Blood Spirits (54 page)

A door slammed from behind and above us.

Everyone jumped, then did an about-face, toward the shadowy stairway to the Council Chamber. Gilles and the Punk Brothers came thundering down the stairs and leaped to the floor. Instead of camera equipment their hands held weapons—and their punk hair was gone, their clothes were normal, except for the blood splashes. A couple of them were limping.

“We were going to investigate the basement, but they came up the back stairwell from below. They just swarmed the Council chamber.” Gilles jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “We started a fire before we fell back. That should hold them a minute or two. I suggest we get out.” He pointed toward the doors.

Commander Trasyemova said curtly, “They'll have the building surrounded now.” He started for the stairway to the chamber, pumping the shotgun to chamber a round.

Tony beckoned to a couple of his people and they, too, advanced on the Council stairs, weapons up.

Gilles said in an authoritative voice quite different from the demented
artiste
I'd found so annoying, “Tony, those pistols are worthless. You have to do serious damage to slow them.”

Alec pulled down one of the swords from the pair mounted on the wall just behind his head. Danilov got the second sword and whooshed the blade through the air, immaculate blond head at a critical angle. “You've kept them sharp,” he said in approval to the commander, eliciting a quick grin.

The commander sent an ironic look Tony's way, and I realized how very close we'd come to bloody battle between Tony's guys and Danilov, Alec, Honoré, and Phaedra—each of whom during the talk had drifted unnoticed to position themselves directly next to a pair of crossed swords.

Hm. From the deeply sardonic expression on Tony's face as he watched Phaedra take down a saber and hand it to Honoré, maybe they hadn't been so unnoticed after all.

Phaedra gave Tony a sour, challenging glare and grabbed a rapier for herself.

“Time to scarper,” Tony said, indicating the tunnel Shimon had opened. He turned a narrow glance Alec's way. “We shall resume our conversation later. Escort duty first.” He motioned to his guys, who were closing in around the Council. “Politely,” he added with a mordant smile.

Gilles stepped up next to Tony and spoke urgently in an undertone as the Prime Minster led the line of old folks down into the tunnel. At the end of the line, the bishop, recognizable by his white cassock and black shoulder cape, offered the duchess his arm. Their air was deliberate and grave, as if they were being escorted and not herded.

Gilles then stopped Honoré, held a short, whispered exchange, and jerked his head to summon the Punk Posse. They went over to join Danilov and Phaedra.

I sensed Tony tracking me as I ran toward the second rapier of the set that Phaedra had chosen, my crystal winking and gleaming as it swung. I closed my hand around the sword hilt, lifted the blade—

And that's when the lights went out.

THIRTY-THREE

“M
OVE! MOVE! MOVE!” I heard someone urge the Council and the older attendees, who fumbled their way down the secret tunnel.

Left in the lobby were Niklos and a few of Tony's guys, the commander's few, the Danilovs, Alec, and me.

From the top of the stairs to the Council Chamber came the beating light of the fire that the Punk Posse had set, which the vampires had obviously gotten around. Fire could burn them, like us, but it took sunlight to poison them.

“Form a line,” Alec said to the disparate clumps of defenders. “Don't let any get between you. Now!” he shouted—and led the defensive line.

Ever listened to the soundtrack of a fight with the visuals off? The grunts, smacks, clatters, clangs, and expletives were punctuated by that same hissing and squeaking that I'd heard on my run down the hill. It jolted through me with a thousand volts of fear.

“Come on . . . you can do better than that . . .” Alec muttered to his attackers, every couple of words punctuated by clangs and grunts and weird screeling laughs or screams. Even the vampires' voices were distorted.

The others obviously saw something, but I couldn't see anything but kaleidoscopic splinters of color and Stygian anti-color.

“Kim! On your right,” Danilov sang out.

