Dark Victory

by Michele Lang

  And beside him, bruised and bloody, sat Raziel himself. I was struck speechless.

  “Dear little Baroness Bathory,” Bathory said, acid in his voice. I shot Raziel a quick glance, amazed to see him alive, and it took everything I had left to maintain my composure without letting the mask drop from my face.

  I thought fast. “Uncle Gabor!” I exclaimed. I did not miss a beat. My voice sounded squeaky and unsteady, but hopefully Krueger would attribute all that to a baroness’s shock at being unjustly imprisoned. “I hope you explained to them who I am! Who I certainly am.”

  Somehow, my original, flimsy ruse had carried the day. A tiny smile played over the vampire’s thin curved lips. His melancholy, bloodshot eyes looked up at me, and I recklessly met the vampire’s gaze.

  “Why yes, my little chicken. I explained to the nice gentleman here how impertinent it is of you to call yourself a baroness. I am most certainly not expired, and you have not acquired the honorific by either inheritance or marriage. You are a scandal, Erszebet. A scandal.”

  He arched a sardonic eyebrow, and it was all I could do not to applaud his bravura performance. I tried to look abashed and embarrassed. “Forgive me, Uncle. I’m always getting into scrapes.”

  He shrugged eloquently and gazed at Krueger. “The follies of youth will make you wise, my dear.”

  He and I spoke Hungarian, and the police chief allowed it, studying our faces to see if we did, in fact, know each other.

  I heard a low murmur behind me, and I half turned. A skinny man with a droopy mustache repeated our words in German to Krueger, and he nodded and scratched at his chin. “Have you no papers?” he said to me again, without shaking me or screaming this time.

  I shrugged. “I was a Romanian national until recently. Now our estates will become Hungarian again. I am not accustomed to explaining myself to anyone other than my uncle, who is my benefactor and guardian.”

  “Why are you in Kraków?”

  I shot Bathory a glance. “I am sorry, Uncle. It was a boy.” I paused and looked at Raziel again, my heart full to bursting. “This boy.”

  He smacked the flat of his hand on the top of the desk, and I jumped. “Not again, Erszebet! I will chain you to the ankle of the Mother Superior if you will not mind me!”

  I bit my lip and glared at the ground. “I am not a child, Uncle.”

  “This is the prince, I presume.”

  “Why, yes. He flew me in his private plane, Uncle. We were off to Italy next, but then the Germans came to town. I was delighted, delighted!”

  My fake smile curdled when I saw the look on Krueger’s face. He did not for a minute believe I was a renegade baroness; for some reason he was forced to accept this absurd fairy tale as true.

  I looked over to see that Bathory’s face was now even whiter than usual, from the effort of our charade. “What has become of your dashing prince, with his private plane?”

  I swallowed hard, glanced again at the silent form of my beloved, and I remembered my final sight of Antonio, ripped apart by Asmodel’s depredations.

  But I spoke of Raziel. “My prince has taken a terrible fall. And all because of me.” I did not have to fake the lump in my throat, or the tears welling in my eyes.

  “Well, I suppose you will come home with me, little chicken. Perhaps you have finally learned to listen. And we will return the prince to his people as well.”

  I dashed the tears from my eyes. “I am a little fool, Uncle.” In this at least, I earnestly spoke the truth.

  The three of us turned to face Krueger, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair. We all stared at one another for a while, and I was amazed that of the four of us, it was Krueger who looked most uncomfortable and eager to see our confrontation at an end.

  “Are they free to leave, Herr Chief?” Bathory finally asked in German.

  “Preliminary reports are that Governor Frank died of … well, appears to have died of natural causes. Bad luck for you, Baroness, to have met him as he died.”

  “Please, Baroness Bathory no more,” Bathory said, with a hint of severity in his voice. “Through her mother’s line, not mine.” He sighed, evidently impatient with the ignorance of commoners such as the police chief.

  “I would detain you regardless,” Krueger said, the edge of something nasty creeping into his voice. “But it seems that I am to become governor-general in Hans Frank’s place.”

