by Michele Lang
Considering how dangerous the Café Istanbul could prove to nonmagical mortals, this observation was less than reassuring. But as I peeked at Raziel and he warmed me with one of his fierce, open smiles, I determined to pretend that the Istanbul would be delightful to visit, as safe as my front parlor on Dohány Street.
But we had to get through the party at the Café Istanbul first. Public displays like the one I had forced Bathory to make were dangerous, for all kinds of reasons. But Bathory had evidently decided the risk was worth it, for reasons he did not deign to share with me.
Bathory decided to hold his soiree the following night. That gave me another day to heal from my own murder wounds. Raziel dined with Bathory and Imre, while I retired to bed, dozing. Now that Bathory had placated the wolves and Onoskelis was dead, I was as safe as I was going to be in Budapest. I warded the place well, and finally at leisure, I considered the mystery of Obizuth’s warning, and her little sister’s appearance as my murderer.
* * *
The night of rest and the long, languid morning after gave me plenty of time to consider our predicament. In the light of the new day I lay with my head resting on Raziel’s chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
“We’re lucky to be alive, my darling. But I’m afraid of what Asmodel will do now. He can’t touch me directly, not all the way from Berlin. But his minions will cause as much harm as they can.”
“I’m not so sure about that. The Reich is allied with Hungary, but does not control it. There is only so much they can do outside their master’s domain. As for us, our love is here. We’ll make do with the rest,” he replied.
I sighed, still too tired to protest. Raziel slid out from under my embrace, and I watched him rise from our bed and pace the room, as tense and coiled as a panther in a cage.
“This is what we are going to do,” Raziel said, pacing and pacing. “You are going to rest some more—nothing magical will dare attack us by daylight. And then we’ll organize an escape from Budapest.”
I held my breath, pretended to be dead again as I watched those corded muscles, those long legs eating up the room as Raziel stalked.
No. I couldn’t stay dead, not even as part of Asmodel’s grand plan, because Raziel, my husband, was still alive. And so far he had seen precious little of the world’s ordinary beauty. I wasn’t going to abandon him to mortal life, oh no.
I planned to live.
“Bathory,” I said, my voice weak. “I’ve had time to think about him. It’s precarious at the top, isn’t it? What can he do to hold his position? He cannot fight Berlin—not with the vampires in formal alliance with the Reich. This little party will strengthen his alliances. I hope. But I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before he is deposed, before Horthy himself is replaced by a Nazi puppet.”
Raziel stopped pacing. I couldn’t stop staring at him, all of him, and rational thought flew out the window. Good riddance.
“Bathory will deal with the creatures who violated his wards,” Raziel said. “Punishment is swift and severe among his kind. He wants you to find the gem. He will cover you for the sake of that mission. He had better.”
I watched Raziel pace some more. Evidently watching me die yet again had gotten under his skin … his angelic perspective on death, his serenity, had gone into retreat.
Gone was the otherworldly, impartial angel who had only encouraged me from Heaven. Instead a mortal man paced next to my bed, an enraged, deadly, scarred man.
My man. My husband.
“All right, Raziel,” I said meekly, my voice still wavering. “You can stop pacing like a caged tiger and come stay by me here.”
He smiled at that, a ferocious, carnivorous smile. “I thought you needed rest.”
“I can rest when I’m dead and decide to stay that way.”
He laughed at that, and lowered himself onto the tangle of sheets and blankets, next to me in the bed.
And the world left us alone for a few precious hours.
5
Gently Raziel coaxed me awake at dusk.
“Everything has been arranged,” Raziel said. He tangled his fingers in my hair, kissed me fiercely on the lips, and let me go.
“How did Bathory announce the party?” I asked.
“Imre told me. He declared an armistice among the magicals, and all manner of creature is guaranteed safety inside the Istanbul this night.”
“Even mortals?” I thought of Eva as I asked.
“Mortals must travel under the protection of a present magical. That covers us, and it covers Eva, too, if she comes along with Martin Szalasi.”
