Midnight's Daughter

Page 17

I could tell from scent that Radu had entered the left of two doors at the end of the hall. Oddly enough, since he hates the ocean, Radu always smells like a day at the beach: salt and ozone. Today, that was overlaid with something else, an odd, musty air that I couldn’t place. Since my brain’s scent catalog is pretty extensive, that should have worried me more than it did. But the nerve-racking pace had made me impatient, which in turn caused me to be more reckless than usual, although things would probably have played out the same way in any case.
As soon as my charm read negative on any surprises, I opened the door and slipped inside. I flashed on that old story about the lady or the tiger, and had time to think that it figured I would pick the latter, before the thing was on me. I smelled the fetid breath of something that had been snacking on raw meat recently and hadn’t bothered to floss, felt claws on the front of my jacket and heard the familiar rushing sound in my ears that precedes a period of dhampir-induced madness.
When I came around, it was to find Radu swatting at me with a stick. “No, no, no!” he was chanting, and from the rough state of his voice, it sounded like he’d been screaming it for a while. Weirdly enough considering the noise level, no one else had joined us, unless you counted the various strange things cowering in the corners. It was difficult to see them because a prehistoric-looking panther the size of a small horse was sprawled across my chest, its body limp in death. Since my hands were still buried in its throat, I didn’t have to ask what had killed it.
Radu, I realized as my vision cleared the rest of the way, was attempting to beat the thing off me. But his aim wasn’t very good and as many thumps landed on me as on the recently departed. My ribs felt sore enough to let me know that this had been going on for some time.
I sat up, throwing the body away and catching the stick as it descended again. I tried not to notice that several of the creatures in the corners immediately began to make a meal off the remains of the kitty. “Cut it out. I have enough bruises already.”
“Dorina? You . . . you’re not hurt?” He looked stunned. I don’t know how people think I’ve lived as long as I have. The rumor is that I’m freaking lucky, and while I wouldn’t argue the point, it isn’t the only reason.
“No, didn’t feel like being cat chow.” I glanced down at myself, but all parts seemed to be present and accounted for, if not in particularly good shape. There was a lot of blood—not mine for the most part—and a few tufts of fur clinging to my top. “Crap!” I shrugged out of my jacket and held it up to the light. Large slash marks perforated the heavy leather giving me a view of the room in places. Its thickness had spared my body much of the laceration, but that didn’t make me feel much better. “This is the second one in less than a day,” I complained. “The Senate’s going to get a bill for a new wardrobe if this keeps up.”
“You’re really all right!” Radu threw his arms around me, causing me to wince when he squeezed the wounds the jet parts had made in my back. “I was so worried, Dorina! Mircea would . . . I couldn’t think what I’d tell him if—”
“Yeah, I’d hate it if my death got you in trouble with Dad,” I said with undisguised sarcasm. Radu didn’t seem to know how to reply to that, not that I gave him a chance. “And what the hell is this place, anyway?” I realized that none of the creatures, some in cages and some roaming free, looked all that familiar.
The two things snacking on the carcass looked like someone had hit a giant rat and the contents of a Dumpster with a dislocator—nothing made sense and nothing was where it was supposed to be. One of the sort-of rats seemed to have gotten hold of a human leg, which I originally thought it was saving for dessert. I looked away when I realized it was attached to the side of one furry hip, and was moving slightly, as if trying to gain a footing on the blood-slick floor.
After five centuries of horrors, very little gets to me anymore. Disgusted I can still do, but I would have said that appalled was no longer on my sensations list. The last time I’d felt it had been during the Great War, when a hunt took me into the trenches in France just after the Battle of the Somme. A mountain of corpses, too battered and blood soaked to reveal what army they had belonged to, fell on top of me while a revenant vamp and I were playing hide-and-seek. Digging my way out had not been pleasant. I still have dreams about it sometimes, of sliding on a bed of churned-up mud, decaying bodies pressing in all around me, someone’s soil-stained tibia stabbing me in the ribs, and rats the size of rabbits snacking on the feast man in his infinite stupidity had provided. A few of the men in the pile had still been alive, although they were busy coughing their lungs out in foaming pink shreds, courtesy of a recent mustard gas attack. I made a few mercy killings and got the hell out of there, leaving the revenant behind. It was the only time I’d ever run from a quarry, and I wasn’t proud of it. But at least I believed I’d seen the ugliest face of humanity.
I’d been wrong.
