by Karen Chance
“Are you crazy?!” He ignored me, spinning us toward the tunnel through knee-deep flames. They licked at my legs, hot and bright and hungry, but for some reason, I didn’t feel the burn. Shock, I thought distantly as Louis-Cesare made a final jump that landed us both in the dark, barrel-lined hallway leading to Radu’s cellar.
He sat me down, leaning heavily against the wall for support, his disordered mane obscuring his face. I grabbed him, my hands batting at flames that I only slowly realized didn’t exist. He looked like ten kinds of death, but for some reason, he wasn’t burning. “What did you do?” I demanded, willing my knees not to collapse.
“I used a huge amount of power to shield us for a few seconds,” Louis-Cesare said shakily. “I trust we won’t need it again. It has left me… somewhat weak.”
“But alive.” I still couldn’t believe it.
Louis-Cesare slowly pulled himself into a half-standing position against the side of the winery. “What? Did you think one little mage was going to do me in?” He swallowed hard. “Hell, that was just a warm-up.”
I stared at him. A joke. Louis-Cesare had made a joke. The very thought left me dizzy.
And then the barrels started to explode. The ones closest to the inferno of the winery tore apart with the sound of a dozen cannons going off, raining wine and sharp bits of wood all around us. Louis-Cesare pushed me into the wall, shielding me with his body until I kneed him in the groin. “Wood!” I screamed into his outraged face, yanking out a sliver that had embedded itself in his shoulder, and waving it under his nose. Every time one of those barrels went off, it threw out the equivalent of a hundred or so flying stakes.
The cellar was suddenly a vamp’s worst nightmare, and I didn’t like it much better. If we didn’t get out soon, we were toast. Louis-Cesare must have figured it the same way, because he wrenched the top off the nearest barrel, picked me up around the waist and ran.
Hammer blows sounded against the makeshift shield as another row exploded behind us, the flames from one set of barrels igniting the next in line. Weird red shadows, like leaping fingers, grabbed for our heels as we all but flew toward the cellar door. I scanned the floor for Radu, but didn’t see him; it looked as if he really was hard to kill. Like the rest of the family, I thought as Louis-Cesare slammed the heavy oak door shut behind us, just as a volley of explosions rocked it from the other side.
We stood, panting and half-fainting against the scarred wood, knowing we should get farther from danger but too exhausted to move. Dizziness pushed through my body as I stared dully around, looking for the next challenge, the next threat. All I saw were two outraged turquoise eyes staring at me from the darkened stairs. “Dorina! What did you do to my wine?”
An odd rumbling started from my right. My head whipped around and I stopped, staring. The strangest event of a very strange day met my eyes. The last thing I saw before I keeled over was Louis-Cesare. He was leaning against the door, naked and bloody. And he was laughing.
Chapter Twenty-four
We were still arguing about wine two days later. Radu and I were on our way to Benny’s wake, held in his cramped office despite the crowd because the warehouse was still sporting several large holes. The remainder of Benny’s Occultus charms had been sacrificed to keep the large number of usual visitors arriving at the small storefront from raising too many eyebrows.
I watched a mail truck trundle down the street, looking fairly innocuous until it suddenly took a left turn and squeezed itself through the front entrance. I wondered idly what was big enough to need to use a truck as camouflage. It was better than listening to Radu whine about having to buy wine, “and an inferior vintage at that,” because his stores were sitting on zero.
Then I saw a familiar, arrogant stride coming down the street, cape swirling around booted feet. A few last rays of natural light were still peeking over the edge of Vegas’ neon horizon, so the hood was up, but it didn’t matter. I knew Mircea’s walk as well as my own. I had a swift, irrational flash of gut-wrenching panic.
“Don’t even think about it.” I didn’t realize I’d turned away until I felt Radu’s grip on my shoulder.
“I guess saving a man’s life isn’t the debt canceler it used to be.”
“Not when you also blow up his cellar and destroy his house.”
“I had some help with the house.”
Radu gave a snort and steered me into the office. There was a giant squashed in a corner, a long beard like smoke down his chest, who I assumed had been the truck. A couple dozen trolls, a few humans who were definitely shape-shifters, judging by the buzz they gave off, and a few lesser demons made up the mourners who had assembled so far. I mumbled a swift condolence to Olga, who was looking regal in black satin and a veil, and headed for the relative safety of the tiny kitchenette.
It was crowded with offerings of food that I didn’t examine too closely and barrels of beer stacked to the ceiling. Radu’s bottle looked insignificant by comparison, like something a troll might drink for a chaser. I was nonetheless searching for an opener when the bottle was taken smoothly out of my hands.
“You are going to miss the eulogy.” The smoky voice was rich with fondness. It was almost certainly fake, but it still tugged at my heart. Damn it. I silently passed him a glass.
The eulogy ended up being a series of stories, each more outrageous than the last, that followed one another in quick succession. They and the beer lasted well into the night, as we were joined by an endless stream of visitors. Children came with their parents, fell asleep on fathers’ shoulders, listened entranced with their heads in mothers’ laps. Benny was remembered, drunk to, admired. Every crafty deal was praised, every shady transaction celebrated with toast after toast. Tears glistened on cheeks even as people roared with laughter. I didn’t know if this was normal for Faerie, or if, being so far from home, people naturally drew together. Either way, Benny received quite a send-off.
