Amy’s nose turned up. “Ew, you sleep in water?”
“Not so much these days, but once upon a time, it was quite usual for a vampire to prefer a water bed, if you’ll forgive the pun. You see, nature likes balances. Ours is a slayer, of course. But even they, in turn, have a weakness, don’t they?”
“I was thinking the weakness was that whole not-being-undead thing,” I deadpanned.
The professor continued very professorially. “Water, Geri. A slayer can conjure a solarium and burn a vampire to ash, but they cannot do so while standing in water. Yes, back in the day, a cistern was the very height of vampiric sleeping arrangements.”
I bent down over my suitcase and foisted out a smaller bag from within. “Whatever floats your boat. Or, your body.”
Tobias side-eyed me. “Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”
“Of course, it is.”
“But they won’t even do you any good anymore.”
“They make me feel safer.” The silver tchotchkes clanked as I palmed two of them and pulled them out. “They’re small, and I’ll make sure they’re nowhere that you’re going to just casually rub up against one of them.”
Amy crossed her arms. “So, you’re going to stuff them into your bra then?”
TWELVE
“I’ve never understood the term food coma, but I think I’m going into some kind of torpor.”
Amy folded her arms over her stomach and fell back, groaning. By the time we’d awoken late in the afternoon the following day, most of the bakery’s stock had been depleted and was already turning hard. Still, food was food. Crumbs were all that remained of the second loaf of bread we’d polished off.
Her eyes swung around the room as another smile crept onto her face. “Can you believe places like this exist? Igor wasn’t kidding when he said ‘behind the veil,’ was he?”
I dipped my chin. “It certainly wasn’t what I expected when we first pulled up outside, that’s for sure.”
Yes, the interior of the house was just as aged as the exterior, but it wore its years clinging to remnants of a former glory. Instead of individual pieces of repositionable furniture, a permanent row of low, wide couches ringed the edge of the room, festooned with lace coverlets. At the center of this U-shaped configuration, a table which looked more like a giant copper plate sat atop a collapsible base of wooden peg legs, its circumference edged with poufy floor cushions. This, I came to understand, was also the dining table.
“We’ll have to make sure to get some lira soon,” I said as I lay down on one of the couches. “We were lucky that guy at the counter was willing to take pity on a few American tourists who only had dollars.”
Amy lay on the floor parallel to me, her blonde hair a contrast to the red-tinted rugs covering the floor throughout the house. “I told you, I could have used my card. They accepted them; it said so on the door.”
“No, we’re here on the downlow, remember? We want to avoid electronic breadcrumbs as much as possible. No credit cards.”
“There’s no way they’d know to follow my records, though. I mean, I only decided to come with you a week ago, and I shouldn’t be any interest to them. I’m just a looney.”
“Huey, Amy. The term is huey. Like, a human-y creature: huey. Not sure who came up with it, but—”
The front door had opened, and both our resident vampire and werewolf were still asleep. I’d rolled off the couch and drawn the blade from my hair before Amy could even blink.
“Geri, w—”
“Shh!”
Putting a finger to my mouth, I ordered her silence. Amy was a quick learner; she sat up but didn’t make another peep. A drawn-out, deliberate creek of a floorboard near the entrance suggested an intruder moving with deliberate haste, but in our direction. Jumping on the couches let me move toward the door without the same giveaway, but the element of surprise would only last until we could look each other in the eye.
Years of training took over, as I began to categorize assets and liabilities. Huey behind me, so I can’t run away. Silver blade would be ineffective if it’s a vampire, but given that it’s still daylight, it probably isn’t. They might have a weapon. A gun or a knife. A knife I can handle. If it’s a gun, only try to take him down if the physical match is pretty close, and get control of the gun ASAP. Scream for Tobias as soon as silence is no longer a benefit. Get Amy to run away if you can’t control the situation. Hostages, not homicides. Anyone here isn’t here by accident. Hold and interrogate. Find out who sent them, and what they were sent here to do.
“Igor?”