  Ah, my murder of his predecessor had directly benefited him. Surely he would not want to uncover evidence of foul play in Frank’s death, lest he be viewed as a potential suspect. That was how widely known their mutual hatred was, in Kraków.

  But his hard, expressionless face revealed no insecurities. “I have no more reason to detain you, fräulein. Your uncle has come to vouch for you—come all the way from Berlin.” He studied my face for any signs of shock or surprise, but I would not oblige him. “It appears he has a privileged position with the Nazi Party. Your uncle’s papers are impeccable. So is his reputation.”

  I had nothing to say, only numbly wobbled on my feet.

  After a short pause, he swung the door open again. “You are free to leave. But, miss…”

  He blocked the doorway with his body. I gulped hard. “Yes?”

  He was silent for a moment, and then said, “I detest the game of chess, for a number of reasons. I want you out of Kraków immediately. Back to Hungary with you, with no more nonsense.”

  I tried for a watery smile. “Now you sound like my uncle, Herr Governor.”

  He did not return the smile. “Go. Before I change my mind.”

  Bathory jammed an enormous straw hat on his head, drew his hunting jacket close to his neck, and brandished an enormous umbrella furled in his sunburned right hand. “Let us go, children,” he muttered, his voice finally sounding fully aggrieved. “And we will do our best to forget your crazy escapade, yes?”

  “Of course, Uncle,” I murmured, and I linked my arm in his. Arm in arm, the three of us left that horrible, evil place, and swept into the street, where a car was waiting.

  Even though Bathory had opened the umbrella to shield himself from the late afternoon sun, he hissed in pain. I bundled him into the back of the Mercedes and blocked him from the slanting rays of sunlight filtering in through the back windows.

  It was Janos in the driver’s seat. “Go,” I whispered urgently, and he sped off with a screech of tires over the cobblestones.

  19

  Despite my best efforts to cover up Bathory with the blankets in the backseat, his face and hands got terribly burned by the sunlight.

  “You saved my life,” I said as we sped along, to distract him from his burned cheeks and knuckles. “And Raziel’s life.”

  “For you at least, that is no big deal,” he replied with a low chuckle.

  I gaped at him in wonder. “My dear count, how did you get to Kraków to save me at all?”

  “Never mind for the moment.” His attention turned to Raziel. “Sir, do you need a doctor?”

  “No,” Raziel said, his voice faint and faraway. “Only rest.”

  I had much to say to Raziel, things I’d never thought I would get to say to him in this world. But I could not say them yet, not in front of Bathory. So I only squeezed one of his hands between my own. The touch of his fingers on mine was a more eloquent testament to life than anything I could have said.

  In any case, before I had the luxury of being alone with Raziel again I had to talk business with my former employer. I leaned back, contemplated the dove gray felted ceiling of the enormous Mercedes. “Take us to the Cyganeria Café, Janos. On Szpitalna Street, with the arched doorway. Do you know the place?”

  The driver nodded and sped up even as Raziel protested. “You must be joking,” he said, and I knew why. The Cyganeria was the local Nazi hangout.

  “Hear me out, darling. I am starving, famished. I am sure Bathory will not stay here, and I have much I have to say to him. Janos will drop us there and park in the back, like Viktor did for t
he Literary.”

  Raziel groaned, rolled his eyes heavenward. “And that worked out so wonderfully last time.”

  I turned to Bathory. “Do vampires have their own special café here, like the Istanbul in Budapest? We could meet there instead.”

  Bathory delicately picked at the skin that was starting to peel off the backs of his hands. “No, my dear. Poland is a devout country, and the vampires here are few and live underground, the wretches. Most of them live in Warsaw, but they are a quiet lot, and keep themselves hidden. This Nazi café should be fine for our purposes.”

  Janos unerringly navigated the winding cobblestone streets through the city’s center, and eventually pulled up in front of the Cyganeria Café. With a great flourish he opened the back door so Bathory and I could emerge. Even in the dusk, the punishing sun beat down on Bathory and I hurried him over the threshold.

  Raziel, exhausted nearly to death, waited for us in the car, where Janos remained, ready to speed away in case of trouble. The fact that Raziel allowed me to convince him to rest filled me with a terrible foreboding. What had Krueger done to him?

