Blood Spirits

by Sherwood Smith

  He said, “Uncle Jerzy spoke to her more recently than that. On Stefan-Zarbat, when she called from Paris.” He struck his hand on the edge of the table, then went on in a tight voice. “When I got to Paris to interview the new cook, the house was locked up tight. I called home. Jerzy answered and said I’d just missed Magda—she’d called earlier to say she was leaving by train for Riev.”

  Phaedra’s eyes were huge. “If that really was Marzio in that coffin, how could Dr. Kandras have made such an error?”

  “We’ve been trying to talk to him,” Tony said. “He’s been on holiday. He still has not yet returned. Niklos has checked every day.”

  Phaedra counted on her fingers. “If something’s happened to him, that’s four missing people, or three and one set of bones.”

  While they were talking, I thought back. “I can’t claim to have any insight into motivation or intent,” I said. “But something’s been bothering me for days. You two weren’t around when I arrived at the ball, but Jerzy took me in your family sleigh, and we arrived right when Alec did. In fact, when I consider it, he seems to have gone to a lot of trouble to get me there exactly at eight—exactly when Alec was to arrive and kick off the gala. Then someone in the crowd . . .” I described it all, including what Miriam said about her grandfather and hirelings. “Now, maybe those people really were mad at Alec. After all, it did look pretty bad from the outside, I guess I see that. But why would Jerzy say to me that I had a claque? At the time I didn’t notice, but later I thought it odd. A claque would be paid, right? Wouldn’t a guy who’d hired someone to stand in that crowd and shout Murderer to incite a mob be thinking about claques?”

  Phaedra opened her hands in question. “I wasn’t there.”

  Tony was staring at the fire.

  “What I can’t get,” I said, “is how any of this links up with those vampires. It seems impossible that the two things are coincidence.”

  “The connection is the vampires,” Tony said, and cursed as he got to his feet. “I think we’d better leave for Riev as soon as the sun is up.”

  He walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  “What connection?” I asked.

  Phaedra yawned and headed for the door as quickly as Tony had. “We may as well go to bed. I’ll show you the guest wing. You can pick out any bedroom you want.”

  “Don’t you stay in the Sky Suite?”

  She shuddered. “Only Tony likes it up there, and that’s in spring and summer. It’s impossible to heat in winter. That floor is entirely shut up until the thaw really sets in.”

  I retrieved my backpack and stashed my prism in it. We trod up the grand stairway to the hall lined with suites, on the floor above the ballrooms,. Only a few had bathrooms, though. She pointed out the ones that did, and I picked a room done in shades of lavender and ivory, with beautiful Louis XV furnishings.

  Since I didn’t have any clean clothes, I wrapped myself in the hand-embroidered quilt, lay down . . . and next thing I knew, Phaedra was shaking my shoulder, her face barely outlined against the indigo window.

  Hot mammaglia and bread awaited us, with fresh coffee. I forced down the coffee with a lot of milk in it, not wanting to ask for tea. At least I’d been able to brush my teeth, but otherwise I felt frowzy in yesterday’s clothes. From the looks of the others, even though they were cleaner, their moods were no better.

  “Last night,” I addressed Tony, “you said the vampires were the connection,” I said, watching them both. “I guess that has to do with Robert and the treaty. I just don’t get why Uncle Jerzy would drug Robert. What could he possibly get out of it? And how could it connect with the poison?”

  Phaedra’s hand paused in the act of buttering toast as Tony said, “Maybe there isn’t any connection. How about we wait until we can get back to the city. Jerzy needs to answer these questions.”

  In silence we set out into a blue-gray world.

  Nobody spoke for a long time. Phaedra sat next to me chambering and unloading shells from a rifle, over and over. As we glided over the vast slopes, my brain reverted to the hamster wheel as I tried to argue the world into sanity. Ruli would be home, having run off to Italy; Magda Stos would be with her. Dr. Kandras would be safe and sound after having been snowed in. Marzio di Peretti . . . Jolt. Hamster wheel, around and around.

