Blood Spirits (67 page)

“Yes, that is what they call it: a treaty, a pact, a covenant. There were two things he wanted.” Ruli's voice was whispery, slightly eerie in a way I can't articulate. Maybe it was the way she consciously took breaths before speaking. “I heard all about it when I woke up on that mountainside, tied up with curtain sashes.” She held up her hand, two fingers separate from the others. “He wanted to be a king, and he wanted to live forever. The vampires would make him one of them. He could make a portal with a human sacrifice on the day of the solstice. If he let them come over the border from the Nasdrafus, he could do what he wanted with the living—call himself king or emperor—as long as he didn't interfere with the hunt. That meant interfering with the Treaty.”

“He made this pact with my sister?” Gran asked.

“No. With another
inimasang
named Elena. But all are subordinate to Augustus. When I was dying, Rose begged him to turn me rather than let the others drain me to death.”

“So you were never in the Daimler.”

“No. The last thing I remember was Alec and me toasting our agreement. Magda had brought in the drinks. I woke up with
him
patting my cheeks, and telling me that I must be awake for my sacrifice.” Ruli's voice went whispery with venom. “I can't tell you how much I hated him for that, and for what he did to Marzio. Because he bragged about that, too.”

“So the vampires were supposed to make Jerzy a king by killing the government leaders?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And he, in turn, was making a new portal to the Nasdrafus with a human sacrifice?”

“No. Yes. It is difficult to explain because I am still learning. Blood sacrifice can make a portal for the
inimasang
. Others will not use such, for there are certain bindings for anyone who crosses over a portal made that way. But Elena was willing to accept those to regain her followers, who had been closed beyond when our grandfather crashed his plane, so the Russians would not find the portal. Tell me, is that new portal closed?”

“Tony and I closed it,” I said, sorrow crowding my chest and throat at the memory of him recoiling from Jerzy's bullet, and falling across the table. I took a deep breath.

Ruli became a little more animated. “I was glad when Jerzy's scheme at the Council building failed. I was with you when you ran down the hillside to the council building. I kept you safe from the others.”

I remembered that—the vampire shape nearby, the squeals and hisses of vampire conversation distorted by my crystal protection.

Ruli gave another angry laugh, a soft, breathy huff. “I certainly had no covenant with Jerzy, and I hoped you would ruin his plan. Why couldn't he let Marzio and me be together?” She tightened her hand into a fist. “Marzio did love me. I don't care what anybody says. He did. And now he's dead.” And another laugh, this one high and eerie. “So is Jerzy.”

My neck prickled as I said cautiously, “Did he kill Magda Stos and Dr. Kandras, too?”

“Rose said he poisoned Magda. A fine thing to do to his lover! Though I always hated her. She snitched on me to my mother. But yes, she executed his orders—he told her that you were talking to Alec on the phone, hoping to come here and replace me in a scheme. They had to act first.”

Wow. So that explained one rumor, anyway.

“And the doctor?” I began moving slowly between Ruli's chair and where Gran sat, just in case.

“I saw Jerzy kill Dr. Kandras. They were at our house. It was very late, the day after Christmas. I was new-made. Mother and Uncle Robert and the rest were at a dinner. Rose was showing me how to use the shadows when we go in and out.”

Gran was quiet, her head slightly tilted, the moonlight highlighting the tension in her face as she listened.

I said to Ruli, “So the charms
don't
keep vampires out?”

“Not if it's your own house. Or if the door is opened to you. Like here!” She flung her hands wide. “Alec brought me here, so I had entrance, and Rose had entrance from her young days. I don't know how Augustus gained entrance. It was probably centuries ago. It is an old house, under its Georgian façade.”

“What happened to the doctor?”

“Poison in coffee. I was packing up some of my clothes—”

“Where do you live? I mean, as a vampire?”

“I can't tell you,” she said, and then paused, her eyes wide, the pupils huge in her pale face. “I
can't
tell you. A compulsion. How strange!” She flicked her hand dismissively, a gesture that reminded me of Tony. That hurt.

