Coronets and Steel (50 page)

I was still struggling to figure out why I couldn’t move, what had happened. I glared at my hair lying in waves across the front of my black shirt. When did my hair get loose? Wasn’t I supposed to be Ruli? Beyond my shirt, my legs stretched out, feeling about ninety feet long . . . And they were tied together at the ankles with something silky.

Alarm pushed back more of the fog. I was propped up on a couch against a wall of embroidered pillows. One shoulder was tightly wrapped by cloth, though it throbbed with glowing insistence. But I couldn’t touch my shoulder because . . . because my hands were squashed into the pillows behind me, uncomfortably squashed there.

I couldn’t move them—somebody had tied my wrists together, and then put me on this Directoire recliner.

And that throbbing in my shoulder, oh yeah, that guy with the pistol, and then the flash—

I’m tied up, and someone
shot
me!

As Bertie Wooster says, I was definitely knee-deep in the mulligatawny.

Tony sat on a piano stool next to me, forearms propped on his knees, hands clasped loosely as he studied my face. His attitude was one of waiting. For comprehension?

I licked my dry lips. “I saw the wall. Not bad, eh?”

Relief relaxed his features slightly. “Here, have another.”

“Zhoumnyar?”
My voice was hoarse, but otherwise sounded okay.

“Yes. Fire grade.” He smiled.

I tried to nod, and wriggled as a stray lock of my hair pulled under my elbow. I grimaced, but once again after swallowing more of the liquor some of the sickening coldness receded.

“Better?”

“So to speak. I have to be dreaming. I mean, vampires? Ruli had
Buffy
up there—oh, I get it, you’re scamming me. Right. Got it.”

“No. They’re real enough.” Tony brushed an errant lock of hair off my clammy brow. “Ruli likes
Buffy
because it’s funny. And the vampires are so easy to kill. Quite cheering.”

“So tell me about your vampires. Are they sexy?”

Tony gave me a look of disgust. “Some say my tastes are too undiscriminating, but I stop at carrion-reeking, fungus-cold walking corpses.”

I began to laugh but it hurt too much. “They really stink?” I whispered.

“Yes. Unless you permit them to glamour you into liking the reek of old blood. We’ve a tenuous truce at the moment, the vampires and my folk, but no one sane seeks them out. They scare the shit out of me, if you want the truth. I bound up your shoulder as best I could. It should hold until we can get someone up here to tend it.”

“Okay,” I said, and shifted again, trying to find a comfortable position. But there was no comfortable position. “Why the ropes? I’ve never been into bondage, and I don’t think I’m up to climbing walls.”

Before Tony could answer, that raspy voice interrupted from somewhere behind me, with a flat American accent, “It’s on my orders. Because if we have any more trouble with you I’m going to blow your head off.”

Tony glanced up; from the direction of his reflective gaze I could tell that Reithermann was standing some ten or fifteen feet beyond where I lay. I also saw (for the briefest of instants but it was definitely there) that Tony was angry.

Clarity was slow in coming, but it was coming. “Something happened,” I said.

Tony set the cup somewhere beyond my shoulder. “Alec seems to have objected to Maman’s attempt to alter the disposition of affairs.” He twiddled his fingers. “He and his brass-buttoned yobs stormed the gate at the same time you were making your tour of the family home.”

“Alec? Here?” I repeated.

“Well, not here. But outside, somewhere. A classic stalemate. They hold the grounds and the sky suite, and we this part of the house. Middle level’s no-man’s-land. Alec seems to dislike the idea of a fight to the death deciding the contest, so we’ve sent someone to confer. Comfortable? Can I get you anything?”

“I’m cold.” I went back to his earlier statement.
“Alec seems to have objected to my mother’s attempt to alter the disposition of affairs.”
What did he mean by that? I winced as my temples pounded. “So I’m part of the terms, is that it? Like, let you guys go or else?”

“That’s it,” Tony agreed.