“How could she not come? We concocted this whole party as a way of mollifying her and her nasty boyfriend.”
Raziel laughed at that. “Bathory issued no written invitations at all, only sent messengers throughout the city. He invited all the magical factions, the demons, the vampires, and the wolves. And he promised special entertainments.”
I gulped at that, thinking of the previous Wednesday night. “Such as?”
“I don’t know.”
I saw Bathory before he left his mansion on Rose Hill ahead of us—he looked every inch the dapper vampire around town, with white tie and tails.
“You’re not doing another floor show again, are you?” I asked.
“Do not fret, little chicken. No mortals will be maimed to commemorate your union. This will be a celebration of the Grand Alliance of magicals in Budapest. It will send a message, all the way to Berlin. And you will see, the other guests will be delighted by my entertainments.”
His eyes glittered a little too avidly during his speech for me to lay my worries completely to rest. After putting Bathory into this spot, I had to trust he would make the most of it. But I could not shake the fear he planned to solve his problems in a savage, vampiric way.
Since I only had the clothes on my back after our battles in Poland, Bathory opened his closets to me before he left. I discovered finery inside. Delicate lace frocks from a more innocent age, floor-length gowns sewn with genius and patience by long-dead human seamstresses. Who first wore these now-forlorn creations? I wondered as I sifted through the satins and chiffons.
Raziel suited up much more easily. Bathory had some tuxedos in his size, and men’s fashion goes more slowly out of style. My husband selected old-fashioned cutaway tails, with spats, suspenders, and all.
“It looks like you are marrying the Queen of Romania tonight,” I said with a wink.
“No, I am already a married man,” Raziel said in a low voice, pulling me close.
“Where did all these clothes come from, do you think?”
His body tensed, pressed up against mine. “Bathory has lived for a very long time, Magduska. And I don’t suspect he has ever married within his own kind.”
I sighed and with a heavier heart returned to my tour of Bathory’s closets. Of course. These were the costumes of his victims, his willing pets. Even his protégées and assistants, my predecessors. All dead now, their finery left behind to molder in the dark.
“What shall I wear, darling? Tell me.”
He rummaged around for a while, and emerged with a lilac frock, flimsy and sheer, with an empire waist.
“Once upon a time, I think that was a princess’s peignoir, my dear.”
Raziel smiled. “I think you could wear it abroad, in these degraded days.”
I flashed on a mental photograph of the blonde writhing at the Istanbul, all but naked on the marble floor, and I blinked hard. “I’m sure you’re right.”
And I stripped down to my own underwear, looking at Raziel all the while. Hearing my pulse pounding in my ears like the tides.
“Get dressed,” Raziel whispered. “Quickly. Or we’ll end up very, very late.”
I was tempted to delay, but forced myself to focus on my dress instead. It smelled of dried flowers and a very faint, faraway scent of French perfume. A bit melancholy, but lovely, too.
“What do you think of it?” I asked
once the dress was settled over my hips.
His kiss was all the answer I needed.
The Istanbul was full to bursting when we finally arrived, tucked in the back of Bathory’s limousine, driven by the faithful Janos as always. A crowd had gathered outside the café and the people erupted into wild applause when we emerged.
Raziel looked all around, plainly confused by the ruckus. “It’s all for Bathory, darling,” I said, a little breathless despite the fact. “They are showing the Chief Vampire of Budapest the proper respect.”
I felt rich, with my bonus from Bathory tucked into my bejeweled clutch. The lilac peignoir was really too sheer, but it was perfect for this decadent affair.
And it was unprecedented, for never in my lifetime at least had such a blanket truce been declared in the center of the city. Budapest was a metropolis divided, with clearly demarcated domains for the three largest magical populations: the weres, the vampires, and the demons. You crossed those lines only at great peril—and if you were an ordinary mortal without any magic, all the domains meant danger.
But this night, Bathory staged a marvelous pageant, a showcase of magical unity. And if that Grand Alliance of peace among the magicals was all illusion, I still preferred it to the hideous reality of the war, hovering like a pestilent cloud over all of us.
