“Your sympathy is noted.” Belosselsky’s eyes never left Kade’s. “In going through his effects, I found several letters to the empress, concerning fears of treason.”
“Did you?” Kade’s tone gave away nothing.
“And may I ask where you were that morning?”
“At home,” Kade lied. “With my companion.”
“Were you now?”
“He was indeed,” Ruxandra said. “The entire day.”
Belosselsky looked from one to the other. “How very energetic of him. Well, I am sure we will discuss more inside, won’t we? Good evening, Princess.”
Ruxandra switched her voice to vampire tones, her lips barely moving as she said, “You killed him?”
“The empress wanted proof of my loyalty.” Kade barely moved his lips as well. “I needed Belosselsky and the others to believe they’d found their traitor. Dolgorukov was an easy choice. He will not be missed.”
Ruxandra shook her head. “And the letters?”
“I commanded him to write them the night before he died. And so you know, Anna threatened to kill one of the magicians she has locked up if I did not prove my loyalty to her. Otherwise I would not have killed him.”
Not a choice I would want to make.
Anna—with her magicians—has far too much power over us. This must not go on too long.
Ruxandra’s eyes roved over the gathered nobility. Their clothes ranged from new to out of date, from shabby wealth to eye-popping extravagance. The older nobles wore wool or velvet, the younger ones silk. All were ostentatiously ornamented from the rings on their fingers to the jeweled buckles on their shoes. She reached out with her mind, curious about their mood. To her surprise, not a single one felt happy. Most felt concerned, a few terrified, others furious. Yet they chattered and smiled and laughed as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
I wonder how many of them actually wish to be here, and how many are like Belosselsky, putting in a command appearance to allay the empress’s suspicion.
Kade presented their invitation, and they walked up the stairs and inside.
The ballroom dazzled Ruxandra. Hundreds of candles filled the candelabras, every surface cleaned and shining with gold. Men and women in their most splendid clothing danced across the floor and talked and laughed in the corners or against the walls. The windows lay wide open to allow the late-fall chill to cool the room’s stifling air. It made little difference.
“First we pay our respects to the empress,” Kade said.
“That will be difficult,” Alexi said beside them. “As she is now dancing.”
The secret policeman wore a blue suit several shades deeper than Ruxandra’s dress and unadorned save for the gold buttons down the front. He bowed. “Welcome.”
“Thank you.” Kade’s tone did not match his words. He turned his back to Alexi. “Shall we dance?”
“May I claim a dance later?” Alexi asked. “I should hate to spend the evening leaning against the wall.”
“I would have thought you too busy,” Kade said. “Don’t you have someone you need to intimidate this evening?”
“Not at the moment.” Alexi shifted his weight, one foot sliding back and his hands opening in front of him. For the first time since she’d met him, Alexi looked dangerous. “But that may change.”
“Kade,” Ruxandra said. “Dance with me. Now.”
He led her onto the floor and through the steps of the gigue the musicians played. He danced with grace, and Ruxandra, who made a hobby of keeping up with the latest dance styles, followed with ease.
“Is there a reason you dislike him so much?” Ruxandra asked as they danced.
“Aside from torturing and threatening my friends? He was the one who informed me of the empress’s need to have Dolgorukov killed. Also, he is too free in his speech with you.”
That surprised Ruxandra so much she missed a step. “Jealousy?”
“Not jealousy per se.” Kade held her arm to keep her on rhythm. “Concern. He sniffs for information like a hound after a rabbit.”
“Like someone else I know,” Ruxandra said.
Kade ignored her. “He knows that the princes and the princess are plotting, or none of them would be here this evening. He questions you and comes into my house without my permission. And he is a secret policeman, a loathsome species to begin with.”
“But handsome,” Ruxandra said.
Kade snorted. “Of all the things to notice.”
“Whereas you . . .” When his eyebrows rose, Ruxandra smiled. “What did the Alchemist call it? Hypermasculine?”
