Rebel Angels

by Michele Lang

  We were almost there. I had to slow down; my poor body was not up for even a stroll, much less a battle of magics.

  Raziel’s eyes narrowed. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded impatiently, my lacerated heart pounding, too out of breath to speak.

  Raziel reached for my hand and I leaned on him as we went along. “What about the females? Could Eva have been … turned? Like Martin?”

  “Ugh. No, thank goodness. She is still herself.” I thought of the leggy blonde at the Istanbul, who resembled Eva in looks, and swallowed back a wave of nausea.

  * * *

  The headquarters waited around the corner from where we stood, in front of a medieval bakery built half into the ground. I had once bought hot cross buns there, what seemed like a million years before.

  “Did you bring your gun?” I asked.

  “Of course.” Raziel hardly got dressed now without bringing his revolver, and a silver-bladed knife, too.

  “Don’t show it. We’ll go in, demand Imre, and see what we can get without magic or bullets. If it gets too dangerous, we’ll have to fight our way out, but even now I don’t expect things have come to that. Not yet.”

  Raziel nodded, and once again I realized how much I loved him for accepting my bossiness as a necessary evil. We turned the corner, and now we stood in front of the elaborately carved and beveled wooden front door. It had the kind of careless, almost excessive beauty you could find all over Budapest.

  I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. The plate over the buzzer read: THE BAVARIAN UNDERTAKERS’ ORGANIZATION. A clumsy, but apparently effective, cover.

  The door swung open, and I took in a sharp breath. One of the wood trolls filled up the doorway, a survivor of last night’s attack.

  He stiffened at the sight of me, and growled under his breath. His crenellated nose wrinkled in disgust. “You cannot pass,” he said in German.

  “I’ve come to speak to your masters about your visit last night,” I replied, affably enough.

  A female voice interrupted the rising growls emanating from the hob as well as his compatriots in the shadows. “Let them in, you imbecile.”

  He backed away, revealing the threshold and allowing us to enter. I exchanged a long, silent look with Raziel, took a deep breath, and pushed by the hob in order to enter the hallway.

  The headquarters was nothing so dramatic as the title implied. A single room, with a surprising number of windows, scuffed wooden floors, and a low, shiny tin ceiling. A single battered wooden desk stood at the back of the room, with folding chairs set up in rows facing the desk. The back wall was festooned with maps, pushpins, a portrait of the unsmiling Führer, and yellowing newspaper clippings in both German and Hungarian.

  A worn-out-looking man with a receding chin and bloodshot eyes sat behind the desk, papers like dead leaves scattered over the cheap-looking cardboard desk blotter. And a little blond woman perched on the corner of the desk, dimpled arms crossed, pretty legs dangling.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “Bathory sent me,” I replied.

  The troll slammed the office door behind us, and Raziel and I drew closer to the desk, and to the unlikely couple behind it.

  “Bathory? Who’s that?” snapped the little blonde.

  “Shh, Kati,” the man behind the desk murmured. “Don’t trouble your little head about this business. Go, make me some coffee. There’s my flower.”

  The blonde leaned over and kissed the man’s receding hairline. She straightened and hopped off the desk, flashed the man a dazzling smile.

  And it was only then that I realized this gangster’s floozy, this nasty Aryan creature, was in fact my beloved friend Eva, as dear to me as a sister.

  So thoroughly did she own her role as the lover of Szalasi that I hardly even recognized my dearest friend in the flesh. That was how powerful my nonmagical friend’s acting abilities ran, how deep her cover. She had forgotten herself altogether.

  She tottered away in her stiletto heels and I gulped for air. “You are Martin Szalasi of the Arrow Cross, yes?”

  He looked surprised that I knew him by name. “Why, yes.”

  “And of the Arrow Cross werewolf pack as well, yes?”

  It was Martin’s turn to gulp at that—very few mortal Budapest denizens knew the werewolves had such human loyalties.

  “I come in Lord Bathory’s name, to seek his servant Imre.” I used the vampire honorific for the Chief Vampire of Budapest, to imply I was also a servant of Bathory. The less I said about my own identity, the better.