Bertie Wooster whispered,
Neck-deep in the mulligatawny, and the flames are crackling around the pot.

My voice was hoarse, but I successfully kept it indifferent. “Well then, how about another toast to my good luck?”

Tony smiled with instant appreciation. “More
zhoumnyar
?”

“You bet.”

But this time I felt less of the restorative warmth, and my stomach protested faintly. I leaned my head back and shut my eyes, concentrating on breathing slowly and deeply. I noticed a trace of cigarette-stink in the air, and I remembered the cigarette hanging from Reithermann’s mouth when he had watched me at Anna’s wedding. I suspected if I said anything, he’d come over and blow it in my face.

Sounds were abnormally sharp; the shift of Tony’s clothing as he got up from the piano stool and strolled away. His footsteps were quiet, measured; then there was the impatient scraping and rap of heavy boot heels as Reithermann did something. They exchanged a few low-voiced remarks. Tony’s voice was mellow, humorous, the other’s hard and tight and angry.

Tony said something about Niklos being slow but trustworthy, then Reithermann uttered a lot of nastiness about Alec, then Tony said, “He’ll listen.”

Reithermann’s language was peppered every two or three words with the usual X-rated cursing. If I cut the worst of it out, he more or less snapped, “You’d better be right, but I don’t believe for a minute he’s pissant enough to give a shit about this half-breed American bitch, unless we can swap her for your sister. Dammit! He’s got to be up to something. I wish cell phones worked in this hellhole.”

Tony sighed, walked back in my direction, and a pleasant weight settled gently over my limbs. I opened my eyes. An embroidered and fringed cloth covered me. Golden threads glinted and shimmered. Tony said apologetically, “It’s the piano cover, but it should suffice.”

“Thanks,” I said, surprised it took such an effort to speak.

A cool lassitude was stealing over me; except for the increasing throb in my left shoulder, I felt as if I were floating in a swimming pool. My eyes closed again. There was silence for a while (or maybe only for a few seconds; my sense of time during this episode was completely distorted) and my thoughts went to Alec. Was he out there, or was that a lie?

I remembered Alec walking through the milling, talking, glittering crowd of dancers in the ballroom. I remembered promising to dance at midnight—

I remembered promising not to leave the city.

I opened my eyes. “You can’t do that,” I said.

Tony’s back was to me; he was standing near a window, but he turned quickly.

I said as firmly as I could, “I won’t be a party to it, making him choose between me and your sister.”

“But it’s out of your hands, cousin.” Tony’s smile was warm and kind, with emphasis on the word
cousin
. “You’re here. And as you put it so aptly a moment ago, you’re not going to be vaulting any walls—”

“I won’t be a part of it,” I said desperately, trying to sit up. A nasty feeling congealed in my guts. I couldn’t fight it back. “I won’t, I can’t put him in that position.”

“You should have thought of that when you crossed the border,” he replied gently.

Not
when you tried to escape,
or even
when you left the city to come up here with my mother.

The disorienting sensation that two conversations were bound up in the same words silenced me. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to keep track of one of them, but what I saw was myself and Alec standing in my room, and Alec putting the necklace on me: the wordless offer again.

I said fiercely, “I hope he turns you down.”

Tony had dropped back on the piano stool, and sat with his hands propped loosely on his knees. A boot scraped on wood behind me. Tony’s fingers gripped his knees, then relaxed, and he murmured, “So do I.”

Then he ran his fingertips across my forehead in a light caress.

Reithermann made a noise of disgust.

It bothered me I could not see that creep. It was like knowing a hungry carnivore is prowling and drooling behind you, but I ached too much to try turning my head to keep an eye on him. What could I do anyway? I’d tried my escape and lost, and that was while armed, without a bullet in my shoulder.

But I was not going to give up.

I closed my eyes again. The pounding in my head had steadied to a constant ache, and nausea flickered through me at my slightest move, which made me disinclined even to open my eyes again.

