Masks Page 3

  Those women had been friends of hers, on their way back from a ball, whom she’d carried along on her shopping trip as if picking up a new trinket. But she’d come home with four filthy, beat up, naked vampires instead, who Mircea had fully expected to be further abused. Instead, they’d been hustled through a back entrance, marched to the kitchen and scrubbed within an inch of their undead lives by a small cook with a vendetta against lice.

  “I don’t have lice!” Mircea had told her, indignantly.

  “Not anymore,” she’d replied, and dunked him under the caustic water.

  He wasn’t sure what she’d had in there, but if he’d still had human skin, it probably would have sloughed off. Instead, he’d been wrapped in a blanket and shoved into a small, windowless room just as daybreak was sapping the last of his strength. And now it was night again, and he was being outfitted, if not like a prince, then at least like a gentleman.

  He didn’t know what to make of any of it. He just knew he had to get out. And quickly, before Martina used a blood bond to insure that he never would.

  He had been surprised that she hadn’t done it last night, but perhaps he’d been too weak. The beating, the blood loss from healing, and the lack of anything like a meal in well over a day had left him in poor shape. And he’d heard rumors that binding an ill vampire often didn’t go well.

  But he’d fed this morning, on one of the human servants Martina kept to guard the house during the day. It hadn’t replaced all that he’d lost, but he was far better off than he’d been. Which meant that he was running out of time.

  He needed to get out of here.

  He also really needed the damned tailor to stop sticking him with pins.

  The man drew one back, frowned at the bent head, and placed it on a pile with several others.

  “How many is it now?” Auria asked Paulo, who had finally joined them.

  “Six, as of this evening. If you mean how many new faces. This lot, one more who I don’t think even make up is going to help, and two girls Martina picked up a week ago but who just arrived. Although where she thinks we’re going to put them all, I have no idea.”

  “We’ll stack ’em like cordwood in the kitchen,” Auria said cheerfully, and poked the tailor with her fan. “Tighter!”

  “You aren’t helping,” Paulo told her, tugging on an auburn curl that had escaped from the elaborate bun on top of her head.

  “Well you don’t want it too loose, or he’ll end up looking like those old men in the marketplace,” she told him, smiling innocently. “Or you in that green outfit.”

  “There is nothing wrong with my green outfit—”

  “Except saggy butt.”

  “My hosen fit perfectly,” he said with dignity. And then ruined the effect by swatting at her with the notebook he was holding.

  It didn’t appear to have much effect. “Saggy butt, saggy butt!” Auria sang, her youthful laughter belying her age, which Mircea had been told was closing in on a century. But she’d been changed at sixteen, and still often acted like it, to the tailor’s consternation and Mircea’s amazement.

  He didn’t know what to make of these vampires. He’d met others of his kind before, of course. But none of them had acted so . . . human.

  Of course, they weren’t human. He knew that. They were monsters like him. They were just well-fed, well-dressed monsters, unlike the ones he usually met. But exactly like the kind he’d run afoul of once or twice—and barely survived the experience.

  Others hadn’t been so lucky.

  One of his first weeks in the city he’d ventured into a gaming den run by one of the local lords of the undead. Unlike the crude market stalls and tavern back rooms where humans played their games of chance, this one occupied a graceful palazzo with an elegant atrium. Mircea had been pleasantly surprised.

  Until he’d noticed what was nailed to the wall.

  He had stood in the door, transfixed, and stared at the creature. Raw, red muscles and pale tendons were working, lidless eyes were staring, and a lipless mouth was open in mewling, unearthly cries as it writhed in agony. Mircea had finally realized what he was seeing when he noticed the limp skin, still in the vague shape of a man, which someone had managed to remove almost in one piece. And which had been fixed to the wall alongside the sufferer, where he could see it.

  Because a vampire couldn’t die even from that much trauma.

  A placard over the man’s head had explained that those who cheated in order to fleece others would have the same thing done to them, or words to that effect. Mircea hadn’t taken the time to focus on them. He’d been too busy turning on his heel and going off to find a human game, where he had concentrated his efforts thereafter.

  He’d learned that day: an open port did not mean a protected one. The Watch was here to keep order and to benefit those who could pay them. Everyone else was on their own.

  He had to get away.

  Fortunately, he had a small stash of money at his lodgings that the Watch hadn’t found. It should suffice to get Horatiu back to Wallachia, should he choose to go, or at least safely out of the city. And Mircea—

  Would manage. He was, he had discovered to his surprise, rather good at that. After a lifetime of study designed to make him fit for a palace, he had taken to the gutter remarkably quickly. He would find somewhere to go, like he had almost found a way out of here shortly after getting up, before running into the damned tailor in the doorway. And then Auria had arrived and that had been that. But maybe—

  Auria interrupted him again by bolting off the chaise with a laugh and a swirl of skirts, and attacking the startled tradesman’s assistant, who had just come in with another armful of silks. She grabbed a bolt of bright crimson off the top with a crow of triumph. “This one!”

  To Mircea’s consternation, Paulo was nodding thoughtfully, sizing him up with a practiced eye. “It could work.”