  The Cyganeria depressed me even more. There was not a magical to be seen, and the place was stuffed full of Nazis and their opportunistic Polish girlfriends. My German and Bathory’s indelible elegance made up for his sunburn and my disheveled state. The surly waiter put us at a tiny table hidden in an alcove. We would speak Hungarian and the veiled truth, here in the belly of the Nazi beast.

  Bathory ordered coffee and prune cake in his impeccable formal German, and we were left alone. I feasted my eyes upon him, my beloved employer, who I had feared was finished.

  “You’ve returned from the afterworld like a Lazarus,” I said, and I could not keep the tremor out of my voice.

  “Not quite. In the end, they did not in fact stake me.”

  The coffee arrived, and Bathory put in his three lumps of sugar, while I left my coffee by my elbow. In this crowded day, full of death and miracles, Bathory’s reemergence stood head and shoulders above all the rest of it.

  “How did you get away? The last I had heard, you were condemned by the Vampirrat.”

  Bathory looked up from his coffee, his sad-looking eyes taking on a predatory aspect. “Yes, I have my enemies among the MittelEuropa Vampirrat. But they were overruled.”

  “Overruled? But by whom? How?”

  He smiled then, careful to keep his fangs covered by his lips. “The Nazi High Command itself requested, quite pointedly, that they set me free. They in fact claimed me for one of their own.”

  His answer dumbfounded me. “The Nazis? But you were hauled into the council for treason to the Reich. Are you sure?”

  “To a certainty, little chicken. The Arrow Cross in Budapest urgently demanded my release.” He smiled again, knowing the effect his words would have on me.

  “The Arrow Cross!” I could not believe it. The Arrow Cross was the dominant Fascist party in Hungary, and in their viciousness and anti-Semitism almost outdid even their big brothers in the Reich. They were no friends of Bathory.

  Bathory’s lips twitched under his Magyar mustache, and he took a long, foamy sip of hot coffee. I reached for mine, and slugged it down black, hardly tasting the metallic bitterness as the coffee burned my tongue.

  He returned his coffee cup to the saucer with exaggerated precision. “Why yes, the Arrow Cross. Martin Szalasi is a turned werewolf, and his girlfriend alerted them all to the miscarriage of justice taking place in Berlin. With the correct application of cash, the proper parties were mollified and I was free to fly—here to Kraków directly, in order to save a certain reckless employee of mine.”

  My head swam with the news. “Martin Szalasi is a mad dog, not even a werewolf.”

  “True, but he seeks to curry favor with the Nazis in Germany. And all the money he offered the Arrow Cross raised his standing quite a bit.”

  “It was the girlfriend?”

  “Yes. She was the one who convinced Martin I was worth saving. A great asset to his country and all of that. His girlfriend apparently is a great admirer of mine from the north country. A lovely young Hungarian patriot named Eva Farkas.”

  I all but fell out of my chair. Now I understood what Gisele had hinted at in Viktor’s office, about Eva becoming a spy. “Eva plays a dangerous game,” I finally managed to squeak out. I had always pointed out to her that her blond, blue-eyed self could melt into the Christian world and simply disappear. Now, it seemed she had taken my observation to heart, but had resolved to do much more than vanish.

  “Dangerous game, yes, but Eva is a brilliant player.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice still more. “Eva worked as a courier for me, as you know. But her talents were too fine to waste in simply delivering messages. She is deep undercover with the Arrow Cross, working for the Zionists and for me, too. All of us play a dangerous game, little chicken.”

  Bathory’s eyes twinkled as he drank his coffee and stared at me. “The money came from Knox, by the way. I understand that this money came with strings, and I am happy for him to pull them. You are here with Churchill’s sanction. Well, so am I.”

  Now my worry swung from Bathory to Raziel to Eva, like a compass that had lost its true north. Eva had placed herself in a ridiculous amount of danger, becoming the decorative flower of a vicious beast like Martin Szalasi. Being a turned werewolf was the least of the trouble with him; the Arrow Cross were crazed, mindless killers.