I think it was the instinctive knowledge that, whatever these things were, their creation had not been accidental that got me. I watched a thing with a wolf’s head and a giant lizard’s body pull itself across the floor toward us, its heavy, fang-filled mouth dripping saliva onto the floor, and felt as much pity as revulsion. Both of those were eclipsed a moment later by a rushing tide of pure rage.
“Is this your new hobby, Radu?” No wonder he hadn’t wanted to be followed! “And here I was telling someone recently that one of my uncles is semisane. Guess I’ll have to rethink that statement, huh?”
“Please, Dorina, it isn’t what you think—”
“The name is Dory!” I realized that I had Radu in a grip that would have broken more than a few ribs if he’d been human. I pushed him away from me, and he staggered near the remains of the kitty cat, causing the rat things to chatter at him. He took a few steps back in my direction, but stopped short, as if having trouble deciding which of the dangers was worse. If he’d been doing what I suspected, it was definitely me. “Okay, tell me what I should think. ’Cause you don’t even want to know what ideas are swimming around my head right now.”
“You aren’t supposed to be in here!” Radu wailed, almost in tears. “You weren’t supposed to see this!”
“I bet.” The stench from the cages and the viscera being chewed over by the rat duo was starting to get to me. Just because I’ve smelled worse didn’t mean I found it pleasant. “Come on. You can explain while I steal a new jacket.”
Mircea’s quarters in MAGIC were, like their owner, subtle, rich and somehow intimidating. Of course, the sheer size might have had something to do with that last one. There was a receiving room guarded by a stately foyer, an intimate dining room, a library and a bathroom as large as my office. There were two large bedrooms, one of which was Radu’s temporary home, and five smaller ones—in case, I assumed, someone needed to house a horde of servants. The only one I’d seen so far was a sour old Englishman—a vamp, of course—that Mircea had long ago loaned his brother. I suspected that had been prompted less by generosity than by the creature’s perennially bad disposition. Geoffrey had scowled at me on arrival, but since Radu was with me, he’d had to let me in.
Radu and I ensconced ourselves in the master suite. Walnut panels lined the walls except for where a built-in bookshelf interrupted to showcase an impressive collection of what were probably first editions. An antique Kashan rug in rich gold, brown and cream covered the floor. The bed was enormous and built high off the ground, with sturdy wooden posts at the corners providing anchors for the curtain rods that outlined it. The curtains were plush cognac velvet with tiebacks in a dark brown satin that matched the sinfully soft quilted comforter. So good to know Daddy wasn’t depriving himself.
Radu sat on the bed and watched me with apprehensive eyes as I sorted through Mircea’s huge old wardrobe. The carvings were traditional Romanian: a tree of life bloomed on each door, around which twisted rope, flowers and wolf teeth in an elaborate design meant to ward off evil spirits. Considering where the thing was located, I thought that was being optimistic.
It didn’t surprise me to see it there, though. Mircea loved Romanian folk art, especially anything made of wood, and had assembled a huge collection through the years. His main estate, in an isolated part of Washington State, is filled with everything from priceless antique doors from Maramures, the woodworking heart of the old country, to cheap but pretty hand-carved spoons that had caught his eye. Or at least it was the last time I had been hauled there for a family gathering, back in the eighties. I’ll never understand him. Everything I own, except for my weapons collection, can fit in a small car. I like it that way, being mobile, able to pull up roots and leave everyone and everything behind at a moment’s notice, driving off into the sunrise. . . .
“I thought that was supposed to be sunset.” I didn’t realize I’d spoken aloud until Radu piped up.
“Sunrise is better. That way, you have a full day’s head start on any nocturnal types who might be in pursuit.”
I passed over a forest of coats in expensive materials with soft drapes in favor of something sturdier. “This might do.” I dragged a leather capelike coat out of the back of the wardrobe and slung it over my shoulders. It was butter-soft, buff-colored leather with a rich brown lining in what felt like silk. It was too big, of course, but that just meant I could hide more stuff underneath it.
“You can’t say anything about what you saw, Dory. You have to promise me.” Radu was looking at me the way a small child might regard something sprouting tentacles and oozing pus that had just slimed its way out of a closet. I found myself getting annoyed with him all over again.
“Relax, I’m not going to bite you.” You’d think I was the vampire here. How Radu had ever run a country in the cutthroat bad old days was a mystery. The guy got nervous if you looked at him too long.