Kade rolled his eyes upward as if searching the ceiling for the words to express his opinion. “The Alchemist talks too much. And analyzes too much. It is a failing.”
“I rather like being looked upon as a specimen,” she said. “Perhaps it is a mind like hers that can best tell us what we are—rather than the angel.”
“The Alchemist wishes to speak to the angel.”
“I don’t think so. Not anymore.”
He shrugged, and she put the subject aside. Tonight was for pleasure, and she didn’t mind that. It had been so long since she had been to a party like this.
The empress danced until midnight. Ruxandra watched her with fascination. She wore a dress whose shade of pink would be declared outrageous on anyone else. Those in the room called it “daring” and “cheerful” and “exciting” instead. She danced the slower dances with the older nobles, whispering as she did. Most nodded and answered with a smile. A few turned pale and retired from the floor, not to return. She took the younger noblemen out for the faster dances, whirling and laughing and whispering things to a few that left them bright red.
Kade danced with her for the first three, and then Belosselsky called him away to speak with a small crowd of older nobles. The younger noblemen pounced on Ruxandra, bringing her glasses of wine and begging her to dance. She danced and flirted with them, deflecting their questions with a skill born of a hundred years’ practice.
Then the priest joined her.
He was an older man with a neatly trimmed brown beard shot through with gray below a pair of deep-brown eyes. His shoulders and chest were wide under his red-trimmed black robes. A round, flat-topped cap sat perched on his head.
“Good evening,” he said. “I do not believe I have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance.”
“You have not.” Ruxandra curtsied. “Ruxandra, daughter of Vlad, of Wallachia.”
“Ah. And what brings a Wallachian to our royal court?”
“I was traveling with a friend,” Ruxandra said. “He found me in Italy and asked me to come to Moscow.”
“I hope he had marriage in mind,” the priest said. “To ask a lovely young woman to come so far.”
Ruxandra smiled and lied, “One can only hope.”
“And what do you think of the hidden library?” the priest asked. “Fascinating, is it not? A place of secret study until the empress required it be closed off to all but her people.”
Ruxandra had no idea what to say to that but was saved from having to answer by Alexi’s sweeping in to ask her to dance. She agreed, curtsied to the priest, and allowed Alexi to lead her through the paces of a slow courante.
“What do you think of Anna’s party?” he asked as they danced. “Nicer than Belosselsky’s soiree?”
“Much,” Ruxandra said. “Better wine, too.”
“Belosselsky always had poor taste in alcohol. And I see you’ve met Bishop Dobrynin.”
“I have. How did he know about the library?”
“The church helped defeat the vampire king. The emperor and the Metropolitan started arguing over it as soon as the war ended. Right now it is in the hands of the state.”
“Only recently, though,” Ruxandra said. “Anna barred them from it.”
“And that is why they watch it. Have you found evidence to convince the empress of the danger of what she asks your friends to do?”
“Not enough.
It’s possible the angel works through men, and thus her handiwork is obscured.”
“Unfortunate.” The music came to a close and Alexi bowed deep over her hand. “I thank you for the dance.”
She didn’t see Alexi again that evening.
At midnight Anna released her latest dancing partner and strode to the throne, grabbing a glass of wine from a tray along the way.
Kade offered Ruxandra his arm, and the two moved into the queue to greet the empress. Anna gestured them forward with a snap of her arm. The crowd parted, and a hundred eyes focused on them. The nobles whispered to one another.
Ruxandra heard every word: The older noblemen whispered their shock at Kade’s reappearance—Peter’s man in Anna’s service. The women liked the sight of him if not his choice of companion, and several young men agreed that Ruxandra had a wonderful set of tits. She managed not to roll her eyes as they reached the throne. Ruxandra curtsied low, and Kade gave a deep bow.
“Alexi tells me you two aren’t lovers yet,” Anna said. “Why not?”
Kade recovered first. “There has been little time to pursue such matters.”