  The sky pressed down on us, a soft cotton quilt of cold. By mid-morning light snow began to fall, creating a stipple effect that flattened the forests, crags, and frozen streams into two dimensional pointillism.

  The snow increased gently, inexorably. Midway through the afternoon one of the wingmen gave an unintelligible shout, and Tony looked back at us, his eyelashes dotted with snow, his expression the familiar derision, which was actually a relief after that long, grim silence. “That’s the third lookout sending a messenger back to Riev. The Vigilzhi should be joining us soon. Wagers on which one of us they are coming for?”

  But a short time later, the snow-tired jeep that emerged from the soft curtain of white turned out to have a single driver.

  He pulled up, we pulled up, and Alec jumped out.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  TONY SHOT A LOOK AT ME. “Looks like your ride is here.” And to Alec, “We’ve some family business that’s fairly pressing.”

  I fumbled out, hauling my backpack. Alec raised a hand in casual salute, a gesture echoed with mocking airiness by Tony, who loosened the reins and they were off. Phaedra sent an inscrutable look back. She was already talking.

  Oh yeah, there was definitely something they weren’t telling me.

  But here I was, alone with Alec.

  “You’re safe,” he said, and I hurled myself into his arms.

  When we had to break for breath, I said, “You came alone.”

  Daylight revealed the exhaustion under his eyes. “I had to see you first.” Then a glance toward the road, where Tony’s sleigh was vanishing.

  That glance revealed a lot, and I stared at him, feeling really weird. Is this how horrible arguments start? You think you’ve done everything right, then the person who matters most is obsessing about what matters least. No, that’s not true. Sex does matter, though it matters differently for different people at different times.

  This I did know. He’d been through hell, and though the time was going to come when things would be all about me and my feelings, this wasn’t that time. “Tony did want to hook up, but I said no. I also found out who he’s really into, I mean more than the rest of his fifty thousand flirts. And that’s Beka.”

  Alec’s eyes widened. “Beka?”

  So she was as tight-lipped as Tony. “You didn’t see it in that tango?”

  “I only saw the first few seconds when you were dancing with him. Then I was outside, dealing with . . . doesn’t matter. Kim, I don’t know what to say. I don’t have any right to expect anything of you, but these last couple days, I couldn’t think of much else besides you and him up there on the mountain.”

  Did that make you drink? I wasn’t going to ask that, either. We were several conversations away from that kind of question, if that kind of question was ever going to be appropriate.

  The bottom line was really all about trust.

  “How about if we have the Tony conversation later?” I asked. “We can, with as much or as little detail as you like (and there will be cursing) but before that I have so much to tell you. First, what about the vampires?”

  “Withdrawn.” He made an effort that I could feel and frowned in concentration. I gave in to impulse, stood on my tiptoes and kissed that little fold between his brows as he said, “Somewhere.” His breath caught, and I kissed him on the nose. Then on the lips. Then we were lip-locked again. . . .

  Eventually we had to stop—there were all the problems, waiting.

  Alec shook his head. “Let’s take this up later, in more comfortable surroundings than a field. We’d better return. Did you find anything?”

  We started back through the snow to his jeep as I said, “Yes.
Armandros crashed a plane close to what we think is the Nasdrafus portal. Alec, I think it’s real. So what’s all that about Merlin? Could there be some powerful Vrajhus mage in Dobrenica’s past?”

  “Beka and Honoré will go wild with the desire to plunge into research. The vampires are dealt with, then?”

  “No. Only the portal. No luck with the treaty. Tony and Phaedra were acting all mysterious about it, but this I can say: they think there is some kind of unfinished business with the vamps.”

  “Maybe the Salfpatras and Salfmattas will have a solution.” Once again he stopped and faced me. “Kim, there is another reason why I wanted to see you first. I have some very good news, though as yet very few people know: my father has returned.”

  “Milo? Here? But—”

  “And your grandmother is with him.”

  “Gran! In Dobrenica! How are they . . . ?” I looked into his face. “Uh oh.”