The voice struck at the chords of my memory, but the tune seemed out of place. My hand planted on the floor; it would be my ballast point so I could round out a kick low and sweep out the intruder’s feet.
“Hello? Anyone here? Geri? Oofff...”
With the coordination of a tiger’s pounce, I dropped my blade and had him on the ground, my legs thrown over his hips and my hands on either side of his head. Only my goal wasn’t to incapacitate any longer; it was to hold and to kiss.
Caleb laced his fingers behind his head as he slipped into his mask of smugness, a golden grin greeting me. “Looks like somebody missed me.”
“Maybe a little.”
I giggled as he rolled up, exchanging our positions. A solid weight against my thigh told me he’d finally taken my advice on always having a weapon. As Caleb leaned down and renewed our kiss, a halo of blonde hair emerged from the background.
“Please tell me this is the boyfriend.”
I almost burst out laughing when Caleb pulled away and found a stranger brandishing a vase of dry flowers as an improvised weapon. Realizing we were no longer preparing for a real-life action movie fight scene, Amy let the vase lower as her eyes glassed over.
“On second thought, please tell me he’s not the boyfriend. Wow.”
Caleb turned back to me. “Is she a werewolf? And mind, I only ask because she’s drooling.”
“No, she’s a huey, and she’s only drooling because my boyfriend is hot and there’s nothing Amy likes more than hot men. Now, stand up and let me introduce you to her properly. After that, you’re going to tell me what the hell you and Inga have been up to.”
“If you insist. But after that, you’re going to tell me why in the hell there’s a huey in our house, wielding flower vases.”
Our house. That phrase shouldn’t have sent my mind abuzz, but... buzz buzz.
“Fair enough.”
THIRTEEN
“Technically, I haven’t aged in seven hundred years, but for some reason, I feel suddenly very old. Did I just walk onto the set of some new CW series where an ex-hood, a slayer, a werewolf, and a token huey have to fight evil monsters on the streets of the city?”
Igor sized up the four twentysomethings lounging in the living room. Tobias had just joined us a few minutes ago. The vampire’s head swung to take in the scope of the room.
“Where is Inga?”
“A ‘hello’ to you, too, professor.” Caleb stood and cleared his throat, shaking Igor’s hand, before they both took seats on the couches. “Inga’s still in Üsküdar, over on the Asian side. At least, she was when I left the hotel this morning. We got in last night, but that’s as far as we could make it from the new airport before dawn. I’m going to guess when she woke up a few minutes ago and found me gone, she smoked out of there pretty quickly.”
“You crossed the city alone?” Igor Karmarov had never fit the “disapproving father figure” role better. “Caleb, you of all people know how dangerous this city is for someone like you. For anyone, frankly.”
“It was daytime. I wasn’t going to be tagged by any fangs,” my boyfriend returned. “I’ve barely seen Geri for the last three months. Knowing she was just a ferry ride and steady walk away, I couldn’t wait anymore. It was fine. Besides, you forget two key facts: one, I was born here. I know the city. And, two...” A ball the size of a tangerine burst into existence on his open palm. “I cou
ld have handled a vampire if one wanted to tango.”
Amy’s mouth dropped to the floor. “He’s Harry freaking Potter.”
Tobias yawned and stretched both his physical muscles and his sarcastic ones. “And how, exactly, did you get into our ultra-secure facility?”
The slayer pointed his free hand over his shoulder, back toward the door. “Found a key under a pot of flowers out there. Maybe not the best place to leave that?”
Igor failed to be impressed, despite blinking as the solarium stung his irises. “This isn’t Chicago. These aren’t little offshoot clutches spun out from the Old World. We’re in the Belt of Blood, and the Ravens circle it daily.”
“Belt of Blood?” Looking to Tobias, I saw he was just as perplexed. “What is that?”
The vampire grimaced. “The traditional territory of the Dracule clutches. It spreads from Vienna, down through Asia Minor, then up into the caucuses. There’s a reason this region is known for its vampire lore. It came of age with the Byzantines, fled west and east with Christians into the Hapsburg and the Czars’ courts, then folded back in once the Ottomans seated themselves.”