Mircea had found us a perch in the middle of a family of trolls, and ended up holding a small child on his lap. He looked totally at home, as if he babysat trolls every day. The long, slim hands soothed the restless child with ease, until she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder. I glared down into my empty glass and got up to refill it.
“I guess we won’t be doing one of these for Drac,” I said a few minutes later, draining my third mug of beer. Radu’s wine was long gone and the Fey beer was the only alcoholic beverage around in unlimited quantities. It had a kick like bootleg moonshine, but despite my very serious wish to get drunk, it wasn’t obliging.
“This is for family,” Mircea chided.
“Drac was your brother,” I pointed out tersely.
Mircea handed the sleeping child to her mother, who simpered at him past a luxurious brown beard. He took my hand and pulled me outside, into the garden Olga cultivated in the tiny space between buildings. It had a porch swing in a corner, facing a slate patio with a few tubs of greenery. Enough light seeped through the slats in the office blinds to stripe the patio in orange and umber, while the full moon on the pavement turned everything else silver.
“He wasn’t a brother,” Mircea said. “He was a disease, from which the family suffered for centuries.”
“So that’s why you killed him?”
Mircea watched me, eyes liquid black in the dark. “I thought your Fey friend did that.”
I gave a laugh so hard it hurt my throat. “Don’t try it. Drac grew up fighting you; there’s no way he could have mistaken Caedmon’s style for yours.”
I should have read the signs sooner: Drac accepting Mircea without question, Mircea calling him “Vlad” when Caedmon had never heard that name, the fear of fire no Fey would have had. But it hadn’t been until I’d spoken to Caedmon that I figured it out. Ǽsubrand had jumped him halfway around the house, trying to finish what he’d started and remove his main obstacle to the throne. Caedmon joined the party only after the excitement was over, once he and Heidar had beaten the bastard into submission.
“Louis-Cesare asked me to take a look at your mysterious Fey,” Mircea said, not attempting to deny it. “He thought Caedmon might really be Ǽsubrand or Alarr, bringing their war into our world. And because of the work I do for the Senate, I have met both of them.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I did not kill Vlad, Dorina. The lovely Olga did that.”
“After you maneuvered him into position.” He raised a brow and I scowled. I wasn’t in the mood for games tonight. “I’ve never seen you fight that poorly,” I said flatly. “You wanted him to die, but you didn’t want to do it yourself. Why?”
“Because it was what he wanted.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He wanted to die by my hand. Wanted to force me to do what I blamed him for, and fracture the family yet again. I denied him that.”
“What family?” I asked, my voice bitter.
“We were a family, Dorina, however dysfunctional. We watched each other’s backs; we killed for each other; we saved each other’s lives again and again. And, yes, sometimes we hated each other. But we did not betray each other. We did not prey on each other. Only Vlad did that.”
“Radu attacked him first.”
“No.” The air between us suddenly felt tangible. “The family was broken long before that.”
I swallowed, the fear in my throat thick enough to taste. I’d asked to meet him—demanded it, really—but now I wasn’t certain it had been such a good idea. Maybe if I just let it go, refused to acknowledge those stupid dreams as anything important, I could ignore it all a while longer.
Cool fingers closed on my wrist. The odd lighting cast strange shadows on Mircea’s face, leaving him lean and elegant, but also austere and forbidding. I decided I wanted another drink. “Dorina… be very sure.”
“It’s my right to know,” I said automatically. Taking the opposite side from Mircea was so ingrained that it was out before I’d really decided anything. And then it was too late.
“I left her,” he began simply, without preamble. “I saw to it that she was financially secure, but I left. I couldn’t begin to comprehend what had happened to me; how could I ask her to do so? I didn’t want to see her turn away when she realized… what I had become.”
I didn’t even try to pretend that I wasn’t following him. “And when you came back?”
Lounging in the swing, Mircea looked completely at peace, though there was a tension to his body that spoke of leashed energy, as if staying so perfectly still was a matter of conscious will. “When I came back, I found her village burnt to the ground and its people dead, of ‘plague’ or so I was told. It was not implausible, such things had happened before. And yet…”
“You didn’t believe it.” Mircea lied. It was what he did, what he’d always done, one of his essential tactics for survival. And when unavoidable circumstance forced him to tell the truth, he told as little of it as possible. If anyone could spot a lie in another, it was him.
“No, I didn’t believe it.”
Suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. The pressure welled up in my throat until I thought I would choke on it. Whatever it was, I wanted it over—I wanted to know. “Just tell me!”
“After I left, your mother realized she was with child. She intended to keep you, but once your… condition… became known, she was subject to a great deal of pressure by superstitious villagers to give you away. It was an act she almost immediately regretted. But you weren’t in a fixed location, at a home where you could easily be retrieved. The Gypsies wandered where they would, often even across borders into other lands. She looked for you for years, spending most of the money I had left her in the search, but to no avail. Finally, in desperation, she went to Tirgoviste.”
