Blood Spirits (34 page)

It seemed to take forever to get to Nat's, but I finally stamped down her narrow hall, which smelled like chicken paprika and olive oil.

She'd made fresh tea. It was still hot enough to scald my tongue. I gulped it down, then she said, “Let's beat feet. The wind is rising. It's only going to get nastier.”

Nat had borrowed an ancient V.W. “No cab,” she called over the roar of a very old engine. “We don't need the driver blabbing from here to Moscow. Everybody in town is talking about that freakin' trial.”

As the flying snow beat against the windshield in clumps, making the wipers struggle, Nat crouched over the wheel in exactly the same way I had on that horrible drive with Honoré, which seemed a thousand years ago. We bumped along slower than a snail.

There were two cars in the lot at the far side of the palace. Nat peered at them and grunted. “Both belong to the Vigilzhi. Good. Their windows face that way, so even if this storm miraculously lifts, we won't see them, and they won't see us. I counted on Alec sending his aides home ahead of the weather. Nobody will be in the government wing.”

I hid the pang of hurt at the mention of Alec's name. He had way more serious things to deal with than me. I wouldn't pester him and add to his burden.

So maybe it's time to give up and go home
.

Every instinct cried out against it, but emotional logic isn't real logic, I thought grimly, as Nat pulled in close to the building and cut the lights. Though it can hurt just as much.

There was one last thing to try, and I was here to try it. If nothing came of it, I'd find out when the next train was leaving.

Nat had brought a powerful flashlight, which splashed the blizzard with a silvery beam. We bent into the wind and began to wade. She knew her way. I kept my eye on her back. We reached a wall, the wind whistling mercilessly along it. It seemed a thousand years later when she finally unlocked a door.

We almost fell inside. The silence was peculiarly loud, after the moaning, hissing wind and snow. As Nat had predicted, nobody was there.

The air was almost as cold as outside. Nat lit our way with the flash. We moved through a couple of rooms fitted with somewhat battered nineteenth-century furnishings, then reached Alec's office. I felt his presence. I saw him in the fountain pen on the desk, the neat stacks of papers, the illuminated manuscripts on one wall, and a framed print of the Beatles'
Revolver
album cover opposite, as Nat played the flashlight around the room.

“There you go.” Nat opened her mittened hand toward the phone, which was an old-fashioned, thirties'-style desk phone with a rotary dial. “Want this to be private?”

“Why? I'd tell you everything afterward. May as well save the effort.”

“Good. This thing is at least tepid.” She dragged a visitor's chair over so she could lean against the ceramic stove and kept the flash steady on the desk for me.

The phone. What was Mom's London cell number? Her voice whispered in memory,
Your dad's birthday and the license to your junker.

“You are seriously hardcore, Mom,” I muttered as I pulled my gloves off long enough to dial.

The phone sounds were so unfamiliar I didn't know if it was ringing, or busy. Holding my breath, I waited. . . .

And my mother's voice came through. “Marie, here.”

“Mom?”

She whispered, “Darling! Hang on.”

Then came those fumbling, squishy noises that you get when someone is walking around, muffling the phone with a hand. Some garbled whispers, and then Mom's normal voice, “Okay, we're outside on the porch, where no one can hear us. It's freezing!”

“We?” I said.

“Your dad and I.”

“Are you back with Milo, then?”

“We never left. Milo and your grandmother decided . . . never mind that now. Listen, sweetie, Milo likes to eat early, and Emilio said we'll be sitting down soon.”

“Do you know what's going on? What happened to Ruli? And to Alec this morning?”

Sound was garbled as she and Dad whispered. Then Mom said, “Yeah.” And in the background, Dad's voice: “We got caught up the night you left, and we got another report this afternoon.”

“What do you think I should do? Mom, I want to help but I think I'm only in Alec's way. And as for poor Ruli—”

“Hey, dude,” Nat whispered.

I motioned for her to wait.