  “I like the black,” Mircea said swiftly, nodding at a plain piece of serviceable wool propped against the wall.

  “The black, too,” Paulo said. “But in velvet.”

  For the first time, the tailor started to look less exasperated. Unlike Auria, who pouted prettily. “What about the blue? He needs color.”

  “Blue is for girls who want to look like the Virgin,” Paulo said repressively. “Neither of which is appropriate here.”

  Auria snorted, obviously completely unrepressed, and tossed bolts here and there until—

  Mircea stared in horror as the girl beamed at an eye-searing piece of shiny yellow brocade. “If you want appropriate, how about the yellow? I heard Florence even makes its whores wear—”

  “Why do you need so many?” Mircea blurted, as the tailor’s scandalized glance went from him to Auria and back again.

  Auria blinked at him. “Well, you can’t wear the same thing every day—”

  “I meant us,” Mircea said, more roughly than he’d intended. It prompted startled looks from the duo on the table, neither of whom had so far uttered a peep. But he was damned if he was going to stand there like a statue without at least asking about their situation. “Why do you need us?”

  But Auria didn’t look annoyed. If anything, she seemed almost giddy. “Convocation,” she said, rolling the word over her tongue as if relishing it.

  “Oh, God,” Paulo said. “Don’t get her started.”

  But Auria had started, on what was obviously a favorite topic. “It’s in Venice this year—finally! It’s in a different city every two years, but it’s never us! They’ve been to every pig wallow and mud pit this side of the Arno, and every time we thought, this time, it has to be our turn—it wasn’t. But, at last, it is! The senate announced it just last week—”

  “Giving us so much time to prepare,” Paulo said sardonically.

  “They never announce it early,” Auria said. “They’re worried about their
enemies—”

  “Yes, but keeping them in the dark ’til the last minute means a ridiculous amount of work for us! Everyone is scrambling to make ready at the same time, making even basic provisions hard to obtain—”

  “Well, of course. Senators have already started arriving. One of their entourages almost ran me down today—”

  “—and all slap in the middle of festival season!” Paulo finished, looking aggrieved. “With the city already bursting at the seams. It’s madness!”

  “Very profitable madness,” Auria said. “Or it will be, if we can get this lot ready in time.”

  “Get us ready for what?” Mircea demanded, but no one was listening anymore, due to an argument that had broken out over the all-important topic of the older vampire’s beard.

  “Forked,” one of the maids hovering around Bezio said decisively.

  “Clubbed,” another announced, just as strongly.

  “Forked, unless you want him to look old and boring.”

  “Clubbed, unless you want him to look like a ship’s captain.”

  “At least ship captains have some style—”

  “And no class. We need him to look like he fits in a drawing room.”

  “As the butler?”

  “Clubbed!”

  “Forked!”

  “Pointed,” Paulo said, cutting in. “His face needs the length.”

  And that ended that. No one asked the man himself what he wanted, of course, any more than they would ask a chair if it wanted to be reupholstered. He didn’t matter; none of them did.

  “Why do you need us?” Mircea asked again, harshly.

  Auria looked up, startled, from examining more of the silks. “What?”

  “Why are we here? To entertain senators?”

  Auria just stared at him for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

  “That would be a no,” Paulo said dryly. “You’re here, along with the rest, to free us up to entertain senators.”

  “Mmmmm, senators.” Auria fell back against the chaise, hugging an armful of silk to her breast. “I heard they give the most delicious presents. Ropes of pearls, barrels of them. And rubies the size of my fist, and collars of diamonds, and jeweled sleeves—”

  “And you know this how?” Paulo inquired.

  “I hear things,” the auburn-haired beauty said archly. “Anyway, do you think the mistress is going to all this expense for nothing? She knows—this will make us!”

  “Or break us, at the rate you spend money.” He caught Mircea’s eye and scowled. “You’re here to take care of our regular clientele and the extra business from the festival crowds, to run errands, and to do whatever else makes it easier for us to attend to high profile clients. And preferably to maintain a good attitude whilst you’re at it!”

  “And after?”

  Mircea didn’t get a response to that, either, because one of the servants approached him, tweezers in hand.

  Fortunately for the man’s health, Paulo stopped him in time. “The mistress said no.”

  “No?” The man looked dubious.

  “She wants him left rough around the edges. Something about having a particular client in mind—”

  He suddenly cut off, at the same time that Auria’s head jerked up.

  “Oh! Oh, is it—” she exclaimed, as what sounded like a stampede of cats rushed by outside. It was eerily silent except for the creak-creak-creak of the old wooden staircase under what had to be dozens of feet, all going up.

  But Auria wasn’t silent. She let out a whoop that would have done an attacking Saracen proud, and rushed out the door, with Paulo on her heels. A moment later the servants stopped torturing Mircea’s former cellmates and did the same, leaving him and the others looking at each other in bewilderment.

  And then as one, they hopped off their perches and headed to the door, ignoring the annoyed sounds of the tailor behind them.