“That last part thanks to Vlad Tepeş,” Caleb added.
Thank goodness that I had Amy, whose innocence couldn’t be condemned, to ask the questions that would have revealed my ignorance. “Wasn’t Vlad the Prince of Transylvania? Why is he so obsessed with Istanbul?”
“It’s a bit Freirean, I’m afraid.”
Our blank faces drove Igor to frustration.
“Seriously? Two of you just graduated from university in the last forty-eight hours, and nothing?”
“If it was a biochem thing, I’d know it,” I offered. “Obviously, it’s not some kind of molecule.”
More annoyed scowling. It was almost like being back at home with my mom.
“It’s the concept that an affronted or oppressed population will assume the characteristics of their oppressors when they gain power,” Igor explained. “As a human, Vlad and his people—That would be Wallachia, Amy. Transylvania refers to the region at large.—were at the mercy of the Ottomans. His entire royal line ruled at the leisure of the sultan. As children, Vlad and his brother Radu were even political prisoners at the sultan’s court.”
Caleb nodded, presumably heading off our confused expressions. “It was a very common practice in the ancient world, and not just for the Ottomans. A good way to ensure that a conquered people didn’t rise up against you was to give incentive for toeing the line. Even Augustus took Cleopatra and Marc Antony’s children into his own home after they died.”
“Even though the children were technically prisoners, they were treated as royal guests, given an education and furnished with a lifestyle nearly on par to the sultan’s own children,” Igor resumed. “But Vlad never forgot who reigned over his people, though his brother sided with the Turks, even helping them conquer Constantinople in 1453. It left an imprint. When he escaped the confinement we’d placed him in, he came here, vowing to live out the luxurious life his people’s blood and tears paid for, by literally living off the blood of his enemy’s ancestors.”
Amy’s eyes couldn’t get any wider. “If Shakespeare had known about this, he might have written a vampire play.”
Igor waved off the comment. “Politics is a constant, perpetual motion. The only difference is the players.”
The growl rumbling through Tobias’s chest preceded his shift, and within moments, all hell had broken loose. The werewolf tensed his haunches, balancing on all fours amid a pile of ravaged clothing, as I in turn drew my blade and covered Amy. It seemed to happen all at once: the front door flying open, the bank of smoke that rushed into the room, the smoke taking form, slamming Caleb against the wall, and Igor rolling his eyes at it all.
“You bastard!” Inga Rosethorn practiced control like a Zen master. A foot off the floor and pinned in a vampire’s grip, Caleb looked nonplussed. “How dare you pull a stunt like that? I thought you were dead! I thought they’d gotten you. I thought after everything, I’d failed.”
“But I left you a note on the dresser.”
“I KNOW YOU LEFT ME A NOTE ON THE DRESSER!” Her nails nicked his neck, and I had to fight the urge to leap in and pull Inga’s hands off my man. “Which was even more stupid. What if the Ravens had come for you? They’d know exactly where to find you. Do you ever think about any of the consequences of your actions? How pussy-whipped are you?”
“I object to that.” My words turned a spotlight onto my presence, and a vampire seething anger lashed out in my direction. “Most hood women would consider such dominance over their beau a compliment.”
Caleb took his protector/attacker’s wrists in his hands. “I’m fine, and look around: no ravens. Not even sparrows.”
“Inga, enough,” Igor said. “I’ve already lectured him. Let it go, and by that, I mean him. He’s a man in love. They do irrational things.”
“If he doesn’t learn to master his emotions, the irrationality is going to get him killed,” Inga grumbled as Caleb resumed his feet. Now free to observe the room at large, her eyes fell upon a somewhat flushed huey. “Who are you?”
The blonde stood and threw out a hand to the seething vampire. “Amy Popowitz, and I’m apparently the token honey.”
“Huey!”