  He shook his head. “Everything’s fine on the surface.”

  “You think.” Comprehension hit me. “It’s not working, is it?”

  Alec put his arms around me. “Milo . . . it’s been a long time.”

  This monumental understatement meant that Milo couldn’t easily wave off over half a century of grief any more than Gran could. With that came a cascade of images, including a teenage, poetry-loving Alec trying to emulate a heroic guy whose heartache had caused him to retreat behind an impenetrable shield of calm politesse. Historically, the only acceptable escape for heroic leaders from intolerable emotions was either drink, or work, or a hideous combination of the two.

  I said, “I wish I’d been able to see Gran’s first step back on Dobreni soil.”

  “It was very low key. In fact, you could say she’s effectively invisible. She didn’t want anyone to know. She said she preferred to enter as quietly as she had stolen away all those years ago. They arrived just a few hours ago, and Kilber took them straight to Ysvorod House. When I left she was resting in the guest room, the plan being to recruit themselves for an evening of mending fences over a picnic dinner.”

  “Winter picnic?” I asked.

  “Since my firing squad’s on holiday,” Alec said dryly. “Last thing Tony did before you two left for the mountains was to send a letter to Baron Ridotski formally rescinding the demand for indictment, stating poor Marzio’s bones as immediate cause.”

  “He didn’t tell me that.”

  “He didn’t tell anyone that, including his family. I found out when the Prime Minister sent the letter to me, saying it had arrived by messenger. Robert von Mecklundburg is furious. Everyone is out of sorts, because no one knows what’s true and what isn’t.”

  “We’ve been trying to figure that out,” I said. “And I have news, but finish, first. While we get going,” I added, as everything else began crashing the gates of my happiness.

  “Not much more to say. Milo sent Emilio around with the spoken invitation to the picnic dinner to at least get them talking to one another again.”

  “What is a picnic dinner in the winter like?” I asked as we climbed into the vehicle.

  “Winter custom. Impromptu dinner.”

  “What’s the picnic part? You’re not eating outside, I hope.”

  “Everyone brings enough of something to share. It also enables the Ridotskis to actually get to eat when the meal isn’t arranged through Hanging Gardens or one of the kosher kitchens.”

  “We call that pot luck.” My heart began banging my ribs again. “Who will be there?”

  “Heads of families. Milo and your grandmother; Dmitros Trasyemova and his sister; your Aunt Sisi, who insisted on Jerzy accompanying her since Tony hadn’t returned—”

  “Jerzy?” I squeaked.

  His smile faded. “Kim?”

  “Now for my news. Pedal to the metal. I’ll tell you as we go.”

  We weren’t that far from the outskirts of Riev. The sun was going down, texturing the undersides of the departing clouds with ruddy gold. The city lay like a lake of golden, twinkling lights on the slope as Alec roared up Prinz Karl-Rafael Street, then jinked upwards in right-angle jumps, using seldom traveled streets and alleys.

  We zoomed over the bridge, Alec grimly dodging the little traffic remaining. The city, he explained over the roar of the engine, was still under sunset curfew.

  We were half an hour past the start of the picnic. I was trying not to envision a dining room full of poison victims when we pulled up at Ysvorod House on its quiet street. No signs of anything terrible. As we leaped out, Emilio’s grandson appeared to take charge, grinning at me when I waved.

  Alec and I started on the long walk to the back of the house.

  “I hope we’re not too late,” I muttered, cherishing every sign of normalcy.

  “If he’s a game player, then he’s going to choose his moment.”

  “So you believe Jerzy’s the one?”

