The man hiked up his feathered accessory with a sniff. “I was trying to keep my spirits up,” he said. “And I deserve compensation.”
Paulo crossed his arms. “And what, pray tell, do you feel would be adequate recompense for the horrors you’ve suffered?”
The man’s expression brightened. “An extra day off would help me recover my strength. And an extra chicken would feed me back up. And an extra—”
“Done,” Paulo said quickly, before he could add anything else.
Lucca looked like he was going to argue, but decided to quit while he was ahead. “I’ll just be on my way, then—”
“Tomorrow,” Paulo said, catching him by the back of his shirt. And neatly managing to avoid the dirty bird feet when he dragged him back from the door. “You know we’re entertaining tonight. Now go make that sauce.”
The man edged around the cook and through the door leading to the pantry, keeping as far from Mircea as possible all the while. The cook looked at Paulo. “He steals a chicken a week anyhow. Robs us blind during the day, like the rest of ’em.”
“And I am supposed to do what about it, exactly?”
“Find us some better servants!”
“Yes, I’ll get right on that,” he said, going back to attacking Mircea’s doublet with a brush. “As soon as you tell me where these paragons can be located, who cook and clean and don’t go screaming into the night at the idea of feeding a houseful of fiends.”
“Watch your tongue. Or I’ll be applying the broom to a new backside,” she warned, turning back to her pot. “Fiends,” she muttered. “Only fiends I know are in the marketplace.”
Paulo sighed, but wisely said nothing. Until he looked at Mircea. “Why are you still standing there?”
Mircea decided this was a fair question, and managed to transition from step to table without incident. Which he was feeling rather proud about—until someone snapped their fingers in front of his face. And he realized that he’d been staring at the contents of the other end of the table for minutes.
He tore his eyes away from the rose-like spiral of a bowl of shrimp, the liquid silver of a spill of sardines, and the gleaming jet beads of a platter of risotto with squid ink. And fell instead into admiration for a pair of sapphire blue eyes. Someone laughed.
“Be careful, Paulo!” the cook said. “He’s silly with it.”
“How much did you take?” Paulo frowned, scrutinizing Mircea’s face.
“The usual. They are well,” he added, as Paulo cocked his head, listening for the soft sounds of snores from above.
“And you are?”
“Wondering what happened,” Mircea said honestly, before the events of the previous night came rushing back. He dropped his head into his hands. “And why they felt the need to almost drain me.”
“If they don’t, you aren’t getting to them,” Paulo said wryly.
“But what was the point?” Mircea demanded. “I couldn’t feed them. At my power level, the taste—”
“Metallic,” the cook said, sticking out her tongue. “Like old leftovers.”
“Then why bother?”
“’Cause they weren’t after the taste, were they?” Bezio asked, showing the cook the butter he’d just finished.
She nodded and handed him the less-than-fresh birds. “Dunk ’em, pluck ’em, gut ’em, and spit ’em,” she instructed. “And use a lot of olive oil in the roasting. It covers a multitude of sins.”
“Then what did they want?” Mircea asked, but Bezio wasn’t listening.
He’d paused, birds in hand, to peer into a baking dish. “Stop that!” the cook swiftly replaced the lid.
“Then stop making it smell so good. What is this?”
“Chicken pie with dates.”
Bezio took a deep whiff. “Smells like pork.”
“It’s the pancetta.”
“There’s pancetta?” He looked pathetically ravenous.
“Then what did they want?” Mircea repeated, but Bezio was busy getting bopped with a spoon, and didn’t hear.
“You’re a vampire,” the chef told him. “You don’t get any.”
“You’re a vampire,” Bezio retorted. “How the hell do you cook?”
The little woman tapped her head. “Recipes are still up here, aren’t they?”
“But how do you taste?”
She just smiled. And then shouted: “Lucca!”
The hapless wonder of a manservant stuck his head out of the pantry, and had one of the cheesy pancetta balls left over from the pie popped into his mouth. He choked, chewed, and swallowed. “Good,” he rasped out. And then quickly disappeared back into his sanctum.
“That’s how,” the cook said. “Now, get those birds on before they add raw to their list of problems.”
“Bezio,” Mircea said grimly.
“They wanted the sensation,” Paulo said, looking up with a frown. “What else?”
Mircea didn’t say anything.
“And you,” the cook turned beady brown eyes on Paulo. “Go help in the dining room.”
“Don’t we have people for that?”
“Yes, you. And take him and his clothes with you.” She pointed the spoon at Mircea.
“He isn’t working tonight,” Paulo protested.
“I didn’t ask you to have him do cartwheels. But he can set the table, can’t he?”
Which was how Mircea ended up dressing outside the dining room upstairs, while Paulo retrieved the beautiful maiolica dishes used for company. They were exquisite work, blue and gold on a white background, depicting various frolicking goddesses. They were the sort of thing that most people, had they been able to afford them at all, would have displayed proudly in the main hall, where they could be seen as soon as anyone entered the house.