  Martin’s lips pursed into a little asshole. “We have some questions for Master Bathory. And we assume this servant will give us the answers. He has been less than forthcoming so far, but we have our methods.”

  I took a deep breath. Time to get to the point of our meeting. “What questions do you ask of Lord Bathory? Perhaps I can be of service to you, sir.”

  “We have reason to doubt Bathory’s loyalty to the glorious Reich.” And for the first time, Szalasi smiled.

  “What are your doubts, sir?”

  Szalasi’s smile widened. “Are you an enemy of the Reich?”

  He bared his teeth, forgetting for the moment that he was a man, not a wolf. But at that moment, “Kati” returned with a tray of coffee in a small metal carafe, and coffee cups.

  She put the tray on the desk, on top of the sliding pile of papers, and took a folded white linen napkin off the tray. She patted Martin’s sweaty forehead most lovingly, poured his coffee while leaning forward, her chest almost in his face. By the time she had straightened up again, Martin had forgotten everything but the scent and shape of her curvaceous little body.

  She wiggled her shoulders and a vacant smile played over Martin’s lips. “Give them the vampire back, sweetie,” she murmured. “They already gave you the proper respect. You got Bathory in your pocket like you wanted. Now, get them to back you up, give you power in Budapest in exchange. Or…” She growled low in her throat and smiled at him.

  He growled back, sounding much more like an actual wolf than Eva. Without looking away from Eva’s chest, Martin snapped his fingers at the troll. “The servant’s more trouble than he’s worth, anyway.”

  The troll glared at me, as if I were the one insulting him instead of Szalasi. “You heard what I said!” Szalasi shrieked.

  The troll growled and snorted, but evidently he had his orders not to interfere too deeply in Budapest affairs. Grumbling under his breath, the Bavarian hob shuffled out of the room, clearly disgusted with the Hungarian mob of us.

  “I trust you haven’t damaged him, sir,” I said, my voice smooth, neutral.

  “Well, the idiot put up a terrible fight. We had to knock a bit of the stuffing out of him. But I am sure your master will understand.”

  Before I could reply, Imre himself appeared in the doorway, his face and hands hideously burned by the sun.

  But I could also see they had beaten him, badly. Two black eyes, and his oft-broken nose was broken yet again. A vampire’s body heals fast; they must have worked him over more than once.

  “Now you’re quiet, tough guy,” “Kati” taunted him, but Imre refused to be drawn out.

  Her cruel words crawled on my skin like lice—how could Eva sound so very convincing? It was masterful, it was necessary, but it was an awful thing to see.

  “We’ll give him back,” Martin snarled, his nose running now. “And Bathory will publicly acknowledge his debt to us, yes? The last Chief Vampire had no problems with our secret pact between the magicals of Budapest. We want to make sure that Bathory, also, respects the wolves. And we don’t want filthy, foreign influences like you in the way.”

  “Certainly you can tell I am Hungarian,” I said, using my most formal, correct speech.

  “You are a Jew!” Martin spat. “You stain the glorious motherland with your existence.”

  I shrugged, refusing to confirm or deny what Martin saw as an accusation. “I am Hungarian,” I rep
eated, with a bit more steel in my voice than before. “And I wanted my master to bless my fiancé before we leave Hungary forever.”

  Eva’s eyebrows shot up at that news; for a fleeting moment I could see behind her Fascist façade to the true Eva, hidden way inside, almost lost, even to herself.

  “You are leaving Hungary?” Martin’s nose crinkled, as if he could smell out the truth if he only tried hard enough. “Will Bathory honor your parley with us?”

  “Yes.” I could not bear to say “forever” again; it seemed too much like a prophecy and not a self-serving bit of embellishment to my story.

  “So you came back just to get the old vamp’s blessing?” Eva drawled. “Are you two going to get married?” She glared at Martin and he glanced away and shrugged his shoulders. It occurred to me that “Kati” wanted very much to be married to Szalasi, herself.

  My eyes narrowed. My own marriage had to stay a secret from these murderous thugs. Who knew what they would do to Raziel if they understood how closely he was bound to me? “We’re going abroad. Far away, not within the Reich at all.”

