“I don’t know, cops, airport security, metal detectors?”
A spate of laughter spread through the room.
“You’re showing your naïveté as a regular,” Francois was laughing so hard he started coughing. Gregor reached over and slapped him on the back—harder than he needed to, I thought—and Francoise hiccupped a couple of times and wiped his eyes.
I didn’t think my questions were that funny. I guessed I hit some nerve.
“Did you have to go through airport security?” Jean-Louis looked at me, his right eyebrow arcing.
My mouth imitated a perfect “O” as the light dawned. Everybody who worked with the Baron flew Viper Airways when they needed to, which used private airports with a minimum of security checks. Guns and silver bullets were only part of the different baggage. There was also blood, often a lot of blood, transported. Since the Kandesky family had foresworn killing humans regularly for food, they had to carry around all their food with them.
Jean-Louis gave me a quiet smile and turned his attention back to the topic on the table, me.
“They do seem to be more active since Maxie arrived,” Carola’s quiet dignity silenced the remains of snickering at my gaffe. “Maybe they’re looking to kidnap her.”
“But for what purpose?’ Bela’s hands waved circles in the air. “What could they possibly hope to get from her? We know they’re trying to compete with us, but she won’t be useful to them until they actually have a product ready to go.”
It wasn’t exactly a snide putdown, but I felt the undercurrent of distain. I was a regular doing a job that supervised vampires. I had been included in much of their business and, with this trip, was now privy to all of their secrets. Some of them were still uneasy at the trust that the Baron and his closest advisers continued to put in me.
“She knows us, now.” the Baron said, leaning over to a crystal ashtray to stub out his cigar. “She may not have all of our secrets, but what she does know would give the Huszars a leg up on taking us over.”
He turned to me. “Maybe we need to give you a little background.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Blood has always been a food,” the Baron began. “There are many, many organisms that live off blood sucked from a host. Much of the endemic diseases in humans have evolved because of bloodsuckers. Tse tse flies, mosquitoes, internal parasites, bed bugs, lice, fleas. Many of those suck blood from animals as well, and the transmission of diseases is well-documented. What isn’t documented is the transmission of the act of feeding itself.”
Toward the end of the first pandemic outbreak of the plague in the 14th century, a tale began about cattle and other domestic animals found dead with all their blood drained. Famers kept watch and some saw shadowy things circling around the downed animals. The stories began about witches and demons until one particularly keen-eyed farmer spotted a bat swooping around the corpse. This story spread through the region that would be the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As the stories and animal deaths spread, bats by the thousands were trapped and bagged as they slept during the day, and clubbed to death. During these years, a mutation happened. An occasional bat would attack a human and this transmitted the need to feed on blood. Bats could only drink so much, but as humans began to feed on their own kind, the need for food would often kill the victim.
A secondary characteristic was that sometimes blood would circulate between the feeder and the food. And when that happened, the victim received a bonus; rather than killing him, the mixture of bloods gave him an life that could only be snuffed out by extreme methods. The victim became a blood-sucker, a vampire, the only way that vampires could add to their numbers.
The tales got a boost with Vlad the Impaler, in 15th century Romania. He tortured and killed thousands of his subjects by impaling them on wooden stakes. Vlad’s bloodthirsty, sociopathic nature added to the stories of random death and impalement became the legendary way to kill these almost indestructible beings.
By the middle of the 16th century, several small bands, or tribes, of vampires lived in the Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian—the Carpathian Mountain—area. Initially, they staked out territories; eventually they ended up warring on each other. As food supplies dwindled—more peasants were killed or left the mountains in fear—the tribes took to fratricide, which kept the numbers down. Within a hundred years, the tribes had coalesced into two major families, the Kandeskys and the Huszars, who developed large feudal estates near each other.
The vampire “families” existed with a fragile truce for almost 400 years. They agreed on hunting territories, splitting up middle Europe. As long as the peasant population held, they culled, taking care not to mix the bloods. Occasionally, one or the other of the families would add a few new members, but they were careful to keep the numbers low enough that they had ample food. About 150 years ago, the Huszars lost two of their older leaders when they were caught by a frenzied mob outside a village. The vampires had taken two young village women, intending to mix blood and use them for mistresses.
Impaled with wooden stakes through their hearts, the death of the leaders left a power void and a domestic war. When the dust and blood cleared ,the new leader of the Huszar family was a relatively young man who’d been in the family for less that 200 years. He wasn’t satisfied with the ways and determined to control all the vampires in Middle Europe. The Huszars embarked on an all-out war, taking over small villages. Most of the peasants ended up as food but a few—those comely or strong or teachable or loyal—became blood-suckers and joined the tribe.
As they roamed further and further into Western Europe, they began concealing their victims. After feeding, they’d slash the victims neck and steal anything of value. Cities began to believe there were gangs of thieves, willing to kill, haunting their streets. If the victim had nothing of value, the body was thrown into the nearest body of water. The tales of vampire killings stayed only in the small villages of Middle Europe.