Sudden noise. Thuds, voices talking. I tried to gather energy to look, listen . . .

Reithermann’s voice stabbed the air: “Anton.”

Tony got up. Walked to the door. The voices melded. I was too tired to concentrate—

I must have fallen asleep, because I woke when a sharp pain under my chin pricked into my foggy mind, like lightning in a midnight thunderstorm.

My eyes flew open to see from the unwelcome perspective of pointee the steel tip of a hunting knife lifting my chin. Beyond that were the nastiest, coldest, angriest pair of eyes I’ve ever seen in any human being. Reithermann’s thin lips creased into an anticipatory and utterly humorless smile.

In my head, Bertie said sadly,
And now the mulligatawny comes to a boil.

T
HE KNIFE SLOWLY slid from under my chin.

Reithermann flicked it away, then casually tested its blade with one leather-gloved finger. He did this right at the level of my eyes, about two feet from me. He was sitting on Tony’s piano stool, his khaki tunic rumpled and half-unbuttoned. A day’s growth of beard did nothing for his hard-lined face. A cigarette hung from the corner of his tobacco-stained lips; I looked away, trying to suppress a shudder of revulsion.

His travesty of a smile widened. “So you’ve appeared to put in a claim for the family treasure.” He then added gloatingly, “And you staked it in Alexander Ysvorod’s bed. I find that resourceful. Enough to grant you a small share, should we decide to let you live—”

From behind came the scrape of a shoe and a word bitten off. I made a huge effort and turned my head. Three unfamiliar men stood on the other side of the room.

The guy in the center stood stiffly, his hands straight at his sides. He wore a Vigilzhi tunic, and his face was pale and set. Then I saw the heavy-gauge pistol pressed into his side by one of the other men. The third man flanked the Vigilzhi on the other side. A rifle dangled with seeming negligence from his fingers, the butt tucked under his armpit. Both the outside men wore the same khaki that Reithermann sported—khaki that could have done with an emergency appointment at the nearest laundry—and the rifle-clown grinned with enjoyment.

I looked back at Reithermann. So they were forcing one of Alec’s Vigilzhi to witness the poor, weak female being questioned, eh?

Rage zinged through me. Glorious rage, with more firepower than the most supercharged
zhoumnyar
could provide.

Reithermann gave me that grin, like he was waiting for an answer. Fine. I’d answer. But one thing about sickos, my dad had said once: they love being called sickos, especially if you sound scared. So I said with puppy-dog sadness, “You are one sorry sad sack.”

Reithermann’s smile vanished. He transferred his knife to his other hand with a gesture so slow it was almost a caress. He lifted his right hand, held it posed as he flexed it once, then,
crack!
Hit me across the face.

Stars exploded. My head rang like the roar from fifty warring dragons.

“Now it is time to tell us where it is,” he finished instructively, expelling a big stinking cloud of cigarette smoke right in my face.

“I don’t know where it is,” I replied, my voice sounding thick. My head reverberated like a gong. “And, what’s more, I don’t want to know where it is.”

“That’s what Anton said,” Reithermann commented with such fake disappointment it was obvious he was putting on a show. “He insisted he knows how to get intel from smart-ass girls. I don’t think so. I think it’ll be much faster my way.” He flicked another look at the audience, then raised the knife and grinned at me. “As well as fun.”

It’s a show, it’s a show,
I thought.
He wants me scared and broken. Because . . .

“A Freudian would have a field day with you.” I tried for bravado, though my voice shook.

He backhanded me harder, then closed his fingers into my hair and yanked so hard my eyes teared. As he jerked my head back and pressed the knife against my neck, he sent another assessing look at the three men.

He began describing in a low, venomous voice the things he enjoyed doing to people, to “smart-ass girls.” My head hurt too much to comprehend every word—not that I wanted to. I was creeped out enough by the gratification in his voice.