Masks

Chapter Seven

“Oh, you have got to be—no!” Paulo said furiously, looking like he’d like to stomp his elegant foot against the stones. But instead, he had to use it to jump under a nearby portico, as what looked like every vampire in Venice came stampeding their way.

Mircea and Jerome followed, barely managing to save their cart of expensive stuff from being crushed under the fanged flood.

“What’s happening?” Jerome asked breathlessly, as they flattened themselves against the wall.

Mircea was wondering the same thing. They’d just finished their shopping and met back up with Paulo, under a long portico near the Rialto Bridge. Only to find that, instead of thinning with the lateness of the hour, the crowd had substantially increased. And that was before a wall of people had come rushing at them like the tide coming in.

No, not people, Mircea corrected, feeling slightly over awed. Vampires. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, more than he’d ever seen in one place at one time.

That would have been eerie enough, all on its own. But the crowd was also totally silent, the only sounds coming from the creak-creak of the great wooden bridge as they passed over it, and the quiet tread of hundreds of soft-soled shoes. And the startled cries of the humans still about at this hour, who clearly had no idea what was happening.

Neither did the Watch, who seemed a little nonplussed by it themselves. As if this wasn’t quite what they’d been expecting. Mircea saw one on a nearby rooftop staring intently at another in the street, as if some sort of silent communication was going on. But then he shrugged and crouched back down by his chimney, as if admitting defeat.

“Some stupid senate thing, no doubt,” Paulo said irritably. “You take your life in your hands trying to go anywhere these days.”

Torchlight from the tapers held by some members of the crowd flickered against the columns of the portico, making shadows run on the bricks behind them. But in between the bursts of light, Mircea could see that the crowd extended up the street and across the massive bridge that unified the two halves of Venice. And then disappeared behind some buildings on the other side with no sign of slimming.

“We might be here a while,” he noted.

Paulo apparently decided the same, because he made another sound of disgust and knelt by the side of their overstuffed cart. “What did you get?” he asked, trying to rearrange their purchase so that he could fit his in as well.

“Most of the list,” Mircea told him, still staring at the almost silent throng.

“We had to settle for pine nut biscuits instead of cake,” Jerome said. “But there was a good variety of candies—”

“What kind?”

He knelt by the cart, sorting through a dozen large paper spills. “Sugar-coated almonds. Candied oranges, limes, and tamarinds. Comfits of ginger, cinnamon, and coriander. Dried fruit jellies. Marzipan. Nougat.”

“Good quality?”

“We went to three different shops to make sure. Try some.”

“For what?” Paulo asked. “I can’t taste them.”

“You can’t—” Jerome blinked.

“You’re not a master?” Mircea asked.

Paulo looked up, intermittent torchlight haloing his blond head. “Of course not. Where did you get that idea?”

“I thought so, too,” Jerome put in.

“Why? I never said—”

“But you hold a position of authority in Martina’s household,” Mircea pointed out.

“I’m good at what I do,” Paulo looked slightly offended.

“Yes, but . . .” Mircea paused, deciding how to phrase things. “Isn’t it more usual for a person’s position to match his power level?”

As far as he’d been able to tell, everything in vampire society was organized around how powerful you were—or were not, in his case. He’d often thought that was what was wrong with it. Power took the place of morals, of law—of God, for that matter. Everything revolved around whether you could do something, instead of whether you should. And no one seemed to have a problem with that.

Well, no one with the power to change things, at any rate.

“Normally,” Paulo admitted. “But Martina doesn’t do things that way.”

“Who is strongest, then?” Jerome asked. “It isn’t Auria?” He looked vaguely appalled at the idea. And then intrigued. Mircea was glad he didn’t know what was going on in that blond head.

And then it didn’t matter anyway, because Paulo laughed. “She’d like to think so!”

“Then who is it?” Mircea asked, curious.

Paulo continued rearranging packages. “I’m . . . not sure.”

“You’re not sure?” Mircea frowned.

“Richa has been with her the longest—”

“The cook?” Jerome asked, in disbelief.

“I said she’d been here the longest, not that she’s the strongest,” Paulo said.

“How long have you been with her?” Mircea asked.

“A little over ten years.”

“Ten—” Mircea stopped, trying to process that. Ten years in human terms might be considered a long time, but in vampire . . . it was practically an eye blink. But he didn’t ask, because the set of Paulo’s shoulders said that he didn’t want to talk about it.

Jerome, on the other hand, had no such reservations.

“What did you do before?”

Paulo didn’t answer for long enough that Mircea began to think he wouldn’t. But then he wedged the last package into place and stood up. “If you must know, I wasn’t all that different from you.”