The Kandesky’s took another road. They closed ranks, limited their numbers to very few and made treaties with demons who’d lived in the mountains for millennia. Some people admired the Kandeskys and wanted to become part of the tribe, wanting to take their chances of being hunted in exchange for everlasting life, but the Kandesky leaders chose carefully and frugally. Only those with true beauty, competency and serene self-possession were allowed to join; in this way the tribe lived quietly and peacefully, avoiding the mobs and hunting parties.
During this tale-telling, the Baron’s voice almost lulled me to sleep. While he was relating the story, several others had quietly slipped into the room. Like kids wanting to know how it was in the olden days, the family members loved to hear the history.
On a couple of occasions a house demon brought another log for the massive fireplace and I gradually became aware of wood hissing and popping but it wasn’t enough to keep me from nodding.
“You’re tired, Maxie,” the Baron’s voice woke me. “I know you’re not really on our schedule. We don’t want you to be...we need you to function during the day, so I’ll stop now and let you get to bed.”
“What time is it?” I looked around for a clock then realized that they had no need to know the time. There were plenty of demons and just plain servants to keep track of things for them and the only time that mattered to the vampires was the sun.
Jean-Louis came over, offering his hand to help me up from the chair where I dozed while the Baron’s voice brought back centuries of family history. “It’s almost 5. The sun will be up soon and we have some other things to attend to. Lizbet has your room ready.”
A smile made it up to his eyes, but he was all business. “I’ve asked a house demon to see you up and watch your door. We’re pretty sure the Huszars have quit for tonight, but we want to have a guard on you, all the same.”
As I went into the hall from the study, a very large demon all in black nodded and led me up the stairs. He opened my bedroom door, went in for a complete tour, motioned me in and
left, shutting the door. I waited for a lock turning, thinking I’d pitch a fit about being locked in, but none came and when I checked the door, realized that I couldn’t lock it from inside either. I was too tried to decide if no locks on the doors was a good or bad thing.
Lizbet had lit a fire earlier and laid out a nightgown. One more item I didn’t usually wear, but I’d bought a couple thinking that my ratty T-shirts and shorts probably weren’t appropriate sleeping attire in a castle. It was all I could do to brush my teeth and wash my face before falling into bed.
Note to self as I went comatose: drink coffee after dinner, otherwise this switch was never going to work.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When the clouds scudded by the full moon, enough light came into the forest to make out the tallest trees, but no light penetrated the thick underbrush and that was where the snuffling was coming from. The wind pushed the clouds, whipped the tops of the trees and they cast a flittering play of light and shadow. Roots poked up and hollows filled with slippery leaves made the ground treacherous.
There wasn’t a path, just some areas that were a little more open from the strangling brush, where the snuffling came from. I tried to run but was grabbed at from all sides. Brush and brambles tore at my clothes. I slipped and slid over roots and leaves. I reached a small clearing where the moon silvered the tall grasses. The snuffling grew louder and now there were grunts. As I moved into the clearing the howls began.
I realized that I was now in the open, I could now be seen as well as smelled and heard. The hunters were closing in. The brush at the edges of the clearing began to shake with the passage of something large and fast. The snuffling and grunting almost paralyzed me. I threw my hands over my ears but the howls penetrated into my head. Then suddenly a huge shadow blotted out the moon. As I looked up, several more winged shadows swooped overhead, then dived down into the clearing.
The cacophony of howls, grunts, beating wings was deafening.
“”No, NO, NO,” I shouted, doing my best to make my legs obey the run signals from my brain. I gasped for breath, flailing around with my arms, trying to chase off the unseen. Panting, I grabbed a large stick and whipped it toward the sounds.
“Oof,” was the next sound. As I caught my breath and the panic lessened, I opened my eyes. The “oof” was from the guard, who I’d belted across the face with a bolster as he was trying to wake me.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I managed to get out. “I was having a nightmare.”
The guard nodded at me. “If you’re alright, I’ll go back out,” he said, his heavy Eastern European accent making him hard to understand.
“Thank you for waking me.” The room was still dark but a lamp spilled a pool of pale yellow across my bed. I’d switched the lamp off when I’d gone to sleep. Apparently the guard demon had switched in on to wake me.
My heart was still doing time-and-a-half but at least I was getting oxygen in. I leaned over, picked up the bolster I’d smacked the guard with and stuffed it behind my head. I might be breathing OK, but I for sure didn’t want to go beck to that forest. If I tried to sleep now, I’d just be slammed back in to the nightmare.
The nightmare. There was just too much stuff going on and I wasn’t assimilating it well. The attacks from the Huszars, both in L.A. and here. The stories of Vlad. The strangeness of my surroundings. The remoteness of the castle and the density of the forest. The lack of towns and modern conveniences nearby. Once you wandered beyond the Kandesky property, you were back to a world lit only by fire. My modern senses were working overtime to fit all this together and they knitted a nightmare that was striving to kill me.