Here, they were just stacked in a chest.
Mircea shook his head, amazed as more and more of the expensive stuff was added to a cart. He tried to help as soon as he was dressed, but the area around the chest was small and Paulo just waved him out of the way. “Stand over there,” he said sourly. “And answer my question.”
“What question?” Mircea said, pressing back against the wall to avoid a line of servants, who came by bearing cloths for the table and the great salt.
“Why you don’t seem to know that vampires bite during intimacy.”
“I—” Mircea stopped, not wanting to discuss this. But not really knowing how to get out of it.
But it seemed that silence wasn’t the solution, either.
Blond eyebrows came together. “Don’t tell me that was your first time—”
“Of course not.”
“Since the Change?”
Mircea sighed and leaned back against the wall. “Then we don’t have much to discuss, do we?” he admitted.
Paulo paused to glare at him. “Why the devil didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I didn’t think it relevant. I’m hardly a virgin—”
“From our perspective, that’s exactly what you were!” Paulo banged some expensive dinnerware onto the cart, more forcefully than it deserved. “I can’t believe—”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“It matters!” He stopped and took a breath. “Do you remember my telling you where Martina found me?”
“You were in a tavern.”
“And why was I there?”
“You said something about getting drunk. Or trying to.”
“Yes, trying to. Only it’s not so easy anymore, is it? Not for us. The only way to get the same effect is to drink from a human who has had too much. The blood magnifies the alcohol, allowing us the same escape they have. Well, it does if you take enough.”
Mircea frowned. “So I feel this way because of what happened last night?”
“Feel what way?”
Mircea waved a hand helplessly, unable to put into words the strange sensations he’d experienced since waking up. And still was. “Like the fact that the birds on the dish you’re holding look like they’re moving?”
Paulo looked down at it, and frowned. The birds following some goddess about didn’t seem to like that, with a few fluttering off to the plate’s border to chirp quietly to themselves. He looked back up and tried the expression on Mircea, who didn’t like it any better. “What?”
Mircea sighed and gave up. He would have to hope it just wore off in time. “I haven’t been feeling myself today,” he settled for saying.
“Obviously,” Paulo said dryly. “And that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“That taking blood while doing anything heightens the effect. You’ve been a vampire for two years; don’t tell me you haven’t noticed!”
“I’ve noticed that my senses get better after feeding,” Mircea said slowly. “But that’s because I’m stronger.”
“And more emotional?” Paulo asked archly. “You didn’t have a master, so you don’t know. But there are certain things young vampires are taught. You don’t take blood when you’re depressed, or you might just walk out into the sun in the morning. You don’t feed right before a battle, or you’re likely to try some damned fool stunt and get killed. And you don’t exchange blood when you’re intimate unless you want to end up besotted!”
“But I didn’t take blood,” Mircea pointed out. “They did—”
“And they damned well knew better! I thought you’d agreed! I thought you’d permitted it, and they just took too much. But you didn’t, did you?” Paulo glared at him. “Did they even ask?”
“I—no, but—”
Paulo slammed the chest, hard enough to rattle every plate on the cart. Mircea put out a hand, afraid they were about to have to explain the loss of a fortune in tin-glazed pottery. But thankfully, everything stayed put.
“I’m a little confused,” Mircea told Paulo, after a moment.
“Then allow me to clear it up for you,” the blond said, starting to push the cart down the hall. “Older vamps—some older vamps—have a problem experiencing emotions. It’s like with us and alcohol—the old methods just don’t work for them anymore. The only way they feel what they used to, the only way they experience anything with intensity, is if they feel it through somebody else. And the younger that somebody is, the closer to human, the better.”
Mircea frowned and hurried to keep up. “Then why not just use a human?”
“Some do. Those who don’t mind a fleeting sensation. Or leaving a trail of bodies behind them.”
“A trail of—”
“Could a human have lasted as long as you did?” Paulo demanded. “Could they have taken as much blood without killing him?”
“But they only fed from me for a short time. A moment—”
“They only fed for a short time that you noticed.”
“I think I would have noticed a room full of vampires biting me!”
“Those at their level don’t have to bite, Mircea. They can draw blood to themselves through the air, in tiny pieces too small to see. Too small for the victim to even notice—”
“I wasn’t a victim!”
Paulo looked at him, and then swiftly looked away. “I didn’t say you were. Not in the usual sense. But they were riding your emotions, which meant they were feeding from you, whether you knew it or not. And blood exchange creates a bond, if only a temporary one.”
Mircea stopped, and swallowed. “They . . . felt everything I did?”
“Yes.” Paulo shoved the cart roughly around a corner.
“But . . . I wasn’t feeling love. Even passion . . . well, not at first. It was a tangle—”
“All the better for them. A veritable feast!” The cart hit the dining hall, where it click-clacked over the separations between the tiles.