  “I don’t know. The stories about his youth were sordid, but that was forty years ago. Petty, most of it. We did have him watched the first couple of days after he showed up with Tante Sisi, but he seemed content to stay put at Mecklundburg House. Christmas Day we shifted some of our watchers to Tony, who was much harder to keep track of.” Alec paused on the icy walkway.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Something?” He looked upward, then grimaced. “Milo had always been suspicious about the disappearance of Honoré’s and Gilles’s parents. And the accidental deaths of the Danilovs’ parents. But there was no proof of anything. Everything happened somewhere else, and Robert seemed the likeliest candidate, as that generation cordially hated one another—though he always turned up with an alibi. Anyway, the von Mecklundburgs never saw fit to further investigate these accidental deaths, once the disputed inheritances were subsumed into the family fortunes.” Alec looked grim as he started walking again. “Milo said that the older generation grew up accustomed to relatives’ meeting violent ends, thanks to the war years, which might explain their lack of pursuit.”

  “Okay, now you are really creeping me out. Are you saying that Uncle Jerzy could be a serial killer? Why? What could he possibly get, unless it’s just jollies? If he’s mad that he won’t inherit anything, offing his family isn’t going to fix that—won’t the money just go to the younger generation? And why do that when you’re like seventy years old?”

  “There has to be a bigger goal. Like, if he’s behind Marzio’s death, why the mystery around Ruli? More to the point, why wasn’t I killed as well?”

  “Maybe you were supposed to freeze to death on that ledge?” I said doubtfully. “And Tony did say that someone tried to poison you.”

  “No, someone tried to poison my household. And they put your scarf in the garden.”

  “So it was supposed to look like you and I did it? That’s just crazy!”

  “I wonder if it was desperate,” he said.

  “Here’s what creeps me out about that accident,” I said. “If you had frozen to death on that ledge, you were meant to die with your reputation ruined. Because you had Ruli’s purse, but she wasn’t in that car. You really were set up.”

  “Either way, with me dead or convicted of murder, Milo would be devastated.” Alec wiped his hair back. “Somehow this is worse than vampires. Let’s get inside.”

  Though I’d stayed in Ysvorod House for a couple of weeks, I’d never been in the lower portions where the servants lived and worked. The house was bigger than I’d guessed from its relatively modest front—most of the mansions along that street had more impressive facades.

  Alec led me past an efficient service porch, along whose walls we found the ubiquitous coat pegs and neat rows of boots. A huge washer and dryer kept the room warm—both were going—and the next room was an airy sort of pantry, much like the one up at the Eyrie, with garlic hung up, and other herbs that had to stay dry.

  Through that, and we reached the main kitchen, where gray-haired, comfortably square Madam Emilio looked up, laying her hand on her broad bo
som in relief as a red-haired woman took her coat off.

  The red-haired woman turned our way.

  “Mom?”

  “Darling!” Mom bustled forward, arms out.

  “Here he is,” Madam Emilio said in relief.

  She indicated Alec as Mom and I hugged. Instead of her patchouli, familiar from childhood, Mom smelled like something sophisticated and French.

  “You look so different with your hair that color,” I exclaimed, and then introduced Alec as I shrugged out of my coat.

  At least I’d been able to tell him that the Von M.s’ red-haired chef was Mom.

  Mom was scarcely recognizable even to me—she wore bright red lipstick to match her hair, which brought a startling change to her face. Her green glasses were up on the top of her head, not on her nose, but even without their masking effect I could see instantly that no one would be looking for resemblances, in spite of that lopsided grin with a single dimple. She was wearing a very chic apron over a black dress completely unlike anything I’d ever seen her wear—almost a parody of the French maid.

  Mom and Alec exchanged a fast hello-nice-to-meet-you as she fluffed her stop-sign-red frizz off her forehead. “I walked over from the von M. House of Horrors. I didn’t want them to know I’m here, but in case they found out, these tartlets are my excuse. In case the dessert I sent over with the family earlier isn’t enough.”

  Mom nodded at the huge covered basket that Madam Emilio was just carrying through an open door into another room of the kitchen.

  Mom said to Alec in a low voice, “With Tony gone, I thought I’d better find either you or Milo.” She pulled from her apron pocket a small ceramic jar, and pressed it into Alec’s hand. “You can have that tested, but my guess is, it’s bad. Freaky, how someone thinks even the most wigged-out cook wouldn’t notice ingredients behaving funky.”