I swung my sword, and it thumped against something. I could not see what I'd hit, but I felt cloth brush my side as I leaped away, and I caught a faint, musty, sweet-sick smell that shocked my nerves. Okay, so maybe the Sight or my GhostVision prevented me from seeing the vampires as well as I could see the others. That meant we needed—

“Fire!” I shouted. “We need fire—no! We need
light!
”

I abandoned fencing finesse and swung the rapier in a vorpal
voom
. The tip caught on something, and ripped free. I kept swinging blindly, the hissing and chittering surrounding me falling back slightly.

From the direction of the file storage closet that held the secret tunnel came some thuds and clatters and a clank, then a triumphant voice, “This ought to sort that lot.”

I glanced that way as Dmitros Trasyemova stepped out of the closet and slung one of the lanterns into the lobby bowling-ball style. The glass smashed, sending a long runnel of blue fire down the lobby as the burning oil scattered.

The shadows—normal as well as vampiric—leaped back from the fire. I bent so that my crystal swung over the nearest tongues of flame. The swinging stone sent a scattering of twinkling lights shivering in arcs across the walls.

Phaedra held down her hand so that her enormous diamond ring caught the light. Rainbow patterns of light fluoresced up her arm, radiating out, like the sun on water, over the upper walls and ceiling. The spectrum of flickering light causing a wailing shriek and a susurrus of rustles and hisses from the vampires.

Everyone on our side sprang to join Phaedra and me, aiming diamonds and crystals so that they caught the light and sent out rainbow shards. From the way the vampires withdrew, making those weird noises, the colored light acted on them like poison beams.

Then silence fell. A charged, icy chill, the smell of rot and mustiness indicated the vampires were still there in the shadows.

Dmitros Trasyemova leaped over the line of flames and beckoned to Phaedra and me. “We've got our strategy now. Help guard the Council.” He tipped his head toward the tunnel.

“Tony's pinched the lot of them. I won't be part of that,” Phaedra stated.

The commander said urgently, “Look, Tony doesn't know any more than you do what you'll find at the far end of the tunnel. Also, you might see a chance to . . . diffuse the situation. I don't think Tony would attack you as readily as he would me.”

Phaedra's frown eased. “Right.” She turned to me. “Coming?”

I hesitated. I could hear the vampires prowling back and forth just out of the reach of the ruddy glow that limned Alec as he prowled back and forth, as if daring them to attack again.

When I looked his way, he glanced toward me. Our gazes met, and Alec leaped over the border created by Dmitros's oil fire and approached. His mouth curved in tenderness as he slid his free hand around my cheek, the cobalt ring glittering on his hand. It actually seemed to shoot sparks as he said, “Back Phaedra and Beka, would you? I don't think you see these things, right?” So he'd spared a glance for my wild swinging.

“True enough.”

“And we don't know what might happen at the other end.”

I said, “I'd rather fight by your side.”

He kissed me—I kissed him back—we broke apart, and I ducked into the closet in time to catch an ugly glance from Cerisette, who'd come back through the tunnel for some reason. “Alec, the Prime Minister . . .” she began.

Before she could say anything more, the vampires let out another shrieking cry and rushed in at the attack, flinging cushions and things gathered from the Council chamber in an effort to extinguish the flames.

“Shut the door, Kim!” Beka yelled, pushing Cerisette inside the tunnel again. Phaedra followed, her sword at the ready.

My heart hammered as I leaped inside the storage closet and pulled the lobby door shut. I hated leaving Alec out in that horrible lobby, but my presence wasn't going to add anything to the defense, not until I figure out how to see the vamps.

The pain as that door shut was like my heart had been ripped out by the roots and left behind with Alec. But that's how I felt as I ducked through the back door of the musty closet, and stepped down into the tunnel. It was low—I had to duck my head—and it smelled dank. Beka and Phaedra slammed the inner door, Beka with a glance of sympathy, and Phaedra with one brow cocked skeptically. Then we hustled down the tunnel to catch up with the others.

With a massive attempt at normalcy that probably wouldn't fool a newborn kitten, I asked Beka, “What's the story behind this place?”

“There are escape tunnels all over the city. My ancestors had them put in. Beginning in the later 1600s, after the terrible pogroms in the Ukraine.”

“Did people use them during the war?”

“Oh yes. Many people lived in the northside tunnels for the duration.”