She went on, “I heard them in the parlor. Jerzy bragged about it as the poison took hold. He said that a man who takes bribes too easily turns to blackmail. He'd done it too many times himself. When Dr. Kandras's heart ceased beating, Jerzy put him on the tea cart and pushed him out to where the doctor had parked his car. Jerzy drove away. I'm sure the car, and Dr. Kandras, are at the bottom of a cliff somewhere. They were to think he slipped on ice. Just like Phaedra's parents.” Ruli's voice was low, almost dreamy. “He bragged about that, killing the twins' mother, for she had been a Seer, and then he said I wouldn't live long enough to hear about them
all
. How he laughed. Then the vampires came to get me.”

Gran began to whisper. But it wasn't a prayer.

Ruli took a step toward me. “Jerzy liked seeing people suffer. He laughed about what he did to Alec, too—he said that father and son were so alike, the same setup must destroy them both. He called that elegant. But Uncle Jerzy is dead now,” Ruli said with morose satisfaction, then turned to me. “And all I feel is strong. It's just like they say.”

“So you kill people by drinking their blood?”

Ruli backed away, gazing out the window. “No! You take enough.” When I swallowed down my revulsion, she turned quickly. “Rose said, before my first time, how is it so different from slaughtering animals to eat their flesh? Our victims shake themselves and go their way. If they are human, they wake up with a headache or think they are ill. Or drunk. But Jerzy was afraid, a little.” She sucked in her breath through her teeth. “His fear made it . . . sweet.”

“He shot Tony!”

Ruli's hand came up sharply. “Tony's heart is still beating.” She breathed out the words on a sigh. “But the blood is filling in his lung. I can hear it. Beka and Shimon are taking him away.” Ruli hugged herself tightly, twisting back and forth. “Rose said it's good to be forever young, and thin, and beautiful. I never wanted to have children anyway.” Her voice sank lower and lower, almost a whisper.

She seemed to flicker, and then she was next to me, a shadow wraith in the weak light. “Kim,” she breathed. Her breath smelled like blood, zinging the primal urge to flee. “Rose said I will come to love existence as
inimasang
, and that we are not monsters. But I enjoyed killing him.”

“I saw you in a vision,” I said. “You asked for my help. That's why I came. Was that you?”

Her eyes closed. “It was a little like a vision for me, too. It was when Elena first buried her teeth in my neck to give me the kiss of death, and I was so afraid as my life began to fade. I thought you were coming to be with Alec, and I wanted you to come, to help me get away. I was thinking of you, and then I saw you, and I thought, if I could just take your hand, you would save me . . . and then the next thing I knew, Rose was waking me up, and the world was sharp and clear though it was night. And I had to remember to breathe.”

Ruli gripped both my wrists. “Promise me, Kim. Promise me.” She gazed into my face, her pupils so black there was no sign of the honey brown iris that we shared. “At my funeral. I was there, hiding, and I saw you, and the priest talked about the peace that passeth all understanding. I never listened before. I want that, the peace that passeth all understanding.”

She was talking so fast I almost couldn't understand her. “Ruli, what is it you want me to do?”

“Rose said this was my first kill. I don't want to love to kill people. Then I'd be a monster. I won't be a monster like Jerzy. If that desire comes over me, I want to have the strength to walk into the sun. But not to be dragged, or stabbed with yew, so a tree grows through my flesh. Kim, promise, if I do turn into a monster, and they come after me, you will help me walk into the sun, and you will put me in a garden in Paris. Where I can see the sun again, every day, forever and ever. Promise!”

Gran whispered,
“So must pure lovers' souls descend. . . .”

“I promise, Ruli,” I said. “I promise.”

She released me. “I hope they save Tony.” She sounded fretful, an echo of her old self. Then she sighed, passed through the door, and was gone.

I turned to Gran, my mind so tangled with enormous subjects, as usual all I could grasp was the most trivial. “That was John Donne you quoted,” I said as I helped her up. “Later I want to know why, but right now I think we'd better get out of here.”

