Traveling With The Dead(67)

Ernchester looked up, his face struggling to regain an expression, some sign of life. The air was nauseating with the smell of blood. “This man…” he said haltingly.

“Come.”

He did not touch him, did not make a move, but Ernchester flinched. Vampires do not generally show age, but Ernchester’s face, thought Asher, was lined and haggard with the weight of centuries of immortality in which he had never, for one moment, been free.

He rose to his feet and followed. The two vampires passed like shadows up the stairs.

Karolyi crossed the court, cocking the pistol as he moved. From the shadows of the bay where Asher stood it was three long strides to the foot of the stairs, too long to move without taking a bullet in the chest himself. Still, the key was in his hand, ready to throw as a distraction to buy himself time to spring, when a voice called out from the passageway to the house, “Mr. Karolyi!” and Karolyi turned in surprise.

If Asher hadn’t spent seventeen years on Her Majesty’s Service dealing with the absolutely unexpected, he would have thought, Lydia??? in sheer, baffled, horrified shock… and lost the split second her distraction bought him. He knew it was Lydia’s voice even as he was moving, two fast strides, slashing down with the silver halberd blade at Karolyi’s neck. The Austrian spun, his bullet cracking the pink plaster of the arch through which Asher came at him, and Asher reversed the halberd and caught Karolyi across the temple with the shaft.

Karolyi fell back, dropping the gun, and grabbed for the halberd shaft. The two men grappled, and someone—absolutely and unmistakably Lydia—plunged out of the salon with a long bronze candlestick in hand whose weighted base she smashed into Karolyi’s spine. Karolyi gagged, lurched; Asher kicked him hard in the belly, thrust him away, then stooped and snatched the pistol from the floor—at the same moment Lydia sprang back out of any possible range and stood panting, red hair everywhere, like a disheveled mermaid in a torn green gown and opera gloves, her neck a treasury of silver and pearls.

Karolyi backed, his hands raised, panting. “My dear Dr. Asher.” Firelight from the windows of the Byzantine house made everything luridly clear in the court. “You can’t shoot me, you know.” There was a wryness, almost amusement, in his eyes, his voice; the same glint he’d had in his eye when he saluted Asher as Asher was led away to the Vienna jail.

It was a game. The Great Game.

His clothes were rough, a laborer’s clothes, spattered with mud and blood. His dark hair hung in his eyes. But his appearance, thus or in his gorgeous Hussar uniform, had always been only a disguise.

Hollow inside, as the Bey had said.

“Silly niggers broke up the refrigeration coils in the crypt,” he said. “I heard them choking behind me. The place is chock-ablock with ammonia gas, and spreading. I know another way out.”

“That true?” Asher asked.

Lydia nodded. She was well clear of them both, in the center of the court, firelight a carnival of brass and vermilion on her hair, her spectacles rounds of fire. “We were directly behind them, Ysidro and I. He covered my face with his cloak…” She glanced toward the silent, bleeding huddle at the foot of the stairs, but said nothing more.

“You’ll never get out of here without me.” Karolyi lowered his hands a little. “In fact you look hardly able to get yourself anywhere, if I may say so. They killed two of the Bey’s servants already. We nearly fell over them in the alley. They’re going to think you’re exactly the same.”

“And you’re not?”

He widened his eyes, amused. “Who, me? You must know me better than that.”

“He started the rioting,” Lydia said quietly. “He and the interloper.”

“Oh, nonsense, madame, the Armenians have been itching for days to start fighting again.” He turned back to Asher with a rueful grin. “So we’re stalemated, you see. And you’d better make up your mind soon, because in another few minutes you’re going to pass out and that would probably be a bad idea right now. At least I can get you—and more importantly your wife—out of here alive.”

He was right, Asher reflected. Every movement of his ribs was a sword cut, and he could feel his hands and feet growing cold. God knew what the mob would do to Lydia…

“Come now.” Karolyi held out his hand. “A temporary alliance, offensive and defensive. Nations do it all the time. You can’t tell me I’ve done anything you wouldn’t have done yourself. You would have done exactly what I did, and for exactly the same reasons.”