The vampires may have not needed to keep time, but I was still a product of the 21st century and knowing time helped me get centered. Seeing it was only 6:30 in the morning and realizing I’d slept less than two hours made me profoundly tired. I couldn’t go right back to sleep; every time I closed my eyes the clearing was there and I heard the snuffling.
I got up, went to the bathroom, took a couple of pain relievers and ransacked my bag for one of the books I’d brought; there were books in the room but they were local histories and guides to the Carpathians. I’d had enough of those for tonight so I opened a light mystery. When the book fell out of my hand, I reached up and switched the light off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I opened my eyes. The room was still dark but I hadn’t dreamt the horrible noises and numbing fear again. I groped around for the light switch and checked my watch. The vampires may not need to know the time, but I was too ingrained in the present. It was just after 2 in the afternoon.
Not sure about the protocol for asking for coffee, I opened the door. The demon from last night was still on guard. He nodded at me, took out a cell phone and said something in what I was beginning to recognize as Hungarian. He turned to me. “Lisbet will bring coffee and rolls. I am off duty now,” and left.
The Wonderland Express! I was getting used to some of the oddness, but the startling speed of the demons was disconcerting. I closed the door and went to the window, covered with blackout drapes. I pulled up an edge and bright sun flooded into the room, so I tugged them back to look at the view. It was the edge of the back gardens and a slice of the forest, not nearly as threatening as the night of the attack.
Lisbet knocked softly and came in with a tray of strong-smelling coffee and a couple of warm rolls with butter and jam. “Just to get you awake,” she smiled. “We can fix you whatever you want when you come down.”
“Thank you. It looks like a nice day,” I gestured to the window. She had a strange cast to her eyes. “Did I upset something? I just pulled the drapes back a little.”
“No, no,” she shook her head. “It’s just that most of our guests are...” she caught herself and changed it to “don’t want to see the sun. Do you need any help with bathing or dressing?”
“No. I’m going to take a quick shower and maybe put on some casual clothes. I thought I might go down to see where the fishing spots are along the river.”
She smiled and her face lost its wary look. “It’s a very pretty river. Cold. That’s what makes the fishes so strong.” Her slight accent and use of an odd plural delighted me.
It took less that fifteen minutes to shower, throw on a pair of jean and a sweater—packed because I’m just too much of a Left Coast girl at heart—and head downstairs. One of the maids was in the hall, asked if I wanted any food and left to tell the cook about my request for scrambled eggs and bacon. I stuck my head out the French doors in the dining room while waiting for breakfast—at 3 in the afternoon—to check the temperature and spotted the demon from last night who waved. Did they ever sleep? Or eat? I’d never seen one who wasn’t tidy and groomed in his black suit. I finished eating and went to look for Sandor.
He was in a small room off the foyer. It was filled with gun racks and cabinets that held, what? ammunition? knives? rocket launchers, for all I knew. The demon was cleaning a gun and had a clip of very shiny bullets on the table, ready to load. He looked up as I came in and his relaxed expression hardened. Did he not like me? I wasn’t sure that demons had any emotions.
“Am I interrupting anything?”
“Not at all,” he said, but his forced smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Did you need something?”
“I thought I might go down to the river. You said yesterday that some of the regulars go fishing during their visits here. Am I allowed to do that?”
Sandor choked back a grunt. Was he angry? Did he find me funny? “You don’t have to ask me for permission for anything,” and I realized that strange sound was the edge of a chuckle. Maybe demons did have a sense of humor. “We’re here to do whatever we’re asked or told to do.”
“Oh. Well, you guys always seem to be around when I end up in trouble so I don’t know whether to think of you as babysitters or bodyguards.”
This time, it was a small laugh. I was glad I could amuse a demon.
“We’re a little of b
oth,” Sandor’s eyes slitted in a grin. “We’ve been instructed to watch you and keep you out of trouble, but we’re not allowed to tell you what you can or can’t do.”
“Since I’m not on a vampire schedule, I would like to be outside a little. Is it a long walk to the river?”
“Not too far,” he said as he finished wiping the gun. He slid the clip in with a snick and started tidying up. “I’ll take you down now.”
“I didn’t mean to make you stop what you’re doing. If you tell me where the path is, I can find it. Are some of the other regulars down there?”
“Two of the men took off about noon with a packed lunch and gear. I haven’t seen them come back so I guess they’re still at the river. But, yes, I do have to go with you.” This must be the babysitter part. We headed out to the terrace, down the broad steps and across the vast lawn toward the part of the forest I could see from my bedroom window.
Sandor let me set a pace that was a comfortable walk and left me with enough breath to talk, which was good. He’d become friendlier in the gun room and I planned to keep the conversation doors open.
SNAP: The World Unfolds Page 9