Mircea lagged behind, trying to comprehend what he’d been told. That he’d served in the place of a drunk human to allow a group of bored women feel something again. Only they hadn’t received what they’d paid for, had they? Most of the time, he hadn’t been feeling passion, at least not primarily. He’d been wondering who he was. Where he fit in now that his old life was gone, and the new one seemed so strange, and so unforgiving.
Only, suddenly, it hadn’t, had it?
Suddenly, it had seemed wonderful.
“Were they influencing me?” he asked, catching up with Paulo.
The blond paused by the table, his shoulders tight. “No. Not . . . exactly. You felt what you felt sincerely. But as I said, they magnified it. Broke down walls, brought things to the surface you might not have wanted to face, forced you to look instead of turning away. Because they received more of a response that way.”
Mircea thought about that for a moment. “Then any insight I had, was my own.”
“Which you shouldn’t have had to share with a roomful of strangers!” Paulo looked frustrated. He started to run a hand through his hair, remembered that they were about to have guests, and stopped. And looked more frustrated. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “You shouldn’t have been sent out, much less on an assignment like that, before gaining some experience. I’ll do what I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“It can’t happen again,” Mircea pointed out. “I have experience now.”
Paulo’s lips twisted. “And what a way to get it!”
Chapter Thirteen
Mircea was getting more experience the next day, although not in any way he’d ever imagined.
He tried to force his thoughts off what he was feeling, and onto the battle taking place in the water below. It should have been easy. The rooftop terrace where he stood offered a breathtaking panorama of a lagoon, where two huge barges, each bigger than the one the Doges used, were battling for supremacy amid the cheers of thousands.
And battling for real, it seemed to him.
The participants, drawn by lot from the families of the leading senators, were fighting for the amusement of the consul seated on the brightly decorated pier below. And to impress visiting leaders of from the other senates, who occupied positions of honor around him. In other words, it was supposed to be a mock contest.
Only someone must have forgotten to mention that to the two sides.
Or else the excitement of crashing into each other a moment before, after a headlong race about the lagoon, had caused them to forget it. The brilliant peacock blue and fiery orange-red costumes were now mixed in opulent splendor as they swarmed each other’s decks. And engaged in an all out brawl to prove their and their master’s superiority in front of the font of all patronage.
Mircea, who had spent two years hiding in the shadows, would have laughed a short time ago, had anyone told him that such a spectacle could be staged in full view of the city. Even on La Guidecca, a spur of land to the south of Venice, where wealthy merchants had built garden homes to escape the bustle of the busy port. He didn’t know how they were doing it.
He also didn’t care.
He stood at the railing, in the black velvet finery the tailor’s apprentice had finally delivered, struggling to look like he fit in. Struggling to nod and smile and act as enthralled as the rest of the onlookers. Struggling to do anything but stare.
But not at the battle.
His hands gripped the stone railing in front of him, hard enough to impress the shape of his fingers as he fought to contain the emotion that threatened to swamp him. He swallowed, calling on everything he had, on all those years of his father’s training, to stay outwardly stoic, visibly calm. But a greater battle than anything happening below was taking place inside him as he stared at his hands.
And at the sunlight spilling over them like a flood of gold.
“Quite the spectacle, isn’t it?” the voice,
smooth as silk, rich as red wine, came from behind him.
Mircea didn’t turn around.
It was appallingly rude, not to mention incredibly bad business, to ignore his client. But he couldn’t move. He didn’t know what would happen if he did. It felt like he might burst open at the seams, might start running or screaming or—he didn’t know.
He didn’t know.
So he stayed in place in their corner of the terrace, where white draperies had been stretched between columns to provide shade of a sort. It didn’t provide much. The wind was high, causing the panels to drift about like tethered clouds, splashing those below with bright morning sunlight every few moments. And making Mircea flinch despite the fact that he knew it couldn’t hurt him.
Not with his client providing shade of a different kind.
He didn’t know how she was doing it, either. He should have been burnt to a crisp by now, like the bodies found on the beach each morning by the Watch. Or transformed, like the remains of a vampire he’d seen at the condottiere’s house, stacked in a corner.
Most of the time, the Watch simply used the heavy boots they wore to crush such remains to powder, allowing them to float out with the tide. But this one must have burned brighter than most, or had landed on a patch of unusual sand. Because instead of disintegrating, it had fused into a strange conglomeration of rock and ash and pale green glass, glittering in the candlelight.
Mircea had stared at it for a long time while waiting to be questioned. In places, it had reminded him of a fossil he’d found as a boy: a ridge of bare, blackened ribs protruded from the rock on one side, a hand, still bone-pale, lifted as if in supplication on the other. But the rest was more like an opal, fresh dug from the dirt, with beauty gleaming through in odd places.
A perfectly preserved ear was encased in a bubble of natural glass. Splotches of what looked like gold leaf had adhered to the pitted surface, which Mircea had finally identified as the remains of a line of buttons. And then there was the face . . .