“From who?” Jerome looked around, as if he thought another vampire had snuck up on them. “Than him?” he asked, after a minute, looking at Mircea.

“Than either one of you!” Paulo snapped.

“You mean Martina bought you, too?”

“No! She . . . found me.”

Jerome scrunched up his face, obviously confused. Possibly because the phrasing made it sound like she’d picked Paulo up off the side of the street, like a stray cat. “Where?”

“Here!” Paulo looked irritated. “Where do you think? Where do vampires go who aren’t wanted?”

“You weren’t wanted, either?” Jerome looked as if he couldn’t quite grasp that. He looked the taller vamp up and down. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Jerome,” Mircea said warningly, but Paulo didn’t explode. Instead, he rolled the huge waxed round of Parmesan cheese he’d purchased over by the wall and sat on it, to more comfortably watch the impromptu parade.

“Nothing,” he told them. “Except that my mistress Changed me on a whim. My looks appealed to her, and her consort was . . . inattentive. She thought I would be a comfort when he was away attempting to chisel off bits of other vampires’ territories. But when he returned and found me in her bed, it was my bits that were almost chiseled off.”

Mircea winced, and Jerome moved a protective hand to the front of his hosen.

“In the end, she convinced him not to stake me, but only on the condition that I go away—immediately. She gave me some money, and safe passage here with some functionaries she was sending to buy jewels for her. And . . . that was it. I found myself on my own after less than a year, in a strange city where I didn’t know the language and didn’t have any friends. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Sounds familiar,” Mircea muttered.

“As I said. I don’t know where I’d have ended up, once the last of my gold ran out, but Martina found me. In a tavern, waiting for some of the humans to consume enough that I could get drunk off their blood when I took it. She told me that, if I worked for her, I wouldn’t want to get drunk so badly. That I’d have a future again, and a home and hope. She was right.”

“And the others?” Jerome asked.

“They each have their own story, and it’s theirs to tell. But they’re not that different.”

“You mean that Martina made none of her family?” Mircea asked. He hadn’t been a vampire very long, but that sounded . . . unusual, even to him.

“I’m saying what I said before—that she does things differently,” Paulo told him. “She says that the idea that everyone needs a master is ridiculous, that it’s perfectly possible to live and thrive without one. Easier, in fact—you make your own rules. If I wanted, I could leave her tomorrow—”

“And do what?” Jerome asked.

“Whatever I chose.”

“Yes, until a stronger vampire came along and decided he wanted you. Or wanted you dead. That’s why we live in families—for protection.”

“I am protected! Martina—”

“Who you were just talking about leaving,” Jerome reminded him.

“I was not talking about leaving! I merely said that I could—”

“And I pointed out that you don’t dare. So how’s that different than being in a family?”

“It’s not—we are a family! We just don’t have a blood bond—”

“And don’t you think that’s weird? That she never bound you?”

“She doesn’t need to!” Paulo said, looking exasperated. “I stay for the same reason we all do, because we want to. We know that this is the best chance we have for a future.”

“But if she Changed you, wouldn’t that be the same thing?” Jerome asked. “Not everybody is held against their will, you know. I wasn’t. Nobody in my old family was—”

“Yes, and they proved so loyal to you, didn’t they?”

“I explained about that!”

“And I heard more than you thought. You can tell yourself whatever you like, but the fact is, they. Didn’t. Want. You. Martina does.” He glanced at Mircea and then away again. “She isn’t perfect, I know that. But she’s better than most. If you give her a chance—”

“I wasn’t aware that I had a choice,” Mircea said mildly.

Paulo flushed. “She’s . . . been a little tense lately. We all have. But when the current spectacle is over—”

“Speaking of spectacles,” Jerome said, breaking in. And sounding strange.

Mircea turned to look at the other vampire, who was staring at the crowd on the opposite side of the canal. And then at the guard on the nearby roof, who had just jumped to his feet. And then at the bridge, which had started shaking as if something, some massive thing, was crossing under its covered walkway, with heavy, clomping footsteps that echoed across the quiet night.

It wasn’t quiet much longer.

A new noise suddenly tore across the old city. One loud enough and strange enough to have Mircea flinching and Paulo making a very undignified bleat. Which no one heard over what sounded like a trumpet blast straight out of hell.

And might well be one, Mircea thought, staring in shock at what erupted from the mouth of the bridge a moment later, surrounded by the fire and smoke of a dozen torches. It was a monstrous creature, towering over the surrounding crowd, terrifying even in the glimpses revealed by the flickering light. Like something out of a nightmare: huge and misshapen and bellowing in anger.

And then stampeding—straight at them.