Imre, still bruised and battered, nodded unsmilingly in my direction. He checked the entrances and exits, then nodded for us to enter.
“What a dazzling farewell to Budapest,” I murmured in Raziel’s ear as we emerged from the limousine. He smiled and tucked my left hand inside the crook of his arm. I pulled close to him, and felt the loaded Mauser strapped on his left hip.
“It’s all nothingness, vanity,” he said. “All that matters is getting out of here.”
His muscles corded under my hand, and I realized only now how much danger the two of us faced inside. Both the vampires and the weres had chosen to align themselves with the Reich. If they only knew what Raziel and I planned to do this very night—leave town in search of a magical weapon to wield against Hitler himself—our lives would end. With violence.
I gulped and drew up to my full height. I planned to at least look magnificent as we entered the lions’ den.
The scene inside the Istanbul was surreal, demons, vampires, and slavering dogs all overrunning my former workaday home in Budapest. As we crossed the threshold and made our way up the massive curving stairway, I turned halfway up and looked behind me at the scene, an enormous Bosch painting, strange as a fever dream.
But then a solitary figure on the main floor of the Istanbul shocked me back into reality.
The other guests, bedecked in all of their glittering finery, were all careful to avoid the naked creature chained to the floor.
No, this was no floor show, no illusory entertainment. The spectacle tonight was all too horrifyingly real.
My heart pounded double-time and I tightened my grip on Raziel’s arm. “Do you see?” I managed to choke out. “It’s Erszebet Fekete.”
Fekete. The former Chief Vampire of Budapest, who had sacrificed Bathory to a seemingly gruesome fate in Berlin and who had been ousted upon Bathory’s return. Bathory had punished her for her traitorous alliance with the wolves. She had been stripped of the silken robes I had last seen her wearing, and now Erszebet Fekete, distant cousin of Count Bathory and disgraced unto death, shivered as she squatted, naked, on the marble floor where the young male vampires and their blond lamb had so recently writhed in ecstasy. The chains binding Fekete were bolted securely into the floor.
She was pitifully skinny and her skin was marble pale from blood starvation. A few times she snarled at the guests who ventured too close, but the gesture was for form’s sake only. Erszebet Fekete had resolved to die.
I could smell her stink from far below, of sweat and fear and waste, and I shuddered. So this was what Bathory had done. My old vampire uncle, so loyal to his minions, his manners so impeccable, his passions always so admirably controlled. My dear count was capable of, indeed reveled in, publicly torturing and humiliating his vanquished rival.
“What did you expect?” Raziel asked, reading my mind. “He is a vampire. This is the way of his kind. Cruelty is their currency, the only thing they truly understand.”
I shifted my gaze to watch Bathory circulating through the crowd, a jocular poison flowing through the magical bloodstream of Budapest. And my heart sank.
I had served this creature loyally, done his bidding, saved his life, and he had saved my life in turn. He had raised me in the magical world, much as my own father had watched over me as a tiny child. I owed him my survival, and my sister’s life as well.
Bathory had been careful not to offend my all-too-human sensitivities, shielded me from the unpleasant realities of vampire society, its merciless rules.
He shielded me no longer. Considering all the horrors I had seen mortal men inflict on my people, Bathory must have thought such things no longer could shock me. That instead, like him, I would find such revenge and cruelty exciting.
The little blonde from the other night, now a wild-eyed bloodlust vampire, stepped forward on the crowded marble-tiled floor and dashed a glass of wine in Erszebet Fekete’s face. The chained vampire’s fangs flashed dangerously, but the thick irons kept her pinioned, unable to retaliate.
The little blonde laughed, one of her twin vampire masters at her elbow. I blinked hard and forced myself to keep ascending the stairs to the mezzanine, until I reached Bathory’s customary table in the corner.
It was out of the way and quiet, the only remnant of the Istanbul that I recognized. I sank into my usual seat, Raziel taking Bathory’s. “Nobody will see us tucked away here,” I said, my throat tight.
