Silver in the Blood (25 page)

Dacia would die first; on that matter she was perfectly resolved.

The coach halted at last, and it dipped and creaked as the coachman got down. He opened the door a crack and peered inside. Dacia drew her blankets around herself with as much dignity as she could, remembering Lou's example from earlier that day. It was late afternoon, and golden sunlight highlighted a handsome man with dark hair barely threaded with gray, a neat mustache, and a carefully blank expression.

“Let me out at once,” Dacia said.

“Very well,
doamna
,” the man said without a trace of irony. He helped her down with a courtly gesture, and then ushered her toward a tall building.

Dacia stiffened and put one hand to the neck of her shift. It was now or never.

“I think not,
doamna
,” Mattias Dracula said.

He raised his hand, and she saw the loaded pistol concealed in the folds of his overcoat. Dacia started to think herself into the body of the wolf anyway, but he jerked his chin and she realized: he wasn't pointing the pistol at her. He was pointing it at Radu, who stood slump-shouldered beside her.

Dacia looked around for help. There were dozens of people on the street—they were in the middle of the shopping district. She felt her cheeks start to burn with helplessness as much as embarrassment, and looked up as Mattias ushered them inside the oddly narrow building. The man at the desk smiled blandly as though he saw young ladies wearing only blankets enter his lobby every day, and Dacia wondered how much money Mihai had given him. Dacia used one of Aunt Kate's Looks, and the
man wilted as he showed them the elevator. It was so tiny that only Radu and Dacia could fit inside, but the stairs wrapped around it, and they watched Prince Mattias make his way up, trying to keep pace without appearing to hurry.

“Radu, you have to help me escape,” she whispered. “I order you to do so as your queen . . . and I beg you to, as your cousin.”

“I will,” Radu said. He was staring upward as the elevator rose, his face sickly in the barred light. “I don't care anymore if they—if they kill me.”

“Go to Lord Johnny,” Dacia instructed. “He's staying at the Hotel Bucharest. Tell him everything. About this, the plot against the king, whatever you know. We can't let Mihai win.”

“I know,” Radu said.

With a loud clank, they reached the seventh floor. Radu opened the doors, but Prince Mattias hadn't gotten to their floor yet. Radu closed them again, and tried to press the button for the first floor.

“I don't think so,” Prince Mattias said. He reached the top just in time to grab the door and wrench it open. “One more flight, Your Majesty.”

He gestured with the pistol and they marched up one last narrow stair. At the top was a plain wooden door. Prince Mattias produced the key and opened the door with a flourish. The hall was so narrow that Dacia had to pass uncomfortably close to him to enter the room.

“Not you,” Mattias said when Radu tried to follow.

Before she could protest, Prince Mattias slammed the door and locked it from the outside.

Dacia looked around the small room with its slanted
ceiling. It was what she imagined an artist's loft would be like, with a simple bed shoved under one slope, a table and chair under another. There was a tiny but quite modern bathroom, and a broad balcony. She dropped her blankets and ran out onto the balcony. She could see the rooftops of Bucharest all around her; this weirdly narrow building was one of the tallest in the district. She looked down, thinking to call out to the passersby, but she was so high that she felt dizzy and had to step away from the balcony wall. She looked to either side of the balcony, wondering if she could climb down, but the roof slanted too sharply. She wouldn't be able to escape as a wolf or as a young lady.

Gathering up her blankets, she went back into the little room and lay down on the bed. Really, what else did she have to do? She was a prisoner now.

 

FROM THE DESK OF MISS MARIA LOUISA NEULANDER

15 June 1897

Dear Papa,

I am writing again because Lord Johnny Harcastle and his associate Mr. Theo Arkady have just told us everything they know about the Dracula family and our own Florescu relations. This is a great deal to think about, as you can imagine. Did you know Mihai's history, and what his family has been planning? Is that why you objected to him courting Dacia? If so, why did you not speak up?

Dacia's shock has become a terrible depression over the entire matter, and I grow more concerned for her by the minute. Prince Mihai wants to marry her and use her to gain even more power. I must get her out of Romania at once.

I will purchase train tickets for us after I post this letter.

Love always,
LouLou

It was, thank heavens, very simple to buy tickets to Buda-Pesth. In fact, Lou wondered if she should use the helpful travel agent to book tickets through to Paris, and then New York, for all five of them. But in the end, she only bought tickets for herself and Dacia to get to Hungary. She would rely on her father to do the rest, and for the first time in her life she worried that he might let her down.

She was having rather mixed feelings about her father, now that she had more time to think. He had left her with Lady Ioana despite knowing that something terrible was to happen. And how many of the particulars did he know? Did he expect her to turn into a bat, as all the others had? Did that disgust him? But that meant he had to know what her mother was, and her father had always loved her mother deeply.

Had his life been threatened? And the twins? Since they had not inherited the Florescu power, as Aunt Kate claimed, Lou
knew that Lady Ioana would hardly scruple to get rid of them. She would as soon kill Radu as look at him, and he was of the Claw, after all.

And she'd killed the others. Those who were the Smoke. Infants.

She put it out of her mind so that she wouldn't start to cry right there on the street.

No wonder it had been so momentous when Lou's mother and Aunt Ileana had married outside the family, even if they had done it at the urging of Lady Ioana. How to explain your family to your spouse? She wondered, then, if her mother really had. Her parents had seemed very much in love until they had arrived in Romania . . . had her mother kept the secret all these years, only to spring it on her husband now that she was not entirely human?

