the moment at least.”
Two young male vampires drew close to each other and met over the bound lamb’s head. They started in on each other, snuffling at their bared necks, licking their exposed wrists. These young males, too, wore next to nothing.
“Is that really why you kept Raziel away?” Bathory asked. His nostrils flared now, a little wider, as if he could scent the blood coursing through the young vampires’ veins.
I could never hide anything from Bathory. “We have something important to tell you, but now is not the time to tell it. Even I might not be safe in here tonight.”
The bloodlust rose in the veins of the denizens of the Istanbul like a collective tide. I kept my witch’s sight reined in tightly so that I could sense the edges of it but keep from getting swept in. There are certain things about the vampire way that I had no interest in experiencing.
The larger of the two males yanked at the hair of the younger, more delicate one, and dark, almost purple blood dripped down the submissive’s bare chest. The first vampire licked it clean and kissed the bound girl roughly, deeply. I could hear her whimpers from way up in the mezzanine.
“You like the floor show, little chicken!”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and kept my opinions to myself. Instead, I tore my gaze away from the violent seduction playing out below and stared my dear Count Bathory right in the eye.
“I came tonight because I need your help. We’ve just come back from Poland as you know. Gisele is safely away thanks to you, but I need a place to hide Raziel. I’ve given up my flat, and we’re staying one night here, one night there. Budapest is just too dangerous for us now.”
There, I had spat out my request. I hated to ask Bathory for anything, for a vampire’s gifts always came with strings attached to them. But I had barely gotten Gisele out in time, and needed to hide Raziel until we left, probably for good.
I was good luck to Bathory: now that my witch’s magic had manifested, helping me would enable him to call upon my services later, and help him hold on to the position of Chief Vampire. I hoped that my magic counted for enough with him.
Budapest’s charms had faded upon my return from the war in Poland. The things I had once thought so important—the physical gorgeousness of the city, its cosmopolitan air—rang hollow and false to me now, after all that I had seen in the war so far. They say that travel broadens your worldview, and I suppose that is true. But no one had ever warned me that knowing the world might tarnish my vision of Budapest, my golden home city.
Bathory looked different to me, too, both larger and smaller than he had before I had gone. He had saved Raziel’s life in Kraków, and his courage and loyalty had proved a lifeline out of the horrible nightmare of Nazi-occupied Poland.
But here, in the Istanbul, I finally understood that Bathory was a vampire. Stupid and slow, I know, but I had always seen Bathory as a singular phenomenon, one of a kind. Now that he was risen to the position of chief, I finally saw that he served as the leader of his people, as a distinctive and different member of the vampiric tribe. He enjoyed the floor show at least as much as any of the other vampires who had come to the Istanbul.
When you love someone, it is easy to overlook their flaws up close. And I was stupid enough to love Bathory despite the fact he was a vampire. Bathory had proven braver and more honorable than a dozen ordinary vampires. But the fact remained—he was still a vampire, through and through.
The count shrugged and dabbed at his mustache with a linen napkin. “Of course you must protect your Raziel. He is your witch’s lamb, is he not? He feeds your magic like that little blonde down below feeds her masters. If he is in danger, I will protect you both. It is my duty, and my pleasure.”
The girl’s cries grew louder, as if to punctuate Bathory’s words. Both vampires had now attached themselves to her neck.
Even after Poland, I blushed to see this display. “Now, what would our glorious leader Regent Horthy have to say about such vulgar entertainment?”
Bathory’s lips twitched with amusement. “He’d be horrified, of course. Yet, Horthy still allows the vampires to live openly in Budapest. We act as something of a check upon the Arrow Cross and their wolves, who answer only to the German Reich and not to Horthy’s government. And Horthy will use even vampires to keep the Arrow Cross from seizing power here. For now, my position as Chief Vampire is secure, but I need not remind you, my dear, that these remain perilous times.”
He turned away then to watch the floor show, and delicately licked at the corners of his mouth, like a cat watching a bird bathing in a fountain. I cleared my throat, but he was intent on watching the girl’s defilement to the end.
I leaned in to whisper in his ear as he watched. He wasn’t getting rid of me so quickly. “I need your protection, sir, not just a place to stay. For Raziel.”