“Tell us your side of things. Here, your dad is standing next to me, and I'm pressing speaker. Go ahead.”

The phone made noises, and I could hear their breathing.

“Kim?” Nat whispered.

I glanced up as she pointed to the hallway, then killed the flashlight. “I think I heard something,” she whispered into the sudden darkness.

“Besides the storm, I mean.”

Darkness made it easier to talk, somehow. I gave my parents a fast rundown, telling them everything except the dire warning of possible madness for those with the Sight.

When I finished up with the Council meeting I said, “So what do you think I should do?”

There was whispering, then Dad took the phone. “Rapunzel, what does she want?”

“The duchess?”

“Yep.”

“No idea. And there's no way she's going to tell
me
the truth. Power? Revenge?”

Mom came on next. “Hon, it sounds like she—and Tony—have either wigged out or they're after something. What do they want?”

“Really, Mom. I have
no
idea. I've only seen the duchess once. She didn't even invite me to the private part of the funeral. Not that I was all that hot about going. But I would have. She's avoided me otherwise, and at the wreath party, the only thing she talked about besides why did I dare to show up was how much she wanted her chef Pedro back. Tony talks, but he only says what he wants you to hear.”

There was more muffled mumbling, then Dad said quickly, “Mom's filling your grandmother in, and—fewmets! Emilio just gave us the high sign. Hon, if you can figure out what they want, you should be able to make sense of what they're doing to get there. What's that?”

Squish, bobble, fumble
. Mom said, “Gran wants you to stay there. Help Alec.”

“I can sure try,” I said. “If he wants me. But I'm not really sure I haven't become just another hassle for him to deal with. Isn't Milo coming? If anyone can convince the von Mecklundburgs that Alec didn't crash that car on purpose, it's Milo.”

Mom said, “You can imagine what a bummer this is for him. But Milo can't show up for the same reason you want him to. He can't pull the king shtick over them, not if they want their laws to work. He's got to park it here and wait for justice to follow its course.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right, but you'd think . . . never mind. How's Gran?”

“She's fine. She says—”

The lights came on in the room, startling me. I closed my eyes against the glare and bent over the desk, concentrating as Dad said, “Emilio is waving, food's going to get cold. Look, do your best. If you need to come back, then do it. If there's something you can do there, then go for it. You've got good judgment. We'll do what we can at this end.”

My throat tightened, and I couldn't speak.

“Love ya,” Mom breathed.

The phone went dead.

I looked up, straight into Alec's eyes.

TWENTY-ONE

N
AT GAVE A HELPLESS SHRUG. “It's his office. Couldn't lock him out.”

I don't think Alec even heard her.

“My parents.” I pointed witlessly at the phone.

“Got that,” he said.

Nat's wide gaze shifted between the two of us in a way that would have been funny another time, another place, then she said loudly, “I gotta see a dog about a man.” She mouthed some words that looked like
Full Monty!
and the door clicked shut behind her.

As if released from a frozen spell, Alec moved to the desk, laid a stack of papers down, then crossed to the Louis XV cabinet in the corner. There he stilled, head bent.

I began to babble. “I'm so sorry about what happened. Nat and I were trying to think of ways to help, so I thought I'd call the folks.”

As I repeated disjointedly everything he'd obviously already heard, his hand stretched out toward the cabinet—then he pulled it back as if he'd burned his fingers.

Finally I said to the floor and the desk and the ceiling, “Alec, I see that it was a mistake to come to Dobrenica. I only wanted to help Ruli. She appeared to me, like I said, but I didn't tell you that she said,
Help me
. Twice, in French and English.” Afraid I'd try his patience, and he'd stop listening any second, I talked quicker. “And so I came, but after Nat told me what happened to Ruli, well, the truth is, the
real
truth, is I wanted to see you. One more time. Even from across a room. And yeah, I totally understand that you don't want to see me—”

He turned around so fast I took a step back. “Kim, the worst part of being a murderer is that I don't remember getting in that car.”

