Midnight's Daughter dbd-1

by Karen Chance

  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 myst
ery. The guy got nervous if you looked at him too long.

  “I’m not… I don’t…”

  “Save it. Just tell me what’s going on.” I flopped onto a forties-era leather chair. It looked like something Bogie would have liked and was decadently comfortable.

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it,” Radu protested, glancing around like he hoped for rescue. Not likely. I hadn’t seen any servants besides Geoffrey, and he wasn’t the hero type. He’d tried to knife me in the back when we first met, supposedly before he knew who I was, but the most he ever did to my face was sneer.

  “Try.”

  “It… they… were an experiment. Or part of one.”

  “I didn’t know you went in for that kind of thing.” It wasn’t the first time I’d seen attempted manipulation of species. Demons, for one, were always trying to improve their bloodlines any way they could, to win out over rival clans in the constant infighting, and the Fey had been doing selective breeding for centuries. But those were attempts to improve things, however odd they might seem to outsiders, and nothing I’d seen in the lab looked like an upgrade to me. Not to mention that I’d always thought that Radu, the Senate’s resident mad scientist, had an ethical code of sorts.

  “I didn’t! I wouldn’t!” Radu stopped wadding Mircea’s nice bedspread into a ball and stared at me in what looked like genuine consternation. “We captured them in a raid on one of the Black Circle’s haunts. I was asked to discover the reason they were created.”

  I was inclined to believe him, mainly because I couldn’t even start to guess why the Senate would waste valuable resources, especially during a war, on splicing genes. “You didn’t guard them very well if they’re some big secret.”

  “They are guarded quite well!” Radu said, offended. “You were able to pass through the screens only because they are keyed to me—or, more specifically, to anyone with my blood. Since the only other persons who fit that description are trusted family members, it seemed foolproof.” He looked grumpy. “We forgot about you.”

  “You always do. So what did you find?” His expression slipped from righteous indignation into sneaky eva-siveness in a flash. I mentally shook my head. “Let me guess. That’s the part you’re not supposed to talk about.”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about any of this! And you had better not, either, Dory. The Senate won’t like your knowing.”

  I shrugged. “They basically don’t like my breathing, so what else is new?”

  Radu crossed the room so fast I almost didn’t see him. A second later I was dangling a couple feet off the ground, while those delicate-looking hands shook me like a dog. Just when you forget they’re vampires…

  “Promise me! You can’t say anything! The Senate is deadly serious about this. If they even suspected that you knew—”

  “What? They’d kill me? And that would be different from the current situation how?” I wrestled out of Radu’s grip and straightened the creases his fists had made in my new jacket. “Speaking of which, we need to talk.” I pushed him into the chair I’d vacated, and leaned over as menacingly as I could manage with a straight face. “How about you and I discuss our mutual problem?”

  “Wh-what problem?”

  “Don’t play dumb. I’m sure Mircea mentioned it, maybe in passing? Drac’s loose.” Radu nodded, gulping. He looked vaguely ill, and I took that for an encouraging sign. It showed he had a brain, and that he knew his brother. “What are you planning to do about it?”

  “I’ve already done it,” he told me, gesturing around. “Why do you think I’m here? I don’t like this place. Nothing is ever left where I put it, and one Senate member or another is always prowling about, asking for progress reports. I could work much more efficiently at home. But Mircea said Vlad wouldn’t try for me here.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Considering that he’d have to wade through the Senate and their retainers, the Silver Circle and its bevy of psychotic war mages and who knew how many weres, Fey and whatever else was hanging around at the moment, it seemed a safe bet. “So the plan is what? To stay trapped here forever? Doesn’t sound like fun, ’Du.”

  “You know I hate that absurd diminutive,” he told me irritably. “Why can’t you leave people’s names alone? Does it physically pain you to utter an extra syllable?”

  I grinned. “Looks like I struck a nerve.”

  “Nonsense!” Radu sat up a little straighter and pushed me a foot or so back. Talk of his predicament seemed to have evaporated my scare potential—there aren’t many things that look frightening next to Drac. “Mircea said you’d take care of him shortly, and then I can go home.” He looked testy. “Why aren’t you on the hunt, instead of snooping about here? I thought you liked killing things.”

  “Aha!” I clapped him on the back. “I knew I wasn’t the only smart one in the family. You want him dead, too!” I went to pour the guy a drink. He’d earned it.