  “Well, if there’s going to be a wedding, where is the party?” She batted her eyelashes, and her jaw set mulishly. “I mean, who gets married without a big old party? And why wasn’t the pack invited? It’s an insult!”

  I didn’t have to pretend at my panic. “Oh dear, Bathory hadn’t invited you? No wonder you feel slighted.”

  I glanced at Raziel, who shrugged—whatever I had to do, he was behind me.

  I thought fast. “The party is imminent, in fact.” I thought fast. “At … the Café Istanbul.”

  Everyone in the room but me and Raziel gasped out loud. I had just offered up the central vampire social spot for a party including the werewolves, the eternal enemies of the fanged ones no matter what temporary alliances they made.

  “The Reich has brought us together, don’t you see?” My voice was bone-dry with the Budapest sarcasm. “Now, you give us Imre, and there will be peace between Bathory and the wolves. And you, Martin, will get all of the credit.”

  Imre snuffled through his broken nose—the old duffer hadn’t missed a thing.

  “Ooh, Bathory will be furious,” Imre said. We all looked at him and he coughed. “He will be furious that the invitations somehow went astray, I mean.”

  “Well, consider this personal visit an effort to make amends, Mr. Szalasi. In every way. Would you please come?”

  Martin cast a glance at Eva, who smiled and fluffed her hair, looking suddenly like a little toy poodle presented with a new chew toy. “Let’s celebrate, Martin,” she said. “Maybe it’ll give you some ideas.”

  “Maybe,” Martin said, his voice neutral.

  The German troll snarled at me—I don’t think my story fooled him for a single second.

  “Sorry, trolls from Bavaria are not invited,” I said.

  * * *

  When dusk fell and the Chief Vampire arose from his coffin, Bathory was not amused by my ruse. “The Istanbul is not your private playground, Miss Lazarus,” he said.

  I blushed to the roots of my hair—you could fry an egg on my forehead, it flushed so hot. “Don’t be mad at me, dear count. And you forget, I’m a married lady now.”

  His eyes narrowed and he looked me over shrewdly. “Oh, so that’s the way it’s going to be. You want your old vampire uncle, your dear count, to throw you a wedding party to get your ass out of hot water, but you won’t even tell me your married name? Why, what will I engrave upon the invitations?”

  He sat up in his coffin and brushed the dirt from his sleeves. Imre drew forward to ease him from his place of repose, and Bathory tut-tutted when he saw his factotum’s mangled face.

  “Ah, my dear old bruiser, you were no beauty before, but now the dogs have dug new scars into your face, yes?”

  Imre shrugged. His breathing was loud, clogged by his broken nose. “Magda saved me, boss. She cut a deal with the wolves, made you look good. And that’s just the simple truth.”

  Bathory studied Raziel and me from under his furrowed eyebrows.

  “Thank you for saving Imre,” he said, his voice affable, his face even paler than usual.

  “Imre is a special favorite of mine,” I murmured, politely glancing away from the coffin and the dirt sprinkled inside. “He watched out for me when you were gone to Berlin and we thought you were lost. The least I could do was defend him now, when his very existence was at stake.”

  I heard the creak of the oak coffin as Bathory eased out of his bed. When I returned my gaze to him, Bathory was staring at me, a curious expression on his face.

  “You hardly sound human,” Bathory said. And though I knew he meant it as a compliment, I got a little sick at the thought of it, for I knew he was right.

  All this dying and returning, the wielding of spells and crushing of enemies, was leaching the humanity out of me. My mother had warned me; as usual, I hadn’t listened.

  I mostly didn’t mind: it was the price I gladly paid for power. It was still disconcerting to realize it was so obvious to those who loved me. For despite his cold, still vampire’s heart and his unending thirst for human blood, Bathory loved me in his vampiric way.

  “It is good you have sold your soul away,” Bathory continued, to make sure he drove home the obvious. “The places you will have to go now would fell a more congenial human spirit.”