“Yes,” said Asher, seeing again the whore in Paris and the beggar in the alley he hadn’t helped. Cramer laughing as he suggested going to Notre Dame for a crucifix. The body of his Czech guide all those years ago in the Dinaric Alps. Fairport dying in the light of the burning sanitarium, and the last, baffled, uncomprehending look in Jan van der Platz’s eyes. He felt strangely distant from himself, the world narrowing to the handsome face he had seen—what? almost three weeks ago—at Charing Cross. “I would have. That’s why I quit.”

And he shot Karolyi through the head.

There seemed to be no transition between that and Lydia propping him up, holding him under the arms—it was the stab in his ribs that brought him back from momentary unconsciousness He clutched her convulsively against him, pressing his face to hers. “Lydia…”

“God, Jamie…”

It seemed absurd to ask her how she’d tracked him. Ysidro, he thought, turning, even as she broke from him and ran to the vampire lying like a smashed kite on the bloody pavement.

“Simon…”

The skeleton hand moved, gripping hers. “Go after them.

“You…”

“I shall be well.”

She was already tearing his black evening coat aside, revealing the white shirt nearly as black with blood. “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t—”

“It went through… I’ll be ill for a time… the silver… burns…” He raised his head, long hair falling back bloodied from his face. Surely, Asher thought, horrified, he had not looked like that when they had parted a year ago. “Go.” His hand pressed to his side and blood welled between the spidery fingers. “Both must die. The man and the Undead with whom he made his bargain. It is your part of the pact, mistress,” he added, still more softly. “For this I came with you.”

Asher propped himself on the nearest archway and checked the revolver’s chamber. Four bullets left, all silver. He started to say, Stay with him, but there was a crashing within the passageway to the house, renewed smoke and voices cursing. Madness fleered in the air. Instead he said, “Stay behind me.” But it was Lydia who helped him mount the stairs.

The gallery stank like an abattoir of corruption and blood. The door stood open, and Asher stepped through quickly, gun held ready and his other hand clamped hard on Lydia’s shoulder for support.

The long room was still. The few lamps flung huge shadows, glistened stickily on black lakes of gore.

It soaked the pile carpets, ran down the tiled steps to blend with the melting ice; splashed the walls, the columns, the divan. Asher took another step into the room, sickened, heart hammering, and in the heavy blackness made out shapes, the broken ruin of battle.

That thing like a killed dragon, glittering with blood and jewels, was Olumsiz Bey. It was too dark to see well, but he looked as if most of his throat had been torn out and his intestines strewn among the ripped silk of the robes. It might have been a trick of the candle flame, but Asher thought he saw the movement of those orange eyes. Unsheathed and covered with blood, the silver knife lay in his open hand. Beside him was a broken form in a black coat, wounds curling, blistering, blackening with the burning of the silver, short fair hair soaked dark with grue. Asher said softly, “Charles…”

And Ernchester moved. Spastic, desperate, unable to rise or speak, still he flung out his hand in warning. Asher turned, throwing himself against the wall, and fired at the shadow that fell upon him from the denser shadows near the door. The bullet went wild; he fired again, and blackness covered his mind, blinding him, followed by pain in his side, in his shoulder, his neck. He rolled, struck one of the pillars at the end of the hall and someone dragged him back against it—Lydia—and his head cleared in time to see Golge Kurt walking away toward the broken and bloodied forms of Ernchester and Olumsiz Bey.

He moved unhurried, without the drifting, ghostly swiftness of Ysidro. Asher guessed he had not been vampire long.

Lydia ripped free one of her gloves, fumbled with the tangle of silver and pearls around her throat. “Put this on.” She pressed a couple of chains into his hands. He realized Golge Kurt was between them and the distant door.

Asher obeyed, knowing it would do no good.

Olumsiz Bey was moving. Golge Kurt pressed the barrel of Karolyi’s pistol to the older vampire’s head and fired. The report was like a cannon in the long room. In the pit of ice the boy Kahlil cried out, a terrible sound; the Turk turned and fired at him from where he stood. The body jounced and lay still.

Lamplight glittered on Golge Kurt’s smile.