Authors: Michele Drier
Outside, the October day was fading fast, but there was still enough light that the hardwood trees flamed against the darkening sky. Coming from SoCal, the actual change in season was amazing to me. Not that there weren’t seasons in California, there were. Fall was fire season, when the Santa Ana winds came off the desert and dried the brush-covered hills to tinder and late winter, usually February, was the warm season with clear, balmy days. This was when the local Chambers of Commerce took their promo pictures, before the inland valleys heated up and sucked fog off the ocean. Then came smog season for a few months, before the Santa Anas came around again.
But fall here in the foothills of the Carpathians was an honest season. The air had a snap and tang to it, the nights cooling, the trees turning color and dropping their leaves. And the feral pigs of the Huszars beginning to run on their truffle hunts. I’d learned my lesson during the summer and didn’t walk into the woods or to the fishing steam after dark, when other hangers-on of the Huszars were out on their guarding and hunting forays.
With a demon though, I was safe enough to walk the edges of the Baron’s property and even as far as the trout stream while it was still light. Today, the mist had cleared and the air was so crisp that I could taste it with every breath. We—I’d have to ask Sandor the demon’s name, I hated just saying “hey, you”—followed the cleared path to the stream.
During the spring and summer, when the Baron had regulars from the media and film industries as guests at the castle, there was practically a traffic jam on this path. This part of the mountains, and a big part of Slovenia, were famous for their crystal-clear trout streams and lured anglers from around the world. The locals played it cagey. An angler had to have a local license, sold by the area, and it was only for catch-and-release, so a lot of big fish made it into digital albums but not onto dinner plates or wall plaques.
I wasn’t interested in the fishing. This was a small, cold stream that reminded me of the Merced River coming out of Yosemite. My family took a couple of vacations there when I was a kid, and now this took me back to a time of safety, with no worries.
Was I safe now?
Chapter Four
Dark was coming up fast when the unnamed demon and I came into the castle’s armory. Sandor was in there, cleaning and oiling guns and he looked up and nodded as the door closed behind us.
“There you are Maxie. Did you and Vladmir see anything of interest outside?’
Ah ha, Vladmir. Good to know his name, but all the demons were large and all dressed in black suits. As hard as they were to tell apart, I wasn’t sure most regulars bothered to find out their names. As for the others, well the staff saw them every day and the vampires had known them for centuries, so no wonder they didn’t bother to introduce themselves.
Vladmir let loose with a long string of words in a language I not only didn’t know but couldn’t even place. My jaw must have been hanging, because Sandor turned to me. “Vladmir is speaking Russian. I’m assigning him as part of your guard contingent because of your new coverage.”
What new coverage? What the hell did the demon-in-chief know about my job that I didn’t know? Once again, I was getting the run-around and it steamed me.
I opened my mouth to make a snarky comment, but Sandor powered on again in Russian then turned to me. “Vladmir says that he sensed some unease in the Neutrality. Nothing specific, but he also heard the feral pigs. Did you hear them?”
“No, but I can never hear anything over the stream noise. What do you mean about my new area?”
His communicator buzzed, a quick burst of Hungarian and he said, “That was Elise looking for you. She needs you to get ready for dinner.”
“Humph...” was as much as I could muster. It wouldn’t do to have an unamiable conversation with a demon, and for sure not in front of one of his staff, or whatever they were called.
Pulling myself up to my full 5 foot 8 inches, I snapped my head around and headed to my suite. Dressing for dinner now, unless Elise and I were just eating in my suite, didn’t just mean taking off jammies and putting on jeans.
The Kandeskys and their formal European ways were starting to rub off my sharp edges. First was the dress. They weren’t stodgy, but casual meant a pair of fine wool slacks and a cashmere sweater or a simple silk and wool dress. This was appropriate for wear around the house, a walk or a quick trip into the closest village. Beyond that, the sweater was accessorized, a matching jacket and heels were added, or a daytime suit was in order.
And for a “family” dinner, meaning whoever was currently living in or visiting the castle, dresses were in order—simple cocktail or plain dinner dresses. When guests were entertained, three or four times a month, it was true dinner dressing. Long dresses for the women, dinner suits for the men, who could sometimes get by with a good black suit, white shirt and tasteful tie.