  “Of course I do!” Radu snapped impatiently. “Do you have any idea what he’d like to do to me? He’s always despised me.”

  “So we’re in the same boat.” He took the glass of whiskey I handed him while I settled onto the hassock at his feet—or tried to before finding myself dumped unceremoniously on my butt. I got up and tried again, only to have the same thing happen. This time, I looked closer at the footstool, a fat paisley-covered pouf with thick tassels at each corner, and noticed something fairly weird, even by my definition of the term. It was hovering a few inches off the ground, its little bun feet not quite touching the rug.

  “It was upholstered from an old flying carpet,” Radu explained, seeing the direction of my stare, “and tends to be temperamental. I wouldn’t—” I grabbed the thing, only to find it suddenly wriggling like an overly energetic puppy. It spurted out of my hands, but I jumped on top and held on. “It doesn’t like anyone using it but Mircea,” Radu said. “I think there’s another chair in—”

  “I like this one,” I told him, as the bucking-bronco ride I was being treated to careened me into the bedpost, smashing my thigh against the hard wood.

  “It doesn’t like me, either,” Radu said as I grabbed one of the tiebacks from the bedpost. The plan was to strap it down, but somehow it seemed to know that, and went skittering off in the other direction, jouncing me as savagely as it could manage in the process. “Anyway, I don’t think Vlad hates you, Dory,” Radu sighed. “Or if he does, it’s merely for an accident of birth.”

  “And the little thing of helping to trap him for a century or so.”

  “Well, yes, there’s that.” Radu drained his glass while I struggled to get the tieback looped around one of the hassock’s squat feet. I finally managed it, but then I had to figure out where to attach the other end that had a chance of holding it. “But he hates me far more. Mircea and I are full brothers, but he and Vlad were always the soul mates. Two warriors and a bookish runt—it was laughable,” he said bitterly. “I tried to keep up with them, at least at first. But I was no good at any of it. Even with the best instruction in the country, my swordsmanship was never better than average and I was hopeless on a horse. Still am, really.”

  “Uh-huh. Life’s a bitch,” I commiserated not at all. The hassock rode us by the bookshelf and I got an idea. I snagged several heavy volumes, and sure enough, its antics slowed down perceptibly. I shoved them underneath me and quickly grabbed two more. The hassock slowly started to settle toward the floor and I thought I had it, but then it gave a huge heave and threw both the books and me off. It flounced away, tassels swinging smugly.

  “You can have this chair, Dory,” Radu offered, starting to rise, but I waved him off.

  “No, really. I’m fine.” I started stalking the hassock, dismemberment in mind. “You were saying?”

  “Yes, well, things deteriorated after Father agreed to our being hostages, of course. Indeed, they became immeasurably worse. I got out of much of the torture after Father broke his treaty with the Turks and they threw us in the dungeons. I should have been stron
ger, should have defied them the way Vlad did, but you don’t know what it was like.” He licked his lips and set the glass aside with a slightly shaking hand. “I saw what some of the older prisoners looked like, those that had been in there for a while. Noses and lips missing, teeth knocked out, limbs torn off, burns everywhere—”

  “Yeah, bad stuff.” I’d seen things that made the Turks look like children at play, but then, so had Radu. The difference was that he’d been pretty damn young, barely a teenager if I remembered right, to be dealing with that house of horrors. Since he was handling the Senate’s menagerie now, something that would have given me nightmares, he must be made of sterner stuff than he looked.

  The hassock suddenly reversed course and swept through my legs, knocking me to the floor again. I shot it a dirty glance; even the furniture around here hated me. Then I made an abrupt leap and threw myself on top of it. Turning the wicked thing upside down, I lashed it to the bedpost before it had a chance to try any more tricks. By the time I was finished, it was trussed up in all four tiebacks, the sheet and several items from Mircea’s wardrobe.

  “There!” I grinned at it triumphantly. “Now try to move, damn you.”

  Radu sighed and stood up to get a refill. “That’s all very well, Dory, but how are you going to sit on it now?”

  One of the tassels waved about, giving the distinct impression that it was flipping me off. Fine. It could stay like that until it rotted. I dropped into Radu’s abandoned chair and glowered at it. “Were you trying to make a point, Uncle?”

  He propped himself against the bar and regarded me somberly. “Only that I was weak. I was offered a way out, and I took it. Vlad never forgave me for that, for sleeping with the enemy, as they say these days. And then, of course, he thinks I betrayed him and stole his throne—”