  “Fear not, dear heart,” Bathory said. “Eva saved me, I will save her in turn, though she is so resourceful I do not think she will need me to intervene. I fly for Budapest tonight.” He poked at the prune cake with a fork. “This stuff is downright shriveled. Here, have some if you wish.”

  Even famished as I was, my mouth was too dry to swallow it. “You will watch over Eva? Swear to me?”

  “More than that, little chicken. I will watch over all her innumerable babies.” That last made me gasp: he knew everything, even down to the network we had arranged to spirit the children out of Poland.

  “Bless you, my darling count.”

  “Not so fast. I would be remiss, my dear, if I did not inquire into your own circumstances.” His expression grew shrewd, and I busied myself with my napkin, wiping at my mouth and suddenly intensely conscious of my unwashed state, unbrushed hair, and my chewed-off, disreputable-looking fingernails.

  He leaned forward, gathered my bare fingers into his bony, nimble hands. “What are you doing here at all, my dear? Antonio is dead. Apparently The Book of Raziel is useless without a wizard to wield it—and you have neutralized both wizard and demon.”

  My mind reeled under the onslaught of his questions. The last thing I wanted was to face the answers. Instead, I dwelt on the dangers Eva faced in Budapest. “You must get Eva out of Hungary altogether. She is in terrible danger.”

  “She is using her talents in the most profitable way. Are you?”

  With a gentle squeeze, Bathory released my fingers, and I leaned back, filled with doubts I could not conquer.

  “The situation here is dire, Count,” I said under my breath. I took a furtive glance around, but the hearty Germans, and the jolly looking Polish girls with their terrified eyes, were too busy trying to impress each other to notice the messy Hungarian girl and her sickly looking uncle in the alcove.

  “It is dangerous everywhere, my dear,” he agreed. “However, Budapest is your native place, where you speak the language, can readily identify your friends and foes, and where you can do a great deal of good. But here?”

  He arched an eyebrow and shrugged his narrow, bony shoulders. “What are you doing here?”

  “Do you not feel the pull of your kiss?” I asked with some surprise. “Gisele is here. Did you not know? I could not let her throw herself into the volcano like some kind of virgin sacrifice. And I bade farewell to the governor-general a few days ago. That is certainly something.”

  He tried to meet my gaze, but this time I avoided looking into his eyes. I
was immune to his vampire’s thrall, but I had a harder time resisting the lure of his common sense. I had argued the same to Gisele not that long ago.

  “Little chicken,” he murmured, “that sadistic swine from the Gestapo will be replacing Frank. If anything, he will be more decisive and vicious than the man who … died.”

  Even in our relative invisibility, Bathory was not willing to say aloud what he understood was true: I had killed Hans Frank myself. “If you and your comrades claim this as a victory, they will deny it and still come after you. If you don’t, well, what difference at all have you made, really.”

  Miserable, I shut my eyes and swallowed hard. But the truth stuck like a thorn in my throat.

  I forced myself to open my eyes and look straight at Bathory, with the direct gaze he almost never had to confront. “Dear Count,” I said, “We are going to lose, no matter what we do: we have no tanks, we have no artillery. I can raise an army of the dead, of demons, but what is our military objective? What can we count as a victory?

  “We’ve already lost the battle here. But if we crush Hitler in Warsaw, we will win the war.”

  Bathory laughed aloud, a sound I ordinarily loved but which now cut me like broken glass. “I used to worry you would play your talents too small, my dear. I will no longer count that as a concern of mine.”

  He stroked his whiskers with the tips of his fingers. “From what I understand, without The Book of Raziel, your powers will only extend so far, yes?”

  I nodded, impressed by his command of the facts. “I have no time to hunt for the Book. The original does still exist but I have not found it. The Nazis have the one re-created by the wizard Staff, and I fear they will learn to bend it to serve their purposes. I must fight with the weapons I already have. You know well, perfection is not of this world.”

  “You may fight a supernatural war, my dear. But in the end, the werewolves will prove your match.”

  “The Polish Army is quite valiant. And they fight to save their country.”

  “They are valiant, yes, but they are also crazy and suicidal. They would do better to flee like cowards and live to see another day, a winnable battle. So would you.”