“Indeed?” the empress gulped her wine and held up her empty cup. A servant replaced it. “I’m surprised. I thought you two had time to fuck since you had time to fuck me over.”
The nobles’ collective gasp made the hairs on the back of Ruxandra’s neck rise like the hackles of a wolf.
“What frightens you, Princess?” asked Anna. “Do you think the results of my little experiment in the library will be unpleasant?”
“Unstoppable.” This is a trap. “And disastrous.”
Ruxandra breathed deep, searching for the scent of the secret police in the room. A thousand scents assailed her in the first breath, but not one from the policemen she’d smelled before.
“I decide these things, not you.”
“Forgive my confusion.” Kade stepped forward. “We presented you with our findings and will complete the project by the date you requested. Is that not enough?”
“It is not a date I requested.” Anna leaned toward him, putting on an impressive display of cleavage even as she lashed out. “You chose it and assured me it was the best one. Yet it does not matter, does it, Princess?”
Ruxandra opened her mouth to speak, but Anna’s raised hand stopped her.
“The last time the date did not matter. Nor was the event a complete disaster.”
“Everyone involved died,” Ruxandra said.
“Except you, who murdered them.”
The courtiers’ whispers grew to a frenetic buzz that filled the room. Anna did nothing to stop it, just stared at Ruxandra.
“Just as you would murder the others—my subjects—rather than let the project continue,” the empress said. “Is that not right?”
Ruxandra turned a slow circle. The doors and windows lay open. The courtiers pressed closer, glee and excitement on their faces. They circled them like wolves smelling blood. Ruxandra faced the empress and looked her in the eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “Because it is dangerous and it is evil. It will destroy us.”
“So you say.” Anna leaned back and smiled. “But we will find out soon enough. After all, the date doesn’t matter.”
Ruxandra’s stomach plummeted. Her head spun. For a single awful moment the room tilted away from her.
She sprinted forward.
The empress threw herself off her throne as Ruxandra dashed up the dais. Ruxandra ran past her to the door behind. The guards there moved to intercept her, their hands on their swords. She backhanded one, sending him sprawling, grabbed the second, and shoved him hard against the wall. His head smacked against it and he fell. Pandemonium broke out in the hall as she charged through the doorway, took the first corridor away from the throne room, and willed herself unnoticed.
The armory entrance is closest.
Ruxandra found a window, broke the lock, threw it open, and jumped. She landed on her feet, lifted her skirts to keep them out of her way, and raced around Terem Palace. Shouts of alarm rose up behind her, but no one pursued. The armory loomed ahead of her. The doors were shut tight, and the guards there held muskets in their hands.
Ruxandra jumped, talons on one hand digging into the wall as the other caught the steel grate in front of a window. With a single hard pull, she tore it from the wall. Metal screeched and masonry tore. The men at the door shouted and raised their muskets, but Ruxandra smashed through the window and was inside before the grate hit the ground.
The door to the stairs lay open. Ruxandra sniffed deep but smelled no one nearby. She raced down the spiral stairs, bouncing off the wall in her haste. She reached the bottom and sprinted down the tunnel.
A lantern flared into life at the end of the tunnel. Ruxandra increased her speed, and the light grew brighter. Alexi stood behind it, his back against the door. He watched her approach, no fear on his face.
I must get past him.
She heard chanting, faint through the thick metal door. Words in Latin and Greek and the more guttural sounds she now knew came from Assyria and Babylon ran together to make a deep and dirty sound.
“Please,” Alexi called. “It’s too late.”
“I can still stop them!” Ruxandra tucked her chin, bowed her head, and charged. Alexi closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, bracing for the impact.
Ruxandra smashed into the wall beside the door. Skin and muscle ripped and bones crunched on the stone. She bounced off and landed hard on the ground.
“GOD DAMMIT, ALEXI!” she screamed, her voice deafening in the tight hallway and echoing in the tunnel behind them. “MOVE!”
“I cannot,” he said. “I am sorry.”