“One of my great-uncles among 'em.” Phaedra whipped her rapier point back and forth in front of her, whish, slash. “He was an Orthodox priest.”

“Tunnels, I get. Vampires, I don't,” I admitted, looking behind me for the fiftieth time in two minutes. No, Alec was not there. “Why are those things all over the place all of a sudden?”

“No one knows,” Phaedra said, saluting me with her sword, as she swung the lantern with her other hand. “This is the first time in my life I've ever seen them anywhere but at the Eyrie.”

Beka winced. “Please don't do that.” She paused, taking a shaky breath. Sweat beaded on her forehead. “This is my first day out of bed, and I was dizzy before you began to jiggle that lantern.”

Phaedra started to say something, took a good look at Beka, and shrugged. She carried the lantern with a steadier hand as we descended the last of the stairs and set out at a swift walk in order to catch up with Cerisette, barely visible ahead, her head bowed so she wouldn't clock herself on the low, rough ceiling. Phaedra and I had to duck as well. Only Beka could walk upright, but just barely.

I don't know how long we walked. Time underground, without the sun as guide, alters perception. We went down and down, took a bend to the right, then up and up again. My neck began to ache.

We caught up as the slower old folks reached the end. Shimon led the way, pausing at the top to shoulder open a door that looked like it hadn't been budged for decades.

Tony stood at the head of the line just behind Shimon, sword gripped in one hand. He jerked his chin at Phaedra, who sidestepped around the Council and pushed past her relatives up the stairs, rapier at the ready. I followed in her wake, my palm sweaty as I gripped my sword.

The door opened into brightness—footfalls rustled—and an ancient monk appeared, slippers on his feet. He didn't seem to see the guys with the pistols, or maybe he didn't care.

He gave a cackle, then said in a loud, quavering voice, “That door hasn't opened in seventy years.”

The bishop stepped past Tony and Phaedra, and gently drew the old guy aside.

A few of the mustachioed tough guys streamed around the bishop and the monk to do a sweep inspection of the area beyond. When they returned, shaking their heads, Tony stepped out of the way, and the rest of us filed up the narrow stairs past Phaedra and me.

Tony reached to help Honoré, who hissed at each step. “
Nunquam est fidelis potente societas
. What was that?” Tony murmured.

“You don't remember your Latin?” Honoré responded, his voice breathy with effort as he shrugged off Tony's hand.

“You will recall I was chucked out of the two schools that tried to stuff Latin into my head.”

“That was Phaedrus.” Robert's deep voice rumbled with irony, from behind Honoré. “‘Alliance with the powerful is never safe.'”

“Here's another, from Seneca,” Honoré's heavy eyelids flickered. “
Ars prima regni est posse invidiam pati
.”

And Robert translated smugly, “The first art of kings is the power to suffer hatred.”

“Aimed at me?” Tony said mockingly. “Honoré, you wound me. When I went to all that trouble to get Gilles to dig up Inspector Clouseau and company.”

“Who?” Honoré asked.

“My inspectors disguised as punks,” Tony began.

“Bugger off, Anton,” Robert interrupted, glaring at Tony. “Make yourself useful, for once and find a chair for your mother.”

The single-file line had passed into a large, sunny room by then. A couple of sturdy older men from the Council helped the duchess, who seemed unsteady on her feet. Cerisette and her mother walked together, the pair so skinny they reminded me of storks as their heads turned sharply.

The old monk stood there next to the door, wearing a simple, ropetied white habit. As the last of the train passed, Phaedra and I bringing up the caboose, the ancient monk nodded several times, then asked in a rusty, loud voice, “Shall we sound the alarm, then?”

The bishop, a stout white-haired man about Milo's age, paused by the Prime Minister, addressing him in the low voice of a lifetime of familiarity. “Shimon. How many will know that pattern of bell rings as the alarm about vampires?”

“I believe the children are told in school when taught our history, but I cannot answer for how many retain the knowledge.”

The bishop turned to the old monk, who leaned toward him, repeating “Eh, eh?” He cupped one hand around a huge, hairy ear.