Bathory chuckled under his breath, even as he kept watching the goings-on down below. “Oh yes. I will protect him. He is a precious prize, my dear. Mark my words, better than that ancient gem you’ve been hunting for high and low.”
He took a slow intake of breath, his eyes lidded nearly closed. I glanced down at the floor show; the girl was limp now, the vampires frantically slashing at her body and at each other. Her face was transported by a terrible bliss.
“Is she dead?” I asked in a horrified whisper.
“Not yet. But she wants it,” Bathory whispered back.
The girl arched her back and screamed. Cries and applause rippled through the café, and I was careful not to look too deep into the shadows to see what was going on in the audience. Bathory as always maintained superb control, but the younger, weaker vampires succumbed to their own bloodlust all around us.
“Why would somebody want to die as a vampire’s sacrifice?” I whispered.
I didn’t expect an answer, was only thinking aloud, really, but Bathory encircled my wrist with his cold fingers, startling me.
“You don’t understand the meaning of surrender, the glory of it,” Bathory murmured. “The ecstasy of release, of passionate submission to a stronger force. You only know resistance. Your ignorance of surrender is where your power lies, little chicken. And it is also your folly.”
I turned my head and looked at him, tried to pull my hand out of his grip, and failed. His eyes were dilated, his deadly fangs fully extended.
“Surrender to me,” Bathory growled.
I stared into his eyes, the way that no mortal could and still evade his thrall, just to show him I could do it. “You know I will not,” I replied, my voice calm, steady. Once Bathory had frightened me more than anything else in my nightmares or in my existence in the night of Budapest. But after what I had seen in Poland, no longer.
“I worked for you once, but I won’t bare my neck to you,” I continued. “I am not Gisele.”
That cruel little barb snapped Bathory out of his bloodlust. His eyelids fluttered, then his fangs abruptly disappeared back behind his lips. “Your sister is gone to England. Of course.”
“Yes, she and Knox are safely out of Hungary now. Nothing holds me here, dear count.” Not even you, my silence whispered. “I have to find Raziel a temporary haven, or else I will have to fight here. And if I fight here, I’ll never get out of Hungary to hunt the gem. My enemies will prevail as long as I battle them in Budapest.”
“I suspect you would handily win any battles you fought here,” Bathory replied, his voice sounding under control once more. “I cannot say the same of your fight to claim the gem, in some faraway land.”
“But that’s my trouble, dear Bathory. I must get that gem, and I must leave Hungary to find it. Nothing would please my enemies more than keeping the battle here, in Budapest.”
&nb
sp; He pursed his lips together, considering my reasoning. But a thunderous roar of applause distracted us both from our clash of wills.
The girl now sprawled in a heap on the floor, lips blue, eyes sightless and open, staring into the dim light of the sparkling chandeliers. The male vampires were collapsed on the floor with her, one on each side of her, heads thrown back in ecstasy. All three of them were covered in blood.
“Ah, she’s dead,” I murmured under the screams and applause.
“No, my dear,” Bathory replied, a note of surprise and delight in his voice. “They have turned her instead. Usually this is all for show, the pets are saved for next time. But this night … those young creatures forgot themselves.”
He raised a sardonic eyebrow and leaned back in his chair with a world-weary sigh. “She is a bloodlust vampire now, Magda. Watch your back on the way to your hiding place. A newly turned creature like her is starving for blood. Unless she feeds, she will not last the night.”
He shifted in his seat to look at me. “Hide for a few more days, I have some business to conclude. Check here next week and I will have a place for you and your Raziel.”
Without warning, he leaned forward and grabbed me by the shoulders, most unlike him in his lack of propriety. I saw his dilated pupils, his own gargantuan bloodlust, now held barely in check. “You may stay with me,” he said, slurring slightly over his words.
I swallowed hard. I was sworn at one point to Bathory’s service, and he had released me to hunt The Book of Raziel to Amsterdam. But now that I had returned to Budapest our relationship was blurred, and therefore dangerous.
My former role as loyal subordinate was too small to fit me now, and both of us knew it. I could not take orders from a vampire lord while wielding a thing as dangerous as the Gem of Raziel.
But I as yet did not possess the gem. And there was the not inconsiderable matter of Raziel. I could not swear service on behalf of someone else, and this little technicality was why I had come alone to make my request for protection.