Masks

Chapter Twelve

Mircea awoke between two plump country lasses, with pink cheeks, round bottoms, and generous bosoms. And fine blue veins that he substantially lightened before getting out of bed. Yet he still managed to stagger and have to grab the bedpost, like an old drunk.

He stood there, swaying, for a long moment, caught between weakness and a strange elation.

The former was familiar enough—the sickening lurch of having too little blood in reserve. He had no idea what to make of the latter. But the combination made him feel like he might simultaneously fall over and fly away, and resulted in roiling nausea he had no way to relieve.

He was never going to understand vampire bodies, he thought grimly, stumbling over to the wash basin. And resisting with difficulty the urge to stick his whole head inside. And then deciding to hell with it and doing it anyway.

It felt amazing. So much so that he ended up pouring the entire pitcher of water over his hair. It seemed to help, God knew why.

He just stayed there for a while, arms braced against the sides of the basin, dripping. And wondering why the water had a taste and the wall had a smell and the basin seemed to be rippling around the edges, like it was laughing at him. And then somebody else was, too.

He looked back over his shoulder to see one pert miss frankly enjoying the view of his backside. All of it, he realized, because he wasn’t dressed. He walked back over and pulled the blanket off the girls and around himself. Which left him warmer but otherwise no better off, since they were already falling asleep in each other’s arms. And the amount of blood they’d donated meant they would probably stay that way all night.

Mircea pulled the second blanket over them both and stumbled downstairs, still hungry. And wondering where his clothes were. And what the hell he’d been doing to make him feel like he had the world’s worst hangover.

He found out the answer to one question, at least, as soon as he entered the kitchen.

The cook was stirring something in the large, three-legged pot she used to cook pasta. Bezio was occupying a stool churning butter. And Paulo was bending over the big worktable, where the pieces of Mircea’s red outfit had been laid out in all their splotchy splendor.

Before he could ask what Paulo was doing with them, a servant with a prominent Adam’s apple burst in through the back door. He had two dead herons tucked under his arm, their feet flopping about comically. Especially after he saw Mircea and abruptly turned around, trying to fit back through the door, birds and all.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” the little cook demanded, snagging him by the arm.

“He’s hungry,” the man said, staring over his shoulder at the big bad vampire wobbling on the stairs.

“And?” she asked, relieving him of one of the herons, looking it over with a frown. “Fresh caught?”

“Yes. But I have to—”

“Does that smell fresh to you?” She shoved the bird into his face.

“I—it’s what Guilio said—”

“I told you to buy from Zuane. Guilio’s a crook. And his wife’s a damned rivenditrice. She buys leftovers from genuine farmers and then resells them along with stories of how she just dug them out of the earth this morning—when they’re days old already! Bah.”

“Yes, but these aren’t vegetables—”

“And they’re not fresh, either. Looks like her husband is trying the same trick with meat.”

“S-should I go back—” the man asked, looking frankly hopeful.

“Oh, they’re long gone by now,” she told him impatiently. “And there’s no way to prove where you got ’em, in any case.”

“I can try—”

“You can try to make me a Saracen sauce without spilling anything,” she said sternly.

“S-Saracen?” The man looked at her blankly.

“You made the same one just last week! Almonds, currants, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, galangal, grains of paradise. And nutmeg. Grind it all together and splash with verjuice—and don’t stint this time! I need extra to cover the smell on those two.”

“A-all right,” he said, but he didn’t go anywhere.

The cook poked him with a long handled spoon. “What’re you waiting for? A blessing?”

“No, just—” he looked at Mircea. “I gave last night,” he blurted out, shrinking back.

“It’s all right, Lucca,” Paulo said, with a sigh. “He fed already.”

“But he’s hungry. Look—his fangs are showing!”

“And he’ll be hungry for a few days. But that’s nothing to you.”

“Nothing? He half drained me last night!”

“I was here, remember?” Paulo said patiently. “And he did nothing of the sort.”

“But I wasn’t supposed to give again, not so soon. I fed Danieli two days ago. And Besina three days before that—”

“It was an emergency.”

“—and I’ve been stumbling about all day, as a result. Pure dizzy with it I was,” he announced dramatically.

Which was somewhat spoiled when he gave an energetic hop, courtesy of the cook applying a broomstick to his posterior. “Liar! You were whistling coming down the road. Think we’re deaf?”

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!”