Bam! The world exploded.

No, it was just my brain. Then stuff started trickling back in, first thought being,
This isn't about you at all
. “You
didn't
get your memory back?”

“No.” He said bitterly, “Out of three blackouts, the only one I remember is the first.”

Blackouts?
“I don't believe . . .” My voice trembled. “It was an accident. Not murder.”

“If I'm out and drink heavily, I always get Kilber to drive. Always. Always?” Alec pressed his fingertips to his eyes, every line of his body taut with stress. “It's no use saying I can't believe I got behind the wheel stinking drunk, because I obviously did. The burnt wreck with her in it is proof. Because
she
would not have driven that car, drunk or sober. She hated driving in the snow.”

We were standing across the room from one another, him by the chiffonier, me leaning against the desk, my heartbeat slam-dancing.
You said you were going to deal with this peanut butter knife. So deal.
“You haven't recovered your memory.”

“No. That's just it.” He dropped his hands and then faced me squarely. “Here is the truth. I couldn't face you and admit that I blacked out from drinking that day. I've successfully avoided facing the fact that I've been drunk for three months. Before September, I prided myself on stopping when I willed and relying on Kilber or Emilio if I passed the limit.”

Remorse hit me, sickening in its intensity. Three months meant he'd been drinking hard since the wedding. He hadn't changed his mind about me. Put it another way, he'd been drinking hard ever since I took off without so much as a
See ya. And your wedding? Good luck with that
.

I knew it wasn't my fault that he'd been hurt. He knew why I'd gone. But there was no triumph in me to realize that yes, he did care, because what hurt him hurt me.

He went on, “When I was with Ruli, cocktail hour began at noon. It was the only thing we shared. It's been two, or three, or four, to get me through the day, and if I had no business to keep me occupied at night, then I'd get serious.” He shook his head.

He stopped, looking down. In the back of my mind, lines of the poem I'd studied so earnestly came to me, chanted in a childish voice:
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise/(That last infirmity of Noble mind
) . . .

I still did not understand how Milton's “Lycidas” had anything to do with Alec's life, but those words about the cost of fame? Oh yes, right here before me was the evidence of the cost of living your private life in public space.

“You blacked out?” I asked stupidly.

The low quick voice went on, dropping to a whisper of self-hatred. “It wasn't the first time. It happened twice before. The first one was a week after the wedding. That time I sat down to—” he paused, looked away, then said, “to get obliterated. I don't remember getting into bed, but I do remember trying to get there. Impressions before.”

He paused again, and I waited.

“I woke up sick. Had to sit through meetings with a head like death. Swore I would cut back. Thought I did, but I blacked out again around the first of December. Could have sworn I hadn't drunk much. That scared me. I made a conscious effort to limit myself. Thought I had.” He walked on a few steps, then back.

I was trying to catch up. “What exactly do you remember from the twentieth?”

“The last thing I recollect is offering Ruli a drink in
pax
, after we agreed she could skip the holiday here and take di Peretti to Paris. I remember pouring the zhoumnyar into coffee the way she likes it. We hit our glasses together. I remember that. The next clear memory is waking up on that hillside with a Vigilzhi tying a rope under my armpits.”

I was going to say,
So you drank a toast. That doesn't mean you got drunk
.

He'd been watching me, because he said, “Kim, I drank enough to black out. And then I got in the car and drove. I may as well have shot her.”

Wayward strands of hair fell onto his forehead. With a quick gesture he wiped them back, apparently oblivious to the cold. Or too distraught to notice.

He'd begun to prowl the perimeter of the office.

I stopped near the cabinet with the crystal decanter inside—the one he poured from when I first arrived.

He'd had to down a drink after seeing me for the first time since summer . . . days after poor Ruli's death.

I frowned at the decanter, a desperate hope blooming. “Isn't that lead crystal? Could it be the blackout was due to lead poisoning?”