“Not hardly,” Raziel replied. He sighed and leaned his elbows on the table, such poor manners, so beloved for his lack of artifice. “You are Bathory’s girl in this place, you know. You are part of tonight’s sensation. And I am your ornament.”
Our discreet escape was going to be more difficult than I had hoped.
A flash of gold by the entrance caught my eye, and my breath was again caught in my throat. Ah, Eva. The best friend a girl could ever have, attending the same gala affair, but further away from me than when I was in Poland.
She was the Arrow Cross girl now, and that was how it had to be. Eva walked in on Martin Szalasi’s arm, sparkling in the dusky swirl of magicals, dazzling, apparently unafraid though she was almost the only mortal in the room.
She wore a tiny black dress that showed off her curves, bloodred nail polish, and blue-red lipstick to match. She looked up at Bathory’s table as if from habit, and when she saw us perched up there she flashed us a dazzling smile and winked. It was as much of her true self as she could dare to show me.
“Oh Lord, she’s a dead duck,” I murmured to Raziel, never taking my eyes off of Eva as she sparkled and chattered away like a little nightingale in flight. “They’ll figure her out in the end.…”
Eva leaned in and whispered in Martin’s ear, those brilliant blue eyes narrowing. She pointed up at us, and Martin nodded, his lips pulled back in a canine snarl.
If I weren’t bone sure of her loyalty, I would have gotten pretty nervous by this point. “What is she doing?”
When I looked at Raziel, he was pale as marble. “Maintaining her cover,” he whispered, so softly I could barely hear him.
“We’ve got to get out of here.” Imre had booked us passage on the eastbound Orient Express, scheduled to make a ten-minute stop at Keleti Station at 2:30 in the morning before departing for Romania. It was already well past midnight.
For this night I was Bathory’s girl. Any odd behavior or sudden disappearance would be remarked upon.
A keening wail from below jolted me from my scheming. Before I could figure out the trouble, Bathory himself swooped in to quell the disturbance, so it didn’t undermine the extraordinary truce that he had called.
I watched the magical creatures swirling o
ver the floor of the Istanbul, Erszebet chained down in the middle, and suddenly I felt terribly faint. I dug my fingers into Raziel’s forearm and hung on for my very life.
For the first time, sitting in that mezzanine with my beloved, I allowed myself to see, really see, the world that I had inhabited for the last four years. A world filled with predators, a world where the weak could not survive.
And Eva, defenseless and gorgeous, flitted among the monsters like a brilliantly colored butterfly.
“How can we get out of here? Right now?”
Raziel looked around the mezzanine. “Only way down is the stairs, into the crowd with Bathory.”
“No.” That negative, my oldest source of power, steadied me, and I rose to my feet. My lilac-colored confection hid the knocking of my knees. “There’s a back way. Through the kitchen.” I pointed to the back of the mezzanine.
The wailing below rose to a dreadful shriek—I couldn’t see through that mob to its source. Were the werewolves tearing at Fekete’s throat? Was Bathory exacting some kind of ritual revenge?
I did not know, did not want to know. I had to get out of Budapest. Obizuth was right—the Budapest I had known was gone forever.
And yet it had not changed a bit. The only creature in the Istanbul who had changed was me.
Raziel, the one who had changed me, pulled me along the deserted mezzanine to the service stairway at the back. “This way,” he said, low and quick. I followed him.
We slipped down the plain, unvarnished staircase into the kitchen, where Gaston, the maître d’, oversaw his fanged staff. “You cannot come back here!” a young busboy shouted, one who did not know me.
“We are leaving,” Raziel said.
The boy flashed his fangs at us, but without much conviction. He saw the formal finery we wore and realized we were among the Very Important Guests.
Gaston rushed up to us, sweating blood at his temples. He was too frightened to meet my gaze, instead bowed and kissed his own wrist in submission. Evidently he remembered the last conversation we had together at the café’s front door. The one that had ended with me threatening to pull his soul out through his nostrils.