  I sighed and thought as always of my sister Gisele and suspected Bathory thought of her, too. And why not? She was his lamb, and he had tasted her blood in the not too distant past. He had imbibed enough of her to be bonded with her, though he had refrained from turning her vampire, for which I was forever grateful.

  “Boss, she got me out alive, and tricked the wolves, too,” Imre said, pressing into the silence, misunderstanding it.

  Bless him. Honest as the day was long, that Imre. Never enough of a courtier to lie in order to feather his own nest. He was grateful enough to me that he gave me all of the credit. But Imre never even considered his own position in the matter, how it looked to Bathory that the werewolves had been able to overpower him in the first place.

  “Imre saved Raziel and me last night,” I hurried to add. “He fought so hard we had time to save ourselves. And it was my poor Imre who paid the price.”

  He smiled at me for that—one of his fangs had been snapped off, and the effect of his smile was rather more fearsome than before. But Imre was beautiful to me.

  Bathory muttered under his breath, clearly exasperated by his subordinates conspiring to protect each other from his wrath. “I loathe parties,” he said.

  I knew now that I had won. “So just have a little reception,” I replied. “Don’t announce the purpose. Outsiders will think it is a peace offering … nobody will have to be told it is a wedding party at all. Hell, have another floor show for all I care, as long as the werewolves are allowed to come.”

  Bathory brushed the last vestiges of the grave off his suit jacket, and he smiled, not with the terrifying display of his ancient fangs but with a tiny mysterious grin, the smile of the Mona Lisa by night, in a coffin.

  “Ah, well, that is a different matter. And it solves another problem for me. We will have a fitting celebration for you. But don’t get angry at me, not after all that I have done for you.”

  Something in the way he spoke made me uneasy, but I couldn’t say a word—obviously he had just made a big show of granting my crazy request. All that I could do then was thank him.

  “Have you heard from Gisele?” he asked, interrupting my own train of thought. “Any witchly sendings from London?”

  “No,” I replied with a sigh. “I don’t want to draw attention to the fact she’s tucked away in England. It’s not an especially magical populous country these days, not compared to here in the East. Better to hide her away in plain sight and let Churchill look after her. Albion’s wards should hold.”

  Even as I dutifully recited my intentions, I could hardly bear our separation, and only the tho
ught of her safe away from me kept me from bolting to London to say good-bye before I turned east to hunt the Gem of Raziel.

  She and I had our own witchly bonds, those of Lazarii, and though we were untrained in the finer points of astral travel and in sendings, I was determined to figure out these arts for myself. For by then I had learned that boldness is its own magic and nobody will give you permission to throw a spell except yourself.

  Raziel broke our gloomy silence. “Sir, you know what we must do next. Seek the Heaven Sapphire, my gem of knowledge. It was lost to time, but Magda and I have our suspicions as to its hiding place. The soiree will provide cover for our escape, you see—all of our enemies will be at the Istanbul, enjoying your beneficence, and we shall slip away in the night.”

  Bathory smiled, a terrifying sight to the unprepared mortal. His long, ivory-colored teeth gleamed in the garish artificial light of his sleeping chambers.

  “If anyone can retrieve the Heaven Sapphire, it is the intrepid pair, Magdalena and Raziel.” And Bathory bowed his head to Raziel, a singular honor when so bestowed by the Chief Vampire of Budapest.

  I fumbled for the proper words of thanks, suddenly all out of fierceness and grandiosity. “My dear count,” I said, “I believe the gem is in the Caucasus. Our friends, the carpet merchants from Azerbaijan, know more than they told us when Ziyad came here to ask for your help. It is time I paid them a visit in their lands.”

  Bathory tucked away his ancient fangs, wandered aimlessly to the open window, curtains now wafting in the evening breeze. “But Ziyad fears to return to his native land,” Bathory said. “He conducts his business from Istanbul. You must visit him immediately and gain passage into the Socialist Republic.”

  He raised a sardonic eyebrow and plucked at the sheer white curtains with his long, bony fingers. “It will be just like home for you, my dear girl. The Café Istanbul is only the city of Istanbul in miniature after all.” And he chuckled to himself at his little joke as he nibbled at his lips with the very tips of his terrifying teeth.