It was fun for somebody who loved playing dress-up as a kid, but I also found out it was time-consuming. It meant at least two changes of clothes during a day and at least one redo of hair and makeup. How anyone managed this without a maid, I didn’t know. Elise kept track of my clothes, laid out what I needed and took care of all the little details like ordering soap and cosmetics. My suite was always immaculate, I never ran out of coffee or shampoo or toilet paper, like in the good old days. I didn’t even have to keep a shopping list.
The wardrobe I’d brought from L.A. wasn’t up to this, either in quantity or quality. Thank God Jazz had set me up with a couple of personal shoppers before my first trip to Hungary, so I had some basics and she’d overnight me things every so often.
This was another reason for my few days in Paris with François. Most of the Kandeskys—certainly the women—shopped in Paris a few times a year and watched the spring and fall shows. When I was moving to the castle, and leaving all that was familiar behind me, Jean-Louis laughed as I was deciding what to take and packing.
“You’re going to be staying at Stefan’s castle. There are servants. You have a suite of rooms assigned to you. You’re in Europe. You can have the plane, or the demons, take you to Rome, Milan, Paris. If you truly run out of something from here, you can have me or Carola or Mira pick it up on one of our trips. You can call Jazz and have her send it!” and then accused me of acting as though I was going into exile.
It sure hadn’t been exile; if anything I felt too accessible at times. Life wasn’t just changing clothes and shopping, I was getting work done but still wasn’t sure of the best direction for expansion. My title was International Planning Editor, a title the vampires had dreamed up when my presence in L.A. was getting too close to the Huszars for comfort.
I initially thought it was just an empty title and I’d continue as Managing Editor for SNAP, The Magazine, working remotely. Wrong.
The Kandeskys hadn’t cornered the market on the world’s celeb gossip by willy-nilly handing out titles and huge salaries for nothing. Several hours every day were spent in reading (translated of course, I still hadn’t learned any other languages and didn’t think I’d ever have the time) newspapers, magazines, faxes and emails from countries in the former Eastern Bloc.
SNAP was paying for sources to provide names, tips and gossip about anybody they deemed “interesting”. It was my job to try and sort this volume of information into some sensible package that would translate to magazine editions and I was still on the first task: identifying the correct movers and shakers in Poland, Ukraine and Russia, with a few from the Baltic states thrown in for good measure.
Language was going to be the biggest decider for new editions. I figured we’d add Polish and Russian, but our circulation wouldn’t support an edition in Lithuanian or Estonian. Those countries would receive the nightly TV show with sub-titles and voice-over translations.
This suddenly brought me smack up to Vladmir, again. Sandor said “for my new assignment.” Was I getting sent to Russia? Moscow? Oh Lord, I couldn’t manage that.
I practically stomped up the last set of stairs to my suite, building up a head of steam. Elise took one look at me. “I laid out your Dolce & Gabbana dress, but I think I’ll change it to a black Chanel suit.” She picked up a filmy armful of silk chiffon, headed for the dressing room and came back with a flared skirt, cropped jacket suit and a white, drapy silk shell. “I think just pearls and some gold bangles. “
She was too well-trained and well-mannered to ask me directly what was wrong, but she sure sensed something was. I knew she’d have a talk with some of the other servants later and among them they might be able to figure out my snit.
As I was putting the pearls in my ears, already dressed, hair done and make-up on, there was a tapping at the front door. I caught a glimpse of Elise’s face in the mirror and nodded to let him in.
Jean-Louis looked good, really good, tonight. I suspected he’d taken care to look good because he was going to sell me on something, again, that I wouldn’t want.
“You look business-like, tonight, love.” Aha! Something was afoot. He called me “Max”, or “My Dear” as a rule, “love” was reserved for special occasions and this wasn’t one of
those
special occasions.
“Thank you. I thought after we watch the live feed, we could talk about the best direction to head in the east. Did you have something planned?”