“Huey,” Amy corrected. “I’m assuming you’re the beautiful Inga Rosethorn I heard so much about.”
Inga took a moment to look at Amy’s hand as though inspecting it for defects. Finally, her tensions eased, and she gently slid her own out to meet the greeting in kind, if without kindness.
“Miss Popowitz, a pleasure.” The words were flat, emotionless, scripted. “But you should not have come. This is no mission for a huey. I doubt even Gerwalta’s readiness.”
“Oh, I know. From what she’s told me, she’s pretty much useless now.”
“Hey!” My hackles raised in the wake of my best friend’s betrayal.
Amy continued as though I’d said nothing. “But since I was attacked by a vampire in front of a theater full of people, I thought if I came along, I’d stand a better chance of surviving with you, Igor, and Caleb around.”
Inga raised a suspicious eyebrow. “And Tobias?”
Amy swatted the air. “What’s a werewolf going to do to a vampire? Bark at it?”
Tobias took on his human, complete with outrage. “Bark at it? Don’t forget who—”
I lashed my arm out over Tobias’s chest, keeping him from pouncing. Maybe he didn’t yet see what was going on, but I’d certainly caught on. Genius. Amy was a diplomatic genius. In a few brief moments, she’d managed to turn a centuries-old vampire to her favor.
The corners of Inga’s mouth ticked up. “Indeed. Well, I still think it foolish that you are here, but at least you will prove to be most entertaining.”
“Inga?”
The female vampire’s head snapped to her vampiric father.
“You said something about what you found out in Tel Aviv?” he continued. “I think we should all hear that. Let me make some tea, and then I want you to tell all of us what you’ve learned.”
WE SAT DISPERSED ON the couches, drinking from the tulip-shaped cups that had perplexed me when I saw them in the kitchen earlier. Igor handed each of us a spoon about half the size of a normal one.
“Tea is the lubricant of the tongue in Turkey, as well as the wallet. Even if you don’t like it now, you need to acquire a taste for it. It will be given to you everywhere you go, and I mean everywhere. Learn to drink vast quantities of it in a way that doesn’t stress your pulse or your bladder.”
The brew, a mildly bitter tonic with hints of bergamot, didn’t quite satisfy the palate like coffee, but it did warm the insides. Despite the fact that it was now early June, something about the house made the drafty interior a bit chilly.
“As we suspected, the Ravens still make their clutch in Istanbul. As in the ancient world, it is still one of the most convenient bases from which to operate.”<
br />
“Operate?” I asked. “That’s an interesting word choice.”
“It is an intentional one,” Inga confirmed. “We knew that Vlad’s discovery of the power of werewolf blueblood to sustain vampire life after the natural death was due had been used for political advantage. Seems he’s also using it for financial gain as well.”
“He’s still selective about who he allows into his inner circle,” Caleb added, even as his fingers traced lines over my palm. “Not just anyone is chosen for the treatments. A run-of-the-mill clutch holds no interest for him. He grows friends in gardens of influence, and seeds it very carefully. Our contact assured us that one does not seek out the Ravens; the Ravens seek out you.”
Tobias set his untouched tea down on the copper table. “But how would the Ravens even know who to approach? How are they getting their information about potential clients?”
Inga and Caleb exchanged a weighted look, one that then turned on me.
“No.” It was impossible. How would that even happen? “Not the hood’s tracking software? But that’s only used to keep a tab on werewolf populations, to help create matches between different packs and flag potential lone wolves.”
Tobias mumbled into his shoulder. “Big brother, watch thyself.”
“It is the same software the hoods use, but the hoods are not the ones who created it. That dubious achievement came from the Line of Dracule. Your mother—or some other matron—received it from us.”
Tobias leaned back on the sofa, looking oddly Roman as he held up his half-empty cup and swirled it, setting the tea leaves collected at the bottom spinning. “So vampire tech was implemented by hood overlords to control werewolf populations. If they weren’t all dead, I’d say the slayers are the only clean ones in this.”
Ravening Hood Page 9