“Why?” No Gypsies in their right minds ever went there. Drac had viewed them as leeches on the landscape.
“To beg Vlad to help her.” Mircea’s voice was raw.
I stared at him, not sure I’d heard correctly. “She went to Drac? For help?”
“I was his brother; you were his niece,” Mircea said quietly, his eyes bleak. “She had reason to think he would be receptive.”
I shook my head in shocked disbelief. She must have either known nothing about the man or been criminally naive to think she could show up with a story about his undead brother and a half-vampire bastard and expect anything except… my blood ran cold. “What happened?” I whispered, knowing what the answer had to be.
“He ordered her executed for telling slanderous lies.” Mircea’s voice was winter, but what I saw in his eyes was a hate so pure it burned. “He left her writhing on a stake for days. They said she died still calling out my name. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t come.” The hand that rested so casually on his knee clenched into a fist. I stared at it, air suddenly in short supply. “Dying was a laughably inadequate punishment for his sins.”
I closed my eyes, seeing that frozen corpse again, the stiffened limbs tossed about by the freezing wind, the glazed, staring eyes. Starbursts of bloody violet flared behind my eyelids. I half rose from the chair, to do what, I don’t know. She was dead; the monster who killed her was dead. There was nothing left to do, not even a grave to visit. Nothing. I felt a hand on my arm, pulling me back down, and I followed its direction blindly.
After a long moment, Mircea continued, voice as calm as if that moment of uncontrolled anger had never happened. “When I returned, Vlad realized that she had told the truth, after all, and that he had murdered my mistress. He was… concerned… that I would find out. In an attempt to keep his secret, he tracked down everyone who had known her, and put them to death.”
Painful clarity dug sharp fingers into my mind. “Everyone?”
“He hired some men to find the Gypsies who had adopted you and kill them after drugging their wine,” Mircea confirmed. “They were supposed to kill you, as well, but were too superstitious to touch a dhampir, even though you were as unconscious as everyone else. They left you where you lay, assuming you would die of exposure or starvation, with no one to care for you.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because you told me. Enough, at least, for me to discern the rest.”
“I don’t recall that conversation.”
Mircea ignored the implied question, and I was still in too much shock to call him on it. “Once your adopted family was dead, you determined to track down your real one. You arrived in time to pick through the burnt-out refuse of your mother’s village.”
“He killed her entire village on the chance she might have mentioned him to someone?”
“He knew what would happen if I found out the truth. He circulated a rumor that they had died of plague, and that he’d burnt the village as a precaution against it spreading. As I said, I did not believe him. Despite being a pathological liar, Vlad was remarkably poor at it.”
“Everyone else believed him.”
“Everyone else found it prudent not to question his word,” Mircea corrected. “But I began to investigate, and discovered there had been a child. But years had passed by then, and Vlad had killed most of the people who might have been able to tell me any details. I was left with the dilemma that had faced your mother. I had no idea where to look for you.”
“I’m surprised you bothered.” He must have known what I was. Must have realized that even if I wasn’t a raving lunatic consumed with bloodlust, I wouldn’t be happy to see him.
“Comoara mea—”
“Don’t call me that!” It was a growl, half-choked, but at least my eyes were dry.
Mircea drew me close. The warm leather of his blazer was buttery smooth against my face, and the thumb that stroked my cheekbone was gentle. “And why not? You are my greatest treasure, Dorina.” There was honey and gold in the soft tenor, and sincerity so real I half believed it. “You always were.”
Mircea could talk the sun out of rising, but he wasn’t going to distract me. “How did you find me?”
“I
didn’t. Before I could begin my search, you found me.”
“Poenari.” The dream had been true, then.
“Yes. You somehow infiltrated a castle universally considered impregnable, intent on killing the man you believed was responsible for Elena’s death.”
Something stirred, like an itch on the skin of my memory. “Elena.”
“For Helen. Her family named her after Helen of Troy.”
“I don’t remember her.” Not an expression, not a tone of voice. Nothing. My recall was usually razor sharp, but not about this. Fractured pieces were the best I could manage, and that hadn’t happened without help. “Did you take that memory, too?”
“Dorina—”
“Don’t lie to me! Not about this. You altered my memory.” It was the only answer that made sense.
“Because I didn’t want to lose both of you. You were determined to kill the murderer of your mother. You had found a knife with the family crest near the remains of her home. Vlad told me later that he must have dropped it when a desperate villager attacked him. He hadn’t noticed at the time, but it was enough.”
Poking at the half-glimpsed images was like raking cold fingers through my brain, but I pushed it. I didn’t want to be told; I wanted to remember. “I didn’t get all the facts straight…. Everyone just said it belonged to the voivode.” It was a title, that of the local strongman, not a name. I had assumed Drac was my sire—I’d learned from the Gypsies that my father was a son of the old voivode—and gone looking for some revenge. But I found Mircea instead.
“You were almost dead already. Why?”
“Vlad knew his story had not convinced me, knew that I was searching for the truth, and he was afraid he had missed something. He decided to strike at me before I could do the same to him. Only he didn’t dare attack me directly, in case he failed. He used assassins, and they found me somewhat more… resilient… than they’d expected.”