Hah, one of the things I’d learned early on was the use of a passive-aggressive offense, which usually worked well if I didn’t have all the information. Because of Sandor’s comment about my new assignment, I knew Jean-Louis and the Baron had something planned for me. My little comment meant that now he was going to have to come clean about some of the plans, although it would take more probing to get the whole scoop.
Chapter Five
Jean-Louis gave me a long, speculative look. “Stefan and I are planning to meet with some of the Huszars this evening, but I can carve out some time to talk to you.”
Damn the man. It would be a lot easier for me to stand my ground if he weren’t so...so...
He suddenly grinned, a smile so broad it crinkled the corners of his eyes and showed the tips of his fangs. “You were going to say ‘attractive’?”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that! I hate it when you can read my mind.”
His grin stayed. “I’ve told you, I, we, can’t read minds. But after several centuries of interacting with regulars, we have body language down pat. You’re just too transparent.”
“I may be transparent, but I’m pretty miffed. Once again, I find out from the help that you have plans for me...this time the demons! Why can’t you just talk to me first?”
Now his grin was fading, but he was beginning to glimmer, a sure sign he was planning to coerce me in other ways.
“Of course I was, I am, going to talk to you. I wanted to get a time when I could explain the whole plan, a time when we wouldn’t be interrupted. You have to admit that, even though you’re doing a great job of trying to adjust to our schedule, there’s not always a lot of time together.”
He was right, as usual. He and the other vampires had some flexibility even in daylight if they stayed indoors or traveled in their limos with heavily tinted windows. But they did most of their business and socializing at night, which meant that my sleep patterns were the ones that got adjusted. Also, the fact that I had to be awake during the day to do business when I traveled disrupted my schedule.
“Well, I’m awake now—I slept late this afternoon—so I have time tonight for a discussion.” I knew my tone was waspish but I couldn’t stop.
“We need to go down to dinner now, you know how Stefan is about punctuality.” Jean-Louis’ glimmer was deepening. “But I promise you, after the daily, we’ll spend time and I’ll fill you in.”
This was as good as I was going to get. I tried to get rid of my frown but couldn’t make it to a smile. “I’m looking forward to it,” I said as I sailed out the door, almost tripping over Vladmir on the way.
Jean-Louis was tuned into my mood. He didn’t even snicker, just caught up with me, took my arm and guided me to the stairs. “I should tell you, we have two of the young Huszars with us for dinner tonight.”
I stopped so fast that he stepped on my toe. “Ow, get off of me,” I hissed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He took a half step backwards, and off the toe of my Christian Loubautin pump.
“Just when would you have liked me to tell you? At 6 this morning when we invited them? I know how you love to be waked up. Or, I could have sent you a message with Vladmir, you’re so polite when staff members know something you don’t. Or maybe I could have written you a note, or sent you an email...you’d have loved the personal touch in that.”
Whoa, he may have stepped on my toe but I stomped all over his ego.
“Ok, ok, our schedules just aren’t meshing. Which Huszars are coming?”
“Alessandr and Markov.”
“I’ve met Alessandr, but who is Markov? That doesn’t seem like a Hungarian name.” I was speaking quietly. It wouldn’t do to have Vladmir hear our little spat. He may not speak English, but he could sure pick up on tone.
“Just like us, not all of the Huszars are Hungarian. Markov is an ethnic Ukrainian whose name was Russianized during the Soviet era. He lives outside of Kiev when he’s not here. Karoly and Alessandr are working with him.”
Since moving to the castle, I was learning more than I wanted to know about the relations between the Kandeskys and the Huszars. The last two great vampire families in Middle Europe, they’d been at odds with one another for centuries.
The patriarchs of the families, Stefan Kandesky and Felix Huszar, had both been turned in the 15th century, but by different earlier vampires who were living in the forests, feeding off villagers.
Over the succeeding centuries, the families took different paths. Stefan fell in love with the daughter of a minor noble, turned her and took her father’s title of Baron when the old man died, unaware that his daughter now had eternal life. They gathered others, expanded their range into neighboring countries, took acolytes and realized that making money was a better survival tool than murder. And, you didn’t get chased, you got honored.