Her thin hand clung to mine. “I know what to do, but you must help me. No one will listen to an old woman.”

“An old woman who is a princess,” I reminded her. But she didn't need reminding.

She gave me a look midway between tenderness and severity. “A princess who once threw away all responsibility when she was needed most. I hope the people of Dobrenica will have enough charity in their hearts to see me as an old woman, and not as a traitor.” She made a gesture as though pushing that aside. “I know who can help, but we must be fast.”

“What do you need, Gran?”

“Sleighs. For a journey.”

I had a sudden memory of Nat. Here was a wounded dog situation! I didn't ask Gran why she needed the sleigh, or where she was going. It was enough to know that here, at last, there was something I could do.

As soon as I got Gran safely to the stairway, where there was light and the noise and warmth of humanity, I leaped down four steps at a time and raced into the dining room, where I found everyone swarming around. Tony and the von Mecklundburgs were gone. So was Beka.

“Search,” I said to myself. “Be organized. Start in a small circle. Spiral out. Ask everyone you meet where Alec is, because he can give orders, and you can't.”

So that's what I did. The first two people I talked to stared at me as if I'd just landed from Mars, so I pushed on. Madam Emilio hailed me gratefully, and started asking me something about dessert, but I ran on. A Vigilzhi (“I heard him in the garden not twenty minutes ago”) and Emilio's grandson (“He's in the street, and how many people did they shoot?”). Later, I found—“Dad?”

“Rapunzel!” My father emerged from the archway in the hedgerow dividing the garden from the garage area. Every light in the downstairs floor seemed to be on, flooding the area with bleachy electrical glow. Dad's grin contracted to concern. “Honey, are you okay?”

“Cold.” I jumped up and down, shivering. “I have to find Alec.”

“Nothing easier. I'll take you myself. They've set up a command post right here in the garage.” He paced beside me. “I've been sitting with the chauffeurs, trading war stories about driving, trying to top each other with our worst—you know they actually use Santa-style sleighs here? In all weather, even when it's snowing! I thought everything stopped when it snows. It sure would in L.A. Then the door blew open and all hell busted loose.”

“Horror stories about traffic,” I said, trying to laugh, because otherwise I was going to scream and cry and shout. “Who won?”

“L.A. rush hour, hands down. What happened, sweetie?”

“Dad, I can't talk right now—oh, Alec!” I cried thankfully, as we reached the garage, which was lit up, men crowded around a work table that had been forcibly cleared, from the looks of things.

Alec looked up, blue eyes distracted, then instantly alert. “Kim?” He slid off his jacket and dropped it around my shoulders.

His warmth, his scent, made me go weak at the knees. I clutched his jacket gratefully as I said, “Gran needs transport. Right now. Is there any way to get her some help?”

Alec turned his head, and lifted his voice to the volume I heard the day of the ball, when Jerzy tried to stir up a riot. Because I was sure by now that he'd been behind that, too. “Princess Aurelia Dsaret requests transport,” Alec said. “Any volunteers?”

The shocked words seemed to come from every direction, then a roar of voices as everyone, from the teenagers to grizzled Vigilzhi vets, crowded forward asking questions. I crunched my toes tight in my shoes, afraid for Gran.

But most of those who thrust forward seemed surprised, even eager.

Alec waved toward the house. “All of you go—give her an honor guard.” He waited for the stampede to die down and said, “There's something more.”

“Oh yes.” I looked around. Kilber, loaded shotgun in hand, stood on guard over Milo, who was in head-bent discussion with Baron Ridotski and a couple of the other oldsters. “I think I better go with Gran, but they'll have to get the sleighs ready, right? Can we talk alone?” I whispered.

Alec laid down the child's chalk board on which he had been scribbling. “We can go up here.”

Dad gave us the Mick Jagger point-and-shoot. “How about I scout out some comestibles? Drinkables? From the look of you, it's been a while, eh, Rapunzel?”