Embrace the Night

"He's unconscious," Mircea confirmed. He could sense things like blood pressure, and he would know if the mage was faking.

Mircea carried Pritkin inside the cathedral and we covered him with his cape. The place was deserted and it was still hours before dawn. He would be undisturbed until he came around. But it was too quiet and the place had a weird air about it, not like a church where people regularly congregate but like one of those deserted crypts at Pere Lachaise, beautiful but forgotten. I didn't like leaving him there.

Mircea caught my arm, pulling me away from the mage. "He will live," he assured me. "But when he awakens—"

He had a point. Pritkin wasn't the type to give up, even with a possible concussion. And the last thing we needed was for Mircea to have to inflict even more damage. "Where to next?" I asked wearily. I was cold and hungry and now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, my eyes kept wanting to close. I was really not looking forward to an exhausting search.

"We both need to rest before we go on your treasure hunt," Mircea said, echoing my thoughts. He frowned for a moment, and then his face cleared. "I know just the place."

Chapter 23

A short ley-line trip later and we stood before a thick oak plank with a brass doorknocker in the shape of a dragon consuming its own tail. I blinked at it blearily. Was the thing following me? Mircea let it thud against the door a few times, but no one answered.

"Most of my servants are at my country estate," he told me, knocking again, louder this time. "But there should be a caretaker here. He doesn't like to travel."

I stared at the house, which looked completely deserted, and wondered if he was sure about that. With the master away, maybe the caretaker had left for parts where there weren't daily decapitations. "I don't think anyone's home," I ventured, peering in the window. I couldn't tell much about the inside since there were sheets thrown over all the furniture, but it felt as empty as the cathedral.

Mircea only smiled. "He's a little slow."

"So when you said you lived in Paris—"

"I meant here." Mircea paused to pound on the door, actually shaking the heavy wood. "Before I joined the North American Senate, I belonged to the European one. And it has been based in Paris since the early Middle Ages."

He started to knock again, but the door was wrenched open by a tiny old man with a large nose and watery blue eyes. He peered at us myopically from under an oversized wig, while spewing a string of angry French. He punctuated whatever he was saying with wild waves of his cane, but without its support he lost his balance and would have toppled down the stairs if Mircea hadn't caught him.

"Demmed young ruffians!" he raged, in between attempts to bite Mircea's wrist. But despite being a vampire, he seemed to have only one fang, and it never managed to co

"Horatiu! It's me!" Mircea's voice echoed up and down the street as he practically screamed in the old man's ear.

"Eh?" the vamp squinted, but apparently it didn't help his eyesight.

Mircea sighed. "I gave you a cord for your spectacles," he said, rummaging around in the old man's coat. "Why aren't you wearing them?"

"'m a vampire. Don't need spectacles!" Mircea was informed, as the man slapped at his hands. Mircea ignored him and finally came up with a pair of pince-nez. He settled them on the vamp's long nose and smiled at him encouragingly. "It's me," he repeated.

"I know that!" the old man said tetchily. "Might have sent word you was coming. Got nothing prepared," he bitched, but he did let us in the door.

We walked at a snail's pace through a hall and up a large staircase. Horatiu was carrying a candle that wavered and flickered, casting leaping shadows on the walls, and it gave me my first clear look at Mircea. Despite the earlier libations, he was still missing half his outfit, had dirt and dust all over the part remaining, and a strand of something suspiciously like seaweed was clinging tenaciously to his hair. Seeing him like that was probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I'd treasure it.

"You're going to need to change before you see the other me again," I said, trying not to laugh. "Something that looks as much like your old outfit as possible."

Mircea shot me a look that said he'd noticed my amusement. "I have several black suits."

"But the shirt—"

"I also have quite a few of those."

"Really. It didn't look off-the-rack to me."

"It wasn't. Ming-de sends me one every year, on my birthday."

"How kind of her. Any particular reason?"

Mircea blinked lazily. "I don't suppose you would like to tell me what the mage meant by ‘outraged modesty'?"

I licked my lips, feeling a residual tingle on my tongue that tasted suspiciously like a certain psycho war mage. "Not really."

"Then I think I, too, will keep my secrets, dulceata?."

"Yeah, but you have more than me," I muttered.

He quirked an eyebrow. "I am begi

We ended up in Mircea's rooms, which were composed of a small dressing room and a larger bedroom. The painted wardrobe I'd seen at MAGIC had pride of place, beside a silk tapestry showing a green dragon eating its own tail. I stared at it in exhaustion. It was starting to get creepy. "The ouroboros."

"The symbol of the Sárkány Lovagrend," Mircea corrected me, his eyes on Horatiu.

"What?"

"The Order of the Dragon," he translated, moving closer to his servant. The old man was doing something near the fireplace that faced the large bed. It took me a moment to figure out what, because the paper spill he was holding was pressed to a soot-covered brick several feet to the left of the grate instead of to one of the dusty logs. "It was a society set up in Hungary by King Sigismund. My father became a member and…Let me do that," Mircea offered, his eyes on the rapidly burning paper.

Horatiu smacked him on the shoulder. "Didn't I teach you anything about respecting your station?" he demanded. "Always ru

"So nothing's changed," I murmured.

Mircea sent me a wounded look while wrestling the old man for the spill. "What a nice blaze," he said loudly, managing to get the paper away from Horatiu just before it set his hand on fire.

Horatiu regarded the cold interior of the fireplace proudly. "Yes it is, isn't it?"

After a few moments, Mircea managed to coax the logs to life. "I don't suppose there's anything to eat?" he asked. He didn't look hopeful, but my stomach grumbled expectantly anyway.

"Eat?" Horatiu peered at me blankly. Apparently he'd assumed that Mircea had brought takeout.

"She is my guest!" Mircea said emphatically.

Horatiu muttered something that sounded disappointed. "Well, I suppose I could go out and try to find someone," he said doubtfully. "But with all the troubles nowadays, the streets are often deserted after dark."

"I meant for her."

"Eh?"

"Is there any food suitable for a human?" Mircea asked patiently.

"Well, if you'd sent word," Horatiu said huffily. "I can't be expected to know you'll be bringing home one of them, can I? Not to mention that the shops are mostly empty in any case, what with everything going to the army!"

"A ‘no' would have sufficed," Mircea said. His glance at me was rueful. "My apologies. My hospitality is usually somewhat more…hospitable."

"Not a problem." I sat on the plush rug in front of the hearth and stretched my hands out to the fire. For the first time that night, I was almost warm and I didn't have to worry about someone sneaking up on me.