“I thought you believed me!” She pulled her feet under her and stood. The bones in her shoulder shifted and popped back into place. “Let me pass!”
“I gave you time to collect evidence.” Alexi didn’t budge. “You found none. I told the empress of your concerns, but she ordered the ritual to go forward. I could do nothing except obey.”
“One chance, Alexi,” Ruxandra said. “Move or I will kill you.”
He spread his arms. “You cannot.”
“I can.” Ruxandra put as much emphasis on the word as possible, trying to drive the truth into his head. “Don’t make me prove it.”
A terrible noise, loud enough to shake the hallway, made them both freeze in place.
“Oh God,” Ruxandra whispered. “What have you done?”
Someone cried out in pleasure and agony.
“Alexi, move!” Ruxandra shouted. He jumped aside, and she kicked the door hard enough to tear it off its hinges. She charged inside and looked over the railing.
Below her, in the center of the room, lay a giant pentacle inscribed in blood. A child’s skull with a black candle on top of it stood at each point. The Alchemist stood at the head of it, Kurkov, Michael, Derek, and Eduard at the other points. Blood flowed from each one’s wrist. For a second she felt riven by their betrayal, their folly, but there was no time to think about that. In the middle of the pentacle, a handsome young man lay spread-eagle, his eyes screwed tight with pain. Blood ran down his chest and thighs and his mouth stretched beyond its limits as he screamed and screamed.
The angel hovered above him.
Her pale skin gleamed in the candlelight. She held the young man in her arms, her magnificent breasts hanging like unearthly fruit. Her huge black wings spread wide for balance as she licked his chest, thighs, and belly with a razor-sharp tongue. Ruxandra could see the blood glisten on that tongue as it darted in and out of the angel’s mouth, and the blood rising up from the young man’s twitching flesh.
Ruxandra jumped over the balcony, talons and teeth coming out. She dropped thirty feet to the floor, landed like a cat, and sprang forward.
The angel looked at Ruxandra with golden eyes so different from the red Ruxandra remembered from when her father had summoned her. Her beautiful, strong face mesmerized Ruxandra. She could not
imagine harming her, not even if it cost her life. The strength left Ruxandra’s arms and legs, and she fell. The angel smiled, and then flayed a patch of the young man’s neck.
“Shall we finish, my sacrifice?” she asked, her voice melodic and sweet.
“Yes,” the young man gasped. His pain was obvious, but still he said, “Please finish, holy one.”
She is mocking me. How I feed.
The angel lowered herself and expanded, like a thundercloud, so that her sex covered his whole face, as if she was sucking his head inside her in a grotesque parody of childbirth. She closed her eyes and her voice came out low and throbbing. “Pleasure me.”
The man’s body was a canvas of naked flesh and red blood welling up, sheeting over the planes of his body. Not too much skin had been taken from any one spot, but he would have scars.
And he will be in terrible pain for days.
The angel moved rhythmically up and down, fingers now worrying the wounded places on his thighs. Muffled sounds came from between her legs. The audience watched in profound silence, and Ruxandra wondered how they’d react if the young man died.
Then the angel cried out with pleasure and released him, and he collapsed. His face was mottled purple, covered in silver ichor, and he was gasping for breath. There had been no release for him.
The angel looked pure white and pristine and beautiful beyond anything Ruxandra had ever seen.
The angel stepped out of the pentacle as if it weren’t there, knelt before Ruxandra, and took her in its arms.
“Oh, my daughter,” the fallen angel whispered. “It is wonderful to see you again.”
Chapter 14
Her embrace felt so warm.
Ruxandra struggled against it, desperate to break free. She remembered wanting to rip the angel’s flesh with her talons or sink her teeth into the creature’s throat, but now her body would not work. The angel’s body felt soft against Ruxandra’s, her arms strong and comforting. Her breasts pillowed Ruxandra’s head and her wings wrapped around them both like a blanket. Ruxandra’s hatred and rage drained out of her.