  Mircea reached it first, only to see what appeared to be every vampire on the property headed up the stairs, politely taking turns. Except for Auria, who had pushed her way almost to the top. And then she disappeared around a bend in the stairs, and the cat feet started not-pounding the boards above their heads.

  Mircea looked up, despite the fact that there was nothing to see but a board ceiling, and then down again at his fellow prisoners, whose heads were now sticking out of the salon along with his. And then he slowly turned to stare at the front door, which was tantalizingly close.

  And completely unguarded.

  Chapter Four

  Mircea didn’t hesitate. In an instant he was through the door, feeling vaguely ridiculous in only the skin-tight leggings. Especially when a single length of any of the costly stuff draped around the salon would have brought him a new outfit, boots, cloak, and possibly provided traveling money as well.

  But not if the tailor put up a squawk about it and alerted the whole house. Mircea decided he couldn’t risk it and ran, out the door and down the embankment outside, which fronted yet another canal. If he had to, he’d swim home, he thought—

  Right before a rough hand fastened onto his upper arm.

  And slammed him back into a wall, almost jerking him off his feet.

  Mircea looked up wildly, expecting to see Paulo or one of the servants. Or possibly a member of the Watch, who was wondering why a mostly-naked vampire was fleeing down the street like all the hounds of hell were after him. So it was a shock to see the older of his three cellmates frowning at him out of the gloom.

  Bezio, he thought, relief pouring through him.

  For a split second, until he was dragged into an alley. He started to protest—vigorously—when a group of the Watch ran by, shouting commands to their fellows on the opposite bank. Mircea stared at them—there had to be a few dozen at least, their armor splashed with light from the torches they carried.

  It seemed a little excessive, for one runaway, he thought stupidly, before Bezio pulled him further back into the shadows.

  “It’s not for you,” Bezio said, before he could ask. “The consul is coming. His flotilla is going to pass right by here, which is what has the house in an uproar. They’re all on the roof, trying to get a glimpse.”

  “Perfect,” Mircea breathed. “Then we have time to—”

  “Get back before anybody notices you’re gone? Good idea.”

  “Like hell,” Mircea said, and tried to tear away. Only to find his back making the acquaintance of the bricks again, and a trailing bunch of vines did little to cushion the blow.

  “What the—”

  “Why do you think they allow us to come here?” Bezio demanded.

  Mircea looked up into a swarthy face that appeared utterly serious. “What?”

  “The government. The senate. Why do you think—”

  “I think you’re about to take a bath,” Mircea snarled, and threw him off. Only to be pinned by two hands this time, huge and calloused, and significantly stronger than they’d been the night before.

  “Do you think it’s compassion?” Bezio demanded. “Altruism? They’re not like us. They didn’t go through what we have, they don’t live like we do. And you don’t learn compassion by sitting on your ass in a gilded salon!”

  No, but you get caught talking to a madman in an alley, Mircea thought. “I don’t have time for this!”

  “Then answer the question: Why is this city here?”

  “Get out of my way!”

  “Answer the question!”

  “I don’t know! It’s a port! You can’t just close it off—”

  “Bullshit. They’ve closed off plenty of others. I ought to know; I had to come through half a dozen to get here.”

  “You’re not Venetian?”

  “Do I sound Venetian?”

  Mircea didn’t know. He could barely speak the language himself, having n
ot known a word of it when he arrived. How the hell was he supposed to tell one damned Italian from another? He also didn’t care.

  “Damn it! Let me go—”

  “I’ll let you go when you answer the question. And good luck trying to throw me in the canal. You overpowered me last night because I hadn’t eaten in weeks and didn’t really give a damn—”

  “And you do now?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I’d like to find out. Only I don’t think Martina is going to be much interested in keeping us with you gone.”

  “That’s not my problem! I helped you—”

  “And now I’m trying to return the favor. You can’t get away for another few minutes, in any case. Not with the Watch scouring the area ahead of the consul’s flotilla, to remove all the riffraff. If you’re smart you’ll stay here for a minute and talk to me.” Bezio eyed him doubtfully. “But then, maybe you’re not smart. You’re damned pigheaded, wherever you’re from.”

  “Târgoviste.” It was out before Mircea could stop it; he didn’t know why. It hurt to say; hurt to so much as think.

  “I don’t even know where the hell that is.”

  “Nowhere.” Not for him. Not now.

  It suddenly crashed into him, as it did whenever he thought of home, the utter enormity of what he’d lost. A family, a country, a future—all gone in one terrible night. And replaced with this half-life. This cursed body that even the sun turned her back on, and that anyone he’d even known, ever loved, would reject in horror should they ever see it.

  Mircea wondered why he cared about any of this.

  If this was the best he could do, let the Watch catch him and be damned to them.

  “We’ve all thought that way,” Bezio told him, reading his face. “At least once. I’ve pretty much made a hobby of it.”

  “I don’t care what you’ve done!”

  “That’s too bad. Because I’m going to tell you.” The man took out a flask, offering it to him.

  “I can’t taste that!” Mircea snapped. He hadn’t tasted food, wine, anything since that night. It was ashes in his mouth. Like every fucking thing else.