Lou determined to give her father the benefit of the doubt until she heard his side of the story. It could not have been a comfortable thing, to find out that your wife and daughter were monsters. Every so often Lou saw the image of her mother transforming in her mind, and her breath would catch and her steps would falter. She wondered if it would have been easier if her mother had been the Claw. Lou was terrified of bats, and to see her mother's body shrink and twist, sprouting wings . . . She shuddered.

All the same, Lou didn't shy away from the word
monster
the way Dacia did. It was the simplest way to describe what they were. They could change their shape and become something
other
. Was that not an excellent definition of a monster? It wasn't
something that she'd always dreamed of being called, of course, but really, what was the point in fighting it now? Why not embrace it? It made her feel powerful, and beautiful, and special.

If only she could convince Dacia to feel the same way . . .

The carriage pulled up to the house on Rua Silvestre and Lou got out, busily thinking of ways to cheer up Dacia. Seeing Lord Johnny again wouldn't do the trick, it would only make her worse. But Will Carver was another story. Yes, Lou decided. She would invite Will Carver to dinner. He would see that they were well, they would tell him that Mihai was not a vampire and that they had cut off contact with the Draculas, and he would return to his usual sketching and flirting with Dacia. Flirting with him was sure to be a good tonic for her cousin. And they really ought to call on the Szekelys tomorrow, before they left. That might be even better.

She was halfway across the parquet floor of the front hall when she knew something was wrong. Lou froze, head cocked to one side, and listened.

Dacia had been asleep when she left, but the house was still too quiet. There were no footmen, other than the one who had escorted her to the travel agent's office. There were no maids bustling about, drawing the curtains against the setting sun, or offering to take her gloves and hat.

“Nadia!” Lou did her own best impression of Aunt Kate. It was not as good as Dacia's, but it worked well enough. “Nadia, where are you?” She called up the stairs, but with control so that her voice didn't shriek.

There was a rustle, and then the girl came from the direction of the kitchen.

“Yes, miss?”

Lou looked her over. Nadia had her hands clasped demurely in front of her starched white apron, and a smug smile on her face. She was hiding something.

“Out with it,” Lou said, once again evoking Aunt Kate at her frostiest.

Tossing her hair, Nadia stuck her lower lip out. “I don't know why you're taking that tone with me, miss.
I
haven't done anything.”

The older sister of two terrible little brothers, Lou knew better than to get into this game. “Well, if you haven't done anything, who has?”

Shrugging, Nadia said, “It's nothing to worry about. Mr. Radu arrived.”

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

“And where is Mr. Radu now?”

“I don't know,” Nadia said.

“Fine. Where is Dacia?”

“With Mr. Radu.”

“She wasn't dressed, and I haven't been gone that long!”

Nadia just shrugged again.

Lou left the infuriating girl behind and ran up the stairs, but she stopped halfway up when she heard Nadia's answer.

“I told you I don't know where they went, but Prince Mattias was driving.”

Lou froze.

“Prince Mattias . . . ?” Nadia taunted. “Prince Mattias
Dracula
? Prince Mihai's uncle.”

Lou flew back down the stairs and snatched her hat and gloves back from the maid. Calling out for the footmen, she ordered the carriage brought back around. While she was pulling her gloves back on, she turned on Nadia.

“You don't have any idea where they went?”

“No, miss.”

“You helped Dacia to dress, and didn't say or hear anything?” Lou had never wanted to shake someone so badly in her life.

“She didn't get dressed, miss.” This was the real thrill, at least to Nadia. Her glee over the scandal was plain on her face. “Went out in her underthings.”

“If anything has happened to Dacia, I'm going to leave you tied up in the forest for the wolves to find,” Lou said to her, and watched the other girl's face pale. “Are you certain that you don't know anything more useful?”

“No, miss,” came the chastened reply. “They only left half an hour ago, though.”

“They could be anywhere,” Lou moaned.

When the carriage pulled into the front of the house, she hurried toward it and pulled herself inside without any assistance. Then she sat there, numb. Where could Dacia be? How would she find her? She didn't even know what the carriage they had taken looked like. Did it belong to the Dracula family, or the Florescus?

When the coachman asked for the third time where she
wanted to go, she gave him the hotel address that Lord Johnny had given her. They would surely know how to find Mihai, she thought, blushing a little. She had done her best not to be embarrassed before, but for some reason, fully dressed in a crisp French walking gown, she could not stop thinking about how she had ordered Mr. Arkady to put his coat on her legs.

Concern for Dacia overruled Lou's feelings, and when she alighted at the hotel she was back on the warpath. She marched into the lobby, a footman trailing behind her, and told the clerk at the main desk that she needed to speak with Lord John Harcastle and Mr. Theodore Arkady right away.

“Theophilus,” the man said, staring at her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Mr. Arkady. Theophilus Arkady. Not Theodore.” He quailed a little at her expression. “I will just send them both a message. Whom shall I say is here to see them?

“The Smoke,” Lou said. “I will be in the restaurant.”

She sailed into the very fine restaurant, was immediately seated by the maître d', and ordered tea and cakes for three. Inwardly, she felt a clock ticking away, reminding her of how much time was passing. But she could hardly march into Lord Johnny's hotel room, and this wasn't something she wished to discuss in the middle of a hotel lobby.

To her gratification, the tea, the cakes, and the two gentlemen arrived in only a pair of minutes. The gentlemen appeared surprised by her presence; she supposed that because of her message they hadn't known whom to expect, but they hid it well until the waiter had left the table. Lou shook her napkin out, placed
it in her lap, poured them all tea, took a cake, and then looked seriously at Lord Johnny.